Vierge et enfant. Fresque médiévale, probablement peinte en 1300s par un peintre de l'école sienaise. Dans la Chiesa di Sant’Alessandro, à Volterra, Toscane, Italie. La fresque, aujourd'hui connue sous le nom de Madonna del Cavallaro, aurait été découverte par un cheval en 1700s.
2592 x 3872 px | 21,9 x 32,8 cm | 8,6 x 12,9 inches | 300dpi
Date de la prise de vue:
31 mai 2007
Lieu:
Chiesa di Sant’Alessandro, Volterra, Tuscany, Italy.
Informations supplémentaires:
Cette image peut avoir des imperfections car il s’agit d’une image historique ou de reportage.
Volterra, Tuscany, Italy: according to local legend and oral tradition, this medieval fresco of the Virgin and Child, now known as the Madonna del Cavallaro, was discovered by a horse. Stories of how the artwork was found in an overgrown abandoned chapel were handed down orally in local families and amongst generations of parishioners of the Chiesa di Sant’Alessandro (Church of Saint Alexander). They told of a 1700s farmer who noticed that his mare stopped and seemed to genuflect every time it passed a dense thicket just outside the city. The farmer cleared thick vegetation from the roadside and found a ruined ancient chapel in which the sacred image had been venerated by local people for hundreds of years. The fragmentary fresco, probably painted in the 14th century by an artist of the Sienese school, now takes pride of place on the south nave wall of the Chiesa di Sant’Alessandro, a simple, austere Romanesque church in Borgo Sant’Alessandro consecrated in 1120 AD by Pope Callixtus II. It was installed by the parish priest and poet Giovanni Villifranchi (died 1614). He was honoured on the 400th anniversary of his death, in 2014, when the Bishop of Volterra presided over a Compline evening prayer service before the Madonna del Cavallaro and a plaque commemorating Villifranchi was unveiled in the church’s external loggia. The story of the fresco’s discovery has been studied by academics and writers of the 19th and 20th centuries as an excellent example of the strength of oral tradition in Italian peasant culture. The legend is one of many based on sacred and fortuitous discoveries and on the belief that divinities might use signals - in this case to a horse - to indicate their presence. D0335.A3994
