Stories of Saint Rainier
Along the southern corridor of the Monumental Cemetery, the area between the cycle of the Triumph of Death and the one with the Stories of Job was set aside for the stories of Saint Rainier. The figure of the rich merchant of Pisa – who died in 1160 and was immediately worshipped by the city –, with his decision to leave worldly life and retire to the Holy Land, was a modern vision of the hermitic life portrayed by the scenes of the Thebaid.
The work was commissioned to the Florentine painter Andrea Buonaiuti, who was very well known for having been commissioned by the Dominicans of Florence for the imposing decoration of Cappellone degli Spagnoli, in the Church of Santa Maria Novella. Rather than on the spatial layout of the narrative, the painter focuses his attention on a painstaking depiction of naturalistic details and the fashionable costumes of the characters, who, however, having no plastic prominence, hardly stand out in the architectural surroundings. After Buonaiuti’s death, the work was commissioned to Antonio Veneziano: with a far different mastery of space borrowed from Giotto’s lessons, the artist painted the return of the Saint to Pisa, his death and its posthumous miracles, leaving unforgettable portrayals of the monuments of Piazza del Duomo.
Stories of Saints Ephisius and Potitus
To insist on the primacy of the local Church over the diocese of Sardinia, just after the island was taken away from the political sphere of Pisa, the Opera decided to add, after the stories of Saint Rainier, a cycle of frescoes as a tribute to the two Sardinian martyrs Ephisius and Potitus, whose relics had been transferred to Pisa after finally freeing Sardinia from the Saracens in 1088. The portrayal of Ephisius’s military feats hinted at Pisa’s glorious victories against the infidels, first and foremost that won in Sardinia in 1016, also celebrated by one of the epigraphs on the façade of the Cathedral. It’s not by chance that the Saint’s troops fight under the banner of Pisa at the Crusades: a red cross on a white ground.
The iconographic plan was commissioned to Spinello Aretino, who had already proven to be an excellent storyteller in many cycles of painting he had frescoed all over Tuscany: in the stories that have been left – the three on Saint Potitus were almost completely lost in the nineteenth century –, he shows great ability in bending language to the pace of action, ranging from bewildering fixed scenes to giddy tangles.
List of scenes
Stories of the life of Saint Rainier
10 The Conversion of Saint Rainier, Andrea di Bonaiuto
11 Saint Rainier in the Holy Land, Andrea di Bonaiuto
12 Temptations and Miracles of Saint Rainier, Andrea di Bonaiuto
13 The Return of Saint Rainier to Pisa, Antonio Veneziano
14 Death and Funeral of Saint Rainier, Antonio Veneziano
15 Posthumous Miracles of Saint Rainier, Antonio Veneziano
Stories of the Saints and Martyrs Ephisius and Potitus
16 Saint Ephisius presented to Diocletian, Spinello Aretino
17 The Fight of Saint Ephisius, Spinello Aretino
18 The Martyrdom of Saint Ephisius, Spinello Aretino
19 The Miracles of Saint Potitus, Spinello Aretino
20 The Martyrdom of Saint Potitus, Spinello Aretino
21 Transfer of the Bodies of Saint Ephisius and Saint Potitus, Spinello Aretino
