Sala del Consiglio,Palazzo Comunale
This room contains two works that were removed from the Observant Francsicans' Convento di San Girolamo after the suppression of 1860.
[It also contains the Egyptian sarcophagus (5th or 4th century BC) that once housed Ramose, son of Amenhotep, priest of Horus, which probably came from the necropolis of Edfu. It now contains the mummy (1st century BC) of a young woman. The historian Edoardo Martinori brought it from Egypt to Narni in 1920, and his son subsequently gave it to the Commune.]
Stigmatisation of St Francis (1500)
This detached fresco on the back wall, which is dated in the inscription, is by a follower of lo Spagna.
Coronation of the Virgin (1486)
This important altarpiece by Domenico Ghirlandaio is now on the wall behind the dias. Cardinal Berardo Eroli probably commissioned itfor the high altar of San Girolamo.
22 saints in the lower register meditate on a Heavenly scene in which Christ
crowns the Virgin, surrounded by angels,
patriarchs and prophets. The saints include:
St Francis, who kneels in prayer (at the centre);
St Jerome (the titular of the church), who wears a red cardinal's cope and looks out at the viewer (centre right).
St Bonaventure, who had been canonised in 1482 (centre left). Like St Louis of Toulouse to his left, he wears a sumptious cope (indicating ecclesiastical office) over his Franciscan habit.
The figure behind St Bonaventure, who wears a black hood and has a head wound, is almost certainly St Berado (the name saint of Cardinal Eroli), one of the five Franciscan protomartyrs who had been canonised in 1481. The other four protomartyrs, who also sport head wounds, are included in the composition (two on the extreme right and two at the back on the left).
The predella depicts:
the stigmatisation of St Francis;
the Pietà ; and
St Jerome in the dessert.
Read more:
C. Fratini et al., "Comunicare la Luce: L' Incoronazione della Vergine del Ghirlandai a Narni", Perugia (2004)
For a detailed view of the individual figures, go to www.provincia.terni.it.