05 Works, Today, April 26th, is Saint Alda Gambara's day, With Footnotes - #116

Altobello Melone

Portrait of Alda Gambara, c. 1515 - 1516

Oil on panel

60 x 50 cm 

Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Altobello Melone (c. 1490–1491 – before 3 May 1543) was an Italian painter of the Renaissance. His work merges Lombard and Mannerist styles. He was commissioned in December 1516 to fresco the Cathedral of Cremona, work which continued till 1518. His contract required that his frescoes be more beautiful than his predecessor, Boccaccio Boccaccino. He worked alongside Giovanni Francesco Bembo and Paolo da Drizzona.[

Melone contributed frescoes to the Cathedral of Cremona in 1516. The Lamentation in the Brera comes in all probability from the church of Saint Lorenzo in Brescia and dated 1512. The stylistic convergence with Romanino is particularly obvious, such that the contemporary Venetian Marcantonio Michiel describes the Cremonese painter as a disciple of Armanin.


Moreover, in his masterpiece frescoes, Melone aims to be an interpreter of the anticlassicismo and "expressionist" language emerging in the work of Romanino. The seven scenes realized by Altobello evince a new forcefulness – Massacre of the Innocents is emblematic and manifest in the gestures and in the grotesque transformation of the faces. More on Altobello Melone

Saint Alda, (c. 1249 – c. 1309), was born in Siena, the daughter of the noble Pedro Francisco Ponzi and Inês Bulgarini, whom God had shown in a dream that he had chosen the child for Himself.

After being carefully educated and instructed, she was given as a wife to a man “virtutibus ornatissimus” - decorated with virtues - Bindo Bellanti, with whom, however, she had no children.

Giacomo Fontana

Emblem of the Humiliati order, c. 1605.

The Humiliati were an Italian religious order of men formed probably in the 12th century. It was suppressed by a papal bull in 1571 though an associated order of women continued into the 20th century.

After her husband's premature death, after seven years of marriage, Alda wore the habit of the Third Order of the Humiliati, and devoted herself more than previously to penance on a small property outside Siena and devoted herself to almsgiving and asceticism. 

Medieval Nuns in Procession

The church was ill prepared for newness in the 13th century of the female religious movement, which gave a voice to the desire for penitential inspiration, and deep personal commitment. Women lived together in small communities, by choice, as recluses.

She experienced visions of Jesus performing the deeds recorded in the gospels. Eventually, she gave away all of her possessions and used only a small gourd for a drinking cup.

Religious of the Order of the Humiliati

The Humiliati cult, in Siena and in other cities, was widely disseminated in the Order of the Pope. This Order was one of many spiritual movements that arose in contrast to the relaxed customs and wealth often displayed by the clergy, advocating a return to a more austere, frugal life. It was spontaneous in origin and widespread in northern Italy, in particular Milan and Como. The movement in Siena was close to Santa Catarina de Siena. Initially condemned as heretics, they were reinstated, but about four centuries later the Order was suppressed. 

She gave up her hermitage and went to live and work in a hospital in order to take care of the sick. Members of the staff regarded her as a fraud and wanted to prove her trances and ecstasies false. Therefore, while she was in a mystical ecstasy, they pricked her with sharp pins and put lit candles to her hands and feet. She did not respond in any way to these provocations, only feeling the pain much later, when she came out of the trance. Her patience and forgiveness -- saying merely "may God forgive you", indicating her humility -- in response to such treatment caused her to eventually win over the staff.

The hospital experience in medieval times

While ministering to the sick, she performed several miraculous cures. According to her biographer, on at least three occasions, making the sign of the cross over the patient was sufficient to immediately heal the affliction. More on Saint Alda

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