San Fortunato Church -- Side Chapels (Part 1)

Todi, Perugia/Umbria, Italy

Visited All Saints Day 2007

A little art on the sides

Todi's San Fortunato boasts 13 side chapels, many of them ho-hum, but a few quite spectacular for a "simple" Franciscan church. One contains this hilltop town's most famous work: the 1432 fresco of the Virgin with child and angels by Masolino da Panicale (above). Da Panicale was a transitional painter between the Gothic and the emerging Renaissance, although he may be best remembered as the guy who didn't paint the Brancacci Chapel in Florence. He started on it, but his generation-younger assistant named Masaccio was doing so well that Masolini left it to him.

The Franciscan churches needed side chapels as the composition of their order shifted to more priests. Their founder, St. Francis of Assisi was never ordained, yet got the pope to allow he and his followers to preach without that credential. However, as more Franciscans became priests, side chapels were needed to accommodate the great number of daily masses.

Gregorian Chapel

The last chapel on the right side is the Gregorian Chapel featuring the Coronation of the Virgin by Andrea Polinori (1586-1648) above the black and gilded Baroque altar.

Chapel of the Annunciation

The Baroque chapel of the Annunciation features three reliefs from the period around the birth of Christ (double-click on these to see them enlarged).


The visit of the Magi	The Nativity	The Annunciation

The right picture shows the Annunciation with delicate angels supporting a frame of Gabriel and Mary while an appropriately cherubed God-the-Father micromanages from above.

Chapel of the Assumption

The Chapel of the Assumption contains a well maintained set of frescoes and paintings by Andrea Polinori (1586-1648) who did other work in Todi, including the Bishop's Palace (Pallazzo Vescovile).

Polinori's dome features four angels between pendentives of Moses, David, Solomon, and Jeremiah in contemporary dress. At least he didn't resort to the four evangelists.

At center is, of course, a painting of Mary's Assumption into heaven above the heads of the adoring apostles.

Give me a hand

Another chapel holds this silver and copper reliquary containing the remains of the hand of the San Fortunato. It's by Catalucciodi Pietro (1361-1419). Fortunato was an early bishop in Todi's and continues as its patron saint.

A head for the dance

On the right of the same Chapel of the Crucifixion is one of the more valuable fresco remnants: this one of Herod's banquet. Herod's wife and industrial-strength Jewish princess Herodias is at left holding on a plate the head of John the Baptist. He criticized her because she kept marrying her uncles (both of them named Herod). As you recall, she got her daughter Salome to do the Dance of the Seven Veils in exchange for John's head on a platter.

At top is a fresco in the Giotto style of the presentation of St. John in the Temple -- but pretty hard to see in this picture.