Saint Peter

This stern and commanding figure is Saint Peter, the first pope and one of the founders of the Catholic Church. He comes from a polyptych which Crivelli painted for the high altar of the church of San Domenico, in Ascoli Piceno in the Italian Marche. His hooded eyes gaze intently out at us, while his greying beard, tanned face and deeply lined features, painted with Crivelli’s customary exactness, suggest a life of toil in the open air: Peter was a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee before being called by Christ to join him.His weather-beaten features form a striking contrast to the astonishing richness of his costume. He is dressed in the full papal regalia, down to his white jewelled gloves and the red shoes with their gold cross. In a detail typical of Crivelli, his right shoe pokes out over the edge of the marble parapet – as if asking us to kiss his foot, as those admitted to audience with a pope would have done – and casts a shadow on the marble below it. His cope is pink cloth of gold, interlined with green damask, echoing the robe worn by the Virgin herself. It hangs in shimmering folds and is edged with an orphrey (ornamental stripe) embroidered with figures of the apostles. This kind of embroidery, known as opus anglicanum or English work, was one of the most luxurious textiles, and a particular speciality of English craftsmen.Crivelli used many different materials and techniques to give his paintings their remarkable three-dimensionality and lustre. Some motifs are modelled in gilded pastiglia to make them stand out from the flat surface of the painted panel: the papal tiara, the great gold clasp on his cloak, his rings and the dramatically foreshortened Crucifix at the head of his staff. The twisted cord along the edge of the orphrey is real cord, gilded and stuck to the panel. The papal tiara, parts of which were originally silver but have now tarnished, is encrusted cut-and-polished glass. These are modern replacements, possibly for original cabochon jewels – those that had been polished but not cut – such as Crivelli used elsewhere.The heavy keys, which were Peter’s main attribute, hang from his hand by a gilded cord. They were carved out of wood and then nailed to the panel and gilded. These are the keys to the kingdom of heaven, which Christ gave Peter as a symbol of his spiritual power. In the same hand he grasps a fantastically bound book, representing the Gospels. Crivelli, showing off his skill at depicting objects at extreme angles, has rotated it so we see the gilded edges (compare, for example, the rather flatter books held by the saints in Masolino’s A Pope (Saint Gregory?) and Saint Matthias. The other hand holds the ferula or papal staff, the symbol of the pope’s worldly power.The force of the saint’s personality, as expressed here by Crivelli, together with the emphasis on the trapping of papacy, serve to underline the absolute authority, both worldly and spiritual, of the popes. This doctrine, called papal supremacy, was a continuous concern to the Church throughout the fifteenth century, when it was questioned by heretical movements, dissident clerics and dissatisfied princes both in Italy and further afield. These were not abstract questions but had led to turmoil and civil unrest in the Marche, and much official art was concerned with asserting the popes' status as Peter’s rightful successors. As organisers of the Inquisition, the Dominican Order – whose church this altarpiece was made for – were particularly concerned with rooting out heresy and preaching the sole power of the Church with the pope as its head.