Posted on 11/06/2011 5:02:34 PM PST by bruinbirdman
The smirking face of the Devil has been discovered hidden in a fresco by the Italian medieval artist Giotto after remaining undetected for more than 700 years in the Basilica of St Francis in Assisi.
The Satanic image went unnoticed until now because it is artfully hidden in the folds of a cloud and is invisible from ground level.
The discovery of the face, in a fresco which depicts the death of St Francis, was made by Chiara Frugoni, a medievalist and an expert on the saint.
"It's a powerful portrait, with a hooked nose, sunken eyes and two dark horns," Ms Frugoni said in an article in a forthcoming issue of the St Francis art history periodical.
"The significance of the image still needs to be delved into. In the Middle Ages it was believed that demons lived in the sky and that they could impede the ascension of human souls to Heaven.
"Until now it was thought that the first painter to use clouds in this way was Andrea Mantegna, with a painting of St Sebastian from 1460, in which high up in the sky there's a cloud from which a knight on horseback emerges. Now we know that Giotto was the first (to use this technique)."
Sergio Fusetti, the head of the restoration work in the basilica, said the devil face may have been a dig at somebody the artist had quarrelled with.
Claudio Strinati, an art historian, said it was not unusual for Renaissance artists to include hidden meanings in their works. "Paintings often had two facets an explicit one and an implicit one."
Millions of pilgrims and tourists have trooped through the basilica in Assisi, in Umbria, since the fresco was painted in the 13th century without
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
like in the 9/11 clouds, hunh?
I looked and looked at that picture and never did see the face. Oh me.
Oh yeah, now I see it.
I don’t see it either.
Look at the picture on the right. There is a white cloth and to the left of that is the cloud. It is a portrait of a face almost lying down. So that it points up to the right.
Once you see it, you will always see it.
Man it’s hard to explain.
I see the face in the photo on the right. To me, it looks like Joseph Stalin. (No sarcasm intended - that’s what it looks like to me.)
Is Sarah OK?
In profile. Center of pic.
Maybe it’s not the devil but Giotto’s profile.
The face is in the middle of the photo. It is looking up toward the upper right hand corner.
Yes. Man’s leering face in profile on the leading (right) edge of that swirling cloud-type mass.
Looks just like Zbigniew Brzezinski. Or Satan, give or take.
I agree. The image appears to look just like Stalin. Weird. Evil personified even though it was a few centuries before he was born. Cue Twilight Zone music.....
I heard that someone in the 15th century saw it but no one would listen to him.
LOL
It looks like Teddy Roosevelt to me.
Makes one wonder what else is hidden in the great works of the centuries!
“Once we removed the 650 odd years of soot and sludge, THERE IT WAS!”,
His enemies (me) think of him as Zbighead Un-fred.
(Emphasis on ‘Un’, of course.)
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