Fall of Simon Magus

The Fall of Simon Magus is part of Cimabue's extensive fresco cycle in the Upper Church of San Francesco at Assisi, one of the most ambitious painting programs of the late thirteenth century. This dramatic scene depicts the apocryphal story of the magician Simon Magus falling from the sky after Saint Peter's prayers exposed his false miracles. Cimabue's Assisi frescoes, painted around 1277-1280, represent the culmination of the Byzantine-influenced monumental style and simultaneously point toward the revolutionary spatial and narrative innovations that would follow.

Executed in true fresco with secco retouching, the composition demonstrates Cimabue's gift for dramatic narrative staging with figures arranged in dynamic, asymmetrical groupings. Like other Assisi frescoes, the work has suffered from chemical alteration of pigments, particularly the oxidation of lead white creating the characteristic tonal reversal.