Padua and Venice: Transcultural Exchange in the Early Modern Age 9783110464832, 9783110465402, 9783110465181

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Padua and Venice

Contact Zones

Editors Lars Blunck, Bénédicte Savoy, Avinoam Shalem

Volume 4

Padua and Venice

Transcultural Exchange in the Early Modern Age Editors Brigit Blass-Simmen and Stefan Weppelmann

Gedruckt mit freundlicher Unterstützung der Geschwister Boehringer Ingelheim Stiftung für Geisteswissenschaften in Ingelheim am Rhein.

ISBN 978-3-11-046483-2 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-046540-2 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-046518-1 ISSN 2196-3746 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the internet at http://dnb.dnb.de © 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover illustration: Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini, The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, photomontage after the idea of Giovanni Villa, © Gemäldegalerie Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and Fondazione Querini Stampalia Venice. Copy editor: Kristie Kachler Typesetting: LVD GmbH, Berlin Printing and Binding: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Preface Two paintings with the same basic composition. Painted by two artists, Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini, in different places. Two ingenious works: the same and yet different. Images fashioned after images, so near and yet so different! Andrea Mantegna spent his apprenticeship and the early years of his career in Padua; Giovanni Bellini worked all his life in his native city, Venice. Both painted the motif The Presentation in the Temple. The compositions are congruent! Two great artists, related by marriage: Andrea Mantegna married Giovanni Bellini’s sister Nicolosia. If this “plot” happened today, Hollywood would make a film about great artists in times of great upheaval. A film about different perceptions in an age of change: the transformation from Roman antiquity to the early modern period or about early modern reflections on the image of Christian Byzantium. The dialogue of those masters exposes what constitutes the Renaissance, indeed what conditioned the evolution of the arts in the first place: the viewing of works of art extends beyond recognizing iconographic content and becomes a comparative and interpretive process; art is viewed as human production. The focus is no longer mimetic imitation of nature but rather the energy and radiance of an artistic invention and its afterlife. This exchange between the force fields of Bellini and Mantegna is a prologue in a nutshell for artistic assessment of the sort that found literary form in Vasari’s art history of styles. We read there what Giotto inherits from his teacher Cimabue, how Leonardo breaks free of Verrocchio, how Raphael measures himself against Michelangelo. And we can continue these stories into the present – for example, when Rauschenberg erases a work by de Kooning and thus ultimately pays homage to his idol. Tradition plays an important role in this collection of essays. Second, it is about art histories, and the accent on the plural is deliberate. The very fact that Mantegna’s and Bellini’s formulas are congruent ensured and ensures interpretations of that relationship. And depending on who is assigned the role of the creator and who the role of the imitator, the entire perspective on the oeuvres of the painters changes, and the assessment of topographical connections changes along with it: Did this composition result historico-genetically in Padua, or did Venice provide the innovative impulse? Topography plays the second important role in this book. Both aspects – tradition and topography – mean that no monographic judgment about one of them, Bellini or Mantegna, can be made without a significant assessment of the other’s works. The studies collected here thus contrast the monographic approach to viewing artworks with a polyvalent view. The aforementioned “plot” resulted from the central question: Are works of art also aesthetic formulations determined by their place of origin? The intersection of Padua and Venice at the beginning of the modern period was the subject of four sections at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America (RSA) at the Humboldt University Berlin in 2015. International experts inter-

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preted the initial conditions and the artistic exchange between these neighboring but very different cities. The present volume brings together the contributions to those RSA sections, Art in Venice and Padua: Distinctions and Cross-Currents I–IV. The methodological approach is therefore transcultural; cultural exchange between two cities in the Veneto, Padua and Venice, is studied: transculturality and its effect on aesthetic forms as painting, sculpture, architecture, numismatics, litera­ ture, and paleography. The cultural comparison in a microcosm raises new questions of the cultural transfer between these two unequal neighboring cities. A kind of reweighting becomes interesting here. The change in perspectives today reveals new and surprising reassessments. This collection of essays by various authors extends the issue in many aspects. We wish to thank all the speakers at the RSA conference and the contributors of this volume. We are grateful to Martin Gaier (Basel) and Giovanni F. Villa (Bergamo, Vicenza) for chairing two of the four RSA sections. We thank those responsible at the De Gruyter Verlag, Anke Beck and Katja Richter, for including our book in their publishing program. This publication is volume four of the forward-looking series Contact Zones, for which we offer great thanks to its editors: Lars Blunck, Bénédicte Savoy, and Avinoam Shalem. The editing and printing were professionally managed by Anja Weisenseel. We are grateful to Cäcilia Janzen and Julietta Scharf for editorial support and to Kristie Kachler for copyediting. We thank Anna Simmen for support with Photoshop. Andreas Beyer (Basel) contributed to the project with astute words. The Geschwister Boehringer Ingelheim Stiftung für Geisteswissenschaften provided a generous subsidy for printing costs. Brigit Blass-Simmen, Berlin

Stefan Weppelmann, Vienna

Contents Brigit Blass-Simmen / Stefan Weppelmann Preface   V Brigit Blass-Simmen Cultural Transfer in Microcosm Padua and Venice: An Introduction 

 1

Jane C. Long The Life of the Virgin at the Scrovegni Chapel, Padua and San Marco, Venice  Sarah Blake McHam The Eclectic Taste of the Gattamelata Family 

 29

Debra Pincus Calligraphy, Epigraphy and the Paduan-Venetian Culture of Letters in the Early Renaissance   41 Rosella Lauber Cultural Exchanges in Venice, for an Artistic “Archive of Memory” New Contributions on Gentile Bellini, Bessarion, and the Scuola Grande della Carità, through Michiel’s Notizia    61 Giovanni Carlo Federico Villa Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini The Hidden Dialogue   79 Carolyn C. Wilson Giovanni Bellini’s Lamentation Altarpiece for Santa Maria dei Servi in Venice Observations and Two Proposals   93 Beverly Louise Brown The Perplexing Problem of Portraits and Parapets The So-Called Brocardo Portrait Attributed to Giorgione 

 111

 19

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Amy N. Worthen Cassandræ Fidelis venetæ literis clarissimæ in Padua 

 123

Claudia Marra Venetian Affirmation and Urban Tradition in Sixteenth-Century Padua The Palazzo del Podestà and Its Façades on Piazza delle Erbe   137 Authors 

 151

Picture Credits  Index 

 157

Plates 

 161

 155

Brigit Blass-Simmen

Cultural Transfer in Microcosm Padua and Venice: An Introduction

Two Unequal Neighbors The artistic process is not independent of its place of origin. At the same time, aesthetic formulations help shape their surroundings. Padua and Venice are only twenty-three kilometers apart. The lagoon separates the two cities into distinct geopolitical areas. Even today, they look very different. Venice is built into the water on many tiny islands in a lagoon in the northern Adriatic Sea (fig. 1). Padua, by contrast, is located on the mainland, in a plain, the southern Po Plain, at the edge of the Euganean Hills (fig. 2). These topographical locations conditioned distinct histories and developments. Padua was founded by the Romans. By contrast, unlike almost all other important Italian cities, Venice cannot be traced back to a founding in antiquity. On the contrary, only the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the founding of Constantinople and the Eastern Roman Empire on the opposite side of the Mediterranean created the conditions for the topographically complicated collection of small islands to become a world power. Venice’s rise was based on sea travel and the trade routes via the Eastern Mediterranean. Trade with the East brought wealth to the city built on the lagoon. In Venice, people came together from diverse regions and cultures, so that Venice had national associations of Greeks, Turks, Dalmatians, Albanians, Armenians, and Germans as well as a large Jewish community (the origin of the word “ghetto”) to name only some. Whereas in Venice the economy and business-oriented thinking were significant, Padua, with its university founded in 1222, is one of Europe’s oldest university towns, a center for the reception of antiquity and humanist education.

Contact Zone The geographic proximity of the two cities naturally led to exchange. Because the two places almost form a contact zone in the physical, literal sense, to cite the title of this book series, exchange functions as if by osmosis through a kind of membrane in which the flow can take place in either direction. The exchange was particularly lively in the trecento and early quattrocento, because the paradigm shift at the beginning of the early modern period increased the receptivity to the new. Padua did not lose its identity with its independence when the Venetians took control of it in 1405. But the empire had to be administrated, and Venetians did occupy important positions in the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the government. Citizens of Padua did not become

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Fig. 1: Folco Quilici, Aerial view of Venice.

citizens of Venice, however, and they proudly kept up their own traditions. A local Paduan “patriotism” was probably supported by the need to distinguish themselves “in the hinterlands” from their more powerful “cosmopolitan” neighbor Venice. In contrast with the horizontal, spatial openness to the world of the Serenissima, Paduans emphasized the vertical, the much older and “nobler” historical past, and their descent from the Romans. The cultivation of antique roots but also its university and its humanists created a climate in Padua that was particularly receptive to antiquarianism and the revival or transformation of ancient concepts. The carriers or messengers of this exchange were, among others, artists and scholars, their works, and their patrons. Manuscripts and, beginning in the late quattrocento, the famous printing presses, especially the press of Aldus Manutius in Venice, promoted communication.1

1 “It has been estimated that some 4,500 separate editions had been printed in Venice before 1500, and that half or more of all books printed in Italy in the sixteenth century were produced in the city”; see Nicholas Davidson, ‘As much for Its Culture as for Its Arms.’ The Cultural Relations of Venice

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Fig. 2: Aerial view of Padua, ca. 1915.

One of the most important pioneers of humanism, Francesco Petrarch (1304– 1374), lived in Venice in 1362 and at the end of his life was at the court of the Carrara in Padua (1368–1374). Many humanists studied in Padua, such as the young Guarino da Verona (1374–1460), who  –  after an extended stay in Constantinople, where he studied Greek at the school of Manuel Chrysoloras – taught Greek in Venice from 1414 to 1419. From 1458 to 1459 Guarino translated Strabo’s Geographia from Greek into Latin, having been commissioned by Jacopo Antonio Marcello (1399–1463), a man who performed various political and military tasks for the Venetian state. The manuscript, whose illustrations have been attributed variously to Jacopo Bellini, Giovanni Bellini, and Andrea Mantegna, was presumably written in Padua.2 Vittorino da Feltre (1378–1446) studied in Padua and later taught there as well. In 1415 he learned Greek at Guarino’s school in Venice, which both scholars left for Padua when the plague

and Its Dependent Cities, 1400–1700, in: Alexander Cowan (ed.), Mediterranean Urban Culture, 1400– 1700, Exeter: University Press 2000, pp. 197–214, p. 205. 2 Gennaro Toscano, 31a‑d Strabone, Geographia, traduzione latina di Guarino da Verona, in: Davide Banzato et al. (eds.), Mantegna e Padova, 1445–1460 (exh. cat.) Musei Civici agli Eremitani, Padua (Milan: Skira, 2006), pp. 204–207.

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broke out. Later, in 1423, Vittorino founded his famous school in Mantua. From 1443 onward, Venetians were required to study in Padua.3 Venetian Patricians came to dominate the ecclesiastical hierarchy in Padua:4 For example, the Venetian humanist Pietro Donato (1380–1447) was Bishop of Padua from 1428 and as a bibliophile founded the scribe’s school of the Cathedral of Padua. Pietro Donato worked with Ciriaco d’Ancona, the early scholar of antiquity. Ciriaco is known to have visited Padua in 1434 and 1442–1443; Ciriaco is also known to have visited Venice in 1431. In his home in Padua, the Venetian cardinal and humanist Pietro Bembo dedicated himself to assembling a rich collection of antiquities, books, and paintings and to intense literary activity. At one point, his collection included Mantegna’s The Presentation of Christ in the Temple (see Villa, fig. 1). Amy N. Worthen’s essay explores the question of why the Venice-born scholar, philosopher, and orator Cassandra Fedele (1465–1558) was appreciated and studied in detail in Padua in particular. The question of a comparison of the two cities – or better, the question of their mutual cultural exchange – is a new one and has led to diverse results. It goes without saying, however, that an anthology of essays by various authors and its introduction cannot cover every aspect in detail. The essays are arranged chronologically according to the subject matter. The methodical approach to the question of the transcultural within a microsystem, a geographical (transregional) comparison of close things, which Padua and Venice represent owing to their proximity, is easier to control than a global comparison between two continents, since, for example, the viewer’s gaze does not automatically remain on just one side.5 Changing one’s viewpoint goes without saying. There was no cultural incline from one place to the other; rather, put simply, the exchange was between a place oriented toward Byzantium and the East and a place that drew its legitimacy from antiquity. Within the intercontinental and even intracontinental comparison, the asymmetrical doubling of the viewer’s perspective represents a difficulty for one of its objects. On the other hand, close comparisons lack the effect of surprise. Still, the question of geographical proximity in this study is compelling because the cultural transfer from Padua to Venice and vice versa can be observed over a long

3 On Venice’s influence on Padua, see the important article by Sarah Blake McHam, Padua, Treviso, and Bassano, in: Peter Humfrey (ed.), Venice and the Veneto, Artistic Centers of the Italian Renaissance, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 207–251, pp. 212–214, p. 213: “The Venetian government did move early to bring the university under its influence […] and legislated that Venetians must attend the University of Padua.” 4 Ibid., p. 213. 5 In connection with the overcoming of the national historical perspective in the social sciences as a consequence of globalization, methodological instruments have been discussed: Michael Werner, Bénédicte Zimmermann, Vergleich, Transfer, Verflechtung. Der Ansatz der Histoire croisée und die Herausforderung des Transnationalen, in: Geschichte und Gesellschaft 28 (2002) pp. 607–636.

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period and was not initiated by a special event – for example, the conquest of Padua by Venetian troops. A certain arbitrariness is therefore inherent in the beginning and end of the period to be studied. Thanks to the diversity and dynamics of the contacts among the humanists, scholars, artists and their works and concepts, patrons, and collectors of both cities, a complex plexus of cultural creativity emerges. It speaks for their “patriotic” power that each of the cities, especially Padua, retained its identity and characteristic look at least until the beginning of the cinquecento. Padua allied against Venice with Maximilian I and other of Europe’s most powerful leaders as part of the Lega di Cambrai in 1508/09, and Venice bloodily defeated the league in the Wars of Cambrai; afterward, the Serenissma tightened its grip on Padua to prevent any future rebellion. From that time forward, Padua was subject to Venetian dictate in cultural matters as well. In the end, the Venetian lion publicly dominated the main building of the University of Padua.6 Claudia Marra’s essay studies this now unequal relationship between Venice and Padua: the defensive façade of the Palazzo of the Venetian podestà on Padua’s main square, the Piazza d’Erbe, became an unmistakable demonstration of the power of the Venetian state.

Padua and Antiquity According to legend, Padua was founded by Antenor, the son of Aesyetes and Cleo­ mestra of Troy. According to the Roman tradition of Livy (Ab urbe condita I,1,1–3) and Virgil (Aeneid I, 242–247), he brought the Heneters (i. e. Veneters), who had been exiled from Paphlagonia, an ancient region on the Black Sea, to Italy at the mouth of the Po and founded there the city of Patavium (Padua). In contrast to the Venetians, who did not claim to be descended from Antenor and Troy, even though the name Venezia might suggest that, the Paduans created a foundation myth that made them direct successors of the Trojans (see Pincus, fig. 3, Tomb of Antenor in Padua). The Roman arena is an important Roman building in Padua that still stands today.

Padua: A Watershed of Artistic Powers Where Donatello’s ­Equestrian Statue Transformed the Well-Known Category of the Roman Monument In the middle of the quattrocento, Padua was a center of artistic innovation and very attractive to young artistic talents. Emerging artists from northern Italy, even from Venice, but also Dalmatians and Slavonians came to Padua to study and learn

6 McHam 2007 (as fn. 3), p. 228.

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pingere in recenti [painting in the current style]. Francesco Squarcione ran an important studio in Padua that functioned as a kind of factory for artists. The attraction of his workshop to young artists was probably based on his large collections of, among other things, plaster casts of ancient sculptures and model drawings that could be used as objects of study.7 Not only Andrea Mantegna but also Nicolò Pizolo, Marco Zoppo, and Giorgio Schiavone came out of Squarcione’s workshop.8 Padua, with its awareness of its roots in antiquity, became the foundation for getting innovative artists from Florence interested in the city. The young Fra Filippo Lippi is documented in Padua in 1434. His numerous works for Padua, many of which were lost and are known only through documents, suggest he had an extended stay there (decoration of the Podestà Chapel and an altarpiece for Il Santo).9 The Florentine sculptor Niccolò Baroncelli worked for Il Santo and for the Church of the Eremitani. At the same time, from around 1443 to 1453, the most famous sculptor of his time, Donatello of Florence, lived in Padua. He had two important commissions to fulfill there. For Il Santo, Donatello created the crucifix and the high altar in bronze. The equestrian statue that Donatello made for the Condottiere Erasmo da Narni, called Gattamelata (1370–1443), as Sarah Blake McHam demonstrates, is a landmark of the antiquarian and classicizing achievements of the Renaissance (see McHam, fig. 1). In her important contribution, Sarah Blake McHam observes that both works, the high altar and the equestrian statue, which was probably commissioned shortly after Gattamelata’s death in 1443 and was erected in front of Saint Anthony’s Basilica (Il Santo) in Padua in 1453, radically altered the cityscape of Padua and the look of its art: The allusions the Gattamelata monument provided to ancient Rome recalled Padua’s status in the empire and continued the symbolic language of venerable origins that distinguished Padua’s pedigree from her overlord Venice’s post-antique settlement.10 Donatello’s works differ from everything that had been produced in Venice until that point. Sarah Blake McHam’s contribution is concerned with the Gattamelata family and its commissions granted to artists of various origins (Venice, Florence, Padua). She concludes that for each task the artist who was best suited for it was chosen. The awarding of the commission for the equestrian statue went to a Florentine artist

7 Irene Favaretto, La raccolta di sculture antiche di Francesco Squarcione tra leggenda e realtà, in: Alberta De Nicolò Salmazo (ed.), Francesco Squarcione. Pictorum gymnasiarcha singularis, Atti delle giornate di studio 1998, Padua: Il Poligrafo, 1999, pp. 233–244. 8 Of the copious literature on the subject, see especially: Giovanni Agosti, Mantegna 2046, in: Giovanni Agosti, Dominque Thiébaut (eds.), Mantegna 1431–1506 (exh. cat.), Musée du Louvre, Paris 2008–2009, pp. 29–52, pp. 32–37; Laura Cavazzini, Aldo Galli, Padua, Carrefour artistique, in: Mantegna 1431–1506 (ibid.), pp. 55–101, esp. pp. 55–60. 9 Andrea de Marchi, Un Raggio di Luce su Filippo Lippi a Padova, in: Nuovi Studi 1.1 (1996), pp. 5–23, esp. p. 5. 10 McHam 2007 (as fn. 3), p. 216.

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Fig. 3: Andrea Verrocchio, Equestrian Statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni, bronze, Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice, 1479–1499.

who was well versed in antiquarian culture. Artists from Padua and from Venice were hired to decorate the tomb chapel in Il Santo. Bartolomeo Colleoni (1400–1475), a Bergamasque condottiere serving the Venetian Republic, bequeathed to Venice a large sum on his death that was to be used for the Turkish War and for his equestrian monument. As in Padua, Verrocchio’s equestrian statue stands on the piazza in front of a church, Santi Giovanni e Paolo, which was traditionally the location of the tombs of the doges. As in Padua, a Florentine artist was commissioned. How closely the Colleoni statue on its similar high pedestal is connected to Donatello’s Gattamelata remains to be studied (fig. 3).11

11 Probably in the same year as the Gattamelata statue, 1443, the bronze equestrian statue for Nicolò III d’Este (1383/84–1441) was commissioned in Ferrara. Verrocchio’s monument was commissioned in 1479, cast in 1488, and installed in 1492. See Norbert Huse, Wolfgang Wolters, Venedig. Die Kunst der Renaissance, Architektur, Skulptur, Malerei 1460–1590, Munich: C. H. Beck, 1986, p. 183. Leonardo’s equestrian statue for Francesco Sforza was another monumental bronze equestrian statue (1488– 1499, unrealized design) in the tradition of honoring publicly those in power, and rulers.

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Paleography One important subject in the enthusiasm for antiquity was epigraphy: the study of ancient inscriptions. The enthusiasm was not primarily about the content of the inscriptions but rather their form: the letters of Latin inscriptions, the majuscules of the Roman Empire, were copied and studied. They were admired for their balanced proportion of individual letters and the distance between the letters. Ideally, the letter could be inscribed in a square, with a play of chiaroscuro of emphatic up, down, and cross strokes, ending in clear and sharp serifs. Padua was, along with Florence and Rome, the center of writing all’antica, as Debra Pincus deduces in her central essay.12 Pincus rightly distinguishes between the majuscules written in the manuscripts and epigraphs carved in stone. She attributes a crucial role to the evolution of the Carolingian uncials in old manuscripts. Pietro Donato, the Bishop of Padua from 1428 to 1447, was a great connoisseur and lover of books. From the hunt of similar expeditions during the Council of Basel (1431–1436), searching for ancient manuscripts in the libraries of Swiss and southern German monasteries, he brought numerous ancients texts to Padua for the cathedral scriptorium. There they were copied by numerous scribes. The use of different, alternating colors for individual majuscules, which is also found in the Carolingian Eusebius (Oxford Merton College, ms Coxe 315), became a trademark of Paduan writing all’antica (Pincus, fig. 5). As Debra Pincus shows, Ciriaco d’Ancona played a role in the copying of Carolingian manuscripts in the cathedral scriptorium: certain manuscripts have marginal notes in his hand (Pincus, fig. 2). The tradition of writing all’antica in Padua was continued and sharpened by Felice Feliciano (Pincus, fig. 8) and Giovanni Marcanova; it continued to be related directly to ancient models. There is no longer any trace of a Carolingian or Gothic tradition. The famous expedition that the two scholars of antiquity Feliciano and Marcanova made with Andrea Mantegna to the southern end of Lake Garda concerned ancient inscriptions in stone. The combination of experiences with Carolingian manuscripts and the inscriptions on Roman tombstones led to a very specifically northern Italian form of writing all’antica. Donatello’s inscription on the pedestal of the Gattamelata statue reveals a stylistic turn in his use of his writing style that was very much related to his experiences in Padua (see fig. 1 in McHam and the essay by Pincus).13 They are perfectly balanced letters all’antica. In the same location, above the main entrance to Il Santo, there is an inscription signed and dated (1452) by Mantegna for the fresco of Saints Anthony

12 For an early article reflecting this view, see Millard Meiss, Toward a More Comprehensive Renaissance Palaeography, in: The Art Bulletin 42. 2 (June 1960), pp. 97–112, p. 107. 13 See ibid., pp. 101–102, who moved Donatello’s “palaeographic shift” to balanced quadratae ­litterae to Padua (inscription on the pedestal of the Gattamelata statue).

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and Bernardino, once again in perfect all’antica form.14 Mantegna’s sense for writing all’antica is evident in many of his works. How did Paduan paleography interact with the use of writing all’antica in Venice? Ciriaco (1392–1452) was not from Padua but from Ancona. He explored the entire Mediterranean region for antiquities, Roman and Greek inscriptions, which he documented in his six-volume compendium.15 From 1424 until his death in 1452, Ciriaco d’Ancona sketched ancient monuments, reliefs, tombstones, coins, and gems, recording their complete appearance including inscriptions and depictions. We know that Ciriaco sold particularly valuable and rare Greek coins to Venetian collectors, including the physician and humanist Pietro Tomasi.16 Collections of Greek and Latin inscriptions were less common in Venice in the first half of the fifteenth century.17 We do not know whether Jacopo Bellini ever met his contemporary Ciriaco or was familiar with his work. It is a fact that the volumes of his drawings have copies of ancient monuments, including inscriptions (fig. 4), similar to those of Ciriaco, Felice Feliciano, and Marcanova. In the case of Felice Feliciano, we find the constructive principles of letters all’antica (Pincus, fig. 8). The dating of Jacopo Bellini’s drawings is not definitive: Bernhard Degenhart and Annegrit Schmitt argue for an earlier dating of the drawings with ancient inscriptions: around 1440. By doing so they attribute a pioneering role to Jacopo Bellini in paleography and epigraphy.18 The accentuation of the letters with thick and thin strokes on the curves or with up and down strokes – not yet found in Ciriaco’s writing – suggests rather a later date and a connection to Paduan calligraphy.

14 The fresco was taken down in 1935 and is now held in the Museo Antoniano. See the discussion by Stefano Zamponi at the conference on signatures organized in Berlin by Alessandro della Latta, January 26–27, 2017. The question was even asked which inscription, Donatello’s or Mantegna’s, was made first and who could have made them. 15 See Bernhard Degenhart, Annegrit Schmitt, Corpus der italienischen Zeichnungen 1300–1450, part 2, Venedig. Jacopo Bellini, Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1990, vol. 5, pp. 193–195. Ciriaco’s compendium is thought to have been destroyed in 1514 when the library of Pesaro burned, but new scholarship has raised hope that the Compendium may have survived. There are excerpts and imitations, some of them autograph, such as ms. Hamilton 254 in the Staatsbibliothek Berlin and ms. Trotti 373 in the Ambrosiana, Milan. 16 Irene Favaretto, Antikensammlungen in Venedig. Ein historischer Streifzug vom 14. zum 19. Jahrhundert, in: Venezia! Kunst aus venezianischen Palästen, Sammlungsgeschichte Venedigs vom 13. bis 19. Jahrhundert (exh. cat.), Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn (Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz 2002), pp. 34–42, pp. 36–37. 17 Ibid., pp. 36–37. 18 Degenhart, Schmitt 1990 (as fn. 15), part 2, vols. 5–6, reverse the previous chronology of the drawings: they date the Paris volume to between 1430 and the mid-1450 s and the London volume to between 1455 and the mid-1460 s. On the dating, see ibid., part 2, vol. 5, p. 103, and of the drawings with inscriptions, ibid., p. 203; on Jacopo Bellini and antiquity, ibid. pp. 192–213.

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Fig. 4: Jacopo Bellini, Studies of Three Classical Monuments, sketchbook, pen, brush, and ink over metalpoint on parchment, Louvre, Paris, fol. 45.

The inscription of a polyptych from 1450 by Antonio and Bartolomeo Vivarini (Bologna, Pinacoteca) with numerous ligatures also suggests it was more likely developed from Carolingian writing (on the work of the Vivarini, see below). Giovanni Bellini’s early Saint Jerome in the Wilderness (Birmingham Barber Institute) has an inscription on the cartellino that, in addition to its unusual orthography IHOVANES BELINUS, has painted majuscules that lack geometrical balance.19 Later his signatures feature an oversized L; the lengthening of individual letters points to inspiration from Paduan and Carolingian uncials.20 The printed works of Aldus Manutius (b. 1449 in Bassiano and d. 1515 in Venice) are based on Antiqua script. Manutius published in Venice Greek and Latin works by ancient writers, thus making an essential contribution to their dissemination

19 Debra Pincus rejects the signature, accepted by other scholars, as not autograph: Debra Pincus, Bellini and Belliniana. The Issue of Signatures, Four Case Studies, in: Nicole Hegener (ed.), Künst­lerSignaturen von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, Petersberg: Imhof, 2013, pp. 232–243, p. 237. It seems to me that the orthography IHOVANES BELINUS was intended to suggest a certain “Greekness.” 20 Meiss 1960 (as fn. 12), fig. 1, 33. Caution is in order regarding Bellini’s signatures, as their authenticity has often been questioned as (later?) additions to increase the value of the painting; see also Beverly Louise Brown in the present volume (p. 111, esp. fn. 1).

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and to the evolution of humanism. It is reasonable to assume that the typography of Manutius’ publishing house was influenced by Paduan epigraphy and that, conversely, his printed books made it to Padua and were read there. Perhaps the most famous book from his press was the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili of Francesco Colonna, a fantastic romance with enigmatic emblems and images (Pincus, fig. 10 and Brown, fig. 5). In her essay on the so‑called Brocardo Portrait in Budapest, Beverly Louise Brown examines, among other things, the emblems and inscriptions on the parapetto in the foreground of the portrait. She relates it to Petrarch’s “lofty game” of love, to Pietro Bembo’s Asolani, and to the enigmas and emblems of the Hypnerotomachia. Petrarch, Bembo, and Colonna were authors published by Aldus Manutius. We do not know who is the author of the painting or its sitter for certain. It can, however, serve as an example of the influence held by writers and thinkers in and beyond Venice thanks to Manutius’ press as their texts were disseminated by it and were then translated into paintings.21

Ancient Coins Ancient coins were easy for scholars of antiquity to get because so many of them had survived. There was a true “numismania”: people collected ancient coins and imagined the acts and achievements of the Roman emperors based on their profile portraits. Once again, Padua showed an early interest in this ancient form and its transformation in the spirit of the art of the early modern period. Petrarch was already advising Charles IV, when he came to Italy in 1355 to be crowned emperor, to have himself portrayed on a coin as the ancient emperors had done. Petrarch illustrated his advice with ancient coins that he included with his letter as gifts.22 As Sylvia Volz

21 On this, see also Guido Beltramini, Davide Gasparotto (eds.) Aldo Manuzio il Rinascimento di Venezia (exh. cat.), Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice (Venice: Marsilio, 2016). 22 Francesco Petrarch, Letters on Familiar Matters (Rerum Familiarium Libri), trans. Aldo S. Bernardo, vol. 3 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1985), p. 79; Francesco Petrarch, Aufrufe zur Errettung Italiens und des Erdkreises. Ausgewählte Briefe Lateinisch-Deutsch, ed. and trans. Berthe ­Widmer, Basel: Schwabe, 2001, pp. 427–443; Karl-Heinz Stierle, Die Illegitimität der translatio. Petrarca und das “dunkle” Mittelalter, in: Petrarca-Studien, Schriften der Philosophisch-historischen Klasse der Heidel­berger Akademie der Wissenschaften 48 (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2012), pp. 268– 288; Annegrit Schmitt, Zur Wiederbelebung der Antike im Trecento. Petrarcas Rom-Idee in ihrer Wirkung auf die Paduaner Malerei. Die methodische Einbeziehung des römischen Münzbildnisses in die Ikonographie “Berühmter Männer,” in: Mitteilungen des kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 18.2 (1974), pp. 167–218. Petrarch was, however, not alone in his admiration for ancient coins. We know that Venice had, already in the fourteenth century, developed into the most important market for the trade of Greek and Roman antiquities. See Michele Asolati, Francesco Petrarca und seine numismatische Sammlung, in: Venezia! 2002 (as fn. 16), pp. 72–74, and Michele Asolati, Die Geschichte der venezianischen Münzsammlungen, in: ibid., pp. 220–221.

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Fig. 5: Francesco I da Carrara, bronze minting, 38 mm ∅, Padua 1390, Münz­ kabinett der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, object number 18228072.

Fig. 6: Lorenzo Sesto, Galba, aftercast bronze, 24 mm ∅, Venice 1393, Münz­ kabinett der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, object number 18232223.

demonstrated in her talk “Padua, Cradle of the Renaissance Medal. The 1390 Portrait Medals of Francesco II da Carrara Novello,” in 1390 Francesco II da Carrara Novello ordered coin-like pieces minted for himself and his father in order to place them, following Petrarch, in a direct succession of the Roman emperors, on the one hand, and the Carrara, on the other (fig. 5).23 As Volz shows, three years later, the Carrara medals had a kind of Venetian successor in the so‑called Sesto medals (fig. 6, 1393 and 1417). Carrara and Sesto medals are small sculptural works similar to coins in form but not used as currency. Whereas the Paduan medals served to convey the self-confidence of the court of the Carrara after they had successfully regained their territories, the medals struck by the Venetian brothers Lorenzo and Marco Sesto, which do not depict a living ruler, have no political connotation but are simply showpieces of the artistic technique of minting. Nearly half a century would pass before Pisanello, probably in Ferrara, founded the tradition of the true cast portrait medal.

Venice and Byzantium At the time of Charlemagne, Venice belonged to Byzantium.24 Over time, Venice grew increasingly autonomous; as a nation of seafarers, however, the city-republic

23 Unfortunately, Sylvia Volz’s lecture could not be published in the present volume. Her dissertation is forthcoming as Sylvia Dominique Volz, Spiegel-Bild der Macht. Die Portraitmedaillen Francescos II. da Carrara Novello von 1390, Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Berlin (wvb), Berlin 2017. 24 Ralph-Johannes Lilie, Byzanz. Das zweite Rom, Berlin: Siedler, 2003, map on p. 166.

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remained Byzantium’s most important partner in the West. Byzantine culture shaped the cityscape of Venice, the most important example being the Basilica di San Marco, which was built from 1063 to 1094 and modelled on the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople with its cruciform ground plan. With its domes and mosaics, San Marco is clearly reminiscent of Byzantine architectural monuments. For Venice’s identity as a (city‑)state, recalling Byzantium played a central role again and again, depending on one’s political constellation.25 Byzantium, the Eastern Roman Empire, was the unbroken continuation and transformation of antiquity. In Venice, access to antiquity was via the detour of Eastern Rome. Ancient spolia, columns, and reliefs were imported from Constantinople along with Byzantine culture. In 1204, following the plundering of Constantinople, in addition to many other spoils the monumental bronze horse of San Marco was transported to Venice and placed over its portal. Probably no distinction was made between ancient objects and Byzantine artifacts. The transformation of antiquity in Venice was “Byzantinized.” One reason for constructing its central state shrine in the Byzantine style may have been the design to achieve the splendor of the Western Roman and later Eastern Roman Empire in Venice.26 In its choice of a “national” saint, however, Venice demonstrated its autonomy vis‑à-vis Constantinople. The Greek saint San Todaro (Saint Theodore) was soon replaced by the much more important saint, the Evangelist Mark, whose bones were acquired in Egypt in 828. By enthroning such an important saint, Venice was placing itself in the ranks of Rome and Constantinople. By choosing its “own” saint, the city of Venice shored up its claim to a leading role in the northern Adriatic.27 The state ceremony of the sposalisio del mare – the doge’s marriage with the sea – established around the turn of the millennium symbolized publicly this claim to rule. 28 The establishment of a quasi alterum Byzantium (almost another Byzantium) in the West was pursued in the fifteenth century by Basilios Bessarion.29 The Greek scholar (b. 1402 in Trebizond and d. 1472 in Ravenna) sought to preserve the classical legacy after the fall of Constantinople. As the metropolitan of Nicaea, Bessarion came to the Council of Ferrara-Florence with the Greek delegation in 1438–1439 and was the driving

25 Otto Demus, The Church of San Marco in Venice. History, Architecture, Sculpture, Dumbarton Oaks Studies VI, Washington, DC: Harvard Univ., 1960; Debra Pincus, Venice and the Two Romes. Byzantium and Rome as a Double Heritage in Venetian Cultural Politics, in: Artibus et Historiae 13.26 (1992), pp. 101–114, p. 102. 26 David Abulafia, The Great Sea. A Human History of the Mediterranean, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. 27 Peter Feldbauer, Gottfried Liedl, John Morrissey, Venedig, 800–1600. Die Serenissima als Weltmacht, Vienna: Mandelbaum Verlag, 2010, p. 17. 28 Ibid., p. 18. 29 Letter from Cardinal Bessarion to Doge Cristoforo Moro, 1468, quoted in Deno John Geanakoplos, Byzantine East and Latin West. Two Worlds of Christendom in Middle Ages and Renaissance, Studies in Ecclesiastical and Cultural History, Oxford: Blackwell 1966, p. 116.

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force behind the union of the Greek Orthodox and the Roman Church. For his services to the Roman Church, Pope Eugene IV, from the Condulmer family of Venice, gave him the title of a Roman cardinal. After the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans under Mehmed II in 1453, Bessarion unsuccessfully promoted a crusade against the Turks. In the end, he left his library, with hundreds of manuscripts by Classical Greek authors, not to Papal Rome but to the Venetian state. He donated his Stauroteca, an elaborately decorated reliquary with relics of the True Cross, to the Scuola della Carità in Venice (see Lauber, plate IX and X). The essay by Rosella Lauber addresses Bessarion and the description of his stauroteca in the Scuola della Carità by Marcantonio Michiel (1484–1552). A close reading of the sources, some of which Lauber recently discovered, enables her to re‑date the painting by Gentile Bellini (National Gallery London) and the donation itself. This is an important contribution to the Byzantinità of Venice. It is interesting that nearly two centuries later, from 1232 to 1310, Il Santo was built in Padua, the Basilica of Saint Anthony with a system of eight semispherical domes that allude clearly to the dome cornice of the Basilica di San Marco in Venice. Why? Il Santo, with its relics of Saint Anthony, contributed to the prosperity of the city thanks to the streams of pilgrims it attracted. Did the city want to be measured against Venice? In any case, many important works of art were commissioned for Il Santo (see the article by Sarah Blake McHam). In her article on the depictions in the Arena Chapel, Jane Long shows that Giotto alluded to the Byzantine altar ciborium of San Marco in Venice. She interprets this as a reflection of the desire of its donor, Enrico Scrovegni, to position himself “internationally.” The same could be true of the allusion of the dome cornice of Sant’Antonio to that of San Marco (figs. 1 and 2). Since the publication of Rona Goffen’s study, we know that Giovanni Bellini’s early Madonnas adopt elements of the icons of the Eastern Church. They are halflength, frontal devotional images, and they are occasionally found already in the oeuvre of Giovanni’s father, Jacopo Bellini.30 The pictorial type here of a dramatic close‑up, a connection of icon and narrative events, can already be traced back to Jacopo Bellini.31 In the drawing by Jacopo Bellini on the first sheet of the Paris sketchbook, we already find a narrative close‑up. Degenhart and Schmitt are of the opinion that the sheet has not been arbitrarily placed at the beginning of the sketchbook. They declare it to be a quasi-frontispiece to all his inventions and have dated it around 1455. They see it as representing Jacopo Bellini as the ingenious innovator in Venetian art (fig. 4). For Giovanni Bellini and later generations, the narrative image that depicts only the upper half of the figures becomes a popular pictorial type.

30 Rona Goffen, Icon and Vision. Giovanni Bellini’s Half-Length Madonnas, in: Art Bulletin 57 (1975), pp. 487–518, p. 518: “Bellini created the Western equivalent of the icons of the East. This is what makes them so effective.” 31 See Sixten Ringbom, Icon to Narrative. The Rise of the Dramatic Close‑up in Fifteenth-Century Devotional Painting, Åbo: Åbo Akademi, 1965. p. 76 fn. 16, p. 109.

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The Interaction: Paduan Artists in Venice, Venetian Artists in Padua Artists and their works function like osmotic exchange between places. Andrea Riccio is one of the artists in Padua who almost unbrokenly continued the legacy of antiquity. He combined classicizing depictions with religious themes. The master of the bronze sculpture, he created works not just for Padua and Il Santo but also received a commission in Venice: for the high altar of the True Cross for Santa Maria dei Servi in Venice (circa 1500). Eveline Baseggio Omiccioli intended to prove the key role that the artist, his patron Girolamo Donato, and the Servite friars played in the circulation of antiquarian interests between Padua and Venice. Unfortunately, her contribution, “Andrea Riccio, Girolamo Donato, and the Antiquarian Culture between Venice and Padua,” could not be included in the present volume as it is currently being published as part of her dissertation. Carolyn Wilson also discusses Santa Maria dei Servi. She relates Giovanni Bellini’s last great altarpiece to the relics held in the church – the titulus reliquary of the True Cross and the reliquary of Saint Mary of Cleophas – and proposes that Bellini’s large-format altarpiece was originally created not for a side altar but for the main altar of the Servite church, which was destroyed in 1812. The Paduan painter and workshop owner Squarcione also had a home in Venice, as Bernardino Scardeone wrote in 1560.32 In 1466, an inventory of the Scuola di San Marco in Venice mentions two canvases of the Passion by “maistro Squarzon.”33 Conversely, as early as 1430 a Saint Michael by Jacopo Bellini in a Paduan church was valued at thirty-five ducats.34 Giovanni Fontana, a physician and natural scientist active in Padua, dedicated to Jacopo Bellini his treatise “De arte pictorial,” which addressed the laws of optics and the importance of color for pictorial perspective (prior to 1440).35 In 1459 or 1460, Jacopo Bellini, with his sons Gentile and Giovanni, signed the Gattamelata Altarpiece for the tomb chapel of Erasmo da Narni in Il Santo of Padua (see the essay by Sarah Blake McHam). The Vivarini workshop of Murano, Antonio Vivarini, and Giovanni d’Alemagna worked with Andrea Mantegna and Nicolò Pizolo on the decorations of the Church of the Eremitani in Padua. In 1453, Mantegna married Jacopo Bellini’s daughter Nicolosia, resulting in a familial connection between the two most important artists of Padua and Venice. Giovanni

32 De antiquitate Patavii et claris civibus patavinis, Basel, 1560, see: Marco Collareta, La “vita” di Francesco Squarcione di Bernardino Scardeone, in: De Nicolò Salmazo (ed.) 1999 (as fn. 7), pp. 29–36, pp. 30–31. 33 Andrea Mantegna, who had been adopted by Squarcione, also used the name Squarcione. Even after his legal struggle with and separation from Squarcione in 1447, he was still called Andrea Squarzione in a Medici inventory from 1492, for example. 34 Degenhart, Schmitt 1990 (as fn. 15), part 2, vol. 5, p. 11. 35 Ibid., p. 12.

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Bellini and Andrea Mantegna became brothers‑in-law. The essay by Giovanni Carlo Federico Villa addresses this theme. He concludes that Mantegna was an “inventor” of new compositions, whereas Giovanni Bellini was experimenting with painting techniques, lighting effects, underdrawing, and brushwork. Though simplistic, this presents Padua as a center of humanism, where the “new” was seen in the historiae, in new (mythological) iconographies. Venice is affirmed as a place of reflections of light and color in the slightly moving waters of the lagoon, where new painting techniques with shimmering effects of the brushstrokes reinterpret rather traditional subjects (the many depictions of the Madonna).36 The cultural exchange between Padua and Venice can be seen exemplarily by the depiction of The Presentation in the Temple by Andrea Mantegna (Gemäldegalerie Berlin) (Villa, fig. 1) and the depiction of the same theme by Giovanni Bellini (Querini Stampalia, Venice) (Villa, fig. 2). Scholars agree that Mantegna created his painting on fine canvas shortly after his marriage to Nicolosia Bellini in Padua around 1454/55.37 Villa dates Bellini’s painted panel to the 1470 s (see Villa, p. 86). It has not previously been recognized that Bellini’s depiction was based on a cartoon taken from Mantegna’s painting (fig. 7).38 The parts of both compositions coincide exactly (plate I)! Using the same cartoons in the same workshop was a common practice but not in different botteghe. The exhibition Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini being planned for the Querini Stampalia in Venice, London and Berlin will show how astonishing this fact

36 On this, see also the well-known, vexed exchange between Giovanni Bellini and Marchesa of Mantua, Isabella d’Este about a piece for her studiolo (study) in the Castello di San Giorgio in Mantua. Isabella, the great connoisseur and patron of the “new” art, wanted a storia or historia (a narrative piece) – very likely a mythological allegory, a request Giovanni did not fulfill. See Brigit Blass-Simmen, “Qualche lontani.” Distance and Transcendence in the Art of Giovanni Bellini, in: Carolyn C. Wilson (ed.), Examining Giovanni Bellini. An Art ‘More Human and More Divine,’ Turnhout: Brepols, 2015, pp. 77–91. Paul Hills, Venetian Colour. Marble, Mosaics, Paintings and Glass 1250–1550, New Haven, London: Yale University Press 1999, pp. 9–12. 37 Catarina Schmidt Arcangeli, Giovanni Bellini e la Pittura Veneta a Berlino. Le Collezioni di James Simon e Edward Solly alla Gemäldegalerie, Verona: Scripta Edizioni 2015, p. 319. 38 This was first presented by me in a roundtable discussion with Jill Dunkerton, National Gallery London, Babette Hartwieg, Volker Schaible State Academy of Art and Design Stuttgart, Regula Schorta, Abegg Foundation Riggisberg CH, Giovanni Villa and Stefan Weppelmann at the restoration workshop of the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin in 2014. Thanks to Babette Hartwieg, head of the conservation and restoration department at Gemäldegalerie Berlin, who took up the idea; as a restorer she was able to confirm the evidence based solely on enlarged photographs of the originals. She presented her findings as part of the Padua and Venice panel at the RSA conference in 2015 and will publish them on the occasion of the exhibition on this theme at the Querini Stampalia. Rosella Bagarotto, et al., La tecnica pittorica di Giovanni Bellini, in: R. Goffen, G. Nepi Scirè (eds.), Il colore ritrovato. Bellini a Venice (exh. cat.), Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice (Milan: Electa, 2000), pp. 184–202, p. 188–189 have already suggested the use of a cartoon by or after Mantegna in Bellini’s Presentation looking at the incision marks in lead pencil shown by X‑ray analysis as white lines defining the infant Christ.

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Fig. 7: Tracing of the Mantegna superimposing the Bellini Presentation (with the help of Photoshop, enlarged to the scale of the image).

is: the same composition twice, altered only by the painted framing, colors, and the patterns of the garments. Mantegna’s composition, framed in painted marble, evokes what may be its most important Paduan predecessor: Giotto’s fresco in the Arena Chapel. Giotto’s work, in its depiction of vice and virtue, features similar trompe l’oeil effects through the images’ illusionistic stone frames. Considering that the background of Mantegna’s Presentazione was probably originally azurite blue,39 similar to

39 Azurite pigments on the painting are visible to the naked eye. In verbal statements made on 23 March 2017, Babette Hartwieg, head of the conservation and restoration department at Gemäldegalerie Berlin, and Jill Dunkerton, conservator at the National Gallery in London, agree that a chemically changed binder of the tempera, egg, caused the blackening. C. Schmidt Arcangeli (as fn. 37), p. 323 fn. 4 mentions an (additional?) opaque-browned layer of paint. See also the fundamental and comprehensive 1992 study on Mantegna’s distemper paintings by Andrea Rothe, Mantegna’s Paintings in Distemper, in: Jane Martineau (ed.), Andrea Mantegna (exh. cat.), Royal Academy of Arts, London and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Milan: Electa and New York: Harry N. Abrams 1992), pp. 80–88, p. 82: “The background seems to be repainted and the haloes are not original.” Mantegna’s works of the same early period as the Presentation, the Lunette with the Saints Anthony and Bernardino originally painted above the main portal of the Santo in Padua, commissioned 1448, the Saint Mark

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a painted sky and a visionary “fenestra coeli” (Window of Heaven),40 the homage to Giotto becomes even more apparent (plate II). Bellini altered the framing within the picture and also added two figures. Mantegna’s window becomes a composition of figura and campo behind a parapetto. These are two different approaches to creating space on a two-dimensional surface. The exhibition in Venice will present the two paintings together for the first time in five hundred years.41

at the Städel Museum Frankfurt, and the Saint Eufemia, dated 1454, at the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, all show painted architectural moldings revealing similarly blue backgrounds. For the altered background of the Saint Mark, see Keith Christiansen, St. Mark, in: Martineau (ed.) 1992 (as above), pp. 119–121 and Jochen Sander, Italienische Gemälde im Städel 1300–1550. Oberitalien, die Marken und Rom, Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 2004, pp. 29–46. 40 See also C. Schmidt Arcangeli (as. fn. 37). 41 Brigit Blass-Simmen, Neville Rowley, Giovanni Villa, Andrea Mantegna e Giovanni Bellini (exh. cat.), Querini Stampalia, Venice, forthcoming.

Jane C. Long

The Life of the Virgin at the Scrovegni Chapel, Padua and San Marco, Venice It is a commonplace of introductions to the work of Giotto to start with the assertion that the artist rejected conventional approaches to representation and inaugurated a new way of portraying sacred narrative; indeed, Vasari claims, Greek artisans […] depicted monstrous figures with only crude outlines. The Greeks taught the Italians this rough and clumsy style, and the men of that time, not having seen anything good or better-made, marveled at them, taking them for great works of art, even though they were dreadful.

Then Giotto came along: “Although he was born among incompetent artists, he, alone, by the gift of God resurrected all that we can call good in art.”1 Despite the opinion of Renaissance writers, Giotto scholars have long been familiar with the artist’s debt to Byzantine traditions; his close reliance on Eastern iconography and compositional formulas is impossible to deny.2 This essay explores whether that debt should be seen solely as the artist’s own, or if the wishes of the patron might have played a role in Giotto’s use of Byzantine imagery in the paintings at the Scrovegni Chapel. In the contemporary world, the name of Enrico Scrovegni is indelibly associated with one of the greatest artistic commissions in the history of European art. Not only the persistence of his fama but also the comprehensive scope of his recognition were surely goals for Enrico’s construction and outfitting of a sophisticated chapel attached to his family home in Padua in the first years of the fourteenth century. Scholars have clearly demonstrated ways in which the Scrovegni Chapel frescoes reflected the patron’s ambitions. Recent studies by Chiara Frugoni, Anne Derbes and Mark Sandona, Laura Jacobus, and Viktor Schwarz3 have underlined the social, civic, reli-

1 Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori, ed. Gaetano Milanesi, Florence: G. C. Sansoni, 1906, vol. 1, pp. 241–242, 369. One need not wait for Vasari to see Giotto freeing Italian art from debased Byzantine traditions. Ghiberti (I Commentarii, 2.3, in: Julius von Schlosser, Lorenzo Ghibertis Denkwürdigkeiten, Berlin: Im Verlag von Julius Bard, 1912, pp. 35–36) and Leonardo (Jean Paul Richter, The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci, London: Phaidon, 1970, vol. 1, 331–332, no. 660) make similar comments. 2 For an early acknowledgement of Giotto’s dependence on Byzantine models, see John Ruskin, ­Giotto and His Works in Padua, London: George Allen, Sunnyside, Orpington, 1900 (originally published in 1853–1860), p. 20. 3 Chiara Frugoni, L’affare migliore di Enrico. Giotto e la cappella Scrovegni, Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 2008; Anne Derbes and Mark Sandona, The Usurer’s Heart. Giotto, Enrico Scrovegni, and the Arena Chapel in Padua, University Park: The Pennsylvania University Press, 2008; Laura Jacobus, Giotto and the Arena Chapel. Art, Architecture and Experience, Turnhout: Harvey Miller, 2008; Michael Viktor Schwarz, Giottus Pictor. Band 2: Giottos Werke, Vienna: Böhlau Verlag.

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gious, and economic advantages the commission made available to Enrico in Padua, and have noted the extralocal effect this ambitious endeavor must have exerted. This essay builds on the idea that Enrico aimed at more than success in his immediate community in constructing and decorating his chapel. By comparing Giotto’s frescoes representing the story of the Virgin’s parents with the same narratives at San Marco in Venice, it proposes that the patron intended the paintings to extend his reputation to an audience beyond the boundaries of Padua. When work began on the Arena Chapel in 1301, Padua was an independent commune with proud roots in the Roman Empire, an agriculturally rich and varied contado, an internationally respected university, and an expanding population.4 Enrico Scrovegni was not a member of the old landed aristocracy, but came from a new class of men, whose wealth and influence rose from financial activities in the second half of the thirteenth century. He adopted customary behavior for the Paduan nobility – purchasing large tracts of land and controlling benefices in the Padovano as well as in the city, marrying into the commune’s traditional aristocracy, using titles and heraldry, and distributing largesse and patronage – and there is evidence of his pride in being a powerful citizen of his home town.5 However, he also made considerable efforts to establish a reputation for himself in the larger and more global community of neighboring Venice. Venice’s maritime economy was more flexible and varied than that of Padua, and it offered considerable opportunities for investment; surviving Venetian documents show that Enrico was exceptional among the Paduan elite for his significant engagement in international trade. But he also pursued ties to the Republic that went beyond the financial. He owned houses in the city and was awarded citizenship in Venice in 1301; in the same year, he was knighted and made an honorary member of the Great Council.6 When Enrico was exiled from Padua in 1318, he settled in Venice, and although he repeatedly attempted to return to his home town, he pursued an active business life within the larger city. Marriage alliances linked at least three of his children to prominent Venetian families, and the unofficial dedication of his chapel to the Annunciation could be tied to one of the most important festivals of the Venetian, as well as the Paduan, civic calendar. Enrico’s intent to evoke ties to the Republic is suggested by his borrowing “cloths” (the exact nature of which is disputed in the

4 John Kenneth Hyde, Padua in the Age of Dante, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1966; Benjamin G. Kohl, Padua under the Carrara, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. 5 Frugoni 2008 (as fn. 3), pp. 13–28; Hyde 1966 (as fn. 4), pp. 100–105; Jacobus 2008 (as fn. 3), pp. 3–19; Benjamin G. Kohl, Giotto and his Lay Patrons, in: Anne Derbes, Mark Sandona (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Giotto, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 176–196. 6 In addition to the sources cited in fn. 3, see Benjamin G. Kohl, The Scrovegni in Carrara Padua and Enrico’s Will, in: Andrew Ladis (ed.), Giotto and the World of Early Italian Art, Routledge: New York, 1998, vol. 2, pp. 343–348.

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scholarly literature) from San Marco for the consecration ceremony of his chapel in March of 1305.7 Scrovegni’s conscious cultivation of links to Venice in the period around the building of his family chapel allows us to consider whether he intended for the fresco decoration he commissioned from Giotto to reflect relations with the Republic as well. The Scrovegni Chapel depicts the most common narrative found in Christian art: spiritually significant moments from the lives of the Virgin Mary and Jesus. But the familiar story opens with a rarer account of events involving the Virgin’s parents. Known to the faithful primarily from the feast of Mary’s nativity, the narrative describes how Joachim and Anna came to conceive the girl who would bear the son of God. Both Greek and Latin texts of the story existed from an early period, and several adaptations of the Latin version were available in the vernacular by 1300.8 From the twelfth century an increasing number of representations had appeared in both the Eastern and Western Mediterranean, but it is evident that Giotto followed a visual model from Byzantium, for the narrative was more common there than in the Western European tradition, and details of many of the Scrovegni scenes derive directly from Eastern conventions.9 In the early trecento San Marco in Venice contained two Byzantine renderings of Joachim and Anna’s story. One was found on a column supporting the ciborium over the main altar, which, Thomas Weigel’s recent scholarship suggests, was erected around 1230; the column itself was probably sixth-century Byzantine work that was among the many objects brought into Venice after 1204.10 The other was a mosaic cycle installed in the south transept of the church in the mid-twelfth century; regrettably that cycle was replaced in the seventeenth century, although the tituli survive and indicate the scenes represented. The Joachim and Anna cycle was part of a larger decorative campaign in the transept of San Marco, many of whose mosaics survive. Scholars suggest that the extant mosaics derived closely from Constantinopolitan

7 Jacobus 2008 (as fn. 3), pp. 32–33, document on p. 359; Frugoni 2008 (as fn. 3), pp. 48–53. 8 The earliest text is the Greek Protevangelium of James (late second century), which was an essential source for the sixth-to eighth-century Latin text known as the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. These two sources were fundamental for a variety of later compilations, such as De Nativitate Mariae (eleventh century), Vincent of Beauvais’ Speculum historiale (mid-thirteenth century) and Jacobus de Vora­ gine’s Golden Legend (ca. 1260). There is considerable scholarly discussion of these texts. See recently: Rita Beyers, The Transmission of Marian Apocrypha in the Latin Middle Ages, Apocrypha 23 (2012), pp. 117–140. 9 For broad-ranging comparisons of Byzantine and Western European versions of the narrative, see Jacqueline Lafontaine-Dosogne, Iconographie de l’enfance de la Vierge dans l’empire byzantin et en occident, 2 vols. Brussels: Palais des Académies, 1965 and Diega Giunta, Appunti sulla iconografia delle storie della Vergine nella cappella degli Scrovegni, in: Rivista dell’istituto nazionale d’archeologia e storia dell’arte 21–22 (1974–1975), pp. 79–139. 10 Thomas Weigel, Die Reliefsäulen des Hauptaltarciborius von San Marco in Venedig, Munster: Rhema, 1997.

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Fig. 1: Annunciation to Joachim; Annunciation to Anna, Ciborium Column, San Marco, Venice, Byzantine, sixth century.

models. Very likely, the Joachim and Anna narratives also faithfully paralleled Byzantine versions.11 Hence the iconography of the twelfth-century mosaics can be inferred from extant middle-Byzantine cycles. Although they differed considerably in detail, the two San Marco cycles shared a concentration on three essential elements in the narrative: the suffering of the Virgin’s parents because of an accusation of godless infertility; Joachim and Anna’s continued devotion to God despite this suffering; and God’s rewarding of their faith through the gift of a child. Giotto, too, emphasizes these elements: Joachim’s humiliation and despondency are at the heart of the first two scenes; the couple’s faith and piety define the middle two episodes; and God’s blessing and reward are indicated in the last four paintings (plates III and IV). One of the noteworthy characteristics of the Paduan narrative is the large number of scenes – six in total – dedicated to it; nearly half the frescoes in the cycle of the life of the Virgin represent events that precede her birth. Typically, Joachim and Anna’s story is more abbreviated in both Byzantine and Western versions of Mary’s life.12 But the San Marco cycles are also unusually extensive, with the ciborium column comprising eleven scenes and the mosaics seven. The column narrative places special emphasis on Joachim and Anna’s contacts with angels, stressing the close relationship Mary’s parents have to God (fig. 1). Similarly, half of Giotto’s frescoes show the couple receiving angelic messages. More­ over, both the column and the frescoes include a double representation of the angel appearing to Joachim (in the Sacrifice of Joachim and the Dream of Joachim). Although the Latin text of the narrative includes two appearances to Joachim, the Greek text

11 Otto Demus, The Mosaics of San Marco in Venice, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984, vol. 1, pp. 127–147. 12 Anne Derbes and Mark Sandona 2008 (as fn. 3), p. 126, note that the rare inclusion of these episodes “invites questions.” Byzantine cycles of the infancy of the Virgin commonly include a few scenes from the Joachim and Anna stories as a prelude to the birth and presentation of the Virgin (Demus, vol. 1, pp. 139–140).

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Fig. 2: Joachim in the Wilder­ ness, Church of the Holy Savior in Chora, Istanbul, ca. 1315.

describes only one; in the visual arts there is normally only a single appearance. The uncommon representation of two apparitions suggests that Giotto’s frescoes share with the San Marco column a particular concern to demonstrate the exceptional character of the Virgin’s father. According to the titulars on the San Marco mosaics, that cycle emphasized Joachim’s dejection by illustrating both his withdrawal into the wilderness and his sadness at his childless condition. Giotto, too, focuses viewers’ attention on Joachim’s state of mind. His sorrowful anger at the Expulsion, his humiliated glumness as he encounters the shepherds in the wilderness, and his humbleness about God’s favor are strongly marked by pose, facial expression, and contrast with other characters. Such attention to emotional conditions is typical in Palaeologan mural decorations and miniatures, and any viewer accustomed to those Byzantine images would find the Scrovegni frescoes familiar. Figural arrangements in Giotto’s frescoes also echo Byzantine compositions. In Joachim’s Retreat into the Wilderness a pair of shepherds exchanges a puzzled glance in the face of the old man’s despondency. A similar interchange can be found in Byzantine depictions of the event, so the San Marco mosaic could have been ­Giotto’s model for these figures (fig. 2). The joy of Joachim and Anna’s reunion at the Scrovegni Chapel is expressed with a loving embrace between the couple that shows their heads so close to each other that their haloes almost melt together; the ciborium column at San Marco illustrates a comparable merging of haloes. Joachim’s arms enclose his wife’s shoulders, while Anna lays her right hand tenderly across the back of his neck. The couple offer each other the same loving caresses in many Byzantine representations (fig. 3).

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Fig. 3: Meeting at the Golden Gate, Church of the Theotokos Peribleptos, Ohrid, Macedonia, ca. 1295.

The close reliance of Giotto’s frescoes on Byzantine models would have offered Enrico Scrovegni an additional method to bolster his standing in Venice. As the chief conduit for Byzantine artifacts, artists, and forms in northern Italy, the Republic shaped an identity closely tied to the visual language of the Eastern Empire. Viewers who knew the scenes of Joachim and Anna at San Marco would very likely recognize the family resemblance in the frescoes at the Scrovegni chapel, and from that similarity they might extrapolate a “family tie” between the two buildings and their patrons. In this way, the frescoes allowed Enrico to position himself as a high-status patron not only in Padua but also in the larger, more cosmopolitan city to the east. At the same time that the frescoes assert the patron’s connections to Byzantinizing Venice, however, they also demonstrate quite distinct characteristics from Byzantine conventions. Enrico’s decision to commission the cycle from a Florentine painter, not a local artist trained in the Byzantine tradition, suggests his deliberate independence from the Republic.13 That Giotto had recently come from decorating

13 On the extraordinary nature of Scrovegni’s commission of the chapel, see Jacobus 2008 (as fn. 3), pp. 13–35. Robin Simon notes that Giovanni Pisano’s sculpture in the chapel was also remarkable: Robin Simon, “The monument constructed for me.” Evidence for the first tomb monument of Enrico

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Saint Peter’s in Rome indicates the patron’s desire to hire an artist of great renown in Italian circles. Moreover, Giotto framed individual events within the Scrovegni cycle to suggest a contemporary Italian context instead of the timeless sacred world characteristic of Eastern images. Joachim is expelled from a building furnished like a local church, with a ciborium over the altar and a pulpit for preaching. Rather than including a group of witnesses outside the temple, as Byzantine artists do, Giotto represents Joachim ejected into a void and adds a single young man receiving a priest’s blessing within the sacred space. Contrasting the accepted and rejected men makes the central theme of the fresco Joachim’s separation from his community, which is a social situation, instead of his public humiliation, a more personal predicament.14 Giotto’s Annunciation to Anna takes place in a chamber filled with commonplace objects: not only furniture but implements and tools hanging on the wall suggest the practical home of a contemporary matron. Anna is completely enclosed in the architecture, and the angel must break through her window to announce the answer to her prayer. Like her husband, she is segregated from her community, shut away from the industrious maid spinning wool outside her door. In Byzantium, the event occurs in a garden whose fertility contrasts with Anna’s barrenness, and the central theme of the story is God’s miraculous restoration of the old woman’s fruitfulness as a path to heaven.15 Sometimes Byzantine images do include a maidservant watching Anna’s lament in the garden, but Anna’s relationship to a larger social context forms no part of the description of her condition in Eastern representations. Witnesses to the couple’s meeting at the Golden Gate firmly embed Giotto’s narrative in a familiar psychosocial domain. If the affectionate embrace of Joachim and Anna is dependent on Byzantine models, the inclusion of companions is not typically Byzantine and indicates that their situation is not isolated to them but affects a larger circle of friends and family. Anna does not go out beyond the city gates to meet her husband alone in Giotto’s fresco but is properly escorted by female attendants. Both the women following Anna and the shepherd accompanying Joachim smile at the couple’s tender reunion. A woman dressed in black, waiting at the gate, seems

Scrovegni in the Arena Chapel, Padua, in: Michael Knapton, John E. Law, Alison A. Smith (eds.), Venice and the Veneto during the Renaissance. The Legacy of Benjamin G. Kohl, Florence: Firenze University Press, 2014, pp. 385–404, p. 385. 14 For a more in‑depth analysis of this, and other, scenes in the Joachim and Anna frescoes, see Jane C. Long, The Commedia of Joachim and Anna in the Scrovegni Chapel, in: Laura Gelfand (ed.), Our Dogs Ourselves. Dogs in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Leiden: Brill, 2016, 187–217. 15 See, for example, an eighth-century Byzantine canon for the Feast of the Conception: “While thou prayest in a garden, O pious Anne, the Most High hears thy voice and gives to thee as the fruit of thy womb, Her who will open the gate of Paradise.” St. Andrew of Crete, 2nd Troparion of 3rd Ode of the Canon, cited in: Cornelius A. Bouman, The Immaculate Conception in the Liturgy, in: Edward Dennis O’Connor (ed.), The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception. History and Significance, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1958, pp. 113–160, p. 118.

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oddly sinister in this context. Her presence has not been explained to the satisfaction of modern scholars, but the mere puzzling quality of her presence denotes the complicated – and therefore real – nature of human interactions in this scene.16 By contrast, Byzantine images are more illustrative: the reunion must take place for Mary’s miraculous birth to occur, but it has no inherent interest as a social event. Indeed, the scene appears almost as a footnote to the birth of the Virgin, typically squeezed to one side or behind the more important event. When Giotto devotes an entire fresco to the meeting and depicts different responses to Joachim and Anna’s embrace, he shapes a profoundly modern theme for the narrative: a story that began with the couple’s estrangement from society ends with their reintegration into the community. Thus, the Scrovegni frescoes are significantly different from their Byzantine counterparts. In Byzantine art, the story of the Virgin’s parents is designed to illustrate that her conception marks the beginning of God’s plan for redemption, so those cycles emphasize the heaven-touched character of Joachim and Anna.17 While this theme is clearly critical for Giotto’s cycle as well, his frescoes also frame the story within a social and physical world familiar to the trecento audience. Not only the emotions of the characters (found in the Byzantine scenes as well) but also the naturalism of the world they inhabit is emphasized in Giotto’s paintings. The real-world accoutrements of the temple and Anna’s house, the believable behavior of bystanders, and the setting of the main characters within a larger human society clearly parallel the experiences of contemporary viewers. Giotto’s naturalism has long been remarked as a method for offering the audience easy access to holy scenes, but it also ties the realm he represents to the world inhabited by Enrico Scrovegni. The artist’s “modernization” of the narrative offers an opportunity to link the sacred story to the life of the patron. Written versions of the narrative make it clear that the Virgin’s parents were wealthy. Not a shepherd, but an owner of flocks, Joachim lived in the city and divided his substance in thirds, with one part going to the temple, a second to the poor, and the third to support his household. Enrico Scrovegni, too, was a city dweller whose wealth derived in large part from rural property, suggesting he might have seen himself as a modern counterpart of the Virgin’s father. This would not have been

16 For different readings of the woman in black, see: Frugoni 2008 (as fn. 3), p. 126; Jacobus 2008 (as fn. 3), pp. 182–185; Laurine Mack Bongiorno, The Theme of the Old Law and the New Law in the Arena Chapel, in: The Art Bulletin 50 (1968), pp. 11–20; Virginia L. Bush, The Sources of Giotto’s Meeting at the Golden Gate and the Meaning of the Dark-Veiled Woman, in: Bollettino del museo civico di Padova 61 (1972), pp. 7–29. 17 Hieromonk Justin Sinaites, Sinai MS GR 2: Exploring the Significance of a Sinai Manuscript, in: Sharon E. J. Gerstel, Robert S. Nelson (eds.), Approaching the Holy Mountain. Art and Liturgy at St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai, Brepols: Turnhout, 2010, pp. 259–281, pp. 278–280; Nicholas E. Denysenko, The Soteriological Significance of the Feast of Mary’s Birth, in Theological Studies 68 (2007), pp. 739–760.

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unusual, as texts, plays, and sermons frequently linked Joachim and Anna to the lives of the urban middle class.18 Giotto reveals Joachim and Anna’s wealth via an abundant flock, rich costumes with gold-embroidered hems and cuffs, and a well-furnished home. Their generosity to the temple is indicated by the gift of a lamb. In Byzantine images Joachim can offer either a lamb or two doves; the lamb is the offering of a richer member of the community and so symbolizes the one-third of the family income that he donates to the temple.19 As a productive member of society who liberally gives back to his community, Joachim acts as a model for Enrico’s own munificence; indeed, this chapel could be seen as Enrico’s “lamb,” offered to and accepted by God and securing the donor’s place in the community. That message is literally represented in the Scrovegni Chapel when Enrico has Giotto depict his donation of the chapel to the Virgin in the fresco of the Last Judgment above the chapel’s public exit, and it is figuratively implied in the Joachim and Anna scenes. Joachim and Anna’s devotion to God is a leitmotif of the narrative, and they conduct themselves, even in the deepest sorrow, with great dignity and composure. Laura Jacobus has suggested that the Scrovegni frescoes defined Enrico as a member of an elite class, not only due to his wealth but also because of his appropriate behavior.20 In trecento Italy moderation was an expression of a moral character, and behaving with restraint demonstrated one’s virtue. Both men and women were urged toward measured responses and mild behavior so as to display their “good character” to other members of their society. Throughout the frescoes Joachim and Anna exhibit reserved emotions and controlled conduct. Even Joachim’s profound shame after his rejection and the couple’s clear joy when they reunite are expressed with slow movements and disciplined gestures, thereby indicating their virtue to the audience. While the piety of the Scrovegni family is amply demonstrated by their religious donations, there are, of course, no records indicating that they behaved with the same social decorum as Joachim and Anna. But the fact that Mary’s parents appear as wealthy, generous, and devout members of their community does suggest a propitious parallel for the patron and his wife, and one can imagine that the Scrovegni were careful to conduct themselves with considerable dignity at any public occasion. Joachim’s virtues could become Enrico’s virtues, while Anna’s propriety would model the behavior of the women of his family, and in identifying themselves with the frescoes, the Scrovegni could demonstrate that they belonged to an elite class. Giotto’s

18 Ton Brandenbarg, Saint Anne. A Holy Grandmother and her Children, in: Anneke B. MulderBakker (ed.), Sanctity and Motherhood. Essays on Holy Mothers in the Middle Ages, New York: Garland, 1995, pp. 31–65, pp. 38–39; Emma Lipton, Affections of the Mind. The Politics of Sacramental Marriage in Late Medieval English Literature, Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2007, pp. 93–100. 19 Jacqueline Lafontaine-Dosogne, Iconography of the Cycle of the Life of the Virgin, in: Paul A. Underwood (ed.), The Kariye Djami. Studies in the Art of the Kariye Djami and Its Intellectual Background, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975, vol. 4, pp. 163–193, p. 167, fn. 30. 20 Jacobus 2008 (as fn. 3), pp. 203–292.

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frescoes thus furnished the patrons with the occasion to establish both their piousness and their social standing in Padua, while the relationship of those frescoes to the cycles at San Marco allowed them to extend that condition to a larger cosmopolitan audience. If spectators who knew the Venetian cycles of Joachim and Anna spotted a family resemblance in Enrico Scrovegni’s frescoes, they would equally be aware of important distinctions in the Paduan images. Correspondences among the cycles allowed Enrico to claim eminence in both cities, while discrepancies permitted him to distinguish himself as an individual and to model himself on the Virgin’s father. Thus the Venice-Padua nexus formed a critical context for the effectiveness of Scrovegni’s patronage. By simultaneously establishing his connection to the international Byzantine tradition and marking his independence from that tradition, this context afforded Enrico the opportunity to create a layered, multifarious reputation for himself, and to extend his renown far beyond the boundaries of his local community. In the twenty-first century Enrico Scrovegni’s frescoes are widely recognized as one of the signal achievements in the history of Mediterranean art. This analysis of their relationship to Venetian art suggests that their patron always intended them to be so.

Sarah Blake McHam

The Eclectic Taste of the Gattamelata Family This essay concerns the artistic patronage funded by the legacy of the famous condottiere Erasmo da Narni, called Gattamelata, who was born in 1370 and died in 1443.1 In the context of an analysis of the different sorts of artistic styles favored in Venice and her subject city, Padua, the patronage of the family is interesting for several reasons. For these purposes, Gattamelata should be considered Paduan because he lived most of his life in that city, although he was born in the small town of Narni and worked

Fig. 1: Donatello, Equestrian Statue of Gattamelata, bronze, Santo, Padua, 1447–1453.

for the Venetian state under Doge Francesco Foscari. Gattamelata’s wife was a della Leonessa and her extensive family spent their lives in Padua, although she had been born in Orvieto.2 The family’s artistic tastes complicate any preconceived picture of a duality between Paduan and Venetian art and patronage. Gattamelata’s bequest underwrote projects in and around the Santo in Padua by Paduan, Venetian, and Florentine artists, so the family’s choices deny an easy equation of Paduans looking to local artists. The variety of artists favored by the family also challenges any definition of a uniform taste: they sponsored the Florentine Donatello’s equestrian statue, which is a landmark of Renaissance antiquarian and classicizing achievement (fig. 1), but they also were the patrons of probable Paduans like Gregorio di Allegretto (plate V)

1 Recent research has revealed that Erasmo’s real name was Stefano, in honor of his father. See Giovanna Baldissin Molli, Erasmo da Narni Gattamelata e Donatello. Storia di una statua equestre, Padua: Centro Studi Antoniani, 2011, pp. 12–13. 2 Giovanni Eroli, Erasmo Gattamelata da Narni. Suoi monumenti e sua famiglia, Rome: Saviucci, 1879, pp. 33–34.

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Fig. 2: Jacopo, Gentile, and Giovanni Bellini, San Bernar­ dino and San Francesco, tempera/panel (left panel of probable former altarpiece of the Gattamelata Chapel, Santo, 1459–1460), National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

and Venetians like the Bellini dynasty (fig. 2), whose art at this stage could best be considered late International Gothic.

The Equestrian Statue of Gattamelata In general terms, the Gattamelata family’s patronage of Donatello was one of the most important reasons the artist came to Padua (the others being the commission for the crucifix and high altar at the Santo).3 It contributed to the Florentine’s ten-year sojourn in the city, where he produced monuments that changed the face of its art, making it radically different from the art produced in contemporary Venice. The Gattamelata family’s patronage also merits consideration for other reasons: it represents a major body of works of art sponsored by a condottiere and his family,

3 Giorgio Vasari, Gaetano Milanesi (ed.), Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori, Florence: G. C. Sansoni, 1878–1885, vol. 2, p. 410, singled it out as the reason, and H. W. Janson, The Sculpture of Donatello, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963, pp. 150–151, endorsed that view. However, there is no conclusive evidence on the point.

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which is unusual in the Renaissance. Although noble-born condottieri like Federico da Montefeltro, the Duke of Urbino, are famous for their artistic patronage, condottieri of non-noble backgrounds were not generally, so the case of Bartolomeo Colleoni marks a major exception.4 Secondly, the execution of the artistic projects was overseen by a team of family members, in which Gattamelata’s widow, Giacoma della Leonessa, came to figure prominently. The executors of the estate were Erasmo da Narni’s wife, Giacoma, her relative Gentile della Leonessa, who died in 1453, and probably the family secretary, Michele da Foce, who was still alive in 1467.5 When Gattamelata executed his will in 1441,6 their son Gianantonio was too young to transact legal business and so could not serve as an executor.7 Shortly after the son came of age, or even before that, he became a condottiere and not long afterward died in battle.8 In the interim between Gianantonio’s minority and his death, Michele da Foce, the family secretary and probable co‑executor of the will, oversaw the design of the equestrian monument.9 As a result of these turns of fortune, Giacoma took on a major responsibility in regard to the artistic commissions that devolved from Gattamelata’s will. Such an important role accorded to a woman, even if by default, seldom occurred during the Renaissance. Interestingly, two other notable exceptions to this generalization occurred in Padua. Fina Buzzacarini, the widow of the ruler of fourteenth-century Padua, Francesco il Vecchio da Carrara, oversaw the decoration of the city’s baptistery and execution of her own and her husband’s tombs within it.10 Similarly,

4 See, e. g., Jeanette Kohl, Fama und Virtus. Bartolomeo Colleonis Grabkapelle, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 2004, pp. 16–22; JoAnne Gitlin Bernstein, Patronage, Autobiography, and Iconography. The Facade of the Colleoni Chapel, in: Janice Shell and Liana Castelfranchi (eds.), Giovanni Antonio Amadeo. Scultura e architettura del suo tempo, Milan: Cisalpino, 1993, pp. 157–166; and Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier, Bartolomeo Colleoni as a Patron of Art and Architecture. The Palazzo Colleoni in Brescia, in: Arte lombarda, n. s., 84/85 (1988), pp. 61–72. 5 Eroli 1879 (as fn. 2), p. 179. Giovanna Baldissin Molli, Stefano ‘Erasmo’ da Narni, detto Gattamelata. Note biografiche padovane, in: Il Santo 50 (2010), pp. 485–516, p. 500, stipulated that Gattamelata left his wife administrator and commissaria of his will, provided she not remarry. Baldissin Molli’s statement derives from Gattamelata’s will, published in Eroli 1879 (as fn. 2), p. 345. Baldissin Molli 2011 (as fn. 1), p. 21, repeats the information. 6 Eroli 1879 (as fn. 2), pp. 343–347. 7 Ibid., p. 40. 8 Ibid., p. 42, indicates that Giacoma’s will dated 25 April 1457 reveals that her son is no longer alive. The will is published on pp. 365–378. According to Baldissin Molli, Erasmo da Narni 2011 (as fn. 1), pp. 21–22, Gianantonio was wounded in the head in battle in 1452, and thereafter had reduced mental facilities. 9 Janson 1963 (as fn. 3), p. 156. 10 Fina’s will is published by Benjamin G. Kohl, Giusto de’Menabuoi e il mecenatismo artistico di Padova, in: Anna M. Spiazzi (ed.), Giusto de’Menabuoi nel Battistero di Padova, Trieste: LINT, 1989, pp. 13–30, pp. 24–26, doc. 7. See also Anne Derbes, Patronage, Gender & Generation in Late Medieval Italy. Fina Buzzacarini and the Baptistery of Padua, in: Colum Hourihane (ed.), Patronage. Power and Agency in Medieval Art, University Park: Penn State Press, 2013, pp. 119–150.

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Imperatrice Capodilista, the widow of Antonio Ovetari, supervised the decoration of the Ovetari Chapel in the Eremitani by Andrea Mantegna and a team of other painters in just the same years that Giacoma della Leonessa was active as a patron.11 Gattamelata left money earmarked for a chapel to be built in his honor in the Santo if he died in Padua. He stipulated that he wanted a tomb made of stone that displayed his magnificenza in a chapel dedicated to Saint Francis. He further required that between 500 and 700 ducats be spent on the mortuary chapel, no more, and made no further provisions as to its details.12 His estate, however, must have been much more considerable. Surviving payment records prove his executors allocated funds from it to pay for Donatello’s equestrian statue even though that commission had not been specified in his will.13 There are many unresolved questions concerning the equestrian monument (fig. 1). The first concerns the extent of the Venetian government’s role in its commission. The government paid for Gattamelata’s funeral,14 and almost all fifteenth- and sixteenth-century chronicle sources say that it paid for the statue and statue’s plinth as well.15 Furthermore, epitaphs for the monument by leading humanists like Ciriacus of Ancona indicate that the Venetian state instigated its construction.16 At the very least the government would have had to have given permission for a prominent public monument to one of its hired soldiers.17 Francesco Barbaro, a humanist and a Venetian senator when the statue was erected in the late 1440 s, is assumed to be connected with a governmental decree of 1447 that it be built with funds provided by the Gattamelata family. He soon thereafter wrote an epitaph for the sculpture, crediting the Gattamelata family with commissioning it.18 Furthermore, records of payment and documents adjudicating payments indicate that the Gattamelata family paid for the monument although the amounts of money recorded in the documents are insufficient to cover the whole cost of the monument.19

11 Ronald Lightbown, Mantegna, Oxford: Phaidon, 1986, p. 389. 12 Eroli 1879 (as fn. 2), p. 179. The will is published on pp. 343–347, document LV. 13 Janson 1963 (as fn. 3), pp. 151–153, for the documents. On p. 153 is the record that the arbitrators of the finished sculpture set the price at 1,650 ducats. 14 Marino Sanudo, Le Vite dei Duchi di Venezia, in: Ludovico A. Muratori (ed.), Rerum italicarum scriptores, vol. 22, Milan: Societatis Palatinae, 1733, col. 1106, indicates that the Venetian government paid up to 250 ducats for his state funeral and that it was attended by the Doge. 15 Janson 1963 (as fn. 3), pp. 153–155, lists nine fifteenth- and sixteenth-century sources that credit the Venetian Senate with the commission. 16 Ibid., p. 153. 17 Janson 1963 (as fn. 3), pp. 156–161, summarizes the opposing viewpoints in the sources and later literature and concludes that the Venetian Senate must have been involved in the creation of the monument, perhaps granting the decree that allowed the honor of such a prominent memorial. 18 Eroli 1879 (as fn. 2), p. 204 and Janson 1963 (as fn. 3), p. 153. 19 Janson 1963 (as fn. 3), pp. 151–153.

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Fig. 3: Donatello, attrib. design, Plinth of Statue of Gattamelata, marble, Santo, Padua, 1445–1450.

Another controversy concerns whether it was intended to be Gattamelata’s sepulcher. Some argue that Gattamelata’s heirs made the decision that a stone chapel inside the Santo was insufficient for his commemoration and so decided to bury him within the equestrian statue’s plinth. According to this interpretation, the facts that the statue is located within the Santo’s burial ground and that the statue’s plinth (fig. 3) has the door motif typical of Roman funerary art objects suggest that the equestrian monument was an unusual type of tomb. There are early records of payment that refer to the statue and plinth as a funerary monument. Furthermore, such a grand

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mortuary marker would have more than satisfied Gattamelata’s testamentary request that his burial be marked by a stone memorial that bespoke his magnificenza.20 This impression is reinforced when we remember that in the fifteenth century and for centuries thereafter, the via del Santo was the principal means of access to the Santo for the hordes of pilgrims who visited it daily. This means that the view of Gattamelata dominated their vista as they walked down the last blocks of the road’s length, recalling forcefully his reputation and making the site an especially desirable location.21 But a codicil of his wife Giacoma’s will in 1459 makes it clear that she buried in the chapel in 1456 the bodies of her husband and son.22 Furthermore, the Paduan chronicler Michele Savonarola, writing shortly after 1458, says that Gattamelata’s body is in a tomb in the church, not in the monument.23 So, if it was ever in the monument, it was moved out by 1458, within two years of being placed there. This makes its having been there seem improbable, and in fact, the doors in the plinth, which look like funerary doors, are illusions; they are closed and so cannot admit anyone to the afterlife, which is their usual function. For all these reasons, it seems more likely that the statue’s plinth was always intended to be a cenotaph. Donatello’s sculpture, as is well known, is the first extant equestrian monument of the Renaissance, reviving a favorite type of ancient commemorative monument. Pliny the Elder, whose text was frequently consulted by fifteenth-century intellectuals even before the age of printing, described countless examples of this type of bronze sculpture erected to heroes in the public spaces of ancient Greece and Rome.24 Their history created a prestigious heritage for the condottiere Gattamelata who, like them, was being honored for his accomplishments in battle or in major athletic contests. The literary account that Pliny provided of these warriors’ commemoration is a more apposite analog to the Gattamelata than is comparison to the emperors’ equestrian statues like the Marcus Aurelius and the Regisole, another now- destroyed imperial equestrian monument once in Pavia, because the individual is non-imperial and is immortalized for his skills. Extant bronze sculptures like the Marcus Aurelius and the four horses at San Marco in Venice could have helped Donatello to create the sculpture, but its purpose was closer to that of monuments he could have only read about. The Gattamelata is also the largest and most complex example of bronze-casting up

20 These arguments are summarized in Janson 1963 (as fn. 3), pp. 157–160. 21 Giovanna Baldissin Molli, Donatello a Padova: Il Gattamelata e il suo ‘perduto’ altare nella baslica del Santo, in: Padova e il suo territorio 16 (2001), pp. 6–10, p. 7. 22 Eroli 1879 (as fn. 2), p. 369, doc. LXI. 23 Michele Savonarola, Libellus de magnificis ornamentis regie civitatis Padue, in: Arnoldo Segarizzi (ed.), Rerum italicarum scriptores, vol. 24, pt. 15, Città di Castello: E. Lapi, 1902, p. 32. 24 Pliny, Natural History 34:20–26. For the text’s popularity in the Renaissance, see Sarah Blake McHam, Pliny and the Artistic Culture of the Italian Renaissance. The Legacy of the Natural History, New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2013.

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until its time. In this enterprise Donatello was ably abetted by Andrea Caldiere, the caster of the statue, who was the head of the Paduan foundry for the Venetian state.25 As Mary Bergstein points out, the saddle of Gattamelata’s horse has figures on it derived from the Parthenon’s Panathenaic frieze, a sketch of which Donatello would have known through Cyriacus of Ancona, who had visited Athens and sketched it.26 Cyriacus also wrote one of the sculpture’s inscriptions. Bergstein pointed out that a circle of humanists including the Venetian Francesco Barbaro, the Paduan bishop Pietro Donato, and Cyriacus associated with Donatello in Padua and provided him with antiquarian knowledge.27 So the Gattamelata equestrian monument typifies the notion of Paduan art as deeply versed in the art and literary culture of antiquity. Perhaps the learned figures active in Padua inspired the Gattamelata family to sponsor such a monument and have Donatello create it. At this point there is not enough extant information to be certain about the precise roles of the deceased condottiere’s family and the Venetian state in spurring the project’s genesis.

The Gattamelata Chapel in the Santo As we have seen, even if the equestrian monument was intended to serve as a tomb, that purpose was quickly abandoned. In 1456, on the death of her son, Giacoma asked for permission to build a chapel inside the Santo dedicated to Saints Francis and Bernardino for both her husband and son.28 Giacoma requested of the Santo authorities the unheard of privilege of knocking down a side wall of the church so that the chapel could be made deeper.29 The fact that permission was granted testifies to the clout that the Gattamelata and della Leonessa families wielded at the Santo. From this time forward, the church authorities assigned to Giacoma della Leonessa a friar to help her with her several further commissions in the Santo.30 The decoration of the Gattamelata Chapel was grand. It cost 2,500 gold ducats.31 Marino Sanudo, writing his inventory of sights in Venice and the Veneto decades later,

25 Andrea Calore, Andrea ‘de la Caldiere’ e l’opera di Donatello a Padova, in: Il Santo 33 (1993), pp. 247–272, pp. 254–255. 26 Mary Bergstein, Donatello’s ‘Gattamelata’ and Its Humanist Audience, in: Renaissance Quarterly 55 (2002), pp. 833–868, pp. 845–851. 27 Ibid., pp. 835; 841–842; 861–862; and 865. 28 Bernardo Gonzati, La Basilica di S. Antonio di Padova, vol. 1, Padua: Antonio Bianchi, 1852, pp. 52–53 and pp. XXXVIII–XXXIX, doc. XXXIII. 29 Ibid., p. 53. 30 Ibid., p. 53 and p. XXXIX, doc. XXX. 31 Ibid., p. 53.

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Fig. 4: Gregorio di Allegretto (design), Gisant Effigy of Gianantonio da Narni, marble, former Gattamelata Chapel, now Chapel of SS. Sacramento, Santo, Padua, 1457–1459.

listed it among the most noteworthy things to see in the city.32 Unfortunately for us, it was destroyed in the early nineteenth century, and only the tomb sculptures of Gattamelata father and son survive (plate V; fig. 4).33 We know it had a laudatory inscription written by Porcelio Pandoni, another humanist, which read, “The order of the Senators and my own pure faith rewarded me with worthy gifts and an equestrian statue.” The epitaph had originally been intended to go on Gattamelata’s equestrian monument.34 Father and son are gisants atop sarcophagi within arcosolium formats and face each other across the chapel. Giacoma and one of her granddaughters are buried without markers underneath the floor. Gregorio di Allegretto was hired to carve the two gisants. For reasons that are no longer understood, the figure of Gattamelata is clad in all’antica armor whereas that of Gianantonio is in modern armor, as was stipulated in the commission documents. It has traditionally been thought that Gregorio carved one and supervised the other because of differences in style. Gregorio has usually been considered Paduan although Anne Markham Schulz has recently suggested that he was Florentine. She attributes to Gregorio the sculpture of Gattamelata and to a second unknown figure the sculpture of his son. Both tombs were executed

32 Marino Sanudo, Gian Maria Varanini (ed.), Itinerario per la terraferma veneziana, Rome: Viella, 2014, p. 170. 33 Gonzati 1852 (as fn. 28), p. 59. 34 Eugenio and Maria C. Billanovich, Epitafi e elogi per il Gattamelata, in: Italia medioevale e umanistica 37 (1994), p. 223.

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between 1457 and 1459.35 Their gisant format derives from late Gothic art, an impression that is reinforced by the gold paint ornamenting their hair. The wall paintings in the chapel were not finished for another decade. Giacoma wanted the walls decorated and the vault blue with stars. She hired many different little-known Venetian and Paduan painters to execute the paintings. The most important figure in the crew of painters was Jacopo da Montagnana, a member of the Bellini school. He worked on the chapel between 1476 and 1477.36 Unfortunately, because the chapel was totally redone in the early nineteenth century, all the wall paintings were destroyed. Michiel recorded that the chapel’s altarpiece was inscribed with the names of the three members of the Bellini dynasty and identified Gentile and Giovanni as the sons of Jacopo.37 At the end of the sixteenth century, Valerio Polidoro transcribed the inscription in full, reasserting the participation of Jacopo, Gentile, and Giovanni, and giving the date as 1409.38 As that date is impossibly early for any member of the family, historians have interpreted it as either 1459 or 1460.39 The altarpiece was thought lost until recently.40 The left wing of a triptych, which seems like it could have been part of the chapel’s altarpiece, was found a few years ago and attributed to the Bellini dynasty (fig. 2). It depicts Saints Anthony Abbot and Bernardino standing, facing slightly to the right and looking down. There is an angular salmon-colored fragment that is convincingly identified as a sarcophagus cover to the right of the saints. Historians have hypothesized that the two saints matched a corresponding pair in the right-hand wing of the triptych and that both pairs of saints likely looked on at a scene in the center panel that involved the entombed Christ. In this reading their eyes are downcast in sadness and the salmon fragment is a corner of Christ’s sarcophagus.41 The missing corresponding right panel of

35 Anne Markham Schulz, Uno scultore padovano influenzato da Desiderio da Settignano e il problema di Gregorio Allegretto, in: Joseph Connors et al. (eds.), Desiderio da Settignano, Venice: Marsilio, 2011, pp. 182–187. For the documents relating the tombs to Gregorio, see Antonio Sartori, Documenti per la storia dell’arte a Padova, Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 1976, pp. 129–131. 36 Gonzati 1852 (as fn. 28), p. 59. 37 Cristina De Benedictis, Introduction, Theodor Frimmel (ed.),,Notizia d’opere del disegno [1896], Florence: Edifir, 2000, p. 27. 38 Valerio Polidoro, a friar at the Santo, in his Le religiose memorie scritte dal R. Padre Valerio Polidoro … nelle quali si tratta della chiesa del glorioso S. Antonio confessore da Padoua, Venice: Paolo Meietto, 1590, p. 25r, recorded it as: “Jacobi Bellini Veneti patris ac Gentilis et Ioannis Natorum opus MCCCCIX.” 39 Miklós Boskovits, Jacopo Bellini, in: Miklós Boskovits, David Alan Brown et al. (eds.), Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art. Systematic Catalog, New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 89, fn. 17. 40 Colin Eisler, ‘Saints Anthony Abbot and Bernardino of Siena’ Designed by Jacopo and Painted by Gentile Bellini, in: Arte veneta 39 (1985), pp. 32–40, first connected the panel to the Gattamelata commission. 41 Ibid., pp. 34–36.

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Fig. 5: Jacopo, Gentile, and Giovanni Bellini, Christ in Limbo, 1459–1460, tempera/panel, predella panel of probable former altarpiece of the Gattamelata Chapel, Santo, Museo Civico, Padua.

two saints would have had to have featured standing representations of Saint Francis, to whom the chapel is dedicated, and Saint Anthony, the titular saint of the Santo. There are also three predella panels divided among museums in Ferrara, Padua, and Venice that have been associated with the dismembered altarpiece. They depict the Christ in Limbo, now in the Musei Civici, Padua (fig. 5); the Crucifixion, now in the Museo Correr, Venice; and the Adoration of the Magi, now in the Pinacoteca, Ferrara. Scholars have noted that the Adoration matches the diameter of the panel with the two saints in Washington, that all three panels depict appropriate subjects for a funerary chapel, and that the predella panels match the Washington panel’s style.42 If the equestrian monument represents the choice of a Florentine artist and up‑todate classicism and antiquarian learning, Giacoma della Leonessa’s choices for the funerary chapel fall more within the realm of late Gothic. There are only hints in this altarpiece – the piece of the sarcophagus that defies the frame’s barriers and suggests an illusionistic connection between two panels of the altarpiece – of the future direction of the Bellini dynasty.

Reliquary Cabinet Door in the Sacristy of the Santo Another important commission at the Santo underwritten indirectly by the estate of Gattamelata is the decoration of the enormous reliquary cabinet door in the sacristy.

42 Ibid., p. 36. Boskovits 2003 (as fn. 39), p. 90, agreed that the proposed predella panels accord well in their dimensions and iconography with the main panel but contended that the discrepancies in scale among the figures and the diverse nature of the predella panels and presumed iconography of the main panel posed problems to the hypothesis.

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Because the sacristy housed so many precious relics, a fact honored by the indulgences granted to visitors to it, the decoration of the reliquary cabinet’s door was a particularly prestigious commission.43 It was awarded by the executors of the estate of Giacoma, who had died in 1466, to Bartolomeo Bellano, a Paduan student of Donatello, who carved the Miracle of the Mule scene and apparently designed the rest. He began it in 1469 and finished by 1472.44 The crowning decoration is a large relief of the Saint Anthony’s Miracle of the Mule in white marble (plate VI), framed by red marble curtains held back by three pairs of angels at different levels to reveal the miracle. The relief and the intarsia panels below it now occupy the whole west wall of the sacristy. At the sides of the miracle scene are marble statues of Anthony and Francis. There are also representations of Louis of Toulouse and Bernardino. The intarsia panels underneath are on two levels: four saints stand above a series of fictive open cabinets holding books and chalices. Polidoro claimed to have seen the Gattamelata coat of arms on the cabinet, and, because there is no surviving commission document, it is on that basis that the cabinet is ascribed to the patronage of the family.45 Polidoro implied that the family was very devoted to the Santo, probably because he saw many of their commissions there.46 In commissioning Bellano, Giacoma’s executors may have thought they were getting an up‑to-date artist trained by the man who had done the equestrian monument, but Bellano’s staid version of the Miracle of the Mule is a tame reflection of Donatello’s tumultuous precedent except for the way in which he cuts off the upper bodies of the statues in the background of the altar.

Bronze Screen between the Santo’s Chancel and Ambulatory At the same time, between 1467 and 1470, the executors of Giacoma’s estate entered into an agreement with the Santo’s friars to underwrite in her honor the expenses for the decorative bronze link screen that was to go between the piers in the ambulato-

43 Polidoro 1590 (as fn. 38), pp. 33–44r. 44 Gonzati 1852 (as fn. 28), pp. CXXXVII-XXXVIII, doc. CXXXII, publishes the records of payment in the Archivio dell’Arca at the Santo between 1469 and 1472, that indicate Bellano was paid more than 3,800 ducats because he worked on the armadio for a long time even though the figures were not considered very good: “benchè le fegure non siano de quela perfezion che le potria essere[…].” 45 Antonio Sartori, L’Armadio delle reliquie del Santo e Bartolomeo Bellano, in: Il Santo 2 (1962), pp. 32–58, p. 57, quotes Polidoro 1590 (as in fn. 38), p. 39r. The Gattamelata coat of arms on shields interwoven with foliage and flowers on the four pilaster supports of the armadio is still visible there. 46 Ibid.

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ry.47 It was intended to be a finely wrought decorative grille through which pilgrims and visitors could look to catch glimpses of the back of Donatello’s high altar as they stood in the ambulatory.48 The grille was dismantled in the seventeenth century.49 Given this concentration of Gattamelata family patronage in and around the Santo, it is no surprise that Polidoro attested to their special devotion to the church. Funds bequeathed from Gattamelata’s estate underwrote directly or indirectly the expenses of four major commissions there: the equestrian statue in the burial area outside the Santo; the funerary chapel in which Gattamelata, his wife, his son, and his granddaughter were commemorated; the reliquary cabinet in the sacristy; and the bronze link barrier that separated the back of the choir area from the ambulatory. The executors of Gattamelata’s estate, in which his wife, Giacoma, played a leading role, and then the executors of her estate, seem to have chosen the artists they thought would be best for each commission: a Florentine versed in antiquarian culture for the equestrian monument; local Paduan and Venetian artists who worked in a decorative style for the burial chapel; a Paduan pupil of Donatello’s to reprise one of his master’s important reliefs on the high altar for the reliquary cabinet cover; and unknown artists skilled in making decorative bronze work for the grilles surrounding the back and sides of the choir. Investigating this family’s important artistic patronage provides us a window into the complexities of art patronage in Padua in the fifteenth century and reveals that commissioners were sophisticated in their choice of artists, drawing on Paduans, Venetians, or Florentines, choosing among them the painters or sculptors who suited best the monument they had in mind.

47 Andrea Calore, Il coro e il presbiterio della basilica del Santo: vicende storiche e artistiche nel secolo xv, in: Il Santo 38 (1998): pp. 69–98, p. 93. 48 Polidoro 1590 (as fn. 38), p. 6r‑6v. 49 Calore 1998 (as fn. 47), p. 93–94.

Debra Pincus

Calligraphy, Epigraphy, and the PaduanVenetian Culture of Letters in the Early Renaissance1 The convening of the Council of Basel (1431–1436) was an unexpected opportunity for Pietro Donato, bishop of the Cathedral of Padua, and it would turn out to have important implications for the future of calligraphy and epigraphy in the Veneto.2 In February of 1434 Donato took up his position as one of three presiders over the Council, combining his official responsibilities with manuscript-hunting expeditions in nearby German and Swiss monasteries.3 The manuscripts that he brought back fueled a school of calligraphy in Padua destined to rank among the finest in Italy.4

1 This essay is part of an ongoing exploration of the emergence of antique letter forms, both written and carved, in the Veneto in the fifteenth century. For material discussed here, see also Pincus, Dante Speaks from the Tomb. The Epitaph on the Monument in Ravenna and Veneto Epigraphy, in: Molly Bourne, A. Victor Coonin (eds.), Encountering the Renaissance. Celebrating Gary M. Radke and 50 Years of the Syracuse University Graduate Program in Renaissance Art, Ramsey, NJ: WAPACC Orga­ nization, 2016, pp. 293–308. My thanks to Brigit Blass-Simmen for her invitation to speak in the sessions of “Art in Venice and Padua: Distinctions and Cross-Currents” at the Renaissance Society of America meeting in Berlin, March 2015, where a condensed version of this essay was presented. My thanks to Shelley E. Zuraw, Jack Freiberg, and Elisabetta Barile for their generous assistance in the preparation of this article, and to the libraries of Oxford, Berlin, and Venice. I am grateful for the assistance of Dott.‌ssa Maria Villa Urbani, Antonello Fumo, and Chiara Vian at the Procuratoria di San Marco, and to the continued support of Architetto Ettore Vio. 2 One of the fascinating and still underestimated figures driving the Renaissance in the Veneto, Pietro Donato was born into a Venetian patrician family and trained in Padua, receiving his doctorates in law and arts there in 1418. Notices throughout his career show him to have been a shrewd connoisseur of books, assembling one of the finest private libraries of the fifteenth century. After holding numerous high clerical posts, his career was capped with the appointment as bishop of Padua, 1428–1447. For capsule overviews of his career, see Margaret L. King, Venetian Humanism in an Age of Patrician Dominance, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986, pp. 370–372, and Paolo Sambin, Ricerche per la storia della cultura nel secolo XV. La biblioteca di Pietro Donato (1380–1447), in: Bollettino del Museo Civico di Padova 48 (1959), pp. 53–98. 3 Ian Holgate, Paduan Culture in Venetian Care. The Patronage of Bishop Pietro Donato (Padua 1428– 1447), in: Renaissance Studies 16 (2002), pp. 1–23, p. 14. 4 The development of Renaissance letter forms in the Veneto has now become a major subject thanks to the ongoing investigations of Stefano Zamponi and Elisabetta Barile, as cited in the footnotes below. Emanuele Casamassima, Literulae latinae, in: Stefano Caroti, Stefano Zamponi (eds.), Lo scrittoio di Bartolomeo Fonzio, Milan: Il Polifilo, 1974, pp. IX‑XXXIII, emphasizes the role of Venice in distinguishing phases in the reform of humanistic writing. Still a touchstone for the subject of Renaissance epigraphy is the classic essay of Millard Meiss, Towards a More Comprehensive Renaissance Palaeography, in: Art Bulletin 42 (1960), pp. 97–112, where a key role is given to the work of calligraphers, epigraphers and painters of mid-fifteenth-century Padua.

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This essay is devoted to detailing the work carried out in the Veneto during the fifteenth century, spearheaded by Donato and a group of well-placed patrons, which produced remarkable recreations of antique letters in both penned and sculpted form. An important part of the story is the interface between calligraphers working on the pages of manuscripts and epigraphers working on incising letters into stone. And finally, this essay will also take up the impact of this activity on the early printing industry in Venice.

The Manuscript-Hunting of Bishop Pietro Donato It all begins with the manuscripts that Bishop Donato brought back to Padua. Two are of particular importance. Superb examples of Carolingian script, both majuscule and minuscule letters, are to be found in the ninth-century copy, on thick parchment leaves, of the Chronicle of Eusebius, believed to have been found by Donato in the monastery at Reichenau. The Eusebius Chronicle – in Greek, Chronikon - was an enormously influential compilation of world history prepared in the early fourth century and translated into Latin by Saint Jerome, who added to the text. Now housed in the Merton College Library, Oxford (Merton MS 315), this important exemplar was once a prized part of Donato’s personal library, listed in the inventory drawn up by him shortly before his death as “No. 94, Eusebius de temporibus in littera vetustissima.”5 A page such as fol. 49 v., dealing with the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, presents a rich display of those “littera vetustissima” of the Donato inventory (plate VII). The upper half of the page is dominated by large display capitals in red – ISRAHEL EGRESSVS EX AEGYPT – followed by smaller square capitals below in alternate lines of green and red. At the bottom of the page is a fine version of the influential lowercase letter known as the Caroline minuscule. In Padua, the Merton College Eusebius, with its highly valued text and extravagant lettering, would form the basis for numerous later copies.6 Another opportunity that Donato seized was gaining access at the Cathedral Library of Speyer to a rare Carolingian manuscript known as the Notitia Dignitatum,

5 Sambin 1959 (as fn. 2), p. 85. Donato’s collection of manuscripts was left to the library of the Cathedral of Padua; King 1986 (as fn. 2), p. 372. The Eusebius manuscript was brought to England by the English scholar and humanist John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester (d. 1470), a student in Padua from 1459 to 1461. The manuscript is known to have been at Merton College by 1556; R. M. Thomson, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval Manuscripts of Merton College, Oxford, Cambridge, England: D. S. Brewer, 2009, pp. 243–244. 6 In addition to the copy now in the Marciana discussed below, secondary copies of the Merton College Eusebius are listed by Albinia C. de la Mare and David Ekserdjian, in: Jane Martineau (ed.), ­Andrea Mantegna (exh. cat.), Royal Academy of Arts, London and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (New York and London: Olivetti and Electa, 1992), cat. 7, pp. 123–125, p. 125.

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Fig. 1: Notitia Dignitatum, 1436, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canon. Misc. 378, after lost Carolingian manuscript, double title page, fols. 1v.-2r. (after facsimile edition, Notitia Dignitatum, Rome: ­Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2014).

a comprehensive recording of the military and civil offices of the late Roman Empire. A copy of a lost fourth-century manuscript, probably drawn up at the behest of one of the late Roman emperors, the Speyer manuscript, now also lost, with its treasure trove of information on the administrative organization of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires, offered a rare window onto the structure of the antique world. Under Donato’s direction, a sumptuous copy, dated 1436, was made of the Speyer manuscript (Bodleian Library, Oxford, Canon. Misc. 378).7 The illustrations of the Notitia Dignitatum have been much discussed. In the context of this essay, the double title page of the manuscript is worthy of attention, for it includes large capital letters in gold of abbreviations standard in ancient Roman inscriptions – S P Q R (senatus populusque Romanus) on the first title page, and S C (senatus consultum) on the second (fig. 1). Although unshaded and lacking density, these letters provide examples that

7 Otto Pächt and Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, vol. 2, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970, p. 60, no. 599, and vol. 1 (1969), p. 52, no. 666; Jonathan J. G. Alexander, The Illustrated Manuscripts of the Notitia Dignitatum, in: Studies in Italian Manuscript Illumination, London: Pindar Press, 2002, pp. 65–98. The colophon (fol. 170) states that the manuscript was copied from a “vetustissimo codice” in January of 1436. Donato’s copy has now been published in a luxurious facsimile edition, Notitia Dignitatum, Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2014, with a companion volume of essays.

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capture much of the character of the antique Roman Imperial capital. They may be considered a careful attempt to duplicate the originals of the Carolingian model.8 Cyriacus of Ancona, the celebrated pioneer in the early recovery of the antique past, seems to have played a role in the production of Donato’s copy, for an addition at the end of the manuscript, fols. 172v-173, is in Cyriacus’ handwriting.9 Cyriacus visited Padua on more than one occasion and formed a close and important relationship with Donato. The friendship between the two needs to be factored into the bishop’s alert response to the artifacts of the antique past.10

Cyriacus of Ancona and Bishop Donato as Collaborators A neat quarto manuscript on high-quality vellum in the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin (Hamilton 254) links Cyriacus and Donato more directly; it was drawn up under their joint direction with the goal of bringing together material that they had collected. Hamilton  254 is an intriguing compendium that includes inscriptions, drawings after antique monuments, and studies of individual letter forms. Compiled between, roughly, 1442 and 1443, it is one of the earliest pieces of evidence for inscription collecting in the Renaissance and is considered to have functioned as a model for later epigraphic collections. The volume has acquired a certain fame for its inclusion of a drawing of the Parthenon, fol. 85r, almost certainly a fair copy after an original by Cyriacus. But the manuscript needs to be celebrated as much – or even more – for its attention to letters, the letters of inscriptions and individual studies of antique Greek and Latin letters done freely in pen. Alphabets such as those on fol. 90v. (fig. 2) honor these antique letter forms, making them available as models.11 A personal touch by

8 The fidelity of Donato’s copy to the Carolingian model has been debated. Sheila Edmunds, The Missals of Felix V and Early Savoyard Illumination, in: Art Bulletin 46 (1964), pp. 127–141, p. 139 attributes the execution (but not the invention) of the illustrations to the Savoyard artist Peronet Lamy. Alexander 2002 (as fn. 7) considers numerous illustrations to have been the invention of Lamy, “presumably on the instructions of his patron.” See also Pamela C. Berger, The Insignia of the “Notitia Dignitatum.” A Contribution to the Study of Late Antique Illustrated Manuscripts, New York and London: Garland, 1981, p. 150: “the Carolingian artist faithfully reproduced the late antique archetype in respect to composition and modes of representation.” 9 Pächt 1969 (as fn. 7), p. 52. 10 Cyriacus is documented in Padua on at least two occasions, 1434 and 1442–1443; see Edward W. Bodnar, Cyriacus of Ancona and Athens, Brussels-Berchem: Latomus, 1960, p. 44, fn. 3; p. 50, fn. 3. 11 The manuscript is catalogued as Collectanea epigrafica. See Stefano G. Casu, in: Mina Gregori (ed.), In the Light of Apollo. Italian Renaissance and Greece (exh. cat.), Athens, National Gallery and Alexandros Soutzos Musuem (Milan: Silvana, 2003), vol. 1, cat. I.15, pp. 143–144, with additional bibliography, and Helmut Boese, Die lateinischen Handschriften der Sammlung Hamilton zu Berlin, Wies-

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Fig. 2: Collectanea epigrafica, ca. 1442–1443, Staatsbiblio­ thek zu Berlin – Preussischer Kulturbesitz (SBB-PK), Ms. Ham. 254, f. 90v.

Cyriacus, writing in green ink in his characteristic florid hand, provides headings in Greek and Latin for both alphabets.

The Tomb of Antenor and the Early Humanistic Culture of Padua As bishop of Padua, Pietro Donato belonged to a humanistic culture that had a long-standing interest in antique letter forms. When in 1283 the remains of the Trojan hero Antenor, whom Padua claimed as its founder, were fortuitously “discovered” in Padua, a tomb was erected in the center of town with an elegant and carefully considered inscription (fig. 3). Presented in capitals as appropriate for an ancient

baden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1966, cat. 254, pp. 125–130. A letter to Donato from Cyriacus on fol. 81v, written in his own hand, addresses Donato as “optume atque celeberrime vir”; Theodor Mommsen, Über der Berliner Excerptenhandschrift des Petrvs Donatvs, in: Jahrbuch der Königlich preussischen Kunstsammlungen 4 (1883), pp. 73–89, plate A. For the varying opinions on the attribution of the Parthenon drawing, see Patricia Fortini Brown, Venice and Antiquity, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996, p. 87. The death of Donato in 1447 provides a terminus ante quem for Hamilton 254.

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Fig. 3: Epitaph, tomb of Antenor, Padua, 1284.

inscription, the rounded letters of the Antenor epitaph are based on the model of the Caroline uncial, very likely derived from firsthand study of Carolingian manuscripts.12 INCLITUS ANTERNOR PATRIAM VOX NISA QVIETEM TRANSTVLIT HVC ENETVM DARDANIDVMQVE FVGAS EXPVLIT EVGANEOS PATAVINAM CONDIDIT VRBEM QVEM TENET HIC HVMILI MARMORE CESA DOMVS Illustrious Antenor, a voice in search of a peaceful homeland, Brought to this place the Enetian and Dardanian refugees. He expelled the Euganeans and founded the city of Padua. It is he whom this humble marble home holds here.

Lauding Antenor as an antique hero, in both form and content the epitaph stands as a deliberate attempt to make the tomb radiate antique vetustas. It may even be the case that the sarcophagus itself is an antique artifact in second use.13

12 The inscription, securely datable to 1284, was composed and prepared under the direction of the Paduan poet and notary Lovato Lovati, a pioneering figure in the study of Carolingian manuscripts, who modeled his own handwriting on Carolingian models; Giuseppe Billanovich, Il preumanesimo padovano, in: Storia della cultura veneta. vol. 2, Il Trecento, Verona: Neri Pozza, 1976, pp. 28–33. The Antenor inscription is included in the Hamilton 254 compilation, c. 76v; Boese 1966 (as fn. 11), p. 127. I am grateful to John Monfasani for his generosity in providing the translation of the Antenor epitaph. 13 Francesco Angeli, Il sarcofago di “Antenore” a Padua, in: Girolamo Zampieri (ed.), Padova per Antenore. Atti della giornata di studio 14 dicembre 1989, Padua: Editoriale Programma, 1990, pp. 191–195.

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Doge Andrea Dandolo: A Fourteenth Century ­Connoisseur of Lettering Venice in the fourteenth century also demonstrates an interest in “ancient” letter forms. The key figure here is Doge Andrea Dandolo, who is to be associated with the installation of a remarkable piece of epigraphical spolia in the Cappella di San Isidoro in San Marco in Venice.14 A Proconnesian marble tablet with a long, rhymed inscription has been inserted as a kind of antependium to a niche in the chapel’s side wall (fig. 4). The dating of the piece has been debated, with placement in the eleventh

Fig. 4: Tomb slab of infant who died at eight days, Venice, San Marco, Cappella di S. Isidore, ca. eleventh century.

century most likely.15 But to fourteenth-century Venice, its importance would have been as an extant artifact from the distant past. As the most significant example of early epigraphy in Venice, the piece is of considerable interest. The lightly incised letters present the epitaph of an infant, set forth in the first person, who died at eight days:

14 Rudolf Dellermann, L’arredo e le sculture della cappella. Un linguaggio antico veneziano per l’arca di sant’Isidoro, in: Quaderni della Procuratoria. Arte, Storia, Restauri della Basilica di San Marco a Venezia: La Cappella di Sant’Isidoro, Venice: Marsilio, 2008, pp. 35–63, p. 63. The chapel was under construction in the 1340 s. 15 An eleventh-century date is given by Rudolph M. Kloos, The Paleography of the Inscriptions of San Marco, in: Otto Demus, The Mosaics of San Marco in Venice, vol. 1 [text volume], Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, pp. 295–307, p. 297. For Kloos, the epigraphy “testifies to a highly notable native tradition of writing,” but this seems unlikely.

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VIX LICVIT NASCI; SOLO VIX VBERE; PASCI HOC ETIAM BREUITER; MORS MICHI CLAVSIT ITER PARVVS ERAM PHEBUS MICHI LVXERAT OCTO DIEBVS; NOCTE SEQUENTE DIEM TRANSFEROR IN REQVIEM; INTER RES MVLTAS PATRIS MICHI NVLLA FACULTAS; HAC HABITARE DOMO NON VETET VLLVS HOMO Barely allowed to be born, barely attached to the breast, And that only briefly, to eat, death closed off my road. I was little; Phoebus shone for me eight days; In the night following the day I am carried to repose. To me there comes no share in the riches of my father. Let no one obstruct my dwelling in this house.16

The elegant letters are a mix of antique square-cut capitals with uncial intrusions and idiosyncratic variations, a striking example of the way in which antique letter forms were adumbrated in the medieval period. We can only imagine the fascination with which such letters were viewed in a culture just then becoming attuned to the power of ancient material.

The Fifteenth-Century Explosion of Lettering Activity The fourteenth-century use of and interest in ancient letters stands as a prelude to the explosion of calligraphic and epigraphic activity that takes place in the Veneto in the fifteenth century. The recreation of antique letters, which drew on the material brought back to Padua by Bishop Donato, can be seen in both official documents and luxurious manuscripts coming out of the scriptorium of the Cathedral of Padua as early as the 1450 s. The outstanding example of this first wave of production is the fifteenth-century Eusebius Chronicle now in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana (Lat IX.1 = 3496). It was Albinia de la Mare who called attention to the fact that the Marciana’s Eusebius is a close copy of the ninth-century Eusebius that Donato brought back to Padua.17 The Marciana manuscript is dated 1450, thus placing its production shortly after Donato’s death in 1447; its commissioner is considered to be Fantino Dandolo (1448–1459), Pietro Donato’s immediate successor as bishop of Padua. It has attracted attention for its captivating image of the Christ Child in a basket of straw

16 I am grateful to Paola Pavanini for generous assistance with the translation. 17 De la Mare and Ekserdjian 1992 (as fn. 6), pp. 123–125; Alberta De Nicolò Salmazo, in: Giordana Mariani Canova (ed.), La miniatura a Padova dal Medioevo al Settecento (exh. cat.), Palazzo della Ragione and Palazzo del Monte, Padova, Modena: Franco Cosimo Panini, 1999), cat. 92, pp. 239–240, and Susy Marcon, in: Marino Zorzi (ed.), Biblioteca Mariana Venezia, Florence: Nardini, 1988, pp. 152– 153. The elaborate presentation of the date is on fol. 13v.

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Fig. 5: Eusebius, Chronikon, 1450, title page, Venice, ­Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Lat. IX.1 (=3496), fol. 17r.

on the page announcing the arrival of Christ, fol. 133v, an image often attributed to Mantegna.18 Equally striking are the scripts of the manuscript, presenting a brilliant adaptation of the Caroline minuscule of the Merton manuscript as well as unusual displays of Roman square-cut capitals. The scribe was Biagio Saraceni, a member of a family of prominent Paduan officials, with a well-documented career in the Padua Cathedral Chancery.19 Fol. 17r gives author and title of the manuscript in a dazzling array of square-cut capitals in colors of blue, purple, orange, gold, and green, with the title of the book given in both Greek and Latin (fig. 5). Hederae – ivy leaves – are used as punctuation marks, grounding the page in the manuscript tradition. The use

18 De la Mare and Ekserdjian 1992 (as fn. 6). 19 The scribe was identified by Albinia de la Mare; see Jonathan J. G. Alexander and Albinia C. de la Mare, The Italian Manuscripts in the Library of Major J. R. Abbey, New York and Washington: Frederick A. Praeger, 1969, p. xxviii, fn. 4. Invaluable is the comprehensive discussion of Biagio by Elisabetta Barile, Contributi su Biagio Saraceno, copista dell’Eusebio Marciano Lat. IX.1 (3496) e Cancelliere del vescovo di Padova Fantino Dandolo, in: Francesco G. B. Trolese (ed.), Studi di storia religiosa padovana dal medioevo ai nostri giorni. Miscellanea in onore di mons. Ireneo Daniele, Padua: Istituto per la Storia Ecclesiastica Padovana, 1997, pp. 141–164. Biagio, born into a family of notaries, was deeply embedded in Paduan humanist culture. His uncle, Gerolamo Saraceni, was active in the Padua Cathedral administration; Biagio himself served as secretary and later chancellor to Fantino Dandolo. For Biagio’s participation in preparation of official documents, see Barile, ibid., pp. 150–152.

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of alternating colors in the capital display, recalling the coloristic treatments of the Merton Eusebius, will become a hallmark of the Paduan scribes.20 At the bottom of the title page is a note on the contents of the book in Caroline minuscules.

The Innovative Commissions of Bernardo Bembo Commissions of private patronage must be considered alongside the official commissions of the Padua Cathedral scriptorium. Especially noteworthy are the manuscripts of works by ancient authors commissioned by members of the Venetian patriciate. To be singled out for the innovative aspect of his commissions is the very interesting figure of Bernardo Bembo, father of the famous Pietro Bembo and an important personality in his own right. Bernardo Bembo’s interest in collecting manuscripts began when he was a student at Padua in the 1450 s.21 One of his very early commissions, dated 1457, coming close on the heels of the Cathedral’s 1450 Eusebius, is his copy of the Polyhistoria of Solinus, another of the historical compilations so popular in the early Renaissance (Bodleian Library, Oxford, Canon. Class Lat. 161).22 It was made for Bernardo shortly after he had attained his laurea in the Paduan stadium, very likely prepared by a scribe – as yet unidentified – coming out of the Cathedral Chancery. The title page of Bembo’s Solinus (plate VIII) engages with the antique Roman capital with a confidence and originality that goes considerably beyond that of the Marciana Eusebius. Solinus is the earliest known example of a type of frontispiece being developed in the Paduan scriptoria in which the antique character of the text is highlighted with a highly inventive title page bristling with romanitas.23 Fanci-

20 Contributing to the investigation of the antique capital in the Veneto was the separate exploration in manuscripts and printed books of a faceted capital replicating the chiseled aspect of Roman Imperial letters; see Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Initials in Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts. The Problem of the So‑Called “litera Mantiniana,” in: Johanne Autenrieth, Ulrich Eigler (eds.), Renaissance- und Humanistenhandschriften, Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1988, pp. 145–155 (reprinted in Alexander 2002 [as fn. 7], pp. 169–198). 21 Nella Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo. Umanista e politico veneziano. Florence: Olschki, 1985, pp. 91–94 and 97–106. 22 Pächt and Alexander 1970 (as fn. 7), p. 61; Giordana Mariani Canova, La miniatura a Padova nel tempo di Andrea Mantegna, in: Mantegna e Padova. 1445–1460, Padua and Milan: Skira, 2006, pp. 63– 71, p. 65; Giannetto 1985 (as fn. 21), pp. 312–313. The text has been attributed to the same scribe who copied a Suetonius manuscript for Bernardo Bembo in the 1450 s (Oxford, Bodleian MS. Canon. Class. Lat. 133). Arms, now scraped off, presumably those of Bembo, were placed as if suspended from a gold nail inserted into the molding at the top of the frame; ownership of the manuscript is attributed to Bembo on c. 109v; annotations in Bernardo’s hand have been identified in the manuscript. 23 Mariani Canova 2006 (as fn. 22), “l’embrione del cosiddetto frontespizio architettonico” and Margery Corbett, The Architectural Title-Page, in: Motif 12 (1964), pp. 48–62, p. 51. For a broader discussion of the issue, see Lilian Armstrong, Renaissance Miniature Painters and Classical Imagery. The

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ful recreations of antique Roman coin portraits of Diva Faustina and Antonius Hopilius, identified in inscriptions around the subjects’ heads, are set against a mottled green fictive marble background, all of it placed in a gold frame and presented to the viewer by winged putti.24 A large capital S, shining in gold and shaded to emphasize its sculptural quality, is positioned beneath the coin portraits. Dramatically highlighted, the S serves as the initial letter of the opening line of the first chapter of the text, continued on the scroll below: [S]UNT QUI VIDERI VELINT […]. Again we see the chromatic capitals of the Paduan Cathedral Chancery, here in purple and gold, done freehand with pen, thrilling in their combination of monumentality and springy lightness.

From Parchment onto Stone A crucial stage in the Veneto involvement with ancient letters takes place in these same years of the 1450 s when the antique Roman capital moves from parchment onto stone. In 2007 archeological activity of the Soprintendenza in Venice brought to light in San Giovanni Elemosinario, a church a few steps from the Rialto Bridge in Venice, an extraordinary find – the fragments of a huge tomb epitaph originally almost five feet in length, dateable to 1455–1458 (fig. 6). The tomb itself, dedicated to Paolo della Pergola (d. 1455), theologian, philosopher, and teacher of rhetoric at the School of the Rialto in Venice, is no longer extant.25 However, enough remains of the epitaph

Master of the Putti and His Venetian Workshop, London: Harvey Miller, 1981, pp. 19–26, and more recently, Lew Andrews, Pergamene strappate e frontespizi. I frontespizi architettonici nell’epoca dei primi libri a stampa, in: Arte Veneta 55 (1999), pp. 6–29, and Nicholas Herman, Excavating the Page. Virtuosity and Illusionism in Italian Book Illuminations, 1460–1520, in: Word and Image 27 (2011), pp. 190–211. 24 Bernardo Bembo may himself have been a collector of ancient coins, but we have no evidence of this. The Hans Memling portrait in the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, which shows a sitter in Italian dress holding an antique coin, has been suggested as a portrait of Bernardo. However, the connection between the portrait and Bembo is slight. The presence of a small palm tree in the distance and a few laurel leaves at the front plane of the painting – the primary basis for the attribution – function as staffage, too circumstantial to be considered elements of Bernardo’s impresa. While Bernardo’s son Pietro was a serious coin collector, Bernardo focused his collecting on manuscripts. For a recent discussion of the portrait and the proposed Bernardo Bembo attribution, see the entry by Dagmar Korbacher, in: Keith Christiansen and Stefan Weppelmann (eds.), The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011, pp. 330–332, no. 145, with additional references. 25 Elisabetta Barile, Le iscrizioni per la tomba di Paolo della Pergola nella Chiesa di San Giovanni Elemosinario a Venezia, Atti dell’Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Classe di scienze morali, lettere ed arti, 160 (2001–2002), pp. 315–342. My thanks to Dott .‌ssa Amalia Basso of the Soprinten­denza in Venice for consultation and facilitating access to the church.

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Fig. 6: Epitaph, Tomb of Paolo della Pergola, Venice, S. Giovanni Elemosinario, 1455–1458.

to be able to reconstitute it in both size and text. The fragments have been mounted in a panel that reproduces the remarkable size of the original, placed on display in the left-hand aisle of the church. The key figure behind the production, as identified by Elisabetta Barile, was Pietro Foscari. The nephew of Doge Francesco Foscari, Pietro Foscari had served in Venice as primicerio of San Marco and later in Padua as bishop (1481–1485)  – in short, he was an important player in the same humanistic circle as Bishop Donato.26 The della Pergola epitaph is an important opening moment in the diffusion of the classical capital in tomb production, capturing the combination of lightness and monumentality of the letters of the Solinus frontispiece. There is a grace and fluidity here quite distinct from both the sans serif letter of Florence and the rigidly monumental letters of Rome.27 In assessing this inscription, it is useful to

26 King 1986 (as fn. 2), pp. 373–374. Pietro Foscari was present in Padua ca. 1448/1450 and received his degree in canon law there in 1454. 27 It is now becoming clear that different centers of Italy concentrated on different aspects of the Roman square-cut capital for inscriptional letters. Meiss 1960 (as fn. 4), pp. 100–101, links the light, closely spaced linear inscriptional letter, with the absence of shading, of Florence during the first half of the fifteenth century to Republican models. In Rome, the ancient tradition of monumental public inscriptions remained a living heritage throughout the medieval period. The inscriptions of fifteenth-century Rome in the Sixtus IV period (1471–1484) aspire to the grandeur and high aulic quality of Imperial letter forms; see Starleen K. Meyer and Paul Shaw, Towards a New Understanding of the Revival of Roman Capitals and the Achievement of Andrea Bregno, in: Claudio Crescentini and Claudio Strinati (eds.), Andrea Bregno. Il senso della forma nella cultura artistica del Rinascimento, Florence: Maschietto Editore, 2008, pp. 277–326, to be read in conjunction with Daniela Porro, La resti­tuzione della capitale epigrafica nella scrittura monumentale. Epitafi ed isrizioni celebrative, in: Massimo Miglio et al. (eds.), Un pontificato ed una città. Sisto IV (1471–1484), (exh. cat.), Atti del Con-

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borrow from emblem terminology and consider it from the standpoint of both corpo and anima – with corpo referring to the physical presentation of the letters and anima indicating the message or ‘soul’ of the epitaph. The corpo is still somewhat tentative, displaying ill-defined spacing and an emphasis on individual letters rather than the flow of the inscription as a totality.28 From the standpoint of anima, however, we have a touching humanistic statement, an attempt to capture not only the scholar’s achievements but also his personality, making this an important early Renaissance tomb epitaph: Paule tibi rerum patuit natura, tibique religio, ingenium, lingua diserta, decor. Pergula te genuit, livor tua scripta probavit, discipulique fovent nomen in orbe tuum.29 Paolo, nature allowed much to you: sanctity, talent, an eloquent tongue, comeliness. Perugia gave birth to you, Livorno proved your worth, And the disciples cherish your name on earth.

Cardinal Pietro Barbo Brings Venetian Letter Forms to Rome As an aside, it is intriguing to note that the experimental approach to the carved Roman capital in the Veneto of the 1450 s finds a close corollary in Rome in a dated inscription of 1455 (fig. 7) coming from the Venetian cardinal Pietro Barbo, later Paul II (1469–1471). The dedicatory inscription is placed high on the south façade of the Palazzo Venezia, a foundation of Pietro Barbo.30 It appears to be in second use; another marble plaque, equally adventitious, presenting the arms of Cardinal Barbo, is placed above it. Something of an anomaly in fifteenth-century Rome, which shortly afterward under Sixtus IV (1471–1484) will aggressively revive the Imperial letter forms of Augustus and his followers, this modest inscription suggests a larger sphere of influence for early Veneto experimentation.

vegno, Rome (Città del Vaticano: Scuola Vaticana di Paleografia, Diplomatica e Archivistica, 1986), pp. 409–427. 28 See Barile 2001–2002 (as fn. 25), p. 337. 29 The inscription has been reconstructed using manuscript notices by Barile, ibid., pp. 328–334. 30 Umberto Olivieri, The Restoration of the Palace of Venice in Rome, in: The Architectural Forum 35 (1921), pp. 39–44, p. 39.

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Fig. 7: Dedication plaque of Cardinal Pietro Barbo, Rome, Palazzo Venezia, 1455.

Felice Feliciano: A New “conoscenza delle antiche iscrizioni” A new contact with ancient material based on the study of stone monuments comes out of the rich culture of the Veneto of the 1460 s. The calligrapher Felice Feliciano consecrated himself  –  or so he avowed in a letter to Mantegna  – to a new “cono­ scenza delle antiche iscrizioni.”31 Felice’s manuscript of circa 1460, the Alphabetum Romanum in the Vatican – the name was given to it by Giovanni Mardersteig – is the first construction manual of ancient letters that uses evidence provided by the stones of antiquity.32 It inaugurates a long line of how‑to treatises that have served as train-

31 In evaluating Felice’s achievement, it is important to note the close working relationship between Felice and the learned antiquarian collector Giovanni Marcanova, a professor of medicine from Bologna who had studied in Padua and was intimately connected with Padua’s antiquarian culture. It is precisely this kind of collaborative relationship between practitioners and humanists that sets the Padua-Venetian situation apart from other centers. For Marcanova, see Elisabetta Barile, Per la biografia dell’umanista Giovanni Marcanova, Padua: Università degli Studi di Padova/Edizioni Antilia, 2011, and the discussion of Marcanova’s Collectio antiquitatum by Giordana Mariani Canova, in: Jonathan J. G. Alexander (ed.), The Painted Page. Italian Renaissance Book Illumination 1450–1550 (exh. cat.), Royal Academy of Arts, London, and Morgan Library, New York (London and Munich: Prestel, 1994), cat. entry 66, pp. 143–144, with additional bibliography. 32 Felice Feliciano, Alphabetum Romanum Vat. Lat. 6852 aus der Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 2 vols., Zurich: Belser Verlag, 1985; see also Gino Castiglioni, in Sergio Marinelli and Paola Marini (eds.),

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Fig. 8: Felice Feliciano, Alphabetum Romanum, ca. 1460, Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. Lat. 6852 (after facsimile edition, Alphabetum Romanum Vat. Lat. 6852 aus der Biblioteca Apostolica ­Vaticana [Zurich, 1985]).

ing manuals for scribes and scholars. Felice proudly reports that his models are the result of firsthand study of ancient inscriptions, and he includes brief instructions for replicating their look (fig. 8). It is to Felice that we owe the well-known and delicious fictive account of an inscription hunting trip that was supposed to have taken place on the Lago di Garda on a balmy day in September of 1464, so vividly presented that it must be real. But as current scholarship has pointed out, the slippery mix of conflicting manuscript traditions and a changing cast of characters throw serious doubt on its credibility.33 Fictive or not, the story gives a glimpse of the enthusiasm with which the antique Roman capital was pursued by the mid-fifteenth-century calligraphers and epigraphers of the Veneto.

Mantegna e le Arti a Verona 1450–1500 (exh. cat.), Verona, Palazzo della Gran Guardia (Venice: Marsilio, 2006), cat. 187, pp. 454–455. For Felice’s letter to Mantegna of 13  January 1464, in Italian translation, see Giovanni Mardersteig, Scritti di Giovanni Mardersteig sulla storia dei caratteri e della tipografia, Milan: Il Polifilo, 1988, pp. 62–63. 33 Myriam Billanovich, Intorno alla Iubilatio di Felice Feliciano, in: Italia medioevale e umanistica 32 (1989), pp. 351–358, presents a convincing case for the imaginary character of the account. For the most extended version of the Lago di Garda excursion (Treviso, Biblioteca Capitolare, cod. I, 138), see Agostino Contò, in: Marinelli and Marini 2006 (as fn. 32), cat. entry 185, pp. 452–453; a useful recap of the event is given by Fortini Brown 1996 (as fn. 11), p. 121.

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Dante’s Epitaph: An Epigraphical Masterpiece of 1483 More attention needs to be paid to the monument that represents full engagement with the carved form of the Roman antique capital in the Veneto – the epitaph on the tomb of Dante (in Ravenna; fig. 9).34 Although situated in Ravenna, the Dante tomb and its epitaph, made by the Venetian tomb specialist Pietro Lombardo, belong first and foremost to the Veneto culture of letters. The tomb was commissioned by that knowledgeable patron Bernardo Bembo during his tenure as podesta and capitano

Fig. 9: Epitaph, Tomb of Dante, Ravenna, 1483.

generale of Ravenna. The plaque that Bernardo had placed in the tomb chamber gives a dedication date of May 1483, and tells us that the work was paid for out of his own funds, “aere suo.”35 The six-line epitaph of the tomb is a fully developed Renaissance tomb epitaph in both corpo and anima, a benchmark against which to judge the genre:

34 The circumstances involved in the commissioning of the tomb and choice of epitaph are treated more fully in Pincus 2016 (as fn. 1) and Pincus, The Humanist and the Poet. Bernardo Bembo’s Portrait of Dante, in: Kathleen Wren Christian and David J. Drogin (eds.), Patronage and Italian Renaissance Sculpture, Farnham, England and Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate, 2010, pp. 61–94. 35 For illustration and translation of the dedicatory inscription, see Pincus 2016 (as fn. 1), fig. 1 and fn. 10. The present inscription tablet is a replacement prepared as part of the 1921 renovations of the tomb chamber.

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S. V. F. IVRA MONARCHIAE SVPEROS PHLEGETONTA LACVSQUE LVSTRANDO CECINI VOLVERVNT FATA QVOVSQVE SED QVIA PARS CESSIT MELIORIBVS HOSPITA CASTRIS ACTOREM QVE SVVM PETIIT FELICIOR ASTRIS HIC CLAVDOR DANTES PATRIIS EXTORRIS AB ORIS QVEM GENVIT PARVI FLORENTIA MATER AMORIS SIBI VIVENS FECIT [Made by Himself While Living] I have sung the rights of monarchy/traveling Phlegeton and the celestial lakes For as long as the Fates permitted. But since a part of me found refuge in better camps/and sought its maker more happily in the stars, I, Dante, am here enclosed, exile from the shores of my Fatherland, Whom Florence, mother of little love, gave birth to.36

Here the expertise of Bernardo Bembo, a collector of inscriptions, converges with the well-developed interest in epigraphy of the Pietro Lombardo shop.37 The involvement in the organization of the inscription and the handling of individual letter forms here by both Bernardo and Pietro Lombardo points to the next stage of inscription activity represented by the syllogue  –  collections of inscriptions  – of the 1480 s.38 Laid out with careful line spacing and clear separation of words, the rather brutal statement comes across with force and clarity. Yet the fifteenth-century Veneto manuscript tradition is present in the background. From his Solinus of 1457 (plate VIII), Bernardo takes the device of the unrolled parchment scroll, here “tacked up” to present a field for the epitaph. And although present in a more archeologically correct form, the inscription and its letters preserve the lightness and grace of the Solinus letters and the della Pergola epitaph, giving the Dante epitaph a distinctly Veneto quality.

36 I am indebted to John McLucas for this translation of the Dante epitaph. For other English versions, see Pincus 2016 (as fn. 1), fn. 18. 37 For Bernardo Bembo as a collector of inscriptions, see Raimondo Callegari, Sculture “in horto Bembi,” in: Callegari, Scritti sull’arte padovana del Rinascimento, Udine: Forum/Editrice Universita­ ria Udinese, pp. 255–286, pp. 270–272. For the involvement of the Lombardo shop in epigraphy, see Debra Pincus, Signatures of the Lombardo Workshop, Artibus et Historiae 67 (2013), pp. 161–174, and Florian Horsthemke and Judith Ostermann, Mit einer Hand am Grab. Tullio Lombardos Signatur des Geizhalswunders in der Cappella dell’Arca im Santo zu Padua, in: Nicole Hegener (ed.), Künstlersignaturen von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, Petersberg, Germany: Imhof, 2013, pp. 168–181. 38 Lucia A. Ciapponi, A Fragmentary Treatise on Epigraphic Alphabets by Fra Giocondo da Verona, in: Renaissance Quarterly 32 (1979), pp. 18–40.

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Fig. 10: Epitaph of Polia, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, F3v, Venice, Aldine Press, 1499.

From Bernardo Bembo to Aldus Manutius: The Letters of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili But this is not the end of the story. The sensibility to letter forms that developed in the Veneto from the 1450 s into the 1480 s was to have its impact on the letter forms developed by the early printers of Venice. The exquisite versions of the Caroline minuscule found in the texts of early Renaissance Paduan manuscripts stand as an important factor in the development of the cursive type devised by Aldus for his famous octavos, as has often been noted.39 Less noted but equally important was the impact on Aldus

39 A useful discussion of this rather complex issue, with pertinent bibliography, is given by Nicolas Barker, The Aldine Italic, in: Barker, Aldus Manutius and the Development of Greek Script and Type in the Fifteenth Century, 2nd ed., New York: Fordham University Press, 1992, pp. 109–118. For a full study of the new typefaces of the Aldine press, see the magisterial essay by Giovanni Mardersteig, Aldo Manuzio e i caratteri di Francesco Griffo da Bologna, in: Studi di bibliografia e di storia in onore di Tammaro de Marinis, vol. 3, Verona: Stamperia Valdonega,1964, pp. 105–147, reprinted in Mardersteig

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of the Veneto capital letter – in particular, of the light, fluid form seen in the Dante epitaph. Early Venetian printers are somewhat tentative in their approach to capital letters. Both Sweynheym and Pannartz and Nicolas Jenson routinely added hand-illuminated capitals to their printed volumes, with empty spaces left on the printed page for this express purpose.40 We can turn instead to that masterpiece of early printing, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, the famous romance published by Aldus in Venice in 1499, a volume that runs riot with printed inscriptions in beautifully formed capital letters.41 A particularly relevant example is the long epitaph that closes the volume (fig. 10). Poliphilo, the hero of the romance, has searched throughout the narrative for his true love Polia. In the end, he must be content with her epitaph:    EPITAPH. VBI POL. LOQVITVR. VIATOR FAC QVAESO MORVLAM,    POLIAE NYMPHAE       HIC EST MYROPOLIVM. QVAE NAM INQVIES POLIA? FLOS ILLE OMNEM REDOLENS VIRTVTEM    SPETATISSIMVS. QVI OB LOCI ARITVDINEM, PLVSCVLIS POLIPJILI LACHRYMVL.       REPVLVLESCERE NEQVIT. AT SI ME FLORERE VIDERES, EXIMIA    PICTVRA VNIVERSIS DECORITER       PRAESTARE CONSPICERES          PHOEBE INQVIENS, QVEM INTACTVM VRORERELIQVE    RAS, VMBRA CEDIDIT.       HEV POLIPHILE DESINE    FLOS SICEXSICCATVS, NVNQVAM REVIVISCIT.          VALE.

1988 (as fn. 32), pp. 107–158. See now the catalogue of the comprehensive exhibition covering the work of Aldus and his position at the forefront of developments in the arts of the Veneto in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries: Guido Beltramini, Davide Gasparotto, and Giulio Manieri Elia (eds.), Aldo Manuzio in Renaissance Venice, Venice: Marsilio, 2016. 40 Examples are the Sweynheym- and Pannartz-printed edition of Cicero’s De oratore of 1465 in the Pierpont Morgan Library, and their edition of Cicero, Epistole ad Familiares of 1467 in the Marciana. 41 For a guide to the extensive literature and problems associated with the publication of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, see the excellent summary in Fortini Brown 1996 (as fn. 11), pp. 207–221, and the essay by Helena K. Szépe in: Beltramini et al. 2016 (as fn. 39), pp. 137–155. Giovanni Mardersteig, Osservazioni tipografiche sul Polifilo nelle edizioni del 1499 e 1545, in: Contributi alla storia del libro italiano. Miscellanea in onore di Lamberto Donati, Florence: Olschki, 1969, pp. 221–242, (reprinted in Mardersteig1988 [as fn. 32], pp. 197–215), specifies “una nuova serie di maiuscole che hanno dato a quest’opera un aspetto del tutto particolare” (p. 224).

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EPITAPH IN WHICH POLIA SPEAKS Traveller, tarry here awhile. This is the perfumery of the Nymph Polia. Who is Polia, you ask? The beautiful flower Redolent of every virtue, Who for all Poliphilo’s tears Cannot revive in this arid place. But if you would see me in flower, A rare picture, you would behold A display of every beauty, Saying: Phoebus, what you had left Untouched by fire, Has fallen into the shadow. Alas, Poliphilo, Cease. A flower so dry Never revives. Farewell.42

The letters in which Polia speaks to Poliphilo from the grave and bids farewell – “Alas, Poliphilo, Cease”  – are the supple capitals of the Paduan-Venetian antique-letter recovery, destined for a long and happy afterlife on the printed page.

42 Francesco Colonna, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. The Strife of Love in a Dream, trans. Joscelyn Godwin, New York: Thames & Hudson, 1999, p. 466.

Rosella Lauber

Cultural Exchanges in Venice, for an Artistic “Archive of  Memory” New Contributions on Gentile Bellini, Bessarion, and the Scuola Grande della Carità, through Michiel’s Notizia*

For an “Archive of Memory” Venice’s patrician Marcantonio Michiel (1484–1552), “docto in greco et latin” [learned in Greek and Latin],1 was a privileged observer of epochal ‘inventions’ and cultural changes during the first half of the sixteenth century. For over two decades, at least approximately from 1521 to 1543, Michiel gathered on loose sheets his own original descriptions of public and private works of art in Padua, Cremona, Milan, Pavia, Bergamo, Crema, and Venice, writing in different inks and ductus; these often undated autograph papers were subsequently collected and constituted the first element of a composite codex, now kept in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice.2 The manuscript, called Notizia d’opere di disegno, proves to be a unicum in the artistic literature of the Renaissance.3 Michiel’s papers show the progressive and constantly changing creation of an “archive of memory,” open to new accessions as well as repeated and renewable consultations.

* I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to Brigit Blass-Simmen and to Stefan Weppelmann. I am profoundly grateful to Roberto Sorgo for the translation of the article and of the quotations from the Marciana manuscript of Marcantonio Michiel’s Notizia (the translation of the quotations was kept as close as possible to the sixteenth-century text, to provide a parallel reading of Michiel’s descriptions). 1 Marin Sanuto, I diarii …, ed. Rinaldo Fulin et al., vol. 26 of 58 (1889), Venice: Deputazione Veneta di Storia Patria, 1879–1903, col. 69. 2 Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana (= BNM), ms. It. XI, 67 (= 7351), I [hereafter M]. See Jacopo Morelli (ed.), Notizia d’opere di disegno, Bassano: s. n. [Remondini], 1800; Gustavo Frizzoni (ed.), Notizia d’opere di disegno. Seconda edizione riveduta ed aumentata, Bologna: Zanichelli, 1884; Theodor Frimmel, Der Anonimo Morelliano (Marcanton Michiel’s Notizia d’opere del disegno), Vienna: Graeser, 1888 (and 1896); Theodor Frimmel, Bemerkungen zu Marc-Anton Michiels ‘Notizia d’opere di disegno,’ in: Beilage der ‘Blätter für Gemäldekunde’ 3.2 (1907), pp. 37–78. 3 A critical edition of Michiel’s Notizia, his Diarii, and Carteggi has long been in preparation by this author. See especially Rosella Lauber, Per l’edizione critica della Notizia d’opere di disegno di Marcantonio Michiel (PhD diss., Università degli Studi di Udine), 2001 (2 vols.); Rosella Lauber, ‘Opera perfettissima.’ Marcantonio Michiel e la Notizia d’opere di disegno, in: Bernard Aikema, Rosella Lauber, Max Seidel (eds.), Il collezionismo a Venezia e nel Veneto ai tempi della Serenissima, Venice: Marsilio, 2005, pp. 77–116; Rosella Lauber, ‘Et maxime in li occhî.’ Per la descrizione delle opere d’arte in Marc­ antonio Michiel, in: Eliana Carrara, Silvia Ginzburg (eds.), Testi, immagini, filologia nel XVI secolo, Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2007, pp. 1–36.

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New Contributions on the Reception of Bessarion’s Staurotheca: An Altar in the Meeting Hall of the Scuola della Carità Marcantonio Michiel, “patriarca dei conoscitori italiani” [patriarch of Italian connoisseurs],4 in the Notizia’s section devoted to the Scuola della Carità, gives an accurate description (fig. 1) of the Staurotheca [cross-shaped reliquary] (now in Venice, Gallerie dell’Accademia;5 plate IX), shown in a painting recognized as Gentile Bellini’s panel depicting Cardinal Bessarion and Two Members of the Scuola Grande di Santa Maria della Carità in Prayer with the Bessarion Reliquary (since 2002 in London’s National Gallery;6 plate X). This panel was identified as the door of the original tabernacle commissioned by the confraternity of the Carità to house the Staurotheca that Bessarion had donated to the Scuola, with the deed of 29 August 1463, enforced by a letter of 12 May 1472 from Bologna.7 Michiel’s description is significant: [f. 73r] El quadretto della Passion de ’l nostro Signor, cum tutti li misterî in più capitoli a figure picole alla grecca, cum el texto delli Evangelî grecco sotto, fu opera constantinopolitana, et par esser stata una porta d’un armaro. Et fu donata dal Cardinal Niceno alla Scola, della qual volse esser fratello; per il che essi lo fecero ritrar nel ditto quadro de questa Passion, de sotto, inzenochiato cum la croce in mano, cum dui altri fratelli della Scola similmente inzenochiati et cum le cappe indosso. The small picture of the Passion of Our Lord, with all the mysteries in several sections with small figures in the Greek style, with the Greek text of the Gospels underneath, was a Constantinople work and seems to have been a cupboard door. And it was donated by the Nicene Cardinal to the

4 See Roberto Longhi, Il palazzo non finito. Saggi inediti 1910–1926, ed. Francesco Frangi, Cristina Montagnani, Milan: Electa, 1995, p. 378. 5 See Gianfranco Fiaccadori (ed.), Bessarione e l’Umanesimo, with Andrea Cuna, Andrea Gatti, Save­ rio Ricci (exh. cat.), Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana (Naples: Vivarium, 1994); Gianfranco Fiaccadori, Minima Byzantina, in: Nea Rhōmē 4 (2007), pp. 383–412; Valeria Poletto, Reliquario della vera croce del cardinale Bessarione, in: Carlo Bertelli, Giorgio Bonsanti (eds.), Restituzioni 2013, Venice: Marsilio, 2013, cat. 18, pp. 144–151; Holger A. Klein, Die Staurothek Kardinal Bessarions. Bild­rhetorik und Reliquienkult im Venedig des späten Mittelalters, in: Claudia Märtl, Christian Kaiser, Thomas Ricklin (eds.), Inter graecos latinissimus, inter latinos graecissimus. Bessarion zwischen den Kulturen, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013, pp. 245–276; Holger A. Klein, Valeria Poletto, Peter Schreiner (eds.), La Stauroteca di Bessarione fra Costantinopoli e Venezia, forthcoming. 6 See Caroline Campbell, The Bellini, Bessarion and Byzantium, in: Caroline Campbell, Alan Chong (eds.), Bellini and the East (exh. cat.), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston and The National Gallery, London (London: Yale University Press, 2005), pp. 36–65; id., pp. 38–39, cat. 6, with bibl. 7 See Leo Planiscig, Jacopo und Gentile Bellini (Neue Beiträge zu ihrem Werk), in: Jahrbuch der Kunst­ historischen Sammlung in Wien, n. s., 2 (1928), pp. 41–62.

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Fig. 1: Biblioteca Nazionale Mar­ciana, Venice, ms. It. XI, 67 (=7351), I, [Marcantonio Michiel], “Notizia d’opere di disegno”, f. 73r. Confraternity, of which he wanted to become a brother; for this reason, they had him portrayed in the said picture of this Passion, underneath, kneeling with the cross in his hands, with two other brothers of the Confraternity, similarly kneeling and wearing their cowls.

The archival documents preserved from that Venetian confraternity include a codex titled Ordinario delle Successioni [Succession Register], which records the names of the brethren and their decease.8 In another codex, titled Catastico e registro delle cose maggiori della Scuola della Carità [Cadastre and Register of Major Items of the Scuola della Carità], concerning the “confratelli d’onore” [brethren of honor] of the confraternity,9 clues can be found about a strategic network of relations between the Scuola and multiple political and religious representatives, from Rome to the Orient. In this codex, evidence of the ‘investiture’ of the Nicene Cardinal, on 29 August 1463, stands out.10 The register also includes Bessarion’s coat of arms, as well as the gift of the

8 Archivio di Stato di Venezia (= ASVe), Scuola Grande di Santa Maria della Carità [hereafter SGSMC], Atti, [b. 355], Successioni ereditarie Guardiani e confratelli, 1450–1545 [Ordinario delle Successioni delli Guardiani e compagni e fratelli morti 1450–1545]. See also Lauber 2001 (as fn. 3), p. 3 and passim. 9 Cf. BNM, ms. It. VII, 2700 (= 12998). See also Lauber 2001 (as fn. 3), p. 2 and passim. The incipit (f. 1r) first records the admission as a brother of Girolamo Lando, “patriarcha constantinopolitano.” 10 Catastico e registro, ms. cit. (as fn. 9), f. 2v. See also ASVe, SGSMC, Atti, reg. 140, Libro Testamenti Primo, f. 137r. See Lauber 2001 (as fn. 3), p. 42. Corner mentioned the investiture of 29 August 1463 with

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Staurotheca, which Bessarion decided, on that same day, to assign to the Carità. The instrumentum donationis was written by the imperial notary Ulisse Aleotti, an influential member of the confraternity (who had been guardian grande [grand guardian] in 1461.)11 The recording of Bessarion’s admission to the Scuola della Carità, which occurred on 29 August 1463, as documented in the codex devoted to the brethren of honor, can therefore resolve the doubt expressed by those who vainly sought the corresponding evidence in the mentioned Ordinario codex.12 In this volume, anyway, we can find enrollments and follow the cursus honorum of many figures linked to the cardinal, including his assistant, the scholar Niccolò Perotti, who was “received and admitted,” joining the brethren on 8 March 1464, a few months after the Nicene Cardinal and still under the same guardian grande, Marco da Costa. The admission of Perotti is recorded by the “scrivano” [scrivener] in office, in whose handwriting we recognize that of Andrea dalla Siega, who was elected that year “chanzelier” [chancellor] of the Scuola and who would become guardian grande, in 1472, when the Staurotheca was actually handed over to the Carità.13 So, in the summer of 1463, Cardinal Bessarion had officially decided, with an irrevocable legal deed in favor of Venice’s Scuola della Carità, to transfer possession of the reliquary containing fragments of the True Cross and of Christ’s seamless coat. Bessarion, however, had reserved the right to retain the Staurotheca as long as he was alive. The Nicene Cardinal himself changed his mind when Pope Sixtus IV sent him on a challenging mission to France. On 20 April 1472, Bessarion left Rome; he stopped in Urbino, then from 9 to 12 May he stayed in Bologna: from there, he gave instructions that the reliquary be handed over without delay to Venice’s Scuola della Carità, together with a letter dated 12 May 1472. At the same time, the cardinal announced that he had taken steps to have the Staurotheca decorated with the silver by which it was “conclusa” [finished] and equipped with a pole, so that it could be carried in procession. He also expressed his desire that the reliquary be exhibited, at appropriate times and places, for people to worship. Then the Nicene Cardinal parted from the reliquary for good, entrusting it, together with the letter, to three messengers and representatives on their way to Venice. The explicit of the letter includes a dedication

the opening statement “Res ex vetustis Sodalitii codicibus patet, ubi haec leguntur”: Flaminio Corner, Ecclesiae Venetae …, VII, Venice: Typis Jo. Baptistae Pasquali, 1749, p. 195; see also Joannes Baptista Schioppalalba, In perantiquam sacram tabulam graecam insigni sodalitio Sanctae Mariae Caritatis Venetiarum ab amplissimo cardinali Bessarione dono datam dissertatio, Venice: Typis Mo­desti Fentii, 1767, pp. 121–132. 11 Dating back to the period of the guardianship of Ulisse Aleotti, elected in 1461, we also find the names of new brethren recorded in the lists of the Scuola della Carità, where we discover such leading figures as Jacopo Zeno, bishop of Padua, humanist and bibliophile. See Successioni, ms. cit. (as fn. 8). 12 Ibid. 13 See Successioni, ms. cit. (as fn. 8), f. 13r. Already in Lauber 2001 (as fn. 3), p. 3.

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Fig. 2: Joannes Baptista Schioppalalba, In perantiquam sacram tabulam graecam insigni sodalitio Sanctae Mariae Caritatis Venetiarum ab amplissimo cardinali Bessarione dono datam dissertatio, Venetiis, Typis Modesti Fentii, 1767, antiporta.

to the Carità, as well as a prayer (“Oramus, in sempiternum Domus Caritatis, et Fraternitatis nostrae argumentum, cui hoc opus dicavi pro mea in Deum pietate”). The various stages in the donation and reception of Bessarion’s Staurotheca have reached us thanks to eighteenth-century editions, including a detailed treatise by the chaplain of the Scuola, Giovanni Battista Schioppalalba (fig. 2),14 who gained direct access to the archives of the confraternity; many data cited by eighteenth-century sources were believed to be by now inaccessible, missing, or lost for good. However,

14 See Schioppalalba 1767 (as fn. 10).

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we were able to identify these documents, which had also been deemed to lack evidence, in the archives.15 The renewed direct consultation of the documents, to which further, so far unknown evidence can be added, thus enabled us to introduce new details and reflections. In the archival documents of the Carità, the first Libro di Testamenti [Book of Wills] shows the recording of Bessarion’s donation “inter vivos” [between living persons] of 29 August  1463. There follows the cardinal’s letter of 12  May 1472 from Bologna, to which a note is added in the codex, concerning the actual reception of the Staurotheca, an event that occurred on 24 May 1472 in Venice.16 We can also read the letter addressed to the cardinal, on 6 July 1472, by the guardi­an grande of the Carità then in office, Andrea dalla Siega, who describes the welcome given to the munificent gift that arrived in Venice and the solemn public procession that took place on Trinity Sunday (which fell that year on 7 June); finally, the decision is announced, in order to keep the sacred gift on the confraternity premises, to have a “tabernaculum et monumentum” made, with a dedicatory inscription.17 The cardinal expressed his thanks by writing a letter from Lyon to the Scuola della Carità in Venice; the letter’s date can be specified to be 13 September 1472.18 We were also able to track down the transcription of this letter, so far considered un­identifiable but kept among the manuscripts of Giovanni Carlo Sivos, a brother at the Scuola della Carità and guardian grande in 1607 and in 1614.19 Among the mentioned Sivos manuscripts we found, apart from the transcription of the said three letters of 12 May, 6 July, and 13 September 1472,20 concerning Bessarion’s donation, we identified an important note about their ancient location. With the authority of a leading character in the life of the Scuola, risen twice to the office of guardian grande in 1607 and 1614,21 Sivos specifies that the letters “sono dietro la

15 See Lauber 2001 (as fn. 3), pp. 1–45. 16 ASVe, SGSMC, Atti, reg. 140, ff. 137r, 143v. See Lauber 2001 (as fn. 3), pp. 41–42. 17 ASVe, SGSMC, Atti, reg. 140, ff. 144–145r. See Lauber 2001 (as fn. 3), pp. 41–42. 18 This is indeed the exact date [and not “15 August 1472,” as reported for example in Lotte Labowsky, Per l’iconografia del cardinal Bessarione, in: Fiaccadori (ed.) 1994 (as fn. 5), pp. 285–295, p. 294]. See Lauber 2001 (as fn. 3), pp. 10–11. 19 See Schioppalalba 1767 (as fn. 10), pp. 147–148: the chaplain of the Scuola declares that the source of the letter was its transcription in manuscript codices of Giovanni Carlo Sivos. Mohler also reports the tradition of the epistle, to be referred to a “Kodex des Johannes Carolus Sivos,” whose whereabouts he describes as unknown (Ludwig Mohler, Kardinal Bessarion als Theologe, Humanist und Staatsmann, vol. 3, Paderborn: Schoning, 1942, pp. 569–570). However, we were now able to read directly Sivos’ transcription of the letter, dated “Lugduni Idibus Septembris 1472,” in BMC, ms. Correr 1340, Libro terzo delli dosi di Venetia di Gioan Carlo Sivos, f. 348v [see also BNM, ms. It. VII, 1818 (= 9436), Libro terzo delle Vite de’ Dosi di Venezia di Gio. Carlo Sivos]. See Lauber 2001 (as fn. 3), pp. 10–11. 20 See Venice, Biblioteca del Museo Correr (= BMC), ms. Correr 1340, ff. 344–348v; see also BMC, ms. Correr 1339, Libro secondo delle Vite de Dosi de Venetia di Gio Carlo Sivos, ff. 67v-68r. 21 See Lauber 2001 (as fn. 3), pp. 10–11.

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Croce granda d’argento con diverse Reliquie” [are behind the great silver Cross with several Relics]. Sivos himself provides another significant piece of information: et l’anno 1488 fu fatto uno altare nell’albergo di detta Scola, et uno Santuario per riponer in sicuro esse Reliquie sotto il Guardianato de Messer Bortolamio da Luse and in the year 1488 an altar was made in the albergo of said Scuola, and a Shrine to keep those Relics safe, under the Guardianship of Messer Bortolamio da Luse.22

This unpublished and detailed note at last introduces evidence, ad annum, of the actual presence, in the sala dell’albergo [meeting hall], of an altar, whose debated existence in those years was not yet documented.23

“A perpetua memoria” Little more than two months after his last letter to the brethren, Bessarion died in Ravenna in November  1472.24 In Venice, at the Scuola della Carità, the register of deceased brethren had then to be updated.25 In a column, under the drawing of the cardinal’s coat of arms, a few lines summarize the end of the Nicene cleric’s earthly

22 BMC, ms. Correr 1340, f. 347v. 23 For the question of the presence or otherwise of an altar in the sala dell’albergo at that time, with consequences also for the function of previous paintings attested in that hall, see also Peter Humfrey, The Altarpiece in Renaissance Venice, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993, pp. 170, 321, 326. Id., The Bellini, the Vivarini, and the Beginnings of the Renaissance Altarpiece in Venice, in: Eve Borsook, Fiorella Superbi Gioffredi (eds.), Italian Altarpiece 1250–1550. Function and Design, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994, pp. 139–176, esp. pp. 146–147. Humfrey, while analysing the Four Fathers of the Church triptych (1446) by Giovanni d’Alemagna and Antonio Vivarini in the former sala dell’albergo of the Scuola della Carità (now part of the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice; cat. 625), specified that the painting was not an altarpiece but rather a work to be compared “with the fourteenth-century decoration of secular council chambers, such as Simone Martini’s Maestà in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena.” Humfrey assumed that, contrary to what was generally thought, there was never an altar in the albergo of the Scuola della Carità, also referring to “early Venetian sources, none of which mention any altar” and adding that “there was no absolute rule governing the existence or otherwise of an altar in the albergo of the meeting-houses of the Venetian Scuole Grandi […].” The Sivos manuscript (as fn. 22) now introduces important new evidence concerning the construction of an altar in the sala dell’albergo of the Scuola della Carità in 1488 (see also Lauber 2001, as fn. 3, p. 11). This document can thus at last confirm the hypothesis that the previous Vivarini and d’Alemagna’s polyptych, dated 1446, was not an altarpiece. The painting rather represented a sort of manifesto of the confraternity’s religious and civic values. 24 The Carità codex reports 19 November 1472 as the dies of Bessarion’s death. Ancient sources are in disagreement about the day of the cardinal’s death. 25 Successioni, ms. cit. (as fn. 8). In the codex, the lists are opposite each other, even with regard to the direction of reading: on the one side, the list of offices of living brethren is reported; on the other

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journey, up to the transfer to Rome and burial there, in the church of Santi XII Apo­ stoli. Debts of gratitude and obligations of brotherhood are then declared by the Scuola della Carità toward the venerable brother, in whose honor a solemn “ossequio” [homage] had been celebrated in Venice on 6  December 1472, in the church of Santa Maria della Carità, “a perpetua memoria” [in everlasting memory]. In the explicit, the cardinal’s soul is invoked, almost ‘portrayed’ while praying for God to watch over all the brethren.26 These words seem to encourage us again to reflect on the value placed by the Scuola on the celebration of the memory of Bessarion, to whose prayers the spiritual salvation of all brethren (and of all those who would contemplate his image) is also entrusted; on 29 August 1463, moreover, the donation had been accompanied by devout orations and by Bessarion’s bestowing a ‘plenary’ indulgence upon the witnesses. Over time, care and restorations are recorded that concerned the reliquary27 and the tabernacle, as well as the surroundings, in that sala dell’albergo at the Carità where portraits and inscriptions are reported also with explicit references to the cel-

side, after turning the volume upside down, the list of deceased brethren proceeds in the opposite direction. 26 “[…] la qual anima prega al summo Dio per tutti nuy sui fedelissimi fradelli.” 27 See especially ASVe, SGSMC, Atti, b. 144 (2 February 1765 more veneto [= 1766]). Among the confraternity documents we also discover the important recording, dated 30 January 1535 more veneto (= 1536), of an instruction concerning the expenditure for a significant restoration, including the addition of silver, carried out for the “Croce” [Cross]: ASVe, SGSMC, Atti, reg. 256, Notatorio II, f. 45v: “Laus Deo 1535. Adi 30 zener. Essendo stà fatto conzar la Croce della schuolla nostra, azonto arzento, reffata, et rinovada tutta, che era necessario conzarla, et repararla. Però l’anderà parte, che mette ms. Domenigo Ziprian vardian grando e compagnj, che la ditta spesa vedi à conto della schuolla nostra. Redutti à numero perfetto. Della Bancha n. 12. De Zonta n. 10. Have della parte n. 19, de no n. 3. E fo presa.” See Lauber 2001 (as fn. 3), pp. 42–43. The renovation, deemed necessary and subjected to a vote by the Banca and Zonta, is reported among the noteworthy facts of the Scuola, in the Notatorio. The “Croce della schuolla nostra” is however introduced without the adjective “Santissima,” otherwise often present in references to Bessarion’s donation (where however the attribute refers, in primis and specifically, to the wooden Most Holy Cross of Christ, from which the two fragments in the Staurotheca were supposed to come; the fragments were kept together with the two frusta tunicae Christi). But we can observe that also in other registers and inventories of the Scuola the reliquary (namely the case holding the sacred relics of Christ) is described tout court as “Croce,” without any adjective, differing in this context both from the holy relics contained therein, and from the other various Crosses and “crosette” owned by the Scuola. Among the various subsequent mentions in inventories, we can track down a number of occurrences of the simple wording “Croce” for the Staurotheca, as well as the clear specification “reliquario sive Croce” (thus, as an example, in an inventory of the Scuola of 1674: “Nella fazzada dell’altar in Albergo: Un Reliquario sive Crose qual era del Reverendissimo Cardinal Bisarion con del Legno della Santissima Croce, et altre Reliquie”). The official terminology, adopted in several documents of the Scuola, clearly defines and distinguishes: on the one side, ‘the container’ (i. e., Bessarion’s “reliquario sive Croce,” where sive can be translated as namely); on the other side, the ‘contents’ [“con diversi pezzi del Legno della S(antissi)ma Croce”], where the adjective “Santissima” precisely and exclusively refers to the wooden Cross on which the Saviour was crucified.

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ebratory function of the memory of both giver and gift, between monumentum and documentum. Beside the painting for the tabernacle intended to house Bessarion’s Staurotheca, the confraternity also commissioned another portrait of Bessarion, which can again be attributed to Gentile Bellini and which is mentioned by the sources as present in the sala dell’albergo of the Scuola della Carità,28 where the donor’s dedicatory inscription in marble also stood out. In the early sixteenth century, this painting was stolen, and afterward the Scuola commissioned a copy of the original. The decision, recorded on 8 March 1540, to have a replacement copy made from memory also attests to the significance attached by the confraternity members to that portrait in the early decades of the sixteenth century, when Michiel also compiled his papers relating to the Scuola della Carità (which we think we can date around 1533, also from a comparative analysis of ductus, handwriting, and inks). Michiel himself describes this further portrait, writing notes on a paper facing the one devoted to the panel with Bessarion and the two brethren kneeling in the presence of the Staurotheca: [f. 72v] Ne l’albergo. El ritratto de ’l Cardinal Niceno, vestito di zambellotto negro cum la cappa in capo et cum lo capello deposto giuso a costo d’ello, fu de mano de … et novamente è stato refatto da … In the albergo. The portrait of the Nicene Cardinal, dressed in a black camlet with the cowl on his head, and with his hat laid down close beside him, was by the hand of … and was repainted by …29

On 8 March 1540,30 therefore, the brethren of the Scuola della Carità, after mentioning that up to that point they had been in possession of a portrait of the Nicene Cardinal, decided to have a portrait made “simile à quello e sta’ portato via” [similar to the one that has been taken away], or rather “de più bellezza” [of greater beauty], to preserve the memory of a person who had done good to the Scuola against any form of oblivion. The new portrait, as had been the case with the original, would help the confraternity to win approval. It would be displayed during the main festivities, and the effigy “di tal beneffattor” [of such a benefactor] would occupy, in the sala dell’albergo, the place already reserved for it.

28 The Portrait of Cardinal Bessarion is recalled by a canvas now in the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice (116 × 95 cm; cat. 876), probably a painting from memory of the lost original that can be referred to Gentile Bellini. 29 See M, f. 72v. The last specification “et novamente è stato refatto da …” [and was repainted by …] seems to be added later with different ductus and inks. 30 ASVe, SGSMC, Atti, reg. 256, Notatorio II, f. 134: De far el retratto de’l Gardenal Niceno. This document was cited, but not published, in Schioppalalba 1767 (as fn. 10), p. 149. Reading the original document in full also allows for further specifications, such as the delivery date expected by the brethren (“sia finito per la presente festa nostra”) and the amount of money earmarked (“fin alla summa de ducati 25 in circa”). See Lauber 2001 (as fn. 3), p. 43.

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For a New Reading of Gentile Bellini’s Panel Showing the Portrait of Bessarion in Prayer before the Staurotheca, with Two Brethren of the Scuola della Carità The analysis of sources currently known has led critics to date to about or after 1472 or 1473 Gentile Bellini’s painting (now in London, The National Gallery)31 depicting Cardinal Bessarion and two brethren of the Scuola della Carità kneeling in prayer before the Staurotheca, which was donated by the Nicene cleric to the confraternity (a work corresponding with Michiel’s description in the Notizia). The panel, as mentioned above, was identified as the door of the tabernacle described by the sources and intended to preserve the reliquary (the identification is supported by the two keyholes discovered and still visible on the right side of the wooden panel).32 That leads us to recall the letter of the guardian grande of the Carità, Andrea dalla Siega, written to Bessarion in July 1472, when the creation of a tabernacu­ lum (together with that of a monumentum with a dedicatory inscription) appears to have been decided but not yet carried out: therefore the date of this letter, 6 July 1472, has been accepted as the terminus post quem to date the painting.33 In Bellini’s picture, moreover, the reliquary appears already complete with the changes that Bessarion desired and personally specified when he wrote to the Carità on 12 May 1472. The representation of the Staurotheca indeed includes both the silver decoration [quo est conclusa] and the pole to carry it in procession:34 these elements are not mentioned in the earlier instrumentum donationis of 1463. As a result, it has been inferred that the changes decided by Bessarion were carried out in the time interval between 29 August 1463 and 12 May 1472. We can introduce another document, which is also relevant to the permanent placing of the Staurotheca on the premises of the Carità, the receiver of the irrevocable donation decided by Bessarion: in a register with deeds and decrees of the confraternity (“Libro detto il Bergameno”), we discover a vote from 11 April  1474,35

31 See Campbell 2005 (as fn. 6; “after 1472–3”); see also the online catalogue of London’s National Gallery (“about 1472–3”). 32 Ibid. 33 See also Labowsky 1994 (as fn. 18), pp. 285–295. 34 Ibid. 35 ASVe, SGSMC, Atti, reg. 236, Libro detto il Bergameno (Atti e decreti. Registro Nominato Bergameno. 1460–1614), no. 37: “Adi 11 april 1474. Per messer lo vardian e compagni fu prexo a voxe essendo per nuovi 15 congregadi chel se fazi uno pavimento de taio dorado alla nostra croxe sanctissima e fo dado libertà a ser Vielmo di Anzolieri che fese far dito pavimento chon condition che lui non possi spender di beni de la scuola più de ducati venticinque.” Vielmo di Anzolieri was a brother of the Scuola: on 20 March 1474, he held the position of degano [dean], confirmed in August that same year: see Suc-

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with which it was decided to create, for the “Croxe sanctissima”, a “pavimento de taio dorado” [a carved and gilded support].36 Reading the new document suggests therefore that the Scuola della Carità had a support created that could hold the pole of the reliquary. This would allow the latter both to be displayed independently and to be carried in procession by means of the solero: almost fulfilling the cardinal’s desiderata. A similar support can be seen in connection with the display of a reliquary in works by Gentile Bellini himself, including the telero [canvas] depicting the Procession of the Relic of the True Cross in the Piazza San Marco (Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice), with the celebration of the miracles of the True Cross relic, donated to the Venetian confraternity of San Giovanni Evangelista by Philippe de Mezières, Chancellor of Cyprus, in 1369 (a donation that precedes, and in some respects prefigures, the one by Bessarion of 1463–1472). The planned creation of a “pavimento de taio dorado” for the “Croxe sanctissima” [Most Holy Cross] leads us to reflect on the date of this measure, recorded on 11 April 1474: the decision was made at the same time as the admission of fifteen new brethren [congregadi]. Analysing the rotation of offices in the confraternity reveals a significant alternation of figures: in 1474, the guardian grande turns out to be Marco Belosello (formerly guardian da matin in 1461, under the guardianship of Ulisse Aleotti).37 We now propose that the date of the new document of 11 April 1474 be considered as an updated terminus post quem for Gentile Bellini’s panel (now in London’s National Gallery). In the painting, the Staurotheca in the foreground stands out in sharp visual relief against the darkness of the background. It appears portrayed axially, standing upright on its own, and resting on its base. As the central figure of the depiction, viewed frontally and magnified, the reliquary towers over the re­presentation of the three pious men kneeling in prayer in its presence: one side almost inscribes the ascetic effigy in profile of the donor Bessarion; the other side circumscribes the images of the two brethren of the Carità, a synecdoche for the commissioning Scuola. As further support for the proposed timeline, the possible new terminus post quem of 11 April 1474 can also be suggested by the recording of money gifts “per la spesa della Santissima Croce e per le pitture dell’albergo negli anni 1474–1475” [for the

cessioni, ms. cit. (as fn. 8), f. 20v (Vielmo appears as degano on several occasions: for example, ibid., f. 15r, at the dates 23 March 1466 and 7 March 1467). See Lauber 2001 (as fn. 3), pp. 15, 42. 36 The document of 11 April 1474 could indeed confirm a fortiori that the Staurotheca was equipped with a base, allowing it also to be carried on a soler da processiòn. Among a number of documentary occurrences concerning the soleri of the Scuola, in a later inventory of the Carità (after the mention of “Un soler detto della Madonetta”), we can read: “Un detto intaglio dorato per il Reliquario Bisarion, con frontespiccio d’argento coperto di tela zala” [italics added]: ASVe, SGSMC, Atti, b. 38, Asse, f. n. n. 37 See Successioni, ms. cit. (as fn. 8), at the dates.

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expenditure on the Most Holy Cross and for the painting of the albergo in the years 1474–1475].38 When considering the specification in the new document of April  1474 regarding the carved and gilded “pavimento,” significance can be attached to the effective admission, as brother of the Scuola, of Matteo Bianco, “intaiador” [woodcarver],39 which occurred during the guardianship of Andrea dalla Siega and was mentioned in March 1473, when the list of “recevudi” [admitted] brethren opens with Giacomo Perleoni “il dottor” (one of the three messengers to whom Bessarion entrusted the Staurotheca in May 1472).40 Meanwhile, work on the enlargement and decoration of the confraternity premises was underway: testimony is also provided by a book recording the money gifts in relation to the albergo in the year 1475; we have now found mention of this book in the archival documents of the confraternity.41 Moreover, to establish a fortiori 11 April 1474 as a plausible terminus post quem for Gentile Bellini’s painting now in London, we can also mention the commission assigned, on 1  September of that year, by the Venetian Senate to Gentile Bellini himself, in the campaign to renovate the influential narrative paintings of the Alexander III cycle in the Great Council Hall of the Doge’s Palace in Venice. In this decorative undertaking, Gentile Bellini appears to have also included Bessarion’s image, specifically in the telero that can be identified as the Presentation of the White Candle to the Doge (where indeed Bessarion’s figure stands out among the onlookers, wearing the attire of the monks of Saint Basil, as mentioned by Francesco Sansovino in 1581, after the destructive fire of 1577). In this narrative cycle for the Doge’s Palace that Gentile Bellini was commissioned to paint as from September  1474, the cardinal’s image would thus appear, reworked by the painter from previous studies. Similarly, and in our opinion approximately in the same period (post 11 April  1474), Gentile Bellini would also include Bessarion’s portrait in the panel for the Scuola della Carità (now in London), reworking in the same way previous sketches drawn “dal naturale” [from life]. During his final stay in Venice, which lasted from 22 July 1463 to July 1464,

38 See Gino Fogolari, La teca del Bessarione e la croce di San Teodoro di Venezia, in: Dedalo 3 (1922– 1923), pp. 73–118. 39 Matteo Bianco was the father of Luca and Alvise. For the Biancos’ workshop and the Carità, see now Emanuela Daffra, Matteo Ceriana, Il polittico di San Bartolomeo di Cima da Conegliano, in: Arte Veneta 61 (2005), pp. 52–69; Emanuela Daffra, Matteo Ceriana, Cima da Conegliano e la bottega di Alvise Bianco per San Bartolomeo a Olera, in: Emanuela Daffra (ed.), Inauratam et ornatam. Il polittico di Cima da Conegliano a Olera, Azzano San Paolo (BG): Bolis, 2005, pp. 40–75; Anne Markham Schulz, Woodcarving and Woodcarvers in Venice 1350–1550, Florence: Centro Di, 2011. 40 Giacomo Perleoni would become guardian grande in 1487. 41 We intend to get back to the subject elsewhere.

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Bessarion42 had often appeared in the foreground of political and public life, as legate a latere with the task of persuading Venice to take part in the crusade. Sketches and studies of the cardinal’s countenance by Gentile Bellini are thought to date back to this period. The painter would later use them and include them in the painting in the Doge’s Palace, and in the portraits later commissioned by the Scuola della Carità43 – in both cases, according to our hypothesis, starting from 1474. Along its winding path, extending in time and space, the reliquary seems therefore to include in itself a summa of the signs impressed by successive owners and the project envisaged at each changeover, from hand to hand. The mentioned measure taken by the Scuola on 11 April 1474 concerning the “pavimento de taio dorado” for the “croxe sanctissima,” apart from its practical function, seems also to emphasize the conscious reception given by the Carità to the generous gift: on the one hand, it was firmly fixed and displayed inside; on the other hand, in the alternating festivities of the civic and religious calendars of the Scuola and of the Venetian Republic, it was triumphantly carried outside and around the city.

New Proposals for Dating the Dedicatory Plaque of Bessarion’s Staurotheca On the back of the reliquary (fig. 3), attached in the middle, is a silver plaque, where Bessarion is cited as bishop “sabinensis.” This wording, which can also be found in possession notes and incunabula concerning Bessarion as from 1469, would seem to contradict the recurring title of “vescovo tusculano” [bishop of Tusculo], taken by Bessarion in 1449 (after being suburbicarian bishop of the Sabina from 5  March to 23 April that year) – all the more so because the title tusculano also appears in the Roman church of the Santi XII Apostoli, in the sepulchral inscription dictated by Bessarion himself in 1466.44 Bessarion, however, while dictating his sepulchral inscription in 1466, and establishing the specification vescovo tusculano, could not foresee that his title would change in the immediate future. Indeed, on 14  October 1468, Bessarion, leaving

42 For Bessarion in Venice, see also Brigit Blass-Simmen, ‘Laetentur coeli’ oder die byzantinische Hälfte des Himmels. Die ‘Anbetung der Könige’ von Antonio Vivarini und Giovanni d’Alemagna in der Gemäldegalerie Berlin, in: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 72 (2009), pp. 449–478. 43 See Francesco Sansovino, Venetia città nobilissima et singolare, descritta in XIIII libri …, Venice: appresso Jacomo Sansovino, 1581, f. 131r and ff. 99v-100r. See also Labowsky 1994 (as fn. 18), pp. 285–295. 44 Anna Pontani, Le maiuscole greche antiquarie di Giano Lascaris. Per la storia dell’alfabeto greco in Italia nel ’400, in: Scrittura e civiltà 16 (1992), pp. 77–227. See also Schioppalalba 1767 (as fn. 10), pp. 140–142.

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Fig. 3: Cardinal Bessarion’s Reliquary of the True Cross, silver, silver-gilt, bronzegilt, gilded copper, iron, glass, pearls, turquoise, garnets, vegetable resins, wood and tempera, 47 × 32 × 4.5 cm, Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice (no. S19, inv. 349): reverse.

the bishopric of Tusculo, became again bishop of the Sabina,45 succeeding Juan de Torquemada (titular from 1463 to 1468) in the seat that had earlier been held by Isidore of Kiev (from 1451 to 1463). The specification “episcopvs sabin(ensis)” on the plaque behind the Staurotheca, neglected by critics, thus assumes significant importance: it makes it possible to attest the timeline of the dedicatory plaque of the reliquary (transferred by Gregory Mammas to Bessarion in 1459) by establishing the terminus post quem of 14 October 1468, the date when Bessarion took that title again, after being “vescovo tusculano” from 1449 to 1468. The Nicene cleric already alluded to his dedication in the explicit of the mentioned letter to the Venetian confraternity of 12 May 1472, which accompanied the delivery of the Staurotheca.

45 Cf. also Gaetano Moroni, Dizionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastica, vol. 95, Venice: Tip. Emi­ liana, 1859, p. 150.

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The dating of the dedicatory plaque can therefore be set between 14 October 1468 and 12 May 1472.46 The addition of the plaque closing the silver plates on the back of the reliquary during that period leads us to deem it plausible that, in the same time span (between 14  October 1468 and 12  May 1472), Bessarion already had the Staurotheca ‘decorated’ with the silver “quo est conclusa” and the pole, with classical ornaments and composition. The hypothesis of their manufacturing in central Italy seems now to be further supported (and maybe to be sought in circles not far from those of Andrea Bregno.)47 Later changes introduced by the possessors of the Staurotheca have progressively transformed it: from the central gold cross,48 through the board with the relics and ornaments in se and circa se, to the addition of the pole and the silver quo est conclusa, with the further appending of several inscriptions; more and more emphasis has therefore been placed on its role as an item to be ostended, displayed, and transmitted. Bessarion stands out in his double role as donor and devout man (literally, ‘one who offers himself’). Above all, should our proposal be accepted for the panel now in London’s National Gallery to be dated post 11 April 1474, this would also have consequences for the reading of Bessarion’s image, depicted at the boundary of the painted surface, as mediator in space (and between the earthly and spiritual dimensions), worshipping in prayer and kneeling, almost “ad pedes” of the Cross (a phrase that also recurs in the Nicene Cardinal’s will.)49 Gentile Bellini’s painting would thus immortalize a postmortem portrait of Bessarion by fixing even his spiritual heritage in the changeover when the sacred relic was transferred to the Scuola della Carità, of which he had wanted to be a brother, out of devotion. Thus the donor delivers the reliquary to an institution he himself is part of; in a sense, the separation is cancelled. Bessarion, the very moment he delivers the precious reliquary to the Carità, not only invokes its preservation and diligent care, hoping for eternal and devout memory [“pro mea in Deum pietate”], but in his viaticum he symbolically and materially traces the

46 The time span could even be reduced, plausibly within 20 April 1472, when Bessarion left for his last mission to France, given to him by Sixtus IV on 23 December 1471. 47 We intend to get back to the subject elsewhere. 48 On the small gold cross, at whose base a skull and fleur‑de-lis appear, the epigraph is striking, with the contracted wording referring to the “Memento mei, domine, dum veneris […]” (The Gospel according to Luke  23:42, “Jesus, remember me when You come [into Your Kingdom]”): part of the prayer of the good thief (whose name, Dismas, of Greek origin, also recorded in some apocryphal Gospels, means “sunset”). The inscription is even positioned loco tituli and along the horizontal line of the cross near the Saviour’s head. The good thief would also be mentioned in Saint Anthony’s Sermones as confessor: a further element to evaluate the penitential aspect of the representation of the redeeming Cross in Bessarion’s Staurotheca (formerly belonging to that Gregory who, in engraving his name on the edge of the main filigreed cross, described himself as Pneumatikos: Spiritual; Confessor). 49 See Eugene Müntz, Les arts à la cour des papes …, vol. 2 of 3 (1879), Paris: Ernest Thorin, 1878– 1882, pp. 82–83, 298–304.

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path of the Staurotheca, subjects its reception to conditions, and determines its use in the future, by foreseeing and designing its journey, the future ‘life’ of the relic-icon.

The Small Picture of the Passion “cum tutti li misterî in più capitoli” Michiel’s description offers a sixteenth-century reading of the painting produced in the last few decades of the fifteenth century in Venice by Gentile Bellini, who had in turn transposed into the panel the paintings that surrounded the ancient reliquary from Constantinople. The word misterî 50 [mysteries] adopted by Michiel in the Notizia seems to evoke liturgical drama. The descriptive terms would seem to indicate, little more than half a century after the production of Bellini’s panel, that Michiel read the pictorial decoration of the Staurotheca shown in the painting (together with the donor and the brethren of the commissioning Scuola) as an illustrative system with profound dramatic meaning, divided like a narrative strip into the seven compartments surrounding the central Crucifixion, also signalling the possibility of mnemonic and devotional value.51 In keeping with the attended commemorations of the Passion during the Holy Week, both individual and collective (including the celebrations promoted by the Scuola della Carità in Venice on Good Friday, when the very reliquary donated by Bessarion was carried in procession), the series depicted on Bessarion’s Staurotheca starts in the top left corner, as seen by the viewer, with Christ’s arrest in the garden of Gethsemane because of Judas’ betrayal (as confirmed by the Greek epigraph, meaning Proditio; following the order of the historiae, the other six inscriptions can be read, sometimes contracted, to be translated, respectively, as Illusio; Flagellatio; [Jesus Christus] Vadens ad crucem; Jesus Christus ascendens in Crucem; Refixio; Epitaphium).52 If we run through the sequence of the small painted compartments, using the order of the Gospel episodes as a guide, we notice that the four subsequent scenes come in two pairs that unfold and alternate along the opposite vertical axes, whereas the sixth scene appears in the lower right corner and the seventh concludes the series at the bottom. We can therefore perceive a reading direction with a snaky, almost bou-

50 See also BMC, ms. Gradenigo-Dolfin 65, vol. 3 of 3 (1764), Jan Grevembroch, Varie venete curiosità sacre e profane (1755–1764), f. XIV: “Reliquie de vari Stromenti della Passione di Cristo in decorosa Teca contenute; misteriosamente al di fuori rappresentati; possedute dalla Scola della Carità, per munifico dono del Cardinale Bessarione l’anno 1463” [italics added]. See also Lauber 2001 (as fn. 3), pp. 5, 10–11. 51 The division into “septem opera Christi Passionis” had a parallel also in the seven liturgical canonical hours, when the mysteries of the Passion were contemplated. 52 See Schioppalalba 1767 (as fn. 10), pp. 16–64.

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strophedonic progress, which imposes a crucial journey on the eyes, with multiple crosses through the central Crucifixion.53 Gentile Bellini’s painting at the Scuola della Carità thus presented the Staurotheca to the eyes of the viewers as venerated in unison by the brethren and by the donor Bessarion, whose image “genuflexa ante pedes Christi” [kneeling before Christ’s feet] could also represent a sort of exemplum, in the sequela Christi, amplified and recalled also in the city processions, in which the Scuola played a leading role. The brethren, the donor, and his gift, depicted and mirrored in the painting translated into Michiel’s words, are immortalized in memory, still and always together, in the sala dell’albergo of the oldest Scuola in the city, in “Venetia quasi alterum Byzantium.”

53 The path shown by the narrative sequence in the Gospels, as compared to the small images on the Staurotheca case, almost suggests a ‘stational’ route in the spaces of the Way of the Cross. In the composition of the episodes on the Staurotheca, Christ’s ascent to the Golgotha is depicted along a descending, snaky path.

Giovanni Carlo Federico Villa

Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini The Hidden Dialogue When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, they took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, just as it is written in the law of the Lord, ‘Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord,’ and to offer the sacrifice of a ‘pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons,’ in accordance with the dictate in the law of the Lord. Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, awaiting the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Messiah of the Lord. He came in the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform the custom of the law in regard to him, he took him into his arms and blessed God, saying: ‘Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared insight of all the peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel.’ The child’s father and mother were amazed at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, ‘Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted (and you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.’

This passage from the Gospel of Luke (2:22–35) is the basis for one of the most passionate discussions about the history of art; it can also be read as a watermark in a debate that has divided historians for more than a century: the relationship between Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506) and Giovanni Bellini (1438/1440–1516). The text here concerns purification, an iconographic subject of the The Presentation of Christ in the Temple by Andrea Mantegna, now at the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin (fig. 1), and of the Venetian The Presentation of Christ in the Temple by Giovanni Bellini (fig. 2).1

1 Most recently, for Mantegna’s work, distemper on linen canvas, 69 × 86.3 cm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, inv. 29, see Catarina Schmidt Arcangeli, Giovanni Bellini e la pittura veneta a Berlino. Le collezioni di James Simon e Edward Solly alla Gemäldegalerie, Verona: Scripta, 2015, pp. 316–324, and her proposal concerning the commission of the painting, which would lead to the figure of the Venetian patrician Bernardo Bembo. For the painting by Bellini – oil on wood panel, 81 × 105.5 cm, ca. 1475, Venice Pinacoteca della Fondazione Scientifica Querini Stampalia, inv. 2/29 – see Babet Trevisan, Giovanni Bellini, in: M. Lucco and G. C. F. Villa (eds.), Giovanni Bellini (exh. cat.), Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana, 2008), pp. 176–177. On the relationship between the brothers‑in-law, including recent researches, see Keith Christiansen, Bellini and Mantegna, in: Peter Humfrey (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Giovanni Bellini, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 48–74, and Luciano Bellosi, Giovanni Bellini et Andrea Mantegna, in: G. Agosti and D. Thiébaut (eds.), Mantegna 1431–1506 (exh. cat.), Louvre Museum, Paris (Paris: Hazan, 2008), pp. 103–109.

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Fig. 1: Andrea Mantegna, The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, ca. 1454, distemper on linen canvas, 69 × 86.3 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, inv. 29.

“In painting, he sculpted really lifelike and true” [scolpì in pictura propria viva et vera].2 In the sonnet by Ulisse Aleotti the intense meaning of Mantegna’s art is a step that can be compared in its magnificence to the unfolding action of the Presentation, arranged as a classical bas relief rendered in painting: the closed figures in autonomous isolation, the gestures reduced to their narrative essence, the compositional layout in a precise hierarchy of protagonists. The scene is portrayed on a very fine linen canvas with the background today turned completely dark, limited by a painted fictive molding of ancient marble veining-white, pink, and green-that also rhetorically frames, in strict central perspective, the sacred actors who are only partially separated from the space of the faithful. The fictive marble frame, a formal threshold between real space and pictorial space, is interpreted as an exact illusion of continuity between the two fields. It is evident from the Madonna’s elbow, resting on the same plane as the window sill, as if measuring the depth of the space and supporting the swaddled Child – here made into a column, and taken from one of the formelle from Donatello’s altar in Saint Anthony’s in Padua – upright on a plush velvet titular cushion. The cushion, with its rich tassel of gold and pearls, protrudes beyond

2 Modena, Biblioteca Estense, ms. Estense, III. D. 22. In Ronald W. Lightbown, Mantegna with a Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, Drawings and Prints, Oxford: Phaidon, 1986, p. 457.

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Fig. 2: Giovanni Bellini, The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, ca. 1475, oil on wood panel, 81 × 105.5 cm, Pinacoteca della Fondazione Scientifica Querini Stampalia, Venice, inv. 2/29.

the pictorial space in order to enter our field, underscored by the priest Simeon’s left hand, which is ready to support the weight of the Child. Three figures stand out from the indefinite background: at the center, Joseph, frontal and severe in observing the act, conscious of the priest’s feral announcement; and, at opposite corners, a man and a woman, both turned leftward, their gaze focused on an indeterminate point. As X‑ray analyses of the work have shown,3 this is the result of a later addition in a second moment, and as such their appearance provides a chronological base for dating the painting to 1454, which, as Wolfgang Prinz pointed out, would be consonant with the stylistic results of the Polyptych of St. Luke in Saint Justina in Padua,4 and would be around the time of Mantegna’s marriage to Nicolosia Bellini.5 It would be very convincing to match the male portrait with the image that Andrea often left of himself,

3 Andrea Rothe considers this in Mantegna’s Painting in Distemper, in: Jane Martineau (ed.) Andrea Mantegna (exh. cat.), Royal Academy of Arts, London and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Milan: Electa and New York: Harry N. Abrams 1992), pp. 80–88, esp. pp. 82–83. 4 Commissioned on 10 August 1453 by Mauro Folperti, Benedictine abbot of Saint Justina, and now in Milan, at the Pinacoteca di Brera. 5 Wolfgang Prinz, Die Darstellung Christi im Tempel und die Bildnisse des Andrea Mantegna, in: Berliner-Museen 12 (1962), pp. 50–54.

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starting with the enormous image in the Ovetari Chapel and thus to understand it as an attempt to connect himself and his wife through the figure of the Madonna, conveying the pictorial text as votive image in probable gratitude for the survival of the couple’s first born child. The canvas is characterized by a chromatic tone of extreme delicateness that, accompanying the light streaming from the left, defines the figures in a ruthlessly descriptive way, each detail sculpted individually. This is admirably seen in the Virgin’s elegant garments, a brocade of dark velvet interwoven with gold, in the rigid and heavy damask of shimmering silk on Simeon’s mantle, and in the light that Mantegna treats with virtuosity in depicting the swaddling of the Child, all of which are orchestrated in opaque whites that change tones in the gray hues of the shadow zones. The representation remains essentially faithful to the biblical account and is an archetype of what will become the model of the dramatic close‑up in Venetian art. But it is also a work that highlights, even in its tremendous compactness and solemnity, Bellinian elements in some details, like the transposition of the face of the Mother onto that of the Son,6 a gesture close to the poetry of Giovanni, who, relying on a strong linear tension, gives the subject a vastly different interpretation even within the same compositional structure, created from the same cartoon, as Brigit Blass-Simmen persuasively suggested and presented in this volume. In his The Presentation of Christ in the Temple Bellini radically alters several supporting elements of his brother‑in-law’s composition in such a way as to insist on the emotional valence of the image. Instead of the marble border that frames the scene, we see a parapet of inlaid antique green gravel separating us, designed to extend the field horizontally and to allow the painter to insert two other figures at opposite corners of the composition. This creates a new emotional proximity, comprised of gestures, gazes, and the tender affection that inevitably arises in a group of people around a newborn. The emotional logic is accompanied by a light that is markedly different from Mantegna’s orientation toward a two-dimensional perspective that deliberately matches the skin tones of the figures; here Bellini works rather more in a precise three-dimensional, chromatic, and chiaroscuro analysis. What becomes apparent is the novelty of approach of a softened chromatic environment and an emotional quest that was unfamiliar to the austere severity of Mantegna. The format becomes the point of departure for the birth of that sacra conversazione in half-length figures that will become so successful in Venetian art. Here it is imposed following heterodox compositional canons: the weight of the monochrome background is remarkable; this creates an empty space above the heads so as to suspend the game of exchanged glances in a silent and eternal moment. Thus, the Child turns toward an undefined

6 On this subject, see Andrea De Marchi, Giovanni Bellini, Andrea Mantegna e la tenerezza della Madre, in: E. Daffra (ed.), Giovanni Bellini. La nascita della pittura devozionale umanistica. Gli studi (exh. cat.) Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan (Milan: Skira, 2014), pp. 73–83, esp. p. 79.

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horizon and no one looks at him, lending sacred duration to an instant that would otherwise be lost in the ritual of daily life. But the ritual remains, in its absoluteness: the gift of a Child in the act of becoming, tightly swaddled and already prescient. At the same time, Bellini dissolves the fixed and motionless tone of the Mantegnesque figures through a fluid atmospheric modulation, the light creating a pictorial wholeness of tremendous softness. Bellini’s use of additional actors is also significant in relation to Mantegna’s work. While the two additional figures create a new compositional layout, the physiognomic features of the secondary actors are also altered: if the physiognomy of the young woman behind the Virgin’s head remains essentially the same, the young man on the right is completely different from his counterpart in Mantegna’s work. Similarly, the other young man and the older woman are Bellini’s inventions. The literature on these new figures, who are not mentioned in the biblical account, has been very thorough although not very conclusive until now, focusing primarily on the extended Bellini family. According to one hypothesis that is no longer accepted,7 the four characters on the side would be (starting from the right): Giovanni and Gentile Bellini; Jacopo Bellini in the figure of Joseph or the priest; followed by either Ginevra Bocheta, Giovanni’s wife, or his sister, Nicolosia Bellini, and lastly, Anna Rinversi, Jacopo’s wife. These identifications are linked in part to the rather successful physical characteristics, the result of various embellishments from subsequent restorations that suggest the features of an intriguing and handsome man for the presumed self-portrait of Giovanni. Perhaps the restoration is the work of the well-respected and meticulous Paolo Fabris, a painter and professor of restoration at the Accademia in Venice, who in the mid-nineteenth century was not as well-known as his elder brother Placido Fabris, a copier of classical masters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but who was known for having specialized in the restoration of Renaissance works, the masterpieces of Bellini, Giorgione, and Titian having passed through his workshop. Nor should we forget how, in February 1949, a new phase of restoration was completed by Mauro Pelliccioli, which involved the broad alteration of the features of the first figure to the right – whom Robertson8 first suggested was the self-portrait of Giovanni Bellini –, endowed with a thick and wavy thatch of hair, his gaze turned intensely toward the viewer and eyebrows and lips darkly furrowed. These physical characteristics were the result of successive additions that are in complete disagreement with the rest of the pictorial portrayal. What takes away from this fact is the tremendous difference between this man and the only image that we know for certain

7 See the various articles by Anchise Tempestini in which he clearly refutes the inconsistencies and contradictions of the differing hypotheses. Giovanni Bellini. Catalogo completo dei dipinti, Florence: Cantini, 1992, p. 70; Giovanni Bellini, Milan: Fabbri, 1997, pp. 34, 62, 199, and Giovanni Bellini, Milan: Electa, 2000, pp. 27, 58, 176. 8 Giles Robertson, Giovanni Bellini, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968, pp. 75–76.

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to be of Giovanni: the medal by Vittore Gambello. Given that the Presentation carries no date or signature – so that the very attribution to Giovanni Bellini was long held in doubt – the artistic historiography was wrapped up in trying to define the exact relationship between the two versions of the Presentation, in order to establish which was the original and which was the copy. Starting point: the provenance history of the works and the chronology of the two paintings. The fine linen canvas by Mantegna – which was originally mounted on two wood panels inserted into the frame – became part of the Solly Collection in 1821, and it can be plausibly identified as the “painting on wood of Our Lady who presents the puttino for circumcision made [fu] by the hand of Mantegna, and it is in half-figures,” recorded by Marcantonio Michiel,9 in or shortly after 1525, in the Paduan collection of Pietro Bembo. The cardinal’s house later became property of the Gradenigo family, and the painting became part of the collection, according to the meticulous description left by Giovanni de Lazara in a letter dated 9 March 1803,10 the year in which the Gradenigo family sold it. Bellini’s work, cited since 1844 in the inventory of the collection of Count Giovanni Querini Stampalia – with Merkel11 suggesting that already in 1552 it could be found among the goods listed in the inventory of Francesco Querini – was attributed to Mantegna at the beginning of the nineteenth century, in keeping with the indications of the cursive writing “Andrea Mantegna” visible on the back of the panel, along with the letters “M R N S,” the meaning of which was not clear at the time, and was mentioned in the juridical inventory of 1869, drawn up by Bonsignori. The first to pose the problem of this status was Giovanni Morelli,12 who initially estimated the Venetian panel a “reproduction” of the work by Mantegna in Berlin, a subsequent autographed copy executed in the last decade of the fifteenth century. Later, he considered it an original by the master,13 and believed that it corresponded to the painting mentioned by Marcantonio Michiel. This hypothesis was accepted for some time – and eventu-

9 [M. A. Michiel], Notizia d’opere di disegno nella prima metà del secolo XVI [.. .] pubblicata e illustrata da D. Iacopo Morelli, Bassano: s. n., 1800, pp. 17–18. 10 In G. Campori, Lettere artistiche inedite, Modena: Tipografia dell’erede Soliani, 1866, pp. 351–352. 11 Ettore Merkel, Il mecenatismo ed il collezionismo artistico dei Querini Stampalia dalle origini al Settecento, in: G. Busetto, M. Gambier (eds.), Querini Stampalia. Un ritratto di famiglia nel Settecento Veniceno, Venice: Fondazione scientifica Querini Stampalia, 1987, pp. 133–153. 12 Ivan Lermolieff [Giovanni Morelli], Die Werke Italienischer Meister in den Galerien von München, Dresden und Berlin, Leipzig: E. A. Seeman, 1880, p. 433. 13 Ivan Lermolieff [Giovanni Morelli], Kunstkritische Studien über italienische Malerei. Die Galerie zu Berlin, Gustavo Frizzoni (ed.), Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus (1890-1893).

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ally maintained only by Anderson14 – but Kristeller had previously and unequivocally rejected it,15 dating the Berlin canvas to around 1456 and declaring the panel at the Querini Stampalia to be a weak, later copy. It was Berenson who first claimed that the Berlin masterpiece “must have profoundly impressed Giovanni Bellini, for it would seem as if he made a version of it – or at least had it made under his own eye – which is still to be seen […]”16 And since then, the reference to Bellini has become essentially unanimous.17 Delving deeper into the chronological details about Mantegna, based on the style of the Berlin canvas, it does not seem possible to think of this as corresponding with the Mantuan sojourn but rather with a time period of around 1453 to 1455, with which most of the critical literature agrees.18 For Bellini, however, the range is indeed broad, proceeding from circa 1455, according to Colletti (1953), through the late 1470 s according to Robertson (1968).19 Emblematic of the debate and estimation of the relationship between the brothers‑in-law are the thoughts of Roberto Longhi,20 who, agreeing with Fiocco about an earlier date of birth for Bellini with respect to his brother‑in-law,21

14 Gustavo Frizzoni had previously supported the argument in Saggio critico intorno alle opere di pittura dell’epoca del Rinascimento esistenti nella R. Gallerie di Berlino, in: Jahrbücher für Kunstwissenschaft 3 (1870), pp. 81–112 as well as Adolfo Venturi, Storia dell’arte italiana, vol. 8, pt. 3, Milan: s. n., 1914, p. 477. It is then taken up again by Jaynie Anderson, Collezioni e collezionisti della pittura veneta del Quattrocento: storia, sfortuna e fortuna, in: M. Lucco (ed.), La pittura nel Veneto. Il Quattrocento, vol. 1, Milan: Electa, 1989, pp. 271–294. 15 Paul Kristeller, Andrea Mantegna, London/New York, etc.: Longmans, Green and Co., 1901, pp. 143–145. 16 Bernhard Berenson, Venetian Painting in America. The Fifteenth Century, New York: F. F. Sherman 1916, p. 72. 17 It should be noted, for the record and given the overall importance of the writings, that Luit­pold Dussler (Giovanni Bellini, Frankfurt/M: Prestel Verlag, 1935) initially considered it to be the work of a Venetian copyist around 1490 and then later (Giovanni Bellini, Vienna: Anton Schroll, 1949) a work from the workshop; Edoardo Arslan (Il polittico di San Zanipolo, in: Bollettino d’Arte 37 (1952), pp. 127–146) defined it as a terrible copy by a mediocre painter of the sixteenth century; Rona Goffen (Giovanni Bellini, New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1989) imagined it to be a copy of a copy by Bellini of Mantegna, underscoring the relations with Bellini of the painting in Berlin, and hypothesized that it could refer to a lost original by Giovanni, and lastly, Luke Syson (Reflections on the Mantegna Exhibition in Paris, in: Burlington Magazine 151 (2009), pp. 526–535; 533) does not entirely accept the autograph of the painting. 18 For a close chronological examination, see Schmidt Arcangeli 2015 (as fn. 1), pp. 318–319. 19 Luigi Coletti, Pittura veneta del Quattrocento, Novara 1953, p. XL and Robertson 1968 (as fn. 8), pp. 75–76. For the detailed chronological examination, see Trevisan 2008 (as fn. 1), p. 176. 20 Roberto Longhi, Crivelli e Mantegna: due mostre interferenti e la cultura artistica nel 1961, in: Paragone 145 (1962), pp. 18, 20 (now in Edizione delle Opere Complete di Roberto Longhi. 10. Ricerche sulla pittura Veneta, Florence: Sansoni 1978, pp. 143–154). 21 On the perennial question concerning Giovanni Bellini’s date of birth, see two recently published articles, which pose the question in opposite ways and confirm the difficulty of finding archival evidence of the event. There are two main theories about the argument: one hypothesizes a birth around

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insinuated a contemporaneous dating of the paintings to circa 1465 and credited Giovanni with the creative idea; this represented a radical alteration of his earlier ideas on the subject in 1949, which were oriented toward a date around 1475.22 This seems the most appropriate date for the work when compared to contemporary works of that same time period, above all the Pesaro altarpiece. Here we find the same physiognomic models: from the Madonna’s head, which is replicated onto that of the coronated Virgin, to the young man to the right in the Presentation who becomes the coronating Christ, to the priest Simeon, related to Saint Jerome in the Pesaro altarpiece. How close is the chromatic rendering and the fabric decoration, and above all, how much can we now read beneath the pictorial layer, the underdrawing that distinguishes the instinctive experimental temperament of Giovanni Bellini, who precisely with this design established his highest pictorial art? And it is in the incarnate figures of the Querini Stampalia panel, now revealed by the restorations, that we identify the graphic sign of these years with the naked eye: short brushstrokes, hard and cutting, that determine with a parallel, diagonal hatching the faces and figures that will then become more refined with the modulation of the pictorial layer, or that describe the decoration of the cope from the striated luminescence of gold. It is a plastic and structural drawing that shows, in several details, a creative independence of ideas and a search oriented toward a greater possible empathy between the sacred actors. In this regard, the silent dialogue between the Madonna and Simeon, as planned and initially envisioned by Bellini, differs significantly from the final result: the eyelids of the Virgin appear more open, her gaze directed toward the mild yet resolutely attentive priest and not intimately and humbly concentrated as in the pictorial version. The priest responds with a greater severity, depicted through a deeper frown (plates XI‑XII, figs. 3–4). The drawing is almost evanescent in infrared, perhaps traced with iron-gall ink or a very diluted carbon-based component, more easily perceived with a simple glance than with instruments. This underdrawing is the significant matrix, perfectly situated

1425; the other, in the second half of the 1430 s, toward 1438–1440. The available clues are few. The objective facts that we have are: Giovanni was the son of Jacopo Bellini; he should not be the son of Anna Rinversi, Jacopo’s wife; he does not live in Jacopo’s house in the parish of San Geminiano but turns up as a parish resident of San Lio. Lastly, the writings of Daniel Wallace Maze have been published (Giovanni Bellini: Birth, Parentage and Independence, in Renaissance Quarterly 66 (2013), pp. 783–823), which, researching the Venetian laws and statutes, attempts to show that Giovanni was not Jacopo Bellini’s son but the latter’s half brother, born between the end of 1424 and September 1428, and died in 1516, at (approximately) ninety years of age, as indicated by Vasari. The theory is apparently dismantled by the article by David Alan Brown and Anna Pizzati (“Meum amantissimum nepotem” a New Document Concerning Giovanni Bellini, in: The Burlington Magazine 156 (2014), pp. 148–152) about the last will and testament of Samaritana Vendramin, an aunt of Giovanni Bellini living in Santa Marina who, on 19 January 1508 more veneto (i. e., 1509), dictated her last wishes. This seems to suggest the second half of the 1430 s, closer to 1440, for Bellini’s birth. 22 Roberto Longhi, The Giovanni Bellini Exhibition, in: The Burlington Magazine 91 (1949): p. 281.

Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini 

Fig. 3: Giovanni Bellini, The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, ca. 1475, oil on wood panel, 81 × 105.5 cm, Pinacoteca della Fondazione Scientifica Querini Stampalia, Venice, inv. 2/29, IR detail.

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Fig. 4: Giovanni Bellini, The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, ca. 1475, oil on wood panel, 81 × 105.5 cm, Pinacoteca della Fondazione Scientifica Querini Stampalia, Venice, inv. 2/29, IR detail.

in Giovanni Bellini’s logic of intervention between the seventh and eighth decade of the fifteenth century. If the investigative efforts of X‑ray and infrared reflectography have shown only a minimum of pentimento, along the perimeter of Simeon’s head, what has reemerged is the definite transfer from cartoon by engraving, which X‑ray analysis makes apparent, showing clear traces in the central part.23 And the perfect correspondence and ability to superimpose the traces in the work by Bellini and that of Mantegna convincingly suggests the use of the same cartoon (see Blass-Simmen fig. 7). This fact could be further confirmed by the dating of the painting by the Paduan: if the Presentation by Mantegna was a votive painting celebrating the birth of his first son, it could have been painted in Venice, and the cartoon might have remained in Bellini’s workshop. Useful analyses also exist in the case of the Berlin painting,24 where various pentimenti are evident, particularly in the Virgin’s face

23 Rosella Bagarotto, et al., La tecnica pittorica di Giovanni Bellini, in: R. Goffen, G. Nepi Scirè (eds.), Il colore ritrovato. Bellini a Venice (exh. cat.), Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice (Milan: Electa, 2000), pp. 184–202. 24 For the radiography, see Rothe 1992 (as fn. 3), p. 83.

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Fig. 5: Andrea Mantegna, The Pre­ sentation of Christ in the Temple, ca. 1454, distemper on linen canvas, 69 × 86.3 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Staat­ liche Museen zu Berlin, inv. 29, IR detail.

Fig. 6: Andrea Mantegna, The Pre­ sentation of Christ in the Temple, ca. 1454, distemper on linen canvas, 69 × 86.3 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Staat­ liche Museen zu Berlin, inv. 29, IR detail.

(fig. 5) – placed higher and with the foreshortened halo – and in the figure of Simeon (fig. 6) – bareheaded, the ear visible, with a thick collar. The pentimenti underscore how the chromatic-compositional direction must have been even more pronounced precisely by the foreshortened halos, which were later eliminated by inserting the two accessory figures. With infrared reflectography, the widespread and subtle technique of flat, brushed white-lead features stands out, emphasizing the areas of light and shadow, especially on the faces of Mother and Son, more than a mark left by a thick brush, to eliminate various pentimenti, in a work whose underlying contour drawing appears less refined and meticulous than what can be observed in later works by Mantegna. The presence of a mechanical drawing along with a line drawing and shadings is typical, according to the analyses conducted thus far, of the Man-

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tegnesque activity until the 1460 s.25 Later, the simple contour mark, still made by brush, will rarely be accompanied by meaningful variants, given the deliberateness of the mark, suggesting the effect of some form of carryover from paper, as the reflectographic analyses have often demonstrated. At times, this stroke can be perceived by the naked eye, especially where it may be scarcely concealed by a subtly painted surface in red varnish (e. g. in several robes of the depicted figures) yet it is transparent in infrared, a symptom of the use of iron-gall ink or very light grey ink. Thus the abrasion and repainting of the canvases complicate in some instances the reading of analytic results. If Giovanni Bellini made innovations and continual discoveries about technical solutions, the common thread of an extraordinary career, remaining iconographically determined in the substantial development of a few subjects inventively altered – Madonna with Child, Pietà, Crucifixion – Mantegna moved in the opposite direction. The creative force of his genius is exceptional and boundless, undoubtedly without equal at that time, defining works whose execution is calibrated at its acme from the earliest texts, with a technical evolution that, overall, barely registered over the course of his career. As Berenson observed: Mantegna’s art meets our eye from its first beginning, like Minerva, all armed. In a duration of nearly sixty years it suffered singularly little change, so little in form, contour, or even type, that it requires careful and cautious scrutiny to perceive its evolution, although there was, it is true, a development in colour, to warmer and warmer, ending rather hot.26

This technical-stylistic unity rarely offers, in scientific analysis, a foothold for a clear redefinition of the chronological order of works, so the paintings’ positions in the timeline always divide critics. Investigations of the evolution of Giovanni Bellini would yield entirely different results (figs. 7–8). My own research using infrared reflectography  – which has focused on about 130 signed works and has been widely discussed in various publi-

25 On Mantegna’s technique, see especially: S. Delbourgo, et al., L’analyse des peintures du Studiolo d’Isabelle d’Este. Etude analytique de la matière picturale, in: Annales des Laboratoires de Recherche des Musées de France (1975), pp. 25–26. R. W. Lightbown, Mantegna’s Technique, in: Lightbown 1986 (as fn. 2), pp. 227–233, p. 268; Keith Christiansen, Alcune osservazioni sulla tecnica pittorica del Mantegna, in: Andrea Mantegna 1992 (as fn. 3), pp. 67–77; Jill Dunkerton, Mantegna’s Painting Techniques, in: F. A. Lewis and A. Bednarek (eds.) Mantegna and Fifteenth-Century Court Culture. Lectures Delivered in Connection with the Andrea Mantegna Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1992, London: University of London, 1993, pp. 23–38. Giovanni C. F. Villa, Indagando Mantegna, Mantua: Centro Internazionale d’Arte e di Cultura di Palazzo Te, 2007; and Michel Menu and Élizabeth Ravaud (eds.), La technique picturale d’Andrea Mantegna, in: Techne, special publication July 2009 (round table 19 December 2008). 26 Berenson 1916 (as fn. 16), p. 57.

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Fig. 7: Andrea Mantegna, The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, ca. 1454, distemper on linen canvas, 69 × 86.3 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, inv. 29, IR detail.

Fig. 8: Giovanni Bellini, The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, ca. 1475, oil on wood panel, 81 × 105.5 cm, Pinacoteca della Fondazione Scientifica Querini Stampalia, Venice, inv. 2/29, IR detail.

cations27 – has revealed just how deep and incessant the research and evolution of Bel­ lini’s painting was and, most of all, how much it depended on the invisible drawing that was functionally necessary during the long period of transition from using the binding medium in distemper to the mixed technique, daughter of the introduction of oil in paste. While distemper was spread out with small brushstrokes, defining groups of parallel lines whose overlay molded tones and chiaroscuro, the long period of transition to the oil medium, never however used exclusively by itself, is marked by the experimentation of a graphic technique that defines a modeling underdrawing in chiaro­scuro. If in his works of the 1460 s Giovanni faithfully followed his father’s teachings, a rigid mark spread by a pure contour brushstroke that defines the setting of the forms, it is between the end of that decade and the mid-1480 s that Bellini prepares, over and above the preparation and eventual imprimitura, a subdermal

27 Analyses have been conducted since 1998 integrating what has been published in the interim, among which see: Maria Clelia Galassi, Il disegno svelato. Progetto e imagine nella pittura italiana del primo Rinascimento, Nuoro: Ilisso, 1998; R. Bagaratto 2000 (as fn. 23), pp. 184–202; Mariolina Olivari, Tecnica pittorica e disegno preparatorio, in: D. Bertani and R. Bellucci (eds.), Oltre il visibile, indagini riflettografiche, Milan: Università degli studi di Milano, 2001, pp. 31–44; Giovanni C. F. Villa, Un Bellini in chiaroscuro: indagini infrarosse e problem cronologici, in: F. Rigon and E. M. Dal Pozzolo (eds.), Capolavori che ritornano. Bellini e Vicenza (exh. cat.), Palazzo Thiene, Vicenza (Cittadella [Padua]: Biblios 2003), p. 73–85; Keith Christiansen, Giovanni Bellini and the Practice of Devotional Painting, in: R. Kasl (ed.), Giovanni Bellini and the Art of Devotion, Indianapolis (IN): Indianapolis Museum of Art, 2004, pp. 7–57; Jill Dunkerton, Bellini’s Technique, in: Humfrey 2004 (as fn. 1), pp. 195–225; Giovanni C. F. Villa, Giovanni Bellini e dintorni, ovvero Appunti Veniceni, in G. Poldi, G. C. F. ​Villa (eds.), Dalla conservazione alla storia dell’arte. Riflettografia e analisi non invasive per lo studio dei dipinti, Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2006, pp. 308–398; and idem., Indagando Bellini: Quattro ancone in un itinerario, in: G. Poldi and G. C. F. ​Villa (eds.), Indagando Bellini, Milan: Skira, 2009, pp. 13–160.

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drawing, with very orderly hatching, short and diagonal, that plays with the gamut of intensity, crossing or not, the mark, within a contour line defined by a dark, segmented stroke, guided by a thicker brush, sometimes by the nub, in such a way as to recalibrate slowly the intensity of the shape. A ductile monochrome crosshatching is oriented toward the schematic partition of the levels of light and to the volumetric mass of the figures who, adding to the pictorial hatching, define volume and shadows, most of all to those incarnate, working also on the basis of the differentiated chromatic layers. As he matured, Bellini thinned the contour line, intensifying the graphic scheme, which he executed with an increasingly fine brush beneath a pictorial material by now polished and transparent. By the 1490 s, the shaping of the figures is done quickly, no longer articulated by single brushstrokes joining one to the other, with a hand running freely along the imprimitura until the paintbrush is suffused with ink; at the same time, the chiaroscuro and modeling hatching fades out until it disappears when, toward the end of the century, first with the paintbrush and then with charcoal or pure incision, only the supporting lines of the composition and figurative groups are outlined, allowing color, which by now has been completely mastered, to give life to the forms.28 In this way, figures, architectures, landscapes, and details become progressively more synthetic and less chiaroscuro, in a painting style of pure tonalism. This evolution characterizes Bellini as one of the most formidable experimenters, at a technical level, that Italian art has produced in its centennial history, and it also offers important starting points for the evaluation of materials on paper variously attributed to him. In considering the particular state of the underdrawing, which is recognized primarily for being covered in color but surely first admired by the patron and the workshop, the studies conducted about many assistants and contemporaries of Bellini who continued the techne in the years in which they attended lessons are significant, and the dates of their paintings can contribute to chronological reconstruction. This is evident in the case of the Lamentation over the Dead Christ in the Uffizi,29 which was left as an underdrawing and provides precise clues regarding the graphic hand of Bellini. These add to the critical, secular debate about Bellini as draftsman, strictly in relation to the graphic work of Andrea Mantegna, as there are still countless contested works between the Venetian and his brother‑in-law, providing a further critical starting point for debating the question of graphic proof that divides, flows, and ebbs again between the two catalogs.30

28 This sequence is clearly discernable even when only observing the development of altarpieces already present in Venetian altars; this is widely illustrated in the technical details by G. Poldi and Giovanni C. F. Villa (eds.), Bellini a Venice. Sette opere indagate nel loro contesto, Milan: Open Care and Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana, 2008. 29 Panel, 74 × 118 cm, Florence, Uffizi Gallery, inventory no. 943. 30 For a detailed discussion of the critical point as well as a reflection on the attribution of the graphic work of Giovanni Bellini, see Giovanni C. F. Villa, Dall’underdrawing al disegno. Il caso Giovanni Bel­

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Bellini’s The Presentation of Christ in the Temple appears then to be his last, intense homage to the Paduan lesson of Donatello – at the source of the search for the affectionate intimacy of his compositions that are deeply rooted in Byzantine culture – and to his brother‑in-law Mantegna, to whom we must attribute the inventive priority and function of the Berlin canvas. With the Querini painting, we have a Bellini who would establish – by creating a given format for composition and developing a narrative scene in half-length figures – the basis for success that those sacre conversazioni would have, in the Venetian context, over the following fifty years.

lini, in: M. Faietti, L. Melli and A. Nova (eds.), Le tecniche del disegno rinascimentale. Dai materiali allo stile, in: Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 52, 2/3 (2008), pp. 73–87. See also the reference to the efforts to reorganize and clean the Bellinian nucleus conducted for the exhibition on Mantegna in London by David Ekserdjian in Martineau (ed.) 1992 (as fn. 3), pp. 129–138, 173–182, 192–194 and followed by Marzia Faietti in Padua (Marzia Faietti, Andrea, disegnatore con “maschera,” in: D. Banzato, A. De Nicolò Salmazo, A. M. Spiazzi (eds.), Mantegna e Padova. 1445–1460 [exh. cat.], Milan: Skira and Padua: Comune di Padova, 2006, pp. 81–89). Lastly, George Goldner, Bellini’s Drawings, in: Humfrey 2004 (as fn. 1), pp. 226–255.

Carolyn C. Wilson

Giovanni Bellini’s Lamentation Altarpiece for Santa Maria dei Servi in Venice Observations and Two Proposals Marcantonio Sabellico, in his path-breaking publication De situ urbis Venetae, written prior to April 1491 and dedicated to the distinguished Padua-educated humanist and ambassador Girolamo Donà,1 takes note of the once great church of Santa Maria dei Servi, remarking only one object housed in it. Surveying Cannaregio, Sabellico writes: […]: in eodem tractu ad occasum magis conspicuum uirginis templum cum numeroso seruorum cœtu sic. n. se qui ibi sacris operantur nominant ad aram maximam Mariæ Cleophæ caput: […] In the same stretch, further west, is the notable temple of the Virgin with numerous Servites, as these religious are called. At the high altar is the head of Mary Cleophas.2

Sabellico’s reference to the first and major Servite church in Venice3 – one that would fall victim to Napoleonic suppression and be largely destroyed between 1812 and 1821 –

1 See Paola Modesti, Quasi come in un dipinto: la città e l’architettura nel ‘De situ urbis Venetae’ di Marcantonio Sabellico, in: Arte veneta 66 (2009), pp. 17–35, pp. 17–18 regarding date, patronage, and further references. I warmly thank Brigit Blass-Simmen for her encouragement to participate in her program at the 2015 Renaissance Society of America meetings; Eveline Baseggio Omiccioli for reviewing the talk draft; and for their generous assistance, John Hagood, Reference Librarian at the National Gallery of Art Library; Laurie M. Deredita, Special Collections Librarian of the Charles E. Shain Library, Connecticut College; Fr. Thomas A. Thompson, S. M., Cecilia Mushenheim, and Clare M. Jones at the Marian Library, University of Dayton; and the staff of the Hirsch Library, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. 2 Marci Antonii Sabellici de Venetae urbis situ liber primus, Venice: Damianus de Mediolano, de Gorgonzola, ca. 1494, b iiiv (c. b iiiv, in the pagination employed by Modesti 2009 [as fn. 1], p. 27). The passage is quoted in Flaminio Cornaro, Ecclesiae Venetae antiquis monumenti nunc etiam primum editis illustratae ac in decades distributae, vol. 2 of 13, Venice: Jo: Baptistae Pasquali, 1749, p. 32 and given in Italian translation in Marc’Antonio Sabellico, Del sito di Venezia città (1502), ed. Giancarlo Meneghetti, Venice: Stamperia già Zanetti, 1957, p. 22. 3 For the church see Francesco Sansovino, with additions by Giustiniano Martinioni, Venetia, città nobilissima et singolare, Venice: S. Curti, 1663 ed. (reprint Venice: Filippi, 1968), vol. 1 of 2, pp. 160–163; Cornaro 1749 (as fn. 2), pp. 1–104; Antonio M. Vicentini, S. Maria de’ Servi in Venezia, Treviglio: Messaggi, 1920; Antonio M. Vicentini, I Servi di Maria nei documenti e codici veneziani, Part 1, vol. 1, Gli antichi Archivi de’ Servi a’ Frari, Treviglio: Messaggi, 1922 and Part 2, vol. 1,, I Servi di Maria nelle raccolte veneziani, Vicenza: Officina Tipografica Vicentina, 1932; Alvise Zorzi, Venezia scomparsa, vol. 2 of 2, Milan: Electa, 1972, pp. 348–361; Lino Pacchin, I Servi di Maria a Venezia, in: Fra Paolo Sarpi e I Servi di Maria a Venezia nel 750 anniversario dell’ordine, Venice: Stamperia di Venezia, 1983, pp. 13–26; Giuliano Pavon and Graziella Cauzzi, La Memoria di un tempio. Li Servi di San Marcilian ed il Canal-Marovich in Venezia, Venice: Helvetia, 1989; Elena Urbani, Storia e architettura delle chiese dei Servi di

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Fig. 1: Domenico Lovisa, engraving, 1720, after Luca Carlevarijs’s engraving of 1703, View of Santa Maria dei Servi.

is not surprising (fig. 1). Established in 1316, with construction underway by 1330, the aisleless structure culminating in an apse flanked by two apsed chapels was indeed vast. Its interior dimensions have been assessed as 217 Venetian feet long and sixty wide (75.45 by 20.86 meters),4 and it is regularly cited as housing twenty-two altars,5 eight having been consecrated in 1414.6 From the 1470 s, Pope Sixtus IV strongly sup-

santa Maria di fondazione trecentesca in area veneta: Venezia (1316), Verona (1324), Treviso (1346) e Padova (1392), in: Studi storici dell’Ordine dei Servi di Maria 50:1–2 (2000), pp. 7–140, pp. 16–39; Marco Rossi, La chiesa gotica scomparso di Santa Maria dei Servi a Venezia. Un indagine storico artistico dalla sua fondazione trecentesca al XV secolo, tesi di Laurea, Venice: Università Ca’ Foscari, 2011/2012 (and for color illustration and condition notes on the extant architectural elements). 4 The long-accepted estimated length (240 Venetian feet) in Vicentini 1920 (as fn. 3), p. 44 was adjusted by Pavon and Cauzzi 1989 (as fn. 3), p. 57 and fig. 6; see also, and for the height, Urbani 2000 (as fn. 3), pp. 24–25, p. 38 and Rossi 2011/2012 (as fn. 3), p. 58. 5 E. g., Cornaro 1749 (as fn. 2), p. 23; Pacchin 1983 (as fn. 3), p. 14. For a ground plan showing the even­tual disposition and dedications of the altars, with indication of the positions of the first and second choir enclosures, see Vicentini 1920 (as fn. 3), following p. 48 (adapted in Zorzi 1972 [as fn. 3], p. 349, fig. 280) and Pavon and Cauzzi (as fn. 3), fig. 33. For hypothetical disposition of the altars in the early Cinquecento, see Jacopo Benci and Silvia Stucky, Indagini sulla pala belliniana della Lamentazione. Bonaventura da Forlì e I Servi di Maria a Venezia, in: Artibus et Historiae 8:15 (1987), pp. 47–65, p. 58, fig. 9. 6 Cornaro 1749 (as fn. 2), p. 7 lists their dedications and the relics housed at each; see also Vicentini 1920 (as fn. 3), pp. 48–49.

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ported the Servite foundation as a site of Observant reform7 and by means of indulgences granted for contribution to building costs and for visitation on the Feast of the Annunciation,8 the devotion shared with the preeminent Servite church, Santissima Annunziata in Florence. By the time of Sabellico’s writing, the conspicuum templum in Cannaregio had begun to rival in status the still extant ­Gothic-style churches of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari and Santi Giovanni e Paolo. Santa Maria dei Servi would be consecrated on 7 November  1491 and, during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, would benefit from the prestigious patronage of the heirs of Doge Andrea Vendramin and the ambassador and provveditore generale Giovanni Emo, notably manifest in their respective sumptuous tomb monuments,9 and of Girolamo Donà – the dedicatee and perhaps inspirer10 of Sabellico’s book – among others.11 Sabellico’s singling out of the relic of Saint Mary Cleophas (fig. 2) for mention in his brief remarks on Santa Maria dei Servi, on the other hand, bears consideration. The church was noteworthy for its large collection of relics, many of them acquired by 1413.12 The greater part of the collection would in 1533 be assembled at a marble “Altar of the Relics” (officially titled to the Holy Trinity) said to have been designed by Jacopo Sansovino,13 and the appearance of the precious reliquaries created to house and display the church’s relics would in the eighteenth century be recorded in drawings by Giovanni Grevembroch.14 The relic formerly housed at the Servi that is best

7 E. g., Pacchin 1983 (as fn. 3), pp. 18, 21. 8 See Cornaro 1749 (as fn. 2), pp. 82–94 for transcription of documents dating from 1474 to 1477 and from 1481 (p. 94, for the plenary indulgence granted in 1492 by Innocent VIII); Vicentini 1920 (as fn. 3), pp. 18–19; Pavon and Cauzzi 1989 (as fn. 3), p. 77 (for 1476 and 1481). 9 For the Vendramin tomb (now largely preserved in Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice), see recently and for earlier sources Anne Markham Schultz, The Sculpture of Tullio Lombardo, Turnhout: Harvey Miller, 2014, pp. 46–66 and Luke Syson and Valeria Cafà, Adam by Tullio Lombardo, in: Metropolitan Museum Journal 49 (2014), pp. 9–31 (see p. 13, fig. 5 for an engraving showing the monument prior to removal from the church). For the Emo monument, see Anne Markham Schulz, Antonio Rizzo. Sculptor and Architect, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983, pp. 73–81. The standing marble figure of Giovanni Emo is preserved in the Musei Civici, Vicenza, and two shield-bearing pages are now in the Musée du Louvre; see Schulz 1983, figs. 139–142, and fig. 138 for Giovanni Gremvembroch’s drawing of the monument when still in the church (Venice, Museo Correr, Fondo Gradenigo-Dolfin, cod. 228, III, c. 27). 10 Suggested by Modesti 2009 (as fn. 1), p. 23. 11 Donà served as a procurator of the church; his name is among those that appear in the inscription, on the still extant portal of the church, that records its consecration (see, e. g., Pacchin 1983 [as fn. 3], p. 16 for a photograph and Cicogna’s 1824 transcription). For Donà, see further Eveline Baseggio Omiccioli, Andrea Riccio’s Reliefs for the Altar of the True Cross in Santa Maria dei Servi, Venice. A Political Statement within the Sacred Walls, in: Explorations in Renaissance Culture 38 (2012), pp. 101–121. 12 Vicentini 1920 (as fn. 3), p. 62, summarizing Cornaro 1749 (as fn. 2), pp. 25–27. 13 Cornaro 1749 (as fn. 2), p. 31; Vicentini 1920 (as fn. 3), pp. 60–62; Zorzi 1972 (as fn. 3), p. 352. 14 Codex Gradenigo-Dolfin 65, II, Venice, Museo Correr; for illustrations see, e. g., in Zorzi 1972 (as fn. 3), figs. 283–290.

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Fig. 2: Giovanni Grevembroch, Drawing of the Reliquary of St. Mary Cleophas at Santa Maria dei Servi, Museo Correr, Venice, ­Gradenigo-Dolfin Codex 65, II.

known today, the fragment of the titulus of the True Cross, had not yet been acquired at the time of Sabellico’s writing. This relic derives from one discovered in 1491 in the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome. A fragment was presented by Innocent VIII to Girolamo Donà, at that time the Venetian ambassador to the Pope, and given by Donà to the Servite church upon his return to Venice in 1492.15 Furnished with a cruciform reliquary, it would eventually be housed at Donà’s Altar of the Holy Cross, the future site of Andrea Riccio’s magnificent bronze Exaltation of the Cross (fig. 3) and four reliefs recounting the story of the True Cross.16 The titulus relic, the head of Mary Cleophas, and one other relic (a head of the Pope and Martyr John) are the only relics at the Servite church that Marin Sanudo mentions in his De origine, situ et magistratibus urbis venetae, composed shortly after Donà’s donation, in a list of worthy relics in various churches, and also in Sanudo’s

15 Now church of the Frari; see Alvise Zorzi, Venezia scomparsa, vol. 1 of 2, Milan: Electa, 1972, pp. 348, fig. 62; Pavon and Cauzzi 1989 (as fn. 3), figs. 43–46. See further Davide Gasparotto, Andrea Riccio a Venezia. Sui rilievi con le Storie della Vera Croce per l’altare Donà già in Santa Maria dei Servi, in: Tullio Lombardo scultore e architteto nella Venezia del rinascimento. Atti del convegno di studi, Venezia, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, 4–6 aprile 2006, Matteo Ceriana (ed.), Venice: Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Onlus and Verona: Cierre, 2007, pp. 389–410, pp. 392–395 and fig. 7; Baseggio Omiccioli 2012 (as fn. 11), pp. 105, 107. 16 Venice, Galleria Franchetti alla Ca’ d’Oro; Gasparotto 2007 (as fn. 15) and figs. 15, 19–22; Baseggio Omiccioli 2012 (as fn. 11) and figs. 2–6.

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Fig. 3: Andrea Riccio, Tabernacle Doors, bronze, ca. 1500, Galleria Franchetti alla Ca’ d’Oro, Venice.

somewhat later annotations, in a list of relics organized by location.17 Sanudo notes, first, the relic of Mary Cleophas as “Il capo di Santa Maria Cleophe, a i Servi,” and second, under the heading “A i Servi,” more fully, with notation of a silver reliquary, as “Il capo di Santa Maria Cleophe, in arzento.” Why, we may ask, was the relic of Saint Mary Cleophas singled out by Sabellico (and included in Sanudo’s short list)? Surely its prominent placement at the high altar and its setting in precious metal were key factors. We may further consider the fundamental connection of liturgical celebration with the presence of relics at the altar. We might recall, too, Abbot Berthold’s particular attention to the head relic, his having

17 Marin Sanudo, De origine, situ et magistratibus urbis venetae ovvero La città di Venetia (1493– 1530), ed. Angela Caracciolo Aricò, Milan: Cisalpino‑La Goliardica, 1980, pp. 48–49 (c.23v, 24r) and p. 161 (p. 6), respectively; see p. xix for dating of the three codices. The passages quoted here are as transcribed in this edition.

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had constructed, in 1215, a head reliquary for the Benedictine abbey at Weingarten “to encourage faith and piety,” its inscription beginning “This head, like God, is judge and witness,”18 and we may note the print-age taste in Sabellico’s day for relic books and prints.19 The design of chalice with crowned skull would appear to have been unusual, although the latter feature is seen in the Magdalene reliquary recorded at La Sainte-Baume,20 but the architecturally embellished stem and intricately profiled foot are often encountered and bear analogies, for example, to the reliquary at the Santo in Padua that houses the highly revered relic of Saint Anthony of Padua’s tongue.21 In the absence of documentation prior to Sabellico’s reference,22 one might be tempted to speculate that the Servi’s Mary Cleophas relic, or its reliquary, was a recent and newsworthy acquisition. One might even, in that case, be tempted to speculate further that, as later did the titulus relic, it might have borne a connection to Donà or someone close to him.23 Or might the relic and reliquary, over the past decade or so, have attained star-attraction status in town, as is likely implied by Sabellico’s famous references to Antonello da Messina’s and Giovanni Bellini’s innovative altarpieces in the churches, respectively, of San Cassiano and San Giobbe?24 What is certain, however, is that devotional interest in Mary Cleophas, in conjunction with the cult of Saint Anne and her apocryphal kinship – comprising three husbands, three daughters, and the daughters’ spouses and offspring  – was distinctly intense in Western

18 “Testis huic operi Deus et simul arbiter exstat,” in: Liber Litaniarum et Benedictionum. Stuttgart, MS H B II. 46, fols. 44–52, transcribed in Hans Swarzenski, The Berthold Missal, the Pierpont Morgan Library ms 710 and the Scriptorium of Weingarten Abbey, New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1943, pp. 117–118; Cynthia J. Hahn, The Spectacle of the Charismatic Body. Patrons, Artists, and Body-Part Reliquaries, in: Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010, pp. 163–172, p. 168. 19 See Treasures of Heaven 2010 (as fn. 18), e. g., cat. nos. 126–129, pp. 225–226. 20 Godefroy le Batave, Reliquary Skull of Saint Mary Magdalene, 1517, miniature on vellum from Vie de la Magdalene, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS fr. 24.955, fol. 72; Myra D. Orth, “Madame Sainte Anne.” The Holy Kinship, the Royal Trinity, and Louise of Savoy, in: Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn (eds.), Interpreting Cultural Symbols. Saint Anne in Late Medieval Society, Athens, GA and London: University of Georgia Press, 1990, pp. 199–227, p. 208, fig. 5. 21 Executed by Giuliano da Firenze ca. 1433–1436; Giovanna Baldissin Molli, La Produzione aurificiaria e gli orefici dell’età di Barozzi, in: Andrea Nante, Carlo Cavalli, Pierantonio Gios (eds.), Pietro Barozzi un vescovo del rinascimento. Atti del convegno di studi, Padova, Museo Diocesano, 18–20 ottobre 2007, Padua: Istituto per la storia ecclesiastica padovana, 2012, pp. 313–337, p. 325, fig. 82. 22 Noted by Cornaro 1749 (as fn. 3), p. 32; for the relic, see also Vicentini 1932 (as fn. 3), II:1, p. 129; Vicentini 1920 (as fn. 2), p. 61; and Zorzi 1972 (as fn. 2), p. 352 and fig. 288. 23 Modesti 2009 (as fn. 1), p. 23, noting Sabellico’s reference to Santa Maria dei Servi (but not his notation of the relic), suggests that the writer included mention of the church in order to gratify his patron, Donà. 24 Marc’Antonio Sabellico 1957 (as fn. 2), pp. 19, 21, for which see Modesti 2009 (as fn. 1), p. 23 and fn. 67, 68.

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Europe from the 1480 s into the 1510 s.25 Pictorial representation enjoyed a vogue in the north,26 employed even as a vehicle for group portraits of the Imperial family.27 Perugino’s elegant, thoughtful composition designed for a Saint Anne altar in Perugia (fig. 4)28 acknowledges the liturgical cult status of Mary Cleophas and her purported half sister, Mary Salome, identified by inscription in their haloes and shown with their children and with Saints Joseph and Joachim. In scripture, Mary Cleophas is named only once, in John 19:25: “Near the cross of Jesus there stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas (Clophas), and Mary Magdalene.” This figure was identified in early church commentary with “Mary the mother of James,” cited by Mark (16:1) and Luke (24:10), and “the other Mary,” cited by Matthew (27:61; 28:1), in their respective accounts of Easter morning. Although cult veneration of Mary Cleophas persists in various regions at specific sites, often in tandem with that of Mary Salome,29 both are of course most widely depicted in imagery relating to the Crucifixion and Resurrection and without particularization of one from the other, as is the case for the two white-scarved, blue-robed women walking closely behind Mary Magdalene in the middleground of Bellini’s Resurrection for the Zorzi chapel in San Michele in Isola (plate XIII).30

25 See the essays assembled in Ashley and Sheingorn (eds.) 1990 (as fn. 20) and in Anneke B. MulderBakker (ed.), Sanctity and Motherhood. Essays on the Holy Mother in the Middle Ages, New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1995, especially Ton Brandenbarg, Saint Anne. A Holy Grandmother and Her Children, pp. 31–65. The Servite Order had embraced liturgical veneration of Saint Anne in 1324; Giuseppe M. Besutti, O. S. M., Pietà e dottrina mariana nell’Ordine dei Servi di Maria nei Secolo XV e XVI, Rome: Editioni “Marianum” (1984), p. 66. 26 See Brandenbarg (as fn. 25), and also for the commissioning of pictorial representations of Saint Anne’s Kinship by royal houses, the nobility, and the clergy. 27 For Lucas Cranach’s altarpiece dated 1509 (Frankfurt, Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie) see Bodo Brinkmann (ed.), Cranach, London: Royal Academy, 2007, cat. 19, pp. 154–158. For Bernhard Strigel’s portrait of Maximilian’s family (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum) of 1515–1520 see Stephan Diller, in: Stephan Diller (ed.), Kaiser Karl V. und seine Zeit, Bamberg: Universitäts-Verlag, 2000, pp. 17–19, cat. 4; Larry Silver, Marketing Maximilian. The Visual Ideology of a Holy Roman Emperor, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008, pp. 209–210. 28 Commissioned by Angelo di Tommaso Conti for Santa Maria degli Angeli; now Marseilles, Musée des Beaux-Art, no. 788. See Fiorenzo Canuti, Il Perugino, 2 vols., Siena: La Diana (1931), vol. 1, pp. 164– 166, vol. 2, pp. 197–198; Pietro Scarpellini, Perugino, Milan: Electa (1984), cat. 125, pp. 49, 105–106. 29 Acta Sanctorum, vol. 13:1 of 68 (Paris: V. Palmé, 1863–1940, 1866), April 8–9, pp. 808–815; see p. 815 for citation of the head relic at Santa Maria dei Servi. Flaminio Corner, where he cites the relic and Sabellico’s mention of it (see fn. 2), observes the age-old celebration of Mary Cleophas’ feast on April 9 as a double rite, but whether or not it was observed at Santa Maria dei Servi is apparently unknown. Vincenzo Coronelli, Guida de’ forestieri sacro-profana per osservare il più riguardevole nella Città di Venezia, Venice, 1700, p. 158, notes observance of the feast at San Andrea. 30 Berlin, Gemäldegalerie. See recently Brigit Blass-Simmen, ‘Qualche lontani.’ Distance and Transcendence in the Art of Giovanni Bellini, in: Carolyn C. Wilson (ed.), Examining Giovanni Bellini. An Art ‘More Human and More Divine,’ Turnhout: Brepols, 2015, pp. 77–91 and Catarina Schmidt Arcangeli,

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Fig. 4: Pietro Perugino, St. Anne Altarpiece, 1502, commissioned by Angelo di Tommaso Conti for Santa Maria degli Angeli, Perugia, panel, 296 × 259 cm, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Marseilles.

The Lamentation is an iconic, devotional theme, not directly based on gospel narrative but derived from the gospel accounts of the Virgin present at the foot of the cross, of the deposition of Christ from the cross, and of his followers’ preparations of his body for burial. It shares with the Pietà and other images of the Dead Christ its capacity as visual counterpart to literary elaboration of these scriptural texts that are long traditional to prayers and meditation. This impressive exemplar (plate XIV), now generally attributed to Giovanni Bellini or, reasonably, to Giovanni Bellini with assistance, was listed in 1812 as in very poor condition and was removed from Santa Maria

Giovanni Bellini e la pittura veneta a Berlino. Le collezioni di James Simon e Edward Solly alla Gemäldegalerie, Verona: Scripta, 2015, pp. 133–144.

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dei Servi in 1814, entering the Accademia in 1829.31 Its restoration in 1830 included extensive repaint that remained in place prior to cleaning and conservation in 1965, with x‑radiography documenting severe abrasion to the foreground.32 The picture was first recorded, at the church, by Marco Boschini in 1664: La tauola doppo l’altar de’ Barbieri doue è Christo deposto di Croce, con le Marie, & vn Santo Seruvita, con bellissimo paese, è tauola molto grande, e maestosa è la più bella, che facesse Rocco Marconi. The panel after the Barbers’ altar where is Christ taken down from the cross, with the Maries and a Holy Servite, with a most beautiful landscape; the panel is very large, and majestic, and the most beautiful that Rocco Marconi created.33

Boschini’s attribution of the Servi picture to Bellini’s assistant began to be questioned in the early twentieth century with perception that, regardless of execution, the “simplicity and clarity of the Lamentation’s design,” as Felton Gibbons was to write in 1962, “powerful in its organization and synthetic in its economy of statement, is surely owed to Bellini himself,” remarking further the figural composition as “a closely knit W design with two vertical framing elements and a cohesive central pyramid,” its monumentality enhanced by the color scheme. Gibbons observes that the outer figures “take on unassertive neutral tones, the two kneeling figures are in brilliant color, and nobly simple hues are used for the central group.”34 Giles Robertson – likewise convinced that the work must have been designed and laid in by Bellini before his death – concludes his monograph with analysis of the painting as culmination of the master’s lifelong mission and mastery of the integration of man and nature in “a divinely illuminated whole.”35 Already in 1937, Carlo Gamba, following Bernard Berenson’s lead, had remarked the nobility and monumentality of the composition, its life-size figures, and the Bellinian background concept and its details, vividly characterizing the spacious landscape as an “amphitheater of mountains around a lake.”36

31 Venice, Gallerie dell’Accademia, inv. 166; Giulio Manieri Elia, in: Rona Goffen and Giovanna Nepi Scirè (eds.), Il Colore ritrovato. Bellini a Venezia, Milan: Electa, 2000, cat. 22, pp. 140–142, p. 141 and fn. 14–16. Manieri Elia reviews opinions on attribution and date; see also Benci and Stucky 1987 (as fn. 5), p. 47, p. 62, fn. 1 and Peter Humfrey, The Altarpiece in Renaissance Venice, London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993, pp. 250, 355. 32 Manieri Elia 2000 (as fn. 31), p. 141 and for the then recently conducted infrared reflectography study. 33 Marco Boschini, Le minere della pittura, Venice: Francesco Nicolini, 1664, p. 467. 34 Felton Gibbons, Giovanni Bellini and Rocco Marconi, in: Art Bulletin 44 (1962), pp. 127–131, p. 130. 35 Giles Robertson, Giovanni Bellini, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968, p. 154. 36 Carlo Gamba, Giovanni Bellini, Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1937, p. 181; Bernard Berenson, Pictures of the Italian Renaissance, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932, pp. 73, 329. As noted by Sandra Moschini Marconi, Gallerie dell’Accademia di Venezia, vol. 1 of 3, Opere d’arte dei secoli XIV e XV, Rome: Istituto poligrafico dello Stato, Libreria dello Stato, 1955, cat. 83, p. 88; Terisio Pignatti, in Renato Ghiotto and Terisio

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The removal of the nineteenth-century over-paint in 1965 prompted widespread perception of the master’s role in the execution as well the design.37 Notably, over the intervening years, Mauro Lucco has stressed the work’s status as one of Giovanni’s last masterpieces, noting that the landscape represents a fully Giorgionesque vastness – atmospheric, vibrant, and lush – conveying optical truth that looks forward to Titian and beyond.38 My first proposal is that the standing female figure, whom Boschini and most later writers identify generically as one of the mourning Maries,39 was likely intended specifically to honor Saint Mary Cleophas, granted the known prominence of her relic at the church in the 1490 s and early 1500 s. The distinct depiction of the titulus atop the soaring cross near the apex of the canvas, which closely resembles Riccio’s depiction in his Exaltation of the Cross (fig. 3), may be intentionally suggestive of the relic that Donà had given the church in 1492, as Jacopo Benci and Silvia Stucky proposed in their important 1987 contextual study of the picture.40 The standing Servite, recognizable as such by the black habit signifying Christ’s death, is noted by Boschini and, although at times since identified as the early Servite leader Filippo Benizzi,41 was suggested by Benci and Stucky, on the basis of the full beard, to allude to a contem-

Pignatti, L’opera completa di Giovanni Bellini, Milan: Rizzoli, 1969, no. 209, p. 110; Benci and Stucky 1989 (as in fn. 5), p. 62, fn. 1, and Manieri Elia 2000 (as in fn. 31), p. 141, attribution of the design to Bellini appears already implicit in Pietro Paoletti, Catalogo delle R. R. Gallerie di Venezia, Venice: Visentini Cav. F., 1903, p. 59. 37 Benci and Stucky 1989 (as fn. 5), p. 47 and p. 62, fn. 1; Manieri Elia 2000 (as fn. 31), p. 141. From this time, too, association of Rocco Marconi as author or collaborator is less frequent; cf., however, Anchise Tempestini, Bellini and His Collaborators, in: Peter Humfrey (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Giovanni Bellini, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 256–272, 319–324, p. 319, fn. 5. 38 Mauro Lucco, “La Primavera del Mondo tuto, in ato de Pitura,” in: Mauro Lucco and Giovanni C. F. Villa (eds.), Giovanni Bellini, Cinisello Balsamo, Milan: Silvana, 2008, pp. 19–37, p. 31. 39 E. g., Moschini Marconi 1955 and Pignatti 1969 (as fn. 36). The figure is identified as Mary Salome by De Angelis as cited by Vicentini 1920 (as fn. 3), p. 91, fn. 2. Benci and Stucky 1987 (as fn. 5), p. 51 propose an association as the Florentine Servite Tertiary Saint Giuliana Falconiera (1270–1341). For identification as Saint Martha, see fn. 50 below. 40 Benci and Stucky 1987 (as fn. 5), pp. 59, 60. The same configuration of titulus and cross occurs in the Lamentation, from the chapter house of Santa Maria dei Carmini in Venice (now Pushkin Museum, Moscow), designed by Cima da Conegliano perhaps ca. 1512, for which see Adriana Augusti, cat. no. 53: in: Cima da Conegliano: poeta del paesaggio, ed. Giovanni C. F. Villa, Venice: Marsilio, 2010, p. 209 and for earlier references. This work also shares the motifs in the Servi Lamentation of Mary seated directly below the cross and supporting Christ’s head with her hands, for which see below. 41 Vicentini 1920 (as fn. 3), p. 93 as Filippo Benizzi or another Servite saint; Moschini Marconi 1955 (as fn. 36), p. 88 as probably Filippo Benizzi; Humfrey 1993 (as fn. 31), p. 355 as Filippo Benizzi. Benci and Stucky 1987 (as fn. 5), p. 51 challenge this identification with reference to most contemporary images, where the saint is shown beardless or wears a short beard. The figure is identified as Benedict by Botti, as cited in Vicentini 1920 (as fn. 3), p. 93, fn. 2, and by Pignatti 1969 (as fn. 36) as “un monaco (san Benedetto?).”

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porary charismatic Servite preacher, Bonaventura Tornielli da Forlì, nicknamed “il Padre Barbetta”, who died in Udine in 1491 and whose remains were translated to Santa Maria dei Servi in 1509 for veneration and preservation beneath the high altar.42 Anachronistic to the scene, this figure holds a book, points toward the body of Christ, and looks down and away from the mourning figures as if to instruct us and invite our contemplation and compassion. Boschini, having recorded the Lamentation’s location near the altar (titled to Cosmas and Damian) of the Barbers’ guild, further justly observes the work’s beautiful landscape and majesty, as our more recent scholars were to do, and its size. My second proposal is that we consider the hypothesis that Bellini designed the painting, which is indeed large – nearly four-and‑a-half meters tall, its verticality emphasized by the audacious height of the empty cross that is reinforced by the two entwined trees that rise beside it43 – not for a side altar as generally inferred, but rather for the high altar of the spacious Servite church, though likely never so installed. I will quickly outline my thinking on this question with reference to what we know and do not know of the altar where the work was located from Boschini’s time forward; to what we know and do not know concerning construction and remodeling at the apse end of the church in the years when Bellini would have been involved with the commission; and to how the picture’s size, composition, and imagery may reflect his goals for it. Substantial documentation of the church’s history and contents is preserved, but we have no continuous record due to loss to fire of the foundation’s library in 1769.44 The altar where, or near which, the Lamentation was presumably situated from Boschini’s time forward, the first on the right-hand wall of the nave at the west (entrance) end, is problematic. We know that the friars withdrew jus patronatus from a widow who had been granted it only ten years before and that they rebuilt the space in 1510, at their expense, for use by their tertiaries.45 In documents from 1536 to 1720, the altar

42 Benci and Stucky 1987 (as fn. 5), pp. 53–57, with particular reference to the writings of the learned late Quattrocento Servite friar Gasparino Borro da Venezia, whose works include one dedicated to Girolamo Donà; see further Baseggio Omiccioli 2012 (as fn. 11), p. 109 for Borro’s friendship with Donà and role in securing renewal of indulgences granted the church in 1492. Blessed Bonaventura was later variously commemorated at the Servi in the sacristy and chapel of the Addolorata (Vicentini 1920 [as fn. 3], pp. 68–69). 43 Measuring 444 × 312 cm, the Lamentation is not as tall as Bellini’s San Giobbe altarpiece (originally 530 cm) or San Zaccaria altarpiece (originally 478 cm) but considerably taller, e. g., than the altarpiece in San Giovanni Crisostomo (300 cm) or Cima da Conegliano’s Baptism of Christ installed in 1494 at the high altar of San Giovanni in Bragora (350 cm); see respectively Humfrey 1993 (as fn. 31), pp. 347, 352–353, 356, and 349. 44 E. g., Zorzi 1972 (as fn. 3), p. 348; Pavon and Cauzzi 1989 (as fn. 3), pp. 147–152. 45 The documents of 1500 and 1510 refer to the altar informally as that of the Madonna, probably in reference to an image that remained in place after the change in patronage; see Vicentini 1920 (as fn. 3), p. 92; Vicentini 1922 (as fn. 3), pp. 185–186; Benci and Stucky 1987 (as fn. 5), p. 58; Humfrey 1993 (as fn. 31), p. 355; Pavon and Cauzzi 1989 (as fn. 3), p. 79.

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is titled to Saint Joseph,46 whose feast had been embraced for celebration as a double major rite throughout the Servite order in 1324,47 and there is a mention from 1581 of a previous title to Saint Martha.48 Bellini’s picture, which is eminently suitable for a Marian or Christological altar, was patently not designed as either a Saint Martha or Saint Joseph altarpiece.49 Likely the picture was simply parked at that altar, at some unknown point, for unknown reasons, and no doubt eventually supplemented by an appropriate image, perhaps sculptural, of Saint Joseph. Attempts – driven by association of Bellini’s Lamentation with this altar – to read the standing woman as Martha of Bethany,50 or the kneeling Joseph of Arimathea as Joseph sponsus Mariae,51 are not compelling, granted that neither Martha nor Joseph figures in the scriptural texts as among Christ’s mourners, and neither image is here identified by distinguishing attributes. Rather than dating the work close to Bellini’s death in 1516, some have favored circa 1510, when the tertiaries’ altar was built,52 a date that is stylistically plausible but possibly irrelevant as external evidence. Given the span of years traced by documentation for Bellini’s San Giovanni Crisostomo altarpiece dated 1513,53 for example, as well as the huge demands on the master’s time during this period, one might suppose that the Lamentation was under consideration and in production over the course of several years, perhaps left unfinished and still in his studio at his death.

46 Vicentini 1920 (as fn. 3), p. 92; Vicentini 1922 (as fn. 3), pp. 79, 192; Benci and Stucky 1987 (as fn. 5), p. 58 and p. 64 fn. 42, and Humfrey, as fn. 45 above. Celebration of Joseph’s feast at the altar is also indicated in Coronelli 1700 (as fn. 29), p. 152, by inclusion of it among locations in Venice where rites were observed on March 19: “Alli Servi Altare delle Terziarie Servite.” 47 See Besutti 1984 (as fn. 25), p. 67 for transcription from the Acts of the Chapter General. 48 See Humfrey 1993 (as fn. 31), p. 355 for the Acts of the Apostolic Visitation. 49 A Saint Martha altarpiece might have featured a standing image of the saint, inscribed or including such distinguishing attributes as the aspergillum or Tarasque, and perhaps with scenes from her life; a Madonna and Child enthroned with Martha and other saints; or, later, her primary canonical narrative: Christ in the House of Mary and Martha; for the latter subject by Leandro Bassano in the church of Santa Marta, see Sansovino 1663, vol. 1 (as fn. 3), p. 269. For references for the Saint Joseph altarpiece in late pre-Tridentine Italy, see Carolyn C. Wilson, St Joseph and the Process of Decoding Vincenzo Catena’s Warrior Adoring the Infant Christ and the Virgin, in: Artibus et Historiae 67 (2013), pp. 117–136, p. 133, fn. 1; p. 134, fn. 28; and p. 135, fn. 29. 50 Vicentini 1920 (as fn. 3), pp. 93–94, suggesting that Coronelli knew of celebration there of Martha’s feast, and Humfrey 1993 (as fn. 31), p. 355, reporting mention of a prior feast (see fn. 48 above). The identification as Giuliana Falconiera (see fn. 39 above) also depends largely on the supposed intended location of Bellini’s altarpiece at this altar, that of the tertiaries. 51 Alternatively to a mourning Mary and Joseph of Arimathea, Vicentini 1920 (as fn. 3, pp. 93–94) tentatively argues the identities as Martha and Joseph as an ingenious Servite innovation. A more reasonable exception to the usual identification of the kneeling figure is De Angelis’ as Nicodemus (ibid., p. 92, fn. 2). 52 See Humfrey 1993 (as fn. 31), p. 355. 53 See ibid., p. 356.

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During the 1490 s, Tullio Lombardo’s monumental Vendramin tomb was taking shape, and Antonio Rizzo’s noteworthy Emo monument was completed by 1493.54 The former was situated on the left wall at the east end, just after the entrance to the cloister and preceding the left apse chapel, and the latter was located in that chapel.55 Moreover, structural activity on the church building, following its consecration in 1491, was still ongoing as is indicated by the renewal of papal indulgences in 1492.56 The cupola over the cappella maggiore, which appears to be complete in Jacopo de’ Barbari’s perspective map of Venice dated 1500, had apparently been constructed only shortly before.57 There is evidence to suggest that two years earlier, in 1498, the former choir, located in the nave, was reduced by almost half its length, and a marble partition wall with three arched openings was erected at the choir’s new west end.58 The partition would provide the sites for two altars: Girolamo Donà’s new altar of the Holy Cross, the site of Riccio’s bronze tabernacle (fig. 3) and True Cross reliefs, now dated to circa 1500,59 and that of Saint Martin, which was to be furnished with Riccio’s superb Saint Martin and the Beggar relief, now dated to the 1510 s.60 In a later restructuring campaign, in 1562, the high altar was apparently moved back toward the apse and was complemented by Giuseppe Salviati’s large Assunta,61 but it seems reasonable to suppose that the decision to so place the high altar would already have been made at the time the choir was reconfigured at the end of the Quattrocento. Given the cast of

54 Sanudo, 1980 ed. (as fn. 17), p. 51; see, e. g., Schultz 1983 (as fn. 9), p. 74, fn. 23; cf., however, Syson and Cafà 2014 (as fn. 9), p. 15 for the date of the Emo monument. Having specified his tomb monument in 1472, Vendramin died in 1478; work presumably began in the 1480 s. See Schulz 2014 (as fn. 9), p. 66 for probable extension of work into the first decade of the Cinquecento. In 1482, the Servites had appropriated the chapel to the left of the cappella maggiore to Giovanni Emo, who died in 1483 (Vicentini 1920 [as fn. 3], pp. 70–71). 55 Pavon and Cauzzi 1989 (as fn. 3), fig. 33. 56 See above, in fn. 8, and Baseggio Omiccioli (as fn. 11), p. 109; see also Pavon and Cauzzi 1989 (as fn. 3), p. 52, and p. 79 for the indulgence granted by Alexander VI in 1498. By 1482 (Vicentini 1920 [as fn. 3], p. 49), certain of the eight altars that had been solemnized in 1414 had been removed due to ongoing construction of the church and others presumably being built to replace them. 57 E. g., Pavon and Cauzzi 1989 (as fn. 3), fig. 7. For the date, see e. g., Vicentini 1920, p. 45 and Urbani 2000 (both as fn. 3), pp. 35–36. 58 Vicentini 1920, p. 49; Vicentini 1922, p. 129; Pavon and Cauzzi 1989, p. 55; Urbani 2000, p. 36 (all as fn. 3); Rossi 2011/2012 (as fn. 3), p. 59, and Baseggio Omiccioli 2012 (as fn. 11), pp. 107, 109, 118, fn. 9. 59 Gasparotto 2007 (as fn. 15), pp. 394–398, 404; Baseggio Omiccioli 2012 (as fn. 11), pp. 103, 107–112. 60 Venice, Galleria Franchetti alla Ca’ d’Oro; see Denise Allen, Saint Martin and the Beggar, in Andrea Riccio. Renaissance Master of Bronze, Denise Allen with Peta Motture, New York: Frick Collection; London: Philip Wilson Publishers: 2008, cat. 9, pp. 152–157 and for her dating to the span 1513–1520. 61 Vicentini 1920 (as fn. 3), p. 50, and p. 73 for reconfiguration again in 1731, and further Baseggio Omiccioli 2012 (as fn. 11), pp. 109, 110, for analysis of both later campaigns. For Salviati’s work, now in the Capella Rosario in Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice, see David McTavish, Giuseppe Porta called Giuseppe Salviati (PhD diss., Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London), New York: Garland Publishing, 1981, pp. 156–162, 295–296, fig. 186.

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educated, ambitious patrons and friars then involved with the church,62 as well as the expensive, distinguished works of art then newly completed or underway, who better for the Servite fathers to approach for the high altarpiece commission than the increasingly renowned and eminent Giovanni Bellini? And what might we gain by visualizing the tall Lamentation on the long view of the spacious church and approached with incremental perception – through the central arch of the new marble choir wall – of the great W of figures at the front and “amphitheater of mountains” beyond, toward the glowing horizon at the east end of the perfectly oriented sanctuary? Surely the centrality of the Virgin with Christ and the Holy Cross would have been both spatially and thematically appropriate to a high altarpiece designed for Santa Maria dei Servi. Mary, as la Santissima Annunziata, was the titular of the church. The capella maggiore was flanked by the Emo family chapel on the left, dedicated to Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist in 1483 but long known as the chapel of the Annunciate Virgin,63 and by the Donà family chapel on the on the right, later documented as that of the Madonna of the Seven Sorrows.64 During the sixteenth century, the latter devotion would become the distinguishing devotion of the Servite order,65 and the Lamentation well serves to express it. Moreover, although it was long believed that the double-sided altarpiece that once adorned the high altar of Santissima Annunziata in Florence presented Perugino’s Assunta to the congregation in the nave and Filippino Lippi’s and Perugino’s Deposition from the Cross (fig. 5) to the friars in Alberti’s choir behind, Jonathan Nelson has now demonstrated the reverse.66 Thus the public-facing Deposition in the great Servite church in Tuscany would have

62 Vicentini 1920 (as fn. 3), pp. 9–21, p. 50 for the golden age of scholarly endeavor at the foundation during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, including listing of distinguished clerics and their achievements, and for the extraordinary artistic activity in the later Quattrocento and early Cinquecento, also emphasized by Pachin 1983 (as fn. 3), p. 21 and Urbani 2000 (as fn. 3), p. 25; see also Benci and Stucky 1987 (as fn. 5), pp. 53–57. 63 Vicentini 1920 (as fn. 3), p. 70. As noted in Vicentini 1920, p. 19, from the beginning of the Quattrocento, members of the Scuola Grande di San Marco processed annually to the church on the feast of the Annunciation and were presented there with a blessing and symbolic gift of loaves and fishes; Baseggio Omiccioli 2012 (as fn. 11), p. 111 notes the visit and connects it with the civic importance of the day as the anniversary of Venice’s founding. 64 Vicentini 1920 (as fn. 3), p. 77 notes the occurrence of this title in a document of 1652 but argues the probability that it obtained already in 1481. 65 E. g., Besutti 1984 (as fn. 25), “Niger et maestitia habitus,” pp. 85–119, p. 85 for the devotion as developed at the end of the fifteenth century and for the confraternity established by Alexander VI; see pp. 72–73 for the feast of Holy Saturday, conceded to the Servite Order by Callixtus III, to be celebrated in honor of the Madonna. Pachin 1983 (as fn. 3), p. 22 notes the association of the Madonna of Sorrows devotion with the liturgical celebration of Holy Saturday at Santa Maria dei Servi; see also Pavon and Cauzzi 1989 (as fn. 3), p. 78 for Innocent VIII’s concession to the Order in 1490 to celebrate a Mass on Holy Saturday. 66 Jonathan Nelson, The High Altar-Piece of SS. Annunziata in Florence. History, Form, and Function, in: Burlington Magazine 139 (1997), pp. 84–94; Jonathan Katz Nelson, La pala per l’altar maggiore

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Fig. 5: Filippino Lippi and Pietro Perugino, Deposition, completed by 1507, panel, 334 × 225 cm, Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence.

provided a closely contemporary counterpart for the high-altar use of the related Lamentation theme at its counterpart in Venice. Bellini’s Christ is placed close to the viewer and to the altar hypothetically once below. His lifeless but radiant body is displayed on a white cloth, ornamented with gold-stitched bands, that also serves to cover his loins and may perhaps have resem-

della Santissima Annunziata. La funzione, la comissione, I dipinti e la cornice, in: Patrizia Zambrano and Jonathan Katz Nelson (eds.), Filippino Lippi, Milan: Electa, 2004, pp. 22–43.

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Fig. 6: Sebastiano del Piombo, Lamentation, 1516, oil on panel transferred to canvas, 260 × 193 cm, Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

bled an actual cloth intended to adorn the altar.67 Christ’s wounds are prominently although in no way grotesquely displayed. With clarity and immediacy, this intensely moving figure signals the Sacrament and its message. Somehow still vulnerable, the body is supported by the serenely dignified Madonna, one hand tenderly raising the Lord’s holy face so that we may look upon it. Might this elegant motif have been

67 E. g., the cloth (“‘paramento dell’alltare’,” “‘fuxi‘, or ‘fixi doro’”) that is listed among Domenico Diedo’s expenses incurred ca. 1464 in furnishing his burial chapel; Susan Steer, The Patron of Bartolomeo Vivarini’s 1464 Polyptych for S. Andrea della Certosa, Venice, in: Burlington Magazine 144 (2002), pp. 687–690, p. 687.

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Fig. 7: Titian, Pietà, ca. 1570–1576, oil on canvas, 378 × 351 cm, Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice.

intended to call to mind the devotion of the Holy Face of Lucca observed since the 1360 s in the still extant oratory that stood adjacent to the east end of the right-hand nave wall?68 And might it thus have served, together with Bellini’s pictorial reference to the titulus relic and his plausible allusions to the relic of Saint Mary Cleophas and to the memory and remains of Blessed Bonaventura da Forlì, to remind the contemporary viewer of these devotions and to reinforce their current, distinctive significance as assets to the “notable temple of the Virgin” in Cannaregio?

68 The Servite fathers granted the Lucchese the land in 1360, and the foundation was recorded in an inscription of 1376; noted in Sansovino 1663 (as fn. 3) vol. 1, pp. 161–162; Vicentini 1920 (as fn. 3), p. 9; Zorzi 1972 (as fn. 3), pp. 355–356.

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During the perhaps lengthy course of its realization, aspects of Bellini’s impressive composition for the prestigious Servite church must have been known to various of his students and associates. That the disposition of Christ’s body at a slight diagonal to the plane may have inspired Sebastiano del Piombo’s treatment of the same figure in his Lamentation dated 1516 (fig. 6) was observed by Michael Hirst and recently elaborated by Costanza Barbieri.69 I would offer as well that the richly clad kneeling figures at the base of Bellini’s central pyramid – Joseph of Arimathea leading our eye into the space where Christ lies, and the Magdalene gesturing back outward toward us  – carry in reverse a rhythm that may long after echo in Titian’s great and very personal Pietà (fig. 7), where Peter Humfrey has observed the distinctive recollection of Bellini’s gold-mosaic architectural settings,70 and further, that Titian’s great gray stone statues of Moses, turning away from the central group, and of the Hellespontine Sibyl, leaning toward it, may echo Bellini’s flanking male and female standing figures, those rendered in “unassertive neutral tones.” In Bellini’s altarpiece, the Mother of God and Virgin of Sorrows is duly honored in the palpable image at center stage. Her brightly lit, highly plastic white wimple provides a determined visual focus, appropriate to the Servi’s central axis. Appropriate, too, is the central vignette of Mother and Son – if designed to be framed by the arched opening of the marble partition wall of the newly reconfigured choir, as the viewer’s first glimpse of the altarpiece – where it is Mary who links cross to Christ and the approaching viewer, to the distant horizon.

69 Michael Hirst, Sebastiano del Piombo, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981, p. 47; Costanza Barbieri, ‘Apparò i primi principi da Giovan Bellino allora vecchio.’ Questioni aperte sulla formazione di Sebastiano, in: Wilson 2015 (as fn. 30), pp. 227–244, p. 237. Further, it seems likely that Bellini’s composition predated and influenced Cima’s Moscow Lamentation regarding the analogies observed in fn. 40 above. 70 Venice, Gallerie dell’Accademia; Peter Humfrey, Titian, London and New York: Phaidon, 2007, p. 217; see also Bruce Cole, Titian and Venetian Painting, 150-1590, Boulder CO: Icon Editions, 1999, p. 212.

Beverly Louise Brown

The Perplexing Problem of Portraits and Parapets The So‑Called Brocardo Portrait Attributed to Giorgione At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Venice and her territories witnessed a fundamental shift in the nature of portraiture due largely to the creative innovations introduced by Giorgione and his circle. Not only were the dimensions of portraits manifestly increased to accommodate a new type of pyramidal composition in which sitters were shown from the waist up including their full torso and arms, but the emotional tenor and uniqueness of the human personality were also brought to the forefront as never before. In order to achieve this new monumentality, the position of the parapet was substantially lowered. The device of a parapet, set along the bottom edge of the picture plane to carry an inscription or to serve as a support for the sitter’s hands, had been a standard feature of Venetian portraiture from the 1450 s and was presumably influenced by contemporary Netherlandish painting, where cryptic messages or an artist’s signature were placed on shallow three-dimensional ledges. One of the earliest is Jan van Eyck’s Portrait of a Man (National Gallery, London), which bears the inscription “Léal Souvenir” [Loyal Remembrance], as well as the artist’s signature and the date 10  October 1432.1 In general, Venetian artists, such as Giovanni Bellini, omitted any reference to the sitter, preferring to pin a signed, illusionistic cartellino to the parapet or simply inscribing their name across its surface.2 On a cautionary note, one should be aware that the authenticity of these signatures has often been called into question and it is highly likely that some of them were little more than value-added workshop branding. What is evident, however, is that they refer to the artist and not the sitter. By contrast the inscriptions found on portraits attributed to Giorgione and his circle show a subtle shift from Bellini’s straightforward affirmation of artistic identity toward a more complex arrangement in which both the creator and the sitter might be celebrated. A case in point is the Portrait of a Young Man from Budapest (plate XV),

1 Lorne Campbell, Miguel Falomir, Jennifer Fletcher, and Luke Syson, Renaissance Faces. Van Eyck to Titian (exh. cat.), National Gallery, London (London: National Gallery Company, 2008), pp. 98–99, no. 9. 2 Louisa C. Matthew, The Painter’s Presence. Signatures in Venetian Renaissance Pictures, in: The Art Bulletin 80 (1998), pp. 616–648; Rona Goffen, Signatures. Inscribing Identity in Italian Renaissance Art, in: Viator 32 (2001), pp. 303–370; and Debra Pincus, Bellini and Belliniana. The Issue of Signatures, Four Case Studies, in: Nicole Hegener (ed.), Künstler Signaturen von der Antike bis Gegenwart, Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2013, pp. 232–243.

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which has been attributed to, among others, Giorgione, Pordenone, Titian, and Cariani with perhaps the latter having the most credence.3 The dating of the portrait has oscillated between 1503 and 1530, but the sitter’s costume and hair suggest that it was painted around 1510. An inscription (ANTONIVS BRO[KAR]DVS MARII), barely visible and repeated twice – once on the upper left of the parapet and then again between the emblems (not, as is sometimes said, on the tablet at the right) – is assumed to be a later addition, so whether or not it refers to the Venetian poet Antonio Brocardo, who would have been only twelve in 1510, is a moot point.4 More interesting are the three enigmatic emblems spread across the parapet (plate XVI), which are original to the composition but difficult to decipher. The first depicts a tall black hat emblazoned with the letter V. In the center there is a female head with three faces surrounded by a garland of poppies, wheat, grapes, and nuts, representing the Four Seasons, and on the left a blank tabula ansata with dovetail handles. The three-headed central image has frequently been described as the coat of arms of Treviso, but, in fact, the sigillum magnum of the city, which is still in use today, shows a turreted city with three towers not three faces.5 While the play on words linking the picture to Treviso (three faces, tre visi) would be felicitous, it seems unlikely. The image has also been identified as an allegory of Prudence. In addition to the more usual attributes of a mirror and serpent, Prudence was also depicted as a three-faced figure, symbolizing the past, present, and future. Generally, as in Titian’s Allegory of Prudence or the pilasters on the façade of the Palazzo Vendramin a Santa Fosca, a clear distinction was made between the faces’ physiognomy as an allusion to the Three Ages of Man. But even in the rare cases where the three figures are of a similar age, such as the pietra serena relief from the workshop of Desiderio da Settignano (fig. 1) or the ornamental decoration on the steps of the Virgin’s throne in Antonio da Negroponte’s Madonna in Gloria, they are not depicted as female figures.6 It is possible, therefore, that the three female faces on the parapet belong not to Prudence but to Hekate, a goddess with wide-ranging powers. She was associated

3 For the provenance, dating, attribution, and earlier literature, see Alessandro Ballarin in: Michel Laclotte (ed.), Le Siècle de Titien. L’âge d’or de la peinture à Venise (exh. cat.), Grand Palais, Paris (Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1993), pp. 324–329, no. 25; Jaynie Anderson, Giorgione. The Painter of ‘Poetic Brevity,’ Paris: Flammarion, 1997, pp. 307–308; Marianne Koos in: Sylvia Ferino-Pagden and Giovanna Nepi Scirè (eds.), Giorgione Mythos und Enigma (exh. cat.), Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (Milan: Skira, 2004), pp. 228–231, no. 16; Enrico Maria Dal Pozzolo, Giorgione, Milan: Motta, 2009, pp. 326–27; and Simone Facchinetti and Arturo Galansino, In the Age of Giorgione (exh. cat.), Royal Academy of Arts, London (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2016), pp. 58–59, no. 10. 4 Claudio Mutini, Antonio Brocardo, in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 14 (1972), Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, pp. 383–384. 5 Giovanni Netto, Guida di Treviso. La città, la storia, la cultura e l’arte, Trieste: Lint, 1988, p. 55. 6 On Prudence see, Manfredo Tafuri, Venice and the Renaissance, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1995, pp. 11–13 and Nicholas Penny, The Sixteenth Century Italian Paintings. Volume II: Venice 1540– 1600, London: National Gallery Company, 2008, pp. 236–247.

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Fig. 1: Workshop of Desiderio da Settignano, Prudence, ca. 1460, pietra serena, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

not only with witchcraft but also with crossroads and pilgrims and was seen as the protectoress of youth. Because Hekate possessed the powers of three deities – Luna, Diana, and Persephone – she was depicted with three heads (fig. 2).7 In an anthology of Greek epigrams published in Venice in 1503 and again in 1521, one by Antiphilus of Byzantium asks a traveler to leave his hat to Diana (Artemis in Greek) as an offering of gratitude at his journey’s completion.8 While it may be tempting to see the hat on the

7 On Hekate, see Sarah Iles Johnston, Hekate Soteira, Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990; Stephen Ronan, The Goddess Hekate. Studies in Ancient Pagan and Christian Religion and Philosophy, Hastings: Chthonios Books, 1992; and Jacob Rabinowitz, The Rotting Goddess. The Origin of the Witch in Classical Antiquity’s Demonization of Fertility Religion, Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 1998. The suggestion that the central image might be Hekate was first made by Michael Auner, Randbemerkungen zu zwei Bildern Giorgiones und zum Brocardo-Porträt in Budapest, in: Jahrbuch des Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien 54 (1958), pp. 151–172, p. 160. 8 Florilegium diversorum epigrammatum, Venice: Aldo Manuzio, 1503 and 1521. See also, W. R. Paton (trans.), The Greek Anthology, vol. 1 of 5, New York: The Loeb Classical Library, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1916–1918, p. 401, no. 199: “Artemis, goddess of the road, Antiphilus dedicates to thee this hat from his head, a token of his wayfaring; for thou hast hearkened to his vows, thou hast blessed his paths. The gift is not great, but given in piety, and let no covetous traveler lay his hand on my offering; it is not safe to despoil a shrine of even little gifts.”

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Fig. 2: Hekate, Triple-Headed Goddess, ca. 161–200, marble, British Museum, London.

left of the parapet as a gift to Diana as one of the heads of Hekate, its true significance within the portrait is far from clear. It has been suggested that the hat refers to a member of the Cappello family named either Vettore or Vincenzo.9 There were, in fact, two well-known navel commanders from the Cappello family with those first names, but around 1510 neither would have been the age of the sitter, who in any case is not shown in military attire. Vettore had died in 1467, and Vincenzo, who was later painted by Titian, was already in his forties when the Budapest picture was painted.10 While the Cappello family coat of arms does include a hat, its helmet-like shape is not particularly close to what is depicted on the parapet.11 This type of hard, square-topped hat with a brim was worn by Greeks

9 Georg Gronau, Kritische Studien zu Giorgione, in: Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 31 (1908), pp. 403–436, p. 431. 10 For the Cappello family, see Laura Giannasi, Vettore Cappello, in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italia­ ni 18 (1975), Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, pp. 822–827 and, in the same volume, Achille Olivieri, Vincenzo Cappello, pp. 827–830. For Titian’s portrait in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, see Frederick Ilchman et al., Titian. Tintoretto. Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice (exh. cat.), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, (Farnham: Lund Humphries, 2009), pp. 210–215. 11 Eugenio Morando di Custoza, Libro d’arme di Venezia, Verona: [s. n.], 1979, tav. LXXIX, nos. 705–708.

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Fig. 3: Workshop of Vittore Carpaccio, Figure Study (detail of WA1863-614r), ca. 1488–1490, pen and wash heightened with white, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

and Armenians. A group of men conversing in the background of Gentile Bellini’s Procession in the Piazza San Marco wear similar hats, as does one of the figures in Vittore Carpaccio’s Return of the English Ambassadors, which a member of his workshop presumably copied as an exercise (fig. 3).12 Such hats were often placed over a tight-fitting cap as can be readily seen in Giovanni Mansueti’s Portrait of a Greek (Galleria Borghese, Rome). However, we cannot simply assume that our sitter was Greek or Armenian, since hats of this type were also worn by Jews and can be found within a more or less Semitic context at the foot of the throne in Homage to a Poet (National Gallery, London), which may represent the Old Testament figure of either David or Solomon or perhaps Saturn shown in the guise of a Jew. A similar hat is also worn by the figure standing behind the deceitful mother in the Uffizi’s Judgement of Solomon.13

12 Stella Mary Newton, The Dress of the Venetians 1495–1525, Aldershot: Scholar Press, 1988, p. 139 and Dal Pozzolo 2009 (as fn. 3), p. 326. For Carpaccio’s drawing, see K. T. Parker, Catalogue of the Collection of Drawings in the Ashmolean Museum, vol. 2 of 2, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956, pp. 5–6 and Catherine Whistler, Drawing in Venice. Titian to Canaletto (exh. cat.), Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, 2015), p. 71, no. 6. 13 For these latter two paintings, see Enrico Maria Dal Pozzolo and Lionello Puppi (eds.), Giorgione (exh. cat.), Museo Casa Giorgione, Castelfranco, Veneto (Milan: Skira, 2009), pp. 413–415, no. 35 and

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Fig. 4: Bernardino Licinio (?), Portrait of a Venetian Gentleman, ca. 1510–1515, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

None of the hats depicted in these pictures bears a V. Its inclusion in the Budapest picture is akin to the abbreviations VV and VVO found on the parapets of the portraits depicting young men in Berlin and Washington (fig. 4) – two more paintings whose attributions have oscillated between Giorgione, Titian, and Cariani.14 Paul Holberton has suggested that VVO might be an abbreviation for Virtus Vincit Omnia [Virtue Con-

pp. 415–416, no. 37. Similar Jewish hats also appear in northern prints such as those by Hans Burgkmair. 14 Facchinetti and Galansino 2016 (as fn. 3), pp. 40–41, no. 1 and pp. 64–65, no. 13. It seems to me that the very damaged Berlin painting is properly by Titian, while the Washington picture is Bernardino Licinio.

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quers All], a motto that appears on the frieze of the so‑called Casa Giorgione in Castelfranco.15 The abbreviations provide a visual testament to the invisible  – the inner dimensions of the sitter’s soul, which cannot be painted. In much the same vein, Giancarlo Fiorenza has pointed out that the meaning of VV was described in detail in 1497 by Pandolfo Collenuccio in Specchio d’Esopo.16 When a prince asks for whom the “fruits” of Aesop’s fables might be useful, he is told for courtiers who do not possess his sovereign’s VV: the two most ancient sisters of virtù and verità, Virtue and Truth. The courtiers need to consult the fables in order to “clear away and burnish their mirrors” so that they too may see VV reflected in the mirror of their souls. Another of Collenuccio’s fables, Agenoria, which draws on the medieval tradition of the allegorical struggle between virtues and vice, makes a correlation between Virtue and Prudence.17 In it a vainglorious head debates a prudent hat. It is finally left to Hercules to declare that ignorance and empty ambition will always lose out to Virtue and Honor. In this context, we might well assume that the central emblem on the parapet of the Budapest portrait is indeed the personification of Prudence. Collenuccio notes that virtù and verità depend on the classical notions of labor and study, and here the V on the hat might imply that the sitter has grasped Verità (Truth) or obtained Virtù (Virtue) through prudence and diligent study. However, this remains a perplexing problem, since there are logical reasons for either pairing a hat with Hekate or with Prudence. The tabula ansata on the right might have been intended to bear the artist’s signature and date, and, in fact, one can point to a number of examples, including Pollaiuolo’s Battle of the Nudes and Romanino’s Lamentation, in which a similar

15 Paul Holberton, To Loosen the Tongue of Mute Poetry. Giorgione’s Self-Portrait ‘as David’ as a Paragone Demonstration, in: Thomas Frangenberg (ed.), Poetry on Art. Renaissance to Romanticism, Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2003, pp. 29–47, p. 35. For the frieze, see Dal Pozzolo and Puppi 2009 (as fn. 13), pp. 420–421, no. 41. 16 Specchio d’Esopo was first published in 1526 with a dedication to Duke Ercole I d’Este but without a location or publisher. However, it seems likely to have been circulated earlier. See Giancarlo Fiorenza, Pandolfo Collenuccio’s Specchio d’Esopo and the Portrait of the Courtier, in: I Tatti Studies. Essays in the Renaissance 9 (2001), pp. 63–87, p. 71–73. There have been various other less plausible interpretations of VV and VVO in which the initials are related to vivus and said to stand for “made by the living for the living”; see Nancy Thomson de Grummond, VV and Related Inscriptions in Giorgione, Titian, and Dürer, in: The Art Bulletin 57 (1975), pp. 346–356; David Rosand, The Portrait, the Courtier, and Death, in: Robert W. Hanning and David Rosand (eds.), Castiglione. The Ideal and the Real in Renaissance Culture, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983, pp. 91–129, pp. 100–104; and Jodi Cranston, The Poetics of Portraiture in the Italian Renaissance, Cambridge: University Press, 2000, p. 39. 17 Pandolfo Collenuccio, Agenoria, Deventer: Jacobus de Breda, 1497. See Luca D’Ascia, Humanistic Culture and Literary Invention in Ferrara at the Time of the Dossi, in: Luisa Ciammitti, Steven F. ​ Ostrow, and Salvatore Settis (eds.), Dosso’s Fate. Painting and Court Culture in Renaissance Italy, Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1998, pp. 309–332, p. 314 and Fiorenza 2001 (as fn. 16), pp. 78–81.

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antique tablet was used for just this purpose.18 At some point toward the end of the sixteenth century a tablet of this type was also added to Titian’s picture of Jacopo Pesaro and Pope Alexander VI jointly presenting a papal banner to Saint Peter.19 But since there are no traces of an inscription, signature, or date on the Budapest portrait (the marks in old photographs have been shown to be later additions that have now been removed), the tabula ansata appears to have been left purposely blank, just as it was in Raphael’s Madonna di Foligno (Museo Vaticano, Vatican City), where the smooth, pristine surface is a metaphor for the immortality of the human soul.20 Taken together the three emblems form a word picture of the sitter’s inner being much like the hieroglyphs in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, whose interpretation and deceptive significance cause no end of consternation for the hero. On the base of a huge elephant carrying an obelisk on his back, Poliphilo finds an inscription composed of images set in sequential rows (fig. 5). When he finally deciphers the pictorial riddle, he learns that his soul will be guided for the rest of his journey by the God of Nature, who “will hold the firm guidance of your life […] and will preserve you unharmed.”21 It stands to reason that if one could decipher pictorial riddles, such as the ones on the Budapest parapet, then he would possess the key to the inner essence of the sitter’s soul. The sitter himself seems to be entangled in a moment of self-absorbed contemplation and poetic longing. The x‑radiograph reveals that he originally was glancing toward the badly abraded landscape in the upper left-hand corner, but during the course of execution his focus was shifted downward to give him a more introspective composure.22 The picture belongs to a larger group of early sixteenth-century por-

18 Shelley Langdale, Battle of the Nudes. Pollaiuolo’s Renaissance Masterpiece (exh. cat.), Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2002). Romanino’s picture is dated 1510; see Alessandro Nova, Girolamo Romanino, Turin: Umberto Allemandi, 1994, pp. 212–213. 19 Beverly Louise Brown, In hoc signo vinces. Il vescovo Jacopo Pesaro e papa Alessandro VI davanti a san Pietro di Tiziano, in: Bernard Aikema (ed.), Tiziano, Venezia e il papa Borgia (exh. cat.), Palazzo COSMO, Pieve di Cadore (Florence: Alinari, 2013), pp. 47–89, p. 81. 20 For an illustration showing what appears to be a ladder that was once on the tabula ansata, see Auner 1958 (as fn. 7), p. 161, fig. 177. For Raphael, see Jürg Meyer zur Capellen, Raphael. A Critical Catalogue of His Paintings, vol. 2, The Roman Religious Paintings ca. 1508–1520, Landshut: Arcos, 2005, p. 68 and Andreas Tőnnesmann, Ein psychologisches Motiv bei Raffael, in: Ewald Kőnsgen (ed.), Arbor amoena comis. 25 Jahre Mittellateinisches Seminar in Bonn 1965–1990, Stuttgart: Steiner, 1990, pp. 293–304. 21 Francesco Colonna, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, ed. Marco Ariani and Mino Gabriele, vol. 1 of 2, Milan: Adelphi Edizioni, 1998, pp. 38–41. See also, Rudolf Wittkower, Hieroglyphics in the Early Renaissance, in: Bernard D. Levy (ed.), Developments in the Early Renaissance, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1972, pp. 58–97, pp. 70–74 and Brian Curran, The Egyptian Renaissance. The Afterlife of Ancient Egypt in Early Modern Italy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007, pp. 137–138. 22 For the x‑radiography, see Koos 2004 (as fn. 3), p. 228. Ballarin 1993 (as fn. 3), p. 328 has interpreted his glance toward the sky as a Neo-Platonic expression of “Love for God” (Amor Dei).

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Fig. 5: Hyp­nerotomachia Poliphili, “Hieroglyphs”, 1499, woodcut, Aldine Press

traits depicting sensual young Venetians, which Marianne Koos has labeled “lyrical male portraits.”23 The young man places his hand in such a way as to draw immediate attention to the intricately patterned embroidery of his doublet. A single strand of gold thread forms an interlocking arabesque with no beginning or end. Such patterns had become increasingly popular toward the end of the fifteenth century, and there are numerous references from this period to embroidery in the form of knots decorating court garments.24 Leonardo da Vinci had a particular proclivity for interlocked forms, listing “many designs of knots” in an early inventory of his works (fig. 6).25 Perhaps today Leonardo’s fantasia are best known from the engravings of knot patterns after his designs, which were later copied by Albrecht Dürer.26

23 Marianne Koos, Bildnissse des Begehrens. Das lyrische Männerporträt in der venezianischen Malerei des frühen 16. Jahrhunderts: Giorgione, Tizian und ihr Umkreis, Emsdetten: Edition Imorde, 2006, pp. 176–187. 24 Evelyn S. Welch, Art and Authority in Renaissance Milan, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995, p. 236 and Martin Kemp, Leonardo da Vinci. The Marvellous Works of Nature and Man, London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1981, p. 187. 25 Kemp 1981 (as fn. 24), p. 44. See Leonardo’s drawing of interlaced bands for a masquerade costume in Kenneth Clark, A Catalogue of the Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci in the Collection of His Majesty the King at Windsor Castle, vol. 1 of 2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1935, p. 35 (12351v). 26 Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, The Iconography of Dürer’s “Knots” and Leonardo’s “Concatenation,” in: The Art Quarterly 7 (1944), pp. 109–128; Pietro C. Marani, Marco Rossi, and Alessandro Rovetta, L’Ambrosiana e Leonardo (exh. cat.), Biblioteca-Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan (Novara: Interlinea,

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Fig. 6: Leonardo da Vinci, Decorative Knots for a Costume (detail of RCIN 912351v), ca. 1492–1494, red chalk, Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth 2016.

Koos has interpreted the knot patterns in the Budapest painting as a metaphor for the soul’s entrapment in Cupid’s fetters, proposing that this “lyrical” young man is suffering from a severe bout of Petrarchan lovesickness. But as Petrarch confessed in one of his Canzoniere, it was an entrapment that one might not wish to escape: “Not death nor grief can make me wish that Love would free me from that snare.”27 The lofty game of Petrarchan love captured the Venetian imagination at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and there was no greater exponent of its joys and torments than Pietro Bembo, who had copied out the entire Canzoniere from his father’s autograph manuscript for publication.28 Much of Bembo’s writing on love, whether it be in poems, letters, or Gli Asolani, rely on Petrarch’s vocabulary. At the end of his myth Sarca, about the creation of the Lago di Garda, at the “lucky hour” a marriage bed unfolds into a harmonious couch where one can “knit tight your souls with the knot of lawful love.”29 In Gli Asolani the anxiety and perturbation of longing that fills a man’s bosom is tied like a knot so stout one doubts that it can be loosened.30 Bembo expressed the angst of love in a letter to Maria Savorgnan, confessing that “I strove to

1998), pp. 140–141, no. 59; Kristina Herrmann Fiore (ed.), Dürer e l’Italia (exh. cat.), Scuderie del Qui­ rinale, Rome (Milan: Electa, 2007), pp. 262–263, nos. V.9 and V.10; and Luke Syson et al., Leonardo da Vinci. Painter at the Court of Milan (exh. cat.), National Gallery, London (London: National Gallery Company, 2011), pp. 216–218, no. 54. 27 James Wyatt Cook, Petrarch’s Songbook. Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta: A Verse Translation, Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1995, pp. 98–101. 28 Carol Kidwell, Pietro Bembo. Lover, Linguist, Cardinal, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004, p. 24. 29 Pietro Bembo, Sacra, in: Lyric Poetry. Etna, ed. Mary P. Chatfield, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005, p. 173, line 617. 30 Pietro Bembo, Gli Asolani, bk. 2, in: Prose e Rime, ed. Carlo Dionisotti, Turin: Unione Tipografico, 1966, pp. 404–405.

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get out of the noose which I myself, through my misjudgment, had knotted, with the firm determination never again to trust the snares of love.”31 While Petrarchan poetry and Bembo’s passionate expressions of desire are filled with references to the knots of languishing love, the sophisticated, unbroken design on the doublet of the Budapest sitter may have a more philosophical meaning that links it to the emblems below. Marsilio Ficino saw knots as the bond that ties the body to the soul, as light is bound to the universe.32 It should not be forgotten that Hekate was equated with the Platonic Cosmic Soul. She was responsible for the tightly woven chains that bound one’s soul to the physical world.33 At the beginning the sixteenth century, the complexity of knots could also stand for discipline and learning. Bramante is said to have designed them as mathematical games for others to untie, the so‑called “gruppi di Bramante” mentioned by Leonardo.34 If the emblems on the parapet in the Budapest portrait do in fact mean that the young man is searching for truth and virtue through prudent and diligent study, then his gesture to the golden knots could reinforce the underlying idea that his ultimate quest is for the enduring unification of his body and soul. It is a journey that, as the Four Seasons imply, is continuous and perhaps never-ending. The reading of the emblems as an encoded message for the inner qualities of the sitter’s soul, which cannot otherwise be depicted, finds a parallel in the after-dinner games played at courts throughout Italy during the early sixteenth century. Baldassare Castiglione’s Il libro del cortegiano, which was published in Venice in 1528, opens with an after-dinner game in which the guests are asked to propose another game to be played: Among the other pleasant pastimes and music and dancing that continually were practiced, sometimes neat questions were proposed, sometimes ingenious games were devised […] in which under various disguises the company disclosed matters […] often ‘devices’ [imprese], as we now call them, were displayed; in discussing which there was wonderful diversion.35

The various disguises or veils, as Castiglione describes them, were to be peeled back to reveal what was hidden underneath. The ensuing discussion was meant to provoke endless debate by revealing the possibility of multiple interpretations. There were ancient precedents for such jocular discourse. Macrobius in Saturnalia (I. l. 2–3) described how at dinner conversations were meant to take on less serious

31 Quoted in Kidwell 2004 (as fn. 28), p. 59. 32 Marsilio Ficino, Theologia platonica de immortalitate animorum, III.2. See also, Luc Deitz, Marsilio Fincino, in: Jill Kraye (ed.), Cambridge Translations of Renaissance Philosophical Texts, vol. 1 of 2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 29–36. 33 Johnston 1990 (as fn. 7), pp. 48–70 and 153–163. 34 Syson 2011 (as fn. 26), p. 218. 35 Baldassare Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier by Count Baldassare Castiglione (1528), trans. Leonard Eckstein Opdycke, New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1901, I, v, p. 12.

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topics. Love, he advised, should be treated with diversity and charm. “Socrates,” he explains, “does not, in his usual way, press his opponent and tie him up in tight argumentative knots but−in a way more playful than combative−almost offers those in his grasp the chance to give him the slip and get away.”36 In the fifteenth century Leon Battista Alberti wrote a series of witty pieces that were intended to be read over dinner, hence their name Intercenales. They drew moral lessons through the use of humor and visual allegory.37 As Luisa Ciammitti has pointed out, the idea of narrating a story through objects recalls the widespread taste at Italian courts for figural rebuses, hieroglyphics, riddles, and emblems.38 The emblems on the parapet in the Budapest portrait may now seem incongruous and perplexing, but I would posit that they were intentionally meant to evoke discussion amongst viewers. One can envision an after-dinner viewing where sixteenth-century guests generously offered up their interpretations as they debated the significance of the emblems. Someone might suggest the three-headed figure was Hekate only to be countered by an identification of her as Prudence. Was the sitter’s journey one in search of love or was it in search of a virtuous life? Would the journey have a happy ending or would it be a never-ending quest? Can one ever truly visualize a person’s soul? The parapet invites viewers, now as then, to work through a network of related ideas and textual allusions. In this sense it is the ideal courtly game, which for now brings us no closer to the identity of the artist or the sitter.

36 Macrobius, Saturnalia: Books 1–2 (Loeb Classical Library), ed. and trans. Robert A. Kaster, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011, I. 1.2–3. This mealtime story-telling tradition continued throughout the medieval period. See C. Jean Campbell, The Game of Courting and the Art of Commune of San Gimignano, 1290–1320, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997, p. 174. 37 Leon Battista Alberti, Intercenales, ed. Franco Bacchelli and Luca D’Ascia, Bologna: Pendragon, 2003 and Leon Battista Alberti, Dinner Pieces, trans. David Marsh, Binghamton: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1987. 38 Luisa Ciammitti, Dosso as a Storyteller. Reflections on His Mythological Paintings, in: Ciammitti, Ostrow, and Settis 1998 (as fn. 17), pp. 83–111.

Amy N. Worthen

Cassandræ Fidelis venetæ literis clarissimæ in Padua Much of what we know about the Venetian child prodigy, philosopher, and orator Cassandra Fedele (circa 1465–1558) was first published in 1636 by Paduan cleric Giacomo Filippo Tomasini in the “Vita” chapter of his Clarissimæ fœminæ Cassandræ Fidelis venetæ epistolæ et orationes.1 Tomasini’s biography of Fedele and his transcriptions of 123 of her letters and three orations from original manuscripts in Paduan collections provided the foundation for subsequent studies of her life and work.2 Why were scholars and collectors in seventeenth-century Padua interested in her? What was it about Fedele, the history of Padua, and the interests of a small circle of antiquarians that inspired Tomasini (1595–1655) to write her biography, transcribe her letters and orations, and publish an engraving after a portrait that Fedele herself attributed to “Bellini” (fig. 1)? This article reviews Fedele’s connections with Padua. It traces the paths by which Fedele’s letters and portraits may have come into Paduan collections and were dispersed and lost. It investigates the context in which Tomasini worked. It looks at his publications and friendships.3 It offers reasons why Tomasini might have become interested in Fedele and published her writings and portraits. Presenting information teased out from the tangled threads connecting the figures in Tomasini’s circle, the article suggests new approaches that might aid in discovering the fate of the missing Bellini painting.

1 Giacomo Filippo Tomasini, Clarissimæ foeminæ Cassandræ Fidelis venetæ epistolæ et orationes, Padua: Bolzetta, 1636. “Vita” chapter, pp. 14–47. 2 Diana Robin (ed. and trans.), Cassandra Fedele, Letters and Orations, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Antonio Fedele (ed. and trans.), Cassandra Fedele, Orazioni ed Epistole, Padua: Il Poligrafo, 2010. 3 Also G. F. Tomasini, Illustrium virorum elogia, Padua: Donato Pasquardi, 1630. G. F. Tomasini, Laurentii Pignorii … historici & philologi eruditissimi Bibliotheca, et Museum, Venice: Pinelli, 1632. G. F. Tomasini, Prodromus athenarum pataviarum ad cives patavinos, Padua: Tomasini, 1633. G. F. Tomasini, Petrarcha redivius/Lauræ Brevis historiæ, Padua: Livio Pasquati and Iacopo Bortoli, 1635. G. F. Tomasini, Bibliotecæ patavinæ publicæ et privatæ, Udine: Schiratti, 1639. G. F. Tomasini, Lauræ Ceretæ epistolæ, Padua: Sebastiano Sardi, 1640. G. F.Tomasini, Elogia virorum literis sapientia illustrium ad vivum expressis, Padua: Sebastiano Sardi, 1644. G. F. Tomasini, Urbis patavinæ inscriptiones sacræ et prophanæ …, Padua: Sardi, 1649; G. F. Tomasini, Gymnasium patavinum, Udine: Schiratti, 1654.

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Fig. 1: Hieronymus David (attrib.), Cassandra Fidelis Veneta literis Clarissima, engraving and facing page of typographic text, in: Giacomo Filippo Tomasini, Cassandræ fidelis Venetæ, epistolæ et ora­ tiones, 1636, pp.14–15. Ghent University Library.

Portraits Sometime before 1622, Tomasini saw portraits of Fedele at the home of Giorgio Raguseo (circa 1570–1622) in Padua. Tomasini quoted verses that Fedele herself wrote on the Bellini portrait: “Bellinusque minor me priscis æmulus arte, Et vivis studio rettulit effigie.”4 Unfortunately, Fedele did not specify which Bellini painted her portrait. It was Tomasini who said that Giovanni Bellini painted it.5

4 “Calcavi quæ omnes optant meliora secuta/Iam celebris, passim docta, per ora vagor. Bellinusque minor me priscis æmulus arte,/Et vivis studio rettulit effigie.” Tomasini 1636 (as fn. 1), p. 21. (“I followed the better, disdaining what others desired./Now famous, learned this and that, I wander through life. And Bellini, vying with ancients in art, with his zeal,/has given to those now living my likeness when young.” Trans. Thomas F. Worthen.) 5 “[…] suæ ipsa decimumsextium annum agente Iani Bellini manu prodiit.” Tomasini 1636 (as fn. 1), p. 21.

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An engraved portrait of Fedele faces the first page of the “Vita” chapter.6 Although the portrait is cropped in an oval – not likely to have been a format Bellini used – the print implicitly reflects the appearance of the painting. An inscription in the oval border gives her age as sixteen, which suggests that the painting on which the engraving was based was created around 1481. The portrait presents Fedele with the distinctive elements of her appearance which, as I have argued elsewhere, comprise the attributes of her iconography:7 her hair in pettinatura a fungo, a narrow scarf wrapped around her neck, no jewelry, and a low-cut embroidered camicia. Her eyes are downcast for reading. The print is not signed but its similarity to signed portrait engravings in other of Tomasini’s books points to the engraver Hieronymus David (1590–1663), active in Padua during the 1620 s and 1630 s.8 This engraving may not be the only work to reflect the Bellini portrait. A woodblock print in Jacopo Filippo Foresti’s De plurimis claris sceletisque mulieribus of 14979 and a painting of Cassandra Fedele created for Federico Borromeo’s library may also derive the painting.10 Tomasini reported that in addition to the Bellini painting, Raguseo owned a marble bust made after the painting, as well as a painted portrait of Fedele in extreme old age.11 The portraits and her writings had once belonged to Fedele’s grandnephews, Paolo and Leone Leoni12 who gave them to Andrea Frizier, Cancelliere Grande of Venice (died 1580).13

6 Ibid., pp. 14–15. The engraving was reprinted in Tomasini 1644 (as fn. 3), p. 344. 7 I presented the elements of an iconography for Fedele in: Panegyric and Portraiture, or, Rescuing Cassandra Fedele from Prostitution at the session Renaissance Portraiture. Identity in Written Words III, Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, March 2012. My article, Portraits of Cassandra Fidelis, Veneta Literis Clarissima, will appear in Eveline Basseggio Omiccioli (ed.), Portraiture and the Written Word. An Unspoken Dialogue (forthcoming). 8 Georgius Raguseus Philosophus, theol. et orator, engraving, signed in the plate by “H. David” in Tomasini 1630 (as fn. 3), p. 337. 9 Cassandra fidelis veneta virgine, in Jacopo Filippo Foresti, “De Cassandra fideli veneta virgine oratrice et pha,” in: De plurimis claris sceletisque mulieribus, Ferrara: de Rubeis, 1497, fol. CLXIIII verso, “hic effigiata[] ut in eternu[] p[er]duret: sculpta[m]q[] imprimere fecimus”. 10 Anonymous, North Italian, Cassandra Fidelis, seventeenth century, Milan, Pinacoteca della Biblioteca Ambrosiana, inventory number 1342. The painting is missing. Pamela M. Jones, Federico Borromeo e l’Ambrosiana. Arte e riforma cattolica nel 17. secolo a Milano, trans. Stefano Galli and Serena Colombo, Milan: Vita e pensiero, 1997, pp. 285–332 (305). 11 Tomasini 1636 (as fn. 1), pp. 44–45. 12 Fedele’s sister, Polissena (Polixena Lion), was the maternal grandmother of Paolo and Leone Leoni. Fedele bequeathed her books and papers to these two grandnephews in her (probated) will of 1556: “che mei libri che sono qui in priorado siano de li fioli del deto messer benetto.” ASVTestamenti, Notaio Baldigara, b.70. 13 Andrea Frizier/Frigerius/Frigerio (?-1580) was cancelliere grande of Venice from 1575–1580. Jacopo Tintoretto’s portrait of Frizier is discussed in Odoardo Hillyer Giglioli, Un ritratto di Andrea Frizier, Gran Cancelliere della Repubblica Veneta, dipinto da Tintoretto ed esistente nella R. Galleria Pitti, in:

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The Leonis probably gave these works to Frizier in part because his first wife, Camilla Fedele Frizier (died 1556), was their cousin. Camilla was the daughter of Cassandra’s nephew, Matteo Fedele (who was the son of her brother, Alessandro) and his wife, Angela Vidal. Frizier had Paduan connections, for in 1558 he dedicated an altar to Saint Catherine in memory of his wife and her mother in the church of Santa Maria in Betlemme in Padua.14 Frizier left his books, manuscripts, and paintings equally to his son, Carlino, and daughter, Camilla.15 Tomasini did not know how Raguseo obtained the portraits and letters. We can speculate that he may have acquired them from one of Frizier’s children.16 Tomasini said that the Bellini portrait could “now be seen in my museum.”17 The three portraits of Fedele and the letters that Tomasini saw in Padua have vanished. Although specialists now consider the Bellini portrait lost and some completely ignore it in his oeuvre, I am hopeful that it still exists and may be rediscovered someday.18

Cassandra Fedele and Padua The oration Fedele delivered at the baccalaureate ceremony of her cousin Bertuccio Lamberto at the gymnasium patavinum in 1487 lies at the heart of her fame during her lifetime and was the main reason for her significance for Padua. Speaking before the rector, faculty, students, and guests, she praised the study of letters and discussed the nature of good according to the ideas of Cicero, Plato, and the Peripatetics. Comparing Padua to Athens, she concluded:

L’Arte di Adolfo Venturi 15:3 (1912), pp. 2–7. In addition to the two painted and one sculpted portrait, Frizier owned Cassandra’s manuscript letters. “Nella sua casa conservava fra le cose più care il ritratto della sua parente la celebre Cassandra Fedele dipinto da Giambellino quando essa aveva 16 anni e da questo originale venne estratto un rame ed un marmoreo simulacro per conto dei pronipoti da Cà Lion de quali Paolo aveva raccolto in un volume le scelte lettere della zia per dedicarle al Gran Cancelliere […]” Carlo Bullo, Nuovo Archivio Veneto, 1905, p. 21. 14 Frizier erected a tomb for Camilla in SS Giovanni e Paolo, Venice. His mother, Lamberta Lamberti, and his second wife, Emilia Marcello, are also buried there. The dedicatory inscription at the altar to Saint Catherine in Padua is transcribed in Tomasini 1649 (as fn. 3), p. 304. Frizier may have made this dedication because the saint was a learned woman and thus an appropriate object of devotion for Fedele women. But the Frizier, Fedele, or Vidal families’ connection with Santa Maria in Betlemme in Padua must still be discovered. 15 ASV, Testamenti, Notaio Ziliol, b.1256.19. Frizier’s daughter Camilla was by his second wife, Emilia Marcello, but she was named after his first wife. 16 “[…] hactenus scire non licuit.” Tomasini 1636 (as fn. 1), p. 44. 17 “[…] quid nunc ex meo Museo hic conspicicitur.” Ibid. 18 Jennifer Fletcher, Review: Giovanni Bellini by Rona Goffen, in: The Burlington Magazine 133 (1991), pp. 777–780.

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Fig. 2: Albrecht Dürer (attrib.), Oratio Cassan­ dre venete, woodblock print, in: Cassandra Fedele, Oratio pro Bertuccio Lamberto, 1489. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. […] happy are you, Cassandra, since you were fortunate enough to be born in these times, and you, blessed era of mine, and you, famous city of Padua, graced in your bounty of learned men. May everyone now cease – yes, I say cease – to marvel at antiquities. God almighty has granted that the studies of all nations should flourish in this one place and be commended and conse­ crated for all eternity.19

Printed in Venice in 1488, the unillustrated Oratio pro Bertuccio Lamberto20 is thought to be either the first or second book ever published by a contemporary woman.21 A second edition, published in Nuremberg in 1489,22 included a woodblock print possibly designed by the young Albrecht Dürer, depicting Cassandra placing a doctor’s cap on Bertuccio’s head (fig. 2).23 A third, unillustrated, edition was published in Modena in 1494. These editions spread her fame in Italy and abroad.24

19 Robin 2000 (as fn. 2), pp. 155–159. 20 Cassandra Fedele, Oratio pro Bertuccio Lamberto, Venice: Santritter and Sanctis, 1488. 21 Virginia Cox, Women’s Writing in Italy 1400–1650, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008, p. 235. 22 Cassandra Fedele, Oratio pro Bertuccio Lamberto, Nuremberg: Peter Wagner, 1489. 23 Attribution of the print to Dürer is in Arthur M. Hind, Introduction to a History of Woodcut, vol. 1, New York: Dover, 1963, p. 380. Also, Joseph Meder, Dürer-Katalog, Vienna: Gilhofer and Ranschburg, 1932, p. 271, no. 1. 24 Cassandra Fedele, Oratio pro Bertucio Lamberto, Modena: Dominicus Rocociolus, 1494.

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Fedele’s friends in Padua included Aurelio Augurello; Bonifacio Bembo, since 1479 a canon at Santa Maria in Vanzo and later a professor in Milan; Girolamo Campagnola (father of the painter Giulio Campagnola); Francesco Pescennio Negro; Ludovico da Schio, rector of the university; and Nicolò Leonico Tomei, then a young scholar and tutor and later a professor of Greek and collector of paintings.25 Her contemporaries hailed her as “a prodigy,” a “virgin,” a “divine Muse,” and an “ornament of the State,” but Paduans also considered her a serious philosopher who had proved herself in their midst. Although Venetians gave Fedele a state funeral in 1558, it was seventeenth-century Paduans who perpetuated her memory.

Tomasini, Raguseo, Pignoria, and Their Circle Born in Padua, Tomasini joined the Venetian order of secular canons of San Giorgio in Alga when he was fourteen.26 Attached to Santa Maria in Vanzo, the order’s church in Padua where Raguseo lectured to the canons, Tomasini received his doctor in theology degree from the university in 1619. An assiduous researcher, he wrote dozens of books that are sources for Paduan history, biography, and philology.27 In 1641, after spending decades in Padua and serving a brief assignment in Rome, he was named bishop of Cittanova d’Istria (Novigrad) by Urban VIII (fig. 3).28 While living in Istria, he continued to collect, research, write, and publish on a wide variety of subjects, and he began a geographical study of Istria.29 At the same time, he maintained close ties with the literati in Padua, Venice, and Udine, and became a member of the Venetian Accademia degli Incogniti. Tomasini died in Cittanova in 1655. Among the works he left unfinished (or never began) were books on famous women (De claris mulieribus) and on painters in Padua (Pictoribus patavinis).30 After his death, his body was brought back to Padua and was buried in Santa Maria in Vanzo. Sadly for this scholar

25 In a painting attributed to Giorgione (Washington DC, National Gallery of Art), Tomei is depicted as a tutor with his student. 26 Girolamo Brusoni et al., Le glorie de gli Incogniti o vero gli huomini ilustri dell’ Accademia dei signori incogniti di Venetia, Venice: Valvasense, 1647, pp. 188–191. Giuseppe Vedova, Biographia degli scrittori padovani, vol. 2, Padua: Tipi della Minerva, 1836, pp. 334–345. 27 Brusoni 1647 (as fn. 26), p. 191. 28 Tomasini probably left the greater part of his books and papers in Padua. Roberto Dobran, Æmoniæ episcopus e semplici d’Istria, http://www.robertodobran.eu/public/letture (accessed 24 March 2016). 29 Tomasini’s Commmentari manuscript, on the geography and plants of Istria, probably remained in Cittanova and came into the hands of Francesco Zeno who used parts of Tomasini’s text in Visitationes Generales. Status Dioecesis Justinopolitanæ sub Episcopo Francisco Zeno 1660–1680. 30 Brusoni 1647 (as fn. 26), p. 191.

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Fig. 3: Giovanni Georgi, Iac. Phil. Tomasinus Æmoniæ episcopus, engraving, in: Girolamo Brusoni et al., Le Glorie de gli Incogniti, 1647, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice.

who documented funerary inscriptions in Padua, his tombstone is now ingloriously upturned against a wall.31 Ten books by Tomasini  –  including several with no ostensible connection to Fedele – are nevertheless pertinent to her.32 Information gleaned from them casts new light on Tomasini and his circle’s interest in Fedele. They are: Illustrium virorum elogia, 1630 Laurentii Pignorii … historici & philologi eruditissimi Bibliotheca, et Museum, 1632 Prodromus athenarum pataviarum ad cives patavinos, 1633 Petrarcha redivius/Lauræ Brevis historiæ, 1635 Clarissimæ fœminæ Cassandræ Fidelis Venetæ Epistolæ et Orationes, 1636 Bibliotecæ patavinæ publicæ et privatæ, 1639 Lauræ Ceretæ epistolæ, 1640 Elogia virorum literis sapientia illustrium ad vivum expressis, 1644 Urbis patavinæ inscriptiones sacræ et prophanæ, 1649 Gymnasium patavinum, 1654

31 In 2015, this author found Tomasini’s tombstone in the sacristy of Santa Maria in Vanzo, now part of the Seminario Vescovile, Padua. Although it is surrounded by mops, pails, and rags and leans with the inscription side facing the wall, it was possible to see Tomasini’s name carved in stone. The complete inscription is transcribed in Vedova, vol. 2, p. 336. 32 See footnotes 1 and 3.

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Fig. 4: Hieronymus David, Georgius Ragu­ seus Philosophus, Theo, et Orator, engraving, in: Giacomo Filippo Tomasini, Illustrium virorum elogia, 1630, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice.

Tomasini’s first major effort documenting and illustrating Padua’s history was Illustrium virorum elogia. Presenting biographies of seventy-five learned men, it was illustrated with woodblock prints of imprese, forty-seven portraits, and a frontispiece, engraved by Hieronymus David. Among these were the biography and portrait of Giorgio Raguseo, whom Tomasini named in Cassandræ Fidelis as the owner of Fedele’s portraits and letters (fig. 4).33 Born in Venice around 1571, Raguseo received degrees in theology and medicine at Padua. From 1600, he lectured for the canons of Santa Maria in Vanzo, where Tomasini undoubtedly studied with him. Beginning in 1601, Raguseo taught natural philosophy at the university and eventually was appointed to a chair.34 Between 1592 and 1610, Galileo was his contemporary in Padua. Raguseo probably took part in disputes between Cesare Cremonini’s faction of Aristotelian traditionalists and Galileo’s faction, and he wrote to a friend that he used a telescope to verify sightings by Galileo, presumably the eclipses of the Jovian moons reported in Sidereus nuncius in 1610.35

33 Tomasini 1630 (as fn. 3), pp. 338–341. 34 Tomasini 1636 (as fn. 1), p. 44. Tomasini 1654 (as fn. 3), pp. 309 and p. 445. 35 Raguseo’s letter concerning Galileo and his observation of the Jovian moons, dated 5  February 1611, is included in Epistolæ morales, dialecticæ et mathematicæ, London, British Library, Add. Mss.,1081, fols 425–429v. Cited in Cesare Preti, Giorgio da Ragusa, in: Dizionario Biografico degli Ital-

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We do not know why Raguseo was interested in Fedele. Was it because of her Padua oration or the letters in which she confessed struggles with Aristotelian philosophy? Because of her friendship with Bonifacio Bembo, since 1479 a canon of Santa Maria in Vanzo? Because of De ordine scientiarum, which Foresti reported in 1497 that Fedele planned to write? Because of her tutor Gasparino Borro, who had published a commentary on Sacrobusto’s Sphæra mundi, on which Raguseo had also written?36 In 1622, Raguseo died suddenly, intestate. His possessions were sold at public auction.37 Who acquired Fedele’s letters and portraits at this auction? Was it the three men Tomasini named who owned the letters he transcribed: Evangelista Zagaglia, Giovanni Battista Ficheto, and Alessandro d’Este?38 Paduan noble Evangelista Zagaglia was a member of the Accademia Delia, a group dedicated to cultural pursuits, martial arts, and horsemanship.39 Giovanni Battista Ficheto was a collector of antiquities who owned an ancient Roman bronze of Ganymede that was described and illustrated in Lorenzo Pignoria’s Delle origini di Padova of 1625.40 Tomasini inventories Ficheto’s manuscript and book collection in Bibliothecæ patavinæ.41 Alessandro d’Este (1568–1621), Cardinal of Ferrara, had studied in Padua and kept a library there. After his move to Rome, d’Este maintained contacts with friends in Padua who kept him up to date on Galileo’s doings. In Bibliothecæ patavinæ, Tomasini listed d’Este’s manuscripts and printed books.42 In the list of his own holdings at Santa Maria in Vanzo, Tomasini noted that d’Este had given him (in friendship) an encomium on Cassandra Fedele by Paolo Leoni and her letters, which he had published.43

iani 55 (2001), http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/giorgio‑da-ragusa_(Dizionario-Biografico)./(accessed 24 March 2016). 36 Gasparino Borro, Commentum super Iohannis de Sacrobosco tractatum Sphærea mundi, Venice: Locatelli, 1490. 37 Tomasini 1630 (as fn. 3), p. 341. 38 Tomasini 1636 (as fn. 1), p. 45. 39 Zagaglia is mentioned in Giacomo Filippo Tomasini, Relazione del sudore che mirabilmente per molti giorni mandò fuori l’immagine di s. Filippo Neri in Padova l’anno 1632, Padua: Pasquati, 1670. Zagaglia dedicated an altarpiece (in which he is depicted) at the Church of the Angelo Custode at Guizza, Padua. 40 A description and woodcut illustrating Ficheto’s Ganymede bronze is in Lorenzo Pignoria, Le origini di Padova, Padua: 1625, pp. 54–55. “Ioann. Baptistam Fichetum Cameræ Ducalis Cancellarium.” Tomasini 1636 (as fn. 1), p. 45. 41 Tomasini 1639 (as fn. 3), pp. 123–125. 42 Ibid., pp. 117–118. 43 “Apud auctor […] Pauli Leonii de Laudibus Cassandræ Fidelis Encomium Italicè  … Cassandræ ­Fidelis Epistolæ. Fol. Ch. Dono Alexandri Estensis, ex quo codice eos pridem vulgamimus.” Tomasini 1639 (as fn. 3), p. 130.

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Fig. 5: Hieronymus David (attrib.), Laurentius Pignorius Patavinus Anno Æt. LV, engraving, in: Giacomo Filippo Tomasini, V.C. Laurentii Pignorii Pat…Bibliotheca et Museum, 1632, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice.

Where does the trail of ownership of Cassandra’s portraits and letters lead after Raguseo, Zagaglia, Ficheto, and d’Este? Lorenzo Pignoria (1571–1631), named above as author of Le origini di Padova, turns out to be a key figure (fig. 5). This scholar, antiquarian, and philologist was the parish priest of San Lorenzo and a close friend of Tomasini’s.44 Most likely, it was he who motivated Tomasini to write the biography of Cassandra, publish her literary works, and have her portrait engraved. Early in the century, Pignoria had written on Roman and Egyptian antiquities and hieroglyphics, including Vetustissimæ tabulæ Æneæ, an illustrated treatise on the Mens Isiaca once owned by Pietro Bembo.45 He is best known, however, for his 1615 edition of Vincenzo Cartari’s Le imagini delli dei, for which he wrote additional text and illustrations on the gods of Mexico and Japan.46 In 1625, he published a second work on Paduan history: L’Antenore, on the mythical founder of Padua, whose tomb was in his church.47 When the plague struck Padua in 1631, Tomasini relocated to the safety of Cortelà di Vò in the Colli Euganei, but that June Pignoria died of the plague. The following year,

44 Attilio Maggiolo, I soci dell’accademia patavina dalla sua fondazione (1599), Padua: Accademia Patavina di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 1983. 45 Lorenzo Pignoria, Vetustissimæ tabulæ Æneæ, Venice: Rampazetto, 1605. 46 Vincenzo Cartari, Le vere e nove imagini de gli Dei di Vincenzo Cartari … da Lorenzo Pignoria Padovano aggiuntovi le annotazioni del medesimo …, Padua: Tozzi and Pasquati, 1615. 47 Lorenzo Pignoria, L’Antenore, Padua: Tozzi, 1625.

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a grieving Tomasini published Laurentii Pignorii Vita, Bibliothecæ et Museum, which he dedicated to Pignoria’s friend, the Venetian senator and bibliophile, Domenico Molin.48 When Tomasini used the words museum, museolo, and iconotheca he meant rooms or display cabinets containing arranged collections. Writing as if leading a guided tour, Tomasini described objects in the museum. It contained Roman, Greek, Egyptian, and Indian antiquities, as well as prints by Dürer.49 In the iconotheca he listed portraits of twenty-one illustrious men and five illustrious women: Petrarch’s Laura and, bracketed together as most learned women, Isotta Nogarola, Angela Nogarola, Cassandra Fedele, and Lucrezia Borromeo.50 Did Pignoria buy the Bellini portrait at the auction of Raguseo’s possessions in 1622? Is this the portrait of Fedele that the engraver David cropped into an oval for his print accompanying Tomasini’s “Vita” chapter?51 The list of the portraits in Pignoria’s iconotheca precedes the antique statues, including the Egyptian gods Harpocrates and Serapis.52 Although it is not surprising that Pignoria’s museum contained classical antiquities, the possibility that the Bellini portrait of Fedele was displayed in or adjacent to rooms containing exotica from Egypt, and even from India and Mexico, is astounding. During the plague years he spent at Cortelà del Vò, Tomasini also wrote Prodromus athenarum patavinarum ad cives patavinos, published in 1633. In this preliminary work on university history, Tomasini noted that he was working on books on Laura Cereta, the Nogarolas, and Cassandra Fedele, as well as a De claris mulieribus patavinus.53 Living not far from Petrarch’s home in Arquà, he wrote Petrarcha redivius/ Lauræ Brevis historiæ, published in 1635. The forematter included a letter that Pignoria had written to him in 1629, praising the portraits in Illustrium virorum engraved by the “nobilis calcographus Hieronymus David.” Petrarcha redivivus was illustrated with engravings and relief prints. Having recently written on the illustrious Laura, his next project was Cassandræ Fidelis. Knowing Raguseo’s and Pignoria’s collections, and having begun a history of the university, he was aware of Fedele’s significance for Padua. In his note to the reader, he again called attention to the Nogarolas and Cereta, whom he called “not inferior” to Fedele.54 Tomasini credited Venetian writer Lucrezia Marinella with inspiring him to write about learned women and preserve their portraits. In her chapter on learned

48 Tomasini 1632 (as fn. 3). 49 Irene Favoretto, Arte antica e cultura antiquaria nelle collezioni veneti, Rome: L’Erma di Bret­ schneider, 2002, pp. 166–167. 50 According to Favoretto, ibid., p. 167, Pignoria owned a portrait of Laura Petrarchesca as well as Virgil codices that had belonged to Bembo, so perhaps the Laura came to Pignoria with other items from Bembo’s collection. 51 Tomasini 1635 (as fn. 3), preface, (n. p.). 52 Tomasini 1644 (as fn. 3), p. 214. 53 Tomasini 1633 (as fn. 3), p. 20. 54 Tomasini 1636 (as fn. 1), p. 12.

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women in La nobiltà et l’eccellenza delle donne, 1601, Marinella had written that Fedele gave a public oration in Padua and wrote a book on the order of the sci­ences.55 Further, Marinella had drawn Tomasini’s attention to images of Caterina Cornaro and Bianca Capello, whose portraits had been lost in a fire at the Palazzo Ducale in 1574.56 Surely, Pignoria had discussed with Tomasini the idea of writing about and depicting Fedele. Did Tomasini inherit the Bellini painting from Pignoria? At any rate, Tomasini said that he had it and must have made it available to the engraver to reproduce. He had the letters given to him by d’Este and those loaned by Ficheto and Zagaglia. Paolo Leoni’s manuscript De laudibus Cassandræ Fidelis, received from d’Este, may have been Tomasini’s source for the biographical information in Cassandræ Fidelis.57 We do not know how else Tomasini learned details about her family. In 1640, Tomasini brought out a book on yet another Quattrocento Humanist, Lauræ Ceretæ Epistolæ. In its preface, he cited his earlier work on Fedele and again mentioned the Nogarolas.58 In Elogia virorum, 1644, Tomasini reprinted Pignoria’s biography and the list of his collections. It was illustrated with a reverse copy of David’s engraving of Pignoria. It also featured portraits and entries on Nogarolas, Fedele (reprinting the same engraving as in 1636 but shortening the biography), Cereta, and Moderata Fonte. In 1636, Tomasini had written that the Bellini portrait “can now be seen in my museum.” In Elogia he wrote of others in Padua who had collections of portraits of illustrious men, such as his brother Paolo Tomasini (1584–1643), whose museolo of paintings had provided the prototypes for the portraits Tomasini had first published in Illustrium virorum elogia.59 In 1649, Tomasini published Urbis patavinæ inscriptiones, citing the altar dedicated in memory of Frizier’s wife, Camilla Fedele.60 In 1654, he published Gymnasium patavinum. In this history of the university, Cassandra’s oration was the notable event given for 1487.61

55 Lucretia Marinella, La nobiltà et l’eccellenza delle donne co’ diffetti et mancamenti de gli uomini, Venice: Ciotti, 1601, p. 40. 56 Tomasini 1636 (as fn. 1), p. 45. 57 Present location unknown. 58 Tomasini 1640 (as fn. 3), p. 2v. 59 Tomasini 1630 (as fn. 3), p. 309; Tomasini 1644 (as fn. 3), pp. 374–391. 60 Tomasini 1649 (as fn. 3), p. 304. 61 “1487 Dux Venctus Auguftinus Barbadico […] Audita est hoc anno summa omnium admiratione in Gymnasio Patavino Cassandra Fidelis Virgo Véneta pro Bertucio Lamberto suo consanguineo, Concordiensi Canónico, Liberalium artium insignia suscipicnte, ex more tunc recepto orare. Huius cl. femina; vitam, Oraciones, & Epistolas anno 1637 edidimus.” Tomasini 1654 (as fn. 3), p. 397.

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Dispersal of the Portraits and Papers What became of the Paduan collections of Fedele’s portraits and papers? Tomasini wrote that Ficheto now had “one of the two paintings.” Presumably, this was the painting of “Cassandra in old age,” since Tomasini seems to have had the Bellini painting. The fates of Ficheto’s and Zagaglia’s possessions are unknown.62 Domenico Molin (1573–1635), whose portrait was in Pignoria’s iconotheca,63 inherited the library. He had Pignoria’s grave monument carved.64 Did Molin inherit the contents of the iconotheca as well as the library? After his death, his collections went to his brother Francesco, a sea captain in Venice.65 During the eighteenth century, the collection passed from the family into the library of the Dominicans on the Zattere in Venice and, eventually, into the Biblioteca Marciana.66 Among fifteen books in Padova libraries identified as possessed by Pignoria is Giuseppe Passi’s I donneschi diffetti, 1601, the anti-female screed that provoked Marinella to write La nobiltà et l’eccellenza delle donne.67 After Tomasini’s death, Fedele’s papers and the Bellini portrait (if, indeed, he had them) may have gone to his brother Paolo’s sons, Ludovico and Giacomo, or his possessions may have stayed with his Order.68 When the Order of San Giorgio in Alga was suppressed in 1668, Santa Maria in Vanzo and its possessions were sold in order to establish the new Seminario Vescovile and pay for the war in Candia. Its documents were sent to the Vatican’s Archivio Segreto.69 Although no portrait of Cassandra Fedele is in the Seminary’s collections, four of Tomasini’s unpublished manuscripts are in its library.70 Recently, the library began a census of holdings of books and objects

62 “Una cum duabus Iconibus pervenerunt partim ad Ioan. Baptistam Fichetum Cameræ Ducalis Cancellarium, mihi amicissimum transfierunt.” Tomasini 1636 (as fn. 1), p. 44. 63 Tomasini 1639 (as fn. 3), pp. 85–87. Molin’s intellectual circle in Padua is described in U. Motta, Antonio Querenghi (1546–1633). Un letterato padovano nella Roma del tardo Rinascimento, Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1997, pp. 151–229. 64 Padua, Musei Civici. Pignoria’s tombstone was removed from San Lorenzo when the church was destroyed. It is on display in the courtyard of the museum. 65 Antonella Barzazi, La biblioteca di un mecenate. I libri di Domenico Molin, in: Ugo Baldini and Gian Paolo Brizzi (eds.), Amicitiæ Pignus. Studi storici per Piero Del Negro, Milan: Edizioni Unicopli, 2013, pp. 309–324. 66 The “Legato Molin” in the Marciana consists of approximately 1,500 books, though not all belonged to Domenico Molin. 67 Giuseppe Passi, I donneschi diffetti, Venice: Somascho, 1601. 68 According to Dobran, Tomasini’s manuscripts may have gone to his nephew, Giacomo Tomasini, mentioned by Tomasini in his Commentarii as the transporter to Padua of the antiquities he had collected in Istria. 69 Alvise Dal Zotto, Santa Maria in Vanzo, Padua: Cor Cordis, n. d., pp. 33–44. 70 Andrea Donello et al. (eds.), I manoscritti della biblioteca del Seminario vescovile di Padova, Venice: Regione del Veneto, Giunta regionale, Tavarnuzze, Impruneta: SISMEL Edizioni del Galluzzo, 1998.

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in storage not previously catalogued, so it is possible that more Tomasini items will emerge. Seventeen printed books in the Padua library system once belonged to him. From time to time, books with a Tomasini provenance appear on the antiquarian book market. Although Fedele’s letters that Tomasini published have not been found, modern scholars have discovered and published other of her manuscripts. In 2013, this author discovered a previously unpublished, sealed, autographic will of Fedele’s, dated 16 May 1543.71 Unlike in her probated will of 1556, however, she made no bequest of her books and papers.72 To the seventeenth-century Paduan owners of Fedele’s papers, the letters she exchanged with her learned and powerful contemporaries were precious literary relics. But these collectors’ attitudes toward her portraits may have been different. By the 1620 s, the vogue for furnishing private museums (such as Pignoria’s, Paolo Tomasini’s, and Federico Borromeo’s in Milan) with portrait cycles of illustrious individuals altered the way viewers understood portraits of learned individuals. Once the Bellini portrait left Fedele’s family, it was no longer an image of a brilliant relative painted by a great Venetian artist. Other owners would not have treasured it in the same way. By the time Pignoria added her portrait to his iconotheca, it was just one more in a group of learned women. Yet thanks to Tomasini’s list of the contents of Pignoria’s iconotheca, we now have twenty-six illustrious portraits to track en masse, for it is conceivable that some of Pignoria’s paintings have remained together. The interests and collections of d’Este, Ficheto, Molin, Pignoria, Raguseo, Paolo Tomasini, and Zagaglia inspired and enabled Tomasini to write Fedele’s biography and publish her writings. David’s engravings provided a visual record of the Bellini portrait of Fedele, and of learned Paduans. The Seminario Vescovile may hold additional clues to the continued existence of Fedele’s lost portraits and writings. However, in the “famous city of Padua, graced in your bounty of learned men,” few people know of Cassandra Fedele today. Is this because in 1686 the Venetian Elena Cornaro-Piscopia became the first woman in the world to earn a university degree in Padua? Did her laurea, like Galileo’s Jovian moons, eclipse Fedele’s oration in Padua’s civic memory? The city has no street named for her, but in terrestrial Venezia-Mestre there are streets named after Renaissance philosophers. Let us hope that the search for her letters and portrait does not lead, as does via Cassandra Fedele, to a dead end.

71 ASV, Testamenti, Notaio Nicolò Licinio, bb. 577–578, 13 rosso. 72 ASV, Testamenti, Notaio Baldigara, b. 70, 50.

Claudia Marra

Venetian Affirmation and Urban Tradition in Sixteenth-Century Padua The Palazzo del Podestà and Its Façades on Piazza delle Erbe1 The 1530 s are years of radical change in Venetian representation policy and mark the beginning of the so‑called “Myth of Venice.”2 In terms of architectural innovations, the period corresponds to the renovatio of Piazza San Marco in Venice.3 On the Terraferma, state representation also becomes more visible, corresponding to the stricter control by Venice over its subject cities after the war against the Liga of Cambrai.4 Although numerous public buildings were initiated in various cities under Venetian control during the first half of the sixteenth century, it is very difficult to speak of a homoge­ neous architectural renewal or renovatio, as Donatella Calabi among others has already successfully argued.5 What can be asserted for many cities in the Veneto as well as other areas of the Venetian state is a growth in the presence of Venetian symbols, such as the column with the lion of Saint Mark; the piazze develop similarly – all with one or two residences for the rettori,6 a Palazzo del Consiglio or della Ragione, where the local council gathered, a Fondaco delle biade (a granary), and a Monte di pietà. The motives behind such renewals vary from city to city. Therefore each case has to be examined singularly, in order to assess what was directly influenced and initiated by Venice on the one hand and what, on the other hand, derived from a city’s attempt to seem more “Venetian,” as is clearly the case in Bergamo and Brescia.7

1 I would like to thank Brigit Blass-Simmen and Martin Gaier for their helpful comments. 2 David Rosand, Myths of Venice. The Figurations of a State, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001; Achim Landwehr, Die Erschaffung Venedigs. Raum, Bevölkerung, Mythos, 1570–1750, Paderborn: Schöningh, 2007. 3 Manfredo Tafuri, “Renovatio urbis Venetiarum.” Il problema storiografico, in: Tafuri (ed.), “Renovatio urbis.” Venezia nel’età di Andrea Gritti (1523–1538), Rome: Officina Ed., 1984, pp. 9–55. 4 During the wars against the Liga of Cambrai (1509 – ca. 1516) Venice lost all its dominions; by the end of the wars, the Serenissima managed to reconquer all its mainland, except for the most recent conquests from the beginning of the sixteenth century. 5 Donatella Calabi, Le piazze centrali e la città, in: Enrico Guidoni, Ugo Soragni (eds.), Lo spazio nelle città venete (1348–1509). Urbanistica e architettura, monumenti e piazze, decorazione e rappresentazione, Rome: Edizioni Kappa, 1997, pp. 158–169, esp. p. 166; Donatella Calabi, Venezia e Veneto. Città e progetti, in: Claudia Conforti, Richard Tuttle (eds.), Storia dell’architettura italiana, vol. 4, Il secondo Cinquecento, Milan: Electa, 2001, pp. 406–435. 6 In smaller cities there was usually just one rettore, while in bigger cities such as Padua, Verona, and Vicenza (among others) there were two, a podestà and a capitanio. 7 See Gaetano Cozzi, Il Dominio di Terraferma, in: Gaetano Cozzi, Michael Knapton (ed.), La ­Repubblica di Venezia nell’età moderna. Dalla guerra di Chioggia al 1517, Turin: Utet, 1986, pp. 205–230, esp. p. 208.

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This paper focuses on a public building in Padua, the Palazzo del Podestà, and considers it against the background of Venetian representation in its subject cities. While in other cities of the Terraferma, the building projects display state power through monumental architectures, the two main façades of the Palazzo del Podestà in Padua play rather with elements of austerity and military associations, leaving the representative function to the inner courtyard. By considering the urban context of the palace and the motives of the various actors involved in its construction, it can be shown that the two façades on Piazza delle Erbe deliberately avoid a dialogue with the other buildings on the piazza, above all the Palazzo della Ragione, pride of the city of Padua and reminder of its communal past. This breach can be explained against the background of the tense relationship between Venice and its closest but also most adversarial subject.

The Palazzo del Podestà and Its Urban Context The Palazzo del Podestà, today Palazzo Moroni, was built between 1539 and sometime around 1601. It occupies the northeast corner of the Piazza delle Erbe, one of the main squares in Padua, together with Piazza dei Frutti and Piazza dei Signori (plate XVII). The palace replaced a medieval building that had served as Palazzo del Podestà long before the city’s submission to Venice in 1405 and that by the time was in a state of decay.8 It lies in the core of Padua’s civic center and, because of the many preexisting buildings, its construction was constricted from different sides (fig. 1). On the west side, the palace adjoins the monumental Palazzo della Ragione: a corridor on the first floor connects the two palaces. On the southeast once stood the Fondaco delle Biade, the granary of the city,9 and on the north side, the Palazzo was restricted by the government complex of civic Padua, including the Palazzo degli Anziani, the

8 After many repairs during the fifteenth century, by 1534 the structure was in such a precarious state that the podestà had to reside in the Palazzo del Vescovado. Venice, State Archives, Senato Terra, reg. 28, 110v, 9 December 1534 and Senato Terra, filza 8, 10 December 1534. On the medieval Palaz­zo del Podestà, see Fulvio Zuliani, I palazzi pubblici dell’età comunale, in: Lionello Puppi, Fulvio Zuliani (ed.), Padova. Case e palazzi, Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 1977, pp. 3–20; Giovanni Fabris, Il Palazzo del Podestà e quello degli Anziani in una guida trecentesca di Padova, in: Bollettino del Museo civico di Padova 18 (1925), pp. 81–92. 9 The Fondaco delle Biade was demolished in the 1920 s; what can be seen today is a construction emulating the sixteenth-century façades. It was originally built in 1302; on the ground floor there was also a loggia with shops. At the beginning of the twentieth century it was torn down to accommodate the new wing of the Municipio. See Giuliana Mazzi, “Una cosa ben’aggiustata e che s’accosti alla perfezione,” in: Giuliana Mazzi, Stefano Zaggia (eds.), “Architetto sia l’ingegniero che discorre.” Ingegneri, architetti e proti nell’età della Repubblica, Venice: Marsilio, 2004, pp. 7–68, esp. pp. 11–13.

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Fig. 1: Giovanni Valle, Pianta di Padova, reprint Venice: Marsilio 1987 (1784), detail.

Palazzo del Consiglio, and the turris rubea with the old basta [prison]. There were two entrances to the Palazzo del Podestà: one directly through the Palazzo della Ragione, above the Volto della corda, where hangings used to take place, and one on the east side, through a small piazzetta where the church of San Martino used to be.10 The urban context of the palace placed some restrictions on the architect in conceiving a new building, as essentially the outline had to remain the same, and the potential of

10 The church was demolished in the nineteenth century. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the building of the Municipio was expanded to incorporate the whole square into a large court [cortile d’onore]. Today, the entrance to the complex is marked by a façade concluded in 1932, opposite the Palazzo del Bo, site of the university. In the seventeenth century, the rettori of Padua had already attempted such a direct dialogue between the two public palaces, by asking permission to demolish San Martino. See Stefano Zaggia, L’Università di Padova nel Rinascimento. La costruzione del palazzo del Bo e l’orto botanico, Venice: Marsilio, 2003, pp. 73–77. On the construction changes in the twentieth century, see last Roberta Lamon, Palazzo Moroni e gli edifici circostanti, Padua: Comune di Padova, 2008, pp. 51–54.

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renewal was therefore mostly in the design of the elevations.11 Especially the decision concerning the main entrance to the palace was limited, as there were only two likely options: an access through the east side – a less prominent site, directly in front of the old church of San Martino – or on the Piazza delle Erbe, which, situated just next to Padua’s landmark, formed the economic and political center of the city together with the nearby Piazza dei Signori. Still, this was a very difficult place to work with, as the most visible element directly on the piazza would have been the corner. The two façades facing the Piazza delle Erbe, however, were built long before the façade on the east side of the palace, where the actual main entrance was supposed to be. They are built of Istrian stone and are sustained by massive rectangular piers with smooth rustication. The loggia on the ground floor not only has the concrete function of accommodating shops but is also a very common element in the Paduan cityscape. A look around Piazza delle Erbe confirms it: especially the adjacent Palazzo della Ragione, one of Padua’s landmarks, is recognizable, among other elements, because of the vast space on its ground floor, which hosts a market up to this very day. However, the loggia of the Palazzo del Podestà proves to be of a completely different kind than the one of the Palazzo della Ragione or even of the other public buildings on the piazza. The arcades are much narrower in the Palazzo del Podestà and do not suggest the same openness – on the contrary, the rustication is predominant compared to the bays. Above, small mezzanine windows are framed in smooth rustication and alternate with plain surfaces. The piano nobile is separated from the ground floor through a balustrade that extends to the whole façade and thereby introduces a strong horizontal rupture. Above the balustrade the same pattern with high openings and a mezzanine floor is repeated, stressing the horizontal orientation and adding weight to the appearance of the building. The first story obtains the same degree of rustication as the ground floor. Here Doric colossal pilasters subdivide the story and incorporate the upper mezzanine; the windows of the piano nobile are framed by Doric pilasters, while the smaller mezzanine windows above are defined by a plain frame. Because in the upper stories there is no real counterpart to the use of rustication, the loggia is so strongly tied to the rest of the rusticated façade that the whole palace appears heavy and impermeable, although there is no use of rough blocks of uncut stone. The ashlars are used as decoration – the framing of windows, for example – and as elements of the wall at the same time. Therefore the rustication is almost never really interrupted by structuring elements; wall and weight-bearing elements merge. Only the windows of the piano nobile, right above the balustrade, are distinguished by the use of pilasters, which however do not protrude much more than the ashlars and, in addition, use a

11 This circumstance is substantiated by the corner of the palace, as it is not a ninety-degree angle. Such irregularities often were given by legal boundaries. In a drawing by C. Antonio Petrarca from 1584, at the corner of the palace there is indeed a small area denominated “loco contencioso.” See Biblioteca Civica di Padova, BP 1408‑V.

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very austere and modest order, the Doric. The entablature consists of a metope frieze with empty metopes, triglyphs, and a cornice with lions’ heads and dentils. No vertical axis is present in the two façades, as there is no portal and thus no need to stress an axis. The two façades on the piazza therefore disclose their real function as plain walls, and not façades in the literal sense. They seem so impenetrable because they indeed are, as there is no direct entrance to the palace from this side. However, there is a reason to still consider them as façades of the palace: this was the side that was built first and clearly had priority in the mind of the Venetian representatives in the city.

The Podestà’s Priorities: The Building Phases The Palazzo del Podestà was the first of the two rettore palaces to be rebuilt in Padua. In the cities ruled by Venice it was usually the rettori who initiated and supervised the construction of public buildings, although they were quite restricted in their decisions, as all new ventures and their costs had to be approved centrally by the Venetian senate.12 After numerous attempts by the respective podestà to initiate a renewal of the old and decayed palace on the Piazza delle Erbe, it was finally Marc’Antonio Contarini who managed to convince the Signoria to finance a new building in 1539. At the end of his office two years later, Contarini had his coats of arms put on the corner on Piazza delle Erbe, the most strategic position from which to celebrate himself as initiator of the palace. The inscription below the coats of arms reads “M.[arcus] ANT. [onius] CONTARENVS EQ.[es] PRAETOR INCREDIBILI CELERITATE A FVNDAMENTIS EXITAVIT MDXLI [1541].” The podestà Marc’Antonio Contarini probably met Andrea Moroni, the architect of the palace, at the building site of the monumental church of Santa Giustina in Padua, which he was supervising as proto.13 Andrea Moroni’s position as proto of the palace ended up being relatively independent from the podestà, as it exceeded the much shorter period of the podestà’s office (usually no longer than two years). Therefore, if the financing of the building depended on the efforts of each

12 Most of the decisions on the funding of the palace’s construction are collected in the filze and registri of the fund Senato Terra in the Venetian State Archives. 13 On Andrea Moroni and his role as proto of the city, see Claudia Marra, Ingenieursberuf und Künstlerbiografie. Zum Berufsbild frühneuzeitlicher Proti am Beispiel Andrea Moronis (PhD Diss., Universität Basel, manuscript under review); Guido Beltramini, Andrea Moroni e la chiesa di Santa Maria di Praglia, in: Annali di architettura 3 (1991), pp. 70–89; id., Architetture di Andrea Moroni per la Congregazione Cassinese: due conventi bresciani e la basilica di Santa Giustina a Padova, in: Annali di architettura 7 (1995), pp. 633–693; Erice Rigoni, L’architetto Andrea Moroni (PhD Diss., University of Padua), Padua: Tipografia del seminario di Padova, 1939.

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single podestà administering the city, it was Moroni’s role as architect to assure the continuity of the palace’s construction and, probably, its appearance.14 Work on the building site continued with various interruptions determined by the restricted financial sums granted by the Venetian senate and by the constant turnover of the podestà in office.15 In 1556 the last story had probably been completed, as a payment records that the windows were being put in.16 From 1558 to 1559 the façades were completed. Just as his predecessors, podestà and later doge of Venice Nicolò Da Ponte seized the opportunity to represent himself and his efforts to build the palace on the façades: inside the framing of the mezzanine windows under the roof, he had the following inscription made: “NICOLAVS DE PONTE DOCTOR ET EQVES PRETOR OPT.[imus] MDLVIII [1558].” On the pinnacle, in the shape of an obelisk, he finally put his initials along with his canting arm, a bridge.17 Just after building the side facing the piazza, all efforts were invested into the construction of the inner courtyard (plate XVIII). Accessible through the east side of the palace, the courtyard takes over the monumentality expected of an entrance. Compared to the façades on the Piazza delle Erbe, it becomes clear that the inner courtyard unfolds all those elements of plasticity and monumentality that seem to be missing on the southwest side. Here the austerity and the military associations of rustication are held back, and the architectural decoration is slightly enhanced, although it still accords with the Doric order used in the façades on the piazza.18 In the lower story, Doric piers support broad arches, three on each side of the courtyard,

14 Moroni agreed with Contarini about a model and probably the latter was not changed by other podestà, as podestà Nicolò Da Ponte states in a letter from 3 May 1559: “[…] essequendo il modello gia principiato senza far alcuna jnnovatione.” Venice, State Archives, Senato Terra, filza 29. 15 The Venetian senate usually only approved small sums of money, which were granted from time to time, rarely without an explicit request from the rettori. Also, funds were only granted in case of necessity. Therefore the rettori tended to use very dramatic tones in explaining the reasons their residences had to be rebuilt. One of the reasons for such a strictness from Venice pertaining the financing of public buildings is the effort the Venetian Signoria put into new fortresses and strengthening the military defense system of the mainland, so that these had the priority, in granting funds, compared to the rebuilding of civic sites. On Venice’s military architecture on the Terraferma after the wars against the Liga of Cambrai, see Ennio Concina, La macchina territoriale. La progettazione della difesa nel Cinquecento veneto, Rome: Laterza, 1983. 16 Padua, State Archives, Cassa Città, Giornale straordinario, 1556–1557, b. 242, fasc. I, 17 February 1556. 17 After an earthquake in June 2012 the obelisk was removed for security reasons. Also in the courtyard the podestà had their coats of arms put on the side they each had built: on the south side Nicolò Da Ponte, on the north side (completed 1561) Alvise Mocenigo, on the west side Tomaso Morosini (1594), and finally, on the east side (1601), Giovanni Battista Bernardo, whose coats of arms is also located on the north staircase in front of the east façade. 18 This is even more the case, as the courtyard is placed on the first story, above the loggias at ground level. The architecture of the peristyle thus follows exactly the same hierarchy of orders as the outer walls.

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Fig. 2: Padua, Palazzo del Podestà (today Palazzo Moroni), ca. 1539–1601, courtyard.

decorated with panels. The piers encase Doric columns standing on high pedestals and support a frieze of metopes and triglyphs (just as on the façades, the metopes are left empty).19 A protruding molding clearly divides the two stories. Beyond the molding the wall is left plain, and there are considerably fewer plastic elements: only the windows are decorated with triangular pediments. A mezzanine just above distorts the proportions, as the row of small windows almost seems to be supported by the pediments. Finally, a cornice with dentils completes the elevations of the courtyard. The fact that the upper half of the courtyard seems to have almost no connection to the lower part and that the horizontal is predominant compared to the vertical axis is probably due to some changes that occurred in the recent past: as a photograph of ca. 1935 suggests, the courtyard may have been painted; more specifically, pilasters in the upper part were probably painted on the wall to suggest continuity with the order in the lower story (fig. 2).20 Also, a print in Giorgio Fossati’s Delle fabbriche inedite di Andrea Palladio vicentino from 1760 shows the courtyard without the mezzanine on top (fig. 3).21 The architecture of the whole courtyard, when these two possible changes are considered, gains a completely different effect.

19 For the use of encased columns, see Francesco Benelli, “Variò tanto della comune usanza degli altri.” The function of the encased column and what Michelangelo made of it in the Palazzo dei Conser­ vatori at the Campidoglio in Rome, in: Annali di architettura 21 (2009), pp. 65–78. 20 Adolfo Venturi, Storia dell’arte italiana, vol. 11, bk. 3: Architettura del Cinquecento. Parte 3, Milan: Hoepli, 1940, p. 70. 21 Giorgio Fossati, Delle fabbriche inedite di Andrea Palladio vicentino, Venice: Giorgio Fossati, 1760, table XX. In order for the argument to be correct it has to be assumed that Giorgio Fossati only received the architectural elements in his prints and therefore did not take the painted parts into consideration.

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Fig. 3: Giorgio Fossati, Delle fabbriche inedite di Andrea Palladio vicentino, Venice: Giorgio Fossati, 1760, table XX. ÖNB Wien, OeNB 47 C 19 Alt Prunk.

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State Representation and Private Agendas The actual main entrance on the east side was built only much later, presumably at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The side facing the large piazza, on the other hand, was obviously prioritized during construction. There is evidence not only in the very first payments for the new building, but also in the location of the individual podestà’s coats of arms: every state representative involved in the palace’s construction sought to be commemorated on the walls facing the Piazza delle Erbe. Although this side was not the façade in the strict sense of the word, it was obviously the most prominent side, as it was positioned alongside the other public buildings. Therefore, the palace’s corner had to assume a certain degree of representation: it was – and still is – the side one is most likely to see first. However, the corner is enhanced only by very personal, individual forms of representation, while the only element addressing the building’s function as a Venetian public palace – the lion of Saint Mark – is not directly on the piazza, but instead on the wall opposite the Palazzo della Ragione. The austerity and the rustication of the Palazzo del Podestà can be connected to some of the palace’s functions – more precisely, to its juridical and economic functions. Trials took place in the Palazzo della Ragione, but the dispensation of justice was also one of the podestà’s main functions. Therefore a connection between the palaces, providing direct access to trials for the podestà, is understandable. The passage between the two palaces was exactly above the Volto della corda, where people were hanged. The figures of the lion and of Justice on that side are an explicit reference to this circumstance (figs. 4–5). The function of the palace not only as private residence of the podestà but also as the site of the dispensation of justice and as part of the complex in which the old basta, the prison, was located further explains the impermeability and the use of rustication. Later Venetian buildings with similar functions seem to address the same kind of reluctance and rigidity: the smooth rustication (combined with a quite simple Doric order) is used for the same purpose in the Prigioni in Venice, built by the proto al sal Antonio Da Ponte from 1591 onward, where, however, heavy blocks of stone and bars on the windows suggest the actual use of the spaces as prison cells.22 Another comparable public building in Venice was begun around the same time as the Palazzo del Podestà, the Fabbriche Nuove di Rialto (Jacopo Sansovino, 1554-end of 1560 s). As much as can be assessed from the contemporary architecture (a complete reconstruction from the nineteenth century), here the use of rustication,

22 First projects for the prisons were made in 1563 by Antonio Rusconi. Andrea Bonavita, Le Prigioni nuove di Venezia e il Ponte dei Sospiri. Progetto e cantiere, in: Annali di architettura 24 (2012), pp. 71–92. Calabi 2001 (as fn. 5), p. 413: “Le Prigioni Nuove sono un manufatto la cui forma solenne evoca la fermezza coercitiva dello stato, ponendosi in relazione con la fortezza simmetrica rispetto alla piazza, per chi viene dal mare, che è la Zecca.”

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Fig. 4: Tiziano Minio, Justice, Palazzo del Podestà (today Palazzo Moroni), west façade, 1552.

limited to the ground floor, is combined with very simple and, as Manuela Morresi put it, “abstract” orders.23 The representative function of the Palazzo del Podestà in Padua, on the other hand, is left almost only to the individual representations of podestà in the form of numerous coats of arms scattered all over the façades. It is obvious how every chance  –  and every free spot  – was seized for individual representation: podestà Antonio Barbaro even occupied the space of a window with his monumental coats of arms (1672). The coats of arms in the most prominent spots correspond to the podestà who played the most important roles in the construction of the palace. As their residences, the palazzi dei rettori were of course the buildings the rettori were most interested in investing in, so that they could be used for private representation. This practice is even more remarkable given that it was actually explicitly prohibited

23 Manuela Morresi, Jacopo Sansovino, Milan: Electa, 2000, p. 319. In addition to this, the repetitiveness of the wall elements and the many deviations from and simplification of architectural orders have led to harsh criticism from scholars. See Deborah Howard, Jacopo Sansovino. Architecture and Patronage in Renaissance Venice, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987; Donatella Calabi, Sansovino e le Fabbriche nuove di Rialto, in: Arte veneta 38 (1984), pp. 193–201; Donatella Calabi, Paolo Morachiello, Rialto. Le fabbriche e il ponte, 1514–1591, Turin: Einaudi, 1987.

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Fig. 5: Tiziano Minio (?), Lion of St. Mark’s, Palazzo del Podestà (today Palazzo Moroni), west façade, 1552.

by the Venetian government.24 State representation, if present at all, is left to other areas of the palace. Throughout the history of the Palazzo del Podestà of Padua, the role of the architect and of many single rettori can be recognized, while the state itself and its interests are mostly hidden behind its representatives. In the administration of its mainland, functionality and necessity had a clear priority in the eyes of the senate compared to architectural representation and expensive display of power. The result evokes military buildings or private palaces in other areas of Italy, where the outer façade has the primary function of securing and representing strength, while places with restricted access (such as an inner courtyard) are devoted to monumentality.25

Venetian Affirmation vs. Urban Tradition There is however one last aspect that has to be acknowledged: the two martial and menacing façades on Piazza delle Erbe also deliberately avoid a dialogue with the other buildings on the piazza, above all the Palazzo della Ragione. The direct surroundings of the Palazzo del Podestà are all buildings that were directly linked to Padua’s communal past. Especially the Palazzo della Ragione, first built between 1218

24 “[…] unam solam armam ex pictura, et non ex scultura ad sui beneplacitum ponendam intra palatium residentiae suae, et non extra, non possit pingi, nil sculpiri facere armas suas in palatijs publicis tam intra quam extra apparentes, nec in plateis, portis, pontibus fortilicijs, nec alijs partibus civitatis, nil terrae […].” Rule stipulated on 4 July 1489. Quote from Martin Gaier, Facciate sacre a scopo profano. Venezia e la politica dei monumenti dal Quattrocento al Settecento, Venice: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 2002, p. 109, fn. 377. See also ibid., pp. 109–110, with further bibliography. 25 Just to name a few examples: Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, and Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome.

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and 1219 and memorable for having one of the largest roofs unsupported by columns or piers, was widely perceived as the landmark of civic Padua.26 When Padua became Venetian in 1405, the two rettori respectively took over two preexisting palaces as their residence: the capitanio and his court occupied the old castle of the Carrara family (today on Piazza dei Signori), while the podestà resided in the homonymous palace of the communal podestà from the fourteenth century.27 During the Cambrai wars, Padua was the first city to seize the opportunity to declare its independence from Venice by welcoming the imperial troops of Maximilian I with open arms. Because Padua was the closest city to Venice and therefore one of its most valuable strategic assets, it was also Venice’s priority to win Padua back.28 After the wars, Venice’s control over its mainland indeed grew stronger, but it was the firmest and strictest toward Padua. After its reconquest, Venice made securing the city its top priority by building new walls, and the many Paduan families that had been affiliated with the enemy were severely punished.29 Against the background of the tense relationship between Venice and Padua, it is conceivable that the Palazzo del Podestà’s violation of continuity among the buildings on the piazza was to a certain degree intentional. The strict military rhetoric of the two façades was meant to communicate the palace’s inaccessibility from the piazza. Venetian representation, in this case, is not primarily monumental and opulent, but is intended to show military strength. Sebastiano Serlio has written about the residences of representatives in his (unpublished) Book VI on domestic architecture as follows: In addition to the palace of the podestà it is also necessary to have the palace of the governor or luogotenente, some call him ‘captain’ and others call him ‘president,’ it varies according to the places. Such men administer justice more rigorously than the podestà, particularly in the regions where I was born, and sometimes through their administration they provoke some of the people to armed riot. Thus provoked, these people run to the palace and give the governor a nasty surprise if he is not very secure in his palace. And so for these reasons it is best for the palace to be strong enough to resist serious hand‑to-hand fighting.30

26 City views and other sorts of representation of the city make this very clear. See Ettore Vio (ed.), Il Palazzo della Ragione di Padova. La storia, l’architettura, il restauro, Padua: Signum Edizioni, 2008. See esp. Adriano Verdi, Il monumento attraverso documenti e disegni storici, in: ibid., pp. 75–98. 27 See Stefano Zaggia, Padova: XV‑XVII secolo. Trasformazione e continuità negli spazi urbani centrali, in: Donatella Calabi (ed.), Fabbriche, piazze, mercati. La città italiana nel Rinascimento, Rome: Officina, 1997, pp. 261–270; Lionello Puppi, Mario Universo, Padova, Rome: Laterza, 1982, pp. 130–145. 28 On 17 July 1509, provveditore and later doge Andrea Gritti officially reconquered Padua. His name was commemorated in the inscription on the triumphal arch built by Giovanni Maria Falconetto in 1530 on Piazza dei Signori in Padua. On the history of Padua during the Cambrai wars, see Attilio Simioni, Storia di Padova dalle origini alla fine del secolo XVIII, Padua: Randi, 1968, esp. pp. 782–783. 29 Ibid. 30 “Dipoi lo palazzo del podestà, e necessario anchora quello del governatore, o, luogotenente, altri lo dicono capitano, altri presidente segondo li luoghi. Questi tali amministrano la giusticia piu rigo­

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According to Serlio, some cities are harder for luogotenenti, governatori, or capitani to govern, as the population is rebellious or ill-tempered toward the government. This wasn’t necessarily the case in Padua, and the palazzo obviously doesn’t correspond to Serlio’s description in terms of real military security. However, the quote does help us understand how the austere, military-inspired architecture of the side facing the piazza, if not a truly impenetrable fortress, relates to Venice’s need to reinforce its control over a city that was neither welcoming nor loyal.31 Both the impact and the memorability of this uncommon use of rustication for a civic building are reflected by its reception in private commissions of the architect Andrea Moroni. The patrons seemed to choose a deliberate comparison between their private residences and the Venetian palace on Piazza delle Erbe, demonstrating their fidelity to the state by employing the proto who gave a very specific appearance to state representation.32

rosamente del podestà, et massimamente nelle contrade dove io sono nato per le quali amministrationi provocano tal volta una parte del populo à furore: et alle armi per la qual cosa correno al palazzo et fano di strani scherzi al governatore, se non ben forte nel suo palazzo: si che per tai cagioni sara bene che questo palazzo sia talmente forte, che possi risistere ad una buona battaglia da mano.” Sebastiano Serlio, Sesto libro: delle habitazioni di tutti li gradi degli homini, facsimile, ed. Marco Rosci, Milan: I. T. E. C. ​Editrice, 1966, fol. 61v. English translation from Vaughan Hart, Peter Hicks (eds.), Sebastiano Serlio on Architecture, vol. 2, Books VI and VII of “Tutte l’opere d’architettura et prospettiva,” New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001, p. 126. See also Stanislaus von Moos, Der Palast als Festung, in: Martin Warnke (ed.), Politische Architektur in Europa vom Mittelalter bis heute. Repräsentation und Gemeinschaft, Cologne: DuMont, 1984, p. 147. 31 Interestingly enough, Serlio’s project for a Palazzo del Podestà, on the other hand, covers all representative requirements, which are also met by the Paduan palace: “Gli è ben necessario in ogni minima terriciuola, non che una grossa cità, uno palazzo dove si aministri la giusticia, lo quale se adimanda del prettore cio è del podestà: il quale deve essere nel piu nobil loco della cità su la piazza principale, et massimamente che sia in isola et essendo in luogo nobile è ben ragione che vi siano delle boteghe nella parte da basso, et per la commodità del populo sarà anchor bene che almeno nella parte davanti verso la piazza vi sia uno spacioso portico per negotiare.” Serlio 1966 (as fn. 30), fol. 59v. 32 This is the case with Palazzo Zacco on the Prato della Valle, residence of a Paduan family loyal to Venice, and of Palazzo Contarini in Via San Massimo, probably initiated by Benedetto Contarini, from a branch of the Contarini family living in Padua; although he was not directly related to podestà Marc’Antonio Contarini, the employment of Andrea Moroni and the use of smooth rustication on the whole façade point to Benedetto’s intention to build a connection to the more prominent side of the family. See Lionello Puppi, Il rinnovamento tipologico del Cinquecento, in: Lionello Puppi, Fulvio Zuliani 1977 (as fn. 8), pp. 101–140, esp. pp. 129–132 (on Palazzo Contarini) and pp. 132–133 (on Palazzo Zacco).

Authors Brigit Blass-Simmen is an independent scholar specializing in the Italian fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with a focus on paintings, drawings and medals, and Venice and the Veneto. Artists of research include Pisanello, Carpaccio, Cima da Conegliano, Jacopo and Giovanni Bellini, and Antonio Vivarini. She was curator of the Corpus of Italian Drawings 1300–1450, founded by Bernhard Degenhart and Annegrit Schmitt, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München (today at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut Florence). She is co-director of the interdisciplinary lecture series Christliche Bildbetrachtung at the Gemäldegalerie and the Bode Museum in Berlin. She is member of the board at the Kaiser Friedrich Museumsverein, the Stiftung Sammlung Dieter Scharf zur Erinnerung an Otto Gerstenberg, and the Sachverständigenausschuss für Kulturgut in Berlin. Beverly Louise Brown is a fellow of the Warburg Institute, London. She has published widely on Italian Renaissance and Baroque art, looking recently at the depiction of antique sculpture in the work of Bellini and Titian. After teaching at Wellesley College and at Brown, Harvard, and Princeton Universities, she served as a curator at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, and as assistant director of the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth. She has organized numerous exhibitions, including The Age of Correggio and the Carracci (1986), Veronese (1988), Jacopo Bassano (1993), Giambattista Tiepolo: Master of the Oil Sketch (1993), Renaissance Venice and the North: Crosscurrents in the Time of Bellini, Dürer, and Titian (1999), and The Genius of Rome (2001). Rosella Lauber has focused on research and teaching (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice; University IUAV of Venice; University of Udine). Her interests include figurative culture, especially of the Renaissance; study of art collecting, with archival research; history of galleries and museums; analysis of works and sources (in particular Marcantonio Michiel’s writings, of which she is preparing critical editions). She has contributed to many international exhibitions and research projects (including Il Collezionismo d’arte a Venezia, a collaboration between The Getty Project for the Study of Collecting and Provenance and the Fondazione di Venezia). She was editorial director of a series of volumes on art galleries. She has written and edited books and conference proceedings; her numerous writings have appeared in collections of essays, exhibition catalogues, and scholarly journals. Jane C. Long is the Joanne Leonhardt Cassullo Professor of Art History at Roanoke College, Salem, Virginia. Her research centers on fourteenth-century Florentine art, with a particular emphasis on narrative composition, the ways that audience expectations shaped the understanding of works of art, and how artistic choices helped

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 Authors

to determine the messages different audiences received. Her publications include studies of the work of Giotto, Andrea Pisano, Donatello, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, and Leonardo da Vinci. Sarah Blake McHam is a distinguished professor at Rutgers, New Brunswick, New Jersey. Most of her research has focused on Italian fifteenth- and sixteenth-century sculpture in Florence, Venice, and in the Veneto in books like The Chapel of St. Anthony at the Santo and the Development of Venetian Renaissance Sculpture and Looking at Italian Renaissance Sculpture, and in numerous articles. Her most recent book, Pliny and the Artistic Culture of the Italian Renaissance: The Legacy of the Natural History, won the Roland Bainton Prize of the Sixteenth Century Studies Society for the best art history book of 2013. Her recent article in the Renaissance Quarterly of Fall 2016 involves a new interpretation of Donatello’s High Altar in the Santo, which will be part of her new book about Paduan art in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, her current book project. Claudia Marra studied art history, archeology, and philosophy in Basel, Rome, and Vienna (2004–2009). In 2015 she obtained her PhD at Universität Basel and is currently publishing her thesis on the profession of Proti and architects in the sixteenth-century Venetian Terraferma (Andrea Moroni, Proto in Padua. Ingenieursberuf und Künstlerbiographie im 16. Jahrhundert, supervisors: Prof. Dr. Barbara Schellewald, PD Dr. Martin Gaier). She has been the recipient of grants and fellowships from the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut (Florence), the Deutsches Studienzentrum in Venedig (Venice), the Venice International University, and most recently the Foschungsfonds der Universität Basel and the Freiwillige Akademische Gesellschaft, Basel. Debra Pincus is an independent scholar specializing in the painting and sculpture of late medieval and Renaissance Venice. Her book-length studies include The Tombs of the Doges (2000) and The Arco Foscari: The Building of a Triumphal Gateway in Fifteenth-Century Venice (1976). She has been a Paul Mellon Senior Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, and a visiting member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. She has published studies on Tullio Lombardo, Antonio Rizzo, Giovanni Bellini, and Pietro Bembo. With a team of scholars from the National Gallery she participated in a detailed on-site examination of Andrea Riccio’s monumental Paschal Candelstick in the Santo, Padua, published in the Burlington Magazine (2009). She is currently working on a book-length study, The Lure of the Letter: Calligraphy and Epigraphy in Renaissance Venice. Giovanni Carlo Federico Villa is a professor of modern art history, museology, and art criticism at the Università degli Studi, Bergamo. His research focuses on Renais-

Authors 

 153

sance painting in the Veneto and on museology. Since 1998, he has been in charge of organizing and carrying out an infrared analysis project of Bellini and belliniani, as well as of other Renaissance painters from Northern Italy. As a result, we now have a public archive of infrared analysis and research of over 6,000 paintings. He has been a consultant in art history to the Direzione Musei e Conservatoria Civici Monumenti, Vicenza, since 2000, and editor-in-chief of the first four volumes of the scientific catalogue of the Pinacoteca Civica di Palazzo Chiericati, Vicenza. Since 2015 he is scientific director of the Polo Museale di Vicenza. In 2004, he started working with the Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome, where he curated the shows Antonello da Messina (2006), Giovanni Bellini (2008), Lorenzo Lotto (2011), Tintoretto (2012), and Tiziano (2013). He has published a number of books, among them the monographs Indagando Mantegna (2007), Indagando Bellini (2009), and, with Gianluca Poldi, the manual Dalla conservazione alla storia dell’arte. Riflettografia e analisi non invasive per lo studio dei dipinti (2006). Stefan Weppelmann studied art history, classical archaeology, and communication sciences in Münster (Germany), Florence, and New York. He received his PhD from Münster University. He is director of the Picture Gallery in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. From 2003 to 2015, he held the position of curator of early Renaissance Italian and Spanish painting at the Gemäldegalerie of the Staatliche Museen in Berlin. In his research he focuses on European Renaissance and Baroque painting. He is equally interested in museum studies and in contemporary reception of Old Masters. Among his exhibitions are Fantasy and Craftsmanship (Berlin, 2008), Rothko/ Giotto (Berlin, 2009), The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini (Berlin and New York, 2011), Botticelli Re-imagined (Berlin and London, 2015) and most recently Rubens: The Power of Transformation (Vienna and Frankfurt, 2017). Carolyn C. Wilson wrote Bellini’s Pesaro Altarpiece: A Study in Context and Meaning (PhD dissertation, New York University, 1976) and contributed essays to The Cambridge Companion to Giovanni Bellini and to the catalogue of the 2008 exhibition Giovanni Bellini. She is the editor of Examining Giovanni Bellini: An Art ‘More Human and More Divine,’ a recent collection of fifteen conference papers, and author of the Introduction. Her publications on Renaissance art include St. Joseph in Italian Renaissance Society and Art: New Directions and Interpretations; Renaissance Small Bronze Sculpture and Associated Decorative Arts at the National Gallery of Art; and Italian Paintings, XIV–XVI Centuries, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, recipient of the Vasari Award and Roland H. Bainton Book Prize for Art History. Amy N. Worthen, is curator emerita of prints and drawings at the Des Moines Art Center. From 1997 to 2016, she oversaw the museum’s permanent collection of works on paper and organized sixty-eight exhibitions on prints. Her publications include “An Inconvenient Text: The Supplementum chronicarum as a Source for Information

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about Gentile and Giovanni Bellini” in Examining Giovanni Bellini, Carolyn Wilson, ed., 2016; Apocalypse: Prophecies and Visions, 2001; “Engraving, Technique and History,” in The Dictionary of Art, 1996; “Calligraphic Inscriptions on Dutch Mannerist Prints,” in Goltzius Studies Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, vol. 42–43, 1993; and The Etchings of Jacques Bellange (with Sue Welsh Reed), 1975. Her study of early illustrated books printed in Venice led to an investigation of images of Cassandra Fedele. A practicing engraver, her own prints are in many museum collections.

Picture Credits Blass-Simmen

fig. 1: Alinari Archives, Florence Photographer: Folco Quilici; fig. 2: Alinari Archives, Florence; fig. 3: Alinari Archives, Florence Photographer Carlo Naya; fig. 4: bpk / RMN – Grand Palais / Gérard Blot; fig. 5, 6: Münzkabinett der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin Aufnahme durch Reinhard Saczewski; fig. 7, plate I: Archive of the Author (with thanks to Anna Simmen); plate II: Alinari Archives, Florence Photographer Mauro Magliani.

Long

All photographs are in the public domain fig. 1, 2: Archive of the Author; fig. 3: Interfoto/Alamy Stock Photo; plate III, IV: Archive of the Author.

McHam

fig. 1, 3: Archive of the Author; fig. 2: National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; fig. 4: Anne Markham Schulz archive, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; fig. 5: Cameraphoto Arte, Venice/Art Resource, NY; plate V–VI: André Simmen, Zurich

Pincus

fig. 1, 2: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preussischer Kulturbesitz; fig. 4: Procuratoria di San Marco, Venice; fig. 5: Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice; fig. 6, 9: Ralph Lieberman; fig. 10: Morgan Library & Museum, New York; plate VII: The Warden and Fellows of Merton College, Oxford; plate VIII: The Bodleian Libraries, The University of Oxford.

Lauber

fig. 1: by permission of the Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo – Biblioteca Nazio­ nale Marciana. Reproduction prohibited; plate IX, fig. 3: Archive of the Author; fig. 2: Public Domain (Digital Public Library of America); plate X: © The National Gallery, London.

Villa

fig. 1, 5: Gemäldegalerie Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; figs. 2–4, 6–8, plates XI–XII: Fondazione Querini Stampalia Venice.

Wilson

fig. 1: by concession of the Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo – Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana. Reproduction prohibited; fig. 2: Venice, Museo Correr; fig. 3: SSPSE-Ve e polo museale Veneziano. Archivio Fotografico su concessione del Ministero per i beni e le Attività Culturali; fig. 4: © Musée des Beaux-Arts de Marseille, photo Jean Bernard; fig. 5: Nicola Lorusso, Alinari/Art Resource, New York; fig. 6: by concession of The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, © The State Hermitage

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 Picture Credits

Museum, photo Vladimir Terebenin, Leonard Kheifets, and Yuri Molodkovets; fig. 7: Mauro Magliani, Alinari/Art Resource, New York; plate XIII: © Gemäldegalerie / SMB / Jörg P. Anders; plate XIV: © Archivio fotografico del Polo Museale del Veneto, su concessione del Ministero dei beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo; reproduction prohibited.

Brown

fig. 1: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London; fig. 2: © Trustees of the British Museum, London; fig. 3: © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford; fig. 4: © Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; fig. 5: Archive of the Author; fig. 6: Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth 2016, Fig. 8; plates XV, XVI: Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Budapest.  

Worthen

fig. 1: Ghent University Library; fig. 2: Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Washington DC; figs. 3–5: Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana.

Marra

fig. 1: Giovanni Valle, Pianta di Padova, reprint Venice: Marsilio 1987 (1784); fig. 2: Alinari Archives, Florence; fig. 3: © ÖNB Wien, OeNB 47 C 19 Alt Prunk; plate XVII, XVIII; fig. 4, 5: Archive of the Author.

Index A Aesyetes 5 Alberti, Leon Battista 106, 122 Aleotti, Ulisse 64, 71, 80 Alexander VI, Pope 118 Andrea dalla Siega 64, 66, 70, 72 Andrea del Verrocchio 7 Anna, Saint 21–28 Anne, Saint 98, 99 Antenor 5, 45, 46 Anthony of Padua, Saint 8, 14, 37–39, 98 Antiphilus of Byzantium 113 Antonello da Messina 98 Antonio da Negroponte 112 Augurello, Aurelio 128 B Barbaro, Antonio 146 Barbaro, Francesco 32, 35 Barbo, Pietro 53 Baroncelli, Niccolò 6 Bellano, Bartolomeo 39 Bellini, Gentile 14, 15, 37, 61, 62, 68–73, 75–77, 83, 115 Bellini, Giovanni 3, 7, 8, 10, 14–16, 37, 79, 82–87, 89–93, 95, 98–104, 106, 107, 109–111, 123–126, 133–136 Bellini, Jacopo 3, 9, 14, 15, 37, 83, 86 Bellini, Nicolosia 15, 16, 81, 83 Belosello, Marco 71 Bembo, Bernardo 50, 51, 56–58 Bembo, Bonifacio 128, 131 Bembo, Pietro 4, 11, 50, 51, 53, 84, 120, 121, 132, 133 Benizzi, Filippo 102 Bernardino, Saint 9, 35, 37, 39 Bernardo, Giovanni Battista 142 Berthold, Abbot 97 Bessarion, Basilios 13, 14, 61, 62, 64–73, 75–77 Bianco, Matteo 72 Bocheta, Ginevra 83 Bonaventura Tornielli da Forlì 103, 109 Borro, Gasparino 131 Borromeo, Federico 125, 136 Borromeo, Lucrezia 133

Boschini, Marco 101–103 Bramante, Donato 121 Bregno, Andrea 75 Brocardo, Antonio 112 Buzzacarini, Fina 31 C Caldiere, Andrea 35 Campagnola, Girolamo 128 Campagnola, Giulio 128 Capello, Bianca 133 Capodilista, Imperatrice 32 Cappello, Vettore 114 Cappello, Vincenzo 114 Cariani, Giovanni 112, 116 Carpaccio, Vittore 115 Cartari, Vincenzo 132 Castiglione, Baldassare 121 Catherine, Saint 126 Cereta, Laura 133, 134 Charlemagne 12 Charles IV 11 Chrysoloras, Manuel 3 Cicero 126 Ciriaco d’Ancona 4, 8, 9 Ciriacus of Ancona 32 Cleomestra 5 Collenuccio, Pandolfo 117 Colleoni, Bartolomeo 7, 31 Colonna, Francesco 11 Contarini, Benedetto 149 Contarini, Marc’Antonio 141, 142, 149 Cornaro, Caterina 133 Cornaro-Piscopia, Elena 136 Cosmas, Saint 103 Cremonini, Cesare 130 Cyriacus of Ancona 35, 44, 45 D Damian, Saint 103 Dandolo, Andrea 47 Dandolo, Fantino 48, 49 Dante Alighieri 56, 57, 59 Da Ponte, Antonio 145 Da Ponte, Nicolò 142 Da Schio, Ludovico 128

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 Index

David, Hieronymus 125, 130, 133, 134, 136 De’ Barbari, Jacopo 105 De Lazara, Giovanni 84 Desiderio da Settignano 112 D’Este, Alessandro 131, 134, 136 Diva Faustina 51 Donà, Girolamo 93, 95, 96, 98, 102, 103, 105 Donatello 5–9, 29, 30, 32, 34, 35, 39, 40, 80, 92 Donato, Girolamo 15 Donato, Pietro 4, 8, 35, 41–45, 48, 52 Duke of Urbino. Siehe auch Federico da Montefeltro Dürer, Albrecht 119, 127, 133 E Emo, Giovanni 95, 105 Erasmo da Narni. Siehe Gattamelata Eugene IV, Pope 14 F Fabris, Paolo 83 Fabris, Placido 83 Falconetto, Giovanni Maria 148 Fedele, Alessandro 126 Fedele, Cassandra 4, 123–136 Fedele Frizier, Camilla 126, 134 Fedele, Matteo 126 Fedele, Polissena 125 Federico da Montefeltro 31 Feliciano, Felice 8, 9, 54, 55 Ficheto, Giovanni Battista 131, 134, 136 Ficino, Marsilio 121 Fiorenza, Giancarlo 117 Fontana, Giovanni 15 Foresti, Jacopo Filippo 125, 131 Foscari, Francesco 29, 52 Foscari, Pietro 52 Fossati, Giorgio 143 Francesco II da Carrara Novello 12 Francesco il Vecchio da Carrara 31 Francis, Saint 32, 35, 38, 39 Frizier, Andrea 125, 126, 134 Frizier, Carlino 126 G Galileo 130, 131, 136 Gambello, Vittore 84 Gattamelata 6–8, 29, 31–36, 38, 40

Gentile della Leonessa 31 Giacoma della Leonessa 29, 31, 32, 34–40 Gianantonio da Narni 31, 34–36 Giorgione 83 Giorgione da Castelfranco 111, 112, 116 Giorgio Raguseo 124–126, 128, 130, 131, 133, 136 Giorgio Schiavone 6 Giotto di Bondone 14, 17, 19–27 Giovanni Antonio da Pordenone 112 Giovanni d’Alemagna 15, 67 Gradenigo family 84 Gregorio di Allegretto 29, 36 Gregory Mammas 75 Grevembroch, Giovanni 95 Gritti, Andrea 137, 148 Guarino da Verona 3 H Hopilius, Antonius 51 I il Padre Barbetta. Siehe Bonaventura Tornielli da Forlì Innocent VIII, Pope 95, 96, 106 Isidore of Kiev 74 J Jacopo da Montagnana 37 Jenson, Nicolas 59 Jerome, Saint 42, 86 Joachim, Saint 21–28, 99 John the Baptist, Saint 106 John the Evangelist, Saint 106 John the Martyr, Saint 96 Joseph of Arimathea 104, 110 Joseph, Saint 81, 83, 99, 104 Juan de Torquemada 74 L Lamberto, Bertuccio 126, 127 Leonardo da Vinci 7, 119, 121 Leoni, Leone 125 Leoni, Paolo 125, 131, 134 Licinio, Bernardino 116 Lippi, Filippino 106 Lippi, Fra Filippo 6 Livy 5

Index 

Lombardo, Pietro 56, 57 Lombardo, Tullio 105 Louis of Toulouse, Saint 39 Lovati, Lovato de’ 46 Luciani, Sebastiano. Siehe Sebastiano del Piombo Luke, Saint 79 M Macrobius 121 Madonna 80, 82, 86, 89 Mansueti, Giovanni 115 Mantegna, Andrea 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 15–18, 32, 49, 54, 55, 79–85, 87–89, 91, 92 Manutius, Aldus 3, 10, 11, 58, 59 Marcanova, Giovanni 8, 9, 54 Marcello, Emilia 126 Marcello, Jacopo Antonio 3 Marco da Costa 64 Marconi, Rocco 101, 102 Marco Zoppo 6 Marcus Aurelius 34 Marinella, Lucrezia 133, 135 Mark the Evangelist, Saint 13 Martha of Bethany, Saint 104 Martini, Simone 67 Martin, Saint 105 Mary Cleophas, Saint 93, 95–99, 102, 109 Mary Magdalene, Saint 99, 110 Mary, Saint 21, 22, 26, 27, 79, 104 Mary Salome, Saint 99 Maximilian I 5, 148 Mehmed II 14 Michele da Foce 31 Michiel, Marcantonio 14, 37, 61, 62, 69, 70, 76, 77, 84 Minerva 89 Mocenigo, Alvise 142 Moderata Fonte 134 Molin, Domenico 132, 135, 136 Morelli, Giovanni 84 Moroni, Andrea 141, 142, 149 Morosini, Tomaso 142 Moses 79 N Negro, Francesco Pescennio 128 Nicolò III d’Este 7

Nogarola, Angela 133, 134 Nogarola, Isotta 133, 134 O Ovetari, Antonio 32 P Pandoni, Porcelio 36 Pannartz, Arnold 59 Paolo della Pergola 51 Passi, Giuseppe 135 Pelliccioli, Mauro 83 Perleoni, Giacomo 72 Perotti, Niccolò 64 Perugino 99, 106 Pesaro, Jacopo 118 Petrarca, Francesco 133 Petrarch 120 Petrarch, Francesco 3, 11, 12 Philippe de Mezières 71 Pignoria, Lorenzo 128, 131–136 Pisanello, Antonio 12 Pizolo, Nicolò 6, 15 Plato 126 Pliny the Elder 34 Polidoro, Valerio 37, 39, 40 Pollaiuolo, Antonio 117 Q Querini, Francesco 84 Querini Stampalia, Giovanni 84 R Raphael 118 Riccio, Andrea 15, 96, 102, 105 Rinversi, Anna 83, 86 Rizzo, Antonio 105 Romanino, Girolamo 117, 118 Rusconi, Antonio 145 S Sabellico, Marcantonio 93, 95–99 Sacrobusto 131 Salviati, Giuseppe 105 Sansovino, Jacopo 95, 145 Sanudo, Marin 96, 97 Sanudo, Marino 35 Saraceni, Biagio 49

 159

160 

 Index

Sarceni, Gerolamo 49 Savonarola, Michele 34 Savorgnan, Maria 120 Scardeone, Bernardino 15 Scrovegni, Enrico 14, 19–21, 24, 26–28 Sebastiano del Piombo 109 Serlio, Sebastiano 148, 149 Sesto, Lorenzo 12 Sesto, Marco 12 Sforza, Francesco 7 Simeon, Saint 79, 81, 82, 86, 87 Sivos, Giovanni Carlo 66 Sixtus IV, Pope 52, 53, 64, 75, 94 Squarcione, Francesco 6, 15 Strabo 3 Sweynheym, Konrad 59 T Theodore, Saint 13 Titian 83, 102, 110, 112, 114, 116, 118 Tomasini, Giacomo Filippo 123–126, 128–136 Tomasini, Ludovico 135

Tomasini, Paolo 134–136 Tomasi, Pietro 9 Tomei, Nicolò Leonico 128 U Urban VIII, Pope 128 V Van Eyck, Jan 111 Vasari, Giorgio 19, 86 Vendramin, Andrea 95 Vendramin, Samaritana 86 Vidal, Angela 126 Vielmo di Anzolieri 70 Virgil 5 Vittorino da Feltre 3, 4 Vivarini, Antonio 3, 10, 15, 67 Vivarini, Bartolomeo 10 Z Zagaglia, Evangelista 131, 134, 136 Zeno, Francesco 128 Zeno, Jacopo 64

Plates

Plates 

Plate I: Photoshop image of the two paintings superimposing: Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini, The Presentation of Christ in the Temple.

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 Plates

Plate II: Giotto, Prudentia, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua, ca. 1305.

Plate IV: Giotto, Cycle of Joachim and Anna, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua, ca. 1305: Sacrifice of Joachim, Dream of Joachim, Meeting at the Golden Gate.

Plate III: Giotto, Cycle of Joachim and Anna, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua, ca. 1305: Expulsion of Joachim, Joachim’s Retreat into the Wilderness, Annunciation to Anna.

Plates   165

166 

 Plates

Plate V: Gregorio di Allegretto, Gisant Effigy of Gattamelata, marble, former ­Gattamelata Chapel, now Chapel of SS. Sacramento, Santo, Padua, 1457–1459.

Plate VI: Bartolomeo Bellano, Miracle of the Mule, Reliquary Cabinet Door, marble, Sacristy, Santo, Padua, 1469–1472.

Plates 

Plate VII: Eusebius, Chronikon, ninth century, Merton College, Oxford, MS 315, fol. 49v.

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 Plates

Plate VIII: Solinus, Polystoria, 1457, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Oxford, Canon. Class. Lat. 161, fol. 17r.

Plates 

Plate IX: Cardinal Bessarion’s Reliquary of the True Cross, silver, silver-gilt, bronze-gilt, gilded copper, iron, glass, pearls, turquoise, garnets, vegetable resins, wood, and tempera, 47 × 32 × 4.5 cm, Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice (no. S19, inv. 349): obverse.

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 Plates

Plate X: Gentile Bellini, Cardinal Bessarion and Two Members of the Scuola Grande di Santa Maria della Carità in Prayer with the Bessarion Reliquary, tempera with gold and silver on wood, 102.3 × 37.2 cm, The National Gallery, London (NG6590).

Plates 

 171

Plate XI: Giovanni Bellini, The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, ca. 1475, oil on wood panel, 81 × 105.5 cm, Pinacoteca della Fondazione Scientifica Querini Stampalia, Venice, inv. 2/29, detail.

Plate XII: Giovanni Bellini, The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, ca. 1475, oil on wood panel, 81 × 105.5 cm, Pinacoteca della Fon­ dazione Scientifica Querini Stampalia, Venice, inv. 2/29, detail.

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 Plates

Plate XIII: Giovanni Bellini, Resurrection, ca. 1475–1479, oil on canvas transferred from wood, 147.5 × 128.8 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, detail showing the mourning Maries.

Plates 

 173

Plate XIV: Giovanni Bellini, Lamentation for Santa Maria dei Servi, Venice, ca. 1510–1516, oil on canvas, 444 × 312 cm, Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice.

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 Plates

Plate XV: School of Giorgione, Portrait of a Young Man, oil on canvas, ca. 1510, Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Budapest.

Plate XVI: The emblems on the parapet of Portrait of a Young Man, detail of plate XV.

Plates   175

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 Plates

Plate XVII: Padua, Palazzo del Podestà (today Palazzo Moroni), ca. 1539–1601, northwest side (state before June 2012).

Plates 

Plate XVIII: Padua, Palazzo del Podestà (today Palazzo Moroni), ca. 1539–1601, courtyard.

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