In this section of Masolino and Masaccio’s fresco cycle, the two successive episodes of St Peter healing Aeneas and raising Tabitha are shown in a continuous narrative, within a single, unified space. This spatial unity is established by the convergence of all its architectural lines at a single vanishing point. The frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel were among the very first uses of single-point perspective, at that time a brand-new technique being developed in Florence.

Along with spatial unity, these scenes and their neighbouring frescoes also evoke the unity of the church, of which Peter was a symbol, as first among the apostles and, by tradition, first bishop of Rome.

Commenting on the text that introduces the stories of Aeneas and Tabitha (‘Peter passed through all quarters’; Acts 9:32), John Chrysostom figures this unity in military terms: ‘Like the commander of an army, he went about, inspecting the ranks, what part was compact, what in good order, what needed his presence’ (‘Homily 21, Acts 9.26,27’). Indeed, the two renderings of Peter here show him as the personification of decisive, active, forceful leadership, standing tall and strong. Continuous narrative had been used throughout the ancient world to tell the triumphant deeds of great generals (as in Trajan’s Column in Rome, completed a few decades after Peter’s death). Here, the continuous narrative shows the archetypal Christian ‘general’ tending the poor and the sick, and meeting his death on a cross. In this particular episode, the paralyzed man, Aeneas, happens to share his name with the legendary progenitor of the Romans, but his healing points to a new and different kind of universal empire.

The church’s unity is expressed through acts of mercy, which are occasioned by suffering, as Christians share each other’s burdens through care and prayer. Chrysostom observes, ‘Affliction … rivets our souls together’ (‘Homily 21, Acts 9.26,27’).

But affliction is not the end of the story. Citing as support the dry bones who hear the voice of the Lord (Ezekiel 37:4) and Jesus’s prophecy that the dead will hear the voice of the Lord (John 5:25), Calvin states, ‘[t]he voice of Christ…uttered by the mouth of Peter … gave [back] breath to the body of Tabitha’ (Acts 9.40).

It is in Spirit-filled response to this voice that the Church’s unity consists, and that it receives the power to do works mightier than Trajan.

References

Beveridge, Henry (ed.), Christopher Fetherstone (trans.). 1844 [1585]. John Calvin: Commentary upon the Acts of the Apostles, vol. 1, (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society)

Eckstein, Nicholas A. 2005. ‘The Widows’ Might: Women’s Identity and Devotion in the Brancacci Chapel’, Oxford Art Journal 28.1: 99–118

Howard, Peter. 2007. ‘“The Womb of Memory”: Carmelite Liturgy and the Frescoes of the Brancacci Chapel’, in The Brancacci Chapel: Form, Function and Setting, ed. By Nicholas Eckstein (Florence: Leo Olschki Editore), pp. 177–206

Walker, J. et al (trans.). 1889. Saint Chrysostom: Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistle to the Romans, trans., rev. by George B. Stevens, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 11. ed. by Philip Schaff. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans)