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SANTA MARIA DEGLI ANGIOLI CHURCH - LUGANO
Bernardino Luini’s Passion - the Last Supper of Lugano
The Chiesa
Santa Maria Degli Angioli (Church of Saint Mary of the Angels) in Lugano
Switzerland,
from the outside is a fairly plain and unimpressive
Renaissance church of Romanesque style. A few steps from the shore of
Lake Lugano on the square of Piazza Luini, rather crowded by other buildings,
inside a stunning surprise. Once the abbey of a Franciscan Monastery,
begun in 1490 and consecrated in 1515, the church was divided into two
parts with two separate chapels and altars, one for the people and the
other for the monks and priests. The monastery was disbanded in 1848
during Switzerland’s civil war and turned into a hotel which shared
a common wall with the church. Fallen into disuse and disrepair, it wasn’t
until the 1920’s that a restoration project uncovered extraordinary
frescos which had been hidden behind wood paneling.
The two sections
of the church are divided by a wall with arches to the inner chapel.
The
Italian Renaissance artist Bernardino Luini, who
was born in a small town on the nearby Lake Maggiore had been making
his mark painting in Milan, where many of his works – noted for
his very feminine women, often depicted with eyes casting downward nearly
closed can be 
found, was engaged in 1529 to decorate the church and monastery.
Luini painted a grand and intricate depiction of the Passion and Crucifixion
of Christ in glorious colors from wall to wall framed under the supporting
arch of the church. He added the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, graphically
pierced by arrows. Luini even added himself to the scene, his face can
be found on the man riding a horse, above the figure of a young St John
with his hand to his heart, depicted with long golden hair, the other
hand outstretched as if reaching for another.
The
church has later Baroque art by a local artist depicting cities and
towns
of the area
as well as Jerusalem, but more fascinating, on the side south side
wall of the Chiesa Santa Maria Degli Angioli is Luini's version of the
Last Supper. In lesser condition than the passion fresco, the Last Supper
is no less fascinating. It is divided into three panels because it had
originally been on a wall of the monastery rectory with support pillars,
moved to where it is now seen when the monastery. Bearing close examination,
Luini’s version of this event is so like Leonardo DaVinci’s
more famous one in Milan that it was once attributed to him. There is
little historical connection between the two artists but it is thought
that Luini was a disciple of the master or at least greatly influenced
in his later work by him. Luini’s "Last Supper" may have
been an homage, a coded response or even a parody. Luini painted himself
as Judas Iscariot holding a bag on coins and his own favorite pet cat
at his feet.
A
close look at the figure of the Apostle John, at the right hand of
Christ
will bring
sharply to mind
Dan Brown's “The DaVinci Code” whose entire plot is based
on the idea that DaVinci had symbolically painted Mary Magdalene into
his last supper in the guise of the John the Apostle. Luini’s John
is also feminine in the extreme, so like Luini’s other female subjects,
painted with eyes nearly closed, as if in supplicant devotion, but Luini’s
John the Apostle, rather than facing away in DaVinci’s now infamous “M”,
is leaning tenderly on Jesus.
It has been
long reasoned by art historians that young boys were painted as effeminate
in Renaissance Italian religious
art, but one wonder if
some of this comes from the various feminine images of a devotional
John. Luini's apostles hold their hands in rather distinct gestures,
perhaps
his own secret code. Very little is known of Luini’s personal life,
though he managed to paint himself into three of the frescos here, either
a supreme egoist with a sense of irony or projecting a code of his own.
He died just two years later in 1532, so his Last Supper may be Bernardino
Luini’s last word on the subject. To see Leonardo DaVinci's Last
Supper in Milan take advance ticketing reservations and long lines. There
are no lines or tickets to see Luini's Supper or marvel at his passion
in Lugano. © Bargain
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SEE
ALSO:
ASCONA - SWISS RIVIERA ON LAKE MAGGIORE
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