Artists' Art in the Renaissance 1904597432, 9781904597438

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’    

’    

  

The Pindar Press London 2009

Published by The Pindar Press 40 Narcissus Road London NW6 1TH · UK

Copyright © 2009 The Pindar Press All rights reserved

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-904597-44-5 (hb) ISBN 978-1-904597-63-6 (pb)

Printed by Raithby Lawrence Ltd 18 Slater Street, Leicester LE3 5AY This book is printed on acid-free paper

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Contents List of Illustrations Preface

i ix

Chapter I ‘Pre-Oration’: The Historical Condition Peroration: Artists’ Tombs

1 14

Chapter II Lorenzo Ghiberti and the Expressive Self Peroration: Artists’ Collections and the Extended Self

16 31

Chapter III Piero della Francesca and the Joyful Self

49

Chapter IV Mantegna and the Consolable Self

84

Chapter V Michelangelo and the Self-conscious Self Peroration: Botticelli and the Political Self

114 141

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Chapter VI Giovanni Bellini and the Surviving Self Titian and the Satisfied Self

143 175

Chapter VII Bernini and the Truthful Self ‘Post-Oration’: The Artist as Such

179 192

Bibliography

199

Index

209

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List of Illustrations Chapter I: ‘Pre-Oration’: The Historical Condition Fig. 1

Leon Battista Alberti, Self-portrait? Bronze Plaque. 201 x 135.5 mm. National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C.

Fig. 2

Filippo Brunelleschi. Aerial View of the Florentine Duomo.

Fig. 3

Donatello. St. George and the Dragon, detail. Marble relief. Florence, Or San Michele.

Fig. 4

Masaccio. Calling of St. Peter, detail. Florence, Santa Maria del Carmine, Brancacci Chapel, left wall.

Fig. 5

Luca della Robbia. Cantoria, detail. Marble relief. Florence, Duomo.

Fig. 6

Vecchietta. Risen Christ. Bronze. Siena, Duomo.

Chapter II: Lorenzo Ghiberti and the Expressive Self Fig. 7

Lorenzo Ghiberti. Gilt bronze reliefs. Florence, Baptistery, North doors.

Fig. 8

Lorenzo Ghiberti. Gilt bronze reliefs. Florence, Baptistery, East doors.

Fig. 9

Lorenzo Ghiberti. Story of Noah. Gilt bronze relief. Florence,

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Baptistery, East door. Fig. 10 Portrait of Ambrogio Lorenzetti, woodcut, after Vasari, Lives, 1568 ed. Fig. 11 Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Franciscan Friars Executed, detail. Fresco Siena, San Francesco. Fig. 12 Bed of Polykleitos, Classical relief. Rome, Palazzo Mattei, courtyard. Fig. 13 Lorenzo Ghiberti, Resurrection, detail of Soldier. Gilt bronze relief. Florence, Baptistery, North door. Fig. 14 Lorenzo Ghiberti. Fortezza. Gilt bronze relief. Florence, Baptistery, East doors, border detail. Fig. 15 Lorenzo Ghiberti, Self-portrait in a Turban, Florence, Baptistery, North doors. Fig. 16 Tomb of Saints Vincent, Cristeta, and Sabina of Avila. Stone carving. Avila, Church of San Vincente. (After Egbert.) Fig. 17 Orcagna, Death and Assumption of the Virgin, detail, Self-Portrait of the Artist. Marble relief, Florence, Orsan Michele, Tabernacle. Fig. 18 Lorenzo Ghiberti, Bald Self-portrait, Florence, Baptistery, East doors. Fig. 19 Filarete. The Artist and his Assistants Dancing. Bronze relief, detail of the artist. Vatican City, St. Peter's, Doors (Porta Santa), on back. Fig. 20 Unknown Ferrarese Master(?). Medal of Pisanello (Antonio di Puccio). Bronze, 58.5 mm. St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum. Fig. 21 Jean Fouquet, Self-portrait, Gold on black enamelled copper, c. 7 cm. diameter. Paris, Musée du Louvre.

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Fig. 22 Piero della Francesca, Meeting of Sheba and Solomon. Fresco, detail, Self-portrait. Arezzo, San Francesco, Cappella Maggiore, right wall. Fig. 23 Sandro Botticelli, Adoration of the Magi. Tempera on panel, 111 x 134 cm., detail, Self-portrait. Florence, Uffizi. Fig. 24 Albrecht Dürer, Self Portrait. Oil on panel, 67 x 49 cm. Munich, Alte Pinakothek. Fig. 25 Titian, Self-Portrait. Oil on canvas. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. Fig. 26 Amico Aspertini. Adonis Sarcophagus. Pen and pencil drawing, (after antique owned by Bregno). Wolfegg Codex. Wolfegg im Allgäu, Schloss Wolfegg. Fig. 27 Lorenzo Lotto, Messer Marsilio and His Wife, 1523. Oil on panel, 71 x 84 cm. Madrid, Museo del Prado. Fig. 28 Leone Leoni, Casa degli Omenoni, Milan. Chapter III: Piero della Francesca and the Joyful Self Fig. 29 Piero della Francesca, Nativity of Christ. Oil on panel, 124 x 123 cm. London, National Gallery. Fig. 30 Adam Lonitzer, Wode Plant (Guado; patis tinctoria). Woodcut, 1557. Fig. 31 Casa Franceschi. Sansepolcro, Via Niccolò Aggiunti. Fig. 32 Alesso Baldovinetti, Nativity of Christ. Fresco, Ss Annunciata, Cortile dei Voti. Fig. 33 Ss Annunziata, Florence, Ground Plan. Fig. 34 Piero della Francesca. Baptism of Christ. Tempera on panel. 167 x 116 cm. London, National Gallery.

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Fig. 35 Hugo van der Goes, Portinari Altarpiece, central panel. Oil on panel, 251 x 304 cm. Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi. Fig. 36 Luca della Robbia, Sacrament Tabernacle, glazed terracotta. Originally in Florence, Arcespedale Maria Nuova, Sant’ Edigio, Portinari Chapel; currently in Peretola, S. Maria. Fig. 37 Hugo van der Goes, detail of Fig. 35. Fig. 38

Tomb Slabs of the Portinari, Sant’ Egidio in Santa Maria Nuova. Florence.

Fig. 39 Domenico Ghirlandaio, Adoration. Tempera on panel, 167 x 167 cm. Florence, Santa Trínita, Cappella Sassetti. Fig. 40 Christ Child in Paten, fresco. 1299 (repainted in 1804). Mt. Athos, Chilandari Monastery, hemicycle of the apse (after Millet). Fig. 41 Augustinian Roman Coin, after Mattingly. Fig. 42 Early Christian Sarcophagus, detail, Nativity. Marble relief. Vatican, Museo Lateranense. Fig. 43 Piero della Francesca. Hercules. Detached fresco. Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Chapter IV: Mantegna and the Consolable Self Fig. 44 Andrea Mantegna, Cristo in Scurto. Distemper on linen-weave canvas, 68 x 81 cm. Milan, Galleria del Brera. Fig. 45 Andrea Mantegna, Agony in the Garden, detail of Apostles. London, National Gallery. Fig. 46 Andrea Mantegna, Three Reclining Figures. Drawing, pen and brown ink. London, British Museum. Fig. 47 Jacopo Bellini, Death of the Virgin. Pen drawing. Bellini Sketch

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Book, Paris, Musée du Louvre. Fig. 48 Corrado Maltese, Diagram of Mantegna's Cristo in Scurto (after Maltese). Fig. 49 Andrea Mantegna, detail of Fig. 44. Fig. 50 Donatello. Pulpit, Resurrection, detail. Bronze relief. Florence, San Lorenzo. Fig. 51 Piero della Francesca, Resurrection, detail. Fresco. Sansepolcro, Palazzo dei Conservatori (Museo Civico). Fig. 52 Transcription of Inscription on Tomb of Mantegna’s Sons (after Signorini). Fig. 53 Christ the Apothecary. Pen drawing, 18 x 14.6 cm., Zürich, Schweizerische Landesmuseum, Inv. No. LM 4154. (After Hein). Fig. 54 German printmaker active in Rome. Ars moriendi (The Art of Dying). Woodcut, c. 1470. Washington, National Gallery of Art. Fig. 55 Andrea Mantegna, Dying boy on slab of stone. Pen drawing, London, British Museum. Fig. 56 Bust of Faustina (?). Marble. Mantua, Palazzo Ducale, Sala del Leombruno.

Chapter V: Michelangelo and the Self-conscious Self Fig. 57 Michelangelo. Madonna della Scala. Marble, 57.1 x 40.5 cm. Florence, Casa Buonarroti. Fig. 58 Michelangelo, Battle Relief. Marble, 84.5 x 90.5 cm. Florence, Casa Buonarroti. Fig. 59 Donatello, Pazzi Madonna. Marble relief, 74.5 x 69.5 cm. Berlin,

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Staatliche Museen. Fig. 60 Michelangelo, detail of Fig. 57. Fig. 61 Michelangelo, detail of Fig.58, Socrates-like figure. Fig. 62 Lorenzo Ghiberti, Socrates. Gilt bronze relief. Florence, Baptistery, North Doors. Fig. 63 Michelangelo, detail of Fig. 58, central portion. Fig. 64 Sandro Botticelli. Mystical Nativity. Tempera on canvas, 108.5 x 75 cm., signed and dated 1500/1501. London, National Gallery. Fig. 65 Sandro Botticelli. Mystic Crucifix. Tempera on canvas, 73 x 51 cm. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University, Fogg Art Museum. Chapter VI: Giovanni Bellini and the Surviving Self Fig. 66 Giovanni Bellini. Derision of Noah. Oil on canvas, 103 x 157 cm., Besançon, Musée des Beaux-Arts. Fig. 67 Giovanni Bellini, detail of Fig. 66, Cham. Fig. 68 Detail of Fig. 9, Ghiberti, Story of Noah. Fig. 69 Michelangelo. Drunkenness of Noah. Fresco. Vatican, Sistine Chapel, ceiling. Fig. 70 Drunkenness of Noah. Mosaic. Venice, San Marco, atrium. Fig. 71 Filippo Calendario, attributed to. Drunkenness of Noah. Marble relief. Venice, Palazzo Ducal, SE corner. Fig. 72 Filippo Calendario, attributed to. Drunken Noah. Marble relief. Venice, Palazzo Ducal, SE corner. Fig. 73 Sleeping Endymion. Classical Sarcophagus. Marble. Rome, Palazzo

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Rospigliosi-Pallavicini. Fig. 74 Vittore Belliniano. Portrait of Giovanni Bellini. Drawing. Chantilly, Musée Condé. Fig. 75 Giovanni Bellini. Woman at her Toilet. Oil on panel, 62 cm. x 79.cm. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum. Fig. 76 Giorgione. ‘Laura’. Oil on canvas laid on spruce panel, 41 cm. x 33.6 cm. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum. Fig. 77 Titian. Woman with Soldier Holding Two Mirrors. Oil on canvas, 99 x 76 cm. Paris, Musée du Louvre. Fig. 78 Giovanni Bellini, detail of Fig. 75, left side. Fig. 79 Jan Van Eyck, copy of. Woman at her Toilet. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, Fogg Art Museum. Fig. 80 Titian. Venus with a Mirror and two putti. Oil on canvas, 124.5 x 105.5 cm. Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art. Fig. 81 Peter Paul Rubens. Venus with Putto, copy of Titian. Oil on canvas, 137 x 111 cm. Madrid, Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection. Fig. 82 X-ray of Fig. 80. Fig. 83 X-ray of Fig. 80. rotated CW 90°. Chapter VII: Bernini and the Truthful Self Fig. 84 Gian Lorenzo Bernini. La Verità. Marble, 2.80 cm. plus the base. Rome, Galleria Borghese. Fig. 85 Pietro and Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Faun Harassed by Putti. Marble, 132 .1 cm. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fig. 86 Back of Fig. 85.

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Fig. 87 Birth of Bacchus, Roman sarcophagus, detail. The Art Museum, Princeton University. Fig. 88 Michelangelo Buonarroti. Spandrel figures, Vatican City, Sistine Chapel, Ceiling. Fig. 89 After model by Bernini. Portrait of Paolo Giordano II Orsini, Duke of Bracciano. Marble, over life-size, Rome, Odescalchi Collection. Fig. 90 Francisco de Zurbarán, Crucifixion with a Painter. Madrid, Museo del Prado.

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Preface . . . and their prayer shall be in the work of their craft; [et deprecatio illorum in operatione artis Ecclesiasticus 38:39] . . . works of fame by which I could show to those who are to come that I have been [Leonardo da Vinci, from a fragment of a letter to Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, Codex Atlanticus 335 v.a]

C

OMING upon Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s statue of La Verità in the Galleria Borghese in Rome (Fig. 84), one would never dream that it was a private work of art, made by the artist for himself. Its over life-size scale, if nothing else, would seem to indicate a public venue, and its expansive, extroverted appearance calls for public attention. Only following the circumstances of its creation and the documented statements of the artist, does one learn that the work was made not in the traditional framework of patronage and commerce but generated privately, as an expression of the artist’s most inward thoughts and feelings. While it was once suggested that he might sell it, Bernini preserved the marble in his home, near the studio where he worked for the last thirty years of his long career. More remarkable still is the fact that he articulated clearly, in his official testament, his desires for his family to understand the statue’s meaning and in that understanding to remember him. These statements point to a rare moment of confirmation for the existence of what I call ‘artists’ art,’ a class of objects, well known in modern times, but largely overlooked in the Renaissance. A contributing factor to this lacuna is that such works can be identified only by inference:

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letters of refusals to sell during the artist’s lifetime; inventories attached to wills documenting finished works left in the studio at the time of the artist’s death; or autobiographical details presented visually in the works themselves. And yet, the class seems to have started in Italy, not surprisingly, during the course of the fifteenth century, along with other elements characteristic of the change of position of the makers of art. This new class had unusual status, for which the absence of evidence is perhaps the best proof. Although I began noticing this phenomenon a number of years ago, I realized only gradually that the works in question, some of the best known and oft studied, had in common not only the circumstances of their creation but also the inner meaning they had for their creators. As a result, I felt it necessary to treat them as a group. In these pages it will become clear that such paintings and sculptures reflect a slowly evolving revision in the artists’ sense of self, a new personal experience of their own art not acknowledged in the craft tradition. Under this aegis, the shift from artisan to artist and the familiar rise in rank and social status during the Renaissance may be seen as outward manifestations of a new psychology that opened the way for professionals to make art for themselves, for pleasure, devotion, solace or even revenge.1 As the medieval craftsman and guild member rose to the rank of independent, self-determined artist, so too the work of art became an independent expression of private thought and personal feeling in which the maker and the viewer came to share the aesthetic experience and, as it were, confront each other face to face for the first time. I have arranged the discussion in more or less chronological order, including two introductory chapters, one to set the stage historically, and one on Ghiberti, who although he never made a work for himself, is the first artist to document his feeling about art and the first to have an art collection of his own. There follow chapters on works I propose to be private works by Piero della Francesca, Andrea Mantegna, Michelangelo, Giovanni Bellini and Titian, ending with further remarks on Bernini’s Truth, and a short history of the word ‘artist.’ While the text does not pretend to be an historical survey, the examples are sufficiently salient to identify the genre. 1 For surveys of the social, economic, and intellectual ascent of Renaissance artists, see: E. Kris and O. Kurz. Die Legende vom Künsteer: Ein historischer Versuch. (Vienna, 1934) translated into English as Legend, Myth, and Magic in the Image of the Artist: A Historical Experiment. (New Haven/London, 1979); R. and M. Wittkower. Born under Saturn. (New York, 1963); and F. Ames-Lewis. The Intellectual Life of the Early Renaissance Artist. (New Haven/London, 2000).

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Once recognized, I am sure that many more exemplars will come to light. Meanwhile, this first probe will serve to reveal the existence of the class, and demonstrate its importance for our understanding of a major aspect of the modernity of the Renaissance. In the process of unearthing this topic, I observed a series of closely related subjects, adjacent to private works but separated from them by representational elements directed outwardly, to the public, rather than inwardly, to the artists themselves. I have defined these secondary topics briefly in ‘perorations’ appended to the appropriate chapters. As with any essay into terra incognita, I have needed and received a great deal of help. There are several colleagues I acknowledge more fully in the notes to whom I offer here thanks and admiration for their scholarship: Rona Goffen, Kathleen Weil-Garris Brandt, and Ronald Lightbown. My most stalwart and steadfast reader has been Jack Freiberg, whose vast knowledge of Renaissance monuments has been a gentle but firm reminder of how easy it is to overlook major elements of one’s own thoughts. The sharp-eyed Paul Solman set my grammatical path straight. At the same time, if there is any lasting contribution in what I have done, it is owing to my husband of more than half a century, and to his searing observations and loving guidance. Thanks too go to the editors of Pindar Press, who graciously agreed to print these pages. PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

2004

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‘Pre-oration’: The Historical Condition This chapter outlines the first glimmerings of the artist’s image of himself as an individual

B

EFORE entering into the subject of art that Renaissance artists made for themselves, a few words about the historical situation that made it possible will be useful. First, it is important to remember that the image of the solitary artist in a Parisian garret creating works of art of his own choosing with the hope of gaining recognition at some future date was utterly unknown before the nineteenth century.1 It took some five hundred years of post-medieval development before artists arrived at this state. Before the early sixteenth century, the makers of works of art were not called artists. They were considered artisans who produced their works on commission, for specific reasons, for designated locations, and contracted for by individuals or organizations. The Italian word arte meant craft, and the creators were distinguished only by their professional skills.2 They could be painters, sculptors, goldsmiths, engravers, or indeed, builders of various sorts (masons, carpenters, surveyors; architetto also did not have its current defi-

1 R. Williams. Culture and Society, 1780–1950. (New York, 1983), esp. pp. 30–48; J. E. Seigel. Bohemian Paris. Culture, Politics, and the Boundaries of Bourgeois Life, 1830–1930. (New York, 1986). See also Wittkower 1963, 95–96; and I. Jenkins. ‘Art for Art's Sake.’ Dictionary of the History of Ideas. 5 vols. (New York, 1968–73), 1: 108–11, with bibliography. I will return to this subject below, in the last Peroration. 2 The Italian arte derives from the Latin ars (skill, craft, profession; theory, treatise), for a discussion of which see M. Baxandall. Giotto and the Orators: Humanist observers of Painting in Italy and the Discovery of Pictorial Composition 1350–1450. (Oxford, 1971), 15–17.

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nition). By the time they were organized into guilds (in the late thirteenth century), all their activities — artistic, religious, legal — were strictly regulated and supervised. Painters and goldsmiths, for example, joined the Guild of the Doctors and Apothecaries (L’Arte de’Medici e degli Speziali; because they used the equivalent of chemicals); sculptors joined the Guild of Masons (because they worked with stone and wood), and so on.3 When an apprentice worker came of age,4 after several years of training under a master of the craft, he proved his competence by creating a ‘masterpiece’, the acceptability of which was judged by members of the guild. Only after matriculation could the younger man open his own shop, have his own apprentices, and most importantly, sign his own contracts.5 Such contracts stipulated, besides the amount of payment for work, the size of the object, a budget for materials, a date on which the finished product was due, and often a predetermined subject. Contracts were given out in accordance with skill, and not on the basis of name or personality. While knowledge and advice were sometimes sought from the painter or sculptor, within this world of commissions, artistic creativity showed itself only in the way the subject was interpreted.6 Ideological conviction had little to do with the

3 For an outline of the theoretical basis of the definition of the crafts and their guilds, see P. Kristeller. Renaissance Thought and the Arts, Collected Essays. (Princeton, 1990), Chapter 9, called ‘The Modern System of the Arts,’ 163–227; and further F. Antal. Florentine Painting and its Social Background. (London, 1948), esp. pp. 280–87; J. von Schlosser Magnino. La letterature artistica, Manuale delle fonti della storia dell'arte moderna. Trans. F. Rossi, ed. O. Kurz. (Florence/Vienna, 1964); E. Gombrich. Norm and Form: Studies in the Art of the Renaissance. (London, 1966); A. Martindale. The Rise of the Artist in the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance. (New York, 1972); L. Venturi. Storia della Critica d'Arte. (Turin, 1964) [English ed: History of Art Criticism. Translated by C. Mariott (New York, 1964)]; A. Chastel. ‘The Artist’ in Renaissance Characters (Uomo del Rinascimento). Ed. E. Garin, trans. L. G. Cochrane. (Chicago, 1991), 180–206 with further bibliography. See apropos late medieval guilds: E. Staley. The Guilds of Florence (London, 1906); P. Castagneto. L'arte della lana a Pisa nel Duecento e nei primi decenni del Trecento: commercio, industria e istituzioni. (Pisa, 1996), with bibliography. 4 In some places at 21, in others at 25. 5 For examples of the fifteenth-century contracts, see H. Glasser. Artists' Contracts of the Early Renaissance. (New York, 1977). See the discussion in W. Cahn. Masterpieces: Chapters on the History of an Idea. (Princeton, 1979). 6 C. E. Gilbert. ‘What Did the Renaissance Patron Buy?’ Renaissance Quarterly 51 (1998): 392–450, on the contrary shows many cases in which the choice of subjects, a Crucifixion, a Pietà, or figures of individual saints, were left up to the artist.

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judgment of artistic quality, and the artist’s personal feelings about the subject were not factored into the task.7 A clarion call to the transformations that would take place in the Renaissance came as craftsmen of the Late Gothic period began to emerge from centuries of anonymity.8 One of the first individuals of whom we get a glimpse was Giovanni Pisano (c. 1250–1314), second generation of the family that powered the revival of monumental sculpture in western Tuscany. Giovanni also magnified the traditional laconic carver’s signature that had often appeared in the Middle Ages, by including lengthy inscriptions on his own sculptures. There he made bold statements concerning himself and his personal abilities. On the Pistoia pulpit he wrote: Giovanni, who performed no empty work, carved it. The son of Nicola and blessed with higher skill, Pisa gave him birth, endowed with mastery greater than any seen before.9

For example, Pietro Perugino (c. 1448–1523) created devotional paintings of great force for the Cistercian order, and soon after supplied works of equal power for the Franciscans. E. Camesasca, ed. L’Opera Completa del Perugino. (Milan, 1969): for the Cistercians of Cestello, under the patronage of the Nasi family, the Vision of San Bernard, [Munich, Alta Pinakothek, 173 x 170 cm., 1488–89], tav. 59–61; for the Franciscans at the Convento di Sant'Onofrio, Florence, fresco, 435 x 794 cm., before 1495, tav. 44. Meanwhile, Vasari claimed that the devotional quality of all Perugino's art was hollow, saying that ‘Pietro was not a religious man, and would never believe in the immortality of the soul, obstinately refusing to listen to all good reasons. He relied entirely upon the good gifts of fortune, and would have gone to any lengths for money.’ (The Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects. 4 vols. Ed. W. Gaunt (New York, 1963), 2: 133. [Fu Pietro persona di assai poca religione, e non se gli poté mai far credere l'immortalità dell'anima, anzi, con parole accomodate al suo cervello di porfido, ostinatissimamente ricusò ogni buona via. Aveva ogni sua speranza ne' beni della fortuna, e per danari arebbe fatto 5 ogni male contratto.(Giorgio Vasari. Le Vite de' Più eccellenti pittori scultori e architettori, nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568. Eds. R. Bettarini (text) and P. Barocchi (comments). 6 vols (Florence, 1966–87), 3: 611. 8 This subject is treated succinctly by Wittkower 1963, 7–16. See more recently A. Dietl. ‘ “In arte peritus.” Zur Topik Mittelalterlischer Künstlerinschriften in Italien bis zur zeit Giovanni Pisanos.’ Römische Historische Mitteilungen 29 (1987): 75–125, and M. M. Donato. Le opere e i nomi: Problemi e Richerche. (Pisa, 2000), both with generous bibliography. 9 HI DICTI S(UN)T MELIORES SCULPSIT ]OH(ANN)ES QUI RES NO(N) EGIT INANES NICOLI NAT(US) SENSIA MELIORE BEATUS QUE(M) GENUIT PISA DOCTU(M) SUP(ER) OMNIA VISA 7

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This expression of pride in skill was not out of the ordinary, though impressively self-aggrandized in bettering his father. But then Giovanni also went further. In Pisa he said: Giovanni . . . is endowed above all others with the command of pure art of sculpture, sculpting splendid things of stone, wood and gold. He would not know how to carve ugly or base things even if he wished to.10 What is astonishing here is the personal and self-projecting tone in his denial of the ability to create any but beautiful things. His was truly the first step in putting a particular face on the artist. We have no such self assertion by Giotto di Bondone (c. 1267–1337). We need none, however, since allusions to him by his contemporaries throw him into sharp relief. Already during his lifetime, Giotto is extolled by Dante and only slightly later commented upon by both Boccaccio and Petrarch.11 For the first time, we get a picture of an artist not only famous as a distinguished painter but also as a man of learning, welcomed in cities throughout Italy (Rome, Padua, Rimini, Ravenna, Naples, Milan, and Florence).12 After he served as ‘magister et gubernator’ of the Opera di S. Reparata of Florence for the last two years of his life, he was an honored guest in ‘servigio del duca’ of Milan.13 The focusing on Giotto in his own time, nevertheless, was out of the ordinary, for it was more than a century before the artistic persona of the visual craftsmen emerged with any regularity.14 10 ‘. . . QUIDEDIT PURAS HOMINEM FORMARE FIGURES . . . UT IOHANNES ISTE DOTATUS ARTIS SCULPTURE PRECUNCTIS ORDINE PURE SCULPTENS IN PETRA LINGO AURO SPLENDEDA . . .’; quoted by J. Pope-Hennessy. Italian Gothic Sculpture. (London, 1955), 77–78. 11 As well as by Filippo Villani. C. Gizzi. Giotto e Dante. Milan, 2001, and Venturi 1964, 90–92. 12 A. Ladis, ed. Giotto as a Historical and Literary Figure. (New York, 1998). 13 For a simple listing of documents see E. Baccheschi. L'opera completa di Giotto (Milan, 1977), 84. 14 Symptomatic in this evolution was the fact that in 1349 the painters of Florence had declared themselves as a separate group within the guild of doctors and apothecaries by founding their own confraternity called the Compagnia di San Luca (the patron saint of painters). They met in the Chapel of St. Luke in the church of Sant' Egidio at the hospital church of Santa Maria Nuovo (see below for further discussion of this organization). The

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It was Giotto’s artistic heir, three generations later, who made the major increment in aesthetic emancipation. The Florentine painter Cennino d’Andrea Cennini (c. 1370–c. 1440) boasted of his heritage by saying that he had studied with Agnolo Gaddi, the son of Taddeo Gaddi who was a student of Giotto. He makes this statement at the beginning of the technical manual he wrote c. 1390 called the Libro dell’arte, one of the main purposes of which was to revive the classic style of the early Trecento master.15 The thread we are following, that of the artist’s internal feelings for his own work, is here put forth in highly articulate terms. In the opening chapter, Cennino heaps praise on those who enter the profession for personal reasons: Chapter II: How some come to art: some for nobleness of spirit, some for profit. ‘There are some who, not without the motivation of a noble spirit, are inclined to come to this profession attracted by inner passion [natural affection]. The understanding of design alone [in itself ] delights them, because from within themselves nature draws them to it without any guidance of a master, out of nobility of spirit. And through this delight, they proceed to wish to find a master; and bind themselves to him with respect for authority, staying in his service to achieve perfection in this (profession). There are those who pursue it because of poverty and domestic need, yes, for profit and also for the love of the craft. But above all these are to be extolled the ones who come to the afore mentioned craft through passion and through noblemindedness.’16 activities were the usual ones performed by confraternities: group devotion, charity to the poor and care for the sick and dying among colleagues. They were not involved with the regulations that governed the profession, and joining the confraternity did not relieve the obligation of membership in the official guild. Information on this topic was gathered together by T. Reynolds. ‘The Accademia del Disegno in Florence, its Formation and Early Years.’ Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1974, 24–64, 213–218, with bibliography. See further references in note 28, in Chapter 3. 15 Il libro dell'arte: o, Trattato della pittura di Cennino Cennini. Intro. L. Magagnato, ed. F. Brunello. (Vicenza, 1971); published in English as The Craftman's Handbook, The Italian 'Il Libro dell'Arte’. Trans. D. V. Thompson, Jr. (New York, 1960; reprint of 1933). 16 Capitolo II: Come alcuni vengono all'arte, che per animo gentile e chi per guadagno. ‘Non sanza cagione d'animo gentile alcuni si muovono di venire a questa arte, piacendoli per amore naturale. Lo 'ntelletto al disegno si diletta solo, chè da loro medesimi la natura aciò trae, sanza nulla guida di maestro, per gentilezza di animo: e per questo dilettarsi, seguitano a volere trovare maestro e con questo si dispongono con

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These lines are oft quoted in discussions of Cennino’s treatise,17 but the importance of his praise for the inward drives of men with artistic abilities is seldom seen for the innovation it is. His words are meant to allay any guilt for feeling an inner passion for art, and to sanction pride in a profession in which one does what one loves to do.18 Cennino has been called a ‘conservative’ for looking back to Giotto and not initiating a new style. And it is true that his discussion of theory and proportion is completely medieval in character.19 Nevertheless, in our context, he makes a major contribution by entering into the artist’s private domain in his exaltation of the creative urge.20 amore d'ubbidienza, stando in servitù per venire a perfezion di ciò. Alcuni sono, che per povertà e necessità del vivere seguitano, sì per guadgno e anche per l'amore dell'arte; ma, sopra tutti quelli, da commendare è quelli che per amore e per gentilezza all'arte predetta vengono.’ As I. Lavin pointed out to me, there is echoed here the idea of nobility of spirit expressed in Petrarch's Sonnet 53, said to have been addressed to Cola di Rienzo: ‘Spirto gentil, che quelle membra reggi Dentro a le qua'peregrinando alberga Un signor valoroso, accorto e saggio . . .’ (O gentle spirit who those members rule Inside which like a pilgrim dwelt and trod A gallant lord, discerning and wise . . .) [Petrarch: Sonnets and Songs. Trans. A.. M. Armi, intro T. E. Mommsen (New York, 1946, 84–85.] 17 Most discussions concentrate on his definition of the art of painting and his medieval and classical sources; his pronouncements on the equality of painting and poetry and on the prestige of artists, as well as his meticulous instructions concerning the materials and techniques of drawing and painting. See Schlosser 1964, 30, 93–98; F. Antal. La pittura fiorentina e il suo ambiente sociale fra il Trecento e il primo Quattrocento. (Turin, 1960), 387, as well as Magagnato's introduction in Cennini 1971, v–xxvii. Wittkower 1963, 23 shifts the point of the passage to issues of achieving wealth, and claims it as a medieval topos. See also D. Arasse. ‘Giovanni Bellini et la mythologie de Noé.’ Venezia cinquecento 2 (1991): 157–84, esp. p. 175, who tips the scales back again in mentioning Seneca's third reason for making art as ‘for the love of art.’ 18 Venturi 1964, 90–92 (English version, 74–78, 327), paraphrases these lines and comes close to understanding their innovative aspect when he says that Cennino speaks of design as a ‘spiritual concept.’ 19 See again Schlosser 1964, 92–93. 20 This notion could be thought of as the kernel of what W. Bousma discusses in: ‘The Renaissance Discovery of Human Creativity,’ Humanity and Divinity in Renaissance and Reformation: Essays in Honor of Charles Trinkaus. Ed. J. W. O'Malley et al. (Leiden/New York, 1993), 17–34, putting the concept of the artist as creator into its historical and theoretical context.

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The contribution of Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472), priest, humanist, theorist, sculptor, architect (Fig. 1), is the other side of the coin. His advice to painters focused on their cultural training, and he admonished them to improve their intellect by consorting with poets, rhetoricians and ‘literary men, who are full of information about many subjects.’21 Alberti himself had no artistic training but instead attended university, first at the prestigious University of Padua and then Bologna, where he graduated in 1432. He immediately thereafter moved to Rome where he became a member of the papal court under Eugenius IV. Falling under the sway of the ancient city, he recorded its monuments in the Descriptio Urbis Romae, the first modern work on urbanism. When he arrived in Florence two years later he found a city transformed by a series of works that dovetailed with his own interests in innovation and the classical past. Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1445) had already reintroduced the classical architectural orders in his enormous dome over the crossing of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, nearing completion (Fig. 2). Besides this revival, he had invented a new method of representing of three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface we call mathematical perspective. This rationalized method had already been put to use by a number of artists. Donatello (1386–1466), perhaps the first, had employed the system about 1418 on the narrative relief under his statue of St. George (Fig. 3). Masaccio (1402–28), used it to great effect in the Brancacci Chapel (Fig. 4, 1425–27). Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378/1381?–1455), on his first set of bronze doors for the Florentine Baptistery, introduced perspective in a limited fashion, and on the second set, which has larger spatial fields, he gave it an even more expansive form with greater spatial coherence (see Figs. 7 and 8). In all these cases, besides a new anatomical and psychological gravC. Grayson. ed. and trans. Leon Battista Alberti; On Painting and On Sculpture. (London, 1972), Bk 3: 53. On Painting [Della pictura], was published in two versions, one in Italian (1435) and one in Latin (1436). For the Italian version, see L. Domenichi, ed. La pittura. (Sala Bolognese, 1988). Much of the text, in fact, depends on Aristotle and Cicero and their theories of literary discourse, the terminology of which Alberti attempted to translate from the verbal to the visual to make it meaningful to the artists. See J. Spencer. ‘Ut rhetorica pictura: A Study in Quattrocento Theory of Painting’. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 20: (1957): 26–44; and Baxandall 1971, the fundamental study of literary commentaries and appraisals of visual artists, discusses Alberti's treatise and its relation to Cicero, De inventione 1.7 and the Ciceronian Ad Herennium 1.2. C. E. Gilbert. Poets Seeing Artists' Work (Florence, 1991), esp. pp. 17–65, also makes major contributions to the subject. 21

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1. Leon Battista Alberti, Self-portrait? Bronze Plaque. 201 x 135.5 mm. National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C.

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2. Filippo Brunelleschi. Aerial View of the Florentine Duomo.

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3. Donatello. St. George and the Dragon, detail. Marble relief. Florence, Or San Michele.

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4. Masaccio. Calling of St. Peter, detail. Florence, Santa Maria del Carmine, Brancacci Chapel, left wall.

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5. Luca della Robbia. Cantoria, detail. Marble relief. Florence, Duomo.

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6. Vecchietta. Risen Christ. Bronze. Siena, Duomo.

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ity, the system went hand in hand with a naturalism in sculptural forms that responded both to reality and to ancient models. Luca della Robbia (1400?–82), who when Alberti arrived was still at work on his white marble Cantorie in the Florentine Duomo (Fig. 5), carved his figures with a conscious combination of realistic adolescent charm and the grouping and forceful volume of Roman relief. Alberti singled out these five men in the dedicatory letter of the first version of his book on painting. He saw their potential for superior learning, and in their artistic brilliance he found the gentilezza di animo of which Cennino had spoken, that, implicitly, he had incorporated into his thinking. From their new artistic spirit, Alberti extrapolated a set of visual principles into his three manuals on the proper modes and manners for making of art.22 There is no evidence that any of these individuals made works of art to keep for themselves.23 But they responded to the recommendations that challenged the soul of the craftsman to begin its ascent to a higher realm, where men who were paid for the workmanship of their hands would seek recognition for the activity of their minds. As their products became more and more expressions of their artistic selves, the art makers evolved from the faceless groups of medieval artisans who plied their trade on scaffoldings and in foundries. Far from continuing to fabricate only works conceived by and carried out under the aegis of others, they embraced their right to make works for themselves, to covet, keep and protect. In short, the painters and sculptors began to see themselves as independent creators, free to lose everything for lack of guarantees, or to win an enduring sense of fulfillment. Peroration: Artists’ Tombs It is significant that during the second half of the fifteenth century there was a flowering into a major form of art the sepulchers that various artists 22 In the letter, Alberti says that he wrote the treatise in Italian so that Brunelleschi, whose system of mathematical perspective he verbalizes, could read and comment on it. He also honors Brunelleschi's ingegno maraviglioso for having built the Florentine dome ‘sanza alcun ajuto di travimento’ [without centering]. C. Grayson 1972, 32–33, letter reproduced. In fact, of the five, Brunelleschi made the most public display of his artistic independence by challenging guild laws and refusing to pay his dues, for which he was briefly imprisoned (20 Aug 1434). See G. Tonelli. ‘Genius from the Renaissance to 1770.’ Journal of the History of Ideas 2 (1973): 293–97. 23 See the reference to the bronze portrait medallion (Fig. 20), in the next chapter.

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made for themselves.24 The first artist to receive permission to build himself a funeral chapel was the Sienese Lorenzo di Pietro known as Vecchietta (c. 1412–1480). He was granted the right in 1476 and planned his tomb to be placed in the cathedral of Siena. For this project Vecchietta created the architectural design, painted an altarpiece and made a life-size figure of the Resurrected Christ in bronze (Fig. 6). In each case, he designated himself as a master of the ‘other’ craft; that is, he signed as a painter on the sculpture of Christ and as a sculptor on the altarpiece of the Madonna and Child, Sts Peter and Paul presenting Lorenzo and Steven. Not only did he declare himself sufficiently noble to have an independent tomb, he attempted to provide for its perpetual preservation.25 Van Os correctly recognized these moves on Vecchietta’s part as that of a ‘self-commissioning’ artist entering ‘into a subjective relationship with his art that no longer squares with the craftsman’s objective production.’26 It was indeed the first in a line of monumental tombs meant to keep alive the memory and the persona of the maker of the tomb. One thinks of Mantegna, Bandinelli, Titian, among many others. All these projects, and many others like them, strongly reflect the artists’ ambitions and self-image. They were placed before the public so that others would remember and honor the departed. The construction of such a monument to survive after the person’s death is not the same as a work of art created to be experienced independently and throughout the life of the artist himself. I call attention to the subject here only to differentiate it from the subject at hand.

24 An important study of this topic is I. Lavin. ‘The Sculptor's “Last Will and Testament”,’ Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletin. Oberlin College 35 (1977/78): 4–39. 25 In spite of the rigid provisions in his will, the parts were soon disassembled and used by the city for other monuments. 26 H. Van Os. ‘Vecchietta and the Persona of the Renaissance Artist,’ in Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Art in Honor of Millard Meiss. Ed. I. Lavin and J. Plummer. (New York, 1977), 1: 445–54, esp. pp. 450–51.

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II

Lorenzo Ghiberti and the Expressive Self Lorenzo Ghiberti was the first artist to choose his own format and program for a major opus, the first artist to verbalize his personal response to works of art by other artists, and the first artist to create his own collection of art objects. In spite of never making anything to keep for himself, his impulse toward private relations with works of art was entirely new and belongs at the head of this study.

R

ICHARD and Trude Krautheimer, in their magisterial monograph on Lorenzo Ghiberti characterize him as follows:

‘. . . as a superb artist, as a craftsman satisfied with nothing less than perfection, as the head of the most efficient team of bronze casters in Florence, as a shrewd businessman and good citizen — a square in present-day terminology.’1 They are talking about Ghiberti at the end of his life and not the virtually unknown apprentice goldsmith who, at the age of about twenty, was miraculously vested with the responsibility of creating sculptured giltbronze doors for the Baptistery known as il Bel San Giovanni, one of the most important buildings in Florence. He won the competition over several other sculptors, including Brunelleschi, to create a cycle on the Life of Christ on the eastern doors of the grandiose octagonal structure.

R. Krautheimer, with the collaboration of T. Krautheimer-Hesse. Lorenzo Ghiberti. 2 vols. (Princeton, 2d ed. 1970), 1: xxiv. Most of the following information on Ghiberti depends on this work. 1

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Lorenzo had been brought up and trained as a goldsmith in the shop of Bartolo di Michele, his mother’s second marital partner.2 Along with working gold, considered among the highest ranking of the artisan crafts, he also had training as a painter. It was the combination of skills in small-scale compositions and finish that gave him the edge in the competition.3 The actual project to decorate the entrances of the Baptistery had begun seventy years earlier, about 1329–36, when Andrea Pisano (c. 1290–1349) supplied twenty narrative scenes and eight personifications of virtues for the façade facing the cathedral. Andrea’s cycle was a Life of St. John the Baptist, patron of the church and of the city, and set the form that Ghiberti was to follow: seven rows of four rectangular reliefs set in quatrefoil frames. The new doors with twenty scenes from the Life of Christ, the four Evangelists and four Fathers of the Church, were to displace Andrea’s eastern portals which were moved to the south entrance.4 Awarding the new commission to Ghiberti was a great moment in Italian history. It is often designated as the beginning of the Renaissance, since Ghiberti’s sculptures (Fig. 7) were in a style that was entirely new: classically inspired in form and ideal in emotional expression. By the same token, the young artisan’s life was also irrevocably changed. By the time he finished the doors in 1424, he was flooded with commissions. He had established a large workshop, was on his way to affluence, and, in all matters of civic embellishment, he was practically an official employee. Not

2 Mona Fiore’s first husband (m. 1370) was Cione Ghiberti, a mentally unstable man whom she left after ten years to move to Florence. When Cione died in 1406, she married Bartoluccio, as he was called, with whom she had been living for many years. Lorenzo’s true paternity, and date of birth, depends on whether he was conceived before or after her move. He signed his name in various ways: Lorenzo di Bartolo until 1413; after 1444, Lorenzo di Cione di Ser Buonaccorso Ghiberti. This fluid identity gave him some tax problems but none that he could not overcome. 3 The competition was set up in 1400–01 by the Guild of the Merchants, known Arte dei Mercanti di Calimala [refiners of imported wool cloth], among the oldest and among the most powerful in Florence. The famous competition reliefs — the winning one by Ghiberti, and the one by Brunelleschi, the disappointed runner up — are displayed together in the Bargello; reproduced in Krautheimer 1970, 2: Pl. 1 and Fig. 1. 4 Andrea’s narrative reads from the top down, first on the left valve and then on the right. Ghiberti changed this pattern, arranging his scenes four across, starting at the third tier and moving up to the top. See my The Place of Narrative: Mural Decoration in Italian Churches, 431–1600 A.D. (Chicago, 2d Ed. 1994), 73–74, 123–25, 128–31, for analysis of the disposition of scenes in all three Baptistery doors.

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even Giotto, in the previous century, had enjoyed such a long-lived and stable relation with the Florentine administration.5 Eight months after the Christological doors were set in place on the east side of the Baptistery (April 1424), Ghiberti was asked to redirect them to the north entrance of the building to make way for yet another set, this time with scenes from the Old Testament (Fig. 8).6 Even before the contract was signed, Lionardo Bruni (1369–1444), chancellor of the city and one of deputies responsible for the commission, gave the astonishingly clearminded advice: ‘I consider that the twenty narratives of the new doors . . . which are to show the Old Testament . . . should display two things, and the first and most important is that they should be illustrious (illustri). The second is that they should be meaningful (significanti). Illustri means that they are able to please the eye with variety of design (disegno); significanti means that they are important enough to be worthy of remembering.’7 Bruni went on to supply a program of subjects for the doors, naming the biblical scenes in the order he thought they should appear.8 It was, in fact, customary at this time for the subject matter to be stipulated by the commissioning agent, and handed to the artist who would then show his professionalism in the manner of representation. Bruni’s scheme followed the twice-used arrangement of seven tiers of four quatrefoils across, with five rows of narrative and two of single figures (prophets) at the bottom, and his proposal was only one of a number of submissions, none of which survive. But in this case Ghiberti broke with tradition. In what is one of the most decisive pieces of evidence for the evolution of artistic emancipation, he rejected all the suggestions of his official advisors and 5 Before 1334, when he was appointed as capomastro della fabbrica of the Duomo of Florence (a position he held to his death in 1337), Giotto worked for private patrons. Ghiberti was on what might be called the ‘advisory board’ for the building of the dome of the cathedral. It was here that he also accrued a number of enemies, most especially Brunelleschi who accused him of knowing nothing about architecture, and with whom he quarreled for the better part of his life. 6 In many ways the overall program as it finally evolved repeated, or at least alluded to, the narrative program of the late thirteenth-century mosaics on the interior of the building. 7 Io considero che le 20 historie della nuova porta . . . che siano del vecchio testamento, vogliono avere due cose principalmente: l’una che siano illustri, l’altra che siano significanti. Illustri chiamo quelle che possono ben pascere l’occhio con varietà di disegno, significanti chiamo quelle che abbino importanza degna di memoria. Krautheimer 1970, 2: Doc. 52, 372. Baxandall 1971, 19, shows that these prerequisites come from Cicero. 8 Krautheimer 1970, 2: 373, reproduces Bruni’s scheme.

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7. Lorenzo Ghiberti. Gilt bronze reliefs. Florence, Baptistery, North doors.

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8. Lorenzo Ghiberti. Gilt bronze reliefs. Florence, Baptistery, East doors.

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9. Lorenzo Ghiberti. Story of Noah. Gilt bronze relief. Florence, Baptistery, East door.

10. Portrait of Ambrogio Lorenzetti, woodcut, after Vasari, Lives, 1568 ed.

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introduced a scheme of his own that changed the format of portal decoration forever. He eliminated the restrictive quatrefoil molded frames, and with them the staccato stability of monoscenic episodes. He moved the array of non-narrative figures from the lower tiers to the side door frames, and freed the whole area of each valve for narrative. He divided the surface into ten horizontal rectangular plaques, five to a valve. And updating the time-honored form of continuous narrative (multiple episodes before a common background), he created complete chapters within each plaque. This radical reorganization offered him an arena for a more spacious narrative development in a manner that was more psychologically expressive. That he was fully aware of his creative breakthrough is proven by his own statement concerning the new design. He says: To me was commissioned . . . the third door of San Giovanni for which I was given the freedom to carry it out in the way that I thought would turn out the most perfect and the most elaborate and richest . . . I began this work in panels which were one and one third braccia in size.9 While it has been questioned whether Ghiberti could have been allowed to make such a fundamental change in format (Fig. 9),10 there is every indication that the same success that led to his second commission encouraged him to assert his independence. The smooth classicism of his figure style and decorative naturalism in the borders and frames, extolled by Florentine intellectuals as well as ordinary citizens,11 proved that modernity could be both illustri and significanti. In the midst of all this public success, one might expect Ghiberti to make a piece of sculpture on his own. Yet there is no such evidence. Nevertheless, his activities did take a private, unsolicited turn, not in the 9 ‘Fummi allogata . . . la Terça porta di sancto Giouanni la quale mi fu data licentia io la conducessi in quel modo ch’io credessi tornasse più perfettamente et più ornata et più riccha . . . Cominciai detto lavorio in quadri i quali erano di grandeza d’uno braccio et terzo.’ O. Morisani, ed. Lorenzo Ghiberti. I Commentari. (Naples, 1957), Bk. 2, chap. 22. Ghiberti’s writings will be discussed shortly. 10 See Krautheimer 1970,1:14. 11 When Michelangelo, over seventy years later, called the doors the Gates of Paradise, he was punning on the ‘divine’ quality of the doors since the area between the Baptistery and the Duomo was also known as il paradiso. See my interpretation of the doors’ program as an allusion to the generations of the Virgin Mary in Lavin 1994, 131.

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visual realm but in the literary. Late in life, about 1447–1448, as his work on the Baptistery doors neared completion, he launched into a project of writing — known as The Commentaries — that has been called the first history of art. What is important for our argument, however, is that it contains the first verbalizations of an artist’s personal response to a broad range of works of art. While the project cannot be counted as being only for his own consumption, it was certainly self-motivated and done without expectation of remuneration. Taking literally Alberti’s admonition to artists to consort with learned men, with perseverance and massive amounts of research, Ghiberti undertook his literary project ostensibly in a move to join the ranks of his humanist contemporaries (Niccolo Niccoli [d. 1437], Giovanni Aurispa [d. 1459], Poggio Bracciolini [1380–1459], among them), from some of whom he was able to borrow classical tracts. Dividing his text into three parts following the principles of a humanist treatise, in the first book he displays his knowledge of ancient art; in the second he presents his observations on modern art; and for the last book, which remained as no more than a collection of research notes, he planned to grapple with the theory of art. In 1912, Julius von Schlosser, who was the first to publish the one extant manuscript, gave the work its Latinate title Commentarii on the basis of the humanists’ definition as ‘more condensed and less explicit than a full-dress history.’12 The remarkable thing is that in spite of his intellectual pretensions, Ghiberti did not write the text in Latin, but in modern Italian, and thus, like the first version of Alberti’s Di pittura, he was also speaking to his non-Latin-reading colleagues in the visual arts. Book I, based on his reading of Pliny, Vitruvius and Alberti, plus personal observations in and around Florence and during his trips to Rome, testifies to his own preoccupation with the study of antiquity.13 Then, perhaps to distance himself from his early activities as a goldsmith, he went to great lengths to exploit the celebrity of his inaugural all’antica style, and pursued a new self-definition as a gentleman and scholar. Disappointingly, no matter how 12 J. von Schlosser (Magnino). Lorenzo Ghibertis Denkwürdigkeiten (I Commentarii). Berlin, 1912, 10. See the lucid analysis of the work by Krautheimer 1970, 1:306–14, Chap. 20 on ‘Ghiberti the Writer.’ The book remains one of the main sources of information for Tuscan art before Vasari’s Vite. An English translation of the second book is provided by C. K. Fengler. ‘Lorenzo Ghiberti’s “Second Commentary”, The Translation and Interpretation of a Fundamental Renaissance Treatise on Art.’ PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, 1974. 13 Krautheimer 1970, 1: 6, 284–85.

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hard he tried to extrapolate from Roman writings, his humanist acquaintances denied him the equal footing he sought, deeming his literary pursuit pretentious beyond his abilities.14 In doing so, however, they missed what Ghiberti had to say that was new. In his vast knowledge of the classical monuments, he demonstrated a solid grasp on historical time, and conveyed his great respect for antique principles. When he switched from history to his own feelings about the art, he described how the abandonment of these principles after the Romans were conquered brought him great personal sadness. This literary show of emotion was unprecedented. Book II on modern art fell outside the humanists’ expertise, and therefore could not be criticized. The bulk of the text is made up of descriptive and aesthetic analyses of the works of the Italian dugento and trecento artists, and with no precedents for such a disquisition, the monuments chosen were a matter of his personal predilection. Among the few sculptors Ghiberti mentions are Nicola Pisano and his grandson, Andrea, Ghiberti’s predecessor on the Baptistery doors which he fully describes, calling Andrea ‘a very great statuary.’15 Most of the text is about painters, and the Florentines receive more than adequate space. His attitude toward them, however, is respectful but somewhat cool. Ghiberti preferred the less severe Sienese style. His favorites was Ambrogio Lorenzetti (Fig. 10) whom he called a ‘most famous and singular master’ [famosissimo et sigularissimo maestro], and a ‘very noble composer’ [nobilissimo compositore].16 One of the several discussions of Ambrogio’s works concerns a large narrative mural formerly in one of the cloisters of the friary church of San Francesco in Siena (1324–31, Fig. 5).17 With explanatory skill, Ghiberti not only describes the action of the scenes but also defines what he feels are the thoughts of the characters

14 Finding his text insufficiently erudite, they accused Ghiberti not only of not knowing the ancient sources well enough, but also charged him with lacking proficiency in Latin. His misspelling of the word Fabricatum in the inscription on the east doors, which had to be corrected, could not have ameliorated this opinion. Ambrogio Traversari was more sympathetic to his efforts; see Krautheimer 1970, 1: 4. 15 Book 2: chap. 16 (410): ‘Fu grandissimo statuario . . .’ (Fengler 1974, 47). 16 A repost to Cennini? 17 E. Carli. L’Arte nella Basilica di S. Francesco a Siena. Siena, 1971, 17–22. Ambrogio’s frescoes were strappato in 1857, and the two remaining scenes, The Acceptance by Boniface VIII of St. Louis of Toulouse, and The Martyrdom of Friars in Morocco (Pls. 69–100), are set up in the third chapel of the left transept arm of the convent church.

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represented.18 For example, he tells how ‘a young man first deliberated about becoming a friar; then having joined the order, he, with his brothers, asks their superior, with the greatest fervor, for permission to go to Asia’19 [come uno giovane delibero essere frate . . . e come esso fatto frate con altri frati . . . dal maggior loro con grandissimo fervore addimandano licenza di passare in Asia.]. In the scene of the Young Friars Arrested and Bound in the Presence of the Sultan, Ghiberti intuits their sensation and describes them graphically: ‘with damp hair, dripping with sweat and with such anxiety and such apprehension it seems a marvel to see the art of the master.’ (Fig. 11), [. . . co’capelli molli, gocciolanti di sudore et con tanta ansietà et tanto affanno, pare una marauigla a uedere l’arte del maestro . . .]. He continues (pointing out a part of the scene perhaps no longer visible), describing the ephemera of weather that he imagines must have accompanied the scene: ‘. . . and when the said friars are decapitated, a turbulence of dark weather stirs, with much hail, lightening, thunder, and earthquakes. It seems, to see it painted, that it endangers the sky and the earth’ [. . . et decapitati e detti frati si muove una turbatione di tempo scuro con molta grandine saette tuoni tremuoti, pare a vederla dipinta pericoli el cielo ella terra . . .’]. Clearly, Ghiberti is fascinated by the way the other master expressed the human content in his scenes, recording how Ambrogio used the visual medium as an expressive force and putting into words what the painting made him feel, sometimes going beyond what he could actually see.20 As he moves through the art of the fourteenth century he distinguishes the painters and sculptors he says are the best by using Italian terms of praise like industria [industry], disciplina [codes to be followed without question], and diligentia [hard work], rather than translations of the more theoretical terms like acervatio [building up], ingenium [inspiration], or expolitio [polishing]. He discusses the artists whose work reflected his own interests and to whom he felt most indebted, and thus justifies his unabashed pride in his own achievements. In closing Book II, he goes far beyond the usual statements of superiority of skill: 18 Not all the details in the description have survived, and the attributions of those that have are often disputed; see Fengler 1974, 143–44. See Giorgio Vasari’s description of the same mural. (Vasari 1966–87, 2:179). 19 The English translations given here are those of Fengler 1974, 36–38, No. 11, with substitution of the word ‘friar’ for her word ‘monk’. 20 Oddly, Krautheimer implied throughout his book that Ghiberti was not much interested in iconography, and that he paid no attention to the subjects he was given to represent.

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Few things of importance were made in our land which were not designed and arranged by my hand. [Poche cose si sono fatte dínportanza nella nostra terra non sieno state disegnate et ordinate di mia mano.]21 Both the framing and the content of Book II of the Commentaries are milestones in the transfiguration of craftsman into artist. In showing the private feelings and thoughts of an individual about art, both that of others and of his own, the work is unprecedented. Ghiberti’s knowledge of classical literature may not have been good enough for the humanists, but as a collector of antiquities he achieved respect he had long sought in intellectual circles. By the 1430s he was affluent enough to start buying, albeit on a small scale.22 Ciriaco d’Ancona visited his house in 1434, and reports having seen only a few old and new bronze and marble statues, or simulachra, as he called them.23 However, by 1455, the year Ghiberti died, the collection was grand enough to be valued at the sizeable sum of 1,500 florins. That a high value, emotional as well as monetary, was placed on these objects is evident from the fact that even his heirs refused to part with them for more than two generations. The lot was inherited first by his son and collaborator, Vittorio, and then passed to his grandson Buonaccorso, a bronze caster and military engineer, still living in Ghiberti’s house.24 Although the complete inventory has never been found,25 we know a few of the pieces from what Buonaccorso listed before Commentarii, 2, Chap. 23. The impetus here may also have been in emulation of some of the prominent humanists, like Niccolo Niccoli and particularly Poggio Bracciolini, the great discoverer of ancient literature in manuscript, who had strictly archaeological collections of statues, gems, antique coins, and copies of inscriptions. See Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, 59 vols. (2003). Rome, 1971, 13: 642. Poggio sent agents to Greece not only to gather manuscript but antiquities as well; C. E. Gilbert. Italian Art, 1400–1500: Sources and Documents. Englewood Cliffs/London, 1980, 167–68. 23 E. Müntz. Les Collections des Médicis au XV Siècle. Paris, 1888, 3 ff., as cited in Krautheimer 1970, 1: 300. 24 T. Krautheimer-Hess. ‘More Ghibertiana,’ Art Bulletin 46 (1964): 307–21. 25 F. Baldinucci. Notizie dei Professori del Disegno . . . (1681). (Florence, 1845 ff.) I: 355, says he saw among the papers of Christofano Berardi the original list of antiques Ghiberti owned at the time of his death. An eighteenth-century addition (postillator) to Vasari’s Life of Ghiberti adds a figure of Narcissus, a Mercury, two torsos of Venus, one according to Schlosser (see next note) of the pudica type. See also L. Mussini. Memoriale di molte statue e pitture della città di Firenze fatto da Francesco Albertini. G. Milanesi and C. Guasti, eds. (Firenze, Cellini, 1863), 20 ff. 21 22

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he died in 1516: the Letto di Policleto or Bed of Polykleitos, (Fig. 12) a fascinating relief with erotic subject matter, described as ‘a rare treasure’;26 a life-size bronze leg, and some heads of women and men, with a quantity of vases, and some torsos and other things for which he had sent to Greece at great expense. Not only did Ghiberti treat the marbles and bronzes with respect and admiration, they served him well as models for his own work (Figs. 13 and 14).27 Besides sculpture and vases, he also had drawings of and by the artists he described in the Commentaries, perhaps planned to be used as illustrations. It has been speculated that these drawings, in fact, constituted the first collection of drawing anywhere. Vasari, who actually studied with Vittorino II Ghiberti (son of Buonaccorso) for a month or so in 1529,28 and must have bought a few drawings from the collection, later said 26 Pier Ligorio describes the relief as representing Vulcan and Venus: ‘The relief contains the old god Vulcan in bed with his arms and head relaxed, he shows himself to be overcome with sleep, and Venus, all nude, is seated turning her shoulders to us. She twists and turns towards her consort, and with her left hand uncovers him, and leans with the right hand on the bed as if she wanted to enter it by his side, and at the foot of the bed is a draped figure who sleeps sitting up in a low chair, and because of this it is called ‘the bed of Polykleitus (Libro di Antichià di Pirro Ligorio. Turin, Archivio di Stato, vol. 14; for full text see J. von Schlosser. Leben und Meinungen des florentinischen Bildners Lorenzo Ghiberti. Basel, 1941, 127, n. 55, 134–40. For an account of the full history of the relief see N. Dacos. Le Logge di Raffaello, Rome, 1986, 210–12. A brief history of its ownership is traced by P. P. Bober and R. Rubenstein. Renaissance artists and antique sculpture. Oxford, 1986, 94, no. 94, more fully analyzed by P. P. Bober. ‘Polykles and Polykleitos in the Renaissance: The “Letto di Policleto” ’ in W. G. Moon, ed., Polykleitos, the Doryphoros, and Tradition. (Madison, 1995), 317–26. See also L. Barkan, Unearthing the Past, (New Haven/London), 1999, 256–58, who notes that Ghiberti attributed the relief to Polykleistos because, as Pliny says, ‘He is judged to have created art itself out of a work of art,’ and it was with this aspect of greatness that Ghiberti wanted to associate himself. The backward turning nude female figure also had a long heritage from Classical art through the Late Gothic period: see E. Carli. Il museo dell’opera del Duomo. (Siena, 1989), Piano Terreno, Sala delle Sculture; J. Poeschke. Die Sieneser Comkanzel des Nicola Pisano. (Berlin/New York, 1973), Pl. 18; a posthumously published work of André Chastel, L’Italie et Byzance. ed. C. Lorgues-Lapouge. (Paris, 1999), 111–16, Figs. 27–29, and H. Keller. Giovanni Pisano. (Vienna, 1942), Pls. 63, 103, and 104. 27 Ghiberti made at least two trips to Rome where he saw many more pieces. Krautheimer 1970, 2: App. A, 337–52, provides a scene by scene check list of possible antique sources. See also Bober and Rubenstein 1986 and Barkan 1999, 4.16, who reproduce this example. 28 Gaddi was appointed Chierico di Camera Apostolica under Pope Clement VII. For Vasari’s remarks, see A. Del Vita, Il libro della Ricordanze di Giorgio Vasari. Arezzo, 1938, 12: ‘Ricordo come a dj’6 di Maggio 1529 Io andaj a stare in Casa Vetorjo Ghibertj…per atendere a studier l’arte del dipigniere per prezzo di scudi due al mese…statti in case sua mesi dua.’

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he was always sorry he had not purchased more for his own collection when he had the opportunity. Indeed, by this year, Vittorino II started selling off items; he sold a bronze version of the Letto di Policleto to Pietro Bembo in Venice. And finally, sometime before 1542, the year Vittorino II was murdered in Ancona, he sold the rest en bloc to Monsignor Giovanni Gaddi (1493–1542), Clerk of the Apostolic Chamber.29 As much as Ghiberti was inspired to see the aesthetic value in the works of antiquity and the immediate past, and sought to possess them, as I have noted, there is no evidence that he ever made an object to keep for himself. He did, however, make a step toward self-expression in creating two quite astonishing portrait busts of himself, small in scale and mounted in circular niches in the borders of the Baptistery doors. The first, on the North Doors, is a Self-Portrait in a Turban (Fig. 15), done c. 1422 when he was about forty.30 The bust-length figure is dressed in a pleated cioppa, a fairly costly civilian over gown, the only modern-dress garment represented on the doors. The head gear he wears shows him to be a sculptor, this particular form of turban being what sculptors frequently wore while at work (Figs. 16 and 17).31 The second is the famous Bald Self-Portrait (Fig. 18) on the East Doors, done c. 1452 when he was about seventy.32 Here he pairs himself with his son Vittorino, who was a competent sculptor and worked with him on the doors. Lorenzo now looks like a seasoned burgher, without head covering and at ease in the ambient. Again he and his son are unique on the

Acquired by Card. Ridolfo Pio da Carpi, passed to Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este. Emperor Rudolf II (1552–1612) bought a version with an inscription in 1593, which was apparently lost in the sack of Prague in 1630. Two replicas were known in modern times, one still in Rome at the Palazzo Mattei and another (reproduced in Bober and Rubenstein), whereabouts unknown. See Krautheimer-Hess 1964. 30 On the left valve, three tiers up, centered between the Annunciation (left below) and the Nativity (right below) and the Baptism (left above) and Temptation (right above); Krautheimer 1970, 1: 9–10. 31 See the twelfth century relief of a turbaned sculptor carving the tomb of Vincent, Cristeta, and Sabina, in the Basilica of San Vicente, Avila, Spain, reproduced in V. W. Egbert. The Mediaeval Artist at Work (Princeton, 1967), Pl. viii, and a figure said to be a self-portrait of Andrea Orcagna in his Death of the Virgin, 1359, detail of the Tabernacle in Or San Michele, Florence. Another turban-form, with a close-fitting skull cap and a wider brim, as seen in works by Masolino, Uccello, Piero, and so on, was fashionable street wear in mid-fifteenth century Florence. 32 Krautheimer 1970, loc. cit. 29

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doors in their contemporary dress.33 With a date in the early 1420s, Ghiberti’s turbaned portrait is the first in a line of artist’s self-images in the circular imago clipeata format. Some twenty years later, c. 1445, Filarete followed the lead by including his own profile in relief in a circular frame under the scene of the Beheading of St. Paul on his bronze doors of St. Peter’s. Both cases could in fact be thought of as ‘visual signatures,’ the sculptured representations reinforcing the written names.34 Filarete went on to include another portrait of himself on the back of the doors, in the remarkable form of a tiny but full-length figure dancing with joy at the head of a line of his workshop assistants (Fig. 19). This amusing but in the end quite serious representation alludes to Filarete’s proposition that ‘to achieve Perfect Fame is unique, for this is the Way of Virtue, and it is what makes men happy.’35 Being on public monuments, these examples cannot be considered as having been made by the artist for himself. They were parts of commissions and were paid for, in one case, by the city of Florence, and in the other by the papacy. But soon there were further steps in the efflorescence of artists’ selfportraiture that come closer to our topic. One step occurred when artists’ selfportraits as objects became fully independent, namely on small scale bronze medals. The two earliest would-be examples, both of which have been called the ‘first independent self-portrait of the Renaissance,’ have both had their attribution questioned. The earlier is the magnificent profile portrait of 33 Ghiberti looks similar to but a good deal more sympathetic than Baumeister Hans Stetheimer, who showed himself as a bald civilian posed frontally on his tomb in St. Martin in Landshut, in 1432 (reproduced in K. Gerstenberg. Die Deutschen Baumeisterbildnisse des Mittelalters. [Berlin, 1966]). 34 Ghiberti signed both sets of doors: simply Lorenzo on the first set, and Lorenzo di Cione di Ser Buonaccorso Ghiberti on the second set. The relation to the fable referred to by Cicero, that Phidias put his own portrait on the shield of the Athena Parthenos because he was not allowed to sign it, suggested by J. Woods-Marsden (‘Pisanello et le Moi: la naissance de l’autoportrait autonome.’ in Pisanello: Actes du colloque organisé au Musée du Louvre, les 26, 27 et 28 juin 1996. Ed. D. Cordellier and B. Py, 2 vols. [Paris, 1998], 1: 263–96), is somewhat spurious since the tale does not speak of the clipeata format, and neither Ghiberti nor Filarete were kept from inscribing their names. See Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations (Loeb Classical Library, 28 vols.). Ed. J. E. King, 18, (Cambridge, MA, revised 1989), I.xv.34, p. 41. See below, Chapter 5, for discussion of Plutarch’s account of the self-portrait by Phidias, and its possible relationship to Michelangelo’s Battle Relief (Fig. 58). 35 Quotation from Filarete’s 1460 Treatise, as described by C. King, whose masterful study of this relief is in her ‘Italian Self-Portraits and the Reward of Virtue,’ Autobiographie und Selbstportrait in der Renaissance. Ed. G. Schweikhart, (Cologne, 1998), 69–92.

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Alberti on a bronze oval plaque, inscribed ‘L • Bap •’ and including Alberti’s winged-eye emblem (Fig. 1). The attribution of the National Gallery, which owns a superb exemplar, is to Alberti himself, with praise for the understanding of classical form and concept it exhibits. Some authors are less sanguine.36 The other ‘self ’ portrait represents Pisanello (Antonio di Puccio), dates about 1440–45, and is inscribed ‘Pisanus Pictor’ (Fig. 20). The medal has often been ascribed to the artist himself, but most recently was attributed to an ‘unknown Ferrarese Master.’37 No matter who made these medals, they are the first truly independent likenesses of artists (see also Fig. 21).38 In the years that followed the innovations of these miniscule likenesses, there were the many appearances of painters and sculptors (Fra Filippo Lippi, Benozzo Gozzoli, Piero, Botticelli and so on) as characters acting out roles of obeisance and devotion within assigned subjects (Figs. 22 and 23).39 Finally, toward the beginning of the sixteenth century, at the same time the craftsman designation began to recede, there arrived the full blown, formal artists’ self-portraits of, say, Dürer (Fig. 24) or Titian (Fig. 25), in which the maker of the object presents himself in the role of his desired state.40 36 The medal is ‘uniface’ that is, there is no representation on the reverse. See S. K. Scher, ed. The Currency of Fame: Portrait Medals of the Renaissance. Exhibition Catalogue. (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1994), entry by D. Lewis, 41–43 and pp. 375–76, n. 6 for bibliography on both sides of the discussion. In his fundamental catalogue, G. F. Hill. A Corpus of Italian Medals of the Renaissance before Cellini. 2 vols. (London, 1930), 3–4, no. 16, includes a second, slightly smaller version, no. 17 (155 x 135 mm.) with straight hair and no inscription; he established the conventional date of the 1430s for them both, and while saying that the larger medal ‘may be ascribed to Alberti himself ’ includes the opinion that, in fact, ‘the attribution is quite arbitrary.’ 37 The attribution to the artist himself was questioned in P. Marini, ed. Pisanello. (Milan, 1996), 364, no. 75 (entry by D. Cordellier); the nomination of an ‘unknown Ferrarese artist’ is made in Scher 1994, 58, cat. no. 10, entry by Y. Shchukina. See Woods-Marsden 1998, who, reprising her own 1988 position, accepts Pisanello as the author. 38 Soon after he returned to France from Rome (c. 1450), the French painter Jean Fouquet followed suit with his stunning self-portrait painted in gold on a black enamel copper circle, again inscribed with the author’s name; G. Ring. A Century of French Painting 1400–1500. (New York, 1949), cat. no. 124, Pl. 89. 39 Van Os 1977, (as in above Chapter I, note 26), makes a case for: ‘. . . an artist who introduces himself into his own works by means of a self-portrait has already entered into a subjective relationship with his art that no longer squares with the craftsman’s objective production norms.’ 40 This issue is elaborately discussed by J. L. Koerner. The Moment of Self-Portraiture in German Renaissance Art. (Chicago, 1996), in regard to Dürer’s 1500 self-portrait, and by L. Freedman. ‘Britto’s Print after Titian’s Earliest Self-Portrait,’ in Autobiographie und

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It is difficult to discount these self-propelled but public images as being part of the history I am trying to trace. And yet, depending on the individual case — some made for commemoration, some for self-aggrandizement, some for demonstration of technique — the arrow they follow is a not a private one. They all look outward and are meant to be viewed by others; while often revealing inner spirit, they were rarely kept by their makers. I cite them here, in any event, not to analyze them but to give them recognition as an adjacent phenomenon that began to grow with the remarkable interests and actions of Lorenzo Ghiberti. It is important to recognize, however, that Ghiberti himself, no matter what his intellectual pretensions were, remained in the realm of the artisan, ‘a square,’ working for a predetermined audience, proud of his work but still a public servant. The leap of imagination into the realm of ‘art qua art’ would take another generation, and then take even more time to be accepted. Peroration: Artists’ Collections and the Extended Self Ghiberti’s appreciation of visual objects as having independent aesthetic value, and his willingness to invest considerable sums of money in making them his own, not only helped to elevated his status in the cultural milieu of Florence, it also set a precedent for other painters and sculptors. There is, in fact, a valuable history of Renaissance artists/collectors that merits a general analysis. Such a study would go beyond the usual pursuits of ‘Collectionism,’ that is the so-called history of taste, the tracking of physical history of objects, attributions, and market value, by aiding the investigation of style-formation, allegiances among artists, and training techniques. It would also show how the accelerated amassing and possessing of art objects was an important concomitant to the path on which the craftsman transmogrified into artist. Although I can do no more than sketch a Selbstportrait in der Renaissance, 123–144. Ed. G. Schweikhart. (Cologne, 1998), in regard to the engraved version of Titian’s 1550 self-portrait. The self-memorial painted by Perugino (1497) in the Collegio del Cambio of Perugia, where the portrait, plus signature, plus poem in the past tense, seems in direct contradistinction to the earlier ‘Ciceronian’ tradition; Camesasca 1969, Pl. 37, no. 71L. Another type is represented by Parmigianino’s little SelfPortrait in a Convex Mirror, which Vasari (1966–87, 4: 535–36) says he did as a demonstration piece and with which in 1524 he won the favor of Pope Clement in Rome. The pope later gave the painting to Pietro Aretino, in whose home in Arezzo Vasari remembered seeing it as a young boy. Alessandro Vittoria was another owner: see P. Rossi. L’Opera completa del Parmigianino. (Milan, 1980), 93, no. 24.

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simple outline here, at first glance it appears that there are three categories of art that artists collected: 1) classical objects; 2) works by others; and 3) their own studies and examples. To start with the last category first: the preparations for making works of art in the form of sketches and drawings, models and the like, finished and unfinished, were kept in large numbers starting in the mid-fifteenth century. Groups of drawings remain from the shops of certain Early Renaissance artists, the ones by Pisanello and Jacopo Bellini being the largest among them. That these graphic study tools had value beyond their utilitarian aspect can be seen in the fact that artists made them part of their legacy, as will be noted shortly in the case of Bellini.41 So precious to Baldovinetti were his own drawings that he took them with him in a box when he retired to the hospital of San Paolo in Florence where he spent that last two years of his life (d. 1498). While they can hardly be characterized as a collection, their existence interested Vasari enough to note that the box was found empty after Alesso died.42 Perhaps the most notable case of the growing value of drawings is that of Leonardo da Vinci. Not only did he keep his own drawings throughout his career, he also objectified the practice by advising others to do the same. He wrote in his notes for the treatise on painting he planned to write: ‘(258. Of the method of learning to compose figures in narrative paintings.) When you have learned perspective well and have committed to memory all the bodies of things and the parts thereof, you should often take pleasure when you walk for recreation in seeing and considering the attitudes and actions of men in conversation, in quarreling, or laughing, or fighting together, noting their gestures and those of the bystanders who intervene or look on in such cases. Make a note of them with a few lines in your little book which you should always take with you. Its pages should be of colored paper, so that you cannot rub your sketch out, but will have to change from an old page to a new when the old one is filled. For these are not things to be erased but preserved with great care, because these forms and See below, Chap. 7. R. W. Kennedy, Alesso Baldovinetti: A Critical and Historical Study. (New Haven, 1938), 251–52 (quoting Vasari 1966–87, 3: 317 who speaks of the chest and book of rules for working in mosaic). 41 42

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11. Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Franciscan Friars Executed, detail. Fresco Siena, San Francesco.

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12. Bed of Polykleitos, Classical relief. Rome, Palazzo Mattei, courtyard.

13. Lorenzo Ghiberti, Resurrection, detail of Soldier. Gilt bronze relief. Florence, Baptistery, North door.

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14. Lorenzo Ghiberti. Fortezza. Gilt bronze relief. Florence, Baptistery, East doors, border detail.

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15. Lorenzo Ghiberti, Self-portrait in a Turban, Florence, Baptistery, North doors. 16. Tomb of Saints Vincent, Cristeta, and Sabina of Avila. Stone carving. Avila, Basilica of San Vicente. (After Egbert.)

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17. Orcagna, Death and Assumption of the Virgin, detail, Self-Portrait of the Artist. Marble relief, Florence, Orsan Michele, Tabernacle.

18. Lorenzo Ghiberti, Bald Self-portrait, Florence, Baptistery, East doors.

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19. Filarete. The Artist and his Assistants Dancing. Bronze relief, detail of the artist. Vatican City, St. Peter's, Doors (Porta Santa), on back.

20. Unknown Ferrarese Master(?). Medal of Pisanello (Antonio di Puccio). Bronze, 58.5 mm. St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum.

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21. Jean Fouquet, Self-portrait, Gold on black enamelled copper, c. 7 cm. diameter. Paris, Musée du Louvre.

22. Piero della Francesca, Meeting of Sheba and Solomon. Fresco, detail, Self-portrait. Arezzo, San Francesco, Cappella Maggiore, right wall.

23. Sandro Botticelli, Adoration of the Magi. Tempera on panel, 111 x 134 cm., detail, Self-portrait. Florence, Uffizi.

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24. Albrecht Dürer, Self Portrait. Oil on panel, 67 x 49 cm. Munich, Alte Pinakothek.

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25. Titian, Self-Portrait. Oil on canvas. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.

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26. Amico Aspertini. Adonis Sarcophagus. Pen and pencil drawing, (after antique owned by Bregno). Wolfegg Codex. Wolfegg im Allgäu, Schloss Wolfegg. 27. Lorenzo Lotto, Messer Marsilio and His Wife, detail, 1523. Oil on panel, 71 x 84 cm. Madrid, Museo del Prado.

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28. Leone Leoni, Casa degli Omenoni, Milan.

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actions are so infinite in number that the memory is not capable of retaining them, wherefore keep your sketches as your aids and teachers.43 By Vasari’s time in the second half of the sixteenth century, the practice of preserving one’s drawings was fairly common. But as we have seen, artists also collected drawings by other people. Vasari himself made such a collection, although for many of them he had a particular function in mind, namely as illustrations for his Lives, where he included likenesses of the men whose biographies he was writing (see Fig. 10). At the same time, as a connoisseur, he was clearly on the lookout for the best he could find, whether they served that purpose or not. In the category of artist-collectors of antiquities, both Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini are documented as owning pieces of Roman art. Among other bits and fragments, Mantegna had a bust he believed represented the Empress Faustina, and as we shall see, even when he was in desperate need of money at the end of this life, he was loath to part with it (see below, Fig. 56). A more professional collector was the contemporary sculptor and architect, Andrea Bregno (1418/21–1503/06), a Lombard who made his career in Rome. Highly regarded among papal patrons, most particularly Sixtus IV, in his day Bregno was also known for his spectacular collection of antique statues and inscriptions. Quantities of his possessions were recorded by Amico Aspertini (1474–1522) in his sketch book (e.g. Fig. 26), and many were bought by the papacy.44 Among these were the Torso Belvedere and the Perciò (cancelled) Quando tu hauerai imparato bene prospettiua et harai à mente tutte le membra e corpi delle cose, sia uago spesse uolte nel tuo andarti à spasso di uedere e considerare i siti et li atti delli homini in nel parlare, in nel contendere, o’ridere, o’azzuffarsi insieme, che atti fieno in loro, et che atti faccino i circonstanti, ispartitori o’ueditori d’esse cose; e quelli nottare con breui segni in questa forma su’un tuo piccolo libbretto, il quale tu debbi sempre portar con teco; e sia de carte tinte, accio non l’habbi à scanzellare, ma muttare di uechie in un nuouo, che queste non sonno cose da essere scangellate, anzi con grande diligentia risserbate, per che gli è tante le infinite forme et atti delle cose, che la memoria non è cappacce à rittenerle; onde queste risserberai come tuoi adiutori e maestri.’ Codex Urbinas 1270, fols. 58v., 59r; Treatise on Painting [Codex Urbinas Latinus 1270] by Leonardo da Vinci. 2 vols. Trans. and ann. by A. P. McMahon. (Princeton, 1956), 1: 58v–59r; 2: 107, no. 258, pp. 210, 212; see also M. Aronberg (Lavin). ‘A New Facet of Leonardo’s Working Procedure,’ Art Bulletin, 33 (1951): 235–39, n. 32. 44 S. Maddalo. ‘Collezionismo antiquario e studio dell’antico nella bottega di Andrea Bregno.’ In Arte documento 3 (1989): 100–109; M. Faietti and D. Scaglietti Kelescian. Amico Aspertini. (Modena, Artioli Editore, 1995), no. 15, ill. p. 232. 43

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great Augustan Altar, which remain among the most important acquisitions in the Vatican collections. After his death, Bregno’s objects were sold and formed the basis of several later collections.45 Although he was recognized as an artist and collector of antiquities, Bregno should also be thought of as an early dealer with a brisk business. Lorenzo Lotto (c. 1480–1556) can be called a collector of antiquities of sorts. He owned a number of cameos which he prized very highly, some of which, as he said, were antiques and some were modern, and he carefully distinguished between the two. He also thought of his artistic equipment as a collection and carefully accounted for it in his will, along with his own paintings and other objects. He announced his wish that together all these objects would perpetuate his artistic legacy in very particular ways. He wrote his will in 1546, ten years before his death, making his plans for this legacy supremely specific. Because it is such an extraordinary document, I will quote passages that reveal the painter’s thoughts about the power of what he was to leave behind:46 ‘Sixth: all my artist’s materials shall be kept together: drawings, plaster and wax models; unfinished pictures; and the Old Testament drawings used for the intarsie for the choir at Bergamo, numbering thirty in all, that is twenty-six small and four large. Also paints, brushes and various other items of equipment used in the practice of art, and these too shall be kept. Seventh: an investigation shall be made through the Scuola de’ Depentori to find two young painters living in Venice [his native town], either local or foreign, who are respectable, at the beginning of their careers, and keen to make use of my aforesaid materials. Similarly, two young women of the aforesaid Hospital shall be found, who are of a quiet disposition, healthy in mind and body, and capable of running a household; and these girls shall be given as wives to the aforesaid young men, together with dowries consisting of the reserved items, namely the furniture, household goods and artist’s materials, divided equally in half. These items shall be given in addiSee H. Egger. ‘Beiträge zur Andrea Bregno Forschung.’ Festschrift für Julius Schlosser zum 60. Geburtstage. ed. A. Weixlgärtner and L. Planiscig. (Zürich/Leipzig/Vienna, 1927), 122–36, esp. pp. 123–27. 46 The full testament is translated and quoted by P. Humfrey. Lorenzo Lotto. (Yale, New Haven/London, 1997), 181 f. 45

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tion to the normal dowry granted by the said Hospital. The proceeds from any sales shall be divided into three parts: two parts shall be given to each of the said young men as a dowry, and the third part shall be used to benefit the poor of the Hospital, for instance by providing linen or something similar . . . Eighth: the ultramarine pigments with the prices written on them shall be sold; and similarly, the ground lapis lazuli shall be refined to make blue, and sold at the best possible price. All finished pictures shall also be sold. Likewise twelve cameos of naturally multicolored stones, with the twelve astrological signs carved on them; these are separate and unmounted and are modern, not antique. Also four other cameos with heads (see Fig. 27), which are similarly colored, modern and unmounted. Also a white antique cameo, with a worn antique putto, mounted in gold to serve as a hat medallion. Also a gold ring inset with a beautiful antique cornelian, with a crane taking off and a yoke at its feet, and in its beak the sign of Mercury; this signifies the active and contemplative life and the possibility of rising above earthly matters through spiritual meditation. Ninth: I do not wish these items to be sold by auction; instead, the sale shall be carried out as well and quickly as possible, so that they are not acquired cheaply by strangers. Rather than sell them at a low price, it would be better if they went to friends; to the governors of the said Hospital, for instance; or else to other close friends, such as Bartolomeo dal Coro, architect of Ancona; or Giovanni Maria, gilder (one of Lotto’s agents in Venice). All this shall be done in the way in which my executors shall deem the most appropriate, so that any proceeds can become part of the dowry. It must be said that Lotto was a rather peculiar man; he never married and had had a rather abrasive personality that frequently made him less than successful financially. In 1554 he essentially gave up his public profession. He moved to the pilgrimage town of Loreto and took partial religious vows as an oblate with the Marian brothers. Thus, dedicating himself and his possessions to the Santa Casa, he implicitly annulled the provisions of the will.47 Had it remained in force, it would not only have been a quite In Loreto for the rest of his life he had free room and board, a place to work and an assistant; Humfrey 1997, 161 f. 47

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extraordinary example of social management for a painter to have tried to put into action, but also a benefaction that was a form of self-expression. Perhaps the most important artist-collector of the sixteenth century was Leone Leoni (d. 1599), the Aretine sculptor who, after a period in Florence, moved to Milan and made a fortune before being called to Spain by the Emperor Charles V. Leoni became a true connoisseur, gathering high quality paintings by contemporary masters, original antique sculptures, as well as plaster casts of unobtainable items.48 In Milan, he was known for his sumptuous house called the Casa degli Omenoni (Fig. 28), which he filled with his collection of art.49 Aside from the amazing roster of paintings displayed in the interior galleries,50 a good portion of his prestigious collection of antiques was mounted in the courtyard which was visible from the entrance. There, among many other important pieces, was a cast of the equestrian Marcus Aurelius, said to be an encomium to the emperor as a champion of moral victory.51 The collection remained in Milan after Leoni went to Spain, and in the will he wrote in 1589, a year before his death, he passes it on to his son Pompeo, his collaborator and heir. Although Pompeo was not the primogenito, he was Leone’s favorite and the one in whom he placed the most trust.52 Again we find the aging sculptor thinking of his

48 At one point Leoni wanted to go to Paris to make casts of antiquities owned by Francis I, which he felt were not being well cared for; see M. S. Tronca. ‘La collezione di Leone Leoni e le sue implicazioni culturali.’ In Leone Leoni tra Lombardia e Spagna : atti del convegno internazionale, Menaggio, 25–26 settembre, 1993. Ed. M. L. Gatti Perer. Istituto per la Storia d’arte lombarda, 31–38. (Milan, 1995). 49 K. Helmstutler, in a talk at the Annual Meeting of the College Art Association, Philadelphia, 2002, announced that she could now document Leone as having been born in Arezzo, and that the information would be forthcoming in ‘A Contextual Study of Leone Leoni’s Casa degli Omenoni’ (diss., Rutgers University). The property in Milan was given to Leoni by the Emperor in 1549. See M. Rossi. ‘La casa di Leone Leoni a Milano.’ In Leone Leoni tra Lombardia e Spagna : atti del convegno internazionale, Menaggio, 25–26 settembre, 1993. Ed. M. L. Gatti Perer. Istituto per la Storia d’arte lombarda, 21–30. (Milan, 1995). 50 Including works by Leonardo, Michelangelo, Titian, Correggio, Parmigianino and so on; see M. S. Tronca. ‘La Collezione d’Arte di Leone Leoni,’ Tesi di Laurea, Università degli Studi di Pisa, 1977, and Tronca 1995. 51 By M. Mezzatesta. ‘The façade of Leone Leoni’s house in Milan, the Casa degli Omenoni: the artist and the public.’ Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 44 (1985): 233–249, the triumph was over vice, symbolized by the satyrs on the façade. 52 This gesture brings to mind other filial and professional relations such as Nicola (c. 1220–1284) and Giovanni (c. 1250–1314) Pisano, and Lorenzo and Vittorio Ghiberti, Pietro and Gian Lorenzo Bernini (see below, Chap. 7).

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possessions in terms of their artistic value.53 The father, in fact, sought a kind of immortality through these works of art, for he tells his son to: ‘take care of the collection with the same religious prudence as (for) something holy [custodirla con la stessa religosa prudenza . . . sacra] and to do so that there will be ‘perpetually a memory of his name’ [perpetuamente..a memoria del suo nome].54 As with Ghiberti, while it is difficult to find a work that Leoni made for himself, it is clear that the paintings and sculptures he brought into his home were not only a source of personal pleasure but also the recipients of fervent devotion.55

53 Leoni’s home as museum was the predecessor of the home and collection of Peter Paul Rubens in the next century; see J. M. Muller. Rubens: The Artist as Collector. (Princeton, 1989). 54 When Pompeo died the inheritance passed to the true primogenito Michelangelo Leoni. A summary inventory was drawn up 1615; cf. Tronca 1995. 55 As we will see in the last chapter of this book, this attitude is continued and enriched by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

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Piero della Francesca and the Joyful Self In spite of common belief to the contrary, Piero’s painting of the Nativity (Fig. 29) was complete in all areas; its present (semi-destroyed) state is the result of over zealous cleaning in the nineteenth century. I designate the Nativity as a private work because 1) there is no known commission; 2) it was in the artist’s possession at the time of death, and 3) in contrast to his earlier commissioned works, it is painted in an informal, intensely personal style.

T

HE career of Piero della Francesca (1412/13–1492) did not start out auspiciously. In the early 1430s he was a paid assistant to a less than mediocre painter, Antonio d’Anghiari, who was plying his trade in Borgo San Sepolcro, Piero’s native town. The earliest documents found so far are payments to Piero from Antonio for work on frames, candlesticks and banners. Piero was already nearly twenty, rather too old to have only such menial jobs.1 It seems that as a child, Piero was educated in what was called the Abacus school, where the courses, taught in the vernacular (as opposed

F. Dabell. ‘Antonio d'Anghiari e gli inizi di Piero della Francesca,’ Paragone, 417 (1984): 73–94, and J. R. Banker. ‘Piero della Francesca as Assistant to Antonio d'Anghiari in the 1430s: Some Unpublished Documents,’ The Burlington Magazine, 135 (1993): 16–21; and idem. The Culture of San Sepolcro during the Youth of Piero della Francesca. (Ann Arbor, MI, 2003). The dating of Piero’s birth remains circumstantial but he was most likely born c. 1412/13. He was working on the frame of the San Francesco altarpiece in 1432, and still with Antonio in 1436. The authors of Piero della Francesca: committenza e pittura nella Chiesa di S. Francesco ad Arezzo: con nuovi documenti inediti. Ed. G. Centauro e E. Settesoldi; texts by G. Centauro, E. Settesoldi, J. Beck, A. Cottignoli, G. Renzi, L. Tintori. (Poggibonsi, 2001 [Beck’s contribution is repeated in English as ‘Piero della Francesca at San Francesco in Arezzo: an Art-Historical Peregrination,’ in Artibus et Historiae 47 (2003): 51–80]) propose arguments for a later dating of the birth but with no further documentation. In fact 1

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to Latin), centered on mathematics for boys who were expected to go into business.2 His father Benedetto was a rather well-to-do merchant of wool and woad (guado in Italian, see Fig. 30), a plant with many lucrative applications, including production of a deep blue dye used for cloth and for painting pigment, and a liquid used in tanning leather. Such products were in high demand and brought in a better-than-average income. As a result the family owned a good deal of property (some of it used for growing woad) and moved in upper-middle-class circles. As the oldest of the offspring, Piero was expected to go into the family business. But something happened in the years of his early schooling to bring about a change. We can only guess from his later activities as one of the greatest mathematicians of the century that he exhibited not only a remarkable talent for numbers and logic, but also a notable hand-eye coordination in representing their two-and-three-dimensional implications. Probably on this account he stayed in school for longer than usual doing special advanced work. Ultimately the hand-eye coordination must have won out (over the less than lucrative prospects of a theoretical mathematician) and he entered a painting atelier, but at an older age than most boys; in fact, Vasari says that he was fifteen when he started.3 His brother Marco, second in line, then became the businessman, and worked in the family business with his father and the third brother Antonio. Piero’s first personal contract was in drawn up in 1445. In it he is called upon to paint an altarpiece for Compania della Misericordia, the charitable confraternity of which all the family were members. He had spent some time traveling before this commission, and when he signed the contract he was already in his mid-thirties. After that date, and for the next forty years, his career followed the normal course of working on commission, doing paintings with predetermined subjects and locations, with brother Marco often acting as his agent. Then, sometime after 1485, two years before he wrote his will and seven before he died, with no known contract or comthis publication is a strange and disconcerting mixture of unfounded assertions and documentation of the most minute and useful sort that spread over all of Piero’s career. It must be read with extreme attention and extreme caution. 2 P. Grendler. ‘What Piero Learned in School: Fifteenth-Century Vernacular Education,’ in Monarca della Pittura: Piero and his Legacy, Studies in the History of Art 48, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, ed. M. A. Lavin. (Washington, D.C., 1995), 161–74. 3 ‘ed ancora che di anni quindici fusse indiritto a essere pittore’; Vasari 1966–87, 3: 258.

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mission, he painted a good sized composition in what amounted to a new style. I believe this painting, The Nativity of Christ in the National Gallery, London (Fig. 29), is one of first works of art in the Renaissance that an artist made not for sale, but for himself.4 The first records of the Nativity date to eight years after Piero’s death when it is mentioned as part of his legacy. By piecing together information concerning the Franceschi family (the original name, of which a variation was della Francesca), in whose possession the painting remained until the nineteenth century, and outlining the art historical context in which it was produced, my aim is to provide enough circumstantial evidence to elucidate its raison d’être. The first part of the discussion deals with the line of inheritance Piero della Francesca envisioned for his worldly goods. Besides providing the whereabouts of the painting, the facts contribute a fascinating picture of domestic relations in provincial Tuscany at the end of the fifteenth century. Piero wrote a will with his own hand on the 2nd of July 1487, perhaps stimulated by the death of his favorite brother Marco, who had died less than two weeks earlier (22 June). He stipulated that at his death he wished to have everything he owned divided evenly between Antonio, his other brother, and Marco’s three sons, Francesco, Sebastiano or Bastiano as he was called, and Girolamo, in that order. In case of the death of the oldest in line, the inheritance was to pass to the next male member of the hierarchy.5 Piero died on October 12, 1492, a fact recorded in the Book of the Dead of Sansepolcro, and was duly buried in the family tomb in the Camaldolite Abbey of San Giovanni Evangelista. At that moment, Antonio was alive and well and received his share, mostly in the form of real estate, without delay. R. Lightbown. Piero della Francesca. (London, 1997), makes the felicitous but undocumented proposal that the painting was a gift from Piero to his nephew Francesco di Marco on the occasion of his marriage to Laudomia di Guasparre in 1481. As will be seen, I think this date is too early, besides having other objections to the unprecedented anecdotal aspect of the suggestion. The condition of the painting has often caused scholars to assume it was not finished. However, according to the museum conservators, the painting was brought to completion, and the parts that appear unfinished are in fact damaged, the result of unfortunate scraping, abrasion, and over-cleaning long before it was purchased by the National Gallery in 1874. Cf. M. Davies. The Earlier Italian School. (London, 2d ed. 1961), 433–434. 5 ‘et il resto dei mio ne lascio la metà ad Antonio mio fratello, e murendo prima di me Antonio, ai suoi figiuoli maschi, et l’altra ne lascio al erede de Marco, cioè Francesco Bastiano e Girolamo, et murendoni una, pervenga de l’uno a l’altro (E. Battisti. Piero della Francesca. 2 vols. (Milan, 1992), 2: 624, Doc. 194, July 1487, Postilla to will of Piero della Francesca. 4

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As fate would have it, Francesco, Marco’s oldest son who would have been the first in line for the other half of the property, died suddenly on 29 September 1492, just two weeks before Piero.6 As a result, Francesco’s portion of the inheritance went to the next brother, namely Bastiano. At the time of Francesco’s death his will was not fully prepared, and was not finally drawn up [rogato] for another eight years, on 30 January 1500. It is in the inventory attached to Francesco’s will that Piero’s Nativity is mentioned for the first time. The inventory describes the large house on the Via Niccolò Aggiunti in Sansepolcro (Fig. 31) where the extended Franceschi family had been living as a group since the late 1460s.7 Along with various properties in and around the town, it itemizes Francesco’s part ownership of this house, and lists all the objects and furnishings that belonged to him. The inventory moves through each space, room by room, starting on the top floor.8 First on the list is the room said to have been formerly occupied by ‘magistri Petri.’ Unhappily, by 1500 it was a kind of store room containing nothing but household items. Then follows the room of Marco’s widow, Panta Carsedoni, who remained as the ruling female member of the clan.9 The next room is designated as ‘formerly occupied’ by Laudomia di Guasparre di Ser Giovanni of Montevarchi, Francesco’s widow, by whom he had two surviving daughters (Nanna and Margherita) and two sons ([Giovanni] Battista and Marco II). Two or three years after Francesco’s death Laudomia had moved back to Montevarchi, taking her children with her. She removed them from Franceschi jurisdiction by putting them legally under the wardship of herself and her brother Giovanni, who was also her lawyer. By 6 Both documents are reproduced by Battisti 1992, 2: 627, Doc. 227, Libro dei Morti dall’anno 1460 al 1491, under the Confraternita di San Bartolomeo. 7 The three brothers, Piero, Marco and Antonio, together bought property where there was some kind of pre-existing structure one year after their father’s death and immediately began to enlarge it. See the Documents of purchase in Battisti 1992, 2: 615, Doc. 92, beginning in November 1465 through June 1566. 8 ‘Item tertia pars omnium et singularum etc. masaritiarum et bonorum pro indiviso cum supresciptis Bastiano et Hjeronimo.’ The inventory was taken by Francesco’s cousin, Bartolomeo, one of Antonio’s sons and a respected medical doctor, who is named as the ‘dictorum churatorem et pupillorum tutorem’ of Bastiano and Girolamo. Battisti 1992, 2: 628, Doc. 246, 30 January 1500. 9 Marco married Panta in 1473, after his first wife, Giovanna degli Anastagi, of almost thirty years (m. 23 Oct 1446) died in childbirth (9 Feb 1472). See the Family Tree in Banker 2003, 99.

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9 February 1495, Laudomia had secured her future by marrying Giovan Francesco di Lorenzo Capucci, also of Montevarchi, and affiancing her daughter Nanna, who was under age, to Capucci’s son Lorenzo.10 The room in the house on the Via Niccolò Aggiunti is therefore described in the inventory as ‘. . . camera olim domine Laudomie et nunc Bastiani.’ Bastiano, now his father’s heir, had moved in and taken possession of his inheritance.11 In this room, along with furniture, linens, silverware, and a ‘quadro’ of the Madonna, finally we meet Piero’s Nativity. It is called ‘una tabula cum nativitate domini nostri manu magistri Petri.’ [a panel with the nativity of our Lord by the hand of Master Pietro.] There is no indication of how or where the painting was placed.12 The Nativity comes back into view fifteen years later when Laudomia’s sons, Battista and Marco II, apparently disgruntled with the way the inheritance had been divided, sought a legal settlement with their uncle Bastiano over the patrimony they felt they would have inherited had their father lived beyond Piero’s death. Of the long and complex document describing the final agreement, only the few passages dealing with art objects have been transcribed, the gist of which was that the two nephews were to get one third the value of all the objects. The highest priced among these was the Nativity, at 80 ducats of gold. The others were an Annunciation and an unfinished St. Jerome, not evaluated. There was also a group of drawings, books (one recently identified by Banker as Piero’s own transcription of Archimedes Corpus), and other belongings, estimated together at more than 100 ducats. If their uncle did not pay up within two months, beyond what he owed in the division, he would be fined another 10 ducats.13 What is of Battisti 1992, 2: 628, Doc. 241, 9 February 1495. It was on this account that Lightbown 1997, 273–74 proposed Laudomia as the intended recipient of the painting. She was surely not its owner, for when she quit the Franceschi family, the painting, as we shall see, remained in the house in Sansepolcro. 12 Battisti 1992, 2: 628, Doc. 246, 30 January 1500. The Madonna painting mentioned in this document is not attributed. Three more paintings appear in inventories of other members of the family at later dates; see below in this chapter. 13 ‘Lodo fra Battista e Marco di Francesco della Francesca e Sebastiano di Marco della Francesca loro zio. L’atto è rogato nella 'casa posta su le Gionte, Uguccione di Urbano Pichi, Antonio di Matteo Carsedoni et Messer Niccolo Rigi le domandate fatte dinanzi di noi per Battista et Marcho fratelli e figli di Francesco Franceschi a partita per partita e cosa per cosa . . . E più adimandò la parte mia di uno quadro al quale avè Bastiano per non partito che ve 10 11

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interest is the high price of 80 gold ducats set on the Nativity for which Bastiano apparently paid the nephews cash for their part since it did not go to Montevarchi but remained in Franceschi possession in Sansepolcro for several centuries. The next notice comes in 1698, when Giambattista Franceschi willed un presepio che si montano 80 d.i (ducati) d’oro. Li faciamo bona detta domandata in questo modo cioè che debino detto Batista e Marcho anne la 1/3 parte di detti 3 quadri scritto doi di sotto e non gli dando detto Bastiano la loro terza parte in fra doi mesi condennamo a darli al detto Batista e Marcho ducati dieci. E più adimandò uno quadro che v’è su la Nuntiata per non partito e quale l’avè Bastiano. E più adimando uno altro quadro che v’è incominciato uno Sancto Girolamo e quale avè Bastiano per non partito. E più adimando la parte mia di tutti e libri e disegni e maseritie di Maestro Pietro le quali avè Bastiàno che non si partiero mai n’era segnio che valìano più di ducati 100; giudichiamo che Bastiano sia hobrigato a dare la 1/3 parte al detto Batista e Marcho de’ libri e disegni quando detto Batista e Marcho provi che detto Bastiano gli abí in fra doi mesi a dandola non provando sieno di detto Bastiano . . .’ [ Settlement (lodo) between Battista and Marco (II) di Francesco della Francesca and Sebastiano di Marco della Francesca their uncle. This act is drawn up in the house on the Gionte (Aggiunti). Here below, we, Uguccione di Urbano Pichi and Antonio di Matteo Carsedoni and Messer Niccolo Rigi, will transcribe the claims made before us by Battista and Marcho, brothers and sons of Francesco Franceschi, lot by lot, and object by object . . . And moreover, (they) required their part of a painting which is a Presepio, which Bastiano had and was never divided, and that is valued at 80 d.i [ducati] of gold. We (the adjudicators) settled said demand in the following way, that is: what is owing to Battista and Marco II is 1/3 part of the said three paintings (2 to be described below) and (if ) said Bastiano does not give them their 1/3 part within two months, we condemn him to give to said Battista and Marco ten ducats. And moreover, (they) require (1/3 of the value of ) a painting representing the Annunziata never divided which Bastiano possessed. And more, they require (1/3 of the value) of another painting where there is begun a St. Jerome which Bastiano had and never divided . . . And in addition, (they) require their portion of all the books and drawings and household furnishings of Maestro Pietro which Bastiano had and never divided, and were judged to be worth more than one hundred ducats. We judge that Bastiano should be obligated to give within two months the 1/3 part of the books and drawings to the aforementioned Battista and Marco if the said Battista and Marco prove that the aforementioned Bastiano possesses them, and if they do not prove that Bastiano has them, he must give them 1/3 of their worth.’] After Battisti 1992, 2: 630, Doc. 257, transcribed by Enzo Settesoldi. The date given as 1515 (with no month), however, is incorrect. The document is actually dated 11 Aug 1514 (1514.11.ag.o al no. 3 nob. no. 9); the current colocation is: Notarile Antecosimiano 12264 [1485–1515]. My thanks to Elizabeth Pilliod in helping me to ascertain the correct collocation. For the monetary value of the Nativity, Settesoldi mistakenly transcribed the contraction d.i as denari, the impossibly low valued coin, rather than ducati.

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the painting to his sister Margherita, wife of Ranieri Benedetto Marini. She was the only surviving Franceschi and her marriage brought about a merger of the families which henceforth would be called Franceschi Marini. More than a hundred and twenty-five years later, in 1825, the painting was still in the family and belonged to Giuseppe Franceschi Marini of Sansepolcro, who sent it for storage to the Uffizi in Florence where it still was in 1836. At that point Giuseppe put it up for sale. When it did not sell it was returned to Sansepolcro where it was placed in a private chapel in what was still the family house.14 In 1848 the Nativity was back in Florence in the keeping of Cavaliere Frescobaldi, a relative (by marriage) of the family. Charles Eastlake, first director of the National Gallery in London, during his travels through Tuscany in 1861, tried to buy the painting for himself but was outbid by another Englishman, one Alexander Barker. On 6 June 1874, the Barker estate went on sale in London. The Nativity, as lot 70, was then purchased for the National Gallery.15 Having established the unbroken Franceschi provenance of the Nativity, we now turn to the more difficult task of understanding what might have been its personal meaning for Piero. To do so involves describing a rather complicated sequence of historical and art historical events in which it must have been produced. The painting is one of four major works depicting the same devotional theme produced between about 1460 and 1485, the other three being by Alesso Baldovinetti, Hugo van der Goes, and Domenico Ghirlandaio. These paintings are linked in a number of ways, including by composition, scale and iconography, all representing the Virgin in a kneeling position adoring the new born Child lying on his back on the ground, with the shepherds in arrival. The central motif is a subset of a type of Nativity developed early in the fifteenth century in response to the widelyread account of Christ’s birth by St. Bridget of Sweden, one of the most important late medieval visionaries. Bridget describes her vision in graphic detail: a lovely young, light-haired woman who, when her time was come, removed her robe, her veil and her shoes, and knelt to pray with her back to the manger. ‘Thereupon she was delivered of the child in an instant, so 14 Evelyn (Franceschi Marini). Piero della Francesca. (Città di Castello, 1912), 135. See below, note 76 for her statement. 15 Davies 1961, 337, # 908. Eastlake bought Piero’s Baptism of Christ and the panel of St. Michael from the Sant'Agostino Altarpiece during this same period. Cf. D. Robertson. Sir Charles Eastlake and the Victorian Art World. (Princeton, 1978), 195, 274.

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fast it was impossible to see from where he came.’ What Bridget did see was ‘the illustrious child lying naked on the earth, clean and resplendent.’ She hears Mary say ‘Welcome my God, my Lord, my Son.’16 Bridget’s description actually encapsulates elements from the elaborately illustrated and earlier Meditations on the Life of Christ where Mary leans on a column in a standing position and the child suddenly appears on the ground. In the Meditations, however, it is only after Mary has picked him up, swaddled him and laid him in the manger that she adores him on her knees.17 Bridget’s vision, by contrast, focuses on the motherhood of Mary performed on her knees, without pain and without Christ passing through the birth canal (theological points of dispute), immediately followed by Mary worshiping the Savior. Implicit in her vision is the very ancient tradition identifying Mary as Ecclesia, the aggregate of all believers, and the recumbent Christ Child as the sacrifice at the altar.18 Bridget’s vision took place in 1370 and she was canonized in 1391. Even before the latter event, the vision was represented in manuscripts and in small devotional paintings, and by mid-century the adoration motive was extracted and used in various Nativity contexts.19 Fra Filippo’s Mystic Adoration, c. 1459 (Berlin, Staatliche Museen), for the Medici Chapel, the focal point of Benozzo Gozzoli’s monumental processional of Magi, contemporary personalities, and finally prayerful shepherds, is an isolated, mystical image of the adoration motif.20 Piero’s painting and the three other larger scale versions St. Bridget of Sweden. Revelations (ed. Rome, 1628), 2: bk. 7, cap. 21, 230–231. For a general study, cf. C. L. Sahlin. Birgitta of Sweden and the Voice of Prophecy, Studies in Medieval Mysticism, 3. (Rochester, NY, 2001), passim and in particular p. 79 n5 for references to other works on Bridget’s tribute to Mary’s motherhood. 17 Meditations on the Life of Christ, trans and ed. I. Ragusa and R. B. Green. (Princeton, 1961), Figs. 25–31. This version is from the mid-fourteenth century; the text was written in the later thirteenth century. 18 This symbolic reading of the nativity story will be further elucidated as we go along. 19 See the excellent and thorough study by H. Aili and J. Svanbert. Imagines sanctae Birgittae : the Oldest Illuminated Manuscripts and Panel Paintings Related to the Revelations of St. Birgitta of Sweden. 2 vols. (Stockholm, 2003), 1: 94–99, 2: Pls. 65, 71; also G. Schiller. Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst 6 vols. (Kassel, 1966), 1: 88–90. Fra Filippo Lippi also represented the adoration motif on a large scale but in a narrative context in the Nativity in his fresco cycle in the apse of the cathedral of Spoleto, 1467–69; M. P. Mannini and M. Fagioli. Filippo Lippi. (Florence, 1997), 133, cat. 60, Pl. 81. 20 Combined with Baptismal, Passion, and other devotional allusions. See my study ‘Giovannino Battista, a Study in Renaissance Religious Symbolism,’ Art Bulletin 37 (1955): 85–101, esp. pp. 92–96; and more recently, Mannini and Fagioli 1997, 127, cat. 52, Pl. 74. 16

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ostensibly retain a narrative context while actually expanding and deepening the proleptic Eucharistic argument. The first of the public adoration scenes is the Nativity by Baldovinetti, (Fig. 32), a fresco on the exterior façade of the Servite church of Santissima Annunziata in Florence. Commissioned and carried out in 1461–62, it was part of an expansion of the precinct responding to the spectacular growth of a devotional cult that had its origin, according to the local Servite legend, in 1252. The members of the order had called upon a certain Frate Bartolommeo to paint a fresco of the Annunciation, visualizing the dedication of their church. The devoted friar exhausted himself trying to paint the face of the Vergine Gloriosa, and when he could not succeed he fell asleep. Upon awakening he discovered that a miracle had taken place: an angel had come and completed the painting in a most beautiful way.21 The image soon began to work miracles and thereafter became the center of devotion. By the 1440s the crowds that came to worship at the shrine were so great they had to be accommodated with a court yard, called the Cortile dei Voti, added to the front of the church (Fig. 33).22 A private patron named Arrigo Arrigucci then commissioned Baldovinetti to paint a fresco of the Nativity, stipulating that it should be placed, ‘just back of the Holy Image.’23 In this way the Birth of Christ would appear dos-à-dos with the Annunciation on the inside of the building, where it fulfilled the words of Gabriel. To this mystical association, Alesso’s composition adds another level. The scene is arranged before a ruined farm house on a hilltop, with an open vista on the left looking down into a valley below. In the Tuscan landscape it is easy to recognize the Arno River winding its way along. Thus almost by a process of osmosis, the fresco’s locale demonstrates the transfer of efficacy from the cult image to the birth of the Savior to the environs of Florence. Moreover, as Mary kneels to adore the naked Child on the ground before her, she faces the door of the church out of which the visiting pilgrims exit. There, they would join the painted shepherds who enter the scene from the right, who La basilica santuario della SS. Annunziata. Ed. E. Casalini. (Florence, 1957), 40. Commissioned by Piero di Cosimo de’Medici who also ordered a marble and bronze aedicule to enshrine the image, designed by Michelozzo, 1447–49; M. Ferrara and F. Quinerio. Michelozzo di Bartolomeo. (Florence, 1984), 215 (plan) and 231–34. 23 See Kennedy 1938, 101. Baldovinetti’s fresco was the first of the murals painted in the cortile, after which a loosely structured narrative slowly grew, including scenes of the Virgin combined with the Life of St. Filippo Benizzi by several early sixteenth-century artists, including Cosimo Rosselli, Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo, Rosso Fiorentino. 21 22

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also have come to worship the Child, as angels fly above in celebration. Long ago, Ruth Wedgewood Kennedy saw a dependence of Alesso's composition on Piero’s earlier Baptism of Christ (Fig. 34): both paintings have semi-circular crowns and in the foreground prominently placed trees.24 To this observation, I add that Alesso’s vista also shares its efficacious civic topography as a sign of local piety with that in Piero’s painting.25 As we shall see, when Piero painted his Nativity, en revanche, he returned to major elements in Alesso’s version. The next link in the four-painting chain is Hugo van der Goes’s huge winged Portinari Altarpiece, where the Adoration of the Newborn is the subject of the central panel (Fig. 35).26 Although it arrived in Florence only in the spring of 1483, the circumstance that brought about the choice of its subject started many years before, when the project to decorate the Cappella dell’ Altare Maggiore of Sant’ Egidio, the church of the Arcispedale of Santa Maria Nuova, was begun. Hugo’s altarpiece was destined for this location, precisely where Piero had worked many years before in 1439, when he was in Florence.27 For a century and a half, the Portinari family had been the patrons and sustainers of this church, and by the early fifteenth century they had conducted several renovations, the most elaborate of which was completed in 1418.28 It was another twenty years before they started the project Kennedy 1938, 109. See M. A. Lavin. Piero della Francesca’s ‘Baptism of Christ.’ (New Haven, 1981), 23–32, for discussion of Piero’s tree. 25 I developed this notion fully in M. A. Lavin 1981, passim. See also the recent verification of my ideas (although without acknowledging my work) by C. Gardner von Teuffel, ‘Niccolò di Segna, Sassetta, Piero della Francesca: Cult and Continuity at Sansepolcro.’ Städel Jahrbuch. Neue Folge. 77 (1999): 163–208. On the meeting of Piero and Baldovinetti see M. Salmi, ‘Paolo Uccello, Domenico Veneziano, Piero della Francesca e gli affreschi del Duomo di Prato,’ Bollettino d’arte 28 (1934): 1–27; G. Centauro. Dipinti murali di Piero della Francesca: La Basilica di S. Francesca ad Arezzo, indagini su sette secoli. (Milan, 1990), 259–83. 26 B. H. Strens, ‘L’arrivo del trittico Portinari a Firenze,’ Commentari 19 (1968): 315–319, who discovered the documents and succinctly reviewed the material. See also E. Dhanens. Hugo van der Goes. (Antwerp 1998), 250–301, 378–81. 27 The documentation of Piero’s presence in Florence in 1439 is reported in every monograph, e.g. Longhi 1927, 22; Battisti 1992, 2: 608–09, Doc. 18. 28 In 1286–88, Folco (di Ricovero) Portinari, pater familias, founded the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova near a small church then dedicated to the Virgin. Starting with 12 beds, by the time of the great plague (1348), the wards were divided between men and women and together accommodated over 200 people. By then, the adjacent church was incorporated into the architectural fabric, with the added dedication to St. Egidio, patron of the sick and 24

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29. Piero della Francesca, Nativity of Christ. Oil on panel, 124 x 123 cm. London, National Gallery.

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30. Adam Lonitzer, Wode Plant (Guado; patis tinctoria). Woodcut, 1557.

31. Casa Franceschi. Sansepolcro, Via Niccolò Aggiunti.

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32. Alesso Baldovinetti, Nativity of Christ. Fresco, Ss Annunciata, Cortile dei Voti.

33. Ss Annunziata, Florence, Ground Plan.

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34. Piero della Francesca. Baptism of Christ. Tempera on panel. 167 x 116 cm. London, National Gallery.

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35. Hugo van der Goes, Portinari Altarpiece, central panel. Oil on panel, 251 x 304 cm. Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi.

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36. Luca della Robbia, Sacrament Tabernacle, glazed terracotta. Originally in Florence, Arcespedale Maria Nuova, Sant’ Edigio, Portinari Chapel; currently in Peretola, S. Maria.

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37. Hugo van der Goes, detail of Fig. 35.

38. Tomb Slabs of the Portinari, Sant’ Egidio in Santa Maria Nuova. Florence.

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39. Domenico Ghirlandaio, Adoration. Tempera on panel, 167 x 167 cm. Florence, Santa Trínita, Cappella Sassetti.

41. Augustinian Roman Coin, after Mattingly.

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40. Christ Child in Paten, fresco. 1299 (repainted in 1804). Mt. Athos, Chilandari Monastery, hemicycle of the apse (after Millet).

42. Early Christian Sarcophagus, detail, Nativity. Marble relief. Vatican, Museo Lateranense.

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43. Piero della Francesca. Hercules. Detached fresco. Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

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to decorate the apse, with a program planned for a ‘Life of the Virgin,’ and the commission given to Domenico Veneziano.29 Unfortunately all of the frescoes were destroyed when the apse was rebuilt in1594,30 but the documents tell us how the cycle was arranged. The narrative began on the left wall and read from the top down (Meeting at the Golden Gate, Birth of the Virgin, and Marriage of the Virgin). Domenico Veneziano painted the top two scenes, and started but left unfinished the third, which Alesso Baldovinetti later brought to completion. Andrea Castagno was engaged to paint the right wall: the Annunciation at the top, the Purification (or the Presentation of the Infant in the Temple), and the Death of the Virgin at the bottom.31 The cycle was thus designed to place emphasis on the exemplary life of the Virgin herself. crippled. Near this time, the locale began to function as the meeting place of the Painters’ Confraternity, and an image of St. Luke Painting the Virgin by Niccolo Pietro Gerini (1383), was on the high altar. The Portinari started to refurbish the church in 1418; two years later it was re-consecrated by Pope Martin V, who bestowed a great indulgence on all visitors. Sculptures and paintings recorded these events. The interior, however, was left undecorated; see W. and E. Paatz. Die Kirchen von Florenz. 4 vols. (Frankfurt am Main, 1952–1955), 4: 2, 5–53. 29 By 1439, when the fresco campaign was initiated, the three young sons of Folco Portinari (d. 1431), Pigello, Accerito and Tommaso, had been taken into the Medici household; as we will see, they all grew up to be employed in the Medici bank. J. R. Spencer. Andrea del Castagno and his Patrons. (Durham/London, 1991), 81–93, 124–25, speculates that the Medici, in the name of the Portinari, played a major role in the commission. Much of the following information depends on H. Wohl, Domenico Veneziano. New York, 1980, 200–09, Cat. no. 86, who transcribed documents for the work by Domenico Veneziano and Baldovinetti from the records of the hospital, pp. 341–43, 347–48. The subject was most appropriate for the church that was originally dedicated to Mary, and was physically connected to the female section of the hospital. In fact, the left (NW) wall of the church abuts the women’s cloister (known as the chiostro delle ossa from the burials that took place there); Wohl 1980, 17, 206. 30 Wohl 1980, 200. 31 The disposition of the cycle was therefore in a pattern I have named the ‘Straight Line Vertical,’ moving from top to bottom, first on the left side and then on the right; M. A. Lavin 1994, 9. Domenico Veneziano left Florence in 1445; Castagno worked in 1451, and Baldovinetto was called in 1461. O. P. Giglioli. ‘Le pitture di Andrea del Castagno e di Alesso Baldovinetti per la chiesa di S. Egidio.’ Rassegna d’arte, 3 (1905): 206 ff. identified the scene named as the ‘Presentazione’ as that of the Virgin as a child. From its position on the wall, however, it could only be the Presentation of the Infant Christ. The misidentification has been followed by Wohl 1980, and Spencer 1991, 81–93, 124–25. Castagno’s Death of the Virgin was renowned for its oblique perspective view from the bottom of the bed; described by Vasari 1966–87, 3: 360. Mario Salmi suggested that something of Castagno’s

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What painting was on the altar during this period is still open to discussion.32 But one other major element in the apse was part of the program from the beginning. This was the impressive Sacrament Tabernacle of marble and colored enamel by Luca della Robbia (Fig. 36), commissioned the same time as the frescoes (probably finished by 1442).33 Against a blue background, the relief image under the arch shows Mary pointing to her sacrificed son, and the dead Christ, upheld by angels, offering himself to the patient/viewer with the gesture of his overturned right hand. It was this deeply moving Imago pietatis, a striking innovation for design on the tabernacle at this time, that established the Eucharist sacrifice as a major theme in the chapel.34 In the early fourteen seventies, Tommaso Portinari (1432–1501), the then most prominent member of the patron family, began making arrangements to complete the furnishings of the chapel. As is well known, Tommaso in this period was employed as an agent of the Medici Banking composition is reflected in a large sixteenth-century painting today in Sarasota, FL; Andrea del Castagno. (Novara, 1961), 55, and P. Tomory. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings before 1800: The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. (Sarasota, Fl). (Sarasota, 1976), 177–78. 32 The St. Luke painting by Gerini had probably been replaced first by Lorenzo Monaco’s Adoration of the Magi, and then possibly by one of an unknown subject by Baldovinetti. There is also a question about Fra Angelico’s earlier Coronation Altarpiece (Uffizi) and its location either on the tramezzo or on the nuns choir in the front of the church; cf. Paatz 1952–55, 4: 23–25. The Compania di San Luca continued to meet in this space until at least 1482, at which time it had very few active members; see Z. Wa´zbi´nski. L’accademia Medicea del Disegno a Firenze nel Cinquecento: Idea e Istituzione. 2 vols. (Florence, 1987), who reproduces both the statutes of the Arte dei Medici e Speziali di Firenze (1349), 2: 411–417, and the ‘Capitoli della Compagnia di San Luca’ 2: 417–20, and discusses the relationship of this organization to its heir, the important sixteenth century ‘Accademia et Compania dell’Arte del Disegno,’ refounded under the patronage of ‘Illustriss. et Eccellentiss. S. duca Cosimo de Medici, duca secondo di Fiorenza et di Siena.’ 33 According to J. Pope-Hennessy. Luca della Robbia. (London, 1980), 33–5, 234–35, Pl. I, the tabernacle was Luca’s first use of colored enamel: lapis blue, sky blue, lavender, and green. It was moved to S. Maria, Peretola sometime in the eighteenth century. Although its position in the chapel is not documented, from the sharply focused glances of the two standing angels who look to their right, it would seem that the sculpture was somewhere on the left wall. Luca’s tabernacle was replaced by the one Bernardo Rossellino originally made (1450) for the chapel in the women’s ward of the hospital, finally immured in Cappella Maggiore after 1871. See A. M. Schulz. The Sculpture of Bernardo Rossellino and His Workshop. (Princeton, 1977), 52–8, 104–7. 34 For Italian Renaissance sacrament tabernacles, see H. Caspary. Das Sakramentstabernakel in Italien bis zum Konzil von Trient. 2nd ed. (Munich, 1965).

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House in Bruges and was living there with his family.35 Although far from home, his first step, made on 4 August 1472, was to endow, at the cost of 700 fiorini, perpetual daily masses to be said for his soul in the chapel.36 His second step was taken the following year when he commissioned the Flemish painter Hugo van der Goes (c. 1445–1482) to paint an image of the Adoration of the Child, worshipped in the wings by himself, his wife and offspring in the company of their patron saints.37 Probably completed by 1478, the altarpiece nevertheless stayed in Bruges until 1483 when it was finally shipped to Florence. The format was larger and more impressive than anything seen in Italy up to that time, measuring 251 x 588 cm. with the wings open.38 It must have made quite a spectacle when it was hauled up the Arno and brought into the city through the Porta San Frediano and finally placed in the church.39 Members of Portinari family, along with Tommaso and his two brothers, had been agents of the Medici for three generations. Tommaso was already Managing Partner of the Bruges branch by 1465, on personal terms with Charles the Bold and members of his court; R. De Roover. Money, Banking and Credit in Mediaeval Bruges: Italian Merchant-Bankers, Lombards and Moneychangers: A Study in the Origins of Banking. (Cambridge, MA, 1948), 88–90. 36 Tommaso was 40 when he made the endowment. With this contribution paid to the hospital, Portinari, in fact, paid for two masses a day, one to be said in Sant’ Egidio and another in SS. Annunziata. M. L. Koster. ‘New Documentation for the Portinari Altarpiece,’ The Burlington Magazine 145 (2003): 164–79, esp. p. 179, app. 3, in an article announcing her important locating of the Portinari archive, publishes the documentation in full for the first time (previously published in part by A. Grunzweig. Correspondance de la filiale de Bruge des Medici. [Brussels, 1931]. 37 Vasari 1966–87, 2: 132, was the first to make the attribution to Hugo, whom he called ‘da Anversa’ although it is now known that he was born in Ghent. Working in the 1470s for Charles the Bold in Bruges, Hugo became socially prominent and no doubt met Portinari through this connection. See E. Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting: Its Origins and Character. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA, 1971, 1: 330–38, for Hugo’s later career and suicide in 1482. 38 The main panel is 251 x 304 cm.; each of the wings, which are movable, is 251 x 142 cm. 39 The altarpiece was shipped by sea, making a stop in Sicily, then landing in Pisa, and brought up the Arno. The expenses were paid by the Arcispedale Santa Maria Nuova, although it is possible that donations from Portinari funded these expenses. This story is recounted by Strens 1968. While the altarpiece awaited shipment, Tommaso Portinari experienced a number of changes in his professional life. Modern scholarship has seen him as a head-strong and imprudent loan officer who set off the domino effect that ultimately brought down the Medici Bank; see Kurt S. Gutkind. Cosimo de’Medici Pater Patriae 1389–1464. (Oxford 1938). After 1477, the Bruges Branch was failing and while subsidies from Lorenzo 35

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Thus planning for his own burial back in Florence, it was Tommaso who chose Hugo as the painter; he who designated the altarpiece’s enormous size; and he who specified particulars of the representation to coordinate the image with the Virgin’s life cycle already in the family chapel. If the frescoes proclaimed the sanctity of Mary, the grandiose scene of the Nativity now completed the cycle by announcing the miraculous motherhood of Mary. But he could not have forecast the surprising way Hugo would represent divinity. Mary’s plainless and simplicity of dress defines her elevated role as Ecclesia; the supine infant’s vulnerability reveals his future role as the saviour of mankind.40 No wonder the hideous demon Lucifer, lurking behind the column near the ox and the ass, as tradition has it, was sent into a state of confusion by the Virgin Birth.41 Only the kneeling angels, dressed in ecclesiastical garb, openly declare that the image is a liturgical ceremony.42 The ‘still life’ in the foreground (Fig. 37) provides further Eucharistic links: the sheaf of wheat alluding to the sacramental bread, and the vine décor on the earthenware jar referring to the wine of the same sacrament.43 This de’Medici himself kept it going, in 1481 he closed it down; see J. Hale. Florence and Medici: The Pattern of Control (London, 1977), 70–71. The new information, however, provided by Koster 2003, esp. pp. 178–79, app. 1, shows that, in spite of being relieved of his office, Tommaso did not lose his fortune and his career as an international diplomat and financial consultant continued apace. By 1497 he retired to Florence where on 15 Feb 1501 he died in the hospital of Santa Maria Nuovo; see A. Warburg. ‘Flandische Kunst und Florentinische Frührenaissance,’ Gesammelte Schriften 3 vols, Leipzig/Berlin, (1932) 1: 185–206, esp. p. 201. Koster 2003 publishes for the first time Tommaso’s two wills, one from 1497 and his last testament dated 3 February 1501 apparently on his death bed. 40 Cf. L. Sinanoglou. ‘The Christ Child as Sacrifice: a Medieval Tradition and the Corpus Christi Plays.’ Speculum 48 (1973): 491–510. This author gathers together the documentation for the long medieval tradition of identifying the Christ Child as the sacrificial lamb and with the host of the Eucharistic sacrament. 41 R. M. Walker. ‘The Demon of the Portinari Altarpiece.’ Art Bulletin 42 1960: 218–19, who discovered the devil, points to a passage in the entry to the Feast of the Nativity in the Legenda Aurea, (Jacobus de Voragine: The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints). 2 vols. Trans. W. G. Ryan. [Princeton, 1995], 1: 42), that reflects the traditional notion of the ‘confounding of the devil’ by Christ’s birth. The same passage in Archbishop Jacobus’ text quotes Augustine on the Birth as medicine healing the tumor of man’s pride, an allusion that also had resonance for the hospital setting. See below, Chapter 4 on Mantegna for its pertinence in the Christus medicus context. See also the Peroration to Chapter 5 for Botticelli’s Mystical Nativity (Fig. 64), where more devils inhabit another scene of the Birth of Christ. 42 See M. B. McNamee. Vested Angels: Eucharistic Allusions in Early Netherlandish Paintings (Louvain, 1998). 43 Dhanens 1998, 296(c), reproduces two pages from a French book of hours of the late fifteenth century in which just such a jar is figured.

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tin-glaze, blue on white jar has another level of meaning. In 1431–32 a ceramic artist, Giunta di Tagio, made a series of majolica vases for use in the pharmacy (spezeria) of the arcispedale, and remembering this important, health-giving set, Tommaso may have required a citation to an albarello, the apothecary jar par excellence.44 Moreover, the flowers in the vase, most of which have Christological and Mariological meaning, were also used medicinally at this time, their products dispensed at the same pharmacy.45 Finally, the famous roustabout shepherds, who enter the composition from the right to adore the sacrificial Child, can be thought of as the social associates of the patients and their families who came to be healed, to pray and often to die in this charitable institution. Thus in spite of, or perhaps because of, its decidedly non-Florentine form of mystical realism, Hugo’s painting took its place in the apse of the church, adumbrating and bringing to completion the themes of the apse as a whole. The sixteenth-century rebuilding makes it difficult to be sure of the original state of the Cappella Maggiore; it can be assumed, however, that the Portinari family had always used it as a burial area. In fact, the modern reconstruction includes the re-use of an inscription surrounding three slabs of marble (Fig. 38), that reads: SEPVLCRVM DE DESCENDENTIUM FOLCHI DE PORTINARIS.46 After a colorful career in northern Europe, Tommaso Portinari ended his days back in Florence in the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova and in what he called ‘qui nella nostra chiesa di santo egidio.’47 Thus, rather than being a cliché of Tuscan painting, as is frequently claimed, the Adoration of the New Born Child, with its proleptic allusions to the Savior’s sacrifice and promise of redemption, was not only profoundly apposite, but also perhaps a sine qua non, in the funereal context. The third link in the Nativity/Adoration chain is indeed the altarpiece in a funereal chapel, immured in an architectural frame above the altar and Pope-Hennessy 1980, 234–35, documents these vases. R. A. Koch. ‘Flower Symbolism in the Portinari Altar,’ Art Bulletin 46 (1964): 70–77, esp. 76; Panofsky 1971, 330–38. 46 G. Richa. Notizie istoriche della chiese fiorentine, divise ne’suoi quartieri. 10 vols. (Florence 1754–1762), ‘Dello Spedale di S. Maria Nuova, Lezione XIII–XVII,’ 8: 175–233, esp. p. 191, where he describes what he considered to be the tomb of the thirteenth-century Folco Portrinari. See Dhanens 1998, 261(a), for a view of the church interior in its present form. 47 This quote is from the 1472 document published by Koster 2003, 165, 178–179, who concurs with the idea that Tommaso did not have a separate tomb, since there is no mention of one in either of his wills. 44 45

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executed by Domenico Ghirlandaio. The chapel is that of Francesco Sassetti and his wife Nera Corsi in Santa Trinita, Florence, which has a double dedication to St. Francis of Assisi and to the Nativity of Christ. Francis was Francesco’s onomastic saint, and the three walls are covered with narrative scenes from the saint’s life. The altarpiece (Fig. 39) visualizes the second dedication and, lest the worshipper be unaware of this association, the point is made in an emphatic way in the words of the titulus inscribed on the upper frieze of the painting’s frame: IPSVM QVEM GENVIT ADORAVIT MARIA (Mary adores the One whom she had borne). Started in 1483, almost at once after the arrival of the Portinari painting, the Sassetti Altarpiece manifests the immediate impact of the Flemish work. While there was no emulation of Hugo’s great size, the realism of his low-class shepherds approaching from the right reappears, if with somewhat more decorous poses and expressions.48 Once again Mary kneels on the left and there is a ‘still life’ in the foreground, this time symbolizing the donors.49 More importantly, Ghirlandaio retains the proleptic allusion to Christ’s sacrifice, but in a new form. The Infant lies naked on the ground, now resting on a portion of Mary’s robe and pointing to his mouth in verification of himself as the ‘via veritatis.’ His head and halo touch the base of an Roman sarcophagus which serves as the manger.50 Its specific Eucharistic 48 The painting is 166 x 166 cm. The full analysis of the altarpiece within the context of the chapel was set forth by E. Borsook and J. Offerhaus, Francesco Sassetti and Ghirlandaio at Santa Trínita, Florence: History and Legend in a Renaissance Chapel. (Doornspijk, 1981), 33–35. These authors make the cogent suggestion that, because of the Sassetti couple’s advanced age, the unexpected birth of a son, whom they named Teodoro II after an earlier child with the same name who died, was the reason for the choice of a Nativity as the subject. See also E. Cassarino. La cappella Sassetti nella chiesa di Santa Trinita. (Lucca, 1996), 87–88, J. K. Cadogan. Domenico Ghirlandaio: Artist and Artisan. (New Haven, 2000), 93–101, and R. G. Kecks. Domenico Ghirlandaio und die Malerei der Florentiner Renaissance. (Munich, 2000), 245–75. 49 The happy marriage of Sassetti and Corsi, recorded here in the funereal inscriptions (see Borsook and Offerhaus 1981, 21), is made visible in the foreground where a chunk of white marble, representing the husband (sassetto means stone), lies together with a pile of bricks, which refers to the wife (in the sense that bricks are laid in corsi, that is in courses). Ghirlandaio repeats Hugo’s motif of placing a tall iris flower in the foreground, here just in front of the genuflecting shepherd. 50 The tomb is rich with erudite antique references but chipped to signal the decay of pagan religions. The Latin inscription painted on the front of the tomb emphasizes its relation to Christ, saying that the bones of the original occupant were those of an augur named Fulvio, who had predicted the tomb would eventually serve a new deity. Borsook 1980, 34n 114.

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meaning here is explained in a passage from the first biography of St. Francis of Assisi by Thomas of Celano. In speaking of the Miracle of Greccio, St. Francis’s re-enactment of the Nativity, Thomas writes: ‘the place of the manger was hallowed as a temple to the Lord . . . to the end that where beasts had once eaten fodder of hay, men might thenceforth for the healing of soul and body, eat the flesh of the spotless and undefiled Lamb, our Lord Jesus Christ.’51 Once more the Eucharistic theme plays an essential role in the funereal context.52 Now we come to the final link in the four-part chain,53 Piero’s painting for which the occasion is unknown. In his composition, Piero takes from Baldovinetti the farm locale at the top of a hill. His arrangement shares with all three forerunners the figure of Mary kneeling in adoration of the recumbent infant Saviour, with St. Joseph in attendance. As in all three other compositions, Piero’s tattered shepherds enter from the right. While he thus responds to all of his predecessors in these features, he changes the nature of the subject in ways that reflect the private aspect of his work. First of all, Piero turns Mary and the Christ Child around to face the opposite direction from the other three paintings. Following Ghirlandaio, he shows the Child lying on an extension of Mary’s robe, which he takes care to twist so that Christ lies on the ‘royal blue’ side to mark his royal lineage.54 Unlike all the rest of the infants who are essentially passive, Piero’s figure is activated with his arms lifted toward his mother. He does not show the attendant angels flying about, as in Baldovinetti’s fresco, or changing in size, as in Hugo’s altarpiece, but paints them as earthbound wingless young 51 Quoted in Sinanoglou 1973; see M. A. Habig ed. St. Francis of Assisi: Writings and Early Biographies. (Quincy, IL, 1991), Celano, First Life, Bk 1: 87, pp. 301–02. It is worth noting that the third shepherd in the painting carries a lamb. The Celano account depends on ideas voiced much earlier by Pope Gregory the Great, to be discussed shortly. 52 The theme is further extended in the foreground by the presence of a goldfinch, harbinger of the Passion; see H. Friedmann. The Symbolic Goldfinch. (New York, 1946). 53 Observation of the four-part relationship goes back as far as Evelyn 1912, 133. Currently, there are various opinions on the point, with C. Bertelli. Piero della Francesca. Trans. E. Farrelly. (New Haven/London, 1992), 218, being the most adamant in dating Piero’s painting before the Portinari painting arrived in Florence. Discussions of Piero’s relationship to Flemish painting and the oil technique are reviewed in Battisti 1992, 2: 538–39. 54 Christ’s relation to King David was through the paternity of Joseph; St. Luke 3: 23–38. Cf. for bibliography on this complicated subject, see The Catholic Encyclopedias 16 vols. (New York, 1909) 6: 410–11. The motif of the Child on the robe is found frequently in Florentine Nativity scenes; for example, Fra Filippo Lippi, Adoration with Sts George and Vincent Ferrer, Prato, Museo Civico; reproduced in Mannini and Fagioli 1997, Pl. 75, cat. 54. See below for another example.

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male musicians, humanly scaled. He dresses two of them, like some of Hugo’s angles, in liturgical garb but has them actually participating in the liturgy by opening their mouths in song. Almost in response to Ghirlandaio’s elegant but collapsing ‘temple,’ he shows the stable as the most rudimentary of farm shacks and even that in a state of disrepair.55 He augments the two traditional animals, which he represented as playing explicit roles in the event, by adding a monumental magpie perched in stately profile on the roof of the shed. He reduces the number of shepherds from three to two, and represents St. Joseph sitting calmly with one foot placed on the opposite knee and his hands folded. Like Baldovinetti, he opens the space behind the natural podium, now on both sides, adding views of the town of Sansepolcro on the right and its river-valley environment on the left, in topographically correct relation. In terms of style, the Adoration is a new departure. Whereas in all his earlier work, Piero had devised compositions with superb geometric perspectives that produce exact viewing positions with all orthogonal lines converging at a single point,56 here he gives no mathematical indication as to how to read the space. On the contrary, he orients the dilapidated fieldstone shed at an angle to the picture plane, and thus deliberately blocks orthogonal projection. This hut is the only building in Piero’s œuvre that is set askew.57 In denying rationally readable space, he has created a mystical realm, which, we discover, in itself supplies the Eucharistic meaning to the image. It does so in the following way. Every Italian farm has a flat area or promontory open to the sun called Paolo Bensi has recently shown that Piero produced the surface texture of this shed with his finger tips; prints are visible behind and around the Virgin’s head in some photographs (e.g. Battisti 1992, 1: Fig. 252). Bensi observes that this technique was often used by Jan van Eyck; ‘Il ruolo di Piero della Francesca nello sviluppo della tecnica pittorica del Quattrocento,’ Piero della Francesca tra Arte e Scienza. ed. M. Dalai Emiliani and V. Curzi, (Venice, 1996), 167–82. 56 E.g. the Flagellation, the architectural scenes in the Arezzo fresco cycle, the Montefeltro Altarpiece, the Annunciation and the predella scenes of the Sant’ Antonio Altarpiece. 57 This point is discussed by A. Janhsen, Perspektivregeln und Bildgestaltung bei Piero della Francesca, (Munich, 1990): 96–103. Although the architecture itself is parallel to the picture plane, the space in the much smaller Senigallia Madonna, also painted late in his career, is similarly lacking orthogonal projection and therefore cannot be reconstructed. This new approach is all the more intriguing when we note this shift to non-rational construction occurred in the very period in which Piero wrote his most theoretical mathematical treatises, the De prospectiva pingendi and the Libellus de quinque corporibus regularibus. For a summary of Piero's writings, the manuscript copies and the published editions; see Lightbown 1997, 291–92, 297. 55

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an aiuola, or aia in Tuscan dialect. This space is left uncultivated for the exclusive purpose of threshing wheat.58 The ‘threshing floor,’ as it is called in English, is where the chaff is separated from the grain to make it viable for grinding into flour. The flour, in turn, is the substance of baked bread, and therefore the bread of the Host wafer. Here is the heart of Piero’s approach: by placing the Christ Child prostrate on the floor of the aia he identifies the very structure of the scene with the future sacrifice. The Child on the ground, from early Christian times, was seen, for example by the Cyril of Alexandria (fourth century), as the sacrifice; St. John Chrysostom proclaimed the Newborn was not placed in the manger but on the altar. And the symbolic reading of the Nativity story was broadcast in the liturgy of the Divine Office, where Pope Gregory the Great’s Christmas homily announces that: ‘. . . He is born in Bethlehem for good reason, since Bethlehem means House of Bread. For it is He who said ‘I am the living bread which came down from heaven.’[John VI, 41]. Ecce Panis Angelorum, factus cibus viatorum (Behold the Bread of Angels Made the Food of Wayfarers), is the Sequence often sung in the Office to honor Christ’s body.59 Piero made these epithets visible in his painting where, instead of using symbols as his predecessors had done, he embedded the allusion to the Eucharistic sacrifice into the very fabric of the composition. Now also the motif of the Infant lying on the extension of Mary’s role is clarified, perhaps not only in this instance, but also in many of the other Tuscan examples that include the same motif. Within the iconography of the Eastern Orthodox Church, in the fourteenth century if not before, the liturgy of the Eucharistic sacrifice was visualized with a remarkable image: a simple altar table with the utensils of the sacrament, the chalice for the wine and the paten to hold the host wafer (Fig. 40). Here, the gobletOne of the properties Piero would have left to his nephew Francesco had he not predeceased him, was a vegetable garden and an aia: ‘Uno ortale et l’aia taule trentacinque confina con la via et Alexandro d’ Antonello.’ [. . . that measured thirty-five taule in size . . .]; Battisti 1992, 2: 626, Doc. 222, 4 February 1492. According to Battisti (2: 216) , a taula (or tavola) is an area equal to 144 square feet. This garden and threshing floor would have been about 1675 square meters. 59 Liturgicae Orationis Concordantia Veralia. Prima Pars: Missale Romanum (Roma, 1964), 455; from Ps 77[78]:25, ‘Panem angelorum manducavit homo’ (‘the bread of angels was eaten by men’), and Wisdom, 16:20, ‘proquibus angelorum esca nutrivisti populum tuum’ (‘as against this, you nourished your people with food of angels’). See also Dante in two books of the Divine Comedy, Purgatory, Canto II:11, Paradise, Canto XII:11, and in the Convivio, 1, i, 6–7. 58

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shaped chalice stands next to an oval-shaped paten which holds not the host wafer, but a small figure of the Christ Child lying on his back with his arms bent and hands lifted.60 Although I have not been able to find clear evidence of knowledge of this image in the West, the similarity of the recumbent Christ Child is evident, and the parallel between this Child and Hugo van der Goes’s Infant is uncanny. The point in the Tuscan Nativities is that the extension of Mary’s robe is often oval in shape, serving in the same way as the paten to present the Eucharistic Sacrifice, ready for the liturgy.61 Thus although filtered through Renaissance naturalism, looking again as though Mary is simply making her infant more comfortable, this motif too reinforces the Eucharistic meaning of the scene. However, Piero’s allusion to the Eucharist goes beyond the generic tradition of which his painting is a part, to arrive at a level of personal significance. The painted town seen in the distance behind St. Joseph can be identified with Bethlehem and John’s evangelical words announcing Christ’s Nativity there. But of course, at the same time, the town is easily recognizable as Sansepolcro, the place of Piero’s own birth. This town in actual fact had from its beginning in the tenth century been identified with Jerusalem, and actually named the Holy Sepulchre for the sacred relic from the Tomb of Christ that brought about its founding.62 The efficacy of the town as a holy site was part and parcel of the civic self-image. Knowing these facts, we may understand the significance of the Infant’s gesture of raising his arms. At first it seems natural enough for a child to express his desire to embrace his mother. St. Bridget had underscored this point in her vision when she described the Child at birth as ‘shivering with cold and lifting his arms to his mother.’ But on a deeper level Bridget meant that with his and Mary’s superior foreknowledge, he was reaching for his fate. In the painting he lifts his arms to embrace his future, gesturing toward the city of his See G. Millet. Monuments de l’Athos. (Paris, 1927), Pl. 63, Fig. 3. See Masolino’s Nativity on the vault at Castigliono Olona where the Christ Child is lying in an oval of radiating light; P. Joannides. Masaccio and Masolino: a Complete Catalogue. (New York: Abrams-Phaidon, 1993), 237–39; undated Nativity in the Berenson Collection, Villa i Tatti, Florence (reproduced in F. Hartt. History of Italian Renaissance Art [New York, 1975], 323, Fig. 385), where the oval shape is quite pronounced. 62 The relic, a piece of stone from Christ’s tomb, was brought to the locale by two Holy Land pilgrims. The valley with the winding river on the left is a view of the land around the city known as the ‘Val di Nocea’ through which the upper Tiber passes. See the discussion and the literature referred to in M. A. Lavin 1981, chap. 1, and A. Czortek. Un abbazia, un comune, Sansepolcro nei secoli xi–xiii. (Città di Castello, 1997). 60 61

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tomb.63 It is this gesture that explains Piero’s reversal of direction of the poses; he did so to have Christ face Sansepolcro. What separates Piero’s Nativity, finally, from all the others and from his own earlier works, is his exaltation of the lowly and the mundane to lofty spiritual value.64 While filled with dignity and mystical numina, these people are manifestly modest and unpretentious. Mary is not the great matriarchal figure of the Montefeltro Altarpiece, but a charming young auburnhaired girl, the most conventionally beautiful of Piero’s women.65 For all his weighty meaning, the Infant is a vulnerable naked babe asking for succor. The angels are country boys standing barefoot in the grass. Old Joseph, the just man who married Mary but who protects Ecclesia, is seated, one might say enthroned, on the donkey’s saddle, contemplating the wonder of the event in the pose of a philosopher.66 The tattered but enlightened shepherds salute the Child with the dignity of a Roman orator or emperor (Fig. 41), one raising his arm rhetorically and carrying his staff like a baton of command.67 The stable has the flimsiest possible form of a half-destroyed In this motif, Piero had a powerful, local stimulus from the sculptured Madonna della Badia, a magnificent wooden Sedes Sapientiae, or Madonna in Majesty, with the Christ Child on her lap raising his arms. The piece is signed by Presbyteri Martini, and dated 1199, and was originally housed in Badia of Sansepolcro; E. Carli. La scultura lignea italiana. (Milan, 1960), 22–23. In Berlin since 1887, the statue is of a type in which the Child blesses with his right hand and holds an orb in his left; see I. H. Forsyth. The Throne of Wisdom: Wood Sculptures of the Madonna in Romanesque France. (Princeton, 1972), Figs. 25, 26, 52, 183, 184. Piero’s veneration for this precious statue is shown by the fact that he left in his will a gift of 10 lire to the ‘gloriosissime Virginis Marie da Abbatia’, one of only four charitable donations that he made outside of his family; see Battisti 1992, 2:624, Doc. 211. 64 I first developed the following description in ‘Piero’s Meditation on the Nativity,’ Piero dell Francesca and his Legacy. (Studies in the History of Art, 48, NGA), ed. M. A. Lavin (Washington, D.C., 1995), 127–142; re-edited with additions in J. Wood, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Piero della Francesca. (New York, 2002), 66–75, 214–221. 65 It is Bridget who describes Mary specifically as ‘light-haired.’ 66 On the history of the ascent in Joseph’s role in the scheme of salvation, see C. C. Wilson. St. Joseph in Italian Renaissance Society and Art: New Directions and Interpretations. (Philadelphia, 2002), 3–11, and passim. 67 See M. A. Lavin 1995, 132, for comparison of the forward shepherd to the figure on imperial coins. This is the area that has suffered the most from the early over-cleaning; Davies 1961, 433–434. In the long history of shepherds attending Nativity scenes, depending on their gestures, these rural characters express a variety of responses to the angelic message they have just received: awe, fear, surprise, acclamation. See E. Kitzinger, with S. Ćurčić. The Mosaics of Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio at Palermo. (Washington, D.C., 1990), Figs. 108–112, 175–82. It has been suggested more than once that there was an actual represen63

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tegurium (peasant’s house) often seen in Early Christian sarcophagi (Fig. 42).68 The farm animals, lowly by their nature, respond to the miracle:69 the dumb ox bows in comprehension of the identity of the Infant King and the ass uses his annoying voice to join in the angelic singing in praise of the Lord.70 The magpie, known above all as a chattering, bothersome pest, celebrates in respectful silence the arrival of the true Word.71 Although exaltation of the lowly aspects of the visible world had resonated throughout his career, here Piero, for the first time, makes it the major focus of his work. In spite of our ignorance of the details of Piero’s private life, I suggested that the heartfelt reverence for simple faith visualized in this painting reveals something of his inner attitudes. While denying his figures elegance, he gives them an underlying grandeur. Although it does not seem possible, he simplifies and purifies his subject, recharging each detail into a kind of a summa of holy worth in lowly garb. And as in his Baptism of Christ (Fig. 34), he shows the sanctity of his native land, embracing, literally, the scene of the Nativity with Sansepolcro and its environs. He does all this to convey but one, essential message: ‘Dominus natus est.’ If we assume that Piero made this painting for himself, we may ask if he had a particular use in mind or place for its exposition? While it is smaller (1.24 x 1.23 cm.), for example, than the Montefeltro Altarpiece (2.48 x 1.70 cm.), it is large enough to serve as a devotional image.72 The tation of the dove of the Holy Ghost or of God the Father in the pediment of the original frame, to which the shepherd would be pointing. Piero had used the same gesture in the background of his Baptism Altarpiece, and again for the imperial figure of Heraclius in the battle scene on the lowest tier of the left wall in the cycle of the True Cross in Arezzo (perhaps basing himself on a drawing after a lost equestrian statue thought to be Heraclius himself; see M. Vickers. ‘Theodosius, Justinian, or Heraclius?’ Art Bulletin 58 [1976]: 281–82). 68 Said by the Church Fathers to have been used to hide the truth of the Savior’s royal status from his unbelieving foes; see Schiller 1966, 1: 70, and Fig. 147, Museo Lateranense (Vatican) 190, fourth century. Jacopus di Voragine quotes Peter Comestor’s Scholastic History, where the place is described simply ‘. . . as a shelter against the uncertainties of the weather,’ (Golden Legend 1993, 47). 69 Their presence responds to the prophesy of Isaiah: ‘The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib’ (Isaiah 1: 3). 70 For the background and meaning of the singing ass, see M. A. Lavin 2002, notes 30–34. 71 Piero’s inclusion of animals in Christian devotion reflects the teachings of St. Francis, who among many expressions of love, himself preached to the birds. 72 Like the Montefeltro Altarpiece, the Nativity is a pala, that is an almost square format which, like the Sassetti Altarpiece (also square), could have had a square frame, without pediment or predelle.

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first thing that comes to mind is the possible use at a personal tomb.73 Piero, however, did not expect to be buried alone, for the Franceschi family had a common grave site, in use for many generations. This site is thought to be in a covered area outside the south nave wall of the Camaldolite abbey church of San Giovanni. Time and again in family documents, and in Piero’s own will, burials are designated as being ‘nella badia.’74 The locale was auspicious since it corresponds to the site of the ancient chapel dedicated to San Leonardo, the original locus from which the town of San Sepolcro grew.75 However, and although this place seems logical, there is no evidence of an altar (much less an altarpiece) until the eighteenth century. A more likely possibility is that he made it for a private space in his house, where he himself and members of his family could pray and meditate.76 The idea of painting something for his house, in fact, had an important precedent in his figure of Hercules (Fig. 43), done in fresco on the wall of the main room of the upper floor earlier in his career. The painting was unknown until about 1860 when the then owner, a Senator Collacchioni, had the room stripped of its plaster. Twenty years later he had the fresco cut from the wall and taken to his villa outside the town. In 1897, he returned the fresco to the house on the Via Niccolò Aggiunti, apparently to its orig-

73 Piero’s painting was, as we shall see, close in time to Mantegna’s documented tomb chapel, which was, after Filarete’s, one of the first built by an artist for himself. Although the decorations were still unfinished at his death in 1506, it is now believed he began the bronze self-portrait mounted at the entrance in the mid 1480s; see R. Lightbown. Mantegna: with a Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, Drawings and Prints. (Oxford 1986), 130–32, cat. no. 62, 455–56, and the next chapter in this book. 74 Piero wrote: ‘La sepultura mia voglo che sia in badia nella sepultura nostra, lascio al opera de badia lire dieci . . .’ Battisti 1992, 2: 624, Doc. 210, July 1487. Some authors, including Bertelli 1992, believe the vault was in the ‘Cappella di Monacato.’ This point is denied by A. Tafi, Immagine di Borgo Sansepolcro. (Cortona, 1994), 194, who says the location is unknown. 75 See M. A. Lavin 1981 and Gardner 1999. 76 ‘La tradizione vuole che Piero dipingesse quella Natività per ornarne la propria cappella gentilizia. Il marito di chi scrive si ricorda bene di avere sempre veduto da ragazzo questa pittura appesa sopra l’altare nella cappella privata del suo palazzo paterno; poi, un bel giorno, la vide, tolta di lì e caricata sopra una diligenza, portar via, con suo vivo rammarico, perchè il bel dipinto aveva colpito la sua immaginazione di fanciullo!’ Evelyn 1912, 135. Evelyn was the English wife of the last living relative of Piero della Francesca.

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inal place.77 The location sounds suspiciously like one of the rooms in the 1500 inventory of Francesco di Marco, which, however, makes no mention of such a wall painting.78 The main point is that modern evidence securely places the fresco in the house, proving that Piero thought of his own dwelling as a place for artistic expression, and if the consensus about the date (c. 1460–70) is correct, he was among the first, if not the first, artist to do so.79 While the Hercules may be an ante-prima of a work of art done for the artist himself, its existence lends credence to the idea that he would conceive of creating an altarpiece for the same milieu. Throughout his life, Piero remained extraordinarily close to his family. After his various youthful sojourns and forays to Umbria and the courts of the Marches and Emilia-Romagna, he always returned home and participated in the life of Sansepolcro. As the Franceschi clan grew in numbers as well as in wealth and prestige, its domicile expanded and became a commodious dwelling with professional quarters for the family business, along with Piero’s painting studio.80 By the second half of the 1480s, when Piero presumably painted the Nativity, there were between 18 and 20 people living comfortably together.81 After the death of Marco (June 1487), who had so often acted as Piero’s agent in money matters, it is touching to observe 77 According to a local historian, a plaque stating this was installed in the room in 1915. In the mean time, it had been taken to Florence and sold to Isabella Steward Gardner and transported to Boston. See C. Gilbert. ‘The Hercules in Piero’s House,’ Artibus et Historiae 45 (2000): 107–16, where the history of the fresco is reviewed. 78 See above, p. 4. No wall decorations of any kind are listed, but of course the inventory was describing portable property (mobile) rather than immobile. 79 Gilbert 2001, 109, briefly mentions this topic, referring to E. Hüttinger’s study of artists’ houses (Künstlerhäuser. Zurich, 1985) and citing Filarete’s description of an architect’s imaginary decorated house as a sign that the idea was abroad at this time. Of course, the house where Piero lived and worked was not technically ‘his’ house, but the family house jointly owned by him and his brothers. There are various opinions on whether the Hercules was an isolated figure or formed part of an intended series of heroes; Lightbown 1997, 267–70. In any event, it is one of only two instances in Piero’s œuvre of a classical subject, the other being is the ancillary figure of a blindfolded Cupid on the entrance pilaster of the left wall in the fresco cycle of the True Cross in San Francesco, Arezzo. 80 See the account in Lightbown 1997, 266–67. 81 This cadre included brother Marco and his family [second wife Panta, their five surviving daughters: Alessandra, Contessa, Maddalena, Lisabetta, Genevra], and three sons: Bastiano, Girolamo, and the oldest, Francesco and his family: wife Laudomia, their two boys Marco II and Giovanni Battista, and two girls Nanna and Margherita. There was also Piero’s other brother Antonio (his wife Jacopa died in 1478) and his two sons, Vico and Bartolomeo, not yet married, and at least one yet-to-be-married daughter Mattea.

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Piero attending to the affairs of Marco’s daughter, Contessa, the child born at the death of Marco’s first wife Giovanna degli Anastagi in 1472. Piero was responsible to see that Contessa’s dowry, a portion of which came from her mother’s dowry, was properly conveyed to her husband, the medical doctor Michele di Antonio Zanzani.82 This couple seem to have been particular favorites of Piero’s because, after his death, they possessed what quite possibly were two of his unfinished paintings, both Annunciations, one on wood, one on canvas.83 While the family proliferated with frequent marriages and births, often followed by infant deaths, Piero was the only one who remained unmarried and without issue. His relatives seemed not only to accept this fact, but, in light of his artistic success, also to respect it. He was the one member of the family referred to in documents as ‘maestro’ and finally as ‘Egregio maestro.’ I propose that Piero’s contribution to this burgeoning agglomeration of humanity was his painting of the Nativity. An image of the Birth of Christ, both as a narrative and as a festival event, commemorates not just a birth, but the paradigm of all Christian births. This representation of the Nativity was, in effect, Piero’s offspring. With it, he made an analogy of creation and procreation, and rendered visible his meditation on the gift that, in the words of Paul, ‘was to be preferred to all others,’ namely Christ’s charity in coming to earth for the salvation of mankind. As we shall see, Piero was not alone in rejoicing in his familial bonds. He participated in a notion, shared in various ways with Mantegna, Michelangelo, Bellini, Leoni, and Bernini, in which profession and passion, career and sentiment, pride and love, motivated the actions of the newly self-possessed artists. The aged Piero’s method was to use the fundamental dogma of the church displayed by ordinary creatures in the setting of his homeland, to exalt his God-given abilities. By so doing, he expressed his love of home and family, showed his profound respect for all of God’s creation, and revealed, finally, his own good humor and sense of divine joy.

Battisti 1992, 2: 625, Doc. 216, 22 April 1488. Listed in the inventory of Dottore Zanzani (d. 5 June 1505), Battisti 1992, 2: 630, Doc. 255, where an unfinished St. Jerome is also listed. 82 83

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Mantegna and the Consolable Self Although it is generally agreed that Mantegna painted his famous and influential Dead Christ for himself, it has not been observed that it is one of the progenitors of the class of private works that began to develop in Italy toward the end of the fifteenth century. Moreover, the question remains as to why Mantegna chose to represent this particular subject, and what the subject may have meant to him, personally.

A

NDREA Mantegna and Piero della Francesca had many points in common, one of which is that they were among the first, and at precisely the same moment, to produce works of art for themselves. Beyond that likeness, there were life parallels. Both were commissioned to do their first cycle of frescoes in the 1450s: Piero, already in his 40s, at Arezzo; Mantegna, in his teens, in Padua. Both were engaged in the subject of mathematical perspective and the representation of human bodies as they turn and diminish behind the picture plane. Both were serious and knowledgeable students of the classics.1 At the same time it must be said that their careers and some of their attitudes differed in fundamental ways. Piero had a late start in painting; Mantegna was a youthful prodigy. Piero never married; Mantegna was

Piero’s cycle of the True Cross in San Francesco in Arezzo and Mantegna’s cycles of Sts James and Christopher in the Ovetari Church, Padua, are similar in terms of the three-tiered division of the walls, but differ dramatically in terms of spatial construction. Piero arranged his compositions as though the spectator were standing level with the ground line on each super-imposed tier, looking directly into the receding space. Mantegna arranged his as though the spectator were standing level with the ground line of the middle tier, looking up at the top tier and down at the bottom. See M. A. Lavin 1994, 159–67. Piero concentrated on the works of Euclid and other ancient mathematicians; Mantegna read Cicero, the philosophers, and other ancient literature. 1

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married in 1453 when he was about nineteen. Piero was the citizen of a small, very provincial town, where he was among the intellectual elite; Mantegna, for more than forty years, was official artist to an aristocratic court where he was treated with respect but under the thumb of his patrons. In these differing circumstances, both men produced works of art for themselves that they kept physically close by, that they created to fulfill their own personal and emotional needs, and that showed both to be profoundly committed to their families. When Andrea Mantegna died on 13 Sept 1506, he left a will and codicil making his surviving sons, Francesco and Ludovico, his universal heirs. Less than a month later, 2 October 1506, Ludovico wrote the Marchese Gian Francesco II Gonzaga, reporting on, among other things, three paintings by his father that were still in his house in Mantua. One of these was the famous ‘Cristo in scurto’ (Fig. 44), that is, the Dead Christ whose body is seen in sharp foreshortening. As there is no record of any commission for this work and it probably dates twenty-five or so years before Mantegna’s death, at which time it was still in his possession, it qualifies eminently for the survey we are making.2 More than a year later, on 12 November 1507, Ludovico writes again, this time to Isabella d’Este, Gian Francesco II’s wife, that the painting, along with a St. Sebastian (lost?), had been taken by Cardinal Sigismondo Gonzaga, the Marchese’s brother, who was paying the price of one hundred ducats, supposedly at the rate of five ducats per week.3 The Cristo in scurto is next cited the year after Federico II Gonzaga, (Isabella’s son) was made duke (1530), in a letter of 28 October 1531 from Ippolito Calandra, one of Isabella’s agents. He mentions the painting as part of the furnishings of the apartment of the new duchess, Margherita Paleologa (‘palazzina costruita dinanzi al Castello da Giulio Romano’). The painting had remained in the Ducal Palace for at least a hundred years when it was listed in an inventory dated 1627 of the Camerino delle Dame: ‘Un quadro dipinto: N.S. deposto sopra il sepolcro in scurzo con cornici fregiate 2 The circumstances surrounding this work, its history, its various versions, and its widespread impact on later artists, are still under discussion. However, it is generally agreed that the painting in the Galleria del Brera is most likely the original. But see below, note 14. 3 Mantegna was heavily in debt when he died. His will called for 100 ducats to be paid for decorating his funereal chapel with 100 ducats more for endowment. His son Ludovico was in a hurry to sell the paintings to pay for some of these expenses. He complains to Isabella that her brother-in-law, who had promised support, had paid only 75 ducats so far, not enough to cover the costs. See Lightbown 1986, 248.

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d’oro di mano del Mantegna — L. 90’.4 The technique was recently described as ‘painted probably in distemper on fine linen-weave canvas’ now laid on panel with strips added at both sides.5 There has been broad disagreement about the date, and the type of perspective used in the representation, as well as the identity of the original. The date has been placed everywhere from ‘late’ in Mantegna’s early period, that is, c. 1466, to the period of his last years, 1500–1506, with a recent consensus forming around 1480–85. We will see below that there is reason to believe the work dates from soon after 21 August 1484. Evidence of Mantegna’s knowledge of perspective begins with his earliest works. As a very young man in the 1450s and early 60s, he studied reclining figures projected into space in drawings and paintings, and portrayed them receding diagonally both from the point of view of their heads and of their feet (Figs. 45 and 46).6 Never before the Cristo in scurto, however, had he shown a figure so completely perpendicular to the picture plane and never on such a large scale. The effect of this view is so extraordinary, in fact, that sources for the idea have been an issue in almost all discussions.7 In 1930 Hubert Schrade related the composition to Jacopo Bellini’s drawings of the Death of the Virgin (Fig. 47) in his famous sketch books, where, Lightbown 1986, 421–22, no. 23. Quotation from C. D’Arco, Delle arti e degli artefici di Mantova. 2 vols. (Mantua, 1857), 2: 161; A. Luzio. La galleria dei Gonzaga venduta all’Inghilterra nel 1627–8. (Rome, 1913), 115, no. 318. Acquired by the Accademia di Belle Arti (Brera) from heirs of the painter Giuseppe Bossi in 1824, who bought it in Rome (mentioned in a letter from Bossi to Canova). Cardinal Mazarin owned a version: ‘. . . et l’autre Nostre Seigneur mort à la renverse en racourcy et plusieurs autres figures au naturel, chacun hault de deux pieds dix poulces et large de deux pieds quatre poulces, garnis chacun de leurs bordures de bois doré,’ and another version was offered to Louis XIV and seen by Bernini; the evidence reviewed by Lightbown 1986, 419–29. 5 And possibly cut at the top, since only three-quarters of the stippled halo is visible. A. Rothe, ‘Mantegna’s Paintings in Distemper,’ Andrea Mantegna. Eds. J. Martineau, et al. Exhibition Catalogue, 80–88. (London/New York, 1992), makes this judgment, describing also the condition and thanking the Brera photographer for conveying the information. There seems to be no published record of a technical analysis done by the museum and no first-hand reports of possible cropping under the frame, or of any surface markings. 6 See Mantegna 1992, No. 26, p. 177; also figures in the predella of the Sant’ Zeno Altarpiece, and the figure of the dead St. Christopher, lowest tier, right wall, Padua, Eremetani, Ovetari Chapel (lost). 7 Starting with the suggestion that Mantegna was greatly stimulated by the dramatic scorcio of Castagno’s fresco of the Death of the Virgin in Sant’ Egidio (now lost), which he must have seen when he was in Florence in 1466; G. Paccagnini ed., Andrea Mantegna, exhib. cat. (Venice, 1961), 62, no. 42 with further bibliographic summary. 4

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44. Andrea Mantegna, Cristo in Scurto. Distemper on linen-weave canvas, 68 x 81 cm. Milan, Galleria del Brera.

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45. Andrea Mantegna, Agony in the Garden, detail of Apostles. London, National Gallery.

46. Andrea Mantegna, Three Reclining Figures. Drawing, pen and brown ink. London, British Museum.

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47. Jacopo Bellini, Death of the Virgin. Pen drawing. Bellini Sketch Book, Paris, Musée du Louvre.

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in an elaborate ecclesiastical setting, the corpse on a litter appears at a right angle to the picture plane, feet toward the spectator. Schrade pointed out, moreover, that this positioning is advised by the Church for the liturgy of the funeral Mass, in itself an allusion to the death of Christ.8 The relationship, both visual and theological, is indeed inescapable. But more important are the changes: in Mantegna’s painting there is a lack of any clearly articulated setting; the foreshortening is vigorously augmented; and above all, the dramatic close-up, a well-studied principle in Mantegna’s œuvre, abstracts it from any real situation.9 The method Mantegna used for the perspective projection and the calculations of his foreshortening then became the focus of scholarly attention. One proposal was that in dealing with the problem of not having Christ’s head diminish in an irreverent manner, Mantegna made the projection from a very distant point (more than 90 feet away!) and from high up in the air. Among several other suggestions, the simplest was that Mantegna adjusted the perspective and the foreshortening intuitively.10 The most cogent analysis was that of Corrado Maltese, who discerned multiple shifting diagonals within the composition as a whole, and the lack of parallel projection in the body. In this light, Maltese made a persuasive case for Mantegna’s use of two different systems, the first being cylindrical perspective for the body (Fig. 48), and the second being normal one-point per-

H. Schrade. ‘Ueber Mantegnas Christo in scurto und verwandte Darstellungen.’ Neue Heidelberger Jahrbücher N. F. (1930): 75–111. Mantegna would have access to Jacopo’s notebooks already in the late 1440s and early 1450s, when he was working along side his brotherin-law (Giovanni) in Jacopo’s shop; see C. Eisler. The Genius of Jacopo Bellini: The Complete Paintings and Drawings. (New York, 1988), 367 and Pls. 229 and 230; see p. 532 for reference to the will of Jacopo’s wife Anna (25 November 1471), where his artistic legacy, presumably including the notebooks, is passed on to Gentile Bellini, Jacopo’s older son. 9 S. Ringbom. Icon to Narrative: the Rise of the Dramatic Close-up in Fifteenth-Century Devotional Painting. (Doornspijk, 1984). 10 The distant view point was that of R. Smith. ‘Natural Versus Scientific: the Foreshortened Figure in the Renaissance,’ Gazette des Beaux-Arts 84 (1974): 239–48. See also K. Rathe. Die Ausdrucksfunktion extrem verkürzter Figuren. Studies of the Warburg Institute 74. (London, 1938); P. Friess. Kunst und Maschine: 500 Jahre Maschinenlinien in Bild und Skulptur. (Augsburg, 1993), 61–2. One scholar claimed the body was made to be looked at with one eye (Hartt 1975, 355). 8

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spective for the slab of stone.11 Like most authorities, Maltese said that Mantegna modeled his figure on a real cadaver, and, because of the suggestion of dislocated shoulders, even proposed that the male model was a criminal who died on a cross. Since Maltese’s time, a further possibility for Mantegna’s technical approach has come up. Rodolfo Signorini, an archival scholar whose work has brought to light many previously unknown aspects of Mantegna’s career and whom we will meet again at a later point in this discussion, published the inventory of Ludovico Mantegna, who died in 1510; the assumption is that many of Ludovico’s possessions had belonged to his father, who had died only four years earlier. Among a number of manuscripts, books and objects packed away in a forzero dipinto (a painted chest), there appears: ‘Item. uno spolvere [sic] de Christo in Scurto.’ While Signorini did not dismiss the possibility that the pounced drawing was for the painting under discussion, he thought it more likely that it was in preparation for a fresco, perhaps the circular fresco of the Deposition Andrea painted in the entrance of Sant’ Andrea in Mantua.12 Since the object does not exist, there is no way of making a final decision. However, I point out that pounced cartoons were used as often for easel paintings as for frescoes, and it is therefore possible that Mantegna worked out his complicated composition, the foreshortening of the body and the complex folds of drapery, first on paper and then transferred them to canvas with the pouncing technique.13 There is still a further debate as to whether the ancillary figures were part C. Maltese, ‘Il Pianto sul Cristo del Mantegna: tra geometria e oratoria.’ Arte Lombarda 64 (1983): 60–64. Moreover, the fact that the vanishing point of the slab’s orthogonals is higher than the horizon line implied by the eye level of the figures on the left encouraged Maltese to see the figures on the left and Christ as being in two different realms, one real, one mystical. 12 Later repainted by Correggio; R. Signorini. ‘New Findings about Andrea Mantegna: his Son Ludovico’s Post-Mortem Inventory (1510).’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 59 (1996): 103–18; the spolvero is listed on p. 114. The Deposition fresco is discussed by Lightbown 1986, 454–45, 461, and by Signorini. ‘Un inedito su Francesco Mantegna e il Correggio.’ In Quaderni di Palazzo Te, n.s. 3(1996): 79–80. 13 C. C. Bambach, Drawing and Painting in the Italian Renaissance Workshop: Theory and Practice, 1300–1600. (Cambridge, 1999); see also Piero’s use of a tiny cartoon for the turban on one of the figures in the Flagellation; M. A. Lavin. Piero della Francesca: the Flagellation. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 19. 11

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of the original composition. In 1941, Hans Tietze published a version without the figures as the original, saying that the Brera painting was a later, ‘sweeter’ copy.14 To complicate matters, all early documentation that speaks of secondary characters in the composition cites two women who are crying, rather than the three figures visible in the Brera painting.15 In our context, that is, investigating what it means that Mantegna created this work without a commission and that he kept it for his own throughout his career, the ultimate solution to these complex issues is important but not the primary task. The point is not only that the painting is a technical tour de force,16 but that it is also an image of overwhelming emotional vigor, one of most moving and influential works of the fifteenth century. The Dead Christ is presented to the spectator obliquely, feet first, lying on a slab of red and white variegated stone, presumably the ‘Stone of Unction.’17 Both feet extend aggressively forward beyond the edge of the stone support (Fig. 49). The left foot leans to our right and seems fairly 14 H. Tietze, ‘The ‘Cristo in Scurto’ by Mantegna.’ Art in America 29 (1941): 51–56; the painting (63.7 x 75.7 cm.) was then owned by the Jacob M. Heimann Gallery, and later sold to the De Navarro Collection, Glen Head, N.Y. E. Tietze-Conrat. Mantegna: Paintings, Drawings, Engravings: Complete edition. (London, 1955), 192, called it a modello of about 1466, and said the Brera painting is ‘an enriched version.’ All other authors reject the New York painting’s authenticity, making it a poor, later sixteenth-century copy (cf. Lightbown 1986, 422). The most recent rejection of the Brera painting as the one left in Mantegna’s studio comes from K. Christiansen, who, without mentioning the fact that previous critics had made the same point, tendentiously hypothecates the Brera painting was made for Ercole d’Este and the one documented in the studio was a replica; Mantegna 1992, 155–58. 15 E.g., Aldobrandini, 1603: #260: ‘Un Christo in scorto sù una tavola morto, con due donne, che piangono, di mano d’Andrea Mantenga (sic)’; 1626: #132 ‘Un quadro con Christo in scorto in una tavola morto con doi donne che piangono di mano di Andrea Mantegna del. 260’; before 1665: ‘260 Un quadro con Nostro Signore morto in scorcio in una tavola con due donne, che paingono, alto p. tre incirca con cornice dorata di Andrea Mantenga in tela sopra tavola segnato n. 260. For these references, see C. D’Onofrio, ‘Inventario dei quadri di Opimpia Aldobrandini-Pamphili compilato da G. B. Agucchi nel 1603.’ Palatino 8 (1964): 207, n. 260; P. della Pergola. ‘Gli inventari Aldobrandini.’ in Arte antica e moderna 7(1960): 433, no. 132 (carta 93); and Lightbown 1986, 422. ‘alto p. tre incirca’ [about 3 palmi] would be approximately 70 cm. More than one scholar misinterpreted the phrase ‘in una tavola’ to mean ‘painted on a panel’ whereas the phrase is actually part of the description of Christ who lies ‘on a plank.’ Only the latest entry explained clearly that the work is painted on canvas that is laid down on a panel. 16 See below, note 21, where Alberti’s pronouncement that representing a dead body is a most difficult task, is quoted. 17 F. Zeri, Dietro l’immagine. (Milan 1987), 15, so identified the stone. See further discussion below.

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relaxed; the other is flexed with the toes slightly clenched.18 The ball of each foot has an open hole in the skin, the jagged edges of which curl as if dried out. Starting above the ankles, a shroud covers the lower portion of the body and extends outward onto the slab on each side. The sheet, arranged in transverse parallel ridges, covers the knees, thighs, and genitals and is folded and tucked in just above the groin on the left, ending somewhat below the navel. The parallel ridges slow the spatial progression into the depth, creating a counter pull to the perspective. The arms are flexed at the elbows and the forearms bend in toward the hips, wrists lifted and each knuckle of the hands contracted. This position emphasizes the hole in each hand, again edged with dried skin that curls forward. All four holes are pink inside and graduate in size inward, following in negative the shape of the nails that had penetrated toward small dark centers. Nowhere is there an issue of blood.19 This lack of bleeding implies that Christ’s body has already been washed. The upper arms are divided into two muscular areas marked by diagonal indentations below the rounded structure of the shoulders, outlined from behind by the upper part of the shroud or possibly a second cloth that catches light. The chest is enormous; the abdominal muscles look hard and firm. The rib cage is arched high. The dim indication of the chest wound, a thin incision slicing horizontally across the middle of the upper part of the right side, is again without blood. The breasts above are full of tissue. Although the notch of the collar bone lines up with the Adam’s apple, the asymmetrical placement of the nipples calls attention to a slight rotation of the body toward the right which follows the sideways drop of the head. The head itself, with wrinkled neck, is seen from below, but because it is raised on a cushion, the face is fully visible. The chin is scruffily unshaven. The mouth is limp; the lips are open; there is a view into the nostrils; the cheeks are lined, the closed eyes are bulging, the brows knitted, hair dark and wiry. The face thus participates in the tradition of the ‘ugly Christ,’ strong and 18 Maltese suggests that this differentiation reflects Mantegna’s knowledge of how two overlapping feet would respond to being nailed to the cross. 19 There is a spot of dried blood on the left forearm. Some 80 years later, very early in his career (c. 1582), Annibale Carracci did a version of this subject: the Dead Christ, Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie, changing the iconography considerably by bending the body dramatically to the right and adding multiple droplets of blood that spurt with great force from every wound. He also included three of the arma cristi, the crown of thorns, the nails, and the pliers; D. Posner. Annibale Carracci: A Study in the Reform of Italian Painting around 1590. 2 vols. (London, 1971): 2: 3, who mentions several versions of Mantegna’s painting Annibale might have seen around Rome.

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lacking physical beauty.20 In visual terms, this type stems from the Pantocrator in Byzantine Art, and was to be seen also in the work of other contemporary Italian artists: Donatello (Fig. 50), Castagno, and Piero della Francesca (Fig. 51), who exude virile masculine power that signals their incarnate qualities.21 In sharp contrast, and as if drawing him back to divinity, this ugly head is surrounded by a delicately stippled crossed halo (cut off at the top), and rests on a beautiful cushion made of precious, pale rosecolored, watered silk. Behind the body, far in the right background, is the jam of a doorway into a darker space, presumably an inner tomb chamber. Three mourners appear as fragments to Christ’s right (our left). It is difficult to judge the gender of two of them. The profile view of the forwardAs opposed to Thomas Aquinas, who described Christ as ‘apollonian,’ Early Christian writers described him as having ‘vultu et aspectu inglorious’ [Tertullian], or being ‘man of nothing; a slave’ [Origen]; cf. Louis Réau, Iconographie de l’art chrétien. (Paris, 1955–59), 2: 6. 21 See one of Castagno’s ‘ugly’ Christ figures in a Crucifixion in the Uffizi; also a number of so-called Cristo della Passione on doors of fifteenth-century Sacrament Tabernacles in Tuscany, studied by U. Middeldorf. ‘Un rame inciso del quattrocento,’ in Scritti di storia dell’arte in onore di Mario Salmi. 2 vols., ed. L. Venturi, 273–89. (Rome, 1962). The concept of ‘beautiful ugliness’ has a background in Horace’s Ars poetica (as Leonard Barkan pointed out in a recent lecture), which opens with the description of a horse’s neck with the head of a beautiful woman, ending in a hideously ugly fish, which he uses to demonstrate conclusively that poems must have an organic shape. Leon Battista Alberti takes up the thought, combining it with Dante’s famous line from Purgatorio ‘Morti li morti, e’ vivi parean vivi,’ (the dead are dead, and the living seem alive) to establish the rule for showing the appropriate beauty of ugliness in portraying a dead body. Alberti illustrated his idea with the historia of Meleager in which ‘a dead man weighs down those who carry him. In every one of his members he appears completely lifeless — everything hangs, hands, fingers, head; everything falls heavily. Anyone who tries to express a dead body — which is certainly most difficult — will be a good painter, if he knows how to make each member of a body flaccid . . . The members of the dead should be dead to the very nails; of live persons every member should be alive in the smallest part.’[Book 2, §37, J. Spencer translation]. Even closer to Horace’s chimerical recipe are descriptions of Leonardo’s reptilian Medusa-shield, or the grisly Masque of Death by Piero di Cosimo, the aesthetic effect of which was so aptly described by Vasari 1566–87, 4: 63. ‘Fra questi, [quello] . . . non come molti piacevole per la sua vaghezza, ma per il contrario per una strana e orribile et inaspettata invenzione di non piccola satisfazione a’ popoli; ché come ne’ cibi talvolta le cose agre, così in quelli passatempi le cose orribili, purché sieno fatte con giudizio et arte, dilettano maravigliosamente il gusto umano . . .; [among these, (it) was not . . . pleasing on account of its charm but, on the contrary, (it) gave no little pleasure to the people on account of its strange, horrible, and unexpected novelty; for just as sometimes, with food, bitter things give exquisite pleasure to the human palate, so do horrible things . . ., so long as they are done with skill and judgement.’ Vasari 1963, 2: 178]. 20

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most figure is cut by the frame in front of the ear. The eye-brow is heavy; the eye wrinkled, the nose flat. The grimacing upper lip is pulled back exposing the lower teeth. The hair at the forehead is close-cropped. It is therefore impossible as an attribute of the Magdalene whose long, luxurious hair was her glory. In fact, the coarse features and rough material of the sleeves show him to be a man, and the hand-wringing gesture identifies the figure as St. John the Evangelist, who more often than not uses this gesture at the foot of the cross to express his grief. The older wimpled figure is recognizable as the mourning Virgin mother. By a long tradition she cries at the sight of her dead son, but rarely if ever does she use a handkerchief, as she does here, to wipe away her tears.22 Behind her head, a third figure, difficult to make out, appears as a detail of only the nose and screaming mouth. This almost invisible figure should be Mary Magdalene, who frequently wails at the foot of the cross, although usually at Christ’s feet. Moreover, her constant attribute, the alabaster jar, is prominently displayed on the opposite side of Christ on the right, at the very back of the slab.23 We will return to this strange dislocation shortly.24 There is no narrative moment in the Bible or in apocryphal sources in which the dead Christ, mourned by loved ones, is laid out on the Stone of Unction. With the discovery of the Stone relic in the tenth century, the story that was generated followed its various peregrinations over the next centuries. In the battle of Constantinople (1453), where the stone had been taken, it disappeared; around the time of Mantegna’s painting a copy was

22 Rare examples of mourning figures who wipe their eyes are: the third Mary at the Deposition of Christ by Rogier van der Weyden (Madrid, El Prado; M. Friedländer. Van Eyck to Bruegel. 2 vols. [London, 1969] 1: pl. 53,), and a Mary Magdalene who uses a corner of Christ’s shroud for the purpose in a sixteenth-century copy of a Descent from the Cross, Cologne, Charpentier (Ringbom 1984, Fig. 80). 23 ‘There came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious’ Mark 14: 3, at the house of Simone; in 14: 8 Christ foretells the use of ointment for burial; other accounts in Matthew 26: 7 and Luke 7: 37). 24 John the Evangelist (19: 39) says that, following the labor of bringing Christ’s body down from the cross, Nicodemus with Joseph of Arimathea washed it and then used a mixture of aloes, myrrh, and spices to anoint the body before they wound it in linen. Other sources say that the Magdalene had prepared the unguents used by the men, thereby retaining her association with the jar, although she played no role in these rites. The activities in preparing the body are described in the Meditations 1961, 343: 82, The Hour of Compline.

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put in the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. The relic had not been represented with such palpable realism before.25 The image, which has been called a ‘Lamentation over the Body of Christ,’ as well as the ‘Compianto’, thus portrays a situation in which three disparate elements — the body, the mourners and the slab — work together visually while each follows its own visual system. Linear perspective defines the diminution of the stone. The orthogonals on its sides, limited as they are, indicate a vanishing point above Christ’s head outside the frame, placing the spectator somewhat above the body. The eye level of the mourners implies another horizon line at a lower level, making them seem to hover at the side of a shared vision.26 And the body of Christ, set slightly askew to the picture plane, does not recede according to a set of rules that can be spontaneously intuited; it strikes one as distorted, too short below, too big above, and frightening in its massive mortality. If Maltese was correct and Mantegna projected the body by means of cylindrical perspective, he did not follow the rules consistently but moved parts of the body around for emphasis and psychological effect, slowing the projection, as we have noted, with the horizontals of the drapery. In the end, the morbidity is uncanny; it punishes the spectator, not for looking but for seeing. Hanging over the edge of the stone, the corpse enters our space, pointing at us, aiming at us, and inescapably following us around, thus saying in every way it can that death awaits us all.27 One may wonder why Mantegna took up such a theme, and why he wanted to keep its realization before him for the better part of his life. When Mantegna was about ten years old (c. 1441), he was ‘adopted’ by the painter Francesco Squarcione in Padua and remained with him for six years. The relationship was tumultuous, and while Andrea was still a minor he left the atelier to open his own to stop what he called in a court case the older artist’s exploitation of his work.28 He was soon using his own innova25 See M. A. Graeve. ‘The Stone of Unction in Caravaggio’s Painting for the Chiesa Nuova,’ Art Bulletin 40 (1958): 223–38, for a review of the history of the relic and its representations. By 1483 Breydenbach on his visit to Holy Land described a place marked with the stone where Mary held Christ after the crucifixion; G. Jeffrey. A brief Description of the Holy Sepulchre. (Cambridge, 1919), 105. The current example in the entrance chamber of the Holy Sepulcher is a copy placed there in the late eighteenth century. See Mantegna’s drawing of the Young Man (Fig. 55), discussed below. 26 See the remarks of Maltese 1983, above. 27 This repousoir theme is developed by Rathe 1938. 28 Lightbown 1986, 30–32.

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tive ideas at the church of the Augustinian Eremitani, in the cycle of frescoes commissioned by the Ovetari family. A number of artists were involved in this commission, and with these colleagues there was again a goodly amount of psychological interaction. These early relationships establish Mantegna as a person of strong emotions and implacable independence. Although still underage at the time of this commission (his brother had to sign the contract for him), visual evidence shows him to have been already quite erudite in his knowledge of classical antiquity in both form and content. He surely devised the overall organization of the chapel decoration, which was unprecedented; not only demonstrating his inventiveness, but marking his interest in problems of complex perspective and foreshortening.29 During the period of the Ovetari commission, in 1453, he married Nicolosa Bellini, the daughter of Jacopo (and sister of Giovanni and Gentile), and was without doubt made privy to the workings of their shop in Venice. Six years later Mantegna accepted the invitation of Ludovico III Gonzaga to become court painter; he moved with his family to Mantua where he stayed the rest of his life. He had a splendid career under Marchese Ludovico (d. 1478), Federico I (d. 1484), and Gian Francesco (d. 1519), was esteemed and deferred to by his patrons, and received generous gifts, including the property to build himself a magnificent house. Unfortunately he spent even more money than he made and ultimately died depressed and in debt.30 At the same time, his unusual learning in the classics and philosophy brought him high respect in humanist circles, where he had devoted friends and colleagues.31 At his death in 1506, his two sons, Francesco and See the reference to my analysis above, and Lightbown 1986, 30–57. Lightbown 1986, 120–28. More of this subject below. 31 See the fine essay on this topic: D. Cambers, J. Martineau and R. Signorini. ‘Mantegna and the Men of Letters,’ in Mantegna 1992, 8–30. In 1488 Pope Innocent VIII ‘borrowed’ Mantegna, with the permission of Marchese Francesco, to decorate the chapel of the Villa Belvedere he was then building. While Mantegna was painting the chapel there arose a question both compositional and iconographic. The elaborate program called for eight full-length standing female allegories of the Christian virtues to flank four roundels in the lunettes above the lower cornice. As was his wont, Mantegna discussed matters of their representation with his learned friends. The discussion led to a literary creation of extraordinary historical value. Battista Fiera (1450–1540), a Mantuan physician, humanist and poet then living in Rome, composed a terse Latin dialogue, called De Ivsticia pingenda, (On the painting of justice: a dialogue between Mantegna and Momus by Battista Fiera [Latin text of 1515]. Ed. and trans. J. Wardrop. (London, 1957), describing Mantegna’s consultation with his philosopher/friends seeking a correct yet expressive concetto for the figure of Justice. 29 30

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48. Corrado Maltese, Diagram of Mantegna's Cristo in Scurto (after Maltese).

49. Andrea Mantegna, detail of Fig. 44.

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50. Donatello. Pulpit, Resurrection, detail. Bronze relief. Florence, San Lorenzo.

99

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51. Piero della Francesca, Resurrection, detail. Fresco. Sansepolcro, Palazzo dei Conservatori (Museo Civico).

52. Transcription of Inscription on Tomb of Mantegna’s Sons (after Signorini).

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53. Christ the Apothecary. Pen drawing, 18 x 14.6 cm., Zürich, Schweizerische Landesmuseum, Inv. No. LM 4154. (After Hein).

101

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54. German printmaker active in Rome. Ars moriendi (The Art of Dying). Woodcut, c. 1470. Washington, National Gallery of Art.

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55. Andrea Mantegna, Dying boy on slab of stone. Pen drawing, London, British Museum.

56. Bust of Faustina (?). Marble. Mantua, Palazzo Ducale, Sala del Leombruno.

103

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Ludovico, looked after his affairs and saw to it that his tomb chapel, unique in its splendor for an artist at this time, was brought to completion. Until 1986 these two men, Francesco and Ludovico, were Andrea’s only known male offspring. But in that year Rodolfo Signorini discovered, amazingly enough, in the Bibliothèque municipale of Besançon in southern France, the copy of a lost epitaph that added to their number. Signorini published his findings in a short article in the Warburg Journal, which may look to some like no more than an antiquarian tidbit.32 But for my argument it is of signal importance and worth a full account, which I give here. On May 11, 1480, the then current Marquis of Mantua, Federico I Gonzaga (1478–84), wrote a letter of warm recommendation on Mantegna’s behalf to one Girardo da Verona, a physician known for his exceptional curative powers who practiced in Venice.33 The occasion for this letter was that Mantegna had a desperately ill son, and as Mantuan doctors Conversing with several personages, real and imaginary, Mantegna tells them of the various suggestions he has already received: that Justice should have only one large eye, or that she should be painted seated and holding a balance, or standing with her head encircled with eyes and holding a sword, or seated on a square throne and, in reference to ancient Lesbos, using a ruler made of lead to measure. Fiera himself says he is inclined toward the last suggestion, adding that Justice should have large ears. The Carmelite Fra Battista Spagnoli, another Mantuan and who, like Fiera, wrote poems in praise of Mantegna and his works, declares that as Justice is the will of God, there is no way to depict her. This glimpse of the artist discussing an allegorical invention with philosophers and theologians must have been typical of the learned deliberations in which he engaged. When, in the dialogue, he adds that ‘as a Christian, every [brush] stroke was the result of meditation, [and that he gave] exceptional care even to the least of lines,’ the author makes clear that the time Mantegna allowed away from his studio, even for such significant social life, was sparse. From Lightbown 1986, 157–58, 262(9)n. 6,with further bibliography. 32 R. Signorini. ‘Mantegna’s unknown sons: a Rediscovered Epitaph.’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute, 49 (1986): 233–35. 33 After Signorini 1986, 235: Magistro Girardo de Verona phisico Clarissime ac integerime amice noster carissime. El nobile et carissimo famigliare nostro Andrea Mantinia véne a Vinesia et conduce seco uno suo figlilo, el quale è mala dispositione de sanità, sperando che, mediante la gratia de Idio, per opera vostra si possa restituire a la pristine salute. Et ben che le virtude de esso Andrea siano tale che lo fanno note al tuto el mondo et subsequenter lo rendeno ricomandato a qualunche persona digna, non di meno, a satisfactione sua et nostra, n’è parso per questa nostra littera ricomandarvelo et pregarvi che, ultra il respecto suo, el quale sapiamo non essere piccolo presso a vui, anchor per amor nostro gli vogliati far tal demonstratione, maxime circa la cura de predicto suo figliolo, ch’el cognosca veramente questo nostro scrivere esserli stato proficuo, et di quanto per lui ve operareti lo ascriveremo a singulare nostra complacentia, offerendoni ad ogni comodo mostro paratissimi. Mantue XI Maii 1480.

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had not been able to help him, the painter wished to seek the aid of the more competent Venetian physician. The name of this son and his age at the time of the illness have been a matter of debate. The discussion involves another letter, this one undated, that says Mantegna was in a state of mourning at the loss of a son who had shown great promise as a painter. The second letter, also important as evidence of Mantegna’s close friendship with members of the intelligentsia, was written by Matteo Bosso, a Veronese humanist and canon of the Lateran, who had had high ranking positions in the Veneto and in Mantua, and was presently stationed in Fiesole. It was written to his long-time friend Alvise Antilla, a lawyer whose family had been exiled from Florence by Cosimo Vecchio dei’ Medici, who had also lived in Mantua but was now residing in Pesaro. The first part of the letter deals with matters of Alvise’s exile and desire to return to Florence. It then speaks of their close mutual friend Andrea Mantegna, calling him a great painter, and giving news of his unhappy condition just received from the Minister General of his order [the Lateran Canons] in Mantua. Both letters were known to a number of scholars, but the identity of the sickly son and/or the talented son remained unknown.34 The epitaph discovered by Signorini solved this mystery. It names two previously unrecorded sons of Mantegna: one called Federico and the other, an older brother, called Girolamo. The two boys were buried in 1484 in the now destroyed church of San Domenico in Mantua, apparently in a common tomb. The inscription is reproduced in Fig. 52. The epitaph is written as though the words were spoken by Federico, who declares that he had died as a child and had not expected to be joined so soon by his older brother Girolamo. The date of the epitaph, 22 August 1484, is apparently the date of Girolamo’s death. Presumably the treatment for which Mantegna had taken Federico to Venice, sadly, was not successful. The child must have died soon after the Venetian visit, or at least before the date of the epitaph. Little Federico, then, is the subject of the 1480 letter of recommendation. The reference in Bosso’s undated letter is to the older son, Girolamo, qualified as having ‘immensam virtutem’, who had just died and was buried with his younger brother. Mantegna’s mourning thus must have begun in 1480 and then intensified in the period after August of 1484. 34 Before the discovery of the epitaph, many writers, including Giovanni Soranzo, biographer of Bosso (L’umanista Canonico regolare lateranense Matteo Bosso di Verona [1427–1502]. Libreria Gregoriana. [Padova, 1965], 127 ff.), dated the letter and the death of the son much too late, to c. 1489 or even 1495.

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The description of Mantegna in his state of bereavement is telling: Bosso says that his grief is intense, adding that in life certain misfortunes are so profound that even a wise man succumbs if he is not supported by the faithful arms of his friends.35 The letter itself is an important example of a humanist ‘Letter of Consolation,’ a classical literary form at the height of its revival at this time throughout northern Italy.36 In fact, its reference to the possibilities of sucMatteo Bossi, Opera varia. (Bologna, 1627), 270. ‘Ad Aloysium Antillam de reditu suo, deque Mantinea insigni pictore Epistola LXXXII Pro reditu tuo mi Antilla ad insignem Laurentius quales potui efficaces, & supplices, vt videbis, litteras dedi, quae tibi si satisfaciunt, admodum laetor; fin minus non fidem, & studium sed ingenium ac vires credito mihi defuisse. Spero to laetum videre, atque exosculari cito, verum interim moram mutuis solemur litteris, quae praecipuam atque mirabilem hanc in se vim habent, vt versa saepe vincant imagines, & dulcius, quam ora loquantur. Nudius quartus ex vrbe Mantua digressus Generalis pater ordinis nostri huc se receipt, à quo mecum longus de te est habitus sermo, quo deprehendi quantum eum delectauerit istic consuetudo dulcissima tua, virtusque peregregia. Quae res summae profecto mihi letitiae fuit, quod charus aeque habearis patribus caeteris, ac mihi semper fuisti. *| Mantineam (at this date, Mantegna was signing his paintings with the Latin form Mantinia) nostrum audio filij mortem dolentius ac grauius ferre; cui digne compatior, atque condoleo, cum propter seipsum inter pictores vnicum plane, qui primam gloriam nostro aeuo est assequutus; & si de priscis loquendum est, Zeusim ip sum, & Apellem, & quotquot aeternae memoriae gratissima consecrauit antiquitas, facile non modo sit aemulatus; sed vel aequarit, si non superarit; tum propter iuuenem, cuius obi tu (heu quantum spei est surreptum Italiae), qui foelicibus suis coeptis nobis pollicebatur egregium se paternae laudis heredem futurum. Sed quod solet secundissimis in rebus accidere, tantam [tantum] inuidit fortuna, vel vt fidelius dicam, Deus ipse non tulit in patre, & filio gloriam, ne adhuc mortales, beaqti sibi viderentur. Docet enim rerum natura ac humana fragilitas desperatione praesentium quaeritanda esse futura; & mobilitate fluitantium semper, & transeuntium diligenda caelestia atque mansura. Quantum praestat penniculo, praestet & animo noster Andreaas, ingenio ne dixerim, quod plane altissimum habet, & omnia peruidens atque complectens. Sed incidunt quaedam in vita ita grauia, & tolleratu difficilia, vt sapiens quandoque succumbat, nisi fidis erigatur amicorum lacertis;|* quod tu quantum per te potes, ex me quoque quem semper audiuit, efficito. Vale amicorum delitiae, ac pro me ora.’ 36 G. W. McClure. ‘The Art of Mourning: Autobiographical Writings on the Loss of a Son in Italian Humanist Thought (1400–1461).’ Renaissance Quarterly 39 (1986): 440–75; and idem. Sorrow and Consolation in Italian Humanism. (Princeton, 1991). Bosso used this form frequently throughout his career; see the Letters of Consolation in the collection of letters mentioned in the previous note. Besides Augustine’s great contributions to this concept (see M. M. Beyenka. Consolation in St. Augustine. [Washington, 1950]), Bœthius was an 35

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cumbing to sadness puts it in the context of current debates that contrasted the Stoic attitude toward overcoming grief with self-control, with the Epicurean point of view, which advised the expression of grief with tears and emotion.37 However, the letter is also out of the ordinary in that it is written to a third party and not to the bereaved himself. The three men were clearly good friends, and Bosso surely had the expectation that Mantegna would see his elegant composition. The hope was that he would be consoled by the respect it showed for his intense feelings, by the moral support it offered, and by his friend’s understanding of his personal loss. Remembering that he had been something of prodigy in his youth, I believe that Andrea Mantegna identified with this son, Girolamo, whose gifts were taking him in the same direction when he was struck down.38 And to express his feelings of great loss, he created not a humanist Latin epigram but, nel modo suo, a visual image. His graphic epistola consolatoria, furthermore, is unique in that it is a Letter of Consolation to himself.39 With the invention of the Dead Christ he was able to express his emotions as well as the contents of his thoughts, joining the ‘family’ of Christ on the left, who important medieval source; a copy of his Consolations appears in the 1492 inventory of books in Lorenzo de’ Medici’s bedroom; cf. J. M. (Cartwright) Ady. Lorenzo de’Medici. (New York, 1962), 151. A related genre, also revived from classical antiquity, was the laudatio funebris, or ‘eulogy for a single person.’ This form is discussed by J. M. McManamon. ‘The Ideal Renaissance Pope: Funeral Oratory from the Papal Court.’ Archivum Historiae Pontificiae (1976): 9–70, esp. pp. 20–25. 37 See the discussion in McClure 1986, 447–49. I note here the Confraternita della Consolazione attached to the church of Santa Maria Novella in Perugia of which the members were disciplinati. For this organization Pietro Perugino did a large altarpiece (263 x 176 cm., the Madonna and Child with two angels and six members in a landscape) in 1496–98, now in the Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, Perugia; see L’opera completa del Perugino, ed. Ettore Camesasca. (Milan, 1969), no. 55, p. 96–97. Whether the work of the confraternity was directly related to the consolatory concept just described is yet to be ascertained. 38 Daniel Arasse, Le Détail: pour une histoire rapprochée de la peinture. (Paris, 1992), 58, with his unusual brilliance, came to the same conclusions, although the passage in which he makes this statement is no more than a brief aperçu. His suggestion that the profile figure on the left is a self-portrait is attractive but chronologically impossible. It is, in fact, close to Mantegna’s other representations of St. John the Evangelist, particularly those in the Entombment engravings. 39 See my discussion of Piero della Francesca’s Flagellation of Christ as a visual ‘Letter of Consolation’ (for his patrons); M. A. Lavin. ‘Piero della Francesca’s ‘Flagellation’: The Triumph of Christian Glory’ Art Bulletin 50 (1968): 321–42, and the later, condensed version, Piero della Francesca: ‘The Flagellation.’ (London, 1972 and Chicago, 1990), 78–80. See below, the chapter on Bellini, for the phrase ‘in his own way.’

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wail, cry and scream with Epicurean uncontrolled passion. Only in the silence of a painting could a man of humanist training indulge in such wild and primitive howling. Their open mouths and contorted features exude visceral reaction to an unthinkable loss, stripped of all manner of learned convention.40 On another level, there is the artistic aspect of the representation, the offering of virtuosità that only an artist of consummate skill and control could achieve. However, Mantegna was driving not toward a prideful exhibition of his own artistic prowess, but was celebrating the extremes of artistic skill that Girolamo might have been heir to. This avant-garde figure is a summa of many others Mantegna had included on a small scale and within the confines of other compositions. Here it is the main subject, startling, stark, and inescapable. Was there a patron in 1485 who would have asked for such an image? It was far ahead of its time. Girolamo’s generation would have understood it, as the many later copies suggest.41 But we may still ask: why the Dead Christ? In what specific ways, in this form, does the figure of the Dead Christ in such a boldly foreshortened position bring consolation to the painter who has lost his sons to illness? The first connections are to Christian death rituals. An image of Christ lying on a stone, by its very nature, is associated with the rite of Extreme Unction. Discussions of the efficacy of this sacrament had taken place as recently as the reign of Eugenius IV (1433–1449), the pope himself being one of the leading advocates for the practice. Already at the Council of Florence (1439), Eugenius’s Instruction for the Armenians (Bull ‘Exultate Deo’, 22 Nov. 1439), names Extreme Unction as the fifth of the seven sacraments, with descriptions of its matter and form, subject, minister, and effects. The matter is defined as pure olive oil that has been blessed, the effects defined briefly as ‘the healing of the mind and, so far as it is expedient, of the body also.’42 The matter of oil is evoked not only by the presence 40 Mantegna used this expressive technique often (e.g. Roman soldiers in the Ovetari Chapel, in the Entombment engraving, in the Battle of the Sea Gods), but never as strongly as seen here. 41 The painting became famous immediately, several copies being made even before Mantegna’s death. To list a few: Sodoma Pietà, 1503–04, reproduced in Domenico Beccafumi e il suo tempo. (Siena, 1990), no. 43, p. 241; Dürer drawing 1505, Lemberg (reproduced in Schrade 1930, 5); an engraving by Battista Franco and a woodcut by Scolari, reproduced in H. Zerner. ‘Giuseppe Scolari’ L’Oeil 121 (1965): ills p. 27; Carracci (see above, n. 19), and so on. 42 H. Denzinger. Enchiridion Symbolorum, 10th ed. (Freiburg, 1908), no. 700-old no. 595).

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of the jar just beyond Christ’s left shoulder but also by the fact, observed by Maltese, that the jar’s lid is askew, as if it had been recently used. This fact, along with the lack of blood on the body that implies washing having already taken place, indicated Christ’s state of preparedness for burial,43 in itself an allusion to the remission of sins, and the fervent hope for the same for any recently departed. Another major issue is the choice of pose, so arresting and so new. It is often said that Mantegna put Christ’s body in this position to emphasize the wounds of the crucifixion. Indeed the chest wound seems to be the focus of the mourners’ attention. The Cult of Five Wounds of Christ, at this time growing with ever increasing force, must play a role in the salvific power their worship implores.44 However, in spite of the disquieting, even aggressive presentation of the body, it is ironic that in the painting the wounds seem de-emphasized, or at least objectified; the chest wound is rather hard to see and the nail wounds, while highly articulated, are, as we have observed, clean with no hint of blood. The final question to be asked concerns the alabaster jar, the one associated with the woman later identified as the Magdalene in the episode in the house of Simon the Leper. St. Luke calls her a sinner whom Christ forgives after she washed and anointed his feet. Both Matthew and Mark describe her as breaking open her alabaster jar to anoint Christ’s head, after which he says ‘she is come beforehand to anoint my body for burial.’45 In the painting, the jar, with its lid askew, is isolated on the stone of unction, far from the Magdalene figure. The insistence on the material of the jar identifies it as the utensil of an apothecary: a container for powders and salves with the power to heal. While retaining an association with the Magdalene, the jar being placed on the right side of the composition gives it a new meaning and shows it also to be an attribute of Christ. By this juxtaposition, the body of the sacrificed Christ is associated with the traditional definition of the Savior as Christus medicus or Christ the Doctor. Reinforced by the view into the tomb chamber in the background. The function of this cult, and the mass dedicated to it, was to give each wound individual meditation with a liturgy and a feast day. The promulgation of the wounds, moreover, brought enormous indulgences: up to 32,755 years of pardon to those who repeated the rubric (5 Pater Nostres, 5 Ave Marias, and the Creed before an image of the Imago Pietatis). Sixtus IV (1471–84) detached the Passion sequence, and added two petitions, and went on to double the indulgence. See E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, c. 1400–1580. (New Haven, 1992), 238–48. 45 Matt, 26: 7–13; Mark. 14: 2–9; Luke 7: 37–38. 43 44

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As a visual epithet, Christus medicus was developed fully only in the seventeenth century, and then mainly in northern Europe. The image shows Christ in an apothecary shop surrounded by medicine jars labeled as various virtues (Fig. 53).46 What is important, however, is that on a verbal level, this epithet was millennial. The idea that the divine one is the great physician, he who can heal, especially a healer of souls, stems from classical tradition associated both with the god Aesculapius, and with the Stoic philosophers who frequently discussed ‘the health and diseases of the soul.’ The appellation was taken up and applied to Christ by the Early Church fathers, and already by the late fourth century it had become a well-worn idea.47 Jerome (340/42–420), who used Origen as a source, called Christ: ‘verus medicus, solus medicus, ipse et medicus et medicamentum, verus archiater, quasi spiritualis Hippocrates’. In the writings of St. Augustine [354–430 C.E.], the concept is so persuasive it appears throughout his sermons and writings as a fundamental truth. For him, it explains the nature of redemption: ‘Jesum Christum medicum esse nostrae salutis aeternae’. And again as though he were writing about Mantegna’s painting [or the other way around], ‘Who is our Lord Jesus Christ? He who was seen even by those by whom He was crucified. He was seized, struck with fists, scourged, spat upon, crowned with thorns suspended upon the cross, died, was wounded by the spear, taken from the cross, and laid in the sepulcher. That same Jesus Christ our Lord, that same exactly. He is the complete Physician of our wounds (Ipse est totus medicus vulnerum nostrorum).’48 The concept was 46 For many illustrations of the concept in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Northern paintings and prints see W.-H. Hein. Christus als Apotheker. (Monogr. z. pharmazeutischen Kulturgesch. 3). Frankfurt am Main, 1974; A. Nägle. ‘Christus als Apotheke’: Archive für christliche Kunst 26 (1908): 69 ff.; A. Brzygowski, ‘Jésus-Christ représenté comme Apothicaire: notice iconographique.’ Revue d’art chrétien 1907, 184–86. 47 D. Knipp. ‘Christus medicus’ in der frühchristlichen Sarkophagskulptu: ikonographie Studien zur Sepulkralkunst des späten vierten Jahrhunderts (Leiden, 1998); G. Wolzendorff. Gesundheitspflege und Medizin der Bibel. (Christus als Ärtz) I, Studien und Betrachtungen. (Wiesbaden, 1903), 46–63, and G. Fichtner. ‘Christus als Arzt.’ Frühmittelalterliche Studien 16 (1982): 1–18, who studies the biblical sources for the concept. 48 De doctrina christiana 1.14.13; R. Arbesmann, ‘The Concept of ‘Christus Medicus’ in Augustine.’ Traditio 10 (1954): 1–28. Jacopus de Voragine quotes Augustine on this topic in the Golden Legend 1995, 1: 42, in his entry on the Birth of Christ: ‘. . . the incarnation was . . . an example, a sacrament, and a medicine . . . by which we were delivered from the bonds of sin, and a most powerful medicine, which heals the tumor of our pride.’ Although the appellation Christus medicus was such a commonplace that it may need no justification, I point out that Mantegna could have been made aware of it already as a teenager from the teachings of the Augustinian monks at the Eremitani in Padua where he worked in the Ovetari Chapel.

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very much alive in the fifteenth century, for example, in the words of the magnetic Franciscan preacher Bernardino da Feltre, who was actually in Mantua in 1483, delivering one of his mixed-language sermons on the plague: ‘Honora medicum, fin a tanto che non te desaviano a vera medicina que est Christus.’49. The idea that the Christus medicus completes the mission of Magdalene the Embalmer was promulgated by Jordanus of Quedlinburg (Jordanus von Sachsen, c. 1300–1370/80). In explaining the workings of absolution, Jordanus asserts that the Magdalene’s alabaster [vase] contained a compound of three things: one part contrition, one part confession, and one part satisfaction. He says the mixture of these three oils would produce therapeutic results only when completed by a fourth and final ingredient: the oil of divine mercy, which only the Savior could provide.50 Only the crucified Lord could complete the penitential recipe for healing physical and moral ills, forgiving all sins, and assuring salvation. Recognizing the combined ownership of the jar is thus crucial to understanding the meaning of the painting. And moreover, the sharp foreshortening points the crucified body directly at the observer, and resembles for all the world the view that the dying man (moriens) might see in the image he contemplates at the foot of his death bed (Fig. 54).51 It must have been this assurance and this con49 Bernardino is here citing Ecclesiasticus 38: 1 (‘Honour the physician for the need thou hast of him: for the most High hath created him.’), a chapter from the semi-apocryphal second century B.C.E. book accepted by the Church as prophetic of Christ, and from which the aphorism at the beginning of this publication is taken. The chapter in itself is not only consolatory in nature (‘16 My son, shed tears over the dead, and begin to lament as if thou hadst suffered some great harm . . . 21 Give not up thy heart to sadness, but drive it from thee: and remember the latter end. 22 Forget it not: for there is no returning, and thou shalt do him no good, and shalt hurt thyself,’ but also voices great respect and encouragement to ‘craftsmen and workmen’ who work with their hands. C. Varischi. I sermoni del beato Bernardino da Feltre nella redazione di Fra Bernardino Bulgarino da Brescia. 3 vols (Milan, 1964), 2: 265–274, Sermon 65, On the Plague, esp. 266; and V. Meneghin, Bernardino da Feltre e i Monti di Pietà, pres. G. Barbieri. (Vicenza, 1974), 49–119. 50 See the excellent study of the historical development of the person of the Magdalene and her changing roles in Christian theology through the Middle Ages: K. L. Jansen. The Making of the Magdalen: Preaching and Popular Devotion in the Later Middle Ages. (Princeton, 2000), passim, and p. 230n108 for the Latin original of Jordanus’ passage, Sermon 258. There was a publication of Jordanus’ sermons in Strasbourg, 1483, the year before Girolamo Mantegna died. 51 Cf. the Ars moriendi, the famous manual on death and dying: see C. Bascetta. ‘Il volgarizzamento italiano di un’Ars moriendi del XV secolo,’ Lettere Italiane 15 (1963): 201–214; D. F. Duclow. ‘Everyman and the Ars Moriendi: Fifteenth-Century Ceremonies of Dying,’ Fifteenth-Century Studies 6 (1983): 93–113.

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solation that Mantegna sought in painting this startling image and in keeping it with him as a constant reminder. The evidence of deep concern for the health of his infant son Federico that took Mantegna to Venice is a rarely documented instance of paternal anxiety in the Renaissance. It was only to be followed by sorrow at the son’s death. Soon after, perhaps not yet healed, he suffered the anguish of seeing his older boy, his protégé Girolamo, stricken and die. His friends Matteo Bosso and Alvise Antilla worried for his mental health. Another mirror of his anguish may be seen in the heartbreakingly poignant drawing of a youth collapsing on a heavy stone slab (Fig. 55),52 lightly covered with a sheet below the groin. The young man has the same well-developed, muscular chest and rib cage as the figure of Christ in the painting. Mantegna shows the moment of the boy’s collapse as he tries in vain to support himself with thin arms, one hand uselessly turned over. Half way between sitting and falling back, his head lolls on his shoulder and his face is full of exhaustion and tragedy. Clearly related to ideas brought to completion in the painting of the Dead Christ, the progress from a dying son to the dead Savior seems to have an inevitable logic. From the boy the doctors could not cure to the Supreme Doctor, the Christus medicus who is the eternal healer of souls, we can see the Stoic Mantegna trying to remember that God’s will determines man’s fate, and that Christ’s death is the medicine that brings eternal life. It has been suggested that Mantegna in his last year was not only physically ill, but also depressed and sorely disappointed by the character of his surviving sons Ludovico and Francesco. Although they both showed some literary flair, they were apparently rather ill-tempered: Ludovico could not

52 Pen and brown ink over traces of black chalk, 163 x 140 mm., British Museum (once owned by the artist William Young Ottley, afterward Keeper of the Print Room of the British Museum); Mantegna 1992, 209, no. 43, Pl. 43. This connection is the only thing that explains the utterly strange drawing. I have not seen this drawing in a number of years but from the reproduction in the catalogue of the exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum, it seems to have been damaged between 1986 and 1992. The reproduction in Lightbown 1986, 215, shows no damage to the boy’s face; both eyes are clearly visible and the sad, hollow expression is evident. Whereas in the catalogue reproduction, the upper face and left shoulder and eye in particular are blurred. The catalogue laconically characterizes the face as ‘stained.’

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retain a permanent position and Francesco was demonstrably mediocre as a painter.53 Moreover, his final disillusionment in the year he died (1506) was that having received no salary from his Gonzaga patrons in months, he found himself in dire financial difficulties. The situation was so bad he was forced to offer for sale his beloved bust of Faustina, a classical marble he had long cherished (Fig. 56). He wrote (13 July 06) to Isabella d’Este who, guaranteeing him nothing, harassed him with bargaining down to the last minute.54 The need always to see the consolatory image of the Dead Christ must have been acute, helping him to control his emotions and salve his grieving heart.

See Signorini 1996, for Ludovico’s Fortuna, and also Lightbown 1986, 142, 156, 245–46; and Cat. nos. 58–60, Figs. 153–63, for the lackluster paintings completed by Francesco from his father’s designs for the funereal chapel in Sant’ Andrea; see also the discussion by Christiansen in Mantegna 1992, 424. 54 Andrea had met Isabella soon after his return from Rome in 1490, the year in which Francesco Gonzaga married the sixteen-year old princess from Ferrara. This young, lively, and thoroughly extraordinary lady had not taken an immediate liking to Mantegna or to his work. Her evaluation of him was so ambivalent, in fact, that Mantegna felt it necessary to have himself recommended to her by an outside adjudicator, her former tutor Battista Guarini; (see letter of September 1490; Kristeller 1902, 549, doc. 110). A disaster followed (1493) when she rejected the first commission she gave him, nothing less than a portrait of herself. While she praised his work to the outside world, as though she had captured the prize for herself, privately she continued to complain. Even after she extracted two marvelous works for her Studiolo, the Parnassus (1497) and Pallas Expelling the Vices from the Garden of Virtue (1499–1502), both in the Louvre, she continued to badger him. For the Faustina Mantegna was asking 100 gold ducats which he sorely needed to pay his rent. Isabella found this price ingordo (exorbitant) and offered 25. Mantegna held his ground, and she paid. Even then, she did not give him cash (saying she was strapped by expenses of the current war), but sent the money directly to a debtor to whom afterwards Mantegna still owed another 40 ducats. See the account in Lightbown 1986, 224–25. For the classical bust that may be the one in question, see E. Flisi, Questioni di Ritrattestica Antoniniana dalla collezione del Palazzo Ducale di Mantova. (Florence, 1989). 53

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Michelangelo and the Self-conscious Self The two earliest works of Michelangelo Buonarroti have always been paired in an effort to establish which came first. Seeing them as created simultaneously and in contrast to one another brings forth new and unexpected interpretations. That Michelangelo kept both reliefs throughout his life, refusing to part with them at any price, shows his awareness of their stylistic and ideological significance for the rest of his career.

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ICHELANGELO Buonarroti (1475–1564) is always a special case. He left not one but two works done without commission and kept them throughout his life. Among his earliest works, they are both small marble reliefs still today in the Casa Buonarroti in Florence: the Madonna della Scala (Fig. 57, 57.1 x 40.5 cm.), and the somewhat larger Battle of the Centaurs (Fig. 58, 84.5 x 90.5 cm.).1 In spite of most discussions to the contrary, I propose that he worked on these pieces simultaneously in the brief period between 1489 and April of 1492, and that although they differ in size, he conceived of them as an ideological pair with contrasting elements that differentiate and yet tie them irrevocably together. I further propose that, notwithstanding his youth, his purpose in doing them together was to make a visual statement about the spiritual and intellectual role of art, and stone sculpture in particular, that was to remain a guiding principle throughout his career.

1 The most thorough and illuminating analysis, upon which almost all others depend, remains that of C. de Tolnay. Michelangelo. 5 vols. (Princeton, 1947–60; 2d printing, 1969); The Youth of Michelangelo, 1: 11–19, Pls. 1–6, 75–77, 125–32. The excellent account by K. W.-G. Brandt in the exhibition catalogue (Giovinezza di Michelangelo. Ed. K. W.-G. Brandt et al. [Geneva–Milan, 1999], 69–75, with catalogue entry by E. D. Schmidt, 170–72, no. 1) reviews the material with incisive additions and brings the bibliography since Tolnay up to date.

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Leaving aside the aggrandizing details of his biographers,2 the facts are that Michelangelo was enrolled in the Ghirlandaio brothers’ workshop in 1488 at the age of 13, at which point, rather than having to pay the master, he had enough artistic experience to receive a salary.3 After only one year, in 1489, Lorenzo the Magnificent (de’ Medici) took him into his household and allowed him to work and study in the Giardino del Casino Mediceo, on the Via Larga opposite the Convento di San Marco. This place was dedicated not to commerce but to culture, and along with a number of other young men Michelangelo experienced the outstanding Medici collection of antique and contemporary sculptures, paintings, gems, coins, books and so on.4 These students, some literally supported by Lorenzo, were guided in the creation of objects in a variety of media. They lived in a new kind of environment, not the semi-indentured atmosphere of the workshop, but one that encouraged the very self-confidence that helped in the separation of the ‘mechanical’ from the ‘liberal arts.’ Here, the young Michelangelo lived, working on the two reliefs, until the death of Lorenzo on 8 April 1492. Besides foreshadowing many of Michelangelo’s life-long preoccupations with specific motifs and poses, the reliefs relate to each other in several ways. The first is in their complementary subject matter: one is devotional and one secular, and, as we shall see, in their own domain, both are quite complex in terms of iconography. The second is in technique: each shows sculptural experimentation but at the opposite ends of the possibilities of marble carving. The Battle Scene is in high, deeply undercut relief, defined by Vasari as mezzo relievo. The Madonna is in the lowest relief possible, called, as Vasari says, stiacciato or schiacciato, literally flattened.5 Both are tours de force within their genre. The third counterbalancing parallel is in the form/content relationship: the Battle Scene finds its compositional sources in a number of classical sarcophagi available in Florence, and its subject matter is likewise 2 G. Vasari. La Vita di Michelangelo. Ed. P. Barocchi, 2 vols. (Milan/Naples, 1962), containing both the 1550 and 1568 editions, and A. Condivi. Vita di Michelagnolo Buonarroti (1553). Ed. G. Nencioni, with M. Hirst and C. Elam. (Florence, 1998), and Ascanio Condivi: The Life of Michelangelo. Trans. A. S. Wohl, ed. H. Wohl. (Baton Rouge, 1976). 3 He was to get ninety-six lire for a three year period; Vasari–Barocchi 1962, 1: 5–9; 2: 61–87. 4 M. Hirst in Il giardino di San Marco. Maestri e compagni del giovane Michelangelo. Exhibition catalogue. Ed. P. Barocchi, and C. Balsamo. (Milan, 1992). 5 Vasari 1966–87, Introduzione, 1: 95, ‘non hanno altro in sé che ‘l disegno della figura’ [almost entirely flat and where little more than the design of the figure is given].

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classical, dependent on stories in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In this aspect, Michelangelo already demonstrates his impressive knowledge of ancient literature, or at least his ability to respond to the guidance offered, as Vasari says, by the resident humanist scholar and poet Angelo Poliziano (1454–1494).6 The Madonna, on the other hand, emulates the form and content of many early fifteenth-century devotional reliefs, particularly those of Donatello. In fact, Vasari claims that the purpose of the relief was to ‘contrafare la maniera di Donatello’ (Fig. 59). Michelangelo could count himself as a kind of artistic grandson of the older master, who had been supported for years by the Medici. Although Donatello died more than ten years before Michelangelo was born, his student, Bertoldo di Giovanni (c. 1420–1491), was in turn a teacher of Michelangelo.7 Bertoldo, of course, worked in bronze and he never produced anything in the schiacciato technique. So it would have been Michelangelo’s personal idea to return to the disembodied style for the spiritual Christian subject and counterbalance it with the physicality of the antique carving style for the classical subject. The two reliefs together, thereby, at the base level, demonstrate the young man’s potential theological and scholarly range, as well as his manual dexterity and technical acumen. Little is known of the history of the reliefs following the time of their creation, with small scraps of information indicating that, even while Michelangelo was in Rome, they stayed in the family house on the Via Pinti in Florence. In the interim, each relief is mentioned at least once. The Madonna is perhaps cited by Michelangelo himself in a letter dated 31 January 1506. Writing from Rome, he tells his father that ‘Quella Nostra Donna di marmo . . . vorrei la facessi portare costì in casa e non la lasciassi vedere a persona. Io non vi mando e’ danari per queste dua cose (he had also mentioned a chest), perché stimo che sia picola cosa . . .’ [I want you to have it moved into the house . . . and not to let anyone see it.]8 The most inter6 Cf. A. Grafton. ‘On the Scholarship of Politian and its Context,’ in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 40 (1977): 150–188. 7 Bertoldo’s relief of Battling Horsemen in the Bargello, Florence, is often cited in comparison with Michelangelo’s relief; see now J. D. Draper. ‘Bertoldo e Michelangelo,’ in Giovinezza 1999, 57–63. 8 It has also been proposed that the reference is to the Bruges Madonna, which was sent to Flanders a few months after the date of this letter. Cf. Vasari–Barocchi, 1962, 2: 103–04; Il Carteggio di Michelangelo. 5 vols. Ed. P. Barocchi et al. (Florence, 1965–1983), 1: 359–64, App. no. 7, quote on p. 362; and M. Hirst and J. Dunketon. Michelangelo giovane: Pittore e scultore a Roma, 1496–1501. (Modena 1997), 15, 26 n. 8.

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57. Michelangelo. Madonna della Scala. Marble, 57.1 x 40.5 cm. Florence, Casa Buonarroti.

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58. Michelangelo, Battle Relief. Marble, 84.5 x 90.5 cm. Florence, Casa Buonarroti.

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59. Donatello, Pazzi Madonna. Marble relief, 74.5 x 69.5 cm. Berlin, Staatliche Museen.

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60. Michelangelo, detail of Fig. 57.

61. Michelangelo, detail of Fig.58, Socrates-like figure.

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62. Lorenzo Ghiberti, Socrates. Gilt bronze relief. Florence, Baptistery, North Doors.

63. Michelangelo, detail of Fig. 58, central portion.

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esting aspect of this request to his father is his requirement of secrecy. For if indeed he was talking about the Madonna della Scala, the fact that he wanted it hidden shows he considered it a piece of very private property that he wished to keep for himself.9 Ascanio Condivi, who seems not to have known the Madonna, in his ‘official’ biography of Michelangelo (1553), mentions the Battle Relief, reporting that on 7 March 1527, Giovanni Borromeo, an agent of the Marchese Federigo Gonzaga of Mantua, had attempted to buy it.10 The Marchese’s apparent lack of success again indicates Michelangelo’s unwillingness to part with his early work. Four years after his death, Vasari describes both works as still in the house, now in the possession of Lionardo Buonarroti, Michelangelo’s nephew, ‘in memory of his uncle.’11 The point Vasari made about Michelangelo’s motivation in emulating Donatello in the Madonna della Scala gave him the opportunity to show how Michelangelo improved on his sources; he said the imitation was ‘so fine that it seems the work of the master, except that it possesses more grace and design.’ This motivation may indeed have been in the artist’s mind; and the carving is very skillfully done. However, he never again employed the early Renaissance schiacciato technique for an entire work.12 But it is in the exceptional emotional quality that it surpasses its prototypes. We have already seen two private works, by Piero and by Mantegna, that carry the weight of personal faith. It could be the same strength of religious commit9 Michelangelo’s desire for secrecy was already evident in his work on the David; see I. Lavin. ‘David’s Sling and Michelangelo’s Bow: a Sign of Freedom,’ in L’Art et les révolutions. Conférences plénières. XXVIIe congrès international d’histoire de l’art (Strasbourg, 1990), 105–146; revised and expanded in Past-Present, Essays on Historicism in Art from Donatello to Picasso. (Berkeley, CA, 1993), 29–62, and Passato e presente nella storia dell’arte. (Turin, 1994), 45–83. 10 The letter [No. 6 Brit. Mus. Mill. iii] was published by A. Luzio, La Galleria dei Gonzaga venduta all’Inghilterra nel 1627–1628. (Milan, 1913), 248, and is cited in Tolnay 1969, 1: 133. 11 Lionardo ultimately gave the Madonna relief to Cosimo I de’Medici (‘who valued it highly,’ cf. Vasari, 1966–87, 6: 11), and half a century later, in 1616, Cosimo II de’ Medici sent it back to Lionardo’s son, Michelangelo Buonarroti il Giovane ‘pronipote del grande Michelangelo.’ The latter had placed the Battle Relief on the wall of the first room of his Galleria in the Casa Buonarroti, and now mounted the Madonna in the fifth room. See Tolnay 1969, 1: 133. 12 Brandt 1999, 70 ff., and esp. illustrations on pp. 78–79, makes a detailed study of possible re-cuttings when the relief was returned to Buonarroti hands in the early seventeenth century.

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ment that, at least in part, lay behind Michelangelo’s keeping this relief throughout his life. Mary is represented seated, facing toward our left with her legs crossed at the ankles. Her support is not a chair or a throne but a stone cube, one flat side parallel to the picture plane. She is clad in loosely flowing garments that form a head veil, tunic and skirt. With her left hand, she raises the front of her tunic to reveal the Christ Child seated on her lap (Fig. 60). He is turned with his back toward the spectator, his right arm twisted behind him, hanging over Mary’s arm. His head is bent forward, his chin on his chest. Mary’s revelation shows that Christ is not suckling at her breast but asleep in a relaxed position. Mother and Child are seated at the bottom of a five-step staircase. Balanced on the third and fourth steps is another child who steadies himself on the horizontal railing above him with his raised left arm while leaning over the slanted railing and holding one end of a sheet with his right arm. The other end of this cloth is held by a another child who is behind the Madonna; he tugs and turns, looking over his shoulder back into the composition. On the landing at the top of the stairs, there are two more children, one with his arm raised to the other’s ear; they are seen from below and visible only from their knees up. Behind them, the space comes to an end. Within the frame left by the sculptor, this flattened relief proceeds from the landing, down the stairs, to the front side of the cube in the foreground. The cube is thus the beginning of this stony universe, calling forth the metaphor for Mary as ‘super petram,’ the foundation stone of the Church and Ecclesia personified.13 Michelangelo makes this austere support the gateway to paradise under the auspices of the Virgin Mary in her petrine manifestation. Observing the pervasive mood of somber preoccupation, Strzygowski long ago saw that Michelangelo had gone beyond his debt to the schiacciato reliefs of Donatello to draw on antique funerary art.14 Following this recognition of maternal tragic gravity, Tolnay emphasized its prophetic implications and elaborately developed the proleptic allusions to death in Mary’s 13 See the important article by M. Calì. ‘‘La Madonna della Scala’ di Michelangelo, il Savonarola e la crisi dell’umanesimo.’ Bollettino d’arte 52 (1967): 152–66; K. W.-G. Posner (Brandt). ‘Notes on S. Maria dell’Anima.’ Storia dell’arte, 6 (1970): 121–38, esp. 131 n. 64, citing Bernardino de Bustis’s Officium conceptionis Virginis Mariae. (Milan, 1492), for the Madonna ‘super petram’ and ‘per petram autem in S. Scriptura intelligitur Christus.’; and the discussion of Mary on the stone cube as the Seat of Wisdom in Lavin and Lavin 2001, 57–61. 14 J. Strzygowski, ‘Studien zu Michelangelos Jugendentwicklung,’ in Jahrbuch der Königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen 12 (1891): 207–219.

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abstract focus, the veil/shroud motif, and the Christ Child’s sleep. WeilGarris Brandt noted that this idea could be connected to the Madonna’s extraordinary position facing left, which she characterized as a mournful ‘glance toward the past.’ [lo sguardo verso passato]. We will return to this position in a moment, but may observe here that in continuing the theme of complete foreknowledge of the Passion in the childhood of Christ, Michelangelo added to it its expression in psychological terms. Tolnay also noted the distinctiveness of the Child’s backward-facing position, with turned-over arm and hand, and his Herculean proportions. He pointed to the source in Donatello’s Feast of Herod relief in Lille and the figure of Holofernes in the bronze Judith group, and Weil-Garris Brandt rightfully identified it with the classical motif we have seen before, known as the Letto di Policleto (Fig. 12).15 In point of fact, the source and meaning of the motif is a bit more complex than has been described. The most famous exemplar of this model was the one owned by Lorenzo Ghiberti. As noted, the title appears in the description of his collection, left at his death to his son and inherited and finally dispersed by his grandson.16 It was a celebrated antique in Florence and Michelangelo must have been able to study it directly in his youth. What is important is that he adopted various of its motifs and reassembled them in new and creative ways. The dorsal view of the Child depends on the S-curve back view of the Roman female (Fig. 12). The notion of the raised drape in Mary’s hand is related to the revelatory gesture of the same figure.17 Christ’s backward-twisting right arm is a combination of the female’s taut shoulder and the male’s arm with a reverse twist at the wrist. The Christ Child’s somnolence relates to the latter figure’s deep sleep. Aside from partial details in small figures by Ghiberti himself and by Donatello, by all accounts, Michelangelo’s interpretation would be the earliest digestion and amalgamation of parts of this highly-prized composition.18 The real issue, however, is why Michelangelo borrowed these motifs and the meaning of the new image he made of them. Brandt 1999, 75. See Chapter 1. 17 In spite of what Dacos 1986, 111 says, namely ‘. . . Michelangelo non era interessato dalla posa della donna, forse troppo manierata per il suo gusto.’ Michelangelo might also have known the classical sarcophagus in Pisa and the work of the Pisani (see chapter on Ghiberti). But it should be noted that the raised drapery motif and the sleeping male figure appear only in the Letto relief composition. 18 Bober and Rubenstein 1986, 127 n. 94, provide more illustrations. 15 16

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In seeking the meaning of Christ with his back turned, one inevitably remembers the words Moses heard from God: And again he said: Thou canst not see my face: for no man shall see me and live. And again he said: Behold there is a place with me, and thou shalt stand upon the rock. And when my glory shall pass, I will set thee in a hole of the rock, and protect thee with my right hand, till I pass. And I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face thou canst not see. [Ex. 33:20–23.] The Child’s pose thus refers to the ‘hidden God’, on whose face we cannot look and live.19 In this way Michelangelo fuses two members of the Trinity, God the Father and Christ, with Mary offering protection, shielding him with her right hand. Tolnay described Mary’s drapery surrounding the infant as alluding to the womb where the Child was nurtured. But beyond that suggestion, the motif refers to Moses, the prototype of Christ, set within the rock, reinforced by the material of Mary’s rocky seat. The sleep of the Christ Child is the standard metaphor of his coming sacrifice; it and the mother’s prophetic mood of sadness foretell in the beginning the end of the Savior’s earthly life. In this case, however, the sleep combined with a flight of stairs overlays the imagery of death with another allusion, that of the dream of Jacob, the patriarchal son of Isaac and Rebecca. And when he was come to a certain place, and would rest in it after sunset, he took of the stones that lay there, and putting them under his head, slept in the same place. And he saw in his sleep a ladder standing upon the earth, and the top thereof touching heaven: the angels also of God ascending and descending by it; And the Lord leaning upon the ladder, saying to him: I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac; the land, wherein thou sleepest, I will give to thee and to thy seed. And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth: thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and thy seed all 19 For the Church Fathers’ commentaries on this passage and its prophetic symbolism, see Cornelius à Lapide. Commentaria Scripturam Sacram. 8 vols. (Paris, 1868) 1: 739–41. This prophesy was also that of Isaiah. 45:15, ‘Vere tu es deus absconditus’, [Truly you are the hidden God]. On this subject, see E. Wind. Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance. New York, 1968, Chapter 14.

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the tribes of the earth shall be blessed. 15 And I will be thy keeper whithersoever thou goest, and will bring thee back into this land: neither will I leave thee, till I shall have accomplished all that I have said. 16 And when Jacob awaked out of sleep, he said: Indeed the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. 17 And trembling he said: How terrible is this place! this is no other but the house of God, and the gate of heaven. 18 And Jacob, arising in the morning, took the stone, which he had laid under his head, and set it up for a title, pouring oil upon the top of it. [Gen. 28:11–18.]20 The sleeping infant is thus a parallel for the sleeping Jacob, with the latter’s dream visualized, including the creatures on the ‘scala’ (the Italian word means both ladder and stairs), who suggest the movement of the dreamer’s angels. Even Jacob’s sanctified stone is there, again in the form of Mary’s throne. In the Gospel of St. John [1:51], Christ himself makes reference to this miraculous vision when, in accepting as his disciple Nathaniel, he says ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.’ He calls on this image to show his followers that they, like the seed of Jacob, would inherit the earth, changing the identity of the Lord at the top of the ladder to the Son of Man, saying that they would do so through his humanity as the third person of the Trinity.21 Mary’s ‘sguardo verso il passato’ is therefore directly back toward the Old Testament and the prophesy it held on many levels to justify and prove the advent of the Messiah. The intermediary step in this sequence are the writings of John Climacus, the sixth-century saint whose Heavenly Ladder was a guide book for monks on how to achieve heavenly bliss, based, as he says, on the Dream of Jacob. John’s description of the journey follows precisely Jacob’s dream, with clear indications that sinners who try to climb the ladder will fall off to their doom.22 Translated into Italian as La Scala del paradiso, Climacus’ text was published several times in the late fifteenth century, once almost exactly contemporary with the relief.23 See again Cornelius à Lapide 1868, 1: 285–91. Cornelius à Lapide. The Great Commentary. (Selections). 8 vols. Trans. T. W. Mossman. (Edinburgh, 1876–1908), 1: 72–76. 22 See the study of J. R. Martin. The Illustrations of the Heavenly Ladder of John Climacus. (Princeton, 1954). 23 Matheo Capsaca published the text of the Scala del paradiso in Venice on 8 January 1491. 20 21

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Still more pertinent is the fact that through writings formerly attributed to St. Augustine, the Scala coeli, the Heavenly Ladder, had become identified with Mary as the living intermediate and intercessor between earth and heaven.24 The concept was developed again and again in later Marian devotional literature, with the tract closest in time to Michelangelo’s relief being the anonymous Libro..della..scala del Paradiso, written in 1477, and published in three editions, one in Florence, again contemporary with the relief, in 1491.25 Again, Mary is likened to the stairway from heaven by which God came down to earth as Jesus and by which mortals could ascend. Even if we count the help of a mentor like Poliziano, the practitioner of theologia poetica, the relief ’s depth of meaning is quite dazzling. Now if we put it together with that of the Battle Relief, we will arrive at an understanding of the statement Michelangelo intended to put forth with the pair. To try for a simple description of the so-called Battle of the Centaurs is in itself a challenge; even naming the figures implies a definitive interpretation of the subject, and I deem this process almost impossible. Not that Michelangelo was confused about the iconography, but because he had other objectives in mind. First of all, the fact that the sculptured image shows the battle at its height was already remarked upon as an accomplishment by Condivi: dichiarandogli a parte per parte tutta la favola [telling the whole story at one time], and associated with the Albertian theory of istoria, or the proper manner in which to compose the representation of a moment of important historical significance.26 The second aspect most frequently noted is the heroic nudity of the figures,27 the beginning of his life-long preoccupation 24 ‘Facta est Maria scala coelestis; quia per ipsam Deus descendit ad terra, ut per ipsam hominess ascendere mererentur ad coelos’; J.-P. Migne, ed. Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Latina. 221 vols. (Paris, 1844–77) 39: col. 1991, 2; [In fact Mary is the heavenly ladder by which God descends to earth, so that through her men who merit it ascend to heaven.’ Cited in H. Hibbard. Poussin’s ‘The Holy Family on the Steps’ (Art in Context). (New York, 1974), 81–91, n.b. note 76. 25 In 1495, Domenico Benivieni, friend of Poliziano and great supporter of the Dominican reformer Savonarola, followed with his Scala della vita spirituale sopra il nome di Maria, where the five letters of Mary’s name are defined as the five steps (as in the relief ) leading to heaven. These references are brought together by H. Hibbard. Michelangelo (New York, 1974), 28. 26 Brandt 1999, 75–80, discusses this point at length. 27 This feature has often been compared to Pollaiuolo’s drawings and prints of Battling Nudes; see the entry and illustrations in Giovinezza 1999, 204–07.

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not with facial features as his medium of expression, nor situational poses, but with the total human body. Even here, where supposedly he was dealing with an event in the history of Centaurs, he included very few of their horse-like details. Among the fallen and wounded creatures that litter the lowest range, there is one body that is clearly equine among them. With many references to classical sculptural prototypes, the rest of the figures are in furious movement that is entirely human.28 The second range up is an agitated mélange of torsos, heads and arms, pushing and pulling, all deeply undercut and rounded. The third range, lowest in projection, is made up of tightly interwoven busts with arms, in torsions and thrusts. The final upper one-fifth of the stone block has only widely-spaced chisel marks, thought by Tolnay to be left out of ‘respect for the material,’ but considered an indication of a planned architectural element by Brandt.29 As opposed to the schiacciato technique of the Madonna della Scala, the approach to the stone in the Battle Scene forecasts Michelangelo’s famous technique of slowly penetrating the stone from one side, allowing for changes and mistakes as he carves out the depths. As his career progressed, he expanded this concept of the spirit in the stone which the sculptor revealed, articulating it in poetry as well as in sculpture.30 Modern authors generally claim that both Condivi and Vasari were incorrect in identifying the subject of the relief: Condivi called it the Rape of Deianira and Battle of the Centaurs [Ratto de Deianira e la zuffa de’ Centauri]; Vasari says it is the Battle of Hercules and the Centaurs [La battaglia di Hercole co i Centauri]. I find it highly unlikely that these two men, both of whom had direct access to Michelangelo, were simply wrong. Still, everyone admits they 28 Giovanni Pisano’s works, particularly scenes of the Last Judgement, also provided sources for the impressively expressive nudes. 29 The relief was called unfinished in 1527; see note 53 below. Tolnay 1969, 136; Brandt 1999, 82–84, also suggests a certain amount of later refinishing of both reliefs by Michelangelo himself; see the informative digital diagrams on pp. 78–79. 30 For discussions of the technique see I. Lavin. ‘Bozzetti and Modelli. Notes on Sculptural Procedure from the Early Renaissance through Bernini,’ in Stil und Überlieferung in der Kunst des Abendlandes. Akten des 21. internationalen Kongresses für Kunstgeschichte in Bonn 1964. (Berlin, 1967), III, 93–104, esp .p. 101 n.35; Tolnay 1969, 136; and the detailed verbal and photographic analysis of Brandt 1999, 78–83. For Michelangelo speaking to the subject of stone and stoniness in his poetry; cf. The Poetry of Michelangelo. Annot. and trans. by J. M. Saslow. (New Haven/London, 1991), 33–38, esp. p. 36 where examples are listed (nos. 63, 152, 170, 239–42). On the concept of the sculpture already present but hidden within the stone, see C. Tolnay. The Art and Thought of Michelangelo. (New York, 1964),

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were both correct in associating the subject with the theme of Centaurs and Lapiths fighting over abducted women.31 The alternate battle, which is now the subject of choice among scholars, is that between the Centaur Eurytus and the Thessalian Lapith prince Pirithoüs, assisted by his friend Theseus. What has not been mentioned in modern literature is that Boccaccio in his Genealogie deorum gentilium describes the two alternative battles, both featuring Eurytus, together in one chapter. While Boccaccio’s text is often named as the intermediate in knowledge of Ovid’s Metamorphosis, never is it called upon, as I do here, as Michelangelo’s actual source.32 In giving the genealogy of the centaurs, Boccaccio starts his list with the two most important members of the race engendered by Ixion and a cloud, namely Eurytus and Nessus. He then proceeds to speak of Eurytus’ deeds: ‘Eurytus of the centaurs (according to Lactantius Placidus), coming to the home of Oeneo King of Calidonia, demanded for his wife Deinira, who, just before, had been spoken for by Hercules. But Oeneo being afraid of the power of the Centaur, promised her to him. When the appointed day came to celebrate the wedding, by 83–108, and Saslow 1991, nos. 38, 62, 144, 151 (the most famous ‘Non ha l’ottimo artista alcun concetto . . .’; see below ‘Post-Oration’), 152, 236, 241, and 275. Vasari 1966–87, 6: 110, describes the technique in his Life of Michelangelo: ‘. . . un modo sicuro da non istorpiare i sassi, che il modo è questo: che se e’ si pigliassi una figura di cera o d’altra materia dura e si mettessi a diacere in una conca d’acqua, la quale acqua essendo per sua natura nella sua sommità piana e pari, alzando la detta figura a poco a poco del pari, così vengono a scoprirsi prima le parti più rilevate et a na scondersi i fondi, cioè le parti più basse della figura, tanto che nel fine ella così viene scoperta tutta. Nel medesimo modo si debbono cavare con lo scarpello le figure de’ marmi, prima scoprendo le parti più rilevate e di mano in mano le più basse . . .’; [a safe method of making marble figures without spoiling the blocks. The method is this. One takes a figure of wax or other firm material and immerses it in a vessel of water; the figure is then gradually raised, displaying first the uppermost parts, the rest being hidden, and as it rises more and more the whole comes into view; Vasari 1963, 4: 172]. 31 In Greek mythology, the centaurs and the Lapiths were half-brothers, both being the children of Ixion. The Centaurs were the first inhabitants of Thessaly, displaced by the Lapiths. See the masterful summation of the caveats to naming the subject of the relief over the years in Vasari–Barocchi 1962, 2: 100–03 (89–90). M. Hirst. ‘Michelangelo and his First Biographers,’ Proceedings of the British Academy. 94 (1996): 63–84, points out that Condivi never saw the relief and that Michelangelo himself had probably not seen it since 1533, when he left Florence. 32 The Genealogy had received its first printed edition in 1472 (Venice). Dante refers to this story, placing the characters in Purgatory. Ed. and trans. C. S. Singleton. La Divina Comedia. 3 vols. (Princeton, 1977), Purgatorio, 121–24, 2: 265, commentary, pp. 583–84.

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chance Hercules arrived and fought with centaurs who were there, and he killed them all, and took Deianira for his wife. But Ovid does not tell it in this manner: rather he would have it that Pirithoüs took as his wife Hippodamia and celebrated their wedding; he placed the centaurs in the antechamber of the house to eat. And they as a result of the revelry became drunk and sinfully lascivious, and with overflowing ardor began to put their hands on the women, and Eurytus took Hippodamia, wanting to carry her away. Pirithoüs and Theseus moved against them; Theseus pulled Hippodamia away and he killed [Eurytus].’33 The superimposition of the stories is thus not Condivi’s, or Vasari’s, or Michelangelo’s but Boccaccio’s, who, in his vast scholarship, put the similar versions of the tale together. Michelangelo made no effort to distinguish between them, generalizing the figures with nudity and a paucity of equine details. Seeking to resolve the identity of the figures, many authors have deemed the central figure to be not the host of either feast but the ‘most savage of the savage centaurs,’ Eurytus, the raptor himself.34 If this identification is Eurito di centauri (secondo Lattantio [Lactantius Placidus, In Statii Thebaida commentum, 5: 263]) veñendo in casa di Oeneo Re di Calidonia, gli dimandò per moglie Deianira, laquale poco innanzi i dimandatali da Hercole gli era stata promessa. Ma Oeneo temendo la forza del Centauro, gli la promise. Onde nell’ordinato giorno che si celebravano le nozze, a caso Hercole sopravenne dove combattendo con quelli centauri che erano ivi, gli amazzò tutti & hebbe per moglie Deianira. Ma Ovidio [Metamorphosis 1934, Bk. 12: 146–209 (see below in this note)] non dice in questo modo, anzi uno le che have~do Perithoo menato per sposa Hippodamia, e celebrãdosi le nozze, egli pose, i centuari nella entrata della casa a mangiare, iquali per la crapula divenuti ebbri & lascivi di lussuria, con (soverchio) ardire incominciarono mettere le mani nelle donne, et havendo Eurito preso Hippodamia per volerla menare via. Perithoo & Theseo si mossero contra loro, & venendo alle mani, Theseo gli tolse Hippodamia & lo amazzò. (Boccaccio. Gen. Deo. Gen., Lb 9: 29]. This chapter is followed by a chapter on the centaur Astilo, and then a longer version of the story of Nessus, in love with Deianire, and Hercules. The Italian transcription given here is from La Geneologia de gli Dei de Gentile di M Giovanni Boccaccio. Trans. Gioseppe Betussi da Bassano (Venice, 1569), 153v. The context of this tale in Book 12 of the Metamorphosis is Nestor’s account to Achilles and his men of the metamorphosis of Caeneus, a Thessalian warrior whose body was impenetrable by a sword, the more remarkable because he had been born a woman. Ovid in Six Volumes. IV. Metamorphoses, trans by F. J. Miller, 2 vols. (Cambridge/London, 1934). 34 Strzygowski was the first to make this identification, and Tolnay concurred, claiming to see a horse’s leg beneath the torso. 33

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correct it is contradictory, for the figure demonstrates no savage characteristics, nor does he lay his hands on any woman. Rather, his posture is noble and erect, displaying the beautiful lines of his muscular torso, turning with dignity to glance at his adversary, and calmly raising an arm over his head. To believe earlier arguments one must presume that the rape taking place below him is carried out not by Eurytus as in Ovid’s text, but by a henchman. The text, in fact, is fulfilled by the individual seen from behind, straining to take a woman by her hair (a detail that follows the text). The nude female struggles to save herself by grasping her assailant’s arms with both hands as another man, presumably her husband Pirithoüs, makes a great effort s to hold on to her around the waist while staving off an attack from the opposite side. On the ground nearby is a fallen centaur, the one readily visible horse-shaped body part, its rear end lying on its side.35 I will return to the identification of the central figures in a moment. The full-length male nude striding forward on the left is presumably Theseus coming to the rescue.36 According to Ovid, Theseus kills Eurytus by smashing his brains out with a huge, embossed mixing bowl. In the relief, however, the figure carries not the heavy vase, but a large rough-hewn stone. The champion is assisted from behind by another nude male figure, who is bald, bearded and has a surprising resemblance to Socrates, the master philosopher (Fig. 61).37 If Michelangelo did not have an actual ancient bust in mind in carving this face, he could have seen the familiar portrait-type in the frame of Ghiberti’s North Doors of the Florentine Baptistery (Fig. 62).38 However, Socrates shown completely nude in this fashion is without precedent. This figure, too, carries a heavy stone which he holds in two hands and seems about to use as a weapon. As there is no text that mentioned an assistant to Theseus and certainly no one among the Lapiths described as resembling Socrates, this figure serves as a signal to consider some quite particular meaning for the scene. Several questions come to mind: why, for example, with many types of antique battles to choose from, did Michelangelo focus on one involving a rape? Why does the figure usually identified as the rapist look so noble? If the 35 Although no faces are visible, Brandt 1999, 188, 198, mysteriously identifies this figure as the beautiful centaur Cyllarus with his dying wife Hylonome nearby (Metamorphosis 1934, Bk 12: 393–428). 36 While the figure is heroic, he not muscular or big enough to be Hercules. 37 Tolnay 1969 recognized this physiognomy but did not comment on it. Brandt 1999 also notes the figure’s identity; see her suggestion in 81 n. 41. 38 Krautheimer 1972, 1: 133, 341, and 2: Pl. 60c.

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second noble figure striding forward is Theseus, why did he change the missile from a vase to a stone? And why does the older man behind him look like the ‘greatest philosopher of all time’ and carry the same type of weapon? To assist in answering these questions, there are a few facts that can be brought to bear. There is a strong possibility that the name of the ancient race, the Lapiths, is etymologically related to a Greek word for stone (lithos); all mythographers say they were named thus because they inhabited the very stony region of Mount Pelion.39 This association would have had resonance for the young sculptor who was in the process of exploring the marble medium. Stone also plays a role in the personal history of hero Theseus. Before his birth, his beguiled father Aegeus planned to test the boy’s strength by placing his sword and sandals under a huge stone. Only when Theseus had grown strong enough to lift the rock and return the gear did Aegeus recognize him as his son and the future king of Athens. Theseus with a heavy stone verifies his heroic role in saving civilization from unbounded passion. If Socrates comes to his aid it must be to reinforce this ethical task. Socrates joins the fray, however, not in the pose of a philosopher, but of a warrior. It is well known that Socrates in his early years spent time in the army with the rank of a hoplite. Then he too does not use a standard weapon but wields a stone. Thus he comes as a sculptor: as the son of a stone carver and sculptor (Sophroniscus, by name), Socrates later followed that trade. In fact, Pausanius (115–180 A.D.), in an unproblematic way, reports the attribution to Socrates of figures of the Graces and of Hermes at the entrance to the Acropolis in Athens.40 Observing the two-handed pose, combined with the figure’s age and baldness, Paul Barolsky made the astonishing proposal that what Michelangelo is representing is the sculptor Phidias as described by Plutarch 39 Paulys Real-encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft. ed. W. Kroll (Stuttgart, 1924), col. 783–86. The definition given, in translation, is: people from Thessaly; name source not clear but probably means people from stony mountains! 40 Other authors are somewhat more tentative. See the references in F. Adorno. Introduzione a Socrate (Rome, 1973), 153; Pausanias. Description of Greece. Trans. J. G. Frazer. 6 vols. (New York, 1989), 1: 22, 8. Soon after this relief, for example in Raphael’s School of Athens, images of Socrates began to appear in reference to the knowledge of the ancients, and the syncretistic value of pagan intellectual and spiritual knowledge. See the articles by I. Lavin. ‘Divine Inspiration in Caravaggio’s Two St. Matthews,’ Art Bulletin 56 (1974): 59–81; and ‘Addenda to “Divine Inspiration”,’ Art Bulletin 56 (1974): 59–81; ‘A Further Note on the Ancestry of Caravaggio’s First Saint Matthew,’ Art Bulletin 62 (1980): 113–4 (Italian translation in Passato e presente 1994, 125–169).

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in his Life of Pericles.41 Plutarch (c. 45–125 AD) says that on the shield of the colossal chryselephantine cult image of Athena Parthenos, commissioned by Pericles, Phidias ‘carved out a figure that suggested himself as a bald old man lifting on high a stone with both hands.’42 In fact, the description of the two-handed lifting of a stone indicates Phidias’ action was also that of a warrior, since the subject of his relief was another battle scene, an Amazonomachy, or the Battle of Greeks and Amazons. The idea of an allusion to the classical sculptor joining the battle using his sculptural medium as a weapon adds another layer of significance to Michelangelo’s work. But Plutarch then goes on to say that Phidias ‘also inserted a very fine likeness of Pericles fighting with an Amazon.’43 Here we must recall that the multiple representations on the Parthenon of the Amazonomachy led by Theseus (as well as other battle subjects) were political allegories alluding to the recent Greek victory over the Persians led by Pericles, the great Athenian statesman.44 As such, the battle relief on Athena’s shield entered into the rhetorical sphere of epideictic praise for the ruler.45 41 P. Barolsky’s Michelangelo’s Nose: a Myth and its Maker. (University Park/London, 1990), 105–09, and idem. The Faun in the Garden: Michelangelo and the Poetic Origins of Italian Renaissance Art. (University Park/London, 1994), 64–70. As the reader will see, I have profited greatly from this and other of Barolsky’s insights. He assumes that Poliziano would again have provided the reference. In the passages on this subject, Barolsky includes an over-arching sketch of Michelangelo’s career, rightfully observing, with many other authors (see below), that themes recapitulated during his lifetime started with this relief. In the case of the bald old figure, however, it is odd that after spending a great deal of time in other parts of his books proving the parallels between Socrates and Michelangelo (see Barolsky 1990, 13–14 [The Socratic Michelangelo], 19–20 [A Socratic Satyr], and 23–24 [A Socratic Portrait of Michelangelo]), he fails to note the physiognomic allusion to the philosopher as part of the mix on the Battle Relief. 42 Life of Pericles, Lib 31 in Plutarch’s Cimon and Pericles. Trans. and ed. by B. Perrin (New York, 1910), 148, 264. See above, Chap. 2, note 34, for Cicero’s account of Phidias’ motivation in carving the self-portrait. 43 Plutarch 1910, 148, 264. 44 Pericles (495–429 B.C.) took over Athenian leadership in 461 B.C. Plutarch’s works were already in the Medici library during the time of Cosimo, Lorenzo’s grandfather. See D. Kent. Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine Renaissance: The Patron’s Oeuvre. (New Haven/London), 2000, 19, 27, 36, 83, 384. Poliziano discusses manuscripts of Plutarch owned by Federico da Montefeltro as well as by Lorenzo in an undated letter to Lodovicus Odaxius; Angeli Politiani Opera. (Basil, 1553), 31. 45 The Amazonomachy, which was on the outside of the shield, was one of three battle scenes represented on the statue: on the inside of the shield there was a Gigantomachy, and on the edge of Athena’s sandals was a Battle with the Centaurs.

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When we now apply these allusions to Michelangelo’s relief, quite a new set of analogies appears. We have a bald old man with a stone in two hands — identified with the self-portrait of Phidias, the greatest sculptor of ancient Greece, maker of statues on the Acropolis, represented as Socrates, the greatest philosopher of ancient Greece, also a sculptor who made statues on the Acropolis — perhaps audaciously meant to be understood as a self-portrait of the teenage creator of this relief. By his action, the figure assists the heroic warrior, Theseus, the mythical king of Athens, allegorized as the patron and ruler of ancient Attica, and therefore by extension and flattery, the ruler of the modern Athens, that is Florence, none other than Lorenzo de’Medici. Seen in this light, the female being saved from rape can be recognized as a personification of Florenza, whom Lorenzo would be saving from his always present political enemies.46 By this token, Michelangelo’s relief, far from being an academic exercise by a youthful student, was consciously conceived in the sphere of epideictic rhetoric, aimed at adding to his patron’s glory. One would think that this project was quite enough for the hopeful and quite pretentious young man. And yet, he seems to have taken it to still another level. By elevating the central figure both literally and figuratively, he announces his true subject and transforms the traditional Psychomachia — man’s internal struggle between intellect and instinct — into a triumph of ingenio, invenzione and fantasia.47 As Weil-Garris Brandt astutely points out, the idealized figure in the center of the composition reflects not the conservative ideas of Ovid, but the more radical attitude of Horace and Lucian who provide a positive assessment of the centaur’s creative energy. By analogy, this energy shines forth as the salient characteristic of the ingenious creative artist.48 I propose, therefore, that the central image (Fig. 63) does not represent the savage Eurytus. On the contrary; the true rapist is just below; it is his head that Theseus, balancing himself with his raised left 46 By this period, Lorenzo, who had survived two assassination attempts, had also seen the Medici banking system fall on relatively hard times. In his sermons against Medici rule, Savonarola was calling Lorenzo a symbol of ‘the unjust ruler’; see Hale 1977, 73–74. 47 Aurelius Prudentius Clemens. Works: Psychomachia. Ed. and trans. H. J. Thomson. vol. 1 (Loeb Classical Library, vol. 387), (Cambridge, MA, 1949; repr. 1969); R. Newhauser. The Treatise on Vices and Virtues in Latin and the Vernacular. Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental, vol. 68. (Turnhout, Belgium, 1993). See Hibbard 1974, 22–25 with references to Kenneth Clark and Ernst Gombrich. 48 Brandt 1999, 81. Cennino Cennini makes this point, 1933, 2; see the discussion in Schlosser 1964, 94.

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arm, is about to smash with his rock. While unbridled natural forces are thus quelled, the central figure, beautiful in his stature as well as his reserve, personifies the power of art to overtake and elevate nature itself. Theseus’ very change of the weaponry from vase to stone, draws out the simile of stony stone: like the mission of Deucalion and Pyrrha, who reformed the human race with stones,49 the issue of the relief is the remolding of the artisan into a higher being under the aegis of a superior patron. Socrates, as a warrior and as a philosophical fellow sculptor, supports this effort, exhorting them all to self-knowledge.50 It is the salvific qualities in stone released by the sculptor’s chisel that draw the two early reliefs together. In Madonna della Scala Michelangelo used the redundancy of carving stone to look like stone to shape the funAfter Zeus sends the life-destroying flood that covers the world, Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha are the only survivors. Receiving oracular instructions, they regenerate mankind by throwing stones (‘the bones of the Great Mother [Earth]’) over their shoulders. The sculptural metaphor with which Ovid describes their act of creation must have greatly moved the young sculptor as he entered into the surface of the block: ‘. . . And the stones . . . began at once to lose their hardness and stiffness, to grow soft slowly, and softened to take on form. Then, when they had grown to size and become milder in their nature, a certain likeness to the human form, indeed, could be seen, still not very clear, but such as statues just begun out of marble have, not sharply defined, and very like roughly blocked-out images . . . And in a short time, through the operation of the divine will, the stones thrown by the man’s hand took on the form of men, and women were made from the stones the woman threw. Hence come the hardness of our race and our endurance of toil; and we give proof from what origin we are sprung.’ (Bk. 1: 318 ff. and 395–416). Metamorphoses 1934, 1: 31 f. The passage is cited by P. Barolsky in ‘As in Ovid, So in Renaissance Art.’ Renaissance Quarterly 51 (1998): 451–474, esp. 457–59, where it is not pointed out that the parallel was described by Petrus Berchorius (c. 1290–1362) Ovidius Moralizatus. (Paris, 1509). Werkmateriaal 2, (Utrecht, 1962), typescript, Lib. 1: 36–40; this text was published as Liber bibliae moralis. (Amsterdam, 1477). For the sixteenth-century French prose translation, see Ovide Moralisé en prose (Texte du Quinzième Siècle). Ed. C. de Boer, (Amsterdam, 1954), 58–60. 50 By Michelangelo’s time, both the image and the character of Socrates were wellknown. See S. Meltzoff. Botticelli, Signorelli and Savonarola: Theologia Poetica and Painting from Boccaccio to Poliziano. (Florence, 1987), 130–31 for fifteenth-century appraisals, including by Nicholas Cusanus, Marcilio Ficino, and Pico della Mirandola, and representations that post-date Michelangelo by Perugino (1495–57) and Pintorrichio (1505). While Poliziano was essentially an Aristotelian, he had great admiration for Socrates. See the reference in Meltzoff to Poliziano’s remarks in Lamia (4: 18–4: 42), where Socrates is praised for being able to see his own faults as much as those of others, (and) to see himself refuted as he refutes others. 49

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damental theological metaphor of the Church’s foundation. In the Battle Relief, he used rocky missiles to ensure the victory of art and culture over craft. It must have been with profound disappointment that he watched Lorenzo de’Medici sicken and die in the spring of 1492, never to have been able to reap the rewards of his adulation.51 The mature Michelangelo corroborated the importance these works held as inaugural statements of his artistic ideals. Many years later, commenting on the Battle Relief, Condivi in his Vita reports: ‘I recall hearing him say that, whenever he sees it again, he realizes what a great wrong he committed against nature by not promptly pursuing the art of sculpture, judging by that work how well he could succeed.’52 In one of the annotations (postilla) added in the margin to Condivi’s text, now attributed to Tiberio Calcagni, the following qualification was added: ‘Indeed, he says that his art is sculpture; the other [i.e. painting] he does and has done for the princes. Concerning the storia [narrative], when he sees it, he knows that the hard labor of that art [sculpture] for one who loves it, is very light [easy]’, or in Caroline Elam’s phrase ‘love of art makes art’s labours light.’53 In this light, it hardly seems necessary to ask why Michelangelo kept these reliefs for himself, and was unwilling to part with them even when offers were made. So much of what was to come in terms of concepts and

51 Almost as the result of another Medician setback, Michelangelo actually documented himself as working for himself. In a letter (19 Aug 1497) from Rome to his father in Florence, he records that having been disappointed by Piero de’ Medici after undertaking a figure for him, he bought another block of marble for 5 ducats and was working on a figure for ‘his own pleasure’. [Poi ne ricomperai un altro pezo, altri cinque ducati, e questo lavoro per mio piacere]; P. Barocchi and R. Ristori. Il Carteggio di Michelangelo: edizione postuma di Giovanni Poggi, 4 vols. (Florence, 1965), 1:III:4; and English translation by E. H. Ramsden. The Letters of Michelangelo. 2 vols. (Stanford, 1963), 1:5. The figure was a Hercules, by 1529–30 in the courtyard of the Strozzi palace, and later sold to the king of France. 52 Wohl 1976, 15. The original reads: ‘. . . che, quando la rivede, cognosce quanto torto egli abbia fatto alla natura, a non seguitar prontamente l’arte della scultura, facendo giudicio per quell’opera quanto potesse riuscire . . .’ (Condivi 1998, 13–14). 53 ‘Anzi dice che l’arte sua è la scultura; l’altre fa et à fatte percompiacere ai prìncipi. Della storia, che quando la vedeva, conoscieva le fatiche della arte a chi se ne inamora esser legiris[si]me.’ Condivi 1998, XXI, no. 1.A. In another postilla, 2.B, p. XXI, Calcagni calls the relief imperfetta (unfinished). See the precedent publication by U. Procacci. ‘Postille contemporanee in un esemplare della vita di Michelangelo’del Condivi,’ in Atti del Convegno di Studi Michelangioleschi, (Florence/Rome, 1964). (Rome, 1966) 279–94.

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motifs appear in them, in surprisingly developed form, one wants to believe that the young man’s self-conscious prescience guided his actions.54 54 Many authors have recognized Michelangelo’s continued preoccupation with elements he first put forth here. They were first observed by Heinrich Wölfflin. Die Jugendwerke des Michelangelo. (Munich, 1891), 5–13, and then systematically enumerated by Tolnay (1969, 1: 79 f.). Kenneth Clark’s characterization is perhaps most telling since he added a vista of their aftermath. He says of the Battle Relief, ‘We know how this small nucleus of energy will expand, and how each pose will reappear, polished by art and weathered by experience to create new heroic style . . . The young Michelangelo could not know that he had released a world of shapes that were to travel with him all his life, and prove, after his death, a Pandora’s box of formal disturbance.’ The Nude: a Study in Ideal Form. (Princeton, 1984), 203–04. Here I add my own rather more extensive list of repetitions of themes and motifs: Gestures and Details with Intrinsic Theological Meaning: N Mary’s enthronement on a stone cube with Petrine associations: Madonna della Scala; Pitti Tondo; Medici Madonna. N Christ Child asleep on breast as prolepsis of death: Madonna della Scala; Medici Madonna. N God-the-Father or Christ as ‘Hidden God’: Madonna della Scala; Sistine Chapel, Scene of Creation, second figure of God . Affective Demeanor: N Suggestion of prophesy in glance or body language: Madonna della Scala; Sistine Chapel, Sibyls. N Tragic foreboding in gaze: Madonna della Scala; Bruges Madonna; Medici Madonna. N Contrapposto Response to ‘outer’ call: Battle Relief (‘Socrates’); Moses. Physical expression of inner tension: N Torso with right arms over head: Battle Relief, central figure; Battle of Cascina cartoon, figure in left back range. N Unnaturally Twisted Arm: Madonna della Scala; Medici Chapel, Day; Florentine Pietà. N Back with s-curved spine [Letto di Policleto]: Battle Relief, figure pulling woman by hair; Battle of Cascina cartoon, figure with lance in back range. N Back, Muscular and Flexed: Madonna della Scala; Battle Relief, foreground fallen warrior; Sistine Chapel, several Ignudi; Medici Chapel, Day Irony (Serious Play): N Figure Reaching: Madonna della Scala, boy leaning over the balustrade; Battle of Cascina cartoon, soldier leaning over embankment. N Expressions of friendship: Madonna della Scala, embracing boys at top of stairs; Sistine Chapel, putti on the supports of thrones of Prophets and Sibyls.

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It is thus quite easy to suppose that Michelangelo kept the reliefs, aside from reasons of personal pride, as pro memorie of ideas he planned to work up more fully at later dates. This idea would not have been out of the ordinary. We remember the advice Leonardo da Vinci planned to include in his Treatise on Painting (Trattato della Pittura), suggesting precisely that notion.55 Leonardo was speaking to artists who would create two dimensional works of various sorts, and he was giving counsel that he surely followed himself considering the enormous legacy of his own writings and drawings that have come down to us. That the idea was abroad at this time is proved by the fact that, as the sixteenth century progressed, more and more drawings and models were kept and valued by artists. The idea is not so complex that it had to be theorized, but Leonardo’s advice certainly gave it impetus. Throughout Michelangelo’s long and productive career, it must have been with some satisfaction that he could recall in this tangible way the fact that many of his most brilliant and characteristic themes and motifs had come to him spontaneously as youthful inspirations. But while he was one prodigy whose career sustained and even surpassed his early promise, carrying him into an honored and revered old age that has never been doubted or surpassed, I must point out that he may have looked less kindly on the pro memoria idea, or at least public knowledge of it, in his later years.56 Both Condivi and Vasari make claims for the master’s prodigious memory, saying that because of this capacity he never repeated himself. Condivi says: ‘Michelangelo has a most retentive memory, so that, although he has painted all the thousands of figures that are to be seen, he has never made two alike or in the same pose. Indeed, I have heard him say that he never draws a line without remembering whether he has ever drawn it before and erasing it if it appears in public . . .’ To which Calcagni adds: ‘You can make a mistake but never repeat yourself,’ or perhaps a better translation is ‘Better N Manipulation of cloth: Madonna della Scala; Doni Madonna, young men in background. Representation of Stones in Stone: Madonna della Scala; Battle Relief; Pitti Tondo; Medici Madonna. Gesture of Preoccupation or ‘Distraction’ (Tolnay’s term) N Forefingers holding a fold of drapery: Madonna della Scala; St. Peter’s Pietà; Moses. 55 See the quotation in Chapter II, note 43. 56 If the letter of 1506, quoted above, refers to the Madonna della Scala, this notion could have been part of his motivation in asking his father not to let anyone see it.

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64. Sandro Botticelli. Mystical Nativity. Tempera on canvas, 108.5 x 75 cm., signed and dated 1500/1501. London, National Gallery.

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65. Sandro Botticelli. Mystic Crucifix. Tempera on canvas, 73 x 51 cm. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University, Fogg Art Museum.

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bad than the same.’57 He may have had the impressive memory claimed in these passages, but that he ‘never’ repeated himself is patently untrue. As a result, his life-long custody of the reliefs takes on an even more personal and private significance than would have been imaged at the outset. Peroration: Botticelli and the Political Self Two other possibly self-generated works of art from the turn of the fifteenth century should be mentioned. They are by another, older, artist who was in the same cultural ambience as Michelangelo during the late 80s and early 90s, namely Sandro Botticelli. His personal circumstances, however, were quite different. After years of patronage by the Medici, Lorenzo the Magnificent and his relatives and heirs, Botticelli had lost their ‘munificence’ and his own financial condition was vastly reduced. It was during the last ten to twelve years of his life (d. 1510) that he produced the two paintings in question.58 During these years Botticelli’s brother Simone was a very close follower of the politically active Franciscan friar, Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498), and a member of the Piagnoni [snivelers], the most fervent and uncritical followers of the charismatic preacher. These militant men played a role in forcing the Medici to relinquish their power in Florence, driving Lorenzo’s son Piero into exile in 1494. Botticelli’s membership in this group in the mid-90s has never been proven, but there is no question

57 Wohl 1974, 107. ‘È stato di tenacissima memoria, di maniera che, avend’egli dipinte tante migliaia di figure quante si vedono, non ha fatta mai una che somigli l’altra o faccia quella medesima attitudine. Anzi gli ho sentito dire che non tira mai linea, che non si ricordi se più mai l’ha tirata, scancellandola se s’ha a vedere in publico.’ Condivi 1998, 64, speaking of painting: ‘Dissemi: È vero, e se tu vòi far bene, varia sempre e fa’più tosto male,’. In this passage, Condivi is speaking about painting; Condivi 1998, text, 64 and Postilla, ‘XXII, no. 22. Vasari says very much the same: ‘he possessed a tenacious memory, and retained anything he had once seen, so that he could use it; and he never did two things alike, because he remembered everything he had done.’ Vasari 1963, 4: 175. ‘È stato Michelagnolo di una tenace e profonda memoria, che nel vedere le cose altrui una sol volta l’ha ritenute sì fattamente e servitosene in una maniera che nessuno se n’è mai quasi accorto; né ha mai fatto cosa nessuna delle sue che riscontri l’una con l’altra, perché si ricordava di tutto quello che aveva fatto.’ Vasari–Barocchi 1962, 6: 124, where Barocchi comments that Vasari expands on Condivi’s information and equivocates between memory and the creative power of the artist. 58 H. P. Horne. Botticelli: Painter of Florence. intro J. Pope-Hennessy (Princeton, 1980; reprint of ed. London, 1908).

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that after the death of Savonarola and his brother (12 May 1497), Sandro’s painting style and political attitude changed dramatically. By the time Lorenzo’s grandson Lorenzo de’Medici, Duke of Urbino (d. 1519) returned from Lyons in the second half of 1498, Botticelli had thrown in his lot with the Piagnoni and his workshop had become a notorious meeting place of open rebellion (the group that met there was given the derogatory name of the Accademia di Scioperati [idlers]).59 The two paintings are: the mid-size Mystical Nativity (London, National Gallery, tempera on canvas, 108.5 x 75 cm., signed and dated 1500/1501, Fig. 64) and the quite small Symbolic Crucifixion (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, Fogg Museum, tempera on canvas, 73 x 51 cm., 1500–05, Fig. 65); they reflect the penitential zeal of the revisionist movement. Unfortunately, nothing is known about the origin or destiny of either painting, both having come to light only in the nineteenth century.60 Botticelli may have made either or both paintings for his own devotional needs, or they could have been planned for more public venues. I put them forward here simply as possible candidates for the category this study is surveying, but which, without more evidence, must remain in the margins.61

D. Weinstein. Savonarola and Florence; Prophecy and Patriotism in the Renaissance. (Princeton, 1970), and R. Lightbown. Sandro Botticelli: Life and Work. (New York, 1989), 242–53. 60 There is a partial replica of the Fogg painting, the Crucifix only (55.5 x 40 cm.), which was bought in 1936 by Samuel H. Kress and is now in the Art Museum of Portland, OR. 61 The complex iconography of both these paintings has received many elaborate interpretations; besides the citations in the previous notes, cf. L’opera completa del Botticelli. pres. Carlo Bo, cat. Gabriele Mandel. (Milan, 1978), nos. 148 and 150; N. Pons. Botticelli: catalogo completo. (Milano: Rizzoli, 1989), both with extended bibliography. 59

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Giovanni Bellini and the Surviving Self Although throughout his mature life, Giovanni Bellini was a highly respected official painter of the Venetian State, admired for his independence and his skill, in his last years his position was threatened as younger men transformed painting into a new, more expansive mode. Bellini responded with two works, one remarkable in its autobiographical allusions, the other his final visual manifesto of triumph in art.

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HEN Jacopo Bellini died (25 Nov. 1471), his wife Anna inherited all that remained of his artistic legacy. Immediately thereafter Anna wrote her own will, putting her elder son, the painter, Gentile Bellini, in line to become heir to all the elder Bellini’s possessions including sculpture (in marble, relief, and plaster), pictures, and his famous books of drawings, finished and otherwise.1 Although the second son, Giovanni, is not mentioned in the will, it is known that the brothers both had access to the drawings, reworking and finishing some and using others as the basis for their own compositions.2 As we have seen, these drawings had outstanding value, almost as a new art form, since they represented the final abandonment of stiff model book types in favor of freer and more varied studies from nature and other forms of preliminary studies and sketches. This kind of graphic emancipation could, in fact, be thought of as one of the signal factors in observing the craftsman’s progress toward personal expression. Giovanni Bellini certainly began his career in the workshop tradition

C. Eisler. The Genius of Jacopo Bellini. (New York, 1988), esp. p. 532. Eisler 1988, 67. Because Giovanni is not mentioned in Anna’s will, it is sometime inferred that he was illegitimate, an idea that R. Goffen. Giovanni Bellini. (New Haven, 1989), 3–4, succinctly dismisses. 1 2

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under his father, collaborating with his brother and with Andrea Mantegna, his brother-in-law. But by the 1480s and 90s, in his maturity, he held an official position with the Venetian government and had begun to exhibit his own artistic independence in a forceful and articulate manner. By the end of the century Pietro Bembo (1470–1547), Venetian man of letters and later cardinal, characterized him thus in a letter to Isabella d’Este (1 January 1505): ‘Bellini . . . is very well disposed to serve Your Excellency as soon as the measurements or canvas is sent. (However) It will be necessary that the invention that Your Excellency writes to me . . . be accommodated to the fantasy of him who has to paint it: . . . very precise terms do not suit his style, accustomed, as he says, always to roam at his will in paintings.’3 Nowhere better than in Bellini’s long running interaction with Isabella d’Este Gonzaga, when she sought paintings from him for her Studiolo over a period of nine years (1496–1505), does this aspect of his artistic personality become apparent. Through the riches of the Gonzaga archive in Mantua and other sources, we can see Isabella’s imperious opening assault on Bellini and then watch her pass through a series of emotional stances in which he more often than not retained the upper hand. Her letters show her attitude change from impatience, to annoyance, to anger, and finally to conciliation in a vain attempt to get the paintings she wanted.4 Besides Bellini and Isabella herself, letters come from Lorenzo da Pavia (Paiensis), a musical instruments maker and her agent in acquiring all types of objects and materials

3 ‘Il Bellini . . . è ottimamente disposto a servire V. E. ogni volta che le siano mandate le misure o telaro. La invenzione che mi scrive V. S. che io truovi al disegno, bisognerà che l’accomodi alla fantasia di lui chel ha a fare: il quale ha piacere che molto signati termini non si diano al suo stile, uso come dice di sempre vagare a sua voglia nelle pitture.’; first published in G. Gaye, Carteggio inedito d’artisti dei secoli XIV, XV, XVI. 3 vols. (Florence, 1840), 2: 73; quoted from Goffen 1989, 268. 4 C. M. Brown and A. M. Lorenzoni. Isabella d’Este and Lorenzo da Pavia. Documents for the History of Art and Culture in Renaissance, Mantua, 189. (Geneva, 1982), 158–67; Goffen 1989, Docs. 23, 30–51, provides excellent English transcriptions of all letters concerning Bellini’s transactions with Isabella from the Gonzaga archive and others from different sources previously published only in Italian.

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for her Studiolo; and from her friend Michele Vianello, a noted art collector and patron of music. We hear these men trying to teach Isabella how to bargain, cautioning her not to rush Bellini and, more significantly, warning her that no matter what she tells him to do, he will do whatever he does ‘in his own way’. In fact, although Bellini professed a willingness to satisfy her desires, he repeatedly refused to return the down payment she had given him; he refused to paint the classical subject she wanted; and he refused to have his work compared [va al parangone] to that of his brother-in-law Mantegna.5 When it became clear that he would not paint the istoria (classical subject) Isabella ordered, she acquiesced to his offer to substitute a scene of the Nativity. But then, he refused her suggestion to add a figure of St. John the Baptist, saying it would be inappropriate.6 Again she gave in to him and accepted a more iconic and conservative Madonna with Saints. And when he did not get around to completing the commission, she became spiteful and threatened to have him reprimanded by the Doge of Venice.7 In response to this threat Bellini finally speaks with his own voice. He writes a letter that opens with the necessary mantle of obsequiousness: ‘Your Ladyship . . . to whom, kneeling, I ask pardon, supplicating the excellent Lady, for her customary kindness, if she would attribute it to my innumerable occupations and not to disregard for the con-

‘Ma de quela istoria li ha datto Vostra Signoria, non si poria dire quanto la fa male volentieri perché sa il judizio di Vostra Signoria e poi va al parangone de quele opere de messer Andrea (i.e. Mantegna) e, per tantto, lui in quest opera vole far quanto saperà, e dize che in quest a istoria non pole far chose che stia bene, né che abia del buon e falla tanto male volentieri quantto dir si posi, per modo che mi dubito che non servi Vostra Excellentia chome quela dexidera. Siché, s’el parese a quela de darlli libertade fazese quello li piazese, son zertisimo Vostra Signoria molto meglio seria servita. (But as for that narrative which Your Ladyship has given him, one cannot say how very unwillingly he would do it because he knows the judgment of Your Ladyship and then it would be compared with those works by Andrea, and he says that in this narrative there is nothing good . . . and he does it as very unwillingly as one can say, so that I doubt that he will serve your Excellency as you desire.’) Brown Lorenzoni 1982, 159 (25 June 1501); Goffen 1989, 266. As one might expect, these passages have been much discussed in the Bellini/Mantegna literature. 6 ‘che li parea che’ l fuse fuore de propoxito ditto Santo a questo ‘prexepio.’ [(it) appears inappropriate (to represent) that saint (John the Baptist) in a Nativity.(22 Nov 02)]; Brown Lorenzoni 1982, 164–65. 7 See her letter to Alvise Marcello, 10 April 1504, Brown Lorenzoni 1982, 165–66; Goffen 1989, 267. 5

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cerns of Your Excellency, which concerns continuously, as her most perfect servant, I have carved in my heart . . .’8 But more than a year later he still had not completed her commission. While he was holding her at bay, he was finishing work for other clients both in and outside of Venice, even doing some classical subjects for them.9 Moreover he was busy working for the Republic of Venice, and often complained about being overworked. Nevertheless, even as the chief artistic representative of the state, he worked with all the leeway he wanted up to almost the very end of his life. It is extraordinary to have so much intimate documentation about the feelings of an Early Renaissance painter. By the same token, where we might expect to find evidence of a more personal nature, there is none. There is no artistic legacy mentioned in Bellini’s will and there is no inventory of his studio post-mortem. There are, however, at least two paintings that, for reasons to be discussed, stand a fair chance of qualifying as having been done for private reasons. They both are undocumented and are quite out of the ordinary in light of works done for other people, and they both certainly validate his statements of sovereign self-confidence. They both deal with the question of nudity, rare enough in his long career. However, iconographically they are exemplifying opposite poles of observing the nude, one associating the ugly with evil, the other, the beautiful with good. Scholars have actually called these paintings ‘testaments,’ and dated them to the last two years of Bellini’s life. Clearly expressing his final thoughts about life and art, these works lead us definitively over the threshold from master craftsman at the pleasure of the client into the realm of the mature artist as selfmotivated creator.

‘. . . Illustrissima Signoria Vostra, da quella, flexis genibus, ne chiedo perdono, supplicando la prelibata, per solita sua benignita, se degni attribuirlo a le innumerabel occupation mie e non ad oblivion de cosse di Vostra Signoria, le quale continuamente, como perfectissimo servidor de quella, me sono scolpite nel cuore;’ Goffen 1989, 2 July 1504, 267. 9 It must be said that Giovanni Bellini was much more compliant with the wishes of other Venetian patrons (for Francesco di Giorgio Corner [Conaro] in 1507 he completed a series of classical subjects left unfinished by Mantegna [Goffen 1989, 237]), and of other members of Isabella’s own family: her husband, Marchese Francesco Gonzaga and her brother, Alfonso I, Duke of Ferrara for whom he did the Feast of the Gods, signed and dated 1514 (see below, note 43, for further bibliography). 8

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The first is the Derision of Noah (Fig. 66, usually dated c. 1514–15).10 The subject itself is surprising, as it is the only scene from the Old Testament in Bellini’s œuvre.11 Unquestionably the traditional Noah/Christ typology is the underlying theme of the subject: Noah stripped bare and shamed by his wicked son Cham is the millennial prototype for Christ stripped and mocked during the Passion, and the wine of his drunkenness is interpreted as having Eucharistic value.12 Bellini of course did myriad representations of the dead Christ in positions of the Pietà and Lamentation, and as isolated devotional images, for example the Christ with Crown of Thorns, on which he was working at this very time.13 If the point was to 10 Nothing of its sixteenth-century history is known. It came to the Besançon museum from the painter Jean Gigoux (d. 1894), who left his collection to the Museum. Early on it was attributed to Bellini by Roberto Longhi who later called it ‘the first modern painting’: Viatico per cinque secoli pittura veneziana. (Florence, 1952), 13; after which it was given to Giovanni Cariani, Lorenzo Lotto, and Titian. By now the Bellini attribution is generally accepted; see G. Robertson. Giovanni Bellini. (Oxford, 1968): 131; R. Pallucchini. Giovanni Bellini. (Milan, 1959), 112; Goffen 1989, 250–52. The condition of the painting is fair; it has sustained a crease down the middle; see Stefano Coltellacci. “Studi belliniani: La Derisione di Noè a Besançon,” in Giorgione e la cultura veneta tra ‘400 e ‘500; mito, allegoria, analisi iconologica, (Rome : De Luca, 1981), pp. 80-–87. 11 The episode is found in Genesis, 17: And God said to Noe: This shall be the sign of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh upon the earth. 18 And the sons of Noe who came out of the ark, were Sem, Cham, and Japheth: and Cham is the father of Chanaan. 19 These three are the sons of Noe: and from these was all mankind spread over the whole earth. 20 And Noe, a husbandman, began to till the ground, and planted a vineyard. 21 And drinking of the wine was made drunk, and was uncovered in his tent. 22 Which when Cham the father of Chaanan had seen, to wit, that his father’s nakedness was uncovered, he told it to his two brethren without. 23 But Shem and Japheth put a cloak upon their shoulders, and going backward, covered the nakedness of their father: and their faces were turned away, and they saw not their father’s nakedness. 24 And Noe awaking from the wine, when he had learned what his younger son had done to him, 25 He said: Cursed be Chaanan, a servant of servants, shall he be unto his brethren. 26 And he said: Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, be Chanaan his servant. 27 May God enlarge Japheth, and may he dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan be his servant. 28 And Noe lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years: 29 And all his days were in the whole nine hundred and fifty years: and he died. 12 This is the interpretation given by Goffen 1989, 249–51, who observes signs of revival and renewal as well. 13 Stockholm, Statens Konstmuseer. Goffen 1989, 84–86, Fig. 61, sees parallels between the two paintings in style and chronology. See also R. Goffen. ‘Bellini’s Christ Crowned with Thorns: The Artist’s Epitaph,’ Nationalmuseum Bulletin, Stockholm, 15 (1991), 137–50. Two important and complementary studies of the Noah painting appeared in 1991: S.

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analogize Christ, one must ask what more Bellini achieved by turning to the Old Testament prototype, since it was not only out of the ordinary in his œuvre, it had never before been the subject of an independent painting outside a narrative sequence.14 Clues may come from observing various aesthetic matters in the composition: passages of great beauty in the handling of paint and the tightlypacked space pushed to the foreground. The patriarch’s somnolent body stretches out next to a bunch of dark grapes with the culprit drinking cup below, tilted forward to show the paucity of wine left at the bottom. This glowing body contrasts with the dark, psychologically upsetting ugliness of the figure above in the person of Cham who betrayed him (Fig. 67). The nastiness of his facial expression confronts the spectator with allusions to both evil and stupidity. Moreover, the figure is unique in the history of the subject in that he physically tries to hold his brothers back from their respectful act of covering their father’s nakedness. The emotional strength of all three brothers, in fact, contrasts so sharply with earlier renditions of the incident, a few words of background are in order. The iconography of the Drunkenness of Noah stems ultimately from two main sources, well known in the Renaissance: the commentaries of St. Augustine in his City of God, and the ideas of St. Ambrose as expressed in his letter Ad Simplicianum and further developed by Nicholas of Cusa. We will take note of their interpretations as we go along. Tuscan representations, starting with the relief on the Campanile in Florence and continuing with Bartolo di Fredi’s 1367 scene in the Collegiata in San Gemignano, show Noah fully clothed with only his genitals exposed, emphasizing his important role as second progenitor of the human race, and advocate of the means to nourish it.15 Coltellacci. ‘ “Oboedite praepositis vestris, et subiacete illis.” Fonti letterarie e contesto storico della Derisione di Noè di Giovanni Bellini,’ in Venezia Cinquecento 2 (1991): 119–56 (a reprise and expansion of his 1981 article) and the article by Arasse 1991, in the same journal. Coltellacci’s study is valuable for its massing of exegetical interpretations of the biblical incident, and for his own analysis of the historical and political climate in which the painting was carried out, the point of which was to relate the painting’s strong emotional qualities to what he calls the ‘crisis’ of the early sixteenth century in term of religious upheaval, outbreaks of plague, military conflict. Arasse’s study is more encyclopedic, positioning the painting within iconological, mystical, theoretical, and aesthetic spheres, as well as in the context of contemporary Venetian painting and Bellini’s own ‘late’ works. 14 First observed by M. Meiss. ‘Sleep in Venice. Ancient Myths and Renaissance proclivities,’ reproduced in The Painter’s Choice. (New York, 1976), 236. 15 Andrea Pisano’s relief is reproduced in A. F. Moskowitz. The Sculpture of Andrea and Nino Pisano. (New York, 1986), Pl. 56; Bartolomeo’s scene is reproduced by Krautheimer 1971, Fig. 82.

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When figures of the sons are included, Shem and Japheth (who avoid looking at Noah) represent the fidelity and respect that make them worthy of the mission bestowed on them. Cham, who usually looks toward and points at the drunken Noah, is differentiated as an arrogant tattler, quite ignorant of the curse about to be brought down upon him.16 With some consistency, the drunken Noah is shown lying in profile, one leg extended and the other bent with an arm resting on the flexed knee. Following this tradition, Ghiberti added allusions to the Flood in making the reference to a reclining river god explicit by all but denuding the patriarch (Fig. 68, 1435–51). He encapsulates narrative details by posing Shem and Japheth with their backs turned (as they would approach Noah according to the text), while they converse with their wayward brother. Michelangelo continued the watery allusion by stripping Noah completely (Fig. 69), but also makes reference to the pose of his own figure of Adam in the Creation scene (1508–12).17 He thereby puts emphasis on the fecundity of Noah as the ‘new Adam,’ the ‘padri di tutti i padri’ as Pietro Aretino later called him.18 As is often observed, not only Noah but all three sons are also nude, placing them on a par with their father as progenitors. However, this emphasis on fertility was only the first purpose of the denuding; it also serves to identify and distinguish the boys in an unprecedented manner.19 He follows St. Augustine, who makes a special point of characterizing the good sons as opposed to the cursed, saying ‘Shem and Japheth, that is to say, the circumcision and uncircumcision, or, as the apostle

16 The formula continued in the fifteenth century: Jacopo della Quercia (d. 1438) showed essentially the same moment in his relief on the portal of San Petronio in Bologna, where Noah exposes himself by lifting his own skirt and looking up to the son who saves him. J. Pope-Hennessy. Italian Gothic Sculpture. (London, 1985), Fig. 74 (general view). 17 Long before Michelangelo’s fresco, the reclining knee-up position had become traditional for scenes of the Creation of Adam. The allusion is further enhanced by the fact that the figure of Noah working the earth with a spade, the first time element in this continuous narrative, is based quite literally on della Quercia’s figure of Adam in the same action in the San Petronio reliefs which Michelangelo surely knew from his time (1494) in Bologna. See below for reference to the reclining figure of Adam in the mosaics of San Marco, Venice. 18 P. Aretino. Il Genesi con la visione di Noè. (Venice, 1538), 76. 19 C. de Tolnay. Michelangelo: II The Sistine Ceiling. (Princeton, 1969), 24–26, and 131 (for comparative material see Figs. 279–282), considered it difficult to identify the different sons and, as he called it, the sequence of their gestures.

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otherwise calls them, the Jews and the Greeks, but called and justified . . . covered their father’s nakedness.’20 In the fresco, we are shown one boy with a disapproving look who rushes forward to drape his father; one who stands in profile and turns his head away from the picture plane, while emphatically pointing downward; the third who stands behind him, left forearm under his brothers arm, and right arm flung forward with palm open. Looking closely we see that the rushing boy is circumcised;21 the pointing ivory-skinned boy is not, and they both look away from Noah, as Shem and Japheth should. Both look toward the third, Cham, the ‘middle son’ (also uncircumcised), whose ruddy coloring, red hair and wild green eye betray his flung-out arm gesture as desperation. The pointing motif, previously specific to Cham’s act of disloyalty and now given to a good son, repeats God’s life-giving gesture in the Creation scene, making specific the typology of the ‘new Adam,’ previously present only by implication.22 St. Augustine’s passage in the City of God unveils the prophetic meaning of the narrative most directly: Noah’s nakedness signifies the Savior’s Passion; the purple garment signifies the sacrament, the grapes are the Eucharistic blood; the drunkenness signifies the suffering.23 And he goes on to say that ‘The object of the writer of these sacred books (the Pentateuch), or rather of the Spirit of God in him, is not only to record the past, but to depict the future’ in Christ. Noah as precursor of Christ reclines on a thin

20 E. G. Dotson. ‘An Augustinian Interpretation of Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling.’ Art Bulletin 61 (1979): 223–56 and 405–29, was the first to introduce St. Augustine, and in particular his City of God, as the major source for the iconography of the Sistine Chapel. 21 He rushes forward with such force that his penis blows back in a s-curve and his hair blows upward. 22 The pointing boy with his head turned has been identified more than once as Cham; e.g., Gordon 1979, 247–48, effortlessly identifies him on the basis of St. Augustine’s description of the ‘brother in the middle.’ But she was reading the composition in the planar sense rather than spatially. Arasse 1991, using the same passage from the City of God, without citing Dotson, reinforces the identification of the middle figure as Cham in Bellini’s painting. In a small ivory plaque on the Salerno Antependium (R. P. Bergman. The Salerno Ivories: Ars Sacra from Medieval Amalfi. (Cambridge, 1980), 29–30, Fig. 12) the figure of Cham uses both gestures, pointing with his left hand and flinging his right arm out before him. 23 The large vat behind and above Noah’s body is more like a trampling bin than the closed barrel in, for example, the Pisano relief (see above note 15). It thus calls to mind the shape of the winepress, another tradition symbol of the Eucharistic blood of the Passion; see M. Vloberg. L’Eucharistie dans l’art. 2 vols. (Paris, 1946), 2:17–83.

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slab supported, under the wine-pitcher, under the knee, and under the ankle, by heavy bound volumes. There are also two piece of writing equipments, chalk or graphite, strewn on the ground, one under Japheth’s foot and another in Cham’s drapery. Noah is thus sustained by the meaning the exegetical writers have given him over the centuries, as Augustine says, ‘in this prophetic history some things are narrated which have no significance, but are, as it were, the framework to which the significant things are attached.’24 While Michelangelo may have studied the art of Bellini when he was in Venice in 1494, in this case the influence may have been the other way around.25 Michelangelo’s scene of Noah pre-dates Bellini’s by at least four years (1508–12), and it is the only precedent composition organized in a horizontal rectangle with the quartet of figures forced forward toward the picture plane by an opaque backdrop. However, there the similarity stops, for although Bellini must have been aware of the Tuscan tradition, he also had a very strong Venetian thread to rely upon. The tradition in Venice, the city of floods, begins in the Basilica of San Marco, with the Noah sequence as told in the mosaics of the atrium.26 The drunken Noah is shown twice, once observed by Cham (Fig. 70) and again about to be covered by Shem and Japheth. He is completely nude in both cases, but lying in slightly different positions. When observed by Cham, he lies in the classical pose of Ariadne, right hand supporting the head, with the left arm thrown in abandon over the top; legs crossed at the ankles, penis compacted. This pose emphasizes the stupor of drunkenness. The

In this, the closing scene of the Old Testament cycle but the very first one sees upon entering the chapel, the new covenant for the salvation of mankind, and the founding of the Church is announced. All quotes from St. Augustine are taken from Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library, Center on Religion and Democracy, http: //etext.lib.virginia, City of God, Chapter 1, ‘Whether, After the Deluge, from Noah to Abrahm, Any Families Can Be Found Who Lived According to God,’ and Chapter 2, ‘What Was Prophetically Prefigured in the Sons of Noah.’ 25 Michelangelo was briefly in Venice in 1494; C. H. Smyth. ‘Venice and the Emergence of the High Renaissance in Florence: Observations and Questions.’ In Florence and Venice, Comparisons and Relations: Acts of two Conferences at Villa I Tatti in 1976–1977. Eds. Sergio Bertelli, Nicolai Rubinstein, and Craig Hugh Smyth, 1: 209–49, esp. pp. 210–15. (Florence: Il Nuova Italia, 1979). 26 Dated after the earthquake of 1223; O. Demus. The Mosaics of San Marco in Venice. 2 vols. in 4 parts. (Chicago, 1984), 2: 1: 81, 96, 122–23, 149–52, 2: 2, Pls. 43 (color), 169, 173. 24

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second figure has rolled forward, legs still crossed at the ankle, penis erect and seen in profile, left arm extended over the breast. This pose is all but identical to that of Adam in the Creation cupola at the other end of the atrium, now emphasizing the patriarch’s generative role at the time of the New Beginning.27 Two hundred years later, the subject of the Drunkenness of Noah (Figs. 71 and 72) returns to Venice in the form of a major sculpture on Palazzo Ducale, a three-part relief on the south-east corner, facing the water near the Ponte della Paglia.28 On the front face Noah stands unsteadily, spilling wine from his scudella and grasping grapes on the vine entwining a great tree that forms the corner of the pillar. The allusions to the Eucharist as well as fecundity are clear. Around that corner are two boys in farmer’s clothes. One represents Shem, a good son who holds the end of a loincloth that covers his father’s nakedness. With his palm he negates the words of Cham, the culprit, who with a sullen expression points to his eye to indicate what he has seen. The third son Japheth stands on another pilaster on the other side of the arched opening, raising his palms to deny the scorrettezza of his brother. In the context of the Ducal Palace, where the rulers of Venice disbursed justice, the Noah episode takes on a moral tone. As Sinding-Larsen has shown, based on the teachings of St. Ambrose and promulgated by Nicholas of Cusa, Noah represents the directive for the structure of human society in which the wise and the virtuous shall govern the unwise and unworthy.29

27 According to K. Weitzmann (Demus 1984, 105–42) the design of all the mosaics in the atrium are based on the illustrations of the Cotton Genesis. 28 The Noah sculptures are part of a set including Adam and Eve (SW corner) and the Judgement of Solomon (NW corner), each superimposed by an archangel, Michael over Adam, Gabriel over Solomon, and Raphael over Noah. The fundamental analysis of these sculptures was given by S. Sinding-Larsen. ‘Christ in the Council Hall: Studies in the Religious Iconography of the Venetian Republic.’ Acta ad Archaeologiam et Artium Historiam Pertinentia, 5. (Rome: Bretschneider, 1974), ‘The Archangels and the Law,’ 167–75. The carvings are undocumented but thought to date from late in the trecento and of very high quality close in style to Bartolomeo Buon, according to J. Pope-Hennessy. Italian Gothic Sculpture. (London, 1955), 57. There have been other attributions and other dates: W. Wolters. Scultura Veneziana (1300–1460). 2 vols. (Venice, 1976), 1: 40–44, cat. 48, attributes them to Filippo Calendario; see also A. F. Moskowitz. Italian Gothic Sculpture, c. 1250–c. 1350. (New York, 2001), 258–60. 29 Sinding-Larsen 1974, 169–70; the sources are St. Ambrose’s Letter Ad Simplicianum, and Nicholas of Cusa’s political treatise, De concordantia catholica (1433).

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Bellini, thus forearmed with these important precedents, takes the subject to his own heart. We can now say that more than any previous artist, Bellini shows the intent of the wicked son. With an odious snarl, Cham draws back his lips to expose a voracious gap between his two front teeth. In the center of the arrangement, as we have noted, he literally tries to prevent his brothers’ sympathetic actions by exerting pressure on their arms. Each in his own way, Shem and Jephath avert their gaze. Cham looks down in derision on his somnolent father. In the light of the history, Bellini’s Noah is truly extraordinary. In spite of Cham’s efforts, the youngest son, Japheth, has already covered his father’s sex with a rose-colored scarf. Emaciated, old and hoary, Noah lies in a pose of abandon.30 Like the Noah figure in the San Marco mosaic (Fig. 70), his right hand is under his cheek, here shielding his head from a rocky pillow, and the left flung recklessly over his head. But unlike the female prototype of the sleeping Ariadne (whose legs are crossed at the ankles), Noah’s legs are spread apart. The left knee is bent in recollection of the Creation pose. In this gesture, and the fact that his loins are draped, his pose refers to another prototype with which it is almost identical: that is, the ever-beautiful and ever-sleeping Endymion, as seen on a Roman sarcophagus (Fig. 73).31 The analogy is strange, since Noah was certainly not known for his beauty nor did he remain asleep for very long. The explanation comes from quite an unexpected source: the physiognomy of the protagonist bears a striking resemblance to the artist himself. Bellini’s features are known from several sources, including a drawing by Vittore Belliniano (Fig. 74). Along with the parallels in age, the similarities in the shape of the foreheads, the long, sharp pointed noses, the thin lips — all justify physical comparison and so suggest a personal nexus between the two.32 On the very first level we are thereby encouraged to associate the subject of the infuriated father with some defamatory circumstance in Bellini’s 30 Goffen 1989, 250, relates his pose, with changes, to the nymph on the right in the Feast of the Gods. See below, note 43. 31 Hellmut Sichtermann, ed. Die Mythologischen Sarkophage. 12 vols. (Berlin, Mann, 1992), cat. no. 33, 150–170 A.D., p. 108, Pls. 35–38. Endymion was a handsome shepherd boy of Asia Minor, the mortal lover of the moon goddess Selene, who kissed him to sleep each night. She begged Zeus to grant him eternal life so she might be able to embrace him forever. Zeus complied, putting Endymion into eternal sleep and each night Selene visits him on Mt. Latmus, near Milete, in Asia Minor. 32 For portraits of Bellini see J. Rapp, ‘Das Tizian-Portrait in Kopenhagen: ein Bildnis des Giovanni Bellini.’ Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 50 (1987): 365–67.

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life. As Bellini had only one documented son, Alvise, who had died fifteen years earlier in 1499,33 it is unlikely that a real member of his family was involved. I propose instead that the artist’s preoccupation concerned not a living being but the prospects for the survival of his own artistic patrimony. It was precisely on May 31, 1513, that Titian (Tiziano Vecellio, 1488/90–1576), who earlier had been Bellini’s prime artistic heir and at the time was at most twenty-three years of age, proposed to the Venetian administrators that he be given the ‘first broker’s patent which would fall vacant’ in Venice. In a not very tactful way, he was obviously thinking of the patent of his aged teacher. The next month, his proposal was accepted by the Counsel of Ten, and Titian installed himself in a workshop at San Samuele, with two helpers, Antonio Buxei and Ludovico di Giovanni, who also had previously been assistants in Bellini’s shop. Ten months later, on March 24, 1514, the appointment was rescinded, motivated, as is generally believed, by Bellini’s anger.34 Titian’s predatory move while Bellini was not only still alive but also still the official painter to the Republic must have caused the older painter considerable rancor.35 One can see how, after a lifetime of work and years of respect and understanding for his independence and originality, Bellini would have felt anxiety at the younger man’s overt challenge to his social standing as well as, implicitly, his art. Aside from his legal move to retain his patent, I suggest that Bellini made a caustic riposte with the image of Noah insulted by his son, during the period before they came to a settlement (between May 1513 and March 1514).36 The striking composition shows the faithfulness and sensitivity of the majority of his colleagues in contrast to the thoughtless self-serving move of the renegade. The allusion to Endymion in the figure of Noah obviously does not claim eternal beauty for Bellini himself, but rather defends the long-lasting splendor 33 Goffen 1989, 258, app. 2, no. 28; and pp. 296 n. 2, 301 n. 25; she relates the Noah episode to the sad familial events in Bellini’s life. Perhaps twice married, besides his son both wives were dead long before the presumed date of this painting. 34 E. Panofsky. Problems in Titian, Mostly Iconographic. The Wrightsman Lectures, (New York, 1969), 4 f., gives the accounts of these legal matters. See also F. Valcanover. ‘An Introduction to Titian,’ Titian Prince of Painters, Exhibition in Palazzo Ducale, 1990, and National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1990–91, (Venice, 1990) 3–29, esp. pp. 4–5; and Goffen 1989, 269. 35 This is not the first case in which Titian caused collegial consternation. See below, note 41. 36 Including the two assistants, there were three ‘sons’ involved in the affair.

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of his painting. Such an image would have discharged quite adequately Bellini’s pent-up feelings of shock and offense.37 Visual evidence of Bellini’s concern for his artistic legacy, evinced by the Besançon painting, is further intensified by the second homeless work from the end of his life, the Woman at her Toilet (Fig. 75), signed and dated 1515.38 If the Derision of Noah is about the ugliness of disloyalty, this painting is about beauty, truth, and painting as the highest purveyor of these virtues. This theme, too, responds directly to the challenge presented by his aggressive young former student Titian, and to Titian’s second Venetian mentor, Giorgione (c. 1478–1510), for whom he had left Bellini. Almost ten years before Bellini did his Woman at her Toilet, Giorgione had started a new genre of subjects: partially undressed women, the first of which seems to be his ‘Laura’ (Fig. 76). An inscription on the back of the painting gives the date of 1 June 1506, the name of the painter, and says

37 See the remarks of Panofsky 1969, 4 f. The discussion continued: C. Hope. ‘Titian’s Role as Official Painter to the Venetian Republic,’ in Tiziano e Venezia, Convegno Internazionale di Studi, Venice, 1976. (Vicenza, 1980), 301–05, proposed that Carpaccio rather than Titian was Bellini’s rival. Valcanover 1990–91, 4–5, publishes an English translation of the entire petition without comment. He had published a few phrases in the original earlier in L’opera completa di Tiziano Vecellio, Classici dell’Arte, 32. (Milan, 1969), 84. D. A. Brown, ‘Bellini and Titian,’ in Titian Prince of Painters, Exhibition in Palazzo Ducale, 1990, and National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1990–91, (Venice, 1990), 57–67, refers to the concorenza between the painters, showing that while Titian ‘engaged in a rivalry with Bellini [which Brown says was ‘generational’ rather than ‘personal’], all the while (he was) continuing to recall prototypes’ from the older artist’s work; see the last paragraph of this chapter. Panofsky’s less timid view of the situation seems more persuasive to me. In the petition Titian makes specific requests for the same sinecure afforded Bellini after many, many years of service: ‘to be conceded to me for life the first sansaria (often spelled senseria, or sensaria) of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi which should become available, notwithstanding others who wait, with the modes, conditions, obligations and exemptions that Giovanni Bellini has, and two young men that I would take on to help me, to be paid by the Salt Office, together with paints and all other necessary things, the same as in the recent months have been conceded by the said Most Illustrious Council to the said Giovanni . . .’ Only later did the two come to an understanding: Titian agreed to drop, temporarily at least, his claim to the patent in question, and Bellini agreed to withdraw his objections. On 29 November 1514, the patent was reconfirmed. After Bellini’s death (29 November 1516), Titian became the fullfledged painter to the Republic. 38 The painting was in the Collection of the Grand Duke Leopold William, registered in 1659. Another version, of lower quality is perhaps the one that was with the New York dealer Stanley Moss in 2003 (see P. Castelli. ‘La Mantica e i cristalli,’ Fig. 10, in Cristalli e Gemma, Convengo, Venice, April 1999. (Venice, 2003).

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that it was done for a ‘Miser Giacomo.’ Whether the sitter represents a real person or not, she is in the pose of a formal half-length portrait, turned and looking toward the left with an unblinking gaze. The great innovation is that rather than simply cut off at the bottom or providing an arrangement of arms and hands to complete the composition, the woman is represented holding open her wrap of heavy red material, luxuriously lined with fur, to expose one beautiful bare breast. The juxtaposition of dark fur with an evanescent scarf that winds around the neck and over the breast emphasizes and dramatizes the luscious bosom.39 Positioned before a spreading laurel branch, the woman has been likened to Leonardo’s Genevra da Benci, where the sitter appears before a juniper tree that corresponds to her name. Leonardo’s painting has recently been called an ‘ironic paragone’ of Petrarc’s Laura, and the three women (the fourteenth-century Laura, Genevra, and Giorgione’s Laura), are all recognized as poets, in a descending order of virtue.40 Whomever and whatever Giorgione’s Laura represents, the underlying image, that of an erotically exposed woman wrapped in a man’s cloak, projects a pledge of fealty, dependence, and satisfaction. Expanding this sensuous theme, Giorgione had introduced the completely nude woman to Venetian art with his Sleeping Venus, well advanced but left unfinished when he died in 1510. By that time, he too had had a falling out with Titian, mostly over artistic matters in which the younger

39 See: H. Noë. ‘Messer Giacomo en zijn “Laura”,’ Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 11 (1960): 1–35, who proposed that this painting would have been paired with a second portrait of ‘miser Giacomo’ whether fiancé or lover. Noë was the first to identify the red, furline cloak as that of a man. E. Verheyen, ‘Der Sinngehalt von Giorgiones “Laura”.’ Pantheon 26 (1968): 220–27, calls the painting a marriage portrait; A. C. Junckerman. ‘The Lady and the Laurel: Gender and Meaning in Giorgione’s Laura,’ Oxford Art Journal 16 (1993): 49–58, who saw a challenge in her glance, said she is a courtesan and a poet; Goffen 1997, 75, corrects Junckerman’s sartorial imprecisions. See Fig. 80 below, for Titian fur-lined wrap. 40 Visually she responds to Leonardo’s earlier (c. 1474) portrait (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), whose identification with the juniper tree behind her head must have been Giorgione’s source, although he made the laurel more abstract and removed the distant landscape. See J. Anderson. Giorgione: The Painter of ‘Poetic Brevity’. (Paris/New York, 1997), 208–14, who discusses the irony in the primary symbolism of laurel as virginal purity, as with Daphne spurning Apollo. Anderson compares the cloak with the similar one worn by the virtuous Lucrezia in a painting by Cranach, and recalls allusions to the victorious poet who wins the laurel crown, and finally the company of friendly female poets, some with, some without connotations as prostitutes, mistresses, and courtesans.

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man began to evince not only his prodigious painting skills but also his somewhat predatory character.41 In the six years between Giorgione’s death and that of Giovanni Bellini, the number of paintings involving erotic subjects augmented rapidly. Titian had begun working on themes of female beauty and produced his first independent painting in this vein with his Woman with a Soldier Holding Two Mirrors, between 1513–15 (Fig. 77).42 Bellini himself created the Feast of the Gods (1513–14, Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art), commissioned by Duke Alfonso d’Este of Ferrara, which involved a goodly quantity of dishabille.43 One year later he finished his Woman at her Toilet, unique in his career, being without apparent commission and the only female nude in his œuvre. It seems evident, therefore, that the Vienna painting reflects Bellini’s response to the quite modern attitude that was growing up around him. His attitude, however, was the absolute opposite of notions of prurience or suggestiveness — no one, as far as I know, has ever thought of Bellini’s woman as a courtesan. Mild and almost modest, the woman’s nudity is based on the idea that the female body itself represents beauty.44 This 41 According to Giorgio Vasari, he brought down the wrath of Giorgione. When they immigrated into Venice, both men had studied in Bellini’s workshop, Giorgione ten years earlier than Titian. When Titian left Bellini to seek a more up-to-date master (again according to Vasari), he joined Giorgione, even competing for some of his commissions. In 1508–09, he finished the mural started by Giorgione for the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. And it was here the trouble began: concerning his additions, voices were abroad that one could not ‘distinguish between the two hands, so perfectly Titian had imitated the style. Upon hearing these whispers, Giorgione, yet again reported by Vasari 1966–87, 6: 157, ‘did not want Titian to associate with him any longer, or (to) be his friend.’ [Vasari 1963, 4: 200]; reported by T. Pignati. Giorgione (London, 1971), 172. Nevertheless, somewhat later Titian finished Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus. 42 Titian’s painting is discussed below in this chapter. 43 Alfonso, Isabella d’ Este’s brother, had painted the Feast of the Gods for his camerino d’alabastro. After an intervention by Dosso Dossi, Titian later also revised this painting. Among the vast literature, see J. Walker. Bellini and Titian at Ferrara: a Study of Styles and Taste. (New York, 1956); D. Bull. ‘The Feast of the Gods: Conservation and Investigation.’ Titian 500, National Gallery of Art, (Washington D.C., 1993), 366–73, and J. Plesters. ‘Examination of Giovanni Bellini’s Feast of the Gods; A Summary and Interpretation of the Results.’ ibid., 374–91, for the later additions by Dosso Dossi and Titian. See also Goffen 1989, 240–47. 44 See the classic study of this theory and its tradition by E. Cropper. ‘On Beautiful Women, Parmigianino, Petrarchismo, and the Vernacular Style.’ Art Bulletin 58 (1976): 374–394.

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woman is not idealized; she is, in fact, a bit heavy-set. But both her nudity and her circumspect emotional state make her beautiful, and as a representation, is thereby a sign of beauty. That Bellini’s approach was to draw the subject into the world of theory, demonstration, and elevated visual ideals, is an extension of his highly regarded self-image and pictorial dignity. He divides the composition of the panel essentially into three parts: in the center, the nude woman with auburn hair observes herself in a small round mirror. Her nudity is enhanced by two accoutrements: a scarf that conceals her sex (of the same now rose-pink color as the one that covers Noah’s shame) winds around her arm, and drapes behind her. The second is a blue cut-velvet snood (reticella) with pearls covering the lower part of her hair.45 Although the snood seems to be perfectly placed, the woman raises her left hand to adjust it. With a pensive glance, she gazes into the small mirror at the reflection of the back of her head in a larger round mirror hung on the wall. Rona Goffen has written eloquently on several occasions about the woman as a sign of a new bride in ‘the perfect uxorial equilibrium’ of chastity and sexual consummation.46 This author makes a further persuasive argument associating the painting with concepts of the paragone, or the comparison between the art of painting and sculpture. The inclusion of the mirror shows that painting is superior to sculpture because it can, at one time, make visible more than one view. And finally she points to the informal and ‘hand-written’ cartellino on the right side of the composition, showing that Bellini’s use of the verb form ‘faciebat’ signifies that in its beautifully realized form, the image is, as it were, still in a state of becoming. In spite of his great age and proven skills, perfection, even for him, unlike that of the Creator, is never achieved in this world.47 The woman is seated on a bench that extends the width of the panel. To the left, her drape lies across what must be the true covering of the seat, an elaborately patterned Turkish rug, seen on the right. Such rugs, known from The woman has often been identified, because of the pearls, as Venus, born like a pearl from the sea. 46 R. Goffen. ‘Giovanni Bellini’s Nude with Mirror.’ Venezia cinquecento: Studi di storia dell’arte e della cultura. 1 (1991): 185–199. See also the seminal study by J. Bialostocki. ‘Man and Mirror in Painting.’ In Studies in Late Medieval and Renaissance Painting in Honor of Millard Meiss. Eds. I. Lavin and J. Plummer, 66–72. (Princeton, 1977). 47 The usage is related to Pliny’s description; see Goffen 1991; Goffen 1989, 254–57; Arrase 1991; and R. Goffen, ‘Signatures: Inscribing Identity in Italian Renaissance Art.’ Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 32 (2001): 303–70, esp. pp. 319–20. A recent addition to the bibliography on this painting is: D. A. Brown and S. Ferino-Pagden et al. Bellini, Giorgione e 45

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many other paintings, were often used as coverings for wooden tables and chairs in domestic settings. The shape of the seat and its relation to the frontal plane is similar to many of Bellini’s parapets in paintings with religious subjects, where funereal or devotional allusions are implied. But here, the woman’s legs disappear beyond the lower frame of the panel, as though she were perched on the edge of a long, narrow plank which in turn is very close to the picture plane.48 The far edge of the bench is up against the back wall of the room. The spectator sees what the woman sees in the larger mirror, as the reflection appears without distortion and at the same scale as the figure.49 The arm, the head and the mirror, therefore, must be physically close. It is the tightly composed relationship of the bench, the rug, and the back wall that gives the painting its sense of intimacy. The thirds on either side of the woman counterbalance each other. Most of the right side is taken up by a flat, dark unarticulated wall; it is objectively left blank, mysteriously unmanaged, lacking both beauty and truth. It is animated only at the bottom by the geometric pattern of the rug and the artist’s written promise to strive on. On the left (Fig. 78) there is a portion of an unmolded window, with a narrow sill that measures its depth. In stark contrast to the closed wall on the right, this opening gives onto a sweeping vista: fields, a rustic village, tower-topped hills, distance mountains, a low cloud bank reflecting a brilliant sunset, and a darkling sky full of billowing gray clouds. This vista of the natural world seen outside the window recalls the qualche luntani et altro fantaxia Bellini offered Isabella d’Este so many years before.50 Relatively benign, yet it too is artfully defined and defined by art. On the sill there is a vase of water, covered with a low flat bowl of Venetian glass (prunted with red and blue threads). The vase is half-filled with water both natural and true, through which one sees the golden graincovered fields behind. The little still life is a tour de force of painted lightfilled transparencies. In the shallow bowl there is a dry sponge (sponzarol), Titian and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (2006–2007). New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006; S. Ferino-Pagden, “Pictures of Women—Pictures of Love”, pp. 219–223, 287–88, No. 41. 48 This peculiar cut-off point has been compared, not very convincingly, to the composition of the antique statue-type, the Venus Anadiomene, standing in hip-high water, although Bellini’s woman is clearly seated, not standing. 49 This area of the panel seems to have been rather clumsily repainted, distorting the lower part of the arm. 50 12 November 1502; Brown Lorenzoni 1982, 164.

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its shape giving a premonition to the shapes of the mountains in the background.51 The combination, used for personal cleanliness and ‘spot’ bathing, is still often seen on old-fashioned night tables and commodes.52 Although this painting is frequently said to parallel Titian’s almost exactly contemporary Woman with a Soldier Holding Two Mirrors (Fig. 77), the décolletage, the dressing of loose hair, and the presence of a man place Titian’s subject in the realm of sexuality, vanity, and artifice,53 whereas

Bellini used the same relationship of shapes in his painting of St. Francis in Ecstasy, New York, Frick Museum, where the saint’s bare left foot is echoed in rock formations behind him at shoulder height and again at the bottom of the same outcropping (reproduced in Goffen 1989, Fig. 77). 52 The sponge was used for various kinds of washing and for various parts of the body. See Montaigne’s Essays, trans. by Florio, 1603, in ‘The World’s Classics’ 1, 1904, reprinted in 1910 and 1924; and made available on the Web by Ben R. Schneider, facilitated by the University of Oregon, 1998. Speaking of the Romans, Montaigne says: ‘They were wont to wipe their tailes (this vaine superstition of words must be left unto women) with a sponge, and that’s the reason why Spongia in Latine is counted an obscene word . . .’; Chapter 49 of Ancient Customes. 53 R. Goffen. Titian’s Women. (New Haven/London, 1997), 66, Fig. 42. It is often pointed out that a lost painting of Venus with a Mirror by Giorgione must have played a role in the background of Bellini’s work. In a famous passage of his Life of Giorgione, Vasari reports that Giorgione introduced the painted mirror as an element to prove the superiority of painting over sculpture: ‘Dicesi che Giorgione ragionando con alcuni scultori nel tempo 10 che Andrea Verrocchio faceva il cavallo di bronzo, che volevano, perché la scultura mostrava in una figura sola diverse positure e vedute girandogli a torno, che per questo avanzasse la pittura, che non mostrava in una figura se non una parte sola, Giorgione — che era d’oppinione che in una storia di pittura si mostrasse, senza avere a caminare 15 a torno, ma in una sola occhiata tutte le sorti delle vedute che può fare in più gesti un uomo, cosa che la scultura non può fare se non mutando il sito e la veduta, talché non sono una ma più vedute —, propose di più, che da una figura sola di pittura voleva mostrare il dinanzi et il didietro et i due profili dai lati: cosa che e’ fece mettere 20 loro il cervello a partito. E la fece in questo modo. Dipinse uno ignudo che voltava le spalle et aveva in terra una fonte d’acqua limpidissima, nella quale fece dentro per riverberazione la parte dinanzi; da un de’ lati era un corsaletto brunito che s’era spogliato, nel quale era il profilo manco, perché nel lucido di quell’arme si scorgeva ogni 25 cosa; da l’altra parte era uno specchio, che drento vi era l’altro lato di quello ignudo: cosa di bellissimo ghiribizzo e capriccio, volendo mostrare in effetto che la pittura conduce con più virtù e fatica, e mostra in una vista sola del naturale più che non fa la scultura. La qual opera fu sommamente lodata et ammirata per ingegnosa e bella’. 30 [Vasari 1966–87, 4: 46]. [Giorgione is said to have once engaged in an argument with some sculptors at the time when Andrea Verrocchio was making his bronze horse. They maintained that sculpture was superior whereas painting only showed one side of a figure. Giorgione was of the opinion that a painting could show at a single glance, without it being 51

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Bellini’s still life details on the sill show that his subject refers to quite another theme. The vase, water, and sponge, in fact, have to do with hygiene,54 and as such are related to scenes of matrimony, licit love,55 and ritual bathing. This association, in turn, links the work specifically to Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Double Portrait which was accompanied by a second panel, copies of which show it to have been a scene of ritual cleansing (Fig. 79).56 In this case, a nude woman stands before a wash stand bathing herself. Over the basin on a chest, she wrings out a sponge with her right hand while drying her pudenda with a towel with her left. As she gazes at her reflection in a convex mirror on the wall, a serving girl, standing just behind her, pours water from a vessel into a glass vase, much the same shape as Bellini’s.57 The contemplative aspect of Bellini’s woman’s demeanor is thus identified as part of her preparation for a new life. But the main reference in the sponge, being on the left side of the painting, is surely to the anecdote of Protogenes, reported by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History. This ancient painter, Pliny says, in trying to represent a dog foaming at the mouth, labored unsuccessfully many times and rubbed necessary to walk about, all the aspects that a man can present in a number of gestures, while sculpture can only do so if one walks about it. He offered in a single view to show the front and back and the two sides of a figure in painting, a matter which greatly excited their curiosity. He accomplished this in the following way. He painted a nude figure turning its back; at its feet was a limpid fount of water, the reflection from which showed the front. On one side was a burnished corselet which had been taken off, and gave a side view, because the shining metal reflected everything. On the other side was a looking-glass, showing the other side of the figure, a beautiful and ingenious work to prove that painting demands more skill and pains, and shows to a single view more than sculpture does. This work was greatly admired and praised for its ingenuity and beauty.] Vasari 1963, 2: 171. 54 Later in the century Vasari actually combined the themes of cleansing and vanity in one painting: The Toilet of Venus, Stockholm, Statens Konstmuseer, 1558, recently shown in an exhibition in Florence, L’ombra del genio: Michelangelo e l’arte a Firenze dal 1537 al 1631 (Palazzo Strozzi, 2002),where Venus prepares to wash herself by dipping a sponge into bowl of water while looking in mirror where she sees an image of an old woman; cf. L. Corti. et al. Giorgio Vasari, pinc. Lettere artisti nelle carte di Gior. Vasari. Catalogue of an Exhibition in Casa Vasari, [Arezzo] Florence, 1981, 74–75. 55 As Goffen 1991, 185–86, suggests. 56 For the subject of Bellini and Northern painting, see Renaissance Venice and the North: Crosscurrents in the Time of Dürer, Bellini, and Titian. Eds. B. Aikema, B. L. Brown, and G. Nepi Scirè, exhibition catalogue, Venice, Palazzo Grassi (Milan, 1999). 57 The second panel of the diptych, its implications, and its fame were first recognized by Julius Held. See the review of the material in Lavin and Lavin 2001, 95–101, who point out the allusion to the virtue of Temperance in the maid’s action.

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out his efforts with a sponge. ‘At last, enraged with the art which was too evident, he threw his sponge at the hateful spot, and the sponge left on the picture the colors it had wiped off, giving the exact effect he had intended, and chance thus became the mirror of nature.’58 Bellini, with a certain irony, was correcting the notion of ‘images made by chance’ by including a sponge in his neatly composed still-life. The overall arrangement of the painting is thus a triad of visual realms, each an artistic creation, and each showing the artist’s mastery in the making: the world of nature on the left, sparsely populated and uncontrollably vast and various in terms of terrain, weather, and times of day; painted nature as the ‘mirror of nature’; a beautiful woman, exposed yet modest, pensive in her own attempt to improve her beauty, a sign of beautiful painting itself; and on our right, chaos in a world where there is no art. In the end it is a world of partialities and mild contradictions: partially covered nude; partial reflections; partial space; sensuous display, hidden emotion; beautiful but melancholy. Bellini’s last gesture toward independence was to show that life and art are equally full of variety, and, while admitting his imperfections, to demonstrate his unflagging skill in beating the younger generation at its own game. 29 Nov 1516: ‘One heard this morning Giovanni Bellini, the outstanding painter, is dead. He was . . . years old; his fame is known throughout the world, and old though he was, he painted excellently.’59

58 The detail is thus another reference to the theoretical meaning of painting; The Elder Pliny’s Chapters on the History of Art. trans. K. Jex-Blake. (London, 1896): 139, Bk. 35: 103. H. W. Janson. ‘The ‘Image made by Chance’ in Renaissance Thought,’ in 16 Studies, 53–73. (New York, 1974), analyzed the classical and Renaissance permutations of this story and the theories behind them. 59 ‘Se intese questa matine esser morto Zuan Belin optimo pytor, havia anni . . . la cui fama è nota per il mondo, et cussi vechio come l’era, dipenzeva per excellentia.’ in Marino Sanudo, Diarii, 23: 256, quoted in Goffen 1989, 270.

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66. Giovanni Bellini. Derision of Noah. Oil on canvas, 103 x 157 cm., Besançon, Musée des Beaux-Arts.

67. Giovanni Bellini, detail of Fig. 66, Cham.

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68. Detail of Fig. 9, Ghiberti, Story of Noah.

69. Michelangelo. Drunkenness of Noah. Fresco. Vatican, Sistine Chapel, ceiling.

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70. Drunkenness of Noah. Mosaic. Venice, San Marco, atrium.

71. Filippo Calendario, attributed to. Drunkenness of Noah. Marble relief. Venice, Palazzo Ducal, SE corner.

72. Filippo Calendario, attributed to. Drunken Noah. Marble relief. Venice, Palazzo Ducal, SE corner.

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73. Sleeping Endymion. Classical Sarcophagus. Marble. Rome, Palazzo Rospigliosi-Pallavicini. 74. Vittore Belliniano. Portrait of Giovanni Bellini. Drawing. Chantilly, Musée Condé.

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75. Giovanni Bellini. Woman at her Toilet. Oil on panel, 62 cm. x 79.cm. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.

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76. Giorgione. ‘Laura’. Oil on canvas laid on spruce panel, 41 cm. x 33.6 cm. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.

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77. Titian. Woman with Soldier Holding Two Mirrors. Oil on canvas, 99 x 76 cm. Paris, Musée du Louvre.

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78. Giovanni Bellini, detail of Fig. 75, left side.

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79. Jan Van Eyck, copy of. Woman at her Toilet. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, Fogg Art Museum.

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80. Titian. Venus with a Mirror and two putti. Oil on canvas, 124.5 x 105.5 cm. Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art.

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81. Peter Paul Rubens. Venus with Putto, copy of Titian. Oil on canvas, 137 x 111 cm. Madrid, Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection.

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82. X-ray of Fig. 80.

83. X-ray of Fig. 80. rotated CW 90°.

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Titian and the Satisfied Self Throughout his long and successful career, Titian never seems to have had a moment of self-doubt. His security was never more evident than when he recognized the painting that was the summa of his work and kept it for himself.

T

HE moment Bellini was dead, Titian retook the patent and the position he sought as official painter to the Republic. Aside from his many assignments for civic paintings, the image of the nude and the partially nude woman remained a leitmotif in his work, whether symbolic or not, a recurrent vision which took many forms. It is within this context that Titian provides my last Renaissance instance of a work the artist did without commission and kept with him always. His sumptuous painting of Venus with a Mirror in the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. (Fig. 80) universally accepted as autograph and dated c. 1555, was in the artist’s possession when he died in 1576. Five years later (1581) his son Pomponio Vecellio sold it, together with the house and its contents, to Cristoforo Barbarigo, who in turn willed it to his son Andrea. Like many of Titian’s compositions, this one became famous and was frequently copied, including by Peter Paul Rubens (Fig. 81, about 1620), and Anthony Van Dyck.60 The painting was acquired by the Russian Czar Nicholas I in 1850 and taken to St. Petersburg where it remained in the Hermitage until 1930–31, when it was bought by Andrew Mellon, who gave it to the National Gallery in 1937.61 During a cleaning campaign carried out in 1971–72 the restorers made a major discovery concerning its physical history. As reported by Fern Rusk Shapley, Titian had previously used the canvas support for a completely different composition. With the canvas oriented horizontally, he had designed a double portrait, three-quarters-length views of a man and a woman side-byside standing close together (Figs. 82 and 83).62 At some point, he partially H. Wethey. The Paintings of Titian. 3 vols. (London, 1969–75); The Mythological and Historical Paintings, 3: 68–70, no. 51, and pp. 200–01; and the Van Dyck pen and wash drawing in the British Museum, (cat. no. L-26), Pl. 126. 61 The painting stayed in the Palazzo Barbarigo della Terrazza until the Tzar of Russia bought it: Valcanover 1990–91, 303, no. 51. 62 F. R. Shapley. ‘Titian’s Venus with a Mirror’, Studies in the History of Art (Washington 1971–72), 93–105; also Shapley. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C., 1979), #34, pp. 477–80. Shapley proposed that the abandoned subject had been allegorical, and Wethey 1969–75, 201, dates it about 1545. Others have called the subject a man and wife, probably commissioned by the couple; Goffen 1997, 138. 60

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scraped down the canvas, rotated it clockwise 90 degrees, and started a new composition. What he did not remove was the man’s wine-colored fur-lined velvet cloak with silver and gold thread embroidered border which he reused as the covering for the lower part of Venus’s body.63 The woman is identified as the goddess Venus by her beauty, and by the two winged pans who attend her. She is seated on a striped taffeta covered bed or divan, facing forward and rotated slightly toward the left, looking over her right shoulder into a rectangular, flat mirror. The three-quarter view of the face describes a being who is relaxed and sensual. The reflection she sees is the part of her face turned away from the picture plane, which, quite surprisingly, expresses a kind of anxiety. Her left arm is bent and crosses over her nude breast with the hand resting on her chest; her right arm crosses her torso in the opposite direction at a lower level. Her pose, since the 1930s, has been described as the oft-copied classical ‘pudica’ motif, well known to Titian and frequently used by him.64 But while the pose refers to the familiar gesture, its effect is somewhat different. Her hands, covering neither her breasts nor her groin, are a kind of articulating punctuations to her pulchritude. The gesture of her right hand is a profession of faith, as if confirming her own beauty.65 Her left closes and supports the luxurious robe that covers her upper thighs. Textures of soft skin, lush fur, opulent velvet, and soft light add to her sensuality. Her aides-de-camp, two fleshy putti, assist in her self-appraisal. The forward one props up the mirror, one hand above his head; the other hand at the opposite lower edge of the mirror is entwined in a black scarf, as if to The restorers also discovered that the woman originally wore a white chemise. This version is one of three motifs Titian tried out, including various positions of the forward putto’s legs and the elimination of the second putto, all of which were rendered and copied separately. See, e.g. the Rubens copy. 64 It has been speculated that he probably knew the version of the statue in the Venetian Grimani collection, as well as the more famous exemplars in Florence and Rome where he traveled 1545–46. See M. Laclotte and G. Nepi Scirè, eds. Le siècle de Titien: L’âge d’or de la peinture à Venise (Paris, 1993), No. 178, entry by F. Valcanover, 534–35. For the Grimani Collection, today in the Venetian Museo Archeologico (Palazzo Correr), see M. Zorzi, ed. Collezioni di antichità a Venezia nei secoli della repubblica (dai libri e documenti della Biblioteca Marciana (Rome, 1988), 25–40, who points out that it is difficult to track this particular statue as being visible at the time of this painting; see the Zanetti drawing of 1736 reproduced as Tav. IIIb. 65 J. Bulwer (fl. 1654). Chirologia: or the Natural Language of the Hand and Chironomia: or the Art of Manual Rhetoric. Ed. J. W. Cleary (Carbondale, IL., 1974), Gestus XVII: Juro (I swear), 47, 117. 63

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avoid smudging the glass with his prints. His rectangular quiver rests at his feet and is stocked with yet-to-be-used arrows with red-flecked feathers. The second putto, with infantile concentration, appears from behind the mirror, touching the lady’s shoulder in a familiar manner and holding a circlet of posies with which he attempts to crown her. Like the reflection in the mirror, to which his head is juxtaposed, his glance and movement express a kind of desperation.66 The group is set off before a dark and heavy drape, lavishly knotted on the left.67 This is a woman born to be admired, and admired by all who have the good fortune to see her, including herself. As a painting she is made to be looked at, and as a representation she joins the raison d’être, with the help of her friends, by looking at herself. She is at one and the same time pure admiration and complete fulfillment.68 But what, in fact, is the subject of the painting? The emotional storm that it engenders in the viewer, as with so many of Titian’s paintings, reveals the luxurious visual experience as the attractive gateway to further meaning. A certain urgency in all three figures indicates a purpose in their action. And that purpose is surely not stasis but preparation, and preparation in the last stages of completeness. In ancient poetry Venus is frequently pictured as preparing for her marriage and/or her various couplings with other gods and mortals. None of these narratives are in the name of promiscuity but serve the ritual function of her fecundity. As a goddess, she inspires the enrichment of the divine hierarchy and of the human race. The Fifth Homeric Hymn, in particular, describes her elaborate ablutions and per-

66 Van Dyck, who made changes in the composition in his pen and wash sketch after the painting, (see note 60), shows something of this emotional tenor. Wethey 1969–75, dates it c. 1622. 67 Mary Pardo ‘Artifice as seduction in Titian,’ Sexuality and Gender in Early Modern Europe: Institutions, texts, images. Ed. J. G. Turner (New York, 1993), 55–89, in a searching article on this painting, sketched the background of this grand, drapery-filled boudoir to contemporary neo-classical erotic scenes. I would add that part of the genesis lies in traditional views of Mary’s thalamis, or marriage bedrooms of Annunciation scenes, where the background frequently includes the view of a raised bed and caught-up drapes, meant as a direct allusion to Mary’s virginal fertility. 68 In recent literature, it is striking how far from direct experience of the visual image the commentaries have gone. Goffen, for example, sums up this tack when she says that the voyeurism the painting engenders is ‘a crime’ we all engage in by looking at her, relating the experience to ‘the illness scopophilia.’ See the further references to these topics in Goffen 1997, 134–37.

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fumings in preparation to meet her lovers.69 In the painting it is as though the Venus is inspecting the results of her almost completed toilet and awaiting the final touch of the marriage crown her putto-helper hurriedly brings. At the same time, this Venus is a woman of flesh and blood and, as in Giorgiore’s Laura, she is sumptuously bedecked in her mate’s garment. And for that yielding, she is all the more sexually alluring. The great difference from the earlier painting is the grander scale, ‘a more self-conscious performance’,70 and the fact that the woman professes her faith in her own magnetism. More importantly, below the surface beauty there is the tinge of dread in the putto’s rush and in the reflection in the mirror. As Bellini had done with his ‘in process’ signature, Titian evokes the specter of quickly passing worldly beauty, while urging pleasure and fulfillment for the nonce. Open symbols of vanity were too harsh for this moment of reflection, this balance in which art outlasts life. In the mid 1550s Titian made himself known in his self-portraits as a distinguished person in his sixties (see Fig. 25), internationally famous and the unchallenged artistic leader of Venice. It is difficult to think of him still considering issues of rivalry with either Bellini or Giorgione, and yet there is much about the Venus that recalls the paragone with the two long gone cari colleghe. The Venus continues the conversation about the supremacy of painting by presenting the ‘art that mirrors nature’ with a goddess crowned as the inspiration of love and creator of beauty. Amidst the myriad gorgeous females Titian produced in his career for other people, in isolation and in complex compositions, this one stands out as the realization of his own personal ideal. The irony of working out the perfect image on an already used piece of canvas was not lost in the doing. Perfection was achieved in stages, and once accomplished — as with the garment — there was reason to keep it. The figure then took it to a higher plane. He kept this painting for himself because in it he found the full accomplishment of his skills and the satisfaction of his own desires. The goddess’s nature was made up of the two complementary aspects that have formed a constant part of her literary and visual heritage since antiquity, passion and fecundity; see P. Friedrich. The Meaning of Aphrodite (Chicago, 1978), esp. pp. 65–69, 181–191. Lucian, [1925, 4: 263; 8: 169], for example, describes Venus as ‘striking soft love into the breasts of all creatures, you cause them with passionate desire to propagate generations after their own kind;’ see also Lucretius’ hymn to Venus Genetrix, in De rerum natura, I. 1–27, both sources cited in C. M. Havelock. The Aphrodite of Knidos and Her Successors: A Historical Review of the Female Nude in Greek Art. (Ann Arbor, 1995), 10 and 24. 70 The phrase is again from Pardo 1993, 69. 69

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Bernini and the Truthful Self Bernini’s Verità is one of the great monuments of seventeenth-century Roman art, and yet it is a documented ‘private work’. On this account, it offers proof of the existence of the class of objects I have designated as ‘artists’ art’.

I

T can be fairly said that by the mid-sixteenth century, the public position of artists had changed radically since the time of Ghiberti where our discussion began. Many men in the profession, including Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, had gained celebrity status and moved in aristocratic and papal circles with comparative ease. As a class, they no longer grouped themselves in guilds or confraternities, but formed academies where, besides operating the first formal institutions for art instruction, they theorized about their media in public and private discussions and written debates.1 In this environment there were undoubtedly many more works of art created by artists for themselves than the ones I have brought together here.2 Meanwhile I will close this particular circle on the themes of art for self-expression and the notion of artistic legacy as the means to immortality, with La Verità by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680), in the Galleria Borghese in Rome (Fig. 84). The oft-described occasion for making the statue was Bernini’s dramatic fall from favor following the death of Pope Urban VIII in July 1644. After 1 See C. Dempsey. ‘Some Observations on the Education of Artists in Florence and Bologna during the Later Sixteenth Century.’ Art Bulletin 62 (1980): 552–69; and Wazbinski 1987, both with extensive bibliography. 2 Among many possible examples is La Fornarina (Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica [Palazzo Barberini]). See P. De Vecchi. Raphael. (Paris, 2002); L. Mochi Onori, ed. Raffaello ‘La Fornarina’. (Rome, 2000); S. Malaguzzi. ‘Con gli occhi dell’Amore: i gioielli della Velata.’ Art e dossier 18 (2003): 36–41.

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more than twenty years of unprecedented admiration and support, Bernini suffered collaterally from the loathing of Innocent X, Urban’s successor and great enemy. The lowest point in Bernini’s declining public image was reached when, on 23 February 1646, the great bell tower he had designed for the façade of Saint Peter’s was pulled down.3 Structural faults, actually dependent on the shifting ground beneath it, were used as an excuse by Bernini’s adversaries, Borromini among them, to accuse him of incompetence. After the demolition, the tower project was abandoned and his celebrity sank like a stone. The period of disrespect lasted almost four years (1644–1648), after which he won Pope Innocent’s good graces and new papal commissions.4 But in the interim he had gone to work on a huge sculptural group designed to vent his displeasure at what he considered to have been calumnious slander. He chose the long-established theme of Truth Unveiled by Time as his subject,5 identifying the heroic scale of the image with what he considered the enormity of the insult. He further justified his rectitude by imbuing the figure of Truth with a characterization that was highly original. The basic scheme, called pensiero in contemporary documents, was to show a nude female figure of Truth, referring to the traditional ‘nuda verità,’ or naked Truth, seated on a rocky base representing the earthly prison where she lay hidden. The winged figure of Time would fly toward her to unveil and, at the same time, lift her to her rightful place under the sun. He planned to support the monumental figure of Time in flight with a relief showing ancient buildings and other structures of the past falling into ruin, with an animated bolt of drapery pulled back to reveal and to give

See the historical analysis of S. McPhee. Bernini and the Bell Towers: Architecture and Politics at the Vatican (New Haven/London, 2002). 4 It is said that Bernini’s silver model for the Four Rivers Fountain in Piazza Navona so dazzled the pope that he immediately gave Bernini the commission; cf. C. D’Onofrio. Le Fontane di Roma. (Rome, 1957), 204. 5 The most famous precedent for the subject is of course the Calumny of Apelles, familiar in the Renaissance from many humanist discussions and the recreation painted by Botticelli. See the discussion of M. Winner. ‘Berninis’ Verità Bausteine zur Vorgeschichte einer Invention,’ in Munuscula Discipulorum, Kunsthistorische Studien Hans Kauffmann zum 70 Geburtstag, ed. T. Buddensieg and M. Winner (Berlin, 1968), 393–413; H. Kaufmann. Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini. Die figürlichen Kompositionen (Berlin, 1970). See also D. Cast. The Calumny of Apelles: a study in the humanist tradition, Yale Publications in the History of Art, 28. (New Haven, 1981); and Meltzoff 1987. 3

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the illusion of lifting Truth heavenward.6 Although two huge blocks of marble were procured for the two parts of the group, only the figure of Truth was completed.7 Bernini’s characterization of Truth is as a very generously proportioned seated woman, leaning back with her head turned upward toward her savior. With her left foot on the globe of the Earth, she holds a radiant disk of the Sun in her extended right hand. Her hair is unbound with one loose lock blown forward and across her chest, framing what is surely one of the broadest and most disquieting smiles in the history of art. Drapery seems to elevate the figure from behind and from the front, hooking her between the legs, and at the same time providing cover to her pudenda. The representations thus combines ‘discovery and exaltation into a single act, linking a breach of natural law to the inevitability of moral law.’8 It also identifies traditional ‘unadorned truth,’ with Beauty in art, linking Bernini’s thought to that in Titian’s Venus with a Mirror. However, where Titian’s woman is the essence of the glamorous comeliness and suave demeanor, Bernini’s Truth is a new kind of beauty, bulky and ponderous, expressing her nature emotionally by showing gratitude for her salvation with a loose-lipped but radiant smile. With this hyper-realism, Bernini makes a clear and shameless parallel to the life-giving but unbearable light of the sun. In so doing, he calls forth the mystical tradition of light metaphysics in which Beauty is identified with the splendor that emanates from the face of God.9

6 See Winner 1968; I. Lavin. Bernini and the Unity of the Visual Arts. (New York and London, l980), 70–74; and M. Winner, ‘Veritas,’ in Bernini scultore: la nascita del barocco in casa Borghese, A. Coliva and S. Schütze, eds., 290–309 (Rome, 1998). 7 The marble block intended for the figure of Time was still in Bernini’s possession when he died. See references to his will below. 8 This felicitous description was made by Lavin 1980, loc. cit. 9 The interpretation again depends on Lavin 1980, loc. cit., whose discussion includes citations to Ripa (relations of the metaphysical light of Truth to the splendors of God); and E. Panofsky. Idea: A Concept in Art Theory. (Columbia, S.C., 1968), 53 ff., 191 f., n. 2, (the relation of beauty and proportions). Although the realism of the Truth is frequently criticized by modern writers, in Bernini’s day the statue was praised to the sky. Bernini’s son Domenico, in his biography of his father, proudly reported: ‘The beauty of this work brought many great popes to see it, and even more often Queen Christina of Sweden and all the princes living in Rome; in fact there is not a sovereign or other (noble) who for devotion or affairs came to the city, that as soon as they arrived did not ask after the Truth of Bernini and come to his house to admire it as a thing, unique in this world.’ Vita del Cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, descritta da Domenico Bernino, suo figlio. (Rome, 1713), 80–82, ‘La bellezza

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Accounts of the historical circumstances behind the creation of the statue, until recently, were based primarily on reports given years after the actual events.10 However, in 1969, three important contemporary letters were discovered by Madeleine Laurain-Portemer, explicating the situation to a much greater degree.11 I give below a chronological list of events as they are now known: 15 September 1644: Election of Giambattista Pamphili as Pope Innocent X. 23 February 1646: Decision to demolish Bernini’s bell tower. 22 January 1647: Concession for Cornaro Chapel. 8 February 1647: Tomb of Urban VIII finished and unveiled. 6 July 1647: Paolo Giordano II Orsini, Duke of Bracciano (Fig. 86), letter to Cardinal Mazarin: speaks of a model for Time discovering Truth made for Bernini’s ‘own meditation and delectation’ [per suo studio e gusto]; says Bernini is thinking of dedicating it to Mazarin’s gallery [pensa dedicarla alla galleria di V.a Em.za . . .].12

di quest’opera trasse a vederla molti Sommi Pontefici, più volte ancora Christina Regina di Svezia, e tutti i Principi viventi allora in Roma, anzi non vi è Sovrano, o altri, che per devozione, o affari si porti in quella Città, che appena giunto, non domandi subbito della Verità del Bernino, e vada in sua Casa ad ammirarla, come cosa unica al Mondo.’ 10 Bernini’s own account was made when he was visiting Louis XIV of France in 1665, as recorded in Paul Fréart de Chantelou: Journal du Voyage en France du Cavalier Bernin. Diary of the Cavaliere Bernini’s Visit to France. Ed. and intro. A. Blunt, annon. by G. C. Bauer, trans. M. Corbett. (Princeton, 1985), 142–43; original in Paul Fréart de Chantelou. Journal de Voyage du Cavalier Bernin en France. Ed. L. Lalanne (Paris, reprint 1981), 130; Filippo Baldinucci. Vita del cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, scvltore, architetto, e pittore, scritta da Filippo Baldinvcci. (Firenze, Stamperia di V. Vangelisti, 1682), 105–06; and Vita del Cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, descritta da Domenico Bernino, suo figlio. (Rome, 1713), 80–82. 11 M. Laurain-Portemer. ‘Mazarin et le Bernin: à propos du ‘Temps qui découvre La Vérité.’ Gazette des Beaux-Arts 6s., 74 (1969): 185–200, with additional documentation in Études Mazarines. (Paris, 1981), and ‘Fortuna e sfortuna di Bernini nella Francia di Mazzarino.’ In Gian Lorenzo Bernini e le arti visive. Ed. M. Fagiolo, 113–38. (Rome, 1987). 12 Laurain-Portemer 1969, 198, n. 49.

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31 July 1647: Mazarin letter to Orsini: the Cardinal will be happy to have the Truth if Bernini brings it to France and installs it himself [vorrá seguitarla, condurla a salvamento et accomoderla egli medesimo nel luogo destinato . . .].13 23 September 1647: Orsini letter to Mazarin: Orsini admits he made the offer unbeknownst to Bernini; now informed, Bernini is willing to satisfy the Cardinal, without, however, moving to France (recalls previous discussion of subject).14 10 July 1648: Design for the Piazza Navona Fountain accepted by Pope Innocent. 14 June 1651: Fountain unveiled. 1651: Cornaro chapel finished and opened to public. 26 July 1652: Orsini letter to Queen Christina of Sweden: reports on Piazza Navona, portrait of Francesco I, and the Cornaro chapel; refers to the La Verità, saying Bernini ‘has in hand a work the subject of which he chose himself and which he is doing for his own delectation’ [ha in mano un’opera il soggetto della quale ha scelto egli medesimo e per suo gusto la fa . . .].15 30 November 1652: Gemignano Pozzo letter to Francesco I, Duke of Modena: Describes La Verità and Bernini’s prediction that it will take about eight more years to finish the group; ‘Bernini himself says he wants it to stay as a memorial in his house.’ [voler che resti per memoria nella sua casa.]16 From our point of view, the crucial elements here are that Bernini conLaurain-Portemer 1969, 198, n. 50. Laurain-Portemer 1969, 198, n. 52. 15 L. Borsari. ‘Di una lettera di Cristina Alessandra regina di Svezia.’ Fanfulla della Domenica. 13, no. 40, Oct. 4–5 (1891): 2; also Carl Nils Daniel Friherre, le Baron de Bildt. Cristina di Suezia e Paolo Giordano II, duca di Bracciano. Archivio della v Società romana di storia patria, 29 (1906): 5–32, esp. p. 30. 16 Reproduced in S. Fraschetti. Il Bernini. La sua vita, la sua opera, il suo tempo. (Milan, 1900), 172. 13 14

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ceived the Verità according to his own ‘gusto e studio,’ that the subject was of his own choosing, and that, in spite of Orsini’s suggestion that he ‘convey’ it to Cardinal Mazarin, he wanted the Verità to remain in his house as a memorial. These statements are the first such explicit documents of an artist working for his own, personal reasons, of choosing his own subject, and his intention of keeping a work in the family in perpetuity. Bernini himself repeated this point when he finally did go to Paris, five years after Mazarin’s death.17 There he told King Louis XIV that ‘he had done this statue to leave in his house’ [Le Cavalier a dit qu’il l’a fait pour le laisser à sa maison . . .]. ‘He added that “it was a saying in Rome that Truth was only to be found in Bernini’s house.” ’ [Il a ajouté qu’à la cour de Rome c’est présentement un commun proverbe de dire: “La Vérité n’est que chez le Cavalier Bernin.”] The account of Bernini’s conversation with the king then continues: “Thereupon he began to describe to the King a piece from one of his plays where a character is reciting the tale of his misfortunes and speaks of the unjust persecution of which he is the victim. In order to console him, one of his friends begs him to take courage, saying that the weight of calumny will not endure forever, and the Time will at last reveal the Truth: to which the unhappy creature replies, “E vero, ch’il tempo la scopre, ma spesso non la scopre a tempo.” [in Italian in the French text; in English: “It is true that Time reveals Truth but he often doesn’t reveal it in time.”] The King let it be seen that the epigram amused him very much.’18 Two years after Bernini’s death, the Florentine writer Filippo Baldinucci published a biography of Bernini (1682), having previously spent a period in Rome preparing his text. There he consulted with Domenico, Bernini’s son, who would himself publish a biography a few years later, in 1713. Both Baldinucci and Domenico recount their versions of the reason behind the Verità and agree that Bernini had quickly antithesized the libelous stateLaurain-Portemer 1969, 193–94, calls his French trip ‘une affaire d’Etat,’ meaning it was not the result of an individual invitation, but the ‘official’ visit of a papal representative. 18 Chantalou, ed. Blunt 1985, 142–43. Sur cela, il a conté à Sa Majesté un endroit d’une de ses comédies, où quelqu’un dépeignant ses malheurs et injustes persécutions, qu’il souffrait, pour l’en consoler quelqu’un lui dit de prendre courage, que la calomnie ne régnera par toujours, que le temps enfin découvre et montre la vérité, à quoi cet infortuné répond: E vero, ch’il tempo la scopre, ma spesso non la scopre a tempo. Le Roi a témoigné que la pensée lui plaisait beaucoup. Chantalou, ed. Lalonne 1981, 130. Which play Bernini was referring to is not known, but it had to date after the 1646 incident; see Lavin 1980, ‘Bernini and the Theater’, 146–57. 17

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ments directed at him and turned his feelings into creative energy. Baldinucci was moved to write an impressive poem, ‘compassionando la di lui disgrazia’ [feeling compassion for (Bernini’s) disgrace]; in it he makes the statue say that ‘virtù vera Malgrado del’Età sia sempre intera.’ [true talent, no matter what age, will always be whole.]19 In his text, Domenico goes on to say that (after the slander) Bernini ‘had carried on not with affectation of constant complaint, (and) without useless lamentation that result in neither offense, or defense, but used his talent as consolation, and in healing the evil.’20 He emphasizes how Bernini found consolation not only in being patient but also in his own creativity.21 Thus like Mantegna, Bernini used his art as a remedy for hurt, the former in solace against mortal loss, the latter as a bulwark against slander. Domenico sums up his father’s deep seated emotional attachment to this work when he reports: ‘The Cavaliere in death wished to leave this memorial to his children in perpetual trust, almost rejoicing more in leaving them his Truth, than his wealth.’ [Volle il Cavaliere in morte lasciar quella memoria a suoi Figliuoli con fidecommisso perpetuo, quasi più godesse trasmettere ad essì la sua Verità, che le sue ricchezze.]22 By the time of the bell tower debacle, Bernini had moved out of the family house across from Santa Maria Maggiore and into his newly acquired palatial home on the corner of the Via della Mercede and Via Propaganda Fides.23 From a description in his testament we know that the Verità was positioned in the very room Bernini used as his studio, on the ground floor Baldinucci 1682, 105–06. [comportò quel caso non con affettazione di animo costante, nè con lamenti inutili, che non sogliono nè offendere, nè difendere, mà con servirsi della sua virtù’ per consolazione, e rimedio di que’ mali.] Bernini 1713, 80. 21 ‘When he felt abandoned by Fortune, he authenticated his valor with great works in Rome while his adversaries discredited themselves with words; falsity takes vigor from hurry, while truth (la verità) in his good faith will be reinvigorated in beauty with rest and with Time. And having this sentiment gave him consolation.’ [Poiche in quel medesimo tempo, in cui pareva abbandonato dalla fortuna, sece vedere a Roma le piú belle Opere, che facesse giammai, autenticando co’ fatti il suo valore, che dagli Avversarii era discreditato colle parole, persuaso eziamdio, che sì come suole il falsso prender vigore dalla prestezza, così la verità della sua buona sede risorgerebbe più bella colla dimora, e col tempo. E quest’istesso sentimento, che fù a lui di conslazione . . .]’ Bernini 1713, 81. 22 Bernini 1713, 82. 23 This and the following documentation come from Gian Lorenzo Bernini: il Testamento, la Casa, La Raccolta dei Beni. Eds. F. Borsi, C. Acidini Luchinat, F. Quinterio (Florence, 1981), 41–43, 71–72, 107. 19 20

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(near the kitchen) and facing the courtyard where he worked; [Nello studio dove studiava la b.m. del signor Cavaliere Bernino’]. This means Bernini had the statue before him for more than thirty years.24 From the same source we know that Bernini also kept with him another marble statue which resonated with his own early training and the legacy of his father, Pietro Bernini (d. 1630). This was the slightly less than life-size marble Faun Taunted by three Putti with a Panther, a Tree and Fruit, today in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Fig. 85). This amazing group was situated on the landing of the staircase leading from the ground floor to the ‘Appartamento nobile.’ [Per la scala di detto appartement vi è una statua di un bacco di marmo con diversi putti, che tengono diversi rampazzi d’uva in mano.] The complexity and humor of this group is characteristic of the challenging and quixotic style of Pietro Bernini, with whom Gian Lorenzo worked throughout his childhood and early youth. Father and son had a very close emotional and professional relationship (of which Gian Lorenzo’s cherishing of this piece is evidence). In this case, the relationship is reflected in the combination of the father’s outrageous, altogether startling, overall design (which takes into account precedents both in classical art and in the art of Michelangelo (Figs. 86, 87, 88), and the superb realistic and decorative elements carried out by the technically prodigious son.25 We know nothing about the reason(s) this work was made, whether destined for a patron or made as a technical display, or as another example of the artist making a work for himself for the joy of making it. We know only that it never left the Bernini household and that it is one of the most outlandish works of art ever created. As Bernini approached his eightieth year, he began to work on his very complex last will and testament. In it, he made every imaginable arrangement for the transfer of his legacy of money, real property, furnishings, jewels, and works of art to his sons and daughters and their offspring. He was very clear about the things he expected from them in return, among The statue stayed in the Palazzo Bernini until 1924 when it was moved to the Galleria Borghese. The very large block of marble Bernini intended to use for the figure of Time also remained in the house, and was sold off only after his death (8 Nov 1680), Borsi 1981, 42. 25 For a discussion of their remarkable relationship, see I. Lavin. ‘Bernini giovane,’ in Bernini dai Borghese ai Barberini. La cultura a Roma intorno agli anni venti, Rome, February 17–19, 1999. Eds. O. Bonfait, et al., 134–48. (Rome, 2004). Many scholars find it problematic to accept this piece as conceived by the father and only partially carried out by the son; see O. Raggio. ‘A New Bacchic Group by Bernini.’ Apollo 108 [1978]: 406–417; M. S. Weil. ‘Un fauno molestato da cupidi: forma e significato.’ Gian Lorenzo Bernini e le arti visive. Ed. M. Fagiolo, 73–84. (Rome, 1987); and A. Coliva, ed. Bernini scultore: la tecnica esecutiva (Rome, 2002). 24

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which the most important were to be religious, to stay together, and to share their inheritance in an equitable manner. He left a great many works of art in all media, including paintings and unfinished marbles, as well as sketches and models. But only one of these did he single out as never-to-be sold and as important for its content and meaning. This was the Verità about which he makes his final declaration at the very end of the will: ‘E perchè delle mie opere non senza raggione ho ritenuta appresso di me la statua della verità scoperta dal tempo, perciò cadendo questa statua sotto la presente disposizione testamentaria, voglio che stia in casa dove habitarà il primogenito (Paolo) per haver sempre et in perpetuo una memoria nella mia descendenza della mia persona come ancora, perchè guardando quella, tutti li miei descendenti potranno ricordarsi che la più bella virtù del mondo consiste nella verità, perchè alla fine questa viene discoperta dal tempo.’ [And because, of (all) my works, not without reason, I kept near me the statue of Truth Discovered by Time, (and now) therefore, this statue falling under the present testamentary disposition, I wish that (it) may stay in the house where my first born (primogenito, Paolo), will live, to have always and in perpetuity in my descendents a memory of my person, (and) because looking at that (statue) they will be able to remember that the most beautiful virtue in the world is the Truth, because in the end (truth) will be uncovered by Time.]26 Thus at the end of his life, Bernini still insists on the verity his life-long experience had taught him: la più bella virtù del mondo consiste nella verità. The rigorous and exacting attitudes he had lived by, in his mind, transformed the allegory into the realm of high moral value, not only making it into a virtue but the most beautiful of all virtues. As a father, the statement is a token of his belief for his family to keep, and as a sculptor, it is a thank offering for the artist’s ability to make virtue visible in a tangible form. For Bernini, and for many of his artistic colleagues over the centuries, this was the highest goal to be sought. The story of Bernini’s creation and conservation of the statue of La Verità was internationally famous in its own day. When I had finished this essay I had the good fortune to meet Prof. Ellen Harris, musicologist and specialist in the work of Georg Friedrich Händel. From each other we learned that Händel’s first oratorio, called The Triumph of Time and Truth and written in Rome in 1707, was very much influenced by the story of Bernini’s sculpture. 26

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84. Gian Lorenzo Bernini. La Verità. Marble, 2.80 cm. plus the base. Rome, Galleria Borghese.

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85. Pietro and Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Faun Harassed by Putti. Marble, 132 .1 cm. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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86. Back of Fig. 85.

87. Birth of Bacchus, Roman sarcophagus, detail. The Art Museum, Princeton University.

88. Michelangelo Buonarroti. Spandrel figures, Vatican City, Sistine Chapel, Ceiling.

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89. After model by Bernini. Portrait of Paolo Giordano II Orsini, Duke of Bracciano. Marble, over life-size, Rome, Odescalchi Collection.

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‘Post-Oration’: The Artist as Such

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T the beginning of this study, I remarked that the word ‘artist’ with the meaning assigned to it today was not used during the Renaissance. This statement is not quite true because, while the definition was not exactly the same, the meaning was coming into use. The history of this usage, as significant as it may be in reflecting the emergence of a concept, does not seem to have been studied in detail before the eighteenth century.27 As a coda, therefore, I offer a short survey of the verbal progression extracted from sources that come easily to hand. As we have seen, throughout the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance the first meaning of arte was ‘craft’ and the craftsmen were ordinarily referred to by the name of their profession.28 The first example of the use of the word artista, as noted in the Grande Dizionario della Lingua Italiana,29 is used, not surprisingly, by Dante Alighieri in the Divine Comedy, Paradiso, where a singer is identified as an artist: Indi, tra l’altra luci mota e mista, Mostrommi l’alma che m’avea parlato qual era Ira i cantor del cielo artista. Paradiso 18: 49–51.30 27 Williams 1983, 43–44, whose historical analysis is very precise. Equally useful is R. Williams. Keywords: a Vocabulary of Culture and Society. (New York, 1976), 32–35. I thank Andrew Shanken for these references. 28 Again Baxandall 1971, 15–17; see also W. Smith. ‘Definitions of Statua.’ Art Bulletin 50 (1968): 263–67. 29 Salvatore Battaglia, ed., 21 vols. (Turin, 1961), 1: 716. 30 [Then, moving and mingling among the other lights, the soul which had spoken with me showed me how great an artist it was among the singers of that heaven.] Singleton 1975, Paradiso, 3: 202–03, and 306. Near the end of poem, Dante identified himself as an artist with the same definition, by implication, when he calls his poem a song: Dal primo giorno ch’i’ vidi il suo viso in quest vita, infino a questa vista, non m’è il seguire al mio cantar preciso: Ma or convien che mio seguir desista più dietro sua bellezza, poetando, come a l’ultimo suo ciascuno artista. Paradiso 30: 28–33 [From the first day when in this life I saw her face, until this sight, the continuing of my song has not been cut off, but now my pursuit must desist from following her beauty further in my verses, as at his utmost reach must every artist.] Singleton 1975, 336–67, and 491. See also Enciclopedia dantesca. 6 vols. Roma, Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana. (Rome, 1970–78) 1: 408.

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Boccaccio used the word artista in the Decamerone to designate an ‘expert,’ in this case, an expert in love. The voice is that of Lauretta beginning her story on the seventh day, the fourth story: [003] O Amore, chenti e quali sono le tue forze, chenti i consigli e chenti gli avvedimenti! Qual filosofo, quale artista mai avrebbe potuto o potrebbe mostrare quegli accorgimenti, quegli avvedimenti, quegli dimostramenti che fai tu subitamente a chi seguita le tue orme? [O Love, how manifold and mighty are your powers! How wise your counsels, how keen your insights! What philosopher, what artist could ever have conjured up all the arguments, all the subterfuges, all the explanations that you offer spontaneously to those who nail their colors to your mast?]31 Franco Sacchetti (c. 1330–1400), who wrote lyric verse and moral discourses, also wrote Decameron-like stories. In his Novella 161, he links the word artist to an actual painting, probably one of the first such links. Praising Buffalmacco (Buonamico di Martino, c. 1315–1336), who worked in Florence, Bologna, and Pisa, he says: e fu al tempo di Giotto. Costui, per essere buono artista della sua arte, fu chiamato dal Vescovo Guido d’Arezzo a dipingere una sua cappella.32 Here the meaning is intriguing but still ambiguous. Sua arte is translatable as ‘his craft or profession,’ and whereas artista possibly means craftsman, buono artista carries a nuance of being of higher order than just a craftsman.33 The phrase could be translated: He, having such skill in his profession as a painter, he was called by the Bishop Guido of Arezzo to paint a chapel of his. In his Commentaries, Ghiberti used several different terms for the artists Giovanni Boccaccio: The Decameron. trans. G. H. McWilliam. (London: Penguin Press, 1977), 538. 32 Franco Sacchetti. Il Trecento Novelle. Ed. V. Marucci. I Novellieri Italiani, dir. Enrico Malato, vol. 6 (Rome: Salerno Editrice, 1996), 161–5. 33 See yet again Baxandall 1971, 15-17, and passim, for the linking of ars and ingenium, that is skill or competence and innate talent or invention. 31

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he wrote about. He calls the sculptor Giovanni Pisano ‘grandissimo statuario.’ He says maestro Simone Martini was a’ nobilissimo pictore’; he varies the spelling for painter between the Latinizing pictore and the Italian pittore. Most often he uses the term maestro, qualifying it as doctissimo maestro (Taddeo Gaddi), and even egregissimo doctore (Stefano Fiorentino). He calls Ambrogio Lorenzetti a ‘nobilissimo disegnatore, fu molto perito nella teorica di detta arte.’ He never used the word artista.34 There is no way to search through all of Leonardo da Vinci’s writings and notes, but from a brief survey, he seems to have used pictore or scultore exclusively. As he set forth his opinion that painting was superior to sculpture with great force, it was perhaps important for him clearly to distinguish the media. Unhappily, most English translations of his notebooks use the word ‘artist’ frequently and without discrimination.35 Benvenuto Cellini’s Autobiography, was written, as has often been said, in response to Vasari’s 1550 biographical publication. He also uses various terms for his colleagues in sculpture and goldsmithing. Most frequently he described them with the word uomo qualified in different ways: viz. virtuoso uomo, uomo di questo professione, uomo di qualcose. Or he designates them as molto valente in tale arte, or as having an unica virtuosa mano. For a craftsman whom he deemed highly skilled but not truly talented he says he is un bonissimo praticone.36 Once, however, he used the word artista. The occasion was a heated conversation with the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo de’ Medici, concerning the casting of the head of the Medusa of the Perseus group: una volta infra l’altre e’ mi disse: -Benvenuto, questa figura non ti può venire di bronzo, perche l’arte non te lo promette. - A queste parole di Sua Eccellenzia io mi risenti’ grandemente, dicendo: Signore, io conosco che Vostra Eccellenzia illustrissima m ‘ha questa molta poca fede: e questo io credo che venga perché Vostra Eccellenzia illustrissima crede troppo a quei che le dicono tanto mal di me, o sì veramente lei non se ne intende. -Ei non mi lascio finire . . . a very noble designer who was very skilled in the theory of that named (painting) art, Fengler 1975: Commentarii, chaps. 1–6, 9–10, 12–13, 16. 35 J. P. Richter. The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci. (London, 1883); MacCurdy 1939, 2: 227–31, ‘Comparison of the Arts.’ 36 G. G. Ferrero, ed. Benvenuto Cellini. Opere. (Turin, 1971), 21–40; quotations taken from chapters 1: 7, 12, 58, 69, 94; 2: 14, 20, 22, 51. 34

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appena le parole, che disse: -Io fo professione di intendermene, e me ne intendo benissimo. -Io subito risposi e dissi: -Sì, come Signore, e non come artista . . .37 It is clear that by this time, the word ‘artist’ had a qualitative distinction, reserved for those instances in which the writer wished to imply not only professional proficiency, but the ability to think creatively as well. It is interesting therefore to find that Giorgio Vasari, in the text of his magnum opus, first edition published in 1550 and second in 1568, never uses the word artista. He differentiates the men of his biographies from artisans in another way: in the title of his work where he designated them as il più eccellenti (the most excellent), and in the text where he called each and every one artefice, a usage that immediately summons the image of deus artifex and the tradition of the artist’s creativity as a reflection of that of God.38 In this case I can be quite sure of the statistic, owing to the incredibly useful database of his works created at the Scuola Normale in Pisa. Taking advantage of the facility, I did an electronic search on the letters art in all of Vasari’s works (the Proemii, Vite, and his theoretical works),39 and found that invariably in referring to an individual he uses the term artefice. A follow-up search on artefice itself then produced more than 350 hits, which involved painters and sculptors alike. The search on artista produced precisely one hit, and, surprisingly, that one is in a place not where Vasari is speaking himself, but where he is quoting Michelangelo. The context is Varsari’s description of the master’s ability to express himself in words, saying: ‘He was very fond of reading the Italian poets, especially Dante, whom he much admired and whose ideas he adopted. Petrarch was also a favorite

Ferrero 1971, 2: 73, p. 513: [One time (among many visits to my studio), he said to me: Benvenuto, you cannot get this figure into bronze because the medium will not permit it. These words of His Excellency made me laugh a lot, saying: Signore, I am aware that Your Illustrious Excellency has little faith in me. And this I believe is because Your Illustrious Excellency believes too much in those who speak so badly of me, or else he truly does not understand. He wouldn’t let me finish these words, saying ‘I make a profession of understanding, and I understand very well indeed.’ (To which) I responded immediately saying: ‘Yes (you understand, but) as a Lord, and not as an artist.’ 38 Kris and Kurz 1979, 50–61, with further bibliography; and again Bousma 1993. 39 Directed by Prof. Paola Barocchi and the school’s Director Salvatore Settis. This database is open to the public and is fully searchable. Once more the Internet URL is: http://biblio.cribecu.sns.it/vasari/consultazione/Vasari/indice.html. 37

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90. Francisco de Zurbarán, Crucifixion with a Painter. Madrid, Museo del Prado.

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author of his, and he delighted in composing serious madrigals and sonnets, upon which commentaries have since been made. M. Benedetto Varchi delivered a notable lecture in the Florentine Academy (March 1547) on the sonnet beginning: Non ha l’ottimo artista alcun concetto, Ch’un marmo solo in se non circonscriva.’40 Written c. 1538–44, this sonnet is among Michelangelo’s best known and most important for illusions to both artistic theory and sculptural technique. And it is here, with Michelangelo, that the implicit differentiation between artista and artefice becomes overt. By qualifying artista with ottimo

‘essendosi egli molto dilettato delle lezzioni de’ poeti volgari e particolarmente di Dante, che molto lo amirava et imitava ne’ concetti e nelle invenzioni; così ‘l Petrarca, dilettatosi di far madrigali [e] sonetti molto gravi, sopra e’ quali s’è fatto comenti; e messer Benedetto Varchi nella Accademia fiorentina fece una lezione onorata sopra quel sonetto che comincia: Non ha l’ottimo artista alcun concetto Ch’un marmo solo in sé non circonscriva.’ (Vasari 1966–87, 6: 111). The poem continues: col suo superchio, e solo a questo arriva la man che ubbidisce all’intelletto. Il mal ch’io fuggo, e ‘1 ben ch’io mi prometto, in te, donna leggiadra, altera e diva, tal si nasconde; e perch’io piu non viva, contraria ho l’ arte al disïato effetto. Amor dunque non ha, né tua beltate o durezza o foriuna o gran disdegno del mio mal colpa, o mio destino o sorie; se dentro del tuo cor morte e pietate porti in un tempo, e che l mio basso ingegno non sappia, ardendo, trame altro che morte . . .’ [In translation: ‘Not even the best of artists has any conception that a single marble block does not contain within its excess, and that is only attained by the hand that obeys the intellect. The pain I flee from and the joy I hope for are similarly hidden in you, lovely lady, lofty and divine; but, to my mortal harm, my art gives results the reverse of what I wish. Love, therefore, cannot be blamed for my pain, nor can your beauty, your hardness, or your scorn, nor fortune, nor my destiny, nor chance, if you hold both death and mercy in your heart at the same time, and my lowly wits, though burning, cannot draw from it anything but death.’]; translation Saslow 1991, 302, G. 151. The ‘lady’ mentioned in the poem is thought to be Vittoria Colonna whom Vasari names as often exchanging poems with Michelangelo in the passage immediately following the quotation of his sonnet. 40

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in the first line he leaves no question that he is speaking, in this case a sculptor, of a superior or ‘fine’ artist. This instance, in fact, may be the very first use of the word artist with the modern meaning.41 The terminology, however, did not come into common usage for another century and a half, after the various national academies of the arts were established and their categories were deeply entrenched. Moreover, since the anti-academic movement of the later nineteenth century (the Realists, Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, Cubists), and even more during the twentieth century, when the definition of ‘fine art’ began to be called into question, the classification and its implications continued to evolve in quite dramatic ways.

Michelangelo had used artista once before in another sonnet, ‘Sol pur col foco il fabbro il ferro stende / al concetto suo caro e bel lavoro, né senza foco alcuno artista l’oro/ al sommo grado suo raffina e rende’. [Only with fire can the smith shape iron from his conception into fine, dear work; neither, without fire, can any artist refine and bring gold to its highest state . . .]; Sonnet G. 62, c. 1632, Saslow 1991, 158. In this case, Michelangelo elevates the work of both the smith and the goldsmith to a conceptual level. 41

Not long after this text was complete I visited the Prado Museum in Madrid where I saw for the first time a painting attributed to Francisco de Zurbarán (Fig. 90) called the Crucifixion with a Painter. The image struck me immediately not only because it was so unusual but also because it so clearly fit into the theme of the book I had just finished. Against a dark sky and a distant, low-lying ridge of hills, an elderly bearded man stands to the side and below the Crucified. Placing his right hand on his breast, with his left he extends a painter’s palette, his thumb threaded through the hole while with his fingers, he clutches several brushes each daubed with colored paint. Lit by an unearthly beam of light, he gazes upward with opened mouth at Christ who hangs from an un-hewn ‘living cross.’ The spare and lifeless body of the Savior is elongated by its own weight, legs crossed at the ankles, feet spiked with two separate nails. The elderly painter has been identified a self-portrait and also as St. Luke, the apostle who was himself a painter; the representation has been called a vision, which it undoubtedly is. But it seems to me to be much more: like the Jongleur of Notre Dame who danced in devotion before the altar, here a solitary artist expresses his faith through his own singular gift. Although it remains to be thoroughly studied, I cannot end the present publication without calling it to the reader’s attention. Oil on canvas, 105 x 84 cm.; see M. Soria. The Paintings of Zurbaran. (London, 1995), Cat. no. 219 [p. 187], Pl. 98 (acquired from a royal collection in 1936); and V. I. Stoichita. Visionary Experience in the Golden Age of Spanish Art. (London, 1995), 72–74, among others. The dating ranges between 1635–40, and 1660.

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113. Venturi, Lionello. Storia della Critica d’Arte. (Turin: Einaudi, 1964). 114. Wazbinski, Zygmunt. L’accademia Medicea del disegno a Firenze nel cinquecento: idea e istituzione. (Florence, 1987). 115. Wethy, Harold E. The Paintings of Titian. 3 vols. London: Phaidon, 1969-75. 116. Williams, Raymond. Keywords : A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976). 117. Williams, Raymond. Culture and Society, 1780-1950. (New York, 1983). 118. Winner, Matthias. “Berninis’ Verità: Bausteine zur Vorgeschichte einer Invention.” In Studien Hans Kauffmann zum 70 Geburtstag, ed. T. Buddensieg and M. Winner, 393-413. (Berlin, 1968). 119. Wittkower, Rudolf. and Margot. Born under Saturn. (New York, 1963); F. 120. Wohl, Helmutt. Domenico Veneziano. (New York, 1980). 121. Zerner, Henri. “Giuseppe Scolari.” L’Oeil 121 (1965): 25–29.

Index A Abacus school, 49. Academies, 134; Accademia et Compania dell’Arte del Disegno, 5, 70, Accademia fiorentina, 197, Accademia di Scioperati, 142 Admiration and fulfillment, 177. Adoration, 63; see Nativity of Christ. Aegeus, father of Theseus, tests his son, 132. Aesculapius, ancient god of healing, 110. Alberti, Leon Battists, 7, 8, 14, 23, 30, 92, 94, 127; Di pitture, 23; morti li morti, 94; theory of istoria, 127. Alfonso I, Duke of Ferrara, Isabella d’Este’s brother, 146; Camerino d’alabastro, 157. All’antica style, 23. Ambrose, St., Ad Simplicianum, 148, 152. Anastagi, Giovanna degli, (Marco Franceschi’s first wife), 52, 83. Angelico, Fra, painter, 70. Angels, 70, 125, 126; country boys, 79; in liturgical dress, 72; flying, 58, 75. Antilla, Alvise, lawyer, 105–06, 112. Antonio d’Anghiari, painter, 49. Aretino, Pietro, 149

Arezzo, San Francesco, 31, 37 (see also Piero della Francesca). Ariadne, pose of, 151. Aristotle, 7. Arno river, 57, 71. Arrigucci, Arrigo, patron, 57. Ars moriendi, Fig. 55, 104. Art for Art’s Sake, 1. Art, power of, 135. Arte (craft), 1, 192 . Artist as crafsman, 16; as self-motivated creator, ix–x, 23; as a word, 192ff. Artists’ Art, ix, 179. Artists’ houses, 26, 47, 52, 55, 81, 82; cf. Also Mantegna, and Rubens. Aspertini, Amico, Fig. 26, 42, 44. Athena Parthenos, statue, 29, 133. Athens, Acropolis, 134; sculpture figures by Socrates, 134; Amazonomachy (on Parthenon), 133. Augustan Altar, 45; coin, Fig. 41, 66. Augustine, St., 127; commentary on Noah; City of God, 148–51; writing on consolation, 106, Christus medicus, 110. Aurispa, Giovanni, humanist, 23. Avila (Spain), San Vicente, tomb of Vincent, Cristeta and Sabina, 28, Fig. 16, 36.

210 B Baldinucci, Filippo, Florentine biographer of Bernini, 26,182. Baldovinetti, Alesso, 32, 55. 69–70, 75–76, Nativity, Fig. 32, 57, 61. Barbarigo, Cristoforo, purchaser of Titian’s house and Venus, 175. Barker, Alexander, purchase of Piero’s Nativity, 1874, 55. Bartolo di Fredi, 148. Bartolo di Michele, teacher of Ghiberti, 17. Bartolommeo, Frate, Servite painter, 57. Bathing, 160; ritual, 161. Battle between Eurytus and Pirithoüs, see Michangelo Battle relief, 129. Beauty of Ugliness, 94; represented by female body, 157. Bed of Polykleitos (Letto di Policleto), 27–28, Fig. 12, 34, 124, 137. Bellini, Alvise, son of Giovanni, 154. Bellini, Anna, wife of Jacopo, 90, 143. Bellini, Gentile, elder son of Jacopo, 90, 97, 143. Bellini, Giovanni, 143–62; likeness of, Fig. 74, 153; argues with Titian, 154–55; independence of, 162, fantasia, vagare, 144–45; owner of antiques, 44; refusal to do classical subject (comparison with Mantegna), 145; relation to Michangelo, 151; signature, faciebat, 158; his will, 146. Works: Derision of Noah, Fig. 66, 147–54; Woman at her Toilet, Fig. 75, 154–62; Feast of the Gods, 146, 153, 157; Christ with Crown of Thorns, 147. Bellini, Jacopo, father of Giovanni,

Fig. 47, “Death of Virgin”, 32, 86, 90. 97. Bellini, Nicolosa, daughter of Jacopo, wife of Mantegna, 97. Belliniano, Vittore, port of Bellini, 153, Fig. 74, 166. Belvedere, Torso, 44. Bembo, Pietro, cardinal and humanist, 28, 144. Bernardino da Feltre, 111. Bernini, Domenico, Gian Lorenzo’s son, 184; biography, 181–82, 185. Bernini, Gian Lorenzo, ix, x, 47; family house of (corner Via della Mercede and Propaganda Fides), studio, ground floor, 185, and courtyard 186, his will, 186–87. Works: Faun Harassed, (with Pietro Bernini), Figs. 85, 86, 186; La Verità, Fig. 84, ix, 179–85, 187; for his own delectation 182; his own consolation, 185; neverto-be-sold, 187; inheritance, sons and daughters, 186, smile, disquieting, 181; bell tower, 182, 185; Four Rivers Fountains, silver model, 180; model for portrait of Orsini, Fig. 89. Bernini, Pietro, 47, 53, 186; Faun Harassed, Figs. 85, 86, Bertoldo di Giovanni, 116. Bethlehem, 77–78. Boccaccio, 4, 193 Genealogie deorum gentilium, 129–30, source for Michangelo; Decamerone, 182. Bologna, San Petronio reliefs, 149. Borromeo, Giovanni, agent of Federico I Gonzaga, 122. Borromini, Francesco, 180. Bosso, Matteo, humanist, 105–07, 112.

INDEX

Botticelli, Sandro, 30, 39, 141–42; Self Portrait, Fig 23, 72, Mystical Nativity, Fig. 64, 139, Mystic Crucifix, Fig. 65, 140; Calumny of Apelles, 180. Botticelli, Simone, Sandro’s brother, follower of Savonarola, 141. Bracciolini, Poggio, 23. Bread of Angels, 72, 77. Bregno, Andrea, iii, Fig. 26, 44–45. Bridget, St., of Sweden, 55–56, 78. Brunelleschi, Filippo, 7, Fig. 2, 9. Bruni, Lionardo, 18. Buffalmacco (Buonamico di Martino), painter, 193 Buon, Bartolomeo, sculptural sequence on Pal Ducale, attributed to, 152. Buonarroti, Casa, 112, 117, 118, 122. Buonarroti, Lionardo, Michangelo’s nephew, 122. Buonarroti, Michangelo, x, 22, 29, 83, 114–141, 179, 195–97; buys block 0f marble, 136; family house (Via Pinti), 116; heroic nudity, 127; keeps works pro memoria, 138; letter(s) to father, 136, 138; poetry, 128, 197–98; repeated poses, 137–38; request for secrecy 138; spirit in the stone, 128; working for own pleasure,136; in Venice, 151. Works: Battle of the Centaurs, Fig. 58, 118, Fig. 61, 120, 63, 121, 127; 133; Bruges Madonna, 116, 137; Madonna della Scala, 114, Fig. 57, 117, Fig. 60, 120, 122–23, 128, 135, 137–38; Hercules (carved without commission); sold to king of France, 136; Derision of Noah,

211 147, 149–51, Fig. 69, 164; Spandrel Figures, Sistine Ceiling, Fig. 88, 190. Buonarroti, Michangelo, il Giovane, great-grandson of Michangelo, 122. Buxei, Antonio, Titian’s helpers, 154. C Calandra, Ippolito (Isabella d’Este’s agent), 85. Calcagni, Tiberio, (wrote marginal notes on text of Condivid’s biography), 136. Calendario, Filippo, sculptor, 152, Figs. 71, 72. Cariani, Giovanni, 147, Derision of Noah, attributed to. Carpaccio, Vittore, 155. Carracci, Annibale, “Dead Christ”, 93. Carsedoni, Panta, Marco Franceschi’s widow, 52, 82. Castagno, Andrea, Death of the Virgin, 69, 86; ugly Christ 94. Castigliono Olona, 78. Cellini, Benvenuto: 194. Cennini, Cennino d’Andrea, 5–6, 14. Centaurs and Lapiths (childrend of Ixion), 114. Cham, wicked son of Noah, 147–53, Fig. 67. Chantelou, Paul Fréart di, diary, 182. Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, 71. Charles V (Spain), 47. Chastity, 158. Christ, ugly, tradition of, 93. Christ’s body, prepared for burial, 95, 109. Christina, Queen of Sweden, 181–82.

212 Christus medicus (Christ the Doctor), 72, 109–12. Cicero7, 18, 29,31. Circumcision, 149. Ciriaco d’Ancona, 26. Clement VII, antipope (1378–1394), 27. Clement VII, pope (1523 to 1534,Medici), 31. Climacus, John, 6th century, Heavenly Ladder, publ. 1491, 126. Cola di Rienzo, 6. Collacchioni, Senator, 19th century owner of Franceschi house), 81. Condivi, Ascanio, 115, 122, 127–30, 136, 138, 141. Confraternities: Compagnia di San Luca (painters), 4, 70; Confraternita della Consolazione, 107; Compania della Misericordia, 50; di San Bartolomeo, 52. Consolation, 108, 185; Letter of, 106–07. Corner (Conaro), Francesco di Giorgio, 146. Correggio, Antonio da, 47. Corsi, Nera, (wife of Francesco Sassetti, 74. Costume, fifteenth century, 28; furlined wrap, man’s, 156, 176; turban, 28–29, Fig. 15, 91. Cotton Genesis, source of Venice atrium mosaics, 152. Courtesans, 156–57. Craft, ix–x, 1–2, 5–6, 15, 17, 136, 192–93; craftsman, x, 3–4, 14–16, 26, 30– 31, 111, 143, 146, 192–94. D Dante Aligieri, 4, 77, 94, 129, 195–96; Paradise, 192.

Deinira, engaged to Hercules. 129. Derision of Noah, by Bellini as complaint again Titian, 147. Deucalion and Pyrrha, 135. Distemper, painting technique, Fig. 44, 86. Domenico Veneziano, “Life of the Virgin,” 69. Donatello, 7, 116, 122–24; St. George, 7, Fig. 3, 10; Pazzi Madonna, Fig. 59, 119; San Lorenzo Pulpit, Resurrection, detail, 94, Fig. 50; Feast of Herod, 124. Donkey (ass), singing, 80. Dossi, Dosso, Feast of the Gods, 157. Dürer, Albrecht, 49; Dead Christ, drawing, after Mantegna, 108; Self-Portrait, 30, Fig. 24, 40. E Eastern Orthodox Church, 77. Eastlake, Charles, 55. Ecclesia, 56, 72, 79, 123. Endymion, sarcophagus, 153–54, Fig. 73, 166. Epicurean passion, 107. Epideictic praise for ruler, 133. Este, Alfonso d’, Duke, Isabella’s brother, 151. Este, Ercole d’, Duke, father of Isabella, 92. Este, Federico II Gonzaga, Isabella’s son, 85. Este, Isabella d’, wife of Gian Francesco II Gonzaga, 85, 113, 144–46, 157, 159; rejects portrait by Mantegna, 113; bargains for bust of Faustina, 113. Eucharist, 57, 70, 72, 74–78. Eugenius IV, pope, ,7 108. Eurytus, son of Ixion, 129–31, 134. Evelyn, Franceschi-Marini, (writer,

INDEX

wife of last relative of Piero), 55, 75, 81. Extreme Unction, 108. Eyck, Jan van, Woman at her Bath, copy, 161, Fig. 79, 171. F Faustina, bust of, 44, Fig. 56; 113. Ferrara, Duke of, 157 Fiera, Battista, Mantuan physician, 97, 104. Filarete, (Antonio di Pietro Averlino), 29, Fig. 19, 38, 81–82. Filial devotion, see Bernini, Leoni. Fiore, Mona, (Ghiberti’s mother), 17. Five Wounds of Christ, cult of, 109. Florence, 19; Accademia del Disegno, 5, 70; Arcispedale of Sta Maria Nuova, 58, 71, , pharmacy, 73; Baptistery, 7, 16–18, Fig. 7, 19, Fig. 8, 20, program of East Doors(Bruni), 18; Campanile, 148; Casa Buonarroti, see Buonarroti; Duomo, Fig. 2, 9, 14, 18; Medici Chapel, 56; Opers di S. Reparata, 4;Or San Michele, Tabernacle, 28, Fig. 17, 37; S.M. del Carmine, Brancacci Chapel, Fig. 4, 11; Sant’ Egidio, 58, 71, 86; Ss Annunziata, 71, Cortile dei Voti, 57; Annunciation shrine, 57; Sta Trinita,74. Florenza, allegory of, 134. Foreshortening, 85, 90–91, 97, 108, 111. Fouquet, Jean, 30, Fig. 21, 39. Franceschi family, 51; house, 52, tomb, 81; Alessandra, Marco’s daughter, 82; Antonio (Piero’s brother), 50–52, 82; Bartolomeo (son of Antonio, Piero’s brother), 52, 82; Bastiano (Sebastiano),

213 son of Marco (Piero’s brother), 51–52, 54, 82; Benedetto (Piero’s father), 50; Contessa (Marco’s daughter), 82–83; Francesco, son of Marco, 51–52, 82; Genevra, Marco’s daughter, 82; Giambattista (1698), 54; (Giovanni) Battista (son of Laudomia), 52, 54, 82; Girolamo (son of Marco), 52, 82; Lisabetta (Marco’s daughter), 82; Maddalena (Marco’s daughter), 82; Marco (Piero’s brother), 50–52, 54 82; Marco II (son of Laudomia, 52, 54, 82); Margherita (Giambattista’s sister), 55; Mattea (daughter of Antonio), 82; Vico (son of Antonio), 82. Franceschi-Marini, Evelyn, see bibliography. Francesco I, d’, Duke of Modena, 183. Francis, St., of Assisi, St., 74–75. Franciscan friars, 5, Fig. 11, 33, 141. Franco, Battista, Dead Christ, engraving, afte Mantegna, 108. Frescobaldi, Cavaliere (1848), 55. Fur-lined wrap, see costume. G Gaddi, Agnolo, 5. Gaddi, Giovanni, Monsignor, 28. Gaddi, Taddeo, 5, 194. Gerini, Niccolo Pietro, 69–70. Ghiberti, Buonaccorse (Lorenzo’s grandson), 17. Ghiberti, Cione (first husband of Lorenzo’s mother, Mona), 17. Ghiberti Lorenzo: 16–30; collection, x; 26; of antiquities, x, 26; of drawings and sketches, 27, Bed of Polykeitos, 27, Fig. 12, 34; Commentaries (i Commentari), 22–23,

214 26–27; 193; works: Florence, Baptistery Doors: Figs. 7 and 8; 19–20; Bald Self Portrait, 28, Fig. 18, 37; Fortezza (fortitude), Fig. 14, 35; Story of Noah, Figs. 9, 68 (detail), 22, 164; Resurrection (detail), Fig. 13, 34; Self Portrait in a Turban, Fig. 15, 28–29, 36; Socrates, Fig. 62, 121, 131. Ghiberti, Vittorino II (Lorenzo’s great grandson), 27–28. Ghiberti, Vittorio (Lorenzo’s son), 26, 47. Ghirlandaio, Domenica, 55, Sassetti Altarpiece, Fig. 39, 66, 74–76, workshop of, 115. Giacomo, Miser, donor of Giorgione’s Laura, 156. Gigoux, Jean, painter (d. 1894), 147. Giorgione, 157, 178 Laura, Fig. 76, 155, 168; Nude with a Mirror, lost, 160; Sleeping Venus, 156–57. Giotto di Bondone, 1, 4–6, 18, 193. Girardo da Verona, Venetian physician, 104. Giunta di Tagio, potter, 73. Glass, Venetian, prunted, 159. God, hindquarters of (deus absconditus), 125. Goes, Hugo vander, 55, Portinari Altarpiece, Figs. 35, 37, 63, 65, 71, 78. Golden Legend, 72, 80, 110. Goldfinch, symbol of the Passion, , 75. Gonzaga, Federico I, marchese, 97, 104. Gonzaga, Federico II, duke (Isabella d’Este’s son), 85. Gonzaga, Francesco, Marchese (Isabella d’Este’s husband), 113,

146. Gonzaga, Gian Francesco II, Marchese, 97. Gonzaga, Ludovico III, Marchese, 97. Gonzaga, Sigismondo, Cardinal, 85. Gozzoli, Benozzo, 30, 56. Greccio, Miracle of, 75. Guado, (Woad), 50, Fig. 30, 60. Guarini, Battista, (Isabella d’Este’s tutor), 113. Guasparre di Ser Giovanni, Laudomia di (widow of Francesco Franceschi), 51–52, 82; Margherita and Nanna (daughters of Laudomia), 52, 82 Guilds, 2, 179; Arte dei Mercanti di Calimala, 17. H Händel, George Friedrich, oratorio, Triumph of Time and Truth, 187 Heraclius, Byzantine emperor, 80. Hippodamia, engaged to Pirithoüs, taken by Eurytus, 130. Holy Sepulcher, 96. Horace, 134 Ars poetica and “beautiful ugliness”, 94. Hygiene, 161 I Innocent VIII, pope, employs Mantegna, 97. Isaiah 1:3, 80, 45:15, 125 Innocent X, pope (Pamphili), 180, 182–83 Ixion, (father of Eurytus and Nessus), 129. J Jacob, dream of, 125–26. Japheth, youngest son of Noah, 147,

INDEX

149–53. Jar, 72–73, 109–11; apothecary, 73; alabaster, 95; attribute of Christ and of Magdalene, 95. Jerome, St. 54, 83, 110. Jerusalem, 78, 98. John the Evangelist, St., 51, 95, 107. Jordanus of Quedlinburg, 111. Joseph, St., 75–76, 78–79. Justice, figure of, 97, 104. K L Landscape view (from window), 156 159; Tuscan, 57. Lapiths, Battle of, 125, 131–32, name related to lithos or stone, 132. Laurel tree, 156; symbol of virginal purity, 156. Leonardo da Vinci, ix, 52, 94, 179, 194; collection of his drawings, 32; advice to artists, 44, 47, 138; Genevre da Benci,156; Medusa, 94. Leoni, Leone, 47–48; Casa degli Omenoni, Fig. 28, 43, 47. Leoni, Michelangelo (oldest son of Leone), 48. Leoni, Pompeo, (second son of Leone and heir), 47–48. Light as metaphor for divine radiance, 78, 181, 198. Lippi, Fra Filippo, 30, 56. Lorenzetti, Ambrogio, Fig. 10, 21, 24, Fig. 11, 33, 194. Lorenzo da Pavia, instrument maker and agent to Isabella d’ Este, 144. Lorenzo Monaco, 70. Lotto, Lorenzo, Fig. 27, 42, 45–46; Derision of Noah attributed to,

215 147. Louis XIV, 86, Bernini visit to, 182, 184. Lucian, 134. Ludovico di Giovanni, (Titian’s helper), 154. M Magdalene, the Embalmer, 95, 109, 111. Magpie, 76. Maltese, Corrado, 90–91, 93, 96, Fig. 48, 109. Manger, 55–56, 74–75, 77. Mantegna, Andrea, 84–113; owner of antique bust, 44; funeral chapel, 85, 104; house in Mantua, 85, 97; interest in perspective, foreshortening, 84, 86, 90, 96–97; painter to Gonzaga court, 85, 97; Stoic attitude, 107; underage, payments to brother, 97. Works: Agony in the Garden, Fig. 45, 88.;“Dead St. Christopher”, 86.; Dead Christ [Crist in Scurto] 84–113; alabaster box, 95,109, 111; Dying boy on slab, drawing, Fig. 55,103, 112; “spolvere” de Christo in Scurto”, 91. Padua, Eremitani Church, Ovetari Chapel, fresco cycle (lost), 97, 110; Pallas Expelling the Vices, 113; Parnassus, 113; Sant’ Zeno Altarpiece, 86. Mantegna, Federico, son of Andrea, died as baby , 104–06. Mantegna, Francesco, son of Andrea, 103–04. Mantegna, Girolamo, son of Andrea, died as teenager, 104–07.

216 Mantegna, Ludovico, son of Andrea, 103–04. Mantua, Gonzaga archive, 144. Mantua, Sant’ Andrea, fresco in entrance,Deposition, 91; San Domenico (destroyed), formerly housed tomb of Mantegna sons, 105. Marcello, Alvise, letter from Isabella d’Este, to, 145. Marini, Ranieri Benedetto, husband of Margherita Franceschi (two families combined, late seventeenth century, 55. Martin V, pope, 69. Martini, Presbyteri (sculptor), 79. Masaccio, 7, Fig. 4, 11. Masolino, 28, 78. Mazarin, Cardinal, 86, 182–84. Medici, Cosimo I de’, 122. Medici, Cosimo II de’, 122, returns Madonna to Buonarroti. Medici, Giardino del Casino Mediceo, 115. Medici, Lorenzo de’, 107, 136; allegorized as Theseus, 134; stops support of Botticelli, 141. Medici, Lorenzo, de’, Duke of Urbino, grandson of Lorenzo, 142. Medici, Piero de’, 136. Medici, Piero di Cosimo de’, 57. Medici, Piero, de’, Lorenzo’s son, exiled, 1494, 141. Meditations on the Life of Christ, 56. Michelozzo di Bartolomeo, 57. Mirror(s), 157–62, Fig. 77, 169, Fig. 80, 172, 175–78, 181. Montevarchi, 52, 54. Moses, 125, 137–38. Mount Pelion, 132. Mount Athos, 67.

N Nativity of Christ, see Piero della Francesca. Nessus, son of Ixion, 129. Niccoli, Niccolo, 23, 26. Nicholas I, Czar, buys Titian, 175. Nicholas of Cusa, 135, 148, 152. Noah, story of, (Gen. 17), 147. O Orcagna, Andrea, 28, Fig. 17, 37. Origen, 94. Orsini, Paolo Giordano II, Duke of Bracciano, 182–84, Fig. 89. Ovid, Metamorphosis, 116, 129–31, 134–35. Ox, bowing, 72, 80. P Padua, 4, 7, 84, 96 Sant’ Andrea, funereal chapel of Mantegna, 85; 113 Eremitani, Ovetari chapel 86, 110 Paleologa, Margherita (wife of Federico II Gonzaga), 85. Paragone, 156, 158, 178. Patent for position of painter to Venetian Republic, 141, 154–55, 175. Pearl(s), 151. Peretola, Sta Maria, Sacramenta tabernacle, 68. Pericles, 122. Perugia, Sta Mary Novella, Confraternita della Consolazione, 100. Perugino, Pietro, 23. Petrach, 24, 25; Laura, 149. Phidias, represented as bald old man lifting stone, 122; self portrait, 47. Piagnoni, followers of Savonarola, 128–129.

INDEX

Piero della Francesca, x, 28, Fig. 22, 39, 49–83, ; death of, 51; donation to Madonna della Badia in will, 79; exaltation of simple things, 80; finger tips used in painting, 76; perspective (blocked), 76; his studio, 82. Works: Aezzo, San Francesco, fresco cycle, 82, 84; Baptism of Christ, 55; 55, Fig. 34, 62, 80; drawings left at death, 54; the Flagellation (as a Letter of Consolazion), 76, 91, 107; Hercules, Fig. 45, 68, 81–82; Montefeltro Altarpiece, 76; Resurrection, Fig. 51; The Nativity, Fig. 29, 59; symbol of procreation, 83; valued at 80 gold ducats, 54. Piero di Cosimo, 30, 32; Masque of Death, 94. Pirithoüs, husband of Hippodamia, 129–31. Pisanello (Antonio di Puccio), medal, 30, 32, Fig. 20, 38. Pisano, Andrea, 17; scene of the Drunkenness of Noah, 148, 150. Pisano, Giovanni, 3, 24, 128, 194. Pisano, Nicola, 24 Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 23, 27, 161–62. Plutarch, 29, 132. Poets and prostitutes, 156. Poggio Bracciolini, 23. Poliziano, Angelo, 116, 127, 133, 135. Pollaiuolo, Antonio, “Battling Nudes:, 127. Portinari, Accerito, son of Folco, 69. Portinari Altarpiece, 58, Fig. 35, 63, 71–72; flowers in, Fig. 37, 65, 74. Portinari, Folco, 58, 69, 73.

217 Portinari, Pigello, son of Folco, 69. Portinari, Tommaso, son of Folco, 69–73; will of, 73. Pouncing (spolvero), 91, see Mantegna. Pozzo, Gemignano, letter, 183. Praise, terms of (industria, disciplina, diligentia), 25. Protogenes, 161. Psychomachia, 134. Putti, 137, Fig. 80, 172,quiver, arrows, crown of flowers, 177. Q Quercia, Jacopo della, Creation of Adam, 149. R Raphael, La Fornarina, 179. Robbia, Luca della, Luca della Robbia, Fig. 5, 12, 14, Fig. 36, 64, 70. Rogier van der Weyden, crying, 95. Roman orator, 79. Rome, Piazza Navona, fountain, 180, 183. Rubens, Peter Paul, 48; painted copy of Titian, Fig. 81, 173, 175–76. S Sacchetti, Franco, novella by, 193. San Gemignano, Collegiata, 148. Sansepolcro (Borgo San Sepolcro), 51–52, 54–55; Camaldolite abbey church of San Giovanni Evangelista (incorporated San Leonardo; later cathedral), 51, 81, Franceschi, house Fig. 31, 60, 81–82; Madonna della Badia, (wooden Sedes Sapientia originally in abbey church[now in Berlin]), 79. Sarcophagus, classical, Princeton, Fig.

218 87, 190; Early Christian, Vatican, Fig. 42, 67, 80. Sassetti, Francesco, 74; Nera, 74; Teodoro II, 74. Savonarola, Girolamo, Fra, 123, 127, 134, 141–42. Scolari, Dead Christ, woodcut, after Mantegna, 108. Scopophilia, 177. Sculptural technique: mezzo relievo, 115; stiacciato, schiacciato, 115–16, 122–23, 128. Self-expression, 179. Sexual consummation, 158. Shem, oldest son of Noah, 147, 149–53. Shepherds (in Nativity), 55–57, 73–76, 79–80. Siena, Duomo, 15; San Francesco, 24. Signorini, Rodolfo, archival scholar, 91, 97, 104–05. Snood, reticella, 151. Socrates, 120, hoplite, 122, sculptor and son of sculptor,124–5. Sodoma, Pietà, after Mantegna, 101. Spagnoli, Fra Battista, 97. Spoleto, Cathedral, 63. Sponge (sponzarol), 154, shaped like a mountain; hygiene, 155–6. Squarcione, Francesco, adopted Mantegna, 96. Stetheimer, Baumeister Hans, 47. Stoic philosophers, 102; attitude toward grief, 100. Stone, salvific qualities in, released by sculptor, 122–124; of Unction, 91, 95. T Tegurium (stable, shed), 80. Theseus, King of Athens, 129–35.

Thomas of Celano, 75. Threshing Floor (aiiuola, aia), 77. Time, winged, 180, see Bernini. Titian, (Tiziano Vecellio), x, 15; 147, 175–78; Giorgione, competition with; finishes his works, 156; tries to take Giovanni Bellini’s “patent” 154–55; official painter to the Venetian Republic, 155; Works: see Giovanni Bellini; Feast of the Gods, finished, 157; Self Portrait, Fig. 25, 41; Venus with a Mirror and two Putti, Fig. 80, 172, reused canvas, 175–76, Figs. 82, 83, 174; Woman with Soldier Holding two Mirrors, Fig. 77, 160, 169. Torso Belvedere, 44. Traversari, Ambrogio, 24. Truth Unveiled by Time, Fig. 84, 188, see Bernini. Truth, most beautiful virtue, 187; nuda verità, 180. Turban, see Costume. U Ugly, see Christ Unction, Stone of, 92, 95, 108–09 Urban VIII, pope, death of, 179. V Val di Nocea, 78, see Sansepolcro. Van Dyck, Anthony, copy of Titian, 175. Vanity, 160–61, 178. Vasari, Giorgio, 3, 23, 25, 27, 31–32, 44, 50, 69, 71,94, 115–16, 122, 128–30, 138, 141, 157, 160–61, 194–96. Vase, majolica, 73; glass, 161. Vatican City, St. Peters, Porta Santa, 38; Villa Belvedere, 97.

INDEX

Vecchietta (Lorenzo di Pietro), Risen Christ, Fig. 6, 13, 15. Vecellio, Pomponio, son of Titian, 175. Venice, Counsel of Ten, 154; Fondaco dei Tedeschi, 155; Grimani Collection, 176; Palazzo Ducale, near Ponte della Paglia, 152; San Marco, mosaic in atrium; 153, Fig. 70, 165; San Samuele (Titian, installed at), 154. Venus anadiomene, 159; fecundity of, 177; passion of, 177; in preparation for coupling 177; pudica , 26, 176. Verrocchio, Andrea, 160. Vianello, Michele, art collector, friend of Isabella d’Este, 145. Villani, Filippo, 4. Virgin Mary, Christ Child lying on

219 her robe, 75, 77, conventionally beautiful 79; as Scala coeli, 127; seated on a stone, 123. Vitruvius, 23. W Wine, Noah’s, 147, 151–52; sacramental, 72, 77; winepress, 150. Woad, see Guado. Woman at her Toilet, copy of Giovanni Bellini?, 155. Z Zanzani, Michele di Antonio, Dr., husband of Contessa Franceschi, 83. Zurbarán, Francisco de, Crucifixion with Painter, Fig. 90, 198.