Florence brings beauty, it
screams history, it desires for one to explore the depths of its past; however,
it has never processed the Garden of Eden. To find this I had to take a short
journey down to Arezzo. How could it be that this town, a fraction of the size
of Florence, has an item of such rarity – wood from THE Garden where it all began? Well it clearly isn’t from the
Garden; however, the Medieval Catholic churches all desired to have precious
items directly from God and that have the power to bring the Holy Spirit into
their church. Piero della Francesca gave Arezzo their wish, when he painted the
Basilica of San Francesco’s alter and hung the “true cross” for all to see.
The History of the True Cross or The Legend of the True Cross is a
sequence of frescoes
painted by Piero della
Francesca in the Basilica of
San Francesco in Arezzo.
It is his largest work, and generally considered one of his finest, and an
early Renaissance masterpiece. Its theme, derived from the popular 13th century
book on the lives of saints
by Jacopo da
Voragine, the Golden Legend,
is the triumph of the True Cross
– the wood from the Garden of
Eden that became the Cross on which Christ was crucified. This work
demonstrates Piero’s advanced knowledge of perspective and color, his geometric
orderliness and skill in pictorial construction. The main episodes depicted
are: Death of Adam and The Queen
of Sheba in Adoration of the Wood, and The
Meeting of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. According to the legend, the
tree from which the cross was made was planted, at the urging of angels, at the
burial of Adam by his son, using a branch or a seed from the apple tree of the
Garden of Eden. As history is told, the
Queen of Sheba worshiped the beams made from the tree, and informed Solomon,
that the Savior would hang from that tree, and thus dismember the realm of the
Jews. This caused Solomon to hew it down and bury it, until the Romans found
it.
The church is
settled directly in the center of the city; however, it isn’t displayed on a
scale of splendor like the Duomo in Florence. It is just, normal. I thought this
showed a true character of respect by the church, because, as history has
shown, the Catholic church was notorious for showing off all its riches and
standing out as the cream of the crop. Yet, the Basilica in Arezzo is nothing
but a corner-niche church with a true relic. This relic hangs behind the alter
for all to see and all to come to, so go to it and take in its significance. It
isn’t a jester of splendor, a jester of power but a jester telling the masses
to come to Christ through the alter of the church and find peace. I couldn’t
help but stand and stare in amazement of the simplistic strategy of this alter
piece, and soon I was finding myself wandering just behind the alter into
paradise.
