📬 La newsletter del divendres #10 — The Friday's newsletter #10
Edició especial: un restaurador convidat. Vincenzo Amato i un Crist medieval amb la llengüa mòbil — Special edition: a guess conservator. Vincenzo Amato and a medieval Christ with a movable tongue 👅
Una oda a la conservació i l’estudi de l’escultura policromada sobre fusta i tots aquells recursos xulos que trobem per internet. És un projecte anual on es publicarà una newsletter quinzenal, feta únicament per diversió. També no és perfecta i no té cap intenció de ser-ho, però si de compartir. Editada en català i anglès. Llegir aquí antigues newsletters.
A love letter to the conservation and study of Polychromed Wooden Sculpture and all the cool resources about it around the net. It’s a one-year bi-monthly newsletter project done just for fun. It’s also not perfect and doesn’t intend to, but rather a space to share. Edited in Catalan and English. Read here past newsletters.
📣 Special newsletter edition: a guess author and conservator (Italy)
Last week we discussed about articulated medieval Christ and I mentioned that it exists also medieval Christ with a movable tongue (!). I learn about the subject through my friend and conservator colleague Vincenzo Amato. We meet at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure and basically, we spend our time exchanging all the possible book references on medieval Crucifixes that we knew, a subject that both of us were passionately working on at the time. His Thesis1 was focused on the conservation and study of one of this Christ. His long-length historical context and technical study are eye-opening. I asked him to be our guest writer to explain a little bit more about this subject and the tongue mechanism (because we could not/did not want to make a smaller text 😜). If you don’t do it yet, please follow him.
P.S. He is doing a very interesting conservation PhD at the University of Florence, focused on volatile binding medias as alternatives to the use of Cyclododecane for temporary consolidation of polychromy, which is worth keeping an eye on. And now with further ado, I leave the word to Vincenzo. Enjoy!
*Unfortunately for copyright reasons, a photograph of the Crucifix itself can not be shown here. For this edition, only the English version will be published.
⛪️ A small introduction on “Speaking” Crucifix sculptures and the case of the Madonna Addolorata’s Christ
The polychromed wooden crucifix from the church of Madonna Addolorata in Norcia (Umbria, Italy) was sculpted around the end of the 15th century. It belongs to the artistic production of the German sculptor Johannes Teutonicus2 (first half of 15th century-1498) and fits perfectly into the cultural and religious framework of central Italy in the 15th century3.
The peculiarities of the artwork, its style and technical-constructive characteristics, seem to support the hypothesis of its use as an instrument of public devotion in liturgical and para-liturgical ceremonies – or dramatic representations in the celebration of Good Friday – promoted both in the fraternity context and by the Franciscan monks of the Osservanza4, especially in the area of Umbria. These ritual practices appear to be the direct expression of a pathetic and sorrowful dramatization of the Passion, which rises in the 15th century. It has its roots in the Middle Ages, through the birth of a devotional exercise that associates sacred images with sensory stimulation, a link capable to increase the believers’ emotional participation during the sacred event. In order to communicate with believers in an immediate and effective way, religious artworks played a key role. In this direction, three-dimensional sculpture acquired great importance, by virtue of its palpable volume, which amplified the characteristics of mimesis and "concrete presence" of the artistic work, but also of the possibility of articulating certain parts of the sculpted body, making them mobile5. In this regard, it should not be forgotten that many sculptures were created specifically to be touched by faithfuls.
In the crucifix, two poles happily coexist, which can make the sculpture incredibly realistic and therefore convincing and emotional: the pathetism of International Gothic and the Italian Renaissance moderation. In addition, this crucifix is equipped with an internal mechanism in the head for the animation of the tongue, which qualifies the artwork as an example of a “speaking” crucifix.
Some examples of Italian “speaking” crucifixes, as PhD. Sara Cavatorti reports in her study (see note 2), are: the crucifix from the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Pordenone, the crucifix now kept in the Pinacoteca Comunale of Rimini, the crucifix from the church of San Francesco in Lucca, the crucifix from the church of San Jacopo Sopr'Arno and the one from San Lorenzo in Florence, the crucifix of Santa Maria Nuova in Perugia, the crucifix of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Terni, and other three crucifixes from the region of Norcia: two from Santa Maria Argentea and one from Sant’Agostino.
Besides those mentioned by Mrs Cavatorti, I mention here the case of the crucifix from the Chiesa di Sant Francesco da Paola. The video below shows the tongue movement, although the technical construction of it (that we will not discuss here) is a separate case study.
Youtube video from the “Speaking” crucifix at the Chiesa di San Francesco da Paola. Check min. 1’10 and beyond on how the tongue moves.
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👅The tongue mechanism
In the case of the Christ that we are discussing, the tongue is a walnut wooden element, visible inside the half-open mouth, that is hooked with an iron nail to the end of a fork-shaped wooden pin (Fig. 1). This pin is stuck into the bottom of a cavity made inside the head, carved in walnut wood (Fig. 2).
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Fig. 1. Graphic representation of the tongue mechanism. © Vincenzo Amato, all rights reserved.
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Near the mechanism, there are four circular holes of 2-3 mm diameter (Fig.3). The first was made to the top of the rectangular dowel that closes the rear area of the head; the second pass under the chin and arrives next to the tongue. Finally, the third and fourth are located to the left and right of the shell. Perhaps, their presence was used to allow the passage of strings tied to the mobile tongue or rigid sticks, allowing its movement acting from outside.
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Fig. 2. Graphic representation of the tongue mechanism and its position in the cavity of the head. © Vincenzo Amato, all rights reserved.
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There is an opening made in the longitudinal direction on the back of the head, probably made to facilitate the operations of emptying the cavity and positioning the mechanism. It was then closed with a poplar dowel, originally blocked by a peg, now lost, so it was presumably immovable. This hypothesis is also supported by the fact that portions of hair were pinned to the base of this dowel and thus prevented it from being slipped off. In addition, the plaster and glue preparation and the polychromy above made the whole assembly integral. However, the headshell is also equipped with an upper quadrangular opening (Fig. 3), also found in other examples. Considering that was already an opening made to empty the shell, its location, opening system and size, perhaps it was used to carry out any maintenance operations on the tongue mechanism, that could be later closed with a removable dowel.
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Fig. 3. Graphic representation of the tongue mechanism (red), the cavity (light blue), the openings with their related dowels and the four holes (violet). © Vincenzo Amato, all rights reserved.
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It is indeed a very interesting subject that, like many, would benefit from further research and a deep technical comparison with other examples. Hopefully, by sharing more we can contribute to a better understanding of them.
This is a small extract of the technical research carried out on my Master’s Thesis (see note 1). If you’re more interested in the subject, here is an introductory bibliography 📚
G. ANDENNA, La devozione confraternale per la Passione di Cristo nel tardo Medioevo, in Il teatro delle statue. Gruppi lignei di Deposizione e Annunciazione tra XII e XIII secolo, Conference Proceedings «Attorno ai gruppi lignei della Deposizione», Milano 15-16th May 2003, ed. F. Flores D’Arcais, Milano, Vita e Pensiero, 2005, pp. 21-31.
E. FRANCESCUTTI, Caratteristiche esecutive, cifre stilistiche, espedienti tecnici. Suggerimenti per una nuova analisi della produzione di Giovanni Teutonico, in Riflessioni sul Rinascimento scolpito. Contributi, analisi e approfondimenti in margine alla mostra di Camerino 5 maggio-5 novembre 2006, eds. M. Giannatiempo López - R. Casciaro, Pollenza, Tip. San Giuseppe, 2006, pp. 82-91.
K. KOPANIA, Animated Sculptures of the Crucified Christ in the Religious Culture of the Latin Middle Ages, Warszawa, Wydawnictwo Neriton, 2010.
M. NERBANO, Il teatro della devozione. Confraternite e spettacolo nell’Umbria medievale, Perugia, Morlacchi, 2006.
T. PERUSINI, “Descaviglietur corpus totum et detur in gremio Mariae”. I crocifissi mobili per la liturgia drammatica e i drammi liturgici del triduo pasquale. Nuovi esempi dal nord-est d’Italia, in In hoc signo. Il tesoro delle croci, ed. P. Goi, Milano, Skira, 2006, pp. 191-205.
J. TAUBERT, Polychrome Sculpture. Meaning, Form, Conservation, translated by C. Schulman, Los Angeles, The Getty Conservation Institute, 2015.
If you know of any other case similar, please add it in the comment section!
Fins aquí l’entreteniment setmanal. La setmana que ve tornem a la newsletter bi-mensual, ens veiem llavors? That’s a wrap for this week's entertainment. Next week we get back to the usual bi-monthly newsletter. See you then?
AMATO V., Il restauro di un crocifisso ligneo attribuito alla bottega di Giovanni Teutonico, distrutto durante il terremoto del 2016: consolidamento temporaneo del colore con adesivi volatili, risanamento strutturale e ricomposizione, degree thesis in Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage discussed on 29th April, 2021, Opificio delle Pietre Dure - SAFS.
The presence of numerous German masters in Italy is due to the Mendicant orders' preference for the iconography of the gothic Painful Crucifix (a model that originated in the Rhineland area in the 13th century and spread to Italy in the 14th century), and the appreciation for their ability to combine realism and pathetism. On this topic I recommend reading: M. LISNER, Deutsche Holzkruzifixe des 15. Jahrhunderts in Italien, “Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz”, 9, 1960.
The Osservanza was a Franciscan reformist current founded in 1368 by Paoluccio Trinci da Foligno (1309-1391), which was immediately successful among people for its strict and integral observance of the Rule of St. Francis, at a time when the papacy and the entire ecclesiastical institution were experiencing a crisis of credibility due to rampant corruption and internal clashes within the order of Minori, divided between Conventuali and Spirituali.
Some examples of mobile sculptures and their use in particular moments of devotion were presented by Johannes Tripps during the 47th International Congress on Medieval Studies. Worth to check it!