Urbino: Oratorio di San Giovanni Battista

In the living room of our apartment in Fratte Rosa we found a number of brochures with information about the attractions in the vicinity. There was one brochure that immediately caught my attention because of a beautiful and colourful fresco of Saint John the Baptist on the cover. In a flash of a second we decided that we wanted to see this fresco in the flesh. We quickly learned that it was in an oratory in Urbino, a town that we wanted to visit anyway. The oratory of San Giovanni Battista is still used by a lay fraternity dedicated to Saint John the Baptist. Behind the neo-Gothic façade, designed at the start of the twentieth century by Diomede Catalucci (1859-1943), hides a medieval gem that was completed in 1393. Not much later the walls of the oratory were decorated with magnificent frescoes. In Urbino people like to refer to the oratory as the “Sistine Chapel of the Marche”. It has also been compared to the Cappella degli Scrovegni in Padova.

Crucifixion

The men responsible for the most beautiful frescoes were Lorenzo and Jacopo Salimbeni, two brothers from San Severino Marche, a town some 70 kilometres southeast of Urbino. Together they painted the large fresco of the Crucifixion on the back wall and the frescoes with scenes from the life of Saint John the Baptist on the right wall. The left wall was mostly decorated by other, less talented painters, whose identity is uncertain. Unfortunately, we do not know much about the lives of the two brothers either. Lorenzo was in any case the eldest of the two. The brothers painted in the International Gothic style and completed their frescoes in the Oratorio di San Giovanni Battista around 1416. That year is mentioned everywhere, but I cannot say on what source it is based. Below the fresco of the Crucifixion I did spot a fragmentary text that does prove that the work dates from after 1400. If my eyes do not deceive me, the text reads: ANNO DOMINI MCCCC[…] LAVRENTVS DA SANTO S[…] IACOBVS, or “In the year of Our Lord 14XX Lorenzo from San S[everino], Jacopo”.

The Crucifixion scene is incredibly detailed and there is action everywhere. All the way at the top the Tree of Life grows from the cross. A mother pelican has made her nest in the tree and pecks her own chest to feed her five chicks with her own blood. Meanwhile the nest is threatened by a snake. Around the crucified Christ grief-stricken angels are flying to and fro, three of whom try to collect the Saviour’s blood in a chalice. Along with Christ the good and bad thief have been crucified. They are easily distinguishable from each other, as the soul of the good thief is taken by an angel, while a little devil steals the soul of the bad thief.

Two soldiers use sticks or clubs to strike at the two thieves and break their legs. A soldier on horseback with a dagger on his hip has pierced Christ’s side with a lance, while another soldier offers the Saviour a sponge drenched in vinegar. The soldier on horseback on the right utters the Latin words VERE FILIVS DEI ERAT ISTE. These words come from Matthew 27:54 and can be translated as “He was truly the son of God!”. In Matthew they are spoken by an anonymous Roman centurion. The passage of the soldier piercing Christ’s side comes from John 19:34. Sometimes the two passages are combined, which leads to the conclusion that the centurion and soldier were one and the same person, a man named Longinus, who is said to have later converted to Christianity himself.

The most dramatic action takes place at the foot of the cross. Mary Magdalene is truly hysterical, and so is Saint John. The Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus, has fainted and is supported by three women, including no doubt Mary of Clopas and Mary Salome. In the space between these figures, we see a curious detail: two children fighting. The first child protects his face while the second tries to kick him. Above the aggressive boy a broken skull has been painted, a reference to the location of the Crucifixion: Golgotha, “place of the skull”. On the far left we see more beautiful details. A white horse with a Roman rider (with the letters SPQR on his tunic) kicks backward, a mother pulls her child out of harm’s way and a dog scratches itself. And what exactly are the men doing to the right of the Virgin Mary? It is difficult to see, but this is usually the spot where the soldiers are depicted who are fighting over Christ’s robe.

The life of Saint John the Baptist

Believe it or not, but the frescoes on the right wall are even more beautiful than those on the back wall. Nine consecutive scenes tell the life of Saint John the Baptist. His father Zechariah is a priest at the temple in Jerusalem. He is already very elderly and so is his wife Elizabeth. The couple is childless, as Elizabeth is barren. According to the Gospel of Luke, when Zechariah is burning incense, the archangel Gabriel suddenly appears to him and tells him that he will have a son who will be called John. Zechariah refuses to believe what he hears, so Gabriel takes away his power of speech. This makes it impossible for Zechariah to pass on the message to his wife orally, so he is forced to write it down. The second scene is the Visitation, the visit of the Virgin Mary to her relative Elizabeth, who is by now several months pregnant. We also see how Mary is introduced to Zechariah. In the third fresco Elizabeth has just given birth. Mary is holding the little boy. Zechariah is still unable to speak and therefore writes down the name of his son. Contrary to tradition, but in accordance with the words spoken by Gabriel, he names the boy John. After eight days John is circumcised in conformity with Jewish law.

In the fourth scene Mary returns to Nazareth. She says goodbye to Zechariah and Elizabeth, while on the left a young woman is holding the infant John for the elderly couple. Not much remains of the fifth scene, but Mary and young Jesus and John are still visible. Also note the donkey behind Mary and the various animals in the shrubs and on the rocks. The Salimbeni brothers then skip a decade or two. In the sixth scene John is an adult and a successful preacher. We see him in his camel-hair tunic addressing a large crowd. The people are all dressed according to the fashion of the early fifteenth century. In the seventh scene, John becomes Saint John the Baptist. Now sporting a beard, he baptises many of his followers in the river Jordan. The river is full of fish, and on the far left a bird has caught a fish, a beautiful detail. While the scene in the foreground is all about the rite of baptism, the people in the background are drinking merrily. Then comes the eighth scene, a true highlight. There we see Saint John baptising his successor Jesus Christ in the river Jordan. God the Father watches the event from above, while the dove of the Holy Spirit descends on Christ. The text on the ray connecting Jesus to his Father appears to come from Matthew 3:17: HIC EST FILIVS MEVS DILECTVS IN QVO MIHI CONPLACVI, “This is my beloved son, with whom I am well-pleased”.

In the ninth and final scene, King Herod Antipas enters the stage. Saint John criticises him for having married Herodias, the former wife of his brother. Unfortunately, this is where the story breaks off. For unknown reasons the life of Saint John was continued on the left wall by another painter or other painters. One of them was probably Antonio Alberti da Ferrara. Very little survives of the scenes on this wall. We can only still see how the headless body of Saint John is carried away and laid out. The Bible tells us what has happened prior to the beheading. Herod Antipas threw a big party and during this banquet Salome, the daughter of Herodias, danced for him. At her request Herod then had Saint John the Baptist decapitated by a member of the guard. The scenes on the left wall are clearly the work of a less talented painter, whose skill and use of colour does not match that of the Salimbeni brothers. Fortunately, we do find two more frescoes on this wall that were in fact painted by Lorenzo and Jacopo, i.e. a Madonna dell’Umiltà (Madonna of Humility) with Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, and a Madonna and Child enthroned with Saints Sebastian and John the Baptist.

Sources: Bradt travel guide Umbria & the Marche (2021), p. 271; Guide Turistiche Urbino – Oratorio San Giovanni Battista a Urbino; Il ciclo pittorico dell’oratorio di San Giovanni Battista; L’oratorio san Giovanni Battista di Urbino: la “Cappella Sistina delle Marche” | il Ducato