Scrovegni and Usury

The Tuscan painter Giotto was hired by a Paduan banker by the name of Enrico Scrovegni to paint the walls of a chapel in Padua (see post below). Giotto completed the works by around 1305, with dozens of scenes. It’s one of the great works of European art. Sometimes the chapel is called the ‘Arena Chapel’ because it was built partly on top of the ruins of a Roman amphitheater, sections of which are still visible today. Enrico Scrovegni was a banker, as his father Reginaldo had been. His father had been accused of the sin of usury as this was still a time when for a Christian to lend money was still a moral problem. Through the Middle Ages Jews had been assigned this socioeconomic role. Dante assigned Reginaldo a place in the Inferno. Enrico’s patronage of the chapel, a magnificent building dedicated to the Virgin Mary, was the son’s attempt to expiate the sin of usury from the family name. This is the last scene one sees as one leaves the chapel, of Scrovegni offering the chapel to the Virgin Mary, on a wall the subject of which is the Last Judgement. Clearly, Scrovegni was begging for leniency. The depiction of Scrovegni is brilliant. The donor kneels as he offers the church. His mouth is slightly open as he tentatively reaches out to touch the Virgin’s accepting hand. Giotto has depicted Scrovegni and penitent and humble, his humility gauged by the temerity with which he raises his hand, as if he can barely believe that the Mother of God has accepted his votive gift. When doing fresco, one paints on wet plaster, and it takes only a day for plaster to dry, so painters only put down on the wall a section of plaster that they could realistically paint in one day. These sections were called giornata after the Italian word for day, giorno. If all you were doing was a simple background the giornata might be very large, but if you were doing, say, a face, the giornata might be small. Note that time has revealed the seam of the giornata around Scrovegni’s hand. So important was this hand gesture to the meaning of the work, Giotto knew he had to spend an entire day getting it right; the hesitancy, the humility, and the pathos of Scrovegni’s devotion.