IOACHIM OF FLORES, MENDICANT ORDERS AND THE EARLY ITALIAN ALTARPIECE

Abstract

The paper aims at clarifying the meanings of early Italian painted polyptychs. The rationale behind the genesis of this particular type of altarpiece, which spread rapidly in the 1260s–1320s and became very popular in the churches of the Dominicans and Franciscans, has received only partial explanation in existing scholarship. A new perspective in its study can be advanced through consideration of the mission of early polyptychs in the context of eschatological expectations of the era, which were largely defined by the prophecies of Joachim of Flores. These expectations shaped the mendicant orders’ narratives of their own missions, which found explicit expression in their art only much later. By confronting the early polyptych with the later orders’ pieces reflecting their identity, the author argues that early mendicant altarpieces served primarily as visual representations of each order’s mission, which largely determined their popularity.