The Last
Sermon: Antichrist Preaching in Late Medieval and Renaissance Representations
Roberto
Rusconi
Università
Roma Tre
Around the middle of the fourteenth century, some manuscripts containing religious
works with didactic purposes made their appearance in Southern
Germany. Their main feature consisted in the tight relationship between text and illustration, and the use of the
vernacular. In Bavaria a Life of the Antichrist had a
very favorable reception
among its potential readers. In a few decades
this illustrated text was reproduced through all stages of
the introduction of printing.
The unknown author, probably a clergyman, delineated a true "antichristology” - or a “Gegenheiligengeschichte”, outlining essentially a
kind of anti-hagiographical
legend. The theme of the preaching runs along the structure and the articulation of this
legend of a false Messiah.
His mission is to convert the people through the preaching of his false doctrine. According to a common iconography of
the late Middle Ages, he was represented as a sort of official preacher, who spoke from
a pulpit erected outdoors in front of different audiences.
In the last decades of the
fifteenth century some editions appeared in France with a very different
inspiration. They were copied in Italy in the same period and also in England
before the Reformation. In the iconographic tradition of
these texts the Antichrist is referred as a royal figure. It
is interesting to note that, at least
in one case, its role as one who leads his
followers to deviate from the true faith is
reconnected to an instruction
given by a pulpit. He was
represented like a preacher
who "reverses" the true faith, wearing
a crown and ermine, giving money
to his audience, while the statues
of St. Peter and of
St. Paul lie shattered on the ground.
Between 1494 and
1504 the Florentine Luca Signorelli painted the walls
of the Cappella Nova dedicated to St. Brizio in the cathedral of Orvieto, on the border between Umbria and Tuscany. The eschatological
program executed by the painter appeared unique for its
breadth in representing the
latest events in the history,
between the end of
the world and the last judgment. On
the wall Signorelli painted the Deeds of
the Antichrist: a subject that
until then had been entrusted
only to the miniatures in the
manuscripts and, more recently,
to the engravings in printed books. The
image of the Antichrist who
preaches, for his ostentatious
Christic iconography, referred to the large iconographic parallels between the deeds of the Christ and of the deeds
of Antichrist.
Lucas Cranach
illustrated with its engravings the Passional
Christi und Antichristi by Martin Luther, printed in German and Latin.
Following the heritage of the religious reformation in Bohemia inspired to Jan
Hus, the role of the Antichrist and of his preaching were deeply changed, with
its anti-papal orientation.
