This door marked the main entrance of a small church dedicated to Saint Leonard that is located on the Frigido River. Apparently, an Antique sarcophagus was reused for the supporting jambs on the sides of the door and was carved to show scenes of the Annunciation and the Visitation on the left and a large figure of Saint Leonard of Noblat, patron saint of prisoners, on the right. On the lintel above is Jesus’ Entry into Jerusalem, a scene particularly appropriate for the location of the church, on a main road that pilgrims followed through Italy en route to the Holy Land. While the style of the scene recalls Early Christian tomb reliefs, the same subject was famously carved over the door of the church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem in the Crusader era. The doorway was created in the workshop of Biduinus, a sculptor whose name is known from his signature on several monuments preserved in the Pisa-Lucca area.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Portal from the Church of San Leonardo al Frigido
Artist:Workshop of Biduinus (Italian, active last quarter 12th century)
Date:ca. 1175
Geography:Made in Tuscany, Italy
Culture:Italian
Medium:Marble (Carrara marble)
Dimensions:13 ft. 2 in. × 76 in. × 14 in. (401.3 × 193 × 35.6 cm)
Classification:Installations
Credit Line:The Cloisters Collection, 1962
Accession Number:62.189
The reconstructed portal is composed of five medieval elements. Neither the bases nor the arch of rosettes were part of the medieval monument. The two jambs of gray Carrara marble were apparently recarved from sections of antique sarcophagi. The left jamb represents the Annunciation to the Virgin above the Visitation, each set within simple rectangular frames. The Latin inscription (see above) surmounts the Annunciation. The right jamb carries the standing figure of St. Leonard facing left, into the doorway. He carries in his hands the figure of a chained prisoner who gazes up at him, and the upper portion of the saint’s crozier can be seen behind him. Each jamb is surmounted by an engaged capital carved in white marble. The capital on the left represents on its face a pair of addorsed, chained apes with a rosette between them on a frieze of acanthus leaves. Another ape is visible on the inner surface of the capital. The capital on the right is similar, but instead of addorsed apes, the animal on the left is a dragon confronting the ape on the inner surface of the doorway. The capitals support the lintel, which features Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem, carved in the same white Carrara marble. On the right, four children are perched in a tree, welcoming Jesus with branches while two boys kneel on the ground spreading their cloaks before him. Christ approaches them riding on an ass, which is led by one of the apostles while a foal follows. Led by St. Peter with the keys, the other eleven apostles stretch out in procession behind Jesus. Some have their mouths open in song and some carry (or once held) palm fronds, books and scrolls and a censer. At the left side of the lintel, between the last two apostles, the monk St. Leonard is represented as a pilgrim walking with his staff. All elements of the doorway have suffered from erosion and there are losses throughout together with some areas of recarving. Perhaps most noticeable is the loss of the head of the fifth apostle behind Jesus. The small figures in the tree on the right side of the lintel have been partially recarved and both capitals have areas of loss and recarving.
The twelfth-century, Tuscan church of San Leonardo al Frigido was dedicated to St. Leonard, founder of the monastery in the sixth century. He was the patron of prisoners as well as peasants and the sick; and during the Crusades, he was widely venerated. The monastery was located on one of the main Tuscan pilgrimage roads, the Via Francigena, which linked Rome to transalpine Europe. Its hospital was run by the Knights of St. John who provided shelter for pilgrims to the Holy Land. The Entry into Jerusalem depicted on the lintel can be seen as an allusion to activities of the order in the Holy Land.
The carving of the lintel and the two capitals supporting it are consistent with the work of Biduinis, a prolific sculptor in northwest Tuscany during the last quarter of the twelfth century. His birth and death dates are not known, but he signed a number of extant works, including the lintel on the façade of San Cassiano at San Cassiano a Settimo (Pisa) where the inscription includes the date 1180. Biduinus worked in an environment populated by the tangible remains of Roman antiquity, where ancient building elements and sarcophagi were part of the cultural landscape. These white marble elements from Frigido share a generally classicizing figure style with the signed work of Biduinis. His oeuvre also includes animal motifs comparable to the ape capitals on the doorway, and has parallels with sculptural elements from the Pisa campanile. The reliefs on the two jambs carved in grey stone appear to be in a different, somewhat earlier twelfth-century style, likely representing at least the second reuse of these elements.
Selected references:
Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Lisbeth, and Jack Soultanian. Italian Medieval Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Cloisters. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2010. no. 16, pp. 65–73.
Dalli Regoli, Gigetta. "Il tema dell'Entrata in Gerusalemme nelle interpretazioni di Biduino." In Forme e storia: Scritti di arte medievale e moderna per Francesco Gandolfo, edited by Walter Angelelli, and Francesca Pomarici. Rome: Editoriale Artemide s.r.l., 2011. pp. 223-32, fig. 7, 10.
Entry by Peter Barnet, curator emeritus, Department of Medieval Art and The Met Cloisters
[2020; adapted from draft Barnet Sculpture Catalogue]
Inscription: h[ic] E[ST] SALUTATIO MAR[IAE] (here is the greeting of Mary)
From the church of San Leonardo al Frigido, near Massa, Tuscany, Italy; Domenico Ricci, Sarzana (by 1773) ; Eugenio Giovannini, Massa ; [ Luigi Barna, Florence] ; Countess Benkendorff-Schouvaloff, Villa Monticello, Nice (after 1879 and before 1893) ; Alessandro de Millo, Villa Belvedere, Nice-Cimiez ; [ F. Kleinberger Galleries Galleries, New York (sold 1962)]
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