A few words about the
reliefs in the facade of the
Palazzo del Podestà
in Narni (Umbria - Italy)
Narni is a really suggesting town among those with important ancient widnesses in Umbria (central Italy); it actually owns some beautiful romanesque churches while its streets and buildings have still a quite intact medieval aspect.
Anyway, the subject of this brief comment is the little group of sculptures we find over the main door of the Palazzo del Podestà (XIIIth - XVIth cent.), the city-hall of the Commune of Narni.
A short look at the facade allows us to notice that the opening of the this door had originally larger dimensions than those of the renaissaince portal we see today,probably belonging to the late XVth cent. Some quadrate holes in the wall make us understand it had to have a sort of shed too.
A little lodge - over the destroyed shed- supports a sort of lunette - whose dimensions are certainly connected with the previous situation of the entrance - made with some medieval carvings, while in the centre there is a sort of rectangular empty space to demonstrate the existence of a lost important sculpture that had to be the reference for the meaning of all the other sculptures of the same lunette.
So, trying to "rebuild" the inclusive meaning of this iconography, we can start pointing out that on the left, just below one of the two the lion-heads on the two sides of the arch, the presence of a relief with the biblical episode of Judith keeping Olofern's head in the hand; Judith's servant is on the other side of the carving while the body of the beheaded man is under a sort of veil that reminds of the medieval idea of the skydome: It's possible that the original meaning of this sculpture was related with the lost soul of the sinner after his death1).
Below this relief , there is another one with a lion fighting against a dragon, while in the center, under the empty space, there is the sculpted picture of two men riding horses, dressed with classical clothes, greeting each other with the rose hands. On the right we see two knights fighting.
It is possible that almost three of these carvings were originally church-furnishings and can be dated to the XIIth-XIIIth cent., while the central one (two men riding horses) shows some difference as regard as the others(2).
But what was the reason because they were put together to make the complex of sculptures we see now in the lunette?
The personal hypothesis of the author of this page is that they were a sort of explanation of the meaning of what had to be the main charachter of the group; we mean the lost central sculpture that -we think- could represented a personification of the justice or, better, a personification of the jurisdictional power exercited by the Magistratures of the Narni's Free Commune whose temporary highest dignity kept just the title of Podestà.
It goes without saying that ancient pictures of the personified Justice can be easily found in many italian city - halls; the painting in Siena's Palazzo Pubblico is just the most famous sample of them.
Back to Narni, maybe the quoted disappeared sculpture had to have a strong political meaning too and this was one of the reasons because it was destroyed.
So, if this hypothesis is true, let's have a look at what the remaining reliefs can tell us.
We can go on saying that the typical symbolism of the two lion heads is to point out the high respect deserved by the job of the magistrates; the precise reference had to be just the lost sculpture in the centre of the lunette.
So, just on the left (negative part) we find the picture of the decapitation that, in that context, loses its original religious meaning while, in our opinion, it should be seen as a sort of threaten for those who don't respect the law and will be persecuted by the Justice.
In the lowest level we actually see a symbolic sequence that can be considered a quite clear explanation about the job of the Justice in the Comune of Narni.
Still on the left (always negative part) we see the lion fighting against the dragon; this is a frequent representation of the fight of Good (lion) against the Evil (dragon) (3) that is the basic aim of Justice.
Maybe in this case we can consider it as the fight against internal danger (4).
In the centre, just below the empty space, you notice the two men (gentlemen) greeting each other; it is a clear expression of the Peace, that is the result of the victory of the Justice.
On the right there is the synthetical image of a battle: in fact the external relationships had to follow the same rules expressed by the Justice and the war against other states can be declared only following those rules.
Carlo Valdameri
Translation by the author
(1)The head is usually considered a symbol of the soul and, in this case, the body that is still under the "dome" of the sky (veil) seems to underline this meaning. This sculpted panel certainly was part of the fournishing of a church.
(2)The same subject of the sculpture, for istance, is one of the differences.
(3)The lion is a very ancient symbol of Justice and in this case we can point out that, in the Christian tradition, the lion can be identified with Christ -Judge, winner of the dragon of the Apocalypse.
(4)Probably the so-called "fazioni" (sort of political parties) that made the political life in medieval towns very turbulent.
A proposito dell'iconografia del Palazzo del Podestà a Narni- Italian translation
Iconografia medievale - Medieval iconography