Under the Tuscan Spell

Once upon a time, a Bohemian priest on his way home from Rome stopped near Orvieto to celebrate mass. As he held the communion wafer, blood dripped onto his cloth. He reported this miracle to Pope Urban IV who placed the cloth in the nearby dilapidated cathedral as a Holy Relic. Within a hundred years, the philanthropists of Orvieto had built a new cathedral to house and honor the relic.

After walking up the Medieval winding streets of Orvieto, we arrived at the great Italian Gothic Cathedral at sunset. Of all the churches, cathedrals, and chapels Linda and I had seen in Tuscany, this one is to be remembered above all the others.

This dramatic fresco in the chapel of the Orvieto Cathedral represents all the desperation of the condemned who are persecuted and tortured by the Devil. The gold inlay in the white marble of the western façade reflected the setting sun. Biblical figures adorned in blue, red, and orange stood out from the sculptured gables and pinnacles. Four huge sculptured columns surrounded three sets of bronze doors capped with decorated cornices. Every available space contained a panel with a story from the Bible.

The delicately carved rose window of the façade is surrounded by framed marble busts and life–size sculpted figures in gothic niches. In the 13th century, this was religious education. Very few people could read the Latin Bible, so the Roman Catholic Church wrote the Bible stories on the walls of the churches. The panels surrounding the main doors depict Genesis. God is seen creating Eve from Adam’s rib. The snake presides as Eve hands Adam the apple of original sin.

Inside a chapel in the cathedral are what must be the greatest frescoes outside of the Vatican. They were created by Luca Signorelli and based on Dante’s Divine Comedy . The Church’s version of Paradise and Hell are suspended on the ceiling in living color…and disturbing gore – a lesson for believers. In Paradise, angels place crowns on the heads of beautiful and voluptuous blessed ones. In contradiction, helpless and sad angels watch as doomed souls are carried across a river into a horrifying Hell where the Devil tortures them.

A sculpture of the Pity of Mary rests in a niche of the cathedral’s western façade. As I gazed on this chapter of history, I realized how the Church became so powerful. Through fear and guilt it maintained control over the masses for so long. To follow blindly meant eternal bliss; to disobey meant eternal torture. Not a difficult choice.

The great Italian Gothic Cathedral of Orvieto

(Next week: Bagnoregio,

a challenging walk)