Heavens! Is That a Devil We See Before Us?

Better the devil you know …

Turns out that that famous fresco showing a key scene in the life-death cycle of St. Francis of Assisi has all along contained an extra face. A prominent Italian art historian has announced his discovery of the face of a devil-like figure hidden in the clouds of Giotto's frescos, in the Basilica in Assisi. The figure, which can be seen only by peering intently at close-up photographs of the fresco, has, according to the art historian, horns atop its head and a hooked nose and knowingly sly smile on its face.

This might be one of those Rorschach test opportunities, wherein the individual viewer sees what he or she wants to see. Still, if you squint hard enough at the clouds and hold your tongue just right, you can kind of see the outline of the beginnings of what could be something that could be construed as a figure that resembles something that doesn't quite match the overall theme of the fresco.

We're talking about something that was painted a long time ago now. Giotto worked on these things in the 13th Century. We would surely know if someone had added this impish "figure" later on, so we're left with the presumption that the artist added it himself. 

Then the question becomes why. So why, then, would Giotto have included this image but then obscured it? Was it meant to be symbolic, as if the darkness was ever there, waiting for the revered to "fall"? Was it meant to be darkly ironic, as in the silver lining of the cloud was none other than eternal damnation? Was it meant to be a Da Vinci Code-esque clue, leading to an astonishing revelation that has remained hidden all these years?

A more likely explanation, according to art historians, is that the artist was profiling none other than a person for whom he had little regard. In the same way that artists often included their patrons or contemporaries in their works (think School of Athens), the same artists might often paint as unsavory characters men or women they didn't like. So who was on Giotto's hit list?

That is another story.