Altarpiece of St. Lawrence
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Authors
Giovan Angelo Del Maino and Tiburzio Del Maino (sculpting), and Battista da Legnano and Francesco (painting)
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Type
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Language
Keyword
Madonna and Child , St. Lawrence , St. Sebastian , St. Roche , Annunciation , Resurrection
Alternative Title
Abstract
This painted and gilded wood altarpiece is magnificent in scale (about 5 meters in height) and covered with in-the round and relief sculptures, as well as fanciful classical architectural ornament, a splendor that is particularly striking given its location in the modest parish church of San Lorenzo in Ardenno (in the mountains in the Valtellina in Northern Lombardy). Payment records confirm that this is a late work (1536) by the wood sculptor Giovan Angelo del Maino (probably assisted by his brother Tiburzio). The painting and gilding were done a few years later (1539-40), after the wood had time to cure, by the local artist Battista da Legnano and his relative Francesco. Modern restorers note that the altarpiece is in good condition, the painted and gilded surface almost entirely intact, despite being dismantled and moved from its original location at the high altar of the church to a side altar in the eighteenth century. As in his altarpieces in Como and nearby Morbegno, floridly decorated, classically-inspired architecture frames the larger figures and narrative reliefs: in the predella, low relief busts of Christ and the apostles; on the lower level, the Madonna and Child, crowned by God the Father, flanked by scenes from the life of St. Lawrence; on the second level almost life-sized sculptures of St. Sebastian, St. Lawrence, and St. Roche; above that semi-relief scene of the Annunciation, with the Magdalene at the tomb in the center and the resurrected Christ as a kind of pinnacle. The reliefs are unusually deep (ca. 20 cm), and so the figures are almost carved in the round, set before simplified classically-inspired perspectival architecture, like actors on a stage. The standing saints are theatrical in a different sense, shifting their weight and tilting their heads as they look ecstatically upward, with great swoops of drapery adding to the rhetorical effect. Sebastian is muscular, classically-inspired nude, with an abundantly draped loincloth, long flowing curly hair, eyes rolling upward, and lips parted. If the architecture is simpler here than at Morbegno or Como, nevertheless the artists still play with the boundaries between ornament and meaningful figures: angels surrounding the central Madonna look like sinuous mermaids or nude grotesque phytomorphs; grimacing masks painted in flesh colors, peer at the saints from the volutes framing their niches; golden relief dolphins, larger than the holy figures, frame both the annunciate angel and the Virgin Mary; and even the figure of the resurrected Christ is framed by two flesh colored, grotesque monsters, as large as he is and carved in-the-round. This self-conscious playfulness is all-the-more striking, given that the imagery suggests that this altarpiece was commissioned in a time of plague. (Both Sebastian and Roche are widely venerated plague saints.) Photograph(s) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Description
San Lorenzo, Ardenno
Citation
Raffaele Casciaro, La scultura lignea lombarda del Rinascimento (Milan: Skira, 2000), 201-3, cat. 142, pp. 346-7.