Mirko Santanicchia, Il Capitolo e l'Ordine dei canonici del Santo Seoolcro in Italia dopo la caduta di Acri: la committenza artistica

ABSTRACT: This paper examines the figurative production connected with the Order of Canons of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, one of the more prestigious institutions of Christianity between 13th and 14th century, with priories also in every part of Europe. It is focused on the face after the fall of Acri (1291), when the order since 1293-1294 established its Motherhouse in Italy choosing Perugia and the site of S. Luca, despite having significant sites in Puglia. This first period, and the fase along 14th and the middle of 15th century, are studied through new documents and hypothesis, and above all unpublished or little known frescoes: in the church of S. Manno (the oldest, dated back to the beginning of 14th century), S. Croce, and S. Luca of Perugia, all sites of the order. In S. Croce a little cycle of frescoes is presented as having been commissioned by the Archprior Bartolomeo di Ciutio degli Oddi (member of a noble family of Perugia). He renovated the site of S. Croce (event celebrated in an epigraph dated 1363), and commissioned these frescoes, for the space around the gate of the church, as also confirmed by the picture of San Bartolomeo in a preeminent position. Here the cycle is attributed to Allegretto Nuzi, a painter from Fabriano, who completed his education in Siena and Florence in the 1340s. He had other relevant commissions in Perugia and can be considered one of the protagonists of art in the third quarter of the 14th century in Central Italy. An other painting of the middle of 15th century offers a very rare opportunity to see a portrait of the Prior of S. Croce, in the black habit of the Canons of the Holy Sepulcher, a few decades before the suppression of the Order.