Tag Archives: Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria

My Favorite Nativity Scene, with Angels on the Buddy System

My all-time favorite image for Christmas was painted into a fresco by an unknown artist around 1370 in the Umbria area of Italy. It depicts a shepherd playing a sort of bagpipe. His smiling dog dances in delight. This is part of fresco fragments from the long-gone monastery of Santa Giuliana in Perugia. The fragments, covering about 20 feet in width and maybe 12 feet in height, are now in the Galleria Nazionale of Umbria. I’d travel back there just to gaze at them again. I wrote about this fresco last Christmas, and took another look this year.

My favorite shepherd and his dog are really just side figures in a more conventional Nativity fresco. The entire fresco is too large to photograph in one shot, and my photography skills are pretty much limited to what I can capture on my trusty iPhone. So the view above shows the shepherd and his bagpipe, but not his joyful dog.

The other side of the fresco, which once covered a wall, shows the traditional Nativity scene with the stable, the town of Bethlehem, musical angels neatly arranged in pairs, some friendly cattle, and Mary and Joseph with their child duly wrapped in strips of cloth–the Biblical swaddling clothes.

The details are charming, the faces friendly and serene.

What I find most appealing is the artist’s careful concern for the ordinary people depicted. They are painted somehow larger than life, and in loving detail. A friend of mine commented on the cozy-looking black socks worn by one of the shepherds on his way to the stable. At least I think they are shepherds–or could they be the Three Kings? Whoever they are, their feet are REALLY big. This fresco was placed high on a wall, under a vaulted ceiling. The rules of perspective would have dictated that the feet should be smaller in proportion to the heads. The artist chose to do the opposite. Maybe the artist didn’t exactly have perspective down pat. Then again, maybe he (or she) just wanted to contrast grounded humanity with floating angels. These folks definitely have their feet on solid ground.

The animals are grounded, too. These are real sheep, solid and woolly. And each one has a unique personality, as animals do.

As a child, I always wondered what became of the sheep left behind on that hillside, after the angels in the story told the shepherds to get themselves into Bethlehem posthaste. Maybe the unknown artist of this fresco had an anwer: the sheep trotted right along. The horned sheep seems to get what’s going on; he raises his head as though somehow lifted up by what he’s seeing.

On this Christmas Eve, my wish is for all of us to remember that we share this beautiful earth with many others. To those who celebrate Christmas and to those who don’t, I wish peace, friendship and health.

St. Jerome and His Lion: More Sightings

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I’m always on the lookout for images of St. Jerome and his lion. Legend has it that when the saint retreated to the wilderness to study and pray, he came upon a lion with a thorn in its paw. St. Jerome didn’t run or climb a tree. He stopped and removed the thorn. From that day forward, the grateful lion stayed by his side. The fresco above is from a ceiling in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. Agnolo di Cosimo, known as Bronzino, painted it between 1540 and 1565.

Pala Tezi, Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci, known as Il Perugino, 1500

A more primitive, but still endearing, lion is in the painting above, from the Galleria Nazionale of Umbria in the town of Perugia.

Detail from Il Perugino painting above

The artist painted the lion and the saint sitting peacefully together in a simple landscape, in front of the cave that Jerome may have lived in.

San Girolamo Penitente, Il Perugino, 1512

Another painting by Perugino shows the saint in contemplation of the Virgin and child, accompanied by other saints. In humble adoration, he’s set his cardinal’s red hat on the ground–and who is lurking beside him?

San Girolamo Penitente, Il Perugino, 1512

In turn, Jerome’s faithful lion gazes adoringly at him. Isn’t this what we all love to have our pets do?

Detail from Il Perugino painting above

The lion’s face is distinctly human. How many of us humanize our pets? It’s an ancient impulse.

St. Jerome, Pintoricchio, around 1495

The same museum in Perugia has another painting of the saint in the same pose–also with his cardinal’s red hat set humbly on the ground. It’s by Bernardino di Betto, known as il Pintoricchio.

The friendly lion is guarding the hat–and St. Jerome. Who wouldn’t like to have a tame lion riding shotgun all the way through life? Jerome’s lion always had his back.

In medieval times, retreating to the wilderness to meditate was a radical action. Jerome would not have been the first man eaten by a lion in the wilderness. At a time when nature was frightening, St. Jerome was revered for being at one with nature. In our times, retreating to the wilderness still has its risks, but it’s becoming more and more an expensive luxury. Our wildernesses are shrinking and human over-development is routing wild animals from their age-old homes.

I treasure any wildlife sightings, like this fox right outside my window. And I’ll keep looking for glimpses of St. Jerome and his lion.

My previous post about St. Jerome and his lion is at

https://castlesandcoffeehouses.com/2015/08/06/st-jerome-and-his-lion/ ‎

Join me next time for more explorations in the art and history of Europe and the British Isles!

A Medieval Dancing Dog for Christmas

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An unknown artist created this enchanting image of a shepherd playing a sort of bagpipe for his dancing dog between 1370 and 1390. It’s from a lunette–a semicircular fresco, divided into two parts–that once decorated the Monastery of Santa Giuliana in Umbria. Today, what is left of the lunette is in the Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria in Perugia, Italy.

The shepherd and his dog occupy the far right-hand side of the nativity scene above. Why is this simple scene so special? I love it for the way the ordinary mortals–and the animals–are as important as the Holy Family.

The musical shepherd, his dancing dog, and the cattle on the right-hand side of the lunette (the semi-circular scene) are hanging out casually on the hillside, unaware of what’s going on in the stable.

I love the lifelike sheep, with their thick winter coats.

The shepherds stand on a flowery hillside, nudging each other in amazement at what’s happening in the sky above them–no doubt there were once angels.

The left-hand side of the lunette does show the missing angels, hovering over what looks like a typical Italian hill town much like Assisi or Perugia. A lucky cow and a donkey are special guests–or rather, they are hosting special guests in their humble stable.

All the elements of the Biblical story are here, in their simplest form. Gathered around the swaddled baby, we have musical angels, friendly cattle, and a proud mom and dad.

St. Francis of Assisi, very near to Perugia, created the first three-dimensional manger scenes, in order to make the Christmas story seem more real to those he preached to. In early December when I visited , preparations were underway for a manger scene outside the Basilica in Assisi.

Francis is beloved for many reasons, but especially for his love for the working poor and the homeless. Francis was all about radical humility. He was in demand in the palaces of the great, but he was determined to spend his time with the poorest of the poor.

Great artists like Giotto created wonderfully colorful frescoes illustrating the saint’s life for the Basilica that was immediately begun after his death in Assisi. A new pictorial language developed around the humble life of St. Francis, emphasizing his love for humanity, the joy possible in the most ordinary of lives, and the goodness of the natural world. The challenge was to honor the saint’s life without unduly glorifying him. The frescoes above were part of this artistic and spiritual movement. No doubt the anonymous artist who created these frescoes for a little monastery had seen the work of Giotto in the Basilica. Although St. Francis is not the subject of the almost-primitive lunette I liked so much, his influence shines through in the simple everyday images.

I spent several happy hours soaking up the great art in this underappreciated museum. But I circled back several times to the damaged but charming fresco of the Nativity with the dancing dog.