The Well of Saint Clare by Anatole France
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Art of Artistic Irony

The irony of Anatole France when he writes about Christianity is always tempered by a respect for its cultural importance. He sends it up but by putting it in a larger context of European myth and legend. France’s target is not Christian culture but the Christian clericalism that uses that culture to promote itself. Christian belief, for him, is in a continuous line of artistic development from ancient Greece to the late nineteenth century. This makes it an object of critical admiration rather than derision.

The Well of St. Clare is a jewel of ironic praise for Christianity. The narrator’s narrator, the Reverend Father Adone Doni, is an eccentric Franciscan friar who puts his faith in the Spirit but not in the hierarchy of the Church. He tells stories of the medieval Church while sitting in the evening by the abandoned well associated with the Franciscan St. Clare. His stories are not of Christian superiority but of Christian continuity with that which existed before anyone had ever heard of “the Galilean.”

The initial tale of the Tomb of San Satori sets the scene. The occupant of that place of veneration is not a Christian martyr, or doer of good works. He is an ancient satyr, the last of his kind, who existed on not unfriendly terms with the original Christian immigrants to the region of Sienna who had driven away the native nymphs associated originary creatures. Like so much else, the satyr was gradually assimilated into the Christian cult. For him the transition from the Age of Jupiter, to the Age of Saturn, to the Age of the Galilean is simply history, not a movement toward some better or even different world. So despite his questionable genetic and moral status, he has morphed into a Christian sage.

Ghosts are commonplace in the stories of Father Adone. They are the carriers of culture as they appear in dreams and apparitions. So the ghost of a young Roman girl, Julia Læta, appears in the Florentine Guido Cavalcanti’s story. Julia is buried in a tomb which pre-dates the establishment of the church of which her graveyard forms a part. She is effectively a member of the Community of Saints which includes those dead long before the advent of Christianity. Guido’s ambition after dreaming about her is to join her pre-Christian band.

The story of Spinello of Arrezo is an account of why culture is the matrix of religion, not the other way round. As an artist, it is Spinello who interprets religious doctrine to the masses in a way that was far more powerful than any preacher or academic theologian. Once again it is through a dream that Spinello is informed about the truth of Lucifer, the fallen angel and traditional source of all evil. The Angel of Darkness has been unfairly maligned through bad portraiture, he discovers. An injustice has been done to the one who has been tagged as the source of injustice. The truth kills the poor man.

On the surface, the story of Nicholas Nerli is somewhat different. Nicholas, a devious and corrupt businessman, maintains his good name by patronage and benefactions. But his spiritual salvation, made apparent in a dream of his death, is assured by the relatively inexpensive distribution of bread to the poor. The apparent moral: If you’re going to be a crook, at least be an efficient one. The message applies implicitly as well to one’s discretionary spending: Ensure that it goes to what is culturally significant and applied with good taste. Mere money is inadequate for the cause.

Many other stories are built around the art or artistic techniques of ancient Greece and their use in Italian churches - tesseræ of molten glass, impastos, and mosaics for example. It is the artists, sculptors, writers, and men (and some women) of taste who are the ones who make religion palatable, understandable, and respectable. They work for the Church because the Church has the money, either from its own coffers or those of its benefactors. But the artistic inspiration and traditions are classical in origin, and consequently pagan. Artistry, therefore, slowly but persistently alters the substance of Christianity.

From the tone of the Reverend Father Adone, such an evolution of Christianity is not a bad thing. His approving view of the medieval church is that it was healthily cosmopolitain, inevitably so given the taste and intellect of those who ran it. Ultimately it is art - with its intellect, historical sensitivity, and creative skill - which leads the Church in a sort of continuous renovation. The fact that the Church sees things the other way round is an innocent conceit which is easily tolerated.

Irony, of course, is most delicious when served without heavy sauces or seasonings. France is a master of the light ironic touch, its chef de cuisine one might say.

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