Gli affreschi di Giusto de’ Menabuoi nella cappella di San Ludovico in San Benedetto Vecchio a Padova

The paper provides a fresh examination of the wall paintings in the chapel of San Ludovico da Tolosa (Saint Louis of Toulouse) in the church of San Benedetto Vecchio, Padua. Hugely modified over the centuries, the chapel was partially destroyed during World War 2, when the city was bombed. The paintings, executed by Giusto de’ Menabuoi and his workshop, were lost on that occasion, with the exception of a few fragments that are still preserved, although housed in a different location. Through a reappraisal of textual and figurative evidence, the fresco cycle is here ideally reconstructed and is set against a broader interpretive framework, one that correlates the paintings to the political, cultural, and devotional milieu of late fourteenth-century Padua. Particular attention is given to Fina and Anna Buzzaccarini (respectively the consort of the signore Francesco I da Carrara, and the abbess of the church of San Benedetto), who commissioned the chapel and the wall paintings. The authors argue that the Buzzaccarini sisters intended the cycle as a means of self-expression and religious self-fashioning, and as a way to celebrate the city of Padua.