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Pentecost Season · Year B

Proper 21

The Damned, Luca Signorelli
The Damned, Luca Signorelli, 1499–1502Chapel of San Brizio, Orvieto Cathedral
At Orvieto, and the most physically inventive hell in Italian painting: the demons are painted in greens and greys like bruised flesh, and each one is carrying somebody.If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off: the reading uses the most violent language in the gospels, and Signorelli matched it.Luca SignorelliAn Umbrian painter obsessed with the nude figure in violent motion, whose Orvieto frescoes Michelangelo studied closely.Chapel of San Brizio, Orvieto CathedralA chapel in the cathedral of Orvieto, frescoed by Fra Angelico and then, fifty years later, finished by Signorelli.Chapel of San Brizio, Orvieto Cathedral

Overview & Insights

"Whoever is not against us is for us." (Mark 9:40)

Jesus tells the disciples not to stop an outsider casting out demons in his name, then warns with vivid images against causing little ones to stumble and against whatever leads oneself into sin, urging his followers to be at peace with one another.

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Take it further: Mark 9:38-50

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