The funerary monument of Margaret of Brabant, the wife of Emperor Henry VII (1312-1314), in the genoese church of San Francesco di Castelletto, was the apex of Giovanni Pisano's artistic career. An extraordinary type of royal patronage, it was the only funerary commission that the artist accepted in honour of a woman who had been loved as a spouse, honoured as an Empress, exalted because of her charity and venerated as a saint. Thes exceptional requirements determined a tomb with unique features, far from the standard types. M. appeared in it three times: as the image of Caritas, sitting among the Cardinal Virtues, in the moment of her transitus and in that of her rebirth to eternal life, perfect in soul and body , ready for the visio Dei. At the same time the monument's iconography contained Marian themes, connected to an individual life and meanings referring to a providential mission and to a political dream of restauratio Imperii. The monument was the loftiest and most emblematic document of this, aiming to transform a mournful event in the glorious sign of a divine benediction and the promise of a victory. This aim, altough fully reached from an artistic point of view, was lost on a political and historical plane.
Facie ad faciem. Approfondimenti su Giovanni Pisano e il mausoleo di Margherita imperatrice
DI FABIO, CLARIO
2010-01-01
Abstract
The funerary monument of Margaret of Brabant, the wife of Emperor Henry VII (1312-1314), in the genoese church of San Francesco di Castelletto, was the apex of Giovanni Pisano's artistic career. An extraordinary type of royal patronage, it was the only funerary commission that the artist accepted in honour of a woman who had been loved as a spouse, honoured as an Empress, exalted because of her charity and venerated as a saint. Thes exceptional requirements determined a tomb with unique features, far from the standard types. M. appeared in it three times: as the image of Caritas, sitting among the Cardinal Virtues, in the moment of her transitus and in that of her rebirth to eternal life, perfect in soul and body , ready for the visio Dei. At the same time the monument's iconography contained Marian themes, connected to an individual life and meanings referring to a providential mission and to a political dream of restauratio Imperii. The monument was the loftiest and most emblematic document of this, aiming to transform a mournful event in the glorious sign of a divine benediction and the promise of a victory. This aim, altough fully reached from an artistic point of view, was lost on a political and historical plane.
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