Zenobius the Magnanimous
The miraculous resuscitation of a child by a descendant of the ancient Girolamo family, who was subsequently made a saint, is memorialized in 14th and 15th Century Florentine art. It is not one of the more popular subjects of Renaissance art. A reproduction of Zanobi della Famiglia Girolamo risuscita il bambino dalla morte, on the cover of a paperback edition of Alberti, drew my attention. My own art involves men laying supine and (apparently) dead.
It is a difficult theme. Mention of “martyrdom art” brings examples to the mind of every art aficionado. Casual observers of art look without enjoyment. Among connoisseurs, no matter how expertly painted the painting may be, it never attains the high bar of acclaim enjoyed by (to give a robust example) images of the Madonna. Death is a painful subject -the more so when it is a dead child. Canonically speaking, miracle themes such as Saint Zenobius occupy a lower tier in the Divine Comedy of art than serene scenes of Platonic contemplation.
This fanciful classification system of mine, in which an adjective such as disturbing is not necessarily an objection, is intended to place the importance of the subject. That the Miracle of St. Zenobius is a local legend, almost exclusively limited to the City of Florence, does not make it Provençal or parochial. One scholar* pegs it as propaganda for political hegemony. The weakness of the thesis is that it challenges the civic exploitation of the superstition, not the grantor of sainthood, the Roman Catholic Church -without which nessun miracolo.
The Girolamo Family was a long and steadfast supporter of the Pope. The Pope's favor in cambio can be assumed. Within the canonical law, therefore, the canon-ization of Zenobius is legitimate. He's a Saint. Enough said. If the party of the Girolami enjoys bragging rights thereby they deserve it. Besides, it was not the only contribution of the Girolami to the civic life of Florence. They did much for Florence, contributing both to its cultural identity, as well as physical monuments, and works of civic pride. The works of art alone commemorating the miracle are but one small example.
Leaving religion out of the question gives focus to the matter of art history. What struck another art historian as incongruous was the variety of representations of the victim in different paintings of it. In one such instance the child looks not like a minor, but like an adult, physically. In another, it is unarguably a child, tending more towards the infantile than even the adolescent. This argument concerns the designer-draftsman's charge to express the miraculous convincingly -and with fidelity. I would challenge any art historian to argue which version is most true.
If there is an argument it is over the Florentine love of visual art when verbal narration of the story would do. The spoken narrative reminds me—as I am willing to presume it did contemporaries—of the Biblical tale of Elisha and the dead child. The victim is a child and, given the mother's urgent plea, the appearance of Zenobius and Elisha at just the right moment, and the most importent aspect: how was the miracle performed?
The telling of the Miracle of Zenobius omits one important detail present in the tale of Elisha. It is one that is telling in its omission. Elisha prayed, then he “put his mouth upon the (child's) mouth,” etc., a detail most plausibly explained as the procedure used in Cardio-Pulmonary Rescue (CPR). My theory is that Zenobius revived the dead child by the very same life-saving technique known today as CPR -as did Elisha before him. I would go so far as to assert that CPR, or the same thing under a different name, has been known since before the dawn of recorded history.
What is not explicit is by what agency Zenobius performed the miracle. You might say the Church sanctified the life-saving good deed before which everyone stood in awe post facto, and without taking credit for it. It may be imagined what simple folk (who tend to be superstitious) would make of it, otherwise. To any casual observer—one with no prior knowledge of the procedure—it might appear intrusive, even as staying the hand of fate. Imagine the man's hubris raising the dead!
In fact CPR is the opposite of invasive, or, at least, minimally invasive. All that remains to argue is the propriety of lifesaving. That the victim was a child rules-out doubts about that. If resuscitation by any name has been known since before recorded history, it has only been endorsed in modern times by medical professionals. A license to practice medicine is not needed to give CPR. Granted, there are civil liabilities involved, i.e., the Good Samaritan laws. This might have been the cause for the omission of the specific detail of the mouth-to-mouth procedure in all paintings of the "Miracle of Zenobius."
It had to be kept a secret how Zenobius performed the miracle. If the procedure as it was known in Renaissance times was considered too controversial to be made common knowledge, neither could it have informed the works of art commissioned for its commemoration! As a closely-guarded secret, it was a problem for artists to depict, resulting in diverse treatments of the theme. The "miracle" was a mystery.
*Chao, Ko-ching Ph. D. “The Girolami’s Plaque of Saint Zenobius, c.1415 -1420: Approaching a Personal Political Advertisement in Quattrocento Florence” published for Degree in History of Art from the University of York, U.K., 2020.