di John T. SPIKE
A Pauline Source for the Mocking of Christ by Fra Angelico in Cell 7 of the Convent of San Marco
for Konrad Oberhuber (1935-2007)
“Konrad Oberhuber was one of the outstanding art historians of his time, and his eye and connoisseurship in the field of Renaissance and Baroque art were unrivalled.”[1]
Today he is also remembered as an enthusiastic teacher who taught his students to look beyond the surface appearances of Renaissance paintings. ‘Konrad’, as he was known by everyone, was well aware that style – one of the key elements of connoisseurship – comprises both the artist’s choice of subjects and the depth of their expression. Simply put, whenever a great artist departs from time-hallowed iconography, it is sure evidence of an intent to find original solutions.
Professor Oberhuber’s advice was very much on my mind some twenty-five years ago as I undertook to determine why Fra Angelico’s frescoes at San Marco, Florence, were exceptional in so many ways.[2]
The frescoes in cells 1 through 9 on the upper floor have always been admired as the most fully realized and spiritual of Fra Angelico’s forty frescoes in the convent. In the Gospel accounts of the Mocking, we recall, Jesus was first scourged and stripped by the soldiers and then rudely covered with one of their purple mantles and mocked. In Cell 7, The Mocking of Christ, the violence and humiliation that Christ suffered are symbolized by fragmentary glimpses of his jailers strangely suspended in the air. Christ is dressed in angelic white, wearing the same flowing robe in which He appears in the Noli me tangere, a Resurrection subject, in Cell 1 at San Marco.
In an undefined space in an atmosphere of unearthly stillness, Christ is shown seated upright, with a regal bearing, on a blood-red block on a dais that is backed with a green banner of honor as though it were a throne. The insults of his captors do not distress him: they are the necessary fulfillment of the prophesies of redemption (eg Isaiah 50:6). His expression is untroubled as he holds the reed given to Him in mockery as though it were indeed a scepter of command. The orb in his left hand is a detail not found in the Gospel, an ancient Christian symbol of Christ’s dominion over all the world.
When I wrote my book Fra Angelico in 1996 [ Francois 1996; Italiano and Deutsche 1997 ] and authored my essay for the Oberhuber Festschrift in 2000, this fresco was dusty and difficult to exam in the convent – which presumably explains why this round orb is often misidentified as a “rock” – which would be illogical for Painter-Preast Angelico: fall, Jesus was not stoned to death; and secondly, Close inspection in person reveals that it is not a crude rock – Jesus was not stoned — but a translucent sphere of golden light symbolizing His divinity, and, indeed, the devotion of the Salvator Mundi. after its recent cleaning
The presence of the Virgin Mary and St Dominic in the foreground, and numerous other departures from the Gospel accounts[1], identify the painting as a meditation on its theme as opposed to an illustration of the Passion narrative. Mary averts her face although she is not so anguished as in a Mater Dolorosa. She accepts that the Passion is the necessary fulfillment of the prophecies of redemption. St. Dominic attentively reads the scriptures. In Isaiah 53:5 Dominic could read a foretelling of the Passion in the prophesy of the “suffering servant”, “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities… and with his stripes we are healed.”
The Mocking of Christ by Angelico presents us with two interwoven enigmae that call out for interpretation. First of all, we would like to know why the Pictor angelicus introduced variations into the pictorial tradition of this Gospel subject. It is impossible to say, as many writers have, that the scene is set in a specific time or place such as the courtyard of Pilate’s palace. And to determine that the image is a meditation without offering any suggestion as to the content of the meditation is not to enter into it very deeply.
The second and closely related question that provokes us is the meaning of Christ’s spiritual and even physical disassociation from his mockers. Christian dogma maintains that Christ suffered extreme pain in his Passion and death[2], and this suffering is an essential aspect of the pictorial iconography.
Some months after I had delivered the final draft of my book, Fra Angelico (English 1996, Italiano 1997), I was reading by chance Thomas Aquinas’ discussion of a passage in Saint Paul’s “Letter to the Philippians”, I suddenly realized that these sources provide the key to unlocking the meaning of Fra Angelico’s Mocking of Christ in Cell 7 in San Marco – or so I shall argue here. The Dominican Doctor angelicus, St. Thomas Aquinas, observed, however, in his Commentary on the Sentences, that Christ’s divine soul remained unperturbed even while his body suffered the excruciating pain of the Passion.[3] Aquinas cited a well-known passage in St Paul’s Letter to the Philippians (2:9-11) as his source for the impassibilitas of Christ’s soul. And this reference led me to the text that I believe lies behind the innovative iconography of Fra Angelico’s Mocking of Christ in Cell 7.
All authorities agree that the poetic verses of Philippians 2:6-11 constitute an early Christian hymn that the apostle Paul inserted in a letter to the congregation he had founded at Philippi in Macedonia.[4] As Andrè-Marie Gerard points out, this Christological hymn encapsulates the liturgical offices of Easter Week.[5]
Who though he was in the form of God / Did not count it robbery / To be equal with God / But emptied himself, / Taking the form of a servant, / Coming into existence in the likeness of men; / And being found in human form / He humbled himself / And became obedient to the point of death, / even death on a cross.
Therefore God has highly exalted him / And bestowed on him the name / Which is above every name, / That at Jesus’ name / Every knee should bow – / In heaven and on earth and under the earth – / And every tongue confess / “Jesus Christ is Lord”
To the glory of God the Father.
In these few verses the hymn tells us that Christ who was with God in Heaven did not disdain to take on the human form of a suffering servant.[6] Dying, he was raised and enthroned in glory again. The hymn thus encompasses the triad of mysteries -– the Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection of Christ — whose succession and unity are the underlying program of the frescoes in the friars’ cells in the East and South dormitories at San Marco.[7]
For our purposes, Paul’s reference to the servant that suffers provides the grounds for connecting these verses with the Fra Angelico’s painting of the Mocking of Christ. This reference is universally recognized as a Christian borrowing of Isaiah’s prophesies of the servant Redeemer,[8] whose sufferings presaged Christ’s wounding and Mocking (53:5).
We noted above that Fra Angelico had painted Christ in white angelic raiment, serene, and enthroned as Christ the King. The fresco in Cell 7 is unique among representations of the Mocking because Christ is shown in his divine majesty even as he is assailed by his tormentors. In his Letter to the Philippians, Paul relates that Christ shared the form of God before his Incarnation and was afterwards restored on high so that every knee should bow before him. As Christ’s divine nature is eternal, immutable, and incorruptible, Fra Angelico’s portrayal of him enthroned can properly be read as representing each of these two timeless moments of celestial glory.
Fra Giovanni of Fiesole, called the Pictor angelicus, gave form in a single image to the succession of mysteries expressed in the poetry of Philippians 2:6-11. When Eugenius IV visited the newly decorated San Marco on Epiphany, January 6, 1443, he decided to stay the night rather than return immediately to his apartments at Santa Maria Novella. The pope had doubtless found much material for meditation.
John T. SPIKE New York 26 July 2026
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