The Art Bulletin, March 1st, 2004
In the south transept of the lower church of S. Francesco, Assisi, in the early fourteenth century, Pietro Lorenzetti painted a powerful vision of death. (1) Alone, beneath an arch, a man hangs by the neck from a wooden beam. His straggling hair sticks to his face, the tendons bulge in his dislocated neck, and a tear in his long tunic reveals a horrible mutilation: his intestines are spilling out through his burst belly. The name [I]SCARIOT is inscribed beside the corpse. This is the Death of Judas (Fig. 1).
Its setting is the Passion cycle, and the grisly subject matter perfectly suits the...
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