Achille Lauro pays homage to Giotto and. also takes a stand in the debate over the Upper Basilica frescoes!

The top character of the first night of the 2020 Sanremo festival, there is no doubt about it, is him: Achille Lauro. The song Me ne frego is one of the most talked-about and engaging, and his D’Annunzio-esque performance, which to his now well-rehearsed rock-trap adds Renato Zero-esque clothes, ambiguity a la David Bowie and poses a la Freddie Mercury, and which saw him dance with great mastery of the stage in a tight leotard that left him half-naked, is surely one of the most talked about, and longest. But the performance of the eclectic 30-year-old Roman also had an art-historical side dish.

Immediately after singing on the stage of the Ariston Theater, Achille Lauro posted on his Instagram account a photo à la Pierre et Gilles depicting him in the place of St. Francis in one of the famous frescoes in the Upper Basilica of Assisi, the one depicting the sermon to the birds: of course, Achille Lauro has substituted himself for St. Francis. And he is in the company of a wolf instead of birds. But not only that: the singer... also takes a stand in the debate over the authorship of the Upper Basilica frescoes. Thus, in fact, he writes in the comment accompanying the post, “St. Francis. The famous scene attributed to Giotto in one of the stories of St. Francis in the Upper Basilica of Assisi. The most revolutionary moment in its history in which the Saint stripped himself of his clothes and all material possessions to vote his life to religion and solidarity.”

Beyond the contents of the short paper, we would like to point out the fact that Achille Lauro wrote “attributed to Giotto” and not “painted by Giotto”: as is well known, scholars have for some time been divided over the authorship of the scenes from the saint’s life that decorate the Upper Basilica (the famous Giotto question, on which many of the most authoritative scholars ever have spoken). And if art historians such as Bruno Zanardi or Federico Zeri had taken the side of the “faction” of scholars inclined to believe that the Stories of St. Francis are not the work of Giotto, Achille Lauro evidently... shows that he is aware of the problem and prefers to side with a position of caution by using the label “attributed to.”

But how did the public take this new ... Franciscanism of Achille Lauro? They were divided, between those who appreciated the references, those who liked the performance, and those who pointed out the discrepancy between his pauperistic ambitions and the expensive heavy velvet cloak with gold embroidery, specially made for him by Gucci, so much so that the same fashion house relaunched the image of the singer’s performance on its social accounts. In any case, it can be said in a nutshell that for us Achille Lauro has already won this way.

Achille Lauro pays homage to Giotto and. also takes a stand in the debate over the Upper Basilica frescoes!

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