Giotto's Arena Chapel and the Triumph of Humility

This book enables scholars and students to rediscover Giotto's Arena Chapel and to see it with new eyes.

Henrike Christiane Lange (Author)

9781316511046, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 9 February 2023

350 pages
28.7 x 22.4 x 2.1 cm, 1.22 kg

'A great reading experience … Lange delivers an ingenious treatment of Giotto's framing faux architecture and meaningful Rahmenbeiwerk. This absorbing book does not see its hero, Giotto, as liberated from ancient Rome, but rather demonstrates that it is exactly Giotto's resistance to the ghost of pagan antiquity which contributes to his greatest achievements. Lange shows how Giotto creates a Christian form of similitude and overcoming, as triumph - typologically, a triumph of humility as a critical form, and therefore as an argument for Giotto's modernity.' Wolfgang Kemp, Professor of History of Art, University of Hamburg

In this book, Henrike Lange takes the reader on a tour through one of the most beloved and celebrated monuments in the world – Giotto's Arena Chapel. Paying close attention to previously overlooked details, Lange offers an entirely new reading of the stunning frescoes in their spatial configuration. The author also asks fundamental questions that define the chapel's place in Western art history. Why did Giotto choose an ancient Roman architectural frame for his vision of Salvation? What is the role of painted reliefs in the representation of personal integrity, passion, and the human struggle between pride and humility familiar from Dante's Divine Comedy? How can a new interpretation regarding the influence of ancient reliefs and architecture inform the famous “Assisi controversy” and cast new light on the debate around Giotto's authorship of the Saint Francis cycle? Illustrated with almost 200 color plates, this volume invites scholars and students to rediscover a key monument of art and architecture history and to see it with new eyes.

1. A Venetian dream of Rome and Jerusalem
2. 1300: the moment of the Jubilee in Rome and in Padua
3. The powers that were Scrovegni, Dalesmanini, Frangipani
4. Giotto's painted reliefs
5. Triumph and apotheosis from Augustine to Dante
Epilogue: Relief, triumph, transcendence.

Subject Areas: History of architecture [AMX], Religious buildings [AMN], Architectural structure & design [AMC], History of art: Byzantine & Medieval art c 500 CE to c 1400 [ACK]