Šv. Kazimiero karsto atidengimas

Sigita Maslauskaitė
Fresco "The Opening of St Casimir's Coffin" by Michelangelo Palloni
in Vilnius Cathedral
Miracle and the story of Salvation were inseparable for the seventeenthcentury
viewer. At the same time, miracles invited to converse and acknowledge
the Kingdom and the Person coming to build this Kingdom.
The article responds to Felix Thtirlemann's invitation to postulate in pictures
"the third non-depicted level of meaning." Thus, it suggests reading of
the miracle experienced at the opening of St Casimir's coffin as manifestation
that there are no matters impossible to God as well as prefigurement of bodily
resurrection. Based on Michelangelo Palloni's fresco entitled the "Opening of
St Casimir's Coffin" (1692) the article presents and discusses the following
relations between the image and the narrative: (1) the discussion of the "true"
story and the composition of the mural painting; (2) the semantic analysis of
three hierarchical levels of the narrative. The latter aims at guiding the perceiver
from the opening of the coffin, the first level of signification, through the
miracle of tine preservation of the body, to the third, spiritual, level of meaning
expressed in the mystery of bodily resurrection and the Eternal Life. And (3)
the fundamental category of the seventeenth-century aesthetics and rhetoric,
the aspiration to "arouse passions in order to render the depicted contents to
the perceiver in the most effective form" and "amazement as a passion of
seeing," which can be understood as an integrated reflection of saying and of
the act of speaking.
At the end of the article, discussion focuses on Decartian sequence of
passions: curiosity, wonder, attentive observation, and theological meaning
of a miracle. The encyclopaedic dictionary of theology (Diziotmrio teologico
enciclopedico, Casale Monferrato, 1993; s.v. "Miracolo") gives nearly "Decartian"
range of passions: "The Old Testament defines miracle at least by three
terms: tčraton meaning the event through which one may recognise the acts of
Yahweh; thaumasion meaning more a provocation for amazement; and paradaxon
stressing the extent of unexpectedness in an event."
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