On Monday 27 April, starting at 8.45 pm, the FAI branch in Pisa will host “The Triumph of St Thomas in Santa Caterina: A Restored 14th-Century Masterpiece”, a free event to discuss the large panel painting housed in the beautiful church of Santa Caterina, which has recently been restored.
The Triumph of St Thomas Aquinas is now dated to 1323 and attributed to Lippo Memmi, following a long and erroneous attribution influenced by Giorgio Vasari. The recent restoration has restored its legibility and splendour and has provided an opportunity for historical, artistic and theological study of the saint’s thought.
For centuries, the work had been attributed to the Pisan painter Francesco Traini, following Giorgio Vasari’s extensive discussion of the work. In the 1930s, a new attribution was proposed and established, placing it within the circle of Simone Martini, specifically to his brother-in-law Lippo Memmi. The large panel aims to celebrate the saint destined to become a Doctor of the Church, and the date has been placed immediately after his canonisation.
The composition follows a visual and theological hierarchy, marked by distinctions between centre and periphery, high and low, right and left, reinforced by geometric elements. At the centre of the panel stands Saint Thomas with five open books, from which beams of light radiate out towards the surrounding figures. Above, and aligned with the saint, Christ raises a blessing hand to accompany the words that emerge like rays from his mouth.
Between Christ and Saint Thomas, Saint Paul, Moses and the Evangelists are depicted as mediators of the Divine Word. On either side of Saint Thomas are Aristotle and Plato, the great philosophers of antiquity. Human wisdom and revealed wisdom meet and merge in his figure.
The rays emanating from St Thomas’s writings have a dual effect: they inspire philosophical and theological debate within the community of religious and lay Christians depicted below; and they refute the errors of Averroes, who lies on the ground at the centre of the lower register, dressed in Arab garb, his gaze turned away and a book upside down at his feet.
The event offers an opportunity to view the work up close following its recent restoration and to understand its meaning, history and complex iconography, thanks to the contributions of art historians and conservators. A gathering to rediscover one of the great masterpieces of the Middle Ages and its message, which remains relevant today.
Speakers will include: Dr Francesca Barsotti, Head of the Diocesan Office for Ecclesiastical Cultural Heritage in Pisa; Prof. Marco Collareta, former Professor of Medieval Art History (University of Pisa); and Dr Elena Salotti, Conservation Restorer, Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the provinces of Pisa and Livorno.
The event is free to attend and open to everyone, including non-FAI members, for a maximum of 50 participants, subject to booking via the link https://faiprenotazioni.fondoambiente.it/evento/il-trionfo-di-san-tommaso-in-s-caterina-pisa-un-capolavoro-trecentesco-restaurato-51172.
