Martyred Saint John the Baptist offers his severed head to Saint John the Evangelist. Medieval fresco in cloister attached to the Chiesa di San Nicola (Church of St Nicholas) at the Abbazia di Piona (Piona Abbey), beside Lake Como at Colico, Lombardy, Italy.
Piona Abbey, Colico, Lake Como, Lombardy, Italy: this puzzling medieval fresco, painted in primitive or rustic style, probably depicts the martyred Saint John the Baptist offering his severed head to Saint John the Evangelist. The painting survives in the cloister joined in the mid-13th century to the monks’ church, the Chiesa di San Nicola (Church of St Nicholas). The painting It is part of a fresco cycle combining images of saints with a seasonal or monthly calendar featuring scenes of rural life, including peasants tending and harvesting crops. The Abbazia di Piona is a former Benedictine monastic complex, once occupied by reformist French Cluniac monks, on the tip of the Olgiasca, a rocky peninsular extending from the eastern shore of the northern arm of the Lago di Como. The church dedicated to St Nicholas replaced a ruined 7th century oratory sometime before 1138. The monastery fell into decline before its buildings and lands were seized and sold off in 1798. The church and cloister were partly restored in the early 20th century and in 1938, the monastery came back to life when the Cistercian monks of Casamari Abbey in Lazio took possession of it. The ancient complex is now open to visitors. The church, complete with its original octagonal bell tower, was included by Leonardo da Vinci in his 1490s masterpiece, The Last Supper, appearing in the typical northern Lario or Lake Como landscape seen through windows behind Jesus and the Apostles.
Size: 4172px × 2771px
Location: Cloister, Abbazia di Piona, Colico, Lake Como, Lombardy, Italy
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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