Bernardino Poccetti and the Art of Religious Painting at the End of the Florentine Renaissance (Visual and Material Culture, 1300-1700) 9789463729529, 9789048550951, 9463729526

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V I S U A L A N D M AT E R I A L C U LT U R E , 13 0 0 -17 0 0

Douglas N. Dow

Bernardino Poccetti and the Art of Religious Painting at the End of the Florentine Renaissance

Bernardino Poccetti and the Art of Religious Painting at the End of the Florentine Renaissance

Visual and Material Culture, 1300-1700 A forum for innovative research on the role of images and objects in the late medieval and early modern periods, Visual and Material Culture, 1300-1700 publishes monographs and essay collections that combine rigorous investigation with critical inquiry to present new narratives on a wide range of topics, from traditional arts to seemingly ordinary things. Recognizing the fluidity of images, objects, and ideas, this series fosters cross-cultural as well as multi-disciplinary exploration. We consider proposals from across the spectrum of analytic approaches and methodologies. Series Editor Allison Levy is Digital Scholarship Editor at Brown University. She has authored or edited five books on early modern Italian visual and material culture.

Bernardino Poccetti and the Art of Religious Painting at the End of the Florentine Renaissance

Douglas N. Dow

Amsterdam University Press

The publication of this book is made possible by a grant from the Kansas State University Department of Art.

Cover illustration: Bernardino Poccetti, Funeral of Saint Bruno (detail), 1591–1593, fresco. Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0 / detail from original) Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout 978 94 6372 952 9 isbn 978 90 4855 095 1 e-isbn doi 10.5117/9789463729529 nur 654 © D.N. Dow / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2023 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.



Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

7

List of Abbreviations

15

Acknowledgments

17

Introduction: ‘Il primo huomo da dipingere in fresco, che sia in questi paesi’ 19 Bernardino Poccetti and the Historiography of Florentine Painting during the Late Renaissance

1. ‘Grandemente inclinato all’Arte del Disegno’

43

2. ‘Le prime cose lodevoli molto’

79

Filippo Baldinucci’s Biography of Bernardino Poccetti

Bernardino Poccetti’s Early Work and the Frescoes from the Life of Saint Dominic in the Chiostro Grande, Santa Maria Novella

3. ‘Locum ecclesiae designavit, quae Ioannis et uxoris pecunia extructa est’

131

4. ‘Miracula et alia id genus’

169

Color Plates

177

5. ‘L’inventore di dipingere tutte le muraglie della nostra chiesa’

241

Conclusion

277

Bibliography

283

Index

313

Bernardino Poccetti and the Decoration of the Canigiani Chapel in Santa Felicita

Bernardino Poccetti’s Frescoes in the Church of San Lorenzo at the Certosa del Galluzzo

Bernardino Poccetti and the Sixteenth-Century Decoration of Santa Maria del Carmine



List of Illustrations

Color Plates Plate 1 Plate 2 Plate 3 Plate 4

Plate 5

Plate 6

Plate 7 Plate 8

Plate 9 Plate 10 Plate 11

Andrea del Sarto, Madonna del Sacco, 1525, fresco. Chiostro dei Morti, Santissima Annunziata, Florence. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) Bernardino Poccetti, Birth of Saint Dominic, c. 1584, fresco. Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Chiostro Grande. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0) Bernardino Poccetti, Saint Dominic’s Text Survives a Trial by Fire, c. 1584, fresco. Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Chiostro Grande. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0) View of vault with Holy Trinity by Tommaso Gherardini (after 1767) and saints in the pendentives by Bernardino Poccetti (1590), fresco. Florence, Santa Felicita, Canigiani Chapel. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) Bernardino Poccetti, The Miraculous Snowfall on the Esquiline Hill and the Foundation of Santa Maria Maggiore, 1590, fresco. Florence, Santa Felicita, Canigiani Chapel. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) Bernardino Poccetti, Bruno Refuses the Bishopric of Reggio Calabria, 1591–1593, fresco. Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) Bernardino Poccetti, Funeral of Saint Bruno, 1591–1593, fresco. Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) Bernardino Poccetti, Saints, Beati, and Carthusian Priors General, 1591–1593, fresco. Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) Bernardino Poccetti, Saint Bartholomew, 1604, fresco. Florence, San Bartolomeo a Monte Oliveto. Source: author Bernardino Poccetti, Saint Miniatus, 1604, fresco. Florence, San Bartolomeo a Monte Oliveto. Source: author Giovanni Antonio Dosio, Gaddi Chapel, 1575–1577. View of colored-marble revetment and tomb. Florence, Santa Maria Novella. Source: author

177 178 179

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192 185 186 187

8

BERNARDINO POCCE T TI AND THE ART OF RELIGIOUS PAINTING

Plate 12

Plate 13

Plate 14

Plate 15

Plate 16

Giovanni Antonio Dosio, Niccolini Chapel, revetments complete by 1588. View of colored-marble revetment and tomb. Florence, Santa Croce. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0 / detail from original) Bernardino Poccetti, Saint Dominic Distributes the Proceeds from the Sale of his Books, c. 1584, fresco. Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Chiostro Grande. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0) Bernardino Poccetti, study for Saint Dominic Distributes the Proceeds from the Sale of his Books (after Andrea del Sarto), black chalk with white heightening. Florence, GDSU (inv. no. 8576 F). Source: Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabinetto Fotografico Bernardino Poccetti, Saint Dominic Converts the Heretical Noblewomen, c. 1584, fresco. Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Chiostro Grande. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0) Bernardino Poccetti, study for The Martyrdom of Saint James, 1590s, black chalk. Florence, GDSU (inv. no. 8791 F). Source: Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabinetto Fotografico

Black-and-white figures Filippo Baldinucci, ‘Bernardo Barbatelli detto Bernardino Fig. 1.1 Poccetti pittore fiorentino’ in Notizie de’ professori del disegno (1688). Source: Getty Research Institute. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content program Pier Dandini, Filippo Baldinucci and the Accademie della Fig. 1.2 Crusca and del Disegno, late seventeenth–early eighteenth century. Florence, Accademia della Crusca. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) Fig. 2.1 Bernardo Buontalenti, Palazzo di Bianca Cappello, 1570s. Florence, Via Maggio. Source: author Fig. 2.2 Bernardino Poccetti, detail of sgraffito facade, Palazzo di Bianca Cappello, 1573–1575. Florence, Via Maggio. Source: author Fig. 2.3 Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo Copying Raphael’s Frescoes in the Loggia of the Villa Farnesina, Where He is Also Represented Asleep, c. 1595, pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk and touches of red chalk (42.4x17.5cm). Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum. Source: Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content program

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52 83 84

87

9

List of Illustrations 

Fig. 2.4 Fig. 2.5

Fig. 2.6 Fig. 2.7 Fig. 2.8

Fig. 2.9

Fig. 2.10

Fig. 2.11

Fig. 2.12 Fig. 2.13 Fig. 2.14 Fig. 2.15

Bernardino Poccetti, Mission of the Apostles, c. 1584, fresco. Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Chiostro Grande. Source: author Domenico Ghirlandaio, Birth of John the Baptist, 1485–1490, fresco. Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Tornabuoni Chapel. Source: Scala / Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali / Art Resource, NY Andrea del Sarto, Birth of the Virgin, 1514, fresco. Florence, Santissima Annunziata, Chiostrino de’ Voti. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) Andrea del Sarto, The Visitation, 1524, fresco. Florence, Chiostro dello Scalzo. Source: Matt Adams, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0) Andrea del Sarto, Young Man Taking a Step, with a Basket and Balancing a Sack on his Head. Verso: An Additional Study of the Same Figure, before 1524, black and red chalk. New York, The Morgan Library & Museum. Source: The Morgan Library & Museum, New York Bernardino Poccetti, preparatory design for Saint Dominic Converts the Heretical Noblewomen, c. 1584, pen and brush in brown ink over black chalk. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum (inv. no. RP-T-1957-231). Source: Rijksmuseum (CC0 1.0) Bernardino Poccetti, preparatory design for Saint Dominic Converts the Heretical Noblewomen, c. 1584, black chalk and white heightening on brown paper. Florence, GDSU (inv. no. 1788 E). Source: Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabinetto Fotografico Bernardino Poccetti, preparatory design for Saint Dominic Converts the Heretical Noblewomen, c. 1584, black chalk and white heightening. Florence, GDSU (inv. no. 1789 E). Source: Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabinetto Fotografico Sante Pacini, Saint Dominic Converts the Heretical Women (after Bernardino Poccetti), before 1793, black chalk. Paris, Louvre (inv. no. 1485 recto). Source: © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY Santa Maria Novella, view of west transept, basilica begun 1279. Florence. Source: author Bernardino Poccetti, Saint Dominic Preaches a Crusade, c. 1584, fresco. Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Chiostro Grande. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0) Andrea Bonaiuti, Saint Peter Martyr Preaching, 1365–1366, fresco. Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Guidalotti Chapel. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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97 98 102

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107 108 109 114 116

10 

BERNARDINO POCCE T TI AND THE ART OF RELIGIOUS PAINTING

Fig. 2.16

Fig. 2.17

Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.2 Fig. 3.3 Fig. 3.4 Fig. 3.5 Fig. 3.6 Fig. 3.7 Fig. 3.8 Fig. 3.9

Bernardino Poccetti, study for Saint Dominic Preaches a Crusade, c. 1584, black chalk and white heightening on blue paper. Florence, GDSU (inv. no. 8615 F). Source: Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabinetto Fotografico Bernardino Poccetti, study for Saint Dominic Preaches a Crusade, c. 1584, black chalk and white heightening on blue paper. Florence, GDSU (inv. no. 8630 F). Source: Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabinetto Fotografico Santa Felicita, Florence. View of retrofacade with Capponi Chapel on the left and Canigiani Chapel on the right. Source: author Andrea del Minga, Assumption of the Virgin, 1591, panel. Florence, Santa Felicita, Canigiani Chapel. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) Bernardino Poccetti, Saint John the Evangelist, 1590, fresco. Florence, Santa Felicita, Canigiani Chapel. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) Bernardino Poccetti, Saint John the Baptist, 1590, fresco. Florence, Santa Felicita, Canigiani Chapel. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) Bernardino Poccetti, San Giovanni Gualberto, 1590, fresco. Florence, Santa Felicita, Canigiani Chapel. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) Bernardino Poccetti, study for San Giovanni Gualberto, 1590, red chalk. Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Kupferstichkabinett (inv. no. KdZ 15466). Source: © bpk Bildagentur / Dietmar Katz Bernardino Poccetti, Pope John I (?), 1590, fresco. Florence, Santa Felicita, Canigiani Chapel. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) Bernardino Poccetti, study for Pope John I (?), 1590, red chalk. Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Kupferstichkabinett (inv. no. KdZ 15465). Source: © bpk Bildagentur / Dietmar Katz Bernardino Poccetti, preparatory design for The Miraculous Snowfall on the Esquiline Hill and the Foundation of Santa Maria Maggiore, 1590, red and black pencil, ink, and bistre on ivory paper, 328 x 238mm. Rome, Istituto Centrale per la Grafica (inv. no. FC130590r). Source: with permission of the Ministero della Cultura and Istituto Centrale per la Grafica, further duplication or reproduction prohibited

120

120 132 135 141 141 142 143 144 145

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11

List of Illustrations 

Fig. 3.10

Fig. 3.11

Fig. 3.12

Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2

Fig. 4.3 Fig. 4.4

Fig. 4.5

Fig. 4.6

Fig. 4.7

Bernardino Poccetti, study for The Miraculous Snowfall on the Esquiline Hill and the Foundation of Santa Maria Maggiore, c. 1590, black chalk. Cleveland Museum of Art. Source: Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access Initiative (CC0 1.0) Bernardino Poccetti, The Miraculous Snowfall on the Esquiline Hill and the Foundation of Santa Maria Maggiore (detail), 1590, fresco. Florence, Santa Felicita, Canigiani Chapel. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) Niccolò di Piero Tedesco (?) from a design by Niccolò di Pietro Gerini (?), The Miraculous Snowfall on the Esquiline Hill and the Foundation of Santa Maria Maggiore, c. 1386–1400, stained glass. Florence, Orsanmichele. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) Certosa del Galluzzo, begun 1341. Florence (Galluzzo). Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo, view of altar bay with frescoes, tabernacle, and revetments, late sixteenth century. Florence (Galluzzo). Source: Mongolo1984, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0 / detail from original) Urs Graf the elder, Origo ordinis cartusiensis, 1510. Source: © British Library Board / Robana / Art Resource, NY The Funeral of the Theologian, from Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, fol. 499v, 1524, woodcut. Source: Biblioteca de Galiciana, Santiago de Compostela, Spain (http:// biblioteca.galiciana.gal/en/ consulta/registro.do?id=8721, public domain) Bruno and his Companions Travel to Grenoble, from Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, fol. 500r, 1524, woodcut. Source: Biblioteca de Galiciana, Santiago de Compostela, Spain (http://biblioteca.galiciana.gal/en/ consulta/registro. do?id=8721, public domain) Bishop Hugh of Grenoble Receives Bruno and his Companions and The Dream of Bishop Hugh of Grenoble, from Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, fol. 502v, 1524, woodcut. Source: Biblioteca de Galiciana, Santiago de Compostela, Spain (http://biblioteca.galiciana.gal/en/consulta/registro. do?id= 8721, public domain) Bishop Hugh of Grenoble Leads Bruno and his Companions into the Mountains, from Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, fol. 504r, 1524, woodcut. Source: Biblioteca de

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12 

BERNARDINO POCCE T TI AND THE ART OF RELIGIOUS PAINTING

Fig. 4.8

Fig. 4.9

Fig. 4.10

Fig. 4.11

Fig. 4.12

Fig. 4.13

Fig. 4.14 Fig. 4.15

Fig. 4.16

Galiciana, Santiago de Compostela, Spain (http://biblioteca. galiciana.gal/en/consulta/registro.do?id=8721, public domain) Bruno Receives a Messenger from Pope Urban II and The Construction of the Chartreuse, from Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, fol. 505r, 1524, woodcut. Source: Biblioteca de Galiciana, Santiago de Compostela, Spain (http:// biblioteca.galiciana.gal/en/consulta/registro.do?id=8721, public domain) The Death of Bruno and Roger I of Sicily Encounters Bruno in the Wilderness, from Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, fol. 506v, 1524, woodcut. Source: Biblioteca de Galiciana, Santiago de Compostela, Spain (http://biblioteca. galiciana.gal/en/consulta/registro.do?id=8721, public domain) Bernardino Poccetti, The Funeral of the Theologian, 1591–1593, fresco. Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo. Source: Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione (CC BY-SA 4.0 / detail from original) Bernardino Poccetti, Hugh of Grenoble Receives Bruno and his Companions, 1591–1593, fresco. Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) Bernardino Poccetti, Bruno Appears to Roger I of Sicily at the Siege of Capua, 1591–1593, fresco. Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) Bernardino Poccetti, preparatory design for Bruno Appears to Roger I of Sicily at the Siege of Capua, 1591–1593, pencil, ink, and wash. Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Kupferstichkabinett (inv. no. KdZ 17996). Source: © bpk Bildagentur / Dietmar Katz Bernardino Poccetti, Saint Hugh of Lincoln, 1591–1593, fresco. Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) Bernardino Poccetti, Saint Hugh of Lincoln (detail of Guigo I), 1591–1593, fresco. Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0 / detail from original) Bernardino Poccetti, Two Studies of Carthusians (recto), 1591–1592, black chalk. Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago. Source: Art Institute of Chicago (CC0 1.0 / public domain)

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211 222

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13

List of Illustrations 

Fig. 4.17

Fig. 4.18 Fig. 4.19 Fig. 5.1 Fig. 5.2 Fig. 5.3 Fig. 5.4 Fig. 5.5 Fig. 5.6 Fig. 5.7 Fig. 5.8

Fig. 5.9

Bernardino Poccetti, Saint Hugh of Châteauneuf, Bishop of Grenoble, 1591–1593, fresco. Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0 / detail from original) Bernardino Poccetti, Anthelm, Bishop of Belley, 1591–1593, fresco. Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) Bernardino Poccetti, Cardinal Niccolò Albergati, 1591–1593, fresco. Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) Decorative program in the nave of Santa Maria del Carmine at the time of Poccetti’s death (north at top). Diagram by Matthew Gaynor (after Procacci). Source: author View of west wall of nave of the Church of the Ognissanti showing altars and tabernacles. Source: author View of retrofacade of San Bartolomeo a Monte Oliveto with frescoes by Bernardino Poccetti. Source: author Bernardino Poccetti, study for Saint Peter, 1604, black and red chalk. Florence, GDSU (inv. no. 8313 F). Source: Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabinetto Fotografico Bernardino Poccetti, study for Saint Philip, after 1592, black and red chalk. Florence, GDSU (inv. no. 862 F). Source: Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabinetto Fotografico Bernardino Poccetti, Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew, 1604, fresco. Florence, San Bartolomeo a Monte Oliveto. Source: author Bernardino Poccetti, Martyrdom of Saint Miniatus, 1604, fresco. Florence, San Bartolomeo a Monte Oliveto. Source: author Bernardino Poccetti, preparatory design for The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew, 1590s, black chalk, brown ink, and brown ink wash. Weimar, Klassik Stiftung, Graphische Sammlungen (inv. no. KK 8611). Source: Klassik Stiftung Weimar Giovanni Caccini, Reliquary Chapel of San Giovanni Gualberto, 1594. Frescoes by Domenico Cresti. Florence, Santa Trìnita. Source: author

224 226 226 246 247 254 256 257 260 261

264 269



List of Abbreviations

ASF Corp. Rel. Sopp. DBI GDSU ICG

Archivio di Stato di Firenze Corporazioni Religiose Soppresse dal Governo Francese Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe degli Uffizi Istituto Centrale per la Grafica, Rome



Acknowledgments

This book has benefited immensely from the assistance and resources provided by numerous individuals and institutions, and it is my great pleasure to recognize their contributions in the lines that follow. Much of the research in Florence was conducted during my sabbatical in 2014–2015, and I am grateful that the Department of Art and my institution, Kansas State University, saw the merit in this project during its early stages. While in Florence I spent a productive and enjoyable period in residence at the Nederlands Interuniversitair Kunsthistorisch Instituut, and I would like to thank Michael W. Kwakkelstein and Gert Jan der Sman for providing me with all of the resources that the NIKI has to offer. I would also like to thank the staff of the Archivio di Stato di Firenze for their assistance with the historical records that form a crucial part of this book. Back in the US, I am grateful to the team at Interlibrary Services in Kansas State’s Hale Library, who went to extraordinary lengths to provide access to the secondary literature so necessary to my research. At Amsterdam University Press, I would like to thank Erika Gaffney whose advice has been invaluable, Alison Levy, the series editor, and the peer reviewer of the manuscript who offered a crucial insight into the book’s structure that has strengthened it greatly. Early versions of this study were presented in various venues and I would like to thank the many people who organized and participated in those meetings for their invaluable insight and commentary. These include Alexandra Bamji, Cristelle Baskins, Angi Elsea Bourgeois, Sally J. Cornelison, Julia Delancey, Megan Holmes, Nicholas Terpstra, and Saundra Weddle. Others to whom I owe a debt of gratitude include Niall Atkinson, Nicholas Eckstein, Konrad Eisenbichler, Matthew Gaynor, Kelly Hemphill, Fabian Jonietz, Anne Leader, Elizabeth Mellyn, Koen Ottenheym, John Paoletti, Sharon Strocchia, and Max Wiringa. Transcriptions and translations are my own unless noted otherwise, but I would like to thank Robert Fredona for his vital assistance; any errors that remain are entirely my responsibility. Finally, I would like to dedicate this book to Jennifer Noonan, who was alongside me during the COVID-19 pandemic when much of the writing took place; by now she knows as much about Bernardino Poccetti as did his friends at La Trave Torta.



Introduction: ‘Il primo huomo da dipingere in fresco, che sia in questi paesi’ Bernardino Poccetti and the Historiography of Florentine Painting during the Late Renaissance

Abstract: Bernardino Barbatelli (called Poccetti, 1553–1612) was a successful fresco painter in late sixteenth-century Florence, yet he remains largely overlooked by contemporary scholarship. In addition to the obstacles posed by his prolific output and the inaccessibility of his monumental murals, this chapter examines historiographical reasons for Poccetti’s obscurity, exploring how shifting artistic styles and aesthetic tastes led early Seicento commentators to see the last half of the Florentine Cinquecento as a period of stagnation. This narrative was later reinforced by the preferences of nineteenth- and twentieth-century art historians, which reflected modernist ideas of artistic innovation and stylistic progression. Historical evidence shows, however, that Poccetti’s contemporaries valued his works as a continuation of an esteemed tradition of Florentine fresco painting. Keywords: Bernardino Barbatelli (called Poccetti); Florence; Renaissance; fresco; historiography

In April of 2021, as this book was well underway and the world was in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic, renovations undertaken at the Uffizi revealed two frescoed portraits of Medici rulers by the hand of Bernardino Barbatelli, now known as Bernardino Poccetti (1553–1612).1 By almost any measure, Poccetti was one of the most successful fresco painters in late sixteenth-century Florence, and however serendipitous this discovery might have been, it is by no means surprising. Poccetti and his workshop painted an impressive number of monuments for a wide range 1 ‘Restaurono una stanza e scoprono due affreschi agli Uff izi’, La Repubblica, 22 April 2021, https://f irenze.repubblica.it/cronaca/2021/04/22/news/restaurano_una_stanza_e_scoprono_​ due_affreschi_agli_uffizi-297538483/.

Dow, D.N., Bernardino Poccetti and the Art of Religious Painting at the End of the Florentine Renaissance. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463729529_intro

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BERNARDINO POCCE T TI AND THE ART OF RELIGIOUS PAINTING

of patrons throughout the city, an achievement that did not escape the attention of the painter’s earliest biographer, Filippo Baldinucci (1625–1696). In his discussion of Poccetti published in the Notizie de’ professori del disegno da Cimabue in quà (6 vols., 1681–1728), Baldinucci remarked that it would be an ‘impossible task’ (‘cosa impossibile’) to describe the entire oeuvre of this prolific Florentine painter, and so he warned his reader that he would limit himself to mentioning ‘only a few, indeed very few, and almost none’ of Poccetti’s many paintings in Florence and elsewhere.2 In this respect, the seventeenth-century biographer was neither shirking his duty nor overstating the case, for Poccetti and his collaborators executed an impressive number of commissions. At the close of the eighteenth century, Luigi Lanzi (1732–1810) echoed Baldinucci’s description, remarking that although his work on panel or canvas was rare, Poccetti’s frescoes could be found in ‘nearly every corner in Florence’ (‘pressochè in ogni angolo di Firenze’).3 As the discovery of the paintings in the Uffizi shows, and even though 230 years have elapsed since Lanzi published those words, his statement remains largely true today. Despite the fact that Italian scholars have created a substantial body of literature on the man and his work—efforts that are part of a broader reconsideration of the late Renaissance in Florence—Poccetti has remained an overlooked figure in English scholarship on the period. This contribution to the literature on Poccetti had its origins in my own discovery of what Baldinucci and Lanzi already knew: that in addition to being a prolific painter, Bernardino was also a frescoist of the first rank who possessed a mastery of color, an eye for detail, and a knack for creating dynamically composed narratives. 4 In that previous study, Poccetti was one of many artists who collaborated on decorative programs commissioned by Florentine confraternities at the end of the Cinquecento, and as a result his work—although substantial and important 2 ‘Sarebbe ora a me cosa impossibile il descriver tutte l’istorie grandi, e piccole, delle quali si ha notizia; e però mi basterà far solo menzione d’alcune poche, anzi pochissime, e quasi niuna, rispetto alle innumerabili, che fece nella nostra Città, e fuori’. Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:244. Several editions of Baldinucci’s Notizie have been published. Although the first edition was once less widely available than the anastatic reprint of the Ranalli edition from 1845 that was published by SPES in 1974, the digitalization of primary sources has now made the first edition readily accessible. In the case of Poccetti, the biography in the first edition is slightly different than the one that appeared in the Ranalli edition. An English translation of Poccetti’s biography derived from the Ranalli edition was published by Raymond Petrillo. All subsequent references are to the volumes of the first edition published from 1681 to 1728, unless otherwise noted as ‘Baldinucci-Ranalli’, and all translations are mine unless noted otherwise. For more information on the various editions of the Notizie, see Tovey, Pouncey Index, 12–13. 3 Lanzi, Storia pittorica, 110. 4 Lanzi credited Poccetti’s transition from a decorator of palace facades to a painter of monumental narrative frescoes to his trip to Rome, after which ‘tornò poi in patria non sol figurista vago e grazioso; ma compositore ricco ed ornato: onde potè francamente variare le sue istorie di be’ paesi, di marini, di frutti, e fiori; senza dir della pompa de’ vestimenti e delle tapezzerie, che imitò a maraviglia’. Lanzi, Storia pittorica, 110.

Introduction: ‘Il primo huomo da dipingere in fresco, che sia in questi paesi’ 

to a pivotal chapter—was not the focus of the book. This book, however, places Poccetti and his frescoes front and center. In so doing, it hopes to illuminate not only the man himself, but also how he produced his compelling works and what made them so popular among Florentine patrons at the end of the sixteenth century. In the process, it examines how Poccetti and his patrons negotiated the increasingly fraught terrain of sacred painting in the age of religious reform, showing that in some cases patrons ignored the prescriptions of reformers, even as they and Poccetti collaborated to forge new or to modify existing iconographies to better reflect contemporary concerns.

Bernardino Poccetti’s Body of Work Although he enjoyed a successful and prolific career, Poccetti and his work have not attracted widespread attention from historians of Late Renaissance and Baroque painting. Paradoxically, as Baldinucci noted, the painter’s success and popularity among patrons led to an enormous body of work that spanned various genres, making it difficult for scholars to arrive at an overall assessment of Poccetti’s achievements. A brief and necessarily incomplete summary—one that excludes all of Poccetti’s many sgraffito facades and complex programs commissioned for the palaces of the Capponi, Usimbardi, Spini, and Medici families, as well as his contributions to Bernardo Buontalenti’s (c. 1531–1608) Grotta Grande in the Boboli Garden—provides a glimpse of his extensive body of work.5 Along with the frescoes that he painted in the Chiostro Grande at Santa Maria Novella and which are discussed in Chapter Two, Poccetti also painted lunettes for similar programs in the Chiostro di Sant’Antonino at San Marco, in the Chiostro dei Morti at Santissima Annunziata, and in a cloister at Santa Maria degli Angeli.6 Along with the Canigiani Chapel at Santa Felicita, which is analyzed in Chapter Three, Poccetti and his collaborators painted the Neri Chapel at Santa Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi and the Ticci Chapel at Santa Maria degli Angeli.7 Poccetti’s frescoes in 5 For Palazzo Capponi, see Vasetti, ‘Poccetti’s Frescoes in the Great Hall’, 59–141; for the frescoes at the Palazzo Acciaiuoli commissioned by the Usimbardi family and largely destroyed during World War II, see Vasetti, ‘Poccetti a Palazzo Acciaiuoli’, 131–34; on Palazzo Spini-Feroni, see Vasetti, ‘Frescoes by Bernardino Poccetti’, 95–123; on the Sala di Bona painted for the Medici in Palazzo Pitti, see Vasetti, ‘Fasti granducali’, 228–39; Bastogi, ‘Sala di Bona’, 87–97; on Poccetti’s frescoes in the Grotta Grande, see Cecchi, ‘Garden Grotto’, 35. 6 Proto Pisani, ‘Ciclo affrescato’, 2:321–46; Bailey, ‘Catholic Reform’, 23–31; Hoffmann, Heiliger, 221–56; Conigliello and Vasetti, ‘Affreschi’, 50–58. 7 For the Neri Chapel, see De Luca and Vasetti, ‘Cappella Del Giglio’, 158–71; Müller-Bechtel, ‘Cappella Neri’, 137–76. On the Ticci Chapel, see Conigliello and Vasetti, ‘Cappella Ticci’, 82–92.

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the Chiesa dei Monaci at the Certosa del Galluzzo discussed in Chapter Four are accompanied by his other efforts in the Cappella delle Reliquie and the Cappella di Tobia in that same monastery.8 Poccetti also painted frescoes at other Carthusian sites in Calci (near Pisa) and Pontignano (near Siena).9 Although his travels outside Florence were infrequent, he frescoed lunettes in a cloister at Santissima Annunziata in Pistoia for the Servites, one of whom boasted in an entry from 1601 that they had secured the services of the best fresco painter in the land (‘il primo huomo da dipingere in fresco, che sia in questi paesi’).10 In addition to the extensive contributions he made to Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence, which are discussed in Chapter Five, Poccetti also worked in many other churches throughout the city. Inside Santissima Annunziata, for example, he painted the half-dome of the Cappella di Sant’Ignazio and the vault of the Cappella del Soccorso, a space that Giambologna outfitted to serve as his final resting place.11 At Santa Maria Maggiore Poccetti frescoed another vault, this time with scenes from the life of San Zanobi, in a chapel for the Carnesecchi family.12 He did the same for the Strozzi family in the Cappella di Santa Lucia at Santa Trìnita, where he painted prophets and personifications in the pendentives and lunette, along with a fresco of God the Father in the chapel’s dome.13 The Strozzi also commissioned frescoes of Humility and Glory that faced the images of Saints Bartholomew and Miniatus by Poccetti on the retrofacade of San Bartolomeo a Monte Oliveto that are discussed in Chapter Five.14 At the Ospedale degli Innocenti Poccetti painted frescoes in the loggia and a large fresco in the girls’ refectory.15 Bernardino also worked for Florence’s lay companies, contributing the bulk of the frescoed decoration at the oratories of the companies of Santissima Annunziata and San Lorenzino in Piano.16 Even though Poccetti’s skill with fresco meant that it was his preferred medium, he also painted in oil on panel. These works include large altarpieces, such as the 8 Chiarelli and Leoncini, Certosa del Galluzzo, 262–64, 274–75. 9 For an overview of Poccetti’s efforts on behalf of the Carthusians, see Vasetti, ‘Bernardino Poccetti e i certosini toscani’, 5–61. On the Certosa di Pontignano outside Siena, see Mancini and Vannini, Cartusiae prope senas, 98–181. For the Certosa di Calci outside Pisa, see Giusti and Lazzarini, Certosa di Pisa; for Poccetti’s efforts there, see Lazzarini, ‘Apparati decorativi’, 79–81. 10 This document was published by Chiappelli, ‘Bernardino Poccetti’, 186. For an account of Poccetti’s dealings with Servites in Pistoia, see Chapter One. For more, see also Cappellini, ‘Decorazioni ad affresco’, 54–55; d’Afflitto, ‘Da Firenze’, 67–68. 11 On Poccetti’s half-dome for the Cappella di Sant’Ignazio (also known as the Cappella del beato Manetto), see Casazza, ‘Cappella del beato Manetto’, 43–48; Fabbri, ‘Controriforma’, 90–91; Ceccanti, ‘Ferdinando I’, 82. For his fresco in the Cappella del Soccorso, see Hoffmann, ‘Zu Einer Mariens’, 122. 12 Pagliarulo, ‘Jacopo Vignali’, 41n52. 13 Lecchini Giovannoni, ‘Cappella Strozzi’, 171–75; Vasetti, Poccetti e gli Strozzi, 15–17. 14 Vasetti, Poccetti e gli Strozzi, 22–23; Meloni Trkulja, ‘Opere d’arte’, 121–22. 15 Presciutti, ‘Carità e potere’, 241–59. 16 Dow, Apostolic Iconography, 103–69; Sebregondi, ‘Antica sede’, 4–9.

Introduction: ‘Il primo huomo da dipingere in fresco, che sia in questi paesi’ 

Annunciation executed for a chapel that belonged to the confraternity of Sant’Agnese at Santa Maria del Carmine, and the Way to Calvary painted for the no longer extant church of Santa Cecilia, as well as small panels inserted in larger architectonic furnishings like those in the large tabernacle at the Carmine discussed in Chapter Five, or the images that decorate the tabernacle of Saint Catherine at Santa Maria Novella.17 When one considers his deep appreciation for food and drink, as well as the many hours he spent among his brigata at his favorite tavern, La Trave Torta (The Crooked Beam), it is not surprising that Poccetti brought considerable flair to his numerous banqueting scenes.18 In addition to a Last Supper at Sant’Apollonia and a fresco of Angels Ministering to Christ in the Wilderness for the Carmelite nuns of San Frediano in Cestello, Poccetti painted the Wedding at Cana, the Last Supper, and the Supper in Emmaus on a single wall at Santo Spirito, as well as a large fresco of the Wedding at Cana in the Badia a Ripoli.19 This summary begins to reveal the extent to which Poccetti’s paintings were prized by his contemporaries and it begs the question why art historians have been reluctant to seriously consider his works and their place in the history of art. Before discussing the effect that the aesthetic preferences and historiographical inclinations of scholars had on this situation, it is worthwhile to note that there were—and, in many cases, still are—other obstacles that impede studies of the man and his paintings. Many of Poccetti’s frescoes are in cloisters, family chapels, monastic buildings, or palaces that themselves have not been especially accessible to the public. One thinks, for example, of the frescoes in the Chiostro Grande at Santa Maria Novella, which were part of the Carabinieri barracks and were thus behind locked doors for many years. In other cases, even if Poccetti’s works are accessible, as the frescoes in the Chiostro Grande are now, they are extensively weathered. Other works, like the frescoes at Santa Maria degli Angeli or the Neri Chapel at Santa Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi, are essentially closed to the public, in the first case because the structures have been converted to secular use and in the second because it requires scarce resources to open, monitor, and maintain such a space. And even when his work is centrally located, protected from the elements, 17 On the Annunciation altarpiece, see Dow, ‘Tradition and Reform’, 262–68. For the Way to Calvary, see Brooks, Graceful and True, 130. The panels for the tabernacle at the Carmine were destroyed in the fire that swept through the church in the eighteenth century. For more on this, see Chapter Five. For the tabernacle of Saint Catherine, see Bisceglia, ‘Spazio ecclesiale’, 105–8. 18 For a discussion of Poccetti’s social habits and his circle of friends and associates, see Chapter One. 19 The fresco at San Frediano is in the refectory of the former convent, which is now used as the aula magna of the Seminario Arcivescovile Maggiore. There is virtually no published information on this fresco or the Last Supper in the refectory at Sant’Apollonia, which has also been converted to an assembly room. For the scenes at Santo Spirito and the Badia a Ripoli, see Vasetti, ‘Santo Spirito’, 198–203; Vasetti, ‘Badia a Ripoli’, 204–7.

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and readily accessible, as is the case with the Canigiani Chapel in Santa Felicita, it sits in both literal and figurative shadows—literal in the sense that the space is poorly lit, thereby making it difficult to appreciate the paintings, and figurative in that the Canigiani Chapel is outshone by its more famous neighbor across the nave with its paintings by Pontormo (1494–1557). Poccetti’s frescoes at the Certosa del Galluzzo, arguably some of his finest and best preserved religious works, are located outside of Florence and only open for limited hours during guided visits, and so the opportunity for the public to witness his large-scale sacred painting is diminished. It is true, however, that Poccetti’s entire period in Florence—roughly the last two decades of the Cinquecento and the first ten years of the Seicento—is the subject of increasing scholarly analysis. Much of the credit for Poccetti’s rehabilitation over the previous few decades goes to Stefania Vasetti, whose scholarly output on the painter has been almost as prodigious as Poccetti’s own artistic production, and the debt this study owes to her scholarship on the painter is clear in both the text and the apparatus. But since the historiography of the period, as well as the history of the reception of the works of art it produced, play a role in how those works have been understood (or misunderstood), it is worth considering how the scholarship on the histories of style and artistic reform have inflected readings of Poccetti’s work. Much has been written about what Stuart Lingo has recently called ‘the oversimplification of our inherited historiography’ of the period in which Poccetti lived and worked.20 The purpose of this book is not to rehearse or dissect the complexity of this ‘inherited historiography’, but to look closely at the elements of Poccetti’s paintings that were not valued by the scholars who wrote those histories and to determine why Poccetti’s contemporaries saw those same features in a positive light. So, before turning to the paintings that are the subjects of the ensuing chapters, it will be useful to remark upon a few of the historiographical circumstances that have affected the scholarly reception of Poccetti’s oeuvre.21

Bernardino Poccetti and the Historiography of Renaissance and Baroque Painting One of the largest factors in how Poccetti’s work has been understood is the scholarly notion that the last few decades of the Cinquecento were a period of decline for 20 Lingo, ‘Federico Barocci’, 154. 21 There are many excellent analyses and summaries on the historiography of sixteenth-century Italian art. For a recent example, see Locker, ‘Introduction’, 1–11.

Introduction: ‘Il primo huomo da dipingere in fresco, che sia in questi paesi’ 

Florentine art—a conception that Michael Fried has described as ‘hackneyed and in vital respects outdated’.22 That these ideas are no longer widely held is true, but they still merit analysis for the purposes of historiography. This idea of decline was first articulated as early as the end of the seventeenth century, when Carlo Cesare Malvasia (1616–1693) and Giovanni Pietro Bellori (1613–1696) both described sixteenth-century art after Raphael (1483–1520) and Michelangelo (1475–1564) as inferior to the works produced in the early decades of the Cinquecento.23 At the end of the Settecento, Lanzi cited an excessive dependence by later generations on Michelangelo as the reason for the deterioration. In his discussion—which appears beneath the heading ‘Imitators of Michelangelo’—Lanzi argued that these painters were unable to grasp the theoretical underpinnings of Michelangelo’s highly idiosyncratic work (‘non penetrando nelle teorie di quell’uomo quasi inimitabile’) and, as a result, misused his examples in their own paintings.24 In Lanzi’s view it was Ludovico Cigoli (1559–1613) and his followers (a group from which Lanzi excluded Poccetti) who finally led the way out from this impasse, a change that Lanzi dated to around 1580.25 Elizabeth Cropper has noted the symmetry between Lanzi’s treatment of Florentine art and artists from the decades between 1540 and 1580 and that of Sydney Freedberg’s discussions of these same works and painters.26 For Freedberg, these works were examples of the ‘Maniera’—a style that was intentionally self-referential and artificial.27 Unlike Lanzi, Freedberg believed that there was a group of painters who preceded Cigoli but still rejected aspects of the ‘Maniera’ style and forged alternate paths. He dubbed these painters, whose lodestar

22 Fried, After Caravaggio, 1. 23 Bellori, Vite, 19–20; for a translation, see Bellori, Lives, 71–72. Malvasia, Felsina pittrice, 2:9. For a discussion of these descriptions by Bellori and Malvasia, see Dempsey, ‘Idealism and Naturalism’, 234–36. 24 Lanzi, Storia pittorica, 92–95, quoted text on 94. For a recent discussion of this passage, see Cropper, ‘Florence in the Late 16th Century’, 291. Long before Lanzi, Michelangelo himself, in a statement attributed to him by Giovanni Battista Armenini (1530–1609), suggested that simply copying his works would lead to a painter’s undoing. For the remark, see Armenini, Veri precetti, 66; Armenini, True Precepts, 138; for a discussion of it, see Veen, ‘True Universal Art’, 105–6; Cropper, ‘Florence in the Late 16th Century’, 291–92. 25 Lanzi, Storia pittorica, 112. For more on Lanzi’s treatment of Cigoli, see Struhal, ‘Resisting the Baroque’, 293. 26 Cropper, ‘Florence in the Late 16th Century’, 292. 27 Freedberg first developed these ideas in an article from 1965. They were then explored more fully in his Painting in Italy: 1500–1600, first published in 1971. Freedberg, ‘Observations’, 187–97, especially 189–90; Freedberg, Painting in Italy, 175–77, 421–30, 607–9. References here are to the most recent edition of Painting in Italy; published in 1993 it demonstrates the stability of Freedberg’s stylistic conceptions over time. For a recent discussion of Freedberg’s concept of the ‘Maniera’ style, see Cropper, ‘Florence in the Late 16th Century’, 292–95; for a historiographic analysis of the term ‘maniera’, see Aurenhammer, ‘Manner, Mannerism, maniera’, 18–22; for a broader discussion of Freedberg and his scholarly emphases, see Curran, ‘Teaching’, 32–34.

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was Santi di Tito (1536–1602), the ‘Florentine Reformers’.28 Freedberg included Poccetti among the group, even as he supplied a string of caveats that pointed to many features of Poccetti’s paintings that he saw as redolent of the ‘Maniera’ style, and therefore too retrospectively ‘Maniera’ and not sufficiently forward looking.29 The second circumstance is that the perception of the late Cinquecento in Florence as a period of stagnation was reified by comparing Florentine works to those being produced in Bologna and Rome by Annibale Carracci (1560–1609), Ludovico Carracci (1555–1619), and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610), who were seen as innovators and harbingers of the new Baroque style. The notion that these figures brought forth a novel style in painting also has its origins in the seventeenth-century writings of Bellori and Malvasia, but as the narrative arc of art history was forged, scholars placed an emphasis on the study of stylistic progression and change.30 When viewed retrospectively, such periods of innovation became the focus of historians interested in locating stylistic shifts in art, a fact that encouraged them to see the progenitors of the new style as heroic explorers and members of an artistic vanguard.31 This conception proved attractive to twentieth-century art historians who frequently described these painters as ‘reformers’ or ‘revolutionaries’—characterizations that resonated with contemporary ideas of the avant-garde and the inexorable changing of artistic styles associated with modernism.32 In a 28 Freedberg called Santi di Tito ‘the earliest—and also most important—of the Florentine reformers’. Freedberg, Painting in Italy, 620. This characterization has been reiterated by most later commentators on Santi di Tito. For example, according to Spalding, ‘Santi di Tito’, 41, ‘Santi’s style … constitute[s] a transition between Mannerism and the Baroque’ and the painter ‘quietly yet thoroughly transformed the high Maniera of his master Bronzino’. For similar descriptions of Santi, see also Hall, After Raphael, 252; Bailey, ‘Santi di Tito’, 31–32; Giannotti, ‘Stile puro dei fiorentini’, 47–48; Hall, ‘Reform After Trent’, 100. 29 Freedberg argued that Poccetti ‘preserved the pointed and complex mobility of Maniera draughtsmanship especially, and according to Maniera habit stressed the role of rhythmic continuities in large design’. Painting in Italy, 627. Compare Freedberg’s assessment of Santi di Tito’s rejection of ‘Maniera’ in favor of a more naturalistic style, which put him on the path to his Supper at Emmaus in Santa Croce (1574), a panel that Freedberg called ‘the most radical accomplishment of naturalistic painting of the time’. Painting in Italy, 621–22, quoted text on 622. To be clear, Freedberg’s formal assessment of Poccetti’s accomplished draughtsmanship and affinity for rhythmic compositions is astute; his subtle implication, however, that such features are retrograde and thus inferior does not seem to have been widely shared by Poccetti’s contemporaries. 30 For a concise discussion of the changes in painting around 1600, see Dempsey, ‘Idealism and Naturalism’, 233–42. 31 In addition to the role of revolutionary, Caravaggio has had many other identities thrust upon him by scholars. For an early and incomplete list, see Previtali, ‘Introduzione’, xiii, especially note 3. Dempsey, ‘Caravaggio’, 91 considered these various identities and argued for a more nuanced view of the painter, suggesting that scholars too readily dismiss opposing interpretations as ‘myths’ rather than engaging them critically. 32 Fried, After Caravaggio, 1–2.

Introduction: ‘Il primo huomo da dipingere in fresco, che sia in questi paesi’ 

widely delivered lecture on the Baroque style that Erwin Panofsky wrote in 1934 (but which was not published until 1995), Caravaggio ‘shattered the artificial world of mannerism’ with his ‘revolutionary effort’.33 In 1948, Walter Friedlaender pitted Federico Zuccaro (1540/1541–1609) against Caravaggio, and not only characterized the artists using terms derived from nineteenth-century ideas about the opposition between academic and avant-garde art, but also referred to Caravaggio’s paintings as ‘revolutionary products’.34 Similarly, Sydney Freedberg’s book Circa 1600, which was drawn from a series of lectures on Caravaggio and the Carracci that was delivered in 1980 and published in 1983, was subtitled ‘A Revolution of Style in Italian Painting’.35 To be clear, this is not to suggest that a shift in style cannot be discerned in the works of Caravaggio and the Carracci, only that the predispositions and preferences of art history for the ‘avant-garde’ have created tendencies to see Florentine art of this period as insufficiently innovative by comparison. For example, in his early and insightful treatment of Annibale Carracci, Charles Dempsey outlined how the artistic ideas and practices of the previous decades influenced Carracci’s ‘reform’, remarking that despite playing an influential role in the early phase of this stylistic development, the Florentine painters were hampered by their strong traditions, suggesting that they were unable or unwilling to carry these developments to their conclusion.36 Indeed, the emphasis on the innovations of Caravaggio and the Carracci has been so prevalent in scholarship that it has not only colored perceptions of late sixteenth-century Florentine art, but it has also overshadowed Florentine art of the seventeenth century, a circumstance that prompted Eva Struhal to remark that ‘in contemporary narratives concerning the rise and origins of the Baroque … Florence routinely falls off the map’.37 In his study of Annibale Carracci, Dempsey acknowledged that the different trajectory followed by Florentine art posed ‘an immensely interesting question’.38 As a means of opening this study it is time to introduce some potential ways of addressing this question that will be explored in greater detail in the following chapters. Poccetti’s success and acclaim—both remarked upon in Baldinucci’s vita—are evidence that his works appealed to and satisfied a diverse group of Florentine patrons, and so an examination of Poccetti’s work provides an avenue towards a greater understanding of the direction Florentine sacred painting took at

33 Panofsky, ‘What is Baroque?’, 36–37. For the history of this lecture and its subsequent publication in 1995, see Lavin, ‘Introduction’, 6 and especially the notes on 200–203. 34 Friedlaender, ‘Academician’, 34. 35 Freedberg, Circa 1600. 36 Dempsey, Annibale Carracci, 15–16, 20. 37 Struhal, ‘Resisting the Baroque’, 293. 38 Dempsey, Annibale Carracci, 20.

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the end of the Cinquecento.39 By most reckonings, Poccetti’s popularity was more likely to be the result of his skill and efficiency as a painter, and not of his personal disposition, which seems to have been stubborn, mercurial, coarse, and even cruel in some circumstances.40 His painting, however, offered several deeply traditional and emphatically Florentine features that were attractive to his patrons, and it is time to examine them in greater detail.

Bernardino Poccetti and Florentine Artistic Tradition The first distinctly Florentine feature of Poccetti’s artistic practice was his preferred medium of monumental fresco. Michael Fried has suggested that the increased emphasis at the end of the sixteenth century on the ‘gallery picture’ (def ined as ‘a framed canvas of limited dimensions painted for wealthy and important collectors to hang in exhibition spaces in their homes and palaces’), alongside the innovative aesthetic potential offered by the use of oil paint, decreased the importance of large fresco projects, which had been seen at the beginning of the Cinquecento as pinnacles of artistic achievement. 41 Such a shift would seem to put someone like Poccetti, whose skill at monumental mural decoration was forged early in his career while he was working in sgraffito, and then honed through his involvement in many of the most substantial fresco projects in Florence, at a distinct disadvantage. But Fried’s discussion of the rise of the ‘gallery picture’ describes developments in Rome, while in Florence the taste for monumental fresco painting continued essentially unabated. Part of the reason for this was that Florentines had embarked upon a series of ambitious decorative campaigns in the cloisters of the city’s most important churches—projects upon which Poccetti worked and which have been briefly mentioned above and are analyzed in detail in Chapter Two.42 These decorative interventions formed one piece of a larger project to revitalize and fortify the Roman Church against the threat of Protestantism. As Gauvin Bailey has pointed out, the cloister cycle not only offered a monumental and expanded field upon which the individual episodes from a saint’s life could be presented, but it 39 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:241 described Poccetti as ‘loved by nobles, embraced by princes, desired by all’ (‘amato da’ Cavalieri, accarezzato da’ Principi, desiderato da’ tutti’), even though he shunned these contacts, preferring instead a group of associates that Baldinucci saw as social inferiors. 40 For discussions of Poccetti’s willingness to abandon a job without warning and his penchant for sometimes cruel practical jokes, see Chapter One. 41 Fried, After Caravaggio, 78. 42 For Poccetti’s contributions to the decoration of the Chiostro Grande at Santa Maria Novella, see Chapter Two. For a list of the Florentine cloisters decorated at the end of the Cinquecento, see Bailey, ‘Catholic Reform’, 23.

Introduction: ‘Il primo huomo da dipingere in fresco, che sia in questi paesi’ 

also possessed a ‘triumphalist aspect’ as a result of its sequential format.43 Thanks to these advantages, monumental fresco painting remained valued in Florence at the end of the Cinquecento, and Poccetti’s indisputable mastery of the medium meant that his services were in demand. Along with his skill at fresco painting, Poccetti had other abilities that made him and his works desirable to Florentine patrons. Prominent among these was his talent for invoking and recasting the painting style of Andrea del Sarto (1486–1530). At the end of the sixteenth century, Sarto had become a celebrated hero in the history of Florentine art. An inventory taken shortly before Poccetti’s death in 1610 reveals that he had a portrait of Sarto in his own art collection, suggesting the extent of Poccetti’s admiration for him.44 Further evidence for the value placed on Sarto’s works abounds. Between 1579 and 1584, for example, three paintings by Sarto arrived at the Villa Medici in Rome, which was being furnished at the time by Ferdinando I de’ Medici (1549–1609), where they were joined by other prized examples of Tuscan art.45 It was also in 1584 that Ferdinando’s older brother, Grand Duke Francesco I de’ Medici (1541–1587), purchased two panels by Sarto from the highly regarded spalliere representing the stories of Joseph from the Old Testament that Salvi di Francesco Borgherini had commissioned from Sarto, Jacopo Pontormo, Francesco Bacchiaca (1494–1557), and Francesco Granacci (1469–1543) in 1515. In addition to the paintings by Sarto, the Grand Duke simultaneously acquired two panels by Granacci, but he paid four times as much—360 scudi—for Sarto’s pictures as he did for Granacci’s images, a startling indicator of the greater desirability of Sarto’s work. 46 Part of the reason for the elevated price of Sarto’s paintings had to do with the scarcity of his pictures—a fact attested to once again in 1584 in a letter from Alessandro Allori to Eleonora de’ Medici, the duchess of Mantua, who was seeking a work by Andrea. 47 In this letter, Allori noted that his diligent attempt to secure a picture by Sarto was frustrated by the fact that his paintings had been highly sought after for many years (‘quest’opere d’Andrea da molti anni in qua hanno havuti moltissimi desiderosi d’haverne’). 48 The demand for paintings by Sarto led to them being placed on a list of works of art by eighteen artists that were banned from export in 1602. This list, compiled by the Accademia del Disegno, also featured several other important figures from the early Cinquecento and the 43 Bailey, ‘Catholic Reform’, 23. 44 Röstel and Lewis, ‘Poccetti as Collector’, 51–52. 45 Cecchi, ‘Andrea del Sarto’, 152. The other painters showcased at the villa included Domenico Beccafumi (1486–1551) and Alessandro Allori (1535–1607). Barocchi and Gaeta Bertelà, Da Cosimo I, 82. 46 Natali, Andrea del Sarto, 114; Cecchi, ‘Andrea del Sarto’, 152–53. 47 Fumagalli, ‘Collezionismo mediceo’, 249; Cecchi, ‘Andrea del Sarto’, 153. 48 The letter and subsequent correspondence regarding the pursuit of a painting by Sarto is published in Luzio, Galleria dei Gonzaga, 252–54, quoted text on 252.

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Florentine tradition: Leonardo, Michelangelo, Fra Bartolommeo, Rosso Fiorentino, and Pontormo, to name only a few. 49 In addition to the value placed on his works by the market and elite collectors, the esteem for Sarto was manifest in the privileged status his works enjoyed as models to be studied and emulated by aspiring painters, a circumstance that was reflected in and fueled by the fulsome praise lavished upon him by writers like Francesco Bocchi (1548–1613 or 1618) and Raffaello Borghini (c. 1537–1588). In his Il Riposo from 1584, Borghini cited frescoes by Sarto in the Chiostro dello Scalzo and the Chiostrino dei Voti as worthy of study by those who wished to become skilled painters.50 Antonio Natali has noted that these suggestions by Borghini placed Sarto’s work alongside other famous Florentine examples—the Brancacci Chapel at Santa Maria del Carmine and Giotto’s frescoes in Santa Croce—that were recognized places of study for young and ambitious artists.51 Similarly, Bocchi praised Sarto as an excellent painter, suggesting that he held his own against—perhaps even surpassed—Raphael (1483–1520) and Michelangelo (1475–1564) thanks to his use of color, his mastery of light and shadow, and the life-like three-dimensionality of his rendering.52 In one of his earliest—yet never published—works, ‘Discorso sopra l’eccellenza dell’opere d’Andrea del Sarto, pittore fiorentino’, Bocchi set out five qualities necessary for excellence in painting—disegno, costume, rilievo, colorito, and una certa dolcezza e facilità.53 Robert Williams has carefully parsed the significance and complexity of these terms in Bocchi’s usage, but in brief they refer to drawing, the depiction of an individual’s inner spirit, three-dimensionality, use of color, and a sense of effortlessness and facility.54 Once he had established these criteria, which were heavily indebted to concepts outlined by Aristotle in the Poetics, Bocchi then found instances of each in paintings by Sarto.55 In so doing, Bocchi not only limned a theoretical set of standards that prioritized the emulation 49 The complete list: Andrea del Sarto, Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564), Raphael (1483–1520), Domenico Beccafumi, Rosso Fiorentino (1494–1540), Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), Franciabigio (1484–1525), Perino del Vaga (1501–1547), Jacopo Pontormo, Titian (c. 1488–1576), Francesco Salviati (1510–1563), Agnolo Bronzino (1503–1572), Daniele da Volterra (c. 1509–1566), Fra Bartolommeo (1472–1517), Sebastiano del Piombo (c. 1485–1547), Filippino Lippi (1457–1504), Antonio da Correggio (c. 1489–1534), and Parmigianino (1503–1540). Cecchi, ‘Andrea del Sarto’, 153, 157n12. 50 Borghini, Riposo, 418, 421. See also Chapter Two, note 67; Chapter Three, note 20. On the importance of the frescoes in the Chiostro dello Scalzo as exemplars to artists and questions of accessibility to the space, see O’Brien, ‘Who Holds the Keys’, 210–61. 51 Natali, ‘Andrea del Sarto’, 30. 52 Natali, ‘Andrea del Sarto’, 30–31. 53 Williams, ‘Treatise by Francesco Bocchi’, 112; Spagnolo, ‘Fortuna’, 36. The treatise was published as an appendix in Williams, ‘Treatise by Francesco Bocchi’, 122–39. 54 Williams, ‘Treatise by Francesco Bocchi’, 112–16, 122. 55 Williams, ‘Treatise by Francesco Bocchi’, 112; Spagnolo, ‘Fortuna’, 36.

Introduction: ‘Il primo huomo da dipingere in fresco, che sia in questi paesi’ 

of nature and posited a ‘sweetness free from all affectation’ (‘dolcezza priva d’ogni affettatione’) as the main objective of painting, but he also pointed to concrete examples of these concepts in Sarto’s oeuvre that could be seen by aficionados and emulated by artists.56 Bocchi revisited these ideas in his Bellezze della città di Fiorenza, first published in 1591. In one passage in this text, Bocchi rhapsodizes over the elegance and beauty of Sarto’s Madonna del Sacco, a frescoed lunette above a door in the Chiostro dei Morti at Santissima Annunziata (Plate 1).57 Once again a striking—yet seemingly effortlessly achieved—naturalism was the focus of his attention, and Bocchi homes in on this idea in the very first sentence of his lengthy discussion of the fresco when he described the depiction of Joseph as ‘completely real and completely alive’ (‘tutta vera, e tutta viva’). Likewise, Sarto’s coloring of the Virgin’s skin tones is ‘neither more nor less then flesh itself’ (‘ne più, ne meno, come è la carne’).58 Bocchi then turns his attention to Sarto’s treatment of physical objects, praising Sarto’s representation of drapery. The white cloth around Mary’s neck, for example, is so lifelike that if a real cloth were attached to the wall next to it, the actual cloth would seem painted in comparison.59 Bocchi also greatly admired the sack upon which Joseph reclines. Undoubtedly real and not a painting (‘tutto vero senza dubbio, & non dipinto’), the foreshortened sack with its cinched opening projecting towards the spectator achieves a startling sense of three-dimensionality (‘sporgendosi verso chi guarda con la bocca, interamente apparisce di rilievo’).60 For Bocchi, Sarto’s astonishing skill is all the more praiseworthy because it does not draw attention to itself, but is instead subsumed by a seemingly effortless emulation of nature.61 When one considers the elements of Sarto’s work that were admired by Poccetti’s contemporaries, it is easy to see why his paintings were so popular. As the analyses in the ensuing chapters will demonstrate, Poccetti’s frescoes address many of the same concerns with good design, pleasing and efficient use of color, the psychological states of the individuals depicted, an illusionistic three-dimensionality, and the appearance of an effortless execution. By looking back to Sarto for inspiration, Poccetti charted a way forward for his painting. By cultivating a naturalism that rejected excessive affectation, Poccetti created compelling narratives that reflected the concerns of his patrons and engaged his spectators. This is not to say that he 56 Williams, ‘Treatise by Francesco Bocchi’, 115–16, 135–36. 57 Natali, Andrea del Sarto, 157 describes this passage in Bocchi as ‘an unbridled panegyric’. 58 Bocchi, Bellezze, 229. For an English translation, see Bocchi, Beauties, 216. 59 Bocchi, Bellezze, 229; Bocchi, Beauties, 216. 60 Bocchi, Bellezze, 231; Bocchi, Beauties, 216–17. 61 ‘Perche è cosa rara oltra tutte, che tanto possa in altrui l’humana industria, che l’artifizio, mentre che adopera, ponga se stesso in oblio, & faccia, che da se nasca in un certo modo la natura.’ Bocchi, Bellezze, 232; Bocchi, Beauties, 217.

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eschewed all innovation or that he followed all of the various prescriptions being put forward for religious painting at the end of the Cinquecento—the chapters that follow will show that this was not always the case. But he found a way to recast existing formulas and styles without taking egregious liberties that might leave him and his patrons open to criticism and possible censure. In the process, he updated or embellished traditional iconographies so that they spoke to their immediate audiences, even as he carefully ensured that his solutions did not conspicuously flout the expectations of the sixteenth-century Catholic Church.

The Structure of this Book Having outlined the extent of Poccetti’s career and briefly discussed the historiography of Late Renaissance painting in Florence, it is time to turn to the case studies that are the focus of this book. Before addressing his works specifically, however, it is necessary to engage the lengthy and detailed vita of Poccetti written by Baldinucci, since the Seicento biographer remains an important source of information and his vita helps to flesh out a portrait of the painter and his life. Recognizing that such a source must be read critically, Chapter One also scrutinizes the techniques, rhetoric, and ideological motivations of the biography’s author to better understand how and why the vita took the form that it did. However indebted to longstanding myths some of Baldinucci’s anecdotes might be, and however much the Notizie must be contextualized within the intellectual world of Seicento writing on art, the image of Poccetti presented by Baldinucci’s vita is corroborated by other sources and reveals a man with a challenging personality who was dedicated to his work, his friends, and his colleagues. He enjoyed success, but does not appear to have been driven by it. Instead, Poccetti preferred to live largely on his own terms, comfortable with his position in Florentine society and the places that he knew best, among which the most prominent was his habitual haunt, the tavern of La Trave Torta. For Baldinucci, Poccetti represented the continuation of a venerable Florentine tradition of fresco painting, and the anecdotes deployed in the vita serve to reinforce a narrative that echoes, affirms, and updates many of the rhetorical themes of Giorgio Vasari’s Le vite de più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani da Cimabue insino a’ tempi nostri (1550, 2nd ed. 1568). Baldinucci’s life of Poccetti, therefore, offers both a view of the painter himself and an image of Baldinucci’s concerns and interests. Chapter One analyzes each of these to arrive at a deeper understanding of both, the painter and his biographer. Chapter Two outlines Poccetti’s early years after he left the shop of Michele Tosini (1503–1577) and set out on his own. A recognized master of grotesque and sgraffito decoration, he became known as Bernardino delle Grottesche and Bernardino delle

Introduction: ‘Il primo huomo da dipingere in fresco, che sia in questi paesi’ 

Facciate. After a trip to Rome that he undertook between 1578 and 1580, Poccetti returned to Florence and set himself to painting monumental frescoes. Some of his earliest efforts are found in the Chiostro Grande at Santa Maria Novella, where he painted an almost completely destroyed fresco of the Mission of the Apostles alongside five lunettes in varying states of conservation that represent scenes from the life of Saint Dominic. Already in these works Poccetti demonstrated his aptitude for monumental narratives, deploying his customary use of color, composition, and detail to create interesting and lively scenes from Dominic’s hagiography. In many of these images, Poccetti not only displayed his deep knowledge of traditional Florentine fresco painting, referring to and taking inspiration from works by Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449–1494) and Andrea del Sarto, but he also updated the episodes from Dominic’s life to address contemporary concerns facing the Roman Church, thereby making the long history and experience of the Order of Preachers relevant to immediate theological concerns and pressures as well as to an audience of sixteenth-century Florentines. At the church of Santa Felicita, Poccetti painted the frescoes that adorn the Canigiani Chapel, which is found on the left side as one enters the church, facing the Capponi Chapel with its decorations by Pontormo. Chapter Three demonstrates how Poccetti’s images in the chapel communicate themes relevant to the patron, Giovanni Canigiani, as well as to the shifting emphases of the Latin Church. References to the patron abound. These include the saints in the pendentives—all of whom share the patron’s first name—and the representation of the miraculous snowfall on the Esquiline hill that led to the construction of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, the cost of which was underwritten by a patron who was also named John. The iconography of this fresco, which occupies the entire lunette on the wall to the left of the chapel’s altar, was an unusual choice in Florence, but it also resonated with Canigiani’s identity and priorities. The close reading of the works in this chapter shows how Poccetti skillfully integrated various ideological and rhetorical objectives into his frescoes, balancing the traditional demands placed on painters by patrons with the new expectations placed on religious painting by the church, which was actively emphasizing the traditional role of saints as intercessors and the importance of good works within Catholicism. Even though the decoration in the Canigiani Chapel is modest when measured against some of Poccetti’s other commissions, it stands as a testament to his abilities thanks to its careful use of color and composition. Bernardino must have understood that his work would be seen in comparison to the paintings by Pontormo only a few steps away, and ensured that his efforts in the chapel showcased his skill and spoke to his strengths. Unfortunately, the history of art has not celebrated the Canigiani Chapel to the extent that it has the Capponi Chapel, and so the images decorate what is now a frequently dark and overlooked space.

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Over the course of his career Poccetti made many contributions to decorative programs sponsored by various monastic and mendicant orders, including the Camaldolese, the Servites, the Dominicans, and the Carmelites, but he seems to have been especially popular with the Carthusians, for whom he painted frescoes at charterhouses outside Siena, Pisa, and Florence. Chapter Four takes up one of Poccetti’s efforts in the church at the Certosa del Galluzzo outside Florence, where he painted a series of wall frescoes representing the life of the order’s founder, Saint Bruno of Cologne (c. 1030–1101), and images in the vault of important figures from the history of the Carthusians. When Poccetti decorated this space, Bruno was not yet a saint, and efforts to have him canonized had only begun earlier in the sixteenth century. As a result of the intense focus on their eremetical objectives, the Carthusians had not developed an extensive iconography for their founder or their order, and when Poccetti rendered Bruno’s life in a monumental visual program, he was one of the first artists in Italy to do so. These frescoes, therefore, provide a compelling example of how Poccetti and his patrons shaped the narrative of Bruno and the other charismatic Carthusians represented in the webs of the vault to suit the demands of late Cinquecento Catholicism as it repositioned itself in response to the perceived threat of Protestantism. For their part, the Carthusians were assuming a more active role, emphasizing their order’s history in ways that highlighted its relevance for those challenging times even as they presented Bruno as a pious and saintly man dedicated to ecclesiastical service. Once again, however, Poccetti and his patrons took liberties in the images that some of the more reform-minded commentators on religious painting might have found disconcerting. The large fresco of Saint Bruno’s funeral, for example, shows the obsequies taking place in a vast and elaborate church, instead of Bruno’s modest Calabrian hermitage. Alongside the funeral bier are a number of Carthusians, many of whom appear to be portraits of the monks at the charterhouse when Poccetti painted the murals. Although practices like these—creative deviations from official narratives and indulgent inclusions of anachronistic portraits—were among the abuses singled out by reformers, Chapter Four contextualizes these elements within the goals of the Carthusian order and demonstrates that even though they might have appeared transgressive to some, they effectively addressed current concerns and highlighted the relevance of the order for the Church in a period of reform. Poccetti had a close personal and professional relationship with the Carmelites at the church of Santa Maria del Carmine. He lived most of his life nearby in the Oltrarno, and he selected the church to be his final resting place. He credited the Carmelite saint, Andrea Corsini, with his recovery from a stroke and for healing his wife’s broken rib, and he made signif icant contributions to the Carmine’s decoration. Indeed, had the church not burned in the eighteenth century, its nave and chapels would have stood as an impressive showcase of Poccetti’s abilities as

Introduction: ‘Il primo huomo da dipingere in fresco, che sia in questi paesi’ 

a painter. Unfortunately, Poccetti’s presence at the Carmine started to diminish even before the blaze that destroyed most of his efforts in the church, when his heirs relieved themselves of the financial burden of his burial chapel shortly after his death. Chapter Five brings the book to a close with a reconstruction of the appearance of the Carmine at the time of Poccetti’s burial in 1612. Derived from an examination of printed and manuscript sources as well as visual comparisons to other similar works by Poccetti and his collaborators, this reconstruction reveals the extent of Poccetti’s involvement in the church’s decoration and sheds light on how the Carmelites updated the style and iconography of the visual program in the nave. Between the newly renovated altar tabernacles, each one framing a recently completed altarpiece by some of the city’s best painters, monumental frescoes of the apostles adorned the nave walls. Surmounted by narrative scenes of their martyrdoms and surrounded by fictive colored-marble revetments, the apostles in the nave emphasized the Roman Church’s origins in Christ and his first followers, even as the illusionistic marble brought the decoration in line with the latest architectural fashions and reiterated the Church’s commitment to splendor and luxury. As has been shown above, the critical stances towards late Cinquecento painting in Florence adopted by writers like Bellori and Malvasia informed art historical writing on the Late Renaissance in Tuscany well into the twentieth century, and the notion that this was a period of stagnation and decline was further reinforced by an approach to the history of art that emphasized stylistic change. As a result, studies that valorized the penchant for innovation—itself a cornerstone of modernism—tended to minimize the relevance of painters who were seen as insufficiently avant-garde and to celebrate those whose works departed from convention. Thus, someone like Poccetti, who was deeply engaged with the Florentine tradition of fresco painting as it had been forged by Domenico Ghirlandaio and especially Andrea del Sarto, was bound to receive only minimal notice from historians more focused on innovation than tradition. But, evidence from late sixteenth-century Florence suggests that Poccetti’s retrospective style was esteemed by his contemporaries. Both Borghini and Bocchi, for example, praised Sarto and urged aspiring painters to carefully study his efforts if they wanted to succeed. It was not only writers on art and artists who valued Sarto’s works, however, and there is plenty of evidence—from fruitless efforts to secure paintings by his hand to the higher prices his works commanded when they were available—that attests to Sarto’s popularity. It is no wonder, then, that Poccetti’s works reflect his careful study of Andrea’s paintings. Once an emphasis on stylistic innovation fades from view, the reasons for Poccetti’s success come into sharper focus. As the following case studies will show, his painting fulfilled the demands of its patrons and audiences by speaking to their aesthetic, iconographic, and ideological preferences. That his

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works failed to address the form these preferences took in the minds and eyes of later critics explains its relative obscurity. By reframing our perspective, this book helps us to see Poccetti as one of his patrons and contemporaries did, as ‘il primo huomo da dipingere in fresco che sia in questi paesi’.62

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Bocchi, Francesco. The Beauties of the City of Florence: A Guidebook of 1591. Translated by Thomas Frangenberg and Robert Williams. London: Harvey Miller, 2006. Bocchi, Francesco. Le bellezze della città di Fiorenza. Florence, 1591. Borghini, Raffaello. Il Riposo. Florence, 1584. Brooks, Julian. Graceful and True: Drawing in Florence c.1600. Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2003. Cappellini, Perla. ‘Le decorazioni ad affresco della prima metà del Seicento: Nuove puntualizzazioni storiche’. In Chiostri Seicenteschi a Pistoia: Le storie di S. Francesco a Giaccherino e gli altri cicli contemporanei, edited by Franca Felletti, 53–62. Florence: Le Monnier, 1992. Casazza, Ornella. ‘La cappella del Beato Manetto all’Annunziata di Firenze e l’affresco di B. Poccetti: Conservazione, restauro, analisi’. Critica d’arte no. 56 (1991): 43–48. Ceccanti, Costantino. ‘Ferdinando I e la Santissima Annunziata: Giambologna, i cortigiani medicei e le cappelle della tribuna’. Studi di storia dell’arte 25 (2014): 73–88. Cecchi, Alessandro. ‘Andrea del Sarto in the Medici Collections’. In Andrea del Sarto: The Renaissance Workshop in Action, edited by Julian Brooks, Denise Allen, and Xavier F. Salomon, 152–57. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2015. Cecchi, Alessandro. ‘“The Garden Grotto from the Corridor”: Towards a Documentary History of the Grotta Grande’. In Bernardo Buontalenti and the Grotta Grande of Boboli, edited by Sergio Risaliti, 31–42. Florence: Maschietto, 2012. Chiappelli, Alberto. ‘Bernardino Poccetti a Pistoia’. Bullettino storico pistoiese 5 (1903): 184–90. Chiarelli, Caterina and Giovanni Leoncini, eds. La Certosa del Galluzzo a Firenze. Milan: Electa, 1982. Conigliello, Lucilla and Stefania Vasetti. ‘Gli affreschi e le sculture’. In Il chiostro camaldolese di Santa Maria degli Angeli a Firenze: Restauro e restituzione del ciclo di affreschi, 47–81. Florence: Centro Di: 1997. Conigliello, Lucilla and Stefania Vasetti. ‘La cappella Ticci’. In Il chiostro camaldolese di Santa Maria degli Angeli a Firenze: Restauro e restituzione del ciclo di affreschi, 82–92. Florence: Centro Di: 1997. Cropper, Elizabeth. ‘Florence in the Late 16th Century: A State of Beauty’. In The Cinquecento in Florence: ‘Modern Manner’ and Counter-Reformation, edited by Carlo Falciani and Antonio Natali, 291–301. Florence: Mandragora, 2017. Curran, Brian A. ‘Teaching (and Thinking about) the High Renaissance: With Some Observations on Its Relationship to Classical Antiquity’. In Rethinking the High Renaissance: The Culture of the Visual Arts in Early Sixteenth-Century Rome, edited by Jill Burke, 27–55. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2012. d’Afflitto, Chiara. ‘Da Firenze a Pistoia: Note sulle presenze fiorentine nei cicli pittorici pistoiesi dalla fine del Cinquecento alla metà del Seicento’. In Chiostri Seicenteschi a Pistoia: Le storie di S. Francesco a Giaccherino e gli altri cicli contemporanei, edited by Franca Felletti, 63–110. Florence: Le Monnier, 1992.

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De Luca, Francesca and Stefania Vasetti. ‘La cappella Del Giglio in Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi’. In Altari e committenza: Episodi a Firenze nell’età della Controriforma, edited by Cristina De Benedictis, 158–71. Florence: Pontecorboli, 1996. Dempsey, Charles. Annibale Carracci and the Beginnings of Baroque Style. Villa I Tatti Series, 3. Glückstadt: J.J. Augustin, 1977. Dempsey, Charles. ‘Caravaggio and the Two Naturalistic Styles: Specular versus Macular’. In Caravaggio: Realism, Rebellion, Reception, edited by Genevieve Warwick, 91–100. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2006. Dempsey, Charles. ‘Idealism and Naturalism in Rome around 1600’. In Il classicismo: Medioevo, rinascimento, barocco: Atti del colloquio Cesare Gnudi, edited by Elena de Luca, 233–43. Bologna: Nuova Alfa Editoriale, 1993. Dow, Douglas N. Apostolic Iconography and Florentine Confraternities in the Age of Reform. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2014. Dow, Douglas N. ‘Tradition and Reform in Sixteenth-Century Florentine Painting: Altarpieces by Naldini and Poccetti for the Company of Sant’Agnese in Santa Maria del Carmine’. Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 60, no. 2 (2018): 255–78. Fabbri, Maria Cecilia. ‘Controriforma alla Santissima Annunziata’. In Altari e committenza: Episodi a Firenze nell’età della Controriforma, edited by Cristina De Benedictis, 81–91. Florence: Angelo Pontecorboli, 1996. Freedberg, S.J. Circa 1600: A Revolution of Style in Italian Painting. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983. Freedberg, S.J. ‘Observations on the Painting of the Maniera’. Art Bulletin 47, no. 2 (1965): 187–97. Freedberg, S.J. Painting in Italy: 1500–1600. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. Fried, Michael. After Caravaggio. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016. Friedlaender, Walter. ‘The Academician and the Bohemian: Zuccari and Caravaggio’. Gazette des beaux-arts 33 (1948): 27–36. Fumagalli, Elena. ‘Collezionismo mediceo da Cosimo II a Cosimo III: Lo stato degli studi e le ricerche in corso’. In Geografia del collezionismo: Italia e Francia tra il XVI e il XVIII secolo, edited by Olivier Bonfait, Michel Hochmann, Luigi Spezzaferro, and Bruno Toscano, 239–55. Rome: École française de Rome, 2001. Giannotti, Alessandra. ‘Lo stile puro dei fiorentini, da Andrea del Sarto a Santi di Tito’. In Puro, semplice e naturale nell’arte a Firenze tra Cinque e Seicento, edited by Alessandra Giannotti and Claudio Pizzorusso, 27–55. Florence: Giunti, 2014. Giusti, Maria Adriana and Maria Teresa Lazzarini. La Certosa di Pisa a Calci. Pisa: Pacini, 1993. Hall, Marcia B. After Raphael: Painting in Central Italy in the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Hall, Marcia B. ‘Reform After Trent in Florence’. In Art and Reform in the Late Renaissance: After Trent, edited by Jesse M. Locker, 93–110. New York: Routledge, 2019.

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Hoffmann, Sabine. Ein Heiliger und sieben Gründer: Der Freskenzyklus zu den Ursprüngen des Servitenordens im Chiostro dei Morti der Santissima Annunziata in Florenz (1604–1618). Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2013. Hoffmann, Sabine. ‘Zu Ehren Mariens und der flämischen kunstler: Giambolognas Grabkapelle in der SS. Annunziata in Florenz’. In Künstlergräbmaler: Genese, Typologie, Intention, Metamorphosen, edited by Birgit Ulrike Münch, Markwart Herzog, and Andreas Tacke, 111–36. Petersberg: Michael Imhof, 2011. Lanzi, Luigi. Storia pittorica della Italia inferiore. Florence, 1792. Lavin, Irving. ‘Introduction’. In Three Essays on Style, edited by Irving Lavin, 3–14. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995. Lazzarini, Maria Teresa. ‘Gli apparati decorativi’. In La Certosa di Pisa a Calci, edited by Maria Adriana Giusti and Maria Teresa Lazzarini, 79–95. Pisa: Pacini, 1993. Lecchini Giovannoni, Simona. ‘La Cappella Strozzi’. In La Chiesa di Santa Trinita a Firenze, edited by Giuseppe Marchini and Emma Micheletti, 170–75. Florence: Giunti Barbèra, 1987. Lingo, Stuart. ‘Federico Barocci, History, and the Body of Art’. In Art and Reform in the Late Renaissance: After Trent, edited by Jesse M. Locker, 154–74. New York: Routledge, 2019. Locker, Jesse M. ‘Introduction: Rethinking Art after the Council of Trent’. In Art and Reform in the Late Renaissance: After Trent, edited by Jesse M. Locker, 1–18. New York: Routledge, 2019. Luzio, Alessandro. La galleria dei Gonzaga venduta all’Inghilterra nel 1627–28. Milan: L.F. Cogliati, 1913. Malvasia, Carlo Cesare. Felsina pittrice: Vite dei pittori bolognesi. 2 vols. Bologna, 1678. Mancini, Otello, and Antonio Vannini. Cartusiae prope senas: Le Certose in terra di Siena. Siena: Betti, 2013. Meloni Trkulja, Silvia. ‘Le opere d’arte di San Bartolomeo a Monteoliveto’. In Via di Monteoliveto: Chiese e ville di un colle fiorentino, edited by Silvia Meloni Trkulja, 111–28. Florence: Edifir, 2000. Müller-Bechtel, Susanne. ‘Die Cappella Neri im ehemaligen “convento di Cestello” (S. Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi) in Florenz und ihre Freskenausstattung durch Bernardino Poccetti (1598–1600)’. Studi di storia dell’arte 11 (2000): 137–76. Natali, Antonio. Andrea del Sarto. New York: Abbeville Press, 1999. Natali, Antonio. ‘Andrea del Sarto, a Model of Thought and Language: Chapter One’. In The Cinquecento in Florence: ‘Modern Manner’ and Counter-Reformation, edited by Carlo Falciani and Antonio Natali, 27–39. Florence: Mandragora, 2017. O’Brien, Alana. ‘Who Holds the Keys to the Chiostro dello Scalzo, “Scuola di molti giovani”?’. Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 63, no. 2 (2021): 210–61. Pagliarulo, Giovanni. ‘Per Jacopo Vignali disegnatore: Un percorso tra gli studi di figura’. Paragone 64, no. 755 (2013): 11–46. Panofsky, Erwin. ‘What is Baroque?’. In Three Essays on Style, edited by Irving Lavin, 19–88. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995.

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Presciutti, Diana Bullen. ‘Carità e potere: Representing the Medici Grand Dukes as “Fathers of the Innocenti”’. Renaissance Studies 24, no. 2 (2010): 234–59. Previtali, Giovanni. ‘Introduzione’. In Le vite de’ pittori, scultori e architetti moderni, by Giovan Pietro Bellori, ix–lx. Edited by Evelina Borea. Turin: Einaudi, 1976. Proto Pisani, Rosanna Caterina. ‘Il ciclo affrescato del primo chiostro di San Marco: Una galleria della pittura Fiorentina del Seicento’. In La chiesa e il convento di San Marco a Firenze, edited by Tito S. Centi, 2:321–46. Florence: Giunti, 1990. Röstel, Alexander, and Grant Lewis. ‘Bernardino Poccetti as Collector’. In The Pictor Doctus, between Knowledge and Workshop: Artists, Collections and Friendship in Europe, 1500–1900, edited by Ana Diéguez-Rodríguez and Ángel Rodríguez Rebollo, 47–75. Turnhout: Brepols, 2021. Sebregondi, Ludovica. ‘L’antica sede della Compagnia di San Lorenzino in Piano’. In La sede della compagnia di San Lorenzino, 4–9. Florence: Fondazione per la ricerca e l’innovazione, 2009. Spagnolo, Maddalena. ‘La fortuna di Andrea del Sarto nella riforma della Maniera’. Ricerche di storia dell’arte 64 (1998): 35–56. Spalding, Jack. ‘Santi di Tito and the Reform of Florentine Mannerism’. Storia dell’Arte 47 (1983): 41–52. Struhal, Eva. ‘Resisting the Baroque in Seventeenth-Century Florence’. In Art and Reform in the Late Renaissance: After Trent, edited by Jesse M. Locker, 293–315. New York: Routledge, 2019. Vasetti, Stefania. ‘Badia a Ripoli’. In La tradizione Fiorentina dei cenacoli, edited by Cristina Acidini Luchinat and Rosanna Caterina Proto Pisani, 204–7. Florence: Scala, 1997. Vasetti, Stefania. Bernardino Poccetti e gli Strozzi: Committenze a Firenze nel primo decennio del Seicento. Florence: Opus Libri, 1994. Vasetti, Stefania. ‘Bernardino Poccetti e i certosini toscani’. Analecta Cartusiana, n.s., 3 (1991): 5–61. Vasetti, Stefania. ‘Bernardino Poccetti’s Frescoes in the Great Hall’. In Palazzo Capponi on Lungarno Guicciardini and Bernardino Poccetti’s Restored Frescoes, edited by Litta Maria Medri, 59–141. Florence: Centro Di, 2001. Vasetti, Stefania. ‘I fasti granducali della Sala di Bona: Sintesi politica e culturale del principato di Ferdinando’. In Palazzo Pitti: La reggia rivelata, edited by Gabriella Capecchi, Amelio Fara, Detlef Heikamp, and Vincenzo Saladino, 228–39. Florence: Giunti, 2003. Vasetti, Stefania. ‘The Frescoes by Bernardino Poccetti’. In Palazzo Spini Feroni and Its Museum, edited by Stefania Ricci, 95–123. Milan: Giorgio Mondadori, 1995. Vasetti, Stefania. ‘Santo Spirito’. In La tradizione Fiorentina dei cenacoli, edited by Cristina Acidini Luchinat and Rosanna Caterina Proto Pisani, 198–203. Florence: Scala, 1997. Vasetti, Stefania. ‘Scheda 4/ Il Poccetti a palazzo Acciaiuoli’. In Gli antichi chiassi tra Ponte Vecchio e Santa Trinita: Storia del rione dei Santi Apostoli, dai primi insediamenti romani alle ricostruzioni postbelliche, edited by Giampaolo Trotta, 131–34. Florence: Messaggerie Toscane, 1992.

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Veen, Henk Th. van. ‘True Universal Art: The Florentine Answer to the Roman Raphaelesque Mode’. In The Translation of Raphael’s Roman Style, edited by Henk Th. van Veen, 105–21. Leuven: Peeters, 2007. Williams, Robert. ‘A Treatise by Francesco Bocchi in Praise of Andrea del Sarto’. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 52 (1989): 111–39.

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‘Grandemente inclinato all’Arte del Disegno’ Filippo Baldinucci’s Biography of Bernardino Poccetti

Abstract: Filippo Baldinucci (1625–1696) wrote a detailed and compelling biography of Bernardino Barbatelli (called Poccetti, 1553–1612). This chapter situates Baldinucci and his work within contemporary discussions of art writing and its traditions, even as it reads the biography of Poccetti critically to understand the mechanics of Baldinucci’s historical project. Baldinucci used longstanding tropes from art historical writing as well as more ‘modern’ approaches to history (archival research, interviews) and in Poccetti’s biography these methods paint a detailed picture of the man, his personality, and his working habits. In addition, elements of Poccetti’s biography serve Baldinucci’s aim of elevating the Tuscan school of painting and updating Giorgio Vasari’s collection of artists’ lives. Keywords: Bernardino Barbatelli (called Poccetti); Filippo Baldinucci; Giorgio Vasari; historiography; biography

A young boy has been sent out to run an errand for his grandmother in his neighborhood on the south side of the Arno River in Florence. He is around eight or nine years old but he probably appears much younger thanks to his small stature—he was, after all, known throughout his life by the diminutive form of his name, Bernardino.1 The youth has taken this unsupervised moment 1 In his vita of Poccetti, Filippo Baldinucci described him as a ‘man of extraordinarily small stature’ (‘uomo di statura più che ordinarimente piccola’). Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:247. Several editions of Baldinucci’s Notizie have been published. Although the first edition was once less widely available than the anastatic reprint of the Ranalli edition from 1845 that was published by SPES in 1974, the digitalization of primary sources has now made the first edition readily accessible. In the case of Poccetti, the biography in the first edition is slightly different than the one that appeared in the Ranalli edition. An English translation of Poccetti’s biography derived from the Ranalli edition was published by Raymond Petrillo. All subsequent references are to the volumes of the first edition published from 1681 to 1728, unless otherwise noted as

Dow, D.N., Bernardino Poccetti and the Art of Religious Painting at the End of the Florentine Renaissance. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463729529_ch01

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Fig. 1.1: Filippo Baldinucci, ‘Bernardo Barbatelli detto Bernardino Poccetti pittore fiorentino’ in Notizie de’ professori del disegno (1688). Source: Getty Research Institute. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content program

to entertain himself by drawing on the wall of his parish church with a lump of charcoal, unaware that his admirable efforts and obvious skill have attracted the attention of one of Florence’s more successful painters. This man, impressed by the youngster’s natural ability and good judgment, decides that the boy would make an excellent apprentice and offers him an invitation to join his workshop. According to the biography written by Filippo Baldinucci (1625–1696) and published in the fourth volume of his Notizie de’ professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua in 1688 (Fig. 1.1), this is how Bernardo Barbatelli, now known as Bernardino Poccetti (1553–1612), came to his profession as an artist: through a serendipitous encounter with the painter Michele Tosini, also known as Michele di Ridolfo Ghirlandaio (1503–1577).2

Baldinucci’s Account of Poccetti’s Discovery

It is not inconceivable that this story—although based on longstanding myths about artistic talent and discovery—might have at its core a kernel of truth, since much of it aligns with what is known about the childhood of Poccetti, who was born in San Gimignano in 1553 to Bartolomeo Barbatelli and his wife, Lucia.3 ‘Baldinucci-Ranalli’, and all translations are mine unless noted otherwise. For more information on the various editions of the Notizie, see Tovey, Pouncey Index, 12–13. 2 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:242. Poccetti’s recruitment by Tosini is in keeping with contemporary descriptions of him as an affable and capable teacher with a workshop full of assistants and apprentices. In 1565, for example, Vincenzio Borghini reported that ‘Michele di Ridolfo è di buon giudizio e valente, ed ha una buona mano di giovani’, and in the 1568 edition of the Vite, Vasari wrote that Tosini ‘ha sempre in bottega buon numero di giovinetti, ai quali insegna con incredibile amorevolezza’. Bottari and Ticozzi, Raccolta di lettere, 1:195; Vasari-Milanesi, 6:547. For more on the students and assistants in Tosini’s shop, see Berti and Luzzetti, Bella maniera, 66; Hornik, Michele Tosini, 40–47. 3 According to a deposition he made as part of the campaign to canonize Andrea Corsini in 1606, Poccetti stated that he was born in San Gimignano and that he was ‘around’ (‘incirca’) 53 years old.

‘Grandemente inclinato all’Arte del Disegno’ 

When Bernardino was young the family relocated to Florence, where Bartolomeo plied his trade as a humble vasaio, living and working with his wife and son in the Oltrarno near the Porta di San Piero in Gattolino. 4 Tragically, Poccetti’s father died while Bernardino was still a small boy, and it was not too long after his father’s death that his widowed mother married a linen weaver named Pietro Ciardi.5 Unable to burden her new household with the son from her previous marriage, Lucia left the young Bernardino in the care of Bartolomeo’s mother.6 According to Baldinucci, Bernardino and his grandmother lived in extreme poverty, and it is easy to imagine that a family living on the outer edge of one of Florence’s poorer neighborhoods and who had no major breadwinner in the house would have faced financial hardship.7 Although he was still just a boy, Bernardino was the male of the household and in spite of—or, perhaps because of—their poverty, Baldinucci painted a picture of a relatively carefree existence for Bernardino, who roamed freely around the Oltrarno as he ran errands for his grandmother, during which time he amused himself by drawing fanciful images (‘alcune fantasie’) on the walls of the neighborhood’s buildings—acts of vandalism that Baldinucci rationalized by noting that the boy ‘sentissi grandemente inclinato all’Arte del Disegno’ (‘felt greatly inclined towards the art of design’).8 For a transcription and discussion of this document, see Vasetti, ‘“Guccia” di Bernardino Poccetti’, 154–56. 4 The Porta di San Piero in Gattolino is now known as the Porta Romana, a change that occurred at some point in the nineteenth century. Fiorelli and Venturi, Stradario storico, 1:355. 5 According to Poccetti himself, he moved to Florence when he was seven years old (‘sempre ho habitato in fiorenza dove ci fui menato in età di 7 anni’), making it difficult to pinpoint exactly when his father died, but providing a terminus post quem for his discovery by Tosini. Vasetti, ‘“Guccia” di Bernardino Poccetti’, 158. Baldinucci is vague about the timeline, stating only that the potter Bartolomeo Barbatelli lived in the Oltrarno, was from San Gimignano, had a son with his wife Lucia, and died shortly thereafter (‘presso alla porta detta di S. Piero in Gattolino abitò già un certo Bartolomeo Barbatelli da S. Gimignano, che attendeva all’umile mestiero di far pentole, ed altri vasi di terra: ebbe questi della Lucia da Firenze sua moglie un figliuolo, che fu il nostro Bernardino, ed egli poco dopo si morì’). Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:242. 6 After the death of Bartolomeo, Lucia was left in a difficult position. Presumably still young enough to be valued as a bride by her contemporaries, and with few options available to her other than remarriage or the convent, she was legally required to forsake the young Bernardino when she married Pietro Ciardi. For a recent overview of the challenges faced by widows in the Renaissance, as well as an entry point into the substantial literature on family structures in the period, see Benadusi, ‘Social Relations’, 346–47. For specific examples of Florentine widows ‘abandoning’ their children from their previous marriages, see Klapisch-Zuber, ‘Cruel Mother’, 124–31. 7 For a discussion of the impoverished state of Florence’s working class in the last half of the Cinquecento, see Rolova, ‘Alcune osservazioni’, 129–30; for negative perceptions of the Oltrarno on the part of Quattrocento Florentines, see Eckstein, ‘Neighborhood as Microcosm’, 226; for the displacement of the city’s poor to the periphery in the fifteenth century, see Cohn, Laboring Classes, 123–27. 8 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:242.

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And so it was that one day Michele Tosini happened upon an eight- or nine-yearold Bernardino drawing on the exterior of the church of San Piero in Gattolino with a piece of charcoal. Taken by ‘la franchezza, e’l buon gusto’ (‘the confidence and good judgment’) of the young draughtsman as he made his designs, Tosini paused at a distance to observe Bernardino’s efforts. Before too long, Poccetti sensed the presence of Tosini and his surveillance. Afraid that he would be punished, the young artist readied his escape but Tosini stopped the boy and reassured him by praising his drawings and extending an offer to join his bottega where Tosini promised Poccetti that he would teach the boy the art of painting. Shortly thereafter, Bernardino, having received his grandmother’s permission, became a fixture in Tosini’s workshop.9 Attentive readers have already noticed that Baldinucci’s origin story for Poccetti echoes similar themes found throughout Giorgio Vasari’s (1511–1574) biographies, and which play central roles in his accounts of the lives of Cimabue (c. 1240–before 1302) and Giotto (c. 1266–1337), in particular.10 Poccetti’s irrepressible desire to draw—an urge so strong that he satisfied it with illicit graffiti—is indebted to Vasari’s account of the young Cimabue, who was also incapable of suppressing his artistic inclinations, so much so that he neglected his studies with the Dominicans at Santa Maria Novella by sneaking off to watch the artists at work in the Gondi Chapel and filling his books and papers with drawings instead of doing his lessons. Once it became obvious to his father that Cimabue was not destined to study grammar and rhetoric, the boy was eventually apprenticed to the group of painters who were busy decorating the church of Santa Maria Novella, and who had recognized Cimabue’s innate talent.11 From the life of Giotto comes the discovery legend itself, 9 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:242. In addition to training Bernardino for a future career as a painter, the opportunity to work for Tosini would have also provided crucial financial assistance to the household. On the presence, status, and remuneration of youngsters in Florence’s botteghe, see Comanducci, ‘Fattori e garzoni’, 41–55; Goldthwaite, Economy of Renaissance Florence, 372–74. 10 Mario Tinti noted the echo of the story of Giotto’s discovery in 1928; Arturo Rusconi remarked on Baldinucci’s renewal of ‘la bella legenda giottesca’ in a publication from 1931; in 1955 Walter Vitzthum suggested that because the story was so obviously a ‘Florentiner Kunstleranekdote’ that it was meaningless (‘man diesem Hinweis keine Bedeutung beimessen wird’), and Carl Goldstein minimized the importance of such topoi, arguing that they ‘tell us […] what we already know’. More recently, Mark Ledbury presented a positive view of the anecdotal and its role in art historical writing, calling it a ‘powerful and fertile presence’ and a ‘profound and effective strategy’ that has ‘provided provocation and nourishment to the discipline’. Tinti, ‘Bernardino Poccetti’, 412; Rusconi, ‘Arte retrospettiva’, 349; Vitzthum, ‘Handzeichnungen’, 20; Goldstein, ‘Image of the Artist’, 17; Ledbury, ‘Anecdotes’, 173. 11 Vasari-Milanesi, 1:247–49. For a recent treatment of the importance Vasari placed on nurturing innate genius with proper training, see Biow, Vasari’s Words, 51–79. For the symbolic and allegorical implications of Vasari’s biography of Cimabue, see Barolsky, Giotto’s Father, 3–9. For a summary of sixteenth-century publications that suggest that artists are ‘born, not made’, see Wittkower and Wittkower, Born Under Saturn, 60–61.

‘Grandemente inclinato all’Arte del Disegno’ 

a topos that appears in various forms in the biographies of many different artists, and that Baldinucci modified to fit the specifics of Poccetti’s childhood and family history.12 As the poor son of a deceased potter being raised by his grandmother, Poccetti could not be cast in the bucolic role of a shepherd boy drawing sheep on a rock, so Baldinucci described him drawing on the walls in the neighborhood around his home in the Oltrarno.13 Otherwise, the principal components of Baldinucci’s anecdote are lifted from Vasari’s description of Cimabue’s chance encounter with the young Giotto, who was passing the time while tending his flock by making images on a stone.14 Cimabue, taken with Giotto’s skill, asked him to join his workshop, thereby setting him on his path to begin the restoration of the art of painting, in much the same way that Tosini recognized Poccetti’s inherent abilities and recruited him as an apprentice. The story of Poccetti’s discovery by Tosini is not the only anecdote in Baldinucci’s biography that echoes events recounted by Vasari. Shortly after Poccetti entered Tosini’s workshop, the master asked the young boy to copy an eye that he had drawn on a sheet of paper.15 Once he had assigned his new apprentice this basic task, Tosini then turned his attention to the completion of a large panel that he had at hand, climbing up on a ladder to reach the uppermost surface of the 12 For a summary of the various permutations of this anecdote and its appearance in the biographies of many Renaissance and Baroque painters, from Giotto to the Carracci, see Goldstein, ‘Image of the Artist’, 10. 13 Goldstein noted the ‘social implications’ of these discovery legends, especially—as is the case with Giotto and Poccetti—when they highlight the progress that these artists made as they left behind their origins in the peasant and working classes and pursued successful careers as artists. Goldstein, Visual Fact, 14. Rubin, Giorgio Vasari, 301–3 also remarked upon this theme, noting that in his treatment of Giotto, ‘a great man of modest birth’, Vasari ‘counter[ed] nobility of birth with nobility of talent’. For an analysis of Giotto’s discovery legend in terms of center and periphery that includes references to further bibliography, see Kim, Traveling Artist, 64–68. 14 Vasari-Milanesi, 1:370–72. Vasari’s account relies heavily on Lorenzo Ghiberti’s (1378–1455) version of the events. Rubin, Giorgio Vasari, 298. For Ghiberti’s account, see Commentari, 32. Although Ghiberti’s text was not published until 1813, Vasari was able to read the only surviving manuscript, which was in the possession of Cosimo Bartoli. Rubin, Giorgio Vasari, 171; Cast, Delight of Art, 77. For more on ‘discovery anecdotes’ and artists’ biographies, including a discussion of how the motif recurs throughout Vasari’s biographies, see Kris and Kurz, Legend, Myth, and Magic, 26–28. Kris and Kurz also single out Baldinucci’s version of Poccetti’s discovery (although they misidentify Michele Tosini as his adoptive father, Ridolfo Ghirlandaio), Kris and Kurz, Legend, Myth, and Magic, 27. For an analysis of Legend, Myth, and Magic, see Soussloff, Absolute Artist, 94–111. 15 Tosini’s method of instruction is virtually identical to the procedure recommended by Giovanni Battista Armenini, where one of the first skills students learn is how to draw eyes, mouth, ears, nose, head, hands, arms, and other similar things (‘occhi, bocca, orecchie, naso, testa, mani, braccia, et altre simili’) by copying examples drawn by a practiced hand (‘huomo prattico’). Armenini, Veri precetti, 52. For a translation, see Armenini, True Precepts, 123. For more on this widespread practice, see Cavazzini, Painting as Business, 52–53.

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painting. When Tosini descended the ladder in order to get a look at his painting from a distance, Poccetti, who had been diligently working on the sheet of paper supplied by the master, quickly moved the drawing to conceal it from Tosini’s view. Tosini assumed that Poccetti was hiding his work because he had not followed instructions, suspecting that instead of drawing the eye the boy had scrawled some doodles on the sheet and made a mess of it (‘trattenuto in scorbiare il foglio, o fare altra simil bagattella’). To confirm his suspicions, Tosini forced Poccetti to reveal what he had done, but when he looked at the sheet he did not find doodles or scrawls. Instead, Tosini saw that Poccetti had drawn the view of the entire workshop, complete with the ‘master, the panel, and the big ladder’, and that he had done it with such good style, proportion, and liveliness (‘con tanto buon modo, e con tal proporzione, e spirito’) that Tosini was left dumbfounded (‘che Michele ne rimase stordito’).16 As was the case with the discovery myth, this anecdote is a recasting of a story told by Vasari, except in this case the example alluded to is not the biography of Giotto, but rather the life of Michelangelo (1475–1564). In Vasari’s account, shortly after Michelangelo joined the bottega of Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449–1494), he gave himself the task of drawing the busy scene of the members of the workshop painting the Tornabuoni Chapel in Santa Maria Novella. According to Vasari, Michelangelo’s representation, which included the staging, and the desks, and the various assistants at work on the site, was drawn with such skill that when Domenico returned and saw what Michelangelo had done he exclaimed in amazement, ‘This boy knows more about it than I do!’17 In each account, the apprentice took on the 16 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:242. It is worth noting that Leonardo recommended that those learning to draw should begin by copying drawings by a good master (‘di buono maestro’), before moving on to three-dimensional objects (‘poi di rilievo’), after which they could finally work from natural models (‘di buono naturale’). Baldinucci’s account, therefore, suggests that Poccetti’s exceptional abilities allowed him to skip all the introductory and intermediate steps and move directly to the most advanced stage. For the passage from Leonardo, see Richter, Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, 1:244. 17 Vasari-Milanesi, 7:140. Although the extent to which Ghirlandaio ‘taught’ Michelangelo has been debated since it was first brought up by Vasari and Condivi, there is little doubt that Michelangelo was affiliated with Domenico’s workshop in some capacity. See, for example, Cadogan, ‘Michelangelo’, 30–31. William Wallace has argued that Michelangelo was not a typical member of the workshop, however, as he was older and more skilled than the other assistants, and as a result enjoyed a position of privilege that allowed him ‘access to the master’s drawings and to a valued object such as Martin Schongauer’s print, The Temptation of St. Anthony’. Wallace goes on to suggest that the drawing of the Tornabuoni chapel that Vasari cites should be seen as further evidence of Michelangelo’s freedom in the workshop, since he was using that time to draw when ‘he should have been helping in the routine tasks of one of Florence’s busiest workshops’. Wallace, ‘Who is the Author?’, 113. Paul Barolsky takes a different tack, however, and remarks that the stories of Michelangelo’s time in the Ghirlandaio workshop employ the device of the young pupil surpassing his master in a rhetorical and dramatic fashion. He goes on to suggest that the accounts ‘tell us more about what Vasari, Condivi, and Michelangelo thought in 1550 and after than

‘Grandemente inclinato all’Arte del Disegno’ 

task of rendering the scene before him of his own volition and achieved a result that left his master awestruck.18

Baldinucci’s Notizie and Seicento Writing on Art Although the motifs in Baldinucci’s stories about the youthful Bernardino have a long tradition in art historical writing that dates back at least as far as Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE), it is worth considering why Baldinucci would have felt compelled to include anecdotes that specifically echoed events recounted by Vasari in his lives of Cimabue, Giotto, and Michelangelo.19 The duo of Cimabue and Giotto forms the point of origin in Vasari’s triumphant trajectory of Tuscan painting, which culminates with the restoration of greatness to the art of design in the hands of Michelangelo.20 By echoing the stories of Cimabue, Giotto, and Michelangelo in his account of Poccetti’s early years, Baldinucci situated the young painter firmly within the tradition of the Tuscan school championed by Vasari. When Baldinucci conceived the idea for his Notizie de’ professori del disegno, it had been over a century since the publication of Vasari’s expanded edition of the Vite in 1568, and over eighty years since the publication of Raffaello Borghini’s Il Riposo, which included a collection of biographies of artists up to 1583.21 This does not mean, however, that there were no publications on Italian art in the intervening years, only that the works issued were not Tuscan in origin.22 In fact, in the period after the publication of Vasari’s text, authors based in other centers had produced a number of works that sought to augment, rebut, or even supplant his what exactly transpired in the 1480s’. Barolsky, ‘Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio’, 32. For an exploration of how Vasari’s emphasis on Michelangelo’s apprenticeship serves the larger rhetorical goals of the Vite, see Biow, Vasari’s Words, 63–66. 18 On Vasari’s use of the topos of the apprenticed youth surpassing his master—a motif that appears in the lives of Giotto, Mantegna, Leonardo, and Michelangelo, to name a few—see Watts, ‘Giorgio Vasari’s Vita’, 71–73. 19 For a discussion of Plinian motifs in Vasari’s biography of Giotto, see Land, ‘Vasari’s Vita of Giotto’, 77–89. For Pliny’s influence on Ghiberti and Vasari, see McHam, Pliny, 109–17, 243–53. 20 In his introduction to the Notizie, Baldinucci also claimed that the restoration of art had its origins in the efforts of Cimabue and Giotto (‘quest’Arti sono state restaurate da Cimabue, e poi da Giotto’). Baldinucci, Notizie, 1:unpaginated. For a translation of this passage, see Goldberg, After Vasari, 63. Maginnis, ‘Giotto’s World’, 407 notes the connection Vasari made between Giotto and Michelangelo in the Vite. 21 Raffaello Borghini, Il Riposo. Il Riposo was probably complete in manuscript form before 1583, as it does not report the death of Stoldo di Lorenzo, which took place in September of that year. Bury, ‘Bernardo Vecchietti’ 47n1. 22 For an overview of these authors and their publications in the seventeenth century, see Goldstein, ‘Rhetoric and Art History’, 649–50; Cast, ‘Artistic Biography’, 533–37.

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narrative. In 1642, for example, Giovanni Baglione (c. 1573–1644) published his Vite de’ pittori, scultori, et architetti, which presented the biographies of over 200 artists active in Rome and Florence between 1572 and 1642.23 In some cases, authors challenged Vasari’s assertion that art was revived by Cimabue and brought to perfection by the Tuscan school. Carlo Ridolfi’s (1594–1658) Le maraviglie dell’arte, published in Venice in 1648, not only pushed back against Vasari’s emphasis on Tuscany as the birthplace of the modern Renaissance style, but also fleshed out the biographies of Venetian painters that Vasari overlooked or covered only in passing.24 Not long after, authors from other Italian centers did the same exercise for their regional schools and traditions, with Raffaele Soprani (1612–1672) publishing on Genoa in 1674 and Carlo Cesare Malvasia (1616–1693) on Bologna in 1678.25 Thus, by the time Baldinucci envisioned his project, the primacy and authority of the Vasarian narrative—one that, as Edward Goldberg remarked, ‘had become essential to local pride and to the public image of the House of Medici’—was being threatened.26 This fact was not lost on seventeenth-century Florentines like the jurist Leonardo Dati, brother to Carlo Dati, who wrote a letter to the Accademia del Disegno on the feast of Saint Luke in 1646 with a proposal for a work that would pick up where Vasari’s text left off.27 For Florentines in general and Baldinucci in particular, the Notizie filled a gap in the historical record, at the same time as it reasserted Florence’s status as the most important artistic center in Italy.28 When Baldinucci echoed elements of Vasari’s biographies of Cimabue, Giotto, and Michelangelo in his account of Poccetti’s childhood and early career, he not only invested his life of Poccetti with well-known tropes of art historical biography, but he also demonstrated that these themes persisted in the Florentine tradition, and reconstituted a model of genealogical progression that Vasari had minimized,

23 Baglione, Vite de’ pittori. For a discussion of Baglione’s text, see O’Neil, Baglione, 177–96. 24 ‘Di donde si viene in chiarezza, che la Pittura ne’ moderni tempi si rinovasse in Venetia, prima che fosse introdotta a Firenze, come referisce il Vasari.’ Ridolfi, Maraviglie, 13. Perini has linked this burst of activity to ‘the reprint of Vasari’s Lives published by Carlo Manolessi in Bologna in 1647’. Perini, ‘Malvasia’s Florentine Letters’, 278. 25 Soprani, Vite de pittori; Malvasia, Felsina pittrice. On Malvasia and Felsina pittrice, see Summerscale, Malvasia’s Life, 2–76; on the relation of Felsina pittrice to other seventeenth-century texts, see Perini, ‘Malvasia’s Florentine Letters’, 273–99. 26 Goldberg, After Vasari, 11; Cropper ‘Plea’, 4–5. 27 Goldberg, After Vasari, 11–12; Perini, ‘Malvasia’s Florentine Letters’, 278; Cropper ‘Plea’, 4–5; Struhal, ‘Baldinucci’s novità’, 196; Paltrinieri, ‘Filippo Baldinucci’, 28–29. For a transcription of Dati’s letter, see Goldberg, After Vasari, 194n18. 28 In addition to addressing the need for an updated version of Vasari, Baldinucci also recognized that the Notizie would offer him the chance to advance his career and to cultivate Medici patronage. Sohm, Style, 167.

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especially in the case of Tosini.29 Tosini was, in a manner of speaking, Domenico Ghirlandaio’s grandson, through his adoption by Domenico’s son, Ridolfo Ghirlandaio (1483–1561), who eventually inherited Domenico’s shop but had no children of his own.30 And even if it was just a coincidence that when Michelangelo drew the Tornabuoni chapel he was recording the activities of Domenico Ghirlandaio’s workshop, and that when Poccetti rendered Tosini’s studio he was drawing the artistic grandson of Domenico Ghirlandaio at work, it was a coincidence that Baldinucci did not fail to emphasize.31 In so doing, Baldinucci not only likened Poccetti to Michelangelo, but he also underscored that each of these painters had been trained in the traditions and practices of the same venerable Florentine artistic family, and, perhaps more importantly, that these Florentine traditions—and especially the Florentine emphasis on drawing as a cornerstone of artistic training—had been maintained well into the seventeenth century.32 This type of genealogical thinking was central to Baldinucci’s project, and in his introduction to the first volume of the Notizie he claimed that it occurred to him that he could make ‘una chiara dimostrazione, mediante un albero’ (‘a clear illustration in the form of a tree’) of how art had been revived and nurtured from the ‘primi’ (i.e., Cimabue and Giotto) to the present-day ‘viventi’.33 And although he later abandoned the idea, a representation of this genealogical tree appears in the portrait of Baldinucci in the act of writing the Notizie by Pier Dandini (1646–1712) (Fig. 1.2). Baldinucci is shown on the right side of the painting, flanked on either side by the personif ications of the academies of the Crusca and Design.34 The personification of the Crusca draws attention to a sheaf of pages meant to represent the Vocabolario toscano dell’arte del disegno that she holds in her right hand, while 29 Elizabeth Pilliod argued that Vasari’s section of the Lives devoted to the Academicians in the 1568 edition ‘almost obliterated certain long-standing shop lines’, and she noted that this was especially true of the pupils of Pierfrancesco Foschi (1502–1567) and Michele Tosini, since Vasari omitted extensive biographies of those two painters elsewhere in the Lives and only briefly mentioned them in his discussion of the Academicians. Pilliod, Pontormo, Bronzino, Allori, 205–8, quoted text on 205. 30 Hornik, Michele Tosini, 1–3. 31 On the importance Baldinucci placed on the rapport between masters and students and the artistic genealogies forged by these connections, see Benassi, ‘Da maestro a discepolo’, 16–19. For Vasari’s treatment of the Ghirlandaio family, see Barolsky, Giotto’s Father, 59–62. 32 Gregori, ‘Pittura a Firenze’, 280 noted the importance of drawing as an artistic practice throughout the Seicento, and remarked upon the emphasis it received in the last decades of the Cinquecento. Her list of artists associated with the practice does not mention Poccetti, but his extant corpus of over 1000 drawings provides ample evidence of the centrality of drawing to his working methods. 33 Baldinucci, Notizie, 1:unpaginated. For a translation of this passage, see Goldberg, After Vasari, 63. For a recent discussion of the importance of the genealogical tree to Baldinucci’s historical method, see Struhal, ‘Baldinucci’s novità’, 196–98. 34 For a recent discussion of this painting, and especially the importance of the personification of the Accademia del Disegno, see Paltrinieri, ‘Filippo Baldinucci’, 23–24.

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Fig. 1.2: Pier Dandini, Filippo Baldinucci and the Accademie della Crusca and del Disegno, late seventeenth– early eighteenth century. Florence, Accademia della Crusca. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

the personification of the Accademia del Disegno holds drawings and a compass and wears a garland on her head.35 On the left side of the canvas, personifications of the three arts of design are represented. Sculpture, shown in red, is identified by the sculptural fragment that appears closest to her near the painting’s bottom edge. Painting, positioned above a painted but unstretched canvas, holds a palette and brushes in her left hand and draws Sculpture’s attention to Giotto’s name on the genealogical tree with her right. Meanwhile, Architecture, positioned above architectural fragments of a cornice and a capital, holds the image of the tree and points to an illegible name on one of the branches.36 Giotto’s name appears on the trunk of the tree, positioned above Cimabue, illustrating Baldinucci’s claim that all subsequent artistic expression grew out from the achievements of these two men.37 35 Although the pages are marked with the title Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, it is likely that they are meant to represent Baldinucci’s Vocabolario toscano dell’arte del disegno. 36 Conte, ‘Tema di lunga durata’, 95–96; Conte ‘Storia figurativa’, 196–99. 37 It should be noted that the fragment of the tree published in the first volume of the Notizie in 1681 does not assume the form of a literal tree as it does in the painting, but is rather a diagram. Struhal, ‘Baldinucci’s novità’, 197–98. Although an attempt was made to preserve it in printed form after his death, no trace of

‘Grandemente inclinato all’Arte del Disegno’ 

Baldinucci’s stories about the youthful Bernardino Poccetti fit nicely with his aims for the Notizie, and they must be seen in light of his engagement with the intellectual debate that surrounded Vasari’s original conception of history, as well as the competition between Baldinucci and other writers such as Ridolfi and Malvasia. By including these elements in his life of Poccetti, Baldinucci echoed and affirmed Vasarian themes, and made a case for the continued dominance of the Florentine school over other Italian centers.38 Thus, it must be admitted that some of the anecdotes in the life of Poccetti—for example, the two discussed above—are reflective of Baldinucci’s rhetorical stance and therefore are more heavily indebted to longstanding tropes than they are to careful historical research, but it is also true that Baldinucci sought a certain amount of scholarly rigor in his work and availed himself of as many resources as he could muster while working on the lives of various artists.39

Baldinucci’s Historical Methods To further this end, he relied on his association with the cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici (1617–1675), for whom Baldinucci served as a trusted advisor on artistic matters, including the attribution and organization of thousands of drawings in the cardinal’s collection—in 1675, the year Leopoldo died, he had amassed over 11,000 drawings that had been attributed to 654 different artists (around 500 of these were given to Poccetti alone). 40 In that same year, as part of an attempt to interpret and organize all of the material accumulated in the cardinal’s drawing collection, a questionnaire was sent out in Leopoldo’s name to various centers, seeking information on the painters, sculptors, and architects who were active in

Baldinucci’s original albero remains. Goldberg, After Vasari, 170. According to Baldinucci’s son, Francesco Saverio, Baldinucci’s tree occupied a sheet that measured three by nine braccia (approximately 175 by 525cm). Conte, ‘Storia figurativa’, 175n12. 38 Similarly, Catherine Soussloff has argued that when Baldinucci aligned himself with early commentators on Dante he ‘indicated that in order for a history (of art or any other medium) to be legitimate, it must have a tradition—with exempla, heroes, and texts, and a language, Tuscan poetry—to which it can refer and belong’. Soussloff, review of Patterns and After Vasari, 698. 39 The opposing points of view regarding Baldinucci’s scholarly project—whether ‘the Notizie embody any signif icant theoretical or methodological innovations’ or not—have been recently explored by Struhal, ‘Baldinucci’s novità’, 193–203, quoted text on 193. 40 Hope, ‘Audiences’, 24 pointed out that Baldinucci’s ability to attribute works of art was a skill usually only ascribed to practicing artists. The exact count of drawings by Poccetti in the cardinal’s collection has been variously reported, see, for example, Barocchi, ‘Collezionismo del Cardinale Leopoldo’, 17 and Goldberg, After Vasari, 67–68.

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those cities. 41 Thanks to his service to the cardinal Leopoldo, Baldinucci was also able to circulate inquiries through the grand duke’s librarian, Antonio Magliabechi (1633–1714), who was one of the great bibliographers of the seventeenth century and who had intellectual contacts throughout the continent.42 Baldinucci also used his affiliation with the cardinal to solicit materials that were in private hands, as was the case when he requested access to the manuscript of Benvenuto Cellini’s (1500–1571) autobiography, which at that time was in the possession of the heirs of Andrea Cavalcanti (1610–1673).43 After the death of Leopoldo, however, Baldinucci experienced difficulty securing the patronage he needed to propel his project forward, and he frequently relied on his own contacts to gain considerable access to libraries and archives while conducting the research for his projects. 44 In addition to his work in these locations, Baldinucci also called on living friends and relatives of artists to provide information about his subjects.45 In his biography of Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680), written as a standalone publication dedicated to Queen Christina of Sweden (1626–1689), for example, Baldinucci frequently cited letters and documents he had consulted, and relied heavily on information from Bernini’s sons, Pier Filippo Bernini (1640–1698) and Domenico Stefano Bernini (1657–1723), including what Franco Mormando has called ‘some rather substantial biographical narrative’ most likely drawn up by Domenico himself. 46 Indeed, in a letter dated 10 December 1680—fewer than two weeks after Gian Lorenzo’s death on 28 November 1680—in which Baldinucci expressed his condolences to Pier Filippo 41 For the text of the information request, see Baldinucci-Ranalli, Notizie, 6:317. For discussions of it, see Barocchi, ‘Collezionismo del Cardinale Leopoldo’, 21–22; Goldberg, After Vasari, 65–66. One scholar has seen the influence of Leopoldo—a student of Galileo and a founder of the Accademia del Cimento—in Baldinucci’s scholarly methods. Bean, ‘Filippo Baldinucci’, 21. Another has found the origins of an erudite and learned historiographical structure in Baldinucci’s perspective, methods, and style (‘Tuttavia Baldinucci anticipa prospettive, metodi e uno stile del discorso propri della storiografia di impianto erudito e documentario’). Capucci, ‘Girolamo Tiraboschi’, 30. Struhal, ‘Baldinucci’s novità’, 200 remarked that Baldinucci’s genealogical albero ‘resembled the diagrammatic visualizations used by contemporary scientists’. For an account of Baldinucci’s methods, both as a ‘topo d’archivio’ and as a ‘cronista del suo tempo’, see Cavazzini, ‘Baldinucci’, 63–74 (for quoted passages, see 67). 42 Barocchi, ‘Collezionismo del Cardinale Leopoldo’, 23; Goldberg, After Vasari, 65. 43 For a transcription of this letter, see Baldinucci-Ranalli, Notizie, 6:338–39. 44 Cavazzini, ‘Baldinucci’, 71–72. 45 Goldberg, After Vasari, 108. 46 Mormando’s remark appears in the introduction to Bernini, Life of Gian Lorenzo, 22. Baldinucci’s Vita del Cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino was published in Florence in 1682. Domenico Bernini published his Vita del Cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernino in Rome in 1713. The relationship between these works and the order of their execution is still the subject of scholarly debate. For the state of the question and an overview of the current scholarship, see Delbeke, Levy, and Ostrow, ‘Prolegomena’, 17–23, and more recently, Mormando’s introduction to Bernini, Life of Gian Lorenzo, 14–24. For a discussion of the preliminary efforts by Pier Filippo and Domenico Bernini and their relationship to Baldinucci’s biography, see Montanari, ‘At the Margins’, 73–78.

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for the loss of his father, the biographer also asked Bernini’s son to send descriptions of the sculptor’s death and funeral, critical elements of a complete biography. 47 These actions suggest that Baldinucci knew that much of the information that he required for his vite was embedded in the memories of family members, students, and collaborators of these artists and he felt an acute need to collect as much historical data as he could before those people died and took those memories with them. 48 Surviving family members were a valuable source of information about deceased artists, and, as the example of Bernini’s sons demonstrates, Baldinucci relied on them, their resources, and their recollections to flesh out the details of his biographies—as he did while writing the life of Ludovico Cigoli (1559–1613), which was greatly assisted by Baldinucci’s access to an unpublished biography that had been written by the painter’s nephew. 49 Similarly, Baldinucci’s dramatic account of the catastrophic landslide that killed the family of Bernardo Buontalenti (c. 1531–1608) and left the young orphan trapped under rubble was given an air of authenticity when the biographer claimed to have heard the account of the ordeal from Giuliano Salvetti, Buontalenti’s grandson.50 At the end of his vita of Poccetti, Baldinucci explained that the son of Poccetti’s half-brother (‘fratello uterino’), a woodcarver named Pierfrancesco Ciardi, was alive when he wrote Poccetti’s life and was the source of some of the information presented therein, (‘dal quale ho io avute alcune di queste notizie’).51 47 Delbeke, Levy, and Ostrow, ‘Prolegomena’, 20. For a transcription of the letter, see Montanari, ‘Bernini e Cristina di Svezia’, 416–17. 48 In addition to interviews with living artists, Baldinucci also questioned the relatives and pupils of deceased artists, as well as distributed questionnaires and conducted his own research in the historical records of notaries, churches, and convents. Bean, ‘Filippo Baldinucci’, 21; Barocchi, ‘Nota critica’, 63–65. For an overview of the debate regarding the modernity of Baldinucci’s methods, see Conte, ‘Storia figurativa’, 172. 49 Barocchi, ‘Nota critica’, 63; Goldberg, After Vasari, 13. The biography of Cigoli that Baldinucci consulted in manuscript form was first published in 1913. Cardi, Lodovico Cardi Cigoli. It is also printed in BaldinucciRanalli, Notizie, 7:40–64. 50 Giuliano Salvetti was the offspring of Cammillo Salvetti and Buontalenti’s daughter, Eufemia. Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:90. Baldinucci also collected information about Buontalenti that was written down by one of his pupils, Gherardo Silvani (1579–1675). In that text, Silvani recounted the tragic story of the landslide. Giovannozzi, ‘Bernardo Buontalenti’, 506. More recently, Shannon Kelley has noted that Baldinucci’s account of Buontalenti’s experience has not been verified, and that a contemporary source gives a different version of events, where a youth trapped in the rubble was adopted by a surgeon and went on to become a talented medical doctor. Kelley, ‘Arno River Floods’, 741–42. 51 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:253. The testimony from Poccetti’s nephew constitutes what David Henige has called ‘oral history’ in contradistinction to ‘oral tradition’. ‘Oral history’ is ‘the study of the recent past by means of life histories or personal recollections [emphasis added]’, whereas ‘oral traditions are those recollections of the past that are commonly or universally known in a given culture’. Henige, Oral Historiography, 2. It is possible, of course, that what Poccetti’s nephew personally recalled about his uncle was also more widely known in Florentine circles, but as a member of the family, Pierfrancesco Ciardi would appear to be a more authoritative source. For a discussion of potential pitfalls lurking in oral

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Baldinucci’s use of Poccetti’s nephew as a source of information about the painter’s life helps to explain some of the more compelling and highly detailed anecdotes incorporated in the biography. To cite one example, Baldinucci recounted a story of Poccetti spending an evening in his favorite Florentine haunt, the tavern called La Trave Torta—or, the Crooked Beam—which was located at the foot of the Ponte alla Carraia in the Oltrarno.52 Poccetti was such a fixture at the tavern that Baldinucci claimed that it became his habitual hangout (‘era diventata la sua solita abitazione’), and that—despite having a wife at home—Bernardino never returned to his house for dinner at the end of the working day, preferring instead to go with a group of his friends to La Trave Torta.53 At the end of this particular workday, Poccetti had received a substantial payment for frescoes he had painted at the Certosa del Galluzzo and upon his return to town he made his way directly to La Trave Torta as was his custom. According to Baldinucci, Poccetti carried with him to the tavern the entirety of his payment, 400 piastre, that he had stowed in a large bag. After enjoying a large meal and copious amounts of wine, Poccetti became inebriated—or, in Baldinucci’s more poetic rendering, ‘well warmed up with wine’ (‘ben riscaldato dal vino’)—and he began to distribute his hard-earned cash to all of his companions assembled in the tavern (‘suoi Cavalieri di tavola’). Fortunately, one of Poccetti’s friends later collected the money that Poccetti had given to his associates at the tavern and returned it to the painter once he had regained his faculties.54 At first glance, Baldinucci’s anecdote seems to be more concerned with teaching a moral lesson than recounting an event from Poccetti’s life, and the story fits the portrait of Poccetti that Baldinucci’s vita has been painting. In Baldinucci’s version, despite the respect he had garnered as a painter to Florence’s rich and powerful, Poccetti was not concerned with accumulating wealth or status and was content to live among the artisans of the Oltrarno, where he spent most of his time drinking and carousing with his brigata.55 Thus, the story about a man who likes to histories, see Barolsky, ‘Trick of Art’, 27–28; for the complicated relationship between archival evidence, oral histories, and Vasari’s biographies, see Waldman, ‘Fact, Fiction, Hearsay’, 174–75. Weiss, ‘Varieties of Biography’, 37 does not consider the creation of a brief anecdote or the insertion of a traditional motif into a biography as a sign that the vita has been ‘fictionalized’ and argues that the presence of one does not mean that the biography should be discounted. 52 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:250. La Trave Torta appears in the Decima Granducale, a Florentine census taken in 1561, where it is listed as a property owned by Tommaso di Giovanvettori Soderini and which was rented to Fabene di Andrea, hoste. The information from the census is available in digital form at DECIMA: The Digitally Encoded Census Information and Mapping Archive, http://decima-map.net/ (accessed 13 October 2019). 53 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:249. 54 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:250. 55 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:249.

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drink and be among friends, who has too much to drink and—with his judgment impaired—then proceeds to distribute his earnings to a group of people carousing in a tavern, has the potential to be a fiction designed to instill a moral message about the evils of drinking and the dangers of a dissolute lifestyle.56 Upon closer inspection, however, elements of Baldinucci’s story that at first strain credulity turn out to be well within the realm of possibility. Take, for example, the idea that Poccetti received his compensation from the Carthusians in the form of 400 piastre that he brought back to town in a shopping bag (‘le quali aveva fatte mettere in una sporta’).57 Of course, the point of the story depends on Poccetti having the coins at hand so that he can give them away while drunk, but it seems like an outlandish, almost comedic detail that conjures images of the painter hurrying back to Florence with a bag full of loose change, not to mention that the sum in question also seems absurdly high.58 But, the surviving account books from the Certosa show that on 9 November 1591 Poccetti was paid 700 lire from his account.59 A piastra was a silver coin worth seven lire, so this sum converts exactly into 100 piastre—not the 400 that Baldinucci reported—but it is still a substantial amount to carry on one’s person.60 According to Richard Goldthwaite, the average daily rate for a skilled laborer in 1600 was approximately 50 soldi, or two and a half lire.61 Thus, Poccetti’s payment of 700 lire was equivalent to the compensation earned by a skilled laborer over the course of 280 workdays. Estimates vary, but historians agree that in Cinquecento Florence there were about 200 to 260 working days in a year, which means that Poccetti carried back from the Certosa a sack that contained

56 Baldinucci was concerned with his own morality and spiritual well-being—he frequently consulted a nun at the convent of Santa Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi who was reputed to have mystical powers of vision; for the last 27 years of his life he recorded his spiritual anxieties in a diary, and he sometimes reverted to self-flagellation to expiate his sin. Goldberg, After Vasari, 77–83. Struhal, ‘Baldinucci and the Jesuits’, 71–76 analyzes spiritual visions that Baldinucci recorded in this same document. And when Baldinucci had misgivings about providing too much lurid detail (‘qualche sordidezza’) in the biography of Giovanni da San Giovanni (1592–1636), whose lax morality was no secret to seventeenth-century Florentines, he sought the advice of a priest and submitted his text to a Jesuit rector for approval. Baldinucci, Diario spirituale, 141; Goldberg, After Vasari, 176–77; Struhal, ‘Baldinucci and the Jesuits’, 77. 57 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:250. 58 According to Cipolla, the piastra weighed 32.5g, so it is not inconceivable that Poccetti carried 100 of these coins, which would have weighed 3.25kg (a little over seven pounds), back to town in a bag. Cipolla, Money, 23–24. 59 ‘Bernardino di … Pittore de dare adi 9 di novembre 1591 [lire] settecento p[iccioli] porto lui detto co[n]tanti aco[n]to d[e]lla Cappella d[e]l Altare Maggiore alibro di spesa seg[na]to S [@]229 [lire] 700.-.-’. Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Corporazioni Religiose Soppresse dal Governo Francese, serie 51, no. 87, 365 sinistra. 60 Cipolla, Money, 23–26, 29. 61 Goldthwaite, Building of Renaissance Florence, 438.

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more than an entire year’s worth of wages for a skilled worker.62 Even if Baldinucci overstated the actual amount in his retelling of the story by a factor of four, it is clear that Poccetti returned to Florence from the Certosa with a substantial sum on 9 November 1591, a fact that lends credence to Baldinucci’s account. In addition, Baldinucci identified the friend who collected Poccetti’s largesse as Giovan Battista Sassi, and archival documents of the confraternity of Santissima Annunziata reveal that both men were involved with that group as early as 1586, when Sassi served as the organization’s camarlingo and Poccetti began his contributions to the decoration of the company’s oratory.63 Thus, Baldinucci’s anecdote contains at least two small details—that Poccetti did receive a large cash payment from the Carthusians and that Sassi was one of his known associates—that are supported by the available historical evidence. These details reflect Baldinucci’s goal to present carefully researched and documented histories of his professori del disegno—a goal that was assisted by his recourse to the documents and literature made available to him through his contacts within the Grand Ducal bureaucracy and his canvassing of the descendants of his subjects. In La veglia, which he first published in 1684, Baldinucci treated the issue of how one gathers and interprets historical data. The objective of the pamphlet was to address some of the vulnerabilities in Vasari’s history that had been exploited and attacked by seventeenth-century writers, and it was within this context that Baldinucci’s interlocutor, Amico, had the opportunity to sketch out a system for evaluating the usefulness and veracity of historical data.64 In the passage from La veglia discussed below, the concern is with ‘manoscritti privati’ (‘private manuscripts’), a designation that seems to mean diaries, journals, and personal recollections, and that seems to exclude ‘public manuscripts’, which would presumably include institutional account books and records, bureaucratic sources such as taxation and census documents, and official chronicles or histories.65 Considering the similarity between the kinds of unpolished and unfiltered information found in ‘manoscritti privati’ and that gleaned from conversations and interviews with the relatives and associates of deceased artists, it is safe to assume that Baldinucci would have applied the same criteria to both. When dealing with ‘manoscritti privati’ Baldinucci suggests that one first must ask if the writings seem truthful. If they seem to be more fiction than fact (‘elle mostrino d’aver più del favoloso, che del vero’) then they should be treated with skepticism.66 He then suggests 62 Rolova, ‘Alcune osservazioni’, 133–34n16. 63 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:250; Sebregondi, ‘Compagnia della Nunziata’, 46; Dow, Apostolic Iconography, 106. 64 Baldinucci, Veglia, 20–21. 65 Goldberg, After Vasari, 122. 66 Baldinucci, Veglia, 20.

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that writings that demonstrate knowledge of historical methods and that are well organized can be trusted. The third element that he scrutinizes is the extent to which even small details are correct, presuming that accuracy in the details reflects well on the document as a whole. Next he maintains that it is important to know the identity of the author as well as his qualifications and credentials for writing on the topic. To this he adds the final three criteria: that the author is not writing on topics outside of his area of expertise, or beyond his own moment in time, or beyond the geographic limits of his experience and knowledge.67 It is likely that Baldinucci subjected the information that he received from Poccetti’s nephew, Pierfrancesco Ciardi, to this type of careful analysis before he included it in the painter’s vita. This is not to say, of course, that Baldinucci did not create or incorporate mythical anecdotes if they assisted his rhetorical goals—the legend of Poccetti’s discovery has already demonstrated this—but the precise details in many of Baldinucci’s accounts suggest that he was well informed about Poccetti, his proclivities, his associates, and the members of his workshop. These details flesh out an image of Poccetti’s professional and social experiences, reflecting Joel Fineman’s assertion ‘that the anecdote, however literary, is nevertheless directly pointed towards or rooted in the real’.68 In this sense, Baldinucci’s anecdotes not only paint a portrait of a prolific artist whose workshop decorated altars, chapels, churches, and palaces throughout Florence, but they also offer an opportunity to better understand these works and the men who produced them, by providing insight into Poccetti’s interactions with his patrons, assistants, and friends.

Poccetti, La Trave Torta, and Grand Duke Ferdinando I Not all of Baldinucci’s anecdotes shine the most favorable light on Poccetti. He described the painter as a grumpy and difficult boss (‘di cervello bisbetico’) who expected his assistants to know intuitively what he expected of them, and who had a habit of working through lunch (‘non desinava mai’) and who would halfheartedly announce to his assistants that it was time to break for lunch through

67 Baldinucci, Veglia, 21; Goldberg, After Vasari, 122. 68 Fineman, ‘History of the Anecdote’, 57. Shortly after Fineman’s publication, Giovanna Perini made a similar point specifically about Seicento art writing, remarking that the insertion of an anecdote into a biography is ‘an elegant critical device, a literary means of interpreting a set of historical data’. Perini, ‘Biographical Anecdotes’, 151. Similarly, in his discussion of Bernini’s biographies, Livio Pestilli remarked that even if some of the anecdotes included have a long tradition in writings on art, ‘these stories need not be true, but true to life, verisimilitude being the primary requirement’. Pestilli, Bernini and His World, 68.

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clenched teeth (‘fra’ denti’) in order to telegraph his disapproval.69 These aspects of Poccetti’s personality and working method are corroborated by a contemporary account written by Cornelio Peraccini, the prior of the Servite convent of Santissima Annunziata in Pistoia, who had commissioned the painter to decorate a series of lunettes in the cloister of the complex.70 According to Peraccini, who recorded the events shortly after they transpired, Poccetti completed the first lunette, the Coronation of the Virgin in only eleven days, much to the amazement of the friars (‘Bernardino in undici giorni finì la lunetta con stupor di tutti noi’).71 That Poccetti could complete the fresco so quickly was a result of his diligent work habits, which Peraccini recorded in detail. According to the Servite chronicler, Poccetti was on the scaffolding in the morning at the eleventh hour and remained at work until the twenty-fourth hour, without ever stopping, not even to eat or drink or attend to any other physical needs (‘ne mai n’usciva sino alle 24 hora senza mangiare, et bere, et senza fare altre necessità del corpo’).72 Common timekeeping practices counted the twenty-four hours of each day from sundown to sundown, so Peraccini’s description has Poccetti working from sunrise (eleven hours after sundown) to sunset (twenty-four hours after sundown) each day.73 In addition to his singleminded focus on the fresco, Poccetti also avoided the social gatherings of the Servites and spent his evenings after dinner preparing studies for the next day’s work (‘doppo cena stava poco a ricreation co’ padri, perchè studiava almanco un hora et mezzo, et faceva di terra prima le figure che voleva dipingere’).74 In the early morning, he continued working on these studies until there was enough light to paint at which point he mounted the scaffolding (‘la mattina si levava a mattutino et studiava sin che era hora che potesse veder sul palco’).75 Everything seemed to be going fine until the morning of 17 September when Poccetti, who had already started preliminary work on the second lunette, abruptly quit working and left the cloister to return to Florence. According to Peraccini, not 69 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:247. 70 For transcriptions of these archival references, see Chiappelli, ‘Bernardino Poccetti’, 184–90. On Poccetti’s efforts in Pistoia, see Cappellini, ‘Decorazioni ad affresco’, 54–55; d’Afflitto, ‘Da Firenze’, 67–68. 71 Chiappelli, ‘Bernardino Poccetti’, 187. 72 Chiappelli, ‘Bernardino Poccetti’, 187. 73 The hours counted up from one (which was reckoned at one half hour after sundown) to twenty-four (which was the evening of the following day). Dohrn-van Rossum, History of the Hour, 114. Peraccini noted that the painter arrived in Pistoia on 1 September 1601 and started painting the lunette on Monday, 3 September. Chiappelli, ‘Bernardino Poccetti’, 186. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s solar calculator, on 3 September 1601, the sun rose in Pistoia at 5:41 and set at 18:49, times that closely correspond to the eleventh and twenty-fourth hours of the day as they would have been determined at the beginning of the seventeenth century. https://gml.noaa.gov/grad/solcalc/. 74 Chiappelli, ‘Bernardino Poccetti’, 187. 75 Chiappelli, ‘Bernardino Poccetti’, 187.

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only did Poccetti leave without saying a word to anyone, but he also set out on foot even though he had hired a carriage for himself and his assistant (‘s’andò con Dio senza far motto a nessuno, et andò a piedi, se bene haveva pagata la carrozza per se, et per suo fattore’).76 Although Poccetti’s walkout seems at first glance to have been a symptom of his mercurial personality, there might also have been other reasons for him to abandon the project midstream. In the year that Poccetti was absent from the cloister the Servites renovated the space in ways that made it more suitable for mural painting. These efforts included redirecting kitchen smoke away from the cloister, closing up window openings, and plastering the wall surfaces.77 Despite his abrupt departure, the Servites in Pistoia were eager for Poccetti to return and complete the job. Not only did they send payment to him in Florence for the completed lunette, but they also attempted to stay in his good graces by shipping him mushrooms and shallots.78 And even after he returned the Servites continued to provide Poccetti with an astounding array of foodstuffs while he was at work in their cloister, including fresh cheese, chicken, goat, pigeon, sausage, liver, chops, eggs, melons, other fruits, and game birds, suggesting perhaps that Poccetti compensated for his skipped lunches with other more sumptuous meals.79 The precise account by Peraccini, a man who conducted business with Poccetti personally, as well as the matter of fact entries for Poccetti’s food and wine in the account books of the Servites, correspond to the personality and habits of the painter as described by Baldinucci. Baldinucci notably does not mention Poccetti’s works in Pistoia in his biography of the painter, and it seems that Peraccini’s chronicle was unknown to him.80 This suggests that even though Baldinucci received his information about Poccetti from other sources, it still provided an accurate representation of the man and his proclivities, since Baldinucci’s portrait of Poccetti is in perfect alignment with the man described by Peraccini. It seems paradoxical that a man who rarely took a lunch break and who could become completely consumed by his work was also fond of playing practical jokes, but to hear Baldinucci tell it, teasing and tricks were common features of Poccetti’s workshop.81 Many of these pranks, which will be discussed in greater 76 Chiappelli, ‘Bernardino Poccetti’, 187. 77 Chiappelli, ‘Bernardino Poccetti’, 188; Cappellini, ‘Decorazioni ad affresco’, 55. 78 Chiappelli, ‘Bernardino Poccetti’, 187. 79 Chiappelli, ‘Bernardino Poccetti’, 187n2 provides an impressive grocery list gleaned from the Servites’ account books, where expenses in September 1601 and September and October 1602 for ‘raviggioli, capponcelli, capretti, pollastrelli, piccioni, lodole, salsicce, fegato, braciole, castrati, uova, frutte, poponi ecc.’ were described as ‘per il trattemento del pittore’. 80 Chiappelli, ‘Bernardino Poccetti’, 185. 81 On the cruel aspects of Renaissance humor, see Barolsky, Wit and Humor, 9–10; Burke, ‘Frontiers of the Comic’, 82–87.

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detail below, seem unnecessarily cruel by modern standards, but these episodes provide a glimpse into how Poccetti fashioned an identity for himself that was frequently at odds with his status as a successful and respected artist. Take, for example, a story that gets directly to the root of the issue of Poccetti’s status within Florentine society. Remarking upon his affinity for people and places of questionable reputations, Grand Duke Ferdinando I (1549–1609) asked Poccetti why—despite being respected and successful—did he frequent taverns and socialize with shady characters. Poccetti’s response deftly inverted the assumptions implicit in Ferdinando’s query and challenged typical notions regarding nobility and virtue. ‘Serenissimo, the reason is this,’ he said, ‘because when I associate with similar people, it is my turn to be the Signore, where if I were to associate with the nobility, I do not know if all the virtue that your highness deigns to recognize in me would be enough to be valued among them as much more than a servant, because not every nobleman values virtue as highly as nobility.’82 This response defends Poccetti’s lifestyle in several different ways. First, it asserts his right to associate with people of low character because it reflects well on him—allowing him to be a prince among blackguards. This, in turn, subtly calls into question the motives of those nobles who seem interested in socializing with their inferiors—a group that in this instance would necessarily include the Grand Duke himself—perhaps they seek to aggrandize themselves at Poccetti’s expense. Second, it draws attention to the gap that sometimes existed between virtue and nobility, which then points to at least two conclusions: that a person can be noble and lack virtue, and, conversely, lack nobility but still possess virtue. By pointing out the disconnect between nobility and virtue, Poccetti’s clever response upended the assumptions in the Grand Duke’s question and implied that just as the nobility were not as virtuous as Ferdinando believed, it was also true that the commoners were not as contemptible as he thought.83 Of course, not everyone shared Poccetti’s charitable opinion of those who were known to hang out at taverns or of the activities that took place therein. As early as 1327 the bishop of Florence added frequenting taverns and playing dice 82 ‘Serenissimo, la ragione di questo è, perchè nel praticar, ch’io so, simil gente tocca ad essere il Signore a me, la dove s’io praticassi con alcuni de’ Nobili, non so se tutta quella virtù, che V. A. si degna di riconoscere in me, fosse tanta che bastasse per esser fra di loro stimato non più ch’un Sevitore, perchè non ogni Nobile stima la virtù a pari della nobiltà.’ Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:250. For another translation, see Veen, ‘Sodalizi’, 75–76. For a different interpretation of Poccetti’s response, one that views it as an unsentimental recognition of his position of social inferiority, rather than a clever inversion of Ferdinando’s assumptions, see Wittkower and Wittkower, Born Under Saturn, 239. 83 Veen has noted the emphasis Baldinucci placed on the increased socialization between artists and Florentine patricians and has suggested that it reflects a desire on the part of the elite to insert themselves into the city’s artistic culture. Veen, ‘Sodalizi’, 85–86.

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to a list of mortal sins to be avoided by the faithful, but the admonition seems to have had little effect since almost a century later in 1413 the Dominican Vincent Ferrer (1350–1419) remarked that on Sunday the faithful often frequented a tavern before—and sometimes instead of—attending mass. 84 Similarly, in 1425 the Franciscan Bernardino of Siena (1380–1444) denounced the wicked activities that went on in the taverns of Tuscany, painting a picture of them as evil anti-churches devoted to sin instead of piety.85 Although anti-tavern sentiment was a constant feature of Florentine society throughout the Renaissance, David Rosenthal has suggested that in the last decades of the sixteenth century there was ‘a more sustained bid to draw strict boundaries between the world of the sacred church and that of the profane tavern’.86 According to Rosenthal, this wave crested in 1588 when the city’s large textile corporations—encompassing several thousand Florentine men—voted overwhelmingly in favor of harsher punishments for members discovered in taverns, with eventual expulsion for repeat offenders.87 These prohibitions, however, reflected class biases and it appears that Florentine elites saw taverns and the activities they harbored as an affliction of the city’s lower classes. To cite Rosenthal’s example, the men in the textile confraternities were non-citizens or ‘plebeians’, and in the case of the cloth dyers confraternity, which included ‘masters’ (nobles who owned shops), the prohibition against taverns only applied to ‘laborers’.88 It is worth noting that although much of the anti-tavern rhetoric and the policies that it engendered typically had ecclesiastical origins, the prohibition enacted in 1588 seems to have come about because Grand Duke Ferdinando I had opened the city’s grain warehouses at below market rate following a poor harvest. In return, he

84 Henderson, Piety and Charity, 136–37; Cherubini, ‘La taverna’, 204. 85 The Franciscan preacher cast the tavern as a kind of anti-church (‘chiese contrarie a Dio’) where the tavernkeeper was like the parish priest, the gambling cheats were like vicars, the gamblers were priests, the prostitutes were like nuns, the drunken patrons were parishioners, and the smell of fegatelli filled the air like incense. According to Bernardino, in this monument to debauchery, the sighs of losing gamblers were like prayers and glasses of wine and silver coins stood in for the chalice and wafer of communion. For these sermons, see Bernardino of Siena, Prediche volgari (1958), 1:180 and Bernardino of Siena, Prediche volgari (1934), 1:434–35. For discussion of these sermons, see Cherubini, ‘La taverna’, 204; Martin, Alcohol, Violence, and Disorder, 27. 86 Rosenthal, ‘Barfly’s Dream’, 21. 87 Rosenthal, ‘Barfly’s Dream’, 22–23. The anti-tavern sentiment that swept through Florence in 1588 was recorded by Agostino Lapini, who wrote that ‘li nostri predicatori […] quasi ogni mattina biasimavono molto le osterie di questa nostra città di Firenze’. Lapini, Diario fiorentino, 267. See also Rosenthal, Kings of the Street, 178–84. 88 Rosenthal, ‘Barfly’s Dream’, 23. One contemporary noted the class distinction in his cronaca, ‘Tutta la plebe di Firenze si è da se stessa privata di potere andava alle taverne per partiti fatti nelle loro Compagnie.’ Ricci, Cronaca, 516.

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‘made it clear that […] he wanted his subjects to stop frequenting taverns’.89 It might be a coincidence that the man who challenged Poccetti’s decisions regarding the places he frequented and the company he chose to keep was—at least in Baldinucci’s telling—Ferdinando I, or, it could also be that the Grand Duke’s desire to clamp down on what the elites of Florence perceived as sinful and dissolute places and activities was well known enough that he was an obvious foil for Poccetti’s fondness for those same places and the people who frequented them. Even without Poccetti’s subtle indictment of the virtue of the nobility, when seen in this light, the exchange between Ferdinando and Poccetti clearly has a class component, and although Baldinucci does not—or will not—see the issue from Poccetti’s point of view, it stands as a testament to Poccetti’s dedication to his neighborhood, his workshop, and his friends and assistants, no matter how much the Florentine elite might have looked down upon them.90

Poccetti’s Practical Jokes This is not to say that Poccetti did not assert himself within his own group—it is worth remembering that in his response to Ferdinando he remarked that among the men at the tavern he was the signore—and there are several instances in his biography where Poccetti carefully and cleverly established his role as the group’s leader. As mentioned previously, several of these examples involve Poccetti playing a cruel practical joke on one of the members of the workshop. In one instance, while Poccetti and his assistants were working on the frescoes in the Sala di Bona at the Palazzo Pitti, the painter sent one of his associates to retrieve a pair of shoes from a calzolaio named Piacentino. The man sent out on the errand was known as Michele Tatà, a name he received on account of what Baldinucci described as an ‘extraordinary’ stutter that ‘moved everyone to laughter’ (‘da muovere a riso ogni i persona’) and which was derived from the verb tartagliare (to stutter or stammer).91 Piacentino, who had his workshop near the Ponte Vecchio, also spoke with a stutter, a fact of which Poccetti was aware but that he did not reveal to Michele. When Michele arrived at the shop, he struggled to make the purpose of his visit known to Piacentino, who, witnessing Michele labor with his speech disorder, 89 Rosenthal, ‘Barfly’s Dream’, 24. Giuliano de’ Ricci mentioned Ferdinando I’s manipulation of grain prices immediately after he noted the prohibitions against frequenting taverns. Ricci, Cronaca, 516–17. 90 Shortly before he recounted the conversation between Ferdinando I and Poccetti, Baldinucci expressed wonder that the painter, whose virtue was applauded by the nobility and who was financially well off, fled the company of his betters, preferring instead that of ‘the most vile people’ (‘gente vilissima’). Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:249. 91 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:251.

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thought that he was being mocked (‘credendo d’essere uccellato’). In Renaissance Florence, where status, honor, and reputation were crucial aspects of identity, any perceived slight could be—and frequently was—received with violence, and it is not a surprise that the shoemaker flew into a rage and struggled in his anger to find his own words, before finally asking Michele just who he thought he was.92 When Michele, bewildered by the turn of events, responded in his usual fashion, ‘Io mi chiamo Michel Tatà,’ Piacentino retorted, ‘Ed io mi chiamo Michel Totò!’ and punched Michele Tatà in the face (‘menogli un solenne pugno nel viso’). The situation escalated rapidly when both men, each of whom thought he had been unjustly wronged by the other, armed themselves with knives. Before they had a chance to seriously wound each other, however, Piacentino’s assistants, roused by the clamor of the altercation, intervened.93 Poccetti must have imagined a result like this when he engineered the encounter between these two men, which was bound to create a cascade of potential misunderstandings, and although it did not go well for Michele and might have ended more tragically than it did, it appears that Poccetti was not deterred from further practical jokes. A no less cruel example, but one that would be less likely to result in bodily injury, was played on yet another member of the workshop, Ulisse Ciocchi.94 As was the case with Michele Tatà, Poccetti’s ridicule was focused on a condition with which Ciocchi was afflicted, extreme curvature of the spine, or in Baldinucci’s indelicate description of the man, ‘era mostruosamente gobbo’. Ciocchi seems to have been self-conscious of his condition and did his best not to address it, so Poccetti, in his ruthless manner, exploited every opportunity to make casual references to Ciocchi’s physique. One way he did so involved a conspiracy with the tavernkeeper to deliver a plate of cardoons (celery-like wild artichoke stalks) to the table in Ciocchi’s presence.95 This delicacy, known as ‘cardoni’ in Italian, was also popularly referred to as ‘gobbi’, or hunchbacks, on account of their curved growth pattern.96 Thus, their appearance on the table was a sly reference to Ulisse’s condition that 92 ‘Insults, threats, and merely dishonoring gestures were carefully noted and evaluated. Violence, for which Florence was famous in the Renaissance, was often the only acceptable response.’ Ruggiero, ‘Mean Streets’, 303. 93 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:251. 94 For more on Ulisse Ciocchi (sometimes rendered ‘Giocchi’ or ‘Giuochi’), see Centrodi and Romanelli, ‘Ulisse Giocchi’, 32–42; Maniello Cardone, ‘Francesco Nappi’, 52n15. 95 Perhaps inevitably considering their position within Florentine society, tavernkeepers were often important nodes in professional and social networks throughout the Renaissance. For their role in the Ciompi uprising, see Cohn, Laboring Classes, 89; for their role in the festive potenze, see Rosenthal, Kings of the Street, 70. 96 Juan Sánchez Cotán included representations of cardoni in several of his paintings. His Still Life with Game, Vegetables, and Fruit in the Prado, for example, uses a bunch of cardoni to form a graceful, enclosing curve on the right side of his composition, a strategy he also deployed in another still life in

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amused the members of the brigata, who enjoyed the pun at Ciocchi’s expense.97 Baldinucci did note that sometimes the teasing only went so far before the laughter died out because of compassion for Ciocchi (‘e andava la cosa alcune volte a segno, che le risa cedevano il luogo alla compassione’).98

Beffe and Group Dynamics Poccetti’s willingness to exploit the misfortunes of others for his own personal amusement might strike us as unseemly at best and wantonly cruel at worst, but he was certainly not the only artist in Renaissance Florence who relished a beffa, and it is clear that these practical jokes had an important social dimension. The most famous example is probably the hoax played on Manetto, the fat woodcarver, a conspiracy masterminded by Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) and in which Donatello (c. 1386–1466) played a minor supporting role.99 In short, a group of friends, feeling snubbed by Manetto, il grasso legnaiuolo, who had skipped a group dinner with no explanation, decide to play an elaborate trick to convince the woodcarver that he is no longer Manetto, but another man named Matteo. Once the beffa has been revealed, the shame of being the laughingstock of Florence is too much for Manetto to bear, so he exiles himself to Hungary, only to return to the city of his birth many years later as a wealthy and successful man. Scholarly analyses of this story—in particular the essays by Lauro Martines and Guido Ruggiero—have noted its cruelty as well as its emphasis on the importance—and seeming mutability—of personal identity and status.100 For Martines and Ruggiero, Grasso’s identity and status was linked to social structures and spaces.101 Once Brunelleschi was able to separate Grasso from those things, the woodcarver’s ability to recognize—or better, configure—his self was in jeopardy. Ruggiero further situated his analysis of Brunelleschi’s beffa within the ‘broader regime of masculine sociability in the Renaissance’, which he deemed ‘the regime of Granada. For a recent discussion of these paintings, see Gerbron, ‘Présences énigmatiques’, 168–70, and 179n15 specifically for a description of cardoni. 97 Centrodi and Romanelli, ‘Ulisse Giocchi’, 32. 98 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:250–51. 99 The Fat Woodcarver has been the subject of considerable scholarly discussion. For a few perspectives and further bibliography, see Martines, Renaissance Sextet, 213–41; Ruggiero, ‘Mean Streets’, 295–310; Bach, ‘Filippo Brunelleschi’, 159–60, esp. 159n7; Manes, ‘Fiction and Biography’, 253–66. For the text of the novella, see Manetti, Grasso legnaiuolo. For an English translation, see Martines, Renaissance Sextet, 171–212. 100 Martines, Renaissance Sextet, 213–41; Ruggiero, ‘Mean Streets’, 295–310. 101 Martines, Renaissance Sextet, 235–36; Ruggiero, ‘Mean Streets’, 301–2.

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virtù’.102 Ruggiero’s description of the regime of virtù as ‘an ongoing public display of male power, rationality, and control […] central to adult masculine identity, status, and discipline’ provides a framework for understanding Poccetti’s sometimes cruel interactions with the members of his workshop and entourage.103 According to Ruggiero, the public spaces so essential to formulating one’s identity were ‘familiar stages to display male friendship and connectedness’, that also had the potential to ‘be cruel courts trying honor’.104 In this context, a beffa helps one man to establish his position within the regime of virtù by asserting his superiority over an inferior, as was the case with the fat woodcarver, who had snubbed his friends and needed to be reminded of his position within their social hierarchy. The story of the prank played on the fat woodcarver presents the trick as retribution for a wrong committed by Manetto, thereby rationalizing its cruelty to some extent, since the woodcarver’s boorish act of snubbing his friends required them to make some sort of response in order to restore their honor. It is also true, however, that practical jokes could be used without provocation as a means to enforce social structure and status, and the tricks Poccetti played on the members of his brigata are best understood in this light. Gary Alan Fine and Michaela De Soucey have argued that ‘joking differentiates group members, organizes status, and creates a social cartography of group life’ [emphasis original] and that ‘high status members have the right to joke at the expense of others’.105 That Poccetti was the master of the workshop as well as the mastermind of the pranks is not a coincidence. His higher status provided him the right to have fun at the expense of those with lower status even as it reaffirmed his role at the top of the hierarchy. That Poccetti himself understood this dynamic is expressed in the response he made to Grand Duke Ferdinando: that when he associates with his peers instead of the nobility it is his turn to be the signore. Furthermore, when the trick is played with the assistance of other group members—as we saw with Poccetti and the tavernkeeper delivering Ulisse Ciocchi a plate of gobbi—it has the result of increasing group cohesion at the expense of the outcast. Moira Smith has suggested that ‘people who share laughter are coconspirators in playful rule breaking, and such shared transgression, like other shared guilty pleasures, promotes a feeling of solidarity’.106 In the case of 102 Ruggiero, ‘Mean Streets’, 296. 103 Ruggiero, ‘Mean Streets’, 296. 104 Ruggiero, ‘Mean Streets’, 303. 105 Fine and De Soucey, ‘Joking Cultures’, 6–7. 106 Smith, ‘Humor, Unlaughter’, 160. This effect can be seen in The Fat Woodcarver, where Brunellschi and his associates worked closely and diligently to fool Manetto, and managed to unite nearly all of the woodcarver’s friends and relatives in the conspiracy. Martines, Renaissance Sextet, 213–14. Indeed, it appears that assisting with the ruse granted some new individuals—including Manetto’s brothers—access to the original group. Manes, ‘Fiction and Biography’, 258–59.

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Ciocchi, where—at least according to Baldinucci—the teasing eventually gave way to compassion for Ciocchi, it seems that the reconciliation also strengthened the bonds within the group.107 That is to say that when Ciocchi was the object of the group’s ridicule, he was marginalized by the rest of the brigata who were united in their conspiracy against him, but then when they relented, his reunion with the group signaled their acceptance of him and that the transgression was only in jest.108

Poccetti as Signore of the ‘Most Vile People’ Seen in this light, the pranks and cruel jokes are not only performed for the amusement of Poccetti and the gang, but they also bind the members of the group more tightly together. And, despite his role as the mastermind of the tricks played on Michele Tatà and Ulisse Ciocchi, Poccetti—in his role as the signore della brigata— could also go to significant lengths on behalf of his friends and assistants, and in the process assert himself to someone who was his social superior. Take, for example, the episode recounted by Baldinucci when Poccetti did not receive payment for work done in the Tribuna from the guardaroba maggiore, Vincenzo Giugni.109 Baldinucci, ever a Medici creature, is careful not to fault Giugni, ‘quel Gentiluomo’, for not having the money Poccetti needed to make his payroll (‘danaro per pagar gli uomini’), noting that he did not know why the payment was not ready on that Saturday evening as was the custom.110 Bernardino, according to Baldinucci, did not consider that there might be extenuating circumstances (‘senza punto considerar le circostanze’), and decided to have the members of his workshop meet him early on Monday morning at his house. When the group was assembled, Poccetti led them not to the Tribuna to start the day’s work but instead out the Porta San Frediano, across the Arno by boat and up the hill to Fiesole, where they spent the entire day at an osteria.111 It should be noted that the office of guardaroba maggiore was an 107 On the awkward position in which a practical joke places its victim, see Smith, ‘Humor, Unlaughter’, 154–55. 108 Of course, one suspects that Ciocchi, like the victim of any such prank, had his doubts about the sincerity of his tormentors, but the ambiguity built into the practical joke is a feature not a bug; it allows the jokers to dissemble and minimize their nefarious purposes. On this, see Fine and De Soucey, ‘Joking Cultures’, 3; Smith, ‘Humor, Unlaughter’, 160–61. 109 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:249. 110 Baldinucci’s deference towards Giugni might also reflect his own connection with the family, who were his neighbors in Via degli Alfani. For the Palazzo Giugni, see Calafati, Ammannati; for Baldinucci’s residence just down the street from the Palazzo Giugni on the Canto alla Catena, see Mattatelli, ‘Le case dell’Arte della Lana’, 229. 111 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:249.

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important one in the Grand Ducal hierarchy, and that this act of defiant truancy was directed at a man of far higher social status than Poccetti.112 When Poccetti and his assistants did not report to work at the Tribuna at the normal time on Monday, it created an uproar (‘fu fatto un gran rumore’) and a representative was sent to Poccetti’s house with instructions to await the painter’s arrival and to send him immediately to the Tribuna should he show up. Poccetti didn’t return until late at night—‘al serrar delle porte’ according to Baldinucci—but the servant from the Guardaroba was still waiting outside the painter’s house. When pressed to explain his and his entire shop’s absence from work that day Poccetti got immediately to the point, remarking that on the preceding Saturday he had not received the money he needed to pay his assistants (‘perchè il sabato antecedente non avea avuti i quattrini per pagargli’).113 At this point Baldinucci expressed his disapproval of what he saw as a needless and petulant protest, remarking that it was a thing worthy of wonder that Poccetti, applauded for his virtue by the nobility, well-off financially, and an accomplished artist, would rather spend his days in conversation with the most vile people (‘gente vilissima’) than in the company of the city’s elites. In this, Baldinucci seems to have completely misunderstood the subject of his biography—indeed, even to have ignored some of the remarks that Baldinucci himself ascribed to Poccetti. Immediately after decrying Poccetti’s fraternization with the ‘gente vilissima’, Baldinucci lists a sample of these undesirable characters by name and occupation. There was Nato, an orpellaio (leather gilder), who had a shop in the Oltrarno near the Ponte Santa Trìnita, Maso the sargiaio (painter of bedroom textiles), who was located near the Uffizi, Musa, a cozzone (horse dealer), Secco the barbiere (barber), Saione the oste all’Inferno (tavernkeeper at the Inferno tavern), and Gengio, a ferravecchio (scrap metal dealer).114 This last man, Gengio, appears several times in Baldinucci’s life of Poccetti, a fact that suggests that they shared a strong bond, and which is supported by a sensitive portrait Poccetti drew of his companion.115 Furthermore, Gengio was the only member of the gang singled out by name by Baldinucci as one of the unscrupulous characters who took advantage of Poccetti’s inebriated largesse, and the biographer also noted that Gengio enjoyed an especially close relationship with Poccetti (‘Gengio Ferravechio sortì d’avere il primo luogo di confidenza’), remarking that the two could always

112 Those who held the post of guardaroba maggiore ‘were members of the aristocracy, well versed in the arts as well as patrons in their own right’. Freddolini, ‘Grand Dukes’, 3; for more on Vincenzo Giugni, see Calafati, ‘Il palazzo e la collezione Giugni’, 185–87. 113 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:249. 114 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:249. 115 On this drawing (British Museum, no. 1895,0915.571), see Robinson, Descriptive Catalogue, 49, no. 134.

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be found in each other’s company, whether at the tavern or on the scaffolding.116 Indeed, it appears that for these two men there was no real separation between those two sites, since Gengio always brought a flask of good wine to the job site, and he and Poccetti and the rest of the garzoni began drinking long before the workday ended (‘prima che arrivasse il tempo del dar riposo a’ pennelli’).117 The blurring of the distinction between the place of work and the place of repose is in keeping with the Florentine tradition of the bottega as a prominent locus of male sociability, which itself permeated the activities that took place there—whether they were central to the professional objectives and obligations of Poccetti’s workshop or more social in scope.118 Just how close Poccetti was to Gengio and the rest of the brigata is evident from Baldinucci’s claim that when the painter—childless and a widower—neared the end of his life and thought about how to dispose of his property and wealth, he decided to leave his belongings to Gengio and the other members of his group. He was eventually talked out of this decision by a priest, who convinced Poccetti to name his half-brothers as his heirs rather than his friends from the palco and the osteria.119 Although the priest appealed to Poccetti on behalf of ‘Christian tradition’ (‘Cristiana consuetudine’), the painter’s legacy—as will be explained below—might have been in better hands had he left it to Gengio and the brigata.120 For, even though aspects of it might have been demanding and cruel at times, Poccetti’s deep bond with the members of his workshop contributed to his ability to successfully take on and execute many large projects. Poccetti’s desire to leave his worldly goods to the members of his bottega reflects the deep solidarity that was forged in places like La Trave Torta and expressed on the scaffolding. With Poccetti as the signore, he and the members of his workshop decorated the streets, churches, and palaces of 116 ‘Con questo [Ferravecchio] volle egli trovarsi sempre non solo all’Osteria, me anche nel tempo di lavoro.’ Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:250. Konrad Eisenbichler explores the relationship between Gengio and Poccetti in greater detail in a forthcoming essay. I am grateful to Prof. Eisenbichler for sharing an early version of his article with me. 117 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:250. Cohen and Cohen remarked that much of the sugar, and therefore the calories, consumed by the people of Renaissance Italy came from wine, and that ‘almost everyone drank wine, straight or watered, as their principal beverage (estimates vary upward from two-thirds of a liter per person per day)’. Cohen and Cohen, Daily Life, 227–28. Such estimates are difficult to verify, but evidence suggests that two-thirds of a liter is at the low end of the scale. For a discussion of wine consumption in Florence and other Italian cities with relevant bibliography, see Martin, Alcohol, Violence, and Disorder, 44–51. 118 Ruggiero, ‘Mean Streets’, 300–301. 119 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:252. 120 Despite—or perhaps because of—this last-minute modification of his wishes, there was some legal wrangling between Poccetti’s heirs and his former assistants. In a suit brought by the Ciardi heirs against Francesco Leoncini, they accused Leoncini of taking three books of prints and drawings, four paintings, and a substantial sum of money. Vasetti, ‘Alcune puntualizzazioni’, 70.

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Florence with countless frescoes and altarpieces at a time when religious painting had come under intense ecclesiastical scrutiny. To better understand this moment in the history of Florentine art, it is time to turn to the fruits of their labors and to follow Bernardino and his brigata into the city’s cloisters and chapels.

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Hope, Charles. ‘The Audiences for Publications on the Visual Arts in Renaissance Italy’. In Officine del nuovo: Sodalizi fra letterati, artisti ed editori nella cultura italiana fra Riforma e Controriforma, edited by Harald Hendrix and Paolo Procaccioli, 19–29. Rome: Vecchiarelli, 2008. Hornik, Heidi J. Michele Tosini and the Ghirlandaio Workshop in Cinquecento Florence. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2009. Kelley, Shannon. ‘Arno River Floods and the Cinquecento Grotto at the Boboli Garden’. Renaissance Studies 30, no. 5 (2016): 729–51. Kim, David Young. The Traveling Artist in the Italian Renaissance: Geography, Mobility, and Style. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014. Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane. ‘The “Cruel Mother”: Maternity, Widowhood, and Dowry in Florence in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries.’ In Women, Family, and Ritual in Renaissance Italy, translated by Lydia Cochrane, 117–31. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. Kris, Ernst and Otto Kurz. Legend, Myth, and Magic in the Image of the Artist: A Historical Experiment. 1934. Reprinted with preface by E.H. Gombrich and notes by Otto Kurz. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979. Land, Norman E. ‘Vasari’s Vita of Giotto.’ In The Ashgate Research Companion to Vasari, edited by David J. Cast, 77–89. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2014. Lapini, Agostino. Diario fiorentino di Agostino Lapini dal 252 al 1596. Edited by G.O. Corazzini. Florence: Sansoni, 1900. Ledbury, Mark. ‘Anecdotes and the Life of Art History’. In Fictions of Art History, edited by Mark Ledbury, 173–86. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2013. Maginnis, Hayden B.J. ‘Giotto’s World through Vasari’s Eyes’. Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 56, no. 3 (1993): 385–408. Malvasia, Carlo Cesare. Felsina pittrice: Vite dei pittori bolognesi. 2 vols. Bologna, 1678. Manes, Yael. ‘Fiction and Biography, Self and Identity in Antonio di Tuccio Manetti’s Il grasso legnaiuolo’. In Imagining Early Modern Histories, edited by Allison Kavey and Elizabeth Ketner, 253–66. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2016. Manetti, Antonio. La novella del grasso legnaiuolo. Edited by Paolo Procaccioli. Parma: Fondazione Pietro Bembo, 1990. Maniello Cardone, Sabina. ‘Francesco Nappi e Ulisse Giocchi nella cappella dei “Garzoni degli osti” nella chiesa di Santa Maria della Consolazione’. Alma Roma: Bollettino di informazioni, n.s., 16, no. 1/3 (2010): 3–69. Martin, A. Lynn. Alcohol, Violence, and Disorder in Traditional Europe. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2009. Martines, Lauro. An Italian Renaissance Sextet: Six Tales in Historical Context. Translations by Martha Baca with commentary by Lauro Martines. New York: Marsilio, 1994. Mattatelli, Rosy. ‘Le case dell’Arte della Lana: Bartolomeo Ammannati’. In Ammannati e Vasari per la città dei Medici, edited by Christina Acidini and Giacomo Pirazzoli, 229. Florence: Polistampa, 2011.

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McHam, Sarah Blake. Pliny and the Artistic Culture of the Italian Renaissance: The Legacy of the Natural History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013. Montanari, Tomaso. ‘At the Margins of the Historiography of Art: The Vite of Bernini between Autobiography and Apologia’. In Bernini’s Biographies: Critical Essays, edited by Maarten Delbeke, Evonne Levy, and Steven F. Ostrow, 73–109. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006. Montanari, Tomaso. ‘Bernini e Cristina di Svezia: Alle origini della storiografia berniniana’. In Gian Lorenzo Bernini e i Chigi tra Roma e Siena, by Alessandro Angelini, 328–477. Siena: Monte dei Paschi di Siena, 1998. O’Neil, Maryvelma Smith. Giovanni Baglione: Artistic Reputation in Baroque Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Paltrinieri, Carlotta. ‘Filipp Baldinucci Scultore? A New Light on His Fifty Years in the Accademia del Disegno’. In Per Filippo Baldinucci: Storiografia e collezionismo a Firenze nel secondo Seicento, edited by Elena Fumagalli, Massimiliano Rossi, and Eva Struhal, 21–34. Florence: Mandragora, 2020. Perini, Giovanna. ‘Biographical Anecdotes and the Historical Truth: An Example from Malvasia’s “Life of Guido Reni”’. Studi secenteschi 31 (1990): 149–61. Perini, Giovanna. ‘Carlo Cesare Malvasia’s Florentine Letters: Insight into Conflicting Trends in Seventeenth-Century Italian Art Historiography’. Art Bulletin 70, no. 2 (1988): 273–99. Pestilli, Livio. Bernini and His World: Sculptures and Sculptors in Early Modern Rome. London: Lund Humphries, 2022. Pilliod, Elizabeth. Pontormo, Bronzino, Allori: A Genealogy of Florentine Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. Ricci, Giuliano de’. Cronaca (1532–1606). Edited by Giuliana Sapori. Milan: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1972. Richter, Jean Paul, ed. The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. 2 vols. New York: Dover, 1970. Ridolfi, Carlo. Le maraviglie dell’arte, overo, le vite de gl’illustri pittori veneti, e dello stato. Venice, 1648. Robinson, J.C. Descriptive Catalogue of Drawings by the Old Masters forming the Collection of John Malcolm of Poltalloch. London, 1876. Rolova, Aleksandra D. ‘Alcune osservazioni sul problema del livello di vita dei lavoratori di Firenze (seconda metà del Cinquecento)’. In Studi in onore di Federigo Melis, 4:129–46. Naples: Giannini, 1978. Rosenthal, David. ‘The Barfly’s Dream: Taverns and Reform in the Early Modern Italian City.’ In Biographies of Drink: A Case Study Approach to Our Historical Relationship with Alcohol, edited by Mark Hallwood and Deborah Toner, 14–29. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015. Rosenthal, David. Kings of the Street: Power, Community, and Ritual in Renaissance Florence. Turnhout: Brepols, 2015. Rubin, Patricia Lee. Giorgio Vasari: Art and History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

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Ruggiero, Guido. ‘Mean Streets, Familiar Streets, or The Fat Woodcarver and the Masculine Spaces of Renaissance Florence’. In Renaissance Florence: A Social History, edited by Roger J. Crum and John T. Paoletti, 295–310. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Rusconi, Arturo Jahn. ‘Arte retrospettiva: Bernardino Pocetti’. Emporium 73 (1931): 348–60. Sebregondi, Ludovica. ‘La “Compagnia della Nunziata” nel quadro dell’associazionismo laicale fiorentino’. In La Compagnia della Santissima Annunziata a Firenze: Gli affreschi del chiostro, 43–48. Florence: Centro Di, 1989. Smith, Moira. ‘Humor, Unlaughter, and Boundary Maintenance’. Journal of American Folklore 122, no. 484 (2009): 148–71. Sohm, Philip. Style in the Art Theory of Early Modern Italy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Soprani, Raffaele. Le vite de pittori, scoltori, et architetti genovesi. Genoa, 1674. Soussloff, Catherine M. The Absolute Artist: The Historiography of a Concept. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. Soussloff, Catherine M. Review of Patterns in Late Medici Art Patronage and After Vasari: History, Art and Patronage in Late Medici Florence, by Edward L. Goldberg. Art Bulletin 89, no. 71 (1989): 697–98. Struhal, Eva. ‘Baldinucci and the Jesuits: The Diario spirituale as an Art Historical Source’. In Per Filippo Baldinucci: Storiografia e collezionismo a Firenze nel secondo Seicento, edited by Elena Fumagalli, Massimiliano Rossi, and Eva Struhal, 65–80. Florence: Mandragora, 2020. Struhal, Eva. ‘Filippo Baldinucci’s novità: The Notizie de’ professori del disegno and Giorgio Vasari’s Vite’. In Vasari als Paradigma: Rezeption, Kritik, Perspektiven, edited by Fabian Jonietz and Alessandro Nova, 193–203. Venice: Marsilio, 2016. Summerscale, Anne. Malvasia’s Life of the Carracci: Commentary and Translation. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000. Tinti, Mario. ‘Bernardino Poccetti’. Dedalo 9, no. 2 (1928): 400–430. Tovey, Brian, ed. The Pouncey Index of Baldinucci’s Notizie. Florence: Centro Di, 2005. Vasari, Giorgio. Le opere di Giorgio Vasari. 9 vols. Edited by Gaetano Milanesi. 1906. Reprint, Florence: Sansoni, 1973. Vasetti, Stefania. ‘Alcune puntualizzazioni sugli allievi di Bernardino Poccetti e un inedito ciclo di affreschi’. Annali 3 (1996): 69–98. Vasetti, Stefania. ‘La “guccia” di Bernardino Poccetti da San Gimignano’. Paragone 45, no. 529–33 (1994): 154–59. Veen, Henk Th. van. ‘“Sodalizi” of Artists and Patricians: Filippo Baldinucci’s View on the “Reform” of Painting in Florence’. In Officine del nuovo: Sodalizi fra letterati, artisti ed editori nella cultura italiana fra Riforma e Controriforma, edited by Harald Hendrix and Paolo Procaccioli, 71–87. Rome: Vecchiarelli, 2008. Vitzthum, Walter. ‘Die Handzeichnungen des Bernardino Poccetti’. PhD diss., Ludwig Maximilian University (Munich), 1955.

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Waldman, Louis Alexander. ‘Fact, Fiction, Hearsay: Notes on Vasari’s Life of Piero di Cosimo’. Art Bulletin 82, no. 1 (2000): 171–79. Wallace, William E. ‘Who Is the Author of Michelangelo’s Life?’ In The Ashgate Research Companion to Vasari, edited by David J. Cast, 107–119. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2014. Watts, Barbara J. ‘Giorgio Vasari’s Vita di Michelangelo Buonarroti and the Shade of Donatello’. In The Rhetorics of Life-Writing in Early Modern Europe: Forms of Biography from Cassandra Fedele to Louis XIV, edited by Thomas F. Mayer and D.R. Woolf, 63–69. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995. Weiss, James M. ‘Varieties of Biography during the Italian Renaissance: Individuality and Beyond’. Chap. 2 in Humanist Biography in Renaissance Italy and Reformation Germany. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2010. Wittkower, Margot and Rudolf Wittkower. Born Under Saturn: The Character and Conduct of Artists: A Documented History from Antiquity to the French Revolution. 1963. Reprinted with an introduction by Joseph Connors. New York: New York Review of Books, 2007.

2.

‘Le prime cose lodevoli molto’ Bernardino Poccetti’s Early Work and the Frescoes from the Life of Saint Dominic in the Chiostro Grande, Santa Maria Novella Abstract: This chapter explores the artistic origins of Bernardino Barbatelli (called Poccetti, 1553–1612), from his early days as a painter of sgraffito facades to his first efforts in monumental narrative frescoes. These images, painted in the Chiostro Grande at Santa Maria Novella, depict scenes from the life of Saint Dominic. In his paintings, Poccetti demonstrated his mastery of color and composition and his ability to create dramatic images. In the process, he updated the images to make them more relevant to a sixteenth-century spectator. Close readings of these paintings show how Poccetti, his patrons, and the Dominican friars would have seen and understood the events of Dominic’s life as examples to be emulated in their own period of religious crisis. Keywords: Bernardino Barbatelli (called Poccetti); Saint Dominic; Santa Maria Novella, Florence; Dominican Order; religious reform

Not much is known about the years Bernardino Poccetti (1553–1612) spent growing up in Michele Tosini’s (1503–1577) shop. Filippo Baldinucci (1625–1696) claimed that the painter stayed with Tosini for a long time, but he did not provide any precise dates that would flesh out Poccetti’s activities during this period.1 The records

1 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:242. Several editions of Baldinucci’s Notizie have been published. Although the first edition was once less widely available than the anastatic reprint of the Ranalli edition from 1845 that was published by SPES in 1974, the digitalization of primary sources has now made the first edition readily accessible. In the case of Poccetti, the biography in the first edition is slightly different than the one that appeared in the Ranalli edition. An English translation of Poccetti’s biography derived from the Ranalli edition was published by Raymond Petrillo. All subsequent references are to the volumes of the first edition published from 1681 to 1728, unless otherwise noted as ‘Baldinucci-Ranalli’, and all translations are mine unless noted otherwise. For more information on the various editions of the Notizie, see Tovey, Pouncey Index, 12–13.

Dow, D.N., Bernardino Poccetti and the Art of Religious Painting at the End of the Florentine Renaissance. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463729529_ch02

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show that Poccetti paid dues to the Accademia del Disegno as early as 1570.2 A few years later, in 1574, he rented a workshop on Via del Palagio, where he remained until 1578.3 These slight archival references suggest that it was in the early 1570s that Poccetti, who would have been twenty years old in 1573, left Tosini’s bottega and struck out on his own. If Bernardino did enter Tosini’s workshop when he was seven or eight years old, which would have been around the year 1560, then he would have been in his late teens when he set out to establish his own career after having spent around ten years working alongside Tosini. This span of time is longer than the usual apprenticeship of six or seven years. 4 It appears, however, that Girolamo Macchietti (1535–1592) spent a similarly long period of time as an apprentice to Tosini, so it may have been a typical practice of that particular workshop.5 At seven or eight years of age, Poccetti would have been two or three years younger than the typical apprentice—a youthfulness that Baldinucci emphasized in the painter’s biography. For comparison, Macchietti was around ten years old when he entered Tosini’s shop, Domenico Cresti (called Passignano, 1559–1638), was apprenticed when he was about nine years old, and Ludovico Cigoli (1559–1613) was sent to Florence to be schooled in letters at around age ten, but showed more interest in art and eventually entered Alessandro Allori’s workshop when he was thirteen.6 2 Geisenheimer, ‘Spigolature Poccettiane’, 77; Vasetti, ‘Bernardino Poccetti’, 150; Zangheri, Accademici del Disegno, 260. It was also around this time, in December of 1571, when Grand Duke Cosimo I did away with the old artistic guilds of Florence and granted the Accademia del Disegno the authority to regulate the arts in the city, thereby requiring practicing artists to enroll in the Academy. Barzman, Florentine Academy, 59. 3 Vasetti, ‘Bernardino Poccetti’, 150. Via del Palagio was the designation given to the final few blocks at the west end of Via Ghibellina until 1862. Fiorelli and Venturi, Stradario storico, 1:212. 4 As early as 1314 the Arte dei Medici e Speziali specified that the time of apprenticeship to achieve the level of master was a period of at least six years, although it seems that enforcement of this rule was lax. Comanducci, ‘Fattori e garzoni’, 45. In the sixteenth century, the Ospedale degli Innocenti apprenticed boys for ‘terms of five years and occasionally even longer’. Gavitt, Gender, Honor, and Charity, 134. As a counter-example, Wallace remarks that Michelangelo’s abbreviated time in Ghirlandaio’s shop ‘was not a traditional apprenticeship’ because when Michelangelo entered the workshop he was older than the typical apprentice and did not stay ‘six, seven, or more years’. Wallace, ‘Who is the Author’, 113. Leonardo, who most likely spent the decade between 1466 and 1476 in Verrocchio’s workshop, seems to have had a more traditional experience. Brown, Leonardo, 7. For an opposing view, however, that frames Leonardo’s experience as more akin to that of Michelangelo, see Syson, ‘Rewards of Service’, 15–16. 5 According to Borghini, Riposo, 604, after entering Tosini’s workshop at age ten, Macchietti stayed there many years (‘dimorò parecchi anni’) before leaving to collaborate with Vasari. Macchietti joined the Compagnia di San Luca in 1545, and went to work alongside Vasari in 1555, suggesting that he trained with Tosini for about a decade and set out on his own at around age twenty. Dizionario biografico degli italiani (hereafter DBI), s.v. ‘Macchietti, Girolamo’ (by Luca Bortolotti), https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/ girolamo-macchietti_(Dizionario-Biografico). 6 DBI, s.v. ‘Macchietti, Girolamo’ (by Luca Bortolotti); Nissman, ‘Domenico Cresti’, 22; Cardi, Ludovico Cardi Cigoli, 10–11; Chappell, ‘Cigoli e Figline’, 40.

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Bernardino ‘delle Facciate’ To better understand Poccetti’s professional development, this chapter begins with a discussion of the work he undertook after leaving Tosini’s shop before moving on to discuss some of his earliest public examples of monumental narrative frescoes in the Chiostro Grande at Santa Maria Novella. According to Baldinucci, in the early period of his career, Poccetti devoted his energy to painting decorative grotesques and neglected the study of figures (‘applicò molto al mestiero di dipigner grottesche, e poco nelle figure’).7 Baldinucci put forward two possible reasons for Poccetti’s focus on this type of decorative work: either it appealed to his aesthetic sensibilities or it provided a steady income that allowed him to help support his grandmother in her later years. In any case, the young painter was successful enough at this endeavor that he literally made a name for himself, coming to be known as ‘Bernardino delle Grottesche’. From decorative grotesques, Poccetti followed a predictable trajectory into other forms of architectural decoration, picking up more nicknames along the way. His work on sgraffito facades earned him the moniker ‘Bernardino delle Facciate’, and, after painting an especially prominent and impressive set of muses on the facade of Niccolò Compagni’s palace along the Arno, he came to be known as ‘Bernardino delle Muse’.8 It was also during this time that Poccetti began his association with Bernardo Buontalenti (c. 1531–1608), an understandable arrangement that played to their individual strengths: one a talented engineer and architect, the other a skilled painter of vaults and facades. Baldinucci claimed that Poccetti studied architecture and perspective with Buontalenti, information that he most likely received from one of Buontalenti’s pupils, Gherardo Silvani (1579–1675), to whom he credited other facts about Buontalenti that he included in the Notizie.9 Indeed, Silvani had written a brief biography of Buontalenti, in which he called Poccetti Buontalenti’s student (‘suo alievo’) and remarked upon their close relationship, a circumstance reiterated by Baldinucci in Buontalenti’s vita where he referred to Poccetti as the architect’s ‘great friend’ (‘suo grand’ amico’).10 Robert Williams has argued that not all topics of interest to an artist were covered by the traditional workshop experience, and that the art academies that proliferated in the last half of the Cinquecento offered ‘instruction in the kinds of subjects—such as perspective and

7 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:242. Most scholars accept that Poccetti did the bulk of this type of work between 1570 and 1580. See, for example, Vasetti, ‘Bernardino Poccetti’, 150. 8 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:242–43. 9 ‘Gherardo Silvani suo discepolo soprannominato, da cui mi venne questa, con alcun’altre notizie di questo grand’uomo.’ Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:97. 10 Giovannozzi, ‘Bernardo Buontalenti’, 510; Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:94.

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anatomy—not usually covered systematically in the workshop’.11 More specific to this discussion, Karen-edis Barzman has placed Poccetti and Ludovico Cigoli in attendance at lectures that the mathematician Ostilio Ricci gave on perspective and scientific measurement at Buontalenti’s house in the late 1580s.12 It is possible that when Poccetti left Tosini’s workshop and set out on his own he recognized that his mastery of perspective was not as strong as he would have liked and that he addressed this shortcoming by working closely with a talented architect and engineer who also hosted informal gatherings devoted to the topic, an arrangement suited to what is known of Poccetti’s working practices. Although Poccetti’s early career as a painter of grotesques and sgraffito facades has been difficult for scholars to reconstruct, archival discoveries have supported the idea put forward by Silvani and Baldinucci that Poccetti and Buontalenti were close collaborators, and even if all of the projects attributed to Poccetti cannot be confirmed, those that remain offer significant evidence of their partnership.13 In his vita of Buontalenti, Baldinucci even asserted that the designs Poccetti painted above the door of Buontalenti’s house on Via Maggio were among his earliest efforts to appear in public (‘delle prime, che egli facesse in pubblico’).14 That Buontalenti gave the young Poccetti this opportunity suggests several things. First, that Buontalenti had enough confidence in Poccetti to allow him to decorate his own house, and second, that such a decoration would itself act as a public declaration of what the artistic duo could accomplish when they worked together. Unfortunately, Poccetti’s efforts on the facade were destroyed in the nineteenth century during a renovation of the property.15 One of the earliest surviving and documented examples of the collaboration between Buontalenti and Poccetti, the Palazzo di Bianca Cappello, can be found not 11 Williams, ‘Artist as Worker’, 100. In 1586, Armenini accused some artists of deliberately withholding information from their assistants, although to judge from contemporary descriptions of him, Tosini seems to have been a generous and affable teacher and such behavior seems unlikely in his bottega. Armenini, Veri precetti, 3. For a translation, see Armenini, True Precepts, 72. For more on Tosini as teacher see Chapter One. 12 Barzman, Florentine Academy, 155. According to Barzman, while he was still a medical student in Pisa, Galileo frequently attended Ricci’s lectures. 13 Historians of sgraffito facades face several obstacles. Not only are many of the paintings themselves lost or in signif icant disrepair, but they are also sparsely documented. Added to this is the status of sgraffito in particular as ‘decorative’ and therefore less appealing to historians of painting, but also not ‘architectural’ and therefore not attractive to architectural historians. For more on the problematic and neglected position of sgraffito in art historical studies, see Payne, ‘Wrapped in Fabric’, 274–75. Even Vasari was flummoxed by the unstable ontological status of sgraffito, describing it as ‘another type of painting, that is drawing and painting together’ (‘un’altra sorte di pittura, che è disegno e pittura insieme’). Vasari-Milanesi, 1:192. For more on this, see Huth, ‘albaria insignita’, 5–6. 14 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:108. 15 Thiem and Thiem, Toskanischen Fassaden-Dekoration, 111. Engraved copies of the designs were made by Carlo Lasinio in 1789. Lasinio, Ornati presi da graffiti, nos. 3, 5, 14.

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far away from Buontalenti’s house, only a few blocks up Via Maggio (Fig. 2.1).16 Emanuela Ferretti published documents related to the renovation of the palace by Buontalenti and the decoration of the facade by Poccetti that show that the painter was receiving payments for work in September and November of 1573. Another payment in August of 1574 led Ferretti to conclude that Poccetti had completed his work on the facade at that point, even though he was called back early in 1575 to rework sections of the design (‘per haver racconcio lo sgraffito’) that had been damaged by the insertion of the two kneeling windows on the palace’s facade.17 Although subject to restoration campaigns over the years, the facade of the Palazzo di Bianca Cappello offers an excellent example of Poccetti’s abilities as a painter of sgraffito.18 The regularized and symmetrical composition is made up of individual ornate and fantastic curvilinear elements, a careful blend that gives the overall design stability and energy simultaneously (Fig. 2.2).19 It is no wonder that such efforts brought Poccetti acclaim. Fig. 2.1: Bernardo Buontalenti, Palazzo di Bianca It is tempting to speculate that when Baldinucci Cappello, 1570s. Florence, Via Maggio. Source: described Poccetti drawing on a wall at the moment author of his artistic discovery he was also making a subtle and clever reference to Poccetti’s later achievements as a painter of Florentine palace facades, as though it was always his destiny to decorate the city’s built environment and especially its mural surfaces. In addition to presaging the success that the painter would enjoy as ‘Bernardino delle Facciate’, the anecdote also firmly established the origins of Poccetti’s efforts within the context of mural decorations, and although he painted altarpieces as well, the majority of his artistic output over the course of his 16 Thiem and Thiem, Toskanischen Fassaden-Dekoration, 108–10; De Luca and Pecchioli, Graffiti, affreschi, murales, 64–67; Pecchioli, Painted Façades, 96–99. 17 Ferretti, ‘Appunti’, 69–70. The completion date of August 1574 is corroborated by an entry in Bastiano Arditi’s diary that describes the installation of the main portal to the palace in the ‘last days of August 1574’ (‘questi ultimi giorni d’agosto 1574’). The installation of the door suggests that the renovation of the palace was in its final stages. Arditi, Diario, 20. 18 For the restoration campaigns, see Thiem and Thiem, Toskanischen Fassaden-Dekoration, 111; De Luca and Pecchioli, Graffiti, affreschi, murales, 64–67; Pecchioli, Painted Façades, 96–99. 19 For a detailed discussion of the design’s iconography and composition, see Pecchioli, Painted Façades, 96–99.

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life was in buon fresco, a medium over which he had considerable mastery. Some of this skill in painting on wet plaster must have been forged while he was working in sgraffito, a medium that demands a facility with plaster if it is to produce the desired effect. Sgraffito facade decoration has its origins in Florence, where early iterations decorated structures with patterns that mimicked architectural ornament, while later designs were influenced by ancient Roman imagery discovered during the exploration of the Domus Aurea in the sixteenth century.20 Although the types of decorative designs produced in sgraffito changed over time, the technique for making the images remained essentially the same. An initial layer of plaster, the rinzaffo, was applied to the wall to prepare the surface and to cover any imperfections. The next layer, the arriccio, was applied on top of the rinzaffo. The arriccio layer was tinted black through the addition of powdered charcoal or burnt straw. On top of the arriccio layer was applied the intonaco layer, white plaster that could be given a hard and Fig. 2.2: Bernardino Poccetti, detail of sgraffito polished surface. The designs were then transferred facade, Palazzo di Bianca Cappello, 1573–1575. Florence, Via Maggio. Source: author from preparatory drawings to the surface of the intonaco, after which the painter used various tools to scrape away sections of the intonaco to reveal the dark arriccio beneath, thereby creating the characteristic sgraffito design of alternating bichromatic passages of positive and negative space. Fine, linear detail was achieved by using a stylus to scratch the surface, while larger areas of arriccio could be exposed through the use of a trowel or similar scraper.21 It has been noted that sgraffito, which requires the painter to remove a surface layer to create the final design, is distinct in this respect from painting, which requires the painter to apply a surface layer to the make the finished image.22 It is true that in its final stage sgraffito is a subtractive technique, but until this last step all of the skills necessary to create designs in sgraffito are applicable to painting in buon fresco. In particular, sgraffito requires a facility with mixing and applying plaster and an ability to produce preliminary 20 Thiem and Thiem, Toskanischen Fassaden-Dekoration, 27–34; Pecchioli, Painted Façades, 19–26; Payne, ‘Wrapped in Fabric’, 278; Huth, ‘Degli sgraffiti delle case’, 95–103. 21 Huth, ‘albaria insignita’, 13–17. 22 Payne, ‘Wrapped in Fabric’, 277.

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drawings that can be transferred to a large mural surface, both of which would be of great use to a painter of large frescoes.23 That Poccetti himself decorated vaults with grotteschi in fresco even as he decorated facades with grotteschi in sgraffito shows how closely related the techniques are, and it was not long before Bernardino delle Facciate dedicated himself to painting large narrative scenes in buon fresco.

Poccetti’s Trip to Rome In the early 1580s Poccetti painted six frescoes in the Chiostro Grande at Santa Maria Novella, images that Baldinucci suggested were among his earliest efforts, and which were highly praised (‘quelle ch’io penso fossero le prime cose lodevoli molto, ch’ei facesse’).24 These scenes, large lunettes with expansive and complicated compositions, crowded with numerous figures in manifold poses, and colored with a striking palette, seem to have emerged fully formed from the painter’s mind and hand, a circumstance that has been difficult for scholars to explain. It is at this point in Poccetti’s biography that Baldinucci recounted a story of Poccetti’s seemingly only major journey outside of Tuscany—an account he credits to Remigio Cantagallina (c. 1582–1656), whom he claimed knew Poccetti well (‘molto bene conobbe esso Bernardino’).25 Like many aspiring painters, Poccetti went to Rome to further his artistic education by studying the numerous examples of ancient and modern art found in the city. While in Rome, Poccetti enjoyed the hospitality of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (1520–1589), who had purchased Agostino Chigi’s villa—now known as the Villa Farnesina—in 1579.26 Decorated with frescoes by Raphael, the villa was an important pilgrimage site for the aspiring young artists 23 In his text from the fifteenth century, for example, Cennino Cennini assumed that the mixing and application of the intonaco was the responsibility of the painter and therefore provided detailed instructions for the process. Giovannini, ‘Florentine Plasters’, 31. At the end of the sixteenth century, Armenini included an excursus on intonaco in his discussion of the mixing and application of pigment because mastery over the interaction between the plaster and the pigment is necessary to achieve a successful result and a lack of skill could result in a failure that would compromise the painter’s reputation (‘perder molto il riputatione’). Armenini, Veri precetti, 112–13; Armenini, True Precepts, 181. 24 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:244. 25 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:243. Art historical research has buttressed Baldinucci’s claim that Poccetti and Cantagallina were acquaintances. Stefania Vasetti has shown that Poccetti’s fresco of the conquest of Bona in the Palazzo Pitti is heavily indebted to Cantagallina’s engraving of the same event, suggesting a point of contact between the artists. Vasetti, ‘Fasti granducali’, 234; Röstel and Lewis, ‘Poccetti as Collector’, 64. Other scholars have suggested that Cantagallina was directly involved in the decoration of the Sala di Bona and that he painted the six small landscapes in the room. d’Afflitto, ‘Cat. no. 16’, 62; Bastogi, ‘Sala di Bona’, 96; Manescalchi and Marrani, ‘Vascelli degli Argonauti’, 69. 26 For the events that led up to Cardinal Farnese’s purchase of the villa on 6 July 1579, see Frommel, Farnesina und Peruzzis architektonisches Frühwerk, 17; Frommel, ‘Villa Farnesina’, 68.

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who flocked to the Eternal City at the end of the sixteenth century seeking artistic education and success, and it seems that both Chigi and Cardinal Farnese provided these artists with considerable access to the property.27 In his life of Federico Barocci (1528–1612), for example, Giovanni Pietro Bellori (1613–1696) described a bustling scene at the villa, remarking that Barocci’s modesty meant that he mostly kept to himself and did not say much to the other young artists who congregated there to study the frescoes (‘gli altri giovini, che vi sogliono concorrere’).28 Bellori also described the arrival of two foreigners, who projected an air of importance through their fine clothing and the presence of their page who assisted them by sharpening their chalk. Out of deference to these markers of status, the young artists gave up their places to make room for the men (‘onde ciascuno li honorava, e cedeva loro il luogo’).29 Both of these anecdotes imply that there were frequently many aspiring artists studying at the villa, jockeying for position as they sought ideal viewing angles and enough space to draw from Raphael’s examples. This is not surprising when one considers that Giovanni Battista Armenini (1530–1609) mentioned that young painters should study the works of Polidoro da Caravaggio, Raphael, Sebastiano del Piombo, Perino del Vaga, and Michelangelo, after noting that the study of the works by these masters was already a widespread practice and that Rome was by far the city that attracted the most aspiring artists.30 Armenini did not bother to give precise locations as to where the works to be studied might be found, and David Kim has seen this as evidence of how common it was for artists to frequent these sites. According to Kim, an artist did not need specific instructions from Armenini because there was a ‘community of artist-informants in Rome’ who already knew where to go and who would initiate new arrivals into the artistic community.31 One of the more compelling expressions of the role that the Villa Farnesina played in the lives of Rome’s aspiring painters is the drawing by Federico Zuccaro of his brother Taddeo, which, despite showing Taddeo at the earliest stages of his career, was made much later—in the 1590s (Fig. 2.3).32 In the drawing, the young 27 A trip to Rome was a traditional experience for many artists of the Renaissance. For an overview, see Kim’s treatment of the theme throughout Traveling Artist. 28 Bellori, Vite, 171. For a translation, see Bellori, Lives, 160. 29 Bellori, Vite, 172; Bellori, Lives, 160. 30 Armenini, Veri precetti, 57–59; Armenini, True Precepts, 127–28. The emphasis on drawing as a necessary and fundamental skill for a painter continued into the seventeenth century, with students copying their masters’ drawings, engravings, and famous works of art as part of their training. Cavazzini, Painting as Business, 66. 31 Kim, Traveling Artist, 195. 32 On the drawings from this series, see Julian Brooks, Taddeo and Federico Zuccaro; for Taddeo Copying Raphael’s Frescoes in the Loggia of the Villa Farnesina, Where He Is Also Represented Asleep, in particular, see 32, 77–79.

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Fig. 2.3: Federico Zuccaro, Taddeo Copying Raphael’s Frescoes in the Loggia of the Villa Farnesina, Where He is Also Represented Asleep, c. 1595, pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk and touches of red chalk (42.4x17.5cm). Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum. Source: Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content program

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artist appears in the villa’s loggia drawing the frescoes by the light of the moon. Taddeo is seated in the foreground, so close to the picture plane that the curving lower edge of the drawing’s frame cuts off the view of his right foot. By placing Taddeo deep under the loggia in this way, Federico used the arch of the structure and the moonlit view beyond to frame his brother. With the moonlight behind him, Taddeo’s clothing is cast in heavy shadow, while his face is illuminated in the lunar glow, drawing attention to his profile. He has his drawing board balanced on his thighs and tilts his head back to study the frescoes in the vault. Taddeo’s slightly open mouth gives him the air of a person completely lost in concentration. All of this effort apparently took a toll on Taddeo, however, because the continuous narrative of Federico’s drawing shows his brother later that night curled up against the pier of the loggia. His head is propped up on his arm, which rests on the drawing board still in his lap. It appears that he will spend the night there.33 For his part, Poccetti seems to have enjoyed a slightly more comfortable stay at the Farnesina than did Taddeo. According to Baldinucci, Bernardino was lodged at the villa and enjoyed enough privilege in the household that he was able to keep the door to his room locked (‘serrata la porta di quella stanza, che gli fu data per abitazione’). At mealtimes he had his food delivered to him on a turntable so that he would not lose time while he was working.34 This intense effort resulted in a huge pile of drawings (‘smisurata catasta di disegni’), and Baldinucci claimed that after this experience Poccetti returned to Florence a completely changed man (‘finalmente tornossene alla Patria tanto mutato da quel di prima’).35 Scholars have dated the period of Pocceti’s stay in Rome to the years between 1578 and 1580. Not only does this correspond to what is known about Poccetti’s activities during this time—it was, for example, in 1578 when he stopped renting the shop on Via del Palagio, something he would do if he were planning a lengthy absence from Florence—but it is also supported by the records of the Accademia del Disegno, where a gap in his regular payments to the organization exists from 1578 to 1580.36 The records, then, corroborate Baldinucci’s account of Poccetti’s time in Rome, but 33 In his biography of Taddeo, Vasari claimed that Taddeo often ended up sleeping in the loggia of the Farnesina or other similar places (‘si riparò molte notti sotto le loggie del detto Chigi ed in altri luoghi simili’). Vasari-Milanesi, 7:75–76. For the relationship between the drawings and Vasari’s text, see Brooks, Taddeo and Federico Zuccaro, 3. 34 Poccetti’s intense focus on his work often led him to skip meals, a fact attested to by Cornelio Peraccini, the Servite who commissioned Poccetti to paint six lunettes at Santissima Annunziata in Pistoia. For more on Peraccini’s interactions with Poccetti, see Chapter One. 35 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:243. 36 These documents and this dating of Poccetti’s stay in Rome were first put forward in 1909 by Geisenheimer, ‘Spigolature’, 77 and have been widely accepted. See, for example, Vasetti, ‘Bernardino Poccetti’, 150; Vasetti, ‘Bernardino Barbatelli’, 138. For a summary of references to Poccetti in the records of the Accademia del Disegno, see Zangheri, Accademici del Disegno, 260.

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they do not explain why Poccetti was provided with such a hospitable welcome at the villa of Alessandro Farnese. The identity of one of the painter’s earliest patrons, however, does provide a link to the cardinal. Ludovico Capponi (1534–1614) was born into the wealth of the Capponi family, and—like his father, who had married into the Martelli clan—Ludovico increased his worth through his marriage to Maddalena Vettori, whose father died when she was only a few months old and left her a large inheritance.37 As was the case with many of the wealthy patricians in ducal Florence, Ludovico received a solid literary education and was an active patron of art. In fact, Capponi is most recognizable to art historians as the subject of Bronzino’s portrait in the Frick Collection, a partial copy of which was frescoed by Poccetti in the Palazzo Vettori-Capponi.38 Painted in the early 1550s, when Capponi was in his late teens or early twenties, he is shown as an elegant and self-assured young man. His clothing reveals his refined taste and considerable wealth, and the stark contrast between his white sleeve and black tunic evokes the heraldic colors of the Capponi family’s coat-of-arms. He delicately cradles a medallion in his right hand, blocking the spectator’s view of its subject with his right index finger.39 Although he sometimes struggled with decorum—he and Matteo Strozzi almost resorted to fisticuffs during mass in the church of San Frediano as a result of Capponi’s continued romantic pursuit of Leonora Soderini, whom Strozzi had taken as his wife—his wealth and education provided entry into the circle of patricians surrounding the Medici court. To cite only a few examples of this access, Ludovico accompanied Cosimo to Rome in 1560 and returned again in 1570 on the occasion of Cosimo’s coronation as Grand Duke, and when Cosimo died in 1574, Capponi was among those who carried the baldachino during his funeral. 40 His wealth also provided access to elite circles in Rome, and while he was in the city in the early 1570s, he forged a close relationship with Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. Later on, Capponi availed himself of the cardinal’s hospitality 37 Capponi’s advantageous wedding to Maddalena Vettori was such common knowledge in Florence that Giuliano de’ Ricci mentioned it when he discussed the unsuccessful pursuit of Maria di Marsilio degli Albizzi by Ludovico’s son, Giulio, remarking that Ludovico’s successful campaign for Maddalena’s hand was rewarded with her dowry of 30,000 ducats. de’ Ricci, Cronaca, 379. The brief biography of Ludovico presented in this paragraph is derived from DBI, s.v. ‘Capponi, Lodovico’ (by Franco Angiolini), https:// www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/lodovico-capponi_%28Dizionario-Biograf ico%29/; Vasetti, ‘Ludovico Capponi’, 27–28, 45–53; Paolozzi Strozzi, ‘Inquietudini’, 43–69. 38 The copy by Poccetti was first recognized by Becherucci in 1944. Falciani, ‘Ludovico Capponi’, 264. For a reproduction of the painting in the Frick Collection, see https://collections.frick.org/objects/141/ lodovico-capponi. 39 For a recent discussion of this portrait, see Falciani, ‘Ludovico Capponi’, 264–66. 40 In his chronicle, Giuliano de’ Ricci gave a detailed description of the Grand Duke’s funeral cortège and listed ‘Lodovico di Lodovico Capponi’ among the 50 young men who carried the baldachino. Ricci, Cronaca, 105–6.

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on behalf of his son, Bernardo, who took on significant debt at unfavorable interest rates while staying in Rome with Farnese in 1585. Considering that Capponi had a strong connection to Cardinal Farnese and that Capponi was one of Poccetti’s earliest champions and supporters, it seems likely that Capponi was Poccetti’s point of contact with the cardinal for his stay in Rome in the late 1570s. Indeed, it was not long after the painter returned from Rome that he received a commission from Capponi to paint a lunette in the Chiostro Grande at the Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella.

Poccetti’s Lunettes in the Chiostro Grande Santa Maria Novella was not located near Capponi’s home in the Oltrarno, and his association with the Dominican church most likely came about not through geographic proximity, but instead through his epistolary relationship with Saint Caterina de’ Ricci, which spanned from 1568 to the saint’s death in 1590; in total over 240 letters were addressed to Ludovico by Saint Caterina and in some cases the correspondence was maintained on a daily basis.41 In 1574 Caterina let Capponi and the prior of Santa Maria Novella, Alessandro Capocchi, select the legend that was to accompany a portrait of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, and, when Francesco Marchi published his biography of Capocchi in 1583 with Capponi’s financial assistance, he dedicated the book to Saint Caterina. 42 Capocchi was to become an important contact for Capponi—one scholar has referred to the Dominican as Ludovico’s ‘direttore spirituale’. 43 The extent of their association is revealed by entries in Ludovico’s account books that record payments Capponi made to the doctors who attended to the Dominican, and in 1581, Ludovico commissioned a portrait of Capocchi from a painter named Filippo Paladini (c. 1544–c. 1614), a portrait that was copied several times so that images of the friar could be distributed to those who were close to Capocchi. 44 Capocchi, who became the prior of Santa Maria Novella in 1579, was the driving force behind the decoration of the lunettes in the Chiostro Grande, even though he died in 1581, a few years before the completion of most of 41 Vasetti, ‘Ludovico Capponi’, 52. Many of Caterina de’ Ricci’s letters have been published; for references see Paolozzi Strozzi, ‘Inquietudini’, 45–46n7. 42 Sebregondi, Iconografia, 93; Paolozzi Strozzi, ‘Inquietudini’, 45–46n7; for the text of the letter, see de’ Ricci, Epistolario, 3:259–60. For Capponi’s financing the publication of Capocchi’s biography and its dedication to de’ Ricci, see Paolozzi Strozzi, ‘Inquietudini’, 67n64. 43 Sebregondi, Iconografia, 93. 44 Vasetti, ‘Ludovico Capponi’, 52; Paolozzi Strozzi, ‘Inquietudini’, 67nn63, 64. In his biography of Capocchi, Marchi provided a detailed account of the afflictions the Dominican suffered at the end of his life. Marchi, Alessandro Capocchi, 57–59.

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the frescoes. 45 Given the close relationship between Capponi and Capocchi, and taking into account the interest that Capponi had shown in Bernardino Poccetti, it is not surprising to learn that Capponi commissioned the painting of two lunettes and a vault in the cloister, that he dedicated them to Capocchi’s memory, or that one of the painters he employed in this endeavor was Poccetti. It seems that Capponi’s desire to help Capocchi realize the decoration of the monumental cloister also helped to pave the way for Poccetti’s efforts at Santa Maria Novella. Just as he had opened doors in Rome for the young painter, so too did Capponi provide Poccetti the enviable opportunity to work in the Chiostro Grande, a project that Miles Chappell called ‘the largest and perhaps most prestigious commission in Florence in the early 1580s’. 46 The frescoes commissioned by Capponi are located in the southwest corner of the Chiostro Grande, where Ludovico also endowed a lamp with an eternal flame.47 The majority of the frescoes in the cloister represent important figures from the history of the Dominican order, with Dominic himself being the main focus of the decoration. The scenes of his life occupy the entire western and northern walls, while the eastern and southern walls are given over to representations of events 45 In his biography of Santi di Tito, Baldinucci stated that the idea to decorate the Chiostro Grande came to Capocchi ‘before 1570 in the time of his priorate’ (‘avanti al 1570 nel tempo del suo priorato’), but Capocchi did not become prior until June of 1579, making this claim unlikely to be true. Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:111; Assmann, Dominikanerheilige, 20; Sebregondi, Iconografia, 93. 46 Chappell, ‘Theories of Relativity’, 44. Although scholars are now turning their attention to them, the frescoes in the cloister have not received as much scrutiny as might be expected. One of the largest decorative interventions of its type—the Chiostro Grande contains 52 monumental lunettes decorated with narrative frescoes—it provided a model for other cloister decorations in Florence at the end of the sixteenth century in places like San Marco and Santissima Annunziata. But, the frescoes have suffered from their prolonged exposure to the elements and are mostly in a poor state of conservation. Furthermore, the massive cycle was painted by a large number of painters, and although that group includes important figures like Poccetti, Santi di Tito, and Ludovico Cigoli, it is difficult to discuss the entire cycle without engaging the work of all twenty of the painters involved in the decoration. Finally, the Chiostro Grande suffered from being adapted to new uses (including being used to stable horses in 1848) and was virtually inaccessible for many decades because for most of the twentieth century it formed part of the seat of the Carabinieri in Florence. Colucci, ‘Ciclo di affreschi’, 15–16. Only within the last few years have the cloister and its frescoes become accessible to the public, as the Comune di Firenze has begun to transform the complex into a cultural center. https://cultura.comune.fi.it/dalle-redazioni/la-rinascita-di-santa-marianovella. In June of 2020, the Florentine government announced the restoration of six lunettes on the east side of the Chiostro Grande, work that was completed in February of 2021. https://cultura.comune.fi.it/ dalle-redazioni/restauro-delle-lunette-del-chiostro-grande-di-santa-maria-novella; https://artemagazine. it/restauri/item/12583-terminato-il-restauro-delle-sei-lunette-del-lato-est-del-chiostro-grande-disanta-maria-novella-di-firenze#gallery-7710. For an account of the many changes made to Santa Maria Novella over the centuries, see Lunardi, Arte e storia, 13–21; Nobili, ‘Convento’, 31–54; for the history of the Carabinieri at Santa Maria Novella, see Chirieleison, ‘Scuola’, 55–70. 47 Paolozzi Strozzi, ‘Inquietudini’, 67.

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from the lives of Peter Martyr, Thomas Aquinas, Vincent Ferrer, Antoninus Pierozzi, Catherine of Siena, and Rose of Lima. The exceptions to this arrangement are the lunettes that meet in each of the cloister’s four corners, which contain scenes from the life of Christ. 48 In addition to the lunette on the west wall decorated by Poccetti, Capponi also hired Giovanni Balducci (called il Cosci, c. 1560–after 1631) to paint the adjacent lunette on the south wall, as well as to decorate the vault above. Documents published by Stefania Vasetti show that Balducci was paid for painting the lunette in 1581 and for painting the vault in 1584; records related to Poccetti’s efforts on Capponi’s behalf have not yet surfaced, but like many of the frescoes in the cloister, the lunette was probably finished before 1584. 49 Unfortunately, the frescoes in the southwest corner of the cloister have suffered damage as a result of exposure to the elements. These losses are especially severe at the lower edges of the frescoes, which are less protected from the elements and more susceptible to damage from flooding. Of the two lunettes, the painting by Balducci, an Adoration of the Shepherds that features a shield with the marshaled coats of arms of the Capponi and Vettori families, is in better condition than Poccetti’s fresco, the Mission of the Apostles (Fig. 2.4).50 In addition to the inevitable losses due to exposure to the elements, Poccetti’s lunette was further damaged when a door was cut into the west wall of the cloister, obliterating a sizeable portion of the fresco’s surface. Furthermore, extensive damage at the bottom of the fresco and missing passages at the top of the lunette—losses already remarked upon in the late eighteenth century— make the image difficult to interpret in any meaningful way.51 In what remains, however, it is possible to see Poccetti’s interest in the examples of painters from the early sixteenth century such as Andrea del Sarto (1486–1530) and Raphael 48 For a list of images and a diagram of the cloister, see Spinelli, ‘Chiostro Grande’, 148–49; for a diagram and individual entries on each lunette, see Assmann, Dominikanerheilige, 139–255. 49 Vasetti, ‘Ludovico Capponi’, 53. Recent scholarship dates the bulk of the frescoes in the Chiostro Grande to the years between 1582 and 1584. Assmann, Dominikanerheilige, 20–24; Baldinotti, ‘Affreschi del Chiostro Grande’, 55; Paolozzi Strozzi, ‘Inquietudini’, 67–68n65; Spinelli, ‘Chiostro Grande’, 141; Colucci, ‘Ciclo di affreschi’, 15. 50 The coat-of-arms, which is found on the plinth that supports the column on the left edge of the fresco, closely resembles the marshaled arms of the Capponi and Vettori families that decorate the vault in the Sala Grande at the Palazzo Capponi. For these, see Vasetti, ‘Poccetti’s Frescoes’, 66–71. For the lunettes in the southwest corner of the Chiostro Grande, see Assmann, Dominikanerheilige, 246–49; Paolozzi Strozzi, ‘Inquietudini’, 67–68. 51 In a note appended to a biography of Poccetti published in 1773, the fresco was described as ‘almost entirely lost’ as a result of humidity and modifications to the cloister (‘a cagione d’umidità della muraglia ed altra moderna vicenda è quasi affatto perduta’). Pacini, Serie degli uomini, 7:198n1. The condition of the fresco remains extremely poor, with one scholar recently describing the work as ‘all but lost’ (‘pressoché perduta’). Paolozzi Strozzi, ‘Inquietudini’, 67–68n65. For other recent assessments, see Baldinotti, ‘Affreschi del Chiostro Grande’, 56; Colucci, ‘Ciclo di affreschi’, 15–16.

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Fig. 2.4: Bernardino Poccetti, Mission of the Apostles, c. 1584, fresco. Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Chiostro Grande. Source: author

(1483–1520). Poccetti’s rendering of the crowd of people surrounding Christ recalls similar groupings and configurations in Raphael’s frescoes in the Stanza della Segnatura. In particular, the f igures on the right side of Poccetti’s fresco whose heads are arranged in a variety of attitudes recall Raphael’s figures in the School of Athens who lean around and crane their necks to get glimpses of the activities and arguments of the various learned men in the fresco. The nude figures that flank Poccetti’s lunette have their inspiration in similar representations of putti by Pontormo (1494–1557) and Sarto. It should be noted that it is diff icult to pinpoint an exact source for Poccetti’s motifs. Although he would succumb to the temptation to insert a visual quotation into his works from time to time, the examples in the Mission of the Apostles are not direct copies of individual figures or gestures.52 Instead, they reflect his careful study of these painters and his assimilation of features of their styles into his own visual idiom; Poccetti’s subtle incorporation of what he learned from their works is one of the hallmarks of his religious painting.53 52 According to Voss, even though Poccetti sometimes quoted a specific Raphaelesque motif, his work as a whole was not derivative of Raphael. Voss, Spätrenaissance, 2:363. 53 In his admiration for Andrea del Sarto, Poccetti was not alone among Florentine painters at the end of the Cinquecento, a circumstance that has been previously discussed in the Introduction. For a recent overview of Sarto’s importance to Poccetti’s generation of artists, see Natali, ‘Andrea del Sarto’, 31–38. For a discussion of Sarto’s influence on Poccetti’s frescoes at Santissima Annunziata in Pistoia, see d’Afflitto, ‘Da Firenze’, 68.

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Once Poccetti had demonstrated his ability with the Mission of the Apostles fresco, he was charged with the decoration of the five adjacent lunettes on the west wall of the Chiostro Grande, bringing the total of frescoes that Poccetti painted in the cloister to six, more than any other contributor to the decorative program.54 This prominence is reflected in a brief seventeenth-century description of the cloister that mentions only Poccetti and Santi di Tito, and omits the names of the other contributors to the cycle.55 The five frescoes adjacent to the Mission of the Apostles were not commissioned by Capponi; rather the patrons came from the group of Spaniards in Florence who, thanks to the Spanish heritage of Duchess Eleonora di Toledo (1522–1562), enjoyed greater prominence in Cinquecento Florence and had become significant patrons of Santa Maria Novella.56 This suggests that although Poccetti benefited from Capponi’s sponsorship early on, he must have impressed the Dominican friars and their benefactors sufficiently that they felt secure entrusting these fields to him, which is itself a reflection of their faith in his abilities and their willingness to give him more opportunities based on his performance in the cloister thus far. Furthermore, these lunettes are among the more desirable fields in the space because unlike some others in the cloister they do not contain any architectural apertures. As a result, Poccetti did not have to accommodate the presence of doors or windows in his compositions as did several other painters who worked in the Chiostro Grande. Additionally, Poccetti’s six frescoes are all adjacent to each other. No other painter in the cloister had the advantage of such a grouping, not even Santi di Tito, whose five frescoes are spaced out on the west and north walls.57 Finally, 54 Santi di Tito (1536–1602), Ludovico Buti (1555–1611), Giovanni Balducci (called il Cosci, c. 1560–after 1631), and Cosimo Gamberucci (c. 1560–1621) each painted f ive frescoes; Giovanni Maria Butteri (c. 1540–1606 or 1608) painted four; Benedetto Veli (1564–1639) provided three frescoes; each of the rest of the hands in the cloister, including Ludovico Cigoli (1559–1613), Alessandro Fei (d. 1592), and Cosimo Gheri among others only painted one or two lunettes. Assmann, Dominikanerheilige, 139–255; Spinelli, ‘Chiostro Grande’, 148–49. 55 Bruno, Ristretto, 67. 56 Assmann, Dominikanerheilige, 142–50. The identities of the patrons were first recorded in 1586 by Fra Modesto Biliotti in his description of Santa Maria Novella, Chronica pulcherrimae aedis coenobii S. Mariae cognomento Novellae Florentinae civitatis. This manuscript, held in the Archivio del Convento di Santa Maria Novella di Firenze, was published serially in Analecta sacri ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum 14 (1906): 431–47; 15 (1907): 120–25; 17 (1909): 125–28, 197–200; 23 (1915): 41–57, 116–22, 168–86, 238–51, 308–16, 383–95; 24 (1916): 469–80, 536–48, 623–42, 707–24, 799–816; 26 (1918): 364–76, 430–38. Because of restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic, I was unable to consult this source. The bibliographic information above is found in Spinelli, Ristrutturazione vasariana, 349. The identities of Poccetti’s patrons are also given in Baldinucci’s biography of Poccetti and an eighteenth-century description of the frescoes. Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:244; Fineschi, Forestiero istruito, 63–65. See also Lecchini Giovannoni, ‘Alessandro Pieroni’, 323. 57 Spinelli, ‘Chiostro Grande’, 148–49. A surviving preparatory study for a fresco of the Birth of Saint Dominic by Santi di Tito suggests that there was some flexibility or revision of the scenes assigned to

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Poccetti’s frescoes also inaugurate the sequence that represents the life of Dominic, the saint whose cycle dominates the cloister’s decorative program. Therefore, not only did Poccetti enjoy the privilege of grouping all of his images together in an uninterrupted sequence, but he also had the opportunity to represent pivotal and dramatic moments in Dominic’s early years. In spite of these advantages, it is worth noting that—as is always the case when viewing a monumental decorative program—how a spectator moved through the space and approached the painted scenes was variable, and the lunettes given to Poccetti in the Chiostro Grande were a considerable distance from the entrances to the cloister. In the eighteenth century, for example, Giuseppe Richa began his description of the frescoes at the entrance in the southeast corner and then worked his way around the cloister in a counterclockwise direction. Not only did this require him to recount the events of Dominic’s life in reverse chronological order, but it also meant that he arrived at Poccetti’s images deep into his discussion.58 Similarly, another eighteenth-century commentator, Vincenzio Fineschi, entered the cloister through the door located in the middle of the east wall—which is the public entrance to the space at the time of this writing—and proceeded in a counterclockwise direction.59 The Birth of Saint Dominic Unlike the eighteenth-century accounts, this discussion focuses solely on Poccetti’s paintings in the cloister, and therefore begins with the lunette on the west wall that is located to the right of the Mission of the Apostles. This lunette is the first in the cycle dedicated to the life of Saint Dominic and represents the saint’s birth (Plate 2).60 The fresco has suffered from its exposure to the elements, with the worst losses along the bottom edge and in a horizontal band that unfortunately runs through the middle of the lunette. The missing passages in the center of the lunette have obliterated the heads and facial features of the figures arranged in a frieze-like composition in the lunette’s foreground, and have made it slightly more difficult to read the details in the background of the fresco. As is to be expected at individual painters, since it was Poccetti who ultimately painted Dominic’s birth. On this drawing, Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe degli Uffizi (hereafter GDSU), inv. no. 7669 F, see Lecchini Giovannoni and Collareta, Disegni di Santi di Tito, 44–45; Baldinotti, ‘Santi di Tito’, 80–81. 58 Richa, Notizie, 3:90–93. 59 Fineschi, Forestiero istruito, 50–67. Although she noted that the scenes in the nearby Chiostro Verde at Santa Maria Novella also read in a clockwise direction, Lavin, Place of Narrative, 241 remarked that it was more common for scenes in monastic cloisters to move counterclockwise. The frescoes in the cloister at the Ognissanti, however, begin on the left side of the entrance as one enters and proceed clockwise around the courtyard. For a diagram of the configuration of these paintings, see Paolucci and others, Chiostro di Ognissanti, 38. 60 Assmann, Dominikanerheilige, 142–43; Spinelli, ‘Chiostro Grande’, 150–51.

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Santa Maria Novella, where the friars themselves would have played a significant role in determining the specifics of the iconographic program, the scenes by Poccetti are derived from the many accounts of the events of Dominic’s life and hew closely to the established details of his hagiography, but Poccetti further enlivens his frescoes by drawing on established visual and iconographic traditions and through the inclusion of a wealth of quotidian detail.61 In the Birth of Dominic, for example, Poccetti represented the event within a well-appointed interior that reflects the socio-economic status of the family into which Dominic was born. Early biographers described the saint’s father as an honorable, property-owning man who was respected about town, so Poccetti provided a version of a domestic interior that one might find inside the palazzo of a well-to-do Florentine family.62 In so doing, Poccetti evoked a tradition of luxurious domestic interiors used as settings for the representations of births of important saints and holy figures. Two examples of this iconography that Poccetti must have known are to be found not far from the Chiostro Grande in the Tornabuoni Chapel, frescoed by Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449–1494) and his workshop starting in the middle of the 1480s.63 It seems likely that Poccetti would have drawn inspiration from the images in this famous fresco cycle in the choir of Santa Maria Novella.64 Not only is it just a short walk away from the cloister, but it was also frescoed by the ‘grandfather’ of the man who taught Poccetti how to paint, Michele Tosini.65 A comparison of Poccetti’s fresco with Ghirlandaio’s Birth of the Virgin and the Birth of John the Baptist reveals that in its overall effect, the lunette in the Chiostro Grande does reflect the frescoes in the church’s choir. All three scenes, for example, display interior design features associated with wealthy, elite households.66 Among these are coffered ceilings, classical mouldings, sumptuous textiles, and various other luxury goods including sculpture and maiolica wares (Fig. 2.5). Poccetti would 61 For an overview of the various accounts of Dominic’s life that circulated in the thirteenth century and their varying patterns of adoption and influence, see Tugwell, Humberti de Romanis, 30–51. 62 Vicaire, Histoire, 1:50. 63 A large and complex monument, the Tornabuoni Chapel has attracted much scholarly attention. For a recent description of the chapel and its furnishings, see Martelli, ‘Spettacolo’, 155–205; for a recent and concise summary of the literature, see DePrano, Art Patronage, 112–14. 64 Bailey, ‘Catholic Reform’, 27 remarked on Poccetti’s debt to the works of Ghirlandaio, and noted that the painter would have seen the Sassetti Chapel in Santa Trìnita while he was at work on the Strozzi chapel in that same church. 65 For the familial and artistic lineage of Michele Tosini, see Chapter One. 66 The relative interchangeability of the iconography of these various birth scenes is demonstrated by the compositional similarity between Giovanni Caccini’s (1556–1613) relief of the Birth of the Virgin on the portal of the cathedral in Pisa and Santi di Tito’s earlier study for the Birth of Saint Dominic. Lecchini Giovannoni and Collareta, Disegni di Santi di Tito, 44–45. For the relief by Caccini, see Erffa, ‘Westportale’, 65.

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Fig. 2.5: Domenico Ghirlandaio, Birth of John the Baptist, 1485–1490, fresco. Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Tornabuoni Chapel. Source: Scala / Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali / Art Resource, NY

have also known Andrea del Sarto’s Birth of the Virgin in the Chiostrino dei Voti at the church of Santissima Annunziata, one of two frescoes singled out by Raffaello Borghini in his Il Riposo (1584) as an image that should be imitated by those who wish to become skilled in painting (‘imitate da coloro, che nella pittura vogliono divenir valent’huomini’) (Fig. 2.6).67 Clearly indebted to Ghirlandaio’s examples, Sarto’s fresco depicts Mary’s birth in a luxuriously outfitted domestic space.68 Many of the same markers of status found in the frescoes in the Tornabuoni Chapel are also present in the lunette at Santissima Annunziata. Saint Anne rests on a bed under a large canopy and classical entablature. Spalliere capped by another classical entablature line the back wall of the room. The fireplace is framed by a classical mantelpiece inscribed with the fresco’s date and Sarto’s monogram, while on the mantel shelf itself rests a sculpture of putti with the Medici palle, the symbol of the Servite order, and Sarto’s signature. 67 The other fresco held up as a model by Borghini was the adjacent image in the Chiostrino dei Voti, the Journey of the Magi. Borghini, Riposo, 417–18. On this passage, see Natali, ‘Andrea del Sarto’, 30. 68 For Sarto’s debt to Ghirlandaio, see Natali, Andrea del Sarto, 47, 69, 162.

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Fig. 2.6: Andrea del Sarto, Birth of the Virgin, 1514, fresco. Florence, Santissima Annunziata, Chiostrino de’ Voti. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

Poccetti’s fresco of the Birth of Saint Dominic incorporates many of the same motifs as are found in the images by Ghirlandaio and Sarto. At the back of the room, Dominic’s mother, Jane, rests in the canopied bed where she addresses a few female attendants (losses of the paint in this area have obliterated much of these figures). To the right of the attendants a doorway provides a view into a distant back room where more figures, a stool, and a table are visible. Jane’s bed is covered by a purple classical cornice supported by balusters. A brownish-yellow tapestry decorated with tassels hangs from this cornice, while a sculpture of a putto rests on top of it. Poccetti continued the purple and brownish-yellow color scheme in the revetment panels along the room’s back wall and in the coffered ceiling. A decorative cartouche at the apex of the lunette’s arch provides a brief textual account of the scene represented below. On the left side of the image, Poccetti inserted a wall with a crown moulding to separate the background and foreground of the fresco. There is another classical moulding on this wall that is most likely the top of a doorframe, since it supports a statue above the door in a traditional Florentine installation and it is a bit too high for a mantel shelf. Even so, it still evokes Sarto’s fireplace mantel, especially

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since it also supports a sculpture. In this case, instead of putti, Poccetti painted a statue of a female figure who wears a helmet and stands next to a large shield that rests against her left leg, making the work most likely a representation of Minerva or Wisdom.69 In addition to serving as a signal of the taste and wealth of the household, the sculpture is also a reference to Dominic’s powerful intellect and thirst for knowledge—according to the saint’s early biographers Dominic was so devoted to his studies of theology as a young man that he often went many nights with little sleep.70 Extending from left to right across the foreground of the lunette, a frieze of figures leads to a seated wet nurse cradling the infant Dominic. Poccetti’s arrangement once again recalls the examples by Ghirlandaio and Sarto, where groups of figures process into the picture towards the newborn in a movement that runs parallel to the picture plane. Poccetti’s figures are more animated than Ghirlandaio’s—a reflection of the increased emphasis on elaborate poses and groupings that characterizes Cinquecento painting—and they are much larger in relation to their surroundings than those of Sarto, which has the result of making them appear much closer to the spectator.71 Poccetti exploits this effect by positioning the young boy in the blue shirt and purple breeches closest to the picture plane and using his gestures to guide the viewer’s attention to the infant Dominic, to whom he points with his right hand, while his left hand, cast in shadow, gestures away from the spectator and towards the gap in the frieze of figures that opens the view onto Jane and her attendants. Thus, the young boy acts as visual hinge that connects the two important passages in the fresco. This type of compositional device is common in Poccetti’s paintings, and this is only the first of many examples that will be discussed herein. Finally, a small, light-colored dog holding a lit torch in its mouth flies through the air above the heads of the attendants. Framed against the deep purple of the room’s coffered ceiling, this startlingly supernatural detail is a representation of a vision that Jane had before she conceived Dominic. In this vision, Jane saw a dog born from her womb holding a torch in its mouth that it used to set the whole world ablaze. This apparition prophesied Dominic’s role as the founder of the Order of Preachers, who would, in the words of the thirteenth-century commentator, 69 In his Iconologia, Cesare Ripa (1560–1645) noted the association of Minerva with wisdom and mentioned that when deployed as a personification of wisdom, Minerva is frequently shown with a shield decorated with the head of Medusa and an olive branch. Ripa, Iconologia, 469. Shortly after painting the Birth of Dominic, Poccetti included a more recognizable image of the goddess of wisdom on the ceiling of the Sala Grande in the Palazzo Capponi, where her shield features a representation of the Gorgon’s head. Vasetti, ‘Poccetti’s Frescoes’, 71. 70 Vicaire, Histoire, 1:71–72. 71 Poccetti’s lunette is also closer to the ground than Sarto’s, and the lower viewing angle increases the sense of proximity between the spectator and the figures in the fresco.

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Jean de Mailly, ‘rekindle with the fiery word of his preaching the charity which was growing cold in many people, and chase the wolves away from the flocks with his timely barking’.72 Closer in time and place to Poccetti’s fresco, the vita published by Serafino Razzi in Florence in 1577 also interpreted the canine in the vision as a guard dog that would drive the wolves of heresy from Christ’s flock with his barking and biting (‘col suo abbaiare, e mordere gl’affamati de gl’Heretici, gli scaccerebbe dal gregge di Christo’).73 The dog in the vision—and the image of a faithful canine guardian who protects defenseless sheep in Mailly’s and Razzi’s glosses on it—also evoke a play on words derived from the saint’s name: domini canis. Saint Dominic Distributes the Proceeds from the Sale of His Books The destiny of Saint Dominic hinted at by his mother’s vision of the dog setting the world aflame did not take long to manifest itself. As noted above, Dominic’s devotion to his study of theology kept him awake deep into the night, and his early biographers noted that even as a young boy he craved asceticism, leaving his bed in the night to sleep on the bare floor.74 The next fresco in Poccetti’s sequence is another illustration of Dominic’s devotion to self-sacrifice, in this case done for the benefit of those in need.75 According to the early sources, a catastrophic famine gripped all of Spain while Dominic was studying in Palencia, and the saint, whose compassion was aroused by the suffering of those around him, resolved to sell his belongings to provide food for them (Plate 13).76 His books were some of his most valuable possessions, from both a monetary as well as a spiritual perspective, but Dominic did not hesitate to alienate this property and distribute the proceeds to those who were starving. This fresco is in slightly better condition than the Birth of Saint Dominic. There are lost passages at the bottom of the lunette of the type that are found in almost all of the frescoes in the Chiostro Grande, but the only other damaged areas are confined to the draperies of some of the figures crowding around Dominic, an area to the left of this crowd, and a missing piece of intonaco in the entablature of the structure in the background on the fresco’s left side. In his fresco, Poccetti has set the scene outside in an urban context. Dominic, dressed all in black, stands to the 72 Mailly, ‘Life of St. Dominic’, 53. Jane’s vision of the dog with a flaming torch in its mouth appears in Dominic’s earliest biography: Jordan of Saxony, Saint Dominic, 21. Similar accounts and interpretations of the vision are found in many other sources for Dominic’s life. For more, see Vicaire, Histoire, 1:59–60. 73 Razzi, Vite, 4. 74 Jordan of Saxony, Saint Dominic, 45; Mailly, ‘Life of St. Dominic’, 53; Vicaire, Histoire, 1:61. 75 Assmann, Dominikanerheilige, 144–45; Spinelli, ‘Chiostro Grande’, 150–51. 76 Jordan of Saxony, Saint Dominic, 48–49; Mailly, ‘Life of St. Dominic’, 53; Vicaire, Histoire, 1:76–77.

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right of center in front of a stepped platform.77 Figures crowd around him to receive his charity. Some of these, like the kneeling figure in the lower right corner wearing a red vest and white hat, and the man just to the left of Dominic’s right shoulder dressed in green, clasp their hands together in acts of supplication. Meanwhile, two other figures placed in front of and to the left of Dominic—one kneeling on the steps and the other seated on a block of stone—extend their hands to receive the saint’s charity, which he places directly into the open palm of the man to his right. Another figure near the right edge of the fresco, wearing a purple shirt and partially obscured by the man in the red vest, holds a light green sack in his right hand, a possible allusion to the funds that Dominic raised through the sale of his belongings and a promise of yet more charity to be distributed to the needy crowd. As is typical of his works, Poccetti built his composition out of groups of figures that are positioned in front of an architectural backdrop. On the right side of the fresco appears a large portal capped by a segmental pediment that perforates a facade framed by a large engaged column. In the middle of the lunette, a view into the distance culminates in a circular-plan structure highly evocative of Bramante’s Tempietto, a building Poccetti could have seen during his Roman sojourn.78 On the left side of the fresco, Poccetti’s cityscape provides a view into a merchant’s shop. The shopkeeper sits at a table overseeing his transactions. A box in front of the table is filled with books, marking this as the location where Dominic sold his belongings. Meanwhile, a man carrying a heavy parcel on his right shoulder exits the shop, thereby indicating the shopkeeper’s resale of Dominic’s goods, which are now being carried off by their new owners. Another figure, exiting from the scene on the left side of the fresco carries a heavy basket filled with books from Dominic’s library balanced on his head and supported by his upraised left arm. According to Razzi’s biography of Dominic, the saint sold ‘all of his books, of which there were many’ (‘tutti i suoi libri, che molti erano’), and Poccetti’s inclusion of so many volumes stashed in boxes and crammed into baskets reflects the extensive collection that Dominic sold to help the poor.79 It should be noted that the figure carrying the basket on his head is a direct quotation of a figure painted by Andrea del Sarto in his fresco of the Visitation in the Chiostro dello Scalzo (Fig. 2.7), a fact that has gone unremarked in discussions of Poccetti’s lunette.80 Poccetti joined the confraternity of San Giovanni Battista detta 77 A study of the figure of Dominic and a study of the kneeling figure in the fresco’s lower right corner are on the verso and recto respectively of a sheet in the collection of the GDSU (inv. no. 8366 F). Vitzthum, ‘Handzeichnungen’, 86; Hamilton, Disegni, 26–27. 78 A detail also noted by Assmann, Dominikanerheilige, 144. 79 Razzi, Vite, 4. 80 Voss recognized that the poses of the background figures in the fresco were Sartesque (‘Anklänge an Bewegungsmotive Andrea del Sartos’), but did not cite the specific source from the Visitation. Voss,

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Fig. 2.7: Andrea del Sarto, The Visitation, 1524, fresco. Florence, Chiostro dello Scalzo. Source: Matt Adams, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

dello Scalzo in 1582—right at the moment when he was working on the frescoes in the Chiostro Grande—and he would have had ample opportunity to study the fresco by Sarto in the small courtyard of the company’s oratory.81 In Sarto’s painting, the Spätrenaissance, 2:363. Spinelli singled out the sinuous figures carrying the baskets as a ‘neo-Mannerist’ detail (‘accento neomanierista nelle guizzanti figurine con ceste sulle teste’), but did not connect them to Andrea del Sarto. Spinelli, ‘Chiostro Grande’, 151. Natali, ‘Andrea del Sarto’, 30 remarked on the emphasis Borghini placed on the frescoes at the Scalzo, noting that in so doing, Borghini situated them alongside examples by Giotto and Masaccio. On Sarto’s Visitation at the Chiostro dello Scalzo, as well as a panel of the same composition (the authorship of which is still debated) in the Galleria Spada in Rome, see Natali, Andrea del Sarto, 161–62. Several extant drawings after Sarto’s porter—including one by Baldassare Franceschini il Volterrano (1611–1690)—reveal an enduring interest in this figure on the part of successive generations of artists, including Edouard Manet (1832–1883). For the Volterrano drawing, see https://www. themorgan.org/drawings/item/141736; for the Manet, see Meller, ‘Manet in Italy’, 85; other examples are to be found in Oxford and Brno, for which see Byam Shaw, Drawings, 1:56 and Kusáková-Knozová, Italská renesancnì, 38–39. For a general discussion of other examples drawn from Sarto’s frescoes in the Chiostro dello Scalzo, see O’Brien, ‘Who Holds the Keys’, 216–24. 81 O’Brien, ‘Maestri’, 411. Confraternal membership was one way for young artists to make contacts and garner opportunities for professional advancement, so it is to be expected that Poccetti joined an organization like the Scalzo at the onset of his career. For this practice within the company of San

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man carries a bundle wrapped in fabric on his head that he holds in place with his left arm, while his right arm props a cylindrical bowl with a flared profile against his hip. He is shown climbing up the steps, his left leg bent and placed on the riser in front of him with his right leg trailing behind on the previous step. Poccetti has placed his figure on flat ground but retained the overall configuration by having his porter stride forward with his left leg. The physical exertion of carrying those heavy books seems to be getting to him, however, as he has undone his tunic and shrugged out of its sleeve, which is shown dangling down below his armpit, in order to bare his upper body in an attempt to cool off. Sarto’s figure, in contrast, is shown fully dressed in a long-sleeved tunic. A drawing by Poccetti in the Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe degli Uffizi shows the upper portion of this man from the point where the cast off sleeve hangs down, indicating that Poccetti planned to show the figure like this from the start, and the line at the lower edge of the man’s torso in the drawing marks a division easily seen in the fresco where the white of the sleeve meets the Fig. 2.8: Andrea del Sarto, Young Man color of his exposed flesh (Plate 14).82 It is instructive Taking a Step, with a Basket and Balancing a to compare Sarto’s emphasis on the figure’s clothing in Sack on his Head. Verso: An Additional Study his preparatory study held at the Morgan Library and of the Same Figure, before 1524, black and red chalk. New York, The Morgan Library Museum, where the verso of the sheet includes a detailed & Museum. Source: The Morgan Library & treatment of the rippling folds of the sleeve that clothes Museum, New York the upraised arm (Fig. 2.8).83 Poccetti, on the other hand, used the pretense of the porter’s physical exertion to indulge an opportunity to paint the musculature of the bare arm. There are other interesting distinctions between the two figures. Poccetti changed the object that the man supports on his head from a large bundle to a basket. In doing so, Poccetti was able to show the Giovanni Battista specifically, see O’Brien, ‘Maestri’, 375–77; Dow, Apostolic Iconography, 90–93. For a discussion of how the confraternity dealt with outsiders’ demands for access to the frescoes in its cloister and how greater access to the frescoes was an additional benefit of membership for artists, see O’Brien, ‘Who Holds the Keys’, 230–37, 243. 82 GDSU, inv. no. 8576 F. Neither Vitzthum, Hamilton, Assmann, nor Spinelli mention this drawing in their discussions of Poccetti’s frescoes at the Chiostro Grande. Vitzthum, ‘Handzeichnungen’, 86; Hamilton, Disegni, 25–29; Assmann, Dominikanerheilige, 146; Spinelli, ‘Chiostro Grande’, 151. 83 For these drawings, inv. nos. I, 30 (recto) and IV, 14 (verso), see https://www.themorgan.org/drawings/ item/142665; Eitel-Porter and Marciari, Italian Renaissance Drawings, 151–54.

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basket practically overflowing with Dominic’s books, thereby drawing attention to the saint’s selfless donation of these precious items—an additional narrative detail that would have been lacking had the man been shown carrying a generic package.84 Finally, Poccetti gave the basket a flared profile that closely resembles the bowl carried by Sarto’s figure in his right hand. In the drawing, the flared profile of the basket is not as pronounced as it is in the painted version, suggesting that Poccetti accentuated the form to bring it closer to the shape of the bowl in Sarto’s Visitation, thereby making a subtle nod to his source material. Saint Dominic Converts the Heretical Noblewomen The final three scenes frescoed by Poccetti for the cycle that represents the life of Saint Dominic address the role he played in combating the Albigensian heresy.85 The first of these shows an event that was recounted as a testimonial at his canonization process.86 Afterwards, it was included in the biography of Dominic compiled at the end of the thirteenth century by Dietrich von Apolda, then it subsequently appeared in the vita in the Golden Legend, and was also included in the biography published by Razzi in Florence in 1577.87 According to the story, Dominic was living at the time in the town of Fanjeaux, southeast of Toulouse. He had just delivered a sermon demonstrating the perfidy of the heretics and remained in the church afterwards to pray, as was his custom. While in the church, Dominic was approached by nine noblewomen who threw themselves at his feet and upon his mercy, exclaiming that if what he preached in his sermon was true, then they had been blinded by those that they called ‘good men’ (‘nous les appelons bons hommes’), using the term that the Albigensians did to describe themselves.88 Not knowing whom to believe, they begged Dominic for mercy and asked him to pray on their behalf so that they might receive a sign from God that would direct them down the right path. Dominic paused for a moment and prayed to himself before telling the women to have patience. He assured them that God would show them which was the true faith. As it turned out, the noblewomen did not have to wait long for their divine message, for as soon 84 In the preparatory drawing there is no indication of what the basket contains beyond the protrusion of a single rectangular object. 85 For an overview of the Albigensian crusade, see Pegg, Holy War. 86 Vicaire, Histoire, 1:249–50. For the original account provided in support of Dominic’s canonization, see Walz, ‘Acta Canonizationis’, 186. 87 Thierry, Dominique, 66–68; Jacobus, Golden Legend, 2:51–52; Razzi, Vite, 7. This episode is also recounted by Humbert of Romans. Assmann, Dominikanerheilige, 146. For a discussion of Dietrich’s life of Dominic, see Vicaire, Histoire, 1:55–57. 88 Thierry, Dominique, 67. For a discussion of the contemporary use of the term ‘good men’ to describe those with heretical beliefs in twelfth- and thirteenth-century France, see Pegg, Holy War, 26–27.

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as Dominic stopped speaking, a huge black cat suddenly appeared in their midst. This cat was as big as a dog and had huge glowing eyes, a long and bloody tongue that hung down to the middle of his body, and a short, straight tail. It was a hideous sight from every vantage point and gave off suffocating odors. After turning this way and that and fouling the area with its presence, it climbed up the bellrope and disappeared. Dominic turned to the women, who had been frightened and horrified by the apparition, and reassured them, explaining that God had revealed to them who they follow when they believe the heretics. The grateful women immediately renounced their beliefs and converted to Catholicism; some even took the habit at the nearby monastery of Prouilhe.89 In the fresco Dominic is shown standing in the church surrounded by the nine noblewomen, six of whom are on the right side of the fresco while the remaining three are on the left side (Plate 15).90 As he did in the fresco of Dominic selling his books, Poccetti used kneeling foreground figures with their backs partially turned toward the spectator to provide visual entry points into the composition and to open up views of figures placed deeper in the space of the painting. This technique allowed Poccetti to position six of the noblewomen on the fresco’s right side, where they are stacked in three rising tiers of two figures each. It is the kneeling group of two in the foreground, however, who most forcefully direct their—and consequently, the spectator’s—attention to Dominic. In the group on the left side there is another kneeling figure who looks not in the direction of the saint, but towards the diabolical cat, thereby focusing attention on the other important element of the narrative. Surviving preparatory studies reveal the extent to which Poccetti reworked the figures on the right side of the image as he continued to refine the compositional structure of the fresco. In a round-headed drawing of the entire composition now in the Rijksmuseum, the four heretical women behind the two kneeling women form a more self-contained group (Fig. 2.9).91 In the drawing, these four are arranged in a circle as though conferring with each other, whereas in the fresco Poccetti has broken up the circle to arrange them in tiers. The two women in the middle tier emphatically draw the spectator’s attention to Dominic. The woman on the left looks at the saint and appears to engage his gaze directly (even if she does so with a 89 Thierry, Dominique, 67–68. The accounts in the Golden Legend and in Razzi’s biography are less precise than Dietrich’s version, leaving out many details related to the Albigensian heresy, but lingering over the repulsive and demonic aspects of the enormous cat. Jacobus, Golden Legend, 2:51–52; Razzi, Vite, 7. One scholar has suggested that Jacobus treated Dominic’s efforts to counter the Albigensians carefully in his biography because he knew that their heretical practices had not been completely eradicated. Epstein, Jacopo da Voragine, 143. 90 Assmann, Dominikanerheilige, 146–47; Spinelli, ‘Chiostro Grande’, 150. 91 For this drawing (inv. no. RP-T-1957-231), see Frerichs, Italiaanse tekeningen II, 59; http://hdl.handle. net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.49831.

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Fig. 2.9: Bernardino Poccetti, preparatory design for Saint Dominic Converts the Heretical Noblewomen, c. 1584, pen and brush in brown ink over black chalk. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum (inv. no. RP-T-1957-231). Source: Rijksmuseum (CC0 1.0)

demurely bowed head), while the one on the right looks out of the picture and points to Dominic with her left hand. A large cartoon in the Uffizi clearly documents this modification of the original design (Fig. 2.10).92 Another large study for the group of women on the left side of the lunette does not reveal substantial changes to the fresco’s composition, but does shed light on Poccetti’s further refinement of the painting’s details, including drapery and hairstyles (Fig. 2.11).93 This is especially true of the woman with the two long braids, whose hair in the Rijksmuseum drawing is pulled back in a nondescript manner, whereas in the Uffizi cartoon Poccetti has included the elaborate hairstyle. Dominic is positioned just to the right of center in a gap that appears between the two groups of heretical women. He holds a book in his left hand and looks to his left at the noblewomen, while he gestures towards the diabolical creature climbing up the bellrope. Unfortunately, this section of the fresco has been damaged and it is 92 GDSU, inv. no. 1788 E. Hamilton, Disegni, 28. 93 GDSU, inv. no. 1789 E. Hamilton, Disegni, 27.

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Fig. 2.10: Bernardino Poccetti, preparatory design for Saint Dominic Converts the Heretical Noblewomen, c. 1584, black chalk and white heightening on brown paper. Florence, GDSU (inv. no. 1788 E). Source: Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabinetto Fotografico

Fig. 2.11: Bernardino Poccetti, preparatory design for Saint Dominic Converts the Heretical Noblewomen, c. 1584, black chalk and white heightening. Florence, GDSU (inv. no. 1789 E). Source: Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabinetto Fotografico

difficult to make out details of the creature, but the parts of it that remain legible do not appear especially feline—and in particular the peculiar way it has raised its left leg (arm?) to climb the rope. The cat is only roughly sketched in and barely legible in the Rijksmuseum study, so it provides little additional detail. Fortunately, a drawing done by Sante Pacini (1735–c. 1790) in the eighteenth century provides a bit more information, showing the upraised arm and long dangling tongue of the creature (Fig. 2.12).94 The plaster where the demonic creature’s face was located is especially damaged. It is tempting to think that it was done intentionally by the faithful in an act of apotropaic iconoclasm, but the cat’s location in the upper part of the lunette would have made it difficult to reach, and the overall poor condition of the frescoes in the Chiostro Grande makes it likely that the losses occurred naturally.95 94 Louvre, inv. no. 1485 recto. https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl020002126; Monbeig-Goguel, Dessins toscans, 2:330. On Sante Pacini and the tradition of copying works of art in eighteenth-century Florence, see Monbeig-Goguel, ‘Sante Pacini’, 63–74. 95 It seems that the poor condition of the fresco led Hamilton to overlook the diabolical creature altogether and to remark that Dominic ‘gestures towards the open church door to his right’. Hamilton, ‘Poccetti’s Style’, 44.

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Fig. 2.12: Sante Pacini, Saint Dominic Converts the Heretical Women (after Bernardino Poccetti), before 1793, black chalk. Paris, Louvre (inv. no. 1485 recto). Source: © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY

The scene takes place in a vast interior space. According to Dietrich, Dominic was in a church when the noblewomen approached him. The proportions of the architectural setting in the fresco suggest that Dominic and the women are shown inside a church, and Poccetti’s architectural details allow for a positive identification of this space as the western arm of the transept of Santa Maria Novella (Fig. 2.13).96 The corner pier at the left side of the fresco, for example, is made of a greyish-brown stone that closely resembles pietra forte, the ubiquitous brown sandstone that was used in most of Florence’s landmarks and that was also used for many of the piers, pilasters, and mouldings in the basilica and which is found on this corner in

96 Spinelli, ‘Chiostro Grande’, 150.

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the church.97 The fresco also faithfully records the cream-colored plaster on the basilica’s walls. The arch above the door just to the left of the diabolical creature is still visible in the church today, and although the portal itself was modified in the Seicento, this doorway is clearly recognizable as the entrance to the sacristy.98 On the adjacent wall, the clock and the fresco in Poccetti’s painting are still found in that same location, while his rendering of the piers that support the arch over the entrance to the Strozzi Chapel is virtually identical to the actual Fig. 2.13: Santa Maria Novella, view of west transept, basilica piers. The arch that springs from these begun 1279. Florence. Source: author piers is decorated with alternating bands of black and white in the fresco, yet another specific reference to a decorative detail prominent throughout the basilica, even if that arch is no longer adorned in this way. Even the distant view into the dim recesses of the Strozzi Chapel turns out to be a portrait of that space, with the tall stained-glass lancet window visible above the gilt gables and pinnacles of the Strozzi Altarpiece by Orcagna (Andrea di Cione, c. 1315–1368).99 The preparatory drawing in Amsterdam attests to Poccetti’s desire to locate the image of Dominic converting the heretical women in a recognizable Santa Maria Novella, since many of the basilica’s identifying features—the door on the left and the Strozzzi Chapel in the background, for example—are already present in the design. Saint Dominic’s Text Survives a Trial by Fire The next scene in the life of Dominic also depicts an event from the time he spent preaching to and challenging the beliefs of the Albigensian heretics. This episode is recounted by many of the early commentators, including Jordan of Saxony, Humbert of Romans, Dietrich von Apolda, and Jacobus de Voragine, and it also

97 For a discussion of the principal features of the most widely used building stones in Renaissance Florence, see Wallace, Michelangelo, 147–48. 98 Acidini Luchinat, ‘Tre madrigali’, 342n9. On the renovation of this part of the basilica in the seventeenth century, see Spinelli, Fabrizio Boschi, 56–58, 140–43. 99 For recent discussions of the Strozzi Chapel, see Cannon, Religious Poverty, 328–34; Ravalli, ‘Orcagna’, 158–85.

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appears in Razzi’s life of Dominic that was published in Florence in 1577.100 The story has several discrete episodes, and these had a tendency to be elided and condensed in the textual accounts, which were then subject to further conflation in Poccetti’s fresco. The story begins with Dominic and Diego, the Bishop of Osma, battling heresy through preaching and public disputations with the followers of heterodoxy. In addition to the brief reports in the vite mentioned above, accounts written in the thirteenth-century chronicles of Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay and William of Puylaurens provide the necessary background information for Poccetti’s fresco.101 In this instance, the Bishop of Osma faced off against Arnold Oth, a deacon who attacked the rituals of the Roman Church, calling them ‘neither holy nor virtuous nor founded by the Lord Jesus Christ’.102 The Bishop of Osma’s rebuttal sidestepped the question of ritual and mounted a challenge to the heretical beliefs of his opponents, especially in terms of the nature of God and their ideas regarding sin and salvation. As the interlocutors and their judges struggled to determine whose argument should carry the day, a decision was made to write down the public disputations so that the judges could consult them at their leisure. Dominic was charged with the task of preparing some of these documents and sent his transcription to the Albigensians as part of the exchange of texts that facilitated the continuance of the debate in written form. According to this more detailed retelling, the heretics contemplated Dominic’s manuscript, passing it around among themselves as they sat in front of a f ire in the evening. One of them suggested that they could test the veracity of its argument by tossing it into the fire. If it burned, it was false doctrine, but if it survived then it must be true. And so the text was thrown into the flames, where it remained for a while before emerging undamaged. Although the text had passed a test of their own devising, the heretics remained skeptical. They tossed it back into the fire a second time. Same result. A third time, and again the text emerged pristine. For their part, the Albigensians remained unmoved by what they had witnessed and vowed not to speak of it to anyone. Fortunately, a soldier who was with them spread the news of what he had seen. Understandably, Poccetti’s fresco conflates these events into a single scene that shows the large crowds who have gathered to witness the public debate, as 100 Jordan of Saxony, Saint Dominic, 65–66; Thierry, Dominique, 48; Jacobus, Golden Legend, 2:45; Razzi, Vite, 5. 101 This summary of the chroniclers’ accounts is derived from Vicaire, Histoire, 1:215–18. For Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay’s account, see Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay, History, 29–30. For William of Puylaurens’s less detailed version, see William of Puylaurens, Chronicle, 23–27. For a discussion of the various iterations of this story and their discrepancies, see Vicaire, Histoire, 1:216nn55, 57. On how Humbert of Romans came to know the events recounted by Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay, see Tugwell, Humberti de Romanis, 73–75. 102 William of Puylaurens, Chronicle, 26.

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well as the text’s miraculous survival of the trial by fire (Plate 3).103 This fresco has suffered serious losses in the lower third of the lunette, making significant passages—especially those in the lower left corner—almost completely illegible. The group of bystanders on the right side of the fresco has fared slightly better, while the main protagonists in the middle ground and the architecture in the background remain in reasonable condition. Once again, Poccetti’s composition is formed by figural groupings that have little meaningful interaction with the architecture, which stands as a scenographic backdrop behind the stage-like space where the action plays out. Poccetti has also relied on figures positioned close to the picture plane to frame the scene and to guide the spectator’s attention to the miraculous survival of the text, which is witnessed by a multitude of figures. Unfortunately, the damaged lower portion of the fresco makes it difficult to determine exactly how these figures are positioned within the pictorial space. The figure on the right side appears to be striding into the scene with a book under his arm, thereby connecting the space of the spectator with the space beyond the picture plane, but the damaged lower portion of this figure makes it impossible to be certain.104 Poccetti’s preparatory drawing for this figure only renders his upper body and thus provides no further evidence of how the figure interacted with the lower edge of the lunette.105 This figure’s brightly colored garments—a green and yellow cangiante sleeve, a red tunic, and a purple mantle—create a striking point of visual interest and demonstrate how Poccetti has skillfully assimilated the examples to be found in similar treatments by Andrea del Sarto. The drapery on the apostle seated at the far right in Sarto’s Last Supper at San Salvi, for example, not only has a green and pink cangiante shawl draped across his back, but also wears a red tunic and a purple mantle, creating a nearly identical sequence of color combinations as in Poccetti’s figure.106 Even with the extensive damage to this lunette, extant passages reveal Poccetti’s ability to use recurring color combinations to unite his compositions and focus the attention of the spectator. The garments of the crowd on the right side of the fresco, for example, repeat the green, red, and purple in the foreground figure and create a visual rhythm that leads the eye deeper into the crowd and pictorial space. Furthermore, this group creates the shape of an inverted right triangle on 103 Assmann, Dominikanerheilige, 148–49; Spinelli, ‘Chiostro Grande’, 151. 104 Like many other sixteenth-century painters, Poccetti exploited opportunities to blur the distinction between painted and actual space. Dow, Apostolic Iconography, 122–26. 105 Hamilton, Disegni, 29. 106 After concluding a detailed treatment of the failure of late sixteenth-century Florentine painters to use color effectively—he called it their greatest weakness (‘die schwächste Seite der Florentiner Malerei’)—Voss singled out Poccetti as an exception who was able to recreate the glowing coloristic effects of the early Cinquecento through his study of Roman masters and Andrea del Sarto. Voss, Spätrenaissance, 2:302–3.

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the picture’s surface, and has the effect of pointing like an arrow at Dominic, who stands on the other side of the fire. This effect is reinforced by the positioning of the heads and gazes of the crowd of figures. Closest to the right edge of the fresco, these point to the left, in the direction of the saint, but as the triangle reaches its point, more figures cast their gazes downwards, towards the fire. This culminates in the two figures who are closest to the triangle’s point and most likely represent Dominic’s heretical opponents. They look down at the book that has jumped out of the fire, focusing their—and our—attention on the miracle. Although the damaged surface makes it difficult to know for sure, what survives of the crowd on the left side of the fresco has a more subdued color palette. It is instructive to compare the seated figure just below and to the left of the fire with the figure at the lower right corner carrying the book. The seated figure’s drapery has no cangiante elements, and consists of yellow, white, red, and olive-green garments, a conservative range of hues that is carried through the crowd on the left (barring the small exception of the figure in red, green, and yellow to the left of the bishops). Finally, Poccetti’s careful use of color culminates in the black and white robes of Dominic and his companion. Their ascetic garments stand in strong contrast to the garish costumes of the heretics, further underscoring the distinction between those who represent the true faith and those who refuse to believe. In the open space between these crowds (and where the vanishing point for the architectural background’s perspective construction is located), Poccetti painted the miraculous escape of Dominic’s text from the fire. The book is shown open, floating in the air above the flames, with legible text written on its pages. According to the most detailed accounts of the disputation, Bishop Diego and his fellow churchmen were not able to use any passages from the Old Testament as they built their argument because the Albigensians did not recognize the authority of that text. Although it is true that this is a detail frequently omitted in the various retellings of the story, it is worth noting that the text on the miraculously preserved book is in fact from the Old Testament, and thus can be seen as either an intentional rejection of the source material, or, if done in ignorance of the source material, it remains at least a purposive reference to this specific passage from the Old Testament. In either case, it warrants scrutiny, and upon closer inspection it becomes clear that the passage—‘Qui vivit aeternum creavit omnia simul’ (‘He that liveth forever created all things together’)—is Ecclesiasticus 18:1, which is to say a verse not only from the Old Testament, but also from one of the apocryphal texts that had been rejected by Protestant reformers in the sixteenth century. Ecclesiasticus, however, along with the other deuterocanonical books, was affirmed and included in the Catholic Bible in one of the very first acts of the Council of Trent in April of 1546.107 107 O’Malley, Trent, 89–92. For the decree, see Tanner, Decrees, 2:663–64.

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This detail puts a precise gloss on the legend of the miracle that makes it relevant to the late Cinquecento, a time when the Roman Church was actively battling Protestants for the hearts and minds of Christian Europe. By showing that the text that emerged unscathed from the fire was not a text written by Dominic in refutation of Albigensian heresy, but instead a text from the Bible that Protestants had doubted and rejected, Poccetti’s fresco affirmed the decree of the Council of Trent that the deuterocanonical books were scripture. John O’Malley has remarked that although the prelates at the council had taken a more nuanced approach to the question of the Apocrypha, ‘the decree reads like an unqualified affirmation of the wide canon’, with the result that the canon became a ‘mark of their [Catholics’] identity, to be defended in its integrity against all comers’.108 The fresco, then, should be seen as an expression of this defense of the canon. By showing an apocryphal text safe from the fire, Poccetti’s image suggests that sacred and divinely sanctioned books like Ecclesiasticus enjoy miraculous protection from harm. By extension, the fresco also implies that Protestant efforts to discount or diminish these sacred texts will be as fruitless as were the heretics’ attempts to burn Dominic’s argument. Saint Dominic Preaches a Crusade Poccetti’s f inal contribution to the fresco cycle at the Chiostro Grande also brings to a close the sequence of lunettes that represents Dominic’s efforts to combat the Albigensian heresy. This fresco, which shows Dominic delivering a sermon exhorting the faithful to take up armed conflict against the heretics, is rarely seen in representations of Dominic’s life, and only appears in a few of the biographies of the saint (Fig. 2.14).109 Like the rest of Poccetti’s efforts in the cloister, this fresco is in poor physical condition, with complete losses of the painted surface along the bottom of the lunette and damaged passages in the crowd of onlookers. The damage to the intonaco also makes it diff icult to discern Dominic’s facial features and renders impossible the identif ication of the sculpture in the niche adjacent to the saint’s pulpit, a loss to be lamented, since the sculpture is surely an iconographic motif that augmented the meaning of the fresco. Poccetti has followed his usual strategy of placing a large and lively group of figures in a frieze-like pattern that occupies the lower half of the lunette and extends 108 O’Malley, Trent, 92. 109 Assmann, Dominikanerheilige, 150. The account of Dominic preaching the crusade against the heretics appears in the Legenda maior of Humbert of Romans, who relied on the previous account written by Petrus Ferrandus. For the passage, see Tugwell, Humberti de Romanis, 467; Tugwell, Petri Ferrandi, 296–99.

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Fig. 2.14: Bernardino Poccetti, Saint Dominic Preaches a Crusade, c. 1584, fresco. Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Chiostro Grande. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

across the width of the fresco. The assembled crowd is clothed in a wide range of styles and colors, and Poccetti has revealed their interactions with each other and their reactions to Dominic’s preaching through their gazes, body positioning, and gestures. Dominic appears standing in a pulpit affixed to a projecting corner where two interior walls meet. The elevated platform makes him visible above the crowd who have gathered to listen to him speak. The interior space resembles the crossing of a basilica, with a view into the far distance that resembles the view down a church transept. The grey-brown walls are articulated with Corinthinan pilasters and classical mouldings. The door surrounds, painted to resemble pietra serena, also have classical details, with cornices and overdoor panels framed by

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volutes. At the apex of the lunette, two putti support a tablet with a severely effaced inscription.110 It is unlikely that Poccetti had ever seen a specific rendering of this infrequently represented scene from Dominic’s life, but a more general example of Dominicans preaching to crowds can be found only a short distance from the Chiostro Grande in the convent’s chapter house, which is accessed through a portal in the north arm of the Chiostro Verde. Known variously as the Guidalotti Chapel or as the Spanish Chapel, this structure was built by Fra Jacopo Talenti (c. 1300–1362) with funds that had been earmarked for the project in the will of the Florentine merchant, Buonamico di Lapo Guidalotti, who was buried in a tomb positioned just inside the entrance to the chapel.111 The vast mural expanses inside the chapter house are decorated with frescoes painted by Andrea da Firenze (Bonaiuti, active 1343–1377) in the last half of the 1360s, with scenes from the life of Christ on the north wall and in the vault, while the remaining three walls present images of three major figures of the Order of Preachers: Saints Dominic, Thomas Aquinas, and Peter Martyr.112 There is no representation of Dominic preaching a crusade in the Guidalotti Chapel, but there are discrete passages within these paintings that offered Poccetti examples of how Dominicans addressed crowds and confronted heretics. Bernardino did not directly reference these images through obvious formal or compositional quotations, but—as will be discussed below—the thematic similarity between his lunette in the Chiostro Grande and the scenes in the Guidalotti Chapel would not have been lost on him or his patrons. Modern scholarship has identified the scenes on the south wall of the Guidalotti Chapel as images of the life of Saint Peter Martyr, but they have not always been understood as such. Vasari, who misattributed the frescoes to Simone Martini (c. 1284–1344), described them as images from the life of Saint Dominic, and over time they received alternate interpretations (i.e., that they include representations of both Dominic and Peter Martyr).113 By the early twentieth century, however, historical opinions began to coalesce around the idea that they represent the life of Peter Martyr exclusively.114 The confusion surrounding the identification of the scenes on the south wall of the Guidalotti Chapel suggests that Poccetti would 110 Assmann, Dominikanerheilige, 150 suggested that the text was probably added later. 111 The Guidalotti Chapel has attracted considerable scholarly attention. For a recent discussion and overview of the literature, see Cannon, Religious Poverty, 188–96; Ravalli, ‘Orcagna’, 208–29. For transcriptions of Guidalotti’s testament and the inscription on his tomb slab, see Offner and Steinweg, Corpus, 76–77. 112 Offner and Steinweg, Corpus, 18. 113 Vasari-Milanesi, 1:550. 114 Offner and Steinweg, Corpus, 51n1. For a careful reconstruction of the frescoes of Peter Martyr and a concise interpretation of the chapel’s decorative scheme, see Montgomery, ‘Cavaliere di Cristo’, 1–28.

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Fig. 2.15: Andrea Bonaiuti, Saint Peter Martyr Preaching, 1365–1366, fresco. Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Guidalotti Chapel. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

have seen Bonaiuti’s fresco of Peter Martyr addressing a crowd from an elevated platform as a suitable model for his painting of Dominic preaching to a large group of people (Fig. 2.15). Scott Montgomery has linked this scene to a story from Peter Martyr’s biography of the miraculous appearance of clouds in a clear sky to provide shade for a crowd who had assembled to hear the saint debate a heretic in Milan.115 Unfortunately, portions of Bonaiuti’s fresco were lost when a tribune was installed above the chapel’s entrance at some point in the sixteenth century.116 It is not clear if Poccetti saw the fresco before it was substantially altered by this intervention, but in any case his lunette in the Chiostro Grande does not quote specific elements in the Guidalotti Chapel as much as it relies upon and echoes the iconographic themes present in Bonaiuti’s frescoes. For example, the image of Peter Martyr debating the heretic situates him in an elevated pulpit looking down upon a crowd of engaged and energetic onlookers, just as Dominic does in Poccetti’s fresco. This is a common visual solution to this type of representation, to be sure, but within the context of the Dominican convent of Santa Maria Novella, an attentive spectator would have understood that Poccetti’s lunette evokes not only the long tradition 115 Montgomery, ‘Cavaliere di Cristo’, 15–16. 116 Ravalli, ‘Orcagna’, 220 remarked that the tribune was inserted into the chapel in the sixteenth century, but provided no more specific date. Offner and Steinweg, Corpus, 79 noted that the chapel underwent a program of renovation and restoration that was complete by 1592. Presumably the tribune would have been installed before the completion of this work. Montgomery, ‘Cavaliere di Cristo’, 2n4 suggested that the tribune was installed soon after the Chapel became the property of the Spanish colony in 1566, but provides no specific date.

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of public address on the part of the Order of Preachers, but also specifically refers to representations of that tradition within the convent, and in particular to those found in the Guidalotti Chapel. Who might such a thoughtful onlooker have been at the end of the Cinquecento? Without a doubt, the Dominicans themselves, who would have been attuned to the various ways their traditions and history had been represented in the convent, but it is also likely that Poccetti’s patron—a man whose name has been variously reported as Suarez or Alvarez—would have recognized the thematic congruities between the frescoes.117 Although his precise identity has yet to be pinned down, this man was most likely Antonio Suarez della Conca, a prominent merchant and part of the community of Spaniards in sixteenth-century Florence. This group, which initially had the Duchess Eleonora di Toledo as its cynosure, had grown in importance over the course of the Cinquecento, and petitioned for the right to convert the Guidalotti chapel to their use in 1566.118 Upon being granted access to the chapter house, the Spanish colony changed the dedication of the chapel to Saint James of Compostela and renovated and modified the space.119 In addition to redecorating the area around the altar with updated and iconographically relevant scenes by Alessandro Allori and his workshop, the new patrons also installed tombs in the chapter house.120 This group also took on a larger role as patrons within the convent of Santa Maria Novella, and (as was mentioned briefly above) all of the images of Dominic’s life that Poccetti painted in the Chiostro Grande were commissioned by the so-called Spanish Nation or its members.121 One of these men, Pietro Montorio, who underwrote the costs of painting Saint Dominic Converts the Heretical Noblewomen, was buried in the Guidalotti Chapel in 1584, where an imposing slab inscribed with his name still marks the site of his tomb today.122 Another tomb marker from the sixteenth century, this one located behind 117 Assmann, Dominikanerheilige, 150. 118 Lunardi, Arte e storia, 79. 119 Offner and Steinweg, Corpus, 22n1. Already by 1570, and probably at some point between 1564 and 1567, members of the Spanish community had purchased religious furnishings (choir stalls, marble decorations, small altars) that had recently been removed from the basilica and installed them in the Guidalotti Chapel. Lunardi, Arte e storia, 79; Lecchini Giovannoni, ‘Alessandro Pieroni’, 322. 120 Although Poccetti was traditionally associated with some of the frescoes commissioned upon the renovation of the chapel, recent scholarship has cast doubt on those attributions, suggesting instead that the frescoes were painted by a member of Allori’s workshop, perhaps Alessandro Pieroni. Lecchini Giovannoni, ‘Alessandro Pieroni’, 323–25; Bastogi, ‘Alessandro Pieroni’, 41–45; Spinelli, ‘Alessandro Allori’, 130. 121 Assmann, Dominikanerheilige, 142–51; Spinelli, ‘Chiostro Grande’, 151. 122 The tomb of Pietro Montorio as well as others belonging to members of the Spanish Nation are described on pages 824 and 825 in the sepoltuario written by Stefano di Francesco Rosselli in 1617. This manuscript is still in the possession of Rosselli’s heirs, but has been made available as a digital facsimile on DVD published with Di Stasi, Stefano di Francesco Rosselli.

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the altar and decorated only with conch shells, was believed to mark the burial site of Suarez della Conca. This slab was replaced in the eighteenth century by later descendants of the family.123 It seems likely that the patrons of Poccetti’s frescoes, who were renovating and occupying the Guidalotti Chapel—as well as outf itting it as a burial site—at the same time that they were commissioning paintings for the cloister, would have been attuned to how Bernardino’s image of Dominic preaching the crusade was an updated and contemporary version of the images in the chapter house. For example, in Bonaiuti’s fresco on the east wall of the Guidalotti Chapel (commonly known as The Way of Salvation), Dominic is shown urging a pack of black and white domini canes to attack the wolves of heresy, a metaphorical representation of the saint’s sermons to his followers and the active role that the Dominicans took to root out heterodoxy. Poccetti’s image, with Dominic exhorting the faithful to rise up against heretics, stands as a literal version of Bonaiuti’s symbolic rendering. Poccetti’s fresco also places the historical episode of Dominic preaching a crusade firmly within the sixteenth century by clothing the saint’s audience in the latest Florentine fashions. This attention to sartorial detail in the painting was noted early on, with Fineschi remarking in 1790 that it shows ‘figures dressed in the Spanish style, as one used to do back then’ (‘le figure vestite alla Spagnuola, come l’uso allora portava’).124 For Fineschi, the ‘Spanish style’ is synonymous with Cinquecento Florence because changes in Florentine fashion were considered at the time to be due to the influence of Eleonora di Toledo and the large contingent of Spaniards in the city. Historians of costume have noted that in some cases the styles that the Florentines designated as ‘Spanish’ were not actually so, but they still presented as a novel mode of dress that was perceived as foreign.125 It is impossible to know exactly which garments Fineschi found to be reflective of the Spanish influence on Florentine fashion of the Cinquecento, but there are some figures in the fresco whose dress does seem especially of the moment. In particular, the four men located between the open door in the distance and the darkened door at the right edge of the lunette wear articles of clothing that conform to sixteenth-century 123 The replacement of the slab, which took place in 1734, was reported by Mecatti in 1737, suggesting that his description of the original slab, which had no inscription and was decorated with five conch shells (‘nella quale senza iscrizione alcuna erano impresse cinque conchiglie’), is accurate. Mecatti, Notizie istoriche, 28. 124 Fineschi, Forestiero istruito, 63. 125 Orsi Landini, ‘Stile di Eleonora’, 34–35. Elizabeth Currie has suggested that when contemporaries used terms like Spanish, French, Roman, Hungarian, etc. to describe modes of dress, they ‘rarely give any form of stylistic indications, presumably because they were self-explanatory to a contemporary audience’. Currie, ‘Clothing’, 33. See also Cox-Rearick, ‘Power-Dressing’, 51.

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fashion trends: berets decorated with ostrich feathers, slashed sleeves that reveal an undergarment of contrasting fabric, high collars decorated with ruffs that are echoed by protruding cuffs.126 Two of these men also carry arms. Poccetti’s treatment of the dress of some of the female figures also reflects current styles. The woman just to the left of the seated man in red with the slashed sleeves has her light purple skirt gathered up and pinned near her hip, revealing a red petticoat beneath, a style of dress that persisted into the 1590s.127 An extant and detailed preparatory drawing for this fresco in Weimar reveals that these contemporary sartorial details were added at a later stage of the painting’s development, since they do not appear in the drawing, which has been squared for transfer.128 Furthermore, there is a carefully rendered study in the Uffizi for the man dressed in light blue that not only includes the positioning of his hands—one of which is shown with his thumb hooked in his belt—but also a treatment of his garments that varies only slightly from the final painted version (Fig. 2.16).129 Yet another drawing by Poccetti is also related to his rendering of garments worn by the crowd of onlookers. This one is a study for the woman whose light purple skirt is gathered at her hip to reveal her red petticoat (Fig. 2.17). Interestingly, the drawing is only of the woman’s upper body, and appears to be a study designed to resolve the positioning of her head, which is turned toward the spectator as she glances over her shoulder, and the elaborate conf iguration of her overgown, which has its two hanging sleeves gathered together at the back.130 This was a fashionable way to wear this type of garment, known as a

126 Cox-Rearick, ‘Power-Dressing’, 52 associated short jackets, berets decorated with feathers, and slashed sleeves with dressing ‘alla spagnola’, and Currie, ‘Clothing’, 40–43 noted the decline of the lucco, the traditional long cloak of Florentine men, and the increased preference for shorter overgarments more closely associated with ‘foreign’ style. This preference may have had its origins in the examples set by Grand Duke Cosimo I and his sons, who had a ‘taste for shorter, practical, fitted garments’. Currie, Fashion and Masculinity, 49. 127 Orsi Landini, ‘Singoli capi’, 95. 128 Vitzthum, ‘Handzeichnungen’, 87; Hamilton, Disegni, 30–31; Fischer Pace, Italienischen Zeichnungen, 1:46. 129 GDSU, inv. no. 8615 F. Vitzthum, ‘Handzeichnungen’, 87; Hamilton, Disegni, 29–30. When Hamilton discussed this drawing, the fresco was in such a deteriorated state that he only tentatively suggested that it was a study for the man in light blue. He did note, however, that the study represented a departure from the Weimar drawing, which shows an old man located where the man in light blue appears. Later restoration of the fresco has confirmed Hamilton’s analysis. 130 GDSU, inv. no. 8630 F. Vitzthum, ‘Handzeichnungen’, 87; Hamilton, Disegni, 30–31. Once again, the poor state of the fresco made it difficult for Hamilton to connect the elements on this sheet with those in the painting, but it appears now that the study for the hands clasped in prayer also belongs to the woman looking over her shoulder. Hamilton also noted that there did not appear to be a corresponding element in the lunette for the classical female head in the lower left corner of the sheet. My inclination would be

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Fig. 2.16: Bernardino Poccetti, study for Saint Dominic Preaches a Crusade, c. 1584, black chalk and white heightening on blue paper. Florence, GDSU (inv. no. 8615 F). Source: Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabinetto Fotografico

Fig. 2.17: Bernardino Poccetti, study for Saint Dominic Preaches a Crusade, c. 1584, black chalk and white heightening on blue paper. Florence, GDSU (inv. no. 8630 F). Source: Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabinetto Fotografico

zimarra.131 These drawings demonstrate that Poccetti spent time to carefully work out the clothing of these f igures, which suggests that he wanted to be sure that those who viewed the fresco would recognize these contemporary clothing styles. That he added these elements later in the painting’s design—and clearly at some point after the entire composition was resolved in the Weimar study—also attests to their importance. By having the crowd assembled to hear Dominic preach dressed in contemporary fashions, Poccetti has once again made the events of history relevant to and resonant with the present. As has been suggested in the previous discussions of the scenes of Dominic’s struggle against the Albigensians, the Dominicans would have seen in the efforts of their founder a situation analogous to the one faced by the Latin Church as it attempted to counter Protestantism throughout Europe. Poccetti’s use of contemporary fashion in the fresco makes the rich tradition of Dominican efforts to combat to connect it to the sculpture located in the niche to the right of Dominic, but unfortunately the surface is too damaged in this area to allow for any such identification. 131 Orsi Landini, ‘Singoli capi’, 110.

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heresy—which was itself represented by the fourteenth-century frescoes in the Guidalotti Chapel—relevant to the challenges faced by the church at the end of the sixteenth century.

Conclusion Poccetti’s efforts in the Chiostro Grande must be seen as an almost complete success by virtually any metric. The works contain the hallmarks of his personal style: expressive use of color and coloristic effects, dynamic groups of f igures in various poses, stage-like architectural backdrops, judicious use of f igural quotations from painters like Sarto, and motifs that evoke the long tradition of monumental fresco painting in Florence. Furthermore, the images of Saint Dominic reveal Poccetti’s ability to capture and express ideas and iconographies especially relevant to his patrons and the context in which the works are found. In the Chiostro Grande, for example, Poccetti’s images consistently emphasize themes central to the mission and identity of the Order of Preachers, even as they evoke other existing decorative programs within the complex of Santa Maria Novella. In the Birth of Dominic, the saint’s destined fate to be an instrument of orthodoxy is revealed to his mother in a vision, a miracle that underscores the divine mission assigned to the order and its founder. The fresco of Dominic selling his books to help the poor highlights the emphasis that the Dominicans placed on learning and intellectualism even as it demonstrates the saint’s willingness to part with precious possessions to help those in need. The frescoes of Dominic converting the heretical noblewomen, his text surviving a trial by f ire, and his preaching in favor of a crusade all reflect the active roles that the Order of Preachers took to defend orthodoxy using their faith and learning as tools to refute heresy. Certainly, when Poccetti painted these scenes at the end of the Cinquecento, these issues had become crucial for the Latin Church as it faced off against Protestantism, but they were also longstanding cornerstones of Dominican practice and identity, as the extensive fourteenth-century frescoes—which address many similar themes—in the Guidalotti Chapel attest.132 Thus, Poccetti’s images in the Chiostro Grande provide the Dominicans with models for how to address contemporary concerns by appealing to the order’s venerable traditions and most revered forebears. As the remaining chapters demonstrate, Poccetti built upon the successful techniques and strategies he employed at Santa Maria Novella, but his essential approach to mural painting did not change much over time. This does not seem 132 Montgomery, ‘Cavaliere di Cristo’, 7–10.

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to have been a drawback. Indeed, as will be shown below, his ability to deliver a recognizably Florentine work of art that was also attuned to the specifics of its patronage and location seems to have been what made his work so popular and allowed for him to decorate as much of Florence as he did. In fact, Poccetti played a prominent role in almost all of the large decorative campaigns undertaken in major Florentine cloisters at the end of the sixteenth century, including those at San Marco, Santissima Annunziata, and Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence, as well as at Santissima Annunziata in Pistoia.133 He also contributed decorations to smaller courtyards, like the atrium at the oratory of the flagellant confraternity of Santissima Annunziata—a group that counted Bernardino among its membership. Many of these efforts have been explored in detail by other scholars, and will not be discussed here. Instead, it is time to move out of the cloisters and into the churches and chapels to examine Poccetti’s contributions to the decoration of these spaces at the end of the Cinquecento.

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Themen und Erhaltung, edited by Angela Weyer and Kerstin Klein, 94–111. Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2019. Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints. 2 vols. Translated by William Granger Ryan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Jordan of Saxony. A New Life of Saint Dominic, Founder of the Dominican Order. Edited by Louis Getino. Translated by Edmond Ceslas McEniry. Columbus, OH: Aquinas College, 1922. Kim, David Young. The Traveling Artist in the Italian Renaissance: Geography, Mobility, and Style. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014. Kusáková-Knozová, Helena, ed. Italská renesancnì a barokní kresba ze sbírek Moravské galerie. Brno: Moravské Galerie, 1969. Lasinio, Carlo. Ornati presi da graffiti, e pitture antiche esistenti in Firenze. Florence, 1789. http://dlib.biblhertz.it/E-FIR265-3890#page/1/mode/2up. Lavin, Marilyn Aronberg. The Place of Narrative: Mural Decoration in Italian Churches, 431–1600. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Lecchini Giovannoni, Simona. ‘Per Alessandro Pieroni: Una proposta per la decorazione cinquecentesca dell’abside del Cappellone degli Spagnoli in Santa Maria Novella a Firenze’. Studi di storia dell’arte 2 (1991): 321–38. Lecchini Giovannoni, Simona and Marco Collareta, eds. Disegni di Santi di Tito (1536–1603). Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1985. Lunardi, Roberto. Arte e storia in Santa Maria Novella. Florence: Salani, 1983. Mailly, Jean de. ‘The Life of St. Dominic’. In Early Dominicans: Selected Writings, edited by Simon Tugwell, 53–60. Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1982. Manescalchi, Roberto and Mauro Marrani. ‘I vascelli degli Argonauti nel “mare” Arno e il Giudizio di Paride al teatro mediceo degli Uffizi’. Pagine nuove 5 (2012): 67–94. Marchi, Francesco. Vita del reverendo padre frate Alessandro Capocchi fiorentino. Florence, 1583. Martelli, Cecilia. ‘Uno spettacolo per i Tornabuoni, regista Domenico Ghirlandaio: Affreschi, e vetrate, spalliere e pala d’altare’. In Dalla Trinità di Masaccio alla metà del Cinquecento, edited by Andrea de Marchi, 155–205. Vol. 2 of Santa Maria Novella: La basilica e il convento. Florence: Mandragora, 2016. Mecatti, Giuseppe Maria. Notizie istoriche riguardanti il capitolo de’ Padri Domenicani di Santa Maria Novella della città di Firenze. Florence, 1737. Meller, Peter. ‘Manet in Italy: Some Newly Identified Sources for His Early Sketchbooks’. Burlington Magazine 144, no. 1187 (2002): 68–110. Monbeig-Goguel, Catherine. Dessins toscans, XVIe–XVIIIe siècles. Vol. 2, 1620–1800. Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2005. Monbeig-Goguel, Catherine. ‘Sante Pacini, dessinateur. Réflexions sur les copies pour la reproduction à Florence, au XVIIIe siècle. De Gabburri à Mariette, et au Marquis de Robien’. In Disegno: Actes du colloque du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes, edited by Patrick Ramade, 63–74. Rennes: La Musée, 1991.

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Montgomery, Scott B. ‘Il Cavaliere di Cristo: Peter Martyr as Dominican Role Model in the Fresco Cycle in the Spanish Chapel in Florence’. Aurora 1 (2000): 1–28. Natali, Antonio. Andrea del Sarto. New York: Abbeville Press, 1999. Natali, Antonio. ‘Andrea del Sarto, a Model of Thought and Language: Chapter One’. In The Cinquecento in Florence: ‘Modern Manner’ and Counter-Reformation, edited by Carlo Falciani and Antonio Natali, 27–39. Florence: Mandragora, 2017. Nissman, Joan Lee. ‘Domenico Cresti (Il Passignano), 1559–1638: A Tuscan Painter in Florence and Rome’. PhD diss., Columbia University, 1979. Nobili, Luigi. ‘Il convento di Santa Maria Novella: La sua vita e le sue trasformazioni attraverso i secoli’. In Il convento di Santa Maria Novella in Firenze: Sede della Scuola Sottufficiali Carabinieri, edited by Luigi Nobili, 31–54. Milan: Electa, 1994. O’Brien, Alana. ‘“Maestri d’alcune arti miste e d’ingegno”: Artists and Artisans in the Compagnia dello Scalzo’. Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 55, no. 3 (2013): 358–433. O’Brien, Alana. ‘Who Holds the Keys to the Chiostro dello Scalzo, “Scuola di molti giovani”?’. Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 63, no. 2 (2021): 210–61. Offner, Richard and Klara Steinweg. A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. Section 4, vol. 6, The Fourteenth Century: Andrea Bonaiuti. New York: New York University, 1979. O’Malley, John W. Trent: What Happened at the Council. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2013. Orsi Landini, Roberta. ‘I singoli capi di abbigliamento/The Individual Garments’. In Moda a Firenze 1540–1580: Lo stile di Eleonora di Toledo e la sua influenza, edited by Roberta Orsi Landini and Bruna Niccoli, 77–169. Florence: Polistampa, 2005. Orsi Landini, Roberta. ‘Lo stile di Eleonora/Eleonora’s Style’. In Moda a Firenze 1540–1580: Lo stile di Eleonora di Toledo e la sua influenza, edited by Roberta Orsi Landini and Bruna Niccoli, 23–45. Florence: Polistampa, 2005. Pacini, Sante, et al. Serie degli uomini i più illustri nella pittura, scultura, e architettura con i loro elogi, e ritratti incisi in rame. 12 vols. Florence, 1769–1775. Paolozzi Strozzi, Beatrice. ‘Le inquietudini di un cittadino gentiluomo allo stabilirsi del Principato mediceo: Introduzione a La Capponiera’. In La Capponiera, by Girolamo Muzio, 43–69. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2017. Paolucci, Antonio, Monica Bietti, Franca Falletti, Serena Padovani, Bruno Santi, Magnolia Scudieri, and Ettore Spalletti, eds. Il Chiostro di Ognissanti a Firenze: Restauro e restituzione degli affreschi del ciclo francescano. Florence: Centro Di, 1989. Payne, Alina. ‘Wrapped in Fabric: Florentine Façades, Mediterranean Textiles, and Atectonic Ornament in the Renaissance’. In Histories of Ornament: From Global to Local, edited by Gülru Necipoglu and Alina Payne, 274–89. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016. Pecchioli, Eleonora. The Painted Façades of Florence: From the Fifteenth to the Twentieth Century. Florence: Centro Di, 2005.

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Pegg, Mark Gregory. A Most Holy War: The Albigensian Crusade and the Battle for Christendom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay. The History of the Albigensian Crusade: Peter of les Vaux-deCernay’s Historia Albigensis. Translated by W.A. Sibly and M.D. Sibly. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 1998. Proto Pisani, Rosanna Caterina. ‘Il ciclo affrescato del primo chiostro di San Marco: Una galleria della pittura Fiorentina del Seicento’. In La chiesa e il convento di San Marco a Firenze, edited by Tito S. Centi, 2:321–46. Florence: Giunti, 1990. Ravalli, Gaia. ‘L’egemonia degli Orcagna e un secolo di pittura a Santa Maria Novella’. In Dalla fondazione al tardogotico, edited by Andrea de Marchi, 157–245. Vol. 1 of Santa Maria Novella: La basilica e il convento. Florence: Mandragora, 2015. Razzi, Serafino. Vite de i santi e beati, cosi huomini, come donne del sacro ordine de’ Frati Predicatori. Florence, 1577. Ricci, Giuliano de’. Cronaca (1532–1606). Edited by Giuliana Sapori. Milan: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1972. Richa, Giuseppe. Notizie istoriche delle chiese fiorentine divise ne’ suoi quartieri. 10 vols. Florence, 1754–1762. Ripa, Cesare. Iconologia, overo descrittione d’imagini delle virtu’, vitij, affetti, passioni humane, corpi celesti, mondo e sue parti. Padua, 1611. Reprint, New York: Garland, 1976. Röstel, Alexander, and Grant Lewis. ‘Bernardino Poccetti as Collector’. In The Pictor Doctus, between Knowledge and Workshop: Artists, Collections and Friendship in Europe, 1500–1900, edited by Ana Diéguez-Rodríguez and Ángel Rodríguez Rebollo, 47–75. Turnhout: Brepols, 2021. Sebregondi, Ludovica. Iconografia di Girolamo Savonarola 1495–1998. Florence: SISMEL Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2004. Spinelli, Riccardo. ‘Alessandro Allori in Santa Maria Novella’. In Dalla ristrutturazione vasariana e granducale ad oggi, edited by Riccardo Spinelli, 121–39. Vol. 3 of Santa Maria Novella: La basilica e il convento. Florence: Mandragora, 2017. Spinelli, Riccardo. Fabrizio Boschi (1572–1642): Pittore barocco di ‘belle idee’ e di ‘nobiltà di maniera’. Florence: Mandragora, 2006. Spinelli, Riccardo. ‘Il chiostro Grande e i suoi dipinti murali’. In Dalla ristrutturazione vasariana e granducale ad oggi, edited by Riccardo Spinelli, 141–67. Vol. 3 of Santa Maria Novella: La basilica e il convento. Florence: Mandragora, 2017. Spinelli, Riccardo, ed. Dalla ristrutturazione vasariana e granducale ad oggi. Vol. 3 of Santa Maria Novella: La basilica e il convento. Florence: Mandragora, 2017. Syson, Luke. ‘The Rewards of Service: Leonardo da Vinci and the Duke of Milan’. In Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan, edited by Luke Syson with Larry Keith, 12–53. London: National Gallery, 2011. Tanner, Norman P., ed. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils. 2 vols. London: Sheed and Ward, 1990.

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Thiem, Gunther and Christel Thiem. Toskanische Fassaden-Dekoration in Sgraffito und Fresko: 14. bis 17. Jahrhundert. Munich: Bruckmann, 1964. Thierry d’Apolda. Livre sur la vie et la mort de Saint Dominique. Translated by Alexandre Amédée Curé. Paris, 1887. Tovey, Brian, ed. The Pouncey Index of Baldinucci’s Notizie. Florence: Centro Di, 2005. Tugwell, Simon, ed. Humberti de Romanis Legendae sancti Dominici. Rome: Institutum Historicum Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum, 2008. Tugwell, Simon, ed. Petri Ferrandi Legenda sancti Dominici. Rome: Angelicum University Press, 2015. Vasari, Giorgio. Le opere di Giorgio Vasari. 9 vols. Edited by Gaetano Milanesi. 1906. Reprint, Florence: Sansoni, 1973. Vasetti, Stefania. ‘Bernardino Barbatelli, detto il Poccetti (San Gimignano 1553 – Firenze 1612)’. In Il chiostro camaldolese di Santa Maria degli Angeli a Firenze: Restauro e restituzione del ciclo di affreschi, 138–40. Florence: Centro Di, 1997. Vasetti, Stefania. ‘Bernardino Poccetti: Firenze 1548–1612’. In Biografie, 149–52. Vol. 3 of Il Seicento fiorentino, edited by Giuliana Guidi and Daniela Marcucci. Florence: Cantini, 1986. Vasetti, Stefania. ‘Bernardino Poccetti’s Frescoes in the Great Hall’. In Palazzo Capponi on Lungarno Guicciardini and Bernardino Poccetti’s Restored Frescoes, edited by Litta Maria Medri, 59–141. Florence: Centro Di, 2001. Vasetti, Stefania. ‘I fasti granducali della Sala di Bona: Sintesi politica e culturale del principato di Ferdinando’. In Palazzo Pitti: La reggia rivelata, edited by Gabriella Capecchi, Amelio Fara, Detlef Heikamp, and Vincenzo Saladino, 228–39. Florence: Giunti, 2003. Vasetti, Stefania. ‘Ludovico Capponi: The Principal Proprietor of the Palazzo and the Commissioner of the Frescoes in the Great Hall’. In Palazzo Capponi on Lungarno Guicciardini and Bernardino Poccetti’s Restored Frescoes, edited by Litta Maria Medri, 25–57. Florence: Centro Di, 2001. Vicaire, Marie-Humbert. Histoire de Sainte Dominique: Un homme évangélique. 2 vols. Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1957. Vitzthum, Walter. ‘Die Handzeichnungen des Bernardino Poccetti’. PhD diss., Ludwig Maximilian University (Munich), 1955. Voss, Hermann. Die Malerei der Spätrenaissance in Rom und Florenz. 2 vols. Berlin: G. Grote, 1920. Wallace, William E. Michelangelo at San Lorenzo: The Genius as Entrepreneur. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Wallace, William E. ‘Who Is the Author of Michelangelo’s Life?’ In The Ashgate Research Companion to Vasari, edited by David J. Cast, 107–119. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2014. Walz, R.P. Angeli, ed. ‘Acta Canonizationis S. Dominici’. Monumenta Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum Historica 16 (1935): 91–194.

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William of Puylaurens. The Chronicle of William of Puylaurens: The Albigensian Crusade and Its Aftermath. Translated by W.A. Sibly and M.D. Sibly. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2003. Williams, Robert. ‘The Artist as Worker in Sixteenth-Century Italy’. In Taddeo and Federico Zuccaro: Artist-Brothers in Renaissance Rome, edited by Julian Brooks, 95–103. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2007. Zangheri, Luigi, ed. Gli Accademici del Disegno: Elenco alfabetico. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2000.

3.

‘Locum ecclesiae designavit, quae Ioannis et uxoris pecunia extructa est’ Bernardino Poccetti and the Decoration of the Canigiani Chapel in Santa Felicita

Abstract: Bernardino Barbatelli (called Poccetti, 1553–1612) painted much of the imagery in the Canigiani Chapel at Santa Felicita. Commissioned by Giovanni Canigiani at the end of the sixteenth century, the decorative program—which includes a mural of the miraculous snowfall that led to the foundation of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome—reveals how Canigiani and Poccetti collaborated to create a complex iconography that reflected contemporary Catholic concerns regarding art patronage, the importance of saintly intercessors, and the role of bishops in implementing the reforms of the Council of Trent. Although overshadowed by Pontormo’s efforts in the facing Capponi Chapel, the images in the Canigiani Chapel are a striking example of Florentine religious painting in the period of church reform. Keywords: Bernardino Barbatelli (called Poccetti); Canigiani; Santa Felicita, Florence; Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome; Virgin Mary

In the late 1580s, when Giovanni Canigiani turned his attention to the renovation of the chapel that is immediately on the left as one enters the church of Santa Felicita, his family had enjoyed patronage rights to the space for over two centuries (Fig. 3.1).1 1 A series of entries in one of Giovanni Canigiani’s account books that spans from 1588 to 1590 traces the expenditures related to the renovation of the chapel. Recorded in Libro B di debitori e creditori di Giovanni Canigiani: 1583–1591, Archivio di Stato di Firenze (hereafter ASF), Canigiani 144, these entries include payments for the altarpiece, the frescoes, the chapel’s window, gilding for both the altarpiece’s frame and some of the chapel’s stonework, as well as a payment for the installation of the altarpiece. There is some disagreement in the literature regarding the precise date of the altarpiece’s installation. See for example, Hamilton, ‘Andrea del Minga’s Assunta’, 466–68; Fiorelli Malesci, Santa Felicita, 202. My reading of the documents supports Fiorelli Malesci’s dating. Both Hamilton and Fiorelli Malesci published these entries, although Fiorelli Malesci provided a more complete transcription of other payments related to the renovation of the chapel as a whole. These records will be discussed in greater detail below.

Dow, D.N., Bernardino Poccetti and the Art of Religious Painting at the End of the Florentine Renaissance. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463729529_ch03

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Fig. 3.1: Santa Felicita, Florence. View of retrofacade with Capponi Chapel on the left and Canigiani Chapel on the right. Source: author

A document drawn up on 17 March 1366 granted Taddeo di Vanni Canigiani the right to establish, endow, and furnish a chapel dedicated to Maria Assunta in this location, with the stipulations that the construction of the chapel be completed within three years of the contract and that the furnishing of it be finished before the

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end of Taddeo’s life.2 The sixteenth-century renovation of the chapel was precipitated by Grand Duke Ferdinando I’s plan to build a viewing room (coretto) above the Canigiani Chapel that would mirror the coretto above the Capponi Chapel on the other side of the church’s entrance.3 Situated above the Canigiani Chapel, such a vantage point provided an unimpeded and elevated view of the nave and high altar of Santa Felicita. Additionally, this viewing room was located along the route of the Vasari Corridor, the private passageway that Giorgio Vasari had affixed to the facade of Santa Felicita in 1565 as it made its way from the Palazzo Pitti to the Uffizi, and which provided the Medici with discreet access to the coretto. 4 In addition to the fact that it provided an irresistible example, Ferdinando’s desire for a coretto above the Canigiani Chapel similar to the one above the Capponi Chapel meant that the new structure built by Giovanni Canigiani would necessarily take its complement across the church’s aisle as a model—an arrangement that would also bring a pleasing symmetry to the spaces flanking the entrance of Santa Felicita.5 This symmetry also extended to the Marian iconography of each space, with the Capponi Chapel dedicated to the Annunziata and the Canigiani Chapel to the Assunta. As a result of the conditions imposed by their locations and the surrounding architecture, the two chapels are mirror-images of each other in their structural conf igurations. Each chapel’s western wall (which is also the controfacciata of Santa Felicita) is adorned with a fresco and contains a round-headed window, while the altars are situated on the north and south walls and face each other across the nave.6 Each chapel originally had two arched openings, one facing east towards the high altar of Santa Felicita, and the other facing the chapel on the other side of the church’s nave, although these have been largely effaced by colossal Corinthian pilasters that were applied during the renovation of the church undertaken from 1736 to 1739 by Ferdinando Ruggieri.7 There are domes above each chapel, although the frescoes originally painted upon them were destroyed during modifications made to the coretto in 1765 that required reducing the height of each vault to create more 2 Balocchi, S. Felicita, 121–22; Fiorelli Malesci, Santa Felicita, 57–58, 197, 294. 3 This impetus for the renovation was reported as early as 1761, ‘E notisi, come in questa Cappella seguirono innovazioni; mentrechè volle il Granduca Ferdinando I farvi sopra di essa nel 1589 un Coro per se, e per la sua corte’. Richa, Notizie istoriche, 9:307. See also Fiorelli Malesci, Santa Felicita, 85–86; Wasserman, ‘Barbadori Chapel’, 28. 4 Satkowski, ‘Palazzo Pitti’, 339; Satkowski, Giorgio Vasari, 56–57. 5 Fiorelli Malesci, Santa Felicita, 96. 6 The decoration of the Capponi Chapel—and especially Pontormo’s altarpiece—has attracted much scholarly attention. For recent treatments and bibliography, see Wasserman, ‘Pontormo’ and Maratsos, ‘Pictorial Theology’. 7 For Ruggieri’s renovation, see Fiorelli Malesci, Santa Felicita, 124–40; for a hypothetical reconstruction of the original appearance of the Capponi Chapel, see Saalman, ‘Form and Meaning’, fig. 17.

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space in the area above.8 These domes spring from pendentives that are themselves decorated with tondi that represent the four evangelists in the Capponi Chapel and four saints named John in the Canigiani Chapel. There has been much scholarly debate regarding the extent to which the interior arrangement of the Capponi Chapel was modified when Ludovico Capponi gained patronage rights to the space and began a substantial renovation in 1525. Most of this discussion has centered on how extensive Capponi’s modifications to the chapel’s structure were, as well as attempts to recreate Filippo Brunelleschi’s (1377–1446) original design—and especially the chapel’s vault.9 Jack Wasserman has convincingly argued that Capponi made modifications to the vault in order to provide space above the chapel for a viewing room—the very coretto that would spark Grand Duke Ferdinando’s desire for a viewing room of his own above the Canigiani Chapel.10 Since the model for the rebuilding of the Canigiani Chapel was the Capponi Chapel in its state after the intervention undertaken by Capponi in 1525, this discussion need not engage the various hypotheses put forward as to the original form of Brunelleschi’s design for the chapel. Instead, it will be sufficient to recognize that the vault of the Capponi Chapel was decorated with a fresco, its pendentives contained four tondi, that the chapel’s remaining decoration consisted of a stained-glass window and fresco on the retrofacade and a large panel painting installed upon the altar, and that these same features were incorporated into the design of the Canigiani Chapel in 1589.

Andrea del Minga’s Assumption of the Virgin The panel on the altar of the Canigiani Chapel represents the Assumption of the Virgin and reflects the chapel’s dedication (Fig. 3.2). This altarpiece was traditionally assigned to Poccetti, but payments recorded in Giovanni Canigiani’s records that 8 The document describing this intervention states that the objective was to ‘render the coretto more commodious and proper’, which would require ‘lowering slightly the maximum height of the cupola of the two chapels’ (‘di rendere più comodo e decente il coretto … essendo necessario per questo di sbassare un poco il rigoglio della Cupola delle due Cappelle’). This document is transcribed in Fiorelli Malesci, Santa Felicita, 364–65. One of the definitions in the entry for ‘rigoglio’ in the fourth edition of the Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca (published from 1729 to 1738) addresses architecture and redirects the reader to the entry for sfogo: ‘Rigoglio, si dice anche lo Sfogo delle volte, degli archi, o simili’. Sfogo, in turn, is defined as the maximum height reached by a vault: ‘Sfogo, parlandosi d’archi, o simili, vale la Massima loro altezza’. Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, s.vv. ‘rigoglio’, ‘sfogo’, http://www.lessicografia. it/Controller?lemma=RIGOGLIO, http://www.lessicografia.it/Controller?lemma=SFOGO. 9 For summaries of this debate and further bibliography, see Wasserman, ‘Barbadori Chapel’, 25–33; Saalman, Filippo Brunelleschi, 83–90; Waldman, ‘New Light’, 312n3. 10 Wasserman, ‘Barbadori Chapel’, 28, 32n41. For a discussion of the document that provides the basis for Wasserman’s conclusions, see note 8 above.

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were first brought to light by Paul Hamilton show that Andrea del Minga (1535–1596) was the author of the work.11 According to these documents, Canigiani paid Andrea a total of 90 scudi for the altarpiece, a price that was the result of an appraisal (stima) provided by Lorenzo Guicciardini.12 Although older 11 The attribution of the panel to Poccetti was f irst made in 1677 by Giovanni Cinelli in his expanded version of Francesco Bocchi’s Le bellezze della città di Fiorenza, ‘La tavola è di Bernardino Puccetti, e del medesimo sono ancora tutte le pitture a fresco’. Bocchi-Cinelli, Bellezze, 119. A brief mention in Bruno’s Ristretto from 1689 echoes this attribution. Bruno, Ristretto, 106. But Baldinucci’s cursory treatment of Poccetti’s work in the chapel published in 1688 does not mention the altarpiece, ‘Dipinse di simile maniera la Cappella in S. Felicita […] della famiglia de’ Canigiani, insieme colla Cupoletta della medesima’. Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:244. Richa assigned all of the chapel’s painted decoration to Poccetti in 1761, ‘Di Bernardino Poccetti sono tutte le figure alla Capella de’ Canigiani […] All’Altare dipinse il Poccetti l’Assunta con gli Apostoli, e nella parete allato Fig. 3.2: Andrea del Minga, Assumption of the Virgin, 1591, il Miracolo della Madonna della Neve, e colorì anche la panel. Florence, Santa Felicita, Canigiani Chapel. Source: Cupola’. Richa, Notizie istoriche, 9:307. Follini-Rastrelli’s Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) description from 1802 explicitly gives the altarpiece and chapel decoration to Poccetti (‘la Tavola è di Bernardino Poccetti, e del medesimo sono tutte le pitture a fresco’) and then in a description of the chapel a few pages later essentially repeats Richa’s text (‘Quanto alla Cappella Canigiani dipinta dal Poccetti […] all’Altare vi dipinse l’Assunta con gli Apostoli, e nella parete allato il miracolo della Madonna della Neve, e colorì anche la cupola’), before reiterating the attribution to Poccetti one more time (‘la prima Cappella è di Canigiani con tavola e pareti di mano di Bernardino Poccetti’). Follini-Rastrelli, Firenze, 8:201, 205, 208. Balocchi’s treatment of the chapel from his 1828 guide makes no mention of Minga, even though it credits Tommaso Gherardini with the repainting of the chapel’s vault, thereby implying that Poccetti painted everything else in the chapel, including the altarpiece. Balocchi, S. Felicita, 122–23. Fantozzi, writing in 1842, unequivocally gave the panel to Poccetti, ‘La tavola dell’altare, esprimente l’Assunzione di M. Vergine con gli Apostoli (1233), è opera di Bernardino Poccetti’. Fantozzi, Nuova guida, 621. Finally, fewer than twenty years before Hamilton’s publication of the payment records, the panel was still given to Poccetti by Paatz and Paatz, Kirchen von Florenz, 2:71. See also Hamilton, ‘Andrea del Minga’s Assunta’, 466–68. 12 This entry appears twice in ASF, Canigiani 144, once on 91 dest. and again on 95 dest. The entry on 95 dest. is in a list of expenses arranged chronologically, where it is preceded immediately by two payments made on 19 August 1591, one of these to a blacksmith named Tebaldi, who provided iron for the chapel’s window, and the other to unnamed movers ( fachini) who transported the finished panel from Minga’s house and installed it on the altar. The other location of the entry is on 91 dest. where it appears in a list of payments made to Andrea that occupy both 91 sin. and 91 dest. These payments, in the amounts of 15, 18, 4, 4, and 12 scudi on 91 sin., and in the amounts of 4, 4, 3, and 26 scudi on 91 dest. add up to a total of

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than Poccetti, Andrea del Minga was a fixture in the group of artists associated with the Ghirlandaio family workshop, having trained under Ridolfo Ghirlandaio and worked alongside Michele Tosini.13 His collaboration in the chapel with Poccetti was, therefore, an understandable arrangement that played to each painter’s strengths, with Minga painting the panel and Poccetti frescoing the lunette and the vault.14 This division of labor was also an efficient way to finish the decoration of the space in a short span of time. Since Giovanni Canigiani was interred in the chapel on 17 February 1592—only six months after the altarpiece was installed—it is reasonable to assume that he might have felt a sense of urgency regarding the chapel’s completion when he began the project in 1589, and that this would have made him more likely to parcel out the responsibilities to two capable and presumably acquainted painters.15 The altarpiece, like much of Minga’s oeuvre, has only started to receive scholarly attention in recent years, a result of the misattribution, and the fact that it was painted late in Andrea’s life and career and has not been seen as one of his strongest efforts.16 Furthermore, the legibility of the painting suffers from a somewhat darkened surface, possibly from layers of varnish and grime, some damaged areas (especially in the lower zone and along the joints between the panel’s planks), and from the generally low light levels in the Canigiani Chapel, which is literally outshone in Santa Felicita by the Capponi Chapel. Despite these limitations, scholars have recognized in the work a general debt to Andrea del Sarto’s (1486–1530) two paintings of the Assumption, one for the Passerini and the other for the Panciatichi, both now in the Galleria Palatina at the Palazzo Pitti.17 Like Poccetti, who owned 90 scudi and represent a complete record of the payments made to Andrea del Minga for the altarpiece. The final payment of 26 scudi on 21 August 1591 is specifically referred to as the ‘balance’ (resto) owed to Andrea. ASF, Canigiani 144, 91 sin., 91 dest., 95 dest. For the published entries, see Fiorelli Malesci, Santa Felicita, 334–35. On the appraisal of a finished work of art to establish its final cost, see Thomas, Painter’s Practice, 185–88; O’Malley, Business of Art, 120–28. For a discussion that focuses on Vasari’s treatment of this practice in the Vite, see Krohn, ‘Taking Stock’, 203–11. 13 Hornik, Michele Tosini, 45–47; Nesi, Andrea del Minga, 11. 14 Fiorelli Malesci, Santa Felicita, 203. 15 Giovanni Canigiani drew up his will on 10 February 1592, and in it he expressed his wish to be buried in the chapel in Santa Felicita that he had rebuilt and restored (‘reedificata ac restaurata’), as well as the desire for memorial masses to be performed at the altar of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary (‘ad altare Assumptionis S. Mariae Virginis’). ASF, Canigiani 17, no. 302. Another document in this same filza, dated 24 February 1612, states that Giovanni was buried in the chapel in Santa Felicita on 17 February 1592—one week after he drew up his will. ASF, Canigiani 17, no. 303. Giovanni predeceased his wife, Leonarda Bartolini Canigiani, by a little more than a decade, but she was also interred in the tomb after her death in December of 1603. ASF, Canigiani 17, no. 304. 16 Nesi, Andrea del Minga, 77–79. 17 Hamilton, ‘Andrea del Minga’s Assunta’, 466. Sarto’s designs provided inspiration to many painters of the Cinquecento, and his solutions for the Assumption were widely imitated. Natali, Andrea del Sarto,

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a portrait of Sarto, Minga was an attentive student of Sarto’s designs.18 In this respect, the practices of Minga and Poccetti reflected attitudes towards Sarto’s painting that were expressed by writers like Francesco Bocchi (1548–1613 or 1618) and Raffaello Borghini (c. 1537–1588), who praised Andrea and held him up as a model for painters.19 Borghini even recommended that those who ‘want to make a name for themselves in painting’ (‘nella pittura vogliono acquistar nome’) should study Andrea’s works, and in particular the frescoes in the Chiostro dello Scalzo.20 Like Sarto’s two paintings of the Assumption, Minga’s panel for the Canigiani Chapel is divided into two registers, with twelve figures in the lower zone arranged in two tiers around an open sarcophagus. Only about one-fourth of the coffin is visible, with the short end oriented at an angle towards the picture plane. Iconographic requirements dictate that these twelve men are the apostles, who, according to a few of the sources compiled in the Golden Legend, were miraculously transported to Jerusalem by clouds and thunderclaps to attend to Mary in her last days.21 In the upper one-third of the panel, Minga painted the Virgin seated on a cloud and surrounded by a golden glow. Angels flank her along the left and right, while cherubs float in front of the cloud below her, with one of them providing a convenient spot for Mary to rest her left foot. She turns her torso slightly to her left and directs her gaze up and to her left, a position that suggests her skyward trajectory. Many of the apostles beneath the Virgin—and especially those farther back in the gloomy background—are represented without attributes, making it difficult to firmly establish their identities. The three figures in the foreground, however, not only dominate the composition by forming a pyramidal shape that draws the eye 140. Of Sarto’s two paintings, the earlier Panciatichi Assumption, originally destined for France but never delivered due to physical problems with the panel, was described by Vasari in 1568 as having been installed in a ‘chiesetta’ at the Villa Baroncelli (on the site of the Villa del Poggio Imperiale) by then owner of the villa, Piero Salviati. The Passerini Assumption was installed in the church of Sant’Antonio dei Servi in Cortona, where it remained until 1639. Freedberg, Andrea del Sarto, 2:112–13, 163. 18 Antonio Natali has written extensively on the influence of Andrea del Sarto on Florentine painters of the sixteenth century. For a recent treatment, see Natali, ‘Andrea del Sarto’, 27–39. For the portrait of Sarto owned by Poccetti, see Röstel and Lewis, ‘Poccetti as Collector’, 51–52. 19 In one lengthy passage in Le bellezze della città di Fiorenza, Bocchi compares Sarto’s works to those of Michelangelo and Raphael and makes a strong case for Andrea’s position as the best painter (‘nel sommo della pittura’). Bocchi, Bellezze, 139–44. Before the publication of the Bellezze, Bocchi praised Sarto in an unpublished treatise, ‘Discorso sopra l’eccellenza dell’opere d’Andrea del Sarto, pittore fiorentino’. Williams, ‘Treatise by Francesco Bocchi’, 111–39. For more, see the Introduction. 20 Borghini, Riposo, 421. By the time he published Il Riposo in 1584, Florentine artists had been studying Sarto’s frescoes in the Scalzo oratory for decades (as numerous entries regarding access to the atrium in the confraternity’s records attest), making his suggestion less a prescription and more a codification of existing practice. For a history of artistic access to the oratory’s frescoes, see O’Brien, ‘Who Holds the Keys’, 210–61. 21 Jacobus, Golden Legend, 2:78–79, 90.

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skyward, but are also shown with attributes. Two of these are easily recognized, but the figure in the lower left corner of the panel presents a greater challenge. The only object associated with him is the rectangular item in his right hand, which is most likely meant to be a book, an attribute that does not serve to identify him unequivocally, since books sometimes appear alongside the apostles as generic elements.22 This is not the case with his pendant on the right side of the altarpiece, where the book in this figure’s left hand works in concert with his red mantle and youthful appearance to mark him as John the Evangelist. Finally, the most prominent of the three figures occupying the foreground of the painting, whose bald head forms the apex of the pyramid and whose right hand points to Mary above, wears a yellow mantle, rests his right foot on a block of stone, and holds a book and keys in his right hand—all elements that allow this white-haired man to be identified as Peter. That John the Evangelist and Peter are given such prominence reflects the emphasis placed upon them in the account of the events leading up to the Virgin’s assumption presented in the Golden Legend. Not only is John the first to arrive in Jerusalem—an understandable circumstance considering his close ties with Mary, a relationship forged by Christ himself at the crucifixion (Jn 19:26–27)—but he and Peter debate who should carry the palm and lead the funeral procession. Peter defers to John and volunteers to carry the bier instead, but goes on to play an important role later in the narrative when a priest who was part of an angry mob intent on killing the apostles and burning Mary’s body attacks the procession. As soon as he lays his hands on the litter in attempt to overturn it and dump Mary’s body to the ground, he becomes stuck to the bier and his hands wither. Stricken and in pain, he begs Peter for help. Peter instructs him to profess his belief in Christ and the Virgin, which he does, thereby freeing himself from the bier, but his hands are not restored. To completely cure his deformed hands and alleviate his suffering, Peter tells him he must kiss the bier and proclaim his belief once more. The focus shifts back to John near the end of this episode, however, since Peter is not the only apostle in the story who assists those punished for their aggression against Mary. In addition to his hands withering, the followers of the priest were struck blind by angels at the moment he touched the bier. To cure their blindness, the priest had to take the palm frond from John and hold it up over those who had been blinded. If they were willing to believe then their sight would be restored. If they rejected Christ, they would remain blind.23 Finally, John’s prominence in the panel can also be seen as a reference to the patron, Giovanni Canigiani, who shared his name 22 Two apostles in Sarto’s Panciatichi Assumption and Passerini Assumption hold books, for example, but neither one can be definitively identified. 23 Jacobus, Golden Legend, 2:80–81.

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with the Evangelist. As will be discussed below, an emphasis on individuals from sacred history named John not only abounds in the chapel’s decoration, but is also the organizing principle behind the selection of the saints that are represented in the pendentives of the chapel’s vault.

Poccetti’s Lost Vault Fresco and the Frescoes of the Saints in the Pendentives According to the entries in Canigiani’s Libro di debitori e creditori, Poccetti received a total sum of 55 scudi for his efforts in the chapel.24 The first installment, in the amount of ten scudi, was paid to one of Poccetti’s assistants, ‘Giuliano suo h[u]omo’, on 7 October 1589.25 The next payment of 20 scudi was made on 5 January 1590 directly to ‘m. Niccolo’, presumably on Poccetti’s behalf, since the funds were a rental payment for a property located on Via Maggio (‘p[er] co[n]to della pigione di via maggio’).26 Interestingly, Canigiani had previously entered into a similar arrangement with Andrea del Minga’s landlord, Andrea Minerbetti, when he paid eighteen scudi on 17 June 1589 to cover the rent on Minga’s house and studio for six months (‘p[er] la pigione della casa e bottegha p[er] 6 mesi’).27 Two more payments to Poccetti, one for six scudi on 17 March 1590, and another for ten scudi on 24 March 1590, were retrieved by one of Poccetti’s assistants, Francesco di Santi.28 Finally, on 14 April 1590, Poccetti was paid the balance (resto) of nine scudi that was owed to him for painting the vault and the wall of the chapel.29

24 ASF, Canigiani 144, 101 sin. Published in Fiorelli Malesci, Santa Felicita, 335. 25 ASF, Canigiani 144, 101 sin. Published in Fiorelli Malesci, Santa Felicita, 335. 26 ASF, Canigiani 144, 101 sin. Published in Fiorelli Malesci, Santa Felicita, 335. 27 ASF, Canigiani 144, 91 sin. Published in Fiorelli Malesci, Santa Felicita, 334. Another entry in Canigiani’s records, in a series of ricevuti that were written by Minga himself when he received payments from Canigiani and which have gone unremarked by scholars, provides Cavaliere Minerbetti’s f irst name, Andrea, which was omitted from the entry in Canigiani 144. These ricevuti are found in ASF, Canigiani 24, no. 436. In 1587, shortly before he undertook the painting of Canigiani’s altarpiece, Minga had moved into a new home and workshop in the Piazza Santa Trìnita on the corner of Via Porta Rossa. Colnaghi, Dictionary, 74–75; Nesi, Andrea del Minga, 11. Although it predates Minga’s occupancy by a few decades, an entry in the Decima taken in 1561 records the presence of a workshop in that location that belonged to the Minerbetti. ASF, Decima Granducale 3782, 86v; https://decima-map.net. 28 ASF, Canigiani 144, 101 sin. Published in Fiorelli Malesci, Santa Felicita, 335. 29 ASF, Canigiani 144, 101 sin. Published in Fiorelli Malesci, Santa Felicita, 335. Another entry, dated 20 April 1590 and cross-referenced to the installments cited above, states that Poccetti ‘painted the chapel, that is the vault and the facade where the altarpiece does not go’ (‘dipinto la Cappella, cioè la cupola e la facciata dove non va la tavola’). ASF, Canigiani 144, 95 sin. Published in Fiorelli Malesci, Santa Felicita, 334.

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The configuration of the Canigiani Chapel, with a frescoed vault, tondi in the pendentives, and a large fresco on the controfacciata has its inspiration in the decorative scheme of the Capponi Chapel. Like Sarto, Pontormo was also admired by Poccetti and his contemporaries—so much so in Poccetti’s case that he owned six grisaille paintings by Pontormo—so there are many similarities between the two spaces.30 Like the Capponi Chapel, the Canigiani Chapel has also lost the fresco originally in the chapel’s dome but the images in the pendentives remain. Unlike the Capponi Chapel, however, there is a fresco in the dome that occupies the space of Poccetti’s lost painting in the Canigiani Chapel (Plate 4). Painted by Tommaso Gherardini (1715–1797), the vault contains a representation of the Trinity.31 Christ and God the Father are seated on a bank of clouds in the northern half of the dome—that is, so that they are properly oriented to the vertical from the perspective of a person facing the altar and looking up. In the southern half of the dome—that is, the upper part from the perspective of a person looking up—there is burst of light surrounding the dove of the Holy Spirit. The dove forms the apex of a triangle that has Christ and God at its two bottom vertices, giving the design in the vault a clear directionality. Both Christ and God the Father look down, towards the altarpiece, forging a connection between the upward motion of the Assunta and her celestial destination alongside Christ and God. In his left hand, Christ holds a gold ring—a halo or a simple crown that is presumably to be placed on the Virgin’s head upon her heavenly arrival. Although it is impossible to be certain, Fiorelli Malesci has suggested that the original fresco by Poccetti also represented the Trinity.32 That Gherardini’s fresco is so carefully integrated—both formally and iconographically—with the rest of the chapel’s decoration seems to bear this out. The relationship between Minga’s altarpiece and the vault fresco has already been noted, but—as will be shown below—close examination of one of the saints in the pendentives reveals another visual and spatial connection between Poccetti’s original decoration and Gherardini’s later substitution. Although they are modeled on the configuration in the Capponi Chapel, where the four roundels represent the four evangelists, the saints in the pendentives of the Canigiani Chapel are not so obvious a group, and the identification of at least one of them has been complicated by the obscurity of the f igure and its 30 Röstel and Lewis, ‘Poccetti as Collector’, 54. 31 Fiorelli Malesci, Santa Felicita, 95–96, 197, 203 32 Fiorelli Malesci, Santa Felicita, 198. Poccetti was especially adept at this type of vault decoration, and went on to paint many variations of this theme over the course of his career in the Neri Chapel at the church of Santa Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi (1598), the Ticci Chapel in Santa Maria degli Angeli (1599), the Strozzi Chapel in Santa Trìnita (1606), and Sant’Apollonia (1611), to name a few examples. Vasetti, Poccetti e gli Strozzi, 17–18.

‘Locum ecclesiae designavit, quae Ioannis et uxoris pecunia ex tructa est’ 

iconography. Despite these challenges, scholars agree that what links the four saints to each other is the fact that they are all named John.33 To begin, the figure in the northwest pendentive is immediately recognizable as John the Evangelist (Fig. 3.3). Unlike Minga’s representation of the youthful Evangelist in the altarpiece, Poccetti’s John is an old man with a substantially receding hairline and a flowing white beard. His right hand holds a quill that he uses to write on a tablet cradled in his left arm. Just above the shaft of the quill and following the curve of the roundel, Poccetti painted the head and beak of an eagle, John’s traditional attribute. In the northeast pendentive, Poccetti painted John the Baptist as a bearded figure engulfed in a striking and voluminous red mantle that opens to reveal his bare left shoulder and the hairshirt worn across his upper torso (Fig. 3.4). The Baptist’s left arm extends across his chest and is bent at the elbow. The saint’s left hand points up and over his right shoulder in the direction behind him, a gesture that is an immediately recognizable reference to the Saint Matthew in the Capponi Chapel.34 But, in addition to acting as an homage to the decorations across the nave of Santa Felicita, the position of the Baptist’s arm directs attention to the image of Christ in Gherardini’s vault fresco, thereby providing yet another formal and iconographic link between Poccetti’s decoration and Gherardini’s later addition (Plate 4). Although it is possible

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Fig. 3.3: Bernardino Poccetti, Saint John the Evangelist, 1590, fresco. Florence, Santa Felicita, Canigiani Chapel. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

Fig. 3.4: Bernardino Poccetti, Saint John the Baptist, 1590, fresco. Florence, Santa Felicita, Canigiani Chapel. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

33 Fiorelli Malesci, Santa Felicita, 198. 34 The Saint Matthew tondo has attracted considerable attention. For an analysis of its physical state of conservation, see Rossi Scarzanella, ‘Novità sul San Matteo’, 213–18. For a discussion of its authorship and relevant bibliography, see Wasserman, ‘St Matthew’, 12–17.

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that Gherardini recognized the potential to create a meaningful link between the Baptist and Christ that emphasized Saint John’s role as the Forerunner, it seems more likely that those connections had been put in place by Poccetti initially and that Gherardini was careful to retain them when he repainted the chapel’s dome. Along with the animal skin under his mantle, John’s other attributes include the scroll of paper grasped in his right hand upon which the first three letters of the inscription ECCE AGNUS DEI are legible. That Poccetti’s Baptist ‘says’ these words even as he gestures in the direction of Christ Fig. 3.5: Bernardino Poccetti, San Giovanni Gualberto, 1590, further suggests that this connection was fresco. Florence, Santa Felicita, Canigiani Chapel. Source: present in Poccetti’s original design, which Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) Gherardini must have followed closely. The Baptist, in addition to sharing his name with the chapel’s patron, is also the patron saint of Florence, a fact that has contributed to his near ubiquity in Florentine decorative programs and altarpieces. The Baptist is not the only saint in the pendentives of the Canigiani Chapel that has a local connection. In the southeastern corner of the vault Poccetti continued to emphasize Florentine saints by painting San Giovanni Gualberto as an elderly man in his traditional brown habit (Fig. 3.5).35 A Tuscan nobleman who became a monk and founded the Vallombrosian order, Gualberto was closely linked to Florence and held in high regard.36 The saint is also connected to the chapel through its dedication, since both it and the Abbey of Vallombrosa founded by Gualberto outside of Florence are dedicated to the Assunta.37 Finally, Anna Padoa Rizzo has pointed out that Giovanni Canigiani had a personal connection to Giovanni Gualberto through his relative, Giovanni Maria Canigiani, who was abbot general of the Vallombrosians from 1515 to 1540.38 Once again recognizable attributes allow for the saint’s identification, and in this case Poccetti included as many emblems as he possibly could. In his right hand Gualberto holds a cross, a reference to a 35 On this fresco, see Padoa Rizzo, Iconografia, cat. no. II.B.15. For comparison, see the images of San Giovanni Gualberto painted by Andrea del Sarto in the Cenacolo di San Salvi and the Madonna in Glory with Four Saints (Poppi Altarpiece). Natali, Andrea del Sarto, figs. 11, 193. 36 Padoa Rizzo, ‘Introduzione’, 31. 37 Dizionario biografico degli italiani (hereafter DBI), s.v. ‘Giovanni Gualberto, santo’ (by Antonella degl’Innocenti), http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/santo-giovanni-gualberto_(Dizionario-Biografico). 38 Padoa Rizzo, ‘Iconografia, iconologia’, 277–78; Padoa Rizzo, Iconografia, cat. no. II.B.15.

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Fig. 3.6: Bernardino Poccetti, study for San Giovanni Gualberto, 1590, red chalk. Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Kupferstichkabinett (inv. no. KdZ 15466). Source: © bpk Bildagentur / Dietmar Katz

miracle that took place in San Miniato al Monte shortly after the saint had forgiven his brother’s murderer, a merciful act that was miraculously acknowledged by an image of Christ on the cross that bowed its head in front Gualberto. In the crook of his left arm he cradles a book—most likely the Rule of Saint Benedict, which he vowed to follow closely.39 In his left hand he grips the head of a tau-shaped crutch, the traditional emblem of the Vallombrosian order.40 An extant study for this tondo in the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin closely resembles the completed fresco, with the only significant alteration being the rearrangement of the attributes, where Poccetti switched the locations of the cross and the crutch from the left to the right and placed the book beneath the saint’s arm (Fig. 3.6). 41 The identity of the remaining figure located in the southwestern pendentive has proven to be more elusive (Fig. 3.7). In the roundel he is represented as a younger beardless man with long brown hair. His eyes are downcast to such an extent that only his eyelids are visible. He wears a light blue tunic under a red mantle 39 Padoa Rizzo, Iconografia, cat. nos. II.A.7, II.B.15. 40 On Gualberto’s iconographic attributes, see Kaftal, Iconography, 569–78; Réau, Iconographie, vol. 3, bk. 2:726–27; DBI, s.v. ‘Giovanni Gualberto, santo’ (by Antonella degl’Innocenti); Padoa Rizzo, Iconografia. 41 This drawing (Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, KdZ 15466) has been connected to the frescoes in the Canigiani Chapel, but has not been closely analyzed. See Hamilton, Disegni, 48.

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that is gathered and clasped just in front of his right shoulder. In his left hand he holds a palm frond, the natural curve of which echoes the round frame of the tondo. The preparatory drawing for this fresco, now in the collection of the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin, highlights some noticeable departures in the final painted version from this earlier rendering (Fig. 3.8). 42 For example, Poccetti included a crown on the figure’s head that is not present in the tondo, and the figure in the drawing lacks the long hair and downcast eyes of the painted version. The palm frond and crown in the drawing connote martyrFig. 3.7: Bernardino Poccetti, Pope John I (?), 1590, fresco. dom, and it is likely that this figure—like Florence, Santa Felicita, Canigiani Chapel. Source: Sailko, the three others in the pendentives—is also Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) named John, but scholars have struggled to find a more specific identification. 43 If the search for a suitable identification is delimited by those two factors—namely that the man must be a martyr named John—then there is a potential solution to the puzzle of his identity that has not been extensively discussed in the literature: that this is specifically an image of Pope John I (d. 526). This identification has much to recommend it. Although not much is known about Pope John I’s younger years, the Liber Pontificalis identifies him as a Tuscan (‘natione tuscus’), a fact that fits nicely with the emphasis on local saints like the Baptist and Giovanni Gualberto. 44 Closer to the date of the fresco, the reformed breviary that was published after the Council of Trent reiterates this aspect of Pope John’s identity (‘Ioannes etruscus’) in the ninth lesson for 27 May. 45 Furthermore, John I is celebrated as a martyr because he died as a result of poor conditions he endured after being imprisoned by Theodoric the Great (471–526) upon his 42 This drawing (Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, KdZ 15465) was published in Voss, Zeichnungen, 41, 49 and was connected to the frescoes in the Canigiani Chapel by Hamilton, Disegni, 48, but in neither case was its subject identified or closely analyzed. 43 See, for example, the entry for the tondi in Fiorelli Malesci, Santa Felicita, 198, where this roundel is described generically as ‘San Giovanni … martire’ because it is ‘non chiaramente identificabile per la scarsa leggibilità dei suoi attribuiti’. 44 Duchesne, Liber Pontificalis, 1:275; Loomis, Book of the Popes, 131; Davis, Book of Pontif fs, 51; DBI, s.v. ‘Giovanni I, papa, santo’ (by Andrea Bedina), http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/ giovanni-i-papa-santo_(Dizionario-Biografico). 45 Breviarium Romanum, 681; Bute, Roman Breviary, 2:919.

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Fig. 3.8: Bernardino Poccetti, study for Pope John I (?), 1590, red chalk. Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Kupferstichkabinett (inv. no. KdZ 15465). Source: © bpk Bildagentur / Dietmar Katz

return from Constantinople in 526, which helps to explain the crown and palm frond in Poccetti’s drawing. 46 Admittedly, the crown is missing from the figure’s head in the fresco, but Poccetti added another element to the painted roundel that does not appear in the preliminary study. Above the figure’s right shoulder, partially immersed in the background gloom, it is possible to discern two gold bands encircling a conical shape. The lower of these gold bands is decorated with fleur-de-lis, while the upper band sports triangular projections strikingly similar to the embellishments on the crown in the preparatory drawing. The painted surface in this part of the tondo is dark, damaged, and difficult to read, but the beehive shape and the encircling bands strongly suggest that Poccetti has included a view of one of the most recognizable emblems of the Roman pontiffs: the papal tiara. 47 Although the image of the crown has been slightly cropped by the curving frame of the roundel, leaving out the third encircling band found on the tiara, as well as the traditional globe and cross at its apex, Poccetti has included enough distinguishing characteristics to identify the crown, thereby 46 Breviarium Romanum, 682; Duchesne, Liber Pontificalis, 1:276; Bute, Roman Breviary, 2:920; Loomis, Book of the Popes, 137; Davis, Book of Pontiffs, 52; DBI, s.v. ‘Giovanni I, papa, santo’ (by Andrea Bedina). 47 Through its inclusion in many of his official portraits, Pope Boniface VIII (r. 1294–1303) established the three-tiered tiara as the standard pontifical crown. Miller, Clothing the Clergy, 192.

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underscoring the f igure’s connection to the papacy and his identif ication as Pope John I. In addition to the highly suggestive pontif ical attributes, his name, and his identity as a Tuscan, there is another element of Pope John I’s biography that would have made him an attractive iconographic addition to the chapel’s decorative scheme. John occupied the pontifical throne during a time of religious controversy when sectarian forces within Christendom were struggling for control and dominance. 48 Indeed, Pope John was sent to Constantinople because Theodoric wanted the pope to intervene with the Byzantine emperor, Justin I (450–527), who had begun to persecute the followers of Arianism, of whom Theodoric was one. Although John was able to convince Justin I to promise the restitution of churches he had seized from the Arians, Theodoric still imprisoned the pope upon his return to Ravenna, and it was this period of incarceration that led to the death of the pontiff. Theodoric’s motives for putting John in jail are still actively debated by scholars, a fact that Andrea Bedina has chalked up to the ambiguity and partisanship of the early sources themselves. 49 For the purposes of explaining Pope John I’s inclusion in the program at the Canigiani Chapel, however, it is sufficient to note that the fraught negotiations between competing temporal powers and the church regarding heretical sects within Christendom were an inescapable circumstance of John’s pontif icate that led to his death. Those aspects of John’s papacy—which must have seemed especially relevant to Catholics at the end of the Cinquecento, who were faced with their own schismatic sects and contentious struggles for temporal power—would have made him an appropriate addition to the other saints named John who adorn the chapel’s pendentives.50 48 DBI, s.v. ‘Giovanni I, papa, santo’ (by Andrea Bedina). 49 DBI, s.v. ‘Giovanni I, papa, santo’ (by Andrea Bedina). For a discussion of the various treatments of the subject by those early sources, see Rosi, ‘Ambasceria di papa Giovanni I’, 573–84. For a summary of these events as well as a discussion of the lingering uncertainty regarding the motives and actions of Theodoric, Pope John, and Justin I, see Moorhead, Theoderic, 235–42. 50 The largest drawback to the identification of this figure as Pope John I is his youthful and healthy appearance. According to the Liber Pontificalis, John died as a result of illness brought about by the poor conditions of his confinement (‘in custodia adflictus deficiens moreretur’), whereas this man—even though his downcast eyes are suggestive of surrender and despair—seems not to be suffering any ill physical effects. Duchesne, Liber Pontificalis, 1:276; Loomis, Book of the Popes, 137; Davis, Book of Pontiffs, 52. See also Breviarium Romanum, 682; Bute, Roman Breviary, 2:920. It should be noted, however, that John was a rarely represented saint and that Poccetti probably did not have access to many (any?) examples of the saint’s traditional appearance and iconography. Furthermore, when the likeness in the fresco is compared to the preliminary drawing, it is obvious that Poccetti has made the frescoed version older than the figure in the drawing, a change that perhaps reflects a desire to increase the representation’s sense of frailty and vulnerability.

‘Locum ecclesiae designavit, quae Ioannis et uxoris pecunia ex tructa est’ 

Poccetti’s Fresco of The Miraculous Snowfall on the Esquiline Hill Although the configuration and compositions of Poccetti’s saints in the pendentives of the Canigiani Chapel are heavily indebted to the evangelists in the Capponi Chapel, his fresco on the controfacciata of Santa Felicita departs significantly from Pontormo’s example on the other side of the church’s entrance (Plate 5). The iconographic tradition of the Annunciation dictated Pontormo’s solution of two figures facing each other across an open space—a design that was altered by the insertion in 1620 of the reliquary monument of Carlo Borromeo.51 A roundheaded window occupies a bit more than one-third of the top half of the lunette, with its base just slightly below the level of the heads of Mary and Gabriel, who are positioned in the lower half of the fresco. This opening was filled with a design in stained glass by Guillaume de Marcillat (1467–1529), that depicted the Deposition and Entombment.52 Louis Waldman has shown that the insertion of the stainedglass window in the retrofacade of the Capponi Chapel was the result of careful negotiations between Capponi and the Guicciardini family, who retained the patronage rights to the facade of Santa Felicita.53 Beyond the pragmatic motivation of admitting more light into the chapel, the window in the Capponi Chapel also provided Pontormo an opportunity to engage a long tradition of including windows in representations of the Annunciation and to evoke a longstanding metaphor for Christ’s conception within the Virgin’s intact womb: the pane of glass that can be penetrated by rays of light without being ruptured.54 Thus, the window is an integral and essential part of Pontormo’s design. The Canigiani Chapel also features a window opening, and the fact that it is in the same size, style, and location as the window in the Capponi Chapel is yet another indication of the desire to create a pendant to the earlier chapel across the church’s nave. This effort also extended to filling the aperture in the Canigiani Chapel with a design in stained glass that is unfortunately no longer extant. Evidence that a colored design was incorporated into the window can be found in Giovanni Canigiani’s account book, which records payments for a glass window (‘finestra invetriata’) that included panes that were painted (‘era dipinto’).55 According to the records, Canigiani made these payments to Fra Stefano of the Gesuati order, an 51 Fiorelli-Malesci, Santa Felicita, 223. 52 The window currently in the chapel is a replica that was installed in 1997. The original window was removed from the chapel during Ruggieri’s renovation in the 1730s and is installed in the Palazzo Capponi alle Rovinate, a short distance from Santa Felicita on the Via de’ Bardi. Waldman, ‘New Light’, 293, 312n1. 53 Waldman, ‘New Light’, 296–97. 54 For a survey of this tradition, as well as instances where physical windows separate painted images of Gabriel and the Virgin, see Waldman, ‘New Light’, 302–305. 55 ASF, Canigiani 144, 95 sin. Published in Fiorelli Malesci, Santa Trinita, 334.

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understandable arrangement given that the Jesuates were the recognized Florentine experts in stained glass.56 Outside of these scant references, there are no other indications of the window’s design or configuration or even when it was removed or destroyed. According to Balocchi’s account from 1828 the window in the Capponi Chapel was removed during Ruggieri’s eighteenth-century renovation of the church (‘al nuovo restauro di questa chiesa’) and replaced with a clear glass window that featured the Capponi coat of arms (‘con vetri bianchi, e solo in vetri coloriti è rimasto lo stemma Capponi’).57 Balocchi’s description of the Canigiani Chapel, however, makes no mention of the window at all, nor do any of the other early commentators on the church, with the exception of Fantozzi, who notes that there is a window on the wall with the fresco of the miraculous snowfall, but provides no other information.58 Despite the lack of commentary in the early sources, the payments in Canigiani’s account books support the idea that there was a design in stained glass in the chapel’s window opening at the end of the sixteenth century, and the silence in the sources regarding the window is probably better understood as a result of a lack of scholarly interest in stained-glass designs than as an indication that the window was not decorated.59 A close reading of Poccetti’s fresco also points to the fact that the window in the Canigiani Chapel was not only decorated with stained glass, but that it—like its pendant in the Capponi Chapel—also contained a representation integral to the chapel’s iconographic scheme. The mural represents a miracle that supposedly took place on 5 August 352, during the pontificate of Liberius (r. 352–366) but accounts of this event only began to appear much later, in the thirteenth century.60 According to the story, a Roman patrician named John and his wife were childless. Having no heirs, they vowed to leave their property to the Virgin Mary and prayed to her for 56 In his biography of Guillaume de Marcillat, Vasari remarked on the Gesuati’s reputation as the local masters of the medium and noted that they removed and disassembled Marcillat’s window in order to study his techniques. In the process they apparently lost and replaced some of the panes. ‘La quale finestra venne nelle mani de’ frati Giesuati, che in Fiorenza lavorano di tal mestiere; ed essi la scommessero tutta per vedere i modi di quello, e molti pezzi per saggi ne levarono, e di nuovo vi rimessero; e finalmente la mutarono di quel ch’ella era.’ Vasari-Milanesi, 4:428. In the eighteenth century, Richa also noted the proficiency of the Gesuati in the medium of stained glass when he described the oculus in the facade of Santa Felicita. Richa, Notizie istoriche, 9:298. 57 Balocchi, S. Felicita, 36. Fantozzi, Nuova guida, 619 reiterated this description in 1842. See also Fiorelli-Malesci, Santa Felicita, 213; Waldman, ‘New Light’, 293, 312n1. 58 Balocchi, S. Felicita, 121–24. There are no mentions of the window in Bocchi-Cinelli, Bellezze, 119; Bruno, Ristretto, 106; Richa, Notizie istoriche, 9:307; Follini-Rastrelli, Firenze, 8:201, 205, 208. Fantozzi’s remark (‘e la parete ove è la finestra ed è figurato il prodigio della neve caduto in tempo estivo sul monte Esquilino in Roma, e similmente lavoro del suddetto Poccetti’) provides no details regarding the window’s configuration or iconography. Fantozzi, Nuova guida, 621. 59 Waldman, ‘New Light’, 293. 60 Os, ‘Snow in Siena’, 75.

‘Locum ecclesiae designavit, quae Ioannis et uxoris pecunia ex tructa est’ 

a sign as to how to dispose of their wealth in a way that would be pleasing to her. The Virgin heeded the couple’s call and appeared to each of them in a dream to explain that they would awake to find that snow had fallen on the Esquiline hill in the middle of the Roman summer, and that they should build a church upon that spot and dedicate it to her. When he awoke, John went to Pope Liberius to tell him of the Virgin’s message and the Pontiff reported that he had experienced a similar dream. Then the pope, John, and a ‘solemn procession of priests and people’ made their way to the Esquiline, where Liberius traced the floor plan of the basilica in the fallen snow.61 Poccetti’s rendering of the miracle focuses on this procession of priests and people, which winds its way around the mural surface in a clockwise direction from the upper right, where the tail end of the group is shown cresting the hill in front of some imposing ruins that include a monumental apse, the springing of a large collapsed vault, and a fragment of a fluted column shaft. As Paul Hamilton has shown, Poccetti solved the problem of the window’s intrusion into the composition by treating it as a hub around which his composition rotates.62 As he did with the lunettes in the Chiostro Grande at Santa Maria Novella and in most of his large mural compositions, Poccetti moves the spectator’s eye through the image and makes the complicated scene legible through the gazes and attitudes of the figures and a calculated use of color. Hamilton recognized that the light streaming in through the window would attract a viewer’s attention and that the natural tendency would be for the eye to scan from the window to the right where Poccetti has painted the ruins.63 Although Hamilton did not remark upon it, those ruins—especially the half-dome and the arch fragment—are also visual echoes of the shape and proportions of the window opening itself which create a strong visual link between the physical architectural features of the chapel and the painted architectural forms of the fresco. Using the ruins as a focal point—as well as the point of origin for the crowd of onlookers—Poccetti began the clockwise rotation of the composition. The prominent figure in green on the right edge of the fresco, for example, pulls one’s gaze down towards the lower right corner, where a striking reclining nude delineates the painting’s lower boundary and diverts one’s attention to the left. This figure, a personification of the Tiber, also reveals the location of the scene. Beneath the 61 ‘Quare sollemni sacerdotum & populi supplicatione ad colle[m] venit nive coopertum, & in ea [sic] locum ecclesiae designavit, quae Ioannis & uxoris pecunia extructa est.’ Breviarium Romanum, 739. This summary is derived from the description of the feast in Breviarium Romanum, 738–39; Bute, Roman Breviary, 3:789–90. For a description of how the emphasis on different aspects of the legend changed over time in the textual and visual accounts, see Os, ‘Snow in Siena’, 78–79. 62 Hamilton, ‘Poccetti’s Style’, 185–88. 63 Hamilton, ‘Poccetti’s Style’, 185.

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Fig. 3.9: Bernardino Poccetti, preparatory design for The Miraculous Snowfall on the Esquiline Hill and the Foundation of Santa Maria Maggiore, 1590, red and black pencil, ink, and bistre on ivory paper, 328 x 238mm. Rome, Istituto Centrale per la Grafica (inv. no. FC130590r). Source: with permission of the Ministero della Cultura and Istituto Centrale per la Grafica, further duplication or reproduction prohibited

‘Locum ecclesiae designavit, quae Ioannis et uxoris pecunia ex tructa est’ 

window, the stark whiteness of the miraculous snowfall frames a putto, whose outstretched limbs create a graphic x-shaped silhouette. Another figure, this one in an elaborate pose and clothed in a brilliant blue that is set in contrast to the yellow of his cape and the yellow of the female figure in front of him, creates another point of visual interest. This figure’s location and his backward glance make him an arresting feature of the fresco as seen from the center of the nave as one exits the church, but he also serves to direct one’s attention up the left edge of the fresco to where Pope Liberius consults a plan while raising his right hand in the direction of the snow-covered ground beneath the window, thereby completing the clockwise movement through the composition. A comparison of the fresco to an extant preparatory drawing at the Istituto Centrale per la Grafica in Rome reveals Poccetti’s last-minute amendments to the work (Fig. 3.9).64 The drawing, which includes the outline of the roundheaded window and has been squared for transfer, must represent a late stage in the lunette’s design, but this did not stop Poccetti from making slight but meaningful adjustments to the final painting. Take, for example, the ruins adjacent to the window, which are roughly sketched out in the drawing and do not contain the prominent half-dome or the curve of the broken arch, a fact that suggests that Poccetti made these changes to the ruins on site and in response to the form of the chapel’s window. Poccetti also reworked a few key figures in order to reinforce the compositional structure of the fresco. In the lower right corner Poccetti changed the orientation of the Tiber. In the Rome drawing, the Tiber reclines partially with his torso facing the picture plane and his head turned to direct his view deeper into the fresco’s composition, whereas in the finished lunette the Tiber is seen in a three-quarters view from behind. His back is partially turned, and he looks over his shoulder and out of the picture in the direction of the spectator. A drawing in black chalk at the Cleveland Museum of Art shows Poccetti’s extensive reworking of this figure and closely resembles the finished painting, down to the inclusion of the she-wolf, a young boy who must be Romulus or Remus, and the reedy, disheveled hair of the Tiber (Fig. 3.10).65 In addition to further specifying that the events depicted in the fresco took place in Rome, the changes made to this corner of the fresco more effectively control the movement of the spectator’s eye through the fresco. The reclining curve of the Tiber’s body rounds the bottom corner of the mural and shifts the downward trajectory of the viewer’s eye to the left and back into the composition, directly towards the putto. The inclusion of the putto is another departure from the Rome 64 On this drawing (Rome, Istituto Centrale per la Grafica [hereafter ICG], FC130590r), see Hamilton, ‘Poccetti’s Style’, 185, 252–53; Prosperi Valenti Rodinò, Disegni fiorentini, 25; Pieraccini, ‘2.23 Miracolo della neve’, 84; Fiorelli-Malesci, Santa Trinita, 202. 65 This drawing has been recognized as a study for the Madonna della Neve, but it has not been closely analyzed within the context of the fresco’s production. https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2012.36.

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Fig. 3.10: Bernardino Poccetti, study for The Miraculous Snowfall on the Esquiline Hill and the Foundation of Santa Maria Maggiore, c. 1590, black chalk. Cleveland Museum of Art. Source: Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access Initiative (CC0 1.0)

drawing. Faint marks in the drawing suggest that Poccetti considered placing more members of the procession in this location, but by substituting the single youth facing the picture plane for a group of onlookers, Poccetti emphasized both the boy and the stark whiteness of the miraculous snowfall that frames his outstretched arm and curly red hair. Poccetti’s other changes include accentuating the figure at the lower left corner of the mural by increasing the volume of his drapery with a prodigious number of crisp, Sartesque folds and by changing the position of his arm to highlight its virtuosic foreshortening. Like the Tiber, its pendant in the lower right corner, the figure in blue also redirects the gaze up the left side of the lunette in the direction of Pope Liberius. Just above the figure in blue there are two men—one dressed in red and wearing a biretta and the other with a ruff collar (Fig. 3.11). Poccetti included these two figures in the Rome drawing but he sketched them out roughly and the specifics of their clothing and facial features are only barely indicated. To judge from their clothing, their individualized facial features, and the positioning of their faces parallel to the picture plane for maximum legibility—all features that Georges Didi-Huberman

‘Locum ecclesiae designavit, quae Ioannis et uxoris pecunia ex tructa est’ 

has called ‘particularities’—these figures must be portraits.66 As a result of these particularities, scholars have put forward various identifications for these two men.67 The least accepted and least convincing suggestion is that one of the two figures represents Poccetti. This argument can be rejected for a few reasons. The first is that neither of the two men resembles known likenesses of Poccetti all that much.68 The man in the ruff collar with his white hair and beard appears too old to be Poccetti if the fresco was painted—as the records attest—in late 1589 and early 1590 when the painter would have been in his late thirties. It is more likely that this figure—whose clothing and facial hair are Cinquecento anachronisms that set him apart from the rest of the figures in the fresco—is a portrait of Giovanni Canigiani, the chapel’s patron.69 In addition to the tradition of including donor portraits in representations of the miraculous snowfall, Balocchi asserted in the nineteenth century that some of the apostles in Minga’s altarpiece were portraits of members of the Canigiani family.70 If it is the case that Minga included cryptoportraits in the Assumption—a hypothesis that is admittedly difficult to test given the challenges presented by the panel’s

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Fig. 3.11: Bernardino Poccetti, The Miraculous Snowfall on the Esquiline Hill and the Foundation of Santa Maria Maggiore (detail), 1590, fresco. Florence, Santa Felicita, Canigiani Chapel. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

66 Didi-Huberman, ‘Portrait’, 165–66. 67 Fiorelli-Malesci, Santa Trinita, 202; Padoa Rizzo, ‘Iconografia’, 278; Padoa Rizzo, Iconografia, cat. no. II, B, 15. 68 For a discussion of Poccetti’s self-portraiture, see Dow, Apostolic Iconography, 155–58. 69 Padoa Rizzo, ‘Iconografia’, 278; Padoa Rizzo, Iconografia, cat. no. II, B, 15. 70 A stained-glass window of the Miracolo della Neve at Orsanmichele from the late fourteenth–early fifteenth century shows two kneeling figures presumed to be patrons, and a painting by Jacopo Zucchi from the late 1570s includes figures that present as individual likenesses (a fact that prompted Giovanni Baglione to assert in the seventeenth century that they were portraits). For the window, see Martin, ‘Domenico del Ghirlandaio’, 134; for the Zucchi panel, see Incisa della Rochetta, ‘Miracolo della neve’, 182; Ostrow, Art and Spirituality, 133. Balocchi claimed that he learned of the cryptoportraits in the altarpiece from a manuscript in the Canigiani family archive (‘così si rileva da un manoscritto, che esiste nell’Archivio di questi Signori’). Unfortunately, Balocchi did not provide any further information about this document, which seems to have eluded modern researchers. His statement does, however, support the notion that Giovanni Canigiani had his painters include family likenesses in the chapel’s decoration. Balocchi, S. Felicita, 122–23.

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poor state and the chapel’s inadequate lighting—then it is likely that there are also portraits of members of the family in the fresco as well. The man in red presents strongly as a cardinal, with his red mantle and hat providing a visual link between this figure and the cardinals who surround Pope Liberius, underscoring the identification of this man as a member of the church hierarchy. If we accept that this man wears the regalia of a cardinal, it becomes even more improbable that it is a self-portrait by Poccetti, who would have been unlikely to paint his own likeness dressed up in such a costume. An alternative suggestion that has been put forward is that this figure is a portrait of Giovanni Canigiani’s brother, Alessandro (d. 1591).71 A doctor of both civil and canon law, Alessandro had served Pope Pius V as referendary of both signatures and as an abbreviator de Parcu maiori before he assumed the archbishopric of Aix in 1576. Like Carlo Borromeo (1538–1584), to whom he looked for inspiration, Alessandro was an enthusiastic adopter of the reforms instituted at Trent who embraced the bishop’s responsibility for overseeing change within his see.72 In addition to increasing the number of pastoral visits within his archdiocese, he also convened a provincial council in Aix in February of 1585 to ensure that the reforms of Trent were being implemented locally.73 That this figure represents Alessandro is a sensible interpretation, since Giovanni would have wanted to celebrate the ecclesiastical success and status of a member of the Canigiani family, but there is one impediment to accepting this identification. This figure wears a red biretta on his head, and has a red garment draped over his shoulders that resembles a heavy and substantial cloak. At the lower edge of this red cloak, what appears to be his elbow pokes out, clad in a white garment. This white garment is most likely the knee-length linen gown known as a rochet, whereas the red garment is either a mozzetta or the cappa rubea.74 Taken together, these three articles, the red biretta, the rochet, and the red cloak, form the traditional costume 71 Fiorelli-Malesci, Santa Trinita, 202. 72 In the funeral oration for Alessandro he delivered in 1592, fellow member of the Accademia degli Alterati, Lorenzo Giacomini Tebalducci Malespini, described Canigiani as an ‘admirer and imitator’ of Carlo Borromeo. Giacomini Tebalducci Malespini, Orationi e discorsi, 83. 73 DBI, s.v. ‘Canigiani, Alessandro’ (by Bernard Barbiche), http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/alessandrocanigiani_(Dizionario-Biografico). For the decrees from the synod, see Hardouin, Acta conciliorum, 10:1515–86. 74 Poccetti’s rendering of the red cloak makes it difficult to identify precisely. The substantial folds suggest that it is meant to represent the cappa rubea, a heavy and voluminous cloak, more than the mozzetta, a short cape. Furthermore, the mozzetta was fastened in the front with buttons and the garment in the fresco seems to be draped over the shoulder and left open in the front, which was how the cappa rubea was worn. The cappa rubea, however, did not have armholes or slits, and it is difficult to imagine how the figure’s elbow could be visible if he is in fact wearing the cappa rubea. Finally, each of these garments was also equipped with a hood, a feature that seems to be absent from Poccetti’s rendering. For more on these articles, see Bonanni, Gerarchia ecclesiastica, 426; Hunter, ‘Nicolo Albergati’, 213–14; Richardson, ‘Cardinal’s Wardrobe’, 537–39.

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of a cardinal. The use of the color red for garments had originally been reserved for the papacy since at least the thirteenth century, but was extended to the cardinals to denote their close affiliation with the pontiff.75 If the red garments of the figure in Poccetti’s fresco are meant to identify him as a cardinal, then the man in the fresco cannot represent Alessandro Canigiani, because Canigiani was never raised to the purple.76 Furthermore, the decrees from the synod in Aix include a section on the life and decorum of the clergy (‘De vita & honestate clericorum’) that provide detailed rules regarding the dress and physical appearance of men of the church. From describing the permissible amount of facial hair (‘Presbyteri autem barbam habeant ad superius labrum ita incisam’) to recommending the wearing of the biretta, these guidelines suggest that Alessandro was attuned to the importance of maintaining standard sartorial practices within the church.77 In light of these prescriptions, the idea that the archbishop would be represented in ecclesiastical dress that did not reflect his actual status within the church is hard to sustain. It is difficult to imagine, however, who else the man might be other than Alessandro, especially since the positioning of this figure next to the likeness of Giovanni encourages the spectator to identify him with the Canigiani family. It is possible that the red clothing reflects an expectation that Alessandro would be raised to the cardinalate in recognition of his long service to the papacy. The archbishop worked diligently to counter the influence of Protestantism in France, efforts that were singled out in the funeral oration that Lorenzo Giacomini Tebalducci Malespini delivered to the Accademia degli Alterati, which counted Alessandro among its members.78 Most significantly, Sixtus V’s legate, Cardinal Enrico Caetani (1550–1599), sent Alessandro to Languedoc in November of 1589 to rally the Catholics of that region.79 Traveling from town to town on the way to Toulouse in early 1590, Canigiani found that the fires of enthusiasm for the Roman Church had been largely extinguished, and in a letter dated 7 February 1590 he recommended that the pope 75 Richardson, ‘Cardinal’s Wardrobe’, 536. The close relationship between the pope and the cardinals was characterized in a letter to Eugenius III written by Bernard of Clairvaux in 1146 that called the pope a ‘head’ and the cardinals its ‘eyes’; shortly thereafter, in 1201, Innocent III reiterated this concept, referring to the cardinals as ‘parts of the pope’s body’ who were ‘parts of the head’, and thus at the top of the church’s hierarchy. Bombi, ‘Medieval Background’, 12–14. 76 Gulik, Eubel, and Schmitz-Kallenberg, Hierarchia catholica, 113. 77 Hardouin, Acta conciliorum, 10:1542. The prescriptions laid out in the synod are far more precise than those outlined at Trent, which are a general requirement for clerics not to dress like laypeople and to wear clothes appropriately reflective of their ecclesiastical status. Tanner, Decrees, 2:716–17. In 1566, shortly after he became pope, Pius V attempted to standardize sartorial codes to distinguish between clerics (whom he required to wear ecclesiastical dress) and professionals like doctors and jurists (whom he forced to give up wearing the biretta). Pastor, History of the Popes, 17:185–86; Ditchfield, ‘Papa come pastore’, 172–73. 78 Giacomini Tebalducci Malespini, Orationi e discorsi, 87. 79 Manfroni, ‘Legazione del Cardinale Caetani’, 215n1.

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send more troops and more money to the region in order to shore up support for the papacy. Only a few days later, however, in a letter sent from Toulouse on February 12, the cardinal of Joyeuse described the population of the city and its surroundings as ready to zealously preserve the Catholic religion, a situation that he credited to Archbishop Canigiani.80 At some point after his efforts in Languedoc in the spring of 1590, Alessandro left France for Rome, where he died on 31 March 1591.81 It is not clear why he came back to Italy, but it is possible that he was returning in anticipation of receiving the cardinal’s hat. If this were the case, it would help to explain the presence of the man in cardinal’s garb in Poccetti’s fresco. Even if the discussion above has not completely resolved the identity of the cardinal in the fresco, it has shown that Poccetti’s elaborate image of the miraculous snowfall on the Esquiline hill is composed almost exclusively of an extraordinary number of human figures. These include historical actors like Pope Liberius, allegorical figures like the river Tiber, and even the likeness of Giovanni Canigiani. There are, all told, over thirty individuals represented in the fresco, but one person is conspicuously absent. Nowhere in this densely populated scene does the Virgin Mary appear. Although not every representation of the miraculous snowfall includes a celestial appearance by the Virgin, it is typical for her to be shown in the sky above the Esquiline.82 One of the most famous examples of this is found on a panel painted by Masolino (1383–c. 1447) for the Santa Maria Maggiore altarpiece. This triptych, a collaboration between Masolino and Masaccio (1401–1428), was removed from the basilica in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century and subsequently disassembled.83 Masolino’s Miracolo della Neve, now in Naples, shows the Virgin accompanied by Christ, floating above Pope Liberius in a circular aureole, beneath which a dark cloud spits flakes of snow to the ground. Masolino’s rendering closely resembles the mosaic of this scene on the basilica’s facade, which was made around 1300 and remained visible on the church’s exterior until the construction of the loggia in 1743.84 This image also shows both Christ and the Virgin in a circular 80 L’Epinois, Ligue et les papes, 361–62. 81 DBI, s.v. ‘Canigiani, Alessandro’ (by Bernard Barbiche). 82 A notable exception to this rule is Stefano Maderno’s relief from 1612 for the Cappella Paolina at Santa Maria Maggiore. Ostrow, Art and Sprituality, 166–67. 83 In the life of Masaccio in his 1568 edition, Vasari described admiring the altarpiece alongside Michelangelo ‘nella chiesa di Santa Maria Maggiore, in una cappelletta vicina alla sagrestia’. Vasari-Milanesi, 2:293. It is possible that the altarpiece was still in the basilica while Poccetti was in Rome in the late 1570s, but by 1644 the altarpiece had been removed from the church to the Palazzo Farnese, where the disassembled panels were recorded in a series of inventories taken between 1653 and 1734. Mancinelli, ‘Basilica nel Quattrocento’, 191; Strehlke and Tucker, ‘Santa Maria Maggiore Altarpiece’, 111. For detailed discussions of the patronage, installation history, and provenance of the altarpiece, see Gordon, Fifteenth Century, 238–44; Strehlke, Italian Paintings, 256–61. 84 Os, ‘Snow in Siena’, 76–77.

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aureole above the pope and his retinue, as well as the miraculous snow falling from heaven.85 Closer in time to Poccetti than these venerable prototypes is the painting by Jacopo Zucchi (c. 1541–1589/90), now in the Pinacoteca Vaticana, but originally one of two images—the other represents the Procession of Gregory the Great— commissioned by Camillo Borghese to decorate the tabernacle at Santa Maria Maggiore that housed the famous Hodegetria icon of the Virgin and Child, known as the Salus Populi Romani.86 In Zucchi’s image (c. 1577–1582), Mary appears alone in the sky floating on a cloud from which sprouts a number of cherubic, winged heads. The Virgin spreads her arms above the busy scene on Fig. 3.12: Niccolò di Piero Tedesco (?) from a design the Esquiline, which, like Poccetti’s later image, by Niccolò di Pietro Gerini (?), The Miraculous contains a large number of figures and a view of Snowfall on the Esquiline Hill and the Foundation of ruins (including a half-dome) in the background. Santa Maria Maggiore, c. 1386–1400, stained glass. Florence, Orsanmichele. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Turning from Roman examples, Florentine Commons (CC BY 3.0) depictions of the Miracolo della Neve also represent the Virgin in the sky above the hill. Lorenzo Monaco’s (c. 1370–1425) fresco of this event in the Bartolini Salimbeni chapel in Santa Trìnita is in extremely poor condition, but the surviving patches of intonaco on the wall clearly show a half-length image of Mary in the upper part of the lunette.87 Floating on a cloud and surrounded by a glowing roundel, she gestures down to Pope Liberius in the lower left corner of the fresco. A slightly earlier image from the end of the fourteenth century in stained glass at Orsanmichele shows a half-length Mary surrounded by angels floating above a cloud that drops snowflakes to the ground where they have assumed the form of a tau-shaped church plan (Fig. 3.12).88 Another instance in a stained-glass window installed during Ghirlandaio’s late 85 For a recent discussion of this mosaic, see Donkin, ‘Sta. Maria Maggiore’, 234–36. Os referred to the inclusion of Christ in the sky alongside Mary as a ‘dogmatic subtlety’ that ‘only occurs in the Roman iconography of the snow legend’. Os, ‘Snow in Siena’, 80. 86 Ostrow, Art and Spirituality, 133. 87 Eisenberg, Lorenzo Monaco, 129–30 remarked that ‘Lorenzo and his workshop were not particularly adept in fresco technique’ and attributed the poor condition of the fresco to the ‘numerous segments’ of intonaco that they applied. In this same passage, Eisenberg also noted that damage to Santa Trìnita from explosives detonated near the church in 1944 and air pollution caused further degradation of the murals. On the decoration of this chapel, see Padoa Rizzo, ‘Attività di Don Lorenzo Monaco’, 108–15; Eisenberg, Lorenzo Monaco, 37–44, 128–34; Tigler, ‘Cappella Bartolini Salimbeni’, 11–22. 88 On this window see Cohn, Ikonographie der Glasfenster, 8–9; Zervas, Orsanmichele, 1:167–68, 527.

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fifteenth-century decoration of the Tornabuoni Chapel in Santa Maria Novella contains many of the same elements: the Virgin as a celestial apparition flanked by angels with snow falling to the ground from above.89 Although it remains possible that the Virgin was represented in Poccetti’s destroyed vault fresco, the surviving evidence—namely that many examples of the iconography of the miraculous snowfall include Mary’s appearance in the sky directly above the Esquiline, that two of the Florentine depictions of the miracle are in stained glass, and that Giovanni Canigiani’s account books are explicit about paying the Gesuati for the installation of stained glass in his chapel—strongly suggests that the Virgin’s celestial presence on the morning of the snowfall was represented in the Canigiani Chapel’s window. The benefits of this solution—that representing the Virgin in the sky above the hill in stained glass would have exploited the medium’s translucent luminosity and imparted an evocative glow to Mary’s appearance—must have been appealing to Canigiani. Moreover, the utter lack of Mary’s presence in Poccetti’s preparatory drawing for the fresco suggests that the painter knew that the design in the window would represent the Virgin and that he took this into consideration when he composed the mural.

A Roman Miracle in a Florentine Church At first glance, the fresco of the miraculous snowfall in the Canigiani Chapel seems to have little to do with its surroundings or its patron, but the other Florentine examples of this iconography help to explain why Canigiani would have wanted Poccetti to paint this scene in his chapel in Santa Felicita. All three of the examples discussed above are found in locations closely associated with the Virgin Mary. The window at Orsanmichele, for example, is a representation of the miracle on the Esquiline installed in a grain market-turned-oratory that was the site of a miracle-working image of the Virgin.90 The Bartolini Salimbeni chapel is dedicated to the Annunziata, and the stained-glass window in the Tornabuoni Chapel not only emphasizes the dedication of the Dominican basilica to the Virgin Mary, but also highlights a tradition of patrician patronage that reflects positively on Giovanni Tornabuoni, who shared his name with the Roman patrician from the legend.91 89 On this window, see Simons, ‘Patronage’, 244–48; Martin, ‘Domenico del Ghirlandaio’, 133–35. A large and complex monument, the Tornabuoni Chapel has attracted much scholarly attention. For a recent description of the chapel and its furnishings, see Martelli, ‘Spettacolo’, 155–205; for a recent and concise summary of the literature, see DePrano, Art Patronage, 112–14. 90 Zervas, Orsanmichele, 1:167–68. 91 For the dedication of the Bartolini Salimbeni Chapel, see Eisenberg, Lorenzo Monaco, 38; on the Tornabuoni Chapel, see Simons, ‘Patronage’, 247.

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Seen in this light, the fresco in the Canigiani Chapel seems less incongruous. The chapel is dedicated to the Assunta, so one expects that the large mural surface adjacent to the altar wall would contain Marian imagery. The identities of the saints in the chapel’s pendentives demonstrate that Canigiani was interested in creating associations with other men from sacred history named John, therefore the story of the founding of Santa Maria Maggiore would have been attractive to him because it also emphasized the pious and charitable actions of another John. Furthermore, the story of the Roman patrician and his wife resonated nicely with Canigiani, who was, after all, another elite patron named John using his wealth to endow a structure in Mary’s honor.92 Like his namesake in the Roman basilica’s foundation legend, Canigiani used his privileged position and wealth in the service of the church, and built a structure to celebrate the Virgin. In addition to these personally compelling reasons, Canigiani’s commission of the Miracolo della Neve also reflected an increased focus on the Virgin Mary generally within Catholicism at the end of the Cinquecento, as well as an interest in legends that accentuated her power as an intercessor. Although it purports to recount events from the fourth century, the legend of the miraculous snowfall probably developed in the eleventh or twelfth centuries as a way to buttress the claim that Santa Maria Maggiore was the oldest church dedicated to Mary in Christendom.93 The feast of Maria ad Nives was first instituted by Pope Honorius III (d. 1227) in 1222 and was promoted by the Franciscans over the course of the thirteenth century, but it was not until much later in 1568 that Pope Pius V (1504–1572) inserted the feast into the liturgical calendar as part of the effort to reform the breviary after the Council of Trent.94 The increased importance of the miracle and its feast at the end of the Cinquecento was the result of a larger effort on the part of the papacy to underscore the importance of the saintly intercessors and to reinforce Catholic traditions that emphasized charitable patronage of the church and the miraculous interventions of the saints in the everyday lives of the faithful. It was also at this time that Pius V added the twelfth-century Marian antiphon, ‘Salve Regina’, to the breviary.95 This medieval hymn, which addresses the Virgin 92 Fiorelli-Malesci, Santa Trinita, 202. Os has argued that the emphasis on patronage in the legend made it especially attractive to individuals who ‘liked to identify themselves with the patrician’. Os, ‘Snow in Siena’, 80–81. The Sienese patrons of Sassetta’s Madonna della Neve altarpiece (1432) were also a childless couple who used their wealth to endow a chapel in the cathedral, itself already dedicated to the Virgin of the Assumption. Israëls, Sassetta’s Madonna della Neve, 16, 102–3. 93 Pelaez, ‘Leggenda’, 397–98 asserts that the appearance of the legend in off icial accounts in the thirteenth century suggests that it had a ‘lunga vita e profonde radici nell’anima popolare’ prior to that point. See also Os, ‘Snow in Siena’, 75, 78–79; Israëls, Sassetta’s Madonna della Neve, 99–100. 94 On the early development and adoption of the feast, see Israëls, Sassetta’s Madonna della Neve, 99–100. For the reform of the breviary after Trent, see Ditchfield, ‘Tridentine Worship’, 201–5. 95 Ostrow, Art and Spirituality, 330n210.

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as Mediatrix, had become popular at the end of the sixteenth century. Its direct appeal to the Virgin for mercy—ad te clamamus—reinforced Mary’s traditional role as intercessor, a role that came under ever increasing attacks from Protestant reformers over the course of the Cinquecento.96 Erasmus (1469–1536), for example, criticized the cult of saints as a thinly veiled revival of pagan practices. Citing the ‘Salve Regina’ specifically, he noted that sailors who once prayed to Venus now recited the hymn to Mary instead.97 Martin Luther (1483–1546) also rejected the emphasis placed on Mary in popular religious practice, since it contradicted the Augustinian reformer’s concept of solus Christus, the notion that only Christ can act as the mediator between God and the faithful.98 The Protestant rejection of Mary’s cult also included the repudiation of the feast of the Assumption, which was struck from the religious calendar in some Protestant centers and which was openly criticized by Luther.99 The presence of two emphatic expressions of the importance of Mary and her traditional roles within Catholicism in the Canigiani Chapel—including one in the chapel’s altarpiece that specifically represents a feast increasingly rejected by northern reformers—hardly seems coincidental when seen in the context of Protestant attacks on the Roman Church. Even if the identification of the man in cardinal’s dress on the left side of Poccetti’s Madonna della Neve as Alessandro Canigiani cannot be substantiated, the fact remains that the archbishop was a committed reformer and supporter of the Church’s efforts to combat Protestantism. At the council he convened in Aix in February of 1585, Archbishop Canigiani brought together bishops from the nearby sees of Apt, Sisteron, Riez, and Gap, along with other high-ranking ecclesiastics from the region. As was mentioned above, some of the efforts of the council were meant to ensure that reforms instituted at Trent were being implemented locally. Among these was the promotion and adoption of the new breviary produced during the pontificate of Pius V, a breviary that emphasized the role of the Virgin in Catholic religious practice through the inclusion of the feast of the Miracle of the Snow and the ‘Salve Regina’.100 Seen in this light, the Marian iconography of the Canigiani Chapel takes on another layer of meaning. In 96 ‘Hail, Queen, Mother of mercy, our life, sweetness, and hope, hail. To you we cry out, the exiled sons of Eve, to you we sigh, groaning and weeping, in this vale of tears. Come then, our Advocate, turn your merciful eyes to us, and Jesus, the blessed fruit of your womb, show us after this exile. O mild, o gentle, o sweet virgin Mary.’ Frandsen, ‘Salve Regina’, 142–43. 97 Eire, War Against the Idols, 38. 98 For a summary of how Luther’s ideas about Mary evolved over time, from calling upon her for help after injuring himself with a dagger in 1503 to telling the listeners of a sermon from 1523 to ‘neither invoke nor honor either the Mother of God nor any of the saints’, see Frandsen, ‘Salve Regina’, 133–41. 99 Ostrow, Art and Spirituality, 169. 100 The synod’s decree threatened those who did not comply with the command to adopt the reformed Tridentine breviary with excommunication. Hardouin, Acta conciliorum, 10:1530.

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addition to being a reflection of a general trend within Catholicism at the end of the Cinquecento to celebrate the Virgin’s role as intercessor, it also reflects Alessandro’s work as a reform-minded ecclesiastic who had risen through the ranks of the papal bureaucracy and assumed the powerful position of archbishop. Even if Alessandro was never raised to the purple, the inclusion of the cardinal alongside Giovanni’s portrait in the fresco reminded Florentines of the links between the papal curia and the Canigiani family. But if all of this might seem a bit removed from the immediate confines of Santa Felicita, no matter how customary complicated messages about family and patronage had become in Florentine religious art at the end of the Cinquecento, there is another circumstance that provides yet one more reason why Canigiani had Poccetti paint the Miracle of the Snow in his chapel. In his treatment of Santa Felicita published in 1761, Giuseppe Richa described how the nuns of Santa Felicita purchased a small farm outside the Porta di San Piero in Gattolino (now the Porta Romana) in 1485.101 Richa’s account consists of two long passages that he quoted verbatim from sources available to him in the eighteenth century but that have now been lost. The first, a chronicle (memoriale) by the prior of Santa Felicita, Sante Assettati, was written from 1613 to 1660 (although Assettati only wrote the parts covering 1613 to 1626), and provides most of the historical context for Richa’s discussion.102 Richa’s second source is a summary (specchietto) of financial transactions, for which Richa did not give a date, but which recorded the economic particulars of the property up to its alienation in 1616. According to the passage Richa quoted from Assettati, the small farm was near the city walls and had a house for the caretaker (‘un poderino con casa da lavoratore’). Much of this property was destroyed during the siege of 1529, with the exception of a stretch of wall that housed a tabernacle with an image of the Virgin. In 1560, this image began to perform miracles (‘cominciò a far miracoli’) and by 1564 its popularity had reached such a point that the nuns had amassed a considerable sum in charitable donations. The nuns decided to use these funds to build a church to house the tabernacle and its miraculous image, laying the foundation stone on 21 September 1566. According to Assettati, the tabernacle was placed on the high altar and referred to as Santa Maria della Neve (‘il tabernacolo sull’altar maggiore, sotto il titolo di Santa Maria della Neve’). The cult continued to flourish, with the nuns underwriting the costs of celebrating masses in the church and observing the feast of Our Lady of the Snow, with the result that new ‘graces and miracles’ were always happening (‘sempre accadendo nuove grazie e miracoli’). Even though the nuns sold the church and its surrounding property in 1616, the 101 Richa, Notizie istoriche, 9:290–91. 102 For the lost chronicle of Sante Assettati and its use by historians in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, see Mosiici, Carte del monastero, 8–9.

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memory of their connection to this miraculous image was retained in the terms of the sale. Not only did the monks who purchased the property pay the nuns 650 scudi, but—as Richa’s quotation from the specchietto shows—they were also obligated to provide a large white candle to the nuns of Santa Felicita annually on the feast of the Miracle of the Snow (‘si obbligarono di consegnare ogn’anno per la Festa di S. Maria della Neve al nostro monastero una falcola di cera bianca di una libbra’).103

Conclusion Although it has been overshadowed by the Capponi Chapel across the nave, the Canigiani Chapel in Santa Felicita stands as a compelling example of how traditional approaches to religious art remained vital to Florentine patrons, as well as how patrons and artists responded to new challenges and objectives for sacred imagery. Seen from one perspective, Canigiani’s chapel is deeply traditional. Not only does it take its inspiration from the early sixteenth-century configuration and decoration of the Capponi Chapel, but it also deploys traditional tools to promote the Canigiani family—including the probable insertion of Giovanni Canigiani’s likeness in Poccetti’s fresco of the Miracolo della Neve. Some of these elements do not conform to new expectations for religious art, yet, when seen from an alternate perspective, the decoration of the chapel does address contemporary concerns about religious imagery and the role of Catholicism in Europe. The large mural reiterates and reinforces Catholic ideas regarding the importance of the saints—and especially emphasizes Mary’s role as intercessor—even as it underscores the importance of charitable works such as art patronage. This same emphasis is carried through in the pendentives, where various saints personify different aspects of sacrality. From the Baptist’s role as a prophet to the pious example of Giovanni Gualberto, and from the self-sacrifice of Pope John I to the dedication of the Evangelist, each saint represents a different way of devoting oneself to Christ. That these saints also echo and glorify the name of the patron must have only added to their appeal. Returning to the Miracle of the Snow, in addition to representing a newly elevated feast, it also spoke to a popular and lucrative cult that was maintained just outside the walls of Florence by the Benedictine nuns of Santa Felicita, thereby bringing the universal goals of the church into local focus. It is this constant movement between the larger objectives of the late sixteenth-century church and the more specific messages regarding location, function, and patronage that makes the Canigiani Chapel a successful example of Poccetti’s ability to negotiate the challenging terrain of late-Renaissance religious painting. 103 Richa, Notizie istoriche, 9:291.

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Satkowski, Leon. ‘The Palazzo Pitti: Planning and Use in the Grand-Ducal Era’. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 42, no.4 (1983): 336–49. Simons, Patricia. ‘Patronage in the Tornaquinci Chapel, Santa Maria Novella, Florence’. In Patronage, Art, and Society in Renaissance Italy, edited by F.W. Kent and Patricia Simons with J.C. Eade, 221–50. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987. Strehlke, Carl. Italian Paintings 1250–1450 in the John G. Johnson Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2004. Strehlke, Carl and Mark Tucker. ‘The Santa Maria Maggiore Altarpiece’. In The Panel Paintings of Masolino and Masaccio: The Role of Technique, edited by Carl Brandon Strehlke and Cecilia Frosinini, 111–29. Milan: 5 Continents, 2002. Tanner, Norman P., ed. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils. 2 vols. London: Sheed and Ward, 1990. Thomas, Anabel. The Painter’s Practice in Renaissance Tuscany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Tigler, Guido. ‘La cappella Bartolini Salimbeni a Santa Trinita’. In Cappelle del Rinascimento a Firenze, 11–22. Florence: Becocci, 1998. Vasari, Giorgio. Le opere di Giorgio Vasari. 9 vols. Edited by Gaetano Milanesi. 1906. Reprint, Florence: Sansoni, 1973. Vasetti, Stefania. Bernardino Poccetti e gli Strozzi: Committenze a Firenze nel primo decennio del Seicento. Florence: Opus Libri, 1994. Voss, Hermann. Zeichnungen der italienischen Spätrenaissance. Munich: Delphin-Verlag, 1928. Waldman, Louis Alexander. ‘New Light on the Capponi Chapel in S. Felicita’. Art Bulletin 84, no. 2 (2002): 293–314. Wasserman, Jack. ‘The Barbadori Chapel in Santa Felicita’. In An Architectural Progress in the Renaissance and Baroque: Sojourns In and Out of Italy, edited by Henry A. Millon and Susan Scott Munshower, 24–43. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Department of Art History, 1992. Wasserman, Jack. ‘Pontormo in the Capponi Chapel in Santa Felicita in Florence’. Mitteilingun des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 53, no. 1 (2009): 35–72. Wasserman, Jack. ‘The “St Matthew” tondo for the Capponi Chapel in S. Felicita, Florence’. Burlington Magazine 152, no. 1282 (2010): 12–17. Williams, Robert. ‘A Treatise by Francesco Bocchi in Praise of Andrea del Sarto’. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 52 (1989): 111–39. Zervas, Diane Finiello, ed. Orsanmichele a Firenze. 2 vols. Modena: Franco Cosimo Panini, 1996.

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4. ‘Miracula et alia id genus’ Bernardino Poccetti’s Frescoes in the Church of San Lorenzo at the Certosa del Galluzzo Abstract: When they renovated their church at the charterhouse in Galluzzo outside of Florence, the Carthusians commissioned Bernardino Barbatelli (called Poccetti, 1553–1612) to decorate the space with some of the earliest monumental images from the life of their founder, Saint Bruno of Cologne (c. 1030–1101). These scenes of Saint Bruno highlight the important role that the Carthusians had played in sacred history, and make a case for their continued relevance as the Roman Church faced the threat of Protestantism. In the process, the images also celebrate other important figures from Carthusian history, holding them up as examples of how their eremetical order had loyally served the Church in the past and would do so in the future. Keywords: Bernardino Barbatelli (called Poccetti); Saint Bruno of Cologne; Carthusians; bishops; Certosa del Galluzzo

Although its position on top of the Monte Acuto where it overlooks the traditional route to Siena and Rome gives the Certosa del Galluzzo the appearance of a remote monastery, the charterhouse is located only a little over four kilometers from Florence’s southernmost city gate, known in the Cinquecento as the Porta di San Piero in Gattolino (Fig. 4.1).1 Indeed, it appears that the distance to town from the Certosa is not so great that it could not be managed on foot by a man in his late thirties, a painter by trade, even if he was burdened with a substantial payment that had been made to him in coin.2 That this painter, Bernardino Poccetti, came to be on the Via Senese with his earnings from the work he had done for the Carthusians 1 Now known as the Porta Romana, the name of the gate changed at some point in the nineteenth century. Fiorelli and Venturi, Stradario storico, 1:355. According to William Caferro, ‘Niccolò Acciaiuoli’, 11, the imposing size and impressive location of the charterhouse were ‘no accident: the monastery, however humble its monks, was meant to be seen in all its resplendent glory’. 2 For a discussion of this anecdote from Baldinucci’s biography of Poccetti, see Chapter One.

Dow, D.N., Bernardino Poccetti and the Art of Religious Painting at the End of the Florentine Renaissance. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463729529_ch04

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Fig. 4.1: Certosa del Galluzzo, begun 1341. Florence (Galluzzo). Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

in Galluzzo, is partly the result of the changed landscape of sixteenth-century Catholicism, and, in particular, the role taken on by the Carthusian order as the wider Church pursued its campaign of reform and renewal.3 The foundation of the Certosa del Galluzzo dates to the Trecento, when Niccolò Acciaiuoli (1310–1365) made the initial bequest for the monastery. 4 A Florentine merchant living in Naples in the 1330s, Acciaiuoli had assumed a powerful and high-ranking position within the Angevin court, and his decision to found a charterhouse outside Florence was most likely inspired by the Angevins’ patronage of the Certosa di San Martino, which had been founded by Charles, the Duke of Calabria, the oldest son of Robert the Wise.5 Poccetti’s commission to decorate 3 For a concise summary of the history of the Carthusian Order from its foundation to the sixteenth century, as well as a description of Carthusian monastic life and rituals, see Martin, ‘Carthusians during the Reformation’, 42–46. 4 For transcriptions of Acciaiuoli’s testament and other documents related to the charterhouse, see Leoncini, Certosa di Firenze, 209–25. 5 On Acciaiuoli and the foundation of the Certosa, see Leoncini, Certosa di Firenze, 101–12; Chiarelli and Leoncini, Certosa del Galluzzo, 10–20; Chiarelli, Attività artistiche, 1:3–28; Leoncini, ‘Certosa di Firenze’, 247–48; Cassidy, ‘Tombs of the Acciaioli’, 326–28; De Angelis, ‘Refugio e forteza’, 109–28. For a recent discussion of Acciaiuoli’s time at the Angevin court within the context of patronage of Carthusian

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the area around the altar with frescoes representing scenes from the life of the founder of the Carthusian order, Saint Bruno of Cologne (c. 1030–1101), was the result of a renovation of the charterhouse’s church undertaken in the last half of the sixteenth century. The form of a typical Italian Carthusian monastery became fixed in the fourteenth century when a number of charterhouses—including the Certosa del Galluzzo—went up all across the peninsula in a fairly short span of time.6 Carthusian complexes tend to be large, regularized, and functional reflections of the order’s practices and priorities.7 Their churches are not architecturally elaborate. In Italy, they are frequently built with a single nave, and usually have a rectangular apse that facilitates the location of an enormous cloister immediately behind the church.8 A feature traditional to the churches of the Carthusian order is the closed screen that separates the choir of the monks from the choir of the lay brethren.9 During renovations undertaken in the last half of the Cinquecento, the Carthusians in Galluzzo provided their church with a new facade, which opened up space for a new coro dei fratelli, and precipitated the renovation of the area around the altar.10 In addition to the frescoes by Poccetti, this remodeling included the eventual installation of polychrome revetments and new furnishings (including a large ciborium) that displayed the taste for colored marble that was characteristic of Florentine architecture at the end of the Cinquecento (Fig. 4.2).11 The monumental murals by Poccetti represent the life of Saint Bruno, an iconographic program that at this point had rarely been realized on such a scale, while in the vault Bernardino painted important saints, beati, and priors general from the history of the Carthusian order. As will be shown below, the decorative scheme presents the Carthusians in a particular light that reveals the order’s careful consideration of its position within late sixteenth-century Catholicism, highlighting the aspects of its history foundations, see Napoli, Ethics of Ornament, 43–45. For an examination of aristocratic patronage of the Carthusians, see Martin, ‘The Honeymoon Was Over’, 66–82. 6 With a total of 105 new foundations throughout Europe, the fourteenth century was a high-water mark in terms of the establishment of Carthusian monasteries. That same period saw the establishment of a signif icant number of charterhouses in Italy, including but not limited to those at Padula (1306), Naples (1329), Florence (1341), Pontignano (1343), Pisa (1367), and Pavia (1396). These numbers derived from Hogg, ‘Die Ausbreitung der Kartäuser’, 9, 21–23; other estimates vary slightly; see, for example, Martin, Fifteenth-Century Carthusian Reform, 4n12. For a contextualization of the founding of the Certosa del Galluzzo within the other fourteenth-century Italian charterhouses, see Leoncini, Certosa di Firenze, 96–100; Chiarelli, Attività artistiche, 1:4–5. 7 Gritella, Certosa di S. Stefano, 7–17. 8 Leoncini, Certosa di Firenze, 49–53; Leoncini, ‘Chartreux, l’art, et la spiritualité’, 233. 9 Hogg, Certosa di Firenze, 14. 10 Chiarelli and Leoncini, Certosa del Galluzzo, 28–30; Leoncini, ‘Chartreux, l’art, et la spiritualité’, 243; Leoncini, ‘L’altare e il santuario’, 147. 11 Leoncini, Certosa di Firenze, 202–4; Chiarelli and Leoncini, Certosa del Galluzzo, 30–31, Leoncini, ‘L’altare e il santuario’, 147.

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Fig. 4.2: Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo, view of altar bay with frescoes, tabernacle, and revetments, late sixteenth century. Florence (Galluzzo). Source: Mongolo1984, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0 / detail from original)

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that were most relevant to contemporary concerns. Before turning to Poccetti’s efforts in Galluzzo, however, it is worth exploring the traditional iconography of Saint Bruno, which, despite being sparse and most commonly available in modest woodcuts, plotted the main events of the saint’s life and established a framework upon which Poccetti built his much more ambitious fresco cycle.

The Iconography of Saint Bruno of Cologne at the Time of the Certosa Frescoes Scholars have begun to revise the idea that the Carthusians maintained what Émile Mâle called a longstanding ‘indifference to art’, a sentiment amplified by Louis Réau’s remark about Saint Bruno that ‘Medieval art completely ignored him’ (‘l’art du Moyen-âge l’a complètement ignoré’).12 It is likely, however, that when Poccetti accepted the commission to illustrate events from Bruno’s life, his task was made more difficult by the fact that he had no readily accessible body of monumental imagery devoted to the Carthusians’ founder to which he could turn for inspiration. The reclusive nature of the order meant that the development of iconographies devoted to Bruno typically remained within the confines of the charterhouses where—despite being seen by potential visiting benefactors—they remained largely out of sight to a wider audience.13 The inaccessibility of their complexes reflected the emphasis that the Carthusians placed on keeping their distance from the rest of the world and maintaining their reputations as ‘the silent monks’.14 According to legend, their commitment to seclusion and humility even extended beyond the grave. Nicholas Kempf, the fifteenth-century Carthusian, described how a series of healing miracles attracted the faithful to the burial site of a monastery’s previous prior. His successor, upset that those seeking supernatural intervention were disrupting the solitude of the brethren, went to the grave and asked the prior to cease performing miracles. The deceased prior complied, and the cult faded away, restoring the charterhouse’s peaceful isolation.15 This conservative 12 Mâle, L’art religieux, 504; Réau, Iconographie, vol. 3, bk. 1:249. For a rebuttal to Réau’s assertion, see Luxford, ‘Texts and Images’, 278, who noted that a general lack of scholarly engagement with Carthusian art was partly to blame for the perception that it hardly existed. 13 Luxford, ‘Texts and Images’, 281–83. 14 Haude, ‘Silent Monks Speak Up’, 124. The emphasis on silent isolation was enshrined in the first iteration of the Consuetudines Cartusiae, ‘precipue studium et propositum nostrum est, silentio et solitudini celle vacare’. Guigo I, Coutumes de Chartreuse, 196. For an overview of the Carthusian aversion to publicity and its ramifications for scholarship on the order, see Martin, Fifteenth-Century Carthusian Reform, 1–18. 15 For a transcription and a translation of this anecdote, see Martin, Fifteenth-Century Carthusian Reform, 1. The particulars of this story also reappear in a description of the cult that grew up around the tomb of Pietro Peroni in the Quattrocento. Boglioni, ‘Miracolo e miracoli’, 152.

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devotion to tradition and humility was central to the identity of the Carthusians, and is perhaps best summarized by the assertion that the order did not need to be reformed because it had never been deformed (‘Cartusia numquam reformata, quia numquam deformata’). Although scholars have cautioned against an uncritical acceptance of this description of the Carthusian order, it does reflect how the Carthusians saw their history—even if their history sometimes failed to conform to their perception of it.16 The reluctance of the Carthusians to engage with the outside world and to celebrate the achievements of the members of their order meant that the public knew very little about their founder. Bruno’s move to Calabria further separated him from the Grande Chartreuse in the French Alps, and any popularity he enjoyed remained largely within the immediate area around the site of his Calabrian hermitage, Santa Maria della Torre.17 Indeed, it was not until the beginning of the sixteenth century that the Carthusians began a campaign to regain control of what remained of Santa Maria della Torre, which had been supplanted by Santo Stefano del Bosco (also known as Serra San Bruno) and was occupied by Cistercians.18 Because the canonization process was usually supported with documentation of the prospective saint’s life and activities, it was also at this time that the first biographies of Bruno began to appear, even though, as many commentators have noted, there was little reliable information about Bruno to be found.19 This paucity of source material did not deter the appearance in 1509 of two accounts of Bruno’s life, one of which was printed that 16 Haude, ‘Silent Monks Speak Up’, 124. Although Leoncini, ‘Cartusia nunquam reformata’, 561–62 conceded that the expression does not appear before the seventeenth century, he suggested that it expressed a concept that had been well established within the order by the late medieval period. For a more recent and critical discussion of the phrase and its place in the history of the Carthusians, see Molvarec and Gaens, ‘Carthusian Customaries’, 116. 17 Hogg, ‘Vite di San Bruno’, 125–27. 18 De Leo, ‘Storia della Certosa calabrese’, 2:239. Built about one and a half kilometers from Bruno’s original site in the early twelfth century, Santo Stefano absorbed the hermitage of Santa Maria della Torre in 1192, at which point the communities affiliated to the Cistercian Order. Bligny, ‘Fondations cartusiennes’, 45–51; Hogg, ‘Vite di San Bruno’, 127n5; Peters-Custot, Bruno en Calabre, 17–18; Paravy, ‘1514’, 19–23. After Santo Stefano was returned to the Carthusians, it was significantly expanded and rebuilt over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, before suffering severe damage from an earthquake in 1783, an event that also led to the dispersal of Santo Stefano’s archival records. Gritella, Certosa di S. Stefano, 27. 19 Hogg remarked that Bruno’s date of birth is uncertain, that nothing specific is recorded about his family and childhood, and that Bruno’s connection to the noble family of Hartenfaust is a later fabrication; additionally, Peters-Custot pointed out that only two letters can be attributed to the saint with any certainty, an assessment shared by Hogg. Hogg, ‘Vite di San Bruno’, 125–26, 130–31; Peters-Custot, Bruno en Calabre, 12–14. For a biography that recognizes and analyzes the questionable accretions to Bruno’s life, see Ceravolo, Vita di San Bruno, where the author conceded that undertaking a biography of the saint ‘non è impresa semplice né esente da rischi’ and that the biographical data regarding Bruno ‘sono poche, quasi sempre frammentarie e malsicure’. Ceravolo, Vita di San Bruno, 14, 31. For a recent summary of the scholarship on Bruno’s biography, see Peters-Custot, Bruno en Calabre, 12n5.

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same year in Paris, and these initial efforts culminated in what James Hogg referred to as the ‘official biography’ published by the Carthusian General Dom François Du Puy in 1515.20 Although their campaign did not immediately achieve Bruno’s canonization, the Carthusians did make some important progress. They regained control of Santo Stefano del Bosco in 1514—and, along with it, access to Bruno’s remains—and on 19 July 1514, Pope Leo X granted the Carthusians permission to venerate their founder within the confines of their monasteries.21 Because it involved the promotion of a prospective saint’s life story, the canonization process also frequently contributed to the development of a saint’s iconography.22 But this was not the case with Bruno, whose canonization campaign of the early Cinquecento did not produce a robust visual narrative for the saint. That would not appear until a little over a hundred years later, when Pope Gregory XV confirmed Bruno’s equipollent canonization on 17 February 1623.23 Shortly before the canonization, from 1620 to 1621, Dietrich Krüger (c. 1575–1624) produced a series of twenty engravings after designs by Giovanni Lanfranco (1582–1647) that provided a rich source of material for artists and iconographers from the seventeenth century onward.24 Poccetti’s frescoes in Galluzzo, however, were painted at the end of the sixteenth century, several decades before Krüger engraved his plates. At that time there was very little imagery devoted to the saint, making Poccetti one of the first artists to present the events of Bruno’s life in a substantial pictorial form.25 Existing imagery of Bruno to which Poccetti might have had access includes six panels of stained glass installed in the Certosa in the 1550s and 1560s and various woodcuts that appeared in the early sixteenth century.26 One of the woodcuts, commissioned from Urs Graf, the elder (c. 1485–c. 1527) by François Du Puy in 1510, is a single sheet that contains nine scenes that depict the events that led up to the establishment of the first charterhouse (Fig. 4.3).27 Shortly thereafter, in 1524, a series of six woodcuts 20 Hogg, ‘Vite di San Bruno’, 133–34. 21 Paravy, ‘1514’, 20–23. Peters-Custot, Bruno en Calabre, 272–73 emphasized the significance of the recovery of Bruno’s relics, remarking that it allowed the Carthusians to center the myth of their foundation on the founder, rather than on the original location of the Grande Chartreuse in France. For a detailed account of the political maneuvering and financial expense required by the efforts of the Carthusians to regain control of Santo Stefano, see Clark, ‘Recovery of the Serra San Bruno’, 239–43; for a discussion and transcriptions of related archival sources, see Hogg, ‘Memory of Saint Bruno’, 71–105. 22 Schütze, ‘Vita S. Brunonis’, 195. 23 Schütze, ‘Vita S. Brunonis’, 195; Napoli, Ethics of Ornament, 93. 24 Leoncini, ‘Iconografia della vita di San Bruno’, 51–62; Schütze, ‘Vita S. Brunonis’, 195; Napoli, Ethics of Ornament, 102–5. 25 Baticle, ‘Les peintres’, 17; Schütze, ‘Vita S. Brunonis’, 195. 26 Chiarelli and Leoncini, Certosa del Galluzzo, 279–81. 27 The woodcut was included in the first printed edition of Guigo I’s Statuta ordinis cartusiensis, which was issued in Basel in 1510. Leoncini, ‘Iconografia della vita di San Bruno’, 43; Zermatten, ‘Construction de

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Fig. 4.3: Urs Graf the elder, Origo ordinis cartusiensis, 1510. Source: © British Library Board / Robana / Art Resource, NY

Plate 1: Andrea del Sarto, Madonna del Sacco, 1525, fresco. Chiostro dei Morti, Santissima Annunziata, Florence. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

Color Plates

Plate 2: Bernardino Poccetti, Birth of Saint Dominic, c. 1584, fresco. Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Chiostro Grande. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Plate 3: Bernardino Poccetti, Saint Dominic’s Text Survives a Trial by Fire, c. 1584, fresco. Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Chiostro Grande. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Plate 4: View of vault with Holy Trinity by Tommaso Gherardini (after 1767) and saints in the pendentives by Bernardino Poccetti (1590), fresco. Florence, Santa Felicita, Canigiani Chapel. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

Plate 5: Bernardino Poccetti, The Miraculous Snowfall on the Esquiline Hill and the Foundation of Santa Maria Maggiore, 1590, fresco. Florence, Santa Felicita, Canigiani Chapel. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

Plate 6: Bernardino Poccetti, Bruno Refuses the Bishopric of Reggio Calabria, 1591–1593, fresco. Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

Plate 7: Bernardino Poccetti, Funeral of Saint Bruno, 1591–1593, fresco. Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

Plate 8: Bernardino Poccetti, Saints, Beati, and Carthusian Priors General, 1591–1593, fresco. Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

Plate 9: Bernardino Poccetti, Saint Bartholomew, 1604, fresco. Florence, San Bartolomeo a Monte Oliveto. Source: author

Plate 10: Bernardino Poccetti, Saint Miniatus, 1604, fresco. Florence, San Bartolomeo a Monte Oliveto. Source: author

Plate 11: Giovanni Antonio Dosio, Gaddi Chapel, 1575–1577. View of colored-marble revetment and tomb. Florence, Santa Maria Novella. Source: author

Plate 12: Giovanni Antonio Dosio, Niccolini Chapel, revetments complete by 1588. View of colored-marble revetment and tomb. Florence, Santa Croce. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0 / detail from original)

Plate 13: Bernardino Poccetti, Saint Dominic Distributes the Proceeds from the Sale of his Books, c. 1584, fresco. Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Chiostro Grande. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Plate 14: Bernardino Poccetti, study for Saint Dominic Distributes the Proceeds from the Sale of his Books (after Andrea del Sarto), black chalk with white heightening. Florence, GDSU (inv. no. 8576 F). Source: Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabinetto Fotografico

Plate 15: Bernardino Poccetti, Saint Dominic Converts the Heretical Noblewomen, c. 1584, fresco. Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Chiostro Grande. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Plate 16: Bernardino Poccetti, study for The Martyrdom of Saint James, 1590s, black chalk. Florence, GDSU (inv. no. 8791 F). Source: Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabinetto Fotografico

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accompanied an edition of Du Puy’s vita of Bruno that was published in Paris along with commentaries that were believed at the time to be from the saint’s hand.28 These six scenes are thought to be based on images painted in the small cloister of the charterhouse in Paris that were visible in the early sixteenth century but are no longer extant.29 As Leoncini and Zermatten have pointed out, the early woodcuts emphasize Bruno’s role as the instrument through which the Carthusian order came to be—Graf’s image, for example, bears the title Origo ordinis cartusiensis, thereby making its subject obvious from the start.30 As a result of this focus on his role as the founder, Graf’s woodcut omits entirely any images of Bruno’s sojourn at the papal court or his time in Calabria. The images from 1524 also leave out Bruno’s time with the pope, although they do include a scene devoted to the time Bruno spent in Calabria.31 Similarly, the stained glass at the Certosa del Galluzzo focuses on the origins of the order and omits any depictions of the events that took place after the construction of the first Chartreuse.32 Each woodcut opens with the story of the funeral of a theologian, who, according to a later tradition, was Raymond Diocrès, a Parisian professor and canon who was highly esteemed as a scholar of sacred texts (Figs. 4.3, 4.4).33 This scene does not appear in the earliest vite, and seems to have been a motif from popular folklore that was incorporated into Bruno’s hagiography at some point in the thirteenth century.34 Over the course of the exequies, the deceased theologian cried out on three separate occasions from his coff in, making a series of post-mortem declarations to the professors, students, and citizens who had gathered in his honor. Graf dedicated the entire top register of his woodcut to representing each proclamation separately, whereas the woodcut from 1524 condenses the la figure’, 56–57. The entire Statuta ordinis cartusiensis can be consulted online; for the image see http:// dl.ub.uni-freiburg.de/diglit/statuta1510/0007. 28 Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, 499r–520r. For the publication history of this work, see Hogg, ‘Vite di San Bruno’, 134. On the woodcuts that accompany the biography, see Leoncini, ‘Iconografia della vita di San Bruno’, 42–48. 29 First painted in 1353, these images suffered such damage in the damp and humid cloister that they were replaced by scenes painted on canvas in 1480. Those paintings and the rest of the cloister once again fell into disrepair by the end of the sixteenth century, prompting a complete remodel in 1640 overseen by the prior Dom Augustin Joyeulx. Charles, ‘Le petit clôitre’, 98. For more on the cycles of Bruno’s life that predate Poccetti’s frescoes, see Früh, ‘Bilderzyklen’, 161–63. For the cycle in Paris as the model for the woodcuts published in 1524, see Früh, ‘Glasgemälde’, 202; Leoncini, ‘Iconografia della vita di San Bruno’, 46; Luxford, ‘Texts and Images’, 284. 30 Leoncini, ‘Iconografia di San Bruno fondatore’, 468–69. 31 Leoncini, ‘Iconografia della vita di San Bruno’, 47; Zermatten, ‘Construction de la figure’, 57. 32 Chiarelli and Leoncini, Certosa del Galluzzo, 279–81. 33 Leoncini, ‘Iconografia della vita di San Bruno’, 73n13; Husband, Art of Illumination, 154. 34 Hogg, ‘Vite di San Bruno’, 132; Ceravolo, Vita di San Bruno, 51–52; Boglioni, ‘Miracolo e miracoli’, 156; Leoncini, ‘Iconografia di San Bruno fondatore’, 466.

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narrative by having three banderoles issue from the theologian’s mouth in a single scene. The Latin text that accompanies the scene is the same in each instance. He first proclaimed, ‘I have been accused by the fair judgment of God’ (‘Iusto dei iudicio accusatus sum’). In his second announcement, the theologian stated, ‘I have been judged in God’s fair trial’ (‘Iusto dei iudicio iudicatus sum’), and in his third and final notice he remarked, ‘I have been condemned by the justice of God’ (‘Iusto dei iudicio condemnatus sum’).35 According to the early hagiographers, this spectacular confirmation of the divine judgment that awaited him after his death inspired Bruno to pursue the eremitical life, and, as a result, he and six companions left Paris for Grenoble, where they met the bishop, Hugh of Châteauneuf (1052–1132), a sequence of events represented next in the woodcuts.36 In the image from 1524, the events are presented in chronological order from right to left, with Bruno shown assembling Fig. 4.4: The Funeral of the Theologian, from Brunonis his companions on the right side of the image Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, fol. 499v, 1524, woodcut. Source: Biblioteca de Galiciana, and the group arriving in Grenoble on the left Santiago de Compostela, Spain (http://biblioteca. side. In the sky above the rooftops of Grenoble galiciana.gal/en/ consulta/registro.do?id=8721, seven stars appear. The stars allude to a propublic domain) phetic dream that Hugh had shortly before Bruno’s arrival (Fig. 4.5). Graf’s woodcut presents the events in a slightly different order, showing Bruno and his companions assembling in the leftmost image in the second register, and then Hugh’s dream in the middle scene (Fig. 4.3). In the 1524 series, the dream and the meeting between Bruno and the bishop form the subject of the next image, which once again reads from right to left (Fig. 4.6). On 35 Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, 499v; Guigo I, Statuta ordinis cartusiensis. In the Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, the woodcut illustrating the funeral of the theologian appears at the top of the page above the text that recounts the events and reproduces the theologian’s utterances. The text of these proclamations also appears (with slight variations in spelling) in the banderoles that emerge from the theologian’s mouth in the illustration. For a summary of this event from Bruno’s life and a discussion of the inclusion of these scenes from Bruno’s legend in the Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry, see Husband, Art of Illumination, 154–57. 36 Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, 500r.

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Fig. 4.5: Bruno and his Companions Travel to Grenoble, from Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, fol. 500r, 1524, woodcut. Source: Biblioteca de Galiciana, Santiago de Compostela, Spain (http://biblioteca.galiciana. gal/en/ consulta/registro.do?id=8721, public domain)

Fig. 4.6: Bishop Hugh of Grenoble Receives Bruno and his Companions and The Dream of Bishop Hugh of Grenoble, from Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, fol. 502v, 1524, woodcut. Source: Biblioteca de Galiciana, Santiago de Compostela, Spain (http://biblioteca.galiciana.gal/en/consulta/ registro.do?id= 8721, public domain)

the right, Hugh is asleep in his bed while a group of men framed by stars appear in the window outside. In the dream, the bishop was shown a dwelling constructed by God in the solitude of the Chartreuse mountains (‘Vidit idem episcopus in somnis, deum in solitudine Carthusiae, dignum sibi habitaculum construentem’), the location of which was revealed to him by a crown of seven stars—the precise number of Bruno and his companions, whom the bishop receives on the left side of the woodcut, an event that is depicted as the scene on the right side of Graf’s middle register.37 The next scenes show Bishop Hugh leading Bruno and his companions into the mountains, an event that took place on the feast of John the Baptist in 1084.38 In the 1524 image, the f igures—Bruno, four companions, two mules, and the 37 Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, 502v. 38 Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, 503r.

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bishop—move from left to right across the woodcut (Fig. 4.7).39 In the background on the left can be seen the skyline of Grenoble, while the rocky path the group follows leads into the jagged alpine landscape of the Chartreuse mountains. Graf’s image does not include the city in the background, but does feature the seven stars floating above a sheer cliff face, which stands as a synecdoche for the rugged Alps. The next woodcuts represent the founders of the Grande Chartreuse hard at work on its construction. In addition to representing the monks building the charterhouse, Graf’s final scene shows the Carthusians in their isolated hermitage (Fig. 4.3). The 1524 series splits its image in two, showing the construction on the right, and Bruno receiving a letter from Pope Urban II (c. 1035–1099) calling him to Rome on the left, an event that occurred six years after the establishment of the monastery (Fig. 4.8). 40 The next image is the last in the 1524 series and flashes forward to two events that took place during Bruno’s sojourn in Calabria, passing over Fig. 4.7: Bishop Hugh of Grenoble Leads Bruno and his Companions into the Mountains, from Brunonis the time he spent at the papal court (Fig. 4.9). Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, fol. 504r, 1524, Once again reading from right to left, the first woodcut. Source: Biblioteca de Galiciana, Santiago de scene on the right shows the discovery of Bruno Compostela, Spain (http://biblioteca.galiciana.gal/en/ consulta/registro.do?id=8721, public domain) and his small group of companions at their remote hermitage by the hunting party of Roger I of Sicily (c. 1031–1101), who would eventually grant the land upon which Bruno and his followers established their Calabrian hermitage of Santa Maria della Torre. 41 The next scene represents the saint’s death at that same location in October of 1101, surrounded by his companions. 42

39 Leoncini, ‘Iconograf ia della vita di San Bruno’, 47 suggested that the two companions of Bruno missing from the woodcut are Andrew and Guarin, the two lay brothers, who would have already been sent ahead to the site to make initial preparations. 40 Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, 505r–505v; Leoncini, ‘Iconografia della vita di San Bruno’, 47. 41 Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, 506v–507r. 42 Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, 506v–507v.

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Fig. 4.8: Bruno Receives a Messenger from Pope Urban II and The Construction of the Chartreuse, from Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, fol. 505r, 1524, woodcut. Source: Biblioteca de Galiciana, Santiago de Compostela, Spain (http://biblioteca.galiciana.gal/en/consulta/ registro.do?id=8721, public domain)

Fig. 4.9: The Death of Bruno and Roger I of Sicily Encounters Bruno in the Wilderness, from Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, fol. 506v, 1524, woodcut. Source: Biblioteca de Galiciana, Santiago de Compostela, Spain (http://biblioteca. galiciana.gal/en/consulta/registro.do?id=8721, public domain)

Poccetti’s Frescoes in the Chiesa dei Monaci If Poccetti had access to any images representing the life of Bruno, these woodcuts would have been those most likely to have been consulted by the painter. Unfortunately, the holdings of the Certosa del Galluzzo’s library were dispersed in the nineteenth century and the inventories and descriptions of the volumes are too generic to allow for the identification of specific books that might have been in the possession of the Florentine Carthusians at the end of the sixteenth century. 43 It is true, however, that each Carthusian was expected to have a copy of 43 Archival references reveal that the library did possess printed volumes from presses in Paris, Amsterdam, Cologne, and other European cities (the Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi was printed in Paris in 1524). But Chiarelli noted that it has been difficult to arrive at a precise number of volumes in the library, with counts in various inventories ranging from around 1700 to 4000. Chiarelli, Attività artistiche, 1:44–45.

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the Consuetudines in his cell, and by the last quarter of the Cinquecento, some of those copies might have included the woodcut illustrations.44 Therefore, even though it seems likely that the Certosa had possession of these images at the time when Poccetti was painting the church, it is impossible to be certain. Even if the images in question were present in some of the books owned by the monks in Galluzzo, the simple forms and small scale of the woodcuts could have provided only the most basic form of inspiration for Poccetti, who had been tasked with creating a monumental cycle of the life of the Carthusians’ founder. As for the iconographic program, the Carthusians themselves would have told Poccetti which scenes from Bruno’s life were to be painted in which locations. And even if Poccetti had wanted to consult the saint’s written hagiographies, he would have been unable to do so since most of the early sixteenth-century lives of Bruno were in Latin.45 Following traditional practices, when Poccetti devised the decorative scheme for the church at the Certosa, he relied on the Carthusians to provide him with the specif ic episodes to be included in the iconographic program, which he then realized in visual form. 46 As a skilled painter of monumental narrative scenes, Poccetti drew upon his customary repertoire of figure types, compositional schemes, and color configurations to bring the program to fruition. The nave of the church is formed by three bays. Poccetti’s frescoes decorate the northernmost of these three bays, where the altar is located (Fig. 4.2). The sanctuary is distinguished from the rest of the church by a change in the floor’s elevation, which is raised up by three steps. Like the other two bays, the northern bay is capped by a quadripartite ribbed groin vault, the webs of which are decorated 44 Guigo I, Coutumes de Chartreuse, 93; Mursell, Theology of the Carthusian Life, 66. 45 Chiarelli, Attività artistiche, 1:66 found an entry in the records of the Certosa of the acquisition of the ‘Exposizione di Santo Bruno sopra le Epistole di Sancto Paulo’ on 24 July 1519. According to Hogg, ‘Vite di San Bruno’, 133, a Vita Sancti Brunonis was included with the Latin edition of the Expositio in epistolas S. Pauli that was printed in Paris in 1509. It is impossible to know if the copy of the Expositio that the Certosa acquired in 1519 also contained the Vita. For a transcription of the relevant archival entry, see Chiarelli, Attività artistiche, 2:251. Versions of the saint’s life started to appear in Spanish in the sixteenth century, but an Italian translation was not published until close to thirty years after Poccetti’s frescoes, with the release of Meleagro Pentimalli’s Vita del gran patriarca S. Bruno Cartusiano in 1621 (followed almost immediately by a second edition in 1622, which included the Lanfranco-Krüger engravings mentioned previously). For a summary of editions of Bruno’s life that appeared in the sixteenth century, see Hogg, ‘Vite di San Bruno’, 133–35. For a discussion of Pentimalli’s Vita, see Leoncini, ‘Iconografia della vita di San Bruno’, 52–54; Napoli, Ethics of Ornament, 102–5. 46 As Stefania Vasetti has shown, Poccetti worked closely not only with the Carthusians outside Florence, but also at certose near Siena and Pisa, a fact that suggests that these monastic patrons and the painter worked well together. Vasetti, ‘Bernardino Poccetti e i certosini toscani’, 5–61. On the Certosa di Pontignano outside Siena, see Mancini and Vannini, Cartusiae prope senas, 98–181. For the Certosa di Calci outside Pisa, see Giusti and Lazzarini, Certosa di Pisa; for Poccetti’s efforts there, see Lazzarini, ‘Apparati decorativi’, 79–81.

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with Poccetti’s frescoes of Carthusian saints and beati. The vaulting above creates a curve at the top of the walls, giving them the form of large lunettes that Poccetti filled with the scenes from the life of Saint Bruno. These same walls are covered from the floor to about the midway point by marble revetment, the top of which forms the base of Poccetti’s pictorial fields. The lunettes on the side walls are perforated by tall, rectangular windows that occupy slightly more than a third of the width of the lunette. Poccetti’s solution to these obstacles was to use the windows to divide each lunette into two distinct visual fields and to paint one scene on each side of the window. The narrative scenes are situated in a traditional arrangement, with the earliest moments from Bruno’s life shown on the east wall, where they read from left to right and represent the Funeral of the Theologian and Hugh of Grenoble Receives Bruno and his Companions.47 The next events from the saint’s life are shown on the facing west wall, and again read in chronological order from left to right, with Bruno Refuses the Bishopric of Reggio Calabria on the left, whereas the right side of the lunette depicts Bruno Appears to Roger I of Sicily at the Siege of Capua. The final scene in the cycle represents the Funeral of Saint Bruno on the lunette above the altar, which is not only the largest mural surface in the program, but is also uninterrupted by architectural features or apertures.

Fig. 4.10: Bernardino Poccetti, The Funeral of the Theologian, 1591–1593, fresco. Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo. Source: Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione (CC BY-SA 4.0 / detail from original)

The Funeral of the Theologian (East Wall) Like the early sixteenth-century woodcuts, Poccetti’s cycle of the life of Bruno begins with the event that, at least according to tradition, sparked the saint’s desire for an eremitical life, the post-mortem pronouncements attributed to Raymond Diocrès (Fig. 4.10). The addition of this supernatural event to Bruno’s vita allowed biographers to gloss over the more likely reason for the saint’s departure, namely the strained political situation in Reims and the tense maneuvering taking place between secular and ecclesiastical powers for control of the archbishopric. In 1077, 47 This conf iguration is a variation of what Lavin has called ‘the wraparound pattern’, where ‘the narrative begins on the right wall at the apse end of the nave’ and moves left to right before it crosses the space, where it resumes on ‘the left wall at the entrance end, then moves left to right to the apse end’. In this case, the variation is that Poccetti’s cycle is confined to a single bay of the church and does not extend all the way to the entrance wall. Lavin, Place of Narrative, 7.

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Bruno and the other canons of the cathedral denounced Archbishop Manassès I de Gournay (r. c. 1069–1080) for a range of sins—in the words of Peters-Custot, ‘tous les maux de son époque’—these included not only the suspicion that he obtained his position through simony, but also his aggressive attempts to assert control over and ultimately to seize the assets of the monks of Saint-Remi. 48 As was often the case, the archbishop was backed in his efforts by secular authorities, who were engaged in their own power struggle with the church. As will be shown below, many of the early Carthusians who went on to become bishops grappled with this same issue. In the case of Bruno and Manassès I, when the archbishop was finally forced out, the see remained vacant, despite the fact that Bruno might have been able to assume it had he wished to do so. Instead, it was at this point that he turned his back on the fraught political intrigue of Reims and embraced the life of the hermit. 49 The substitution of these events with the jarring pronouncements of the deceased theologian at his own funeral as the impetus for Bruno’s retreat to the wilderness minimizes the role that contemporary politics played in the saint’s decision. There is an understandable attraction to such a narrative. In addition to being a more concise and compelling drama, the death of the theologian allowed the early biographers to omit the messy complications of the situation in Reims and to underscore the idea that Bruno was called to the eremetical life by a supernatural event, an explanation that fits better with the standard tropes of hagiography.50 In his fresco, Poccetti has depicted the funeral of the theologian as though it took place in a Florentine church rather than a French cathedral. The mural provides a view of a cavernous space that soars high above the scene, revealing the structure of the church’s nave and aisle. Arches comprised of voussoirs of alternating white and light brown stone evoke traditional building materials of Florence, in this case white marble and the brown sandstone known as pietra forte.51 Even though the color scheme is not identical, the banded decoration and general architectural configuration of the church in Poccetti’s fresco are highly reminiscent of the interior of Santa Maria Novella. Like the structure in the painting, Santa Maria Novella 48 Peters-Custot, Bruno en Calabre, 14; for details on the abuses of Manassès de Gournay, see Ceravolo, Vita di San Bruno, 43–46. 49 For a detailed account of this period in Bruno’s life, see Ceravolo, Vita di San Bruno, 37–47; for a discussion of Bruno’s role in the controversy surrounding Manassès de Gournay, see Demouy, ‘Bruno et la réforme’, 18–21. 50 Gaens, ‘Speculum Carthusianum’, 226 also suggested that the story ‘resonated with the call for momento mori’ even as its account of a ‘Parisian doctor whose apparent virtuousness and learning concealed a false devotion’ presented a strong case for the need to reform the clergy. 51 For a description of pietra forte and its use in Florentine building, including a specific reference to the piers at Santa Maria Novella, see Rodolico, Pietre della città, 235–36, 240.

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has a tall nave covered by quadripartite groin vaults, a clerestory characterized by large lunettes pierced in the center by windows, a nave arcade and groin vaults made from the previously mentioned voussoirs of alternating colors, and engaged Corinthian columns supporting the ribs of the vaulting, which are painted to resemble the columns in the basilica, down to the details of the individual pietra forte blocks and white mortar. Although Poccetti has modified some of Santa Maria Novella’s features—substituting tall, roundheaded windows for the basilica’s oculi in the clerestory, for example—as Stefania Vasetti has pointed out, by situating the funeral within a recognizably medieval church, Poccetti has given his image the appearance of historical accuracy.52 Poccetti filled the inside of this cavernous ecclesiastical space with a dense crowd of onlookers and attendees that stretches from the fresco’s foreground—where the theologian’s bier has been placed at an angle to the picture plane—to the distant background deep in the church. Members of the crowd carry lit candles and funerary banners. On the left, a tall blue banner decorated with crosses and skulls and crossbones rises from the crowd. On the right, suspended above the mourners, Poccetti painted a broad black horizontal banner that represents two skeletons standing in niches and two cartouches that contain illegible text.53 Poccetti’s painted architecture contains some structural inconsistencies. For example, the upper part of the compound pier on the left side of the fresco blocks the view of the nave’s arcade and entablature, making it difficult to determine exactly how it relates to the rest of the structure. This is made more obvious when the pier on the left is compared to the pier on the right, which Poccetti painted supporting the nave vault, a fact that suggests that the theologian is in an aisle bay. The presence of the compound piers—even if the placement of the one on the left is nonsensical—might also suggest that the funeral bier has been placed specifically in the church’s transept. With the exception of a lone repoussoir figure positioned in the lower left who turns his back on the spectator as he directs his attention to the theologian, the figures making up the crowd are placed alongside the bier and extend back into the church from that point. By keeping the immediate foreground clear, Poccetti emphasized the spectacle of the deceased theologian’s startling announcements. This portion of the image forms a right triangle that sweeps up and to the left from the base of the fresco and culminates in the face and upraised arm of the theologian, maximizing the vertical composition imposed upon him by the constraints of the 52 Vasetti, ‘Bernardino Poccetti e i certosini’, 15. 53 The skeletons and inscriptions in Poccetti’s fresco are anachronisms that reflect a sixteenth-century taste for such things in funeral apparati. Schraven, Festive Funerals, 90 remarked upon the novel inclusion of over life-size skeletons and 20 inscriptions in the decorations of San Lorenzo for the funeral of Grand Duke Cosimo I in 1574.

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tall, fenestrated lunette.54 Poccetti further accentuated the theologian through his use of color. The theologian’s robe is the only black garment in the painting. The distant onlookers wear Poccetti’s usual palette of red, green, and yellow, while the clerics surrounding the bier are dressed in white surplices that create a stark contrast to the black garment of the deceased. One of these men must be Bruno, but there is some ambiguity in the representation. Unlike the woodcut from the Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, which clearly identifies which of the astonished onlookers is the saint by inscribing his name beneath his feet, Poccetti’s fresco provides little information that would allow for a definitive identification.55 The white hair of the figure farthest from the spectator excludes him as a candidate, since Poccetti gave Bruno brown hair in the next episode from his life. The most likely possibility is the figure closest to the spectator on the right side of the bier. In addition to the fact that his prominent nose and cheekbones reappear in Poccetti’s likenesses of Bruno in the other three scenes from the saint’s life, he seems the most moved by the spectacle of the reanimated theologian—a detail that dovetails nicely with the significance of this event for the saint’s life. Unlike his two companions, the first of which tilts his head down, and the second of which turns his head away, the third figure raises his left hand and appears to look off in the distance as though contemplating something significant. He appears to be—at least mentally if not physically—taken aback; this is the attitude of a person in the midst of a life-changing realization, which was exactly the kind of epiphany Bruno himself reportedly experienced when he witnessed the theologian’s post-mortem testimony of divine judgment. Hugh of Grenoble Receives Bruno and his Companions (East Wall) On the right side of the east lunette, Poccetti painted the result of Bruno’s experience at the funeral of the theologian, the arrival of the saint and his companions in Grenoble, where they were greeted by Hugh of Châteauneuf, the bishop of the city (Fig. 4.11). The event takes place in a high-ceilinged audience hall, and once again Poccetti has accommodated his composition to the tall and narrow space available to him. Hugh of Grenoble sits on a dais on the left side of the composition, the steps of which are covered in a green drapery that cascades down a series of four steps 54 Vasetti, ‘Bernardino Poccetti e i certosini’, 15 praised Poccetti’s ability to create ‘composizioni in diagonale o ascensionali’ in these narrow fields, solutions that will be explored in detail below. 55 Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, 499v. Not all of the early woodcuts identify Bruno, however. Graf’s Origo ordinis cartusiensis, for example, despite devoting three of its nine scenes to the theologian’s funeral, does not clearly identify which of the onlookers is Bruno. This is in keeping with the woodcut’s emphasis not on Bruno himself, but on the monastic community that he was assembling. Zermatten, ‘Construction de la figure’, 57.

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Fig. 4.11: Bernardino Poccetti, Hugh of Grenoble Receives Bruno and his Companions, 1591–1593, fresco. Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

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before coming to a stop a short distance from the fresco’s bottom edge. These steps create a strong diagonal that leads up and back into pictorial space, culminating in the image of Hugh seated beneath a baldachino. The green of the steps is repeated in the baldachino and in the walls of the audience hall, providing a constant hue against which Poccetti placed his protagonists. Hugh stands out in his episcopal splendor, making a striking contrast to this backdrop with his red miter and red cope with its gold hem. Kneeling in front of Hugh one step below the top of the platform, Bruno wears a black robe with a maroon brocade collar—the same type of garment worn by the theologian at his funeral in the adjacent scene, indicating the saint’s status as a magister at the cathedral school in Reims.56 The bishop gazes down at Bruno and appears to place his left hand on Bruno’s shoulder, a gesture that signifies the warm reception of the saint and his companions and suggests that Hugh was expecting their arrival, which was foretold in the bishop’s prophetic dream, an episode recounted in Bruno’s hagiographies but not represented in Poccetti’s cycle. The remaining members of Bruno’s group are positioned around the base of the dais and on its lowest steps. These nondescript individuals are difficult to identify precisely, a fact that is due largely to the scarcity of information regarding the saint’s companions, who are mentioned but not described in detail in the earliest biographies of Bruno. In his life of Hugh of Grenoble, for example, Guigo I identified the companions briefly as ‘Master Landuin, who succeeded him [Bruno] as Prior of Chartreuse, the two Stephans of Bourg and Die, who had been canons of St. Ruf, but who had received permission from their abbot to follow their bent for solitude, Hugh, who was called the chaplain, as he alone fulfilled the duties of a priest, and two lay persons, Andrew and Guarin, whom we call conversi’.57 This description became even more terse in the Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, which left out the two Stephans’ desire for the eremetical life and the explanation for Hugh’s designation as ‘chaplain’ (capellanum).58 When armed only with these small notices, the identification of Bruno’s companions in the fresco is a formidable task, but some general impressions can be formed based on the image itself. Landuin, for example, Bruno’s successor at the Grande Chartreuse, is probably the man immediately behind Bruno in the fresco.59 Older, balding, 56 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:246 singled out Bruno’s garment in this fresco, calling it an ‘Abito Dottorale’, a designation repeated in Bacchi, Certosa del Galluzzo, 104. 57 For this translation, see Hogg, ‘Vite di San Bruno’, 128–29; for the Latin, see Guigo I, ‘Vita sancti Hugonis’, 153:769; on the history and role of conversi within the Carthusian order, see Mursell, Theology of the Carthusian Life, 203–7. 58 Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, 500r. 59 Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, 500r; Guigo I, ‘Vita sancti Hugonis’, 153:769. Landuin of Lucca, second prior of the Grande Chartreuse, should not be confused with Lanuino the Norman, the second prior of Serra San Bruno. For brief entries on each, see Wallis, ‘Elenco dei Certosini’, 19.

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and sporting a bushy white goatee, he holds a black broad-brimmed hat in his left hand. He also wears a black robe with a maroon collar similar to the one worn by Bruno. He is the only other member of the group shown with such a collar, and this detail—coupled with his proximity to Bruno in the fresco—suggests that he might be a companion trusted enough to take over the hermitage upon the founder’s death. The two figures on the lowest step in the lower right corner of the fresco with youthful faces and close-cropped hair are most likely Andrew and Guarin, the two laymen who were members of the group. Of the rest, it becomes even more difficult to speculate as to their identities. The figure positioned between Bruno and Landuin could be the chaplain, Hugh. His closely fitted garment with its short stiff collar very much resembles a cassock, the article of clothing that one might expect would be worn by the only member of the group referred to as a priest.60 By process of elimination, the remaining two f igures to the right of Hugh and behind Landuin would have to be the two Stephans. As is his custom, Poccetti has included other ancillary figures throughout the image to accentuate and amplify the event depicted. An attendant to Bishop Hugh stands behind him on the dais; two onlookers in the distance appear to be discussing the events unfolding in the audience hall, which the white-haired man observes out of the corner of his right eye; another man pulls back the curtain in the background and peers into the room. As will be shown below, Poccetti’s program at the Certosa del Galluzzo emphasizes the important roles played by bishops in the history of the Carthusian order, so it is to be expected that Hugh of Grenoble’s reception of Bruno and his companions would appear among the scenes from Bruno’s life painted on the walls. Bruno’s appearance before Hugh marks the moment of the foundation of the Carthusian order and inextricably binds that foundation to episcopal approval. And although Hugh of Grenoble was not officially a Carthusian, Guigo I described the bishop’s penchant for spending long periods of time at the Chartreuse, so much time, in fact, that Guigo had to remind Hugh of his episcopal duties to his flock and gently urge him to return to his seat. Furthermore, according to Guigo, who was prior at the time, when Hugh was in residence at the monastery, he acted not as the monks’ ‘lord or bishop, but as their fellow and most humble brother’ (‘non ut dominus aut episcopus, sed ut socius et frater humillimus’).61 By emphasizing Hugh’s ability and willingness to transition between these two roles—bishop and monk—Guigo’s vita of Hugh set a significant precedent for later Carthusians who were called into 60 This garment is also carefully rendered in Poccetti’s study for this group of figures. On this drawing, Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe degli Uffizi (hereafter GDSU), inv. no. 845 F recto, see Vitzthum, ‘Handzeichnungen’, 101; Hamilton, Disegni, 53–54; Thiem, ‘Entwurfspraxis’, 172. 61 On this passage, see Cowdrey, ‘Carthusians and Their Contemporary World’, 32; for the Latin, see Guigo I, ‘Vita sancti Hugonis’, 153:770.

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episcopal service by the church.62 When one considers Hugh’s instrumental role in establishing the order in the nearby solitude of the Chartreuse mountains, his reported attraction to the eremitical life, and his status as an example of how to balance high-ranking ecclesiastical service with a desire for religious solitude, it is easy to see why he assumed such an important role within the order’s history. Bruno Refuses the Bishopric of Reggio Calabria (West Wall) Hugh of Grenoble’s embrace of his episcopal status and duties stands in contrast to Bruno’s rejection of Pope Urban II’s offer of the bishopric of Reggio, which is represented on the left side of the western lunette (Plate 6). It should be noted, however, that Bruno’s refusal came after the saint had already obeyed a papal summons to leave the Grande Chartreuse and travel to Rome to serve as an advisor to the pope.63 Urban, who faced a series of challenging issues, most likely retrieved Bruno from his eremetical solitude because the saint had been one of his teachers at the cathedral school in Reims while the pope was still a young man known as Eudes (Odo) of Châtillon.64 The pontiff must have believed that Bruno would serve as a trustworthy and capable advisor, and Du Puy’s vita describes Bruno’s service to the church as such, ‘in regimine ecclesie utiliter & f ideliter inserviebat’.65 Urban II needed as much help as he could get. Not only was Bruno’s former student besieged by the antipope Clement III (c. 1029–1100) and his imperial backer, Henry IV (1050–1106), but he also struggled to satisfy members of his own faction, the reformers who demanded papal action to combat simony and nicolaism.66 Urban II was elected in March of 1088, and scholars believe that he sent a messenger to retrieve Bruno in late 1089, with the saint arriving in Rome shortly thereafter, at the end of that year or the beginning of 1090.67 By the summer of 1090, the antipope Clement III had forced Urban II out of Rome, and the pope found refuge in southern Italy; by October of that year, the pope and Bruno are reported to have been together in Salerno.68 Unfortunately, the timeline has been difficult for historians to reconstruct precisely and there is some debate regarding when the offer of the bishopric in Reggio was made to Bruno. Peters-Custot, for 62 Cowdrey, ‘Carthusians and Their Contemporary World’, 34. 63 Napoli, Ethics of Ornament, 119. 64 Ceravolo, Vita di San Bruno, 98. 65 Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, 506r. 66 Ceravolo, Vita di San Bruno, 104. 67 Ceravolo, Vita di San Bruno, 98. For a recent discussion of the ambiguity in the sources and various historical interpretations, see Peters-Custot, Bruno en Calabre, 59–60. 68 The sources do not definitively reveal if Bruno and Urban II fled Rome together or separately, only that they were both in Salerno in October of 1090. Ceravolo, Vita di San Bruno, 106.

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example, has recently argued that the offer was made quite early, and suggests that it might have been extended even before Bruno left France or shortly after his arrival in Rome.69 The ambiguity in the sources and the lack of specific information regarding the timing of the offer of the bishopric does not significantly affect an analysis of Poccetti’s fresco, however, because the image—true to form—relies heavily on Poccetti’s traditional inclinations and design solutions for its setting, which is yet another soaring ecclesiastical space. This one is similar in scale to the church interior represented on the other side of the nave in the Funeral of the Theologian, but differs in the style of architecture presented, which in Bruno Refuses the Bishopric is done in a distinctive all’antica idiom. The interior of Bruno Refuses the Bishopric—in contrast to the setting of the Funeral of the Theologian, with its decidedly Florentine interior—is characterized by classicizing engaged Corinthian columns that support round arches with classical mouldings. Unlike the brown pietra forte of the Funeral fresco, these columns have mauve shafts with green bases and capitals, a color scheme that evokes the rich colored marble that was widely used in Roman ecclesiastical structures by the end of the Cinquecento. Other elements in the fresco also place the event in Rome. Groups of cardinals, those ubiquitous creatures of the pontifical see, appear in the foreground and middle ground, recognizable in their crimson robes, galeros, and birettas. In the distant background, deep in the interior of the space, soldiers wearing half-armor and carrying halberds are visible. Their weapons and armor closely resemble the accoutrements worn and used by the papal guard at the end of the sixteenth century.70 As he did in Hugh Receives Bruno, the fresco that faces Bruno Refuses the Bishopric across the nave, Poccetti accommodated his scene within the narrow vertical space available on the left side of the lunette’s window by placing Urban II on a stepped dais beneath a baldachino. The furnishings surrounding Urban II are more luxurious than those depicted in Hugh’s audience hall, further suggesting that the event took place within the confines of the Vatican. To judge from the lowermost step, the platform, for example, appears to be marble; the remaining steps leading up to the papal throne are covered in a rich, red carpet decorated with a green and gold fringe. This same red reappears in Poccetti’s treatment of the cloth of honor 69 Peters-Custot, Bruno en Calabre, 69; for an overview of the state of the question, see Peters-Custot, Bruno en Calabre, 59–70. 70 For an example of this type of armor, see the half-armor for a papal guard in the John Woodman Higgins Armory Collection at the Worcester Museum of Art. https://worcester.emuseum.com/objects/49992/ halfarmor-for-a-member-of-the-papal-guard?ctx=0b32c0e2-76ca-4134-b63c-e4012b7bcfde&idx=12. For a contemporary depiction of the papal guard wearing similarly striped uniforms and carrying halberds, see Giacomo Coppi’s (1523–1591) fresco Eudoxia Gives the Chains to Pope Leo I from 1577 in the apse of San Pietro in Vincoli. On these frescoes, see Zandri, ‘Decorazione pittorica dell’abside’, 62–64.

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behind the pontiff, a rich brocade decorated with gold thread, and the canopy of the baldachino, which is also decorated with gold and has an elaborate green and gold fringe decorated with tassels. Pope Urban, wearing the papal tiara and a green and gold cope, is seated in front of Bruno, who kneels on the steps dressed in the white robes of the Carthusians. Bruno’s head and face are clean shaven, a departure from his appearance in the previous scene that denotes his embrace of the eremetical life. Above his head, Poccetti has painted a transparent halo, visible thanks to the golden highlight that traces its outer edge, and below Bruno, on the step beneath his foot, Poccetti placed the abandoned miter and crozier that Bruno refused to accept.71 The auxiliary figures that surround the pontifical throne are dressed almost entirely in the traditional garb of cardinals of the church. There are seven figures in total that appear grouped around Urban II and his baldachino. Four of these direct their gaze out of pictorial space and in the direction of the spectator, including one in the lower right corner who is largely obscured by a wooden sculpture of Jude Thaddeus, shown holding the spear that is his traditional attribute. This figure is one of a group of twelve apostles installed in the church at the end of the seventeenth century, a fact that explains why they block some of the view of Poccetti’s frescoes.72 With the exception of this mostly obscured figure, there is only one other from this group who does not wear cardinalitial garments. Positioned prominently just to the left of Bruno’s pointing right hand, and looking directly out of the picture, this man’s likeness presents strongly as a portrait, but his identity is difficult to ascertain. The other figures surrounding the throne who do not gaze out of the image—the two cardinals at the extreme left edge and the balding, bearded cardinal to the left of the miter, for example—direct their attention to the fraught and poignant interaction between the master and his former pupil. Urban looks intently into Bruno’s eyes and raises his right hand in a gesture that connotes the position of power that he enjoys and the significance of his offer of the bishopric to Bruno. Bruno, for his part, engages his old student just as intently, with his head tilted back and to the side but his gaze meeting that of the pope directly. With his left hand, Bruno reaches up to his chest, in the direction of his heart, while with his right hand he points down at the rejected trappings of the episcopal appointment.73 With these gestures Poccetti has not only effectively related the close relationship 71 The iconographic motif of the rejected miter and crozier at Bruno’s feet appeared in early representations of the saint, including a woodcut from Cologne probably done by Anton Woensam around 1516, and spread quickly among Carthusian centers. Leoncini, ‘Iconografia di San Bruno fondatore’, 470–72. 72 Chiarelli and Leoncini, Certosa del Galluzzo, 256. 73 In the early modern period, the heart was considered to be the organ most affected by and reflective of an individual’s spirituality, a belief that led to many postmortem examinations of prospective saints. Ditchfield, ‘Thinking with Saints’, 564–65.

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between Bruno and Urban II, but he has also managed to communicate a strong sense of Bruno’s desire to return to his solitary life. Bruno Appears to Roger I of Sicily at the Siege of Capua (West Wall) The fresco on the north side of the window in the western lunette depicts Saint Bruno appearing to Roger I of Sicily in a dream while the count was engaged in the Siege of Capua in 1098 (Fig. 4.12). Roger I of Sicily, along with his nephew, Roger Borsa (1060/1061–1111), had traveled to Capua in response to a request from Richard II of Capua (1079/1080–1106) who sought their assistance in his attempt to reassert his right to rule the city.74 Unbeknownst to Roger, one of the officers in his command, Sergio, planned to attack Roger with his army of 200 soldiers, a betrayal that would have most likely left Roger dead in its wake. In the night, an apparition of Bruno woke Roger and warned him of Sergio’s treachery, thereby saving his life and influencing the successful result of Richard II’s reconquest of Capua. This episode, which is recounted in the sixteenth-century vite of Bruno, has its origins in a document—the so-called Privilegium magnum—that purports to have been drawn up in 1098 or 1099, but has been recognized by scholars as a later work with a forged date.75 The current status of the suspect document is of little import to the interpretation of the fresco, however, since its veracity was not in question at the time Poccetti painted his version of the events recounted in the record.76 In this scene, Poccetti used his flair for detail to f ill the image with a rich representation of a massive military siege. As was the case with the previous frescoes, Poccetti used the limitations of the tall, narrow field to his advantage by

Fig. 4.12: Bernardino Poccetti, Bruno Appears to Roger I of Sicily at the Siege of Capua, 1591–1593, fresco. Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

74 Dizionario biografico degli italiani (hereafter DBI), s.v. ‘Riccardo II, principe di Capua’ (by Rosa Canosa), https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/riccardo-ii-principe-di-capua_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/. 75 The document has been published in various modern editions; for a summary, see Peters-Custot, Bruno en Calabre, 100n142. References here are to Tromby, Storia, 2:lxxxvi–lxxxix. The account of this event in the vita of Bruno published in 1524 follows the text from the Privilegium magnum closely, incorporating entire passages verbatim. Compare, for example, Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, 507r to Tromby, Storia, 2:lxxxvi–lxxxvii. 76 For a discussion of the Privilegium magnum, its status as a forgery, and relevant bibliography, see Ceravolo, Vita di San Bruno, 123–26; Peters-Custot, Bruno en Calabre, 100–103, 206–15, 370–75.

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creating a series of stacked spatial layers that move from the foreground, where Roger’s tent is located, to the far distance, where the towers and fortif ications of Capua rise on the horizon. In between these points, Poccetti painted Roger’s camp and scenes of battles and soldiers on horseback. Arranging the composition in this way allowed Poccetti to isolate the miraculous appearance of Bruno to Roger in the painting’s foreground, while at the same time he indulged his taste for decorative elements in the tents of the encampment, the sleeping soldiers in their armor, and those mounted on horseback. The brightly colored tents create a visual separation between the relative calm of the camp, which at this point is still peaceful enough that some of the soldiers on the right side of the fresco are shown dozing off and the one horse in the camp turns its head to cast its unperturbed gaze at the spectator, and the frenzied movement of the armored cavalry in the background—presumably the treacherous nocturnal assault by Sergio and his men. Poccetti’s proliferation of tents is in keeping with the contemporary account of the siege by Geoffrey Malaterra who wrote that ‘it was not easy to count the bitumen-covered tents, much less the thousands of soldiers that they housed’.77 Despite the size of Roger’s army, according to Malaterra there was enough housing capacity that when Urban II arrived at the encampment, Roger was able to make six tents available for the use of the pontiff and his entourage.78 In front of the red, orange, green, and white tents that separate the encampment from the battle, Poccetti painted a tent with red and white stripes that provides shelter for the sleeping count. Roger is shown inside, dressed in battle armor and asleep on several large, overstuffed cushions. His left arm is raised above his shoulder and bent at the elbow, bringing his left hand to bear on the back of his head—a gesture of restfulness, but also one that suggests Roger’s sleep might not be as sound as it could be. In front of the bed Roger’s shield is shown on the floor facedown. In the deep shadows behind Roger a dog appears to be stirring itself out of sleep, raising up on its haunches as it gains its feet. These are departures from the surviving preparatory study for this fresco, which shows Roger in a more awkward pose that suggests that the count himself is awakening from his slumber and swinging his legs out of bed and onto the ground (Fig. 4.13).79 In front of Roger’s tent, Bruno appears, once again clean shaven and in a white robe with a transparent halo. His right hand grasps the tent flap while his left is shown stretching out in the direction of the count. The subtle changes between 77 Malaterra, Deeds of Count Roger, 208. 78 Malaterra, Deeds of Count Roger, 210. 79 This drawing, (Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, KdZ 17996), has been squared for transfer and would appear to represent a late stage in Poccetti’s development of the image. On this drawing, see Thiem, Florentiner Zeichner, 268.

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Fig. 4.13: Bernardino Poccetti, preparatory design for Bruno Appears to Roger I of Sicily at the Siege of Capua, 1591–1593, pencil, ink, and wash. Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Kupferstichkabinett (inv. no. KdZ 17996). Source: © bpk Bildagentur / Dietmar Katz

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the drawing and the f inished mural, namely, the dog rousing itself—perhaps a result of its heightened canine senses detecting something amiss—and Roger continuing to slumber, shift the moment represented in the narrative to increase the suspense. A drawing of the sleeping count that closely resembles the painted image is evidence that Poccetti continued to experiment with the positioning of Roger even after he had devised the overall composition of the fresco.80 With these small modif ications, Poccetti has represented the dramatic few seconds preceding the moment that the count, fortuitously awakened by the supernatural presence of Bruno, springs into action to defeat the traitors in his midst, rather than a less compelling scene of a groggy Roger clambering awkwardly out of bed. Although the story of Bruno’s appearance to Roger is featured in the early hagiographies of the saint, it was one of only two such supernatural events in the vite—the other being an appearance of the Virgin to Bruno and his followers—and remained a rarely represented episode in Bruno’s iconography before its inclusion in Poccetti’s decorative program.81 In the few instances when earlier cycles represented the events from Bruno’s time in Calabria, they usually showed Roger discovering the saint unexpectedly in the wilderness, not the scene of Bruno’s appearance to the count at the siege (Fig. 4.9).82 That its representation appealed to the Carthusians in Galluzzo at the end of the sixteenth century and became a fixture of Bruno’s iconography in the seventeenth century reveals how shifting priorities encouraged the order to emphasize certain elements of their founder’s biography.83 In the case of this fresco, the appearance of Bruno to Roger serves two purposes. First, it reiterates the claims made in the Privilegium magnum about the initial permission granted to Bruno to establish his Calabrian hermitage, thereby legitimizing the Carthusian presence at Serra San Bruno, which had only been retrieved from the Cistercians earlier in the century. Second, it ascribes to Bruno a supernatural appearance of a type that not only belongs to a long tradition of such events in Catholic hagiography but that was also receiving a renewed emphasis at

80 On this drawing, GDSU, inv. no. 17135 F recto, see Hamilton, Disegni, 50. 81 Boglioni, ‘Miracolo e miracoli’, 152n9. 82 See, for example, Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, 507r where there is a lengthy description of the event that relies heavily on the Privilegium magnum, but the scene on 506v that concludes the series of illustrative woodcuts shows Roger discovering Bruno in the forest. On the early iterations of Bruno’s iconography, see Früh, ‘Bilderzyklen’, 161–63. 83 The image appears in the Lanfranco-Krüger engravings published in 1622, in the cycle that decorates the chapel of Saint Bruno at the Certosa di San Martino painted by Massimo Stanzione (c. 1585–c. 1656) in the 1630s, and in the cycle Vicente Carducho (c. 1578–1638) painted for the cloister of El Paular from 1626 to 1632, to name a few examples. For the Lanfranco-Krüger engravings and Stanzione’s paintings, see Schütze, ‘Vita S. Brunonis’, 198; Napoli, Ethics of Ornament, 102–11. On Carducho and El Paular, see Ruiz Gómez, ‘Recuperación’, 185–202; Cruz de Carlos Verona, ‘Vicente Carducho’, 203–16.

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this moment.84 In 1615 for example, shortly after Poccetti’s decoration at the Certosa, the Carthusians stated that ‘miracles and other things of that type’ (‘miracula et alia id genus’) should be included and emphasized in histories of the order.85 Both of these issues are interrelated and were of the utmost concern for the order at the end of the Cinquecento. The reclamation of Serra San Bruno allowed the Carthusians access to and control over their founder’s relics at a time when they were promoting the cult of Bruno. The promotion of Bruno’s cult, in turn, complemented the Roman Church’s efforts to canonize charismatic saints from its distant and recent history and to demonstrate the efficacious power of saintly intercessors. Funeral of Saint Bruno (North Wall) On the north wall of the church, positioned behind the altar, Poccetti painted a monumental scene of Saint Bruno’s funeral (Plate 7). As a result of the rectangular plan of the bay, this wall is wider than those on each side. Furthermore, unlike the side walls, this lunette is not interrupted by fenestration, leaving Poccetti with a massive mural expanse for his fresco. Presented with this tantalizing opportunity, Poccetti designed a large and complex painting of a vast ecclesiastical interior, a large crowd of onlookers, a glimpse of the glory of the heavenly realm that awaited Bruno’s spirit, and a radiant image of Christ.86 This grandiose treatment is a radical departure from both the descriptions of Bruno’s death in the early sixteenth-century vite and the existing iconography for the saint. 87 Urs Graf’s woodcut, Origo ordinis cartusiensis, from 1510, does not represent the funeral of Bruno—or anything else that transpired in the saint’s life after the construction of the Grand Chartreuse (Fig. 4.3). The woodcuts published with Du Puy’s vita in 1524 do include a scene of Bruno’s death, which is shown alongside the image 84 In the run-up to the canonization of Francis Xavier in 1622, for example, initial accounts of the saint included many stories of supernatural events, including bringing the dead back to life and having his crucifix, which he had lost in the sea, returned to him by a crab. These accounts—despite being rejected as exaggerations by contemporary Jesuits—remained a central part of Xavier’s hagiography for centuries. Mormando, ‘Making of the Second Jesuit Saint’, 10–12. Similarly, attempts to open the canonization process for Ignatius of Loyola in the 1580s and 1590s were rejected because the saint’s biography lacked examples of miracles and healing, but he was eventually canonized in 1622 after revisions to his biography and modifications to his iconography placed a greater emphasis on his miracles. Hsia, World of Catholic Renewal, 127–28. 85 Boglioni, ‘Miracolo e miracoli’, 154. 86 A quite noticeable seam runs horizontally across the lunette at about the midway point, just slightly above the heads of most of the assembled crowd, where Poccetti was unable to match perfectly the color of the architectural features of the large church, suggesting that there might have been a period of inactivity in the fresco’s execution. 87 Vasetti, ‘Bernardino Poccetti e i certosini’, 15–16.

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of Roger discovering Bruno in the Calabrian wilderness, but the saint is shown drawing his last breath in a modest and plain setting meant to evoke the austerity of the saint’s hermitage (Fig. 4.9).88 Poccetti’s fresco, on the other hand, situates the funeral in a church that once again calls to mind local Florentine examples, without specifically acting as a representation of any particular structure. The architecture in the background appears to be a view of a transept and choir as seen from the nave. Much of the clerestory is obscured by Christ, the angels, and the glory of heaven that has erupted into the space above Bruno’s bier, but the purple entablature is visible enough to provide an idea as to the plan of this part of the church. Immediately behind the assembled crowd a large gold aedicula can be seen positioned in a curving apse. This is clearly the high altar. To the left and right of this space, are two auxiliary chapels. Partial views of these chapels are allowed by the arched openings, above which painted figures sit in the spandrels. Inside each chapel one has a glimpse of a smaller and less elaborate gold tabernacle framing an altarpiece. With their classicizing columns, entablatures, and pediments, these altar surrounds reflect the latest taste for this type of ecclesiastical furnishing, which was being rapidly deployed throughout Florence in the last half of the Cinquecento.89 The open space in front of these chapels appears to be the transept of the church, thereby placing Bruno’s bier in a nave bay close to the crossing. Poccetti’s treatment of the architecture flanking the nave is inconsistent and ambiguous. At each corner where the nave and transept meet, he painted a solid wall perforated by a rectangular window topped by a segmental pediment. In what might be understood to be the adjacent bay, the solid wall gives way to an opening where two columns stand, presumably to support the nave’s entablature, which has been obscured from view by the curve of the lunette. As an example of the inconsistency of Poccetti’s rendering, the bases for these columns are visible on the right side of the fresco just behind the shoulders of the Carthusians standing at the bier. It is unclear if these columns stand on high bases or if there is a change in the floor’s elevation in this area, or even if there is space beyond the columns. What is clear, however, is that even if it lacks aisles, the space in the fresco does not reflect the typical configuration of a Carthusian church, with its single nave, lack of transept, and rectangular choir.90 The location of the architecture’s vanishing point is also slightly inconsistent. The orthogonals of Poccetti’s perspectival construction for this interior space converge loosely upon a spot just above and to the left of the head of the reclining Bruno. 88 Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi, 506v. 89 For extant examples of such surrounds that could have served as models for Poccetti, see the tabernacles designed by Vasari and Francesco da Sangallo installed during the renovation of Santa Croce, which was complete by the end of the 1570s. Satkowski, Giorgio Vasari, 94–95. 90 Vasetti, ‘Bernardino Poccetti e i certosini’, 16.

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Despite not being perfectly centered on the saint, the perspectival scheme of the architecture draws attention to the crucial area of the fresco where the earthly and heavenly realms intersect, the transitional space being traversed by Bruno’s spirit. As Dagobert Frey noted many years ago, there are three distinct spaces represented in the fresco.91 The first of these is the earthly realm, where the funeral is shown inside the church. As he did with the much smaller scene of the Funeral of the Theologian, Poccetti represented an enormous crowd of onlookers. In a significant departure from his usual practice—and the compositional strategies deployed in the adjacent scenes—Poccetti painted an isocephalic crowd. Rather than stacking his attendees up in a series of receding vertical planes, he arranged the Carthusians flanking the saint’s body in rows parallel to the bier and perpendicular to the picture plane, being sure to keep the heads of all of the standing monks aligned on an almost perfect horizontal. These ranks, receding into pictorial space and standing on the same ground plane, were seen by Frey as a continuation of the monks within the church, who were also arranged perpendicular to the picture plane, seated in the choir stalls that line the walls.92 The choir stalls in Carthusian churches only featured one row and a forma, or kneeler, that also contained a small cabinet and was positioned in front of the stalls.93 This configuration of the furnishings in the church meant that the monks were arranged in a single row along the walls, in two ranks that faced each across the width of the nave, and that when the monks cast their gaze around the sanctuary at their counterparts, they saw an isocephalic arrangement virtually identical to that shown in the fresco itself. Frey, following Voss’s assertion and the visual evidence of the Carthusians’ likenesses in the image, noted that many of the figures in the fresco are highly individualized and present as portraits.94 The idea that many of the Carthusians in the fresco are based on studies from life dates back to Baldinucci’s unequivocal description of the monks in the lunette as the ‘many fathers of that monastery who were living in those times, drawn from life’ (‘molti Padri di quel Monasterio, che vivevano in quei tempi, ritratti al naturale’).95 Additionally, there are many extant studies of Carthusians by Poccetti, both as individual likenesses and in groups, in collections of drawings throughout the world.96 In some cases these drawings are not a precise match for the finished image, and are justifiably considered to 91 Frey, ‘Wandfresken’, 74–75. 92 Frey, ‘Wandfresken’, 74. 93 Allen, ‘Carthusian Choir Stalls’, 320–21. 94 Voss, Spätrenaissance, 2:364; Frey, ‘Wandfresken’, 74. 95 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:246. Many commentaries on the fresco remark on the portraits. See, for example, Chiarelli and Leoncini, Certosa del Galluzzo, 251; Vasetti, ‘Bernardino Poccetti e i certosini’, 17. 96 For entries on these drawings, see Vitzthum, Handzeichnungen, 98–101; Thiem, Florentiner Zeichner, 266; Hamilton, Disegni, 49–54; Viatte, Dessins toscans, 1:175–76; Thiem, ‘Entwurfspraxis’, 166–75.

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be primi pensieri.97 However, some of the drawings that have been associated with the fresco in Galluzzo more closely resemble passages in Poccetti’s lesser known commissions at other Tuscan charterhouses, and should be considered as preliminary efforts for other frescoes.98 In any event, the survival of a significant corpus of studies of Carthusians, many of which are obviously preliminary designs for the Funeral of Saint Bruno, demonstrates that the monks were keen to include their likenesses in the images that decorated their certose. The portraits in the church at Galluzzo would have increased the sense that the painted scene was a continuation of the actual space by lending a sense of contemporaneity to the Carthusians who were resident shortly after the fresco’s completion and who would have recognized themselves and others in the image. For the Carthusians who came generations later, the individuality present in the painted likenesses would have echoed the identities of the living monks, even as it reminded them of their position within a venerable eremetical tradition established by Bruno, which, in this case was represented on the wall by the image of the founder surrounded by his followers. Some passages in the fresco also make reference to the lived experience of the monks, even if when taken as a whole it is difficult to see the lunette as a faithful representation of a Carthusian’s funeral. Carthusian funerary practices were outlined in Chapter 34 of the Ordinarium Cartusiense, the order’s statutes that were revised and published in 1582, and, as Vasetti has pointed out, many of the elements described in these passages are featured in Poccetti’s fresco.99 For example, the statutes describe the body being carried into the church, accompanied by the conversi carrying the holy water and lit candles, a novice carrying the cross, and the procurator with the censer.100 In the lunette Poccetti painted many figures holding lit candles, one figure on the left side of the bier holding an aspergillum and aspersorium, a crucifix at the head of the bier, and a figure swinging a censer on the right side of the image. The location of the crucifix at the head of the bier is also prescribed by the statutes, as is the position of the officiant on his right side of the bier—his black cloak, which sets him off starkly from the rest of the 97 Viatte, Dessins toscans, 1:175–76; McCullagh and Giles, Italian Drawings, 195. 98 A drawing in the collection of the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, for example, has been connected to the frescoes in Galluzzo, but is more likely to be a study for Poccetti’s Last Supper in Pontignano. Brejon de Lavergnée, Dessins italiens, 169. For the fresco in Pontignano’s refectory, see Mancini and Vannini, Cartusiae prope senas, 176–79. 99 Vasetti, ‘Bernardino Poccetti e i certosini’, 17. Revised as part of a broader effort to update the Carthusian statutes in the wake of Trent, the practices outlined in the Ordinarium Cartusiense are the most relevant to a discussion of Poccetti’s fresco. First published in Paris in 1582, they are also available in a modern edition: Hogg, Girard, and Le Blévec, Ordinarium Cartusiense, 2 vols. 100 Ordinarium Cartusiense, 116v; Hogg, Girard, and Le Blévec, Ordinarium Cartusiense, 2:234.

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Carthusians in their characteristic white robes, is not simply a visual device, but also reflects traditional funeral practices.101 Poccetti made sure to include all of these elements in his image, and at least one surviving drawing reveals that he was focused on these liturgical instruments in the early stages of the fresco’s execution. In the study, now in Berlin, Poccetti rendered a Carthusian holding a basin and an aspergillum.102 In the drawing the monk holds the aspergillum tilted towards his shoulder, whereas in the final painting it is tilted towards the bier. This change to the design makes the aspergillum more visible in the final painted version by placing it against the bright white highlight of the adjacent monk’s sleeve. Furthermore, had Poccetti kept the original angle of the aspergillum, it would have been obscured by the other figure on the monk’s right and the large candlestick. That Poccetti repositioned the wand in response to these other elements shows that he wanted the aspergillum and the basin to be visible in the image. Despite this attention to detail, the fresco departs in many ways from the ceremony described in the Ordinarium Cartusiense and from what must have been the typical practices of the Carthusians. The statutes, for example, describe the funeral as taking place in the choir of the conversi or the monks, and as has been noted above, the structure in the fresco, with its chapels, transept, and suggestions of aisles, is far more elaborate than the traditional Carthusian church.103 These departures are even more pronounced when one considers that the fresco presents an actual event that took place in an even more ascetic environment—Bruno’s hermitage in Calabria—than the typical Carthusian sanctuary. Poccetti’s image, then, presents a mix of recognizable furnishings and rituals from typical exequies, even as it situates these things within a space that would have hardly been the site of a monk’s funeral, and that certainly does not resemble the location of Bruno’s funeral. 101 For the positioning of the cross at the head of the bier (‘cruce ad caput eius posita’), see Ordinarium Cartusiense, 117r; Hogg, Girard, and Le Blévec, Ordinarium Cartusiense, 2:234. In some instances, the modern edition of the Ordinarium Cartusiense does not correspond exactly with the 1582 publication. For example, the 1582 statutes do not mention the officiant’s black cloak although they are specific about his position. Compare Ordinarium Cartusiense, 116r–116v to Hogg, Girard, and Le Blévec, Ordinarium Cartusiense, 2:233. According to Minou Schraven’s description of a typical funerary ritual, the priest performed the requiem mass, then left the altar, changed into a black cope, and approached the bier for the final absolution. Schraven, Festive Funerals, 8. It is likely that the additional language describing the officiant’s black cloak (‘stola’) was added after 1582 to ensure compliance with typical practices, but Poccetti’s fresco is evidence that even though the stipulation does not appear in the 1582 statutes, the Carthusians had adopted the practice. 102 On this drawing (Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, KdZ 7717 verso), see Thiem, Florentiner Zeichner, 266. 103 Vasetti, ‘Bernardino Poccetti e i certosini’, 16. For the passage (‘posito autem in ecclesia in choro conversorum vel monachorum defuncto’), see Ordinarium Cartusiense, 117v; Hogg, Girard, and Le Blévec, Ordinarium Cartusiense, 2:236.

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According to Frey, the second space represented in the fresco is the transitional area where Bruno’s soul is being borne aloft by a group of four angels arranged around him in a circle. Frey argued that Poccetti represented this event as though it were unfolding in the physical space of the church, but the fact that none of the monks seems to notice it means that it is not a part of their perceived reality. For Frey, this paradox alluded to the gap between the sensory world and the supernatural realm, and signified the transcendental state of Bruno’s eternal soul as it traversed these states of being.104 The figure that represents Bruno’s soul is dressed in a loincloth and appears to be a younger version of the saint.105 His flesh is pale—perhaps the palest of all the figures in the lunette—and gives off a white radiance that coalesces into a golden halo framing his head, lighting effects that signify his ethereal status. His arms are outstretched in an orant pose and he tilts his head back and to his right, gazing upwards in the direction of his heavenly trajectory. Poccetti carefully positioned Bruno’s soul and the group of angels bearing it within the space of his fresco and provided visual clues as to their locations within pictorial space. The angel on the right side of Bruno, closest to the picture plane and wearing red and green drapery is positioned on the far side of the candle in the foreground on the right side of the bier, since the tall white taper obscures the view of this angel’s lower right leg. The proper left leg of the angel dressed in white on the left side of Bruno’s soul, however, blocks the view of the distant candlestick. That the angel in red and green is behind the closest candlestick and the angel in white is in front of the farthest candlestick means that the group hovers in the air in the space between those candles, which have been placed at the head and foot of Bruno’s bier. In other words, the group ascends through the space directly above the deceased saint, which is also to say entirely within the space of the church represented in the fresco. In the uppermost part of the lunette Poccetti painted a full-length figure of Christ standing on a small cloud that is supported by three cherubic heads, each framed by a collar of delicate feathers. A burst of light, clouds, and angels spreads out in a v-shape behind Christ, filling the top part of the fresco and the space above Bruno’s funeral. The shape of the glory suggests motion, as though Christ has descended from above, trailing a heavenly wake of supernatural beings and light. Furthermore, Poccetti’s angels dissolve into light behind Christ’s head, growing smaller and less distinct, as though they are receding into the distance, an effect that makes Christ appear to be moving not only down but also forward, towards the spectator. This illusion is augmented by the fact that Christ is the largest figure in the image, larger even than the repoussoir figures at the extreme right 104 Frey, ‘Wandfresken’, 74. 105 Vasetti, ‘Bernardino Poccetti e i certosini’, 16.

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and left of the lunette who stand closest to the picture plane. Poccetti provided other clues to suggest that Christ is the figure closest to—perhaps even in front of—the picture plane. For example, the relative size of the angels in the group with Bruno’s soul as opposed to those immediately adjacent to Christ suggests that Bruno’s group—which is positioned in the space above the bier—is farther back in space than the group with Christ. As if to draw attention to this contrast, Poccetti painted the left foot of the angel above Bruno’s soul dangling near the saint’s left hand and forearm, bringing them close together on the painting’s surface, but only to emphasize the sense that the large angel is much closer to the spectator than Bruno’s soul. When the relative locations of the two groups are plotted in the fictive three-dimensional space of the fresco, it becomes clear that the positioning of the head of Bruno’s soul allows him to gaze up and forward at the glory of Christ. In this way, Poccetti has created what Frey considered to be the third space in the fresco—even if its location within pictorial space is left ambiguous. In contrast to how he depicted the angels carrying Bruno’s soul, Poccetti was careful not to provide any visual clues as to Christ’s exact position within pictorial space. The fingertips on Christ’s right hand, for example, are not obscured by the lunette’s fictive arched opening but they also do not extend beyond it, making it impossible to determine if they are in front of or behind the arch. That the position of Christ is difficult to pinpoint allows it to function as a link between the event represented and the living monks in the church, since it can appear to be both behind and in front of the picture plane.106 Once again, as was the case with the precise rendering of the rituals and objects prescribed in the Ordinarium Cartusiense and the inclusion of portraits of contemporary Carthusian monks, the representation of Christ in the lunette creates an illusion of presence and immediacy that spoke to the monks lining the walls of the church. In this way, the various scenes in the fresco oscillate between various moments in time and various states of being. The funeral scene purports to be a record of an actual event. Its pretensions towards historical accuracy are augmented by the precise details of the ritual, the proliferation of portraits, and its appearance within physical space—even if, paradoxically, those details make it a less historically accurate representation of Bruno’s death. Bruno’s soul traverses a liminal space, leaving behind the physical world of the funeral and entering the heavenly realm with an angelic escort, unnoticed by the living. Christ’s size and position suggest that he has crossed the picture plane—or come very close to doing so—giving him an immediate presence. He appears within the real church, in the space of the living monks. He does not belong to the physical or historical space of the funeral; he is always present in the now. 106 Frey, ‘Wandfresken’, 74–75.

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Saints and Beati in the Vault Baldinucci’s descriptions of the scenes represented in the mural frescoes are precise and correct, but he struggled to identify the figures painted in the webs of the vault, calling them ‘i quattro Dottori della Chiesa’ (Plate 8).107 Although all of the figures on the ceiling (with the exception of the putti) are identified with inscriptions, Baldinucci can hardly be blamed for not being familiar with these figures from the order’s history, since—as has been discussed previously—the Carthusians rejected attempts to publicize the saintly members of their order, not to mention their thaumaturgic feats, a stance best summed up by the phrase, ‘Cartusia sanctos facit, sed non patefacit’ (‘the Chartreuse makes saints but does not make them known’).108 Indeed, when Poccetti painted their likenesses on the ceiling, only two of the four figures were officially recognized as saints, and those had been canonized within a few decades of their deaths. Hugh of Châteauneuf, Bishop of Grenoble (1052–1132), who was not a Carthusian but is celebrated on the ceiling for the important role he played in the establishment of the order, was canonized in 1134.109 Hugh of Lincoln (c. 1140–1200), the first Carthusian to be raised to sainthood, was canonized in 1220.110 Niccolò Albergati (1375–1443) would not be officially canonized until 1744, and the last figure, Anthelm of Belley (1107–1178), appears to have never been canonized at all despite being an object of popular devotion.111 Anthelm’s feast day was introduced to the calendar for veneration within Carthusian monasteries in 1607 before being extended to the entire church in 1622, but even then it was not celebrated in the diocese of Belley until 1630, the year that his relics were enshrined in a more prominent tomb in the cathedral.112 107 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:246. 108 Martin, ‘Sanctity’, 197–99. Boglioni, ‘Miracolo e miracoli’, 151 provides a slightly different phrasing, although it expresses the same sentiment, ‘non sanctos patefacere, sed multos facere’. 109 Farmer, Oxford Dictionary of Saints, s.v. ‘Hugh of Grenoble’; Martin, ‘Sanctity’, 202. 110 Farmer, Oxford Dictionary of Saints, s.v. ‘Hugh of Lincoln (1)’; Martin, ‘Sanctity’, 198. 111 DBI, s.v. ‘Albergati, Niccolò’ (by Edith Pàsztor), https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/niccoloalbergati_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/. For the other three figures, see Martin, ‘Carthusians, Canonizations’, 141–42. 112 Martin, ‘Carthusians, Canonizations’, 142 included Anthelm in a list of bishops who ‘became recognized as saints already during the Middle Ages’, a description that f its with longstanding beliefs about the cult of Anthelm, which, according to Picard, ‘Introduction’, 51*, was thought to have sprung up in the years immediately after his death. This agrees with Boniface Ferrer’s (d. 1417) description of Anthelm as ‘beatus’. For a transcription of this passage, see Martin, ‘Sanctity’, 198n3. On the introduction of Anthelm’s feast day to the calendar, see Picard, ‘Introduction’, 51*–52*; Lheritier, ‘Saint Anthelme’, 555–56; Napoli, Ethics of Ornament, 113. Paravy, ‘1514’, 25 noted that until the thirteenth century the distinction between beatification and canonization was not clearly established and that ‘beatus’ and ‘sanctus’ were essentially synonyms. Ditchfield, ‘Tridentine Worship’, 211 suggested that this was still the case even in the early Cinquecento.

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The configuration of the vault’s webs presented Poccetti with the formal challenge of filling the space—roughly triangular in shape but with a curved base—in a manner that was both aesthetically pleasing and visually intelligible. His solution was to fill each of the four fields with figures, exploiting the adaptability of the human form to occupy the available area. Although, as Vasetti has pointed out, this is a traditional solution to the decoration of a ribbed groin vault, Poccetti has moved beyond earlier iterations.113 He has, for instance, increased the illusionistic complexity of his treatments and included a greater number of figures than are found in the efforts of Ghirlandaio in the Sassetti and Tornabuoni chapels, to name two prominent precedents for this type of decoration. In Poccetti’s paintings, rather than have the figures on clouds, the middle of each web is dominated by an architectonic throne upon which the main figure is seated. The top of the throne is formed by a cornice decorated with swags and vegetal motifs, while the arms of the throne are adorned with female heads resting atop massive volutes. Immediately flanking each figure and within the arms of the throne on the left and right Poccetti placed a putto. Putti seem to have been an integral part of Poccetti’s design from its early stages. One appears in a similar location in a preliminary sketch for the upper part of the throne, even if in their final painted form the putti are larger than the one in the study, for reasons that will be explained below.114 In the awkward area where each web tapers to the lateral points of the triangle and the base of the web curves, Poccetti painted priors general of the Carthusian order in semi-reclining positions. This design solution has its most well-known precedent in the reclining allegorical figures Michelangelo placed on the curving sarcophagus lids of the Medici tombs in the New Sacristy, even if Poccetti’s priors general are positioned on a steeper curve and therefore sit in more upright positions than Michelangelo’s figures.115 In the northernmost web that springs from the altar wall Poccetti painted Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln (Fig. 4.14).116 This part of the vault is the most easily seen and most legible from the church’s nave and occupies an important position directly above the scene of Bruno’s funeral (Fig. 4.2). Hugh is dressed in his episcopal attire, wearing a light green miter on his head, and a historiated cope draped over his shoulders and clasped in front by a morse adorned with a large ruby. His right hand rests on top of a book that is propped on his thigh, the boards of which are the same green as the miter. In his left hand he holds his crozier, which appears to rest on the curved top of the lunette below. On Hugh’s left Poccetti painted his attribute 113 Vasetti, ‘Bernardino Poccetti e i certosini’, 19. 114 On this drawing, GDSU, inv. no. 8362 F (verso), see Vitzthum, Handzeichnungen, 99; Hamilton, Disegni, 49–51. 115 The scholarship on the New Sacristy is immense. For a recent discussion and bibliography, see Nelson, ‘Poetry in Stone’, 450–80. 116 Chiarelli and Leoncini, Certosa del Galluzzo, 250.

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Fig. 4.14: Bernardino Poccetti, Saint Hugh of Lincoln, 1591–1593, fresco. Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

of the swan, a reference to the bishop’s love of animals and in particular a tame swan that he kept as a pet.117 Hugh appears to lean forward slightly and his head tilts down allowing him to cast his gaze in the direction of the mural immediately beneath him. Two winged putti, one on each side of Hugh, fill out the remaining space within the arms of the throne. The putto on the left of Hugh wears a splash of drapery that covers his groin and cascades off his right hip in a series of Sartesque folds rendered in pink and yellow cangiante. The putto on the right reveals even more flesh, wearing a small loincloth that leaves most of his body exposed. Finally, in a configuration that maintains the fresco’s lateral symmetry, Poccetti has placed two priors general reclining on the extreme pointed ends of the triangular field. Like their other six counterparts on the ceiling, these two men are identified by inscriptions placed beneath their feet. On the right is Guilielmus II Rainaldus, who became the twenty-fourth prior in 1366; while on the left one finds Guigo I,

117 The story of the swan was included in several biographies of Hugh of Lincoln, including the vita by the Benedictine monk Adam of Eynsham, whose description of Hugh and the swan closely follows that of Giraldus Cambrensis. Adam, who completed the saint’s vita in the first decade of the thirteenth century, was a close companion of Hugh in the last few years of his life. Douie and Farmer, ‘Introduction’, viii–x. According to Adam and Giraldus, the swan befriended Hugh and became a faithful companion and fierce protector of the bishop. Adam, Life of St Hugh, 1:103–9; Giraldus, Life of St. Hugh, 32–35.

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Fig. 4.15: Bernardino Poccetti, Saint Hugh of Lincoln (detail of Guigo I), 1591–1593, fresco. Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0 / detail from original)

Fig. 4.16: Bernardino Poccetti, Two Studies of Carthusians (recto), 1591–1592, black chalk. Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago. Source: Art Institute of Chicago (CC0 1.0 / public domain)

who became the fifth prior in 1110.118 Dressed in the characteristic white robes of the Carthusians, Guigo I holds a red book that is adorned with a monogram of the order surmounted by a cross (Fig. 4.15). In a preliminary study for this figure, Poccetti rendered what appears to be a smaller book, open and cradled in Guigo’s hand, rather than the larger, more visible book that appears propped up on his lap in the fresco (Fig. 4.16).119 Many of the priors represented on the ceiling are shown with books, but the one held by Guigo I is the only one that prominently displays the Carthusian emblem—a detail that alludes to his important role as the author of the

118 Chiarelli and Leoncini, Certosa del Galluzzo, 250. This entry for the vault frescoes refers to Guigo I as the sixth prior general and Hugo I as the fifth prior general, which appears to have been a transposition of the numbers, since Guigo I was the fifth and Hugo I was the sixth. For a list of Carthusian priors general published in 1639, see Vita S. Brunonis, 485–87. 119 On this drawing, Art Institute of Chicago, inv. no. 1922.2370 recto, see McCullagh and Giles, Italian Drawings, 194–95 with relevant bibliography.

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Fig. 4.17: Bernardino Poccetti, Saint Hugh of Châteauneuf, Bishop of Grenoble, 1591–1593, fresco. Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0 / detail from original)

Carthusians’ guiding principles, the Consuetudines Cartusiae.120 On the other side of the web, Guilielmus II also holds a book, but this volume appears to be open, and Guilielmus II brings a quill in his right hand to bear on the pages in front of him. In the western web of the vault Poccetti painted Hugh of Châteauneuf, Bishop of Grenoble (Fig. 4.17).121 Although not a Carthusian, his role in the establishment of the order afforded him significant enough status with the Carthusians that none other than Guigo I wrote Hugh’s biography in 1134.122 The discussion above 120 For Guigo I’s role as one of the earliest chroniclers of the Carthusians, see Hogg, ‘Vite di San Bruno’, 127–28. The Consuetudines Cartusiae have been published in a French translation as Guigo I, Coutumes de Chartreuse and are available in Latin as Guigo I, Statuta ordinis cartusiensis. For a recent discussion of the Consuetudines and Guigo I, see Molvarec and Gaens, ‘Carthusian Customaries’, 108–15. 121 Chiarelli and Leoncini, Certosa del Galluzzo, 250. 122 The Vita sancti Hugonis episcopi Gratianopolitani was written in response to a request from Pope Innocent II (r. 1130–1143). Bligny, ‘Introduction’, 5; Boglioni, ‘Miracolo e miracoli’, 162. That the pope entrusted Guigo with the task is further evidence of the close ties between Hugh and the Carthusians, since it implies that Guigo would have been familiar enough with Hugh to write his biography. The vita is

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of the woodcuts from the illustrated edition of Du Puy’s biography published in 1524 has already demonstrated Hugh’s frequent presence in representations of Bruno’s life and the early history of the order. And, as was described above, Hugh also appears in the mural on the eastern wall that faces this portion of the vault, where he is shown receiving Bruno and his companions. Each of the webs in the vault follows the same compositional formula, so once again Poccetti has painted Hugh in episcopal attire using a color palette similar to that of Hugh of Lincoln with the exceptions that Hugh of Grenoble’s miter is red and the portions of his cope that are visible are not historiated. As a result of the rectangular plan of the bay, the western and eastern webs of its vault are more narrow than those on the north and south, a situation that Poccetti addressed by varying the width of the architectonic throne. The modification is subtle, but can be discerned in the poses of the flanking putti, who assume more fully standing positions next to Hugh of Grenoble than they do alongside Hugh of Lincoln, where they appear seated or with knees bent in a more moderate version of Michelangelo’s ignudi from the Sistine Chapel ceiling. These putti are also more modestly dressed, revealing less flesh than those flanking Hugh of Lincoln. In the lower portion of the web and on Hugh of Grenoble’s left is Hugo I, who became the sixth prior general of the order 1137, shown cradling a book in his lap and meditating upon a crucifix in his left hand. Basilius, who was made the eighth prior general 1152, is in the pendant position on Hugh’s right and rests his left elbow on a book while he contemplates a skull in his left hand.123 In the eastern web Poccetti painted Anthelm, Bishop of Belley, once again using the same composition and color palette found in the other compartments of the vault (Fig. 4.18). 124 In the case of Anthelm, his miter is white and his cope is not historiated, and he holds a blue book in his right hand. His crozier is held by the putto to Anthelm’s left, who is narrowly wedged into the small space between the saint and the side of the throne. On Anthelm’s right side a putto who is barely covered by a swath of green fabric draped across his lap also reaches out to grasp the edge of the blue book at Anthelm’s hip. In the lower corner on this same side, Poccetti painted Iohannes Birellus, who became the twenty-second prior general in 1342; Iohannes clasps his hands together and looks up and over his left shoulder in the direction of the bishop. Iacobus I, who reproduced in Patrologia cursus completus, series latina, 153:759–84, and has been translated into French by Marie-Ange Chomel as Guigo I, Vie de saint Hugues. 123 Chiarelli and Leoncini, Certosa del Galluzzo, 250. This entry for the vault frescoes refers to Guigo I as the sixth prior general and Hugo I as the fifth prior general, which appears to have been a transposition of the numbers, since Guigo I was the fifth and Hugo I was the sixth. For a list of Carthusian priors general published in 1639, see Vita S. Brunonis, 485–87. 124 Chiarelli and Leoncini, Certosa del Galluzzo, 250.

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Fig. 4.18: Bernardino Poccetti, Anthelm, Bishop of Belley, 1591–1593, fresco. Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

Fig. 4.19: Bernardino Poccetti, Cardinal Niccolò Albergati, 1591–1593, fresco. Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo. Source: Sailko, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

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became the eighteenth prior general in 1330, is on Anthelm’s left side, shown with his gaze cast downwards, his hands clasped together, and his right elbow resting on a stack of books.125 Cardinal Niccolò Albergati, who had previously been appointed Bishop of Bologna in 1417 before he was raised to the purple in 1426, occupies the southernmost web, once again in an identical configuration to the rest of the vault’s compartments (Fig. 4.19).126 Niccolò wears a red and gold cope with a light green lining that is similar to the one worn by Hugh of Grenoble. There are scenes and figures just barely visible on the right side of the cope, but they are too illegible to identify with any certainty. Unlike the others on the ceiling, Albergati does not wear a miter; instead his head is adorned with a galero, signifying his status as a cardinal of the church. Poccetti has again filled out the greater width of this web with putti who occupy the pictorial surface by planting their feet far apart and rotating their torsos. Each one draws attention to the regalia emblematic of Albergati’s status within the church. The putto on the left playfully pulls on the tasseled cords hanging down from the cardinal’s hat, while his counterpart on the right holds the miter. On the left side of the web’s base, Poccetti painted Boso, who became the sixteenth prior general of the Carthusians in 1278. Boso turns his body and directs his gaze down in the direction of the floor of the church, towards which he gestures with his right hand while his left hand clutches a sheaf of papers or ruffles the pages of a book. On the right side of the fresco, one finds Iancelius, who became the tenth prior general in 1177. He holds a book in his left hand, and although he looks off in the distance, his dramatically foreshortened right arm and hand point directly down to the church floor. Albergati’s position in the southern web and the attention that the priors general direct to the floor of the church is no accident. Poccetti placed the image of the cardinal directly above his tomb slab, and even though Albergati gazes off to the side, Poccetti used the gaze of Boso and the gesture of Iancelius to make a visual connection between the decoration in the vault and Albergati’s prominent burial spot in front of the church’s altar. 125 A preparatory study of Iacobus I is in the collection of the Louvre (inv. no. 1461 recto), where it has been misidentif ied in a catalogue entry as a study for Hugo I. Viatte, Dessins toscans, 175–76. A comparison of the sheet to the fresco demonstrates that the drawing represents Iacobus and not Hugo. Hugo, for example, does not have his hood up, as does Iacobus in both the drawing and the fresco. Hugo holds a crucif ix in his left hand and rests his right hand on his cheek, whereas Iacobus clasps his hands together in front of him and rests his right elbow on a stack of books, a conf iguration seen in both drawing and fresco. Furthermore, the drapery in the drawing closely resembles the drapery worn by Iacobus in the vault, including the rolled-back cuff on his left arm and the folds gathered behind his right knee. For more on this drawing and relevant bibliography, see https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ ark:/53355/cl020002101. 126 DBI, s.v. ‘Albergati, Niccolò’ (by Edith Pàsztor).

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The Significance of the Saints in the Vault Albergati’s depiction in the vault is explained in part by his close association with the Certosa del Galluzzo—despite his Bolognese origins—and it was this affinity for the Florentine charterhouse that led the cardinal to request burial there. Albergati was widely known in his own time for his simple and pious lifestyle. In his Vite di uomini illustri, Vespasiano da Bisticci (1422–1498) described the cardinal as a man so dedicated to the humility that characterized the Carthusians that he only ever wore the habit of the order, slept on a simple mattress, and never ate meat, not even when he was ill.127 His tomb slab, lacking an effigy and decorated simply with a galero above a shield emblazoned with a cross, the symbol of his titular church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, is in keeping with what is known about Albergati. If the location of the tomb in front of the high altar is not especially humble, it is at least indicative of the close connection described by Vespasiano between Albergati and the prior of the Florentine charterhouse, Niccolò da Cortona.128 His friend the prior even accompanied the cardinal on one of his many diplomatic missions on behalf of the church, this one to France where Albergati helped to bring about the reconciliation of King Charles VII with Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy.129 According to Vespasiano, it was his connection to Niccolò da Cortona that inspired Albergati’s wish to be interred at the Florentine charterhouse and to leave some of his most valuable possessions to the Certosa del Galluzzo.130 One of these, an illuminated Bible now referred to as the ‘Albergati Bible’, remained at the Certosa until 1839, at which point it made its way onto the market before finally ending up in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University in 1969.131 127 Vespasiano, Uomini illustri, 123. Many descriptions of Albergati’s piety were collected in Ruggieri, Testimonia, where, to cite one example, the cardinal is described by another of his contemporaries, Saint Antoninus Pierozzi (1389–1459), as a ‘speculum sine macula’. Ruggieri, Testimonia, 73. 128 Not only is Albergati’s tomb in front of the high altar, it was the only tomb placed inside the church. The inscription highlights Albergati’s achievements in the service of the papacy, and was probably composed by Niccolò da Cortona. Chiarelli, Attività artistiche, 1:114–15. For more on the tomb and a transcription of the inscription, see Chiarelli and Leoncini, Certosa del Galluzzo, 253. 129 Vespasiano, Uomini illustri, 124–25; DBI, s.v. ‘Albergati, Niccolò’ (by Edith Pàsztor); Hall, ‘Cardinal Albergati’, 4; Chiarelli, Attività artistiche, 1:58–59. 130 Vespasiano, Uomini illustri, 125. Cardinal Albergati also left some of his ritual furnishings, including a cross, a thurible, and an incense boat all made of silver to the cathedral in Bologna. Zanotti, Vita, 302. 131 The record of the Bible’s donation to the Certosa del Galluzzo is inscribed at the end of the manuscript, ‘1428 die 13 Augusti. Ipsum librum donavit idem dominus huic monasterio Sancti Laurentii cartusiensis ordinis in quo qui legerit pro ipso oret deum’. For this transcription and a discussion of the Bible and its history, see Chiarelli, Attività artistiche, 1:59–62. A reproduction of the manuscript, Beinecke MS 407, is available for consultation at https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/2003431, where the inscription appears on 682r.

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Albergati’s close connection to the Florentine Certosa is only one explanation for why he appears on the ceiling of the church. The other reason for his presence is one that he shares with the other three figures on the vault and that reveals the motivation behind the representation of these particular saints from Carthusian history: each of them heeded the call to assist the church as high-ranking members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy despite their affinity for the eremitical life. Albergati, for example, was only around twenty years old when he abandoned his study of law in 1395 to enter the charterhouse of San Girolamo di Casara just outside his native Bologna. Around ten years later, in 1404, he was ordained as a priest and rose quickly through the ranks to become prior in 1407. By 1412 Albergati was responsible for monitoring the monasteries of Italy, a task he took on with the objective of maintaining unity and adherence to church doctrine. Five years later, after the death of the bishop of Bologna in 1417, Albergati was elected to the position. In this role he carefully negotiated the treacherous terrain between the Bolognesi eager to maintain their autonomy and the newly elected pope, Martin V (r. 1417–1431), who wanted to reassert papal control over the city. Apparently, Albergati’s skills as a negotiator in this difficult situation impressed the pope enough that he dispatched the bishop to France on the diplomatic mission mentioned above.132 However far removed these bureaucratic and diplomatic endeavors might have been from Albergati’s desire for the life of a hermit, he had several venerable examples of men from Carthusian history who performed similar duties in the service of the church to whom he could look for inspiration. Hugh of Lincoln, for example, entered the Grande Chartreuse around 1163 when he was in his twenties, ascended the ranks quickly, and by 1179 or 1180 he was asked to take over the administration of the floundering Witham Charterhouse in England. Although he resisted the pressure from King Henry II of England (1133–1189) to become bishop of Lincoln in 1186, he finally donned the episcopal robes after the prior of the Grande Chartreuse instructed him to do so.133 Hugh then found himself in a position where he had to balance the prerogatives of the church with the demands of secular power. At one point, as representatives of King Richard I (1157–1199) tried to usurp the bishop’s right to oversee the election of an abbot, he exclaimed, ‘God forbid that ecclesiastical liberties and privileges should be infringed 132 This summary of Albergati’s professional career is derived from DBI, s.v. ‘Albergati, Niccolò’ (by Edith Pàsztor). 133 Hugh’s reluctance to assume the bishopric is recounted in detail by Adam of Eynsham, who reported that Hugh’s response to the request was to assert that as a monk he was required to obey the wishes of his prior, stating, ‘No one shall lay this heavy burden upon my shoulders except my own prior’. Adam, Life of St Hugh, 1:98. For the emphasis placed on obedience in the writings of Guigo I, see Mursell, Theology of the Carthusian Life, 184–88. For a concise summary of Hugh’s career, see Farmer, Oxford Dictionary of Saints, s.v. ‘Hugh of Lincoln (1)’.

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by the decree of any layman!’.134 Hugh’s position as a strong advocate for the church and his ability to disarm kings with his wit and erudition was recounted in detail in the Magna vita, the early thirteenth-century biography written by Adam of Eynsham, and must have provided a compelling example for Niccolò Albergati in his role as papal mediator.135 In one memorable instance, Adam of Eynsham described how Hugh had aroused the ire of Henry II by excommunicating one of his foresters and refusing to bestow an ecclesiastical benefice on a member of Henry’s court. After these perceived affronts, the king summoned the bishop to him, where they met in the forest near Woodstock. When Hugh arrived, Henry was seated in a circle surrounded by his courtiers, whom he had instructed not to stand or greet the bishop upon his arrival. After a few tense moments Hugh took a seat among the courtiers, at which point, the king called for a needle and thread and began to sew a bandage wrapped around a wounded finger on his left hand, a calculated display of his anger and disdain for the bishop. Hugh, recognizing that this spectacle was being staged for his benefit, defused the situation by remarking to the king, ‘How you resemble your cousins at Falaise’. The king, upon hearing his stitching of the bandage described in this way, dissolved into laughter, and even went so far as to explain to his companions the source of his amusement: Hugh’s witty reference to the king’s Norman lineage, and specifically to the town of Falaise, birthplace of William the Conqueror (c. 1028–1087), which was celebrated for its leatherwork. Embedded in Hugh’s wry observation—and glossed over in Henry’s explanation to his courtiers—was a reference to the belief that William was the illegitimate son of Herleva, a tanner’s daughter.136 Having relieved the king’s anger with his clever remark, Hugh was able to successfully defend the actions he had taken on behalf of the church, even though they were in opposition to Henry’s wishes.137 Niccolò Albergati’s journey from the study of law to the charterhouse was similar to the experiences of another one of his predecessors, Anthelm of Belley, who 134 Adam, Life of St Hugh, 2:41. 135 The charismatic appeal of Hugh of Lincoln is difficult to overstate. John Ruskin, who despite writing that he was ‘totally disappointed’ by his visit to the Grande Chartreuse (he thought that the Carthusian who guided him and his father through the charterhouse was supercilious and ‘ungraciously dull’, and he found the surrounding mountains lacking in beauty, having ‘no peaks, no glaciers, no cascades, nor even any slopes of pine in extent of majesty’) still enthusiastically expressed his admiration for the venerable Carthusian bishops, calling them ‘a succession of men of immense mental grasp, and serenely authoritative innocence’, before singling out Hugh for special praise, writing that ‘in his relations with Henry II and Coeur de Lion, [Hugh of Lincoln] is to my mind the most beautiful sacerdotal figure in history’. Ruskin, Praeterita, 441, 448. 136 Although the idea that Herleva was the daughter of a tanner had taken hold by the middle of the twelfth century, modern scholars have questioned the reliability of these accounts. For an analysis of these texts and a discussion of the probable origins of Herleva, see van Houts, ‘Origins of Herleva’, 399–404. 137 This summary derived from Adam, Life of St Hugh, 1:113–19, quotation on 117.

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took the habit at the age of 28 or 29 after studying canon law and theology and serving the church as a secular clerk in Geneva and Belley.138 Much like Hugh of Lincoln, who excommunicated Henry II’s forester, Anthelm vigorously defended ecclesiastical prerogatives against secular encroachment. In one instance, he excommunicated a prévôt of Humbert III, Count of Savoy (1136–1189), who had arrested a priest. When Humbert challenged the bishop and asserted his regal claim to possessions of Anthelm’s church, Anthelm excommunicated him, too.139 The count then successfully petitioned Pope Alexander III (r. 1159–1181) to intervene on his behalf, but Anthelm ignored the pope’s instructions to absolve Humbert, eventually forcing Alexander to do so himself. In response, Anthelm left Belley in protest and returned to the Chartreuse. It was only after Anthelm received a letter from Alexander urging him to return that he came back to Belley, but despite returning to his see, the bishop refused to recognize Humbert’s papal absolution and continued to treat him as an excommunicate.140 Anthelm’s attention was not only focused on lay abuses, however, and in his first year as bishop he convened a synod to address the lax and dissolute lifestyles of the clergy. In his announcement to the priests, which is presented as a direct quotation in his early thirteenth-century biography, he declared that if he allowed them to continue to sin, he would be implicated as well, and therefore if they continued on their wayward path, he would be unsparing in his punishment of their transgressions (‘non parcam ferire sententia’). As it turned out, several priests refused to repent and Anthelm, staying true to his word, defrocked them in the following year.141 These emphases that the Carthusian bishops placed on clerical decorum and ecclesiastical autonomy, as well as the centrality of the bishop’s role in promoting best practices and rooting out abuses within the church reflect the influence that the life of Hugh of Grenoble had on the order. The biography written by Guigo I set the tone for what was expected of a bishop, and especially one who came to occupy a bishop’s seat after having left a monk’s cell.142 Like his Carthusian successors, Hugh of Grenoble fought lax practices and overt abuses vigorously. According to Guigo, when Hugh became the bishop of Grenoble, he found a diocese in utter 138 Picard, ‘Introduction’, 16*–17*; Cowdrey, ‘Carthusians and Their Contemporary World’, 27. 139 These events are recounted in Guillaume, Vita sancti Antelmi, 23, where the Vita sancti Antelmi Bellicensis episcopi ordinis Cartusiensis is published with a facing translation in French by Jean Picard, who argued that the biography was probably complete by 1200 and put forward one of Anthelm’s fellow Carthusians, Guillaume of Portes, as its most likely author. Picard, ‘Introduction’, 72*–74*. 140 Guillaume, Vita sancti Antelmi, 23–26; for a summary of these events, see Picard, ‘Introduction’, 36*–38*; Cowdrey, ‘Carthusians and Their Contemporary World’, 39. 141 Guillaume, Vita sancti Antelmi, 21–22. 142 For a discussion of the extent to which Guigo I’s concerns influenced how and what he wrote about Hugh of Grenoble, see Mursell, Theology of the Carthusian Life, 71–73.

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disarray.143 The people and the clergy were ignorant of proper religious practices, a circumstance that allowed for all types of abuses. The clergy took wives and openly celebrated their marriages. Simony was rampant, with the priests not hesitating to sell the sacred. Ecclesiastical properties and their attendant revenues were controlled by the laity, who siphoned off the wealth of the church. Usurers reaped enormous profits from their sinful practices but were still welcome to receive the sacraments at church. Finally, the wealth of the bishopric itself had been almost totally dispersed by Hugh’s predecessors, who, according to Guigo, were more like tyrants than bishops (‘non tam episcopis quam tyrannis’). As a result, Hugh, already accustomed to an ascetic lifestyle, continued to live simply even after becoming bishop in an attempt to replenish episcopal coffers.144 This did not stop him from alienating his property to provide essential aid to his congregation in periods of crisis, however, since Guigo reported that Hugh sold his gold rings adorned with jewels and a gold chalice to feed the poor during a famine.145 In response to the other critical threats facing his diocese, Hugh set an example of piety and chastity by maintaining a simple household, from which he had banished actors, soldiers, and most knights because of the pernicious influence of these undesirables. He also exhorted his flock to embrace a similar lifestyle, appealing to the authority of the Gospel by preaching to those who sought a more pious life the importance of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.146

Conclusion H.E.J. Cowdrey has pointed out that the issues to which Hugh—and the other figures represented in the vault frescoes—addressed himself reflect the main concerns of the reformers of the eleventh-century church: to extirpate abuses among the clergy, to protect the wealth of the church from lay depredations, and to defend papal prerogatives from imperial encroachment.147 At the end of the sixteenth century, the Catholic Church found itself facing a similar set of challenges. It had to address Protestant criticism of clerical and monastic laxity. It wanted to maintain control over church holdings threatened by Protestant reform. And it wanted to assert and maintain the primacy of the papacy within western Christendom, even if doing 143 Cowdrey, ‘Carthusians and Their Contemporary World’, 37. 144 Guigo I, ‘Vita sancti Hugonis’, 153:768; Guigo I, Vie de saint Hughes, 37–38. 145 ‘Denique annulos aureos et gemmatos, calicem etiam similiter aureum vendidit, tempore magnae famis, horreis defectum minantibus, et alendis impendit pauperibus.’ Guigo I, ‘Vita sancti Hugonis’, 153:775; Guigo I, Vie de saint Hughes, 50. 146 Guigo I, ‘Vita sancti Hugonis’, 153:775; Guigo I, Vie de saint Hughes, 51. 147 Cowdrey, ‘Carthusians and Their Contemporary World’, 37.

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so sometimes put it at odds with secular power. Often it was understood that the responsibility for enacting these measures fell to the bishops who would implement the policies within their own sees. The bishops in the vault, then, present compelling examples of the crucial roles Carthusians played at other critical inflection points in the church’s history, even as they provided models for how Carthusians can leave their cells, don episcopal robes, and perform essential duties for the greater good.148 The Carthusians might have traditionally claimed to make saints but not make them known, but by the end of the Cinquecento, as the Church continued its efforts to combat sectarian factionalization, they were not only making saints and making them known, but in a sense remaking their saints and making them known in a distinctly Counter-Reformation manner. This is especially true of their founder, Bruno of Cologne, but it also applies to the reconfiguration and redeployment of venerable figures from their order’s history like those who appear in the vault. By reframing their history in this way, the Carthusians brought themselves into alignment with larger currents coursing through the Roman Church at the end of the sixteenth century, even as they maintained their longstanding ascetic traditions.149

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Guigo I. Statuta ordinis cartusiensis a domno Guigone priore cartusiae edita. Basel, 1510. http://dl.ub.uni-freiburg.de/diglit/statuta1510/0001. Guigo I. Vie de saint Hugues évêque de Grenoble, l’ami des moines. Translated by Marie-Ange Chomel. Analecta Cartusiana, 112:3. Salzburg: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 1986. Guigo I. ‘Vita sancti Hugonis episcopi Gratianopolitani’. In Patrologiae cursus completus, series latina, edited by J.-P. Migne, 153:760–84. Paris, 1880. Guillaume of Portes. Vita sancti Antelmi Bellicensis episcopi ordinis Cartusiensis. Edited and translated by Jean Picard. Belley: Bugey, 1978. Hall, Edwin C. ‘Cardinal Albergati, St. Jerome and the Detroit Van Eyck’. Art Quarterly 31 (1968): 3–34. Hamilton, Paul C. Disegni di Bernardino Poccetti (San Marino V. E. 1548 – Firenze 1612). Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1980. Haude, Sigrun. ‘The Silent Monks Speak Up: The Changing Identity of the Carthusians in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries’. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 86 (1995): 124–40. Hogg, James. ‘Die Ausbreitung der Kartäuser’. In Die Ausbreitung der Kartäuser, edited by James Hogg, 5–26. Analecta Cartusiana, 89. Salzburg: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 1987. Hogg, James. La Certosa di Firenze / The Charterhouse of Florence. Analecta Cartusiana, 66. Salzburg: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 1979. Hogg, James. ‘Le Vite di San Bruno’. In San Bruno e la Certosa di Calabria: Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi per il IX Centenario della Certosa di Sierra S. Bruno, edited by Pietro De Leo, 125–45. Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 1995. Hogg, James. ‘The Memory of Saint Bruno and the Recovery of the Charterhouse of Serra San Bruno’. In San Bruno di Colonia: Un eremita tra Oriente e Occidente, edited by Pietro De Leo, 71–105. Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2004. Hogg, James, Alain Girard, and Daniel Le Blévec, eds. Ordinarium Cartusiense. Analecta Cartusiana, 99:35. 2 vols. Salzburg: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 1999. Hsia, R. Po-Chia. The World of Catholic Renewal 1540–1770. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Husband, Timothy B. The Art of Illumination: The Limbourg Brothers and the Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2008. Lavin, Marilyn Aronberg. The Place of Narrative: Mural Decoration in Italian Churches, 431–1600. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Lazzarini, Maria Teresa. ‘Gli apparati decorativi’. In La Certosa di Pisa a Calci, edited by Maria Adriana Giusti and Maria Teresa Lazzarini, 79–95. Pisa: Pacini, 1993. Leoncini, Giovanni. ‘“Cartusia nunquam reformata”: Spiritualità eremetica fra Trecento e Quattrocento’. Studi medievali 29 (1988): 561–86. Leoncini, Giovanni. ‘Iconografia della vita di San Bruno nelle incisioni del XVI e del XVII secolo’. In Die Kartäuser und ihre Welt: Kontakte und gegenseitige Einflüsse, edited by

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James Hogg, 3:42–117. 3 vols. Analecta Cartusiana, 62. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1993. Leoncini, Giovanni. ‘La Certosa di Firenze: Considerazioni sulla genesi e sulla struttura del primo impianto architettonico’. In Certose e Certosini in Europa: Atti del Convegno alla Certosa di San Lorenzo, Padula 22, 23, 24 settembre 1988, 2:247–60. Naples: Sergio Civita, 1990. Leoncini, Giovanni. La Certosa di Firenze nei suoi rapporti con l’architettura certosina. Analecta Cartusiana, 71. Salzburg: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 1979. Leoncini, Giovanni. ‘L’altare e il santuario della chiesa della Certosa di Firenze’. In Altari e committenza: Episodi a Firenze nell’età della Controriforma, edited by Cristina De Benedictis, 146–57. Florence: Pontecorboli, 1996. Leoncini, Giovanni. ‘Les Chartreux, l’art, et la spiritualité en Italie’ In Les Chartreux et l’art: XIVe–XVIIIe siècle, edited by Alain Girard and Daniel Le Blévec, 231–50. Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1989. Leoncini, Giovanni. ‘L’iconografia di San Bruno fondatore dell’ordine certosino: Sviluppo storico e tematico’. In Les Chartreuses de la Provincia Burgundiae, aujourd’hui dans le département de l’Ain et l’Ordre des Chartreux, edited by James Hogg, Alain Girard, and Daniel Le Blévec, 463–546. Analecta Cartusiana, 260. Salzburg: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 2011. Lheritier, Cécile. ‘Saint Anthelme (vers 1107–1178), chartreux et évêque de Belley’. In Les Chartreuses de la Provincia Burgundiae, aujourd’hui dans le département de l’Ain et l’Ordre des Chartreux, edited by James Hogg, Alain Girard, and Daniel Le Blévec, 547–62. Analecta Cartusiana, 260. Salzburg: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 2011. Luxford, Julian M. ‘Texts and Images of Carthusian Foundation’. In Self-Representation of Medieval Religious Communities: The British Isles in Context, edited by Anne Müller and Karen Stöber, 275–305. Berlin: LIT, 2009. Malaterra, Geoffrey. The Deeds of Count Roger of Calabria and Sicily and of his Brother Duke Robert Guiscard. Translated by Kenneth Baxter Wolf. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005. Mâle, Émile. L’art religieux après le Concile de Trent: Étude sur l’iconographie de la fin du XVIe siècle, du XVIIe, du VXIIIe siècle: Italie–France–Espagne–Flandres. Paris: Armand Colin, 1932. Mancini, Otello, and Antonio Vannini. Cartusiae prope senas: Le Certose in terra di Siena. Siena: Betti, 2013. Martin, Dennis D. ‘Carthusians, Canonizations, and the Universal Call to Sanctity’. In San Bruno di Colonia: Un eremita tra Oriente e Occidente, edited by Pietro De Leo, 131–49. Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2004. Martin, Dennis D. ‘Carthusians during the Reformation Era: “Cartusia nunquam deformata, reformari resistens”’. Catholic Historical Review 81, no. 1 (1995): 41–66.

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5.

‘L’inventore di dipingere tutte le muraglie della nostra chiesa’ Bernardino Poccetti and the Sixteenth-Century Decoration of Santa Maria del Carmine

Abstract: Bernardino Barbatelli (called Poccetti, 1553–1612) was buried in Santa Maria del Carmine in 1612. At the time, almost the entire fresco cycle in the nave that represented the apostles was by his hand. This chapter reconstructs the decorative program, destroyed by a fire in 1771, through a reading of archival documents, contemporary records, and a comparison to known examples of similar paintings by Poccetti. The renovations to the Carmine embodied the ideals of the Roman Church as it faced the threat of Protestantism. In addition to a robust defense of religious imagery, the apostles in the Carmine also emphasized the Church’s long history, while an elaborate program of faux colored-marble revetment demonstrated Catholicism’s continued commitment to ecclesiastical splendor. Keywords: Bernardino Barbatelli, called Poccetti; Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence; colored marble; apostles; church reform

At around eleven o’clock on the night of 28 January 1771, several members of the Stabbini family, who lived behind Santa Maria del Carmine on Via degli Allori, saw light coming from inside the choir of the large Carmelite church that dominated their neighborhood.1 Although it was unusual for it to be illuminated at that hour, the Stabbini knew that the Carmine was undergoing a substantial renovation, and they decided that the light must have been coming from the lamps of workers toiling late into the night. About an hour later, around midnight, Giuseppe Bellucci, an ortolano who lived on Via d’Ardiglione, woke up and saw a bright light emanating 1 In the eighteenth century, Via degli Allori was a segment of what is now known as Via della Chiesa, a street that runs east to west along the southern edge of the Carmelite complex. Fiorelli and Venturi, Stradario storico, 1:147.

Dow, D.N., Bernardino Poccetti and the Art of Religious Painting at the End of the Florentine Renaissance. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463729529_ch05

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from around the Carmine’s choir.2 Giuseppe, startled by the scene, attempted to rouse his sleeping son, Angelo. Angelo, who had witnessed an aurora borealis a few weeks earlier, convinced his father that the light he saw was most likely the result of yet another cosmic event and not evidence of an ensuing conflagration, and so Giuseppe returned to bed. It was not until two hours later, when Angelo’s wife awoke to see tongues of flame emerging from the windows of the choir, that she realized that the church was on fire and ran to awaken the other members of the household. The Bellucci family then rushed to the church and roused the sacristan, but by the time the sacristan had assessed the situation and sounded the alarm, the fire was already raging out of control, fed by strong winds that buffeted Florence throughout the night. At four o’clock in the morning, a mere two hours after the Bellucci woke the sacristan, the entire roof of the church—27 massive, flaming trusses—fell in with such a thunderous crash that one contemporary witness likened it to an earthquake. When the fire was finally extinguished it became clear that the intense flames and the collapse of the burning roof had destroyed a significant portion of the church and its decoration.3 The events that unfolded on that momentous night were recorded almost immediately after the fact by one of the Carmelite friars, Ranieri Chiti, who gave his description the title ‘Tearful Memory for Posterity’ (‘Memoria lacrimevole ai posteri’). 4 Chiti’s account and additional press reports that appeared within days of the event not only described the spectacular intensity of the fire but also focused upon the catastrophic destruction of the works of art that decorated this venerable Florentine church.5 The report published in the Gazzetta Toscana on 1 February 1771, for example, lamented the loss of so much of Florence’s artistic patrimony, and 2 Via d’Ardiglione is an L-shaped street that runs predominantly north to south along the eastern edge of the Carmelite complex. Fiorelli and Venturi, Stradario storico, 1:68–69. 3 Much of the detail in this account was provided by a contemporary chronicle written by a Carmelite friar, Ranieri Chiti, and preserved in the records of the church held at the Archivio di Stato di Firenze (hereafter ASF) in the collection of the Corporazioni Religiose Soppresse dal Governo Francese (hereafter Corp. Rel. Sopp.), serie 113, no. 30, 205–8. Additional contemporary descriptions of the fire and its aftermath can be found in the Gazzetta Toscana, nos. 5 and 6 (1 February 1771 and 9 February 1771), and Notizie del mondo, no. 10 (2 February 1771), 77–78. The principal manuscripts for information on the furnishings, works of art, and configuration of the Carmine are ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 7, written by ‘Fra Anonimo’; ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 13, written by Fra Girolamo Castaldi; ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 30, written by Fra Ranieri Chiti. On these sources and their authors, see Procacci, ‘Incendio’, 142–43; Eckstein, Painted Glories, 31. 4 ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 30, 202. 5 Chiti asserted that ‘one could not express enough the confusion, sadness, and terror of this night’ (‘Non puo abbastanza esprimersi la confusione, il dolore, e lo spavento in questa notte’). ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 30, 206. Indeed, the fire tore through the building at such a speed that some contemporaries doubted the explanation put forward by the Carmelites, and entertained conspiracy theories about who was really responsible, with some pondering the possibility that the Carmelites themselves, some of

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highlighted the destruction of Gregorio Pagani’s (1558–1605) Discovery of the True Cross, Domenico Cresti’s (called Passignano, 1559–1638) Adoration of the Magi, The Assumption of the Virgin by Girolamo Macchietti (1535–1592), works by Giovanni Battista Naldini (c. 1537–c. 1591), and Santi di Tito’s (1536–1602) Nativity, all of which were completely consumed in the blaze. The article also noted that the fire destroyed the elaborate and enormous tabernacle and ciborium on the high altar, fabricated by the woodworker Domenico di Bartolomeo Atticciati and decorated with panel paintings by Bernardino Poccetti (1553–1612).6 According to Chiti, the tabernacle was an apparatus (‘macchina’) 5.25m wide and 8.46m tall (‘larga circa braccia 9, ed alta dal pavimento d[e]l coro braccia 14 ½’). Poccetti’s images on the ciborium were iconographically appropriate to the altar, namely, a Last Supper and a Risen Christ.7 whom were opposed to the ongoing renovation for economic and aesthetic reasons, might have been to blame. For more on this, see Procacci, ‘Ancora sull’incendio’, 199–205; Gurrieri, ‘Architettura’, 75–78. 6 Gazzetta Toscana, no. 5 (1 February 1771). For a discussion of the installation of these large tabernacles and ciboria in Cinquecento Florence, see Cresti, ‘Altari fiorentini’, 9–35, and 16–17 for the macchina at the Carmine. For Domenico Atticciati and relevant bibliography, see Digiesi, ‘Indagine su Domenico Atticciati’, 244–54. 7 ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 30, 203–4. There is a considerable amount of scholarly confusion regarding Chiti’s claim that Poccetti designed the ciborium which was then realized by Domenico Atticciati. Two entries concerning the ciborium appear in ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 7. In the first, on page 106, the ciborium is described as ‘il Ciborio che in oggi si vede all’Altar Mag[gior]e disegno di Bernardino Pittore, e fattura di Domenico Atticciati’, but in the second, on page 392, it is described as a ‘bel ciborio n[u]ovo disegnato da Bernardo Buontalenti, ed intagliato da Domenico Atticciati’. Interestingly, each of these entries is cross-referenced to two other earlier entries in the Carmelite records. One, dated 2 April 1593 and found in the Libro di ricordanze E: 1572–1618, states that the ciborium ‘fu il disegnio di mr Bernardino [blank space in manuscript] da sa[n] gemigniano lavorato da Ma:o Dom:co atticiato’. ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 24, 77v–78r. The other, dated 1592 and found in the Libro di contratti C: 1481–1645, is a copy of the contract for the commission that credits the design to ‘m[agist]ri Bernar[di]ni Pictoris’. ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 196, 31v–32r. In a f inal twist, the alphabetical index for the Libro di Contratti C has an entry that describes the ciborium—which was commissioned and donated to the Carmine by Filippo di Lodovico Betti, and thus appears in the index under ‘B’—that also credits Poccetti with the ciborium’s design. This index was compiled in 1766 by Ranieri Chiti. In 1932, Procacci noted the confusion in the records surrounding the ciborium’s designer, and although he favored the attribution to Poccetti (‘le maggiori probabilità siano per Bernardino Poccetti’), he did not answer the question def initively, mostly because the location of Buontalenti’s birth was at that time unknown, and he wondered how the Carmelites could not have known Poccetti’s surname. Procacci, ‘Incendio’, 178–79n2. More recently, Cresti noted Procacci’s inclination towards Poccetti, but favored the attribution to Buontalenti, which has also been accepted by Fara. Cresti, ‘Altari f iorentini’, 16–17, 69n34; Fara, Bernardo Buontalenti, 163. In light of the long history of collaboration between Buontalenti, Poccetti, and Atticciati, as well as Poccetti’s contribution of the painted panels and the fact that Buontalenti was sometimes referred to as a painter (‘pittore’), it is possible that the confusion in the records reflects the extent to which both Bernards were involved in the ciborium’s design. For a reference to Buontalenti as a painter, see Fara, Bernardo Buontalenti, 23. For instances of collaboration between Buontalenti and Poccetti, see Chapter Two. For an example of Poccetti and Buontalenti working together on architectonic projects—including an illusionistically painted

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Although the paintings from the Carmine’s tabernacle do not survive, a small (46 by 25cm) panel of a Last Supper by Poccetti—now in the Museo di Casa Vasari in Arezzo, but originally part of the ciborium at the Abbey of Vallombrosa—provides an example of this type of work.8 In addition to the losses of the altarpieces and furnishings outlined above, the contemporary sources also remarked on the total destruction of the fourteen tabernacles and the extensive fresco cycle that lined the walls of the nave. This cycle, comprised of illusionistic niches containing images of the apostles that were accompanied by narrative scenes of their martyrdoms, was described as the work of ‘celebrated painters’. In the list of ‘celebri pittori’ responsible for the decoration, the Gazzetta cited Bernardino Poccetti f irst, followed by Domenico Cresti and Giovanni Battista Naldini.9 Similarly, the report in the Notizie del mondo that appeared on 2 February 1771 credited Poccetti with the frescoes of the apostles that adorned the Carmine’s massive nave. 10 Of these commentators, Chiti, as a Carmelite friar, was in the position to be the most informed and knowledgeable of the church’s decorations, and he devoted a substantial portion of his text to describing and documenting the many works lost to the blaze. Although there are some uncertainties regarding the attributions of the frescoes that will be discussed below, Chiti’s extensive account and another earlier description of the church compiled in 1689 by the Carmelite Girolamo Castaldi (1641–1707) make it clear that the work of Poccetti figured prominently in the Carmine, not just in various panel paintings and the decoration of the high altar, but especially in the fresco cycle. Had it not been largely destroyed by the f ire and then further effaced by its rebuilding, the interior of the Carmine would have stood alongside examples like the Ognissanti, Santa Croce, and Santa Maria Novella as a monument to the sixteenth-century renovations undertaken in major Florentine churches. 11 Unlike those churches, however, the mural decoration of the Carmine largely showcased the work of a single painter, namely Bernardino Poccetti. temporary facade for San Lorenzo for the funeral of Grand Duke Francesco I in 1587, see Fara, Bernardo Buontalenti, 152–53. 8 Berti, Casa del Vasari, 27; Forlani Tempesti, ‘Ultima Cena’, 165–66; Paolucci and Maetzke, Casa del Vasari, 150; Vasetti, Poccetti e gli Strozzi, 15; Baroni, Casa Vasari, 62. 9 Gazzetta Toscana, no. 5 (1 February 1771). 10 ‘Le pareti erano dipinte da Bernardino Poccetti esprimenti i ritratti, e martiri de’ SS. Apostoli’. Notizie del mondo, no. 10 (2 February 1771), 78. 11 Hall, Renovation and Counter-Reformation, 2; Gurrieri, ‘Architettura’, 68; Capretti, ‘Vasari, Ammannati’, 125–26; Allen, Transforming the Church Interior, 112–35. The interior of Santa Maria Novella was significantly altered during a restoration campaign in the nineteenth century. On this, see Hall, ‘Operation of Vasari’s Workshop’, 204. A contemporary pamphlet, Interno della chiesa di S. Maria Novella dopo i restauri fatti nel 1861, provides details of the intervention.

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The State of the Carmine before the Fire Although the devastation wrought by the fire resulted in the almost total destruction of the works of art and architecture in the nave of the Carmine, the overall appearance and configuration of the church can be gleaned from a number of sources written both before and immediately after the blaze.12 When the f ire broke out, the nave’s configuration was still largely a reflection of the remodeling begun just over two centuries earlier, in 1568, and which was mostly complete by the time of Poccetti’s death in 1612 (Fig. 5.1).13 The overall configuration of the nave chapels followed the precedent set by Giorgio Vasari’s (1511–1574) design for the Botti chapel, which was the first of the chapels to be renovated and was complete by 1563.14 As was the case at Santa Maria Novella, Santa Croce, and the Ognissanti, the appearance of the Carmine was regularized through the removal of the tramezzo and the relocation of the choir, which cleared the way for the application of evenly spaced chapels along the walls of the nave, each with a tabernacle of a common design.15 In 1632 Benedetto Buonmattei described the surrounds as pietra serena tabernacles attached to the wall, all of uniform size and shape, and consisting of an arch supported by two columns.16 Unfortunately, no trace remains of the 12 See note 3 above. 13 For a recent discussion of the renovations undertaken at the Carmine, see Allen, Transforming the Church Interior, 149–67. 14 Fabbri, ‘Opere in chiesa’, 89n1, 92; Branca, ‘Santa Maria del Carmine’, 218; Rapino ‘Vasari in Santa Maria del Carmine’, 9–10. 15 Procacci, ‘Incendio’, 144n1; Gurrieri, ‘Architettura’, 68; Branca, ‘Santa Maria del Carmine’, 217–18. An entry in the Libro di ricordanze segnato Croce: 1453–1647 from June 1568 recorded the granting of Duke Cosimo I’s approval of the renovations, as well as the fact that they were following the precedents set at Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce (‘come sia havevano fatto i conve[n]ti et chiese di S[ant] a M[ari]a Novella et di S[ant]a Croce’). ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 19, 75r. The intention to standardize the appearance of the nave was noted by Fra Anonimo, who wrote that ‘si fecero fare un disegno p[er] abbelire detta navata con cappelle ne furon assegnate sette p[er] parte tutte uniformi di archi, di colonne d’ordine composito, e scalinata, tutto di pietra serena’. ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 7, 393. 16 Buonmattei, Descrizion, 7. The uniform conf iguration of the tabernacles—a pietra serena arch supported by two columns—was described in slightly greater detail by Chiti in the documents of the Carmine, ‘Questa Cappella era in tutto simile all’altre cioe composta di due zoccoli, piedistalli, colonne, capitelli intagliati d’ordine composito, e d’un arco intagliato, che posava sopra i detti capitelli, il tutto di pietra Serena. Questo disegno fu fatto da Giorgio Vasari, e fu eseguito nella Cappella dei SS:ri Botti, d[e]ll’Altar privilegiato, a somiglianza d[e]lla quale furono fatte di poi tutte l’altre Cappelle d[e]lla Navata’. ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 30, 229. This passage was partially transcribed in Fabbri, ‘Opere in chiesa’, 92. Similarly, in 1566 the operai of Santa Croce reported in a letter to Duke Cosimo I that the recent renovations to their church had made it ‘more beautiful and pleasing to the eye’ (‘più bello et dilettevole all’occhio’). Hall, Renovation and Counter-Reformation, 169.

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Fig. 5.1: Decorative program in the nave of Santa Maria del Carmine at the time of Poccetti’s death (north at top). Diagram by Matthew Gaynor (after Procacci). Source: author

‘L’inventore di dipingere tutte le muraglie della nostra chiesa’ 

Fig. 5.2: View of west wall of nave of the Church of the Ognissanti showing altars and tabernacles. Source: author

tabernacles at the Carmine, but the disposition of the altars along the nave of the Ognissanti provides a useful example of how the Carmine might have appeared at the conclusion of the renovations (Fig. 5.2).17 Although it is not as large as the Carmelite basilica, the Ognissanti is similar to the Carmine (and differs from Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce) in that it has no aisles, and the tabernacles that were installed in the Ognissanti have arches that are embedded in the wall and supported on columns. Further evidence of the congruence between the tabernacles at the Carmine and the Ognissanti is provided by the altarpieces from the Carmine that did survive the fire, all of which are roundheaded, like the altarpieces in the Ognissanti.18 The round tops of the altarpieces at the Ognissanti conform to the curve created by the tabernacle’s arch, presumably as they would have done at the Carmine as well. These curved tops are distinct from the altarpieces installed at Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce, which are rectangular in shape, with flat 17 Rapino ‘Vasari in Santa Maria del Carmine’, 10. On the renovations undertaken at the Ognissanti, see Bisceglia, ‘Rinnovamenti’, 202; Allen, Transforming the Church Interior, 112–23. 18 The altarpieces that survived the f ire had been removed to the sacristy during the work on the Carmine’s nave and in that location were spared the worst of the devastation. For a detailed list of works both lost and extant, see Procacci, ‘Incendio’, 152–80; for the altarpieces conserved in the sacristy, see 162–63, 165–66, 168. For recent discussions of two of those altarpieces, Giorgio Vasari’s Crucifixion and Poccetti’s Annunciation respectively, see Rapino ‘Vasari in Santa Maria del Carmine’, 9–17; Dow, ‘Tradition and Reform’, 262–68. For the altarpieces installed at the Ognissanti, see Di Cagno and Pegazzano, ‘San Salvatore in Ognissanti’, 99–101.

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tops designed to sit flush with the horizontal bottom edge of the pediments that adorn the tabernacles that were installed in those churches.19 The wall surface between the tabernacles at the Carmine was decorated with a fresco cycle representing the apostles standing in fictive niches; above each niche a narrative scene depicted the martyrdom of the saint below. According to the descriptions in the Carmelite’s records—reiterated by others, including Buonmattei, Cinelli, and Richa, who would have seen the frescoes before their destruction—the likenesses of the apostles were larger than life size.20 According to one source, trompe-l’oeil revetments painted to resemble colored-marble inlay surrounded the illusionistic niches, while another noted that the painted decoration between the chapels extended from the floor (‘dal pavimento’) to above the tabernacles (‘fin sopra gli archi delle dette cappelle’).21 Buonmattei gives some sense of the scale of these efforts, since he also described a large (approximately 1.8m tall) illusionistic cornice that was painted above the scenes of the martyrdoms and that ran the length of each side of the nave.22

The Painters of the Carmine’s Fresco Cycle of the Apostles and Their Martyrdoms To judge from various entries in the Carmelites’ documents, Poccetti was the original author and designer of the Carmine’s mural decoration, even if some of the apostles were ultimately painted by other artists. An entry in the Libro di ricordanze E: 1572–1618, for example, records an agreement between Poccetti and the friars whereby the painter would receive patronage rights to a chapel on the right side of the entrance as one enters the church in exchange for work done in this area of the nave, namely the northwest corner. Dated 15 February 1590, the document establishes that Poccetti had already decorated the niche of the adjacent chapel, which displayed an important miracle-working crucifix, the so-called Crocifisso del 19 Hall, Renovation and Counter-Reformation, 12 noted that Vasari’s inclination towards a rectangular format for the altarpieces at Santa Croce required him to reject the pre-existing forms of recently completed paintings by Bronzino and Salviati, both of which are roundheaded, as templates for his design. 20 ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 7, 397; ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 30, 229; Buonmattei, Descrizion, 9; Bocchi-Cinelli, Bellezze, 159; Richa, Notizie istoriche, 10:30. 21 ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 7, 397; ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 30, 229. 22 ‘Sopra i quadri ricorre per tutta la Chiesa una f inta cornice, alta circa tre braccia.’ Buonmattei, Descrizion, 9. The Florentine braccio measures 58.36cm. A continuous, fictive cornice seems to have been planned for Santa Croce and one is visible in nineteenth-century prints and photographs, but it is not known when it was realized. That Vasari might have envisioned such a feature is hinted at by the fragment of illusionistic cornice present in the fresco that surrounds the funerary monument to Michelangelo. Hall, Renovation and Counter-Reformation, 11–12.

‘L’inventore di dipingere tutte le muraglie della nostra chiesa’ 

Chiodo. The document also uses the past participle, dipinto, to describe the presence of a fresco of Saint Thaddeus which was therefore already in this location when the document was drawn up early in 1590.23 There was also a door that led from the nave to the cloister in this spot, positioned between the chapel of the Crocifisso del Chiodo and the controfacciata, and as part of the ongoing renovations it received a new pietra serena surround in 1589. Archival references to this area describe the fresco of Saint Thaddeus as being above this door and give credit to Poccetti for painting it.24 It stands to reason that the fresco would have been painted after the installation of the doorframe, since masonry work has the potential to damage frescoed plaster surfaces and frescoed plaster can be used to conceal underlying structural modifications.25 Thus, Poccetti completed the Saint Thaddeus between 1589 when the door surround was installed and 1590 when Thaddeus was described as ‘dipinto’, which suggests that this fresco was the first in the cycle of the apostles to be painted. It follows, then, that Poccetti’s initial design for the Saint Thaddeus, his martyrdom, and the surrounding illusionistic architecture and revetments would have provided a prototype and established the visual precedent for the rest of the imagery.26 In one instance in the Carmelites’ documents, however, in the Libro di provenienze: 1304–1775, the fresco of Thaddeus is attributed to Michelangelo Cinganelli (c. 1558–1635) by the author of that text, the so-called Fra Anonimo. 27 This document seems to be the source for Richa’s attributions which, in addition 23 ‘Il convento a frati anno donata un sito p[er] fare una Capella con forme al altre drento alla posta [illegible] a man dritto in verso il Crocifisso a M bernardino Puccetti pittore fiorentino il quale glielano date gratis et amore p[er] fine detta Capella e la sepoluta Rogato i co[n]patto p[er] S[er] Mateo d guaspare bruneschi et nota ch[e] il sudetto M bernardino ad pinto [proposed reading: a dipinto] p[er] lamor dei deo tutta la pitura fatta quanto tiene la capella del Crocif isso del chiodo p[er] sino al canto della sua capella dove e d pinto [proposed reading: dipinto] S.to Tadeo Apostolo e linventore d[i] cominciare detta pittura e la spesa del muratore la fatta M. Filippo Betti prete e gia nostro frate il quale oggi Alle monache delle c[on]vertite e nota c[he] ancora le piture della nichia dove e el S.mo Crocifisso la fatta il sudetto M bernardino nel medesimo modo come di sopra c[he] il S.re edeo gli rimaneri ch[e] oggi suo c[on]tento.’ ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 24, 74r. This record was published with slight differences in reading by Geisenheimer, ‘Spigolature Poccettiane’, 78, and Carofano, ‘Gruppo di disegni’, 393n10. 24 ‘La Porta del f ianco sotto questa Cappella [that is, the chapel of the Crocif isso del Chiodo], che risponde nell’andito della porta del Con[ven]to fu fatta fare da Domenico Alberighi Materassaio al Ponte all Carraia nel 1589. e l’Apostolo S. Taddeo che vi è sopra col suo martirio fu dipinto gratis da Bernardino Poccetti, e la spesa del muratore la fece M. Filippo Betti gia n[ost]ro Religoso’. ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 13, 82. 25 Bailey, ‘Catholic Reform’, 26 describes a similar sequence of events in the Chiostro dei Morti at Santissima Annunziata, where masonry work preceded the fresco decoration. 26 Carofano, ‘Gruppo di disegni’, 388. 27 ‘Michel Angiolo Cinganelli delineo i Santi Taddeo e Mattia e loro martirio’. ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 7, 397.

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to replicating those given by Fra Anonimo, also appear in the same order as they are listed in the manuscript. 28 There are, however, inconsistencies in Fra Anonimo’s descriptions that suggest that his attributions for the frescoes of the apostles are not entirely reliable. One of the main reasons to treat Fra Anonimo’s attributions with caution is that they are in conf lict with other Carmelite sources, and in particular with the descriptions written in 1689 in the Libro de’ padronati by Fra Girolamo Castaldi. Take, for example, Fra Anonimo’s claim that the images of Saint Andrew and his martyrdom were painted by Aurelio Lomi (1556–1622).29 This is contradicted by Castaldi’s much more precise description of these two paintings, which not only names Poccetti as their author, but also notes that the patron of the frescoes, Pietro della Moriana, held the rights to the adjacent chapel. Furthermore, Castaldi specifically praised Poccetti’s rendering of Andrew, calling it ‘one of the most beautiful works that the famous Poccetti made’ (‘una delle piu belle opere che facesse il famoso Poccetti’). In this same passage, Castaldi also noted that the fresco was commissioned in 1601, but destroyed when a new organ was installed in this location in the 1680s.30 According to the date at the beginning of the manuscript, Castaldi began compiling the information in the Libro de’ padronati in 1689. Thus, he would have been a contemporary witness to the necessary destruction of Poccetti’s Saint Andrew as it made way for the installation of the organ, a series of events that took place only a few years prior to when he f irst set pen to paper. Finally, much later in this document, another entry notes that a replacement for Poccetti’s destroyed Saint Andrew was painted in this same location in 1695 by ‘Alessandro Loni pittore f iorentino’ (1655–1702).31 At this point it is possible to reconstruct how Fra Anonimo, who wrote his account around 70 to 80 years after the installation of the organ, probably came to credit the Saint Andrew to Aurelio Lomi.32 It seems that the friar simply mixed up Aurelio Lomi 28 Richa, Notizie istoriche, 10:30. These attributions are also repeated in the same order in Gurrieri, ‘Architettura’, 70. 29 ‘Aurelio Lomi Pisano fece S. Andrea e il suo martirio sopra’. ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 7, 397. This attribution, ‘S. Andrea del Lomi’, is repeated by Richa, Notizie istoriche, 10:30. 30 ‘Frà questa Cappella [i.e., the Gambereschi Chapel], e quella de Moriani vi era dipinto nelle pareti l’Apostolo S. Andrea col suo martirio, una delle piu belle opere che facesse il famoso Poccetti fatto fare dal Sig[no]re Pietro della Moriana l’anno 1601 che restò disfatto quando fù fatto l’Organo nuovo.’ ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 13, 100–101. 31 ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 13, 265. Another important source, Ranieri Chiti’s eighteenthcentury manuscript, follows Castaldi’s text closely, and notes that Alessandro Loni painted the Saint Andrew. ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 30, 233. For a treatment of Loni, see Benassai, ‘Carlo Dolci’, 145, 150–52. 32 According to Procacci, ‘Incendio’, 143, Fra Anonimo’s text dates to the period shortly before the fire (‘poco avanti l’incendio’).

‘L’inventore di dipingere tutte le muraglie della nostra chiesa’ 

and Alessandro Loni because of the similarity of their names.33 As it turned out, the attribution to Lomi was easy for subsequent readers of Fra Anonimo’s manuscript to accept. Since Lomi was a contemporary of the other painters responsible for the cycle of the apostles, and because he had also contributed an altarpiece to one of the chapels renovated in the Cinquecento, it did not seem unlikely that he might have also painted a fresco of an apostle.34 But, this faulty reasoning then excluded the possibility that Poccetti could have painted the Saint Andrew, because it made little sense to have two contemporaries paint the same image, presumably at the same time. Of course, this is not how the events actually transpired. Castaldi’s account shows that Poccetti should receive credit for the Saint Andrew that was originally painted in the Carmine’s nave, and that Alessandro Loni was the author of its replacement, which was the image that was eventually destroyed in the fire.35 There is yet one more reason to accept that Poccetti was the author of the first image of Saint Andrew painted in the Carmine’s nave. This fresco was located on the left side of the church between the Baldovinetti Gambereschi Chapel and the Moriana Chapel, which is to say adjacent to the last chapel before the transept (Fig. 5.1). On the other side of the Moriana Chapel, at the junction of the nave and the transept, was the tomb of Andrea Corsini (1301–1374), which had been installed in 1385.36 Corsini, a Carmelite who served as the bishop of Fiesole, was not canonized until 1629, but his tomb in the Carmine had a long thaumaturgic history and was a popular site for those seeking miraculous intervention.37 Two such supplicants were Bernardino Poccetti and his wife, Lucrezia, who sought relief from Corsini after suffering a stroke and a broken rib, respectively, and who attested to their miraculous healing in depositions during Corsini’s canonization process in 1603 and 1606.38 Poccetti had suffered the stroke a few years earlier, in 1601, when he was painting an image of Andrea Corsini healing a blind man 33 Alessandro Loni is listed as one of Carlo Dolci’s pupils in Baldinucci’s biography of Dolci; it should be noted, however, that Loni’s surname is erroneously rendered as ‘Lomi’ in the text. Baldinucci, Notizie, 6:509. 34 See, for example, Fabbri, ‘Opere in chiesa’, 130. Earlier in her essay, Fabbri remarked on the confusion in the sources regarding the authorship of the apostles, but ultimately accepted the slate of painters put forward by Fra Anonimo and reiterated by Richa. Fabbri, ‘Opere in chiesa’, 91n14. For Lomi’s Visitation, see Carofano, ‘Visitazione’, 246–47. 35 Procacci’s discussion of this issue reached the same conclusions in 1932, although he credited the replacement fresco to ‘Alessandro Lomi’. Procacci, ‘Incendio’, 168–69. Following Procacci’s description closely, Paatz and Paatz also outlined the same sequence of events for the fresco of Saint Andrew, and noted that ‘Alessandro Lomi’ should be understood to be ‘Alessandro Loni’. Paatz and Paatz, Kirchen von Florenz, 3:233. 36 Offill, ‘Corsini Chapel’, 43. 37 Offill, ‘Corsini Chapel’, 51–52. 38 Vasetti, ‘“Guccia” di Bernardino Poccetti’, 155. For a recent discussion of Andrea Corsini’s hagiography, see Offill, ‘Corsini Chapel’, 14–35.

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that was installed on the altar beneath the tomb.39 It was also 1601 when Poccetti received the commission for the fresco of Saint Andrew. Joanne Allen has noted that until it was destroyed in 1568, the Carmine’s choir screen featured a chapel dedicated to the apostle Andrew, Saint Anthony Abbot, and Saint Albert of Trapani. According to Allen, this chapel was primarily dedicated to Andrew, and was located on the left side of the tramezzo ‘along the same spatial axis’ as the tomb of Andrea Corsini, thereby linking the two saints and associating this area of the church with both Andrews. 40 That Poccetti painted his fresco of Andrew on the other side of the tabernacle from Corsini’s tomb and in the same general area as the previous chapel dedicated to the apostle demonstrates the continued desire to maintain the connection between the two saints even after the church’s renovation. That Poccetti felt a strong affinity for Corsini, to whom he credited his and his wife’s recoveries from serious afflictions, and that he painted an image of one of Corsini’s healing miracles for the shrine on the other side of the tabernacle, further buttress the notion that he was the author of the first fresco of Saint Andrew painted on the Carmine’s nave wall. In sum, all of this evidence suggests that Castaldi’s attributions—which give Poccetti credit for eight of the original twelve apostles—should be given more weight than those of Fra Anonimo. The analysis put forward in this chapter, like the work of Ugo Procacci and Pierluigi Carofano that precedes it, accepts that there were three authors of the fresco cycle: Poccetti, who painted the bulk of the images; Passignano, who painted three apostles; and Naldini, who contributed one. 41

The Apostles The Saint Thaddeus was the first fresco in the cycle of the apostles to be painted in the church. That the fresco was by Poccetti and not by Cinganelli is likely, not only because Fra Anonimo’s text seems to be less reliable than that of Castaldi, but also because Poccetti was deeply involved in the decoration of this part of the Carmine’s nave. This fact was not lost on Ranieri Chiti when he wrote his description of the church after the fire. In his discussion of this area of the basilica, 39 Vasetti, ‘“Guccia” di Bernardino Poccetti’, 156. 40 Allen, Transforming the Church Interior, 155–56. 41 Procacci, ‘Incendio’, 162–69; Carofano, ‘Gruppo di disegni’, 393n11. Poccetti’s much larger contribution to the fresco cycle is also reflected in the descriptions of later commentators who had a tendency to summarily attribute all of the work to him. See, for example, Bocchi-Cinelli, Bellezze, 159; Bruno, Ristretto, 123; Notizie del mondo, no. 10 (2 February 1771), 78. In cases where the attributions are more precise, such as in the Gazzetta Toscana no. 5 (1 February 1771), they align with the slate of painters discussed by Castaldi: Poccetti, Passignano, Naldini.

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Chiti credited Poccetti with the design for the mural decorations in the rest of the Carmine, describing the painter as the ‘inventor of the painting on all the walls of our church’ (‘Poccetti era stato l’inventore di dipingere tutte le muraglie d[e]lla nostra chiesa’). 42 In addition to frescoing the niche that held the miracle-working Crocifisso del Chiodo with an image of Saint Andrea Corsini, Saint Catherine, the Virgin Mary, and John the Evangelist around the cross and God the Father above, Poccetti also made arrangements to decorate and outfit the adjacent chapel on the west side of the controfacciata for use as his burial place. 43 It is true that after his death Poccetti’s heirs almost immediately ridded themselves of the chapel and its financial obligations, and that the new patrons wasted no time in replacing Poccetti’s tomb marker with their own family’s emblems, but evidence that this corner of the church remained closely associated with Poccetti can be gleaned from a dedicatory inscription that was installed there by the Carmelites in 1708. 44 Destroyed in the fire and known only from an archival transcription, this plaque lamented Poccetti’s obscurity and praised his painting’s naturalism and lack of artificiality. It also—somewhat predictably—compared him favorably to Apelles, remarking—somewhat unexpectedly—that the major difference between the two painters was that Poccetti, in addition to painting well, also ‘lived well’ (‘bene vixisset’). 45 Considering that when the Saint Thaddeus was painted, Poccetti had 42 ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 30, 229. 43 Castaldi noted that the chapel of the Crocifisso del Chiodo was the third to be renovated and that it was finished by 1569, a date that seems too early for Poccetti to have frescoed the niche that held the crucifix, since he would have been in his mid to late teens. ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 13, 80. The fresco in the niche, therefore, was probably undertaken later, but was certainly finished by early 1590, when it is described as such in a document (see note 23). For more on the chapel, see ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 30, 226; Procacci, ‘Incendio’, 164. 44 There is some confusion in the historical accounts regarding the fate of Poccetti’s remains. For a discussion of this, see the Conclusion. 45 ‘Nomine si solo Poccetti Scribitur urna = Gestaque non longa qua decet arte micant = Quid mirum caruit vero pictura colore = exuperans artem, ne foret arte minor = Quam bene pinxisset, bene pingeret unus Apelles = Quam bene vixisset, pingeret ille bene Benardinus Sanctis Poccetti absolutissimo Suae aetatis Pictori in grati animi tesseram P. P. Carmelitarum posuerunt An. MDCCVIII Men. Oct.’ ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 30, 228–29. ‘If the urn of Poccetti is inscribed simply with his name, and his achievements do not shine forth in a manner appropriate to his immortal skill, why be surprised? Truly his painting lacked any artif icial hues, and surpassed all contrivance, lest he be inferior to any artificiality. Only Apelles painted as well as he painted; but while Apelles simply painted well, he lived well! Bernardino di Santi Poccetti. To the purest painter of his age the Carmelite Fathers erected this funerary monument with a grateful soul, October 1708.’ I would like to thank Robert Fredona for his invaluable assistance in translating these passages. Any errors of translation or interpretation are my own. Comparing contemporary painters to Apelles was a commonplace in the Renaissance, a topos that Soussloff called ‘both universal and specific in its signification’. Soussloff, ‘Imitatio Buonarroti’, 581. For a recent discussion of comparisons to Apelles that includes examples specifically used to commemorate artists, see Smithers, Cults of Raphael and Michelangelo, 61–63.

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Fig. 5.3: View of retrofacade of San Bartolomeo a Monte Oliveto with frescoes by Bernardino Poccetti. Source: author

already done work in this part of the church for the chapel of the Crocifisso del Chiodo, and that not long after he would commit himself to the outfitting of his chapel, it stands to reason that he would have also taken on the task of painting the apostle in this location when the opportunity presented itself. Accepting Poccetti’s authorship of the Saint Thaddeus means that the rest of the design of the fresco—the illusionistic niche and revetments—was, as Chiti’s evocative description of Poccetti as ‘inventore’ cited above suggests, also the work of Bernardino. This being the case, some idea of the original appearance of the cycle in the Carmine can be achieved by examining extant examples of similar paintings by Poccetti. Not far from the Carmine, in the church of San Bartolomeo on top of Monte Oliveto outside the Porta San Frediano, Poccetti frescoed figures of saints standing in illusionistic niches, surrounded by fictive marble revetments, and accompanied by smaller scenes of martyrdoms. Painted in 1604, a few years after Poccetti completed the final apostle at the Carmine, the Saint Andrew, the images at San Bartolomeo represent Saints Bartholomew and Miniatus on the retrofacade, one on each side of the church’s entrance (Fig. 5.3). A cantoria above this portal is supported by two freestanding Tuscan Doric columns, structural elements that give the entrance a more substantial architectural presence than it

‘L’inventore di dipingere tutte le muraglie della nostra chiesa’ 

would have with only a simple surround. 46 In this respect, the disposition of the frescoes and the entrance at San Bartolomeo, where the figures in niches appear on each side of a freestanding column, resembles in many respects the configuration of the apostles at the Carmine, where they appeared adjacent to the freestanding columns that supported each chapel’s tabernacle. Other aspects of the frescoes at San Bartolomeo resemble the descriptions of the lost frescoes at the Carmine, most notably the illusionistic colored-marble revetments and the inclusion of martyrdom scenes—even if the martyrdoms frescoed in San Bartolomeo appear below rather than above the niches (Plates 9, 10). 47 At San Bartolomeo each figure is framed by a niche with a green interior and a mauve moulding. Bartholomew and Miniatus do not stand in the niches as much as they stand in front of them. In the case of Saint Miniatus, his halo, both his arms, his cape, and his feet are positioned in front of the niche, casting illusionistic shadows on the fictive stonework. Similarly, Bartholomew cradles a book in his left arm and holds a flaying knife in his left hand, both of which project far outside the space of the niche. This treatment makes the saint’s attribute especially prominent by placing it in front of the white pilaster that frames the recess. Poccetti was adept at this kind of trompe-l’oeil painting, where both figures and fictive architecture are presented as unified three-dimensional elements, and based on the descriptions of the frescoes at the Carmine and the extant examples from Poccetti’s oeuvre, it is safe to assume that the lost apostles presented a similar appearance. 48 Indeed, Pierluigi Carofano linked several preparatory drawings by Poccetti to the Carmine’s lost fresco cycle, and those examples suggest that the images of Bartholomew and Miniatus painted in San Bartolomeo closely resemble the apostles painted in the Carmelite church. 49 In several instances, however, the drawings discussed by Carofano are of limited use because they respond to specific requirements that were not shared by all of the frescoes in the cycle. A drawing of a seated Saint Peter, for example, can be connected to the destroyed mural at the Carmine since the fresco was described in documents as an image of Peter seated 46 Vasetti, Poccetti e gli Strozzi, 22–24; Trotta, ‘Monteoliveto’, 60–61, 159; Meloni Trkulja, ‘Opere d’arte’, 121. 47 Vasetti, Poccetti e gli Strozzi, 22. 48 For another example, see the personifications of virtues painted in the atrium of the oratory of the Compagnia della Santissima Annunziata, where the personifications are painted to resemble sculptures standing on illusionistic plinths in front of fictive draperies. As was the case at the Carmine, Poccetti was not the only author of these frescoes, but he did paint five of the ten images, far more than any other painter working in the chiostrino. Dow, Apostolic Iconography, 109–11, fig. 4.5. 49 Carofano, ‘Gruppo di disegni’, 388–93. On this drawing, Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe degli Uffizi (hereafter GDSU), inv. no. 862 F recto, see also Hamilton, Disegni, 69–70.

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and lost in thought (‘siede, come assorto in contemplazione’), a description that also applies to the drawing (Fig. 5.4).50 This departure from the standard configuration of a figure standing in a niche was Poccetti’s solution to the limitations imposed by the presence of both a door leading to the cloister and the organ on that part of the wall. These intrusions decreased the amount of space available for the fresco and forced the painter to fit his images of Peter and his martyrdom beneath the organ and above the portal.51 As a result, the Saint Peter was unlike the other frescoes and thus the drawing, although useful for visualizing Poccetti’s fresco of Saint Peter, cannot be used as an indicator of the appearance of the other frescoes. Two drawings of Saint Philip present more helpful information regarding the other apostles in the cycle who were shown Fig. 5.4: Bernardino Poccetti, study for Saint Peter, 1604, standing in niches. As Carofano pointed black and red chalk. Florence, GDSU (inv. no. 8313 F). out, in the more finished version of these Source: Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabinetto Fotografico drawings Saint Philip is not only rendered as though the figure is meant to be seen from below but also turns to his left (Fig. 5.5).52 Poccetti’s fresco of Philip was located on the west wall of the Carmine’s nave, or on the right as one enters the church.53 Thus, the drawing anticipates and engages the perspective of a person entering the church and proceeding south down the nave, who might glance up and to the right to see the apostle looking back at them. Other drawings from Poccetti’s vast output have been put forward as potential studies for the frescoes in the Carmine. A drawing of Saint Bartholomew now in Rome, for example, was tentatively cited by Carofano as a work that could be linked to the Carmelite cycle, even as he admitted that the 50 For the archival description of this fresco, see ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 7, 397; Procacci, ‘Incendio’, 162. On the drawing, GDSU, inv. no. 8313 F recto, see Carofano, ‘Gruppo di disegni’, 389. 51 Procacci, ‘Incendio’, 162–63. 52 On these drawings, GDSU, inv. nos. 862 F and 8343 F, see Carofano, ‘Gruppo di disegni’, 389. 53 The fresco is described in the archival records as being between the Martellini and Botti chapels, which were the second and third chapels on the right wall, counting from the entrance to the church. ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 13, 76; ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 30, 225.

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Fig. 5.5: Bernardino Poccetti, study for Saint Philip, after 1592, black and red chalk. Florence, GDSU (inv. no. 862 F). Source: Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabinetto Fotografico

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documents assign the authorship of the Saint Bartholomew to Passignano. Unlike the case with the fresco of Saint Andrew, there is little reason not to accept that Passignano painted the Saint Bartholomew, so Carofano suggested that Poccetti, as the principal designer of the fresco program, provided the drawing to Passignano with the expectation that he would use it to guide his fresco of Bartholomew.54 The specifics of the Roman drawing make its association with the cycle at the Carmine tempting. The apostle, standing in a roughly sketched niche with his left foot protruding over the edge, faces to his left and holds a book in his right hand and his attribute of the flaying knife in the other. Carofano’s suggestion that Poccetti provided Passignano with a preliminary design for the Saint Bartholomew is certainly plausible and is in keeping with Poccetti’s willingness to collaborate even as he maintained a certain amount of creative control over a project, and it would not be the only time that Passignano and Poccetti worked closely together.55 Shortly after Carofano’s essay appeared, Stefania Vasetti noted that the drawing of the seated Saint Peter put forward as a design for the lost fresco at the Carmine closely resembled an image of Peter that Poccetti painted in the private chapel in the Salviati-Gerini Palace.56 It is widely known that Poccetti ran a large and busy workshop and that his work was in high demand. It is also true that Poccetti had few qualms about reusing designs across a series of commissions, so it is not surprising that the drawing of Saint Peter simultaneously resembles the textual descriptions of the lost Carmine fresco and the Saint Peter that Poccetti painted in the Palazzo Salviati-Gerini. Indeed, it seems that while he was working on Antonio Salviati’s chapel between 1609 and 1611, Poccetti was also consumed with other projects to such an extent that it precipitated delays in his execution of the frescoes commissioned by Salviati.57 In light of this fact, one could expect that Poccetti would adapt existing designs—in this case a study of a seated Saint Peter first developed for the Carmine—to facilitate the completion of pressing commissions, and as it turns out, the Saint Peter is not the only element within the fresco at the Salviati-Gerini Palace that seems to have been reused in another composition. When one compares the figure of King 54 On this drawing, Istituto Centrale per la Grafica, Rome (hereafter ICG), inv. no. FC129758, see Carofano, ‘Gruppo di disegni’, 391. For the archival references to Passignano’s authorship of the San Bartolomeo, see ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 7, 397; ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 13, 94; ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 30, 232; Procacci, ‘Incendio’, 167. 55 The efforts of Poccetti and Passignano at Santa Trìnita will be discussed in greater detail below, but the two painters also contributed works to the Sant’Ignazio Chapel in the rotunda of Santissima Annunziata. In 1600, Poccetti painted the fresco in the chapel’s half-dome and two years later Passignano contributed one scene to the mural cycle. Hamilton, Disegni, 70–71. 56 Vasetti, ‘Altare e decorazione’, 156–57. 57 Vasetti, ‘Altare e decorazione’, 149–51.

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David with his harp positioned opposite Peter in the fresco at the palace to the King David Poccetti painted on the controfacciata of San Bartolomeo, one finds that, other than their left-to-right reversal, the figures are virtually identical.58 Vasetti presented further evidence of Poccetti’s willingness to maximize his use of existing designs during this period, remarking upon the similarity between the putti seated at the feet of Bartholomew and Miniatus and those that appear flanking the fictive busts that Poccetti and his workshop painted in 1608 in the Sala di Bona at the Palazzo Pitti.59 In light of these working practices, the fact that several drawings by Poccetti that might have been studies for the lost apostles at the Carmine can also be linked to other finished works by the painter does not mean that those drawings were not used as designs for the frescoes at the Carmelite church. In fact, it might suggest just the opposite. Considering Poccetti’s penchant for reusing his designs in different contexts, the similarity of the drawings to other extant works perhaps strengthens the case that they were also used for the apostolic cycle. In any event, the drawings, the extant frescoes at San Bartolomeo, and the descriptions in the Carmelite records and the early published sources provide enough information to form an image of the larger-than-life-size apostles along the walls of the Carmine’s nave. Standing (and, in one case, sitting) in various positions, Poccetti’s apostles would have presented an imposing and impressive sight, with each one energized by the painter’s predilection for dramatic poses, expressive drapery, and powerful modeling.

The Martyrdoms of the Apostles As was the case with the apostles, an idea as to how the scenes of the martyrdoms appeared can be gained from an examination of extant examples of similar works and preparatory drawings that conform to what is known about the Carmine’s frescoes. Poccetti painted many martyrdom scenes over the course of his career and surviving examples of his efforts show that he was adept at representing the 58 For a recent discussion of how Poccetti used similar designs for different commissions, see Dow, ‘Tradition and Reform’, 266–68. It should be noted that the catalog entry for the sheet with the seated Saint Peter (GDSU, inv. no. 8313 F recto) describes a study for King David on the reverse, ‘Studio per un S. Pietro seduto volto a destra. A tergo = Idem per un Re David’. Due to restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, I have been unable to consult this drawing to compare it to the painted versions of King David at the Salviati-Gerini Palace and San Bartolomeo. The catalog record can be accessed at https://euploos. uffizi.it. 59 Vasetti, Poccetti e gli Strozzi, 23. On the Sala di Bona, see Vasetti, ‘Fasti granducali’, 228–39; Bastogi, ‘Sala di Bona’, 87–97.

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Fig. 5.6: Bernardino Poccetti, Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew, 1604, fresco. Florence, San Bartolomeo a Monte Oliveto. Source: author

drama, spectacle, and tragedy that accompanied the executions of the early followers of Christ. For the purposes of envisioning the lost paintings at the Carmine, however, the images at San Bartolomeo stand out among this crowded field because they—unlike the lunettes in the atrium of the oratory of the confraternity of Santissima Annunziata, for example—are smaller, auxiliary scenes, as was the situation at the Carmine.60 Furthermore, the martyrdoms at San Bartolomeo are placed beneath the niches that contain Saint Bartholomew and Saint Miniatus, a design element that recalls the apostolic cycle at the Carmine, with the exception that in the Carmelite church the auxiliary martyrdom scenes were placed above the apostles. At San Bartolomeo, Poccetti painted the martyrdoms in monochrome; unfortunately, the Carmelite documents, which do not describe the lost frescoes in any detail, do not specify if the martyrdoms at the Carmine were in color or grisaille. At San Bartolomeo, Poccetti represented the executions taking place in the center of 60 For a discussion of Poccetti’s contributions to the cycle of martyrdoms in the atrium of the confraternity of Santissima Annunziata, see Dow, Apostolic Iconography, 109–50.

‘L’inventore di dipingere tutte le muraglie della nostra chiesa’ 

Fig. 5.7: Bernardino Poccetti, Martyrdom of Saint Miniatus, 1604, fresco. Florence, San Bartolomeo a Monte Oliveto. Source: author

the composition with participants and onlookers arranged to each side. The settings for each are only barely sketched out with a few buildings in the background and some suggestions of architecture and landscape that frame the narrative scene. In the Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew, the apostle has his back to a column and is flanked by two executioners, one who faces the picture plane and one who turns his back to it (Fig. 5.6). Both men are intent on their task of removing the skin from Bartholomew’s arms. At the extreme right edge of the painting, a seated figure looks on, while on the left side, three more figures take in the spectacle and converse among themselves. Poccetti’s Martyrdom of Saint Miniatus has a similar composition, with the saint kneeling in the middle of the image, facing the picture’s right edge (Fig. 5.7). In front of Miniatus and to the spectator’s left the executioner stands with his back to the picture plane and uses both hands to raise his sword in preparation for the fatal blow. Closer to the left edge of the picture Poccetti painted an assembled crowd of onlookers, while on the right side a figure on a rearing horse—presumably the emperor, Decius, who condemned Miniatus to death—makes an emphatic downward

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gesture with a baton.61 At the extreme right edge of the image—so close to the picture’s boundary that they are partially cropped—are two more spectators, one seated and one standing. In the distance, Poccetti painted a large crowd—perhaps meant to represent Roman soldiers, but the details are too sketchy to be certain—and an imposing and possibly fortified structure in the distance—perhaps a reference to the aftermath of the execution when Miniatus reportedly gathered up his severed head and climbed the hill to his hermitage on the south side of Florence, where the church dedicated to him now stands.62 This treatment is similar to the thrust of a drawing at the Uffizi that Carofano put forward as a preliminary study for one of the martyrdom scenes at the Carmine and which shows the decollation of a figure who is most likely Saint James the Greater (Plate 16).63 Carofano linked this drawing to the frescoes of Saints Paul and James the Greater that were positioned between the Michelozzi and Bruneschi chapels on the right side of the nave. As was the case with Poccetti’s Saint Peter, the wall surface available for decoration was reduced because the space between these chapels also accommodated a marble pulpit that had been installed there in 1568.64 The addition of Saint Paul, who was not one of the original followers of Christ, to the group of the twelve disciples not only reflected a common iconographic practice, but also helped to solve the design problem presented by the position of the pulpit, which was centered between the two chapels. According to the description provided by Ranieri Chiti, the images of the saints were painted on each side of the pulpit, while one scene of martyrdom was placed above.65 Chiti’s language makes it clear that there was only one martyrdom scene, ‘la storia’, but that it represented the executions of both saints, ‘loro martirio’. Poccetti’s solution to the conundrum of how to represent the martyrdoms of two different saints who were executed in different places and times was bound to be unusual, regardless of how he resolved the problem. In the end, he produced a design that shows the beheading of James while Paul looks on from the edge of the composition. This solution links the two martyrs through the means of their executions, allows Paul to prominently display his typical attribute of the headsman’s sword, and, as Carofano has previously 61 For a summary of the events leading up to the execution of Miniatus, see Nocentini, Passioni di San Miniato, 3–4. 62 Réau, Iconographie, vol. 3, bk. 2:957. 63 On this drawing, GDSU, inv. no. 8791 F, see Carofano, ‘Gruppo di disegni’, 391. 64 The installation of the pulpit was recorded by Castaldi, but his description of this part of the church omits any mention of the apostles represented there. ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 13, 68. See also Procacci, ‘Incendio’, 163. 65 ‘Tra questa cappella, e la seguente vi era il Pulpito di marmi misti fatto fare l’Anno 1568 dal Sig: Bernardo d[e]l Sig: Niccolo Soderini, alle parti laterali d[e]l quale erano dipinti a fresco sulla muraglia i due Apostoli S. Iacopo maggiore, e S. Paolo, colla storia d[e]l loro martirio sopra il cielo dl d[ett]o pulpito, di mano d[e]l Poccetti.’ ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 30, 225.

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remarked, presents the decollation of James as a prefiguration of Paul’s similar fate.66 As was the case with the images of saints standing in niches, it is useful to note the common features shared by Poccetti’s various designs in order to achieve an idea of how the martyrdom scenes at the Carmine would have appeared. In this respect, the design for the martyrdom of James the Greater has a general correspondence to the fresco at San Bartolomeo of the martyrdom of Saint Miniatus. The executioner and the martyr occupy the center of each image. A tall repoussoir figure forms the left edge of each design, while a rider on horseback and a seated figure are positioned at the right edge. The details are not identical, however. The figure on the left of the fresco is an onlooker who turns his back to the spectator, whereas in the drawing Saint Paul occupies that space and faces the picture plane even as he turns to look at the spectacle of James’ execution over his left shoulder. The headsman in the drawing is shown in a dynamic pose, his upper torso and legs twisted in a spiral that will unwind and deal the fatal blow to the apostle’s neck, while in the fresco the executioner is planted firmly and squarely, raising his sword over his shoulder with his back to the picture plane. In spite of these differences, Poccetti’s dependence on reliable compositional formulas and figure types provides a sense of how the images at the Carmine would have appeared, since he would have been unlikely to stray from his usual solutions. Fortunately, a drawing has come to light in Weimar that provides a glimpse of Poccetti’s design for another martyrdom scene in the cycle at the Carmine, in this case a representation of Saint Andrew being led to an x-shaped cross (Fig. 5.8).67 Slightly larger than the Uffizi study, but with a similar horizontal format, the Weimar drawing has been brought to a higher state of finish with the application of brown ink over black chalk, and a brown ink wash.68 Squared for transfer, it must represent a late stage in the fresco’s design, and therefore is a vital piece of evidence regarding the lost martyrdom frescoes.69 Once again, Poccetti’s artistic habits are visible throughout the design. The image has an exceptionally low point of view, with the cornice of the background structure plunging steeply towards the vanishing point, and figures in the foreground only partially visible, their lower bodies obscured by the picture’s bottom edge.70 These elements suggest that Poccetti’s design was 66 Carofano, ‘Gruppo di disegni’, 391. 67 On this drawing, Graphische Sammlungen Weimar, inv. no. 79, see Fischer Pace, Italienischen Zeichnungen, 1:45–46; Fischer Pace, ‘Kat. Nr. 79’, 226–27. 68 The Uffizi drawing measures 143x197mm [1:1.38]; the Weimar drawing measures 161x254mm [1:1.57]. Carofano, ‘Gruppo di disegni’, 392; Fischer Pace, ‘Kat. Nr. 79’, 226. 69 Fischer Pace, ‘Kat. Nr. 79’, 226. 70 This popular motif in late-Cinquecento painting is found in the work of Federico Zuccaro and Girolamo Macchietti, as well as other images by Poccetti. Fischer Pace, ‘Kat. Nr. 79’, 226; Dow, Apostolic Iconography, 123–26.

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Fig. 5.8: Bernardino Poccetti, preparatory design for The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew, 1590s, black chalk, brown ink, and brown ink wash. Weimar, Klassik Stiftung, Graphische Sammlungen (inv. no. KK 8611). Source: Klassik Stiftung Weimar

meant to be located high on a wall and seen from below, a situation identical to that of the Carmine’s martyrdom frescoes. Framed by Andrew’s saltire cross on the left and the cornice on the right, a sculpture on a tall pedestal stands against the open sky, perhaps meant as a reference to the idols that Andrew refused to honor.71 The left and right edges of the drawing are delineated by stepped and stacked crowds of repoussoir figures. This group extends into the background, creating a v-shaped composition that further accentuates the steep perspectival recession. These groups are not merely formal devices, however. According to the Golden Legend, Andrew’s execution drew an enormous crowd of supporters who felt that the apostle had been wrongly condemned, and the energetic engagements of Poccetti’s onlookers gives them the air of an upset and concerned crowd.72 The diagonal that forms the left side of the v-shape is echoed by the prominent placement of Andrew’s cross, one beam of which is planted firmly at the bottom of the image, in the center of the drawing’s horizontal dimension. Immediately to the right of the cross an elderly Andrew is being led to the instrument of his martyrdom, his age and frailty emphasized by his long beard, the weakening of his knees, and the two companions who provide him with physical support. Despite recognizing the crowd’s urge to 71 Jacobus, Golden Legend, 1:16–17. 72 Jacobus, Golden Legend, 1:17.

‘L’inventore di dipingere tutte le muraglie della nostra chiesa’ 

rescue him, Andrew embraced his martyrdom, lingering on the cross for two days and preaching to the thousands who assembled around him.73 Poccetti’s rendering deftly encapsulates the salient points of this narrative, representing the failing apostle and the adoring crowds through his grouping of the figures, attention to detail, and careful composition. It is safe to assume that the other martyrdom scenes he painted along the walls of the Carmelite church did the same.

The Fictive Colored-Marble Revetment Although most of the discussions of the fresco cycle in the archival records and early documents do not describe in great detail the fictive architecture that framed the niches of the apostles and the scenes of their martyrdoms, the so-called Fra Anonimo wrote that ‘above and below [each apostle] there was a secco architectural decoration representing stones and marbles of many colors’.74 It is fortunate that Fra Anonimo recorded this detail because it allows for a more precise visualization of the Carmine’s interior at the conclusion of the fresco cycle, one that demonstrates that the decorative program was ambitious and reflected the latest trends in interior decoration of ecclesiastical space.75 The fashion for colored-marble revetments in Florence has been traced to the interest in these materials that was shared by Grand Duke Cosimo I (1519–1574) and Giorgio Vasari.76 As early as 1563, Vasari had begun planning what would eventually become the Cappella dei Principi at San Lorenzo, a colossal monument to the expressive and decorative possibilities of colored stone, but due to the many delays that accompanied its execution, it 73 Jacobus, Golden Legend, 1:18. 74 ‘E sopra e sotto vi fù un ornamento d’architettura a secco figurante pietrami, e marmi di più colori.’ ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 7, 397. The phrase ‘a secco’ in this passage is most likely used in its architectural sense, where it describes masonry joined without the use of mortar. Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, s.v. ‘a secco’, http://www.lessicografia.it/Controller?lemma=A+SECCO. 75 The use of colored marbles in architecture has a long history, but enjoyed a resurgence in ecclesiastical spaces in the sixteenth century. For a wide-ranging discussion of the use of colored stones in architecture, see Barry, Painting in Stone, and especially 289–330 for their installation in sacred spaces from the Cinquecento onwards. 76 The appeal of colored marble to Cosimo has been demonstrated by his establishment of a quarry for colored marble near the town of Seravezza, as well as his role in developing a temper that created a chisel hard enough to carve porphyry. On the quarry, see Morrogh, ‘Vasari and Coloured Stones’, 312–14; Gambuti, ‘Pietra e marmi’, 121–22; Napoli, ‘Social Virtue’, 527–28. For a detailed discussion of the ambiguity in the sources regarding who developed the temper for the chisel, Cosimo or Francesco di Giovanni Ferrucci (called del Tadda, 1497–1586), see Butters, Triumph of Vulcan, 1:149–58, 2:401–3. Vasari’s writings, which pay close attention to the qualities of various stones and their potential significances, reveal his interest in these materials. Morrogh, ‘Vasari and Coloured Stones’, 310–12; Napoli, ‘Social Virtue’, 527.

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did not turn out to be the first of such spaces built in Florence.77 That distinction belongs to two examples designed by Giovanni Antonio Dosio (1533–1611). The first, built for the wealthy Florentine art collector and patron, Niccolò Gaddi (1537–1591), was executed in the west transept of Santa Maria Novella between 1575 and 1577 (Plate 11).78 This chapel was the first example in Florence of an interior space with colored-marble revetment, and, as a result of the enthusiasm with which it was greeted, has been credited with ushering in the taste for similar treatments in other locations in the city.79 Indeed, in 1579, only a few years after the completion of the Gaddi Chapel, another wealthy and powerful Florentine, Giovanni Niccolini (1544–1611), commissioned Dosio to outfit a chapel in Santa Croce, where, in addition to paintings and sculpture, colored-marble revetments formed an integral component of the design (Plate 12).80 The Gaddi Chapel was complete by 1577 or shortly thereafter.81 The Niccolini Chapel has a more complicated history, with a long period of inactivity leading up to the decoration of the cupola and the installation of the altarpieces, but the colored-marble revetments were complete by 1588.82 If, as has been argued above, Poccetti painted Saint Thaddeus, which was the first apostle in the series, in late 1589 or early 1590, then colored-marble revetments at both the Gaddi and Niccolini Chapels were already in place when he began painting, and they would have provided models for Poccetti as he developed his designs for the fictive marble at the Carmine. Although it is impossible to know precisely what those fictive revetments looked like, once again Poccetti’s work at San Bartolomeo provides a useful example (Plates 9, 10). In those frescoes, each of the saints stands in a niche positioned on top of a plinth. Both the plinth and the niche are painted to resemble white marble. Panels of faux, colored marble frame the niche and the plinth, and 77 For a recent treatment of the design and construction history of the Cappella dei Principi, see Morrogh, ‘Cappella dei Principi’, 567–610; for a discussion of how patronage, and especially the influence of Grand Duchess Christine of Lorraine (1565–1637), affected its design, see Strunck, ‘Female Contribution’, 611–30. 78 On the Gaddi Chapel and its patron, see Morrogh, ‘Cappella Gaddi’, 299–325. 79 Morrogh, ‘Cappella Gaddi’, 299. Colored-marble revetment also features in the Saint Antoninus Chapel in San Marco. Built to a design by Giambologna (1529–1608), its structure was complete by the end of 1588. Cornelison, Art and the Relic Cult, 117. 80 Giovanni Niccolini occupied an influential position within the Medici court and Florentine politics. A faithful servant of Grand Duke Ferdinando I (r. 1587–1609), Niccolini served as ambassador to the papal court from 1588 to 1610. Spinelli, ‘Cappella Niccolini nella basilica francescana’, 345. Much of Niccolini’s wealth derived from his investments in real estate. Dizionario biografico degli italiani (hereafter DBI), s.v. ‘Niccolini, Giovanni’ (by Andrea Zagli), https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/giovanni-niccolini_%28DizionarioBiografico%29/. On the Niccolini Chapel, see Spinelli, ‘Cappella Niccolini in Santa Croce’, 101–34; Spinelli, ‘Pantheon privato’, 83–143; Spinelli, ‘Cappella Niccolini nella basilica francescana’, 345–77. 81 Morrogh, ‘Cappella Gaddi’, 316. 82 Spinelli, ‘Cappella Niccolini in Santa Croce’, 111; Spinelli, ‘Pantheon privato’, 135; Spinelli, ‘Cappella Niccolini nella basilica francescana’, 360–62.

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appear as inlay in the niche’s broken pediment and surrounding the fictive frame around the martyrdom scenes. The juxtaposition of white marble and inlaid panels of colored marble strongly recalls the design of the Niccolini Chapel, which has these same features.83 Poccetti’s painted marble panels can only be approximately correlated to actual stones, since they are not meant to be precise renderings of exact geological samples, but even with this limitation there are several types of colored stone that were used prominently in the Niccolini Chapel (and elsewhere) that are evoked by the frescoes at San Bartolomeo. The panels of green marble that form the background for the painted design, for example, feature angular patches of green shades and tints in an irregular pattern. These are the hallmarks of the brecciated marble known as verde antico.84 Dosio used this stone in both the Gaddi and Niccolini Chapels, a fact that was not lost on a contemporary commentator, the Dominican Agostino del Riccio (d. 1598), who mentioned the chapels in his discussion of verde antico in his work, Istoria delle pietre.85 In the Niccolini Chapel, the columns flanking the sculptures above the chapel’s sarcophagi are made of verde antico, giving the stone a prominence in the overall design that reflects its desirability.86 In addition to the verde antico background, Poccetti also painted symmetrical bands of inlaid stones running vertically alongside each niche. In these, two lozenges of greyish-black stone are framed by small inlaid areas of a reddish-brown stone that appear to be inlaid within a band of yellow marble. This yellow marble, which also appears as inlay decorating the niche’s broken pediment and has darker orange patches and lighter veins running through it, is meant to evoke giallo antico, a term that describes a wide variety of yellow marbles of various tonalities and patterning.87 Giallo antico, like verde antico, was a highly sought 83 It should be noted that many of the colored marbles used by Dosio in the Niccolini Chapel were also installed in the Gaddi Chapel. That Poccetti’s fresco does not resemble the Gaddi Chapel as much as it does the Niccolini Chapel has more to do with the fact that the Gaddi Chapel uses pietra serena for most of the architectural features of the space (columns, architrave, window surrounds) rather than the white Carrara marble used in the Niccolini Chapel. On the use of this stone, most likely the so-called pietra del fossato, in the chapel, see Morrogh, ‘Cappella Gaddi’, 322–23. There are a number of terms used to describe the bluish-grey sandstone that is commonly called pietra serena. Quarried in the Appenines north of Florence and ubiquitous in the city’s built environment, this stone was referred to by contemporaries as macigno, and it came in many different types, the most desirable of which was pietra del fossato. Del Riccio, Istoria, 120; Rodolico, Pietre della città, 236–40, 244; Wallace, Michelangelo, 147–48. Del Riccio’s treatise, a manuscript held at the Biblioteca Riccardiana in Florence, was published as a facsimile by Barocchi in 1979 and in a printed version by Gnoli and Sironi in 1996. Citations here are to the Gnoli and Sironi text. 84 Del Riccio, Istoria, 92–93; Marchei, ‘Verde antico’, 292–93. 85 Del Riccio, Istoria, 92–93. 86 Spinelli, ‘Cappella Niccolini nella basilica francescana’, 372. 87 Marchei, ‘Giallo antico’, 214–25.

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after and difficult to obtain marble—so much so, that Dosio attempted to control Giovanni Niccolini’s expectations in a letter penned in 1579 that recommended considering easier to obtain alternatives, such as portasanta or alabaster.88 Its rarity did not mean, however, that the stone was not available, and examples of it can be found in the Gaddi Chapel, where it is used as the bases and capitals for the tabernacle’s pilasters and behind the segmental pediment—a configuration recalled by Poccetti’s use of it in his pediment and as a surround for the frame around the martyrdom scenes.89 The lozenges in Poccetti’s fresco, dark grey to black with light grey to white veins running through them, recall a number of black marbles, including nero antico and nero del Belgio, two types of stone he would have been able to see firsthand in Florence.90 The black slabs that Dosio used for the funerary inscriptions beneath the sarcophagi in the Gaddi Chapel are most likely nero del Belgio, as it was commonly used for this purpose.91 In his instructions to Dosio, Niccolini included nero del Belgio alongside nero antico in his list of acceptable black marbles, a fact that suggests that the two stones were interchangeable in the eyes of that chapel’s patron.92 The small inlaid panels of reddish-brown stone that surround the black lozenges in Poccetti’s fresco are more difficult to identify precisely, but they evoke both rosso antico and portasanta.93 The latter, which varies widely in appearance and can present as a fairly uniform reddish-brown stone, was installed in the Niccolini chapel above the architrave and the tabernacles and could have provided inspiration to Poccetti.94 The two remaining rectangular panels of inlay, located to the left and right of the martyrdom scene and adjacent to the panels of verde antico, are a deep purple color that almost immediately evokes red porphyry (porfido rosso), a stone well known to Renaissance enthusiasts of colored marbles.95 Long before the sixteenth century, however, the quarry in Egypt was abandoned and its location forgotten. As a result, the porphyry used in Cinquecento architecture was spolia repurposed from the detritus of ancient Rome, and in that city it was more widely available than it was in Florence, where the two damaged porphyry columns 88 Spinelli, ‘Cappella Niccolini nella basilica francescana’, 369–70. For a transcription of the letter, see Spinelli, ‘Giovanni Antonio Dosio’, 241–42. 89 Morrogh, ‘Cappella Gaddi’, 322. 90 Marchei, ‘Nero antico’, 254–55; Sironi, ‘Nero del Belgio’, 256. 91 Sironi, ‘Nero del Belgio’, 256. Del Riccio, Istoria, 91 identifies the slabs in the Gaddi Chapel as marmo nero orientale, but a gloss on this entry notes that it was often confused with nero del Belgio. Del Riccio, Istoria, 192. 92 Spinelli, ‘Cappella Niccolini nella basilica francescana’, 370. 93 Marchei, ‘Rosso antico’, 288; Marchei, ‘Portasanta’, 285–87. 94 Spinelli, ‘Cappella Niccolini nella basilica francescana’, 372. 95 Marchei, ‘Porfido rosso’, 274.

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received as tribute from Pisa still stand proudly outside the Baptistery.96 Even though he would have seen examples of the stone in Florence, Poccetti’s panels at San Bartolomeo are a bit fanciful with veining that is not typically seen in porphyry. Their color, however, makes it difficult to imagine an alternate stone that the painter might have been trying to evoke, especially considering the intense interest that grew up around porphyry in Florence after the development of an innovative temper that allowed steel tools to carve the hard stone more easily.97 Although they were some of the first examples brought to completion, the Gaddi and Niccolini chapels were not the only spaces in Florence to be outfitted with colored-stone revetments at the end of the sixteenth century. Especially relevant to this discussion is the small chapel of San Giovanni Gualberto located at the south end of the transept in Santa Fig. 5.9: Giovanni Caccini, Reliquary Chapel of San Trìnita. Destined to house a reliquary contain- Giovanni Gualberto, 1594. Frescoes by Domenico Cresti. ing the jawbone of San Giovanni Gualberto, Florence, Santa Trìnita. Source: author the structure was designed by Giovanni Battista Caccini (1556–1613) and decorated with frescoes by Passignano (Fig. 5.09).98 Begun in 1593, the project was already finished by March 1594, the date inscribed on the chapel’s altar.99 This means that at around the same time that Passignano contributed his images of Saints John, Matthew, and Bartholomew to the cycle in the Carmine with its fictive revetments, he was also painting in a chapel with actual colored-marble revetments. Surely the opportunity to study these stones closely would not have eluded a painter like Passignano who had been tasked with recreating their appearance in fresco just across the bridge at the Carmine. The revetments in the chapel at Santa Trìnita resemble those at the Niccolini Chapel, and include panels of verde antico, giallo antico, portasanta, and 96 Butters, Triumph of Vulcan, 1:41–43. Del Riccio, who opens his treatise on colored stone with a discussion of porphyry, cites the columns at the Baptistery as examples. Del Riccio, Istoria, 89. 97 For more on the temper, see note 76. 98 Leoncini, ‘Altari in Santa Trinita’, 112. 99 Cassarino, ‘Domenico Passignano’, 184; Leoncini, ‘Altari in Santa Trinita’, 112.

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alabaster set in white or cream-colored marble frames and mouldings.100 Although it is impossible to know, the examples discussed above—Poccetti’s faux marbles at San Bartolomeo and the revetments in the Niccolini and San Giovanni Gualberto Chapels—suggest that the fictive revetment at the Carmine most likely consisted of painted panels of colored stone set in surrounds of fictive white marble.

Conclusion In Florence in the 1590s, most of the spaces outfitted with colored marbles were small chapels, and it is not a coincidence that the smallest of these—the Cappella di San Giovanni Gualberto—is the one that lacked a wealthy patron. This chapel is so minute that the altar and its step occupy almost half of the available floor space.101 Even so, the Vallombrosians reduced the costs of outfitting this tiny chapel as much as possible. Much of the precious colored stone, for example, including brecciated stone and alabaster from Santa Prassede in Rome, was donated to the project. The Vallombrosians estimated that the marbles from Santa Prassede were worth one thousand scudi, a sum far in excess of the chapel’s final cost of 608 scudi, but they only had to pay for its transport and cutting (‘che solo costa la vettura e segatura’).102 The trouble and expense involved in procuring the necessary stones for such luxurious revetments necessarily meant that large-scale projects were out of reach for all but the wealthiest benefactors. By giving the Carmine a faux treatment of such revetment, the Carmelites would have created one of the largest spaces up to that point in Florence to feature such an interior—even if it was only done in fresco. Poccetti, with his deep experience painting facades and other fictive architectural motifs, was the ideal choice to realize a decorative scheme of this type, one that mimicked the latest and most expensive fashion, but rendered it quickly and economically. Seen this way, with the fresco cycle and the tabernacles of the individual chapels reconstructed, the Carmine appears as an outstanding example of Florentine art in the age of reform. The remodeling of the church, with the removal of the tramezzo and the installation of regularized and uniform chapels, created a coherent space that reflected the changes being implemented as part of the efforts to reframe Catholicism. The frescoes of the apostles emphasized 100 Although he did not identify individual stones by type, Leoncini described the ‘cromatismo’ of the chapel as limited to ‘verde scuro, all’ocra, al giallo rosato’. Leoncini, ‘Altari in Santa Trinita’, 112. 101 Leoncini, ‘Altari in Santa Trinita’, 112. 102 ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 89, no. 51, 107r. This document was published by Dora Liscia in Marchini and Micheletti, Chiesa di Santa Trinita, 393. Cassarino, ‘Domenico Passignano’, 356n6 suggested that the relatively modest sum of 45 scudi paid to Passignano for his frescoes in the chapel suggests that he donated his labor in a pious act of devotion.

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the Church’s antiquity and its links to Christ and his first followers, even as they proclaimed the Church’s faith in imagery. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a more forceful expression in favor of religious images than the over life-size and highly naturalistic figures of the apostles at the Carmine, which would have stood on the walls of the church as an imposing rebuttal to Protestant attacks on religious images. The fictive marble revetment would have given the Carmine a splendor and a grandeur befitting a house of God that not only reflected the latest architectural trends, but also hearkened back to the early days of Christianity in Rome. Finally, almost all of the church’s mural decoration would have been the work of a single painter, Bernardino Poccetti. It is no wonder that Poccetti, a man of modest physical stature who loomed large in the community of artists in Florence, planned his own entombment in such a splendid monument.

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Marchei, Maria Cristina. ‘126. Rosso antico’. In Marmi antichi, edited by Gabriele Borghini, 288. Rome: De Luca, 1989. Marchei, Maria Cristina. ‘130. Verde antico’. In Marmi antichi, edited by Gabriele Borghini, 292–93. Rome: De Luca, 1989. Marchini, Giuseppe and Emma Micheletti, eds. La Chiesa di Santa Trinita a Firenze. Florence: Giunti Barbèra, 1987. Meloni Trkulja, Silvia. ‘Le opere d’arte di San Bartolomeo a Monteoliveto’. In Via di Monteoliveto: Chiese e ville di un colle fiorentino, edited by Silvia Meloni Trkulja, 111–28. Florence: Edifir, 2000. Morrogh, Andrew. ‘La cappella Gaddi nella chiesa di Santa Maria Novella’. In Giovan Antonio Dosio da San Gimignano, architetto e scultor fiorentino tra Roma, Firenze e Napoli, edited by Emanuele Barletti, 299–325. Florence: Edifir, 2011. Morrogh, Andrew. ‘The Cappella dei Principi under Ferdinando I de’ Medici’. In San Lorenzo: A Florentine Church, edited by Robert W. Gaston and Louis A. Waldman, 567–610. Villa I Tatti Series, 33. Cambridge, MA: Villa I Tatti, 2017. Morrogh, Andrew. ‘Vasari and Coloured Stones’. In Giorgio Vasari tra decorazione ambientale e storiografica artistica, edited by Gian Carlo Garfagnini, 309–20. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1985. Napoli, John Nicholas. ‘From Social Virtue to Revetted Interior: Giovanni Antonio Dosio and Marble Inlay in Rome, Florence, and Naples’. Art History 31, no. 4 (2008): 523–46. Nocentini, Silvia, ed. Le passioni di San Miniato martire fiorentino. Florence: Sismel – Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2018. Offill, Ashley B. ‘The Corsini Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine: Framing the Relic Cult of Saint Andrea Corsini in Baroque Florence’. PhD diss., University of Kansas, 2020. Paatz, Walter and Elisabeth Paatz. Die Kirchen von Florenz: Ein kunstgeschichtliches Handbuch. 6 vols. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1952–1955. Paolucci, A. and A.M. Maetzke. La casa del Vasari in Arezzo. Florence: Cassa di Risparmio, 1988. Procacci, Ugo. ‘Ancora sull’incendio della Chiesa del Carmine del 1771’. Rivista d’arte 28 (1953): 199–205. Procacci, Ugo. ‘L’incendio della Chiesa del Carmine del 1771’. Rivista d’arte 10, no. 1–2 (1932): 141–232. Rapino, Daniele. ‘Vasari in Santa Maria del Carmine’. In La Crocifissione di Giorgio Vasari nella chiesa di Santa Maria del Carmine a Firenze: Studi e restauro, edited by Daniele Rapino, 9–17. Florence: Polistampa, 2012. Réau, Louis. Iconographie de l’art chretien. 3 vols. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1955–1958. Richa, Giuseppe. Notizie istoriche delle chiese fiorentine divise ne’ suoi quartieri. 10 vols. Florence, 1754–1762. Rodolico, Francesco. Le pietre delle città d’Italia. Florence: Le Monnier, 1953.

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Sironi, Attilia. ‘102. Nero del Belgio’. In Marmi antichi, edited by Gabriele Borghini, 256. Rome: De Luca, 1989. Smithers, Tamara. The Cults of Raphael and Michelangelo: Artistic Sainthood and Memorials as a Second Life. New York: Routledge, 2023. Soussloff, Catherine M. ‘Imitatio Buonarroti’. Sixteenth Century Journal 20, no. 4 (1989): 581–602. Spinelli, Riccardo. ‘Cappella Niccolini in Santa Croce’. In Cappelle barocche a Firenze, edited by Mina Gregori, 99–134. Milan: Silvana, 1990. Spinelli, Riccardo. ‘Giovanni Antonio Dosio e il progetto della Cappella Niccolini in Santa Croce a Firenze: Quarantatre lettere inedite’. Rivista d’arte 44 (1992): 199–296. Spinelli, Riccardo. ‘Il Pantheon privato tra tardo Rinascimento e Barocco: La cappella Niccolini’. In Il Pantheon di Santa Croce a Firenze, edited by Luciano Berti, 83–143. Florence: Giunti, 1993. Spinelli, Riccardo. ‘La cappella Niccolini nella basilica francescana di Santa Croce’. In Giovan Antonio Dosio da San Gimignano, architetto e scultor fiorentino tra Roma, Firenze e Napoli, edited by Emanuele Barletti, 345–77. Florence: Edifir, 2011. Strunck, Christina. ‘The Female Contribution: Grand Duchess Christine of Lorraine, the Cappella dei Principi, and the New High Altar for San Lorenzo (1592–1628)’. In San Lorenzo: A Florentine Church, edited by Robert W. Gaston and Louis A. Waldman, 611–30. Villa I Tatti Series, 33. Cambridge, MA: Villa I Tatti, 2017. Trotta, Giampaolo. ‘Monteoliveto a Firenze: Un sacro oculo antiquo sulla città’. In Via di Monteoliveto: Chiese e ville di un colle fiorentino, edited by Silvia Meloni Trkulja, 13–86, 137–69. Florence: Edifir, 2000. Vasetti, Stefania. ‘Altare e decorazione nelle cappelle private di Palazzo Salviati Gerini a Firenze e di Villa Le Corti a San Casciano’. In Altari e immagini nello spazio ecclesiale: Progetti e realizzazioni fra Firenze e Bologna nell’età della Controriforma, edited by Anna Forlani Tempesti, 149–73. Florence: Angelo Pontecorboli, 1996. Vasetti, Stefania. Bernardino Poccetti e gli Strozzi: Committenze a Firenze nel primo decennio del Seicento. Florence: Opus Libri, 1994. Vasetti, Stefania. ‘I fasti granducali della Sala di Bona: Sintesi politica e culturale del principato di Ferdinando’. In Palazzo Pitti: La reggia rivelata, edited by Gabriella Capecchi, Amelio Fara, Detlef Heikamp, and Vincenzo Saladino, 228–39. Florence: Giunti, 2003. Vasetti, Stefania. ‘La “guccia” di Bernardino Poccetti da San Gimignano’. Paragone 45, no. 529–33 (1994): 154–59. Wallace, William E. Michelangelo at San Lorenzo: The Genius as Entrepreneur. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

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Conclusion This book has analyzed only a few of Poccetti’s many works, but each case study demonstrates the various ways that these decorative interventions responded to and shaped the concerns regarding religious painting in Florence at the end of the Renaissance. In the Chiostro Grande at Santa Maria Novella, for example, Poccetti’s treatment of scenes from the life of Saint Dominic recast the historical episodes of Dominic’s efforts to fight heresy, updating them to resonate with the concerns of late sixteenth-century Catholics, who were struggling with their own schismatic sects. At the Canigiani Chapel, Poccetti depicted the miraculous snowfall on the Esquiline hill that led to the foundation of Santa Maria Maggiore. The feast celebrating this miracle had recently been elevated by the Roman Church, which promoted it because it emphasized traditional priorities regarding charitable works and the efficacy of saintly intercessors, the Virgin in particular. Furthermore, the saints in the chapel’s pendentives and representations of high-ranking ecclesiastics in the mural reflected the identities and concerns of its patrons. At the Certosa del Galluzzo, Poccetti’s cycle representing the life of Saint Bruno expanded and amplified the somewhat modest iconography of the Carthusians’ founder. In so doing, it not only set the tone for other more widely disseminated images of the saint’s life, but also presented an image of the order that conformed to its self-perceptions even as it offered a glimpse of how the Carthusians could make a vital contribution to Catholicism in the period of reform. At Santa Maria del Carmine, the large frescoes of the apostles lining the nave stood as a reminder of the Roman Church’s antiquity and its origins in Christ and his original ministry, presenting a powerful rebuttal to recently founded Protestant splinter groups. By completing the decoration with fictive colored-marble revetments, Poccetti brought the interior of the Carmine up to date by reflecting the fashion for luxuriously revetted chapels then current in Florence, while simultaneously evoking the splendor of ancient and papal Rome, underscoring the Latin Church’s long history and its commitment to its traditional splendor and luxury. When Bernardino died on 9 November 1612, he had already made arrangements to be buried in the Carmine at the north end of a nave decorated with his

Dow, D.N., Bernardino Poccetti and the Art of Religious Painting at the End of the Florentine Renaissance. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463729529_CON

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monumental frescoes.1 His fellow artists from the Accademia del Disegno saw to the details of his funeral procession and interment.2 On the day when he breathed his last, Poccetti was living in his boyhood neighborhood of the Oltrarno, in a house on Via di Sitorno that he had been renting from the Servites of Santissima Annunziata since 1588.3 Because of his home’s proximity to his chapel and tomb in Santa Maria del Carmine, the academicians decided that it would be insufficient to take the most direct route, and in order to maximize the visibility of Poccetti’s cortege, they processed east—away from the Carmine—and turned north on Via Maggio before crossing the Arno via the Ponte Santa Trìnita. Arriving on the north side of the river, the pallbearers turned to the west and made their way towards the Ponte alla Carraia, at which point they planned to cross the river again and process in the direction of the Carmelite church. According to Baldinucci, as soon as the academicians reached the entrance to the bridge a fierce storm suddenly blew in. The heavy rain, wind, hail, and horrible thunder that it produced terrified everyone in the vicinity, spectators, passers-by, the priests, the friars, confraternity members, and the academicians. The large group of mourners immediately sought shelter, running across the bridge to the nearest location ample enough to hold the entire cortege: the tavern of La Trave Torta. Recognizing that it would be insulting and indecorous to leave Poccetti’s corpse outside in the street, they carried him inside, too, allowing Bernardino one last opportunity to gather with his brigata at his favorite haunt. Shortly thereafter, the storm dissipated and the group finished its journey to Poccetti’s tomb. 4 When the funeral procession arrived at the Carmine, they entered one of Florence’s most venerable churches, the interior of which was a veritable showcase of Poccetti’s skill as a muralist. So, even though the altarpiece for the chapel where his tomb was located was still unfinished at the time of his death, the monumental 1 In a previous publication, I gave an incorrect date for a memorial mass said in honor of Poccetti in the oratory of the confraternity of Santissima Annunziata. Instead of September, the mass must have taken place in November after Poccetti’s death. Dow, Apostolic Iconography, 160n15. I would like to thank Konrad Eisenbichler for bringing this error to my attention. 2 For a discussion of the Accademia del Disegno’s policies and rituals regarding burials of members, see Barzman, Florentine Academy, 191–96. 3 Via di Sitorno is now known as Via della Chiesa, which runs east to west between Via del Leone and Borgo Tegolaio. Fiorelli and Venturi, Stradario storico, 1:147. The rental agreement, which is dated 30 June 1588, set the annual rent for the property at 11 scudi. ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 119, no. 53, 191r. Other entries in the Servites’ account books show that Poccetti typically made two payments of 38 lire and 10 soldi each year (usually in January or February and July or August) for an annual total of 77 lire, or 11 scudi. A summary of these payments to Poccetti’s account can be found in ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 119, no. 209, 277 destra; ASF, Corp., Rel. Sopp., serie 119, no. 210, 69 destra. 4 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:252–53. A similar account appears in the manuscript Diario di avvenimenti successi in Firenze dall’anno 1600 fino al 1737, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Fondo Nazionale, II._.92, unpaginated.

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contribution he made to the decoration of the nave remained a fitting tribute.5 The Latin inscription on his tomb lauded these achievements in grandiose terms: ‘Alive, he gave his painting to the world; about to die, he gave his spirit to Olympus; and dead he gave his bones to this icy tomb.’6 When the academicians lowered Poccetti into the sepulchre, he joined his wife, Lucrezia, and her mother, who had both predeceased him.7 Childless and a widower, the painter had no immediate heirs, and, according to Baldinucci, while Poccetti was on his deathbed he expressed his desire to leave his property to his close companion, Gengio, and other members of his brigata. He was ultimately convinced to do otherwise by a priest who suggested that he should bequeath his belongings to his half-brothers—the offspring of his mother’s remarriage to Pietro Ciardi—instead.8 Baldinucci’s phrasing suggests that the clergymen feared the appearance of impropriety if Bernardino followed through with his unorthodox bequest, and he noted that the priest told Poccetti that to name his half-brothers as his heirs would more closely follow established norms and Christian customs.9 As it turned out, Poccetti might have been better off rejecting the priest’s advice and entrusting his modest estate to his friends, since it was only one year after Poccetti’s burial that his half-brothers sold his chapel to the Marzichi family in 1613.10 The ignominious treatment that the Ciardi brothers afforded their benefactor did not go unnoticed by the Florentine antiquarian Stefano di Francesco Rosselli (1598–1664) who remarked upon the fate of Poccetti’s tomb several times in the sepoltuario 5 ‘Lasciò imperfetta la cap[pel]la in quanto alla pittura della tavola dell’altare.’ ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 13, 83. 6 ‘Picturam mundo vivens / Moriturus Olimpo spiritum / Et huic gelido functus / Dedit ossa sepulcro’. The inscription is recorded in several manuscript sources, including on pages 76 and 81 of the sepoltuario of Stefano di Francesco Rosselli, even though Rosselli remarked on page 81 that the inscription had been removed (‘Questa inscrizione oggi è levata’). This manuscript is in a private collection, but a digital facsimile has been published on DVD with Di Stasi, Stefano di Francesco Rosselli. It also appears in an entry from Fra Girolamo Castaldi’s Libro de’ padronati from 1689. ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 13, 121. 7 Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:253. Baldinucci’s prose is not precise regarding the identity of the mother, but it seems unlikely that the tomb would have contained the remains of Poccetti’s mother, Lucia Ciardi, especially considering the lack of interest in the tomb and chapel shown by Poccetti’s half-brothers, who were Lucia’s sons from her marriage to Pietro Ciardi. 8 ‘Era egli stato ammalato alcuni giorni, dopo i quali conoscendo essere ormai al termine del suo vivere pervenuto, pensava al modo di disporre le cose sue, e già aveva determinato, sendoli morta la moglie, di testare a favor di Gengio Ferravacchio, e degli altri suoi compagni soprannominati.’ Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:252. 9 ‘Il Reverendo Messer Benedetto Morelli, allora Curato di S. Felice in Piazza, di ciò fare forte il disuase, consigliandolo a lasciare ad alcuni suoi fratelli uterini di casa Ciardi, ai quali in riguardo d’una certa Cristiana consuetudine, più che ad altri, si conveniva la di lui eredità, al che fare subito Bernardino si piegò.’ Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:252. 10 Di Stasi, Stefano di Francesco Rosselli, DVD 76, 81; ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 13, 83, 122; ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 30, 229; Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:253.

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that he compiled between 1650 and 1657. In the unpaginated introduction to his text, Rosselli wrote that Poccetti had undertaken the outfitting of his monument at considerable expense in light of his economic status (‘con ispesa considerabile in riguardo dello stato suo’), implying that the sale of the chapel so soon after his death was a shameful violation of his wishes.11 Later in his text, while describing the tombs in the Carmine, he went further, denouncing the transfer of the chapel to the Marzichi as having been done ‘without the least regard for the memory and virtue of that great man’ (‘senz’avere un minimo riguardo alla memoria et alla virtù di quel grand’uomo’).12 After the chapel and the tomb came into the possession of the Marzichi, they finished the chapel’s decoration, installing the Funeral of Saint Alberto Avogadro by Bernardino Monaldi (active 1588–1614) as the chapel’s altarpiece.13 They also placed their coat-of-arms in the chapel, removed Poccetti’s funerary inscription, and transferred the remains of family members who had previously been interred in their tombs located in the Carmine’s transept to their new chapel.14 Considering how quickly the Marzichi took ownership of the chapel, as well as their concerted effort to remove the markers that celebrated Poccetti, it is not surprising that there is some confusion in the documents as to the fate of Poccetti’s remains. In Baldinucci’s striking and detailed account, which he attributed to an elderly Carmelite friar named Marsilio, when the Marzichi opened the tomb they found three bodies inside. Recognizing that the three corpses were Poccetti, his wife, and his mother-in-law, but unable to determine their individual identities, they decided to build a low wall in the tomb in order to create a separate area within which they enclosed the remains of Poccetti, Lucrezia, and her mother.15 Once 11 Di Stasi, Stefano di Francesco Rosselli, DVD unpaginated introduction. I would like to thank Anne Leader for bringing these references to my attention. 12 Di Stasi, Stefano di Francesco Rosselli, DVD 81. 13 There is some confusion in the documents and the literature surrounding the authorship of the altarpiece for the Marzichi Chapel. It is not clear if the Funeral of Saint Albert Avogadro was an unfinished work by Poccetti brought to completion by Monaldi, or an entirely new work. This confusion dates at least to the eighteenth century, when Fra Anonimo wrote in ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 7, 395, that ‘la tavola fu dipinta chi dice da Bernardino Poccetti e chi da Girolamo [sic] Monaldi suo discepolo’. Earlier, in 1689, Fra Girolamo Castaldi gave the panel to Monaldi but described it as ‘assai bella quantu[n]que sia imperfetta’. ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 13, 83. For relevant bibliography, see Dow, Apostolic Iconography, 161n25. 14 ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 7, 395; ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 13, 83, 122; ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 30, 229–30; Procacci, ‘Incendio’, 165; Fabbri, ‘Opere in chiesa’, 94. The last two citations refer to this chapel as the Barrighi Chapel, reflecting patrons who came into possession of the chapel after the Marzichi. 15 ‘Questa cappella, e sepoltura fu poi dagli eredi di Bernardino venduta alla famiglia de’ Marzichi, i quali, secondo quello che raccontava un certo Fra Marsilio antico di quel convento, per rispetto che ebbero alle ceneri d’un tale uomo, avendo trovati nella sepoltura tre corpi, cioè quello di esso Bernardino,

Conclusion 

again, as was discussed in Chapter One, Baldinucci’s historical method relied on information gleaned from those who were present or close to the events, in this case Fra Marsilio. Interestingly, in his discussion of the Carmine, Richa also cited a Fra Marsilio, who not only oversaw efforts to renovate and update tombs and decorations in the cloister, but also organized and collated the archival records of the church in 1654.16 It is possible that this is the same Fra Marsilio mentioned by Baldinucci, and if that is the case, the friar would have been in a good position to know the fate of Poccetti’s remains. Entries in the Carmelites’ documents, however, are explicit about the removal of Poccetti’s remains from the tomb, and seem to undercut Baldinucci’s account, leaving the issue unresolved.17 In spite of the uncertainty surrounding the disposition of his remains, the northwest corner of the Carmine’s nave maintained its association with Bernardino at least until the catastrophic fire in 1771 that destroyed almost all traces of his presence and efforts in the church. At some point after 1745 but before the blaze, for example, an entry in the Carmelite documents described the fictive door on the church’s east wall as ‘by the Chapel of Saint Helena and across from the tomb of Bernardino Poccetti’.18 Of course, the friars had installed a commemorative inscription in this part of the church in 1708, the language of which suggested that his remains were close by even if they were barely marked, thereby keeping the connection between Poccetti and this part of the church alive.19 Furthermore, even though Bernardino’s plans for his memorial chapel and tomb came to naught, thanks to the monumental frescoes of the apostles adorning the walls, his presence in the Carmine was largely inescapable. And although the fire eventually destroyed these paintings, which were certainly among Poccetti’s most impressive achievements, so many other examples of his work survived throughout the city that even without a chapel dedicated to his memory, his artistic legacy remained intact even if overlooked. It is fitting, then, that someone who—at least according to legend—drew graffiti on the walls of Florence came to be celebrated later in his life as ‘il primo huomo da dipingere in fresco’. This book has shed some light on only a few of his many della moglie, e della madre sua, non riconoscendosi quale fosse l’uno, o l’altro, fecero in essa sepoltura murare un certo deposito in forma di muricciuolo, dentro al quale gli fecero racchiudere.’ Baldinucci, Notizie, 4:253. 16 Richa, Notizie istoriche, 10:88. 17 ‘Questa sepoltura fu da suoi nipoti data al Sig[no]r Francesco Marzichi insieme con la cappella, dalla quale furno levate l’ossa, l’iscrizione, e ogn’altra memoria di Bernardino Poccetti e della sua famiglia.’ ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 13, 122. ‘Perché dai suoi eredi fu venduta […] la sepoltura, d’onde furono trasportate altrove l’ossa d[e]llo sfortunato Poccetti.’ ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 30, 229. 18 ‘Che ove è ora la porta finta presso la cappella di S. Elena rimpetto al sepolcro di Bernardino Poccetti cioè alla seconda porta del fianco, che sbocca nel andito della porta del convento.’ ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 7, 108. 19 ASF, Corp. Rel. Sopp., serie 113, no. 30, 228. For the inscription and a translation, see Chapter Five.

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works, all of which stand as a monument to the creative efforts of Poccetti, who by looking back and drawing on the rich tradition of Florentine painting, forged an alternate path forward for religious art at the end of the Renaissance.

Works Cited Baldinucci, Filippo. Notizie de’ professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua. 6 vols. Florence, 1681–1728. Barzman, Karen-edis. The Florentine Academy and the Early Modern State: The Discipline of Disegno. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Di Stasi, Michelina. Stefano di Francesco Rosselli: Antiquario fiorentino del XVII sec. e il suo sepoltuario. Florence: Polistampa, 2014. Dow, Douglas N. Apostolic Iconography and Florentine Confraternities in the Age of Reform. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2014. Fabbri, Maria Cecilia. ‘Le opere in chiesa’. In La chiesa di Santa Maria del Carmine a Firenze, edited by Luciano Berti, 89–142. Florence: Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, 1992. Fiorelli, Piero and Maria Venturi. Stradario storico e amministrativo del comune di Firenze. 3 vols. Florence: Polistampa, 2004. Procacci, Ugo. ‘L’incendio della Chiesa del Carmine del 1771’. Rivista d’arte 10, no. 1–2 (1932): 141–232. Richa, Giuseppe. Notizie istoriche delle chiese fiorentine divise ne’ suoi quartieri. 10 vols. Florence, 1754–1762.

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Index Numbers in italics refer to illustrations Accademia del Disegno, Florence 29, 80, 88, 278 personification of 50, 51, 52 Accademia della Crusca personification of 51, 52 Acciaiuoli, Niccolò 170 Adam of Eynsham 222n17, 229n123, 230 Aix, France 154, 155, 160 ‘Albergati Bible’ 228 Albergati, Niccolò, Saint, cardinal, and Bishop of Bologna 220, 226, 227–29, 230 Albert of Trapani, Saint 252 Albigensians 104, 109–10, 112–13, 120 Alexander III, Pope 231 Allori, Alessandro 29, 80, 117 Amsterdam Rijksmuseum 105, 106, 107 Andrea da Firenze (Bonaiuti) 115–16, 118 Saint Peter Martyr Preaching (Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Guidalotti Chapel) 116 Andrew, companion of Saint Bruno 204, 205 Andrew, Saint and apostle 250–52, 246, 254, 258, 263–65, 264 angels 137, 138, 157, 158, 214, 218–19 Anthelm of Belley, bishop 220, 225, 226, 227, 230–31 Anthony Abbot, Saint 252 Apolda, Dietrich von 104, 108, 109 apostles 137–38, 153, 208; see also individual entries by name decorative cycle at Santa Maria del Carmine 35, 244, 246, 248–65, 270–71, 277; see also individual entries by name Mission of the Apostles (Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Chiostro Grande); see Poccetti, Bernardino apprentices 44, 46, 47–48, 80 Apt, France 160 Aquinas, Thomas, Saint 92, 115 Arianism 146 Aristotle 30 Armenini, Giovanni Battista 25n24, 47n15, 82n11, 85n23, 86 Arte dei Medici e Speziali 80n4 Assettati, Sante 161 Atticciati, Domenico di Bartolomeo 243 Bacchiaca 29 Badia a Ripoli 23 Baglione, Giovanni 50 Baldinucci, Filippo 20, 21, 27, 32, 79, 82, 83, 215, 220, 251n33 Bernini, Gian Lorenzo, life of 54–55 genealogies 50–52 information, sources of 54–56

La veglia 58–59 Leopoldo de’ Medici, advisor to 53–54 Notizie de’ professori del disegno 20, 32, 44, 49, 50, 51, 53, 81 Poccetti, Bernardino, life of 32, 43–49, 56–57, 59–62, 64–66, 68–69, 80–81, 85, 88, 135n11, 278, 279, 280–81 Vasarian themes in 46–49 Vocabolario toscano dell’arte del disegno 51 Balducci, Giovanni Adoration of the Shepherds (Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Chiostro Grande) 92 Barbatelli, Bartolomeo 44–45 Barbatelli, Bernardino; see Poccetti, Bernardino Barbatelli, Lucia 44–45, 279n7 Barocci, Federico 86 Bartholomew, Saint and apostle Plate 9, 22, 246, 254–55, 256, 258, 259, 260–61, 269 Bartolommeo, Fra 30 Basilius, Carthusian prior general 224, 225 Beccafumi, Domenico 29n45, 30n49 Belley, France 220, 231 Bellori, Giovanni Pietro 25, 26, 35, 86 Bellucci family 241–42; see also Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, fire (28-29 January 1771) Bernardino of Siena, Saint 63 Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint 155n75 Bernini, Domenico Stefano 54 Bernini, Gian Lorenzo 54–55 Bernini, Pier Filippo 54–55 Betti, Filippo di Lodovico 243n7, 249n23 Biliotti, Fra Modesto 94n56 Birellus, Iohannes, Carthusian prior general 225, 226 Boboli Garden 21 Bocchi, Francesco 30–31, 35, 137 Bologna 26, 50, 227 Certosa di San Girolamo di Casara 229 Bonaiuti, Andrea see Andrea da Firenze Boniface VIII, Pope 145n47 Borgherini, Salvi di Francesco 29 Borghese, Camillo 157 Borghini, Raffaello 30, 35, 49, 80n5, 97, 101n80, 137 Borghini, Vincenzio 44n2 Borromeo, Carlo, Saint 147, 154 Boso, Carthusian prior general 226, 227 Bramante, Donato 101 Bronzino, Agnolo 26n28, 30n49, 248n19 Ludovico Capponi (New York, Frick Collection) 89 Brunelleschi, Filippo 66, 134 Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi 194, 195, 196, 197, 202, 204

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Bruno of Cologne, Saint 34, 171, 225, 233, 277 funeral of Plate 7, 196, 213–19 garments 204, 208 hagiography 174–75, 193–96, 198, 200, 213; see also Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi; Du Puy, Francois hermitage see Calabria, Santa Maria della Torre iconography 173, 193, 198, 213; see also Brunonis Carthusianorum Patriarchae sanctissimi; Du Puy, Francois; Graf, Urs, the elder; Poccetti, Bernardino Reims, archbishopric of 199–200, 202 Reggio Calabria, bishopric of 206–7 Roger I of Sicily, appearance to 209–13, 211 Urban II, advisor to 206 Buonarroti, Michelangelo 25, 30, 48, 49, 50–51, 80n4, 86, 137n19, 156n83, 221, 225 Buonmattei, Benedetto 245, 248 Buontalenti, Bernardo 55, 81–82, 243n7 Grotta Grande 21 Palazzo di Bianca Cappello 82–83 Buti, Ludovico 94n54 Butteri, Giovanni Maria 94n54 Caccini, Giovanni Battista 96n66, 269 Caetani, Enrico, Cardinal 155 Calabria 193, 212, 217 Santa Maria della Torre 174, 175, 196, 197, 212, 213 Santo Stefano del Bosco see Santa Maria della Torre Serra San Bruno see Santa Maria della Torre Calci (Pisa) Certosa di Calci 22, 171n6 Canigiani, Alessandro, Archbishop 154, 155–56, 160–61 Canigiani, Giovanni 33, 131, 133, 134–35, 136, 138, 139, 142, 147–48, 153, 155, 156, 158–59, 161, 162 Canigiani, Giovanni Maria 142 Canigiani, Leonarda Bartolini 136n15 Canigiani, Taddeo di Vanni 132–33 canonization 174–75, 213n84, 220, 251 Cantagallina, Remigio 85 Canto alla Catena 68n110 Capocchi, Alessandro 90–91 Capponi, Ludovico 89–92, 94, 134, 147 Capponi, Bernardo 90 Capua 209–212, 211 Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi da 26–27 cardoons (wild artichoke stalks) 65 Carracci, Annibale 26–27 Carracci, Ludovico 26 Carmelite Order 34–35; see also Castaldi, Fra Girolamo; Chiti, Fra Ranieri; Fra Anonimo; Ordinarium Cartusiense; Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence Carnesecchi family 22 Carthusian Order 34, 57–58, 171, 173–75, 198, 205, 212–13, 215–16, 220, 277; see also Bruno of Cologne, Saint; Calci (Pisa); Galluzzo; Pontignano (Siena)

Castaldi, Fra Girolamo 242n3, 244, 250, 251, 252, 253n43, 262n64, 279n6, 280n13 Catherine, Saint 253 Catherine of Siena, Saint 23, 92 Cavalcanti, Andrea 54 Cellini, Benvenuto 54 Cennino Cennini 85n23 Certosa del Galluzzo see Galluzzo Charles, Duke of Calabria 170 Charles VII, King of France 228 Chartreuse Mountains 174, 195–196, 206, 230n135 Chigi, Agostino 85–86 Chiostro dello Scalzo, Florence 30, 101–3, 102, 137 Chiti, Fra Ranieri 242, 243, 244, 245n16, 250n31, 252–53, 254, 262 Christ Plate 4, Plate 7, 35, 92, 93, 100, 110, 115, 138, 140, 141–42, 143, 147, 156–57, 160, 162, 213, 214, 218–19, 260, 262, 271, 277 Christina, Queen of Sweden 54 Christine of Lorraine, Grand Duchess, wife of Grand Duke Ferdinando I 266n77 Ciardi, Pierfrancesco 55, 59 Ciardi, Pietro 45, 279 Cigoli, Ludovico 25, 55, 80, 82, 91n46, 94n54 Cimabue 46–47, 49, 50, 51, 52 Cinelli, Giovanni 135n11, 248 Cinganelli, Michelangelo 249, 252 Ciocchi, Ulisse 65–66, 67, 68 Clement III, antipope 206 clothing academic 204 contemporary styles of 118–21 ecclesiastical 154–55, 207 papal tiara 145 Compagni, Niccolò 81 Confraternities San Giovanni Battista detta dello Scalzo 101–2; see also Chiostro dello Scalzo San Lorenzino in Piano 22 Sant’Agnese 23 Santissima Annunziata 22, 58, 122, 255n48, 260, 278n1 Constantinople 145, 146 Coppi, Giacomo 207n70 Correggio, Antonio da 30n49 Corsini, Andrea, Saint 34, 44n3, 251–52, 253 Council of Trent 112–13, 144, 154, 159, 160, 216n99 Cresti, Domenico (called Passignano) 80, 244, 246, 252 Adoration of the Magi (Florence, Santa Maria del Carmine, destroyed) 243 Saint Bartholomew (Florence, Santa Maria del Carmine, destroyed) 258 Saint John (Florence, Santa Maria del Carmine, destroyed) 269 Saint Matthew (Florence, Santa Maria del Carmine, destroyed) 269 San Giovanni Gualberto Chapel (Florence, Santa Trìnita) 269–70

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Dandini, Pier Filippo Baldinucci and the Accademie della Crusca and del Disegno (Florence, Accademia della Crusca) 51–52 Daniele da Volterra 30n49 Dati, Carlo 50 Dati, Leonardo 50 Decima Granducale 56n52, 139n27 Decius, Emperor 261–62 del Riccio, Agostino 267, 268n91, 269n96 de’ Ricci, Caterina, Saint 90 Diego, Bishop of Osma 110, 112 Diocrès, Raymond 193, 199 Dolci, Carlo 251n33 Dominican Order 33; see also Dominic, Saint heresy, opponents of 100, 118, 120–21 preaching, representations of 116–17 Dominic, Saint asceticism of 100 birth of Plate 2, 98–100 charity of Plate 13, 100–101 heresy, opponent of Plate 3, Plate 15, 100, 104–5, 106, 108, 110 preaching, representations of 113–14, 118 Donatello 66 Dosio, Giovanni Antonio Gaddi Chapel, Santa Maria Novella Plate 11, 266, 267, 268 Niccolini Chapel, Santa Croce Plate 12, 266, 267, 268 Domus Aurea, Rome 84 Du Puy, François 175, 193, 206, 213, 225 Eleonora di Toledo, Duchess, wife of Grand Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici 94, 117, 118 El Paular Charterhouse, Spain 212n83 Erasmus 160 Esquiline hill, Rome Plate 5, 33, 149, 150, 156, 157, 158, 277 Eugenius III, Pope 155n75 Fabene di Andrea, tavernkeeper 56n52 Falaise, France 230 Fanjeaux, France 104 Farnese, Alessandro, Cardinal 85–86, 89–90 Fei, Alessandro 94n54 Ferrer, Boniface 220n112 Ferrer, Vincent, Saint 63, 92 Ferrucci, Francesco di Giovanni (called del Tadda) 265n76 Fiesole 68, 251 Fineschi, Vincenzio 95, 118 Foschi, Pierfrancesco 51n29 Fra Anonimo 242n3, 245n15, 249–52, 265, 280n13 Franceschini, Baldessari (called Volterrano) 103n80 Franciabigio 30n49 Franciscan Order 159

funerals Plate 7, 34, 55, 89, 138, 155, 193–94, 199–202, 213–19, 278 Gabriel, Archangel 147 Gaddi, Niccolò 266; see also Dosio, Giovanni Antonio, Gaddi Chapel Galluzzo Certosa del Galluzzo 21–22, 24, 34, 56, 169–171, 170, 197–98, 277 Gamberucci, Cosimo 94n54 Gap, France 160 Gazzetta Toscana 242–43, 244 Geneva, Switzerland 231 Gengio, scrap metal dealer 69–70, 279 Genoa 50 Gesuati see Jesuate Order Gherardini, Tommaso Holy Trinity (Florence, Santa Felicita, Canigiani Chapel) Plate 4, 140, 141–42 Gheri, Cosimo 94n54 Ghiberti, Lorenzo 47n14 Ghirlandaio, Domenico 33, 35, 48, 51, 221 Birth of John the Baptist (Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Tornabuoni Chapel) 96–97, 99 Ghirlandaio, Michele di Ridolfo see Tosini, Michele Ghirlandaio, Ridolfo 51, 136 Giacomini Tebalducci Malespini, Lorenzo 154n72, 155 Giotto 30, 46–47, 48, 49, 50, 51–52, 102n80 Giovanni da San Giovanni 57n56 Giraldus Cambrensis 222n117 Giugni, Vincenzo 68 God the Father Plate 4, 22, 104, 105, 140, 160, 253 Golden Legend 104, 105n89, 137, 138, 264 Grenoble, France 194, 195, 196, 202, 231–32 Graf, Urs, the elder 175, 176, 193–96 Granacci, Francesco 29 Grande Chartreuse 174, 176, 196, 197, 204, 205, 206, 213, 229, 230n135 Gregory XV, Pope 175 Gualberto, Giovanni, Saint Plate 4, 142–143, 144, 162, 269 Guarin, companion of Saint Bruno 196n39, 204, 205 Guicciardini, Lorenzo 135 Guidalotti, Buonamico di Lapo see Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Guidalotti (Spanish) Chapel Guigo I, Carthusian prior general 204, 205, 222–24, 223, 231–32 Guilielmus II Rainaldus, Carthusian prior general 222, 224 Guillaume de Marcillat 147 Guillaume of Portes 231n139 Henry II, King of England 229, 230, 231 Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor 206 Herleva, mother of William the Conqueror 230 history, oral 55n51; see also Baldinucci, Filippo, information, sources of

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Holy Spirit Plate 4, 140 Honorius III, Pope 159 Hugh, chaplain and companion of Saint Bruno 203, 204–5 Hugh of Châteauneuf, Saint and Bishop of Grenoble Plate 8, 194–195, 196, 202–6, 203, 220, 224–225, 227, 231–32 Hugh of Lincoln, Saint and Bishop of Lincoln Plate 8, 220, 221–22, 225, 229–30, 231 Hugo I, Carthusian prior general 224, 225 Humbert III, Count of Savoy 231 Humbert of Romans 110 Iacobus I, Carthusian prior general 225–27, 226 Iancelius, Carthusian prior general 226, 227 Ignatius of Loyola, Saint 213n84 Innocent II, Pope 224n122 Innocent III, Pope 155n75 Jacobus de Voragine 105n89, 109; see also Golden Legend James the Greater (also, of Compostela), Saint and apostle Plate 16, 117, 246, 262–63 Jane of Aza (mother of Saint Dominic) Plate 2, 98, 99 Jerusalem 137, 138 Jesuate Order 147–48, 158 Jesuit Order 57n56, 213n84 John I, Pope Plate 4, 144–146, 145, 162 John the Baptist, Saint Plate 4, 96, 97, 141–42, 162 feast of 195 John the Evangelist, Saint and apostle Plate 4, 135, 138–39, 141, 246, 253, 269 Jordan of Saxony 100n72, 109 Joyeuse, France 156 Jude Thaddeus, Saint and apostle see Thaddeus, Saint and apostle Justin I, Emperor 146 Kempf, Nicholas 173 Krüger, Dietrich 175, 198n45, 212n83 Landuin of Lucca 203, 204–5 Lanfranco, Giovanni 175, 198n45, 212n83 Languedoc 155–56 Lanuino the Norman 204n59 Lanzi, Luigi 20, 25 Lapini, Agostino 63n87 Lasinio, Carlo 82n15 Leonardo da Vinci 30, 48n16, 49n18, 80n4 Leoncini, Francesco 70n120 Leo X, Pope 175 Liber Pontificalis 144, 146n50 Liberius, Pope Plate 5, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 154, 156, 157 Lippi, Filippino 30n49 Lomi, Aurelio 250–51 Loni, Alessandro Saint Andrew (Florence, Santa Maria del Carmine, destroyed) 250–51 Luther, Martin 160

Macchietti, Girolamo 80, 243, 263n70 Magliabechi, Antonio 54 Mailly, Jean de 100 Malaterra, Geoffrey 210 Malvasia, Carlo Cesare 25, 26, 35, 50, 53 Manassès I de Gournay, Archbishop of Reims 200 Manet, Edouard 102n80 Manetto, the fat woodcarver 66, 67 marble see stone Marchi, Francesco 90 Martin V, Pope 229 Marzichi family 279–81 Masaccio 102n80, 156 Masolino 156 Medici, Cardinal Leopoldo de’ 53–54 Medici, Duchess of Mantua Eleonora de’ 29 Medici, Grand Duke Cosimo I de’ 80n2, 89, 119n126, 201n53, 245n15, 245n16, 265 Medici, Grand Duke Ferdinando I de’ 29, 62, 63–64, 67, 133, 134, 266n80 Medici, Grand Duke Francesco I de’ 29, 244n7 Medusa 99n69 Michele Tatà 64–65, 68 Minerbetti, Andrea 139 Minerva 99 Minga, Andrea del 139 Assumption of the Virgin (Florence, Santa Felicita, Canigiani Chapel) 135–37, 140, 141, 154–55 Miniatus, Saint Plate 10, 22, 254, 255, 259, 260, 261–62, 263 Miracle of the Snow see Virgin Mary Monaco, Lorenzo 157 Monaldi, Bernardino 280 Montorio, Pietro 117 Moriana, Pietro della 250; see also Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, Moriana Chapel Naldini, Giovanni Battista 243, 244, 252 Saint James the Less (Florence, Santa Maria del Carmine, destroyed) 246 Naples 156 Certosa di San Martino 171 Niccolini, Giovanni 266, 268; see also Dosio, Giovanni Antonio, Niccolini Chapel Niccolò da Cortona 228 nicolaism 207 Notizie del mondo 242n3, 244 Ognissanti, church, Florence 244, 245, 247 Old Testament 29, 112 Oltrarno 34, 45, 47, 56, 69, 90, 278 Orcagna (Andrea di Cione) Strozzi Altarpiece (Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Strozzi Chapel) 109 Ordinarium Cartusiense 216, 217, 219 Orsanmichele, Florence 153n70, 157, 158 Ospedale degli Innocenti, Florence 22, 80n4 Oth, Arnold 110

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Pacini, Sante Saint Dominic Converts the Heretical Noblewomen (Paris, Louvre) 107, 108 Pagani, Gregorio Discovery of the True Cross (Florence, Santa Maria del Carmine, destroyed) 243, 246 Paladini, Filippo 90 Palazzo di Bianca Cappello, Florence 82–83, 84 Palazzo Capponi alle Rovinate, Florence 147n52 Palazzo Farnese, Rome 156n83 Palazzo Giugni, Florence 68n110 Palazzo Pitti, Florence 21n5, 64, 85n25, 133, 136, 259 Palazzo Salviati-Gerini, Florence 258–59 Palazzo Vettori-Capponi, Florence 89 Palencia, Spain 100 papal tiara 145, 208 Parmigianino 30n49 Passignano see Cresti, Domenico Paul, Saint Plate 16, 246, 262–63 Pavia 171n6 Pentimalli, Meleagro 198n45 Peraccini, Cornelio 60–61, 88n34 Perino del Vaga 30n49, 86 Peroni, Pietro 173n15 Peter, Saint and apostle 138, 246, 255–56, 258–59, 262 Peter Martyr, Saint 92, 115–16 Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay 110 Petrus Ferrandus 113n109 Philip, Saint and apostle 246, 256–57 Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy 228 Pierozzi, Antoninus, Saint 92, 228n127 Piacentino, calzolaio 64–65 piastra (silver coin) 56–57 Piazza Santa Trìnita, Florence 139n27 Pieroni, Alessandro 117n120 pietra forte see stone pietra serena see stone Pisa 22, 34, 82n12, 96n66, 171n6, 198n46, 269 Pistoia Santissima Annunziata 22, 60–61, 88n34, 93n53, 122 Pius V, Pope 154, 155n77, 159, 156 Pliny the Elder 49 Poccetti, Bernardino Annunciation, panel (Florence, Santa Maria del Carmine) 23 Anthelm, Bishop of Belley, fresco (Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo) 225–27, 226 biography of see Baldinucci, Filippo Birth of Saint Dominic, fresco (Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Chiostro Grande) Plate 2, 95–96, 98–100 Bruno Appears to Roger I of Sicily at the Siege of Capua, preparatory design (Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Kupferstichkabinett) 210–12, 211 Bruno Appears to Roger I of Sicily to Warn him of his Troops’ Betrayal, fresco (Galluzzo, Certosa

del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo) 199, 209–13 Bruno Refuses the Bishopric of Reggio Calabria, fresco (Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo) Plate 6, 199, 206–9 Cardinal Niccolò Albergati, fresco (Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo) 226, 227 Coronation of the Virgin, fresco (Pistoia, Santissima Annunziata) 60 facade decoration see sgraffito funeral and burial of 277–81 Funeral of Saint Bruno, fresco (Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo) Plate 7, 34, 199, 213–19 Funeral of the Theologian, fresco (Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo) 199–202, 207, 215 Hugh of Grenoble Receives Bruno and his Companions, fresco (Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo) 199, 202–5, 203 Last Supper, panel (Arezzo, Museo di Casa Vasari) 244 Last Supper, panel (Florence, Santa Maria del Carmine, destroyed) 243 Martyrdom of Saint Andrew, preparatory design (Weimar, Klassik Stiftung, Graphische Sammlungen) 263–65, 264 Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew, fresco (Florence, San Bartolomeo a Monte Oliveto) 260–61 Martyrdom of Saint James, study (Florence, GDSU) Plate 16, 262–63 Martyrdom of Saint Miniatus, fresco (Florence, San Bartolomeo a Monte Oliveto) 260–63, 261 Miraculous Snowfall on the Esquiline Hill and the Foundation of Santa Maria Maggiore, fresco (Florence, Santa Felicita, Canigiani Chapel) Plate 5, 33, 147–62, 153, 277 Miraculous Snowfall on the Esquiline Hill and the Foundation of Santa Maria Maggiore, preparatory design (Rome, Istituto Centrale per la Grafica) 150, 151 Miraculous Snowfall on the Esquiline Hill and the Foundation of Santa Maria Maggiore, study (Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art) 151, 152 Mission of the Apostles, fresco (Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Chiostro Grande) 33, 92–94, 93 Pope John I (?), fresco (Florence, Santa Felicita, Canigiani Chapel) Plate 4, 143–46, 144 Pope John I (?), study (Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Kupferstichkabinett) 144–45 Saint Andrew, fresco (Florence, Santa Maria del Carmine, destroyed) 246, 250–52, 254, 258 Saint Bartholomew, fresco (Florence, San Bartolomeo a Monte Oliveto) Plate 9, 22, 254–55, 259, 266–69

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Saint Bartholomew, study (Rome, Istituto Centrale per la Grafica) 256–58 Saint Dominic Converts the Heretical Noblewomen, fresco (Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Chiostro Grande) Plate 15, 104–9, 117 Saint Dominic Converts the Heretical Noblewomen, preparatory design (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) 105–6, 109 Saint Dominic Converts the Heretical Noblewomen, preparatory design (Florence, GDSU) 106, 107 Saint Dominic Converts the Heretical Noblewomen, preparatory design (Florence, GDSU) 106, 107 Saint Dominic Distributes the Proceeds from the Sale of his Books, fresco (Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Chiostro Grande) Plate 13, 100–104 Saint Dominic Distributes the Proceeds from the Sale of his Books, study (Florence, GDSU) Plate 14, 103–4 Saint Dominic Preaches a Crusade, fresco (Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Chiostro Grande) 113–21, 114 Saint Dominic Preaches a Crusade, study (Florence, GDSU) 119–20 Saint Dominic Preaches a Crusade, study (Florence, GDSU) 119–20 Saint Dominic’s Text Survives a Trial by Fire, fresco (Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Chiostro Grande) Plate 3, 109–13 Saint Hugh of Châteauneuf, Bishop of Grenoble, fresco (Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo) 224–25 Saint Hugh of Lincoln, fresco (Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo) 221– 24, 222, 223 Saint John the Baptist, fresco (Florence, Santa Felicita, Canigiani Chapel) Plate 4, 141–42 Saint John the Evangelist, fresco (Florence, Santa Felicita, Canigiani Chapel) Plate 4, 141 Saint Miniatus, fresco (Florence, San Bartolomeo a Monte Oliveto) Plate 10, 22, 254–55, 266–69 Saint Peter, fresco (Florence, Santa Maria del Carmine, destroyed) 246, 255–56, 258, 262 Saint Peter, study (Florence, GDSU) 255–56, 258 Saint Philip, fresco (Florence, Santa Maria del Carmine, destroyed) 246, 256 Saint Philip, study (Florence, GDSU) 256, 257 Saint Thaddeus, fresco (Florence, Santa Maria del Carmine, destroyed) 246, 249, 252–54, 266 Saints, Beati, and Carthusian Priors General, fresco (Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo) Plate 8, 220–21; see also Anthelm, Bishop of Belley, fresco (Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo); Cardinal Niccolò Albergati, fresco

(Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo); Saint Hugh of Châteauneuf, Bishop of Grenoble, fresco (Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo); Saint Hugh of Lincoln, fresco (Galluzzo, Certosa del Galluzzo, Church of San Lorenzo) San Giovanni Gualberto, fresco (Florence, Santa Felicita, Canigiani Chapel) Plate 4, 142–43 San Giovanni Gualberto, study (Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Kupferstichkabinett) 143 Two Studies of Carthusians (Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago) 223 Way to Calvary, panel (Arezzo, Museo statale d’arte medievale e moderna) 23 Polidoro da Caravaggio 86 Ponte alla Carraia, Florence 56, 278 Ponte Santa Trìnita, Florence 69, 278 Ponte Vecchio, Florence 64 Pontignano (Siena) Certosa di Pontignano 22, 171n6, 216n98 Pontormo 24, 29, 30, 33, 94, 131, 140 Annunciation (Florence, Santa Felicita, Capponi Chapel) 147 Porta di San Piero in Gattolino, Florence 45, 161, 169 Porta San Frediano, Florence 68, 254 Privilegium magnum 209, 212 Prouilhe monastery, France 105 Raphael 25, 30, 85, 86, 92–93, 137n19 Ravenna 146 Razzi, Serafino 100, 101, 104, 110 Reims, France 199–200, 204, 206 Remus Plate 5, 151, 152 Ricci, Giuliano de’ 64n89, 89n37, 89n40 Ricci, Ostilio 82 Richa, Giuseppe 95, 135n11, 148n56, 161–62, 248, 249–50, 251n34, 281 Richard I, King of England 229 Richard II of Capua 209 Ridolfi, Carlo 50, 53 Riez, France 160 Ripa, Cesare 99n69 Robert the Wise 170 Roger Borsa 209 Roger I of Sicily 196, 197, 209–12, 211, 214 Rome 26, 28, 29, 33, 50, 91, 151, 156, 196, 206–7, 268, 271, 277 Poccetti’s trip to 85–90 Romulus Plate 5, 151, 152 Rose of Lima, Saint 92 Rosselli, Stefano di Francesco 279–80 Rosso Fiorentino 30 Ruskin, John 230n135 Ruggieri, Ferdinando 133, 148 Salerno 206 Salvetti, Cammilo 55n50 Salvetti, Eufemia 55n50

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Salvetti, Giuliano 55 Salviati, Antonio 258 Salviati, Francesco 30n49 San Bartolomeo a Monte Oliveto, Florence Plate 9, Plate 10, 22, 254–55, 259, 260–62, 261, 266–70 San Frediano in Cestello, Florence 23, 89 Sangallo, Francesco da 214n89 San Lorenzo, Florence Cappella dei Principi 265–66 New Sacristy 221 San Marco, Florence 21, 122 Saint Antoninus Chapel 266n79 San Miniato al Monte, Florence 143 San Piero in Gattolino, Florence 46 Santa Croce, Florence 30, 214n89, 244, 245, 247–48 Niccolini Chapel see Dosio, Giovanni Antonio Santa Felicita, Florence 132, 161–62 Canigiani Chapel Plate 4, Plate 5, 21, 24, 33, 131–36, 132, 135, 140–41, 142, 144, 147–48, 153, 157–58, 160, 162; see also Canigiani, Giovanni; Minga, Andrea del; Poccetti, Bernardino Capponi Chapel 33, 132, 133–34, 136, 140–41, 147–48, 162; see also Pontormo Santa Maria degli Angeli, Florence Ticci Chapel 21, 140n32 Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence 22, 23, 34–35, 245–48, 246, 270–71, 277–81 Baldovinetti Gambereschi Chapel 246, 251 Botti Chapel 245, 246, 256n53 Brancacci Chapel 30 Bruneschi Chapel 246, 262 Crocifisso del Chiodo Chapel 246, 248–49, 253–54 fire (28-29 January 1771) 241–45 high altar 243–44 inscription commemorating Poccetti 253, 281 Martellini del Falcone Chapel 246, 256n53 Michelozzi Chapel 246, 262 Moriana Chapel 246, 250, 251 nave, fresco cycle 246, 252–71 Poccetti / Marzichi / Barrighi Chapel 246, 248–49, 253–54 Saint Helena (Company of Sant’Agnese) Chapel 246, 281 Santa Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi, Florence Neri Chapel 21, 23, 140n32 Santa Maria Maggiore, Florence 22 Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome 131, 156, 157, 159, 277 Santa Maria Novella, Florence 22, 46, 90–91, 108–9, 200–201, 244, 245, 247–48 Chiostro Grande 21, 22, 33, 81, 85, 90–95, 121, 149, 277 see also Poccetti, Bernardino Chiostro Verde 95n59, 115 Gaddi Chapel see Dosio, Giovanni Antonio Gondi Chapel 46 Guidalotti (Spanish) Chapel 115–18, 116 Strozzi Chapel 109 Tornabuoni Chapel 48, 96–97, 99, 157–58 Sant’Apollonia, Florence 23

Santa Prassede, Rome 270 Santa Trìnita, Florence 157n87 Bartolini Salimbeni Chapel 157 San Giovanni Gualberto Chapel 269–70 Sassetti Chapel 96n64 Strozzi Chapel (Cappella di Santa Lucia) 22, 140n32 Santi di Tito 26, 91n46, 94, 96n66, 243 Santissima Annunziata, Florence 22, 122, 278 Chiostrino dei Voti 97 Chiostro dei Morti 21, 31 Santissima Annunziata, Pistoia 22, 60–61 Santo Spirito, Florence 23 Sarto, Andrea del 29–31, 33, 35, 92–93, 121, 136–37, 140 Birth of the Virgin (Florence, Santissima Annunziata, Chiostrino dei Voti) 97–99, 98 Journey of the Magi (Florence, Santissima Annunziata, Chiostrino dei Voti) 97n67 Last Supper (Florence, Cenacolo di San Salvi) 111 Madonna del Sacco (Florence, Santissima Annunziata, Chiostro dei Morti) Plate 1, 31 Panciatichi Assumption (Florence, Palazzo Pitti, Galleria Palatina) 136–37 Passerini Assumption (Florence, Palazzo Pitti, Galleria Palatina) 136–37 Visitation (Florence, Chiostro dello Scalzo) 101–4, 102 Young Man Taking a Step, with a Basket and Balancing a Sack on his Head. Verso: An Additional Study of the Same Figure (New York, Morgan Library & Museum) 103 Sassi, Giovan Battista 58 Savonarola, Girolamo 90 Schongauer, Martin 48n17 Sebastiano del Piombo 30n49 Seravezza 265n76 Sergio, traitor to Roger I of Sicily 209, 210 Servite Order 22, 34, 60–61, 278 sgraffito 21, 28, 32, 81, 82–85, 83, 84 Silvani, Gherardo 55n50, 81, 82 Simone Martini 115 simony 200, 206, 232 Sisteron, France 160 Sixtus V, Pope 155 Soderini, Leonora 89 Soderini, Tommaso di Giovanvettori 56n52 Soprani, Raffaele 50 Stabbini family 241; see also Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, fire (28-29 January 1771) stained glass 109, 134, 147–48, 153n70, 157–58, 175, 193 Stephan of Bourg 204, 205 Stephan of Die 204, 205 stone alabaster 268, 270 Carrara marble 267n83 giallo antico 267–68, 269

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macigno 267n83 nero antico 268 nero del Belgio 268 pietra del fossato 267n83 pietra forte 108–9, 200–201, 207 pietra serena 114, 245, 249, 267n83 portasanta 268, 269 red porphyry (porfido rosso) 265n76, 268–69 revetment Plate 11, Plate 12, 171, 172, 199, 265–70, 269 revetment, illusionistic 35, 248, 249, 254, 255, 265–70, 271, 277 rosso antico 268 verde antico 267–68, 269–70 Strozzi, Matteo 89 Suarez della Conca, Antonio 117–18 Talenti, Fra Jacopo 115 taverns 62–64, 65–66, 67, 69–70; see also Trave Torta Tempietto, Rome 101 Thaddeus, Saint and apostle 208, 246, 249, 252, 253, 254, 266 Theodoric the Great 144, 146 Tiber River, personification of 149, 151–52, 156 timekeeping 60 Titian 30n49 Tornabuoni, Giovanni 158 Tosini, Michele 32, 44, 46, 47–48, 51, 79–80, 81–82, 96, 136 Toulouse, France 104, 155, 156 Trave Torta (tavern), Florence 23, 32, 56, 70, 278 Trinity Plate 4, 140 Uffizi, Florence 19, 20, 69, 133 Urban II, Pope Plate 6, 196, 206, 207–9, 210 Vallombrosa Abbey 142, 244 Vallombrosian Order 142–43, 270 Vasari Corridor 133 Vasari, Giorgio 32, 46–50, 53, 58, 80n5, 82n13, 115, 133, 245, 265 Vatican 207 Sistine Chapel 225

Stanza della Segnatura 93 Veli, Benedetto 95n54 Venice 50 Venus (goddess) 160 Vespasiano da Bisticci 228 Vettori, Maddalena 89 Via d’Ardiglione, Florence 241 Via degli Allori (now Via della Chiesa), Florence 241 Via del Palagio (now Via Ghibellina), Florence 80, 88 Via di Sitorno (now Via della Chiesa), Florence 278 Via Maggio, Florence 82, 83, 139, 278 Via Senese, Florence 169 Villa Medici, Rome 29 Villa Farnesina, Rome 85–88, 87 Virgin Mary Plate 1, 31, 97–98, 102, 135, 137–39, 140, 147, 148–49, 156–62, 157, 212, 253, 278 ‘Salve Regina’ 159–60 virtue 62 Volterrano see Franceschini, Baldessari Weimar, Germany 119, 263, 264 William of Puylaurens 110 William the Conqueror 230 wine 56, 61, 70 wisdom personification of 99 Witham Charterhouse, Somerset, UK 229 Woensam, Anton 208n71 Woodstock, Oxfordshire, UK 230 Xavier, Francis, Saint 213n84 Yale University 228 Zuccaro, Federico 27 Taddeo Copying Raphael’s Frescoes in the Loggia of the Villa Farnesina, Where He is Also Represented Asleep (Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum) 86–88, 87 Zuccaro, Taddeo 86–88, 87 Zucchi, Jacopo 153n70, 157

V I S U A L A N D M AT E R I A L C U LT U R E , 13 0 0 -17 0 0

By almost any measure Bernardino Barbatelli, called Poccetti, was a successful and sought after painter in late sixteenth-century Florence, but his works have remained largely overlooked. This study situates representative examples of his religious painting within their respective contexts to demonstrate how Poccetti and his patrons negotiated the increasingly fraught terrain of sacred painting in the period of religious reform. These case studies demonstrate how patrons ranging from the Dominicans to the Carthusians to prominent Florentine patricians relied on Poccetti’s skill in creating compelling narratives that reflected current concerns within the Catholic world. In the process, Poccetti invoked an august Florentine tradition of fresco painting, shaping it to better address the demands placed on religious imagery at the end of the Renaissance. Douglas N. Dow is Associate Professor of Art History at Kansas State University, where he teaches courses on Renaissance and Baroque art. Coeditor of Visualizing the Past in Italian Renaissance Art, he is also the author of Apostolic Iconography and Florentine Confraternities in the Age of Reform. His other publications have appeared in edited volumes and peer-reviewed journals and focus on questions of historiography, style, and artistic reform in late sixteenth-century Florence.

ISBN: 978-94-6372-952-9

AUP. nl 9 789463 729529