Text and image in Altichiero’s Infancy Cycle in the Oratory of Saint George in Padua (1377- 1384)
Abstract: Raimondino de’ Lupi was a condottiere and diplomat who served the House of Carrara which ruled Padua throughout most of the 14th century. In about 1377, Raimondino commissioned the Oratory of Saint George as his funerary Chapel. It stands just beyond the facade of the basilica where the remains of Saint Anthony of Padua are enshrined. The walls of the chapel were frescoed by Altichiero and his workshop who completed twenty-two, mostly narrative panels in 1384. This paper focuses on the Infancy Cycle shown in five panels on the entry wall. I will explore the iconographical references, the manner by which the artist expressed the passage of time pictorially, and the symbolic relationship between the paintings and the architectural container, in particular, the oculus above and the entry door below. My interpretations are supported largely by Scripture, the biblical Apocrypha, the Golden Legend, French poetry, the Divine Comedy and other texts. Altichiero’s work in the oratory was the subject of my dissertation, and I have published previously on his handling of pictorial narrative in the cycles of Saint Catherine and Saint Lucy, also in Raimondino’s funerary chapel.
