Freud doesn't say anything directly in the Psychopathology of Everyday Life* about the imagery of the Signorelli frescoes in the Orvieto cathedral. "Death and sexuality" in The Damned Cast into Hell (c. 1499) are the strongest themes and features of the scenes and figures depicted. Rather, Freud says he associates his forgetting the artist's name with factoids from Bosnian Turkish life and culture (sex, fate) and his patient who recently "had ended his life on account of an incurable sexual disturbance."
The frescoes are vivid examples of the themes of death and sexuality, and these art works might also be what Freud represses consciously, for he "did not wish to touch upon such [delicate themes] in conversation with a stranger." Note that he not only omits the content of the frescoes in his explanation of what he was repressing but also omits whether he discussed the frescoes in some detail with his travel companion.
When Freud writes, "The forgetting of the name could not be explained until after I had recalled the theme discussed immediately before this conversation," it is not only the subjects he mentions explicitly that were prior but it must also include what it was about the "famous frescoes" that he found reason for bringing the subject up. That too precedes the end of the unfinished sentence, his moment of forgetting.
"Our conversation drifted to travelling in Italy, and I asked my companion whether he had been in Orvieto and had seen there the famous frescoes of -- "
Can one think of famous works of art without re-creating in mind their content in whole or in part? Perhaps Freud is committing repression as well as being the subject of the phenomenon he so meticulously, otherwise, explicates.
It is tempting to wonder why Freud himself found the frescoes so memorable but operant seemingly in his own unconscious . . . notably having to do with death and sexuality. Where can we look for possible evidence? More of his own writings and biography, of course.
PS Titled, "Caution and care in reading and asserting," a proposed second post but better placed here because of the above.
One thing to be aware of: Careful reading of Freud's words he himself provided us is needed, not the words of secondary or tertiary sources. For example, I am pretty sure this is wrong, as written in a Bellevue Literary Press synopsis** of Weber's book on Freud's Orvieto trip and the Signorelli frescoes.
After a visit to the cathedral at Orvieto in Italy, Sigmund Freud deemed Luca Signorelli’s frescoes the greatest artwork he’d ever encountered; yet, a year later, he couldn’t recall the artist’s name. When the name came back to him, the images he had so admired vanished from his mind’s eye. This is known as the “Signorelli parapraxis” in the annals of Freudian psychoanalysis and is a famous example from Freud’s own life of his principle of repressed memory.
The synopsis writer draws conclusions from the text that I believe are not clearly there, for to be frank, Freud appears to contradict himself or is at least ambiguous on this matter of "putting the image of the frescoes out of his mind" (my paraphrase of "vanishing from his mind's eye"). Freud just went on from recollection of themes and frescoes to forgetting and repression because of certain causal factors specifically recalled and revealed
The point, per Freud, was forgetting the name, for he had in mind the frescoes when he asked his travel companion if he had seen them--must have had them in mind--because of--next--the death and sexuality themes he specifically mentions in relation to the Bosnian Turks and the suicide of a former patient.
In addition, when did Freud recall the name Signorelli? This is another piece of the synopsis that I question. Here I enlist the assistance of OpenAI, which I will take as accurate for now.
Question. When did Freud remember the name of Signorelli after forgetting or repressing it, as related in his Psychopathology of Everyday Life? Does he say in that book? or in another work?
Reply. Freud recounts the episode involving his temporary forgetting of the name "Signorelli" in his book *The Psychopathology of Everyday Life* (1901). This incident is used as a classic example of what Freud terms a "forgetting of proper names," which he attributes to a psychological process rather than a simple lapse of memory.
In *The Psychopathology of Everyday Life*, Freud describes how he was traveling in Bosnia and Herzegovina and engaged in a conversation with a colleague[?]] about the frescoes of the Renaissance painter Luca Signorelli. However, he found himself unable to recall Signorelli's name at that moment. He remembered the names of other painters, such as Botticelli and Boltraffio, but not Signorelli.
*** Freud does mention when he finally remembered the name. He states that the name "Signorelli" came back to him only after the conversation had ended and he had left his colleague [not so much as colleague as fellow traveller]. Specifically, he recalls remembering it later when he was no longer in the immediate context of the conversation.
Freud explains this lapse and subsequent recollection in terms of his theory of repression and the unconscious mind. He suggests that the forgetting was linked to a repressed thought or conflict, which temporarily blocked his ability to retrieve the name.
The detailed account and explanation are provided in Chapter 1 of *The Psychopathology of Everyday Life*. Freud does not provide a different account or additional details about the timing of this recollection in other works.
All this just another of my observations, in sum: Freud and his words and reported deeds provide endless opportunities for interpretation, and errors.
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* https://www.reasoned.org/dir/lit/PEL_freud.pdf
** “Freud’s Trip to Orvieto.” 2021. Bellevue Literary Press. May 28. https://blpress.org/books/freuds-trip-orvieto/.
