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Dinesh

Dinesh club

Posted: 07 Aug 2023

Taken: 06 Aug 2023

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Figure 8

Figure 8
A bespectacled Hugh of St Cher at his writing desk in Tomasso da Moderna’s mid-fourteenth-century fresco for the Chapter House at the convent of San Nicolo
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 Dinesh
Dinesh club
In the convent of San Nicolo at Treviso in Italy, a few miles north of Venice, a fresco running around the upper walls of the chapter house takes the form of series of portraits. Each features a man wearing the white robe and black cappa of the Dominican Order – the Black Friars – and each man is shown seated at a desk, in the act of either reading or writing. These are the leading lights of the Dominicans. Taken as a whole, the fresco is a kind of hall of fame for the order's first century or so. It stresses the Dominicans commitment to Bible study and to scholarship, and no portrait conveys this more the image of Hugh of St Cher. here he sits, with inkpot and quill, three heavy volumes at his fet and another open for reference at eye level. The tassels of his galero, the red hat tht indicated Hug’s status as a cardinal, dangle, twin irritants between his body and the page. His brow is furrowed, his expression severe. He is writing, but with a curious form of attention. The left hand, index finger extended, marks a place on the page, holds a thought, while the wrist rests on a second sheet of parchment with further notes on it. This is a writing act that is not fluent, abundant, the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotion; rather, it is patient, analytical, the writr synthesizing ideas from multiple sources. . . . .

In fact this final detail is mistake, an anachronism. Hugh died a couple of decades too early to have benefitted from this invention: two magnifying glasses bound together by a rivet in their handles. But it tells us what Tomasso wants us to know about Hugh: that reading and writing are essential to how we should think of him. . . . . Page 53/54

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