Bernard Berenson and Byzantine Art: Correspondence, 1920-1957 (Medieval and Early Modern Europe and the World, 3) 9782503596716, 2503596711

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Bernard Berenson and Byzantine Art

Medieval and Early Modern Europe and the World Volume 3 General Editor Vasileios Syros, The Medici Archive Project Editorial Board Stella Achilleos, University of Cyprus Ovanes Akopyan, Villa I Tatti – The Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Harvard University Ivana Čapeta Rakić, University of Split Hui-Hung Chen, National Taiwan University Emir O. Filipović, University of Sarajevo Alison Frazier, The University of Texas at Austin Nadejda Selunskaya, Institute of World History, Russian Academy of Sciences Claude Stuczynski, Bar-Ilan University Angeliki Ziaka, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Bernard Berenson and Byzantine Art Correspondence, 1920–1957

Gabriella Bernardi with a contribution by Spyros Koulouris and a preface by Massimo Bernabò

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

© 2022, Brepols Publishers n. v., Turnhout, Belgium. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. D/2022/0095/90 ISBN 978-2-503-59671-6 E-ISBN 978-2-503-59672-3 DOI 10.1484/M.MEMEW-EB.5.129782 Printed in the EU on acid-free paper. Previously published volumes in this series are listed at the back of the book

Table of Contents

Preface9 Abbreviations15 1. Introduction 17 2. Bernard Berenson 21 A Short Biography 3. Byzantine Vision of Bernard Berenson 23 4. Bernard Berenson, Thomas Whittemore, and San Marco in Venice 39 5. Capturing the Byzantine World (Spyros Koulouris) 47 6. Correspondence 71 7. Historical Photos 435 8. Biographical Profiles 473 9. Scholars’ Photos 503 Appendix St Mark’s, Byzantine Temple and Museum, Bernard Berenson ‘A Newly Discovered Cimabue’, Art in America, 8 (October 1920): 251–71, Bernard Berenson ‘Due dipinti del decimosecondo secolo venuti da Costantinopoli’, Dedalo, 2 (1921–1922): 284–304, Bernard Berenson Bibliography of Bernard and Mary Berenson’s Works

531 534 551 573

Bibliography577

‘Serbo un caro e piacevole ricordo anche delle visite autunnali di Bernard Berenson e di Giorgio Morandi, tanto diversi tra loro ma che creavano, entrambi, intorno a noi un’aura di alta civiltà, di eletta spiritualità il cui ricordo ne rende anche più sensibile la nostalgia’ (‘I keep an affectionate memory of those Autumn visits of Bernard Berenson and Giorgio Morandi, so different from each other but who both created around us an aura of high civility, of an elite spirituality, nostalgia for which is all the more sensitive and intense’) Carlo Bertelli, ‘Conversazione con Luigi Magnani’: 19–20

Preface

Berenson on Byzantine Art Berenson’s letters demonstrate a close familiarity with Byzantine art, which he defended from the rhetorical, defamatory vulgate of Italian art critics. However, Berenson’s knowledge of the Byzantine world was rather amateurish, not scholarly: he never claimed to be a professional Byzantine art historian. Berenson was mainly an art historian of the Renaissance, an acclaimed expert and seller of paintings, especially to American collectors. Moreover, the library in his mansion Villa I Tatti was a unique place where researchers could read books and periodicals on Eastern, Islamic, Byzantine, and Russian art which no other libraries in Italy owned. My training in Byzantine art is indebted to the presence at Villa I Tatti of the works of such great Russian scholars as Kondakov, Uspenskii, Ainalov, Riedin, or Schmit,1 as well as Americans such as Weitzmann.2 As a Byzantinist, my career began with and revolved around the study of the Byzantine illuminated Octateuchs. Reading in I Tatti library the monograph Uspensky dedicated to the Octateuch in the Istanbul Seraglio3 and the volumes of the Princeton Corpus of the Illustrations in the Manuscripts of the Septuagint, was a privilege which spared me a trip to other libraries in Italy in search of the books. Actually, the patrimony of foreign essays on Byzantine art available in the Italian libraries was disappointingly poor at the time. In contrast, Berenson acquired foreign publications during the period in which late Byzantine Art did not enjoy critical favour because of its perceived ‘effeminacy’, which was judged to be the opposite of the virile



1 Schmit must be credited with publishing the only extant photos of the church of the Dormition in Nicaea before its complete destruction during the Greco-Turkish war (Schmit, Die Koimesis-Kirche von Nikaia). The original photos were given to the Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies and were consulted years later by Paul Underwood; he was able to recognize the different layers of mosaics in the destroyed apse of the church (Underwood, ‘The Evidence of Restorations in the Sanctuary Mosaics’, pp. 235–44). Schmit is reported to have been executed in the 1930s. 2 In his memoirs Kurt Weitzmann reports that he met Berenson just one time, when they visited the ‘Mostra storica Nazionale della Miniatura’, in Rome in 1953: Berenson ‘impressed me by his acquaintance with my writings, though they hardly touched his special fields of interest’ (Weitzmann, Sailing with Byzantium from Europe to America, p. 237). 3 Uspenskii, L’Octateuque de la Bibliothèque du Sérail à Constantinople/Константинопольский Сералъский кодекс восьмикнижия; Al’bom, transliteration: Konstantinopolskii Seral’skii kodeks vos’miknizhiia.

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Roman ideology of Fascism. Italian public libraries did not increase their holdings with novel publications on Byzantium that were issued in the first decades of the twentieth century. Berenson’s passion for Byzantine art is proved by the mass of letters the American art historian sent from his Florentine villa to his colleagues all around the world, published here by Gabriella Bernardi. The photos of Byzantine monuments Spyros Koulouris has selected follow the collection of letters. The present preliminary contribution focuses on three articles that deal in particular with Berenson’s appreciation of Byzantine art. These three articles were delivered for printing in different years: two of them belong to the early Twenties (1919–1920 and 1921–1922),4 the third is a much later article Berenson wrote for the Corriere della Sera, the authoritative Milan newspaper, in 1954 when he was in his eighties.5 ‘A Newly Discovered Cimabue’ appeared in the October 1920 issue of Art in America. Beginning with the American appreciation of Italian art, which passed from Raphael, Leonardo, and Michelangelo to the ‘Cavallinis, Margaritones, and Guidos, Berlinghieris and Deodatis’, Berenson praised the latter epoch: it ‘was perhaps the very greatest period of art, since the Greeks, in the world’s history’, but it still need a scholarly study. Of course, Berenson’s personal opinion on the Italian primitives should be regarded with suspicion, since he was both a collector and antiquarian who specialized in gold background panel painting of the pre-Giottesque period. In the article, Berenson discusses and reproduces a high quality ‘Byzantine or Byzantinizing’ triptych in the Collection of Carl W. Hamilton with Christ between Peter and James. Berenson argues the triptych is a masterpiece and Cimabue himself painted the three panels. He compares a variety of Dugento works: the Cefalù Pantocrator, Guido da Siena, Deodato Orlandi, the apse mosaic in the Florentine Church of San Miniato, the Cimabue altarpiece in the Uffizi Gallery, and others. The triptych artist is very Byzantine, he concludes, but he is neither a Byzantine painter active in Italy, nor a Roman pupil of Cavallini, so that he must have been a Tuscan. The article shows Berenson’s deep familiarity with Byzantinizing thirteenth-century art; at its close, he advances the date of 1272 for the triptych. ‘Two Twelfth-Century Paintings from Constantinople’ appeared in Italian in the 1921–1922 issue of Dedalo; an English version followed in 1930 as a part of Berenson’s collected studies.6 His text conceals a subtle controversy against the dominant nationalist ideology: Berenson praises Byzantine art and parallels Constantinople with contemporary Paris, a true scandal at the



4 Berenson, ‘A Newly Discovered Cimabue’; Berenson, ‘Due dipinti del decimosecondo secolo’. Translated and reprinted in English as ‘Two Twelfth-Century Paintings’, pp. 1–16. See Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, pp. 131–37. 5 ‘San Marco, Tempio e Museo Bizantino’. 6 See note 4 above.

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time of the ‘vittoria mutilata’ (mutilated victory); the expression refers to the broken promises of annexation of Dalmatian territories as a reward for Italy at the end of the First World War. France was considered chiefly responsible for the ‘betrayal’. Moreover, Paris was the capital of European twentieth-century avant-gardes, which fostered an anti-academic, anti-Italian art: chromatism of impressionist and Post-Impressionist painting versus plasticism, linearism, and realism of Italian tradition. Giotto was regarded as the champion of the Italian tradition against Byzantine painting; his works were a model for Italian painters of the first postwar period: Carrà, Sironi, De Chirico, and others.7 In such a climate of sharp opposition, the editor of Dedalo, Ugo Ojetti, invited Berenson to contribute to the periodical. Ojetti proved to be an open-minded critic, on one hand, but, on the other, he was a ‘man for all seasons’, or, simply, one who managed to float in the intellectual swamp of Fascism. Ojetti was close to the power even before the March on Rome and during the twenty years of Fascism; in 1925, he signed the ‘Manifesto degli intellettuali fascisti’; after the fall of Fascism (25 July 1943), he adhered to Mussolini’s ‘Repubblica Sociale Italiana’. Ojetti was also director of the Corriere della Sera in the Twenties and editor of Pègaso, an art periodical; here, he argued with the ideas pro-Byzantine and pro-contemporary European art of Lionello Venturi, an antifascist art historian. Venturi fled to France and later moved to the USA where he taught at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.8 In Dedalo, Berenson introduced two Madonnas with the Child, at that time in the Kahn and Hamilton collections (now in the Washington National Gallery). Disputing with the conformism of the Italian art historians, Berenson’s article declares that scholars in Medieval art have begun to acknowledge that Vasari’s claim that all the painting before Giotto is Byzantine is basically correct; no indigenous sources — Italian, Nordic, Gaulish, Celtiberian, or the rest — were successful in preventing the spread of the metropolitan influence and manners of the art of Constantinople (a bitter, controversial claim, indeed). However, from the extant Byzantine paintings and mosaics we have only a pale reflection of what that art really was. Fortunately, now we can admire the Kahn and Hamilton panels which are metropolitan works from the capital of the Empire (nowadays, the two paintings are not considered Constantinopolitan works). Berenson concludes with a gibe: ‘By the year 1200, painting all over Europe was as much Constantinopolitan, as for the last hundred years or so, it has been Parisian’.9 Noteworthy, Berenson’s appreciation for Byzantine art and, in particular, his words in the article mirror what Pietro 7 A longer discussion on the topic is found in Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, chapter 8, pp. 131–48. 8 Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, pp. 114–15. 9 Berenson, ‘Due dipinti del decimosecondo secolo’, pp. 285–86. The English version is taken from the reprint of the article: ‘Two Twelfth-Century Paintings from Constantinople’, pp. 1–16.

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Toesca — a loyal, close friend of Berenson, undoubtedly the most acute and authoritative Italian art historian of the period —, wrote in Il Medioevo, the first volume of his monumental Storia dell’arte italiana, published in 1927:10 Italian painting of the eleventh and twelfth century was alien to ornamental conceptions from north of the Alps. Berenson did not publish other articles which deal with Byzantine art during the years of Fascism. In 1954, he resumed his love for Byzantium in a newspaper article in the Corriere della Sera. The title is ‘San Marco, Tempio e Museo Bizantino’: introducing the basilica, Berenson asserts that the guides writes on San Marco that it is a monument with ‘caratteri prevalentemente bizantini’ (predominantly Byzantine characteristics); in contrast, Berenson affirms San Marco shows its ‘integrale bizantinità’ (integral Byzantine character); indeed, San Marco is ‘il più tipico, il più completo e godibile edifizio bizantino che ancora esista’ (the most typical, complete and enjoyable Byzantine building which still exists). Inside the basilica, all the columns, capitals, slabs, pulpits, and figures are Byzantine; in the choir, the columns of the Tabernacle are pre-Byzantine; in the apse, the Pala d’Oro — the golden altarpiece — is not only the richest, most beautiful, and finest enamel work of the Byzantine world, but it overtakes any other medieval enamel. Berenson’s declaration of love for Byzantium recalls similar declarations of Renoir and Monet for Venice. In 1908 Monet visited Venice and painted a number of views of the Canal Grande;11 in a renowned sentence, Renoir reveals his passion for the warm colours of Byzantium versus the cold monuments of the Renaissance.12 Et la basilique de Saint-Marc, voilà qui m’a changé des froids églises italiennes de la Renaissance, et surtout de cette cathédrale de Milano, dont les Italiens sont si fiers, avec son toit en dentelle de marbre, des bêtises, quoi!… À Saint-Marc, et dès l’entrée, on sent qu’on est dans un véritable temple: cet air doux et tamisé, et ces magnifiques mosaïques, ce grand Christ byzantin, avec un cerné gris! Impossible de soupçonner, lorsqu’on n’est pas entré dans Saint-Marc, combien c’est beau, les piliers lourds, les colonnes sans moulures!… Renoir disregards the cold Italian churches of the Renaissance, especially the Milan Cathedral, Italians are so proud of, with all its laces and ridiculous things;

10 The text had already appeared as university lecture notes between 1913 and 1924. Toesca, Storia dell’arte italiana, 1, Il Medioevo, 2, especially p. 918. See Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, chapter 7, pp. 117–30. 11 See Bernabò Ossessioni bizantine, chap. 5 ‘L’apogeo di Bisanzio e l’assalto all’arte italiana’, pp. 71–85 where the topic is discussed more exhaustively, with reference to contemporary scholarship on Byzantine art and the neo-Byzantine style in art and architecture. 12 The statement is taken from Vollard, La vie et l’œuvre de Pierre-Auguste Renoir, p. 104 n. 3.

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in contrast, St Mark … is a true temple, its air is sweet and damped down; its magnificent mosaics, its huge Byzantine Christ whose eyes are bordered with grey; its beauty is impossible to imagine until you enter the church, its heavy pilasters, unmoulded columns. In the same years of his article on San Marco, Berenson published a book which aimed at defending the stylistic principles of anatomy, proportions, movement, gestures, likeness to natural forms, ‘valori plastici’ (plastic values), perspective, etc., as the perennial values on which every work of art should be grounded.13 Valori Plastici was the name of a polemical periodical and of a publishing house which promoted Italian art against the decadent values of the art, especially French, of the Novecento, which was printed between 1918 and 1921.14 Carlo Carrà, Giorgio De Chirico, and Alberto Savinio (born De Chirico, the brother of Giorgio) published articles in the periodical Valori Plastici.15 Between the two extremes in the critics, that is, the autarchic defense of Italianism and the anti-figurative avant-garde, Berenson might be held as an outsider, even a lonely idol, in the Italian art history landscape. The two friends to share his ideas on Byzantium with were Toesca and Sergio Bettini. Berenson’s view had no visible followers, but, rather, it had a group of adversaries, in primis the aggressive and ambiguous Roberto Longhi, one of the most highly rated art critics in those decades and a strong supporter of the Italian naturalistic tradition. Berenson never truly reconciled with him. Massimo Bernabò

13 Bernard Berenson, L’arco di Costantino. 14 Valori Plastici. Rivista d’Arte, director Mario Broglio, no. 1 (15 November 1918) – no. 5 [the last number is undated but dating back to 1921], anastatic repr. Rome: Archivi d’arte del XX secolo, 1969. 15 Carlo Carrà, ‘L’Italianismo artistico’; Carlo Carrà, Giotto.

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Abbreviations

Archivio Bettini, sezione Corrispondenza Università Ca’ Foscari, Dipartimento di Filosofia e Beni Culturali, Archivio Sergio Bettini, sezione Corrispondenza ASPSM Archivio Storico della Procuratoria di San Marco ASSi, Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, fasc. 466 Archivio di Stato di Siena, Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, fascicolo 466 BBF Biblioteca Berenson/Berenson Library, Fototeca, I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Florence BBP Biblioteca Berenson/Berenson Library, Berenson and Mary Berenson Papers, I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Florence BFP Berenson Family Papers (MS Am 2013). Houghton Library, Harvard University Berenson, Bernard to Walter Heil, Correspondence, FAMSF Archives, Bernard Berenson to Walter Heil, Correspondence, San Francisco (California), Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Archives BCB, Archivio O. Grosso Genoa, Biblioteca Civica Berio, Archivio Orlando Grosso BnF Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France CASNS-AV, carteggio fasc. BB/MB Centro Archivistico Scuola Normale Superiore, fondo Adolfo Venturi, Carteggio, fascicolo Bernard Berenson/Mary Berenson Collège de France, Fonds Thomas Whittemore Paris, Collège de France, Fonds Thomas Whittemore DHC Decatur House Collection at the Decatur House in Washington, DC Fogg Museum Cambridge, Mass., Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum HUA Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Archives. Courtesy of the Harvard University Archives

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HUA-PAKP Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Archives, Porter, Arthur Kingsley. Papers of Arthur Kingsley Porter. Courtesy of the Harvard University Archives NGA, GA National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Gallery Archives NL Volbach Nachlass Wolfgang Fritz Volbach, Lehrstuhl Prof. Dr Wolfram Kinzig – Evangelisch-Theologisches Seminar, Universität Bonn – Datensatznr. 41

1. Introduction

Bernard Berenson, born Bernhard Valvrojenski (Butrimonys, Vilna, Lithuania, 1865–Florence, Italy, 1959) was one of the most discerning and most influential art historians of the twentieth century. While it is easy to be fascinated by the charming and many sided personality which emerges from Berenson’s writings, as testified to by his many admirers including myself, it is more difficult to deal with him objectively. He was highly educated, polyglot, curious, eclectic, anti-academic, and a great traveller who was remote from the current trend of ever-increasing specialization in the pursuit of human knowledge. On entering the gate of Villa I Tatti, Berenson’s home near Settignano in the hills above Florence, words come to mind from one of his most important contemporaries: Italian art historian Pietro Toesca: Caro Amico, di tutte le cose care che ho lasciato a Firenze, e che séguito a rimpiangere, una delle più pungenti, nel desiderio, è quel viale di cipressi che mi conduceva alla Sua porta. E anche l’altro viale, il fangoso Milton, con tutto quello che vi ho abbandonato, mi mette addosso molte malinconie.1 The opportunity to investigate a particular aspect of Berenson’s professional life, which has been hitherto studied incompletely, came from reading Massimo Bernabò’s book, Ossessioni bizantine e cultura artistica in Italia. Tra D’Annunzio, fascismo e dopoguerra (2003), and from later discussions with its author. Bernabò is a pioneer in restoring Berenson’s image beyond his well known interests in the Italian Renaissance. He recognized another area to which Berenson devoted many years of his life: Byzantium and the art of the Christian East. Bernabò published excerpts of letters sent to Berenson by distinguished Italian scholars including Toesca, Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, and Sergio Bettini, as well as others. This type of approach so much intrigued me that I decided to investigate the topic further. Even if somewhat naively, my intention was to extend the research first by checking the photographic material on Byzantine art kept in the I Tatti archives and then by going through the papers for further relevant correspondence. The core of the Byzantine

1 ‘Dear Friend, of all the things I had to leave behind in Florence, among the sorest losses which I continue to regret, is the cypress avenue leading to your door. This along with another avenue, the muddy Milton, with all that I had to abandon there, brings me much sadness’. See Toesca’s letter to Bernard Berenson, 10 February 1926: no. 208. During his Florentine years Toesca lived for a period in via Giovanni Milton which at that time was muddy. On Pietro Toesca, see Biographical Profile.

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photos, which form a very important part of the collection, has been neglected although it provides new data for this aspect of Berenson’s career. As is well known, he was an avid collector of photographs, including photographs of Byzantine art works and monuments, as well as collecting paintings. Much of these along with photos and accompanying notes sent to him have never been published. My teacher, Antonio Iacobini, Professor of Byzantine Art at the ‘Sapienza’ University of Rome encouraged me to investigate not only Berenson’s correspondence with scholars of Byzantine art, starting with those mentioned by Bernabò, but to widen the range of protagonists. Iacobini, familiar with my nose for archival research made me dive into the papers at Settignano and elsewhere to investigate this subject although aware of the risk of disappointment. I have been faced with ponderous amounts of correspondence to be read and put in order, lists of names and facts to be established. The range of Berenson’s correspondents has thus expanded to further scholars, museum directors, antique dealers, collectors, and experts in Byzantine art or people who associated with them. As suggested above, archival research is not new in my work: it has been a source of several publications which include the restorations of medieval and Byzantine mosaics such as those of San Giusto in Trieste (1996), Santa Maria Nova in Rome (2004), and the Euphrasian Basilica in Parenzo (2005). In short, the present study aims at providing an outline of Berenson’s approach to Byzantium and the art of the Christian East through correspondence which, although fragmentary, is published here for the first time in an organized way along with historical photographs. The background of the book is to understand and put in context a particular historical period between c. 1920 to 1950 involving a world conflict affecting many of the people concerned. Most of the documents presented here are kept among the Bernard and Mary Berenson Papers in I Tatti; of course, these consist of incoming correspondence for which only partial replies exist so that the material is often incomplete. The search for Berenson’s correspondence in other places or archives has supplied little further information. Despite inevitable gaps, the finding of many letters has provided new information on his approach to Byzantine art. In addition to the documents at I Tatti, the following archives have been consulted: Belgrade, Private Archives of Elizabeth Karageorgevič, Princess of Yugoslavia; Bonn, Archiv der Evangelisch-Theologische Fakultät der Universität; Cambridge (Mass.): The Harvard University Archives and The Harvard Art Museums Archives; Genoa, Archivio Biblioteca Civica Berio; New York, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University; Paris, Collège de France; Pisa, Centro Archivistico Scuola Normale Superiore; San Francisco (Cal.), Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Archives; Siena, Archivio di Stato; Venice, Archivio Storico della Procuratoria di San Marco and Archivio Sergio Bettini presso l’Università Ca’ Foscari, Dipartimento di Filosofia e Beni Culturali; Washington, DC, Decatur House Collection at the Decatur House and National Gallery of Art Archives. The topics dealt

1. i nt ro d u ct i o n

with in this study are related to debates on aesthetics, rediscovered works, monuments to be restored, collections and places of art historical interest. Even very recent books on the correspondence between Berenson and some of his interlocutors, such as My Dear BB: The Letters of Bernard Berenson and Kenneth Clark, 1925–1959, edited by Robert Cumming (New Haven, 2015), or Come un fiore fatato: Lettere di Paola Drigo a Bernard Berenson, edited by Rossana Melis (Padua, 2016), have shown the potential of such an approach for the analysis and knowledge of specific interpersonal dynamics. The use of a similar method in a broader spectrum in order to single out certain constants in Berenson’s cultural and artistic interests has produced solid data for dating hitherto unknown letters and shown unprecedented lines of interpretation in his art historical thought. The beginning of this book provides a summary of Berenson’s life and work as seen thus far. This brief biographical profile will help to frame his attitude towards the art of Byzantium. This is followed by an essay exploring how and when Berenson’s interest in this artistic field took hold, starting from the first mentions of some medieval Italian painters who he believed must have been trained by a Byzantine master or in close connection with Byzantine art, up to his own more innovative and unfortunately unfinished studies from the 1920s to the 1950s. Such a development is investigated through cross-referencing the scholar’s articles and essays with the rediscovered correspondence. It should be stressed that Berenson’s perception of Byzantine art diverged from the contemporary one by using the term ‘Medieval Hellenistic’. In this respect, a glance is given to international studies in order to seek the genesis of the term, even if this problem is not easily solved and remains an open question. Berenson’s interest in Byzantine art was also the result of in situ investigation: his pilgrimages to Italy and the Byzantine Mediterranean territories which began in the early 1900s and were numerous during the 1920s and 1930s. Even in old age he did not stop travelling. In those years important rediscoveries and extensive restoration campaigns were carried out, such as those on the mosaics of Hagia Sophia, Kariye Camii in Istanbul. It must be acknowledged that in the case of the Basilica of San Marco in Venice and its decoration (mosaics, marbles, etc.), Berenson had an active role in the 1940s in urging their restoration and raising funds for it. The correspondence section consisting of 253 letters, is the central core of the book and is divided into two sections: in this regard, see the introductory note to the series of letters published here. Photos of art works and monuments belonging to different artistic fields, including the Byzantine, are often cited in the letters; indeed, they are sometimes the subject of discussion in the letters themselves. Omitting irrelevant photos, those sent to Berenson are published here for the first time in the ‘Historical photos section’. The core of the Byzantine photos is the subject of an investigation by Spyros Koulouris whose chapter is presented here. Following the historical photos section, short biographical profiles of Berenson’s correspondents are given in alphabetical order: some of them are

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well-known personalities, others less so. Where possible, a corresponding photo is attached. It should be noted that in the case of one correspondent, Julia Wadleigh, no biographical information was found. For a better understanding of the context, the biographical profile of Charles Rufus Morey is also included although there is no direct correspondence with Berenson. As for bibliography, it has been divided into two parts: works relating to Berenson and/or referring to him and the general bibliography. I wish to thank Eve Borsook (†), Fiorella Superbi, Massimo Bernabò, and Andrea Paribeni without whose help and advice this publication would not have taken place; Ilaria Della Monica, Giovanni Pagliarulo, and Spyros Koulouris for their valuable and continuous support; Kathryn Brush and Arlene Schwind for the precious retrieval of part of the correspondence involving Arthur Kingsley Porter and Edward Waldo Forbes housed in the Harvard University Archives, Cambridge, Mass.; Paola Pecci for checking the letters in German by Wolfgang Fritz Volbach; Véronique Delaleau for those in French; Patrizia Deotto for the Russian bibliography and its transliteration as well as Davide Baldi Bellini, Claudia Giordani, Michael Gorman, Antonio Iacobini, Alessandro Nigro, Valerio Pacini, Giovanni Trambusti, and the staff of Villa I Tatti for their precious help. I also wish to thank Sabina Anrep for her kind permission to publish two articles by Berenson in the appendix of this volume: ‘A Newly Discovered Cimabue’ and ‘Due dipinti del decimosecondo secolo venuti da Costantinopoli’. Gabriella Bernardi

2. Bernard Berenson A Short Biography

Although born in Lithuania, Bernard Berenson was a native German speaker.1 With his family he emigrated to Boston in 1875 where he attended the Boston Latin School (1881) and Boston University (1883). In 1884 he entered Harvard University from which he graduated three years later with a dissertation on Talmudo-Rabbinical Eschatology. In 1885 he became a Christian convert from Judaism. Meanwhile, he devoted himself to the study of languages, including Hebrew, Sanskrit, Arabic, Latin, and Greek. At Harvard, Berenson had the opportunity to deepen his knowledge in various humanistic fields: he studied Dante and attended Charles Eliot Norton’s courses on Medieval and Renaissance art history. The works of Walter Pater and John Addington Symonds were also influential for him as well as his meetings with William James, the noted philosopher and psychologist. He was also an assiduous visitor to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. After graduation, Berenson hoped to travel to Europe on a grant from the University, but in this he was disappointed. However, thanks to a group of Bostonian donors, including his friend Edward Warren and the patron and collector Isabella Stewart Gardner, Berenson obtained the means for making the journey which saw the shift of his interests from literature to the visual arts — first via Impressionism and the Post-Impressionists and then to the Italian Renaissance. While in England in 1888, he met the learned and open-minded Mary Whitall Smith,2 whom he eventually married twelve years later and moved to the Villa I Tatti in Settignano (Florence). Although Berenson never received formal education in art history and always refused to be called a professor, he received honorary degrees from the universities of Paris (1955) and Florence (1956).3 A man of great charm,



1 The literature on Bernard Berenson is vast: Sprigge, Bernard Berenson; Mariano a, Forty Years with Berenson. The latter was published in the same year in New York, see Mariano b, Forty Years with Berenson, both with Clark’s introduction; two years later it came out in Italian with some changes from previous editions, see Mariano, Quarant’anni con Berenson with Anrep’s preface and Clark’s introduction. See also Samuels, Bernard Berenson. The Making of a Connoisseur; Samuels, Bernard Berenson. The Making of a Legend; Calo, Bernard Berenson and the Twentieth Century; Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, pp. 131–38 and in general; Cohen, ‘Bernard Berenson at Harvard College’; Cohen, Bernard Berenson. A Life; ‘Bernard Berenson’; ‘The Berensons’; Strehlke and Brüggen Israëls, eds, The Bernard and Mary Berenson Collection. 2 On Mary Whitall Smith, see Biographical Profile. 3 ‘Bernard Berenson’; verbal communication kindly provided to me by Giovanni Pagliarulo.

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intelligence, and rare intuition, he was in touch with the international intelligenzia of the time. He donated his wonderful villa to Harvard University which became the Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. At I Tatti BB, as he was known, received kings, princes, politicians, billionaires, scholars, and others of all nationalities; ‘si andava come si va a corte’ as Alvar González-Palacios remembers.4 Berenson acquired his international reputation thanks to the four volumes on Renaissance painters begun in 1894 with the Venetians and continued in 1896 and 1897 with two further volumes on the painters of Florence and Central Italy. The series concluded, not without difficulty, with the contribution on Northern Italy published more than ten years later.5 These volumes had a double-sided character. On the one hand, besides formulating the fundamental stylistic features of each school (such as the ‘tactile values’ of Florentine painting which elaborated the concepts of the German sculptor and critic, Adolf von Hildebrand as well as those of the American William James), the text provided the reader with brief profiles of each artist, which condensed their individual pictorial essence thanks to further cultural references ranging from Post-Impressionism to oriental art as well as to music and theatre. This is especially evident in the first volume, which was particularly indebted to the aesthetic views of Walter Pater. On the other, the volumes finished with the famous ‘lists’ which were based on Berenson’s pioneering analyses producing a virtual catalogue of artists’ works by name and subject. Between the first and second volumes of the Painters of the Renaissance, Berenson also addressed the question of connoisseurship in an essay dedicated to Lorenzo Lotto, published in 1895,6 which was specifically meant to perfect the methods of Giovanni Morelli and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle. It should be recorded that Mary’s active collaboration with Bernard in this undertaking is especially evident in the first volume of the Venetian Painters of the Renaissance, which was supposed to appear with a double authorship but was omitted in order to avoid possible scandal as Mary was still married to Frank Costelloe and had abandoned her family in order to follow Bernard to Italy. A first sign of unconventional interests with respect to Renaissance art emerged during the period from 1909 and 1917 and later in maturity, when Berenson was expanding his collection of Persian and Far Eastern objects which he purchased mainly from such Parisian dealers as Claude Anet, Léonce Rosenberg, and Charles Vignier. At I Tatti he exhibited them in close dialogue with the Italian paintings.7 4 ‘One went as if going to court’, see González-Palacios, Persona e maschera, p. 14. 5 See Berenson: The Venetian Painters; The Florentine Painters; The Central Italian Painters; North Italian Painters. 6 Berenson, Lorenzo Lotto; see also Trotta, Berenson e Lotto. 7 Casari, ‘Bernard Berenson and Islamic Culture’; Strehlke, ‘Bernard Berenson and Asian Art’; Casari, ‘Berenson e la Persia’; Nigro, ‘Bernard Berenson, Charles Vignier e i mercanti d’arte’.

3. Byzantine Vision of Bernard Berenson

As for Byzantine art, Berenson contributed to the discovery, knowledge, and proper evaluation of this artistic field which in Italy was more or less ignored during the first decades of the twentieth century. In a nationalist key, Fascist culture ostracized Byzantium in the name of Roman world supremacy.1 Though Berenson’s interest in the area may appear sporadic and superficial, he dedicated many years of his life to it as he declared more than once. In an unpublished letter of 1945 to Edward Waldo Forbes2 he wrote: for the last 25 years Byzantine art has been one of my most active and preoccupying interests. The book I was working on when I had to go into hiding was going to be in some part an evaluation of that art.3 During the Second World War, Berenson was hiding from the range of the gangs who, in the enjoyment of Nazi approval and support, could throw off the restraints of the more bourgeois elements of the Fascist régime, and return to the reckless violence with which it had started out.4 He was saved thanks to the Marchese Filippo Serlupi Crescenzi, Minister to the Holy See of the Republic of San Marino, who hosted both Berenson and Nicky Mariano5 in his villa Le Fontanelle above Careggi, the extraterritoriality of which was respected. It seems that they stayed there for over a year from 10 September 1943 to return to I Tatti on 23 September 1944, while Mary remained at I Tatti because bedridden.6

1 Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, pp. 131–38. 2 On Edward Waldo Forbes, see Biographical Profile. 3 See letter 12 June 1945: no. 53. 4 See Berenson’s preface written in 1947 to his Rumor and Reflection 1941:1944, p. 9. The book was published in New York in the same year with Berenson’s preface, see Berenson, Rumor and Reflection. The same book came out two years earlier in Italian, trans. by Alberti without Berenson’s preface, see Berenson, Echi e riflessioni (diario 1941–1944), trans. and Introduction by Alberti. 5 On Nicky Mariano, see Biographical Profile. 6 Berenson, Rumor and Reflection 1941: 1944, pp. 127–28; 377. See also Mariano a, Forty Years with Berenson, pp. 254–57; 262–65, who reports that they returned to I Tatti at the end of September 1944; Samuels, Bernard Berenson. The Making of a Legend, pp. 478–90. See BB’s letter to Forbes, 20 September 1944: no. 49.

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Despite disastrous events and forced isolation, it seems that Berenson was immersed in Byzantine history, as is clear from Nicky’s letter to Mary of 10 December 1943 in which she wrote that they read about Byzantine History, first Diehl’s Figures Byzantines very readable and amusing and this morning we have begun his Justinien7 which promises to be very good too.8 Berenson was so meticulous that in the first pages of Diehl’s books, now in the I Tatti library, he noted the end-of-reading date in one of them which coincides with that of Nicky’s letter. In 1948, Berenson returned to his interests in Byzantine art as shown in another unpublished letter to the honorable Robert Woods Bliss, co-founder with his wife Mildred Barnes9 of Dumbarton Oaks, writing: For many years past, I have been devoting my best energies to the study of oecumenical art from before Constantine the Great to beyond Justinian.10 ‘The Byzantine infection’11 as Berenson’s passion for the art of the Eastern Empire is ironically called, burst forth in the 1920s and accompanied him up to his last years. Previously, Berenson declared his view of Byzantine art in the volume on central Italian painters where he claimed that Duccio di Buoninsegna must have been trained by a Byzantine master, perhaps in Constantinople itself, given the revival of classical motifs in his works. Berenson considered him the last of the great artists of antiquity.12 An intimate relationship with Byzantine art was later discerned even in Pietro Cavallini, the only great medieval artist that Rome ever produced who, according to Berenson, was also trained by Greek masters.13 In 1920, Berenson wrote an essay on a triptych depicting Christ, St Peter and St James, at that time in the Carl W. Hamilton collection in New York, now in storage in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC: Berenson assigned it to a Byzantinizing artist, Cimabue, dating it to 1272.14 The same year, he wrote an

7 Diehl, Figures Byzantines; Figures Byzantines. Deuxième Série; Justinien et la Civilisation Byzantine. 8 Mariano a, Forty Years with Berenson, p. 258. See also Samuels, Bernard Berenson. The Making of a Legend, p. 479. 9 On the Blisses, see Biographical Profile. 10 See letter 2 February 1945: no. 140. 11 See George Francis Hill’s letter to Berenson, 4 February 1929: no. 237. On G. F. Hill, see Biographical Profile. 12 Berenson, The Central Italian Painters, pp. 41–42. 13 Berenson, ‘A Nativity and Adoration’, pp. 17–24, reprint in Berenson, Studies in Medieval Painting, pp. 33–37. Berenson, ‘Due dipinti del decimosecondo secolo’, pp. 284–304, especially pp. 301–04. The essay was reprinted in English with the title ‘Two TwelfthCentury Paintings’, in Berenson, Studies in Medieval Painting, pp. 1–16; Berenson, Estetica, etica, p. 288; Berenson, Aesthetics and History, pp. 177–78. 14 Berenson, ‘A Newly Discovered Cimabue’, pp. 251–71, reprint in Berenson, Studies in Medieval Painting, pp. 17–31; Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, pp. 136–37. The triptych (tempera on panel) now identified with Christ Blessing between Saint Peter and James Major (central

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article in English for Dedalo, the magazine directed by the writer, art critic, and journalist Ugo Ojetti (Rome, 1871–Fiesole, 1946), which was later published in Italian with the already mentioned title ‘Due dipinti del decimosecondo secolo venuti da Costantinopoli’.15 This essay is fundamental for framing Berenson’s interests on Byzantine art which was based on two versions of the Enthroned Madonna and Child at that time in the Otto Kahn and Hamilton collections in New York and now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The paintings were dated by him to no later than the year 1200 and assigned to a Constantinopolitan artist.16 This study is an explicit recognition of the leading role Byzantine art played in relation to that of the European Middle Ages, but his claims aroused much hostility in the Italian art-historical community where there was a fundamental opposition to Byzantium that had its roots in Vasari and the Renaissance tradition.17 Berenson hoped the trend which had brought many Italians to ignore and underestimate the influence of Byzantine art in Italy would be abandoned.18 Aside from rare exceptions, such as Pietro Toesca and Sergio Bettini,19 the distance in those years between Italy and the rest of the world regarding the perception of Byzantium can be seen in the unpublished letter which Paul Sachs20 sent to Berenson in 1948 concerning the reasons for the foundation of the newborn Dumbarton Oaks Center in Washington, DC devoted to the study of Byzantine civilization: This peculiar Greek and Christian Civilization exhibits in a sharp and arresting manner those classical and religious values which are at the root

panel, inv. no. 1937.1.2.b, overall 78.2 × 55.5 cm; left compartment, inv. no. 1937.1.2.a, overall 66.2 × 36.6 cm; right compartment, inv. no. 1937.1.2.c, overall 66.7 × 36.7 cm) was originally composed of five panels which included the Baptist now in Chambéry, Musée des BeauxArts (inv. no. M933) and a female saint (perhaps Ursula) today dispersed but known through an engraving. Before Berenson’s attribution, it was assigned to the Tuscan painter Margarito while today it is given to Grifo di Tancredi. It is thought to have been executed around 1310. See the online catalog of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC: Grifo di Tancredi, Christ Blessing; Saint Peter; Saint James Major, with bibliography. 15 Berenson, ‘Due dipinti del decimosecondo secolo’; see Berenson, ‘Two Twelfth-Century Paintings’, pp. 1–16. See Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, pp. 134–36. 16 Berenson, ‘Due dipinti del decimosecondo secolo’, p. 292; Berenson, ‘Two Twelfth-Century Paintings’, p. 7. The Kahn Enthroned Madonna and Child (inv. no. 1949.7.1, tempera on poplar panel, 124.8 × 70.8 cm) and the Hamilton Madonna and Child on a Curved Throne (inv. no. 1937.1.1, tempera on linden panel, 82.4 × 50.1 cm) are now dated to the second half of the thirteenth century. See Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, pp. 134–36; Corrie, ‘The Kahn and Mellon Madonnas’; Polzer, ‘Concerning Chrysography’; Nelson, R. S., ‘A Painting Becomes Canonical’, see the paintings cats. in ; [accessed 27 May 2021]. 17 Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, pp. 134–36; 182–88; Andaloro, ‘L’ellenismo a Bisanzio’, p. 96. See Vasari, Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori scultori e architettori, pp. 29–30. 18 See Berenson’s letter to Bettini, 17 March 1946: no. 131. 19 On Sergio Bettini, see Biographical Profile. 20 On Paul Joseph Sachs, see Biographical Profile.

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of our civilization and from which now the world is, to its own confusion, sadly adrift. In a certain sense Byzantium is still today the palladium of the humanities as it was throughout the Middle Ages.21 As an unpublished correspondence of the 1920s with the medievalist Arthur Kingsley Porter22 demonstrates, Berenson was meditating even then over the work on the millennium between Diocletian & Giotto which will sum up what I have to say about art eternal — as man is eternal — & art contingential [contingent] or casual’.23 Although it is not easy to interpret Berenson’s words, certainly he must have been thinking of a magnum opus; the many trips he made in those years in the ‘Byzantine’ Mediterranean territories, some of them together with Porter himself, such as the Greece exploration in 1923, were a stimulus and, at the same time, a necessity for the realization of such a volume. Berenson also refused to hold lectures at Harvard in 1928 as I must give my ever diminishing energies to finishing my lists, preparing the new Florent. [ine] Drawings24 and to reflecting on the above mentioned work for which he evidently must travel still & for a good part of each year, but I must go to learn & not to teach. Thus we [Bernard, Mary and Nicky Mariano] do hope to get at least to Constantinople & its coasts next Sept.[ember] & in the spring of ’29 to do Syria.25 In addition to such explorations as were actually carried out, together with those of the Byzantine monuments and works in Italy which Berenson had already visited in previous years, those in Egypt, Palestine, Yugoslavia, and Cyprus should be mentioned.26 Unfortunately, ‘the work on the millennium’

21 See letter 22 April 1946: no. 99. 22 On Arthur Kingsley Porter, see Biographical Profile. It should be noted that Kathryn Brush is currently writing a book exploring the life, career, and scholarship of Arthur Kingsley Porter, in which she discusses and analyses the relationship between Porter and Bernard Berenson. 23 See Berenson’s letter to Porter, 12 February 1928: no. 26. 24 See Berenson’s letter to Porter, 12 February 1928: no. 26. 25 See Berenson’s letter to Porter, 12 February 1928: no. 26. 26 Berenson visited Sicily several times: first in 1888, again in 1908, and finally in 1953. He saw the Norman mosaics at Monreale, the Palatine Chapel in Palermo and elsewhere. On his way there in 1908, he also went to Rossano in Calabria hoping to see the famous Codex Rossanensis (MS Σ 042, mid-sixth century), but was disappointed and did not see it until the 1953–1954 exhibition in Rome at Palazzo Venezia (see Mostra Storica Nazionale della Miniatura, exhibition catalogue, ed. by Muzzioli, cat. no. 3, pp. 5–6; pl. 3). Berenson’s failure to see the Rossano codex in 1908 has been explained by Cecilia Perri, deputy director of the Museo Diocesano e del Codex in Rossano where the manuscript is now preserved. At the time of Berenson’s visit, the codex was kept in the Episcopio close to the Cathedral of SS.

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was never realized despite Berenson’s efforts.27 A first stesura in manuscript dates from 1936 with the title Aesthetics and History: The Decline and Recovery of Form in the Arts of Visual Representation.28 In 1941 came a second stesura entitled Aesthetics, Ethics and History in the Arts of Visual Representation29 which was published only in 1948 in two different places: in Florence, with an Italian translation by Professor Mario Praz, as Estetica, Etica e Storia nelle Arti della Rappresentazione Visiva30 and in New York, as Aesthetics and History in the Visual Arts.31 It is not known why Berenson did not use the same title in both versions. The American edition was accompanied by illustrations and

Maria Achiropita, and was visible only after agreement with the bishop. After the discovery of the codex in 1831 in the sacristy by the canon of the cathedral, Scipione Camporota, the awareness of its value grew more and more, and it was kept under greater protection until, in 1952, it was transferred to the above-mentioned museum. On Rossano’s manuscript, see Speciale, ‘La musa Cristiana’; Speciale, ‘YΠOΘEΣIΣ KANONOΣ’. The trip to Egypt and Nubia was made between November 1921 and March 1922; a trip to Greece took place in 1888 at the age of twenty-three and again in April 1923 which lasted until early Summer. He visited Athens and also the Monastery of Hosios Loukas and Daphni. In mid-September 1928, for two months, Berenson left for Turkey and travelled to Adrianople (Edirne), Constantinople, Anatolia (Konia), Nicea (Iznik), Bursa and upon his return made stops at Thessaloniki and Athens. In April the following year it was the turn of Beirut, Jerusalem, Jerash, Jericho, Damascus, Palmyra, Antioch, Aleppo, Baalbek, Qalaat Semaan returning to Florence on 1 June 1929. In 1931 he visited Tunisia and Algeria; in April–May 1935 Libya (Tripolitania and Cyrenaica). In the Summer of 1936 he travelled along the Dalmatian coast and through Yugoslavia’s interior, from Pristina to Bled, and visited the medieval wall paintings in the Monastery of Gračanica, Peć, and Sopoćani. In 1937 he travelled to Cyprus, Rhodes, and Crete; in 1938 again to Rhodes and Asia Minor and a stop for a day in Constantinople; in May 1955 he returned to Libya to see Tripoli and Leptis Magna. See Berenson, Viaggio in Sicilia; Berenson, ‘Ritorno in Calabria’ (1955), in Bernard e Mary Berenson in Calabria, p. 48 and n. 20; Samuels, Bernard Berenson: The Making of a Legend, pp. 296–300; 310–13; 370–71; 424; Bernabò, ‘Michael Damaskenos’, in The Bernard and Mary Berenson Collection, Strehlke and Brüggen Israëls, eds, p. 233; Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, pp. 132–33; Cohen, Bernard Berenson. A Life, p. 199; Calvelli, ‘The Most Unspoiled of the Mediterranean Lands’; Casari, ‘Bernard Berenson and Islamic Culture’, p. 9 n. 34; Belamarić and Dulibić, ‘Bernard Berenson’s Journey to Yugoslavia’. See also correspondence and Spyros Koulouris’ essay in this volume. 27 Why Berenson did not complete the volume is unknown; the issue was discussed by Samuels, Bernard Berenson: The Making of a Legend, pp. 440–41 and then by Calo, Bernard Berenson and the Twentieth Century, pp. 124–42 in a not very convincing way. In this regard, see the more persuasive hypothesis of Mariano, Quarant’anni con Berenson, p. 320. 28 BBP, Box 174, folder 174.9, 4 May 1936. 29 The manuscript is in BBP, Box 175, folder 175.9. 30 Berenson, Estetica, etica. 31 Berenson, Aesthetics and History. It should be clarified that the English edition of Berenson’s volume did not come out in 1930 with the title Aesthetics, Ethics and History in the Arts of Visual Representation as erroneously noted by Sciolla, La critica d’arte del Novecento, p. 65, nor in London in 1948 with the same title as written by mistake by Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 137 n. 9; p. 403 and Andaloro, “L’ellenismo a Bisanzio”, ed. by A. C. Quintavalle, p. 113 n. 7. The London version of it came out in 1950 with the title Aesthetics and History (published by Constable).

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an index which, as Praz, wrote to Berenson, rendered it much more attractive than the Italian volume.32 As Berenson declared, his Estetica, Etica e Storia nelle Arti della Rappresentazione Visiva (or Aesthetics and History in the Visual Arts) was intended as an introduction to L’Arco di Costantino o Della decadenza della forma published later in Italian in 195233 and then in English in 1954.34 In all these essays Berenson returns to Byzantine themes, which are the basis of his project on the decline of classical form in late Antiquity and its recovery during the Middle-Ages.35 But the idea of an analysis of works from Diocletian to Giotto, as originally conceived, was changed to the period from Constantine to Charles V.36 According to Berenson, at the beginning of the period the ancient Mediterranean civilization was shrinking back to the lands of its origins between the Aegean and the Euphrates.37 The foundation of a capital on the Bosphorus was the consequence of this because the Western world was abandoned to itself except for brief moments. Between the fourth and sixth century the Near East was remarkably prosperous: the Byzantine court attracted the best energies of the empire; its art should be called Mediaeval (or Medieval)38 Hellenistic rather than Byzantine as this word seems to offend certain prejudices. But mediaeval as distinct from latest Hellenistic Art scarcely begins before the Justinian recovery in the middle of the VIth century.39 Even Berenson, therefore, entered the debate that was opened between the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in Europe about the role occupied by

32 BBP, Correspondence, folder 92.2, Mario Praz’s letter to BB, 20 January 1949. As far as is known the letter is unpublished. 33 Berenson, L’Arco di Costantino, translation from the then unpublished English manuscript by Vertova, p. 10 and n. 1. This volume’s introduction was written by Berenson in 1941. Luisa Vertova (Florence, 1921–2021), art historian and Berenson’s assistant from 1945. 34 Berenson, The Arch of Constantine, p. 6 and n. 1. 35 See in general all the volumes. 36 Berenson, L’Arco di Costantino, p. 6; Berenson, The Arch of Constantine, p. 2. The intent to realize a work on the decline of classical form in late Antiquity and its recovery during the Middle Ages was confirmed by Berenson also in a brief essay: Berenson, ‘Decline and Recovery in the Figure Arts’. 37 Berenson, The Arch of Constantine, p. 4; see also Berenson, L’Arco di Costantino, p. 8; Berenson, ‘Decline and Recovery in the Figure Arts’, p. 26. 38 Berenson also used the term Medieval (or mediaeval) Hellenistic, see Berenson, ‘Decline and Recovery in the Figure Arts’, p. 26; Berenson, Aesthetics and History, p. 183. 39 Berenson, The Arch of Constantine, p. 6. See also Berenson, L’Arco di Costantino, p. 10; Berenson, ‘Decline and Recovery in the Figure Arts’, p. 26; Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 138. On this subject see Bettini’s letter to BB, 10 December 1942: no. 120.

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Byzantium and the Near East during the early medieval period.40 It is interesting to note what he meant by Byzantine art as something distinct and broader than currently understood. The term Medieval Hellenistic is an unusual expression, perhaps until then unpublished (coined by BB?) in the field of art history, as can be deduced from a letter sent to him by Bettini.41 The term, however, seems to find precedents with variations, even if its origins remain unidentified. François Lenormant, French archaeologist and Assyriologist, in the second volume (1881) of his La Grande-Grèce: Paysages et Historie, in order to counter some contemporary Hellenic historians, who enhanced the iconoclastic emperors and their enterprises as representative of Hellenism, used the term ‘hellénisme byzantine’ as parvenu à faire une conquête durable sur le mond latin; il y a montré une puissance d’active vitalité de propagande et ďassimilation, égale a celle de l’hellénisme classique des grands siècles. Et cette conquète, si merveilleuse qu’elle a été longtemps méconnue comme impossible et qui était en même temps une conquète de la civilisation sur la barbarie, elle a été l’oeuvre de l’orthodoxie au moment même où les iconoclastes cherchaient à l’exterminer.42 Lenormant’s critique probably includes the father of modern Greek historiography: Constantine Paparrigopoulos. His 1865–1874 Ἱστορία τοῦ Ἑλληνικοῦ Ἔθνους. Ἀπό τῶν ἀρχαιοτάτων χρόνων μέχρι τῶν νεωτέρων,43 published in French in 1878,44 as Cyril Mango reports had the avowed purpose of re-establishing the unity of Hellenic civilization which, so he believed, formed an unbroken continuum from Homer to King Otto.45 Apparently, after centuries of Ottoman domination, the Greek empire had to give itself a culture: for this reason it was necessary to show that Byzantium had been thoroughly Greek, not only in language but also in spirit, in the essentials of its civilization.46

40 The literature on this debate is vast, cited here are: Andaloro, ‘Fra le pieghe della tarda antichità’, pp. 681–95, especially pp. 681–83; Iacobini, ‘La Sapienza bizantina’; Quintavalle, ‘Maria Andaloro e la lunga durata delle “figure”’, pp. 19–53, especially pp. 19–28. 41 See Bettini’s letter to Berenson 10 December 1942: no. 120. 42 Lenormant, La Grande-Grèce, 2, pp. 394–95. 43 Paparrigopoulos, Ἱστορία τοῦ Ἑλληνικοῦ Ἔθνους. 44 Paparrigopoulos, Histoire de la civilisation hellénique. 45 Mango, ‘Byzantinism and Romantic Hellenism’, p. 41. The scholar refers to the French version of Paparrigopoulos’ work Histoire de la civilisation hellénique which, as the latter wrote in the preface (pp. ix–x), was a résumé of the five volumes in Greek. 46 Mango, ‘Byzantinism and Romantic Hellenism’, p. 41. On this topic the literature is vast, see for example, Ricks and Magdalino, eds, Byzantium and the Modern Greek Identity and Marano, ‘“Ours Once More”? Byzantine Archaeology’.

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According to Paparrigopoulos, in the eighth century Hellenism gave birth to a most remarkable reform: iconoclasm. This scholar’s volume became one of the sacred texts of modern Greece and his thought, though eccentric, was continued by another influential Greek historian, Pavlos Karolidis.47 It is within the same context that Demetrios Bikelas considered medieval Hellenism like a cup of wine that had been poured into an amphora of water. The liquid thus obtained kept something of the colour and savour of wine, but its colour was pale and its savour insipid. A distillation lasting several centuries was needed for this liquid to regain its original consistency, in other words, for hellenism to reappear in its true form in modern Greece.48 It should be noted that Lenormant’s statement was later reported in a positive sense by the Russian scholar Nikodim Pavlovich Kondakov in his 1886 Histoire de l’art byzantin considéré principalement dans les miniatures49 the first manual on Eastern Christian art.50 Kondakov identified two golden periods of Byzantine art in which the influence of ancient art was strong: that of Justinian (end of the fifth century) up to the beginning of the seventh century, and the Macedonian age (end of the ninth) until the end of the twelfth century.51 In 1900, it is known that Kondakov’s pupil, Dmitrii Vlas’evich Ainalov, who in turn was Viktor Lazarev’s master, published a book in Russian52 in which he argued that Byzantine art from the sixth to the eleventh century owed its origins to the great Hellenistic Near Eastern cities of Alexandria and Antioch. For linguistic reasons, Ainalov’s work was hardly known in the West, although there was a German résumé by Oskar

47 See Mango, ‘Byzantinism and Romantic Hellenism’, 41 and Karolidis’ preface to the fourth edition of Paparrigopoulos’ Ἱστορία τοῦ Ἑλληνικοῦ Ἔθνους, 1, p. 5. 48 Mango, ‘Byzantinism and Romantic Hellenism’, pp. 41–42. 49 Kondakov’s work was first published in Russian in 1876 as История византийского искусства, transliteration: Istoriia vizantiiskogo iskusstva and trans. by Trawinski as Histoire de l’art byzantin in 1886–1891, 2 vols; see Kondakov, Histoire de l’art byzantin, 1, p. 156. See also Foletti, Da Bisanzio alla Santa Russia; Foletti, From Byzantium to Holy Russia, trans. by Melker. 50 Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 56 and n. 3. 51 Kondakov, Histoire de l’art byzantin, 1, trans. by Trawinski, pp. 106–07; 136 and in general chapter 4; Kondakov, Histoire de l’art byzantin, 2, trans. by Trawinski, pp. 1; 28 and in general chapters 6–8. The most comprehensive processing of this division into periods is later provided by Diehl, Manuel d’art byzantin (see ‘Livre II. Le premier age d’or de l’art byzantin’, p. 141 and passim; ‘Livre III. Le second age d’or de l’art byzantin époque des macédoniens et des comnènes (IXe-XIIe siècle)’, p. 365 and passim; ‘Livre IV. La dernière évolution de l’art byzantin (du milieu du XIIe siècle au milieu du XVIe siècle)’, p. 691 and passim) who places the Palaeologan period as the third golden age (the latter already well investigated by Millet, ‘L’art chrétien d’Orient’) and Dalton, Byzantine Art and Archaeology, pp. 1–37; see also Muratov, La Pittura bizantina, p. 31. 52 Ainalov, Эллинистические основы византийского искусства, transliteration: Ellinisticheskie osnovy vizantiiskogo iskusstva. A copy of the book is in Biblioteca Berenson.

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Wulff in 1903. It was not before 1961 that Ainalov’s volume gained a wider circulation in the English version edited and with a fine preface by Cyril Mango: The Hellenistic Origins of Byzantine Art. This version included changes and additions made by Ainalov himself.53 Returning to Berenson, it must be said that he probably did not know the above-mentioned Paparrigopoulos’ volume, which in fact his library does not own. Moreover, the term Medieval Hellenistic used by Berenson was not contaminated by the ideologies of Paparrigopoulos. Berenson, however, owned the above-mentioned Lenormant volumes, although research carried out by the present writer, did not provide data about the year of their acquisition. The only clue available is a date Berenson himself noted on the first page of the third volume of Lenormant’s work:54 5 May 1953. This date coincides with a period in which the scholar was travelling in southern Italy;55 certainly, he took with him the volume he already owned. As it turns out, Berenson had the first volume of Kondakov’s book, which also entered his library at an unspecified date; as suggested by Giovanni Pagliarulo, it was a Berensonian purchase, because of the label on the first page of ‘E. Torrini Legatoria Libri’ in Siena. Berenson was a customer of this store not only for the binding of books and their purchase as well as art objects. It is not known whether Berenson purchased Kondakov’s rare book there or elsewhere, but it is noteworthy that its print run was limited to twenty-five copies and Berenson’s copy was the last of the series. The Medieval Hellenistic term he used, seems therefore to evoke in part the line of studies promoted by scholars of the Russian school of art history cited above who considered Byzantine art as rooted in Hellenism and in the mature phases of Byzantium upon which Russian art history was based.56 Apparently Berenson knew Russian,57 and therefore we can assume that he also read Ainalov’s work of which he owned one of the few copies then circulating in Italy purchased in 1925 at the Librairie Ancienne & Moderne Française & Étrangère Paul Geuthner in Paris.58 In those years, however, as is clarified by a check of the so-called ‘Library Bills’, Berenson bought many other volumes on late-antique and Byzantine art including Alois

53 Ainalov, The Hellenistic Origins of Byzantine Art, ed. by Mango, trans. by E. and S. Sobolevitch; on this volume’s history see the ‘Editor’s Preface’, p. vii and n. 2; pp. viii–xv; Wulff, ‘Ainalow. D. Die hellenistischen Grundlagen der byzantinischen Kunst’. See also Andaloro, ‘Fra le pieghe della tarda antichità’, p. 681. 54 Lenormant, La Grande-Grèce, vol. 3. 55 See BBP: Series Diaries, BB Datebooks, 1953. 56 About this topic see Andaloro, ‘Fra le pieghe della tarda antichità’, p. 681. 57 Information kindly provided verbally by Mr. Vaslav Markevitch, son of the composer and conductor Igor Markevitch (Kiev, 1912–Antibes, 1983). Igor and Vaslav Markevitch were friends of Berenson with whom they sometimes spoke in Russian. 58 BBP, Library Bills: France 1925 (Box 8.23). Receipt of Paul Geuthner, 13, Rue Jacob, Paris VIe, 8 July 1925.

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Riegl’s Spätrömische Kunst-Industrie (1901–1923)59 and Josef Strzygowski’s controversial Orient oder Rom (1901), the latter coming from the dispersed Roman library of Count Grigorii Sergeevich Stroganov.60 It must be said that some Berensonian acquisition of books on Byzantium and surrounding areas were, and still are, hard to find outside I Tatti, including Fedor Ivanovich Uspenskii (Ouspensky, Th.), L’Octateuque de la Bibliothèque du Sérail à Constantinople (1907);61 Évangiles avec Peintures Byzantines du XIe Siècle. Reproduction des 361 Miniatures du Manuscrit Grec 74 de la Bibliothèque Nationale, edited by Henri-Auguste Omont [1908];62 Gertrude Lowthian Bell, Churches and Monasteries of the Tûr ‘Abdîn and Neighbouring Districts (1913);63 Egor Kuz’mich Redin, Христианская топография Козьмы Индикоплова по греческим и русским спискам (1916);64 Keppel Archibald Cameron Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture. Umayyads, Early ʻAbbāsids & Tūlūnids, 1, Umayyads 59 The first volume of Riegl, Die spätrömische Kunst-Industrie (1901) now in Biblioteca Berenson, was bought between July and October 1922, see Acquisition Book 1914–1925 (BBP, Box 13. volume 2); the second one, Die spätrömische Kunst-Industrie (1923) by Karl W. Hiersemann Buchhändler und Antiquar in Leipzig, on 26 November 1923, see Library Bills: Germany, 1923 (Box 8.9). Riegl’s first volume was published in Italian (trans. by Forlati Tamaro and Ronga Leoni) as Industria artistica tardoromana with Bettini’s introduction, pp. ix–lxi, for the series ‘Contributi alla Storia della Civiltà Europea’ (1953). The volume was published again as Arte tardoromana trans. and ed. by Collobi Ragghianti (1959). 60 See in general BBP, Library Bills, Box 8. As for Strzygowski’s book, Orient oder Rom, now in Biblioteca Berenson, it was purchased along with others from Libreria Antiquaria ed Editrice Dr Attilio Nardecchia, Rome, via dell’Università n. 11–14, on 15 May 1922; see BBP, Library Bills: Italy, 1922 (Box 8.4). On the first page of Strzygowski’s book is a record by Berenson dated 26 Febr. [uary] 1924 and 10 May 1944 that reads as follows: ‘Very good. The comments and underlinings are by Gregori Stroganoff to whom this volume belonged’. On the sale of the latter’s Roman library, see Kalpakcian, ‘La Biblioteca romana del conte G.S. Stroganoff (1829–1910)’. On the controversial Strzygowski publication cited here, see the recent contribution by Foletti and Lovino, ‘Introduction’. 61 Uspenskii’s book has a double title in French and Russian while the text is in Russian: L’Octateuque de la Bibliothèque du Sérail à Constantinople/Константинопольский Сералъский кодекс восьмикнижия, transliteration: Konstantinopolskii Seral’skii kodeks vos’miknizhiia. This book now in Biblioteca Berenson does not appear in the Library Bills but the presence of the old inventory number on the first page which bears a low number (5845), suggests an early Berensonian acquisition. The book also included an album (Al’bom) but it is not present in Biblioteca Berenson. 62 Omont, Évangiles avec Peintures Byzantines du XIe Siècle, 2 vols. The two books that do not bear the date of edition (which is probably 1908) and now in Biblioteca Berenson, were purchased from Bernard Quaritch Ltd, London, 11 Grafton Street, New Bond Street, W. 1, between 25 October and 10 November 1930, see BBP, Library Bills: England, 1930 (Box 9.22). 63 This book now in Biblioteca Berenson does not appear in the Library Bills but the presence of the old inventory on the back of the cover which bears a low number (5824), suggests an early Berensonian acquisition. 64 Redin, Христианская топография Козьмы Индикоплова по греческим и русским спискам, transliteration: Khristianskaia topografiia Koz’my Indikoplova po grecheskim i russkim spiskam. This book too does not appear in the Library Bills but the presence of the old inventory on the back of the cover which bears a low number (5085), suggests an early Berensonian acquisition. The book in now in Biblioteca Berenson.

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a.d. 622–750, with a contribution – by Marguerite Gautier van Berchem on the Mosaics of the Dome of the Rock and of the Great Mosque at Damascus (1932), the latter considered at the time as Byzantine.65 Also this book was a limited edition of 500 copies; Berenson’s copy was number 64 of the series as is shown at the beginning of the volume. Berenson was also a friend of another Russian scholar, Pavel Muratov,66 who in both La pittura russa antica (1925) and in La pittura bizantina (1928) confirmed the link between Eastern art and Hellenism. Muratov suggested the term ‘neo-Hellenistic’ for some twelfth century Russian murals such as those in Pskov, Staraya Ladoga, and Vladimir, which are characterized by rhythm and impressionism coming from that source. According to Muratov, the wave of Russian ‘neo-Hellenistic’ painting continued in the following century in Bulgaria (Boyana), Serbia (Sopoćani) and Italy preceding the so-called ‘Palaeologan Renaissance’ style. As for Italy, Venice and especially Pisa and perhaps Genoa should be added as ‘neo-Hellenistic’ centres.67 It should be noted that the term ‘Byzantine’ for Eastern Roman art did not suit another scholar and distinguished member of the so-called ‘Wiener Schule der Kunstgeschichte’: Julius von Schlosser. As we learn from both Bettini68 and Schlosser’s interesting essay of 1936 — perhaps among the less known — entitled ‘Von Wesen und Wert byzantinischer Kunst’, he seemed to prefer the term ‘rhomäische’.69 However, Bettini, whose research methods

65 As it appears from an invoice sent to Berenson on 11 June 1932 by Oxford University Press, London, Amen House, Warwick Square, EC 4, two copies of this book were ordered and sent to Berenson and Toesca. See BBP, Library Bills: England, 1932 (Box 10.6). In addition to the essay just mentioned by Gautier van Berchem on the mosaics of the Great Mosque of Damascus, pp. 229–52, see De Lorey and Gautier van Berchem, Les mosaïques de la Mosquée des Omayyades à Damas, pp. 1–17. This volume, extracted from Monuments et Mémoires published by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres now in Biblioteca Berenson, Asian & Islamic Collection, bears on the front page a dedication: ‘à Monsieur et Madame Berenson Souvenir reconnaissant des heures charmantes passées sous leur toit. Marguerite van Berchem Rome, janvier 1931’. 66 On Pavel Pavlovich Muratov, see Biographical Profile; see also Muratov’s letters to Berenson, 8 October 1925 and 23 January 1928: no. 205; no. 206. 67 Muratov, La pittura russa antica, translation of the Russian manuscript by Lo Gatto, see the volume in general and pp. 31–73; Muratov, La pittura bizantina, see pp. 35–38; 132–51 and passim. Muratov was referring to the murals in the Church of the Transfiguration of the Mirozhsky Monastery in Pskov; the Church of Saint George in Staraya Ladoga; the Cathedral of Saint Demetrius in Vladimir, and to the second layer of murals in the Church of Saint Nicholas and Saint Panteleimon, also known as Boyana Church in Bulgaria (1259) and to the Church of the Holy Trinity of the Sopoćani Monastery near Novi Pazar in Serbia (1263–1268). See also Bernabò’, ‘I libri di Pavel Muratov’, pp. 331–38. 68 See Bettini’s letter to Berenson, 10 December 1942: no. 120. 69 Schlosser, ‘Von Wesen und Wert byzantinischer Kunst’; see also Schlosser, ‘Di alcuni presupposti storici del linguaggio medioevale dell’arte’, trans. by Federici Ajroldi.

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especially for Byzantine art brought him close to the Vienna School and Schlosser himself, noted that this term aveva il difetto di non possedere […] nello stesso suo suono, quegli elementi di fortuna che spesso determinano la diffusione di una parola.70 According to Schlosser, only since the time of Emperor Heraclius (610) and again with the Macedonian dynasty which began after the Iconoclast controversy (867–1057) could one refer to a Byzantine culture and art — namely ‘östlichen Mittelalter’. In his view, at that time a process of Hellenization began together with a departure from the Romanesque West whereas the ‘rhomäisch’ East developed from late antiquity.71 It is noteworthy that Schlosser, unlike some contemporary Italian colleagues,72 praised Berenson’s writings on Byzantine art for their fine critical insight.73 Even Bettini found ‘Byzantine’ an unsatisfactory term for Eastern art in quanto non comprensivo dell’intero fenomeno storico in tutta la sua latitudine.74 But he was also discontented with Berenson’s proposal of ‘Medieval Hellenistic’ as an appropriate term although it was justified for the art of the so-called ‘second golden period’, but less so for either the early centuries up to the iconoclastic period, or for the provinces which remained outside Hellenistic taste: its recovery, however, predominated in the courtly school from the Macedonian period onwards.75

70 ‘it had the defect of not having […] in its sound itself, those elements of fortune which often determine the diffusion of a word’. See Bettini’s letter to Berenson, 10 December 1942: no. 120; Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 147. On Bettini’s interest in the masters of the Wiener Schule see Barral i Altet, ‘Prolusione. Bettini, Riegl e Focillon’. 71 Schlosser, ‘Von Wesen und Wert byzantinischer Kunst’, pp. 241–48; Schlosser, ‘Di alcuni presupposti storici del linguaggio medioevale dell’arte’, trans. by Federici Ajroldi, pp. 137–40; 165. 72 I am referring, in particular to Roberto Longhi and his Giudizio sul Duecento, which includes a sharp criticism especially in the 1947 Corollario — where he expresses a contempt for Byzantine art and its influence on medieval Italian art. Berenson instead recognizes its importance: see Berenson’s letters to Sergio Bettini, 17 March, 1946: no. 131; February 2, 1948: no. 136. In Longhi’s essay there is a veiled criticism of Berenson and his contributions on Byzantine topics. See also Bernabò, Ossessioni byzantine, p. 134. On the relationship between Berenson and Longhi, see Berenson and Longhi, Lettere e scartafacci, ed. by Garboli and Montagni. The literature on Roberto Longhi is vast, cited here is a book review published in recent times by Romano, ‘recensione a Il mestiere del conoscitore. Roberto Longhi’. 73 Schlosser, ‘Von Wesen und Wert byzantinischer Kunst’, pp. 255–58. It must be said that Villa I Tatti has three of Schlosser’s letters (BBP, Correspondence, folder 96.13), in one of which, dated Vienna, 12 November 1930, the scholar thanks Berenson for sending his Studies in Medieval Painting which includes essays on Byzantine topics. 74 ‘as it does not include the entire historical phenomenon in all its latitude’. See Bettini’s letter to Berenson, 10 December 1942: no. 120. 75 Bettini’s letter to Berenson, 10 December 1942: no. 120.

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Lastly, two years before Schlosser’s essay, young Ernst Kitzinger discussed his doctoral thesis in Munich on Römische Malerei vom Beginn des 7. bis zur Mitte des 8. Jahrhunderts.76 From then on, as it is well known, he made the persistence of Hellenism in Byzantine art his main field of study; he also claimed that Constantinople was the centre of this phenomenon starting from Heraclius’s time.77 We do not know if Berenson was aware of Kitzinger’s dissertation which is not present in his library and even today is difficult to find. Furthermore, there is no known correspondence between the two scholars.78 Berenson was acquainted, however, with the writings of André Grabar, with whom apparently he was in personal contact;79 Grabar devoted himself to the study of the same phenomenon with particular attention to court art.80 Finally, the essays of another emeritus scholar belonging to a generation just prior to that of Kitzinger were known to Berenson, namely, Kurt Weitzmann, whose research included the element of classical heritage in Byzantine art (and its relations with Western art) with particular attention to illustrated manuscripts.81 Berenson and Weitzmann met only once in Rome82 on a very special occasion: the preview of the aforementioned Mostra Storica Nazionale della Miniatura (1953–1954),83 which was open to very few visitors including the Queen of Greece. Weitzmann, then professor at Princeton, mentioned that Berenson was accompanied by Meta Harrsen from the Morgan Library who introduced the two.84 The scholar was impressed by Berenson’s acquaintance with his writing, although he was not a specialist on Byzantium.85 The latter kindly invited Weitzmann to visit him at I Tatti but he ‘never had the chance to accept this tempting offer’.86

76 Published Munich, 29 November 1934. 77 See Andaloro, ‘L’ellenismo a Bisanzio’, pp. 96–116, especially pp. 96; 102–03. 78 The bibliography of Kitzinger in Biblioteca Berenson in his day consisted of: Early Medieval Art in the British Museum; ‘Studies on Late Antique and Early Byzantine Floor Mosaics’; ‘The Cult of Images in the Age before Iconoclasm’. 79 At I Tatti I did not find the correspondence between the two scholars but in a letter from Berenson to Bettini dated 2 February 1948 published here: no. 136, he writes: ‘André Grabar has been here & went to Rome to lecture’. 80 Grabar, L’Empereur dans l’art byzantin. On the bibliography of Grabar at the Biblioteca Berenson see website [accessed 3 June 2021]. 81 The bibliography of Weitzmann is vast. Here titles are cited which are found in Biblioteca Berenson belonging to Berenson’s time: Die armenische Buchmalerei; Die byzantinische Buchmalerei; Illustrations in Roll and Codex (2nd edn with Addenda; Le illustrazioni nei rotoli e nei codici, Italian trans. and ed. by Bernabò); The Joshua Roll; Greek Mythology in Byzantine Art; The Fresco Cycle of S. Maria di Castelseprio. 82 Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 132; See Weitzmann, Sailing with Byzantium from Europe to America, p. 237. 83 See p. 26 n. 26. 84 Weitzmann, Sailing with Byzantium from Europe to America, p. 237. 85 Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 132; Weitzmann, Sailing with Byzantium from Europe to America, p. 237. 86 Weitzmann, Sailing with Byzantium from Europe to America, p. 237.

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In fact Berenson had a wide knowledge of the subject and Weitzmann’s background, as well as his academic entourage which was familiar to him. Previously, Berenson had been in contact with Weitzmann’s master, Adolph Goldschmidt: he also owned the two volumes on Byzantine ivories which Goldschmidt had written together with his pupil.87 Berenson was also in contact with Ernest Theodore DeWald88 and Charles Rufus Morey,89 both professors in the Princeton Department of Art and Archaeology. It should be noted that Berenson later suggested and promoted the creation of a similar corpus on the late antique and early Christian ivories sponsored by Dumbarton Oaks with which the art historian Wolfgang Fritz Volbach90 was involved. Unfortunately, the project was aborted: a corpus of early Christian and early medieval ivories had been prepared at the same time by the classical philologist Edward Capps under Morey’s supervision,91 but it too was not published.92 Goldschmidt visited Berenson in Settignano in 1934: the sojourn had particularly pleased him, as he wrote later to his host from the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome thanking him for the hospitality and praising Villa I Tatti as ‘eine ideale Residenz’.93 Even if today Berenson’s idea of Eastern art as ‘Mediaeval Hellenistic’ can no longer be supported,94 the central motive of his critical activity is still valid as a starting point for the defense of classicism. A passionate defense, as Bottari rightly noted, which had nothing of academicism, but was pervaded by an ethical interest: the defense of freedom, of human personality, of reason. On these premises, the contact with the work of art was never professional, but a human and spiritual meeting, a way to enhance one’s own vitality and increase one’s own experiences.95 This approach and the importance Berenson

87 The first volume of Goldschmidt and Weitzmann, Die byzantinischen Elfenbeinskulpturen des X.-XIII. Jahrhunderts. Kästen was ordered from Schneider & Amelang/Buchhandlung in Berlin, on 31 December 1930, see BBP, Library Bills: Germany, 1930 (Box 9.23); the second one, Die byzantinischen Elfenbeinskulpturen des X.-XIII. Jahrhunderts. Reliefs from Josef Kende Buchhandlung in Vienna, on 25 January 1935, see BBP, Library Bills: Others, 1935 (Box 10.24). The two books are now in Biblioteca Berenson. 88 On Ernest Theodore DeWald, see Biographical Profile. See DeWald’s letters to Berenson, 18 December 1944 and 7 January 1947: no. 247; no. 248. 89 On Charles Rufus Morey, see Biographical Profile. See BB’s letter to Robert Woods Bliss, 7 February 1946: no. 149. 90 On W. F. Volbach, see Biographical Profile. See Berenson’s letters to Volbach, 18 July and 12 August 1943: no. 110; no. 112 and in general the fragmentary correspondence between the two and that with Robert Woods Bliss. See also Morey’s letter to Volbach, 12 March 1946: no. 116. 91 See BB’s letter to Robert Woods Bliss, 9 April 1945: no. 143; Morey to Volbach, 12 March 1946: no. 116. 92 See Volbach’s letter to BB, 16 December 1951: no. 119. 93 Goldschmidt’s unpublished letter to Berenson dated Rome, 5 May 1934 is located in BBP, folder 58.22. Samuels, Bernard Berenson: The Making of a Legend, p. 405 mentions Golschmidt’s visit to Berenson. 94 Andaloro, ‘L’ellenismo a Bisanzio’, p. 98. 95 Bottari, ‘Bernard Berenson’, pp. 201–08.

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attributed to the so-called ‘tactile values’,96 may explain the scholar’s empathy with the Russian school’s theories,97 his being openly anti-Strzygowskian98 and diverging from the thoughts of Franz Wickhoff and Riegl.99 Berenson’s love and knowledge of classical culture is also stressed in his writings: he always used ancient toponyms, Latin and Greek words, as a

96 According to Berenson, when one is dealing with artwork one must have the illusion of being able to touch its represented figures (that is why the tactile adjective) which must therefore be able to provide the viewer with strong and effective emotions. See in general, Berenson, The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance; Berenson, Estetica, etica, pp. 93–115; Berenson, Aesthetics and History, pp. 63–76. On Berenson’s ‘tactile values’, see as examples: Sciolla, La critica d’arte del Novecento, pp. 61–65 and Brown A., ‘Bernard Berenson and “Tactile Values”’. 97 According to Andaloro, ‘Fra le pieghe della tarda antichità’, p. 681, Berenson in defining Eastern art as mediaeval is emphatically with Ainalov and against Riegl. Samuels, Bernard Berenson: The Making of a Legend, p. 405 seems to mention a visit by Golschmidt’s to Berenson in 1933. 98 Berenson, who was well acquainted with Josef Strzygowski’s writings, defined him as the ‘Attila of art history’. The scholar believed that Strzygowski’s theories, according to which the origins of Christian art were not to be found in Rome but in the East in the cities of Alexandria, Antioch, and Ephesus, and then in the Aryan races of Iran and Northern Europe, anticipated those of Nazism. On the subject, see Berenson, Estetica, etica, pp. 30–31; Berenson, Aesthetics and History, pp. 26–27; Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, pp. 71; 79–83. Strzygowski’s name is mentioned in some correspondence published here in a negative sense: see BB’s letter to Porter, 12 February 1928: no. 26; Porter to BB, 26 November 1928: no. 30; 22 March 1929: no. 34; Bettini to BB, 10 December 1942: no. 120. 99 As is known, in the late Antique debate both Wickhoff, ‘Der Stil der Genesisbilder und die Geschichte seiner Entwicklung’, (reprint as Wickhoff, Römische Kunst (Die Wiener Genesis), ed. by Dvořák; Italian trans. by M. Anti as Arte Romana, ed. by C. Anti) and Riegl, Die spätrömische Kunst-Industrie, 1 in opposition to Strzygowski claimed Rome as the creator of Christian art. Berenson, who knew both works (and not only these) defined the first as ‘brilliantly shallow and misguided’ and the second, the most ‘stimulating and suggestive ever written’ in the field of archaeology. However, the scholars’ speeches ‘about deliberately thought-out preference for the play of light and shade and emancipation from background with the consequent abstraction of space, attributed [by Riegl] to the artists of late Antiquity and for the “impressionism” and “illusionism” ascribed to them [by Wickhoff]’ compared to the Classical era, appeared to Berenson to be unfounded. An example is the analysis of the Constantine Arch reliefs, in which Riegl saw the search for colour effects aiming at giving an optical impression to them, not tactile as in the Classical period, thereby anticipating Medieval art and demonstrating their own Kunstwollen. On the contrary, Berenson considered these reliefs to be decadent, because they had moved away from the model and were produced by simple artisans, not the creation of the best sculptors of the time. He agreed that the Constantinian age had its own style, or rather a manner, but he wondered if the men of that era were aware of it. See Berenson, The Arch of Constantine, pp. 18–24; Berenson, L’Arco di Costantino, pp. 22–27. See also Berenson, Aesthetics and History, pp. 30; 226–27; Berenson, Estetica, Etica, pp. 37–38; 371–73; Riegl, Die spätrömische Kunst-Industrie, 1, pp. 46–51. It is interesting to note the first page of Riegl’s volume belonging to Berenson bears an annotation of the latter recording when he began to read it, 23 November 1923 and when finished, 9 January 1924, with consultations on 22 August of the same year and in August 1926 and 1928. Within the volume, next to the text, Berenson introduced here and there comments and question marks.

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distinctive trait which was common among intellectuals of the time and in some of his correspondents. As evidence of how the feeling towards the ancient world was rooted in Berenson, there is a noteworthy mention in a letter written to Porter, while the former was in Naples in 1926. Berenson urged his friend to go there and to Sicily If you wish to see deeper into the question of what happened to European Art between 300 & 1300 […] & learn something to your advantage. My conclusion is that Greek art until about 1300 remained the dominant art to the south of Rome until about 1300 [sic], & that far from suffering much change fr. [om] Northern & Western influences, it was the art of these regions, as part of Medieval Greek in general, that moulded & shaped the barbarous & rude but vigorous spirits of the North and West.100

100 BB’s letter to Porter, 12 June 1926: no. 19.

4. B  ernard Berenson, Thomas Whittemore, and San Marco in Venice

One of Berenson’s worries, in addition to not having finished the volume on the decline of classical form in late antiquity and its recovery in the Middle Ages was, as shown by the correspondence published here, the tormented professional relationship with another influential figure of Byzantine art: Thomas Whittemore.1 Unfortunately, the existing documents do not yield much further information on the dynamics of their relationship, which seem to have been rather variable. In this regard Nicky Mariano pointed out a curious thing that happened during their trip to Turkey in 1928: The visit to the Seljuk monuments of Konia was made difficult by the military authorities and we had to leave without seeing the finest of them. B.B. was sorely disappointed and got it into his head that the superintendent of Fine Arts in Constantinople was behind all this and had been instructed by Mr Thomas Whittemore to let B.B. see as little as possible of Seljuk antiquities. Whether B.B. was right in having this suspicion I cannot say but several baffling experiences we had at Yildiz Kiosk and later at Brussa seemed to give support to it. What Mr Whittemore could have been afraid of is difficult to imagine, for although B.B.’s interests were very wide-spread he had no thought at that time of publishing things outside his own parish. Many years later he did discuss other periods of art in Aesthetics and History and in the Arch of Constantine but certainly never with the purpose of announcing some newly discovered treasure before anybody else could do so. Perhaps it was simply a question of personal antipathy or jealously going back to the days when Whittemore had been at the feet of Isabella Gardner and had resented her great regard and affection for B.B.2 Whittemore’s name however is for various reasons the leitmotiv in the correspondence between Berenson and some of his interlocutors starting from the 1930s.3 On 4 March 1946, as Berenson wrote to Bettini in an unpublished letter,



1 See Biographical Profile. 2 See Mariano a, Forty Years with Berenson, p. 189; Mariano, Quarant’anni con Berenson, p. 212. 3 See Edward W. Forbes’s letter to BB, 24 September 1935: no. 44; 4 April 1945: no. 52; 30 July 1945: no. 54; BB to Forbes, 14 July 1946: no. 56; 8 December 1946: no. 58; Forbes to BB, 23 January 1947: no. 59; BB to Forbes, 23 January 1947: no. 60; Forbes to BB, 8 May 1947:

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4. bernard berenson, thomas whittemore, and san marco in venice

Whittemore ‘on his way to Constantinople’,4 where he directed the restoration and conservation of Hagia Sophia and its rediscovered mosaics,5 stopped at I Tatti the previous day. Whittemore was curious to know what Bettini had written about him in an article of 1939 in the magazine Felix Ravenna.6 Moreover, as Berenson’s correspondence to Whittemore shows, there was promise of collaboration between them7 which was however abandoned. As BB wrote to Forbes on 8 December 1946, About a year ago Whittemore appeared, promised to send me reports, pamphlets, to work with me, & disappeared utterly. No word from him since.8 An attitude rather typical of Whittemore who was described as an elusive and enigmatic person9 so much that Edward Waldo Forbes described him as a little like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, in whose mouth, I think, the poet places these words: ‘I pass like night from land to land’.10 It seems that Whittemore’s attitude was due to his excessive sense of privacy which changed over the years into the legendary mystery fanned by his sudden arrivals and sudden departures.11 What was involved in the collaboration between Berenson and Whittemore is not known; probably it concerned the conservation and restoration of San Marco in Venice after the Second World War. Although the famous building remained unharmed by the bombings, its foundations, walls, mosaics, marbles, floors and domes were in poor



4 5



6 7 8 9

10 11

no. 62; 17 May 1947: no. 63; 28 May 1947: no. 62; 30 October 1950: no. 65; 22 March 1957: no. 71; Paul Sachs to BB, 5 March 1938: no. 95; 16 November 1945: no. 96; BB to Sachs, 24 February 1946: no. 97; Sachs to BB, 22 April 1946: no. 99; BB to Sachs, 8 May 1946: no. 100; Sergio Bettini to BB, 12 March 1946: no. 129; BB to Whittemore, 14 March 1946: no. 130; BB to Bettini, 11 May 1946: no. 132; Bettini to BB, 18 May 1946: no. 133; Mildred Barnes Bliss ‘Thomas Whittemore An Evocation’: no. 156; John Walker to BB, 6 March 1947: no. 160; 12 March 1947: no. 161; Marie Beale to Mildred Barnes Bliss, 14 March 1947: no. 162; BB to Walker, 16 March 1947: no. 163; 20 March 1947: no. 164; Eric Maclagan to BB, 9 October 1937: no. 193; Royall Tyler to BB, 13 November 1936: no. 201. See Berenson’s letter to Bettini, 3 March 1946: no. 128. On this topic see Whittemore: The Mosaics of St Sophia at Istanbul. Preliminary Report; The Mosaics of St Sophia at Istanbul. Second Preliminary Report; The Mosaics of Hagia Sophia at Istanbul. Third Preliminary Report; The Mosaics of Hagia Sophia at Istanbul. Fourth Preliminary Report. Berenson’s letter to Bettini, 3 March 1946: no. 128. See Berenson’s letter to Whittemore, 14 March 1946: no. 130. See Berenson’s letter to Forbes, 8 December 1946: no. 58. See Forbes’s letters to Berenson, 5 December 1946: no. 57; 17 May 1947: no. 63; as an example, see Constable, L. E., ‘Dumbarton Oaks and Byzantine Field Work’, p. 171; Nelson, R. S., Hagia Sophia, 1850–1950, p. 156; Butler, L. E., ‘Whittemore, Thomas’, p. 217; Klein, ‘Tarifi Zor Bay Whittemore’ – ‘The Elusive Mr Whittemore’, pp. 467; 480. See Forbes’s letter to BB, 5 December 1946: no. 57. Nelson, R. S., Hagia Sophia, 1850–1950, pp. 155–56; see also Mildred Barnes Bliss ‘Thomas Whittemore An Evocation’: no. 156.

4. bernard berenson, thomas whittemore, and san marco in venice

condition. As San Marco’s Proto Luigi Marangoni described in his booklet of 1946, the Procuratoria three years earlier for lack of funds had been forced to lay off the most specialized thirty workers at its disposal. The following year nine were rehired, but they were quite insufficient to meet the needs of the building’s restoration.12 Berenson actively fought to continue the work so that in Washington, DC a Committee Pro San Marco Incorporated was created with the objective of raising funds in the face of a bankrupt Italy.13 In this matter, Whittemore seems to have played a fundamental role, as the funds collected by the American philanthropist Marie Truxtun Beale14 had to be paid for tax reasons to the Byzantine Institute he directed; thus he had the last word on whether or not to continue San Marco’s restoration work. From a letter of John Walker,15 then curator of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC to BB, we learn that Whittemore would make a decision after a personal inspection during Spring 1947.16 This situation annoyed Berenson, who monitored San Marco’s condition through Marangoni, who believed the work could not be delayed. Berenson wrote to Walker that the preservation of San Marco was more important than the preservation of any monument damaged by the war. If San Marco should collapse it could never be restored; for it is not only a great masterpiece of architecture but a great work of art universal. It is also after after Santa Sophia of Constantinople, the most characteristic & the most marvellous Byzantine building in all the world. I am not even sure that we should place it after Santa Sophia. That building is grander no doubt because vaster, but is as architecture more transitional & therefore of more uncertain effect, as an exterior of engineering interest only, & the interior is now shell: desolate, squalid, bare empty and irremediably so. Manifestation of the Divine has abandoned it & will not return. San Marco on the contrary is full of it.17

12 In this regard, compare Marangoni, La Basilica di San Marco in Venezia. Urgenza di provvedimenti with Italian, French, and English text, p. 7 and the booklet in general. A copy of it is in Biblioteca Berenson, Collezione Papiniana and bears on the front page a dedication: ‘A Bernard Berenson deferente omaggio di Luigi Marangoni’ 21 ott. [obre] 1946’. 13 See BB letters to John Walker, 1 March 1947 and 3 March 1947: no. 158; no. 159. 14 See Marie Beale’s letter to BB, 23 April 1947: no. 165. On Marie Truxtun Beale (née Marie Chase Oge), see Biographical Profile. 15 On John Walker, see Biographical Profile. 16 Walker’s letter to BB, 12 March 1947: no. 161. 17 See BB’s letter to Walker, 3 March 1947: no. 159. In 1954 Berenson also wrote an article for the newspaper Corriere della Sera entitled ‘San Marco, Tempio e Museo Bizantino’, where he reaffirmed that it was the most typical and enjoyable Byzantine building still extant. In this regard, see also Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, pp. 138; 222–23. A copy of the article is in BBP, Box 141, folder 10. In BBP, Research and Writings BB/BB Publisher writings, Box 141, folder 10 there are also the drafts of the text on San Marco which was then published in Italian in the Corriere della Sera and of which a previous version in English is published here, see Appendix.

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This statement was probably due to the fact that Berenson visited the Megale Ekklesia in 1928 when it was still a mosque18 and its condition was not at its best; furthermore the interior mosaics had not yet been entirely rediscovered and restored. From the Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul, Berenson wrote to Porter a letter in which he ironically reported we [namely Berenson and Sir Eric Maclagan,19 who joined him there for ten days] Byzantize fiercely;20 but later, he confessed to Sachs despite all the masterpieces of Greek sculpture, despite Sta. Sophia & the other Byzant. [ine] Churches & fragments of sculpture, that it is the mosques which interest me most. They attain to effects of space that satisfy me better on the whole than any we have in Europe.21 Berenson’s impression of Hagia Sophia was also expressed to his friend Charles Henry Coster:22 it is perhaps the most sumptuous building interior I have ever seen. But as a space-effect several mosques of Sinan [sixteenth-century Ottoman architect] and his pupils here and in Adrianople seem far more successful.23 In 1938 Berenson, returning from Smyrne, stopped one day in Constantinople and revisited Hagia Sophia: things did not seem to have changed and in a letter to the art historian Louis Gillet, he wrote with a heartfelt tone: I write to urge you to go and see and tell the world what you think. It will be what every cultivated person must think. This noblest temple

18 On March 1934 by Kemal Atatürk’s presidential decree Ayasofya Camii was transformed into a museum. See Labrusse and Podzemskaia, ‘Naissance d’une vocation’, p. 51 n. 39; see also Mango, Materials for the Study of the Mosaics of St Sophia, p. 5 and Nelson, R. S., Hagia Sophia, 1850–1950, p. 180 and n. 182, who reports 1935 as the date of transformation and opening into a museum of Santa Sophia. Santa Sophia is currently a mosque again (Ayasofya Camii). 19 On Sir Eric Maclagan, see Biographical Profile. 20 See BB’s letter to Porter, 27 September 1928: no. 27. 21 See BB’s letter to Sachs, 13 October 1928: no. 89. 22 Charles Henry Coster (1897–1977), Harvard graduate in 1920, he was US Vice Consul in Florence (c. 1926–1927) and historian. See ‘Introduction’, in The Letters Between Bernard Berenson and Charles Henry Coster, ed. by Constable, pp. ix–xviii. 23 BB’s letter to Charles Henry Coster from the Péra Palace Hotel Constantinople, 3 October 1928. The letter is published in McComb, ed. a, The Selected Letters of Bernard Berenson, pp. 104–05 and in Constable, ed., The Letters Between Bernard Berenson and Charles Henry Coster, pp. 8–9. The above excerpt from BB’s letter to Coster is also published in Samuels, Bernard Berenson: The Making of a Legend, p. 370. As for McComb’s volume it should be noted that there are two versions: one published in 1964 including an epilogue by Nicky Mariano, and the other one in 1965 without it. The copyright © 1963 by Houghton Mifflin Company is shown on the title page of both volumes but a previous edition has not been found.

4. bernard berenson, thomas whittemore, and san marco in venice

in Christiandom, this house of prayer and uplifting of the soul to God under no matter what appellation, this space which has been filled with the audible yearnings of millions of hearts, has been reduced to a garish, shabby, dreary, empty ‘Muze’, which looks as cheerful as a store-house emptied of wares, and as dreary as an opera house where nothing has been given for years. […] Perhaps that is what the present Turkish regime wants, but surely it would be an irreparable loss to us who still live and breathe with the organs perfected by Greece and Judea. You should be sent there and write diplomatically appreciative articles on Turkish conditions, and an appeal to Ateturk to save Sta. Sophia by restoring it to worship, whether of ‘Mahound’ or Christ.24 We do not know if Whittemore carried out the Marciana basilica inspection; as shown by unpublished documents that are kept in the Archivio Storico della Procuratoria di San Marco in Venice25 and in Decatur House Washington, DC former residence of Marie Beale, the funds were not granted to the Byzantine Institute, but to the restoration directed by the American Committee and by Beale herself. In 1948, the latter collected twenty thousand dollars, of which five thousand three hundred were her personal contribution. The sum was to be used exclusively to pay the workers hired for the project.26 According to Ferdinando Forlati, at that time Soprintendente and acting Proto after Marangoni’s resignation in 1948, the most urgent works were the restoration of the arches and the adjacent vault in correspondence to the Dalle Masegne iconostasis.27 During the restorations, which lasted for twenty years,28 a Libro d’Oro was written commemorating all the benefactors including Berenson.29 A plaque was dedicated to Marie Beale in the local Tesoro and honorary Venetian citizenship was awarded to her two years later.30

24 See BB’s letter to Louis Gillet, 1 June 1938: no. 105. On Gillet, see Biographical Profile. 25 The documents were kindly put at my disposal by Antonella Fumo, architect and head of the Archivio della Procuratoria di San Marco referring to: ASPSM, Sezione documenti, seconda metà del 1900. 26 DHC at the Decatur House in Washington, DC (owned by the National Trust and operated by the White House Historical Association), Comune di Venezia. Estratto dal verbale del Consiglio seduta del 27 dicembre 1951. 27 ASPSM, Sezione documenti, seconda metà del 1900. 28 On San Marco restoration reports, see in Arte Veneta review covering the period from 1948 to 1970, and collected in a volume with further details: Forlati, La Basilica di San Marco, with a preface by Demus. 29 ASPSM, Sezione documenti, seconda metà del 1900. On the funds relating to the restoration of San Marco, see BBP, folder 106.9 and folder 106.10. There are nine letters from Marie Beale to Berenson, one of which is published here (see no. 165) and a copy of a letter from Luigi Marangoni to Marie Beale in which he thanked her for the sum raised by the Committee she had organized. In folder 106.9 there is also a photo of Marie Beale in a gondola in Venice (see Fig. 49) on the back of which is a handwritten note to BB: ‘Dec. [ember] 1949 With warm greetings to you for the New Year and a thousand thanks for your work. Marie Beale’. 30 ASPSM, Sezione documenti, seconda metà del 1900; DHC at the Decatur House in Washington, DC, Comune di Venezia. Estratto della deliberazione Consigliare in data 27 dicembre 1951.

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4. bernard berenson, thomas whittemore, and san marco in venice

Berenson’s love of Byzantine art was therefore not limited to theoretical reflections, but also to active research: in addition to being himself promoter of studies in this field, to fight for the protection and preservation of Byzantine works, he also helped scholars to publish their contributions. Knowing of his great interest in Byzantine art, Lazarev turned to Berenson for help to find a reliable publisher for the manuscript of his ‘Byzantine Painting’ which had lain in the Pantheon publishing house, ready to be printed, ever since 1932.31 Finally, as already mentioned, Berenson collected many photographs which are stored in Villa I Tatti. It is curious to note that Berenson chose as a guide to Byzantine Constantinople the photos his friend Porter gave him.32 And although Berenson was not a specialist in Byzantine art, he enjoyed so much esteem that he was asked for his opinion on the attribution of art objects: in short an actual reference point for the intellectual world of the period. Berenson’s interest in Byzantine art is also linked — albeit to a much more marginal extent than one might think — to collectors. His role as a consultant for many famous collectors certainly gave him access to many Byzantine objects (ivories, sculpture, illuminated manuscripts, etc.), that were circulating in the international art market. In the Berenson collection itself, which mainly includes Italian Renaissance masterpieces and Oriental art, some Byzantine and post-Byzantine works are to be found, such as a Virgin and Child of the Venetian-Adriatic School (c. 1340–1360), San Simeon Receiver of God (Saint Simeon Theodochos) recently attributed to Michael Damaskenos (1567–1583 or 1591), and two illuminated sheets from a Gospel by an Armenian artist active in 1311.33 Before 1942, in the Big Library of I Tatti there was a further panel painting with a Virgin and Child assigned to an Italo-Byzantine milieu (c. 1340–1360) and donated after Berenson’s death to his doctor Alberto Capecchi.34 The panel was purchased at a Pandolfini auction in Florence in 2011 as a fifteenth-sixteenth century Venetian-Dalmatian work.35

31 See Viktor Lazarev’s undated letter to BB: no. 243. See Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 133. Unfortunately Berenson’s reply was not found and we know that Lazarev’s work would be printed in Russian in two volumes in 1947–1948: Lazarev, История византийской живописи, transliteration: Istoriia vizantiiskoi zhivopisi; Italian trans. (ed. revised and expanded by the author), Storia della pittura bizantina. 32 See BB’s letter to Porter, 27 September 1928: no. 27. 33 See Strehlke, ‘Venetian-Adriatic School’, in Strehlke and Brüggen Israëls, eds, The Bernard and Mary Berenson Collection, pp. 630–31, pl. 109; Bernabò, ‘Michael Damaskenos’, in Strehlke and Brüggen Israëls, eds, The Bernard and Mary Berenson Collection, pp. 232–33, pl. 30, Merian, ‘T’oros sarkawag’, in Strehlke and Brüggen Israëls, eds, The Bernard and Mary Berenson Collection, pp. 595–99, pl. 100. 34 Strehlke and Brüggen Israëls, ‘48. Italo-Byzantine’, in Strehlke and Brüggen Israëls, eds, The Bernard and Mary Berenson Collection, p. 746. 35 See Pandolfini. Casa d’Aste, lot no. 444 ,p. 242.

4. bernard berenson, thomas whittemore, and san marco in venice

Finally, it is interesting to point out, with regard to the aforementioned San Simeon, Berenson himself asked for an opinion of a Byzantinist, Gabriel Millet,36 as can be deduced from an unpublished letter of the latter, who replied Votre Saint Siméon a des sécheresses qui feraient penser à une retouche. Le modèle schématique et hésitant contraste avec la finesse du décor dans le fond. S’il n’y a pas de retouches j’hésiterai à remonter au delà du XIVe s.[iècle.]37

36 On Gabriel Millet, see Biographical Profile. 37 Unfortunately Berenson’s letter was not found, see Millet’s letter, 27 November 1923: no. 202.

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Spyro s Koulouri s

5. Capturing the Byzantine World

The first time I go to an unusual place, the Scandinavian lands, North Africa, Egypt, the Near East, the utmost I carry away is an idea of what to see and what to study on my next visit. But there has been no second visit. Long ago I concluded that all we do on earth (no matter how long we live) is to decide what topics we should pursue if we had eternity at our disposal. (Bernard Berenson, From a Roman Diary, in Chicago Review, summer 1956, p. 4)

‘Photo archives are Sleeping Beauties, and they are waiting to be discovered and kissed’.1 Thomas Gaehtgens’s statement conveys beautifully the value of photo archives and their potential in telling unexplored stories. Most scholars, when consulting art historical photo archives, are interested in finding the stories of the artworks depicted in the photos. Images can provide information about their provenance, their preservation history, and the original context for which they were created. Recently there has, however, been a growing interest within the scholarly community in the stories of photographic objects as well. These are stories related to the photographers and the techniques adopted, as well as the people or institutions that commissioned or owned them. This chapter will describe the story of the Berenson Library Byzantine art and architecture photo archive, a collection that features 4000 prints.2 My aim is not to examine the individual buildings and works of art or the history of the individual photographic objects. Rather, I propose to study this archival collection as a whole and to explore the ways the collection was compiled and how parts of it relate to different periods in the life of Berenson and his friends. The story narrated by this small part of the photo archive can contribute to the understanding of how the entire collection was created and can shed important light on the scholar’s work and thought as an art critic. Through this analysis Bernard Berenson emerges not only as a connoisseur and expert on Italian painting, who helped build some of the major American art collections of the time, but also as an indefatigable traveller curious to



1 Thomas Gaehtgens, as cited in Loos, ‘The Ultimate Archive. Images by the Million’, p. 34. 2 The archival collection is described in a finding aid available at [accessed 3 June 2021] (Berenson Library Byzantine art and architecture photograph collection, Biblioteca Berenson, I Tatti – The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies).

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Figure 1. Bernard and Mary Berenson together with Nicky Mariano during their trip to Egypt, 1922. Photo courtesy of the Berenson Library.

encounter new cultures.3 Additionally, it reveals the role of art historians during the first decades of the twentieth century in commissioning photographs and becoming photographers themselves. From Gabriel Millet and Arthur Kingsley Porter to Pietro Toesca, Frederick Mason Perkins and Clarence Kennedy, an impressive number of art historians decided to experiment with taking photographs or organizing photo campaigns.4 Berenson’s friendship



3 It should be taken into account that in the nineteenth century little or no attention was paid to photographing Byzantine monuments, due to a general lack of interest in post-classical art. When for instance Félix Bonfils photographed the west propylon of the Roman Agora in Athens, he hid behind a column the Byzantine church of Panagia Grigorousa (see Hamilakis, ‘Monumental visions’, pp. 5–12). The first large photo collections depicting Byzantine art seem to be those of the Lampakis family archive (‘The Lambakis Family Archives Collection’ [accessed 17 September 2020]), Gabriel Millet’s photos for the École Pratique des Hautes Études, and the photos taken during the investigations of the British School at Athens (see Drakopoulou, ‘British School at Athens Research on Byzantine Attica’, pp. 145–51). The byzantinist Georgios Lampakis visited Florence in July–August 1904 (verbal communication by Ioannis Lampakis), but it is unknown whether or not he met Berenson or if there are photos at I Tatti by photographer Ioannis D. Lampakis. Millet’s photos are discussed later in this chapter. 4 On this fascinating subject see also: Lieberman, ‘Thoughts of an Art Historian/ Photographer on the Relationship of his Two Disciplines’, pp. 209–23. On the Berenson Photo Archive, see also: Superbi, ‘The Photograph and Bernard Berenson’; and Pagliarulo, ‘Photographs to Read’.

5. c ap t u r i n g t he byzant i ne wo rld

and collaborations with most of them had a strong impact on the formation of other substantial photo archives in Europe and the United States. In the 1920s and 1930s Bernard and Mary Berenson undertook a series of trips in the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa (see Fig. 1). These journeys were crucial to the development of Bernard’s ideas on art theory and aesthetics. It was thanks in part to them that he managed to enrich his library with books, journals, and photographic prints covering various periods and cultures. Forging links with local communities of scholars in the places Bernard and Mary Berenson visited allowed him in the years to come to be informed about new publications and photographs to include in his collection. After visiting Egypt in 1922, the Berensons decided to organize a long trip to the Greek mainland in the spring of 1923.5 As indicated by several letters written by Mary to her mother-in-law, since 1918 Bernard’s interest in the Middle Ages was continuously growing and, to an extent, this was due to his friend Arthur Kingsley Porter, who was Professor of Medieval Art at Harvard.6 It is not accidental that Berenson initially wanted to make that trip together with Porter, to visit not only classical antiquities but also Byzantine sites, such as Mistra, Thessaloniki, and Mount Athos.7 It is worth noting that, although Berenson’s primary concern was to see Byzantine monuments, Mary did not share her husband’s new interests, as she revealed in one of her letters: he refused to take any responsibility, and now he says I am dragging him there against his will. But he said the same thing of Egypt, which turned out such a glorious experience, and one he would not have missed for anything so I am takinf [sic] the risk, for I am sure it is the link between Egyptian and Byzantine art, and as he is on the verge of plunging into the latter I do think he ought to get the Greek things well in his mind before he is submerged entirely by the Dark Ages! He has not been there since he was twenty one years old, and that really is too long a time for a person who makes a specialty on beauty in art!8 And again in another letter two weeks later: Bernard has here the extra joy of all the Byzantine buildings and mosaics and frescoes, about which he is at present even keener than about Greek







5 Mary Berenson expressed their desire to travel in Turkey and Greece in a letter to her motherin-law, Judith Michliszanski Berenson, on 11 October 1921: ‘Bernard and I felt that if we don’t travel now, we never shall. Our travel plans include Constantinople next September, staying with Cary Thomas, and Greece in October with the Kingsley Porters’. (BFP, 43, folders 22–50). 6 Letter dated 4 November 1921: ‘of his interests, which since 1918 have been concentrated on Mediaeval and Early Christian art’ (BFP, 43, folders 22–50) and letter dated 8 October 1922 ‘now, even more passionately Bernard is exploring the Middle Ages, from 1000–1300, with still a backward glances at Early Christian Art’ (BFP, 43, folders 22–50). 7 See transcription of the letter, letter no. 5 in this volume. 8 Letter dated 14 March 1923 (BFP, 43, folders 22–50) Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 9 Jan 1923–24 April 1923.

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art proper. But I am sure the great classic things will end by getting the upper hand with him. It is one of the reasons why I was so keen to come, because I felt him getting too wild about mediaeval art, which is largely a mere degradation from Greek. Well, we shall see. It is all great fun.9 After having many second thoughts on whether a trip to Greece during a refugee crisis was appropriate, the Berensons departed from Brindisi on 22 March, together with Nicky Mariano and Logan Pearsall Smith, and arrived in Athens two days later after a brief stop in Corfu.10 For the following three months the group visited museums and sites in Athens. They also travelled widely around the Peloponnese and central Greece. Through Bernard’s notebook and Mary’s diary and letters it is possible to reconstruct the entire trip and the contacts they made. Most important for our purposes, we learn that it was thanks to that trip that Berenson started forming the Byzantine section of his photo archive. The Fototeca comprises 374 photographs of Byzantine monuments in Greece that bear on the versos notes by Arthur Kingsley Porter or his wife, Lucy Wallace Porter, with names of the sites. All of them are gelatin silver prints in three different formats.11 This is a rare case in the entire photo archive in which we are able to reconstruct the exact date when each photo was taken. Although it was Porter who photographed the Byzantine monuments in Greece, we can surmise that Berenson also had an important role in this process. His strong interest in Byzantine art and his desire to include these prints in his photo collection indicate that there must have been a collaboration between the two friends. Moreover, we know they spent most of the time travelling together,12 while Mary and her brother often organized their own excursions.13 At the end of each day, Kingsley developed his photos in the small hotel where he and his wife were staying.14

9 Letter dated 26 March 1923 (BFP, 43, folders 22–50) Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 9 Jan 1923–24 April 1923. 10 In 1922, by the end of the Greco-Turkish war a large number of Greeks were expelled from Asia Minor and were settled in Athens and other Greek cities. In her letters Mary describes the many times they changed their travel plans because of the typhus epidemic among the refugees (letters dated 12 October 1922; 9 January, 22 January, 5 February, 11 February, 21 February, 14 March, 1923. BFP, 43, folders 22–50). 11 Additional photos in Greece and Turkey were taken later by Porter. See pp. 55 and 58 of this chapter. 12 The two art historians were always accompanied by Nicky Mariano, Berenson’s assistant, and Lucy Wallace. In a recent study by Kathryn Brush it emerges that Lucy had a central role in her husband’s activity as a photographer. Nevertheless, in all documents relating to the 1923 trip in Greece it is always indicated that Porter, and not Lucy, was the one who made the photographs. Exhaustive information about Porter and photography can be found in Kestel, ‘The Arthur Kingsley Porter Collection of Photography and the European Preservation of Monuments’; Brush, ‘Medieval Art through the Camera Lens’. 13 The Church of Haghios Nikolaos at Platani near Patras is the only case of a building being photographed while Berenson was absent (BBP, MB Diary 1923, 24 April). 14 The Porters had to stay in an uncomfortable hotel as they relinquished their room in the Grande Bretagne to BB and Mary (Mariano b, Forty years with Berenson, p. 73).

5. c ap t u r i n g t he byzant i ne wo rld

Figure 2. Ruins of the Panagia Goudi basilica in Athens, 1923. Photo by Arthur K. Porter. Photo courtesy of the Berenson Library.

The photographs produced during the trip show a variety of monuments documenting the way they were preserved at that time. Of particular interest are lesser known small churches, details of architectural elements and closeups of ruins found while exploring the sites.15 Starting in Athens, Porter and Berenson visited the city’s museums, archaeological sites, and Byzantine churches several times. They also travelled all around the region of Attica to visit places such as Sounion, Eleusis, Daphni, Marathon, Mount Hymettus, Tatoi, and Mount Penteli (see Fig. 2).16 Afterwards they spent two days in Chalkis, Eretria, and Thebes,17 and organized day boat trips to Salamina and

15 There are several photos depicting Byzantine reliefs, capitals, and other architectural elements in the area around the Acropolis in Athens as well as images of the Panagia Skripou church in Boeotia showing the damaged and abandoned building after the 1894 earthquake and before its restoration. Another interesting series of photos depict the tenth­–twelfth century small Byzantine churches and monasteries in the region of Attica, such as Kaisariani and Haghios Ioannis Kynigos in Mount Hymettus, the Panagia Gorgoepikoos, Kapnikarea, and Haghioi Theodoroi in central Athens, as well as Omorfokklesia and the Chassia Kleiston monastery in the suburbs. 16 Two photographs of the visit in Eleusis show the Porters in the Telesterion with another man, possibly Baidekas(?) (BBP, MB Diary 1923, 28 March; BBP photograph series: [accessed 20 April 2020]). 17 They visited Thebes and Chalkis on April 19th, and Eretria on April 20th. (BBP, BB notebook; NM notebook).

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Aegina, the latter together with members of both the American School in Athens and the American Academy in Rome.18 The Peloponnese was the highlight of the trip, as they travelled there twice for a total of fourteen days. The first tour was in the northern part and included Patras and Olympia. The second tour was more extensive and covered well-known cities and sites, such as Corinth, Nemea, Nauplion, Mycenae, Argos, Epidaurus, Tegea, Sparta, Mistra, Tripolis, Megalopolis, as well as places rarely visited by tourists in those years, including Karytaina, Andritsaina, and the ongoing excavations of Asine.19 It is noteworthy that driving on the bad roads of mountainous Arcadia in the 1920s must have been a challenge, not to mention that the group had to proceed for hours on treacherous rocky paths on donkeys, climb hills, and sleep in tents for several days.20 In this regard, photographs such as the ones reproducing the churches of Karytaina and Andritsaina are rare documents of these monuments. For Mary this was a difficult and uncomfortable journey: We are in the most beautiful place in the world […] We have come too late, that is the truth. To enjoy Greece to the full one should come at an age when the body does not rebel against fatigue.21 while Berenson enjoyed this adventure: but Bernard is perfectly wonderful! He goes on tiring everybody out, he is full of enthusiasm, passionate to see EVERYTHING, and not daunted by any difficulties. Last night we fixed up our plans with our courrier for the two trips, first to the Peloponnesus and then to Delphi. We are to

18 A description of the Aegina trip with references to the Berensons is provided in the letters of the young classicist Natalie Gifford Wyatt who was in Athens as an ASCSA Norton Fellow that year (Letters March 29, April 2, and April 21. American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Archives, Natalie Gifford Wyatt Papers). Further information about the cruise can be found in Vogeikoff-Brogan, “All aboard” [accessed 20 April 2020]; “Annual Reports from Affiliated Schools, American School of Athens”, Bulletin of the Archaeological Institute of America, 14 (1922–1923), p. 58. While in Athens Berenson met several times with the director of the school Bert Hodge Hill and the archaeologist Carl Blegen (BBP, BB Notebook April 1, April 23, June 3; BBP, MB diary April 1, April 23). Although Berenson remained in contact with Hill, there is no correspondence preserved in the Berenson Papers regarding the two American archaeologists. Berenson met the Hills again in 1928 (BBP, BB Notebook 29 November 1928). Also, in 1936 Mary sent a letter presenting Cecil Pinsent to Hill, while the British architect was in Athens, to advise the king about works at the Tatoi royal estate. I would like to thank Natalia Vogeikoff-Brogan for indicating this information to me (letter MB to Hill 25 February 1936: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Archives, Bert H. Hill Papers). 19 Berenson did not see most of these places in his first visit to Greece in 1888: ‘Excursions to Sparta and Mistra, to Bassae or Hosios Lucas he was unable to take during his first visit and Bassae in particular represented the fulfilment of a long cherished dream’. (Mariano b, Forty years with Berenson, p. 78). 20 See BBP, MB diary 28 April, 11 May. 21 BFP, Letter 29 April, 1923.

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Figure 3. Column of Marcian in Istanbul. Photo by Sebah & Joaillier. Photo courtesy of the Berenson Library.

take a motor lorry with a cook and his kitchen and tents, for Bernard is determined to go to the most out of the way places.22 The last part of the trip was dedicated to Delphi and nearby regions. Before arriving there Berenson visited the Hosios Loukas Monastery together with Nicky and the Porters, where they were received by the abbott and stayed at the monastery for three nights.23 After a few days in Athens the Berensons sailed for Corfu and left for Venice on 4 June.24 In the spring of the following year Porter went to Istanbul to continue his Byzantine expedition. During his stay he reported back to Berenson about his

22 BFP, Letter 24 April, 1923. 23 BBP, MB diary 22 May 1923. 24 The Porters would get off in Brindisi to continue travelling in Apulia. Photos taken in that part of the trip were later sent to I Tatti. Aside from the photos of Byzantine architecture, the Fototeca Berenson includes approximately hundreds of other photographs by Porter. These are filed in the following collections: Antiquities, Medieval architecture (photos mostly of Romanesque buildings in France and Spain), and Italian Architecture and Sculpture (photos mostly in Apulia, Lombardy, and Tuscany).

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Figures 4–5. Ruins of the Stoudios monastery in Istanbul. Photo by Arthur K. Porter. Photo courtesy of the Berenson Library.

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research on small churches and cisterns, complaining about the bad preservation of Byzantine monuments which had often been vandalized.25 He sent 122 photos from that trip to Florence, all of which are preserved in the Berenson photo archive. These show internal and external views of churches, some of them transformed into mosques, and a number of other structures such as the city’s walls, obelisks, monumental columns, cisterns, and palaces. Several photographs document the conservation state of the church of St John Stoudios (see Figs 3, 4, and 5) and provide detailed views of the floor decoration now largely lost.26 Porter was interested in using those photographs for his courses and publications. During his entire career, photographs remained the main source of his research and his cameras were fundamental tools to that end. For this reason, in at least two cases, he photographed the cameras themselves in an attempt to document his work. At the Monastery of Manuel (now Kefeli Mosque) in Istanbul, he took these photographs by putting his two cameras one in front of the other, so we can see both cameras as well as the two sides of the mosque (see Figs 6–7).27 Similarly, at the small Church of Haghios Petros at Kalyvia, a little town southeast of Athens, he used the smaller camera to take a photo of the bigger one, the same shown in one of the Kefeli Mosque photos (see Fig. 8). In the Kalyvia shot we can see the back of the larger camera, which is put in a position to reproduce what remains of the church’s mural paintings.28 The object on the floor is a container that we can identify as the small camera’s case. Indeed, a scan of the image in high resolution allows us to see clearly the open case with its leather strap lying on the floor. Including the camera case in the image should be considered as a way to document all the photographic equipment used at the site.29 There is another interesting photo in the Berenson Papers showing Lucy Porter on the roof of the basilica of San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro in Pavia, while she examines the church’s dome with her binoculars (Fig. 9).30 25 See Porter’s letter to Berenson 27 March 1924: no. 14. 26 The format of these photos is the same as the ones in Greece. Not a single photo of an Ottoman monument by Porter exists in the archive. The only mosques he photographed are the ones that were originally churches. 27 The two cameras, one large and one small, correspond to the two different formats of the gelatin prints present in the Berenson photo archive. 28 In the archive there are a total of thirteen prints showing the architectural elements and decoration of the church. Ten of them were taken with the big camera (13 × 18 cm format) and three with the small camera (8 × 11 cm format) (Fototeca Boxes 1 and 6). 29 Kathryn Brush informed me that the Porters were constantly changing their cameras, as they had the money to do so. A limited number of the Porter prints in the Berenson photo archive is of larger format (20 × 25 cm). We also do not know if the Berensons had their own travel camera on the 1923 trip. From their various trips there are many small format personal photos taken either by themselves or by their friends (BBP, personal photographs series). Some of these materials have been digitized and are accessible online through the Hollis Images catalog: . 30 Photograph available online at [accessed 2 May 2020].

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Figures 6–7. Photos showing the two cameras used by Arthur Kingsley Porter at the Kefeli Mosque (monastery of Manuel) in Istanbul. Photo by Arthur K. Porter. Photo courtesy of the Berenson Library.

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Figure 8. Photo showing the camera used by Arthur Kingsley Porter at the Aghios Petros church at Kalyvia, Attica, 1923. Photo by Arthur K. Porter. Photo courtesy of the Berenson Library.

Next to her is a tripod and the case of camera lenses. Although this photo is older than those taken in Greece and Turkey, it clearly demonstrates Porter’s great attention to documenting the act of photographing. Unfortunately, it is impossible to identify the model of the cameras via the photos.31

31 Antonio Di Carlo and Margherita Naim have kindly indicated to me that the big folding view camera was probably manufactured in England.

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Figure 9. Lucy Porter on the roof of San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro in Pavia, 1936. Photo courtesy of the Berenson Library.

In 1925 the Porters returned to Greece on a cruise to the Aegean to visit and photograph more sites. Although he was invited, Berenson did not join Porter this time, but he would later ask and receive from his friend the additional photos produced in this second Greek trip. The lack of letters in that period do not allow us to trace the exact itinerary and places that Porter visited, but based on the photographs found in the Fototeca we can have an overview of the long sailing trip which possibly departed from Athens and included the Cyclades (Andros, Delos, Tinos, Paros, Santorini, and Sikinos), the Dodecanese (Karpathos, Patmos, Rhodes), Samos, and Chios. It is surprising to notice that the Porters photographed only a very small number of Greek and Roman monuments. For instance, there is not a single photo of the Acropolis in Athens, or the ruins of Olympia and Delphi, and no images at all from the sites of Epidaurus and ancient Corinth, although they did visit all these places.32 Mary Berenson disapproved of Porter’s criticism of (and in some cases hostility towards) Classical art. In an interesting passage related to the temple of Apollo in Sounion during the 1923 trip she writes:

32 In the Berenson Library antiquities photograph collection there are only twenty-two photos of Classical antiquities that Porter took in Greece. [accessed 2 May 2020].

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Kingsley says he cannot understand how the Greeks had the bad taste (!!) to put a temple in such an ‘obvious’ & ‘banal’ spot — about as wise a remark as to say how could a Queen have the bad taste to wear a crown at her head! He is really fantastic & fanatical, with his sole hobby, Byzantine churches, or rather, photographing them. It is all he really cares for.33 Arthur Kingsley Porter died in 1933, and in the volume published six years later in his memory Lucy contributed a sketch of his life and his bibliography. Regarding Byzantine art, she says that: this study was strangely frustrated by the theft of a suitcase containing about 2000 negatives and photographs, taken during a trip through Greece and Apulia, and all his notes on Byzantine art, running back through many years. This meant not only the loss of unreplaceable material but also the loss of the book he had planned to write.34 It is not clear when this happened and whether Lucy Porter refers to the negatives of the first or the second trip to Greece. Also, we do not know if Porter produced prints of the negatives before they were stolen and whether there are prints in the Berenson collection that do not exist in other repositories holding the scholar’s photographs.35 In addition to the photos taken by Porter in Turkey and Greece, the two friends organized the acquisition of a large number of photographic prints from the Byzantinist archaeologist and art historian Gabriel Millet. Millet travelled extensively in the Balkans, Greece, and Turkey in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. He took pictures of monuments that had been scarcely studied, and published important studies on the monasteries of mount Athos, the Palaeologan period in the Balkans as well as religious embroidery. He created an important photo archive to which he added photographs donated by architects, military personnel, and scholars. In 1903 the collection was presented in a catalogue as the Christian and Byzantine Collection of the 33 BBP, MB diary 20 April 1923. 34 Porter, ‘A . Kingsley Porter’, p. xii. 35 The main corpus of the Porter photo archive is preserved at Harvard’s Fine Arts Library and includes approximately 26,500 photos collected and taken by him. After Porter’s death the photos remained in Harvard’s History of Art Department and were used by professors and students before being deposited in the archives. Following the standard procedure of the time, these photos have been mounted on board, hence erasing the notes on their versos. The photographic prints are filed within the library’s Core Photograph Collection. In the 1970s new prints from the Porter negatives were produced and are now held by the Getty Research Institute, Dumbarton Oaks, and other institutions. The complicated story of the Fine Arts Library collection of glass plates, cellulose nitrate negatives, vintage and new prints is described by Kathryn Brush (Brush, ‘Medieval Art through the Camera Lens’, pp. 255–59). Descriptions of the various collections are available through the repositories’ online catalogs (Fine Arts Library ; Dumbarton Oaks ; Getty Research Institute [accessed 2 May 2020]).

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Figure 10. Cover of Millet’s catalogue owned by Bernard Berenson, 1903. Photo courtesy of the Berenson Library.

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École Pratique des Hautes Études.36 Berenson owned a copy of the catalogue and was in contact with the French Byzantinist from at least 1923 (see Fig. 10). It is possible that he and Porter ordered the first photos by Millet immediately after their trip in Greece in order to enrich the documentation of Byzantine art.37 In 1925 Berenson acquired a large number of other prints. The transaction is documented through several letters preserved in the acquisition files of the Fototeca. From March to December 1925 he received approximately 800 photographs that are mentioned in the letters sent by Jeanne Bertaux, Émile Bertaux’s wife, and by the Armenian art historian Sirarpie Der Nersessian on behalf of the École.38 In total, there are 922 photographs by Millet in the Berenson collection that can easily be identified by their captions. They include photos taken at Daphni, Hosios Loukas, Thessaloniki, and Poreč as well as reproductions of several manuscripts from Monte Cassino, the Biblioteca Marciana, and Athos monasteries. Of great value are the 375 photos of the Skylitzes Matritensis in the National Library of Spain.39 It is interesting to notice that on Millet’s catalogue Nicky Mariano annotated the pages that include information about illuminated manuscripts. In fact, in addition to building up the photograph collection of monuments, Berenson had a long-term project to acquire reproductions of manuscript illuminations. This section of the photo archive has only partly been studied, even though it features some 10,000 photographic prints of Italian, Byzantine, and North European miniatures. Millet’s photographs show Byzantine manuscripts from the collections of monasteries (Mount Athos, Sinai, and Monte Cassino) and libraries in Italy (Biblioteca Marciana, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Biblioteca Ambrosiana), Greece (National Library), and Spain (National Library), including 550 items.

36 Millet, La Collection Chrétienne et Byzantine des Hautes Études. There are four formats in Millet’s negatives: over 18 × 24 cm, 18 × 24 cm, 13 × 18 cm, below 13 × 18 cm. The catalogue indicates photos taken or donated between 1894 and 1903 by Millet himself and the scholars Nikodim Kondakov, Jean Ebersolt, Émile Bertaux, Paul Perdrizet, Georgios Lampakis, Jakov Smirnov, Charles Bayet, Isabella Errera, Gustave Schlumberger, Joseph Laurent, the general Beylié, and the architect Léon Chesnay. There are only a few photos dated to an earlier date (the photos of Sinai, taken in 1881). The copy of the catalog in the Berenson Library has a handwritten note by BB himself that reads ‘see page 42, 86, 80’. These pages include lists of illuminated manuscripts at the Vatican Library, Mount Athos, and south Italy, as well as the Pantanassa Church at Mistra. Prints of these photos can be found in the Berenson photo archive. For the detailed history of Gabriel Millet and his photo archive see: CousonDesreumaux, ‘Gabriel Millet’; Couson-Desreumaux, Lagou, and Limardo Daturi, ‘Gabriel Millet, voyageur, photographe, historien de l’art’; Jolivet-Lévy, ‘Gabriel Millet (1867–1953)’. 37 On 9 November Berenson met Millet at the Sorbonne and then wrote to Porter asking him to organize the acquisition of the photographs (undated letter HUA-PAKP. HUG 1706.185; BBP BB 1923 Notebook date 9 November 1923). A letter from Porter to Berenson on 10 July 1924 mentions a package he received with photos of Mt. Sinai (BBP, Porter correspondence). The letter is transcribed in this volume as no. 16. 38 BBP, box 7, folder 5 BB’s Collection of photographs-Bills. 39 Madrid, BNE, I. Scylitzes, ‘[Synopsis historiarum]’ (MS VITR/26/2).

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Apart from the Millet photos there are other interesting groups of images within the manuscripts section to explore. One group worth examining in more detail includes eighty-seven photographs of manuscripts preserved at the Athos monasteries. It has been possible to identify the person who took the photos as the British photographer John Hope-Johnstone. The peculiarity of these images is that there are two prints made from each negative, one proof print and a smaller contact print (8 × 11 cm) of better quality. A letter sent to Berenson on 3 June 1926, sheds some light on the story related to the photographs. In that letter, Johnstone explains that Belle da Costa Greene had received the negatives and she was in charge of making three copies for each of them, one for the Morgan Library, one for himself, and one for Berenson. Johnstone apologized for not sending the prints earlier and wrote that Belle Greene made the rough proofs a little larger than the originals and did not provide him with the final prints. It is for this reason that he decided to send to I Tatti the poor proofs, while promising to send the better-quality contact prints as soon as possible: The rough proofs have been preserved and I send you those and have written in the backs where they came from, but the notes were written on the edge of the films and I have forgotten in some cases. […] The prints are a scandal — and my negatives were beautiful.40 The story of the Johnstone negatives is another example of how photographic materials circulated in that period among art historians, photographers, and librarians. It documents how scholars and librarians often had to work together in order to obtain images of artworks and create their archives. Bernard Berenson had a large network of friends and associates with whom he travelled, photographed, financed photo campaigns, and exchanged photos. In this sense, he exerted an enormous impact on the development of other collections. His Fototeca became the model for most art historical photo archives in Europe and the United States in his time and the following years.41 We discussed the partnership with Porter to a great extent, but there are two other key figures with whom Berenson forged a sort of association with the main aim of promoting photographic documentation. One of them was Keppel Archibald Cameron Creswell, the English architectural historian who travelled extensively in the Eastern Mediterranean measuring and photographing monuments. Creswell accompanied the Berensons during their trip through Egypt in 1922. After they returned to I Tatti, he sent them 3000 prints from his 40 Correspondence John Hope-Johnstone (BBP, Hope-Johnstone correspondence). The new prints were sent from Johnstone two years later on 3 September 1928, as documented by Nicky’s annotation on the verso of a photograph. This information has been copied erroneously on the back of one larger picture, that was instead sent in 1926, as explained in the letter (photos reproducing the Esphigmenou monastery Menologion 14, box MS54.8). 41 Among the most famous cases are the photo archives of Frederick Mason Perkins, Helen Clay Frick, and Federico Zeri.

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Figure 11. Photo showing Creswell’s shadow at the Aghlabid Cisterns in Kairouan. Photo by Archibald Creswell. Photo courtesy of the Berenson Library.

negatives. Rather than a mere purchase, the accession of this collection can be considered the result of Berenson’s sponsoring Creswell’s work. Indeed, in several of his letters Creswell thanked Bernard for his ‘noble and generous offer’ the ‘most generous “tribute” as you wish it to be called’.42 It was probably through Berenson that Porter first became familiar with Creswell’s work and decided to obtain photographs for his personal archive, now housed at Harvard’s Fine Arts Library.43 The Creswell collection at I Tatti has always been kept separately from the rest of the Berenson photo archive, maintaining its identity and original arrangement. Although it includes many photos of Byzantine architecture and mosaics in Turkey, Israel, Syria, and the rest of the Levant, its main focus is Islamic architecture, and for this reason I will not examine it further in this study.44

42 BBP, BB-Creswell correspondence (17 August 1922; 4 October 1954) and Mary–Creswell correspondence (17 August 1922). The lack of documentation related to this collection in the Fototeca’s acquisitions files support this assumption. 43 Verbal communication of Kathryn Brush, who has recently found correspondence between Creswell and Porter about the purchase. 44 A systematic study of this collection has not been done yet. Apart from Islamic architecture, Creswell photographed sites of Greco-Roman, Nabatean, Ancient Jewish, Byzantine, and Crusader monuments. The complete holdings of Creswell’s photographs in the Berenson Library are accessible through Harvard’s Hollis Images catalogue: .

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It is worth analysing instead the relationship between Berenson and the third art historian with whom he worked together in developing his photo archive, Pietro Toesca. During Toesca’s Florentine period, a deep respect flourished among the two men that was soon transformed into genuine friendship. Their extensive correspondence often highlights the exchange of photographs and the efforts of both scholars to obtain reproductions of artworks not available elsewhere.45 Sending photographs to each other was a way to share knowledge and opinions about paintings and attributions. In more than fifty letters in the Berenson papers, Toesca refers to photos he acquired, photographers he contacted, or photo campaigns to undertake. A notable example of their collaboration are several photographs of Byzantine manuscripts in the Fototeca Berenson. The images are the result of the Berenson-Toesca ‘associazione per la riproduzione delle miniature inedite’. The project most probably began at some point in the 1920s and is documented in four letters, where it is mentioned either as a ‘società’ or an ‘associazione’.46 We have no exact details about how this partnership was managed and whether it was legally constituted, but we do know some other partners involved in the project: ‘con la signorina [Nicky] ho preso accordi per le fotografie da stampare e da distribuire ai nostri soci’.47 Despite the scarcity of information, the large quantity of photos suggests a rather successful endeavour to reproduce miniatures owned by various institutions, such as the Vatican Library, the Biblioteca Palatina at Parma, the Abbeys of Monte Cassino and Nonantola, and the museums of Bologna and Pisa. A total of 239 gelatin prints in various formats are to be assigned to Toesca because of his handwriting. The number of photos sent by him is definitely larger. Many of them are mentioned in his correspondence, but cannot be easily identified in the archive.48 It is interesting to note that, although in most cases there are multiple prints from the same negative, only one of them bears notes on the verso by Nicky Mariano.49 It is likely that the prints without captions were supposed to be shared with other scholars or ‘partners’.

45 A selection of Toesca’s letters have been transcribed and commented in this volume by Gabriella Bernardi (see pp. 366–408). For more information about Toesca and photography see the volume ‘Pietro Toesca e la fotografia’, Milano 2009 (ed. by Callegari and Gabrielli) and especially the article by Lorizzo, ‘Pietro Toesca all’Università di Roma e il sodalizio con Bernard Berenson’, pp. 103–26. 46 BBP, Toesca correspondence, 20 January 1928, 20 December 1928 (letter no. 217), 20 October 1931, and 29 January 1938. 47 BBP, Toesca correspondence, 6 January 1929 (BBP, Toesca correspondence). 48 The 239 photos filed under the Illuminated Manuscripts section of the photo archive (MS folders 1.12; 8.1; 8.4; 9.2; 17.1; 18.7; 19.1; 19.3; 19.5; 23.1; 23.3; 24.2; 24.8; 25.6; 26.3; 26.4; 26.7; 26.8). 49 Nicky’s notes are transcriptions of the information provided by Toesca related to each manuscript, as evidenced by the photos in box MS26.8 where Toesca’s notes on the original envelopes are preserved.

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Among the photographers Berenson and Toesca worked with were Umberto Orlandini from Modena, Renato Sansaini, and Carlo Carboni, the latter initially as Giovanni Gargiolli’s assistant and then as director of the Gabinetto Fotografico Nazionale.50 Other groups of photographs provided by Toesca included those taken by Anderson in Ravenna51 and two publications of the ‘Artis Monumenta Photographice Edita’ series accompanied by the Giulio Bencini and Mario Sansoni prints.52 Berenson further enriched the Byzantine photo archive while travelling throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. As Nicky observed, the year 1928 became identified with the magical word Constantinople […] From the middle of September to the end of November we stayed at the Pera Palace Hotel with the full view of the old town from our windows, its sky-line gently descending towards the Bosphorus, accentuated by the cupolas and minarets of the great mosques.53 That was another busy trip for the Berensons, who met archaeologists, art historians, and other scholars, while visiting various monuments in Constantinople, Adrianople (Edirne), Konya, Nicaea (Iznik), and Bursa. The last part of the itinerary included twenty-two days in Thessaloniki and Athens before sailing back to Brindisi.54

50 The Sansaini studio’s stamp is visible in most envelopes of the photographs from the Vatican library miniatures sent to Berenson, while Orlandini is cited in a letter related to the Nonantola Gospel Book (BBP, Toesca correspondence, 20 December 1928: transcribed in pp. 377–78). On the other hand, images from Roman museum’s and private collections were mostly requested from Carboni (BBP Toesca correspondence 25 January, 14 March, 28 March, 24 April, 10 June, 1927). For more information about Carboni and his collaboration with Toesca see: Gabrielli, ‘Pietro Toesca misurare l’arte con l’obiettivo fotografico’. 51 Verbal communication from Anna Melograni. Toesca often commissioned photos to Anderson (BBP, Toesca correspondence 10 July 1920; 30 July 1925). 52 The Artis Monumenta Photographice Edita is a monograph series edited by Toesca in the 1940s, in which brief explanatory texts are accompanied by photographic images. In the Berenson library there are two of these volumes presented by Toesca: the one on the frescoes of the San Silvestro chapel in Santa Croce and the other of the San Pietro in Civate Abbey. From the last work in the series about the frescoes of Assisi, Berenson was able to receive only the published text without the photographs. (BBP, Toesca correspondence 19 December 1947). 53 Mariano b, Forty years with Berenson, p. 18. She also notes that ‘B.B. insisted on using the classical name and not the Turkish mispronunciation of the Greek iz tin Polis — to the town — whereby it became Istamboul’. 54 Thanks to the contacts he made on this trip in BB was able to order from the Eleutheroudakis bookshop in Athens the extensive photograph campaign of Byzantine art made by Georgios Tsimas and Pericles Papachatzidakis (BBP Fototeca Receipts) a few years later, in 1939. In 1930 the two photographers published the mosaics of the Monastery Nea Moni of Chios, and later they continued their collaboration with the reproductions of architecture, paintings, and manuscripts in monasteries of Mount Athos. The Berenson Library owns twenty handmade portfolios of this series. Each of them includes 60 gelatin silver prints mounted on cardboard with Tsimas’ handwritten notes, which makes a total of

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Figure 12. Genoese houses in Galata. Photo by Theron J. Damon. Photo courtesy of the Berenson Library.

Berenson obtained many photographs from the studios of Sebah & Joaillier in Istanbul and Giorgos Lykides in Thessaloniki. Others were given to him by collectors and friends.55 A special mention needs to be made of Theron

1200 photos. The largest part of the Papachatzidakis photo archive is preserved at the Benaki Museum in Athens, while other portions of it are in the Byzantine and Christian Museum in Athens, and the Giorgio Cini Foundation in Venice. The Cini collection was acquired through the efforts of Sergio Bettini. Bettini created his own photograph collection of Byzantine art that was acquired in 1987 by the University of Venice Ca’ Foscari (see: Agazzi, ‘Le fototeche di Antonio Morassi e Sergio Bettini’). 55 Documentation from Thessaloniki includes photos of the St Demetrius basilica as it appeared after the great fire of 1917 and before restoration began. In Athens, Berenson met the two leading byzantinists Georgios Soteriou and Anastasios Orlandos several times (BBP, BB notebook 1928). He received photos of artworks from the collections of Antonis Benakis

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Johnson Damon. He was the brother-in-law of George Herbert Huntington, the Robert College director with whom Berenson often met in Istanbul. Damon became their guide and a friend in their many expeditions and later sent his photos to I Tatti.56 These are 260 prints showing Byzantine and Ottoman architecture, the Genoese houses of Istanbul, and views of various Turkish cities (see Fig. 12).57 In the following years Berenson continued travelling across the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkan peninsula and visited numerous Byzantine and Greco-Roman sites. In 1929 he visited Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, in 1936 Yugoslavia, in 1937 Cyprus, Rhodes, and Crete, and in 1938 went back to Turkey on the Aegean coastline of Asia Minor.58 The photo archive saw further growth in the sections of Byzantine and Greco-Roman antiquities. The most interesting additions were two albums from Yugoslavia with photos of twenty-nine monasteries and a map showing his itinerary through Dalmatia, Montenegro, Novopazarski Sandžak, Bosnia, and Herzegovina (see Fig. 13). These were prepared by the Central Press Bureau especially for Berenson as a souvenir of his travels.59 On the other hand, it is surprising to note that he acquired very few images of Islamic art during the trips throughout the Middle East.60

(before the opening of his museum to the public in 1930) and the Byzantine museum. 56 Mariano b, Forty years with Berenson, pp. 189–90. Many of the photos are filed under Berenson’s personal photos, although they were taken at an earlier date. 57 Although most of the photos were acquired by Berenson in 1928, they were taken a few years earlier during Damon’s trips in Turkey (1909 and 1927). Some of them are dated, while others depict monuments destroyed before Berenson’s visit, such as the Irgandi bridge bombed in 1922. Starting from 1905, Theron Damon lived in Istanbul for several years, first as a professor at Robert College and later as an Associated Press war correspondent and a captain in US Army intelligence. For a biographical note see: Mooney, ‘Obituaries’. 58 Mary published three books describing some of the trips in the Mediterranean: 1929 in the Middle East, 1931 in Tunisia and Algeria, and 1935 in Libya: Berenson, A Modern Pilgrimage; Berenson, Across the Mediterranean; Berenson, A Vicarious Trip to the Barbary Coast. She did not join her husband in the 1936–1937 trips, in which BB was accompanied only by Nicky Mariano (BBP, MB Diary 1936). Nicky’s book also provides detailed descriptions of all BB’s travels: Mariano b, Forty years with Berenson, pp. 225–36. The many photos in the archive of icons and mural paintings from Cyprus were possibly acquired at a later date by Talbot Rice. Other photos in Cyprus were taken by Charles John Philip Cave in 1934. These are mentioned by George Francis Hill (letter no. 238). The impressions of the 1938 trip in Turkey are beautifully summed up by BB in his letter to Louis Gillet. In that letter he protests about the bad condition of Haghia Sophia (no. 105). 59 The two albums are part of the photo archive while the map is in BBP box 3. A recent study on this topic is: Belamarić and Dulibić, ‘Bernard Berenson’s Journey to Yugoslavia’. 60 Apart from a few personal photos and fifty-eight gelatin prints by Félix Bonfils, Muslim art is represented in the archive mainly by the Creswell photographs. Two photos of the Rumelihisari fortress in Istanbul are signed by G. H. Huntington and are most probably dated 1928 (box AI29.9). It seems that Berenson was less interested in developing further the Islamic photos collection after receiving the Creswell images. It was only at the end of his life he increased his holdings with the photos that Derek Hill and Freya Stark took in Syria

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Figure 13. Map showing Bernard Berenson’s itinerary during his trip in Yugoslavia in 1939. Photo courtesy of the Berenson Library.

Berenson’s well-known exclamation ‘Photographs! Photographs! In our work one can never have enough!’ confirms that he was particularly keen to own as many reproductions of artworks as possible.61 The Fototeca was a tool to refine his connoisseurship skills, an essential component of the library, and a unique source of visual information crucial to satisfy his intellectual curiosity, expand his knowledge, and support his research.62 From the brief excursus we made of his life, it emerges that the photo archive is not simply the manifestation or tangible result of an avid collector’s activity. Berenson and Anatolia (Derek Hill photograph collection, Biblioteca Berenson, I Tatti – The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies; Freya Stark photograph collection, Biblioteca Berenson, I Tatti – The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies). As Mario Casari has pointed out, Berenson considered the numerous places that he visited in the Islamic world as ‘witnesses especially to Hellenic and Byzantine culture’ (Casari, ‘Berenson and Islamic Culture’, p. 181). For more information on this subject see: Rocke, ‘Una sorta di sogno d’estasi’. 61 Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, p. x. 62 For Berenson’s thoughts on the impact of photography in connoisseurship and art history studies see: Berenson, ‘Isochromatic photography and Venetian pictures’, p. 346.

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was not simply an art historian who purchased photographs. The study of the Byzantine section at I Tatti shows that his choices had a large impact on the formation and organization not only of his personal photo library, but also of the archives of other scholars. Through the collaboration with Porter and Toesca he played a major role in determining what (and possibly how) monuments were worthy or needed to be photographed. He participated vigorously in the production of the images during his trips, created an association with colleagues to organize photo campaigns, and worked side by side with photographers for several decades. The photos were essential to Bernard Berenson in reviewing the critical reception of Medieval art. In addition, he had a life-long project to write a book on the art of that period, which he never completed.63 However, the photographs of Byzantine art must be seen in the context of what was his main aspiration: the development of a collection within the library capable of supporting research on all aspects of Mediterranean cultures. Such an ambitious vision for the kind of research to be conducted at I Tatti is vividly described in his 1956 outline of the institution in which he talks about a centre where scholars would have the opportunity to cultivate ‘the most intimate possible acquaintance with our Hebrew, Greek, Roman, Mediaeval and Renaissance past as centred in the Mediterranean countries’ and travel ‘to what was the ancient Oecumene, not going farther East than the Euphrates and not farther South than Egypt and the great desert of North Africa’.64 It is easy to understand Berenson’s strong commitment to documenting Byzantine art, not only for its historical significance, but also for having preserved and transmitted the ecumenic cultural values that emerged in the Mediterranean basin.

63 Parts of his writings were published in Berenson, L’Arco di Costantino o della decadenza della forma, and again in Berenson, ‘Decline and Recovery in the Figure Arts’. On that issue see Bernardi’s comment in this book pp. 27–28. 64 Berenson, ‘On the Future of I Tatti’, 18 August 1956 (BB Papers, Box 15.1).

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6. Correspondence

Introductory note The correspondence section is divided into two sections: the first contains the letters of Berenson and some of his interlocutors in a sequence which, although fragmentary, has allowed the reconstruction of the epistolary relationship. It should be noted that in the first section, although indirectly involved, there are no direct letters to Berenson from Alexander Kirk, Charles Rufus Morey, Thomas C. Parker, and Robert Goldwater but all of them shared mutual interests with him. In the second section, only the letters of some interlocutors of Berenson are published, since the replies have not been found. It should be noted that it was not always Berenson who wrote or replied to the letters, but rather Mary Berenson or Nicky Mariano. The sequence of the letters is numbered consecutively and follows chronological order. Not all the correspondence between Berenson and his interlocutors is published here, but only those related to the topic of this study. The letters are fully transcribed for all matters concerning Byzantine art, sometimes omitting information superfluous or redundant or not directly relevant, even when it was not always possible to identify the specific object concerned. Indeed, in the correspondence topics related to Byzantine art are mixed with others, demonstrating the complexity of the Berensonian world. The letters are mostly written in English, German, Italian, and French. For a better fluency of the text, those words that were erroneous in spelling, typing errors or other factors, have been corrected. In most cases, abbreviated words are expanded in square brackets. In the correspondence, in addition to the year the letter belongs to, the day is reported when given. In some letters, it is specified whether or not the text to which it refers has already been cited or fully transcribed by other scholars. Such information is omitted when the document is unpublished. As already mentioned (and except for some cases), most of the photos cited in the correspondence which do not concern the topic dealt with in this volume have not been identified.

Section 1 1. Arthur Kingsley Porter to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 91.2, handwritten. A typewritten version of the letter is in folder 91.7. The phrase

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‘How closely akin those adossed [sic] statues are in spirit to Chartres and Loches’ is quoted in Samuels, Bernard Berenson. The Making of a Legend, p. 290) November 29, 1921 Elmwood, Cambridge Dear B.B., Many thanks for the Dedalo article.1 — That review will be easily the most important in Italy now that you have written for it.— Two XII century paintings of Constantinople will be an enormous acquisition to the history of art.— I keep hoping against hope that something will turn up one day at Constantinople itself. Perhaps you will find it next fall? After much backing and hawing2 I decided to give the paper I wrote on Western sculpture, and which you were good enough to read for me, as a lecture at the Metropolitan. I am having a few copies privately printed for friends, and am sending you one at Settignano.3 It is little changed, so don’t re-read it and don’t acknowledge. I fear it may wound the feelings of our French friends quite as severely as the article on Burgundian sculpture.4 I have got to tell the truth as I see it sometime, however, so I might as well out with it. You would do me a great service by passing on to me any rumblings or criticism you may hear. In meeting an awkward situation, it helps a great deal to get other people’s point of view, and of course the one thing I am anxious for is to keep off every body’s toes as much as compatible with still making my point. We think of you as basking in Egyptian sunshine and revelling in Egyptian art. How closely akin those addossed statues are in spirit to Chartres5 and Loches,6 by the way. After this anti-classical winter you will be primed for Greece.



1 Berenson, ‘Due dipinti del decimosecondo secolo’, see the essay published in the Appendix of this volume, p. 551. 2 As Kathryn Brush kindly suggests, Porter mis-spelled a word, spelling it only by sound and not as it should be. Probably he wrote ‘…bocking & hawing’ — and what he really meant to write was ‘balking’ or ‘bawking & hawing’. That would mean that after some hesitation he decided to move forward with the publication of the lecture he gave at the Metropolitan Museum. 3 Porter, The Sculpture of the West: A Lecture delivered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, December 3, 1921. Privately issued for the author by Marshall Jones Company (Boston, 1921). This short publication was not found in Biblioteca Berenson. 4 Perhaps Porter was referring to his article ‘La Sculpture du XIIe Siècle en Bourgogne’, published in Gazette des Beaux-Arts (August–September 1920), pp. 73–94. 5 Cathedral of Notre Dame in Chartres, France, twelfth–thirteenth century. 6 Collegiate Church of Saint-Ours in Loches, France, late eleventh–twelfth century.

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So far we continue exceedingly happy at Cambridge. My students are wonders — every one says they are exceptional and that I shall never have their like again. But I certainly have great respect for the Fine Arts department here if it can turn out men of this calibre. — They have a mixture of naïveté and erudition that fascinates me. They make me wonder whether perhaps much reading does not dull vision. What is almost giving us nervous prostration is the house. The workmen upset thoroughly room after room, then disappear for another job, and are not to be tempted back. All our pet possesions are being ruined by moving back and forth, and life is completely hideous.— On top of it all arrives an ice-storm, which destroys many of the trees in Cambridge (including our elms) breaks down the telephone and electric wires, stops the trolleys, makes the streets impossible. We are isolated in our mess, apparently for an indefinite period. We think the Egyptian climate may have its advantages! — The Italian servants are however a great comfort — much the nicest people we have ever had in our house. We bless Nicky7 daily for them. Devotedly, A. Kingsley Porter I was never told anything about the Fra Angelico8 until I saw it one day sitting up casually in Forbes’ office. I think they had some futile scheme of surprising Cambridge with it, but the news apparently leaked out indirectly to nearly every one but myself.

2. Porter to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 91.3, handwritten. A typewritten version of the letter is in folder 91.7) Sept. [ember] 11, 1922. En roûte, Cambridge to Onteora.9 A. KINGSLEY PORTER ELMWOOD CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

Dear B.B., My MS [Manuscript] is finished, and Jones10 definitely promises the book11 will be out before the first of the year, I do not therefore see anything to prevent our joining you in Greece in March, if you decide to go and still want us. Should you not go, we



7 Nicky Mariano. 8 Porter was referring to the painting with Christ on the Cross, the Virgin, St John the Evangelist, and Cardinal Torquemada, Fra Angelico, c. 1453–1454, now in the Fogg Museum (inv. no. 1921.34, tempera on panel, 96.6 × 42.5 cm). 9 The Onteora Club, a private club in Tannersville, New York. 10 The MarshalI Jones Company Publisher, Boston. 11 Porter was certainly referring to his 10 volume Romanesque Sculpture of the Pilgrimage Roads which was published in 1923.

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shall probably stay in Cambridge until June, so let us know of any developments liable to alter your plans. Unless we hear from you to the contrary, we shall clear the decks to sail for Naples the second week in February, or as soon after as we can find advantageous passage. Is it your impression that Anfossi and the car would be useful in Greece? We have had contradictory advice by people who should be well informed. We incline to think it worth while to take him, but should like to be told if you hear think or know that the idea is a foolish one. It was like you to order Hamman’s book12 for me. I hear much of his activity from many sources and am told that he has been photographing all over Europe. So I await with intense interest and some annoyance what he has to say. I have the feeling that he is probably a much more serious rival than Mâle,13 who, I fancy, is too conservative to keep up with so quickly moving a subject. We are off on an alleged vacation of ten days in the Catskills14 before the new term opens. But if we were home we should be in a better place. In fact the summer at Cambridge has been idyllic. The Widener Library is an Earthly Paradise — that of I Tatti being a little more than terrestrial. In my subject, at least, the Widener has what is needed. The privileges extended by American libraries make it possible to work with double the speed and much greater effectiveness than in the great European libraries; and this almost, if not quite, compensates for certain things which will always remain unobtainable here, such as manuscript material. The Clapps15 have been spending this summer in Cambridge, and are elusive as ever. We have been trying to persuade them to settle down near us definitively, but I think the lure of Italy is getting into their blood again. Mary16 wrote Lucy17 that you were reading Proust. Since Proust has been a constant bone of discussion. As I look up now over the top of my paper I see Lucy poring over him. I haven’t read a word myself, but have a pre-conviction that I shall find him as

12 Probably Porter was referring to Heinrich (Richard) Hamann (Seehausen, 1879–Immenstadt im Allgäu, 1961), art historian; in 1913 he founded the Bildarchiv Foto Marburg at the Philipps University of Marburg, Germany. It is not known which book by Hamann Kingsley Porter was referring to, perhaps the first volume entitled Deutsche und französische Kunst im Mittelalter published in 1922 of which a second edition came out in 1923 together with the second volume. 13 Émile Mâle (Commentry, 1862–Fontaine-Chaalis, 1954), art historian and professor at the Sorbonne University in Paris. 14 The Catskill Mountains, a mountain range in southeastern New York state. 15 Frederick Mortimer Clapp (New York City, 1879–1969), poet, art historian and first director of the Frick Collection in New York City, and his wife Maud Caroline Ede. 16 Berenson’s wife. 17 Arthur Kingsley Porter’s wife, see Porter’s Biographical Profile.

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mushily sentimental as Anatole France.18 Mrs Gardner19 says she can’t endure P. [roust] because she disliked this girl he was in love with.— He would be! You always seem to get around to everything years before the rest of the world. I envy you your trip to Germany. I need in the worst way to see German sculpture in the original, and I think we shall try to get in a trip to Germany and to England next summer — that is unless we should decide to linger in the Aegaean. I suppose the latter scheme would hardly tempt you? We have dreamed of hiring a sailing vessel, and visiting the islands, where there is probably nothing to see. Devotedly, A. Kingsley Porter

3. Porter to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 91.3, handwritten. A typewritten version of the letter is in folder 91.7)

Received Jan. [uary] 4, 1923 [BB’s note] Elmwood Cambridge

Dear B.B., Two copies of the precious Sienese Painter20 arrived last night. I have had unavailing orders for the book out for some time, but as these came directly from England they can only be from you. I am sending one on to the library with the suggestion that this time it be attached with an iron chain. The copy they had, I hear, was stolen, which is the reason for the lack of the book now. My copy shall never be loaned to any one again. I am grateful for your characteristic thought in sending me the books, and I can assure you that their value is appreciated. We are on tip-toe in anticipation of Greece, but also feel unprepared for the opportunity. The winter is so full of proofs, Chinese art and foolishness there seems to be no time for reading. We have been trying to take up modern Greek, but have been able to get in only one lesson a week, and my studipidy in spoken languages is incredible. Mrs Perry21 says she is on the scent of an apotheosized drago-woman, so perhaps it doesn’t matter. We shall take with us Frazer’s Pausanias,22 Sophocles Lexicon of

18 Anatole France (Paris, 1844–Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire, 1924). 19 Isabella Stewart Gardner (New York City, 1840–Boston, 1924), art collector, philanthropist, patron of the arts, and founder of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. 20 Perhaps Porter was referring to Berenson’s book Essays in the Study of Sienese Painting. 21 Rachel Berenson (Boston, 1880–Cambridge, Mass., 1933), sister of BB and wife of Ralph Barton Perry (Poultney, 1876–Boston, 1957), full Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. 22 Pausanias’s Description of Greece, trans. with a commentary by Frazer in 6 vols.

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Medieval Greek23 and the pocket edition of Liddell & Scott.24 I mention this with the idea that it may save you taking the same books as you can always have ours. The Clapps are with us for a week or so before they flit to England. We have tried in vain to get them to settle in Cambridge — they are rare spirits both of them. His new poems I think are very vital, but I suppose have little chance of being recognized. Devotedly, A. Kingsley Porter

4. Porter to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 91.3, handwritten. A typewritten version of the letter erroneously dated 23 February 1923 is in folder 91.7) on board S.S. Patria25 25 February 1923 FABRE LINE MARSEILLE Dear B.B.’s, Mary’s letter26 saying that you had given up Greece arrived a day or so before we sailed, and was a great disappointment. The sparkle has gone out of our Greek champagne, and romance becomes shop. Of any delights the trip may have we shall always feel how much greater they would have been, if we could have tasted them under the Berenson stimulation. We know nothing about conditions in Greece, beyond what Mary said in her letter. We think however we shall persevere in going, and see what things are like when we get there. Should the typhus be gaining, I suppose we can always leave. Mrs Gardner gave us a package of photographs for B.B. which I shall send to I Tatti by registered mail from Naples. I trust it arrives safely. I have put in the package two other photographs which I thought might be of interest. One is a new Sienese painting, Sassetta I suppose, in the Boston Museum;27 the other a picture which was originally

23 Perhaps Porter was referring to Sophocles, Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine Periods. 24 Porter was referring to A Greek-English Lexicon which was first published by Oxford University Press in 1843, ed. by Liddell and Scott. 25 Steamship Patria was a French ocean liner built for Fabre Line or Compagnie française de Navigation à vapeur Cyprien Fabre & Cie; port of registry, Marseilles. 26 Mary’s letter is not present among HUA-PAKP. 27 Stefano di Giovanni, called Sassetta (Cortona, c. 1400–Siena, 1450), painter. From research carried out at BBF, the painting was not found nor identified.

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bought by the Fogg Museum, but turned over by them to Miss Frick,28 because of its similarity to the Deposition which B.B. published in the Venetian Painting in America.29 We shall all be eager to hear B.B.’s ascription for the new picture. I tried to get for B.B. a photograph of the new Piero at the Boston Museum,30 but failed as the picture is in process of being cleaned. What has survived the scrubbing seems to me very noble, and they have undoubtedly done well to get rid of the repainting. I hope they have the courage to leave the picture un-fixed up. I wonder what Mary thinks of the architecture of the Azores? Often as we have passed, this was the first time we have been ashore there. The churches and monumental arches are Portugal fairly out — Portugaled — an amazing piling up of wild barocco, but broken by passages of singular restraint. We were outward-bound, and perhaps over full of enthusiasm; but I much regretted that our half day wasn’t longer. Are you really going to Rome? Wherever it is, we hope you will have a glorious time, and envy the lucky people who are with you. Disappointed love to Nicky from us both. Devotedly, A. Kingsley Porter Will you be in Florence when we are there in the summer?

5. BB to Porter (HUA-PAKP. HUG 1706.185, Correspondence with Bernard Berenson, 1 Box, handwritten) March 5, 1923 I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE 28 Helen Clay Frick (Pittsburgh, 1888–1984), philanthropist, art collector and founder of Frick Art Reference Library, New York City. 29 See Berenson, Venetian Painting in America, fig. 17. The painting published by the latter with the Pietà and Donor attributed to a Provençal master, is in the Frick Collection, New York City (inv. no. 1907.1.56, tempera or mixed technique on panel, 39.7 × 55.9 cm). The image of the painting belonging to Miss Frick was not found in BBF but it is probably to be identified with the Pietà, assigned to the circle of Konrad Witz, c. 1400–1447, now in the Frick Collection (inv. no. 1981.1.172, tempera and oil on panel, 33.3 × 44.5 cm). 30 It is a painting in Boston, Museum of Fine Arts depicting the Virgin and Child with Angel, attributed to Luca Signorelli, formerly to Piero della Francesca, c. 1470–1475 (inv. no. 22.697, tempera and oil on panel, 59 × 40.6 cm).

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Dear Kingsley. I know not owing to what particular manifestation of Sta.31 Confusione — sole inspiration, guide & protectress of Ausonia32 & all its visitants — it was impossible in this house or in the great cos-polis33 close by, it was impossible to find out by what stimir34 you were coming. At the impudently & fraudulently miss-called Americ. [an] Expr. [ess] Co. [mpany]35 of Florence they insisted it was not the Patria but another boat, to wh. [ich] accordingly Mary wrote you a long letter — that you never will receive. Yesterday we sent a wire to you to Naples. I write this with the vague hope that it will reach you before we, accidentally, meet. For we are going to Greece. Some three weeks ago, but too late to communicate with you, Mary took the sudden resolution, & as usual toward Mary I perinde ut cadaver. We sail fr. [from] Brindisi the 23d, & should be at Piraeus the 25th inst. [instanter] We have written for rooms to the Grande Bretagne Athens. We shall stay away — in Greece at least — till end o’[f] May, or till we are driven away by the heat. While there I want to see all I can assimilate. I want to go to Salonika farthest north & Mistra farthest south. I want to revisit Olympia, & to get to Euboea (I have a faint hope that you and I may be able to get to Athos). Thanks for the photos you send. How typical of Miss Frick & her like to want a replica of what she has already. They’re all like that, those brainless wills wh. [ich] a saturnine deity has endowed with untold money & deprived of all wealth. Are you sending a copy of yr. [your] forthcoming decacephalic36 work to Eric Maclagan, Victoria & Albert Mus. [eum] S. [outh] Kensington? I hope so. He is the least stupid English-speaking person in matters of art now alive. Affectionate greetings to you both Yours B.B

31 Perhaps ‘Sancta’ or ‘Santa’. 32 Ausonia was the wide territory that in pre-Roman and pre-Hellenistic Italy included lower Lazio up to the Strait of Messina. 33 Perhaps ‘cosmopolis’. 34 Perhaps a fanciful abbreviation of ‘steamer’. 35 American Express Company is an American multinational financial and travel service headquartered in New York City. 36 ‘Decacephalic’: actually ‘ten chapters’.

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6. Mary Berenson to Porter (HUA-PAKP. HUG 1706.185, Correspondence with Bernard Berenson, 1 Box, typewritten) I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE March 12th, 1923. Dear Lucy and Kingsley, It was most awfully good of you to telegraph to us, and I have replied that we expect to arrive on the 24th. Bu there was a very anxious half hour when B.B. said he could not to go into uncomfortable rooms, that we had better give up the trip. I think it was, in the end, the regret at losing the results of his vaccinations and inocculations that determined him to allow me to send the telegram to you and the one to the Hotel! I am writing by this same post to the Director to ask for the best rooms he can give us, and if you are there will you put in a word and say that it is very important to give us at least ONE real good room? We others can manage, but B.B. is really frail, and also, what is part of the same thing, extremely nervous and susceptible to squalor. I would sleep in the motor if there were no other way to SEE GREECE, and I think Nicky and my brother37 are the same. I do not like to say this about one room to the Director, for he might take advantage of it, and feel that we could be put off with anything; but I daresay you could get in the hint in a less compromising way. Our idea would be to take our rooms for two months, if need were. I am in a raging fever from this morning’s inocculation, so I will not add more, except to thank you for telegraphing, and to say we are looking forward immensely to seeing you. Aff. [ectionately] yours, Mary Berenson

7. Porter to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 91.1, no date, handwritten)38 G.ᴰ [GRAND] HÔTEL DU VÉSUVE NAPLES TELEGR. [AMMA]: ‘VESUVHOTEL’ O. [NORATO] & G. [INO] FIORENTINO, PROPR. [IETA’]39

37 Logan Pearsall Smith (Millville, 1865–London, 1946), essayist and critic. 38 The undated Porter letter must have been written between June–July 1923. It is currently misfiled with 1920 correspondence. 39 At the bottom of the first and fifth sheet of the letter is written: ‘Même Maison – GRAND HÔTEL VITTORIA – SORRENTO.

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Dear B.B., Two post cards from Nicky40 came in the mail we received yesterday. I hope you got (or gotten?) the photographs we sent you — one package from here and another from Ravello I think it was — I mention them as there were included Greek subjects I should like to be sure reached you.41 Another batch leaves when I can get time to wrap it up, which will certainly be before you return in the fall. We still carry about with us a little virtue of the Greek trip. I notice after we have been with you standards are higher for a while, but then we gradually say back. Yet there are always some things, and perhaps the most vital which never become again precisely as they were. Archaeological hunting has been rather better than the usual since we left you at Brindisi — Apulia is an inexhaustible splendour, and I was amazed to find how much I had overlooked on our first visit: — Carpignano,42 Lecce (portal of Ss. Niccola e Cataldo)43 and Barletta cathedral44 were among the high points — and of course always the Monte S. Angelo doors.45 Can one find better drawing this side of Pollaiuolo?46 Greece was fresh in my mind, and I was struck in Apulia by the local character of much of the fresco paintings which passes as purely Byzantine. It has certainly Eastern element: but still seems to me totally unlike anything I know in the Orient. I seem to feel that between Greek and Apulian painting in the XI and XII centuries the gulf is at least as wide as between Apulian and Roman. I wonder whether you would agree. The frescos at Capri I didn’t even see, so of course could not photograph.

40 The post cards are not present among HUA-PAKP. 41 Porter was referring to photographs taken in Greece while travelling with the Berensons in 1923. See Spyros Koulouris’ essay, ‘Capturing the Byzantine World’, in this volume. 42 Carpignano Salentino. 43 The Benedictine Church of SS. Niccolò e Cataldo in Lecce, founded by Tancredi d’Altavilla (d. 1112). 44 The Barletta Cathedral dedicated to Santa Maria, around the mid-twelfth century. 45 Monte Sant’Angelo sul Gargano, Sanctuary of San Michele Arcangelo, bronze door manufactured in Constantinople in 1076 donated by the Amalfi nobleman Mauro di Pantaleone. 46 It is not known why Porter mentioned the artist Antonio Pollaiuolo in reference to the Monte Sant’Angelo bronze door. Years later, Berenson in his Aesthetics and History, 1948, p. 58, seems to resume and somehow ‘explain’ Porter’s statement: ‘…Or take the figures niellowed with silver on the bronze doors of San Michele al Gargano. They are drawn as sinuously, as functionally as an Antonio Pollaiuolo. Must we call them sculpture?’.

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I was working at S. Costanzo (pure Greek, by the way)47 while Tim Clapp48 went to the Certosa49 — be made a note to show me what I had missed, and this I sent on to you, as I thought I remembered hearing you say you had never been at Capri.— Lucky man! We wondered how the Mathers50 and so many other charming people contrive to stick it out. Anfossi51 has fallen ill, and the doctor reports he will not be able to work for at least a month. I sent a S.O.S. call to Nicky and Parry.52 To-day however we read in the papers that you have left I Tatti and I imagine taken Parry with you. After our yachting experience (ordinary wine at 20 lire a bottle) I am in no mood to experiment with unknown Neapolitan chauffeurs. I think we shall follow your example and escape from this furnace by the direttissimo. I plan to go straight for your sculptures at Zurich; then weather permitting, to St Gall53 and Constance.54 It is twenty years since I have seen Reichenau.55 I don’t know why this heat bothers me so — it really isn’t excessive, but I feel a few days more of it would leave me a successful candidate for the mad-house. We feel badly at having seduced the Clapps from England for a motor trip; which dissolves itself into a dew. They will probably linger on for a while in Rome, being excellent salamanders, and will later I hope join us in Switzerland. That is, if the motor, in the meantime, doesn’t fall into the sea or a ditch. Devotedly, Kingsley_

47 The Church of San Costanzo in Capri whose foundation date is uncertain (fifth; ninth– twelfth century). The interior has a Greek cross in square plan resting on twelve columns and spoiled fragments. 48 Frederick Mortimer Clapp. 49 Certosa di San Giacomo in Capri. The complex was founded in the second half of the fourteenth century by Iacopo Arcucci, Count of Minervino and Lord of Altamura. 50 Perhaps Porter was referring to Frank Jewett Mather, Jr. (Deep River, 1868–Princeton, 1953), Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton from 1910 to 1933 and director of the Museum of Historic Art (now the Princeton University Art Museum) from 1922 to 1946, and his wife Ellen Suydam Mills. 51 Porter’s chauffeur. See Porter’s letter to BB no. 2. 52 Berenson’s chauffeur Hugh Parry. 53 St Gall, the capital of the homonymous canton, Switzerland. 54 Constance, a city located at the western end of Lake Constance in the south of Germany. 55 Small island of Reichenau located in the German part of Lake Constance, Baden Württemberg.

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8. BB to Porter (HUA-PAKP. HUG 1706.185, Correspondence with Bernard Berenson, 1 Box, handwritten) July 17, 1923 I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Dear Kingsley. It was a surprise & disappointment to hear that you had rushed north without stopping over to see us. True it is warm. It is 83 F. [ahrenheit] in my study at this minute, with everything tight shut. But the nights are still possible, the mornings pleasant — & in the churches & museums enchanting & the late afternoons on the heights, one half hour above us, cool & refreshing. So I am truly sorry you have not joined us. Besides there is so much I should have liked to discuss, as for instance this very question of Byzant? Apulian painting. You are right in yr. [your] observation, namely that the things we have seen in Greece are very unlike what you have been seeing in Apulia. But in Greece we saw attenuated & schematized things. Was Byzant. [ine] paint.[ing] in 1000–1300 already that, & everywhere? I doubt it. I suspect on the contrary that there were various schools & that possibly the Greeks working in Apulia formed one of them. Thanks by the way for both the parcels of photo that have reached me. I envy yr. [your] seeing Reichenau where I have never been (I may get there at end of Aug. [ust] on the way fr. [om] Gastein56 to London) If you can do take some photos there as the only reprod. [uction] I have are after water-colours. And while in that region be sure you go to Goldbach bei Überlingen where also there are frescoes of the same period,57 again publ. [ished] after water-colours only. Offner58 is still here, & makes a better and better impression. He remains un-attractive, but he has worked intelligently, &, now that he has to leave, he is on the point of opening his eyes and seeing — a miracle wh. [ich] I fear will never disturb any other young American who has approached me in the last few years –

56 Bad Gastein, a spa town in the district of St Johann im Pongau in the Austrian state of Salzburg. 57 Perhaps Berenson was referring to the Silvesterkapelle in Goldbach (a district of Überlingen) on the shores of Lake Constance in which are Ottonian murals closely related to those of St Georg in Oberzell on the island of Reichenau. 58 Richard Offner (Vienna, 1889–Borgo San Lorenzo, 1965), art historian and Professor of Art History at New York University.

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My sister Bessie59 is staying with us, & tomorrow I expect Carey Thomas (ex-pres. [ident] of Bryn Mawr).60 I shall probably leave the 30th for Bad Gastein, Austria (Hotel Europa) where Mary will rejoin me. She is already at Chilling61 with her offspring wh. [ich] she seems to be enjoying Love to you both. Ever affectionately B.B. Be sure you let me have yr. [your] addresses for the next two months.

9. Porter to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 91.3, handwritten)  August 1, 1923  A. KINGSLEY PORTER ELMWOOD  CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS Dear B.B., Your wonderful letter62 starts, as any contact with you always does, many trains of thought. Especially what you say about Tuscan architecture gets in my blood. For years I have realized that this rich field is almost entirely unexploited. Toesca has skimmed some of the cream in his last book,63 but there is surely a vast amount left. I imagine the country must be as rich in unexplored monuments as Lombardy. You people have been so absorbed in the later centuries that I suspect there are here many fat Romanesque plums to fish out. I am sorry you are not going, if you are not, to Constantinople. I find its importance seems to diminish somewhat in perspective, so that what excited me very much there, doesn’t seem so overpowering now. As far as Hagia Sophia goes, you can study it almost as well in photographs as in the original, for the distressing yellow whitewash with which the mosaics are covered bothers me at least quite seriously in the building itself. The thrill of space, as you go in, was about all I hadn’t imagined. And what is visible, seems to have been studied thread-bare. Especially in the Museum,64

59 Elizabeth (‘Bessie’) Berenson (Boston, 1879–Santa Barbara, 1975). 60 Martha Carey Thomas (Baltimore, 1857–Philadelphia, 1935), educator, suffragist, and Professor of English. She was president of Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania from 1894 to 1922. 61 Chilling, a seaside resort in Hampshire, England where Mary used to see her brother Logan. 62 BB’s letter is not present among HUA-PAKP. 63 Pietro Toesca. It is not known which book by Toesca Kingsley Porter was referring to; perhaps it was the first volume of Storia dell’Arte Italiana, Il Medioevo, 1 (Turin, 1913–1927). The volume usually cited with the date 1927, was published in lecture notes starting in 1913. 64 Istanbul, Archaeological Museum.

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I had the feeling that everything had not only been written-up, but over-written up. Yet the whole thing is a great experience, and does in some queer way change your mental orientation, however much you have been over the ground in books. I think you would really miss a lot by not going. You saw I suppose Mayer’s note in the last Art in America65 climbing into your boat in regard to the Kahn and the other Madonna. I feel so strongly the danger of over concentration of which you speak — and I am conscious that I am crawling farther and farther into the remote recesses of a nautilus shell. The sickness is in our universities too; cultured students are becoming as rare as snow-balls in Hell, while we have an increasing crop of more or less competent specialists. The gain is not spiritual, neither do I think it is material. We imagine that if we can only get ahead of the crowd we shall have your flutes, but as a matter of fact, if one wants flutes, one should be particularly careful not to get ahead of crowd, or at least too far ahead. It is I suppose an Alexander — like perversity which is our undoing. We think of you as having a wonderful summer at the Consuma.66 But it must be a serious nuisance to have to move all your stuff up there. Our only advantage over you is that Cambridge is a delightful summer resort. Devotedly, A. Kingsley Porter.

10. BB to Porter (HUA-PAKP. HUG 1706.185, Correspondence with Bernard Berenson, 1 Box, handwritten. Undated letter but perhaps to date back to November 10, 1923)67 Saturday. Hôtel Beau-Site 4 RUE DE PRESBURG PARIS A.D. [ADRESSE] TÉLÉG [GRAPHIQUE]: HOTEL BOSITE TÉLÉPHONE: PASSY 55–47 Dear Kingsley. Thanks for yr. [your] note.68 I am handing yr. [your] enclosure to N.69 I spent the morning yesterday with Millet at the Sorbonne.

65 Mayer, ‘Correspondence’, pp. 234–35. 66 Berenson’s house in Consuma a short distance from Florence. 67 As Spyros Koulouris writes in his essay in this volume ‘Capturing the Byzantine’: n. 37, on 9 November Berenson met Millet at the Sorbonne in Paris. 68 The note was not found. 69 Unidentified name.

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Far fr. [om] being unfriendly he will be delighted to see you & to co-operate with you. He has thousands of photos all of wh. [ich] are for sale. Do look him up soon. In haste but with love to you both. B.B.

11. Porter to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 91.3, handwritten. Undated letter. A typewritten version of the letter is in folder 91.7) Autumn 192370 HOTEL VENDOME 1, PLACE VENDOME PARIS ADR.[ESSE] TÉLÉGRAPHIQUE: VENDOMOTEL TÉLÉPHONE: CENTRAL 41–78 Dear B.B., Many thanks for your letter71 — it is always stimulating to hear from you — I am glad you like the Apulian photographs72 — In a few days I shall return those of Greece I borrowed. You will find various new ones sprinkled in among them, including some of North Italy you may find of interest. I am struck by the phrase in your letter that you do not think the Bari throne73 ‘squares with other manifestations’ — I wonder whether you have found something disquieting in the ornament of the upper part. I have not had the Byzantine erudition to verify this — but Bréhier74 told me it was certainly of the late XI century.75 The sculptures seem to me quite in the style of this time; they square perfectly with monuments and documents every where; the inconsistency seems to be with the theory of certain modern archaeologists.

70 Porter’s letter must have been written in Autumn 1923 (as is reported on the top right in what is probably a later addition) and subsequent to that of Berenson probably dated November 10, 1923. At that time Porter was exchange professor at the Sorbonne in Paris, and lectured at various French provincial universities. In 1924, apparently, after a journey to Constantinople, Porter went to Spain as a visiting professor. 71 BB’s letter was not found. 72 The Apulian photographs mentioned by Porter are now part of the Italian Architecture Section of BBF. Most of them reproduce Romanesque architecture and sculpture and were published in Porter, Romanesque Sculpture of the Pilgrimage Roads, 3. 73 Bari, Basilica di San Nicola, episcopal throne of the Bishop Elias. 74 Louis René Bréhier (Brest, 1868–Reims, 1951), medievalist historian and Professor of Ancient and Medieval History at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, France. 75 The throne is now dated to the second half of the twelfth century.

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I am enclosing the original of a slide76 I had made to summarize this for one of my lectures — You will see that there is reason to think all these monuments, evidently the work of the same atelier, date from the late XI or early XII century. I envy you your broad interests, or better your time to indulge them. Of all your clevernesses, your management of time is the cleverest. I seem to be concentrating attention on ever smaller fields. The delight of discovery is for me one of the keenest. I fear I find a certain satisfaction in feeling that no one has been before me. Paris has used up a lot of that most precious of things, time. Although I have conscienceless [conscientiously] side-stepped most of the official functions, we are pretty thoroughly worn out by a round of dinners and teas, and shall be glad to escape on the 12th. I have seen Millet77 several times — he has been exceedingly friendly, dined with us, asked me to contribute to the Schlumberger Mélanges,78 etc. Your doing? If so thanks. We still hope to get to Constantinople in the spring — and mean to sail from Venice some time in March. I may run down to Florence or Rome to read you a lecture on the Bari throne — for the proofs on that subject are really overwhelming! Our love to Mary and Nicky Devotedly, A. Kingsley Porter

12. BB to Porter (HUA-PAKP. HUG 1706.185, Correspondence with Bernard Berenson, 1 Box, handwritten) Dec. [ember] 30, ’23 I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Dear Kingsley. If my groping can stir yr. [your] pity to come & enlighten me, you will come here soon, no later at all events than the date you mention. It would for many reasons be useful to both of us if you come here on yr. [your] way to Constantinople I want to load you up with all sort of recommendations & messages & in general to play the proud & glorious part of Πρόδρομος 76 The photos of the Bari throne are preserved in the BBF, signature AS 3.12. 77 Gabriel Millet. 78 Léon Gustave Schlumberger (Guebwiller, Alsace, 1844–Paris, 1929), Byzantinist, numismatist, and member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. See Mélanges offerts à M. Gustave Schlumberger.

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- Specializing is its own reward — i.e. the more you do the more you like it. But as with other carnal pleasures it must be indulged in, in moderation. The trouble is that one is constantly encountering problems wh. [ich] cannot be solved with the instruments forged by a given specialization. Not only, but such as have been forged necessarily get blunted with use. So one risks ending where most over-specializers and, as highly honoured professors in great universities, members of all learned societies at home & corresponding member of all the academies abroad, & with any member of quaint letters of the alphabet straggling after one’s name. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of Worldliness. I hear that Mâle has borrowed yr. [your] thunder and written articles that recently appeared in the Revue des Deux Mondes about what the pilgrims to Santiago brought back with them.79 Tell me what these articles are worth. He seems to have followed assiduously the precept ‘Teach first, learn afterwards — if leisure permits’. I knew that Millet would be friendly. Now you can pay me back by tactfully suggesting, when you see him again, how very important it would be for the good of the cosmos that he should procure me, the photographs of the Hautes Etudes,80 & that they should be sent to me in discreet batches. In that way I should benefit by them years earlier (perchance) than if I wanted the whole lot to be completed. You see it matters little where I begin, I always end with photographs. Therein I am a 100% American. We never get beyond the making of the bricks. Whither away on the 12th? Much power to yr. [your] elbow. I envy yr. [your] energy, yr. [your] zest, yr. [your] activity. Devotedly and affectionately to you both, & with such good wishes B.B.

13. Porter to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 91.3, handwritten. A typewritten version of the letter is in folder 91.7) January 16, 1924 HOTEL VENDOME

79 Mâle, ‘Les influences arabes dans l’art roman’, pp. 311–43. 80 École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Paris.

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1, PLACE VENDOME PARIS ADR.[ESSE] TÉLÉGRAPHIQUE: VENDOMOTEL TÉLÉPHONE: CENTRAL 41–78 Dear B.B., Your photographs left to-day, and I hope will arrive safely. There are new ones mixed in with the old.81 It made a great difference in my Paris lectures to be able to use the Greek material; I have called blessings down upon the sweat of Nicky’s brow which must have showered that boiling day in July when she pulled them out for me, in the rush of leaving. To-morrow we are off for the provinces; I shall be quite curious to see how they differ from Paris. If they would only be provincial — but I fear that rarest and most precious of qualities has perished from the face of the earth. Sorbonne professors and American business men all seem now strangely alike. I suspect that without leisure there is not apt to be much scholarship or intellectuality, and whether in France or at home, we are all bent on destroying leisure. Propaganda seems to be taking an ever increasing part in the life of French universities — the most eminent people are scuttling off to stump for the Ruler in remote districts of the Andes or the Rockies. I take it that the new Velasquez Academy at Madrid82 is chiefly a propagandist move. The thing is getting so obvious, I should think it would be in danger of defeating its own ends. There is a limit even to the lack of perspicacity on the part of my compatriots. Possibly both American and French universities would be wiser, even from a material point of view, to stick at their business of scholarship.We spent a delightful evening at Millet’s the other night. I seem to feel there a certain genuine something lacking with some of the more mondaine [sic] scholars. I tried to talk my best in favour of early prints for us both, but I doubt whether we get them. I am told it generally takes him about ten years to get around to things of the sort. However he promised. I am not in a position to set him a good example, unfortunately, as I can’t send him my prints until I get home.

81 It is not known which photos Porter was referring to but on this topic see Spyros Koulouris’ essay, ‘Capturing the Byzantine World’, this volume. 82 Perhaps Porter was referring to the so-called Casa de Velázquez in Madrid which came into being early in the twentieth century. In 1909, a School of Advanced Hispanic Studies [Escuela de Altos Estudios Hispánicos] was created in Madrid by the University of Bordeaux, its object being to attract young French researchers.

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I have been plunging on photographs of French miniatures — the decline of the franc makes prices seductive. I got the entire set of Catala, and am having numerous other manuscripts photographed.83 You can have prints from any of these you want for what the printing costs. Would you like the whole lot? (They are almost entirely French & Spanish, XI–XII centuries). Lucy joins in love to you all Devotedly, A. Kingsley Porter P.S. If you want the photographs, have Nicky write Mme. [Madame] Bertaux84 who is running the photographing.

14. Porter to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 91.3, handwritten) Péra, le 27 March 1924 HOTEL – RESTAURANT M. [EGUERDITCH] TOKATLIAN85 CONSTANTINOPLE Dear B.B’s & Nicky, We continually wish you were with us, and think how much more intense each delight would be if you were. Yesterday we thought of you especially when we went up the Bosphorus, and sailed past Therapia.86 From the steamer one doesn’t see much — gardens, pleasantly neglected, and great hotels, boarded up and in need of paint. There is however nothing more desolate than a summer-resort out of season — unless it be a summer-resort during the season? B.B. must have a bed-room over-looking the

83 Porter was referring to a set of manuscripts photographs in the Bibliothèque nationale de France including those made by Catala Frères Imprimerie. In this regard see three handwritten letters from Jeanne Bertaux to Berenson, not published here but in BBF, Box 7, folder 5, ‘Collection of photographs (Bills), 1898–1937’. The letters are undated but were probably sent to Berenson between 21 May and 27 July 1925 and 1924–1925 as appears from the handwritten notes of Fiorella Superbi present in them. Jeanne Bertaux, née Jeanne Louise Marie Larroumet (Villeneuve-sur-Lot, 1879–Paris, 1958) was the wife of Émile Bertaux (Fontenay-sous-Bois, 1869–Paris, 1917), Professor of Art History at the Sorbonne and director of the Musée Jacquemart-André. No trace of professional activity has been found of Madame Bertaux, we can assume that she helped her husband in his research and continued this activity with correspondents after Émile Bertaux’s death. 84 Madame Jeanne Bertaux. 85 The Tokatliyan Hotels, founded by Meguerditch Tokatliyan (an Ottoman citizen of Armenian descent), were two prominent hotels located around Istanbul: one in Beyoğlu, along Istiklal Caddesi, the other in Tarabya from where Porter seems to be writing. 86 Therapia (now Tarabya), a neighbourhood in the Sariyer district of Istanbul located on the European shoreline of the Bosphorus strait.

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Bosphorus, so that he can enjoy an unimpeded view of the gas-tanks and factories opposite! Joking aside, however, the embassy people all seem to delight in Therapia, and can not say enough of the charm of the life there and the coolness of the climate. You will have a glorious time. You would have had too, had you come with us. We miss you so much, I can’t help rubbing it in a bit. For once, we have actually had luck with climate. In all my experience in Europe, I have never known such a two weeks. We arrived in the snow. But that very day the change came; and we have been neither too cold nor too hot and not a drop of rain nor a breath of wind. The lights have been also peculiarly beautiful, and I imagine possibly rather more subtle than those of summer. We rent a car by the day — it isn’t a Ford, but is of about that calibre. The chauffeur is an Armenian and speaks English perfectly. He does very well for us, but I fancy at Therapia you would want a Rolls-Royce rather than a Ford. There seems to be a great abundance of smart motors about town I think you could undoubtedly get one to suit you from any of the great garages (Fiat, American, Grand, etc.). The Péra Palace hotel is open. We came here because they told us it was closed. We have been there for a couple of meals and think the food rather poor — certainly less good than here. However the rooms are said to be better than here, and the dining-room is much less impossible for entertaining. Neither hotel we think is up to the Grande Bretagne at Athens. We came out by the Simplon-Orient express, as it saves three days over the steamer. It is quite as luxurious as the Lloyd Triestino steamers, and not more expensive, even including the visas ($ 10.00 apiece for Yugo Slovakia and Bulgaria). The scenery is not especially interesting, but one can read with great comfort. We were not disturbed at the various frontiers. If you go to Saloniki,87 I should think that even in summer, you would take this train from Athens; and then perhaps continue on to Venice, rather than return. They all say here that Asia Minor is as open as it ever has been — trips to Nicea,88 Smyrna,89 Konia,90 etc are perfectly possible. There is nothing I am more eager to do, but the usual difficulty of time makes it impossible to go even to Saloniki this year.

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Saloníki, ancient toponym. Nicea, ancient toponym. Smyrna, ancient toponym. Konia, ancient toponym.

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Everything you want to see here, or nearly, is locked up and made as inaccessible as possible. The keys appear to be generally in the pockets of Hallil [sic] Bey,91 the director of the museum. He appears to be courteous, and intelligent. I have so forgotten everything I have asked for, but at the expense of much time. Everything drags on, and one has to make repeated visits to Hallil Bey. I think you will do well to begin to make you want known rather emphatically as promptly as possible after your arrival. The embassy seems unusually sympathetic. One of the secretaries, a Mr Shaw92 from Boston, and a Harvard man, is said to be a good student of Byzantine topography — He is not here now, unfortunately — You might find him a good man to show you about. I don’t know to what extent you will bother with minor churches and cisterns — but many of them are as hard to find in this labyrinth as Palae-Mentheli93 on the slopes of Pentelikon.94 Since I seem to be writing a Baedeker,95 don’t fail to take at sun-set the **walk from the mosque of Eyub96 up past the cemetery97 and on over the hill to the point where you look down on the Sweet Waters of Europe. It is the most B.-B.’-esque thing we have done in Constantinople.

91 Halil Bey (Istanbul, 1861–1938), archaeologist and the then director general of museums in Istanbul. 92 Gardiner Howland Shaw (Boston, 1893–Washington, DC, 1963 or 1965), diplomat. He graduated from Harvard College in 1915; attended Harvard Law School and Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences for two years. He was assigned to the American Commission at Constantinople 26 May 1921; appointed Secretary of class two 22 September 1922; assigned to American Mission, Lausanne Conference, 1923; Foreign Service officier of class four and 1st secretary at Constantinople 1 July 1924. I wish to thank Tiffany H. Cabrera, Ph.D Historian, Special Projects Division, The Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC, for providing me with biographical information on G. H. Shaw: see ‘Shaw, Gardiner Howland’, in Register of the Department, pp. 186–87; ‘Shaw, Gardiner Howland’, in Biographic Register, p. 196; ‘Gardiner Howland Shaw’ in Office of the Historian. Gardiner Howland Shaw collected Byzantine objects and coins. In 1947, Dumbarton Oaks had received by gift 150 Byzantine coins and some 2000 Byzantine lead seals from Mr Shaw. See Ross, Catalogue of the Byzantine and Early Mediaeval Antiquities in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection, 2; Nelson, R. S., Hagia Sophia, 1850–1950, p. 184 and n. 198; “Mildred Barnes Bliss to Royall Tyler, October, 1948” in Dumbarton Oaks, Bliss-Tyler Correspondence. 93 Palae Mentheli, ancient toponym. 94 Pentelikon, ancient toponym. 95 Baedeker Guides are travel guide books published by the German firm of Karl Baedeker beginning in the 1830s. 96 The Eyüp Sultan Mosque located in the Eyüp district on the European side of Istanbul. 97 The Eyüp Sultan Cemetery, an historical burial ground located in the Eyüp district.

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The Byzantine art in general is even paler ashes here than in Greece — all the vandalism ends by being depressing. There are just enough ruins left to get one thoroughly stirred up. I had perhaps expected too much of the Museum98 — the Asia Minor things have often a sort of spinelessness which makes one call down blessings on Doric brutality — The Alexander sarcophagus99 was almost as keen a disappointment as the Hermes.100 But it is better than Dresden china,101 at least now that the colours have faded. Perhaps B.B. will fan our shockingly scant enthusiasm. I really enjoy the Satrap sarcophagus102 more. Affectionately, A. Kingsley Porter

15. BB to Porter (HUA-PAKP. HUG 1706.185, Correspondence with Bernard Berenson, 1 Box, handwritten) I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE June 9, 1924 My dear Kingsley. I immensely enjoyed the letter you wrote just before sailing, & everything you tell me abt’ [about] Jaca103 makes me wild to get there before it is repris dal antico squalore as they so confidingly say over the arch of our Piazza Vitt. [orio] Em. [anuele]104 Meanwhile do be an angel & send me the photos, all the photos, even yr. [your] most pet lambs. I am far too selfish to let anybody else see them before you yrself [yourself] divulge them.

98 Archaeological Museum. 99 The Alexander the Great sarcophagus from Sidon, Lebanon, late fourth century bce, marble in the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul (now part of The Istanbul Archaeological Museums). 100 Perhaps Porter was referring to the Hermes of Praxiteles in Olympia whom he saw the previous year in situ. 101 Porter probably was referring to the Dresden porcelains in a derogatory sense. 102 The Satrap sarcophagus from the Royal necropolis of Sidon, second half of the fifth century bce, marble in the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul. 103 Jaca, a city of northeastern Spain in the province of Huesca. 104 The arch in Piazza Vittorio Emanuele (actually Piazza della Repubblica) in Florence was based on a project by Vincenzo Micheli in 1895.

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Who is the Mr Cook who has just sent me the beginning of a laborious & conscientious study of early Catalan panels.105 Why does not this sort of student come my way, why o why?? I think of you very often as being at Elmwood under those noble trees that I loved so well as a youth, then surrounded by meadows full of buttercups. No wonder its former occupant wrote ‘What is so rare as a day in June!’ This time the days of June are suffocatingly hot. But the oppression of the scirocco now a month old, & the strain of the ocean-stream of callers & visitors, I feel pretty thoroughly parboiled & feck-less. I don’t seem to achieve anything, nor able to understand anything (except in my own job) that requires serious concentration. At my age there is always the danger that it is no temporary collapse but premature senile decay. We have taken a house where the Consuma road branches off to go to Vallombrosa.106 When it gets intolerable here we shall go up there. About Sept. [ember] I. we want to start for Constantinople, but the Turks are behaving in such a way that I wonder whether we shall get there. If we can’t we’ll go to Spain, & follow humbly & faithfully in yr. [your] footsteps. Were you not going to tell me abt [about] the photos you got fr. [om] Clement?107 Do give me the last of those most suited to me, & just where to write to him? Please let me hear soon. Much very real love from all three of us to you both B.B

16. Porter to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 91.3, handwritten. A typewritten version of the letter is in folder 91.7)

105 Walter William Spencer Cook (Orange, 1888–on ship board in the Atlantic, 1962), historian of medieval Spanish art and founding director of the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. See Cook, ‘The Earliest Painted Panels of Catalonia (I)’; Cook, ‘The Earliest Painted Panels of Catalonia (II)’. 106 Vallombrosa, a village and resort near Florence. 107 Berenson was referring to Paul Clemen (Sommerfeld, 1866–Bad Endorf, 1947), art historian and Professor of Art History at the University of Bonn and formerly Provinzialkonservator in the Rhine Province.

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 July 10, 1924  A. KINGSLEY PORTER ELMWOOD  CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS Dear B.B., Your good letter blew in the other day, and added materially, as always, to the joy of life. I shall send you the Jaca photographs as soon as I can get some one to print them. I have had a row with every one in Boston over the outrageous prices they are all asking here now for such work, and think I shall have to turn to some one in New York, who will probably treat me worse. We will work out of it some how, and then you shall have the prints. Only please keep them confidential for a few months. We are going through the usual jar in adjusting ourselves to American prices. Every time I come home from Europe I am appalled at what one has to pay here. Things are so much worse than when we went away. We had a few bricks replaced in the cellar, and received a bill for $ 90.00 which we find is Cheap. Chore-men get from $ 10.00 to $ 12.00 a day — plasterers $ 18.00 and so it goes. Labour simply does not exist. We seem to be a wealthy nation, but we are really poor, for money buys nothing. I find the Fogg Museum feeling happy over having raised the requisite money for a new museum. The new acquisitions you have doubtless been told about by the others — they include two very early Madonnas108 and a Crucifixion close to Botticelli.109 Miss Frick’s Giottesque (north Italian?) altar-piece is on loan. The iconography of one of the little scenes, representing Christ climbing up to the Cross on a ladder to be crucified, I never remember having seen before.110

108 In the absence of records, it is not easy to identify which works these are and also because at that time (1923–1924) several Madonnas were acquired. The earliest ones (or appearing as such) not really in good condition are: The Virgin and Child, actually attributed to the Master of Saint Agatha, thirteenth century (inv. no. 1923.44, tempera on panel, 117 × 62.3 cm); the Madonna and Child in Blue Robes, assigned to an undated Byzantine context (inv. no. 1924.145, tempera on panel?, 48.1 × 35 cm). 109 Porter was referring to the painting with the Mystic Crucifixion by Sandro Botticelli, c. 1500, now in the Fogg Museum (inv. no. 1924.27, tempera and oil on canvas transferred from panel, 72.4 × 51.4 cm). 110 The work is to be identified with a three-panel altarpiece with the Madonna and Child and Two Saints; Scenes from the Life of Christ and the Virgin, now assigned to the Master of the Scrovegni Chapel Presbytery, Padua, c. 1308 in the Frick Art Museum, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (inv. no. 1970.50, tempera on three panels, 73 × 98.4 cm). On the iconography representing Christ climbing up to the Cross on a ladder, see Fachechi, ‘“Stairway to Heaven”’.

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To my surprise I found a large package of photographs from Millet awaiting me here on my return — perhaps two or three hundred in all, including some most precious things, Mt. Sinai, etc. I suppose you have received the same.111 It would be wonderful if the others should follow some day. Clemen’s photographs have also arrived — they are a treasure of the first water, and I strongly advise you to take all you can get. They include many exceedingly important manuscripts and monuments of Belgium and Germany to me wholly unknown. His address is, Prof. Paul Clemen, Coblenzerstrasse 1194, Bonn. I am also getting a set of Goodyear’s photographs.112 These were made to show architectural refinements, but are also incidentally useful for other study. I am not sure whether you would find them worth while or not — it would I should say depend upon how much you want to specialize in architecture. Mr Andrew Deane at the Brooklyn Museum has the negatives, and you can get prints for 25 cents apiece. This is not high as prices are going here now — one man in Boston demanded 75 cents for making a 5 × 7 print from my negative!While on the subject of photographs, I have been thinking of approaching Biagi113 for prints of the Laurenziana114 manuscripts. I shall probably be turned down, as I hear he is adamant; but I shall suggest his keeping the negatives for any students who want copies. I have a vague impression that some of the manuscripts have been photographed already. If you happen to know of any in giro, I should be grateful for the information. The summer here in Cambridge is delightful — infinitely more comfortable than a Swiss hotel. If we could manage things the way we would like, we would never be anywhere else during the hot weather. We are still pegging away at Greek. I have found a Greek student, exiled from Constantinople, who works on the photographs 111 The photographs Porter was referring to must be from Gabriel Millet and as for the Sinai, they were probably related to the Monastery of Saint Catherine. Dr Joanne Bloom, Photographic Resources Librarian, Fine Arts Library, Harvard University, kindly suggests that Lucy Porter donated a large number of Millet photos to the Library as part of Porter’s research and study collection. They are mainly of Greece (Mt. Athos, Daphni) and Italy. The records for the few photos of St. Catherine’s do not specifically say ‘Millet’ as the others do. All of the photos (Sinai, Millet) are indeed now part of the Core Photograph Collection of the Fine Arts Library, Harvard University which is part of Special Collections, Fine Arts Library, Harvard University. As for the photos received by Berenson, they are in the BBF, Byzantine art and architecture section and concern icons (Box 8), furniture (Box 20), architecture & sculpture (Box 23), mosaics (Box 25) from the aforementioned Monastery. See also Spyros Koulouris’ essay, ‘Capturing the Byzantine World’, in this volume. 112 William Henry Goodyear (New Haven, 1846–Brooklyn, 1923), art and architectural historian and Brooklyn Museum’s first curator of Fine Arts. 113 Guido Biagi (Florence, 1855–1925), scholar and philologist, director of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence from 1889 to 1923. 114 Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana.

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for me and talks Greek to us at meals. But I am not at all sure that we shall arrive, it is so difficult to get the time, and there are almost always guests who throw us back into English. I find however that even a smattering makes ancient Greek far more vivid. We think of you as having a happy summer at I Tatti or Valombrosa [sic] and making preparations for Constantinople. I particularly envy you another look at Athens. — And you will of course go back to Delphi115 — though your three days as against our one, perhaps leave you less-consumed by a feeling of unsatisfied longing. Devotedly, A. Kingsley Porter [a handwritten note by Nicky Mariano follows] Remember to say that Millet has done a certain number of early mss [manuscripts]116 in Italy and also one or two in the Laurenziana.-

17. BB to Porter (HUA-PAKP. HUG 1706.185, Correspondence with Bernard Berenson, 1 Box, handwritten) Sept. [ember] 15, 1924 I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE My dear Kingsley. A nosy golden haze, warm & fragrant, filled with the sound of distant bells streams in by the open window as I sit in bed early in the morning & write these lines to you. I have just read yr. [your] autobiography, & find it sincere, fresh, candid, suggestive, informing, & extremely readable. Also it contains an inspiring declaration of faith. Inoculate your students with it. I still have to thank you for the thrillingly exciting photos of Jaca, & the information abt’ [about] Clemen & ever & ever so much else.

115 City and sanctuary in the Phocis region, located on the southern slopes of the Mt. Parnassus near the Gulf of Corinth, Greece. 116 Ioanna Rapti, director of the Collection chrétienne et byzantine-Photothèque Gabriel Millet (EPHE), kindly suggests that Porter when writing ‘had done’ meant ‘photographed’ or ‘noted in the drawing’. Millet photographed some Laurentiana manuscripts including the Rabbula Gospels, sixth century (Plut. 1.56), of which the Collection chrétienne et byzantinePhotothèque Gabriel Millet had one or two watercolour reliefs.

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We are off at 9 & lie tonight at Perugia. We shall wind our way, from early medievals to early medieval, until we reach the Porta del Popolo117 the 20th. We expect to be away three months early Xianizing [Christianizing] & medievalizing in Rome chiefly but also in Sicily & Naples. We all wish, & how much, that both of you were going to be with us to sympathize, to irritate, to instruct & stimulate. Logan is joining with us — We have put off Constantinople till the end of Apr. [il] for many reasons besides my fundamental inertia. No more now. I must bathe & dress & breakfast, & have a last look at the garden. Oh Kingsley one gets too attached to the beauty of things. Life is a bad habit, so difficult to overcome. With love to both of you B.B

18. Porter to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 91.3, handwritten. A typewritten version of the letter is in folder 91.7)  October 3, 1924  A. KINGSLEY PORTER ELMWOOD  CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS Dear B.B., Your letter made me walk on air for twenty-four hours, until my next recitation came along. I am trying Byzantine art this year, and am impressed with a sense of my own intellectual short comings. Russian is fundamental for the subject, and I seriously doubt whether I have the time or the mental buoyancy to tackle it. And I suppose Russian would not really get one anywhere without Coptic, Syriac, Armenian and God knows what all besides. There is none of your gifts which I envy more than your gift of tongues. It must be rather wonderful to have the divine fire in that direction sitting on your forehead, as it does on the apostles in the Badia Orcagna118 you showed us. Syrian iconography, by the way? You will have a wonderful time in Rome and the South. I should particularly like to know your impressions of the condition of various mosaics. The last time I was at Palermo, there was a scaffolding in the Palatine Chapel, so I was able to examine the surface very closely, and it seemed evident to me that restorations had been far more 117 Porta del Popolo, Rome. 118 Porter was referring to the triptych depicting the Pentecost attributed to Andrea di Cione (or Orcagna) and his brother Iacopo di Cione, 1362–1365, formerly in the Church of Santa Maria Assunta della Badia Fiorentina, now in the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence (inv. no. 1890 n. 165, tempera on panel, 195 × 287 cm).

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numerous and more radical that I had had any idea of. I have the feeling that no very exact work can be done on mosaics until we know what is original, what a possibly more or less denatured restoration.119 I am told that there is now no great difficulty in having manuscripts in the Vatican photographed. If you find any of the earlier ones you would like to have done and don’t mind sharing with me, I should be delighted to go halves on the expenses with you. Give my love to the Agro,120 especially if there still be a spot where there are no aeroplane sheds, trolley-cars, motors, nor tourists, and plenty of malarial mosquitos. Rome is very lovely, but I sometimes wish I hadn’t known it twenty years ago. Affectionately, Kingsley.

19. BB to Porter (HUA-PAKP. HUG 1706.185, Correspondence with Bernard Berenson, 1 Box, handwritten) June 12, 1926 GRAND HOTEL U.N.I.T.I.121 (S.A.T.A.)122 NAPLES Dear Kingsley. If you wish to see deeper into the question of what happened to European Art between 300 & 1300, you must come to Sicily & Naples, & learn something to your advantage. My conclusion is that Greek art until about 1300 remained the dominant art to the south of Rome until about 1300 [sic], & that far from suffering much change fr. [om] Northern & Western influences, it was the art of these regions, as part of Medieval Greek in general, that moulded & shaped the barbarous & rude but vigorous spirits of the North & West.

119 Kathryn Brush kindly suggests that Porter was in Sicily (and Palermo) several times in the early years of his career between approximately 1909 and 1912. The opportunity that Porter may have had to climb the scaffolding can be traced back to those dates: Maria Giulia Aurigemma, Professor of Modern Art History, kindly suggests that at that time some mosaics were repaired due to the fall of tesserae in the north presbytery. Porter may have found Francesco Valenti’s scaffolding and having taken advantage of it. See Aurigemma, ‘Palinsesto Palatina’, p. 246 and n. 446; pp. 247-50. Francesco Valenti (Palermo, 1868–1953), engineer and architect; in 1910 he was confirmed as architect on the newly created Soprintendenza ai Monumenti della Sicilia which he directed from 1924 to 1935. 120 The Agro Romano, a vast rural area around Rome. 121 Unione Nazionale Industrie Turistiche Nazionali. In the letter, the acronym is surrounded by a garland in the upper part of which is a basket with two swallows facing each other. 122 Società Alberghi Terme Affini.

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To see all this for yourself, come here & put yrself [yourself] under the Sovraintendente Gino Chierici.123 He has been in correspondence with you already. He tells me he has discovered any number of clear-cut Byzantine buildings in this region, & will be delighted to show you everything, including all the sculpture, painting, etc. And in Sicily you will find Orsi124 at Siracusa, & Valenti125 at Palermo. If you spend several months in this region, you might see daylight in problems that have been tormenting you ever since I have known you. Things here are earlier than in France, but not in consequence of Lombard or any North Ital. [ian] aptitudes, or influences, they are manifestations of Aegean Art prevalent in these regions for the last 5000 years. If you still have a copy of yr. [your] bk [book] on Romanesque scul. [pture] send it to Comm. [endatore] Gino Chierici, Sovraintendenza di Arte Medievale, Palazzo Reale, Napoli With dearest love to both B. B.

20. Porter to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 91.3, handwritten. A typewritten version of the letter is in folder 91.7) June 25, 1926 A. KINGSLEY PORTER ELMWOOD CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS Dear BB., Your letter and your two articles126 arrived almost in the same mail, so I feel a strong whiff of Berensonian stimulation

123 Gino Chierici (Pisa, 1877–Milan, 1961), architect and Direttore della Regia Soprintendenza dell’Arte medievale e moderna della Campania; subsequently Soprintendente all’Arte Medievale e Moderna di Milano from 1935 to 1945 and Professor of Architectural History at the Politecnico of Milan. 124 Paolo Orsi (Rovereto, 1859–1935), archaeologist. In 1907 three offices were entrusted to him: the Soprintendenza agli Scavi e ai Musei archeologici (provincie di Siracusa, Catania e Caltanissetta, including Enna); the Soprintendenza ai Monumenti (provincie di Siracusa e Catania); the Soprintendenza alle Gallerie, ai Musei Medievali e Moderni e agli Oggetti d’arte (provincie di Siracusa, Catania e Messina). He was also entrusted with the new Regia Soprintendenza agli Scavi e Musei di Reggio Calabria, with jurisdiction over the province di Reggio Calabria, Potenza, Cosenza e Catanzaro. 125 Francesco Valenti. 126 Perhaps Porter was referring to two of Berenson’s articles: ‘Due illustratori italiani dello Speculum Humanae Salvationis (I)’; ‘Due illustratori italiani dello Speculum Humanae Salvationis (II)’.

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You and Mary have a curious way of getting under one’s skin. I am of course hugely pleased that you should have reproduced our Lorenzo di Niccolò;127 and even more so that you are convinced Apulian things antedate Northern. Your studies on method give admirable object lessons of thoroughness. At bottom, I take it, your point is that we need all the light we can get, from every angle. There is only amen to be said to that, even though I have perhaps less confidence than you in iconography, which I think is being rather run into the ground, especially at Princeton. It is easy to forget that extant works of art are only a small part of what once existed, and that artists are often influenced by what is neither of their own immediate time nor region. It has happened so often that the deductions of iconographical scholars have been upset by some work they have overlooked that I wonder how many others would go by the boards if we had all the evidence which once existed. If we really followed the iconographical system rigorously we should have to place the Ravenna throne128 in the XIII century and make other equally outrageous attributions. It is of course not to the legitimate use to which you put the method, but to its abuse by mechanistic students, that I object. The insuperable difficulty with artistic scholarship I suspect is intellectual dishonesty — I don’t mean wilful, but the more dangerous, subconscious kind which makes it almost impossible, even for the few who try, to look at things without bias, whether derived from herd instinct, reaction, self interest or what not. I don’t suppose unemotional thinking along our lines is attainable, and I am convinced that most people are warped by some complex or other. With a crooked out look, the resources of scholarship merely become a tool for befogging the general opinion. I note with interest what you say about the Greeks in south Italy. I have long had a suspicion that they are largely accountable for the phenomena of Bari, but in the absence of the proof have hesitated to suggest it. It may be that you are right in believing that the influence comes from the Aegean. The closest parallels I have been able to find are in inland Egypt, where nearly every characteristic feature can be matched. The

127 The Madonna and Child by Niccolò di Pietro Gerini, fourteenth-fifteenth century, formerly attributed to Lorenzo di Niccolò, now in the Fogg Museum (inv. no. 1962.285, tempera transferred from panel to canvas, 83 × 42.7 cm). The painting was purchased by Porter in Florence in 1913 and later donated to the Fogg. The painting was published by Berenson in the first article dedicated to the Speculum Humanae Salvationis: Berenson, ‘Due illustratori italiani dello Speculum Humanae Salvationis (I)’, pp. 308; 312, fig. 23; see n. 126. 128 Ravenna, Museo Arcivescovile, Chair of Bishop Maximian (546–56), Constantinopolitan manufacture (wood covered with carved ivory plaques, 122 × 65 × 30 cm).

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sudden appearance of apparently Coptic motives all over Europe in the XI and XII centuries is a mystery which I can not understand. The Apulian Greek architecture seems to me related to the mainland rather than the islands; and I have never been able to localize the Eastern influences so evident in the frescos and miniatures. I do not know any of the scholars you mention — thank you for giving me their addresses. I am sending a copy of Romanesque Sculpture to Chierici as you suggest. Love from us both to you three Devotedly, Kingsley_

21. BB to Porter (HUA-PAKP. HUG 1706.185, Correspondence with Bernard Berenson, 1 Box, handwritten) Consuma. Aug. [ust] 19, 1926 Dear Kingsley. Yr̛s [Yours] of June 25th reached me July 12th, & if I were not so busy both resting & working, I should have written at once, so stimulating & provocative was its effect. I have had to wait till now, not unfortunately to feel much better but to find the leisure. Here we are near the roof of Tuscany, & look over much of it, not as if it were a map in relief, but a great opal in the rough, unfacetted, unmounted, free fr. [om] artifacts, & all the squalour of that filth — producing biped, pre-human or de-humanized man. Save for the sound of a passing car, wh. [ich] is more frequent than I welcome, we enjoy silence & perfect solitude. I have finished a small job that I had on hand, & I am free to feel ill, tired, & out of sorts, but not without hope of recovery. Perhaps in the 12 days we shall still be here I may get better. At all events I start again Sept. [ember] 1, & until it gets too cold, we shall be exploring N. [orth] Italy. I have abandoned the idea of going to France & England. Now I am going to remark on some points of yr. [your] letter. To begin with let me tell you that no better statement of what I should like method to be could be found than yr. [your] search for ‘all the light we can get from every angle’. As for iconography I wholly agree with you. It is a useful drudge, but a poor mistress. And all you say abt’ [about] the difficulty of going at the problem with the sole intent of trying to found out just what happened, I more than subscribe to. I, for instance, have brains enough — & it takes brains — to be honest-minded, but as I look back on my career I see that I am only now getting to the point where I do not care to be

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right, or at least to convince others, but wish to approach each problem in an inquiring spirit, without an interest in the result No question of power should be involved, and by ‘power’ I mean to include all such decisive but irrelevant factors as authority, tradition personality, influence, charm, gift of statement, etc. etc.- Chierici received yr. [your] Romanesque Sculpture some time ago, & by this time you no doubt have heard fr. [rom] him yr̛self [yourself]. I seriously repeat that you should spend a couple of years on the thorough exploration of Italy south of the Apennines fr. [om] Florence, to Trapani,129 and the Sicilian & Campanian parts more particularly. I venture to warn you ag. [ain] Copts, Mazdians, Cappadocians, etc. & to prophecy that Apulia will not so well as Sicily & Campania yield illuminating material. Apulia was too much of a thoroughfare — yes, too much. Now I must stop, dear Kingsley. If there is anything I should not miss in N. [orth] Italy write & tell me at once. With very real love to you both Devotedly B.B.

22. Porter to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 91.3, handwritten. A typewritten version of the letter is in folder 91.7) September 3, 1926 A. KINGSLEY PORTER ELMWOOD CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS Dear B.B., Your letter is stimulating, and sets me thinking, as contact of any sort with you always does. What you say, and perhaps even more what you don’t say, has a curious way of making an impression. Of all the things I envy you, there is nothing I should rather have than your ability to be forceful without effort (at least apparent). It makes pounding the pulpit seems so vulgar (as it is). Perhaps one day I shall leave off the profitless task of seeking foolproof demonstrations to try at least for your serene point of view. What has kept me from attempting it long ago is a certain distaste for being buried beneath a pile of stones. Your trip to northern Italy fills me with memories and envy. Every time I go back, I come across some obvious trick which I missed. The last time it was the silver boxes in the

129 Trapani, a city on the west coast of Sicily.

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priest’s house at Grado,130 and the time before the golden Byzantine book-covers in the other priest’s house at Chiavenna.131 You know probably the important Romanesque frescos at Spigno — dated works of the X century according to my present lights. I sent you photographs some time ago.132 This is a tid-bit I have been saving up for some student; so I should be obliged if you would not advertise it, unless you think something ought to be done to preserve the paintings from destruction. At Sezzè (name of town recently changed — is it now Sezzade?) is a Pisanello-esque Annunciation in the roof of the villa of Senatore Frascara133 (a charming gentleman); you no doubt are familiar with the reproduction published by Gasparolo in his monograph on the abbey,134 and perhaps have already seen the originals, although I think Frascara mentioned some years ago that you hadn’t.— The fresco I confess gave me some moments of rather acute pleasure ten years ago, although I am quite convinced it shouldn’t have. The Perry’s [sic] are home, full of happiness over their visit at the Tatti. Lucy has talked with Rachel over the telephone several times, and they both are dining with us to-morrow. We are leaving for Spain in February, slipping out as the Diehls135 come in. They will have Elmwood. We shall probably go directly to Seville and Barcelona, then to Galicia and León when the season (always unfavorable in Spain at whatsoever time of year) permits. I fear we shall miss the opening of the new Fogg; however it seems on the whole the best arrangement.

130 Porter was referring to the silvers boxes and reliquaries in Grado Cathedral (now Basilica of Sant’Eufemia), treasury on the northern Adriatic Sea. 131 Porter was referring to the eleventh century Gospel valve, the so-called Pace di Chiavenna, probably realized in Lombardy, which is in the Museo del Tesoro, Chiavenna. 132 Perhaps he was referring to the mural fragments of the Last Judgment in the Abbey Church of San Quintino in Spigno Monferrato (province of Alessandria, Piedmont region). The photos are not present in BBF. 133 Sezzè, ancient toponym of Sezzadio, province of Alessandria, Piedmont region. Giuseppe Frascara (Alessandria, 1858–Sezzadio, 1925), senator of the Regno d’Italia. In 1863 the senator’s father, Angelo Frascara took over the Benedictine Abbey complex of Santa Giustina in Sezzadio (eleventh century) building his villa next to it. The Annunciation to which Porter was referring should probably be identified with the mural on the triumphal arch of the church’s apse belonging to the complex, which was hidden over the centuries. The painting, executed by a Lombard master during the second decade of the fourteenth century, was detached in the 1950s, later restored and now located on the left wall of the transept. The abbey complex is now privately owned. 134 Gasparolo, Memorie storiche di Sezzè Alessandrino, 2: Documenti, pls 11–12. 135 Perhaps Michel Charles Diehl (Strasbourg, 1859–Paris, 1944), Byzantinist, archaeologist and Professor of Byzantine History at the Sorbonne in Paris, and his wife Marguerite de Langenhagen.

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We are sorry to hear you haven’t been well; I hope the quiet and good air of the Consuma sent you away rested and strengthened. Love from us both to you all. Affectionately, Kingsley. I am enclosing a letter of introduction to Frascara,136 who has probably forgotten me, for what it may be worth.

23. BB to Porter (HUA-PAKP. HUG 1706.185, Correspondence with Bernard Berenson, 1 Box, handwritten) Trent, Nov. [ember] 17, 1926 My dear Kingsley. I begin a letter here to tell you, least I forget it, that the young men of the Soprintendenza137 here have told us of a whole chain of 8th & 9th cent. [uries] churches in the Val Venosta138 & the neighborhood. They report them as being full of stuccoes & frescoes all done under the influence of St Gall. It is too far advanced in the season for us now, but we mean to come back & explore them. Meanwhile I have told these men about you. When you present yrself [yourself] they will give you every assistance, & if you like they will personally conduct you. If you still have a copy of your Lombard Architecture to dispose of, do send it to the Sovraintendenza delle Belle Arti, Trento.139 — Padua the 18th. Yesterday I made a discovery, when we got here, & looked over a sort of itinerary Toesca made out for us, I found that he mentioned it as Syriac work of the 6th cent. [ury].

136 The letter was not found. 137 The officials and the director of the Castello del Buonconsiglio Monumenti e Collezioni Provinciali, Trento, kindly suggest that the ‘young men of the Soprintendenza’ to whom Berenson was referring, could be identified as Antonio Morassi (Gorizia, 1893–Milan, 1976), art historian, Ispettore and Antonino Rusconi (Trieste, 1897–1975), architect then serving the Regia Soprintendenza all’arte medioevale e moderna per le Provincie di Trento, Verona e Mantova with headquarters in the Castello del Buonconsiglio. The Soprintendenza was then directed by Giuseppe Gerola (Arsiero, Vicenza, 1877–Trento, 1938). 138 Val Venosta, a valley in the western Alto Adige region, Italy. 139 Porter, Lombard Architecture, 4 vols. The Library of the Museo del Castello del Buonconsiglio still preserves Porter’s three volumes (plus one of plates) mentioned in the correspondence; the inventory records of the time show that they were entered on 28 January 1927 and catalogued as a ‘gift from the University of Yale, New Haven’.

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It is a pilgrimage church near Feltre called SS. Vittore e Corona.140 The whole is interesting but the choir reminded me of Sohag,141 of S. Vitale,142 of Germigny des Prés,143 etc., etc. The lintel, the caps, the throne are all, more startling, THERE where they are. But the more I work away, the more do I see how wide & deep the influence of the Eastern Mediterranean was in every part of Italy, but in Venetia most of all. I am pleased, by the way, reading Toesca on the 11th 12th & 13th cent. [uries] in his marvellous Storia dell’Arte in Italia,144 to see how much he has given to the Byzantines. In fact he goes almost as far as I should. I hear from Miss B. [elle] G. [reene]145 that Millet is giving most flattering lectures at Princeton & in the Morgan Library on what he finds in America I hear too that all the wise men of the Oriental Study have been there bringing frankincense, myrrh & every other sweet substance to the Infant God, American Money. - We have been reading a little book of singular freshness & beauty describing a voyage very like yours in the Aegean and made in a cockle shell. It is called ‘La Croisière de la Perlette’ & written by two yg. [young] girls, one French & the other Genevese.146 I shall have it sent you direct fr. [om] Paris. - Italy is too much for me. So long as I stuck to the 125 years between 1425 & 1550, I could hope to encompass it. But now that every stratum back to Villanova147 fascinates me the task is hopeless altho’ [although] the entertainment increasingly great. I grudge

140 The Sanctuary of SS. Vittore e Corona in Anzù, near Feltre (Veneto region), founded in 1096 by Giovanni da Vidor father of Arpone, Bishop of Feltre, and dedicated in 1101. 141 Porter was probably referring to the Church of Saints Bishai and Bigol at the Red Monastery, and to the Church of St Shenoute at the White Monastery, both dating back to the fifth century. 142 Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna, begun under Bishop Ecclesius (c. 522–32) and consecrated in 547–48 by Bishop Maximianus. 143 Oratory of Germigny-des-Prés, built in 803 and completed in 806 by Theodulf, Bishop of Orléans (799–818). 144 Berenson was referring to the two volumes by Pietro Toesca entitled Storia dell’Arte Italiana, 1, Il Medioevo, 1 and Storia dell’Arte Italiana, 1, Il Medioevo, 2. 145 Belle da Costa Greene (Washington, DC, 1879–New York City, 1950), Pierpont Morgan’s librarian and first director of the Morgan Library (now Morgan Library & Museum) in New York City. On Belle Greene, see Ardizzone, An Illuminated Life and Lapierre, Belle Greene; Lapierre, Belle Greene, Italian trans. by Bracci Testasecca. 146 Berenson was referring to Marthe Oulié (Paris, 1901–Vence, 1941), archaeologist and Hermine De Saussure (Cologny, 1901–Clamart, 1984), sailor and writer; see by Oulié and De Saussure, La Croisière de ‘Perlette’; 1700 milles dans la mer Égée (Paris, 1926). The book is in Biblioteca Berenson, Asian and Islamic Collection. 147 Perhaps Berenson meant ‘Villanova’ in the sense of Villanovan = culture of the Iron Age?

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the time I shall have to give the next two or three years revising my lists,148 & my Florentine Drawings.149 Dear Kingsley, it is a great pity that we see so little of each other & life is going, going, going. With love from us all to you both Affectionately B.B.

24. Porter to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 91.4, handwritten. A typewritten verson of the letter is in folder 91.8) Posted Sept. [ember] 18 1927 [B.B.’s note] WHITE STAR LINE. ON BOARD S.S. ‘CEDRIC.’150 Dear BB, The rush from Utrecht to Liverpool is over, and we are comfortably settled on this excellent steamer, which we find far more to our taste than the Roma.151 Boats that call at Boston have about them a certain indefinable air of the old maid — and I much prefer old maids to the nasal-voiced, boisterous, supposedly marriageable coccherelle who romped over everything on the outward voyage and often made thought or sleep impossible. The only physical change in the boat that I can see now she is déclassé is that she has acquired an alleged orchestra — it makes strange squeaky sounds on the companionway, happily too feeble to be very annoying, and some of the more lively old maids try to dance on the rubber matting. But it is all very forced and soon abandoned. We think of what went on the Roma and magnify Boston.

148 The revision of the ‘lists’ on which Berenson was working after the first edition is probably the one that was released in 1930 with the title The Italian Painters of the Renaissance. 149 Berenson was probably working on revising his two-volume The Drawings of the Florentine Painters: Classified, Criticized and Studied as Documents in the History and Appreciation of Tuscan Art; with a copious catalogue raisonné published in London in 1903, of which the second three-volume edition entitled The Drawings of the Florentine Painters, was published in Chicago in 1938. 150 Steamship Cedric was an ocean liner owned by the British shipping company White Star Line. 151 Steamship Roma was an ocean liner built for the Italian shipping company Navigazione Generale Italiana of Genoa.

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Lucy bought clothes in Paris and I sneaked in a couple of days at the Bibliothèque Nationale. They continue as always to make all sorts of difficulties about everything and devise schemes to make one loose [sic] time. There is however a certain feeling of triumph in extracting a manuscript from their avaricious and unwilling hands. It was in the department of imprimés that they got me. They have now a rule that in summer a book must be asked for two days in advance — and as I was not so long in Paris I had to go away without seeing what I wanted. Thank Nicky for her kind telegram about Panofsky.152 I went to call on him at once and he dined with us Monday evening. He turns out to be rather a bristling little person, apparently full of good intentions. He is writing a book on St Gilles in which he says he will follow my chronology, and agrees with my view of the connection with Modena, while differing on minor scores.-153 I was exceedingly glad to get into personal touch with him, which I should not have been able to do without the telegram. No one else seemed to be in Paris, except a few students. At London we stayed at Garlands,154 where we enjoyed the quiet — It is quite remarkable in a hotel so centrally located. They have a radio installed in every room, the first time I have come across this comfort, but I fear it won’t be the last. It can happily be turned off, but it was difficult to keep it so, for we found the waiter, and maid were constantly tuning in! We think of you all as wondering through much — golden Germany and finding always new wonders. We envy you. Those were two memorable weeks you gave us BB, and will always remain a high-light with the trip in Greece. Our only disappointment was not to see Mary. You were very sweet to go back to Hildesheim and to Minden155 and other places out of your way to humour me — I should feel guilty about it, except that it was all so rich that I am sure you didn’t mind.

152 Erwin Panofsky (Hanover, Germany, 1892–Princeton, 1968), art historian, then Professor of History of Art at Hamburg University. 153 Probably Porter was referring to the frieze relief that runs from left to right on the western façade of the Abbey Church of Saint-Gilles-du-Gard (southern France) representing Christological scenes. Porter dated the frieze as well as the great statues of the same façade to c. 1140, finding similarities with the pulpit reliefs of Modena Cathedral assigned to the last quarter of the twelfth century. See Porter, Romanesque Sculpture of the Pilgrimage Roads, 1, p. 8; pp. 267–302, especially p. 284. It does not appear that Erwin Panofsky wrote a book on the Abbey Church of St Gilles. In his Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art, 1, p. 60; 2, fig. 30, Panofsky mentioned St Gilles’s sculpture in the northern jamb of the central portal (western façade) with SS. John the Evangelist and Peter dating them to 1140. Currently it is not excluded that the sculpture as well as the building of St Gilles date from the last decades of the twelfth century. As for the pulpit of Modena, it was executed by Enrico da Campione in 1322 and largely replaced in the following century. 154 Perhaps Garland’s Hotel on Suffolk Street, London. 155 Minden, a city in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

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Lucy bought Lyeskov’s ‘Enchanted Wanderer’156 on your recommendation and I have been reading it. Like all Russians, he seems to me stark-mad. I confess I have a liking for this lunatic-asylum atmosphere — perhaps a re-action from the monotons [sic] and dull good sense of the modern world, which makes one want to escape to anything, be it expressionistic painting or jazz music. I saw Eric Maclagan for a few minutes in London. He spoke of you with great affection and quoted your remark on the South Kensington walrus carving157 (‘so much like Rosetti158 that it must be English’) He doen’t accept Goldschmidt’s Franco-Belgian attribution;159 Miss Longhurst (?) who is bringing out a new catalogue of the South Kensington ivories is very emphatic that the Adoration in question must be English.160 That museum has glorious ivories and metal work — but nothing in it amused me more than the large signs provided by a thoughtful management and indicating the ‘Way Out’. I note that Maclagan accepts Royal Tyler’s new dating for the Romanus ivory.161 He tells me too that it was Tyler who got for the Museum the new porphyry disk dated somewhere about 1073,162 I forget the exact year, and a fundamental point of departure for Byzantine chronology. 156 The Enchanted Wanderer, a novel by Nikolai Leskov (Lyeskov) first published in Russian in 1873 with the title Очарованный странник (transliteration: Ocharovannyi strannik) and later translated into western languages. In Biblioteca Berenson House is an edition of Leskov’s novel trans. from the Russian by Paschkoff, with an introduction by Gorky published in London in 1927. 157 It is not known what Berenson’s opinion was of the carved whalebone panel with the Adoration of the Magi in the Victoria and Albert Museum to which Porter was referring to. The panel is now dated to northern Spain, c. 1120–1150 (inv. no. 142–1866, height at left 36.5 cm, height at right 35.4 cm, width at bottom, 16 cm, width at top 10 cm). 158 Porter was referring to Dante Gabriel Rossetti (London, 1828–Birchington-on-Sea, 1882), painter and poet. 159 Adolph Goldschmidt (Hamburg, 1863–Basel, 1944), art historian and the then head of the Art Department, University of Berlin. The scholar attributed the panel as northern FrancoFlemish, around 1100. See Goldschmidt, Die Elfenbeinskulpturen aus der romanischen Zeit, 4, cat. no. 14, pp. 11–12; fig. 4. 160 Margaret Helen Longhurst considered the panel as English dating it to the eleventh or twelfth century; see Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, part 1, pp. 87–88, pl. 67. 161 Porter was referring to the ivory panel with Christ Crowning the Emperor Romanos II and his wife Eudokia in BnF, Département des Monnaies, Médailles et Antiques (or Cabinet des Médailles), which Hayford Peirce (Bangor, Maine, 1883-1946) and Royall Tyler (see Biographical Profile) dated to Constantinople, 945 (inv. no. 55.300, 24.5 × 15.6 cm). See Peirce and Tyler, Byzantine Art, pp. 38–39, pl. 49; Peirce and Tyler, ‘Deux mouvements dans d’art byzantin du Xe siècle’, pp. 129–30; Maclagan, ‘Review: An Anthology of Byzantine Art’, p. 217. Currently the ivory is assigned between 945 and 949 or to a later date, namely the third quarter of the eleventh century. In this case the portraits are to be identified with Romanos IV Diogenes and his wife Eudokia Makrembolitissa. 162 The green porphyry (serpentine) medallion was acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in early 1927 from the Abbey of Heiligenkreuz, Austria. The medallion assigned to Constantinople, 1078–1081 depicting a half-length figure of the Virgin in prayer with an

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Thanks again for the two weeks. Love from us both. Affectionately, Kingsley.

25. Porter to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 91.4, handwritten. A typewritten version of the letter is in folder 91.8) January 4 th 1928 A. KINGSLEY PORTER ELMWOOD CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS Dear B.B., It is the evening of one of those January days in New England that make you feel as if you were a god stalking along the ridges of Olympus — and as I walked up Brattle Street I almost expected to hear arrows rattling in a silver quiver. Too bad that feeling like a god doesn’t make one seem so to other people! The morning I spent trying to re-write quite hopelessly a messy page of Beyond Architecture which is up for a second edition -163 It all seems so childish after only ten years, and if I allow it to be printed again it will have to be virtually as a new book. Since those days I have eaten of the Fruit of the Tree. I wish I were half so certain that I had acquired knowledge as I am that I have lost innocence. Lucy has gone to a lecture on the Hittites by the director of the British School at Jerusalem.164 I passed the afternoon in the library correcting or trying to a dull and careless manuscript submitted to Art Studies165 by a distinguished scholar.166 At luncheon Walter Whitehill167 was reading to us Strindberg’s The Bridal Crown168 — emotional especially if you make it move fast. Mrs Robinson169 is coming

inscription invoking her aid for Nikephoros Botaneiates (inv. no. A.1:1, 2–1927, diameter 17.7 cm, depth 3.5 cm). 163 Porter, Beyond Architecture, 2nd edn (Boston, 1928; first ed. 1918). 164 Perhaps Porter was referring to John Winter Crowfoot (Banbury, 1873–Geldeston, 1959), archaeologist and director of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem (BSAJ) from 1926 to 1935. 165 Art Studies: Medieval, Renaissance and Modern magazine edited by the Members of the Departments of Fine Arts at Harvard and Princeton Universities. 166 It is not known who the scholar was. 167 Walter Muir Whitehill (Cambridge, Mass., 1905–Boston, 1978), medievalist, historian, and author. 168 The Bridal Crown is the translation of August Strindberg’s play published in Swedish in 1902 under the title Kronbruden. An English edition was published in New York in 1916 (along with three other plays) and then republished in London in 1927, see Strindberg, Bridal Crown. The Spook Sonata. The First Warning. Gustavus Vasa. 169 Of uncertain identity, perhaps the wife of Edward Robinson (Boston, 1858–New York City, 1931), director of the Metropolitan Museum in New York?

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for a visit to-morrow. And so the world ways and it is all quite delightful and we can see the eyes of the megalopolis, Tiger, Tiger shinning in the dark. A cable from Hyde170 brought the news that the invitation to you for the fall of 1929 had been forwarded to you by mail. We are eagerly hoping you may decide to come. You would have of our best men just those whom you wanted, and I find myself that it is stimulating to work with student kind. The teaching of course is a minor matter. What would be the vital gain for us, is the penetration, by electric shock of your being here, of your far-sighted vision and your ideals of scholarship into the department. Have you read Morey’s171 review of Dalton172 in the last number but one of the Art Bulletin?173 He takes a nip at the calves of several of his and our dear friends, including Diehl, Millet and Maclagan. Fascism as practised at Princeton and imitated in other American universities (except up to the present here) and the whole most illuminating. It makes me realize how quaintly behind the times I am. If you want to clean things up and get them over, work with a gang and an iconographic index. We think of you as sipping tea flavoured with orange blossoms, sitting in the sunshine and trying to get out of the tramontana behind the trunk of a palm-tree. I wish you would steal Mrs. Wharton’s174 copy of Mediaeval Architecture175 and destroy it. Nothing irritates me more than to see that book dropping to pieces from over-use in the Harvard Library of all places, while no one ever disturbs the dust gathering deeper and deeper on distinctly less bad books I have done. Goldschmidt had gone to New York and Maclagan is off for Chicago. The new idea of a reading period seems to me working very well — as far as I can see it really gives every body a chance to do a little serious work. Affectionately, Kingsley.

170 James Hazen Hyde (New York, 1876–1959), a Harvard alumnus who lived in France; he was a businessman, socialite, art collector, philanthropist and Francophile. Hyde’s cable dated 7 January 1928, typewritten, is not published here but is found in HUA-PAKP. HUG 1706.102, Correspondence with James Hazen Hyde, 10 Box). 171 Charles Rufus Morey. 172 Ormonde Maddock Dalton (Cardiff, 1866–Holford, 1945), Classical scholar and Byzantinist. 173 Morey, ‘Reviews. East Christian Art by O. M. Dalton’. 174 Edith Wharton, née Newbold Jones (New York City, 1862–Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt, 1937), writer and novelist. 175 Porter, Medieval Architecture: Its Origins and Development, 2 vols (New York, 1909; repr. New Haven, 1912). Lucy K. Porter, ‘A . Kingsley Porter’ with ‘Bibliography’, p. xvii, referring to A. K. Porter’s Medieval Architecture does not report 1912 as the year of the edition after 1909 but 1918.

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26. BB to Porter (HUA-PAKP. HUG 1706.185, Correspondence with Bernard Berenson, 1 Box, handwritten) Febr. [uary] 12, 1928 I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE My dear Kingsley. Yr. [Your] letter of Jan. [uary] 4 was a delight, & if I have not written sooner to thank you, it was the fault of a certain pleasure I have in keeping you on my chest as it were. I have to thank you as well for yr. [your] notes on the Albenga176 capitals. It is dear of you to wish me over with you for a season. And one bit of me would enjoy the task some, & most of me would enjoy the human contacts, and all of me would revel in your society. But I must not swerve from my path wh. [ich] stretches before me for years to come. I must give my ever diminishing energies to finishing my lists, preparing the new Florent. [ine] Drawings, & meditating over the work on the millennium between Diocletian & Giotto which will sum up what I have to say about art eternal — as man is eternal — & art contingential177 or casual. I must travel still & for a good part of each year, but I must go to learn & not to teach. Thus we do hope to get at least to Constantinople & its coasts next Sept. [ember] & in the spring of ’29 to do Syria. - I have been going thro’ [through] the periodicals accumulated during my absence. They do not tend to heighten my satisfaction with my profession. The high average is one of mere sham pedantry, or of problematizing over problems that don’t exist. And a trail of Strzygowski178 smears everything. It will not be easy to

176 Berenson miswrote this, perhaps he intended to write ‘Alabanza’ and was referring to the capitals from the Abbey Church of Santa María de Lebanza, province of Palencia, northern Spain now in the Fogg Museum (inv. no. 1926.4.1, 63.5 × 63 × 51.7 cm; inv. no. 1926.4.2, 64 × 64 × 50.5 cm, limestone and mortar with red paint). 177 Perhaps Bernard meant to write ‘contingent’? 178 Josef Strzygowski (Biala, Austrian Silesia, today part of Poland, 1862–Vienna, 1941), art historian and the then Professor of Art History at the University of Vienna.

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wipe up. And I see that Monneret179 has got into the art bulletin180 & I have read a most enchantingly written review by yourself of an un-published book of his on Sohag.181 Let me warn you that he is only, an epigraphist, not the least an art-historian, not very veracious & that he will use you, if you let him, in ways, you will not like _ I hear that poor Goldschmid [sic]182 has been enthralled by la Belle Greene sans merci drenched with wine & flattery. How does he endure it I wonder. I hope it won’t cost him to dear & us-for he is a real serious student, & I want lots more out of him. Then I hear that illuminated MSS [Manuscripts] are now all the rage in New Baghdad;183 to the exclusion — of course — of all other modes of artistic expression. Funny isn’t it? When one happens to know the sculpture of the 11th 12th, 13th & 14th cent. [uries] in Europe. But in certain spots in New Bagdad betw. [een] the Metropolitan Museum & Altman’s184 what they know not has no existence. I am getting frivolous, & not witty. What a bore ‘Speculum’185 has become, publishing wretched doggerel that has the one & only merit of having for good reasons been left unpublished till American pedantry, destined to be the heaviest & most smothering has brought it to light. It is of a piece with the Frick186 effort to photograph all the microbes that have escaped phagocites.187 Nature, landscape I mean is consoling. I can’t begin to tell you what moments of happiness it gives me, moments of it-ness. After all art’s chief & perhaps sole business is to turn each of us into a great re-creator of nature.

179 Ugo Monneret de Villard (Milan, 1881–Rome, 1954), engineer, archaeologist, and art historian. 180 Perhaps Berenson by ‘art bulletin’ meant to refer to Art Studies; he served on its advisory council from 1927 and Monneret de Villard published his article ‘Il problema dell’arte sâsânide’ in the same year. 181 See Porter, ‘Reviews. U. Monneret de Villard, Les Couvents près de Sohâg’, pp. 356–59. 182 Adolph Goldschmidt. 183 Berenson was referring to New York City. 184 Benjamin Altman (New York City, 1840–1913), owner of a department store who collected art; at his death his collection entered the Metropolitan Museum. 185 Speculum, published quarterly since 1926, was the first scholarly journal in North America devoted exclusively to the Middle Ages. 186 A scientist named Frick who studied phagocytes? 187 Phagocytes.

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Much love to you both B.B.

27. BB to Porter (HUA-PAKP. HUG 1706.185, Correspondence with Bernard Berenson, 1 Box, handwritten) Sept. [ember] 27, 1928 PÉRA PALACE HOTEL CONSTANTINOPLE Dear Kingsley. I wonder where this will find you. Indeed you owe me a letter, & we are eager for yr. [your] news. We got here the 16th and have been having perfect weather, all as materially well situated as may be, & seeing what we can each day. Of course it is but a trifle of what you could put in during the 24 hours. But can you guess what the best guide is that we have found for Byzant. [ine] Const. [antinople]? It is yr. [your] photos. How did you manage in such a short visit to do such wonderful & significant negatives? We profit by the miracle & bless you daily. Friend of the Poor like myself, tire not of yr. [your] charity & continue yr. [your] beautified shower of photos fr. [om] every place you visit. Talking of photos reminds me to write abt’ [about] those that Riefsthal188 has done in Anatolia. I have seen hundreds of them, & they are most important for Seljuk as well as Ottoman architecture. I asked for a set offering to pay him on the basis on contributing to what must have been his expenses. He refuses to take more than the cost of the prints but would gladly accept the cost of printing some seventy copies of a catalogue of his photos Himself suggested that printing copies for me would be a good opportunity for making sets for others who desired them. I thought at once of you, & I want you to tell me whether you would like a set, & go shares with me &, I trust, two or three others in the cost of printing the catalogue.

188 Rudolf Meyer Riefstahl (Munich, 1880–New York City, 1936), medievalist, Islamic art expert, art agent, and at this time Professor of Fine Arts at New York University. Riefstahl resided in Constantinople from 1927 to 1929 where he lectured at Robert College and the American Women’s College.

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By the way he has photos of scores of capitals most of them late Hellenistic & Byzantine. -Our first week here was passed under the shepherding of Riefsthal. He took us there the most recondite remains of Ottoman art, but in the process I managed to rouse him to no little excitement over other places of art. He is doing splendid work here, not quite of such mathematical precision as Creswell’s,189 but, happily, not so cloud-confined. He wants to tear himself loose fr. [om] that institooshon190 cheap over the glistering country N. [ew] Y. [ork] Univ. [ersity] & to establish himself here at the head of something like an American school at Constant. [inople] for the study of all the phases of art that have manifested themselves here & in Anatolia. As he makes on me the impression of being fully once of us, I hope you will join me in doing all we can for his scheme. Maclagan has joined us191 for ten days. It touched me to hear him talk with such appreciation & affection of both of you. When he leaves we shall go Konia. While he remains we Byzantize fiercely. Nicky and I have already been to Adrianople & seen Sinan’s192 maturest masterpiece. I only wish you both were here. Let me at least send you both the love of all of us Address here till Oct. [ober] 20 at least. Devotedly B.B. P.S. Can’t you if already in the East give a nearer address than Paris?

28. Porter to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 91.4, handwritten. A typewritten version of the letter is in folder 91.8) Bad Aachen, Oct. [ober] 21, 1928 Palast-Hotel “Der Quellenhof ”193 Dir. [ektion] H. Muelenz Tel.[efon]-Adr. [esse]: Quellenhof Telefon Nr. 27141

189 Sir Keppel Archibald Cameron Creswell (London, 1879–1974), engineer and scholar of early Islamic architecture. 190 ‘Institution’. 191 Berenson was with Mary and Nicky. 192 Sinan, also called Mimar Sinan ‘Architect Sinan’ (Ağırnaz, c. 1490–Constantinople, 1588), architect. The masterpiece to which Berenson was referring to is the Selimiye Mosque. 193 Aachen, also known as Bad Aachen or Aix-la-Chapelle, a spa and border city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

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Dear BB, We are back from the treasure gasping. There came professor Buchkrämer194 who presided; and there came the Schatzmeister with whom every one was enormously impressed because he was quite deaf and had had an operation; there came Bruder Lucian; there came the sacristan; there came the assistant sacristan and there came two beadles. It was entertaining to see the procession trailing through the rotunda when they carried the books into the sacristy, but with German understanding of a scholar’s desires, every one then disappeared and we could study them without distractions. I don’t know how we should ever be able to tear ourselves away from Germany, if it weren’t for a fixed sailing from Venice to Alexandria on November 3d. It costs more that a transatlantic crossing and is I suppose the first fruits of the Egyptian bleeding for which we are slated. Our address there by-the-way will be Mena House, Gizeh, Cairo.195 Why don’t you stop over with us on your way back from Constantinople and go to Sinai? Blake196 tells me one can get there most comfortably in three days from Cairo, or was it Port Said? You take a steamer to the nearest port on the Red Sea, then do the rest by caravan. We saw Maclagan for a moment in London — he arrived the day we left. He looked badly, and said he had contracted dysentery in the East. He also distressed us by saying that you and Mary had been below par. I trust the cooler weather has by this put you both back where you like to be. I have been almost having nervous prostration over the publication of my book. Some things are the publishers’ fault, more no doubt are mine, but the matter has gotten so complicated that I have almost gone wild with it. I suppose useless worrying is a symptom of advancing years, and the habit is growing fast with me. The German edition had things I regret, but is infinitely better than I at one time thought it would be; the English I hope to see in a day or so, perhaps to-morrow; the music with the Spanish which I anticipate will be the most nerve wracking of all is just beginning.197

194 Joseph Buchkremer (Aachen, 1864–1949), architect and Aachen Cathedral master builder. 195 Mena House Hotel (now Marriott Mena House) located in Giza, also called Gizeh, on the west bank of the Nile southwest of central Cairo. 196 Robert Pierpont Blake (San Francisco, 1886–Cambridge, Mass., 1950), Byzantinist and at this time professor at Harvard University. 197 Probably Porter was referring to his Spanish Romanesque Sculpture, 2 vols, Pantheon Series (Florence: Pantheon Casa Editrice, 1928) which was published simultaneously (in 1928) in German and shortly after (in 1929–1930) in Spanish translations. The English edition of Porter’s Spanish Romanesque Sculpture is in Biblioteca Berenson although the two volumes were not immediately delivered to Berenson, see Porter’s letter to BB, 22 March 1929: no. 34.

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I spent nearly all our short time in London at the British Museum. I like Millar198 immensely — find him pleasanter to get on with than almost any scholar I have known, certainly than any other official — He was always making helpful suggesting and bringing out illuminating literature. He evidently made careful mental notes of what you said of various manuscripts and quoted you with exactitude I am certain on several occasions. In scampering across England we got to several Saxon churches — Deerhurst where a perfectly good Blachernitissa199 blinked down at me. I don’t remember that any one has recognized her, but shall probably find they have when I get a chance to go over literature. […] I gather from what Maclagan said that Halil Bey hasn’t changed his spots. When I was there I thought it was the Princeton Sardis question200 which made him shut up the basement of the museum, but evidently that was only excuse. I should like to know what is really there. Have you gotten in touch with Macristy?201 That was one of the really helpful things Halil Bey did for me, to put me under M’s [Macridy’s] wing. He gave me a lot of invaluable information and facilitated several hunts that otherwise might have been in vain. I have never met Riefsthal. I have a horrid fear that any school of Americans for the study of art in Constantinople must inevitably either become thinly disguised Turkish propaganda or cease to exist — however I am probably pessimistic and I wish R’s [Riefsthal’s] venture well. If he can really open up the arcana to students he will be doing a great service. I should be delighted for a set of his photographs if he will let me have them.

198 Eric George Millar (1887–1966), scholar and collector of English illuminated manuscripts; in 1912 he entered the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum of which he became keeper from 1944. 199 The sculpture of the Virgin and Child of the Blachernitissa type is located over the inner doorway of St Mary’s Priory Church, Deerhurst near Gloucester, England. 200 The first large-scale scientific excavations at Sardis, the ancient capital of Lydia (Turkey), were carried out in 1910 by Professor Howard Crosby Butler (Croton Falls, New York, 1872–Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1922) of Princeton University at the invitation of Osman Hamdi Bey, the then director of the Imperial Museum, today’s The Istanbul Archaeological Museums. Butler excavated at Sardis for four seasons, but the advent of the First World War and the ensuing Greek-Turkish conflicts delayed his return. Revisiting Sardis in the Spring of 1922, he found that many of the finds had been stolen or destroyed and the excavation house had been gutted. The Treaty of Sèvres, ratified in 1920, had established new laws governing the excavation and exportation of antiquities, stipulating that archaeologists could export half of all antiquities unearthed at Turkish sites. Before the war, all finds had been the property of the Ottoman Museum in Constantinople. Butler was elated by the knowledge that he would now have an opportunity to enrich the collections of American museums. Butler never finished his work at Sardis: traveling through Europe on his way back to the States, he died suddenly in Neuilly-sur-Seine. See Kenfield, ‘Archaeological Archives’, pp. 221–22. 201 Probably Porter was referring to Theodore Macridy Bey, see Biographical Profile.

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Affectionately, Kingsley.

29. BB to Porter (HUA-PAKP. HUG 1706.185, Correspondence with Bernard Berenson, 1 Box, handwritten) Nov. [ember] 8, 1928 PÉRA PALACE HOTEL CONSTANTINOPLE Dear Kingsley. We are packed and Nicky has just started for the station to get thro’ [through] the formalities, & Mary & I have a half hour free. I snatch it to answer yr. [your] letter of Oct. [ober] 21 How I envy you seeing the treasure at Aix in the way you have. Relying on Stoclet202 I counted on his having made arrangements for private visit. As he had not done it we could see only what was shown to the public. I shall be eager for yr. [your] account of the trip to Sinai. If you find that it is feasible & worth while we may do it some day. As landscape it must be marvellous. About the mosaics and mss [manuscripts] I am less certain.203 But now I must turn our heads westward, first to Salonica to see that fairly, & then to Athens to touch EARTH. In the spring if I can possibly get away we shall do Syria & Palestine. Meanwhile I count on yr. [your] visit at I Tatti as you return fr. [om] Egypt. In Egypt don’t commit my mistake & fail to see El Khargeh.204 And if you do get there photograph abundantly both early Xian [Christian] frescoes & carvings.205

202 Adolphe-René-Louis Stoclet (Saint Gilles, Brussels, 1871–Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, 1949) engineer, financier and art collector. 203 Berenson was referring to the mosaics representing the Transfiguration and the Revelation of God to the Prophet Moses in the eastern apse of the Basilica of St Catherine’s Monastery on Mt. Sinai, sixth century, and to the ancient manuscripts held in the Library there. 204 Kharga or El Kharga oasis located in the Western Desert of Egypt; Kharga or El Kharga is also the name of a major town located in the oasis. 205 Probably Berenson was referring to the Early Christian murals in the Bagawat necropolis and to the early carvings found in the Temple of Hibis in the Kharga Oasis. In the late antique period the temple was reused as a church.

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It is lucky that we stayed two days longer than we expected to. For quite accidentally we heard yesterday that some new mosaics had been uncovered at Kharieh Jami.206 We went there to day & sure enough a Dormition in excellent state appeared over the door inside the entrance wall from the Esonarthex, & in the Exonarthex, two or three Madonnas & several saints.207 I must say they seem to have done it competently, & I understand they are going to try the spandrils. No doubt most of the surviving Byz. [antine] buildings would reveal mosaics if searched — & so much else. If only keen, un-self-advertising people were here to make an atmosphere favourable to such pursuits. We are leaving with the greatest reluctance, & I must return to go to Sivas,208 & Cesarea,209 & Dearbakir,210 & to revisit the revealing material in the great museum here. In fact I have seldom learnt so much as I have in the last two months. And Konia was a new constellation, & I want to study every member of it. We met a surprising youngster here, Wright,211 who has a fellowship fr. [om] Princeton of $ 2500 a year to study Turk. [ish] lang. [uage] & history. Three cheers for Princeton. I envy you Egypt. What would I not give to see the first dynasty or the great Muslim things with you. With love to you both from all three of us Yours B.B

30. Porter to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 91.4, handwritten. A typewritten version of the letter is in folder 91.8) THE EGYPTIAN HOTELS L.TD

206 The Church of St Saviour in Chora (then Kariye Camii, now Kariye Müzesi). 207 Berenson was referring to the fourteenth century mosaic panel with the Dormition of the Virgin in the west wall of the nave above the entrance door of the Church of St Saviour, which was just uncovered as it had been concealed from view by a heavy coating of plaster, and probably to the three fragmentary mosaic panels in the outer narthex which were identified with the Virgin and Child (Hodegitria); St Joachim (?); St Anne and the Infant Mary. These too were uncovered under a layer of coating of plaster. See Ebersolt, ‘Chroniques. Une nouvelle mosaïque’; Ebersolt, ‘Chroniques. Trois nouveaux fragments de mosaïques’. Paul A. Underwood in the first volume of The Kariye Djami, p. 167 reported that the discovery dates back to 1929 while the mosaics were already visible from the end of the previous year. 208 Sivas, formerly known as Sebaste, a city in central Anatolia, Turkey. 209 Cesarea, ancient toponym. 210 Diyarbakır, a city in southeastern Turkey. 211 Perhaps Walter Livingston Wright, Jr., Princeton class of 1921.

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SHEPHEARD’S [sic]HOTEL CAIRO  { SEMIRAMIS HOTEL THE CONTINENTAL-SAVOY PYRAMIDS: MENA HOUSE HOTEL HELOUAN-  GRAND HOTEL LES-BAINS  { TEWFIK PALACE SULPHUR BATHS ESTABLISHMENT ALEXANDRIA: HOTEL CASINO SANSTEFANO MENA HOUSE HOTEL PYRAMIDS CAIRO Cairo…Nov. [ember] 26 …1928. Dear BB., Alas! — We can’t get to Florence in January — After much groping and bargaining and talking with tourist agencies, dragomen, thieves and malfactors of all complexions, after having inspected and priced steam dahabeyahs,212 sail dahabeyaho, camels, donkeys and automobiles, we find the only possible way for us to see what we came to see in Upper Egypt is to charter a launch with sleeping cabin. — This will not be ready until the 6th of December or after and is rented only for a month — nor could we get to Assuan213 and back in less time. As we sail from Liverpool on the 19th that leaves barely time to scuttle Alexandria-Trieste-Simplon.214 When you return to I Tatti you should find a copy of Romanesque Sculpture of Spain waiting for you. I dont’ think I have ever really told you how grateful I feel to you for having arranged its publication in the Pantheon series.215 Ever since I have known you, you have been throwing me a series of ropes at critical moments.

212 From Arabic dhahabīyah, literally: the golden one (that is, gilded barge), a passenger boat used on the Nile in Egypt. 213 Aswan, a city in southern of Egypt. 214 The Simplon Orient Express train. 215 The exact title of the book is Spanish Romanesque Sculpture, see n. 197.

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Had I seen you on this trip I should have asked for another in the form of your cleansighted advice. But it is probably as well I didn’t, as I should certainly have talked too much. I think my next task will be a new edition of Mediaeval Architecture,216 which has been in my mind for years now. But I sometimes wonder whether I have the time to carry it through — whether it is worth the sacrifice it would entail to do it properly, and if perhaps I had better keep to something less ambitions. I envy you Saloniki and Adrianople and Konia and so much else you have done in Constantinople. Do tell me what has turned up in the much advertised excavations of the Hippodrome and where have the results been published? I shall have to deal with the topography of the city in my course this winter, so should be particularly grateful for information. We gave up Sinai when you didn’t come, really for lack of time. Last week we were in at the Wady Natrun217 — Maclagan’s tip, although I believe he didn’t go there. The Salt and Soda people218 were the personification of kindness — gave us private cars and trains, made us more comfortable than we are in Cairo really and for an entirely nominal payment. I don’t think the Suryani frescos of the IX. century — but below can be seen bits of others of very fine quality, and which quite disorientate one’s ideas of Coptic design. Are those at Deir Makarius of the same school? The heads set in in wood like Fayoum portraits suggest an early date,219 but in this queer country who dares say what is the period of anything.

216 Porter never published a revised edition of this book which was reprinted again in 1966. 217 Wadi El Natrun, a valley located in northern Egypt. The name refers to the presence of different lakes in the region that produce natron salt (natron is a natural compound of sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate). 218 The Salt and Soda Company: the village that is now called Wadi Natrun Village, as Karel C. Innemée kindly suggests, was known then as Bir Hooker, and was in fact a settlement for workers of the locally active Egyptian Salt and Soda Company. Their railway was the easiest connection from Cairo to the Wadi. The help they received was no doubt from the staff living in Bir Hooker, from where the distance to the monasteries was several kilometres. 219 Porter was referring to the murals in the Church of the Holy Virgin of the Monastery of the Syrians (Dayr al-Suryan), Wadi El Natrun (Egypt). In 1928 only the murals in the three semi-domes were visible, but in the western one already a few fragments had fallen down revealing parts of the older mural of the Annunciation. As Karel C. Innemée kindly suggests, Porter no doubt was referring to these parts of the eighth century mural and indeed these are probably of a similar age as the paintings of the wooden arch in the Church of Saint Macarius (Sanctuary of St. Benjamin) in the nearby Monastery of St. Macarius (Deir Abu Maqar). In 1991 the mural of the Annunciation was entirely uncovered after a fire had severely damaged the mural with the Ascension that had been painted on a layer of plaster covering it. In 1995 other murals were found under the eighteenth century plaster. This led to the discovery of a number of superimposed layers of murals. The murals in Dayr al-Suryan were not painted al fresco, but in tempera and encaustic technique. See Innemée ‘Dayr al-Suryan: New Discoveries’, pp.  1–50, with bibliography.

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At Alexandria Breccia220 was most helpful — that Museum, unlike the one here, is run with the purpose of being useful to students. Lacau221 impresses me as a counterpart to Halil Bey — overwhelms me with compliments, free tickets and courteous speeches, but essentials like photographs and information about the countless important objects which ought to be visible in the Museum and are not, is not forthcoming, or at least hasn’t been so far. In the entire Coptic section there is not a single label; the numbers have all been changed since the Strzygowski catalogue222 and confusion worse confounded reigns. One almost suspects wilful obscuritanism to conceal the misdeeds of Clédat223 and others — but they tell me the Egyptian antiquities are handled in precisely the same spirit. The Menas shrine224 we found not only worth while archaeologically but unexpectedly emotional — those miles of desolate ruins, the elaborate baths, all the deification of a water that disappeared centuries ago. I marvel that the early and perfectly dated examples of domes on pendentives and arched squinches are not better known. […] I haven’t yet time to look up Creswell. I shall go to see him to-morrow and earnestly hope he is in town as I need him badly to straighten out a whole series of intellectual muddles. I wonder how the printing of your new editions is progressing, and when they will be out. We await their appearance with much excitement. The only subject of conversation here, at least that we hear, is health. Every one seems to be sick with something and every day we learn all about how to catch a new disease. We thought we came too early, for we were nearly prostrated by the heat, until suddenly one morning we found ourselves shivering in a thick Milanese fog.

220 Annibale Evaristo Breccia (Offagna, 1876–Rome, 1967), Egyptologist and the then director of the Graeco-Roman Museum of Alexandria. 221 Pierre Lacau (Brie-Comte-Robert, 1873–Paris, 1963), Egyptologist and philologist and the then director general of Egypt’s antiquities. 222 Strzygowski, Catalogue Général des Antiquités Égyptiennes du Musée du Caire published in 1904. 223 Jean Clédat (Périgueux, 1871–Bouch, 1943), Egyptologist and Coptologist, resident in the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale in Cairo. 224 Probably Porter was referring to the Sanctuary of Abu Mina on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt.

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We have been ourselves perfectly well, but always conscious of cold & other germs walking about our system and ready to pounce if occasion offered. Love to Mary and Nicky from us both. Affectionately, Kingsley.

31. BB to Porter (HUA-PAKP. HUG 1706.185, Correspondence with Bernard Berenson, 1 Box, handwritten) Dec. [ember] 12, 1928 I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE My dear Kingsley. Of course I am disappointed that you are not coming. It is too bad. I repeat my hope that you will get to El Khargeh. In Nubia I found in several places medallion heads of the Justinian period painted on columns & walls, that might have been done by the self same people who did the heads in the Parthenon225 The preliminary report addressed to the British Academy, on the excavations at the Hippodrome has been printed by the Oxford Univ. [ersity] Press226 & can be had for two-&-six. At Luxor be sure you look up Winlock227 — at Thebes.228 If you don’t know him already tell him I sent you. He is Unsereiner & good fun, altho’ [although] a trifle hedehoggy229 — to meet.

225 It is uncertain which church Berenson saw as many of the earlier churches were destroyed during the building of the Aswan dam. 226 See Casson, Rice, Jones, and Hudson, Preliminary Report upon the Excavations carried out in the Hippodrome of Constantinople published for the British Academy by Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1928. 227 Herbert Eustis Winlock (Washington, DC, 1884–Venice, Florida, 1950), Egyptologist; he became director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s (New York) Egyptian Expedition in 1928 and the then director of the Museum from 1932. 228 Thebes, ancient Egyptian city located along the Nile. 229 Perhaps ‘hedgehoggy’.

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Salonica was archaeologically far more interesting & instructive than I expected. In a pathetic way, one can perhaps study St Demetrius better than if it were standing untouched.230 The mosaics at Paraskevi,231 at St George,232 & St David233 are among the most wonderful in existence. And caps & columns & carvings no end. No photos that are legible. Do go there soon & do them properly. Athens was more enchanting than ever. There I feel aesthetically happy as nowhere else. It is my Burning Bush. Now I am back & again hard at work at the revision of my lists. They are the dead weight that providentially keep my spirit tied to earth — which I do love after all — inordinately. We expect to start off again March 16 for Syria. I want before sunset to see all that Asia Minor, Syria & Palestina contain, & please the Gods get to India. I am at last without anything in my head except a desire to enjoy & to understand. Egyptian art after Hatshepsut234 gives me very little satisfaction. My delight is in the 3d–6th dynasties.

230 The Basilica of Saint Demetrius, built in the third quarter of the fifth century and between 510 and 520, then restored. A disastrous fire in 1917 led to the substantial reconstruction of the building. The restoration begun immediately after the fire and therefore work was still in progress at the time of the letter. The task of restoring the church was assigned to the architect Aristoteles Zachos (Kastoria, 1871–Athens, Greece, 1939). Zachos’s plan was rebuild the basilica, preserving those parts which were still intact and reconstruct the rest of the church in accordance with the original form. The work stopped in 1939 and recommenced in 1945. The committee in charge which was composed by the Byzantinists Georgios Angelou Soteriou (Spetses, 1880–Athens, 1965), Anastasios Orlandos (Athens, 1887–1979), Andreas Xyngopoulos (Athens, 1891–1979), Stylianos Pelekanidis (Istanbul, 1909–Thessaloniki, 1980, éphoros (curator) of the Byzantine Archaeological Service of Thessaloniki, Greece from 1943 to 1962), and engineer P. Paraskevopoulos, decided to modify Zachos’s original plan and to restore the monument, preserving as much as possible of the old structure. See Bakirtzis, The Basilica of St Demetrius, pp. 19–20. 231 Probably Berenson was referring to the mosaics of the Basilica of the Virgin Acheiropoietos, also known as Saint Paraskevi, c. 475 ce. 232 The Rotunda, a building of controversial function erected around 305 ce within the perimeter of the palatium of the tetrarch Galerius (293–311 ce) subsequently transformed into a church dedicated to Saint George perhaps at the end of the fourth or, more likely, in the next century. The mosaics are dated to the late fifth century. 233 The mosaics of the Church of Saint David, formerly the katholikon of a monastery, late fifth–early sixth century. 234 Hatshepsut was an Egyptian queen and pharaoh who ruled during the eighteenth dynasty.

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The Tooting-Common235 stuff is an abomination & most of the Akhenaton236 only curious & pathetic. I have no use for even the Berlin Nefertiti.237 Say not this to Carter,238 but give him my greetings. How I wish I were pulling up the Nile with you. Leisure, leisure, where shall I find thee!! Merry Xmas [Christmas] to you both & Happy New Years & much love B.B.

32. Mary Berenson to Porter (HUA-PAKP. HUG 1706.185, Correspondence with Bernard Berenson, 1 Box, typewritten) 13. 12. 28. I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE A. Kingsley-Porter Esq., Crédit Commercial de France, Boulevard des Capucines, 22, Paris. Dear Sir, We have many apologies to send for the almost inexcusable delay that has intervened between our last expedition of miniatures and the present one. Professor Toesca, who had the photographing of the unpublished miniatures in hand, has been too busy to attend it. He has moved to Rome to take up a professorship there, has got married and had a baby in the meantime; and is only now beginning to take up the normal course of his work.

235 Tooting-Common is a play on words for Tutankhamun perhaps to be connected with a proposal to call the extension of the London Underground from Morden to Edgware ‘Tootancamden’ because it passed through both Tooting and Camden Town. See Fryxell, ‘Tutankhamen, Egyptomania’, pp. 516–42, especially p. 528. 236 Akhenaton was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty. 237 Nefertiti was an Egyptian queen, wife of the pharaoh Akhenaton; the bust of Nefertiti (New Kingdom, eighteenth dynasty, c. 1351–1334 bce) is in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung (inv. no. ÄM 21300, painted limestone, gypsum, black beeswax, rock crystal, 49 × 24.5 × 35 cm). 238 Probably Berenson was referring to Howard Carter (Swaffham, 1874–London, 1939), archaeologist and Egyptologist, who in 1922 found Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

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We hope to finish up the miniatures due to you on your subscription before very long, but do not think we can go on with it as the danger of delay and interruption seem to be so great. With this we are sending you three photographs of miniatures we saw during a recent visit to Athens.239 To us they seem very interesting. They are unpublished. Yours truly, Mary Berenson

33. Porter to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 91.5, handwritten. A typewritten version of the letter is in folder 91.8) January 7, 1929 PIROSCAFO “HELOUAN” LLOYD TRIESTINO Dear BB., Your good letter reached me in a moment of discouragement, and was tonic, as contact with you always is. Thanks especially for insisting that we go to El Khargeh, which we might otherwise not have done. We did so in the face of difficulties, for the rest-house was full of Metropolitan people,240 who as you know are (and have been since 1911) preparing a monumental publication.241 So we had to charter a dragoman and tents and camp out. The expense had at least the compensation that we were completely comfortable and able to enjoy the divine landscape as well as the archaeology without fatigue. The necropolis is an incredible piling up of domed structures, and looks like the background of the Grado ivories.242 239 Three photographs of the Psalter in Athens, MS EBE 7, Psalter, twelfth century. 240 Members of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s (New York) Egyptian expedition. 241 Porter was referring to the following Metropolitan Museum of Art Egyptian expedition: Winlock, The Temple of Hibis in El Khārgeh Oasis, part 1, The Excavations; White and Olivier, The Temple of Hibis in El Khārgeh Oasis, part 2, Greek Inscriptions; Davies, The Temple of Hibis in El Khārgeh Oasis, part 3, The Decoration. 242 A group of fourteen ivory reliefs representing episodes from the Life of St Mark and Prophets as well as New Testament scenes preserved in several museums (Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection, Washington, DC, Nativity of Christ (inv. no. BZ. 1951–1930, 9.3 × 19.1 cm); Castello Sforzesco, Museo delle Arti Decorative, Milan: Saint Menas with Flanking Camels (inv. no. Avori 1, 10.2 × 8.5 cm); St Mark Preaching (inv. no. Avori 2, 18.9 × 10.5 cm); St Mark Healing Anianus the Shoemaker (inv. no. Avori 3, 19 × 8.25 cm); St Mark Baptising Anianus and his Household (inv. no. Avori 4, 19 × 9.2 cm); St Mark Consecrating Anianus (inv. no. Avori 5, 19 × 9.35 cm); Fragment with St Mark (inv. no. Avori 6, 19 × 4.1 cm); Prophet with a Plaque, inv. no. Avori 7, 9 × 8 cm); Annunciation to the Virgin (inv. no.14, 19.7 × 9.5 cm); Musée du Louvre, Département des Objets d’Art, Paris, The Prophet Joel (inv. no. 864, 10,2 × 8,7 cm); Musée de Cluny-Musée National du Moyen Âge, Paris, Saint on Orant Pose (inv. no. Cl. 1932,

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The frescos have the character of IV century work, the date that seems universally or nearly so admitted — but can these domes on pendentives, these Pisa-like blind colonnades,243 these Gothic capitals, these nearly pointed arches be so early? Nubia, alas, I don’t know at all — the medallion heads of the Justinian period you speak of interest me intensely and I wonder just where you found them. At Deirut244 Lucy got spilled off a donkey backwards — sprained her back which was bad, and drove a rib into her liver which was worse. We got her to a doctor at Assiut,245 and then after some anxious days watching fever to the hospital in Cairo where they repaired her skilfully and quickly. But three weeks had gone, and our boat trip was knocked out. Mary is wise not to trust donkeys. They are wretched little beasts. We had one! day in Luxor and were lucky to get that. We went to the Winlocks246 for tea, where we happened to meet Carter. We have at least learned not to try to go to Egypt for less than the whole winter, and this we shall apply on our next trip. Even as things unsatisfactorily are, I feel we shall always be a little different from

243 244 245 246

10.3 × 8.3 cm); Victoria and Albert Museum in London: Saint Peter Dictating the Gospel to Saint Mark (inv. no. 270:1–1867, 13.5 × 10 cm); The Filling of the Water Pots at the Miracle of Cana (inv. no. A.1-1921, 11.3 × 9.2 cm); the British Museum, London, Raising of Lazarus (inv. no. 1856,0623.26, 19.5 × 8.8 cm), have been connected with the so-called Grado chair since the core group was discussed in an article by Graven, ‘Der heilige Markus in Rom und in der Pentapolis’. The panels were thought to be remnants of a chair which traditionally was believed to be the cathedra of St Mark, given by the Emperor Heraclius (610–41) to the Cathedral of Grado. Heraclius had procured the ivory cathedra from Alexandria. However, the diversity in style and iconography, as well as the difficulty of ascertaining the original purpose of the panels, has led to many different scholarly interpretations. Also Porter’s opinion as evidenced by the quotation in his letter was aware of the problematic nature of these ivories. The connection between the existing panels and the Grado chair (see Williamson, Medieval Ivory Carvings, cat. no. 10, pp. 61–62) appears to remain unproven. The panels are currently attributed to the Eastern Mediterranean or Egypt, seventh–eighth century, as an example of a continuous tradition of artistic production in some parts of the Christian East in the early Islamic period. See Bühl, ‘Ivories of the So-Called Grado Chair’, in Byzantium and Islam, ed. by H. C. Evans and Ratliff, cat. no. 24A-N., pp. 45–50, with bibliography; Weitzmann, ‘The Ivories of the So-Called Grado Chair’, pp. 43–91, especially pp. 90–91. As Bühl, ‘Ivories of the So-Called Grado Chair’, in Byzantium and Islam, ed. by H. C. Evans and Ratliff, p. 50 writes, the ‘intermingling Islamic and Byzantine iconographic elements — the bulbous domes, the steplike shape of the crenelations, the ornamental columns shafts in the Annunciation panel […] interpreted as influenced by one tradition or the other — demonstrates the cultural flux and diversity of the late 7th and 8th centuries’. See lastly the catalogue entry on the relief with the Annunciation in Castello Sforzesco (Milan) including an excursus on the so-called Grado Chair: Tasso, ‘Tavoletta ‘Tavoletta rappresentante l’Annunciazione con i Nomi in greco’ in Gli avori Trivulzio, cat. no. 11, pp. 189–92. Porter was referring to the monumental complex of Piazza dei Miracoli in Pisa. Dairut, an Egyptian city located on the west bank of the Nile. Asyut (or Assiut, ancient Likopolis), a city of Upper Egypt located on the west bank of the Nile. Herbert Eustis Winlock and his wife, the artist Helen Chandler.

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what we were before we passed under the shadows of Hatshepsut and Zoser247 and so many others. Speaking of keeping one’s feet on the ground, isn’t that all very well, so long as your head is in the clouds? The trouble may be there are not many people as tall as you are. Coptic Egypt leaves me rather confused and bewildered by its Protean many-sidedness. I suspect in it before I went the force, negative and partly unsympathetic, but still the force that broke the back bone of Hellenism and changed the orientation of western European art for nearly a millennium. I had pictured it as austere and dour — an expression of that monasticism which turned its back on the luxury of Alexandria and on classic art because associated with that luxury. I still can imagine no other explanation on why western Europe habitually and for centuries reached over the seductive and accomplished monuments of Hellenistic art everywhere accessible, to seek models in the uncouth productions of monasteries lost in inaccessible deserts. A great deal that I saw in Egypt was as rough as I had supposed Coptic art to be — but then, suddenly, appear things like those heads in the Wady Natrun, radiantly beautiful. What is certain is that every vital feature of Romanesque art can be matched in Egypt long before it appears in the West. Thanks again for that letter. It will one day be realized that the notes you dash off are among the most genuinely artistic productions of the XX century. Affectionately, Kingsley. The photographs of the Athens manuscripts248 have just come, and I am amused that I didn’t see them (the MSS [Manuscripts]) in 1923 when I thought I went through the library. Have they been since acquired or were they held back? — At any rate the photographs throw most welcome light.

247 Djoser (or Zoser) was a pharaoh of the third dynasty. 248 The three photographs are now part of of the Core Photograph Collection of the Fine Arts Library, Harvard University which is part of Special Collections, Fine Arts Library, Harvard University. All of the Porters’ (Arthur Kingsley and Lucy) negatives and the research collection were given to the library by Lucy over a period of years.

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34. Porter to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 91.5, handwritten. A typewritten version of the letter is in folder 91.8. The letter is transcribed from ‘I feel’ up to ‘another’ in Samuels, Bernard Berenson. The Making of a Legend, p. 406) March 22 ’29 Elmwood Cambridge Dear BB, I fear I have no points on Syria which could be of use to you. The one half day I once had in Jerusalem I gave up to the Holy Sepulchre sculptures,249 which I think come out of the Rhône valley and are related to Condrieu near Lyon.250 I also gathered that Strzygowski was quite wrong about the Constantinian basilica without being certain that Vincent and Abel are right.251 I should be greatly interested to know what you think. I see the Nazareth capitals252 also as Rhône valley. I know them only from publications as also the manuscripts in Jerusalem.253 Blake tells me the latter are of the greatest interest and contain much that is entirely unknown. Repeated efforts to get photographs of all these things have not been successful. Of course you won’t miss the Madaba mosaic.254 We heard in Egypt that the trip to Petra is not only easy but commercialized and that the Kelaat Sema‘an ruins255 and others about may now also be seen, but of this you will have all information. I have just been reading, I confess for the first time, Mark the Deacon’s Life of St Porphyry (text published by Teubner, 249 Porter probably was referring to the sculpture of the two marble lintels with Scenes from the Life of Christ (Resurrection of Lazarus, Entrance to Jerusalem, and Last Supper) from the south façade portal of the Holy Sepulchre Basilica in Jerusalem now in the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum. The marble dates from the crusade period (1099–1187). 250 Porter was referring to the Romanesque sculptures assembled in the principal entrance of the modern Church of Saint-Étienne at Condrieu. It is a tympanum depicting the Crucifixion in the centre, the Maries to the Tomb to the left, the Carrying the Cross to the right, and the Last Supper in the lintel below. On the relationship between the sculptures of Condrieu and the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, Porter wrote an article a few years earlier; Porter, ‘Condrieu, Jerusalem and St Gilles’. 251 Probably Porter was referring to Strzygowski’s essay, ‘Ein bedeutender Rest des Prachtbaues Konstantins des Grossen am heil. Grabe zu Jerusalem’, in Orient oder Rom, pp. 127–50 and to the volume of Vincent and Abel, Jérusalem. Recherches de topographie, d’archéologie et d’histoire, 2. In the latter volume, a chapter by Vincent is dedicated to the Holy Sepulchre during the Constantinian phase, see pp. 154–80. 252 Five twelfth century sculpted capitals from the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth in the then nearby museum, rebuilt. 253 It is not known which manuscripts Porter was referring to. 254 The well known Madaba Map mosaic in the Church of St George, Madaba, Jordan, sixth century, which was discovered in the very last years of the nineteenth century; see Lagrange, ‘La mosaïque géographique de Mâdaba’. 255 Probably Porter was referring to the Basilica of St Simeon Stylites, consisting of the remains of an ancient Christian monastery built in Qalaat Semaan, northern Syria, second half of the fifth century.

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very readable translation by Hill, Clarendon Press, Oxford).256 For me it is certainly one of the great books, quite in a class with Salimbeni or Benvenuto.257 I should think it would be fascinating to visit Gaza with it fresh in mind. No doubt some one has tried long before this to find the street paved with sculptures from the Marneion258 — it would seem as if its site ought to be easy to locate from the very precise topographical indications given by Choricius.259 The latter also says just where to look for the church of St Stephen of which something ought to remain, even if the great mosaic of the Nile disappeared long ago.260 One would think that the site of Gaza must have been explored, but I can’t find that any one has recovered the plan of St Sergius,261 which historically would be it seems of quite first rate importance, I don’t suppose you are going as far north as Ephesus — if by any chance you should do tell me whether it is possible to make anything out of the ruins of the church of St John, which Procopius says was like the Apostles at Constantinople.262 Will you try Sinai? Lake says it can be reached quite comfortably by motor or from some port on the Red Sea. The two months we have been home have slipped by, and it seems as if I hadn’t even gotten my desk cleared up. — I am trying to gird up my loins for a new edition of Medieval Architecture but at every step find things I haven’t seen (such as Ephesus and Gaza) and where seeing is vitally necessary. I envy you very much this Syrian trip, which must make many scales of all sorts fall off one’s eyes.

256 Mark the Deacon, The Life of Porphyry Bishop of Gaza, trans. by Hill (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913). The translation is based on the Greek text published in the Teubner series by the members of the Bonn Philological Society in 1895, see Idem, p. 3. 257 Salimbene de Adam, known as Fra’ Salimbene da Parma, cleric, chronicler, and scholar of the thirteenth century; Benvenuto da Imola, scholar and one of the first Dante exegetes of the fourteenth century. 258 The Marneion, a temple dedicated to Zeus Marnas. To be exact in the Life of Porphyry it is said that to build the atrium of the Episcopal Church of Gaza, the Christians used the marbles taken from the Marneion. Busine, ‘From Stones to Myth’, pp. 325–46, especially pp. 330–40; see also Lampadaridi, La conversion de Gaza au christianisme: La Vie de S. Porphyre de Gaza, pp. 31–32. It must be said that some marbles from the Cathedral of Gaza, about which Arthur Kingsley Porter was speculating, were probably found in a casual dig a few years ago: see Barsanti and A. Paribeni, ‘La scultura in funzione architettonica a Costantinopoli tra V e VI secolo’, p. 35 and fig. 24. 259 Chorius of Gaza rhetorician (first half of the sixth century ce). 260 See Choricii Gazaei Opera, Laudatio Marciani, Chapter 2, paragraphs 28–51, pp. 35-40 and Polański, ‘The Nilotic Mosaic in Saint Stephen’s Church of Gaza’. 261 See Choricii Gazaei Opera, Laudatio Marciani, Chapter 1, paragraphs 17-76, pp. 7–21. 262 The Holy Apostles in Constantinople rebuilt in Justinian’s time was a five-domend cruciform church that we only know through Procopius of Caesarea’s words (Caesarea, Palestine, c. 500–c. 562-65), in his Buildings. Procopius said that the Constantinopolitan church was the same as that of St John of Ephesus; see Procopius’ panegyric: Buildings, trans. by Dewing and Downey, Book 1, Chapter 4, paragraphs 9–18, pp. 48-51. On the Church of the Holy Apostles, see The Holy Apostles. A Lost Monument, a Forgotten Project, ed. by Mullett and Ousterhout.

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Tim Clapp has been on from Pittsburgh — his new department there seems to be launched with the greatest, and to me almost terrifying, success. Of the ravenous eagerness of the country to inbibe knowledge of the history of art there can be no question, and these are no longer the times when Bertha was spinning.263 The Duveen trial264 seemed like a strangely mediaeval note, in a way almost refreshing, and took me back to prewar times in New Haven. I am very interested to hear you are publishing a book with the Yale University Press. I have always found them very white people, and I could never have gotten Lombard Architecture through at that time without their very skilful and sympathetic collaboration.265 I am much annoyed that you still haven’t received my Spanish sculpture book. I have written repeatedly about it, and the failure to deliver is the stranger since I paid for it last November. Other copies were delayed but all I believe eventually went through. But I have not received yet the complimentary copy of his book which Goldschmidt sent me. I have written again to Reece266 and if the book doesn’t reach you now, shall quite blow up. I cared for you to have it more than any one, for your opinion means more to me — also the book is your doing and would never have been written had it not been for your suggestion. I don’t know whether you realize how much you have affected my life in the decade I have known you, and in the two in which I have known your books. Just now I feel you have found the solution of a problem that is deeply troubling me — how to be gregarious and a scholar when the two things are essentially incompatible — but

263 Bertha was once known as the pagan goddess Alpine in the Upper German and Austrian regions of the Alps. She was the upholder of cultural taboos, such as the prohibition against spinning on holidays. 264 Joseph Duveen (Hull, 1869–London, 1939), art dealer; he was sued by Harry and Andrée Hahn of Kansas City following his comments questioning the authenticity of a version of the Leonardo painting La Belle Ferronière which they owned and planned to sell. The trial took place in New York in 1929. 265 Porter was probably referring to Berenson, Studies in Medieval Painting. It is not known what Porter means by ‘white people’. As Kathryn Brush kindly suggests, he seems to be praising the staff at Yale University Press; the phrase is unknown to her, but may have been popular in the early twentieth century. 266 Probably Porter was referring to Adolph Goldschmidt’s book on German Illumination which appeared (as did Porter’s book on Spanish Romanesque Sculpture) in the Pantheon series in 1928. See Goldschmidt, German Illumination, 2 vols. Goldschmidt’s book was also published in a German edition, Die deutsche Buchmalerei, in the same year, in Munich. John Holroyd-Reece (?–1969), publisher, journalist and translator. In 1924 Holroyd-Reece was involved in the founding of the Pantheon publishing house (Pantheon Casa Editrice) in Florence.

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your way out won’t work with unclever me, and I shall have to find another. There are times when I have a notion to take the books and let the credit go. Life is politics and contemplation is death, but I am not sure that death in the long run doesn’t win out. We love you deeply, BB, Affectionately, Kingsley.

35. Porter to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 91.5, handwritten. A typewritten version of the letter is in folder 91.8) April 12, 1929 A. KINGSLEY PORTER ELMWOOD CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS Dear BB, The idea of the Serristori villa267 warmed our hearts and kindled our imaginations. Had Vallombrosa been less distant from Consuma, we should have been sorely tempted to try to withdraw our offer for Marble Hill in Ireland,268 but it has now been accepted. However at this rather critical time, I fancy I can get more out of a vitality always low in a more stimulating climate than that Tuscany in summer. Very confidentially (this is really what I wanted to talk to you about last spring) I am going to have a try for at least a couple of months at pure literature. I shall of course go down into the pit, but perhaps more cheerfully of having demonstrated my ineptitude. It will be something to free one’s future life from the regret of not having made the experiment. The only trouble with Ireland for the purpose is those crosses, challenging and poetic, which I never can quite get out of mind, and I think with remorse of the back files of the Journal of the Royal Society of Irish Antiquaries which I should have read last summer. But if archaeology leads thoughts to wonder in Donegal, what does it do to one in Florence! I should probably spend all my time in studying the textiles in the work-shop of Andrea da Firenze.269

267 Perhaps Porter was referring to Villa Serristori in the mountain village of Saltino near Vallombrosa. 268 Marble Hill, a town on the north coast of County Donegal in Ulster, Ireland, where Porter bought or rented a residence. 269 Andrea di Bonaiuto (or Bonaiuti or da Firenze), painter active in Tuscany during the second half of the fourteenth century.

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We are be off the second half term next year, and are planning to go at once to see you, wherever you may be, if you will have us. — Afterwards I want to go to North Africa, which I have never seen. Why don’t you go with us? I don’t recollect that you have ever been there. Like most second-rate things I have the impression that it may turn out to be of quite unexpected interest. I need to see you very badly and breathe some of the oxygen which is always so bracing and comes out of your personality. It is a long while since I have had any, except through the imperfect medium of correspondence. You are having of course a wonderful time in Syria. We envy you and our thoughts are with you. If you come across nice John Brown and his mother,270 do be cordial to them. He you know was in my first class at Harvard and one of the few who have really carried through as I should wish. They are going through the Aegean Islands on a yacht, and also I think touching in Cyprus and Syria. The Crams271 and others are with them. Love to you all three. Affectionately, Kingsley.

36. BB to Porter (HUA-PAKP.HUG 1706.185, Correspondence with Bernard Berenson, 1 Box, handwritten) June 2, 1929 PIROSCAFO ‚VIENNA‘ LLOYD TRIESTINO My dear Kingsley. Yr. [Your] dear letter of April 12 found me at Aleppo272 about three weeks ago. I kept it in my pocket so as to answer it at the first occasion. It has come now only aboard the boat wh. [ich] 24 hrs. [hours] fr. [rom] now should deposit us at Brindisi Let me before telling you of our own doings answer yr. [your] question. I see no reason why you should not have yr. [your] try at belles letters. Either you will succeed in expressing yourself & ‘putting it over’ or you won’t. If you succeed as I expect & hope well & good. If not you will have the wisdom to see that you are not

270 John Nicholas Brown (New York City, 1900–Annapolis, 1979), and his mother Natalie Bayard Dresser. 271 Ralph Adams Cram (Hampton Falls, 1863–Boston, 1942), and his wife Elizabeth Carrington Read. 272 Aleppo, a city in northern Syria.

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among the prophets, & return with renewed zest to what I at my stage of experience prefer, namely pure scholarship. You tell me you mean to join me wherever we happen to be after yr. [your] next autumn term. You will be received with joy. If it is as early as February or March we shall be at I Tatti. Dearly should I like to go with you to Tunisia & Algeria, & dare say we shall. It depends a bit on what we do in the autumn. We meant to go to Spain, & have in fact made all arrangements. Suddenly I learn that in their Latin wisdom, the Spanish authorities have authorized not only the innkeepers of Sevilla & Barcelona to double prices (because of exhibitions in those capitales) but their colleagues all over Spain. That is thick, don’t you think. And besides I avoid towns, as I do individuals, & should (if only one could!!!) nations, who are exhibitioning273 themselves. If we don’t go to Spain in the autumn we shall probably go to the Veneto where I have much to do, & Dalmatia,274 continuing the train of dreams that led me last autumn in Constantinople & just now in Syria. In that case should feel obliged to reserve the spring for Spain. Of course we are very tired. Travelling in Syria & Palestina is not to be recommended as a pleasure trip. The roads & security upon them are uncertain. The crews are at best third class, & most of them are disgusting.275 The food is not quite — as bad as the lodgings, but unappetizing & somehow not reassuring. Nevertheless, I do not know a land I can more warmly recommend to Freeman of the City of Art. Not that it is a region as rich & varied as Italy & France Germany or Spain. Syria & Palestine altho’ [although] one sees so much that you cannot see in Europe will not repay the art-lover as the four European lands just mentioned. But if you have like a Freeman of the City of Art learned to understand that all art-experience leads but to the appreciation of landscape than you will find in Syria & Palestina more beauty, more variety, more splendour, more enchantment that I at least, have discovered anywhere in Europe.

273 Perhaps ‘exhibiting’. 274 On Berenson’s trip to Dalmatia, see Belamarić and Dulibić, ‘Bernard Berenson’s Journey to Yugoslavia’. 275 Berenson’s derogatory tone should be acknowledged here.

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Works of art as distinct from landscape are late Hellenistic down to the Arab Conquest & then ‘Arab’, that is to say, simplified, & impoverished late Hellenistic to begin with,276 & then gradually a more ornate version of the same. As for the late Hellenistic, always mis-named Roman or Early Christian, its manifestations in Syria & Trans-Jordania are fascinating. They are in the first place extraordinarily romantic & imposing. Who has not seen Palmyra, or Baalbec or even Jerash does not know the perfection of art, namely the perfect harmony between landscape & ruins, between man’s efforts & nature’s improving upon these efforts. To me as a student the most interesting part of our trip was the visit to Kalat Siman & a glimpse of the other deserted Syrian cities of the 5th & 6th centuries, studied by Butler & the Princeton expedition.277 It is my firm intention to return to them in the spring of 1931* & to study them as thoroughly as I know how. I am convinced that if one really wants to know just how late Antiquities glided over to Early Medieval it is there that one will learn just what & just how it happened. I have for instance already seen the most of so-called ‘Arab’ & thence ‘Romanesque’ masonry is already there. I now return to my lists for three months & a half, I expect to enjoy them, but I wish I were free to devote myself entirely to my Decline & Recovering of Form in the Visual Arts. With love to you both from all three of us

Ever devotedly B.B.

*You should, you ought, you must come with us

37. Porter to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 91.5, handwritten. A typewritten version of the letter is in folder 91.8) June 24, 1929 WHITE STAR LINE. ON BOARD S.S. ‘CEDRIC’.

276 It is not clear whether Berenson’s intention is to query the appropriateness of the designation ‘Arab’ to describe this type of art, or whether what follows is his explanation of the term, but once again the dismissive tone should be noted. 277 See for example Butler, H. C., Syria. Publications of the Princeton University Archaeological Expeditions to Syria in 1904–1905 and 1909. Division II. Architecture. Section A and Section B; Butler, H. C., Early Churches in Syria Fourth to Seventh Centuries.

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Dear BB, Your aromatic letter came in the midst of June heat and that general glorification of everything which ought to be suppressed that is the examination period. It makes our mouths water for Syria, as do also Gertrude Bell’s less sparkling descriptions278 that Lucy is reading to me in the mornings while I shave. I don’t know when I have been so delighted as by your remark about landscape. With me too it is becoming more and more the supreme joy, and I have been feeling intensely lately that nothing else gives me quite the same satisfaction. It is singularly refreshing to turn to, as standardization thickens the dust of pedantry on all potentially capable of being sacked within the four death giving walls of an American provincial museum. I like to think that there are some things at any rate too big ever to incur the danger of being put under a glass case. Does that however perhaps mean their passing? Life being no longer possible, the choice no doubt is mumification or decomposition and trees and woods and mountains and valleys since un-embalmable perish. I think you would be shocked to see the destruction of the once so radiant country-side in eastern America, even since you have been there. I sometimes wonder whether the growing enthusiasm for art is not the sublimation (or degradation) of an instinct which in the time of Thoreau would have found its outlet in Walden Pond.279 Lucy and I are filled with delight that we may see you in February. If you will join us in Africa, our cup will be full. Of course we shall go with you to Syria in 1931 eagerly if you will have us. Anything is always enhanced by the stimulation of your company, and Africa and Syria are both especially on my heart at present, for I am still pegging away in odd moments (increasingly few and far between) on the idea of a second edition of Medieval Architecture which has long been in my mind. As you point out Syria is a tap-root of the later west — more so, of course, than Africa, yet I have always had an idea that a first-hand acquaintance with the Early Christian ruins in the latter might throw unexpected light on the Italian monuments, for they are supplied with a definite terminus ante quem which is lacking nearly everywhere else, even in Egypt. Lucy’s escapade with a donkey in Egypt is still having uncomfortable consequences. It turns out she got a compression fracture of the spine. Unhappily two doctors in Egypt

278 It is not known which book by Gertrude Lowthian Bell Porter was referring to; perhaps it is Syria: The Desert and the Sown which was published in 1907. 279 Porter was probably referring to Henry David Thoreau’s book, Walden or, Life in the Woods, first published in 1854.

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and one, supposedly of the very best, in Boston, failed to recognize what the trouble was — we didn’t get a correct diagnosis until April, whereas the right treatment at once would have been all important. Dr Osgood280 thinks he can still build up the bone without an operation, but she will have to avoid fatigue this summer. Ireland should give the opportunity for rest she needs, and I hope to bring her home as good as new. I wonder, by-the-way, what you think of Edward Forbes’ idea of applying x-ray photography to the study of ancient pictures? Young Burroughs brought me for Art Studies the other day an article in which he studies the underpainting revealed by this process in several well known pictures.281 The climax is the Virgin of the Rocks at London,282 which, in the light of the new evidence, he concludes can not be a copy. We are having our fourth crossing on the Cedric and are rather happy not to be on the Thuringia as we very nearly were. When the tickets for the latter came, I noticed to my surprise they were called third class. Members of the German faculty who had crossed on the boat said they would rather serve a term in jail than repeat the experience — […] In Africa we shall have to think out the problem of a car, for Anfossi has had an intestinal ulcer, and I doubt whether he will be well enough for so long a trip. It will be marvellous if you will come! Love from us both to you three. Affectionately, Kingsley.

38. BB to Porter (HUA-PAKP. HUG 1706.185, Correspondence with Bernard Berenson, 1 Box, handwritten) Sfax, le Apr. [il] 6 1931 HOTEL DES OLIVIERS SFAX (Tunisie) A. CRAMPON Teléphone: I. 88 Adresse Telégr.[aphique].: Hôtel Oliviers-Sfax

280 Robert Bayley Osgood (Salem, Mass., 1873–1956), orthopedic surgeon. 281 See Burroughs, ‘Some Aesthetic Values Recorded by the X-Ray’. 282 London, National Gallery, The Virgin of the Rocks, Leonardo da Vinci (inv. no. NG1093, oil on poplar, thinned and cradled, 189.5 × 120 cm).

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Dear Kingsley. Yr. [Your] letter written on the Cameronia283 reached me two days ago at Sousse (Hadrumetum).284 There is a building there all the authorities say is early Arab, & who am I to say it aint. But I wish I had had you to consult for I smelled a lot of Byzantine there.285 What a fascinating country this is for studies like ours. There is no end of material from the 3d to the eighth ninth & tenth centuries covering the entire transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Little of it is in the shape of representation In the round almost nothing. In picture mosaic quite a little, enough however to suggest that the Ashburnham Pentateuch286 was daubed not at Alexandria but at Carthage. Of carving there is no end of capitals, & some bit of soffits, but I doubt whether they contain much that we don’t know from Constantinople, Ravenna, Bagnacavallo,287 etc. etc. The so-called Merovingian (alias Visigothic, alias Lombard) sets in here centuries bc within the Punic pattern, & portentously early in the late Hellenistic (misnamed) Roman. Why should Spain or France have borrowed fr. [om] here. They were at least as civilized, as prosperous, & as magnificent. They had their Hellenistic art at home quite as much as the Africans Alexandrians, or Antiochians. Why pretty creature, why?

283 Porter’s letter of 19 March 1931 written on the S.S. Cameronia (a British ocean liner) is in BBP, Correspondence, folder 91.6, handwritten. 284 Already a Phoenician settlement, Sousse (on the east coast of Tunisia), was a Roman colony with the name of Hadrumetum until the Vandals’ conquest in the fifth century. During the Byzantine reconquest in the first half of the following century, it took the name of Iustinianopolis which was maintained until its destruction after the Arab conquest of 647. 285 Probably the monument that ‘smelled’ of Byzantine must have been in Sousse: perhaps the ribat (an Arabic term used to indicate the functions performed by different types of buildings during the Islamic Middle Ages simultaneously fulfilling defensive and missionary purposes-however the ribat does not correspond to a precise architectural term) and the circuit of the catacombs. The ribat in particular could give the impression of a Byzantine structure because it reuses Roman and Byzantine sculpture. 286 Illuminated manuscript of the first five books of the Old Testament (now incomplete), dating from the late sixth or early seventh century, BnF, MS NAL 2334 (Ashburnham Pentateuch) and named after the English collector Bertram Ashburnham. Also known as the Pentateuch of Tours. 287 Bagnacavallo, a city in the province of Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna region, Italy.

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I shall have a word or two to say on attempting to run all the art waters thro’ [through] the straight & dirty way that leads from the Orontes or Nile, or even the late Tiber, if I live to compose my Decline & Recovery of Form. I look forward to light on that subject in your forthcoming book on Irish crosses - But - ‘Shatter the Vision for ever’288 — I am here to enjoy myself. Here, & at Kairouan289 & Tunis itself I have seen young men wearing their cloaks as the youth in Pheidias, & elder men like the Lateran Sophocles.290 The ruins are stimmungsvoll beyond dreams, & the sea & landscape Homeric & Virgilian, & one has wonderfully comfy lodgings, excellent food, & cultivated French society to aid & abet to amuse one. Pity all round that you are not with. Love to you both B.B. Address Baring Bros.291 London. We remain in N. [orth] Africa, but going no further W. [est] than Cherchel,292 till mid-May.

39. Edward Waldo Forbes to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.91, typewritten. The letter is transcribed in Bernardi, E., ‘La nascita del Fogg Museum di Harvard’, pp. 446–47) HARVARD UNIVERSITY FOGG ART MUSEUM CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U.S.A. February 16, 1922. Bernard Berenson, Esq., 288 A citation from Berenson’s favourite poet, Robert Browning (Camberwell, 1812–Venice, 1889): see ‘In a Gondola’, in Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, p. 21, a collection of poems first published in London in 1845. 289 Kairouan, a city in northern Tunisia. 290 The statue of Sophocles (‘Lateran’ type), final years of the first century ce, then in the Museo Gregoriano Profano in Palazzo del Laterano, Rome. Giandomenico Spinola, curator of the Reparto Artichità Greche e Romane, Musei Vaticani, kindly suggests that the statue was found in a Roman house in Terracina just before 1839 and donated to Pope Gregory XVI (Mussoi, Belluno, 1765–Rome, 1846) by the noble Antonelli family of Terracina and subsequently restored by the sculptor Pietro Tenerani (Carrara, 1789–Rome, 1869). Between 1963 and 1970 the statue was stored and eventually found a new location in Vatican City at the Museo Gregoriano Profano ex Lateranense where it still is today (inv. no. 9973, marble of Thasos, height 205 cm). 291 Probably Berenson was referring to ‘Baring Brothers and Company’, a British merchant bank based in London. The firm was founded in 1762 as ‘John & Francis Baring & Co’, later known as ‘Baring Brothers’. The bank collapsed in 1995. 292 Cherchell, a city on Algeria’s Mediterranean coast.

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I Tatti, Settignano, Florence, Italy. Dear Berenson: I want to tell you about the Demotte293 Collection. You will remember that Sachs294 and I spoke to you about it when you were in America last year, and that you were good enough to promise $ 1000 towards it in case we succeeded in buying the whole collection. The option expired on February first. Six weeks or so before it expired it became apparent to Sachs and me that we could not raise the money to purchase the whole collection, so we thought it only fair to tell this to Mr Demotte. In doing so we made one more try to get certain parts of the collection without being obliged to get the whole, and much to our joy Mr Demotte accepted our offer and agreed to sell us the twelve great capitals from Moutier St Jean295 which were the things we most coveted in the collection. We agreed to take them and have been occupied ever since in raising the money to buy these. We still have about $ 3000 to raise, and I write to ask whether you would like to give the $ 1000 which you were willing to give if we got the whole collection, or if you will give any part of it toward the purchase of these capitals. Kingsley Porter has bought four more capitals from St Pons296 which he has given to us, and Mr Demotte has presented us with two charming fragments, in each case the torso of the figure of Christ, including his mother’s hand holding him, one of the 14th and the other of the 16th century;297 so that altogether we have got eighteen of the finest pieces out of ninety in the collection. There are still, of course, several others we should like to get and cannot. I hope you received my letter of December 9,298 telling you about our acquisition of the Noel Valois ‘Crucifixion’ by Fra Angelico and also the photograph of this picture after it had been cleaned, which I sent to you

293 Georges Joseph Demotte (1877–1923), a Belgian-born collector and dealer of Islamic and medieval art; he had businesses in Paris and New York City. 294 Paul Joseph Sachs. 295 The twelve capitals purchased by the Fogg Museum from George Joseph Demotte are from the Burgundian Abbey of Moutiers-Saint-Jean, France, c. 1125–1130 (inv. no. 1922.16–1922.27). 296 The four capitals donated by Porter to the Fogg Museum are from Saint-Pons-de-Thomières, France, c. 1140 (inv. no. 1922.64–1922.67). 297 The two fragments in the Fogg Museum are currently attributed to the sixteenth century French sculptor Ligier Richier (inv. no. 1922.69, 36 × 18 × 21 cm). 298 The letter is not present among BBP.

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about Christmas time.299 The Giovanni di Paolo300 given us by Sir Joseph Duveen has recently been cleaned and has been improved enormously. It is now one of the finest works of art in the gallery. I now take pleasure in sending, under separate cover, a photograph of it since it has been cleaned, and also photographs as follows: Gainsborough portrait of Count Rumford which has recently been bequeathed to Harvard;301 a little lunette which I take to be a 14th century picture which has been given by the Friends of the Fogg;302 the Byzantine Gethsemane which Mrs Richardson gave us,303 which has been cleaned and which has come out very well; the little triptych which Mrs Richardson gave us304 which has been cleaned and has also come out much better than I had dared to hope; the two large cartoons by Guido Reni given us by Dr Ross.305 […] With kind regards to Mrs Berenson, Yours sincerely,

299 Fogg Museum, Christ on the Cross, the Virgin, Saint John the Evangelist, and Cardinal Torquemada, Fra Angelico, c. 1453–1454 (inv. no. 1921.34, tempera on panel, 96.6 × 42.5 cm), see Valois, ‘Fra Angelico et le Cardinal Jean de Torquemada’, pl. 24. 300 Fogg Museum, Saint Catherine of Siena, Giovanni di Paolo, c. 1462 (inv. no. 1921.13, tempera on panel, 107.95 × 53.34 cm). 301 Fogg Museum, Sir Benjamin Thompson, later Count Rumford (1753–1814), Thomas Gainsborough, 1783 (inv. no. 1922.1, oil on canvas, 75.7 × 62.7 cm). 302 The lunette has not been identified. 303 Mary Rich Richardson (1849–1924), née Baker, was Thomas Owen Richardson’s wife. Mrs Richardson also donated a large number of works of art to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The painting with Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane in the Fogg Museum, is now attributed to the Greek painter Joannes Permeniates, sixteenth-seventeenth century (inv. no. 1921.1, tempera on panel, 71.12 × 101.6 cm). See the photo published here: Fig. 14, which is in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 7, folder Icons: Caen-Copenhagen. 304 Fogg Museum, Madonna del Latte Enthroned with Saints John the Baptist, Christopher, an Unidentified Bishop Saint, Anthony Abbot, above: Christ as Man of Sorrows; left panel: Saint Andrew and the Archangel Gabriel; right panel: Saint Ansanus and the Annunciate Virgin, attributed to the Master of the Richardson Tabernacle, Italian fourteenth century (inv. no. 1921.2, tempera on panel, overall 63.5 × 49.3 cm, left wing 55.7 × 12.2 cm, center 63.5 × 24.2 cm, right wing 55.5 × 12.8 cm). 305 Denman Waldo Ross (Cincinnati, 1853–London, 1935), painter, art collector who taught design and art theory at Harvard University. The two drawings depicting Diana and Apollo attributed to Guido Reni in the Fogg Museum is now questioned (inv. no. 1920.42–1920.43, black chalk heightened with white and red chalks on gray antique laid paper, 103.7 × 57.2 cm; 127 × 58.5 cm).

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Edward W. Forbes P.S. The Demotte capitals have been just photographed, but the prints have not appeared yet. I will send you the photographs later when they are ready.

40. BB to Forbes (Edward Waldo Forbes (HC 2), folder 172. Harvard Art Museums Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., handwritten) March 23, 1922 MENA HOUSE HOTEL PYRAMIDS CAIRO Dear Forbes. Your letter of Febr. [uary] 16 has taken all this time to get here. I have read its contents with much pleasure. I am truly grateful for the photos you are sending. I look forward to finding them at I Tatti when I get back, as I hope, just before the end of Apr. [il] And when are you coming I wonder. You know, I am sure, with what pleasure we should see you both in our own home. We shall be glad to get back ourselves. Travelling is instructive, & extends experience, & makes one aware that all that is interesting in this world is not contained to our own parish, but it is fatiguing. It is also in this country at least, monstrously expensive. We spent as never before in our lives, & for the very least return in the way of food & lodging and service. Egypt is entirely in the hands of a German (so-called Swiss) company for the exploitation of the tourist. He is left no choice but to submit or get out. Most tourists do get away double quick. The interest of the art has been too much for us & we still are here. If only I were a bit younger I’d chuck everything & devote myself to Egyptian art. Now for the Demotte business. I am rather sorry that you could not acquire the whole of it, & it augurs no good when you cannot raise money enough for such a purpose. However I am glad you could get those capitals, & altho’ [although] I am very far indeed from flush, I am writing to Kidder Peabody306 to send you $ 500 toward their payment.

306 Kidder Peabody & Co., an independent American investment bank.

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If you come to Europe try to come to Italy before the end of June. We mean to spend the summer in Paris & London, & the autumn in Constantinople & Greece. Best remembrances to yr. [your] wife & regards to Ross & Sachs. Sincerely yrs [yours] B. Berenson

41. Forbes to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.91, typewritten. The letter is transcribed in Bernardi, E., ‘La nascita del Fogg Museum di Harvard’, pp. 451–53) HARVARD UNIVERSITY FOGG ART MUSEUM CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U.S.A. November 22, 1923. Bernard Berenson, Esq. Villa I Tatti, Settignano, Florence, Italy. Dear Berenson: I take pleasure in sending you the latest crop of photographs of the new pictures which have arrived at the Fogg Museum. There is a Byzantine Madonna307 which I found in Rome last spring which to my mind is one of the best of the type that I know. Professor Morey of Princeton, who is lecturing here this year in exchange for Chandler Post308 who is lecturing at Princeton, when I showed this Madonna to him called my attention to an article written by Homer Eaton Keyes309 in the American Journal of Archaeology, April-June, 1913, Volume XVII, No. 2.310

307 The work can be identified with the Virgin and Child, dated to the fifteenth-sixteenth century now in storage at the Fogg Museum (inv. no. 1969.187, oil on cradled panel). See the photo published here (Fig. 15) which is in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 7, folder Icons: Caen-Copenhagen. It should be noted that the identification of this work with that proposed by Bernardi, E., ‘La nascita del Fogg Museum di Harvard’, p. 453, namely the Madonna and Child in Blue Robes (inv. no. 1924.145, tempera on panel?, 48.1 × 35 cm) is incorrect. On the back of the image is a handwritten note by Berenson himself: ‘cfr. American Journal of Arch. 1913 pp. 210–22’ which refers to the article by Homer Eaton Keyes mentioned in the Forbes letter. 308 Chandler Rathfon Post (Detroit, 1881–Foxborough, 1959), Professor of Fine Arts at Harvard. 309 Homer Eaton Keyes (Brooklyn, 1875–New York City, 1938), author and art professor at Dartmouth College, Hanover (New Hampshire). 310 See Keyes, ‘The Princeton Madonna and Some related Paintings’.

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In this article Mr Keyes calls attention to the fact that Professor Arthur L. Frothingham311 identifies the Madonna and Child of the Uffizi312 which bears the signature of Andrea Rico of Candia with Andrea Tafi,313 the mosaicist of the Florentine baptistry. He calls the Uffizi painting ‘perhaps the most beautifully executed of the early portable Byzantine paintings in Italy’.314 He then goes on to show that there is a replica of it, probably by the same hand, in the Princeton Gallery,315 and there are several other pictures which resemble it in the Likatcheff Collection in Russia.316 Professor Morey is inclined to think that my picture is by this same man and judging by the photographs I am inclined to take the same view. It is a very lovely picture. I wish that I could visualize the Uffizi one which I believe is now in the Academy. You will also find the photograph of a wrecked 13th century Madonna which I got from de Clementi317 and which, though far gone, seems to me of great beauty and interest. I wonder if you ever saw it while it was in Italy. Some of my colleagues feel that it is not typical 13th century318 and that it is either earlier or later but whenever it was done I like it very much. Then there are three transferred frescoes that I picked up for the studies series. One of them, as you will see, is almost completely gone but the other two are in somewhat better condition. One of them is a queer mixture. You will note that there is a large Madonna in the center under an arched top, which is in the earlier 15th century style and besides there are two saints and above two angels which are in a wholly different scale and painted, I should suppose, fifty or more years later by some relatively feeble pupil of Perugino.319

311 Arthur Lincoln Frothingham (Boston, 1859–New York, 1923), archaeologist, art historian, and professor at Princeton. 312 The Madonna and Child so-called Madonna of the Passion, by Andrea Ritzos di Candia (active in the fifteenth century), came from the Franciscan convent of San Girolamo in Fiesole. Angelo Tartuferi, director of the Museo di San Marco in Florence, kindly suggests that in 1799 the painting was in the hands of Count Pietro Bardi who gave it to the Gallerie Fiorentine. The painting was immediately exhibited in the Galleria degli Uffizi; in January 1914, it was given to the Museo Bandini in Fiesole from where it was transferred to the Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence in 1982 (inv. 1890 no. 3886, tempera on panel, 102 × 85 cm). 313 Andrea Tafi was a Florentine painter active between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 314 Keyes, ‘The Princeton Madonna and Some Related Paintings’, p. 210. 315 Princeton University Art Museum, Virgin of the Passion, Andrea Ritzos di Candia, late fifteenth century (inv. no. y 33, tempera on panel, 91 × 77 cm). 316 Keyes, ‘The Princeton Madonna and Some Related Paintings’ pp. 214–22. 317 Perhaps Achille de Clemente (1874–1940), painter and art dealer active in Florence. 318 Perhaps Forbes was referring to the Madonna and Child he donated to the Fogg Museum in 1923 and where it is still today. The work is assigned to the Umbrian area, fifteenth century (inv. no. 1923.45, fresco transferred to canvas, 165.2 × 189.3 cm). 319 The work can be identified with the Virgin and Child with a Male Donor, c. 1370, now in the Fogg Museum (inv. no. 1923.46, fresco transferred to canvas, 197 × 175.4 cm).

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Then there is a rather charming little early Madonna with a gold background belonging to Mr Sachs,320 which he picked up in Paris, and two Poussins321 which belong to Mr Sachs’s father and which he has kindly loaned to us for several months. In addition we have a 13th century Madonna and Child, which we like very much. It has just arrived in the Museum and has not been photographed yet. I will send you a photograph later. It is covered with a coat of muddy varnish and needs to be cleaned.322 You will see that we are gradually getting more material for the boys in their studies. We are starting on a campaign for a new building and have raised $412,000. If you, by any chance, feel like subscribing towards our new building, we should of course be pleased to add your name and subscription to our list. The subscriptions are payable for a period of three years and the understanding is that if we do not get $800,000 before July 1st, 1924, the promises are not binding. I went to New York the other day and as usual saw a number of works of art which made me gnash my teeth and wish that I had some money in my pocket with which to buy them. Trusting that all goes well with you, and with Christmas greetings to you and Mrs Berenson, I am Very sincerely yours, Edward W. Forbes

42. BB to Forbes (Edward Waldo Forbes (HC 2), folder 177. Harvard Art Museums Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., handwritten) Oct. [ober] 24, 1928 PĖRA PALACE HOTEL CONSTANTINOPLE

320 Perhaps Forbes was referring to the Virgin and Child donated in 1958 by Sachs and his wife Meta (New York City, 1879-Cambridge, Mass, 1960) to the Fogg Museum and where it still is today. The work was later assigned to Francesco di Giorgio Martini, 1468–1470 (inv. no. 1958. 284, tempera on panel, 46.5 × 28.6 cm). 321 The two Nicolas Poussin paintings, now in the Fogg Museum, are to be identified with The Infant Bacchus Entrusted to the Nymphs of Nysa; The Death of Echo and Narcissus, 1650 (inv. no. 1942.167, oil on canvas, 122.6 × 180.5 cm), and with The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist and Saint Elizabeth, 1650 (inv. no. 1942.168, oil on canvas, 99.9 × 132.4 cm). 322 Perhaps Forbes was referring to the painting with the Madonna and Child attributed to the Master of Saint Agatha, Florentine, active in the third quarter of the thirteenth century, now in the Fogg Museum (inv. no. 1923.44, tempera on panel, 117 × 62.3 cm).

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Dear Forbes. I am much touched by yr. [your] kind words323 about my intention to leave my entire estate to Harvard as a foundation for the historical & philosophical study of art in general & Italian art in particular. When I had the pleasure of seeing you I realized that the Loeser324 business was burden enough for the moment. Holmes325 wrote a civil answer to my request for a shadow print of the Amico di Sandro.326 I look forward with greater certainty to those you will send. Thanks to Riefsthal who put his very real scholarship & experience at our service, when we arrived, we are having a most profitable time. You should send youngsters here to get a notion of Turkish space composition, & of Byzantine structure & carving. Maclagan joined us here for ten days & spoke most affectionately of both of you. Sincerely yrs [yours] B. Berenson

43. BB to Forbes (Edward Waldo Forbes (HC 2), folder 177. Harvard Art Museums Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., handwritten) Apr. [il] 20, 1929 ST. JOHN’S HOTEL JERUSALEM Telegr. [am] Addr: [ess] ‘ST JOHN’ Telephone: 30/31 P. [ost] O. [ffice] B. [ox] 529. Dear Ned Forbes — & before you know I shall call you ‘Ned’ tout court.

323 Berenson was referring to Forbes’s letter of 3 October 1929 not published here which is in BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.92, typewritten. 324 Charles Alexander Loeser (Brooklyn, 1864–New York, 1928), collector and art historian who moved permanently to Florence. He donated the collection of ancient prints and drawings to the Fogg Museum, and other works of art and period furnishings to the City Council of his adopted city now displayed in Palazzo Vecchio as the ‘Loeser Bequest’. 325 Charles John Holmes (Preston, 1868–London, 1936), director of the National Gallery in London. See Holmes’s letter to BB, 10 September 1928 in BBP, Correspondence, folder 69.23, typewritten. 326 Berenson was referring to a painting attributed by himself to the so-called Amico di Sandro, The Virgin and Child with Saint John in the National Gallery of London (inv. no. NG1412, tempera on poplar, 59.1 × 43.8 cm) mentioned in Holmes’s letter to BB of 29 October 1928. The letter is in BBP, Correspondence, folder 69.23, typewritten. The painting was later assigned to Filippino Lippi, c. 1480.

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I shall feel much more free to ask you for shadowgraphs & photos if you allow me to pay for them.327 We are having a most transfiguring time here. The scenery is beyond comfort, & of endless variety. Yesterday for instance going to Jerash it was like the loveliest & most idyllic landscapes of the Peloponnese or Sicily. Today at Jericho it was more heroic than at Egyptian Thebes. As for the artifacts — we should have a school here not like the Archaeological one devoted to Biblical & pre-historic matter328 but to the fine arts as practiced here, in Syria, in Egypt, & in Asia Minor for the last seven thousand years. In the ten days spent at Jerusalem I discover scores & scores of problems that may lead to most creative results if only they were handled by our kind of student. The difficulty put now would be to get funds that did not chain one down either to the Bible or to Zionism And another such school should exist at Constantinople for the study of fine arts in the region dominated by that great hearth of culture. Sincerely yours B.B.

44. Forbes to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.93, typewritten) HARVARD UNIVERSITY FOGG ART MUSEUM CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U.S.A. September 24, 1935. Bernard Berenson, Esq. Settignano Florence, Italy. Dear B.B.: I write to tell you, in case you have not heard, that our good friend and colleague Dr Ross died in London September twelfth. I saw him in Paris three or four times this summer and again in London for a few minutes just before I sailed. Although he was getting weaker and weaker he died in the harness as he would liked to have done. He was a good friend and was a wonderfully stimulating personality whose friendship I prized highly.

327 See Forbes’s letter to BB, 10 May 1929 not published here which is in BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.92, typewritten. 328 Perhaps Berenson was referring to the William Foxwell Albright Institute of Archaeological Research.

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I had hoped to visit Italy this summer and hoped particularly to see Lochoff329 and see if I could do anything to help him for I believe in him strongly. I have taken great pains from time to time to speak to rich people about him in hopes that they might help him. Unfortunately the finance of the Fogg Museum are such that we are unable to do much ourselves. I also wanted to see the Donazione Loeser in my capacity of executor of the Loeser will. With Mrs Loeser330 and Mr Walter Ashburner331 I chose the room in which the collection was to be exhibited, in consultation with the Florentine authorities. But I have not been able to get to Italy since to actually see the objects installed. I had hoped to do so this summer but the Fates were against me. To make matters worse, I cannot come abroad next summer because Harvard is celebrating its Trecentenary and I shall be needed on the spot here. […] You probably know that Thomas Whittemore who is working on uncovering the mosaics in Constantinople,332 has loaned to us his entire collection of Byzantine coins and seals. They are now locked in our safe until he has the time to open them. He hopes someday to make the Fogg Museum a real center of Byzantine Art making his collection available to students. I know that you know about the Coburn333 Bequest and also the Duel334 Collection of Japanese prints that came to us two or three years ago. With kind regards to Mrs Berenson and Miss Mariana [sic], I am Sincerely Edward W Forbes _

45. BB to Forbes (Edward Waldo Forbes (HC 2), folder 170. Harvard Art Museums Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., handwritten) Venice, Oct. [ober] 12, 1935

329 Nikolai Nikolaevich Lokhov (Pskov, 1872–Florence, 1948), painter, copyist, and restorer. 330 Probably Forbes was referring to Charles Loeser’s wife Olga Kaufmann-Lebert, a German concert pianist. 331 Walter Ashburner (Boston, 1864–Florence, 1936), Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford and co-founder of the British Institute in Florence. 332 The mosaics of the Basilica of Santa Sophia, Constantinople. 333 Annie Swan Coburn (Fremont, Illinois, 1856–Chicago, 1932), art collector and patron. She collected American art and French Impressionist paintings. Upon her death she left her fine art collection to various institutions, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Fogg Museum at Harvard University, and Smith College, Northampton (Mass.). 334 Arthur Baldwin Duel (1870–1936, Harvard Medical School), a well known New York doctor and collector of Japanese prints.

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Dear Edward. Thanks for yr. [your] good long letter of Sept. [ember] 24. Yes I heard of Denman Ross death fr. [om] The London Times first & then fr. [rom] Dan Thompson335 & Binyon.336 Ross came to I Tatti in May, & while we were truly glad to see him once more he left us feeling that he was no more of this world. His departure brought no surprise but only deep regret. He was in our field the most ‘dynamic’ American of our time, his influence of incalculable range & depth. As I myself get older I more & more share his loves & hates — particularly hate of the ‘philological’ approach to art as now propagandated by Germans whether Aryan or Semite. The greatest German thinker & writer of my time Wölfflin337 is utterly vilipended when not entirely forgotten altho’ [although] he stalks about like a giant in their midst. But to turn to a point in your letter. I am indeed sorry that you could not come to Florence & let me have a glimpse of yrself [yourself]. I can assure you however that the Loeser collection in the Bargello is placed most sumptuously & agreeably. I doubt whether you would find anything to criticize. Yr. [Your] news of acquisitions is interesting. An early Persian fresco — I should like to see in the photo at least I mentioned Dan Thompson. I know no other youngster in our field who combines so much promise with so much style & so much character. It is a pity that you can find no place for him at Harvard. For the like of him there ought to be unspecified chairs, as there are certain ministries without portfolios in the British cabinet. My Flor. [entine] Drawings is finished,338 & I am struggling to find ways & means to get it published at a price accessible to students. Mary has been at a cure in Vienna & seems to have benefited greatly. I expect her back in a few days. Please remember me to yr. [your] daughter Mrs Bowers & her husband,339 & tell them how glad I should be to see them again Ever yrs. [yours] B.B.

335 Daniel (‘Dan’) Varney Thompson (New Jersey, 1902–Malaga, 1980), art historian, engineer, writer; from 1934–1946 he was Professor of Technology at the University of London, and also served as research and technical advisor at the Courtauld Institute for analysis of art materials. 336 Robert Laurence Binyon (Lancaster, 1869–Reading, Berkshire, England, 1943), poet, dramatist, and art scholar. 337 Heinrich Wölfflin (Winterthur, 1864–Zurich, 1945), art historian; from 1924 to 1934 he was Professor of Art History at the University of Zurich. 338 See n. 149. 339 Rosamond Forbes and William Benton Bowers.

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46. Forbes to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.95, typewritten) HARVARD UNIVERSITY ∙ FOGG MUSEUM OF ART CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS February 19, 1941 Bernard Berenson, Esq. Villa I Tatti Settignano Florence, Italy Dear B.B.: I have been slow in answering your letter of November 30th,340 for they manage to keep me so very busy here all the time at the Fogg Museum that I have little to think about art or literature or to correspond with my friends, and the rush of daily duties, most of them unimportant in themselves, takes a great deal of time. I have written to Dan Thompson giving him your messages.341 His address is still the Courtauld Institute in London and he is engaged in valuable work though not of an artistic nature. Cecily342 and the two adopted children are with him all in London together. Sir Robert Witt’s Library,343 which he put at the disposal of the Courtauld Institute, fortunately has been moved out into the country, for his house has been hit twice and Sir Robert himself has had to move into a hotel. I have many things to tell you about. I do not know whether you have heard of the gift of Dumbarton Oaks in Washington to Harvard University. You probably know Mr and Mrs.344 Robert Woods Bliss. He was in the Class of 1900, and was in the diplomatic service for many years, ending his career as the Ambassador to the Argentine a few years ago. Since then, as you probably know, he and Mrs Bliss have been turning their house, Dumbarton Oaks, into a museum, library, and research center with the idea and hope of making it eventually a great center for the study of Byzantine art. Paul Sachs and I have been helping them to build it up for many years, but they recently decided to actually make the gift, and so now it is the property of Harvard and they are going to build a new house for themselves.

340 BB’s letter is not published here but is in Edward Waldo Forbes (HC 2), folder 169. Harvard Art Museums Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., handwritten. 341 See BB’s letter to Forbes, 30 November 1940 in Edward Waldo Forbes (HC 2), folder 169. Harvard Art Museums Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., handwritten. 342 Cecile [Cecily] de Luze Simonds, wife of Daniel Varney Thompson. 343 Sir Robert Clermont Witt (Camberwell, 1872–London, 1952), art historian, art collector and co-founder of the Courtauld Institute of Art. His library of photographs of pictures and drawings of all western schools formed part of the teaching resources of the Courtauld. 344 Mildred Barnes.

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We have just started in the second half year with Focillon345 as the Professor, and Morey of Princeton also is giving a course. There are I believe four, five, or six very highly advanced students who are coming down to work there. The Blisses feel that, with the Congressional Library346 and fine Mediaeval scholars in the Catholic University,347 the Duncan Phillips Collection,348 the Freer Gallery,349 and last but not least the great National Gallery of Art which is at last to be opened on March 17th, Washington will become an important art center as time goes on. So that we are trying to do our bit by developing Dumbarton Oaks as a place for really serious and important work. Naturally it will take a little time for us to build it up but we are doing the best we can. President Conant350 has made Paul Sachs Chairman of the Administrative Board of Harvard officials that runs this new enterprise, and I am Director and he the Associate Director of the museum inasmuch as it is a museum. Jack Thacher351 is at present the resident executive officer. As it has turned out it would have been very difficult indeed for us to handle the problem of managing I Tatti during these difficult years, if the negotiations of the Spring and Summer of 1939 had ended successfully. But I hope and trust that the war will not last very long and that Italy and America will be on terms of firm friendship before so very long. I like to think of the picture that you give of yourself taking your walks in the beautiful woods of Settignano, and I am looking forward to the day when I may come again to Florence. The next time I hope that I shall be able to see more of you than I was able to the last time that I was there, in 1937. […] I am going to see Mrs William Phillips352 this afternoon and I do not know whether it will possible for me to send this letter to you by her or not. If it is I hope to do so. I have neglected to send the photographs of some of our more recent acquisitions to you as I meant to do and I think spoke of in a letter I wrote in August or

345 Henri Focillon (Dijon, 1888–New Haven, 1943), art historian and at this time Professor of Art History at Yale. 346 The Library of Congress, Washington, DC. 347 The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC. 348 The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC. 349 The Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. 350 James Bryant Conant (Dorchester, Mass., 1893–Hanover, New Hampshire, 1978), President of Harvard University. 351 John (‘Jack’) Seymour Thacher (1904–1982), art historian; he became acting director of Dumbarton Oaks in 1945 and assumed the directorship the following year, a position in which he served until his retirement in 1969. 352 Caroline Astor Drayton (New York City, 1880–Boston, 1965), wife of William Phillips (Beverly, 1878–Sarasota, 1968), then US Ambassador to Italy.

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September,353 because it seemed so utterly impossible to get photographs through to Italy in these days. But I hope to bring some photographs in to Mrs Phillips this afternoon, and if she finds it is not too much of a burden to take them, perhaps she can bring them to you. However, if she is going to fly across the ocean she probably will not want to take an extra ounce of baggage, and I may have to give up sending them by her. So if they do not come you will know the reason. We had two gifts a few years ago that seemed rather unpromising. There was a wealthy lady354 who died, and her son, Dr Hubbard,355 offered some of her pictures to the Boston Museum356 and to the Fogg Museum. The Boston Museum had first choice and got a few, and we chose a few. One of ours was cleaned and photographed many years ago and we called Paolo Veneziano.357 Mrs Vavala358 referred to it as a Paolo Veneziano, but Dr Offner thinks it is by a person who worked with him and was very close to him but not by Paolo Veneziano himself. In any case it is now a brilliant and interesting picture. […] There was another gift from a Professor Murray of Harvard,359 who had collected a number of pictures that looked dark and shabby and repainted and tumbling to pieces on their wall. […] The most interesting of the Murray pictures is one which was a much repainted picture in the style of Perugino of ‘Saint Blaise’.360 I believe I sent you a photograph of it before it was cleaned in July 1938. Our restorer has been working on it for some months and at last has produced a picture which I think has a good deal of style and grandeur. As it has not come back from the restorer and I have only had a hasty glimpse of it in his studio, I have not had a chance to study it. It does not look exactly like Perugino but it seems to me to be too good for Lo Spagna361 or any of his followers, and it has a big generous quality almost worthy of Raphael. However I am hardly inclined to think that anyone will think it is by Raphael, but I am eagerly awaiting its return in the next few days to look at it and compare it with

353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361

The letter is not present among BBP. Helen W. Faulkner Hubbard (Boston, 1859–Cambridge, Mass., 1937). Dr Eliot Hubbard, Jr., Harvard class 1915. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Fogg Museum, Saints Thomas Aquinas, John the Evangelist, Paul, and Dominic, panel of an altarpiece, workshop of Paolo Veneziano (Venetian painter, c. 1300–c. 1358–1362), (inv. no. 1937.33, tempera on panel, 91.8 × 125.5 cm). Evelyn Sandberg Vavalà (Compton, England, 1888–Florence, 1961), art historian. John Tucker Murray (1876–1956), Professor of English at Harvard. The painting now identified with a Bishop Saint in the Fogg Museum (inv. no. 1938.88, oil on panel, 118.11 × 67.31 cm). Giovanni di Pietro, called ‘lo Spagna’ (c. mid- fifteenth century–1528), a painter active in the Umbria region.

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photographs, etc. I hope to be able to send you a photograph of it later, and I shall be much interested to hear what you think of it. […] With best regards to you and Mrs Berenson and to Nicky, Yours affectionately Edward W. Forbes

47. BB to Forbes (Edward Waldo Forbes (HC 2), folder 169. Harvard Art Museums Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., handwritten) Apr. [il] 16, 1941 I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Dear Edward. The photos arrived several days before your letter of Febr.[uary] 21,362 so that before receiving it I wrote to thank you. No photo of a Greek head with a restored nose363 has reached me, nor a photo of a Jacopo Bassano Entombment.364 I never received the letter about St Blaise — at least I cannot recall it, but Mather365 is right to the extent that the painting is post-Raphaelesque.366 I wonder in what condition it is. Vollbach [sic] was here day before yesterday, & he told me how much he had done for the Blisses in connection with Dumbarton Oaks. As he is by far the most competent person in the studies which Dumbarton Oaks wishes to foster. I wonder why he is not appointed to guide & direct them. He would be the right man in the right place. In fact I never understood why the Blisses did not import him for that purpose. Mary is but so so. Nicky and I are well. Best wishes to all of you Ever yours B.B.

362 The letter is not published here but is in BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.95, typewritten. 363 Fogg Museum, Acrolithic Head from a Roman Cult Statue of a Goddess, late second century ce (inv. no. 1905.6, marble, 46.9 cm). 364 Fogg Museum, The Entombment of Christ, workshop of Iacopo Bassano, c. 1600 (inv. no. 1940.168, oil on canvas, 84.5 × 116.8 cm). 365 Frank Jewett Mather, Jr. 366 The painting is now assigned to Marco Palmezzano, fifteenth–sixteenth century.

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Later. I was posting this last sheet when yrs [yours] of Febr. [uary] 19 was brought by hand. I now understand what you mean by yr. [your] questions about the St Blaise, & look forward with keen interest to receiving the photos of the same cleaned. Of course I have known about ‘Dumbarton Oaks’ from the beginning, & followed its growth with every sympathy. I need not say how well I wish it, & I am glad to learn that it is in the hands of you & Paul.367 If your funds permit, you could do us better, if you wish it to be a serious institution for the study of post-pagan art of the Near East than to have Vollbach as teacher. There is nobody remotely like him in America or for that matter in Europe for acquaintance & understanding of the subject. - My interest in your activities & collections is as great as ever, & I am grateful for everything you tell me about both. I want news of Grenville Winthrop.368 I have had no answer to a letter I addressed months ago. I hope all is well with him. Again, Devotedly yrs. [yours] B.B.

48. Forbes to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.95, typewritten) HARVARD UNIVERSITY ∙ FOGG MUSEUM OF ART CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS June 27, 1941 Bernard Berenson, Esq. Villa I Tatti Settignano Florence, Italy Dear B.B.: I have three letters to thank you for: yours of April 7,369 16, and 22.370 Thank you for sending your suggestion as to the attribution of the various pictures. I wish that you

367 368 369 370

Paul Sachs. Grenville Lindall Winthrop (New York City, 1864–1943), lawyer and art collector. Forbes’s letter of 7 April 1941 is not present among BBP. Forbes’s letter of 22 April 1941 is not present among BBP.

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could come over in person to see the pictures yourself, but I understand that, in the first place the Italian Government has now ordained that no American should leave the country and in the second place on account of the ill health of Mrs Berenson and other difficulties, you had already found that it was impossible to leave. […] You spoke about Volhbach [sic] and say how valuable a man he would be at Dumbarton Oaks. I find that the Blisses know him well and have been eager to get him to come to America, but apparently he has encountered difficulties and I suppose now that it will be more difficult than before. There is not much news to report about Dumbarton Oaks to you. Monsieur Focillon was taken ill with a heart attack in the middle of the winter and had to be absolutely quiet for some months, but before the middle of June he was able to leave and we hope he will be able to come back in the autumn to finish out his term which ends in December. The new scholars have been appointed for next year and seem to be a very good group. You ask about Grenville Winthrop and say that we did not answer your letter. The reason is that he has been very ill twice this winter. He is much better now, I believe, and I think is going to his country estate in Lenox371 before long. We have not much to report in the way of new acquisitions except the Warburg gift. Mrs Felix Warburg372 has given in commemoration of the seventieth anniversary of Felix Warburg’s373 birth three very handsome tapestries374 which have been hanging in our galleries for some months, a French 14th century wooden Madonna and Child,375 and three paintings: a St John which is attributed to Piero di Cosimo but which seems to me more like Filippino Lippi;376 Defendente di Ferrara Adoration which I see you include in your list;377 and a Madonna and Child attributed to Benvenuto di Giovanni.378 This last one seems to me not to be of first quality and is more or less 371 372 373 374

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Lenox, a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. Frieda Warburg, née Schiff (New York City, 1876–White Plains, New York, 1958). Felix Moritz Warburg (Hamburg, 1871–New York City, 1937), banker. Fogg Museum, Second and Third Articles of the Apostles’ Creed, tapestry, Flemish, 1500–1515 (inv. no. 1941.128, wool and silk, 335.3 × 226.1); Fifth and Sixth Articles of the Apostles Creed, tapestry, Flemish, early sixteenth century (inv. no. 1941.129, wool and silk, 317.5 × 335.5 cm); The Tiburtine Sybil Showing the Vision of the Madonna and Child to the Emperor Augustus, tapestry, Flemish, 1505–1515 (inv. no. 1941.130, wool, 363.2 × 231.1 cm). Fogg Museum, Madonna and Child, French, nineteenth-twentieth century (inv. no. 1941.131, walnut panel, 44.4 × 13.5 cm). Fogg Museum, Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness, currently assigned to the master known as the Pseudo Granacci, fifteenth century (inv. no. 1941.133, tempera on panel, 54 × 38.4 cm). Fogg Museum, The Adoration of the Christ Child, Defendente Ferrari, c. 1500 (inv. no. 1941.134, oil on panel, 69.9 × 47 cm). Probably the painting is to be identified with the one published by Berenson, North Italian Painters of the Renaissance, p. 205 as a Nativity which was then in Berlin. Fogg Museum, The Virgin and Child with Angels, Benvenuto di Giovanni, c. 1475 (inv. no. 1941.132, tempera on cradled panel, 66 × 41.8 cm).

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repainted, but when it is cleaned we hope to find something better underneath. Under separate cover I am sending you photographs of these three paintings. With best regards to you and Mrs Berenson and Nicky, Yours affectionately Edward W. Forbes

49. BB to Forbes (HUA, Edward Forbes Papers HUG (FP) 139.10 Box 2, handwritten) Florence, Sept. [ember] 20, 1944 Dear Edward. DeWald appeared yesterday & brought me yours of Aug. [ust] 6379 & Paul’s of the 16th.380 Having lived for twenty years under a regime which, when it started had nobody over thirty in it, & seeing what it made of Italy in those years, I am not so happy about turning over the Fogg to youth and its mad impulses to ask and agitate, and realize its ideas. But for you in yr. [your] private capacity I am delighted that you are going to be free to enjoy the exercise of those faculties which you have been cultivating for so many years. Nothing stands out so much in my recollections of my last visit home as an evening we spent at yr. [your] table & yr. [your] friends with you & yr. [your] wife and one or two guests. Moore381 in particular, the Hebraist, theologian, & student of Talmudic law. I recall too a forenoon when I met the water-color painter who did such convincing & delicious things of some south shore. You wrote Aug. [ust] 6. A day or two previously we became the very heart of the German battle front to the north of Florence, & till the end of the month we run every risk that war can expose our [selves] to. We are safe, altho’ [although] rather shaken & except for three or four third class pickers that happened to be in Alda’s house between the two bridges & the heart of Florence382 which the Wehrmacht deliberately dynamited & turned into huge piles of ruins, all my works of art are saved & my books and photographs as well. I owe everything to the person who 379 Forbes’s letter of 6 August 1944 is not present in Berenson’s correspondence. Perhaps Berenson made a mistake and referred to that of Forbes on 5 August 1944 (handwritten) a copy of which (typewritten) was sent to Berenson through a different channel. See BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.95. 380 Paul Sachs’s letter of 16 August 1941 is not present in Berenson’s correspondence. 381 George Foot Moore (West Chester, 1851–Cambridge, Mass., 1931), Professor of the History of Religion at Harvard Divinity School from 1902 to 1928. He focused largely on the Hebrew Bible and the history of Judaism. 382 Baroness Alda von Anrep, née Mariano (Rome, 1883–Florence, 1974), Nicky’s sister and librarian at I Tatti. She lived with her husband Egbert von Anrep in Borgo San Jacopo, Florence.

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has sheltered & hidden me for a year, & cared for my possessions & my interests. It is H. E. Marchese Filippo Serlupi,383 minister of S. Marino to the Holy See. If ever my scheme for I Tatti is realized he must be made Italian trustee of the Harvard Institute there established. It will I fear be a white elephant to the young people you are handing the Fogg over to. I note in yr. [your] study program, how little Italian & even Greek art count already at Harvard — scarcely more than contemporary Mexican! One must have illusions to keep on going & receive remains that it is worthwhile to build up I Tatti as a place for students of the classical art — the ever contemporary arts — Italian, its Greek & Roman sources, & its French & other European descendants to this day. I am greatly pleased to learn of Grenville Winthrop’s most precious & generous gift, as well as of the Dane384 one about which I know nothing. I wrote to Paul before hearing from him. In the letter just received, he speaks of coming over here at once. So I am not writing to him again. In case however that he is still at home when this reaches you, please tell him that on receipt of the magnificent volumes on the Fogg drawings385 I wrote at once, most appreciatively & at great length. I fear this never reached him. Please tell him his long 11 page typed letter of July 10, 1941 never came; nor its copy that he sent later; nor indeed anything edition since Italy made war on us; neither yr. [your] reports, nor Record of Dumbarton Oaks, nor the special number of Art News for Jan. [uary] 1944 on the Winthrop Collection,386 nor Cortissoz387 on the same. If duplicates could be sent now, there would be a good chance of their reaching me. Tell Paul too how much I thank him for all his personal & family news. I return to I Tatti in a couple of days, & under rather grim conditions make the attempt to restore ‘normalcy’, so that I can begin to feel at home again, & work accordingly. All depends on how well I recover after the shattering experience of living in dark cellars under constant bombardment for an entire month. My wife never moved from I Tatti, & thanks to Nicky’s relations who were there to take care of her, she did not suffer too much, not even from the German occupation of the house. She never gets out of bed now, but may last some still, I hope. The house suffered no vital damage from bombardment. The grounds did from the tanks,

383 Perhaps ‘His Eminence’ Marquis Filippo Serlupi Crescenzi (Sestri Levante, 1900–?, 1966). 384 Ernest Blaney Dane (Brookline, 1868–Center Harbor, 1942), businessman and philanthropist and his wife Helen Pratt. 385 Berenson was certainly referring to the three volumes of Mongan, A., and Sachs, Drawings in the Fogg Museum of Art, which were published in 1940. 386 Berenson was certainly referring to Art News magazine, whose issue 42, no. 16 (1–14 January 1944) was devoted to the Winthrop Collection, with several article dedicated to it including the opening one by Paul J. Sachs entitled ‘Grenville Winthrop: the Man and the Collector’, pp. 9; 35. 387 Royal Cortissoz (Brooklyn, 1869–New York City, 1948), art historian and art critic for the New York Herald Tribune. Sachs’s article mentions several friends that Grenville Winthrop corresponded with, such as Royal Cortissoz.

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cars & artillery of our own forces — Forgive the trouble I put you to of reading my handwriting. Best remembrances to your wife. Every sincerely yours Bernard Berenson

50. Forbes to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.95, typewritten) HARVARD UNIVERSITY ∙ FOGG MUSEUM OF ART CAMBRIDGE 38, MASSACHUSETTS January 12, 1945 Bernard Berenson, Esquire Villa I Tatti Settignano Florence, Italy Dear B.B.: I was delighted to get your letter of September 20th. It came some weeks ago and I had a strong impulse which I hoped to follow to send you an immediate response saying how pleased I was to hear your news. However, I decided to wait and try to write you a real letter before saying anything. I wanted to write you a letter telling all the news of four years. That has proved to be difficult for I have been sick or convalescing a fair proportion of the time since October and have had to use all the strength I had in attending to the routine business of the building. First, let me say how very glad I am to hear how well you and I Tatti weathered the storm. If Mrs Berenson would value a message from me, will you please give her my best regards and tell her that I am glad that she did not have to leave I Tatti during the German invasion. Will you also kindly remember me cordially to Nickey [sic] and the Baroness Anrep. There is so much to say now that in this short letter I cannot do anything but make a few remarks. In the first place, I do not feel the apprehension that you do about the possible swinging away of the younger generation from Italian and Greek art towards ‘Mexican Art’. It is true that during the last few years there has been a great burst of enthusiasm, as we all know, for African art Mexican art and other arts widely separated from the Classical quality of the Greek and Italian art which you and I have loved so. However I feel that the pendulum must swing, the tide must rise and fall. I lunched with Mrs Rockefeller388 a year or so ago. As you may know, she has been an ardent enthusiast of modern art and an active supporter of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. She said to me that day that it seemed to her that even the

388 Mary Todhunter Clark (Philadelphia, 1907–New York City, 1999), wife of Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller businessman and politician.

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artists themselves are beginning to get tired now of much of this ultra-modern art. It seems to me that in their search for freedom a large number of the modern artists have arrived at chaos instead, and I think there are signs already that the world will get tired of so-called freedom, alias chaos, and try to come back to the love of order and beauty. Whether the tide has already turned or will turn ten years from now, it is hard for me to say for my ear is not always very close to the ground; but I feel that the tide must turn as inevitably the ocean tides do, and it seems to me that what you have built up at I Tatti is of permanent interest and value, even though there may be periods when the shouting and the hurrahs may be directed more loudly in other directions. […] I am sorry that the various catalogues, numbers of the Fogg Museum Bulletin with description of the Dane,389 Winthrop Collections,390 etc. have not arrived, but I showed your letter to Paul, and if he has not already sent other copies to you I will see that these various numbers including the Dumbarton Oaks number are sent to you. As you know, Dumbarton Oaks has achieved international reputation because of the recent conference of leading allied diplomats,391 and also the Byzantine studies are attracting attention and arousing enthusiasm. As my doctor is sending me to Florida to spend a few weeks in the sunshine there to protect me from having pneumonia which I had last winter, I am just starting off this evening and have not time now to look back over the letters I have written you during the last few years to see what I have told you and what I have not told you of the happenings. So I will make no attempt at the present time to give a history of the Fogg but will merely speak of what has been going on recently. When I come back in March or April, full of health and strength, I hope I can write you a longer letter giving you more information about the Fogg. […] Once more, with regards to you all, Yours sincerely Edward W. Forbes P.S. Another copy of this letter is being sent from Cambridge to I Tatti, and would it be too much trouble for you to let me know which of the two letters arrive first? E.W.F.

389 Probably Forbes was referring to Annual Report (Fogg Art Museum), no. 1941/1942 (1941–1942), p. 1 in which he reports on Dane’s gift. 390 Perhaps Forbes was referring to The Bulletin of the Fogg Museum of Art, 10 (November 1943) which was devoted to the Grenville Lindall Winthrop Bequest. 391 During the war years of 1941 to 1945 Dumbarton Oaks undertook activities to contribute to the war effort. In 1944 the US Department of State used the facilities of Dumbarton Oaks to host the ‘Dumbarton Oaks Conversation’, a series of conferences for the maintenance of peace and security which led to the signing of the United Nations charter in 1945.

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P.SS. Mr Forbes has gone south and so cannot sign this himself, but he asked me to sign it and send it to I Tatti directly. The other copy was sent in care of Major DeWald. [handwritten note] E.W.D. (Secretary to M. Forbes)

51. BB to Forbes (HUA, Edward Forbes Papers HUG (FP) 139.10 Box 2, handwritten) I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE March 23, 1945 Dear Edward. Both versions of yours of Jan. [uary] 12392 reached me. The one posted in Washington c/o DeWald, March 12,393 & the other posted in Cambridge arrived March 17.394 You see the difference is inconsiderable, & now that one can write by ordinary post, you had better address here directly. I am indeed sorry to learn that you have had to leave yr. [your] so beautiful & comfy house for medical reasons. You must be returning now, & I hope this will find you out of the risk of pneumonia. At our age — altho’ [although] you are so much younger — it becomes a serious problem what to do in the heart of the winter. I, for instance, should not spend another here, for I too have had a serious threat of pneumonia quite recently But under present conditions where to go, if like me you are only a mere civilian! I am touched by the account you give of yr. [your] activities, & how you look forward to enjoying instead of merely administering art. How often I feel as if I ought to give up grubbing about art, & abandoning myself to enjoying it. But a daemon drives me on! I congratulate you on all the gifts you have been receiving. Where are you going to store them, let alone exhibit? After this you should receive none without the proviso that you may pack with the stuff you do not need. I am truly happy to get yr. [your] opinion that the younger generation is not losing interest in the Classical art, viz. Egyptian, Greek, French, Italian If that is so, the more reason that yr. [your] successor in the Fogg should be first & foremost not a person who puts forward problems of architectural construction, or pictorial technique, or even a mere grubbing archeologist, & still less a digger, but a

392 Forbes’s letter of 12 January 1945 is not published here but is in BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.95, typewritten. 393 The letter is not present among BBP. 394 The letter is not present among BBP.

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true lover of all visual manifestations of the human spirit as manifested in the main currents of the world’s art. For as these main currents came from Mesopotamia & Egypt, from Greece, & France, & Italy, & not their back washes, & stagnant pools, like the bulk of medieval illumination & the question whether they are executed at Tweedledum or Tweedledee It is my life long conviction that a university should teach not of technique but of matters historical, philosophical, literary, & high mathematics & pioneering science, & all humanistically. I wish we could find a director of that spirit for the Fogg. If the Fogg were a museum no matter how important, its directorship would not matter much. But the Fogg is already a holding company, a holding corporation. It guides studies at Harvard, & already at Dumbarton Oaks. Before long it will guide them here at I Tatti. It is therefore of the utmost importance that the director of the Fogg should pilot his craft along the main currents & not lose himself in pools by the way, even if these are of an historical & philological nature. Let us avoid the accusation of caring more & more for less & less. You may ask where such a phoenix of a director is to be discovered X March 26. I was interrupted, & resuming I have to tell you that my wife died three days ago. She was at last out of the acute pain she had endured almost uninterruptedly for so many years. At the very end the suffering had stopped, & her last words to me were that she was resting peacefully. The house seems empty, & it will take time before I can get used to pass her door without looking in to see how she is. If this news has not reached them before please, communicate it to friends. With cordial greetings Ever yours B.B.

52. Forbes to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.95, typewritten) April 4, 1945

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Dear B.B., I hope that you received the letter that I sent to you in January in answer to yours of September 20, 1944. I sent two copies of that letter by different routes in hopes that one or both would reach you. I will briefly tell you the main theme of the letter that I wrote in January. You will remember that in your letter you expressed a fear that the young people in the world were turning away from classical art and going in for a great deal of the light-weight and frivolous stuff that passes for art in these days. My answer was that the pendulum must inevitably swing back and forth between the extremes of understatement and overstatement, between Romanticism and Classicism, and between the serious and the frivolous. The fact that a great deal of art is disorganized and expresses the disorganized state of our society seems to me merely to mean that the pendulum has swung as far as it can go in that direction and that it will swing back again with the return of quiet and peace. What you have collected is of such permanent value that it must always be of importance even though at times the hurrahs of the crowd will be turned in another direction. It is difficult to tell you in a few words all that has happened in the Fogg Museum in the four or five years since it has been possible to reach you. I know that Paul Sachs has sent you some of my Reports395 to the President396 during the last years but I am sending a set of them to you in case you did not receive the others and would like to glance over them to see what has been going on. Although you can read the whole story in these documents, I will just mention a few of the things that have been most interesting to me. Here is a list of some of the best things we have acquired in the last few years. […] Through Thomas Whittemore, we have acquired two superb copies in colored plaster of the portraits of the emperors in Santa Sophia.397 This particular method of copying the mosaics was developed at the Fogg Museum and one of the members of our staff

395 Probably Annual Report (Fogg Art Museum) magazine. 396 The President of Harvard University. 397 Forbes was referring to the casts of the Emperor portraits of Constantine IX Monomachus (or Monomachos) (1042–1055) from the panel mosaic in the southern gallery, eastern wall of Santa Sophia, and Alexius I Comnenus (or Alexios Commenos) (1081–1118) from the panel mosaic in the same gallery. The two casts were made in 1938 and purchased by the Fogg Museum 1939 where they still are today (inv. no. 1939.199, painted plaster, 116.21 × 76.2 cm; inv. no. 1939.198, painted plaster, 58.1 × 48.26 cm). See Teteriatnikov, Mosaics of Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, p. 68.

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went there to do the work.398 The Metropolitan Museum has bought from Whittemore’s collection two much larger and finer copies399 which we could not afford to get. From the estate of Felix Warburg, we have three paintings of interest. A ‘Saint John’ which I believe to be by Filippino Lippi, is attributed by Mr Roberto Longhi to Piero di Cosimo, although he admits a similarity to Filippino Lippi’s work.400 I shall be interested to hear your opinion. The other are: An ‘Adoration’ by Defendente Ferrari;401 and a ‘Madonna and Child’ by Benvenuto di Giovanni.402 […] Many other objects might be mentioned but these will give you some idea of our acquisitions. George Stout,403 the head of our Department of Conservation, has gone over to Europe and, I understand, has one of the most responsible positions in caring for the works of art in Northern Europe that have been saved from destruction by the Nazis. As you know, of course, DeWald is the leading man, I understand, in this work in Italy.

398 The method of producing casts was developed in 1937–1938 at the Fogg Art Museum, initiated by Whittemore and Forbes. The hand-painted casts were made by George Holt of Bennington College (whom Forbes was referring to in the letter) one of the restorers of Santa Sophia’s mosaics who worked there in the Summer of 1939. Holt mentioned his process in a diary and published his method for reproducing tesserae: Holt, ‘A Casting Method for Reproducing Mosaics’; see also Whittemore, The Mosaics of Hagia Sophia at Istanbul. Third Preliminary Report, p. 8. On the reproduction of full-scale copies of the mosaics, see Teteriatnikov, Mosaics of Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, p. 57 n. 46; pp. 64–68; Nelson, R. S., Hagia Sophia, 1850–1950, p. 182 and n. 195. Christine Brennan, Senior Researcher and Collections Manager, Medieval Art & The Cloisters, and Helen C. Evans, curator of Early Christian and Byzantine Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, kindly suggest and clarify that Mr Holt’s daughter, Charlotte Holt Menasveta, has provided the files of the Medieval Department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and of Dumbarton Oaks, with excerpts from her father’s diaries in 1939, 1940, and 1941 that relate to his work on the mosaics. Holt’s method, which was considered innovative, was a topic of various newspaper articles. Helen C. Evans kindly provided me with the text of a lecture she delivered on this topic: Byzantium Revisited, p. 6 and nn. 23–25. 399 Christine Brennan kindly suggests that the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, purchased the casts of the following Santa Sophia’s mosaics: the Deesis from the south gallery now on view in the Medieval Sculpture Hall at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. no. 41.137, paint on canvas, 395 × 601.7 cm); the Mother of God and Child from the apse conch (inv. no. 43.48.1, painted plaster cast, 226 × 148.6 cm) which is on long term loan to the Benaki Museum in Athens; the Archangel from the bema arch (inv. no. 43.48.2, painted plaster cast, 184.8 × 122.8 cm) which is on long term loan to the Cummings Art Center at Connecticut College in New London. Finally, a cast of letters from a fragmentary inscription (according to the writer certainly from the arch of the apse conch) which is currently in storage at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. no. 43.48.3-.5, painted plaster cast, 64.1 × 120.7 cm). 400 See n. 376. Roberto Longhi (Alba, 1890–Florence, 1970). 401 See n. 377. 402 See n. 378. 403 George Leslie Stout (Winterset, 1897–Santa Clara, 1978).

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John Gettens,404 our very able chemist, has been called away to do government work and several of our young professors are away on leave of absence. […] Our X-ray Collection, I think, is the best there is anywhere and I hope that we shall be able to strengthen and increase it still more after the war is over. We are feeling very cheerful here about the end of the European war and hope that it will come very soon, within a few weeks or months. When things settle down, I wish that you could come over to see our new Fogg Museum. With best wishes to you and Nicky and the Baroness, Yours sincerely, Edward W. Forbes Director Emeritus P.S. If you want any more photographs, please let me know. I hope this letter reaches you. EW.F. Bernard Berenson, Esq. I Tatti, Settignano Florence, Italy

53. BB to Forbes (HUA, Edward Forbes Papers HUG (FP) 139.10 Box 2, typewritten) Copy of B. Berenson’s letter405 Settignano, Firenze, June 12, 1945 Dear Edward, I write to answer yours letters of Apr. [il] both handwritten and typed, as well as one of May 2.406

404 Rutherford John Gettens (1900–1974). 405 The original was not found. 406 Forbes’s letter of 2 May 1945 is not published here but is in BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.95, handwritten.

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In the first place let me thank you for all you say about my beloved Mary’s departure. Then I want you to know that I appreciate all you tell me about yourself and your plans for the future. It never entered my mind that you would pass the rest of yr. [your] days in inactivity. The enjoyment of art as I have experienced it is active enough to exercise all one’s mental faculties. I hope you will publish yr. [your] conclusions on all questions of art that have been absorbing you for so many years. If you can put in some painting of yr. [your] own all the better. By the way, was it yourself or Paul that told me you had some Emerson407 letters and other material. That you certainly get out. Let me tell you that for months before I had to go into hiding, Mary read me aloud Emerson’s Journals, volume after volume.408 We were overcome with admiration for his precocity, his range, his depth. It is dear of you to wish I come over soon. I should love to but I fear crossing over will not be easy or good for an old and spoiled body like mine. Besides I could not attempt it without Nicky, and as she is an Italian subject, that is a complication not easily got over. Now I shall make some comments and requests. I have for instance, received no photos. I shall be grateful for all of Italian paintings and other objects that have been acquired in the last six years, as well as of the truly important objects of others lands, particularly all Asiatic ones. I have received no Bulletins except the very important one on the Grenville Winthrop Collection. On the other hand all reports to the President seem to have reached me. In one of these you speak of a Byzantine Institute.409 For years and years very faint and hushed rumors of this institute have reached me. Could you give me more precise information and could I not become one of its beneficiaries? You may not be aware that for the last 25 years Byzantine Art has been one of my most active and preoccupying interests. The book I was working on when I had to go into hiding was going to be in some part an evaluation of that art. I see that this institution has taken over ‘Byzantion’ to which I subscribed from the start. I shall be grateful if you secure me Volume XV and XVI410 that the Institute has published and put me down for succeeding volumes — at any expense of course. […]

407 Ralph Waldo Emerson (Boston, 1803–Concord, 1882), essayist, philosopher and writer. He was Forbes’s maternal grandfather. 408 Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson with Annotations, ed. by Edward Waldo Forbes and Waldo Emerson Forbes, 10 vols. The volumes are in Biblioteca Berenson House. 409 Perhaps Berenson was referring to one of the Reports of the Byzantine Institute of America by Seth Thomas Gano (1879–1955, secretary and treasurer of the American Byzantine Institute), published in several issues of Annual Report (Fogg Art Museum): no. 1943/1944 (1943–1944), pp. 17–18; no. 1944/1945 (1944–1945), pp. 16–17; no. 1945–1946 (1945–1946), p. 15. 410 Byzantion, an international journal founded in 1924 published in Louvain, Belgium by Peeters Publishers. Berenson was referring to volumes 15 (1940–1941); 16.1 (1942–1943); 16.2 (1942–1943).

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I wish I could drop into your midst and surprise you all at your work. I long to see you and what you have done in the last 20 years ago, not only you at Cambridge, but elsewhere all over the Country. My Mary’s death makes me feel my age. I get tired easily and I have become over-sensitive, fragile even. So that I fear travel (except in favorable conditions), company, crowds, clatter and clamor, etc. etc. etc. And then, I have the strong urge to go on with the books already on the stocks that I want to finish and continue. The one I mean to call ‘Decline and Recovery in the Figure Arts’ could occupy me for a good 20 years at least. All good wishes and affectionate greetings, B.B.

54. Forbes to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.95, typewritten) HARVARD UNIVERSITY ∙ FOGG MUSEUM OF ART CAMBRIDGE 38, MASSACHUSETTS 30 July 1945 Dear B.B: Thank you for your letter of June 12th and also for the post card dated June 20th, saying that the Bulletin of November, 1942, had arrived.411 I am sorry to say that in the six months since I ceased to be director, I have accomplished very few of the things I want to do. I was sent down south by the doctor for my health in January, and when I came back, a mountain of small obligations, which I had to fulfill, kept me from starting the first work which I am eager to finish; namely, recording hundreds of facts about the early days of the Fogg which I, and I alone, know about, and to get out the letters which refer to and confirm these facts and list them. You speak of Emerson papers. They have been one of the principal things which have interfered with my work at the Fogg. It happens that Prof. Ralph L. Rusk, of Columbia University, who recently published the six-volume edition of all the letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson412 that he could get hold of, has now asked for permission to write a comprehensive and authentic life of Emerson. We gave him this permission, and now he is after me, ‘hot foot’, to get everything for him. There is a great mass of material, and I am the guardian of it and President of the Emerson Memorial Association. So,

411 Forbes was referring to the Bulletin of the Fogg Museum of Art of November 1942. BB’s post card is not transcribed here but is in HUA, Edward Forbes Papers HUG (FP) 139.10 Box 2, handwritten. 412 Ralph Leslie Rusk (Rantoul, 1888–New York City, 1962), Professor of English, Columbia University, 1925–1954. See The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. by Rusk in six volumes (New York, 1939).

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the work falls on me to go through the material and get for Rusk what is important for him. One reason it takes so much time is that he wants to have access to the letters of Emerson’s children to each other. They were all voluminous letter-writers, and the letters are concerned almost entirely with other affairs. I have therefore had the agreeable but time-consuming task of looking through an enormous number of letters containing much material of interest to me but of little importance to Rusk. However, as he is an aggressive man who wants to see everything, I have felt obliged to go ahead with this work, though normally I should rather have postponed it until I had finished the Fogg Museum work which, from my point of view, is more pressing. I am interested to hear that you and Mrs Berenson read Emerson’s Journals. I did also some years ago. When we find it is possible to send photographs to you, safely, I hope we can send many of them showing you what we have acquired during the last few years. You speak about the Byzantine Institute. That is a long story, and I hope later to write you a long letter telling it to you. The essence is that Thomas Whittemore, whom you probably remember, has done what to me is a most extraordinary piece of work. He has created the Byzantine Institute and, I believe, is its president. Seth Gano (614 Sears Building, Boston) is secretary and treasurer. As far as I know, Whittemore is the Byzantine Institute. He has an extraordinary library in Paris which attracted scholars from all over Europe. I was in Paris in 1939 in close touch with Mr Ermoloff,413 the librarian. He and I had various consultations as to how the books could best be hidden from the Germans. I wanted them to be sent off to a place in the country, but Ermoloff, I think, decided to keep most of them in Paris. He managed skillfully to keep the library open where it was visited by many scholars until Paris fell in 1940. Then he successfully hid the more valuable books. So, I think there were practically no losses, and the library is now intact. The most important of Whittemore’s work is the care of Santa Sophia. He has succeeded, as you perhaps know, in getting the confidence of the Turkish government, and they have put him in charge of the church there. He has spent the last thirteen of fourteen years in cleaning the mosaics, which were covered by the Italians one hundred or more years ago. I visited him at Santa Sophia in 1937 and found it one of the most exciting experiences of my life. Whittemore calls it mosaic painting, and with reason. I remember when I looked at the magnificent, majestic heads, I felt that probably even a Titian or a Rembrandt would look trivial beside them.

413 Boris Nikolaevich Ermolov (1891–c. 1967), director and chief librarian of the American Byzantine Institute in Paris from 1930 to 1957.

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The working period in Istanbul is in the summer, and he has been there every year right through the war, and is going back again this summer. He is also starting a movement to take care of other important churches in Istanbul which are going to pieces, and has, I believe, raised money sufficient to enable him to save them from the utter ruin which threatens them. He has a large collection of Byzantine gold and silver coins and seals which he has placed as a loan in the Fogg Museum. When I find that books can safely be sent to you, I will try to have publications of the Byzantine Institute, describing Whittemore’s work, mailed to you. No time for more just now. Yours affectionately Edward W. Forbes […] Mr Bernard Berenson Villa I Tatti Settignano Florence Italy

55. BB to Forbes (HUA, Edward Forbes Papers HUG (FP) 139.10 Box 2, handwritten) Sept. [ember] 1, 1945 CASA AL DONO VALLOMBROSA (PROV. [INCIA] DI FIRENZE) Dear Edward. I am delighted to read yours of July 30. I can understand yr. [your] eagerness to put down in writing all you recall of the beginnings & progress of the Fogg. I fervently wish you the leisure to do it, dwelling happily over the creative moments of the post. It was creative. You have built up one of the most comprehensive collections of real works of art in America, or anywhere for that matter. You have trained directors & assistants for all our museums. You have encouraged every branch of technical research. Now you tell me about the Byz. [antine] Inst. [itute] & I look forward to fuller information. When it ceases to be a one-man-show,414 I should be happy to partake in its efforts. But it is important to publish everything concerning Emerson. He was by far the greatest figure in the realm of mind that America has produced. I feel every word of his precious, provided we read it in the right setting. For that we must have the exact

414 BB’s polemical tone regarding Whittemore should be noted.

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date of each item. A rumor reached me that Harvard is starting a new curriculum for undergraduates. Could you send me some information? Affectionately B.B.

56. BB to Forbes (HUA, Edward Forbes Papers HUG (FP) 139.10 Box 2, handwritten) Settignano, Florence, July 14, 1946. Dear Edward Your letter of June 11415 was worth waiting for. I will comment on each item. In the first place let me tell you I wish I could have been with you to see Copan.416 Since my undergraduate days when I used to haunt the Peabody Museum,417 I have taken a zestful interest in Central Americ. [an] art — I am glad to have news of the Ringling Museum418 & to hear about Everett Austin. His name is known to me in connection with the Wadsworth Athenaeum.419 Do tell him to write to me directly & to keep me informed as to what he is doing with the Ringling Collection.420 I believe I have photos of the Morgan Duccio acquired by the B. [oston] M. [useum] F. [ine] A. [rts]421 is a treasure. I knew it well, & am delighted it has come to Boston. Whittemore snowed in about six months ago. He was eloquent, fervid & promised much. Since then I have neither heard from him, nor received anything from the Byzantine Institute. I should be truly grateful if you could induce it to send me reports of what Whittemore has been doing at Sta. Sofia, as well as the photos of the reproductions he exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum. Thanks for copy of his most interesting letter to ‘Seth.’ I wish I could hear more as to what W. [hittemore] is doing at Jerusalem & its coasts. I am now in my 82d year & feel it in every inch of me. The library has received nothing

415 Forbes’s letter of 11 June is not present among BBP. 416 Copán, an archaeological site of the Maya civilization, Honduras. 417 The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 418 The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, known as The Ringling, Sarasota, Florida. 419 Arthur Everett Austin, Jr. (Brookline, 1900–Hartford, Connecticut, 1957), archaeologist and art historian; he was director of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art from 1927 to c. 1944, and the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida from 1946. 420 The collection of John Nicholas Ringling (McGregor, Iowa, 1866–New York City, 1936), circus owner, art collector, and his wife Mable, née Armilda Burton (Moons, Ohio, 1875–New York, 1929). 421 Berenson was referring to a triptych with The Crucifixion, the Redeemer with Angels, Saint Nicholas, Saint Gregory by Duccio di Buoninsegna (Sienese painter active in Tuscany between 1278 and 1311), formerly in the John Pierpont Morgan collection, now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (inv. no. 45.880, tempera on panel, central overall 61 × 39.4 cm, left overall 45.1 × 19.4 cm, right overall 45.1 × 20.2 cm).

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for six years from any western country. I am working hard along with Nicky & Alda to supply deficiencies. It is very hard work to replace periodicals, to select which books to acquire, & how to get them shipped here. I want to leave the library a place where a properly prepared student would find everything he needed to advance his education in the art. Write when you can, dear Edward. It is a joy to hear from you. Nicky & Alda send affectionate remembrances. Always yours B.B

57. Forbes to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.96, typewritten) HARVARD UNIVERSITY ∙ FOGG MUSEUM OF ART CAMBRIDGE 38, MASSACHUSETTS December 5, 1946 Mr Bernard Berenson Settignano Florence, Italy Dear B.B. If being a dilatory correspondent means a visit to Purgatory proportionate to the delay of the letter, I feel that I shall have to sojourn there for some time. I thought that would write an answer to yours of July 14th which I received with interest and pleasure sometime in August, I think, but I was away on my vacation, and on my return, what with two changes in secretaries and an unexpected pile of work pushed on me, I have made small progress with things I really wanted to do this autumn. First, enclosed please find a letter about the enterprise which Mr George Myers and I have started.422 I do not know whether you know him or not. He is a Yale graduate who has built up in Washington a large and splendid museum of textiles

422 The enclosed Forbes’s letter to BB is not published here but is in BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.96, typewritten. As emerges form this letter and another one from Luther Harris Evans (Sayersville, 1902–San Antonio, 1981) addressed to George Hewitt Myers (Cleveland, 1875–Washington, DC, 1957) of 1 February 1946 (actually a photostatic copy not published here but kept in the same folder as Forbes’s letter), the enterprise consisted in collecting the reminiscences of the great collectors of the then past half century or more and stories concerning the activities of collectors which could be told by persons who had been directly associated with them. The Library of Congress of which Evans served as the tenth Librarian, was the place chosen to keep the written material.

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in his own house,423 a little as Mr Blumenthal424 and Mr Altman425 and others did of their pictures, etc. in New York. Years ago Mr Myers suggested to me that we should get together to plan the enterprise described in this letter. But we have both been so busy that we did not really succeed in having our meeting and getting started until this summer. Then we have been hindered by various vexatious delays. But most of the others letters went off weeks ago and I have been postponing sending your letter to you until I could settle down quietly and answer some of your questions and tell you what has been happening. We chose Luther Evans as, on the whole, the most suitable person, and the Library of Congress as the most suitable place in this country in which this proposed collection of material should be deposited. We have not, as yet, sent letters to any Englishmen or Europeans of the Continent, for we think that Englishmen would rather send their stories to the British Museum than to Washington, and so on. Many of the people to whom I have sent letters have answered with enthusiasm, and a few have sent worthwhile information. I expect to go to Washington in about ten days and hope to see Mr Myers and Dr Evans and find out what the results are. I hope that will feel disposed to write out important and interesting facts in your vast experience which will be valuable. Speaking of Washington, I have not seen Dumbarton Oaks since last May, but I have received a notice from Jack Thacher that the Museum is to be reopened in a few days. As you probably know, we gave to the Government the use of about half the building during the war. Their part included the basement and the Museum wing. We are pleased with the success of Dumbarton Oaks from a scholarly point of view and feel that it has already been of value to several able and promising young scholars. Someone who is a good judge, I forget who, told me two or three years ago that the Dumbarton Oaks Museum would perhaps be a candidate for the second place in America for its Byzantine collection. The Metropolitan Museum is, I think, unquestionably the leader. The strongest point of the Dumbarton Oaks Collection is small ivories, gold jewelry, precious stones and other rather small objects.

423 The Textile Museum was opened as a small museum in 1925 out of what used to be Myers’s home. The collection includes Islamic, late antique and Coptic fabrics. The museum reopened in 2015 as part of the George Washington University Museum and the Textile Museum in the university’s main campus at ‘Foggy Bottom’. 424 George Blumenthal (Frankfurt am Main, 1865–New York City, 1941), financier, philanthropist and art collector. 425 Benjamin Altman.

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As you probably know, Paul Sachs is the Chairman of the Executive Committee and Jack Thacher is the Director. Bert Friend of Princeton426 and Robert Bliss and Provost Paul Bick [sic] of Harvard427 and I are the other members. You ask about Austin and the Ringling Museum. I am writing to him to ask him to take advantage of your kind offer and write to you if he has any problems in which you could help him. But I am sorry to say that, able as he is, he is almost hopelessly dilatory as a writer of letters; say worse even than I am, for I am, for I at least get around eventually to writing letters, which he does not, as a rule. I do not doubt that he is doing a good job at the Museum, but as he fails to write to me, I fear that I shall have to wait until February or March. I shall probably go down to Sarasota at that time and see how he is getting along. He did write me one letter, however, in which he said that he is cleaning out some of the worst pictures and also he is doing a thing which I think is intelligent and which will arouse the public interest in the place. Mr Ringling had a large palatial house near the Museum which goes with the Museum. It is not a masterpiece of architecture but is reasonably agreeable, and Austin is taking some of the less important pictures and putting them in the house which he is offering as a public exhibition to those who are interested in seeing where the famous man lived. […] You ask me to tell you about the Winthrop Bellini,428 Lorenzetti429 and Botticelli.430 I am unable to send you photographs at present, I am sorry to say. In the case of the Bellini, our restorer made a few exploratory efforts at cleaning and we are disappointed to find that the picture appears to be in such bad condition that he has not gone on with it. Also they have explored the Lorenzetti and that does not seem promising. But in that case I am going to urge them to explore still further and see if certain parts of the picture may not be in fine condition. The Botticelli has been cleaned, but I have not seen the photograph before and after, yet, and I will try to write you about that in the next future. I speak of it in this regard as a Botticelli, though431 I, personally, think it is a school piece.

426 Albert Mathias Friend, Jr. (Ogontz, 1894–Princeton, 1956), Marquand Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton. 427 Paul Herman Buck (Columbus, 1899–Cambridge, Mass., 1978). 428 Fogg Museum, The Virgin and Child, workshop of Giovanni Bellini, c. 1480 (inv. no. 1943.103, oil on panel, 72.7 × 54.9 cm). 429 Fogg Museum, Christ on the Cross with the Virgin and Saints Clare, John the Evangelist, and Francis, Pietro Lorenzetti, c. 1320 (inv. no. 1943.119, tempera and gold leaf on panel, 45.4 × 36.3 cm). 430 Fogg Museum, The Virgin and Child, Sandro Botticelli, c. 1490 (inv. no. 1943.105, tempera on panel, 88.9 × 55.9 cm). 431 It should be noted that Forbes’s thinking was correct.

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You speak of Whittemore. He is an elusive person. He seldom writes and is a little like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, in whose mouth, I think, the poet places these words: ‘I pass like night from land to land’.432 He is more or less incalculable, but is certainly very able. I have just telephoned to Seth Gano and he has asked for a copy of parts of your letter telling of Whittemore’s plans and of your wants for your library. I hope that things are settled enough now so that what Gano sends will really reach you. He tells me that he made a shipment to you some time ago, but that may have been during war-time and may have disappeared. If you have received anything at all will it be too much trouble for you to drop him a line and tell him just which things you did receive in earlier years; or tell him that you have received absolutely nothing, whichever is the case. As for magazines, I take a large number of them myself — not the more important ones like the Burlington Magazine and the Gazette des Beaux Arts, but small ones like the Art Bulletin, Speculum and others. I think that the Fogg Museum has duplicate sets of all these and I am planning to give away such of these magazines as do not contain articles which I need in my work. I append a list of the magazines which I have. If you will write and tell me which of these you want, I will see what I can send. Also I will see what recent photographs have not been sent and will try to send you some. Yours affectionately Edward W. Forbes […]

58. BB to Forbes (HUA, Edward Forbes Papers HUG (FP) 139.10 Box 2, handwritten) December. 8, 1946. SettignanoDear Edward. I have not heard fr. [om] you for too long a time, & as this is the season one thinks of absent friends I take the occasion to wish you & yours a Happy New Year, & to ask for your news. Tell me what you have been doing yourself, how the Emerson publications are advancing & what is going on at the Fogg. — About a year ago Whittemore appeared, promised to send me reports, pamphlets, to work with me, & disappeared utterly. No word from him since.- I feel my years. I can do so much less than I used to before this last war. An hour of concentrated work twice a day is about all I am good for. Yet calls on me are increasing. Not only to be on committees, & ‘to help lame dogs over stiles’, but demands by publishers for books, or translations,

432 Forbes was referring to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem (Ottery St Mary, 1772–Highgate, 1834) The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, originally titled and first published as The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere in Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads, and a few other poems (London, 1798), pp. 5–51, especially p. 49.

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revisions, proof-reading, etc. etc. etc. And except Nicky I have nobody to help me, & I fear breaking her down. It is next to impossible to find Engl-writing people on the spot, & I can’t afford the cost and wages of importers. But we muddle along somehow, & plan to come over next autumn for three months — at most. I look forward with pleasure & fear combined. The climate & fatigue. I shall want to do so much beyond my strength.- Remember me to your wife. Affectionately B.B.

59. Forbes to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.96, typewritten) HARVARD UNIVERSITY ∙ FOGG MUSEUM OF ART CAMBRIDGE 38, MASSACHUSETTS January 23, 1947 Mr Bernard Berenson Villa I Tatti Settignano Florence, Italy Dear B.B. Thank you for your letter of December 8th which crossed mine of December 5th, which I hope you received safely. If it never arrived will you please telegraph to me and I will have a copy of it made and sent to you. My impulse was to write to you immediately on receiving yours of December 8th, but what with the Christmas rush and other tangles, I have allowed weeks to go by. You ask what I have been doing. I will have to confess that from one point of view I have spent two years in doing almost nothing. But that is hardly a fair statement of the case. I left my desk at the Fogg Museum just about two years ago and was sent south for my health. On my return I had hoped, as I have told you in my various letters, to clean up the mass of unsorted material which I had pushed away from my desk into cupboards and thrown into corners for the last thirty years or so; and also a similar pile at my house. But, though I resigned for the purpose of being able first to organize my material and then start to do some constructive piece of work — writing or research — yet, the melancholy fact remains that this large double-headed mess has only decreased a little bit and I am still at the job, from which I tried to escape, of sitting at my desk and writing letters a large part of the time. But just as they say that prosperity is just around the corner, so I continue to feel that the clearing of the air is just around the corner and I can really set to work. Specifically, I have done little work on the Emerson papers for some months. Professor Rusk has access to almost all the important papers for his comprehensive Life of

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Emerson which I believe is going along very well. Up to within a year I had to spend a great deal of time complying with Professor Rusk’s request to give him any important information about Emerson which can be found in the letters of his three children. It happens that all three children were great letter writers, particularly his two daughters who wrote a prodigious mass of letters. Most of my work consisted in reading these letters and finding the passages which would be of value to Rusk. Some months ago I finished the greater part of this work, but there are still a great many miscellaneous, uncatalogued papers, 99/100ths of which are probably unimportant; letters from friends to Emerson’s children during the later years of his life, etc. I hope to tackle that work later in the year on my return from the south. The doctor wants to me go away this winter, but this time it is entirely a precautionary measure as I have managed to keep well in spite of our rigorous climate. I expect to be in Jamaica from two weeks and then, towards the end of February to go to Sarasota to see how Austin is getting along there. […] Whittemore is back but I have not had a good chance to talk with him. As always he is dashing hither and yon. He is now in Washington I believe for the second time in the last ten days, but, as I said, I have hardly had a chance to talk to him. I have spoken to him and to Gano about sending to you the publications you want and I hope that you have got them by this time. I know that Whittemore has uncovered a fine mosaic of St Ignatius in Santa Sophia433 and he has worked on saving some of the other ancient and valuable churches in Constantinople.434

433 Perhaps Forbes was referring to the figure of St Ignatius Theophorus in the northern tympanum, third lunette from the east of Santa Sophia the discovery of which has been variously dated as between 1939 and 1948 or as 1935. Also discovered at this time were St Ignatius the Younger in the northern tympanum, westernmost lunette, and St John Chrysostom in the same tympanum, fourth lunette from the east. See Mango and Hawkins, ‘The Mosaics of St Sophia at Istanbul. The Church Fathers’, pp. 3–41, especially pp. 3; 6; Teteriatnikov, Mosaics of Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, p. 75 pl.4; p. 77 pl. 5. As Mango and Hawkins report, Whittemore intended to devote a detailed study to these three figures but was prevented from doing so by his death in 1950. The three Church Fathers were re-examined at close quarters by Mango and Hawkins in 1962, a context which also allowed the remains of the figure of St Athanasius to be discovered in the northern tympanum. From the investigations which lasted until 1967, two decorative phases were found in both tympana: the first, consisting of decorative motives was dated to the sixth century; the second, concerning the figures of the Church Fathers were assigned to the last two decades of the ninth century; see Mango and Hawkins, ‘The Mosaics of St Sophia at Istanbul. The Church Fathers’. 434 Probably Forbes was referring to churches such as Kariye Camii, St Eirene, and St Mary Pammakaristos (known as Fethiye Camii whose parecclesion is currently a museum while the rest of the church is a mosque); see Teteriatnikov, Mosaics of Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, pp. 32–33.

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I was in Washington in December and had the pleasure of seeing the beautiful little Dumbarton Oaks Museum after it was really opened. And I have to go down again this Saturday night to a meeting there. I am glad to hear from you that you are planning to come here next autumn. It will be a great pleasure to show you the new Fogg Museum building with the treasures which it now contains. […] Yours affectionately, Edward W. Forbes

60. BB to Forbes (HUA, Edward Forbes Papers HUG (FP) 139.10 Box 2, handwritten) I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Jan. [uary] 23, ’47. My dear Edward. I was happy to get yours of Dec. [ember] 5 with all it had to tell me about Austin & the Ringling Museum, & Myers. The latter’s scheme interests me very much, & I shall be happy to help — One field I am no good at. It is of provenances. Unless they were known to everybody. I put no trust in them, knowing how easily they were faked up — I regret that Winthrop’s Botticelli, Lorenzetti & Bellini are turning out so disappointing. Please do go on with the Bellini, & let me know what remains. If anything at all, send me a photo of that little. At last I have just received Whittemore’s 3 reports & the first number of his Bulletin.435 If you are in touch with him tell him I am deeply grateful, & find them all of great importance. You speak of duplicates of reviews, & let me infer that you would be kind enough to send those I need I enclose a slip of what we have. Everything else would be ever so welcome. In your letter you seem to imply as much. I wish you would let me hear something about yourself & your family as well as about Paul Sachs, from whom I have not heard for nearly a year except for a Xmas [Christmas] card. Rumor reaches me that he is not at all well. I hope it is exaggerated. And the directorship of the Fogg?

435 BB was referring to the three Whittemore reports, The Mosaics of St Sophia at Istanbul, published until then between 1933 and 1942 at the University Press, Oxford for the Byzantine Institute, and to The Bulletin of the Byzantine Institute, no. 1 (1946).

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Will it fulfill the saying that there is nothing so permanent as the provisional. With best wishes for 1947, Ever yours B.B

61. BB to Forbes (HUA, Edward Forbes Papers HUG (FP) 139.10 Box 2, handwritten) I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Apr. [il] 15, 1947. Dear Edward. You doubtless are back from Jamaica, & I hope the sojourn there has done you good. I shall be glad to hear how you found the Sarasota Museum, & yr. [your] friend Austin. You mention Whittemore. At last he has sent me his three Preliminary Reports. His fervent promise to collaborate has had no fulfilment. Since his meteoric appearance 18 months ago I have not had one word from him. Nor would it matter, if he took others to work with him at Constantinople where there is far more to do than can be done by one man, even a Whittemore. What could not be accomplished if only people could think less of themselves & more of getting things done! I am reminded of what Carlyle said in his ‘French Revolution’ about St Just436 — that he truly loved his country & wanted to save it, but that under no circumstance was anybody else to do it , I hope great things from the Byzantine exhibition which I understand is about to be opened at Baltimore.437 I regret feeling so fragile, that I do not dare to undertake travel under present conditions, or I would certainly come over to see it. As it is, I must rely on friends like you to tell me about it, & perhaps to send me catalogues, & to let me know about publications & photographs that I could order. I want to complete the volume of ‘Decline & Recovering’ which deals chiefly with late Antique art down to Justinian.

436 Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History, 3 volumes (London, 1837). Louis Antoine Léon de Saint-Just (Decize, 1767–Paris, 1794) was a Jacobin leader during the French Revolution. 437 The exhibition entitled Early Christian and Byzantine Art. An Exhibition Held at the Baltimore Museum of Art, 25 April–22 June 1947, was organized by the Walters Art Gallery in collaboration with the Department of Art and Archaeology of Princeton University and Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection of Harvard University, and formed part of Princeton’s Bicentennial Celebration. See Miner, ed., Early Christian and Byzantine Art, exhibition catalogue.

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I wish you were here one day like this when Grand Spring strides forward with leaps & bounds, spreading fragrance & radiance as he goes, & flowers of every kind & every colour. How art has helped me to look, to be aware of what I was seeing! Recall me to the memory of Paul Sachs. I used to hear from him long ago. Affectionately yours B.B.

62. Forbes to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.96, typewritten) HARVARD UNIVERSITY ∙ FOGG MUSEUM OF ART CAMBRIDGE 38, MASSACHUSETTS May 8, 1947 Mr B. Berenson Villa I Tatti Settignano Florence, Italy Dear B.B. I am an incorrigible sinner and apologize once more for my long delay in answering your good letter of January 23. Both this year and last year I was sent down south by the doctor as a precautionary measure, for I had a good deal of illness in the period from ’41 to ’44 and during that period was sent down south several times. Yours letter arrived after I had left and was forwarded to me in the south. I went to Jamaica for two weeks and from there to Sarasota where I spent a week with Austin, and then back to Cambridge after an absence of six weeks. Since then I have been struggling along with my nose just above water trying to keep up with the work of one sort or another which has been thrust upon me, and just now am feeling a little relief before the next set-to which comes on Monday. As you ask about my affairs, I will give you some little idea of what these various activities have been. I am now a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers and have been made chairman of three Visiting Committees, two of which, namely the Music Department and the Fogg Museum, are badly in need of large sums of money. The other one is the Visiting Committee to the Department of Semitic and Egyptian Civilisations. You may know that the Semitic Museum has been a rather dead affair since it was founded by Mr Jacob H. Schiff438 some years ago. It is an unattractive building inside and out, with

438 Jacob Henry Schiff (Frankfurt am Main, 1847–New York City, 1920), banker, businessman, and philanthropist.

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an exhibition room on the top floor largely of plaster casts, and some modern objects illustrating the habits of Palestine today, a mummy case, and a few other Egyptian objects. There are three professors of Semitic languages, and during the recent war the Museum was closed and given over to the Army for a School for Chaplains. […] Meanwhile, there was another event which broke up my time earlier in the week. Princeton University, the Baltimore Museum of Art and Dumbarton Oaks staged a Byzantine Symposium or Festival.439 The first two days were at Princeton, but I did not attend those. The Baltimore Museum is having a wonderful Byzantine exhibition which is said to be either better than the great Paris one440 of a few years ago or almost as good. The Fogg Museum, Metropolitan, and various other museums, also the Ottoman government, lent works of art and it is a splendid exhibition. I went to the meeting there and heard Tom Whittemore give a lecture in the evening and then went to Dumbarton Oaks that night. There was a two day symposium there in which various excellent and learned papers were given. Now that the government is out of Dumbarton Oaks we have re-established the Museum. John Thacher, the Director of the Museum and Collections, is now on his way to Italy and will doubtless call on you before long. May 28, 1947 I hope that you have received my long-hand letter of May 17th. At last there is at a temporary pause in the rush jobs that have to be done at once, so I can continue this lengthy letter. Austin and the Ringling Museum — I stopped in Sarasota for about six days on my journey north from Jamaica and am very much pleased with the progress that Austin has made, but he still has a long way to go. The Ringling Museum contains approximately 700 pictures, I think. When I was there he had had about 30 of these cleaned of repaint and dirty vanish, but some of them were in New York having the ‘re-painting’ done.

439 In the context of the Princeton Bicentennial Conference on ‘Scholarship and Research in the Arts’, which took place from 22 to 24 April 1947, one of the three days was devoted to studies in Byzantine art, after which the participants moved on to Baltimore in order to attend the formal opening of the exhibition of Early Christian and Byzantine art (see n. 437), and then to Washington, DC, where as guests of Harvard University at Dumbarton Oaks they attended more lectures and visited its collection of Byzantine art. Finally the conference came to an end with the opening of an exhibition of the Byzantine and East Christian material of the Freer Gallery, see Weitzmann, ‘Byzantine Art and Scholarship in America’, pp. 394–418, especially p. 394. 440 Probably Forbes was referring to the Exposition International d’Art Byzantin held in Paris at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (Palais du Louvre, Pavillon de Marsan) from 28 May to 9 July 1931. Charles Diehl was president of the organizing committee and wrote the preface to the exhibition catalogue; Royall Tyler was among the organizers of the exhibition. Honorary committee members included Josef Strzygowski and Robert Woods Bliss. See Exposition International d’Art Byzantin. On the Paris exhibition, see Lovino, ‘Byzantium on Display’.

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(I think I have explained to you before, the Fogg Museum terminology. ‘Repainting’ means nothing accurately for it may mean complete ruination of the picture. Our process is to make the ground which holds the picture solid and the adhesion good, and to clean off the repaint and varnish; Then if there are the holes and missing passages, to touch in those places but not to touch the adjacent fields where the master’s paint still exists. ‘Over painting’, on the other hand, which we do not do, is painting over original paint. My great quarrel with commercial restorers is that they sometimes put on a strong solvent which will work quickly so as not to waste their to them valuable time. Then, having removed not only the modern repainting lines but perhaps a fair amount of the original paint. As you know, they start to make the picture over to be ‘as good as new’). This is, of course, an old story to you but just to define my terminology I will continue by saying that even though the more conscientious restorers do not, with a strong solvent, sweep off a lot of the original paint, yet when they find a hole where the paint is missing, many of them start in to touch a missing place conscientiously. Then, for lack of understanding of the pigments and vehicles of the old masters, they put in some modern paint which does not have any relation to the adjacent areas. Then they say this will not do, and they encroach a little on the original surface so as to hide the joint, but the joint is still there, so the easiest way is to keep on and on and on, and the old master ‘is in perfect condition just as it left the hand of Titian!’ without a single trace of Titian’s painting visible! To return from this digression, Austin had a New York restorer come down and clean the pictures under his own eye. Then, as this restorer could not stay down in Sarasota indefinitely, he took the pictures back to finish the ‘in painting’ in New York. Two or three of them are being cleaned in the Fogg Museum, and a few more perhaps elsewhere. If he has only succeeded in getting 30 or 40 cleaned in one year, it may easily be 10 years at this rate before he can get all the best pictures cleaned. Many of them are in good condition and many of them are so poor that it isn’t worth wasting time on them. I do not know if you know Lloyd Griscom,441 former Minister to Japan and a good friend of my brother, Cameron.442 It was through Lloyd Griscom that I was able to meet the Governor of Florida a year ago and recommend Austin to him. Griscom wrote me in March, a week or two after I had left him, that he had had Austin and the Governor of Florida and a few other people on the Governor’s Board of Control to dine with him, and all of these Florida authorities express great admiration for what Austin already has done. […]

441 Lloyd Carpenter Griscom (Riverton, 1872–Thomasville, 1959), lawyer, diplomat, and newspaper publisher. 442 William Cameron Forbes (Milton, Mass., 1870–Boston, 1959), investment banker and diplomat.

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In your letter of April 15th you speak of the great exhibition at Baltimore and ask for a catalogue. On receiving the letter I sent an order to Baltimore for the catalogue which you asked for. It has now arrived and I take pleasure in sending it to you.443 There is practically nothing from Dumbarton Oaks in the exhibition, for Dumbarton Oaks was having an exhibition at the same time for the same group of people. However, we have recently received as a gift the fine copy of the St Sophia mosaic of St Ignatius which Whittemore brought back from Constantinople and which I am thankful to say is to go to Dumbarton Oaks when the Baltimore Exhibition is over.444 A few things went down from the Fogg Museum; namely, Holt’s two fine copies on plaster in relief of Constantine Monomachus and The Emperor Alexis.445 I think that probably I have written you in the past explaining the ingenius [sic] method that Holt, formerly of the Fogg Museum, devised for making a plaster cast of the original mosaics of St Sophia without injuring them, and then coloring them on the spot so that they are practically facsimiles with real gold and each tessera standing out as it does in the original, copied right on the spot in a number of small sections which were put together in the British Museum. For years I have been very proud of this acquisition of the Fogg Museum,

443 The Baltimore exhibition catalogue, Early Christian and Byzantine Art, is now in Biblioteca Berenson. 444 Forbes was referring to the panel mosaic of St Ignatius Theophorus a reproduction of which was acquired in 1947 by Dumbarton Oaks from the Byzantine Institute; the copy with St Ignatius the Younger was acquired in 1950. In the same period was probably purchased a copy with the Emperor Constantine IX, Christ Enthroned and Empress Zoe, from the mosaic panel in the south gallery, east wall of the south bay of Santa Sophia, 1028–1034, reworked between 1042–1055. Robert and Mildred Bliss sent to the Byzantine Institute a check to complete payment for a copy of the mosaic in the lunette above the great Imperial Door of Santa Sophia, representing an Emperor Kneeling at the Feet of Christ, who is sitting on a Throne and Flanked by two medallions with the Bust of the Virgin Mary on his right and the Bust of an Angel on his left. The copy of the great imperial door mosaic was for a time stored at Dumbarton Oaks (see Teteriatnikov, Mosaics of Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, p. 60 and fig. 65; p. 64; p. 65 and nn. 59–60; p. 66 and n. 61; p. 68; pp. 73–74, pl. 3; pp. 75–76, pl. 4; pp. 77–78, pl. 5; Nelson, R. S., Hagia Sophia, 1850–1950, pp. 182–84) but its present location is unknown. It should be noted that the emperor in the mosaic of the lunette above the great Imperial Door of Santa Sofia has been variously identified with Basil I (867–86) and Leo VI, his son (886–912), with the latter predominating. More recently, a new hypothesis has been advanced by Fernanda de’ Maffei which would lead us back to the identification with Basil I (see Oikonomides, ‘Leo VI and the Narthex Mosaic of Saint Sophia’; De’ Maffei, ‘Liturgia dell’immagine nell’impero bizantino’; De’ Maffei, ‘L’arte figurata sacra dopo il Concilio Niceno II e la proskynesis’. Below are the new accession numbers of the aforementioned copies and I thank the Dumbarton Oaks staff for providing them to me (pdf Byzantine Collection Dossier Sheet): Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection, Washington, DC, St Ignatius Theophorus (egg tempera on blueprint backed with canvas), acc. no. BZ.2013.009a, left panel, 207.96 × 57.79 cm; BZ.2013.009b, center panel, 207.96 × 106.36 cm; BZ.2013.009c, right panel, 207.96 × 57.79 cm; St Ignatius the Younger (egg tempera on blueprint backed with canvas), acc. no. BZ.2013.008a, left panel, 207.01 × 57.31 cm; BZ.2013.008b, center panel, 221.93 × 77.47 cm; BZ.2013.008c, right panel, 209.87 × 54.45 cm; Emperor Constantine IX, Christ Enthroned and Empress Zoe (egg tempera on blueprint backed with canvas), acc. no. BZ.2013.010a, left panel, 220.98 × 76.2 cm; BZ.2013.010b, center panel, 220.98 × 107.32 cm; BZ.2013.010c, right panel, 220.66 × 68.26 cm. 445 See n. 397.

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made in the summer of ’38.446 The two next ones were finer still — The Madonna (or Mother of God, as Whittemore always calls her) in the apse, and the fragment of the beautiful archangel, also in the apse. These were larger and more expensive, and the Metropolitan Museum gobbled them up,447 though I wanted them here. Those two were very large and were not sent down to Baltimore. We also sent down the fine coptic textile of St Theodore, given to us by Mrs Rockefeller448 years ago, and a few other objects. I hope the book which I am sending you will arrive in good condition before long. I am sorry that you are finding Whittemore so elusive, as everybody does. He is not a person who likes to collaborate with others, as you have discovered. One reason, I imagine, is that he is afraid of international complications. He is afraid of having the Italians and Germans get into the picture for fear it will make awkwardness and international hostility, and I think he is probably a sagacious politician who understands the feelings of the people in command, but I know very little about the inner workings of his mind as he is not communicative about everything. You know, I suppose, that he has built up a most remarkable Byzantine library in Paris in the Byzantine Institute there, of which he is the Director, and he tells me that for years scholars have been coming from all over Europe to work in this library — I mean, of course, before and after the war, not during. You ask for photographs of the Winthrop Bellini, Lorenzetti and Botticelli and ask to have the technical department go on and finish cleaning the Bellini. I can send you a photograph of the Botticelli, but I’m sorry to say that our conservation department is so overwhelmed with work that I have been unable to get them to go on with the study of even the Lorenzetti or the Bellini. I will report to Professor Pope449 about it and see whether anything more can be done […] I am sorry to see by your last letter that you do not feel like coming over to America at present, but I hope that in the next few months conditions of travel will become so much better that you will feel able to make the journey. We shall be delighted to welcome you here when you come. You have written about Emerson work. Professor Rusk of Columbia is getting on with his Life. He sent me type script copies of his first nine chapters for criticism. I read them with interest and pleasure and think he is going to produce a valuable

446 See n. 398. 447 See n. 399. 448 See Miner, ed., ‘Two Fragments of a Wool Tapestry’, in Early Christian and Byzantine Art, exhibition catalogue, p. 154 and fig. 109. The textile fragment with the Head of St Theodore, sixth–seventh century, is now in the Fogg Museum (inv. no. 1939.112.1, wool and linen, 37× 48 cm). 449 Arthur Upham Pope (Cleveland, 1880–Westport, 1974), archaeologist and historian of Persian art and the then director of the Fogg Museum.

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book, though it will be a long time before it is wholly finished and printed. I was glad to make such suggestions and criticism as I could. It may interest you to know that a letter has recently come to me from a Greek, Lt. Isaakidis, who says that he is making a translation of Emerson’s works into Greek and who has written to me for information. I give you his name and address if by any possible chance you are interested in communicating with him: Lt. Fotis A. Isaakidis, 66A, Acharnon Street, Athens, Greece. […] Yours affectionately, Edward W. Forbes June 2, 1947 P.S. there has been a further delay for two or three days since my older brother, Cam,450 was taken sick with a heart attack in Baltimore on Friday, and I went down to see him. He was getting well, but while I was down there I had the rare opportunity of seeing the Byzantine Exhibition again, and I was much pleased to have a chance to see these master-pieces once more. I hope you have been receiving the Fogg Museum reports and the reports of the Director to the President. For several years we have only published one number of the bulletin, and that, together with the report to the President, has been sent to you each year. Please tell me if you have not received them and would like to have them. I understand that Paul Sachs has been sending you photographs pretty steadily and therefore I have not sent many recently. Under separate cover I am sending the photograph of the Botticelli? After it has been cleaned. I am inclined to feel it is not by the master’s hand and assume that you take this view also, so I do not see it in your list among Botticellis. I am also including a portrait which was bequeathed to us some years ago by Mrs C. C. Felton, daughter-in-law of former President Felton of Harvard,451 a Madonna and Child, attributed to Pasqualino.452 I know practically nothing about him, I am sorry to say, so I have no opinion whether the attribution is true or not. I find the picture respectable but not exciting. I am sorry to say that all the photographs of the recently cleaned Spinello Aretino453 have been sold so that I have ordered them to print some more and will send one to you as soon as I can get it. If there are any particular pictures that you see referred to in any of the bulletins

450 William Cameron. 451 Perhaps Eunice Whitney Farley (?, 1849–Santa Barbara, 1941), wife of Cornelius Conway Felton, Jr., the latter son of Cornelius Conway Felton, President of Harvard University (1860–1862). 452 Fogg Museum, The Virgin and Child, Pasqualino Veneto, active 1496–1504 (inv. no. 1967.57, oil on panel, 68.6 × 58.1 cm). 453 Fogg Museum, Virgin Enthroned with Angels, Spinello Aretino, c. 1380 (inv. no. 1905.1, tempera and gold leaf on panel, 195.3 × 113 cm).

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or director’s reports of which you have not got photographs, please do not hesitate to let me know. […] E.W.F.

63. Forbes to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.96, typewritten) HARVARD UNIVERSITY ∙ FOGG MUSEUM OF ART CAMBRIDGE 38, MASSACHUSETTS May 17, 1947 Mr B. Berenson Villa I Tatti Settignano Florence, Italy Dear B.B. Thank you for yours of April 15 which came a few days ago. I began a long letter to you on May 8th in answer to yours of January 23rd. I had finished one and a half pages typewritten when such a rush of affairs overwhelmed me that it has been waiting its turn. Now as my secretary is busy on one of the many rush jobs that have been smothering me, I will sit down to acknowledge your letter, and to say that I hope you will get a real answer soon. This is Saturday noon. On Monday and Tuesday I must be in New York to preside at the meeting of the Visiting Committee of the Fogg Museum and the Fine Arts Department. Since I have been chairman of this committee during the last two years, I have tried three times to have a meeting in the Fogg Museum, but apparently life is going at such a pace in New York that most of the New York members have been unable to come to Boston, so we decided to go to New York. On my return in the middle of next week after I have written my report to the Overseers on the year’s work and the meeting, I hope to have a little more peace and quiet in which to continue my letter to you. […] Paul Sachs is fairly well now. He has had illnesses in the last year or so. Meta454 also has been ill, but she seems to be well at last. Paul’s Mother is very sick. When we were at Dumbarton Oaks he was called to New York and we understood that she was dying,

454 Meta Pollak.

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but she has partially recovered but will never really recover. She is very old, and has had some sort of heart attack or shock. We do not seem to be any nearer the appointment of the new director. The Corporation455 does not seem to have been able to find anyone whom they want and who is available as yet. In the meantime I am much pleased with Arthur Pope, who has been appointed for two years. He is beyond the age limit, but that does not matter for a short term appointment. I think very highly of him, and think if necessary he would do well for five years to come. But I think they will choose some younger man during the next year. As I may have told you, John S. Thacher has been my first choice. He has done and is doing a splendid job at Dumbarton Oaks, but there seems to be some opposition somewhere which works against him. The elusive Whittemore is rather enigmatic and unpredictable. He has done what seems to be the most important piece of archaeological work that has been done recently. I think it is a real achievement to win and keep the confidence of the Turkish Government. No time for more now. I hope to send the real letter soon. Affectionately, Edward W Forbes

64. BB to Forbes (HUA, Edward Forbes Papers HUG (FP) 139.10 Box 2, handwritten) Vallombrosa (Florence) July 18, 1947 Dear Edward. I was delighted with yr. [your] epistle received some 3 or 4 weeks ago, & I am truly grateful that you took time & trouble to write in such delightful detail. I was greatly interested in what you told of the Ringling Museum. Your definition of ‘in-painting’ in work of restoration is masterly, & important. If you have not already published it, you should lose no time to do so. ‘Restorers’ are among the most dangerously conceited creatures I have ever encountered. Much havoc they commit! Some 25 years ago there was a mad fanatic who was ruining Isabella Gardner’s most priceless pictures including the ‘Christ bearing the Cross’.456 You hear of course of the controversies going in London over the N. [ational] G. [allery] pictures. I hear that

455 Corporation of Harvard. 456 Berenson was probably referring to the work now in Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, circle of Giovanni Bellini, c. 1505–1510 (inv. no. P26n17, oil and tempera on poplar panel, 49.5 × 38.5 cm).

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the famous Bridgewater Titians457 so appealingly restored some ten or more years ago have gone black and dreary! — Yes, I knew Lord Griscom when he was diplomating in Europe. Glad to hear he is still alive — I do not recall reading or receiving an account of how Holt makes his plaster casts of mosaics. I am glad to hear the Emerson work going forward, & that he is being translated into Greek. Photos of Botticelli, Spinello, etc. have not reached me yet. Thanks in advance. I long to revisit our museums and homes and friends, but I am not gaining in strength as the years go on. I already am in my 83d year, & tire easily & recover with difficulty. With every good wish Affectionately B.B.

65. Forbes to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.97, typewritten) HARVARD UNIVERSITY ∙ FOGG MUSEUM OF ART CAMBRIDGE 38, MASSACHUSETTS October 30, 1950 Mr Bernard Berenson Villa I Tatti Settignano Florence, Italy

457 Berenson was referring to the 1932 conservation treatment of Titian’s paintings Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Callisto which had been wax lined and cleaned by the restorer Stanley Kennedy North (1887–1942). The Titian Dianas were painted as pendants for King Philip II of Spain (1556–1559). After several changes, the paintings were bought by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater (1736–1803) in 1798 and then inherited from the branch of the Egerton Sutherland family. The Diana and Actaeon and its partner remained on display in Bridgewater House in London until the Second World War. John Sutherland Egerton, 5th Earl of Ellesmere (1915–2000) who became the 6th Duke of Sutherland in 1963, loaned the paintings to the National Gallery in Edinburgh in 1946. Subsequently, in 2009 and 2012, Francis Ronald Egerton, 7th Duke of Sutherland (born 1940) sold these pictures to the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh and the National Gallery of London (Diana and Actaeon, inv. no. NG2839; NG6611, oil on canvas, 184.5 × 202.2 cm; Diana and Callisto, inv. no. NG2844; NG6616, oil on canvas, 184 × 204.5 cm). The Titian Dianas changed location between London and Edinburgh at intervals of a number of years. See Fry, in Fry and North, ‘The Bridgewater Titians I’, and North, in Fry and North,‘The Bridgewater Titians II’; ‘Titian’s Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Callisto’.

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Dear B.B.: Certainly, I have been very remiss in not writing to you for so long. Thank you for your letter of August 21, 1949.458 I will give you some of my excuses for not having written sooner. In the first place, you ask no specific questions in your letter, and I have not very much to say about the Fogg Museum of which, as you know, I am no longer the Director. […] First of mine own reason for not writing — my second daughter was deeply ill all during the summer and finally died on October 13, 1949,459 which was a sad blow to our family. I have been kept busy by my duties as Chairman of the Visiting Committees to the Department of Fine Arts and Fogg Art Museum, the Department of Music, and the Department of Semitic and Egyptian Civilizations. Referring to the last, when I was made Chairman of this Committee, I knew about the Semitic Museum and the Semitic teachers but I looked round for what there was for our Committee to visit in Egyptian Civilization and found that there was practically nothing except a couple of mummy cases and a few odds and ends in the Semitic Museum and a few beautiful little objects in Grenville Winthrop’s collection in the Fogg Museum. […] The members of our Committee who are particularly interested in Egypt pointed out the fact that there was a definite need for an American Research Center in Cairo under the wing of the Archaeological Institute and to be comparable to the American School at Athens and the American Academy in Rome. We have already built up an organization which is incorporated under the laws of Massachusetts and has nearly one hundred members from different parts of the country.460 We are sending William Smith461 as our first Director over to Egypt in the coming of January. We hope that this will grow and be of great use to scholars. It is meant

458 BB’s letter of 21 August 1949 is not published here but is in HUA, Edward Forbes Papers HUG (FP) 139.10 Box 2, handwritten. 459 Mary Emerson Forbes (1912–1949). 460 The American Research Center in Egypt was formally established in Boston in 1948, at a meeting presided over by Forbes and Archaeological Institute of America’s president Sterling Dow (Portland, Maine, 1903–Cambridge, Mass., 1995). The American Research Center in Egypt was formally incorporated under the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1950 while the Cairo Center was opened in 1951. Forbes was referring to the American School of Classical Studies at Athens founded in 1881 by a consortium of nine American universities in collaboration with leading businessmen. It was the first American overseas research centre, and is now the largest, along with the American Academy in Rome. The latter was founded in 1895 as the American School of Classical Studies (which merged into the Academy in 1913). 461 Perhaps William Stevenson Smith (Indianapolis, 1907–Cambridge, Mass., 1969), Egyptologist.

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not only to serve students of ancient Egyptian art but also of Alexandrian, Roman, Coptic, Islamic, and in general Near Eastern art. Joseph Lindon Smith was one of the prime movers in this plan, and he and his wife462 on the last two years have been working hard in Egypt. I am sorry to say that Joe Smith died about a week ago. You have probably heard already that Thomas Whittemore died in June and left his great Byzantine coin collection to the Fogg Museum. Unfortunately, he was still trying to raise the money to pay for this year’s work in Istanbul and to pay for the publications already in the press as well as the expenses of his library in Paris. I am one of the Executive Committee of the Directors of the Byzantine Institute, and on account of our need of money to help straighten out this situation I have had to spend a good deal of time on this work and also on the affairs of the Egyptian Center of which they made me President. Thomas Whittemore’s case was made more difficult still by the fact that he had been getting substantial sums of money every year from various well-to-do American widows and some of these had died; and so he had failed to get the money he expected to. He dropped dead as he was just entering the door of Mr Dulles’s463 office in Washington with whom he had an appointment. I am still working on what I call my ‘Art Notes’ — that is, my story of what has happened at the Fogg Museum during the last forty years or so. I completed my rough draft sometime ago, and now I am working over it, eliminating personal stories and verifying facts. This document is meant for the archives of Harvard University and is merely a factual story of what has happened without any attempt at literary excellence or picturesque stories to make it amusing. I have recorded some of these latter stories which will not form part of the document for the archives but may have value for anyone who may want to write a history of the Fogg in the future. Of course, as I have said to you before, I feel sure that you have at your fingertips many interesting stories, some of them about works of art now in the Fogg; and if you feel like writing out these stories, I am sure any future historian of the Fogg who gets hold of them, will thank you and bless you. Please remember me to Nicki464 Yours affectionately, Edward W. Forbes

462 Joseph Lindon Smith (Pawtucket, 1863–Dublin, New Hampshire, 1950), artist and his wife Corinna Haven Putnam (New York City, 1876–?, 1965). 463 John Foster Dulles (Washington, DC, 1888–1959), administrator. 464 Nicky. This sentence is handwritten by Forbes.

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66. BB to Forbes (HUA, Edward Forbes Papers HUG (FP) 139.10 Box 2, handwritten) Settignano Nov. [ember] 10, 1950 Dear Edward. Thank you for a long letter giving me your news including the distressing fact that you lost a daughter. But I rejoice [to] think you go on working, & preparing to publish your experiences of painting. I shall look forward to reading them. I got back from Rome a few days ago, having passed Oct. [ober] & beyond there, looking, gazing, listening, inquiring. Thanks to Jubilee churches are wide open, & accessible as never before. One could almost touch sacrosanct images, & study them as never before. Perhaps the most interesting entirely new discovery was an over life size Madonna doubtless made to be carried as a standard in procession & dating from about 600 ad — an impressive thing of its kind. Now I want to go to work, but I can’t concentrate for an hour even, & that is a serious handicap for writing a real book. A pity, because I still have something to say that so far as I know still remain to be said. Have doubled space & shelf room of library, I envy the young students who will use it. I doubt whether for art in general there is another as well chosen, & made as accessible. Let us hope it will survive into a less raw, less agitated world than present. Write again. I want to keep in touch with you. Affectionately B.B.

67. Forbes to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.97, handwritten) May 3 1953 HOTELS Sᵀ JAMES 211, RUE SAINT-HONORE’ & D’ALBANY 202, RUE DE RIVOLI PARIS 1er TÉLÉPHONE OPERA 02–30 6 Lignes groupées TÉLÉGRAMMES JAMALBALNY-PARIS P. LERCHE PROPRIÉTAIRE

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Dear BB. You will remember that when I showed you the photographs recently taken in the Kahrie Djami in Istanbul of the work done by Mr Underwood465 of Dumbarton Oaks for the Byzantine Institute you asked me to give you these photographs; and I did so,466 saying that I thought it would be all right. Now when I have reached the other officials of the Institute they have reminded me that I should have made it clear to you that no publication rights were given with the photographs. The Institute insists that these shall not be published in any way without the permission of the Byzantine Institute. I shall long remember with pleasure (that is provided that I live long) the delighted days which I passed with you at Settignano_ Please remember me to Nicky and to the Baroness and Luisa Vertova all of whom were so kind with me. Affectionately Edward W Forbes

465 Paul Atkins Underwood (Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, 1902–Knoxville, 1968), Associate Professor of Byzantine Art and Archaeology at Dumbarton Oaks; after the death of Thomas Whittemore he was asked to take over the latter’s work as field director of the Byzantine Institute. 466 Forbes was referring to a series of photographs of the mosaics of Kariye Camii after their cleaning in 1950. The photos are in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 11, folders Mosaics: 4 and 5 (St Saviour in Chora). One photo (in folder 4) with a detail of the mosaics i.e. the medallion with St Philemon in the outer nartex after cleaning, is published here (Fig. 16). Forbes was also referring to some photographs of the murals in the Parecclesion of the same church before the cleaning in 1952. The photos are in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 11, folder Mosaics: 6 (St Saviour in Chora). One photo of a preliminary cleaning of the murals in the dome, is published here (Fig. 17). Some of these pictures were later published by Underwood, ‘First Preliminary Report on the Restoration of the Frescoes in the Kariye Camii at Istanbul’, pp. 253–88, especially figs 61–62; 85. About the mosaics and murals of the Kariye Camii, see Underwood, ‘Notes on the Work of the Byzantine Institute in Istanbul: 1954’; Underwood, ‘Second Preliminary Report on the Restoration of the Frescoes in the Kariye Camii at Istanbul’; Underwood, ‘Third Preliminary Report on the Restoration of the Frescoes in the Kariye Camii at Istanbul by the Byzantine Institute’; Underwood, ‘Fourth Preliminary Report on the Restoration of the Frescoes in the Kariye Camii at Istanbul by the Byzantine Institute’. Subsequently, Underwood’s four volumes on the Kariye Camii were published, the last of which came out after his death, see Underwood, The Kariye Djami, 1, Historical Introduction; 2, The Mosaics/Plates; 3, The Frescoes; Underwood, ed., 4, Studies in the Art of the Kariye Djami, with contributions from Demus, Der Nersessian, Grabar, Lafontaine-Dosogne, Meyendorff, Ševčenko and Underwood.

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68. BB to Forbes (HUA, Edward Forbes Papers HUG (FP) 139.10 Box 2, handwritten) May 15, 53 HOTEL EXCELSIOR NAPOLI Dear Edward. You can assure yr. [your] friends of the Byz. [antine] Inst. [itute] in Paris that I should not dream of publishing their photos — not even with their consent. As you see we have left Florence, & started with the intention of going first thro [through] Calabria & then to Sicily. We have changed, & are now going straight to Messina by train. From there to the rest of Sicily, & perhaps Calabria on the return journey. _ I greatly enjoyed seeing you. I renewed my feeling of intimacy with Harvard, with Cambridge, with New England. Your idea of sending over one or two young men to learn the ways of I Tatti is excellent. They should be well prepared not so much in art matters, as in languages & general culture. They should read German & French fluently & be able at least to spell out a Greek or Latin text. Should know some history, & have a feeling for literature. I could not have them living with me. They would be encouraged to work in the library, & often to be invited to meals & weekends, but better live in town. They surely could get Fulbright467 or Gug[g]enheim fellowships-468 if the purpose was stated, & had the recommendations of all of you, & my regard. I could not afford to provide for them, except out of capital, & that I do not like to touch, as all I can leave will be called for. - I am afraid Contini469 may shilly-shally, but in the long run, I should expect him to yield Remember me to your wife Affectionately B.B

467 The Fulbright Program was established in 1946 when the senator from Arkansas James William Fulbright introduced a bill to the US Congress to enable the government of the United States to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries. 468 Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, New York City. 469 Count Alessandro Contini-Bonacossi (Ancona, 1878–Florence, 1955), politician, art collector, and dealer. On Alessandro Contini-Bonacossi as art dealer, see Toffali, ‘Alessandro Contini Bonacossi tra filatelia e commercio antiquario’ [accessed 21 April 2022]; Toffali, ‘Alessandro Contini Bonacossi tra le due guerre: Kress e gli altri’ [accessed 21 April 2022].

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69. Forbes to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.97, typewritten) FOGG ART MUSEUM∙ HARVARD UNIVERSITY CAMBRIDGE 38, MASSACHUSETTS June 24, 1953 Mr Bernard Berenson Villa I Tatti Settignano Florence, Italy Dear B.B.: I have been slow in gathering the photographs together. I have not a very clear impression of what you have and what you have not got. We have lists of photographs that Paul sent to you and those that I have sent to you but other members of the staff may have sent photographs also. If in the bunch which I am proposing to send to you there are any duplicates, would it be too much trouble for you to forward them to the American Academy in Rome or elsewhere if you do not want them? 1. Two photographs of facsimile made by George Holt (an artist, then of the Fogg Museum) by an ingenious method invented by himself. He made these copies on the spot in a series of small casts about 12” × 12”, covered with real gold leaf and painted to represent the tesserae.470 These small pieces were put together in the British Museum making the one unit which you see represented. Later Holt made two more copies in the same manner — one of the Archangel Gabriel and the other of a Madonna in Santa Sophia. These are in the Metropolitan Museum. These four are the only facsimile copies that have been made. The war interfered with going on with Mr Holt’s process. All the other copies that have been made are flat surfaces painted, so I consider these four particularly valuable. 2. In my letter of June 12,471 I mentioned the mosaic copy made by myself and assistants of one of the Santa Sophia Madonnas.472

470 The photos (figs 18–19) show the casts of the emperors’ portraits of Constantine IX Monomachus and Alexius Comnenus from the mosaics of Santa Sophia and are in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 7, folder Icons: Caen-Copenhagen. 471 Forbes’s letter of 12 June 1953 is not published here but is in BBP, folder 49.97, typewritten. 472 As Forbes wrote to BB in his letter of 12 June 1953, the Madonna (taken from the panel mosaic with the Madonna and Child flanked by the Empress Irene and John II Comnenus in the southern gallery of Santa Sophia), was made of clam shells by him and his assistants and was definitely larger than the original. Forbes chose this larger size because it was too difficult to deal with the small tesserae of the original. The picture of the Madonna, also called ‘Madonna of the Sea’, was published by Eaton, Handicrafts of New England, pp. 259–60; fig. 95. A copy of the same image (Fig. 20) was sent by Forbes to BB and is in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 7, folder Icons: Caen-Copenhagen. The current location of the Madonna is unknown.

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3. Apparently, no photograph has been sent to you of one of our prize possessions — a Rubens sketch known as Quos Ego or The Anger of Neptune.473 4. There is a Madonna attributed to the Master of the Castello Nativity474 given to us by my friend, Richard Wheatland.475 I like it very much and feel that it is not very far from Masolino.476 […] I assume that you have the 1936 Handbook of the Museum477 which has a lot of small illustrations. I have picked out certain ones of these of which we have photographs and which we could sent to you if you would like to have them; but I do not know whether the illustrations in the Handbook are entirely satisfactory to you and whether we need to load up your photographic department with any of these. Please note Pages 4, 12 and 13, 15, 30, 34, 36, 41, 50 and 51, 52, 145, and 181. Yours affectionately, Edward W. Forbes […]

70. BB to Forbes (HUA, Edward Forbes Papers HUG (FP) 139.10 Box 2, handwritten) Settignano, March 18, 57 Dear Edward. I have not heard of you, let alone from you, for ever so long. Please tell me how you are faring & what you are doing. In a sense I keep in touch with you by dipping into your diary.478 It lives in my study almost within reach of my hands. In spite of the bothers of 92 years & all that it means, I still try to work, or at least to direct & oversee the work of others. Quite a while since I have heard from the Foggery. I fear they seem to think their whole vocation is a continuous succession of exhibitions With affectionate remembrances Ever ys. [yours] B.B. 473 Fogg Museum, The Voyage of the Cardinal Infante Ferdinand of Spain from Barcelona to Genoa in April 1633, with Neptune Calming the Tempest or Quos Ego, Peter Paul Rubens, 1635 (inv. no. 1942.174, oil on panel, 48.9 × 64.1 cm). 474 Fogg Museum, The Virgin and Child, Master of the Castello Nativity, Florentine, 1450–1475 (inv. no. 1943.1840, tempera on panel, 116.6 × 65.3 cm). 475 Richard Wheatland (Salem, Mass., 1872–Topsfield, 1944). After graduating from Harvard College in 1895 he worked with his uncle, David Pingree and helped to manage the timberlands. Wheatland was active in the Salem Fraternity and a trustee of the Peabody Museum of Salem (now Peabody Essex Museum), the East India Marine Society, and the Salem Hospital. 476 Masolino da Panicale (Panicale, 1383–Florence, 1440), painter. 477 Handbook, Fogg Art Museum Harvard University. 478 The diary is in Biblioteca Berenson: Forbes, Personal Stories, typescript with handwritten annotations. Other title: ‘Personal notes not used in Art Notes’.

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71. Forbes to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.98, typewritten) FOGG ART MUSEUM∙ HARVARD UNIVERSITY CAMBRIDGE 38, MASSACHUSETTS March 22, 1957 Mr Bernard Berenson Villa I Tatti Settignano Florence, Italy Dear B.B.: Thank you for your letter of March 18th which arrived here yesterday. I am glad to hear from you. Life is going along here fairly quietly for me; but recently I have spent a certain amount of time in painting. You may not know that painting has been my avocation and that for the last sixty years I have gone off sketching whenever I got a chance — as an amateur, not as a thoroughly trained painter. My friend, Charles Hopkinson, a Boston artist479 whom you may know, had been suggesting to me for years that I should have an exhibition, for he says that he thinks my paintings are interesting, admitting that I am clumsy. He thinks that I just push ahead with eagerness to express some particular idea or impression in such a way that it has some interest, even if not skillfully performed. At last I succumbed and in February 1956 had my first exhibition in one of the galleries in Boston. It was reasonably successful and several people said that they liked the paintings. […] My friend, William James, who is a professional painter480 and the son of William James, the philosopher,481 came to me the other day and said, ‘What you must do now is to paint, paint, paint’. In general my efforts at writing have not been received with much enthusiasm, and I find that almost all my friends are more interested in the painting than the writing. So nowadays I am spending a certain amount of time in finishing a lot of old pictures I began years ago. I still have a desk at the Fogg Museum, and I am very much interested in the work of the Byzantine Institute, created by Tom Whittemore at Istanbul. I feel that this is a work of great importance and every year have to take part in the money-raising

479 Charles Sydney Hopkinson (Cambridge, Mass., 1869–Beverly, 1962). 480 William James, Jr. (Cambridge, Mass., 1882–Chocorua, 1961). 481 William James (New York City, 1842–Chocorua, 1910).

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campaign to keep it going. As you doubtless know, in addition to the Hagia Sophia work, they have been working in other churches. In one whose name I have forgotten, they have found a handsome floor of ancient mosaics covered by a board platform482 but the work on the Karieh Djami has been their great triumph recently. I wonder if you have seen photographs of the fine early fourteenth century frescoes which they have uncovered as well as some beautiful mosaics. I am also interested in the work of the American Research Center in Egypt. You know that several years ago a group of us thought we ought to have a school in Cairo like the American School at Athens and the American Academy in Rome. I was caught in a trap, and they made me President. We have gone along on a shoestring with very few funds but have recently received a grant from one of the foundations which will give us a helping hand for three years but, unfortunately, as you know, conditions in Cairo are not ideal for students and research scholars at present. I am still, of course, interested in the work of the Boston Museum483 and I am one of the Administrative Committee of Dumbarton Oaks; but I have nothing to do with the management of the Fogg Museum. John Coolidge484 is a very aggressive and active man and he and the Visiting Committee which he has gathered around him have succeeded in getting a number of gifts, not only of modern art which they like but also of really fine works of earlier periods — for instance some drawings and pictures of the French eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and so on. I am tied up with so many things here that I doubt if I shall get to Europe this year, much as I should love seeing you, I Tatti, and Florence during 1957. With best regards to Nicky and other friends in Florence, Yours affectionately, Edward W. Forbes

482 Forbes was probably referring to the uncovering of some mosaics in the Church of St Mary Pammakaristos and to the uncovering and cleaning of the decorated pavement that was rediscovered beneath the carpets and wooden flooring in the Church of Christ Pantocrator (now Zeyrek Camii). See Underwood, ‘Notes on the Work of the Byzantine Institute in Istanbul: 1954’, pp. 299–300. 483 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts. 484 John Phillips Coolidge (Cambridge, Mass., 1913–Boston, 1995), director of the Fogg Art Museum from 1948 to 1968.

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72. BB to Forbes (HUA, Edward Forbes Papers HUG (FP) 139.10 Box 2, typewritten) I Tatti Settignano Florence May 20, 1957 Dear Edward, In the first place let me thank you for your so very interesting letter of March 27th.485 Nearly two months have passed in which I have not been in condition to attempt anything except the most pressing business, so forgive my being so late in answering that letter. How interesting that you at last consented to exhibit some of your own paintings! If there are any photographs or reproductions of them do send them. Never mind how clumsy they may be. I infinitely prefer clumsiness to slickness, dexterity and, above all, the maltreatment of the poor human figure which is now so acceptable to the Youngs. You mention William James. Please remember me to him and tell him I shall be ever so glad to see him again and hope that he will come. No, I have not seen photographs of the early 14 century frescoes as well as some beautiful mosaics that have recently been discovered at the Karye Jami. I shall be ever so grateful if you could have them sent to me. They would of course be treasured up in I Tatti’s library which will be as much a part of Harvard, I hope, as Dumbarton Oaks. I cannot but congratulate you for being made President of the American Research Center in Egypt. If you can find the leisure do let me know about it and send me any of their publications. I regret your last paragraph, namely that you are not coming this year to Florence. Let me hope that you will next year. […] Ever affectionately, B.B.

485 Forbes’s letter of 27 March 1957 is not present among BBP; perhaps Berenson was mistaken and intended to refer to that of 22 March 1957.

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73. Forbes to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.98, typewritten) FOGG ART MUSEUM ∙ HARVARD UNIVERSITY CAMBRIDGE 38, MASSACHUSETTS May 31, 1957 Mr Bernard Berenson Villa I Tatti Settignano Florence, Italy Dear B.B.: Thank you for your good letter of May 20th. I shall be glad to send you photographs of some of my paintings. It will be too ponderous a thing to try to send them all: for I have been painting for my amusement fairly steadily for sixty-five years or so and my sketches go up into the hundreds, if not into the thousands. I have not had many of them photographed but have a few photographs, and I am glad to have a few more photographed so that in the course of a week or so I shall hope to send you several photographs of my sketches. I shall be glad to give your message to William James when I see him. You will be sorry to hear that his wife died several weeks ago and he is now, as far as I know, living alone in his house. He has married sons but they, I think, live in other states. I am starting to see what I can do about getting some photographs for you of some of the Istanbul mosaics and frescoes which I spoke about. I think I have none myself, and my impression is that the man who owns the negatives is in Istanbul.486 I will write to Dumbarton Oaks to see what the story is and see if any photographs are obtainable. You ask about the American Research Center in Egypt. I thought that I told you about it I fear that I have not kept you informed. The story is that, as you know, Reisner487 was a Professor of Egyptology at Harvard. He took charge of the joint expedition of Harvard and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to Cairo. As is well known, he was very fortunate in making splendid finds which greatly enriched the Cairo Museum with masterpieces of the Fourth and Fifth Dynasties. The grateful Egyptian Government, as I understand it, allowed him to take several very fine pieces out to Boston so that, I am told, the Boston Museum now ranks next to the Cairo

486 Most of the negatives of the Kariye Camii were produced through the work of the Byzantine Institute, though a handful were taken by Nicholas Victor Artamonoff (Athens, Greece, 1903–La Jolla, 1989) an engineer, photographer, and member of the staff at Robert College in Istanbul. On Artamonoff, see Varinlioğlu, ed., Artamonoff: Picturing Byzantine Istanbul, 1930–1947, exhibition catalogue. 487 George Andrew Reisner (Indianapolis, 1867–Cairo, 1942), archaeologist; he was assistant professor (1905–1914) and Professor (1914-42) of Egyptology at Harvard and curator of the Egyptian collection at the Boston Museum of Arts (1910-42).

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Museum in the world in quality although, I imagine, the Metropolitan Museum, the Louvre, and the National Gallery are much larger in quantity. […] With best regards to Nicky and other friends in Florence, P.S. Since writing this letter, I have opened up the publication, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Number Nine and Ten, which has numerous illustrations of the Karieh Djami.488 I will see if I can find photographs for your photograph collection in addition. I assume that you have copies of the Dumbarton Oaks Papers. If you have not, please let me know and I will see that a copy is sent to you. Yours affectionately, Edward W. Forbes

74. BB to Forbes (HUA, Edward Forbes Papers HUG (FP) 139.10 Box 2, typewritten) COPY489 I Tatti Settignano Florence July 3, 1957 Dear Edward, Ever so many thanks for yours of as long ago as May 31st. Since then I have been a wanderer and too occupied, despite, my years and ailments, in looking to be able to attend to letters. A few days ago I received the interesting letter about your own paintings. I shall answer that a soon as I have had the photographs. I am extremely eager to have the photos of the Istanbul mosaics and frescoes and shall be ever so grateful for any photographs that can be procured for me. Of course I knew all about American work in Egypt. More than thirty years ago we spent two months at Luxor and saw everything near and far. At that time Wilcox was running the Rockefeller House at the Valley of the Kings.490 It is a pity that this

488 Forbes was certainly referring to the two articles by Underwood already mentioned (see nn. 466, 482), i.e. ‘First Preliminary Report on the Restoration of the Frescoes in the Kariye Camii at Istanbul’ and ‘Notes on the Work of the Byzantine Institute in Istanbul: 1954’. 489 The original letter was not found. 490 Berenson’s reference to Wilcox is likely to be Winlock who was instrumental in the design of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Dig House. This was not really so very near to the Valley of the Kings (i.e. in the valley in front of Deir el Bahri where the Temples of Mentuhotep and

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was shut up suddenly and I am delighted that you are making every effort to take up work in Egypt again. I fear, however, that the Egyptian government will scarcely be helpful. Up to date I have not received Dumbarton Oaks’ Papers, Nos 9 and 10. Ever affectionately, s/ B.B.

75. BB to Forbes (HUA, Edward Forbes Papers HUG (FP) 139.10 Box 2, typewritten) Casa al Dono Vallombrosa (Florence) August 27, 1957 Dear Edward, Let me thank you for the letters from June 27th, August 7th and August 8th.491 In the one of August 7th you speak of Thacher. I have just heard from him myself. By the way, the Robert Blisses were here for some hours today. What faithful friends they are and how wonderfully they still enjoy life! I do not remember whether I told you that I take a very keen interest in Egyptian archeology, history and art and I am delighted that you are trying to reestablish an American research center in Cairo. I hope it will succeed despite the sinister aspect of things there now towards all foreigners and, I fear, American in particular. Let me thank you for the wonderful copy of the Madonna of the Sea done with clam shells. It is a masterpiece of its kind. Also for the little Kodak of the view you took from your bedroom when you were staying with me already some years ago. Thank you for all the photographs, first of the Emerson house at Concord. Your paintings are delightful in themselves, with an Utrillo touch, and I have no doubt far more attractive when seen in color. I am ready to believe that color makes all the difference in your paintings and I wish to goodness I could see some in the original. Do come again soon and bring some of them. I am sure I should be very very happy to see them.

Hatshepsut are located against the cliff), but it is likely that this is what he is referring to. It was founded by John Pierpont Morgan rather than Rockefeller but perhaps this is an understandable mixup: John Davison Rockefeller, Jr. was already involved from 1919 with another American mission (from Chicago) in the Theban area. I wish to thank Marsha Hill, curator Egyptian Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York for providing me with this information. 491 The three Forbes letters are not present among BBP.

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As I am limited to judging the paintings from black and white photographs without the color, I greatly prefer those of general views: Boutilliar Cove, Third Bridge 1953 Naushon, Fisherman’s Island around the ’20s, and the one of 1927. These are all very evocative and alive. The others, the one of St Michel for instance, the Dead Cedar at Naushon, the Great Tree at Nikko Japan, the Beech Tree at Naushon, the Harbor Oak, also at Naushon, all look like faithful and loving transcripts but without the color seem to lack in vitality.492 I am no better than I have a right to be in my 93rd years. Eyes and ears very troublesome and preventing me, as well as my general weakness, from doing work of any kind, least of all creative work. It has been a rather distressing summer here and we mean to hold out until Sept. [ember] the 15th. Our program then is to go to Ravenna, Maser and Venice, but unless I feel very much better than I do here I doubt whether I shall be able to carry it out. Let me hear from you soon and remember me to friends. Ever affectionately, B.B.

76. Forbes to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.98, typewritten) FOGG ART MUSEUM ∙ HARVARD UNIVERSITY CAMBRIDGE 38, MASSACHUSETTS December 16, 1957 Mr Bernard Berenson Villa I Tatti Settignano Florence, Italy Dear B.B.: Not only do I wish to send you best wishes of the Christmas Season and of the New Year, but I do not know how much you are informed about what has been going on in the Fogg Museum. There is one piece of very good news — namely, that the administration here managed to get a splendid exhibition of books and drawings from the Pierpont Morgan Library. The exhibition includes also some very interesting manuscripts — such as, Scott’s

492 None of the photographs mentioned in the letter are present in BBF.

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manuscript for Ivanhoe and Dickens’ for A Christmas Carol493 and others. I am sending you a little announcement. It has given me great pleasure to see this exhibition because the tide had been running in recent years towards the modern and Baroque exhibitions. Also we have recently had a small and good exhibition of both East Indian and Persian paintings and sculpture. You may have heard that Harvard has received a gift of 1½ million dollars towards building a Center for the Practice of the Visual Arts. I understand that the idea is to combine in this new building the teaching of drawing as it has been done in the Fogg Museum and as it has been done in the Architectural School. That change should make a certain amount of additional space for exhibition in the Fogg Museum. For many years quantities of masterpieces of various groups — such as, the Winthrop Collection and others which we have received — have been stowed away in storerooms for lack of exhibition room, although there has been certain amount or rotation, first showing one group and then another. I have been doing a certain amount of painting recently and in the last two years have had three small exhibitions in Boston and Cambridge. I also have been working on the very interesting letters of my Aunt Ellen Emerson,494 daughter of the poet, parts of which we shall be able to publish in one form or another. I am still allowed to have a room on the third floor of the Fogg Museum where my secretaries work, although, of course as you know, I have nothing to do with the administration of the building. You will remember that some months ago you asked me to get for you photographs of the recent work that has been done in Istanbul at the church of the Kariye Camii, and I wrote to you telling you of my appeal to John Thacher to get the photographs or the printed publications. I found that you have been due to receive the Dumbarton Oaks Papers which include the description and illustrations of the Kariye Camii. In looking into the matter, it seems that the Harvard University Press delayed sending you the particular Number Eleven495 which you want, and I believe that Thacher saw to it that you should receive any volumes that had failed to reach you before, so I hope that by this time these books have arrived.

493 See Treasures from the Pierpont Morgan Library, exhibition catalogue. As reported in the title page ‘After a premilinary showing at the Pierpont Morgan Library, this exhibition will be on view successively at the following museums during the anniversary year, 1957. The Cleveland Museum of Art; The Art Institute of Chicago; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco; Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino; Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum, Kansas City; The Museum of Fine Arts of Houston; Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge’. On Walter Scott’s and Charles Dickens’s manuscripts, see cat. nos. 76–77, p. 37. 494 Ellen Louisa Tucker Emerson (Concord, 1839–Milton, Mass., 1909), writer. See Gregg, ed., One First Love: The Letters of Ellen Louisa Tucker. 495 This number contains the article by Underwood, ‘Second Preliminary Report on the Restoration of the Frescoes in the Kariye Camii’.

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With best wishes of the Season to you and Nicky, Yours affectionately, Edward W. Forbes Enclosure

77. BB to Forbes (HUA, Edward Forbes Papers HUG (FP) 139.10 Box 2, typewritten) I Tatti Via di Vincigliata Florence December 23, 1957 Dear Edward, Many thanks for your very interesting letter of the 16th and all its news. I wish I could be seeing with you the exhibition of books and drawings from the Pierpont Morgan library. No, I have never heard that Harvard has received a gift of a million and a half toward building a center for the practice of the visual arts, and your hope that it will offer more space for exhibition in the Fogg Museum. I wish the people who run this museum would think more of exhibiting the masterpieces that they own then a perpetual world of novelties. The stranger who comes to Harvard goes away having no idea what wealth of art objects could be seen and enjoyed there. I am glad you are working on the letters of your Aunt Ellen Emerson. I am sure you know how much I admire Ralph Waldo and I insist on considering his as not only one of our greatest writers but the greatest sage we have ever had. Thank you for writing to John Thacher to get me photographs of what has been done at Kariye Camii — I have lately received the Dumbarton Oaks papers containing reproductions of them. Nicky’s and my best wishes to you for 1958. May the coming year bring you back to I Tatti. Yours affectonately, B.B.

78. Paul Karageorgevič, Prince of Yugoslavia to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 113.7, handwritten. The letter is published in Balfour and Mackay, Paul of Yugoslavia, pp. 62–63 and n. 2, omitting the header and the final part)

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Sept. [ember] 4th 1924 WHITE LODGE RICHMOND PARK496 My dear Mr Berenson Please forgive me for not answering your letter before497 but my wife has just had a baby & I’ve had such an awful lot of telegrams & letters to answer & as I have no secretary here it makes it a very slow job. I hope you will understand & excuse me! I was perfectly delighted to hear from you & wish you had told me more about yourself. A propos of the question that interests you these are the books where you can find descriptions of the frescoes. First, there is Kondakoff498 who described our churches & monasteries but I fear that it is a very difficult book to get now but perhaps in big libraries such as the British Museum, etc. you could still find copies of that Russian work. You will find it easier to get Gabriel Millet’s ‘L’ancien art serbe (Les Eglises)’ which was published in Paris 1919.499 I also know of an English publication500 which I am trying to find & which I’ll send you the moment I find it. I fear I can’t remember the name of the author but I trust all the same to be able to send you a copy before long. Do write again. In haste as my son’s christening takes place in a few minutes. Best love to you & your wife from Yrs [Yours] aff [ectionately] Paul

79. Prince Paul to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 113.7, handwritten. The letter is transcribed from ‘The subject’ up to ‘very good photo’ and from ‘I am sending’ up to ‘fell in love with them’ in Balfour and Mackay’, Paul of Yugoslavia, p. 80 and n. 26) 2. XI. 30 Sveti Janez Bohinjsko Jezero Yougoslavia501

496 White Lodge, a Georgian house situated in Richmond Park in the London borough of Richmond upon Thames. 497 The letter was not found. 498 Kondakov, Македония. Археологическое путешествие, transliteration: Makedoniia. Arkheologicheskoe puteshestvie. 499 Millet, L’ancien art serbe. Les Églises. 500 The publication was not identified. 501 Sveti Janez is a place on Lake Bohinj (Bohinjsko Jezero) in Slovenia, ex Yugoslavia.

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Dearest B.B. On our return from a motor trip through Germany I found your ‘Studies in Medieval Painting’502 awaiting me on my tables [sic]. I couldn’t have imagined of anything more delightful to welcome me home & hasten to send you my most grateful thanks. I am frightfully touched that you never forget me & I can assure you that I appreciate it more than I can possibly express it. The subject of the book thrills me & I’ll start reading it immediately. I was much struck by the Christ belonging to Mr Kahn503 which is very much alike to an old Byzantine icon belonging to my cousin who found it in a church at Ochrida. It is painted on wood & on the back has an unfinished religious subject painted as well.504 When I am in Belgrade (about the middle of the month) I’ll have it photographed for you although I fear we won’t get a very good photo. I’m back from a divine trip to Munich, Nurnberg, Bamberg, Weimar (the object of the trip or I should say pilgrimage) Wolfsgarten (a castle505 near Darmstadt), Wurzburg, Ansbach, Munich. What a wonderful country & what a lot there is to see; I came back quite refreshed & almost hopeful but reading the papers has since damped my optimism but we want discuss that subject. I’ve been in the country since the end of June & have developed a real taste for shooting chamois & stags. It makes me feel well & stronger & I believe that we were really meant to live nearer to nature than we most of us do. I am sending you the photos of a Poussin I discovered in Munich & which came from the collection of the Schloss at Bückeburg. The subject is ‘Le Maïtre des Falisques’ and I believe I’ve got the first version of the Louvre picture which is known to have

502 Berenson, Studies in Medieval Painting. 503 Perhaps Prince Paul was referring to the Otto Khan Enthroned Madonna and Child, now in the National Gallery, Washington, DC. In this regard, see the essay Byzantine Vision of Bernard Berenson, p. 25 and n. 16. 504 The icon belonging to Prince Paul’s cousin which was found in a church at Ochrida (or Ohrida, Ohrid, a city in North Macedonia), must probably be identified with the one depicting a Madonna and Child of which the Prince himself sent to Berenson a photo (Fig. 22a) along with two others, one of which is published here (Fig. 23) on 12 December 1930. This date is indicated by Berenson’s handwritten note on the back of each picture. On the back of the photo of the icon from Ochrida, Prince Paul wrote (Fig. 22b): ‘There’s an unfinished picture at the back of this one which I will send you later. I must apologize for the bad photos which give a very bad idea of the icons but they don’t know how to photograph pictures here’. The photo of the unfinished picture mentioned by Prince Paul is not present in BBF. The photos of the icons are in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 8, folder Icons: Whereabouts Unknown 2. The current location of the icons is unknown. 505 Prince Paul was referring to the Schloß Wolfsgarten in Langen (German state of Hessen), which was established between 1722 and 1724 by Landgrave Ernst Ludwig of Hesse-Darmstadt.

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been painted in 1637 for Passart and which was lost.506 Tell me if you like it, I’ve also bought some lovely old Spanish Portugalete carpets. I had never seen any before & fell in love with them. I wonder if you know them & whether I can find anything about them in a book as even the dealer seemed to know very little about them? It seems that the old scheme of our setting at Agram507 is going to materialize in which case you’ll have to come & pay us a visit. The house has been bought for us but I’ve not seen it yet & do not even know if it is furnish. Again a thousand thanks & much love to you both Yrs [Yours] aff [ectionately] Paul

80. Prince Paul to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 113.7, handwritten) 13. II. 32 Belgrade PALAIS ROYAL My dear B.B. I was terribly distressed to hear of your beloved wife’s illness & also much surprised & I knew nothing about it. In your last letter508 you never mentioned that subject so I suppose that it was a case of sudden illness. If you have some time to spare please give me details as you know how devoted I am to you both. For the last 3 weeks I’ve been suffering from insomnia but such awful insomnia that I literally spend sleepless nights & get up in the morning without having slept one minute. Of course next day I feel incapable of doing anything. I wonder why I was afflicted from childhood with such hopelessly bad health!

506 The Schloß Bückeburg in Bückeburg (Lower Saxony), seat of the Princes of SchaumburgLippe, formerly the Counts of Holstein-Schaumburg. As for the painting by Nicolas Poussin, Prince Paul was probably referring to Camillus and the Schoolmaster of Falerii, c. 1635, now in Pasadena (Cal.), Norton Simon Museum (inv. no. F. 1970.14.P., oil on canvas, 100.6 × 137.2 cm). Sold in Bükenberg in 1929, the painting was bought by Prince Paul and shortly thereafter resold to the Böhler house in Munich; it passed into the Henry-Lévy Collection, Strasbourg in 1934, hence to its current location after 1969. During the ownership of Prince Paul, the work was published and identified with the one cited by André Félibien and Giovanni Pietro Bellori, made for Michel Passart. See Brogi, ‘Una piccola Pommersfelden? Dipinti italiani della collezione Schaumburg-Lippe. I’, pp. 39–58, especially pp. 49–50 and n. 44. In BBF there is only a photo of the painting, certainly sent by Prince Paul. On the back, in fact, Berenson noted: ‘Paul of Yugoslavia’. The photograph is in the French painting section, among Poussin’s material, under its current location in Pasadena. 507 During the Habsburg period, the city of Zagreb was called Agram. 508 The letter was not found.

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But enough moaning. I am sending you a few books which I thought might be of interest to you. The trouble is that I can no longer remember which are the books I already sent you so am liable to send you duplicates. If I do please excuse me. I am trying to arrange an exhibition of ecclesiastical treasures from all our various monasteries & private collections. It would be a first step towards creating a Byzantine Museum here which has been my great ambition only the difficulties are enormous as each monastery is jealous of its own treasures. My thought was to try & persuade them to lend their things to a big central Museum in Belgrade where each monastery might have its own room & deposit things periodically. As things now stand nobody (except the very young & very strong — who don’t care) has a chance of seeing our monasteries which are generally buried in inaccessible parts of the country. Well, we’ll see if anything can be done. I perfectly see your point concerning my P. di Cosimo.509 Yes it was for sale but since the Metropolitan510 refused to buy it for lack of funds but it no longer is, and I have got it again & now it hangs here and its address is ‘R. [oyal] Palace Belgrade’. How I wish I could see you & how often — if you only knew — my thought wander into your library near the fireplace. Lots of love to you both from us both & all on best wishes for your dear wife recovery Yrs [Yours] aff [ectionately] Paul

81. Prince Paul to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 113.7, handwritten) 11. IV. 32 Belgrade Palais Royal My dear B.B. I have left your last letter511 unanswered for a long time & crave for your forgiveness. I was so delighted to hear that your beloved wife was out of danger. In fact it was the only good news I have heard for a very long time.

509 The painting was not found. 510 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 511 The letter was not found.

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This has been a wretched winter for me from every point of view; deplorable health, insomnia, heavy losses of money, & the coldest & longest winter I can remember. But it’s no use moaning! Since a fortnight there is a slight improvement in my health & I only pray that it may last. Curiously enough it is largely due to a belt or rather stays which I wear as my stomach had fallen down 10 centimeters. But I mustn’t worry you with my own troubles. I was infinitely touched by your kind suggestion concerning my Byzantine exhibition which seems to be on a good way. So far we don’t need any material help & perhaps we may altogether dispense with it, but should it become absolutely necessary I’ll remember your generous offer. Thanks a thousand times for your sweet thought. I have been devouring a large quantity of books & enjoyed greatly ‘Waliszewski’s Pierre le Grand’512 published 30 years ago. How little things seem to have changed in Russia since those days. The present dictators use exactly the same methods & the book seems so up to date. My plans are still unshaped. I was going to London in May but for reasons of economy this is not very likely in which case I’d spend the summer in Slovenia where we have a tiny house. Best love to you both from us both. Yrs [Yours] aff [ectionately] Paul My Poussin created a great sensation in the art circles at the London French exhibition.513 I was so proud of my discovery.

82. Prince Paul to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 113.8, handwritten) 17. XII. 35 Belgrade PALAIS ROYAL My dear B.B. A thousand thanks for your clear letters514 & the valuable information concerning pictures. I was sure you’d like the Piero di Cosimo which is an enchanting picture. I’ve been trying to get it for my private coll. [ection], as the Museum is only for Modern art, but the owner wants £ 4500 for it when I know for a certainty that he gave only 2000 the other day. So we are still negotiating.

512 Prince Paul was referring to Kazimierz Waliszewski, L’héritage de Pierre le Grand. 513 Perhaps Prince Paul was referring to Nicolas Poussin’s Paysage avec Trois Moines, 1648–1650 (oil on canvas, 117 × 193.8 cm) which was exhibited at the Exhibition of French Art 1200–1900, London, Royal Academy of Arts, 4 January–12 March 1932. See Exhibition of French Art 1200–1900, cat. no. 149, p. 77. The painting is now in Belgrade at the White Palace (inv. no. 241/01). 514 The letters were not found.

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The Wesendonck515 pictures were sold for a song except the Bordone-Veronese which found no bidder.516 So now I’ve been offered it for a song, something like £ 200 & am wondering if it wouldn’t be wise to fill one of the huge empty walls in my new house with it. I will send you the photos of some old icons which adorn the XIth cent. [ury] church of St Clement at Ochrida & also that of a wooden byzantine statue of a saint which I find particularly striking.517 I am frightfully busy just now so please excuse short note Much love from Yrs [Yours] aff [ectionately] P.

83. Prince Paul to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 113.8, handwritten. The letter is transcribed in Balfour and Mackay, Paul of Yugoslavia, pp. 125-126 and n. 20, omitting the header and the final part) 17. VII. 36 Bled My dear B.B. This is just our line to welcome you to this land — to say that my thoughts are much with you & that I hope all goes well. Please let me know if anything isn’t right or if they bother you too much which may easily be the case through ‘exces de zèle’, for this is the East! I regret that you are not going to Ohrida518 and feel it my duty to discourage you from going to Žiča. Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle & the discomforts of the

515 Otto Wesendonck (Elberfeld, 1815–Berlin, 1896) and Agnes Mathilde Luckemeyer (Elberfeld, 1828–Altmünster, 1902). 516 The painting was not identified. 517 The photos of the icons of the Church of the Holy Virgin Peribleptos, also known as St Clement at Ohrid (thirteenth century) published here (figs 24–27) are in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 7, folder Icons: Ohrid-Pelendria. The icons are now in the Icon Gallery-Ohrid close to the Church complex of St Clement, Ohrid, Macedonia: Archangel Gabriel, beginning of the twelfth century (inv. no. ZMO-U-0000532, wood, silver gilt sheet metal, 111.5 × 67.5 cm); Virgin Mary, beginning of the twelfth century (inv. no. ZMO-U0000531, wood, silver gilt sheet metal, 112 × 67.5 cm); Jesus Christ Psychosostis (Saviour of Souls), beginning of the fourteenth century (inv. no. ZMO-U-0000530, wood, silver gilt sheet metal, 93.5х 69.9 cm); Virgin Mary with Christ, c. middle of the fourteenth century (inv. no. ZMO-U0000533, wood, silver gilt sheet metal, 91 × 53.5 cm). The photo of the wooden Byzantine statue of a saint was not found but it could be identified with the relief bust representing St Clement of Ochrida from 1963 in the Icon Gallery-Ohrid formerly also in the Church of the Holy Virgin Peribleptos-Ohrid, end of the thirteenth century (inv. no. ZMO-U-0000538, 140 × 13.5 cm). 518 Note that Prince Paul uses the spelling ‘Ochrida’ in letters no. 79 and 82.

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journey will not be repaid by all the ‘restorations’ & bad ones too of the church.519 We are still at Bled & are unable to say yet when we can move into our new abode. In any case this time we shall meet & [to] that I’m looking forward more than I can say. Ever Yrs [Yours] aff [ectionately] P.

84. BB to Prince Paul (Bernard Berenson letters; Box 1; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library, handwritten) HOTEL EXCELSIOR ☆ DUBROVNIK (RAGUSA) EINZIGES DIREKT AM MEER GELEGENES HOTEL VON INTERNATIONALEM RUF MIT EIGENEM BADESTRAND UND JEDEM KONFORT TELEGRAMME: EXCELSIOR DUBROVNIK ☆ TELEFON NO. 34 ---------DUBROVNIK July 17, 1936 My dear Paul. I am overwhelmed by the semi-official, I may almost say semi-royal treatment we are receiving. It is wonderfully discreet while yet indispensable. Meković520 is a tower of strength. He is efficient, jolly, full of sound sense & of astonishingly good if utterly un-instructed taste. I never heard anybody talk better on how a town like this should be respected & protected in the presence of modern requirements. The other guardian angel, Bralović521 cannot make me out, & must regard me as a freak. He is very reserved but will no doubt un-button in the course of the trip. Straynić522 superintendent of Monuments implores more authority and more money — I am not sure of the spelling — has been our guide & knows & loves every stalk & stone & has taken us everywhere accompanied by a truly exquisite gymnasial professor & keeper of the town museum named Marcić523 (how spelled).

519 Probably Prince Paul was referring to the thirteenth century Monastery of Žiča and its Church of the Ascension (with murals of the thirteenth and early fourteenth century near Kraljevo in Central Serbia, which were last restored between 1925 and 1940). See ČanakMedić, Popović and Vojvodić, Манастир Жича/Žiča Monastery, transliteration: Manastir Žiča, pp. 519–43. 520 The name is unidentified. 521 The name is unidentified. 522 Kosta Strajnić (Križevci, 1887–Dubrovnik, 1977), art historian, conservator and patron. From 1932 he became the main conservator of Dubrovnik monuments. See Belamarić and Dulibić, ‘Bernard Berenson’s Journey to Yugoslavia’, p. 372 and n. 21. 523 Lucijan Marčić (Benkovac, 1891–Zagreb, 1940), geographer and naturalist who was a teacher at the Military Maritime Academy, then a curator at the Natural Science Department of the Regional Museum in Dubrovnik. See Belamarić and Dulibić, ‘Bernard Berenson’s Journey to

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We have been shown every picture in the place, & mostly they are a sorry lot. The Lord inspired me to the right forms with which to soften the fall of the Bishop’s524 claims for his masterpieces. He does have a Puligo,525 an interesting copy of Raphael’s Mad. [onna] della Seggiola,526 & another of a Salvator Mundi527 after a lost or unknown Titian. In the cathedral the great altarpiece, the Assumption with the Annunciation & 4 Saints looks like a Titian,528 altho’ [although] one must make the reserve that if properly cleaned it may or may not turn out to be completely autograph. Titian in the same way is the picture at S. Domenico.529 I have been amused by a local genius, Raphael? of Ragusa,530 a sort of follower of Victor Crivelli & Perugino. Incomparable and unsurpassable is the beauty of the walls the buildings & sea-scape around the town. I cannot conceive anything more felicitous, & as for the houses & public buildings. I have seldom if ever seen stone better used, & better carved. My heart goes out to the half deserted villas of such noble facades & splendid terraces and sumptuous gardens — such surroundings for fine lives, but now ‘roses embowering with nought they embower’.531 They set up such Sehnsucht & such Wehmut. The 24th and 25th we mean to be at Hotel Vrbak, Novi Pazar.

Yugoslavia’, p. 372 and n. 20. 524 Perhaps Berenson was referring to Josip Marija Carević (Metković, 1883–Veliko Trgovišće, 1945), the then Bishop of the Diocese of Dubrovnik. 525 Perhaps Berenson was referring to the Madonna with Child and an Angel, now assigned to Domenico Puligo’s workshop, second decade of the sixteenth century (oil and tempera on wood, 86 × 64 cm), now in the reliquary of the Cathedral, Dubrovnik. 526 Madonna with Child, St John the Baptist and Four Evangelists (Madonna della Seggiola), unknown painter, first half of the sixteenth century (tempera on wood, 72 × 72 cm), Dubrovnik, reliquary of the Cathedral. The original one by Raphael, Madonna and Child and St.John the Baptist (the Madonna della Seggiola), 1514 is in Florence, Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti (inv. no. 151, oil on wood, diameter 71 cm). 527 Perhaps Berenson was referring to the Head of Christ (the Saviour), unknown painter, fourth decade of the sixteenth century (oil on wood, 74 × 56 cm), Dubrovnik, art collection of the Bishop’s Palace. 528 Polyptych of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, Titian and workshop, four of fifth decade of the sixteenth century (oil on canvas, central field: The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 344 × 172 cm; side fields: St Blaise and St Lazarus; St Anthony Abbot and St Nicholas, 200 × 55 cm; upper side field: The Annunciation, 100 × 57 cm), Dubrovnik, Cathedral, sanctuary, once in the retable of the main altar. 529 Berenson was referring to the painting with Saint Blaise, Saint Mary Magdalene, Tobias, the Anchangel Raphael and Donor, now attributed to Titian’s atelier, second half of the sixteenth century, Dubrovnik, Museum of the Convent of San Domenico (oil on canvas, 208 × 163 cm). 530 Perhaps Berenson was referring to the painter Nikola Božidarević (Kotor?, c. 1460–Ragusa, 1517). 531 A citation from Robert Browning Wanting is — what?: ‘What of the leafage, what of the flower? Roses embowering with naught they embower!’. The poem is published in Browning, Jocoseria, p. 1.

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The 27th and 28th, Hotel Europa Sarajevo. Then here again. We expect to reach Zagreb-Hotel Esplanade Aug. [ust] 11. I wish you could manage to come the forenoon of the 12th to see the Strossmayer pictures532 with us. We shall go the same evening to Bled or Lubiana, so as to be near you the 13th & 14th (of Aug. [ust]) hoping you will be able to give us a little time. With no end of thanks & much love to you both. B.B

85. Adolfo Venturi to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 106.39, handwritten) Senato del Regno Roma [33], via Fabio Massimo, 60 _____________ 12 Dic. [embre] ’925 Illustre Signore e Caro Amico, a giorni, invierò il mio libro sui Musaici cristiani in Roma533 alla Signora Mary, insieme con i miei rispetti, e l’altro (XIII° volume della mia Storia; IX, sulla pittura del ’500) a Lei, che vorrà gradirlo, omaggio augurale del nuovo anno che s’approssima. Ho già cominciato a dare alla stampa il principio del volume XIV, e mi trovo impicciato per la mancanza di materiali fotografici sopra Giulio Romano, il Penni, Giovanni da Udine, Perin del Vaga, Maturino, Polidoro da Caravaggio.534 Se ella ha tenuto conto di questi maestri, generatori di noia, voglia essere tanto buono da comunicarmi qualche fotografia delle opere loro, le quali si trovino fuori d’Italia, anzi in America. Gliele

532 Berenson was referring to the Strossmayer Gallery of Old Masters in the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Zagreb which exhibit the collection donated to the city by Bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer (Osijek, 1815–Đakovo, 1905) in 1884. 533 Venturi, Musaici cristiani in Roma. 534 Venturi was referring to his Storia dell’Arte Italiana, 9, La pittura del Cinquecento, part 1, published in 1925, and Storia dell’Arte Italiana, 9, La pittura del Cinquecento, part 2, which came out the subsequent year. The two volumes currently in Biblioteca Berenson together with the rest of the series, bear on their title pages a dedication by Adolfo Venturi to Berenson dated Rome, 31 December 1925 and Rome, 7 November 1926 respectively. Giulio Romano (Rome, 1499–Mantua, 1546), painter and architect; Giovan Francesco Penni (Florence, c. 1488–Naples, c. 1528), painter; Giovanni da Udine (Udine, 1487–Rome, 1561), painter; Perin del Vaga (Florence, 1501–Rome, 1547), painter; Maturino da Firenze (Florence, 1490–Rome, 1528), painter; Polidoro Caldara, called Polidoro da Caravaggio (Caravaggio, c. 1499–1500), painter.

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restituirò subito, e vi aggiungerò qualche fotografia di cose rare e inedite, insieme con infinite grazie. Studiare quei maestri è faticoso; ma cercare per essi fotografie in terre lontane, è fatica insopportabile. Voglia sollevarmi col prestito delle fotografie che Ella tenga per avventura. Nell’estate e nell’autunno ho viaggiato per tre mesi di seguito, e, specialmente in Germania; ho veduto come sia necessaria una revisione generale delle cognizioni che i Tedeschi stanno ruminando da quasi cinquant’anni. Con la loro poca sensibilità d’arte hanno adoperato uno strumento molto pericoloso, quello dell’analisi, e sono rimasti pietrificati con il loro strumento in mano. In Austria poi, la metafisica e la ambizione hanno soffocato, parmi, ogni conoscenza. So ch’Ella è andata, poco dopo che io vi fui, a Vienna. Ha veduto il nuovo ordinamento della Galleria,535 e i restauri che fanno, come mi diceva un ispettore della Galleria stessa, novissimi i quadri? Ma io mi allungo troppo nella mia lettera, e La prego di scusarmi. Ho desiderio di discorrere con Lei; e mi sfogo nella lettera. Le fo tanti auguri, che Ella si compiacerà presentare, a mio nome, alla Sig. ra Mary e alla Signorina Mariano. E che il nuovo anno mi permetta, godere della Sua compagnia! Suo dev.536 A. Venturi

86. Mary Berenson to A. Venturi (CASNS-AV, carteggio fasc. MB, handwritten) Dec. [ember] 28, 1925 i Tatti, Settignano. Dear Senatore VenturiI am more delighted than I can say at receiving from you the book about the Christian Mosaics in Rome. We have Wilpert’s monumental work,537 but that is no use to carry about and consult! And this complete and light volume is perfect for that purpose. I think we saw everything that you reproduce when we were in Rome last year, but it is delightful

535 Venturi was referring to the Gemäldegalerie of the Kunsthistorisches Museum which underwent significant changes under the direction of Gustav Glück (Vienna, 1871–Santa Monica, 1952) from 1911 to 1931. 536 Perhaps ‘devotissimo’. 537 Mary was referring to Joseph Wilpert’s four volumes, Die römischen Mosaiken und Malereien der kirchlichen Bauten vom IV. bis XIII. Jahrhundert published in second edition in 1917, now in Biblioteca Berenson. Joseph Wilpert (Eiglau, Upper Silesia, 1857–Rome, 1944), archaeologist. On Monsignor Wilpert, see Heid, ed., Giuseppe Wilpert archeologo cristiano.

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to have this clear and well-arranged & well described guide. Please accept my warm thanks, and the thanks of the Biblioteca Berensoniana and also our regards and best wishes for 1926. Yours very sincerely, Mary Berenson

87. BB to A. Venturi (CASNS-AV, carteggio fasc. BB, handwritten) i Tatti, Settignano. Jan. [uary] 2, 1926 Dear Friend. Many, many thanks for your volume of the Florentines of the Cinquecento. And my heartiest congratulations as well. I can not sufficiently envy your productivity & its quality. Each new volume too shows a new mastery, a clearer outlook, severe judgment, & more penetrating insight. Many decades more like the last three, is my hearty wish for you. I am just beginning to prepare the new edition of my Drawings of the Florentine Painters, & I shall frequently have the pleasure of referring the student to the last volume. I have to my great regret lost touch with your son Lionello.538 Please recall me to his mind & give him my affectionate greetings. With all good wishes for 1926 Sincerely yours B. Berenson

88. BB’s note (BBF, Byzantine art and Coptic, Box 130, folder 44, handwritten) PĖRA PALACE HOTEL CONSTANTINOPLE Oct. [ober] 2. 1928

538 Lionello Venturi (Modena, 1885–Rome, 1961), art historian and at this time Professor of Art History at the University of Turin.

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Constantinople photos (of enamels) shown by Makridi as belonging to a friend who has taken them to Paris for sale.539

89. BB to Paul Joseph Sachs (Paul J. Sachs Papers (HC 3), folder 138. Harvard Art Museums Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., handwritten) Oct. [ober] 13, 1928 PĖRA PALACE HOTEL CONSTANTINOPLE Dear Paul. I hear that Edgell540 is on this side of the water. I want to get in touch with him. Can you tell me how to reach him? And what has become of the Arthur Sachs’s [sic]?541 Have they not been abroad recently? You, I trust, are already at work & as restful as ever. No doubt you have already seen the Perrys, & they will have told you about the exact terms of our wills. When we get back I will send you a copy.

539 The photos are related to a Byzantine ring with two half-length figures flanking a cross (Fig. 28a; Fig. 28b), and to four pendant reliquaries of uncertain date and current location, including one with the Virgin on the recto identified by the monogram ‘MP Μ(ήτη)ρ θΥ Θ(εο)ῦ’ (‘Mother of God’) (Fig. 29a), and a Greek inscription on the back (Fig. 29b) where it reads: ‘ἀπὸ τῆς ζώνης τῆς Θεοτόκου’ (‘from the band of Mother of God’). The photos are in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 19, folder Metalwork/Jewelry/: Whereabouts Unknown. Furthermore, there is a picture with a hinged closure with Christ and the Virgin (Fig. 30a; Fig. 30b), in the same box, folder Metalwork/Jewelry: Washington, DC-Worcester (Mass.). The work is currently in the Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection, Washington, DC and assigned as Byzantine, second half of the tenth-early eleventh century (inv. no. BZ.1965.4, enamel on gold, 2.3 × 5 cm). Again, a reliquary cross with a standing figure of the Virgin flanked by busts of SS. Basil and Gregory Thaumaturgus (Fig. 31), which is in Box 19, folder Metalwork/Jewelry: Lausanne-Munich. The reliquiary is now in the British Museum, London and attributed to Constantinople?, tenth century (inv. no. 1965,0604.1, cloisonné enamel and gold, 61.20 × 30.90 mm; chain, length 622 mm). It is interesting to note that behind every photograph there is always Berenson’s handwritten note: ‘Oct. [ober] 2, 1928 Makridi Bey as for sale in Paris’. This suggests that at that time all the objects were together. As for the works in Washington, DC and London, they were previously in the Stoclet collection and were sold at Sotheby’s auction in London in 1965. The auction catalogue states that the two pieces came from the excavations of the Great Palace in Constantinople. See Catalogue of Medieval Works of Art, day of sale Tuesday, 27 April, 1965, cat. no. 33–34, p. 22. 540 George Harold Edgell (Saint Louis, Missouri, 1887–Newport, 1954), Harvard Professor of Fine Arts. 541 Arthur Sachs (New York State?, 1880–Cannes, 1975), Paul Sachs’s brother was an investment banker, art collector and philanthropist. Arthur was married to Alice Goldschmidt (1885–1930).

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- Here we are already ‘ancient inhabitants’. It will take however more time than I can spare to master the place. As at Rome, you have four distinct layers and interests. The classical, the early Xian [Christian], the Byzantine, & the Turkish. I confess despite all the masterpieces of Greek sculpture, despite Sta. Sophia & the other Byzant. [ine] Churches & fragments of sculpture, that it is the mosques which interest me most. They attain to effects of space that satisfy me better on the whole than any we have in Europe. In that respect they are as different as can be fr. [om] the Syro-Cairene type of mosque. Of the latter we have seen marvels of the Seldjuk542 variety at Konia. And some 80 m. [iles] thence eastward in the desert we explored one of the noblest artifacts my eyes ever beheld, Sultan Khan, a Caravanserai543 Seldjuk art for masonry, tiles, & ornaments, & Turkish for space effects seem to be among the finest & greatest achievements of men. They surely deserve on sheer aesthetic grounds, at least as much attention as Catalan Romanesque or any other of the present day stampedes. And yet to my knowledge next to nothing of it is heard of in America, & I wager nobody has ever lectured on either. By the way when we arrived Riefstahl was still here, & for eight or ten days devoted himself to showing me Turkish things that I might have missed left to myself. He was a true guide, & most illuminating. I had every chance of trying his mettle, & I can guarantee that his learning is of the real kind, & that he is at the same time a taster as well. I did not get the impression that he was very happy working with & under that arch-bounder Sherill.544 I wish you could find a one semester job for him at Harvard, on islamitic art of every clime & period. You may object that he deals. I am sure he deals most honourably, & while there may be objection to a dealer being connected with a museum, I see none for a university Dealing when property pursued sharpens the age & understanding. As for Riefstahl, before the war I bought a good deal from him, & I bless him every time I look at my MSS [Manuscripts] & illuminations.545

542 Seljuk or Seldjuk (d. c. 1038) was the founder of the Turko-Persian Seljuk dynasty in the Middle East and Central Asia. 543 Probably Berenson was referring to the Sultan Khan, a large thirteenth century Seljuk caravanserai located in the town of Sultanhani, Aksaray province, Turkey. 544 Charles Hitchcock Sherrill (Washington, DC, 1867–Paris, 1936), politician, diplomat, sports official, and writer. 545 Riefstahl suggested to Berenson the purchases of Islamic manuscripts and miniatures; apparently the only work purchased by Riefstahl seems to be a fragmentary sheet of the sixth sura of the Koran, perhaps from the eleventh century, still in the Berenson Collection at Villa I Tatti.

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He knows Anatolia intimately & has done incomparable photos of the finest buildings and details. He is willing to let us have them if we pay for the prints, & for 70 copies of his catalogue of these photos. Will you get from him a set of these forms? If so, address yrself [yourself] to him directly at N. [ew] Y. [ork] University. We expect to be here another three weeks at least, & then spend some days at Salonica. Afterwards if the dengue has subsided we shall go for a fortnight to Athens, & then direct home. Another thing. I understood some months ago that a Leonardo & a Signorelli drawing bought by Durlacher had gone to a young American collector named Nicolas (?) Brown,546 & that he would send me photos. If you know him will you ask him whether he has these drawings, & if he has, to send me photos? Best remembrances to yr. [your] wife Affectionately B.B.

90. Sachs to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 95.7, typewritten. A copy of this letter is in Paul J. Sachs Papers (HC 3), folder 138. Harvard Art Museums Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.) HARVARD UNIVERSITY FOGG ART MUSEUM CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U.S.A. January 12, 1929 Dear B.B.: Happy New Year to you, to Mrs Berenson and to Miss. Mariani. [sic]

546 Berenson was referring to the Horse and Rider, Leonardo da Vinci, drawing (silverpoint on prepared paper, 120 × 78 mm) sold by Sotheby’s London, , 29 May 1928, lot 49 to Durlacher Bros. (Henry and George art dealers in Bond Street, London with a branch in New York City managed by Kirk Askew) for the collector John Nicholas Brown. The drawing was again sold at Christie’s London, 10 July 2001. As concerns Luca Signorelli, it is a drawing with the Bust of a Youth Looking Upword (recto), and the Two Nude Figures (verso), c. 1550, which was sold at Sotheby’s London, 22 May 1928, lot. 89, and entered the Brown collection. No information indicates that the drawing passed through Durlacher’s hands. The drawing is now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, not on view (inv. no. 1991.8.1a–1991.8.1b, black chalk partially indented with a stylus on tan laid paper, 22.5 × 17.7 cm).

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I have locked my door and left instructions that I am not to be disturbed until I have finished dictating these lines to you. I shall not burden you by giving you the many reasons which have made it impossible for me, since the opening of the new College547 year, to write to you, except to say that first there was the wedding of our oldest daughter, Elizabeth,548 to Dr Soma Weiss of the Harvard Medical School;549 then came all the various College duties; the necessity to finally put our house in order on the financial side, and above all else, the preparation of eight Lowell lectures,550 which I am delivering during this month of January, and the preparation for which has taken up every spare moment for many months. However, Forbes, my partner in ‘exuberant mendicancy’, has kept in touch with you during my silence by writing to under date of October 3rd, December 14th, December 28th and January 9th,551 so that I shall not make reference to the subjects that he has written about, except to say that I was not only interested, but touched, by all that Ralph Perry had to report about his various conversations with you. In so far as in my power lies, in case I should survive you, I shall loyally carry out your wishes to the best of my ability. I have never forgotten our conversations of some years ago at I Tatti, and I am glad to think that you have found it possible to establish your plans in ways that satisfy you and that are sure to exert a profound influence on coming generations. Your letter of August 30th552 reached me only about a month ago. For some stupid reason my bank in Paris held it and did not forward it to America. […] Your letter of October 13th from Constantinople reached me safely. I hand you herewith enclosed Edgell’s address. In answer to your question about my brother, Arthur, and his wife, I can say that they spent last summer abroad, but did not get to Italy. I have no doubt that their apartment in Paris seemed so attractive that they hesitated to move about very much. My brother is now in Europe for just a few weeks in connection with business matters, and one of the things that I feel sure will interest you in connection with him is the gift that he has made for further fellowships. […] Your comments about Byzantine art interest me very much. I also note what you have to say about Reifstahl [sic], and your remark that he is not very happy at New York University. I take very seriously your suggestion that we invite him for a course

547 548 549 550 551

Harvard College. Elizabeth Sachs. Soma Weiss (Bistrita, Romania, 1898–Boston, 1942). Abbott Lawrence Lowell (Boston, 1856–1943), President of Harvard University. Forbes’s letter of 14 December 1928 is not present in Berenson’s correspondence while that of 9 January 1929 is in BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.92, typewritten. 552 Berenson’s letter of 30 August is not published here but is in Paul J. Sachs Papers (HC 3), folder 138. Harvard Art Museums Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., handwritten.

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of lectures at Harvard, even though there is nothing that we can do about the matter this year. It may be, however, that we can arrange it for next year. This year is out of the question because we have financed the very successful visit of Dr Pauli553 of Hamburg for the first half year, and Mon. [signor] Wilpert554 for the second half year, and I hardly dare assume any further financial burdens. I shall be delighted to purchase a set of his photographs on the terms outlined by you, and I am writing to him as per your suggestion. […] I am afraid that this is a very disjointed letter, but I have not the time to polish it. I hope to write to you soon again, but whether you hear frequently or not you are very often in my thoughts and I look forward to quiet talks with you sometime this spring or summer. Please remember me very kindly to Mrs Berenson and to Miss Mariani, and belive me to be, as always, Affectionately yours, Paul J. Sachs.

91. BB to Sachs (Paul J. Sachs Papers (HC 3), folder 138. Harvard Art Museums Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., typewritten) May 26th. 1930. I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Professor Paul Sachs, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. U.S.A. Dear Paul, I have just wired to you.— ‘Delighted writing’. We shall be delighted to give Walker555 every chance and if he likes us and we find each other stimulating, or even if I discover that I really do him good without him necessarily giving full response, I shall be happy to do all I can for him.

553 Theodore Gustav Pauli (Bremen, 1866–Munich, 1938), art historian and director of the Hamburger Kunsthalle in Hamburg, Germany. 554 Joseph Wilpert. 555 John Walker.

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Only I must warn you that we expect to be away in the autumn from about the middle of October until the middle of January, and again, very likely, next spring for April and May. If he is coming to Florence and Italy chiefly on my account let him try to arrange to be here from mid-January on. Another thing is that while, of course, we shall see a great deal of him I fear we should not be able to keep him permanently at I Tatti. Edgell who has been here with us has told me what he knows about the young man and it is all to his credit. I am snatching this few minutes to dictate a letter to you in the midst of preparations for departure, so I trust you will forgive its scrappiness. The truth is that it isn’t my work that has tired me out but trying to combine it with playing the host to all sorts of people who have a curiosity to see the house and the myth who presides over it. And as this stream of curiosity-hunters is still flowing strong there is nothing for it but to run away from it for some time. So we are off to the Abruzzo for two or three weeks and on my return I shall go on with my work and hope to finish the lists before mid-October and to send them to press. […] I do hope that you will stick to your plan of spending May and June here next year, it would mean a great deal to me. Ever affectionately B.B.

92. Sachs to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 95.8, typewritten. A copy of this letter is in Paul J. Sachs Papers (HC 3), folder 138. Harvard Art Museums Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.) HARVARD UNIVERSITY FOGG ART MUSEUM CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U.S.A. June 5, 1930 B. Berenson, Esq. I Tatti Settignano Florence, Italy

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Dear B.B.: I appreciate your kind lines of the 26th ult [imo]556 in which you confirm your cable about Walker and in which you indicate the dates next year when you will be glad to receive him in Florence. I have communicated your message to him and I have no doubt that he will be writing to you in the very near future. Once more my heartfelt thanks. I am quite sure that you will find him intelligent and responsive. What a pity that you are so overwhelmed by visitors […] Forgive me if I do not write at any length today. There is, however, no very important news since my last communication. I have a long pull ahead of me before next May and June, but according to present plans we quite definitely expect to spend that period in and about Florence, and largely because I do want an opportunity for quiet talks with you. Ever affectionately, Paul. P.S. Since my last letter we have received by gift the following: a wrecked, but very fine Holbein portrait,557 about which in due course I shall send you photographic record and data; but all this will not be until some time next fall. We have also received from Mr and Mrs Robert Woods Bliss, as an indefinite loan what I believe to be the finest Coptic tapestry in any Museum, and of this I am sending you a photograph.558

556 Berenson’s letter of 26 May 1929, not published here, is in Paul J. Sachs Papers (HC 3), folder 138. Harvard Art Museums Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., typewritten. 557 Perhaps Sachs was referring to a Portrait of a Woman attributed to Hans Holbein the Younger, sixteenth century, now in the Fogg Museum (inv. no. 1930.437, oil on panel, 54.29 × 48.1 cm). 558 Sachs was referring to the tapestry representing the Hanging with Hestia Polyolbus (Giver of Blessing), Egypt, c. sixth century, now in Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection, Washington, DC (inv. no. BZ.1929.1, tapestry weave in polychrome wool, 114.5 × 138 cm). As emerges in Forbes’s letter to BB of 4 November 1930 (not published here but is in BBP, Correspondence, folder 49.93, typewritten), the tapestry was purchased by the Blisses from Dikran Kelekian (see Biographical Profile) in the Summer of 1930 and loaned to the Fogg Museum. On the appreciation of the tapestry with Hestia, see Nelson, R. S., ‘Royall Tyler and the Bliss Collection of Byzantine Art’, pp. 27–50, especially pp. 38–39. Two photos of the tapestry (i.e. a full image and a detail) are in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 20, folder: Textile: Venice-Washington, DC, and they are probably to be identified with those sent by Sachs to Berenson. One of them is published here (Fig. 21).

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We have also for this summer, as for last, received the loan of three fine tapestries from Felix Warburg559 and one from Mr Jesse Straus.560 […]

93. Sachs to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 95.10, typewritten) HARVARD UNIVERSITY FOGG ART MUSEUM CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U.S.A. January 25, 1938 B. Berenson, Esq. I Tatti Settignano Florence, Italy Dear B.B.: I’m sorry to see that it is ever so long since last I wrote to you. Perhaps some day I shall have fewer irons in the fire and then be in a position to write to you more frequently. At any rate I shall make no excuses. May I once again, as in the past, just jot down various facts as they come to my mind, without any effort to put them in a logical sequence, but in the hope that they may be of some interest to you. The Charles Eliot Norton lecturer this year is Chauncey B. Tinker561 of Yale, who has taken as his subject ‘Literary Influence in English Painting’. We have had, as usual, various visiting lecturers for single talks, and among them some of your friends, including Doro Levi.562 […]

559 Perhaps Sachs was referring to the same tapestries mentioned by Forbes in the letter to BB of 27 June 1941: no. 48. 560 Fogg Museum, Scenes from the Childhood of Christ, tapestry, Flemish, 1505–1515 (inv. no. 1956.241, textile fibers 360.7 × 533.4 cm), gift of Mrs Irma Nathan (New York City, 1874–1970), wife of Jesse Isidor Straus, American ambassador. 561 Chauncey Brewster Tinker (Auburn, 1876–Hartford, Connecticut, 1963), Professor of English Literature at Yale University. 562 Teodoro Davide Levi, called ‘Doro’ (Trieste, 1898–Rome, 1991), archaeologist and art historian. He became visiting professor (professore straordinario) in 1935, and full professor (professore ordinario) in 1938 at Cagliari for Archaeology with temporary appointment as Soprintendente reggente nella Soprintendenza alle Antichità e Opere d’Arte della Sardegna. In application of the racial laws issued by the Fascist government in 1938, Levi was relieved from university teaching and from the position of Soprintendente reggente, so that he left Italy for the United States and was welcomed at Princeton University as a member of the Institute for Advanced Studies. During the American exile (1938–1945), Levi wrote Antioch Mosaic Pavements, 2 vols. On Doro Levi, see Carinci, ‘Teodoro Davide Levi (detto Doro)’, pp. 416–25, especially pp. 419–20; 423; D’Agata, Doro Levi. Stile intellettuale e inclinazioni; Abis, ‘L’archeologo, la spia e l’ambasciatore’.

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The most significant event in the current year seem to me to be the following: — The death of my dearly beloved friend, Felix Warburg, without whose moral and financial backing the Fogg Museum would not exist as it exists today; and the coming of Rosenberg563 as Fellow for Research in Prints and Drawings. I knew of his capacity in this field but I had no idea that he would turn out to be an unusually gifted teacher. He took his 15 graduate students for the month of January to work on the drawings at the Morgan library and there, as here, he made warm friends. […] Our old friend Goldschmidt, on the recommendation of the Fine Arts department, was appointed Professor at Harvard by the Corporation, but, alas, he has not been allowed to leave Germany. Doubtless Ralph564 has informed you about the activity of Gropius565 in these parts and particularly at the Architectural School. From a strictly museum point of view the most important development in the recent past is the close association that we have formed with ‘Dumbarton Oaks’, (the Bliss collection, in Washington). Their letter paper reads ‘The Dumbarton Oaks collection, (affiliated with the Fogg Museum of Art)’. I have no doubt that you appreciate fully what this means for us. I may add at once that as a result of this affiliation we have now had on exhibition in the central court of this building the splendid Barberini sarcophagus,566 not to mention various other objects that had been added to the collection in Washington. However, I need not dwell in any detail on such acquisitions because I assume that Barbara Sessions had kept you posted. I think she is doing extremely well in the library at ‘Dumbarton Oaks’, where there is every intention of making the library particularly strong in the field of Byzantine art. Many volumes have been added and catalogued since last July — in number somewhere between 1500 and 2000. […] I can think of nothing else of interest today except to hand you herewith enclosed photographs of various objects that have been acquired by the Fogg Museum in the recent past. In case you do not care to keep all of these photographs, please be good enough to return them to me. I have taken passage for May 22nd and hope that nothing will interfere this year with the trip that Meta and I have planned. We shall stop off in London for a few days and then proceed to Paris to spend a little while with our children, and after that Meta

563 Jacob Rosenberg (Berlin, 1893–Cambridge, Mass., 1980), art historian and keeper of the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin (now Staatliche Museen-Kupferstichkabinett) from 1930 to 1935. 564 Ralph Barton Perry. 565 Walter Adolph Gropius (Berlin, 1883–Boston, 1969), architect. 566 Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection, Washington, DC, Seasons Sarcophagus, originally in Palazzo Barberini in Rome, Late Roman, 330–35 ce (inv. no. BZ. 1936.65, marble, 111.8 × 224 cm).

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will go to the country (probably Switzerland), which Marjorie567 and her baby while my son in law568 and Mr Russell Allen569 and I proceed to Italy, where I shall hope to find you and Mrs Berenson in good health, late in June or early July. Very warm greetings from Meta and me to you and Mrs Berenson and Miss Mariana. [sic] Believe me to be, As always, Devotedly, Paul. PS. I am sending the photographs under separate cover by this same mail. ys. [yours]

94. BB to Sachs (Paul J. Sachs Papers (HC 3), folder 143. Harvard Art Museums Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., handwritten) Febr. [uary] 19, 1938 I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Dear Paul. I am delighted to hear you are coming over and that you expect to be able to come to us here at the end of June or early in July. I heartily wish you could bring Meta with you but you will be welcome even if without her. I thank you for all the photos you have sent, & which I find as always interesting Nobody writes to me, neither Barbara Sessions,570 nor Ralph Perry, nor anybody else. So the vaguest rumours reach me about the perfect Blisses & their largesses, etc. etc. Several years ago Winthrop wrote asking my advice about leaving his collections to the Fogg. Since then I have had no word from him either. Of course it is natural for a man so old as I am, & so far away, & so un-clamorous, & alas! so in-active, should be forgotten. I am glad you have got Rosenberg. Remember me to him. I recall how helpful he was on my visit to Berlin.

567 568 569 570

Marjorie Louise (New York City, 1910–Cambridge, Mass., 1992), daughter of Paul Sachs. Carl Emile Pickhardt, Jr. (1908–2004), painter and printmaker. W. G. Russell Allen (Boston, 1882–1955), art collector. Barbara Sessions (Claremont, New Hampshire, 1899–1980). From 1925–1928 she assisted Berenson as librarian and in doing research. From 1936 the Blisses hired Barbara Sessions as librarian at Dumbarton Oaks. See Sachs’s letter to BB no. 93.

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Give our affectionate greetings to Meta, & tell her we hope she will come to stay. Ever yours B.B.

95. Sachs to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 95.10, typewritten. A copy of this letter is in Paul J. Sachs Papers (HC 3), folder 143. Harvard Art Museums Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.) HARVARD UNIVERSITY FOGG ART MUSEUM CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U.S.A. March 5, 1938 B. Berenson, Esq. I Tatti Settignano Florence, Italy Dear B.B.: Your welcome letter of the 19th ult. [imo] comes to hand at a moment for the first time in many years I am kept away from the Museum by an attack of the grippe, which has laid me low. I am very much better, however, and expect any day now to be out and about again. In the meantime I lack my usual energy and therefore ask you to accept this very brief reply. (not so ‘brief ’ — after all)571 It will be good to talk at length about the various matters that are on your mind and on mine instead of attempting to write about them. As I said in a short note to John Walker yesterday, (who has no doubt communicated with you), Meta and I have taken passage for May 22nd, and after a short reunion with Marjorie and her family in Paris, I hope to proceed either to Florence or Consuma to pay you a visit. At that time I trust there will be an opportunity to talk at length. […] Nothing very important has happened since last I wrote to you, but the following small items may be of interest to you. […] Thomas Whittemore has recently been with us and has lectured in detail about his extraordinary work at Santa Sophia. I suppose you have seen the great mosaics which he has brought to light. He has become more and more interested in the Fogg and has deposited with us his collection of coins and perhaps some day he may do the same with his library. […]

571 The phrase inside the brackets is handwritten.

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About the Blisses deep interest in the Fogg Museum I shall speak to you when we meet. In the meantime you will be glad to hear that Dumbarton Oaks is actually affiliated with the Fogg Museum and that things are going ahead there at a very promising rate and in most promising fashion. The details are, however, so many that it is best not to attempt to write about them today. Barbara Sessions is working extremely well in the library and has added and catalogued over 2000 new books since last July. Through Dumbarton Oaks, as I believe I wrote you at an earlier date, we have been put in a position to participate in the Antioch Excavations. […] Meta joins me in affectionate greetings to you and Mrs Berenson and Miss Mariana. [sic] Affectionately yours, Paul.

96. Sachs to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 95.11, typewritten) HARVARD UNIVERSITY ∙ FOGG MUSEUM OF ART CAMBRIDGE 38, MASSACHUSETTS November 16, 1945 Bernard Berenson, Esq. Villa I Tatti Settignano Florence, Italy Dear B.B: No doubt you have understood long before this way you have received no answers from me to your interesting letters of July twenty-third and August first.572 Before answering I wished to talk to John Walker in detail and I wished, with him, to have a conference with Lawrence Berenson573 on his return from Europe and from his visit to Vallombrosa. That meeting could at last be arranged on Monday, November twelfth, at Lawrence Berenson’s office, and, as you may have heard from John Walker, both of us came away from that meeting in a serene and happy state of mind in every detail. With this preliminary, I come now to your letters and will pass very lightly those parts of your letters which are unconnected with your testamentary intentions about your property. Let me say in passing, then, that your comments about the drawing

572 BB’s letters sent to Sachs of 23 July and 1 August 1945 are not published here but they are in Paul J. Sachs Papers (HC 3), folder 141. Harvard Art Museums Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., both handwritten. 573 Perhaps Lawrence Berenson (Boston, 1891–New York City, 1970), lawyer and cousin of Bernard Berenson.

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catalogue please me greatly. The first edition of 500 copies was immediately exhausted, and now I am happy to say that the Harvard University Press has seen fit to produce a new edition of 1000 copies.574 There is no news as yet about a new Director. I do not expect the choice to be made before the end of this academic year. I continue to believe without the slightest reservation that my earlier prophecy about the type of man who will be chosen will be realized. Yours comments about DeWald, Hartt575 etc. delight me. The representatives of the Roberts Commission576 in Europe and in Asia have done a superb and self-sacrificing job almost without exception. They have done the utmost that can be expected of human beings, and you may be sure ‘that no poisonous tongue will prevail against them’. […] We now have on exhibition at the Fogg a large part of the treasure from the Dumbarton Oaks Collection577 pending the time that the Government returns to us the little museum at Dumbarton Oaks. I am also sending you under separate cover, in view of your particular interest in Byzantine material, photographs of Thomas Whittemore’s restorations. I wanted to read the article that you speak of in Art News for September first by the head of the Italian Red Cross about his finds, but I don’t find it. I shall try to use my influence to induce some of my friends to contribute to the important undertaking you write about, and, if it meets with success, I shall let you know promptly.

574 Probably Sachs was referring to the second edition of Mongan A., and Sachs, Drawings in the Fogg Museum of Art, which was published in 2 vols in 1946. 575 Frederick Hartt (Boston, 1914–Washington, DC, 1991), art historian; during the Second World War he was an officer in the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Programm (MFAA). 576 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Hyde Park, 1882–Warm Springs, 1945) established the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas in June 1943. Associate Supreme Court Justice Owen Josephus Roberts (Filadelphia, 1875–West Vincent Township, 1955) chaired the commission and it is often referred to as the Roberts Commission. Its officers cooperated with the US Army in protecting cultural treasures, gathered information about war damage to such treasures, compiled data on cultural property appropriated by the Axis Powers, and encouraged its restitution. The commission also prepared and distributed lists and handbooks to the military’s Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) officers in the field to assist them with preparation of official lists of sites and monuments to protect. The commission was abolished in June 1946. 577 The exhibition was entitled A Selection of Ivories, Bronzes, Metalwork and Other Objects from the Dumbarton Oaks Collection, Cambridge, Mass., Fogg Art Museum, 15 November–31 December 1945.

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I’m sending you under separate cover an Advanced Copy of the report of the Harvard committee on ‘General Education in a Free Society’578 even though some one else may have sent it to you in the meantime; also a remarkable book by young Schlesinger: — ‘The Age of Jackson’.579 […] I shall now try to write to you at more or less regular intervals and in the meantime send you best wishes for Christmas and the New Year. Meta joins me in sending affectionate greetings to you and Nickie [sic]. Yours as ever, Paul.

97. BB to Sachs (Paul J. Sachs Papers (HC 3), folder 141. Harvard Art Museums Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., handwritten. The letter is transcribed in McComb, ed. a, The Selected Letters of Bernard Berenson, pp. 222–23, omitting the sentence ‘Why Barbara Sessions has been kicked out’) Febr. [uary] 24, 1946 I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Dear Paul. Yours of Nov. [ember] 16 reached me after three months & one week. I am glad to learn that yr. [your] meeting with Lawrence was so satisfactory. Also that yr. [your] catal. [ogue] of Fogg Drawings is coming out in a doubled edition. How I wish the long detailed letter I wrote on receiving this catal. [ogue] had reached you! By the way let me thank you for the Fragonard ‘Ariosto’580 as well as for many photos & pamphlets. The report of the Harvard Committee on ‘General Education in a Free Society’ has not reached me, nor Schlesinger’s ‘Age of Jackson’ a book that would interest me greatly. I read American history with avidity I have not received Whittemore’s photos of his restorations. And may I beg you most fervidly for photographs of all the Dumbarton Oaks exhibits that you are now holding at the Fogg. My very special interest of the moment comprises every European artifact done between 300 and 1300 ad I am engaged on a huge work to be called Decline & Recovery in the Figure Arts.

578 General Education in a Free Society: Report of the Harvard Committee published in 1945. 579 Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Jackson published in 1945. The above-quoted sentence from ‘also’ to ‘Jackson’ is handwritten. 580 [ Jean-Honoré] Fragonard Drawings for Ariosto.

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The appeal of the Director of the Ital. [ian] Red Cross appeared in a December number of the Art News.581 I shall be deeply grateful for any contributions you can induce your friends to make. I have mentioned Dumbarton Oaks, & it reminds me to ask you to let me know what is going on there. Why Barbara Sessions has been kicked out, & what provision has been made for her. I have reason to believe that she started the library & photo collections on lines which she has learned to follow while working for me. I confess to no little alarm. If Dumbarton Oaks instead of remaining a Harvard Institution is to become a Princeton one, & instead of pursuing art studies in losing itself in the dismal desert of Byzantine theology, I must then make provision in my will that nothing similar happens here. Ohne Feindschaft582 but with much concern. My best to you & Meta for this & many future years Affectionately B.B.

98. BB to Sachs (Paul J. Sachs Papers (HC 3), folder 141. Harvard Art Museums Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., handwritten) March 14, 1946. I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Dear Paul. Thanks for Schlesingers ‘Jackson’, & the Harvard book on education.583 The other day I had a letter fr. [om] Robert Bliss in wh. [ich] he made a statement that surprised me. It was that Dumbarton Oaks ‘was going on its own steam’, no more Princeton than Harvard. Have I then been mistaken all long in believing it to be as much a Harvard institution as I mean I Tatti to be?

581 Berenson was referring to an article by Umberto Zanotti-Bianco, the then head of the Italian Red Cross entitled ‘The Heraeum Find. Masterpieces of Archaic Greek Sculpture Uncovered in the Wilderness Near Paestum Disclose a Sanctuary of the Ancient Peoples of Magna Graecia’ with ‘Berenson’s Plea to Preserve these Treasures’, Art News (15–31 December 1945), pp. 11–12; 28. 582 ‘Without hostility’. 583 The two volumes are now respectively in Biblioteca Berenson House Library and in Biblioteca Berenson.

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Of course if it is an autonomous affair, I must apologize for writing as I did in my last on the assumption that Harvard was responsible for what went on at Dumbarton Oaks. Now I hear to my relief that a perch has been found for Barbara Sessions. I still feel sore about the way she was kicked out of Dumbarton Oaks. I feel too troubled to put in black & white all my anxieties about the future of I Tatti. I’d rather leave it to the Italians than have it become an annex to Princeton index, statistics & iconography. I should wish all students welcome but only Harvard men, Harvard professors or fellows, to run the place. Yours B.B. P.S. Do not think I have anything personal against this or that Princeton man. I think the world of Morey, & liked Dewald immensely.

99. Sachs to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 95.11, typewritten. A copy of this letter is in Paul J. Sachs Papers (HC 3), folder 141. Harvard Art Museums Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.) HARVARD UNIVERSITY ∙ FOGG MUSEUM OF ART CAMBRIDGE 38, MASSACHUSETTS April 22, 1946 Confidential Bernard Berenson, Esq. Villa I Tatti Settignano Florence, Italy Dear BB: During a rather prolonged absence from town which took me to Washington and New York your two letters arrived, and the one dated February 24th (in answer to my letter of last November 16th) was acknowledged by my secretary during my absence. I shall now try to send you a reply, and perhaps the best way to do this is to take up the points you stress in your letter of February 24th, and then the additional comments in your letter of March 14th. First of all let me say that I am glad the Fragonard Ariosto arrived safely as well as the many photographs and pamphlets that I sent to you. I trust that by this time the report of the Harvard Committee on ‘General Education in a Free Society’ has also arrived as well as young Schlesinger’s ‘Age of Jackson’. You will be glad to hear, by the way, that he has just been appointed a full professor. I trust that by this time, also, the

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Whittemore photographs584 have come into your hands, and I am this day sending you photographs of the Dumbarton Oaks exhibition of objects held this winter at the Fogg Museum. If you desire individual photographs of each object, I shall see that they are sent forward to you as soon as available. I have asked the photographer at Dumbarton Oaks to attend to this. I note your comments about your huge work entitled ‘Decline and Recovery in the Figure Arts’ and hope that this important book progresses to your satisfaction. x I don’t know from whom you have your information about the Barbara Sessions situation. In any case, the words ‘kicked out’ do not seem to me justified. I shall write about this matter in due course in a separate letter and tell you then ‘what provision has been made for her’. I am not doing this today because we are in ‘mid-stream’ in working out a solution. I shall only say now that you are quite right in your belief that she started the library and photograph collections on lines which she had learned to follow while working for you, and we appreciate deeply all that she has done along these lines. You go on to say that ‘if Dumbarton Oaks instead of remaining a Harvard institution is to become a Princeton one, and instead of pursuing art studies is losing itself in the dismal deserts of Byzantine theology, I must then make provision in my will that nothing similar happens at I Tatti’, and you conclude your comments with the words ‘Ohne Feindschaft but with much concern’. Then in your letter of March 15th585 you refer to a recent letter from Robert Bliss in which he made a statement that you say surprises you, namely: — That Dumbarton Oaks was ‘going on its own steam’ — no more Princeton than Harvard. I can see nothing in Bob Bliss’s statement to cause you anything but satisfaction, since the facts are that Dumbarton Oaks is completely and absolutely a ‘Harvard institution’ just as you mean I Tatti to be. It is not only completely a Harvard institution, but Harvard is responsible for all that goes on at Dumbarton Oaks, just as Harvard will be responsible some day for all that goes on at I Tatti. However, students are welcome at Dumbarton Oaks no matter where they come from; and students some day will be welcome at I Tatti no matter where they come from; and only Harvard men, Harvard Professors and Harvard Fellows586 will run I Tatti as now they run Dumbarton Oaks.

584 Referring to Whittemore’s photographs, there is a note by Berenson in Sachs’s letter which reads as follows: ‘not received yet’. 585 Sachs was wrong, BB’s letter is dated 14 March 1946 and is published here, no. 98. 586 Referring to Harvard Professors and Harvard Fellows, there is a note by Berenson in Sachs’s letter which reads as follows: ‘What about Friend?’ Perhaps Berenson was referring to Albert Mathias Friend, Jr.?

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Professors and Fellows are not ‘born’ Harvard men. They come from many places and many parts of the world, as you know, and once ‘called’ they are Harvard men. That accounts for the strength of the Harvard faculty in all its branches and for the international reputation that Harvard enjoys. As you are outspoken, I reply in the same vein. I shall use in part statements that I made on April seventh for the University News Office in my capacity as Chairman of the Dumbarton Oaks Administrative Committee. ‘The post-war coming of age of Washington’s famed Dumbarton Oaks as a Harvard University Research Institute is signalized by eight important new appointments to the Harvard faculty and to the Dumbarton Oaks staff ’. Appointments are evidence of expansion of activities necessarily restricted by the war. Studies of ancient cultures at Harvard, particularly the Byzantine, will be greatly enhanced through these new appointments at what is officially known as the ‘Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection’, an integral part of Harvard University and given to Harvard in 1940 by Mr and Mrs Robert Woods Bliss. The new appointments (to take effect July 1, 1946) are as follows: Dr Sirarpie Der Nersessian,587 resigned her life appointment at Wellesley College (where she was also Chairman of the Fine Arts Department) to accept a life appointment as a Harvard Professor of Byzantine Art and Archaeology at Dumbarton Oaks of Harvard University. She is widely known as one of the most distinguished of Byzantine scholars in the field of art and archaeology in the United States and as an investigator and teacher. Professor Carl H. Kraeling588 of Yale University has been appointed Henri Focillon Scholar in Charge of Research, for one year. (Note: — This is a trial appointment on both sides, and during this year we shall see what, if anything, we propose to do for a long-range future). Professor Kraeling is an outstanding New Testament scholar and has long been associated with Professor Rostovtzeff589 of Yale University, particularly in the significant work of excavation and publication at Dura Europa.590 Professor Alexander A. Vasilev,591 formerly of the University of Wisconsin, has been made a Senior Scholar at Dumbarton Oaks of Harvard University for one year.

587 Sirarpie Véronique’ Der Nersessian (Istanbul, 1896–Paris, 1989). 588 Carl Hermann Kraeling (Brooklyn, 1897–New Haven, 1966). 589 Mikhail Ivanovich Rostovcev (Rostovtzeff or Rostovzeff), (Zhitomir, Ukraine, 1870–New Haven, 1952), Professor of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology at Yale. 590 Dura Europos, a ruined Hellenistic-Roman walled city built on a cliff 90 metres above the Euphrates river. In the archaeological site of Dura Europos excavations were conducted between the 1920s and 1930s sponsored by Yale University and the French Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres of which many volumes were published from 1929 until the early 1950s. See Brody and Hoffman, eds, Dura-Europos. Crossroads of Antiquity, exhibition catalogue. 591 Vasil’ev Aleksandr Aleksandrovich (Saint Petersburg, Russia, 1867–Washington, DC, 1953), Byzantine historian.

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(Note: — On account of his age we do not wish to appoint him for more than one year at a time. His knowledge of Byzantine history is of immense value to us). Dr Milton V. Anastos592 of Harvard University has been made a Harvard Assistant Professor of Byzantine Theology for five years. (Note: — He is a learned man of unusual capacity and his contributions at Dumbarton Oaks are much needed). Dr Glanville Downey593 of Yale University has been appointed a Harvard Assistant Professor of Byzantine Literature for five years. (Note: — Our Byzantine art historians need his invaluable assistance in connection with texts). Dr Ernst Kitzinger,594 formerly of the British Museum, London, has been made a Harvard Assistant Professor of Byzantine Art and Archaeology for five years. (Note: — He seems to all of us an art historian of unusual breadth and capacity). Dr. Paul Underwood, an architect of Princeton University, has been appointed a Harvard Instructor of Byzantine Art and Archaeology at Dumbarton Oaks of Harvard University, in connection with architectural renderings needed by the art historians. Professor Albert M. Friend, Jr., of Princeton University, will replace me as Chairman of the Board of Scholars and as Chairman of the Publication Committee on July 1, 1946, and chiefly because, now that we are going full steam ahead, I realized that I have, of course, not the necessary professional competence to be Chairman of these two important Boards. I accepted that responsibility only during the formative years, in war time, I shall continue as Chairman of the Administration Committee, however, which has the overall responsibility for the conduct and development of Dumbarton Oaks — directly responsible to the Trustees who are identical with the Harvard Corporation. Other members of this Administrative Committee are Dean Paul H. Buck, Provost of Harvard University, Dr Edward W. Forbes, Director Emeritus of the Fogg Museum of Art, and Overseer of Harvard University; Robert W. Bliss, formerly Overseer of Harvard University; and John S. Thacher, Acting Director of Dumbarton Oaks, in Residence. Other members of the Board of Scholars are Professors George H. Chase595 (Emeritus); Robert P. Blake; John H. Finley;596 George La Piana;597 Sirarpie Der Nersessian;

592 593 594 595

Milton Vasil Anastos (New York City, 1909–Los Angeles, 1997). Robert Emory Granville Downey (Baltimore, 1908–Sacramento, 1991). Ernst Kitzinger (Munich, 1912–Poughkeepsie, 2003). George Henry Chase (Lynn, 1874–Cambridge, Mass., 1952), Professor of Archaeology at Harvard. 596 John Huston Finley, Jr. (New York City, 1904–Exeter, New Hampshire, 1995), Professor of Greek Literature at Harvard. 597 Giorgio La Piana (Palermo, 1879–South Natick, 1971), Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Harvard.

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Jean-Joseph Seznec;598 and Dean Buck and Paul Sachs all of Harvard University; also Professor C. R. Morey (Emeritus) of Princeton University; Professor M. Rostovtzeff of Yale University; Professor A. A. Vasiliev (Emeritus, University of Wisconsin). Permit me to point out that it would, in my opinion, be difficult for Harvard University to get a more distinguished or competent group of scholars to direct the destiny of Harvard’s Research Institute at Dumbarton Oaks. That we need scholars other than out and out fine arts scholars seems to me almost self-evident, when you remember that at Dumbarton Oaks the scholars have embarked upon a significant program of publication — nothing less than the History of Byzantine Civilization. They work in a Research Institute of rare beauty where all the Humanities may be studied, in mutual relation, with reference to a continuing culture. Now that the program of scholarship has been reinforced by permanent appointments, Research will be more comprehensive than ever before. Dumbarton Oaks, even in war time, has made a good start in the kind of cooperative research by which one humanity fertilizes another. In addition to the precious objects given to Harvard University for research and exhibition purposes, the Library now numbers more than 15,000 volumes. Our collections have grown steadily since 1940, thus helping to make Harvard’s Research Institute at Dumbarton Oaks one of the few centres of scholarship in the world which could undertake the program now set up as its goal. […] In my original talks with Robert and Mildred Bliss years go, we spoke of the subject of a ‘History of Byzantine Civilization’. In the past year in connection with the program of publication, the Board of Scholars raised the subject of a History of Byzantine Civilization once again. In short, the idea had been thought of for a long time as fundamental for our purposes, and we see in it the attainable goal for a comprehensive program of research. It is sufficiently comprehensive involving as it does all fields of the East Christian Humanities. To widen the base further by the inclusion of other periods and cultures or subjects would, it seems to us, dissipate the enterprise by losing both focus and limits. In Washington the Library situation would hardly admit of such an expansion. On the other hand, the earlier program of research at Dumbarton Oaks which eventuated in the formation of the Research Archives and Fontes, while excellent in itself, was not sufficiently creative in our estimation to attract or hold for any length of time more able scholars. The History of Byzantine Civilization seems to all of us a significant and worthy goal. ‘This peculiar Greek and Christian Civilization exhibits in a sharp and arresting manner those classical and religious values which are at the root of our civilization and from which now the world is, to its own confusion, sadly adrift. In a certain sense

598 Jean Joseph Seznec (Morlaix, 1905–Chipping Norton, 1983), art historian and scholar of French literature, taught in the Department of Romance Languages and Literature at Harvard.

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Byzantium is still today the palladium of the humanities as it was throughout the Middle Ages. It is not lacking in significance to exhibit this powerfully conservative and fundamental and inclusive civilization in an accurate picture to the world of our times’. In the learned world, Harvard’s Research Institute at Dumbarton Oaks, in spite of the handicap of war, already holds a reputation as the center for Byzantine studies in this country, and the hope has been expressed outside that it will, in the course of time, publish such a History as outlined above. Today it is the only institution in the world that could undertake such a thing. The ultimate publication of the History is the reason for and the coordination of the many specific studies and monographs in art, archaeology, etc. which must be made. With the History as the goal (although it takes fifty years) the studies ought not to dissipate themselves in trivialities nor be done in the isolation that stultifies the specialist. We have already made a good start in that kind of cooperative research by which one humanity fertilizes another. […] We are fully aware that there are many details that need further study and that need to be worked out, but we would have you and the other friends remember that Harvard University fell heir to Dumbarton Oaks in war time and that further patience may be necessary. I hope that you will be patient and that this inordinately long letter has served to re-assure you. I cannot, of course, take the time to write at this lengh always. I have done so on this occasion because your letter was disturbing to me and because I thought that you of all men deserved to have me put it all as clearly as possible in written form and in confidence. --------------*--------------Let me end on a more personal note. From the point of view of health we have had a difficult winter at Shady Hill.599 Meta had to go to the hospital for some six weeks with a painful attack of arthritis and one of our daughters has been far from well. However, Meta is ever so much better, and is up and out and about, and with the coming of spring and summer I think these ailments will soon be forgotten. Meta joins me in sending our kindest greetings to you and Nikie. [sic] As always affectionately, Paul.

100. BB to Sachs (BBP, Correspondence, folder 95.13, handwritten. This is a draft of the letter sent to Sachs; in the typewritten final version dated 599 The Shady Hill, an historic area in Cambridge, Mass.

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May 9, 1946 in Paul J. Sachs Papers (HC 3), folder 141. Harvard Art Museums Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., there are some differences compared to the draft. The typewritten version is published from ‘Dear Paul’ up to ‘Recovery’ and from ‘Forgive me’ up to ‘B.B.’ in McComb, ed. a, The Selected Letters of Bernard Berenson, pp. 226–27) Settignano. Florence. May 8, 1946. Dear Paul, Yr. [Your] epistle dated Apr. [il] 12600 reached me two days ago. I have studied it, & am glad that my snarling growl has called forth a clear statement of what ‘Dumbarton Oaks’ is up to. I am deeply grateful [to you] for having taken such trouble & patience and time to compose it. Yes, I have received the books you kindly sent, but not the Whittemore photos. By the way the one thing Dumbarton Oaks could do to the sister of institution at I Tatti, would be to send all its publications and photos of all its works of art. Thus far I have only photos of the 4th cent. [ury] pyxis.-601 I am truly sorry to learn that none of you have been well for months past, & that Meta has been seriously ill. I fervently hope she at last is on the way to complete recovery. You find my expression ‘kicked out’ too strong for the way Barbara Sessions has been treated. Shall we say she has been pushed out the way Abraham did with Hagar. I am sure you & the Blisses & other friends will find her a loaf of bread & a bottle of water to take along in the wilderness. Wilderness it is to be deprived of a job that has became one’s life. Barbara started the photo-collection, started the library, & should have been, should be kept on no matter how epileptic she may be. There are humane & tactful ways of dealing with such cases without killing the soul of the victim. She should be re-instated at Dumbarton Oaks, or that institution will start with a stigma. Forgive me for making you the scape-goat, the souffre-douleur of my feeling about the way art-studies are going at home! With affectionate greetings to all of you Devotedly yours B.B.

600 Actually the reference is to Sachs’s letter of 22 April 1946. 601 Perhaps Berenson was referring to the pyx with Moses Receiving the Law and Daniel in the Lions’ Den, Early Byzantine, end of the fifth-sixth century in Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection, Washington, DC (inv. no. BZ.1936.22, ivory and polychromy, 8,4 x 11,5 cm). The photo of the pyx is in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 18, folder 4.

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101. Stanley Casson to BB (BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 3, folder Architecture/Sculpture: Istanbul 4, typewritten) PRESERVATION OF A CHURCH IN CONSTANTINOPLE In the centre of Stamboul stands a mosque, now in ruins, known as Phenere Isa Mesjedi. It was gutted in the great Stamboul fire of 1916 when many acres of this region were destroyed. It now stands empty and ruinous without windows or doors and open to the winds and rain. The interior is a stable for goats and mules. This mosque is in reality the old Byzantine Church of the Theotokos Panachrantos, (The Immaculate Virgin). It was converted into a mosque in 1496. The Turkish plaster which covers its crumbling walls hides frescoes (which are partly visible in places) and perhaps mosaics. The church itself is a rare type, being in effect a double church. Its date is uncertain but it was probably built in the tenth century. It was attached to a monastery in which was buried the wife of Michael Palaeologus, as well as the Emperor Andronic II.602 During the Latin occupation after 1204 the Crusaders used the church both for services and for burials. The authorities of the Museum at Stamboul ask me if the sum of £ 170 can be raised for the preservation of this church and for the cleaning of the walls. It is most probable that during this process of restoration frescoes and mosaics will be revealed. Certainly many finely carved cornices and windows can easily be cleared of the plaster which partly hides them. I examined the church in detail in 1928 and can think of no more deserving object for restoration and preservation in Constantinople. The sum asked for is small and I already have £50 promised. May I ask you to let me have a card promising a subscription to this humble fund so that later I can collect the sum required and forward it to the museum. All who subscribe will ultimately receive a

602 Andronicus II Palaeologus (1258–1332). Casson was referring to the Monastery of Lips in Istanbul consisting of two adjoined churches. During the Ottoman Era, it became a mosque known as Fenari İsa Mosque. The north Church, dedicated to the Theotokos Panachrantos (the Immaculate Mother of God), was constructed in 907 under the auspices of the aristocratic and military official Constantine Lips (lived between the ninth and tenth centuries) while the south Church, dedicated to Hagios Ioannes Prodromos (St John the Forerunner), was built in the late thirteenth century by Empress Theodora Palaiologina (c. 1240–1303), wife of Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus (1224 or 1225–1282). On the monastic complex of Constantine Lips, see Bevilacqua, Arte e aristocrazia a Bisanzio, pp. 71–96.

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copy of the illustrated publication which will be issued after this work of preservation is completed.603 Stanley Casson. New College, Oxford. January 22nd 1929.

102. Theodore Macridy to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 81.23, handwritten) Consple [Constantinople] le 26 Décembre 1929 Cher Monsieur Berenson vous vous rappelez sans doute de votre visite, l’an dernier à la mosquée brûlée de Fenari Issa (église de Panachrantos) où il y avait le cadavre en décomposition d’un cheval! Eh bien si vous renouvelez aujourd’hui votre visite, vous trouverez au lieu d’immondices deux églises byzantines bien propres avec toute la décoration de marbre bien apparente, d’une technique et d’un art incomparables. Grâce à un argent qui m’a été donné de l’Angleterre, par le canal de mon ami Stanley Casson, j’ai pu entreprendre et achever presque ce travail que j’avais envie d’exécuter. Les résultats obtenus ont été exceptionnels et feront une révolution dans l’art byzantin. Pour que vous puissiez en avoir une idée, je vous envoie sous ce pli l’icone de S.te [Sainte] Eudocie604 (Marbre blanc incrusté de mosaïque H. 0.66 × 0.28) Elle est superbe et unique dans son genre Comme je sais qu’une oeuvre d’art, loin de vous laisser insensible, vous intéressera très vivement je jugeai convenable de vous en envoyer une photo comme cadeau du jour de l’an.

603 The publication came out two years later: Casson, ‘Great Discoveries in Byzantine Art and Architecture. Treasures Found in the Double church of St Mary Panachrantos at Constantinople’, with photographs courtesy of Macridy Bey. 604 Macridy was referring to the panel with the image of Saint Eudokia, early tenth century from the Church of the Theotokos of the Monastery of Constantine Lips, now in Istanbul, Archaeological Museum (inv. no. 4309). The photo of the icon, published here (Fig. 32a), is in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 11, folder Mosaics: Istanbul 1. On the back of the photo is a handwritten note by Berenson (Fig. 32b): ‘Constantinople Panachrantos Mosaic on white marble 66 × 28 cm. “toutes les incrustations sont en pierre de couleur sauf quelques losanges en verre décorant la jupe 10–11 cent.” Makridi’.

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Naturellement elle est destinée strictement pour vous avec prière de ne pas [sic] la communiquer à personne. Toutes les incrustations sont en pierres de couleurs sauf quelques losanges en verre décorant la jupe D’après l’écriture et les preuves topographiques c’est une oeuvre du 10e 11e siècle dans tous les cas avant l’époque des Comnènes. Je serai très enchanté si vous voudriez bien me dire par quelques lignes votre opinion et si vous connaissez en Italie des oeuvres se rapprochant. Je trouvai aussi une grande archivolte avec les bustes des apôtres en très haut relief, des statuettes de marbre qui semblent comme des oeuvres du II et IIIe siècle et une foule d’ornements nouveaux et très fins.605 Mais je crois que cette fouille clôturera mon activité en Turquie car je compte accepter la direction du Musée Benaki à Athènes qui vient de m’être offerte. Je ne sais pas si vous connaissez Mr [Monsieur] Benaki606 et ses magnifiques collections consistant en étoffes anciennes, faïences arabes persanes turques, etc. et 350 pièces porcel.607 chinoises envoyées par Mr [Monsieur] Eumorphopoulos608 de Londres. Dans tous les cas je vous demande dès à présent la permission de m’adresser à vos lumières, le cas échéant, au cours de classification de ces collections. Mon directeur609 ne sait pas encore rien sur mes futurs projets et je suis sûr qu’il avalera de travers quand je lui demanderai mon congé. Mais à vous dire vrai j’ai assez d’un pays où on fait plus de cas de la religion que de la science je trouvai le Musée avant 38 ans dans un état presque embryonnaire et je l’ai fait ce qu’il est aujourd’hui sans aucune récompense ni matérielle ni morale et sans un aide. En vous souhaitant une bonne et heureuse année je vous prie de bien vouloir présenter mes respectueux hommages à M.me [Madame] Berenson et de me croire comme votre dévoué ami. TMacri[dy]

103. Macridy to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 81.23, handwritten) Constantinople le 25 Janvier 1930

605 The pieces are now in Istanbul, Archaeological Museum. In this regard see Macridy, ‘The Monastery of Lips and the Burials of the Palaeologi’, trans. by Mango. 606 Antonis Benakis, see Biographical Profile. 607 Perhaps ‘porcelain’. 608 George Aristides Eumorfopoulos (Liverpool, 1863–London, 1939), art collector. 609 Halil Bey.

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Cher Monsieur BerensonJe vous remercie de votre bonne lettre610 et des renseignements que vous me donnez au sujet de l’icone d’Eudocia J’ai envoyé déjà à Mr [Monsieur] Casson une aquarelle en grandeur naturelle faite par un excellent artiste de notre ville, si vous passez à Londres vous pouvez la voir chez Mr [Monsieur] Eumorphopoulos611 que vous devez naturellement connaître. Non moins intéressants sont les âpotres de la grande archivolte qui ont une grandeur mi naturelle. J’en ai 5 que j’ai pu disposer à leur places respectives sur l’archivolte que je reconstituai Il ya aussi des ornements qui jusqu’à présent étaient classés dans le groume612 Seldjouk musulman mais qui sont byzantins. Enfin les dernières découvertes dans ces églises (dont je possède le typicon publié par Mr [Monsieur] Delehaye)613 seront capables d’amener une révolution dans nos connaissances de l’art byzantin des derniers siècles. Je ne sais pas encore les intentions de Casson (qui garde un silence prolongé depuis un mois) sur la mode de la publication qui à mon avis ne doit pas être trop longtemps prolongée. Je suis d’avis qu’il faudra la faire dans un volume à part. Vous trouverez dans cette lettre une photo d’une autre icone Naturellement vous éprouvez une déception. C’est un objet qui m’appartient. L’icone est en bois sculpté et peint. Les couleurs sont tranquilles et d’une heureuse combinaison au dessous est peinte aussi la date 1740.614 Un peintre réparateur d’anciens tableaux qui a restauré les portraits des Sultans exposés au Vieux Sérail que vous avez vu il y a deux ans,615 m’a dit que l’icone est l’oeuvre d’un maitre et qu’elle peut valoir aujourd’hui dans le 2000–2500 R.M. [Reichsmark] Certainement il s’agit d’une oeuvre Italienne que je suis loin de connaître Voulez [-] vous avoir la bonté

610 BB’s letter was not found. 611 Probably the watercolour to which Macridy was referring to must be identified with the one published in ‘A Wholly New Technique in Byzantine Art’, courtesy of Stanley Casson and Macridy Bey. Unfortunately the signature on the watercolour is illegible as well as its current location. A copy of the page of The Illustrated London News is in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 11, folder Mosaics: Istanbul 1. 612 Most probably the word is ‘grume’ which Macridy wrote with the letter ‘o’ perhaps by mistake or using archaic spelling. 613 See Delehaye, ‘Le typicon du monastère de Lips à Constantinople’. 614 The photo of the icon depicting the Virgin and Child published here (Fig. 33) is in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 8, folder Icons: Whereabouts Unknown 2. On the back of the photo is a handwritten note probably by Nicky Mariano: ‘Sent by Macridi from Constantinople Spring 1930’. The icon does not belong to any member of the Macridy family. 615 It is not possible to identify the painter mentioned in the letter.

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de me dire votre opinion tout en voulant bien m’excuser. Aussitôt que je pourrai je vous enverrai des photos d’autre pièces découvertes dans le Monastère de Lips et l’église de Theodora.616 Mes respectueux hommages à M.me [Madame] Berenson et croyez [-] moi toujours comme votre tout dévoué TMacridy

104. BB to Macridy (BBP, Correspondence, folder 81.24, typewritten) I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE 27 Mars 1930. Cher Monsieur Macridy, J’ai bien reçu votre aimable lettre du 25 Janvier quoique d’après le retard de ma réponse vous auriez pû en douter. J’ai fait comme M. [onsieur] Casson, c’est à dire que j’ai gardé un silence absolu par force majeure étant tellement occupé à la terminaison d’un ouvrage fort long617 et je vous prie de vouloir m’excuser. Tout en n’écrivant pas, j’ai pourtant pensé à ce que vous me dites au sujet de l’Art Byzantin c’est un sujet qui me passionne et je serai heureux si vous m’enverrez encore des photographies de vos découvertes. Quant à l’Icone dont j’ai reçu la reproduction avec votre lettre je ne doute pas qu’elle soit de l’époque que vous me nommez mais je ne la retiens pas pour l’oeuvre d’un artiste italien. Pour tant qu’on puisse juger d’après la photographie elle serait pour moi l’ouvrage d’un Grec qui s’est inspiré à l’art italien mais je ne pourrai pas vous donner un avis absolu puisque la photographie ne rend pas l’objet très clairement. Veuillez agréer cher Monsieur mes meilleurs vœux pour vos recherches si intéressantes dont j’espère bien que vous aurez la bonté de me tenir au courant. Ma femme s’unit à moi pour vous envoyer nos salutations les plus sincères. Bien à vous

105. BB to Louis Gillet (BBP, Correspondence, 57 Box, folder 42, typewritten draft)

616 The photos are not present in BBF. 617 Berenson was probably revising his two-volume Drawings of the Florentine Painters, see n. 149.

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June, 1, 1938. On board the ‘Lamartine’618 at Naples tomorrow My dear Friend, We took this ship at Smyrna and it is slowly proceding to Italy. We stopped a day at Constantinople, and revisited Sta. Sophia. I write to urge you to go and see and tell the world what you think. It will be what every cultivated person must think. This noblest temple in Christiandom, this house of prayer and uplifting of the soul to God under no matter what appellation, this space which has been filled with the audible yearnings of millions of hearts, has been reduced to a garish, shabby, dreary, empty ‘Muze’,619 which looks as cheerful as a store-house emptied of wares, and as dreary as an opera house where nothing has been given for years. One cannot believe that reduced to this utterly, and literally God-forsaken state it will interest the Turkish regime of today to go to the enormous expence of its upkeep. In not many years its fragile fabric, now on the way to being 1500 years old, will fall to pieces. Perhaps that is what the present Turkish regime wants, but surely it would be an irreparable loss to us who still live and breathe with the organs perfected by Greece and Judea. You should be sent there and write diplomatically appreciative articles on Turkish conditions, and an appeal to Ateturk620 to save Sta. Sophia by restoring it to worship, whether of ‘Mahound’ or Christ. If Barrès were alive one might invite him to write on ‘la grande pitié de Sta. Sophie’.621 You alone remain to do it. And Constantinople is such a fascinating place. I cannot begin to tell you what a wonderful time we had in Lydia and Caria and their Greek cities. We camped sleeping under tents, and living under the most patriarchal Abrahamic conditions. Fifteen and more days with scarcely one sight meeting our eyes that Amurabi or Sesostris might not have seen. We saw places with wonderful names that have been haunting my fancy since boyhood: — Cyme, Focea, Pergamon, Sardès, Laodicea, Colossae, Hierapolis, Stratonicea, Mylasa, Helcarnassus, Miletus, Priena, and Ephesus. Such grand ruins, beggaring for splendour everything one sees in Italy. To an inhabitant of

618 Steamship Lamartine was part of the Compagnie de Navigation Denis Frères. 619 Certainly from the Turkish ‘Müze’ (Museum); see Bernard Berenson, Thomas Whittemore, and San Marco in Venice, n. 18. 620 Kemal Atatürk (Thessaloniki, 1880–Istanbul, 1938), first president of the Republic of Turkey from 1923 to 1938. 621 The use of the term ‘Mahound’ for Muhammad, which has a derogatory tone, should be noted. The reference to Barrès alludes to Maurice Barrès’s book La grande pitié des églises de France.

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those towns, Ephesus in particular, Rome in its greatest moment, must have looked small and provincial in scale and lay out. I hope to have a glimpse of our Vesuvian nymph622 on landing tomorrow. Send me anything you have written about your visit to Italy during the ‘Furero’s triumph’.623 Affectionate greetings B.B.

106. Gillet to BB (BBP, Correspondence, 57 Box, folder 42, handwritten) INSTITUT DE FRANCE MUSÉE JACQUEMART-ANDRÉ ABBAYE DE CHAALIS624 CHAALIS ERMENONVILLE (OISE) TEL. N° 1 24 août 38 Cher Ami, Le Ciel m’est témoin que si vous aviez reçu toutes les lettres que je vous adresse, vous auriez des volumes de moi: il est vrai que je ne vous les adresse qu’en pensée. Que de fois je me dis dans la journée: ‘il faut que j’écrive à BB!’ Il faudra trouver un système de transmission plus rapide que l’écriture.

622 The reference to the ‘Vesuvian nymph’ is unknown but perhaps Berenson was alluding to a Louis Gillet sentence reported in a letter to BB of 22 April 1938 which reads as follows: ‘Je ne puis arracher un mot à la plus silencieuse des Nymphes. Serait-elle devenue marmotte? Peut-être, en revenant de Sicile, passerai-je sur la pointe des pieds auprès de la maison pour savoir si elle dort. Chut! Ne reveillons pas la Quiete!’. Gillet’s letter is not published here but it is in BBP, Correspondence, Box 57, folder 42, handwritten. 623 As for ‘Furero’s Triumph’, obviously BB was referring to Adolf Hitler’s visit to Rome in May 1938. Louis Gillet wrote an article in this regard: Gillet, ‘Hitler a Rome: choses vues’. 624 In 1902 Nélie Jacquemart (Paris, 1841–1912), widow of the great collector Édouard André, bought the Castle of Chaalis, its abbey, and its park in Fontaine-Chaalis near Ermenonville dans l’Oise north of Paris. She proceeded to modernize the castle and made it her museum and where she installed her collections. In 1912 she left her goods to the Institut de France. See Assante Di Panzillo, ‘Louis Gillet, Bernard Berenson et la collection des peintures’, pp. 51–52, who erroneously reports Chaalis as the place of Nélie Jacquemart’s death.

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Blake625 le possédait, dit-on. Il rêvait un poème ou seulement le prononçait: et aussitôt, il croyait le poème publié. Le texte était recueilli dans les airs par les anges. Je me suis toujours dit que nous ne savons plus assez nous servir des anges. C’est une perte. Le monde antique était plein de messagers. Tous les dieux avaient leur courriers, leurs signaux, leur langage; il y avait les signes, les arcs-en-ciel, les songes. Je vous dis que notre civilisation moderne est bien incomplète. Si nous avions encore ces moyens de communication qui paraissaient si naturels à Blake, vous ne manqueriez pas de mes nouvelles; les oreilles vous tinteraient tout le temps; vous n’entendriez que moi. Je crois que je ne vous ai pas écrit cher ami, depuis notre petit voyage en Italie. Je dis notre, parce que j’étais deux. Ma femme, qui était en Grèce avec ses filles,626 est venue me rejoindre à Naples; nous avons fait un tour en Sicile, et sommes remontés à Rome chez nos cousins Ibert.627 Depuis, j’ai envoyé mon dernier fils passer quinze jours chez Carafino;628 c’est un bon latiniste, il fait ses études en Sorbonne et j’ai jugé que la Mostra Augustea629 valait

625 William Blake (London, 1757–1827). 626 Suzanne Gillet and her children: Simone-Thérèse (Paris, 1903–Assas, 1995), LouiseDominique (1905–1984), François, Guillaume (Fontaine-Chaalis, 1912–Paris, 1987), JeanMichel et Jérôme (the latter probably the youngest). 627 Perhaps Jacques François Antoine Ibert (Paris, 1890–1962), composer and director of the Académie de France at the Villa Medici in Rome from 1937 to 1962 (except the war years), and his wife Rosette Veber (1893–1987), sculptress and daughter of impressionist painter Jean Veber. 628 Unknown. 629 The Mostra Augustea della Romanità was an archaeological exhibition which took place in the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome from 23 September 1937 to 23 September 1938 (extended to 6 November 1938) under the direction of Giulio Quirino Giglioli (Rome, 1886–1956) on behalf of Benito Mussolini (Dovia di Predappio, 1883–Giulino di Mezzegra, 1945), to celebrate the bimillenary of the birth of the Emperor Augustus Caesar. The exhibition was originally conceived as a scientific enterprise aimed at the acquisition of the documentation relating to Roman civilization and the establishment of a great photographic archive, thus enriching the already existing nucleus of the Museo dell’Impero Romano del Governatorato founded by Giglioli in 1929 located in the former Pantanella pasta factory at the Bocca della Verità in Rome. The preparations for the Mostra Augustea took five years. For economic and transport reasons casts were used instead of originals of sculptures, inscriptions and architectural pieces, as well as a great number of photographic enlargements, etc. Occasions such as this exhibition were used to celebrate and self-represent the regime, provided the opportunity to create great stage sets. There are four versions of the catalogue, cited here is the fourth definitive edition in two volumes published in [1938]: Mostra Augustea della Romanità. See Rinaldi, ‘La Mostra Augustea della Romanità (1937–1938)’. The literature on the exhibition is vast, see: Liberati, ‘La Mostra Augustea della Romanità’, with bibliography.

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la peine d’être vue. C’est un bon dictionnaire, un bon manuel d’antiquités, d’une pédagogie un peu tendancieuse, mais remarquable comme exposé. Mon garçon est revenu de là enchanté. Depuis ce moment je n’ai guère bougé, si ce n’est pour de courts déplacements, à Reims, à Grenoble, à Aix-en-Provence. Voilà ma vie. Elle est fort dénuée d’événements. Je vous dirais que depuis notre retour, je suis saisi d’une immense admiration de mon pays. Je vous parle avec confiance, comme un affreux chauvin, mais c’est plus fort que moi. J’ai eu l’occasion de traverser deux ou trois fois ces grandes plaines, peu récréatives, de Champagne, de Bourgogne, d’aller d’ici, par les routes, à Provins, à Troyes, à Chaource, à Châtillon-sur-Seine. J’étais émerveillé. La beauté de ces campagnes, ce calme, cette opulence, cet équilibre, ce sérieux, ce travail tranquille et ininterrompu, la richesse de ces terres immenses, la gravité de tout cela, me remplissaient de bonheur. Moi aussi, j’aimerais écrire mes mémoires d’un touriste. Ce serait un bien joli livre à faire en 1938. Quel aplomb! Quelle force sans jactance, sans inquiétude et sans fanfaronnade! Je souriais en pensant à ceux de nos voisins qui attendent tous les matins la révolution. On ne fait pas perdre la tête si facilement à ce pays. J’ai retiré de ces visites une prodigieuse confiance. Je me disais même, en pensant aux deux années passées, que cette opération de Blum, dont on a dit tant de mal, passera sans doute dans l’avenir pour un modèle, un chef-d’œuvre historique.630 On ne peut faire avec plus de sagesse l’économie d’une guerre et d’une révolution. Nous allons voir maintenant la suite: Mon impression n’est pas mauvaise. Les élections sénatoriales, qui auront lieu dans six semaines, et qui sont surtout provinciales, rurales, donneront une majorité éclatante au gouvernement: la politique française, c’est toujours le mot de Thiers, au moment de la Commune:631 ‘Qu’est-ce-que Paris pèse contre trente millions de ruraux?’ C’est ce que les ouvriers et les faubourgs oublient toujours. Paris, politiquement, est fort peu de chose en France. C’est même, à beaucoup d’égards, le contraire de la France: heureusement, du reste, c’est son utilité, sa fonction. Mais la vérité française, ce n’est pas Paris, c’est la campagne. J’ai fait cette découverte depuis bientôt trente ans.

630 Gillet was referring to the politician and man of letters Léon Blum (Paris, 1872–Jouy-enJosas, 1950) and perhaps his social reforms. Blum became Premier as leader of the Popular Front government in 1936 which introduced some social reforms including the 40-hour work week and secured paid vacations and collective bargaining for many workers. Its most difficult problem was national defence against the growing power of the Rome-Berlin axis. The attacks against the Popular Front were numerous and in 1937 Blum resigned. On Léon Blum, see Bazy, Je suis…Léon Blum; Gaillard, Les 40 jours de Blum. Les vrais débuts du Front populaire. 631 Marie-Joseph-Louis-Adolphe Thiers (Bouc-Bel-Air, 1797–Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 1877), statesman and historian. In 1871, after the fall of the Second Empire during the war against Prussia, he became head of the executive power. The same year, his government ordered the repression of the Paris Commune (a radical, popular government that ruled Paris from 18 March to 28 May, 1871). On 31 August 1871, Thiers became the first President of the Third Republic.

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Chaque fois que j’ai des doutes, que je n’y vois pas clair, que je trouve l’opinion nerveuse, je reviens dans mes bois, et tout se remet dans l’ordre. Savez-vous que je m’occupe de Dante? Je sais les dangers du sujet, mais il y a longtemps que j’y pense et comme il faut que je fasse l’hiver prochain le cours de la Société des Conférences (c’est tout ce qu’on m’a laissé de l’héritage de mon beau-père,632 c’est-à-dire une mauvaise affaire) j’ai décidé de me risquer. Cela m’occupe fort, naturellement.633 Je pense que ce sera peut-être amusant de voir certains problèmes actuels sous l’angle du De Monarchia.634 Au fond, la politique ne change jamais. Je considère que Dante est un immense poète et un beau caractère, mais un assez pâle philosophe et un pauvre politique. Mais quel artiste! À propos, y a-t-il un bon ouvrage (depuis Villari)635 sur la Florence du XIVe siècle? Et vos Dessins florentins, cher ami, quand paraissent-ils?636 Affectueusement à vous Louis Gillet

107. BB to Wolfgang Fritz Volbach (‘NL Volbach’, handwritten) Febr. [uary] 25, 1942 I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE

632 Société des Conférences founded at the beginning of the twentieth century directed by Gillet’s father-in-law, René Doumic until 1937 and then by Gillet himself until 1943: its purpose was to organize conferences on issues of the social sciences; see Assante Di Panzillo, ‘L’Écrivain d’art de la Revue des Deux Mondes’, p. 57 and n. 6. On René Doumic, see Louis Gillet’s Biographical Profile. 633 Louis Gillet’s work on Dante was published a few years later in 1941, a copy of which was given to Berenson (now in Biblioteca Berenson House) with a dedication that reads as follows: ‘à mon cher BB. en souvenir de Florence-“Rends-moi le Pausilippe et la mer d’Italie” (G. de Nerval) affectueusement Louis Gillet. 27 mars 42 Que de fautes, hélas! Et je suis sûr qu’il y en a encore. Je me présente chargé de mes péchés. Kyrie eleison!’. See Gillet, Dante. 634 The correct title is Monarchia (and not De Monarchia, foreign to the manuscript tradition), a treatise in three volumes on a political topic, written by Dante in Latin between 1308 and 1311. See Alighieri, Monarchia, introd., trans., and notes by Sanguineti. 635 Probably Gillet was referring to the two volumes by Pasquale Villari, I primi due secoli della storia di Firenze published in Florence in 1893 and 1894. 636 Probably Gillet was referring to the second three-volume edition entitled The Drawings of the Florentine Painters, see n. 149.

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Dear Volbach. Many thanks for the interesting & instructive article on the Saviour of Sutri and His cult in Latium.637 I think I have seen the originals of all the panels you reproduce, except the very Melozzesque one at Civitavecchia.638 If a photo of this could be had I should be very happy to pay for one. I hear that you are contributing an article on art to a Catholic sort of hand-encyclopaedia.639 Please reserve me a Sonderabdruck when it is ready. I fear it will be a long time before I can send anything in return, but ultimately you shall receive whatever I still publish. Sincerely yrs. [yours] B. Berenson

108. Volbach to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 107.17, handwritten) Rom, 2.3. 42. Lieber Herr Berenson, es hat mich gefreut, daß Sie mit dem Aufsatz über den Christus von Sutri einverstanden sind. Sicher konnte ich ihn in dieser Situation nicht richtig auslassen. Ich hätte gerne auch einige an Trecentobildern zugefügt und vor allem wäre es schön, den Salvatorbildern, [die Sie besuchen, gleichzeitig die Madonnen gegenüberzustellen]. Die Fotos des Christus in Civitavecchia besitzt Prof. Silla Rosa640 (Museo del Palazzo Venezia).641

637 Volbach sent Berenson an extract of his article, now in Biblioteca Berenson, entitled ‘Il Cristo di Sutri e la venerazione del SS. Salvatore nel Lazio’ which was published in Rendiconti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia, 17 (1940–1941), pp. 97–126. On its front page it bears a dedication: ‘Mr B. Berenson mit herzlichen Grüssen F. Volbach’. Sutri (Viterbo), Church of Santa Maria Assunta, Enthroned Christ called ‘The Saviour’ (tempera on panel, gold background, gilding, 165 × 70 cm), Roman context (Roman painting), late twelfth–early thirteenth century. 638 Berenson was referring to a panel with Blessing Christ which was published by Volbach, ‘Il Cristo di Sutri e la venerazione del SS. Salvatore’, pp. 115–16 and fig. 13; p. 117 as preserved in S. Maria (location not identified) in Civitavecchia and assigned to the second half of the fourteenth century. Currently there is no news of the painting; from a recent investigation by Walter Angelelli, whom I thank, in the Soprintendenza ai Beni Storici Artistici e Demoetnoantrolopologici del Lazio, it is not present in the register. 639 Perhaps Berenson was referring to the Enciclopedia Cattolica, a work in Italian, directed by the Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il libro cattolico with headquarters in Vatican City, consisting of twelve volumes published between 1948 and 1954. 640 Silla Rosa De Angelis (Tivoli, 1876–Rome, 1951), scholar; he was Ispettore onorario per i monumenti di Tivoli, founder and first president of the Società Tiburtina di Storia e d’Arte, and promoted in Tivoli the publication of the Bollettino di Studi Storici ed Archeologici. 641 Museo di Palazzo Venezia (now Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia) in Rome.

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Leider weiss er nicht, wer sie anfertigte. Aber er schlägt vor, er wolle die Fotos hier kopieren lassen, resp. [ektive] sie Ihnen dafür zu Verfügung stellen. Heute bat ich auch den marchese Guglielmi di Vulci,642 [darum] er sich nicht in Civitavecchia nach einem Foto umsehen könnte, was er gern versprach. Leider ist das Bild in Civitavecchia eingepackt. Die katholische Encyclopädie wird nur langsam vorwärts gehen und leider nicht viel mehr, d. [as] h. [eißt] weniger bieten, wie das gute Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, wo ja Sauer643 die Kunst sehr gut bearbeitet hat. Sonst gibt es nichts Neues von hier zu berichten. Auch die Kollegen sieht man selten. Gelegentlich Sestieri, dessen Doria Catalogue644 nun in den Korrekturbögen fertig ist. Sergio Ortolani645 versprach in diesen Wochen zu kommen, aber bisher war er nicht zu sehen. Mit herzlichen Grüssen Ihr ergebener Fritz Volbach

109. Volbach to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 107.17, handwritten) Roma, 10. Juli 43. Lieber Herr Berenson, Vielen herzlichen Dank für Ihre freundlichen Zeilen.646 Wie gerne käme ich einmal wieder nach Florenz, aber in absehbarer Zeit wird es wohl mit dem Reisen nichts werden. Vielleicht, wenn ich doch in den Ferien fahren kann; aber zunächst warte ich auf die Dinge, die da kommen, um Pläne zu machen. Dachte an Saas-Fee,647 weiss aber nicht, ob es opportun ist, soweit zu reisen.

642 Benedetto Guglielmi Marquis of Vulci (1875–1944). 643 Joseph Sauer (Unzhurst, 1872–Freiburg im Breisgau, 1949), theologian, archaeologist, and art historian. 644 Volbach was referring to Ettore Sestieri and his Catalogo della Galleria Ex-Fidecommissaria Doria-Pamphilj. 645 Sergio Ortolani (Feltre, 1896–Cuneo, 1949), art historian. From 1930 he was director of the Pinacoteca del Museo Nazionale (now Museo Archeologico Nazionale) in Naples, a role he held until his death. In 1957 the Pinacoteca was moved to Capodimonte, now Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte. 646 BB’s letter was not found. 647 Saas-Fee, a village in the the Saas Valley, canton of Valais, Switzerland.

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Hier ist es angenehm, ruhig und so etwas kann man ja noch immer arbeiten. Aber meist fehlen dann die Fotos. So hatte ich mich wieder mit dem Volto Santo in S. Peter648 und der Veronica in Laon649 beschäftigt, aber mit solchen Komplizierten Dingen kann man nicht weiter. Dagegen schreibt Morey sehr vergnügt. Sein Buch über frühchristliche Kunst ist ganz ausgezeichnet.650 Sonst höre ich wenig von drüben. Leider kommen auch die Zeitschriften nicht mehr. Ich habe aber noch mal reklamiert, vor allem wegen des Art Bulletins. Sie wissen nicht, ob die ersten Hälfte der Dumbarton Oaks Papers erschienen sind? Ich hatte Barbara Sessions danach gefragt. Höre aber nichts von ihr. Allen Bekannten geht es gut, vor allem beiden Kardinälen, die noch hier sind. Mit herzlichen Grüssen Ihr ergebener Fritz Volbach

110. BB to Volbach (‘NL Volbach’, handwritten) Juli 18, 1943 I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Dear Volbach. Since Nov. [ember] 1941 I have received no printed matter of any kind from America. Nor many letters. One of the very last was written in March, & spoke of Dumbarton Oaks as deserted651 So I envy you receiving what you do. I had no idea Morey was writing on Early Xian [Christian] art. It would interest me very much to see his book. If you own it yourself, could you manage to let me have it for a few days? Only you must entrust it not to the post but to somebody who comes here & can leave it for me at the Baronessa Anrep. 18 Borgo S. Jacopo.

648 Volbach was referring to the ‘Volto Santo’ (or ‘Velo della Veronica’) which is kept in St Peter’s Basilica inside the inaccessible Loggia della Veronica. This venerated relic is in fact shown to the faithful only on the fifth Sunday of Lent with a solemn dispay in the same Loggia. 649 Laon, Notre-Dame Cathedral, Sainte Face de Laon, probably first half of the thirteenth century (tempera on panel, 44 × 40 cm). 650 Volbach was certainly referring to Morey’s, Early Christian Art published in 1942. 651 The letter to which Berenson was referring to is not present among BBP.

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I have still another favour to ask you. If you see Sestieri tell him I hear his catalogue of the Doria has appeared. If it is [on] sale let the publisher send me a copy with the bill. If not for sale I ask him to present me with a copy. Still another request. Is there in existence a corpus of late Antique whether Xian [Christian] or pagan ivories, such as Goldschm. [idt] of the Byzantine ones. What has become of Royall Tyler, & what of a 3d vol. [ume] of his magnum opus?652 With cordial greetings Yours B. Berenson

111. Volbach to BB (BBF, Correspondence, folder 107.17, typewritten) Rom, 22.8. 43[handwritten] Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, li 4 August 1943 Lieber Herr Berenson, vielen Dank für Ihre freundlichen Zeilen. Es ist merkwuerdig, dass man gar nichts aus der Dumbarton Oaks Collection höhrt. Nachdem Bliss sich zurueckgezogen [hat], ist auch Barbara Sessions verstummt. Auch Morey schreibt nichts darueber. Leider kann ich Ihnen sein Buch ueber fruehchristliche Kunst nicht senden, da es schon in der vatikanischen Bibliothek inventarisiert ist und daher nicht mehr ausgeliehen wird. Ein zweites Exemplar aber wird wohl nicht in Italien sein. Ich denke aber, dass er Ihnen bald eins zusenden wird. Sehr traurig bin ich, dass auch mit dem Katalog der Sammlung Doria nicht viel zu machen ist. Ich sagte es Ettore Sestieri gleich, aber er meinte das beste waere, Sie wuerden direkt den Fuersten einmal darüber anfragen. Er hat eine Liste gemacht, auf der Sie natuerlich auch stehen, und das schon vor einem Jahr, wie der Katalog erschien, — Aber bisher wurden die Exemplare noch nicht abgesandt. Der Katalog ist privat erschienen und soll auch nicht in den Handel kommen. Sestieri ist etwas traurig darueber, kann es aber auch nicht aendern. Ein oeuvre catalogue der spaetantiken und fruehchristlichen Elfenbeine ist noch nicht erschienen. Eine kleine Vorarbeit war mein Elfenbeinkatalog des Mainzer Zentralmuseums653 und ich hoffte ihn nachher auszubauen. Leider kam mir dann der graessliche Lietzmann654 dazwischen, der es mit seinen Schuelern machen wollte, aber nie damit fertig wuerde. Nun ist er tot. Fuer die Profanen finden Sie aber das

652 Berenson was referring to the third volume by Peirce and Tyler, L’Art byzatin which was never published. 653 Volbach was probably referring to his Elfenbeinarbeiten der Spätantike und des frühen Mittelalters published in 1916. 654 Hans Lietzmann (Düsseldorf, 1875–Locarno, 1942), theologian, philologist and professor at the University of Berlin.

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meiste Material in den ‘Consulardiptyche’ von Delbrueck.655 Was er nicht hat, ist meist bei Peirce and Tyler publiziert. Von Royall Tyler habe ich gar nichts mehr gehoert. Ich denke daher, dass er in die U.S.A. zurueckgekehrt ist. Der dritte Band war schon vor 4 Jahren fertig, ist aber nicht mehr eschienen. Wahrscheinlich wird er jetzt mit der Druck beginnen, wenn der Krieg aus ist. Es wird aber lange dauern, bis die Kunstgeschichte mal wieder in ruhigen Bahnen laüft. Ich schrieb an Morey, dass er bald kommt, damit wir unsern Katalog des Museo sacro endlich fertigstellen koennen. Sonst ist alles beim Alten. Traurig, dass man nicht ins Sommerfrische bei dieser schrecklichen Hitze fahren kann, aber am besten bleibt man jetzt da, wo man ist. Mit den besten Gruessen Ihr ergebener F.Volbach

112. BB to Volbach (‘NL Volbach’, handwritten) Aug. [ust] 12, 1943 I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Dear Volbach. It was good of you to write to me at such length. Now I am going to ask you further. Does Morey’s Early Xian [Christian] Art reproduce any hitherto unknown material? If it does, you might perhaps take the trouble to have it reproduced for me — at my expense of course. I am pleased to learn that there is a prospect of a 3d album of Peirce & Tyler. Have you any idea of how far it goes down? I have your little book on the ivories at Mainz, & all the other books you mention dealing beiläufig with Early Xian [Christian] ivories

655 Delbrück, Die Consulardiptychen und verwandte Denkmäler.

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A corpus of them remains desirable. I have written to Prince Doria,656 & await his answer with curiosity. It is very hot here too & I am free to go up to Vallombrosa, but do not dare to leave the house at the present Conjunktur. How I wish I could live in the Vatican for the next six months, & work there in the library. Best remembrances to friends. Ever yrs. [yours] B. Berenson

113. Volbach to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 107.17, handwritten) Rom, 22.8. 43. Lieber Herr Berenson, viel unbekanntes Material bildet Morey in seiner ‘Early christian Art’ nicht ab. Es ist aber sehr angenehm die Abbildungen zusammen zu haben, viele Mosaiken aus Antiochia, die Fresken aus Doura-Europos, westliches Silber und was er so in den letzten Jahren veröffentlicht hatte. Dazu eine Menge Bibliografie in den Anmerkungen. So [wenn] Sie aber etwas benötigen, so können wir Ihnen dies ja mit der ‘Siemens’ reproduzieren. Das geht schnell und kostet wenig. Aber hoffentlich ist es bald soweit, dass Sie wieder nach Rom kommen und auf der Vaticana arbeiten können. Der 3. Band von Peirce und Tyler war durchfertig. Wahrscheinlich ist das nun auch auf die Zeit nach dem Krieg verschoben. Seit langem habe ich aber keine Nachricht von ihm; nähme aber an, dass er in Boston oder New York ist. Briefe in die U.S.A. gehen so lange, dass es jetzt kaum mehr lohnt, zu schreiben. Ein Corpus der frühchristlichen Elfenbeine wollte ich in dem päpstlichen archäolog. [ischen] Institut657 herausgeben, aber Msgr. Kirsch658 hatte keine grosse Lust dazu. Vielleicht könnte man das nach dem Krieg-collaboration mit Morey und der Dumbarton Oaks unternehmen? Aber was hat sich alles so angesammelt und ob man noch die Mittel für so grosse Unternehmungen finden wird. Ich möchte bald nach Friedenschluss hinüberfahren und einmal mit Morey über das alle sprechen.

656 Prince Filippo Andrea VI Doria Pamphili (Rome, 1886–1958), politician. 657 Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana in Rome. 658 Perhaps ‘Monsignor’ Johann Peter Kirsch (Dippach, 1861–Rome, 1941), ecclesiastical historian, archaeologist and director of the Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana in Rome.

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Es muss ja auch die Frage nach der Beendigung der Kataloge unseres Museo sacro geklärt werden. […] Für heute herzliche Grüsse und alles gute Ihr ergebener F. Volbach

114. Volbach to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 107.17, typewritten) Via Nicolo V, 10. Rome. Oct. [ober] 3rd. 1944 Dear Mr Berenson, I wonder whether you have ever received my previous note.659 I now have another opportunity to send to Florence so am taking advantage of it to ask how you are. I am glad to hear that you have not had too much damage and have been able to go back to the villa, as I have been told. I hope we shall see you here in Rome soon on a visit, because although things are not yet perfect here the situation has greatly improved in the last two months. The Vatican Library is open and so you would be able to study here, and perhaps there are one or two things in my Museum which you have not seen. The short guide in English,660 which I have prepared, will reach you soon. Ortolani has been here from Naples to trace his pictures from the Gallery,661 and has everything but thirteen which are missing still. We hope that these too will be found in Germany one day not too far off. We have seen something of Major De Wald who has brought us news of Florence, Pisa and so on, in some cases better than we expected and in some others far worse. But you, who have been in the forefront of the battle know more than we do. During the past few months when I have not been able to work I have thought a lot of your splendid idea of making a corpus of the Early Christian ivories, and I too think it would be an excellent thing to prepare. I have written to Barbara Sessions (but 659 It is not known which note Volbach was referring to. 660 Volbach was referring to his Guide to the ‘Museo Sacro’ published in 1944 a copy of which, now in Biblioteca Berenson, bears a dedication on the front page: ‘To B. Berenson best wishes F. Volbach’. 661 It is not clear which ‘Gallery’ Volbach was referring to. Maria Serlupi Crescenzi, curator of the Reparto Arti Decorative, Musei Vaticani, kindly suggests that in the Sala degli Indirizzi where today the goldsmithings, enamels, and ivories of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana are located (currently part of the Reparto Arti Decorative dei Musei Vaticani), the so-called ‘Primitives’ series (paintings of the twelfth-thirteenth century) was exhibited for a certain period. Perhaps Volbach’s reference was to this. The ‘Primitives’ series is currently in the Pinacoteca.

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without mentioning this point), but De Wald tells me that she is not very well. But I think that perhaps the Dumbarton Oaks collection would be the one most suited to such a publication. Harvard does not possess a collection of these medieval works, and Princeton is more interested above all in miniatures. Therefore, if you have an occasion to write to Mr Bliss, it might be possible for you to hint at the possibility of preparing such a work. It is a pity that poor Prof. Goldschmidt is dead, because he certainly must have had many photographs in his collection. But even with the material now in existence the work should not be too long. I am trying to continue my work on the medieval miniatures in Campania, and also have to finish the second volume of my catalogue of Stuffs.662 This will be rather a bore, because so little is known so far about Renaissance stuffs in Rome so far. I ought to go to Berlin and London, but this is only a dream for the moment! I have asked Morey to continue his work for the catalogue of the Christian Museum so that we can finish the series. I hope you are well. Many greetings also to Miss Nicky, Your sincerely, F. Volbach

115. Volbach to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 107.18, typewritten) Vatican City. April 23rd. 1945. Dear Mr Berenson, Thank for your letter663 and for your kindness in writing to Mr Bliss about the corpus of ivories.664 I shall be delighted to undertake the work, as you can well imagine. I have worked all these years on my own to complete my little catalogue that I did at Mainz, but I never brought out the second edition665 because it was quite clear to me that it was necessary to do it in a larger format which would have definite scientific

662 By the archaic ‘Stuffs’ Volbach probably meant ‘fabrics, textiles’, as can be see from the title of Volbach, I tessuti del Museo Sacro Vaticano published in 1942. 663 BB’s letter was not found. 664 See BB’s letter to Bliss, 2 February 1945: no. 140. 665 The second edition was published some years later, i.e in 1952: see Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten der Spätantike und des frühen Mittelalters. A copy of the volume was given to Berenson with the author’s dedication, now in the Berenson library, which reads as follows: ‘Bernard Berenson in dankbarer Verehrung Fritz Volbach’. The review of Volbach’s volume was published by Edward Capps, Jr., ‘Elfenbeinarbeiten der Spätantike und des Frühen Mittelalters’, in American Journal of Archaeology ( January 1956), pp. 82–88. In 1976 the completely revised third edition was published, see Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten der Spätantike und des frühen Mittelalters.

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value. As to format and edition, probably it would be best to follow that of Adolph Goldschmidt for his Carolingian ivories,666 because only in his way would it be possible to give photos of the actual size. The second question is whether we want to include not only the ivories which are Christian in subject matter but also the late antique ivories of the same period which from the stylistic point of view cannot very well be separated from the first group; for example the Isis pyx at Wiesbaden667 and the Menas pyx in London.668 Or are we to leave the profane ivories for a second volume? By doing this we would be able to complete the Consular diptychs done by Delbrück. In the coming days I shall make an exact calculation of the work and the plates and text necessary for all the material in two volumes. It is splendid that Mr Bliss takes such an active interest in this work, and only with the support of such a man would it be possible nowadays to find all the photographs and facilities necessary for such a project. Thank you so much for your kind invitation. There is nothing that would please me more than to be able to come to stay with you at Settignano at the present moment, but I have first to finish two little works I have undertaken, a booklet on Minor Arts in the Vatican Museum and on the Treasure of St Peter’s,669 and also I would like to hear once more from you or from Mr Bliss to be quite clear upon all the questions we have to discuss a propos of the ivory corpus. I am so sorry that you are not able to come to Rome. I was looking forward to seeing you in the Library! But I understand that in a moment of personal sorrow you cannot leave home; please allow me to express my sympathy with you in your loss. Best greetings, also to Miss Nicky, Yours sincerely, Fritz Volbach

116. Charles Rufus Morey to Volbach (BBP, Correspondence, folder 107.19, typewritten) THE FOREIGN SERVICE OF THE

666 Goldschmidt, Die Elfenbeinskulpturen aus der Zeit der karolingischen und sächsischen Kaiser, VIII.-XI. Jahrhundert, 2 vols. 667 Volbach was referring to the Isis pyx then in the so-called ‘Museum’ in Wiesbaden, now in the Stiftung Stadtmuseum Wiesbaden, sixth century (inv. no. 503168, ivory, height 8.8 cm, width 13 cm). 668 Volbach was referring to the pyx with scenes representing the Legend of St Menas in the British Museum, London, Early Byzantine, sixth century (inv. no. 1879.1220.1, ivory, height 79 mm, length 122 mm). 669 It seems that the two booklets were never published.

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AMERICAN EMBASSY Rome, March 12, 1946 Dr Fritz Volbach, Vatican Library, Vatican City. Dear Volbach: I have sent the enclosed letter to Mr Bliss and hand a copy thereof to you, for the information contained. Capps’670 work is about ready for printing according to my latest information, and I do not know therefore whether you wish to proceed or not with your similar project. His photographic material is very complete. Best wishes. Sincerely yours, C. R. Morey Enclosure: Copy of letter to

670 Edward Capps, Jr. (Chicago, 1902–Oxford, Mississippi, 1969), art historian. He received his AB (1924), MFA (1927), and Ph.D (1931) degrees from Princeton University with a thesis on ‘Early Mediaeval Ivory Carvings’ under the direction of Charles Rufus Morey. From unpublished documents of the Princeton University Archives (Capps, Edward, Jr.; Graduate Alumni Records, AC105.02, Princeton University Archives, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library), it appears that in the remarks concerning the second part of Capps’s doctoral examination Morey wrote (15 May 1931): ‘Mr Capps made a good showing in the portions of the examination in which I questioned him. He made a fair showing in the bibliography concerning the field of Early Christian Art in which his thesis was written, and a very weak one in the general bibliography or art, history — weaker than necessary, because I know that he knew some of the titles he missed. He had simply not prepared for this part of the examination. His thesis shows industry and good handling of material, but within the limits of accepted tradition, and without great originality. The very comprehensiveness of his copies and the work he has done on it, nevertheless make it, as [Adolph] Goldschmidt also says, a highly necessary publication. Capps’s examination brought out mainly his perfect competence in Early Mediaeval Ivories, and little more’. The thesis was to be published under the direction of Morey but apparently it never was. Kurt Weitzmann on the other hand reported that Morey assigned to Capps a corpus of Early Christian pyxes ‘but never published it because he could not accept the Alexandrian theories Morey tried to impose upon him’; see Weitzmann, ‘The Contribution of the Princeton University’, in Byzantium at Princeton, exhibition catalogue, p. 14. Perhaps the corpus to which Weitzmann was referring should be identified with Capps’s doctoral thesis for which he had a fellowship at Dumbarton Oaks. After his fellowship there, Capps became a member of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies and continued to teach at Oberlin College (Oberlin, Ohio, United States), where he held a joint appointment in the classics and art history departments between 1927 and 1968. See Carder, ‘Edward Capps Jr. (1902–1969)’; copy of Bliss’s letter to Volbach, 27 March 1946: no. 152.

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Mr Bliss AMERICAN EMBASSY Rome, March 9, 1946 The Honorable Robert W. Bliss, 2750 Que Street, N. W., Washington 7, DC Dear Mr Bliss, One of the regulations of the Foreign Service is, as you know, that letters we forward must be read before forwarding, and for that reason I know the contents of Volbach’s letter to you. I do not know whether Dr Volbach is aware that a corpus of early Christian and early medieval ivories has already been prepared both as to the photographic material for the plates and as to the text by Professor Edward CAPPS of Oberlin College and corresponds in all respects to the work projected by Dr Volbach. This is the work that Professor Capps was doing when he was a fellow at Dumbarton Oaks at the time of my brief stay there. Capps’ corpus is on the list of future publications of the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton. With best wishes to Mrs Bliss and yourself from Mrs Morey671 (who is with me now) and me, Sincerely yours, C. R. Morey Attache for Cultural Relations Enclosure: Dr Volbach’s letter.

117. Volbach to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 107.19, handwritten) Vatican City March 14, 1946

671 Sara Francis Tupper.

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Dear Mr Berenson, soeben erhalte ich beiliegende Schreiben von Professor Morey und möchte sie Ihnen gleich zur Kenntnis weiterreichen. Ich bin sehr traurig über die Tatsache, aber ich glaube, dass man ‘rebus sic stantibus’ das Projekt fallen lassen muss. Sorry! Mit herzlichen Grüssen Ihr Fritz Volbach

118. Volbach to Nicky Mariano (BBP, Correspondence, folder 107.20, typewritten) Mainz, 11.11.50. Rheinallee 2, I. Liebe Miss Nicky, war das schade, dass wir Sie nicht sahen. Ich hätte mich sehr darauf gefreut. Aber in diesem entsetzlichen Jahr der Pilger672 war keine Ordnung möglich. Ueberall waren wir in andern Pensionen wie vorgesehen und ausserdem musste ich ja auch meine Pilger betreuen, mit ihnen beten, Museen sehen und Wein trinken. Das war alles nicht so einfach. Dann in Pavia der mittelalterliche Kongress673 und endlich in Venedig drei Tage allein. Das war herrlich. Ich war erstaunt, wieviel wieder Neues gearbeitet wurde. Vor allem fand ich die Aufstellung der Brera674 ganz erstklassig. Sehr enttaüscht von den Uffizien.675 Entsetzlich wie die Quattrocentisten nun eingequetscht hängen. Dazu das ‘Parfüm’ der internationalen Pilgerschaft. Es schlug einem wieder raus. Der Kongress [war] sehr ergebnisreich. Besonders der Besuch von Castel Seprio676

672 Probably Volbach was referring to the Jubilee Year of 1950 which was promulgated by Pope Pius XII. 673 Volbach was referring to the Congress for the Study of Early Middle Ages Art held in Pavia in 1950 and where he gave a lecture entitled ‘Gli avori della “Cattedra di S. Marco”’. 674 Volbach was certainly referring to the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan which suffered damage during the Second World War. Reconstruction began in 1946 and the new museum was opened in the mid-1950s. 675 Perhaps Volbach was referring to the rearrangement of the Uffizi following the Second World War, under the direction of Roberto Salvini (Florence, 1912–1985). 676 Volbach was referring to the Church of Santa Maria foris portas in Castelseprio (or Castel Seprio), a site in northern Lombardy in the province of Varese. In 1944 the wall paintings of the eastern apse of the church with Scenes from the Life of Christ’s Childhood concealed by whitewashing and fourteenth–sixteenth century paintings, came to light following

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und Galliano677 [waren] sehr wichtig für die Datierungen. Mit Grabar und Lassus vollkommen einig, dass die Frühdatierung von Morey der Fresken von Castel Seprio einfach unmöglich [ist].678 Mit Ikonografie allein lässt sich eben solch eine Frage nicht lösen. Reizend waren die Pavesen mit ihrer gastfreundlichen Aufnahme, ein Diner nach dem andern. Direkt ein gastronomischer Kongress. Und dazu (abgesehen von einigen Nazis) sehr nette Leute. Wichtig die kleinen

the identification and reading of some graffiti incised on ancient plaster by Gian Piero Bognetti (Milan, 1902–1963), Professor of Italian Legal History at the University of Milan. The discovery followed a long period of archaeological research conducted on the site by Bognetti who in 1948 published a monograph on the church, together with Gino Chierici and Alberto De Capitani d’Arzago (Paderno Dugnano, Milan, 1909–Paris, 1948), Professor of Christian Archaeology at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan. See Bognetti, ‘S. Maria Foris Portas di Castelseprio’; Chierici, ‘L’architettura’; De Capitani D’Arzago, ‘Gli affreschi’, all in Bognetti and others, Santa Maria di Castelseprio. Bognetti’s essay was reprinted in Bognetti, L’Età Longobarda, pp. 12–673. See Toesca’s letter to BB, 22 July 1947: no. 227. The quality of the murals and their very Hellenistic character at a date that should be between the sixth and the first half of the tenth century — two chronological terms provided by the construction data of the church and by the graffiti on the murals —, constituted the main interpretative problem of the discovery. For more information on this subject, see Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, pp. 266–73. 677 Volbach was certainly referring to the Church of San Vincenzo and to the nearby Baptistery of San Giovanni in Galliano in Brianza, an area of Lombardy located in the north-eastern district of Cantù (province of Como). The Church of San Vincenzo, consecrated in 1007, was commissioned by the sub-deacon Ariberto da Intimiano who also commisioned the murals extending from the apse area to the walls of the central nave (today partially compromised by gaps). The Baptistery was built immediately after Ariberto’s intervention. 678 Volbach was referring to the art historian André Grabar (Kiev, 1896–Paris, 1990) and the French archaeologist Jean Lassus (Bulgnéville, 1903–Saint-Cézaire-sur-Siagne, 1990), who both attended the Congress of Pavia. Grabar also entered the debate on the dating of the Castelseprio murals and wrote an article in 1950: in his opinion they were to be assigned to the ninth century, linking them to the Early Christian art Renaissance in the Carolingian era, especially in Rome rather than in Gaul. On the other hand, Charles Rufus Morey, as well as Bognetti and De Capitani D’Arzago, dated the murals to the second half of the seventh century or, at the latest, to c. the eighth century, linking them to one of the Eastern refugee artists from the Persian and Arab conquest of the East in the seventh century, perhaps coming from Alexandria where the artistic tradition of Hellenism was alive. Morey’s idea, which was not followed up, was in turn contrasted with that of Weitzmann who, in 1951, wrote a monograph on the Castelseprio murals, the conclusions of which were anticipated in an article written in Italian in the Rassegna Storica del Seprio of 1949–1950. Weitzmann assigned the murals ‘not long before the addition of the Ardericus graffito, which established the middle of the tenth century as the terminus ante quem’, considering them as a product of the same workshop tradition as that of the most famous classical manuscripts such as the Joshua Roll (BAV, MS Pat. Gr. 431) and the BnF, MS Gr. 139 (Psalter) dating back to the Macedonian Renaissance (second quarter of the tenth century). See Grabar, ‘Les fresques de Castelseprio’; Grabar, ‘À propos du nimbe crucifère à Castelseprio’; Bognetti, ‘S. Maria Foris Portas di Castelseprio’, pp. 16–17 and in general the whole essay; De Capitani D’Arzago, ‘Gli affreschi’, pp. 697–701 and in general the whole essay; Morey, ‘Il Rinascimento bizantino’; Morey, ‘Castelseprio and the Byzantine “Renaissance”’; Weitzmann, ‘Gli affreschi di Santa Maria di Castelseprio’; Weitzmann, The Fresco Cycle of S. Maria di Castelseprio, pp. 19–27, especially p. 26; Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, pp. 268–69.

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Kirchen im Val d’Aosta, die ich noch nicht kannte. Man müsste öfters solche Fahrten unternehmen, aber den Kreis noch mehr beschränken. Und nun das Wichtigste. Ich habe im Ministerium meine Dimission eingereicht und mit Freuden bewilligt bekommen. Nun sitze ich als zweiter Direktor im Röm. [isch] germanischen Zentralmuseum, was noch immer ein besserer Trümmerhaufen, aber immerhin man findet einige Bücher und so gehe ich daran mich mit meinen Elfenbeinen und Metallarbeiten zu beschäftigen. Sehe aber, wie sehr ich durch diese vier idiotischen Jahre aus allem rausgekommen bin. Es wäre notwendig, dass ich einmal ein paar Monate in einer richtigen Bibliothek sässe und repertierte. Vielleicht nächstes Jahr, wenn ich [an] meinem Thermenmuseumskatalog679 weiter arbeite. Vielleicht längsts auch mal in diesem Winter für eine Woche nach Paris denn in Europa ist das Institut an der Sorbonne wohl für diese Studien das Beste. Und wie geht’s bei Ihnen? Sicher werden Sie in Settignano zurück sein. Ich würde mich sehr freuen, bald wieder von Ihnen zu hören. Mit herzlichen Grüssen, auch an Mr Berenson Ihr Fritz Volbach

119. Volbach to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 107.19, typewritten) Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum MAINZ Tgb. Nr. [Tagebuchnummer] Mainz, den 16. 12. 51. Dear Mr Berenson, Ihnen und Miss Nicky alles Gute zum Fest und zum Neuen Jahre. Vor allem weiter gute Gesundheit. Es hat uns sehr leid getan, dass wir nicht mehr bei Ihnen vorsprechen konnten, aber die Zeit eilte und ausserdem begann das schreckliche Regenwetter. So blieben wir nur noch zwei Tage in Ravenna, wo ich die neugefundenen Stoffe, meine Frau aber die gereinigten Mosaiken ansehen wollten. Es lohnte aber auch. Seitdem bin ich noch richtig zur Ruhe gekommen. Erst musste ich auf ein paar Tage nach Berlin, um mir dort eine grosse Sammlung anzusehen, was mich sehr interessierte, den es gab eine Reihe wichtiger Primitiver darin. Mir vollkommen unbekannt (Ihnen wohl nicht). Vielleicht machen wir einen Katalog davon und dann werden Sie sie sehen. Dann kurz in Köln, wo die

679 It is unknown which catalogue Volbach was referring to; he also mentions the work in a letter to Olschki. See Dörner, La vita spezzata. Leonardo Olschki, p. 319.

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Reste des Walraff-Richartzmuseum680 nun ausgestellt sind. Das meiste ist ja in Düsseldorf. Ansonsten sitzen wir recht deprimiert in den Trümmern und der Öde dieser Kleinstadt, ohne Bücher, ohne Bekannte. Vivyan681 schreibt an einem neuen Roman, ich habe meinen Elfenbeinkatalog beendet,682 aber durch allerhand Pech noch nicht ganz zu Weihnachten ausdrucken können. Wie schade, dass Morey uns unser schönes Projekt zerstörte, all diese Stücke in einem schönen Corpus herauszubringen. Nun ist es nur ein bescheidenes Büchlein geworden. Und was ich mehr wie eigenartig finde: Morey hatte doch Mr Bliss versichert, das Manuskript der Princeton sei druckfertig. Ich habe nun sechs Jahre darauf gewartet, dass Capps es veröffentlicht, aber nichts gesehen. Nun arbeite ich an dem Katalog des Thermenmuseums, den ich auch Ihrer Liebenswürdigkeit verdanke und bereite die zweite Auflage meines Mainzer Metallkataloges vor.683 Dazu müsste ich eigentlich nach Russland, aber das ist eine Sache der Unmöglichkeiten. Nicht einmal Fotos bekam ich für meinen Elfenbeinkatalog. Haben Sie eigentlich schon das ausgezeichnete Buch von Lazareff über die byzantinische Malerei?684 Und dazu so billig. Nur lesen kann ich nicht. Also nochmals alles Gute und herzliche Grüsse. Ihr Fritz Volbach

120. Sergio Bettini to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 30.19, handwritten. The letter is transcribed from ‘Tanto più che’ up to ‘Schlosser’ in Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 147; p. 148 n. 27; the letter is mentioned in Agazzi, ‘Per una biografia di Sergio Bettini’, ed. by Agazzi and Romanelli, p. 67 n. 74)

680 The Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne was open in 1861 and completely destroyed during a bombing raid in 1943. The artworks were, however, evacuated in good time. In 1957, the new building of the Wallraf-Richartz Museum (now the home of the Museum für Angewandte Kunst) opened its doors. In 2001 a new building was inaugurated and the museum renamed Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud. 681 Vivyan Eyles (1909–1982), wife of Volbach. Probably the novel is The Stepson (London, 1952) written under the pseudonym of Lydia Holland. 682 The catalogue was published a year later, see Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten der Spätantike und des frühen Mittelalters (1952). 683 Perhaps Volbach was referring to the second edition of his Metallarbeiten des christlichen Kultes which came out in 1921, but the volume was not published. 684 Volbach was certainly referring to Lazarev’s work on Byzantin painting which was published in Russian in two volumes in 1947–1948 with the title: История византийской живописи, transliteration: Istoriia vizantiiskoi zhivopisi (second edition in 1986). In 1967 it was published in Italian edition as Storia della pittura bizantina. In Biblioteca Berenson there is this latter version.

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MUSEO CIVICO DI PADOVA IL DIRETTORE 10 dicembre 1942. XXI Illustre caro Signor Berenson, non so dirVi quanto abbia gradito la Vostra squisita lettera685 e il dono generoso della Vostra opera davvero monumentale sui disegni di pittori fiorentini.- Ma ciò che sopra tutto mi ha riempito di soddisfazione, è stato il leggere che voi avete considerato con interesse i miei modesti contributi, specie quelli relativi a problemi di arte bizantina; ed avete trovato coincidenze, per me molto lusinghiere, tra le Vostre idee e certe espresse in quei lavoretti, ai quali non avrei potuto augurare maggior fortuna. Tanto più che, come sapete, quest’argomento è da noi in genere negletto; e perciò io finora ho dovuto lavorare piuttosto in solitudine — senza trovare vera comprensione in quegli ambienti che, come Voi giustamente dite, sono troppo a fondo ammalati del morbo strzygowskiano. Aderenze mentali trovai soltanto alla scuola di Vienna, e sopra tutto nell’amico non mai abbastanza compianto Giulio Schlosser.686 Nemmeno allo Schlosser piaceva la denominazione ‘bizantina’ per l’arte del Levante, ed avrebbe voluto sostituirvi il termine ‘romaica’: il quale tuttavia aveva il difetto di non possedere, direi nello stesso suo suono, quegli elementi di fortuna che spesso determinano la diffusione di una parola. Senza dubbio ‘bizantino’ non è soddisfacente, perché non comprensivo dell’intero fenomeno storico in tutta la sua latitudine. Trovo che la Vostra preferenza per ‘ellenistico medievale’ si giustifica perfettamente per l’arte del cosi detto ‘secondo periodo aureo’; ma che forse non è pienamente adatta per i primi secoli — fino alla contesa iconoclastica inclusa — e per le espressioni provinciali, che rimangono un poco fuori dal gusto ellenistico, la cui ripresa invece predomina decisamente nella scuola aulica dal periodo macedone in poi. Per esempio, i mosaici di Daphni687 sono perfettamente ‘ellenistici medievali’; ma non altrettanto si potrebbe dire degli affreschi di Čianć-In688 o di Toqale Kilisse in Cappadocia,689 o di altre espressioni dello stesso timbro provinciale.- Ma senza dubbio ‘ellenistico medievale’ ha comunque maggiore concretezza critica e può suggerire un parallelo con romanico o ‘romano medievale’ dell’Occidente.

685 BB’s letter was not found. 686 Julius Alwin von Schlosser (Vienna, 1866–1938), art historian and chair of the Zweites Kunsthistorisches Institut, University of Vienna. 687 The mosaics of the Katholikon of Daphni Monastery (end of the eleventh century) situated to the west of Athens, almost half-way along the ancient Sacred Way to Eleusis. 688 Did Bettini mean the murals of the churches in the Çavuşin region, Cappadocia? 689 Probably Bettini was referring to the murals of the Old Church and the New Church of the Tokali Kilise complex (Buckle Church), tenth century, in the Goreme valley.

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Vi sono anche molto, molto grato dei suggerimenti che mi date — e che mi provano la Vostra stima — a proposito dei miei prossimi lavori. Quello di scrivere una storia dell’arte bizantina è da tempo un mio grande desiderio: certo i Manuali tipo Diehl,690 etc. hanno fatto il loro tempo: giustamente, solo il Byzant. [ine] Art and Archeology di Dalton691 è quello che contiene più idee. Ma l’impresa è molto vasta, e sopra tutto richiederebbe per me nuovi viaggi in Levante, che in questo momento mi è impossibile fare. Spero vorrete accettare, tra poco, l’omaggio di due miei volumetti che stanno per uscire: l’uno sull’’Arte delle origini cristiane’;692 l’altro su ‘Sandro Botticelli’.693 Quest’ultimo, non senza trepidazione da parte mia. Ma non ha pretese, non essendo io specialista in tale argomento. — Senza dubbio mi farò un dovere li inviarVi, volta a volta, di estratti delle mie povere cose. Vi ringrazio assai dell’invito d’una visita ai Tatti, che spero compiere non appena sarà possibile, insieme con Fiocco:694 il quale mi prega di esserVi ricordato. Ancora, con grato animo, sinceramente Vostro Sergio Bettini

121. Bettini to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 30.19, handwritten) 31 dic. [embre] 1942. XXI Illustre e caro Signor Berenson, Vi ringrazio ancora moltissimo della cordiale bontà della Vostra lettera;695 la quale mi fa molto rimpiangere l’impossibilità, in cui mi trovo in questo momento, d’incontrarmi con Voi per esaminare insieme i molti ed importanti problemi connessi con le origini dell’arte del Medioevo. Le Vostre lettere rafforzano la mia convinzione che avrei infinite cose da imparare dalla Vostra impareggiabile esperienza. Ed è per me un vero peccato ch’io non abiti più a Firenze, e che le condizioni di oggi — che spero tuttavia si risolvano presto ridando il giusto valore alle cose dello spirito — rendano così difficili gli spostamenti.

690 Diehl, Manuel d’art byzantin. 691 Dalton, Byzantine Art and Archaeology. 692 Bettini, Pittura delle origini cristiane. 693 Bettini, Botticelli. 694 Giuseppe Fiocco (Giacciano con Baruchella, Rovigo, 1884–Padua, 1971), art historian. 695 BB’s letter was not found.

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Non conosco lavori davvero esaurienti e convincenti sulle origini dell’iconografia del Cristo barbato, e della sua prevalenza su quella ‘apollinea’. L’argomento è discusso in tutti gli studi di iconografia — che abbondano anche troppo nell’Archeologia Cristiana tradizionale —, ma gli argomenti addotti sono soltanto presuntivi. La precedenza della Siria in tale tipo è pur essa postulata più che dimostrata, non essendovi una sicura priorità cronologica: per es. [empio] il Diehl si appella a miniature siriache del VI sec. [olo];696 ma il Cristo barbato è presente a Roma (e dobbiamo credere in tutto l’ambito dell’impero) già nel IV. A parte la questione siriaca, poi, non si può nemmeno affermare che il Cristo imberbe sia anteriore a quello barbato: i monumenti lo escludono. E’ probabile che all’origine lo si sia rappresentato in ambedue le maniere: forse, imberbe quando prevalevano le intenzioni simboliche; barbato invece quando si avevano intenzioni ‘ritrattistiche’. Oppure anche si potrebbe pensare che si figurasse il Salvatore imberbe quando era rappresentato come Gesù; barbato quando diveniva il Cristo. Certo è che l’accentuarsi del concetto di X.697 giudice, trionfante, dominatore, in rapporto con l’affermazione della Chiesa, fa prevalere sempre più decisamente il tipo barbato. Nella serie delle scene evangeliche di S. Apollinare Nuovo a Ravenna698 — senza dubbio opera unitaria, della stessa bottega — Cristo è rappresentato imberbe negli anni giovanili, e con la barba nelle scene della Passione. Anche questo potrebbe suggerire ipotesi: ma sempre soltanto ipotesi. La questione è stata discussa specialmente nella ‘Strena Buliciana’ (Zagabria 1924) da Wilpert, Sauer e Schultze.699 Ma, a mio avviso, la soluzione non è stata trovata. Ho riferito i Vostri auguri all’amico Fiocco, il quale li ha graditi moltissimo, e mi incarica di ricambiarVeli, sperando molto anch’egli che presto si presenti l’occasione di farVi una visita a Settignano. Anch’io lo desidero molto; e frattanto Vi ringrazio del Vostro gentilissimo invito. Grazie infinite anche dei Vostri auguri, che ricambio di cuore. Io spero soltanto che il 1943 sia un anno di chiarificazione, e di restituzione sul piano dei valori dell’autentica

696 Perhaps Bettini was referring to Diehl, Manuel d’art byzantin, pp. 246; 304–05. 697 Probably ‘Xριστóς’ (‘Christ’). 698 Bettini was referring to the series of mosaic panels with the Scenes of Christ’s Life in the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, located in the upper tier of the side walls of the central nave, dating back of the time of Emperor Theodoric, King of the Goths (493– 526) who also built the basilica. Around 561, the latter was converted to the Catholic cult with the name San Martino ‘in Ciel D’oro’. The basilica was consecrated to Sant’Apollinare in the mid-ninth century when the saint’s relics where transferred to the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare in Classe, and named ‘Nuovo’ to distinguish it from the church of the same name outside the town. 699 Wilpert, ‘Alte Kopie der Statue von Paneas’; Sauer, ‘Das Aufkommen des bärtigen Christustypus in der frühchristlichen Kunst’; Schultze, ‘Christus in der frühchristlichen Kunst’.

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umanità: di cui l’arte, che noi serviamo, rappresenta l’espressione più alta e veramente immortale, Vostro Sergio Bettini

122. Bettini to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 30.19, handwritten) MUSEO CIVICO DI PADOVA IL DIRETTORE 13 marzo 1943. XXI Illustre e caro Signor Berenson, scusate se Vi rispondo con qualche ritardo:700 fui in questi giorni assente da Padova per prendere gli ultimi accordi per una spedizione di studio nelle Isole Ionie, che compirò dalla fine di questo mese. I Vostri rallegramenti per la mia nomina a Catania mi sono giunti particolarmente cari, e Ve ne ringrazio in maniera tanto più riconoscente, in quanto essi sono dettati da pura amicizia, non avendo Voi, per Vostra fortuna, interessi di carattere professionale.— Ma spero anch’io che la — necessaria — quarantena a Catania sia di breve durata, e ch’io possa abbastanza presto ritornare nell’Italia settentrionale: forse qui a Padova, dove, per l’amicizia di Fiocco e degli altri colleghi della Facoltà, mi sarebbe forse possibile cominciare a mettere le prime basi di un Istituto per lo studio dell’arte dell’Europa orientale, che manca del tutto in Italia, e che pure sarebbe necessario. Naturalmente, la mia predilezione, fra tutte le nostre città, sarebbe per la nostra Firenze; ma mi rendo conto che codesta Università non può avere per questi problemi l’interesse che ha Padova — Università di Venezia — o che possono avere le Università della Sicilia: terre ambedue legate in passato alla storia del Levante. M’affretto a rispondere, per quel poco che posso, alla Vostra domanda sulla testa del così detto ‘Carmagnola’, sulla balaustrata di S. Marco a Venezia.701 Ho l’impressione

700 Probably Bettini was referring to a Berenson letter which was not found. 701 Bettini was referring to the porphyry head (heigh 40 cm) which was set into the balustrade at the south-western corner of the exterior balcony of the Basilica of San Marco and as Yuri Alessandro Marano reports ‘near the famous bronze horses and not far off a vertical line above the group of the Tetrarchs, embedded in the corner of the wall of the church treasury. All these spolia were almost certainly looted by the Venetians in Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade of 1204’. Between late medieval and Renaissance the head was popularly known as ‘Carmagnola’ after the nickname of the mercenary captain Francesco Bussone (Carmagnola, c. 1385–Venice, 1432) accused of treason and beheaded in the Piazzetta di San Marco in 1432. The flattened nose has led some scholars to identify the head as the portrait of Justinian II (685–95 and 705–11), who was deposed by having his nose cut off. More likely, the flattened profile of the nose is due to the fact that it was re-polished for reuse

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di avere letto qualche cosa di abbastanza recente in proposito (mi pare in una Rivista tedesca); ma, per quanto mi strizzi il cervello non riesco a chiarire se veramente questa impressione riflette un fatto reale, e, nel caso, dove e di chi fosse quell’articolo. Ad ogni modo non dovrebbe trattarsi di contributo importante, altrimenti penso che avrei preso l’appunto. Comunque, la mia opinione in proposito è questa: non credo di poter accettare l’ipotesi di Delbrück (Antike Porphyrwerke, 1932, p. 119),702 secondo la quale questa testa sarebbe un ritratto di Giustiniano II Rhinotmetos, e perciò si dovrebbe assegnare a circa il 700 ad Il riconoscimento del Delbrück, come spesso accade a questo pur benemerito studioso, si fonda su elementi troppo esteriori e alla fine non verificabili: si tratterebbe del Rhinotmetos (= dal naso mozzo) per la ragione che la testa ha appunto il naso spezzato. Ma questa mutilazione è, evidentemente, dovuta a qualche infortunio capitato alla scultura dopo la sua esecuzione (forse durante il trasporto a Venezia), e non ad una intenzione così decisa di verismo da parte dello scultore: un verismo siffatto non è probabile nell’ambito dell’arte ‘tetrarchica’, accentuatamente manieristica e decorativa; ed è, ritengo, addirittura impensabile nel secolo VIII. Anzi, proprio la modellazione di quel che rimane del naso — così caratteristica — ha fatto avvicinare, secondo me giustamente, da Haseloff703 il ‘Carmagnola’ ai gruppi dei Tetrarchi in Piazzetta a Venezia. Credo anche improbabile l’ipotesi di Conway,704 secondo la quale il ‘Carmagnola’ sarebbe appartenente al torso porfireo del Museo dell’Arcivescovado a Ravenna.705 Sebbene l’epoca press’a poco coincida, il torso di Ravenna appartiene ad una corrente più raffinata, più aulica e classicheggiante, che tratta la materia con una sensibilità più sottilmente pittorica (pieghe esili delle vesti, piani levigatissimi, ecc.) e si lega al gruppo di sculture in porfido, probabilmente dovute a botteghe imperiali alessandrine, che la ha sua massima espressione nella statua seduta del Museo del Cairo.706

after damage at a previous date. In more recent times, the head has been attributed to the fourth century and assigned to the no longer existing enthroned statues of Constantine’s sons in the region of the so-called Gate of Philadelphion (described in the sources) and surviving into the early fifteenth century. From a stylistic point of view, the head of Venice is similar to works from the late fifth and early sixth centuries, such as the so-called ‘Barletta Colossus’, perhaps to be identified with Leo I (457–74) or Zeno; Justinian’s mosaic image in the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna (546–47). See Marano, ‘Discussion. Porphyry head of emperor (“Justinian”)’. On the porphyry group of the Four Tetrarchs (293–305), see L’enigma dei Tetrarchi. 702 Delbrück, Antike Porphyrwerke, p. 119 and fig. 48. 703 Haseloff, Die vorromanische Plastik in Italien, p. 10; pl. 6. 704 Conway, M., ‘A Porphyry Statue at Ravenna’. 705 Bettini was referring to the porphyry headless chlamys statue in the Museo Arcivescovile in Ravenna, fourth-fifth century (144 × 73 cm). 706 Perhaps Bettini was referring to the porphyry headless enthroned statue in a toga (293–305 ce) from Alexandria which is in Alexandria of Egypt, Graeco-Roman Museum (inv. no. 5934, heigh 279 cm without the modern base).

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Il ‘Carmagnola’, secondo me, fa invece parte del gruppo a cui appartengono i Tetrarchi di Venezia, di Roma (Bibliot. [eca] Vaticana),707 ecc., ai quali si accorda bene tanto per lo stile ruvido e scabro, quanto per l’accentuazione ‘barbarica’ di certi particolari (cfr. [confronta] per es. [empio] il cloisonné della corona del ‘Carmagnola’ con quello delle spade dei Tetrarchi). Un gruppo insomma di corrente più ‘provinciale’, e quindi meno accademico, più ‘premedievale’. In ogni caso, io sono convinto che la datazione del ‘Carmagnola’ non può essere avanzata oltre la prima metà del IV secolo; anzi, se debbo dire intera la mia opinione, non oltre i primi due decenni. I confronti iconografici in questa materia sono sempre discutibili; tuttavia si potrebbe, con qualche ardimento, avanzare l’ipotesi che si tratti di un ritratto, forse, di Licinio I (che fu Augusto tra il 308 e il 324: cfr. [confronta] col cammeo di Licinio nel Cabinet des Médailles).708 Ad ogni modo, per tempo non dovremmo essere molto lontani. Scusate se non sono in grado di essere più esauriente. Infine, condivido l’opinione di Peirce e Tyler,709 che dànno così grande importanza a questo ‘stile tetrarchico’: è da esso che vediamo nascere quel ‘volgare’ artistico, che sarà determinante per il linguaggio figurativo del Medioevo. Codesti non sono già più ritratti, ma allegorie; ed il loro significato formale è ormai straordinariamente lontano da quello della ‘classicità’. Spero, prima di partire per Corfù, di poterVi mandare un mio piccolo studio su Botticelli, per il quale tuttavia ho bisogno, in modo particolare, di tutta la Vostra indulgenza. Non sono uno specialista di Quattrocento fiorentino, ed ho scritto questo saggio spinto dall’amore per codesto pittore, e specialmente interessato ad una interpretazione critica. RingraziandoVi ancora per le Vostre buone parole, con tutti i miei auguri migliori, e i saluti più cordiali Vostro Sergio Bettini 707 Bettini was referring to a pair of porphyry columns in the Vatican City, Musei Vaticani, Galleria Clementina representing the Tetrarchs: two Augusti-Diocletian and Maximianus Herculius (inv. no. 67999, column heigh 385 cm, diameter 53 cm, figures heigh 56 cm), and two Caesars-Constantius Chlorus and Gaius Galerius Valerius Maximianus (inv. no. 68000, same size as the first one). The columns of unknown origin but probably Roman, dated from the early Tetrarchic period (293–305 ce). 708 BnF, Département des Monnaies, Médailles et Antiques (or Cabinet des Médailles), Triumph of Licinius, cameo, fourth century (inv. no. camée. 308, sardonyx and gold, 8.1 × 8.3 cm with mount). 709 Perhaps Bettini was referring to Peirce and Tyler, L’Art byzantin, 1: ‘Pl. 2 et 3. Deux Tétrarques. Groupe en porphyre. Vers 300–Saint-Marc, Venice’, pp. 33–34.

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123. BB to Bettini (Archivio Bettini, sezione Corrispondenza, raccoglitore 2/1, fascicolo ex 44, handwritten. The letter is mentioned in Agazzi, ‘Per una biografia di Sergio Bettini’, ed. by Agazzi and Romanelli, p. 67 n. 74) March 21, 1943 I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Dear Bettini. It was good of you, busy as you must be, to find time to write to me at such length, & so interestingly. I fervently hope you will enjoy your stay in Sicily, profit by it, but not remain there too long. How I wish there was the prospect of a chair of East-Xian [Christian] art here, but we are far too parochial to think of such a thing. However if your expectation of such a chair at Padua is realized, we can meet often when normal conditions return. Thanks for what you tell me about ‘Carmagnola’. You say nothing about its provenance. I suppose nothing is known. I dare say it came in 1204 with the rest of the booty from Constantinople. At Catania you will find a magnificent folio with illuminations probably done at Bologna but of a Byzantine-Cavallinesque character.710 I should be very grateful for the photographs of any of them. A companion volume at Gerona.711 With renewed good wishes. Cordially yrs. [yours] B. Berenson

124. BB to Bettini (AFSB, sezione Corrispondenza, raccoglitore 2/1, fascicolo ex 44, handwritten) July 8, 1943 I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE

710 Berenson was referring to the Latin Bible in Catania, BRCUR, MSS Civ. A. 72, currently attributed to Pietro Cavallini. 711 Probably Berenson was referring to the illuminated Vulgate Bible (‘Bible of Charles V’) by the so-called ‘Gerona Bible Master’ which is in Gerona (Spain), ACC, Vulgate Bible (‘Bible of Charles V’), MS 10 (1285–1290).

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Dear Bettini Many thanks for your Botticelli.712 The work of a ‘non-specialista’ happily! I find less to disagree with than in any other book on the same subject, even if your prose uses a vocabulary that sounds somewhat strange to me. I can congratulate you most cordially on your achievement, & may you never do worse! But who is the happy owner of the portrait of Giuliano that quite rightly you place so high?713 I am glad to infer that you are back in Padua, & I trust with leisure to continue your Byzantine studies. I am at present engaged on the sculpture & painting of our 4th and 5th centuries, & I only wish that as a non-specialista I did half as well as you with your Botticelli Ever yours B. Berenson

125. Bettini to BB (BBF, Correspondence, folder 30.19, handwritten) MUSEO CIVICO DI PADOVA IL DIRETTORE Padova, 22. VII. 1943. XXI. Illustre e caro Signor Berenson, Vi ringrazio moltissimo delle Vostre buone e generose parole a proposito del mio ‘Botticelli’, che Vi prego di considerare sopra tutto come un motivo di evasione dalle strettoie dell’ ‘archeologia’. La quale è purtroppo in gran parte raccolta di ‘fatti’, non affatto noiosa né faticosa, per il mio carattere; ma dalla quale talvolta sento il bisogno di evadere, per cercare di aderire più direttamente all’arte. Quanto al metodo, ed al frasario usati in codesto saggio, anche qui ho tentato qualcosa di — relativamente — nuovo; ad un certo punto sopravviene qualche stanchezza dei soliti modi di far la critica, e allora si cerca d’avvicinarsi all’arte per altre vie, a costo di riuscire oscuri: sono tentativi; ma tutta la nostra vita è fatta di tentativi, la maggior parte dei quali falliti.

712 The book is now in Biblioteca Berenson. 713 Berenson was referring to the Portrait of Giuliano de’ Medici published by Bettini, Botticelli, pp. 25–26; pl. 46, in a private collection, dated c. 1475.

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Sono particolarmente felice del Vostro autorevolissimo consenso all’attribuzione e alla datazione del Giuliano, il quadro è di proprietà dell’ecc.714 Co. [nte] Vittorio Cini,715 oggi Ministro delle Comunicazioni: il quale, come sapete, ha una grande raccolta (forse troppo grande!) di opere e oggetti d’arte. Ma ora, chiusa la parentesi botticelliana (e quella di un altro breve studio su Giusto de’ Menabuoi, che si sta pubblicando, e che mi affretterò a mandarVi appena uscito) ritorno ai miei studi bizantini, per i quali però, per il momento, mi manca la possibilità di controllo sui monumenti del Levante, i più importanti e, in fondo, i soli veramente bizantini (salvo naturalmente le cose portatili). Nelle Isole Ionie, dove fui di recente, in un viaggio piuttosto avventuroso e piuttosto scomodo, di bizantino non c’è quasi nulla: c’è invece una intera scuola di pittura barocca veneziana (ma eseguita da Greci), con opere il più delle volte guaste e bisognose di pulitura e di restauro, ma di grande interesse. Quando finalmente i cavalieri dell’Apocalisse saranno di nuovo incatenati spero di poterle studiare a fondo. Intanto mi rallegro molto vivamente con Voi della Vostra infaticabilità, e del nuovo studio che state facendo su opere dei primi secoli cristiani; per quanto la Vostra modestia davvero eccessiva lo metta in dubbio, io non dubito che i Vostri risultati saranno, come sempre, fondamentali: quanto poi a non essere ‘specialista’, trovo che questa è la Vostra qualità più invidiabile; e poi, chi meglio di Voi conosce il Medioevo; tutto il Medioevo? Sempre Vostro affezionato e devoto Sergio Bettini

126. BB to Bettini (Archivio Bettini, sezione Corrispondenza, raccoglitore 2/1, fascicolo ex 44, handwritten) June 23, 1944 I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Dear Bettini. I can not begin to thank you for the book on Menabuoi.716 It looks scholarly & exhaustive, & I expect to draw profit from reading & consulting it.

714 Perhaps ‘eccellentissimo’. 715 Vittorio Cini (Ferrara, 1885–Venice, 1977), Count of Monselice, politician, entrepreneur, art collector. The painting with the Portrait of Giuliano de’ Medici by Botticelli, formerly in the Cini collection, is now in Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art (inv. no. 1952.5.56, tempera on panel, 75.5 × 52.5 cm). 716 Bettini, Giusto de’ Menabuoi. The book is now in Biblioteca Berenson.

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As luck would have it, Col. [onel] De Wald717 lunched here the very day I received your letter. I explained your case, & urged him to do all he could in your favour. He promised to do so. He will, & I hope succeed. All good wishes Sincerely yrs. [yours] B. Berenson

127. BB to Bettini (Archivio Bettini, sezione Corrispondenza, raccoglitore 2/1, fascicolo ex 44, handwritten) June 19, 1945 I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Dear Bettini. Just a word to assure you that I have received your letter of June 11,718 & that I shall make every effort to have you confirmed at your post in the university. I am delighted to hear that you & yours got thro’ [through] the storm unhurt. I trust that travelling will improve soon & that you will have occasion to come to Florence, & let me make your personal acquaintance I hear that Gattamelata is riding again, & all the Donatellos back in the Santo.719 Sincerely yours B. Berenson

128. BB to Bettini (Archivio Bettini, sezione Corrispondenza, raccoglitore 2/1, fascicolo ex 44, handwritten. The letter is mentioned in Agazzi, ‘Per una biografia di Sergio Bettini’, ed. by Agazzi and Romanelli, p. 67 n. 74)

717 Ernest Theodore DeWald. 718 The letter is not present among BBP. 719 Berenson was alluding to the fact that the bronze statues by Donatello, namely the Equestrian Gattamelata, 1453, in Piazza del Santo, the Crucifix, 1444–1447, and the High Altar of St Anthony, 1447–1450, in the Basilica di Sant’Antonio (also known as ‘Il Santo’) in Padua had been freed (or put back in their place) from the protective structures due to the danger of bombing.

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March 3, 1946 I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Dear Bettini. Yesterday Thomas Whittemore, on his way to Constantinople, came to see me. He is very eager to see what you said about him in a number of Felix Ravenna for 1939.720 If you have an estratto send it to me to forward to him. If not might I ask you to make a type-written copy of the passage concerning him. Let me hear how you are getting on. With kind regards Sincerely yours B. Berenson

129. Bettini to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 30.19, handwritten) Padova, 12.III. 1946 Illustre e caro Signor Berenson, sono riuscito a ritrovare, tra le poche cose recuperate dalle macerie della mia casa, l’articolo desiderato da Mr Whittemore (articolo perciò doppiamente ‘estratto’) e glielo mando, insieme con qualche altra modestissima nota, che non ricordo se Le ho inviato a suo tempo. Si tratta di cose che non arricchiranno certo la Sua biblioteca, ma che La prego di accettare in segno di memore omaggio. Di Mr Thomas Whittemore, che incontrai nella ‘sua’ Aya Sofia a Istanbul anni fa,721 e poi nell’ultimo congresso bizantino a Roma,722 ho conservato un ricordo simpaticissimo, non soltanto per il suo valore, che apprezza chi lo sa conoscere, ma anche per la sua mancanza di ‘facies academica’ e per il suo amore sensitivo per l’arte bizantina; la quale merita d’essere conosciuta ed amata, sebbene, nel nostro infelice Paese, certi nostri magni autori di ‘viatici’ sembrino averne un considerazione ancora troppo romantica.

720 Bettini, ‘I mosaici di Santa Sofia a Costantinopoli’. 721 Bettini went to Istanbul in 1935. 722 Fifth Congress of Byzantine Studies, Rome, 20–26 September 1936; see the second volume of Atti del V Congresso internazionale di studi bizantini with contributions by Sergio Bettini and Thomas Whittemore.

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Unisco la pala di Pietro Silvio a Piove di Sacco723 — il Dott. Moschini724 mi ha trasmesso il Suo desiderio -. Non è riuscita bene, anche per le condizioni del quadro e per difficoltà di presa. Ma alla prima occasione la farò ripetere. Ho sempre in progetto una visita a Firenze; ma sono costretto a rimandarLa, in attesa che la mia posizione qui all’Università sia finalmente chiarita. Per il momento, sono ancora in alto mare. Sto raccogliendo per la Casa Editrice ‘Le Tre Venezie’,725 che è piena di buone intenzioni e merita di essere aiutata, una collana di testimonianze sugli atteggiamenti critici dei maggiori studiosi di problemi d’arte. Stanno per uscire le traduzioni italiane di Wölfflin, Löwy,726 Wickhoff,727 Riegl;728 alla fine la mia speranza sarebbe che la serie di questi libri potesse offrire un quadro abbastanza completo del moderno pensiero sull’arte nei suoi principali aspetti. Tra i viventi, il primo tra i critici, e assolutamente fondamentale è, of course, Bernhard Berenson; del quale ambirei molto si potessero pubblicare anche poche pagine inedite di teoria critica, o di ricordi autobiografici, ecc.; oppure avere da Lei, se crede, e se non Le fosse di troppo disturbo, l’indicazione di qualche Suo saggio, o gruppo di saggi, già pubblicati; nei quali Lei ritenga sia più vivamente espresso il Suo pensiero critico. Io, dopo una breve parentesi occidentale, sono ritornato ai miei studi bizantini — per quel che è possibile finché i viaggi in Levante sono praticamente preclusi —; e tra non molto spero di poterLe mandare un mio lungo studio sopra l’architettura di San Marco a Venezia729 — che non credo, a differenza di ipotesi recenti, sia, nella sua forma architettonica, nemmeno parzialmente ‘occidentale’, ma tolta di peso dall’esempio dei SS. Apostoli di Costantinopoli,730 cioè da una costruzione immaginata e concretata da quel grande genio dell’architettura di ogni tempo, che fu Antemio di Tralle,731 e rimaneggiata nel X secolo dall’architetto ufficiale di Costantino Porfirogenito,732

723 Gian Pietro Silvio (?-Venice, towards the end of 1551), Saint Martin enthroned between SS. Peter and Paul, presbytery of the Abbey Cathedral of Piove di Sacco, Padua, 1532 (inv. no. 45433, oil on canvas, 250 × 150 cm). 724 Vittorio Moschini (Monteleone Calabro, then Vibo Valentia, 1896–Venice, 1976), the then Soprintendente alle Gallerie e alle Opere d’Arte di Venezia e del Veneto. 725 Casa Editrice ‘Le Tre Venezie’ based in Padua. 726 Emanuel Löwy (Vienna, 1857–1938), archaeologist. 727 Franz Wickhoff (Steyr, 1853–Venice, 1909), art historian. 728 Alois Riegl (Linz, 1858–Vienna, 1905), art historian. See Löwy, La natura nell’arte greca, trans. by Vinciguerra and ed. by C. Anti (Padua, 1946), original title Die Naturwiedergabe in der älteren griechischen Kunst; on the Italian translation of Wickhoff, Römische Kunst (Die Wiener Genesis) and Riegl, Die spätrömische Kunst-Industrie, see ‘Byzantine Vision of Bernard n. 99 and n. 59. 729 Bettini, L’architettura di San Marco published in 1946. 730 On the Church of the Holy Apostles, see n. 262. 731 Anthemius of Tralles (born in Tralles, Asia Minor), architect, active in the mid-sixth century in Constantinople. 732 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (Constantinople, 905–59), Byzantine emperor from 913 to 959.

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Teodoro Belona.733 Malgrado le alterazioni numerose (ma è possibile, con un paziente lavoro filologico, ricostruire il ‘testo’ genuino), ritengo si possa porre anche San Marco, accanto a S. Sofia di Costantinopoli, tra le rare ‘attribuzioni’ ad Antemio di Tralle. Spero che la Sua salute si conservi buona, e La prego di accogliere l’ossequio affettuoso e devoto del Suo Sergio Bettini

130. BB to Thomas Whittemore (Collège de France, Fonds Thomas Whittemore, lettre de Bernard Berenson (029), handwritten) March 14, 1946 I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Dear Whittemore. I enclose Bettini’s article734 which you want to see, & add a few words he writes about you in his letter to me. I was glad to see you, & I look forward to our collaboration. I can promise it whole-heartedly. I only wish my physical powers were what they should be. Wishing you ‘good hunting’ Sincerely yrs. [yours] B. Berenson (Collège de France, Fonds Thomas Whittemore, lettre de Bernard Berenson (031), typewritten) I TATTII SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Dalla lettera di Sergio Bettini a Bernardo [sic] Berenson in data 12 Marzo 1946 Di Mr Thomas Whittemore, che incontrai nella ‘sua’ Agia Sofia a Istanbul anni fa, e poi nell’ultimo congresso bizantino a Roma, ho conservato un ricordo simpaticissimo, non soltanto per il suo valore, che apprezza chi lo sa conoscere,

733 On Teodoro Belona of whom no biographical information has been found, see Bettini, L’architettura di San Marco, p. 61 and the Index on p. 301. The title of ‘architect’ attributed to Teodoro Belona by Bettini derives from a perhaps somewhat forced reading of the term συνεργός: literally ‘confederate’, ‘collaborator’, ‘fellow worker’, used by Theophanes Continuatus, ‘De Constantino Porphyrogenneto’ Book 6, chapter 27, paragraph 9, p. 452. 734 Bettini’s article was not found.

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ma anche per la sua mancanza di ‘facies academica’ e per il suo amore sensitivo per l’arte bizantina; la quale merita d’essere conosciuta ed amata, sebbene, nel nostro infelice paese, certi nostri magni autori di ‘viatici’ sembrano averne un considerazione troppo romantica.

131. BB to Bettini (Archivio Bettini, sezione Corrispondenza, raccoglitore 2/1, fascicolo ex 44, handwritten) I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE March 17, 1946 Dear Bettini. Ever so many thanks for your letter of the 12th; for your estratti which I truly treasure, as well as for what you tell me about your forthcoming book on S. Marco. Let me say at once that ever since I have followed Byzantine studies I have been of the opinion you express, namely that S. Marco is essentially Byzantine, & inspired by the Apostles’ church at Constantinople. I hope the Nationalistic tendency that has led so many Italians to ignore & underestimate Byzantine influence — an influence so notorious that as late as mid Cinquecento Vasari was fully aware of it, will now be dropped. It is kind of you to crown me as one of the kings of criticism. Riegl, Wölfflin non sum dignus but Wickhoff, a humanist & wit, had not faintest notion of art, & Löwy only a myopic one. Of their contemporaries you should not neglect Hildebrand with his? ‘Problem der Form’,735 & even Fiedler736 deserves more consideration than Wickhoff or Löwy. What do you mean to do? Reproduce a whole book of each? Scarcely, for Riegl’s Spätrömische is being translated by Signora Ragghianti,737 & Wickhoff is scarcely worth while in the bulk. If you mean to take extracts only, which? That would help me select something of my Minderwertigkeit. I have forwarded to Whittemore your paper about him. He will be delighted.

735 Adolf von Hildebrand (Marburg, 1847–Munich, 1921), sculptor and writer, see Hildebrand, Das Problem der Form. 736 Konrad Fiedler (Öderan, 1841–Munich, 1895), theorist and art historian. 737 Berenson was referring to Licia Collobi (Trieste, 1914–Florence, 1989), art historian and wife of Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti (Lucca, 1910–Florence, 1987), art historian.

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Thanks too for the Silvios. Better photos would be welcome. Please thank dear Moschini for me. All good wishes Sincerely yours B. Berenson

132. BB to Bettini (Archivio Bettini, sezione Corrispondenza, raccoglitore 2/1, fascicolo ex 44, handwritten) May 11, 1946. I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Dear Bettini Directly on receipt of the estratti for Whittemore & myself, I wrote to thank you. As you flatteringly asked me to contribute to a series of art-criticism I inquired whether these were to be entire books, or only essays, articles, fragments. I have not heard from you since, & am wondering whether that letter ever reached you. With best wishes Sincerely yours B. Berenson

133. Bettini to BB (BBP, Correspondence, Folder 30.19, handwritten) MUSEO CIVICO DI PADOVA IL DIRETTORE Padova 18. V. 1946 Illustre e caro Signor Berenson, mi scusi molto se ho tardato a rispondere alla Sua del 17 a. [nno] s. [olare]; speravo di poterLe mandare, insieme, una copia del mio ‘Architettura di San Marco’; ma il lavoro di stampa va per le lunghe oltre il previsto, e non è più decente ch’io aspetti. E mi preme anche dirLe qualcosa di più a proposito della collana ‘Contributi alla storia delle civiltà artistiche’, alla quale saremmo qui tutti così lieti se Lei volesse contribuire con un Suo scritto. L’Editore, frattanto, Le manderà i volumetti finora usciti. — Ha ragione: Wickhoff e Löwy non ebbero un occhio particolarmente acuto; ma sono stati inseriti nella collana perché il Naturwiedergabe di Löwy e il Römische Kunst di Wickhoff, pur nei loro limiti, sono sembrati utili alla comprensione del movimento di riflessione metodica sull’arte, che sta alla base della nostra attuale visione.

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(Sarebbe, per esempio, difficile rendersi conto del passaggio di Riegl da un saggio come ‘Stilfragen’738 ad un capolavoro come ‘Spätrömische Ksth.’ [Kunstindustrie] senza l’intermediario della Wiener Genesis di Wickhoff). E questa modesta collezioncina vorrebbe, al suo termine, offrire al lettore italiano, che in genere non è molto aggiornato in queste cose, un profilo abbastanza completo degli atteggiamenti critici moderni. Sarà inserita anche una traduzione di Hildebrandt; ma intanto vorremmo interrompere la serie delle riesumazioni con l’opera viva di qualche nome grosso; e quale più grosso, oggi, del Suo? — Se ci vuol favorire, ci mandi, o almeno ci prometta, qualche cosa di Suo; quello che crede e come crede; anche una cosetta breve: osservazioni, aforismi, riflessioni su particolari aspetti di questo mondo così vario e tanto, anche umanamente, poliedrico, che è quello dell’arte, a contatto del quale Lei ha tanto vissuto; riflessi d’un’esperienza impareggiabile che, se Lei non li fissa, andranno, in un futuro che ci auguriamo il più possibile lontano, irremissibilmente perduti. Se questo non è possibile, ci contenteremmo di tradurre un’antologia dai Suoi scritti già editi, scegliendo quei tratti che Lei crede corrispondano meglio al Suo pensiero. Basterebbe che me ne desse un’indicazione sommaria, e, nel caso, l’autorizzazione. Ricorda Lei se Mr Whittemore ha pubblicato altro su S. Sofia, dopo i due ‘Rapporti preliminari’ usciti da tempo? Io desidererei molto aver notizia del punto a cui egli è arrivato nel suo lavoro di ripulitura dei mosaici; posso scrivergli al Pera Palace? Non sono sicuro se di solito scenda al Pera o al Tokatlyan. Mi scusi, e mi abbia sempre Suo devotissimo Sergio Bettini [in the margin of the letter on the lower left is a BB’s handwritten note] ‘Whittemore American Embassy Istanbul’

134. Bettini to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 30.19, handwritten) CATANIA 1.2.1947 Tel. 14.241 UNIVERSITA’ DEGLI STUDI BIBLIOTECA DELLA FACOLTA’ DI LETTERE Illustre e caro Signor Berenson, La Sua lettera,739 graditissima, mi raggiunge qui a Catania, dove, malgrado ogni sforzo, sono infine stato costretto a venire, e a rimanere a far lezione; sperando sempre, per molte ragioni, di poter ritornare a Padova. La quale è tutt’altro che una bella città, ma

738 Riegl, Stilfragen. Grundlegungen zu einer Geschichte der Ornamentik. 739 BB’s letter was not found.

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ha, malgrado tutto, una vita culturale maggiore, e ha Venezia vicina. Catania non è brutta, quasi tutta però costruita in un generico barocco; ma le cose d’arte sono poche e purtroppo maltrattate. Oltre alle miniature, ho visto qui, e altrove in Sicilia, una serie di interessanti quadri fiamminghi; poi, se si tolgono Antonello,740 l’ormai scaduto Caravaggio741 e i mosaici di Palermo, c’è ben poco. Molti problemi presenterebbe l’architettura medievale, ma quasi soltanto eruditi. La ringrazio molto dell’invio del Suo Sassetta,742 che troverò a Padova al mio ritorno, il quale ormai non dovrebbe essere molto lontano. Non mi poteva fare regalo migliore; e debbo dirLe ch’Ella ha veramente per me una grande gentilezza, che mi commuove. Spero che la Sua salute sia buona, malgrado il freddo, la cui mancanza è certo uno dei vantaggi della Sicilia. Ossequi alla Signora, e mi creda Suo devotissimo Sergio Bettini

135. Bettini to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 30.19, handwritten. The letter is transcribed from ‘E’ davvero vergognoso’ up to ‘dell’arte bizantina’ and from ‘solo in Italia’ up to ‘necessità’ and from ‘in questo campo’ up to ‘da sé’ in Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 148 and n. 27; Agazzi, ‘Per una biografia di Sergio Bettini’, ed. by Agazzi and Romanelli, p. 67 and n. 75) Padova, 21 genn. [aio] 1948 MUSEO CIVICO DI PADOVA IL DIRETTORE Illustre e caro Signor Berenson, il Maggiore H. E. J. Spearman si è rivolto, dietro Suo consiglio (e Le sono assai grato della fiducia) a me per un giudizio sopra un ritratto che porta la firma (apocrifa) di Jacopo Bassano. Le mando perciò copia della mia risposta,743 e colgo l’occasione per farmi vivo con Lei. Spero ch’Ella stia bene, e che non sia seccata con me perché non sono venuto ancora a farLe visita a Settignano. Che vuole, sono sempre assillato dalla 740 Antonello da Messina (Messina, c. 1430–1479), painter. 741 Perhaps Bettini was referring to Caravaggio’s Resurrection of Lazarus in the Museo Regionale, Messina which had conservation problems. 742 Bettini was referring to Berenson, Sassetta. Un pittore senese della leggenda francescana published in 1946, first translation from the English original by Malavasi; original title: Berenson, A Sienese Painter of the Franciscan Legend. The book came out simultaneously in London and New York in 1909 but was originally published as articles in The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs in 1903, see Berenson, ‘A Sienese Painter of the Franciscan Legend. Part I’; Berenson, ‘A Sienese Painter of the Franciscan Legend. Part II-(Conclusion)’. 743 No biographical information has been found on Major Spearmann and the copy of Bettini’s letter is not present among BBP.

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necessità di dividermi tra Padova e Catania: qui non hanno ancora trovato il modo di assegnare una cattedra all’Archeologia cristiana. E’ davvero vergognoso che, mentre tutte le Università straniere, e le americane in particolare, hanno Istituti fiorenti e ben avviati per lo studio dell’arte bizantina (anche a Vienna è stata ricostituita l’Österreischische Byzantinische Gesellschaft presso il Kunsthistorisches Institut di quella Università), solo in Italia, cioè nel Paese che dovrebbe avere maggiore interesse a questo studio, non se ne sia ancora capita l’importanza, anzi la necessità. Ora, per esempio, mi han chiamato a partecipare alla Commissione ministeriale per il restauro dei mosaici di Ravenna: il lavoro include anche una revisione a fondo non solo dei vecchi restauri, ma anche delle pubblicazioni, come quelle di C. Ricci,744 che lasciano molto a desiderare. Per un lavoro di questo genere sarebbe necessario appoggiarsi a un Istituto specializzato; ma questo in Italia non esiste. In questo campo da noi chi vuole lavorare deve far tutto da sè, coi suoi modesti mezzi, e privo persino degli elementari strumenti di lavoro. E’ un miracolo se, con un enorme ed inutile spreco di tempo e di fatica, si riesce a far qualcosa. Ho idea di rivolgermi a qualche Università americana particolarmente interessata a questi studii, come la Princeton; sono tanto generosi e chissà che non mi mandino le loro pubblicazioni. Scusi l’amaro sfogo e mi creda, sempre con immutata devozione, Suo Sergio Bettini Ossequi alla Sua gentile Signora.

136. BB to Bettini (Archivio Bettini, sezione Corrispondenza, raccoglitore 2/1, fascicolo ex 44, handwritten. The letter is mentioned in Agazzi, ‘Per una biografia di Sergio Bettini’, ed. by Agazzi and Romanelli, p. 67 n. 75) 744 Corrado Ricci (Ravenna, 1858–Rome, 1934), archaeologist and art historian. He was head of the first Soprintendenza ai Monumenti of Italy, created in 1897, and the city interested in this new management formula was Ravenna, which he directed until 1905. See Iannucci, ‘Introduzione’; Iannucci, ‘Milleottocentonovantasette: Ovvero: microstoria della Soprintendenza’; Novara, ‘Restauri dell’Ottocento’, pp. 31–33. Former director of the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan (1898) and the Gallerie of Florence (1903), Ricci was head of the Direzione Generale delle Antichità e Belle Arti (1906–1919). He was appointed Senatore del Regno in 1923 and subsequently President of the Consiglio Superiore delle Antichità e Belle Arti. As for Corrado Ricci’s publications, Bettini’s reference was almost certainly to the Tavole Storiche dei mosaici di Ravenna which were published in Rome between 1930 and 1937 (the sixth and seventh booklet were issued posthumously whereas the eighth-in four partsappeared in 1937) in the book series ‘Monumenti’ of the Reale Istituto di Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte, founded by Ricci himself in 1919. Ricci’s texts were accompanied by drawings made by the draftsman Corrado Azzaroni and the restorer/mosaicist Giuseppe Zampiga. See David, ‘Corrado Ricci and his Tavole storiche’; Ricci, Monumenti. Tavole storiche dei mosaici di Ravenna, 8 vols. On Corrado Ricci, see Sicoli a, ‘Corrado Ricci’; Sicoli b, ‘Corrado Ricci’; Ranaldi, ‘Restauri del Novecento’, p. 45 n. 1.

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Febr. [uary] 2, 48 I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Dear Bettini. I most heartily agree in deploring here in Italy the neglect of interest in Byzantine studies. It is due I fear to nationalism which is in the last 50 years has increasingly tried to ignore Italy’s debt to Hellas and Byzantium. In about 2 months will appear in Italian a small book of mine which attempts among other things to fight nationalism in art history.745 Let me know where you want me to send it to you. Of course you have received the catalogue of the Byzant. [ine] exhibition at Baltimore746 last spring. André Grabar747 has been here & went to Rome to lecture.748 With best wishes B. Berenson

137. BB to Bettini (Archivio Bettini, sezione Corrispondenza, raccoglitore 2/1, fascicolo ex 44, handwritten. The letter is probably the one referred to in Agazzi ‘Per una biografia di Sergio Bettini’, ed. by Agazzi and Romanelli, p. 67 n. 75) May 22, 1948 I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Dear Bettini. I am delighted to learn that there is likelihood of your occupying at Padua itself the post of lecturer on so-called ‘Early Xian’ [Christian] as well as Byzantine Art.

745 Berenson was referring to his Estetica, etica. 746 On the exhibition, see n. 437. 747 André Grabar was at that time Director of Studies as well as Professor of Byzantine Art and Archaeology at the École Pratique des Hautes Études and Professor of Byzantine Art and Archaeology at the Collège de France. 748 Berenson was referring to a lecture held by Grabar at the École française de Rome on which no information was found. See also Toesca’s letter to BB of 19 February 1948: no. 229.

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We mean to call for you at the Museo Civico Friday June 4 at 11. a.m. or thereabout. We expect to stay at the Storione,749 & to remain at Padua till Saturday afternoon. Looking forward to seeing you Sincerely yours B. Berenson

138. BB to Bettini (Archivio Bettini, sezione Corrispondenza, raccoglitore 2/1, fascicolo ex 44, handwritten) May 23, 1948 I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Dear Bettini. I expect to be at Padua June 2 or 3, & needless to say, would love to see you. I shall then go to Maser750 for two days, & then a fortnight in Venice. Early in July or even late in June will appear my Estetica Etica e Storia nelle arti figurative. Where shall I address it to you? Sincerely yrs. [yours] B. Berenson

139. Bettini to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 30.19, handwritten. The letter is mentioned in Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 148 and n. 27) MUSEO CIVICO DI PADOVA IL DIRETTORE 26. V. 1948

749 The Albergo Ristorante Storione in Padua was built around the 1860s and owes its fame to the Liberty decoration of the main rooms of the restaurant on the ground floor by Cesare Laurenti (Mesola, Ferrara, 1854–Venice, 1936) in 1904–1905 and ruinously detached in 1962 during the demolition of the building to make way for a bank headquarters. Only a few fragments remain of the decoration. See Baradel, ed., Novecento privato, exhibition catalogue. 750 Maser, a town in the Veneto region where Villa Barbaro (also known as Villa di Maser) is located. The Villa was conceived around 1550 by architect Andrea Palladio (Padua, 1508–?, 1580) as a prestigious venue for the agricultural estate of the noble Venetian brothers Daniele and Marcantonio Barbaro, who commissioned painter Paolo Caliari, called Veronese (Verona, 1528–Venice, 1588), and sculptor Alessandro Vittoria (Trento, 1525–Venice, 1608) to decorate the building. See BB’s letter to Forbes no. 75.

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Illustre e caro Signor Berenson, Le sono assai grato d’essersi ricordato di me per il suo passaggio da Padova; non v’è bisogno che Le dica con quanto piacere m’affretterò ad incontrarLa. — Purtroppo, avendo avuto la casa distrutta durante la guerra, né essendo ancora riuscito a surrogarla, mi è tolta anche la gioia dei più elementari doveri d’ospitalità. Io, posso dire, abito l’intera giornata qui al Museo Civico, che mi serve da ufficio e da recapito, in attesa che i mezzi della Soprintendenza e del Comune consentano di riportarvi le opere da Venezia e di riordinarlo. Poiché Ella è stata sempre così buona e gentile da interessarsi alla mie vicende, mi è molto grato poterLe dare la notizia che finalmente la Facoltà di Lettere di Padova ha votato l’istituzione d’una cattedra ordinaria di Archeologia Cristiana: quindi io sarò trasferito qui e non avrò più necessità di andare a Catania. I viaggi e i soggiorni laggiù erano diventati un bel peso. Così spero di poter mettere in piedi, poco alla volta, un piccolo Istituto per lo studio dell’arte bizantina, con una biblioteca specializzata, che manca in Italia, e con un Archivio fotografico provvisto almeno delle cose essenziali. Il compito non è facile perché, come Lei ben sa, in Italia c’è molta incomprensione per questi problemi, pur così eccezionalmente importanti anche per la nostra arte; e tra gli stessi studiosi ‘medievalisti’ v’è un atteggiamento piuttosto caotico. Inoltre, v’è la solita penuria di mezzi (che in parte dipende anche da quella incomprensione). Comunque, mi son messo in relazione col bravo A. Grabar e con l’eccellente W. Sas-Zaloziecky,751 che stimo moltissimo, e che attualmente dirige la Österreischische Byzantinische Gesellschaft dell’Università di Vienna. E in ogni caso, se riuscissi soltanto ad iniziare qualcosa in quest’ordine, potrei illudermi di non avere sprecato la mia vita. La ringrazio molto della promessa del Suo nuovo libro, che aspetto con ansia. Mi creda molto devotamente Suo Sergio Bettini Ossequi alla gentile Signora.

140. BB to Robert Woods Bliss (HUA, Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss Papers HUGFP 76.16, Box 3, typewritten. A copy of the letter and the draft thereof are in BBP, Correspondence, folder 30.52. The sentence ‘What has become of the Royall Tylers, father and son?’ is mentioned in Nelson, R. S., ‘Private Passion Made Public’, p. 39 and n. 1) 751 Wladimir Sas-Zaloziecky (1896–1959), art historian.

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From B. Berenson I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE February 2d, 1945 To the Honourable Robert Bliss Dumbarton Oaks Georgetown Washington, DC Dear Robert Bliss: Ever since my liberation I have been meaning to write to you, and to inquire how you and Mildred were getting on, as to health and happiness, and where you were living. I shall be grateful if you will let me know. Meanwhile I want to talk to you of a matter that may interest you. For many years past, I have been devoting my best energies to the study of oecumenical art from before Constantine the Great to beyond Justinian. For the part that dealt with ‘Pagan’ subjects I had an abundance of publications, a corpus of this and a corpus of that, e.g. Delbrück’s Consular Diptychs or the great work of L’Orange on the Arch of Constantine.752 But I was time and again held up by the lack of a corpus of all the known early Christian ivories. No such thing exists but it is wanted, is in fact indispensable to serious students of later oecumenical alias Byzantine art. I have spoken to Fritz Volbach about it. He shared my feelings that a corpus of this sort would facilitate our studies, and regretted that Goldschmidt was no more there to do it. I proposed that he should undertake it, and at last he has consented and tells me that he has all the material and that it would not take too long to collect illustrations and to prepare the text. The question remains as to who shall publish it. Volbach and I both cherish the hope that the one institution in the West that ‘majors’ on the art of the early Christian centuries, Dumbarton Oaks, may be induced to undertake it. You might be eventually assisted by Carnegie Fund753 and the something or other of the Learned Societies. Besides, an edition of 500 could be sold off easily and the price made to cover printing and a decent honorarium for Volbach.

752 L’Orange, Der spätantike Bildschmuck des Konstantinsbogens. 753 Perhaps Berenson was referring to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching which was created in 1905 by Andrew Carnegie (Dunfermline, 1835–Lenox, 1919), industrialist and philanthropist.

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If the idea interests you and you agree to father it, details could be agreed upon. I should propose a modest affair, say small quarto or large octavo, with clear but not luxurious reproductions. Affectionate greetings to you both. Sincerely yours Bernard Berenson P.S. What has become of the Royall Tylers, father and son?754

141. Bliss to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 30.51, typewritten. A copy of the letter is in HUA, Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss Papers HUGFP 76.16 Box 3. The sentence ‘Dumbarton Oaks is definitely interested’ is mentioned in Nelson, R. S., ‘Private Passions Made Public’. p. 39 and n. 3) DEPARTMENT OF STATE CONSULTANT TO THE SECRETARY March 30, 1945 B. Berenson, Esquire I Tatti Settignano, Firenze, Italia My dear BB: It was a delight to receive (on March 28) your letter of February 2nd. Though we have been allowed to share the letters you have written others and have received satisfactory answers to cable enquiries regarding you and Mrs Berenson which we sent Kirk755 as soon as he returned to Italy last year, we are very glad to have direct word from you. Mildred wrote you at some length months ago but slowness of delivery is inevitable; by this time, however, I hope her letter has reached you. She also sent you a food package which should have arrived at I Tatti here now. Now to the important matter raised in your letter: — We are much interested in your suggestion and very sympathetic to the idea. We share with you the belief that Volbach would do the job well. Collecting the material and photographs for the illustrations is the easiest part of the task; the difficult and important remainder is the text of the Corpus. Perhaps you could supervise that essential both as to form and substance.

754 Royall Tyler and his son William Royal (Paris, 1910–Bristol, Vermont, 2003), diplomat. 755 Alexander Comstock Kirk (Chicago, 1888–Tucson, 1979), diplomat and ambassador of the United States in Italy from 1944 to 1946.

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So, will you please tell Volbach that Dumbarton Oaks is definitely interested in the idea of its publishing a Corpus on early Christian ivories. In order to form some idea as to the cost of publication, it will be necessary, of course, to work out various details, such as the number of illustrations, their size and quality, the format of the volume and other matters. Also it would be helpful to know what you and Volbach consider would constitute ‘a decent honorarium’ for him. Dumbarton Oaks will await with much interest further word from you. In order that as little time as possible be lost in transit of letters, I suggest that both you and Volbach address your letters to me as follows: Honorable Robert Woods Bliss Consultant to the Secretary of State Department of State Washington, DC and ask either Ambassador Kirk or Ambassador Myron Taylor756 to send the letter (or letters) by air pouch. From the above you will surmise that I am again working in my old Department! After conveying Dumbarton Oaks to Harvard in 1940 we eased the wrench by going to Santa Barbara757 where une intervention chirurgicale serieuse kept me until the autumn of ’42. I then bought a small house in Georgetown, a few blocks from Dumbarton Oaks, and was given a war job in this Department. Work has agreed with me and I grow younger each year! Mildred, too, is well though her energy has not abated and she accomplishes more each day than many of her friends’ daughters. She retains her good looks! Royall T. [yler] continues to reside in Geneva, where he is active as before, and has been for some time past the representative in Switzerland of UNRRA.758 His son has been doing important and excellent work in broadcasting since before our entry in the war. He is at present the deputy director of O.W.I.759 in France.

756 Myron Charles Taylor (Lyons, New York, 1874–New York City, 1959), financer, diplomat and personal representative of Presidents Franklin Delano Roosvelt and Harry Spencer Truman to Pope Pius XII from 1940 to 1950. 757 Santa Barbara, a coastal city in California. 758 United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) was created at a 44-nation conference at the White House on 9 November 1943. Its mission was to provide economic assistance to European nations after the Second World War and to repatriate and assist the refugees who would come under Allied control. 759 In 1944-45 William Royall Tyler, Jr. was deputy director and then director of the Office of War Information in France (O.W.I.).

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It was a great relief when we finally received word of you and Mrs Berenson’s safety and we were delighted to learn later on that your collection was practically intact. So we give thanks! Mildred joins in sending affectionate good wishes to you and Mrs Berenson. Yours as ever Robert Woods Bliss [follows handwriting] Please give our kind remembrance to ‘Nicky’ [followed by typing] P.S. April 2 On learning night before last of Mary’s death, I tried to cable you the following message to convey our sentiments of sorrow and condolence in which four of your friends who were dining with us wanted to share. Finding that telegraphic communications with Florence and Rome were only for official and press messages I have retrieved my letter to quote this text we could not cable: Just learned of Mary’s death; thankful she remained to welcome you home but wish she could have lingered for complete victory and to see her again. Our understanding, affection and sympathy. Mildred and Robert Bliss, William Phillips, Margaret and John Walker, Barbara Sessions. We were all saddened that your return to I Tatti has been followed so soon by such a sorrow — the ending of a long companionship of affection and devotion. Our sympathy is very real and understanding. Robert

142. Bliss to Alexander Kirk (HUA, Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss Papers HUGFP 76.16 Box 3, typewritten) March 30, 1945 The Honorable Alexander Kirk American Ambassador Rome, Italy Dear Alexander: Because you are so inordinately occupied by the obligations of your post I do not bother you with letters, knowing your punctualness in acknowledging them.

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Nevertheless, Mildred and I frequently speak of you and are very glad that you are at the helm in Italy. We remain on here indefinitely, that is, as long as the war lasts, and have no plans for the future except to continue in our spare moments to further the work at Dumbarton Oaks. To this end, I am sending the enclosed letter for B.B.760 which I should be grateful if you would have forwarded to its destination, should you see no objection to so doing. I have left it unsealed so that you may assure yourself that it contains nothing contrary to censor regulations. I see your nephew almost daily in the OSS,761 where most of my time is spent. He is doing very well. With Mildred’s and my affectionate messages, Yours as ever enclosure

143. BB to Bliss (HUA, Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss Papers HUGFP 76.16 Box 3, handwritten) I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Apr. [il] 9, 1945, Dear Robert, Yrs. [Yours] of March 27762 reached me yesterday. I already had heard that a Prof. Capps of Oberlin Coll. [ege] was doing a corpus of early Xian [Christian] Ivories. Of course that leaves no room for Volbach’s. I cannot understand how you & Prof. Friend failed to know that Prof. Capps had already been commissioned to do this work. When I first proposed the matter it was distinctly as a corpus & no handbook, & naturally with illustrations as close as possible to size of original, thus imposing a folio or large quarto size. Let me hope Prof. Capps will do the job as well as Volbach, with his unique fitness for the job, could have done it.

760 It is not known which letter it is, perhaps the one dated 27 March 1945, see BB’s letter to Robert Woods Bliss, 9 April 1945: no. 143. 761 The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was a wartime intelligence agency of the United States during the Second World War. 762 Bliss’s letter is not present among BBP.

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Volbach, by the way, has already spent a good deal of time over the matter. He is poorer than a rat. It would be handsome if you could afford to send him $500 as compensation. He knows nothing about this suggestion. = I wish you & Mildred were here now. We are having such an early & magical spring. Perhaps I can understand it better, but I have never known a spring so beautiful. I do hope you will be over soon while I am still alive, & I Tatti is inhabited by the biped who, as it were, oozed it out of himself. When I am gone, & it becames an ‘institooshon’ — well, I dare say you have had a foretaste of what that means. I shall make sure as one can that I Tatti does not become a side-show. It will be HARVARD to the core, no matter what passing sickness our alma mater may now be suffering. I am looking forward to seeing Walter Lippmann763 tomorrow or the day after. Affectionately B.B.

144. BB to Bliss (HUA, Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss Papers HUGFP 76.16 Box 3, handwritten) I Tatti Settignano Apr. [il] 23, 1945 My dear Robert. A couple of days ago I received yours of March 30 & the words of condolence added Apr. [il] 2. For these I thank you all. You, who have known her can feel & understand what a loss Mary is to me. I had hoped we should end the trip together, but the Gods ordained otherwise. Luckily there is much to comfort me. There is Nicky’s devotion. She & her relations take all material burdens off my shoulders, & she is constantly by my side to help me at my work. I have devoted servants, a beautiful house, books, a paradise of a garden (Mary’s monument) & loving friends here in Italy as well as at home, & in England & France. So I have no right to wrap myself in sorrow, to mourn. X Now for the content of yr. [your] letter. I thank you for the news you give me of the Tylers, I forgot to ask whether Royall will now get out the 3d vol. [ume] of his Byzant. [ine] album.

763 Walter Lippmann (New York City, 1889–1974), writer, journalist, and political commentator.

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I am delighted that you looked favourably on the idea of getting out a corpus of ivories with early Xian [Christian] subjects I wrote at once to Volbach for the information you desire, & as soon as I receive it, I will ask Kirk to forward by the sacred, awesome embassy pouch. I am glad that you are back in yr. [your] old department, & I hope you will feel like staying there for yet a bit. It needs the few who have had your experience. You know it has been hard to get precise information about anybody in these fatal years. I had no idea that you have been laid up for so long. It makes me happy to learn that both are well, installed near yr. [your] old haunts, & that Mildred, bless her, is as beautiful & zestful as ever. Give her my love & tell her the letter she wrote has not reached me yet. Johnnie Walker sent me the album of the Nat. [ional] Gallery.764 The copy was already half used up by visitors, when I had a chance to send it to the much friend Paul of Jugoslavia.765 Johnnie will not hesitate to let me have another, provided you can wangle to have it sent me by the Embassy pouch. Nicky joins me in affectionate greetings to you both Ever yours B.B.

145. BB to Bliss (HUA, Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss Papers HUGFP 76.16 Box 3, handwritten) Settignano, June 15. 1945. Dear Robert. Owing to uncertainties & delays in communications, I am only now in a position to give details of the scheme for the corpus of Early Xian [Christian] ivories. The format most suitable is the one of Goldschmidt’s Carolingian Ivories & Delbrück’s ‘Consular Diptychs’, nearly the same as Royall Tyler’s albums of ‘Byzantine’ Art. That would allow for the full size reproduction of all objects. There are 33 pyxides (more or less), 9 diptychs, 3 penta-phyches, five caskets, & best of all the Ravenna throne. Both Vollbach [sic] [and] I would urge reproducing in the

764 Perhaps Berenson was referrirng to Cairns and Walker, eds, Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC published in 1944. 765 Prince Paul of Yugoslavia.

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corpus, contemporary non-Xian [Christian] ivories of the same years: — some ten pyxides, a few caskets, & the few diptychs not reproduced by Delbrück. Altogether about 60 plates. Vollbach believes he can get the text into 100 pages of the size of the plates. He writes that Pio Franchi766 & other Vatican scholars are enthusiastic over the proposal, & offer help. Vollbach foresees no serious difficulties, or great expense in collecting the photos for the reproduction-except for those in Russia. There a certain amount of Diplomatic cajoling may be called for* [Volbach believes 40 new negatives will suffice]. With regard to honorarium Vollbach writes as follows (I translate from the German) ‘We can discuss that later with Mr Bliss. It is not a crucial matter, & for the present I can manage with what I have here, the more so as Mrs Bliss so touchingly provides me with coffee. It would be better for me if the sum could be kept in dollars in America until I could use it for my son’s education’. I add that we can trust Vollbach to be as economical as possible on procuring the materials for reproduction. He is entirely on the job, & not out for profit. I will help him of course. A good deal of the material I may have & ready to lend you, on the understanding of course that it be returned unspoiled. The question arises as to where the plates are to be reproduced, & where the printing is to be done. It would of course be much cheaper here than at home. These would also have to be reckoned in, the pay of the translation, if we print the text in English, as I would urge, & you surely would agree. Vollbach writes in German. That is all for the present. I already foresee that after this corpus, we shall want one on Early Xian [Christian] Silver, another on Early Xian [Christian] Bronzes, & a third on Early Xian [Christian] Glass. Then, students will find at hand all the visual material short of painting & sculpture, both which last have already been adequately published. With affection greetings to Mildred, yourself, and Barbara Cordially yours B.B.

146. BB to Bliss (HUA, Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss Papers HUGFP 76.16 Box 3, handwritten)

766 Pio Franchi De’ Cavalieri (Veroli, 1869–Rome, 1960), hagiographer, philologist, and ‘Scriptor’ of the Vatican Library.

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Settignano. Florence, July 7. 1945 Dear Robert. Returning yesterday from my first outing — it was to Siena — after five years. I found the cable in which you & Mildred sent me affectionate thoughts for my birthday. I thank you both with all my heart. At last I have succeeded in getting Volbach to say what he expects as honorarium. It is $2000 (two thousand dollars) It seems modest enough considering the work entailed, & the time it will take. It is unfortunate that under present conditions Volbach finds it too difficult to come here, & I cannot undertake going to Rome. I can trust him to proceed with the task in the most scholarly way, but for the material side I do not know what the outlay may be for photography, & kindred matters. How much you are ready to authorize. You see my own experience is limited to producing books at my own risk, & consequently letting them cost what they must. Happily Volbach is well trained in procuring materials at the least outlay. In the autumn I may feel strong enough for a sojourn in Rome. There I could discuss details with Volbach. I see that he is warming up to the project, & he will end by doing us proud. All good wishes, for the summer. Affectionately B.B.

147. BB to Bliss (HUA, Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss Papers HUGFP 76.16 Box 3, handwritten) Nov. [ember] 24. ’45. I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Dear Robert. Several months have passed since I have heard from you, or even of you, altho’ [although] a vague rumour reached me that Mildred was passing the summer in France. Were you there too? — I spent most of the summer at Vallombrosa, correcting two books767 I mean to send to Harpers presently. I asked Kirk whether I could dispatch them thro’ [through] the embassy pouch to the publisher. He

767 It is unknown what the books were.

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answered NO, but that I could send anything I liked to you. So I wonder whether I could address them to you on (nothing said) the understanding that you would expedite them to Cass Canfield,768 c/o Messrs. [Messieurs] Harper & Brothers, 49 East 33rd Street. New YorkIf you are in a position to do this for me, let me know either by cable or air-mail letter. These last now arrive in nine days. I have had this month an eight day visit of Volbach. As a human being I had known him very little. Il gagne à être connu as most entertaining, knowing everything & everybody, good-humoured, independent, utterly un-snobbish, & un-impressed by worldly values, & a prodigious scholar. We talked shop a great deal, discussing item by item the ivories we mean to publish. It will be a real contribution to art-history & do you proud. Also, perhaps it will tend somewhat, with all modesty, to correct the impression made on most whose voices reach me, namely that Dumbarton Oaks is becoming a mere part of the Princeton statistical machine, & its searching for art needles in the patristic haystacks of the Xian [Christian] East. How I wish you both could come over to stay with me, & talk of all sorts of things that concern our common aspirations! Best wishes to you both for a Merry Xmas [Christmas] & a Happy New Year. Affectionately B.B

148. Bliss to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 30.51, typewritten. A copy of the letter is in HUA, Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss Papers HUGFP 76.16 Box 3. The letter is transcribed from ‘Royall’s boy’ up to ‘State’ in Nelson, R. S., ‘Private Passions Made Public’, p. 39 and n. 4) ADAMS 6216 CABLE ADDRESS MILLROB, WASHINGTON 2750 QUE STREET, N.W. WASHINGTON 7, DC January 10, 1946 B. Berenson, Esquire I Tatti Settignano, Firenze, Italia

768 Augustus Cass Canfield (New York City, 1897–1986), president and chairman of Harper & Brothers publishing house.

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My dear BB: What a long time has passed since I have written you or indeed had the pleasure of a sight of your well known and welcome handwriting! From time to time I have heard news of you through friends that have passed through Italy and have either seen you or friends who could give them reports of your well being, and I am glad that they have all been favorable. Last October I was in Paris and wished many times that it had been possible for me to go on to Italy to see you and Alexander Kirk. On returning to Washington in November, I had the good fortune to see him for two minutes on the sidewalk, a rather tantalizing meeting in view of the long period which had elapsed since we last met. Reverting to the question of Volbach’s work on Byzantine ivories, where do we now stand? You will recall I wrote you that Dumbarton Oaks was definitely interested in the idea of its publishing a Corpus on early Christian ivories. You did write me that he expected an honorarium of $2000; and that would be acceptable. Just what is the best way to proceed now, we will have to leave to your discretion, but it seems to me that it would be expeditious were Volbach to write direct to Professor Albert M. Friend, Jr., Henri Focillon Scholar in Charge of Research at Dumbarton Oaks. In so doing he should start from the beginning in acquainting him with what he (Volbach) has already accomplished and what he proposes to do to complete the Corpus, giving as much detail as possible in respect to the entire undertaking. Then, if Volbach would, at the same time send me a copy of this communication to Professor Friend, I would endeavor to follow the matter on my end. It seems to me that as far as expediting communications goes, a letter sent in the open mail by air is more expeditious at this state of development in international communications than sending letters through the Embassy and Department of State, especially as I have again retired and am no longer consultant to the secretary. I hope you received the letters Mildred and I wrote you following your dear wife’s death. We also wrote you to say how relieved we were to know that your collection remained intact and with no damage of any serious nature. You will be interested to know that Royall’s boy, Bill,769 has just returned from Europe and is now filling an interesting position, at least for the time being, with the Department of State. We are of course delighted to have him again in Washington. This letter is going forward to you by air mail and I hope will arrive promptly to convey Mildred’s and my affectionate wishes for the best possible results in this momentous

769 Bill Tyler (William Royall Tyler, Jr.).

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year, and we hope that your health will continue to allow you to pursue your usual activities, as well as giving us a word now and then of how you are. Yours as ever hsd770 Air Mail

Robert Bliss

149. BB to Bliss (HUA, Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss Papers HUGFP 76.16 Box 3, handwritten) Settignano. Florence, Febr. [uary] 7, 1946. Yr. [Your] air-mail letter of Jan. [uary] 10 reached me the 25th, & I hastened to copy the passage concerning Volbach, & sent it to him. He meanwhile had sent me a pro-memoria for the corpus of ivories, & I enclose it for you & others whom it may concern. In answer to the passage from your letter he replied that as a matter of course he would comply with your request, & henceforth report to Prof. Friend. Just now Volbach is very busy de-Nazifying a son771 of 16 or so, who has found his way to Rome from Germany. The job however, ours I mean interests him & he will give his available time to it. Meanwhile I wonder what he lives on. He sweeps & washes (but seldom) irons, & cooks but wherewith he buys the ingredients for food is a mystery.- Letters do come quicker, altho’ [although] your air-mail one took 15 days. From here to United States air-mail does not seem to function yet. You ask whether I received yr. [your] & Mildred’s letter about my collection, & another about Mary. Neither reached me, but your cable did. To this I wired back, & let me hope it reached you. As we no longer have an ostensible censorship, that will not only expedite correspondence, but seems it against the carelessness or boredom of the censors. I suspect then of having chucked letters into waste-basket. Unfortunately the Italian censorship has risen into full vigour, & is having a grand time. I am glad to hear that William Tyler is within your reach. I have never heard anything but the highest praises of him. I caught but glimpses of him when he was still a lad. I’d give a great deal to see him again.

770 High speed data. 771 Fritz.

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Morey has just been spending a couple of days with me. What a dear, noble devoted gentleman he is. I get the impression that he is fearfully overworked. So many appeals are made to him from every Italian who wants to have his book placed in America, or wants a fellowship to take him to America, or wants American money to help him out here. We are the Whiteley’s772 of the cosmos, the universal provider. I wish you & Mildred would pay me a visit. Not only out of friendship, but because I want to have a heart-to-heart talk about the institution you already have founded, & the one I mean to found. Affectionate greetings to you both Yours B.B.

Wolfgang Fritz Volbach’s memorandum (typewritten. This is the English version of the manuscript one in German entitled ‘Pro Memoria’ which is in the same box and bears B.B.’s note: ‘Sent to B.B. Rome Dec. [ember] 28. 1945’) Memorandum concerning the edition of a Corpus: Late antique and early Christian Ivories (exclusive of the secular diptychs of the consuls) I suggest the following size for the publication: Folio, height about 40 cm, width about 34 cm. Only in so large a format will be possible to reproduce the 5-part dyptychs in original size. As a model for the distribution of the plates and the arrangement of the text one might use Adolph Goldschmidt’s publication of the Carolingian and Ottonian ivories and particularly the edition of the ivory carvings in the Vatican by C. R. Morey (Gli oggetti di avorio e di osso del Museo Sacro Vaticano, 1936).773 If all the ivories are to be reproduced in original size — wherever possible —, about 100–110 plates will be needed. Of pagan carvings we have roughly the following: 16 pyxides, 22 single plaques, 3 boxes; 772 William Whiteley (Purston, 1831–Bayswater, 1907), entrepreneur; he was founder of the William Whiteley department store, built in 1863 at 31 Westbourne Grove in Notting Hill, which was devastated by fire in 1887. The store reopened in Bayswater, London. 773 Morey, Gli oggetti di avorio e di osso del Museo Sacro Vaticano, Catalogo del Museo Sacro della Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

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of Christian ivories: 4 five-part diptychs, 80 single plaques, 32 pyxides, 3 boxes (London, Brescia, Pola), and the Cathedra in Ravenna. If each pyxis is reproduced in four views — one pixis per plate —, and if the individual plaques of the Cathedra in Ravenna are somewhat reduced (since for these there is the publication by Cecchelli),774 100–110 plates will be ample. I think for the text 120 pages will be sufficient, if a short description is given of each of the about 160 pieces. At the moment certain difficulties might be encountered in the procurement of the photographs, since the relations with various countries, such as Russia, are not yet regulated. Therefore it should be advisable to put up a small fund in America for the new photographs. (signed) Fritz Volbach Biblioteca Apost. [olica] Vaticana

150. Bliss to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 30.51, typewritten. A copy of the letter with some variation is in HUA, Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss Papers HUGFP 76.16 Box 3) ADAMS 6216 CABLE ADDRESS MILLROB, WASHINGTON 2750 QUE STREET, N.W. WASHINGTON 7, DC February 8, 1946 Bernard Berenson, Esquire I Tatti Settignano Florence Dear BB, Where your letter of November 24 has been all this time goodness only knows; it reached me today! It has probably been reposing in a pigeon hole of the State Department mail room, for I retired on November 27. There are a few censor stamps

774 Cecchelli, La Cattedra di Massimiano ed altri avorii romano-orientali.

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on the envelope which may account for some delay. Hereafter address me here and if your letters are sent by air they should arrive without delay. Being no longer officially connected with the State Department I doubt whether the Embassy could consent to send me a package in the Pouch. If it cares to do so I have no objection and would be very glad to see that your manuscript was delivered to Cass Canfield. I do not put all of this into a brief telegram as I think it better to explain it fully in writing and hope that this letter will arrive at I Tatti promptly, as I shall send it by air. About three weeks ago I wrote Volbach and hope he has received my letter ere now. We are eager to have him take up the work of ivories in this country and are now awaiting word from him. I am glad that you had a chance for a good visit with him and it interests both Mildred and me to have your appreciation of his qualities and character. Both Mildred and I were in France last autumn, although we were travelling independently and for different reasons. Both our trips were strenuous and depressing, but we were glad to see old friends even though there were gaps in the ranks. When we shall return to Europe is most uncertain, though we may possibly make the attempt again this coming summer. We shall of course keep you advised if there is any possibility of going to Italy, in which case nothing would keep us from knocking at your door. Mildred joins in affectionate wishes and in the hope that we may have your news from time to time. Your as ever, Robert [a handwritten note follows] Dumbarton Oaks is going along well on its own steam borrowing neither from Princeton nor Harvard to keep up the pressure but helped by the goodwill cooperation of both!

151. BB to Bliss (HUA, Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss Papers HUGFP 76.16 Box 3, handwritten) Febr. [uary] 28. 1946 I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Dear Robert. Thanks you for your of Febr. [uary] 8. So mine of Nov. [ember] 24 had only just reached me. A day or two ago I received several letters from home dated

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mid-Nov. [ember] I cannot answer by air-mail because despite agreements it does not yet function from Italy to U.S.A. Meanwhile the Volbach matter has cleared up. I have nothing more to do with it, unless V. [olbach] asks me for advice, the which of course I shall be most happy to give him. Dear Robert, there is much I would like to talk over with you about both Dumbarton Oaks & I Tatti. Do both of you try to come over, & spend a week or ten days here at I Tatti with me; or if in mid-summer at Vallombrosa. You say ‘Dumbarton Oaks is going along on its own stream borrowing neither from Princeton nor Harvard’. Have I then misunderstood your donation all along? I supposed it was definitely a Harvard institution as I mean I Tatti to be. Of course if it perfectly autonomous affair with no more relation to Harvard then to Princeton than any complaints of mine falls away. I remain all the same distressed that an institution I expected so much from should be falling into the hands of scholars who in art matters ignore what I call the essentials for statistics, for iconography, for more philology. I want to make sure the like does not happen here. Affectionate greetings to you both B.B.

152. Bliss to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 107.19, typewritten. A copy of the letter is in HUA, Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss Papers HUGFP 76.16 Box 3) ADAM 6216 CABLE ADDRESS MILLROB, WASHINGTON 2750 QUE STREET, N.W. WASHINGTON 7, DC March 27, 1946 Signore Bernard Berenson, I Tatti Settignano, Florence. My dear B.B., A few days ago I received a letter from Volbach in further reference to his proposed Corpus of ivories, in which he states that you and he in conference at Settignano thought it best to choose the folio size for his Corpus. In view of this I am sending him by this mail a letter calling attention to work along the same lines that has been done by Professor Edward Capps and which is more or less ready for publication.

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Inasmuch as the initial stage of this work of Professor Capps was carried on under the direction of Professor Morey, who is now attached to the Embassy in Rome, I have urged Volbach to get in touch with Morey to go thoroughly into the whole subject in order to prevent unnecessary duplication of work and effort. Enclosed I am sending you a copy of my letter to Volbach, so that you may be fully cognizant of the situation at the present moment. My last letter to you was written on February 8 and I hope it reached you in due time, and I also trust that this letter will not be too long in transit, as I now believe that communications between Italy and the United States are much improved. With many warm remembrances and best greetings, in which Mildred joins, Yours as ever, Robert Woods Bliss

Copy of Bliss’s letter to Volbach (BBP, Correspondence, folder 107.19, typewritten) March 27, 1946 Professor Fritz Volbach, Director El Museo Sacro Vatican City.775 Dear Dr Volbach, Your letter of February 24,776 sent through Professor Morey, reached me a few days ago and I hasten to write you in regard to the proposed Corpus of ivories. Somehow or other Mrs Bliss and I had in mind that your Corpus would be in the form more of a handbook with numerous illustrations for the convenience of scholars, than in a monumental Corpus like the Goldschmidt volume of Byzantine ivories. Since you now say that you and Mr Berenson have thought it best to have your Corpus published in folio size, similar to that of the Ivory Catalogue of the Vatican by Professor Morey, or of the Consular Diptichs by Delbrück, I must tell you about the contemplated publication of a complete Corpus of early Christian ivories which is almost ready to be published, and which was prepared by Edward Capps, Jr., now professor at Oberlin College.

775 Volbach had never been director of the Museo Sacro. Claudia Lega, Assistant Reparto Arti Decorative, Musei Vaticani, kindly suggests that Volbach worked on the collections of the Museo Sacro (or Cristiano), however his name does not appear in the Annuario Pontificio among the directorships of that museum. See Lega, ‘I Musei Cristiano e Profano’. 776 The letter is not present among the Robert Woods Bliss Papers at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

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Mr Capps began a number of years ago to make a complete Corpus of early Christian ivories under the direction of Professor Morey, which was presented as a thesis for his Ph.D. degree at Princeton. Since then he has enlarged it, re-writing the text and revising the illustrations. It is my understanding that the work is now to be a folio volume with 75 plates, plus about 200 extra illustrations, and the text will be fairly voluminous. Mr Capps, I believe, intends that his book shall be the authoritative Corpus of the material — a catalogue raisonné of the whole subject. Professor Friend at Princeton, at present Director of Dumbarton Oaks, recently saw Mr Capps and told him about your book, which of course I had mentioned to Professor Friend some time ago. Mr Capps’ understanding was that your publication was to be in the form of a handbook, as I have already indicated above, and he felt that it did not really collide with his Corpus but would rather be helpful to him in making his own monumental work more complete, particularly bibliographically. Now, however, you are proposing a large folio size work which may very well be a duplication of what Mr Capps is expecting to publish. In view of all this it seems to me that it might be very helpful, as well as advisable, for you and Professor Morey (both being in Rome) to confer on the subject. Professor Morey knows about the Corpus which Mr Capps is preparing and therefore can determine in conversation with you whether what you are proposing to bring out would be identical with the work of Mr Capps, or whether there is room for both publications in this rather specified field. In order that Mr Berenson may be au courant of this situation I am sending him a copy of this letter. I am sure that it will be very helpful if you will get in touch with Prof. Morey as soon as possible, and of course I should be very much interested to know the result of your talk with him. With kind regards, and hoping that you keep well, I remain, Yours sincerely

153. BB to Bliss (HUA, Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss Papers HUGFP 76.16 Box 3, handwritten) Settignano. Febr. [uary] 15, 1953 Dear Robert. I have been waiting to answer your good letter of so long ago as Dec. [ember] 2 ult. [imo]777 till the photos of Mexican artifacts therein promised reached me.778 They arrived yesterday, & I take real pleasure in thanking you. They are a delight to the eye & would be to the touch if only I could handle & finger them.

777 The letter is not published here but is in BBP, Correspondence, folder 30.51, typewritten. 778 The photos of Pre-Columbian sculptures are in BBF among the materials related to Pre‑Columbian art.

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So please keep on sending photos of your acquisitions. When do you expect to be coming this way? When you do, you & Mildred must stay with us here for as long as suits you. You will be most heartily welcome. There is so much to talk over — before it is too late. Life here as usual. A continuous coming of house guests, & callers, many of them really worth while. I am busy over the 3rd edition of ‘Lorenzo Lotto’.779 I see the beginning of the end. If you read Italian I should be happy to send you my last booklet. It is on the Arch of Constantine. I branch out into fields far from Rome and Italy Our best to you both. Cordially B.B.

154. Bliss to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 30.51, typewritten. A copy of the letter without Berenson’s heading is in HUA, Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss Papers HUGFP 76.16 Box 3) ADAM 4–6216 CABLE ADDRESS MILLROB, WASHINGTON 2750 QUE STREET, N.W. WASHINGTON 7, DC February 20th, 1953 Signor Bernard Berenson Settignano, Firenze, Italy. My dear B.B. Yesterday came your kind letter which was most welcome to Mildred and me because we always delight in having news of you, especially when it comes at first hand. I am glad to hear that photographs finally arrived. They were slow in getting out as the photographer at the National Gallery was swamped with work at the time I

779 Perhaps Berenson was referring to his Lorenzo Lotto, Italian version from the third unpublished edition by Vertova which was published in 1955.

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ordered the prints sent to you. I wish very much that you could see the collection as it is now rearranged at the Gallery780 and where it looks well, as far as it goes. I say this because the things I lent to the Mexican Government for the Paris exhibition have been traveling around Europe781 and some of my best pieces have not been returned. […] Mildred and I are much interested to know that you are bringing out another edition of Lorenzo Lotto. We shall look forward to seeing it. Also, we should be delighted to have your last booklet on the Arch of Constantine. We shall have no difficulty in reading it! Mildred has had a rather bad time with the ‘flu’ but is slowly recovering though she has to slow down a bit. We are both glad to know that you and kind Mariana [sic] are well and we send you our continued affectionate thoughts and good wishes, As ever, Robert Bliss

155. BB to Bliss (HUA, Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss Papers HUGFP 76.16 Box 3, handwritten) Settignano. March 1, 53 Dear Robert. Thanks for a good letter. I sent my ‘Arco di Costantino’ a few days ago. The archaeologists do not like it, but to judge by the reviews in the principal Italian dailies, the lay intellectuals seem to take to it. I am reading Gregor’s ‘The Turbulent Years’.782 It makes me live over these same years which I studied so passionately as an outsider. Now I get the insider’s account. It is not so very different from what reached me at the moment. How well Gregor’s has done it! Can’t you do likewise? You have had interesting missions, & could tell us a lot about them

780 Robert Woods Bliss was referring to his collection of Pre-Columbian art works which was exhibited under the title ‘Indigenous Art of the Americas’ on the ground floor corridor of the west central lobby of The National Gallery of Art at the National Mall, Washington, DC. From 1963, the collection was exhibited in the Philip Johnson Pavilion at Dumbarton Oaks. 781 Bliss loaned objects from his collection in Europe as well as in the United States throughout the 1950s and 1960s. He was referring to the Art Mexicain du Précolombien à nos jours, exhibition of Mexican art organized by Jean Cassou (Deusto, 1897–Paris, 1986), Conservateur en Chef — until 1965 of the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris, and Fernando Gamboa (1909–1990), Sous-Directeur Général of the Institut National des Beaux-Arts du Mexique. See Art mexicain du Précolombien à nos jours, exhibition catalogue. 782 Berenson was referring to Alasdair Alpin MacGregor, The Turbulent Years.

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I am also reading Maria Flores Eva Perón.783 What a saga! Come over soon both of you to spend some days here at I Tatti Affectionately B.B.

156. Mildred Barnes Bliss’s typewritten sheet (BBP, Correspondence, folder 30.49, no date and signature. A copy of the document is in the Rare Book Collection, Dumbarton Oaks Reearch Library and Collection, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, DC. Some short sentences and from ‘To visit Santa Sophia’ up to ‘integrated’ are published in Nelson, R. S., Hagia Sophia, 1850–1950, p. 156 and nn. 5–6, who points out its old location in Dumbarton Oaks) Thomas Whittemore An Evocation. _______________________ Were one to be asked what manner of man was T. [homas] W. [hittemore], the answer would come readily enough: a quintessential individualist. And within that loose and indefinite phrase, one would name the most positive and contradictory characteristics: the monk’s asceticism, coupled with a sensual enjoyment of liturgical subtleties; the actor’s delight in a good entry and the stressing of a salient point; the student’s curiosity and capacity for study, accompanied by a seemingly haphazard talent for assimilation which permitted a reverence for erudition and a respect for scholarship as well as a thinly disguised contempt for academic formulae. T. [homas] W. [hittemore] enjoyed the palace more than the cottage, albeit the pull of the theatre wings and the true Bohemian indifference to time were always intruding upon his less versatile and more conventional friends. His shyness made his highly selective pattern of life the more surprising. Indeed, not only this, but his very tyranny would seem incompatible with his apparent modesty. It required long observation to unravel the subtle elements of which his will of steel was compounded. Utterly kind, as his years of work in Russia during World War I attest, he could be ruthlessly inconsiderate. He spared himself no effort, and, having health, barely understood the limitations of others. Yet he used courtesy with the instinct of the skillful fencer which won him the respect and confidence of the Eastern races among whom he travelled, worked and lived.

783 Mary Main, The Woman with the Whip: Eva Perón. The author was actually Mary Main who used the pseudonym ‘María Flores’. The book in now in Biblioteca Berenson House.

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Of the Imponderables, T. [homas] W. [hittemore] was ever aware, and he could intuitively gather the skeins into his imagination and open the windows of one’s synthetic thought. He heightened the interest of almost any discussion, and there was a certain excitement in watching the fragmentary expression of his thought take on form, reducing his syntheses — not infrequently puzzling because incomplete — to the aphorism which held the kernel of a valuable idea. Attractive as this unusual procedure was to the lay mind, it was exasperating to that of the scholar, inhospitable as the latter is to empiricism. Certainly he was the reverse of concrete, though seldom has a man been more definite. One might think to define him by the term Mediterranean nomad, but the basic counterpoint was that of the Scot. [tish] ‘Never’, admonished his mother: ‘Never wear your tartan as a fancy dress. It is an honor to belong to a clan’. Saturated with the sumptuousness of the Byzantine ecclesiastical and church arts, T. [homas] W. [hittemore] himself preferred frugality, and his modest lodgings in three or four countries ‘were of a charmless simplicity explicable only because they were no bother at all, you see; and they can always be used by my friends when I am away’. This avoidance of bother was responsible also for the over-developed liking for privacy, transmuted through the years into a legend of mystery, fanned by his unexpected arrivals and sudden departures. A complex nature adapting its several facets to varied habitats, and wearing a protective coloring of demeanor which enveloped his intercourse. Learning as he worked, he amassed great technical knowledge of mosaics, and he was consulted throughout the Eastern Mediterranean whenever loosened tesserae or crumbling dome sounded the knell of an early church. The Byzantine Institute, entirely his own conception; the Byzantine Library in Paris, equally his own creation, and the reports he wrote and the publications he sponsored form an impressive accomplishment. Sensitive to every shifting light and its effect upon masonry or mosaic, he would speak with restrained acidity of professional evaluations ‘that ignore the factor of light, which the Byzantines never forgot, and which they used with conscious skill’. He led one to Theodosius’784 great Land Wall when the full afternoon glow was upon it: one was allowed to see the mosaic portrait of St Ignatius of Constantinople high upon the north wall of Hagia Sophia at just the moment when the sun’s last ray from a window across the church, illuminated that radiantly benign countenance. ‘The late light’, he would say: ‘renders mosaics even more three-dimensional’. The ratio of height to the chromatics of cube setting was a theme upon which he played as a musician might transpose his harmonies from key to key. His recognition and enjoyment of quality in music, writing and people were strong, but incidental to the passionate intensity with which he assimilated every phase of the Great Church.

784 The double Theodosian walls were erected during the reign of Emperor Theodosius II (401–50).

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To visit Hagia Sophia under his guidance was a memorable privilege. A curious, quiet — one might almost say silent — word would be dropped into one’s consciousness, distilling a chain of awarenesses, until one found oneself participating in the Byzantine intention. One did not look at what one saw: one became a part of it; and that, even more than the visual impact, was the experience. ‘The art of the Byzantine was conceptual, not perceptual as in the Western world’, he said: ‘One must watch and become integrated’. Throughout the years, whenever Hagia Sophia at Constantinople, and those greatest of Christian portraits are spoken of, the name of the soft-voiced little man with the penetrating eyes and tired face, will be heard. The Basilica’s immortal glory would have remained unknown and ‘unwatched’, but for Thomas Whittemore’s patience and devotion. Immersed in the mystic of light and shadow caught into the apse where Our Lady is ever floating Heavenward yet ever remains to console, T. [homas] W. [hittemore]’s anima will live in the supreme Christian church of the Eastern world.

157. BB to John Walker (NGA, GA, RG28B1, John Walker, Correspondence and Subject Files, 1923–1993, handwritten. A copy of the letter is in BBP, Correspondence, folder 108.5) May 30, 1946 I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Dearest Johnnie. Received yrs. [yours] of the 23rd,785 but can’t make out yr. [your] address. On the envelope it might read 14 as well as 114 Manchester Square,786 whose house is it? — Before going further let me tell you that I have already addressed you two letters c/o John Rothenstein Tait [sic] Gallery. Millbank.787 I hope by now you have retrieved them. What a fascinating letter you can write when you have the leisure! All you say about Witt788 & his achievement is treasure trove, & what a full-length of Leigh-Ashton!789

785 Walker’s letter to BB is not present among BBP. 786 The letters were not found. Manchester Square in the Marylebone area London. 787 Sir John Knewstub Maurice Rothenstein (London, 1901–1992), art historian and the then director of the Tate Gallery, Millbank, London. 788 Perhaps Berenson was referring to Robert Clermont Witt. 789 Sir Arthur Leigh Bolland Ashton (London, 1897–1983), art historian and the then director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

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I enclose a note790 received two days ago. It will answer yr. [your] questions. I repeat that I never received [the] list of the books you sent, altho’ [although] I have clamoured for it. Finally I wrote to Lawrence791 for it, but fr. [om] him likewise I never got it. Let me hope that at last the entire shipment will reach me. You speak of all you could do for me if I trans-Atlanticized myself cum Nicky. Of course you would do all you promise in Washington. What could you do for me in Boston, in N. [ew] Y. [ork], in Filadelph[ia], in Baltimore, not to speak of the Middle West? What I fear more than serious illness is FATIGUE. In my case an excess of it followed by deepest, darkest MELANCHOLIA. And nothing NOW tires me so much as PEOPLE. How avoid them, when so many I want to see, & so many more I cannot avoid seeing. Nonetheless WE plan to go over autumn after next. I do not know what ground I have for being better in health a year & more hence. Travel & sojourning will certainly be easier. Of all this, when you come here soon I hope. I have just received photos presumabily of the entire collection of ‘Dumbarton Oaks Annex to Mount Athos’792 It is ever so kind of them to send it, but I confess to a certain disappointment, I expected even so much more.- Their program seems to be of a Talmudschul for micrologic study of Byzantine theology & what little else there is in medieval Byz. [antine] life & that from a purely EASTERN point of view: — how much Armenia, Cappadocia, Peloponnesus, Caramania,793 ect., etc. ect., contributed to Byzantine culture. No thought of what Byzantium did for the WEST, or at the least what the relations were of Byz. [antium] to Latin Europe. Look up the Carandinis,794 who now head the Ital. [ian] embassy in London & give Elena my love. Raymond Mortimer795 spent some days here lately. If you came across him hug him for me, & take him to your bosom. He is that rara monstrum, an almost completely humanized biped.— Is Margie796 with you at Manchester Sq. [uare]? Love to both B.B

790 There is a handwritten note by John Walker at the end of BB’s letter: ‘IX. Why he doesn’t trans-Atlanticize himself-fatigue. Critique of D.O. [Dumbarton Oaks] as being too Eastern’. 791 Perhaps Lawrence Berenson. 792 The photos are not present in BBF. 793 Caramania, ancient toponym. 794 Nicolò Carandini (Como, 1896–Rome, 1972), politician and entrepreneur and the then Italian ambassador to London and his wife Elena Albertini (Milan, 1902–Rome, 1990), writer. 795 Charles Raymond Bell Mortimer (London, 1895–Canonbury, Islington, London, 1980), writer on literature and art critic. 796 Margaret Gwendolyn Mary ‘Margie’ Drummond (1905–1987), wife of John Walker. See Bliss’s letter to BB no. 141.

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158. BB to Walker (NGA, GA, RG28B1, John Walker, Correspondence and Subject Files, 1923–1993, typewritten. A copy of the letter is in BBP, Correspondence, folder 108.6) March 1st 1947 Dear Johnnie, I enclose a letter meant for your committee. By book post I am sending a couple of pamphlets in three languages797 which you may show them eventually if they are not acquainted with it already. It is by Marangoni about the present condition of San Marco.798 Please do what you can to dispel the rumour which is taking more and more body, that I oppose the effort to raise funds for the restoration of war stricken buildings. Not only have I sent them a cheque for dollars 500 (no small sum for me with all the calls made on my modest income) but I am not altogether a stranger to a biggish contribution for the same purpose recently announced in all the papers. Strange how all my life I have found it so difficult to advocate one thing without people jumping to the conclusion that I was opposing another. I recall how fiercely the miss Hewitts799 attacked me on the supposition that as a lover of Italian Renaissance art I would make propaganda against 18th century, their darling hobby. The Lawrence Roberts800 were very reverential and I cannot tell just what to think of them. That they are nice and filled with best intentions is certain. But Alfred Barr801 in Rome — well it may cure him! I urged upon them that Rome was no place for painters and sculptors and that the Academy802 should concentrate on musicians

797 The letter and the pamphlets are not with BB’s letter. Berenson was referring to the so-called Committee ‘Pro San Marco Inc. [orporated]’, Washington, DC, in order to raise funds for the restoration of the Marciana Basilica, Venice. 798 Luigi Marangoni (Venice, 1872–Mas di Vallada, Belluno, 1950), architect and the then Proto of the Basilica of San Marco in Venice. Marangoni, La Basilica di San Marco in Venezia. Urgenza di provvedimenti. 799 They are Sarah Cooper Hewitt (New York City, 1859–1930) and Eleanor Garnier Hewitt (New York City, 1864–Ringwood, New Jersey, 1924), founders of the Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration in 1897 (now Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum), New York City. 800 Perhaps Berenson was referring to Laurance Page Roberts (Bala Cynwyd, 1907–Baltimore, 2002), Asian art scholar and his wife Isabel Milliken Spaulding (Springfield, 1911–Baltimore, 2005), estate manager. In 1946 Laurance was appointed director of the American Academy in Rome. 801 Alfred Hamilton Barr, Jr. (Detroit, 1902–Salisbury, Connecticut, 1981), art historian and first director of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) in New York City from 1929 to 1943; from 1947 to 1967 he was director of the MoMa collections. 802 American Academy in Rome.

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and, in Art History, on Early Christian and Baroque — the two phases in art better studied in Rome than elsewhere. Sufficient unto the day is the scribbling thereof! Affectionately B.B.

159. BB to Walker (NGA, GA, RG28B1, John Walker Papers, Correspondence and Subject Files, 1923–1993, handwritten. The letter (probably a draft) which bear neither the header nor the date, is attached to the typewritten copy where both are indicated. A further typewritten copy is in HUA, HUGFP 76.16 Box 3) I Tatti Settignano Florence March 3d 1947 John Walker Esq. National Gallery, Washington, DC Dear Johnnie. Yes I did say to you & to others that the preservation of S. Marco was more important than the restoration of any monument damaged by the war. If S. Marco should collapse it could never be restored; for it is not only a great masterpiece of architecture but a great work of art universal. It is also after Santa Sophia of Constantinople, the most characteristic & the most marvellous Byzantine building in all the world. I am not even sure that we should place it after Santa Sophia. That building is grander no doubt because vaster, but is as architecture more transitional & therefore of more uncertain effect, as an exterior of engineering interest only, & the interior is now shell: desolate, squallid, bare, empty and irremediably so. Manifestation of the Divine has abandoned it & will not return. S. Marco on the contrary is full of it. As for ten centuries past, its balanced & harmonious interior, its exquisitely toned wainscoting, tabernacles, pulpits, shrines, altars, chapels, of hard & semi-precious stones, its refulgent mosaics, its unique enamels, its wavy floors, compose a whole that has not its like anywhere else in the White Man’s world. Nor is it as S. Sofia reduced to serve mere emptiness or to become a charnel house for dead art.803 X I am not an expert. I can express no opinion on the stability of a fabric. I rely on what Signor Marangoni tells me. He has been architect of S. Marco for many years, & his

803 On this topic see Berenson, Pagine di Diario, pp. 67–74.

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love of it may make him too anxious about its condition. Yet living with it day by day & year by year must giving an intimacy with it, a feeling about its health that no expert can have called in to cheque & control his fears, that the building risks collapse. Certain it is that Signor Marangoni now has to get on with a staff of nine whereas he needs, & used to have forty workmen to keep S. Marco in repair. Not the structure only but every bit of stucco, or mosaic cries for attention. A spectator can almost see them drop from cupolas, from walls, from balconies. Signor Marangoni says it takes a thousand dollars a year to pay the kind of workman he requires. His wish would be to raise a fund that would enable him & his successors to keep thirty more workmen than he has now, that is to say thirty thousand (30,000) dollars a year for an undefinite period. The proposal put before your committee is more modest. It is to collect as much as we can for five years. At the end of that period either the Italian State will be in condition to supply the necessary funds for the upkeep of S. Marco, or your committee will be asked to extend its largess for another few years. Italy is too proud to depend on foreign help indefinitely. Be it borne in mind that every thousand dollars means one workman, & every workman, is so much to the good. With every hope that your committee will take kindly to this proposal Ever yours

160. Walker to BB (NGA, GA, John Walker Papers, Letters to Berenson Returned to I Tatti 28B24_71700_19470306, typewritten) 2806, N. STREET WASHINGTON, DC Dear B.B., I went yesterday to the Oxford Press804 to talk about your book.805 I spent almost an hour with the American Manager, Mr Walk,806 and Mr Vaudrin,807 the Trade Editor.

804 Oxford University Press is the publishing house owned by the University of Oxford (United Kingdom) with branch offices in various countries. 805 Walker was probably referring to Berenson’s volume The Italian Painters of the Renaissance containing four essays, published by Oxford University Press in 1948. 806 Unknown. 807 Philip Vaudrin editor at Oxford University Press, New York.

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They had the figures on the American sales of your book and they were very low, lower than they could possibly explain. They have a number of salesman who go around to the colleges and push particular books and also try to find out what the various professors want for their students. They have been instructed to concentrate on Painters of the Renaissance and to report in two months on the results of their inquiries. I asked whether you could take back the rights of publication. They said that was for you to negotiate with the English branch. The American branch simply imports the book. I talked to them about a new edition which would be virtually a picture book of Italian pictures in American collections with your three essays published as a kind of introduction. They liked the idea, but wished to do their research first. They are very pleasant to deal with, much pleasanter than a firm like Random House,808 and they say they are remodellling their sales organization and expect to increase the volume of their business, but booksellers do not rate their salesmanship very highly. I spent two days with Mrs Kahn.809 Your friend Tom Whittemore was there, rather self-important I thought. He does not think San Marco needs to be restored but he has agreed to look into it personally. I find myself rather out on a limb in the question of San Marco. Mrs Kahn says that you do not think its restoration is urgent in the sense that unless something is done it will come tumbling down. I had hoped for money from her and from her daughter810 but now I doubt whether either will contribute. Lawrence Roberts said that Doro Levi had not mentioned San Marco as one of the urgent restorations. By the way what did you think of the Roberts? What success did they have with our friends in Rome? Marghie joins in sending so much love to you all, Johnnie March 6, 1947

161. Walker to BB (NGA, GA, John Walker Papers, Letters to Berenson Returned to I Tatti 28B24_71700_19470312, typewritten) NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION WASHINGTON, DC 25 March 12, 1947

808 Random House, a book publisher founded in New York City in 1927; it is now part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by German media conglomerate Bertelsmann, founded by Carl Bertelsmann (Gütersloh, 1791–1850). 809 Adelaide Wolff (New York City, 1875–London, 1949), collector, patron, widow of the banker Otto Hermann Kahn (Mannheim, 1867–New York City, 1934). 810 The Kahns had two daughters: Maud Emily (1897–1960) and Margaret Dorothy (1901–1995).

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Dear B.B.: Thank you very much for the long letter about San Marco. It was exactly what I wanted. The complication now is to discover a method whereby contributions to the rebuilding of San Marco would be deductible from income tax. Marie Beale, who is the guiding spirit in the whole affair, thought she might be able to have contributions made to the Byzantine Institute and are marked for San Marco. This, of course, requires the approval of Tom Whittemore. He in turn says that he can make up his mind only if he has inspected San Marco himself, which he expects to do sometime this spring. Meanwhile, everything is held up unless Marie Beale, decides to incorporate a charitable organization herself. This would be both expensive and time consuming. I had lunch today with Kenneth Holland,811 who is in charge of the money to be used for educational purposes under the Fullbright [sic] resolution. In case you do not know about the Fullbright bill, it is designed to allocate to educational purposes funds accruing from surplus property sold by this Government abroad, when these funds cannot be converted into dollars. There will be approximately twenty million dollars in lire to be spent at the rate of not more than one million dollars a year. Most of the money will be used for expenses of students. The decision of the allocation of these funds will be made by a committee of Americans with a few Italians. I am now working to have you put on this committee for I feel this is absolutely essential. I am writing Jimmy Dunn812 to this effect and also Paul Bonner,813 who is very influential with the State Department. I personally believe the twenty million dollars will last for many scores of years and will assure us of the support we will need for I Tatti if only we can channel a small part of it in that direction. All of this is, of course, absolutely confidential. Much love, Johnnie Mr Bernard Berenson, I Tatti, Settignano, Florence, Italy

811 George Kenneth Holland (Los Angeles, 1907–Bronxville, 1977), educator and proponent of international cultural and education exchanges. 812 James Clement Dunn (Newark, 1890–West Palm Beach, 1979), diplomat and United States Ambassador to Italy from 1947 to 1952. 813 Paul Hyde Bonner (Brooklyn, 1893–Charleston, 1968), novelist and diplomat; he served the Department of State, Division of Foreign Services (1946–1952) in Rome and Paris.

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162. Marie Beale to Mildred Barnes Bliss (HUA, HUGFP 76.8 (box 8) & HUGEP 76.16 (box 3), typewritten) MRS. TRUXTUN BEALE 748 Lafayette Square Washington 6, DC March 14, 1947 Mrs Robert Woods Bliss, 1537 28 St., N.W., Washington, DC Dear Mildred: I return your New York Social Register with very many thanks. I do hope my keeping it so long has not inconvenienced you. Today Johnny Walker sends me a letter copy of which I enclose,814 which I think you will find interesting. It was sent with the idea that we would use it in the campaign for San Marco, but I think it is wiser, and I am sure you will agree, to suppress all the references and comparisons to Santa Sophia. At the same time Johnny asked me, which he had not mentioned at the time he told me the story of dining with Mrs Kahn and Mr Whittemore, that he would not like it repeated. So will you please forget it? Very affectionately, Marie

163. BB to Walker (NGA, GA, RG28B1, John Walker, Correspondence and Subject Files, 1923–1993, handwritten. A copy of the letter is in BBP, Correspondence, folder 108.6) Settignano, March 16, 1947 Mr Bernard Berenson, I Tatti, Settignano. Florence, Italy

814 The attached letter was not found but probably Mrs Beale was referring to that of Berenson of 3 March 1947: no. 159. See also Beale’s letter to BB, 23 April 1947: no. 165.

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Dear Johnny. Thanks for yos. [yours] of 6th & yr. [your] encounter with the Oxford Press people. I am grateful for yr. [your] efforts & lets hope something will come of it. I want my Ren. [aissance]-Painters to sell not for the trifling money it might bring, not for fame, but because, having re-read it recently, I conclude that it might be an antidote to the follies of ‘art criticism’ of the day. I never remotely said to Mrs Kahn that I did not think the restoration of S. Marco was urgent. I may have quoted others as saying so, & commented adversely on their opinion. Of course Whittemore is her prophet & he hates S. Marco on the rival of his ‘pocket-burough’815 S. Sofia. And dear Mrs Kahn will be so happy not to have to fork out. Did I ever tell you that her husband when some 30 or more years ago I asked him to subscribe $100. a year to ‘Friends of the Fogg’ assured me he could not afford it? Oh, the rich-rich, the super-rich — did not our Lord say it was easier for a camel to get thro’ [through] a needle than for any of them into the Kingdom of Heaven? You will have received what I sketched out, as you asked, as an appeal for S. Marco. Do with it what you like. I seem incapable of the feeblest attempt ‘to do good’ without getting into trouble. Congratulate David from me for his Yale doctorate.816 Love to Marghie Yours B.B.

164. BB to Walker (BBP, Correspondence, folder 108.6, handwritten. This is a copy of an original letter whose location is unknown) Settignano, March 20, ’47 Dear Johnnie. What Whittemores decision about S. Marco will be, be, be, is automatically certain, short of a miracle. So if the matter depends on his word, we can fold our tents like the Arabs & leave S. Marco to destruction & to him. I should be happy indeed if I could be assured of fellowships. Let us hope, let us hope. Meanwhile I wish I could have safer assurances. I dread, distrust everything [that] has to do with government interference in art matters — no matter how well intentioned, even when run by the best people. ART should remain a private matter of Maecenases. When these disappear, art survives as a hangover, after which, who knows? Maecenas 815 ‘pocket-borough’. 816 David Edward Finley (York, South Carolina, 1890–Washington, DC, 1977), first director of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC from 1938 to 1956; he received an honorary doctorate of arts degree from Yale University in October 1946. This information is located in the David Finley Papers which is in NGA, GA, RG28A, David Finley Papers, Subject Files.

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are too recently dead everywhere in Russia, in Germany, in U.S.A. In France & England what good art there has been after Maecenas disappeared has generally been done in rebellion ag. [ainst] gov. [ernment] institutions — Monet, Degas, Cézanne & any number more — in France. I have known of the Fullbright [sic] bill & ‘the committee of Americans with “a few Italians”’, but it has never occurred to dear Morey (who is running it entirely) to ask my advice. Nor is he likely to, even if I am put on the committee. ‘They’, i.e. whoever is an official connected with the State Department’s activities in the cultural field resents the very existence of people like myself, so amateurish, so belletristic, so un-scientific, etc. etc. etc. ̶ ̶ And they are right for I dare say my ways would neither be their ways, nor practical ones. So these cheers for — what? Gratefully & affectionately B.B.

165. Marie Beale to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 106.9, handwritten) Future address c/o Guaranty Trust Co. Place de la Concorde-Paris, France HOTEL DE LA MAMOUNIA Télégrammes: MAMOUNIA ∙ MARRAKECH Téléphone 23–81 R.C. RABAT 25 Marrakech, April 23rd, 1947 Dear Mr Berenson Before I left Washington, Johnny Walker gave me your letter discussing San Marco. I was very grateful to you for as perhaps Johnnie told you I have organized a small Committee to raise what we can for the repair of the Basilica. We found we could not send out appeals until autumn as American Relief for Italy is in the midst on an intensive campaign as well as the Fund for War Damaged Italian Monuments. By the time they have finished summer will be on & people scattered. There seems to be some opposition to the San Marco appeal among the so called experts. I sense it I am sorry to say, in Whittemore & I am told that Morey thinks that there is no great immediate need. However I think we can get something & although I am very inexperienced in that field, I shall do my best. I went to San Marco often last September with Mr Marangoni to guide me & became convinced that something must be done. If you have suggestions as to possibly interested people in the U.S. do please tell me. I have the Committee Incorporated & am now awaiting a ruling from the Treasury so I hope to be ready to start Oct [ober] 1st when people are again at home.

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I am going with Molly Berkeley to the August Palio817 and then to Venice. I tried to see you last year during my few days in Florence but got no answer to my wire. I shall try again. Yrs [Yours] sincerely (Mrs Truxtun Beale) Marie Beale

166. Marie Beale to Robert Woods Bliss (HUA, HUGFP 76.16 Box 3, typewritten) MRS. TRUXTUN BEALE 748 Lafayette Square Washington 6, DC December 10, 1947 Hon. [orable] Robert Woods Bliss, 1537 28th Street., N.W. Washington, DC Dear Robert: Will you please use your influence with the American Federation of Arts to give some publicity to ‘Pro San Marco, Inc. [orporated]’818 in their next issue-January? Some time ago I spoke to the Director819 here, but have had no answer whether they would or would not. If you could take it up with the editor820 of the Magazine of Art, 22 E. 60th Street, New York 22, I would be very grateful.

817 Molly Berkeley, Countess of Berkeley (Newton, Mass., 1884–Assisi, 1975), a woman of higher social status in Washington, DC and author of a book entitled Winking at the Brim published in 1967. Perhaps the ‘Palio’ of Siena. 818 This is a pamphlet attached to the letter listing the members belonging to the ‘Committee of San Marco’, the Basilica’s state of conservation and the opinions by some well-known art historians (including Bernard Berenson) on the importance of the monument. At the bottom of the pamphlet, is the form that each donor must complete and the amount they intend to donate for restoration purposes. Contributions were tax deductible. 819 Marie Truxtun Beale was referring to Thomas C. Parker (1905–1964), director of the American Federation of Arts from 1940–1952. Pauline Willis, director & CEO of the American Federation of Arts, kindly suggests that during Parker’s long and successful tenure, the American Federation of Arts collaborated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art to initiate travelling exhibitions, joined forces with the United States Information Agency (USIA) to establish the Overseas Museum Donor Program, co-sponsored the Films on Art Festival in Woodstock, New York, and moved headquarters from Washington, DC to New York City. Previously Parker was assistant director of the Federal Art Project (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), from 1935–1939, as well as acting director from 1939–1940. 820 Marie Truxtun Beale was referring to the art historian Robert Goldwater (New York City, 1907–1973), editor of the American Federation of Arts’ Magazine of Art from 1947–1953. Pauline Willis suggests that during this time, Goldwater also taught art history at Queens

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Very affectionately yours, Marie

167. Thomas C. Parker to Robert Goldwater (HUA, HUGFP 76.16 Box 3, typewritten) Robert Woods Bliss, Hon. [orary] Pres. [ident] ∙ Hudson D. Walker, Pres. [ident] ∙ Julian R. Force, First V. [ice] P. [resident] ∙ George Hewitt Myers, Second V. [ice] P. [resident] ∙ Grace L. Mc Cann Morley, Third V. [ice] P. [resident]∙ Harry L. Cage, Treas. [urer], Thomas C. Parker, Director and Secretary THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF ARTS National Headquarters: Barr Building, Washington 6, DC Founded A∙F∙A in 1909 COPY December 18, 1947 Dear Robert: This is in reference to the San Marco material from Mrs Beale previously forwarded to your office. Mr Bliss, who has just returned from Europe, called today and expressed his hope that the Magazine would be able to carry some note about the efforts of the American Committee in the preservation of this out-standing monument of Byzantine art. We realize, of course, that it is not within the scope of editorial policy of the Magazine to promote such causes. However, some mention of the movement would lend encouragement to the work of the Committee in its effort to acquaint the public with its plans. Sincerely Director Mr Robert Goldwater, Editor Magazine of Art The American Federation of Arts New York 22, N. [ew] Y. [ork] cc: Mr Bliss

College of the City University of New York. In 1957, he was appointed Professor of Fine Arts at New York University and founding director of the Museum of Primitive Art, now the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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168. BB to Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli821 (ASSi, Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, fasc. 466, handwritten. A copy of the letter is in BBP, Correspondence, folder 30.25) Oct. [ober] 17, 1946. I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Dear Ranuccio. I am getting anxious to hear from you, how you are getting on as Ranuccio, & how as Sovrintendente. And what chance there is of seeing you here? There is so much I want to talk over with you.-I returned a few days ago from Siena & Pisa. In Siena I was enchanted by the way Carli exhibited the stained glass.822 I was glad to see work in the chapel at S. Agostino advancing. Chigi823 has had his toy, & it is as harmless as the sample promised to be. Siena remains the most beautiful intact monument of the Middle ages to be seen anywhere in Europe. At Pisa the Campo Santo was a sad & beautiful sight, but the exhibition of Medieval sculpture824 altogether delightful as well as instructive. It would be the greatest of pities to close it for good. Surely, it should be opened again next March & kept open till the following November. In the spring a great many tourists not only American but from all the rest of the Atlantic world will come, & want to see the exhibition. I could do quite a little to advertise it. So let me urge you to use your influence to have the Pisa exhib. [ition] reopened next spring. Remember me to Maria825 Affectionately B.B.

821 Only a selection of the correspondence between Berenson and Bianchi Bandinelli is published here. For further details about their relationship, see Barbanera, Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, pp. 173–90. 822 Perhaps Berenson was referring to the large stained-glass window with scenes and figures in the apse wall of Siena Cathedral, formerly attributed to the Maestro Jacopo di Castello da Siena but at that time assigned to Duccio di Buoninsegna by Enzo Carli (Pisa, 1910–Siena, 1999), director of the Pinacoteca Nazionale of Siena; Rettore dell’Opera della Metropolitana, and director of the museum of the same name. In 1953 he was appointed Soprintendente ai Monumenti e Gallerie delle Provincie di Siena e Grosseto until 1973. See Carli, Vetrata duccesca. The glass has been recently restored and placed in the nearby Museo dell’Opera del Duomo. It is not clear why Berenson used the word ‘exhibited’ in reference to the stained-glass. On Enzo Carli, see Santi, ‘Enzo Carli’. 823 Berenson was referring to the painting with the Crucifixion by Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci, known as Perugino in the Church of Sant’Agostino (second altar on the right), which was commissioned by the Chigi family of Siena, 1506–1507 (oil on panel, 400 × 289 cm). 824 Berenson was probably referring to the Mostra della scultura pisana del Trecento held in Pisa, Museo di San Matteo from July to November 1946. See Barsotti, Bertolini, Russoli, and Tolaini, eds, Mostra della scultura pisana del Trecento, exhibition catalogue. 825 Maria Garrone (?, –1901–Rome, 1977), wife of Bianchi Bandinelli.

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169. Bianchi Bandinelli to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 30.24, handwritten. The letter is transcribed from the beginning up to ‘varie università’ in Barbanera, Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, p. 186) Roma, 27 Ott. [obre] ’46 MINISTERO DELLA PUBBLICA ISTRUZIONE IL DIRETTORE GENERALE DELLE ANTICHITÀ E BELLE ARTI Carissimo B.B. la Sua lettera mi è arrivata quando da tempo pensavo di scriverLe, perché avevo vivo desiderio di un contatto con Lei, anche se era soltanto per lettera. Ma purtroppo non arrivo mai a fare le cose che desidero, perché debbo sempre fare quelle che mi annoiano e disgustano e che sono connesse con il mio ufficio. Adesso però sto per prendermi una ventina di giorni di evasione. Partirò, con Maria, il 30 o il 1. Nov. [embre] per l’Olanda, dove mi hanno invitato a fare un giro di conferenze nelle varie università. Dovrò ripetere una conferenza sui monumenti italiani danneggiati dalla guerra e sul lavoro di ricostruzione e di restauro. Un sindacato di scultori mi ha poi chiesta un’altra conferenza su alcuni problemi generali dell’arte. Ma non ho ancora potuto avere il tempo per prepararla, e non so bene che cosa verrà fuori. Al ritorno mi fermerò alcuni giorni a Parigi, per ripetere alla Sorbonne la conferenza sui danni di guerra. Mi hanno invitato a tenere una comunicazione all’Académie des Inscriptions e una lettura all’École du Louvre.826 Purtroppo parto con una cattiva coscienza perché tutto è stato preparato troppo sommariamente. Ma con il lavoro ministeriale, che smorza qualsiasi energia e qualsiasi intelligenza nella minutaglia della burocrazia quotidiana, non si può fare diversamente. Avevo sperato con questo nuovo ministro avesse l’ambizione di fare qualche cosa. Invece tutti i miei progetti rimangono sul suo tavolo senza esser presi in considerazione. E l’unica cosa importante sembrano essere le lettere di raccomandazione per soddisfare i futuri elettori. Sono più che mai deciso a lasciare il mio posto al Ministero, ma occorre che trovi una occasione ragionevole, in modo che questa cosa non mi danneggi. Nessuno capisce che uno vada via perché vuole tornare a lavorare seriamente e tranquillamente; e 826 The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, a learned society devoted to the humanities founded in Paris in 1663, housed in the former site of the Collège des Quatre-Nations, now Institut de France. The École du Louvre, a higher education establishment providing courses in French in Archaeology, Epigraphy, Art History, the History of Civilisations, and Museology founded in Paris in 1882, located within the Palais du Louvre.

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invece ci sono mille persone pronte a interpretare malevolmente la rinunzia ad un posto che a molti sembra importante. Sono contento di sentire che ha veduta la mostra di Pisa. Anche io ne ho avuto una grande impressione e pensavo di disporre per la sua riapertura a primavera. Sono poi dell’avviso che convenga lasciare per sempre nel museo certi pezzi, come quei grandi busti del Battistero,827 che possono benissimo essere sostituiti sul posto da calchi. Intanto faremo una prova col San Martino di Lucca,828 che non può tornare sulla facciata, perché in condizioni troppo cattive di conservazione. Accludo in questa lettera una tabella, che penso possa interessarla. Essa dimostra lo sforzo fatto dall’Italia per il restauro dei monumenti danneggiati. Purtroppo essa dimostra anche che la cifra messa a disposizione della Direzione Generale delle Belle Arti è molto bassa: e io sto lottando inutilmente per vederla aumentare, non ricevendo in questo nessun aiuto dal Ministero. Spero di vederLa al mio ritorno. Maria sta bene e con me la saluta. Mi ricordi alla Nicky e all’Alda e mi creda il suo devoto e affezionato Ranuccio (Typewritten)

827 Probably Bianchi Bandinelli was referring to the monumental half-figure statues of the four prophets, St John the Baptist, Christ, the Virgin, and the four evangelists by Giovanni Pisano, c. 1270, located on the Baptistery of San Giovanni’s exterior, now in the Museo dell’Opera della Primaziale Pisana. 828 Bianchi Bandinelli was referring to the statue representing St Martin on Horseback while Donating his Cloak to a Poor Man, thirteenth century, at that time on the façade of the Cathedral of San Martino in Lucca, currently located on its inner-façade.

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170. BB to Bianchi Bandinelli (ASSi, Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, fasc. 466, handwritten. A copy of the letter is in BBP, Correspondence, folder 30.25. The letter is translated into Italian from ‘is there a chance’ up to ‘will result’ in Barbanera, Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, pp. 186–87) Dec. [ember] 9, 1946. I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Dear Ranuccio. I learn that you are back, & I wish I could get yr. [your] fresh impressions of Holland, & of how it feels to get abroad again after so many years. Is there a chance of yr. [your] coming here? I hope so — what can I tell you about my minuscular world. I read too much, I see too many people, too large a correspondence, & everything beyond my years. Then I am busy revising my ‘Aesthetics and History’829 on which I have been working for 20 years, revising Ital. [ian] translation of ‘Essays in Method’,830 & of my diary831 proof reading. Fervet opus but no Carthage will result. One book is out, my Sassetta written more than 40 years ago, & now appearing in Italian. A copy will be addressed to you in a few days. We heard from Doro a little while ago that the library of the Germ. [an] Inst. [itute] that was here is returning.832 Have you an idea what is to become of it? You must know that altho’ [although] my name appears on committees, I am not consulted nor even informed about anything — Little over a month ago I was in Venice, & saw Marangoni. He told me the main piers of the church are in alarming state, & that if they crumble the whole fabric will go. I confess that troubles me more than any of the war victims. The last maybe but S. Marco, once collapsed, could never be restored. It seems (si dice) that Morey has it in hand. Speriamo. Sufficient unto the day is the trouble thereof, so let me bother you no more. I dare say at my age it would be wiser to retire from actuality.

829 In this regard, see the essay ‘Byzantine Vision of Bernard Berenson’, in this volume. 830 Berenson, Metodo e attribuzioni, Italian version with the preface by Franchi. The volume, which came out in second edition in 1947, brings together several Berensonian texts in Italian translation including Three Essays in Method (the latter published in 1927). 831 Perhaps Berenson was referring to his Echi e riflessioni (diario 1941–1944). 832 Berenson was referring to the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz. During the Second World War the library and the fototeca of the Kunsthistorisches Institut then located in Palazzo Guadagni (now Palazzo Dufour Berte) in Piazza Santo Spirito were brought to Germany by decision of the then director Ludwig Heinrich Heydenreich (Leipzig, 1903– Munich, 1978). The library is now in via Giuseppe Giusti, 44, while the fototeca is in Palazzo Grifoni Budini Gattai, via de’ Servi, 51, Florence.

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My best wishes to you all for a Happy New Year, & a better 1947. Affectionately B.B.

171. Bianchi Bandinelli to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 30.24, handwritten. The letter is transcribed from ‘E poi’ up to ‘ellenistiche’ in Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 260 and n. 24, and from the beginning up to ‘interessante’ and from ‘E intanto’ up to ‘ellenistiche’ in Barbanera, Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, p. 187 and n. 137) Società _______________________________________________________ Rivista trimestrale Einaudi Firenze via De Servi 24 Tel 290–590 Roma, 30. XII. 46 via S. Marco, 1. Carissimo B.B. come sempre, la Sua cara lettera mi ha fatto un gran piacere e, come sempre, ho tardato a rispondere, soffocato dal mio ‘lavoro forzato’. Intanto è arrivato anche il Sassetta, nella bella edizione italiana dell’amico Neri833 e poi è arrivato anche il volumetto su Art & geometry,834 che mi sembra veramente interessante. Sono molto mortificato di non poter rispondere altro che con un grazie, ma la mia produzione è, ancora per un semestre, solo di ‘paperasses’. Le posso dare (riservatamente) la buona notizia che sono d’accordo col mio Ministro che il mio incarico alla Dir. [ezione] Gen. [erale] avrà termine col 30 giugno ’47. Io ne sono felice, ma credo che lo sia anche il Ministro, con il quale la convivenza non era facile. Esteriormente andava e va tutto bene, ma io non posso seguitare a vivere in un ambiente che diviene, ogni giorno di più, troppo simile a quello dal quale per vent’anni mi sono voluto tener fuori. I napoletani, al tempo della ‘guerra alle mosche’, dicevano che avevano vinto ‘i moschi’: e anche ora, per questa volta, hanno vinto le mosche. Spero di vivere abbastanza a lungo per veder passare anche questi nuovi padroni. E intanto tornerò al mio lavoro.

833 Berenson’s Sassetta, 1946 was published by Casa editrice Electa in Florence owned by Dario Neri (Murlo, 1895–Milan, 1958), painter, historian, xylographer. 834 Bianchi Bandinelli was probably referring to William Mills Ivins, Jr. (1881–1961) and his Art and Geometry published in 1946.

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Con Neri farò un libro sulla Colonna Trajana,835 che ora sto facendo fotografare tutta per la prima volta. E poi spero ancora di fare l’edizione facsimile della ‘Ilias Ambrosiana’, forse con un editore svizzero.836 I due argomenti, per quanto diversi sono meno lontani di quanto possa sembrare, perché sono sempre più persuaso della derivazione degli schemi del rilievo storico romano (e particolarmente della colonna trajana) dalle illustrazioni pittoriche ellenistiche. Il mio viaggio in Olanda e a Parigi è stato piacevole. E forse anche utile. Ho avuto accoglienze cordialissime, non solo in Olanda, dove avevo molti amici, ma anche a Parigi, dove non conoscevo nessuno degli attuali dirigenti ( Jaujard,837 Huyghe,838 Salles,839 Danis,840 Cassou841 ecc.). In Olanda ho tenuto conferenze in tutte le città universitarie e a Leyden una lezione all’Istituto di Archeologia. Il paese ha sofferto, ma è in piena ripresa e vi è anzi un vigore nuovo. Prima il troppo benessere aveva piuttosto addormentati gli spiriti. Le distruzioni sono gravi soprattutto a Nijmegen e a Arnhem. Quelle di Rotterdam non sono così terribili come ce lo faceva credere l’impressione che ci fecero essendo le prime azioni di guerra contro una città indifesa. Gravissime invece le devastazioni avvenute al nord di Amsterdam, nel Wieringer polder, dove furono rotte le dighe. Centinaia di fattorie completamente demolite. Ho veduto anche la pulitura della ‘Ronda di Notte’.842 L’impressione è stata favorevolissima. Pensi che il guerriero in primo piano che si diceva sempre ‘vestito d’oro’ è invece vestito di bianco, con ornamenti in giallo e azzurro! E’ la prima volta però che la ‘Ronda’ mi fa impressione. Mi aveva sempre lasciato piuttosto indifferente. Ho

835 Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli did not publish the volume on Trajan’s Column with Neri. He published in 1939 an essay ‘Un problema di Arte Romana: Il “Maestro delle imprese di Trajano”’, Le Arti (1939), pp. 325–34 which was updated, expanded, and merged in Storicità dell’arte classica (1943), pp. 193–216; Storicità dell’arte classica (1950), pp. 211–28, and subsequently in Storicità dell’arte classica (1973), pp. 349–79. See also Bianch Bandinelli, Il Maestro delle Imprese di Traiano published in 2003. 836 Bianchi Bandinelli did not publish a facsimile: his book Hellenistic-Byzantine Miniatures of the Iliad which came out in 1955 reproduces all the miniatures in drawings. 837 Jacques Jaujard (Asnières-sur-Seine, 1895–Paris, 1967), haut fonctionnaire of the French fine arts administration, the then Directeur Général des Arts et des Lettres. 838 René Huyghe (Arras, 1906–Paris, 1997), historian and art critic who was then Conservateur en Chef of the Département des Peintures at Musée du Louvre. 839 George Salles (Sèvres, 1889–Bad Wiessee, 1966), art historian and the then director of the Museums of France. 840 Perhaps Bianchi Bandinelli was referring to Marie Henry Robert Danis (Belfort, 1879–Paris, 1949), Directeur Général de l’Architecture au Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale. 841 Jean Cassou. 842 Bianchi Bandinelli was referring to The Night Watch by Rembrandt van Rijn in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, 1642 (inv. no. SK-C-5, oil on canvas, 379.5 × 453.5 cm).

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veduto molte altre cose interessanti in Olanda, delle quali spero di raccontarLe a voce. Dovrei avere occasione di venire a Firenze entro la metà di gennaio. A Parigi ho tenuto una lezione alla Sorbonne, presentato da Picard,843 in modo molto amabile e una conferenza, sul restauro dei monumenti colpiti dalla guerra all’École du Louvre. Mi è sembrato un buon successo per l’Italia. (In realtà abbiamo lavorato molto e quasi sempre bene). Parigi è un po’ morta. Morta come vita apparente, ma anche intellettualmente. Vive di rendita; ma non mi sembra che si creino idee nuove, valori nuovi. Al Petit Palais c’era una bellissima mostra di tutta la pittura francese dagli antichi agli impressionisti,844 sotto i titoli e gli aspetti della ‘grandeur’ e dei ‘charmes’. Il direttore è lo scrittore Chamson.845 Nulla di speciale in fatto di libri. Caro B.B., non so se avrà avuta la pazienza di leggere questa lunga lettera; ma ho voluto metterLa un poco al corrente di tutto, visto che Lei si interessa così amichevolmente di me. Per le biblioteche degli istituti germanici, fra le quali quella di Firenze, che è ritornata a Pza [Piazza] S. Spirito, ancora nulla è deciso. Solo che la restituzione è stata fatta non al Governo Italiano, che è solo il consegnatario (come è giusto), ma alla Associazione fra gli istituti stranieri di storia dell’arte, per conto dell’ONESCU [sic], che poi provvederà alla gestione con un organismo non ancora formato. Abbiamo buone notizie di Marta,846 e siamo sulla via di divenire nonni! Ecco una nuova esperienza. Maria è incaricata di farLe i suoi saluti migliori e si unisce a me nell’inviarLe i più affettuosi auguri per l’Anno Nuovo. Ci ricordi, La prego, con affetto alla Nicky e all’Alda e mi creda il il Suo affmo [affezionatissimo] Ranuccio

843 Charles Picard (Arnay-le-Duc, 1883–Paris, 1965), archaeologist and at this time professor at the Sorbonne. 844 The Petit Palais dating back to 1900, and like the Grand Palais opposite it, was built for the Universal Exposition and houses the Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris. See Chefsd’oeuvre de la peinture française du Louvre. Des Primitifs à Manet, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Petit Palais (Paris, 1946). 845 André Chamson (Nîmes, 1900–Paris, 1983), archivist, novelist, and essayist. 846 Marta (Siena, 1924–Newburgh,?), Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli’s eldest daughter who married an American citizen and lived in the United States.

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172. BB to Bianchi Bandinelli (ASSi, Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, fasc. 466, handwritten. A copy of the letter is in BBP, Correspondence, folder 30.25. The letter is transcribed and translated in Italian from ‘Thank you’ up to ‘Christians’ and from ‘fervently’ up to ‘Florence’ in Barbanera, Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, p. 188 and n. 142) Aug. [ust] 19, 1950 CASA AL DONO VALLOMBROSA (PROV. [INCIA] DI FIRENZE) Dear Ranuccio Thanks for your ‘Situazione dell’Arte Greca’847 which as I read made me eager to discuss many things. As did the new edition of your great work on Greek Art.848 And then I realized how futile discussions are except when based on the same pre-suppositions, the same premises, the same methodologies, in short. So all my life long, the moment I realised that divergence with an interlocutor revealed a difference of hypostatic notions, I hastened to end. Which never prevented me from remaining on loving terms with the same interlocutors. Most of my friends are Christians of sorts, & either fervently cling to or passively accept the doctrines of the Trinity, the Redemption, etc. etc. We never touch these subjects. And so with you. You are a convert to a new religion. You accept, you ardently propagate dogmas which to me are as un-acceptable as the Christian. There is no reason why we should not meet as before to talk of our studies, & scholary activities & our human relations with the same trust in each other that we had before. I say this in view of the rumour that you are returning to your old chair in Florence.

847 It should be noted that Bianchi Bandinelli’s ‘Situazione dell’arte greca’ is the publication of a lecture given by him in the Riunione delle tre Accademie dei Lincei, di S. Luca e di S. Cecilia on 3 June 1950. The topic of the lecture dealt with the relationship between the then contemporary culture and the art of ancient Greece; see Bianchi Bandinelli, “Situazione dell’arte greca’, p. 3. As reported by Barbanera, Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, p. 188, Bianchi Bandinelli in the Summer of 1950 had sent Berenson an extract of his ‘Situazione dell’arte greca’, pp. 3–18 but it is not present among BBP nor in Biblioteca Berenson. 848 Perhaps Berenson was referring to the second edition of Bianchi Bandinelli, Storicità dell’arte classica published in 1950.

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I was in Siena for a day or two to see the Sodoma849 & S. Bernardino exhibition850 but too tired to attempt to see you. If I had felt well enough I should not have failed to do so. If all goes well we stay here till Oct. [ober] Ever your affectionate friend B.B.

173. Bianchi Bandinelli to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 30.24, handwritten. The letter is transcribed from the beginning up to ‘arte etrusca’ in Barbanera, Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, pp. 188–89 and n. 144) Siena, 22/VIII/1950 Carissimo B.B., la Sua lettera mi ha fatto un grande piacere. E ciò per due motivi: perché quanto ho scritto è riuscito a destare il suo interesse, e perché mi conferma la Sua amicizia, nonostante la nostra differenza di ‘religione’.851 Sarò molto felice se, come sembra quasi sicuro, io ritornerò alla Università di Firenze,852 di riprendere con Lei le conversazioni di un tempo. E posso assicurarLa che, se ho esitato qualche volta in questi ultimi tempi, a farmi vivo, è dipeso soprattutto dalla vita senza fissa dimora, che ho dovuto condurre in questi anni, dal molto lavoro e anche, un poco, dal timore di non essere pienamente gradito da Lei. Adesso la Sua lettera mi toglie questo dubbio, e io La ringrazio con sincero affetto ed amicizia.

849 See Carli, ed., Mostra delle opere di Giovanni Antonio Bazzi detto ‘Il Sodoma’ exhibition catalogue. 850 Mostra Bernardiniana nel V Centenario della Canonizzazione di San Bernardino, exhibition catalogue. 851 The term ‘religione’ here refers to the fact that Bianchi Bandinelli was a Communist. 852 Bianchi Bandinelli, who was full professor at the University of Pisa (from 1934 to 1938), in 1938 won first place in a competition for the chair of Archeology and Ancient Art History at the University of Florence. He taught in Florence until 1943, retiring from this appointment during the Republic of Salò. Due to the racial laws against the Jews which came into force before the Florentine competition, some participants including Doro Levi, were therefore forced to withdraw from it. In 1944 Bianchi Bandinelli resumed his place at the University of Florence and in 1946 the participants who had been excluded from the 1938 competition (due to the racial laws), requested a revision of the acts. A new commission confirmed the judgment of the previous one and Bianchi Bandinelli kept his chair. After being appointed Direttore Generale delle Antichità e Belle Arti (General Director of Antiquities and Fine Arts) 1945-47 and teaching in Cagliari (1947-50) he resumed teaching at the University of Florence in 1950 until 1957. In 1956 there was a new revision of the 1938 competition requested by the excluded, see Barbanera, Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, pp. 140–43.

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Anche gli altri inconvenienti, del poco tempo e della vita randagia, spero che miglioreranno con l’anno prossimo. Per parte mia farò certamente di tutto perché i nostri incontri si svolgano senza… guerre di religione. (Per quanto, quando le religioni sono vive, esse invessano tutte le manifestazioni di attività di una persona, e vengano fuori nelle occasioni più impensate. Come racconta Dione Crisostomo,853 che un tempo non si poteva andare a comperare il pane, a Costantinopoli, senza che il fornaio attaccasse la questione (x) del ‘filioque’, nè prendere un bagno, senza che il bagnino, ripulendo la vasca, esprimesse la sua opinione sulla omousia del Figlio rispetto al Padre!) Di quella conferenza sulla ‘Situazione dell’arte greca’854 vorrei cavarne un libro.855 Ma adesso sto lavorando per la Enciclopedia dell’Arte, sotto la Direzione di De Sanctis856 e ho delle voci molto impegnative da fare: ‘arte greca’, ‘arte romana’, ‘arte etrusca’, ecc. Da Maria e da me i più cari saluti per Lei, e un affettuoso ricordo a Nicky. Il Suo devoto e affezionato Ranuccio (x) La citazione non è molto esatta ma il senso è questo!

174. Bianchi Bandinelli to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 30.24, handwritten. The letter is transcribed from the beginning up to ‘sua assenza’ in Bernabò, Osssessioni bizantine, p. 261 and n. 27; the letter is mentioned in Barbanera, Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, p. 189 and n. 146) 853 Dio Chrysostom (Prusa, Bitinia, c. 40–c. 120 ce), rhetorician, sophist, and philosopher. Camillo Neri, Professor of Greek Language and Literature, suggests that Dio never used the word homoousiotes in his works (homoousion: ‘same in being, same in essence’, a Christian theological term used in the Nicene Creed for describing Jesus — God and Son — as ‘same in being’ or ‘same in essence’ with God the Father). Since this is a cursory quote, one can think of a confusion with John Chrysostom (Antioch, c. 344–54–Comana, Cappadocia, 407), Church Father, but from a first check nothing similar is found in the Johannine corpus. A similar passage (and in this case we should think that Bianchi Bandinelli did not just paraphrase, but ‘created’ freely), is instead in Gregory of Nyssa (Caesarea, Cappadocia, c. 330–Nyssa, c. 395) Church Father, see: Gregorius Nyssenus, De deitate Filii et Spiritus Sancti, ed. by Migne, p. 557B. However, the fact that the story is so vivid and characteristic (‘the lifeguard who is cleaning the tub’), suggests that there may have been an intermediate source (written or perhaps oral, the lesson of a teacher, and anecdote heard somewhere, etc.), in which the ‘authorial exchange’ had already taken place. 854 Lecture held by R. Bianchi Bandinelli in the Riunione delle tre Accademie dei Lincei, di S. Luca e di S. Cecilia, 3 June 1950. 855 A book on this subject was not being published. 856 Gaetano De Sanctis (Rome, 1870–1957), historian, academic, and politician; he was president of the Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana (Treccani) from 1947 to 1954.

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Geggiano 15 sett. [embre] 1951 Caro B.B., sono molto contento che Lei sia d’accordo con la datazione fine V-inizio VI secolo che io propongo per le miniature dell’Iliade Ambrosiana. (La mia tendenza è sempre più per la seconda data). Quella dei precedenti editori al III, è assurda.857 Ma nella Sua lettera858 per la quale La ringrazio molto, mi ha particolarmente interessato l’accenno a pitture del Nord-Africa. Io ho trovato molta somiglianza ‘di famiglia’ con frammenti di vasi dipinti trovati a Wadi-Sarga859 da R. Campbell Thomson [sic],860 databili da monete che vanno da Giustiniano a Maurizio, cioè dal 530 al 602.861 Queste connessioni con il N. [ord] Africa, e altre cose, indicano Costantinopoli come luogo di origine del codice. Credo anche di aver trovato sufficienti spiegazioni al perché l’unico miniatore si sia ispirato a modelli iconografici diversi e di tempi diversi: ci dovevano essere edizioni separate libro per libro, come per la Bibbia. Dove invece purtroppo, caro B.B., Lei non ha ragione, è quando crede che il veto di Mercati862 contro di me non sia di ragione politica: il Cardinale Mercati ha avuto la franchezza (della quale gli sono grato) di dirlo personalmente a me in un colloquio concessomi nel luglio scorso; lo ha poi ripetuto all’editore; e l’accordo fatto da Galbiati863 con me gli è sembrato così grave, che il povero Galbiati, che si preparava a festeggiare il proprio Giubileo, è stato deposto dalla carica di Prefetto dell’Ambrosiana.864 (Tutto questo, del resto, è in linea con lo spirito di ‘crociata’ del recente messaggio pontificio). Io cerco, per il momento, di salvare il mio lavoro scientifico, che mi interessa molto e che ho, praticamente, già pronto. Ma politicamente questi Signori Reverendissimi mi hanno dato in mano delle carte contro di loro, che non mancherò di usare, se non altro per mio divertimento.

857 In this regard see Bianchi Bandinelli, Hellenistic-Byzantine Miniatures of the Iliad, pp. 163–67. 858 Berenson’s letter was not found. 859 Wadi Sarga is located in Middle Egypt on the west bank of the Nile. The area was used as a stone quarry before the Late Antique period when a Christian settlement was established. The site includes three cemeteries and the Monastery of St Thomas. 860 Reginald Campbell Thompson (London, 1876–1941), Assyriologist and archaeologist. 861 See Bianchi Bandinelli, Hellenistic-Byzantine Miniatures of the Iliad, p. 155 and n. 1; p. 163. 862 Giovanni Mercati (Villa Gaida, Reggio Emilia, 1866–Vatican City, 1957), cardinal, humanist, and writer; in 1934 Pope Pius XI appointed him librarian and archivist of S. Romana Chiesa. 863 Monsignor Giovanni Galbiati (Carugo, Como, 1881–Milan, 1966), Prefect of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan from 1924 to 1951. 864 Cardinal Giovanni Mercati apparently vetoed Bianchi Bandinelli’s work on the Ambrosian Iliad as the latter had become a Communist, see on the topic Bernabò, Osssessioni bizantine, pp. 260–66 and Barbanera, Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, p. 189.

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Grazie per l’invito ad usare la Sua biblioteca anche in Sua assenza. Ma per il momento non potrò farne uso. Ho da sbrigare molto e noioso lavoro per l’Enciclopedia Italiana (ma è lavoro pagato!) e da perder tempo con tesi di laurea e simili idiozie. Buon soggiorno a Ischia,865 e tanti cari saluti dal Suo affezionato Ranuccio

175. BB to Orlando Grosso (BCB, Archivio O. Grosso, fascicolo 274, handwritten) 8, 7, 48 I TATTI SETTIGNANO FLORENCE Caro Amico. Grazie delle sue gentili parole per me.866 La signora Sprigge867 è entusiasta dell’accoglienza da Lei fatta. Mi parla di un paliotto bizantino868 che Lei l’ha mostrato. Esiste pubblicazione o fotografia? Non mi ricordo di averlo visto. Mi riguarda particolarmente, visto il mio interessamento a tutto che è bizantino. Suo affezionato B. Berenson

176. Grosso to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 59.17 bis, typewritten) ANTICHITA’ BELLE ARTI E STORIA Il DIRETTORE Genova (Palazzo Rosso) Via Garibaldi, 18 Telefono 26.794 19 luglio 1948

865 Ischia, an island in the bay of Naples. 866 No letter or note from Orlando Grosso has been found. 867 Probably Sylvia Sprigge, née Saunders (1903–1966), journalist, translator, and correspondent for the Manchester Guardian in Italy from 1943 to 1953. 868 Genoa, Museo di Sant’Agostino, Pallium of San Lorenzo, thirteenth century (inv. no. G.P.B. 2073, samite embroidered with polychrome silks and metal threads, 375 × 133 cm), currently being restored at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Florence.

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Illustre e caro Maestro, per una disgraziata mostra Torinese sono stato ancora fuori Genova. Il Pallio Bizantino si trova ora nel mio Ufficio a palazzo Rosso dopo essere stato, nei cinque anni della guerra, incassato e depositato in un oratorio di montagna per godere di una temperatura media. Era esposto prima nella sala Spagnuola di palazzo Bianco. Si può datare della seconda metà del sec. [olo] XIII e pervenne alla Repubblica di Genova quale tributo dell’imperatore Michele Paleologo per la cattedrale di San Lorenzo. Tessuto di seta purpurea con la rappresentazione dei fatti principali della vita di San Lorenzo e di S. Ippolito. Le fotografie esistenti, tutte antiche, sono poco buone a causa della tinta. Chiuso fin dal 1892 fra vetri necessita, prima di poter eseguire una nuova, buona fotografia, di un restauro conservativo. Non Le nascondo che sono perplesso poiché, da 40 anni che lo osservo e lo sorveglio, ha mantenuto quasi intatte le crepe che aveva allorché io lo ebbi in consegna nel 1909. Anche i viaggi di andata e ritorno in autocarro e il soggiorno di guerra nel ricovero non hanno provocato nuovi danni evidenti e gli antichi strappi sono inalterati. Varie commissioni, durante questo periodo, si sono occupate del Pallio, ma tutte si espressero prudentemente sull’opportunità di non eseguire operazioni di restauro. Il Pallio non è stato studiato a fondo. Le trasmetto, con le copie delle foto869 che possediamo un estratto dello scritto di M. G. Canale.870 Con devozione ed affetto mi creda (Orlando Grosso) Illustre Bernard Berenson I Tatti Firenze P.S. Le foto le mando in plico a parte

869 Orlando Grosso was referring to two copies of photographs of the Pallium which are in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 20, folder Textiles: Cambridge (Mass.) New York. The first one shows the pallium in its then state (Fig. 34); the second, is a lithograph of it (Fig. 35) which was published in ‘Discorso intorno al Pallio di seta, lavoro bisantino del secolo XIII, dell’avvocato Michel Giuseppe Canale’, ed. by Banchero (1857), pp. 55–61, pl. 111. The essay is indeed by Michele Giuseppe Canale and it was already published as ‘Il Pallio di Seta’, ed. by Gandolfi in 1846, pp. 5–10 including the lithograph of the pallium. 870 The typewritten offprint by M. G. Canale is attached to Orlando Grosso’s letter. It must be said that the title of the offprint is partly incorrect (see n. 869): Canale, ‘Discorso intorno al Pallio di Seta, lavoro bizantino del sec. XIII’, estratto del vol. III, 5 della Descrizione di Genova e del Genovesato (Genoa, 1846).

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177. BB to Grosso (BCB, Archivio O. Grosso, fascicolo 274, handwritten) 30, 7, 48 CASA AL DONO VALLOMBROSA (PROV. [INCIA] DI FIRENZE) Caro Amico Mille grazie per sua lettera del 19. per la fotografia del pallio bizantino e per il discorso del Avv. [ocato] Canale. Sono lieto di avere questi documenti per la ragione che l’arte figurativa bizantina è una pre-occupazione. Spero di vederla ai Tatti Suo B. Berenson

178. Walter Heil to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 68.31, typewritten. A copy of the letter is in Berenson, Bernard to Walter Heil, Correspondence, FAMSF Archives) M.[ICHAEL] H.[ENRI] DE YOUNG MEMORIAL MUSEUM Golden Gate Park San Francisco 18, California OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR April 5, 1951 Mr B. Berenson Villa I Tatti Settignano (Firenze) Italy Dear Mr Berenson: I trust that you have by now received the letter I wrote you871 before going East, as well as the photographs which were sent to you872 shortly after my departure. I also trust that the latter will prove to be of value to you. My trip, on the whole, has been quite successful. The refreshment alone that comes from seeing great works again in the galleries and new things in the art market is worth

871 The letter is not present among BBP. 872 It is not known which photos Walter Heil was referring to.

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the effort. In Washington I had a pleasant time with Mr Rush Kress873 and the other members of the Kress Foundation, as well as with the people of the National Gallery. I have every reason to believe that the Samuel Kress Memorial, which is promised us, will materialize and will contain some really first class works. I assume, you have by now received the catalogue of the new section of the Kress collection, now on exhibition at the National Gallery for the first time.874 The effect of the whole suffers, in my opinion, from a certain inequality of standards. Next to splendid masterpieces there are things of decidedly minor merits, which perhaps better should have been left out. My trip also enabled me to do some research work on objects we recently acquired and to consult with specialists in the respective fields. One of these works is a handsome Byzantine Icon,875 of which I am enclosing photos as well as a kodachrome876 which may give you an adequate idea of its colours. I thought you might be interested in this. The panel, measuring 11½ × 10¼ inches, was recently brought to my office by a Greek immigrant, a carpenter, who claimed that it had been in his family for generations and wanted to dispose of it.877 It was covered by grime and overpaint (in oil) to such an extent that I thought it at first to be one of those countless and worthless icons which American soldiers have been bringing over from Eastern Europe as ‘souvenirs’. However, there was something noble in the composition, also some indication of a considerable age, and finally some spots showed a fine old craquele which made me guess that something better might be hidden. So we finally acquired the picture for the small amount the man wanted. The cleaning, then, revealed the picture in its present condition which I think may be termed ‘good’. There is no restoration whatsoever on the picture, as you see it in the various photographs.

873 Rush Harrison Kress (Slatington, 1877–New York City, 1963), brother of Samuel Henry Kress founder of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation in New York City for which he assumed responsibility in 1945 and became president in 1955. 874 Perhaps Heil was referring to the catalogue Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, 1945–1951 published in 1951. 875 Heil was referring to the painting with the Anastasis (Resurrection), Byzantium, twelfththirteenth century, now in storage in the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young/ Legion of Honor (inv. no. 51.11, tempera on panel, 29.2 × 26 cm). 876 The three photos attached to the letter are in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 8, folder Icons: San Francisco (Calif.)-Siracusa; the colour photograph (20 × 25 cm) published here (Fig. 36) is in storage in the same photo library. 877 As suggested by Melissa E. Buron, associate curator, European Paintings at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young/Legion of Honor, the painting was purchased from Angelo J. Magure, 866 Goettingen Street, San Francisco.

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The question now is: What is this picture of rather, I should say, uncommon quality? The subject is of course ‘Christ in limbus’, and the remnants of the Greek inscription ‘ANASTASIS’ are clearly legible. The little man in the upper right corner is St Chrysostomus, as indicated by the lettering which is quite visible in an enclosed photo taken under infra-red-rays. The panel, three-quarters of an inch thick, is of Mediterranean pine and the two boards are joined in a peculiar, rather primitive manner. In the narrower board two deep notches are carved out and in each a crudely forged, curved nail has been driven to form a tie between the two boards. The gold of the background, of the halo, etc., has mostly vanished. From a small intact area (near the head of St Chrysostomus, above and slightly to the left) our restorer has concluded that not pure gold was used but electron, an alloy of gold and silver, which he claims was in extensive use from the times of the ancient Greeks until well into the middle ages. The grayish patches in the background consist of minute particles of metallic silver. The outlines of forms, not only of the mountains (as visible in the photos), but also of the human figures, their hands, etc., are all finely and skillfully incised. As to the painting itself there can be, in my opinion, little doubt as to its really being Greek-Byzantine and not, for instance, Italian or Russian. Also, after seeing many originals and going through hundreds of reproductions of late Byzantine works, from the 16th to the 18th century, I feel reasonably sure that ours is a rather early work. How early, I would not venture to say as yet. All specialists whom I happened to see in the East agreed with me regarding an early date, everyone terming it ‘middle-Byzantine’. Richard Offner called it ‘very early’ and asked for a set of photographs for more intensive study. Professor Friend of Princeton University pronounced it ‘certainly before 1400 and maybe much earlier’. Serapie [sic] der Nersessian of Dumbarton Oaks thought the picture might be relatively late, though not later than early 15th century; but the iconographical reason she gave, the appearance of the little saint in the upper corner, did not sound wholly convincing to me. Alfred Frankfurter878 was so enthusiastic about it that he wishes to reproduce the picture in full colors in the Art News. As to myself, I cannot claim to be a ‘Byzantinist’, although I spent a lot of time in my life in the study of medieval art from all parts of Europe. But having never been east of Sicily, except in Soviet Russia, I have no first hand knowledge of the monuments in Greece, etc., and must therefore depend primarily on illustrations in books. From such studies as I have pursued, of course most intensively during the last weeks, I am inclined to think that the picture is rather early, i.e. before 1300 and maybe even earlier than that. The lack of panel pictures for comparison makes of course the study rather difficult. And the comparison with mosaics, murals, (usually badly reproduced) and book illuminations may be greatly misleading.

878 Alfred Moritz Frankfurter (Chicago, 1906–Jerusalem, 1965), art historian and editor of Art News.

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For a relatively early origin may speak the simple, vertical, ‘tubular’ folds, so different from the agitated patterns of the later 13th and 14th centuries. The folds actually remind of those to be found in the 11th century mosaics of Chios879 and Hosios Lukas.880 Another indication of early origin appears to me to be the treatment of the mountains. While in most pictures of later date, including those by the Italian descendants of the Byzantine school, mountain forms are given as cubic rocks, stepped up in a way to suggest three-dimensional volume, the ones in our picture are rendered flat and purely ornamental. Curiously enough they have their nearest counterpart in mountain forms appearing in manuscripts, including Western European book paintings (such as German miniatures of the 11th and 12th centuries). Very interesting and significant appears to me to be the technique of the paint application. Nowhere are the colors led into each other, i.e. mixed. All modeling is arrived at through lighter or darker lines, all highlights are given in lines rather than in masses. The underpainting used throughout is a rather dark olive brown (raw umber), not the terra-verde which came into general use in the 13th century. (But, on second thought, I believe the use of terra-verde was primarily a Western characteristic, originating in Italy, so that its absence would furnish no clue to the dating of an Eastern painting. Am I right?). As far as the figures are concerned, I cannot see any compelling reason for a late dating. In fact, a certain ‘impressionistic’ treatment, distantly related to Greco-Roman formulae, would rather point to an early origin. The distinction between Christ and the other figures in the rendering of the garments — flat and linear in the case of Christ, plastic and tubular in the case of others — occurs in early as well as in later examples. Hence, it may have no bearing on the dating. The treatment of the hands, with their very long thumbs, would speak for an early date, I think. Again, ‘early’ appear to me the feet, where seen frontally, with their strong downward tilt. This is about all I could say at the moment. I may be one hundred percent wrong in my reasoning, and I shall have to leave it to better qualified experts like yourself to pass a final verdict. However, whatever it will be, I think, you will agree with me that the picture itself is a good one and decidedly worth having for our museum. Needless to say that I shall be exceedingly grateful for any comments you may wish to make. With kindest regards and all good wishes, also to Miss Mariano, I am, Very sincerely yours, Walter Heil Director

879 The mosaics in the Katholikon of Nea Moni Monastery on the island of Chios, Greece, which were patronized by the Emperor Constantine Monomachus (1042–1055). 880 The mosaics in the Katholikon of Saint Luke Monastery in Phocis, first half of the eleventh century.

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W[alter] H [eil]:lnw P.S. Just as I had finished this, your very friendly letter arrived. I am happy that you like our photos of the Vienna pictures. I also greatly value your comments on our own pictures. Many thanks indeed.

179. BB to Heil (Berenson, Bernard to Walter Heil, Correspondence, FAMSF Archives, typewritten) Copy Settignano, Florence, Italy April 17, 1951 Dear Dr Heil, Thank you for your letter of April 5th and the enclosed reproductions. Let me congratulate you on having acquired it. I agree with all you tell me about it. I can say authoritatively that it is ultra-Adriatic and I venture to add, not of Metropolitan, or Cretan, or Cypriot origin. I should incline to looking for its origin in the Balkans, perhaps in Epirus, Macedonia, or Southern Serbia. But I have not discussed the possible date of your find. Orthodox works of art were considered like the hymns, as these are sung without change through the centuries, so the paintings and other works of art. Yet your findings all hold, and I agree that it is not likely to have been executed after 1300. The original composition may go back centuries. Let me thank you again for the Vienna photos881 as well as for these. And let me hope to see you here soon. Ever your, B. BERENSON Re: GREEK BYZANTINE, Christ in Limbus

881 It seems that Berenson had asked Heil to send him several photographs of ‘Austrian paintings taken during the Vienna show’, see Heil’s letter to BB of 1 March 1951 not published here but in BBP, Correspondence, folder 68.31, typewritten. The ‘Vienna show’ should be identified with the exhibition entitled Art Treasures from the Vienna Collections which took place at the de Young Museum from 8 July through 1 October 1950, see Exhibition brochure Art Treasures from the Vienna Collections, July 8-October 1, 1950 de Young Exhibition Records, DY-ER. FAMSF Archives; Press release Art Treasures from the Vienna Collections, July 8-October 1, 1950. de Young Exhibition Records, DY-ER. FAMSF Archives; Art Treasures from the Vienna Collections, exhibition catalogue.

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180. Heil to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 68.31, typewritten) M.[ICHAEL] H.[ENRI] DE YOUNG MEMORIAL MUSEUM Golden Gate Park San Francisco 18, California OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR May 3, 1951 Mr B. Berenson Villa I Tatti Settignano (Firenze) Italy Dear Mr Berenson: Many thanks for your very kind letter of April 17. I don’t have to tell you how happy I am about what you have to say concerning our new little discovery. I am particularly happy and, may I add, rather flattered that my own analysis has been basically accepted by you. What you wrote about the possible origin of the painting is very convincing to me. When I said in my previous letter that I thought it to be Greco-Byzantine I simply meant that it did not appear to be either Italian or Russian. I myself had already concluded that it was unlikely to be Metropolitan or Cretan. From additional studies I was able to make in the meantime, your theory of a South-Balkan origin of the picture is probably correct. As an alternative, could it conceivably come from Asia-Minor? I have seen reproductions of Cappadocian book paintings of the 10th century (from Qeledjlar and Toqale Kilissé)882 where the treatment of the faces curiously resembles that in our painting. But, as you so rightly pointed out, with the practice of orthodox art of continuing certain patterns for long periods without great changes, such similarities may not furnish any valid clue for the allocation and, especially, for the dating of our painting. I have now sent out photographs and kodachromes to Offner and various other specialists in the field. If any of these should propose any new and interesting theory, I shall of course let you know about it.

882 Qeledjlar’s exact name is Kiliçlar Kilisesi. Heil was referring to the two volumes by Guillaume de Jerphanion, Une nouvelle province de l’art byzantin. Les églises rupestres de Cappadoce, Planches, Premier Album (1925) and Une nouvelle province de l’art byzantin. Les églises rupestres de Cappadoce, Planches, Deuxième Album (1928), which also include paintings in the Churches of Kiliçlar Kilisesi and Tokali Kilise.

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Although there is little hope, I still keep my fingers crossed that our city fathers might let me soon undertake another trip to Europe for which there are various plausible reasons. Unfortunately I cannot afford to pay the considerable expenses involved without some outside help. If I should go at all, I would certainly come to Italy, if only to have the keen pleasure of seeing you again. With kindest regards and all good wishes, Sincerely yours, Walter Heil Director

Section 2 181. Dikran Garabed Kelekian to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 72.18, handwritten) Hôtel Negresco. 37, Promenade des Anglais, Nice January 11th. 1920 TÉLÉGRAMMES NEGRESCOTEL-NICE My Dear Mr Berenson; I have the pleasure to receive your kind letter, and thank you very much for your message for my daughter883 who is now 16 years old and grown suddenly very much, and weak. I hope she will be quite well soon. Next Sunday I go to Paris and send you the set of photos with sizes.884 Now fine goods, as you know are getting very rare, and these two statues I have are among the rarest things I have seen. As I have no secret from you I want tell you confidentially that Donateur of hospice de Salin [sic] is half store with Demotte885

883 Kelekian’s daughter was not otherwise identified. 884 The photos were not found. 885 Probably Kelekian was referring to Salins-les-Bains, a spa town in the Jura department in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, eastern France. It is unknown from which Salins hospice the sculpture came. Probably, with ‘half store with Demotte’, Kelekian meant that the sculpture was in co-owned with Demotte, likely to be identified with George Joseph Demotte, see n. 293. From a subsequent Kekelian letter to Berenson of 6 May 1922 (not

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and we have fixed a price to sell it $ 100,000 but, I can sell any price I want and I have free hand to do what I want. So I can let it go, delivered to America, free of all charges, for $ 80,000, and reserve for you $ 20,000. As to 11th or 12th century byzantine wooden Madonna886 that is mine and that one I can sell for $ 13,000 and reserve for you $ 3000. These pieces are fully worth these prices and I do not see why everybody, buyer as the seller, being profited you should not get a little profit for your knowledge, it is more than just. Let anybody make me buy fine goods and I shall be delighted if I pay 50 per cent commission as long as I have fine things and the buyer of such kind of goods, they ought to be more than glad to have such fine object, no matter if they pay trifle more. Mr and Mrs Bliss they long time desired to buy this statue and I asked them $ 100,000, so you see that I make a special price for your friend for your sake. […]. Hoping this letter will find you in good health yours very sincerely. D. Kelekian

182. Kelekian to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 72.18, handwritten) Excelsior Hotel Regina Nice Cimiez ——°—— 887 TÉLÉG: EXCELREGINE Feb. [ruary] 16th. 1920

published here but in BBP, Correspondence, folder 72,18, typewritten), it emerges that the sculpture was shipped to America and identified by the writer as currently being in Cincinnati, Cincinnati Art Museum, identified as Saint John the Evangelist rather than a donor who would have been attired in contemporary dress, c. 1280–1290 (inv. no. 1946.7, limestone with traces of polychromy, 177.2 × 54.9 cm). 886 The Byzantine wooden Madonna was not identified: perhaps Kelekian wanted to refer to a Madonna coming from Auvergne (a region in south-central France), which he quotes in a subsequent letter to Berenson of 8 March 1920: no. 184, suggesting a French and nonByzantine origin? Kelekian provides the height of the Madonna, 85 cm (see Kelekian’s letter to Berenson, 24 February 1920: no. 183), and it is interesting to note that in a recent article on the wooden sculptures of Auvergne, a series of Madonnas are reported whose dimensions in some cases are close to that mentioned by Kelekian, but none are 85 cm high. See Potte and others, ‘Etudes menées sur les sculptures d’Auvergne’. 887 Perhaps ‘télégramme’ or ‘télégrammes’.

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My dear Mr Berenson. I have the pleasure to receive your letter of Feb. [ruary] 8th first to-day. I was called here back to Paris on account of the illness of my daughter that was the reason I could not send you the photos I have promised to send. I go back to Paris 22d of this month I shall be pleased to send them to you with the measures. I have written to the Armenian Dicastry of Venice to send you Sisvan a fine book on Armenia888 in which there are many interesting things on art, and also other publications. I know that this book Sisvan is very scarce may be they have not found one copy to send you. I shall try to find and send just now I am all together upset with illness and had no time to occupy with business. I know one thing that fine goods are very scarce. I saw when I was in Paris a very fine primitive I wanted to buy it without knowing the name. They called it Bicci889 but to me it is very fine thing, I will send you the photo when I go to Paris. I shall see how do you cite it. As to the prices of the 3 pieces I do not know what to do. I know that these pieces are inestimable but if I can enable the prices lower I will do so with pleasure. Hoping you are well Yours sincerely. D. Kelekian.

183. Kelekian to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 72.18, handwritten) Adresse Télégraphique: KELEKIAN-PARIS. OBJECTS DE COLLECTION DIKRAN KELEKIAN MEMBRE DU JURY 888 Kelekian was referring to an important book by Father Ghevond Alishan (also known as Léonce M. Alishan), printed in 1899 in San Lazzaro degli Armeni (a small island in the Venetian lagoon which has been home to the Monastery of the Congregazione Mechitarista, an Armenian Catholic congregation since 1717), which became very famous as a mine of information on Cilician Armenia, for which remains an essential point of reference. It is: Sissouan ou l’Arméno-Cilice. Description géographique et historique avec cartes et illustrations. The book is in Biblioteca Berenson. 889 The reference to Bicci is too vague, it could be Bicci di Lorenzo (Florence, c. 1368–1452) or Neri di Bicci (probably Florence, c. 1418/20–1492).

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Exposition Universelle de 1900 Commissaire Generale de Perse à l’Exposition de St Louis 38, Kasr-el-Nil  2, Place Vendôme, 2 Cairo   709, Fifth Avenue, New York, 709 Paris, le February 24 th. 1920 Mr Berenson I Tatti Settignano (Florence) My dear Berenson, I’m sending you to day by post the photographies of the royal Chinese stèle890 (height 87 cm, length 62 cm.) and the ‘Donnateur [sic] de l’hospice de Salins’891 (1 m 74). I could not send you the photo of the 12th. century Madona [sic] for I have none left but I give you the size which is 85 cm. height. I join with the two photos, the photography of a very nice small primitive about which I wrote you from Nice892 and which I saw in the place of one of my friends. They call it Bicci, do you think it is by Bicci or another master? In all case it is a very charming little picture, with very fine colours and they say that the frame is from the epoch. Do you advise me to buy it? I shall be very much obliged to you if you let me know your opinion about it. Hoping to have the pleasure to hear form you soon, I remain, Yours sincerely. DikranKelekian

184. Kelekian to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 72.18, handwritten) Adresse Télégraphique: KELEKIAN-PARIS OBJECTS DE COLLECTION DIKRAN KELEKIAN MEMBRE DU JURY Exposition Universelle de 1900 Commissaire Generale de Perse à l’Exposition de St Louis 38, Kasr-el-Nil  2, Place Vendôme, 2 Cairo   709, Fifth Avenue, New York, 709 Paris, le March 8 th. 1920

890 The photo of the Chinese stele is in BBF, Asian and Islamic Art, Box AI 7.1-AI 7.5, folder AI 7.3. 891 The photo of the Donateur is in BBF, French Medieval Architecture & Sculpture Homeless. 892 Unfortunately there are no means to identify the photo mentioned in the letter.

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Mr Berenson I Tatti Settignano, (Florence) Dear Mr Berenson, I have the pleasure to receive your letter of March 4th. If I did not send you the photography of the Auvergne Madona [sic], it is because I had none left, as soon as I shall have some made I will send you one with pleasure. As the price of the fine antiquities are growing immensely and that nothing fine is left on the market, my price for that Madona is, as I wrote, 13,000 dollar delivered in America. I hear that most ordinary things have been sold at most fabulous prices in America and here as well, my last price for the ‘Donnateur [sic] de l’hospice de Salin’ is, as I told you already 80,000 dollars delivered in America. Believe these pieces are the finest pieces I have ever seen and pieces like that will never come on the market. I will write again to the Armenian convent for they send you some more documents about the Armenian architecture and illuminations. If they don’t send you anything, good, I will go myself there and pick out interesting things for you. As regard to the picture Pierre Francesco Fiorentini, you were kind enough to express your opinion, it is a little picture in perfect order only the frame is modern.893 I understood the owner told me it was old. It belong to a dealer and he asks 55,000 Frs. [Francs] for it, don’t you think it is to [sic] dear for that price? If you think that the price is not high, kindly telegraph so that I can buy it for myself. Thanking you for your kindness, I remain, Yours very sincerely. Dikran Kelekian. [a handwritten note by Kelekian follows]

893 Perhaps Kelekian was referring to the photo with the Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine with two Angels by the so-called Pseudo-Pier Francesco Fiorentino, 1450s (tempera and gold leaf on panel, 48.3 × 27.9 cm), in BBF F (Scuola Fiorentina) Box 199, folder 7b. The current location of the painting, formerly in the collection of Giacomo Ferroni in Rome, is unknown.

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P.S. of course as I wrote you I shall reserve for you 3000 on Madona and 20,000 on Donateur D.K.

185. Eric Maclagan to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 81.7, typewritten) VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON, LONDON, S.W.7. 10: XII: 1920. My dear B.B. The perfectly deplorable photograph which I am sending you herewith arrived this morning from Montauban894 without comment after a couple of months delay. And that’s that! I don’t see what more there is to be done about it, I’m afraid. I have just got a lovely little ivory, 6th century I think and at a guess ‘Coptic’ — which I think might perhaps have been part of the covering of St Mark’s Chair at Grado, if the Milan ivories did belong to that.895 Yours Eric Maclagan. Bernard Berenson, Esq., 270 Park Avenue, New York. U.S.A.

186. Maclagan to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 81.8, handwritten) Letters should be addressed to: THE DIRECTOR AND SECRETARY Telegraphic Address: Vicaleum, London Telephone Number: Western 4815 VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM SOUTH KENSINGTON, LONDON, S.W.7 July 4, 1928.

894 Montauban, a city in southwest France. It is not known which photo Eric Maclagan was referring to. 895 Maclagan was referring to the fragmentary ivory plaque with the The Filling of the Water Pots at the Miracle of Cana in the Victoria and Albert Museum, on which he wrote an essay: ‘An Early Christian Ivory Relief of the Miracle of Cana’. According to him the plaque belonged to the so-called Grado chair including six ivory plaques with episodes from the Life of St Mark the Evangelist at that time in the Museo Archeologico, now in the Castello Sforzesco, Museo delle Arti Decorative in Milan. They are: St Mark Preaching; St Mark Healing Anianus the Shoemaker; St Mark Baptising Anianus and his Household; St Mark Consecrating Anianus; Fragment with St Mark; Prophet with a Plaque (see n. 242).

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My dear B.B. I have had the most awful rush of odd jobs, most of them still unperformed, since I got back from America; and I have been putting off writing to you among other things. I find it almost hopeless to discuss your sweet land of liberty on paper; such varying facets! And of course as you long ago found out it is not a nice country to live in, although an extremely interesting and agreable one to visit. I long to see you and talk about the life. But I’m afraid you are not going to be in Italy in the Autumn, when I had had some thoughts of coming to Florence with Helen.896 I have to publish my Harvard lectures897 (and very stale cake they will be in print, at any rate) and I certainly ought to go to Florence before sending off the manuscript. But I have also, definitely, to go to Budapest for the third week in September, (Sept. 16–22) for a congress; and Tyler, who was here last Sunday and will be in Budapest then, urges me to get Helen to join me there or somewhere in the Balkans and to go on to Constantinople, on the ground that Santa Sophia will probably fall down sooner rather than later, and that it is well worth seeing before it goes. I hear rumours, confirmed by Logan Pearsall Smith, that you are going to get there at last some time in the autumn, and if your time was to include the latter end of September I should be much tempted to abandon the RenaissanceSkulpture-Toskanas and sit in a caique with you on the Golden Horn listening to a bulbul and talking about Beacon Hill.898 I wish these places weren’t such a hellish long way off. Tell me, anyhow, what your plans really are if they are fixed and I will buy and adapt mine; assuming vaingloriously that you wouldn’t object to Helen and me being in Constantinople at the same time as Mary and you, and perhaps doing a little sight-seeing together. I don’t know how to begin to write about work of art in America. I suppose the first thing that struck me was the great superiority in quality, taking it all round, of the private collections over the museums. Most of the Museums seem to me to have a very unhappy system of purchasing: Cleveland899 I thought the brightest exception, of the general Museums. But they all waste a terrible amount of time and money on side-shows. […] My greetings to Mary, to Nicky, and to yourself, dear B.B. I hope you have been well and not merely industrious. This is a horrible scribble, most disjointedly written. Yours EricMaclagan.

896 Helen Elizabeth Lascelles (1879–1942), wife of Eric Maclagan. 897 Maclagan, Italian Sculpture of the Renaissance. The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures for the Years 1927–1928 published in 1935. 898 Beacon Hill, an historic neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts. 899 The Cleveland Museum of Art in Cleveland, Ohio.

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187. Maclagan to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 81.8, typewritten) Letters should be addressed to: THE DIRECTOR AND SECRETARY. VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON, LONDON, S.W.7. Telegraphic Address: VICALEUM, LONDON Telephone No.: WESTERN 6371. 4th September, 1928. Signor Bernhard Berenson, I Tatti, Settignano, Florence, Italy. My dear B B, I do not know if this letter will catch you at Florence, but I have in any case sent you a telegram which should reach you before you start. I have now fixed up my plans and I intend to arrive at Constantinople on the morning of Tuesday, September 25th. I shall write and book a room at the Pera Palace Hotel. If you have moved before I get to Constantinople and if I have not heard from you at Budapest you could, no doubt, leave a message for me at the Hotel. I am going from Budapest via Salonika, as it happens that my sister,900 who speaks modern Greek and knows the country, is herself going out to Athens just at that moment and will be stopping at Salonika for a day or two, so I hope to be able to see the mosaics there with less difficulty than if I were by myself. I intend to stay in Constantinople for a week or ten days and then go straight back to London as I have a great deal on hand here. […] I am looking forward immensely to seeing you again. There is so much to talk about. Helen and I have just been having a delicious fortnight looking at French cathedrals with my two boys,901 and the hospitable Edith put us all up for a night at Saint Brice-sous-Forêt.902 I am due at Budapest on Sunday the 16th and shall be stopping at the Hotel Ungaria where Tyler is living, so any letter addressed to me c/o him either there or at his office will reach me between Sunday the 16th and Thursday the 20th; I leave late that night for Belgrade and Salonika.

900 Theodora ‘Dora’ Maclagan (1881–1976). 901 Eric Maclagan’s sons, Michael (London, 1914–Oxford, 2003), historian, herald, and Gerald (London, 1917–Germany, 1942, killed in action during the Second World War). 902 Edith Wharton’s villa in Saint Brice-sous-Forêt, France.

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Greetings to Mary and Nicky who I suppose is with you. Yours ever, Eric Maclagan. [handwritten note by Maclagan] I have sent a copy of this to the Pera Palace hotel

188. Maclagan to Mary Berenson (BBP, Correspondence, folder 81.11, handwritten) Postumia903 7: Oct: [ober] 1928. My dear Mary, we have arrived at this lively frontier town three hours and a quarter late, on a gray Sunday morning; so I think my chances of spending a few profitable hours in Trieste may be said to have evaporated, and I had better stick to this dilatory train till in its own good time when it arrives at Venice. I am wondering whether you are as at this hour seriously setting out on that rather alarming journey to Konia: if you do I trust it will be really rewarding in itself as well as giving you all a unique opportunity for turning the tables on other more hum-drum travellers. My inside was a matter of such general interest at Constantinople that following in the footsteps of my great-aunt904 I will taken no shame in reporting on it. The instant I left the soil of Turkey, even after that not too abstemious luncheon at the Turquoise,905 it functioned with complete regularity: a Christian country is evidently all it asks for, not castor-oil; and I believe I might have eaten all the aubergines-thatmade-the-Imam-faint906 and all the nice greasy fries, not to mention all the melons in Stamboul, without being a penny the worse or the better! Trieste. After all, I did get out, and have been rewarded by seeing all I wanted in the Museum.907 The Epistle-side apse of S. Giusto is scaffolded up: but the Gospel-side mosaic is the one I like the best, and I saw that, as far as it is ever to be seen in almost total

903 904 905 906

Postumia, a town in the region of Inner Carniola in southwestern Slovenia. Maclagan’s great-aunt, unfortunately not identified. Perhaps Maclagan was referring to a restaurant called ‘Turquoise’ in Istanbul. The aubergines-that-made-the-Imam-faint = literal translation of the Turkish culinary specialty Imam bayildi. 907 Maclagan was referring to the Civico Museo di Storia ed Arte near the Cathedral of San Giusto, the contents of which have been dismembered and placed in other locations. Currently the museum is called Museo d’Antichità ‘J. J. Winckelmann’.

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darkness.908 Need I say that the Treasure909 is not visible on Sundays! I then had a reckless lunch of prosciutto & scampi & cheese & a peach & a mezzo of red wine, and am now waiting for my train to Venice. I cannot thank you both enough for all your kindness & hospitality in Constantinople. Of all places in the world, Hagia Sophia was what I most wanted to see; and to have seen it with you made it doubly precious. With all my hommage and affection to you, to B.B. & to Nicky, Yours ever, Eric Maclagan.

189. Maclagan to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 81.8, handwritten) Letters should be addressed to: THE DIRECTOR AND SECRETARY Telegraphic Address: Vicaleum, London Telephone Number: Western 4815 VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON, LONDON, S.W.7 Oct. [ober] 12, 1928. My dear B.B. I got back here safely, after a very pleasant one purely Byzantine day at Venice (how good the marbles; & how coarse and dry the mosaics as a whole after Kahiré Djami!) and Torcello.910 This is only a hasty line to say that I plunged into Lethaby & Swainson

908 Maclagan was referring to the Cathedral of San Giusto and apse mosaic with the Blessing Christ between San Giusto and San Servolo, while in the apse of Santissimo Sacramento is another mosaic representing the Enthroned Madonna and Child with Apostles. The two works were probably executed at the same time between the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries (see lastly Mason, ‘Le maestranze bizantine dei mosaici absidali di San Giusto a Trieste’). In October 1928 (until 1932) restorations were underway inside and outside the Cathedral of San Giusto by Ferdinando Forlati (Verona, 1882–Venice, 1975) then Soprintendente alle Opere di Antichità e d’Arte del Friuli Venezia Giulia. Probably Maclagan was referring to the scaffolding in the nave of San Giusto where interventions were carried out including the dome and the ceiling which were freed from subsequent additions and renovations. See Forlati, ‘La Cattedrale di San Giusto’; Mirabella Roberti, San Giusto, pp. 23–24. Apparently, the intervention did not concern the mosaics which were subsequently carried out between 1947–1950. See Bernardi, G., ‘I restauri dei mosaici della Cattedrale di S. Giusto a Trieste’; Bernardi, G., ‘I mosaici di S. Giusto a Trieste. Documenti per la storia dei restauri’. 909 The treasury of the Cathedral. 910 Torcello, Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta, apse mosaics, twelfth century; counter-façade mosaics, mid eleventh century.

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& found it rather less helpful as to, e.g. the existing mosaics, the inlays, ec. [cetera] at Hagia Sophia than I had hoped.911 But the texts are invaluable: and you may be pleased to know that the Silentiary’s poem912 entirely confirms your guess as to those hard dry capitals of the lower order: he says expressly that the Thessalian marble columns (i.e. verd antique) supporting the gallery have capitals ‘like locks of golden hair’913 which can surely only mean gilded. As to the N. [orth & S. [outh] arches now filled with the flat walls above the galleries, L. [ethaby] & S. [wainson] come to the conclusion that before the earthquake these walls were set back twelve feet — i.e. to the back of the intrados of the great arch one sees outside; so that looking up from the floor one saw that intrados above the gallery, and the cross-plan was at any rate much more suggested than it is now. They seem to exclude the idea of half-domes N. [orth] & S. [outh] in the original plan altogether. But either they are not very lucid or my wits are thickened. Their interpretation is I suppose consistent with Agathias saying ‘they brought towards the inside that portion of the building which was on the curve — τὴν ἐπὶ τοῦ κυρτώματος oἰκoδoμίαν’ but hardly what one would guess the Greek to mean. But they maintain that the huge buttresses with staircases inside at each end of the N. [orth] & S. [outh] arches which one sees from the outside are part of Justinian’s original building; and they would exclude anything like the existing E. [ast] & W. [est] system of semidomes and apses.914

911 In 1894 William Richard Lethaby and Harold Swainson published The Church of Sancta Sophia Constantinople and much of the book is concerned with a reconstruction of the fabric of Santa Sophia at various stages of its development. As John Thomas wrote ‘the sources of information concerning the building, as first constructed, and as restored, are the works of certain contemporary writers’: Procopius of Caesarea, Agathias Scholasticus (Myrina, c. 532–?, c. 580), Evagrius Ponticus (Ibora, Pontos, c. 345–Egypt, 399), Paul the Silentiary (c. 520–c. 575), etc. Thus, much of Lethaby and Swaison’s volume comprises translations of Greek texts which were the subject of a careful examination by an accomplished classicist, the architect and writer Sir Thomas Graham Jackson (Hampstead, London, 1835–Wimbledon, London, 1924) who disagreed on several occasions. See Thomas, ‘Sir Thomas Graham Jackson’, pp. 98–101, especially p. 98. 912 Maclagan was referring to the Silentiary’s poem, Ἔκφρασις τοῦ ναοῦ τῆς Ἁγίας Σοφίας composed for the second consecration of the church in 562. 913 See Lethaby and Swainson, The Church of Sancta Sophia Constantinople, p. 43. The authors report only the English translation of the Greek verses and in general a partial translation of the Silentiary’s work. Compare the verses quoted by Maclagan in the Greek text and the Italian version of Paolo Silenziario’s work in: Fobelli, Un tempio per Giustiniano, pp. 66–69; 542–45. 914 See Lethaby and Swainson, The Church of Sancta Sophia Constantinople, p. 30 and n. 3; pp. 209–19, especially p. 212 and in general the eighth and tenth chapters. See Agathiae Myrinaei Historiarum libri quinque, Book 5, chapter 9, paragraph 3, p. 296. There are different opinions on the setting back of Santa Sophia tympana walls and when this happened: in the sixth century by Isidorus of Miletus the Younger during the restoration works following the earthquake of 558 which caused a great collapse involving at least the eastern portions of the dome and the eastern arch and semidone; see Underwood and Hawkins, ‘The Mosaics of Hagia Sophia at Istanbul. The Portrait of the Emperor Alexander’, pp. 210–15; Russo, Le decorazioni di Isidoro il Giovane per S. Sofia, pp. 61–68; or in the ninth century following

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I wonder if you got to Konia; & if so, with what success. My greetings to Halil Bey and Makridi & Oghlul.915 The Kingsley Porters turned up yesterday for half an hour; they left today, intending to see Belgium & Germany in a fortnight on their way to Egypt. Yours ever Eric Maclagan. I enclose a print of the photograph of the Vladimir Mother of God formerly in the Uspenski Cathedral at Moscow after its recent cleaning.916



915 916



the earthquake of 869; see Mainstone, ‘The Reconstruction of the Tympana of St. Sophia,’ pp. 353–68, especially pp. 367–68; Mainstone, Hagia Sophia. Architecture, Structure and Liturgy, pp. 97–98. Lethaby and Swainson, The Church of Sancta Sophia Constantinople, p. 212, interpret Agathias’ words quoted above as meaning that during the restoration after the earthquake in 558 the large tympana walls were moved inwards ‘from being externally flush with the great arches, to being internally flush, each side losing an internal gallery in the process’: see Thomas, ‘Sir Thomas Graham Jackson’, p. 99. Most scholars believe that the original dome was 7.50 metres lower than that of Isidore the Younger; a different reconstruction, which takes into account the analysis of the sources of Procopius and Agathias and the architectural analysis, is due to Taylor, ‘A Literary and Structural Analysis of the First Dome’, pp. 66–78, especially pp. 66; 71. According to him a close reading of Procopius’s description of the church in Book 1 of The Buildings ‘offers the most reliable description of an eyewitness’, suggesting ‘that the original dome had no windows’ (unlike the current one) ‘and instead rested upon a fenestrated drum […] With the drum, the crown of the first dome was perhaps about 10 feet lower in elevation than the existing dome, rising 38 feet from cornice level’. Perhaps Maclagan was refering to Mehmet Ağa-Oğlu (Erivan, South Caucasus, 1896–?, 1949) Islamic art historian. The double sided icon-obverse the Virgin of Vladimir (also known as Vladimir Mother of God), reverse (once) a cross resting on an altar, early twelfh century (tempera and gold leaf on panel, 104 × 69 cm) was consolidated and freed from later remakes in 1918–1919 by the restorer Grigorii Chirikov (Mstera, 1882–Moscow, 1936). During the restoration works it was discovered that only the faces of the Virgin and Child were preserved of the primitive painting. All the remaining parts, with the exception of small fragments of the background and the garments, were a result of remakes from different periods. Brought to Kiev from Constantinople around 1130, the icon was transferred to Vladimir by Prince Andrej Bogoliubskii in 1155 and donated to the Dormition Cathedral (also known as Assumption Cathedral; Russian: Успе́нский собо́р, transliteration: Uspénskii sobór). From the end of the fifteenth century the icon was in the Dormition Cathedral of the Kremlin in Moscow (also known as Assumption Cathedral; Russian: Успе́нский собо́р, transliteration: Uspénskii sobór). In 1930 the icon was moved to the State Tretyakov Gallery and currently is on display in the Museum Church of St Nicholas in Tolmachy which has the status of a house church at the Tretyakov Gallery. See Gladysheva and Suchoverkov, La Madre di Dio di Vladimir, Italian edition ed. by Parravicini; original title: Богоматерь Владимирская, transliteration: Bogomaterʹ Vladimirskaia, istoriia odnogo shedevra. The photo of the icon attached to the letter published here (Fig. 37) is in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 7, folder Icons: Moscow-New York. On the back of the picture is a handwritten note by Berenson: ‘Vladimir Mother of God formerly in Uspenski Cathedral Moscow after cleaning’.

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190. Maclagan to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 81.8, typewritten) VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON, LONDON, S.W.7. Telegraphic Address: VICALEUM, LONDON. Telephone No.: WESTERN 6371. 5 December, 1928. Letters should be addressed to: THE DIRECTOR AND SECRETARY Bernhard Berenson, Esq., I Tatti, Settignano, FLORENCE, ITALY. My dear B.B., I have been waiting to answer your letter from Salonika because I had not time to write when you were at Athens. By the way, I got a letter from my sister yesterday telling me that you and Mary had asked her to luncheon and been extremely kind to her, and that she had enjoyed herself very much with you. Curiously enough I had a letter from Tyler only the day before yesterday coming to very much the same conclusion as yourself about the mosaic at Osios David. He writes: — ‘I now feel pretty certain that it is not later than the IXth, — and whether it is of that period or much earlier (VIth), I cannot make up my mind. The lion and the bull are very difficult to fit in with anything early, but the landscape, if it is only a later echo of an early style, is a far truer one than I have ever seen elsewhere. I cannot get the blessed thing out of my head’. I shall be interested to know any further conclusion you may come to about it after another visit and when you have returned home to photographs and books of reference. I thought the little late Byzantine churches at Salonika quite fascinating; of course above all ‘The Holy Apostles’.917 I only wish I had had more time to give to Byzantine things there. I’m sending you two photographs, one which I took at one of your tea parties in that gruesome, ghost-haunted cemetery outside the walls (you will notice the thermos

917 The Church of the Holy Apostles, once the katholikon of a monastery founded in 1310–1314.

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flask and attaché case in the foreground!);918 and the other representing a little Italian picture,919 which belongs to Cecil Firth920 of Saqqarah,921 and which was bought about thirty of forty years ago by his mother. He sent the picture here to be treated for wood-worm and I took the opportunity of photographing it. I am afraid it is very much repainted, but I suppose has something that goes back to the workshop of Fra Angelico underneath. I should be most grateful if you could give me any views that you can form on the strength of a photograph. Yours ever, Eric Maclagan.

191. Maclagan to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 81.9, typewritten) VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON, LONDON, S.W.7. Telegraphic Address: VICALEUM, LONDON. Telephone No.: KENSINGTON 6371. 1 November, 1933. Letters should be addressed to: THE DIRECTOR AND SECRETARY Bernhard Berenson, Esq., I Tatti, Settignano, FLORENCE, ITALY. My dear B.B.922 A young colleague of mine at the Museum, Philip James,923 has just passed through a particularly distressing domestic tragedy in the death of his eldest little boy, aged four, from meningitis; which involved his wife and himself watching him for three weeks without the faintest possibility of a cure. Some kind friends of theirs have sent

918 The photo published here (Fig. 38) is in BBP, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 2, folder: Architecture/Sculpture Istanbul 9. On the back of the photo is a handwritten note by Berenson ‘Constantinople Walls photo Eric Maclagan. Oct. [ober] 1928’. 919 The photo was not found. 920 Cecil Mallaby Firth (Ashburton, 1878–London, 1931), Egyptologist. 921 Saqqarah, part of the necropolis of the ancient Egyptian city of Memphis, southwest of Cairo. 922 This sentence is handwritten by Maclagan. 923 Perhaps Maclagan was referring to Philip James (1902–1974), librarian at the Victoria and Albert Museum who was appointed keeper in 1936.

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them away to Italy for a much needed rest and they are going to be at Florence for the best part of three weeks, reaching there on the 2nd. James is a great personal friend of Helen’s and mine as well as a colleague in the Museum and we both find him very attractive. His principal work is in the Library but he has also been helping me during the last three or four years administratively, and he is full of interest in art and music generally. If by any chance you are not too busy, it would be extraordinarily kind of you if you would give him and his wife a chance of calling on you at I Tatti. I am quite certain that he would immensely appreciate an opportunity of meeting you and seeing your works of art and perhaps above all your library and its arrangements. I rather apologise for suggesting this but I do not think I have been guilty of planting many visitors on your already over-burdened shoulders. James and his wife924 will be stopping at the Pension kept by Signora Casali, Villa San Giorgio, Lung’arno Serréstori 11, and they expect to be there except for an occasional day or two out of Florence until the 20th. They have neither of them ever been in Florence before and I doubt if Mrs James has ever been in Italy. I have just been writing to poor Volbach, explaining that there is I fear no possibility of a job being found for him in connection with this Museum. It is despairingly difficult to see what can be done for him and the others. I wonder if there is any chance that Morey might be able to find work for him in connection with the wide activities of Princeton. Have you, by the way, read Morey’s Introduction to the facsimile publication of the Rockefeller Gospels?925 I had it down in my office to look at and just skimming through the short Introduction I must say I thought it pretty good a summary of what Byzantine Art means. Yours ever Eric Maclagan

192. Maclagan to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 81.9, typewritten) VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON, LONDON, S.W.7. Telegraphic Address: VICALEUM, LONDON. Telephone No.: KENSINGTON 6371. 26 November, 1936. Letters should be addressed to: THE DIRECTOR AND SECRETARY

924 No information has been found on James’s wife. 925 Morey, ‘Introduction’.

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Bernhard Berenson, Esq., I Tatti, Settignano, FLORENCE, ITALY. My dear B.B., I was very glad to get your letter; like you I regret very much that your visits to London or even to Paris are so few and brief. There is no doubt about it that it is more difficult for me to get away from England except on strictly business visits than it used to be. I wonder whether you could help me about a Byzantine photograph. There has been an Exhibition at Burlington House926 organised by the British School at Athens which included a Byzantine room; and in this there were a number of the original drawings by Weir of the Church of St Luke in Phocis. One of these interests me from the point of view of iconography; a mosaic in the narthex West wall over the North window with three virgin saints, St Irene, St Catherine and St Barbara. Weir’s drawing is not very good, and the coloured lithograph from it in the book on St Luke927 is deplorable. But I want if possible to get hold of some record of the composition. 926 Burlington House, a building on Piccadilly in Mayfair, London; since 1854 it has been home to five learned societies as well as the Royal Academy of Arts. 927 Maclagan was referring to the drawing of the eleventh century mosaics in the great church (Katholikon) of the Monastery of Saint Luke at Phocis, which was shown together with others at the exhibition British Archaeological Discoveries in Greece and Crete 1886–1936, arranged to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the British School of Archaeology at Athens. The exhibition took place in London, Royal Academy of Arts between October and November 1936. See British Archaeological Discoveries in Greece and Crete 1886–1936, exhibition catalogue, London, Royal Academy of Arts, 14 October–14 November 1936, cat. no. 433, p. 95. The drawings were made in 1890 by Robert Schultz Weir (Port Glasgow, 1860–Phoenix Green, Hartley Wintney, Hampshire, 1951) and Sidney Howard Barnsley (Birmingham, 1865–Sapperton, Glouchestershire, 1926), two young architects of the London Royal Academy of Arts who early in 1888 visited Greece for the first time with the purpose of studying Byzantine Architecture. Two years and three trips later, as Amalia G. Kakissis wrote, they had produced hundreds of documents recording, in detail, Byzantine monuments in the Mediterranean, several for the first time. The exceptional success of this endeavour stimulated the United Kingdom’s interest in Byzantine studies. The Arts and Crafts movement played a significant role in the Gothic and Neo-Byzantine revivals of the late 1880s, and greatly influenced the education and training of architects who were sent to Italy, Greece, Turkey, and the Near East to study the origins of Gothic styles and Byzantine architecture (see Kakissis, ‘The Byzantine Research Fund Archive’, pp. 125–26). Most of the drawings of Saint Luke, were published in The Monastery of Saint Luke of Stiris, in Phocis by Weir and Barnsley (1901), including the one mentioned in Maclagan’s letter (see Fig. 37). On the activity of Barnsley and Schultz, see Kakissis, ‘The Byzantine Research Fund Archive’; Kotoula, ‘Recording Byzantine Mosaics in 19th-century Greece’. It should be noted that the Monastery of Saint Luke is usually referred to in the bibliography as being located in Phokis (ancient Greek: Φωκίς, latinized in Phocis). However, what is meant is the ancient geographical entity called Phokis which was the territory of the ancient Phocaeans. The modern administrative entity (or prefecture) of Phokis has been

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I feel pretty sure that if there is a photograph you would have it or at any rate would know about it; it has been suggested to me that the German Institute at Athens928 may possess negatives of the mosaics. If Nicky could find time to look this up among your Byzantine photographs and give me a reference I should be most grateful; or if you have a photograph unobtainable elsewhere, I wonder whether you could lend it to me so that I could have it copied? No new acquisitions of importance to comment on here; but the rooms which were so sadly upset during your visit have been repainted and the last of the ivories got back this afternoon. Yours ever, Eric Maclagan.

193. Maclagan to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 81.10, typewritten) VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON, LONDON, S.W.7. Telegraphic Address: VICALEUM, LONDON. Telephone No.: KENSINGTON 6371. 9 October, 1937. Letters should be addressed to: THE DIRECTOR AND SECRETARY Bernhard Berenson, Esq., Hotel Bristol VIENNA, AUSTRIA. My dear B.B., I am so sorry for the reason which brings you to Vienna, though it is a pleasant place enough even now. I was there for a week or ten days in September. Lionello Venturi has rather missed the bus with regard to the Slade Professorship.929 We elected a

partly taken over by the neighbouring administrative entity (or prefecture) of Boeotia. The southeastern area which was once part of ancient Phokis now belongs to south western Boeotia. It is possibly of some interest that the Monastery of Saint Luke is situated close to the ruins of ancient Steiris (Greek: Στείρις sometimes simplified as ‘Stiris’). In Antiquity, Steiris belonged to the Phocaeans (not the Boeotians ones). The toponym ‘Steiri’ survives to the present but now belongs to the prefecture of Boeotia, which administratively includes the municipality of Distomo, Arachova and Antikyra, hence the discrepancies between the ancient and modern descriptions. 928 German Archaeological Institute at Athens. 929 The Slade Professorship of Fine Arts is the oldest professorship of art at the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, and London. The chairs were founded by a bequest from the art collector and philanthropist Felix Joseph Slade (Lambeth, London, 1788–1868).

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new one only a few months ago, so he has still three years to run. Oxford I think will be vacant sooner; but oddly enough I am not an Elector for my own University but only for Cambridge. So far as I know, there is no definite reason against a foreigner being elected; but again so far as I know, such a thing has never actually happened. Helen and I did a short cruise in the Greek Islands this Summer, which we enjoyed enormously; and went to Constantinople again to see the mosaics Whittemore has uncovered;930 which entirely came up to my high expectations. Unfortunately I had a fall just at the end of the trip and broke a bone in my right hand, which has been giving me a lot of trouble and some pain; however it seems to be mending satisfactorily. Yours ever, Eric Maclagan.

194. Guillaume de Jerphanion to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 70.19, handwritten) 28 juin 1921 PONTIFICIUM INSTITUTUM ORIENTALE ROMAE (Piazza Scossacavalli) Monsieur, On me transmet de Beyrouth votre demande de renseignements sur ma publication des Eglises de Cappadoce. On vous a répondu. Je ne puis que confirmer ce qui a été dit. Cependant j’ajouterai que j’espère pouvoir recommencer l’impression bientôt. Je dois d’abord réunir mes documents que la guerre a trouvés dispersés, partie à Beyrouth, partie à Constantinople. J’ai l’intention de faire un voyage en Orient aux prochaines vacances dans ce but. J’espère tout retrouver quoique plusieurs déménagements fait en mon absence me laissent quelque inquiétude. Puis j’aurai à reprendre la publication dans de nouvelles conditions Ce qui était imprimé a été détruit ou rendu inutilisable. Je suis heureux de cette occasion de me rappeler à votre souvenir. Car je me rappelle fort bien vous avoir rencontré avec M. [onsieur] Schlumberger931 chez la Comtesse de Cossé932 auprès de Chartres. C’était en septembre 1904. Vous aviez vu alors quelques[-]unes de mes photographies. 930 Maclagan was referring to the mosaics of Santa Sophia. 931 Gustave Léon Schlumberger. 932 Countess Charlotte de Cossé-Brissac, née De Biencourt (1865–1957).

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Depuis, d’autres voyages m’ont permis d’augmenter beaucoup ma documentation. Si jamais vous venez à Rome je serai heureux de renouer connaissance avec vous. Depuis, la fin de la guerre je suis professeur d’archéologie byzantine à l’Institut Pontifical Oriental. Je vous prie d’agréer Monsieur l’expression de mes sentiments les plus distingués GdeJerphanion Mon adresse privée: 35 Piazza della Pilotta, Roma I

195. De Jerphanion to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 70.19, handwritten) Rome, 15 novembre 1921 Cher Monsieur, Je vous remercie de votre aimable lettre et du bon souvenir que vous me gardez. J’aurais été enchanté de vous voir passer quelque mois à Rome et j’aurais mis, bien volontiers, à votre service ma connaissance encore trop imparfaite de cette admirable cité. Mais sans doute la connaissez[-]vous déjà aussi bien que moi. Puisque vous vous décidez à partir pour l’Egypte, peut-être passerez vous par Rome et j’espère que vous me ferez l’amitié de venir jusqu’à la Piazza della Pilotta. Parmi mes confrères actuellement en Egypte, je ne connais malheureusement personne qui s’occupe d’art et d’archéologie égyptienne. Le P [ère] Lagier qui a vécu longtemps au Caire a publié, sur l’Egypte, deux volumes933 de haute vulgarisation que vous connaissez peut-être et que vous pouvez certainement vous procurer chez le libraire de là bas. Il est en France maintenant. Le P. [ère] Faivre, à Alexandrie, a étudié l’histoire de cette ville et publié différents travaux.934 Mais il est décédé en 1918. Vous pouvez vous réclamer de sa mémoire et de mon nom auprès de M. [onsieur] Breccia le directeur du Musée Greco-romain d’Alexandrie. Le P. [ère] Faivre était son ami et il m’avait introduit auprès de lui. Au Caire je n’ai pas besoin de vous recommander à la direction du Musée et du service des Antiquités. M. [onsieur] Lacau est un homme extrêmement obligeant et

933 Father Charles Lagier, L’Égypte monumentale et pittoresque published in 1914; À travers la Haute-Égypte published in 1921. 934 See as an example Father Jean Faivre, Canope, Ménouthis, Aboukir published in 1917; Canopus, Menouthis, Aboukir, trans. by Granville and published in 1918.

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dans la personne de M. [onsieur] Quibell,935 l’explorateur de Saqquara chrétien vous trouverez le meilleur guide pour le domaine de l’art copte. Mon confrère, le P [ère] Mallon,936 est un coptisant et un égyptologue, mais il s’occupe de philologie plus que d’art. Sa résidence habituelle est à Jérusalem où il dirige la succursale qui y possède notre Institut Biblique.937 Mais il vient parfois en Egypte et vous pouvez le rencontrer au Caire. Sinon, vous le trouverez à Jérusalem car je crois que votre intention est d’y passer aussi. Vous pouvez vous recommander de moi auprès de lui. A Beyrouth, je n’ai pas besoin de vous recommander au R. [évérend] P. [ère] Chanteur, recteur de l’Université,938 puisque vous avez correspondu avec lui au sujet de mes publications. Il vous adressera lui-même à ceux d’entre mes confrères qui peuvent vous être le plus utiles. A Constantinople, où j’ai passé plus d’un mois, j’ai rapporté les documents qui me permettent de reprendre la rédaction de mon ouvrage sur les Églises de Cappadoce. C’est un très gros travail. Je vous prie d’agréer, cher Monsieur l’expression de mes sentiments les meilleurs GdeJerphanion

196. Royall Tyler to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 106.16, handwritten) COMMISSION DES RÉPARATIONS RÉPARATION COMMISSION SECRÉTARIAT GÉNÉRAL GENERAL SECRETARIAT TÉLÉPHONE: ELYSÉES 57–48 à 57–56 ADRESSE TÉLÉGRAPHIQUE: COREPAROC-PARIS 131, CHAMPS-ELYSÉES PARIS My dear Berenson. Thank you so much for the photographs of Daphni,939 which are excellent, and show all sorts of things that don’t come out in the reproductions. I spent last week end at Brussels, and saw the Stoclet collection. It is marvellous.

935 936 937 938

James Edward Quibell (Newport, 1867–Hertford, 1935), Egyptologist. Alexis Mallon (1875–1934). Institut Biblique Pontifical. Claudius Chanteur (Passins, Isère, 1865–Cairo, 1949), recteur de l’Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth from 1921 to 1927. 939 The photographs were not found.

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When you next come to Paris I shall have a lot of new threads leading through the Bib. [liothèque] Nat. [ionale] labyrinth. I’m working slowly through the whole Fonds Grec, taking out every MS [Manuscript] mentioned as ‘peint’ in Omont’s catalogue.940 I’ve also stumbled across some tremendous Coptic ones, full of paintings. It’s clear the whole subject is hardly scratched, and there’s enough in Paris alone to keep one busy for years. Fortunately I have an ally who has plenty of time at his disposal and is as keen as mustard, one Peirce.941 He spends most of his time at the Bib. [liothèque] Nat. [ionale] He is probably going to Rome presently, and if you will permit it I’ll send him to you on the way. He and I have agreed to do a little book on Byz. [antine] art for Benn,942 and to have the MS [Manuscript] ready in time for the next autumn publishing season! Yours ever R. Tyler 23. 11. 23

197. Tyler to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 106.16, handwritten) COMMISSION DES RÉPARATIONS RÉPARATION COMMISSION SECRÉTARIAT GÉNÉRAL GENERAL SECRETARIAT TÉLÉPHONE: ELYSÉES 57–48 à 57–56 ADRESSE TÉLÉGRAPHIQUE: COREPAROC-PARIS 131, CHAMPS-ELYSÉES PARIS 1. 4. 24 My dear Berenson. Peirce and I are certainly going to have a number of things photographed in the B. [ibliothèque] N. [ationale] and the Cabinet des Medailles, and will gladly accept your offer to share this expense. Peirce is going to Italy shortly, and will show you the list of things, we are having done, so that you may pick those you want. I hope you are going to be at Florence for a few weeks to come so that he may see you there. You’ll 940 Tyler was probably referring to Henri Omont’s four catalogues, Inventaire Sommaire des Manuscrits Grecs de la Bibliothèque Nationale which were published between 1886 and 1898. 941 Hayford Peirce. 942 Byzantine Art was written by Hayford Peirce and Royall Tyler in 1926 and published by Ernest Benn, London.

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find him full of information on the subject that interests us. Would you let me know if and when I may send him to you? One finds all sorts of unexpected things. There are several large fragments of sculpture of the Sidamara type in the Louvre, unnoticed by either Diehl or Dalton,943 or as far as I know by anyone except Michon in an obscure memorandum.944 And in the École des Beaux-Arts there are a couple of the most puzzling pieces of I think IV cent. [ury] sculpture I’ve ever seen, totally unnoticed.945 We are trying to get photographs, and will supply you with whatever we can come by. Unfortunately there is no prospect of work really letting up here. I could so easily do with a few months simply to dispose of what there is here in Paris. On rereading this above I hasten to explain that I’m not suggesting that you should put Peirce up! He will want to spend a few days in Florence to see the Rabula MS [Manuscript]946 u. [nter] a. [nderem] Don’t you think the page from the Madrid Skylitzes representing a ‘Procession contre la sécheresse’947 would make an appropriate frontispiece for a modest work by two Americans?948 Yours R. Tyler

198. Tyler to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 106.16, handwritten) TELEGRAPHIC ADDRESSE: TRAG MINISTRY OF FINANCE, BUDAPEST. Nov. [ember] 14. 28

943 Perhaps Tyler was referring to Diehl, Manuel d’art byzantin and to Dalton, Byzantine Art and Archaeology. 944 Tyler was referring to two lateral fragments of a sarcophagus (c.220–25 ce) that came from the Borghese collection which were bought by the Louvre in 1907. The two fragments were mentioned by Étienne Michon (Marly-sous-Issy, 1865–Paris, 1939, art historian and Conservateur at the Louvre, Département des Antiquités greques et romaines, from 1919 to 1936), ‘Sarcophages du type d’Asie-Mineure’, pp. 79–89, especially pp. 80–83. The fragments, currently in storage, are part of the collections of the Département des Antiquités greques, étrusques et romaines, Louvre (inv. no. Ma 1497 and Ma 1500). 945 The sculpture was not found. 946 Florence, BML, Rabbula Gospels (MS Plut. 1.56), Syria, first half of the sixth century. 947 Madrid, BNE, I. Scylitzes, ‘[Synopsis historiarum]’ (MS VITR/26/2), f. 210v, late eleventh century. 948 Perhaps Tyler was referring to the volume Byzantine Art written together with Peirce in 1926.

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My dear Berenson. Yes, I had two days at Saloniki, very unexpectedly. An opportunity offered to go down by car from Sofia,949 via the Rila monastery,950 Melnik951 & Serres,952 & I jumped at it. I had luck with the weather, and I have a weakness for Saloniki anyway. I’ve been trying by all sort of means to get photographs, but have almost nothing to show so far. Of course you have the old photos from Millet’s collection?953 They are priceless for S. Demetrius. Yes, I heard all Zachos’s954 lamentations; but I’ve heard so many contradictory stories, both in Saloniki & in Athens — all from Greek sources — about what happened that night, that I classify the matter with the Kriegsschuldfrage.955 I’m sorry you had wind at Saloniki — I did the first time I went there; indeed the W. [agon] L. [its] man caught the lock of my suit case in passing it out of the window at the station, & dumped all my belongings into the hand, on arrival, an inauspicious start. Melnik is putty black. Of all the numerous frescoed churches described by Perdrizet956 as existing in 1907 (but of course not photographed) only one remains, & that is roofless & rotting away, but still pretty well preserved as to the paintings, which are very pretty — the Dormition ch. [urch]957 The Serres apse958 is well preserved still, and there doesn’t seem ever to have been anything else there.

949 Sofia, capital of Bulgaria. 950 The Rila Monastery, southwestern Rila Mountains, Bulgaria. It is traditionally thought that the monastery was founded in the first half of the tenth century by the hermit St John of Rila. In 1334–1335 the protosebastos of Strumica Hrelyo built a protective tower, monastic cells and a temple located at the present site, built in 1834. 951 Melnik, a town in southwestern Bulgaria. 952 Serres, a city of Central Macedonia, northern Greece. 953 We do not know if Berenson ever bought photos by Gabriel Millet of Byzantine monuments in Thessaloniki. 954 Perhaps Tyler was referring to Aristoteles Zachos. 955 War reparation question. 956 Émile Frédéric Paul Perdrizet (Montbéliard, 1870–Nancy, 1938), archaeologist and medievalist. See Perdrizet, ‘Melnic et Rossno’. 957 The Church of the Dormition of the Virgin. 958 Probably Tyler was referring to the old metropolis of Serres, the Church of Saints Theodore with conch in the main apse adorned by a mosaic depicting the Communion of the Apostles, end of the eleventh–early twelfth century. Not much of this large mosaic composition survives, since two devastating fires, one in 1849 and the other in 1913, burnt down the church almost totally. An attempt was made to save the mosaic, and some segments were restored, but over the years only a fragment remains: the figure of Saint Andrew, now in the Archaeological Museum of Serres (marble and glass tesserae on plaster, 176 × 94 cm). See Kalavrezou, ‘Approach to Receive’.

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Nothing at the Rila, except a superb mountain landscape, and a stupendous & perfectly preserved huge gold medallion of Constantius II — a mortar.959 The rest is insignificant. I’m afraid I can’t get away to Athens now, much as I’d like to. A lot of things have been found here since your visit, including a monster of a gold Scythian stag, 35 cent. [imeters] long, which puts all those previously known in the shade. It’s in the Nat. [ional] Mus. [eum]960 & is to be published in the next no. [number] of Aréthuse.961 Yours ever R. Tyler

199. Tyler to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 106.16, handwritten) FINANCE MINISTRY BUDAPEST 21. IX. 34 My dear Berenson. Many thanks for your letter about our Vol. [ume] II.962 I’m delighted that you should like it. We are doing all we can to get on with Vol. [ume] III, which is about half done now, & which we hope to bring out in the Spring. A lot has been done on Vol. [ume] IV also. Vol. [ume] III covers the period from Phocas,963 early VIIth, to roughly the close of the IXth Vol [ume] IV the Xth & XIth, and Vol. [ume] V the rest.964 We don’t intend to go much beyond the taking of Constantinople, 1204. I’m grateful for your advice about the plates. I have already seen to it that the Vol. [ume] III plates shall not be over-exposed as many of the earlier ones were. The inking varies much from copy to copy; I’m afraid you may have got one of the less successful copies of Vol. [ume] II.

959 The medallion and the mortar were not identified. 960 Hungarian National Museum, Budapest. 961 Tyler was referring to Nándor Fettich, ‘La trouvaille scythe de Zöldhalompuszta’, Aréthuse (1929), pp. 21–23. 962 Peirce and Tyler, L’Art byzantin, 2. The volume is in Biblioteca Berenson together with volume 1. 963 Emperor Phocas from 602 to 610. 964 Volumes 3, 4, and 5 were never published.

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Elisina965 is still at Antigny,966 but she is going to join me here a little later. Yours ever Royall Tyler

200. Tyler to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 106.16, handwritten) FINANCE MINISTRY BUDAPEST 26. VIII. 35 Dear Berenson. I somehow failed to receive your letter of this 7th until today: please excuse my delay in answering. Yes, I was able to finger the Greek & Scythian gold in the Hermitage to my heart’s content, — the Sassanian-Byzantine silver as well. The director (now Orbelli)967 was extremely kind to me, and gave me every opportunity. I don’t think any sales of finds made in Russia or Siberia have taken place — in fact the Hermitage has bought, & paid big prices for, a fair number of Sassanian vessels, and has sent out missions that have dug in Siberia with tremendous results — the Pazirik find, in which half  a  dozen Scythian chargers, with all their trappings, were found preserved in the ice of Altaï, is probably the most important. I had myself seen, — had offered to me, objects in silver & gold purporting to come from the Hermitage (among others the celebrated Stroganoff plate with two angels flanking the Cross),968 but I didn’t like the look of them; and I have now seen and handled the originals (or what I take to be the originals) in the Hermitage. Of course several great paintings have been sold, and masses of plate and furniture etc. etc. But I don’t think anything Scythian, Sass. [anian] or Byz. [antine] The

965 Elisina Palamidessi de Castelvecchio (?, 1878–Hyères, 1959), wife of Royall Tyler. 966 Antigny-le-Château, a garrison castle in Burgundy, France. It has buildings dating from the twelfth through the eighteenth centuries. 967 Joseph Orbeli (Kutaisi, 1887–Saint Petersburg, Russia, 1961), orientalist, academician, and director of the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg from 1934 to 1951. 968 St Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, paten with Two angels flanking a cross, sixth century (inv. n. ω 209, gilding, chasing, engraving, diameter 18.6 cm), formerly in the collection of Count Stroganov (Stroganoff), Grigorii Sergeevich (Saint Petersburg, Russia, 1829–Paris, 1910). On the Byzantine collection of Count Stroganov and the paten, see the paragraph by Simona Moretti entitled ‘Bisanzio nella collezione di Grigorij S. Stroganoff ’, in Moretti, Roma bizantina, pp. 135–50, especially p. 138 and n. 121.

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Basilewski situla has gone969 — and I expect an enormous offer for any Western object would still be considered. But not for the things which the Russians consider to belong to their national patrimony. I don’t know when I shall be in Vienna again, but when I am there I hope I may have an opportunity of trying to see Mrs Berenson. Yours ever R. Tyler

201. Tyler to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 106.16, handwritten) FINANCE MINISTRY BUDAPEST 13. XI. 36 My dear Berenson. I hear from Elisina that she saw you in Paris and told you about my visit to Constantinople. I was delighted with what I saw there. In addition to the two lunettes on which reports have already been published — one in the porch & one in the narthex970 — Whittemore has now uncovered the great Virgin & Child in the semi-dome of the E [ast] apse, and is cleaning the paint off an archangel on the S. [outh] face of the arch leading to that semi dome. Also, in the S. [outh] gallery, he has found five great imperial portraits, XIth & XIIth, and a superb XIth Deesis. The exciting thing about these mosaics is that the Fossati971 & Salzenberg972 never spotted them at all, so they 969 The accession of the Bazilewskii situla by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, occurred in 1933. The situla bears Scenes from the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, 980–81 (inv. no. A. 18–1933, ivory, height 17.8 cm including mask-head, diameter at top 12.2 cm, diameter at bottom 10.3 cm), formerly in the collection of diplomat Aleksandr Petrovich Bazilewskii (Ukraine, 1829–Paris, 1899). 970 See Whittemore, The Mosaics of St Sophia at Istanbul. Preliminary Report on the First Year’s Work, 1931–1932. 971 With regards to the architects Gaspare (Morcote, Canton Ticino, 1809–1883) and Giuseppe Fossati (Morcote, Canton Ticino, 1822–Milan, 1891), who in 1847 had been commissioned by the Sultan Abdulmejid I (1823–1861) to undertake the restoration of the then Santa Sophia Mosque that was completed in 1849, Tyler was quite mistaken: they had seen all these mosaics and had documented them with drawings and watercolours kept in the Archivio di Stato del Canton Ticino in Bellinzona. In 1852, Gaspare Fossati in a luxury edition printed in London and dedicated to the Sultan, documented the mosque at the end of the restoration without mentioning the mosaics of which the original project of making them known had been abandoned. See [Fossati and Haghe], Aya Sofia Constantinople, as Recently Restored. The Fossati materials were published in Mango, Materials for the Study of the Mosaics of St Sophia, see the volume in general and pp. 3; 18-19. See also Hoffmann, ed., Santa Sofia ad Istanbul. Sei secoli di immagini, exhibition catalogue; Schlüter, Gaspare Fossatis Restaurierung der Hagia Sophia; 600 Yıllık Ayasofya Görünümleri, exhibition catalogue; Fobelli, Un tempio per Giustiniano, p. 201 n. 1. 972 Wilhelm Salzenberg (Münster, 1803–Montreux, 1887), architect. See Salzenberg, Altchristliche Baudenkmale von Constantinopel von V. bis XII. Jahrhundert published in 1854.

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are in addition to what one had expected to be discovered in St Sophia. And what one did expect was in all conscience enough to make one look forward to this campaign as the greatest event that has happened since Byzantine studies began. The style of the Macedonian & Comnenian work already revealed is superb, and confirms what one had suspected: that Daphni & the Sicilian mosaics are only a provincial reflection of the metropolitan school. Whittemore is going slow & carefully, and is doing the work well. The actual fabric is sound — none of the ‘spies’ set over 30 years ago has mapped. As he is confronted with no architectural problem, his method is the right one to apply, and his team is thoroughly competent. He isn’t attempting to replace a single cube, and is proceeding by means of copper clamps to pin the mosaic to the wall — in the many places where the intonaco had blistered off & was hanging, literally, ‘has la peinture’, instead of squirting new cement in, & thereby changing the levels of the mosaic & the colour of the intonaco. I’m altogether happy about the way the work is being carried on. Yours ever R. Tyler

202. Gabriel Millet to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 84.27, handwritten) 34 rue Hallé XIV973 27 nov [embre] 23 Cher Monsieur, Veuillez excuser tant de retard. Je voulais lire votre article974 avec soin et je ne regrette point ma peine: il est fort beau. Les deux Madones sont sûrement byzantines. Faut-il les dater des environs de 1200? Vos arguments sont solides. Au premier aspect, nous songerions plutôt au XIVe siècle. La même question s’est posée en Russie à propos de la Vierge de Vladimir, que l’on vient de dégager et les érudits compétents se sont partagés entre les deux époques. Il faut attendre d’autres découvertes mais je ne serais pas surpris d’y trouver un jour la preuve décisive de ce que vous avez aperçu dans les deux Madones Kahn et Hamilton en attribuant au XIIe des oeuvres où s’exprime si heureusement la tendresse de la Mère. Votre Saint Siméon975 a des sécheresses qui feraient penser à une retouche. Le modèle schématique et hésitant contraste avec la finesse du décor dans le fond. S’il n’y a pas de retouches j’hésiterai à remonter au delà du XIVe s. [iècle] 973 Probably rue Hallé XIV, Paris. 974 Millet was probably referring to Berenson, ‘Due dipinti del decimosecondo secolo’. 975 Villa I Tatti, The Bernard and Mary Berenson Collection, San Simeon Receiver of God (egg tempera, oil? and tooled gold on panel, 76.4 × 35.2 cm); see also ‘Byzantine Vision of Bernard Berenson’ in this volume.

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Permettez[-]moi de vous remercier sincèrement de ces choses précieuses et des adresses que vous avez bien voulu me communiquer. Je n’oublie pas les photographies des Htes [Hautes] Études. Vous recevrez prochainement un second catalogue Veuillez croire, cher Monsieur, à mes sentiments les plus dévoués G. Millet J’ai cru comprendre que vous m’autorisez à garder la photographie de S. Simeon.976 Si je me suis trompé, veuillez m’en excuser et me permettre de vous la renvoyer.

203. Millet to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 84.27, handwritten) St Marcelin Var Mons Var977 19 Août 1924 Cher Monsieur, Je suis rentré depuis peu de Serbie, d’un magnifique voyage, très fructueux qui m’a permis d’étudier de fort belles fresques du 13 siècle, voyage très dur aussi, qui a mis en retard toute ma correspondance, car la plupart de mes lettres s’étaient égarées et je ne les ai retrouvées qu’au moment de mon retour. J’ai bien reçu, ou plutôt nous avons bien reçu, car ma femme m’a rejoint à Belgrade la lettre du 21.5 et la carte du 22.5 que votre secrétaire a écrit en votre nom978 pour nous accuser réception des deux envois de photographies de la Collection des Hautes Études. Nous avons trouvé dans la lettre un chèque de cinq cent soixante seize francs représentant le prix de ces épreuves. Si je n’ai pu vous en accuser réception plus tôt, je vous prie de m’en excuser. Si vous désirez recevoir d’autres photographies de notre Collection, soyez assez aimable pour m’en aviser. Nous pourrons reprendre ce travail à mon retour à Paris en novembre. J’ai conservé la liste de tout ce que vous avez reçu. Il me sera facile de compléter cette Collection selon vos désirs. Je vous prie de croire, cher Monsieur, à mes sentiments les plus distingués G. Millet 976 The photo was not found. 977 Saint Marcelin has not been clearly identified: perhaps it is the small medieval Chapel of Saint Marcellin near Mons, a commune in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region in southeastern France. 978 The letter and the ‘carte’ (perhaps a note) were not found.

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204. William Martin Conway to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 37.5, typewritten) CRAVEN HOUSE, NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, LONDON, W.C.2, TELEPHONE: VICTORIA 9000. IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM, SOUH KENSINGTON, S.W.7. From SIR MARTIN CONWAY, M.P.,979 Director General, Imperial War Museum. Telephone-VICTORIA 9000 November 13th, 1924

My dear B.B., I am sorry I did not let you know about my visit to Russia before I started, but I went off in a great hurry. I only spent a week at Moscow and a fortnight at Petersburg, and of course had only time for a very rapid inspection of the enormous multitude of works of Art of all kinds and all dates accumulated in these cities. My letters will begin in the Daily Telegraph on Friday. I formed quite polite relations with the authorities, and the only way to get anything out of Russia is to purchase direct from Government. Mrs Trotsky, Trotsky’s wife,980 is the general boss of Museums and is really very keen about them. Mrs Kameneff981 is the head of the Bureau of Information and her office is in the Kremlin. I think you might write direct to her in French or English, as she understands neither [sic], for anything that you want. The other person you might communicate with is M. [Mister] Troinitzky, the Director of the Hermitage,982 but on the whole I think Mme. [Madame] Kameneff is perhaps the best person to communicate with. It takes an appalling time to get anything out of them. I have been waiting nearly three months for some photographs, but I am sure that they will ultimately come.

979 Member of Parliament? 980 Natalia Ivanovna Sedova (Romny, 1882–Corbeil-Essonnes, 1962), wife of Leon Trotsky, politician. 981 Olga Davidovna Kameneva, née Bronstein (Yanovka, 1879–Medvedev Forest, Orel, 1941), wife of Lev Borisovich Kamenev, politician. 982 Perhaps ‘Mister’ Troinitskii (Troinitzky), Sergei Nikolaevich (Vyatka, 1882–Moscow, 1949), art critic and director of The State Hermitage Museum in 1918–1927.

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They have over 4000 confiscated pictures. Very few of them are of any importance. I only had one afternoon in which to see them all, so that of course I may have missed something. They were mostly second rate Dutch pictures. The old Russian aristocracy did not have very good taste. Of course the really important thing is the revelation that is gradually being made by cleaning the old church pictures, which were repainted over and over again in as many as seven layers. They have the most skilful cleaners at work and they are revealing Byzantine pictures of the 12th century and earlier, even back to the 5th century, as well as early Russian paintings from the 14th century down. Some of the latter are very fine. There was an artist named Rublov,983 the founder of the Novgorod School at the end of the 14th and early 15th century, who was a great artist. I saw two pictures of his of preeminent excellence and there are many more which had not yet been taken in hand. In two or three years time they will have several score of paintings by him and his followers. It will be a revelation. With kindest regards to you wife, Yours ever, Martin Conway

205. Pavel Muratov to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 85.63, handwritten) Via Flaminia 59. Roma Le 8 oct. [obre] 1925 Cher monsieur Berenson, Je vous envoie mon livre ‘L’ancienne peinture Russe’ post biz. [antine] — la version italienne paraîtra dans quinze jours.984 Quand à la version anglaise,985 elle est toute prête chez moi avec les photographies originelles — la traduction, qui vous a paru si mauvaise est complètement refaite. Un de mes amis, venu tout récemment de Florence, m’a dit qu’en parlant avec le professeur Otto Kurz986 vous avez exprimé quelque intérêt vers l’édition anglaise de mon livre. Si cela vous intéresse réellement, je peux venir à Florence pour parler avec vous de la chose, qui ne me laisse pas indifférent.

983 Andrei Rublev (1360–1430). Conwey discussed Rublev’s works in his Art Treasures in Soviet Russia published in 1925, pp. 45; 53; 56–57; 94–95. 984 Muratov, L’ancienne peinture russe, trans. of the Russian manuscript by André Caffi (1925); Muratov, La pittura russa antica, trans. of the Russian manuscript by Ettore Lo Gatto, 1925. 985 No English version seems to have been published. 986 Otto Kurz (Vienna, 1908–London, 1975), art historian.

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Comme vous voyez je ne suis pas revenu en Russie, la position là-bas était si mauvaise que tout le travail libre devient impossible. Je voudrais bien connaître l’opinion que vous avez de mon livre, maintenant qu’il est devenu lisible. Je vous salue cordialement et je vous prie bien de vouloir saluer Madame Berenson Votre dévoué Paul Muratov

206. Muratov to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 85.63, handwritten) 23 I 1928 143, Via Sistina. Roma Caro Signor Berenson! mi dispiace che non ho potuto visitarla in questi due giorni quando sono venuto di nuovo a Firenze. Avevo qualche fotografia delle cose bizantine da mostrarle. Dall’altra parte volevo chiederle un piccolo favore. Se Lei ricorda qualche anno fa Le ho fatto vedere una Madonna Veneziana che Lei ha definito come ‘dell’opera e di stile di Jacopo Bellini’. Sono stato allora molto lieto siccome ero della medesima opinione la quale ho espresso al proprietario-principe Volkonsky.987 Col tempo però il principe che mostrava il quadro alle altre persone sentiva i pareri differenti e diversi dal mio e cioè del Suo Amico Roberto Longhi per esempio non so perché ho trovato che questo è la tavola senese del tardo XV fra Benv. [enuto] di Giov. [anni]988 e Girolamo di Benvenuto.989 So molto bene caro Signor Berenson la Sua profonda avversione per i cosiddetti ‘certificati’. Ma siccome [il] principe Volkonsky ha messo [in] dubbio il valore scientifico della mia opinione non ho altro da fare che rivolgermi alla Sua autorità. Non si tratta di un certificato! Mi basterebbe avere due parole di Lei che Lei è d’accordo con la mia opinione. Questa opinione ho scritto al tergo della fotografia

987 Perhaps Muratov was referring to Prince Vadim Grigor’evich Volkonskii (Algiers, 1895– Virignin, 1973). 988 Benvenuto di Giovanni (Siena, 1436–1509/18). 989 Girolamo di Benvenuto di Giovanni (Siena, c. 1470–Siena?, c. 1524), painter and son of Benvenuto di Giovanni.

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che Le spedisco.990 Io Le sarei infinitamente grato siccome il buono principe non mi dà pace così i suoi dubbi sulla Madonna e sulla mia attribuzione. Come ho detto mi basterebbero due parole di Lei le quali io potrei far vedere al principe e dimostrarle in questo modo che il mio giudizio non era infondato. Sento bene che il favore che Le chiedo non Le sarà molto piacevole di soddisfare e perciò prego voler scusarmi. Con distinti saluti alla Signora Berenson e alla Signorina Mariano Rimango Suo fedele P. Muratoff

207. Mikhail Vladimirovich Alpatov to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 24.61, handwritten)991 INSTITUT ARCHÉOLOGIQUE DE L’UNIVERSITÉ DE MOSCOU MICHEL V. ALPATOFF GOROCHOVSKY PER. [EULOK] 16, AP.[ARTMENT] 2 Moscou, le 10.X.25 Monsieur J’ai entendu que vous vous intéressez aussi pour les icones byzantines et russes et que vous étudiez même ce nouveau domaine d’histoire de l’art. J’espère que nous pourrons vous être utiles dans vos études, parce que la Russie contient un nombre immense de monuments de ce genre de première qualité. En même temps je vous envoie un prospecte [sic] de mon ouvrage sur les icones,992 qui paraîtra bientôt en anglais

990 The photo was not identified. 991 The envelope header reads as follows: ‘M.r [Monsieur] Bernard Berenson Collaborateur du Bull. [etin] Amministrazione del “Bollettino d’Arte” Viale Piave, 20 (già Monforte) Milano Italia’. It should be noted that in the same header there are some handwritten notes in Russian (certainly a later addition) indicating the sender to whom Berenson had perhaps replied, which read as follows: ‘Гороховский пер. [еулок]; г-ну [господину] Беренсону Милан Италия; господину Алпатоф’, transliteration: Gorokhovskii per. [eulok]; g-nu [gospodinu] Berensonu Milan Italiia; gospodinu Alpatof, translation: ‘Gorokhovskii alley; To Mr [Mister] Berenson Milan Italy; Mister Alpatof ’. 992 The prospect was not found among BBP. At that time, Alpatov together with Oskar Konstantin Wulff published a volume entitled Denkmäler der Ikonenmalerei in kunstgeschichtlicher Folge (1925), but it is uncertain if the reference was to it. In a Berenson’s postacard to Alpatov probably of July 1925 sent by Villa I Tatti which reads: ‘Merci de votre envoi que j’ai lu avec tout l’intérêt qui m’inspire l’art byzantin dans toutes ses manifestations

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Veuillez agréer, Monsieur, l’assurance de mes sentiments les plus distingués. MAlpatoff repl.993 Nov. [ember] 26.994

208. Pietro Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.35, handwritten. The letter is mentioned in Gabrielli, ‘Pietro Toesca: “misurare” l’arte’, p. 41 and n. 181, and in Coen, “Di dottrina e di pratica’. Pietro Toesca e la fotografia’, p. 169 and n. 21, and transcribed from ‘Ieri’ up to ‘Venturi’ in Lorizzo, ‘Pietro Toesca all’Università di Roma’, pp. 103–04 and n. 6, which point out its location in the Berenson Library that no longer exists) Roma, Via del Collegio Romano, 26 (Gabinetto Universitario di Storia dell’Arte) 10.II. 26 Caro Amico, di tutte le cose care che ho lasciato a Firenze, e che séguito a rimpiangere, una delle più pungenti, nel desiderio, è quel viale di cipressi che mi conduceva alla Sua porta. E anche l’altro viale, il fangoso Milton,995 con tutto quello che vi ho abbandonato, mi mette addosso molte malinconie. Ieri ho tenuto finalmente la mia prolusione: e non mi mancò ogni dimostrazione di stima dai miei nuovi colleghi, nè l’abbraccio — sincero, di certo — del mio vecchio Venturi;996 domani, col principio delle lezioni, avrò forse una ragione di più per affezionarmi a Roma: eppure, benché sovente rimproveri me stesso, non ho più tranquillità, son diventato aritmico, e non ho concluso più nulla di buono. Così non desideravo nemmeno di darLe mie nuove; e avrei tralasciato di scriverLe se non avessi incominciato a temere qualche inquietudine in Lei per il mio silenzio.

993 994 995 996

— Russes surtout. J’espère que vous viendrez ici’, Elena V. Vasil’eva who published it, believed that Berenson was alluding to an article he received from Alpatov written together with Viktor N. Lazarev in 1925 on the Vladimir icon (see n. 916) entitled ‘Ein byzantinisches Tafelwerk aus der Komnenenepoch’. Vasil’eva then added that the article was also mentioned in Alpatov’s short letter here transcribed on the recommendation of the writer but probably misrepresenting the context due to linguistic misunderstandings. Moreover, Vasil’eva mentioned the writer as an employee of the Institute for the Study of Byzantine Art in Bologna which unfortunately does not exist. Alpatov’s letter seems to be connected to BB’s postcard and his first words an allusion to a publication, perhaps an article, but it is not known for sure what it is. See Vasil’eva, ‘М.В. Алпатов и его зарубежные корреспонденты’ – ‘Michail Alpatov and his foreign correspondents’, pp. 222–23 and n. 10. Perhaps ‘reply’. This handwritten note probably by Berenson was subsequently added. Viale Giovanni Milton, Florence. Adolfo Venturi.

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I colleghi fiorentini (quelli dell’Università, beninteso) mi rivorrebbero con loro a Firenze: e io avrò tempo, per accettare il ritorno, fino all’aprile prossimo. Riuscirò prima di allora a trovar quiete, qui? e a vincere la tentazione di ritornare per sempre? — Ma parliamo di cose più allegre. Sa che prima di partire da Firenze ho immesso nella mia piccola raccolta un mirabile frammento di affresco del secolo VI (con iscrizione greca: una testa di S. Agata)997 di fattura un po’ anteriore ai più classici di S. Maria Antiqua?998 Ma ebbi appena il tempo di rivederlo un po’ (l’avevo avvistato cinque anni fa) prima di abbandonarlo. Qui mi sono raccomandato molto al Carboni999 per gli affreschi della Fortuna Virile.1000 Forse glieli potrò spedire presto, con altri.— Presenti i miei ossequi alla Signora, mi ricordi alla signorina Mariano. Molti cordiali saluti dal Suo P. Toesca PS. Le mando il mio indirizzo più stabile — quello dell’Osservatorio Astronomico.1001 Di casa son sempre al solito S. Chiara. P.T.

997 On the fragmentary detached fresco transferred to canvas (39 × 40 cm) representing the bust of Sant’Agata, seventh century, currently in a private collection, see Bertelli, C., ‘Un frammento di affresco strappato con Sant’Agata’, in Santa Maria Antiqua tra Roma e Bisanzio, exhibition catalogue, cat. no. 8, pp. 197–99. 998 Perhaps Toesca was referring to the contemporary murals of Giovanni VII (705–07) in the Basilica of Santa Maria Antiqua, Rome. 999 Carlo Carboni (Rome, 1880–1936) director of the Gabinetto Fotografico Nazionale, Rome from c. 1913 to 1933. The Gabinetto, which had taken the name of ‘Nazionale’ since 1923, was then part of the Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione; currently it is part of the Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione (Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali e per il Turismo – MiBACT). 1000 Toesca was referring to the ninth–tenth century fragmentary murals of the Temple of Portunus (long called the Temple of Fortuna Virilis) in Rome. At that time the temple was transformed into a church first called Santa Maria de Secundicerio and later (from c. 1492 until 1916 when it was deconsecrated) Santa Maria Egiziaca. The discovery of the murals took place between 1921 and 1925 under the direction of Antonio Muñoz (Rome, 1884–1960), Direttore Dell’Ufficio Monumenti di Roma from 1921 to 1928; from 1929 (until 1944) chief director of the Ripartizione Antichità e Belle Arti del Governatorato di Roma. From 1945 he was appointed Ispettore Generale per le Antichità e Belle Arti. See Bellanca, Antonio Muñoz. La politica di tutela dei monumenti di Roma, pp. 15–25. On A. Muñoz, see Natoli and Fiore, ‘Antonio Muñoz’; Calanna, Antonio Muñoz storico dell’arte e collezionista. 1001 In those years, at the headquarters of the Osservatorio Astronomico, or the Sala della Minerva of the Baths of Diocletian, numerous plaster casts had been deposited as part of a ‘Museo dei Gessi per l’arte Medievale e Moderna’ designed by Adolfo Venturi as an integral part of the Gabinetto di Storia dell’Arte. In 1926 Toesca taught at the temporary site of the museum. See Lorizzo, ‘Pietro Toesca all’Università di Roma’, pp. 103–04.

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209. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.36, handwritten. The letter is transcribed from ‘alcuni’ up to ‘Botkin’ as well as the sentence ‘un bellissimo Lotto’ in Coen, ‘“Di dottrina e di pratica”. Pietro Toesca e la fotografia’, p. 172 and n. 36, who points out a location in the Berenson Library that no longer exists) Roma (23), Via Cavour 256 18.VIII.27 Carissimo Amico, sono ritornato molto affrettatamente da Monaco, dove il mio breve soggiorno era stato disturbato dalle noiose feste di mezzagosto. A Monaco potei vedere quel codice, interessante più per la legatura di smalto che per le miniature, guastissime, di scuola bolognese della prima metà del Trecento.1002 Dopo aver studiato i maestri italiani nella pinacoteca, non dimenticai gli antiquari. Il Böhler1003 ha un bellissimo Lotto. Il Drey1004 ha ora alcuni meravigliosi smalti bizantini già della raccolta Botkin:1005 e io son certo ch’Ella sarebbe felice di vederli. Il Kurt Wolff1006 era assente, partito proprio in quello stesso giorno, in cui lo andai a cercare, per Amburgo: e forse Ella lo ha incontrato all’Hotel Atlantic.1007 Ho ritrovato Elena1008 enormemente impaziente: e perciò il mio ritorno è stato tanto più felice, e opportuno. Per fortuna sta bene; e io spero che tra qualche giorno mi 1002 Probably Toesca was referring to the Book of Hours in Munich, BS (MS Clm 6116). The manuscript was made by the so-called ‘Master of 1328’ for the wedding of Taddea da Carrara to Mastino II della Scala, which was celebrated that year. The silver cover with enamels was made later, perhaps on the occasion of the wedding of Mastino della Scala’s niece, Maddalena Visconti, to Frederick, Duke of Bavaria in 1381. See Medica, ‘Tra Università e Corti: i miniatori bolognesi del Trecento’, pp. 102–04. 1003 Julius Böhler (1860–1934), art dealer. 1004 ‘Kunsthandlung A. S. Drey’ in Munich, an art gallery founded in the second half of the nineteenth century by the art dealer Aron Schmaya Drey (1813–1891) and his son-in-law Adolf Stern (1840–1931). 1005 Mikhail Petrovich Botkin (Moscow, 1839–Saint Petersburg, Russia, 1914), painter, art collector, archaeologist. Botkin formed a wonderful collection of medieval art in St Petersburg, including numerous Byzantine cloisonné enamels. The catalogue of the collection was published in 1911 with a Russian and French edition illustrated by numerous colour lithographs. Although this collection includes some masterpieces, the sudden appearance in the same collection of 150 antique pieces, with no previous history, aroused the research of specialists who have been able to find out that they are forgeries. As Fabrizio Crivello writes, the artist active in St Petersburg was one of the expert enamelists active for the well-known Fabergé firm. See Crivello, ‘Ancora uno smalto del falsario di Botkin’. 1006 Kurt Wolff (Bonn, 1887–Ludwigsburg, 1963), publisher and editor, head of Kurt Wolff Verlag, Leipzig. 1007 Hotel Atlantic Kempinski Hamburg opened in 1909. 1008 Elena Berti (1900–1967), art historian and wife of Pietro Toesca.

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possa accompagnare un poco ad Assisi. Elena vi ringrazia, e Lei particolarmente, degli affettuosi auguri! Tanti amichevoli saluti, a tutti, dal Suo P. Toesca.

210. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.37, handwritten. A reference to the letter, without indicating the location, should probably be identified in Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 121 and n. 6) Roma (123), Via Cavour 256 2. I. 28 Caro Amico, Le ho scritto a Firenze prima di Natale non avendo avuto il suo indirizzo di Hyères perchè la Sua lettera da Parigi andò smarrita in viaggio. Spero che la signorina Mariano, da cui poi avemmo qualche Sua notizia, Le abbia fatto giungere in tempo i nostri auguri, ch’Ella sa quanto siano sinceramente affettuosi. Li rinnoviamo per Lei e per la Sua signora. Elena è stata particolarmente commossa delle Sue parole, mentre non è molto lontano il giorno tanto atteso. A Genova, se ha tempo, si rivolga al dott. Orlando Grosso, direttore dei Musei Civici (Palazzo Bianco) perchè Le mostri il piccolo ufiziolo Durazzo, conservato in cassaforte: lo identificai, molti anni fa, come opera del miniatore stesso del messale di Domenico della Rovere nel Museo Civico di Torino-ch’è lavoro del parmigiano Marmitta.1009 Le raccomanderei di visitare anche la piccola Biblioteca delle Missioni Urbane (un piccolo vecchio e caro ambiente) per vedervi alcuni mss [manoscritti] bizantini,1010 se le loro miniature non fossero state rubate quasi tutte: ne restano alcune soltanto.

1009 Toesca was referring to the Libro d’Ore Durazzo, also known as Offiziolo Durazzo, which takes its name from its last owner Marcello Durazzo now in Genoa, BCB MS (m.r.Cf.Arm.1), early sixteenth century, and the Missale now in Turin, Palazzo Madama-Museo Civico d’Arte Antica (MS 466/M), 1490–1492, both illuminated by Francesco Marmitta (Parma, c. 1462/1466–1505). 1010 As Claudio Paolocci, Prefetto of the Biblioteca Franzoniana in Genoa kindly suggests, Toesca was referring to the Oratorio di Santa Maria Angelorum located in the old town centre behind the Basilica di San Siro and near Via Aurea (now Via Garibaldi) which became the headquarters of the Biblioteca delle Missioni Urbane in 1822. The library’s name referred to the Congregazione dei Missionari Urbani di San Carlo Borromeo founded in Genoa in 1643 by Cardinal Stefano Durazzo. The Greek manuscripts, as well as the Latin, Hebrew, and Italian ones dated from the tenth to the fifteenth century came from the library of the Genoese Filippo Sauli (d. 1528), humanist and Bishop of Brugnato (La Spezia). The library and its 30,000 volumes were completely destroyed after the bombings of the Second World War in October 1942. The Greek manuscripts together with the

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Per affreschi, veda quelli sopra la porta centrale del Duomo, dalla parte interna:1011 bisognerebbe farli fotografare, ma non mi è mai riuscito di essere accontentato. Le riuscirà di fare una cosa a S. Giuliano d’Albaro, nella bella passeggiata del Lido, per vedere la crocifissione di Donato Bardi da Pavia?1012 Io avrei voluto esserLe compagno almeno a Genova; ma Elena mi ha trattenuto qui, né avrei potuto desiderare altro. Tutti i cordiali saluto dal Suo P. Toesca.

211. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.37, handwritten) Roma, 26. V. 28 Carissimo amico, è finita, con la giunta di una corsa a Palermo, la mia crociera nell’Egeo, deliziosa, rapida e intensissima. Il ‘Convegno archeologico internazionale a Rodi’ era stato organizzato veramente bene non soltanto dal lato pratico ma come programma di lavori, poiché i…lavori consistevano soltanto nel viaggiare, nel vedere, aboliti i discorsi, le comunicazioni scientifiche e le altre vanità. Eravamo — invitati dal Ministro dell’Istruzione e dal governatore di Rodi1013 — una cinquantina di italiani, per gran parte dell’amministrazione delle belle arti, duce .. Paolo Orsi; parecchi tedeschi

surviving bibliographic heritage were incorporated as a separate collection in the Biblioteca Franzoniana. On the Biblioteca delle Missioni Urbane, see Alizeri, Guida illustrativa del cittadino e del forastiero per la città di Genova e sue adiacenze, pp. 147–48; on the history of Greek manuscripts, see Cataldi Palau, Catalogo dei manoscritti greci della Biblioteca Franzoniana Urbani 2–20; Cataldi Palau, Catalogo dei manoscritti greci della Biblioteca Franzoniana, Genova (Urbani 21–40). 1011 Toesca was probably referring to the fourteenth century murals of the so-called Master of Judgment over the main door of the Cattedrale di San Lorenzo in Genoa which are assigned to a painter of Constantinopolitan training. 1012 Toesca was referring to the Crucifixion by Giovanni Mazone, late fifteenth–early sixteenth century, now in the Museo di Sant’Agostino in Genoa (deposit of the Cattaneo Adorno della Volta family, tempera on panel, 217 × 134 cm) which was once attributed to Donato de’ Bardi at the time in San Giuliano d’Albaro Abbey. 1013 Mario Lago (Savona, 1878–Capri, 1950), diplomat and governor of the Dodecanese from 1922 to 1936. As it is known, from 1912 (and until 1943) during the Italo-Turkish war, Rhodes was assigned to Italy together with the other islands of the Dodecanese.

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tra cui il venerabilissimo von Duhn1014 e il Curtius;1015 qualche americano, come lo Stevens dell’istituto di Roma;1016 alcuni francesi, tra altri il direttore de l’’École franç.’ [aise] di Atene;1017 il direttore delle antichità in Grecia,1018 e un intelligentissimo prof. Orlandou direttore del Museo bizantino di Atene;1019 ad Atene si unì a noi, venuto dall’Eufrate, anche il Rostovzeff.1020 La compagnia era onesta ed amichevole: e credo che fosse la migliore attuazione della…cooperazione intellettuale.1021 Lasciando la visita ad Atene, e una sosta a Smirne, i punti principali e le impressioni più vive furono Patmo, Coo,1022 Rodi. Nell’antico convento di Patmo,1023 dove ci ricevette l’igumenos simile a un Dioniso barbato, oltre che l’architettura del monastero, asserragliato come una fortezza, ci sono nel refettorio pitture bizantine forse del secolo XIV;1024 c’è la biblioteca che altra volta fu studiata, in un lungo soggiorno, dal nostro prof. Mercati-il fratello del mons. [ignor] Mercati della Vaticana — che ci accompagnava e mi mostrò, fra l’altro, un raro codice ornato a Reggio di Calabria intorno alla metà

1014 Friedrich von Duhn (Lübeck, 1851–Heidelberg, 1930), archaeologist and professor emeritus at the University of Heidelberg. 1015 Ludwig Curtius (Augsburg, 1874–Rome, 1954), archaeologist; in 1928 he was appointed director of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut in Rome. 1016 Gorham Phillips Stevens (Staten Island, New York, 1876–Athens, Greece, 1963), architect, archaeologist and director of the American Academy in Rome from 1911 to 1932. 1017 Toesca was referring to Pierre Roussel (Nancy, 1881–Paris, 1945), historian, epigraphist, and director of the École française d’Athènes from 1925 to 1935. 1018 Toesca was referring to Konstantinos Kourouniotis (Chios, 1872–Athens, Greece, 1945), archaeologist and director General of Antiquities at the Ministry of Education of the Hellenic Republic. 1019 Toesca was probably referring to Anastasios Orlandos; actually, the latter was director of the Byzantine and Christian Museum of Athens from 1967 to 1973. 1020 Mikhail Ivanovich Rostovcev. 1021 Toesca was alluding to the Institut international de Coopération Intellectuelle, an advisory organization for the League of Nations active between 1922 and 1946, which aimed to promote international exchange between scientists, researchers, teachers, artists, and intellectuals. Toesca took part in the 1st International Archaeological Conference in Rhodes, organized to inaugurate the foundation of the Istituto Storico-Archeologico FERT (Fortitudo Eius Rhodum Tenuit). 1022 Kos island (also called Coo). 1023 The Monastery of Saint John the Theologian founded by the Blessed Christodoulos (1088); a chrysobull of the emperor Alexius I Comnenus exempted the island of Patmos from taxation. 1024 The fragmentary murals of the refectory were executed in three phases: the first, which survives only in the tympanum (divided into two horizontal zones) of the north blind arch on the west side, dates back c. to 1176–1180/last decade of the twelfth century (contemporary with the Chapel of the Holy Virgin murals in the same monastery). The second phase extends over the greater part of the west wall and a section of the north wall; few traces are visible on the east wall. This phase is variously dated between the early decades and the end of the 13th century. The third phase concerning murals on the west arch supporting the dome and in the southern part of the refectory, is assigned c. to the third quarter of the thirteenth century/ second half of the thirteenth century. See Kollias, Patmos, pp. 12–13; 15; 24–26.

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del secolo X.1025 Il Mercati, ch’è qui professore di letteratura bizantina, all’Università, si propone di ritornare a Patmo:1026 e allora potremo avere le fotografie di quei dipinti del refettorio. A Coo il prof. Herzog1027 che ne diresse gli scavi ci accompagnò sulle spianate dell’antico tempio di Esculapio,1028 sull’altura, in una posizione incantevole. Ma l’incanto maggiore fu a Rodi, non soltanto nella città medievale (ci sono strade che dànno piena illusione di trovarsi in una città borgognona del secolo XV) ma nei lontani dintorni: a Fileremo,1029 a Lindos, sulle alture dove alle acropoli e ai templi greci sono succedute le chiese bizantine e i castelli dei cavalieri gerosolimitani. Era il momento più bello: e nel Museo di Rodi1030 non si sapeva se ammirare più la costruzione gotica e gli oggetti di scavo oppure la invasione della flora ricchissima. Forse da Rodi potrò avere in seguito qualche fotografia di affreschi bizantini in una antica chiesetta della città: ma si tratta sempre di dipinti del secolo XIV — uno dei quali è riprodotto in un bel volume (‘Clara Rhodos’), pubblicato in questi giorni,

1025 Toesca was certainly referring to the MS Gr. 33 now in Patmos, Monastery, Museum composed in Reggio Calabria by the monks Nicola and Daniele in 941 and containing the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 330–c. 390). In years not too distant from those of Toesca’s letter, Weitzmann dealt with the MS Gr. 33 in his Die byzantinische Buchmalerei (1935) talking about it here and there. Weitzmann’s book is also present, as already mentioned, in Biblioteca Berenson. More recently, Guglielmo Cavallo deals with the manuscript in ‘La cultura italo-greca nella produzione libraria’, pp. 495–612, especially p. 523 and figs 468–73 where some images of his rich decorative apparatus are reproduced in colour. 1026 Silvio Giuseppe Mercati (Villa Gaida, Reggio Emilia, 1877–Rome, 1963), historian, philologist, and academic. From 1925 to 1949 he was professore di ruolo in Byzantine philology and history at the University of Rome, including Greek paleography and papyrology. During this period he made numerous research trips abroad (with visits to Rhodes, Patmos, and the various monasteries of Athos). 1027 Rudolf Ludwig Friedrich Herzog (Tübingen, 1871–Großhesselohe, 1953), philologist, archaeologist, and professor at the University of Gießen. In 1928 he was elected rector of the University for a year. 1028 Probably Toesca was referring to the Sanctuary of Asclepius (or Aesculapius, Esculapio) in Kos which was discovered in the early twentieth century by Professor Herzog. Elisabetta Interdonato, Professor of Roman Archaeology, kindly suggests that we are not aware of other temples for Asclepius (in the city for example). Actually on the island, in the district of Isthmos there was perhaps another temple of Asclepius and Igea, an identification still under discussion. From Toesca’s words and context, it seems that he was referring to the large terraced sanctuary mentioned above. Finally, Professor Interdonato believes that for Herzog, the excavation of the island’s main sanctuary was the most important undertaking at the time. As for the chronology of the sanctuary, it is a very complex issue: the Sanctuary of Asclepius structured on several terraces (or which has numerous buildings), is characterized by monumental architecture since the beginning of the third century bce. See Interdonato, L’Asklepieíon di Kos: Archeologia del culto. 1029 Mount Fileremo. 1030 The Archaeological Museum of Rhodes is housed in the ‘Hospital of the Knights’. The building was founded at the behest of Grand Master Antoine Fluvian (1421–1437) three years after his death (1440) and rebuilt and enlarged c. 1489, when the Grand Master was Pierre d’Aubusson (1476–1505).

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il primo volume di un annuario del nuovo Istituto archeologico it. [aliano] di Rodi (Bergamo. Arti grafiche).1031 Il viaggio fu piacevolissimo, ma aveva per me l’amaro di avermi obbligato a lasciare sola la mia Elena con la bambina. Ora sento di più la dolcezza del ritorno! - nella sua breve cartolina non ho bene compreso l’allusione alle attribuzioni, presunte, di opere di Raffaello: per certo mi è sfuggita, in questi ultimi giorni, qualche pubblicazione in proposito! La prego di informarmene! - Elena si unisce a me nel rivolgere a Lei e a tutti i Suoi cari i migliori saluti. Suo P. Toesca.

212. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.37, handwritten) 12. VIII. 28 Caro Amico, finora ho cercato inutilmente il volume dello Ebersolt1032 mentre vado gustando a uno a uno i rari volumi del reparto bizantino e della miniatura. Se le occorre di averlo subito potrei cercalo alla Bibl. [ioteca] Nazionale1033 e prenderlo a prestito. Ho scritto al prof. Mercati per la Bibl. [ioteca] del Serraglio.1034 Se il Mercati passasse per Firenze in questi giorni avrei molto piacere di farglielo conoscere.

1031 Toesca was referring to the volume by Maiuri and Jacopi, Clara Rhodos. Studi e materiali pubblicati a cura dell’Istituto Storico-Archeologico di Rodi, 1. However, the Byzantine mural was not published there. 1032 Ebersolt, Les arts somptuaires de Byzance published in 1923. 1033 Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale was located since 1876 in a wing of the sixteenth century Palazzo del Collegio Romano. One century later the library was moved to the archaeological area of Castro Pretorio. 1034 Toesca was referring to the Serraglio Library at Topkapi Palace. The so-called ‘New Serayi/ Palace’, renamed ‘Topkapi’ (Cannon Gate) in the nineteenth century, was built by Sultan Mehmet II (c. 1430/32–1481) between 1460 and 1478 as the home of Ottoman Sultans and administrative and educational centre of the state. After the abolition of the Ottoman monarchy in 1922, Topkapi Palace was transformed into a museum and the archival and library collections of the palace were entrusted to the museum. In 1925, the Ağalar Camii of the interior courtyard was converted to the New Library (Yeni Kütüphane) and the books of the various sections of the palace were moved to the new facility. The library, which is still open, is now called Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Yazma Eserler Kütüphanesi (Topkapi Palace Museum Manuscripts Library). I wish to thank the Topkapi Library staff for providing me with this information.

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Dal Grassi,1035 ieri, ho visto una mezza figura di S. Giovanni Evangelista che sembra di Giovanni Bellini, in un momento di poco posteriore alla S. Giustina.1036 Elena desidera ringraziarLa ancora della bella mattinata. Tutti i più affettuosi nostri saluti. Suo P. Toesca

213. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.37, handwritten. The letter is quoted in Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 121 n. 6; pp. 132–33) 28. VIII. 28 Carissimo Amico, il Grassi Le ha spedito la fotografia e credo ch’egli si proponga di venire alla Consuma uno di questi giorni. Il Mercati mi promette di procurare da suo fratello — mons. [ignor] Giovanni — raccomandazioni per le biblioteche di Costantinopoli.— Qui, dopo l’ultimo temporale, il soggiorno si è fatto sempre più piacevole, con grande vantaggio di mia moglie e della bambina mentre il mio profitto è specialmente di percorrere gli scaffali della ‘meravigliosa’ biblioteca. Speriamo ch’Ella e la Signora, alla Consuma, si rinfranchino tanto da potere poi correre tutto il Levante! A Loro, anche da parte di Elena, ancora tutti i nostri cordiali ringraziamenti per questo delizioso soggiorno, e tutti i più affettuosi saluti. Suo P. Toesca.

214. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.37, handwritten) Settignano, 18. IX. 28 Caro Amico, lasciamo domattina il villino,1037 dove questi ultimi giorni, quasi freddi, sono stati piacevolissimi. Purtroppo, dopo due mesi mi accorgo di avere conchiuso poco, o quasi nulla, delle cose che mi proponevo non ho esplorato i dintorni di Firenze, non ho conosciuto che un piccolo settore della Sua meravigliosa biblioteca.

1035 Perhaps Toesca was referring to Luigi Grassi (1858–1937), art dealer and collector. 1036 Milan, Museo Bagatti Valsecchi, Santa Giustina de’ Borromei, Giovanni Bellini, c. 1470 (inv. no. 986, tempera on panel, 129 × 55 cm). 1037 Toesca was referring to the ‘villino’ adjoining Villa I Tatti.

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Ma, in compenso, riporto a Roma la mia Elena e la bambina in fiorentissima salute, ed io stesso, dopo tanta inerzia estiva, mi sento impaziente di lavorare. Risolta a Roma (spero in pochi giorni) la difficoltà della nuova casa, andrò forse a Venezia.— Ho finalmente avuto risposta dal prof. Mercati: egli mi manda questo biglietto per il padre bibliotecario degli Assunzionisti,1038 dal quale egli spera ch’Ella possa avere raccomandazioni per la biblioteca del Serraglio. In quanto a mons. [ignor] Mercati, nel quale speravamo, egli non ha relazioni a Costantinopoli; avrebbe potuto fare un biglietto di presentazione per il Nunzio pontificio, ma questi è ora assente dalla sua sede. A me sembra che una raccomandazione dell’ambasciatore o del console americano potrà valere quanto quella del Nunzio; ma, quando sarò a Roma, mi recherò personalmente da mons. [ignor] Mercati per sentire s’egli non possa proprio far niente.— Mi scriva presto; mi dica se da Roma posso in qualche modo servirLa. Elena e Ilaria rinnovano alla signora Mary, a Lei, e alla gentile Nicky tutti i ringraziamenti e i saluti; ai quali io unisco i miei più affettuosi. Suo P. Toesca.

215. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.37, handwritten. The letter is quoted in Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 121 and n. 6) Roma (23), Via Cavour 256 14.X. 28 Caro Amico, dal nostro ritorno fino a ieri sono stato occupato, e abbruttito, nel cercare una nuova casa: e dopo venti giorni di peregrinazioni per Roma ho dovuto rassegnarmi a scegliere il nostro domicilio fuori della città vecchia, alla periferia, quasi vicino a Sant’Agnese: in Via Adige 48. Ad Elena la casa nuova piace di molto; io, ch’ero più affezionato a questa, vedo molto grave l’inconveniente della distanza. Intanto resteremo qui fino al 1 Novembre; e speriamo di avere ancora a questo indirizzo buone loro notizie. Io a stento ho potuto occuparmi un poco della correzione delle bozze del mio volume per K. [urt] Wolff: credo che potrò licenziarle tra qualche giorno.-1039 Per ora non ho

1038 The name of the librarian father to whom Toesca was referring is not known, however the reference is probably to the Library of the Assumptionist fathers in the district of Kadikoy, Constantinople, now no longer extant. 1039 Probably Toesca, Die florentinische Malerei des vierzehnten Jahrhunderts published in Florence with Pantheon, Casa Editrice and Munich with Kurt Wolff Verlag in 1929. This is the German version of Toesca, La pittura fiorentina del Trecento which was published the same year in Florence with Pantheon but printed in the Officina Bodoni in Verona. In Biblioteca Berenson there is the Italian edition which bears the following handwritten annotation by Toesca: ‘A B. Berenson, con affetto P. Toesca Roma, 9. VI. 29’.

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visto nessuno, e nulla di bello.— Da notizie che controllerò sembra che la collezione del card. [inale] G.1040 provenga da un suo parente marchigiano: forse mi riuscirà di vederla tra qualche giorno.— A Napoli, in Castelnuovo dicono di aver scoperto degli affreschi giotteschi dell’epoca di re Roberto.1041 Ne domando informazioni al Chierici.— Gnoli parte domani per New York al séguito,1042 se bene congetturo, della signorina Frick.1043 — Ma queste nuove, e questi pettegolezzi, Le giungono inopportune tra le impressioni del suo viaggio. A proposito, è anche uscito in questi giorni il volume di Muratov sulla ‘Pittura bizantina’,1044 ma temo che non aggiunga molto di nuovo. Quando ritorneranno, forse da Brindisi, non vorranno passare per Roma? Io ed Elena lo speriamo desiderando di vederli presto, e li accompagnamo con tutti i migliori auguri. Alla Signora, a Lei, alla signorina anche molti sorrisi di Ilaria. Suo P. Toesca.

216. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.37, handwritten. The letter is quoted in Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 121 n. 6, and transcribed from ‘Molte cose’ up to ‘persecutorio’ in Melograni, ‘Pietro Toesca e il Consiglio Superiore per le Antichità e Belle Arti’, p. 315 n. 86) Roma, Via Adige 48 7. XI. 28 Caro Amico, non sperando che questa mia li trovi ancora a Costant.[inopoli] la spedisco a Firenze che forse è la via più breve per raggiungerli. Tardai a rispondere alla Sua 1040 Unknown. 1041 Toesca was certainly referring to the fragmentary murals rediscovered in 1928 in the window splays of the Palatine Chapel in Castel Nuovo, Naples, with tiny decorative heads some of which were subsequently attributed to Maso di Banco. The windows were bricked up following the earthquake of 1456. The decoration was part of a cycle made by Giotto and his pupils for the Angevin Court in 1328–1333, now lost. See Filangeri, ‘Per il Sesto Centenario della morte di Giotto’, pp. 129–45, especially pp. 141–42. Robert of Anjou, also known as Robert the Wise (c. 1275–1343) reigned over southern Italy from 1309 to 1343. 1042 Toesca was probably referring to Umberto Gnoli (Rome, 1878–Campello sul Clitunno, 1947), art historian. Son of Count Domenico, he was Direttore della Regia Galleria dell’Umbria and Soprintendente alle Gallerie, ai Musei Medievali e Moderni e agli Oggetti d’arte from 1921 to 1926. He was also appointed Italian representative of the Metropolitan Museum of New York and collaborated with the magazine Art in America published there. These roles allowed Gnoli to spend long periods in the United States. See Biganti, ‘Umberto Gnoli’, pp. 284–91, especially pp. 287–88. 1043 Probably Helen Clay Frick, see n. 28. 1044 In this regard, see the essay ‘Byzantine Vision of Bernard Berenson’, this volume, p. 33.

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del 18 Ottobre perchè mi trovò alla vigiglia dello sgombero dalla vecchia casa di via Cavour. Tra portar via libri e mobili, tra sistemare la casa nuova e riordinarvi ogni cosa, son passati quindici anni di fatica estenuante: soltanto oggi posso inaugurare il mio nuovo studio, scrivendoLe. Molte cose nuove son successe alla Direzione di B. [elle] Arti: il povero Colasanti1045 è stato messo in pensione quasi d’improvviso, e senza un motivo apparente; oggi è sostituito dal Paribeni,1046 già direttore del Museo delle Terme, una persona integra, intelligente e buona. Ma in quanto a larghezza negli interessi generali delle B. [elle] Arti, temo che Paribeni applichi più rigidamente quelle restrizioni che finora son andate sempre crescendo. Per fortuna il Paribeni è così intelligente che saprà presto rendersi conto del danno che può nascere da un regime troppo persecutorio. Non ho potuto ancora vedere la raccolta del card. [inale] G.— Esiste davvero? o è una delle tante invenzioni antiquarie? Spero di poterLa informare quando Ella sarà di ritorno, e passerà da Roma come Elena ed io ci auguriamo fervidamente. Ci ricordi alla signora Mary e alla signorina Nicky, che ormai saranno sature di arte bizantina e musulmana, ma ora si rinfrancheranno ad Atene. S’Ella ad Atene vede il caro Orlandos gli dica da parte mia che l’editore gli ha mandato, fin dallo scorso Luglio, il mio volume di Storia dell’Arte,1047 indirizzandolo al ‘Musée des arts decoratifs’1048 perchè io avevo perduto il suo indirizzo. Ha egli ricevuto il volume? e potrebbe nuovamente favorirmi l’indirizzo? Con Elena Le rivolgo tutti gli auguri e i saluti, nel desiderio di vederLa presto a Roma. Suo P. Toesca

217. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.37, handwirtten. The letter is mentioned in Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 121 and n. 6, and transcribed from ‘Della Bibbia di Perugia’ up to ‘fino ad ora’ and ‘Del codice Vat. Lat. 12958’

1045 Arduino Colasanti (Rome, 1877–1935), graduated in literature from the University of Rome, in 1919 was appointed Direttore Generale per le Antichità e Belle Arti, a position he held until his retirement in November 1928. 1046 Roberto Paribeni (Rome, 1876–1956), archaeologist and the then Direttore Generale delle Antichità e Belle Arti. 1047 Perhaps Toesca was alluding to his two volumes Storia dell’Arte Italiana, 1, Il Medioevo, 1, and Storia dell’Arte Italiana, 1, Il Medioevo, 2. 1048 As Ioanna Palla of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Trikala, Greek Ministry of Culture & Sports (formerly at the Museum of Modern Greek Culture in Athens) kindly suggests, in 1923 the Museum of Greek Handicrafts in Athens (founded in 1918) became the National Museum of Decorative Arts; from 1959 (until 2017) it was called the Museum of Greek Folk Art. In 2018 the name was changed to the Museum of Modern Greek Culture which also directs the Tzistaraki Mosque in Monastiraki Square, the Bath House of the Winds at Kirrestou and the permanent exhibition building at 22 Panos Street.

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up to ‘principali’ and from ‘infine’ up to ‘Lazareff ’ in Gabrielli, ‘Pietro Toesca: “misurare” l’arte’, p. 15 and n. 3; p. 40 and nn. 170, 172, and from ‘Le diedi’ up to ‘nostra società’ and from ‘Queste ultime’ up to ‘negative’ in Lorizzo, ‘Pietro Toesca all’Università di Roma’, pp. 110–11 and n. 41, and from ‘Mi potrà’ up to ‘nome’ in Coen, ‘“Di dottrina e di pratica”. Pietro Toesca e la fotografia’, p. 181 n. 27; see also, pp. 170–72 and n. 39. Gabrielli, Lorizzo, and Coen point out a location of the letter in the Berenson Library that no longer exists) Roma, Via Adige 48 20.XII. 28 Carissimo Amico, mi hanno interessato molto le miniature della Bibl.[ioteca] Nazionale di Atene, che non trovo riprodotte, e nemmeno elencate nello studio di P. Buberl, Die Miniaturenhdschr. d. Nationalbibl. in Athen, pubblicato nelle Memorie dell’Accademia di Vienna (1917).1049 Forse saranno state portate ad Atene durante la guerra. Ma Lei vide al ‘Musée des Arts décoratifs’ la sfilata di codici portati dall’Asia Minore, in particolare da Smirne, dai profughi greci?1050 Io Le mando ora, oggi stesso, un pacco di fotografie. Vi troverà alcuni codici ch’io illustrerò in un prossimo articolo da pubblicare nella Rivista di questo Istituto d’Archeologia.1051 E’ delizioso il codice farfense della Vallicelliana,1052 così prossimo ai dipinti di S. Clemente.1053 La grande Bibbia di Parma1054 (ma non Le diedi già altra volta queste fotografie?) è così rudemente romanica da rammentare le sculture lombarde: ma mi sembra certamente umbro-romana, e si può comparare con gli affreschi di S. Paolo di Spoleto,1055 nel sottotetto, sebbene questi siano di epoca più

1049 Paul Buberl, Die Miniaturenhandschriften der Nationalbibliothek in Athen, Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien Philosophisch-historische Klasse Denkschriften (1917). 1050 No information has been found on the manuscripts brought from Asia Minor by Greek refugees cited by Toesca but from the context it is likely that they were exhibited at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Athens and not, as Bernabò writes in Ossessioni bizantine, p. 121, in Paris. Moreover it is unlikely that Berenson went to Paris after two months spent in Turkey and Greece between mid-September and November (see the essay ‘Byzantine Vision of Bernard Berenson’, this volume, p. 27 n. 26). ‘By the end of November 1928 Berenson was back at his desk at I Tatti at work on the Lists […] and passed a restless winter at I Tatti’, see Samuels, Bernard Berenson. The Making of a Legend, pp. 371–72. 1051 Toesca, ‘Miniature romane dei secoli XI–XII’. 1052 Rome, BV, Evangeliario (Gospel), MS E. 16, twelfth century. The photos are in BBF in the Illuminated Manuscripts section, arranged in topographic order. 1053 Toesca was referring to the murals in the Basilica Inferiore of San Clemente al Laterano, Rome with scenes of the eponymous Saint and Sant’Alessio, last two decade of the eleventh century. 1054 Parma, CMP-BPal, Bibbia Atlantica, MS Pal. 386, 1095–1110. The photos are in BBF in the Illuminated Manuscripts section, arranged in topographic order. 1055 The Church of San Paolo inter vineas near Spoleto. Toesca was referring to the murals which adorned the arms of the transept with Scenes from Genesis, the Patriarchs and Prophets dated to the second half of the twelfth century (now detached in situ), preceding the renewal of the nave of the church re-consecrated in 1234.

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tarda. Del codice Vat. [icano] lat. [ino] 129581056 Le diedi già altre fotografie eseguite per la nostra ‘società’,1057 mancava questa, di una delle pagine principali. Della Bibbia di Perugia1058 Le piacerà avere queste nuove riproduzioni, che sono le migliori eseguite, per mio conto,1059 fino ad ora. Del codice della Bibl. [ioteca] di Modena,1060 ch’Ella desiderava di aver riprodotto, non ho trovato in doppio nella mia collezione altro che tre fotografie che Le invio: ma tutto il codice fu fotografato da un buon fotografo di Modena il cav. [aliere] Orlandini,1061 e si può averne copia. Lo stesso Orlandini fotografò il bell’evangeliario di Nonantola,1062 ma non interamente: queste tre sono le pagine più bizantineggianti. Infine, troverà fotografie (forse già avute da me) del codice greco n. 5 della Bibl. [ioteca] di Parma.1063 Queste ultime, e quelle della Bibbia di Parma, le avevo fatte eseguire molto tempo fa, per la nostra ‘società’ ma non le avevo mai fatte stampare. Se avanzano fondi potrei far tirare il solito numero di copie, mandando poi alla signorina Mariano il vecchio conto delle negative. Se invece non ci fossero più fondi non si preoccupi d’altro, perché le fotografie della Bibbia mi hanno servito per quel mio articolo, che Le manderò tra breve; quelle del codice greco mi serviranno un qualche giorno (e son appunto quelle che rifiutai decisamente al caro Lazareff). Ho raccomandato alle nostre biblioteche di Roma l’acquisto dell’opera dell’Arnold1064 e quello del volume del Creswell sull’architettura musulmana.1065 Mi dicono che siano

1056 BAV, Bibbia del Pantheon, MS Vat. Lat. 12958, early twelfth century. The photos are in BBF in the Illuminated Manuscripts section, arranged in topographic order. 1057 Association founded by Toesca and Bernard Berenson and perhaps with other scholars with the aim of reproducing still-unpublished miniatures. The association lasted three years from 1928 to 1931. According to Gabrielli, ‘Pietro Toesca: “misurare” l’arte’, p. 40, among the founders of the association there was perhaps also André Grabar but this fact does not appear elsewhere. 1058 Perugia, BCA, Bibbia Atlantica, MS L 59, 1101–1150. The photos are in BBF in the Illuminated Manuscripts section, arranged in topographic order. 1059 ‘Per mio conto’ is written in pencil. 1060 Perhaps Toesca was referring to a manuscript in the Regia Biblioteca Estense (now Biblioteca Estense-Universitaria) but it has not been identified. 1061 Umberto Orlandini (Modena, 1879–1931), photographer. 1062 Nonantola, Museo Benedettino, Evangelistario of Matilde di Canossa, MS, last quarter of the eleventh century. The photos are in BBF in the Illuminated Manuscripts section, arranged in topographic order. 1063 Parma, CMP-BPal, Tetravangelo (Four Gospels), MS Pal. 5, eleventh century. The photos are in BBF in the Illuminated Manuscripts section, arranged in topographic order. A photo of the manuscript’s illumination is published here (Fig. 39) on the back of which is the word ‘Parma’ handwritten by Berenson. 1064 Perhaps Toesca was referring to Houtsma and others, eds, Enzyklopaedie des Islām. Geographisches, ethnographisches und biographisches Wörterbuch der muhammedanischen Völker, 1, published in 1913; Houtsma and others, eds, Enzyklopaedie des Islām. Geographisches, ethnographisches und biographisches Wörterbuch der muhammedanischen Völker, 2, published in 1927. 1065 Perhaps Toesca was referring to Creswell, ‘Islamic Architecture in Egypt’.

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stati pubblicati, in edizione privata ma assunti poi dalle nostre ‘Missioni d’Oriente’ due volumi sui monasteri di Sohag. Ma sono di…Monneret de Villard, e m’ispirano poca fiducia anche prima di averli veduti.1066 - Mi potrà indicare il nome del proprietario del Cristo benedicente che doveva già essere in mezzo al polittico del Mori.1067 di Parigi? La fotografia è nelle Sue cartelle della Scuola di Giotto; ma non mi riuscì di decifrare quel nome. Elena invia a tutti Loro, insieme con me, i più affettuosi auguri per il Natale e per l’anno nuovo; e credo che Ilaria, la quale sovente si diverte coi leoncini ricamati dalla signora Mary, si unisca anch’essa a noi. Suo P. Toesca.

218. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.38, handwritten. The letter is quoted in Gabrielli, ‘Pietro Toesca: “misurare” l’arte’, pp. 40–41 and n. 176, and transcribed from ‘fotografie’ up to ‘medioevali’ in Lorizzo, ‘Pietro Toesca all’Università di Roma’, p. 111 and n. 46, which point out a location in the Berenson Library that no longer exists) ISTITUTO GIOVANNI TRECCANI ENCICLOPEDIA ITALIANA DIZIONARIO BIOGRAFICO DEGLI ITALIANI ROMA (15) PIAZZA PAGANICA, 4 DIREZIONE Roma (136), Via Adige 48 I.V. 29

1066 Toesca was referring to Monneret De Villard, Les Couvents près de Sohâg (Deyr el-Abiaḍ et Deyr el-Aḥmar), 2 vols (1925–1926) whose severe criticism should be noted in contrast to the positive judgment expressed in the reviews of the French archaeologist and architectural historian Albert Gabriel (Bar-sur-Aube, 1883–1972) published two years earlier; see Gabriel, ‘Ugo Monneret de Villard, Les couvents près de Sohag (Deyr el-Abiad et Deyr el-Ahmar) Tome I’; Gabriel, ‘Ugo Monneret de Villard, Les couvents près de Sohag (Deyr el-Abiad et Deyr el-Ahmar) Tome II’. It is true that BB spoke very badly of Monneret de Villard to Porter who had also written a review on his two volumes in Speculum, see BB’s letter to Porter, 12 February 1928: no. 26. 1067 Perhaps Charles Mori, art dealer, with whom Berenson was in contact. There is nothing further on the Blessing Christ (Giotto school) except the fact that it was formerly in a Florentine private collection. See Coen, ‘“Di dottrina e di pratica”. Pietro Toesca e la fotografia’, pp. 170–72.

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Caro Amico, sotto quel grave titolo di questo foglio io non sono ancora schiacciato, ma il mio tempo si dilegua senza lasciare traccia fuorché nelle innumerevoli correzioni che debbo introdurre, anonimo, nella prosa dei collaboratori. Quanto meglio essere con Lei a Gerusalemme, e oltre il Giordano! Qui, anche a Roma, perfino l’aprile è stato ingrato; e una gita fatta ierlaltro, con Elena, sino a Rocca di Papa1068 parve riportarci nel pieno inverno.— Al suo ritorno non dimentichi, se lo consente l’itinerario, una gita a Rodi, dov’è anche uno splendido albergo (Albergo delle Rose).1069 E potrebbe fermarsi nel ritorno a Patmos e a Chios. Io forse non mi muoverò da Roma che nei primi giorni di Giugno o alla fine di questo mese: vorrei fare una scappata a Berlino e a Londra, ma non ho ancora un itinerario preciso. Elena probabilmente passerà parecchi giorni a Firenze nella seconda metà di Maggio. Saranno allora già ritornati ai Tatti? Se si trovano fotografie importanti, cristiane e medioevali, specialmente di dipinti e di mosaici (Betlemme),1070 sarei molto lieto che la signorina Nicky a mie spese ne comperasse una copia. E a Lei lascio la scelta. Qui di novità, nulla.— Si annuncia la vendita Spiridon a Berlino,1071 con cose assai importanti.— Ha avuto notizia della morte del sig. [nor] Benson?1072 Marinetti1073 è nell’Accademia d’Italia1074 (che dirà Ugo?)1075 insieme con Panzini1076 il quale (oppure Lei lo ammira: forse per questo) ha sempre più la virtù di istupidire i suoi lettori.— Diversi quadri della Galleria Spada sono ora esposti a Palazzo Venezia e c’è un ritratto che il Cavalcaselle credeva di Orazio Vecellio, ma invece opera di Tiziano, abbastanza giovanile.-1077

1068 Rocca di Papa, a town in the province of Rome located in the Castelli Romani area. 1069 Grande Albergo delle Rose open since 1927. 1070 Probably Toesca was referring to the wall mosaics and murals in the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem. 1071 The sale of the Spiridon Collection took place in Berlin, Hotel Esplanade, Marmorsaal, 31 May 1929; see Fischel, Die Sammlung Joseph Spiridon, Paris. 1072 Robert Henry Benson (Fairfield, 1850–Chiswick, London, 1929), merchant banker and art collector. 1073 Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (Alexandria of Egypt, 1876–Bellagio, 1944), poet, writer, and founder of the Futurist movement. 1074 Founded in 1926 by the Fascist regime, the Reale Accademia d’Italia replaced the Accademia dei Lincei in 1939. Although it promoted humanistic, scientific, and technological studies, it was above all an instrument of the regime. The Accademia was ruled by eminent presidents, including Guglielmo Marconi (Bologna, 1874–Rome, 1937), Gabriele D’Annunzio (Pescara, 1863–Gardone Riviera, 1938), Giovanni Gentile (Castelvetrano, 1875–Florence, 1944). Early antifascists accused the Accademia of corrupting intellectuals but actually it was spontaneously and deliberately supported by its members who were mainly chosen on the basis of political criteria. The Accademia was suppressed in 1944. See Turi, Sorvegliare e premiare. 1075 Ugo Ojetti. 1076 Alfredo Panzini (Senigallia, 1863–Rome, 1939), writer and literary critic. 1077 Some works of the Galleria Spada from the late 1920s were exhibited at Palazzo Venezia in Rome. Toesca was referring to the Portrait of a Musician by Titian, now in Rome, Galleria Spada, c. 1512–1513 (inv. no. 153, oil on canvas, 99 × 81.8 cm). The attribution of the portrait

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Muñoz, per gareggiare con Ricci, ha ricostruito quattro templi repubblicani,1078 ecc. ecc. A tutti Loro i nostri migliori auguri, con quelli sorridentissimi di Ilaria.1079 Suo P. Toesca

219. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, Folder 104.38, handwritten) Roma, Via Adige 48 25 Maggio ’29 Caro Amico, grazie, e grazie ancora della Sua lunga lettera: la terrò tra i miei cimeli (anzi, tra i cimeli berensoniani), tanto essa è viva e fresca di impressioni! Riporterà fotografie dei mosaici di Damasco?1080 — Io domani accompagnerò Elena ed Ilaria a Firenze, dove le lascerò per proseguire per l’Italia superiore. Saremo tutti di ritorno nei primi giorni di Giugno, ma a Firenze forse ritornerò prima di recarci in campagna (quest’anno a Saorge sopra Ventimiglia), a principio di luglio. Li accompagno intanto, col desiderio, anche in queste loro peregrinazioni ultime. Giungeranno fino a Doura, sull’Eufrate? E li accompagnano, come sempre, tutti gli auguri di Elena e di Ilaria. Tanti affettuosi saluti a tutti Suo P. Toesca.

to Orazio Vecellio (c. 1528– Venice, 1576) had been launched by Cavalcaselle and Crowe in Tiziano, la sua vita e i suoi tempi con alcune notizie della sua famiglia, 2, p. 467. 1078 Toesca was referring to the four Republican-era temples in the sacred area of Largo Argentina in Rome. Between 1926 and 1929 the demolition works of the old district between via del Teatro Argentina, via Florida, via S. Nicola de’ Cesarini and Corso Vittorio Emanuele for the construction of new buildings, unexpectedly brought to light one of the most important archaeological sites of the city: a large paved square on which there were four temples. The arrangement of the Argentina site and thus of the four temples was inaugurated on 21 April 1929, not without controversy and was largely carried out under the direction of Antonio Muñoz. The latter in describing the work carried out, argued that it was his concern to clear the ground from the rubble to find and recognize the pieces belonging to the various buildings and to study the possibility of returning them to their original place. The few remains found among the temples’ stairs, allowed him to reconstruct them almost entirely in masonry and to distinguish the parts rebuilt from the original ones. See Bellanca, Antonio Muñoz. La politica di tutela dei monumenti di Roma, pp. 19; 30–31; 152–54; 366–67. 1079 Ilaria Toesca (Rome, 1928–2014), art historian, daughter of Pietro Toesca. See Toesca’s letters nos. 214–15, 217. 1080 Toesca was referring to the eighth century wall mosaics of the west courtyard of the Great Mosque in Damascus which were discovered beneath layers of whitewash in 1928 by Victor Eustache de Lorey (1875–1953), director of the Institut Français d’Archéologie et d’Art Musulmans of that city.

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PS. Ho rinunciato ad andare per ora a Berlino. Fiocco lascia Firenze per Padova, ed io resisto alle tentazioni (interne) di ritornare all’università fiorentina. P.T.

220. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.39, handwritten. The letter is transcribed from ‘C’è stata’ up to ‘nessuno studio’ in Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 99 and n.2. The same transcription with English translation is published in Frantová, ‘Ravenna as a Battlefield: Late Antique Monuments’, pp. 97–98 and n. 91. Both Bernabò and Frantová erroneously report 24 November 1930 as the date of the letter) Roma (136), Via Adige 48 24. II. 30 Caro Amico, ricevo in questo momento la fotografia del B.,1081 e non insisto a ripeterLe la mia opinione perché la potrei giustificare soltanto dinanzi al dipinto, che ha un complesso di pregi, anche nel colore, da non consentirmi un’attribuzione minore. Le basterebbe vedere com’è segnato e colorito il cuscino sul parapetto! Ma io spero di potermi scagionare della fatuità dell’attribuzione quando verrò a Firenze, forse tra pochi giorni, e potrò mostrarLe quella tavola, s’Ella vorrà vederla malgrado lo spiegabile scetticismo che ci prende dinanzi alle cose troppo belle prima di vederle. Le rimando le fotografie delle miniature. Purtroppo le riproduzioni sono pessime, e le pagine dei codici non le ho sfogliate, avendo fatto soltanto una rapida corsa tra le vetrine della Biblioteca di Parigi. Il David mi sembra bizantino del secolo XIV, e forse della fine. Il Plauto è di ottimo ferrarese, forse del Giraldi. Il Petrarca, attribuito all’Attavante, è di un fiorentino assai migliore, non ancora identificato: ma dalle fotografie mi sembra che non tutte le miniature siano di una medesima mano.1082

1081 The name was not identified. 1082 Unfortunately the illustrations of the illuminated manuscripts mentioned by Toesca have not been identified although he was probably referring to some manuscripts he saw exhibited in BnF. In the first half of the twentieth century, as Laure Rioust of the BnF kindly suggests, the most prestigious manuscripts from the collections of that library were regularly exhibited in the Galerie Mazarine (a vestige of the Mazarin Palace within the Richelieu site of the BnF), located on the first floor of the building. Some lists of the manuscripts thus exhibited have been published but with different dates from those that interest us (see Quelques trésors de la Bibliothèque Nationale). A handwritten register of these exhibited works is also kept in the Manuscripts Department of the BnF under ‘cote Archives Moderne 730’, but unfortunately it turns out that the lists of exhibited manuscripts stop at the begining of the 1900s. It is likely that the ‘Byzantine style’ David mentioned in the letter is the one depicted in BnF, MS Gr. 139 (Psalter) which was regularly exhibited at this time and which is the Greek work providing the most remarkable representations of King David.

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Ho ricevuto anche il numero dell’‘Int. [ernational] Studio’ e glielo rimando insieme con quelle fotografie. Mi è molto piaciuto l’articolo del Mather sebbene mi sembri non fondata la distinzione tra il supposto ‘maestro d’Isacco’ e le altre parti.1083 Almeno trovo qui un qualche compenso ai ‘crapauds’ che avrebbero voluto farmi inghiottire in questi ultimi tempi i feroci ‘romanisti’ ricciani. C’è stata, sul Giornale d’Italia, una serie di articoli in cui ero presentato come un denigratore di Roma a beneficio di....Bisanzio;1084 e questa campagna scientifica — di liberazione dallo straniero — ha trovato la sua più alta espressione in un volume di un c[erto] Galassi (Roma o Bisanzio) edito dalla....Libreria dello Stato.1085 Sarei forse già messo al confino se ciò fosse in podestà di questi messeri che trascinano così vilmente gli studi nella politica, e a un certo punto sembrano far opera di agenti provocatori. Per fortuna queste provocazioni, come i latrati dietro il cancello, mi lasciano indifferente sebbene non favoriscano di certo il mio desiderio di serenità. Né, d’altra parte, io posso entrare in polemiche con persone di mala fede e di nessuno studio. A Loro tutti, anche dalla piccola Ilaria — vostra sicura e serena gioia — i nostri affettuosi saluti. Suo P. Toesca.

221. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.39, handwritten. A reference to the letter without indicating the location, should probably be identified in Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 122) Roma (136), Via Adige 48 6.VI. 30

1083 From Toesca’s letter it seems that Frank Jewett Mather’s article concerning the so-called Isaac Master was published in International Studio review, but a check did not confirm this. An essay by Mather entitled ‘Giotto and the New Florentine Humanism’ is known by Mather in his A History of Italian Painting, passim and especially p. 18 in which he also spoke of the Isaac Master (proposing an improbable identification with the Florentine Gaddo Gaddi) in the Upper Church of San Francesco in Assisi, executed around 1290. The two panels with the Isaac Scenes are in the second tier of the right wall, third bay from the transept. The theme was taken up later in a monograph: see Mather, The Isaac Master. A Reconstruction of the Work. 1084 Toesca was referring to the following articles published in Il Giornale d’Italia: Bellonci, ‘L’arte italiana assalita e difesa’; Antonielli, ‘Dàlli all’arte italiana’; Bellonci, ‘L’arte italiana assalita e difesa’; Tridenti, ‘L’arte italiana non va a scuola a Parigi’. Actually the name of Toesca is not explicitly mentioned — the reference is in particular to Bellonci’s first article where an excerpt from a note of Toesca’s Storia dell’Arte Italiana, 1, Il Medioevo, 1, p. 141 is published. In Bellonci’s second article, however, Toesca is explicitly called into question. The four articles are cited in: Aguirre, ‘From Imitazione to Creazione’, p. 99 n. 44. 1085 Giuseppe Galassi (1890–Rome, 1957), art historian. See Galassi, Roma o Bisanzio. I musaici di Ravenna e le origini dell’arte italiana, part 1, published by La Libreria dello Stato, Rome [1929–1930].

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Caro Amico, ho tardato a risponderLe perché in questi primi venti giorni di vacanze mi sono proprio abbrutito lavorando all’ ‘Enciclopedia’:1086 e così ho lasciato anche passare il tempo di andare a Ravenna per la mostra delle fotografie di Damasco,1087 ch’io conosco soltanto dalle scarse riproduzioni del Pantheon. Tutto viene a contrattempo! Tra venti giorni andrò a Rimini per tenervi un poco sul mare Ilaria ed Elena: allora io, che aborro i bagni, mi darò alla terraferma, ma le fotografie di Damasco saranno già lontane. Mi sembra che, se quei mosaici sono del secolo VIII, dovrebbero aprire gli occhi anche affetti di galassite (ha poi avuto tra mani il bel volume del Galassi ‘Roma o Bisanzio’?); ma è prudente non toccare questi tasti. In quanto al Rizzo, la stroncatura odiosa che Ojetti ha cercato di farne, pare abbia avuto motivo in un mancato, o forse appena ritardato, articolo per ‘Dedalo’! Il Rizzo è rimasto più indignato che afflitto: e mi sembra che abbia infinite ragioni.1088

1086 Enciclopedia Italiana. 1087 Toesca was referring to the Mostra delle Riproduzioni dei Mosaici della Moschea degli Ommaiadi a Damasco, which took place in Ravenna between 10 and 20 May 1930 in the then newborn Istituto di Studi Bizantini at Casa Traversari realized to a great extent by Corrado Ricci. See Novara, ‘Corrado Ricci e i “Corsi Bizantini”’. The colour and life-size reliefs of the mosaics of the Damascus Mosque made at the behest of Eustache de Lorey, were copied from the originals by the pupils of the School of Modern Arabian Art (an annex of the French Institute at Damascus) under the direction of Lucien Cavro (1905–1973), architect and professor of that school. The reliefs were exhibited at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs at the Louvre in 1929. See ‘Unique Examples of Ancient Pictorial Art in Syria’ published in The Illustrated London News (28 September 1929); ‘Unique Relics of Islamic Art: 8th-Century Mosaics from Damascus’, The Illustrated London News (26 April 1930). A copy of the pages of The Illustrated London News is in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 15, folder 5. The Département des Arts de l’Islam at the Louvre preserves nine of these mosaic reliefs (some photographs of which were exhibited in Ravenna in 1930 as shown in Simonis, Les Relevés des mosaïques de la grande mosque, p. 49, fig. 26), and I wish to thank Etienne Blondeau, Conservateur of the Département des Arts de l’Islam at the Louvre, for providing me with information on the reliefs’ origin. The reliefs were made by Fehmi Kabbani, Kamal Kallas, and Nazmi Khair in Damascus in 1928–1929 and done in gouache, gold, and silver paint on paper mounted on canvas (except inv. no. MAO 2092 and inv. no. MAO 2093 which are not mounted on canvas). They are: Barada Panel (inv. no. MAO 2074, 330 × 297 cm); Canopy Panel (inv. no. MAO 2075, 348 × 296 cm); Tree Panel (inv. no. MAO 2076, 389 × 155.5 cm); Spandrel Panel with a Pavilion (inv. no. MAO 2077, 326 × 528 cm); Poplar Panel (inv. no. MAO 2078, 301 × 104.2 cm); Waves Panel (inv. no. MAO 2092, 58.5 × 72 cm); Barada Edge Panel (inv. no. MAO 2093, 87 × 59 cm); Tholos Panel (inv. no. MAO 2096, 280 × 200 cm); Panel with Buildings and Trees (inv. no. MAO 2097, 257 × 304,5 cm). The reliefs from inv. no. MAO 2075 to inv. no. MAO 2078 coming from the ancien fonds, Département des Arts de l’Islam du Musée du Louvre; inv. no. MAO 2092 and inv. no. MAO 2093 are a gift by Victor Eustache de Lorey; inv. no. MAO 2096 and inv. no. MAO 2097 a 2009 purchase. See also Makariou, ‘Les mosaïques de la grande mosquée de Damas’. 1088 Giulio Emanuele Rizzo (Melilli, 1865–Rome, 1950), Professor of Archaeology and Ancient Art History at the ‘Sapienza’ University of Rome from 1925 to 1935. Probably Rizzo’s problems were similar to those of Toesca after the lecture at the Accademia dei Lincei on 2 June 1929 on I Romani e l’arte Greca, in which Rizzo essentially dealt with the admiration

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Per tornare a noi. Mia moglie e la bambina passeranno a Firenze la seconda quindicina del mese: e se loro saranno ai Tatti, avranno certamente molto piacere di venirci, un giorno. Io verrò a riprenderle il 25, e dopo una ventina di giorni passati a Rimini, le condurrò in Alto Adige in un angolo che mi dicono bello, e tranquillo: Campo Tures presso Brunico.1089 E anch’io cercherò di non pensare ad altro che a godermi la montagna. E Lei? e Loro? Dopo la Consuma, hanno un programma già stabilito? A Lei, a tutti, i nostri affettuosi saluti P. Toesca.

222. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.40, handwritten. The letter is transcribed from ‘Ed io ebbi a dirglielo’ up to ‘lungamente’ in Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 119; p. 120 n. 5) Parigi, Hôtel Normandy Rue de l’Echelle 25. V. 31 Caro Amico, non ho più Loro notizie da molto tempo, ma spero che invece Le sia giunta ancora una mia lettera diretta ad Algeri. Io, finite le lezioni con una faticosa gita degli studenti a Subiaco, mi son sentito così stanco che anche Elena mi ha spinto a questo viaggio, col proposito ch’io mi riposi. Spero di riuscirvi, ma son già preso dal desiderio del ritorno. Giunto qui stamane, trovai Parigi deserta, e tutta chiusa, per la seconda festa di Pentecoste (anche due feste, come per la Pasqua!). Unico rifugio, il Musée des Arts decoratifs, dove potei vedere dall’alto i preparativi per la mostra bizantina che, mi dicono, sarà inaugurata tra tre giorni: calchi di mosaici e fotografie…Uguale delusione all’Esposizione coloniale,1090 dove se ci sarà qualcosa d’interessante, sarà visibile il giorno della chiusura. Qui domani penso di rivedere il Venturi.1091 Fece la sua ultima lezione dieci giorni fa, e subito si è rimesso in viaggio e al lavoro: mirabile, davvero, in questo! Ed io ebbi a dirglielo pubblicamente quando gli presentai in quella ultima lezione un ricordo dei suoi vecchi scolari: e lo dissi con tanto maggior calore poiché erano presenti gli eunuchi dell’arte, Ricci e Paribeni.1092 Di quest’ultimo dovrò poi dirLe lungamente. Ma c’incontreremo? Io penso di restare qui fino al termine di Maggio, e di essere a Roma l’8 Giugno. Spero che a Fiuggi si

of the Romans for Greek art, and for this reason was much contested by the so-called romaneschi. Rizzo’s lecture was published in L’Urbe review almost twenty years later, in 1947. See Dubbini, ‘Giulio Emanuele Rizzo. Lo studio della Grecità’. 1089 Bruneck, a city in the Puster Valley, South Tyrol. 1090 The Exposition coloniale internationale was a six-month colonial exhibition held in Paris in 1931 that attempted to display the diverse cultures and immense resources of France’s colonial possessions. 1091 Adolfo Venturi. 1092 Probably Corrado Ricci and Roberto Paribeni.

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trattengano tanto da darmi tempo di tornare e di accoglierli a Roma. Intanto, molti affettuosi saluti da Suo P. Toesca PS. Rizzo mi ha detto che sono meravigliosi gli scavi di Ercolano, di Cuma e di Pesto. Andranno a vederli? Il Chierici potrà esserLe utile presso il Maiuri.1093 In Galleria troverà il dott. Quintavalle, che Le mostrerà in magazzino la Madonna di Amalfi.1094

223. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.40, handwritten. The letter is transcribed from ‘tra le cose’ up to ‘bizantina’ in Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 121 n. 6; p. 122) Carezza al Lago (Bolzano), Hotel Latemar 17. VIII. 31 Caro Amico, da dieci giorni abbiamo lasciato Venezia, e la rimpiangiamo. Fummo cacciati da un tempo sciroccale che ci liquefaceva: e da allora abbiamo vagato per l’Alto Adige fino a fermarci qui. Siamo tra le dolomiti, in uno dei punti più grandiosi: ma il sole di montagna ha nuociuto un poco alla piccola Ilaria, e ora non attendiamo altro che veder la bimba ristabilita, tanto è il desiderio di riportarla al piano. Spero che saremo nuovamente a Bolzano (Hotel Vittoria) tra due giorni. Poi, ricondotta Ilaria a Firenze, sul 25 del mese mi metterò in viaggio, con Elena, per Vienna e Budapest: ritorneremo verso il 20 Settembre.

1093 Amedeo Maiuri (Veroli, 1886–Naples, 1963), archaeologist; in 1924 he was appointed Soprintendente alle Antichità della Campania, with competence also for parts of southern Lazio, Molise, and western Basilicata. 1094 Toesca was referring to the icon with the Madonna and Child (so-called Santa Maria de Flumine), which was then in the Pinacoteca del Museo Nazionale of Naples but originally came from the no longer extant Church of Santa Maria de Flumine, Amalfi. The icon is now in the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, c. last quarter of the thirteenth century (inv. no. Q1090, tempera on panel, 200 × 88 cm). Armando Ottaviano Quintavalle (Naples, 1894–Modena, 1967), art historian and then Ispettore della Regia Soprintendenza alle Antichità e Belle Arti di Napoli, wrote an article on the icon: ‘La tavola di Santa Maria “De Flumine”’ which was published in the Bollettino d’Arte (December 1930), pp. 265–72. In a previous letter from Toesca to BB of 19 February 1931 (not published here but is in BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.40, handwritten) he wrote: ‘Al Museo vidi finalmente la Madonna ch’io avevo invano cercato ad Amalfi, inerpicandomi su per la valle dei molini fino all’oratorio dove si conservava trent’anni fa: ho raccomandato al dott. [or] Quintavalle, che l’ha pubblicata nell’ultimo Bollettino d’Arte, d’inviargliene le fotografie’. Two photos of the Madonna with Child (so-called Santa Maria de Flumine) published by Quintavalle on p. 267 fig. 1 and on p. 269 fig. 3 were sent to BB and are now in BBF, Medieval Painting M10.1. Toesca’s letter of 19 February 1931 is mentioned in Gabrielli, ‘Pietro Toesca: “misurare” l’arte’, pp. 56–57 n. 182.

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Meglio era restare a Venezia! La città con quella luce era meravigliosa, e i nostri pomeriggi nelle chiese e per le calli mi consolavano delle aride mattinate al Lido. Una delle impressioni nuove e più belle fu la visita a S. Lazzaro degli Armeni1095 — ch’io avevo sempre trascurata. Avemmo la fortuna d’incontrarvi il generale dei mechitaristi:1096 un uomo così fine, così spirituale e così cortese da sembrare un sosia di un certo B.B.: e ci diede non soltanto lo sciroppo dei lamponi del suo giardino, e le prugne stupende del frutteto, ma ci aperse le scansie dei codici. Ella conosce certamente l’evangeliario della regina Mlkè (anno 902):1097 armeno, ma certamente miniato ritraendo un esemplare alessandrino del VI sec. [olo]: un capolavoro. Ma vi sono anche le grandi miniature staccate da un evangeliario armeno del sec. [olo] XI–XII:1098 e sono tra le cose più belle della maniera aulica bizantina accanto ad altre schiettamente armene. Sembra che i padri armeni preparino un’edizione di tutti i fogli miniati.— A Torcello, a Murano, nelle chiese di Venezia, nulla di nuovo; le Gallerie hanno acquistato, ma non hanno esposto ancora, un grande ritratto di L. Lotto, già a Treviso…1099 - Speriamo che alla Consuma il loro soggiorno sia ora più piacevole che all’arrivo; desideriamo di aver presto Sue migliori notizie. A Loro, tutti, i nostri affettuosi saluti P. Toesca

224. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.41, handwritten. The letter is mentioned in Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 121 n. 6; p. 122)

1095 This sentence is the first of the second sheet of Toesca’s letter where on the top right is a handwritten note by BB: ‘Hotel Bolzano till 25th’. 1096 Father Hovhan Aucher, Abate Generale della Congregazione Armena Mechitarista di Venezia from 1929 to 1935. 1097 Venice, BMSL, Evangeliario della Regina Mlkè, MS 1144/86. The manuscript is dated 862. 1098 Professor Alberto Peratoner of the Facoltà Teologica del Triveneto (Padua) executive for the Library and Cultural Services of the Congregazione Armena Mechitarista, confirmed by Father Vahan vardapet Ohanian, Mekhitarist scholar, chief librarian of S. Lazzaro Abbey, suggests that Toesca probably was referring to the miniatures of the Trebizond Gospels, an Armenian Evangeliary whose decorated sheets were detached from the manuscript (MS 1400/108) and bound in a separate volume (MS 1925/108), and consisting of the surviving Canon tables (I, II–III, IV–V, X), and the half of the Letter to Eusebios, a portrait of the Four Evangelists, another one of Matthew, and the Scenes of the Nativity, the Presentation, the Baptism, the Transfiguration, the Deesis, and Christ Pantokrator. On this manuscript, see Sarghissian, Grand Catalogue des Manuscrits Arméniens, no. 108, coll. 477–86; Evans, H. C., ‘The Trebisond Gospels’, in Evans, H. C., and Wixon, eds., The Glory of Byzantium, exhibition catalogue, cat. no. 240, p. 358. The Trebizond Gospels is still considered one of the most precious manuscripts of San Lazzaro Library, and among the few works of the San Lazzaro collections not allowed for off-site loan, so it is remarkable that it was shown by the Father Aucher to the Italian scholar as one of the most interesting treasures of the Abbey. 1099 Toesca was referring to the Portrait of a Young Gentlemen by Lorenzo Lotto in the Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice, c. 1530 (inv. no. 912, oil on canvas, 97 × 110 cm), formerly in the collection of the Rovero Counts, Treviso.

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R.[EGIA] UNIVERSITA’ DEGLI STUDI DI ROMA FACOLTA’ DI FILOSOFIA E LETTERE SCUOLA DI STORIA DELL’ARTE IL DIRETTORE Roma, Via Adige 48 26.I. 34 Caro Amico, mi è difficile ricordare un anno più malaugurato di questo, che appena è cominciato: ci tiene sempre in pensiero la salute di Elena, non ancora bene ristabilita; e questo aduggia la nostra vita, e mi fa sempre più lento a scrivere alle persone care. Speriamo ora di essere fuori anche da questi guai! In quanto al resto, essendomi impantanato in un lavoro ‘enciclopedico’ su Michelangelo,1100 e nelle lezioni, non penso ad altro: e verrà presto, prima ch’io me ne accorga, la primavera. Emozioni esterne, nessuna. Sono inchiodato a Roma: e qui nulla appare d’imprevisto. Ho sentito discorrere del ‘Giorgione’ di casa Donà delle Rose;1101 ne ho visto anche una discreta fotografia, che rende non tanto inverosimile quella attribuzione. A me, come ad altri, quando visitai quella collezione, il quadro era stato assolutamente nascosto: e, certo, non senza buone ragioni. Si dice che ora sia già partito con tutte le licenze possibili.- Ha veduto il primo rapporto sulla scoperta dei mosaici di S. Sofia?1102 Veramente li conoscevamo dal tempo del Salzenberg;1103 e sembra che il relatore abbia troppo dimenticata l’opera del Marangoni1104 — il direttore dei lavori ai mosaici di 1100 See the encyclopedic entry ‘Michelangelo Buonarroti’ by P. Toesca in Enciclopedia Italiana (1934). 1101 In the catalogue by Lorenzetti and Planiscig, La collezione dei Conti Donà dalle Rose a Venezia the painting assigned to Giorgione does not appear. The painting attributed to Giorgione is questioned and should be identified with the Tramonto (The Sunset), c. 1510, which between 1934 and 1957 passed to the Vitale Bloch collection and in 1961 was purchased by the National Gallery, London (inv. no. NG6307, oil on canvas, 73.3 × 91.4 cm). See Lugli, ‘Nuove riflessioni per il Tramonto della National Gallery di Londra’. 1102 Probably Toesca was referring to the aforementioned volume by Whittemore, The Mosaics of St Sophia at Istanbul. Preliminary Report on the First Year’s Work, 1931–1932. 1103 Salzenberg, Alt-christliche Baudenkmale von Constantinopel von V. bis XII. Jahrhundert (1934). 1104 Toesca probably was referring to Luigi Marangoni’s role in this restoration. Marangoni was called by Whittemore to Istanbul in 1931 for advice on the methodology to be used for the Santa Sophia mosaics. Previously Marangoni was part of a commission with Thomas Graham Jackson and Henri Prost (architect, Saint Denis, 1874–Paris, 1959), which was called in 1910–1911 by Sultan Mehmet V (Istanbul, 1844–1918) to examine the fabric of Santa Sophia. See Whittemore, The Mosaics of St. Sophia at Istanbul. Preliminary Report, p. 7; Whittemore, The Mosaics of Hagia Sophia at Istanbul. Fourth Preliminary Report, p. 14; Nelson, R. S., Hagia Sophia, 1850–195, p. 175 and n. 155. As emerges from Marangoni’s unpublished letter of 8 August 1910 to Marcello Memmo, primo Fabbriciere of the Basilica of San Marco, permission was requested to leave Venice for Istanbul for a period of at most one month starting from Saturday 13 of that same August, in order to carry out an examination of the static conditions of the Santa Sophia Mosque which gave rise to some concern.

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S. Marco, anzi architetto della Basilica Marciana. Quando a Venezia, l’estate scorsa, incontrai il Marangoni, lo trovai indignato per il trattamento subito dalla missione americana. Ma sospetto che in questo momento Lei, B.B., abbia una gran voglia di veder sommersa anche la dottrinaria America. In quanto al dottrinarismo artistico, non sempre distinto da quello monetario, è divertente sentire nella tribuna de L’Arte sbracciarsi e pontificare la signorina Brizio,1105 successore pro tempore di L. [ionello] Venturi nella cattedra torinese. Legga per es. [empio] nel penultimo numero de L’Arte una sua recensione al miserevole lavoro del Ladner sulla pittura italiana nel sec. [olo] XI!!1106 Converrebbe perciò far due cose: non curarsi di che altri dica; oppure ribattere; ma per questo secondo partito bisognerebbe riavere un periodico che non fosse in mano di dilettanti. Per intanto teniamoci alla prima risoluzione! A quando la nuova edizione dei suoi Drawings? Ci rammenti alla Signora, che speriamo vada ristabilendosi; e accolga, con la signorina Nicky, tutti i nostri affettuosi saluti. Suo P. Toesca.

225. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.43, handwritten) R. [EGIA]· UNIVERSITA’ · DEGLI · STUDI · DI · ROMA FACOLTA’ DI LETTERE E FILOSOFIA Roma, Via Alberto Magno 5 16.X.37 Caro Amico, vedrei volentieri la ‘Mostra dei falsi’:1107 è certo molto istruttiva, e sarà anche scandalosa (sa che proprio l’altrieri è morto qui, all’ospedale, e in miseria il disgraziato Dossena?);1108 ma temo che sarebbe più interessante ancora la ‘Mostra degli scorticati’. Ora se ne comincia a parlare a Firenze. Sembra che abbiano rifiutato di far parte del comitato

1105 1106 1107

1108

For the purpose of this inspection, the name of Marangoni was proposed to the Ottoman Government by the Italian Ministero degli Affari Esteri, at the suggestion of the Direzione Generale Belle Arti. See ASPSM, Sezione Documenti, Busta 63. Anna Maria Brizio (Sale, Alessandria, 1902–Rapallo, 1982), art historian and Professor of Art History at the University of Turin from 1932 to 1952. See the review by Brizio entitled ‘G.B. Ladner, Die italienische Malerei im 11. Jahrhundert’. Perhaps Toesca was referring to the Mostra Giottesca, Florence, Palazzo degli Uffizi, 27 April–31 October 1937 (extended until 31 November 1937). See Mostra Giottesca. Onoranze a Giotto, exhibition catalogue. The commission of the exhibition was chaired by Ugo Ojetti. On the Giotto exhibition, see Monciatti, Alle origini dell’arte nostra. La’Mostra giottesca’ del 1937. Alceo Dossena (Cremona, 1878–Rome, 1937), sculptor and forger.

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d’onore Poggi,1109 Procacci1110 e compagnia, troppo occupati a preparare il materiale occorrente. Sembra che anche U.O.1111 si asterrà dal presiederla. E io temo che perciò non sarà mai inaugurata, e che dovremmo ricomporla idealmente con tutti gli affreschi scorticati e tutte le tavole spellate di Firenze, di Toscana, di Roma, di Napoli ecc. L’annuncio ne è stato dato dalla ‘Nazione’, dove un giornalista intelligente,1112 e — bisogna dirlo — di coraggio, ha osato denunciare l’ignoranza e la complicità di Poggi e C.1113 nel guasto dato ora agli affreschi di Maso in Santa Croce,1114 come già alla Deposizione dello stesso,1115 e a quelli di Andrea del Castagno all’Annunziata,1116 al ritratto del Tintoretto nella Pinacoteca di Lucca1117 ecc. Alle quali cose se ne possono aggiungere tante altre curiose e grandi: i ritocchi agli affreschi di Pisa,1118 la fuga dell’uccellino della Madonna di Mosciano,1119 e quella dei conigli e angioli della Zingarella di Napoli1120 (questi, sulla coscienza di Ortolani). E’ vero che s’è trovato un certo Coletti che nell’ultimo Bollettino d’arte celebra la compagnia fiorentina e si rallegra che finalmente si possa vedere, dopo il felice restauro, la Deposizione di Maso!1121

1109 Giovanni Poggi (Florence, 1880–1961), art historian; from 1925 (until 1946) he was Soprintendente all’Arte Medievale e Moderna per la Toscana (with the exception of the provinces of Siena and Grosseto). 1110 Ugo Procacci (Florence, 1905–1991), art historian, Ispettore presso la Soprintendenza all’Arte Medioevale e Moderna di Firenze and founder of the Gabinetto dei Restauri in 1934. 1111 Probably Ugo Ojetti. 1112 Probably Toesca was referring to A. Del Massa (the personal name is omitted but it is probably Aniceto) who wrote in La Nazione: ‘Capolavori d’arte in pericolo. Il flagello dei restauri’ (Friday 8 October 1937) and ‘Il flagello dei dei restauri’ (Saturday 9 October 1937). 1113 Perhaps ‘Compagnia’? 1114 Florence, Basilica of Santa Croce, Bardi di Vernio Chapel, Scenes of Saint Sylvester, murals, Maso di Banco, c. 1340. 1115 Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, Deposition or Pietà di San Remigio, currently attributed to Giottino, also called Giotto di Stefano, c. 1360–1365 (inv. no. 1890, 454, tempera on panel, 195 × 134 cm). 1116 Florence, Basilica della Santissima Annunziata, The Holy Trinity, St Jerome and Two Saints, murals, Andrea del Castagno, c. 1453. 1117 Toesca was referring to the Portrait of a Man by Jacopo Robusti called Tintoretto, c. 1553, then in Lucca, Pinacoteca of the Mansi family in the homonymous Palazzo, now Museo e Pinacoteca Nazionale di Palazzo Mansi (inv. no. 40, oil on canvas, 72 × 60 cm). 1118 Perhaps Toesca was referring to the murals of the Camposanto in Pisa; Diego Guidi of the Opera della Primaziale Pisana, suggests that in 1936 some restorations were carried out on the frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli without specific annotations (‘refreshing intervention’); see Sanpaolesi, ‘Introduction’, p. 16. 1119 Perhaps Toesca was referring to the painting with Madonna and Child and two Angels in the Church of Sant’Andrea, Mosciano (Scandicci), attributed to Manfredino da Pistoia, c. 1285–1290. 1120 Toesca was referring to the Madonna and Child, so-called La Zingarella by Correggio, c. 1516– 1517, then in Naples, Pinacoteca Nazionale, now in the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte (inv. no. Q 107, oil on canvas, 49 × 37 cm). The painting underwent an unhappy restoration in 1935 which compromised its interpretation. 1121 Coletti, ‘La Mostra giottesca’, pp. 49–72, especially p. 68. In the essay the Deposition was assigned to Giottino.

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Purtroppo la colpa non è dei restauratori, inconsapevoli, incoscienti, ma appunto dei gerarchi artistici, capeggiati e protetti dal grande Ugo. Tra qualche giorno dovrò andare a Ravenna dove, non so per quale miracolo, ho avuto l’incarico di esprimere con altri (tra cui il caro Luigi Marangoni, l’architetto di S. Marco) lo stato dei mosaici: ma a Ravenna i restauri, auspice il non meno grande Corrado, hanno infierito soprattutto nell’architettura.1122 -Noi facciamo tanti voti perché le cure di Vienna la rimetteranno presto in salute. Ci ricordi alla signorina Mariano che certo è con Lei. Tutti i nostri affettuosi saluti P. Toesca.

226. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.43, handwritten. The letter is mentioned in Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 121 n. 6; p. 122) Roma, Via Alberto Magno 5 17.XI.37 Caro Amico, la gita a Ravenna mi ha dato occasione di vedere più da vicino, anzi di toccare con le mani, quelle meraviglie. Erano stati gettati tanti allarmi su una loro imminente rovina che si è pensato di esaminare da vicino la cosa, e si sono costruiti dei ponti comodissimi e sicuri in tutto il presbiterio di S. Vitale,1123 nel mausoleo di Galla Placidia,1124 nei

1122 Probably Toesca meant that Corrado Ricci had done the greatest damage to the architecture. Ricci as head of the Soprintendenza ai Monumenti di Ravenna (from 1897) began many interventions on the monumental buildings of that city, some of which were in a state of great decay, and he was also influential when he later became Direttore Generale delle Antichità e Belle Arti (from 1906). The literature on Ricci is vast, see Stella, ‘Quelle pitture ardite e disinvolte…’; Cecchini, ‘Corrado Ricci e il restauro’; Ranaldi, ‘Restauri del Novecento’, pp. 45–56. Between 1935 and 1939 a complex program of consolidation and restoration works was carried out on the main Ravenna monuments with their mosaic and pictorial decorations. In 1937 the restoration of the Basilica of Spirito Santo was in progress. The church, originally an Arian cathedral consecrated at the beginning of the sixth century, was subsequently converted to the Catholic cult by Archbishop Agnello c. 560. Following the discovery of numerous parts of the ancient architectural structure hidden between the various buildings that over time were annexed to the church, the first interventions consisted of freeing the exterior of the apse and the sides of the building, which despite the tampering suffered, have been restored after traces of the ancient brick structure were found. See Calzecchi and others, ‘Cronaca dei ritrovamenti e dei restauri’, pp. 536–38. 1123 Ravenna, Basilica of San Vitale, presbytery mosaics (546–47). 1124 Ravenna, Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, mosaics, made under Galla Placidia (425–37), regent of the Western Roman Empire.

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due battisteri,1125 a S. Apollinare in Classe.1126 La nostra ‘commissione’ è passata, ha veduto le cose più o meno bene, e i ponti dovrebbero essere demoliti presto: essi invece resteranno ancora su per qualche mese; e se lei, al ritorno, passa da Ravenna, non avrà difficoltà a salirvi e a toccare i mosaici. Purtroppo, toccandoli, si sente che risuonano qua e là come se non aderissero più al muro; ma questo in zone ben limitate; e pare che non ci sia alcun pericolo: onde la mia parte, in quella ‘commissione’1127 è stata soprattutto di allontanare il pericolo di un restauro tumultuorio, e di consigliare i più semplici provvedimenti di conservazione.1128 Peccato che Luigi Marangoni, che

1125 Ravenna, Arian Baptistery, mosaics, made under Emperor Theodoric (493–526); Neonian Baptistery (also known as Orthodox Baptistery) mosaics, made under Bishop Neone c. 458, and subsequently integrated. 1126 Ravenna, Basilica of Sant’Apollinare in Classe, mosaics, early years of the activity of Bishop Maximianus (546–56). 1127 In 1936 the architect Carlo Calzecchi Onesti (Fermo, 1886–Florence, 1943) then Soprintendente all’Arte Medievale e Moderna dell’Emilia e della Romagna, asked for the establishment of a special commission for the examination of the Ravenna mosaics, chaired by Pietro Toesca and composed of Pietro Tricarico (Spezzano Piccolo, Cosenza, 1885–Rome, 1949), Direttore Generale delle Antichità e Belle Arti from 1933, Count Carlo Gamba (Florence, 1870–1963), art historian and collector, and Santi Muratori (Ravenna, 1874–1943), director of the Biblioteca Classense in Ravenna. The mosaics which did not require particular consolidation and restoration were those of the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia and S. Apollinare in Classe, while those of San Vitale, the Neonian and the Arian Baptisteries aroused major concerns. In particular, the main problem concerned the detachment of the plaster grounds in the dome of the Neonian Baptistery studded with two hundred clamps which were inserted in a former restoration (1886–1890) as well as the issue of the criteria used for the treatment of the losses. The young art historian, Cesare Brandi (Siena, 1906–Vignano, Siena, 1988) then Ispettore della Soprintendenza di Bologna, also took part in these checks of which, following the inspection he carried out in June 1936, drew up two reports concerning the condition of the mosaics of Justinian and Theodora in San Vitale and those in the Neonian Baptistery. While the report on the mosaics of the Neonian Baptistery in the Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome is unpublished, the one concerning the mosaics of San Vitale was included in Ranaldi, La scuola ravennate dell’integrazione con tecnica pittorica, pp. 373–79, especially p. 375 and n. 13; pp. 376-77. Brandi’s method consisted of making casts of the gaps in order to proceed with the integration using paint instead of tesserae. The casts were to be transferred onto a plaster support and should have documented every aspect over time, including the inclination of the tesserae, in order to guide any future repairs should mosaic material fall down. However, this system was not used in the Ravenna restorations until much later. In the 1938 and 1939 restorations carried out by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence in collaboration with the Scuola del Mosaico della Accademia di Belle Arti of Ravenna, the detachment method was adopted in the apse arch of San Vitale and the vault of the Neonian Baptistery. See also Calzecchi and others, ‘Cronaca dei ritrovamenti e dei restauri’, pp. 531–46, especially pp. 531–41; Iannucci, ‘Appunti per una storiografia del restauro parietale musivo’, pp. 9–18, especially pp. 12–14. 1128 The Commission’s rules were to avoid any deformation of the mosaic surface as well as lesser irregularities in the tesserae patterns in order to limit the mosaic replacement allowed in small areas. As for the losses, the Commission advised use of local colours in paint. Regarding the consolidation of the mosaic, it was recommended to replace the clamp system with consolidation by mortar injections. See Calzecchi and others, ‘Cronaca dei ritrovamenti e dei restauri’, pp. 531–32.

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io tanto desideravo di avere più vicino come esperto, non fosse con noi! Gamba, che c’era, era troppo voluminoso per salire sui ponti; e gli altri non erano in grado di portare molti lumi. Da Ravenna feci una corsa a Venezia. Era davvero meravigliosa la mostra del Tintoretto;1129 e da non perdere! Così avvenne che il mattino dopo il mio ritorno a Roma, Elena partì a sua volta per Venezia, lasciando a me la custodia di Ilaria: una scappata di tre giorni che proprio le occorreva dopo tante noie di questo nostro trasloco. Quanto mi scrive del putto della Kunstakad. [emie] è stupefacente: vi furono dunque due Veneri di Giorgione, poiché quella di Dresda non pare dubbia?1130 A proposito, ho dovuto oggi dare una scorsa al libro di Hetzer su Tiziano:1131 e m’è parso che la recente bibliografia di Giorgione non sia peggiore di quella tizianesca. Da noi tutti, i migliori auguri e saluti affettuosi. Suo P. Toesca

1129 See La mostra del Tintoretto. Catalogo delle opere, exhibition catalogue. 1130 Toesca was referring to the Cupid Stringing a Bow in the Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der bildenden Künste in Vienna (inv. no. 466, oil on canvas, 76 × 74 cm), which Berenson recorded in the 1936 indices, on p. 496 — in the Titian section — as Putto in a Landscape, copy from the original which completed Giorgione’s Venus now in Dresden (see Berenson, Pitture italiane del Rinascimento. Catalogo dei principali artisti e delle loro opere con un indice dei luoghi, trans. by Cecchi). Certainly Toesca before writing to BB in 1937 had checked the indices. In 1958 Berenson in his Pitture italiane del Rinascimento. Elenco dei principali artisti e delle loro opere con un indice dei luoghi. La Scuola Veneta, 1, p. 198, added to the text on the Putto ‘fr.?’ (i.e fragment?). The work, currently considered just as a fragment of a lost painting possibly cut by an act of vandalism, shows a long outline of a leg in the lower right corner suggesting that the Cupid was accompanied by an elongated Venus, connecting it and its history to that of Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen (inv. no. Gal.-Nr. 185, oil on canvas, 108.5 × 175 cm): the latter identified with Giorgione’s Venus that Marcantonio Michiel (Venice, 1484–1552) saw and described at Girolamo Marcello’s house in San Tomà (Venice) in 1525. The fact that no Cupid is seen in the Dresden painting (although described by Michiel), prompted a long series of discussions on the identity of Marcello’s Venus starting from the nineteenth century. The question clarified by the X-ray made in 1931 on the Dresden painting: in 1843, during a restoration, the figure of Cupid was discovered on the right but it was so damaged that it was covered. Further infrared investigations revealed that the Vienna Cupid is very close to that in Dresden. The Vienna Cupid is now variously assigned to Titian, to Titian’s school (1520–1530), or to the youthful style of Titian’s brother, Francesco Vecellio (c. 1475–1560), while the attribution of the Dresden Venus to Giorgione is actually somewhat doubtful: recent studies largely tend towards Titian or Giorgione with a subsequent ‘modification’ by Titian (1512–1515). It has been argued that originally there was a second Venus by Giorgione in Marcello’s house and perhaps portrayed ‘stesa et volta’: a hypothesis never proved but not to be excluded. See Fleischer, ‘Amore con arco e faretra’, in Tiziano. Amor Sacro e Amor Profano, exhibition catalogue, cat. no. 14, pp. 250–51; Anderson, ‘Vénus endormie (dans un paysage)’; ‘Cupidon dans une loggia’, in Giorgione. Peintre de la ‘Brièveté Poétique’, trans. by Turle, pp. 307–08; 342’; Joannides, ‘Titian and the Extract’, pp. 135–48, especially pp. 136; 146; Dal Pozzolo, Giorgione, pp. 300, 301 and n. 296; pp. 308–10; Gentili, Tiziano, pp. 62–63. 1131 Theodor Hetzer, Tizian. Geschichte seiner Farbe (1935).

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227. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.46, handwritten. The letter is mentioned in Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 121 n. 6; p. 122, and in Gabrielli, ‘Pietro Toesca: “misurare” l’arte’, p. 41 and n. 183. The letter is transcribed in Lorizzo, ‘Pietro Toesca all’Università di Roma’, p. 119 and n. 92. Both Gabrielli and Lorizzo point out a location of the letter in the Berenson Library that no longer exists) ISTITUTO NAZIONALE D’ARCHEOLOGIA E STORIA DELL’ARTE PIAZZA SAN MARCO, 49 ROMA Telefoni { PRESIDENZA: 65652 {UFFICI: 681817 Roma, 22.VII. 47 Carissimo, oggi stesso, raccomandate, Le spedisco tutte le fotografie che ho di Castelseprio.1132 Sono, come Le dissi, riservatissime perché mi vennero date abusivamente dal fotografo incaricato di fare le riproduzioni a colori.1133 Ed essendo eseguite per questo scopo presentano i colori filtrati attraverso schermi differenti, cioè non nella intiera gamma. L’effetto totale degli affreschi è su per giù lo stesso. Come Le accennai a primo aspetto si penserebbe a Mistra;1134 ma un graffito del secolo XI1135 toglie ogni dubbio. Poi vien

1132 According to Lorizzo, ‘Pietro Toesca all’Università di Roma’, p. 119, in the BBF, Castelseprio folder there are no longer any colour photographs of the murals, nor any evidence that they had ever been there. However, from a check carried out in BBF, Medieval Paintings, Box 4, folder 9 there are six black and white photos by the photographer Paoletti via Pantano n. 5 Milan, a large format photo representing the Annunciation (Fig. 40a) and four other photos. The latter appear to be characterized by a less sharp colour than those by Paoletti and perhaps should be identified with those described and sent by Toesca to BB. As for the photo representing the Annunciation, it is uncertain whether it too was sent to Toesca, but it is interesting to note that on its back is a handwritten note by Nicky Mariano (Fig. 40b): ‘seen on September 28th 1947’ confirming that Berenson saw the Castelseprio murals on that day as he noted in his 1947 Diary, see BBP, Berenson Diary 28 September 1947. Most of these photos bear on the back a handwritten note by BB: ‘Castel Seprio’. 1133 According to Lorizzo the colour photographs of the murals of Castelseprio which Toesca was referring to were published in Bognetti and others, Santa Maria di Castelseprio, see Lorizzo, ‘Pietro Toesca all’Università di Roma’, p. 125 n. 92. 1134 Probably Toesca meant the murals of Mistra (Peloponnese) in general, which have nothing to do with those of Castelseprio. However, it is interesting because immediately afterwards, in three lines, he cites the whole range of comparisons that in the following decades the critics made in relation to the Castelseprio murals which in 1947 were still completely unpublished. 1135 Among the Latin graffiti incised on ancient plaster in the eastern apse of the Church of Santa Maria foris portas (namely in the inner wall of the triumphal arch in the upper part of the mural plinth) which were identified and read by Bognetti, one was and still is today of particular interest: it is located under the panel with the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple and concerns the consecration of a priest whose name is no more legible following the

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fatto di pensare al Salterio e al S. Gregorio Nazianzeno di Parigi;1136 agli affreschi di S. Maria Antiqua del tempo di Giov. [anni] VII, ecc.; ma credo che bisognerà risalire anche più in su (sec.1137 VI–VII). Nulla di specificamente carolingio: tutto di specificamente aulico cioè costantinopolit. [ano] fuorché il Cristo dipinto su altra tradizione. La fattura di una sicurezza e franchezza di cosa originalmente sentita. Mancano, a me, le fotografie di due grandi angioli volanti ai lati di un disco con l’‘etimasia’. Alla chiesetta diruta, e nascosta nel bosco, mancano le absidi laterali: era una tricora. Della sua architettura si occuperà il Chierici, della storia e delle pitture il prof. Bognetti e il dott. Capitani d’Arzago. Castelseprio è una frazione di Carnago, paesino a 13 Km. [Kilometri] da Varese non lontano da Tradate e da Albizzate. Le chiavi della chiesetta devono essere appunto dal parroco di Carnago.

damaging of the surface. This graffito has been dated between 936 and 948 as the name of Ardericus, at that time Archbishop of Milan, remains perfectly legible in the inscription, thus providing a terminus ante quem for the drawing up of the murals. Probably Toesca was referring to this graffito even if its dating to the eleventh century is not exact. Then there are other graffiti which have been evaluated in the debate on the dating of the cycle, the chronology of which has been re-discussed following the results of new archaeological and stratigraphic research carried out on the site in recent years. These consist of the two graffiti under the panel with the Adoration of the Magi which respectively recall the priestly consecration of Dumbertus and Iohannes, which according to Bognetti and De Capitani D’Arzago, must have referred to the time of the Bishop of Milan, Tadon (bishop between 860–68) although the possibility of a reading in favour of Bishop Landulfus II (bishop between 979–98) was not excluded. Kurt Weitzmann (1951) seemed to lean towards Landulfus II, while in more recent times Marco Petoletti (2009) re-proposed the name of the Bishop Tadon. Flavia De Rubeis (2014) attributed both graffiti to a single writer and contextualizes both consecrations under Bishop Landulfus II. Lastly, even Massimiliano Bassetti (2019) opted for Landulfus II. The graffito commemorating the consecration that took place at the time of Bishop Ardericus therefore seems to be considered in the current state of research, as the earliest possible date to establish an ante quem term for the execution of the murals, of which, as Weitzmann already thought an attribution around the mid-tenth century seems likely (see n. 678), even if a later dating is not excluded. See De Rubeis, ‘III. I Graffiti sugli affreschi della parete est’, pp. 728–31, and in general the contributions by Brogiolo, ‘I. Sequenza architettonica e datazioni assolute’, pp. 720-24; Gheroldi, ‘II. Prima dei dipinti. Il rivestimento aniconico dell’abside’, pp. 124-28; Mitchell, “IV. The Paintings”, pp. 731–35; Bassetti, ‘Scritture e graffiti’, pp. 593–618, especially p. 606; Stroppa, ‘Arte e storia in Santa Maria “extra portam”’, with bibliography; Petoletti, ‘Testimoni d’arte’, p. 324; Weitzmann, The Fresco Cycle of S. Maria di Castelseprio, pp. 5; 19–27; Bognetti, ‘S. Maria Foris Portas di Castelseprio’, pp. 344–45; De Capitani D’arzago, ‘Gli affreschi’, pp. 540; 683. The bibliography on Castelseprio is vast, see Baronio, ‘Gian Piero Bognetti e Castelseprio’; Caramella, ‘La scoperta di Castelseprio’; De Paoli, ‘Intorno alle architetture sacre’. 1136 BnF, MS Gr. 139 (Psalter), see nn. nn. 678, 1082; BnF, Homilies of St Gregory of Nazianzus, MS Gr. 510, according to the dynastic portraits depicted in the manuscript, its date can be restricted to the years the 879–83 (or to 879). 1137 ‘secolo’ or ‘secoli’.

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Del resto, volendo ritrovare tutto spianato, conviene rivolgersi al dott. G. Pacchioni1138 soprintendente ai Monumenti (Palazzo Reale, Milano), che sarà felice di conoscerLa. _ E ora…: a noi! Perché al mio ritorno ho trovato qui il Suo volume1139 con l’esagerata dedica, e più ancora caro il ricordo di quanto Ella scrisse a L. [ouis] Gillet e grazie! Purtroppo poi il Gillet non scrisse mai (o io non ne ho avuto notizia) per la ‘Revue des deux Mondes’ la recensione della mia ‘Storia’. Ho portato a Elena e a Ilaria i Loro saluti, le Loro buone notizie: ma, per ora, non mi prevarrò del Suo esempio per forzare la proibizione del ‘vino, caffè e liquori’. A Nicky, e a Lei, tutti i nostri affettuosi saluti Suo P. Toesca. PS. Abbiamo pensato che il ‘villino Medici’ a Vallombrosa è per noi un po’ troppo caro: e vi rinunciamo con rincrescimento perché così perdiamo la Loro compagnia. Di questo ho già avvertito il propr. [ietario] del ‘Villino’.1140

228. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.46) ISTITUTO NAZIONALE D’ARCHEOLOGIA E STORIA DELL’ARTE PIAZZA SAN MARCO, 49 ROMA Telefoni { PRESIDENZA: 65652 {UFFICI: 681817 Roma, Via S. Alberto Magno 5 22.VII. 47 Carissimo, a suo tempo ho riavuto le fotografie di Castel Seprio, e mi impegno di procurargliene una copia appena la potrò avere dal fotografo. Intanto mi piace ch’Ella apprezzi tanto questi affreschi che vorrei portare anche più in là, se fosse possibile, di Gregorio

1138 Guglielmo Pacchioni (Pavullo nel Frignano, Modena, 1883–Milan, 1969), Soprintendente ai Monumenti di Milano. 1139 It is not known which Berenson volume Toesca was referring to. 1140 Surely Toesca was referring to the ‘Villino Medici’ so-called from the name of General Giacomo Medici (1817–1882) (see Domenichetti, Guida Storica Illustrata di Vallombrosa, p. 23) and formerly owned by the Vallombrosan monks. In the years in which Toesca writes, the ‘Villino’ was an accommodation facility managed from the mid-nineteenth century to the 2000s by the Cerchiarini family until the monks bought it from the then owner of the building, the Regione Toscana (this information was kindly provided to me by the Vallombrosan monks).

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Magno1141 e di…Teodolinda.1142 Il Chierici, ch’è passato qui or è un mese, mi dice che la pubblicazione è quasi pronta ma non tanto prossima a uscire. In questo tempo mi sono molto occupato del mio ‘Trecento’ e ho finalmente concluso gli accordi col mio vecchio editore: l’‘Utet’ di Torino.1143 Non sarà un’edizione di lusso, ma di questo si avvantaggerà la diffusione del volume: e, del resto, ero ormai tediato di andare offrendo il mio lavoro, e l’‘Utet’ era forse la sola casa editrice che mi potesse dare affidamento (‘Hoepli’1144 tende a ‘sfruttare’ anche di più). E ci siamo decisi anche per la campagna dopo aver resistito a tutte queste giornate torride. Partiamo giovedi pv. [prossimo venturo] per Molveno, che mi dicono incantevole: un borgo non lontano da Trento, sulle rive di un lago.1145 E speriamo di non aver scelto male nemmeno l’albergo (Albergo Lido). Elena e Ilaria hanno bisogno di questo riposo forse più di me. - Spero che Mariani1146 Le abbia mandato quanto la Nicky desidera per la biblioteca. Io attendo che il Poligrafico dello Stato mi confermi per lettera ciò che già mi è stato promesso oralmente, cioè che la Bibl. [ioteca] dei Tatti abbia lo stesso sconto dei Librai. In quanto a libri nuovi, interessanti, qui non abbiamo avuto che i due volumi di D. Levi sui mosaici di Antiochia1147 e il Catalogo della Mostra biz. [antina] di Baltimora.1148 Alla signorina Nicky, e a Lei, tutti i migliori auguri di buona campagna, da tutti noi. Suo P. Toesca.

229. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.46, handwritten. The letter is mentioned in Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 121 n. 6; p. 122) ISTITUTO NAZIONALE D’ARCHEOLOGIA E STORIA DELL’ARTE PIAZZA SAN MARCO, 49 ROMA Telefoni { PRESIDENZA: 65652 {UFFICI: 681817 1141 Pope Gregory I, known as Gregory the Great (Rome, 540–604). 1142 Teodolinda, Queen of the Lombards. 1143 Utet (acronym for Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese), a publishing house founded in Turin in 1791. See Toesca, Storia dell’Arte Italiana, 2, Il Trecento published in 1951. 1144 Hoepli, a publishing house founded in Milan in 1870 by Ulrico Hoepli. 1145 Lake Molveno. 1146 Perhaps Toesca was referring to Valerio Mariani (Rome, 1899–1982), art historian and Professor (libero docente) of Medieval and Modern Art at the Facoltà di Magistero at ‘Sapienza’ University of Rome. 1147 Doro Levi, Antioch Mosaic Pavements, see n. 562. 1148 On the exhibition, see n. 437.

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Roma, Via S. Alberto Magno 5 19.II. 48 Caro Amico, il prof. Jahier,1149 da vero valdostano, è implacabile contro il disgraziato Bencini che ultimamente ha avuto un’intimazione di consegnare sei copie delle sue pubblicazioni se non vuol essere sottoposto a multe e a…prigione. Io scrivo al Bencini di mandare alle Biblioteche sei copie dei mie opuscoli senza le relative fotografie facendo osservare che queste importano una spesa enorme, da lui insopportabile, e che le fotografie, così sciolte come sono, in biblioteca andrebbero subito disperse. Se il Jahier (che, del resto, fa il suo esoso dovere) si persuaderà potremo pubblicare anche gli affreschi dell’Antico e N. [uovo] Testamento,1150 ad Assisi; altrimenti, tutto resterà sospeso.— Le imprese del grande Ragghiante [sic]1151 m’interessano poco. Mi dicono che si appresti a trasformare le sale di palazzo Strozzi in stands di ammobigliamenti diversi: e spero che non un mobile uscirà dai Tatti. In quanto alla rivista progettata, non ne so nulla. Qui riprenderà fra poco il Bollettino d’arte per essere un notiziario del lavori del Ministero;1152 dovrebbe riprendere anche L’Arte. Nel Bollettino d’Arte avremo finalmente un articolo su Castelseprio da parte di uno dei responsabili della pubblicazione monumentale che si fa ancora attendere: e questo articolo permetterà finalmente di trattare un argomento vietato per tanto tempo.1153 So che avremo presto un Suo lavoro tradotto dall’amico Praz.1154 Ma non è appunto quello che m’aspettavo, cioè ‘tra l’antichità e il Medioevo’. A quando questo? Abbiamo avuto all’École française una conferenza di A. Grabar appunto su quell’argomento nell’architettura e nella pittura;1155 ma non mi è parsa più che elementare. Grabar mi

1149 Piero Jahier (Genoa, 1884–Florence, 1966), writer, journalist, poet, and translator. 1150 Between 1943 and 1948 Toesca was the curator and scientific director of the first four volumes of the photographic series Artis Monumenta Photographice Edita. The fourth volume was dedicated to the murals with the Old and New Testament in the Upper Church of Assisi (Gli affreschi del Vecchio e Nuovo Testamento nella Chiesa Superiore del Santuario di Assisi (Florence, 1948). Its photographic campain was curated by Giulio Bencini (Florence, 1881–1959) and Mario Sansoni (Florence?, 1882–1975). See Mozzo, ‘Artis Monumenta Photographice Edita’, pp. 187–221, especially p. 187 and n. 3; pp. 188–221 and Spyros Koulouris’ essay, ‘Capturing the Byzantine World’, in this volume. 1151 The Strozzina in Florence (now part of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi) was the site of many exhibitions promoted by Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti. 1152 Bollettino della Pubblica Istruzione Direzione Generale delle Antichità e Belle Arti. 1153 Probably Toesca was referring to the article by Roberto De Capitani D’Arzago, ‘Le recenti scoperte di Castelseprio’, pp. 17–23 published in the Bollettino d’Arte of January–March 1948. 1154 Toesca was referring to Berenson, Estetica, etica, trans. by Mario Praz and published in 1948. 1155 See n. 748.

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dice che si prepara un ‘congresso bizantino’ a Parigi;1156 mi dice anche che qualcuno intende di riprendere la vecchia ‘Société pour la reproduction des MSS [Manuscrits]’.1157 Ne ha avuto notizia anche Lei? Che peccato ch’Ella sia a Firenze e non a Roma! Qui mi sento molto solo, anzi senza desiderio di veder nessuno. Ilaria ora lavora fermamente al suo Andrea Pisano.1158 Se la stagione migliorerà (qui tutti i mandorli sono in fiore ma è sopraggiunto a strozzarli il solito ‘strizzone’) manderò Ilaria a Firenze sul principio di Marzo. Ci ricordi alla Nicky. I nostri affettuosi saluti. P. Toesca.

230. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.47, handwritten. The letter is quoted in Gabrielli, ‘Pietro Toesca: “misurare” l’arte’, pp. 57–58 n. 182, who points out a location in the Berenson Library that no longer exists) ISTITUTO NAZIONALE D’ARCHEOLOGIA E STORIA DELL’ARTE PIAZZA SAN MARCO, 49 ROMA Telefoni { PRESIDENZA: 65652 {UFFICI: 681817 Roma, 16.III. ’49 Caro Amico, sarà un grande regalo per me il secondo volume del Creswell, a séguito del primo che già mi donò parecchi anni or sono.1159 A Messina, nel Museo, accanto ad altre cose che certamente non sono del Caravaggio e gli sono state attribuite, c’è un ‘Ecce homo’1160 che mi sembra plausibile, se non sicuro, per lui: cosa, a primo aspetto, rude ma di grande originalità pittorica. Spero 1156 Perhaps Toesca was referring to the 6th International Congress of Byzantine Studies, Paris, 27 July–2 August 1948, see Actes du VIe Congrès International d’Études Byzantines. 1157 Perhaps Société Française de Reproduction de Manuscrits à Peinture in Paris which was established c. 1910 to ensure by appropriate photo-mechanical processes the reproduction of the most beautiful and oldest manuscripts existing in France and abroad. 1158 Ilaria Toesca’s volume, Andrea e Nino Pisani was published in 1950. 1159 Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture. Umayyads, Early ʻAbbāsids & Tūlūnids, 2; on Creswell’s first volume, see the essay ‘Byzantine Vision of Bernard Berenson’, pp. 32–33 and n. 65. 1160 Messina, Museo Regionale, Ecce Homo (inv. no. 985, oil on canvas, 194 × 112 cm). The painting is an early seventeenth century copy of the original by Caravaggio in Genoa, Galleria di Palazzo Bianco, c. 1605 (inv. P.B. 1638, oil on canvas, 128 × 103 cm).

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che Maganuco procuri anche questo.1161 In quanto alla Mostra di Zurigo, sembra, a quanto mi ha detto la virago Wittgens,1162 che sarà poi esposta a Milano o altrove,…. per dimostrare alla gente lombarda che anche in Lombardia ci sono cose d’arte. Vi troverà esposto al n. 602 un frammento degli affreschi di Castelseprio1163 che suppongo sia ben conservato perché fu scelto appunto da certi malfattori che volevano strapparlo dal muro e trafugarlo. Non mi è riuscito finora di averne una fotografia, e molto Le sarei grato se potesse ottenerla dal dott. [or] Weitzmann1164 (mi occorre per un articolo ne L’Arte).1165 Molti auguri alla signorina Nicky e a Lei per il loro viaggio, da Elena e dal Suo P. Toesca.

231. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.47, handwritten. The letter is quoted in Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 120 n. 5; p. 122) Roma, Via S. Alberto Magno 5 26. XI. 49 Caro Amico, ero a Firenze ierlaltro: pensavo di venire finalmente ai Tatti, di potere finalmente conversare un po’ con lei di tante cose; aspettavo un po’ di sereno, ma questa stagione insopportabile mi ha costretto a ritornare subito qui, dove ho ritrovato lo stesso tempo orribile ma almeno posso star chiuso in casa e lavorare un po’. La ringrazio del Suo buon ricordo e della lettera. Io non Le avevo più scritto dopo ch’Ella mi aveva accennato, in una lettera da Vallombrosa, a un loro viaggio nel Sud:

1161 Enzo Maganuco (Acate, Ragusa, 1896–Catania, 1968), art historian and Professor of Art History at the University of Messina. Toesca’s phrase ‘Spero che Maganuco procuri anche questo’ seems to refer to an exhibition set-up and in this case it should be that of 1951, i.e. Mostra del Caravaggio e dei caravaggeschi which was inaugurated on 21 April 1951 at Palazzo Reale in Milan, of which Roberto Longhi was commissiario esecutivo, see Aiello, Caravaggio 1951. 1162 Fernanda Wittgens (Milan, 1903–1957), art historian; in 1949 she was appointed Direttore di prima classe della Soprintendenza alle Gallerie e alla Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan and obtained the professorship (libera docenza) in Medieval and Modern Art History. See Arrigoni, ‘Fernanda Wittgens’. 1163 The mural fragment mounted on canvas representing a shepherd was exhibited in Zurich, Kunsthaus, November 1948–March 1949, see Kunstschätze der Lombardei: 500 vor Christus bis 1800 nach Christus, exhibition catalogue, cat. no. 602, p. 211. The catalogue includes an introduction by Fernanda Wittgens and Wilhelm Wartmann. 1164 Probably Toesca was referring to Kurt Weitzmann (Kleinalmerode, 1904–Princeton, 1993). 1165 Perhaps Toesca was referring to his article on the Castelseprio murals which was published in 1951, see n. 1183. In the article the photo mentioned by Toesca does not appear.

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speravo di vederLa presto a Roma. Le avrei spiegato ciò che non avevo detto abbastanza chiaramente scrivendoLe a proposito di L. [ionello] Venturi e del Longhi. Che il Venturi, venuto ai Tatti con Gualino,1166 vantasse il suo successo nell’aver ostacolato la venuta del Longhi a Roma, era ben naturale: aveva avuto una gran paura di avere vicino il Longhi nell’Università di Roma. Da parte mia io avevo sostenuto che fosse da preferire molto il Longhi al prof. Salmi, che ora è stato trasferito qui, per la troppo evidente superiorità del Longhi, e la sua virtuale capacità di trattare anche del Medioevo, fin qui da lui poco studiato. Nè Ella si meravigli della mia parzialità per il Longhi. Gli anni sono passati, e molti: anche il Longhi ha perduto la sua acerbità; dopo molti screzi e dispetti, si è riavvicinato anche a me; nè io posso dimenticare che lo ebbi primo tra i miei studenti.1167 E a questo proposito, perché non si dovrebbe ora, il Longhi, riavvicinare anche a B.B.? So ch’egli, pur avendone colpa, non sa darsi ragione delle relazioni punto cordiali in cui si trova con Lei: ed io mi auguro ch’egli trovi modo di riavvicinarsi anche a Lei. -Non ho ancora veduto il volume del Demus;1168 e certo mi farebbe piacere di averlo: è forse quello in collaborazione col Diehl?1169 So che ora il Demus si occupa (dall’America)1170

1166 Riccardo Gualino (Biella, 1879–Florence, 1964), entrepreneur, patron, and art collector. 1167 In 1947 Pietro Toesca was seventy years old and his retirement raised the problem of his successor to one of the two prestigious chairs of Medieval and Modern Art History at the ‘Sapienza’ University of Rome which in the recent post-war years the scholar had shared with Lionello Venturi. One of the most suitable scholars to continue teaching medieval art history succeeding Toesca, was his pupil Géza de Fràncovich (Gorizia, 1902–Rome, 1996), then still an assistente ordinario and for whom an ad hoc competition would have been necessary for calling a professor from another university. Then another of Toesca’s pupils entered the scene: Roberto Longhi, then professor in Bologna who re-approached his teacher despite their disagreements, in an attempt to be supported and obtain the Roman chair. However, Longhi’s ‘manoeuvre’ failed despite the support of Toesca himself. Lionello Venturi threatened to resign if he was to be joined by a scholar who, in his opinion, had been conniving with the Fascist regime. The difficult situation was resolved with the call of Mario Salmi (San Giovanni Valdarno, 1899–Rome, 1980), since 1927 Professor of Art History at the University of Florence who held the chair of Medieval Art History in Rome from 1949 until 1955. As for the Longhi–Toesca relationship, it appears that the latter had mixed feelings towards his former pupil: Toesca recognized Longhi’s genius but harboured a certain diffidence towards some hypotheses and attributive constructions, not forgetting some traits of his character. See Pace, ‘Politica e academia’. 1168 Otto Demus (Harland, 1902–Vienna, 1990), art historian; in 1946 he became president of the Bundesdenkmalamt (Federal Office of Monuments). He shuttled between Dumbarton Oaks and Vienna. Perhaps Toesca was referring to Demus, The Mosaics of Norman Sicily (London, 1949) even though owing to production delays this book was not published until 1950. 1169 A book by Demus written together with Charles Diehl is unknown. Perhaps Toesca confused Diehl with Ernst Diez (Lölling, 1878–Vienna, 1961), historian of Byzantine, Islamic and Indian art, with whom Demus previously wrote a book: Byzantine Mosaics in Greece. Hosios Lucas and Daphni (1931). 1170 Otto Demus was invited at that time to Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.

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dei mosaici del battistero di Firenze,1171 spero con migliore successo che, un tempo, per i mosaici del S. Marco di Venezia sotto influenze…germaniche.1172 In quanto a me son sempre in attesa che l’editore torinese mandi avanti il mio ‘Trecento’, già tutto in bozze ma ancora senza i clichés! Ilaria da parte sua prepara un libro su Andrea Pisano, che si va stampando. Ed Elena, purtroppo, sacrifica a noi due una gran parte del suo tempo. Essa desiderava molto — e io sono con lei — di avere il Suo ‘Selfportrait’1173 (ma è questo il titolo?) che Ilaria ha visto in casa Magnani,1174 ed io ho intravveduto in mano di Friedländer ad Amsterdam.1175 Come ha Ella tralasciato di mandarcelo? Molti saluti da noi tutti alla cara Nicky, molte cose affettuose a Lei. Suo P. Toesca.

232. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.47, handwritten) Roma, Via S. Alberto Magno 5 9.VII. 50 Caro Amico, ben tornati a Firenze! Noi siamo sulle mosse per Saorgio.1176 Abbiamo purtroppo sopportate assai malamente queste giornate canicolari di Roma. E fu per colpa mia che, anziché partire alla fine di Giugno per la campagna, ritardai la partenza per fare una corsa a Bologna, a Ravenna, a Milano e a Bergamo con Elena e Ilaria. Il sole era ancora tollerabile ma quelle nove giornate di viaggio si facevano già sentire pesanti. La Mostra bolognese del ’300,1177 interessante per lo studio, non fa che confermare la mediocrità di quella Scuola.

1171 Perhaps Toesca was referring to Otto Demus, ‘The Tribuna Mosaics of the Florence Baptistery’. 1172 Probably Demus, Die Mosaiken von San Marco in Venedig, 1100–1300 published in 1935. 1173 Toesca was certainly referring to Berenson, Sketch for a Self-Portrait published in both London and New York editions in 1949 and trans. by Loria as Abbozzo per un autoritratto the same year in Florentine edition. 1174 Perhaps Toesca was referring to the villa of the Magnani family in Mamiano (in the province of Parma), current seat of the Fondazione Magnani Rocca, founded in 1977 by Luigi Magnani (Reggio Emilia, 1906–Mamiano, 1984), art historian and collector. 1175 Max Jakob Friedländer (Berlin, 1867–Amsterdam, 1958), art historian. 1176 Saorgio (or Saorge), a village in the Alpes-Maritimes department in southeastern France. See Toesca’s letter no. 219. 1177 Toesca was referring to the Mostra della pittura bolognese del Trecento, Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale, May–July 1950, see Guida alla mostra della pittura bolognese del Trecento, exhibition catalogue, with a preface by Roberto Longhi. The exhibition catalogue was reprinted in 1982.

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Ravenna era incantevole: e l’impressione anche su di me fu di cosa nuova in S. Vitale o in S. Apoll. [inare] Nuovo. La Galleria di Brera ha ritrovato il suo ordinamento,1178 e un’ottima luce: così si fosse fatto agli Uffizi, senza quelle sconciature. Bergamo fu una delle tappe più belle, con la sua freschezza e con l’inesauribile ricchezza delle sue collezioni,1179 mantenute nel vecchio ordine senza quei diradamenti ‘estetici’ o ‘pedagogici’ che hanno tanto impoverito il Louvre. Ora partiamo — il 12 — per Saorgio. Ho finito il mio ‘Trecento’, potrò farne lassù gli indici; e spero che tutto sia stampato entro il Novembre. Anche Elena e Ilaria non aspirano ad altro che a lasciare finalmente Roma. Alla signora Nicky e a Lei tanti affettuosi auguri per la loro campagna. Suo P. Toesca PS. Quanto vi è di originale ancora a Germigny dès Près?1180 Indirizzo dal 12 corr. [ente]: Rue inférieure 3 Saorge (Nice. Alp. [es] — Marit. [imes])

1178 See n. 674. 1179 Toesca was certainly referring to the Pinacoteca dell’Accademia Carrara, Bergamo. Paolo Plebani, conservatore of the Fondazione Accademia Carrara, kindly suggests that the plural ‘collections’ used by Toesca is related to the fact that the museum was for years divided into main sections: the one dedicated to Giacomo Carrara (Bergamo, 1714–1796), and the other to Guglielmo Lochis (Mozzo, 1789–Bergamo, 1859), to which a room dedicated to the Giovanni Morelli (Verona, 1816–Milan, 1891) collection was later added. Moreover, the comparison with the Louvre again leads us to understand this rather ambiguous sentence as a reference to the Carrara. In 1950 Toesca saw the museum in its structure dating back to the 1930s. The collections were to be reorganized only in 1955–1956. 1180 Toesca was probably referring to the Oratory of Saint Germigny-des-Prés and to the nineteenth century restoration work carried out through a complete restructuring of the building. It also involved the destruction of several elements of the interior decoration including the stucco arches adorning the central apse, which appear to have been completely redone. It seems that the famous mosaic above these arches designed by Theodulf at the beginning of the ninth century depicting the Ark of the Covenant Guarded by two Cherubs, was fortunately excluded from this radical restoration even though on it interventions were carried out and perhaps Toesca was alluding even to this. The mosaic was detached in 1844 following the reconstruction of the apse vault and in 1847 it risked ruin in the hands of a forger, Maximilien Théodore Chrétin who also did restoration work. Fortunately, Chrétin only removed the plaster layer that covered the mosaic, although in all probability heavy interventions were due to him, such as the addition of golden tesserae. In this context, Theodulf ’s dedicatory inscription was rediscovered but the text as a whole could not yet be read since some letters were damaged, and entire words were missing because of the window

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233. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.48, handwritten)1181 Roma, Via S. Alberto Magno 5 9.XI. ’51 Molte grazie per questo Suo scritto su Domencio Mancini,1182 assai persuasivo e, come al solito, stimolante. Vorrei mandarLe a mia volta due brevi saggi da me pubblicati nei due ultimi fascicoli de L’Arte (1948 e 1951), l’uno sul Marmitta, l’altro su Castelseprio,1183 ma purtroppo il disordinatissimo G. Nicodemi, che ha ripreso L’Arte, ha dimenticato di farne gli estratti.1184 — Noi tutti, dal nostro incontro a Napoli, abbiamo riportato di lei la più piacevole impressione: Ischia deve essere superiore a Badgastein,1185 e alla ‘fontana di giovinezza’.— A Nicky e a Lei gli affettuosi saluti di noi tutti. Suo P. Toesca.

234. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.48, handwritten) Roma, Via S. Alberto Magno 5 31. I. 53 Caro Amico, questo Suo ‘Arco di Costantino’1186 smuove delle questioni così grosse ch’è veramente da rammaricarsi di non vederle svolte e trattate così in disteso come già Ella si proponeva, e come io spero Ella faccia in avvenire. Principale, naturalmente, la questione: decadenza o trasformazione? Se si guarda agli assurdi dell’arte contemporanea in certi aspetti (per es.: [empio]: scultura di bandone e di fil di ferro, o blocchi di marmo a buchi) è certo oggidì un annichilimento dell’arte; ma per la scultura brucata, come tarmata, del secolo IV forse si può restare incerti anche se si accetti che tutta fosse mascherata di stucco e di colore. Forse per il Riegl questo Suo scritto è un po’ severo mentre è giustissimo per le degenerazioni dell’‘arte’ contemporanea e per i folli suoi profeti.

that had been cut into the wall of the apse perhaps in the eighteenth century. See Meyvaert, ‘Maximilien Théodore Chrétin’; Foletti, ‘Germigny-des-Prés, il Santo Sepolcro’. On the restoration of the church, see Poilpré, ‘Le décor de l’oratoire de Germigny-des-Prés’. 1181 The envelope header reads as follows: ‘Istituto Nazionale d’Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte RomaPiazza S. Marco 49 Telef. 681817 Al signor Bernardo Berenson Villa I Tatti Settignano (Firenze)’. 1182 Domenico Mancini, painter of the Venetian mainland active at the beginning of the second decade of the sixteenth century. See Berenson, ‘Une Sacra Conversazione de l’école de Giorgione’. 1183 Toesca was referring to the articles, ‘Di un miniatore e pittore emiliano: Francesco Marmitta’ published in L’Arte ( January–June 1948) and ‘Gli affreschi di Castelseprio’, L’Arte ( July 1948–July 1951). 1184 Probably Toesca was referring to Giorgio Nicodemi (Trieste, 1891–Milan, 1967), art historian, museologist, and numismatist. It must be said that an offprint of Toesca’s article on the Castelseprio murals is in BBF in the Castelseprio section. 1185 Bad Gastein. 1186 Berenson, L’Arco di Costantino published in 1952.

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Noi ora ai ‘Lincei’1187 abbiamo da distribuire premi nazionali e internazionali, di uno e di cinque milioni, a architetti, pittori, scultori, musici, e uno (di un milione) a un critico di arte figurativa. Che faremo? su chi si fermerà questa pioggia cartacea? Peccato, o Sua fortuna, che Lei — come socio straniero — non possa essere della Commissione!! - Vorremmo avere notizie della signorina Nicky, alla quale, come a Lei, rivolgiamo i più affettuosi saluti. E grazie di questo bel libro! Suo P. Toesca

235. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.49, handwritten. The letter is transcribed from ‘Sembra che’ up to ‘ancora’ in Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 235 and n. 29, who erroneusly reports 21 January 1955 as its date. The letter is mentioned in Coen ‘“Di dottrina e di pratica”. Pietro Toesca e la fotografia’, p. 171) Roma, via S. Alberto Magno, 5 25. I. 55 Caro Amico, nell’ultima adunanza dei Lincei, or sono dieci giorni, il presidente Arangio-Ruiz1188 presentò con belle e simpatiche parole il Suo ‘Lorenzo Lotto’,1189 che fu molto sfogliato e ammirato; molti anche mi chiesero Sue notizie, e io non tralasciai di rassicurarli sull’incidente ormai lontano.1190 Ero nel vero certamente, ma avrò molto caro di essere certo ch’Ella è completamente ristabilito. Ho veduto in un nuovo grosso fascicolo della Rivista dell’Istituto d’Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte, un breve articolo su possibili affreschi del Lotto — particolari di decorazione — nelle Stanze Vaticane? L’autrice — dott. [oressa] Emma Zocca1191

1187 1188 1189 1190

Rome, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Vincenzo Arangio-Ruiz (Naples, 1884–Rome, 1964), lawyer, academic, and politician. Probably Toesca was referring to Berenson, Lorenzo Lotto, published in 1955, see n. 779. Late in 1953 Berenson had an accident while he was with Nicky visiting a ruined chapel near Castel di Poggio. ‘He got out of the jeep and ordered the chauffer to drive on a short distance. Nicky pulled open a door to retrieve a scarf for him and the door swung out, knocking him over the fourteen foot escarpment of a ravine. He rolled over and over, ending up against a boulder. He appeared not to be seriously injured, but he suffered a good deal of discomfort’, see Samuels, Bernard Berenson. The Making of a Legend, p. 553. 1191 See Zocca, ‘Le decorazioni della Stanza dell’Eliodoro’.

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— possiede appunto quel piccolo Lotto (S. Gerolamo nel suo studio)1192 ch’Ella ha riprodotto come ‘senza casa’.1193 Nello stesso fascicolo è riassunto uno studio di R. Bianchi Bandinelli sull’Iliade Ambrosiana1194 irto di bibliografia più del necessario, ma interessante. Sembra che, mutato il momento politico, ora la pittura ‘romana’ vada ritornando ‘ellenistico-romana’ come diceva il nostro povero G. [iulio] E. [manuele] Rizzo Ma bisognerà attendere ancora. Elena e Ilaria desideravano, non meno di me, di avere presto Sue buone notizie; intanto rivolgono alla signorina Nicky e a Lei tutti i migliori auguri, col Suo P. Toesca.

236. Toesca to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 104.49, handwritten. The letter is mentioned in Gabrielli, ‘Pietro Toesca: “misurare” l’arte’, pp. 36–37 and n. 147 , who points out a location in the Berenson Library that no longer exists) Roma, via S. Alberto Magno 5 30. XI. 57 Caro Amico, posso finalmente mandarLe i ‘Mosaici di S. Marco’1195 che già Elena Le aveva annunciati. Non avrei potuto scriverne il breve testo se non avessi ritrovato i miei vecchi appunti di tante ore passate in contemplazione dentro S. Marco; in quanto alle riproduzioni a colori, sono in parte buone in parte cattive come avviene in queste pubblicazioni; tra le migliori è quella a pagina 9 che riproduce un mosaico scoperto or sono due anni, diverso da tutti gli altri e probabilmente più antico: frammento d’una Crocifissione1196 ch’è riapparsa, anch’essa frammentaria sotto il rivestimento di marmi. Ho così l’occasione di darLe nostre notizie dopo tanto lungo silenzio cagionato dalle traversie delle nostre vacanze a Saorgio e a Bordighera.1197 Una certa inerzia, più fisica che morale (e questo è il peggio) ha rallentato ogni mio lavoro: ma ora mi riprendo. Ilaria, nell’estate, ha fatto una scappata a München; Elena ed io siamo ancora esitanti

1192 The painting with Saint Jerome in his Study formerly in Rome, Zocca Collection, is currently in Bassano del Grappa, Museo Civico, c. 1527 (inv. no. 449, oil on canvas, 58.5 × 48 cm). 1193 See Berenson, Lorenzo Lotto, ed. by Vertova, p. 163 and pl. 351. 1194 See Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, ‘Continuità ellenistica nella pittura’. 1195 See Mosaici di San Marco written by Toesca together with Ferdinando Forlati in 1957. Toesca wrote the essay on mosaics, pp. 5–30, while Forlati the one on architecture, pp. 33–44. The book is in Biblioteca Berenson. 1196 The mosaic of San Marco was part of a Deposition from the Cross and not of a Crucifixion. 1197 Bordighera, a town in the province of Imperia, Liguria (Italy).

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nel muoverci per una corsa a Napoli, tanto ci siamo affaticati qui, per questa cosa, tra muratori e altre cose. Ora, il tempo inviterebbe a muoversi. L’improvvisa fine di R. Papini1198 ci ha molto contristati! Egli era così vivace e simpatico: e avrebbe dovuto esser più apprezzato. — Alla Nicky, a Lei, tutti i nostri affettuosi saluti. Suo P. Toesca.

237. George Francis Hill to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 68.61, handwritten) DEPARTMENT OF COINS AND MEDALS, BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON, W.C.ı 4 Feb. [ruary] 1929 Dear Berenson, Many thanks for your welcome help. I’ll send the cheque on to Casson, who will be much encouraged.1199 I am not surprised that the Byzantine infection has taken you acutely! I wish I could fall a victim, instead of suffering from the pitiful Iberian stuff which is to be my lot for the next four years. Yours very sincerely George F Hill

238. Hill to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 68.61, handwritten) BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON, W.C.ı Tel.: Museum 3070 24 Sept. [ember] 1934

1198 Roberto Papini (Pistoia, 1883–Modena, 1957), art historian and academic. 1199 Probably George Francis Hill was referring to the funding requested by Stanley Casson from Berenson for the work to be carried out in the north Church of the Monastery of Constantine Lips in Istanbul. See Casson’s letter to BB: no. 101.

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Dear Berenson, That bright-spark Doro Levi tells me that you would like photographs of Byzantine frescoes in Cyprus.1200 C. J. P. Cave, who was with us,1201 took a certain number, but he was more interested in architecture than in painting. He has however allowed me the loan of his negatives, where he was at all successful, and I have had prints made from them. I do not suppose you will publish any of them, but, if you do, would you mind putting his name under them? Any chance of seeing you here this autumn? Yours sincerely George Hill

239. Hill to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 68.61, handwritten) BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON, W.C.ı Tel.: Museum 3070 22 Oct. [ober] 1934 My dear Berenson, We are having great difficulties in raising money for the Cyprus Monuments. I know it’s a bad time to appeal, especially to people who depend on American sources for their income. But if you can spare even a tiny amount, I hope you will think of this very deserving object.

1200 Cyprus, under British administration in 1878, was annexed in 1914 and only became a Crown Colony in 1925. 1201 George Francis Hill was a member of the Committee on Cyprus Monuments which was formed in 1933 to interest the public in the Antiquities of Cyprus, to take steps for their preservation, maintenance, discovery, and to collect funds for this purpose. In March 1934 Hill together with Sir Charles Peers (Westerham, 1868–Coulsdon, 1952), archaeologist and distinguished antiquary and architectural historian, visited Cyprus accompanied by Charles John Philip Cave (Stoner Hill, Petersfield, 1871–1950) as photographer, Major Vivian Seymer as chauffer and William Hepburn Buckler (Paris, 1867–Oxford, 1952) as organizer and interpreter. See Roueché, ‘The Prehistory of the Cyprus Department of Antiquities’. The photos (twelve in total) are in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 6, folders Mural Paintings: Avlona – Geroskepou; Mural Paintings: Kakopetria-Kritsa. Two of the photos are published here (figs 41–42) and concern the fragmentary murals in the ruined cemetery chapels of the Saviour and the Panagia Aphendrika of the Monastery of Saint John Chrysostom above Koutsovendis and bear the name ‘CJP Cave’ on the back. On the Monastery of Saint John Chrysostom, see A. Stylianou and J. A. Stylianou, The Painted Churches of Cyprus, pp. 456–68.

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A Director of Antiquities1202 is on his way out, and we hope to make a beginning very soon. Yours very sincerely George Hill

240. Hill to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 68.61, handwritten. The letter is transcribed from ‘You are greatly’ up to ‘history’, and from ‘He knows’ up to ‘Governor’ and from ‘Hotels’ to ‘Nicosia’ in Calvelli, ‘The Most Unspoiled of the Mediterranean Lands’, p. 688 and n. 3; p. 689 and n. 5; p. 690 and n. 6) 12 SUSSEX PLACE REGENT’S PARK, N.W. ı PADDINGTON 2611 10 iii 1937 Dear Berenson, You are greatly to be envied. I wish I could get out to Cyprus. Failing that, I am deeply involved in its early history, leading me into such thorny byways as bronze age pottery and human sacrifice. There is no Baedeker for Cyprus later than 1912, unless something has appeared since 1934, which is as late as the information of the Baedeker agents in London goes. And the section (which is attached to the Palestine volume) is very thin. There is nothing that takes the place of a Baedeker. You will want ‘Historic Cyprus’ by Rupert Gunnis (Methuen, 1936).1203 He knows the island topography better than anyone, and likes nothing better than acting as guide to distinguished visitors. He had (may still have) an official position in the Dept [Department] of Antiquities, but what exactly he is now I don’t know. He was very useful to us in 1934, but we have rather quarreled with him since, because he has not been helpful to the new regime which Peers and I promoted.1204 You are certain to

1202 John Robert Hilton (Northwood, Middlesex, 1908–Box, Wiltshire, 1944), architect, diplomat, and director of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus from 1934 to 1935. 1203 Rupert Forbes Gunnis (London, 1899–Stratfield Saye, Hampshire, 1965) historian and archaeologist; he was Inspector of Antiquities for the Cyprus Museum from 1932 to 1935. See Gunnis, Historic Cyprus. A Guide to its Towns, pp. 1–4. The book was published in London: Methuen & Co., 1936. A copy of it is in Biblioteca Berenson. 1204 Perhaps Hill was referring to the fact that Gunnis was partly responsible for undermining Hilton’s position.

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make his acquaintance; use him, but don’t believe all the gossip he retails. He is very well in with the Governor.1205 The Handbook of Cyprus by R. Storrs and B. J. O’Brien (latest issue is undated but seems to be 1930; published by Christophers, 22 Berners Street)1206 is the official publication; no good as a guide but worth having. Like most books that go through many editions, it is very patchy and unequal, and not quite up to date. Γ. A. Σωτηρίου, Tὰ βυζαντινὰ μνημεῖα τῆς Kύπϱου, if you haven’t already got it, you must certainly see. *Published at Athens (by the Athens Academy) 1935.1207 Part I only has appeared, and consists entirely of plates, of which nos. 61 to 115 are mosaics and wall-paintings, and 116–30 are icons. 61–99 range from the 9th to the 15th century. I have only just received my copy, and it has cost me £ 3.15.0! But I daresay you know all about the book. Hotels in Cyprus are few and with one exception inadeguate. The Castellis1208 at Kyrenia is quite good, and if you get rooms in the annexe looking on to the sea you will be comfortable, unless it has deteriorated since we were there. At Nicosia the Crescent is clean, but very small, and the only one with any attempt at civilized sanitation, which however didn’t always work. At Famagusta, there are two, the Savoy and (I think) the Otello, but I’ve not stayed at either, only lunched. At Larnaca-where you may land-the Grand (I think) has a magnificent staircase of local marble, but is otherwise very primitive. If you land there, I recommend you to hire a car (the Italian tourist agency on the quay is helpful) and go straight to Nicosia or Famagusta. The latter is what I should recommend, because my friend Th. Mogabgab,1209 the tourist officer, a highly educated man, who knows every stone of Famagusta, will I am sure give you every help-find you a hotel, make arrangements for the hire of a

1205 Sir Herbert Richmond Palmer (Lancaster, 1877–?, 1958), barrister, he was governor and commander-in-chief of Cyprus from 1933 to 1938. 1206 Hill was referring to The Handbook of Cyprus, edited by Ronald Storrs and Bryan Justin O’Brien published by Christophers, 22 Berners Street, London. The book, a copy of which is in Biblioteca Berenson, does not bear the date of edition but the introduction by R. S. (probably Ronald Storrs) is from July 1930. 1207 Hill was referring to Γεώργιος Αγγέλου Σωτηρίου (Georgios Angelou Soteriou), Τὰ βυζαντινὰ μνημεῖα τῆς Κύπϱου, Α. Λεύκωμα, Πραγματείαι της Ακαδημίας Αθηνών, τόμος Γ’.-ΦιλολογικήΙστορική Σειρά (Athens: Γραφείον Δημοσιευμάτων της Ακαδημίας Αθηνών, 1935). The book is in Biblioteca Berenson and bears the title in French (Les Monuments Byzantins dans l’Ile de Chypre) and the one in Greek on the spine. In the Hollis Harvard Library catalog entry, the title in French was preferred as it is evidently more understandable. 1208 Catsellis Dome Hotel. 1209 Theophilus Amin Halil Mogabgab (1888–1965).

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car during your stay, etc. etc. I enclose a note for him.1210 Also one for the Director of Antiquities, A. H. S. Megaw*,1211 specializes on Byzantine monuments, whom you will find at the Museum at Nicosia. I am writing to him to-day about something else, and telling him about your visit. You’ll find some of the most interesting painting inaccessible except by mule or on foot. Panagia tis Asinou is a four-mile walk from Nikitari,1212 which you can reach by car, but it’s very easy going, and a charming valley. Or, if you like better the disgusting animal, you can sit on a mule; but they have no proper saddles, and I soon got-off mine. Lagoudhera1213 is — I think to be got at by car in good weather. The most impressive of the frescoes is at A. Chrysostomos, about 2 miles, above Koutsovendis;1214 I think we walked. You must see the mosaics at Kiti (near Larnaca) and, in the Carpass, at Lythrankomi and Livadhia-1215 all quite easy to get at. But Mogabgab and Megaw will tell you much more about your particular quarry than I can. I imagine all the books I have mentioned can be got at the one bookshop in Nicosia, though perhaps Soteriou is too expensive for them to stock; however, they’ll have that at the Museum. A night at Paphos (Hotel Olympos, Ktima) is necessary, if you want to see the monastery of A. Neophytos,1216 which I certainly should not miss if I were you. And from Kyrenia you should see St Hilarion, the most romantic place in the world and

1210 The note was not found. 1211 Arthur Hubert Stanley ‘Peter’ Megaw (Dublin, 1910–London, 2006), Byzantinist and director of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus between 1935 and 1960. 1212 The Church of Our Lady of Asinou, near the village of Nikitari, the murals in the bema and in the upper part of the nave walls, date back to 1105–1106; those in the narthex to 1332–1333. In the same church there are also some later murals, dating to the seventeenth century. 1213 The Church of Our Lady of Arakos at Lagoudera, murals completed by 1192. 1214 Probably ‘Agios’. Probably Hill was referring to the murals in the Church of the Holy Trinity (1110–1118) and in the ruined cemetery chapels of the Savior (1110–1118) and the Panagia of Aphendrika (twelfth-thirteenth century) of the Monastery of Saint John Chrysostom above the the village of Koutsovendis (now in Turkish-controlled Northern Cyprus). 1215 The Church of Our Lady Angheloktistos at Kiti (Larnaca District), apse mosaic, late sixth century. The Church of Our Lady of Kanakaria at Lithrankomi in the Carpass peninsula (now in Turkish-controlled Northern Cyprus), apse mosaic, first half of the sixth century. In 1979 the mosaic was removed and broken up into pieces, some of which were recovered and are now on display at Archbishop Makarios III Foundation-Byzantine Museum in Nicosia. The Church of Panagia Kyra (Our Lady the Virgin Mary) near the village of Livadhia in the Carpass peninsula (now in Turkish-controlled Northern Cyprus), apse mosaic have disappeared, early seventh century. 1216 Probably ‘Agios’. Monastery of Saint Neophytos near the village of Tremithousa (Paphos District), twelfth century.

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the abbey of Bella Pais.1217 Kantára castle1218 has the finest views I saw, and it’s a not too trying walk from the end of the motor-road (perhaps it has been extended). The shilling motor-map is more useful for going about with than the larger scale and more recent Administration Map. Kind regards to you both. Yours sincerely George Hill There’s a possibility of my going to Sicily with Ashmole,1219 but it’s just about the time you will be away, and we shall only have fortnight, which must all be spent in the south.

241. Hill to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 68.61, handwritten) 23 WHITEHALL COURT S.W. 1 WHITEHALL 3160 2 Aug. [ust] 1947 Dear Berenson, Brockwell1220 told me you had been asking for my address, and that he was sending it to you; but the Spectator seems to have got ahead of him. Thanks to the stupidity — if nothing worse — of the authorities, I could not get leave to make any house habitable after the battering it had undergone, and I have had to get rid of nearly all my possessions, keeping only such things as I can squeeze into a small flat. Here I hope to remain until I die. The second volume of my history of Cyprus was finished before Christmas, but there seems no prospect of its appearing before 1948! It will be about 1200 pages, but will not bring things down to after 1571.1221 The next volume — to

1217 The ruins of the castle of Saint Hilarion are situated on the Kyrenia mountain range (now in Turkish-controlled Northern Cyprus). The oldest phases of this Latin castle are Byzantine, as the site of the saint’s hermitage was partially fortified before the surrender to Richard the Lionheart (Oxford, 1157–Châlus, 1199). The Abbey of Bella Pais, a ruined monastery dating to the thirteenth century in the village of Bella Pais, near Kyrenia, now in Turkish-controlled Northern Cyprus. 1218 The castle of Kantára, situated at the eastern end of the Kyrenia range (now in Turkishcontrolled Northern Cyprus) was originally a Byzantine foundation from the late ninth century and subsequently rebuilt during the centuries. 1219 Bernard Ashmole (Ilford, 1894–Peebles, 1988), archaeologist and art historian. 1220 Maurice Walter Brockwell (Sheffield, 1869–London, 1958), art historian. 1221 Hill was referring to the second and third volume of his A History of Cyprus, The Frankish Period, 1192–1432 and A History of Cyprus, The Frankish Period, 1432–1571, which were published in Cambridge (England) in 1948.

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1878 — is practically all written, but requires cleaning up by someone who knows the Turkish background.1222 I am shirking the task of describing the British rule, though I may have in an appendix something to say about certain aspects of it, if the Colonial Office allows me to say what I think, which is rather doubtful. As to the arts in Cyprus, very little, so far as I know, has been done of late. W. H. Buckler and his wife1223 (he poor man is nearly blind now) produced an article on Dated Wall-Paintings in Cyprus in tome VII (1939–1944) of the Annuaire de l’Institut de Philologie et d’Histoire Orientales et Slaves.1224 It was published at New York, but the Institut has I fancy come to life again in Brussels since Henri Grégoire1225 returned there. The article gives the inscriptions (with photographs) of eight wall-paintings. Only the parts containing the inscriptions are reproduced. Then there is an article by Indianos and Thompson [sic] on Wall-Paintings at St Neophytos Monastery in Kυπριακαì Σπουδαί vol. III (1940) pp. 155–224.1226 No illustrations. The Hetairía των Κυπριακών Σπουδών1227 is still active — it has published 7 volumes up to date — but they are very slack in sending the publication to members of the society like myself, and more may have been issued. I can’t think of anything else except a very dull note I have written for my second volume, on the portraits of Caterina Cornaro. As Loizos Philippou1228 kept badgering me for a contribution to his magazine Paphos, I let him publish a translation of it into his deplorable lingo. This I am sending you — the only copy I have — for your waste paper basket.1229 I shall be very much interested to see what you said about that profile. And I wonder what you think on Degenhart’s book on Pisanello.1230

1222 Probably Hill was referring to the fourth volume of his A History of Cyprus, The Ottoman Province; the British Colony, 1571–1948. 1223 Georgina Grenfell, née Walrond (London, 1868–Oxford, 1953), archaeologist. 1224 Hill was referring to William Hepburn Buckler and Georgina Grenfell Buckler, ‘Dated WallPaintings in Cyprus’. 1225 Henri Grégoire (Huy, Liege, 1881–Brussels, 1964), Byzantinist; in 1932 he founded the scientific review Annuaire de l’Institut de Philologie et d’Histoire Orientales et Slaves, Université Libre de Brussels. 1226 Indianos and Thomson, ‘Wall-Paintings at St Neophytos Monastery’. 1227 ‘Εταιρεία τῶν’Κυπριακών Σπουδών’ (The Society of Cypriot Studies). 1228 Loizos Philippou (Paphos, Cyprus, 1895–1950), historian, researcher, and publisher. 1229 An offprint of the article is in the same folder of this letter. See Hill, ‘Περὶ τῶν πορτραίττων τῆς Αἰκατερίνης Κορνάρου’. 1230 Perhaps Hill was referring to the Italian edition of Bernhard Degenhardt’s book on Pisanello published in 1945.

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I was disappointed in it. Yours sincerely George Hill

242. Paul Mallon to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 81.33, typewritten) 23, RUE RAYNOUARD JASMIN 04–861231 2 Février 1934 Monsieur B. BERENSON 1, Tatti Settignano FLORENCE Cher Monsieur, Ayant enfin trouvé un appartement plein de lumière, j’ai définitivement quitté la Rue du Cirque. Puis-je vous demander de bien vouloir noter mon changement d’adresse et espérer que j’aurai peut-être, ce printemps, le plaisir de recevoir votre visite dans ma nouvelle demeure? J’ai, en ce moment, de bien belles choses que je me ferais une joie de vous montrer:Une tapisserie copte, d’inspiration sassanide, qui est l’une des plus importantes connues. Elle est complète, la bordure seule manquant sur deux côtés. Elle mesure 1M [mètre] 88 sur 1M [ètre] 35 et les carrés encadrant les portraits dans chaque angle ont 27 c/m [centimètres] de côtés. Les oiseaux affrontés ont des profils de femmes.1232 Une peinture chinoise Sung, absolument sans retouche, d’un style admirable qui est peut être la plus belle que j’ai jamais eue. (Hauteur 1M [ètre] 35). De ces deux pièces, je vous envoie photographies.1233 Les coloris de la tapisserie sont d’un éclat extraordinaire: rouge vif pour le fond, plusieurs tons de vert et de jaune, rose, noir et bleu Plusieurs courriers m’ont demandé la photographie de cette pièce pour un collectionneur de tissus habitant l’Italie qui cherche actuellement des pièces de premier 1231 Paris. 1232 The Coptic tapestry, Egyptian, 400 AD, is now in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri (inv. no. 35–2, linen, 200.66 × 143.51 cm). 1233 The picture of the Coptic tapestry is in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 20, folder Textiles: Cambridge (Mass.)-New York. The Chinese painting was not found.

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ordre. Connaissant la bienveillance dont vous avez toujours fait preuve à mon égard je me permets de vous demander, au cas où vous le connaitriez, de bien vouloir me donner son nom et son adresse. Croyez que je vous en serais infiniment reconnaissant! Je viens également d’acheter une superbe sculpture égyptienne: — une femme sans tête ni pieds, de grandeur nature, mais cette pièce n’a pas encore été photographiée. Vous remerciant d’avance, je vous prie d’agréer, Cher Monsieur, l’expression de mes sentiments tout dévoués. PAUL MALLON

243. Viktor Nikitich Lazarev to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 75.64, no date, typewritten. A reference to the letter without indicating the location, should probably be identified in Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, p. 133 and n. 4) Museum of Fine Arts. Volkhonka 12 Moscow.1234 Dear Mr Berenson, I shall be infinitely grateful to you if you will help me with a little advice. The difficulty is this. The MS [Manuscript] of my ‘Byzantine Painting’1235 has been lying in the Pantheon publishing house, ready to be printed, ever since 1932. It consists of about 650 typewritten pages and a very large collection of photographic material intended to make up 340 collotype plates. In this book I have summed up all the results of my work on the subject of Byzantine art including an immense amount of new material. Most of the photos are of hitherto unpublished monuments. I signed an agreement with Curt [sic] Wolff Verlag for its publication as long ago as 1925 since when much water has flowed under the bridge. The publishing house has been passed from hand to hand, and the different persons who have taken over management of it have always cheated me with false promises that my book was on the point of publication. I have waited patiently because I wanted to see my work appear in the Pantheon series which, as you know, leaves nothing to be desired from a polygraphic point of view. But all patience has an end, and I fear that I have nothing to hope for from the Pantheon which, as I hear, is insolvent. It is my intention, therefore, to cancel my agreement with this firm and try to place my MS [Manuscript] with some other house. Would it not be possible for you to give me a little friendly help in this matter by speaking to some of the English or French editors of your acquaintance about the possibility of publishing my book? I am not so much concerned about royalties as that it should be issued in a good form.

1234 The place (as well as the signature) of the letter are handwritten by Lazarev. 1235 On Lazarev’s Byzantine painting, see n. 684.

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I am sorry to have to trouble you and hope that this request will not inconvenience you. I have taken the liberty of turning to you because I know of your great interest in Byzantine art. Sincerly yours, V. Lazarev

244. Lazarev to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 75.64, handwritten) 23/ VII 36 Dear Mr Berenson, I am very much pleased to receive from you the Italian edition of your book.1236 I have studied your lists with the greatest interest and observe that you have made a number of important changes. It now seems quite possible that your book will be translated into Russian under my supervision. I will write you in more detail when the plan is definitive.1237 I hope you received all the information you needed from Prof. Dobroklonsky1238 of the Hermitage. I wrote him three letters beside speaking with him personally. I can do no more. You cannot imagine the difficulty involved in business dealings with the officials of the Hermitage! With kindest regards, Yours sincerely V. Lazarev

245. Rhys Carpenter to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 33.38, handwritten) RHYS CARPENTER JERRY RUN1239 DOWNINGTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA June 30. 1939

1236 Perhaps Lazarev was referring to Berenson, Pitture italiane del Rinascimento. Catalogo dei principali artisti e delle loro opere on un indice dei luoghi, trans. by Cecchi published in 1936. 1237 The book was not translated into Russian under Lazarev’s supervision. 1238 Mikhail Vasil’evich Dobroklonskii (Saint Petersburg, Russia, 1886–1964), head of the Department of Graphics and Drawings of The State Hermitage Museum. 1239 Rhys Carpenter’s estate.

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My dear Mr Berenson: I have never yet heard of anyone receiving from the great ‘B.B.’ a letter of such unstinted commendation as came wholly unexpectedly into my hands some weeks ago. I had thought — (was I unjust?) — that among the few who were even less eager than myself at executing those dreadful holographs known as ‘personal correspondence’ was the master of ‘I Tatti’. In any case I shall put it in my herbarium and mark it ‘XXX Extremely Rare’. Since last we had the pleasure of your hospitality, we have bought a 110-acre farm near the Brandywine,1240 shut in by its own rolling landscape of woods, fields, and streams. Here we have turned a sloping hillside into a too-elaborate but not too-formal garden, hitched the old stone barn to the not-so-old stone wagon-shed by a connecting link with culinary intent, and tried our hands at a sensible modernistic style. I fear much of the modernity as neo-Byzantine, since the painted designs on our ceiling beams are adaptations of the ornamental frames around the mosaics of Hosios Lukas in Beotia,1241 and our color-sense is unmistakably ‘east-Greek’. However, the result is unique enough to make us think we invented it, and pleasant enough to allow us to live in it with comfortable equanimity. In spite of all these new-sprung roots, we are pulling up in September and coming to Rome for the academic year. We have been away from Europe too long and are especially homesick for the Mediterranean. As you know, we have always loved and admired Italy. Seven years — they tell me — have made great changes in Rome: and being a good Athenian, I am still curious of new things. Eleanor1242 joins me in warmest personal regards to you both. I add only my apologies that being in a sense a man of letters, I am always in hot water for the letters I have not been man enough to write. Very sincerely yours, Rhys Carpenter

246. Antonis Benakis to BB (BBP, Correspondence, Box 27, folder 16 bis, typewritten) ΕΝ ΑΘΗΝΑΙC ΤΗ. January 19th 1940 Όδòς Koνμϖάρʜ. [Κουμπάρη] ΜΟΥCΕΙΟΝ ΜΠΕΝΑΚΗ ΑΘΗΝΑΙ BENAKI MUSEUM - ATHENS

1240 Brandywine River in southeastern Pennsylvania. 1241 Carpenter was referring to the mosaics of the Katholikon of Saint Luke Monastery, see n. 927. 1242 Eleanor Houston Hill, wife of Rhys Carpenter.

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Mr B. BERENSON 1, Tatti Settignano FLORENCE ˉˉˉˉˉˉˉˉˉˉˉˉˉ Dear Mr Berenson, I must apologize for not sending you these photographs earlier, but I have been so busy, that I had quite forgotten my promise. I now enclose 10 photos1243 chosen by Madame Levi1244 when she was here. You will find behind each the number of the showcase the object is in, the number it bears in the case and the page of the Guide you will find it on. I am also posting you a copy of our Guide in English,1245 in which you will be able to find the description of these objects. The ikon (photograph N° 8) you had seen in my home, when you last visited Athens,1246 if you remember. I should have sent you a photograph ages ago, but it had unfortunately escaped my memory. If there is anything else you would care to have a photograph of, I shall be happy to send you one; I would, however, beg you not to publish any of those enclosed (excepting the ikon), as they have not yet been published by us. On second thoughts, I am posting you a Catalogue of the Icons in this Museum. Although it is in Greek, the plates might interest you.1247 Begging you once again to excuse the delay in fulfilling my promise.,

1243 The photos were not identified except the icon with The Hospitality (Philoxenia) of Abraham, see n. 1246. 1244 Anna Kosadinou (Istanbul, 1895–Athens, Greece, 1981), wife of Doro Levi; she was a Greek from Istanbul, a phanariotis (from Phanèr), the Greek quarter, the most elegant area of the city. See Bandini, Lettere dall’Egeo, pp. 122–23 and n. 3. 1245 Benakis was probably referring to the 1936 Guide. Benaki Museum Athens a copy of which is in Biblioteca Berenson. 1246 It is the icon representing The Hospitality (Philoxenia) of Abraham, currently in the Benaki Museum, late fourteenth century (inv. no. 2973, tempera and gold on wood, priming on textile, 36 × 62 cm). The picture of the icon published here (Fig. 43), is in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 7, folder Icons: Agios Vasilios-Athos. 1247 Probably Benakis was referring to Andreas Xyngopoulos, Μουσεῖον Μπενάκη. Κατάλογος τῶν εἰκόνων published in 1936. The volume is not present in Biblioteca Berenson.

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Very truly yours Antony E. Benaki.

247. Ernest Theodore DeWald to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 40.64, typewritten) HEADQUARTERS ALLIED COMMISION MFAA December 18, 1944 Dear Mr Berenson: It was an unusual pleasure to see you again the other day and have lunch with you. Major Gardner1248 and I started off the next day for Ravenna, and, as I promised you, I am now writing down briefly herewith a short notice of the condition of things there so that you can be kept up to date. It is really miraculous how the great mosaics there have been spared damage and we can only hope that the Germans wont do any additional damage by shelling as they have done at Forlì.1249 As for Ravenna:1250 San Vitale, the church and the mosaics are intact in spite of the fact that a bomb destroyed the building right next to the octagon and damaged the cloister. Galla Placidia, is absolutely intact. The Germans had said that we had destroyed it. The mosaics and the great sarcophagus are as beautiful as ever.

1248 Joseph Paul Gardner (Somerville, 1894–Lincoln, 1972), architect, dancer, and museum curator. During the Second World War he served in the US Army, Military Intelligence Service on the Sub-commission for Monuments and Fine Arts in Italy. 1249 Forlì, a city in Emilia-Romagna region, northern Italy. 1250 Ravenna was bombed for the first time on 30 December 1943, but the most intense period for Anglo-American aviation was between the end of June and September 1944. It is in this phase that the monuments of the city were hit even if the Allied objective was not the destruction of the urban fabric but the annihilation of the railway lines, the port, the communication routes, the factories, etc. However, the damage done to the city and its monuments was enormous. See Balzani and Malagolini, ‘La ricostruzione dei monumenti ravennati’, pp. 225–43, especially p. 225. On damage to the monuments of Ravenna, see also Capezzuoli, ‘Notiziario. Danni di guerra ai monumenti di Ravenna’.

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Duomo,1251 has been hit in the roof but no damage to the contents of the building. The Orthodox Baptistry alongside has a few shrapnel marks on the exterior. The marvelous mosaics inside and the relief figures are untouched. There was a slight crack in the border mosaics over the entrance door but that has been repaired. A handful of blue mosaic cubes which had fallen out were taken as souvenirs by German soldiers. The Arian Baptistry. There were direct hits all around the small square and buildings have collapsed alongside, but the baptistry itself and the mosaics are intact. The Archbishop’s Palace and the chapel with the mosaics are intact.1252 The Chair of Maximianus is walled up and safe. All the sculptural details of the old cathedral which are in the palace are in good condition. San Apollinare Nuovo. A real miracle. The house across the street was demolished by a bomb; the house right up against the campanile is down flat, yet the campanile itself stands intact. Inside the church the force of the explosion-blasts has brought down the stucco vaults of the right aisle. The late apse is cracked. Several of the ceiling coffers near the apse have been displaced, but the nave-arcade and the clerestorey with all the mosaics are absolutely intact. San Apollinare in Classe has been hit by about a dozen artillery shells, several of which hit the campanile but not too seriously. It can easily be repaired. The hits on the church itself have damaged the roof and the side-aisle walls; but again the marvel is that the sarcophagi ranged along both side-aisles are intact with one exception and that one has a crack through one of the lambs. The apse and its mosaic are intact. There are four small shrapnel holes in the mosaic but they have not damaged any of the figures. In the case of all these buildings we are going to have the genio civile go over them very carefully to ascertain whether there be any structural weakness or damage which is not apparent superficially. The Mausoleum of Theodoric1253 is not damaged.

1251 The Cathedral of Ravenna is the result of a radical intervention that took place in the eighteenth century, consisting of the demolition of the ancient cathedral, the Basilica Ursiana, founded by Bishop Ursus at the end of the fourth century. 1252 The Archiepiscopal’s Palace of contemporary foundation to the nearby Basilica Ursiana but remodeled several times, with a nineteenth century façade. It is the seat of the Museo Arcivescovile where the Cappella Arcivescovile (or Cappella di Sant’Andrea) is located. The chapel was built by Bishop Pietro II (494–519) and the wall mosaic in it dates back to this time. 1253 The Mausoleum of Theodoric, built c. 526 ce as his burial place remained unfinished.

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The Palace of Theodoric1254 is also in good condition. San Giovanni Evangelista.1255 Being near the railroad station, it has been badly damaged. All the facade is gone except for the portal. Several bays nearest the facade have also collapsed. The mosaic panels of the old floor which are ranged along the lower wall of the left aisle are intact for the most part.1256 Several are still buried beneath the rubble of the western end of the church. S. Maria in Porto Fuori, we could not get to. The area is still mined and at the time of our visit was partly under water. But it has been badly damaged and many of the frescoes lost.1257 We expect to salvage as many pieces as possible once we can get at it. (I neglected to say that the 14th century frescoes in S. Giovanni Evangelista are also partly gone).1258 San Francesco. The roof of the eastern end of the north aisle is gone and a hole in the wall of the chapel containing the Giottesque frescoes has destroyed the frescoes.1259

1254 The so-called ‘Palace of Theodoric’ usually refers to the architectural remnants of a building overlooking the present Via di Roma, next to the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, its name comes from a traditional identification with the palace of Theodoric. 1255 The Church of San Giovanni Evangelista, founded as a Palatine chapel by Galla Placidia, c. 426–34, which was remodelled in various periods. 1256 DeWald was referring to the series of fragmentary mosaic panels in the medieval floor commissioned by Abbot Guglielmo in 1213 during the remodelling of the early Christian building after the installation of the Benedictine monastic community, which are still visible. Further panels of the medieval mosaic floor (perhaps already seen in the post-war arrangement works), have recently been identified in the basilica’s cloister, see Lombardo and Melega, ‘Il pavimento duecentesco di San Giovanni Evangelista a Ravenna’. 1257 The Church of Santa Maria in Porto Fuori near Ravenna consecrated by Archbishop Gualtiero in 1131 was subsequently enlarged in 1314 when the three apse chapels and the raised choir were built. The church almost completely destroyed in the bombing of 5 November 1944 was later rebuilt. DeWald was certainly referring to the murals that adorned the three apses and the triumphal arch of the basilica probably commissioned by Ostasio da Polenta between 1329 and 1333 and attributed by most scholars to Pietro da Rimini even if recently questioned. On the murals, see lastly Volpe, Pietro da Rimini, with bibliography; Massaccesi, ‘Politiche pontificie e immagini’, pp. 95–105, especially pp. 97–102; on the war events, see Novelli, ‘La distruzione della basilica di Santa Maria in Porto Fuori’, pp. 19–31 and in general the whole volume. 1258 DeWald was referring to the murals in the Chapel of Gherardo di Massa in the Basilica of San Giovanni Evangelista attributed to a follower of Jacopo Avanzi executed in 1380 and severely damaged during the Second World War, see Benati, Jacopo Avanzi, p. 117 fig. 122; p. 120 and n. 105. 1259 The Basilica of San Francesco, founded by Bishop Neone (fifth century) in honor of the Holy Apostles; long dedicated to S. Pietro Maggiore, it owes its present name to the conventual friars since 1261. The church was almost completely rebuilt around the year 1000; extensively remodeled during the eighteenth century and again in the 1920s. DeWald was probably referring to the so-called ‘Chapel of the Da Polenta family’.

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Rimini is a scene of utter desolation. But again in the case of the Tempio Malatestiano1260 although the east end is smashed to bits and the entire roof is gone, the decorated piers were walled up and are standing and all of the exposed reliefs of Agostino di Duccio1261 on the chapel doorways and walls and all the statues along the ledge of the clerestorey are in an extraordinary state of preservation. One of the twenty-some statues is minus a head, another is minus a face, the rest are intact! At Forlì a few days before we got there (Dec. [ember] 10 to be exact) the church of S. Biagio with Melozzo frescoes1262 was destroyed by the enemy. With renewed best wishes for the holidays, cordially yours, Ernest T. De Wald, Lt. [Lieutenant] Col. [onel]

248. DeWald to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 40.64, handwritten) 76 Library Place Princeton, N. [ew] J. [ersey] Dear B B: What a pleasure it was to get word from you-and how tardy I have been answering! Fact is I had intended to write shortly after my return. But I caught the same restlessness of readjustment to more peaceful pursuit which everyone else returning has caught. I thought that my more ‘advanced’ age would help me in the process of settling down but that was a false assumption. In the Spring I stepped right into teaching instead of taking my three months leave, hoping thereby to get into the stride of things the more easily. But it didn’t help much. I couldn’t quite see the connection between that which I had been doing for the last three years and teaching of the young again. But a lazy month at the shore this summer restored my emotional equilibrium to a large extent. I do however still have sharp twinges of nostalgia for Italy and want to return somehow, sometime.

1260 The Tempio Malatestiano, built by Leon Battista Alberti (Genoa, 1404–Rome, 1472) at the behest of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta (Brescia, 1417–Rimini, 1468) from around 1450, incorporating the structures of the old Franciscan church, surrounded them by a shining marble casing. 1261 Agostino di Duccio (Florence, 1418–Perugia, c. 1481), sculptor. 1262 DeWald was referring to the Feo Chapel in the Church of San Biagio consecrated in 1433 and remodelled in the seventeenth century with murals by Melozzo da Forlì and Marco Palmezzano, 1493–1494.

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It seems that my taste for the minutiae of Wissenschaft has also gone stale. I would rather write on things which might have a wider appeal, or at least bring to more public attention some of the significant Tre- and Quattrocento friends of ours. For sometime I have been contemplating an edition of fine details, with a short text, of Duccio’s works,1263 à la Phaidon Press publications.1264 It would make a handsome volume.1265 If possible I may come over this summer. If not then I shall have a termis leave during the Spring of 1948, and would come there. We have all been active in one form or another with the Committee for the Restoration of Italian Monuments. My activity has been chiefly in the form of consultations and lectures. Fred1266 is also busy in this. You will have met Laurance Roberts and wife by this time. He is a very nice and able fellow and has probably told you how he wishes to make the Academy in Rome more active along Medieval and Renaissance lines. It may be that I can go there as a visiting fireman sometime. That would please me too. The exhibitions at Pisa and Siena1267 which you mention must have been exciting. Would that I could have seen them. But I am certain that other good ones will be organized in near future for us to profit by and enjoy. Here at Princeton we are in the midst of a bi-centennial celebration year with conferences on all phases of science and culture. The Art conferences take place in April and centre around Far Eastern and Byzantine Art.1268 Tisserand [sic] and Jerphanion are coming over from Italy and Grabar from Paris for the Byzantine sessions.1269 The Walters

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Duccio di Buoninsegna. Phaidon Press, New York and London. The volume was not realized. In 1955 DeWald wrote an essay ‘Observations on Duccio’s Maestà’. Fred W. Shipman (Worcester, Mass., 1903–Washington, DC, 1978), archivist and the then first director of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library (now Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum) Hyde Park, New York. 1267 Probably DeWald was referring to the same exhibitions mentioned by BB in the letter to Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli of 17 October 1946: no. 168. 1268 On Princeton’s Bicentennial Conference see Edward W. Forbes’s letter to BB, 8 May 1947: no. 62 and n. 439. 1269 The session entitled Studies in Byzantine Art and the Future need of Scholarly Cooperation between Institutions of Learning took place Wednesday, 23 April. Father Anatole-MarieGuillaume de Jerphanion held a conference entitled Les Peintures de la Synagogue de Dura et l’Art Chrétien du haut moyen-âge e du moyen-âge oriental, that of André Grabar, Sainte-Sophie d’Edesse d’après une hymne syriaque, while that of Cardinal Eugène-Gabriel-Gervais-Laurent Tisserant (Nancy, 1884–Albano Laziale, 1972), The Vatican and Byzantine Studies. I would like to thank Rosalba Varallo Recchia, Special Collections Assistant, Seeley G. Mudd

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Gallery is putting on a large Byzantine exhibition in Baltimore1270 for us, and George Rowley1271 is organizing another show here of Chinese bronzes and paintings.1272 I have been asked to write up the Byzantine show for a Swiss Zeitschrift.1273 My warmest greetings to you all and to you in particular. I look back with the keenest pleasure to my short visits to I Tatti and especially to the lovely supper under the trees we had just as I was leaving Italy for Austria. Yours Ernest De Wald January 7, 1947.

249. Franco Venturi to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 106.41, typewritten) Mosca, 5 dicembre 1949 Ambasciata d’Italia Mosca Dott. B. Berenson I Tatti Settignano (Firenze) Gentilissimo Maestro, la ringrazio molto della sua lettera del 27 ottobre. Mi ha fatto molto piacere sapere che il libro di Lazarev l’abbia interessato.1274 A quanto mi hanno detto è già uscita anche la storia dell’arte bizantina di questi, in due volumi, il primo di testo ed il secondo di illustrazioni.1275 Per ora mi è stato impossibile trovarlo, non essendo ancora in vendita nelle librerie di Mosca. Naturalmente non appena avrò un’occasione mi affretterò ad inviarglielo. Sono ben felice di poterle cercare altri libri sull’arte russa. Presso i librai antiquari non è impossibile trovare anche le più belle edizioni, ma disgraziatamente non capitano con molta frequenza.

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Manuscript Library Princeton University, for providing me with the PDF which includes the Bicentennial Conference Program and the typewritten copies of the lectures by Tisserant, de Jerphanion, and Grabar. On the exhibition, see n. 437. George Rowley (Snow Hill, Maryland, 1893–Princeton, 1962), Associate Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton and curator of Far Eastern Art at Princeton University Art Museum. The exhibitions of Chinese art took place at Princeton University Art Museum. It is not known which review DeWald was referring to. Perhaps Venturi was referring to Lazarev, Искусство Новгорода (transliteration: Iskusstvo Novgoroda) published in 1947 a copy of which is in Biblioteca Berenson. On Lazarev’s Byzantine painting, see n. 684.

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La ringrazio infinitamente per quanto lei mi scrive, e sarò veramente felice di poter venire a riverirla, forse già questa estate, al mio ritorno in Italia. Si abbia tutti i miei migliori e più devoti saluti. Franco Venturi

250. Vladimir Gregorievitch Simkhovitch to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 96.86, handwritten) VLADIMIR G. SIMKHOVITCH 27 Barrow St New-York City September 20. 1950 Dear Mr Berenson, some time ago Billie Ivins1276 told me that you would like to hear from me. I did not write because neither I nor Mary were particularly well and I do not like to write depressed letters. More than our own welfare the State of the world bothered me and does now. I hate to share Spenglers’ idea of the ‘Untergang des Abendlandes’,1277 because our civilization is so wonderful a civilization and its eclipse may give birth to something — but it will take ages before it will amount to something in terms of personal freedom and a superior collective culture. Billie asked what I sent you of my publications — and I frankly do not know. I do not remember sending you my ‘Toward the Understanding of Jesus, and Other Historical Studies’1278 I doubt whether I sent you the series of my articles called ‘Approaches to History’.1279 I have a set here in Maine and will send it to you. My book on Christ — I will send you when I come to New-York, which will be next week. Of my ‘Approaches to History’ I believe that the Vth article will be of some interest to you — at least art historians & archaeologists were interested in it to a considerable extent.

1276 William Mills Ivins, Jr., curator of the Department of Prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York from 1916 to 1946. 1277 Oswald Spengler (Blankenburg im Harz, 1880–Munich, 1936), philosopher and historian, see Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes. Umrisse einer Morphologie der Weltgeschichte, 1, Gestalt und Wirklichkeit published in 1918. This edition was revised and published several times. The second volume entitled, Der Untergang des Abendlandes. Umrisse einer Morphologie der Weltgeschichte Welthistorische Perspektiven was published in 1922. 1278 See Simkhovitch, Toward the Understanding of Jesus, And Other Historical Studies published in 1921. It is not known whether Simkhovitch sent Berenson the book which is still in Biblioteca Berenson. It seems to be a previous acquisition since the title page bears the following handwritten annotation: ‘Berenson I Tatti Settignano Firenze April 1922’. 1279 Simkhovitch, Approaches to History, 6 fasc. published in 1929–1936, reprinted in Political Science Quarterly: 44.4; 45.4; 47.3; 48.1; 49.1; 51.1. The six fasc. of Simkhovitch’s Approaches to History are in Biblioteca Berenson.

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What I said about Greek Archaeology and his1280 assumptions and mental approaches, is true about other fields. I was forced to take an interest in the Byzantine field, by having acquired twenty odd or more years ago a Byzantine marble relief of the head of Christ,1281 which was a victim of the Iconoclastic war. Most of the leading Byzantinists on both sides of the water studied it and ascribed to it dates from the IV to the VIII century, they had however one thing in common they all looked for the ‘Prototype’ and the bulk of them, assigned [it] to the actual historical period of the Iconoclastic war. The strange thing is that not one of them — and they all were great men, for whom I have the highest regard, realized two things: 1) First of all is that the pagans who first adopted Christianity — in the very nature of things had to struggle with a curious situation so far as popular feeling was concerned — one was to destroy the pagan images, the other was the traditional impulse to have before them tokens or representations of their new faith. Hence iconoclasm started not at the date given in Histories, but wherever a statue of the Christ or the Virgin was put up as an Emblem of worship — divided sentiment was inevitable. The ‘innovation’ was more than a heresy, it was against the commandments of God! It is not a mere theory of mine! In Spain in Elvira1282 the Synod of the Spanish Episcopate1283 prohibited not only sculptures but sacred representations of even in pictures & illuminations — and as a result you will find no human representations in any Spanish MSS [Manuscripts] before the year 1000! Hence Iconoclasm as sporadic movements started long, before the Iconoclastic war! Under such circumstances to assume ‘a prototype’ is silly. Every Early image here & there & everywhere — was originally an independent ‘prototype’ and most of them had no followers, because they were destroyed especially when they were put up in a church and were not merely a matter of decoration as an Scrofagoi,1284 which could not be considered objects of veneration or worship. Mary1285 & myself are retired people. I am 76 years old and have been for the last 6 years ‘Professor Emeritus’. We still live in Greenwich House on 27 Barrow Street, but

1280 Perhaps ‘whose’. 1281 The fragmentary relief can be identified with that in the photo that Simkhovitch sent to Berenson probably attached to the handwritten letter of 23 October 1950 which is not published here but in BBP, folder 96.86. See Fig. 44 in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 5, folder Architecture/Sculpture: Whereabouts Unknown. On the back of the photo is a handwritten note by Berenson: ‘Simkhovitch Oct. [ober] 23, 1950. Byzantine, perhaps fragment of icon broken by Iconoclasts. See S’ [imkhovitch] letter’. 1282 Elvira, ancient toponym. 1283 The Synod of Elvira was held around 306. 1284 Perhaps Simkhovitch intended to write ‘Sarkofagoi’ or ‘sarcophagus’. 1285 Mary Melinda Kingsbury (Chestnut Hill, 1867–New York City, 1951), social settlement leader, housing reformer and wife of Simkhovitch. See also p. 426.

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Mary retired from the management of the Settlement, but she is active on various boards & committees & like myself devote what leasure time we have to writing.— I am gradually getting rid of parts of my Collection. My Chinese paintings were purchased by the Philadelphia Museum1286 some of my illuminations by Cleveland & other museums The Lorenzo Monaco & Cherico that Dr Milliken1287 published were of my collection also the Tree of Jesse that he published1288 One illumination that I have bothers me. It is a beauty, it is Italian under some direct influences of the Byzantine Renaissance, I should say that its date is ab. [about] 1325 but whether it is Northern Italian or Southern Italian — I can not tell. It is so extraordinary that it may be by a well known painter & when I come to New-York, I will photograph it and send it to you.1289 You with your vast knowledge & genius may throw some light on it. For 52 years we are spending our summers in Maine. We have here quite a lot of land that were abandoned fields overgrown by alders & the trees, so I am spending my time in reclaiming these fields and planting apple or orchards — and they are doing well. Instead of alder bushes I have now 970 fruit-trees. I fear that I will not live long enough to see results of my agricultural labors, but some one will benefit by it after my death. Mary is sending you her affectionate regards and so do I. Cordially yours VladimirG Simkhovitch

251. Julia Wadleigh to Nicky Mariano (BBP, Correspondence, folder 107.26 bis, typewritten) Via Mario de’ Fiori 16, Rome 25.IV. 52

1286 Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art. 1287 William Mathewson Milliken (Stamford, Connecticut, 1889–Cleveland, 1978), director of the Cleveland Museum of Art from 1930 to 1958. 1288 Milliken, ‘Miniatures by Lorenzo Monaco and Francesco del Cherico’; Milliken, ‘A Tree of Jesse’. 1289 Simkhovitch was referring to a leaf from a Gradual with historiated initial (M), SS. Peter and Andrew, currently assigned to the so-called Master of Isaac and Esau, Bologna, fourteenth century, now in the Cleveland Museum of Art, not on view (inv. no. 1952.87, ink, tempera and gold on parchment, 54.5 × 37.5 cm). The photo is in BBF in the Illuminated Manuscripts section, arranged in topographic order.

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Dear Nicky, I am very sorry to hear from Amy Aldrich1290 that I shall not find you in Florence where I shall be for a few days next week. I meant to go earlier, but have been held up by a boring attack of influenza. I am sending you the few photographs I was able to get in Greece, to I Tatti. With the photographs is a pamphlet that Dr Pelikanides wished to send to Mr Berenson.1291 I went with him to most of the churches in Salonika, and especially, on the last day after having had your card, to Hosios David. There are unfortunately no photographs at all of that, and very few of any of the churches, though I went with Dr Pelikanides to the photographer he recommended, who printed a few of these I send: he had almost no plates left after the war. The ones of Hagios Demetrios are the only ones taken since the restoration.1292 You will see the new work framing the mosaics:1293 there is also one photograph of the crypt and one of the exterior.1294 The little church of St Catherine1295 Pelikanides calls ‘his child’ he restored it last year (the white painted iron grilles seemed to Mrs Holt1296 and me rather unfortunate, but he was very pleased with it as a whole) and expects to carry out other restorations as soon as he can get the necessary money. Dr Pelikanides sends the three protographs of the apse in Verria1297 which he thinks Mr Berenson may not have seen: he says he took off the plaster or white-wash a

1290 Perhaps Amey Owen Aldrich (Providence, 1873–New York, 1963), sister of Chester Holmes Aldrich, architect and director of the American Academy in Rome from 1935 to 1940. 1291 Certainly the pamphlet by Stylianos Pelekanidis (Πελεκανίδης, Στυλιανός) to which Wadleigh was referring should be identified with the one in Biblioteca Berenson entitled: Παλαιοχριστιανικά μνημεῖα Θεσσαλονίκης. ᾽Αχειροποίητος – Μονή Λατόμου published in 1949. In the Hollis Harvard Library catalog entry the title of the pamphlet is in English: Early Christian Monuments in Salonika. 1292 Wadleigh was referring to the restoration after the fire of 1917. See n. 230. 1293 Perhaps the photos are to be identified with those in BBF, section Architecture topographic Greece, Box 15, folder Mosaics: Thessalonike. 1294 The photo of the crypt of Saint Demetrius is in BBF, section Architecture topographic Greece, Box 5, folder Architecture/Scupture: Thessalonike 2. The photo of the exterior of Saint Demetrius has not been identified. 1295 The Church of Saint Catherine, built between 1300–1320. The photo of the church where the white painted iron grilles are visible, is in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 5, folder Architecture/Scupture: Thessalonike 2. 1296 Perhaps Wadleigh was referring to the wife of John B. Holt, Consul General of the United States in Thessaloniki from 1951 to 1952. There is no information on Holt’s wife. 1297 Veria, a city in Central Macedonia, northern Greece. The photos of the murals in the apse of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ the Saviour (fourteenth century) two of which published here (figs 45–46), are in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 6, folder 11 Mural Paintings: Thessalonika-Wadi El Natrun.

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year and a half ago. I was rather surprised to have Paul Geier1298 tell me that there was a full description of the paintings in the Guide Bleu,1299 but perhaps they were only of the apse. The frescoes in the church itself and on the sides of the apse were extremely interesting but there were no pictures of them. Dr Pelikanides, as a good Byzantine, wants to be justified in believing that the influence of Byzantine painting on Italian was as important as that of the Italian on the Byzantine: he would like to think that Mr Berenson agreed with him, after seeing these photographs. He would also be immensely grateful, I think, for any photographs of contemporary Italian painting (especially of Cavallini) that would back up his judgement, if Mr Berenson had any that he could spare to send to him. I am afraid I don’t know his name, except Dr Pelikanides, but anything sent care of John Holt, American Consulate, Salonika, would reach him. I asked particularly, about the condition of the monuments and the Arch1300 and Pelikanides said he was satisfied about them. Some of the churches in the small villages seem to be rather painfully neglected, particularly in Arta,1301 and camions are kept behind the wall of the apse in Verria and have left it rather battered. I wish I had been more successful in finding photographs. I went in Athens to the photographer1302 recommended by Mr Stevens,1303 but he had nothing. In all I spent 37,000 drachmas, for the photographs I have sent, which at 15,000 to the dollar amounts to the large sum of two dollars. Please don’t bother to send it: the next time I see you you can pay me if you feel you must. I shall telephone when I am in Florence, on the chance of finding you, and if not I shall probably be coming through in the autumn. Byba,1304 whom we met in the groves of Olympia, has just written me to say that she has a small flat available which I am going to see next week, so it is possible that I might come to stay. I wish both you and Mr Berenson a pleasant summer. I am going to Switzerland for two months,

1298 Paul Esselborn Geier (Cincinnati, 1914–Vienna, 1981) was a U.S. Foreign Service Officer who served in Rome as Consul and First Secretary from 1951 to 1953. 1299 Which Guide Blu it is has not been identified. 1300 Perhaps Wadleigh was referring to the triumphal Arch of the tetrarch Galerius in Thessaloniki, which was part of Galerius’s Palace (including the Rotunda, the Octagon and the Hippodrome), built between 298 and 305 ce. The archaeological site was the subject of systematic excavation from 1950 to 1970. 1301 Arta, a city in Epirus region, northwestern Greece. 1302 It is not known which photographer Wadleigh was referring to. 1303 Perhaps Wadleigh was referring to Gorham Phillips Stevens who was director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens from 1939 to 1941. 1304 Vincenza Giuliani Coster, called ‘Byba’ (1889–1987), wife of Charles Henry Coster.

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and have written to Frances1305 to let me know about their plans. I am so glad about the Cambridge degree. Always yours, Julia (Wadleigh)

252. Wadleigh to Nicky (BBP, Correspondence, folder 107.26 bis, typewritten) Chalet Julia, St Moritz, Grisons 31. VII. 1952 Dear Nicky, I am glad you found the photographs safely in Florence. I should have labelled them, but to send to Mr Berenson it seemed like an impertinence. I only hope I shall remember which is which when I come to Florence, as I hope to do in the autumn. The photographs of the seated Madonna and bending angels, curved, as you will see, to fit into the apse — I cannot remember whether they were two or three, are the only available photographs of Verria. These were taken by Pelikanides, but for some incomprehensible reason he took no others. I should so much have liked to have, and to have you see, the Raising of Lazarus, and the amazing Crucifixion, with Christ mounting a primitive kind of ladder, with alacrity to reach the Cross. Pelikanides said that this was a theme often used to show the willingness to accept the crucifixion: I had never seen it before. These were along the walls of the nave but there are no photographs of them. It was the angels and the Madonna that Pelikanides thought might have been influenced by or have influenced the school of Cavallini, and that is what he hoped Mr Berenson would tell him! There seemed to be no particular reason why there was such a scarcity of photographs: some of the ones I sent were only to be found in one shop and were only printed to oblige Pelikanides. I am glad to think that you are out of the heat. I left Alassio1306 and fled up here quite shattered. This is wonderful air, and walks to be taken in every direction through these delicious scented woods. I hope to stay all through August if I don’t get irritated by the virtues of the Swiss. I have just walked past an electric power house which is labelled Post Tenebras Lux: I am sure no other nation would have been so smug. But I am extremely comfortable in a very cheap little pension, high up above the village where I don’t hear a sound, have a big balcony, and a biggish room, a good chaise longue and reading-lamp and bed, and best of all sleep with three blankets and a hot-water bottle

1305 Perhaps Wadleigh was referring to Frances Meriam Burrage (1903–1989), wife of Henry Sayles Francis, curator of painting and prints at the Cleveland Museum of Art from 1931 to 1967, with whom Berenson was in contact. 1306 Alassio, a city in the province of Savona on the western coast of Liguria.

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and even one of those damnable duvets. I hope you and Mr Berenson are refreshed in Vallombrosa. I wish I knew where Frances and B1307 are, and that I had not somehow missed any notice of the confering of this degree. I hope to see you in the autumn in Florence, and send you both my saluti. Affectionately yours, Julia Wadleigh Please excuse the typewriter: this room is equipped very well for writing on a machine but not with a pen.

253. Mary Alison Frantz to BB (BBP, Correspondence, folder 53.25, typewritten) AGORA EXCAVATIONS AMERICAN SCHOOL OF CLASSICAL STUDIES ATHENS, GREECE May 26, 1956 Mr Bernard Berenson Villa I’ Tatti Florence Italy. Dear Mr Berenson: A recent letter from Mr A. C. Campbell1308 tells us that you would be interested in having photographs of the post-Byzantine frescoes in the Church of the Holy Apostles in Athens, and I take great pleasure in sending you these under separate cover.1309 As Mr Campbell probably told you, most of these frescoes were removed from the 17th century church of St Spyridon, before it was demolished some years ago; they have now been set in the walls of the newly rebuilt narthex of the eleventh century church of the Holy Apostles. The frescoes presumably date from soon after 1613, a date inscribed on the wall of St Spyridon under the plaster (cf. [compare] Hesperia, IX, 1940, p. 293).1310 I am also sending two photographs of frescoes belonging to an earlier

1307 Unidentified name. 1308 Alexander C. Campbell, American lawyer and trustee of Samuel H. Kress Foundation, which acted as financial support for the conservation of the Church of the Holy Apostles in the Athenian Agora. 1309 The photos of the murals are in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 6, folder Mural Paintings: Arediou-Athens. 1310 See Shear, ‘The Campaign of 1939’, The American Excavations in the Athenian Agora.

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church which was incorporated into Spyridon (Hesperia, X, 1941, pp. 193–98).1311 I hope that Mr Campbell warned you that the artistic quality of these frescoes is not of the highest, but perhaps association with you and your works will lend them some lustre. Sincerely yours, Alison Frantz MAF/ak

1311 The two photos of the murals mentioned by Frantz represent the fragmentary figures of Saint Stephen and Saint Blasius belonging to the decoration of the earlier church incorporated into Spyridon (the latter demolished in 1939) in the area of the Athenian Agora. Actually both murals dating back to the beginning of the fifteenth century are located in the Church of the Holy Apostles, where they are inserted into the lower part of the south wall in the southwestern angle chamber. The two photos sent to Berenson and published here (figs 47–48) are in BBF, Byzantine art and architecture, Box 6, Mural Paintings: Arediou-Athens. San Blasius’s photo was published in Shear, ‘The Campaign of 1939’, The American Excavations in the Athenian Agora, fig. 36 on p. 294, while both photos are in Frantz, ‘St Spyridon: The Earlier Frescoes’, The American Excavations in the Athenian Agora, pp. 193–98, figs 5–6.

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Figure 14. Joannes Permeniates, Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, painting. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Mrs T. O. Richardson. Sixteenthseventeenth century. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 15. Unidentified Artist, Virgin and Child, painting. Harvard Art Museums/ Fogg Museum, Gift of Edward W. Forbes. Fifteenth-sixteenth century. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 16. Istanbul, Kariye Camii, outer nartex, second bay, eastern arch, looking east, St Philemon, mosaic, before cleaning in 1950. Byzantine Institute and Dumbarton Oaks Fieldwork Records and Papers, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, DC, CC0 License. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 17. Parecclesion, Kariye Camii, Istanbul, view into the dome, before cleaning in 1952. Byzantine Institute and Dumbarton Oaks Fieldwork Records and Papers, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, DC, CC0 License. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 18. George Holt, Constantine IX Monomachos, after a mosaic. Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Friends of the Fogg Art Museum and Alpheus Hyatt Purchase Funds. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 19. George Holt, Alexios Comnenos, Son of John II, after a mosaic. Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Friends of Art, Archaeology and Music and Alpheus Hyatt Purchasing Funds. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 20. Edward Waldo Forbes and assistants, Madonna, clam shells. Unknown location. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 21. Hanging with Hestia Polyolbus (Giver of Blessing), textile. Egypt. c. sixth century. Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection, Washington, DC. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 22a. Madonna and Child, painting. Uncertain date and current location. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 22b. Madonna and Child, painting. Uncertain date and current location. Back of the picture with handwritten note by Prince Paul (above) and Berenson (centre). Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 23. Christ Blessing, painting. Uncertain date and current location. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 24. Archangel Gabriel, painting. Beginning of the twelfth century. Ohrid, Macedonia, Icon Gallery-Ohrid. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 25. The Virgin Mary, painting. Beginning of the twelfth century. Ohrid, Macedonia, Icon Gallery-Ohrid. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 26. Jesus Christ Psychosostis (Saviour of Souls), painting. Beginning of the fourteenth century. Ohrid, Macedonia, Icon Gallery-Ohrid. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 27. The Virgin Mary with Christ, painting. c. middle of the fourteenth century. Ohrid, Macedonia, Icon Gallery-Ohrid. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 28a. Ring with two half-length figures flanking a cross, detail. Uncertain date and current location. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 28b. Ring with two half-length figures flanking a cross, detail. Uncertain date and current location. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 29a. The Virgin, pendant reliquary, recto. Uncertain date and current location. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 29b. The Virgin, pendant reliquary, verso. Uncertain date and current location. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 30a. Christ, hinged closure, recto. Byzantine, second half of the tenthearly eleventh century. Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection, Washington, DC. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

Figure 30b. The Virgin, hinged closure, verso. Byzantine, second half of the tenth-early eleventh century. Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection, Washington, DC. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 31. The Virgin flanked by busts of SS. Basil and Gregory Thaumaturgus, reliquary cross. Constantinople?, tenth century. London, The British Museum. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 32a. Saint Eudokia, panel mosaic. Early tenth century. Istanbul, Archaeological Museum. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 32b. Saint Eudokia, panel mosaic. Early tenth century. Istanbul, Archaeological Museum. Back of the photograph with a handwritten note by Berenson. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 33. The Virgin and Child, painting. Uncertain date and current location. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 34. Pallium of San Lorenzo, textile. Thirteenth century. Genoa, Museo di Sant’Agostino. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

Figure 35. Pallium of San Lorenzo, textile, lithograph. From ‘Discorso intorno al Pallio di seta, lavoro bisantino del secolo XIII, dell’avvocato Michel Giuseppe Canale’. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 36. Anastasis (Resurrection), painting. Byzantium, twelfth-thirteenth century. San Francisco, Cal., Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young/ Legion of Honor. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 37. The Virgin of Vladimir, painting. Early twelfth century. Moscow, State Tretyakov Gallery. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 38. Eric Maclagan, view of a cemetery outside the Constantinople walls with thermos flask and attaché case in the foreground, detail. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 39. The Entombment of Christ (top left), Sepulcher (top right), Resurrection (lower left) and Pentecost (lower right), 92v, Tetravangelo (Four Gospels), MS Palatino 5. Eleventh century. Parma, Complesso Monumentale della Pilotta, Biblioteca Palatina. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 40a. The Annunciation, mural, eastern apse, upper register, north side. c. Mid-tenth century. Castelseprio, Church of Santa Maria foris portas. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

Figure 40b. The Annunciation, mural, eastern apse, upper register, north side. c. Mid-tenth century. Castelseprio, Church of Santa Maria foris portas. Back of the photograph with handwritten note by Nicky Mariano (top left). Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 41. The Entombment of Christ, fragmentary mural of the wall of the north arched recess. 1110–1118. Cyprus, above Koutsovendis, cemetery Chapel of the Saviour, Monastery of Saint John Chrysostom. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 42. Saint George on horseback, fragmentary mural on the southwest recess. Twelfth–thirteenth century. Cyprus, above Koutsovendis, cemetery Chapel of Panagia Aphendrika. Monastery of Saint John Chrysostom. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 43. The Hospitality (Philoxenia) of Abraham, painting. Late fourteenth century. Athens, Benaki Museum. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

Figure 44. Head of Christ, marble, fragmentary marble relief. Uncertain date and current location. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 45. The Virgin and Child flanked by two Archangels, murals, apse vault, detail. Fourteenth century. Veria, Church of the Resurrection of Christ the Saviour. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 46. The Virgin and Child flanked by two Archangels, apse vault, murals, detail. Fourteenth century. Veria, Church of the Resurrection of Christ the Saviour. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 47. Saint Stephen, fragmentary mural, formerly in Athens, Church of Saint Spyridon, lower tier, upper part to the left of the apse. Beginning of the fifteenth century. Athens, Church of the Holy Apostles. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 48. Saint Blasius, fragmentary mural, formerly in Athens, Church of Saint Spyridon, lower tier, upper part to the right of the apse. Beginning of the fifteenth century. Athens, Church of the Holy Apostles. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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8. Biographical Profiles

ALPATOV, Mikhail Vladimirovich (Moscow, 1902–1986), art historian. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1921. While a student, at the invitation of Nikolai Il’ich Romanov, Professor and Head of the Fine Arts Department at the Rumyantsev Museum (opened in 1862 and shut down in 1924), he worked on the drawings of Western European masters. Early in 1921 he joined the Museum of Fine Arts then at the University Department as assistant librarian and head of the collections of reproductions and photography of works of art. While working there, he met Viktor Nikitich Lazarev who became curator of the Museum of Fine Arts in 1924, when it acquired independent status as a state institution which was added to its name. In 1924 he left the museum and together with Nikolai Ivanovich Brunov made a trip to Constantinople and Trebizond. His reputation began in that year with several publications in German written with Oskar Konstantin Wulff, Viktor Lazarev, and Brunov himself concerning the history of Byzantine and Old Russian architecture and painting. He specialized in Old Russian, Byzantine, Renaissance as well as Russian art of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and taught in various institutions including the Higher State Artistic and Technical Institute (Vkhutein) and Moscow University. The Vkhutein (Вхутеин, Высший художественно-технический институт, transliteration: Vkhutein, Vysshie Khudozhestvenno-Tekhnicheskii Institut) was founded in Moscow in 1926 by the reorganization of the Vkhutemas (Вхутемас, acronym for Высшие художественно-технические мастерские, transliteration: Vysshie Khudozhestvenno-Tekhnicheskie Masterskie –‘Higher Art and Technical Studios’) replacing the Moscow Svomas (Свободные Государственные художественные мастерские, transliteration: Svobodnye gosudarstvennye khudozhestvennye masterskie-‘Free State Art Studios’). It was dissolved in 1930, following political and internal pressures throughout its ten-year existence. The school’s faculty, students, and legacy were dispersed into as many as six other schools. Alpatov’s essays were published in major journals, among others: Iskusstvo, Commentari, Revue des études grecques, The Art Bulletin. Among his own books are: Итальянское искусство эпохи Данте и Джотто: Истоки реализма в искусстве Западной Европы (1939), transliteration: Ital’ianskoe iskusstvo epokhi Dante i Dzhotto (Italian Art in the Age of Dante and Giotto); Всеобщая история искусств in three volumes (1948–1955), transliteration: Vseobshchaia istoriia iskusstv (General History of Art); Андрей Рублев (1943), transliteration and Italian

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edition revised, updated and expanded by the author: Andrei Rublev (1962); Этюды по истории русского искусства in two volumes (1967), transliteration: Etiudy po istorii russkogo iskusstva (Studies in the History of Russian Art); Древнерусская иконопись/Early Russian Icon Painting (1974), transliteration: Drevnerusskaia ikonopis’. He wrote poems and drew during his trips, was member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR, and corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He was married to Sofia Timofeevna. Bibl.: Turchin, ‘Alpatov, Mikhail (Vladimirovich)’; Muratova, ‘Adolfo Venturi e la Storia dell’arte in Russia’, pp. 197; 202–03; Sorensen, ed., ‘Alpatov, Mikhail Vladimirovich’; Vasil’eva, ‘М.В. Алпатов и его зарубежные корреспонденты’’Michail Alpatov and his Foreign Correspondents’, pp. 415–28, transliteration: ‘M.V. Alpatov i ego zarubezhnye korrespondenty’ [accessed 4 August 2021].

BEALE, Marie — Fig. 49 (San Rafael, California, 1880–Zurich, 1956), philanthropist. Née Chase Oge, she was the daughter of Mr and Mrs William L. Oge and granddaughter of Philander Chase, bishop of the Anglican Episcopal Church and founder of Kenyon College, Gambier (Ohio). She was also grand-niece of Salmon Portland Chase, Secretary of the Treasury and later Chief Justice of the United States. In 1903 Marie, at twenty-three years of age, married in New York the elder Truxtun (or Truxton) Beale (San Francisco, 1856–Annapolis, 1936), son of Marie Edwards Beale and General Edward Fitzgerald Beale. Educated at Chester Military Academy in Pennsylvania and at Columbia Law School in New York, Beale undertook a diplomatic career and was minister to Persia and then to Greece, Romania, and Serbia. He first married Harriett Blaine, from whom he had a son killed in the First World War. After a divorce, he returned to his birthplace in the West and lived on the Tejon ranch property. Truxtun began a law practice and became part of the social life of San Francisco. For the first years of their marriage Truxtun and Marie split their time between the Beales family home called ‘Decatur House’ (from the name of its original owner, Commodore Stephen Decatur, Jr. and his wife Susan) on Lafayette Square, Washington, DC, near the White House, and the Tejon ranch. In 1912, they sold their property in California and came to reside full-time in Lafayette Square. Mrs Beale became a famous Washington hostess; with her guidance Decatur House dominated the Washington social scene for decades. The Beales devoted themselves to international diplomacy and international causes, in addition to participating in the social worlds of Europe and the United States. Marie Beale was close friends with Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss who were instrumental in fostering Marie’s interest in the early culture and artwork of the Americas. She travelled through Latin America later in life and also wrote a book on this subject: Flight into America’s Past: Inca Peaks and Maya Jungles (1932). During their times at Decatur House the Beales made several important acquisitions

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most of which were furnishings and items for the home. After her husband’s death Decatur House passed to Marie, making her its primary steward and caretaker; in 1954, she wrote also a book entitled Decatur House and its Inhabitants, which chronicled the history of the building and its residents. Marie used her abilities to organize and support various causes: during the Second World War, she sponsored relief campaigns for England, France, Italy, and Greece and donated a unit to the British-American Ambulance Corps, called the Truxtun Unit. Her greatest contribution was her dedication to historic preservation — she bequeathed Decatur House to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In 2010, the National Trust came to an agreement with the White House Historical Association. While the Trust retains legal ownership of the property, Decatur House is now the headquarters of the David Mark Rubenstein National Center for White House History. In 1951, Marie was made an honorary citizen of Venice which she had visited a few years earlier. She donated her own money to save the ancient buildings of the lagoon city, especially the Basilica of San Marco, and organized an appeal for aid from many people all over the world which led to the formation of the International Fund for Monuments. Bibl.: ‘Truxtun Beale Married’; ‘Pretty Marie Oge Becomes the Wife’; ‘Miss Marie Oge Weds’; Wick, ‘Truxtun and Marie Beale’; ‘The Historic Decatur House’; Hampton, ‘Decature House’.

BENAKIS, Antonis — Fig. 50 (Alexandria, Egypt, 1873–Athens, Greece, 1954), philanthropist and collector. As a member of the Greek diaspora, he enlisted as a volunteer in the Greco-Turkish wars of 1897 and 1912/13. His father, Emmanuel Benakis, an affluent cotton merchant, was a close collaborator of Eleftherios Venizelos, the great statesman of modern Greece. Like his father, he devoted his entire fortune to public projects as did his sister Penelope Delta (the writer). While still in Alexandria, Benakis began to collect Islamic art but after moving to Athens his interests shifted to Byzantine, post-Byzantine, and Greek folk art. He donated his collection to the state in 1931. It was installed in his father’s neo-classical mansion as a museum where he saw to its administration and its economic future. Since his death, the museum expanded thanks to a host of benefactors including Alexandros Socrates Onassis, Stavros Niarchos, and George Eumorfopoulos. Bibl.: Guide. Musée Benaki Athèns, pp. 1–2; Chatzidakis, ‘Introduction’; Chatzidakis, The Benaki Museum, trans. by Cicellis, pp. 5–8; Delivorrias, A Guide to the Benaki Museum, trans. by Doumas, pp. 16–23; ‘The Founder’.

BERENSON, Mary — Fig. 51 (Germantown, Pennsylvania, 1864–Florence, 1945), art historian. Neé Whitall Smith, she was the daughter of two well-known Quaker preachers: Hannah Whitall Smith and Robert Pearsall Smith. Mary attended Smith College (Northampton, Mass.) and the Harvard Annex (later Radcliffe

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College), majoring in philosophy while also studying history, government, and economics. She also became interested in literature, poetry (she befriended the poet Walt Whitman while she was a student at Smith College) and history of art. At Harvard Annex, Mary met Frank Costelloe, a Catholic of Scotch-Irish origin who she married in London in 1885. They settled in England (as did Mary’s parents), where Costelloe qualified as a barrister and was an active political reformer. The couple had two daughters: Rachel and Karin, although the marriage was unhappy. When Mary met Bernard in 1888 she was not a scholar of Italian Renaissance art although she frequented the National Gallery in London while living there. She did, however, know people associated with the pre-Raphaelites and the Arts and Crafts movement. At the time Mary met Bernard she was intent on the serious study of philosophy with her husband — an ambition which, due to the demands of Frank’s political career and the birth of two daughters, never materialized. Mary decided to spend a year in Italy learning about Renaissance art under Berenson’s tutelage. Returning to England, she asked for a divorce but her husband refused; so she returned to Italy to continue study with Berenson. The year after Costelloe’s death in 1899, Mary and Bernard married in the small chapel of Villa I Tatti in Settignano. Mary began writing art-historical pamphlets and scholarly articles (sometimes under the pseudonym Mary Logan) thereby ensuring her own reputation as a scholar and connoisseur of Italian Renaissance painting. She also aided Berenson’s career as a collaborator in his research and publications. For example, in 1894, she had a major role in the writing of The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance (New York) although she asked the publisher to omit her name as co-author. Bibl.: Simpson, The Partnership, pp. 61–63; Johnston, ‘Mary Berenson’; Johnston, ‘Mary Whitall Smith’; ‘Mary Berenson (1864–1945)’, in Cumming, ed., My Dear BB, pp. 509–10; Booton, ‘Mary Costelloe Berenson’; ‘Mary Berenson’; Brüggen Israëls, ‘Mrs Berenson, Mrs Gardner and Miss Toplady’; Johnston, ‘Mary Berenson (14 February 1864–23 March 1945)’; Johnston, ‘Mary Costelloe Berenson’.

BETTINI, Sergio — Fig. 52 (Quistello, Mantua, 1905–Padua, 1986), art historian. Son of Francesco Bettini an official of the Ministry of Education. The family lived for a time in Venice where Sergio attended the classical high school. In 1925 he joined the medical school at the University of Perugia but did not take exams there. He graduated in 1929 from the University of Florence with a thesis on Jacopo Bassano under Giuseppe Fiocco. In those years (in which Bettini was interested also in literature), he met Matteo Marangoni and Pietro Toesca. After graduating, Bettini followed his master Giuseppe Fiocco to Padua where the latter was appointed to the chair of History of Art. He appointed his pupil as a volunteer assistant and for two years Bettini taught and created the art historical section of the so-called Scuola Filologica delle Tre Venezie. Fiocco called Giuseppe Gerola for the new subject of Byzantine art history whose lessons were attended by Bettini. The latter began to be interested in medieval art and the Veneto area

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without neglecting the modern context that led him to explore the territory and museums. He travelled in Italy as well as England, Germany, France, and Belgium always motivated by artistic and literary interests. In 1931 the Italian consul in Albania appointed him Professor of Italian Language and Literature for the schools of Scutari. In this capacity Bettini scoured the territory as well as neighbouring Dalmatia and Epirus publishing his first essay ‘Orme d’Italia e di Venezia nell’alta Albania’, in Rivista di Venezia (1933). During the same year he returned to the University of Padua where he was an assistant (assistente incaricato). In 1934, the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere e Arti charged him with the study of the Christian monuments of Crete — a project begun by Gerola. Until 1938, Bettini went to Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey documenting his visits with notes and photographs of monuments, paintings, and sculpture. This led to his publication of the first Italian manual on the history of Byzantine art in six volumes: L’architettura bizantina (1937); La pittura bizantina, part 1 (1937); La pittura bizantina, part 2, I mosaici, 1 (1939); La pittura bizantina, part 2, I mosaici, 2 (1939); La scultura bizantina, 1 (1944); La scultura bizantina, 2 [1944]. While Bettini taught Byzantine art (1935–1936) and Christian archaeology (1938–1939) in Padua, he was appointed director of the Museo Civico there in 1939. While working in the two positions he married Giovanna Moro. In 1942 he published a monograph on Sandro Botticelli and in 1943 became full Professor (professore ordinario) of Christian Archaeology at the University of Catania. The war prevented him from taking up this position until 1947. Two years later he was back in Padua where he taught Christian archaeology until 1955 as well as other subjects there and at Bressanone which included Byzantine, Islamic, Coptic, medieval, modern, and contemporary art. In 1945 Bettini directed Ligeia. Contributi alla storia delle civiltà artistiche. This publication consisted of a series of Italian translations of essays by Heinrich Wölfflin, Alois Riegl, and Erwin Panofsky. This project was never entirely completed. During the 1950s Bettini and Fiocco were also involved with the organization in Venice of the Cini Foundation’s Institute of Art History (now Fondazione Giorgio Cini). At the same time, Bettini became chairman of the medieval art history department of the University of Padua and served on the Venice Biennale commission. From 1958 to 1961 he was dean of the Literature faculty and also joined the Socialist party. Between 1959 and 1966 he also taught aesthetics and history of art criticism (1966–1967) while in 1966 he was invited to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, United States. During the 1960s he travelled with his Paduan students to Provence, Athens, Dalmatia, Istanbul, and Russia where he met Lazarev. From 1969 to 1972 he directed the Institute of Art History at the University of Padua. In the last period of his career the topic of Venetian art was his main academic subject. In 1974 he took part in the Venezia e Bisanzio exhibition (held in Venice, Palazzo Ducale) for which he wrote the catalogue’s introduction and provided the basis for his last important monograph: Venezia, nascita di una città (1978). In 1975 he retired but still held seminars until 1980. Bibl.: Agazzi, ‘Per una biografia di Sergio Bettini’, ed. by Agazzi and Romanelli.

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BIANCHI BANDINELLI, Ranuccio — Fig. 53 (Siena, 1900–Rome, 1975), archaeologist. Son of Mario dei conti Paparoni, a Sienese noble family, and Margarete Ottilia von Korn Rudelsdorf from an affluent family of publishers near Breslau. His mother died very young and Bandinelli was educated by his maternal grandmother, a well educated and distinguished Viennese, Rosa Arbesser. Graduating in Italic antiquities with a thesis in Etruscology at the ‘Sapienza’ University of Rome in 1923, he taught for a short period at the F. Guicciardini (now E. S. Piccolomini) classical high school in Siena. Meanwhile, he married Maria Garrone, daughter of a Piedmontese army colonel. He became adjunct Professor (professore incaricato) at Cagliari for Archaeology and History of Greek and Roman Art (1920–1930) and visiting Professor (professore straordinario) for the same subjects at Groningen, Holland (1930–1931). Between 1934–1938 he was full professor at Pisa and from 1939 to 1943 he taught at the University of Florence retiring from this appointment during the Republic of Salò. He joined the Italian Communist party in 1944 and in the same year resumed teaching in Florence. From 1945–1947 he was Direttore Generale delle Antichità e Belle Arti (General Director of Antiquities and Fine Arts) dedicated to the reconstruction of monuments damaged by the war and the recovery of stolen works of art. Afterwards he returned to teaching at Cagliari (1947–1950), Florence (1950–1957), and Rome (1957–1964). Bibl.: Giuliano a, ‘Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli’; BaIdassarre, ‘Bianchi Bandinelli, Ranuccio’; Barbanera, Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli; Bruni, ‘Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli’; Giuliano b, ‘Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli’.

BLISS, Robert Woods — Fig. 54 (Saint Louis, Missouri, 1875–Washington, DC, 1962), diplomat and art collector. He graduated from Harvard College with a bachelor of arts degree in 1900 and between 1901 and 1903 worked in the office of the secretary of the United States civil government in Puerto Rico. He began a diplomatic career in 1903 that took him from Italy to Russia, France, Sweden, Argentina, and other destinations. In 1908 Bliss married his step sister, Mildred Barnes (New York City, 1879–Washington, DC, 1969). Guided by their close friend, Royall Tyler, the Blisses became interested in Byzantine and Pre-Columbian art and bought many pieces enriching their beautiful home, Dumbarton Oaks, in Georgetown. The Blisses gave their art, library, and the Dumbarton Oaks property to Harvard University in 1940 and became major patrons of Thomas Whittemore and his work at Santa Sophia in Istanbul. Although Bliss retired from the diplomatic service in 1933, during the Second World War he became a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a consultant to the State Department in Washington, DC (1942–1943). He was also president (1938–1941), honorary president and trustee (1945–1962) of the American Federation of Arts, president of the American Foreign Service Association and other important organizations.

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Bibl.: Nelson, R. S., Hagia Sophia, 1850–1950, pp. 161–62; 173–175; 181–82; ‘Bliss, Robert and Mildred’, in Cumming, ed., My Dear BB, pp. 516–17; ‘Robert Woods Bliss’; ‘Robert Woods Bliss (1875–1962)’; ‘Mildred Barnes Bliss’.

CARPENTER, Rhys — Fig. 55 (Cotuit, 1889–Devon, Pennsylvania, 1980), archaeologist. He graduated in classics at Columbia University in 1909 and received a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford (Balliol College) from 1909 to 1911. The next two years he studied at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Carpenter was still a student when he was recruited by Bryn Mawr president Martha Carey Thomas to teach in the new department of classical archaeology, a position he held from 1913 to 1955. Meanwhile, he received his Ph.D from Columbia University in 1916 with a dissertation on The Ethics of Euripides. In 1918 he married Eleanor Houston Hill, a student at Bryn Mawr College. After war service (1917–1918), he was a member of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace in Paris. Carpenter took leave from his professorship only for appointments at the American Academy in Rome (1926–1927 and 1939–1940) and for the directorship of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (1927–1932). In Athens he established the scholarly journal Hesperia and was instrumental in the planning of the Agora excavations. When he retired from Bryn Mawr in 1955, Carpenter returned to the American School of Classical Studies at Athens as a visiting professor (1956–1957). Bibl.: ‘Rhys Carpenter (1889–1980)’.

CASSON, Stanley — Fig. 56 (London, 1889–Cornwall, 1944), archaeologist. Exhibitioner undergraduate at Lincoln College, Oxford from 1909. He was awarded a senior scholarship at St John’s College (Oxford) in 1912 where he studied classical archaeology. In 1913 he obtained a studentship at the British School at Athens; his interest in Greek life in all its aspects and Hellenism, joined that for Byzantine art. Among his publications is the Catalogue of the Acropolis Museum, 2, Sculpture and Architectural Fragments (1921). During the First World War he entered the British Army as officer in the East Lancashire Regiment and then served on the General Staff in Greece, Turkey, and Turkestan. The Greek government awarded Casson and his fellow officers the Greek Order of the Saviour for retrieving historical artefacts in the Salonika area. From 1919 to 1922 he was Assistant Director at the British School at Athens. He became a Fellow of New College, Oxford in 1920. In 1928–1929 he directed the British Academy excavations at Constantinople where he worked with David Talbot Rice. Casson was Reader in Classical Archaeology at Oxford and Special Lecturer in Art at Bristol University (UK) in 1931. He also was visiting professor at Bowdoin College, Brunswick (Maine, USA) in 1933–1934. He was a member of the German Archaeological Institute and corresponding member of the Bulgarian Archaeological Institute. Of his fruitful work between the two world wars, of particular note are the volumes

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Macedonia, Thrace and Illyria: Their Relations to Greece from the Earliest Times down to the Time of Philip, Son of Amyntas (Oxford, 1926) which gained the Conington Prize, and Ancient Cyprus: Its Art and Archaeology (1937). During the Second World War he joined SOE (Special Operations Executive) and worked with the Greek Resistance in London. He was on his way to take part in the liberation of Greece when his aircraft crashed into the sea on take off from Cornwall, England. All sixteen on board died. Information kindly provided to me by Stanley Casson’s daughter, Lady Jennifer MacLellan. Bibl.: Myres, ‘Obituaries. Stanley Casson’; Theodossiev, ‘An Introduction’, p. 7; Sorensen, ed., ‘Casson, Stanley’.

CONWAY, William Martin, Baron Conway of Allington (Rochester, England, 1856–London, 1937), art historian and mountaineer. Graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge where he studied History. He was a Cambridge University extension lecturer from 1882 to 1885. Conway climbed extensively in the Alps and was elected to the Alpine Club in 1877. In 1884 he married in New York the American heiress Katrina Lambart with whom he had a daughter. A year later he became Professor of Art at University College in Liverpool resigning three years later. In 1892 he led a mountaineering expedition to the Karakoram Himalayas. Conway was Slade Professor of Fine Art at Cambridge from 1901 to 1904. After resignation he and his wife bought and restored Allington Castle near Maidstone. Conway was awarded the Founders Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1905. In 1917 he was appointed director-general of the Imperial War Museum, an honorary post which he retained until his death; in 1918 he was elected Unionist Member of Parliament for Combined British Universities, serving until 1931. After the war he undertook a journey to Soviet Russia researching material for lectures on Zionism which he gave in Britain and the United States. The journey formed the basis of a book, Art Treasures in Soviet Russia (1925), which gave him access to the art collections confiscated by the Bolsheviks. Conway also served as a trustee of the Wallace Collection and the National Portrait Gallery, London. He presented his rich collection of photographic records of architecture and art to the Courtauld Institute of Art. After his wife’s death in 1933 he married Iva Christian, widow of Reginald Lawson of Saltwood Castle (Saltwood village), Kent. Bibl.: Evans, J., The Conways; Sunderland and Grant, ‘The Conway Library’; Hansen, ‘Conway, (William) Martin’; ‘Conway, Martin’, in Cumming, ed., My Dear BB, p. 521; Sorensen, ed., ‘Conway, Martin’.

DE JERPHANION, Anatole-Marie-Guillaume — Fig. 57 (Pontevès, 1877–Rome, 1948), Byzantinist and Christian archaeologist. Son of Baron Frank de Jerphanion and the Marquise Claire-Marie de Lyle-Taulane. At the age of sixteen he entered the Society of Jesus at St Leonard on Sea (Sussex) and later

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studied classical languages and philosophy at Canterbury. Not yet a priest, de Jerphanion was sent on a mission to Tokat (Turkey) in 1903 where the Jesuits worked among the Armenians of Asia Minor. Here he taught mathematics and science and learned Turkish and Armenian. Under the direction of Father Johannes Grandsault, he took care of photography, cartography, and archaeology. In 1907, the two confreres undertook an expedition to Cappadocia, where de Jerphanion collected material on the monastic cave churches which became the focus of his research. He returned to Europe and became a priest in 1910. The following year he went to Constantinople and from there went on to Asia Minor to explore the Cappadocian churches, a journey made two years later with Ernest Mamboury. During the First World War he served as a soldier, setting out with the Orient Expeditionary Corps to the Dardanelles as an interpreter of Turkish and took charge of the military cartographic service. In 1917 he was called to Rome as a professor at the newborn Pontificio Istituto Orientale where he taught archaeology of the Christian East, a lifetime appointment. Bibl.: Ruggieri, Guillaume de Jerphanion et la Turquie; Poggi, ‘Scienza e realismo di Guillaume de Jerphanion’; Ruggieri, ‘La terra e i colori: la Cappadocia’; Ruggieri, ‘Guillaume de Jerphanion (1877–1948)’; Poggi, ‘Anatole-MarieGuillaume de Jerphanion S. J.’; Gasbarri, Riscoprire Bisanzio, p. 49 n. 135; p. 233.

DEWALD (or DE WALD) Ernest Theodore — Fig. 58 (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1891–Princeton, 1968), art historian. After graduating from Rutgers in 1911, he studied at Princeton where he received a Ph.D in 1916 with a dissertation on Pietro Lorenzetti under Charles Rufus Morey. During the First World War, DeWald entered the Army as a lieutenant serving as assistant military attaché in the American legations at Bern and Warsaw. He became Associate Professor of Art at Princeton in 1925 and full Professor in 1938. In 1943 he took a leave of absence from the university to join the United States Army and served as director of Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) Subcommission of the Allied Control Commission first in Italy and later in Austria and was instrumental in recovering works of art looted by the Germans. He was discharged as lieutenant colonel. DeWald returned to the United States in 1946 and resumed his academic career and a year later was appointed director of the Princeton University Art Museum, a position he held until his retirement in 1960. For his service with MFAA, he was awarded many international honours. In 1967 he was named a member of the United States National Advisory Committee to the National Committee to Rescue Italian Art (CRIA) after floods severely damaged Florence. Bibl.: Krautheimer and Weitzmann, ‘Ernest Theodore DeWald’; Sorensen, ed., ‘DeWald, Ernest’.

FORBES, Edward Waldo — Fig. 59 (Naushon Island, 1873–Belmont, Mass., 1969), art historian. He attended Milton Academy (Milton, Mass.) and

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Harvard University where he graduated in 1895. Three years later he travelled to Europe and began to study art and art history focusing on Italian primitive paintings which he also began to acquire. When he returned to the United States in 1902 he became a trustee of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (1903) and of the Fogg Art Museum (1904). In 1907 he married Margaret Laighton of Boston, a gardener and watercolourist; they went on to have five children. Two years later he taught fine arts at Harvard and was appointed director of the Fogg Art Museum, maintaining both posts. From 1915 he was joined by Paul Joseph Sachs first as assistant director of the Fogg and then as associate director. The two formed a powerful professional partnership for fund raising both in history and museum studies. In 1927, as director of the Fogg, Forbes was instrumental in the construction of a new building to house the enlarged collections in 1927 and in the publication of Technical Studies in the Field of the Fine Arts which was published from 1932 to 1942. At the Fogg, he founded the Center for Conservation and Technical Studies (now named The Straus Center for Conservation) and pioneered the use of x-rays to analyse the technique and authenticity of paintings. He was appointed Martin A. Ryerson Professor in the Fine Arts at Harvard University in 1935. He retired in 1944. Forbes received many awards and distinctions throughout his career and was also active on various boards and committees including the Administrative Committee of the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and Research Library of Byzantine Studies in Washington, DC from 1941 to 1963. Bibl.: Edward Waldo Forbes: Yankee Visionary, exhibition catalogue; Bernardi, E., ‘La nascita del Fogg Museum di Harvard’; ‘Edward W. Forbes (1873–1969’; ‘Papers of Edward Waldo Forbes’; ‘The First Members of the Administrative Committee’.

FRANTZ, Alison Mary — Fig. 60 (Duluth, 1903–New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1995), classicist, Byzantinist and photographer. Educated at Smith College where she earned a BA in 1924 with a major in classics; she spent the following years at the American Academy in Rome. On her return to America, Frantz worked on the staff of the Index of Christian Art at Princeton headed by Charles Rufus Morey (1927–1929). She received a Ph.D from Columbia University with a thesis on Byzantine ornament. In 1929 she went to Greece as member of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and joined the staff of the Athenian Agora excavations just begun. Given her skill in using the camera, she became the official photographer for these excavations from 1939 to 1964. Miss Frantz, as she was known, also took photographs outside the Agora focusing on ancient Greek sculpture as well as Early Christian and Byzantine works while devoting herself to scientific activity. Her work was interrupted during the Second World War when she moved to Washington, DC where she was a fellow at Dumbarton Oaks and then served with the Office of Strategic Services. After the War she returned to Athens as cultural attaché for the United States Embassy from 1946 to 1949. The following year

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she resumed her work at the Agora. As cultural attaché, Frantz was active in creating the Fulbright Program in Greece which enabled the exchange between Greece and United States of a great many scholars in many disciplines. In 1964 Frantz left Athens for the United States where at Princeton she collaborated on several publishing projects. Among the honours she received, was the medal for the most outstanding member of the Smith College program in humanistic studies in 1967 and election to the American Philosophical Society in 1973. Bibl.: Szegedy-Maszak, ‘Portrait of a Purist’; McCredie, ‘Alison Frantz’; Papalexandrou and Mauzy, ‘The Photographs of Alison Frantz’; Carder, ‘Alison Frantz (1903–1995)’.

GILLET, Louis-Marie-Pierre-Dominique — Fig. 61 (Paris, 1876–1943), art historian and man of letters. Son of Stanislas Gillet, an engineer of the École Centrale, he first studied at the Collège Stanislas and from 1896 at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. He was a pupil of Joseph Bédier and Romain Rolland. In 1902 he married Suzanne Doumic (1883–1975) daughter of René Doumic (1860–1937), with whom he had six children. René Doumic, Professor of Rhetoric at the Collège Stanislas (1883–1897), secretary of the Académie Française since 1923, director of the Revue des Deux Mondes (1916–1937), was instrumental in Gillet’s career. In 1904 Gillet joined the Revue des Deux Mondes (of which he became Director on the death of his father-in-law) where he found support for his interests, namely artistic and literary journalism. He also taught Art History at the Institut Catholique in Paris. From his courses there, he later published the Histoire Artistique des Ordres Mendiants. Étude sur l’art religieux en Europe du XIIIe au XVIIe siècles (1912). From 1907 to 1909 he was Professor of French Literature at the Université Laval in Montréal where he moved with his family. In 1912 he became Conservateur of the Musée Jacquemart-André at Chaalis in the Oise which he chaired throughout his career. In 1914 he was drafted into military service that eventually earned him the Légion d’Honneur. This experience led him to publish La bataille de Verdun (1921). He was a careful observer of the international political scene between the two wars and his attention to politics is also evidenced by his correspondence with Berenson, to whom he was linked by a long friendship. Gillet translated the first, third, and fourth volumes of Berenson’s Les Peintres Italiens de la Renaissance (1926) dedicating to the latter his Essais sur l’Art français published in Paris in 1938. Émile Mâle also played an important role in Gillet’s professional life who in turn had connections with well-known intellectuals, artists and writers of the time including Paul Claudel, Auguste Rodin, Claude Monet, Maurice Denis, Edith Wharton, and Paul Valéry. Gillet wrote monographs on great artists and writers, including Raphaël (1906), Saint Francis of Assisi (1926), Shakespeare (1931), and Dante (1941); he carried out thematic studies on religious and medieval art and the French primitives. He was the author of the famous Histoire des Arts published in Paris in 1922 as the eleventh volume of the monumental and controversial Histoire de la Nation

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française, directed by Gabriel Hanotaux with illustrations by René Piot. The volume, largely dedicated to French art from its origins to the late Middle Ages, earned him the Grand Prix Gobert of the Académie Française in 1923. He joined the Académie Française in 1935; a few years later he updated the Histoire Artistique des Ordres Mendiants which was published in 1939 for the Collection ‘L’Histoire et les Hommes’ at Flammarion in Paris, reissued in 2017. Bibl.: Escoffier, ‘Louis Gillet et “La Revue”’; L’Art et l’écrivain. Centenaire de Louis Gillet, exhibition catalogue; Assante Di Panzillo, ‘L’Écrivain d’art de la Revue des Deux Mondes’; Assante Di Panzillo, ‘Louis Gillet, Bernard Berenson’; Gerard Powell, ‘Louis Gillet, écrivain d’art’; Pizzorusso, ‘Un Medioevo rivisitato. René Piot’.

GROSSO, Orlando — Fig. 62 (Genoa, 1882–Bonassola, 1969), painter and scholar. Member of a family of ceramicists from Albisola (Savona), he completed classical studies while attending drawing and painting courses, then specializing in the latter field. He attended the studio of the painter Giuseppe Pennasilico and became a close collaborator between 1902 and 1903. In 1906, he enrolled at the Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti, Genoa (1902–1903). Grosso participated in several national and international exhibitions while working as a scholar and official. In 1906, he graduated in law from the University of Genoa and two years later he qualified for the competition of inspector of the artistic collections of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan. In 1909 the municipality of Genoa gave him an appointment as Secretary of the artistic section of the newborn Ufficio di Belle Arti (of which he became Director in 1921) and engaged in a vast restoration programme of the medieval historical centre of the city. The same year he was also appointed professor at the Accademia Ligustica for the art history section. From 1911 he collaborated with the Künstlerlexikon of Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker for which he contributed items related to Ligurian artists. He went several times to Paris to study museum organization (1909) and the Genoese manuscripts kept in the BnF (1914–1915). From the beginning of the 1920s he promoted the protection and restoration of monuments in Genoa. The architectural restoration activity continued and increased during the 1930s. His commitment to the museum field since 1928 was devoted to the creation of a system of museums for ‘history and art’ pertaining to the municipality of Genoa. During the Second World War Grosso was active in safeguarding the city’s artistic patrimony. He retired in 1949. Bibl.: Di Fabio, ‘Orlando Grosso’; Vinardi, ‘Grosso, Orlando’, pp. 6–9, with bibliography.

HEIL, Walter (Oppenheim, 1890–?, 1973), art historian. He studied at the University of Frankfurt and the Sorbonne in Paris and received his Ph.D from the University of Munich. Heil became curator of European Art at the Detroit Institute of Arts from 1926 to 1933. Then he moved to San Francisco as

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director of the California Palace of the Legion of Honour in 1933 and in 1940 of the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum. The two museums merged in 1972 to become the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. During his directorship he arranged many exhibitions for these museums in the fields of old masters and modern painting. He also served as the regional director of the Public Works Administration, General Director of the Treasury Relief Art Project and member of the Fine and Applied Arts Committee of the WPA (Works Project Administration) of the federal government. Heil was also a collector of medieval and European old masters. He received several awards including that of Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1937. Nothing further has been found on Heil, apart from the San Francisco, Fine Arts Museums, biographical file Walter Heil, Museum Director, de Young. HILL, George Francis, Sir (Berhampore, Bengal, India, 1867–London, 1948), archaeologist and numismatist. Son of a missionary, Reverend Samuel John Hill and Leonora Josephine, née Müller, of Danish descent, he went to England as a child. He attended the University College School and University College, London, and finally Merton College, Oxford. He worked with Percy Gardner in archaeology who also taught him numismatics. In 1893 he joined the British Museum in the Coins and Medals Department where with Barclay Vincent Hear and Warwick Wroth, he prepared the series Catalogue of Greek Coins in the British Museum (already began by Reginald Stuart Poole) of which he was author of six volumes. Hill published several other works in the field of Greek, Roman, ancient Iranian, and Renaissance Italian numismatics although his scholarly interests included a range of other epochs and subjects. He was editor of the Journal of Hellenistic Studies from 1898 to 1912. He became keeper of the aforementioned department in 1912 and married Mary Paul in 1924. In 1931 Hill became director and principal librarian of the British Museum, the first archaeologist to hold this post. Under Hill’s directorship, the Codex Sinaiticus was bought from the Soviet government. Then, together with the Victoria and Albert Museum, the collection of oriental antiquities belonging to George Eumorfopoulos was acquired. He received several awards, including fellowships, from British colleges as well as medals from the British Academy, the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, the Royal Numismatic Society, and The American Numismatic Society. He was knighted in 1933. He retired in 1936 and then wrote a four-volume history of Cyprus (A History of Cyprus, 1940–1952), the last of which was edited by Sir Harry Luke. Bibl.: Robinson, ‘George Francis Hill’; ‘Hill, Sir George Francis (1867–1948)’, p. 1425; Arnold-Biucchi, ‘Hill, George Francis’; Robinson, revised, ‘Hill, Sir George Francis’; Sorensen, ed., ‘Hill, George Francis, Sir’.

KARAGEORGEVIČ, Paul, Prince of Yugoslavia — Fig. 63 (St Petersburg, Russia, 1893–Paris, 1976). The only son of Prince Arsen Karageorgevič of Yugoslavia and Aurora Demidov, Princess of San Donato, studied at Christ

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Church College in Oxford and in 1923 married Princess Olga of Greece and Denmark, sister of Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent. From the marriage three children were born: Alexander, Nicholas, and Elizabeth. Art lover with a particular passion for Italian and European painting, the Prince was an eclectic collector and a close friend of Bernard Berenson whom he considered his mentor. He founded the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade located in an old-fashioned mansion, formerly the residence of Princess Ljubica which opened to the public in 1929 with the intention of presenting contemporary European artworks together with local examples. This project was largely realized thanks to the donation of works of art belonging to the Prince himself, to major representatives of the European aristocracy and others (among them Berenson). In 1933, King Alexander II, cousin of Prince Paul, appointed him as the last director of all the museums in the Yugoslav Kingdom. The following year, after the King’s assassination at Marseille, the Prince became Regent of Yugoslavia for the young King Peter II. In 1935 the Council of Ministers created a new institution called the Prince Paul Museum which was a fusion of the National Museum (founded in 1844 but later known as the Museum of Art History) with the newborn Museum of Contemporary Art. In 1944, the Prince Paul Museum was re-named as the Museum of Art and later the National Museum as it is known today. Prince Paul led the country until 1941 when the so-called ‘Tripartite Pact’ joined the Axis Powers (Italy, Germany, Japan) in opposition to the Allies. This led to a coup and house arrest of the Prince and his family who became exiles in Kenya and South Africa. Returning to Europe in 1948, the prince spent the rest of his life between Geneva, Paris, London, and Florence. He donated works of art to the aforementioned museum in Belgrade, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, and the Musée de la Légion d’honneur et des ordres de chevalerie in Paris. Bibl.: Balfour and Mackay, Paul of Yugoslavia; Subotić, ‘The Making of a Museum’; Subotić, ‘Prince Paul — Art Collector’; ‘Yugoslavia, Prince Paul of ’, in Cumming, ed., My Dear BB, p. 551.

KELEKIAN, Dikran Garabed, called Dikran Khan (Kayseri, formerly Caesarea, 1868–New York City, 1951), dealer and art collector. Member of a family of Armenian bankers of Persian origin, he attended Robert College in Istanbul where he studied ancient Near Eastern history and then moved to Paris to continue his studies. He followed his father and brother, Kevork, as an antiquarian. With the latter he opened an antiquities business in Constantinople in 1892 specializing in Islamic art and pottery. In 1893, Kelekian went to the United States as the commissioner of the Persian Pavilion at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago. At the same time, he opened with Kevork a gallery in New York called ‘Le Musée de Bosphore’ and later others in Paris, London, and Cairo. His role was crucial in the formation of the Coptic, Early Christian, and classical collections of Henry Walters (founder of the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore) and the medieval collection of George Blumenthal,

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a financier and president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In 1902 Kelekian was elevated to the title of khan and appointed Consul of Persia in New York for the Shah while his gallery became the seat of the consulate. A member of the jury for the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900, he was also general commissar of the Persian Empire at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, known as the St Louis World’s Fair (1904). Objects from Kelekian collections were featured there and in many other international exhibitions including the Exposition Internationale d’Art Byzantin (Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs), one of the first exhibitions to present Byzantine art to the public (1931). His collections were also exhibited in various museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (1895, 1989, 1911) and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (from 1910 to 1951). Kelekian collected and promoted several contemporary artists and friends such as Mary Cassatt, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Milton Avery. He died falling from the twenty-first floor of the Hotel St Moritz in New York. Bibl.: Beer, ‘Dikran Kelekian, Khan of Perisa’, pp. 11; 15; ‘Kelekian Charles-Dikran Khan’, in Les donateurs du Louvre, exhibition catalogue, p. 240; Lawton, ‘Dikran Kelekian (1868–1951)’; Jenkins-Madina, ‘Collecting the “Orient” at the Met’, pp. 69–89, especially pp. 73–76; Leturcq, ‘Kelekian Dikran Garabed dit Dikran Khan’; ‘Dikran Garabed Kelekian (1868–1951)’; ‘Dikran Garabed Kelekian (1868–1951)’; Coptic Art, Dikran Kelekian, and Milton Avery.

LAZAREV, Viktor Nikitich — Fig. 64 (Moscow, 1897–1976), art historian. Son of Nikita Lazarev, architect and musician, he attended the Moscow State University from 1916 to 1920 where he studied under Nikolai Il’ich Romanov and Dmitrii Vlas’evich Ainalov. Although his Ph.D dissertation focused on The Origins of the Portrait in Italian Painting, Lazarev intended to concentrate his professional life on the study of Renaissance art (of which he published numerous contributions), he also possessed from the beginning an interest in the study of Byzantine art. From 1924 until his death, he was full Professor in the Department of Art History at the University of Moscow where he taught courses on the Renaissance in Italy and northern Europe. In 1925–1926, thanks to a fellowship, he travelled to Europe and spent a long time in Italy where he was greeted by Bernard Berenson. During this journey he worked in the major European libraries forming the basis for his scholarly work. Lazarev, like other Russian scholars, could not leave the Soviet Union for long periods. This led him to concentrate on the study of Byzantine and medieval Russian art. His most important work in this field, that made his reputation in the West, was The History of Byzantine Art (История византийской живописи, transliteration: Istoriia vizantiiskoi zhivopisi) published in two volumes in Moscow in 1947–1948 and translated into Italian in 1967. He was also curator of the State Museum of Fine Arts (renamed Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts from 1937) from 1924 to 1936; collaborator to the Soviet Encyclopedia (from 1927), professor at the Institute of Fine Arts in Moscow (1937–1949) and

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head of a section of the Institute of Art History in Moscow (1943–1960). He was corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union and member of the editorial board of the History of Russian Art (История русского искусства, transliteration: Istoriia russkogo iskusstva), in many volumes where he was author of numerous chapters (vols 1–3, 1953–1955). He married art historian Vera Nikolaevna Vol’skaia. Bibl.: Grashchenkov, ‘Виктор Никитич Лазарев’, pp. 3–31, with Viktor N. Lazarev bibliography, transliteration: Viktor Nikitich Lazarev; Muratova, ‘Notice nécrologique. Victor Nikititch Lazarev’; Muratova, ‘Victor N. Lazarev In memoriam’, with V. N. Lazarev bibliography including chapters published in the History of Russian Art, p. 80; Muratova, ‘Adolfo Venturi e la Storia dell’arte in Russia’, pp. 197; 204–05.

MACLAGAN, Eric Robert Dalrymple, Sir — Fig. 65 (London, 1879–Pola de Lena, 1951), art historian. Son of the Bishop of Lichfield (and later Archbishop of York), William Dalrymple Maclagan, and Augusta Anne Barrington. After earning a degree in classics at Oxford and cultivating an interest in literature and poetry, in 1905 Maclagan was appointed assistant at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Textile Department. Two years later he compiled the list and wrote the Introduction to English Ecclesiastical Embroideries (XIIIth to XVIth Century). In 1909 he moved to the Department of Architecture and Sculpture to re-establish the Italian sculpture collection and compile the Catalogue of Italian Sculpture, written together with Margaret H. Longhurst (London, 1932). His main fields of study were Byzantine and Italian Renaissance art. In 1912 he married Helen Elizabeth Lascelles. During the First World War, Maclagan served the Foreign Office in Paris where he befriended the writer Edith Wharton. He was later appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire. After the war he resumed service at the Victoria and Albert Museum where he became director in 1924. In 1927–1928, he was called to Harvard University to lecture on Italian Renaissance sculpture. During the Second World War, he presided over the fine arts committee headed by the British Council. His essay published in 1943 (London) entitled ‘The Bayeux Tapestry’ became a best seller. Maclagan received honorary degrees from the University of Birmingham in 1944 and Oxford in 1945. While he was climbing to reach the pre-Romanesque Church of Santa Cristina de Lena in Asturias, he died suddenly and was buried in the British Cemetery at Bilbao. Information kindly provided to me by Eric Maclagan’s niece, Helen. Bibl.: K. C., ‘Obituary. Sir Eric Maclagan’; ‘Maclagan, Sir Eric Robert Dalrymple (1879–1951’; Cox, revised by Baker, ‘Maclagan, Sir Eric Robert Dalrymple (1879–1951)’; ‘Maclagan, Eric’, in Cumming, ed., My Dear BB, p. 533; ‘Eric Maclagan (1879–1951)’.

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MACRIDY, Theodore Bey — Fig. 66 (Theodore Macridy bey as he signed himself; Θεόδωρος Μακρίδης in Greek; Theodor or Theodoros Makridi in Turkish; Constantinople, 1872–1940), archaeologist. His father, doctor Constantine Macridy pasha, bore the honorary title of ‘Ferik’ (Ottoman military rank) and was a renowned collector of ancient coins. Educated in the Phanar Greek Orthodox College and the Galata Saray College graduating in 1891, he automatically became a functionary of the Ottoman State. Macridy began working at the Archaeological Museum first as librarian and was soon entrusted by Osman Hamdi Bey with the museum’s first directorship, specializing in archaeological work. In the early 1900s he became curator of the archaeological collections of the same museum which he enriched with donations and findings from sites he explored and excavated generally in collaboration with eminent European archeologists. He was married and had five sons. Among his major archeological work are the sites of Boǧazköy-Hattusas, Pergamon and Colophon in Asia Minor, Baalbek, Palmyra, and Raqqa/Sergiopolis in Syria, Thasos and the necropolis of Lete in Macedonia. He also carried out excavations and restoration work in Istanbul (including the direction of those of the monastic complex of Constantine Lips in 1929) and its region. In the Summer of 1930 he moved to Athens on a ten-year official leave from the Istanbul Museum. Along with Antonis Benakis, he organized the collections for the Benaki Museum’s opening in 1931. He curated the new museum and significantly increased its collections until the late Spring of 1940 and then moved back to Istanbul where he died shortly afterwards. Unpublished Short Biography kindly provided to me by Theodore Macridy’s great-granddaughter, Christine Angelidi; see also: Ogan, ‘Th. Makridi’nin Hatırasına’; Bittel, ‘Theodor Makridi’; Bittel, ‘Macridy, Theodor’; Mango, ‘Editor’s Preface’; Papanikola-Bakirtzi and others, ‘Introduction’, p. 11 and n. 4; pp. 12–14; Alaura, ‘Makridi, Theodor Bey (1872–1940)’; Bevilacqua, Arte e aristocrazia a Bisanzio, p. 71; Casari, ‘Berenson e la Persia’, p. 179.

MALLON, Paul (Paris, 1884–1975), dealer and art collector. Specializing in Byzantine, medieval, and Far Eastern art, in 1910 he opened a gallery at 114 Avenue Champs-Élysées and later, at 3 rue de Cirque. In 1925, Mallon was forced to sell his collection because of bankruptcy. Starting from 1934, the gallery moved to 23 rue Raynouard and was run by Mallon’s wife, Marguerite. In the late 1930s and 1940s the Mallons were in New York and sold art works to various American museums: the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City (Missouri), the Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, Ohio), the Brooklyn Museum (New York), the textile department of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection (Washington, DC). Mallon donated works to the Musée de Cluny, Musée National du Moyen Âge and to the Louvre, Département des Objects d’Art (from 1914

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to 1936) particularly Byzantine ceramics and Far Eastern objects now at the Musée National des Arts Asiatiques-Guimet. Bibl.: ‘Mallon Paul’; Effros, ‘Art of the “Dark Ages”’, p. 93, n. 64; ‘Paul Mallon (1884–1975)’; Nigro, ‘Bernard Berenson, Charles Vignier e i mercanti d’arte’, p. 153.

MARIANO, Elisabetta called Nicky — Fig. 67 (Naples, 1887–Florence, 1968), librarian and writer. Daughter of Raffaele Mariano of Capua (Campania region) and Cecil Pilar von Pilchau who belonged to the Baltic aristocracy in Livonia (now part of both Estonia and Latvia) but of German descent. Nicky’s father, after graduating in law in Naples, studied philosophy and church history and spent a period abroad. On his return to Italy he taught philosophy at the University of Rome and there met Cecil. The Marianos married in 1879 and went on living in Rome until 1885. In that year Raffaele Mariano was awarded a chair in church history at the University of Naples and there Nicky was born and spent her childhood. After Cecil’s death in 1896 the family moved to Florence where Nicky learned English and met English and American girls of her age. Subsequently, Mariano married his wife’s younger sister, Pauline Julie Elisabeth Pilar von Pilchau. After her father’s death in 1912, Nicky went to stay with Vincenza (Byba) Giuliani (future wife of Charles Henry Coster, classics scholar and honorary US consul in Florence) and her mother in their villa above Scandicci. In the Spring 1914, Nicky met the Berensons through Byba. Meanwhile, Nicky’s sister, Alda, married Egbert von Anrep, the owner of Schloss Ringen near Dorpat (Tartu in Estonia). In 1918, because of the war and revolutions, the Anreps lost all their possessions and were forced to flee, first to Germany and then to Switzerland until arriving in Florence, where thanks to Nicky, Egbert von Anrep became administrator of the Berenson properties and Alda von Anrep Mariano librarian at Tatti. In 1919 Nicky was taken on as a librarian at Villa I Tatti and eventually became a close collaborator of the Berensons and in the end Berenson’s companion. In 1940, Nicky bought the ‘Casa al Dono’ near Vallombrosa, the Summer house where she and the Berensons shared the company of friends and acquaintances. Information kindly provided to me by Sabina Anrep. Bibl.: Mariano a, Forty Years with Berenson, pp. 1–16 and the volume in general; ‘Nicky Mariano (1887–1968)’, in Cumming, ed., My Dear BB, pp. 510–11; ‘Mariano Elisabetta’.

MILLET, Fortuné-Eugène-Gabriel (Saint-Louis du Sénégal, 1867–Paris, 1953), archaeologist and art historian. Orphaned at a young age, he was raised by his maternal grandmother in Grasse (Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, France). In 1889 he took the license en lettres at the University of Paris and three years later he became agregé d’historie and a member of the École française d’Athènes. In 1892 he undertook the first archaeological mission to Mistra

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and Mount Athos (which was followed by others up to 1924) to study the monuments of the paleochristian and Byzantine East and of Byzantine Greece. A passionate photographer, he produced a rich documentation of inestimable value. From 1899 Millet was Maître de conférences in Byzantine Christianity at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), section of Religious Sciences, and in 1903 gave to it all his personal papers which became ‘The Christian and Byzantine Collection’. This consists of more than 2000 photographic plates, prints on paper, engravings, and watercolours which constituted the embryo of what was to become one of the most important collections in the field. From 1907, he became Directeur d’études adjoint, and from 1914 (until 1937), Directeur d’études in Byzantine Christianity and Christian archeology. In 1902, he married Sophie-Anaïs-Leonie Asselin de Williencourt of Douai with whom he had no children. In 1916 he received his Ph.D at the Faculté des Lettres at the Sorbonne with the theses Recherches sur l’iconographie de l’Évangile aux XIVe et XVIe siècles d’après les monuments de Mistra, de la Macédonie et du Mont-Athos and L’école grecque dans l’architecture byzantine which were published the same year. While teaching at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, he also held from 1927 until 1937 the chair of aesthetics and history of art at the Collège de France. In 1929 he was elected to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. Bibl.: Lantier, ‘Éloge funèbre de M. Gabriel Millet, membre ordinaire’; Lambert, ‘Notice sur la vie et les travaux de M. Gabriel Millet’; Lepage, ‘Gabriel Millet, esprit élégant et modern’; Couson-Desreumaux and others, ‘Gabriel Millet, voyageur, photographe’; Heid, ‘Fortuné-Eugène-Gabriel Millet’, pp. 913–14, with bibliography; Sorensen, ed., ‘Millet, Gabriel’; Rapti, ‘L’image dans le monde contemporain’; Preradović and Marković, eds, Габријел Мијe и истраживања старе српске архитектуре – Gabriel Millet et l’étude de l’architecture médiévale serbe; transliteration: Gabrijel Mije i istraživanja stare srpske arhitekture.

MOREY, Charles Rufus (Hastings, Michigan, 1877–Princeton, 1955), archaeologist and art historian. He received the BA and MA from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Later he became a fellow of the American School of Classical Studies in Rome. In 1903, Morey went to Princeton University as a fellow in classics; a few years later he succeeded Allan Marquand as the chairman of the Department of Art and Archaeology. Morey carried out two encyclopedic projects: the retrieval of images and cataloguing of all the Christian works up to the year 1200, which in 1917 became the Index of Christian Art. This was a catalogued archive of photographs housed in the basement of the department, where the files were organized by subject following the sequence of events in the Scriptures. The Prefect of the Vatican Library (Eugène-Gabriel-Gervais-Laurent Tisserant), Gabriel Millet (and his Parisian archive), and other libraries joined him in the enterprise. Meanwhile, Morey launched a corpus of publications of the illustrations in eastern and western biblical manuscripts, although the western section was never started.

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The Byzantine part became the Corpus of the Illustrations in the Manuscripts of the Septuagint. In the series Ernest T. DeWald published two books on two Vatican Psalters, i.e. Vaticanus Graecus 1927 (1941) and Vaticanus Graecus 752 (1942), K. Weitzmann The Joshua Roll (1948), K. Weitzmann and H. L. Kessler The Cotton Genesis (1986) and, lastly, Weitzmann and M. Bernabò, The Byzantine Octateuchs (1999). In 1942 Morey published two important volumes: Early Christian Art and Medieval Art. From 1945 to 1950 he became the first cultural attaché to the American Embassy in Rome and was active in the rescue of the works of art looted by the Nazis as well as the protection of major scholarly libraries such as the Hertziana and Deutsches Archäologisches Institut in Rome. In 1947 he was appointed member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. It was Morey who conceived of the Fulbright Fellowships which brought so many young American scholars abroad. He was married to Sara Francis Tupper. Bibl.: Bianchi Bandinelli, ‘Charles Rufus Morey’; Stohlman, ‘Morey, Charles Rufus’; Weitzmann, ‘The Contribution of the Princeton University’, pp. 12–16; Sorensen, ed., ‘Morey, Charles Rufus’.

MURATOV, Pavel Pavlovich — Fig. 68 (Bobrov, 1881–Cappagh, 1950), art historian. Son of Pavel Ivanovich Muratov, a military doctor who began his service under Nicholas I, he received his education in the Cadet Corp and then studied at the St Petersburg Institute of Railroad Engineers from 1903 to 1904. Between 1900 and 1904 Muratov made several trips to Moscow, where the family had moved in 1890. Initially infatuated with revolutionary ideas, Pavel abandoned them to deal with history, literature, politics, economics, and history of art. In 1906 he began to collaborate as an art critic for magazines and published articles on contemporary European and Russian art. On 1 July 1905, he married in Moscow Zhenia Paganuzzi with whom he made his first trip abroad to Paris, London, and Cornwall in 1906. On his return home, he began to work as an assistant to the librarian of Moscow University and then was engaged by the Rumyantsev Museum. In 1908 the Muratovs had the opportunity to go to Italy (Pavel’s dream for some time), a journey that took place with a couple of artists, Nikolai Ul’ianov and Anna Glagoleva. Muratov became a passionate ‘Italophile’: on his return to Moscow, he published in 1911–1912 the first edition in two volumes of Образы Италии, transliteration: Obrazy Italii (Images of Italy), immediately followed by the second one, revised and expanded, in 1912–1913, which became enlarged to three volumes (1924). In Obrazy Italii Muratov skillfully blends historical, cultural, and artistic facts with his personal memories. Direct impressions and descriptions of his itineraries, the normal fare of a guidebook, recede into the background while Muratov provides a spiritual foundation even for the act of travelling. He also translated a wide choice of Italian Renaissance novelists. Between 1911 and 1912 Muratov separated from his wife and began a relationship with Ekaterina Urenius, translator and writer (whom he married

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in 1920 and with whom he had a son, Gavriil), with whom he made a trip to Rome at the end of that year. Returning to Moscow in 1912, he travelled with Nikolai Shchekotov, an icon expert, to the monasteries of Kirillo-Belozerskii in Kirillov and Ferapontov in Ferapontovo (Vologda region) in connection with his work on ancient Russian art. In 1913 he founded Sofiia, a magazine on ancient Russian culture the first issue of which was published in January 1914. During the First World War, he was sent to the Austrian front and in 1915 transferred to Sevastopol. At the end of the conflict, he returned to Moscow where he held several positions: in 1918 he was elected vice-chairman of the Committee for the Preservation of Cultural and Artistic Treasures in Russia, and member of the Commission on Museums and the Preservation of Monuments of Art and Antiquity. The same year Muratov and Vladislav Khodasevich organized a Writers’ Book Market (Книжная лавка писателей, transliteration: Knizhnaia lavka pisatelei) in Moscow, an association in which writers could support themselves in lean times by trading in their books. In 1920 he was elected chairman of the Moscow Institute of Historical and Artistic Research and Museum Science, and of the ‘Studio Italiano’, a society for the study of Italian culture and the development of Russian–Italian cultural relations. In 1922 Muratov, though he was not pressured by the government, left Russia to go to Berlin: an asylum for many Russian intellectuals who escaped from the Bolshevist regime. The following year, he published his translation of Bernard Berenson’s, Флорентийские живописцы Возрождения, transliteration: Florentiiskie zhivopistsy Vozrozhdeniia (The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance) and a monograph Живопись Кончаловского, transliteration: Zhivopis’ Konchalovskogo (Konchalovsky’s Painting) in Moscow. Muratov took part in the activities of the Istituto per l’Europa Orientale (Institute of Eastern Europe) where Ettore Lo Gatto, a distinguished Slavist, was the secretary, and participated in the Comitato italiano di soccorso agli intellettuali russi (Italian Committee for Aid to Russian Intellectuals) created in 1922 by Umberto Zanotti-Bianco, philanthropist and archaeologist. In 1923 he moved to Rome where he arranged with Lo Gatto a series of lectures to benefit the Russian émigrés. Muratov remained in Italy thanks to a grant by the Comitato italiano di soccorso agli intellettuali russi to complete a study on the Neapolitan school of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Muratov also became an art dealer, evaluating artworks for an antique shop in Rome. Muratov never returned to Russia: in the early 1930s he moved definitively to Paris where he was one of the founders of Общество Икона, transliteration: Obshchestvo Ikona (The Icon Society), dedicated to studying and increasing public appreciation of icon painting. In this context Muratov published in addition to Les icones russes (1927), in which he discusses icon painting in an aesthetic rather than historical context, a series of pioneering contributions: La pittura russa antica (1925) translated into Italian by Lo Gatto, and La Pittura bizantina, published in 1928 simultaneously in Italian and French editions. Muratov also wrote a monograph on Fra Angelico published in 1929 simultaneously in Italian and French editions and English in 1930. In 1933 Muratov was invited to the

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University of London to hold a lecture course on ancient Russian painting which brought him into close contact with British Academic circles (including David Talbot Rice and William Edward David Allen). Between 1933 and 1934 he travelled to Japan, San Francisco, and New York, where he gave lectures. At the beginning of the Second World War he moved to London (probably at the end of December 1939 or early 1940 at the invitation of the English historian and journalist William Edward David Allen with whom Muratov collaborated in the drafting of three books: two volumes on Russian history during the Second World War and one on the wars in the Caucasus, the latter published in 1953 after the Russian writer’s death). In 1947 he moved to Ireland to the property of W. E. D. Allen, Whitechurch House, in Cappagh, County Waterford, where he died on 5 October 1950. Bibl.: Deotto, ‘Pavel Muratov’; Deotto, ‘Muratov Pavel Pavlovič’; Muratova, ‘Adolfo Venturi e la Storia dell’arte in Russia’, pp. 199–202; Muratova, ‘Pavel Muratov historien d’art’; Muratova, ‘“Anima Naturaliter Christiana”’; Gasbarri, Riscoprire Bisanzio, p. 233 and the volume in general; Bernabò, ‘I libri di Pavel Muratov’; Deotto, ‘Муратов Павел Павлович’, transliteration: Muratov Pavel Pavlovich; Bernabò, ‘Pavel Muratov sull’arte bizantina e russa e sui primitivi italiani (1924–1928)’.

PORTER, Arthur Kingsley — Fig. 69 (Stamford, Connecticut, 1883–Inish Bofin Island, 1933), art historian. Son of a wealthy banker, Timothy Hopkins Porter and Maria Louisa Hoyt, he graduated from Yale in 1904 and attended Columbia University School of Architecture from 1904 to 1906 where he concentrated on the Middle Ages. His studies were accompanied by a first-hand knowledge of the places and monuments documented through the camera lens during travel in Italy and Europe from 1904. In 1912 Porter married Lucy Bryant Wallace (Ansonia, Connecticut, 1876–Cambridge, Mass., 1962) from an affluent Connecticut family. Lucy studied at Yale School of Music in New Haven (Connecticut) and at Columbia Teachers College in New York, attending courses in art history and architecture. Skilled in using the camera, Lucy was of fundamental support to her husband’s scholarly activity. After the wedding, the couple spent a year and a half in Italy for the purpose of publishing the four-volume Lombard Architecture (1915–1917). Meanwhile, Porter became interested in collecting works of art, especially Italian primitives, and created a refined collection. He taught at Yale University from 1915 to 1919 and at Harvard University from 1920 until his premature death in 1933, playing a leading role in the study of medieval art and visual culture, especially Romanesque architecture and sculpture. Porter and his wife lived in poet James Russell Lowell’s former Cambridge home, Elmwood. In 1918 Kingsley Porter went to France to map the medieval monuments damaged by the war on behalf of the Commission des Monuments Historiques. Here he met for the first time Berenson with whom he already had an epistolary relationship. In 1921, Porter returned to

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Europe to do further research on the monumental and controversial work in ten volumes: Romanesque Sculpture of the Pilgrimage Roads (1923). In 1923–1924 he was exchange professor at the Sorbonne in Paris and Hyde lecturer at provincial universities in France; he was also visiting professor at various Spanish universities. On his return to Harvard he was appointed William Dorr Boardman Professor of Fine Arts, a position he held until his death. At the height of his international reputation, Porter revealed his homosexuality to Lucy: she accepted this, staying close to him until his death. The scholar mysteriously disappeared in 1933 while he was on the small island of Inish Bofin off the northwest coast of Ireland where he owned a home. His body was never found. Information kindly provided to me by Kathryn Brush. Bibl.: Porter, L. K., ‘A . Kingsley Porter’ with ‘Bibliography of the writings of A. Kingsley Porter’; Kestel, ‘The Arthur Kingsley Porter Collection’; Brush, ‘The Capitals from Moutiers-Saint-Jean’; Brush, ‘Bernard Berenson and Arthur Kingsley Porter’; Brush, ‘Medieval Art through the Camera Lens’; Sorensen, ed., ‘Porter, A. Kingsley’; ‘Papers of Arthur Kingsley Porter’.

SACHS, Paul Joseph — Fig. 70 (New York City, 1878–Cambridge, Mass., 1965), art historian. Son of Samuel Sachs and Louisa Goldman Sachs, he attended the Sachs Collegiate Institute in Manhattan, founded by his uncle Julius Sachs, and graduated from Harvard University with a BA degree in 1900. Later he joined the family investment banking firm Goldman Sachs becoming a partner in 1904 and retiring in 1914. The following year, Edward W. Forbes, director of the Fogg Art Museum, appointed him assistant director and later associate director in 1923. He retained that title until his retirement from the museum in 1944 when he became honorary curator of drawings. Sachs married Meta Pollack in 1904 and they had three daughters. During the First World War, he served as an ambulance driver and administrator in Paris for the American Red Cross. Sachs’s career included teaching, first at Wellesley College, Massachusetts as lecturer (1916), at Harvard as Assistant Professor of Art in 1917, full Professor in 1927, and chairman of the Department of Fine Arts in 1933. At Harvard together with Forbes, he initiated one of the first courses in the United States on museum organization and management, popularly known as the ‘Museum Course’. Sachs was also a collector of works of art, mostly drawings and prints. He was one of the founding members of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA, New York) and served as a trustee from 1929 to 1938. He also served as a board member of Dumbarton Oaks where he played a crucial role in its incorporation with Harvard University. During the Second World War Sachs was chairman of the committee on personnel of the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments and recruited many of his former students to hunt down looted artworks and supervise their return to their owners. Professor Sachs received honorary degrees from several

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universities, including that of Yale and Princeton and was named an officer of France’s Legion of Honour. Bibl.: Mongan, A., ‘Obituaries. Paul Joseph Sachs’; Tassel, ‘Portrait of the Artist’; Brown, D. A., ‘Bernard Berenson and Paul Sachs’; ‘Sachs, Paul Joseph’, in Cumming, ed., My Dear BB, p. 543; ‘Paul J. Sachs’; ‘The First Members of the Administrative Committee’; ‘Papers of Paul J. Sachs’.

SIMKHOVITCH, Vladimir Gregorievitch (Velikie Luki, 1874–New York City, 1959), economic historian and art collector. He received his Ph.D from Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (Germany) in 1898 and emigrated to the United States after completing graduate work. During his student years in Germany, he met, in Berlin, Mary Melinda Kingsbury, an accomplished American city planner and social worker whom he married in New York in 1899. The couple had a son and a daughter. Simkhovitch had a brief fellowship at Cornell University. In 1904, he was hired by Columbia University first as lecturer in Russian History and later as Adjunct Professor for the newly created chair of Economic History (1905). After a five-year interval, he was promoted successively to an associate professorship and then to a full professorship. Simkhovitch was the most cosmopolitan figure in the department. Besides his economic history courses, he also lectured regularly on the subject of socialist economics and Marxism until retiring from Columbia in 1942. In this area he achieved his greatest prominence, especially with his paradoxically titled Marxism versus Socialism (1913) — first published in installments in 1908–1912 in Political Science Quarterly — which was also translated into German and French. His essay Toward the Understanding of Jesus, and Other Historical Studies (1921), combined such fine sensitivity and knowledge of the historical setting that clergymen were attracted to his course in economics. Simkhovitch was an avid collector of ancient works of art and then donated them to well-known American museums such as those of the Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University Bloomington, Princeton University Art Museum and Cleveland Museum of Art. Bibl.: ‘Simkhovitch Art Sale Opens’; Kingsbury Simkhovitch, Neighborhood, pp. 47–59; Dorfman, ‘The Department of Economics’, p. 185; ‘Dr Simkhovitch, educator, is dead’; Rudolph and Calinescu, eds, ‘Preface’; Rudolph, ‘Introduction’; Collier, ‘Columbia. Kindleberger remembers Simkhovitch’; Collier, ‘Columbia. Economic History Course’; Collier, ‘Wellesley. Outline of Economics’.

TOESCA, Pietro — Fig. 71 (Pietra Ligure, Savona, 1877–Rome, 1962), art historian. After graduating from the University of Turin in 1898 under Arturo Graf, he enrolled at the University of Rome, where he obtained a diploma at the Scuola di Perfezionamento in Medieval and Modern Art History with Adolfo Venturi. Toesca was docent at the same university in 1904. In

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this capacity, he contributed to various magazines, among them L’Arte, founded and directed by Adolfo Venturi. In the years 1905–1906, Toesca was an inspector at the Soprintendenza of Milan and taught at the Accademia Scientifico-Letteraria. From 1907 to 1914 he was the first occupant of the newly established chair of Art History at Turin University and inspector at the Soprintendenza alle Antichità e Belle Arti. From 1914 to 1926 he was a Professor of Art History at the University of Florence where, in addition to forging a long friendship with Bernard Berenson, Toesca met his future wife, Elena Berti, his pupil and art historian, whom he married in 1926. Their daughter Ilaria was born two years later. During the First World War, Toesca enlisted as an officer. His academic career ended at the University of Rome where he taught from 1926 to 1952. From 1929 to 1937 he was also director of the art history section of the Enciclopedia Italiana, and member of the Commisione Ministeriale dell’Istituto Centrale per il Restauro. Toesca was also a member of the Accademia dei Lincei from 1946. Among his students were Antonio Gramsci, Roberto Longhi, Ernst Kitzinger, and Federico Zeri. Among his many works, La pittura e la miniatura nella Lombardia (1912); Storia dell’Arte Italiana, 1, Il Medioevo, 1 (Turin, 1927); Storia dell’Arte Italiana, 1, Il Medioevo, 2 (Turin [1927]); La pittura fiorentina del Trecento (1929); Monumenti e studi per la storia della miniatura italiana. La collezione di Ulrico Hoepli (1930); Storia dell’Arte Italiana, 2, Il Trecento (1951). Information kindly provided by Pietro Toesca’s niece, Giovanna Bertelli. The literature on Pietro Toesca is vast, see: Castelnuovo, ‘Nota introduttiva’; Aldi, ‘Istituzione di una cattedra di Storia dell’arte’; Aldi, ‘Note e documenti sulla prima attività dell’Istituto di Storia dell’arte di Torino’; Aldi, ‘Pietro Toesca tra cultura tardopositivista e simbolismo’; Bernabò, Ossessioni bizantine, pp. 117–29 and the volume in general; Gabrielli, ‘Pietro Toesca. Il riscatto del Medioevo italiano’; Bertelli, C., ‘Pietro Toesca’; Crivello, ed., Pietro Toesca all’Università di Torino; Callegari and Gabrielli, eds, Pietro Toesca e la fotografia. Saper vedere; Gasbarri, Riscoprire Bisanzio, pp. 110–15 and the volume in general; Bertelli, G. and P., ‘Pietro Toesca, cenni biografici’; Gianandrea, ‘Toesca, Pietro’; Barbolani di Montauto, Gianandrea, Pierguidi, and Ruffini, eds, Pietro Toesca a Roma e la sua eredità.

TYLER, Royall (‘Peter’) — Fig. 72 (Quincy, Mass., 1884–Paris, 1953), art historian. Son of William Royall Tyler, a principal of Adams Academy and Ellen Frances Krebs an heiress to a Boston shipbuilding fortune. Although raised in Quincy, Tyler spent most of his life in Europe. He attended Harrow School (1898–1902), New College, Oxford (1902–1903), the Universidad de Salamanca (1903–1904) and the École des Sciences Politiques in Paris (1906–1908). In 1909, he published his first book, Spain, a Study of Her Life and Arts (New York); some years later, he married his editor’s former wife, Elisina Richards, née Contessa Elisina Palamidessi de Castelvecchio, great-great-granddaughter of Napoleon Bonaparte’s brother, Luigi. The couple had a son, William Royall

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(‘Bill’). During the First World War, and subsequently, Tyler was a member of the US delegation to the Paris Peace Conference (1919) and a member of the U.S. Reparations Commission (1920–1924). He became a deputy commissioner general of the Economic and Financial Section of the League of Nations in Geneva (1924–1928) where he was charged with helping to oversee the economic reconstruction of Hungary. For this reason he spent a long time in Budapest. In 1921 the Tylers bought and restored the historic castle Antigny-le-Château near Arnay-le-Duc in Burgundy. Together with Hayford Peirce, he published Byzantine Art (1926) and L’Art byzantin in two volumes (1932–1934). He began to collect objets d’art and was instrumental in the formation of the Bliss Byzantine and Pre-Columbian collection. He was one of the major organizers of the first international exhibition of Byzantine art in Paris in 1931. He spent much of the Second World War in Switzerland taking unpaid leave from the League of Nations and working for the US intelligence network. Between 1943 and 1949, Tyler served as the Swiss representative of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). After the war, he worked for the World Bank in Paris until 1949. Tyler died there in 1953, apparently by suicide. His last book, The Emperor Charles the Fifth, was unfinished and published posthumously in 1956. Bibl.: M. M., ‘Obituary. Royall Tyler’; ‘Tyler, Royall’, in Cumming, ed., My Dear BB, p. 547; Sorensen, ed., ‘Tyler, Royall’; ‘Royall Tyler (1884–1953)’, with bibliography.

VENTURI, Adolfo — Fig. 73 (Modena, 1856–Santa Margherita Ligure, 1941), art historian. Son of a decorator, Gaetano Venturi, and Maria Barbieri, he attended courses at the Accademia di Belle Arti of Modena from 1872. After obtaining diplomas in business administration, accounting, and education (abilitazione all’insegnamento, 1875–1877), he was the successful applicant for the position of inspector of the Galleria Estense in Modena in 1878. Following his appointment as a 3rd class inspector of the Royal Museums and Galleries, he moved to Rome in 1897. Three years later he obtained a lectureship in Art History at the University of Rome. Venturi was the first in Italy to teach the history of medieval and modern art. From 1901 he became a full professor at the same university, a position held until his retirement in 1931. Meanwhile, Venturi founded and directed the Scuola di Perfezionamento per gli Studi di Storia dell’Arte Medievale e Moderna at the University of Rome. Together with Domenico Gnoli, he directed the periodical Archivio Storico dell’Arte from 1888 to 1898 which eventually became L’Arte founded and directed by Venturi himself. He held various important positions: in 1922, he became a corresponding member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and two years later, a national member of the same institution; in 1924 he was appointed Senator of the Realm. Among his numerous works is the monumental Storia dell’Arte Italiana (25 volumes, 1901–1940). Students of Venturi included his son Lionello Venturi, Pietro Toesca, Roberto Longhi, and Giulio Carlo Argan.

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The literature on A. Venturi is vast. Cited here are: Venturi, A., Memorie autobiografiche [1927]; Venturi, A., Memorie autobiografiche, with a preface by Sciolla (1991); ‘Discorso commemorativo di Adolfo Venturi tenuto da G. Nicodemi’; Agosti, ed., Archivio di Adolfo Venturi, vols 1–4; Gli anni modenesi di Adolfo Venturi; Agosti, La nascita della storia dell’arte in Italia; Valeri, ed., Adolfo Venturi e l’insegnamento della storia dell’arte; Valeri, Adolfo Venturi e gli studi sull’arte; Valeri, ‘Adolfo Venturi’, pp. 634–42; Battilani Raimondi, and Sponzilli, eds, Attualità e memoria in Adolfo Venturi; D’Onofrio, ed., Adolfo Venturi e la Storia dell’arte oggi; Valeri, ‘Adolfo Venturi. La memoria dell’occhio’; Gasbarri, Riscoprire Bisanzio, pp. 75–76 and the volume in general.

VENTURI, Franco (Rome, 1914–Turin, 1994), historian. Grandson of Adolfo Venturi and son of Lionello Venturi. He attended the classical high school Massimo d’Azeglio in Turin where he joined a group of young anti-fascists which led to his arrest. In 1932, his father, who was Professor of Art History at Turin University, refused to join the fascist regime and moved to Paris with the family. There Franco completed high school and undertook historical studies at the Sorbonne where he graduated in 1936. In the same year he went for the first time to the Soviet Union. Later he was known for a series of studies which treated the French Enlightenment in a new way by emphasizing its political achievement and not just its philosophical and literary aspects. In 1933 he joined the anti-Fascist movement Giustizia e Libertà founded by Carlo Rosselli and became associated with the periodical bearing the same name, becoming editor after the assassination of the Rosselli brothers (Carlo and Nello). With the arrival of the Nazis, the Venturi family emigrated to New York, except for Franco who hoped to join them later. On his way to Portugal, from where he was supposed to embark, he was caught in Spain and arrested for a year and a half. Then he was extradited to Italy in March 1941 and imprisoned at Monteforte Irpino and later exiled to Avigliano in the Basilicata. In 1943 he returned to Piedmont joining the Resistance movement and became a member of the executive committee of the Partito d’Azione. From 1947–1950 he was cultural attaché at the Italian Embassy in Moscow. On his return to Italy he began his university career as a teacher, first at the University of Cagliari (1951–1955), then Genoa (1955–1958) and, finally, Turin, eventually occupying the chair of modern history until 1984. In 1959 he succeeded Federico Chabod as director of the Rivista Storica Italiana. Bibl.: Tortarolo, ‘La rivolta e le riforme’; Guerci and Ricuperati, eds, Il coraggio della ragione: Franco Venturi; Albertone, ed., Il repubblicanesimo moderno. L’idea di repubblica; Casalino, Influire in un mondo ostile; Viarengo, ‘Franco Venturi’; Viarengo, Franco Venturi, politica e storia.

VOLBACH, Wolfgang Fritz — Fig. 74 (Mainz, 1892–1988), art historian. Son of the conductor, composer, and musicologist Fritz Volbach and Käthe Dernburg. He studied Art History and Classical Archaeology at Tübingen,

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Munich, Berlin (as a pupil, among others, of Adolph Goldschmidt) and Gießen. In 1915, he obtained his Ph.D from the University of Gießen under Christian Rauch with a thesis on the figure of St George in medieval German art. The following year Volbach was active for a short period at the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum in Mainz, and at the new Nassauische Landesmuseum in Wiesbaden (now Museum Wiesbaden). In 1917, he was called by Wilhelm von Bode to the Abteilung der Bildwerke der christlichen Epochen (Frühchristlische Byzantinische Sammlung whose Kustos was then Oskar Wulff) of the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum in Berlin (now Staatliche Museen-Bode Museum), first as volunteer and research assistant, then Kustos (1927) and professor (1933). Volbach studied and catalogued the collections and published volumes on individual material groups, such as the ivories and textiles. As part of this activity, he travelled in Europe, Egypt, and Turkey. In 1921–1922 he was awarded the Christian archaeological travel scholarship from the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut. However, he only undertook, in 1923, a three-week trip to northern Italy. In 1929, he married Luise Wilhelmine Maria Adelung, daughter of a German politician, who died in 1936. The couple had a son, Fritz. Volbach’s rejection of Nazism forced him to emigrate with his family to Rome (via Napoli) in 1934 where he found employment at the Museo Sacro (or Cristiano, which at that time and until 1999 was annexed to the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana) under Father Pio Franchi De’ Cavalieri. There, Volbach re-arranged and catalogued the Late-Antique and Byzantine collections. Beginning in 1934, he taught at the Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana in Rome. In 1936 he met the British writer and translator Vivyan Eyles (pseudonym Lydia Holland), at that time wife of the Anglicist Mario Praz. They married in 1948 and had a son, Julian Albert, who then died tragically. Volbach was unable to accept appointments to the New School for Social Research in New York in 1940 and to Chicago. During the exile, he quickly established links with scholars and German exiles including, from the end of 1942, the Deutsche Antinationalsozialistische Vereinigung Südeuropa (also called Anti-Nazikomitee), a group of intellectuals, communists, and social democrats around the Catholic doctor Willy Nix. Moreover, Volbach had good relationships with Italian anti-fascists (including Alcide De Gasperi) inside and outside the Vatican. In 1947 Volbach returned to Germany where he worked for the newly formed Kultusministerium des Landes Rheinland-Pfalz as Kulturreferent and Regierungsdirektor: he was responsible for the preservation of monuments, museums, and libraries. In 1950 Volbach became deputy director and then director (1953–1958) of the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum. After the death of his second wife in 1987, he married his long-time collaborator Dorothee Renner. Information kindly provided to me by Professor Wolfram Kinzig. Bibl.: Heist, ed., Wissenschaft und Turbulenz. Der Lebensweg des W. F. Volbach; Wendland, ‘Volbach, Wolfgang Fritz’; Kinzig, ‘Wolfgang Fritz Volbach’; Kinzig,

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‘Wolfgang Fritz Volbach (1892–1988)’; Kinzig, ‘Volbach, Wolfgang Fritz’; Ehler and others, eds, Wissenschaft und Turbulenz. Wolfgang Fritz Volbach, exhibition catalogue; ‘Wolfgang Friedrich (“Fritz”) Volbach’.

WALKER, John — Fig. 75 (Pittsburgh, 1906–Amberley, 1995), art historian. Son of Hay Walker III and Rebekah Friend from an affluent family of iron and steel industrialists. After the early divorce of his parents, he lived with his mother. At age thirteen, Walker contracted polio and this forced him into a wheelchair for many years. He attended Harvard University where he took the museum and connoisseurship courses of Paul J. Sachs. Meanwhile, Walker was one of the founders of the Harvard Society for Contemporary Art which sponsored exhibitions of contemporary artists in rented rooms. He graduated in 1930 and then won a fellowship as an apprentice to Bernard Berenson, with whom he formed a lifelong friendship, at Villa I Tatti. From I Tatti Walker went to work as a dean of students at the American Academy in Rome from 1935 to 1939. In Rome he met and married Margaret Gwendolyn Mary ‘Margie’ Drummond, daughter of James Eric, 16th Earl of Perth, Britain’s ambassador to Italy, and had two children. While in Rome, Walker aided in negotiations with Berenson to bequeath the Villa I Tatti to Harvard upon his death. In 1937, Walker learned that former US Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon was founding an art museum in Washington, DC, so he approached Mellon’s son, Paul, a childhood friend, and was soon given a position at the National Gallery of Art. Walker was first chief curator under director David Edward Finley in 1939 and succeeded him in 1956 until retirement in 1969. During the Second World War, he was unable to serve in the military because of his physical disability but went to Europe as representative of the American Commission Abroad. He worked with the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) Commission following the war as a special advisor to the Roberts Commission. Bibl.: Walker, Self-Portrait with Donors; Brown, D. A., ‘Bernard Berenson and Paul Sachs’, pp. 279–81; ‘Walker, John’, in Cumming, ed., My Dear BB, pp. 547–48; ‘John Walker; National Gallery Director’; Lowe, ‘Obituary: John Walker’; Sorensen, ed., ‘Walker, John, III’.

WHITTEMORE, Thomas — Fig. 76 (Cambridge, Mass., 1871–Washington, DC, 1950), Byzantinist. Son of the real estate and insurance broker Joseph Whittemore and Elizabeth St Clair. In 1894, he received his bachelor’s degree in English literature from Tufts College in Boston (of which his grandfather, Reverend Thomas Whittemore was co-founder). Young Thomas remained to teach the same subject in his alma mater. By 1902–1903 he was giving lectures on art historical topics in ancient and western medieval art. Through the famous art collector Isabella Stewart Gardner he met the art connoisseur Matthew Stewart Prichard whose thought profoundly influenced him. In 1908 he taught at Columbia University Summer school on both Rudyard

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Kipling and fine arts. Whittemore took a leave of absence from Tufts the same year and travelled abroad. He studied architecture at the Sorbonne in Paris where he met the painter Henry Matisse and visited England, Italy, Russia, Bulgaria, and Germany, and perhaps Turkey. In 1910 he became a docent in the Egyptian Department at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Whittemore also lectured outside the university to the general public. In 1911 he was named American Representative for the British run Egypt Exploration Society and travelled to Egypt in order to assist in the excavations. For this reason he resigned from Tufts but maintained contacts with the academic world. In 1922 he inspired and directed the Committee for the Education of Russian Youth in Exile with head office in Boston whose purpose was to help young Russian citizens exiled following the October Revolution and the civil war to continue their studies in Europe. Meanwhile, he carried out relief work and architectural studies in Russia and Bulgaria and continued his public lectures participating at luncheons sponsored by the American élite thereby making his compatriots aware of ongoing philanthropic efforts in western Europe. In 1927 he taught Byzantine Art at New York University and became Assistant Professor remaining there until 1930. That year he founded The Byzantine Institute of America based in Boston with a research centre in Paris and a field office in Istanbul: a non-profit organization, supported by several members of a committee. During its formative period, the organization did not deal with Byzantium but first moved operations to Egypt conducting studies of wall paintings at the Coptic Monasteries of Saints Anthony and PauI located in the eastern desert mountains near the Red Sea. In 1931, Whittemore and the Institute he directed were authorized by the then Turkish government, to proceed with the conservation and restoration of the rediscovered mosaics of Santa Sophia (then Ayasofya Camii) in Istanbul. In 1933 he became keeper of Harvard’s Byzantine coin collection and appointed fellow in Byzantine art in 1938 until his retirement in 1942. The Byzantine Institute officially ended its administrative and fieldwork operations in 1962 and transferred its assets to Dumbarton Oaks. In 1963, Dumbarton Oaks and the trustees of Harvard University assumed all fieldwork activities formerly initiated by the Institute. Bibl.: Peeters, ‘Nécrologie: M. Thomas Whittemore’; MacDonald, ‘The Uncovering of Byzantine Mosaics’; MacDonald, ‘Thomas Whittemore’; Constable, ‘Dumbarton Oaks’; Labrusse and Podzemskaia, ‘Naissance d’une vocation’; Nelson, R. S., Hagia Sophia, 1850–1950, pp. 155–86; Teteriatnikov: ‘The Byzantine Institute’; Butler, L. E., ‘Whittemore, Thomas’; Klein, ‘Tarifi Zor Bay Whittemore’-‘The Elusive Mr Whittemore’; ‘Thomas Whittemore (1871–1950)’; ‘Who Was Thomas Whittemore?’; ‘Byzantine Institute’.

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Figure 49. Marie Beale in Venice, 1948. Unknown photographer. The Bernard and Mary Berenson Papers. Photo courtesy of Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 50. Antonis Benakis admiring the gold Mycenaean kylix from Dendra in the Argolis, in 1950. A photograph that has become a hallmark of the Benaki Museum. © 2018 The Benaki Museum, Athens.

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Figure 51. Mary and Bernard Berenson in Egypt, 1922. Unknown photographer. The Bernard and Mary Berenson Papers. Photo courtesy of Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 52. Sergio Bettini in the 1940s.

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Figure 53. Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, c. 1950.

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Figure 54. Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss in Music Room of Dumbarton Oaks, 1948, Washington, DC, The Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection (AR.PH.BL.004).

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Figure 55. Rhys Carpenter, Photograph Collection, College Archives, Special Collections Department, Bryn Mawr, College Library, Pennsylvania.

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Figure 56. Stanley Casson, 1924.

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Figure 57. Anatole-Marie-Guillaume de Jerphanion, 1916.

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Figure 58. Andrew Ritchie, Special Representative of Commanding General in Munich, from Buffalo, N.Y.; Colonel Theo S. Paul, Chief of Reparations, Deliveries and Restitution Division U.S. Allied Control Authority, from Philadelphia, Penn.; Lieutenant Colonel Ernest T. DeWald, Arts & Decorations Division of U.S. Forces, examining the Crown of the Holy Roman Empire, USFA HQ, Vienna, Austria, 1946, College Park (Maryland), National Archives, photo no. 111-SC-233862.

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Figure 59. Edward Waldo Forbes with students in gallery, Fogg Museum. Photograph by George S. Woodruff, 1944. Fogg History Photographs, International News Photos, folder 1. Harvard Art Museums Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

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Figure 60. Alison Frantz (1947). American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Agora Excavations.

Figure 61. Louis Gillet, 1930–1943. Unknown photographer. The Bernard and Mary Berenson Papers. Photo courtesy of Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 62. Photographic portrait of Orlando Grosso, c. 1928, Genoa, Centro di DocSAI-Archivio Fotografico.

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Figure 63. Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, 1934–1941. Unknown photographer. The Bernard and Mary Berenson Papers. Photo courtesy of Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 64. Viktor Nikitich Lazarev (1897–1976).

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Figure 65. Sir Eric Maclagan © Maclagan family.

Figure 66. Theodore Makridi Bey in the church of the Theotokos Panakrantos (Fenari Isa Camii), c. 1928.

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Figure 67. Nicky Mariano, 1955–1960. Unknown photographer. The Bernard and Mary Berenson Papers. Photo courtesy of Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 68. Nikolai Andreevich Andreev, Portrait of P.P. Muratov, 1921.

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Figure 69. Arthur Kingsley Porter, 1933. Unknown photographer. The Bernard and Mary Berenson Papers. Photo courtesy Biblioteca Berenson.

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Figure 70. Portrait of Paul J. Sachs. Photograph by Richard Tucker, undated. Fogg History Photographs, Fogg Benefactors, folder 2. Harvard Art Museums Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

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Figure 71. Pietro Toesca, Perugia 1932.

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Figure 72. Royall Tyler (c. 1940), Washington, DC, The Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection (AR.PH.Misc.012).

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Figure 73. Adolfo Venturi, Fondo Venturi, Archivio Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, by permission of SNS.

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Figure 74. Wolfgang Fritz Volbach in a deck chair in Italy (1935).

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Figure 75. John Walker, c. 1930, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Gallery Archives. 26C4_8946_001.

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Figure 76. Thomas Whittemore in the outer narthex of the Kariye Camii, c. 1940, The Byzantine Institute and Dumbarton Oaks Fieldwork Records and Papers, c. late 1920s–2000s, MS.BZ.004, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, DC.

Appendix

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The English draft of the article published in the newspaper Corriere della Sera entitled ‘San Marco, Tempio e Museo Bizantino’, 2 September 1954, p. 3 has been transcribed here from a typewritten version of BB, with his handwritten modifications which were sometimes indecipherable. This text is obviously not the final one sent to the newspaper, which had to be typed. The text transcribed here differs slightly from the translation printed in the Corriere.

St Mark’s, Byzantine Temple and Museum, Bernard Berenson No doubts art histories and serious guidebooks speak of Saint Mark’s in Venice as overwhelmingly Byzantine. I am not sure to what extent the cultivated public, the public to which I address the following paragraphs, has taken in and made its own the most telling conclusions about Saint Mark’s. It is that Saint Mark’s not only is entirely Byzantine despite later ornaments and later accretions but that it is the most typical, the most complete and the most satisfactory Byzantine edifice now existing. The learned say that is an exact copy of the church of the Apostles at Constantinople destroyed by Sultan Mahomet II, which was rebuilt as a mosque known as Fatimieh. The explanations given for this vandalism is that it was tottering and dangerously ruinous. A stronger reason I suspect was that its ambulatories sheltered the sarcophagi of the Christian emperors and that it caused fan patriotism as Saint Denis’ in France. In calling Saint Mark’s the most complete Byzantine edifice now existing I do not except for Santa Sophia. Outside, this edifice makes scarcely any aesthetic appeal. Inside, it is more fashioning no doubt as space, but it is less harmonious and in its God-abandoned state a drearily cold museum of itself. The interior rejoices us with its porphyry columns, marvelous and varied capitals, as well as with its exquisite wainscoting. In other respects it now is forbiddingly empty. What it may have been in its great days when it was the cathedral not of a diocese but of a vast empire, we scarcely can imagine. San Marco on the other hand is as excitingly rich outside as inside. The bare naked structure is scarcely visible from Piazza or Piazzetta. One must look for it in the courtyard of the Doge’s Palace or at the back from the canal, or at the open-air passage to the sacristy. Wherever you descry the design and the brick masonry you perceive an unadulterated Byzantine structure, Elsewhere the raw bones lie hidden under every kind of Byzantine panelling of varied marbles, Byzantine columns of porphyry and other rare stones, with capitals some of plaited straw, others as of daintily patterned bronze, others still as if tops of windswept pinetrees, all brought from the Byzantine world if not from Constantinople itself. They not only cluster in the embrasures of the three main entrances but stand free to right and left of the inner doors of the atrium. The façade and the sides, the northern one particularly, are covered over with late classical and Byzantine reliefs representing subjects and single

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figures, sacred and profane. They form a compendious collection of Byzantine sculpture. Even the Byzantine-Sassanian motive of Alexander the Great’s ascent to heaven is among them. On the south west corner of the balcony, there is a fine museum piece in the form of a porphyry head of an emperor who during a rebellion had his nose cut. On the south side we find two porphyry groups of Diocletian and his emperial [sic] colleagues. To enumerate these sculptures one by one and those within the basilica as well, and describe and date them would take a bulky catalogue. Has it ever been done properly? The mosaics above the balconies except the one to our extreme left have disappeared. We see them in Gentile Bellini’s Corpus Christi procession reproduced as they still existed at the end of the 15th century. If there were the will it would not be difficult to build them back. Of the mosaics inside the Basilica, the best are in the cupolas and on the walls of the right transept. In the cupolas the human figures represent saints, but they function as ribs of the structure. On the walls the narrative compositions are spread with such wide intervals between the different groups and the figures in each group are so vertical that they avoid the aspect of illustrative cartoons plastered on to the walls as we find them in the 16th century mosaics of the nave. In the atrium the compositions are more crowded, being copied from early illustrations of the psalms but even they avoid horizontal effects and allow the vertical lines to lead the eye to the cap of the cupolas. To return to the interior, there is no column, no capital, no wainscoting, no pulpit, no figure in the round that is not Byzantine or in rare case byzantinizing, excepting of course the late 14th century figures on the beam over the entrance to the choir. And there in the choir, the columns of the tabernacle are pre-Byzantine, and the Pala d’oro, the most radiant as enamel, the most exquisite as illustration surpasses not only anything and everything of its own kind in Byzantine art, but leaves far behind the masterpiece od Nicolaus of Verdun at Klosterneuburg near Vienna. To return out of doors, the south side is paneled with reliefs of a peculiarly Byzantine or if you will pre-Byzantine style with the ornamental pattern raised while the rest is scooped out and empty. You find the same in the square pillars standing there as well as on the capital of the two Egyptian granite columns with the Byzantine bronze lion on the one and the patched Saint Theodore on the other. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Excepting the mural paintings in Yugoslavia, the over-restored but grand mosaics at Daphne (near Athens) and the ones at Hosios Luke on the lovest slopes of Helicon, and some few at Salonica, Byzantine narrative compositions of before 1300 can be studied better at San Mark’s than in the whole Aegean world. Even the late 14th century mosaics in the side chapels of San Marco can hold their own with any in the Byzantine world excepting the earliest of the decline in the atrium of the Karieh Djami of Constantinople.

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By a curious stroke of fortune it is above all in Italy that classical Byzantine iconography can be studied and enjoyed to perfection — in San Marco as we have seen but even better in Sicily. Nothing of course can take away from the enchantment of seeing things where they grew and flourished no matter how diminished or how ruined to-day. It is perhaps through travelling in Aegean lands and through visiting the rare treasures they still contain that one becomes aware of Italy’s and Sicily’s richness not only in Byzantine art but in classical architecture as well. Need to remind ourselves of temples in the Greater Greece of the past like those of Paestum, of Syracuse, of Agrigentum, of Selinunte, of Segesta, and of mosaics like those of Naples, of San Prisco, of Rome, of Cefalù, of Palermo, of Monreale.

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‘A Newly Discovered Cimabue’, Art in America, 8 (October 1920): 251–71, Bernard Berenson

Reprinted in Berenson, Studies in Medieval Painting: 17–31

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‘Due dipinti del decimosecondo secolo venuti da Costantinopoli’, Dedalo, 2 (1921–1922): 284–304, Bernard Berenson

Reprint in Berenson, Studies in Medieval Painting: 1–16

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Bibliography of Bernard and Mary Berenson’s Works

Berenson, Bernard, ‘Isochromatic Photography and Venetian Pictures’, The Nation (9 November 1893), 346 —, The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance, with an Index to their Works (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1894) —, Lorenzo Lotto: An Essay in Constructive Art Criticism (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1895) —, The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance, with an Index to their Works (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1896) —, The Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1897) —, The Drawings of the Florentine Painters: Classified, Criticized and Studied as Documents in the History and Appreciation of Tuscan Art; with a Copious Catalogue Raisonné, 1, Text; 2, Catalogue Raisonné (London: John Murray, 1903); The Drawings of the Florentine Painters, 1, Text; 2, Catalogue; 3, Illustrations, 2nd edn (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1938) —, ‘A Sienese Painter of the Franciscan Legend. Part I’, The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, 3.7 (September–October 1903), 2–35 —, ‘A Sienese Painter of the Franciscan Legend. Part II-(Conclusion)’, The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, 3.8 (November 1903), 171–84 —, North Italian Painters of the Renaissance (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1907) —, A Sienese Painter of the Franciscan Legend (London: J. M. Dent & Son, Ltd., 1909) —, A Sienese Painter of the Franciscan Legend (New York, John Lane Company, 1909) —, ‘A Nativity and Adoration of the School of Pietro Cavallini in the Collection of Mr. John G. Johnson,’ Art in America, 1 ( January 1913), 17–24; reprint in Berenson, Bernard, Studies in Medieval Painting (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1930), pp. 33–37 —, Venetian Painting in America. The Fifteenth Century (New York: F. F. Sherman, 1916) —, Essays in the Study of Sienese Painting (New York: F. F. Sherman, 1918) —, ‘A Newly Discovered Cimabue’, Art in America, 8 (October 1920), 251–71; reprint in Berenson, Bernard, Studies in Medieval Painting (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1930), pp. 17–31 —, ‘Due dipinti del decimosecondo secolo venuti da Costantinopoli’, Dedalo, 2 (1921–1922), 284–304; reprint in English as ‘Two Twelfth-Century Paintings

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from Constantinople’, in Berenson, Bernard, Studies in Medieval Painting (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1930), pp. 1–16 —, Флорентийские живописцы Возрождения, trans. by Pavel P. Muratov (Sakharova, 1923), transliteration: Florentiiskie zhivopistsy Vozrozhdeniia —, ‘Due illustratori italiani dello Speculum Humanae Salvationis (I)’, Bollettino d’Arte, s. 2, fasc. 7 ( January 1926), 289–320 —, ‘Due illustratori italiani dello Speculum Humanae Salvationis (II)’, Bollettino d’Arte, s. 2, fasc. 8 (February 1926), 353–84 —, Les Peintres Italiens de la Renaissance, 1, Les Peintres Vénitiens, trans. by Louis Gillet (Paris: J. Schiffrin, 1926) —, Les Peintres Italiens de la Renaissance, 2, Les Peintres Florentins, trans. by Countess De Rohan-Chabot (Paris: J. Schiffrin, 1926) —, Les Peintres Italiens de la Renaissance, 3, Les Peintres de l’Italie du Centre, trans. by Louis Gillet (Paris: J. Schiffrin, 1926) —, Les Peintres Italiens de la Renaissance, 4, Les Peintres de l’Italie du Nord, trans. by Louis Gillet (Paris: J. Schiffrin, 1926) —, Three Essays in Method (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1927) —, The Italian Painters of the Renaissance, rev. edn (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1930) —, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and their Works with an Index of Places (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1932) —, I pittori italiani del Rinascimento, trans. by Emilio Cecchi, Collezione ‘Valori Plastici’ (Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1936) —, Pitture italiane del Rinascimento. Catalogo dei principali artisti e delle loro opere con un indice dei luoghi, trans. by Emilio Cecchi, Collezione ‘Valori Plastici’ (Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1936) —, Sassetta. Un pittore senese della leggenda francescana, first trans. from the English original by Achille Malavasi (Florence: Electa Casa editrice, 1946) —, Metodo e attribuzioni, preface by Raffaello Franchi, 2nd edn (Florence: Del Turco, 1947) —, Aesthetics and History in the Visual Arts (New York: Pantheon, 1948) —, Estetica, etica e storia nelle arti della rappresentazione visiva, version from the unpublished manuscript by Mario Praz (Florence: Electa, 1948) —, The Italian Painters of the Renaissance (London: Oxford University Press, 1948) —, Sketch for a Self-Portrait (London: Constable Publishers, 1949) —, Sketch for a Self-Portrait (New York: Pantheon, 1949) —, Abbozzo per un autoritratto, Italian trans. by Arturo Loria (Florence: Electa, 1949) —, Echi e riflessioni (diario 1941–1944), trans. and introduction by Guglielmo Alberti, I ‘Quaderni’ della Medusa, 29 (Milan: A. Mondadori, 1950) —, Aesthetics and History (London: Constable, 1950) —, ‘Une Sacra Conversazione de l’école de Giorgione au Louvre’, La Revue des arts, 2 (1951), 67–76 —, Rumor and Reflection (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1952) —, Rumor and Reflection 1941:1944 (London: Constable, 1952)

bibl i o g r ap h y o f b e r n ar d an d m ary b e re nso n’s wo rk s

—, L’Arco di Costantino o Della decadenza della forma, Italian trans. by Luisa Vertova (Milan: Electa, 1952) —, The Arch of Constantine; or, The Decline of Form (London: Chapman & Hall, 1954) —, ‘Decline and Recovery in the Figure Arts’, in Studies in Art and Literature for Belle da Costa Greene, ed. by Dorothy Miner (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954), pp. 25–29 —, ‘San Marco, Tempio e Museo Bizantino’, Corriere della Sera (2 September 1954), 3 —, Lorenzo Lotto, version from the third unpublished Italian edition by Luisa Vertova (Milan: Electa, 1955) —, Viaggio in Sicilia, version of the original manuscript by Arturo Loria (Milan: Electa, 1955) —, Pagine di Diario. Pellegrinaggi d’arte, preface by Emilo Cecchi, Italian trans. by Arturo Loria (Milan: Electa, 1958) —, Pitture italiane del Rinascimento. Elenco dei principali artisti e delle loro opere con un indice dei luoghi. La Scuola Veneta, 2 vols (London: Phaidon Press, 1958) —, ‘Ritorno in Calabria (1955)’, in Bernard e Mary Berenson in Calabria, introduction and ed. by Vittorio Cappelli, Series ‘I viaggi in Calabria’, 10 (Soverìa Mannelli, Catanzaro: Rubbettino, 2008), pp. 35–56 Berenson, Bernard, and Roberto Longhi, Lettere e scartafacci 1912–1957, ed. by Cesare Garboli and Cristina Montagni, with an essay by Giacomo Agosti, Piccola Biblioteca Adelphi, 313 (Milan: Adelphi, 1993) Berenson, Mary, A Modern Pilgrimage (New York: D. Appleton, 1933) —, Across the Mediterranean (Prato: Giachetti Figlio e C., 1935) —, ‘A Vicarious Trip to the Barbary Coast’ (London: Constable & Co., 1938)

575

Bibliography

Manuscripts Athens, MS EBE 7, Psalter = Athens, National Library Greece, MS EBE 7, Psalter BAV, Bibbia del Pantheon, MS Vat. Lat. 12958 = Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Bibbia del Pantheon, MS Vaticano latino 12958 BAV, MS Pal. Gr. 431 = Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Joshua Roll (MS Palatino Gr. 431) BnF, Homilies of St Gregory of Nazianzus, MS Gr. 510 = Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Homilies of St Gregory of Nazianzus, MS Gr. 510 BnF, MS Gr. 139 (Psalter) = Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris Psalter (MS Gr. 139) BnF, MS NAL 2334 = Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Biblia. Pentateuchus, MS Nouvelles acquisitions latines 2334 Catania, BRCUR, MSS Civ. A. 72 = Catania, Biblioteche Riunite ‘Civica e A. Ursino Recupero’, Latin Bible, Fondo Benedettino MSS A. 72 Florence, BML, Rabbula Gospels (MS Plut. 1.56) = Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Rabbula Gospels (MS Pluteo 1.56) Genoa, BCB, Libro d’Ore Durazzo, MS (m.r.Cf.Arm.1) = Genoa, Biblioteca Civica Berio, Libro d’Ore Durazzo, MS (m.r.Cf.Arm.1) Gerona, ACC, Vulgate Bible (‘Bible of Charles V’), MS 10 = Gerona, Archivo Capitular de la Catedral, Vulgate Bible (‘Bible of Charles V’), MS 10 Madrid, BNE, I. Scylitzes, ‘[Synopsis historiarum]’ (MS VITR/26/2) = Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, Ioannis Scylitzes, Synopsis historiarum (MS VITR/26/2) Munich, BS, Book of Hours (MS Clm 6116) = Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Book of Hours (MS Clm 6116) Nonatola, Museo Benedettino, Evangelistario of Matilde di Canossa, MS = Nonantola, Tesoro dell’Abbazia di San Silvestro, Museo Benedettino e Diocesano d’Arte Sacra, Evangelistario of Matilde di Canossa, MS Parma, CMP-BPal, Bibbia Atlantica, MS Pal. 386 = Parma, Complesso Monumentale della Pilotta, Biblioteca Palatina, Bibbia Atlantica, MS Palatino 386 Parma, CMP-BPal, Tetravangelo (Four Gospels), MS Pal. 5 = Parma, Complesso Monumentale della Pilotta, Biblioteca Palatina, Tetravangelo (Four Gospels), MS Palatino 5 Patmos, Monastery, Museum, Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus, MS Gr. 33 = Patmos, Monastery of Saint John the Theologian, Museum, Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus, MS Gr. 33

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Perugia, BCA, Bibbia Atlantica, MS L 59 = Perugia, Biblioteca Comunale Augusta, Bibbia Atlantica, MS L 59 Rome, BV, Evangeliario (Gospel), MS E. 16 = Rome, Biblioteca Vallicelliana, Evangeliario (Gospel), MS E. 16 Rossano, Codex Rossanensis (MS Σ 042) = Rossano, Museo Diocesano e del Codex, Codex Purpureus Rossanensis (MS Σ 042) Venice, BMSL, Evangeliario della Regina Mlkè, MS 1144/86 = Venice, Biblioteca Mechitarista di San Lazzaro degli Armeni, Evangeliario della Regina Mlkè, MS 1144/86

Archival Collections American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Archives, Bert H. Hill Papers American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Archives, Natalie Gifford Wyatt Papers Archibald Creswell photographs, Biblioteca Berenson, I Tatti – The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. Arthur Kingsley Porter study photographs of Romanesque architecture and sculpture, Getty Research Institute. Arthur Kingsley Porter study and teaching collection, Harvard Fine Arts Library.