The representation of the body of Christ during the first three centuries of the Christian era was influenced by a number of closely intertwined questions which, taken together, delineated a structured dialectic between apparent ugliness and higher beauty, the latter being accessible to the gaze of the believer. The theological reflection put forward by authors such as Justin, Irenaeus, Clement, Tertullian or Origen is linked not only to the social implications of a Christ who is reviled and devoid of any beauty, according to Isaiah 53 but, equally, to the mystical tensions of reunification with the elected Bridegroom of Psalm 45 and of the Canticle of Canticles. The mystical conviction of assimilation and intellectual contemplation that was characteristic of the Alexandrian tradition was however destined to be progressively reduced to the credence of a narrow circle of followers; in the vaster body of the church it would be overshadowed by the cult of the martyrs and relics, as a visible testimony of the imitation of the suffering Christ and his wounded body. This is the background from which there sprang the medieval reflection that arose with Francis.

Written in the late thirteenth century in the dialect of Milan, Bonvesin da la Riva’s Book of the Three Scriptures is an eschatological poem composed of three parts. The poem begins with the Black Scripture, which opens with the doctrine of the contemptus mundi and describes the twelve pains of hell. The Red Scripture, which is placed at the center of the poem, describes Christ’s passion and highlights the pain experienced by Christ’s tormented body. The last part of the poem is the Golden Scripture, which describes the twelve glories of heaven. The Book of the Three Scriptures grants enormous attention to the human body as a crucial component of the person, and stresses the significance of physical pain as the instrument that allows the transformation from the decaying earthly and infernal body, initially described in the Black Scripture, to the splendor of the glorious body, finally praised in the Golden Scripture. Through the figure of Christ and Mary, in particular, the Red Scripture presents a form of physical pain that can be embraced as a productive opportunity for meaning and change.

This study was inspired by a frescoed lauda in the former church attached to the S. Maddalena Hospital in Bergamo, set beneath a Christ in pietà. The association of this lauda with the granting of indulgences prompts an enquiry into late medieval contemplation of images of the Passion, which aroused the faithful’s empathy and identification with the sufferings of the Redeemer. The enquiry also focuses on the relation arising between painted or sculpted figures and sacred representations, which enable the beholder to maintain the memory of the event constantly present. In Lombardy, Depositions and Laments seem to have been dominated by a figurative and historicalnarrative dimension, as documented by the late XIIIth and early XIVth century frescoes in S. Giorgio at Almenno San Salvatore and the Lament dating from the first half of the XIVth century in S. Francesco a Brescia. The painted crucifix in the same church, characterised by the realistic physicality of Christ, can be correlated with the wooden Crucifixes preserved in other local churches and dating above all from the fifteenth century. Particular mention is made of those held in the Cathedral of Salò, and of S. Maria del Carmine and S. Giovanni Evangelista in Brescia. With regard to the Laments, in which a more explicit affective and theatrical component can be discerned, attention is directed to the important examples of Carmine and Bagnolo Mella in the district of Brescia, examined here together with those now held in the provinces of Mantua, at Medole and Canneto sull’Oglio.

The drama of the Assumption of Mary, based on apocryphal stories, endeavoured to transpose and adapt scenes from the canonical Gospels that had already been dramatised in ancient times. Concretely, one notes a pronounced parallelism with the passages of the Passion of Christ, which constituted the foremost stage performance in the Gothic era. The dramatic rendering of the Passion first arose through the humanisation of the Christian religion in the wake of spiritual changes taking place in the XIIIth century, ushered in above all by the preaching orders. Just as the triumphant figure of Christ the King of the Romanesque era became the suffering and sorrowful Christ of the Gothic age, his mother underwent a change of role: from the hieratic throne of the son she was transformed into the progenitrix who suffers the agony of Christ during the Passion and bewails the loss of her son after the Ascension. Such coincidences can be observed in the most ancient dramatic mysteries of the Iberian Peninsula on the death and assumption of Mary: the Mystery of the Cathedral of València (around 1420) and that of Elx (around 1475). These mysteries begin with the Virgin’s passage through the holy places, that is to say the places of the Passion and the Death of Christ: the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus prayed, sweat drops of blood and was captured, the Golgotha where he was crucified, and the sepulchre where he was buried. The Mystery of Tarragona (around 1388), on the other hand, begins with a conspiratorial meeting among the Jews who are plotting to seize the body of the Blessed Virgin, thereby reflecting the «Consilium contra Christum» of the Passion. The angel that comforts Mary with the branch of Paradise and the annunciation of her death has a correspondence in the anglic consolation (with chalice and cross) that Jesus receives in Gethsemane. The drama of theAssumption gathers the apostles around Maria, with the exception of Thomas, similarly to the apostolic gathering at the Supper-table, after the Resurrection of Christ, during which Thomas was likewise absent. The «Judgement scene» which appears in Tarragona and Elx during the burial of Maria translates the scene of the arrest of Christ, including the brawl between Peter and the Jews. Finally, the burial accompanied by the singing of the hymn In exitu Israel de Egipto, and the assumption and incoronation of the Virgin are dramatic adaptations of the respectives scenes of the burial, resurrection and ascension of Christ.

The paper analyses the work Specchio di croce, written in the vernacular by the preacher Brother Domenico Cavalca around 1330 for a lay public of devoted faithful. Firstly, the catechetic nature of the work is highlighted, showing that it appears as a descriptive summa of Christian doctrine. This is followed by careful focus on what can be seen as the main objective of the work, namely nothing less than a reform of the affections, to be achieved by starting from the image of the Crucifix. Attention then turns to the theological and psychological presuppositions of this affective pedagogy, also identifying the different phases and the constant reference to the Augustinian and Cistercian traditions.

This essay aims to demonstrate that the political ethos of pietas and the theatrical rendering of pain, studied in particular by Hannah Arendt and Luc Boltanski, are rooted not only in Christian compassion of the origins but also in medieval drama centring on pietas. By providing a highly realistic and moving representation of the agonized body of Christ, Medieval Christian society sought to convert sinners and to awaken the fervour of the faithful, but it also kindled the disinterested and concrete help of the faithful towards the poor, the sick, the unfortunate as well as towards pilgrims, through associations, care institutions and hospitals. The martyred body of Chriust was seen as a specific denunciation of social injustice, of the afflictions and sufferings of the body politic, the Church and the State. The fundamental difference between the ethos of pietas in the Middle Ages versus the modern age consists in the transition from local perception of the unfortunate to a decidedly universal view. Over the centuries the ethos of pietas was intensified through the gradual inclusion of all men in the category of the unfortunate to succour, sweeping away any discrimination based on family, local or regional rivalry, ethnic or social concerns, racial prejudice or religious bias.