The Vision of the Blessed Gabriele
In this tempera grassa (a combination of oil and egg) on poplar, painted and signed by Carlo Crivelli around 1489, the Blessed Gabriele is depicted on his knees as he receives the vision of the Virgin and Child. The artwork was described during Gabriele Ferretti’s process of beatification, in 1753: it is recorded as one of the monuments dedicated to him, and therefore material proof of his memorial cult. It was a devotional painting, commissioned to be hung above his funerary.
The Virgin and the Christ child appear above San Francesco ad Alto, the Franciscan convent in where Gabriele served as Superior. The scene is set in the convent's cultivated garden, the orto, and the path on the right goes toward the near city of Ancona.
The image is monumental, highly detailed and naturalistic, with a sharp light and intense shadows. The drawing is marked with strong dark outlines in typical Crivelli’s style. The artwork is very dense and gives to the viewer a deep sense of spirituality. On the bottom right corner is possible to see Crivelli’s signature OPVS CAROLI CRIVELLI VENETI, covering an earlier misspelled version OPVS CAROLVS CRIVELLVS VENETI.
Curiosities
Gabriele Ferretti was not a Saint, and at the time of this painting he has not even been proclaimed Blessed -in fact, he will not be until 1753. However, Crivelli painted him with the golden nimbus of sanctity. Given the official public context, this choice for sure made by the family and approved by the Order. Read more about this here
In the middle-ground a curiously big friar's head is seen among trees. This was not a mistake -everything else in the composition is painted in perfectly coherent perspective- but a way to remind us of the divine dimension of Saint Francis and his companion the Blessed Leo, so that the visual association with the Saint would enhance the idea of Gabriele’s sanctity. Read more about this here
The Virgin and the infant Christ are inscribed in the mandorla, a golden almond-shaped divine space supported by red seraphims. While the whole image is painted with a realistic and highly-detailed style, this only exception resembles more of a byzantine or gothic golden icon. This is a clear way to highlight the Apparition and to separate the earthly and the divine realms, which can not be depicted the same way. The golden sumptuous Virgin's mandorla space and its expensive materials reminds the viewer of gothic gilded altarpieces, and no laity could misinterpret the importance of the sacred moment.
The top fruit garland, made of peaches, apples and pears, is suspended with a white band on the highest point of the painting and casts a particularly dark shadow, a pictorial illusion that separates is from the rest of the composition. It stands out as it was a different object, physically outside the painting and placed above it, a real material decoration placed upon the panel. It has been much discussed whether Crivelli was aware of the funerary monument composition or if he was even consulted it the design of it, but if one tries to imagine the ex-votos hung on the painting and their physical shadows, there is no doubt he knew how the painting was about to be. See a possible reconstruction of the monument here
Above Gabriele, on top of a spare branch, rests a little goldfinch. The goldfinch is one of the most common symbols of Christ’s passion and resurrection, as it appears in many popular non-biblical legends. The most famous one, in particular, tells how the little bird gained his blood-red feathers while extracting thorns from Christ’s thorns crown during the Crucifixion. However, in any religious painting the bird is depicted looking at the viewer or at Christ Child, or playing with him. This is the only known case in which the goldfinch is seen from the back and looks away in the landscape, neither to the Apparition or to the Saint. Maybe it is contemplating the future, and the Child’s destiny of passion? Read more about this here
The painting has been copied in the late XVI century by an unknown painter, today displayed at the Museo Diocesano in Ancona next to Gabriele’s marble sarcophagus.
Read more about: iconography
The Virgin appears to Gabriele, who is barefoot and in his Franciscan brown habit, symbols of humility, while he is searching 'the Lord in the hour of silence'. The Franciscan friars retire in isolated spots during the night or early morning to pray, contemplate and meditate on the sacred mysteries, as they are encouraged to do following the example of San Francis. On the ground in front of him, there is his open book of prayer.
As Gabriele joins hands, Mary descends above the church holding the Christ child in a golden mandorla, while the light she brings illuminates the sky and the Christ is in the blessing gesture. This representation of the Virgin, in the sky surrounded by a mandorla and supported by seraphims, is very reminiscent of another iconography, the Assumption of the Virgin into Heaven. This seems particularly true when this figure is compared with other paintings of the same period, such as The Assumption of the Virgin with Saints Michael and Benedict by Luca Signorelli (c. 1493-6, fig. 1), the Pala di Corciano by Pietro Perugino (1513, fig. 2) or The Assumption of the Virgin by Pinturicchio (c. 1490, fig. 3). Despite the vast differences in the painters’ styles, the divine atmosphere around Mary is depicted in the exact same way, even if Crivelli added the Christ child to represent Gabriele’s vision.
This golden area is clearly detached from the human world, and therefore represented in a very different way: while everywhere else the pictorial style is naturalistic, the mandorla appears to go back to the gothic tradition of icons. Opulent decorations, unrealistic gold space and straight volumes clearly situate it in a different dimension: the one of divine existence, which requires a different type of rendering.
The scene is set in the orto, the monastery garden cultivated by the friars. By contrast with the wilderness depicted in the rest of the picture, the trees in this area are regularly cut and planted to border the path: the nature is tamed, the ground is covered with small plants and low shrubs, and two ducks are swimming in the small pool on the bottom left corner. The divine Appearance makes the orto a holy ground. Behind Gabriele we see a rocky slope with a cave, wild and steep, probably the Colle Astagno (or Capodimonte) on which the church and the convent were erected.
