The Meeting at the Golden Gate

Giotto captures a powerful and captivating sense of intimacy as Joachim confides in his wife the miraculous news he has recently been told. The two figures form a single, symmetrical pyramid as they embrace. As well as conveying a sense of stability, this also sets Joachim and Anna, to a certain extent, apart from the group of onlookers immediately to their left. What is particularly impressive is Giotto’s ability to depict a powerful emotional scene while also foreshadowing the magnitude of events that are yet to come.

Many of the episodes depicted within Padua’s Capella degli Scrovegni (Arena Chapel) fresco cycle hinge upon a moment of heightened emotional tension, either given in the context of some form of a departure or entailing some form of encounter or meeting. The Meeting at the Golden Gate, which forms the last episode in the top register on the south wall, is an example of the latter.

What Giotto manages to achieve is to imbue the scene with a sense of truthfulness and intimacy. Immediately prior to this moving meeting between Joachim and his wife Anna, Joachim, while sleeping, receives a vision from an angel who tells him that his wife had conceived a daughter, Mary. That particular episode, The Vision of Joachim, is depicted immediately prior to The Meeting. Joachim is then told to go and meet his wife at the Golden Gate of Jerusalem.