San Francesco alle Scale.
It was by chance that we passed by the church of San Francesco alle Scale. While we were on our way to the archaeological museum of the Marche we stumbled upon a piazza where we suddenly saw a large crowd descending a flight of stairs. The group had just visited a church with a conspicuous façade, partly plastered white, partly made of naked brick. We consulted our Bradt travel guide, which fortunately had some information about the church. The San Francesco alle Scale is most famous because it possesses works by Pellegrino Tibaldi (1527-1596), who served as lead architect of the Duomo of Milan for a while, and Lorenzo Lotto (1480-1556 or 1557).
History
The San Francesco alle Scale is obviously a Franciscan church, but the Franciscan connection was not always evident in its name. When the construction of the church started in 1323, the building was given the name of Santa Maria Maggiore. The name “Saint Franciscus of the Stairs” naturally only came into vogue after those stairs had actually been built. Construction of said stairs commenced in 1447 under the direction of the architect Giorgio di Matteo, who was also known as Giorgio Orsini da Sebenico (ca. 1410-1475). He was a Dalmatian Italian who was born in Zadar in Croatia (which was called Zara in Italian) and died in Šibenik, which at the time was still called Sebenico. Giorgio di Matteo was also responsible for the design of the splendid portal of the church, which dates from 1454 and will be discussed in more detail below. The street south of the church has been named after the Dalmatian architect.
Interior of the church.
The San Francesco alle Scale acquired its present appearance between 1777 and 1790. In these years the church was thoroughly remodelled and enlarged by the architect Francesco Maria Ciaraffoni (1720-1802), who also drastically altered the interior. Unfortunately a large part of the fifteenth-century stairs was demolished not long after. If I understand correctly, these stairs originally covered the entire surface of what is now the Piazza San Francesco. In 1860 the San Francesco alle Scale was deconsecrated and afterwards the building and its adjacent convent were for a while used as a hospital and then as accommodation for the archaeological museum. Only in 1953 was the complex reconsecrated. The church was reopened after all additions dating from the years after 1860 had been removed again and after all the damage from World War Two had been repaired. A bombardment in 1944 had for instance caused the collapse of the bell-tower. Nowadays you will no longer find Franciscans in and around the church. They have left several decades ago.
Art
The part of the façade that is plastered white indicates the original height of the church; the brick part above it is the extension of 1777-1790. The Late Gothic portal by Giorgio di Matteo is especially beautiful. Above the entrance to the church we see a relief of Saint Franciscus of Assisi receiving the stigmata, an event that is said to have happened in La Verna in Tuscany in 1224. The portal has four niches containing statues of Franciscan saints. They are Saints Clare of Assisi (1194-1253), Bernardinus of Siena (1380-1444), Antonius of Padova (1195-1231) and Louis of Anjou (1274-1297). Clare, Antonius and Louis were already famous Franciscan saints when Giorgio di Matteo designed the portal in 1454, but Bernardinus of Siena had only been canonised in 1450 by Pope Nicholas V. Another conspicuous element of the portal are the door frames, with a total of eighteen human heads and two lion’s heads.
The eighteenth-century interior of the church is even whiter than the lower part of the façade. To be honest, it is incredibly boring. Fortunately the works of Pellegrino Tibaldi and Lorenzo Lotto provide the interior with a bit of much-needed colour. Tibaldi’s Baptism of Christ was originally painted for the church of Sant’Agostino. This church has been deconsecrated, but the building still has a splendid portal by – surprise, surprise – Giorgio di Matteo. Tibaldi was commissioned by an Armenian living in Ancona, a fine demonstration of the Cosmopolitan character of the port city. The church itself dates the work to ca. 1560, but I also found a number of earlier datings (ca. 1554-1556). Four men are witnesses to the baptism of the Saviour by Saint John the Baptist. The man with the sword to the left of Christ is Saint Paul, while to the right of Saint John we see either Moses or Saint Peter. The men on the far left and right are, judging by the staffs they are holding, clearly bishops. One of them is undoubtedly Saint Augustine of Hippo. For obvious reasons he could not be absent in a church dedicated to himself.
Lorenzo Lotto’s Assumption of the Virgin adorns the high altar of the church. In Asolo in the Veneto I had previously seen another Assumption by Lotto, but the painting in Ancona is much more impressive, if only because here many more people are witnesses to Mary being taken up to Heaven. I counted twelve of them, so they are likely to be the twelve apostles. Unlike Pellegrini’s Baptism, this Assumption was specifically painted for the San Francesco alle Scale. The work is also clearly associated with the original dedication of the church to Santa Maria Maggiore. The Assumption is dated to ca. 1550. Striking elements of the work are the ominous sky and the contrast between the calm face of the Virgin and apostles who are gesticulating wildly.
View from the platform in front of the church.
Sources: Bradt travel guide Umbria & the Marche (2021), p. 226, San Francesco alle Scale: a little gem | Ancona Tourism and Chiesa di San Francesco alle Scale – Wikipedia.