A Short History of the Middle Ages Fourth Edition

Plate 6.5: San Francesco at Assisi (upper church; completed by 1253). Influenced by French Gothic, this
church of the Franciscan Order in Assisi nevertheless asserts a different aesthetic. Compare it with Notre
Dame in Plate 6.3, where the piers and ribs mark off units of space (called “bays”). By contrast, San
Francesco presents a unified space. Notre Dame celebrated its soaring height; San Francesco balanced its
height by its generous width. Unlike French Gothic, Italian Gothic churches gloried in their walls; at San
Francesco they were decorated in the 1280s and 1290s with frescoes, the most famous of which illustrated
the life and legend of Saint Francis (for whom see below, p. 231).

Gothic art, both painting and sculpture, echoed and decorated the Gothic church.

While Romanesque sculpture played upon a flat surface, Gothic figures were

liberated from their background, turning, bending, and interacting. At Reims

Cathedral the figure of Saint Joseph on the west portal, elegant and graceful, reveals

a gentle smile. (See Plate 6.6.) Above his head is carved foliage of striking

naturalness. Portals like this were meant to be “read” for their meaning. Joseph is not

smiling for nothing; in the original arrangement of the portal he was looking at the

figure of a servant while, further to his left, his wife, Mary, presented the baby Jesus

in the temple. This was the New Testament story brought to life.