Per un’analisi della rappresentazione dell’Inferno nella chiesa di San Giorgio a Varenna (LC)

The fresco with the representation of Hell’s court in the church of San Giorgio in Varenna could probably be a fragment of a now lost Last Judgement. The fresco, which has not been studied yet, came to light thanks to the restoration campaign in 1956-1957, directed by Antonio Balbiano. The fragment remaining on the counter-facade shows a large Satan devouring a man and other demons engaged in numerous torture activities on damned souls. On closer inspection, the fresco turns out to be a variant of the most widespread and well-known iconography of the Last Judgements, but it is not an individual example: other representations widespread in Upper Lombardy and Swiss territory present similar characteristics. By comparing the representation in Varenna with those of Santa Maria dei Ghirli in Capione d'Italia (CO) and of Sant'Ambrogio in Chironico (Canton Ticino), it is possible to assume that the Varenna fresco had also a similar iconography and it was developed in two horizontal bands. Moreover, the representation is part of the group of 14th-century infernal depictions strongly influenced by the new post-Giottesque iconography. The Varenna fresco is probably the work of a local atelier, which was active in the San Giorgio building site in the middle decades of the mid 14th century and well up-to-date with local examples. Moreover, the fresco was also the result of popular medieval imagery developed from the most famous 14th-century representations in Padua, Torcello and Milan.