The Materiality of Terracotta Sculpture in Early Modern Europe [1 ed.] 9781003327462, 9781032355702, 9781032355757

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The Materiality of Terracotta Sculpture in Early Modern Europe

Through meticulously researched case studies, this book explores the materiality of terracotta sculpture in early modern Europe. Chapters present a broad geographical perspective showcasing examples of modelling, firing, painting, and gilding of clay in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands. The volume considers known artworks by celebrated artists, such as Luca della Robbia, Andrea del Verrocchio, Filipe Hodart, or Hans Reichle, in parallel with several lesser-studied terracotta sculptures and tin-glazed earthenware made by anonymous artisans. This book challenges arbitrary distinctions into the fine art and the applied arts, that obscured the image of artistic production in the early modern world. The centrality of clay in the creative processes of artists working with two- and three-dimensional artefacts comes to the fore. The role of terracotta figures in religious practices, as well as processes of material substitutions or mimesis, confirm the medium’s significance for European visual and material culture in general. This book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, Renaissance studies, and material culture. Zuzanna Sarnecka is an Assistant Professor in the Institute of Art History at the University of Warsaw. Agnieszka Dziki is a PhD candidate in Art History at the University of Warsaw, Poland and the University of Cologne, Germany.

Routledge Research in Art History

Routledge Research in Art History is our home for the latest scholarship in the field of art history. The series publishes research monographs and edited collections, covering areas including art history, theory, and visual culture. These high-level books focus on art and artists from around the world and from a multitude of time periods. By making these studies available to the worldwide academic community, the series aims to promote quality art history research. State Construction and Art in East Central Europe, 1918–2018 Edited by Agnieszka Chmielewska, Irena Kossowska, and Marcin Lachowski Michelangelo’s Vatican Pietà and its Afterlives Lisa Rafanelli The Virtual Liturgy and Ritual Artifacts in Medieval and Early Modern Studies Katharine D. Scherff Whistler and Artistic Exchange between Japan and the West After Japonisme in Britain Ayako Ono The Pictures Generation at Hallwalls Traces of the Body, Gender, and History Vera Dika American Artists Engage the Built Environment, 1960–79 Susanneh Bieber Historical Narratives of Global Modern Art Irina D. Costache and Clare Kunny Art History, Narratology and Twentieth-Century Chinese Art Lian Duan

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The Materiality of Terracotta Sculpture in Early Modern Europe

Edited by Zuzanna Sarnecka Agnieszka Dziki

Designed cover image: Giovanni della Robbia, Meeting of the Young John the Baptist with the Christ Child, c. 1520, partially glazed terracotta, h: 40 cm, w: 35 cm, d: 18 cm, Private Collection, Cento First published 2023 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Zuzanna Sarnecka and Agnieszka Dziki; individual chapters, the contributors ‘The right of the editor to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.’ All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Sarnecka, Zuzanna, editor. | Dziki, Agnieszka, editor. Title: The materiality of terracotta sculpture in early modern Europe / edited by Zuzanna Sarnecka, Agnieszka Dziki. Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2022061809 (print) | LCCN 2022061810 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032355702 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032355757 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003327462 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Terra-cotta sculpture, European. Classification: LCC NB1265 .M38 2023 (print) | LCC NB1265 (ebook) | DDC 738.1/2--dc23/eng/20230502 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022061809 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022061810 ISBN: 978-1-032-35570-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-35575-7 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-32746-2 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003327462 Typeset in Sabon by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

Contents

List of Contributors Introduction: Materiality, Scale, and Status of Early Modern Terracotta

vii 1

ZUZANNA SARNECKA AND AGNIESZKA DZIKI

PART I

Material Migrations13 1 Materiality as an Incentive to Stylistic Innovation in Earthenware from Bergen op Zoom (15th–16th Centuries)

15

BART VAN EEKELEN

2 Making a Virtue Out of a Necessity: Lorenzo Mercadante’s Use of Terracotta in Seville Cathedral

34

NICOLA JENNINGS

3 Episodes of the Arts of Fire in Portugal during the Renaissance

50

PEDRO FLOR

PART II

Terracotta and Design67 4 Hans Reichle’s Contribution to the Practice of Terracotta Sculpture in Tyrol

69

FRANCESCA PADOVANI

5 Luca della Robbia’s Labours in Terracotta

86

CATHERINE KUPIEC

6 Clay Models in Verrocchio’s Workshop

102

DYLAN SMITH

7 The Primacy of Terracotta: Sculptures for Painting in Sixteenth-Century Renaissance Florence DAVID LUCIDI

123

vi Contents PART III

Mimetic Ventures

137

8 Glazed Ornament between Architecture and Altarpieces: Luca and Andrea della Robbia in Impruneta and Pescia

139

FEDERICA CARTA

9 The Transformation of Della Robbia Garland Frames: From Luca through Giovanni’s Antinori Resurrection

151

ROBERTA J. M. OLSON

10 Face, Surface, Interface: Some Observations on Polychrome Florentine Terracotta Busts

170

ANDREAS HUTH

11 Antonio Begarelli and Small-Scale Terracotta Sculpture

187

VIRNA RAVAGLIA

PART IV

Contexts and Values

203

12 Della Robbia Sculptures for Florentine Renaissance Convents

205

MARIETTA CAMBARERI

13 “Ut firmetur quod formatum est” Augustinian Terracottas, and a Note on Two Sculptures from the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts

220

MARCO SCANSANI

14 The Papal Clay: Firing Terracotta Sculptures in Sixteenth-Century Rome

228

ZUZANNA SARNECKA

15 Exceeding Expectations: Antonio Begarelli, His Female Patrons, and the Misunderstood Materialities of White Terracotta

238

ERIN GIFFIN

16 Conversation on the Terracotta Sculpture in the Renaissance: Recollections, Reflections and Proposals

260

GIANCARLO GENTILINI

Index

270

Contributors

Marietta Cambareri is a senior curator of European Sculpture, and Jetskalina H. Phillips Curator of Judaica at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, MA, USA. Federica Carta is a PhD candidate in Art History at the University of Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens, France, and the Slifka Foundation Interdisciplinary fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA. Agnieszka Dziki is a PhD candidate in Art History at the University of Warsaw, Poland and the University of Cologne, Germany. Pedro Flor is a professor of Art History at Universidade Aberta, Portugal, and researcher at NOVA/FCSH – IN2PAST, Portugal. Giancarlo Gentilini is a retired professor of Art History at the Università degli Studi di Perugia, Italy. Erin Giffin is a visiting assistant professor of Art History at the Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, USA. Andreas Huth is a professor of Art History and Artistic Techniques at Otto-Friedrich University Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany. Nicola Jennings is an associate lecturer at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, UK. Catherine Kupiec is an expert in Italian Renaissance sculpture. David Lucidi is an independent researcher based in Turin, Italy. Roberta J. M. Olson is a curator of Drawings at the New-York Historical Society Museum & Library, New York, NY, USA. Francesca Padovani studies Late Renaissance and Early Baroque Sculpture, Italian and German, with a particular focus on Hans Reichle and his environment. Virna Ravaglia is a PhD candidate in Art History at the University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy. Zuzanna Sarnecka is an assistant professor in the Institute of Art History at the University of Warsaw, Poland. Marco Scansani is a research associate at the University of Trento, Trento, Italy.

viii Contributors Dylan Smith is Robert H. Smith Research conservator at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., USA. Bart van Eekelen is a PhD candidate at Utrecht University, the Netherlands; the Curator at Museum Het Markiezenhof, Bergen op Zoom, and Museum Tongerlohuys, Roosendaal, The Netherlands.

Introduction Materiality, Scale, and Status of Early Modern Terracotta Zuzanna Sarnecka1 and Agnieszka Dziki2 University of Warsaw, Poland University of Warsaw, Poland/University of Cologne, Germany

1 2

Introduction Terracotta has long suffered from the view that it is merely an auxiliary medium, to be analysed primarily in relation to its role as a building material or its preparatory use in the design of more prestigious bronze or marble sculptures. Yet in recent decades, scholars have shown that terracotta sculpture revolutionized the Italian fifteenth-century art scene and during the sixteenth century, its artistic significance resonated in other parts of Europe and beyond. The success of terracotta sculpture at that time can be credited to the technical ingenuity, including glazing its surface, believed in the Renaissance to have been unknown in antiquity and therefore artistically and intellectually innovative (Kupiec, Olson). This volume builds on this scholarship and extends the perspective beyond the aesthetic or symbolic to explore the materiality of the medium.1 This approach is indebted to anthropological studies focused on religious practices (Cambareri, Scansani), most importantly methodologies and theories elaborated over the course of last three decades in the humanities and social sciences, from the “material turn”, through “actor-network theory”, to the “agency of art” as defined by Bruno Latour, Alfred Gell, and others. The division into high and decorative arts can be challenged thanks to the realization that medium itself had a great efficacy (Flor, Sarnecka). At the same time, focus on the materiality of fired clay prompts questions about the mimetic ventures, processes of substitution and resemblance (Carta, Giffin, Ravaglia). Art historical and anthropological investigations have been complemented by scholarship that deals with the supply of, and demand for, earthenware across Europe. Fired clay is both fragile and extremely easy to transport. If securely placed in wooden crates, with packaging that ensured minimal movement of the artefacts, the earthenware could travel far and wide. This portability has generated interest among the scholars, who study the dissemination of the ceramic goods from the Middle East into Europe.2 However, despite such a rich network of trade in ceramics produced in established centres, patrons across Europe supported technical experiments and development of local workshops (Van Eekelen). Another line of enquiry that informs this book is the one concerned with defining the nature of the Renaissance workshop (Jennings, Lucidi). Technological developments and experiments with new formulae increased the social and cultural importance of objects and artisans. Sharing the increased interest among historians of science, art historians began to investigate the particular properties of materials and processes of production. DOI: 10.4324/9781003327462-1

2  Zuzanna Sarnecka and Agnieszka Dziki Modern conservation research assists art historians in thinking about the practice, artistic technique, and production of terracotta sculpture. Various teams of conservators use similar methods to analyse small- and large-scale artefacts, which provides a scientific justification for the inclusive examination of terracotta sculpture from the Early Modern period (Smith). These investigations enable us to tackle problems about the original appearance of terracotta figures, that have been subjected to notorious cleaning campaigns over the past centuries (Huth, Padovani). Material Distinction During the two-day conference held in Warsaw, in September 2021, it became apparent that terracotta is not a straightforward material and its study poses many questions, that hitherto lack satisfactory answers. One of the most vexing issues is that of terra cruda. The discussion of the examples of sculptures made from unfired clay, evolved towards consideration of the motives behind such a practice. Terra cruda sculptures, such as Andrea del Verrocchio’s Putto Balancing on a Globe, now at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. (Smith), highlight the material vulnerability of the figure, which was solely air-dried. On one hand, we know that the cost of firing earthenware was a significant component of the final price of the work, but could there be other reasons besides the economic that spurred artists to create terra cruda statues? The decision might have been informed by the lack of technology needed to build a specialized kiln and the skill to control the temperature required for the successful firing of earthenware. Alternatively, the desired speed of production or the ephemeral character of the designed work could have been significant factors influencing the technique.3 A document related to Sandro di Lorenzo’s oeuvre reveals that sculptures in terra non cocta or terra cruda were sold for considerable sums in the sixteenth century.4 In 1523, the artist sold four small-scale statuettes (roughly 50–70 cm high), a Laocoön, a Bambino, a Bacchus and Judith. The first two sculptures were painted to look like bronze, which clearly implies that their status was not one of artistic models but collectable items. The fact that sculptures in terra cruda were painted to imitate bronze, makes the identification of the material much harder. In particular, in an architectural setting one can ignore or misinterpret the material, in which the sculpture was made, unless one uses a ladder and study the work up-close it is often hard to tell. More examples of terra cruda, that remained in situ, in stable conditions, in a church setting where nobody touched them, are likely to have survived. Painterly interventions on the surface of terracotta sculptures similarly obscure the characteristics of the material underneath. However, as is clear in the documents, in the process of production, the application of polychromy would cost significantly more than that of modelling the figure.5 This suggests that colour was not merely complementary, but technically necessary in the process of making of terracotta figures. The fact that polychromy of terracotta sculptures attracted such prominent artists as Benozzo Gozzoli or Rosso Fiorentino, suggests that it was a lucrative task and an important factor in the economy of artistic production. As pointed out by David Lucidi, artists such as Baccio da Montelupo could be both skilled painters and sculptors in terracotta, with models created in clay that could be translated into a painterly composition but might also be a first idea to be transferred subsequently into a final sculpture in another material. Another type of dynamic was the collaboration, such as the one between Fra Bartolomeo and

Materiality, Scale, and Status of Early Modern Terracotta 3 Mariotto Albertinelli, with the latter artist providing terracotta models to be translated into paintings of the former.6 Coloured surfaces of wood and terracotta were created using techniques related to those of the painted panel: oil or tempera was applied on various preparatory layers such as canvas, gesso, chalk, glue, and lead white.7 Polychrome on the surface of nearly life-size sculptures served to make them more visible when seen at a distance in public spaces. The mimetic nature of pigmented terracotta of Guido Mazzoni (1450–1518) was strengthened by the use of life masks and moulds of the hands of his customers.8 The longing for animation, which could be achieved through the transformation of the surface is a parallel phenomenon to the practice of hiding the qualities of the substance in order to imitate other materials. This practice was clearly an economic matter: in southern Germany and in the Netherlands, labour-saving terracotta was modelled and painted to simulate figures made of local wood, which was a more demanding material in time and money.9 Frequently, the success of a specific resource depended not only on the value or local availability but also on the similarity to a well-recognized substance. For example, the qualities of alabaster – the colour of its polished surface, the sheen, and thermal conductivity – prompted its popularity in the second half of the fifteenth century due to the limited availability of ivory10; it served as an imperfect “ersatz” for kinds of marble as well.11 In Florence, the durable glazes of Luca della Robbia have been compared with enamel because of their sheen opacity.12 The artists working in the medium of glazed terracotta could also successfully emulate marble, porphyry, serpentine, and lapis lazuli.13 The praise of whiteness was a common attitude as well: in the course of the Paragone debate, it was seen as the evidence of the mastery of the sculptor, who was able to overcome the difficulty of monochrome and create lifelikeness.14 This quality continued to be understood mainly as the symbol of purity and wisdom, the attributes of the Virgin Mary. Small-scale representations of the Beautiful Madonnas were executed in both alabaster and ivory with partially painted surfaces in addition to those larger unpolychromed examples created in marble, dolomite, limestone, and artificial stone.15 Moreover, some wooden sculptures of the post-international style present an overall appearance of whitish pale shades enriched with traces of gilding, which emphasized their subtle presence.16 The use of a few coloured accents, varnishes, and glazes enabled the underlining of the qualities of various materials and the allure of their surfaces – the warmth of boxwood, the translucency of alabaster, the smoothness of bronze – and the optical emphasis of sculpted forms.17 Natural qualities of stones18 – of Carrara marble, limestones from Untersbeg, and Adnet, jaspers,19 and alabaster,20 for instance – were exposed with no covers because of their desirable qualities, colours, and speckles that can even resemble flesh. Notable is the speed with which artists invented original figurative representations, as well as adapted compositions from other media, including ancient marble sculptures or prints. Modern scholarly discussions of Late Medieval and Renaissance polychromed sculpture emphasize the close workshop ties between sculptors and painters. The pictorial approach to sculptural materials, including marble and bronze, later inspired numerous devotional panels that made use of perspective and, increasingly, low relief. Sculptors, such as Luca della Robbia, and painters, such as Filippo Lippi and Masaccio, engaged in their work with the dialogue between the sculptural and pictorial modes. At

4  Zuzanna Sarnecka and Agnieszka Dziki times the composition seems to be traced in thick polychromy, as in versions of Antonio Rossellino’s Madonna of the Candelabra (c. 1460) modelled in stucco. Giancarlo Gentilini speaks of the dilemma in describing devotional reliefs by Rossellino as “painted sculpture” or “painting in relief”. Significance of Scale Both the size of the modified material, and the manner in which the surface was transformed shape the way an object is understood; its qualities are recognized mainly through sight, and touch, but sometimes even through smell, hearing, and taste.21 The scale of sculpture is not always determined by its public, semi-private, or individual functions; however, it always specified the movement and actions of the beholder around it. Not only the owner was active – both tiny and large objects often operated as animated representations: the living presence of the sculpture did not depend exclusively on a naturalistic polychromy or its life-size scale. The tiny ivory Madonna, which belonged to Saint Hedwig of Silesia (1174–1243), eventually preserved her dead body intact; the scale of the figurine, and its mobility made it possible to develop a close relationship between the owner and the image itself and let the sculpture act.22 Saint Hedwig interacted also with a life-size sculpture: a miraculous image of a Crucified Christ lifted his hand from the wood of the cross and uttered words of blessing.23 A similarly naturalistic sculpture of Jesus had intimate contact with its adoring Rupert of Deutz (c. 1070–1130) – when he was praying in front of an altar, he suddenly felt the desire to kiss the living statue, which welcomed this willingly.24 A number of other life-size figures miraculously came alive: a sculpture of a Christ Child was talking during Christmas to the nun Margareta Ebner (1291–1351), who experienced a sort of maternal bond with it.25 Many small-scale terracotta statuettes testify to the significance of the imagined animation of the depicted scene. On the cover of the present volume, the sculptural group shows the interaction between Young John the Baptist and Christ Child. The expressive details such as the vividly coloured animals and the depiction of water animate the scene. The painted stream runs through the middle of the statuette towards the edge of the base and bridges the gap between the space represented and the space of the beholder. This vividness facilitates the experience of the represented encounter of the holy protagonists as real to be imitated by the beholders. The scale of figures is an important aspect that differentiates the domestic encounters from those that took place on the outside. In the public context, religious sculptural groups, such as those of the Nativity or related to the Passion of Christ, were typically life or nearly lifesize. Through the physical similarity, figures facilitated the identification of the viewer with the saintly characters from the life of Christ. At home, the scale was reduced, the statuette measures 40 cm in height and 35 cm in width. This was a practical solution but one that also facilitated other types of physical engagement. More important than the life-like scale were the surface qualities of the sculpture. These aspects included the reflectiveness, which caused animation, life-like colouring or covering of sculptures with soft fabrics. The gaze of the viewer and physical contact with small-scale objects enabled the fullest perception of their naturalistic features, of their fine details, and both their material and imaginary agency. Furthermore, investigation from various perspectives, including the

Materiality, Scale, and Status of Early Modern Terracotta 5 backs of handy sculptures, reveals various inscriptions, as in the case of the Holy Trinity (Hans Multscher, c. 1430, h. 28.5 cm, alabaster, Frankfurt am Main, Liebieghaus, Skulpturensammlung), where the users left traces of their devotion (“Maria hillff mir”), and personal maxims (“Glick ist mein freyd/vnglick ist mein leyd”).26 In case of terracotta statues, similar inscriptions appear, placed on the frames or on the scrolls held by the represented figures. Those words prompted saying of specific prayers, singing of songs or carried moralising meaning. Small-scale prayer beads and figurines made of boxwood or other hardwoods served as both devotional images and exquisite collectors’ items. Moreover, tiny versions of images and things associated with large scales – like gigantic depictions of Saint Christopher and Saint George – delivered a sort of an intellectual game.27 On the other hand, a series of small bronzes after famous ancient sculptures enabled collectors and scholars to possess versions of objects they could never own28; fascination with cameos and intaglio resulted in distributing casts of them as gifts.29 Moreover, small-scale models migrated to early modern collections – Paulus Praun of Nuremberg noted “one hundred pieces of relief” from the workshop of Johan Gregor van der Schardt. These freely modelled terracotta copies of Michelangelo’s sculptures served originally as study material; their later re-use conveyed the notion that the creator and his/her work were one.30 The way precious small items were displayed varied: they were put on the furniture, presented on textiles, or hung on the walls. When not exposed, all kinds of tiny objects were kept in cases, bags, caskets, cabinets, and drawers. The ideas for grouping them were usually personal, and based on the material itself: plaquettes and portrait medals made of lead or bronze were often kept together irrespective of their iconography;31 for example, various sculptures made of wood were stored in one drawer of the cabinet of Basilius Amerbach (1533–1591).32 Diversification of surface treatment – combined with a tiny scale of the sculpture – testified to the virtuosity of the maker and forced careful observation of the nuances at different angles of light. Unremoved toolmarks in the back of various sculptures were usually hidden, but, when exposed, they highlighted the expertise of the maker.33 Taking advantage of technical shortcomings and turning them into an aesthetic value is a distinguishing feature of Loštice pottery as well. Those earthenware were produced in the Olomouc Region in the years 1430 to 1530 and exported from Moravia to southern Germany and Austria; their main features are nodules on the whole surface and rough texture. The physical properties of clay, the lack of lightness, lustre, and durability, were replaced by the intriguing effect of the quasi-damaged object – a testimony to the constant development of various types of earthenware. Status of Terracotta Sculptures The status of terracotta sculptures within museums’ collections depends on both the place of creation and the production date; those criteria determine their affiliation to a specific department and often the context of display. Galleries of ancient Near Eastern or Greek and Roman art usually consist of fragments of fired clay and smallscale objects formed as larger groups; Islamic galleries present mostly earthenware and pieces of architectural elements; among collections of Oceanic art, this material is quite rare, connected mainly with Lapita culture. Single sculptures made of terracotta are given more prominence in the galleries of African, Asian, Ancient American, and European art, which is the result of both their scale and more elaborate surface treatment.

6  Zuzanna Sarnecka and Agnieszka Dziki Medieval and Renaissance galleries present fired clay of different scales among multiple sculptures made of various materials, mostly wood and stone; they occupy places in the sequence of museums’ spaces: they are placed on pedestals, furniture, put in niches, and hung on walls in their original or secondary framing. Renaissance terracottas are grouped together based on the name of the creator, place of origin, production date, and iconography. At the end of the nineteenth-century objects made of terracotta were assembled together with earthenware and porcelain – its association with ceramic production was widely spread among both English and American collections.34 At the South Kensington Museum, sculptures created in the workshop of the Della Robbia were installed with Italian Renaissance maiolica, which delivered a context in which the colour of fired glazes could be better acknowledged.35 The fashion for the Florentine terracotta – especially those created by Luca della Robbia – in the United States began to emerge in the last decades of the nineteenth century among both museums and private collectors. At the beginning of the twentieth century, both originals and copies of terracottas were installed at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston together with the contents of the Italian Renaissance plaster cast gallery, which marks the shift in perception of those products.36 The association of glazed terracotta with sculpture, and sculptural ceramics, typifies today’s exhibition strategies. In the past, beholders often sought connections between ceramics and terracotta sculptures, as in the case of the venerated image on a terracotta tile from the sanctuary in Viterbo.37 The enshrined image depicted the Virgin and Child, and was known as the Madonna della Quercia because of the oak tree to which it was originally attached. It was commissioned by a blacksmith, who affixed the image on an oak tree to keep watch over his property on the outskirts of Viterbo. Soon it transformed into an image said to ward off evil spirits from the entire region; it was credited with the safeguarding of the people from the epidemic of 1467.38 In the early sixteenth century, the Della Robbia workshop received a commission for lunettes above the doorways to the church in Viterbo. The work was particularly important because the Della Robbia technique was materially related to an early quattrocento terracotta tile painted in cold polychromy by a local artist. This commission shows the significance of the local relationship to the image executed in terracotta that nourished subsequent commissions from renowned artists, in this case from the Della Robbia family. This points to the bottom-up dynamics that stimulated the increased popularity of the medium. This corresponds to Lorenzo Ghiberti’s observation, from Pliny, that the first sculpture made in terracotta was created by a potter (vasaio) from Corinth.39 During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it is possible to distinguish over thirty centres of glazed earthenware production in Italy. Various centres responded to the increased interest in glazed earthenware at different levels of society. Italian workshops produced simple, glazed kitchenware, as well as the finest maiolica artefacts. The association of three-dimensional religious sculptures with everyday tableware might seem far-fetched. However, if we consider the necessary access to fine clay, tin for glazes, pigments suitable for firing, wood for fire and the necessary understanding of the construction methods required to build safe and effective kilns, it seems only appropriate that the two types of production should have developed hand in hand. Thus, perhaps we should reconsider the way, in which terracotta sculptures should be displayed and contextualized in museums and in academic teaching.

Materiality, Scale, and Status of Early Modern Terracotta 7 Author’s Note The volume forms part of the project on the Early Modern terracotta sculpture in the Papal States funded by the National Science Centre, Poland (grant no. 2018/29/B/ HS2/00575). Notes 1 Studies on the materiality of terracotta sculpture have been conducted mostly in the Italian context. See Terres cuites de la Renaissance: matière et couleur, eds. Anne Bouquillon and Marc Bormand, Technè, 36 (2012); Earth and Fire. Italian terracotta sculpture from Donatello to Canova, ed. Bruce Boucher (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001); Della Robbia: dieci anni di studi/dix ans d’études, eds. Anne Bouquillon, Marc Bormand, and Alessandro Zucchiatti (Genoa: Sagep Editori, 2011); Marietta Cambareri, Della Robbia: Sculpting with Color in Renaissance Florence (Boston: MFA Publications, 2016); Bruno Fabri, “Processi di lavorazione e rivestimenti ceramici,” in La scultura in terracotta: tecniche e conservazione, ed. Maria Grazia Vaccari (Florence: Centro Di, 1996), 25–33; Giancarlo Gentilini, “La scultura fiorentina in terracotta del Rinascimento: tecniche e tipologie,” in La scultura in terracotta: tecniche e conservazione, ed. Maria Grazia Vaccari (Florence: Centro Di, 1996), 64–103. 2 Leah Clark, “The Peregrinations of Porcelain: The Collections of Duchess Eleonora d’Aragona of Ferrara,” Journal of the History of Collections 32, no. 2 (2020): 275–288; Marco Spallanzani, Maioliche ispano-moresche a Firenze nel Rinascimento (Florence: S.P.E.S., 2006). 3 During the discussion in Warsaw Professor Giancarlo Gentilini recalled the terra cruda sculptures created for the entry of Pope Leo X to Florence. 4 Andrew Butterfield and David Franklin, “A documented episode in the history of renaissance ‘terracruda’ sculpture,” The Burlington Magazine 140 (1998): 819–824, on 823–824, doc. 3; On Sandro di Lorenzo see Lorenzo Principi, Il Maestro dei bambini turbolenti. Sandro di Lorenzo scultore in terracotta agli albori della Maniera (Perugia: Aguaplano Libri, 2020). 5 See Virna Ravaglia’s essay in the volume. 6 See David Lucidi’s essay in the volume. 7 Charlotte Hubbard and Peta Motture, “The Making of Terracotta Sculpture: Techniques and Observations,” in Earth and Fire. Italian Terracotta Sculpture from Donatello to Canova, exh. cat., eds. Bruce Boucher, Peta Motture, and Anthony Radcliffe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 85–95, on 94. 8 Bruce Boucher, “Italian Renaissance Terracotta: Artistic Revival or Technological Innovation?” in Earth and Fire, 12. 9 Bruce Boucher, “Italian Renaissance Terracotta: Artistic Revival or Technological Innovation?” in Earth and Fire, 2; See Martin Hirsch, “The Late Gothic Clay Sculpture of Bavaria,” in Revival and Invention. Sculpture through its Material History, eds. Sébastien Clerbois and Martina Droth (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2011). 10 Sarah M. Guérin, French Gothic Ivories. Material Theologies and the Sculptor’s Craft (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), 18–26. 11 Alabaster was thought to be marble that had not yet reached its perfect form, see Aleksandra Lipińska, “Alabstrum, id est, corpus hominis. Alabaster in the Low Countries, a cultural history,” in Meaning in Materials, 1400–1800, eds. Ann-Sophie Lehmann, Frits Scholten, and H. Perry Chapman (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 102. 12 Marietta Cambareri, Della Robbia. Sculpting with Color in Renaissance Florence, exh. cat. (Boston: MFA Publications, 2016), 44; Catherine Kupiec, “The Materiality of Luca della Robbia’s Glazed Terracotta Sculptures,” PhD diss. (Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 2016); Zuzanna Sarnecka, The Allure of Glazed Terracotta in Renaissance Italy (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), 136–141. 13 Catherine Kupiec, “New Light on Luca della Robbia’s Glazes,” in The Art of Sculpture in Fifteenth-Century Italy, eds. Amy R. Bloch and Daniel M. Zolli (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 86; Zuzanna Sarnecka, “The Della Robbia and the Firing of Porphyry in the Renaissance Ceramic Kiln,” in The Matter of Mimesis. Studies on Mimesis and Materials in Nature, Art and Science, eds. Marjolijn Bol and Emma C. Spary (Leiden: Brill, 2023).

8  Zuzanna Sarnecka and Agnieszka Dziki 14 Catherine Kupiec, “The Materiality of Luca della Robbia’s Glazed Terracotta Sculptures,”; Zuzanna Sarnecka, “Luca della Robbia and his Books. The Renaissance Artist as a devotee,” Artibus et historiae, no. 74 (2016): 291–301; Kirsten Lee Bierbaum and Claudia Lehmann, “Plain White? Zur Monochromie frühneuzeitlicher Skulptur und Stuckplastik,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 82, no. 3 (2019): 292. 15 Ivo Hlobil et al. ed., Krásné Madony ze Salcburku / Schöne Madonnen aus Salzburg, exh. cat., (Prague: Národni galerie Praha, 2019). 16 Elisabeth Sobieczky, “White in Medieval Sculpture Polychromy – Iconography, Reception, Restoration,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 82, no. 3 (2019): 299–320, on 303. 17 Aleksandra Lipińska, “Alabasterskulptur zwischen “sprezzatura” und Verwandlung,” in Spur der Arbeit. Oberfläche und Werkprozess, eds. Magdalena Bushart and Henrike Haug (Köln, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2018), 111–126, on 121–122. 18 Gertrude M. Helms, “The Materials and Techniques of Italian Renaissance Sculpture,” in Looking at Italian Renaissance Sculpture, ed. Sarah Blake McHam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 23. 19 Joy Kenseth, “The Virtue of Littleness: Small-Scale Sculptures of the Italian Renaissance,” in Looking at Italian Renaissance Sculpture, ed. Sarah Blake McHam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 129, 133. 20 Thomas Beleya, “Johannes ex disco. Remarks on a Late Gothic Alabaster Head of St. John the Baptist,” The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 47, no. 2–3 (1999): 100–117. 21 Zuzanna Sarnecka, ed., ‘Making Sense of the Senses’, Ikonotheka 29, 2019; Barbara Baert, Interruptions and Transitions. Essays on the Senses in Medieval and Early Modern Visual Culture (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2019). 22 Jacqueline E. Jung, “The Tactile and the Visionary: Notes on the Place of Sculpture in the Medieval Religious Imagination,” in Looking Beyond: Visions, Dreams, and Insights in Medieval Art & History, ed. Colum Hourihane (Princeton: Index of Christian Art, Dept. of Art & Archaeology, Princeton University, 2019), 205; Corinne Schleif, “St Hedwig’s Personal Ivory Madonna: Women’s Agency and the Powers of Possessing Portable Figures,” in The Four Modes of Seeing. Approaches to Medieval Imagery in Honor of Madeline Harrison Caviness, eds. Evelyn Staudinger Lane, Elizabeth Carson Pastan, and Ellen M. Shortell (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009). 23 Silesian workshop, Christ Blessing Saint Hedwig; Saint Hedwig Washing Her Grandson’s Face, Ms. Ludwig XI 7, fol. 24v, 1353, leaf: 34.1 x 24.8 cm, Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum. 24 Rupert of Deutz, De Gloria et honore Filii hominis super Matheum, ed. Hrabanus Haacke, CCCM, 29 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1969), 382–83; Quote after: Sara Lipton, “The Sweet Lean of His Head: Writing about Looking at the Crucifix in the High Middle Ages,” Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies 80, no. 4 (2005): 1175–1176; Emerson Bowyer, “Desire for Life,” in Life Like: Sculpture, Color, and the Body, exh. cat., eds. Luke Syson et al. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2018), 137; Andrea Pearson, Envisioning gender in Burgundian Devotional Art 1350-1530 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 119. 25 Christof Metzger, “‘es muoss ein zeserlin haben….’ Überlegungen zur Funktion des Naturalismus im späten Mittelalter und ein Jesuskind von Nikolaus Gerhaert von Leyden,” in Menschenbilder: Beiträge zur altdeutschen Kunst, eds. Andreas Tacke and Stefan Heinz (Petersberg: Imhoff, 2011), 57–80, on 58. 26 Matthias Weniger, “Graffiti als Zeugnisse der Nutzung liturgischer Räume,” in Aus der Nähe betrachtet. Bilder am Hochaltar und ihre Funktionen im Mittelalter. Beiträge des PassavantKolloquiums, eds. Jochen Sander, Stefanie Seeberg, and Fabian Wolf (Berlin, Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2015), 142. 27 Frits Scholten, “Statuettes ‘Taillée en bois bien fecte’,” in Small Wonders. Late-Gothic Boxwood Micro-Carvings from the Low Countries, exh. cat., eds. Frits Scholten et al. (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum Publications Department, 2017), 472. 28 Joy Kenseth, “The Virtue of Littleness: Small-Scale Sculptures of the Italian Renaissance,” in Looking at Italian Renaissance Sculpture, ed. Sarah Blake McHam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 129. 29 Marika Leino, “The Production, Collection and Display of Plaquette Reliefs in Renaissance Italy,” in Depth of Field. Relief Sculpture in Renaissance Italy ed. Donald Cooper (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2007), 253, 257.

Materiality, Scale, and Status of Early Modern Terracotta 9 30 Frits Scholten, “Johan Gregor van der Schardt in Nuremberg,” in Carvings, Casts & Collectors: The Art of Renaissance Sculpture, eds. Peta Motture, Emma Jones, and Dimitrios Zikos (London: V&A Publishing, 2013), 145. 31 Marika Leino, “The Production, Collection and Display,” 252. 32 “Item sind in gedachtem gemach sechs goldschmid beschlossen laden [Schubladenmöbel] (onet eine) vast einer große. […] In der andern sind sechs schubladen. Vnd Zu oberst zwei angefengte Crucifixlin, ein angefengt kindlin, sambt anderm wenig von holzwerck. In der ersten schubladen Zwei vsgemacht Crucifixlin [.] Ein Adam vnd Eva. Ein Lucretia vnd dryZehen gar kleine bildlin.” Das Amerbach-Kabinett. Beiträge zu Basilius Amerbach, exh. cat., ed. Elisabeth Landolt-Wegener (Basel: Kunstmuseum Basel, 1991), 146. 33 Frits Scholten, Statuettes “Taillee en bois bien fecte”…, op. cit., p. 462. Vasari while comparing the style of Donatello’s and Luca della Robbia’s works praised “the rough and unfinished” quality of the first one, see Andrea Bayer, “Renaissance Views of the Unfinished,” in Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible, exh. cat., eds. Kelly Baum and Carmen Bambach (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016), 23. 34 Marietta Cambareri, Della Robbia, 108. 35 Marietta Cambareri, Della Robbia, 111. 36 Marietta Cambareri, Della Robbia, 116. 37 Zuzanna Sarnecka, The Allure of Glazed Terracotta, 100. 38 Sheila Barker, “Miraculous Images and the Plagues of Italy, c. 590–1656,” in Saints, Miracles and the Image, eds. Sandra Cardarelli and Laura Fenelli (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017), 29–52, on 37. 39 Lorenzo Ghiberti, I commentari, ed. Ottavio Morosini (Naples: Ricciardi, 1947), 8 (I, 3); Pliny the Elder, Storia delle arte antiche, ed. S. Ferri (Rome: Erma, 1946) 203 (xxxv, 151).

Bibliography Baert, Barbara. Interruptions and Transitions. Essays on the Senses in Medieval and Early Modern Visual Culture (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2019). Barker, Sheila. “Miraculous Images and the Plagues of Italy, c. 590–1656.” In Saints, Miracles and the Image, eds. Sandra Cardarelli and Laura Fenelli, (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017), 29–52. Bayer, Andrea. “Renaissance Views of the Unfinished.” in Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible, exh. cat., eds. Kelly Baum and Carmen Bambach, (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016), 18–29. Beleya, Thomas. “Johannes ex disco. Remarks on a Late Gothic Alabaster Head of St. John the Baptist,” The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 47, no. 2–3 (1999): 100–117. Bierbaum, Kirsten Lee and Claudia Lehmann. “Plain White? Zur Monochromie frühneuzeitlicher Skulptur und Stuckplastik,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 82, no. 3 (2019): 292. Boucher, Bruce ed. Earth and Fire. Italian Terracotta Sculpture from Donatello to Canova (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001). Bouquillon, Anne and Marc Bormand ed. Terres cuites de la Renaissance: matière et couleur, Technè, 36 (2012). Bouquillon, Anne, Marc Bormand, and Alessandro Zucchiatti eds. Della Robbia: dieci anni di studi/dix ans d’études (Genoa: Sagep Editori, 2011). Bowyer, Emerson. “Desire for Life.” In Life Like: Sculpture, Color, and the Body, exh. cat., eds. Luke Syson et al., (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2018), 136–142. Butterfield, Andrew and David Franklin. “A Documented Episode in the History of Renaissance ‘Terracruda’ Sculpture,” The Burlington Magazine 140 (1998): 819–824. Cambareri, Marietta, with contributions by Abigail Hykin and Courtney Leigh Harris, Della Robbia. Sculpting with Color in Renaissance Florence (Boston: MFA Publications, 2016). Clark, Leah. “The Peregrinations of Porcelain: The Collections of Duchess Eleonora d’Aragona of Ferrara,” Journal of the History of Collections 32, no. 2 (2020): 275–288. Fabri, Bruno. “Processi di lavorazione e rivestimenti ceramici.” In La scultura in terracotta: tecniche e conservazione, ed. Maria Grazia Vaccari, (Florence: Centro Di, 1996), 25–33.

10  Zuzanna Sarnecka and Agnieszka Dziki Gentilini, Giancarlo. “La scultura fiorentina in terracotta del Rinascimento: tecniche e tipologie.” In La scultura in terracotta: tecniche e conservazione, ed. Maria Grazia Vaccari, (Florence: Centro Di, 1996), 64–103. Ghiberti, Lorenzo. I commentari, ed. Ottavio Morosini (Naples: Ricciardi, 1947). Guérin, Sarah M. French Gothic Ivories. Material Theologies and the Sculptor’s Craft (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022). Helms, Gertrude M. “The Materials and Techniques of Italian Renaissance Sculpture.” In The Materials and Techniques of Italian Renaissance Sculpture, ed. Sarah Blake McHam, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 18–39. Hirsch, Martin. “The Late Gothic Clay Sculpture of Bavaria.” In Revival and Invention. Sculpture through its Material History, eds. Sébastien Clerbois and Martina Droth (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2011). Hlobil, Ivo, et al. ed. Krásné Madony ze Salcburku/Schöne Madonnen aus Salzburg, exh. cat., (Prague: Národni galerie Praha, 2019). Hubbard, Charlotte and Peta Motture. “The Making of Terracotta Sculpture: Techniques and Observations.” In Earth and Fire. Italian Terracotta Sculpture from Donatello to Canova, exh. cat., eds. Bruce Boucher, Peta Motture, and Anthony Radcliffe, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 85–95. Jung, Jacqueline E. “The Tactile and the Visionary: Notes on the Place of Sculpture in the Medieval Religious Imagination.” In Looking Beyond: Visions, Dreams, and Insights in Medieval Art & History, ed. Colum Hourihane, (Princeton: Index of Christian Art, Dept. of Art & Archaeology, Princeton University, 2019), 203–240. Kenseth, Joy. “The Virtue of Littleness: Small-Scale Sculptures of the Italian Renaissance.” In Looking at Italian Renaissance Sculpture, ed. Sarah Blake McHam, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 128–148. Kupiec, Catherine. “The Materiality of Luca della Robbia’s Glazed Terracotta Sculptures.” PhD Diss. Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 2016. Kupiec, Catherine. “New Light on Luca della Robbia’s Glazes.” In The Art of Sculpture in Fifteenth-Century Italy, ed. Amy R. Bloch, Daniel M. Zolli (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020). Landolt-Wegener, Elisabeth ed. Das Amerbach-Kabinett. Beiträge zu Basilius Amerbach, exh. cat., (Basel: Kunstmuseum Basel, 1991). Leino, Marika. “The Production, Collection and Display of Plaquette Reliefs in Renaissance Italy,” in Depth of Field. Relief Sculpture in Renaissance Italy, ed. Donald Cooper, (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2007), 251–274. Lipińska, Aleksandra. “Alabstrum, id est, corpus hominis. Alabaster in the Low Countries, a Cultural History.” In Meaning in Materials, 1400–1800, eds. Ann-Sophie Lehmann, Frits Scholten, and H. Perry Chapman, (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 84–115. Lipińska, Aleksandra. “Alabasterskulptur zwischen “sprezzatura” und Verwandlung.” In Spur der Arbeit. Oberfläche und Werkprozess, eds. Magdalena Bushart and Henrike Haug, (Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2018), 111–126. Lipton, Sara. “The Sweet Lean of His Head: Writing about Looking at the Crucifix in the High Middle Ages’,” Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies 80, no. 4 (2005): 1172–1208. Metzger, Christof. “‘es muoss ein zeserlin haben…’ Überlegungen zur Funktion des Naturalismus im späten Mittelalter und ein Jesuskind von Nikolaus Gerhaert von Leyden.” In Menschenbilder: Beiträge zur altdeutschen Kunst, eds. Andreas Tacke and Stefan Heinz, (Petersberg: Imhoff, 2011), 57–80. Pearson, Andrea. Envisioning gender in Burgundian Devotional Art 1350–1530 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005). Pliny the Elder. Storia delle arte antiche, ed. S. Ferri (Rome: Erma, 1946). Principi, Lorenzo. Il Maestro dei bambini turbolenti. Sandro di Lorenzo scultore in terracotta agli albori della Maniera (Perugia: Aguaplano Libri, 2020).

Materiality, Scale, and Status of Early Modern Terracotta 11 Rupert of Deutz. De Gloria et honore Filii hominis super Matheum, ed. Hrabanus Haacke, CCCM, 29 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1969). Sarnecka, Zuzanna. “Luca della Robbia and his Books. The Renaissance Artist as a Devotee,” Artibus et historiae, no. 74 (2016): 291–301. Sarnecka, Zuzanna ed. “Making Sense of the Senses,” Ikonotheka 29, 2019 [Open Access]. Sarnecka, Zuzanna. The Allure of Glazed Terracotta in Renaissance Italy (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021) [Open Access]. Sarnecka, Zuzanna. “Firing Porphyry in the Italian Renaissance Kiln.” In The Matter of Mimesis. Studies on Mimesis and Materials in Nature, Art and Science, eds. Marjolijn Bol and Emma C. Spary, (Leiden: Brill, 2023) [Open Access], 87–112. Schleif, Corinne. “St Hedwig’s Personal Ivory Madonna: Women’s Agency and the Powers of Possessing Portable Figures.” In The Four Modes of Seeing. Approaches to Medieval Imagery in Honor of Madeline Harrison Caviness, eds. Evelyn Staudinger Lane, Elizabeth Carson Pastan, and Ellen M. Shortell, (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 382–403. Scholten, Frits. “Johan Gregor van der Schardt in Nuremberg.” In Carvings, Casts& Collectors: The Art of Renaissance Sculpture, eds. Peta Motture, Emma Jones, and Dimitrios Zikos (London: V&A Publishing, 2013). Scholten, Frits et al. ed. Small Wonders. Late-Gothic Boxwood Micro-Carvings from the Low Countries, exh. cat. (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum Publications Department, 2017). Sobieczky, Elisabeth. “White in Medieval Sculpture Polychromy – Iconography, Reception, Restoration’,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 82, no. 3 (2019): 299–320. Spallanzani, Marco. Maioliche ispano-moresche a Firenze nel Rinascimento (Florence: S.P.E.S., 2006). Weniger, Matthias. “Graffiti als Zeugnisse der Nutzung liturgischer Räume,” in Aus der Nähe betrachtet. Bilder am Hochaltar und ihre Funktionen im Mittelalter. Beiträge des PassavantKolloquiums, eds. Jochen Sander, Stefanie Seeberg, and Fabian Wolf (Berlin-Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2015), 129–145.

Part I

Material Migrations

1

Materiality as an Incentive to Stylistic Innovation in Earthenware from Bergen op Zoom (15th–16th Centuries) Bart van Eekelen Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands Museum Het Markiezenhof, Bergen op Zoom, the Netherlands Museum Tongerlohuys, Roosendaal, the Netherlands

Introduction1 Terracotta (glazed and non-glazed) from the city of Bergen op Zoom, in the former duchy of Brabant, the Netherlands, was used for the production of a wide range of pottery and kitchen utensils, ranging from jugs to albarelli and from pans to braziers. This redware was exported throughout all of northern and western Europe. It was renowned from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century for its high quality. But this concerned merely the functional quality, not the artistic. The qualities of the Bergen op Zoom earthenware made it fit to process into several types of kitchenware. These utensils could stand the heat of kitchen fires better than objects made from other clay types. I should like to extend the view from the technical qualities to the matter of design. Did the material qualities of the clay somehow influence the designs? Which incentives stirred or stalled stylistic evolution? Therefore, this article forms a preliminary interlinking of visual appearances to material qualities; stylistic to technical aspects. The material qualities are placed in the context of other historical factors that influenced the design and function of the local pottery. Therefore, both the producer’s and the consumer’s desires will be taken into account. Historiography There is a limited number of articles delving into matters of style of local earthenware from Bergen op Zoom.2 Because the local production was not for luxury products – with all their special properties – the redware was hardly described, discussed in publications, collected and exhibited in comparison, for example, with majolica. The emergence of interest in local earthenware took place in the 1960s.3 Many specimens have been found and dug up since the middle of the twentieth century, which aroused interest. Several studies into style and stylistic development have been made. The main objective of these studies was to establish a chronology (dating and contextualizing archaeological sites and finds) and to study stylistic developments. The excavation context was related to urban and social history. Local history was described on the basis of the pottery and vice versa, as happened in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, mainly by archaeological associations. Also, for Bergen op Zoom too, the scope usually did not exceed a local situation and it was often descriptive. For Bergen op Zoom, among others, Van de Watering, Weijs, Slootmans, and Groeneweg engaged in this type of research. The first one to focus archival research on the local pottery business was Van de Watering (1956). Slootmans, Weijs, and Van DOI: 10.4324/9781003327462-3

16  Bart van Eekelen de Watering later adopted an original, socio-economic perspective and conducted largescale archival research. This resulted in the first monographic book publication on the local pottery business, published in 1970.4 Unfortunately, we cannot rely on vast material-technical analyses or an elaborate academic discourse on the subject. Until the middle of the twentieth century, there was little interest in this matter. In the 1960s, the first material characterization took place. It was an analysis of diatoms in fragments of ceramics, under the supervision of Professor F. H. van Rummelen, instigated by Weijs and Slootmans, who were involved in the local museum Het Markiezenhof in Bergen op Zoom.5 Van Wageningen also wrote a mineralogic characterization to distinguish different types of clay used for terracotta production (1988).6 De Clercq later opted for a chemical-analytical perspective for various publications, which also put the Bergen op Zoom earthenware production into a broader context. Its importance lies in the fact that it characterized the unique qualities of the Bergen op Zoom region in a more detailed way. An important line of discourse is the tracing of the origins of the Waasland Ware. That shows how chemical analysis can better see through the diffused image caused by the distribution of objects than stylistic-formal categorization. Authors like Van Wageningen, De Clercq, Niemeijer, and Vermunt contributed to the identification of the Bergen op Zoom as the source of the Waasland Ware. Through different perspectives – chemical analysis, archaeology, stylistic comparison – they contextualized the Bergen op Zoom ware. Thanks to that, nowadays, it is one of the most well-studied types of terracotta in the Low Countries.7 It is at the edge of this discourse that this research takes place. Geographic Assets and the Material Properties of the Clay Bergen op Zoom is nowadays located at the estuary of the river Scheldt. Older layers of the local soil consist of sedimental, fluvial layers from another source. The local loam’s particular combination of clay and sand was deposited in the estuary of the then merged Rhine/Meuse river, some 2.0 to 1.8 million years ago. The loam is the so-called Tegelen member, part of the Waalre Formation, formed during the Tiglien period (named after Tegelen).8 This combination of sedimental layers is of a unique petrographical compound in the Low Countries (Figure 1.1). This clay was available in the immediate surroundings of the city, in places like Borgvliet, Noordgeest, and Woensdrecht.9 Some pits were just 100 m away from known potteries, in the northern part of the harbour in the business district.10 Others were only 10 to 15 minutes away from the city. Furthermore, the material was relatively close to the surface, the loam only being covered by two layers of sand.11 All this meant a considerable practical and thus an economic advantage. Bergen op Zoom became the foremost centre for the processing of the Tegelen loam.12 Never did the availability of loam become troublesome. In the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, business owners either owned or rented the land from which they derived their own loam for their business. For reasons of efficiency, potters jointly bought and exploited layers of loam (they did not buy the respective plots) in the late eighteenth century.13 The fact that the first guild regulations (1435) did not address the matter of the acquisition of the loam, is telling.14 This loam naturally contains 30 to 40 percent of fine sand (of relatively little-rounded grains) and garnets, which didn’t need an elaborate additional process of ‘magering’, which was an additional economic advantage.15 This sand prevented the clay from

Earthenware from Bergen op Zoom (15th–16th Centuries) 17

Figure 1.1 The city of Bergen op Zoom is in the former estuary of the river Rhine (east-west oriented) during the Tiglien. The evenly grey areas roughly indicate the distribution of the Tiglien loam (after Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 120) and the hatchings in grey indicate the locations of former quarries (after Esri Nederland/Province North Brabant, Aardkundig Waardevolle Gebiedenkaart Noord-Brabant, consulted 19 January, 2022). Image editing Bart van Eekelen

becoming fatty, and as a result, bursting when being fired. This distinguishes the Tegelencomplex clay from other sources in petrographical characterization.16 Also, this clay is rich in iron – hence the bright red colour.17 The iron level also enabled the use of a relatively low firing temperature. (The inability of the material to withstand high firing temperatures is the exact reason why German stoneware could not be executed with local clay.)18 However, the secret lies in the presence of muscovite, a type of mica mineral, naturally apparent in sedimental layers from the Tegelen complex.19 This ensured the terracotta’s heat-conducting qualities and agility to expand and shrink with changing temperatures, which made it exceptionally fit for use in the kitchen.20 Millennia of Local Production Researchers face several problems when addressing local earthenware productions. Bergen op Zoom was one of the most important and largest production and export centres in north-western Europe. In Bergen op Zoom, we only worked with our own locally sourced clay. The local pottery is sometimes simply referred to as ‘redware’ as a generic designation of production type of pottery that acquired the characteristic reddish-brown colour due to the oxygen-rich firing (oxidizing baking). More generally, the term ‘red pottery’ indicates turntable pottery. The Bergen op Zoom pottery is usually kitchenware, that is either unglazed, partially glazed, or completely glazed.

18  Bart van Eekelen Not only the products were sold, but also the clay was sold. The clay was exported,21 but in many cities, it is unknown if the pottery was manufactured locally or not. The clay from the Bergen op Zoom region appears to have been processed by local potters in Aardenburg (Flanders, early fifteenth century), and in regions such as Zeeland (i.e. the city of Zierikzee), Holland and Friesland in the late Middle Ages and early modern period.22 It was subsequently exported from Amsterdam to far destinations like New Amsterdam (New York).23 The main trading routes for the Low Lands Ware mainly followed the course of waterways.24 The same raw material was used in many cities, thereby complicating the matter of formal and stylistic analysis. And potters did not use maker’s marks in this period yet, only from 1798.25 This all complicates our research. The Bergen op Zoom-Tholen region, the main cities at the Tegelen-complex, were the origin of the well-established type of redware that was formerly known as ‘Waasland Ware’ and was more accurately renamed ‘Low Lands Ware’. This red-greyish earthenware, dating from the second-century BCE to the second-century CE, was found in a large area in the Low Countries, from Ghent, Antwerp, Tongeren, Bergen op Zoom to Nijmegen. Especially the redware amphorae made from local clay were widely disseminated.26 Based on petrographical and chemical analysis of the clay, De Clercq concluded convincingly that it is the Tegelen-Formation clay that has been used in Bergen op Zoom since Roman times.27 Fragments of Roman miniature amphoras (model Dressel 20), roughly dating to the second-century AD, that have been excavated by the hundreds at a site of religious sacrifice or sanctuary were indeed of local origin, both its clay and production, as experts confirmed.28 These amphorae can be regarded as the first recorded local earthenware products; the first of the type called the Low Lands Ware that would come to supply a vast and growing market in the late Middle Ages. Characteristics of Potters’ Businesses In the high Middle Ages, the first ceramicists established their businesses in the city in the thirteenth century. At the end of this century, their workshops were located near the harbour29 and in the city centre. The oldest (archaeological) traces of this industry have been found along a main street which used to be appropriately called Oude Potterstrate (‘Old Potters Street’).30 This name affirms their presence in the city centre as early as the second quarter of the thirteenth century.31 From the late thirteenth century, the potters concentrated their businesses around the port area (contemporary name: Weele), which used to be outside the city walls.32 Smaller dumping pits of misfirings (flawed ware) were found near the Hoogeboomstraat (harbour area, dating from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries) and larger ones north of the harbour (fourteenth century).33 Besides the fact that the bakers left behind shards at the latter location, they also obtained loam there.34 On the north side of the harbour, a huge thirteenth- and fourteenth-century embankment of shards has been found, which served as a foundation for the expansion of the harbour as a headland, with a surface of at least 65 by 8 m and a depth of 0.5 m, or 260 m3.35 Aside from this one, there are more pits found that were used as deposits for misfirings. It proves the presence of a large-scale industry. As for the city’s overall economy, the potter’s business too flourished in the second half of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth century. Only in 1435, however, an official guild was established, marking the local potters as a significant factor in the local economy.36 Around 1500 and 1540, there were 7 potteries in the city, employing about 30 people. Several potters were also active in nearby Borgvliet in the fifteenth and

Earthenware from Bergen op Zoom (15th–16th Centuries) 19 sixteenth centuries. Around 1540, there were still 7. As the first city in the northern Low Countries, Bergen op Zoom welcomed its first majolica-producer in 1517/1518.37 The pottery industry grew to 22 potteries in the seventeenth century. But in the early eighteenth century, the number rapidly declined from 21 to 12. There were several reasons for their decline.38 One of the foremost was the overheated local industry,39 and increased imports of foreign terracotta and stoneware.40 Import and Export of Ideas Several factors determined the success of the industry. Important was the city privilege (before 1212), which allowed city walls to be erected and thereby provided practical as well as juridical aids to protect the local economy.41 By the sixteenth century, after a new building campaign, also the harbour was encircled by the walls. This ensured the continuous mercantile activities, even during several sieges that the city had to endure during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. For the trade of both the raw clay and the final products, the port was of the utmost importance.42 Furthermore, the manorial privilege of establishing two large, international markets that were held annually in the city, and further ducal, imperial, and royal aids, ensured a vast trading network.43 In addition, several international cities had established their own permanent trading houses or commercial buildings in Bergen op Zoom,44 which made the international commerce of clay and earthenware products relatively easy.45 In the late Middle Ages, the sellers were oriented to North-Western Europe’s mainland. Especially the province of North Holland, with Amsterdam as its foremost city, and the region around the Zuiderzee (North Holland, Utrecht, Guelders, Overijssel, Frisia) proved to be the most important sales area for potters from Bergen op Zoom. They controlled the market in these areas, while the craftsmen from nearby Oosterhout (also using Tegelen-Formation loam) were dominant in the narrower region in Brabant and South Holland. However, the competition was tight among numerous cities, which caused many economical and legal conflicts. Bergen op Zoom’s potters priced many smaller businesses out of the market.46 After Bergen op Zoom and Oosterhout (province of Brabant), other important production centres of terracotta kitchenware were Delft and Gouda (Holland).47 In conclusion, we see that assets of Bergen op Zoom as an important production centre of high-quality earthenware were several: the Tegelen clay, which was easily available close to the surface and at a close distance, good facilities for extraction of raw material and production of the earthenware, safe working environment, and lucrative trading opportunities. Uniformity in Bergen op Zoom Ware The guild organization proved to be a straitjacket to enhance uniformity and equality in all its appearances. The newly established guild regulations (1435) stipulated and standardized – among other aspects of driving the trade – the materials to be used: only local clay, lead and copper, or brass for glazing. The regulations stipulated that the materials to be used were ground lead, copper, and zinc (brass). The lead was used for glazing, which naturally turned translucent yellow and green when combined with copper filings.48 In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the reduced firing technique was common among the local potters.49 But there was always mass production of the (oxidized) redware, focused on stable quality, a maximum quantity, and standardized

20  Bart van Eekelen designs.50 At that time no product was ever signed or marked. Only from 1798 onwards, Bergen op Zoom pottery was marked with a city hallmark (‘B.o.Z.’ with three Andreas crosses). Because this pottery was sought after it was counterfeited.51 ‘Bergen op Zoom ware’ was an unofficially established type of pottery. It was so much identified with the city and the city’s pottery business as a whole, that authorities like the guild and the city council guarded their image.52 Individual ceramicists, therefore, had to comply with common standards, because marketing one low-quality type of product would affect the city’s public image. It was the popularity of the product that made the authorities continuously seek to maintain a precarious balance between supply and demand. Throughout the city’s history, from Classical Roman times, there has been a quite stable supply. Within Bergen op Zoom, several protectionist regulations served to enhance the equal playground for all local manufacturers and traders. The guild’s board, just like the city council, strove to enhance uniformity in type, style, weight and price of the products. For example, only local clay was used and the local potters were only allowed to export and sell local products. Since the seventeenth century, it was forbidden to create new models or types, so there was little innovation. Since the seventeenth century, there has been no renewal of form or expansion of the range of local pottery at all. It seems that the common practices of previous centuries became fixed bit by bit, not in the last place because of complaints by guild members themselves who denounced innovation. In 1757, it was again stated that the members of the potters’ guild were not allowed to produce models other than the existing ones.53 The internal competition had grown too big and the market became saturated. Imported materials, like majolica and German stoneware, were only allowed to be sold during the two annual international fairs.54 Only products of a different material and typology than the local product range offered (which therefore did not compete) were allowed to be sold. In addition, traders of imported wares were obliged to pay an ‘entrance fee’ to the local guild.55 It shows the protectionist mindset. That is why almost exclusively local pottery has been excavated in Bergen op Zoom. The strong internal rivalry led to mistrust, misbehaviour, and unfair practices. For example, manufacturers tried to outdo each other by entering new markets (cities) and by charging extremely low prices.56 Others brought new products to the market, such as larger pots and bowls, that forced other craftsmen to be competitive. But bigger products were relatively costly to produce because fewer of those could be placed in the kiln simultaneously. But stoking a bigger kiln required a longer firing process and more fuel.57 As a result, the financial margins were put under pressure due to an oversupply and too many producers. This unfair internal competition forced the city magistrate to intervene in the guild at the end of the seventeenth century and in the eighteenth century. That is why the guild board and the city council imposed or refined measures to standardize methods and prices. The general guild regulations (1435) were altered and extended several times (1626, 1653, 1658, 1688). In addition, there were agreements with the local skippers’ guild regarding transportation rates and insurances (1656, 1682, 1683, 1695, 1709, 1751), standardized selling prices (1688, 1695, 1711, 1753, 1781), measurements of the products (1693), the maximum number of businesses (1788), the number of apprentices, including detailed stipulations regarding working days and hours (1741, 1751, 1753, 1771). A more or less stable equilibrium between supply and sales was reached in the early eighteenth century.58 Conservatism and protectionist measures stalled invention.

Earthenware from Bergen op Zoom (15th–16th Centuries) 21 Thrown Back on the Local Clay In addressing characteristics of a local style, we face several problems. There were many small production centres anywhere loam could be dug up from. Terracotta was massproduced, especially in distinct product types like kitchenware. That is what Bergen op Zoom businesses specialized in. Sculpted pieces are rare, even decorated pieces are a minority. And – as mentioned before – in this city, no city mark was used until the late eighteenth century. Also, from a very early time onwards, Bergen op Zoom companies hired potters, who did the actual modelling, as day labourers. There is a pragmatic reason behind this: the apprenticeship of a potter would usually last seven years, so a good craftsman could be hard to find.59 The working force was shared, and so was the individual craftsman’s style. Thus, concepts and ideas were easily disseminated and dispersed. Until the fifteenth century, we can therefore not speak of a distinctive local style.60 In addition, potters migrated. Probably, already in the thirteenth century, the city witnessed a first influx of Flemish potters. The Bruges potters were probably the ones who introduced the turntable and the lead glaze there.61 Again in the fifteenth century, pot makers from Flanders (Aardenburg, Tienen, Malle, Hulst, Bruges) settled in Bergen op Zoom.62 More generally, in the fifteenth century, many new burghers who settled in the city were identified in the resident registration as potters.63 Thanks to this influx, the scale of the local industry grew. Again during the Twelve Years’ Truce (1609–1621), the influx of potters from other regions proved to be the decisive stimulus to conquering the nationwide market. Also in the following century, immigrants played a major role in branding the ‘Bergen op Zoom Ware’ and consolidating the dominant market position.64 These inflows had their impact on running businesses, but not on style. Also after this second influx of Flemish potters, the product range did not change significantly.65 The influx from Bruges potters may have had to do with the attempts to imitate Bruges pottery in the thirteenth century (in local clay, which caused it to fail).66 In Bergen op Zoom’s pottery, flat bottoms could not be made in pitchers (despite the mica), while they could be made in other clay types, like in the highly decorated Bruges pottery of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.67 Initially, the bottom often cracked. The ‘magering’ was therefore added to enhance the firing process by either adding sand or shards from old pots to the clay. Flat bottoms only appeared in Bergen op Zoom ware as late as the fifteenth century, because only then was the clay better purified. So it was the technical aspects of the material that determined the mode of application. The Clay Related to the Product Type The local clay proved to be particularly fit for a limited range of product types. Over the centuries, the local potters learned by trial and error which methods best matched the properties of the local loam. When methods for the refinement of the clay (like sieving and controlling the baking temperature) improved, the potters maximized the clay’s inherent qualities. An example of trial and error are the attempts to imitate stoneware. In the thirteenth century, Bergen op Zoom potters attempted to imitate German stoneware from the Rhineland using local clay.68 That stoneware was less poriferous and was therefore well-suited for drinking vessels. As far as we know, all the experiments failed. The items cracked during the firing process, because of the inadequate temperature in the kiln. As mentioned

22  Bart van Eekelen

Figure 1.2 Two grape model cooking pots from Bergen op Zoom, excavated from the same site, both dated c. 1300. The younger model (left) has legs instead of standing fins. Picture by Marco Vermunt, Archaeological Service Bergen op Zoom, 2007, from Vermunt, “Blubber, scherven en goud,” 93

before, due to the different chemical compounds of the local clay, the modelled ware of local clay could only stand relatively low firing temperatures (1000°C), while the stoneware was a harder material that needed higher baking temperatures (1200°C).69 It was due to the lower level of refinement of the clay and the lower firing temperatures. So the qualities of the clay determined the processing and application. For example, the tight, straight edges ensured a more rapid drying during the baking process, which increased the chance of cracking. That is why rounded shapes were preferred and only minimal changes occurred in designs: for example, the foot brim of cooking pots was replaced by three short legs; the belly became more rounded; and horizontal rims emerged on the shoulders (Figures 1.2 and 1.4). It was further enhanced by the ever-present thick sides of all of the wares. These features enhanced the inherent, heatresistant, and heat-guiding qualities of the clay. Mica improved the practical usage of the pottery because it becomes more resistant to higher temperatures, which makes the clay fit for use in the home. There were many different types of kitchen utensils from Bergen op Zoom, precisely because fire resistance was important. Thus the product range was determined by the clay. It is one of the reasons for the limitation of the product range.70 Therefore, too, the initiative for developing new product types was low. This product range comprised grape model pots, saucers, water pitchers, braziers, fire tests, albarellos, bowls, frying and baking pans, fire covers, colanders, and more.71 Also, there was little variation in types and models precisely because it concerned common wares instead of luxury products. Furthermore, many shapes were specific to a particular product type, because they proved to be (cost) efficient and practical. By the beginning of the fifteenth century, most of the product types were established already and changes were minimal. Uniformity Outside Bergen op Zoom Once established and of proven practical use, a particular design could be kept in use for centuries. Unfortunately, not only the stylistic idiom was the same among the Bergen op Zoom potters – it was more or less the same all across the northern Low Countries.

Earthenware from Bergen op Zoom (15th–16th Centuries) 23 Stylistic differences were minimal, if not absent. However, they might vary among the type of pottery and the production centre. In several other Netherlandish cities like ‘s-Hertogenbosch (province of Brabant), Utrecht (Utrecht), and Dordrecht (South Holland), the stylistic idiom was very similar. Pots from Amsterdam (North Holland) were not only made of the same clay but also in the same shapes.72 Even to specialists, the different cities’ productions are indistinguishable.73 For example, this goes for the ‘traditional’ grape model, which emerged around 1300 and became a standardized model in different cities for centuries (Figure 1.2). Even today, archaeologists often can’t indicate where the product was manufactured. Primarily, the context of an archaeological finding might reveal whether the pottery was likely produced locally or not. Pragmatic and User-Friendly Developments Some seemingly decorative features were merely functional, either for the producer or the client, or both. In general, decoration was sparingly applied by local potters. Objects like frying pans and cooking pots were made of red-baked terracotta and had a layer of lead glaze for practical use. Storage pots, bowls, and pitchers were more often reduced baked and thus grey – these could not be glazed.74 Sometimes white pipeclay was used to create a colour contrast on the redware. For this visual effect, the bright red colour of the Tegelen clay was sometimes combined with the white pipeclay, which was imported from England and Cologne.75 But such a layer also absorbs part of the baking stress when baking in the oven.76 So its use was partly aesthetic, partly functional. The demands of the user were served in several ways. The glazing of the pottery was cost-effective. The kitchenware was only partially glazed.77 It was only applied with practical use in mind. For example, only the shoulder of a cooking pot would be glazed, as when pouring from the pot, the contents might be spilled.78 From the fifteenth century, more ribbed surfaces with ‘turning ribs’ appeared (ills.). This development was initially thought to be purely aesthetic. These small rims not only provide more strength, but also provide a larger surface area, meaning more possibilities to remove tension, so that the heat would be dissipated better. It ensured a more gradual heat absorption and release during its regular use. Cooking Pots A prominent change is the evolution of low-standing rims or fins into legs. This shift occurred in specific types of wares and can be understood from the perspective of the client. Around the fourteenth century, the wall fireplace became a widespread feature of the contemporary home.79 This new way of heating required different kitchenware. In Bergen op Zoom, stand rings were used from the fifteenth century for storage jars and water jugs; from the early sixteenth century also in chamber pots.80 But fins and the longer legs ensured a better flow of the heat. Bergen op Zoom’s dishes were always placed on stand lobes, pitchers almost always had pinched fins along the bottom edge, and cooking pots did initially have three standing fins. But the fins of cooking pots evolved into three legs from the early fourteenth century onwards.81 These legs raised the pot slightly higher. The reason was probably the better heat distribution during cooking because it led to the heat around the belly better. Also, one or two vertical ears were placed on the pot. This new model is what is called the ‘grape’. This was so successful that the main

24  Bart van Eekelen shape of this Bergen op Zoom model remained virtually unchanged for centuries.82 The general design was uniform not only locally, but internationally. The rims of fifteenth-century Bergen op Zoom cooking pots were stylistically particularly similar to those from Amersfoort, Schiedam and Goedereede.83 An evolution that took place during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was in the edge of the embouchure of the grape or cooking pot (Figure 1.3 and 1.4). This pot was the most important type of pottery from Bergen op Zoom but is also known to have been manufactured in the early fifteenth century in Rotterdam. In the fifteenth century about the only variation in designs showed in mouth rims, but according to Groeneweg, this stylistic difference was merely due to the fact that entrepreneurs hired several potters.84 Around 1500, the rim was usually finished off with two, slightly thicker, horizontal rims. According to Groeneweg, from around 1600, the local potters from Bergen op Zoom and nearby Oosterhout (using the same loam) collaboratively developed a uniform edge profile, to make their products visually identifiable.85 From about the middle of the sixteenth century, the mouth became a bit higher and the lowest ridge became a bit more pronounced, or sharp.86 This became the predominant model for cooking pots and cans for all local potters until well into the nineteenth century.87 This development can also be seen in the double-ridged or sickle-shaped rim of the teil, a large bowl. This particular style denoted the Bergen op Zoom area.88 This profile of the mouth rim was partly decorative, to make the Bergse pottery recognizable, and to enforce the object’s structural strength. The increased thickness of the edge was stronger and its profile sharper (not too sharp, because

Figure 1.3 Cross sections of grape model cooking pots, last quarter of the sixteenth century, drawn from failed baking products of pottery Croonenburgh. The upper models show the older type of rim, the lower show the evolved type. Drawing by Gerrit Groeneweg, 1992, from Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 66

Earthenware from Bergen op Zoom (15th–16th Centuries) 25

Figure 1.4 Grape model cooking pot from Bergen op Zoom, second half of the sixteenth century, Museum Het Markiezenhof, Bergen op Zoom, BOZ011000301

that would more easily crack during the firing and when bumped during use) increasing inherent stiffness. These developments are better understood from the point of view of the user. Generally speaking, the mouths of cooking pots became wider, because this facilitated stirring of the pots’ contents. In addition, the lowering of the mouth rim indicates that the pots were not heated by glowing ashes or coals (that were stacked around the pot) anymore but by a fire. This fact is further indicated by the growing absence of soot deposits on the outsides of cooking pots that resulted from digging the pots into coals or ashes. That is why heat conduction across the belly could benefit from elongating the legs and adding horizontal ridges on the belly. Saucepans In the design of the saucepan, too, the shape was largely determined by considerations of practicality. During the drying of the moulded clay, at abrupt angles, the shrinking forces work in opposite directions. Therefore, a more convex shape and a locally thinner side were preferred, as in bottoms.89 This type of pan provides another example of the relation of stylistic development over centuries to practical concerns (Figure 1.5). The emergence of the rounded belly, the three legs, and the horizontal rims improved the heat conduction. Obviously, the material had its limitations and it was due to the refinement of production techniques that the spans of flat surfaces could increase. Also, for a pragmatic and financial reason, the hollow handle disappeared: it required two separate actions by the ceramicist. As we have seen with grapes, the manufacturers discovered that a sharp edge in the handle’s profile, that is the notch across the length of the handle, improved its strength.90 Frying Pans The same goes for the frying pan, which was technically difficult to manufacture. For example, it always had to be glazed, to enable the cleaning of caked-on food remains. The bottom also had to be flat and as wide as possible, and at the same time be sturdy and able to withstand as much baking stress as possible. It was not until the second half

26  Bart van Eekelen

Figure 1.5 Stylistic development of the Bergen op Zoom saucepan with handle, between c. 1450 and 1800. Emergence of the round belly, the three legs, and the horizontal rims that improved the heat resistance. Drawing by Gerrit Groeneweg, 1992, from Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 211

of the sixteenth century that it was possible to make flat frying pans (Figure 1.6).91 However, as in many object types, the sturdy thickness of the material ensured superb heat conduction. We see a development in the form in the first half of the fourteenth century. From then on, the hollow, round handles, which were laborious to manufacture, were slowly replaced by flat, folded handles, that in the sixteenth century became twisted in

Figure 1.6  Frying pan from Bergen op Zoom, second half of the sixteenth century. The bottom is flatter due to advancement of techniques such as refined sieving and a more constant oven temperature, which prevents cracking. The end of the stem has been folded over. Archaeological Service Bergen op Zoom, inv.no. RTO F118-50. © Bart van Eekelen

Earthenware from Bergen op Zoom (15th–16th Centuries) 27 addition. The style of the mouth rim was comparable to bowls and pans as found in other cities in Flanders, Brabant, and Holland.93 92

Conclusions There are direct links between practical usage and stylistic elements of the earthenware products that were manufactured in the Bergen op Zoom region, because some stylistic or aesthetic characteristics of the products in question seem to have a clear practical use. This is not to imply that these were of no aesthetic value. The shape definitely seems to be in close conjunction with the material quality, but there seems to be a deliberate development in harnessing the material properties of the clay to practical uses. Experiments were conducted, but on the other hand, restrictive legislation did not allow much development. Protectionist regulations, together with limitations of the material, slowed down innovation. The main conclusion is that the success of the product did not rely merely on the technical ingenuity of its maker but was directly related to the natural conditions of the inherent mineral structure of the clay. Some differences do arise from material properties. All unique Bergen op Zoom features or shapes, such as mouth rims, to a greater or lesser extent, arise from technical quality/necessity. This once more characterizes the Bergen op Zoom ware as a successful mass product. Stylistic differences among Bergen-wares were minimal. They were not merely a result of individual potter’s workmanship, a result of a deliberate choice of a company, but a well-considered middle ground between efficiency and pragmatism. We might say that the local potters didn’t make the maximum use of the physical properties that the local clay offered. They did not push the boundaries of stylistic innovation. Instead, due to several incentives, they were quite conservative. But the potters did refine the technical qualities of their products, thereby taking the best possible advantage of the properties of the unique Tegelen loam. It was the mineral composition that made the qualitative difference. Notes 1 Special thanks to Alexander van der Kallen who willingly shared his knowledge in many conversations. 2 See the bibliographical entries. 3 Louis J. Weijs, “Techniek en produktie van de Bergen op Zoomse potmakers,” in Tussen hete vuren. Deel II. Techniek en produkt, familiebetrekkingen en archivalia van de Bergen op Zoomse potmakers, eds. Korneel J. F. Slootmans, Louis J. Weijs, and Kees C. J. van de Watering (Tilburg: Stichting Zuidelijk Historisch Contact, 1970), 3–4. 4 Slootmans, Weijs, and Van de Watering, Tussen hete vuren, two volumes. 5 This research was carried out by F. H. (F.F.F.E.) van Rummelen, geologist at the Geologisch Bureau voor het Nederlandsche Mijngebied and head of the geological service for the Delta Works. It was thus proven that both grayware and redware were created from the same clay. In the 1960s, petrochemical characterization of what was then regarded Bergen op Zoom ware was too costly. Louis Weijs, oral communication to author, March 13, 2022. 6 Robert Van Wageningen, “Ceramiekimporten in Amsterdam: een mineralogisch herkomstonderzoek” (PhD diss., University of Amsterdam, 1988). 7 Marco Vermunt and Alexander van der Kallen, Opgravingen in Bergen op Zoom (Utrecht: Uitgeverij Matrijs, 2012), 62. 8 Province North Brabant, “Gebiedsanalyse Brabantse Wal (128). Programma Aanpak Stikstof (PAS),” version December 15, 2017, accessed January 27, 2022, https://www.natura2000.nl/sites/ default/files/PAS/Gebiedsanalyses_vigerend/128_Brabantse-Wal_gebiedsanalyse_15-12-17_ NB.pdf, 6–10; Cornelis Kasse, “De Brabantse Wal. Op de grens van hoog en laag, oud en jong,” Grondboor en Hamer 6 (2009): 175–178; Sjoerd J. Kluiving, “Plan van Aanpak behoud geologisch monument Groeve Boudewijn en ontwikkeling educatief centrum (gemeente Woensdrecht).”

28  Bart van Eekelen GEO-LOGICAL 43 (2009), accessed January 27, 2022, http://brabantsewal.nl/client/doc/ groeve.planvanaanpak.pdf, 8–12; Van Wageningen, “Ceramiekimporten in Amsterdam,” 2, 148. 9 Gerrit Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk. Vormgeving en decoratie van gebruiksaardewerk gedurende 600 jaar pottenbakkersnijverheid in Bergen op Zoom (Waalre: Stichting Brabants Heem, 1992), 18; Korneel J. F. Slootmans, Tussen hete vuren. Deel I: Economischsociale geschiedenis van het potmakersambacht te Bergen op Zoom 1400–1925 (Tilburg: Stichting Zuidelijk Historisch Contact, 1970), 149–151. 10 Vermunt and Alexander Van der Kallen, Opgravingen in Bergen op Zoom, 67. 11 “Brabantse Wal. Beheerplan.” Province North Brabant, version April 2018, accessed January 27, 2022, https://www.brabant.nl/-/media/e8ed9532d7e74604bbc156aa449d33b5.pdf, 14. 12 Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 119; Maxime Poulain, Koen De Groote and Wim De Clercq, “Pots from Troublesome Times: Ceramics Used in Middelburg-in-Flanders (Belgium) during the Eighty Years’ War,” Medieval Ceramics 34 (2013): 9. 13 Archival sources with regard to the unearthing of loam are rare. Slootmans, Tussen hete vuren. Deel I, 149–151. 14 Slootmans, Tussen hete vuren. Deel I, 9. 15 Mageren (verb) or magering (noun): additives to the clay used by the potter, to prevent the clay – often of unstable quality – from cracking during the baking. Most widely used were sand, grit, crumbled earthenware or vegetal remains. However, Roman votive amphorae from Bergen op Zoom contained some sandstone fragments and remains of crushed ceramics. Wim De Clercq and Arjen Bosman, “Het ‘Waaslands’ aardewerk. Typo-chronologische en petrografische karakterisatie van een belangrijke regionale kermamiekproductie [sic] en haar verspreiding in N-W-Gallië (ca. 50–250 AD),” (Vorderingsverslag FWO-Kredieten aan Navorsers, Ghent University, s.a.), 4. The ‘Low Lands Ware’ from the Bergen op Zoom region is therefore also described as containing fine sand as addition. Koen De Groote et al., “Resten van Romeinse bewoning aangetroffen bij twee vondstmeldingen aan de Edingsesteenweg te Kester (Gooik, prov. Vlaams-Brabant),” Signa, no. 4 (2015): 86–90. 16 De Clercq and Bosman, “Het ‘Waaslands’ Aardewerk,” 3–4. 17 Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 121; Ryan A. J. Niemeijer and Coen van Pruissen, Bergen op Zoom – Paradeplaats: Een bijzonder vondstcomplex met mini-amforen (Nijmegen: Auxilia, 2009), 25 (note 32). 18 Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 119–120, 129; Vermunt and Van der Kallen, Opgravingen in Bergen op Zoom, 66. 19 De Clercq and Bosman, “Het ‘Waaslands’ Aardewerk,” 5. 20 Vermunt and Van der Kallen, Opgravingen in Bergen op Zoom, 62. 21 Only until 1612, when the city’s magistrate forbade the export of the local loam. This is another example of the restrictive measures used to protect local entrepreneurs. Slootmans, Tussen hete vuren. Deel I, 25. 22 Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 20, 119–121; Menno Dijkstra et al., “Aardewerk uit de middeleeuwen en nieuwe tijd (ca. 450–heden),” KNA-Leidraden Anorganisch Materiaal, Leidraad 5 version 1.1, 2020, https://www.sikb.nl/doc/archeo/leidraden/KNA%20Leidraad%20 5%20Aardewerk_middeleeuwen_nieuwe%20tijd%20versie%201.1.pdf, 35. Slootmans, Tussen hete vuren. Deel I, 31. 23 Vermunt and Van der Kallen, Opgravingen in Bergen op Zoom, 69. 24 De Clercq and Bosman, “Het ‘Waaslands’ Aardewerk,” 6; Wim De Clercq and Patrick Degryse, “The mineralogy and petrography of Low Lands Ware 1 (Roman lower Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt basin; the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany),” Journal of Archaeological Science 35 (2008): 456. 25 The States-General of the Netherlands were to grant permission for the formal use of an official trademark. For political reasons and because of conflicting economic interests, the juridical process (initiated in 1766) became stalled for decades. Eventually, Bergen op Zoom in 1798 introduced a trademark on its own account. As Slootmans wrote, it seems not far-fetched to assume that the use of a trademark would have been regarded as a mark of quality, that would positively discriminate the superior Bergen op Zoom ware. Slootmans, Tussen hete vuren. Deel I, 164–167, 176–177. 26 Chiem van Houweninge and Hugo Thoen, “De productie van Gallo-Romeins aardewerk bij de Tungri, de Nervii en de Menapii,” Vlaanderen 46, no. 1 (1997): 147; Marco Vermunt, Wim De

Earthenware from Bergen op Zoom (15th–16th Centuries) 29 Clercq, and Patrick Degryse, “An Extraordinary Deposit. A Roman Sanctuary with Miniature Amphorae in Bergen op Zoom.” In Roman Material Culture. Studies in Honour of Jan Thijssen, ed. Harry Van Enckevort (Zwolle: SPA. Foundation for the Promotion of Archaeology, 2009). 27 The Tegelen member earthenware is referred to as ‘Group 1’ in their research. De Clercq and Bosman, “Het ‘Waaslands’ Aardewerk,” 4–5; De Clercq, and Degryse, “The mineralogy and petrography of Low Lands Ware 1”. 28 Niemeijer and Van Pruissen, “Bergen op Zoom – Paradeplaats,” 20, 43–44; De Clercq and Degryse, “The mineralogy and petrography of Low Lands Ware 1,” 454–455; Vermunt, De Clercq, and Degryse, “An Extraordinary Deposit.” 29 Present-day Dubbelstraat. 30 Present-day Fortuinstraat. 31 The excavated parts of misfirings (flawed ware) were manufactured on a turntable. They are among the oldest shards of medieval ceramics found in the Netherlands. Yolande Kortlever, Bergen op Zoom: een stadsgeschiedenis in vogelvlucht (Bergen op Zoom: Boekhandel Quist, 2014), 18–19. 32 Vermunt and Van der Kallen, Opgravingen in Bergen op Zoom, 64–65. 33 Present-day Wilhelminaveld. 34 Marco Vermunt, “Blubber, scherven en goud: archeologisch onderzoek onder het Ribbensterrein (1),” De Waterschans 37, no. 3 (2007): 92, 94. 35 It is one of the largest archaeological finds of shards that have been found in the Netherlands and it might be even larger. Vermunt, “Blubber, scherven en goud,” 90–92, 94; Marco Vermunt, “Het ontstaan van de haven van Bergen op Zoom.” In Krabbegat, ‘Avestad, da’s m’n gròòte dròòm! Het ontstaan, de geschiedenis en de toekomst van de Bergse haven, eds. Johanna Jacobs, Yolande Kortlever, and Jan Peeters (Bergen op Zoom: Geschiedkundige Kring van Stad en Land van Bergen op Zoom, 2005), 14. 36 Archival source: Bergen op Zoom, West-Brabants Archief, arch. no. 5, inv.no. 3028. Transcriptions in: Slootmans, Weijs and Van de Watering, Tussen hete vuren. Deel II, 119–127; Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 244–250. 37 Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 34–39; Slootmans, Tussen hete vuren. Deel I, 18–19. As elsewhere, this local majolica was a luxury product, tin-glazed and brightly coloured. Vermunt, and Van der Kallen, Opgravingen in Bergen op Zoom, 69; “Aardewerk uit Bergen op Zoom.”; “Aardewerk uit Bergen op Zoom,” Brabants Erfgoed, published November 22, 2017, accessed December 8, 2019, http://www.brabantserfgoed.nl/page/4187/ aardewerk-uit-bergen-op-zoom. 38 Slootmans, Tussen hete vuren. Deel I, 33, 56, 74; Kees van de Watering, “Bergen op Zoomse Potbakkers-Familie’s Tussen 1600 en 1700,” De Brabantse Leeuw 5 (1956): s.p.; Vermunt and Van der Kallen, Opgravingen in Bergen op Zoom, 69. 39 “Aardewerk uit Bergen op Zoom”. 40 Slootmans, Tussen hete vuren. Deel I, 74. 41 Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms Aardewerk, 20, 244–250. 42 Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms Aardewerk, 20–21; Gerrit Groeneweg, “De haven als levensader van de Bergse potmakersnijverheid.” In Krabbegat, ‘Avestad, da’s m’n gròòte dròòm! Het ontstaan, de geschiedenis en de toekomst van de Bergse haven, eds. Johanna Jacobs, Yolande Kortlever, and Jan Peeters (Bergen op Zoom: Geschiedkundige Kring van Stad en Land van Bergen op Zoom, 2005), 83–94. 43 Those two fairs existed by 1338. Gradually the city acquired more privileges and rights that would enhance unhindered passage, toll dispensations, protection of traders and goods, etc. so that by the mid-fourteenth century one can speak of ‘market freedom’. By royal English privilege Bergen op Zoom was allowed to import and sell English textiles (woollen fabrics). Korneel J. F. Slootmans, Paas-en Koudemarkten te Bergen op Zoom, 1365–1565 (Tilburg: Stichting Zuidelijk Historisch Contact, LXIV–LXVI, 1985), 6–7, 15–37, 618–619, 716–717. 44 This trading network spanned many European countries beyond the Low Countries, for example England, Scotland, Sweden, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, sometimes clustered in specific regions like Sicily, Lombardy, Burgundy, Normandy, Bretagne, Biscay, Lorraine, the Baltic region, and individual cities, for example London, Berwick, Newcastle, Tournai, Riga, Wrocław, Gdańsk, Kraków, Basel, Rouen, Albi, Paris, Strasbourg, Paderborn, Leipzig, Ulm, Cologne, Lübeck, Nuremberg, Aachen, Seville, Geneva, Genova, Florence, Lucca, Venice, and Pisa. Individual merchants as well as trading societies often regularly visited

30  Bart van Eekelen the two annual fairs. Foreign factions like the English (the Merchant Adventurers), the Scottish and Portuguese trading nations, and the Hanseatic society owned their own trading houses within the city. English merchants, who formed the largest faction in town, even owned 64 houses in the so-called ‘English street’. In addition, Bergen op Zoom had trading houses of Weert, Armentières, Diest, Nieuwkerke, Antwerp, Turnhout, Tongeren, and Nuremberg in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The most important traded goods were English wool (privileged), linen, cheap and costly fabrics, spices, grains, wine, beer, and dyes (most prominently madder). Slootmans, Paas-en Koudemarkten, 300–384, 519–617, 739. 45 The absence of terracotta products in the written records (Rentebrieven en Recognitiën, and Procuratiën en Certificatiën) related to all types of financial transactions (i.e. to the fairs), might be explained by the fact that local products did not require any technicalities to enter the market (and therefore hardly left any traces in written records), by the low intrinsic and commercial values of these commodities, and by assuming that selling via regular trade was more effective than via the fairs. The established trading network for the clay and the final terracotta product range functioned separately and independently from the fairs. In addition, Slootmans argues that the potters were relatively poor. In the rare cases, where individual potters are mentioned, they act as debtors or loan-takers. Furthermore, he argues that some trading agreements that existed between Bergen op Zoom and – in his example – Middelburg (Zeeland) were handed down orally. Slootmans, Tussen hete vuren. Deel I, 13–14. 46 Groeneweg, “De haven als levensader van de Bergse potmakersnijverheid,” 84–87. 47 Slootmans, Tussen hete vuren. Deel I, 124. 48 Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 128–129. 49 It was proven by the analysis of diatoms in fragments of ceramics that both grayware and redware were created from the same clay. Thus, the different colours are a result of different firing techniques, that is, the regular (oxygen-rich) and the reduced firing. Louis Weijs, oral communication to author, March 13, 2022. 50 This tendency is called ‘functionality’ by Groeneweg. Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 123. 51 Then, however, the marks became imitated too, in places like Leur, Oosterhout (Brabant), and Zierikzee (Zeeland). Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 105–110; Slootmans, Tussen hete vuren. Deel I, 224. 52 Louis Weijs, oral communication to author, March 13, 2022. 53 Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 90; Slootmans, Tussen hete vuren. Deel I, 148. 54 Other types of earthenware products could not be excluded, however. Those became locally produced and imported. The first record of the importing of majolica dates from 1487. Between 1517/1518 and 1550, there were two majolica-ware manufacturers in Bergen op Zoom. In the house named De Kannemanshoek (‘the corner of the can men’), cans of German stoneware from the Rhineland were sold and/or distributed in the first half of the sixteenth century. Besides, German “Oosters en Hessels” earthenware were imported from the sixteenth century. Especially from the second half of the eighteenth century, the Netherlands witnessed a wave of cheap ‘Frankfurt ware’, stoneware or grès earthenware from the Frankfurt region and the Lower Rhine region in western Germany. After having effectuated an import duty on these wares with the States-General of the Netherlands (1771, 1774), it emerged that this earthenware was smuggled into the Netherlands. Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 20, 36–39, 231–236; Slootmans, Tussen hete vuren. Deel I, 23, 124–145. 55 Slootmans, Tussen hete vuren. Deel I, 19–21, 58. 56 Slootmans, Tussen hete vuren. Deel I, 45, 48. 57 For this reason, the big milk tubs became exempted from new regulations (1751). Slootmans, Tussen hete vuren. Deel I, 48, 65; Louis Weijs, oral communication to author, March 13, 2022. 58 Slootmans, Tussen hete vuren. Deel I, 40, 53–55, 58, 63–65. 59 Louis Weijs, oral communication to author, March 13, 2022. 60 Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 29. 61 Vermunt and Van der Kallen, Opgravingen in Bergen op Zoom, 64–65. 62 Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 20, 120. 63 However, relatively little waste has been found in archaeological excavations from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries – the reason is unknown. 64 Slootmans, Tussen hete vuren. Deel I, 56–57.

Earthenware from Bergen op Zoom (15th–16th Centuries) 31 65 Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 20; Vermunt and Van der Kallen, Opgravingen in Bergen op Zoom, 67. 66 Vermunt and Van der Kallen, Opgravingen in Bergen op Zoom, 64. 67 From the late twelfth century, several production centres, like Bruges and Ghent, introduced lead-white glazing and the oxidized baking technique. This resulted in red-baked wares. Redware rapidly became dominant in the market. The most highly decorated pieces were decorated with a painted pattern of white sludge, which contrasted with the red terracotta. At the same time, a new object type emerged: the jug or pitcher. Dries Herreman, “Laatmiddeleeuws aardewerk van onder het Cellenbroerderklooster te Veurne. Een bijdrage aan het stadsarcheologisch onderzoek en de regionale aardewerkstudie,” (MA thesis, Ghent University, 2010), 28–29, 57. 68 Also, in the second half of the eighteenth century, it took Dutch potters decades to decipher the mysteries of the production of white Frankfurter ware. Groeneweg, “De haven als levensader van de Bergse potmakersnijverheid,” 90–92; Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 89–91, 121. 69 Vermunt and Van der Kallen, Opgravingen in Bergen op Zoom, 63–67. 70 “Zowel de concurrentie als de weinig variabele mogelijkheden van de grondstof, boden in de 17e en 18e eeuw weinig gelegenheid een groter afzetgebied te vinden dan bereikt was.” Slootmans, Tussen hete vuren. Deel I, 55. 71 See for descriptions and images of stylistic characteristics, and typologies Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 22, 144. 72 Vermunt and Van der Kallen, Opgravingen in Bergen op Zoom, 67. 73 Marco Vermunt, oral communication to author, July 12, 2021. 74 Vermunt, “Blubber, scherven en goud,” 92. 75 Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 121. 76 Such a layer was already used in Bruges in the thirteenth century (and this technique may also have been introduced by citizens of Bruges in Bergen op Zoom), but for that they used river clay that is very refined. Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 121, 125. 77 Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 128. 78 Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 157. 79 Herreman, “Laatmiddeleeuws aardewerk,” 31. 80 Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 127. 81 Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 127. 82 Vermunt, “Blubber, scherven en goud,” 93. 83 Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 157. 84 Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 157. 85 Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 123; Groeneweg, “De haven als levensader van de Bergse potmakersnijverheid,” 85–86, 124, 157. 86 “De scherpe richel tussen mondrand en schouder.” Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 124, 157. 87 Groeneweg speaks of “een ver doorgevoerde uniformiteit van het randprofiel van de Bergse kookpotten.” Pottery Croonenburgh had a leading role in this development. Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 25, 52–55, 58, 156–159. 88 Together with the unmistakable clay type, Poulain, De Groote, and De Clercq identified Bergen op Zoom as the origin of the piece found in Middelburg (Flanders, Belgium). Poulain, De Groote, and De Clercq, “Pots from Troublesome Times,” 12. 89 Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 127. 90 Louis Weijs, oral communication to author, March 13, 2022. 91 Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 145. 92 Vermunt, “Blubber, scherven en goud,” 93. 93 Groeneweg, Bergen op Zooms aardewerk, 145.

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Earthenware from Bergen op Zoom (15th–16th Centuries) 33 Vermunt, Marco and Alexander van der Kallen, Opgravingen in Bergen op Zoom (Utrecht: Uitgeverij Matrijs, 2012). Wageningen, Robert van, “Ceramiekimporten in Amsterdam: Een Mineralogisch Herkomstonderzoek.” PhD diss., (University of Amsterdam, 1988). Watering, Kees van de, “Bergen op Zoomse Potbakkers-Familie’s Tussen 1600 en 1700,” De Brabantse Leeuw 5 (1956): 33–192. Weijs, Louis Jacobus, “Techniek en Produktie van de Bergen op Zoomse Potmakers.” In Tussen hete vuren. Deel II, Techniek en produkt, familiebetrekkingen en archivalia van de Bergen op Zoomse potmakers, edited by Cornelis Johannes Franciscus Slootmans, Louis Jacobus Weijs, and Kees van de Watering (Tilburg: Stichting Zuidelijk Historisch Contact, 1970), 3–52 (Bijdragen tot de geschiedenis van het zuiden van Nederland XIX).

2

Making a Virtue Out of a Necessity Lorenzo Mercadante’s Use of Terracotta in Seville Cathedral Nicola Jennings The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, United Kingdom

Introduction1 Between August 1464 and January 1468, the chapter of Seville Cathedral made several payments to the Breton sculptor Lorenzo Mercadante for “ymágenes en barro para la yglesiam” (images in clay for the church).2 The cathedral was a building site, work having started in the 1430s to replace the converted mosque which had served the city’s faithful since its conquest by Ferdinand III in 1248.3 With new chapels and portals coming on stream by the early 1450s, the chapter needed sculpture. The ymágenes en barro to which the payments refer were in 1911 linked by Manuel Gómez Moreno to the spectacular terracotta figures and reliefs in the jambs and tympana of the Portals of the Baptism and the Nativity on the cathedral’s western façade (Figures 2.1 and 2.2).4 In 1449, some of the archivolts had been decorated with prophets and angels in a local stone, but this was not deemed suitable for larger sculptures.5 At some point between then and 1464, the decision was made to use terracotta for the tympana and jambs – a bold choice, given that there was no tradition of monumental sculpture in terracotta in Castile by that time, and no evidence that Mercadante had a track record in terracotta.6 This article looks at Mercadante’s technique, and at how, when, and where he might have acquired it. Gómez Moreno’s attribution of the works in terracotta to Mercadante resulted from making the connection between the figures in the portals and those on an alabaster tomb inscribed with the words “Lorenzo Mercadante from Brittany carved this tomb.”7 The tomb was produced for the funerary chapel of Cardinal Juan de Cervantes, an eminent and widely travelled figure who had died in 1453. According to the cathedral’s 1454 Libro de Fábrica, on the twenty-third of March of that year “maestre lorenço mercador ymagenero” was given six hundred maravedíes “to cover his costs because he was asked in a letter to come from France to work in the church.”8 The skill with which Cervantes’ effigy is carved, the fact that Mercadante was summoned from “France,” and the considerable sum paid for his work indicate that he had considerable standing as a tombier in the Île de France, probably trained in one of the workshops set up in Brittany during the rule of Jean V (1399–1442).9 Very little is known about Mercadante’s life and professional trajectory, either before 1454 when he arrived in Seville, or after 1468 when he is last documented in the city. Mercadante is likely to be a hispanised version of the Breton name Marc’hadour, but this name has not been linked to any work outside of Spain. The only earlier reference we have relates to his signature on 28 April 1446 of an apprenticeship contract of one year with Fontaner de Usesques, maestre de obra de pedra e pintor (master of works in stone and painter) from Morlans in the Pyrenees.10 According to Javier Ibáñez and Diego Domínguez, the conditions and remuneration attached to the contract indicate DOI: 10.4324/9781003327462-4

Making a Virtue Out of a Necessity 35

Figure 2.1 Lorenzo Mercadante, Tympanum with The Nativity, 1464–68, terracotta with traces of polychromy, dimensions of tympanum approx. 200 × 300 cm, Portal of The Nativity, Seville Cathedral. © Nicola Jennings

that Mercadante was already a master sculptor, and the apprenticeship was just a way of getting around Saragossa’s guild rules. It is thought that he collaborated with Usesques on various items including a pair of shields on the Palacio de la Diputación del Reino and an alabaster Virgin in the city’s cathedral. Mercadante seems to have stayed in the region until at least 29 May 1448 when his contract was terminated. Nothing is known about his whereabouts between then and his arrival in Seville in 1454. Although the measurements of Mercadante’s sculptures on the portals of Seville Cathedral have not been published, I estimate that the figures in the jambs are approximately 170 cm high, with the figures in the tympana varying between 90 and 110 cm high.11 Mercadante’s figures have never been removed for examination in the round, but they have been studied in situ for conservation purposes.12 According to the restorer Conja Cirujano, they were modelled with rolls of clay from the bottom up.13 Projecting areas like drapery folds and arms and hands were modelled separately and inserted at a leather hard stage into cavities designed to receive them, with slip used to secure the joins. The modelling of the main figures had to be done in stages, so that the lower areas had dried out sufficiently to bear the weight of additional clay but were still malleable enough for new rolls of clay to be added. On the basis of the holes in the backs of the only figures to have been dismounted – the small freestanding Seated Prophets in the architraves, now attributed to Pedro Millán (fl. ca. 1487–1515) – it is assumed that there are holes in the backs of all of the figures. Details such as strands of hair, wrinkles and different cloth textures, were added with spatulas and serrated tools, whilst areas of skin were burnished smooth. Once the figures were partly dry or leather hard, they were cut with a wire into three or four sections which would fit into the kiln as well as facilitate the process of thinning

36  Nicola Jennings

Figure 2.2 Lorenzo Mercadante, Saint Mark, 1464–68, terracotta, approx. 170 × 70 cm, Portal of The Nativity, Seville Cathedral. © Nicola Jennings

the interior walls. Although Cirujano does not discuss the kiln itself, Mercadante may have adapted one of those used by the Seville’s many potters.14 Nevertheless, with no local tradition of firing large objects such as some of the reliefs discussed below, Mercadante must have known about the specific requirements of this kind of operation, such as how long to leave his works in the kiln, at what temperature to fire them, how to maintain this temperature at constant levels, and how to distribute the heat in a uniform manner.15 After firing, polychromy was applied to some of the elements only. There are remains of blue and gold polychromy on The Nativity in the tympanum of the eponymous portal. Although no polychromy has been found on either The Baptism or on the sculptures in the jambs, there are traces of gesso tinted with ochre pigment which are assumed to be related to an early restoration.16 However, given the polychromy on The Nativity, it is also possible that this gesso is original and that the intention was to polychrome the entire ensemble. Although Cirujano does not discuss them, the faces of the male saints correspond to three or possibly four types – one of them similar to the face of Mercadante’s effigy of Cardinal Cervantes. The faces of the female figures are all one of a single type. This raises the possibility that Mercadante used moulds as part of the production process, not only for the faces but also, for example, for the virtually identical embroidered copes, chimeres, cassocks, and mitres worn by three of the male saints. The production of the reliefs in the tympana would have been an even more complex operation, requiring considerable planning and skill. Mercadante must have started with

Making a Virtue Out of a Necessity 37 drawings to work out how his ideas for the Baptism and Nativity scenes could be produced in segments that would fit into the kiln. On basis of the author’s own examination of the Nativity from ground level and photographs, these segments consist of: the individual figures of the Virgin, Joseph, the Holy Infant and the midwife; the crib with its pitched roof and musical angels above it; the town scene above the midwife; the façade of the stable with the ox and donkey; the group of shepherds above the stable; the angel above the shepherds; and the pitched rooves above the Virgin and stable door. This roughly corresponds to a map of where sand and lime mortar were used originally to attach the reliefs to the stonework.17 Then Mercadante would have modelled the various elements. These include the figures and large elements (such as the heads of the ox and ass) which are ¾ in the round; smaller elements such as hands and door fittings; and elements which have a shallower profile such as the group of shepherds to the proper right of the Nativity. The larger elements were sectioned into various pieces for firing,18 but first Mercadante would have had to ensure that all the various segments fitted together, allowing for shrinkage in the kiln. The identification of Mercadante as the author of the figures on the cathedral portals has led to the attribution to him of several polychromed terracotta figures, mainly of the Virgin and Child, in religious institutions in and around Seville.19 Although in-depth studies of many of these figures remain to be done, at least four of the Virgin and Child sculptures appear to be autograph and are very close to the female saints in the portals. One of them, the Virgen del Buen Fin, was studied when it was on the art market and being conserved by Rafael Romero and Adelina Illán (Figure 2.3).20 At 165.5 cm high, it is

Figure 2.3 Lorenzo Mercadante, Virgen del Buen Fin, ca. 1460, terracotta with traces of polychromy, 165.5 × 61 × 46.5 cm, Nicolás Cortés Gallery, Madrid. © Nicola Jennings

38  Nicola Jennings close in size to my estimate of the height of the sculptures in the portal jambs. Like those figures, it was built up from rolls of clay, and the X-rays showed no other elements (such as metal rods) within the core. This, and the long opening at the back, led Romero and Illán to conclude that Mercadante had used an ephemeral core, probably made of wood and straw, to give shape and support to the structure as it was being built. This would be burnt out when the figure was fired. The opening at the back also enabled the sculptor to thin the internal walls and reinforce them with slip, placing a brick across the opening in the upper section for additional support (Figure 2.4). As he did with the figures in the portals, the sculptor then worked the exterior surfaces, for example, to suggest the fabric of the gown and mantle. Fine transversal joins at the chest, waist and knee levels show where the body was cut into sections. At the waist, this was hidden after firing with a belt. Elements such as the hands and head of the Virgin and body of the Child were modelled separately. An aperture to facilitate the escape of hot air during firing at the top of the Virgin’s head was filled with ochre-coloured material. After firing, the figures were covered in a ground of gesso bound in animal glue, with lead white added for areas of skin, and, finally, they were fully polychromed.21 The question is, where did Mercadante acquire the considerable technical skills required to produce all of this to such high standards? His contemporaries in France such as Michel Colombe used terracotta only for small maquettes.22 The few finished works in terracotta in France in this period were small polychromed altarpieces and figures

Figure 2.4 Lorenzo Mercadante, Virgen del Buen Fin, ca. 1460. Reverse of the sculpture showing the reinforcement across the opening in the upper back. © Carlos Herraíz

Making a Virtue Out of a Necessity 39 produced in Utrecht between about 1470 and 1530 using a very different, mould-based technique.23 There are nevertheless striking similarities between some of Mercadante’s shepherds and angels and those in the Nativity scenes in these altarpieces. Although the current dating makes it impossible for Mercadante to have seen them before he left for Seville, there may have been earlier examples in northern France by that time.24 The only sculptors producing monumental work in terracotta within relatively easy reach of Seville in the mid-15th century were in Barcelona. Antoni Claperós, master builder of Barcelona Cathedral between 1414 and 1454, was contracted in 1450 to produce a series of twelve apostles in terracotta for a new portal at Girona Cathedral (Figure 2.5).25 These figures were destroyed in 1936, but photographs from the early 20th century show that they were similar in conception if not in style to Mercadante’s saints in the portals in Seville. The contract – one of a few for a commission in terracotta in this period to survive – specifies that the Girona figures should be made “of that or similar earth from which the image of Santa Eulària [sic] in the tympanum of the new portal of Barcelona [Cathedral] is made,” adding that “Claperós must give to … each of them a lustre of white or similar that he has given to the image of Saint James that he has in his house in Barcelona.”26 Claperós, assisted by his sons Joan and Antonio, was also required to bring clay from Barcelona, to be responsible for the cost of the kiln and firewood, and to ensure that the sculptures would be durable.27 This provides an insight into the difficulty and cost of locating the right clay and an appropriate kiln. Although it is not known how the Apostles were produced, we can assume it was using a similar technique to the one he used for the smaller sculpture of Saint Eulalia to which the 1450 contract refers and which is now in the museum of Barcelona Cathedral.28 This figure is again stylistically

Figure 2.5 Antoni Claperós, Apostles, 1458, terracotta, height and width unknown, Portal of the Apostles (destroyed 1936), Girona Cathedral. 1908 © 2014 Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic – im. 05239007 (foto Mas C-2218/1908)

40  Nicola Jennings different to Mercadante’s female saints but appears to have been made in a similar way: the body was divided into four sections before firing, and the head and elements such as the hands were modelled separately and attached with slip. It is not known where Antoni Claperós learnt this technique, but it could have been in Barcelona itself, for example from the Florentine Giulano di Nofri who worked on the cathedral cloister in the 1430s and to whom several Florentine terracottas have been attributed.29 It seems plausible, therefore, that, if Mercadante did not already have experience of producing monumental figures in terracotta, he could have visited Barcelona for instruction from Claperós. Nevertheless, neither Antoni nor Juan Claperós appears to have produced reliefs. Given the specific challenges these must have presented, it seems likely that Mercadante acquired the necessary skills for this part of his work elsewhere, either before or after arriving in Seville. As far as we know, the only other areas of Europe in which monumental production in terracotta was taking place in the first half of the 15th century were parts of central Europe, mainly in present-day Germany, and Italy.30 In Germany, there were two principal centres producing innovative and high-quality works in the first few decades of the century, although they appear to have mostly stopped doing so by the time Mercadante was in Seville. Nevertheless, it is useful to look at what they had been producing in the previous decades as certain works are comparable in some ways to Mercadante’s. The first centre was in the Middle Rhein, where two different techniques were used. The Virgin and Child on a Crescent Moon (ca. 1415) from the abbey of Eberbach, is compositionally similar to Mercadante’s Virgins, with the gown draped in a similar way and Jesus carried high, facing the front, and with his legs crossed over each other. Nevertheless, the Eberbach sculpture is one of several produced from a mould rather than built from the ground up with an ephemeral core (Figure 2.6).31 A similar technique was used to produce small two terracotta reliefs of the Adoration of the Magi, now in the Liebieghaus dated to the same period.32 The second technique, closer to Mercadante’s, was used for the Christ on the Way to Calvary altarpiece (ca. 1425–30) from the Martinskirche in Lorch.33 The figures which make up this ensemble measure between 20 and 67 cm high, with the entire group’s width measuring 142 cm. Here the figures were produced not with moulds but by means of the “hollow core” technique first described by Hubert Wilm and more recently by Bodo Buczynski.34 The sculptor started work on a horizontal wooden board, creating flat backs for the different pieces and building them up from the sides. They were then turned upright with supports inserted through rectangular holes of 7 × 5.5 cm on the backs to keep the figures’ shapes until they were leather hard. Garments, hands, limbs, and heads were modelled separately and attached with a slip. Moulds were used to produce the faces, with only five different types repeated across some eighteen figures, individualised by pressing the damp clay with modelling tools. However, unlike Mercadante’s works which were sectioned before firing, the Lorch pieces were produced in such a way as to be joined together with slip when they had reached leather hardness, with the ensemble fired as one composite piece. This would have required a very large kiln, given that the work is 143 cm wide. By my estimate, none of Mercadante’s pieces in Seville would have been larger than 70 or 80 cm. Also attributed to the Lorch workshop on the basis of technique, style and repetition of motifs is the Tondoerffer Epitaph (1415–1430) in Nuremberg, which takes the form of a relief.35 This measures 93 cm high × 49.3 cm width × 8 cm deep, with the higher relief elements modelled using the hollow core technique as described by Wilm and Buczynski. The individual figures were modelled on a base from the bottom up, with the heads,

Making a Virtue Out of a Necessity 41

Figure 2.6 Anonymous sculptor, The Virgin and Child on a Crescent Moon, ca. 1415, polychrome terracotta, 102 × 40 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris (from the Abbey of Eberbach). © RMNGrand Palais (musée du Louvre)/Christian Jean

arms, hands, and other projecting elements modelled separately. Once again, the work appears to have been assembled and dried before firing. Comparable to the Tondoerffer Epitaph in terms of style is a work produced in Bavaria, one of the other centres of terracotta production in Southern Germany. This is the relief of the Throne of Mercy with Six Angels (110 × 70 cm) (ca. 1450) in the church of St Martin and Kastulus in Landshut (Figure 2.7).36 Like the nine Apostles (ca. 1410–1420) today in the Jakobkirche and Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, and a series of sculptures of the Virgin and Child from the same period in Augsburg, this relief appears to have been modelled using the hollow core technique.37 The Landshut relief is significantly deeper than the Tondoerffer Epitaph, with figures ¾ in the round – similar in depth to Mercadante’s figures of the Virgin, Joseph, and the midwife in Seville. However, although the angels grouped around the Throne of Mercy are generally reminiscent of the angels around Mercadante’s crib in Seville, neither this nor any of the other works produced in Bavaria are technically or compositionally similar enough to Mercadante’s to suggest a direct connection. Turning now to Italy, it was here – in Tuscany and Lombardy, in particular, the latter having little marble suitable for sculpture – that Europe’s most innovative work in terracotta was being produced. Technological developments in the painting and firing of ceramics had encouraged the exploitation of terracotta as an artistic medium, with interest in it heightened by the rediscovery of its use by classical sculptors.38 Mercadante

42  Nicola Jennings

Figure 2.7 Anonymous sculptor, Throne of Mercy with Six Angels, ca. 1450, terracotta, 110 × 70 cm, church of St Martin and Kastulus, Landshut. © Bildarchiv Foto Marburg/Paul Haag

is likely to have heard about works such as Lorenzo Ghiberti’s terracotta Virgins, Luca della Robbia’s altarpieces, and Michele da Firenze’s unparalleled cycle of high reliefs in Verona’s Basilica of Sant’Anastasia through court patrons in France, clergymen who had spent time in Italy, and Genoese merchants in Seville. There is little in the Breton sculptor’s work to suggest that he visited Florence. He did not, for example, attempt to copy the glazing technique developed by the Della Robbia even though his own sculptures were destined for exterior display. It is in his relief-making technique, instead, that we see significant parallels, which are difficult to explain without hypothesizing a trip to northern Italy. As Amy Bloch and Daniel Zolli have recently underlined, many sculptors travelled widely, one of the primary reasons being to learn and be inspired.39 It would have been relatively easy for Mercadante, at some point between 1454 and 1464 (when the first payment was made for his Seville terracottas), to get a boat from Seville to Genoa and make his way overland from there. He may have stopped in Milan, whose cathedral was a great draw for oltramontani, and terracotta roundels and friezes were being used in the decorative schemes of buildings such as the Banco Medicea.40 From Milan, he may have made a short detour to the Certosa di Pavia, where a new sculpture campaign, including an extensive programme of reliefs and small sculptures in terracotta, had begun in 1462. Founded by Gian Galeazzo Visconti, the Certosa was well known at the French court, Galeazzo’s first wife having been the daughter of Jean le Bon of France, and his daughter having married the Duke of Orleans.

Making a Virtue Out of a Necessity 43

Figure 2.8 Rinaldo de Staulis, Prophet, ca. 1464, terracotta, approx. 40 × 30 cm, Certosa di Pavia, Chiostro Piccolo, west façade. © Alessandro Barbieri

The work in terracotta at the Certosa was led by Rinaldo de Staulis and Francesco Solari, each of them running a workshop producing friezes for the Great and Small Cloisters.41 It is generally agreed that De Staulis, who had produced a number of terracotta friezes in various locations around Lombardy, took charge of the south and west façades.42 On the basis of parallels between the heads in the friezes of these façades in the Small Cloister and eight of the busts in the roundels below them, Matteo Facchi convincingly argues that De Staulis was also a highly skilled sculptor (Figure 2.8).43 They are of a type that is both expressive and naturalistic, produced throughout northern Europe in this period and very close to the heads fashioned by Mercadante for his saints in the jambs in Seville. Judging by the similar features shared by several of them, De Staulis used moulds for their faces, somewhat individualising them – for example by tilting the direction of their gaze, and the varying length of their beards and hair – when the clay was still damp. If Mercadante did visit Pavia, it may have been here that he learnt to use this technique. De Staulis and Solari must have had workshops nearby or onsite and gaining access to them would not have been difficult. As Bloch and Zolli note, these spaces were porous, with large entrances to make it easy for materials and finished works to go in and out. They were also places for exchange of information, gossip, and trade secrets.44 Another source of inspiration for Mercadante might have been Michele da Firenze – the first Italian sculptor to specialise entirely in terracotta – who started his career in Florence but left for Northern Italy in 1427.45 Also known as Michele di Niccolò di Dino, Michele had trained in Ghiberti’s workshop, and produced the reliefs in Verona in the mid-1430s (Figure 2.9).46 The cycle had been commissioned following instructions in the will of Antonio Pellegrini (d. 1429), and includes seventeen high-relief polychromed and gilded

44  Nicola Jennings

Figure 2.9 Michele da Firenze, panel with scenes of The Nativity, The Adoration and The Baptism from the Life of Christ cycle, 1433–38, terracotta, approx. 120 × 80 cm, Basilica de San’t Anastasia, Verona © WGA

panels of the Life of Christ, five saints and the kneeling Pelligrini. They were stripped of their original polychromy and gilding in the 19th century. Mercadante would no doubt have been impressed by the overall conception of the work, and loose parallels can be drawn between, for example, the vertical arrangements of scenes, the use of higher relief for emphasis of the stable and Holy Family, and motifs such as the wicker fences, with similar features in his reliefs in Seville. But Mercadante would have been above all interested in how the cycle was made. Although Michele had died in 1453, Mercadante as a skilled craftsman would have been able to deduce some of this simply by looking closely at the work, and there were likely to be younger sculptors in the area who had trained in Michele’s workshop and could provide further details. Michele’s son Marsilio, for example, who assisted him for some of time at Sant’Anastasia, was active as an independent craftsman from 1448.47 And there were other terracotta specialists active in the region such as De Staulis, Solari, the Master of the Singing Angels, and Niccolo del’Arca.48 As Bruce Boucher comments, Michele could only have produced the Verona panels thanks to his extensive experience of modelling relief sculpture in Ghiberti’s studio.49 There are no early manuals about the making of reliefs, but as Giancarlo Gentilini suggests, the working methods of Michele and other Florentines skilled in the production of such works follow the instructions given in Cipriano Piccolpasso’s mid-16th century Three books of the potter’s art and Francesco Carradori’s 1802 Istruzione elementare per gli studiosi della scultura.50 On the basis of the physical evidence in Seville, the method described in these manuals is the one followed by Mercadante. The sculptor would start the reliefs on a large board lined with paper to make it easier to remove the finished model.

Making a Virtue Out of a Necessity 45 The relief would then be built from the bottom upwards, with a projecting strip along the lower edge of the board to prevent the work from sliding off. Overhanging or particularly complex three-dimensional elements might be modelled or cast separately and joined with slip once they were leather hard. Large figures were modelled with ephemeral internal supports, with a hole in the head and long apertures on the back to facilitate drying and firing. In the figures, these apertures usually went from the base all the way up to the place where the separately modelled head would join with neck, with a bridge inserted at some point for reinforcement (as in Mercadante’s Virgen del Buen Fin).51 Large reliefs were often made in several pieces – ensuring a constant density of clay to obtain a similar degree of shrinkage – or, more often (especially for the figured parts), by sectioning them once leather hardness has been reached. The cuts wherever possible followed the lines of the design, camouflaged along the profiles of figures and architectural parts. This also mitigated against possible distortions during drying and firing. As in Pavia, moulds were used for many of the faces, with modifications made before firing. Whether Mercadante visited northern Italy or not, the techniques he used in producing the terracotta sculptures and reliefs on the Portals of the Nativity and Baptism in Seville are based on methods developed in Italy in the early 15th century. This technique was significantly different to those used in Germany, which was not, in any case, producing much terracotta sculpture by the time Mercadante was working in Seville. He could have learnt how to produce individual figures and how to make sure the kiln was fit for purpose from Antoni or Joan Claperós in Barcelona. The spectacular reliefs in Seville presented, however, an additional set of technical and conceptual challenges which Mercadante is unlikely to have learnt how to deal with from the Claperós. In an era when sculptors often travelled long distances, it would surely have made perfect sense for Mercadante to see for himself Michele’s impressive cycle in Verona, and to find out how it was made by skilled and innovative craftsmen in the area who continued to specialise in terracotta in the second half of the 15th century. Notes 1 I would like to thank Zuzanna Sarnecka and Agnieszka Dziki for inviting me to speak at the conference in September 2021; Professor Giancarlo Gentilini for his comments; and Professor Aldo Galli for sharing his ideas and inviting me to attend a subsequent conference on the rebirth of terracotta sculpture in Italy and Germany at the University of Trento. 2 “En XXIX de agosto dio al dicho maestre Lorenço para en cuenta de los maravedies que ha de auer por facer las ymagines de barro para la iglesia fasta XIX de diciembre cinco mil maravedies son en tres partidas VM.” [A.C.S., Fondo Capitular, Sección Fábrica, Libro de las cuentas de la fabrica de la iglesia de Sevilla añode MCCCC o LXIIII o de que fue mayordomo Juan de Xeres canonigo, ant. 10, 9344, f. 41 r.]. This document was first published by José Gestoso y Pérez, Sevilla monumental y artística (Seville: Monte de Piedad y Caja de Ahorros de Sevilla, 1984. First published 1982), 2: 521. 3 Teresa Laguna Paúl, “Las portadas del Bautismo y del Nacimiento de la catedral de Sevilla,” Bienes Culturales, Revista del Patrimonio Histórico Español 1 (2002): 84. 4 Manuel Gómez-Moreno, “Jooskén de Utrecht, arquitecto y escultor?” Boletín de la Sociedad Castellana de Excursiones (1911): 63. 5 Laguna Paúl, “Las portadas del Bautismo y del Nacimiento,” 85. 6 Francisco Arquillo Torres, “El estado de conservación de las esculturas de Mercadante que decoran las Portadas del Bautismo y el Nacimiento en la Catedral de Sevilla,” Atrio. Revista de Historia del Arte 2 (1990): 149. 7 “LORENÇO MERCADANTE DE BRETAÑA ENTALLO ESTE BULTO.”

46  Nicola Jennings 8 “En veynte e tres de março di a maestre lorenço mercador ymagenero seysçientos maravedíes los quales fueron que le dio para la costs porque vino por su llamado desde françia por vna carta suya para que labrase en la iglesia.” (My translation) Archivo Catedral de Sevilla (A.C.S.) Fábrica, Cargo y Data, 1454, n/f. Also see Francisco Reina Giráldez, “Llegada a Sevilla y primeras obras del escultor Lorenzo Mercadante de Bretaña,” Archivo Hispalense 70, no. 215 (1987): 143–151. 9 Over the following years, Mercadante was paid a total of 33,400 maravedíes, a considerable sum in comparison to other masters employed by the cathedral. See Teresa Laguna Paúl, “De la línea al volumen: génesis figurativa y modelos grabados en la obra de Lorenzo Mercadante de Bretaña,” in Copia e Invención. Modelos, réplicas, series y citas en la escultura europea. II encuentro internacional de museos y colecciones de escultura, ed. A. Gil Carazo (Valladolid: Museo Nacional de Escultura, 2013), 139. On the Breton workshops, see Emanuelle Le Seac’h, Sculpteurs sur pierre en Basse-Bretagne: les ateliers du XVe au XVIIe siècle (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2014), 55–67. 10 Javier Ibáñez Fernández and Diego Domínguez Montero, “Antes de Sevilla: Lorenzo Mercader (Mercadante) de Bretaña en Zaragoza (doc. 1446–1448). Transferencias e intercambios entre las Coronas de Aragón y Castilla a mediados del siglo,” Artigrama 30 (2015): 161–191. 11 All estimates of dimensions are my own and due to absence of published information. 12 In 1992, the Junta de Andalucia commissioned a study of the two portals resulting the following year in the unpublished report by Pérez Rodríguez, J L, Jiménez de Haro, M C y Justo Erbez, A et al., “Estudio científico de las puertas del Bautismo y Nacimiento de la Catedral de Sevilla.” Between 1999 and 2001, the Instituto del Patrimonio Histórico Español carried out a conservation project focussing on the portals. There is a report on this project by CORESAL from September 1999 (see note 17). This was followed between 1999 and 2009 with a programme of maintenance. See Concha Cirujano, Fernando Guerra-Librero, and Teresa Laguna Paúl, “Metodología de intervención en las portadas del Nacimiento y del Bautismo de la Catedral de Sevilla: programa de mantenimiento,” accessed August 2021, ICOM Committee for Conservation 13th Triennial Meeting, Rio de Janeiro, 20–27 September 2002. ICOM Publications Online https:// www.icom-cc-publications-online.org/2253/Metodologia-de-intervencion-en-las-portadas-delNacimiento-y-del-Bautismo-de-la-Catedral-de-Sevilla–programa-de-mantenimiento. 13 Concha Cirujano, “Proceso de intervención en las portadas del Nacimiento y del Bautismo en la Catedral de Sevilla,” Bienes Culturales 1 (2002): 101–120. 14 According to Bruce Boucher, there is evidence that clay sculptures were fired in potters’ kilns alongside more mundane ceramic items. See “Italian Renaissance Terracotta: Artistic Revival or Technological Innovation,” in Earth and Fire, Italian Terracotta Sculpture from Donatello to Canova, ed. Bruce Boucher (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 5. 15 Prof. Giancarlo Gentilini notes that Florentine terracotta sculptors required highly sophisticated kilns enabling this kind of control. Giancarlo Gentilini, “La Scultura Fiorentina in Terracotta del Renascimento: Tecniche e Tipologie,” in La scultura in terracotta: tecniche e conserazione, ed. Maria Grazia Vaccari (Florence: Ministero per i beni culturali e ambientali, Opificio delle pietre dure e laboratori di restauro di Firenze, 1986), 95. 16 Cirujano, “Proceso de intervención,” 107–108. 17 CORESAL, “Restauración de la Puerta de San Miguel o del Nacimiento. Catedral Metropolitana de Sevilla. Tomo I” (unpublished report), (Seville: September 1999), 8. This is confirmed by Arquillo Torres, “El estado de conservación,” 151. 18 Cirujano, “Proceso de intervención,” 103. 19 Teresa Laguna Paúl, “The Virgen del Buen Fin in the Context of the Sculptural Oeuvre of Lorenzo Mercadante de Bretaña,” in Lorenzo Mercadante de Bretaña: Virgén del Buen Fin, eds. Teresa Laguna Paúl and Nicola Jennings (London: Coll & Cortes), 57. 20 Rafael Romero and Adelina Illán, “Analysis of production techniques in two sculptures in polychromed terracotta by Lorenzo Mercadante,” in Lorenzo Mercadante de Bretaña, 82–85. 21 It is not our intention to discuss the techniques of polychromy in this article. 22 Susie Nash, “‘Adrien Biaunevopt, faseur des thombes’: André Beauneveu and sculptural practice in late fourteenth-century France and Flanders,” in ‘No Equal in Any Land’. André Beauneveu: artist to the courts of France and Flanders, ed. Susie Nash (London/Bruges: Paul Holberton, Musea Brugge, 2007), 61. 23 Catheline Périer d’Ieteren and Annick Born, eds., Retables en terre-cuite des Pays-Bas (XVe – XVIe siècles) (Brussels: Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1992).

Making a Virtue Out of a Necessity 47 24 Jap Leeuwenberg, “Die Ausstrahlung Utrechter Tonplastik,” in Studien zur Geschichte der europäischen Plastik. Festschrift Theodor Müller zum 19. April 1965, ed. Kurt Martin (Munich: Hirmer), 151–161. 25 Jaime Marqués Casanovas, “El Portal de los apóstoles en la Seo de Gerona,” Revista Girona, 72 (1975): 6–12. 26 “…d’aquella o semblant terr que és obrada la imatge de santa Eulària I la creu del portal nou de Barcelona…Claperós ha de donar als dits apòstols I a cadscun d’aquells ell lustre de blanc o semblant que ha donat a la imatge de sant Jaume que té a Barcelona a casa seva de la dita terra.” Cited by Marqués Casanovas, “El Portal de los apóstoles,” 8. 27 Joan (d. 1468) was commissioned in 1460 to produce an Annunciation for Girona Cathedral, also in terracotta, but we have not been able to locate this. Antoni and Joan also produced a series of sculpted bosses in the cloister of Barcelona Cathedral. 28 Antoni Claperós, Saint Eulalia, before 1458, Museo de la Catedral de Barcelona. No measurements are available, but we estimate that it is about 90 cm high. 29 Andrea Franci, “Giuliano di Nofri scultore fiorentino,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 45 Bd., H. 3 (2001): 431–468. 30 There appears to have been some production in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries in Bohemia too, but this is poorly understood. One example of this is the Bust of the Virgin (ca. 1390–95) now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (acc. No. 2005.393). 31 Marta Rembiesa-Darowska, “La Vierge à l’Enfant d’Eberbach,” in Sculptures médiévales allemandes: conservation et restauration: Actes du colloque organisé au musée du Louvre par le service culturel les 6 et 7 décembre 1991, ed. Sophie Guillot de Suduiraut (Paris: La Documentation française, 1993), 65–77. 32 Hubert Wilm, Gotische Tonplastik in Deutschland (Augsburg: Dr Benno Filser Verlag, 1929), 57 and Figures 8 and 9. 33 Tobias Kunz, Bildwerke nördlich der Alpen  1050 bis 1380: Kritischer Bestandskatalog der Berliner Skulpturensammlung (Imhof: Petersberg, 2013), 361–371. 34 Tobias Kunz, Bildwerke nördlich der Alpen, 19. Bodo Buczynski, “Kunstreich aus Ton geformt – die Herstellung der Lorcher Kreutztragung,” in Die Lorcher Kreuztragung: Tradition und Experiment in der mittelrheinischen Tonplastik um 1400, eds. Bodo Buczynski and Juliane von Fircks (Petersberg: Michel Imhof, 2015), 26–35. 35 Buczynski, “Kunstreich aus Ton geformt,” 42–43. 36 Martin Hirsch, Die spätgotische Tonplastik in Altbayern und den angrenzenden Regionen (Petersberg: Michael Imhof, 2010), 148. It is one of three terracotta reliefs from this period at the same church, although the other two are in lower relief and do not appear to be by the same hand. 37 See Frank Matthias Kammel, Die Apostel aus St. Jakob. Nürnberger Tonplastik des Weichen Stils (Nuremberg: Germanisches Nationalmuseum, 2002), and Kunz, Bildwerke nördlich der Alpen, 263–268. 38 Boucher, “Italian Renaissance Terracotta,” 1; Gentilini, “La Scultura Fiorentina in Terracotta,” 71. 39 Amy R. Bloch and Daniel M. Zolli, “Making and Unmaking Sculpture in Fifteenth-Century Italy,” in The Art of Sculpture in Fifteenth-Century Italy, eds. Amy R. Bloch and Daniel M. Zolli (London; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 18. 40 Vito Zani, “Tre inediti medaglioni in terracotta e gli spolia del Banco mediceo di Milano,” Antiquita.Mi, 2014, accessed August 2021, http://antiqua.mi.it/Zani_Terrecotte_Mag2014.htm. 41 Matteo Facchi, “Qualità e industria in Rinaldo de Staulis: il cantiere della Certosa di Pavia e la ‘Madonna col Bambino’ della Rocca di Soncino,” Bolletino d’Arte (Jan-Mar 2020): 63–74. 42 Adolfo Venturi, Storia dell’arte italiana. VI. La scultura del Quattrocento (Milan: U. Hoepli, 1908), 872–875. 43 Facchi, “Qualità e industria in Rinaldo de Staulis,” 63–66. I am grateful to Matteo Facchi for talking to me about his research into De Staulis and giving me permission to reproduce his image of one of the busts. 44 Bloch and Zolli, “Making and Unmaking Sculpture,” 11. 45 Aldo Galli, “Prima di Amadeo: sculture in terracotta in Lombardia attorno alla metà del Quattrocento,” in Maria Grazia Albertini Ottolenghi and Laura Basso, eds. Terrecotte nel Ducato di Milano: artisti e cantieri del primo Rinascimento, atti del convegno (Milan: Et, 2013), 43.

48  Nicola Jennings 46 Ettore Napione and Aldo Galli, “L’altare in terracotta della cappella Pellegrini: frammenti di Michele da Firenze,” Verona Illustrata 21 (2008): 43–67. 47 Paride Berardi, Marsilio di Michele da Firenze: una congiuntura Pesaro-Castiglione Olona (Pesaro: Società pesarese di studi storici, 2000). 48 For a summary of terracotta sculpture in Lombardy at this time, see Galli, “Prima di Amadeo,” 43–58. 49 Boucher, “Italian Renaissance Terracotta,” 8. 50 Gentilini, “La Scultura Fiorentina in Terracotta del Renascimento,” 72–91. 51 Gentilini, “La Scultura Fiorentina in Terracotta del Renascimento,” 79.

Bibliography Arquillo Torres, Francisco. “El estado de conservación de las esculturas de Mercadante que decoran las portadas del Bautismo y del Nacimiento de la cathedral de Sevilla,” Atrio: revista de arte 2 (1990): 145–158. Berardi, Paride. Marsilio di Michele da Firenze: una congiuntura Pesaro-Castiglione Olona (Pesaro: Società pesarese di studi storici, 2000). Bloch, Amy and Daniel M. Zolli. “The Art of Sculpture in Fifteenth-Century Italy.” In The Art of Sculpture in Fifteenth-Century Italy, edited by Amy Bloch and Daniel Zolli (London/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 1–38. Boucher, Bruce. “Italian Renaissance Terracotta: Artistic Revival or Technological Innovation.” In Earth and Fire, Italian Terracotta Sculpture from Donatello to Canova, edited by Bruce Boucher, 1–31 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001). Buczynski, Bodo. “Kunstreich aus Ton gerformt – die erstellung der Lorcher Kreutztragung.” In Die Lorcher Kreuztragung: Tradition und Experiment in der mittelrheinischen Tonplastik um 1400, edited by Bodo Buczynski and Juliane von Fircks, 10–49 (Petersberg: Michel Imhof, 2015). Cirujano Gutiérrez, Concha. “Proceso de intervención en las portadas del Nacimiento y del Bautismo de la catedral de Sevilla,” Bienes Culturales 1 (2002): 101–120. Cirujano Gutiérrez, Concha, Fernando Guerra-Librero, and Teresa Laguna Paúl. “Metodología de intervención en las portadas del Nacimiento y del Bautismo de la Catedral de Sevilla: programa de mantenimiento.” ICOM Committee for Conservation 13th Triennial Meeting, Rio de Janeiro, 20–27 September 2002 accessed August 15, 2021, https://www.icom-cc-publications-online. org/2253/Metodologia-de-intervencion-en-las-portadas-del-Nacimiento-y-del-Bautismo-de-laCatedral-de-Sevilla–programa-de-mantenimiento. CORESAL. “Restauración de la Puerta de San Miguel o del Nacimiento. Catedral Metropolitana de Sevilla.” Seville (1999). Facchi, Matteo. “Qualità e industria in Rinaldo de Staulis: il cantiere della Certosa di Pavia e la ‘Madonna col Bambino’ della Rocca di Soncino,” Bolletino d’Arte (Jan-Mar 2020): 63–74. Franci, Andrea. “Giuliano di Nofri scultore fiorentino,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 45 (2001): 431–468. Galli, Aldo. “Prima di Amadeo: sculture in terracotta in Lombardia attorno alla metà del Quattrocento.” In Terrecotte nel Ducato di Milano: artisti e cantieri del primo Rinascimento, atti del convegno edited by Maria Grazia Albertini Ottolenghi and Laura Basso, 43–58 (Milan: ET, 2013). Gentilini, Giancarlo. “La Scultura Fiorentina in Terracotta del Renascimento: Tecniche e Tipologie.” In La scultura in terracotta: tecniche e conservazione, edited by Maria Grazia Vaccari, 64–103 (Florence: Ministero per i beni culturali e ambientali, Opificio delle pietre dure e laboratori di restauro di Firenze, 1986). Germanisches National Museum, undated. Objektkatalog. Accessed August 2021: https://objektkatalog. gnm.de/wisski/navigate/109708/view. Gestoso y Pérez, José. Sevilla monumental y artística, vol. 2 (facsimile of 1892 edition), (Seville: Monte de Piedad y Caja de Ahorros de Sevilla, 1984).

Making a Virtue Out of a Necessity 49 Gómez-Moreno, Manuel. “Jooskén de Utrecht, arquitecto y escultor?” Boletín de la Sociedad Castellana de Excursiones V (1911): 63–66. Hirsch, Martin. Die spätgotische Tonplastik in Altbayern und den angrenzenden Regionen (Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2010). Ibáñez Fernández, Javier and Diego Domínguez Montero. “Antes de Sevilla: Lorenzo Mercader (Mercadante) de Bretaña en Zaragoza (1446–1448). Transferencias e intercambios entre las Coronas de Aragón y Castilla a mediados del siglo XV,” Artigrama 30 (2015): 261–303. Kammel, Frank M. Die Apostel aus St. Jakob. Nürnberger Tonplastik des Weichen Stils (Nuremberg: Germanisches Nationalmuseum, 2002). Kunz, Tobias. Bildwerke nördlich der Alpen 1050 bis 1380: Kritischer Bestandskatalog der Berliner Skulpturensammlung (Petersberg: Michel Imhof, 2013). Laguna Paúl, Teresa. “Las portadas del Bautismo y del Nacimiento de la catedral de Sevilla,” Bienes Culturales, Revista del Patrimonio Histórico Español 1 (2002): 83–101. Laguna Paúl, Teresa. “De la línea al volumen: génesis figurativa y modelos grabados en la obra de Lorenzo Mercadante de Bretaña.” In Copia e invención. Modelos, réplicas, series y citas en la escultura europea, II Encuentro internacional de museos y colecciones de escultura, edited by A. Gil Carazo, 137–150 (Valladolid: Museo Nacional de Escultura, 2013). Laguna Paúl, Teresa. “The Virgen del Buen Fin in the Context of the Sculptural Oeuvre of Lorenzo Mercadante de Bretaña.” In Lorenzo Mercadante de Bretaña: Virgen del Buen Fin, edited by Teresa Laguna Paúl and Nicola Jennings, 47–70 (London: Coll & Cortes, 2016). Le Seac’h, Emanuelle. Sculpteurs sur pierre en Basse-Bretagne: les ateliers du XVe au XVIIe siècle (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2014). Leeuwenberg, Jap. “Die Ausstrahlung Utrechter Tonplastik.” In Studien zur Geschichte der europäischen Plastik. Festschrift Theodor Müller zum 19, April 1965, edited by Kurt Martin, 151–161 (Munich: Hirmer, 1965). Marqués Casanovas, Jaime. “El Portal de los apóstoles en la Seo de Gerona,” Revista Girona 70 (1976): 6–12. Nash, Susie. “‘Adrien Biaunevopt, faseur des thombes’: André Beauneveu and sculptural practice in late fourteenth-century France and Flanders.” In ‘No Equal in Any Land’. André Beauneveu: Artist to the Courts of France and Flanders, edited by Susie Nash, 30–65 (London/Bruges: Paul Holberton Musea Brugge, 2007). Périer d’Ieteren, Catheline and Annick Born., eds. Retables en terre-cuite des Pays-Bas (XVe–XVIe siècles) (Brussels: Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1992). Reina Giráldez, Francisco. “Llegada a Sevilla y primeras obras del escultor Lorenzo Mercadante de Bretaña,” Archivo Hispalense 2, no. 21 (1987): 143–151. Rembiesa-Darowska, Marta. “La Vierge à l’Enfant d’Eberbach.” In Sculptures médiévales allemandes: conservation et restauration: Actes du colloque organisé au musée du Louvre par le service culturel les 6 et 7 décembre 1991, edited by Sophie Guillot de Suduiraut, 65–77 (Paris: La Documentation française, 1993). Romero, Rafael and Adelina Illán. “Analysis of production techniques in two sculptures in polychromed terracotta by Lorenzo Mercadante.” In Lorenzo Mercadante de Bretaña: Virgen del Buen Fin, edited by Teresa Laguna Paúl and Nicola Jennings, 81–91 (London: Coll & Cortes, 2016). Venturi, Adolfo. Storia dell’arte italiana. VI. La scultura del Quattrocento (Milano: U. Hoepli, 1908). Wilm, Hubert. Gotische Tonplastik in Deutschland (Augsburg: Dr Benno Filser, 1929). Zani, Vito. “Tre inediti medaglioni in terracotta e gli spolia del Banco mediceo di Milano.” Antiqua.mi, 2014, accessed August 2021, http://antiqua.mi.it/Zani_Terrecotte_Mag2014.htmAntiqua.mi [Accessed August 2021].

3

Episodes of the Arts of Fire in Portugal during the Renaissance Pedro Flor Universidade Aberta, Lisbon, Portugal Instituto de História da Arte, NOVA/FCSH – IN2PAST, Lisbon, Portugal

Introduction In response to a wide geographical scope of the present volume, this contribution seeks to shed light on the issue of the use of earth and clay in Portugal during the Renaissance. To approach such a period, which blurs into the 16th century, the essay has been divided into three major fields, which may summarise the various aspects of the arts of clay in the Portuguese kingdom. First, I will deal with the azulejo (tile) as the most significant and lavish expression of the use of fired and glazed clay for decorative purposes. The origins of the use of tiles as ornament for architecture find their deepest roots in the late Middle Ages and the beginning of 16th century, first through imports and then through the development of manufacturing techniques in Portuguese potteries. Then, I will mention the import of terracotta sculptures into the territory from the Florentine workshop of the Della Robbia. The arrival of the Robbiane, as early as the mid-15thth century, forces us to reflect on the circumstances surrounding their import. Furthermore, thanks to the research carried out recently in the laboratory analyses on pieces from Portuguese collections, new attributions and dating of the works should be underscored. Finally, this chapter will remark on the case of foreign artists who chose Portugal to set up their own workshop, bringing with them their skill of sculpting clay. The versatility that these artists had, skilled in working in clay, stone or even wood, is a characteristic trait of their training and their ability to satisfy various commissions. Far from being a text that answers all the questions that may be asked, this is above all a wide-ranging assessment of a subject that has not always profited from the attention of specialists. Azulejos

A word of Arabic origins, the azulejo (tile) and its different features became an ornament widespread in several countries in Renaissance Europe, which developed into an important element of a vernacular artistic expression and assumed the prominence in Portuguese cultural heritage, with the scope of application and the quantity of artefacts produced in national potteries.1 Tiles were used not only for their low cost but also for their suitability to embellish and decorate the interior of a building, a wall or an altarpiece. They also reflected the preference and the taste for the mimetic shapes and strong scenographic and monumental sense.2 The Islamic Near East increased the production of parietal coverings and pavements of decorated ceramic tiles. From the 12th century onwards, in Portugal, Castile, Aragon and in the former Islamic states (Al-Andalus) Muslim craftsmen made tiles that DOI: 10.4324/9781003327462-5

Episodes of Arts of Fire during the Renaissance 51 would be applied almost exclusively on buildings of the nobility and churches. Royal patrons and patricians played a significant part in their development and spread. The Mudejar technique developed until the end of Reconquista (1492) in workshops in Malaga, Valencia (Manises) and Seville, which was considered at the time the largest centre of production.3 Some tiles might have been produced in Portugal in the late Middle Ages because of a long tradition of ceramic production and the continuous presence of artists and craftsmen of Moorish descent in the main cities of the kingdom, namely Lisbon and Coimbra.4 But most of the tiles were chiefly imported from Valencia and Seville, and only in the mid-16th century, they were manufactured in Portuguese potteries. The continuous production permitted their use in the kingdom as an integral feature of architecture, but also in several parts of the former empire.5 In 1498, the king of Portugal D. Manuel I (1469–1521) travelled to Spain to be sworn in as heir to the throne. Primary sources document his amazement at the exuberance of the lavish Moorish interiors: ceilings, wall coverings and pavements. Mudejar commissions in Portugal followed: the elaborate wooden coverings of buildings testify to the skill of the carpenters and craftsmen working in the first quarter of the 16th century.6 Examples of a complex carpentry framework, boasting a set of zafates painted with grottesche, vegetal, fantastic, and even heraldic motifs, date from this period. Ceilings with an armature of par y nudillo or even alfarje were disseminated in Portugal and are definitely influenced by Spanish and Moorish examples.7 The practice of decorating walls with glazed ceramic tiles full of alicatado, aresta and corda seca techniques had ancient roots in Spain as seen mainly in the old Caliphate of Córdoba, which was established in 942 AD. Mudejar craftsmen were dominant in Christian Spain as is demonstrated by the similarity of patterns of strongly geometrical design, webs of stars and of intertwined strips in all over the Peninsula.8 The Islamic aesthetic was recreated and moulded in Mudejar art with its own techniques of display; for example, the alicatados or aresta tiles and other ceramic elements such as the floors made of alfardones and losetas (mostly in Catalan territory, especially Valencia) were then covered by carpets of exotic taste. Rugs of Iberian, Turkish, Persian or Indian origin were often displayed in domestic interiors and mirrored the sophisticated artistic consumption then existing.9 All these ornamental elements are thus presented as distinctive features in the interiors of the buildings, of the nobility, which frequently used gold leather as wall hangings, especially in summer, alternating such adornments with tapestries, which were more usual in winter. Elements of a geometric nature (lines, interlacing, star patterns and floral patterns) are repeated across the various arts produced at the time. The Muslim origin of these artists and artisans brought a set of techniques and procedures to the arts of construction, which continued through their sociocultural integration into Christian communities, transferring this know-how to future generations. Potters worked alongside masons, blacksmiths, stonemasons and leather smiths on the most prominent building. For the construction, the constant use of brick in conjunction with glazed clay and plaster, instead of stone, and the continuous application of structural elements from western medieval architecture (blind arches and Lombard bands, for example) demonstrate the combination of techniques that were then being mixed.10 It was the king Manuel I’s desire to have his new residence in Lisbon imitate the buildings he had visited in Saragossa, Toledo and Seville as mentioned above.11 Tiles were prominent in the construction boom that took place in Portugal during his reign. The

52  Pedro Flor National Palace of Sintra, which served as the king’s residence in the summer, is one of the best and most original examples of that initial period of importation from workshops in Seville, as early as 1508.12 Even prior to 1479, Sevillian tiles had arrived in Portugal, perhaps made from corda seca, from the famous workshop of Triana of Fernán Martínez Guijarro and his son Pedro de Herrera.13 In addition, during the last quarter of the 15th century, a number of tiles had arrived in Portugal from Valencia (Setúbal, Beja and Lisbon), showing how the use of these glazed pieces was already common and suited to the taste of the more educated patrons.14 At the very beginning of the 16th century (1503), there was an important commission in the city of Coimbra, namely, the decoration of the whole of the cathedral’s interior, a remarkable novelty in the context of religious commissions in Portugal.15 Several significant cities, such as Abrantes, Azeitão or Évora, received similar orders of the same kind, namely, to decorate altar fronts and walls, which is very revealing of the taste that prevailed at the time. While the taste for tiles as an ornamental motif in architecture was introduced into Portugal via Andalusian Mudejar art another important stimuli were decorative elements of Italian origin, on the imports from centres such as Faenza, Cafaggiolo or Casteldurante just to name a few.16 The making of maiolica was introduced into the Iberian Peninsula at the end of the 15th century (c. 1498) by the Italian artist, Niculoso Francisco Pisano.17 He amplified the traditional methods of painting tiles with a new way of working and using the biscuit-fired surface. This way of painting and using tiles would achieve great importance also in other parts of Europe, after the establishment of Italian artists in Flanders (Antwerp) and France (Rouen).18 The production of the flatsurface tiles demanded great artistic skill, due to its technical complexity. For this reason, an exclusive clientele, the court, high clergy, and the nobility sought painters and potters specialising in this sort of tilework. The tiles commissioned over an extended period by D. Teodósio I (c. 1510–1563), the 5th Duke of Bragança, from the prestigious Antwerp workshop “Den Salm” directed by Franchois Frans around 1558 demonstrate the high esteem in which these panels were held by the Portuguese nobility and the refined taste that they reflected (Figure 3.1). From the middle of the 16th century, the creation and development of workshops in Spain and Portugal by Flemish painters (especially ceramics but not exclusively) gave rise to the initiative of producing tiles locally. Workshops led by the Flemish Jan Goes (or Goos) (act. 1553–1573), Jan Floris (c. 1520–1577) or the Matos family (act. 1550– 1584), the latter perhaps of Portuguese origin, dominated the production of this type of tile.19 Thus a new formal repertoire was introduced and the Italian taste of the Early Renaissance period in transition to the so-called Mannerism of Antwerp merged with the Flemish more pictorial and linear style in a harmonious aesthetic characterised by detailed brushwork. The compositions became rhetorical and figurative and gradually abandoned their former Islamic appearance.20 The surfaces were decorated with mythological and religious scenes translated from foreign prints and engravings. Thus, tiles manifested patrons’ erudition and were competing with mural painting. Mannerist decorative elements were imported onto tilework in Portugal from the works, for example, of Vredeman de Vries and Cornelis Bos with their prints full of ferronneries, trophies, festoons, draperies, along with mysterious, fantastic, and hideous figures.21 Tile reflected a modernisation of artistic and material culture in Portugal, and were present in interiors alongside Flemish tapestries, gold leathers, all’antica paintings and sculptures illustrating the formal language of the Renaissance.

Episodes of Arts of Fire during the Renaissance 53

Figure 3.1 Tiles ascribed to Antwerp workshop Den Salm directed by Franchois Frans, c. 1558, inv. no. CMFF 317; 1CR; 13,6 cm × 13,7 cm, Casa-Museu Frederico de Freitas (Funchal) © Casa-Museu Frederico de Freitas

The Della Robbia in Portugal One of the most interesting chapters in the history of terracotta as an artistic medium in Portugal was initiated by the arrival in the mid-15th century of glazed terracotta sculptures from the Florentine workshop of the Della Robbia family.22 This new art would later impose itself in Portugal, at a time when the Gothic style still prevailed and dominated patronage and the main building sites. The production of coloured, enamelled, and glazed terracotta as a sculptural medium was the main achievement of the Della Robbia workshop in Florence and one of the most important innovations of the Renaissance period. In general, the arrival in Portugal of Renaissance sculpture was decisive for the subsequent spread of the taste for classicism in all areas, from the centre to the peripheries. Such sculptural pieces, whether Florentine, Venetian or Flemish in origin, arrived as a result of royal commissions and diplomatic gifts. The roots of the attraction to transalpine culture can be found in the important and active Italian colony, which had settled from the 15th century.23 In the cultural interchange established between Portugal and the Italian Peninsula, one can never rule out the financial and diplomatic links between the Portuguese royal house and the Holy See, mainly through the patronage of the highest prelates (such as D. Álvaro Afonso (c. 1440–1471), Bishop of Silves and then of Évora, or D. Jorge da Costa (1406–1508), the influential Cardinal of Alpedrinha). Such links also characterised those with the Florentine Republic, particularly with the Monte Comum, following the death of the second son of the ill-fated Infante D. Pedro (1392–1449), Cardinal D. Jaime (1433–1459).24

54  Pedro Flor The Italian nation facilitated the cultural transfer between the two peninsulas, often sending pieces of art (altarpieces, illuminated codices, textiles, furniture, books, windows and even chimneys), as well as artists, who brought with them the aesthetics of the new ornamental grammar of the Renaissance, the most striking example of which was Andrea Contucci Sansovino (c. 1467–1529), pupil of Antonio del Pollaiuolo but much influenced by Donatello’s interpretation of reliefs.25 Giorgio Vasari assures us of Sansovino’s stay in Portugal, but this was only confirmed in the last century (1990s) from a contract defining the conditions of his journey.26 Unfortunately, even today it is still not possible to point to a single sculptural work that would elucidate influence in Portugal. Cultural influences from Italy were very marked and went beyond the mere two-way circulation of artists and works. The intellectual training of many Portuguese and the countless contacts with Italian humanists were decisive, namely through the assiduous presence of students in such attractive university centres as Bologna, Padua and Florence. In turn, the arrival in Portugal not only of manuscript and printed works by transalpine authors in private and convent libraries, but also of learned men with the aim of teaching and serving the monarch is remarkable from the reign of Alfonso V and onwards. Italian humanism, therefore, left indelible marks on the Portuguese cultural production (historiographic, artistic and literary). The multifaceted nature of the relations between these two territories is more perceptible from a commercial and cultural point of view than in the political context. While the union between Alfonso Henriques and Mafalda, daughter of the Count of Savoy in 1146, is certain, other marriage alliances between Portugal and Italy are lost in the mists of time. The Portuguese diplomatic ties were restricted almost exclusively to the houses of León, Castile and Aragon, perhaps because of the slow process of the Christian Reconquest. We have to wait until 1521 to see new ties with Italy, namely the marriage of Beatriz, daughter of D. Manuel I, to Charles III, Duke of Savoy; or Maria, daughter of the Infante Duarte and niece of the deceased king João III, to Alessandro Farnese, Prince of Parma and Piacenza in 1565.27 Maiolica in Portugal illustrates how the reception of manufacturing techniques and plastic models expressed itself in such an original and convincing way by abandoning the formal and ornamental language of inspiration from the Near East and reformulating the gracefulness of European ceramics. Potters and ware painters boosted the development in Italy of this new ceramic type with a high degree of sophistication, and applied narrative scenes and bright colours of various shades to plates, bowls, vases, pots, jugs and other utensils for both domestic or merely decorative use.28 The success obtained by the pieces coming out of the pottery kilns of Faenza, Florence, Deruta, Urbino, Castel Durante and outside the Italian Peninsula from Malaga and Valencia (often sold in Mallorca) was such that the 15th-century craftsmen and customers were able to impose new aesthetic values and consumption patterns. Those needs were only intensified by the import of the Della Robbia sculptures, after the journey undertaken to Italian lands (Siena, Florence and Rome) by the 4th Count of Ourém and 1st Marquis of Valença, Dom Afonso, son of the 1st Duke of Bragança, D. Afonso.29 Impressed by the vigour and brilliance of the sculptural pieces from the workshop of Luca della Robbia (c. 1400–1482) that had just been placed in the tympana of the sacristies of the Duomo in Florence, D. Afonso ordered several works and narratives in terracotta from the Della Robbia workshop to adorn the new collegiate church in the town of Ourém, which he then helped to found. Unfortunately, the terrible earthquake of 1755 destroyed these pieces.30 The early date of this order should be noted, as it took

Episodes of Arts of Fire during the Renaissance 55

Figure 3.2 Andrea della Robbia (attrib.), Virgin and Child and the Young Saint John the Baptist, c. 1490–1500, diam. 74 cm, inv. no. 155 Esc., National Museum of Ancient Art (Lisbon), © Pedro Flor

place between 1453–54. It was also one of the first pieces exported from that workshop, since exports of Della Robbia works to Europe at the time were extremely rare. In fact, it is a milestone both in the introduction of the Renaissance in Portugal and in the circulation of glazed terracotta sculptures outside Tuscany, which developed later in places where Florentine merchants and bankers had commercial relations, such as Naples, Marseille, Saint Omer, Valencia, Seville, Lisbon and London. It is impossible today to know if any other orders were placed with the Florentine workshop after that of the 4th Count of Ourém, but there is evidence of the acceptance of Della Robbia pieces at the court of the 1st Dukes of Beja, especially Beatriz (1430–1506) towards the end of that century, and then their direct descendants, already as the ruling house: Eleanor (1458–1525), Queen dowager, and her brother D. Manuel I (1469–1521). This was the case of a medallion with the representation of the Virgin Mary with the Child and St. John the Baptist (Figure 3.2), that might have arrived in Portugal even at the end of the 15th century or at the very beginning of the next century, which adorned a chapel dedicated to this saint in the cloister of the Convent of Nossa Senhora da Conceição in Beja. Other pieces belonged to the former artistic collection of the Convent of the Madre de Deus in Lisbon. Like the one in Beja, this convent also belonged to Poor Clares supported by the Queen. The whole set of the Della Robbia sculptures (dated 1510–1520) includes three medallions with heraldic motifs and at least five with religious themes (namely four medallions of the Evangelists), as well as a tabernacle with a pediment. The impressive medallion

56  Pedro Flor depicting Darius III (Figure 3.3), an allusion to Machiavelli’s Prince, was once accompanied by another with the arms of Portugal and also one with the portrait of Alexander. Laboratory analyses of the surviving piece confirmed its dating to c. 1520. Although the technique of manufacture and enamelling of the work is compatible with the Della Robbia workshop, the sculptural work on the medallion points to the use of an older mould, from c. 1470–80, maybe invented by Verrocchio and used by Leonardo in known drawings.31 There are also other terracotta images that enriched the chapels of the transept of the Hieronymites Monastery of Santa Maria de Belém.32 These were given by the king to the monastery in c. 1514 and resemble those of the Della Robbia (especially St. Jerome and St. Leonard), but the Virgin and Child is attributed to the Buglioni workshop. A St. Anthony at the baptistery has not been examined to date; it seems a later work and not from the Della Robbia milieu.33 The impact of terracotta on Portuguese art at the time was almost immediate: the shimmering glazed clay, the leafy tondi full of ribbons, flowers and symbolic fruit, and the white images imitating marble often served as a model that was echoed by contemporary artists. Thus, the artistic culture evoked by the Della Robbia’s works impressed artists active in Portugal, not only painters.34 There are also sculptors, such as the French Nicolau Chanterene, who in the altarpiece of the former Hieronymite Convent of Nossa Senhora da Pena in Sintra included classical motifs celebrated by the Florentine artists.35 Other figures beyond the royal house showed themselves to be sensitive to the Della Robbia aesthetic, including Justa Rodrigues, nanny of king D. Manuel I, and Brás Afonso de Albuquerque, owner of no less Italian Casa dos Bicos (named after the small diamondshaped pyramids in its façade, recalling the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara), right on the

Figure 3.3 Andrea della Robbia (attrib.), Darius III – King of Persia, c. 1520, diam. 76 cm, inv. no. 679 Esc. National Museum of Ancient Art (Lisbon), © Pedro Flor

Episodes of Arts of Fire during the Renaissance 57 river Tagus bank in Lisbon, and the problematic existence of Della Robbia medallions in his Quinta de Azeitão (the Bacalhoa).36 Some archaeological excavations carried out recently in the Monastery of Jesus in Setúbal have identified two Della Robbia fragments that clearly indicate the existence of a small altarpiece of the Virgin with Child and Angels, in all like the Virgin with Child of c. 1505, called Bocca di Rio.37 It is possible to associate the commission of this piece to Justa Rodrigues, a noblewoman and member of the royal household, who was responsible for the management of the monastery and herself a nun. The Setúbal community became part of a renovation effort within the Order of Saint Clare and that is why Justa Rodrigues’ convent became the first to obey the new stricter rule as interpreted by the charismatic Saint Colette of Corbie. The hypothesis that the small altarpiece was another royal gift from D. Leonor or D. Manuel I can also be accepted.38 Moreover, recent laboratory analyses of the remaining pieces of medallions attributed to the Florentine workshop have allowed us better to understand that these are distinct pieces produced later but following the unmistakable Della Robbia’s fashion. From the time of the primary study of the Quinta da Bacalhoa estate of Brás Afonso de Albuquerque, published in 1895, until very recently, it was thought that these medallions were indeed owed to the Florentine workshop.39 The constant search for sources for the history of this magnificent and exquisite Quinta da Bacalhoa has fortunately brought some new developments.40 Mineralogical and compositional analyses of some remaining fragments of these socalled Della Robbia pieces show just the opposite.41 The firing technique and the constitution of the ceramic body of these fragments are quite different from those found in the works surely documented as by the Della Robbia. Furthermore, the iconography presented seems to be later than the period of activity of the studio, and it seems to repeat models engraved by Aegidius Saedler II (1585) from Titian’s originals. Clay Sculptors in Portugal Apart from the cases mentioned above, during the Portuguese Early Renaissance period (c. 1490–1530) terracotta sculpture did not gain significant popularity, until the 2nd quarter of the 16th century, when it became produced in several workshops in the central part of the country (Coimbra and Tomar). The oldest demographic records of the city of Lisbon (c. 1550) point to the existence of 180 to 206 potteries, around 50 brick kilns; and 66 to 90 painters, these were not discriminated according to their speciality. Archaeological work carried out in the city of Lisbon demonstrates that potteries varied in size from small businesses to more complex organised sites of manufacture with more than one kiln that would have occupied several specialised employees, some of them from the same family. Family ties were a decisive element because they ensured the management and continuity of the business. The craft and its secrets could be passed on from generation to generation, without fear of competition. Furthermore, the family workshops facilitated the establishment of social networks, essential for the commercialisation of the products made.42 These data gathered from 16th-century sources document considerable pottery activities, although it is not possible to determine whether the workshops made sculptures. Recent archaeological evidence proves that old potteries in Lisbon produced both tiles and earthenware. They were therefore responsible for the entire manufacturing process and used the kilns for firing the various pieces produced.43 Potteries possessed the same

58  Pedro Flor essential facilities: a lodge to store materials; a drying shed for earthenware and for pounding the frit; proximity to clay and sand, access to water (sometimes a well), and fuel-burning kilns (gorse or wood). Needless to say, other materials used in small quantities such as lead or pigments could be obtained from further afield. There are few examples of clay sculptures from before the 16th century and it was only in this period that this artistic mode became recognised. Although Francisco de Holanda celebrated the artistic qualities of clay sculpture,44 and Pietro Torrigiano modelled a portrait in clay of King Manuel I’s daughter, Isabella of Portugal (1503–1539), who married Emperor Charles V (1500–1558), news is very scarce about the activity of these sort of sculptors or the commissioning of clay images from national or foreign workshops.45 One of the earliest examples in the Portuguese Renaissance worth highlighting is that of Hodart.46 Philippe Hodart, Odart or Odarte, a sculptor of French origin, like so many others active in the country, first worked in Valladolid and Toledo in Spain and only later settled in Portugal. The city of Coimbra and its outskirts was a privileged place for the establishment of several sculpture workshops, not only because of the numerous architectural works in progress, but also because of the proximity of the limestone and the ease of transportation of the same via the Mondego River. The exact details of his formation are not known, but he must have had knowledge of early 16th-century Italian sculpture. Jean-Marie Guillouët suggests that Hodart’s apprenticeship took place through contact with workshops of Italian sculptors active in France in the first quarter of the 16th century. If the origin of this sculptor is confirmed as being from Lorraine, then we can better understand that an artist would always have the tendency to look for places where there were work opportunities. The building sites in the Loire Valley were undoubtedly desirable and attractive from the point of view of employment. The few known documents that refer to this extraordinary sculptor do not help to clarify his artistic career. The documents date from 1522 to 1535. One of them, a contract signed in Coimbra, states Hodart’s French origin. Before that, between 1522 and 1523, he worked in the choir of the Cathedral of Santo Domingo de la Calzada, near Burgos. After this, Hodart’s work is documented between 1523 and 1525 in the Cathedral of Toledo. The sculptural clay group Quo Vadis, located at the top of the Treasure Tower door, and a few other small altarpieces scattered around the Cathedral can be ascribed to him. Around 1530, Hodart was in Coimbra, where he was commissioned to make a monumental Last Supper in terracotta for the refectory of the Monastery of Santa Cruz. The large clay sculptures show different attitudes of disciples, ranging from perplexity, anguish to bewilderment, and their suggestive qualities manifest Hodart’s skill (Figure 3.4). The gestures of the figures were carefully executed with a remarkable realism, and even showing some theatricality, giving them enormous authenticity. The sculptor imagined his apostles with refined and expressive chiselling that was new in Portuguese artistic panorama. He gives the sculpted faces a psychological density typical of a portraitist and shows a rare knowledge of human anatomy, which proves his enormous artistic proficiency.47 Hodart was still in Coimbra in 1534, when he was witness to a contract signed at the Monastery of Santa Cruz. At the time, Coimbra was a city with immense potential for employment and the community of French artists was considerable. The well-known architect and sculptor João de Ruão (act. 1528–1580) and the wood-carver and sculptor Francisco Loreto (act. 1530–1550) belonged to the same community. Loreto later worked in the service of the influential 5th Duke of Bragança, D. Teodósio (1505–1563).48

Episodes of Arts of Fire during the Renaissance 59

Figure 3.4 Hodart, Head of an apostle, c. 1530–1534, 32 cm × 28 cm, inv. no. E 120, Machado de Castro National Museum (Coimbra) © Machado de Castro National Museum

Hodart’s versatility also seems to characterise his artistic career, as was common at the time. Stone sculptors, wood carvers or clay artists indistinctively sculpted and explored the various materials. Limestone statues that represent the praying figures of D. Luís da Silveira (c. 1531), in the church of Góis, or the one of D. Duarte de Lemos (1535), in the church of Trofa do Vouga, have been attributed to Hodart for stylistic reasons; still that there are significant doubts as to these attributions. In a funerary context, it is the praying statue of Fr. Cristóvão de Cernache (c. 1560) in clay that still seems to be linked in some way to the Coimbra models. In the city of Braga, further north, there is a set of clay figures that seem to show the influence of Hodart by someone with great artistic skills, someone capable of making good a terracotta: the Visitation group (c. 1562–1565), on the side façade of the Our Lady of Mercy church. Finely modelled faces and drapery characterise these pieces, which contribute to the corpus of clay sculptures in Portugal; these sculptures imitate Hodart’s manner of conceiving bodies and fabrics. It is certain that there were only a few sculptors in clay. There are isolated cases, for example, the Italians Suplicio (1535/1537) and Tommaso da Fossa (1561) who, more than proving the activity of artists working with clay in Portugal, seem to constitute mere episodes in the long history of Portuguese sculpture during the Renaissance. The activity of Sebastião de Artiaga (c. 1558), an artist of Spanish origin, who worked for the Brotherhood of Booksellers at the old church of Santa Catarina in Lisbon, is also a good example of what seems to be an isolated case, in an artistic panorama that seemed to favour stone sculpture or wood instead of clay.

60  Pedro Flor Sometimes records tell us that there were pieces of clay (terracotta figures of a crib, saints, etc.) in monastic or private collections, but this heritage has been lost and dispersed, and it is not possible today clearly and firmly to assess what the quality of these workshops and sculptor was. My study constitutes clues for future investigations into the fascinating area of the study of the arts of fire in Portugal during the long period of the Renaissance. Notes 1 José Queirós, Cerâmica Portuguesa e outros estudos (Lisboa: s.n., 1907); João Miguel dos Santos Simões, Azulejaria em Portugal nos séculos XV e XVI (Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1969); José Meco, Azulejaria Portuguesa (Lisboa: Bertrand Editora, 1985); Claire Dumortier, Céramique de la Renaissance à Anvers (Bruxelles: Éditions Racine, 2002); Alun Graves, Tiles and Tilework (London: V&A Publishing, 2002); Hans van Lemmen, 5000 years of tiles (London: The British Museum, 2013). 2 João Miguel dos Santos Simões, Azulejaria em Portugal nos séculos XV e XVI (Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1969); João Miguel dos Santos Simões, Azulejaria em Portugal no século XVIII (Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1979). 3 Jaume Coll Conesa, “A azulejaria valenciana desde os séculos medievais até ao século XVII (900–1680)” in Cores para a arquitectura: Azulejaria Valenciana século XIII ao século XX, ed. Jaume Coll Conesa (Lisboa: MNAz, 2005), 17–76; Alfonso Pleguezuelo, “O Azulejo: um espelho de culturas,” in O Brilho das Cidades: A rota do azulejo (Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2013), 24–41. 4 Rui André Alves, Revestimentos Cerâmicos Portugueses: Meados do século XIV à primeira metade do século XVI (Lisboa: Colibri, 2007). 5 João Miguel dos Santos Simões, Azulejaria nos Açores e na Madeira (Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1963); João Miguel dos Santos Simões, Azulejaria Portuguesa no Brasil (1500–1822) (Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1965). 6 Pedro Dias, Arte Portuguesa: notas de investigação (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, 1988), 85–112. 7 Ignacio Henares Cuéllar and Rafael López Guzmán, Arquitectura Mudéjar Granadina (Granada: Editorial Universidad Granada, 2020). 8 Rafael López Guzmán, Arquitectura Mudéjar (Madrid: Cátedra, 2016). 9 Jessica Hallett and Teresa Pacheco Pereira, O Tapete Oriental em Portugal (Lisboa: MNAA, 2007). 10 Pleguezuelo, “O Azulejo: um espelho de culturas,” 24–41. 11 Nuno Senos, O Paço da Ribeira (Lisboa: Notícias Editorial, 2002). 12 Rui André Alves Trindade, Revestimentos Cerâmicos Portugueses: Meados do século XIV à primeira metade do século XVI (Lisboa: Colibri, 2007). 13 José Gestoso y Pérez, Historia de los barros vidriados sevillanos (Sevilla: Tipografia La Andalucía Moderna, 1903); Pleguezuelo, “O Azulejo: um espelho de culturas”, 24–41. 14 Florival Baiôa Monteiro, Arte azulejar de Beja: séculos XV a XX (Beja: AdgBeja Ed., 2015). 15 Maria de Lurdes Craveiro, A Sé Velha de Coimbra (Coimbra: MC/DRCC, 2011). 16 Elisa Sani, Italian Renaissance Maiolica (London: V&A Publishing, 2012). 17 Alfonso Pleguezuelo, “Niculoso Francisco Pisano y el Real Alcázar de Sevilla,” Apuntes del Real Alcázar de Sevilla 13 (2012): 140–157. 18 Dumortier, Céramique de la Renaissance à Anvers; Thierry Crépin-Leblond, Masséot Abaquesne: l’Éclat de la Faience à la Renaissance (Écouen: RMN, 2016). 19 João Miguel dos Santos Simões, Carreaux Céramiques Hollandais au Portugal et em Espagne (La Haye: Martinus Nijhoff, 1959); Pedro Flor, “Simón Pereyns pintor da Nova España em Lisboa (1558),” in Visiones renovadas del Barroco iberoamericano, ed. Fernando Quiles (Sevilla: unbRRC, 2016), 98–115; Alexandre Pais et al., “The beginning of the production of majólica azulejos in Portugal – João and Filipe de Góis in 16th century Lisbon,” Studies in Heritage Glazed Ceramics, 1 (2019): 1–24; Alfonso Pleguezuelo, “The majólica azulejo heritage of Quinta da Bacalhôa,” Studies in Heritage Glazed Ceramics 3–4 (2022): 3–4. 20 José Meco, “A azulejaria e a cerâmica escultórica nos Jerónimos,” in Jerónimos: 4 séculos de pintura, ed. Anísio Franco (Lisboa: IPPAR, 1993), 29–54; Alfonso Pleguezuelo, “Um patrimonio

Episodes of Arts of Fire during the Renaissance 61 compartido: azulejos españoles em la colección Berardo,” in 800 anos de História do Azulejo, exh. cat., ed. Silva, Álvaro et al. (Estremoz: Museu Berardo Estremoz, 2020), 21–75. 21 Ana Paula Correia, “Contribuition à l’étude des sources d’inspiration des peintres d’azulejos portugais du XVIème siècle,” Revue des Archéologues et Historiens d’Art de Louvain 25 (1992) Carina Henriques Bento, Azulejaria da Colecção Berardo: estudo, criação de um sistema de inventário e gestão da colecção e proposta de Museu virtual (MA thesis, Universidade de Lisboa, 2009), 74–94. 22 John Pope-Hennessy, Luca Della Robbia (Oxford: Phaidon, 1980), 73–74. Pedro Dias, A importação de esculturas de Itália nos séculos XV e XVI (Coimbra, ed. Minerva, 1987); Alexandra Alves Barradas, Ourém e Porto de Mós: a obra mecenática de D. Afonso, 4. Conde de Ourém (Lisboa: Colibri, 2006), 152–167. 23 Filipe Themudo Barata, “Navegação, Comércio e Relações Políticas: os portugueses no mediterrâneo ocidental 1385–1466” (PhD diss, Universidade de Évora, 1994). 24 Manuel Mendes Atanázio, A Arte em Florença no séc. XV e a Capela do Cardeal de Portugal (Lisboa: INCM, 1983). 25 Rafael Moreira, “Andrea Sansovino au Portugal 1492–1501,” Revue de l’Art 3, no. 133 (2001): 33–38. 26 Rafael Moreira, “A Arquitectura do Renascimento no Sul de Portugal” (PhD diss., Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 1991); Janez Höfler, “New light on Andrea Sansovino’s Journey to Portugal,” Burlington Magazine 134, no. 1069 (1992), 234–237. 27 Giuseppe Bertini, Le Nozze di Alessandro Farnese: Feste alle corti di Lisbona e Bruxelles (Milano: Skira, 1997); Ana Maria S.A. Rodrigues et al., Casamentos da Família Real Portuguesa: Diplomacia e Cerimonial (Lisboa: Círculo de Leitores, 2017); Ana Isabel Buescu, D. Beatriz de Portugal (1504–1538): a Infanta esquecida (Lisboa: Manuscrito, 2019). 28 João Miguel dos Santos Simões, Majólica Italiana do Paço de Vila Viçosa (Lisboa: Fundação da Casa de Bragança, 1960); Rui André Alves Trindade, Revestimentos Cerâmicos Portugueses: Meados do século XIV à primeira metade do século XVI (Lisboa: Colibri, 2007). 29 Adriana Almeida, “Perspectiva sobre a história das emoções: o casamento de D. Leonor de Portugal com o Imperador Frederico III (1452),” in Casamentos da Família Real Portuguesa: Diplomacia e Cerimonial, ed. Ana Maria Rodrigues, Manuela Santos Sila and Ana Leal de Faria (Lisboa: Círculo de Leitores, 2017), 253–287. 30 Alexandra Alves Barradas, Ourém e Porto de Mós: a obra mecenática de D. Afonso, 4.º Conde de Ourém (Lisboa: Colibri, 2006). 31 Paolo Parmiggiani, cat. no. 2.6, 2.7, in Verrocchio: il Maestro di Leonardo, exh. cat., ed. Francesco Caglioti and Andrea de Marchi (Firenze: Marsilio, 2019), 102–105. 32 Meco, “A azulejaria e a cerâmica,” 108–114. 33 Dias et al., “Chronological assessment of Della Robbia sculptures,” 77–79. 34 Carvalho, Maria João Vilhena, and Anísio Franco,“Os Della Robbia da Rainha D. Leonor: Imagens florentinas do Mosteiro da Madre de Deus de Lisboa,” in Casa Perfeitíssima: 500 anos da fundação do Mosteiro da Madre de Deus, ed. Maria Antónia Pinto de Matos (Lisboa: IMC/ MNAz, 2009), 133–144. 35 Pedro Flor, “Gelsa e Sintra: relações artísticas entre Aragão e Portugal no tempo do Renascimento,” in El Alabastro: usos artísticos y procedencia del material, ed. Carmen Morte-García (Zaragoza: Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza, 2018), 201–220. 36 I am indebted to Maria João Cândido (Câmara Municipal de Setúbal) for the indications given about the remains of Della Robbia ceramics found during the archaeological work carried out in the Monastery of Jesus. 37 Sotheby’s, auction Master Paintings & Sculpture Day Sale, New York, 30th January 2020, lot no. 222, with notice by Giancarlo Gentilini, https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2019/ master-paintings-sculpture-day-sale/andrea-della-robbia-florence-1435-1525-in 38 Ivo Carneiro Sousa, A Rainha D. Leonor (1458–1525); José Custódio Vieira da Silva, A Igreja de Jesus de Setúbal (Setúbal: UNISETI/SALPA, 2020). 39 Joaquim Rasteiro, Palácio e Quinta da Bacalhôa: Inícios da Renascença (Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional, 1895). 40 Pedro Flor, “A Quinta de Brás Afonso de Albuquerque em Azeitão: arquitectura, escultura e azulejo no Renascimento,” in Património Arquitectónico Civil de Setúbal e Azeitão, ed. António Cunha Bento, Inês Gato de Pinho and Maria João Pereira Coutinho (Setúbal: Lasa/Estuário, 2019), 69–85.

62  Pedro Flor 1 Dias et al., “Chronological assessment of Della Robbia sculptures,” 77–79. 4 42 Celso Mangucci, “Olarias de louça e azulejo da freguesia de Santos-o-Velho dos meados do século XVI aos meados do século XVIII,” Revista Al.Madan 5, II série, (1996), 155–168; Flor, “Gelsa e Sintra: relações artísticas entre Aragão e Portugal”, 201–222. 43 Maria Antónia Pinto de Matos, Memórias de uma Oficina Esquecida: Uma intervenção arqueológica no Largo das Olarias (Lisboa: MNAZ, 2019), 8–20. 44 Francisco Holanda, On Antique Painting, ed. Joaquim Oliveira Caetano and Charles Hope, notes by Hellmut Wohl (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013). 45 Maria José Redondo Cantera, “Arte y suntuosidad em torno a la Emperatriz Isabel de Portugal,” Ars & Renovatio 1 (2013): 109–147. 46 Jean-Marie Guillouët, “La Dernière Cène du réfectoire du monastère de Santa Cruz de Coimbra par Maître Hodart: considérations préalables sur la place d’une oeuvre singulière,” digitARRevista Digital de Arqueologia, Arquitectura e Artes 7 (2020): 34–60. 47 Guillouët, “La Dernière Cène du réfectoire du monastère de Santa Cruz de Coimbra,” 51–54. 48 Carla Alexandra Gonçalves, “Os Escultores e a Escultura em Coimbra: uma viagem além do Renascimento” (PhD diss., University of Coimbra, 2006).

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Episodes of Arts of Fire during the Renaissance 63 Correia, Ana Paula. “Contribuition à l’étude des sources d’inspiration des peintres d’azulejos portugais du XVIème siècle,” Revue des Archéologues et Historiens d’Art de Louvain 25 (1992). Craveiro, Maria de Lurdes. A Sé Velha de Coimbra (Coimbra: MC/DRCC, 2011). Crépin-Leblond, Thierry. Masséot Abaquesne: l’Éclat de la Faience à la Renaissance (Écouen: RMN, 2016). Dias, Pedro. A importação de esculturas de Itália nos séculos XV e XVI (Coimbra, Ed. Minerva, 1987). Dias, Pedro. Arte Portuguesa: notas de investigação (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, 1988). Dias, Maria Isabel, A. L. Rodrigues, Imre Kovács, Zoltán Szokefalvi-Nagy, M. I. Prudêncio, Zsolt Kasztovsky, Boglárka Maróti, R. Marques, P. Flor and G. Cardoso. “Chronological assessment of Della Robbia scultpures by using PIXE, neutrons and luminescence techniques.” Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research B 477 (2020): 77–79. Dionigi, Renzo. Stemmi Robbiani in Italia e nel Mondo (Firenze: Edizioni Polistampa, 2014). Dumortier, Claire. Céramique de la Renaissance à Anvers (Bruxelles: Éditions Racine, 2002). Flor, Pedro. “O portal da igreja matriz de Arronches e a escultura do Renascimento em Portugal.” In O Largo Tempo do Renascimento, edited by Maria José Redondo Cantera, and Vítor Serrão, 131–151 (Lisboa: Colibri, 2008). Flor, Pedro. “Tommaso da Fossa: um escultor genovês em Lisboa em 1561”, In Di buon affetto e commerzio: Relações luso-italianas na Idade Moderna, edited by Nunziatella Alessandrini et al., 143–150 (Lisboa: CHAM, 2012). Flor, Pedro. “Simón Pereyns pintor da Nova España em Lisboa (1558).” In Visiones renovadas del Barroco iberoamericano, edited by Fernando Quiles, 98–115 (Sevilla: unbRRC, 2016). Flor, Pedro. “Gelsa e Sintra: relações artísticas entre Aragão e Portugal no tempo do Renascimento.” In El Alabastro: usos artísticos y procedencia del material, edited by Carmen MorteGarcía, 201–220 (Zaragoza: Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza, 2018). Flor, Pedro. “A Quinta de Brás Afonso de Albuquerque em Azeitão: arquitectura, escultura e azulejo no Renascimento.” In Património Arquitectónico Civil de Setúbal e Azeitão, edited by António Cunha Bento, Inês Gato de Pinho, and Maria João Pereira Coutinho, 69–85 (Setúbal: Lasa/ Estuário, 2019). Flor, Susana Varela and Pedro Flor. “Gabriel del Barco y Minusca pintor: elementos para uma visão prosopográfica da Lisboa Barroca.” In La Sevilla Lusa: la presencia portuguesa en el reino de Sevilla durante el Barroco, edited by Fernando Quiles, Manuel Fernández Chaves, Antónia Fialho Conde, 252–287 (Sevilla: UPO/UE, 2018). Fonseca, Jorge. Os Livreiros de Lisboa nos séculos XVI e XVII (Lisboa: Colibri, 2019). Gauricus, Pomponio. Sobre la escultura, edited by André Cashtel and Robert Klein (Madrid: Akal, 1989). Gentilini, Giancarlo. I Della Robbia: La scultura invetriata nel Rinascimento. 2 vols. (Milano: Cantini, 1992). Gentilini, Giancarlo. ed. I Della Robbia e l’arte nuova della scultura invetriata (Firenze: Giunti, 1998). Gentilini, Giancarlo. 2019. “Madonna and Child with four cherubs and the dove of the Holy Spirit, the ‘Madonna di Bocca di Rio’ type.” In Sotheby’s, Master Paintings & Sculpture Day Sale, Lot 222, 30th January 2020. Gestoso y Pérez, José. Historia de los barros vidriados sevillanos (Sevilla: Tipografia La Andalucía Moderna, 1903). Gonçalves, Carla Alexandra. “Os Escultores e a Escultura em Coimbra: uma viagem além do Renascimento.” 2 vols., PhD diss., University of Coimbra, 2006. Graves, Alun. Tiles and Tilework (London: V&A Publishing, 2002). Guillouët, Jean-Marie. “La Dernière Cène du réfectoire du monastère de Santa Cruz de Coimbra par Maître Hodart: considérations préalables sur la place d’une oeuvre singulière,” digitARRevista Digital de Arqueologia, Arquitectura e Artes 7 (2020): 34–60.

64  Pedro Flor Hallett, Jessica and Teresa Pacheco Pereira. O Tapete Oriental em Portugal (Lisboa: MNAA, 2007). Henares Cuéllar, Ignacio and Rafael López Guzmán. Arquitectura Mudéjar Granadina (Granada: Editorial Universidad Granada, 2020). Höfler, Janez. “New light on Andrea Sansovino’s Journey to Portugal,” Burlington Magazine 134, no. 1069 (1992): 234–237. Holanda, Francisco. On Antique Painting, edited by Joaquim Oliveira Caetano and Charles Hope, notes by Hellmut Wohl (University Park: Penn University Press, [1548] 2013). López Guzmán, Rafael. Arquitectura Mudéjar (Madrid: Cátedra, 2016). Mangucci, Celso. “Olarias de louça e azulejo da freguesia de Santos-o-Velho dos meados do século XVI aos meados do século XVIII,” Revista Al.Madan 5 (1996): 155–168. Matos, Maria Antónia Pinto de. Da Flandres: Os Azulejos encomendados por D. Teodósio I, 5.° Duque de Bragança (c. 1510–1563) (Lisboa: Fundação da Casa de Bragança/MNAz/CHAM, 2012). Matos, Maria Antónia Pinto de. Memórias de uma Oficina Esquecida: Uma intervenção arqueológica no Largo das Olarias (Lisboa: MNAZ, 2019). Meco, José. Azulejaria Portuguesa (Lisboa: Bertrand Editora, 1985). Meco, José. O Azulejo em Portugal (Lisboa: Ed. Alfa, 1988). Meco, José. “A azulejaria e a cerâmica escultórica nos Jerónimos.” In Jerónimos: 4 séculos de pintura, edited by Anísio Franco, 108–123 (Lisboa: IPPAR, 1993). Monteiro, Florival Baiôa. Arte azulejar de Beja: séculos XV a XX (Beja: AdgBeja Ed, 2015). Moreira, Rafael. “A Arquitectura do Renascimento no Sul de Portugal.” PhD diss., Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 1991. Moreira, Rafael. “Andrea Sansovino au Portugal 1492–1501,” Revue de l’Art 133 (2001): 33–38. Oliveira, Cristóvão Rodrigues de. Lisboa em 1551 – Sumário em que brevemente se contém algumas coisas assim eclesiásticas como seculares que há na cidade de Lisboa (Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, [1551] 1987). Pais, Alexandre, Maria da Conceição Reis, Joana Campelo, João Manuel Mimoso and Miguel Ângelo Silva. “The beginning of the production of majólica azulejos in Portugal – João and Filipe de Góis in 16th century Lisbon,” Studies in Heritage Glazed Ceramics 1 (2019): 1–24. Parmiggiani, Paolo. “Alessandro Magno e Dario III re dei Persiani.” In Verrocchio: il Maestro di Leonardo, edited by Francesco Caglioti and Adnrea de Marchi, 102–105 (Firenze: Marsilio, 2019). Pleguezuelo, Alfonso. “Niculoso Francisco Pisano y el Real Alcázar de Sevilla,” Apuntes del Real Alcázar de Sevilla 13 (2012): 140–157. Pleguezuelo, Alfonso. “O Azulejo: um espelho de culturas.” In O Brilho das Cidades: A rota do azulejo, edited by João Carvalho Dias, 24–41 (Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2013). Pleguezuelo, Alfonso, “The Palácio e Quinta da Bacalhôa and its majolica tiles.” Studies in Heritage Glazed Ceramics I, no. 3 (2021): 1–74. Pleguezuelo, Alfonso. “Um patrimonio compartido: azulejos españoles em la colección Berardo.” In 800 anos de História do Azulejo edited by José Berardo, 21–208 (Estremoz: Museu Berardo Estremoz, 2020). Pope-Hennessy, John. Luca Della Robbia (Oxford: Phaidon, 1980). Queirós, José. Cerâmica Portuguesa e outros estudos (Lisboa: Livraria Coelho, 1907). Rasteiro, Joaquim. Palácio e Quinta da Bacalhôa: Inícios da Renascença (Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional, 1895). Redondo Cantera, Maria and José. “Arte y suntuosidad em torno a la Emperatriz Isabel de Portugal,” Ars & Renovatio 1 (2013): 109–147. Rodrigues, Ana Maria S.A, Manuela Santos Silva and Ana Leal de Faria. Casamentos da Família Real Portuguesa: Diplomacia e Cerimonial (Lisboa: Círculo de Leitores, 2017). Sani, Elisa. Italian Renaissance Maiolica (London: V&A Publishing, 2012). Sarnecka, Zuzanna. “Luca della Robbia and his books,” Artibus et Historiae 74 no. 37 (2016): 37, 291–301.

Episodes of Arts of Fire during the Renaissance 65 Sebastian, Luís Carlos Pereira. “A Produção Oleira de Faiança em Portugal (séculos XVI–XVIII).” PhD diss., Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2010. Senos, Nuno. O Paço da Ribeira (Lisboa: Notícias Editorial, 2002). Serrão, Vítor. Arte, Religião e Imagens em Évora no tempo do Arcebispo D. Teotónio de Bragança (Lisboa: Fundação da Casa de Bragança, 2015). Silva, José Custódio Vieira da. A Igreja de Jesus de Setúbal (Setúbal: UNISETI/SALPA, 2020). Simões, João Miguel dos Santos. Carreaux Céramiques Hollandais au Portugal et em Espagne (La Haye: Martinus Nijhoff, 1959). Simões, João Miguel dos Santos. Majólica Italiana do Paço de Vila Viçosa (Lisboa: Fundação da Casa de Bragança, 1960). Simões, João Miguel dos Santos. Azulejaria nos Açores e na Madeira (Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1963). Simões, João Miguel dos Santos. Azulejaria Portuguesa no Brasil (1500–1822) (Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1965). Simões, João Miguel dos Santos. Azulejaria em Portugal nos séculos XV e XVI (Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1969). Simões, João Miguel dos Santos. Azulejaria em Portugal no século XVIII (Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1979). Sousa, Ivo Carneiro. A Rainha D. Leonor (1458–1525): Poder, Misericórdia, Religiosidade e Espiritualidade no Portugal do Renascimento (Lisboa: FCT/MCES, 2002). Trindade, Rui André Alves. Revestimentos Cerâmicos Portugueses: Meados do século XIV à primeira metade do século XVI (Lisboa: Colibri, 2007).

Part II

Terracotta and Design

4

Hans Reichle’s Contribution to the Practice of Terracotta Sculpture in Tyrol Francesca Padovani Independent Researcher, Bressanone, Italy

Introduction1 Detto palazzo è di buona apparenza, cinto da ogni lato da fosso sopra di cui vi è un ponte levatoio che conduce alla porta […] Vi è un cortile assai bello, dove secondo il costume di molte case d’Alemagna si vidde una cicogna domestica, la quale con somma diligenza procurano di custodire2 (“That palace is of a good appearance, surrounded on all its sides by a moat, above which there is a drawbridge leading to the door […] There is a beautiful courtyard, where, as is the custom of many houses in Germany, a domestic stork can be seen, which is diligently taken care of”). With these words the Grand Duke Cosimo III of Tuscany described the palace of the prince-bishops of Bressanone (Brixen in German) in Tyrol which he visited in November 1667, during his long trip to Germany (Figure 4.1). In his description of the courtyard, Cosimo did not mention the impressive cycle of terracotta statues, representing a genealogy of the Habsburgs of Austria, modelled between 1596 and 1601 by the Bavarian sculptor Hans Reichle (Schongau, 1570-Bolzano (Bozen), South Tyrol, 1642). The terracottas were commissioned by the Prince-Bishop and Cardinal Andreas of Austria (Figure 4.2), son of Archduke Ferdinand II of Tyrol and nephew of Emperor Ferdinand I; in 1595 the bishop had promoted the restoration of the palace and the cycle was part of this project.3 Andreas was not considered a legitimate heir to the Habsburg dynasty since his father had married Philippine Welser, an Augsburg middle-class woman; as a consequence, the offspring born from this morganatic marriage were excluded from the Habsburg lineage. So it is not surprising that Andreas commissioned from Reichle a genealogy, which originally consisted of forty-four members of the House of Austria, that would prove his affiliation to the dynasty from its origin in the legendary ancestors of the family through their heirs from father to son. It includes both lesser-known figures and key characters in the political life of modern Europe, for example, Rudolf I, Friedrich III, Maximilian I, Ferdinand I, and concludes with the patron. As originally planned, the entire genealogy would have been displayed on all four wings of the palace facing the courtyard, but today only twenty-four figures, placed on the northern and southern wings, welcome visitors once they have passed the entrance gate of the former residence, the seat of the Hofburg Diocesan Museum.4 They are slightly smaller than life size (c. 150 × 60 × 50 cm) furnished with coats of arms and imprese modelled on a medallion. Beside the statues in the loggias, eight more are placed in the niches of the ground floor arcade of the southern wing and two are displayed inside the palace; two figures entered the collection of the Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum of Innsbruck and a third one (Maximilian I) the Maximilianmuseum of Augsburg in 1959.5 Thus, of the original terracottas, DOI: 10.4324/9781003327462-7

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Figure 4.1 Bressanone, Museo Diocesano Hofburg, courtyard, northern wing. © Paolo Chistè (Università di Trento)

only thirty-seven have survived, while seven of them seem to have been lost; as for the medallions, twenty-four of them are mounted in the courtyard, four are displayed in the museum, while the coats of arms now amount to twenty-four. By commissioning such a work the prince-bishop was declaring himself member of the House of Austria; he chose the most effective display: visitors entering the palace would feel themselves welcomed by his entire dynasty. In his description of the courtyard, quoted above, Cosimo did not mention the terracottas: it is not that the Grand Duke was distracted by the domestic stork, but simply that at the time the statues were not displayed in the niches of the loggia but housed inside the palace. It was only in the first half of the nineteenth century that the figures were transferred into their niches.6 The genealogy of Bressanone is not only a spectacular work, both in terms of quality and invention (Figures 4.2–4.6 compared), but it is in fact unique since wood was the favoured medium of expression in Tyrol. The region, with its forests covering the slopes of the Alps, was a limitless source of wood but not of clay. Tyrol’s sculptures were for the most part carved, winged altarpieces and wall-mounted, marble funerary monuments. One of the most amazing examples of monumental bronze sculpture is the cenotaph of Maximilian I in the Hofkirche in Innsbruck executed by several workshops over almost the entire sixteenth century. The present essay provides an overview of Reichle’s cycle. First, I will address the sculptor himself and his oeuvre. Subsequently, I will focus on the Habsburg cycle. The city of Bressanone, nowadays a popular tourist destination, was formerly an important prince-bishopric located in the County of Tyrol, on the border between the Italian peninsula and the Habsburg empire. Its role at a crossroads between the North and the South enhanced the cultural heritage of the town, which is one of the richest in Tyrol, a treasury that deserves new attention. As far as my area of investigation is concerned – sculpture

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Figure 4.2 Hans Reichle, Andreas of Austria, 1596–1601, terracotta, Bressanone, Museo Dioce­ sano Hofburg, courtyard. © Paolo Chistè (Università di Trento)

between the late sixteenth and the late seventeenth centuries – much remains to be said about minor artists on the scene at that time, but also about a figure who played a leading role in the development of Tyrolean sculpture, that is, Hans Reichle who spent most of his life, nearly forty years, in Bressanone. However, no single study has yet investigated in depth his late activity in the city.7 Reichle was almost certainly born in the town of Schongau in Bavaria.8 After spending two years in Munich with the Dutch sculptor Hubert Gerhard,9 as a young apprentice he probably landed in Florence in the workshop of Giambologna in late 1587 under whose direction he learned to model clay with great virtuosity; but he also became a specialist in bronze sculpture. Within six years of working beside the most talented pupils of the master, he assimilated Giambogna’s style and then, at the outset of his independent career, exported his master’s language across and “into” the Alps. After his Florentine stay, Reichle worked in Munich where he modelled the bronze figure of Mary Magdalene (Munich, St. Michael’s Church), a sculpture full of pathos commissioned by Duke Wilhelm V for his impressive but never installed grave monument. It is his most important work in the dukedom together with the masterpieces executed during his sojourn in Augsburg (1602–07)10: the exciting fight between St Michael and Lucifer on the façade of the Augsburg armoury (Zeughaus) and the touching Crucifixion of the Basilica of Saint Ulrich and Afra, groups that ensured Reichle’s eternal fame.11 One of the earliest references to the Habsburg cycle is that of the Tyrolean historian Franz Sinnacher in the eighth volume of his famous work on the history of the diocese

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Figure 4.3 Hans Reichle, Childeric, 1596–1601, terracotta, Bressanone, Museo Diocesano Hofburg, courtyard. © Paolo Chistè (Università di Trento)

of Bressanone published in 1832.12 Sinnacher complains that the sculptures, previously placed in the great hall of the palace – where they were kept at least from the 1610s until the beginning of the nineteenth century – had recently been placed in the niches, exposed to the weather and thus to irreparable ruin.13 In his efforts to chronicle the history of the diocese, he had come across the document attesting to the final payment to Reichle.14 This is a very significant source as the contract, first transcribed and published by Friedrich Kriegbaum in 1931, does not specify the precise number of sculptures requested (forty-four) as confirmed by the payments and by the drawings that, as I will explain, are considered the plan for Reichle’s cycle.15 Sinnacher was also the first to mention the assistant, who was marginally involved with Reichle:16 the almost unknown Italian sculptor Giovanni Battista Quadri who was responsible for all the medallions (with the exception of the one of Andreas of Austria, which was modelled by Reichle) and other minor, decorative elements. Compared to the fundamental though brief mention by Sinnacher, the description of the courtyard of the palace of the Tyrolean historian Georg Tinkhauser (1851) is exhaustive and worth quoting in full: Beim Eintritt durch das mit einer Façade aus gehauten Steinen verzierte Hauptthor am östlichen Flügel […] die hohen Corridore im Erdgeschoße und in den beiden Stockwerken des nördlichen und südlichen Flügels bieten einen großartigen Anblick. Die viereckigen Pfeiler, worauf die Bögen ruhen, sind aus Granit gehauen

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Figure 4.4 Hans Reichle, Babo, 1596–1601, terracotta, Bressanone, Museo Diocesano Hofburg, courtyard. © Paolo Chistè (Università di Trento)

und im zweiten Stocke mit Nischen versehen, worin vier und zwanzig aus Thon verfertigte und bronzirte Statuen sich befindet. Sie sind fünf Schuhe hoch und stellen berühmte Helden und Fürsten des Hauses-Habsburg vor. Sämmtliche sind sehr schön gearbeitet, der kräftige und characteristische Ausdruck im Gesichte, die edle majestätige Haltung und Gestalt, und die Feinheit der Form verraten den tüchtigen Geist und die kunstfertige Hand des Meisters. Hans Reichle ist sein Name.17 Tinkhauser’s report is full of wonder and the statues of Reichle are described as masterpieces: not only is the historian fascinated by the appearance of the figures, but he admires and praises the great skill of the master who modelled them. In contrast to this enthusiastic description, Reichle’s cycle has generated less interest in other scholars. No mention of the sculptures can be found in the pages describing the bishop’s palace in Beda Weber’s Handbuch of 1838,18 and the other city guides only sporadically mention them.19 Even Karl Atz in his traditional Kunstgeschichte von Tirol und Vorarlberg (1909) did not examine the series.20 Rudolf Peltzer in an article on Reichle published in 1919 took a closer remark at the Habsburg’s cycle.21 Later Kriegbaum extended Peltzer’s research in a contribution that, together with Peltzer’s article, is still of fundamental importance for the study of Reichle’s oeuvre.22 As previously stated, Kriegbaum discovered and published the contract for the cycle, as well as a large number of subsequent payments.23 The contract designates the artist the “kunstreichen Hannsen Reichl, Bildhauern von

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Figure 4.5 Hans Reichle, Childebert, 1596–1601, terracotta, Bressanone, Museo Diocesano Hofburg, courtyard. © Paolo Chistè (Università di Trento)

Münich” probably because shortly before receiving his Habsburg’s commission, Reichle had completed the bronze Mary Magdalene for St. Michael’s Church in Munich and had arrived in Bressanone directly from the Dukedom of Bavaria. In the text, Reichle is explicitly requested to carry out sculptures in terracotta (“von guetem Letten” – “of good clay”) in order to furnish the niches of the bishop’s residence. Of great interest is the requirement that, after firing the figures, their surface had to be treated with a substance in order to protect them from the damage which would come from long exposure to the atmospheric conditions. I will address this issue later, when discussing the original appearance of the series. In the 1960s Carlo Albasini twice offered a quick but vivid overview of the Habsburg cycle,24 while Thomas Bruhn (1981) in his monograph on Reichle (the first and last after that of Kriegbaum) discussed more in-depth this commission without, however, going into detail.25 To conclude the review of studies related to the Habsburg’s cycle, it is important to recall the most recent monographic contribution by Franz Matsche which appeared in 2004 in a volume of essays composed to celebrate the anniversary of the foundation of Bressanone’s Diocesan Museum (1901–2001).26 Matsche examined the terracottas in the light of their sources, basing his work essentially on Kriegbaum’s monograph but without omitting more recent studies. Furthermore, Matsche systematically examined the statues from an iconographic point of view, listing their poses and attributes but also considering the relationship to their models and to Giambologna’s prototypes. More recent publications include Thomas Bauer’s 2013 article and Johann Kronbichler’s two years later. The former did not consider the statues, but

Hans Reichle’s Contribution 75 focused exclusively on the medallions representing the imprese related to each figure of the cycle.27 In the exhibition catalogue Die Barocken Zeichnungen der Hofburg Brixen, Kronbichler focused on the drawings kept in the Diocesan Museum of Bressanone, which are considered the original plan of the entire genealogy: in his text he also provided an overview of the history of Reichle’s commission, with brief references to the relationship between these drawings, their prototypes and the terracottas.28 Concerning the drawings it is important to underline that Reichle himself did not execute them29: indeed, to date we are not aware of any existing plans composed by the sculptor. The so-called Planrolle (named from its being stored rolled up) is monumental as it extends horizontally over 10 m in width (36.7 × 1095 cm). On the whole surface the entire genealogy is accurately represented, allowing us precisely to follow the succession of counts and dukes, kings and emperors in chronological order, beginning with Pharamond, and moving counter-clockwise. Among the forty-four figures planned, just four women were included: Countess Margarete (“Maultasch”) of Tyrol, who in 1363 gave up the County to Duke Rudolf IV of Habsburg, and the more famous queens and empresses of the House, Mary of Burgundy (∞ Maximilian I of Habsburg), Joanna of Aragon and Castile (∞ Philip I of Habsburg) and Anne of Bohemia and Hungary (∞ Ferdinand I of Habsburg). According to the order shown in the drawings, forty male figures would have been arranged along the wings of the courtyard, while those representing women in its four corners,30 a rather prominent position to highlight the key role of wives and mothers in the dynastic network of the Habsburg family.31 Unfortunately of the four women only the figure representing the first wife of Emperor Maximilian I, Mary, has been preserved (Figure 4.6).

Figure 4.6 Hans Reichle, Mary of Burgundy, 1596–1601, terracotta, Bressanone, Museo Dioce­ sano Hofburg, courtyard. © Paolo Chistè (Università di Trento)

76  Francesca Padovani Given its dimension and the quality of execution, the huge roll of drawings was most likely composed to be submitted for the approval of the Prince-Bishop before work started: each figure is drawn with remarkable accuracy, even the smallest details were included, so that the intended preciousness of the complex could be appreciated. As demonstrated on the sheets, each niche was to be completed by the coat of arms, placed on its top with the medallion above depicting the impresa and the motto related to the corresponding character; moreover, the square biographical plate placed beneath each niche would have made each person clearly identifiable. None of the biographical plates executed by Quadri, have survived. In addition, the original design included anthropomorphic and zoomorphic masks on each arch of the loggia. However, the comparison of the drawings and the present condition (Figures 4.7 and 4.9) reveals that the original plans were only partially carried out; the medallions were mounted as planned, while the coats of arms were placed under the statues. Tinkhauser (1851) was probably the first to mention the Hofburg sheets in relation to Reichle’s statues. He reports that “im ursprünglichen Plane, wie ein noch erhaltener Bauriß zeigt, wenigstens im zweiten Stock die Corridore mit den Statuen um alle vier Seiten laufen zu laßen” (“according to the original plans, shown on a plan that still survives, the loggias [Corridore] adorned with statues were to be built along all four sides [of the courtyard]”).32 The plans seen by Tinkhauser probably correspond to our drawings.33 However, in the early nineteenth century, when the statues were mounted in the niches, the sequence shown on the drawings was not followed.34 The only reason can have been that those sheets were still unknown at the time. This explains why we are not able to

Figure 4.7 Anonymous draughtsman, Ferdinand II and Ferdinand I (Planrolle), drawing, Bressanone, Museo Diocesano Hofburg. © Museo Diocesano Hofburg di Bressanone

Hans Reichle’s Contribution 77 confirm the identity of some surviving statues, as the imprese and the coats of arms connected to each figure, have not been correctly linked to the individual characters. It is possible that Tinkhauser discovered the Planrolle while investigating the archives of the palace but that later the drawings disappeared. In 1931, Kriegbaum studied them from the negatives of the (lost) pictures taken by the atelier Eder of Bressanone in the late 1880s.35 The drawings were then rediscovered years after Kriegbaum’s monograph. Although Albasini (1963) knew them for sure,36 when Bruhn (1981) visited Bressanone and asked to see the drawings, he was “unable to see the roll”.37 Finally, Matsche (2004) confirmed the rediscovery of the roll in the collections of the Diocesan Museum:38 The roll was then displayed to the public for the first time in the 2015 exhibition curated by Kronbichler.39 Before moving on to the analysis of the cycle, I would like to conclude the issue of the drawings with a suggestive note that emerged during my study of the sculptor’s unpublished inventory (1642). Browsing through the pages of the inventory and scanning the contents of the rooms, in an unidentified part of Reichle’s house in Bressanone, I came across, “Ain Tafl mit etlich Roumisch Kaiser und Künig von hoch lobl: Haus österreich (auf Papier) Illuminiert in Ramen” (“a panel with some Roman kings and emperors of the illustrious House of Austria (on paper) illuminated [drawn and finely colored], with frame”).40 According to this brief mention, those could have been drawings on paper, very small in size, almost illuminated, illustrated, and finely coloured. Certainly, it was not the Planrolle, given its immense dimensions, but rather another series of drawings or prints, perhaps made by Reichle for the same cycle. This is a suggestive hypothesis, but at the moment it is not supported by any other material evidence that can confirm it. Kriegbaum already pointed out how, for the greatest part of his figures, the anonymous draughtsman of the roll simply copied the Imagines gentis austriacæ of the bergamasque Francesco Terzio, who from the 1550s was the court painter of Archduke Ferdinand II, the father of Reichle’s patron, Andreas.41 The Imagines by Terzio consist of seventy-four full-length portraits of Habsburg princes, their spouses and ancestors, both historical and legendary, collected in five volumes (for a total of fifty-eight plates) each dedicated to a member of the dynasty (Figure 4.8): Maximilian II (I), Ferdinand II (II), Archduke Karl of Austria (III), Philipp II (IV), and Maria Empress of Austria (V).42 Each plate shows the full-length portrait of the personage, accompanied by a motto and brief biographical notes at the bottom of the figure. Many of the impressive engraved portraits by Terzio quote the twenty-eight bronzes statues surrounding the cenotaph of the Hofkirche of Innsbruck mentioned above:43 for this reason, Peltzer, reflecting on the models behind Reichle’s cycle, proposed to identify them with the monumental bronzes of Innsbruck, as suggested by the iconographic programme staged in Bressanone.44 Therefore, the link connecting the statues of Innsbruck to those of Reichle are the Imagines by Terzio: Reichle did not know them in original, but only through the drawings kept at the Hofburg.45 A comparison of the terracottas with the drawings demonstrates however that Reichle did not only follow those models. If in some cases, he faithfully adhered to the drawing from the Hofburg, for example for Childebert, a drawing entirely copied by Terzio’s engraving (Figure 4.5),46 in many cases instead, it is evident that the sculptor worked independently, inventing his knights tapping into Florentine memories. References to the sculpture of his master can be found in a large number of figures; many of them derive their pose from the famous Oceano (Florence, Museo Nazionale del Bargello), but also from the marble statue of Ferdinando I de’ Medici in Arezzo carved by Pietro Francavilla under the direction of Giambologna.47 In one figure of his genealogy, Reichle recreated

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Figure 4.8 Francesco Terzio, Gaspare Oselli, Ferdinand I, in Francisci Tertii Bergomatis Serenissimi Ferdinandi Archidvcis Avstriae Dvcis Borgvndiae Comitis Tirolis Et. C. Pictoris Avlici Avstriacae Gentis Imaginvm Pars …. 1, Oeniponti: Höller, 1569 (München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek – Chalc. 174–1/5)

the magnificent Oceano marble, reducing its size to about half and clothing it, while still leaving some anatomical details uncovered, such as the muscular chest. Even the pose of the fully dressed St. Philip in the Salviati chapel (1589) influenced Reichle: the saint, with his head and chest turned towards the centre of the altar, rests his left leg on the high pedestal in order to place the book on his knee, an attitude copied by Reichle in some of his terracottas. Two other Habsburg figures are directly linked to Reichle’s Florentine apprenticeship. We know for certain that Reichle assisted Giambologna in the execution of two sculptures (now lost) for the ephemeral decoration of the Ponte Santa Trinita for the marriage between Ferdinando de’ Medici and Christina of Lorraine (1589).48 Those statues are known only through the reproductions published in the description of the event by Raffaele Gualterotti (Descrizione del regale apparato per le nozze della Serenissima Madama Cristina di Lorena Moglie del Serenissimo Don Ferdinando Medici III Gran Duca di Toscana […], Firenze: Appresso Antonio Padovani, 1589). A comparison of these engravings with two statues in Bressanone reveals such a faithful reproduction of the Florentine characters as to suggest that Reichle modelled his figures with the plans for the 1589 installation in mind.49 Moreover, on the armour of some Habsburgs, where the space available was greater, turbulent scenes of fighting and battle are modelled in delicate relief as on Childeric’s terracotta (Figure 4.3). The figure precisely reflects the corresponding drawing and depicts the king with hands resting on his weapons and turning his meditative gaze to the right, while the crown with his turban frames his long, curly

Hans Reichle’s Contribution 79 hair. On his armour, there are lively relief scenes more elaborate and refined than those shown on the drawing. In its vitality, the fight between the knight and the man on the ground, modelled on Childeric’s armour, resembles some of Giambologna’s reliefs, such as the Rape of the Sabine Women (1582–84, Florence, Loggia dei Lanzi), which is dominated by the entangled naked bodies and wind-whipped draperies. Reichle also tapped into the decorative repertoire exhibited on the armour of the equestrian statue of Cosimo I, a commission on which he was engaged at the time of his apprenticeship in Giambologna’s workshop.50 A closer examination of the statue representing Archduke Ferdinand II reveals an accurate reproduction of the scene modelled on Cosimo’s shoulder, showing a centaur attacking an exhausted man lying on the ground; the same centaur figure was reproduced by Reichle on the Archduke’s armour (Figure 4.9). Beyond the consistent references to Giambologna’s work, the Bressanone cycle is surprising as none of the figures is similar to another. Poses and garments prove the remarkable talent of the sculptor, who represented the entire genealogy using only two physical types constantly varied: the mature man with a serious expression and full beard, and the beardless young man with a swaggering attitude (Figures 4.3 and 4.4). Each figure is dynamic and moves its body under the heavy clothes or under its armour resulting in lively characters, caught in mid-action, while they interact with an ideal public, which the patron imagined as his court. This feature, which can be perceived in every single figure, turns the whole cycle into a harmonious ensemble, elegant and virtuoso, of physical

Figure 4.9 Hans Reichle, Ferdinand II, 1596–1601, terracotta, Bressanone, Museo Diocesano Hofburg. © Paolo Chistè (Università di Trento)

80  Francesca Padovani prowess and above all of high value. Looking at the figures, our attention is caught by the amazing abundance of details and decorations: Reichle meticulously added fine ornaments in every free space of the surface, constantly recalling the emblems of the family, the eagle, and the rampant lion. Where details are lacking, the robes or the abundant cloaks add volume; the charming effects of chiaroscuro are enhanced by the deep cuts in the clay, in order to create dramatically contrasting masses, with the cloth turning in on itself. One last point I would like to deal with is the critical issue of the original appearance of the figures. Scholars have generally proposed several hypotheses. According to Kriegbaum, they were probably originally painted with a dark bronze tone.51 On the other hand, Albasini, basing his idea on the traces of gold that emerged during a restoration in 1922, proposed an entire gilding for all the figures:52 he added that the statues were painted with a bronze patina probably only around the middle of the nineteenth century. Even Matsche’s proposals for their original appearance range from entirely gilded to gilded bronze.53 We now know for certain that the terracottas already appeared “bronzirte” to Georg Tinkhauser in 1851.54 The choice of simulated bronze would bring Reichle’s cycle even closer to Maximilian’s cenotaph in Innsbruck. Although the link to this monument is quite convincing, there are several reasons why we cannot exclude the possibility that the statues were originally painted white with only some details of clothing and heraldry gilded.55 This is suggested by the drawings kept at the Hofburg, showing white figures with some gilded ornaments, a contrast with the medallions whose background is black with the relief in the centre modelled white. The most recent restoration of 2016–17 has revealed traces of lead white pigment and subsequent gilding (mostly brass but also gold leaf) beneath several layers of dark coating. In order to find additional information, I have checked the accounts of the bishop’s court on the general renovation of the palace, looking for evidence of payments for colours and binders. This revealed several notes from 1597 referring to the supply of ground lead white and linseed oil:56 in contrast to these precise mentions, an entry dating back to 1599 states more generally “Dis 99 Jar ist Öl und Farben zum Österreichischen grossen Pijldern zum Paur verbraucht worden […]” (“In the [15]99 year oil and colors were used on the large Austrian figures of the building […]”).57 However, these references may not be sufficient to settle the question. In fact, lead white bound with linseed oil could have been used for several reasons. First, this mixture could have been employed as the background for the final painting of the figures which could have been similar to a bronze patina. Second, the choice of coating with white lead applied with an oily binder could represent precise aesthetic intentions such as faking a more precious material like marble. In addition, the choice of the lead white and linseed oil mixture could also have been motivated for reasons of conservation, given that the sculptures were to be exposed to the open air. In fact, already in the contract, there was the request to treat the surfaces of the terracottas in order to protect them “Damit solliche an den Gewitter langwürig erhalten und bestendig verbleiben mügen”58 (“In order to preserve them from the weather and keep them in good condition”). A similar treatment of terracotta sculpture was common; for example, it was applied several times to the lost but well-documented great prophet Joshua modelled by Donatello for the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence.59 According to these reports and due to the fact that recent restoration revealed traces of white and gold/ brass beneath a layer of black, I, therefore, consider the possibility that a bronze patina was added on Reichle’s portraits only at a later stage, maybe in the nineteenth century, covering an original white and partially gilded surface.

Hans Reichle’s Contribution 81 These reflections on Reichle’s cycle have allowed me to highlight what is really the most impressive example of terracotta sculpture in Tyrol. Although documented, we are not aware of any other works executed by Reichle during the four decades he spent in Bressanone, working in the city but also in the area belonging to the prince-bishopric. So far, the only known terracotta is the badly damaged Visitation relief (c. 1601–02) installed above the door of the chapel of Neuhaus Castle in Gais (Brunico/Bruneck, South Tyrol) attributed to Reichle by Kriegbaum in 1931 together with the bronze Deposition (1620) of the parish church of Brunico.60 In fact, many of Reichle’s documented works were lost in the early eighteenth century, during an intense period of renewal of ecclesiastical, private, and public spaces in South Tyrol. Despite these hindrances, I was able to conduct new research on an aspect of his activity never considered before, that is, his wood-carving. This transition cannot be because of the lack of a clay quarry in Tyrol, for the reasons I listed at the beginning of this essay; however, the explanation must be that the sculptor was now tied to Tyrol and its traditions. If the cycle of Habsburg terracottas is one of his greatest tributes to Giambologna, recalling in many figures his Italian experience, once he had settled in Tyrol, Reichle must have started to carve wood embracing the tradition of local sculpture and leading us into a new chapter of his history.61 Notes 1 This essay has been developed from my talk given at the conference Modelled, Fired, Transformed. Materiality of Terracotta Sculpture 1400–1600 in September 2021: the text has been revised and expanded. All translations from Italian and German are mine, unless otherwise stated. I would like to thank those who, in many ways, have supported my research: Peter Schwienbacher and Andrea Terza (Museo Diocesano Hofburg di Bressanone), Paolo Chistè (Università di Trento, Laboratorio di Tecniche Fotografiche Avanzate, LaBAAF) who took the pictures of the Habsburg’s sculptures. 2 Ignaz P. Dengel, “Reisen Mediceischer Fürsten durch Tirol in den Jahren 1628 und 1667/68,” Veröffentlichungen des Museums Ferdinandeum in Innsbruck 8 (1928): 27, note 4. On this, see also Karl Wolfsgruber, “Die Hofburg Brixen,” in Tiroler Burgenbuch, vol. IV, eds. Oswald Trapp and Magdalena Hörmann-Weingartner (Bolzano: Athesia, 1977), 47. 3 Franz A. Sinnacher, Beyträge zur bischöflichen Kirche Säben und Brixen in Tyrol, vol. VIII (Brixen: Weger, 1832), 26. See also Friedrich Kriegbaum, “Hans Reichle,” Jahrbuch der Kunst­ historischen Sammlungen in Wien 5 (1931): 191–92. 4 On the ancient bishop’s palace, see Wolfsgruber, “Die Hofburg Brixen,” 34–6. 5 For the statues kept at the Ferdinandeum, see Erich Egg, “Verzeichnis der Neuerwerbungen des Jahres 1959,” Veröffentlichungen des Museums Ferdinandeum 40 (1960): 228; for the statue kept at the Maximilianmuseum, see Bruno Bushart, Kostbarkeiten aus den Kunstsammlungen der Stadt Augsburg (Augsburg: Himmer, 1967), 70, 159. For both statues, see also Carlo Albasini, Castelli ed altri monumenti storici della zona di Bressanone (Rovereto/Bolzano: Manfrini, 1966), 43. 6 Kriegbaum, “Hans Reichle,” 208, note 74. 7 Peltzer (see note 21) and Kriegbaum provided some information about Reichle’s late activity: the latter deepened our knowledge further. He discovered that Reichle became Hofbaumeister to the prince-bishops, being also engaged as an engineer and architect. On this, see Kriegbaum, “Hans Reichle,” 197–204, 248–58. 8 On Reichle’s origin and family, see Rudolf A. Peltzer, “Der Kistler und Bildhauer Paul Reichel von Schongau, der Meister des Tötlein”, Das Schwäbische Museum 6 (1930): 188, 190; Kriegbaum, “Hans Reichle,” 190; Hildebrand Dussler, “Zum Leben und Werk des Paul Reichel, Bildhauer zu Schongau,” Lech­Isar­Land (1962): 63; Francesca Padovani, “Notizie inedite per un profilo di Hans Reichle bibliofilo,” Bollettino d’Arte 45 (2020): 148. 9 Dorothea Diemer, Hubert Gerhard und Carlo di Cesare del Palagio. Bronzeplastiker der Spätre­ naissance, vol. I (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 2004), 122 and Dorothea

82  Francesca Padovani Diemer, Hubert Gerhard und Carlo di Cesare del Palagio. Bronzeplastiker der Spätrenaissance, vol. II (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 2004), 26. 10 On the Duke’s grave monument, see Diemer, Hubert Gerhard, vol. I, 285–320 (with bibliography). A first closer examination of the period spent in Augsburg is provided in: Karl Feuchtmayr, “Neues über Hans Reuchlen,” Kunstchronik und Kunstmarkt 2 (1922), 21–7. 11 On these groups, see the most recent and comprehensive contributions: Dorothea Diemer, “Hans Reichle: ein Modello für die Augsburger Zeughausgruppe und Werkstattfragen,” Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, 57 (2006), 31–56 (with bibliography) and Dorothea Diemer, “Hans Reichles Werk für St. Ulrich und Afra,” Jahrbuch für Augsburger Bistumsgeschichte e.V. Lindenberg, 46 (2012), 21–76 (with bibliography). 12 Sinnacher, Beyträge, vol. VIII, 26. 13 Sinnacher, Beyträge, vol. VIII, 26: “Es wurden jene Statuen aus Thon vollendet, welche einst in dem großen Saal standen, nun aber in den steinernen Nischen des Vorhofes, freylich dem Ungewitter, und daher der baldigen Zerstörung ausgesetz, sich befinden” (“Those statues of clay were completed, which were first located in the great hall, but are now placed in the stone niches of the courtyard, exposed to storms [bad weather conditions], and therefore to imminent ruin”). 14 Sinnacher, Beyträge, vol. VIII, 26. 15 We have proof of a corresponding payment made to Reichle on January 12th, 1601, which confirms the execution of thirty-eight statues: to this note is added that “Mer hat er noch zu machen 6 Bilder” (“in addition he has still to make six pictures”). On this, see Sinnacher, Beyträge, vol. VIII, 26. The entire payment was published by Kriegbaum, “Hans Reichle,” 262–63. 16 Sinnacher, Beyträge, vol. VIII, 26. 17 “Entering through the main gate [of the palace] on the eastern wing, furnished with a façade of carved stones […] the high loggias [Corridore] on the ground floor and on both floors of the northern and southern wings offer a magnificent sight. The square pillars, which support the arches, are made of granite and on the second floor there are niches with twenty-four sculptures made of bronzed clay. They are five shoes high and represent famous heroes and princes of the House of Habsburg. They are all beautifully executed; the powerful and distinctive facial expressions, the noble majestic poses and appearance, and the fineness of form demonstrate the capable mind and skillful hand of the master. Hans Reichle is his name.” Georg Tinkhauser, Topographisch-historisch-statistische Beschreibung der Diöcese Brixen, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Kulturgeschichte und der noch vorhandenen Kunst- und Baudenkmale aus der Vorzeit, vol. I (Brixen: Weger, 1851), 117. 18 Beda Weber, Das Land Tirol, vol. II (Innsbruck: Wagner, 1838), 48. 19 Quick references to the statues can be found in Leo Woerl, Führer durch Brixen am Eisack und Umgebung (Leipzig: Woerl’s Reisebücherverlag, 1899), 27; Johann Walchegger, Brixen. Geschichtsbild und Sehenswürdigkeiten (Brixen: Verlag des Pressvereins-Buchhandlung, 1901), 54, 136; Guida di Bressanone e dintorni (Merano: Augusta, 1933), 16. 20 Karl Atz, Kunstgeschichte von Tirol und Vorarlberg (Innsbruck: Wagner, 1909), 894. 21 Rudolf A. Peltzer, “Der Bildhauer Hans Reichel aus Bayern und seine Tätigkeit in Italien, Deutschland und Tirol,” Kunst und Kunsthandwerk 22, no. 1–2 (1919): 18–20. 22 On the terracottas, see Kriegbaum, “Hans Reichle,” 192, 207–18. 23 Kriegbaum, “Hans Reichle,” 261–63. For a detailed overview of the contract’s terms and a systematic list of several payments received by the sculptor, see also Wolfsgruber, “Die Hofburg Brixen,” 40–2. 24 Carlo Albasini, “Die Habsburger-Statuen in der Fürstbischöflichen Hofburg von Brixen,” Der Schlern 37, no. 6–7 (1963): 257–60; Albasini, Castelli ed altri monumenti, 31–3, 42–52. 25 Thomas P. Bruhn, “Hans Reichle (1565/70–1642): A Reassessment of his sculpture” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1981), 31–6, 108–13. 26 Franz Matsche, “Hans Reichles Statuenzyklus des Habsburger Stammbaums in der fürstbi­ schöflichen Hofburg zu Brixen (1596–1601),” in Am Anfang war das Auge: kunsthistorische Tagung anlässlich des 100jährigen Bestehens des Diözesanmuseums Hofburg Brixen, ed. Leo Andergassen (Bozen: Athesia, 2004), 179–243. A few years later, Cornelia Plieger wrote a report on Reichle cycle in the first volume of Kunst in Tirol, see Cornelia Plieger, “Plastik der Renaissance,” in Kunst in Tirol, vol. I, eds. Paul Naredi-Rainer and Lukas Madersbacher (Innsbruck: Tyrolia; Bozen: Athesia, 2007), 608–09. 27 Thomas A. Bauer, “Habsburg Imprese in the Archbishop’s Palace in Brixen, Italy,” Emblema­ tica 20 (2013): 257–73.

Hans Reichle’s Contribution 83 28 Johann Kronbichler, ed., Die Barocken Zeichnungen der Hofburg Brixen, exh. cat. (Brixen: Veröffentlichungen der Hofburg Brixen, 2015): 10–4. 29 Kriegbaum, “Hans Reichle,” 209; Kronbichler, Die Barocken Zeichnungen, 10. 30 Kriegbaum, “Hans Reichle,” 209. 31 Matsche, “Hans Reichles Statuenzyklus,” 200. 32 Tinkhauser, Topographisch-historisch-statistische Beschreibung, 117. 33 Kriegbaum, “Hans Reichle,” 209, note 75. 34 Kriegbaum, “Hans Reichle,” 208, note 74; Matsche, “Hans Reichles Statuenzyklus,” 180; Bauer, “Habsburg Imprese,” 259. 35 Kriegbaum, “Hans Reichle,” 209. 36 Albasini, “Die Habsburger-Statuen,” 257; Albasini, Castelli ed altri monumenti, 43–4. On the drawings, see also Wolfsgruber, “Die Hofburg Brixen,” 40. On the title page of the monographic issue of the journal Der Schlern 43, no. 2/3 (1969), dedicated to the 450th anniversary of the death of Maximilian I of Habsburg, three of these drawings are reproduced. 37 The scholar also summarized the key points of the Planrolle’s story: Bruhn, “Hans Reichle (1565/70–1642),” 47, note 15. 38 Matsche, “Hans Reichles Statuenzyklus,” 192. 39 Kronbichler, Die Barocken Zeichnungen, 10–43. 40 Archivio Diocesano Bressanone – ADB, HA Erg. 15, 1642, c. 15r. On this, see also Padovani, “Notizie inedite,” 148, note 27. 41 Kriegbaum, “Hans Reichle,” 210. For a reflection on the engravings by Terzio and Reichle’s terracottas, see Anthony Radcliffe, “The Habsburg Images: Cigoli, Terzio and Reichle,” The Burlington Magazine 128, no. 995 (1986): 109. 42 For a closer overview of the work, see in particular Albert Ilg, “Francesco Terzio, der Hofmaler Erzherzogs Ferdinand von Tirol,” Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 9 (1889): 243–55; Elisabeth Scheicher, “Die Imagines Gentis Austriacae des Francesco Terzio,” Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien 79 (1983): 43–92. 43 Kriegbaum, “Hans Reichle,” 211: cf. Ilg, “Francesco Terzio,” 247. 44 Peltzer, “Der Bildhauer Hans Reichel,” 19. 45 Kriegbaum, “Hans Reichle,” 210, note 76. 46 The king’s sinuous pose is not, however, invented by Terzio, but rather a quotation of the ancient statue depicting the Germanic princess Tusnelda, placed among the marbles of the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence. On this, see Matsche, “Hans Reichles Statuenzyklus,” 208, note 66. 47 On this and other references to Giambologna’s sculpture, see Kriegbaum, “Hans Reichle,” 216, note 84 and Matsche, “Hans Reichles Statuenzyklus,” 220–26. 48 Kriegbaum, “Hans Reichle,” 190, note 5; 216. 49 Kriegbaum, “Hans Reichle,” 216. On this, see also Matsche, “Hans Reichles Statuenzyklus,” 190–91, 225. 50 On his participation in the commission, see Peltzer, “Der Bildhauer Hans Reichel,” 2; Kriegbaum, “Hans Reichle,” 190–91. 51 Kriegbaum, “Hans Reichle,” 208, note 74. 52 Albasini, “Die Habsburger-Statuen,” 258; Albasini, Castelli ed altri monumenti, 46. 53 Matsche, “Hans Reichles Statuenzyklus,” 228. 54 Tinkhauser, Topographisch-historisch-statistische Beschreibung, 117. 55 After the most recent restoration (2016–17) both possibilities were considered: either an original painting imitating gold or bronze or a white painting with partial gilding. On this, see the restoration report kept at the Hofburg Diocesan Museum of Bressanone. 56 ADB, HA 2597b, 1597 (August 10th), no. 95; ADB, HA 2598b, 1598, no. 53, c. 8. 57 ADB, HA 2599c, 1599, no. 37, c. 7. 58 Kriegbaum, “Hans Reichle,” 261. 59 For this and other examples, see Paolo Bensi, “«Alla vita della terracotta era necessario il colore»: appunti sulla policromia della statuaria fittile,” in La scultura in terracotta: tecniche e conservazione, ed. Maria Grazia Vaccari (Firenze: Centro Di, 1996), 34–43. 60 On these works, see Kriegbaum, “Hans Reichle,” 218, 251–53. 61 For a first proposal in this direction, see Francesca Padovani, “Catalogue entry 27,” in Anna. La madre di Maria. Culto e iconografia nel Tirolo storico, exh. cat. eds. Alessandra Galizzi Kroegel, and Stefanie Paulmichl (Trento: Temi, 2021), 187–91.

84  Francesca Padovani Bibliography Albasini, Carlo. “Die Habsburger-Statuen in der Fürstbischöflichen Hofburg von Brixen,” Der Schlern 37, no. 6–7 (1963): 257–60. Albasini, Carlo. Castelli ed altri monumenti storici della zona di Bressanone (Rovereto/Bolzano: Manfrini, 1966). Atz, Karl. Kunstgeschichte von Tirol und Vorarlberg (Innsbruck: Wagner, 1909). Bauer, Thomas A. “Habsburg Imprese in the Archbishop’s Palace in Brixen, Italy,” Emblematica 20 (2013): 257–73. Bensi, Paolo. “«Alla vita della terracotta era necessario il colore»: appunti sulla policromia della statuaria fittile,” In La scultura in terracotta: tecniche e conservazione, edited by Maria Grazia Vaccari, 34–46. Firenze: Centro Di, 1996. Bruhn, Thomas P. “Hans Reichle (1565/70–1642): A Reassessment of his sculpture,” PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1981. Bushart, Bruno. Kostbarkeiten aus den Kunstsammlungen der Stadt Augsburg (Augsburg: Himmer, 1967). Dengel, Ignaz P. “Reisen Mediceischer Fürsten durch Tirol in den Jahren 1628 und 1667/68,” Veröffentlichungen des Museums Ferdinandeum in Innsbruck 8 (1928): 1–45. Diemer, Dorothea. Hubert Gerhard und Carlo di Cesare del Palagio. Bronzeplastiker der Spätrenaissance, 2 vols. (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 2004). Dussler, Hildebrand. “Zum Leben und Werk des Paul Reichel, Bildhauer zu Schongau,” Lech-IsarLand (1962): 62–67. Egg, Erich. “Verzeichnis der Neuerwerbungen des Jahres 1959,” Veröffentlichungen des Museums Ferdinandeum 40 (1960): 226–30. Galizzi Kroegel, Alessandra and Paulmichl, Stefanie, eds. Anna. La madre di Maria. Culto e iconografia nel Tirolo storico, exh. cat. (Trento: Temi, 2021). Guida di Bressanone e dintorni Merano: Augusta, 1933. Ilg, Albert. “Francesco Terzio, der Hofmaler Erzherzogs Ferdinand von Tirol,” Jahrbuch der Kunst­ historischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 9 (1889): 235–62. Kriegbaum, Friedrich. “Hans Reichle,” Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien 5 (1931): 189–267. Kronbichler, Johann, ed. Die Barocken Zeichnungen der Hofburg Brixen, exh. cat. (Brixen: Veröffentlichungen der Hofburg Brixen, 2015). Matsche, Franz. “Hans Reichles Statuenzyklus des Habsburger Stammbaums in der fürstbischöflichen Hofburg zu Brixen (1596–1601),” In Am Anfang war das Auge: kunsthistorische Tagung anlässlich des 100jährigen Bestehens des Diözesanmuseums Hofburg Brixen, edited by Leo Andergassen, 179–243 (Bozen: Athesia, 2004). Padovani, Francesca. “Notizie inedite per un profilo di Hans Reichle bibliofilo,” Bollettino d’Arte 45 (2020): 145–54. Peltzer, Rudolf A. “Der Bildhauer Hans Reichel aus Bayern und seine Tätigkeit in Italien, Deutschland und Tirol,” Kunst und Kunsthandwerk 22, no. 1–2 (1919): 1–21. Peltzer, Rudolf A. “Der Kistler und Bildhauer Paul Reichel von Schongau, der Meister des Tötlein”, Das Schwäbische Museum 6 (1930): 184–192. Plieger, Cornelia. “Plastik der Renaissance,” In Kunst in Tirol, edited by Paul Naredi-Rainer and Lukas Madersbacher, vol. I, 595–610. Innsbruck: Tyrolia; Bozen: Athesia, 2007. Radcliffe, Anthony. “The Habsburg Images: Cigoli, Terzio and Reichle,” The Burlington Magazine 128, no. 995 (1986): 103–106, 109. Sinnacher, Franz A. Beyträge zur bischöflichen Kirche Säben und Brixen in Tyrol, vol. VIII Brixen: Weger, 1832. Tinkhauser, Georg. Topographisch-historisch-statistische Beschreibung der Diöcese Brixen, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Kulturgeschichte und der noch vorhandenen Kunst- und Baudenk­ male aus der Vorzeit, vol. I (Brixen: Weger, 1851).

Hans Reichle’s Contribution 85 Walchegger, Johann. Brixen. Geschichtsbild und Sehenswürdigkeiten (Brixen: Verlag des PressvereinsBuchhandlung, 1901). Weber, Beda. Das Land Tirol, vol. II (Innsbruck: Wagner, 1838). Woerl, Leo. Führer durch Brixen am Eisack und Umgebung (Leipzig: Woerl’s Reisebücherverlag, 1899). Wolfsgruber, Karl. “Die Hofburg Brixen,” In Tiroler Burgenbuch, vol. IV, edited by Oswald Trapp and Magdalena Hörmann-Weingartner, 28–58. Bozen: Athesia, 1977.

5

Luca della Robbia’s Labours in Terracotta Catherine Kupiec Independent Researcher, Everett, MA, USA

Introduction An old man chops wood on a chill January day, drawing his axe overhead for another swing. Just feet away, under a warm June sun, a young man stoops to sever a handful of grain at its roots. Tired of poring over illuminated manuscripts or ancient cameos in his private study within the Medici palace, Piero de’ Medici might have glanced up at these scenes. They belong to a series of twelve Labours of the Months (c. 1450–56, Figure 5.1) that decorated the ceiling of the room, made by the Florentine artist Luca della Robbia (1399/1400–82) in a novel glazed terracotta medium of his own invention. While the Labours of the Months were a common subject in the fifteenth century, this cycle is unusual for its exclusively agricultural imagery that focuses on the care of crops, trees, and vines. It has been understood to flatter Piero by invoking a classical analogy that likened the cultivation of plants to that of the mind: through his studies within this space, Piero methodically refined and improved his intellect.1 This essay offers a new interpretation, discerning ideals within the agricultural subject matter of the Labours – knowledge, discipline, and cyclical repetition – that pertain as much to the profession of their artist, the clay modeller Luca della Robbia, as to the scholarly pursuits of their patron, Piero de’ Medici. In this reading, earth – as a physical material – generates meaning in the Labours cycle, binding together its agrarian subjects, its terracotta medium, and the land ownership of its artist and its patron. To develop these intersecting investments in earthen labour, the essay approaches the Labours through the classical text that has been identified as their source: Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella’s De re rustica (On Agriculture), a firstcentury treatise on agriculture that Piero de’ Medici owned in manuscript form by 1456. A close reading shows the concerns articulated by Columella to echo those recorded in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italian treatises on the artistic uses of clay, and ultimately to align with Luca’s practice as a maker of glazed terracotta sculptures. The texts thus lend insight into the bodily experiences of an artist who owned farmland in the countryside, and those of the patron, who possessed more extensive farmlands but was afflicted with gout, and for whom the glazed scenes were, at least in part, sublimated into a metaphor for intellectual work. By making the Labours about the earth, this essay aligns with other scholarship that has emphasized the importance of Luca’s clay, which he prepared carefully and worked with great skill.2 Piero’s private study, where the Labours were installed, was located in the new Medici palace on the via Larga (begun 1444) and was likely completed by 1456.3 The room housed his impressive collection of ancient and modern manuscripts, classical coins, gems, vases, and other artworks. It served both as a private retreat, where Piero might DOI: 10.4324/9781003327462-8

Luca della Robbia’s Labours in Terracotta 87

Figure 5.1 Luca della Robbia (Italian, Florentine, 1399/1400–82), The Labours of the Months, c. 1450–56, glazed terracotta, Victoria and Albert Museum, London. ©Victoria and Albert Museum, London

read, write letters, and admire his possessions, and a public space, regularly shown to foreign dignitaries as evidence of Medici wealth and refinement.4 Not least among its wonders were the room’s glazed terracotta ceiling and floor, both made by a local artist, Luca della Robbia, who was famous for having developed their remarkable medium over a decade earlier. The new medium employed lead-tin glazes (related to maiolica glazes),

88  Catherine Kupiec to confer brilliant colour and reflectivity upon sensitively modelled terracotta forms.5 The Labours were the main decoration of the glazed ceiling, and they differ from Luca’s earlier work in the medium as they are ‘painted’ with glazes on flat, rather than modelled, surfaces. Giorgio Vasari and Filarete report that the ceiling and floor greatly impressed all who saw them, and Vasari notes that they were assembled so skilfully as to conceal the joins between their pieces.6 Testifying to the fame of the room, a Neapolitan patron, Diomede Carafa, would commission a painted copy in order to imitate it in 1468.7 Sadly, the study was destroyed and its contents dispersed after 1659 when the Medici sold their palace to the Riccardi family.8 The twelve Labours tiles resurfaced only in the nineteenth century, in the Campana collection in Rome (by 1859), and in 1861 they were sold to the South Kensington Museum (today the Victoria and Albert Museum), where they remain today.9 The rest of the ceiling is lost, making it important for scholars to reconstruct the original installation. The Labours would have been embedded within a glazed architectural framework, which perhaps resembled the coffered vault Luca created for Piero a few years earlier in the Tabernacle of the Crucifix at San Miniato al Monte. The ceiling of the study was barrel-vaulted, and the Labours were likely set into it in three rows of four. The current reconstruction at the Victoria and Albert Museum is almost certainly correct, with the scenes grouped January to April, May to August, and September to December.10 The corners of the tiles were originally glazed to imitate the costly, physically hard materials of porphyry and serpentine, which were frequently used together in Medici commissions to suggest princely luxury.11 For this work, Piero selected an artist who had risen to the top of a competitive market. Luca had proven himself as a marble carver in the 1430s, with his masterful Cantoria for the city’s cathedral, before unveiling his novel glazed art to Florentine audiences by the early 1440s. The precise genesis of this invention remains uncertain, but Luca would soon run a busy workshop for its production that, by the time he undertook the Labours, included his nephew Andrea della Robbia.12 The difficulty of comparing the Labour’s painterly figures to Luca’s documented sculptural oeuvre has spurred debate about the extent of his involvement in making them.13 Scholars have sometimes argued that another artist provided the designs for the scenes and that workshop participation lessened their stylistic quality. But workshop collaboration was the norm in this period, and it is hard to believe Luca did not actively shape each aspect of this major commission. Moreover, the subject of the Labours – the human use of earth – resonates closely with Luca’s profession, and he must have felt sympathy for the scenes. The earthen expertise he cultivated within the Della Robbia workshop would prepare it to thrive, in the hands of Andrea and his sons, well into the next century.14 From Columella’s Ancient Farm to the Renaissance Workshop The most comprehensive agricultural treatise from antiquity, Columella’s De re rustica covers a range of topics. Its twelve books explain how to select a good farm site and prepare its soil for use; how to grow crops and cultivate vines; how to care for farm animals, from oxen to bees; and how to make wine and pickle food. It moreover offers a poem on gardening written in hexameter, a calendar for farm labour, and instructions on the duties of the farm overseer and his wife. The earth – in its physical form as soil – is a topic of first importance to Columella.15 He starts by refuting the belief, held by many contemporaries, that the Roman soil is “worn out and exhausted” from years of overuse and has fallen into “unfruitfulness,” insisting instead that its health depends on the skill of the farmer who uses it.16 In the books that follow, he offers best practices and strategies

Luca della Robbia’s Labours in Terracotta 89 to ensure its lasting productivity, drawn from his personal experience. Columella was a native of Cadiz, Spain, but moved early in life to Italy, where he owned and farmed property outside Rome. Agricultural expertise apparently ran in the family, for he cites his uncle, the farmer Marcus Columella, as an authority.17 He also draws on earlier agricultural texts, such as Cato’s De agri cultura, Marcus Varro’s De re rustica, and Virgil’s Georgics. Largely forgotten to medieval readers, De re rustica was rediscovered in the fifteenth century thanks to Poggio Bracciolini’s tireless work to recover ancient texts. Its account of Roman farming proved popular, and both Piero and his brother Giovanni di Cosimo had copies (it was Piero’s only book on agriculture).18 Columella describes all the tasks represented in the Labours, some of which are unusual, and for this reason Pope-Hennessy recognized the text as their source: woodcutting (January); grafting trees (February); pruning vines (March); training vines (April); mowing grass (May); harvesting wheat (June); threshing wheat (July); ploughing (August); gathering grapes (September); planting seeds (October); picking olives (November); and trenching ground (December).19 As Pope-Hennessy also noted, fifteenth-century farming remained very similar to that described by Columella, such that text and living practice intersect in the cycle.20 Each activity is assigned to a month, although Columella observes that the timing will vary by region, climate, and soil. The farmer must read these conditions, as well as the stars and planets, to guide his activities. Luca reminds us of this in the Labours’ frames, which thematize time by depicting the zodiac sign and the hours of day and night for each month. Although Columella served as the iconographical source of the Labours, his insights into the lived reality of farm work – especially the intimate relationship between farmers and their soil – have not been connected to the cycle. Land and soil selection are fundamental tasks for Columella, and he discusses them in Books I and II of his treatise to lay a firm groundwork. He directs the farmer to first consider the type of terrain he uses, whether it be champaign (flat), hilly, or mountainous. He must then categorize the earth he finds there according to six “species” – fat or lean, loose or compact, and moist or dry – that combine to produce “a very great variety of soils.”21 Along with site and climate, its species determines what a soil can grow. In general, the best earth is rich and mellow, the second-best is rich and dense, and the worst is dry, stiff, and lean (to “be shunned as if it were plague-ridden ground”).22 But in the end, soil is good if it suits the farmer’s purpose, and no single type fits every need. To illustrate the point: millet requires light, loose soil, but can grow in gravely ground and in sand, so long as it is moist; flax wants rich, moderately moist earth; and lentils need soil that is lean, loose, and above all, dry.23 These realities required farmers to know their soil intimately. One may imagine how this looks using Luca’s August (Figure 5.2), a scene that shows the preparation of earth for planting. Two sturdy oxen pull a blade driven by an energetic man, their bodies tense with the effort. With this work they make the earth ready to receive seeds, breaking up old roots and loosening the soil so that new root systems may grow within it; their ploughing might also serve to mix nutrient-rich manure into the ground.24 Done well, this increases the yield of crops and trees. But one must know how to plough correctly, to suit the needs of the soil. Some lands, such as those planted with vineyards and olives in Italy, need to be worked deeply, while others, such as the crumbling, treeless soils of north Africa, need only a light touch.25 Ploughing should also be timed to avoid wet seasons when the ground becomes muddy, and the farmer should test his work afterwards by pushing a pole into the ploughed land, to discern whether hard places remain under its surface.26 Columella’s advice resonates with the experiences of those who formed clay into bricks, tiles, pots, jugs, plates, sculptural models (modelli), finished sculptures, and moulds for casting metal in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy. As Giancarlo Gentilini showed in

90  Catherine Kupiec

Figure 5.2 Luca della Robbia, August, c. 1450–56, glazed terracotta, 61 × 59 × 9 cm, Victoria and Albert Museum, London. ©Victoria and Albert Museum, London

a foundational essay on the materials and techniques of terracotta sculpture, the concerns of these craftsmen are recorded in a significant body of writing.27 The texts include treatises on architecture, sculpture, metallurgy, and pottery, and a Counter-Reformation dialogue on art: Leon Battista Alberti, De re aedificatoria (c. 1443–1452), Pomponio Gaurico, De sculptura (1504), Vannoccio Biringuccio, De la pirotechnia (1540), Cipriano Piccolpasso, Li tre libri dell’arte del vasaio (c. 1557), and Raffaello Borghini, Il riposo (1584). The range of their content speaks to the centrality of clay in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century artistic practice, and like Columella’s De re rustica, nearly all give detailed instructions for selecting, preparing, and using the materials of one’s art. Such technical writing can feel tedious in its attention to minutiae (like reading a cookbook from cover to cover), but it was an important literary form in antiquity and the early modern era.28 While the treatises aimed at authorial self-fashioning as much as the communication of craft, and while written words only imperfectly reflect bodily knowledge and experience, these sources offer valuable glimpses into past skilled practices. In the present case, they permit a profitable comparison of the earth-knowledge shared by ancient farmers and premodern artists. Fifteenth- and sixteenth-century writers knew the character of the earth to determine its usefulness, and so, like Columella, they carefully described its varieties in topographical and qualitative terms. They explained that clay might be gathered from riverbanks or dug from pits; it might be fat or lean (the former term describing fine-grained, plastic clay, and the latter term describing stiff and sandy clay); and it might vary in colour, whether white, black, yellow, or red.29 The natural processes that conspire to produce clay account for this diversity. Clay is mainly composed of clay minerals created by the breakdown, or weathering, of rocks. Once formed, the clay minerals might stay near their

Luca della Robbia’s Labours in Terracotta 91 mother rock or, more often, they might travel, further breaking down and acquiring organic and mineral impurities, such as twigs and rocks.30 These vicissitudes dictate a clay’s character, including its colour, relative plasticity or stiffness, rate of shrinkage, target firing temperature, and agreement with glazes. The result is an endless variety of clays, as Cipriano Piccolpasso underscores in the first chapter of his book on pottery, where he describes the clays used in over twenty cities and regions, from Italy to Flanders.31 Given this abundance, writers repeatedly stress the craftsman’s need to choose the right clay for the job. Alberti prefers whitish clay of good plasticity for bricks, while Borghini recommends highly plastic clay for small preparatory models.32 Piccolpasso describes the use of red, heavy clay for humble cooking pots and white, lighter clay for more prestigious tin-glazed maiolica vessels.33 Florentine sculptors made a similar distinction when selecting their clays: modern technical analysis has shown that cold-painted terracotta sculptures were generally made from red iron-rich clay, while glazed Della Robbia sculptures were made from calcium-rich, or marly, clay that is lighter in colour (like that of the potters).34 The distinction is technically motivated, for the marly clay and lead-tin glazes used by potters and the Della Robbia behave similarly at high temperatures, forming a good “fit” that limits the risk of glaze defects like crawling and crazing. Because they fuse in the kiln, clays and glazes must suit one another; the same imperative does not extend to cold-painted terracotta sculptures, which artists prepared with gesso sizing and painted in tempera, and later oils, as if they were panel pictures. Proper clay selection, while important, was only a first step. Artists and farmers did not use raw, unprocessed earth exactly as they found it, but rather they prepared it, through treatment and mixture, to meet their needs. Piccolpasso writes that an artist might first leave clay to dry in the sun, bury it, beat it, and wash it, all of which helped to clean the clay, by removing impurities like twigs and stones, and to further break it down.35 Farmers similarly prepared their land by ploughing, troughing, draining, and irrigating it; removing rocks, roots, and trees; and allowing for the natural weathering effects of sun, wind, and rain. Next, artists mixed other materials into their earth, adjusting its behaviour and creating what is called the impasto, or clay body. They might use sand, ashes, salt water, rust, ground iron, crushed brick, cloth clippings, animal dung (from horses, donkeys, mules, and cows), plant matter (such as straw), hair, and other clays.36 Biringuccio explains that such adjustments help craftsmen who cannot find a clay “as perfect as they would wish it” to make use of what they have.37 The farmer, too, augmented his earth by adding manure, transplanting other soils to the site, or planting crops that would enrich it. At every step, artists and farmers relied on hands-on experience. When discussing clay used to make moulds for metal casting, Biringuccio notes: “Aside from actual trial, I believe that there is little that can help you, since the clay in itself has no colour or visible sign that I know of to show how satisfactory it is.”38 He warns against a misleading but seemingly common shortcut – judging the character of the earth by its colour – that Columella had censured over a millennium earlier.39 Rather, one should evaluate and adjust their earth through various bodily means, using the senses of touch, taste, and smell alongside observation; as Pamela Smith and others have shown, this was an important way of knowing in the pre-modern era.40 Columella confirms that ancient farmers worked similarly, describing tests such as kneading a damp clod and then throwing it to the ground to observe its behaviour, or tasting the water in which a suspect soil has been steeped.41 These methods reflect what Ann-Sophie Lehmann has brilliantly described, namely that clay is an active partner, not a passive substrate, to which the artist must attend in order to work well.42

92  Catherine Kupiec Making the Labours in Terracotta As large terracotta objects, the Labours illustrate the demands of handling earth. Each tile measures roughly two by two feet (60 × 60 cm), weighs forty to fifty pounds (approx. 18–23 kg), and is made from pinkish-beige clay (Figure 5.3).43 Extensive technical analysis, carried out in Europe and the United States over the past three decades, has shown that the Della Robbia used two kinds of clay in their sculptures. For glazed works like the Labours, they used calcium-rich clay (23.1% CaO average), which is light in colour and forms a good chemical fit with their lead-tin glazes.44 Its composition remained remarkably consistent over three generations of production, suggesting careful preparation and the possibility that it came from a stable source, the precise location of which is subject to speculation.45 It may have been river clay (belletta di fiume) from the Arno, mixed with sand (liso) to prevent breakage during firing, as one sixteenth-century document claims.46 For cold-painted sculptures, on the other hand, they used the same red ferrous clay as other Florentine artists.47 The importance of the distinction is clear in the case of two of Andrea’s sons, Girolamo and Luca, who worked for king François Ier in France in the sixteenth century. They struggled to adapt their family recipes to the local clay, which was poor in calcium and did not suit their glazes, causing them to deteriorate rapidly. In 1563, a French rival, Bernard Palissy, attributed the failure to inexperience with Parisian earth.48 In terms of their physical formation, the Labours were likely made by pressing clay into a mould.49 This method facilitated production by ensuring a standard size and weight for each tile, but even so, it required careful work. Luca and his collaborators removed clay from the back of each tile in wide, regular channels (Figure 5.3). This made the tiles lighter and regularized the thickness of their clay walls, which helped them to dry and fire evenly,

Figure 5.3 Luca della Robbia, April during conservation, c. 1450–56, glazed terracotta, 62.5 × 60.5 × 9.5 cm, Victoria and Albert Museum, London. ©Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Luca della Robbia’s Labours in Terracotta 93 limiting the risk that the tiles would crack or break in the kiln. Even with their careful preparation, Sofia Marques has observed the many problems that arose in making these heavy terracotta objects.50 The August tile broke in half during firing and was repaired by gluing it back together with glaze in a second firing. In June, a section of already-fired glaze near the zodiac sign was apparently scraped away, repainted, and refired. As Rachel Boyd has noted, repairs are common in Della Robbia works, reflecting both the artists’ adventurousness in trying new things and their skill in adjusting when things went awry.51 The presence of original repairs in the Labours speaks to a desire to save time and resources by repairing compromised objects rather than discarding them to start anew. With their standardized forms and cyclical imagery, the Labours also invite reflection on the value of repeated action. By performing the same tasks over and over – cleaning, mixing, wedging, moulding, modelling, hollowing, sectioning, and firing clay – Luca and his assistants gained competency in their art. These actions constitute what Biringuccio called “actual trial” of the clay, and by doing them within the collaborative space of the workshop, masters passed precepts down to their pupils. Luca himself must have learned in such a context, and while his earliest works in clay are not documented, in the 1420s and 1430s he likely contributed to the Florentine trade in terracotta images of the Madonna and Child, many of which were made using moulds.52 Repetition also instilled core elements of Luca’s practice in later Della Robbia artists, even as they pioneered new methods. For example, Giovanni della Robbia would discover an ingenious adaptation, sculpting with a thin layer of marly clay – to suit his glazes – over an internal red clay structure (Figure 5.4), the latter material perhaps being cheaper or more readily to hand.53

Figure 5.4 Conservation photography of Giovanni della Robbia (Italian, Florentine, 1469–1529/30), Resurrection of Christ, ca. 1520–25, glazed terracotta, 174.6 × 364.5 × 33 cm, Brooklyn Museum, Gift of A. Augustus Healy, 99.5. © Brooklyn Museum Conservation Department

94  Catherine Kupiec Artist, Patron, and Meaning The contention that Luca recognized intersections between sculptural and agricultural work finds support in his ownership of farmland in the contado, which he inherited from his father, Simone di Marco della Robbia. Pope-Hennessy has noted that the Della Robbia was a “relatively well-to-do” family, ranking in the top quintile of Florentine households taxed in 1427.54 That year, Simone declared possession of rural properties in the Valdarno at Santa Maria dal Tartigliese, Chastello San Giovanni and San Tommè a Baroncelli, in addition to a house in the city.55 Over the coming century, family members would buy, sell, and inherit properties in the countryside, although the possessions at Santa Maria dal Tartigliese and San Tommaso a Baroncelli stayed in their hands throughout Luca’s lifetime, and he presumably grew up visiting them.56 At each site the Della Robbia owned at least one house and nearby pieces of land; at Santa Maria dal Tartigliese, for example, they had a farmhouse, stable, and nineteen plots. Their land was worked and sometimes rented by locals and, over time, yielded varied goods: wheat, sorghum, millet, barley, panic grass, flax, beans, wine, pork, capon, eggs, and fruit. Previous interest in the family’s rural properties has focused on the question of whether any of them furnished clay for their sculptures.57 Temptingly, the declarations describe a plot at Santa Maria dal Tartigliese that had fallen into the Arno by 1427, presenting a potential source for the river clay the Della Robbia workshop might have used.58 This essay suggests a new line of thinking around the land, one that centres on the rhythms of method and material shared by farmers and modellers alike. Amanda Lillie has emphasized how often Florentines were closely involved in the management of their contado properties, and while the Della Robbia may not have ploughed the soil personally, their Catasti reflect sustained attention to the land.59 They certainly knew the value of soil and site, for the river valleys outside Florence were prized for their rich alluvial soil, good for grain and cereals (as at Santa Maria dal Tartigliese), while hill sites were better for vines, olives, timber, and livestock.60 They also knew the vagaries of farm productivity, judging by the qualifications Simone made in his lists of annual yields on several occasions: “the aforementioned lands yield every year, one year making up for the other…”61 The cheerful glazed garlands used in so many Della Robbia sculptures confirm a rich agricultural imagination. Luca produced somewhat generic floral imagery in his early Santa Maria Nuova host tabernacle (1441–43), but the later garlands for the tomb of Bishop Benozzo Federighi (1454–57) and the Mercanzia stemma at Orsanmichele (1463) are botanically specific and diverse. Tuscan viewers knew that these plants – among them beans, quinces, chestnuts, grapes, and poppies – did not mature at the same time, nor did they flourish in the same soils. The impossible garlands symbolize bounty and imply that Luca outdoes nature by producing it all from one species of earth. Roberta Olson’s examination of the Resurrection of Christ by Giovanni della Robbia (ca. 1520-25; Figure 9.4 in chapter 9) in this volume attests to a lasting interest in flora and fauna in the later workshop. With its creeping critters and thematization of death and rebirth, the Resurrection garland depicts an ecosystem – earth that nourishes, animals that eat and excrete seeds, and manure that enriches the soil. Here, too, Giovanni’s ingenious use of a thin layer of marly clay over the red clay (Figure 5.4) seems agricultural, like rich topsoil spread over poorer subsoil.62 Like the Della Robbia, the Medici owned properties in the countryside and took keen interest in the agrarian work conducted there. Their holdings were initially concentrated in the Mugello, the region from which the family originated, but the brothers Cosimo and Lorenzo di Giovanni soon expanded their scope, establishing nuclei for ongoing

Luca della Robbia’s Labours in Terracotta 95 acquisitions at Careggi and Calenzano, near Florence and Prato respectively.63 The Medici had villas at Trebbio (1427–33) and Cafaggiolo (1443–52) in the Mugello, at Careggi (bought 1417) and Fiesole (1453–57) near Florence, and eventually at Poggio a Caiano (bought 1474), in addition to many farms and plots of land in the vicinity of those sites. Their rural commitments are moreover reflected in their reading. Piero and Giovanni di Cosimo consulted Columella, while their father – who famously enjoyed working on his estates, writing in letters about cutting back trees and staking vines – read Cato’s De re rustica.64 Piero’s son, Lorenzo, also embraced the family tradition of land acquisition energetically. His renown as “a fine husbandman” is reflected in the dedication of a commentary on Columella’s tenth book, the hexametric poem on gardening, to him in 1483.65 Piero himself suffered from gout, a painful ailment of the joints, and could not share his father Cosimo’s relish for physical work. But he did take an active part in family land acquisition efforts, especially in the 1450s and 60s.66 The Labours would have evoked the Tuscan countryside for him, both in its economic dimension as a source of wealth and, with reference to the Mugello especially, in a personal sense as the family homeland. While any Labours of the Months cycle is, to a degree, universalizing, the products and animals represented – grape vines and grain, oxen and pigs – were daily sights outside Florence. The link to the contado finds further confirmation in the glazed terracotta frieze that Lorenzo de’ Medici would commission for the entrance to his villa at Poggio a Caiano (c. 1490). Attributed to Bertoldo di Giovanni, it features esoteric imagery that includes a Labours of the Months cycle focused on agricultural labour.67 The cycle invokes Luca’s Labours specifically by repeating many of his scenes, from ploughing and pruning to picking grapes and olives, bringing them home, so to speak, to the countryside. Beyond these meanings, Maryanne Horowitz has persuasively shown the Labours to hold metaphorical significance for Piero. They establish an analogy between the cultivation of plants and that of the mind found in Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria (c. 95 CE), which likens an impressionable pupil to a growing plant. Piero and Cosimo had copies of the text, confirming the place of these ideas in their intellectual milieu, and Petrarch (in 1336–46) and Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (in 1450) would also echo Quintilian’s horticultural analogy.68 Filarete seems to apply these ideas to Piero, remarking that he could spend an entire month viewing the contents of his study, before starting over again the next month.69 Lorenzo Gnocchi also pointed out the connection between agriculture and culture in an earlier, lyrical article on Piero’s artistic tastes, likening farm work in the Labours to the scholarly studies of the patron. He extended the analogy to artists that worked for Piero, like Luca, who studied nature with equal rigour in order to imitate it in their art.70 The present essay pushes Gnocchi’s line of thinking further, by focusing on the bodily knowledge of earthen materials cultivated by artists and farmers alike, rather than the stylistic imitation of nature. Ultimately, the fact that both Luca della Robbia and Piero de’ Medici might have identified meaningful personal resonances in the agrarian imagery of the Labours speaks to the cultural climate of fifteenth-century Florence. As historians of science have emphasized, the kinds of disciplined bodily knowledge possessed by craftsmen like Luca increasingly intersected with the intellectual interests of well-trained elites like Piero. Exchange between the two groups eventually helped to shape the forms of empirical science that emerged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Labours reflect an early moment, in which these trends were nascent. While the choice of their imagery lay with Piero, they depict the rhythms and logic of production that shaped the daily experience

96  Catherine Kupiec of their maker, a clay modeller, in a way that would have been recognizable to him. They also broadly reflect the agrarian values and rhythms to which fifteenth-century viewers – much more than modern audiences – were attuned, offering insight into the ways earthen products and imagery were originally received in Florentine art. Notes 1 Maryanne Cline Horowitz, “Humanist Horticulture: Twelve Agricultural Months and Twelve Categories of Books in Piero de’ Medici’s ‘studiolo’,” Viator 34 (2003): 272–307. 2 Marietta Cambareri, “The Sculptor’s Touch: Luca della Robbia and the Clay below the Glaze,” in Creating Sculpture: Renaissance Drawings and Models, eds. Michael Cole, Ana Debenedetti and Peta Motture, with Kira d’Alburquerque (London: V&A Publishing, 2022), 62–73; Anne Bouquillon, “Terra, vivi per me cara e gradita…,” in Della Robbia: dieci anni di studi/dix ans d’études, eds. Anne Bouquillon, Marc Bormand, and Alessandro Zucchiatti (Genoa: Sagep Editori, 2011), 24–31; Giancarlo Gentilini, I Della Robbia. La scultura invetriata nel Rinascimento (Florence: Cantini, 1992), vol. 1, 24–81; Maria Grazia Vaccari, “Tecniche e metodi di lavorazione,” in I Della Robbia e l’arte nuova della scultura invetriata, ed. Giancarlo Gentilini (Florence: Giunti, 1998), 97–116. 3 Luke Syson, “The Medici Study,” in At Home in Renaissance Italy, eds. Marta Ajmar-Wollheim and Flora Dennis (London: V&A Publications, 2006), 288. The year 1456 marks Filarete’s last recorded visit to Florence and his later Trattato di architettura would give a detailed description of the study, including its glazed decorations. 4 For its contents and use, see Syson, “The Medici Study,” 288–92. 5 For the distinction between Della Robbia and maiolica glazes, W. David Kingery and Meredith Aronson, “The Glazes of Luca della Robbia,” Faenza 76 (1990): 221–225. For the new medium, see Marietta Cambareri, Della Robbia: Sculpting with Color in Renaissance Florence (Boston: MFA Publications, 2016), and Catherine Kupiec, “The Materiality of Luca della Robbia’s Glazed Terracotta Sculptures” (PhD dissertation, Rutgers University, 2016), both with references to earlier studies. 6 For the tiles as glazed paintings and the comments by Vasari and Filarete, see Giancarlo Gentilini, “La pittura ‘eterna’ nel ‘parentado Della Robbia’,” in I Della Robbia. Il dialogo tra le Arti nel Rinascimento, ed. Giancarlo Gentilini (Milan: Skira, 2009), 154–155. 7 Eve Borsook, “A Florentine Scrittoio for Diomede Carafa,” in Art, the Ape of Nature: Studies in Honor of H. W. Janson, eds. Moshe Barasch, Lucy Freeman Sandler, and Patricia Egan (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1981), 91–96. 8 Syson, “The Medici Study,” 288. 9 In London, they were recognized and published by J. C. Robinson, Italian Sculpture of the Middle Ages and Period of the Revival of Art (London: Chapman and Hall, 1862), 59–63. See Murielle Pianazza, “Giovan Pietro Campana collezionista, archeologo, banchiere e il suo legame con Firenze,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 37, no. 2/3 (1993): 433–474, for the sale, and Angela Dressen, Pavimenti decorati del Quattrocento in Italia (Premio James Ackerman per la storia dell’Architettura 3) (Venice: Marsilio, 2008), 174–75, 344– 45, for a tile that may have belonged to the otherwise lost floor. 10 Technical evidence clarifies the issue. Each roundel is concave and curves along an axis: four scenes curve along a vertical axis and were installed down the center of the vault (May to August), while the other eight scenes curve along a horizontal axis (January to April, September to December) and were set along the sides. While the Labours are badly damaged, their original curvature is confirmed by channels dug into the back of the tiles to lessen their weight and ensure safe firing; the channels occur on the thick sides that curve upward. Given this evidence, the intriguing alterative reconstruction in Gentilini, I Della Robbia, vol. 1, 164, note 25, cannot be accepted. 11 Only traces of the decoration survive around the roundels’ edges. For Della Robbia imitations of porphyry, see Zuzanna Sarnecka, “Firing Porphyry in the Italian Renaissance Kiln,” in The Matter of Mimesis: Studies of Mimesis and Materials in Nature, Art and Science, eds. Marjolijn Bol and E. C. Spary (Leiden: Brill, 2023), 87–111. 12 For Andrea’s start in the workshop, see Gentilini, I Della Robbia, vol. 1, 169.

Luca della Robbia’s Labours in Terracotta 97 13 See Keith Christiansen, ed., From Filippo Lippi to Piero della Francesca: Fra Carnevale and the Making of a Renaissance Master (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005), 198–99, who thinks it possible (but not certain) that Luca designed the scenes himself; and John PopeHennessy, Luca della Robbia (Oxford: Phaidon, 1980), 43–45, 240–42, with earlier references. 14 For the dynamic activity of the workshop during and after Luca’s lifetime, see Rachel E. Boyd, “Invention, Collaboration, and Authorship in the Renaissance Workshop: The Della Robbia Family and Italian Glazed Terracotta Sculpture, ca. 1430–1566” (PhD dissertation, Columbia University, 2020). 15 See Lois Olson, “Columella and the Beginning of Soil Science,” Agricultural History 17, no. 2 (1943): 65–72. 16 Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella, On Agriculture, trans. Harrison Boyd Ash, E. S. Forster and Edward H. Heffner (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 1941), vol. 1, 3. 17 Columella, On Agriculture, vol. 1, xiii–xv. 18 Francis Ames-Lewis, “The Inventories of Piero di Cosimo de’ Medici’s Library,” La Bibliofilía 84, no. 2 (1982): 125, 137. Both manuscripts are today at the Biblioteca Laurenziana: Plut. 53, 32 (Piero’s) and Plut. 53, 27 (Giovanni’s). 19 Pope-Hennessy, Luca della Robbia, 44–45, 242. The following are more typical: enjoying a warm fire or feast in January, hawking and hunting in April and May, and killing pigs in December. Also see Horowitz, “Humanist Horticulture,” 273–74, 287. 20 Pope-Hennessy, Luca della Robbia, 44–45. 21 Columella, On Agriculture, vol. 1, 109. 22 Columella, On Agriculture, vol. 1, 111–13. 23 Columella, On Agriculture, vol. 1, 155, 167, 165. 24 Columella, On Agriculture, vol. 1, 137. 25 Columella, On Agriculture, vol. 1, 125. 26 Columella, On Agriculture, vol. 1, 129–31. 27 Giancarlo Gentilini, “La scultura fiorentina in terracotta del Rinascimento: tecniche e tipologie,” in La scultura in terracotta: tecniche e conservazione, ed. Maria Grazia Vaccari (Florence: Centro Di, 1996), 64–103. 28 On this type of writing, see Pamela H. Smith, “In the Workshop of History: Making, Writing, and Meaning,” West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture 19, no. 1 (2012): 4–31, and Pamela O. Long, Openness, Secrecy, Authorship: Technical Arts and the Culture of Knowledge from Antiquity to the Renaissance (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). For the genre in relation to Columella, see Kim Bowes, “Roman Agriculture from Above and Below: Words and Things,” in Ancient History from Below: Subaltern Experiences and Actions in Context, eds. Cyril Courrier and Julio Cesar Magalhães de Oliveira (London: Routledge, 2022), 125–30. 29 Cipriano Piccolpasso, The Three Books of the Potter’s Art = I tre libri dell’arte del vasaio: A Facsimile of the Manuscript in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, trans. Ronald Lightbown and Alan Caiger-Smith (London: Scolar Press, 1980), vol. 2, 13–14; The Pirotechnia of Vannoccio Biringuccio. The Classic Sixteenth-Century Treatise on Metals and Metallurgy, trans. Cyril Stanley Smith and Martha Teach Gnudi (New York: Dover Publications, 1990), 218. 30 Bruno Fabbri, “Processi di lavorazione e rivestimenti ceramici,” in La scultura in terracotta: tecniche e conservazione, ed. Maria Grazia Vaccari (Florence: Centro Di, 1996), 26–27; Charlotte Hubbard and Peta Motture, “The Making of Terracotta Sculpture: Techniques and Observations,” in Earth and Fire: Italian Terracotta Sculpture from Donatello to Canova, ed. Bruce Boucher (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 83; Vaccari, “Tecniche e metodi,” 97. 31 Piccolpasso, The Three Books, vol. 2, 13–14. 32 Gentilini, “La scultura fiorentina,” 65. 33 Piccolpasso, The Three Books, vol. 2, 14. 34 Technical literature on the Della Robbia is substantial. See especially Abigail Hykin, “Materials and Techniques,” in Della Robbia: Sculpting with Color in Renaissance Florence, by Marietta Cambareri (Boston: MFA Publications, 2016), 130–131; and Bouquillon, “Terra, vivi,” 24–31. 35 Piccolpasso, The Three Books, vol. 2, 13–15; Biringuccio describes a similar sequence of drying, crushing, sifting, wetting, mixing, and beating clay in The Pirotechnia, 219.

98  Catherine Kupiec 6 The Pirotechnia, 219–20; Gentilini, “La scultura fiorentina,” 67. 3 37 The Pirotechnia, 219. 38 The Pirotechnia, 218. 39 Columella, On Agriculture, vol. 1, 117–19; Olson, “Columella and the Beginning,” 65–66. 40 Pamela H. Smith, The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2004); Gentilini, “La scultura fiorentina,” 70. 41 Columella, On Agriculture, vol. 1, 119–21. 42 Ann-Sophie Lehmann, “Kneading, Wedging, Dabbing, and Dragging. How Motions, Tools and Materials Make Art,” in Folded Stones: Tied Up Tree, eds. Barbara Baert and Trees De Mits (Ghent: Institute for Practice-based Research in the Arts, 2009), 41–60. 43 Sofia Marques, “Twelve Panels by Luca della Robbia: Conservation Issues,” in Glass and Ceramics Conservation 2007: Interim Meeting of the ICOM-CC Working Group, ed. Lisa Pilosi (Nova Gorica: Goriški muzej Kromberk, 2007), 130. 44 The fundamental study is Bouquillon, “Terra, vivi,” 27. Her findings have been widely replicated. 45 Bouquillon, “Terra, vivi,” 28. 46 Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’più eccellenti pittori scultori ed architettori scritte da Giorgio Vasari, pittore aretino con nuove annotazioni e commenti di Gaetano Milanesi (Florence: G.C. Sansoni, 1906), vol. 3, 376–77. The information comes from a drawing, now lost, in the Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe, Florence. Made no earlier than 1530, it bore the following annotation: “per lavorare di terra come quella della Robbia bisogna torre belletta di fiume, e dipoi mesticarci dentro del liso, altrimenti crepa. Liso domandano quella rena, che si trova immediate sotto la belletta, quale è una rena morbida; e così non crepa.” 47 Bouquillon, “Terra, vivi,” 25–26. 48 Bouquillon, “Terra, vivi,” 30. 49 Marques, “Twelve Panels,” 136. 50 Marques, “Twelve Panels,” 132. 51 Rachel E. Boyd, “Waste Not, Want Not: Repairing Renaissance Glazed Terracotta,” Online International Conference, “Failure: Understanding art as a process, 1150–1750,” Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, 2020. 52 Gentilini, I Della Robbia, vol. 1, 39–81. 53 Hykin, “Materials and Techniques,” 140–42; and Sara Levin, Nick Pedemonti, and Lisa Bruno, “Resurrecting della Robbia’s Resurrection: Challenges in the Conservation of a Monumental Renaissance Relief,” Objects Specialty Group Postprints, Volume Twenty-Four, 2017, ed. Emily Hamilton and Kari Dodson with Tony Sigel (Washington, D.C.: American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, 2019), 394. 54 Pope-Hennessy, Luca della Robbia, 11–12. 55 Pope-Hennessy, Luca della Robbia, 79–81. 56 The properties are described in tax declarations made by the Della Robbia, published in PopeHennessy, Luca della Robbia, 79–90, and Allan Marquand, Andrea della Robbia and His Atelier (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1922), vol. 1, xxxviii–liii, and deserve an extended study. The Della Robbia sold their Castello San Giovanni property in 1432, PopeHennessy, Luca della Robbia, 88, and their San Tommaso a Baroncelli property after Luca’s death, Pope-Hennessy, Luca della Robbia, 12, 90. 57 For example, Hykin, “Materials and Techniques,” 130, and Bouquillon, “Terra, vivi,” 28. 58 “uno pezo di terra rovinata e caduta pel fiume d’Arno,” Pope-Hennessy, Luca della Robbia, 79. The information is repeated in later Catasti. 59 Amanda Lillie, Florentine Villas in the Fifteenth Century: An Architectural and Social History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 24–27. 60 Lillie, Florentine Villas, 29–32. 61 “Rendono tucte la sopradecte terre ogni anno, l’uno anno pe’ l’altro ristorando…” (my translation), Pope-Hennessy, Luca della Robbia, 80. 62 For subsoil, see Columella, On Agriculture, vol. 1, 109, 121, 133. 63 For their countryside acquisitions, see Amanda Lillie, “Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Rural Investments and Territorial Expansion,” Rinascimento: Rivista dell’Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento, seconda serie, XXXIII (1993): 53–67.

Luca della Robbia’s Labours in Terracotta 99 4 Horowitz, “Humanist Horticulture,” 279; Lillie, Florentine Villas, 25. 6 65 F. W. Kent, Lorenzo de’ Medici and the Art of Magnificence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), 115. 66 Lillie, “Lorenzo de’ Medici’s,” 58. 67 See Janet Cox-Rearick, “Themes of Time and Rule at Poggio a Caiano: The Portico Frieze of Lorenzo il Magnifico,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 26, no. 2 (1982): 167–210; and Aimee Ng, Alexander J. Noelle, and Xavier F. Salomon, Bertoldo di Giovanni: The Renaissance of Sculpture in Medici Florence (New York: The Frick Collection, 2019). 68 Horowitz, “Humanist Horticulture,” 277–80, 287–89. 69 Horowitz, “Humanist Horticulture,” 275, 277. 70 Lorenzo Gnocchi, “Le preferenze artistiche di Piero di Cosimo de’Medici,” Artibus et Historiae 9, no. 18 (1988): 54–56.

Bibliography Ames-Lewis, Francis. “The Inventories of Piero di Cosimo de’ Medici’s Library,” La Bibliofilía 84, 2 (1982): 103–142. Borsook, Eve. “A Florentine Scrittoio for Diomede Carafa.” In Art, the Ape of Nature: Studies in Honor of H. W. Janson, edited by Moshe Barasch, Lucy Freeman Sandler, and Patricia Egan 91–96 (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1981). Bouquillon, Anne. “Terra, vivi per me cara e gradita…” In Della Robbia: dieci anni di studi/dix ans d’études, edited by Anne Bouquillon, Marc Bormand, and Alessandro Zucchiatti, 24–31 (Genoa: Sagep Editori, 2011). Bowes, Kim. “Roman Agriculture from Above and Below: Words and Things.” In Ancient History from Below: Subaltern Experiences and Actions in Context, edited by Cyril Courrier and Julio Cesar Magalhães de Oliveira, 122–154 (London: Routledge, 2022). Boyd, Rachel E. “Invention, Collaboration, and Authorship in the Renaissance Workshop: The Della Robbia Family and Italian Glazed Terracotta Sculpture, ca. 1430–1566.” PhD dissertation, Columbia University, 2020. Boyd, Rachel E. “Waste Not, Want Not: Repairing Renaissance Glazed Terracotta.” Online International Conference, “Failure: Understanding art as a process, 1150–1750” (Florence: Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, 2020). Cambareri, Marietta. Della Robbia: Sculpting with Color in Renaissance Florence (Boston: MFA Publications, 2016). Cambareri, Marietta. “The Sculptor’s Touch: Luca della Robbia and the Clay below the Glaze.” In Creating Sculpture: Renaissance Drawings and Models, edited by Michael Cole, Ana Debenedetti and Peta Motture, with Kira d’Alburquerque, 62–73 (London: V&A Publishing, 2022). Christiansen, Keith, edited by From Filippo Lippi to Piero della Francesca: Fra Carnevale and the Making of a Renaissance Master (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005). Columella, Lucius Junius Moderatus. On Agriculture, trans. Harrison Boyd Ash, E. S. Forster, and Edward H. Heffner, 3 vols. (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 1941–1968). Cox-Rearick, Janet. “Themes of Time and Rule at Poggio a Caiano: The Portico Frieze of Lorenzo il Magnifico,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 26, no. 2 (1982): 167–210. Dressen, Angela. Pavimenti decorati del Quattrocento in Italia (Premio James Ackerman per la storia dell’Architettura 3) (Venice: Marsilio, 2008). Fabbri, Bruno. “Processi di lavorazione e rivestimenti ceramici.” In La scultura in terracotta: tecniche e conservazione, edited by Maria Grazia Vaccari, 25–33 (Florence: Centro Di, 1996). Gentilini, Giancarlo. I Della Robbia. La scultura invetriata nel Rinascimento, 2 vols. (Florence: Cantini, 1992). Gentilini, Giancarlo. “La scultura fiorentina in terracotta del Rinascimento: tecniche e tipologie.” In La scultura in terracotta: tecniche e conservazione, edited by Maria Grazia Vaccari, 64–103 (Florence: Centro Di, 1996).

100  Catherine Kupiec Gentilini, Giancarlo. “La pittura ‘eterna’ nel ‘parentado Della Robbia.’” In I Della Robbia. Il dialogo tra le Arti nel Rinascimento, edited by Giancarlo Gentilini, 153–161 (Milan: Skira, 2009). Gnocchi, Lorenzo. “Le preferenze artistiche di Piero di Cosimo de’Medici,” Artibus et Historiae 9, no. 18 (1988): 41–78. Horowitz, Maryanne Cline. “Humanist Horticulture: Twelve Agricultural Months and Twelve Categories of Books in Piero de’ Medici’s ‘studiolo’,” Viator 34 (2003): 272–307. Hubbard, Charlotte and Peta Motture. “The Making of Terracotta Sculpture: Techniques and Observations.” In Earth and Fire: Italian Terracotta Sculpture from Donatello to Canova, edited by Bruce Boucher, 83–95 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001). Hykin, Abigail. “Materials and Techniques.” In Della Robbia: Sculpting with Color in Renaissance Florence, by Marietta Cambareri, 129–143 (Boston: MFA Publications, 2016). Kent, F. W. Lorenzo de’ Medici and the Art of Magnificence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007). Kingery, W. David and Meredith Aronson. “The Glazes of Luca della Robbia,” Faenza 76 (1990): 221–225. Kupiec, Catherine. “The Materiality of Luca della Robbia’s Glazed Terracotta Sculptures.” PhD dissertation, Rutgers University, 2016. Lehmann, Ann-Sophie. “Kneading, Wedging, Dabbing, and Dragging. How Motions, Tools and Materials Make Art.” In Folded Stones: Tied Up Tree, edited by Barbara Baert and Trees De Mits, 41–60 (Ghent: Institute for Practice-based Research in the Arts, 2009). Levin, Sara, Nick Pedemonti, and Lisa Bruno. “Resurrecting della Robbia’s Resurrection: Challenges in the Conservation of a Monumental Renaissance Relief.” In Objects Specialty Group Postprints, Volume Twenty-Four, 2017, edited by Emily Hamilton and Kari Dodson with Tony Sigel, 388–412 (Washington, D.C.: American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, 2019). Lillie, Amanda. “Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Rural Investments and Territorial Expansion,” Rinascimento: Rivista dell’Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento, seconda serie, XXXIII (1993): 53–67. Lillie, Amanda. Florentine Villas in the Fifteenth Century: An Architectural and Social History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). Long, Pamela O. Openness, Secrecy, Authorship: Technical Arts and the Culture of Knowledge from Antiquity to the Renaissance (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). Marquand, Allan. Luca della Robbia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1914). Marquand, Allan. Andrea della Robbia and His Atelier, 2 vols. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1922). Marques, Sofia. “Twelve Panels by Luca della Robbia: Conservation Issues.” In Glass and Ceramics Conservation 2007: Interim Meeting of the ICOM-CC Working Group, edited by Lisa Pilosi, 130–140 (Nova Gorica: Goriški muzej Kromberk, 2007). Ng, Aimee, Alexander J. Noelle and Xavier F. Salomon. Bertoldo di Giovanni: The Renaissance of Sculpture in Medici Florence (New York: The Frick Collection, 2019). Olson, Lois. “Columella and the Beginning of Soil Science,” Agricultural History 17, no. 2 (1943): 65–72. Pianazza, Murielle. “Giovan Pietro Campana collezionista, archeologo, banchiere e il suo legame con Firenze,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 37, 2/3 (1993): 433–474. Piccolpasso, Cipriano. The Three Books of the Potter’s Art = I tre libri dell’arte del vasaio: A Facsimile of the Manuscript in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2 vols. Trans. Ronald Lightbown and Alan Caiger-Smith (London: Scolar Press, 1980). Pope-Hennessy, John. Catalogue of Italian Sculpture in the Victoria and Albert Museum, 3 vols. (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1964). Pope-Hennessy, John. Luca della Robbia (Oxford: Phaidon, 1980). Robinson, J. C. Italian Sculpture of the Middle Ages and Period of the Revival of Art (London: Chapman and Hall, 1862).

Luca della Robbia’s Labours in Terracotta 101 Sarnecka, Zuzanna. “Firing Porphyry in the Italian Renaissance Kiln.” In The Matter of Mimesis: Studies of Mimesis and Materials in Nature, Art and Science, edited by Marjolijn Bol and E. C. Spary, 87–111 (Leiden: Brill, 2023). Smith, Pamela H. The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2004). Smith, Pamela H. “In the Workshop of History: Making, Writing, and Meaning,” West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture 19, no. 1 (2012): 4–31. Syson, Luke. “The Medici Study.” In At Home in Renaissance Italy, edited by Marta AjmarWollheim and Flora Dennis, 288–293 (London: V&A Publications, 2006). Smith, Cyril Stanley and Martha Teach Gnudi, trans. The Pirotechnia of Vannoccio Biringuccio. The Classic Sixteenth-Century Treatise on Metals and Metallurgy (New York: Dover Publications, 1990). Vaccari, Maria Grazia. “Tecniche e metodi di lavorazione.” In I Della Robbia e l’arte nuova della scultura invetriata, edited by Giancarlo Gentilini, 97–116 (Florence: Giunti, 1998). Vasari, Giorgio. Le vite de’più eccellenti pittori scultori ed architettori scritte da Giorgio Vasari, pittore aretino con nuove annotazioni e commenti di Gaetano Milanesi, 9 vols. (Florence: G.C. Sansoni, 1906).

6

Clay Models in Verrocchio’s Workshop Dylan Smith National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA

Introduction Two clay models associated with Verrocchio and his workshop are now in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., Putto Poised on a Globe and Adoration of the Shepherds. The sculptures were examined in detail in preparation for the 2019 exhibitions focused on Verrocchio held at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and at the Palazzo Strozzi and Bargello in Florence.1 The results provided new insights into the creation of these two works in clay, their status as models versus finished objects, and their use in the workshop. This new understanding allows the Putto and Adoration to be placed into the larger context of Verrocchio’s models and consider how the master and his collaborators designed in clay. Putto Poised on a Globe

The Washington Putto is an extremely rare example of terra cruda sculpture from the Renaissance and is unique among the sculptures associated with Verrocchio and his workshop (Figure 6.1).2 The Putto has been attributed to the Florentine master since it first appeared in Paris in 1879 in the collection of Gustave Dreyfus. Since its discovery, the Putto has generally been accepted by scholars as an autograph work by Verrocchio, although other attributions have been proposed.3 The movement of the figure and handling of details provide ready comparisons to the documented bronze Putto with a Dolphin at the Palazzo Vecchio, the playful putti on a sheet of studies now at the Louvre, and the pudgy and animated Christ from the polychrome relief of the Madonna and Child at the Bargello. Verrocchio certainly made works in clay like the Washington Putto. An inventory of the objects found in Verrocchio’s workshop after his death included a “bambino di terra.”4 Writing in the sixteenth century, Giorgio Vasari mentions that Verrocchio made “some extremely beautiful putti” among other works in terracotta.5 Putto Poised on a Globe is remarkably well preserved, although the surface has lost some of its crispness due to overall wear. The modelling on the sculpture is refined while retaining its liveliness. Particularly remarkable are the spiralling curls of hair, each unique, that illustrate Verrocchio’s skill at rapidly massing and modelling in clay. The centres of many curls are impressed with a round-tipped tool, producing a mark that evokes the drilling found on ancient marble sculptures. This type of “pseudo-drilling” appears on many sculptures by Verrocchio in a variety of media and reflects the artist’s admiration for the antique as well as his fluid movement between materials.6 The Putto was first identified as unfired clay, or terra cruda, in 1987.7 In 2017, a small sample was taken from a damaged area and scientific analysis confirmed the absence of DOI: 10.4324/9781003327462-9

Clay Models in Verrocchio’s Workshop 103

Figure 6.1 Andrea del Verrocchio, Putto Poised on a Globe, c. 1480, unfired clay on iron armature with wooden base, 75 cm × 38.3 cm × 23 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.128. Photography by Lee Ewing

104  Dylan Smith glassy microstructures associated with fired clay.8 The elemental content was found to be generally consistent with Florentine Renaissance terracottas as well as clay cores from bronzes of that period.9 The clay of the Putto has a slightly higher iron content and it is possible iron oxide was added to modify the colour; without firing the surface would not have transformed to the typical red of Florentine terracottas.10 A significant amount of quartz was added to the clay of the Putto, which strengthened the fabric and made it less likely to crack during drying.11 Michelangelo recommended selecting “sandy clay” for use in terra cruda sculpture and it has been suggested that the quartz present in the cores of Florentine bronzes was naturally present rather than added.12 A significant new observation was that the clay of the Putto includes minute fibres throughout. The fibres are visible on the surface under magnification and analysis of the clay sample found that the size and scale-like texture of these fibres were consistent with wool (Figure 6.2).13 The presence of different colour fibres indicated that the wool had already undergone processing before being mixed into the clay. Such fibres would have been a readily available by-product of the wool industry in Florence in Verrocchio’s time. Writing in the sixteenth century, Michelangelo mentions the addition of wool fibres specifically to terra cruda.14 Analysis of clay cores in Florentine bronzes of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries identified wool fibres in most examples, including Verrocchio’s Christ and Saint Thomas.15 Like the terra cruda sculptures, the cores of bronzes would be dried, but not fired, and the fibres would have added strength. The use of wool fibres as a reinforcing material seems to be associated particularly with Florentine artists and has also been noted in works in plaster.16 Wool fibres alone would have been insufficient to support a delicately balanced figure like the Putto. Writing in the sixteenth century, Vasari and Borghini recommend wooden supports for full-scale unfired clay models used for marble carving.17 Michelangelo mentions the use of iron wires for support of full-scale terra cruda models and these have been noted in his River God.18 X-radiography of the Washington Putto revealed that it was modelled upon a far more robust iron armature of rods, wires, and nails (Figure 6.3).

Figure 6.2 Microscopic detail of the surface of Figure 6.1. Short wool fibres and rounded grains of sand are visible in the clay matrix

Clay Models in Verrocchio’s Workshop 105

Figure 6.3 X-radiograph of Figure 6.1. Overall with iron armature consisting of a central rod, wires and nails visible

106  Dylan Smith The central rod continues through the wooden base and is secured underneath by integral flanges, confirming that this support is original. This type of armature is suggestive of those used in bronze sculptures and speaks to Verrocchio’s experience as a founder.19 While providing critical support, the presence of the armature precluded the most common technique used to preserve terra cruda—firing.20 This underscores the importance of the wool fibres; Verrocchio deliberately added these to strengthen the clay knowing that the figure could only be air-dried. Finished works of art in terra cruda were made during the Renaissance, and like their terracotta counterparts, would have been painted. However, any traces of colour present on the Putto, as well as the paint and gilding on its base, appear to be later additions intended to give the sculpture a more finished appearance. Thus, the Putto appears to have served as a model, the existence of which is strongly suggested by the posthumous inventory and Vasari’s comments (mentioned above). This role is more clearly spelt out in a note on a drawing attributed to the workshop of Francesco di Simone Ferrucci. The sheet, now in Hamburg, records how a putto by Verrocchio, described as a “modellino,” was loaned by Lorenzo di Credi to a certain “Istella,” who then loaned it to Ferrucci.21 Adoration of the Shepherds

The relief Adoration of the Shepherds depicts the Madonna kneeling over the Christ Child, accompanied by three standing men, a horse and bull, and a pair of angels flying in above the group (Figure 6.4). The scene is set in a crumbling brick stable rendered in an awkward and inconsistent perspectival space. Although Verrocchio has been proposed as the author of the relief, recent scholarship has argued convincingly for attribution to the sculptor Francesco di Simone Ferrucci of Fiesole.22 Ferrucci evidently worked with Verrocchio in the 1470s and 1480s, especially on the marble monument for Cardinal Forteguerri in Pistoia Cathedral. Sketches after Verrocchio’s designs appear on pages attributed to the workshop of Ferrucci and include images of a kneeling Madonna of the type that serves as the focus of the Adoration.23 Most recently, the relief has been dated to 1475/1485 or c. 1483–1493.24 Unlike the Putto, the National Gallery of Art’s Adoration of the Shepherds is terracotta. The colour of the clay varies from red to a more greenish brown, likely the result of incomplete firing and small variations in the content. The clay fabric had been sampled and analyzed in 1999 and additional small samples were taken in 2018.25 The elemental composition closely resembles those of Florentine terracottas identified by prior studies, including Verrocchio’s Bust of Giuliano de’ Medici and Pair of Flying Angels.26 This result supports that the itinerant Ferrucci created the Adoration in Florence, rather than elsewhere in Italy. Although the surface of the Adoration now appears bare, close examination reveals traces of polychromy preserved on the surface. A single layer of colour is present over a gypsum ground that includes typical Renaissance pigments: cinnabar, on the robe of the old man at far left; azurite, on the back of Mary’s drapery; and verdigris, on the shoulder of the far right man and ground at the bottom right.27 The verdigris appeared to use an oil binder, a characteristic noted in copper greens on other works from Verrocchio’s workshop.28 Traces of white material on the back of the relief were found to be lime mortar and suggest that the relief was once set onto the surface of a wall. While the presence of colour indicates that Adoration of the Shepherds came to be considered a finished work, examination of its construction suggests this was not its intended purpose. On the reverse, the relief is found to be solid, despite being as much as

Clay Models in Verrocchio’s Workshop 107

Figure 6.4 Francesco di Simone Ferrucci, Adoration of the Shepherds, c. 1475/1485, terracotta relief with traces of polychromy, 81 × 65 × 13.3 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.333

thirteen centimetres thick where the figures are in highest relief. Finished clay sculptures were routinely hollowed out prior to firing in the Renaissance practice, although significant variations in the extent and approach can be found.29 In addition, the background slab was not carefully rolled out, but assembled from large clumps of clay, the outlines of which remain clearly visible on the reverse (Figure 6.5). The

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Figure 6.5 Back of Figure 6.4 viewed with raking light revealing irregularities in the clay, vertical line and slumping at bottom [The modern frame and brackets are visible at the edges]

Adoration seems to have been formed within a rectangular frame that was rapidly filled with handfuls of clay. Any small gaps that remained were filled with additional strips of clay pushed in against the frame; one such strip is visible at the upper left corner of the back. The use of frames in this way is suggested by the mention of wooden boxes in association with clay models for marble reliefs by Benedetto da Maiano made for the pulpit in Santa Croce.30 A long vertical line on the back of the Adoration was presumably formed

Clay Models in Verrocchio’s Workshop 109 as the clay was pressed down into a crack on the surface of a wooden table. A bulge along the bottom of the reverse indicates that the relief was placed in a vertical position before the clay was fully dry, causing it to slump. Given its casual preparation, it is remarkable that Adoration of the Shepherds survived firing.31 In an x-ray, the boundaries between the clay masses are visible as well as several large cracks that likely formed during firing. Small air pockets can be noted throughout the clay; these would usually be eliminated by wedging, and further emphasize the lack of care in the preparation of the relief. Considered together, these observations support that the Adoration relief, despite having polychromy, was intended as a model rather than a finished work. Models for Specific Designs Although Adoration of the Shepherds and Putto Poised on a Globe are both models, the striking differences in their preparation indicate distinct roles within the design process. The Adoration seems to be a common type of clay model made in the Renaissance, which was created as one step in the execution of a specific finished object, often a sculpture in marble. All of Verrocchio’s works in marble, and Renaissance marble sculptures more generally, were likely preceded by such clay models. These three-dimensional studies allowed the artist to design in an easily modified material and avoid costly mistakes in the stone. Such models needed only to survive until a project was completed, therefore careful construction was not a priority and consideration was given only to the visible surface. Why the Adoration was ultimately selected for firing is unclear. No finished version of this design is known and it is possible that the commission was never executed. In either case, the clay model may have been fired and painted as a way to profit from the labour invested in its fabrication. The decision to fire the relief appears to have been made early in its history; thermoluminescence testing suggests this occurred by 1479.32 Although in later periods full-scale models for marble sculpture were commonly made, the Adoration may have been sufficiently detailed for skilled carvers to adapt and enlarge the design as needed. Recognition that further changes would occur during the translation into marble may help to explain some of the problematic details of the Adoration; however, Ferrucci’s limitations must also be taken into account. Verrocchio’s greater mastery of design can be seen in the recently rediscovered terracotta relief Entombment of Christ, which seems to record a similar moment in the design process as the Adoration.33 Models in Process In addition to complete compositions like the Adoration and Entombment, larger and more complex projects, such as Verrocchio’s Monument to Cardinal Forteguerri, demanded production of a series of clay models. Study for the Forteguerri Monument suggests that Verrocchio explored initial concepts not only in drawings, but also in clay—a medium that allowed him to more fully explore volumes and spatial relationships (Figure 6.6).34 Verrocchio would then develop his designs using larger models, like the two Angels in the collection of the Louvre, which have also been associated with the Forteguerri monument (Figure 6.7).35 Although still relatively small in comparison to the finished marbles,

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Figure 6.6 Andrea del Verrocchio, Sketch Model for the Monument of Cardinal Niccolò Forteguerri, 1476, terracotta, 39.4 × 26.7 cm, Victoria and Albert Museum, 7599–1861. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Detail of upper section

Figure 6.7 (left) Andrea del Verrocchio, Model of Angel, c. 1480, terracotta, 36.5 × 32.8 × 5.5 cm, Musée du Louvre, Département des Sculptures, Paris, 33. (right) Workshop of Verrocchio, Model of Angel, c. 1480, terracotta, 37 × 34 × 4.5 cm, Musée du Louvre, Département des Sculptures, Paris, 34. © 1998 RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre)/René-Gabriel Ojéda

Clay Models in Verrocchio’s Workshop 111 the angels possess a level of detail that may have been sufficient for enlargement.36 These carefully expand upon details of the heads and drapery, while introducing the angels’ wings which were not included in the sketch. Like the Adoration, the Pair of Angels were not hollowed prior to firing and clearly intended to be models. While the left angel is generally attributed to Verrocchio based on its more sculptural style, the right model has been given to various members of the workshop.37 Thus, the master not only delegated the task of carving to others, but also called upon assistants to create certain models. In addition to being executed by different hands, the two angels may have been created at different moments during the design process.38 It is unclear if such models would have necessarily been produced for every angel; carvers trained in the master’s style could have extrapolated from one or two detailed examples, combining features with ideas taken from the sketch.39 Such a complex and creative process is suggested by the many differences observed in the angels as they appear in the models and the finished monument. The larger model attributed to Verrocchio shows the master reconsidering his initial design and seems to combine the gesture of the upper left angel from the sketch with the torso and legs of the figure below.40 On the monument, the wing and head of the angel are shifted significantly—presumably to avoid obscuring adjacent figures—while the right leg seems to again reference the sketch. Such revisions make clear the extent that the carvers in Verrocchio’s workshop played in translating the models. A lightly inscribed arc in the upper right corner of the right angel from the Louvre suggests that it corresponds to the upper right angel in the sketch and monument.41 The poses of these three interpretations are more similar than for the large model for the left angel. However, the right angel includes several elaborations—a right arm, a crown of flowers and an animated ribbon—that are not present on the marble, suggesting that revisions took place at each design stage.42 The simpler angel in the finished monument more closely resembles a drawing attributed to Lorenzo di Credi, which may have been created after the Louvre model to re-evaluate the figure for its final setting.43 The interaction between modelling and drawing in Verrocchio’s workshop can also be observed in preparatory studies that relate to the master’s silver relief depicting the Beheading of John the Baptist for the Altar of the Baptistery. Model for the Executioner is a focused consideration of a single figure from that design and illustrates how Verrocchio used clay to explore complex designs regardless of the final medium (Figure 6.8).44 Like other models, the Executioner is solid clay and although the figure is refined, the slab is rough and the clay is freely built up with little consideration for firing.45 The lower torso and legs of this model appear to be recorded in a drawing from the Dresden Sketchbook of Albrecht Dürer (Figure 6.9).46 This representation lacks the extreme foreshortening of the clay model, suggesting that it was based on a drawing that preceded the model— presumably a preliminary rendering by Verrocchio. In his subsequent clay study, Verrocchio moved his two-dimensional study one step closer to the final design, accounting for the compressed perspective required to fit the silver figure into the shallow depth of the finished relief. Models as Archetypes The characteristics of Model for the Executioner, the Angels, and Adoration of the Shepherds, support that they represent stages in the development of a specific final work. Although they were subsequently fired and the Adoration even painted, their intended

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Figure 6.8 Andrea del Verrocchio, Model for the Executioner, 1477/1480, terracotta, 27.2 × 16 × 8.4 cm, private collection

functional life was presumably short. The sturdy construction of Putto Poised on a Globe, however, suggests it was designed for a long period of use in the workshop, and thus, represents a distinct type of model. These were “archetypes”—models that served as a source of inspiration in the workshop and as a tool to train pupils in their master’s style. Evidence that the Putto served in this role can be found among the pages of the “Verrocchio Sketchbook,” a collection of drawings associated with Francesco di Simone Ferrucci. The outline of a small figure that closely resembles this model appears in one corner of a sheet at the Louvre (Figure 6.10). A larger sketch that seems to record the back of the terra cruda appears at the centre of a page in the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin (Figure 6.11).47 The careful observation of light and dark in that drawing is particularly

Figure 6.9 Albrecht Dürer (after Leonardo), Studies of the Legs and Lower Extremity of a Man from the Dresden Sketchbook, pen on paper, Sächsishe Landesbibliothek, Dresden

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Figure 6.10 Francesco di Simone Ferrucci and assistants, Sketches of Children and Other Figures, c.1480/1490, pen and ink on paper, Musée du Louvre, Paris, RF 447. © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre)/Michel Urtado

Figure 6.11  Francesco di Simone Ferrucci and assistants, Sketches of Figures and Horses, c. 1480/1490, Pen with brown ink, washed over a preliminary drawing with a grey pen, on paper. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Kdz 1360. © Kupferstichkabinett der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Photo: Dietmar Katz

114  Dylan Smith suggestive of the use of a three-dimensional model, a practice in Verrocchio’s workshop that is perhaps best recorded in the many studies of drapery based on stiffened cloth.48 The repetition of figures and forms in the “Sketchbook” make it clear that the Putto was not the only model of an infant in the workshop.49 In addition to the outline of the Putto, the Louvre page includes a distinct model of a child, also with pronounced shading.50 Similarly shaded models of reclining infants appear on a sheet at the Musée Conde and a study attributed to Lorenzo di Credi at the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin.51 However, sketches that record a complete figure are exceptional, instead they usually capture visual “fragments” of a model, which were then combined with parts from other models to generate an infinite variety of figures. Verrocchio’s own practice of intermixing heads, arms, legs, upper bodies and lower bodies from distinct models seems to be captured in Sketches of Infants at the Louvre, where parts of the Washington Putto seem to appear again.52 Another clay model that may have served such as an “archetype” is the so-called Sleeping Youth (Figure 6.12).53 It has a similar level of finish to the Putto and seems to establish a figural type that fascinated the artist. In addition to its unusual scale and ambiguous subject, the status of this work as a model is confirmed by its fabrication in solid clay.54 The nudity of the Youth is also suggestive of its intended function. Verrocchio sought to fully understand the underlying form before he “dressed” the model during translation to the final design. Already in the fifteenth century, Leon Battista Alberti advised artists to draw from sculptural models and study nudes before depicting clothed figures.55 In the sixteenth century, Vasari, describing the preparation of clay models, indicates that figures should be formed completely in the nude, before adding drapery.56 This approach can be clearly understood by comparing the Model for the Executioner to the finished figure in silver, where a loin cloth was added. Although the model no longer survives, drawings by various members of Verrocchio’s workshop suggest this approach was also used for the bronze David.57 The group of sketches record a nude youth in the pose of that figure seen from multiple vantage points. This practice also has implications for understanding how Putto Poised with a Globe might have been “dressed” to produce a finished bronze or how the model for Putto with a Dolphin once appeared. In addition to “fragments” extracted from complete figures like the Sleeping Youth and Putto, other archetypal models in Verrocchio’s workshop were actual fragments that represented details such as heads, hands and feet.58 Although Vasari wrote of Verrocchio’s

Figure 6.12 Andrea del Verrocchio, Sleeping Youth, c. 1470/1480, terracotta with traces of polychromy, 36 × 67 × 25 cm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst, 112. © Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst de Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Photo: Antje Voigt

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Figure 6.13 Andrea del Verrocchio, Bust of Man, c. 1470/1480, terracotta, with later painting; 35 × 31 × 23.5 cm, Palazzo Chigi Saracini, Siena, FAC 2701. Siena, Collezione Chigi Saracini, property of the Fondazione Musicale Chigiana © Foto LENSINI Siena

use of plaster to mould from life, these archetypal models record an ideal, not nature, and thus would have been modelled in clay, rather than cast.59 Bust of a Man from the Palazzo Chigi Saracini could be one such model and may correspond to a “head of Saint Jerome” mentioned by Vasari among Verrocchio’s works (Figure 6.13).60 This terracotta head, later painted to resemble bronze, has been argued as a possible source for a number of works by Verrocchio, his workshop, and later followers.61 One of the representations that has been associated with the Chigi head is the figure of John the Baptist in the Baptism of Christ, and if so, a model likely also existed for the head of Christ.62 That such a model was created by Verrocchio seems certain based on a number of similar busts produced by the workshop that appear to have been created by moulding the original head and adding rather formulaic drapery (Figure 6.14).63 Although these busts have generally been associated with Verrocchio’s Christ and Saint

Figure 6.14 Workshop of Verrocchio, Bust of Christ (detail), c. 1480–1483, polychrome terracotta, 68 × 71 × 40 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Private collection. © The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Thomas R. DuBrock

116  Dylan Smith Thomas, the bronze and the painting co-existed in the workshop for many years and it is possible that models influenced the design of both. Clay Models in Verrocchio’s Workshop That Verrocchio’s models were held in high esteem is attested to by the number that have survived, with some likely to have been passed down by generations of artists.64 The influence of the Putto on works by Raphael and Filipino Lippi has been suggested, as well as on the Flying Mercury of Giambologna.65 However, the models now known must represent a small fraction of the corpus that were present in his workshop. Some of these models, like the Adoration of the Shepherds, were evidently created to serve a specific commission. For larger designs, multiple models were produced, where poses and details were reconsidered and elaborated at each design stage. Other models served as archetypes, visual touchstones for master and assistants alike, offering a perpetual source of inspiration for drawings, sculptures, and paintings. While drawings certainly served as archetypes as well—Head of a Woman from the British Museum perhaps being the most remarkable example—clay models, like Putto Poised on a Globe, appear to have been at the heart of Verrocchio’s practice.66 Echoes of these sculptural references can be recognized throughout his oeuvre, although often appearing in a fragmented and reinterpreted form. Verrocchio’s approach foreshadows Vasari’s description some fifty years later of the bella maniera as the art of creating the most beautiful works by copying and combining beautiful heads, hands, bodies and legs.67 Verrocchio, through his models, his practices, and the prominent artists he trained, “helped transform Florentine art and prepare the ground for the emergence of the High Renaissance.”68 Acknowledgements This research would not have been possible without the guidance of Eleonora Luciano and the support of the Robert H. Smith Family Foundation. Thanks also to the Department of Object Conservation and Department of Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the National Gallery of Art. Notes 1 Andrew Butterfield, Verrocchio: Sculptor and Painter of Renaissance Florence (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2019). Francesco Caglioti and Andrea De Marchi, eds. Verrocchio: Master of Leonardo (Venice: Marsilio, 2019). 2 Alison Luchs and Dylan Smith in Butterfield, Verrocchio, 176–181, cat. 18. 3 For a review, see Alison Luchs and Dylan Smith in Butterfield, Verrocchio, 176–181, cat. 18. Butterfield and Franklin proposed that Putto was a sixteenth century copy of work by Verrocchio: Andrew Butterfield and David Franklin, “A Documented Episode in the History of Renaissance ‘Terracruda’ Sculpture,” Burlington Magazine 140, no. 1149 (1998): 819–824. In the 2019 exhibition catalog, Butterfield accepted the attribution of the sculpture to Verrocchio. Caglioti (Francesco Caglioti, “Verrocchio the Sculptor: Training, Figurative Genres, Pupils and Followers,” in Caglioti and De Marchi, Verrocchio, 40–41) argued that the Putto is the work of a Roman artist influenced by the Florentine master. The attribution to Verrocchio was mostly recently asserted in Nicholas Penny, “Boys in Motion,” London Review of Books 42, no. 2 (2020): 32. 4 For this inventory, see Dario Covi, Andrea del Verrocchio: Life and Work (Florence: Casa Editrice Leo S. Olschki, 2005), 285. 5 Rosanna Bettarini and Paola Barocchi, Giorgio Vasari’s Le vite de’ piú eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori, vol. III (Florence: Sansoni, 1971–1986), 375.

Clay Models in Verrocchio’s Workshop 117 6 Noted by Alison Luchs and Dylan Smith in Butterfield, Verrocchio, 106–111, cat. 1, and 122– 125, cat. 5. Independently noted in Nicola Salvioli, “Il Putto bronzeo di Verrocchio: analisi tecnica e restauro,” in Verrocchio Lab: il restauro del Putto col delfino e nuove indagini sulla Madonna di Piazza, ed. Arturo Galansino (Venice: Marsilio, 2019), 36–65. 7 Examination by Shelley Sturman, senior conservator and head of object conservation department, National Gallery of Art. 8 Scanning electron microscopy/energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDS) and microscopic analysis reported in Xiao Ma, “Andrea del Verrocchio. Putto Poised on a Globe. 1937.1.128. Analysis report” (unpublished). Department of Scientific Research, National Gallery of Art, 2017. My sincere thanks to Xiao for performing these analyses. 9 Sonia Mugnaini et al., “Casting cores used to craft large bronze masterpieces of the Florentine Renaissance and Mannerism,” Journal of Archaeological Science 47 (2014): 85–98. Edilberto Formigli and Gerwulf Schneider, “Antiche terre di fusione: Indagini archeometriche sulle terre di fusione di bronzi greci, romani e rinascimentali,” in Antiche officine del bronzo : materiali, strumenti, tecniche : atti del seminario di studi ed esperimenti, ed. Edilberto Formigli (Siena: Nuova Immagine, 1993). 10 The significance remains unclear as no other terra cruda objects have yet been analyzed. 11 Ma, “Putto.” 12 Gaetano Milanesi, Le Lettere di Michelangelo Buonarroti (Florence: Monnier, 1875), 592– 594. Mugnaini et al, “Casting cores,” 96. 13 Examination by scanning electron microscopy found the fibers to be 30 to 40 µm in diameter with the characteristic overlapping scales usually associated with wool. Reported in Ma, “Putto.” 14 Milanesi, Lettere, 592–594. 15 Mugnaini et al., “Casting cores.” Formigli and Schneider, “Antiche terre.” 16 Carol Galvin and Philip Lindley, “Pietro Torrigiano's portrait bust of King Henry VII,” Burlington magazine 130, no. 1029 (1988): 892–902. Simona Cristanetti, “Hatching a Theory of Attribution: A 15th-Century Madonna and Child at the National Gallery of Art,” in Glass and ceramics conservation 2010: interim meeting of the ICOM-CC Working Group, ed. Hannelore Roemich (Corning, New York, 2010), 219–227. 17 Giorgio Vasari, Vasari on Technique (1568), trans. and ed. Louisa S. Maclehose and G. Baldwin Brown (New York: Dover, 1960), 150. Raffaello Borghini, Il Riposo (1584), trans. Lloyd H. Ellis (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), 110. 18 Milanesi, Lettere, 592–594. See also Jeannine O’Grody, “Un semplice modello: Michelangelo and His Three-dimensional Preparatory Works” (PhD diss., Case Western Reserve University, 1999), 118–130. Vasari (Technique, 150) and Borghini (Riposo, 110) suggest wooden armatures for full-size models. 19 For discussion of the bronze armatures, see Nicola Salvioli, “Il Putto bronzeo di Verrocchio: analisi tecnica e restauro,” in Verrocchio Lab, 36–65. Maria Ludovica Nicolai, “Il ‘David’ del Verrocchio : considerazioni circa la tecnica, l’approccio metodologico e alcune soluzioni riguardanti il restauro,” Kermes 19, no. 61 (2006): 39–45. Fritz Scholten,“Technical aspects of Verrocchio’s Candelabrum,” Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 44, no. 2 (1996): 123–129. Massimo Leoni, “Casting techniques in Verrocchio’s workshop when the Christ and St. Thomas were made,” in Verrocchio’s Christ and St. Thomas, a masterpiece of sculpture from Renaissance Florence, ed. Loretta Dolcini (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992), 83–99. 20 Charlotte Hubbard and Peta Motture, “The Making of Terracotta Sculpture: Techniques and Observations,” in Earth and Fire: Italian Terracotta Sculpture from Donatello to Canova, ed. Bruce Boucher (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 82–95. 21 Linda Pisani, “The Exchange of Models in Florentine Workshops of the Quattrocento: A Sheet from the ‘Verrocchio Sketchbook’,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 67 (2004): 269–274. 22 Alison Luchs and Dylan Smith in Butterfield, Verrocchio, 189–191, cat. 21. Paolo Parmigiani in Caglioti and De Marchi, Verrocchio, 162–163, cat. 5.3. 23 For the painting, see Gretchen Hirschauer, Elizabeth Walmsley and Vincenzo Sorrentino in Butterfield, Verrocchio, 216–219, cat. 28; Penny, “Boys in Motion.” For the drawings, see Lorenza Melli in Butterfield, Verrocchio, 236–242, cats. 33–34; also, Johannes Nathan, “Observing the Artist at Work: A Drawing by Verrocchio in Palermo,” Burlington Magazine 162, no. 1404 (2020): 204–215.

118  Dylan Smith 24 For history and bibliography, see Alison Luchs and Dylan Smith in Butterfield, Verrocchio, 189–191, cat. 21, and Paolo Parmigiani in Caglioti and De Marchi, Verrocchio, 162–163, cat. 5.3. 25 Reported in Katherine May and David Lange, “Analysis of clays in Italian Renaissance terracotta sculpture” (unpublished). Department of Object Conservation, National Gallery of Art, 1999. 26 Museé du Louvre, inv. Th 33 and Th 34. Individual results reported in Anne Bouquillon, Marc Bormand and Christel Doublet, “Terres célèbres, terres révélées et terres énigmatiques: terres et ateliers dans l’Italie de la Renaissance,” Techne 36 (2012): 62–71. 27 Based on Fourier transform infrared reflectography (FTIR) reported in Xiao Ma, “Francesco di Simone Ferrucci. Adoration of the Shepherds. 1939.1.333. Analysis report” (unpublished). Department of Scientific Research, National Gallery of Art, 2018. 28 For instance, John K. Delaney et al., “New Light on Verrocchio’s Art: Spectral Imaging of the Paintings,” in Butterfield, Verrocchio, 331, note 4. 29 For examples from the della Robbia workshop see Daphne Barbour and Roberta Olson, “New methods for studying serialization in the workshop of Andrea della Robbia: technical study and analysis,” in Della Robbia: dieci anni di studi—Della Robbia: dix ans d’Ètudes, ed. Marc Bormand, Anne Bouquillon and Alessandro Zucchiatti (Genova: Sagep, 2011). In the sixteenth century, hollowing out of models was also recommended if they were to be preserved; see Borghini, Riposo, 110. For the hollowing on a group of terracotta architectural reliefs from Rome attributed to Verrocchio, see C.D. Dickerson and Dylan Smith in Butterfield, Verrocchio, 172–175, cat. 17. Francesco Caglioti in Caglioti and De Marchi, Verrocchio, 196–199, cat. 6.6a–d. For further images, see Ugo Giambelluca, La Casa delle terrecotte alle Botteghe Oscure (Roma: Istituto nazionale di studi romani, 2006), 16–17, Figures 18–19. 30 Charlotte Hubbard and Peta Motture in Boucher, Earth and Fire, 17–18. 31 While luck certainly played a part, one can speculate that the relief also benefited from the limitations of Renaissance kilns that would only permit a very gradual temperature increase. 32 Analyzed in 1984 by Oxford Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, Oxford, UK. 33 Vasily Rastorguev and Neville Rowley in Butterfield, Verrocchio, cat. 19, 182–185. 34 Victoria and Albert Museum, 7599–1861. For recent discussion and bibliography, see Charlotte Hubbard and Peta Motture in Butterfield, Verrocchio, 150–153, cat. 12; Gabriele Fattorini in Caglioti and De Marchi, Verrocchio, 236–237, cat. 8.2. 35 Musée du Louvre, Département des Sculptures, Paris, 33 and 34. Alison Luchs and Dylan Smith in Butterfield, Verrocchio, 154–157, cat. 13. Gabriele Fattorini in Caglioti and De Marchi, Verrocchio, 234–235, cat. 8.3. 36 Joahnnes Myssok, Bildhauerische Konzeption und plastisches Modell in der Renaissance. (Münster: Rhema, 1999), 103. 37 For proposals that Leonardo made the right angel, see Edoardo Villata, “Leonardo plasticatore tra Firenze e Milano: proposte di metodo e di attribuzione,” in Terrecotte nel Ducato di Milano: artisti e cantieri del primo Rinascimento, ed. Maria Grazia Albertini Ottolenghi and Laura Basso (Milan: Edizioni ET, 2013), 271–287. Pietro Marani and Teresa Fiorio, eds. Leonardo da Vinci, 1452–1519: the design of the world (Milan: Skira, 2015), 532. 38 Myssok, Bildhauerische Konzeption, 102. 39 Myssok, Bildhauerische Konzeption, 102. See also Maraike Bückling, “Bozzetti, Modelle und Musterfiguren. Der Entwurfsprozen von Skulpturen bei Verrocchio,” in Die Christus-ThomasGruppe von Andrea del Verrocchio, eds. Herbert Beck, Maraike Bückling and Edgar Lein (Frankfurt am Main: Henrich Verlag, 1996), 222–224. 40 Certain poses in the sketch are completely abandoned, for instance, the crossed legs of the upper left angel and the upper body of the lower left angel, twisted so as to support the mandorla with both arms. 41 Noted by Alison Luchs and Dylan Smith in Butterfield, Verrocchio, 154–157, cat. 13. 42 The right arm suggests another interpretation of the pose of the lower left angel from the sketch, which was again abandoned. 43 British Museum, inv. no. 1860,0616.29. Alison Luchs and Dylan Smith in Butterfield, Verrocchio, 154–157, cat. 13, fig. 1. Discussed in Myssok, Bildhauerische Konzeption, 106–107. For other interpretations, see Patricia Rubin in Renaissance Florence: The art of the 1470s, eds. Patricia Rubin, Alison Wright and Nicholas Penny (London: National Gallery Publications Limited, 1999), 158–159, cat. 16; Boucher, Earth and Fire, 132–133, cat. 14.

Clay Models in Verrocchio’s Workshop 119 44 For recent discussion and bibliography, see Andrew Butterfield and Dylan Smith in Butterfield, Verrocchio, 168–171, cat. 16. 45 Anthony Radcliffe, “New light on Verrocchio’s beheading of the Baptist,” in Verrocchio and late Quattrocento Italian sculpture, eds. Steven Bule and Alan Darr (Florence: Casa Editrice de Lettere, 1992), esp. Figures 76–79. 46 Albrecht Dürer, Das Skizzenbuch von Albrecht Dürer in der Königl. Öffentl. Bibliothek zu Dresden (Strassburg im Elsass: Heitz, 1905), folio 131r. Michael Kwakkelstein, “New Copies by Leonardo after Pollaiuolo and Verrocchio and His Use of an écorché Model: Some Notes on His Working Method as an Anatomist,” Apollo 159 (2004): 21–29. Kwakkelstein discusses another drawing by Dürer, Skizzenbuch, folio 130v, in association with a drawing by Pollaiuolo, however, this also seems close to the legs of John the Baptist in Verrocchio’s Baptism of Christ. 47 See also Dylan Smith, “Observations on Verrocchio’s Bronzes: Materials, Methods and Models,” in Butterfield, Verrocchio, 321–322, Figures 14 and 15. For additional Ferrucci examples, see Linda Pisani, Francesco di Simone Ferrucci: Itinerari di uno scultore fiorentino fra Toscana, Romagna e Montefeltro (Florence: Casa Editrice Leo S. Olschki, 2007), pls. 160 (Berlin Kupferstichkabinett inv. 1360r); 180 (Brit.Mus. 1952-4-5-1r/v; 196 (Louvre RF 446r); 194 (Louvre RF 447r); 198 (RF 449r); 207 (Louvre Inv. 2241v); and 209 (Louvre Inv. 2243r). See also Louvre RF2r. 48 For recent discussion and bibliography, see Carmen Bambach in Caglioti and De Marchi, Verrocchio, 272–273, cat. 9.5, with further examples in cats. 9.6–9.8, 9.10–9.13. 49 The recently rediscovered terracottas of infants formerly in Berlin, now in the Pushkin Museum, may be two other surviving models of this type. For pre-war images, see Walter Heil, “A marble putto by Verrocchio,” Pantheon 27 (1969): 275, Figures 5, 6. For contemporary images, http://www.lostart.ru/, inv. nos. 2.07.1458824 and 2.07.1458825. Also discussed in Pisani, “Exchange of Models.” 50 This child resembles that included in The Virgin Adoring the Christ Child, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, NG 2338. Sketches of two similar infants appear on the back of the Berlin KdZ 1360. 51 Museé Conde, Chantilly, DE 21r. Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, KdZ 449. 52 For recent discussion and bibliography, see Carmen Bambach in Caglioti and De Marchi, Verrocchio, 226–227, cat. 7.9. The fragmentation of figures also sheds light on other drawings that include versions of the Putto model. See Paolo Parmiggiani in Caglioti and De Marchi, Verrocchio, 220–221, cat. 7.5–7.6. 53 For recent discussion and bibliography, see Neville Rowley in Butterfield, Verrocchio, 162– 167, cat. 15. 54 For further discussion, see Smith, Observations, 319, Figure 12. 55 Leon Battista Alberti, On Painting and on Sculpture, trans. Cecil Grayson (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1972), 3:58, 2:36. 56 Vasari, Technique, 150. 57 For these drawings, see Lorenza Melli, “Verrocchio, gli studi per il Davide il disegno del suo tempo,” in Dessins de sculpteurs, vol. 2, eds. Guilhem Scherf and Cordélia Hattori, (Dijon: Echelle de Jacob Editions, 2009), 31–40. Butterfield suggested these drawings were of a live model: Andrew Butterfield, The Sculptures of Andrea del Verrocchio (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 22. Reiterated in Andrew Butterfield and Dylan Smith in Butterfield, Verrocchio, 168–171, cat. 16. 58 Elisabeth Eisenberg identifies a drawing of one such model among a group of sketches attributed to Lorenzo di Credi. Istituto per la Grafica, Roma, inv. 124144. Eisenberg, “A Verrocchio sculpture as a source for Leonardo and Raphael: the evidence of drawings,” Master Drawings 57, no. 1 (2019): fig. 1. 59 Vasari, Vite, III, 375. The Oberlin Madonna and Child is a plaster cast from an original clay model. 60 Inv. no. FAC 2701. Giancarlo Gentilini, “San Gerolamo Penitente,” in Il cotto dell’Impruneta: Maestri del Rinascimento e le fornaci di oggi, eds. Rosanna Pisani and Giancarlo Gentilini (Firenze: Ente Cassa di risparmio di Firenze, 2009), 86–89, cat. no. II.9. For its role as a model, see Eisenberg, “Verrocchio sculpture.” Melli recognized a sculptural source as the basis of some of the works identified by Eisenberg, but did not link them specifically to this bust. Lorenza Melli in Butterfield, Verrocchio, 260–265, cat. 39.

120  Dylan Smith 61 Eisenberg, “Verrocchio sculpture.” The possible influence of the Chigi head on works by Raphael lends additional weight to the argument that the Putto Poised on a Globe may have also served as an inspiration for that artist. Alessandro Parronchi, “Il putto di Washington,” in Verrocchio and late Quattrocento Italian sculpture, eds. Steven Bule and Alan Darr (Florence: Casa Editrice de Lettere, 1992). 62 Eisenberg, “Verrocchio sculpture,” 14, Figures 18–19. 63 For one example, see Alison Luchs and Daphne Barbour in Butterfield, Verrocchio, 186–188, cat. 20. Additional examples are discussed by Francesco Caglioti in Caglioti and De Marchi, Verrocchio, 302–305, cat. 10.3a–10.3c. 64 Eisenberg, “Verrocchio sculpture,” esp. 13. 65 For possible influence on Raphael, see Parronchi, “Putto di Washington.” For Filippino Lippi, see his drawing of a putto, once in Vasari’s Libro de’ Disegni and now in the National Gallery of Art (1991.190.1e), discussed in George Goldner and Carmen Bambach, eds., The drawings of Filippino Lippi and his circle (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997), 99–101, 278–279, cat. 85. The connection was first noted by Douglas Lewis. On Giambologna, see Alison Luchs, “Verrocchio’s Career as a Sculptor,” in Andrea del Verrocchio: Sculptor and Painter of Renaissance Florence, ed. Andrew Butterfield (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2019), 66. 66 British Museum, inv. 1895,0915.785. Myssok, Bildhauerische Konzeption, 103–104. Patricia Rubin in Rubin, Wright and Penny, Renaissance Florence, 184–187, cat. 29. For further discussion and bibliography, see Lorenza Melli in Butterfield, Verrocchio, 254–259, cat. 38. 67 Rosanna Bettarini and Paola Barocchi, Giorgio Vasari’s Le vite de’ piú eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori, vol. IV (Florence: Sansoni, 1971–1986), preface III, 4–5. 68 Butterfield, Verrocchio, 2.

Bibliography Alberti, Leon Battista. On Painting and on Sculpture. Translated by Cecil Grayson. London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1972. Barbour, Daphne and Roberta Olson. “New Methods for Studying Serialization in the Workshop of Andrea della Robbia: Technical Study and Analysis.” In Della Robbia: dieci anni di studi— Della Robbia: dix ans d’Ètudes, edited by Marc Bormand, Anne Bouquillon and Alessandro Zucchiatti, 56–61. Genova: Sagep, 2011. Bettarini, Rosanna and Paola Barocchi. Giorgio Vasari’s Le vite de’ piú eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori, vols. I–VI. Florence: Sansoni, 1971–1986. Borghini, Raffaello. Il Riposo (1584). Translated by Lloyd H. Ellis. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. Boucher, Bruce, ed. Earth and Fire: Italian Terracotta Sculpture from Donatello to Canova. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. Bouquillon, Anne, Marc Bormand and Christel Doublet. “Terres célèbres, terres révélées et terres énigmatiques: terres et ateliers dans l’Italie de la Renaissance.” Techne 36 (2012): 62–71. Bouquillon, Anne. “‘Terra, vivi perme cara e gradita…’” In Della Robbia: dieci anni di studi— Della Robbia: dix ans d’Ètudes, edited by Marc Bormand, Anne Bouquillon and Alessandro Zucchiatti, 24–31. Genova: Sagep, 2011. Bückling, Maraike. “Bozzetti, Modelle und Musterfiguren. Der Entwurfsprozen von Skulpturen bei Verrocchio.” In Die Christus-Thomas-Gruppe von Andrea del Verrocchio, edited by Herbert Beck, Maraike Bückling and Edgar Lein, 219–232. Frankfurt am Main: Henrich Verlag. Butterfield, Andrew. The Sculptures of Andrea del Verrocchio. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997. Butterfield, Andrew, ed. Verrocchio: Sculptor and Painter of Renaissance Florence. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2019. Butterfield, Andrew and David Franklin. “A Documented Episode in the History of Renaissance ‘Terracruda’ Sculpture.” Burlington Magazine 140, no. 1149 (1998): 819–824.

Clay Models in Verrocchio’s Workshop 121 Caglioti, Francesco. “Verrocchio the Sculptor: Training, Figurative Genres, Pupils and Followers.” In Verrocchio: Master of Leonardo, edited by Francesco Caglioti and Andrea De Marchi, 12–47. Venice: Marsilio, 2019. Caglioti, Francesco and Andrea De Marchi, eds. Verrocchio: Master of Leonardo. Venice: Marsilio, 2019. Covi, Dario. Andrea del Verrocchio: Life and Work. Florence: Casa Editrice Leo S. Olschki, 2005. Cristanetti, Simona. “Hatching a Theory of Attribution: A 15th-Century Madonna and Child at the National Gallery of Art.” In Glass and Ceramics Conservation 2010: Interim Meeting of the ICOM-CC Working Group, edited by Hannelore Roemich, 219–227. New York: Corning, 2010. Delaney, John K., Kathryn A. Dooley, Francesca Gabrieli, Costanza Cucci, Marcello Picollo and Gretchen A. Hirschauer. “New Light on Verrocchio’s Art: Spectral Imaging of the Paintings.” In Verrocchio: Sculptor and Painter of Renaissance Florence, edited by Andrew Butterfield, 328–341. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2019. Dürer, Albrecht. Das Skizzenbuch von Albrecht Dürer in der Königl. Öffentl. Bibliothek zu Dresden. Erscheinungsort Strassburg im Elsass: Heitz, 1905. Eisenberg, Elizabeth. “A Verrocchio sculpture as a source for Leonardo and Raphael: the evidence of drawings.” Master Drawings 57, no. 1 (2019): 5–32. Formigli, Edilberto and Gerwulf Schneider. “Antiche terre di fusione: Indagini archeometriche sulle terre di fusione di bronzi greci, romani e rinascimentali.” In Antiche officine del bronzo: materiali, strumenti, tecniche: atti del seminario di studi ed esperimenti, edited by Edilberto Formigli. Siena: Nuova Immagine, 1993. Fusco, Laurie. “The Use of Sculptural Models by Painters in Fifteenth-Century Italy.” The Art Bulletin 64, no. 2 (1982): 175–194. Galvin, Carol and Phillip Lindley. “Pietro Torrigiano’s Portrait Bust of King Henry VII.” Burlington magazine 130, no. 1029 (1988): 892–902. Gentilini, Giancarlo. “San Gerolamo Penitente.” In Il cotto dell’Impruneta: maestri del Rinascimento e le fornaci di oggi, edited by Rosanna Pisani and Giancarlo Gentilini, 86–89, cat. no. II.9. Firenze: Ente Cassa di risparmio di Firenze, 2009. Giambelluca, Ugo. La Casa delle terrecotte alle Botteghe Oscure. Roma: Istituto nazionale di studi romani, 2006. Goldner, George and Carmen Bambach, eds. The drawings of Filippino Lippi and his circle. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997. Heil, Walter. “A Marble Putto by Verrocchio.” Pantheon 27 (1969): 271–282. Hubbard, Charlotte and Peta Motture. “The Making of Terracotta Sculpture: Techniques and Observations.” In Earth and Fire: Italian Terracotta Sculpture from Donatello to Canova, edited by Bruce Boucher, 82–95. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. Kwakkelstein, Michael. “New Copies by Leonardo after Pollaiuolo and Verrocchio and His Use of an écorché Model: Some Notes on His Working Method as an Anatomist,” Apollo 159 (2004): 21–29. Leoni, Massimo. “Casting Techniques in Verrocchio’s Workshop When the Christ and St. Thomas were Made.” In Verrocchio’s Christ and St. Thomas, a Masterpiece of Sculpture from Renaissance Florence, edited by Loretta Dolcini, 83–99. Metropolitan Museum of Art: New York, 1992. Luchs, Alison. “Verrocchio’s Career as a Sculptor.” In Verrocchio: Sculptor and Painter of Renaissance Florence, edited by Andrew Butterfield, 48–67. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2019. Ma, Xiao. “Andrea del Verrocchio. Putto Poised on a Globe. 1937.1.128. Analysis report” (unpublished). Department of Scientific Research, National Gallery of Art, 2017. Ma, Xiao. “Francesco di Simone Ferrucci. Adoration of the Shepherds. 1939.1.333. Analysis Report” (unpublished). Department of Scientific Research, National Gallery of Art, 2018. Marani, Pietro and Maria Teresa Fiorio, eds. Leonardo da Vinci, 1452–1519: The Design of the World. Milan: Skira, 2015.

122  Dylan Smith May, Katherine and David Lange. “Analysis of clays in Italian Renaissance Terracotta Sculpture” (unpublished). Department of Object Conservation, National Gallery of Art, 1999. Melli, Lorenza. “Verrocchio, gli studi per il Davide il disegno del suo tempo.” In Dessins de sculpteurs, vol. 2, edited by Guilhem Scherf and Cordélia Hattori, 31–40. Dijon: Echelle de Jacob Editions, 2009. Milanesi, Gaetano. Le Lettere di Michelangelo Buonarroti. Florence: Monnier, 1875. Mugnaini, Sonia, Marco Giamello, Anastasia Pisani and Salvatore Siano, “Casting Cores Used to Craft Large Bronze Masterpieces of the Florentine Renaissance and Mannerism.” Journal of Archaeological Science 47 (2014): 85–98. Myssok, Johannes. Bildhauerische Konzeption und plastisches Modell in der Renaissance Münster: Rhema, 1999. Nathan, Johannes. “Observing the Artist at Work: A Drawing by Verrocchio in Palermo.” Burlington Magazine 162, no. 1404 (2020): 204–215. Neilson, Christina. Practice and Theory in the Italian Renaissance Workshop: Verrocchio and the Epistemology of Making Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). Nicolai, Maria Ludovica. “Il ‘David’ del Verrocchio: considerazioni circa la tecnica, l’approccio metodologico e alcune soluzioni riguardanti il restauro.” Kermes 19, no. 61 (2006): 39–45. O’Grody, Jeannine. “Un semplice modello: Michelangelo and His Three-dimensional Preparatory Works.” PhD diss., Case Western Reserve University, 1999. Parronchi, Alessandro. “Il putto di Washington.” In Verrocchio and late Quattrocento Italian Sculpture, edited by Steven Bule and Alan Darr, 153–156. Florence: Casa Editrice de Lettere, 1992. Penny, Nicholas. “Boys in Motion,” London Review of Books 42, no. 2 (2020): 32. Pisani, Linda. “The Exchange of Models in Florentine Workshops of the Quattrocento: A Sheet from the ‘Verrocchio Sketchbook’.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 67 (2004): 269–274. Pisani, Linda. Francesco di Simone Ferrucci: Itinerari di uno scultore fiorentino fra Toscana, Romagna e Montefeltro. Florence: Casa Editrice Leo S. Olschki, 2007. Radcliffe, Anthony. “New Light on Verrocchio’s Beheading of the Baptist.” In Verrocchio and Late Quattrocento Italian Sculpture, edited by Steven Bule and Alan Darr, 117–123. Florence: Casa Editrice de Lettere, 1992. Rubin, Patricia, Alison Wright and Nicholas Penny. Renaissance Florence: The Art of the 1470s. London: National Gallery Publications Limited, 1999. Salvioli, Nicola. “Il Putto bronzeo di Verrocchio: analisi tecnica e restauro.” In Verrocchio Lab: il restauro del Putto col delfino e nuove indagini sulla Madonna di Piazza, edited by Arturo Galansino, 36–65. Venice: Marsilio, 2019. Scholten, Fritz. “Technical Aspects of Verrocchio’s Candelabrum.” Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 44, no. 2 (1996): 123–129. Smith, Dylan. “Observations on Verrocchio’s Bronzes: Materials, Methods and Models.” In Verrocchio: Sculptor and Painter of Renaissance Florence, edited by Andrew Butterfield, 310–327. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2019. Vasari, Giorgio. Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori. Translated by Gaetano Milanesi. Florence: G.C. Sansoni, 1906. Vasari, Giorgio. “Vasari on Technique.” Translated and edited by Louisa S. Maclehose and G. Baldwin Brown. New York: Dover, 1960. Villata, Edoardo. “Leonardo plasticatore tra Firenze e Milano: proposte di metodo e di attribuzione.” In Terrecotte nel Ducato di Milano: artisti e cantieri del primo Rinascimento, edited by Maria Grazia Albertini Ottolenghi and Laura Basso, 271–87. Milan: Edizioni ET, 2013.

7

The Primacy of Terracotta Sculptures for Painting in SixteenthCentury Renaissance Florence David Lucidi Independent Researcher, Turin, Italy

It is a commonplace in analyzing and explaining fundamental developments in the figurative arts, such as the transition to the Florentine “Modern Manner”, to focus exclusively on painting and thereby confine sculpture to a purely auxiliary role. In the recent exhibition Il Cinquecento a Firenze (2017) some of the outstanding sculptors were omitted, except for the case of Giambologna, who was celebrated among the greatest sculptors of the century, and some occasional interludes on supporting characters of the second half of the century. This omission was true of Jacopo Sansovino, even though his career spanned a considerable period in two centuries at key Renaissance aristocratic courts, and true of all the leading characters in the field of sculpture active during the first forty years of the century. Also in the previous exhibition, dedicated to Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino, the achievement of a “new mind”, of the germ of a new figurative culture that spread with the return of the Medici as the city’s leaders in 1512, was almost entirely restricted to the developments of the so-called “School of San Marco”, led by the joint workshop of Fra’ Bartolomeo and Mariotto Albertinelli in the Florentine Dominican convent, and the developments related to the generation of young painters who grew up in the Sartesque circle between the site of the “Chiostrino dei voti” at the Santissima Annunziata and the “Sapienza”.1 The new impulse, although guided by two subverters, Rosso and Pontormo, had nevertheless spread simultaneously to every sector of artistic production, as Giorgio Vasari already underlined when referring to the famous “disputations of importance”. They took place in the late winter afternoons in Baccio d’Agnolo’s studio and involved young and expert artists, from “terrazzani” to foreigners, painters, sculptors and architects. They all participated in the same way and were in lively competition, united by close working ties, bonds of friendship and positive competitiveness. Vasari focused his attention mainly on that group of artists who, in 1511, had opened a studio a few metres from the church of the Santissima Annunziata, at the place known as the “Sapienza”.2 There, alongside Andrea del Sarto and Franciabigio, there were above all sculptors of the calibre of Andrea and Jacopo Sansovino, Giovanfrancesco Rustici and Baccio Bandinelli. But the older sculptors, Baccio da Montelupo and Sandro di Lorenzo, and the younger, Girolamo della Robbia, Antonio Solosmeo and Niccolò Tribolo, used to meet there, sharing prestige commissions. And it is precisely at the Sapienza, the beating heart of the artistic and social life of neo-Medicean Florence, where the Paiuolo and Cazzuola companies also held meetings, and where the companies of the Broncone and the Magi met. Through art, they were able to influence Medici propaganda which fostered the politicization of the main festivities and controlled the city’s patronage. At the Sapienza Rosso and Pontormo

DOI: 10.4324/9781003327462-10

124  David Lucidi formulated the “two divergent manners”, drawing on a figurative, postural repertoire often expressed in innovative sculptural solutions in terracotta and ephemeral materials. These were tests for some famous citizen “competitions”, auxiliary models for pictorial translations requested by famous leaders3, or simply studio prototypes meant for the education of the young generations of artists. They were inventions that soon turned into the masterpieces most appreciated by cultured citizens whose collecting often went beyond the threshold of the sixteenth century (Figure 7.1). The “del Mercato Nuovo” competition mentioned by Vasari was certainly the contest out of which the early features of the “New Manner” took shape, a competition in which Baccio da Montelupo, Baccio Bandinelli, Jacopo Sansovino and Zaccaria Zacchi4 challenged each other. Datable between the end of 1511 and the first months of 15125, Florentine Piero Pitti launched the competition for a marble Madonna and Child for “the facade where the oriuolo is”, that is the tower known as “Casa del Saggio”, on the western side of the Piazza del Mercato Nuovo, granted by the Signoria to the magistracy of the Mercanzia as a control office for coins.6 The desire to have a marble image of the Virgin was contemporary with the renovation entrusted in 1511 to Lorenzo della Volpaia, of the ancient sundial clock placed on the facade of that same building7 which was famous as it was near Andrea del Verrocchio’s putto-robot that beat the hours as mentioned by Vasari.8 The monumental statue would be the first figure intended for public devotion in a place that up to that moment had an essentially secular character, an important urban context since the “Mercato Nuovo” was the seat of the main exchange and goldsmith shops and the throbbing centre of the merchant activities of the city. The contest, therefore,

Figure 7.1 Niccolò della Casa (attr.), Seated Portrait of Baccio Bandinelli, 1548, engraving, 41.5 × 30.8 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Primacy of Terracotta 125 represented an opportunity to make their work visible for all the artists who aspired to reach the hierarchies of the city’s patrons on the occasion of the approaching Medici Restoration. The masters challenged each other by providing clay models which were later submitted to the judgement of painter Lorenzo di Credi, and several other artists and men with some understanding of art. The judges were unanimous in declaring Jacopo Sansovino the winner, but in the end, it was Bandinelli who gained the commission thanks to the intervention of Averardo da Filicaia, an influential Medici associate. Even before their return to the leadership of Florence, he was getting ready to regain control of the main public building sites in the city.9 Unfortunately there nothing is known of Pitti’s Virgin. We only know that, in 1516, a large bronze bell was placed near the clock and that, by 1584, a fresco with the Annunciation10 was painted there. Certainly, the sixteenth-century city chronicles would not have omitted to mention it. There can be only two explanations for this absence: either the work was never carried out, or, on the occasion of the urban rearrangement of the square and the building of the current loggia by Giovan Battista del Tasso, which took place between 1547 and 155011, the statue was relocated to a different urban or architectural context. However, a hint of that ancient project can be seen in Alessandro Fei’s painting The Forge of the Goldsmith completed in 1571 for the study of Francesco I in Palazzo Vecchio. Here, in the niche of a building that seems to recall the new loggia of the Uffizi built by Vasari between 1560 and 1565, the artist placed an image of a marble Madonna and Child. This matches the Virgin and Child in wax and gilded canvas in the Szépművészeti Múzeum in Budapest, proposed by critics as the model presented by Jacopo Sansovino for the New Market contest (Figure 7.2).12 Another image of the Virgin and Child in terracotta typologically and iconographically similar to the statuette

Figure 7.2 Jacopo Sansovino, Virgin and Child, 1511–1512, wax and gilded canvas, 65.5 × 23.5 × 19 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest. © Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

126  David Lucidi in Hungary is the model possibly presented for that same competition by Baccio da Montelupo (Figure 7.3).13 The Virgin, despite appearing in an opposite position, in fact, presents herself in the same standing posture, with one foot raised on an architectural plinth, in the act of supporting Christ in her arms. Similarly to the Madonna of Budapest, this can be situated in the first ten years of the sixteenth century, as is suggested by the relationship with the works created by Montelupo between Venice, Lucca and Florence between 1508 and 1515.14 Indeed an echo of the prototype, presented on that occasion by Baccio Bandinelli, can be seen in the later figure of a midwife with a child in her arms in the sculptor’s Birth of the Virgin executed for the Holy House of Loreto between 1518 and 1519.15 Sandro di Lorenzo, formerly called the “Master of unruly children”, an artist strongly related to the Del Sarto and Sansovino circles and also extremely sensitive to those expressions, would seem to have shaped a very similar example (first Florence, Stefano Bardini; then Berlin, Kaiser Friedrich Museum). And perhaps from there, he set out to develop his most famous, dynamic compositions of the Virgin and Child on faldstool with some putti beside her with which he flooded the city art market in the following years.16 The fresh Roman experiences of Sansovino were brought together in the works resulting from the Mercato Nuovo competition, a “different” way of interpreting classicism suggested by Zaccaria Zacchi from Volterra, the renewed Leonardesque culture assimilated by Bandinelli through his proximity to Rustici, and finally the teachings of personalities such as Baccio da Montelupo, still linked to the strong fifteenth-century artistic tradition. Those ideas were assimilated in painting and sculpture, both by the most fanciful and innovative masters, such as the aforementioned Sandro di Lorenzo, masters capable of expressing and revising the main trends of Florentine art with an autonomous

Figure 7.3 Baccio da Montelupo, Virgin and Child, 1511–1512, terracotta, height 75 cm, New York, Blumka Gallery; Starnberg, Kunsthandlung Julius Böhler. © David Lucidi’s archive

The Primacy of Terracotta 127 lexicon, and by the masters of the past generation still in mid-career. These artists aimed to renew their art starting from these innovative examples, as can be seen in the Marian statuette in the County Museum of Art in Los Angeles17 by the follower of Verrocchio, Agnolo di Polo. This is strikingly demonstrated by Andrea del Sarto, whose conception of the Virgin in the Madonna delle Arpie, painted between 1515 and 1517, brought together, and not by chance, the inventions of the “Mercato Nuovo” Virgin, that had been suggested by the two sculptors emotionally and culturally closest to him: Jacopo Sansovino and Baccio Bandinelli. But Andrea del Sarto, in the creation of one of his most innovative works, had drawn on a further prestigious Florentine sculptural contest, the one organized by the Silk Guild (the Arte della Seta) for the execution of the monumental bronze Saint John the Evangelist intended for their external niche in Orsanmichele.18 It was a task of extraordinary importance, commissioned by one of the most influential city corporations and located in one of the most exclusive Florentine sites. The competition, also mentioned by Vasari, was held to celebrate the patron saint of the guild, but, above all, to pay tribute to Pope Leo X (Giovanni de ‘Medici) elected in 1513. The final bronze statue was placed in situ in the autumn two years later, just in time for the Pope’s triumphal entry on 30 November 151519, and displayed in the niche at the corner of Via dei Lamberti and Via dei Calzaioli, and overlooking that street, so facing the papal procession that would pass on its way from the New Market to Piazza della Signoria.20 The competition for the statue of San Giovanni saw many competitors challenge each other, but the judges focused attention on just two artists: the older Baccio da Montelupo, who won the challenge by his technical expertise in preparing the casting model, and Jacopo Sansovino celebrated for the figurative and compositive qualities of his model. Andrea del Sarto drew on the innovative model prepared by Sansovino (Jacopo Tatti) for the Orsanmichele competition for the mighty and superb twisted figure of San Giovanni in the Madonna delle Arpie. The Sansovino’s model, brought to an extraordinary level of perfection and considered by Vasari a “beautiful thing”, soon became a highly collectable object from which to learn. It was first inherited by the family of the sculptor/carpenter Giovanni d’Alesso, known as Nanni Unghero, to whom, during his career, Sansovino had given numerous clay models, including the one for the San Niccola da Tolentino (now in Santo Spirito).21 Later, thanks to its enormous fame handed down by oral sources in the city and by Vasari, it was purchased by sculptor Ridolfo Sirigatti, who guarded jealously it as one of the most significant testimonies to the century’s achievements in his precious art collection, where it was seen by Raffaello Borghini, who mentioned it in 1584.22 In their experimental search for daring glimpses, whirling twists, and emotional power, these masters were involved in the events that developed around the cultural circles of the “Sapienza”, also focused on innovative iconography, such as the Virgin and Child with St. John, with the latter placed in a gestural and visual relationship with the infant Jesus; or Charity, the most important among the Theological Virtues, which was highly prized by Renaissance culture as an example of generous and disinterested love, represented through the movement and expressions of whirling, hugged, twisted, amazed, tripping putti. In his Charities and the Madonnas with the Child sitting on a faldstool Sandro di Lorenzo combined memories of Donatello and others ones of Michelangelo and Leonardo with echoes of contemporary masters.23 The most gifted sons of Andrea della Robbia, Luca “the Younger” and Girolamo,24 and Zaccaria Zacchi, practiced on the same subjects, and surely, also Antonio Solosmeo, Niccolò Tribolo and Baccio Bandinelli. It is to these sculptors, that we can refer the terracotta Charities provided with “colourful

128  David Lucidi children” mentioned in inventories or in marriage donations of important Florentine families25, such as the one given by Andrea Minerbetti to his son Tommaso on the occasion of his marriage in 152126, or those mentioned in the inventories of the Medici prestigious garderoba between the end of the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries.27 The postural and compositional experiments suggested by an iconographic theme such as Charity were central for Jacopo Sansovino who devoted himself to the creation of figurines meant for learned private collecting or shaped as auxiliary models for subsequent three-dimensional or pictorial versions. An example would be the large clay statue, which measures approximately one Florentine ell, now identified as his (New York, Andrew Butterfield Fine Arts) and which probably served as a model for Andrea del Sarto’s monochrome Charity painted in 1513 in the Chiostro dello Scalzo (Figure 7.4).28 These experiments engaged Jacopo Sansovino for at least a decade, also influencing the activity of painters working in the circles of the Sapienza, such as Francesco Granacci, Rosso Fiorentino and Pontormo, Bachiacca, Giovanni Larciani and Andrea del Sarto, whose paintings restore the true significance of Sansovino prototypes.29 Sansovino is the artist today we know best for this kind of production given the number of surviving works that have been attributed to him. But other sculptors also contributed by coining equally popular prototypes, above all Baccio Bandinelli. Just think of the artist’s practice with small-sized auxiliary models alongside which he is portrayed, for example in the engravings of the Bandinellian Academy or the Seated Portrait (Figure 7.1).30 And one wonders, then, whether even the skeletal Saint Jerome, “cruel and anguished”; worn out as a result of years and penance, painted by Rosso in 1518 in the Spedalingo Altarpiece,31 was inspired not just by the famous bas-reliefs by Donatello, but by the famous hermit

Figure 7.4 Andrea del Sarto, Charity, fresco, 1513 ca., Chiostro dello Scalzo, Florence. © Photo: Sailko/Wikimedia Commons, 2006 (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)

The Primacy of Terracotta 129 saint who was just under a metre tall, now lost, shaped in wax by Bandinelli. A work that Vasari described as a Saint Jerome “in penitence, skinny and showing his bones, the flabby muscles, and most of the sinews and skin wrinkled and dry”, moulded with so much diligence that it astonished all the masters, including Leonardo and, we can imagine, the young painters close to Bandinelli like Rosso Fiorentino.32 A third sculptural site that undoubtedly influenced the development of Florentine art was the cycle of the Apostles of the Florence Cathedral which, between 1511 and 1518, involved Andrea and Jacopo Sansovino, Benedetto da Rovezzano, Andrea Ferrucci and Baccio Bandinelli.33 The leading role of Sansovino is once again documented as evidenced by the model prepared for his San Giacomo, now lost, but recalled by Vasari. Wanted and guarded by the famous banker Bindo Altoviti, his San Giacomo quickly turned from a simple model into an independent icon for aristocratic collecting and an opportunity for study for contemporary painters and sculptors even before the marble version was displayed in 1518.34 Furthermore, Sansovino – and we know it for sure from the documents of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore35 – had also begun working on other Apostles and completed their clay models which were also the subject of extraordinary admiration and collecting. Think, for example, of the terracotta San Paolo of the Musée Jacquemart André, sometimes recognized as a preliminary project for the Florentine San Giacomo.36 The innovation represented by these prototypes was not only the object of the attention of younger artists but was crucial for older painters such as Fra’ Bartolomeo who began updating their work between 1511 and 1513. This is evident from the two altarpieces depicting the Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine, the first executed for the church of San Marco in 1511 (now in Paris, Musée du Louvre), replaced the following year by a more up-to-date version, today in the Galleria Palatina in Florence.37 For the latter, the Dominican Friars asked the painter for greater figurative and compositional complexity than exhibited by the previous one, a call to adhere to the most up-to-date Florentine artistic trends. The evolution the friars of San Marco expected from Fra’ Bartolomeo can be read, as Vasari still recalled, in the dramatic luminism and power of those figures, painted “with grace meant to impress and fierce pride” and “colored with a vigorous manner, which seems in relief”.38 In a nutshell, the artist wanted to show, in addition to his drawing skills, the ability to render chiaroscuro. This was an attitude that sixteenthcentury treatise writing advised painters to develop by making clay models, as had been already suggested by Cennino Cennini and Leon Battista Alberti. In De Pictura, Alberti stated that the purpose of this art was precisely to make things appear in relief, or to create “immagini che scolpite potranno uscire fuori dalla tavola” and for this reason, it was more useful for a painter to practice relief rather than drawing.39 In an effort to emphasize the perspective views of the curtain-holding putti and the fall of light the work, Fra’ Bartolomeo worked from the plaster models in his workshop. The same, we can imagine, applied to the superb figure of Saint Bartholomew. In the heroic rotation of the Saint, we can recognize an echo of Sansovino’s San Giacomo from the Duomo of Florence; as mentioned above, Sansovino had shaped its clay model. But he had also stimulated Girolamo della Robbia to develop an updated style. Girolamo was a “close friend” of Andrea del Sarto who was in close contact with the whole entourage of the Sapienza, with Jacopo Sansovino, Baccio Bandinelli and other masters of his time.40 Girolamo della Robbia, at about the same time, had finished the Gallicano Altarpiece (Lucca) in which Santa Caterina, marked by modern classicism, superb in the posture and vibrant in the shaping, seems to confirm the existence of a common prototype from which Pontormo also drew inspiration in the same years of the Visitation in the

130  David Lucidi “Chiostrino dei voti” at the Annunziata (1514–1516). This shows how “that dialogue in the sign of the grace of doing between the sculpture of Sansovino and the painting of Andrea del Sarto” spread quickly and easily to the new generations of artists, and also in the reverse motion to the later masters.41 Fra’ Bartolomeo’s updating of plastic models rather than pictorial sources developed within the walls of the convent of San Marco thanks to his relationship with the members of the Della Robbia family, with his friend Baccio da Montelupo, and above all with Mariotto Albertinelli. As a versatile master and expert in clay sculpture, he used to provide his friend Della Porta with clay models to be turned into pictorial compositions.42 And the same applied to the pupil of Fra’ Bartolomeo, Fra’ Paolino da Pistoia, also a skilled plastic artist documented between 1510 and 1515 beside Andrea della Robbia and his sons in the creation of terracotta statuary groups.43 I would like to conclude my essay by dwelling on a last, important sculptural site that contributed to a further advance of Florentine art in the sixteenth century, the competition mentioned above for the monumental bronze of St. John at Orsanmichele cast by Baccio da Montelupo by October 1515. As for the Mercato Nuovo, it was a task of extraordinary importance, destined for one of the most exclusive Florentine contexts and commissioned by one of the main city corporations, the Arte della Seta (the Silk Guild).44 The St. John is likely to have been commissioned as early as 1513 to celebrate the newly elected Giovanni d’ Medici – Pope Leo X – as was probably the marble St. John by Benedetto da Rovezzano for the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore.45 The statue of Montelupo was completed by the autumn, two years later, just in time for the Pope’s triumphal entry on 30 November 1515. It was exhibited in the Orsanmichele niche on the corner of Via dei Lamberti and via dei Calzaioli,46 facing the papal procession that from the New Market going up towards Piazza della Signoria overlooked Via dei Calzaioli. Unfortunately, there is no trace left of the prototype of the St. John conceived by Baccio but, as was previously mentioned, we preserve the memory of the Evangelist moulded by Sansovino, emulated by Andrea del Sarto and celebrated by Vasari. Later, it became the sought-after target of cultivated sixteenth-century collecting. But it was also an unavoidable reference, especially for contemporary painting and sculpture such as the Madonna and Child of Budapest, the St. James of Florence Cathedral, the New York Charity and the St. Paul of the Musée Jacquemart André, whose movements, still “fresh” during the seventeenth century, were drawn on by Andrea di Michelangelo Ferrucci for the St. Paul of the Badia of Passignano.47 Notes 1 The reference is to two exhibitions: Pontormo e Rosso Fiorentino: divergenti vie della “maniera”, exh. cat., eds. Carlo Falciani and Antonio Natali (Florence: Mandragora, 2014); Il Cinquecento a Firenze: “maniera moderna” e controriforma, exh. cat., eds. Carlo Falciani, Antonio Natali, and Cristina Acidini Luchinat (Florence: Mandragora). 2 The term Sapienza refers to building started in 1429 to grant the request of Niccolò da Uzzano and the superintendents of the Florentine University for a hall of residence for the students of the Florentine Studio. After the original project fell through, the grand classrooms the building was made of, which were under the jurisdiction of the Art of Calimala, were used as warehouses, temporary studios, workshops for public holidays, and finally as a foundry for the city arsenal: Emanuela Ferretti, “La Sapienza di Niccolò da Uzzano: l’istituzione e le sue tracce architettoniche nella Firenze rinascimentale,” Annali di storia di Firenze 4 (2009): 89–149. Giorgio Vasari recalled in his Vita of Andrea del Sarto: “Dopo queste opere, partendosi Andrea et il Francia dalla piazza del Grano, presono nuove stanze vicino al convento della Nunziata,

The Primacy of Terracotta 131 nella Sapienza; onde avvenne che Andrea et Iacopo Sansovino allora giovane, il quale nel medesimo luogo lavorava di scultura sotto Andrea Contucci suo maestro, feciono sì grande e stretta amicizia insieme che né giorno né notte si staccava l’uno dall’altro, e per lo più i loro ragionamenti erano delle difficultà dell’arte; onde non è maraviglia se l’uno e l’altro sono poi stati eccellentissimi, come si dice ora d’Andrea e come a suo luogo si dirà di Iacopo”: Giorgio Vasari, Le Vite de più eccellenti pittori, scultori et architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, ed. Paola Barocchi, vol. IV (Florence: Accademia della Crusca, 1976), 346. 3 Suffice it to think of what happened only a few years earlier, when Pietro Perugino asked the young Jacopo Sansovino for “many wax models” when pictures were ordered for the Vatican, or the one for the famous Deposizione to be painted for the Santissima Annunziata in Florence: G. Vasari, Le Vite de più eccellenti pittori, scultori et architettori, ed. Gaetano Milanesi, vol. VII (Florence: G. C. Sansoni, 1881), 490; Giancarlo Gentilini, “Perugino e la scultura fiorentina del suo tempo,” in Pietro Vannucci, detto il Perugino, eds. Laura Teza and Mirko Santanicchia (Perugia: Volumina, 2004), 200, 208. 4 Vasari, Le Vite de più eccellenti pittori, scultori et architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, vol. IV, 180. 5 Since these two had returned from Rome in the second half of 1511. 6 J. Jacorossi, in I Palazzi di Firenze nella storia e nell’arte, ed. Leonaro Ginori Lisci, vol. I (Florence: Giunti, 1972), 77, no. 131. See also: Gianluca Belli, “Gli spazi del mercante e dell’artefice nella Firenze del Quattrocento,” in Nati sotto Mercurio. Le architetture del mercante nel Rinascimento fiorentino, eds. Donata Battilotti, Gianluca Belli, and Amedeo Belluzzi (Florence: Ed. Polistampa, 2011), 46. 7 Lorenzo della Volpaia, who was born in Florence in 1446, is mentioned for the first time by Giuliano da Sangallo among the architects who took part in the debate on the doors for Santo Spirito in 1486, while in 1491 he appears among the contestants for the competition for the facade of Santa Maria del Fiore. In the Florentine land register, he is called a carpenter; Cellini recalls him as a goldsmith and Michele Poccianti as a mathematician. His fame is mainly linked to his mastery in the design and construction of clocks, with the lunar phases and the motions of the planets Agnolo Poliziano had already mentioned him in 1484, probably regarding the clock commissioned by Lorenzo the Magnificent for Mattia Corvino, and later, in 1510, for the clock hall of Palazzo Vecchio: Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, vol. XXXIV (Leipzig: E. A. Seeman, 1940), 530; Pier Nicola Pagliara, “Volpaia, Lorenzo,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. XXXVII (Rome: Instituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1989), 799–802. 8 As Vasari recalled, that Putto by Verrocchio “had his arms untied, so that, lifting them, he struck the hour with a hammer that he held in his hand”: Vasari, Le Vite de più eccellenti pittori, scultori et architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, vol. III, 545. Stefano del Migliore briefly spoke of the ancient clock, a wheel sundial: Firenze, città nobilissima (Florence: Nella Stamp. Della Stella, 1684), 563. 9 This is what Vasari recalled in his Vita of Jacopo Sansovino: «Ma se bene gli fu perciò allogata questa opera, fu nondimeno indugiato tanto a provedergli e condurgli il marmo per opera et invidia d’Averardo da Filicaia, il quale favoriva grandemente il Bandinello et odiava il Sansovino...»: Vasari, Le Vite de più eccellenti pittori, scultori et architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, vol. VI, 179; Bruce Boucher, The sculpture of Jacopo Sansovino, vol. II (New Heaven: Yale University Press, 1991), 319, cat. 8. 10 Jacorossi, in I Palazzi di Firenze, 77, n. 131. 11 Marco Collareta, “Del Tasso, Giovambattista,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. XXXVIII (Rome: Instituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1990), 299–302. 12 The work (inventory 1177; 65.5 × 23.5 × 19 cm) was purchased in Florence in 1895 from Ermenegildo Costantini: Jolán Balogh, “Studien in der alten Skulpturensammlung des Museums der Bildenden Künste. II,” Az Országos Magyar Szépművészeti Múzeum Évkönyvei (Jahrbücher des Museums der Bildenden Künste in Budapest) 9 (1940): 64–66; Boucher, The sculpture of Jacopo Sansovino, vol. II, 319, cat. 9; Emanuela Ferretti, “La Sapienza di Niccolò da Uzzano: l’istituzione e le sue tracce architettoniche nella Firenze rinascimentale,” Annali di storia di Firenze 4 (2009): 46; David Lucidi, “Zaccaria Zacchi volterrano. Una nota sulla formazione e qualche aggiunta al catalogo dello scultore,” Nuovi Studi 18 (2012): 70–71; Lorenzo Principi, Il Maestro dei Bambini turbolenti. Sandro di Lorenzo scultore in terracotta agli

132  David Lucidi albori della Maniera (Perugia: Aguaplano, 2020), 402, cat. R.7; Philippe Sénéchal, “Materiali nobili e materiali poveri della scultura italiana (1460–1520),” in: Il corpo e l’anima. Da Donatello a Michelangelo: cultura italiana del Rinascimento, exh. cat., eds. Marc Bormand, Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi, and Francesca Tasso (Rome: Officina Libraria, 2021), 217. 13 The work, which has been at the Antony Blumka Gallery in New York at least since 2015, was first referred to Baccio da Montelupo by the writer with dating between 1510 and 1515: David Lucidi, “Contributi a Baccio da Montelupo scultore in terracotta,” Nuovi Studi 18 (2013) = 19 (2014): 70–71, 94, note 204, figs. 89, 91. Sandro di Lorenzo, who, in the Vergine col Bambino, which used to be at the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum in Berlin, seems to be inspired by the solutions that emerged in that fruitful competition promoted by Pitti: Principi, Il Maestro dei Bambini, 59–61; 397, cat. R.3. 14 Lucidi, “Contributi a Baccio da Montelupo,” 70–71, 94 note 204, figs. 89, 91. See finally: Lucidi 2022, in printing. 15 Principi, Il Maestro dei Bambini, 60–61; Alessandro Cherubini, in Baccio Bandinelli scultore e maestro (1493–1560), exh. cat., eds. Detlef Heikamp and Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi (Florence: Giunti, 2014), 567, cat. II (on the Loreto relief). 16 Principi, Il Maestro dei Bambini, 59–61; 397, cat. R.3. 17 Inventory 50.33.17 (110 x 43 x 30.5); Lorenzo Lorenzi, Agnolo di Polo. Scultura in terracotta dipinta nella Firenze di fine Quattrocento (Ferrara: Belriguardo, 1998), 90–91; Linda Pisani, “Diramazioni e divagazioni verrocchiesche: un modello molto fortunato,” Predella 30 (2011): 202–203; Principi, Il Maestro dei Bambini, 246–258, notes 38, 52. 18 Vasari, Le Vite de più eccellenti pittori, scultori et architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, vol. VI, 178. On the work see Finiello Zervas, Orsanmichele a Firenze, vol. I (Modena: Panini, 1996), 230, 466; John Douglas Turner, The Sculpture of Baccio da Montelupo (PhD diss., Brown University, 1997), 128–130, cat. 6a; Lucidi, “Contributi a Baccio da Montelupo,” 74– 75; Lucidi 2022 c.d.s. 19 Giovanni Cambi, Istorie di Giovanni Cambi cittadino fiorentino, vol. 3 (Florence: Per Gaet. Cambiagi stampatore Granducale, 1786), 81: “... Addì 20 dottobre detto [1515] l’Arte di Por Santa Maria fecie porre a horto San Michele al suo pilastro, l’avvocato dell’Arte loro S. Joanni Vangelista di bronzo, e levoronne uno, che v’era di marmo, che non era tenuto troppo figura buona...”. In his Diario Fiorentino, Luca Landucci brought forward the placement of the statue of two days: “E a dì 18 d’ottobre 1515, si pose quello San Giovanni Vangiolista di bronzo in Orto San Michele, e levorno quello che v’era di marmo”: Luca Landucci, Diario fiorentino dal 1450 al 1516. Continuato da un anonimo fino al 1542. Pubblicato sui codici della Comunale di Siena e della Marucelliana. Con annotazioni, ed. Iodoco Del Badia (Florence: G. C. Sansoni, 1883), 351. 20 See on the subject Lucidi 2022, in printing. And, on the route of the triumphal procession that accompanied the Pope through the streets of Florence to his apartment set up in Santa Maria Novella, finally see Ilaria Ciseri, “‘Con tanto grandissimo e trionfante onore’. Immagini dall’ingresso fiorentino di papa Leone X nel 1515,” in Nello splendore mediceo. Papa Leone X e Firenze, exh. cat., eds. Nicoletta Baldini and Monica Bietti (Livorno: Sillabe, 2013), 237–249. 21 Alessandro Cecchi in L’Officina della maniera. Varietà e fierezza nell’arte fiorentina del Cinquecento fra le due repubbliche 1494–1530, exh. cat., eds. Alessandro Cecchi and Antonio Natali (Florence: Giunta regionale Toscana; Venezia: Marsilio, 1996), 180, cat. 52. 22 Borghini described it as “un modello di terra dell’Apostolo San Giovann di mano del Sansovino”: Raffaello Borghini, Il riposo, ed. Giovanni Gaetano Bottari (Florence: M. Nestenus e F. Moücke, 1730), 20; Boucher, The sculpture of Jacopo Sansovino, vol. II, 358, n. 73. 23 Principi, Il Maestro dei Bambini. 24 Recently, Giancarlo Gentilini, on the occasion of a Pandolfini sale (Importanti maioliche rinascimentali, Florence, Palazzo Ramirez-Montalvo 20th October 2021, lot 14) has publicized a new Charity in glazed terracotta, particularly sophisticated in its creation, attributable precisely to Girolamo della Robbia. 25 See in particular the Charity of the Bardini Museum in Florence (Inventory. 721). Its reference to Zaccaria Zacchi was proposed by Lucidi, “Zaccaria Zacchi volterrano,” 146, 150, 165, note 136; and with this reference also accepted in Principi, Il Maestro dei Bambini, 411, cat. R.14. Or see the two Madonnas with Child and angels respectively in the convent of San Giuseppe and the sacristy of Santa Maria della Carità in Bologna: Lucidi, “Zaccaria Zacchi volterrano,” 145, with the previous bibliography on both specimens.

The Primacy of Terracotta 133 26 Attilio Schiaparelli, La casa fiorentina e i suoi arredi nei secoli XIV e XV (Florence: G. C. Sansoni, 1908), 187, note 1. 27 Principi, Il Maestro dei Bambini, 303, with the previous bibliography. 28 (H. 59 cm: https://www.andrewbutterfield.com/major-discoveries/jacopo-sansovino); Claude Douglas Dickerson, in Body and Soul: Masterpieces of Italian Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture, exh. cat., eds. Andrew Butterfield and Andrea Bacchi (Florence: Edizioni Polistampa, 2010), 24–38. 29 On the constant and mutual relationship, sometimes with clear dependence of Sarto’s painting on Sansovino’s sculptural models: Boucher, The Sculpture of Jacopo Sansovino, vol. I, 3–23; Antonio Natali, Andrea Del Sarto, maestro della maniera moderna (Milan: Leonardo Arte, 1998), 49–52; 86–87; Gentilini, “Perugino e la scultura fiorentina,” 208. 30 Tommaso Mozzati, in Baccio Bandinelli scultore e maestro, 526–527, 528–529, cat. 76–77. 31 Antonio Natali, Rosso Fiorentino, leggiadra maniera e terribilità di cose stravaganti (Cinisello Balsamo, Milan: Silvana Editoriale, 2006), 65–74. 32 Vasari, Le Vite de più eccellenti pittori, scultori et architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568– 1994, vol. V, 243. See also: Gentilini, “Perugino e la scultura fiorentina,” 202. 33. The cycle of the Apostles for the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore was initially commissioned in 1503 to Michelangelo, who only started on San Matteo. Work was interrupted between 1505 and 1506 and resumed only in 1512 with the entrusting to Jacopo Sansovino of the statue of San Giacomo, followed by the San Giovanni to Benedetto da Rovezzano, the Sant’Andrea to Andrea Ferrucci and the San Pietro to Baccio Bandinelli: Carlo Cinelli, Johannes Myssok, and Francesco Vossilla, Il Ciclo degli Apostoli nel Duomo di Firenze (Florence: Alinea, 2002) with the previous bibliography. 34 Boucher, The Sculpture of Jacopo Sansovino, vol. II, 319–20, cat. 9. 35 Giovanni Poggi, Il Duomo di Firenze: documenti sulla decorazione della chiesa e del campanile, tratti dall’archivio dell’opera (Florence: Medicea, 1988), ad indicem. 36 (inv. MJAP-S 1890); Boucher, The sculpture of Jacopo Sansovino, vol. II, 319–320, cat. 9; Johannes Myssok, Bildhauerische Konzeption und plastisches Modell in der Renaissance (Münster: Rhema, 1999), 202–209, 351–352, cat. 9; Tommaso Mozzati, in Raphael, Cellini & a Renaissance banker. The Patronage of Bindo Altovini, exh. cat., eds. Alan Chong, Donatella Pegazzano, and Dimitros Zikos (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2003), 385–390, cat. 11, 11a. 37 Cécile Scailliérez, in Catalogue des peintures italiennes du musée du Louvre. Catalogue sommaire: XVIe siècle autres écoles, ed. Élisabeth Foucart-Walter (Paris: Gallimard, 2007), 66; Serena Padovani in L’ età di Savonarola: Fra’ Bartolomeo e la scuola di San Marco, exh. cat. ed. Serena Padovani (Venice: Marsilio 1996), 94–98, cat. 20, with the previous bibliography. 38 Vasari, Le Vite de più eccellenti pittori, scultori et architettori, vol. IV, 185. 39 Leon Battista Alberti, De Pictura, ed. Cecil Grayson (Rome: G. Laterza, 1975), 7; Gentilini, “Perugino e la scultura fiorentina,” 199. 40 Vasari, Le Vite de più eccellenti pittori, scultori et architettori, vol. II, 182–183; vol. V, 13; Gentilini, “Perugino e la scultura fiorentina,” 208. 41 Giancarlo Gentilini, I Della Robbia. La Scultura invetriata del Rinascimento, vol. II (Florence: Cantini, 1992), 336, 363 (for the Gallicano altarpiece). 42 Vasari, Le Vite de più eccellenti pittori, scultori et architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, vol. IV, 106. Such skill with clay modelling is related to the artistic training of Mariotto Albertinelli, who grew up, as Vasari recalled, under the protection of Alfonsina Orsini, the wife of Piero de Medici, the son of the Magnificent, frequenting the Medici cultural circles as well as the famous Garden of San Marco. 43 In 1513, Fra’ Paolino had created two painted raw soil statues of the Maddalena and of San Domenico, for the convent of Santa Maria Maddalena in Pian del Mugnone (Fiesole) placed under the jurisdiction of San Marco. He participated in the same commissioning context that involved Fra’ Bartolomeo, the painter of a fresco with the Annunciazione in 1515, and Andrea della Robbia, the sculptor of a painted terracotta Presepe and five other clay statues: Gentilini, I Della Robbia. La Scultura invetriata del Rinascimento, vol. I, 265. 44 Vasari, Le Vite de più eccellenti pittori, scultori et architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, vol. VI, 178. About the work: Zervas, Orsanmichele a Firenze, 230, 466; Turner, The sculpture of Baccio da Montelupo, 128–130, cat. 6a; Lucidi, “Contributi a Baccio da Montelupo,” 74–75; Lucidi 2022 c.d.s.

134  David Lucidi 5 Poggi, Il Duomo di Firenze, 148, document 2165. 4 46 On the route of the papal procession, and in general on the numerous ephemeral ‘ancient’ arches set up in the streets of Florence for the triumphal entry of Leone X: Ilaria Ciseri, L’Ingresso trionfale di Leone X in Firenze nel 1515 (Florence: Olschki, 1990), 199; Ilaria Ciseri, ““Con tanto grandissimo e trionfante onore”. Immagini dall’ingresso fiorentino di papa Leone X nel 1515,” in Nello splendore mediceo. Papa Leone X e Firenze, exh. cat., eds. Nicoletta Baldini and Monica Bietti (Livorno: Sillabe, 2013), 237–249. 47 Fabio Gaffo, in Il corpo e l’anima, 418, cat. 128.

Bibliography Alberti, Leon Battista. De Pictura [1425–1436], ed. 1975 (Rome: Laterza, 1975). Baccio Bandinelli scultore e maestro (1493–1560), cat. exh. edited by Detlef Heikamp and Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi (Florence: Giunti, 2014). Balogh, Jolán. Studien in der alten Skulpturensammlung des Museums der Bildenden Künste. II, in “Az Orsz.gos Magyar Sz.pműv.szeti M.zeum .vk.nyvei (Jahrbücher des Museums der Bildenden Künste in Budapest)”, 1937–1939, 9 (1940), 45–136. Belli, Gianluca. Gli spazi del mercante e dell’artefice nella Firenze del Quattrocento, in Nati sotto Mercurio. Le architetture del mercante nel Rinascimento fiorentino, ed. D. Battilotti, G. Belli, A. Belluzzi (Florence: Polistampa, 2011), pp. 7–55. Body and Soul: Masterpieces of Italian Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture, ed. A. Butterfield (Florence: Polistampa, 2010). Borghini, Raffaello. Il riposo, ed. G. Bottari (Florence: M. Nestenus, F. Moucke, 1730). Bormand, M., B. Paolozzi Strozzi, F. Tasso, eds. Il corpo e l’anima. Da Donatello a Michelangelo. Sculture italiane del Rinascimento, exh. cat.(Milan, Castello Sforzesco, 21 luglio – 24 ottobre 2021), (Rome: Officina Libraria, 2021). Boucher, Bruce. The Sculpture of Jacopo Sansovino, 2 vol. (New Heaven: Yale University Press, 1991). Catalogue des peintures italiennes du musée du Louvre. Catalogue sommaire: XVIe siècle autres écoles, ed. É. Foucart-Walter (Paris: Gallimard, 2007). Cinelli C., J. Myssok, F. Vossilla, eds. Il Ciclo degli Apostoli nel Duomo di Firenze, ed. (Florence: Alinea Editrice, 2002). Ciseri, Ilaria. L’Ingresso trionfale di Leone X in Firenze nel 1515 (Florence: Olschki, 1990). Ciseri, Ilaria. “Con tanto grandissimo e trionfante onore”. Immagini dall’ingresso fiorentino di papa Leone X nel 1515, in Nello splendore mediceo. Papa Leone X e Firenze, catalogo della mostra (Firenze, Museo delle Cappelle Medicee e Casa Buonarroti, 26 marzo–6 ottobre 2013), ed. N. Baldini and M. Bietti (Livorno: Sillabe, 2013), pp. 237–249. Collareta, M. voce Del Tasso, Giovambattista, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 38 (Rome: Treccani, 1990). Del Migliore, F.L. Firenze, città nobilissima (Florence: Forni, 1684). Ferretti, E. La Sapienza di Niccolò da Uzzano: l’istituzione e le sue tracce architettoniche nella Firenze rinascimentale, in “Annali di storia di Firenze”, 4 (2009), 89–149. Finiello Zervas, Diane. Orsanmichele a Firenze, 2 vol. (Modena: Panini, 1996). Fra’ Bartolomeo e la scuola di San Marco, exh. cat. (Florence, Palazzo Pitti and Museo di San Marco, 25 aprile – 28 luglio 1996), ed. S. Padovani (Venice: Marsilio, 1996). Gentilini, Giancarlo. I Della Robbia. La Scultura invetriata del Rinascimento, 2 vols. (Florence: Cantini, 1992). Gentilini, Giancarlo. Perugino e la scultura fiorentina del suo tempo, in Pietro Vannucci, detto il Perugino, atti del convegno (Perugia e Città della Pieve, 25–28 ottobre 2000), edited by Teza (Perugia: Quattroemme, 2004), pp. 199–227. I Palazzi di Firenze nella storia e nell’arte, ed. L. Ginori Lisci, 2 vol. (Florence: Cantini, 1972). Il Cinquecento a Firenze: “Maniera moderna” e controriforma, catalogo della mostra (Firenze, Palazzo Strozzi, 21 settembre 2017–21 gennaio 2018), ed. C. Falciani and A. Natali (Florence: Mandragora, 2017).

The Primacy of Terracotta 135 L’Officina della maniera. Varietà e fierezza nell’arte fiorentina del Cinquecento fra le due repubbliche 1494–1530, catalogo della mostra (Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, 28 settembre 1996–6 gennaio 1997), ed. A. Cecchi and A. Natali (Venice: Marsilio, 1996). Lorenzi, L. Agnolo di Polo. Scultura in terracotta dipinta nella Firenze di fine Quattrocento (Ferrara: Berlinguardo, 1998). Lucidi, David. Zaccaria Zacchi volterrano. Una nota sulla formazione e qualche aggiunta al catalogo dello scultore, in “Nuovi Studi”, XVII, 2012, 18, 133–166. Lucidi, David. Contributi a Baccio da Montelupo scultore in terracotta, in “Nuovi Studi”, XVIII, 2013 (2014), 19, 51–101. Natali, A. Andrea Del Sarto, maestro della maniera moderna (Milan: Leonardo Arte, 1998). Natali, A. Rosso Fiorentino, leggiadra maniera e terribilità di cose stravaganti (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2006). Pagliara, P. N. voce Volpaia, Lorenzo, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 37 (Rome: Treccani, 1989). Pisani, Linda. Diramazioni e divagazioni verrocchiesche: un modello molto fortunato. In “Predella”, 2012, 30 (Su Lorenzo da Viterbo e Piermatteo d’Amelia: ricerche in Abruzzo, Lazio, Marche, Umbria, ed. G. de Simone and F. Marcelli), 197–210. Poggi, Giovanni. Il Duomo di Firenze: documenti sulla decorazione della chiesa e del campanile, tratti dall’archivio dell’opera, 2 vols., Berlino 1909 (Florence: Edizioni Medicea, 1988). Pontormo e Rosso Fiorentino: divergenti vie della “maniera”, exh. cat. edited by Carlo Falciani and Antonio Natali (Florence: Mandragora, 2014). Principi, Lorenzo. Il Maestro dei Bambini turbolenti. Sandro di Lorenzo scultore in terracotta agli albori della Maniera (Perugia: Aguaplano, [2018] 2020). Raphael, Cellini & a Renaissance Banker: the patronage of Bindo Altoviti, exh. cat. edited by Alan Chong (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2003). Sénéchal, Philippe. Materiali nobili e materiali poveri della scultura italiana (1460–1520). In: Il corpo e l’anima. Da Donatello a Michelangelo: cultura italiana del Rinascimento, exh. cat. edited by Marc Bormand, Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi, and Francesca Tasso (Rome: Officina Libraria, 2021). Schiaparelli, Attilio. La casa fiorentina e i suoi arredi nei secoli XIV e XV (Florence: Sansoni, 1908). Giorgio, Vasari. Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori scultori e architettori, 1568 edition, ed. R. Bettarini and P. Barocchi (Florence: S.P.E.S., già Sansoni, 1966–1987), 779–780. Vasari, Giorgio. Le Vite de più eccellenti pittori, scultori et architettori 1568 edition, ed. G. Milanesi, 9 vols. (Florence: Sansoni, 1878–1885). Thieme, Ulrich and Felix Becker. Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (Leipzig: Engelmann, E. A. Seeman, 1907–1950). Turner, John Douglas. The Sculpture of Baccio da Montelupo (Providence: Brown University Dissertation, 1997).

Part III

Mimetic Ventures

8

Glazed Ornament between Architecture and Altarpieces Luca and Andrea della Robbia in Impruneta and Pescia Federica Carta The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA Université de Picardie, Amiens, France

Introduction1 The artistic and cultural context of the production of the first terracotta altarpieces has been analysed in a pioneering article by Giancarlo Gentilini, who points out especially Leon Battista Alberti’s preference for sculpture in church decoration as set out in his The Art of Building.2 Before looking closer at the Pescia triptych, a brief introduction on the Impruneta Chapels is necessary. The church of Impruneta, in the Florence contado, was a high place of Florentine civic religion, hosting one of the most venerated “miraculous images” of Tuscany, an icon of the Virgin and the Child, attributed to Saint Luke.3 From 1439, the parish priest in charge was Antonio degli Agli (ca. 1400–1477), an important member of the Medicean neo-platonic academy, tied to Cosimo de’ Medici, his son Piero and even Lorenzo il Magnifico.4 In the 1460s, two marble tempietti were built on the east wall of the church, on the sides of the choir, enshrining the miraculous Madonna and a relic of the Holy Cross: their dating and the attribution of the architectural project are problematic, but they probably date from between 1461 and 1465.5 Their main model is the marble chapel of the basilica of the Santissima Annunziata in Florence, built around 1448, commissioned by Piero de’ Medici to frame the miraculous fresco of the Annunciation.6 However, some details are adopted from Piero’s other project, the Chapel of the Crucifix in San Miniato al Monte (1449–1449),7 which established a precedent for the use of glazed terracotta in the ceiling decoration and for the inclusion of capitals of different types. Both chapels consist of a structure open on three sides, supported by four marble columns with entablature, which are covered by a glazed terracotta coffered ceiling, decorated with the blue fluted cup, already used by Luca in the dome of the porch of the Pazzi Chapel in Santa Croce about 1461 (Figure 8.1).8 The glazed terracotta also covers the back walls of the altars. In the chapel of the Virgin, a marble tabernacle framing the icon is pre-existent, dating probably to the second half of 1440s. Luca della Robbia’s intervention, instead, consists in the two white figures of saints against a blue background (Figure 8.2). In the chapel of the Holy Cross, the composition is the same, but the central tabernacle, also in glazed terracotta, is part of Luca’s work and frames a Crucifixion in relief and rests on an outstanding predella painted with pinecones (Figure 8.3). In this work, Luca takes advantage of all the technical possibilities given by the material: the architectural elements are moulded and painted to imitate precious materials, such as lapis-lazuli; the figures are modelled DOI: 10.4324/9781003327462-12

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Figure 8.1 Luca della Robbia and unknow architect (Pagno di Lapo Portigiani?), Chapel of the Virgin and Chapel of the Holy Cross, ca. 1461–1464, Impruneta, Santa Maria. © Federica Carta

in low or high relief and glazed in uniform, luminous white, and the predella is flatpainted in a multitude of shades of blue, green and brown, achieving an impressive naturalistic mimesis. The Capponi triptych has been in Pescia Cathedral since 2021, and in the private chapel of the archbishop from 1816, but its original provenance is the chapel of the mason of the Hospitaler Order of Altopascio in the same town; the coat of arms of Giovanni Capponi (1412–1493), a master of the Order from 1445, and that of the order itself are painted on the two sides of the frame (Figure 8.4). Although the provenance and the patrons are known, no documents support an exact dating of the work. The date of 1459 has been proposed as terminus ante quem, because in that year the pope Pius II signed a bull to dissolve the Order of Altopascio to acquire its possessions and finance a crusade against the Ottomans.9 However, two unpublished documents demonstrate that in 1462 Giovanni Capponi was still acting as he was in full control of Altopascio possessions, so that terminus ante quem should not be taken as indisputable, and the dating is, thus, still an open question.10

Glazed Ornament between Architecture and Altarpieces 141

Figure 8.2 Luca della Robbia and unknow architect (Pagno di Lapo Portigiani?), Chapel of the Holy Cross, ca. 1461–1464, Impruneta, Santa Maria. © Federica Carta

The problem of the dating of this artwork is not a secondary one: the Pescia altarpiece is the very first altarpiece in glazed terracotta conserved and, probably, the very first made in the Della Robbia workshop. Its experimental character has already been underlined by Giancarlo Gentilini and the recent restoration, including a complete dismantling of the work, has entirely confirmed that hypothesis: not only the sectioning is rudimentary (the figures, background and frame are not separated, and the cut lines are straight and do not follow the contours of the figures or the fold of the drapery), but also the hollowing techniques shows laborious attempts (Figure 8.5); moreover, the predella, notably too large, has been cut after firing between the apples and the right bunch of pinecones better to correspond to the dimensions of the triptych.11 Therefore, it seems probable that the pala was modelled by the young Andrea when he was still quite inexperienced in making large-scale work: the question of the role played by Luca in the project is, however, still open. The Capponi Altarpiece consists of a triptych resting on a large predella: the central panel is occupied by the Virgin and Child and Two Angels and, in the two side panels are the standing figures of Saint James and Saint Blaise. The frame is, at least, minimalist

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Figure 8.3 Luca della Robbia, Crucifixion, Saint John the Baptist, Saint Augustin, ca. 1461–1464, glazed terracotta, Chapel of the Holy Cross, Impruneta, Santa Maria. © Federica Carta

and raises some questions: the predella with the vegetal garland is almost a unicum in Andrea’s altarpieces and the entablature is reduced to a cornice alone. The affinity of this work to the chapels in Impruneta was pointed out by Leo Planiscig in 1940 and by John Pope-Hennessy, and it deserves to be reconsidered.12 In the general composition, the triptych recalls the altar-walls of Impruneta: the centre is occupied by the devotional image, flanked by orant angels and by standing saints on a blue background. The similarity become more evident if we compare the figures of the saints. The bishop, Saint Blaise, is a sort of replica of the Saint Augustine in Impruneta: the figures share the same contrapposto, the draperies fall in the same way, but the iconographic requirements forced Andrea to a major change in the depiction of the arms. The right hand of Saint Blaise has to hold the carder – instead of having the gesture of blessing – and the book held in St Augustine’s left hand is slipped under Saint Blaise’s arm. Saint Blaise’s clothes are also very close to the model, both in the mitre and in the collar and brooch closing the screed, even if the elements of the decoration are simplified in the altarpiece. The derivation from the Saint Augustine is even stronger in the head, which shows the same beard, the protruding cheekbones, and the slightly hollowed cheeks. However, a main difference exists between the two figures: Augustine has a raised head, and he looks

Glazed Ornament between Architecture and Altarpieces 143

Figure 8.4 Andrea della Robbia, Capponi altarpiece, before 1465, glazed terracotta, Pescia, cathedral. © Courtesy of Paola Rosa

Figure 8.5 Andrea della Robbia, The Virgin and Child between two angels, saint James and saint Blaise (Capponi altarpiece), before 1465, glazed terracotta: detail of the hollowing, during restauration, Pescia, cathedral. © Federica Carta

144  Federica Carta straight ahead; Blaise, conversely, turns his gaze towards the ground, which gives him a certain introspective melancholy which precludes any interaction with the spectator. Saint James derives both from the Saint Luke and the Saint John the Baptist: the link is less direct, but the debt to the model of Impruneta is still noticeable. An iconographical detail also ties all those figures: they have no nimbus, which is a very rare occurrence in Luca and Andrea’s œuvre.13 John Pope-Hennessy considered the male figures in Pescia as “modelled with greater sensibility [than those in Impruneta]” and he deemed them to be Luca’s autograph work. On the contrary, they lack the powerful presence of Luca’s four saints, and the comparison seems to show that the young Andrea took over, with remarkable simplifications and some weaknesses, the figures invented by his uncle. The Virgin and Child with Adoring Angels, moreover, looks very close to other Andrea’s youth works, such as the Justice medallion now in Écouen, also directly derived from a monumental model by Luca about 1461.14 The formal links in the figures are, therefore, quite evident but the analysis of the ornament could enable us to establish more precisely the relationships between the two projects. As we have seen, the structure of the triptych is quite unusual and, in the meantime, shows a large panel of the technical possibilities given by the material. The three sections are simply surrounded by a flat frame, painted with little medallions framing flowers – alternately blue and pink-purple – on a green background; on the lower corners are painted the heraldic medallions of the Order of Altopascio – a white (argent) Tau on a black background – and of the Capponi family. That frame is surmounted by a cornice decorated with dentils, egg and dart and leaves, probably moulded, and there is no architrave or frieze to complete the entablature. The triptych rests on a sort of a large predella filled by a polychrome garland of fruits on a blue background: the garland is modelled in relief in the front and only flat-painted on the two sides and shows grapes, oranges, pinecones, apples and a cedar, all surrounded by their leaves – in many shades of green – and their flowers. Such a structure – devoid of pilasters and capitals and with a shortened entablature – has no real precedents in painted altarpieces, nor is it a direct continuation of the workshop’s œuvre. It is worth noting that this ‘weak’ structure seems to correspond to that set up by Luca in the altar-walls in Impruneta in many respects. Indeed, the saints placed on either side of the tabernacles and their blue background have no frame since they are already framed by the marble columns and architraves of the tempietti. Moreover, the medallions with flowers in the frame of the altarpiece seem to derive from – with the same remarkable simplification already seen for the figures of saints – the painted guilloche that adorns the frieze of the Tabernacle framing the Crucifixion. That model would also explain the reduction of the entablature to the cornice alone: it corresponds to the cornice that surmounts the frieze with the guilloche in the tabernacle. At the same time, the only direct precedent for a vegetal garland in the predella is to be found in this tabernacle. At Impruneta, the painted garland of pinecones is justified because it corresponds to the coat of arms of the Company of the Virgin and, more broadly, of Impruneta itself.15 In the triptych, this unusual solution has no specific iconographical justification.16 Andrea could have modelled the Pescia altarpiece on the early stages of Luca’s work, that is, before the completion of the chapels. Luca’s altar-walls in Impruneta perfectly fit into one of the four sides of the tempietto, with the marble columns and entablature serving also as a frame and thus giving a greater spatial coherence to the standing saints that

Glazed Ornament between Architecture and Altarpieces 145 is lacking in Andrea’s work: the altarpiece could, therefore, be dated in the early 1460s, arguably about 1462–1463. The method of sectioning with perpendicular cut lines, also for the figures of saints, tends to indicate that the young sculptor was working quite independently from his uncle. In fact, in monumental reliefs, starting from the two lunettes with the Resurrection and the Ascension in Florence Cathedral (respectively 1442–1444 and 1446–1451), Luca della Robbia used to hide the cut lines by following the folds of the drapery and dividing the figures in reliefs from the background, in the same way in which the glassmaker used to hide the lead came.17 Andrea certainly knew his uncle’s techniques, but he had to face new problems: the altarpiece was not to be set into an architectural frame, like the lunettes or the tondi, but it had to stand autonomously, making it closer to the little Virgin and Child reliefs produced in the workshop. These examples of Luca’s work tend to show figures that are not cut off from their background and even from their frame. A good example is Luca’s Friedrichstein Madonna (ca. 1440–1450), recently sold from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery: the relief is surrounded by a painted flat frame – incidentally very similar to the frames of the ceiling coffers of the chapel of the Virgin in Impruneta – and the figurative relief, its blue background and the frame are a single piece.18 Affinities also exist with another Virgin and Child by Luca (1440–1450), in a private collection, surrounded by a glazed terracotta frame, which bears the heraldic coats of the Order of Saint Anthony: the relief has a much more architectural frame, with pilasters, Corinthian capitals, a complete entablature and a triangular tympanum. The frieze is flat-painted and shows a similar floral pattern with blue rosettes framed into little medallions, but on a black background.19 Luca’s chapels in Imprueneta are thus very probably the main model for the first altarpiece by Andrea; their influence, however, is not limited to the Capponi triptych. Indeed, the analysis of the ornament shows that the triptych with the Coronation of the Virgin, in the church of Santa Fiora on Monte Amiata, also has some links with those tempietti, but at a later stage of the work (Figure 8.6). The structure of the altarpiece, made for the young count Guido Sforza, is much more conventional. The predella is composed of three narrative panels framed with flowerpainted little pilasters, the three main scenes are framed by white pilasters with capitals which support a complete entablature with architrave, frieze and cornice.20 Here the debt to Impruneta is not the figurative programme, but the frame itself. The composite capitals are a sort of variation on the ionic order, showing a fluted basket, an abacus decorated with egg and dart and surmounted by volutes, but enriched with acanthus leaves that begin with the volutes and go down towards the sides of the basket. Indeed, the model for those capitals can be found in the capital in the N-E corner of the Chapel of the Cross in Impruneta, which itself derives from one of the capitals in the tempietto of the Crucifix in San Miniato al Monte (Figure 8.7). In the same way, the choice of moving the garland of fruits and flowers from the predella to the frieze of the entablature seems to follow the example of the architecture of the Chapel of the Virgin in Impruneta, where that use probably occurs for the first time in Della Robbia’s oeuvre. The garland in Santa Fiora is composed of pinecones, apples and oranges – already present in the Chapel of the Virgin and in the Pescia triptych – pomegranate – already seen in the garland of the heraldic tondo in the Pazzi chapel – and chestnut, a new entry in Della Robbia’s repertoire. Chestnut trees are typical of the Monte Amiata – as Carla Benocci pointed out21 – and this addition looks like a local response to the pinae of Impruneta and points to the interest in updating the vocabulary

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Figure 8.6 Andrea della Robbia, The Coronation of the Virgin between the Stigmatization of saint Francis and saint Jerome, ca. 1465, glazed terracotta, Santa Fiora (Amiata), Santa Flora e Lucilla. © Federica Carta

Figure 8.7 Luca della Robbia, Bernardo Rossellino (?) or Michelozzo (?) Chapel of the Crucifix, detail of the N-E capital, 1448–1450, marble, Florence, San Miniato al Monte. © Federica Carta

Glazed Ornament between Architecture and Altarpieces 147 of forms better to suit the expectations of local beholders. In the same way, the variety of floral patterns used in the predella pilasters – all derived from Luca’s frame of the Monument to Bishop Benozzo Federighi (1451–1454) – could be a response both to the Marian subject and to the dedication of the church to Saint Flora. The unusual capital in the Santa Fiora triptych, therefore, seems to indicate a date after the completion of Impruneta chapels, in the mid–1460s. This artwork already shows important elements which will recur in Andrea’s altarpieces such as the flat-painted pilasters in the predella and the architectural structure of the frame, but the white, plane pilasters framing the main panels are a pioneering solution abandoned in later works. The comparison of Luca della Robbia’s tempietti and Andrea’s first altarpieces highlights some aspects of the work of the young sculptor in his uncle’s bottega in the 1460s during a period rich with monumental and highly engaging projects for Luca, such as the completion of the Pazzi Chapel, the dome of the chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal and the bronze door for the Sacrestia delle Messe. The Capponi altarpiece seems to be a quite autonomous and experimental derivation from the Impruneta pala, showing the limits of the young artist but also the great potential of glazed terracotta as a material for altarpieces. The Santa Fiora triptych is a more mature and structured artwork, but the details of the ornament suggest that the model of the Impruneta chapels was still present and continued to sustain Andrea’s work. Notes 1 That paper is a part of my doctoral research on glazed architectural ornament by Luca and Andrea della Robbia, undertaken at the Université de Picardie Jules Verne (Amiens) and the Università degli Studi, Perugia. This work has benefited of a doctoral fellowship funded by the Ministère de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche and by a Vinci fellowship (Chapter II) of the Franco-Italian University (Grenoble-Turin). I would like to thank my supervisors, Giancarlo Gentilini and Philippe Sénéchal, for guiding my research and providing many useful suggestions. 2 Giancarlo Gentilini, “Sulle prime tavole d’altare in terracotta, dipinta e invetriata,” Arte Cristiana LXXX, no. 735 (1992): 439–450. 3 On the cult of the Madonna of Impruneta, cf. Richard Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (New York/London: Academic Press, 1980), 59–71; Megan Holmes, The Miraculous Image in Renaissance Florence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 119–141; Paul Davies, “Imitation in fifteenth-century pilgrimage architecture: the case of Impruneta,” in Urban Encounters – Experience and Representation in the Early Modern city, ed. Per Silvefors (PisaRome: Fabrizio Serra Editore, 2013), 241–282; Cecilia Hewlett, “Rural Pilgrims and Tuscan Miracle Cults,” in Studies on Florence and Italian Renaissance in Honour of F. W. Kent, eds. Peter Howard and Cecilia Hewlett (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016), 339–358. 4 For Antonio degli Agli, cf. Arnaldo D’Addario,“Agli, Antonio,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 1, ed. Alberto M. Ghisalberti (Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960), sub vocem; Mariagrazia D’Angeli, “Nota su Antonio degli Agli,” Il Capitolo di San Lorenzo nel Quattrocento, ed. Paolo Viti (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2006), 253–264; Giacomo Mariani and Nelson H. Minnich, “The Autobiography of Antonio degli Agli (ca. 1400–1477): An introduction and transcription of the Dialogus de vita eiusdem auctoris,” Archivio italiano per la storia della pietà. Immagine, meditazione visione XXIX (2016): 415–487. On Antonio degli Agli’s art patronage in Impruneta, see Francesco Quinterio, “Riflessi umanistici negli interventi di Antonio degli Agli al Santuario dell’Impruneta,” in Impruneta. Una pieve, un paese; cultura, parrocchia e società nella campagna, (Florence: Salimbeni, 1983), 137–151 and Rosanna Caterina Proto Pisani, Il Museo di Santa Maria all’Impruneta (Florence: Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze/Conti Tipocolor Arti Grafiche, 1996), 23–31. 5 The current dating of the chapels, between 1464 and 1469, has been proposed by Gentilini, I Della Robbia, 131–133, 166, notes 20–27, and is based on various documents: two papal bulls about the reformation of the parish church into a collegiate church; a letter sent in 1469 from

148  Federica Carta Antonio degli Agli to the Buondelmonti, patrons of the church, about that reformation and the expenses incurred by him for the basilica; a payment made to Luca della Robbia in 1466; the poem Théotocon by the Dominican friar Domenico di Giovanni da Corella, that describes the chapel of the Virgin, longtime considered as written in 1468–1469. The dates I propose here can be inferred on one side from the use of the fluted bowl, derived from the cupola of the Pazzi Chapel (1461) and, on the other side, from a new dating advanced by Lorenzo Amato for the poem Théotocon: the passage about Impruneta seems to have been written between august 1464 and march 1465, cf. Domenico di Giovanni da Corella, Théotocon, ed. Lorenzo Amato (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e letteratura, 2012), 253; for the date of the poem, cf. ibid, XIX–XXII. For the Pazzi Chapel see below, note 8. 6 On the derivation from the Annunziata chapel see, most recently, Paul Davies, “Imitation in fifteenth-century pilgrimage architecture: the case of Impruneta,” in Urban encounters – experience and representation in the early modern city, ed. Per Silvefors (Pisa-Rome: Fabrizio Serra Editore, 2013), 241–282; on the Annunziata chapel, see, most recently, Francesca Maria Bacci, “Ancora per Piero de’ Medici e la cappella dell’Annunziata: chiarimenti sull’ultima campagna di lavori (1461–1463) e riflessioni sulla perduta acquasantiera medicea,” Bollettino d’arte, 7th ser., CIV, no. 42 (2019 [2020]): 65–96. 7 The architecture of the chapel is attributed by Giorgio Vasari to Michelozzo, and this attribution is widely accepted, but at least its execution should be attributed to Bernardo Rossellino. On that work, cf. John Pope-Hennessy, Luca della Robbia (London: Phaidon, 1980), 42–45 and 239, no. 11, Giancarlo Gentilini, I Della Robbia. La scultura invetriata nel Rinascimento, vol. I (Florence: Cantini, 1992), 110; Massimo Bulgarelli and Matteo Ceriana, “I Della Robbia e l’architettura,” in I Della Robbia: il dialogo tra le arti nel Rinascimento, ed. G. Gentilini (Milano: Skira, 2009), 141; Lynda A. Koch, “Medici continuity, Imperial tradition and Florentine History. Piero de Medici’s Tabernacle of the Crucufix at San Miniato al Monte,” in A Scarlet Renaissance. Essays in Honor of Sarah Blake McHam, ed. Arnold Victor Coonin (New York: Italica Press, 2013), 183–211; Federica Carta, “Le lieu et la forme: de l’influence de l’architecture romane sur le tempietto de San Miniato al Monte à Florence,”published December 30, 2019, https://doctrame.hypotheses.org/399. 8 On the Pazzi Chapel, see Howard Saalman, Filippo Brunelleschi. The buildings (London: Zwemmer, 1993), 211–285; the date 1461 is inscribed on the extrados of the dome, cf. Giuliano Laschi, Pietro Rosselli, and Paolo Alberto Rossi, “Indagini sulla Cappella dei Pazzi,” Commentarii. Rivista di critica e di storia dell’arte XIII, no. 1 (1962): 28. On the glazed decoration of Impruneta chapels, cf. Federica Carta, “Sculpture en céramique, et bien plus: ornement et figuration dans les chapelles de Luca della Robbia à Impruneta,” The French Porcelain Society Journal VIII (2020): 1–24 with further bibliography. 9 Gentilini, Della Robbia (1992), 131. 10 Giovanni Capponi sent two letters to Giovanni di Cosimo de’ Medici on 6th and 23th March 1462 (1461 old style), in both cases, he signed as “G[iovanni] Capponi maestro d’Altopasso (sic) in Pescia” and he wrote about land properties of the Order, cf. Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Mediceo avanti il Principato, X, n. 157 and n. 187. 11 The triptych was restored in 2019–2020 by Paola Rosa, Emanuela Peiretti and Alberto Casciani, under the direction of Elvira Altiero (Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio per la città metropolitana di Firenze e le province di Pistoia e Prato). I wish to thank the conservators for the opportunity to study the work under restoration and for discussing the technical and material issues. 12 Leo Planiscig, Luca della Robbia, (Florence: Del Turco, 1948), 47; John Pope-Hennessy, Luca della Robbia, 76. 13 For Luca, the only other case is that of the Bronze Gates of the Sacristy of the Florence Cathedral, also made in the mid-1460, a contract is signed on 4th August 1464, see Pope Hennessy, Luca della Robbia, 258–261, no. 47. 14 Écouen, musée national de la Renaissance – château d’Écouen, inv. E.Cl.2069, see Gentilini, I Della Robbia, 170; Federica Carta, Émail et terre cuite à Florence. Les œuvres des Della Robbia au musée national de la Renaissance (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, Grand Palais, 2018), 58–62; the Justice derives from the Vertus in the chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal in San Miniato al Monte in Florence (1461). 15 Impruneta is a corruption of “in pineta” which means “in the pinewood.”

Glazed Ornament between Architecture and Altarpieces 149 6 On the Della Robbia’s garlands, see Roberta Olson’s chapter in this volume. 1 17 The glassmaker Antonio da Pisa, who worked in the Florentine cathedral and wrote a treatise on stained-glass about 1400, recommended to pay attention that the came coincide with the folds of the drapery (“che le prese vengano nella piega de’ panni de le figur el più che puoi”), see Claudine Lautier and Dany Sandron, Antoine de Pise. L’art du vitrail vers 1400 (Paris: Éditions du Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques, 2008), 50. 18 Sotheby’s, auction Master Paintings & Sculpture Part I, New York, 28 January 2021, lot no. 2, with notice by Giancarlo Gentilini, https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2021/ master-paintings-sculpture-part-i/relief-of-the-madonna-and-child-c1450. 19 The relief has been published as a comparative work by Claudio Paolinelli in Carmen Ravanelli Guidotti et al. La Grazia dell’arte. Collezione Grimaldi Fava: Maioliche(Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2019), 76, no. 8: “Targa con Madonna con Bambino.” I owe the knowledge of this Madonna to Giancarlo Gentilini, who also gave me access to an unpublished study of the work he made in 2017. 20 On the Santa Fiora tryptich, see Gentilini, “Sulle prime tavole,” 445 and Gentilini, I Della Robbia, 172; see also Carla Benocci, “Il Programma di un signore del Rinascimento: le robbiane di Guido Sforza a Santa Fiora,” in La Festa delle arti: Scritti in onore di Marcello Fagiolo per cinquant’anni di studi, ed. Vincenzo Cazzato, Sebastiano Roberto, and Mario Bevilacqua, vol. I (Rome: Gangemi, 2014), 216–223 and Carla Benocci, “Gli Sforza di Santa Fiora in una terra di confine dal Quattrocento al Settecento: le robbiane nella pieve di Santa Fiora, le pitture, i quadri ed un teatro nei palazzi di Santa Fiora, Proceno, la Sforzesca, Castell’Azzara, Selvena,” in Gli Sforza di Santa Fiora e la Villa Sforzesca: Feudalità e Brigantaggio, ed. Maurizio Mambrini (Arcidosso (Gr): C&P Adver Effigi, 2015), 241–282. 21 Benocci, “Il Programma,” 219.

Bibliography Bacci, Francesca Maria, “Ancora per Piero de’ Medici e la cappella dell’Annunziata: chiarimenti sull’ultima campagna di lavori (1461–1463) e riflessioni sulla perduta acquasantiera medicea,” Bollettino d’arte CIV, no. 42 (2020): 65–96. Benocci, Carla, “Il Programma di un signore del Rinascimento: le robbiane di Guido Sforza a Santa  Fiora.” In La Festa delle arti: Scritti in onore di Marcello Fagiolo per cinquant’anni di studi, edited by Vincenzo Cazzato, Sebastiano Roberto, and Mario Bevilacqua, vol. I, 216–223 (Rome: Gangemi, 2014). Benocci, Carla, “Gli Sforza di Santa Fiora in una terra di confine dal Quattrocento al Settecento: le robbiane nella pieve di Santa Fiora, le pitture, i quadri ed un teatro nei palazzi di Santa Fiora, Proceno, la Sforzesca, Castell’Azzara, Selvena.” In Gli Sforza di Santa Fiora e la Villa Sforzesca: Feudalità e Brigantaggio, edited by Maurizio Mambrini, 241–282 (Arcidosso (Gr): Effigi 2015). Bulgarelli, Massimo and Matteo Ceriana, “I Della Robbia e l’architettura.” In I Della Robbia: il dialogo tra le arti nel Rinascimento, edited by Giancarlo Gentilini, 137–144 (Milano: Skira, 2009). Carta, Federica, Émail et terre cuite à Florence. Les œuvres des Della Robbia au musée national de la Renaissance (Paris: RMN, 2018). Carta, Federica, “Le lieu et la forme: de l’influence de l’architecture romane sur le tempietto de San Miniato al Monte à Florence.” In Quel lieu choisir? Implantation, représentation et mention de l’édifice et de l’objet (XIe-XVIe siècles), edited by Julie Colaye and Marie Quillent (Amiens, 2019), https://doctrame.hypotheses.org/399 Carta, Federica, “Sculpture en céramique, et bien plus: ornement et figuration dans les chapelles de Luca della Robbia à Impruneta,” The French Porcelain Society Journal VIII (2020): 1–24. Davies, Paul, “Imitation in Fifteenth-Century Pilgrimage Architecture: The Case of Impruneta,” in Urban encounters – experience and representation in the early modern city, ed. Per Silvefors (Pisa-Rome: Fabrizio Serra Editore, 2013), 241–282. D’Addario, Arnaldo.  “Agli, Antonio.” In Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 1, edited by Alberto M. Ghisalberti (Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960).

150  Federica Carta D’Angeli, Mariagrazia. “Nota su Antonio degli Agli.” In Il Capitolo di San Lorenzo nel Quattrocento, edited by Paolo Viti, 253–264 (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2006). Da Corella, Domenico di Giovanni, Théotocon, edited by Lorenzo  Amato (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e letteratura, 2012). Gentilini, Giancarlo, I Della Robbia. La scultura invetriata nel Rinascimento (Florence: Cantini, 1992). Gentilini, Giancarlo, “Sulle prime tavole d’altare in terracotta, dipinta e invetriata,” Arte Cristiana LXXX, no. 735 (1992): 439–450. Hewlett, Cecilia, “Rural Pilgrims and Tuscan Miracle Cults.” In Studies on Florence and Italian Renaissance in Honour of F. W. Kent, edited by Peter Howard and Cecilia Hewlett, 339–358 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016). Holmes, Megan, The Miraculous Image in Renaissance Florence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013). Koch, Lynda A., “Medici continuity, Imperial tradition and Florentine History. Piero de Medici’s Tabernacle of the Crucufix at San Miniato al Monte.” In A Scarlet Renaissance. Essays in Honor of Sarah Blake McHam, edited by Arnold Victor Coonin, 183–211 (New York: Italica Press, 2013). Laschi, Giuliano, Pietro Rosselli, and Paolo Alberto Rossi, “Indagini sulla Cappella dei Pazzi,” Commentarii. Rivista di critica e di storia dell’arte XIII, no. 1 (1962): 24–41. Lautier, Claudine and Dany Sandron eds., Antoine de Pise. L’art du vitrail vers 1400 (Paris: CTHS, Corpus Vitrearum, France – Études, VIII, 2008). Mariani, Giacomo and Nelson H. Minnich, “The Autobiography of Antonio degli Agli (ca. 1400– 1477): An Introduction and Transcription of the Dialogus de vita eiusdem auctoris,” Archivio italiano per la storia della pietà XXVIII, Immagine, meditazione visione (2016): 415–487. Planischig, Leo, Luca della Robbia (Florence: Ed. Del Turco, 1948). Pope-Hennessy, John, Luca della Robbia (London: Phaidon, 1980). Quinterio, Francesco, “Riflessi umanistici negli interventi di Antonio degli Agli al Santuario dell’Impruneta.” In Impruneta. Una pieve, un paese; cultura, parrocchia e società nella campagna, 137–151 (Florence: Quaderni di storia urbana e rurale, 1983). Ravanelli Guidotti, Carmen, ed. La Grazia dell’arte. Collezione Grimaldi Fava: Maioliche (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2019). Rosanna Caterina, Proto Pisani, Il Museo di Santa Maria all’Impruneta, 23–31 (Florence: Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze/Conti Tipocolor Arti Grafiche, 1996). Saalman, Howard, Filippo Brunelleschi. The buildings (London: Zwemmer, 1993). Trexler, Richard, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (New York: Academic Press, 1980).

9

The Transformation of Della Robbia Garland Frames From Luca through Giovanni’s Antinori Resurrection Roberta J. M. Olson New-York Historical Society Museum & Library, New York, NY, USA

Introduction The ancestors of Renaissance garlands were Roman triumphal corollae or celebratory “chaplets” that the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder (23–79 A.D.) describes at length in his Natural History (N.H. XXI.i–viii, xxvii–xxx). Traced back to the Greek custom of awarding wreaths of tree branches to victors in athletic contests, they became attributes of Nike, goddess of victory. Later, flowers were introduced, and they developed into ceremonial symbols of celebration. Nevertheless, victory remained integral to their symbolism, which could be political, as in the triumphal scene on the Arch of Titus (81 A.D.) wherein the goddess of victory crowns the Emperor. Coronae also signified authority when worn by gods and rulers, as in portraits of Roman emperors. Moreover, wreaths were used to honour the dead, for example, Greek Hellenistic burial crowns of ivy, oak, laurel, and myrtle leaves and the painted wreaths and swags decorating Etruscan tombs, which were unknown to the Renaissance individuals. They were, however, aware of the ancient garlands and swags that decorate Roman sarcophagi and replaced the living garlands of funeral ceremonies. These sculpted garlands underlined the boundaries between life and death, celebrating the deceased to whom they belonged for eternity. Some sarcophagi feature swags and bust-length portraits that morphed into an imago clipeata framed with a wreath, which were among the prototypes for the garland frames surrounding roundels and tondi produced by members of the Della Robbia family, beginning with Luca. In Antiquity, garlands also connoted abundance and prosperity, associations that were adopted by the Renaissance in secular and religious Christian contexts. Garlands in the Works of Luca, Andrea, and Giovanni della Robbia These ideas inform Luca della Robbia’s (1400–82) most classicizing work: the Cantoria (1432–38) for the Florentine Duomo. Its reliefs depict children singing praises to the Lord (Psalm 150), some of whom wear garlands (Figure 9.1) or hold swags.1 Renaissance Florentines used garlands for celebrations, such as weddings, sacred re-enactments, and church festivals, or wore them as headdresses, a practice reflected in those worn by some angels in works of art. A group of ghirlandai, garland makers, earned a living producing them. In the Federighi Monument (1454–56; Santa Trinita), Luca created flat, glazed tiles with clusters of irregularly grouped flowers and fruit encompassed by white cords to frame the marble monument.2 This exquisite border, influenced by Lorenzo Ghiberti’s DOI: 10.4324/9781003327462-13

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Figure 9.1 Luca della Robbia, Detail of the Cantoria, 1432–38, marble, 39 × 37 3/8 in. (99 × 95 cm), Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Florence. © Wikimedia Commons

bronze frames around the Florentine Baptistry doors, contains the germ of his later three-dimensional garlands. As Alison Wright points out, the bedecking of images with garlands and canopies strengthens the efficacy of the images; in the case of Federighi Monument, she notes: “What the glistening frame suggests is not only the virtues of the dead bishop … but also his worthiness to be garlanded with praise, as the ancients had once garlanded their dead on carved sarcophagi….”3 In his Vite, Giorgio Vasari praised Luca—and by association his descendants to whom he bequeathed his secret glazing formulas—for his ability to make fruit in glazed terracotta appear as if natural and alive.4 (See also the later discussion about the independent production of glazed terracotta fruits.) Vasari may have known Pliny’s discussion (N.H. XXXV.xlv) of the Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro who stated that he knew the Roman artist Possis (Possonio), who executed fruit with such exactness that it was impossible by looking to distinguish them from real fruit. (It parallels his account of the Greek painter Zeuxis whose grapes were so convincing that birds pecked at them— N.H. XXXV.lxv–lxvi.) The renewed interest in Pliny in quattrocento Florence encouraged humanist patrons to desire works of art with specific representations of flora and fauna, a trend that dovetailed with artists’ increasingly naturalistic representations. As Zuzanna Sarnecka has noted, Luca’s works were framed with a variety of materials, most notably wood.5 But for his heraldic sculpture for the Mercanzia (1463) on the façade of Orsanmichele, Luca fabricated in sections in the leather-hard state a threedimensional glazed terracotta garland with fruit bound by a winding blue ribbon.6 Revealing his love of symmetry, he arranged the vegetal elements in clusters of three—except for the

Della Robbia Garland Frames 153 fava beans at the lower right and plums at the upper left. These exceptions to the rule are a feature of the early Della Robbia, resembling the singular elements in Persian carpets that add liveliness to a mathematically arranged design—in art as in nature. Although it is impossible to know the role that sprezzatura or the bottega played in their fabrication, these outliers were intentional. Innovation in the Della Robbia production continued for decades, and Luca’s nephew Andrea (1435–1525) worked in tandem with his uncle before assuming the mantle of the workshop. Andrea not only expanded Luca’s use of glazed terracotta garlands to frame his sculptures, but also worked on a much larger scale. Although he added variety to the fruit and flowers, his repertoire gravitated to favourite species with regularized clusters arranged symmetrically. An example is the roundel of Prudence (Figure 9.2) from a set of the Cardinal Virtues. Its eight-section garland, symbolic of eternity, is lusher; six sections feature clusters of five fruits, while the outliers at the lower right have six pinecones and six oranges. Recent conservation has revealed numbers incised with a tool into the clay on each section that preserved their original sequence and have allowed for a reordering.7 Giovanni della Robbia (1469–1529), one of Andrea’s five sons involved in the bottega, began collaborating with his father in the 1490s. His first independent work—the Lavabo in S. M. Novella (1498)—features heavy swags and a festoon frame with mixed types of fruit, including garlic cloves, that signal a departure from his father’s repertoire and a different artistic approach.8 In two large altarpieces depicting the Pietà—one in the

Figure 9.2 Andrea della Robbia, Prudence, ca. 1475, glazed terracotta, 64 3/4 in. (164.5 cm) diameter, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1921, inv. 21.116. © Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Figure 9.3 Giovanni della Robbia, Lamentation of Christ, ca. 1515, glazed and polychromed terracotta, 98 7/16 × 63 in. (250 × 160 cm), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, inv. S27w61. © Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Museo Nazionale del Bargello,9 and the other in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Figure 9.3)—Giovanni’s over-the-top nature blossoms. His clusters can lack the numerical regularity characteristic of Andrea and include smaller subsidiary fruits and flowers (as in the Pietà between St. John and St. Mary Magdalen in the Bargello). He also enlarged his repertoire—pomegranates, cucumbers, and melons—and introduced creatures, such as frogs and a garden snail to the Gardner Lamentation of Christ. In a large Nativity in the Bargello (1521), Giovanni opted for a continuous garland surround, dispensing with sections divided by ribbons.10 At the same time, after 1520, his palette became more acidic and expressionistic with aggressive yellows that also characterize Florentine Mannerist paintings with which his works competed, and his glazes were less carefully applied and sometimes bled. Giovanni della Robbia’s Antinori Resurrection (ca. 1520) A luxuriant glazed terracotta garland surrounds the lunette-shaped Resurrection of Christ by Giovanni della Robbia in the Brooklyn Museum (Figure 9.4), hereafter referred to as the Antinori Resurrection.11 The relief commemorates Niccolò di Tommaso Antinori (1454–ca. 1523), who is portrayed kneeling in perpetual adoration before the resurrected Christ. Formerly it was thought that Niccolò died in 1520, but a newly discovered

Della Robbia Garland Frames 155

Figure 9.4 Giovanni della Robbia, Antinori Resurrection (Resurrection of Christ), ca. 1520, glazed terracotta, 68 ¾ × 143 ½ in. (174.6 × 364.5 cm), The Brooklyn Museum, New York, Gift of A. Augustus Healy, inv. 99.5. © Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum

document reveals that his death most likely occurred in 1523.12 The framing bower teems with fruits, flowers, and creatures that were modelled, unlike the later cast-from-life creatures of Bernard Palissy.13 Each harbours a symbolic dimension that is a gloss on the Resurrection theme. The Resurrection consists of forty-five sections (Figure 9.5); ten form the base of its garland, while another ten constitute its arch. Most of the sections are in good condition, although areas along the edges were lost when they were removed from the wall in which they were immured. Wright points out that frames like this one in a sepulchral context serve as a threshold to a better place, mediating between the living and the dead, the past and the present, and facilitating the traffic between heaven and earth. Like the Medici, the Antinori belonged to the merchant class and did not qualify for an effigial tomb.14 This underlines the importance of the half-length, life-size portrait of Niccolò Antinori at the proper right of the blessing Risen Christ, bearing witness to the central miracle of the Christian faith and relating in size to the viewer. He is depicted in an unconventional manner, larger than the other figures and due to the compressed space of the composition seemingly positioned inside the tomb of Christ, with the sleeves of his cioppa resting on the entablature of the sarcophagus, but probably behind it. This unusual donor portrait is unique in Giovanni’s oeuvre, as well as in those of the other Della Robbia. As argued elsewhere, the Resurrection was originally planned for the first Antinori Chapel that abutted the Romanesque Florentine church of San Michele Bertelde (see note 12). It was commissioned in his will by Niccolò, who in 1506 had acquired from the Martelli family the Palazzo Boni, known thereafter as Palazzo Antinori, diagonally across from the

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Figure 9.5 Numbered sections of Giovanni della Robbia’s Antinori Resurrection. © Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum Conservation Department

church. Niccolò envisioned the structure as a family burial chapel, which was analogous to the Rucellai family sepulchre (1467) with its fresco of the Resurrection in their chapel in San Pancrazio near the Palazzo Rucellai.15 The Antinori Resurrection may have been installed over a painted altarpiece (most logically a Crucifixion) in an ensemble evoking a triumphal arch—like the pair of terracotta lunettes with garden scenes crowning painted altarpieces commissioned by Niccolò for two chapels in San Jacopo di Ripoli discussed below. Even though Niccolò’s corporeal remains were interred elsewhere, his spiritual presence as pater familias via his portrait in the Resurrection was intended to preside in the chapel over his family for eternity. Because of the ambiguous placement of Antinori’s effigy, due to the compressed space seemingly within the sarcophagus—as if simultaneously interred by proxy in the chapel but praying for intercession in perpetuity to the Risen Christ—he and his family could enjoy the promise of resurrection. The Cornucopia of Fruit in the Resurrection’s Garland The fruit in the garland surrounding the Resurrection are native to Tuscany and are hallmarks of Giovanni’s repertoire during the early decades of the Cinquecento. Collectively, they allude not only to abundance and the prosperity of the Antinori family, who held properties in the Tuscan countryside, but also to the Christian triumph of life over death and the fruits of Paradise enjoyed by individuals who have led a virtuous life—thus echoing the lunette’s theme. Many are citrus varieties, while others are more commonly termed vegetables or legumes. Each variety also holds a symbolic meaning related to Resurrection relief. As Catherine Kupiec has noted in her essay in this volume, the ecosystem of Giovanni’s garland could not exist in one season,16 however, its cyclical nature underlines the theme of the relief and reveals the Della Robbia’s rich agricultural familiarity. By discussing the exuberant display of fruit, as well as the creatures and flowers, that animate the garland and their numerical arrangements, this article sheds light on their complex symbolism. Throughout varieties appear in recurring numbers that are significant; for example, two signifying the dual nature of Christ, three symbolizing the

Della Robbia Garland Frames 157 Trinity, and five for the five wounds of Christ or the sorrows of the Virgin, which would have been useful to worshippers’ intent on their devotions. The ten sections of the base are the most carefully planned and balanced because of their proximity to the viewer. Bookending the sequence are round sections (1 and 10) with yellow-and-blue Antinori coats of arms framed by classical, white egg-and-dart mouldings. They occupy the standard position for heraldry in altarpiece predellas, such as Filippino Lippi’s Nerli Altarpiece (1494; Santo Spirito), and their round shape alludes to heaven, resurrection, and eternity.17 The other sections of the base are arranged with four on each side oriented towards the centre. With a few exceptions, they alternate chromatically with yellow and green being the predominant colours. The numbers of fruit in the corresponding pairs more or less balance each other; for example, the three yellow quinces in section 2 (one not restored in Figure 9.4) correspond to the three fruits of section 9—two quinces and a bunch of grapes. (Note the sculptor’s experimentation with the glazes to create the illusion of mature grapes—also sections 19 and 30—some with a bloom, albeit restricted by an inability to produce a red glaze.) The next pair—sections 3 and 8—mirror each other with five pinecones (three large). The remaining two pairs balance more than imperfectly: section 4 has five quinces (three large), while section 7 contains a jumble, as though the workshop included whatever fruits were available—five pomegranates (three large), two small yellow quinces (or one lemon), and three garlic bulbs. The middle sections 5 and 6 each contain five elements. Section 5, below the Risen Christ’s blessing right hand and the lid of the sarcophagus, features a singular grouping (Figure 9.6)—three turquoise poppy pods18 and two creatures: a white dove and a stoat in dark brown summer dress. Section 6 has five citrons (three large like section 4), suggesting that sections 6 and 7, two of the most damaged, were originally reversed. If swapped there would be a more balanced chromatic rhythm and the fruits referring to death and resurrection (and the Church) would be directly under Christ. It would also solve the lack

Figure 9.6 Giovanni della Robbia, section 5 of the Antinori Resurrection showing the glazed underside and two of the three poppy pods, a white dove, stoat, and morning glories. © Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum Conservation Department

158  Roberta J. M. Olson of the missing crossed, crimped blue ribbons in section 6—which led Giancarlo Gentilini to conclude that their sequence may have been altered during displacement.19 From this quick survey of the Resurrection’s base, we can conclude that Giovanni della Robbia did not design a formulaic iconographic programme for the garland. Rather, as elsewhere in the composition, there is an ad hoc quality. In addition, there are some malformed fruits and flowers, as well as occasional arbitrary colours and bleeding of glazes that partially result from his more painterly approach during the decade of the 1520s. They point to a certain carelessness in the workshop production, as compared to the precision in the works of Andrea. The groups of fruit in the ten sections of the arch seem less carefully planned. While Andrea favoured grouping his fruits of equal size in trios, Giovanni and his workshop favoured the number five and were less disciplined in their organization and fabrication. It is not coincidental that the citron (Citrus medica) is the most copious fruit in the garland: fifteen in three clusters (three large and two small, plus a small outlier lemon or citron in section 7). Citrons, a thick-skinned variety of lemon, are emblematic of Jewish Sukkot feasts, when thanks are offered for fertility. In Christianity they are linked to the Virgin Mary and Christ, symbolizing salvation (because of the fruit’s healing properties) and eternity (because they were believed to be incorruptible).20 Known in Antiquity as the malum medicum, the fruit was thought to be a cure for bad breath and an antidote for snakebites (Pliny, N.H. XV.xlvii). Citrons must also have been one of the Giovanni’s favourites and one in demand by his patrons, because he and his workshop produced freestanding examples in glazed terracotta, together with quince and apples, for the domestic market,21 as well as baskets of fruit and vases that include citrons, quinces, and garden creatures,22 all dating from the time of the Antinori Resurrection. The number fifteen may relate to the rise of the chaplet of the rosary and rosary devotion in late fifteenth-century Florence—wherein the events in the lives of Christ and the Virgin were celebrated in fifteen decades (see below). There are thirteen quinces (Cydonia oblonga) in the garland (plus a small outlier in section 7). Belonging to the same family as the apple and pear, it symbolizes the Resurrection because a cutting sprouts another tree when planted.23 Highly valued in ancient times, Pliny praises it for its medicinal qualities, as well as its fragrant smell (N.H. XV.x). Terming it the “golden apple,” he states it was sacred to Venus, and thus an emblem of love associated with marriage and the family. Pliny also notes that quinces were kept in the antechambers of great men and hung in the bedchamber on statues.24 As mentioned above, Giovanni and his workshop produced independent quince, as did other sculptors working in glazed terracotta, underlining their popularity.25 Thirteen is the number of Christ and the apostles at the Last Supper and symbolizes death and rebirth to a new life. Giovanni also placed thirteen of his signature garlic bulbs (Allium sativum) in the Resurrection’s garland, formed in seven cloves—referring to the Seven Sacraments, gifts of the Holy Spirit, Virtues, or deadly sins (in pairs except for a trio in outlier section 7). While garlic does not have an overt Christian symbolism, since Antiquity it was associated with rustic themes like in Piero di Cosimo’s Discovery of Honey (ca. 1500; Worcester Art Museum), where it functions as an aphrodisiac.26 According to Virgil, the Roman poet much appreciated by the Renaissance, garlic was used in folk medicine and as amulet to ward off evil (Eclogues ii.11). The ancient medical authority Galen eulogized garlic as the rustic’s cure-all and as a medicine for poisonous bites, and in many cultures, garlic was used for protection in white magic. But it is Pliny’s Natural History—which lists

Della Robbia Garland Frames 159 sixty-one scenarios in which garlic is a remedy (N.H. XX.xxiii)—that provides the raison d’être for its inclusion. Most importantly for the Resurrection’s garland—populated by snakes, frogs, lizards, and stoats/weasels, among other garden denizens—Pliny states that garlic’s smell drives away serpents and scorpions, and that it is a cure for the stings and the bites of many beasts. The other fruits in the Resurrection’s garland are listed below with their symbolic meanings, which echo the main theme like literary glosses.

• 10 Pinecones (Pinus pinea). The six large and four small pinecones in two groups,

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

emblematic of immortality and virtue, also have funerary connotations and symbolize the Virgin Mary and the contemplation of Heaven.27 Sacred to the ancient Pythagoreans, the number ten symbolizes completion and heaven, and refers to a decade of the rosary (ten Hail Maries). 10 Pomegranates (Punica granatum). There are six large and four small pomegranates in two groups. Because of its many seeds, the fruit symbolizes the Church. Its classical precedent in the myth of Persephone and Hades alludes to regeneration and spring, while its Christian meaning refers to the Resurrection of Christ and the promise of eternal life. Some are closed, while others are ripe and open referencing the Resurrection and the Christian Church.28 10 Oranges (Citrus aurantium). The six large and four small yellow oranges in two groups symbolize chastity and the Virgin Mary. The orange was a substitute for the apple, alluding to the Redemption of Adam’s Fall via the Death and Resurrection of Christ. Found in Paradise, the evergreen tree was identified with the tree of life.29 8 Fava Bean pods (Vicia faba). Emblematic of the Incarnate Christ, virtue, and holy works, they also had funerary connotations for the Ancients.30 Pliny (N.H. XVIII. xxx), who recommended them for memorial services, comments: “the souls of the dead are contained in a bean.” In the Resurrection, fava beans always occur in pairs, alluding to the dual nature of Christ. Eight is the number of eternity. 7 Grape (Vitis vinifera) bunches. They symbolize the blood of Christ in the Eucharist. There are also three sprigs with a trio of grapes (one in section 19 and two in 30) alluding to the Trinity in aggregate and individually.31 On a secular level, grapes refer to the Antinori’s wine production and an abundant harvest. Seven denotes the Seven Sacraments, gifts of the Holy Spirit, or Virtues. 6 Wheat ears (Triticum aestivum). Always present in pairs, the fruit is emblematic of the body of Christ and the bread of the Eucharist.32 Six refers to human beings who were created on the sixth day. For the Ancients, six was the perfect number because it is both the sum and product of its parts (1 + 2 + 3 = 6 and 1 × 2 × 3 = 6). 5 Cucumbers (Cucumis sativus). There are three large and two small cucumbers, which are interchangeable with the gourd and symbolize the Resurrection and the Virgin Mary.33 In a Christian context, five symbolizes the grace of God, the five wounds of Christ, and was a pivotal number in rosary devotion (see below). 3 Poppy pods of the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum). The fruit is emblematic of death and sleep—but since it grows in wheat fields it also alludes to the Eucharist, while the cross at the centre of its flower references the Crucifixion.34 The trio is below Niccolò and the Risen Christ, whose sacrifice ensures that Antinori’s death is but a sleep before eternal life. The number three refers to the Trinity. 3 Melons (of the family Cucurbitaceae). The fruit is in the same family as the gourd which signifies the Resurrection.35

160  Roberta J. M. Olson Except for the poppies, all the fruits in the garland are edible and most have medicinal properties, which would have appealed to an ailing, elderly Niccolò Antinori. They also referenced the family’s prosperity and the fruits of paradise rewarded for a life well lived, as well as serving as a bridge to the world of the worshipper. The garland’s green leaves, some with serrated edges, as well as pine needles, serve as an armature for the flora and fauna. They include leaves of some of the fruit and flowers in the garland, such as grapes, citrons, and roses. Sometimes they correspond directly to the fruit, as in the case of the opium poppy pods and the pinecones. In other instances, the leaves are generic or arbitrarily placed. As one would expect, every fruit and flower does not have corresponding leaves. Giovanni and his workshop fabricated them in layers of relief, the most threedimensional were added in the leather-hard state (Figure 9.6). Beneath the appliqued terracotta leaves, the sculptor incised the flat area with leaves whose two-dimensionality decreases. Below, he painted leaves in green and brownish-black glazes to ingeniously create the illusion of a full, leafy garland. Creatures Prowling the Garland of the Resurrection Most creatures inhabiting the garland are found in Tuscan gardens. They reflect both the naturalism of the times and their function as symbols to be pondered by Christian worshippers during mass or devotions. Four white doves (from the family Columbidae) perch in the garland. Each assumes a different pose with open wings; crude incisions made with a tool and/or strokes of black glaze suggest the texture of their feathers. Doves symbolize purity or peace, although the dove to the right of the garland’s summit in section 44, directly above the cross of the Risen Christ, represents the Holy Spirit.36 The other three (sections 5, 38, and 43) regard other creatures. In sections 5 and 43, the doves look at stoats or short-tailed weasels (Mustela erminea) in darker summer coats with white stomachs. In its white winter phase, the stoat is known as an ermine, and its change of coat symbolizes the Resurrection (in its white phase it refers the Virgin Mary and chastity).37 They may also allude to the fur trim on Niccolò Antinori’s cloak, which has been identified as possibly ermine.38 Since the stoat in section 5 is dark brown (Figure 9.6) and the one in section 43 has a lighter brindled coat, the animals symbolize the change about to occur with the Resurrection under the aegis of the Holy Spirit. The fourth white dove in section 38 turns, alarmed by a green snake that slithers among the leaves and pomegranates and is poised to bite its tail. In a Christian context, the snake connotes the Temptation in the Garden of Eden and symbolizes sin, death, the devil, and heresy. It echoes the reptile attacked by the righteous eagle in a victor-over-the-vanquished trope at the lower right corner of the main relief.39 In Antiquity, the snake coupled with the eagle symbolized the triumph of good over evil. The emblematic eagle is a symbol of Christ and the Resurrection because, like other birds, it periodically renews its plumage,40 and is thus another motif reinforcing the main theme of the Resurrection. Below the eagle and snake grows a lettuce plant (Lactuca sativa), one of the five bitter herbs eaten by the Jews for Passover and a symbol of penitence. In Antiquity, it had a funeral connotation and was eaten in banquets for the dead.41 Other creatures native to Italian gardens prowl the leafy bower. Among the four frogs (in the amphibian order Anura) are a lone example in section 3 and a frog with a crab in section 19. Two others are paired with lizards (reptiles)—probably the agile Italian wall lizard (Podarcis sicula) or lookalike salamanders (amphibians)—in sections 4 and 39,

Della Robbia Garland Frames 161 where it bites the frog’s leg. The frogs may reference the second plague suffered by the Israelites in Egypt (Exodus 8:2–14) and symbolize the devil, sin, death, and heretics.42 Although lizards could be interpreted as emblematic of evil and the devil (Leviticus 11:30), they also functioned as positive guardians against serpents. Most likely in this context, lizards are positive creatures that rid the garden of pests, as Pliny notes (N.H. VIII.lx). They are also the natural enemies of scorpions and their poisons (N.H. XXIX.xxviii), cure ailments, and are antidotes to poison (N.H. XXX). Moreover, in Christian writings, the man searching for Christ is likened to the lizard searching for the sun.43 Among the other singular creatures in the garland are four that are symbolically important. At the lower left in section 19, a yellow crab, a crustacean, crawls above three bunches of grapes and a trio of grapes, symbolic of the Trinity and the wine of the Eucharist; in a victor-over-the-vanquished trope, it confronts one of the frogs, symbolic of the devil and sin. The crab is another symbol of the Resurrection because it regenerates its shell.44 It may have been modelled on a semi-terrestrial species found in Tuscany: the Potamon fluviatile.45 In his Tabernacolo delle Fonticine (Figure 9.7), dated 1522, Giovanni and his workshop included a few of the same creatures in its garland frame but without the pointed juxtapositions present in the Antinori Resurrection: a frog, salamander, stoat, and two crabs. They would have been difficult for pedestrians to spot from the street and seem more arbitrary. Their inclusion in the securely dated work underlines their

Figure 9.7 Giovanni della Robbia, Tabernacolo delle Fonticine, 1522, glazed terracotta, Via Nazionale, Florence. © Wikimedia Commons

162  Roberta J. M. Olson

Figure 9.8 Giovanni della Robbia, Detail of the top of section 7 (left) with incised sketch of a squirrel and  detail of section 20 (right) with a squirrel eating a nut and cucumbers of the Antinori Resurrection. © Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum Conservation Department

presence in the workshop repertory during the early 1520s. Another zoological symbol in the garland occurs in section 20: a squirrel eating a nut in an attitude in reverse to that of Niccolò Antinori praying into eternity (Figure 9.8 right). Symbolic of diligence,46 it is also emblematic of the Crucifixion of Christ that ensures salvation and also of Divine Providence.47 Underlining its importance is the recent discovery by conservators of a sgraffito squirrel to the right of two sketches of garland segments incised into the wet clay on the top of section 7 (Figure 9.8 left).48 Its existence suggests that the fabrication of some animals were ad hoc embellishments. At the time, squirrels were also in the workshop repertoire, as seen in the larger example above Eve’s head in the Adam and Eve (Figure 9.9). In section 11 of the Resurrection, a snail (Cornu aspersum, formerly Helix aspersa) emerges from its black-and-brown striped shell and crawls onto a flower. Like many of the other creatures, it had multivalent connotations. Because it was born from the mud on which it also fed, it was considered symbolic of a sinner and of laziness.49 Pliny (N.H. XXX.xiv), however, regards snails as curative of stomach ailments. Alternatively, a snail could symbolize the Virgin Mary, a patient monk, and heresy (since it dirties the path it takes, leaving behind a secretion).50 Most significantly, the snail in its shell symbolizes Christ in the tomb, and when it emerges, as here, it parallels the Resurrection theme.51 At the right in section 31 is a cicada (superfamily Cicadoidea)—which the Renaissance did not differentiate from the grasshopper or locust (Figure 9.10).52 Although locusts have a biblical source in the eighth plague visited on the Egyptians (Exodus 10:1–20), the singular nature of Giovanni’s cicada suggests another meaning: it is the exuvia or cast-off exoskeleton of a cicada. Immature cicadas live underground, but when mature they dig to the surface and moult, leaving behind their exoskeleton as the adult flies away. Thus, the insect eloquently echoes the theme of the Resurrection.

Della Robbia Garland Frames 163

Figure 9.9 Giovanni della Robbia and workshop, Adam and Eve, ca. 1515, glazed terracotta, 110 1/16 × 83 7/16 in. (279.5 × 212 cm), The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, inv. 27.219. © Courtesy of The Walters Art Museum

Flowers Blooming in the Garland of the Resurrection The flowers in Giovanni della Robbia’s Resurrection garland tend to be more generic, ill-formed, and glazed in more arbitrary colours than its fruit and fauna, making them difficult to identify. Like the fruit, the flowers signal a flourishing of nature and connote rebirth and spring, linking them to the Resurrection theme. Among the easiest to identify are the multivalent morning glories (convolvulus) that can symbolize perfect, holy love.53 Giovanni placed two blossoms in pairs in sections 5, 11, and 44. Another readily identifiable species is the five-petaled wood sorrel (Oxalis acetosella), denoting heavenly joy and, because it blooms at Easter, called the “herb alleluia.”54 Its five petals could be interpreted as alluding to, among other things, the five wounds of Christ, as discussed below. In several instances, the fabricators applied the wood sorrel blossoms before they were leather-hard, so that they appear wilted. Among the examples is one visible in Figure 9.10. There are also generic buttercups, some not with the standard five petals but more resembling the Ranunculus glaberrimus (at the right of section 3). Because of its poisonous properties, the flower symbolizes death.55 However, since the pair in section 3 abuts two white flowers with five petals in section 4 known as Marsh Grass-of-Parnassus (Parnassia palustris), the threat of death is vanquished. March Grass-of-Parnassus, one

164  Roberta J. M. Olson

Figure 9.10 Giovanni della Robbia, Detail of section 31 of the Antinori Resurrection with a cicada exoskeleton and citrons. © Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum Conservation Department

of the first flowers to bloom in spring, symbolizes the Incarnation of Christ and his Resurrection.56 In section 43, there are two white amaranth (Gomphrena globosa) flowers, a species celebrated for its everlasting qualities and known as the flower of remembrance. Since ancient Greece, the amaranth—from the Greek word amárantos, meaning “unfading” or “unwithering”—was emblematic of immortality. Its meaning was understood in Renaissance Florence because Donatello’s first marble David (1408–16; Museo Nazionale del Bargello) wears a crown of these flowers.57 Furthermore, Pliny (N.H. XXI.xxiii) states that the amaranth regrows after it has been pulled out, making it another metaphor for the Resurrection of Christ. The wild dog rose (Rosa canina)—usually with five striated petals—is another species in the garland (sections 30, 39, and 45). According to the Vitis Mystica attributed to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, its five petals are symbolic of the five wounds of Christ and his Passion.58 It also symbolizes the Virgin Mary—the “rose without thorns”—and her purity. In the late fifteenth century, with the rise of the chaplet (or corona or corolla) of the rosary and rosary devotion—wherein the events in the life of Christ and the Virgin were celebrated in fifteen decades divided into three mysteries, each consisting of five roses—rose symbolism became more complicated and also widespread.59 Much of the early rosary devotion and printed material about it in Florence during the later Quattrocento can be traced to the Dominican convent and the printing press of San Jacopo di Ripoli, of which Niccolò di Tommaso Antinori and his father were patrons. It was in

Della Robbia Garland Frames 165 this now deconsecrated convent that Niccolò’s daughter Caterina, who suffered from a mental illness, lived not as a nun but as a resident and was buried.60 Niccolò and his father patronized two of its lateral chapels, as well as their painted altarpieces in ensembles, crowned by glazed terracotta lunettes by Giovanni and Marco (Fra Mattia) della Robbia depicting the Incredulity of St. Thomas and the Noli me tangere (ca. 1510), today at the Villa La Quiete.61 The Antinori also sponsored the glazed terracotta lunette over the main entrance of the church by Giovanni della Robbia and workshop, which represents the Madonna and Child, St. James the Greater, and St. Dominic surrounded by a narrow garland (1510–20).62 Conclusion The flora and fauna of the Antinori Resurrection’s garland and their symbolism support the argument that the dramatic lunette was intended for an interior location, where this profusion of Nature’s bounty could be used for devotional purposes and where it functioned as a bridge, a transition between the sacred realm and the natural world. Unlike the thinner framing garland surrounding the Della Robbia sculpture in the lunette over the entrance to San Jacopo di Ripoli, this luxuriant, densely populated bower, together with the relief’s good condition, argues that it was intended for the interior of a religious structure. More than likely, that original location was the Antinori Chapel, where it served as a devotional aid for family members under the aegis of Niccolò Antinori praying in effigy before the Risen Christ. Acknowledgements My sincerest thanks to Lisa Bruno, Lisa Small, and Monica Park of the Brooklyn Museum; they facilitated my study of this composite relief when it was deinstalled, offered insights about the sculpture, and shared the images published in this article. Other scholars who generously shared their expertise with me are Alison Luchs and Daphne Barbour of the National Gallery of Art, Jeremy Warren of the Ashmolean Museum, Joseph M. Silva of the Community College of Rhode Island, and Paola Bettaccini of Marchese Antinori S.P.A. I am grateful to them and to Zuzanna Sarnecka for her invaluable editorial advice and for organizing the conference, together with Agnieszka Dziki, as well as to fellow conference participants, among them Marietta Cambareri and Catherine Kupiec, who generously shared drafts of their essays. Notes 1 See John Pope-Hennessy, Luca della Robbia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980), 19–29, 116–231; Gary M. Radke et al., Make a Joyful Noise: Renaissance Art and Music at Florence Cathedral (Atlanta: High Museum of Art; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014). 2 Pope-Hennessy, Luca della Robbia, 242–44. 3 Alison Wright, Frame Work: Honour and Ornament in Italian Renaissance Art (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2019), 27–28, 37. 4 Giorgio Vasari, Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori e architettori, eds. Rosanna Bettarini and Paola Barocchi, vol. 3 (Florence: Sansoni, 1966–1987), 55. See also Giancarlo Gentilini and Tommaso Mozzati, “Naturalia e mirabilia nell ‘ornato architettonico e nell’arredo domestico,” in I Della Robbia: Il dialogo tra le arti nel Rinascimento, exh. cat., ed. Giancarlo Gentilini (Milan: Skira, 2009), 146, 151 n. 7.

166  Roberta J. M. Olson 5 Zuzanna Sarnecka, “Incorruptible Nature: The Della Robbia Frames in the Marche,” Przegląd Historyczny 110, no. 4 (2019): 639–41, states that Andrea promoted frames and works made from the same material. 6 Pope-Hennessy, Luca della Robbia, 427. 7 Wendy Walker and Caroline Riccardelli, “Workshop Practice Revealed by Two Architectural Reliefs by Andrea della Robbia,” Metropolitan Museum Bulletin 54 (2019): 56–59. 8 Giancarlo Gentilini, I Della Robbia: La scultura invetriata nel Rinascimento, vol. 2 (Florence: Cantini, 1992), 290–91. 9 Gentilini, I Della Robbia, 300–01. 10 Gentilini, I Della Robbia, 312. 11 See Marietta Cambareri, ed., Della Robbia: Sculpting with Color in Renaissance Florence, exh. cat. (Boston: MFA Publications, 2016), 57–61; Ilaria Ciseri, ed., Da Brooklyn al Bargello: Giovanni della Robbia, la lunette Antinori e Stefano Arienti, exh. cat. (Genoa: Sagep, 2017). 12 Roberta J.M. Olson, “New Evidence about the Patron, Date, and Original Location of Giovanni della Robbia’s Antinori Resurrection,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 63, no. 2 (2021): 262–73. 13 Juliette Ferdinand, Bernard Palissy: artisan des réformes entre art, science et foi (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2019); Françoise Barbe, Anne Bouquillon, Thierry Crépin-Leblond, and Aurélie Gerbier, eds. Bernard Palissy: nouveaux regards sur la céramique française aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles, Techne, no. 47 (Paris: Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France, 2019). 14 Wright, Frame Work, 224–25. 15 See Anke Naujokat, Non est hic: Leon Battista Albertis Tempietto in der Cappella Rucellai (Aachen: Geymüller, 2011). 16 See Catherine Kupiec’s chapter in this volume. 17 See Roberta J.M. Olson, The Florentine Tondo (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). 18 In Fig. 9.4 the lower poppy pod visible in Fig. 9.6 has not been restored. 19 Giancarlo Gentilini, “La Resurrezione Antinori di Giovanni della Robbia: genesi e fortuna, memorie e significati,” in Ciseri, Da Brooklyn al Bargello, 50. 20 Mirella Levi d’Ancona, The Garden of the Renaissance: Botanical Symbolism in Italian Painting (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1977), 205–09. (While there are many sources for botanical symbolism, none have the depth of references in this volume.) In sections 6, 31, 45. 21 Giancarlo Gentilini, I Della Robbia e l’“arte nuova” della scultura invetriata, exh. cat. (Florence: Giunti; Fiesole: Fiesole Musei, 1998), 280–81; Gentilini and Mozzati, “Naturalia e mirabilia,” 150, 305, 373. 22 Gentilini, I Della Robbia, 281, 306; Gentilini, I Della Robbia e l’“arte nuova,” 275–81; Gentilini and Mozzati, “Naturalia e mirabilia,” 144–46, 149, 300–04, 371–73. 23 Levi d’Ancona, The Garden of the Renaissance, 324–25. In sections 2, 4, 9, and 43. 24 For more information on quinces and citrons in glazed terracotta, and their presence in domestic inventories, see Jeremy Warren, Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture: A Catalogue of the Collection in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford: Sculptures in Stone, Clay, Ivory, Bone, and Wood, vol. 2 (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum Publications, 2014), 411–14. 25 Warren, Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture, 412–13. 26 Dennis Geronimus, Piero di Cosimo: Visions Beautiful and Strange (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006), 101–05. 27 Levi d’Ancona, The Garden of the Renaissance, 304–07. In sections 3 and 8. 28 Levi d’Ancona, The Garden of the Renaissance, 312–18. In sections 6 and 38 (with an additional vestigial crown). 29 Levi d’Ancona, The Garden of the Renaissance, 272–77. In sections 39 and 44. 30 Levi d’Ancona, The Garden of the Renaissance, 59–62. In sections 4, 6, 30, and 44. 31 Levi d’Ancona, The Garden of the Renaissance, 159–66. In sections 10, 19, and 30. 32 Levi d’Ancona, The Garden of the Renaissance, 403–07. In sections 11, 20, and 30. 33 Levi d’Ancona, The Garden of the Renaissance, 116–17. In section 20. 34 Levi d’Ancona, The Garden of the Renaissance, 321–23. In section 5. 35 Levi d’Ancona, The Garden of the Renaissance, 156–59. In section 11. 36 George Ferguson, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 1961), 15–16.

Della Robbia Garland Frames 167 37 Mirella Levi d’Ancona, Lo Zoo del Rinascimento: Il significato degli animali nella pittura italiana dal XIV al XVI secolo (Lucca: Maria Pacini Fazzi, 2001), 126–27. 38 Gentilini, “La Resurrezione Antinori,” 47, 48. 39 Levi d’Ancona, Lo Zoo, 198–202. 40 Ferguson, Signs and Symbols, 17. 41 Levi d’Ancona, The Garden of the Renaissance, 209–10. 42 Levi d’Ancona, Lo Zoo, 187–88. 43 Levi d’Ancona, Lo Zoo, 155–56. 44 Levi d’Ancona, Lo Zoo, 140. 45 See Rob Dunn, “Has a New 10-Legged Species Evolved beneath Rome?” Scientific American, accessed November 17, 2021, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/has-a-new-tenlegged-species-evolved-beneath-rome/. 46 Hope B. Werness, The Continuum Encyclopedia of Animal Symbolism in Art (New York: Continuum, 2004), 390. 47 Levi d’Ancona, Lo Zoo, 195–96. 48 Lisa Bruno, Sara Levin, and Nick Pedemonti, “La Resurrezione di Cristo di Giovanni della Robbia: La conservazione di un monumentale rilievo del Rinascimento,” in Ciseri, Da Brooklyn al Bargello, 86–89. 49 Ferguson, Signs and Symbols, 25. 50 Levi d’Ancona, Lo Zoo, 157. 51 Werness, The Continuum Encyclopedia, 376. There are two other candidates that may be brown snails in their shells but more likely grapes arbitrarily stuck in by the workshop (in sections 5 and 44). 52 Levi d’Ancona, Lo Zoo, 88–89, 95. 53 Levi d’Ancona, The Garden of the Renaissance, 108–11. 54 Levi d’Ancona, The Garden of the Renaissance, 412–13. 55 Levi d’Ancona, The Garden of the Renaissance, 325–26. 56 Levi d’Ancona, The Garden of the Renaissance, 168–69, 324. 57 Patricia Leach, “Donatello’s Marble ‘David’: Leonardo Bruni’s Contribution,” Source: Notes in the History of Art 12, no. 3 (1993): 8, 10 n. 2, building on H.W. Janson, The Sculpture of Donatello (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), 6–7. 58 Levi d’Ancona, The Garden of the Renaissance, 368–70. She identifies it mistakenly as the Sweetbriar rose (Rosa rubiginosa). 59 See Roberta J.M. Olson, “The Rosary and Its Iconography, Part I: Background for Devotional Tondi,” Arte Cristiana 86, no. 787 (1998): 263–76; Roberta J.M. Olson, “The Rosary and Its Iconography, Part II: Devotional Tondi,” Arte Cristiana 86, no. 788 (1998): 334–42; Sharon T. Strocchia, “The Nuns of San Jacopo di Ripoli and the Piagnone Movement in SixteenthCentury Florence,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 38, no. 2 (2007): 393–419. 60 See Donatella Pegazzano, “Le pale di Ghirlandaio e di Michele Tosini per il monastero di San Jacopo di Ripoli,” in Cristiano Giometti and Donatella Pegazzano, eds., Capolavori a Villa La Quiete: Botticelli e Ridolfo Ghirlandaio in mostra, exh. cat. (Florence: Firenze University Press, 2016), 40–44. 61 See Pegazzano, “Le pale di Ghirlandaio,” 35–59; Mara Visonà and Rita Balleri, “Dagli altari della chiesa di San Jacopo di Ripoli al Conservatorio delle Montalve a La Quiete. Le terrecotte invetriate di Giovanni e Marco della Robbia e oltre,” in Capolavori a Villa La Quiete, 77–101; Cristiano Giometti and Donatella Pegazzano, “Novità e precisazioni sugli apparati decorativi di San Jacopo di Ripoli al tempo delle Montalve,” in Capolavori a Villa La Quiete, 27–33. 62 See Olson, “New Evidence,” figs. 6–8. There is also a second glazed terracotta lunette at La Quiete with the Noli me tangere by Benedetto and Santi Buglioni which, when it was removed from San Jacopo, was in the “Stanza della Priora” and was probably an Antinori commission from the 1520s; Visonà and Ballieri, “Dagli altari,” 85, fig. 5. These works for the convent reveal a penchant for garden scenes after the Resurrection. Among other examples of the Noli me tangere in the medium are three later reliefs, formerly assigned to the orbit of Giovanni della Robbia—one now given by Gentilini to Luca della Robbia ‘il giovane’ in the cloister of S. M. Novella, and two attributed to Santi Buglioni in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello; see Allan Marquand, Giovanni della Robbia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1920), 133–37, nos. 137–40, figs. 79–81; Gentilini, I Della Robbia, 399 (from Santa

168  Roberta J. M. Olson Lucia a Camporeggi), 422 (from Sant’Orsola), 428 (from Sant’Onofrio di Fuligno), ills. For a rich exposition of the appropriateness of the subject to convents and the Della Robbia works for convents in general with additional examples, see the essay in this volume by Marietta Cambareri.

Bibliography Barbe, Françoise, Anne Bouquillon, Thierry Crépin-Leblond, and Aurélie Gerbier, eds. Bernard Palissy: nouveaux regards sur la céramique française aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles, Techne no. 47. (Paris: Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France, 2019). Bruno, Lisa, Sara Levin, and Nick Pedemonti. “La Resurrezione di Cristo di Giovanni della Robbia: La conservazione di un monumentale rilievo del Rinascimento.” In Da Brooklyn al Bargello: Giovanni della Robbia, la lunette Antinori e Stefano Arienti, exh. cat., edited by Ilaria Ciseri, (Genoa: Sagep, 2017), 82–97. Cambareri, Marietta, ed. Della Robbia: Sculpting with Color in Renaissance Florence, exh. cat. (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts Boston, 2016). Ciseri, Ilaria, ed. Da Brooklyn al Bargello: Giovanni della Robbia, la lunette Antinori e Stefano Arienti, exh. cat. (Genoa: Sagep, 2017). Dunn, Rob. “Has a New 10-Legged Species Evolved beneath Rome?” Scientific American, June 12, 2014, accessed November 17, 2021, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/ has-a-new-ten-legged-species-evolved-beneath-rome/. Ferdinand, Juliette. Bernard Palissy: artisan des réformes entre art, science et foi (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2019). Ferguson, George. Signs and Symbols in Christian Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 1961). Gentilini, Giancarlo. “La Resurrezione Antinori di Giovanni della Robbia: genesi e fortuna, memorie e significati.” In Da Brooklyn al Bargello: Giovanni della Robbia, la lunette Antinori e Stefano Arienti, exh. cat., edited by Ilaria Ciseri (Genoa: Sagep, 2017), 30–57. Gentilini, Giancarlo. I Della Robbia: La scultura invetriata nel Rinascimento, 2 vols. (Florence: Cantini, 1992). Gentilini, Giancarlo. I Della Robbia e l’“arte nuova” della scultura invetriata, exh. cat. (Florence: Giunti; Fiesole: Fiesole Musei, 1998). Gentilini, Giancarlo and Tommaso Mozzati. “Naturalia e mirabilia nell ‘ornato architettonico e nell’arredo domestic.” In I Della Robbia: Il dialogo tra le arti nel Rinascimento, exh. cat., edited by Giancarlo Gentilini (Milan: Skira, 2009), 145–51. Geronimus, Dennis. Piero di Cosimo: Visions Beautiful and Strange (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006). Giometti, Cristiano and Donatella Pegazzano. “Novità e precisazioni sugli apparati decorativi di San Jacopo di Ripoli al tempo delle Montalve.” In Capolavori a Villa La Quiete: Botticelli e Ridolfo Ghirlandaio in mostra, exh. cat., edited by Cristiano Giometti and Donatella Pegazzano (Florence: Firenze University Press, 2016), 27–33. Janson, H.W. The Sculpture of Donatello (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963). Leach, Patricia. “Donatello’s Marble ‘David’: Leonardo Bruni’s Contribution,” Source: Notes in the History of Art 12, no. 3 (1993): 8–11. Levi d’Ancona, Mirella. The Garden of the Renaissance: Botanical Symbolism in Italian Painting (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1977). Levi d’Ancona, Mirella. Lo Zoo del Rinascimento: Il significato degli animali nella pittura italiana dal XIV al XVI secolo (Lucca: M. Pacini Fazzi, 2001). Marquand, Allan. Giovanni della Robbia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1920). Naujokat, Anke. Non est hic: Leon Battista Albertis Tempietto in der Cappella Rucellai (Aachen: Geymüller, 2011). Olson, Roberta J.M. “The Rosary and Its Iconography, Part I: Background for Devotional Tondi,” Arte Cristiana 86, no. 787 (1998): 263–76.

Della Robbia Garland Frames 169 Olson, Roberta J.M. “The Rosary and Its Iconography, Part II: Devotional Tondi,” Arte Cristiana 86, no. 788 (1998): 334–42. Olson, Roberta J.M. The Florentine Tondo (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Olson, Roberta J.M. “New Evidence about the Patron, Date, and Original Location of Giovanni della Robbia’s Antinori Resurrection,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 63, no. 2 (2021): 262–73. Pegazzano, Donatella. “Le pale di Ghirlandaio e di Michele Tosini per il monastero di San Jacopo di Ripoli.” In Capolavori a Villa La Quiete: Botticelli e Ridolfo Ghirlandaio in mostra, exh. cat., edited by Cristiano Giometti and Donatella Pegazzano (Florence: Firenze University Press, 2016), 35–59. Pope-Hennessy, John. Luca della Robbia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980). Radke, Gary M., et al. Make a Joyful Noise: Renaissance Art and Music at Florence Cathedral. (Atlanta: High Museum of Art; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014). Sarnecka, Zuzanna. “Incorruptible Nature: The Della Robbia Frames in the Marche,” Przegląd Historyczny 110, no. 4 (2019): 637–56. Strocchia, Sharon T. “The Nuns of San Jacopo di Ripoli and the Piagnone Movement in SixteenthCentury Florence,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 38, no. 2 (2007): 393–419. Vasari, Giorgio. Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori e architettori, 8 vols., edited by Rosanna Bettarini and Paola Barocchi (Florence: Sansoni, 1966–1987). Visonà, Mara and Rita Balleri. “Dagli altari della chiesa di San Jacopo di Ripoli al Conservatorio delle Montalve a La Quiete. Le terrecotte invetriate di Giovanni e Marco della Robbia e oltre.” In Capolavori a Villa La Quiete: Botticelli e Ridolfo Ghirlandaio in mostra, exh. cat., edited by Cristiano Giometti and Donatella Pegazzano (Florence: Firenze University Press, 2016), 77–101. Walker, Wendy and Caroline Riccardelli. “Workshop Practice Revealed by Two Architectural Reliefs by Andrea della Robbia,” Metropolitan Museum Bulletin 54 (2019): 47–61. Warren, Jeremy. Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture: A Catalogue of the Collection in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford: Sculptures in Stone, Clay, Ivory, Bone, and Wood (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum Publications, 2014). Werness, Hope B. The Continuum Encyclopedia of Animal Symbolism in Art (New York: Continuum, 2004). Wright, Alison. Frame Work: Honour and Ornament in Italian Renaissance Art (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2019).

10 Face, Surface, Interface Some Observations on Polychrome Florentine Terracotta Busts Andreas Huth Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany

Introduction Knowledge of the production process of marble sculptures in Early Modern Florence awoke a desire in art historians to relate terracotta models to known marble busts or, conversely, to find the marble resulting from a presumed terracotta model. Two examples can be mentioned in this context: the busts of Raffaele Riario (in marble in Boston and in terracotta in Berlin)1 and the portraits of Filippo Strozzi (in marble in the Louvre and again in terracotta in Berlin, Figures 10.1 and 10.2).2 The latter in particular has long been the subject of research. The differences are striking: the terracotta bust seems “incomparably more lively, spontaneous and personal” and shows a “thoughtful, introverted Filippo Strozzi,” while the marble portrait, with its “block-like unity and strict frontality, conveys a much more distanced and idealized image of the sitter,” as it says in the commentary on the new German translation of Vasari’s Vite.3 This perspective goes back to Eve Borsook’s description of the terracotta bust of Filippo Strozzi, which emphasized the pensive gaze (sguardo assorto) or the “thoughtful and resolute face” (volto pensieroso e risoluto).4 On the other hand, the marble effigy of Filippo Strozzi, described as a work of the bottega – which implies a downgrading – was a “ritratto ufficiale.” What this means for either Strozzi portrait remains unclear, as there was no definitive distinction between “private” and “official” busts in commissions of this kind. What is probably meant is that the Louvre portrait had a different task and was accordingly provided with a different posture and expression. Filippo Strozzi himself writes in his account book only “una testa di marmo fatta fare al mio naturale”; however, the comparatively small sum of 15 florins could also have been the remuneration solely for the preparatory model.5 But the question remains, was the Berlin head a model or a portrait in its own right? According to Francesco Caglioti, it was modelled without the use of a life mask, only from sketches.6 This is quite possible. However, the absence of certain traces – Caglioti mentions smoothed wrinkles, hollow cheeks and close-fitting ears – is not sufficient proof, because an artist like Benedetto da Maiano could well have dealt with these simple challenges. One also wonders why the artist should have dispensed with the tried and tested procedure of the facial cast. Possible traces of the use of a mask could be the undefined area between the jaw and the neck and the small hole under the chin (Figure 10.3). The integration of a mask would not be unusual: such busts were created predominantly with the help of facial casts.7 The cast was of central importance for this type of portrait – it ensured “authenticity” apparently considered a necessity – and made the work considerably easier. Furthermore, it preserved a specific moment: in the case of life DOI: 10.4324/9781003327462-14

Face, Surface, Interface 171

Figure 10.1 Benedetto da Maiano, Filippo di Matteo degli Strozzi, around 1475, polychrome terracotta, 44.5 cm × 55.5 cm × 23 cm, SMB Skulpturensammlung im Bode-Museum, Inv. no. 102. Photo: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst / Antje Voigt CC BY-SA 4.0

masks, a point in time from which the sitter moved further away with each passing day, so that the portrait was always also a glimpse into his or her own past. Death masks, on the other hand, were created at the last possible opportunity to preserve a person’s features for posterity – even if death and the sometimes already incipient decay counteracted the hope for an “afterlife.” If the Berlin head was indeed made with the help of a mask, as was customary, little of what Jeanette Kohl said about the “artless” indexical portrait seems to apply here.8 The terracotta work obviously surpasses the stiff marble portrait. In several inspiring essays,9 Kohl discussed the discrepancy between a) the claim to “liveliness” and capturing the personality of the sitter, which marble portraits in particular offer, and b) the expressionless faces of busts in which masks are apparently integrated. She mainly uses portraits based on death masks as examples of this. Such busts seemed to be less concerned with “liveliness” than with “authenticity” guaranteed by indexical traces. With reference to Lorenzo Valla, Kohl distinguishes between the facies, i.e., the face as a “physiological fact,” and the vultus, the “expressive changing face.”10 In fact, the term facies seems to fit better here, because it is not about facial expressions, but about the “true” appearance of the sitter. The cast reproduces the surface or superficies of the face. Both terms, facies and superficies, are etymologically derived from the Latin facere – to make – and thus remind us of the being made and the making of the portrait.11

172  Andreas Huth

Figure 10.2 Benedetto da Maiano (and workshop), Filippo di Matteo degli Strozzi, around 1475, marble, 51.8 cm × 56.7 cm × 30.3 cm, Inv. no. RF 289. Photo: Adrien Didierjean, © 2013 RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre)/Adrien Didierjean

Figure 10.3 Detail of Benedetto da Maiano, Filippo di Matteo degli Strozzi, around 1475, polychrome terracotta, 44.5 cm × 55.5 cm × 23 cm, SMB Skulpturensammlung im BodeMuseum, Inv. no. 102. Photo: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst / Antje Voigt CC BY-SA 4.0

Face, Surface, Interface 173 Research has considered the Berlin bust primarily as a model. The fired clay was interesting because it directly preserves the hand and skill of Benedetto da Maiano. This is probably why the Berlin bust was also chosen for the cover of the cited new German Vasari translation.12 It not only stands here pars pro toto for Benedetto da Maiano’s achievements, but must also represent, so to speak, the generation of sculptors whose biographies are gathered together in this volume. The Lost Polychromy The bust, however, did not always look the way it is presented now. It was painted, as had been known for a long time – and mostly ignored. Wilhelm von Bode described the polychromy in 1883, shortly after the purchase, as follows: “The charm of the Berlin bust is further enhanced by the excellent preservation of the old painting, except for the robe. Although the colour has gotten a much deeper, almost bronze-coloured brown tone over time, (it can still be seen) that it was not originally purely naturalistic, but was kept in a light brownish tone with a fine sense of style, because the artist was reluctant to completely deny the material.”13 Early photographs, but especially colour photographs from the 1970s,14 confirm Bode’s description as a thin, browned or soiled layer under which the quality of the modelling and the smoothed clay surface remain perceptible. Chemical analyses in 1976 and 1977 identified the use of egg tempera with lead white, terra verde, calcium carbonate and red and yellow ochre – pigments that one would expect to find on a quattrocento bust.15 Binder, pigments and the state of preservation allow us to conclude that the polychromy is, at least approximately, contemporary with the bust. With the polychromy, we have a second surface which, like the clay surface, is the result of artistic “making” – and which completes the plastic values of the face with the necessary colour. However, the chemical analyses were the preparation for a grave intervention. In 1977, the curator Ursula Schlegel permitted the flaying of Filippo Strozzi’s portrait (Figure 10.4).16 Believing that she would find the actual face of the model, she decided needlessly to destroy one of the two original surfaces, both of equal importance. The conviction that the Berlin bust was exclusively a model was combined with the expectation of discovering under the paint traces of the design process, of the modelling and the artist’s hand.17 Art historians also seemed to be afraid of other indexical traces – namely those of a life mask – because this would have called into question the skills and abilities of the artist. In any case, the destruction of the polychromy makes it clear that only one part of the artistic work, the modelling of the clay, was valued; the other, the polychromy, was perceived as dispensable, even disturbing.18 The special shape of the busts, the reworking of their facial features (especially the opening of the eyes) and the polychromy served to transform the unsettling directness of a cast into a tolerable, conventional form. The integration of the mask – transformed into a lively looking face – into the corporeal bust reduced the uncanny ambivalence between presence and absence which also characterizes life casts. Besides the active gaze, it is precisely the polychromy that gives the portrait the appearance of life. Colour is the medium, or better, the interface that mediates between the cast and the viewer. In other words, on the indexically generated surface, whose precision is authentic but uncanny, lies a mimetic surface that imagines “life” through colour. Both surfaces have their specific roles, their functions, but they have to be thought together. The closest relatives of

174  Andreas Huth

Figure 10.4 Benedetto da Maiano, Filippo di Matteo degli Strozzi, removal of the painting, SMB Skulpturensammlung im Bode-Museum, Inv. no. 102. Photo: unknown © SMB Archive of Department of Restoration, Bode-Museum

the painted terracotta bust are therefore portraits in plaster and wax, rather than marble busts, which have a different effect. The Two Rucellai Busts From the large number of busts, from the late 15th and early 16th centuries, I would like to single out two portraits showing members of the Rucellai family, which have received little attention in research so far. In contrast to the Berlin portrait of Filippo Strozzi, both still have their polychromy. Bernardo di Giovanni Rucellai’s portrait is made of terracotta, the bust of his son Palla consists of plaster. The Munich Portrait of Bernardo Rucellai

The portrait of Bernardo (Figure 10.5) was purchased by the Bayerisches National museum in Munich in 1953.19 The bust is about 74 cm high and shows a well-fed man with brown hair. He wears a black berretta and a red lucco over his dark robe.20 His head is turned slightly to the right. The sitter can be identified from an engraving by Giuseppe Zocchi and Francesco Allegrini of 1765 whose inscription explicitly refers

Face, Surface, Interface 175

Figure 10.5 Unknown artist, Bernardo di Giovanni Rucellai, around 1500, polychrome terracotta, 74 cm × 61 cm × 33 cm, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum München, Inv. no. 53/93. Photo: Andreas Huth, 2019 © BNM München

to the bust: “preso da un Busto di Terracotta esistente presso l’Illustrissimo Signore Conte Paolo Grazio Rucellai.”21 In the print, however, Bernardo Rucellai is depicted as somewhat gaunter. However, a stucco relief, which has not yet been considered, refers even more clearly to the bust (Figure 10.6). Although reversed, it reproduces the characteristics of the terracotta portrait better than the engraving. The relief was placed on a ceiling in the Rucellai palace (today Palazzo Venturi Ginori) on the Via della Scala in 1869;22 the bust could have still been there at that time. Bernardo (1448–1515), a wealthy patrician and prominent man of letters,23 had built the palace near his textile workshops from 1498 onwards.24 In the following decades, the large garden – the Orti Oricellari – became a famous meeting place for Florentine intellectuals,25 who were therefore also depicted in stucco medallions in the palace in the 19th century. Bernardo’s bust can be attributed to the circle of the Benintendi, the successful Florentine wax sculptors,26 who are also associated with the well-known portrait of Bernardo’s brother-in-law Lorenzo de’ Medici,27 reproduced several times, and the portrait of Lorenzo’s son Giovanni, later Pope Leo X.28 It is possible that these were either transfers from cere, from wax effigies into a more permanent material, or parallel productions that had access to the same supply of maschere, especially life casts. The bust is hollow as usual; the clay is about 3 to 4 cm thick. Inside the head is a splint that served to stabilize the inserted mask.29 The mask was made by moulding a plaster cast of the face, as already described by Cennino Cennini in his Libro dell’arte written shortly before 1400.30 Since the casting had to be made on a person lying down because of the liquid plaster, the cheeks slipped slightly towards the ears. Perhaps – as

176  Andreas Huth

Figure 10.6  Leopoldo Costoli, tondo with portrait of Bernardo di Giovanni Rucellai, 1869, painted and gilded stucco, Palazzo Venturi Ginori (Scuola Francese di Firenze – Liceo Victor Hugo), Florence. Photo: Andreas Huth (in courtesy of Scuola Francese di Firenze – Liceo Victor Hugo)

can be observed in many masks – the lips have been extended and prolonged a bit. Both were hardly corrected in the subsequent re-working of the clay. A double chin proved to be a greater challenge, since it was necessary as a physiognomic feature of the sitter, but it certainly required adequate re-modelling. Opening eyes and adding some wrinkles as well as touching up nostrils, on the other hand, were routine measures. Unlike other busts, Bernardo’s eyes are very wide open, so that almost the entire pupil is visible, and the gaze appears alert and attentive. It is striking that the clay surface is very smooth and does not show the small irregularities – liver spots, stubble, bags under the eyes, for example – that usually characterize facial casts, especially of men over 40. Either Bernardo was considerably younger at the time the portrait was made or, more likely, the cast was heavily reworked, and the indexical traces were reduced. This is where the specific properties of the material come into play: clay is not only flexible for a longer time or can be moistened again after drying and made malleable once more, but it is also generally easier to work with clay than plaster. In a kind of material affordance clay invites to be worked; plaster, on the other hand, is less accessible. Even if the setting time is prolonged by adding glue, a plasticity comparable to that of clay cannot be achieved. The clay surface is covered with a thin primer of gesso, animal-hide glue and the thickly applied paint (Figure 10.7), which was later dabbed over in the holes and repeated in the

Face, Surface, Interface 177

Figure 10.7 Unknown artist, Bernardo di Giovanni Rucellai (detail), around 1500, polychrome terracotta, 74 cm × 61 cm × 33 cm, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum München, Inv. no. 53/93. Photo: Andreas Huth (2020), © BNM München

clothing. The first painting layer was probably mainly tempera grassa, an egg-bound emulsion with an oil admixture. Surprisingly, the carefully smoothed clay surface is covered with a rather crude layer of paint. However, this is not an aesthetic decision – the ductus of the brush is only clearly visible from close up and with grazing light – but is due to the routine of the artist who executed the polychromy. The decisive factor is the application of the paint: as in the coloured wax effigies, Bernardo Rucellai’s portrait had not only to be authentic and indexical, but also alive. Palla Rucellai’s Berlin Portrait

Similarities and differences between clay and plaster busts are well illustrated by a polychromed portrait, which probably depicts Bernardo’s son Palla Rucellai (Figure 10.8).31 Wilhelm von Bode acquired it from a Rucellai palace in Florence in 1876.32 The bust, which is quite large at 64 cm high, shows an almost bald man wearing a black lucco over his red robe. The identification, which goes back to an oral tradition,33 is also confirmed by a stucco medallion from 1869 in the Palazzo Venturi Ginori.34 Like Bernardo’s portrait, it can clearly be traced back to the bust, especially since only one other – posthumous – depiction of Palla has survived.35 The medallion was created only a few years before the bust was sold to Berlin. As the damaged back shows, the object is modelled from plaster and is hollow inside. The finger marks inside the head indicate that it was made separately and then mounted on the neck. A plaster cast from an indexically generated matrix was used for the face, as indicated by the wrinkled skin around the eyes, the closed nostrils, the strange bumps

178  Andreas Huth

Figure 10.8 Unknown artist, Palla di Bernardo Rucellai, around 1520/1530, polychrome plaster cast, 64 cm high, SMB Skulpturensammlung im Bode-Museum, Inv. no. 173. Photo: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst / Antje Voigt CC BY-SA 4.0

near the ears and the blurred eyebrows (Figure 10.9). The reworking of the cast was apparently limited to opening the eyes; perhaps the nasolabial fold was deepened a bit. Because of the clear signs of age, the use of a death mask has been proposed.36 However, since Palla did not die until 1543 and since the bust was probably created earlier, the cast must have been made during his lifetime. The portrait is more likely to date to the 1520s or 1530s, when Palla Rucellai was in his fifties. The bust was presumably created for the palace on the Via della Scala, because after the death of their father Bernardo in 1514, Palla and his brother Giovanni inherited the palace and the Orti Oricellari. Palla was only 41 years old at that time, much younger than the sitter. It is possible that the death of his brother Giovanni in 1525 prompted the commissioning of the bust. The painting apparently consists of only one layer of tempera grassa. Even though it is difficult to say without further investigation whether this is exclusively the original polychromy, it can be assumed that the differentiation of the incarnate, the lips and the shadow of the beard belong to the original design and are of a higher quality than they appear at first glance. However, the juxtaposition of matt and glossy surfaces is striking. On the forehead, there is even a sharp and clear border between the two areas. This can be explained by an amateurish attempt at cleaning by Guido von Usedom, the provisional director of the Königliche Museen Berlin, of whom we know from Bode’s memoirs: When the bust arrived, Count Usedom (…) had it moved to his office. (He) declared himself satisfied with the purchase (…) but said that the fly droppings on the surface

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Figure 10.9 Unknown artist, Palla di Bernardo Rucellai (detail), around 1520/1530, polychrome plaster cast, 64 cm high, SMB Skulpturensammlung im Bode-Museum, Inv. no. 173. Photo: Andreas Huth, 2021 (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)

bothered him. He would have the bust washed with spirit. We strongly advised against it (…). “Well, then I’ll have it repainted, the dirt will probably disappear” was the Count’s answer. When I looked at the bust again with our restorer in the course of the following day, it had been partially cleaned; the forehead appeared completely white. I was horrified and told the Count that the bust was ruined (…).37 Fortunately, as Bode admits immediately afterwards, this is not entirely true; the white veil on the forehead could be removed by applying a little oil. But here, too, polychromy was called into question – albeit for different reasons than in the case of Filippo Strozzi. Conclusion The faces of busts made of plastic material usually have two surfaces: an indexical surface based on a cast – and a mimetic, polychrome layer that stands as an interface between the mask and the viewer. The indexical character of the mask is not always of the same intensity: on the one hand, there seems to be a difference between life and death masks and, on the other, between plaster casts, which remain close to the matrix, the negative form taken from the face, and the often more reworked clay casts. This is – and this must be emphasized again – a direct consequence of the properties of clay, specifically of its material affordance. How far the face departed from the authentic cast probably depended on the artist, from whom the patron expected something: low cost and fast delivery or artistic enhancement and liveliness. The obvious differences in quality

180  Andreas Huth between portrait busts, which can be observed despite the use of maschere, speak for this. It is clear that the character of the painting certainly played a role here, although more comprehensive studies on the polychromy of busts are still lacking. It would also be interesting to find out whether the mostly thin polychromy was intended to emphasize or conceal the difference between terracotta and plaster portraits or whether the material was unimportant for the result. A precise differentiation of surfaces and the analysis of their specifics and their relationship,38 would provide a fruitful approach to deepening the excellent research already done in this field. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Neville Rowley, Curator of Italian Art at the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin and the Bode Museum, and Paul Hofmann, Chief Conservator at the Bode Museum for their generous support. I also owe thanks to Daniela Karl and Daniel Jöst for the opportunity to examine the bust of Bernardo Rucellai in the restoration laboratory of the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum Munich in February 2020. Notes 1 Portrait of Raffaele Riario, terracotta, fragments of polychromy, ca. 1478, SMB Skulpturensammlung im Bode-Museum, Berlin, Inv. no. 4996; portrait of Raffaele Riario, marble, formerly partially gilded, ca. 1478, Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Inv. no. S27w71, both attributed to Andrea Bregno; Francesco Caglioti, cat. no. 125 and 126, in The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini, eds. Keith Christiansen and Stefan Weppelmann (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011), 297–300. Volker Krahn expressed skepticism about the dating of the marble bust: Volker Krahn, “Bozzetti und Pseudo-bozzetti im Bode-Museum,” in Terres cuites de la Renaissance: matière et couleur, eds. Anne Bouquillon and Marc Bormand, Technè 36 (2012): 37. 2 Portrait of Filippo Strozzi, Benedetto da Maiano, terracotta, thin primer (probably lead white) and original polychromy lost, ca. 1475, 44.5 cm × 55.5 cm × 23 cm, SMB Skulpturensammlung im Bode-Museum, Berlin, Inv. no. 102; portrait of Filippo Strozzi, Benedetto da Maiano (or workshop), 1475 (doc.), marble, 51.8 cm × 56.7 cm × 30.3 cm, inscription: FILIPPVS STROZA MATEI FILIVS / BENEDICTVS DE MAIANO FECIT; Musée du Louvre, Paris, Inv. no. R. F. 289; Caglioti, cat. 23 and 24, in The Renaissance Portrait, 129–131; Bruce Boucher and Charlotte Hubbard, “Afterthoughts on Benedetto da Maiano’s bust of Filippo Strozzi,” Sculpture Journal 19 (2010): 217–223; Doris Carl, Benedetto da Maiano, ein Florentiner Bildhauer an der Schwelle zur Hochrenaissance, vol. 1 (Regensburg: Schnell&Steiner, 2006), 157–160; cat. no. 18, in: Earth and Fire. Italian terracotta sculpture from Donatello to Canova, eds. Bruce Boucher, Petta Motture, and Anthony Radcliffe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 142–145. The authenticity of the marble bust as a work of the quattrocento has recently been doubted: Lynn Catterson, “Introduction,” in Dealing Art on Both Sides of the Atlantic, 1860– 1940, ed. Lynn Catterson (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2007), 21–23. 3 “Von dem Marmorbildnis hat sich noch das Terrakotta-Modell erhalten (Berlin, BodeMuseum), dessen Modellierung im Gegensatz zur endgültigen gemeißelten Fassung ungleich lebendiger, spontaner und persönlicher wirkt und einen nachdenklichen, introvertierten Filippo Strozzi zeigt. Die der memoria dienende Ausführung in Marmor vermittelt dagegen durch ihre blockhafte Geschlossenheit und strenge Frontalität ein viel distanzierteres und idealisiertes Bild des Auftraggebers, das dem Repräsentationsbedürfnis Strozzis weitaus besser entsprochen haben dürfte.”; Sabine Feser, commentary on the busts of Filippo Strozzi, “Giorgio Vasari. Leben des Benedetto da Maiano,” in Giorgio Vasari, Das Leben des Giuliano da Maiano, Anontio und Bernardo Rossellino, Desiderio da Settignano und Benedetto da Maiano, eds. Sabine Feser and Christina Irlenbusch, transl. Victoria Lorini (Berlin: Wagenbach, 2012), 141–142, note 26.

Face, Surface, Interface 181 4 Eve Borsook, “Ritratto di Filippo Strozzi il Vecchio,” in Palazzo Strozzi metà millenio, 14891989, ed. Daniela Lamberini (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1991), 9. 5 Entry of Filippo di Matteo Strozzi in his libro in the year 1475: “Spexe per me proprio e per la mia famiglia deono dare / E deono dare adì XV di g[i]ugno fiorini XV larghi, per una testa di marmo fatta fare al mio naturale da Benedetto da Maiano, e per me li paghò la conpagnia; posto avere in questo, c. 45–f. 15”; ASF, Strozziane V, 22, c. 42 r; quoted from Eve Borsook, “Documenti relativi alle cappelle di Lecceto e delle Selve di Filippo Strozzi,” Antichità viva IX, no. 3 (1970): 3–20, 14, doc. 12. 6 Caglioti, cat. 23 and 24, in The Renaissance Portrait, 129. 7 This is confirmed by numerous objects and documented in the inventory drawn up after Andrea del Verrocchio’s death on 17th January 1495 with the entry of “ventj maschere ritratte al naturale”; Biblioteca della Galleria degli Uffizi, Miscellanee Manoscritte, I, c. 3, no. 14; Cornelius von Fabriczy, “Andrea del Verrocchio,” Archivio storico dell’arte, 1 (1895): 167. On facial casts in general: Jeanette Kohl, “Casting Renaissance Florence. The Bust of Giovanni de’ Medici and indexical portraiture,” in Carvings, Casts and Collectors. The art of Renaissance Sculpture, eds. Peta Motture, Emma Jones, and Dimitrios Zikos (London: V&A Publishing, 2013), 58–71 and even more detailed: Moritz Siebert, Totenmaske und Porträt. Der Gesichtsabguss in der Kunst der Florentiner Renaissance (Baden-Baden: Tectum-Verlag, 2017). An overview of the research can also be found in: Giancarlo Gentilini, “Il beato Sorore di Santa Maria della Scala,” Antologia di belle arti 52/55 (1996): 28, note 64. 8 Jeanette Kohl, “Kopiert, infam, allegorisch. Gesichter der Renaissance zwischen Duplizierung und Deplatzierung,” in Gesichter. Kulturgeschichtliche Szenen aus der Arbeit am Bildnis des Menschen, ed. Sigrid Weigel (München: Fink, 2013), 129. The verdict of “artlessness” against portraits made with masks is older; a prime example is the discussion about the attribution of the famous bust of Niccolò da Uzzano; Ulrich Middeldorf, Review of Donatello. Eine Einführung in sein Bilden und Denken, by Hans Kauffmann (Berlin: Grote, 1935), The Art Bulletin, 18 (1936): 580; Rab Hatfield, “Sherlock Holmes and the Riddle of the ‘Niccolò da Uzzano’,” in Essays presented to Myron E. Gilmore, eds. Sergio Bertelli and Gloria Ramakus (Florence: Villa I Tatti, 1978), 222. On the facial cast as an indexical trace the fundamental study is: Georges Didi-Huberman, “Ressemblance mythifiée et ressemblance oubliée chez Vasari: la légende du portrait sur le vif,” in Mélanges de l’école française de Rome 106 (1994), 2: 383–432; Jeanette Kohl takes up Didi-Huberman’s thoughts as well as studies by Charles Sanders Peirce and Rosalind Krauss in her excellent essays on facial casts and busts: Jeanette Kohl, “Vollkommen ähnlich. Der Index als Grundlage des Renaissanceporträts,” in Similitudo. Konzepte der Ähnlichkeit in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, eds. Martin Gaier, Jeanette Kohl, and Alberto Saviello (Paderborn: Fink, 2019), 181–206, here in particular 183–189; Jeanette Kohl, “Kopiert, infam, allegorisch”; Jeanette Kohl, “Casting Renaissance Florence. The Bust of Giovanni de’ Medici and indexical portraiture,” in Carvings, Casts and Collectors. The art of Renaissance sculpture, eds. Peta Motture, Emma Jones, and Dimitrios Zikos (London: V&A Publishing, 2013), 64. 9 For Jeanette Kohl’s writings see note 8. 10 Lorenzo Valla, Elegantiarum libri sex (...), (Strasbourg: Matthias Schürer, 1517), passim; cf. Kohl, “Casting Renaissance Florence,” 60, note 9; see also Michael Baxandall, Giotto and the Orators. Humanist observers of painting in Italy and the discovery of pictorial composition, 1350–1450 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 10, 172. 11 On the etymology of superficies and facere and the role of surface see: Andreas Huth and Magdalena Bushart, “Das Äußere und das Äußerste. Bildwerke und ihre Oberflächen,” in Superficies. Oberflächengestaltungen von Bildwerken in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit (Interdependenzen. Die Künste und ihre Techniken, vol. 6) eds. Magdalena Bushart and Andreas Huth (Wien/Köln/Weimar: Böhlau, 2021), 4–25. 12 Cover of Vasari/Feser, Giorgio Vasari, Das Leben des Giuliano da Maiano. 13 “Den Reiz der Berliner Büste erhöht noch die bis auf das Gewand untadelhafte Erhaltung der alten Bemalung. Obgleich dieselbe mit der Zeit einen wesentlich tieferen, fast bronzefarbigen braunen Ton angenommen hat, lässt sich doch auch jetzt noch erkennen, dass sie ursprünglich keine rein naturalistische war, sondern mit feinem Stilgefühl in einem hellen bräunlichen Ton gehalten war, weil es dem Künstler widerstrebte, das Material völlig zu verläugnen.”; Wilhelm von Bode, Italienische Portraitsculpturen des XV. Jahrhunderts in den Königlichen Museen

182  Andreas Huth zu Berlin (Berlin: Weidmann, 1883), 21–23. Bode’s description and conclusions are taken up by Luitpold Dussler in his monograph on Benedetto da Maiano of 1924: “[...] die überaus feine diskrete Bemalung (heute stark nachgedunkelt), ehedem wohl in einem hellen bräunlichen Ton, verleiht ihr [der Büste, AH] eine Lebenswärme, die dem Marmor versagt ist.”; Luitpold Dussler, Benedetto da Maiano (München: Schmidt, 1924), 50–51. 14 The “old painting” mentioned by Bode can also be identified in the earliest photographic image of the bust, which was apparently commissioned by the art dealer Stefano Bardini even before the restoration and sale to Berlin in 1877; Archivio Fotografico Eredità Bardini della Soprintendente Polo Museale Toscano, Florence; see Catterson, “Introduction,” 23, fig. 1.6. In addition to the losses to the right arm, it has damage to the painting of the face, which can still be seen in the photos from Dahlem. A subsequent painting of the bust in the Bardini workshop can therefore be ruled out. The few colour photos of the bust give an impression of the original polychromy; especially here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.13558426. They can be dated to the 1970s, but before 1976. 15 In November 1976, the Rathgen laboratory, which had been commissioned to analyse the painting layer, reported that only the presence of lead white could be detected by means of Xray diffractometry; see the report by Christian Goedicke (Rathgen-Forschungslabor) for Arthur Kratz, conservator at the Staatliche Museen Berlin-Dahlem from November 2, 1976 (Restoration file of the terracotta bust of Filippo Strozzi, Archive of the Restoration Department, BodeMuseum Berlin). In November 1977, the analysis carried out by Hermann Kühn (Deutsches Museum Munich) specified the Berlin results: in addition to lead white, mainly green earth, but also portions of calcium carbonate as well as red and yellow ochre were found; egg tempera was assumed to be the binding agent. According to Kühn, the surface of the painting layer was covered by “a thin layer of soot,” report by Hermann Kühn for Arthur Kratz from November 30, 1977 (restoration file of the terracotta bust of Filippo Strozzi, archive of the Restoration Department, Bode-Museum Berlin). The analysis speaks for a soiled polychromy from the time the bust was made. 16 The date of the intervention – March 1977 – is recorded on the back of the photos kept in the archive of the Department of Restoration. 17 This perception is still reflected in Eve Borsook’s acknowledgment to Ursula Schlegel, “who studied the two works and supervised the cleaning and restoration of the Berlin bust” (“che ha studiato le due opere e ha curato la pulitura e restauro del busto berlinese.”); Borsook, “Ritratto di Filippo Strozzi,” 9, note 57. 18 See also Andreas Huth, “Fassung verloren: Das Verhältnis der Kunstgeschichte zu gefassten Bildwerken des Quattrocento,” VDR – Beiträge zur Erhaltung von Kunst und Kulturgut 1 (2020): 23–37. On the changing perception of the polychromy of sculptures in art historical research see also: Marc Bormand and Federica Carta, “La sculpture polychrome italienne de la Renaissance: fortune et revers au XIXe siécle,” in En couleurs, la sculpture polychrome en France 1850–1910, exh. cat., ed. Edouard Papet (Paris/Vanves: Musée d’Orsay-Hazan, 2018), 157–162. 19 Unknown artist, portrait of Bernardo Rucellai, ca. 1500, painted terracotta, 74 cm × 61 cm × 33 cm, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum München, Inv. no. 53/93; Ludwig Heydenreich, “Eine italienische Bildnisbüste des frühen 16. Jahrhunderts,” Die Kunst und das schöne Heim. Monatsschrift für Malerei, Plastik, Graphik, Architektur und Wohnkultur 52 (1954): 206–207. 20 The berretta is interpreted in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum as a reference to Bernardo’s office as Gonfaloniere. This is unlikely, because this headgear is also found on persons without such an office. Heydenreich’s consideration that the sitter was “identified by the black doctor’s hat as holding an academic title,” “thus probably a doctor (here meant as physician, AH) or lawyer” is also incorrect in Bernardo Rucellai’s case; Heydenreich, “Eine italienische Bildnisbüste,” 206. The black berretta – sometimes tight-fitting, sometimes wide-brimmed – seems to have been a particularly appreciated headgear in the first decades of the 16th century, as portraits of these years (for example by Raphael, Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, Andrea del Sarto, Bronzino, Rosso and Franciabigio) show. 21 Giuseppe Zocchi (drawing), Francesco Allegrini (engraving), portrait of Bernardo di Giovanni Rucellai with the inscription: “BERNARDO DI GIOVANNI RUCELLAI / GONFALONIERE DI REPUB[BLI]CA FIORENTINA / E LETTERATO CELEBERRI[SSI]MO. / nato circa il MCDXLIX. morto il dì 7. Ott[o]bre MDXIIII. / All’ Ill[ustrissi]mo Sig[no]re Giuseppe Rucellai /

Face, Surface, Interface 183 Patrizio Fiorentino / preso da un Busto di Terracotta esistente presso l’Ill[ustrissi]mo Sig[no]re Conte Paolo Grazio Rucellai / G. Zocchi del[ineavit] – F. Allegrini inci[sit] 1765,” Serie di ritratti d’uomini illustri Toscani con gli Elogi istorici dei medesimi, ed. Giuseppe Allegrini (Firenze, 1766–1773). 22 From 1863, the palace belonged to the Principessa Olga Orloff, who commissioned Giuseppe Poggi to renew the building. In 1869, on the occasion of the 500th birthday of Niccolò Machiavelli, the ceiling of the Salone was decorated by the 22-year-old Leopoldo Costoli with stucco medallions showing famous guests of the Orti Oricellari. The execution of the portraits is documented by Giuseppe Poggi in his memoirs; Giuseppe Poggi, Ricordi della vita e documenti d’arte (Florence: Bemporad, 1909), 68. 23 Rita Maria Comanducci, “Bernardo Rucellai,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 89 (2017) (https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/bernardo-rucellai_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/); see also: Heather Stein, “Historical Writing and Community among the Orti Oricellari,” (PhD diss., John Hopkins University, 2015), 103–127. 24 For the history of this Rucellai palace see: Claudio Paolini, “Palazzo Venturi Ginori,” in Repertorio delle Architetture Civili di Firenze (database), http://www.palazzospinelli.org/architetture/scheda.asp?denominazione=venturi+ginori&ubicazione=&button=&proprieta=&archit etti_ingegneri=&pittori_scultori=¬e_storiche=&uomini_illustri=&ID=689; Leonardo Ginori Lisci, I palazzi di Firenze nella storia e nell’arte, vol. I (Florence: Giunti & Barbèra, 1972), 301–308. 25 Rita Maria Comanducci, “Gli Orti Oricellari,” Interpres 15 (1995/1996, 1997): 302–358. See also: Leandro Maria Bartoli and Gabriella Contorni, Gli Orti Oricellari a Firenze: Un giardino, una città (Florence: Edifir, 1991); Luigi Passerini, Degli Orti Oricellari (Florence: Tipografia Galileiana di M. Cellini e C., 1854). 26 On the collaboration of ceraiuoli and sculptors in terracotta in the Benintendi workshop, see: Gentilini, “Il beato Sorore,” 28. 27 Adrienne Catherine DeAngelis, “On the Ashmolean bust of Lorenzo de’ Medici,” The Sculpture Journal 13 (2005): 5–17; on the portrait in the National Gallery of Art, Washington: Alison Luchs, “Lorenzo from life? Renaissance portrait bust of Lorenzo de’ Medici,” The Sculpture Journal 4 (2000): 6–23. 28 Bruce Boucher, Anne Broderick and Nigel Wood, “A terracotta bust of Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici,” Antologia di belle arti 52/55 (1996): 32–39. 29 Such stabilization also exists inside the bust of Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici; there in the area of the shoulders; Alexandra Kosinova, “The Conservation of the Portrait Bust of Giovanni de’ Medici (later Pope Leo X),” Conservation Journal 17 (1995) (http://www.vam. ac.uk/content/journals/conservation-journal/issue-17/the-conservation-of-the-portraitbust-of-giovanni-demedici-later-pope-leo-x/). 30 Cennino Cennini, Libro dell’arte, cap. 181–184; Lara Broecke, ed., Cennino Cennini’s Il Libro dell’arte: a new English translation and commentary with Italian transcription (London: Archetype, 2015) 249–255; Veronica Ricotta, ed. and comm., Il libro dell’arte di Cennino Cennini (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2019), cap. CCIX-CCXIV(!), 266–268. 31 Unknown artist, Palla di Bernardo Rucellai, ca. 1520/1530, polychrome plaster, 64 cm high, SMB Skulpturensammlung im Bode-Museum, Inv. no. 173. 32 “Die große Stuckbüste des sogenannten Palla Rucellai, die ich durch einen gewissen Gabbrielli im Palazzo Rucellai für 10.000 Lire (damals etwa 7.000 Mark) ausgehandelt hatte, fand zufällig Gnade vor des Grafen (Usedom, A.H.) Augen, da er den berühmten Palla aus der Florentiner Geschichte kannte.”; Wilhelm von Bode, Mein Leben, eds. Thomas W. Gaethgens and Barbara Paul, vol. 1 (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 1997), 107. The purchase in 1876 at a price of 8.660 RM is documented; GStAPK, 1. HA, Rep. 89, Nr. 20456, Tab. Übersicht 1876, Bl. 182–188; details according to: Bode, Mein Leben, vol. II, 109. According to Valerie Niemeyer Chini, there are no corresponding files in the Rucellai family’s private archive or references in private correspondence; Valerie Niemeyer Chini, Stefano Bardini e Wilhelm Bode. Mercanti e connaisseur fra Ottocento e Novencento (Florence: Polistampa, 2009), 70, note 58. 33 “Im Palazzo Rucellai zu Florenz, wo sie sich früher befand, nannte man den Dargestellten Palla Rucellai.” Bode, Italienische Portraitsculpturen, 28. 34 For pictures see: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Palazzo_venturi_ginori% 2C_salone_ottocentesco%2C_medaglione_con_busto_palla_rucellai_2.jpg.

184  Andreas Huth 35 Palla Rucellai is supposedly depicted in Giorgio Vasari’s tondo with the election of Cosimo I as Duke (Sala di Cosimo I., Palazzo Vecchio, 1555–1558) alongside other Florentine patricians, as Vasari writes in the Ragionamenti, published posthumously in 1588. In the inscriptions, however, Palla’s name cannot be deciphered; only the short-haired, beardless man on the far right has no name: he could be Palla Rucellai. Palla, however, had already been dead for twelve years at the earliest possible time of depiction – so if anything, only the bust could have served as a model; Giorgio Vasari, Ragionamenti del sig. caualiere Giorgio Vasari pittore et architetto Aretino [...] (Florence: Giunta, 1588), 157. 36 Without further explanation: Kohl, “Casting Renaissance Florence,” 68. 37 “Als die Büste ankam, ließ sie Graf Usedom, der jede Sendung zuerst begutachten wollte, in sein Zimmer schaffen. Ich sah sie bei ihm gleich nach der Aufstellung mit unserem Restaurator Schmidt. Graf Usedom erklärte sich befriedigt mit dem Ankauf – es war eine ausgezeichnete Eigenschaft des Grafen, daß er jede vollzogene Erwerbung, selbst wenn sie gegen seinen Willen gemacht war, voll und ganz vertrat, betrachtete er sie dann doch als sein Werk! –, sagte aber, daß die Fliegenflecke im Fleisch ihn störten. Er würde die Büste mit Spiritus abwaschen lassen. Wir rieten dringend davon ab, und Schmidt erklärte, daß dadurch die alte Farbe, die Wasseroder Wachsfarbe sei, zerstört würde und die Flecken nicht einmal beseitigt würden, da sie bis tief in den Stuck hineingingen. ‘Nun, dann lasse ich sie eben neu anstreichen, da werden die Flecke wohl verschwinden‘war die Antwort des Grafen. Als ich im Laufe des folgenden Tages mir die Büste mit unserem Restaurator wieder ansah, war sie teilweise richtig geputzt; die Stirn erschien vollständig weiß. Ich war entsetzt und sagte dem Grafen, die Büste wäre ruiniert, da hätten wir doch besser getan, für 80 Lire uns einen Abguss machen zu lassen, statt 10.000 Lire auszugeben. Aber Graf Usedom ließ sich dadurch nicht im geringsten irremachen. Er würde die Büste doch ganz putzen lassen, war seine Antwort.”; Bode, Mein Leben, vol. I, 107. 38 As a first attempt for sculptures of the early modern period: Huth and Bushart eds., Superficies.

Bibliography Bartoli, Leandro Maria, and Contorni Gabriella. Gli Orti Oricellari a Firenze: Un giardino, una città (Florence: Edifir, 1991). Baxandall, Michael. Giotto and the Orators. Humanist observers of painting in Italy and the discovery of pictorial composition, 1350–1450 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971). Bormand, Marc and Federica Carta. “La sculpture polychrome italienne de la Renaissance: fortune et revers au XIXe siècle,” in En couleurs, la sculpture polychrome en France 1850–1910, exh. cat., edited by Edouard Papet, 157–162 (Paris/Vanves: Musée d’Orsay-Hazan, 2018). Borsook, Eve. “Documenti relativi alle cappelle di Lecceto e delle Selve di Filippo Strozzi,” Antichità viva IX, no. 3 (1970): 3–20. Borsook, Eve. “Ritratto di Filippo Strozzi il Vecchio.” In Palazzo Strozzi metà millenio, 14891989, Palazzo Strozzi metà millenio, 1489–1989, edited by Daniela Lamberini, 1–14 (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1991). Boucher, Bruce, Anne Broderick, and Wood Nigel. “A Terracotta Bust of Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici,” Antologia di belle arti 52/55 (1996): 32–39. Broecke, Lara, ed. Cennino Cennini’s Il Libro dell’arte: a new English translation and commentary with Italian transcription (London: Archetype, 2015). Carl, Doris. Benedetto da Maiano, ein Florentiner Bildhauer an der Schwelle zur Hochrenaissance (Regensburg: Schnell&Steiner, 2006). Catterson, Lynn. “Introduction.” in Dealing Art on Both Sides of the Atlantic, 1860–1940, edited by Lynn Catterson, 1–38 (Leiden/Boston: Brill 2017). Christiansen, Keith and Stefan Weppelmann, eds. The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011). Comanducci, Rita Maria. “Gli Orti Oricellari,” Interpres 15 (1995/1996, 1997): 302–358. Comanducci, Rita Maria. “Bernardo Rucellai,” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 89, 2017 (online: https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/bernardo-rucellai_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/)

Face, Surface, Interface 185 DeAngelis, Adrienne Catherine. “On the Ashmolean bust of Lorenzo de’ Medici,” The Sculpture Journal 13 (2005): 5–17. Dussler, Luitpold. Benedetto da Maiano (Munich: Schmidt, 1924). Earth and Fire. Italian terracotta sculpture from Donatello to Canova, eds. Bruce Boucher, Petta Motture, and Anthony Radcliffe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001). Feser, Sabine, comm., “Giorgio Vasari. Leben des Benedetto da Maiano.” In Giorgio Vasari, Das Leben des Giuliano da Maiano, Anontio und Bernardo Rossellino, Desiderio da Settignano und Benedetto da Maiano, edited by Sabine Feser, and Christina Irlenbusch, trans. Victoria Lorini, 135–152 (Berlin: Wagenbach, 2012). Gentilini, Giancarlo. “Il beato Sorore di Santa Maria della Scala,” Antologia di belle arti 52/55 (1996): 17–31. Ginori  Lisci, Leonardo. I palazzi di Firenze nella storia e nell’arte, vol. I/II (Florence: Giunti & Barbèra, 1972). Hatfield, Rab. “Sherlock Holmes and the Riddle of the ‘Niccolò da Uzzano’.” In Essays presented to Myron E. Gilmore, ed. Sergio Bertelli and Gloria Ramakus, 219–238 (Florence: Villa I Tatti, 1978). Heydenreich, Ludwig. “Eine italienische Bildnisbüste des frühen 16. Jahrhunderts,” Die Kunst und das schöne Heim. Monatsschrift für Malerei, Plastik, Graphik, Architektur und Wohnkultur 52 (1954): 206–207. Huth, Andreas. “Fassung verloren: Das Verhältnis der Kunstgeschichte zu gefassten Bildwerken des Quattrocento,” VDR – Beiträge zur Erhaltung von Kunst und Kulturgut 1 (2020): 23–37. Huth, Andreas and Magdalena Bushart. “Das Äußere und das Äußerste. Bildwerke und ihre Oberflächen.” In Superficies. Oberflächengestaltungen von Bildwerken in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, edited by Magdalena Bushart and Andreas Huth, 4–25 (Interdependenzen. Die Künste und ihre Techniken, vol. 6) (Vienna/Cologne/Weimar: Böhlau, 2021). Huth, Andreas and Magdalena Bushart, ed. Superficies. Oberflächengestaltungen von Bildwerken in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit (Interdependenzen. Die Künste und ihre Techniken, vol. 6) (Vienna/Cologne/Weimar: Böhlau, 2021). Kohl, Jeanette. “Gesichter machen. Büste und Maske im Florentiner Quattrocento,” Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 34 (2007): 77–99. Kohl, Jeanette. “Casting Renaissance Florence. The Bust of Giovanni de’ Medici and indexical Portraiture.” In Carvings, Casts and Collectors. The art of Renaissance Sculpture, edited by Peta Motture, Emma Jones, and Dimitrios Zikos (London: V&A Publishing, 2013), 58–71. Kohl, Jeanette. “Kopiert, infam, allegorisch. Gesichter der Renaissance zwischen Duplizierung und Deplatzierung.” In Gesichter. Kulturgeschichtliche Szenen aus der Arbeit am Bildnis des Menschen, edited by Sigrid Weigel, 127–148 (Munich: Fink, 2013). Kosinova, Alexandra. “The Conservation of the Portrait Bust of Giovanni de’ Medici (later Pope Leo X),” Conservation Journal 17 (1995) (http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/journals/conservationjournal/issue-17/the-conservation-of-the-portrait-bust-of-giovanni-demedici-later-pope-leo-x/) Krahn, Volker. “Bozzetti und Pseudo-bozzetti im Bode-Museum.” In Terres cuites de la Renaissance: matière et couleur, edited by Anne Bouquillon and Marc Bormand Technè, 36 (2012): 34–41. Luchs, Alison. “Lorenzo from Life? Renaissance Portrait Bust of Lorenzo de’ Medici,” The sculpture journal 4 (2000): 6–23. Middeldorf, Ulrich. “Review of Donatello.” In Eine Einführung in sein Bilden und Denken, edited by Hans Kauffmann (Berlin: Grote, 1935); The Art Bulletin, 18 (1936): 580–585. Niemeyer Chini, Valerie. Stefano Bardini e Wilhelm Bode. Mercanti e connaisseur fra Ottocento e Novencento (Florence: Polistampa, 2009). Paolini, Claudio. Repertorio delle Architetture Civili di Firenze. Database online: http://www. palazzospinelli.org/architetture/. Passerini, Luigi. Degli Orti Oricellari (Florence: Tipografia Galileiana di M. Cellini e C, 1854). Poggi, Giuseppe. Ricordi della vita e documenti d’arte (Florence: Bemporad, 1909). Ricotta, Veronica, ed. and comm., Il libro dell’arte di Cennino Cennini (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2019).

186  Andreas Huth Siebert, Moritz. Totenmaske und Porträt. Der Gesichtsabguss in der Kunst der Florentiner Renaissance (Baden-Baden: Tectum-Verlag, 2017). Stein, Heather. “Historical Writing and Community among the Orti Oricellari.” PhD diss., John Hopkins University, Baltimore/Maryland, 2015. Syson, Luke, Sheena Wagstaff, Emerson Bowyer, and Brinda Kumar, eds. Like Life. Sculpture, Color, and the Body (New York: Yale University Press, 2018). Toresi, Antonio P., ed. Il libro dell’arte della pittura: il manoscritto della Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, con integrazioni dal Codice Riccardiano (Ferrara: Liberty, 2004). Valla, Lorenzo. Elegantiarum libri sex (…) (Strasbourg: Matthias Schürer, 1517). Vasari, Giorgio. Ragionamenti del sig. caualiere Giorgio Vasari pittore et architetto Aretino […] (Florence: Giunta, 1588). Von Bode, Wilhelm. Italienische Portraitsculpturen des XV. Jahrhunderts in den Königlichen Museen zu Berlin (Berlin: Weidmann, 1883). Von Bode, Wilhelm, Mein Leben, eds. Thomas W. Gaethgens, and Barbara Paul (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 1997).

11 Antonio Begarelli and Small-Scale Terracotta Sculpture Virna Ravaglia Università di Genova, Genova, Italy

Introduction Begarelli made his debut in his hometown with a monumental work, the Madonna di Piazza (1522) (today preserved in the Museo Civico), followed closely by the Lamentation (1525) created for the oratory of San Bernardino and now in the church of Sant’Agostino.1 These are two large-format works; the latter extends the Po Valley tradition of the Sepolcri or Compianti, established in Modena by Guido Mazzoni.2 Begarelli soon dedicated his work to a variety of sculpture in clay, interpreting the requests of local patrons for religious and secular sculptures. Scholars have focused on large-scale sculpture by Begarelli, but the analysis of his small-scale production also offers interesting insights into his activity. Small Scale and Innovative Iconographical Types: The Crib To the best of our knowledge, the artist first approached small-scale production in clay with the commission for the Crib for the Cathedral of Modena (Figure 11.1). Extensive published documentation allows us to follow the specific phases of this commission.3 In 1525, the priest Zan Francesco Da Corte, one of the participants at the Opera Pia, called the Mensa Comune dei Preti,4 donated six large gold ducats (“sei ducati d’oro larghi”) to the treasurer of the institution (Massaro dell’ Opera), as a contribution to the construction of a crib (a Presepe).5 From March 1527 payments began to be registered in the Mensa’s income and expenses (“entrate e spese”) for a crib master (“magistro del Presepio”), who in the following payments is identified as the modeller Antonio Begarelli. For this altar, dedicated to Saint Sebastian, Begarelli created a group of reduced-sized figures (the individual sculptures are between 50 and 70 cm in height), set in a cave dug into the wall below the painting with Saint Sebastian, Saint Jerome, and Saint John the Baptist by Dosso Dossi (commissioned in 1518).6 The sculptor needed to adapt his work to a pre-existing situation and his innovative solution has often been compared to a sculpted predella for the monumental painting. Antonio imagined a complex of little figures in a space of nearly 220 cm,7 without drawing on any precedents for his work, which, especially in the local context, was a total innovation. As often would happen also with the creations of the following years, Begarelli mixed the multiple inspiration of his sources with great freedom, so much to make it difficult to identify specific models for his creations. In this case, he grappled with a subject that became quite common in 15th century Italy, in artistic milieux such as Naples and Tuscany, with public but also domestic functions;8 he reveals in his compositional choices a dependence on contemporary paintings, DOI: 10.4324/9781003327462-15

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Figure 11.1 Antonio Begarelli, Crib, 1527, terracotta, height of the figures: about 60 cm – total width of the composition: 227 cm, Modena, Cathedral, courtesy Arcidiocesi di Modena-Nonantola. © Archivio fotografico dei Musei Civici di Modena

drawings and prints. In the Nativity, Begarelli reinterpreted the famous cartoon with the same subject drawn by Baldassarre Peruzzi for Giovanni Battista Bentivoglio that arrived in Bologna in 1522. The cartoon was an important source of inspiration for Emilian artists, for the construction of crowd scenes. It is therefore entirely understandable that Begarelli, too, could have looked to Peruzzi’s work, which constituted an important advance on the style of the Manner in a centre not far from Modena. 9 The documentation on the Presepe also informs us about the surface finish added by Begarelli to his sculptures: one of the elements that made his art much appreciated by contemporaries, due to its modernity. His patrons greatly valued the whitening, for which they paid the sculptor an amount corresponding to half of the total cost of making all the figures and their settings. Begarelli received a total of twelve gold ducats for the execution of the terracotta statuettes and for the “grotto” that had to house them, and six ducats for the "whitening" of the sculptures, obtained using kaolin (to prepare the surface) and white tempera. It should be taken into consideration that, in addition to the application of white colouring, the payments also included the price of gold, used to finish the edges of the clothing and other details of the figures.10 Two separate payments are specifically recorded in 1527: one of three ducats (first balance of the six total due for the colouring) wide for the white colouring of the figures (March 16) and one of forty soldi (April 2), included in a larger list of expenses for the Nativity altar. The latter presumably refers to the gold purchased and applied by the artist. The cost of the “bianchitura”, in the end, appears rather high when compared to the other expenditure on the work. It can be assumed that the colouring implied a finishing procedure, probably needed to give the sculpture a shiny effect to render the surface more similar to a marble one11. San Salvatore: Different Scale in a Single, Poorly Known, Context In contrast to the full documentation on the Crib, almost nothing is known about the sculpture coming from the now-destroyed church of San Salvatore in Modena. Three works of art, today in the Galleria Estense, come from this building, which belonged to the order of the Servi di Maria.12 They are the monumental Virgin with Child (Figure 11.2), the Christ Mourned by Angels (Figure 11.3), and the Baptism of

Antonio Begarelli and Small-Scale Terracotta Sculpture 189

Figure 11.2 Antonio Begarelli, The Virgin and Child, ca. 1534, terracotta, h: 190 cm w: 107.5 cm, Modena, Galleria Estense, courtesy Ministero della Cultura. © Mauro Magliani

Figure 11.3 Antonio Begarelli, Christ Mourned by the Angels, ca. 1534, terracotta, h: 138 cm w: 86 cm, Modena, Galleria Estense, courtesy Ministero della Cultura. © Mauro Magliani

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Figure 11.4 Antonio Begarelli, The Baptism of Christ, ca. 1534, h: about 73 cm, terracotta, Modena, Galleria Estense, courtesy Ministero della Cultura – Archivio Fotografico delle Gallerie Estensi. © Mauro Magliani

Christ (Figure 11.4).13 The two last are modelled in reduced size and not so different in height from the Crib in the Cathedral. Today the absence of descriptions makes it difficult to imagine how these works were set up inside the church, which was destroyed during World War II (Figure 11.5). We just know that in 1662, the Madonna, was on the main altar and beside her, there were “many admirable figures by the same Begarelli”.14 Changes had occurred by 1714 when Mauro Alessandro Lazzarelli (an erudite Modenese monk) wrote that the Virgin was at that time “in a small chapel next to the high altar with two large angels”.15 Both sources do not mention the two small-size scenes, but we find an interesting reference to two angels: these are two of the four angels in whitened clay, which are part of the so-called Altare Malavasi in the Bode Museum in Berlin.16 The group of figures was assembled in the 19th century, when four angels, probably all from San Salvatore, and a Crucifix attributed to Begarelli – but in my opinion, probably, not by his hand –17 were sold by the amateur restorer Giuseppe Malavasi to the German museum.18 If Lazzarelli wrote about two angels, in 1770 the local historian Gian Filiberto Pagani, describing the church, talked instead about four angels, two of whom were kneeling and holding torches,19 such as those which are today in the Berlin collection. Having received the task of redecorating the entire Serviti church after the fire that destroyed it in 1534, Begarelli experimented with the simultaneous presence of different formats.

Antonio Begarelli and Small-Scale Terracotta Sculpture 191

Figure 11.5 Antonio Begarelli, The Baptism of Christ at the beginning of XX century, Modena, Galleria Estense, courtesy Ministero della Cultura – Archivio Fotografico delle Gallerie Estensi. © Bandieri

This church was also connected with an important personality in Begarelli’s career: Giacomo Beliardi. In 1533, the friars gave him the permission for a chapel in the east side of the church (“in pariete a mane dicte ecclesie”) and he promised to pay 40 lire for the decoration of the space, in order to place there the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist.20 It is possible to conjecture that Beliardi, who had a fundamental role in the first important commissions of Begarelli, was indeed the person who introduced the artist to the Servi di Maria, which in the end gave him not only the task of decorating the chapel with a tabernacle for the Blessed Sacrament as mentioned above, but also other parts of the church, including the main altar, with the group of the Virgin and Four Angels. The function as a tabernacle of the Christ Mourned by the Angels within a curtain, which was probably the one intended for Beliardi’s Chapel, seems to be suggested by a small opening at the base of the composition, which was probably originally equipped with a door, as the couplings for two hinges seem to suggest.21 The third and last group of small figures is again more or less 70 cm high and can perhaps be imagined, due to the baptismal theme, to have been used to decorate area of the font.22 This work originally had a much more complex structure, as it is shown in the pictures taken before the restoration of 1979, and in the engraving by Giulio Tomba (1823).23 In fact, in this engraved print that accompanies the first monograph about the artist, the baptism scene appears embedded in a curtain-like structure, not different from the one that still contains the San Salvatore Lamentation. The scene was

192  Virna Ravaglia also completed with a representation of the Holy Spirit: a dove in a circle of clouds from which seraphim emerge; other angels’ heads were arranged around this terracotta roundel. All these elements, which presumably came to the museum as a single whole with Christ and St. John the Baptist, are still preserved in the store rooms of the Galleria Estense. These small angelic heads, identical to each other, seem to point to a serial production carried out by the artist, in which, however, the remarkable precision of Begarelli’s modelling is not lost. Therefore, the decorative programme of the church, devised after the 1534 fire, would not have been humble; it included not only works by Begarelli, but also paintings by Nicolò dell’Abate, who was at that time at the outset of his career.24 It is legitimate to imagine that there was a structured workshop behind such a huge activity and not only the work of a single craftsman. Between the 1520s and 1530s, the complexity of Antonio’s work organisation increased: probably thanks in part to his growing and more skilfully managed workshop, capable of interfacing with technologically demanding engagements and able to take on large decorative commissions, more and more linked to the Benedictine order.25 Begarelli found favour with some of the most important families of Modena, working on devotional works and tombs funded by them, as was the case of the Beliardi family, certainly one of the artist’s main patrons in the first phase of his career. Giacomo Beliardi, who was a notary and a banker, played a crucial role also in Begarelli’s debut commission, the Madonna di Piazza, as one of the “sovrintendenti” (superintendents) of works in the Palazzo Comunale (the Town Hall of Modena).26 Therefore, he chose the artist for the funerary monument of his brother and his father in the church of San Francesco27 and a sculpture of the Magdalen for the church of the Carmelite fathers.28 During these years, Beliardi seemed to follow a sort of personal programme in order to affirm his prestige, by financing works of art in the city’s main religious buildings and choosing Antonio Begarelli as the main architect of this operation. The Madonna del Latte and Its Impact

Among Begarelli’s small-format works, one of the most famous and sublime is perhaps the refined Madonna del Latte today in the Galleria Estense (Figure 11.6). This terracotta was purchased by the Regia Galleria Estense in 1889 from the Modenese antique dealer Luigi Giusti, but nothing is known about its origin.29 The chronology of the terracotta has been debated. Siegfried Weber considered it late,30 while others, like the former director of the Galleria Estense Giulio Bariola,31 have deemed it an early work. Scholars including Silla Zamboni,32 Luigi Magnani and I33 believe that in the Estense Madonna, one can spot that peculiar softening of forms and expressiveness in the style that seems to characterise the central works of Begarelli’s activity, in the peak years of his career, between 1530 and 1540.34 Looking at the Madonna del Latte, one may reasonably assume that it was conceived for private devotion, but there is no evidence yet that objects created by the sculptor were intended to be placed in private homes. For example, for the Busts of Christ ascribed to the Begarelli and also reproduced in various exemplars – the most remarkable of which is probably the one now in the Bode Museum in Berlin – we do have evidence of some of them being placed in sacred buildings in Modena35. It therefore seems plausible to assume that this Madonna del Latte was also created to be placed in a church, perhaps to be placed on the altar of a private chapel.36

Antonio Begarelli and Small-Scale Terracotta Sculpture 193

Figure 11.6 Antonio Begarelli, Madonna del Latte, ca. 1530–1540, h: 63 cm w: 37 cm, Modena, Galleria Estense, courtesy Ministero della Cultura. © Mauro Magliani

Assuming that the Estense Madonna can be considered a prototype, this Begarellian creation must have had a certain success, as demonstrated by three different versions of the sculpture, each representing a different kind of derivation, which is interesting to analyse. The first is now located in the sanctuary of Santissimo Crocifisso in Carpi (Figure 11.7). This Madonna del Latte surrounded by angels is documented from the 18th century when it was donated to the church by the erudite priest Giuseppe Maria Barbieri, who in his diary (1767), gives us the first description of the statue.37 It is not a terracotta work, but a stucco one, and as can be seen from the photos recently taken by Mauro Magliani, it preserves considerable polychromy. The sculpture recalls precise details of the Modenese Madonna (the figures of the Virgin are identical in size) but this one is inserted into a crowd of musician angels and rests her feet on a half-moon, an allusion to the Immaculate Conception. In this work, the physiognomies appear poorer, as do some anatomical details, compared to the usual quality of Antonio’s modelling. It is possible to assume that the work of art in Carpi was made in plaster perhaps in the workshop of Begarelli, probably in the wake of the success of the terracotta prototype by the Master and as often happens, has been attributed to his nephew Ludovico who was an active collaborator in the last years of sculptor’s activity, with a role that is still largely to be determined.38 The second specimen is located in Mantua (Figure 11.8). Here we are faced with a bronze work, which in an entry dedicated to it in the exhibition catalogue Emozioni in terracotta, Davide Gasparotto suggested dating this forgery to the 19th century.39 Thanks

194  Virna Ravaglia

Figure 11.7 Antonio Begarelli workshop, Madonna del Latte, terracotta, h: 80 cm (Virgin 57, 5 cm) w: 76 cm, Carpi, Church of the Santissimo Crocifisso, Diocesi di Carpi. © Mauro Magliani

Figure 11.8 After Antonio Begarelli, Madonna del Latte, before 1674, bronze, h: 52 cm, Mantova, Cathedral. © Courtesy Diocesi di Mantova

Antonio Begarelli and Small-Scale Terracotta Sculpture 195 to a document preserved in the State archives in Mantua, we can certainly date it before 1675.40 It was donated, together with other goods, by the Archdeacon Don Carlo Calori to the Cathedral of Mantua and placed in the Sacristy of the church, in which it still stands. The furnishings in the sacristy were renewed between 1680 and 1686, thanks to a bequest in the Archdeacon’s will, and in an inventory of the assets present in his house, at the time of his death in 1675, the bronze Virgin is already mentioned. As pointed out in the catalogue entry, where it was presented after the restoration carried out by Maria Chiara Ceriotti, the cast has several defects and repairs, despite what appears to be an excellent quality of patination of the bronze surface. The Mantuan Virgin shows some differences in representation, compared to the Modenese one: the Child’s legs and arms are arranged in a different manner and he wears a loincloth not present in the prototype. It is not easy to determine with certainty whether this is a bronze cast from a sculptural model produced directly by Begarelli’s workshop, but certainly, the bronze reproduction of the subject testifies to the success of an object adaptable to an ecclesiastical as well as a private location, as is also evident from the Mantuan Virgin. In any case, it is also known that, during his multifaceted activity, the artist also created terracotta models intended for casting in bronze: indeed documents mention clay models for cannon “culazzi” (shells) commissioned by the Duke of Ferrara, Alfonso I d’Este.41 Finally, the Mantuan work might suggest that the Modena example was placed in a public context, so much so that it was known by an artist who reproduced it in bronze in the 17th century before the Madonna del Latte entered the Estense collection. There is a further case of a Madonna del Latte that takes up the same iconographic characteristics of the three already mentioned (Figure 11.9): in the rectory of the Carmelite complex in San Martino in Bologna, there is a terracotta Madonna once again

Figure 11.9 After Antonio Begarelli (Prudenzio Piccioli?),  The Virgin and Child, XIX century, terracotta, h. 41 cm, Bologna, Church of San Martino, courtesy Arcidiocesi di Bologna. © Virna Ravaglia

196  Virna Ravaglia perfectly posed as the Estense one, in spite of the evident difference in the quality of modelling and the smaller size (measuring 41 cm in height).42 The polychromy is partially chipped; the colour seems to have been applied to the terracotta without the use of a preparatory layer.43 This small work was published in a study about the church, with the reference to the 18th-century Bolognese milieu of the neoclassical artists Giacomo de Maria e Giovanni Putti, but without any reference to the Begarellian model.44 Once again, at first glance, the sculpture seems definitely poorer in quality than the piece of the Galleria Estense (Figure 11.10). Anyway, it is possible to make some assumptions about the origins of this statue. Following an oral suggestion of Antonella Mampieri, I believe its author might be the sculptor Prudenzio Piccioli, rather than someone in the context of De Maria and Putti. Prudenzio was born in Spilamberto, near Modena, in 1813 and mainly spent his career between his hometown and Bologna. During his training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Modena, the sculptor showed great mimetic skills, particularly in the reproduction of works by Antonio Begarelli.45 Piccioli was born into a family of humble origins and distinguished himself from boyhood for his skill in working with terracotta; he entered the Academia Atestina in 1828, thanks to the financial support of anonymous benefactors. Here Piccioli was educated according to the rather conservative dictates of the local school of sculpture, and he developed a particular predilection for “Begarellian” themes between 1833 and 1834 just before moving to Bologna.46 Two small-size Lamentations date to this period, explicitly reinterpreting those of the 16th-century master: one is now in the Church of Sant’Adriano in Spilamberto, while

Figure 11.10 Detail of: After Antonio Begarelli (Prudenzio Piccioli?), The Virgin and Child, XIX century, terracotta, h. 41 cm, Bologna, Church of San Martino, courtesy Arcidiocesi di Bologna. © Virna Ravaglia

Antonio Begarelli and Small-Scale Terracotta Sculpture 197 the second is in a private collection, signed and dated 1834.47 Also signed by Piccioli and dated 1833 is a Madonna breastfeeding her child found by Lidia Righi Guerzoni in a private collection in Spilamberto.48 As Righi Guerzoni points out, this work also shows the 19th-century sculptor’s gaze on his illustrious predecessor and particularly on Begarelli’s Madonna del Latte, which at the time had not yet become part of the Estense collections. In the Bologna work, many references clearly recall the Renaissance prototype, such as the folding of the drapery around the neck, stopped by a button, or the breast, held by the Virgin’s hand in the act of breastfeeding, offered to the Child through a small opening in the garment. Compared to the one in Spilamberto’s private collection, the San Martino exemplar is a more accurate copy of the original, which is taken up in every detail. However, the physiognomy of the Virgin recalls that of one of the women in the small Lamentation mentioned above,49 with her rounded face and sharp profile, which are less graceful than the exemplar by Begarelli’s hand. The comparison of the Prudenzio Piccioli, however, with the Begarelli should be treated with caution. It might be possible to evaluate the Bolognese terracotta more precisely during a restoration that would enable cleaning and observation of the quality of the polychromy. Conclusions Begarelli’s extraordinary ability to innovate in a small format was immediately successful in the Modenese context. Cases such as the works for San Salvatore or the Presepe in the Cathedral probably fared better because it was easier and less expensive to place them in small buildings compared with monumental complexes; moreover, they were affordable not only for wealthy clients, such as Este Dukes, but also for citizens of Modena. The success of this format was not limited to the period of Begarelli’s life and work, but continued into the following centuries, as demonstrated by the replicas in different materials and the small iconographic changes to the Madonna del Latte, which was used in different contexts up until the middle of the 19th century. The choice of a small scale differs in each of the cases presented. In the case of the Nativity scene, terracotta offered Begarelli the opportunity of creating something that would not have been possible in marble, although the imitation of this material is explicitly sought in the white finish. The set of small figures shaped separately or in small groups – a marble realisation would certainly have resulted in the creation of a single frieze for example – allows the author to grapple in a lively manner with the problem of a small space and its subordination to Dosso’s painting. The Crib remains typologically in the realm of terracotta, and if with the Madonna di Piazza, made a few years earlier, the choice to feign marble stems from the impossibility of procuring stone, in the case of the Nativity scene the successful formula is repeated, further demonstrating its inherent possibilities. Here it’s clear how terracotta is not only a substitute of marble, but Begarelli exploits the technical flexibility of the material enriched, from the perspective of contemporary taste, by the purity and nobility of the white colour of marble. Something similar happens in the case of the Madonna del latte. The image fits, it can be said, into a thematic strand that had been enormously successful from the 15th century: that of small Marian images for private devotion, which because of their reproducibility and affordable cost spread to private homes since the first half of the 15th century. The scant documentation available so far on private furnishings of Modenese residences of this period does not allow us to verify a market for objects with a domestic destination produced by Begarelli’s workshop. However, even if we think of an object such as the

198  Virna Ravaglia Madonna del Latte destined for a church, it is very likely that it was placed in a private chapel, in a setting in any case, therefore, for intimate and close enjoyment. It is precisely these typological characteristics of the object that probably suggested the later reproductions involving a different choice of materials and surface treatment. The works from the Church of the Servi di Maria in Modena constitute a field where we can compare the artist’s monumental and reduced-format production. The monumental figures of the altar, an eminently public and official space, coexist with a smaller-sized production, which is chosen for reasons that are probably also functional (i.e., the probably reduced space available) but also for a more “private” placement in the minor chapels. Notes 1 It is not possible (and necessary) to give a summary of the artist’s entire career. For a the most complete and update bibliography see Emozioni in terracotta, exh. cat., eds. Giorgio Bonsanti and Francesca Piccinini (Modena: Franco Cosimo Panini editore, 2009) and Giorgio Bonsanti, Antonio Begarelli (Modena: Cassa di Risparmio di Modena, 1992). 2 On Guido Mazzoni see Adalgisa Lugli, Guido Mazzoni e la rinascita della terracotta nel Quattrocento (Turin: Allemandi, 1992). 3 Documentation is extensively published in Carlo Giovannini, “Notizie inedite sull’altare di S. Sebastiano e sul Presepio del Begarelli nel Duomo di Modena,” in Il Duomo e la torre di Modena. Nuovi documenti e ricerche, eds. Orianna Baracchi Giovanardi and Carlo Giovannini (Modena: Aedes Muratoriana, 1988), 207–226. 4 The Opera Pia of Mensa Comune was a charitable association of priests born in the context Modena Cathedral in 1423, thanks to a bequest of Tommaso Petrezzani. See Giovannini, “Notizie inedite sull’altare di San Sebastiano,” 207. 5 Archivio Capitolare di Modena, Mensa Comune, busta 69: Giovannini, “Notizie inedite sull’altare di S. Sebastiano,” 212 and 224–225. 6 Giovannini, “Notizie inedite sull’altare di S. Sebastiano,” 208–209. 7 The Nativity, like most of Begarelli’s works, has undergone several changes in its location even while remaining within the same building. Currently, it is placed on the opposite side of Modena Cathedral from its original placement. The work has been in its present location since 1899, when a cast of the cave created in 1527 by Begarelli was made during its removal. Thus, despite the reconstruction and even the probable loss of some figures in the group, the original setting of the ensemble has been partly preserved, at least in terms of the size and structure of the cave, which originally consisted of a space that protruded over the perimeter of the building (Bonsanti, Antonio Begarelli, 141–149). The grotto measures approximately 227 cm in length and approximately 87 cm in height. By contrast, the base of the unframed altarpiece of San Sebastiano measures 190 cm and we can imagine that once, with its original wooden frame, it might have possessed a width similar overall to that of the cave of Begarelli’s group. 8 See Fernando and Gioia Lanzi, Il presepio tradizione, storia, immagini (Faenza: Tools Stampa 1995) and Zuzanna Sarnecka, “‘And the Word Dwelt amongst Us’: Experiencing the Nativity in the Italian Renaissance Home,” in Domestic Devotions in Early Modern Italy, eds. Maya Corry, Marco Faini, and Alessia Meneghin (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2019), 163–183. 9 The relationship between Baldassarre Peruzzi’s work and Begarelli’s Nativity scene is analyzed in Daniela Ferriani, “Un esempio di confronto tra pittura e scultura. Nicolò dell’Abate e Antonio Begarelli,” in Nicolò dell’Abate. Storie dipinte nella pittura del Cinquecento tra Modena e Fontainebleau, exh. cat. eds. Sylvie Béguin and Francesca Piccinini (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana editoriale, 2005), 57–65. 10 Giovannini, “Notizie indedite,” 208–209. 11 Burnishing procedure on the biacca as applied to artistic objects has been known since the XV century; see for example Neri di Bicci, Ricordanze (10 marzo 1453–24 aprile 1475), ed. Bruno Santi (Pisa: Marlin, 1977). The term is borrowed from a typical metalworking context and indicates a polishing procedure performed by means of a burnisher. However, the procedure can also be performed on white lead. Its execution would provide a convincing explanation for the

Antonio Begarelli and Small-Scale Terracotta Sculpture 199 cost of the “whitening” operation, which is made more time-consuming and therefore wasteful by this finishing operation. 12 On the building and his history Gusmano Soli, Chiese di Modena, vol. 3 (Modena: Aedes Muratoriana 1974), 249–274. 13 On these groups see: Bonsanti, Antonio Begarelli, 171–176; and Daniela Ferriani, “37 a, b. Battesimo di Cristo – 37 c. Cristo morto compianto dagli angeli,” and “59. Madonna con il Bambino,” in Emozioni in terracotta, exh. cat., eds. Giorgio Bonsanti and Francesca Piccinini (Modena: Franco Cosimo Panini editore, 2009), 168–170, 226. 14 Ludovico Vedriani, Raccolta de’ pittori, Scultori ed Architetti Modenesi più celebri (Modena: Soliani, 1662), 49. 15 Mauro Alessandro Lazzarelli and Orianna Baracchi, Pitture delle chiese di Modena (Modena: Aedes Muratoriana, 1982), 36. 16 On the Altare Malavasi (which takes his name from the Modenese restorer Giuseppe Malavasi) see: Bonsanti, Antonio Begarelli, 178–180. 17 The observation of the stylistic characteristics of the Crucifix (modelling of the anatomy, characteristics of the physiognomy) leads me to suppose that it is not a work made by Begarelli, but probably a sculpture of a much more recent date, perhaps to be related to the time when Malavasi assembled the Bode Museum group. 18 Giuseppe Malavasi during his career also restored the Madonna di Piazza of the Museo Civico and the Lamentation today in the church of Sant ‘Agostino in Modena (Bonsanti, Anotnio Begarelli, 125, 135). 19 “…due angeli dai lati, ed altri due in ginocchio tenenti in mano due fiaccole accese”: Gian Filiberto Pagani, Le pitture e sculture di Modena (Modena: Soliani, 1770), 71. 20 Archivio di Stato di Modena, Notarile, I versamento, b. 1538, Nicolò Calori, n. 444. The document was first published in Carlo Giovannini, “Il Quadro dell’Assunta di Gian Gherardo dalle Catene nell’altare Beliardi della chiesa di San Pietro di Modena,” in Il Millenario di San Pietro in Modena, vol. II (Modena: Aedes muratoriana, 1985), 129–135 (135), but without an explicit connection to the work of art today in the Galleria Estense. The document wasn’t linked to the Lamentation in the following publications on the artifact either. 21 The opening was made visible again during the restoration done in 1979, when the material enclosing it must have been considered inconsistent with the terracotta composing the sarcophagus on which the lifeless Christ rests. 22 It’s interesting to note how Pagani talked exactly about small dimensions referring to this group: “San Giovanni che battezza il Redentore in piccolo figure dentro una nicchia” (“St. John baptizing the Redeemer, in small figures within a niche”): Pagani, Le pitture e sculture, 71. A further hypothesis as to the work’s location, one might add, could clearly again have been a private chapel, such as the Beliardi one; however, it is not possible to establish a more certain documentary connection with it based on the information known to us. 23 Mario Valdrighi and Cesare Malmusi, Le opere di Guido Mazzoni e di Antonio Begarelli celebri plastici modenesi e le pitture eseguite dell’illustrissima comunità di Modena da Niccolo Abati, Bartolomeo Schedoni ed Ercole Abati disegnate ed incise rispettivamente dai signori professori Giuseppe Guizzardi, e Giulio Tomba e di opportune illustrazioni corredate (Modena: Geminiano Vincenzi e co., 1823), XX. 24 Emozioni in terracotta, 168. For a resumé of the early activity of Nicolò dell’Abate see Giorgia Mancini, “Nicolò dell’Abate: dagli esordi alla prima maturità tra Modena e Parma,” in Nicolò dell’Abate. Storie dipinte nella pittura del Cinquecento tra Modena e Fontainebleau, exh. cat. eds. Sylvie Béguin and Francesca Piccinini (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana editoriale, 2005), 47–55. 25 The reference is to San Pietro church in Modena and to the decorative programme of the abbey of Polirone. 26 Bonsanti, Antonio Begarelli, 123–130; Francesca Piccinini, “55. Madonna col Bambino e San Giovannino detta ‘Madonna di Piazza,” in Emozioni in terracotta, 214–217. 27 Daniela Ferriani, “35 a–d Monumento funebre di Francesco e Lionello Beliardi (già in San Francesco a Modena),” in Emozioni in terracotta, 160–165, with earlier bibliography therein. 28 Carlo Giovannini, “36. Santa Maria Maddalena?” in Emozioni in terracotta, 166, with earlier bibliography therein. 29 Elena Corradini, Museo e Medagliere estense fra Otto e Novecento (Modena: Franco Cosimo Panini, 1996), 37. 30 Siegfried Weber, “Antonio Begarelli,” Zeitschrift für Bidelnde Kunst, 17 (1909): 274–288 (284).

200  Virna Ravaglia 31 Giulio Bariola, “Antonio Begarelli,” in Allgemeines Lexicon der Bildenden Künstler, eds. Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, vol. 3 (Leipzig: 1909), 174–179. 32 Silla Zamboni, Antonio Begarelli (Milan: Fabbri, 1966), 2, plate XIV. 33 Luigi Magnani, Antonio Begarelli (Milan: Bestetti e Tuminelli, 1931), 28–29. 34 See also Bonsanti, Antonio Begarelli, 184. 35 See Giorgio Bonsanti, “47 a–f. Busti di Cristo,” in Emozioni in terracotta, 192–195 and Virna Ravaglia, “18. Antonio Begarelli. Busto di Cristo,” in Alfonso Lombardi. Il colore e il rilievo exh. cat., eds. Marcello Calogero and Alessandra Giannotti (Rimini: NFC, 2020), 141–142. 36 Examples of sculptures representing the same subject and destined for chapels in sacred buildings are not uncommon in the contemporary context. We can remember here the Madonna del Latte by Matteo Civitali in the church of Ss. Trinita in Lucca or the Madonna del Latte Flanked by Two Saints in the Benedictine abbey of Finalpia (SV) attributed to the workshop of Giovanni della Robbia (c. 1520). 37 Alfonso Garuti, Contributo alla conoscenza delle fonti della letteratura artistica settecentesca modenese: Le pitture di Carpi, di Giuseppe Maria Barbieri e gli Artisti, di Eustachio Cabassi (Modena: Aedes Muratoriana, 1982), 14, 184. 38 On Ludovico Begarelli: Bonsanti, Antonio Begarelli, 117–120. 39 Davide Gasparotto, “43a. Madonna del latte – 43b. Madonna del latte,” in Emozioni in terracotta, 182–184 (184). 40 Archivio di Stato di Mantova, Archivio notarile, notaio Sebastiano Sissa, busta 8691 bis, “Inventario de’ beni lasciati nella sua heredità dal fu Monsignor Illustrissimo e Reverendissimo Don Carlo Calori Arcidiacono della Cattedrale di Mantova, tanto mobili quanto stabili, raggioni, attioni, debiti et crediti. 17 aprile 1675”. Silvio Carnevali, “L’arredo ligneo nella sagrestia e nelle aule capitolari della Cattedrale di Mantova,” Civiltà mantovana, vol. 31, no. 102 (1996): 8, 19. The document is also briefly cited in Paola Artoni, “Antonio Begarelli (bottega), Madonna col bambino,” in L’Abbazia di Matilde. Arte e storia in un grande monastero dell’Europa benedettina, ed. Paolo Golinelli (Bologna: Pàtron, 2008), 189. 41 Alessandro Giuseppe Spinelli, “A zonzo per la provincia. A Bomporto. Il gruppo di Begarelli e per incidenza di cosuccie begarelliane,” in La Provincia di Modena, vol. VI, 263; Bonsanti, Antonio Begarelli, 254. 42 I have to thank Luca Annibali for drawing my attention to a photograph of this sculpture in the volume: Enrico Secondin and Giorgio Ronchi, La Basilica di San Martino Maggiore a Bologna: Santuario della Madonna del Carmine (Bologna: Costa editore, 2010), 208. 43 The observation of different types of polychrome terracotta sculpture, as well as the consultation of restoration records of this kind of artifact, makes it plausible to state here that the addition of a layer of preparation on the terracotta in view of the application of polychromies is most frequently found between the 15th and 16th centuries, not only on the monumental sculpture but also on medium and small pieces. In this case, the application of polychromy without a preparatory layer might suggest a less carefully crafted execution than is usually detectable even in “begarellian” executions. For an in-depth look at the subject of polychromy in terracotta sculpture, with attention to technical aspects, see the important issue devoted to the topic in the journal Techné 36 (2012). 44 Techné 36 (2012). 45 Antonella Mampieri, “Prudenzio Piccioli,” in Presepi e terrecotte nei Musei Civici di Bologna, exh. cat., eds. Renzo Grandi et al. (Bologna: Nuova Alfa editore, 1991), 200–205; Lidia Righi Guerzoni, “Per un catalogo di Prudenzio Piccioli, artista ‘bolognese’,” Il Carrobbio 18 (1992): 288–299. 46 Guerzoni, “Per un catalogo di Prudenzio Piccioli,” 288–299. 47 Guerzoni, “Per un catalogo,” 293. 48 For a photograph of this Madonna del latte see Righi Guerzoni, “Per un catalogo,” 292. 49 For a photograph of this Lamentation see Righi Guerzoni, “Per un catalogo,” 291.

Bibliography Bariola, Giulio. “Antonio Begarelli.” In Allgemeines Lexicon der Bildenden Künstler, edited by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, vol. 3 (Leipzig: Seemann, 1909), 174–179. Bonsanti, Giorgio. Antonio Begarelli (Modena: Cassa di Risparmio di Modena, 1992).

Antonio Begarelli and Small-Scale Terracotta Sculpture 201 Bonsanti, Giorgio and Francesca Piccinini eds. Emozioni in terracotta exh. cat. (Modena: Franco Cosimo Panini Editore, 2009). Corradini, Elena. Museo e Medagliere estense fra Otto e Novecento (Modena: Franco Cosimo Panini, 1996). Di Bicci, Neri. Ricordanze (10 Marzo 1453–24 Aprile 1475), ed. Bruno Santi (Pisa: Marlin, 1977). Ferriani, Daniela. “Un esempio di confronto tra pittura e scultura. Nicolò dell’Abate e Antonio Begarelli.” In Nicolò dell’Abate. Storie dipinte nella pittura del Cinquecento tra Modena e Fontainebleau, exh. cat. edited by Sylvie Béguin and Francesca Piccinini (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2005), 57–65. Garuti, Alfonso. Contributo alla conoscenza delle fonti della letteratura artistica settecentesca modenese: Le pitture di Carpi, di Giuseppe Maria Barbieri e gli Artisti, di Eustachio Cabassi (Modena: Aedes Muratoriana, 1982). Giovannini, Carlo. “Il Quadro dell’Assunta di Gian Gherardo dalle Catene nell’altare Beliardi della chiesa di San Pietro di Modena.” In Il Millenario di San Pietro in Modena, vol. II, edited by Giordano Bertuzzi, (Modena: Aedes Muratoriana, 1985), 129–135. Giovannini, Carlo. “Notizie inedite sull’altare di S. Sebastiano e sul Presepio del Begarelli nel Duomo di Modena.” In Il Duomo e la torre di Modena. Nuovi documenti e ricerche, edited by Orianna Baracchi Giovanardi and Carlo Giovannini (Modena: Aedes Muratoriana, 1988), 207–226. Lanzi, Fernando. Il presepio tradizione, storia, immagini (Faenza: Tools Stampa, 1995). Lazzarelli, Mauro Alessandro and Orianna Baracchi. Pitture delle chiese di Modena (Modena: Aedes Muratoriana, 1982). Lugli, Adalgisa. Guido Mazzoni e la rinascita della terracotta nel Quattrocento (Turin: Allemandi, 1992). Magnani, Luigi. Antonio Begarelli (Bestetti e Tuminelli: Milan, 1931). Mampieri, Antonella. “Prudenzio Piccioli.” In Presepi e terrecotte nei Musei Civici di Bologna, exh. cat., edited by Renzo Grandi et al., (Bologna: Nuova Alfa Editore, 1991), 200–205. Mancini, Giorgia. “Nicolò dell’Abate: dagli esordi alla prima maturità tra Modena e Parma.” In Nicolò dell’Abate. Storie dipinte nella pittura del Cinquecento tra Modena e Fontainebleau, exh. cat. edited by Sylvie Béguin and Francesca Piccinini (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2005), 47–55. Pagani, Gian Filiberto. Le pitture e sculture di Modena (Modena: Soliani, 1770). Ravaglia, Virna. “18. Antonio Begarelli. Busto di Cristo.” In Alfonso Lombardi. Il colore e il rilievo exh. cat., edited by Marcello Calogero and Alessandra Giannotti, (Rimini: NFC, 2020), 141–142. Sarnecka, Zuzanna. “‘And the Word Dwelt amongst Us’: Experiencing the Nativity in the Italian Renaissance Home.” In Domestic Devotions in Early Modern Italy, edited by Maya Corry, Marco Faini, and Alessia Meneghin, (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2019), 163–183. Secondin, Enrico and Giorgio Ronchi. La Basilica di San Martino Maggiore a Bologna: Santuario della Madonna del Carmine (Bologna: Costa Editore, 2010). Soli, Gusmano. Chiese di Modena, vol. 3 (Modena: Aedes Muratoriana, 1974). Valdrighi, Mario and Cesare Malmusi. Le opere di Guido Mazzoni e di Antonio Begarelli celebri plastici modenesi e le pitture eseguite dell’illustrissima comunità di Modena da Niccolo Abati, Bartolomeo Schedoni ed Ercole Abati disegnate ed incise rispettivamente dai signori professori Giuseppe Guizzardi, e Giulio Tomba e di opportune illustrazioni corredate (Modena: Geminiano Vincenzi e co, 1823). Vedriani, Ludovico. Raccolta de’ pittori, Scultori ed Architetti Modenesi più celebri (Modena: Soliani, 1662). Weber, Siegfried. “Antonio Begarelli,” Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst 17 (1909): 274–288. Zamboni, Silla. Antonio Begarelli (Milan: Fabbri, 1966).

Part IV

Contexts and Values

12 Della Robbia Sculptures for Florentine Renaissance Convents Marietta Cambareri Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, USA

Introduction1 Florentine nunneries have been the subject of intense research by historians, art historians, and historians of religion.2 Giancarlo Gentilini and others have noted the context of the female convent as an important locus for Della Robbia sculptures.3 The placement, function, and meaning of works made for convent settings reveal a variety of ways that glazed terracotta was employed. The so-called Madonna of Via dell’Agnolo (Figure 12.1), now in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, was made for the façade of a convent house, and is attributed to Luca della Robbia in the 1470s, with the likely participation of Andrea della Robbia. It illustrates the use of Della Robbia sculpture to mark places of female devotion in the civic spaces, neighbourhoods and streets of the town. The durability of the material and its ability to withstand the elements in outdoor settings made it an obvious choice. The visual clarity and reflective effects provided by the coloured glazes assured the impact of the sculptures. Glazed terracotta sculpture was also used inside convent complexes. Two programmes for the interiors of convent churches that united painted altarpieces surmounted by glazed terracotta narrative relief lunettes mounted in impressive stone frameworks show how the colour, shine and relief of the technique could serve the convent and the larger community. At least six representations of the scene of the Noli me tangere in glazed terracotta were made, demonstrating that certain subjects were deemed especially appropriate for convent art. In a range of formats, including lunettes, altarpieces, and, possibly, a lavabo, these reliefs of the Noli me tangere served a variety of functions. The colouristic naturalism of the technique was ideal for the representation of this subject. Four decorated the interiors of convent churches that served a general lay audience, and they raise the question of how much access the nuns had to the works in those spaces, and how those spaces and objects served their broader audiences, patrons and the nuns themselves. Two other Noli me tangere reliefs were made for the enclosed quarters of convents, perhaps in the inner church or in other ritual or living spaces. Other devotional objects including Virgin and Child images were used in the convents, offering a variety of possible settings for Della Robbia sculpture. Della Robbia sculpture on the exteriors of convents, as well as other buildings like hospitals, helped to map out the presence and growth of institutions centred around women’s lives and experiences, and to indicate women’s activities and presence throughout the city. Lunettes over convent doors signalled sacred spaces, and like street tabernacles and shrines, also created sacred space around them for the people in the street, the holiness and piety of the sisters emanating out to the city.4 Often located beyond the centre of DOI: 10.4324/9781003327462-17

206  Marietta Cambareri

Figure 12.1 Luca della Robbia, The Madonna of Via dell’Agnolo, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, inv. 29R/15482. © Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe

town, clustered on streets leading out towards the city gates, it has been argued that in this way the convents became sites of protection through apotropaic prayer as people came into and went out of the city. On a more practical level, it was easier to find spaces for convents in these locations.5 Luca della Robbia’s lunette of the Madonna and Child with two Angels (Madonna del Via dell’Agnolo) was set over the door to a convent in the parish of San Pier Maggiore.6 The house underwent changes over time, having been established before the middle of the 15th century as a Benedictine convent dedicated to a holy woman of Cortona, Santuccia. It was located on a main street that led from Piazza San Pier Maggiore out towards the city walls on present-day Via dell’Agnolo at the corner of Via delle Rose. The Alfani family was involved with the community from around 1470; in 1475, Alessandra Alfani became the spiritual head of the convent, newly dedicated to Saint John the Baptist. This new congregation was granted use of the house by Pope Sixtus IV, who aligned the foundation with the Jerusalemite order, suppressing the earlier Benedictine convent. The nuns continued to be called the Santuccie. Problems arose quickly for them with the death of Alessandra Alfani in 1479 and, in 1495, the house was absorbed into the powerful convent of San Pier Maggiore.7 The Della Robbia lunette, made in the 1470s, however, would have marked the establishment of the new convent and was probably commissioned by the Alfani family, if not by Alessandra herself. The Santuccie convent was a small house, without a public church, so the Della Robbia lunette would have provided the principal outward sign of its presence and would have integrated it into the devotional life of the city, and the neighbourhood. It served as notice to those passing by that the community was there, performing their most important work for Florence, praying and doing good. It is a particularly communicative work. The white glaze of the figures set against the blue of the background and the reflective surfaces sought to capture the attention of people along the street. The figures look out

Della Robbia Sculptures for Florentine Renaissance Convents 207 of the relief as if ready to engage with them. Jesus “speaks” through the text on the scroll he unfurls, which reads “Ego Sum Lux Mundi”.8 The restrained, slightly stiff and fully clothed baby, recalls the little Baby Jesus dolls that Florentine girls often brought with them into the convent.9 A garland surrounds the lunette with white roses and lilies, flowers commonly associated with Mary as well as with Florence itself, bridging the sacred figures with the real world. For this newly established convent, the Della Robbia relief on the façade made a statement: it acknowledged the convent’s transformation with a fashionable and particularly Florentine sculptural technique, and acknowledged support and interest in the convent through important patronage; it conveyed the nuns’ presence on the religious and civic scene. Moving from the streets into the convent church, we next consider two ensembles that include Della Robbia lunettes set over painted altarpieces for the convent churches of the Poor Clares at Santa Chiara Novella and the Dominican convent of San Jacopo di Ripoli.10 These public churches bridged the world of the Florentine streets to the world of the Florentine convents. The project at Santa Chiara was begun in the 1490s and was completed by 1510. Its location on modern-day Via dei Serragli follows the pattern of nunneries set on streets that lead out of the city centre, here to the Porta Romana. Lunettes by Andrea della Robbia of the Assumption of the Virgin (Figure 12.2) and the Resurrection of Christ were set above altarpieces, The Adoration of the Shepherds, by Lorenzo di Credi, and the Lamentation by Pietro Perugino, dated 1495, respectively. Likely set into carved pietra serena frames located to either side of the main chapel along the nave walls, the reliefs were part of an impressive ensemble that demonstrates how paintings, sculptures, and architecture came together to express and further religious experience, as well as to mark the involvement of pious Florentines in convent life.11 These works were commissioned by a single patron, Jacopo Bongianni, a strong supporter of the convent who would also be buried in the church. Two sisters and a niece of Bongianni were nuns in the convent and all served as abbesses. It is likely that the nun’s choir was set over the entrance portal, so the nuns would have been looking down into the church during public services from behind a screen or grate. Set high in the church, the signature

Figure 12.2 Andrea della Robbia, The Assumption of the Virgin, Loggia of the Accademia delle Belle Arti. © Sailko, 2013, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY SA 3.0

208  Marietta Cambareri blue and white colour scheme and the relief of the lunettes would have aided visibility for the nuns in their choir, much as it has been suggested that the high placement of the sacramental tabernacle over the high altar took into account the nuns’ viewing position.12 Sharon Strocchia has shown that patronage processes at Santa Chiara allowed the nuns, especially the Bongianni abbesses, to assert their ideas to their patron, a close family member, and to easily communicate needs, desires, and religious and devotional goals. Thus, these works fulfilled the spiritual and familial goals of Bongianni and his family outside the convent, as well as the devotional and spiritual needs of the nuns inside the convent. The setting of such a programme in a convent church would partake of the holiness of the convent and the benefits of the nuns’ prayers and lives of good work. This spirituality would emanate to the patron and his family, and to the neighbourhood and city beyond the walls of the church. The nuns would have sung prayers and hymns from their hidden choir setting, and so we have to layer the sounds of music onto the experience of the Della Robbia reliefs. It is even possible that their hard surfaces may have enhanced the acoustics in church interiors, another practical and spiritual benefit of this sculptural technique.13 The reliefs of the Assumption of the Virgin and the Resurrection of Christ, by Andrea della Robbia and now set into the walls of the Loggia of the Accademia delle Belle Arti, recall the ground-breaking narrative lunettes of the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, for the overdoors of the sacristies in the cathedral crossing, set below marble organ lofts by Luca della Robbia and Donatello. At the cathedral, Luca della Robbia presented for the first time his newly perfected glazing technique, with Christological narratives that followed Alberti’s guidelines for the istoria and related to the sacristies but especially to the rituals of the high altar.14 The technique, the lunette format, and the narrative reliefs link the convent to the cathedral, while the Marian scene of the Assumption would be appropriate for the convent church. That the sisters themselves likely played a role in the choices of artists, subjects, and placement reminds us that they did not need consistent access to the images to achieve their goals. The second convent church ensemble was created for San Jacopo di Ripoli, a Dominican convent in modern-day Via della Scala. The entry portal to the church included a glazed terracotta lunette with the Virgin and Child with Saints Jacopo and Domenico, probably made by Giovanni della Robbia in the first decade of the 16th century.15 Like the Santuccie lunette, it marked out the presence of the convent and, at San Jacopo, invited people into the church. San Jacopo had strong links to Dominican reformer Girolamo Savonarola, who went there to preach several times. It maintained strong allegiance after his death to his principles of reform. He had strongly encouraged convent life, creativity, and a degree of autonomy. San Jacopo was known, for example, for its printing press, one of the earliest in Europe, which provided income and fame for the convent.16 The deconsecration of the church and suppression of the Convent of San Jacopo meant that three Della Robbia lunettes made for the interior of the convent were removed from their original setting and are now at the Villa La Quiete outside Florence.17 In an ensemble similar to that at Santa Chiara, a relief of the Noli me tangere (Figure 12.3) was set above a painted altarpiece of the Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine by Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio on the right wall of the nave close to the main altar. A relief depicting Christ and Saint Thomas (Figure 12.4) was set above the Coronation of the Virgin (also by Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio) across the nave, to the left of the high altar. The ensemble raises general questions about such convent commissions: who chose the subjects of works like this? Was it the Dominican male leadership of the convent, or the

Della Robbia Sculptures for Florentine Renaissance Convents 209

Figure 12.3 Giovanni and Marco della Robbia, Noli me tangere, Villa La Quiete. © Sistema Museale dell’Università degli Studi di Firenze

Figure 12.4 Giovanni della Robbia, Christ and Saint Thomas, Villa La Quiete. © Sistema Museale dell’Università degli Studi di Firenze

210  Marietta Cambareri patron who paid for the works and almost certainly chose the artists? Did the abbess or head of the convent play a role, as she likely did at Santa Chiara? It is also important to consider the audiences for such works. San Jacopo was a relatively open community of sisters, who had a degree of interaction with the outside world, for example, in the dissemination of their books and prints, but we do not know how often they accessed the public church. Their private church was set behind the high altar of the secular church, separated by a sacristy. It is unclear if they ever attended services in the church, even from an enclosed choir like that at Santa Chiara.18 As at Santa Chiara, these splendid works were made possible by donations of a single prominent family, the Antinori.19 Niccolò Antinori’s strong support also acknowledged the fact that his daughter Caterina lived in the convent, not as a nun but as a boarder. Suffering from mental illness, she was cared for by the sisters, lived the rest of her life in the convent, and was buried there. We have to consider what such commissions meant for the patron, the neighbourhood, the city, as well as the nuns and other women attached to the convent. It is likely that the nuns understood that the works of art in their churches served to spread messages about their lives of prayer and sacrifice to the members of the lay congregation. They were not always the intended viewers but could be the silent voices behind the images, just as they were invisible when singing from their hidden choirs in these same spaces.20 There was strong devotion to both of the episodes presented in the reliefs, with Verrocchio’s famous two-figured group of Christ and Saint Thomas for Orsanmichele making that sacred narrative part of the fabric of civic life in Renaissance Florence. The Noli me tangere recounts the gospel story (John: 11–18) of Mary Magdalene going to Christ’s tomb on Easter morning to attend to his body, and finding the tomb empty. She weeps, encounters two angels, says that she does not know where Jesus’s body is, turns away and sees a man she thinks is a gardener. She does not recognize the gardener as Christ until he says her name, she is enlightened and calls him Teacher. She reaches out for him and he stops her, saying “Touch me not”. Mary Magdalene was the first person to see Jesus after the Resurrection, and by sharing this news with her fellow disciples, she became known as the Apostle to the Apostles. She believed through the sound of his voice and what she saw but did not rely on the sense of touch. Her recognition upon hearing Jesus say her name would resonate with nuns, who took on new names upon their entry into religious life. Thomas on the other hand, expressed doubts and insisted he must place his hand in the wound of Christ’s side to believe. Both scenes seek to affirm the miracle of Christ’s Resurrection and its promise of salvation for the faithful, and to explore the nature of faith.21 The focus on the body of Christ made them ideal subjects to frame the high altar, where the Liturgy of the Eucharist took place. In a convent setting, the issue of access to the Eucharist for women also must be factored in. Did the Dominican priest who attended to the spiritual and sacramental needs of the convent make this choice? Or was it Niccolò Antinori, the likely patron of the reliefs? Is the stress on the denial of touch to the Magdalene and the submission of the woman to Christ just as the nuns submitted to the male overseers of the convent? Or did it emphasize that Mary Magdalene was the first to see Christ and to spread the word of his Resurrection, as the first apostle? The Magdalene was a particularly powerful example for women in convents. This scene does not stress the penitential aspect of Magdalene’s life, very common in Renaissance Florence, including in convent settings,22 but instead her humility and her privileged closeness to Jesus, both in life and in death. It is one of the most significant interactions of a woman with Christ in the Bible. We can imagine how the scene would have very different meanings

Della Robbia Sculptures for Florentine Renaissance Convents 211

Figure 12.5 Benedetto and Santi Buglioni, Noli me tangere, Villa La Quiete. © Sistema Museale dell’Università degli Studi di Firenze

for its male and female audiences. Here, if we consider the messages that the nuns might have wanted to share with those coming to their church, a sense of the power of faith, and the special vocation of a woman favoured by Christ and called upon to bear witness to his Resurrection, may have been their goal.23 Six Della Robbia reliefs for convent settings are known on the subject of the Magdalene’s encounter with the Risen Christ.24 San Jacopo is the only one paired with the Saint Thomas scene. The differences between the public church and the enclosed spaces of the convent can be considered thanks to a second version of the Noli me tangere( Figure 12.5) for San Jacopo, which was made probably in the 1520s for the interior rooms, possibly the inner church.25 The same subject and materials were used as that for the outer church, but it was no longer seen with the contrasting theme of Christ and Saint Thomas and was more freely available for the nuns in their convent to view. It may have been placed in the private chapel of the nuns, but it was recorded just before its removal in the “stanza della Priora”, the Prioress’s room, raising other possibilities.26 A second version of the painting of The Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine was also commissioned from Ridolfo Ghirlandaio for the interior spaces. Were they arranged together in the nun’s private church as they were in the public church? These scenes, either together or separately, were considered important enough to the spiritual life of the nuns that they should have easy access to them. Like the ensemble in the public church, these works were likely paid for by Niccolò Antinori. It is clear that the spiritual needs of the nuns would have been known to him. He also surely understood, because of his daughter Caterina’s condition, what such images might mean for the spiritual health and physical and mental well-being of the women in the convent.27 The garden and landscape settings of the scenes allowed for the inclusion of trees, flowers, plants, and animals that could delight and amuse the mind and soothe the soul, easing the way for absorbing the messages about faith conveyed by the figures. Erin Benay and Lisa Rafanelli have explored issues of touch, gender, and faith in relation to the scenes of the Noli me tangere and Christ and St. Thomas. They called attention to three other glazed terracotta reliefs of the Noli me tangere in Florentine convents, as part of a series of works on the theme in the context of monastic life, including Fra

212  Marietta Cambareri Angelico’s fresco in the Monastery of San Marco. They stressed the importance of considering these reliefs and their meanings specifically in the context of women’s religious life.28 An impressive relief now in the Chiostro dei Morti of Santa Maria Novella of the Noli me tangere, attributed to Giovanni della Robbia (Figure 12.6), came from Dominican convent of Santa Lucia in Camporeggi, in Via Sangallo, a street that had numerous convents, oratories, hospitals and churches and leads out to the Porta San Gallo.29 Like San Jacopo, Santa Lucia was very closely associated with Savonarola. Links to the Della Robbia family at Santa Lucia were strong, since two of Andrea’s daughters were nuns in this convent.30 We do not know the original setting of the Noli me tangere within the convent: the putto’s head with spout, if original to the piece, indicates that it was a lavabo, and it may have been set inside the convent rooms near the chapel or refectory, for example, or even in the cloister. Benay and Rafanelli called attention to the ways in which water, related to cleansing the soul, and to Baptism and Easter rituals, adds to the story.31 The choice of naturalistic, colourful glazing would have evoked the common metaphor of cloistered life, the enclosed garden. The devotional practice of tending the soul like a garden was encouraged by a scene in which Mary Magdalene first mistakes Christ for a gardener.32 The beauty of nature and its role in healing both the body and the soul is an important aspect of these stories, and can further be seen as part of convent life since many nuns were apothecaries, nurses, and healers, obtaining or even growing herbs and plants for medicinal purposes. These talents were often shared with people outside the convent, as apothecary nuns sold their medicines to support their convents.33 Gardens and cloisters were often part of larger convent complexes. The material of local

Figure 12.6 Giovanni della Robbia, Noli me tangere, Chiostro dei Morti, Santa Maria Novella. © Sailko, 2013, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY SA 3.0

Della Robbia Sculptures for Florentine Renaissance Convents 213 clay, the technique that allowed for brilliant colours and naturalistic representations of nature, and the story all come together, each aspect enhancing the devotional impact of the reliefs. Three further scenes of the Noli me tangere served as altarpieces, bringing the idea of a flowering devotional life into the church to share with devotees outside the convent.34 Two of these, one for Sant’Orsola, in modern-day Via Guelfa, and the other for Sant’Onofrio di Fuligno, in today’s Via Faenza, both attributed to Santi Buglioni, are colourful renditions of the scene, like the Santa Lucia relief, celebrating the verdant garden setting (Figures 12.7 and 12.8). Glazed terracotta sculpture in this period was pressing the boundaries of the naturalistic possibilities of the technique. For example, Giovanni della Robbia brought an ambitious naturalism to his painted backgrounds and realism to his fruits and flowers, and Benedetto and Santi Buglioni mixed their glazes on the surface in an almost painterly way. Expressive gestures and postures brought the high-relief figures vividly to life. These qualities of visual force and presence align with devotional approaches common in women’s devotional practices, to imagine oneself in the holy scenes. A direct sense of encounter sought to elicit empathetic responses in the devotee. On the other hand, Giovan Francesco Rustici’s version for the church of San Luca in Via Sangallo eschewed the brilliant naturalistic colourism, stressing instead a mystical vision of the scene, with white glaze for the narrative scene and garden, set against a brilliant

Figure 12.7 Santi Buglioni, Noli me tangere, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, inv. 19R/15473. © Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe

214  Marietta Cambareri

Figure 12.8 Santi Buglioni, Noli me tangere, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, inv.57R/15469. © Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe

yellow glaze that evokes golden light (Figure 12.9). The broad popularity of the scene in convents suggests networks of interaction among the leaders and members of the convents, as well as their patrons and visitors; the artists would have been part of this network.35 Convents associated with different orders commissioned representations of the scene, and both the Della Robbia and Buglioni shops produced versions. Each of these works, now removed from their original settings, can be explored in detail in the contexts of the community, patronage, and neighbourhood, considering how these scenes conveyed messages to the world outside the cloister, about life and spirituality inside the “enclosed garden” of the convent. Other types of devotional objects were made for use in the interior spaces of the convents. There was the private church or chapel, as well as cells, refectories, cloisters, and hallways: all were potential sites for Della Robbia sculpture. From inventories, we know that girls and women in convents often had devotional works in their cells, including Madonna and Child images in various materials, and a number of Della Robbia reliefs that are said to come from convent settings.36 Small-scale, devotional sculptures also likely were used in convent settings. For example, Giovanni della Robbia’s Meeting of the Baby Jesus and the Young Saint John the Baptist allowed for pious interactions which would have been suitable for convent life and devotional practice.37 We know that women in convents made sculptures. Sources from the 16th century and later related to the convent of Santa Caterina da Siena list at least 12 artists, including the painter Suor Plautilla Nelli

Della Robbia Sculptures for Florentine Renaissance Convents 215

Figure 12.9  Giovan Francesco Rustici, Noli me tangere, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, inv. 50R/15429. © Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe

and other painters, illuminators, and sculptors.38 Such works were not made only for convent use, but for sale, as a way of bringing in income for the convent. While there is no indication that either of Andrea della Robbia’s daughters at Santa Lucia was a sculptor, another story recounted by Vasari suggests that it is possible that women participated in making glazed terracotta sculpture, if not in convents, then in one of the workshops. Benedetto Buglioni was said to have learned the secrets of Della Robbia glazes thanks to “a woman who came from the house of the Della Robbia who shared the secrets with him”.39 If this woman of the Della Robbia house knew the recipe, she was likely a member of the household if not the family, and might well have participated in working and modelling the clay and mixing and applying the glazes. She had the practical knowledge of these closely guarded workshop secrets. We can only hope that someday, documentary evidence might emerge that lets us know for certain that women participated in the production of this quintessentially Florentine technique, affecting Florentine devotional life through their own handiwork. Notes 1 Presented as a keynote address, this was an exploration of a possible theme for further study and this essay is a work in progress. I am grateful to Zuzanna Sarnecka and Agnieszka Dziki for inviting me to participate in this publication.

216  Marietta Cambareri 2 The bibliography on Florentine Renaissance convents and art for convents is large and growing. I refer in this note to just those works that were most important in guiding me to this topic. Sharon T. Strocchia, Nuns and Nunneries in Renaissance Florence (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 2009) is a fundamental source for this essay, along with her many articles on individual convents and specific topics. Anabel Thomas, Art and Piety in the Female Religious Communities of Renaissance Italy. Iconography, Space, and the Religious Woman’s Perspective (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003) provides a detailed survey of convent complexes and the role of art in convent settings. Erin E. Benay and Lisa M. Rafanelli, Faith, Gender and the Senses in Italian Renaissance and Baroque Art. Interpreting the ‘Noli me tangere’ and Doubting Thomas (London and New York: Routledge, 2016; First published by Ashgate: 2015) developed themes about gender and faith that encouraged the exploration of the intersection between Della Robbia sculpture and convent life. 3 Giancarlo Gentilini, I Della Robbia. La scultura invetriata nel Rinascimento, 2 vols. (Florence: Cantini & C., 1992), is a primary source for many references to the convent settings of glazed terracotta sculptures. Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi and Ilaria Ciseri, eds., La Raccolta delle Robbiane. Museo Nazionale del Bargello (Florence: Edizioni Polistampa, 2012) presents entries on the Della Robbia sculptures from convents now in the Bargello. 4 Fabrizio Nevola, Street Life in Renaissance Florence (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2020) provides broad context for considering Della Robbia sculpture in the civic spaces, piazzas and streets of Florence, with previous bibliography for street tabernacles, hospital facades, and works of art that mark those spaces. 5 Strocchia, Nuns and Nunneries, 39–71; Richard C. Trexler, “Celibacy in the Renaissance,” in Richard C. Trexler, The Women of Renaissance Florence: Power and Dependence in Renaissance Florence (Asheville, N.C.: Pegasus Press, 1998), 9–10. 6 Paolozzi Strozzi and Ciseri, La Raccolta delle Robbiane, 54–57, attributed to Luca Della Robbia, 1470–1475. 7 Strocchia, Nuns and Nunneries, 68–69. 8 For the “Ego sum Lux Mundi” scroll in Luca’s work, see Catherine Kupiec, “New Light on Luca della Robbia’s Glazes,” in The Art of Sculpture in Fifteenth-Century Florence, eds. Amy R. Bloch and Daniel M. Zolli (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 83–97. 9 Christina Klapisch-Zuber, “Holy Dolls: Play and Piety in Florence in the Quattrocento,” in Women, Family and Ritual in Renaissance Italy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 310–329. See also Maya Corry, Deborah Howard and Mary Laven, Madonnas and Miracles. The Holy Home in Renaissance Italy (London: Philip Wilson Publishers, 2017), 92–93. 10 For Santa Chiara, see Jeryldene M. Wood, “Breaking the Silence: The Poor Clares and the Visual Arts in Fifteenth-Century Italy,” Renaissance Quarterly 18 (1995), 262–286, esp. 279– 281; Sharon T. Strocchia, “Begging for Favours: The ‘New’ Clares of S. Chiara Novella and their Patrons,” in Peter Howard and Cecilia Hewlett, eds., Studies in Honour of F.W. Kent (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2016), 277–294; For San Jacopo di Ripoli, see Cristiano Giometti and Donatella Pegazzano, eds., Capolavori a Villa La Quiete. Botticelli e Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio in mostra, exh. cat. (Florence: Firenze University Press, 2016). 11 Meghan Callahan and Donal Cooper, “Set in Stone: Monumental Altar Frames in Renaissance Florence,” Renaissance Studies 24, no. 1 (2010): 33–55, esp. 46–47, for San Jacopo di Ripoli and 49–53 for Santa Chiara; Meghan Callahan, and Donal Cooper, “Sacred Space in the Modern Museum: Researching and Redisplaying the Santa Chiara Chapel in the V&A’s Medieval and Renaissance Galleries,” V&A Online Journal, no. 5 (Autumn 2013). 12 Callahan and Cooper, “Sacred Space”. 13 On the musical aspects of Luca della Robbia’s Nativity in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and for further consideration of the multi-sensory aspects of glazed terracotta sculpture, see Zuzanna Sarnecka, The Allure of Glazed Terracotta in Renaissance Italy (London and Turnhout: Harvey Miller-Brepols Publishers, 2021), 69–85, esp. 74–75. 14 Marietta Cambareri, with contributions by Abigail Hykin and Courtney Leigh Harris, Della Robbia. Sculpting with Color in Renaissance Florence (Boston: MFA Publications, 2016), 32–38. 15 Gentilini, I Della Robbia, vol. 2, 282–283. 16 Lorenzo Polizzotti, “When Nuns Fall Out: Women and the Savonarolan Reform in Early Sixteenth-Century Florence,” Renaissance Quarterly 46 (1993): 486–525; Sharon T. Strocchia, “Savonarolan Witnesses: The Nuns of San Jacopo and the Piagnone Movement in

Della Robbia Sculptures for Florentine Renaissance Convents 217 Sixteenth-Century Florence,” Sixteenth-Century Journal 38, vol. 2 (2007): 393–418; Mary D. Garrard, “The Cloister and the Square: Gender Dynamics in Renaissance Florence,” Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal 10, no. 2 (Spring 2016): 5–42, esp. 23–25. 17 For recent discussion of the programme of altarpieces and glazed terracotta lunettes, see Donatella Pegazzano, “Le pale di Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio e di Michele Tosini per il monastero di San Jacopo di Ripoli,” 35–59 and Mara Visonà and Rita Balleri, “Degli altari della chiesa di San Jacopo di Ripoli,” in Giometti and Pegazzano, Capolavori a Villa La Quiete, 77–101. 18 Thomas, Art and Piety, raises such issues throughout her book, encouraging these kinds of questions for each convent and each work. For San Jacopo in particular, see for example, 77, 97–98. 19 Pegazzano and Visonà and Balleri discuss the Antinori patronage of these works. Most recently, for another important commission to Giovanni della Robbia from the Antinori family, The Resurrection of Christ now in The Brooklyn Museum, and its relationship to the San Jacopo Della Robbia commissions, see Roberta J. M. Olson, “New Evidence about the Patron, Date, and Original Location of Giovanni della Robbia’s Antinori Resurrection,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institues in Florenz 63, no. 2, (2021): 263–273, as well as her essay in this volume. 20 See, for example, Robert L. Kendrick, Celestial Sirens. Nuns and their Music in Early Modern Milan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996); Laurie Stras, Women and Music in SixteenthCentury Ferrara (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018). 21 Benay and Rafanelli, Faith, Gender and the Senses. 22 Benay and Rafanelli, Faith, Gender and the Senses, 60–65, 85–86. For example, Mary Magdalene was the patron saint of the Convent of Santa Elisabetta delle Convertite, which took in reformed prostitutes. Sandro Botticelli’s Trinity with Saints Mary Magdalen and John the Baptist, now at The Courtauld Gallery, London, was painted for the convent church. Thomas, Art and Piety, 41–42. 23 Stefanie Solum, “Attributing Influence. The Problem of Female Patronage in Fifteenth-Century Florence,” The Art Bulletin 90, no. 1 (March 2008): 76–100, for a discussion of the challenges of discerning women’s roles in the production of works of art. 24 Benay and Rafanelli, Faith, Gender and the Senses, 82–89. 25 For the second version of the Noli me tangere, see Visonà and Balleri, 94; for the second version of the Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine, see Pegazzano, 49. 26 Visonà and Balleri, “Degli altari della chiesa di San Jacopo di Ripoli,” 85 27 For a discussion of how a disability might impact the commission and function of a work of art for a convent setting, see Andrea Pearson, “Sensory Piety as Social Intervention in a Mechelen Besloten Hofje,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 9, no. 2 (Summer 2017): 1–50; I thank Agnieszka Dziki for this reference. 28 Benay and Rafanelli, Faith Gender and the Senses, 72–89. 29 Strocchia, Nuns and Nunneries, 32–34. 30 Allan Marquand, Andrea della Robbia and his Atelier (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1922), xxiii-iv; see also Sarnecka, The Allure of Glazed Terracotta, 111–118, for a discussion of the religious lives of members of the Della Robbia family. 31 Benay and Rafanelli, Faith, Gender, and the Senses, 86–89. Giovanni della Robbia’s lavabo in the sacristy of Santa Maria Novella includes scene of a seascape which serves as a means to refresh the mind along with running water to cleanse the hands; Cambareri, Della Robbia, 76–78. 32 For an exploration of gardens and landscapes in the context of women’s devotional life, see, for example, Stefanie Solum, Women, Patronage, and Salvation in Renaissance Florence. Lucrezia Tornabuoni and the Chapel of the Medici Palace (Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2015), Chapter 5. 33 Sharon T. Strocchia, “The nun apothecaries of Renaissance Florence: marketing medicines in the convent,” Renaissance Studies 25, no. 5 (November 2011): 627–647, and Sharon T. Strocchia, Forgotten Healers: Women and the Pursuit of Health in Late Renaissance Italy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019). 34 Paolozzi Strozzi and Ciseri, La Raccolta delle Robbiane, 172–173, Giovan Francesco Rustici and Giovanni della Robbia, about 1510–1520, from the Convent of San Luca; 200–203, Santi Buglioni, ca. 1520–1525, from the Convent of Sant’Orsola; 242–245, Santi Buglioni, 1530– 1540, from the Convent of Sant’Onofrio di Fuligno.

218  Marietta Cambareri 35 Thomas, Art and Piety, 309–328; Sharon Strocchia and Julia Rombough, “Women behind walls: Tracking nuns and socio-spatial networks in sixteenth-century Florence,” in Nicholas Terpstra and Colin Rose, eds., Mapping Space, Sense, and Movement in Florence. Historical GIS and the early modern city (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 87–106. 36 Thomas, Art and Piety, 113–120; a number of Madonna and Child reliefs at the Bargello claim convent provenance; for example, Paolozzi Strozzi and Ciseri, cat. no. 27, 92–93, Andrea and Giovanni della Robbia, Adoration of the Child with the Young Saint John the Baptist, about 1495–1500, from the Convent of the Santissima Annunziata of the Murate. 37 Paolozzi Strozzi and Ciseri, La Raccolta delle Robbiane, 120–121, attributed to Giovanni della Robbia, which is said to come from the male Monastery of Santa Maria della Neve, Pistoia. 38 Catherine Turrill, “Nuns’ Stories: Suor Plautilla Nelli Madre Pittore and her Compagnie in the Convent of Santa Caterina da Siena,” in Jonathan K. Nelson, Plautilla Nelli (1524–1588). The Painter-Prioress of Renaissance (Florence: S.E.I. for Syracuse University in Florence, 2008) 9–27, esp. 14–17, where a sister is described as overseeing the production and sale of Nativity figurines in the 17th century. 39 Vasari discusses Benedetto Buglioni in the 1568 Life of Verrocchio, saying “il quale da una donna, che uscì di casa Andrea della Robbia, ebbe il segreto degli invetriati di terra”; cited in Gentilini, I Della Robbia, vol. 2, 390.

Bibliography Benay, Erin E. and Lisa M. Rafanelli. Faith, Gender and the Senses in Italian Renaissance and Baroque Art. Interpreting the ‘Noli me tangere’ and Doubting Thomas (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), First published by Ashgate: 2015. Callahan, Meghan and Donal Cooper. “Sacred Space in the Modern Museum: Researching and Redisplaying the Santa Chiara Chapel in the V&A’s Medieval and Renaissance Galleries,” V&A Online Journal, no. 5 (Autumn 2013). Callahan, Meghan and Donal Cooper. “Set in Stone: Monumental Altar Frames in Renaissance Florence,” Renaissance Studies 24, no. 1 (2010): 33–55. Cambareri, Marietta. with contributions by Abigail Hykin and Courtney Leigh Harris, Della Robbia. Sculpting with Color in Renaissance Florence, exh. cat. (Boston: MFA Publications, 2016). Corry, Maya, Deborah Howard, and Mary Laven. Madonnas and Miracles. The Holy Home in Renaissance Italy (London: Philip Wilson Publishers, 2017), 92–93. Garrard, Mary D. “The Cloister and the Square: Gender Dynamics in Renaissance Florence,” Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal 10, no. 2 (2016): 5–42. Gentilini, Giancarlo, I Della Robbia. La scultura invetriata nel Rinascimento 2 vols. (Florence: Cantini & C., 1992). Giometti, Cristiano and Donatella Pegazzano, eds. Capolavori a Villa La Quiete. Botticelli e Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio in mostra, exh. cat. (Florence: Firenze University Press, 2016). Kendrick, Robert L. Celestial Sirens. Nuns and their Music in Early Modern Milan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). Klapisch-Zuber, Christina. “Holy Dolls: Play and Piety in Florence in the Quattrocento.” In Women, Family and Ritual in Renaissance Italy, 310–329 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985). Kupiec, Catherine. “New Light on Luca della Robbia’s Glazes.” In The Art of Sculpture in Fifteenth-Century Florence, edited by Amy R. Bloch and Daniel M. Zolli, 83–97 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020). Marquand, Allan. Andrea della Robbia and his Atelier (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1922). Nevola, Fabrizio. Street Life in Renaissance Florence (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2020). Paolozzi Strozzi, Beatrice and Ilaria Ciseri, eds. La Raccolta delle Robbiane. Museo Nazionale del Bargello (Florence: Edizioni Polistampa, 2012).

Della Robbia Sculptures for Florentine Renaissance Convents 219 Pearson, Andrea. “Sensory Piety as Social Intervention in a Mechelen Besloten Hofje,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 9, no. 2 (2017): 1–50. Pegazzano, Donatella. “Le pale di Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio e di Michele Tosini per il monastero di San Jacopo di Ripoli,” 35–59 and Mara Visonà and Rita Balleri, “Degli altari della chiesa di San Jacopo di Ripoli,” 77–101, in Giometti and Pegazzano, Capolavori a Villa La Quiete. Polizzotti, Lorenzo. “When Nuns Fall Out: Women and the Savonarolan Reform in Early SixteenthCentury Florence,” Renaissance Quarterly 46 (1993): 486–525. Sarnecka, Zuzanna. The Allure of Glazed Terracotta in Renaissance Italy (London and Turnhout: Harvey Miller-Brepols Publishers, 2021). Solum, Stefanie. “Attributing Influence. The Problem of Female Patronage in Fifteenth-Century Florence,” The Art Bulletin 90, no. 1 (2008): 76–100. Solum, Stefanie. Women, Patronage, and Salvation in Renaissance Florence. Lucrezia Tornabuoni and the Chapel of the Medici Palace (Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2015). Stras, Laurie. Women and Music in Sixteenth-Century Ferrara (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018). Strocchia, Sharon T. “Begging for Favours: The ‘New’ Clares of S. Chiara Novella and their Patrons.” In Peter Howard and Cecilia Hewlett, eds., Studies in Honour of F.W. Kent, 277–294 (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2016). Strocchia, Sharon T. Nuns and Nunneries in Renaissance Florence (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 2009). Strocchia, Sharon T. “Savonarolan Witnesses: The Nuns of San Jacopo and the Piagnone Movement in Sixteenth-Century Florence,” Sixteenth-Century Journal 38, no. 2 (2007): 393–418. Strocchia, Sharon T. “The nun apothecaries of Renaissance Florence: marketing medicines in the convent,” Renaissance Studies 25, no. 5 (November 2011): 627–647, and Sharon T. Strocchia, Forgotten Healers: Women and the Pursuit of Health in Late Renaissance Italyce Italy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019). Strocchia, Sharon and Julia Rombough. “Women behind Walls: Tracking Nuns and Socio-spatial Networks in Sixteenth-Century Florence.” In Mapping Space, Sense, and Movement in Florence. Historical GIS and the early modern city, edited by Nicholas Terpstra and Colin Rose, 87–106 (London and New York: Routledge, 2016). Thomas, Anabel. Art and Piety in the Female Religious Communities of Renaissance Italy. Iconography, Space, and the Religious Woman’s Perspective (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003). Trexler, Richard C. The Women of Renaissance Florence: Power and Dependence in Renaissance Florence (Asheville, NC: Pegasus Press, 1998), 9–10. Turrill, Catherine. “Nuns’ Stories: Suor Plautilla Nelli Madre Pittore and her Compagnie in the Convent of Santa Caterina da Siena.” In Jonathan K. Nelson, Plautilla Nelli (1524–1588). The Painter-Prioress of Renaissance, 9–27 (Florence: S.E.I. for Syracuse University in Florence, 2008). Wood, Jeryldene M. “Breaking the Silence: The Poor Clares and the Visual Arts in FifteenthCentury Italy,” Renaissance Quarterly 18 (1995): 262–286.

13 “Ut firmetur quod formatum est” Augustinian Terracottas, and a Note on Two Sculptures from the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts Marco Scansani Università degli Studi di Trento, Trento, Italy The rebirth of the terracotta sculpture technique in Italy in the fifteenth century, after a thousand years of almost total abandonment during the Middle Ages, was primarily due to a new antiquarian awareness. As Luciano Bellosi has demonstrated, the rediscovery of sculpting in clay in the workshop of Lorenzo Ghiberti was certainly not a coincidence or a simple technical experiment: the Tuscan artist was perfectly aware of the praise that Pliny the Elder had reserved for terracotta sculpture in the Naturalis Historia. The recovery of that ancient technique therefore enjoyed a “wonderful humanistic justification”.1 However, it was not only the antiquarian vocation that guaranteed the extraordinary fortune enjoyed by terracotta sculpture in the fifteenth century. Certainly not all the clients, artists, and viewers were aware of the cultural value of that medium. The terracotta sculptures of the fifteenth century in Italy were always intended to be painted and as such their material was concealed and sometimes, they resembled polychromed wood, stucco, or marble (when they were painted white) therefore sometimes nullifying the symbolic value of clay.2 Economic, geographical factors (for example in places without marble quarries), logistic factors (due to the ease of transport), and other symbolic values that intersected with the antiquarian one also favoured its diffusion.3 For example, it has been well demonstrated that the Franciscans, in the first centuries after the foundation of their order, had favoured painting over more sumptuous marble sculpture.4 During the fifteenth century, they commissioned many works in terracotta, because that material – ancient and innovative at the same time – appeared as a “humble” compromise between painting and sculpture. Terracotta was a formidable solution to obtain naturalistic results, in line with the optimistic vision of creation promoted by the Franciscans and perfect for didactic purposes.5 Like the followers of St. Francis, the Augustinians also understood the potential of that medium and greatly favoured its diffusion. This mendicant order, despite the name, was born long after the death of St. Augustine of Hippo (but he was always considered the ideal founder), that is, in 1244 when several hermit communities of Tuscany united under one only rule. During the fourteenth century, the plague caused very serious losses to the religious communities, which in order to survive also had to admit people without a vocation or training, which inevitably led to a relaxation of the rules. However, between the end of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth century, movements began to arise (the most important of which were in Lombardy) with the aim of returning to the strict observance of the rules, therefore to a DOI: 10.4324/9781003327462-18

“Ut firmetur quod formatum est” 221 more faithful attention to the texts of St. Augustine.6 At the same time, the order began to commission numerous terracotta works to decorate its churches, and it can hardly be considered a simple coincidence, especially if we take into account that the bishop of Hippo very often in his texts used references to clay, terracotta, to the world of potters and of modelling in clay in general as precious metaphors for his theological reflections. For him the creator God was comparable to a skilled modeller: “And is He not a potter when He makes men frail, weak, earthly?”.7 This is a metaphor that is certainly not unprecedented. It is often found in the Old Testament, covertly in Genesis8 and more explicitly in the Books of Isaiah,9 Jeremiah,10 Job,11 Wisdom,12 and Sirach.13 It was also a topos in various myths, including that of the creation of man by Prometheus through a mixture of earth and fire.14 Hence St. Augustine compares men to vases, following the words of St. Paul15 perhaps inspired by Cicero who affirms in Tuscolane, “The body, on the other hand, is as it were a vessel, or a kind of container, for the soul”.16 But the Bishop of Hippo dwells surprisingly accurately on this metaphor, delving into every aspect of the terracotta creation process. From the importance of the balance between the heat and humidity of the clay: “Thou must needs be baken; as though thou wert a clay vessel, thou art cast into the furnace of fire, in order that the thing which hath been formed may be strong. The vessel then now by fire being made strong feareth not the water: but if the vessel shall not have been hardened by fire, like mud in water it will be dissolved”,17 to the delicate firing phase, with the possible risk of breakage “That is, may he allow us not only, like well-made earthenware jars, to enter the furnace, but also to come out of it whole and entire”.18 For St. Augustine, modelling in clay is the perfect metaphor to describe the relationship between God and man, and between the latter and the tribulations of life, which can strengthen him “A shard is made hard by fire. In the same way the strength of the body of Christ is not consumed by fire like straw, but like a shard is made strong by suffering as if by fire”19 or shatter him like frail earthenware “You have been broken in the furnace like an earthen vessel. The word has moulded you, and there has come the trial of tribulation”.20 St. Augustine does not mention terracotta only in a metaphorical sense, but emphasizes its symbolic values by contrasting it with pagan sculptures made of precious materials: “The idols of the nations are silver and gold. He didn’t say stone, he didn’t say wood, he didn’t say earthenware, but what they value highly, silver and gold. Yet even silver and gold have eyes and cannot see”.21 This is a very appropriate theme for ancient Rome, aimed at criticizing the rampant fashion for precious sculptures derived from Eastern conquests, compared to the ancient sobriety of Italic and Etruscan terracotta. We already find it in Livy “For now I hear far too many people praising and marvelling at the ornaments of Corinth and Athens and laughing at the terracotta antefixes of our Roman gods. I prefer these gods, who are propitious and will remain so, I hope, if we permit them to remain in their proper places”22; then in Pliny the Elder “The origin of bronze statuary is so old, the images of the gods which were dedicated in sanctuaries were more often of wood or terracotta right down to the time of the conquest of Asia, whence came luxury”.23 This tradition was finally revived in the sixties of the fourteenth century by Francesco Petrarca who in De remediis utriusque fortunae says that terracotta sculpture is better than other materials because “It be more freendly, and come neerest to vertue, or is lesse animie to modestie and thriftinesse”.24 The antiquarian and moralizing reference is evident: the will to regain possession of a mythical sober and virtuous past, also in line with the Christian sensibility, and the humanistic spirit, must have played a primary role

222  Marco Scansani in the rebirth of terracotta in the fifteenth century. And certainly, the observant Augustinian communities, so attentive to the words of their ideal founder, found in that medium the perfect instrument for the diffusion of their thought. An example of fifteenth-century terracotta commissioned by an Augustinian community is the pair of statues depicting St. Monica (Figure 13.1) and St. Augustine (Figure 13.2) in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest. The two figures seem to exchange glances and words, their heads are turned towards each other to converse, their mouths are slightly open, their eyes are wide open and attentive, and even their hands and bodies seem to participate in the communication.25 The dialogue refers to the book that Monica holds open in her hands, as if, after reading, the mother wanted to comment and share the text with her son. St. Augustine does not listen passively, but participates, reasons, answers, and holds a finger as if to fix the points of the reasoning: the relationship between the two characters is profound and indissoluble. From a technical point of view, the two sculptures were modelled in clay, probably of fluvial origin, in which the Po Valley is still very rich. Before being modelled, the material was subjected to standard treatments to make it more homogeneous, to reduce impurities, excess water and air bubbles (by grinding, sieving, fluidization, and beating). The type and mixture of clay was carefully chosen by the artist who had to know the materials well to predict their behaviour and the shrinkage coefficient in the drying and firing phases. The two figures were therefore shaped by adding portions of clay, then modelled by hand and finished with the use of tools (wire loop tools, wooden sticks, knives, etc.)

Figure 13.1 Giovanni de Fondulis, Saint Monica, terracotta, c. 1475 1475, 115 × 49 × 26 cm, Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts, inv. 4973. © Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

“Ut firmetur quod formatum est” 223

Figure 13.2 Giovanni de Fondulis, Saint Augustine, terracotta, c. 1475, 119.5 × 35 × 27 cm, Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts, inv. 4973. © Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

to obtain the most minute details, as can be seen in the wrinkles of St. Monica and in the beard of St. Augustine. After drying, when the clay statues have reached a solidity close to that of leather, they were cut, using a metal wire or a knife, and emptied to reduce the thickness of the surfaces as much as possible (useful for avoiding cracks and reaching homogeneous firing). After the emptying, the parts were reunited, the two statues were in fact fired whole: a not very frequent solution; in fact, usually the artists prefer to fire the statue divided into horizontal sections and then reassemble them after firing (with plaster or mastic). The fact that the sculptures were fired whole was made possible by the small size of the two figures (a little smaller than the life-size) and the undoubted ability of the artist who evidently controlled the behaviour of the clay and the furnace temperature.26 Once fired, as often happened, the two statues were covered with a plaster-based preparatory state intended for the reception of the polychromy that surely had to accentuate the raw realism of the figures. Until 1907 the colours were still partially visible, but today they have been totally lost.27 The fact that the statues were modelled in the round and accurately finished also in the rear part suggests a placement in an architectural altar with several figures free in space, perhaps following the example of Donatello in the altar of the Basilica of St. Anthony of Padua. The male figure wears a cope over a tunic furrowed by deep vertical folds. He has a bishop’s mitre on his head, and wears gloves. The drapery appears thick and heavy and gives the figure an austere appearance. The female figure broke in half during a move at the beginning of the last century, but despite the necessary reintegration her slim and

224  Marco Scansani slender shape is perfectly legible, and her dress crossed by dense parallel and calligraphic folds gives the impression of a “spiral” twist, which, as Adolfo Venturi observed, recalls the drapery of Pietro Lombardo.28 The left leg flexes slightly, wrapped in the mantle that emphasizes the volume of the knee, while the pointed shoes come out just below the long robe and the small arms seem to disappear inside the sleeves of the monastic habit. A veil surrounds her neck and head; her face is furrowed with deep wrinkles, so expressive as to appear caricatured; her eyebrows are marked by sharp diagonal strokes that underline the almost spirited gaze of the elderly woman. St. Monica’s unnaturally flexed hands show all the signs of her old age: veins and tendons can be seen beneath her skin. This peculiar detail in 1907 convinced Cornelius von Fabriczy to assign the Augustinian saints to a corpus of stylistically homogeneous terracottas which, as a result to a false document, were attributed to Giovanni Minelli, a marble sculptor active in Padua in the second half of the fifteenth century.29 Only in 2006, thanks to an archival discovery, Giuliana Ericani was able to find the true author of that corpus of works, namely Giovanni de Fondulis, author of a large terracotta altarpiece depicting the Baptism of Christ, commissioned thanks to the interest of the municipality of Bassano for the church of San Giovanni Battista.30 As Fabriczy recalled, before passing through the Adolf von Beckerath’s31 collection and arriving at the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts, the terracottas were in same city of the Veneto.32 Starting from this assumption, Ericani hypothesized that the two sculptures came from the Augustinian convent that was annexed to the church of San Giovanni Battista in Bassano, and therefore represented “two almost private trials, inside the convent, designed to test the skills of the artist”33 before awarding him the commission in 1474 for the main altarpiece which depicts the Baptism of Christ. That convent, which effectively housed Augustinian nuns since the fourteenth century, however, remained empty between 1465 and 1486, because the nuns had moved temporarily to the convent of Saint Pancras.34 Only in the eighties of the fifteenth century, some nuns returned, with the consent of the bishop’s vicar general, to the original convent which was abandoned and in ruins.35 It is therefore impossible that the figures of St. Augustine and St. Monica were located in this building adjacent to the church. If the two statues really come from Bassano, we should therefore imagine an original destination for other Augustinian churches or monasteries in the city, such as the female convent of Saint Pancras or the male one of Saint Catherine.36 This last convent in particular was under municipal patronage, and the city council – as it happened for the church of San Giovanni Battista – often intervened in the design and commission of the decorative works. It is also important to underline that the religious complex of Saint Catherine, in the mid-seventies of the fifteenth century, was inhabited by friars from Milan, Cremona, Bergamo and Brescia, who had joined the Augustinian Observance of Lombardy.37 A movement which aimed to bring greater attention to the teaching of the Bishop of Hippo, and which developed in Northern Italy from the convent of Saint Augustine in Crema, the birthplace of Giovanni de Fondulis and where, still very young, he worked alongside his father Fondulino in the service of the Augustinians.38 In fact, before arriving in Padua in 1468, and becoming one of the most important terracotta sculptors of the post-Donatellian phase, Giovanni had a long – and still obscure – Lombard activity.39 It is therefore not to be excluded that the statues now in Budapest were commissioned thanks to the support of the Augustinian Observance in Lombardy, which had its easternmost headquarters in Bassano, and which must have appreciated the terracotta medium as a suitable vehicle for transmitting the order’s spiritual message.

“Ut firmetur quod formatum est” 225 Notes 1 Luciano Bellosi, “Ipotesi sull’origine delle terrecotte quattrocentesche”, in Jacopo Della Quercia fra Gotico e Rinascimento, ed. Giulietta Chelazzi Dini (Florence: Centro Di, 1977), 167. 2 Paolo Bensi, “Alla vita della terracotta era necessario il colore. Appunti sulla policromia della statuaria fittile”, in La scultura in terracotta, ed. Maria Grazia Vaccari (Florence: Centro Di, 1996), 34–43. 3 Bruce Boucher, “Italian Renaissance Terracotta: Artistic Revival or Technological Innovation?”, in Earth and Fire: Italian Terracotta Sculpture from Donatello to Canova, ed. Bruce Boucher (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 1–10. 4 Enrica Neri Lusanna, “I francescani e la scultura”, in L’arte di Francesco, capolavori d’arte italiana e terre d’Asia dal XIII al XV secolo, ed. Angelo Tartuferi, Francesco D’Arelli (Florence: Giunti, 2015), 115–129. 5 Giancarlo Gentilini, I Della Robbia. La scultura invetriata del Rinascimento (Florence: Cantini, 1992), 28–34; Marco Scansani, “L’attività scultorea di Sperandio Savelli: marmi, terrecotte e committenze francescane”, Studi di Memofonte 22 (2019): 69. 6 Maurizio Sangalli, “L’osservanza agostiniana in Lombardia: gli esordi cremaschi, 1439–1498”, Insula Fulcheria 43 (2013): 53–83. 7 Augustinus Hipponensis, Enarrationes in Psalmos, 93:23. “Nonne figulus est, cum fragiles, infirmos, et terrenos facit?”. 8 Gn 2:7. The name Adam has assonances with the Hebrew words “earth” and “red”. 9 Is 45:9 (the translation of this Bible quote, and those in the following notes, are from the New Revised Standard Version). “Woe to you who strive with your Maker, earthen vessels with the potter! Does the clay say to the one who fashions it”, “What are you making?” or “Your work has no handles?” 10 Je 18:3–4. “So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him”. 11 Job 10:9. “Remember that you fashioned me like clay; and will you turn me to dust again?”. 12 Wis 15:7. “A potter kneads the soft earth and laboriously molds each vessel for our service, fashioning out of the same clay both the vessels that serve clean uses and those for contrary uses, making all alike; but which shall be the use of each of them the worker in clay decides”. 13 Sir 33:13. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, to be molded as he pleases, so all are in the hand of their Maker, to be given whatever he decides”. 14 Plato, Dialoghi filosofici, ed. Giuseppe Cambiano (Turin: Utet 1970), 320–322. 15 2 Cor 4:7. “But we have this treasure in clay jars”. 16 Marcus Tullius Cicero, Tusculanae disputationes, 1, 22, 52. “Nam corpus quidam vas est aut aliquod animi receptaculum”. 17 Augustinus Hipponensis, Enarrationes in Psalmos, 65:17. “Coqui te oportet: tamquam vas fictum mitteris in caminum ignis, ut firmetur quod formatum est. Vas ergo iam igne firmatum aquam non timet; vas autem si solidatum igne non fuerit, tamquam lutum aqua solvetur”. 18 Augustinus Hipponensis, Enarrationes in Psalmos, 223/E. “Ut tamquam in fornacem vasa fictilia non solum bene formata nos patiatur intrare, sed etiam integra inde valeamus exire”. 19 Augustinus Hipponensis, Epistolae, 140:15.37. “Testa igne firmata est: sic et virtus corporis Christi non sicut fenum igne consumitur, sed sicut testa passione velut igne firmatur”. 20 Augustinus Hipponensis, Enarrationes in Psalmos, 69:5. “Fractus es in fornace tamquam vas fictile. Formavit te verbum, et venit tentatio tribulationis”. 21 Augustinus Hipponensis, Sermones, 105:9.12. “Idola gentium argentum et aurum. Non dixit: Lapis; non dixit: Lignum; non dixit: Testa: sed quod pro magno habent, argentum et aurum. Tamen ipsum argentum et aurum oculos habent, et non vident”. 22 Titus Livius, Ab Urbe condita, XXXIV, 4, 1–4. “Iam nimis multos audio Corinthi et Athenarum ornamenta laudantes mirantesque et antefixa fictilia deorum Romanorum ridentes. Ego hos malo propitios deos et ita spero futuros, si in suis manere sedibus patiemur”. 23 Gaius Plinius Secundus, Naturalis historia, XXXIV, 34. “Cum statuarum origo tam vetus Italiae sit, lignea potius aut fictilia deorum simulacra in delubris dicata usque ad devictam Asiam, unde luxuria”. 24 Francesco Petrarca, De remediis utriusque fortunae, I, 41.8. “Amicior virtuti aut certe minus inimica modestiae in primis et frugalitati”. For the English translation of the quotation see

226  Marco Scansani Michael Baxandall, Giotto and the Orators: Humanist Observers of Painting in Italy and the Discovery of Pictorial Composition, 1350–1450 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 56. 25 On the two statues see: Jolán Balogh, Katalog der ausländischen Bildwerke des Museums der bildenden Künste in Budapest (Budapest: Akad. Kiadó, 1975), 130–131 (with references to previous bibliography); Giuliana Ericani, “Giovanni de Fondulis. Un importante capitolo della scultura rinascimentale padana”, in Rinascimento cremasco: arti, maestri e botteghe tra XV e XVI secolo, ed. Paola Venturelli (Milan: Skira, 2015), 75; Marco Scansani, “Giovanni de Fondulis a Padova”, in A nostra immagine. Scultura in terracotta del Rinascimento da Donatello a Riccio, ed. Andrea Nante, Carlo Cavalli and Aldo Galli (Verona: Scripta, 2020), 81. 26 For an overview of the technical procedures in the creation of terracotta sculptures see: Giancarlo Gentilini, “La scultura fiorentina in terracotta del Rinascimento: tecniche e tipologie”, in La scultura in terracotta, ed. Maria Grazia Vaccari and Paolo Bensi (Florence: Centro Di, 1996), 64–103. Thanks to João Rolaça for the valuable suggestions related to the technical aspects of modeling and firing. 27 Cornelius von Fabriczy, “Giovanni Minello, ein Paduaner Bildner vom Ausgang des Quattrocento”, Jahrbuch der Königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen 28 (1907): 75. 28 Adolfo Venturi, Storia dell’arte italiana, X.1 (Milan: Hoepli, 1935), 412. 29 Marco Scansani, “Due nuove opere di Giovanni de Fondulis”, Arte Veneta 75 (2018): 184, note 10. 30 Giuliana Ericani, in La scultura al tempo di Andrea Mantegna: tra classicismo e naturalismo, ed. Vittorio Sgarbi (Milan: Electa 2006), 92–95. 31 Otto von Falke, Nachlass Adolf von Beckerath (Berlin: Rudolph Lepke’s Kunst-Auctions-Haus, 1916), 12 cat. 72–73. 32 Cornelius von Fabriczy, “Giovanni Minello, ein Paduaner Bildner vom Ausgang des Quattrocento”, Jahrbuch der Königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen 28 (1907): 75. 33 Giuliana Ericani, “Giovanni de Fondulis. Un importante capitolo della scultura rinascimentale padana”, in Rinascimento cremasco: arti, maestri e botteghe tra XV e XVI secolo, ed. Paola Venturelli (Milan: Skira, 2015), 75. 34 In that phase the convent near the church of San Giovanni Battista was occupied only for a short time, but by Benedictine nuns. Giovanni Mantese, Bassano nella storia: la religiosità (Bassano del Grappa: Parrocchia di S. Maria in Colle, 1980), 308–310. 35 In 1473 the vicar general of Bishop Battista Zeno agreed to the return of the Augustinian nuns to the abandoned building next to the church of San Giovanni Battista, but the hermits returned to the ancient structure only from July 1486. Giovanni Mantese, Memorie storiche della Chiesa vicentina, III.2 (Vicenza: Accademia Olimpica, 1964), 308–310. 36 Mantese, Bassano nella storia, 69–85. 37 Mantese, Bassano nella storia, 72–73 note 154. 38 Fondulino himself, after being widowed, became part of the Augustinian order, changing his name to Fra Germano: Marco Scansani, “Giovanni de Fondulis: un protagonista dell’arte della terracotta nel Quattrocento tra Lombardia e Veneto” (PhD diss., Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, 2020), 50. 39 Winifred Terni De’ Gregory, “Giovanni da Crema and his “Seated Goddess”, The Burlington Magazine 92 (1950): 159–160; Carlo Piastrella, “Le tavolette da soffitto della biblioteca del convento di Sant’Agostino di Crema”, Arte Lombarda 146–147 (2006): 233; Aldo Galli and Matteo Facchi, “Notizie dal fronte occidentale: le origini di Giovanni de Fondulis e la scultura in terracotta a Crema alla metà del Quattrocento”, in A nostra immagine. Scultura in terracotta del Rinascimento da Donatello a Riccio, ed. Andrea Nante, Carlo Cavalli and Aldo Galli (Verona: Scripta, 2020), 67–77; Marco Scansani, “Giovanni de Fondulis a Padova”, A nostra immagine. Scultura in terracotta del Rinascimento da Donatello a Riccio, ed. Andrea Nante, Carlo Cavalli and Aldo Galli (Verona: Scripta, 2020), 79–89.

Bibliography Balogh, Jolán, Katalog der ausländischen Bildwerke des Museums der bildenden Künste in Budapest (Budapest: Akad. Kiadó, 1975). Baxandall, Michael, Giotto and the Orators: Humanist Observers of Painting in Italy and the Discovery of Pictorial Composition, 1350–1450 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971).

“Ut firmetur quod formatum est” 227 Bellosi, Luciano, “Ipotesi sull’origine delle terrecotte quattrocentesche”, in Jacopo Della Quercia fra Gotico e Rinascimento, edited by Giulietta Chelazzi Dini (Florence: Centro Di, 1977). Bensi, Paolo, “Alla vita della terracotta era necessario il colore. Appunti sulla policromia della statuaria fittile”, in La scultura in terracotta, edited by Maria Grazia Vaccari (Florence: Centro Di, 1996), 34–43. Boucher, Bruce, “Italian Renaissance Terracotta: Artistic Revival or Technological Innovation?”, in Earth and Fire: Italian Terracotta Sculpture from Donatello to Canova, edited by Bruce Boucher (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 1–10. De’ Gregory, Winifred Terni, “Giovanni da Crema and his “Seated Goddess”, The Burlington Magazine 92 (1950): 159–160. Ericani, Giuliana, “Giovanni de Fondulis. Un importante capitolo della scultura rinascimentale padana”, in Rinascimento cremasco: arti, maestri e botteghe tra XV e XVI secolo, edited by Paola Venturelli (Milan: Skira, 2015), 69–81. Gentilini, Giancarlo, I Della Robbia. La scultura invetriata del Rinascimento (Florence: Cantini, 1992). Gentilini, Giancarlo, “La scultura fiorentina in terracotta del Rinascimento: tecniche e tipologie”, in La scultura in terracotta, edited by Maria Grazia Vaccari and Paolo Bensi (Florence: Centro Di, 1996), 64–103. Nante, Andrea, Carlo Cavalli and Aldo Galli eds., A nostra immagine. Scultura in terracotta del Rinascimento da Donatello a Riccio (Verona: Scripta, 2020). Neri Lusanna, Enrica, “I francescani e la scultura”, in L’arte di Francesco, capolavori d’arte italiana e terre d’Asia dal XIII al XV secolo, edited by Angelo Tartuferi, Francesco D’Arelli (Florence: Giunti, 2015), 115–129. Plato, Dialoghi filosofici, edited by Giuseppe Cambiano (Turin: Utet, 1970). Sangalli, Maurizio, “L’osservanza agostiniana in Lombardia: gli esordi cremaschi, 1439–1498”, Insula Fulcheria 43 (2013): 53–83. Scansani, Marco, “L’attività scultorea di Sperandio Savelli: marmi, terrecotte e committenze francescane”, Studi di Memofonte 22 (2019): 54–113. Scansani, Marco, “Giovanni de Fondulis a Padova”, in A nostra immagine. Scultura in terracotta del Rinascimento da Donatello a Riccio, edited by Andrea Nante, Carlo Cavalli and Aldo Galli (Verona: Scripta, 2020), 79–89. The Holy Bible. New Revised Standard Version (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). Venturi, Adolfo, Storia dell’arte italiana (Milan: Hoepli, 1935). Von Fabriczy, Cornelius, “Giovanni Minello, ein Paduaner Bildner vom Ausgang des Quattrocento”, Jahrbuch der Königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen 28 (1907): 53–89.

14 The Papal Clay Firing Terracotta Sculptures in Sixteenth-Century Rome Zuzanna Sarnecka University of Warsaw, Poland

Introduction The economic potential of Rome in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries seemed to have been strictly connected to the pope, and the documents reveal a notable decline in trade and in the import of goods to the city during the periods of his absence.1 In the past, historians pointed out that due to the scarcity of major industries in the city, “the Church” was the main drive behind the city’s economic activity. However, more recently this view has been challenged by scholars, who have highlighted the power of artists and artisans, as well as the class of agricultural entrepreneurs (bovattieri), as at least partially responsible for driving the Roman economy.2 In turn, this growing entrepreneurial and merchant class has developed interest in artistic commissions.3 From the half of the fourteenth century, the construction and decoration of family chapels became an ambition of that social group, who hoped to link their families to the Eternal City and to achieve the status of “cittadini romani”. However, the new patrons adopted different strategies when commissioning their chapels in Rome. Some remained faithful to their parishes (rioni), well into the sixteenth century,4 while others sought more prominent locations, in particular within the context of the Mendicant churches.5 The significance of the Franciscan order for the rebirth of terracotta sculpture has been discussed by previous scholars.6 However, apart from the material poverty of widely accessible clay, typically signalled in this context, it is important to highlight the pursuit of a simple life, immersed in nature away from the bustling city.7 Such connection to earth could be aptly communicated through terracotta figures.8 Richly decorated with foliage, fruits and animals, terracotta altarpieces established a link between a devotee praying in a private chapel in Rome and hermitages, or other secluded locations, in which Franciscan monks prayed for the salvation of mankind.9 From the early sixteenth century onwards, the increasing popularity of terracotta sculptures, either glazed or painted in cold polychromy, could be linked to the Romans’ ambition to manifest the durability and lasting quality of their faith, while celebrating the connection with the natural world and the cycle of life. Through analysis of written and iconographic sources, this chapter seeks to retrieve the significance of terracotta as a sculptural material in sixteenth-century Rome. Kilns in the Eternal City Across the Papal States different strategies for firing terracotta sculptures were employed.10 To try and determine the location of the kilns in any given location it is necessary to consult a range of documents. Apart from written reports of archaeological DOI: 10.4324/9781003327462-19

The Papal Clay 229 excavations, which provide a tangible and conclusive information about past sites and structures of kilns, important sources include chronicles of the city, descriptions included in the catasti, notarial records that describe the constructions of kilns in specific sites, as well as visual sources, such as maps or technical drawings. As in the majority of other Italian cities, Roman kilns would have been used for numerous purposes from firing of bricks and other architectural elements, through kitchenware to small- and large-scale sculptures. The documents for fifteenth-century Rome suggest a high quantity of kilns around the Borgo San Pietro.11 In the sixteenth century, the structures tended to be established almost exclusively outside the Porta Cavalleggeri, in the direction of the via Aurelia, in the so-called “Valley of the Kilns” (Vallis fornacum), as described on a 1551 map of Rome by Leonardo Bufalini.12 Another map by Mario Cartaro from 1576 includes images of the kilns in the zone outside the city walls, with suggestive smoke coming out of one of the kilns (Figure 14.1). These images document the relocation of the kiln masters (fornaciai) from their working site near Castel Sant’Angelo ordered by Pope Pius II Piccolomini in 1458.13 This was motivated by the perceived risk of fires and for the purpose of hygiene and cleanliness, as the fumes from the kilns polluted the air. The permanent kilns established outside the city walls would typically have two chambers, a combustion chamber (camera di combustione) and a firing chamber (camera di cottura), which guaranteed better results than temporary, single-chamber kilns.14 The new site was advantageous not only from the safety perspective, but also thanks to the easy access to fine clay deposits, rich in silica, defined in documents as sourced from the “monte della cava della creta bianca”, just outside the Porta Cavalleggieri.15 Cartaro’s map locates the kilns close to the clay pits and this proximity facilitated the transport of fine clay to artisanal workshops. The cost of the transport of raw clay depended on the distance and the quantity of material. For instance, in 1528 a certain Silvestro Arcangeli received 6 florins for 12 salmi of clay (c. 27 tons = 18 cubic yards), which he brought to the small Marchigian city of Montecassiano for the construction of the kiln for firing terracotta sculptures.16

Figure 14.1 Mario Cartaro, Map of Rome from 1576, Biblioteca di Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte (Roma X. 648). © Clara Seghesio

230  Zuzanna Sarnecka The single location of the kilns in the Borgo delle Fornaci meant that workshops operated hand-in-hand, which could have a positive effect on the quality and quantity of produced goods. The surveillance of a working ethic of individual artisans by their neighbouring competitors in trade, warranted a close adherence to guild regulations formulated in 1484. The document consists of 29 clauses, which highlight the need of unity among the inscribed members.17 The regulations stress the importance of religion and name St. Michael Archangel the patron saint of the kiln masters. In 1552, a church dedicated to this saint was established in the vicinity of the Università dei Fornaciai (S. Angelo delle Fornaci) on the Via di Sant’Antonino (present-day Via Aurelia Nuova), on the territory bequeathed by the Pucci family.18 Until that time the guild practised their devotions in St. Peter’s Cathedral. The sixth place among the forty guilds of Rome in the annual procession on the day of St. Salvatore (15th of August), confirms the significance of the kiln masters in the artisanal class of the sixteenth-century Rome.19 The unity among the artisans is clear in documents that testify to the split costs of maintenance of the street with kilns. One document listed 16 masters, which had their kilns with the front outlooking the Via delle Fornaci contributing to the upkeep of the street.20 Lastly, contracts for a shared use of kilns by the Roman fornaciai confirm the spirit of collaboration among these workers, or at least access by different masters to the same kiln, and the same procedure of firing. Kiln masters frequently established periods of the shared use of the kiln (ad exercitum fornacis), as in the case of maestro fornaciaio Antonio di Vigivano and the kiln owner Giovanni di Ludovico di Narni (resident in rione Ponte). The kiln was a site of a fruitful collaboration for three years, at which point the artisans decided to part their ways. According to the documents published by Alfio Cortonesi, Antonio left to Giovanni “all tools, which belong to the kiln and all works, which were in the furnace”, in exchange for the credit at the kiln to the sum of 50 ducats of camera. The kiln owner also had to compensate the three sons of Antonio and to pay for all the unfulfilled contracts and materials including wood for the kiln.21 This partnership highlights a strong financial position of the Roman kiln owners and suggests a relative ease to employ skilled kiln masters, as it is safe to assume that Vigivano wished to continue the use of the kiln, but Antonio wanted to find another head of the firing activity for his workshop. Terracotta Sculpture in Rome Not much of religious sculpture in terracotta from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries has survived in Rome. This is hardly surprising given the immense popularity of marble and bronze statues for both architectural and free-standing devotional figures.22 However, a number of early sixteenth-century terracotta sculptures survived in churches across Rome testifying to the significance of the medium for production of popular devotional images. A majority of sculptures depict the Virgin and Child, including an image in low relief above the high altar of the Church of St. Dominic and Sixtus, decorated with prominent golden crowns, which highlight the communal piety to the Virgin; or an image of Madonna Lactans from the Il Gesù and The Virgin and Child surrounded by three cherubs from the church of St. Ivo dei Bretoni. Other saints appear in terracotta sculptures, including Saint Sebastian from the church of Aracoeli.23 Beyond terracotta sculptures with cold polychromy, close ties between Rome and Florence, guaranteed interest among Roman patrons in the newly developed technique of glazed terracotta. In the sixteenth century terracotta was appreciated for its versatility

The Papal Clay 231 and plasticity, yet, as pointed out by Vasari in his biography of Luca della Robbia, one just had to: “find a method whereby works made with it might be preserved for a long time”. The covering of a surface with a vitreous tin-based paste was supposed to protect the figures from “the injuries of time” and “make works in clay almost eternal”.24 The glazes ensured the longevity of figures, by protecting the porous surface of fired clay, and in particular glazed terracotta could withstand cold weather, wind and humidity, and as such was used for the exterior decorations.25 According to Vasari, Luca experimented imaginatively to overcome a problem of the limited durability of terracotta figures. The word used by Vasari “ghiribizzando” has connotations with the unconventional thinking, often used in conjunction with even more openly pejorative term: arzigogolo, meaning something peculiar, convoluted, as in Benedetto Varchi’s description of Baccio Valori (1477–1537), who “always went about fantasizing about some oddities” (“andava sempre ghiribizzando qualche arzigogolo”).26 Vasari’s comments seem to suggest that Luca’s invention resulted from an unconventional thinking, trials and errors, a technical struggle. Those observations point to the neglected aspect of terracotta sculptures, which were figures that failed to materialise. One main challenge with this avenue of research is the difficulty with distinguishing between documented works that never came to be created from documented sculptures that became dispersed in subsequent centuries. Some light can be shed on that distinction through the guides of cities, which contain descriptions of works that no longer survive, as do visits to specific parish churches during the so-called visite pastorali. In fact, not much have survived of the Della Robbia production in situ in Rome, but iconographic and archival sources confirm some specific works as displayed originally in the city. A seventeenth-century print documents a glazed terracotta altarpiece of the Assumption of the Virgin between cherubs and four angels, which once decorated the tribune in the Pantheon. Stylistically the altarpiece has been attributed by Allan Marquand to Luca di Andrea della Robbia, and subsequently by Giancarlo Gentilini to Fra Mattia della Robbia.27 A seventeenth-century parish priest described the altarpiece in situ, as located below a frescoed vault decorated with a glory of saints commissioned by Cardinal Girolamo Rusticucci (1537–1603), with wooden stalls installed below the cornice and a window below the maiolica altarpiece. The description suggests that the altarpiece was embedded into a wall relatively high up.28 Another Roman commission from the Della Robbia artists is documented by a surviving drawing, now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The sculpture was ordered by an apostolic notary, Alberto Serra, in 1524. A son of Luca’s nephew Andrea, Fra Mattia della Robbia was to create a tondo in glazed terracotta with the Virgin and Child, Infant John the Baptist and a nun from the convent of St. Sixtus.29 As in the case of the altarpiece in the Pantheon, the relief did not come down to us, but was most likely executed according to the detailed design. However, I have encountered a documented Roman commission, which thus far cannot be categorised as either created and dispersed or never realised. Altarpiece for Cardinal Francesco Armellini de’Medici In the early 1520s, Fra Mattia resided in Rome. He might have been summoned to the city at some point before 1518 and was probably employed by Pope Leo X, together with Luca the Younger, to create the maiolica pavement in the Vatican Logge.30 Perhaps he met Cardinal Francesco Armellini de’Medici sometime before 1522, the year in which he received from him a commission for an altarpiece in glazed terracotta for the Church of

232  Zuzanna Sarnecka St. Lawrence in Piscibus in Rome. The work was to include figures of the Virgin and God the Father accompanied by eight cherubs, between Saint Lawrence and Saint Francis and four angels.31 The contract clearly stated that the figures had to be glazed and the artist was obligated to use good pigments.32 Fra Mattia was to finish the requested sculptures in four months for a price of 50 ducats. The specified size, of at least 7 palmi ad mensuram romanam (c. 158 cm), and the expected high quality of modelling and glazing seem irreconcilable with the speed demanded. This has prompted scholars to speculate that Fra Mattia had established a kiln in Rome by this point.33 Further research is required to establish conclusively whether the work was fired in the city or transported from the Florentine workshop, but the contract stipulated that it was the responsibility of the artist to ensure the safe delivery of the altarpiece to its destination in Rome. The language of the document highlights the risk involved in the transport of the finished work (suis risico et periculo).34 The renewed interest in art as a process has drawn our attention to previously littleexamined aspects of workshop practices, such as the practicalities of moving and installing sculptures at their final destinations. Another documented transport of a terracotta figure of the Virgin and Child by a sculptor from the milieu of Silvestro dell’Aquila (c. 1450–c. 1504), Giovanni Francesco Gagliardelli (born before 1495–1526), specified that the sculpture was to be transported from L’Aquila in the Abruzzo region to Ripatransone in the Marche, at the artist’s own risk and responsibility (resico et periculo).35 The statue destined for the convent of Santa Maria Magna in Ripatransone was commissioned from Gagliardelli by Franciscans in 1524, and friars offered to provide a mule for the transport of the work.36 The properties of terracotta encouraged wide use of sectioning, done at the leather-dry state. At this stage of the process, larger sculptures were divided into smaller parts with the use of wires and this practice was important for the firing stage, as well as for the transport of the works. Smaller sections could be packed more efficiently, in a way that ensured no movement of the parts inside the crates. However, this meant that numerous, small pieces had to be reassembled in situ often without the supervision of the artist. Reading through the well-documented expenses of Francesco Armellini, which include details of his expenses for salads and other healthy foods, I found no payment that related to the mounting of the complete altarpiece before Armellini’s move to the Marche in 1524.37 It seems likely that when Armellini left Rome, he lost interest in the altarpiece in the church of St. Lawrence in Piscibus. The site soon became a property of a different powerful family–Dei Cesi and this shift in the patronage, might justify why the altarpiece was never created.38 This commission shows that technical analysis of what could be possible from material perspective and what was documented with a surviving contract, should be cross-examined in relation to the social and economic circumstances, as the affordances, or possibilities of creating and transporting a terracotta altarpiece were strictly related to multifaceted contexts. The ability to produce a work of art was often jeopardised by external circumstances. This focus on non-linear processes of producing terracotta sculptures allows investigations of things that failed to materialise, sculptures that remained unexplored beyond the preliminary contract phase, beyond preparatory drawings, or even three-dimensional models. The documented expenses of Cardinal Armellini during his sojourn in Rome suggest that Fra Mattia might have been engaged by the patron to glaze other surfaces, beyond the surface of the glazed altarpiece. The archival sources list pigments (colori), brushes (pennelli) and refer to the artist – priest as a painter, which reflects the ambiguous position of Fra Mattia.39 These documents also point to the wide range of skills expected of artists

The Papal Clay 233 working in the medium of glazed terracotta. Other documents for works commissioned in the late 1520s in the Marche referred to Fra Mattia’s brother, Fra Ambrogio, as pictore rather than scultore.40 The Della Robbia and the Buglioni artists, as well as the anonymous ceramicists, modelled and applied coloured glazes to the surfaces of their work. This versatility of the material was precisely the quality that was sought after by their patrons. Francesco Armellini was evidently a great admirer of fine maiolica artefacts, as is clear from the unpublished document recording the expenses he had made in Rome in 1521. Among the purchased goods we find a basin from Val di Lamone, which is an area by the river Lamone between Pieve del Tho and Marradi, near Brisighella, some 12 km from Faenza. We still know very little about this centre, but it seems likely that it was a site of fine clay deposits suitable for modelling and glazing finest Italian maiolica. This natural condition must have stimulated a local production, which achieved such a level of artistry as to attract attention of significant patrons, including Armellini. Italian workshops produced simple, glazed kitchenware, as well as maiolica artefacts. The association of three-dimensional religious sculptures in terracotta with everyday tableware might seem far-fetched. However, if we consider the necessary access to fine clay, tin for glazes, pigments suitable for firing, wood for fire and the necessary understanding of the construction methods required to build safe and effective kilns, it seems only appropriate that the two types of production should have developed hand in hand.41 Conclusion Of paramount importance for the dissemination of terracotta in Rome was the discerning audience, wishing to pray in front of the devotional statues that, as in the case of the lost tondo commissioned by Alberto Serra reflected patron’s personal specifications. The close reading of surviving and documented devotional terracotta sculptures from the territory of the Papal States demonstrates a wide range of inventive and unexpected solutions, interconnected artistic environments, similar expectations of patrons, and common access to raw materials. Notes 1 Arnold Esch, “Sviluppo e affermazione del papato a Roma”, in Roma 1347–1527: linee di un’evoluzione: atti del convegno internazionale di studi (Roma, 13–15 novembre 2017), ed. Massimo Miglio and Isa Lori Sanfilippo (Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 2020), 19–28. 2 Egmont Lee, “Workmen and Work in Quattrocento Rome”, in Rome in the Renaissance. The City and the Myth, ed. Paul A. Ramsey (Binghamton: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1982), 141–152; Anna Maria Corbo, Artisti e artigiani in Roma al tempo di Martino V e di Eugenio IV (Rome: De Luca, 1969). 3 In relation to devotional marble reliefs, Shelley E. Zuraw has argued that Roman patronage focused on public venues rather than on domestic settings, see her “The Efficacious Madonna in Quattrocento Rome: Spirituality in the Service of Papal Power”, in Visions of Holiness: Art and Devotion in Renaissance Italy, eds. Andrew Ladis and Shelley E. Zuraw (Georgia: Georgia University and Art Museum, 2001), 101–121. 4 Anna Esposito, “Famiglie romane”, in Roma 1347–1527 (Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 2020), 90–92. 5 Giulia Barone, “I mendicanti e la morte”, in La morte e i suoi riti in Italia tra Medioevo e prima Età moderna, ed. Francesco Salvestrini, Gian Maria Varanini and Anna Zanga (Florence: Firenze University Press, 2007), 49–64.

234  Zuzanna Sarnecka 6 Andrea Muzzi, “Arte e religione tra l’Osservanza Francescana e la spiritualità savonaroliana: alcune note sui Della Robbia e la pittura”, in I Della Robbia. Il dialogo tra le arti nel Rinascimento, ed. Giancarlo Gentilini (Milan: Skira editore, 2009), 99–107; Ibid, “Gli osservanti francescani, i savonaroliani e Andrea della Robbia”, in I Della Robbia e l’“arte nuova” della scultura invetriata, ed. Giancarlo Gentilini (Florence: Giunti Industrie Graficha, 1998), 43–56. 7 Augustinians have similarly celebrated the religious potential of terracotta sculptures, see Marco Scansani’s essay in this volume. 8 For the significance of the terracotta sculptor’s connection to the land and locally extracted and worked clay see Catherine Kupiec’s essay in this volume. 9 Zuzanna Sarnecka, “Incorruptible Nature: The Della Robbia Frames in the Marche”, Przegląd historyczny CX, no. 4 (2019): 637–656. 10 The research project funded by the National Science Centre, Poland (grant no. 2018/29/B/ HS2/00575) investigates this technical aspect of production in a wide geographical scope in the years 1450–1550. The analysis will be published in the author’s forthcoming monograph on terracotta sculpture in the Papal States. 11 Laura Giustini, Fornaci e laterizi a Roma dal XV al XIX secolo (Rome: Edizioni Kappa, 1997), 7. 12 Alfio Cortonesi, “Fornaci e calcare a Roma e nel Lazio. Secoli XIII-XV”, in Maestranze e cantieri edili a Roma e nel Lazio. Lavoro, tecniche, materiali nei secoli XIII-XV, ed. Angela Lanconelli and Ivana Ait (Rome: Vecchiarelli Editore, 2002), 127. 13 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Archivio del Capitolo di S. Pietro, Fondo S. Angelo delle Fornaci, cap. 27, fasc. 314. 14 In his discussion of the improbable kiln in Barga, Giancarlo Gentilini stressed the importance of a well-organised workshop, skilled assistants, and a sophisticated kiln for successful glazing. See his “Le “terre robbiane” di Barga”, in Barga medicea e le “enclaves” fiorentine della Versilia e della Lunigiana, ed. Carla Sodini (Florence: Olschki, 1983), 205. Benedetto Buglioni (1459/1460–1521) moved to Perugia in the late 1480s and must have established a kiln there, with several important works being commissioned in that city. See Allan Marquand, Benedetto and Santi Buglioni (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1921), 7–18. 15 Luca Pesante, Ceramica e vetro a Roma tra XVI e XVII secolo (Ospedaletto-Pisa: Pacini Editore, 2021), 38. 16 “Silvestro Arcangeli pro portatura duodecim salmarum terre pro fornace facienda per Fratrem Mattiam florenos six”. Archivio Storico di Montecassiano, Libro degli Introiti ed Esiti della Communità di Montecassiano, 1528–1530, c. 50. This seems to be a huge quantity of clay and more comparative research is needed to draw further conclusions about the transport of raw clay in the Early Modern Europe. 17 Two eighteenth-century copies of the Statuti are preserved in Archivio Capitolino, Statuta Fornaciariorum Urbis, cred. XI, tomo 116, ff. 4–15 and Biblioteca Corsini, 38, A, 7. 18 Laura Giustini, Fornaci e laterizi a Roma dal XV al XIX secolo (Rome: Edizioni Kappa, 1997), 9. 19 Gonippo Morelli, Le corporazioni romane di arti e mestieri dal XIII al XIX secolo (Rome: Tip. Petrignani, 1937), 126. 20 Archivio di Stato di Roma (henceforth ASR), Fondo Presidenze delle Strade, Taxae viarum, vol. 445, f. 483. 21 Alfio Cortonesi, “Fornaci e Calcare a Roma e nel Lazio. Secoli XIII–XV”, in Maestranze e cantieri edili a Roma e nel Lazio. Lavoro, tecniche, materiali nei secoli XIII-XV, ed. Angela Lanconelli and Ivana Ait (Rome: Vecchiarelli Editore, 2002), 131. For the original document see ASR, Collegio dei notai capitolini, 1764, cc. 115v–116r. 22 Francesco Caglioti, “La ‘connoisseurship’ della scultura rinascimentale esperienze e considerazioni di un ‘romanista’ mancato”, in Il metodo del conoscitore, ed. Stefan Albl and Alina Aggujaro (Rome: Editoriale Artemide s.r.l., 2016), 125–152. 23 Negri Arnoldi, Francesco, “Il San Sebastiano dell’Aracoeli: l’enigma di un capolavoro”, Bollettino dell’arte XCVI, no. 12 (2011): 149–166. 24 “[...] andò tanto ghiribizzando che trovò modo da diffenderle dall’ingiurie del tempo: perché dopo avere molte cose esperimentato, trovò che il dar loro una coperta d’invetriato adosso, fatto con stagno, terra ghetta, antimonio et altri minerali e misture cotte al fuoco d’una fornace aposta, faceva benissimo questo effetto e faceva l’opere di terra quasi eterne”. Giorgio Vasari, Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori scultori e architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, ed. Rosanna Bettarini and Paola Barocchi, 6 vols (Florence: Sansoni, 1966–1987), http://memofonte. accademiadellacrusca.org/vite_1568.asp (accessed 10 January 2022).

The Papal Clay 235 25 Giancarlo Gentilini, I Della Robbia, vol. I (Milan: Cantini, 1992), 24–81; Catherine Kupiec, “The Materiality of Luca della Robbia’s Glazed Terracotta Sculptures” (PhD diss., Rutgers University, 2016), with references to previous bibliography. 26 Benedetto Varchi, Storia fiorentina, vol. III (Florence: Le Monnier 1888), 332. 27 Gentilini, I Della Robbia., 375; Allan Marquand, The Brothers of Giovanni della Robbia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1928), 96. 28 “Breve narrative della Basilica di Santa Maria ad Martires detta la Rotonda. Tribuna in capo la chiesa. Nella volta detta v’è depinta a fresco la gloria de’ Santi fatta fare dal Card. Rusticucci Protettore con parte delli denari ritratti d’una conca di porfido rotta e venduta al Marchese d’Este quale fu portata a Ferrara. Sotto il cornicione di detta v’è il choro dei Canonici con banchi di legno, e sopra nel mezzo della tribuna, v’è un bassorilievo murato di Maiolica bianca con Assunta della B. Vergine con Angeli, sotto detta Assunta v’è una finestra”. Vatican, Archivio Santa Maria ad Martires. Libro di Memorie Vallone, cod. Carta sec. XVII, segnato Pantheon, no. 17, c. 25. Memorie di Signore Gio. Carlo Vallone, Sacerdote e Canonico dell’Insigne Chiesa Collegiata di Sta Maria ad Martires della Rotonda di Roma. Dated 1 November 1670. Quoted after Allan Marquand, The Brothers of Giovanni della Robbia 96. 29 Zuzanna Sarnecka, The Allure of Glazed Terracotta in Renaissance Italy (Turnout: Brepols, 2021), 89–91; Rachel E. Boyd, “Achieving Consistency: Drawings, Models and the Transmission of Knowledge in the Della Robbia Workshop”, in Creating Sculpture: Renaissance Drawings and Models, ed. Michael Cole, Ana Debenedetti and Peta Motture (London: V&A Publishing, 2022), 76–77. 30 Marquand, The Brothers of Giovanni della Robbia., 87–88, notes 1–3. Gentilini suggested that Fra Mattia might have also been documented as being a member of the papal court in 1522, see his, I Della Robbia, 332. 31 Quoted in Allan Marquand, The Brothers of Giovanni della Robbia, 17–18, note 12. 32 ‘Et etiam bonas et pulchras, habentes pulchras figuras et bonos visus, et hoc ex terra cotta vitreata ac smaltata, ad usum statuarum et aliorum laborum quae et qui fiunt in la Robbia et ex bonis coloribus.’ Marquand, The Brothers of Giovanni della Robbia,17–18, note 12. 33 Domenico Gnoli, “Fra Mattia della Robbia”, Archivio storico dell’arte, no. 2 (1889): 84. 34 “Quas quidem statuas promisit fabricare et eidem Reverendissimo consignare ac in labore et opere (in loco) seu locis sibi per Reverendissimum designiatis in urbe ponere suis risico et periculo laboribus et expensis praeter quam in murando illas infra quatuor menses proxime futuros”. Quoted after Allan Marquand, The Brothers of Giovanni della Robbia, 18; document Archivio di Stato di Roma, Atti di Alberto Serra, vol. 1840, c. 70. 35 Vincenzo Balzano, “Scultori e sculture abruzzesi del secolo XV”, L’Arte XII, no. 24 (1909): 183–187. 36 Carlo Grigioni, Due opere di Giovan Francesco Gagliardelli. Pittore e scultore abruzesse del secolo XVI, Rassegna bibliografica dell’arte italiana VIII, nos. 11–12 (1905): 181–185. 37 ASR, Camerale I, Appendice, vols. 17–18. 38 Edoardo Martinori, Genealogia e cronistoria di una grande famiglia Umbro-Romana, i Cesi, ed. Giuseppe Gabrieli (Rome: Tipografia Compagnia NazionalePubblicità, 1931), 56–61; Giovanni Manieri Elia, “La chiesa di S. Lorenzo in Piscibus”, in Saggi sulla storia del Borgo Vaticano in Roma ed. Ebe Giacometti (Rome: Associazione Geo-Archeologica Italiana, 1994), 179–202. 39 Barbara Agosti and Michela Corso, “Un additamento documentario per Raffaello e primi cenni sulla committenza del cardinale Francesco Armellini de’ Medici”, in Lodovico Guicciardini nell’Europa del Cinquecento, ed. Dina Aristodemo and Carmelo Occhipinti (Rome: UniversItalia, 2018), 365–383. 40 In 1520, Girolamo della Robbia was also called the ‘imagier et peintre’ of King François I. See Sarnecka, The Allure of Glazed Terracotta, 43. 41 See Bart van Eecklen’s essay in this volume.

Bibliography Agosti, Barbara and Michela Corso, “Un additamento documentario per Raffaello e primi cenni sulla committenza del cardinale Francesco Armellini de’ Medici”, in Lodovico Guicciardini nell’Europa del Cinquecento, eds. Dina Aristodemo and Carmelo Occhipinti (Rome: UniversItalia, 2018), 365–383.

236  Zuzanna Sarnecka Balzano, Vincenzo, “Scultori e sculture abruzzesi del secolo XV”, L’Arte XII, no. 24 (1909): 183–187. Barone, Giulia, “I mendicanti e la morte”, in La morte e i suoi riti in Italia tra Medioevo e prima Età moderna, eds. Francesco Salvestrini, Gian Maria Varanini and Anna Zanga (Florence: Firenze University Press, 2007), 49–64. Boyd, Rachel E., “Achieving Consistency: Drawings, Models and the Transmission of Knowledge in the Della Robbia Workshop”, in Creating Sculpture: Renaissance Drawings and Models, eds. Michael Cole, Ana Debenedetti and Peta Motture (London: V&A Publishing, 2022), 76–77. Caglioti, Francesco, “La ‘connoisseurship’ della scultura rinascimentale esperienze e considerazioni di un ‘romanista’ mancato”, in Il metodo del conoscitore, ed. Stefan Albl and Alina Aggujaro (Rome: Editoriale Artemide s.r.l., 2016), 125–152. Corbo, Anna Maria, Artisti e artigiani in Roma al tempo di Martino V e di Eugenio IV (Rome: De Luca, 1969). Cortonesi, Alfio, “Fornaci e calcare a Roma e nel Lazio. Secoli XIII–XV”, in Maestranze e cantieri edili a Roma e nel Lazio. Lavoro, tecniche, materiali nei secoli XIII–XV, ed. Angela Lanconelli and Ivana Ait (Rome: Vecchiarelli Editore, 2002), 109–136. Esch, Arnold, “Sviluppo e affermazione del papato a Roma”, in Roma 1347–1527: linee di un’evoluzione: atti del convegno internazionale di studi (Roma, 13–15 novembre 2017), ed. Massimo Miglio and Isa Lori Sanfilippo (Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 2020), 19–28. Esposito, Anna, “Famiglie romane”, in Roma 1347–1527 (Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 2020), 79–94. Gentilini, Giancarlo, “Le “terre robbiane” di Barga”, in Barga medicea e le “enclaves” fiorentine della Versilia e della Lunigiana, ed. Carla Sodini (Florence: Olschki, 1983). Gentilini, Giancarlo, I Della Robbia (Milan: Cantini, 1992). Giustini, Laura, Fornaci e laterizi a Roma dal XV al XIX secolo (Rome: Edizioni Kappa, 1997). Gnoli, Domenico, “Fra Mattia della Robbia”, Archivio storico dell’arte, no. 2 (1889): 82–85. Grigioni, Carlo, Due opere di Giovan Francesco Gagliardelli. Pittore e scultore abruzesse del secolo XVI, Rassegna bibliografica dell’arte italiana VIII, nos. 11–12 (1905): 181–185. Kupiec, Catherine, “The Materiality of Luca della Robbia’s Glazed Terracotta Sculptures” (PhD diss., Rutgers University, 2016). Lee, Egmont, “Workmen and Work in Quattrocento Rome”, in Rome in the Renaissance. The City and the Myth, ed. Paul A. Ramsey (Binghamton: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1982), 141–152. Manieri Elia, Giovanni, “La chiesa di S. Lorenzo in Piscibus”, in Saggi sulla storia del Borgo Vaticano in Roma, ed. Ebe Giacometti (Rome: Associazione Geo-Archeologica Italiana, 1994), 179–202. Marquand, Allan, Benedetto and Santi Buglioni (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1921). Marquand, Allan, The Brothers of Giovanni della Robbia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1928). Martinori, Edoardo, Genealogia e cronistoria di una grande famiglia Umbro-Romana, i Cesi, ed. Giuseppe Gabrieli (Rome: Tipografia Compagnia NazionalePubblicità, 1931), 56–61. Morelli, Gonippo, Le corporazioni romane di arti e mestieri dal XIII al XIX secolo (Rome: Tip. Petrignani, 1937). Muzzi, Andrea, “Gli osservanti francescani, i savonaroliani e Andrea della Robbia”, in I Della Robbia e l’“arte nuova” della scultura invetriata, ed. Giancarlo Gentilini (Florence: Giunti Industrie Graficha, 1998), 43–56. Muzzi, Andrea, “Arte e religione tra l’Osservanza Francescana e la spiritualità savonaroliana: alcune note sui Della Robbia e la pittura”, in I Della Robbia. Il dialogo tra le arti nel Rinascimento, ed. Giancarlo Gentilini (Milan: Skira Editore, 2009), 99–107. Negri Arnoldi, Francesco, “Il San Sebastiano dell’Aracoeli: l’enigma di un capolavoro”, Bollettino dell’arte XCVI, no. 12 (2011): 149–166.

The Papal Clay 237 Pesante, Luca, Ceramica e vetro a Roma tra XVI e XVII secolo (Ospedaletto-Pisa: Pacini Editore, 2021). Sarnecka, Zuzanna, “Incorruptible Nature: The Della Robbia Frames in the Marche”, Przegląd historyczny CX, no. 4 (2019): 637–656. Sarnecka, Zuzanna, The Allure of Glazed Terracotta in Renaissance Italy (Turnout: Brepols, 2021). Varchi, Benedetto, Storia fiorentina, vol. III (Florence: Le Monnier 1888). Vasari, Giorgio, Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori scultori e architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, eds. Rosanna Bettarini and Paola Barocchi, 6 vols (Florence: Sansoni, 1966–1987). Zuraw, Shelley E., “The Efficacious Madonna in Quattrocento Rome: Spirituality in the Service of Papal Power”, in Visions of Holiness: Art and Devotion in Renaissance Italy, eds. Andrew Ladis and Shelley E. Zuraw (Georgia: Georgia University and Art Museum, 2001), 101–121.

15 Exceeding Expectations Antonio Begarelli, His Female Patrons, and the Misunderstood Materialities of White Terracotta Erin Giffin Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, USA Introduction In modern academia, life-sized, terracotta compositions tend to exist in a realm adjacent to, but never quite a part of the discourse surrounding early modern figural sculpture studies, which tend to defer to the canonically “high art” media of marble and bronze. The reasons for this are partly technical, due to the diverse skillset needed to construct large-scale compositions in a ductile medium requiring firing and often glazing or painting rather than chiselling, burnishing or polishing. Its isolation is also the result of the canonical silos that superimpose the status of marble and bronze over the perceived mundane terracotta, wood, and wax. But terracotta was not so far removed in the early modern era: artists relied on clay for all manner of sculptural construction, and the traits of clay provided a particularly chameleon-like foundation to mimic, respond, and incite innovation in other sculptural media. This chapter looks specifically at the material-defying white terracotta compositions of Antonio Begarelli (1499–1565), a Modenese sculptor of clay who worked conceptually in marble. The thirteen life-sized figures in Antonio Begarelli’s Deposition (Figure 15.1), now in the church of San Francesco in Modena, have undergone a multitude of changes over their near five-hundred-year existence. The 1530–1531 composition is a key example of Begarelli’s deft material conflation, using his versatile medium to present a seemingly marble reality. As Giorgio Vasari famously wrote in the voice of Michelangelo in his life of the renowned sculptor: Se questa terra diventasse marmo, guai alle statue antiche. If this clay were but marble, woe to the sculptures of antiquity.1 This key statement encapsulates the multiple objectives of Begarelli’s artistic process, and his acknowledged status as a contributor to the humanist and artistic discourses of the mid-sixteenth century. Intriguingly, the Deposition was also financed through an atypical accumulation of funds among an anonymous group of local Modenese women, whose patronage may have directly influenced the layered significance of the final composition portrayed. Tragically, though, the innovations of Begarelli’s Deposition, among others, would ultimately be tempered by preconceived notions of terracotta, and the evolving understanding of ancient statuary and Begarelli’s perceived connections with ancient sculptural traditions. The fate of the Deposition, as also in the case of the artist’s greater oeuvre in and around Modena, serves as a commentary on sculptural media of DOI: 10.4324/9781003327462-20

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Figure 15.1 Antonio Begarelli, Deposition, 1530–1531, terracotta, San Francesco, Modena. © Erin Giffin

the sixteenth century and its subsequent reception. An exploration of the innovations initially promoted by the artist through his paradigmatic composition, together with critical interpretations of the sculpture group, reveals the conflict of community expectations that ultimately altered his design. To map the artist’s engagement with the artistic and theological machinations of the era, we will first summarize the sculpture’s many movements and reappraisals before delving into Begarelli’s originally intended concept. The sculpture group’s material conflation between terracotta and stone will then reveal the deeper theological resonance of its composition, as will a careful exploration of its female patronage. Then we will transition into the fate of Begarelli’s innovations in the broader context of Emilian regional art discourse. Rather than focus on the derogatory effect of comments such as “if this clay were but marble,” I encourage us to consider the conscious conceit revealed by Vasari’s comment that reflects Antonio Begarelli’s intentional interplay with perceived multimedia. Antonio Begarelli’s Deposition White terracotta sculptures are the characteristic trait of Antonio Begarelli’s career. After moulding his life-sized figural forms in ruddy, Emilian clay on a wooden armature, the artist would coat his creations with a layer of white kaolin clay—the material that produces porcelain—to manifest his warm-toned, white compositions. Depending on the

240  Erin Giffin commission, he would occasionally use plaster to create the white effect post-firing. Whether of kaolin or plaster, his surfaces were often finished with gilded edges, which was a common finishing technique employed on monochromatic and polychromatic marble or stone sculpture of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as in the traces of gilding discovered along the hemlines of Donatello’s Saint Mark (1411–1413) at Orsanmichele in Florence. This detailing survives, for example, on Begarelli’s Christ in the House of Martha and Maria (post 1540) at San Domenico, which was rediscovered through restoration.2 The effect of this material equation compelled early modern viewers to interpret Begarelli’s compositions unambiguously as marble creations as well as terracotta.3 This was the original material effect of the Deposition. Begarelli’s figural group was first installed in the vestibule, or antiportico, of the extraurban Modenese church of Santa Cecilia.4 According to the period chronicler Tommasino de’ Bianchi, nicknamed de’ Lancellotti, the group resided towards the church entrance— “in capo del portico … denanze a ditta giesia”—and cost between 200 and 300 scudi, an ostentatious amount that was reportedly coalesced from the women of the Modenese community.5 Though the composition was installed at Santa Cecilia in 1531, it would be removed only six years later along with its observant Franciscan caretakers following the regional ruler Ercole d’Este’s order to demolish Santa Cecilia in 1537.6 The composition’s new chapel space, at the church of Santa Margherita, was funded by yet another woman, a Monica Trotti Porrini, from whom the original dedicatory plaque survives. After the artist’s death, the sculpture group was painted, adding rich, polychromatic surfaces to the composition.7 The 1808 suppression of Santa Margherita forced yet another move, this time to the local Accademia delle Belle Arti where the composition was installed in a place of honour within a ground-floor niche of the school’s central stairwell.8 The reopening of the urban church of San Francesco by Archduke Francesco IV d’Este in the late 1820s led to the Deposition’s final relocation, where the sculptures received the first of multiple restorations that have progressively returned the composition to a more monochromatic exitance. This is how we encounter the Deposition today, in the apse of the left side aisle at San Francesco. We will return to the question of the composition’s presentation and the consequences of its various contexts later in this chapter. Begarelli’s Deposition unites the narrative expressions manifested in contemporary prints and other media with the stylized construction of a meditative theological representation. The dynamism of Begarelli’s figures recalls Albrecht Dürer’s widely circulated woodcut print of the same subject from his Small Passion series of circa 1509–1511, wherein Christ’s freed upper body hangs heavily over the shoulders of an assisting devotee in the tightly cropped scene.9 Even more evocative of Christ’s forward-hanging posture in the Begarelli creation, and possibly a direct influence, is the late fifteenthcentury version of the Deposition attributed to Andrea Mantegna (Figure 15.2), which manifests again the weight of Christ’s form as his lifeless body arcs into the embrace of an attendant to the right, with Christ’s right arm hanging straight down. This popular construction would also appear in prints and drawings based on fragmentary designs of Raphael Sanzio, as in prints by Ugo da Carpi and Marcantonio Raimondi, the latter of which subsequently influenced an altarpiece in nearby Cremona by Bernardino Ricca in 1521.10 In Mantegna’s original design, the body of Christ is lowered via a swath of fabric held taut by one of Christ’s followers dangling precariously over the cross above, which is a crucial difference to the construction of Raphael and his followers. Of course, tied inextricably to these performances of weight is a theological statement on the corporeality of Jesus.

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Figure 15.2 Andrea Mantegna, Deposition, early sixteenth century, engraving, 44.2 × 35.5 cm, Staatliche Museen, Berlin. Photo: © Kupferstichkabinett. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Inv.-Nr. 810–21

Begarelli’s weighty Christ aligns with his mother below, who lies in the arms of her attendants (Figure 15.3). Begarelli’s fainting Madonna may be another elaboration on Mantegna’s design, wherein the Virgin has fainted facing the crucifix, her body reclining backwards towards the viewer, held in the arms of one attendant while a second leans over Mary and clasps her hand. Meanwhile, four saints are spaced at regular intervals away from the central scene: Saints John the Baptist and Jerome on the left, Anthony of Padua and Francis to the right. This measured and symmetrical orientation speaks to the longstanding tradition of post-biblical saints in attendance to theophanic scenes in which they effectively mediate the viewer’s engagement with the Virgin and her Son. The Christlike figures of John the Baptist and Francis are set at a distance from the biblical scene and model for the viewer the proper attitudes of devotion, kneeling with hands open in attitudes of supplication and amazement. By contrast, the saints closest to the action, Jerome and Anthony of Padua, look out to engage the viewer. These two men, who both expounded on the status of the Virgin in theological discourse, frame the Virgin’s Compassio, her commensurate pain at the death of her Son.11 Her reclining posture, with legs slightly parted, alludes to what Anthony of Padua termed the Virgin’s partus dolorosus, a second birth where the pain that she had been spared at the birth of her son overcame her at the moment of his death.12 Likewise, Jerome’s presence reminds us of the Virgin’s perpetual virginity, adding possibly another layer to the miraculous messaging inherent to the composition’s literal and implied media

242  Erin Giffin

Figure 15.3 Antonio Begarelli, Detail of Figure 15.1 showing the Virgin, 1530–1531, terracotta, San Francesco, Modena. © Erin Giffin

of white terracotta.13 Jerome’s presence may also be the direct result of the composition’s female patronage, given the early Christian author’s popularity across the sixteenth century: of the saint’s 125 surviving letters, over forty were written to women on themes including chastity in marriage and widowhood, and on proper forms of architectural patronage by women, which included hospitals, convents, monasteries, and churches.14 Carolyn Valone has traced the effect of Jerome’s texts on sixteenth-century female patronage in Rome, where pious widows re-enacted the devotional patronage that the saint espoused.15 Though the scene in Modena depicts Christ’s deposition, and he appears at the near apex of the composition vertically, Mary—and more specifically, her womb—resides at the perspectival nexus. This message seems enhanced from the probable preparatory phase, when one compares the final composition to the likely bozzetto now at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Figure 15.4).16 The bozzetto preserves an earlier stage of the composition’s design, with its white surfaces reinforcing the final effect originally sought by the artist and his patrons. One can envision the Franciscan fathers, and conceivably also the unnamed female benefactors of Modena, visualizing the final product through this protracted preparatory model. Begarelli here portrays the subtle differences of age wrought across the Virgin’s form and visage, with a slight figure and gaunt cheeks. Begarelli’s final composition does not exalt the unaged Mary à la Michelangelo’s Vatican Pietà (1498–1500), but reflects instead the passage of time, as seen in multiple regional terracotta compositions, like Guido Mazzoni’s Pietà (circa 1477–1479) for the church of San Giovanni Battista in Modena.17 Though Mary’s body lies inert, with legs more horizontal in the bozzetto than in the final composition, the folds of fabric overlapping her thighs, as well as the knotted belt

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Figure 15.4 Antonio Begarelli, Model of the Virgin Mary and Three Holy Women, circa 1530, terracotta, 38 × 60.5 × 37.4 cm, Victoria and Albert Museum, London. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

at her waist draw the viewer’s eye to Mary’s abdomen, on which her attendants also seem focused. If this was a composition funded by women for the benefit of their own devotions, then the sensitive portrayal of the late-life Virgin and the impossibly tragic narrative moment assume a deeply personal connotation. Though the identities of these women patrons remain unknown, traditionally women in the early modern era attained agency over household funds once widowed.18 For example, a tradition of chapels commissioned by widowed women in honour of their families or deceased husbands was a longstanding practice for members of the elite in nearby Correggio: Casandra Colleoni, wife of Niccolò da Correggio, commissioned a family chapel at San Francesco in Correggio in 1475; Francesca of Brandenburg, widow of Borso da Correggio, commissioned a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary in the monastery church of Corpo del Cristo in 1504; and Veronica Gambara, widow of Giberto X, Lord of Correggio, commissioned a chapel at the now-destroyed San Domenico in 1512.19 Unfortunately, these pursuits often require astute investigation on the part of modern scholars because women not only acted as patrons directly, but also operated through male mediators.20 The status of Begarelli’s patrons as widows and possibly mothers—or, in more rare cases, still married, and even desirous of offspring—would have afforded these women patrons a voice otherwise unheard in discussions regarding the composition’s design held principally between the artist and the Franciscan friars. The Virgin Mary’s position is further reinforced compositionally in the final design through the figural grouping’s materiality. Since Begarelli’s composition was created for

244  Erin Giffin an observant Franciscan community, the sculptural group at Santa Cecilia engaged actively with the intellectual ruminations of early modern theologians and artists. Aristotelian thought regarding birth asserted that the body of the mother provided the generative matter that composes the child, while the father’s sperm provided the form: thus the father is the sculptor, the mother the clay.21 As espoused in the concept of the Immaculate Conception, which was vehemently supported by the Franciscans from the fourteenth century onwards, the Virgin’s incorrupt matter was formed by God into the body of Christ, thus the new Adam emerged from the immaculate new Eve.22 A supplemental element to the feminine reading of the composition comes from the Book of John, where Christ says to Mary when she stands at the foot of his cross “Woman, behold thy son,” and to John, he says “Behold thy mother” in reference to Mary.23 Saint Ambrose interpreted this comment as the moment in which Mary assumes her status as the mother of mankind at the Mount of Calvary.24 Ergo, Mary gives birth to man’s salvation at the foot of the cross. Marble through Terracotta On its own, terracotta is a compelling material for religious representation. Theologically, clay is the stuff of mankind, a humble yet godly medium of creation. It is evocative for its constructive capabilities as well, by enabling the billowing, seemingly weightless fabrics that swirl around the female attendants kneeling beside Begarelli’s Virgin, and the far-reaching, expressive gestures and upraised arms of the saints that together materialize a dramatic mise-en-scene. When artists compound the significance of terracotta with other media such as marble, the resonances proliferate in evermore directions, like ripples in water. By capitalizing on the tensile strength of his clay medium, Begarelli’s white “marble” sculptures conceptually surpass the perceived materiality of stone. A key facet of Begarelli’s material interplay rests in the expansive, animate gestures of his life-sized figures. Though this trait is nothing new in the world of terracotta—one need only consider the Compianto of Niccolò dell’Arca (circa 1464) within Santa Maria della Vita in Bologna—sculptors had only begun to challenge the expressive limitations of marble carving in the first years of the sixteenth century by suspending appendages out and away from the body.25 In Jacopo Sansovino’s Bacchus of 1511–1512 originally for the gardens at Palazzo Gualfonda, Florence, the artist pushes past the boundary of the standard marble block by positioning his god of wine with an uplifted arm supporting his drinking kylix overhead, beyond the sculpture’s circular base.26 Stretching one’s composition to the limits of the stone’s rectangular form was a common tactic among artists in the era who desired to use as much material available, though this somewhat betrayed the composition’s materiality. This was probably the case for Tullio Lombardo’s standing Adam (circa 1490–1495), originally part of Doge Andrea Vendramin’s tomb at Santa Maria dei Servi, with his arm bent close to his chest. Adam presents the Fruit of Knowledge in his upraised hand, but also delimits the scale of the quarried medium.27 Such conformity to the shape of the original rough-hewn stone could also be employed consciously by artists keen on reminding the viewer of the composition’s materiality, as in the non finito compositions of Michelangelo Buonarroti like his various Slaves (1513–1534). The discourse in marble sculpture across the first quarter of the sixteenth century in Italy focused intensely on the innovations of ancient sculptors, with whom early modern artists were gaining a new acquaintance through myriad contemporary archaeological

Exceeding Expectations 245 discoveries. From these encounters, sixteenth-century artists compiled what they perceived as hallmarks of excellence to which to aspire, including multifigural compositions, depth of pathos, and purported monolithic carving.28 The Laocoön was perceived as a paradigmatic example, having been unearthed in 1506 and witnessed still in the ground by artists such as a young Francesco da Sangallo.29 The capacity for far-reaching appendages was another virtuosity accorded to great ancient sculptors, to the point that ancient statuary was often restored with new, dynamic appendages, again as in the Laocoön restored by Giovann’Angelo Montorsoli in 1532 (Figure 15.5).30 As a direct contemporary of these aspirations in marble, Begarelli’s proliferation of unsupported, outstretched limbs in white terracotta, like the Deposition’s Saint Francis, fosters an almost uncomfortable sensation for the materially-sensitive viewer. Rather than obey the restrictions of marble to manifest exact skeuomorphic likeness, Begarelli relies on the capabilities inherent to the medium of clay to stretch the spatial boundaries of marble representation. Of course, one of the greatest innovations of Begarelli’s sculptural composition is the vignette of four men labouring at the top of the cross over the limp body of Christ. In their current state, with lingering polychromy, the scene’s narrative takes precedence. But balanced precariously on wooden ladders, and leaning over the cross itself, these five originally fictive marble bodies remarkably defied the static capability of the intended matter portrayed. In this moment, Begarelli flouts the limitations of stone, balancing conceptually weighty bodies on a wooden apparatus. Large-scale marble Christs hanging on wooden crucifixes would only become popular mid-century, as seen in Benvenuto

Figure 15.5 Anonymous, Laocoön with Renaissance Restoration (by Giovan’Angelo Montorsoli, 1532), circa 1860–1900, photograph, 25.6 × 19.8 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. © Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

246  Erin Giffin Cellini’s famous Crucifixion of 1562 at San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Spain (installed 1576).31 Stabilized inconspicuously by horizontal supports in the wall behind, Begarelli’s figures convey the upwards thrust of climbing ladders and the precarious suspension of dead weight, much like the prints of Dürer and Mantegna. In this moment, Begarelli’s active, “marble” figures—the men who labour to remove Christ from bondage, but also the dramatic contortion of Christ’s own limp body—signal corporeal weight even as they themselves tower impossibly over the figural landscape. Between marble and clay, Begarelli exploits multiple meanings through his white terracotta. As I have asserted in previous research, marble devotional sculptures like Francesco da Sangallo’s Virgin and Child with Saint Anne (1522–1526) (Figure 15.6) at Orsanmichele in Florence, or Michelangelo’s Risen Christ (1514–1521) of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome, liberally rely on their material composition to convey the theological concept of a visionary, theophanic experience.32 Theophany was equally sought in this era in the realm of painting, for example, the inclusion of incense smoke in Andrea del Sarto’s Madonna of the Harpies (1517) would have given the distinct impression of vivified polychrome statuary in the painting’s original context within the convent church of San Francesco de’ Macci (no longer extant).33 So whether mono- or polychrome, sculpture and its corporeal presence could foster commensurate visionary experiences for early modern devotees.

Figure 15.6 Francesco da Sangallo, Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, 1522–1526, marble, Orsanmichele, Florence. © Erin Giffin

Exceeding Expectations 247 This visionary quality was further fostered by the pseudo-scientific understanding of stone’s creation underground. Again, leaning on what was considered Aristotelian text in the early modern period—but what is now attributed to the eleventh-century Arab physician Avicenna—the Dominican theologian Albertus Magnus wrote in his De lapidibus (1248–1252) that stones like marble were created in subterranean reservoirs of water and vapour that petrified into a solid state.34 Alexander Nagel, in a discussion on alabaster revetment, states succinctly that: “Stone, understood as condensed vapour, is cloud.”35 This metamorphosis is transubstantive: once the liquid or vaporous matter has solidified, it could not be returned to its liquid form.36 Given this context, it is no wonder that marble served multiple meanings simultaneously, as something permanent, yet also ephemeral. In this framework, marble particularly conveys the concept of Christ as light, as in John 8:12: “Ego sum lux mundi.” To return again to the Sangallo composition of the Virgin and Child with Saint Anne at Orsanmichele in Florence, the sedate nature of the figural grouping belies the composition’s innovations, from its three figures composed from a single stone (a reference back to, and a reflection of the artist’s early experience with the Laocoön), to the incorporation of Hebrew letters. As discovered by Colin Eisler, Abbey Kornfeld and Alison Rebecca Strauber, the Hebrew characters fictively appended to the craggy rockface of the triad’s throne from the Latin phrase “Ego sum lux mundi” when read aloud.37 The inscription plays jointly on textual and auditory transformation— from Hebrew into Latin—as well as the material allusion of marble into light, declared ironically against the sculpted rock face. The material slippage of Begarelli’s Deposition capitalizes on the same visionary capacity associated with marble, effectively grafting the symbolic resonance of marble onto clay. The level to which Begarelli’s composition engages and responds to period artistic and theological conversations was particularly served by the material conflation of terracotta with marble. Just as is the case with modern visitors to San Francesco in Modena today, knowledgeable early modern viewers could intuit that the composition before them was actually composed of terracotta: as in Vasari’s Michelangelo quote, “If this clay were but marble….” In its original state, the Deposition’s gravity-resistant, fictive marble grappling with the weight of death expressed a material conundrum: Christ, as solidified light, hangs like a heavy stone in space above his material source, the immaculate, white clay of Mary. Two medial expressions compound to manifest multiple levels of interpretation, all intended to showcase the theologically rich scene. Christ is human and divine, clay and marble, corporeal and light, as Mary is the material source of mankind and its salvation. Begarelli’s Female Patronage If a group of women in the Modenese community did indeed commission Begarelli for the sculptural group—coalesced their funds anonymously for this spectacular installation— then their actions fall closer to the realm of cultic devotion than that of a single-party commissioner, where personal or familial memorial often overshadows devotional intent.38 Very few examples of early modern communities of women commissioners have surfaced in historical research thus far, the closest being Katherine French’s research on pre-reformation England, where single-sex guilds of the fifteenth and early-sixteenth centuries gave women agency over the appearance and maintenance of Catholic spaces.39 French’s case study of Chagford in Devonshire reveals how a community of women in the early 1500s assumed control over an abandoned chapel dedicated to the cult of

248  Erin Giffin Mary, which they redecorated with iconography focused on fertility and childbirth.40 The identity of these individuals was subordinate to the devotional objectives of the women’s collective, and their chosen subject matter for a chapel dedicated to the Virgin parallels Begarelli’s allusions to the partus dolorosus. In terms of commissions closer to home, the Franciscans promoted scenes of the Passion in Italian spaces oriented specifically for female piety from the late-thirteenth century onwards. The church of Sant’Antonio in Polisene in nearby Ferrara attests to this relationship, where a community of women commissioned a Crucifixion under the guidance of the local Franciscan friars, including supplemental frescoed scenes depicting multiple narrative moments of the Passion.41 The frescoed chapel predates the Modenese composition by over two centuries, and appears amid a wave of passion cycle commissions in religious interiors oriented explicitly towards women.42 These two examples at Chagford and Ferrara offer but a glimpse of the potential for women operating as a commissioning body, advocating for their devotional needs in local sacred space.43 Hopefully, as more research on female patronage comes to light, the intentions and innovations of group patronage will become clearer. Partly at fault for our modern ignorance is the lack of documentation preserved on explicitly female patronage, which is further obfuscated again by male mediators. De’ Lancellotti’s commentary on the source of the funds for the Deposition characterizes the sort of common dismissal of the women behind the commission: …dicono le persone, ditti frati ge spenderano scuti 200 e più, tuti cavati da mane a femine, perchè altramente non ge hano el modo a fare tal spexa. … people say [that] those friars spent 200 scudi and more, all extracted from the hands of women, because otherwise they would have no way to cover the expense.44 De’ Lancelloti ignores the women’s agency by stating that the friars orchestrated the commission, and implies that the funds were used for their own aims. But this dismissal fails to recognize how the subject of the Deposition and the partus dolorosus of Mary speak to trends in the devotional practices of women in the early modern period. At the time of Begarelli’s installation, Santa Cecilia was the most important Observant Franciscan church in the community of Modena, and arguably the most important in the region.45 In 1471, the church underwent a significant renovation in keeping with the more stringent requirements of the Observant Franciscan order. Among the changes, the church incorporated the latest in liturgical furniture—confessionals—in keeping with a 1467 Provincial Chapter edict that mandated the curation of a discrete site of confession, particularly for women.46 These structures afforded a new level of privacy for confessing devotees. Again, de’ Lancellotti offers a somewhat caustic interpretation of this innovative addition: These friars have built six beautiful confessionals that yield 60 scudi per year because they are so comfortable for confession, providing a dignified environment, and a most beautiful mode with which our poor mendicants and discalced friars may extract money from hands of all the simple, believing women (having culled the funds from home), the likes of which have never been seen before.47 Stepping beyond the misogynistic overtones of the chronicler’s comments, we can intuit the religious pursuits of the local women that de’ Lancellotti sought to devalue.

Exceeding Expectations 249 Apparently, Santa Cecilia was a church that invested in the spiritual pursuits of its female constituency, with an active community that reciprocated with grandiose expenditure in the form of thirteen life-sized terracotta figures in the latest vogue for white marble. The subsequent decision to raze Santa Cecilia only six years after Begarelli’s composition was in place was traumatic for the local community. Again, according to de’ Lancellotti, the Observant Franciscans were despondent, the swift destruction of their prized liturgical centre calling to mind wolves devouring prey.48 Finding a new home for the community was not a simple matter: The Observant friars found sanctuary in Santa Margherita only a decade later, and their precious objects arrived sporadically thereafter. Credit for the relocation of the Begarelli sculpture group from Santa Cecilia to Santa Margherita is clearly claimed by Monica Trotti Porrini, as inscribed in her marble memorial plaque (Figure 15.7): “hoc Monica Trotta Herculis Porrini uxor … suo faciendu(m).”49 As the plaque states, the chapel was dedicated to Christ and the Cross on the anniversary of Mary’s assumption in 1556.50 Monica even went so far as to include mention of her notary and the date of the agreement in the final line of the stone inscription: “Iulii Nasii notatis anno MDLVI die XXVII februarii,” a Giulio Nasi on 27 February, 1556. This extremely rare textual addition could have been included for any number of reasons, perhaps owing to her status in the community as a probable widow, though without concrete evidence this remains conjectural.51 Nearly two decades later, in 1574, an Ottavo Porrini decorated a chapel at Santa Margherita as well, into

Figure 15.7 Commemorative Plaque of Monica Trotti Porrini, 1556, marble, 73.7 × 51 cm, Lapidario Estense, Modena. © By permission of the Ministero della Cultura – Archivio Fotografico delle Gallerie Estensi

250  Erin Giffin

Figure 15.8 Guido Mazzoni, Madonna del Pappa, 1480 (installed in Santa Margherita in 1574), polychrome terracotta, Cattedrale metropolitana di Santa Maria Assunta in cielo e San Giminiano, Modena. © Scala Archives

which he relocated another set of terracotta sculptures commissioned by the Porrini family that had once resided in their family chapel at Santa Cecilia.52 These sculptures were Guido Mazzoni’s polychromatic adoration of the Virgin and Child by Saints Joachim [or Joseph] and Anna, known as the Madonna della Pappa (Figure 15.8) for the female attendant who blows on a spoonful of the Christ’s Child’s porridge.53 This composition now resides in the crypt of the Modenese Cathedral.54 Mary’s parents are represented by the portraits of the patrons, Francesco and Polissena Porrini, the latter of the two, having died in 1509, was buried in Santa Cecilia.55 The new Porrini chapel at Santa Margherita, like the Chapel of the Deposition, flanked the high altar of the church, creating effectively a Porrini family bay cutting across the interior.56 Though the first chapel may have been the result of a woman’s personal devotion, the latter seems a calculated move to redirect attention to the family memorial.57 Colouring the Antique Santa Margherita was the likely venue where Giorgio Vasari (and possibly Michelangelo) saw the Deposition. Vasari’s commentary connotes his own views as much as those of his artistic and intellectual circle. He attests to Begarelli’s material association both in the Michelangelo quote and in his descriptions of Begarelli’s process, writing that the artist added the “colour of marble to give the impression of real stone.”58 These comments imply the level of respect and status accorded to the Emilian artist by Vasari and

Exceeding Expectations 251 his contemporaries, and speak to the conscious acknowledgement of the artist’s multiple medial levels. Of course, the fate of the composition after Begarelli’s lifetime is equally revealing in terms of the Deposition’s reception. Following the artist’s death in 1565, either the parish community or perhaps a single Modenese patron commissioned the composition to be repainted colourfully, which Giorgio Bonsanti dates to 1572 as the work of local painter Orazio Grillenzoni.59 Grillenzoni painted Begarelli’s Compianto (1524–1526) at Sant’Agostino that year, so Bonsanti makes the jump to incorporate the Deposition as well, though no records survive. The explicit reasons for this change are equally undocumented; however, the longstanding regional tradition of polychrome terracotta may have had an effect.60 When one considers that the Porrini family’s Mazzoni composition (the Madonna del Pappa) was installed directly across from the Deposition in Santa Margherita in 1574, a likely cross-generational comparison between artists emerged. By Lodovico Vedriani’s 1662 summary on the works of Begarelli in his publication, Raccolta de’ pittori, scultori, ed architetti modonesi, the author notes Begarelli’s prodigious capabilities, yet lists him after Mazzoni in terms of quality.61 Regardless of the specific date of the added polychromy, we can clearly establish that the Begarelli composition had changed by the 1586 publication of chronicler Francesco Forciroli who lamented that the composition, now painted, was preferable when white because it “appeared to be of the purest marble.”62 An eyewitness description of Begarelli’s work when still at Santa Margherita comments on its coloured state. This text intriguingly documents the impressions of the British grand tourist Jonathan Richardson Junior when visiting Italy in 1720, but was published with second-hand interpretations and addenda by his famous painter father, Johnathan Richardson Senior, in 1722. Begarelli’s work is the only composition noted by the pair at Santa Margherita. The text states: These Figures are made, and beautifully colour’d in their proper colours by Correggio himself, as some of the ancients are said to have painted their Statues. They are marvelously fine. The Crucifix and thieves, and several of the Apostles which are here also are of Terra Cotta, and painted; these are of Begarelli.63 This commentary elucidates a rival regional narrative of artistic prominence, namely the paintings of Antonio Allegri, known as Correggio. By the mid-eighteenth century, the career of Correggio had coupled with the pre-existing tradition of polychrome terracotta— notably the regional works of Guido Mazzoni and Niccolò dell’Arca—to recast Begarelli’s artistic contribution as a vividly colourful, collaborative work. The text also reveals a sensitivity to the tradition of ancient polychrome sculpture that was debated across the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, due to a confluence of competing information, including the fragmentary survival of pigmentation on ancient statuary, the rise in popularity of white plaster casts, and misunderstandings of surviving ancient texts, not to mention matters of taste.64 The Richardsons’ near contemporary, Johann Joachim Winckelmann, is often mischaracterized in this debate: the antiquarian and curator of the Vatican collections prioritized form over colour, but not monochrome over polychrome. He himself experienced the discovery of surviving polychromy on newly excavated statuary, such as the Artemis found in Herculaneum in July 1760.65 In his Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums (1764), Winckelmann weighed in on the debate with his own interpretation of Pliny, who reports that the sculptor Praxiteles preferred to have his

252  Erin Giffin compositions painted by the artist Nicias. In this discussion, Winckelmann refutes the competing assumption that the word “circumlitio” used by Pliny referred to mere polishing.66 Apparently, the Richardsons sided with Winckelmann in the polychrome debate. The written association between Begarelli and Correggio dates back to Vedriani’s 1662 Raccolta, wherein the author asserts that Correggio designed three unidentified figures for the Deposition.67 By the time of Richardson’s interaction with the sculpture group, the connection had morphed into an assumption that the colours applied to Begarelli’s statues were by Correggio’s hand. The questionable connection between artists followed the composition into its third home at the Accademia delle Belle Arti in the early nineteenth century. The Deposition’s original display in the great stairwell of the institution was accompanied by a Latin inscription composed by Giuseppe Baraldo which conflated Vasari’s assertion through Michelangelo together with the Correggio connection.68 These comments were used in tandem to demonstrate how the Deposition was effectively the height of Begarelli’s stupefying approach to sculpture in an era of growing regional nationalism. Pairing Begarelli with Correggio—who arguably did indeed maintain a professional relationship of some sort, according to Ronald W. Lightbown—cemented these two artists as an Emilian Michelangelo and, say, Leonardo da Vinci respectively, or rather Praxiteles and Nicias.69 Though the Begarelli composition was hailed as the paradigmatic example of regional sculptural style at its installation in 1812, within a decade the composition was completely hidden from view. The massive group was concealed behind a curtain providing a fictive stone backdrop for a neoclassical plaster cast of the Farnese Flora (Figure 15.9),

Figure 15.9 Farnese Flora (with sixteenth century restoration by Guglielmo della Porta), sixteenth century, plaster cast, 3.44 m, Museo de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid. © Museo de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. Madrid

Exceeding Expectations 253 another ancient sculpture rediscovered and restored during the sixteenth century.70 One cannot help but note how terribly apropos this form of concealment was for Begarelli’s creation: a fictive marble composition that engaged with both the modern and classical discourses on sculpture of its era was lost behind a fictive stone wall in deference for a plaster cast of a restored ancient sculpture then considered the apogee of modern engagement with antiquity to Neoclassical eyes. This series of interpretations demonstrates the shifting sands on which Begarelli’s composition figuratively stands. In the humanist climate of the early sixteenth century, Begarelli engaged and arguably surpassed antiquity through his white terracottas. With the late-century additions of pigmentation, the sculpture group more closely aligned with the regional tradition of polychromy, possibly approaching the appearance of Mazzoni’s composition. This approximation by the mid-eighteenth century was reinterpreted as another connection to the ancient world, cemented by its triumphant installation at the Accademia delle Belle Arti. Yet by the 1820s, the Deposition had disappeared for lack of relevancy, replaced by a new quest for connection with antiquity through plaster that was actively sought in contemporary art circles across Europe and the United States. Conclusion Begarelli’s works are more than a reductive rendering of terracotta masquerading as stone: his creations complicated the expectations of the material portrayed, which was consciously acknowledged and praised by his contemporaries. Begarelli’s visual rebuttal to marble sculpture is theologically potent: these fictive stones reflect intellectual discourse of the divine body’s multivalence and the position of Mary.71 Begarelli’s original marble sculptures manifested through terracotta successfully conflate parallel material significances extracted from Biblical and pre-Christian sources to create a visionary construction of an impossible materiality manifesting the incomprehensible death of the Son of God. The composition’s peculiar status as a multi-figural group commissioned and maintained by local women attests to the desirability of Begarelli’s design, and the agency of a consortium of women in pursuit of a cult locus directed towards their own devotional needs. Even so, the subsequent alterations to its surfaces reflect an equal and opposing draw of local terracotta traditions, as well as an ever-evolving comprehension of antiquity. Notes This chapter builds upon the second chapter of my dissertation, entitled “Body and Apparition: Material Presence in Sixteenth-century Italian Religious Sculpture” (PhD Diss., University of Washington, 2017). Special thanks to Zuzanna Sarnecka and Agnieszka Dziki for organizing the conference that inspired this discussion (“Modeled, Fired, Transformed: Materiality of Terracotta Sculpture, 1400-1600,” 9-10 September 2021, Warsaw), and for their insightful comments on this text. 1 Giorgio Vasari, Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori scultori e architettori, 1568 edition, ed. R. Bettarini and P. Barocchi (Florence: S.P.E.S., già Sansoni, 1966–1987), 779–780. 2 For a summary of his process, see Giorgio Bonsanti, Antonio Begarelli (Modena: Cosimo Panini Editore S.P.A., 1992), 34–35. 3 The perception of Begarelli’s terracottas as marble appears in multiple period descriptions of his works, as in Vasari’s comments about the artist. See the quote at the outset of this chapter and note 58.

254  Erin Giffin 4 Gusmano Soli, Chiese di Modena, 3 vols. (Modena: Aedes Muratoriana, 1974), I, 283–284. Tommasino de’ Bianchi, nicknamed Tommasino de’ Lancelotti, wrote diaries spanning 1506 through 1554 that were titled the Cronaca Modenese, which have been republished in nine volumes of the Monumenti di storia patria delle provincie modenesi (Parma, Pietro Fiaccadori 1862–1870). Use of the Monumenti di storia patria can be somewhat confusing, because the first volume of the series contains the late fifteenth-century chronicle of Tommasino’s father, Jacopo de’ Bianchi, also nicknamed de’ Lancellotti. The quotation above comes from page 289 of vol. III of the Cronaca Modenese, which is republished within vol. IV of the Monumenti di storia patria. From this point onward, all citations of Tommasino’s Cronaca Modenese will rely on volume numbers from the original texts rather than those of the later publication for the sake of simplicity. 5 For a cost of 200 scudi, see Tommasino de’ Lancelotti, Cronaca Modenese, III, 289. For an estimation of over 300 scudi, see Tommasino de’ Lancellotti, Cronaca Modenese, V, 329. 6 Lancellotti clearly dates the destruction to August-September 1537 and provides explicit detail. Tommasino de’ Lancelloti, Cronaca Modenese, II, 182–189; cited in Soli, Chiese di Modena, I, 284–285. 7 The dedicatory plaque, as well as the sculpture’s contextual changes will be discussed in greater detail later in this chapter. 8 Soli, Chiese di Modena, II, 378. The move to the Accademia was a “difficilissimo trasporto” according to the Vice-director of the Accademia, Antonio Boccolari. Bonsanti, Antonio Begarelli, 151–158. 9 Dürer’s prints were a popular resource for Italian art production across the 1520s, as visible in the career and studio production of multiple artists. For example, Vasari tells of Pontormo’s reliance on Dürer’s woodcuts for his 1525 frescoes at the Certosa di Galluzo (now destroyed); and Teramo Piaggio di Zoagli and his workshop assistants in Genoa used the Small and Large Passion series as resources for a monochrome passion cycle on fabric for San Nicolò del Boschetto, and frescoes for the Santuario di Nostra Signora delle Grazie at Chiavari. See Sharon Gregory, “The Unsympathetic Exemplar in Vasari’s “Life of Pontormo,” Renaissance Studies 23, no. 1 (2009): 1–32; Jim Harris, “Building a House for Repentance: The Monochrome Passion Cycle of San Nicolò del Boschetto,” in Medieval Temporalities: The Experience of Time in Medieval Europe, eds. Almut Suerbaum and Annie Sutherland (Suffolk: D.S. Brewer, 2021), 203–227. 10 Cristina Stefani, “27. Deposizione dalla croce” and “28. Deposizione dalla croce,” in Emozioni in terracotta. Guido Mazzoni, Antonio Begarelli. Sculture del Rinascimento emiliano, eds. Giorgio Bonsanti and Francesca Piccinini (Padua: Zanardi Group, 2009), 146–149; David Ekserdjian, “Bernardino Ricca and a Date for Marcantonio Raimondi’s Deposition,” Print Quarterly 6, no. 1 (1989): 43–44. 11 Amy Neff, “The Pain of Compassio: Mary’s Labor at the Foot of the Cross,” The Art Bulletin 80, no. 2 (1998): 254–273. 12 Neff, “The Pain of Compassio,” 255–257. 13 Lillis, Julia Kelto, “No Hymen Required: Reconstructing Origen’s View on Mary’s Virginity,” Church History 89 (2020): 255–259. 14 Carolyn Valone, “Roman Matrons as Patrons: Various Views of the cloister Wall,” in The Crannied Wall: Women, Religion, and the Arts in Early Modern Europe, ed. Craig Monson (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992), 61. 15 Valone, “Roman Matrons as Patrons,” 61; discussed in Katherine McIver, Women, Art, and Architecture in Northern Italy, 1520–1580 (Burlington: Ashgate, 2006), 172. 16 For a summary of the Begarelli bozzetto, see Bonsanti, Antonio Begarelli, 163. This bozzetto is the only known attributed to the artist, and is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (accession number A.25–1953). Another earthenware sculpture, The Virgin attended by Three Holy Women, is in the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia (accession number E3–1971), though its quality of execution implies that it was made after Begarelli’s finished Deposition rather than acting as a preparatory bozzetto. 17 For a synopsis on Guido Mazzoni’s Pietà in Modena, see Giorgio Bonsanti, “52. Compianto sul Cristo morto,” Emozioni in terracotta, 208–209. 18 Katherine McIver, “The “Ladies of Corregio”: Veronica Gambara and Her Matriarchal Heritage,” Explorations in Renaissance Culture 26, no. 1 (2000), 30; Catherine King, Renaissance Women Patrons: Wives and Widows in Italy c. 1300–1550 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), 76–82.

Exceeding Expectations 255 19 Veronica Gambara was also an avid patron of Correggio. Katherine McIver, “Two Emilian Noblewomen and Patronage Networks in the Cinquecento,” in Beyond Isabella: Secular Women Patrons of Art in Renaissance Italy, eds. Sheryl Reiss and David Wilkins (Kirksville: Truman State University Press, 2001), 160–164. See also King, Renaissance Women Patrons, 99–128. 20 McIver, “The ‘Ladies of Corregio,’” 30. 21 Neff, “The Pain of Compassio,” 265. 22 Michelle A. Erhardt, “The Immaculate Kiss Beneath the Golden Gate: The Influence of John Duns Scotus on Florentine Painting of the 14th Century,” Franciscan Studies 66 (2008): 269–280. 23 Interestingly, this statement was also interpreted as Christ naming himself as mother. For the complexity of gender in medieval and early modern theological interpretation, see Caroline Walker Bynum, ““…And Woman His Humanity:” Female Imagery in the Religious Writing of the Later Middle Ages,” in Gender and Religion: On the Complexity of Symbols, eds. Caroline Walker Bynum, Stevan Harrell and Paula Richman (Boston: Beacon Press, 1986), 267. 24 Neff, “The Pain of Compassio,” 255–256. 25 Bruce Boucher, The Sculpture of Jacopo Sansovino, 2 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), I, 13. 26 Jacopo Sansovino’s innovation is likely due in no small part to the precedent set by his adoptive father and artistic predecessor, Andrea Sansovino, who carved the outstretched arm of John the Baptist in the Baptism of Christ over the entryway to the Florence Baptistery circa 1502. Though similar in its innovation, the sculpture’s adherence to the strict parallel plane of the frontally-oriented Baptist’s body reveals the artist’s reliance again on the rectilinear form of the block, something that, I argue, the Bacchus circumvents. For the original context of the Bacchus at Palazzo Gualfonda (also spelled “Valfonda”), see Stefano Pierguidi, “Il confronto fra antichi e moderni nel collezionismo di Cosimo I: Michelangelo, Sansovino, Cellini, Bandinelli,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 54, no. 3 (2010–2012), 505–509. 27 Buonanno argues that the material insistence of Tullio Lombardo’s Adam was an intentional component of the artist’s design. On the innovation and materiality of Tullio Lombardo’s Adam, see Lorenzo Buonanno, The Performance of Sculpture in Renaissance Venice (New York: Routledge, 2022), 142–196. 28 Barkan terms these stylistic traits as “… a set of synchronic alternatives that define Renaissance theory and the practice of imitation, emulation, and (a term we hear less of in literary discourse of this topic) mutilation.” Leonard Barkan, Unearthing the Past: Archaeology and Aesthetics in the Making of Renaissance Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 11. 29 Barkan, Unearthing the Past, 2–5. 30 In some instances, anecdotes survive expressing the period preference for modern additions to ancient sculptures over original appendages found following a restoration, as in the case of Michelangelo’s preference for Guglielmo della Porta’s restored legs for the Farnese Hercules over the later discovered original legs. Barkan, Unearthing the Past, 204. 31 John Pope-Hennessy, Cellini (London: Macmillan Ltd, 1985), 257. 32 Giffin, “Body and Apparition,” 106–168. 33 John Shearman, Only Connect… Art and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 59–60. Andrea del Sarto’s Madonna of the Harpies was acquired by the Medici family from the Poor Clares at the convent of San Francesco de’ Macci in the eighteenth century. 34 See Bissera Pentcheva, “Hagia Sophia and Multisensory Aesthetics,” Gesta 50, no. 2 (2011): 96; Fabio Barry, “Walking on Water: Cosmic Floors in Antiquity and the Middle Ages,” The Art Bulletin 89, no. 4 (2007): 630. 35 Alexander Nagel, The Controversy of Renaissance Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 275. 36 Giffin, “Body and Apparition,” 113–114. Pentcheva, “Hagia Sophia,” 96; Barry, “Walking on Water,” 630–631. 37 Colin Eisler, Abbey Kornfeld, and Alison Rebecca W. Strauber, “Words on an Image: Francesco da Sangallo’s Sant’Anna Metterza for Orsanmichele,” in Orsanmichele and the History and Preservation of the Civic Monument, ed. Carl Strehlke (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 294. 38 Regarding women commissioners of family memorials, see notes 18-19 of this chapter. 39 Katherine French, “Maidens’ Lights and Wives’ Stores: Women’s Parish Guilds in Late Medieval England,” Sixteenth Century Journal 29, no. 2 (1998): 399–425. Special thanks to Bianca Lopez for bringing this example to my attention.

256  Erin Giffin 0 French, “Maidens’ Lights and Wives’ Stores,” 409–410. 4 41 Interestingly, when the church of Sant’Antonio in Polisene was founded by Beatrice d’Este, Pope Innocent IV directed the women to follow the Benedictine Order, though they were placed under the care of the local Franciscans. Anne Derbes, Picturing the Passion in Late Medieval Italy: Narrative Painting, Franciscan Ideologies, and the Levant (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 19, note 44. I find it particularly relevant that Sant’Antonio was founded by a woman of the ruling Este family, which also controlled Ferrara, Modena and Reggio. Though the bias towards female spaces may be due to the capricious survival of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century sacred spaces, the prevalence of narrative images established for the benefit of women is undeniable. See notes 42-43 following. 42 Anne Derbes, Picturing the Passion, 19, note 44. The spaces that benefitted from installations of Passion cycles include a Clarisse house in Latium, and another Poor Clare institution dedicated to San Pietro in Vineis at Agnan. These spaces, as well as the fresco cycle at Sant’Antonio, stem from circa 1260–1300. 43 Another rare example of group patronage of women, albeit for a Nativity altarpiece, was for the female confraternity of Our Lady at Sant’Antonio Abate, Perugia. Documented in King, Renaissance Women Patrons, 200–206. 44 Tommasino de’ Lancelotti, Cronaca Modenese, III, 289. 45 Roberto Cobianchi, “The Practice of Confession and Franciscan Observant Churches: New Architectural Arrangements in Early Renaissance Italy,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 69, no. 3 (2006): 300. 46 “Item quod in singuli locis ubi audientur confessiones mulierum, ponantur lamina ferrea cum tela fixa, quae non possit amoveri, et super hoc habeantur diligentia P. Vicarii provinciae cum discretis locorum.” Cobianchi, “The Practice of Confession,” 291–292. 47 Full quotation: “… questi frati havevano fatto 6 confessori belissimi che ge haveriano dato intrata scuti 60 l’anno, perchè erano tanti comodi a confesare, dove che era una cosa dignissima, e modo belissimo da cavarge dinari da mane, che nisuno haveria veduto, con dirge nui siamo poveri mendichi e scalci, tute le sempie donne è credibile haveriano tolto asai de casa per dare a questi frati.” Tommasino de’ Lancellotti, Cronaca Modenese, VII, 320. 48 “…deli homeni cento che destrazeno quella giesia, de modo che pareno lupi che devorano una bestia, e li frati sono tuti atoniti per affano e per mal mangiare e mal riposare, e non hano tempo a dire messa, nè matutino, perchè el bisogna vodare tuto el monastere … ch’el pare una Cità che sia sachegiata…” Tommasino de’ Lancellotti, Cronaca Modenese, VII, 520. 49 Unfortunately, the identity of Monica Trotti remains unclear. She is either of the Trotti of Milan, or those of Ferrara. Her husband, Ercole Porrini, is also a challenge to identify: of the Porrini branch based in Modena, he is the subject of only one surviving document in the family archives, dated 1529: Archivio di Stato di Modena (hereafter ASM), busta 1131, filza Porrini. For the Trotti, see the Enciclopedia storico-nobiliare italiana, vol. VI (Milan: Ed. Encicl. Storico-Nob. Italiana, 1932), 730. For the Porrini family in Modena, see “Porro Schiaffinati” in the Enciclopedia storico-nobiliare italiana, vol. V (Milan: Ed. Encicl. Storico-Nob. Italiana, 1932), 468–469. 50 Bonsanti, Antonio Begarelli, 152. Full inscription: “Iesu Christo et cruci et / sacellu(m) hoc Monica / Trotta Herculis Porri/ni uxor aere suo facie/ndu(m) curavit vivensq(ue) di/cavit in quo quide(m) sing/ulis hebdomadis missam / ter celebrari anniversa/riaq(ue) duo officia unum / ante festu(m) assumptionis / Mariae Virginis alteru(m) / post solenne(m) ritu(m) decan/tari volvit ut constat / publicis scripturis manu / d(omi)ni Iulii Nasii notatis / an(no) MDLVI die XXVII / februarii.” Reproduced in Il Museo Lapidario Estense. Catalogo generale, eds. Nicoletta Giordani and Giovanna Paolozzi Strozzi (Marsilio, Venezia 2005), 289–290. 51 Sadly, the single busta of surviving documents from the notary Giulio Nasi contains no mention of Monica Trotti, Ercole Porrini, or the reinstallation of the Begarelli composition at Santa Margherita. ASM, la serie del notaio Nasi Giulio, numero 1663. 52 Adolfo Venturi, “Di un insigne artista Modenese nel secolo XV,” Archivio Storico Italiano 14, no. 144 (1884): 353, note 1. 53 In the first reference to this composition by Tommasino de’ Lancellotti, he identifies the male figure kneeling before the Virgin not as Saint Joachim but rather as Saint Joseph, noted in Adalgisa Lugli, Guido Mazzoni e la rinascita della terracotta nel Quattrocento (Turin: Umberto Allemandi & C., 1990), 324.

Exceeding Expectations 257 4 Lugli, Guido Mazzoni, 323. 5 55 Soli, Chiese di Modena, I, 290. 56 Soli describes the position of all ten chapels at Santa Margherita. Soli, Chiese di Modena, II, 382–383. 57 Families coopting public religious spaces for personal family devotion abound in the early modern period. For example, the Tornabuoni claimed the central apse of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, and the Morosini family converted the façade of a replica of the Santa Casa into a family memorial when it became flanked by family tombs in the Venetian island church of San Clemente. 58 “…un maestro chiamato il Modana…alle quali tutte le figure ha dato tanto bene il colore di marmo, che paiono proprio di quella pietra…” Vasari, Vite, 557. 59 Bonsanti, Antonio Begarelli, 152. 60 Special thanks to Virna Ravaglia for discussing with me the potentially long shadow cast by Guido Mazzoni into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 61 Vedriani writes: “…un’altro prodigio di stupore nell’Arte plastica (doppo Guido Mazzoni…) cioè Antonio Begarelli.” Lodovico Vedriani, Raccolta de’ pittori, scultori, ed architetti modonesi più celebri, nella quale si leggono l’opere loro insigni, e dove l’anno fatte, Cavata da vari autori, e dedicate alla virtuosa Accademia de’ pittori modonesi. (Modena: Bartolomeo Solani, 1662), 46. 62 Full quotation: “Il sepolcro di S. Bernardino et quello di S. Margherita fatti dal medesimo erano stimati molto più belli et vaghi prima che fossero con colori piuttosto imbrattati et immascherati, che ornati, essendo lasciati dall’istesso Maestro con biacca in maniera bianchi che figuravano candidissimo marmo, come tutte le altre sue opere.” Bonsanti, Antonio Begarelli, 152. 63 Johnathan Richardson Senior, An Account of Statues, Bas-reliefs and Drawings in Italy, France, etc. with Remarks (London: J. Knapton, 1722), 28–29. The text derives from Johnathan Richardson Junior’s (1694–1771) travel through Modena in 1720 as a gentleman on his grand tour at twenty-six years old; however, the material is interpreted and supported by the reflections of Richardson Senior. For details, see the preface of the Richardson text, and noted by R.W. Lightbown, “Correggio and Begarelli: A Study in Correggio Criticism,” The Art Bulletin 46, no. 1 (1964): 10. 64 Hanna Philipp, “Winckelmann und das Weis des Rokoko,” Antike Kunst 39, no. 2 (1996): 98–99; Eckart Marchand, “Plaster and Plaster Casts in Renaissance Italy,” in Plaster Casts: Making, Collecting, and Displaying from classical Antiquity to the Present, eds. Rune Frederiksen and Eckart Marchand (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010), 49–79; Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500–1900 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 1–6; Charlotte Guichard, “Taste Communities: The Rise of the Amateur in Eighteenth-Century Paris,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 45, no. 4 (2012): 531–537. 65 On his specific notations, see Oliver Primavesi, “Artemis, Her Shrine and Her Smile: Winckelmann’s Discovery of Ancient Greek Polychromy,” in Circumlitio: The Polychromy of Antique and Medieval Sculpture, ed. Vinzenz Brinkmann, Oliver Primavesi, and Max Hollein (Frankfurt am Main: Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung, 2010), 55. 66 Interestingly, though the Richardson’s characterize Correggio’s painting as antique-like in connection to Begarelli, in multiple other passages in the book they clearly distinguish the artist from the antique. For example: “But no Master, that ever was, surprizes like Correggio; and yet without an Equal Measure of Greatness, and with a Grace not Antique, nor like any other Master.” Richardson Senior, An Account of Statues, 173. For Winckelmann, see Primavesi, “Artemis,” 26–28. 67 Vedriani, Raccolta de’ Pittori, 48; noted in Lightbown, “Correggio and Begarelli,” 8–9. The two artists had worked in the same churches, for example at San Giovanni Evangelista in Parma and Correggio has been associated with terracotta bozzetti. 68 Full inscription: “Opus / Antonii Begarelli / Plastic. sui temporis primo / pictorae lineamentis et plastices in patria magistri / Antonio Allegrio corrigiensi / Disciplina laboribus consuetudine juncti / qui Michaelis Angeli Buonarotii / socialum artium luminis / aeris et dificilis laudatoris / admirationem nactus est effatu illo / antiquis statuis male cessurum / si haec argilla marmor fieret / ex coenobio quod fuit ad S. Caeciliae Mart. / uti accademiae ornamentum / cultorum bonarum artium siet / inlatum A. MDCCCXII / Imp. Napoleone Magno / auspiciis Eugenii

258  Erin Giffin proregis / favente Aloysio Vaccario com. / praep negotiis regni interioribus cive n. / auctore Hieronymo Tadinio Oldofredio / Praep. Provinciae.” Soli, Chiese di Modena, II, 63, Appendix II, no. 10. 69 Lightbown, “Correggio and Begarelli,” 10. 70 Lightbown, “Correggio and Begarelli,” 16. The Farnese Flora was among the Farnese family’s sculpture collection by the 1530s, when it was drawn by Maarten van Heemskerck while still fragmentary; Federico Rausa, “Le collezioni farnesiane di sculture antiche: storia e formazione,” in Le sculture farnese. Storia e documenti, ed. Carlo Gasparri (Naples: Electa, 2007), 15–17. The likely restorer was the Farnese’s in-house sculptor, Guglielmo della Porta; Gabriella Prisco, “La restauración del Hércules y la Flora Farnese,” in Velázquez: Esculturas para el Alcázar, ed. Ramón González de Amezúa y Noriega (Madrid: Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, 2007), 226. 71 Victoria Goldberg, “Leo X, Clement VII and the Immortality of the Soul,” Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 8, no. 1 (1975–1976): 16–25.

Bibliography Barkan, Leonard. Unearthing the Past: Archaeology and Aesthetics in the Making of Renaissance Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999). Barry, Fabio. “Walking on Water: Cosmic Floors in Antiquity and the Middle Ages,” The Art Bulletin 89, no. 4 (2007): 627–656. Bonsanti, Giorgio. Antonio Begarelli (Modena: Cosimo Panini Editore S.P.A, 1992). Boucher, Bruce. The Sculpture of Jacopo Sansovino, 2 volumes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991). Buonanno, Lorenzo. The Performance of Sculpture in Renaissance Venice (New York: Routledge, 2022). Bynum, Caroline Walker. “‘… And Woman His Humanity’: Female Imagery in the Religious Writing of the Later Middle Ages.” In Gender and Religion: On the Complexity of Symbols, edited by Caroline Walker Bynum, Stevan Harrell, and Paula Richman, 257–288 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1986). Cobianchi, Roberto. “The Practice of Confession and Franciscan Observant Churches: New Architectural Arrangements in Early Renaissance Italy,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 69, no. 3 (2006): 289–304. de’ Bianchi, Tommasino. Monumenti di storia patria delle provincie modenesi, 17 volumes (Parma, Pietro Fiaccadori, 1861–1919). Derbes, Anne. Picturing the Passion in Late Medieval Italy: Narrative Painting, Franciscan Ideologies, and the Levant (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Eisler, Colin, Abbey Kornfeld, Alison Rebecca, and W. Strauber. “Words on an Image: Francesco da Sangallo’s Sant’Anna Metterza for Orsanmichele.” In Orsanmichele and the History and Preservation of the Civic Monument, edited by Carl Strehlke, 297–298 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012). Erhardt, Michelle A. “The Immaculate Kiss Beneath the Golden Gate: The Influence of John Duns Scotus on Florentine Painting of the 14th Century,” Franciscan Studies 66 (2008): 269–280. French, Katherine. “Maidens’ Lights and Wives’ Stores: Women’s Parish Guilds in Late Medieval England,” Sixteenth Century Journal 29, no. 2 (1998): 399–425. Giffin, Erin. “Body and Apparition: Material Presence in Sixteenth-Century Italian Religious Sculpture.” PhD Diss., University of Washington, 2017. Giordani, Nicoletta and Giovanna Paolozzi Strozzi. Il Museo Lapidario Estense. Catalogo generale (Venice: Marsilio, 2005). Goldberg, Victoria. “Leo X, Clement VII and the Immortality of the Soul,” Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 8, no. 1 (1975–1976): 16–25. Guichard, Charlotte. “Taste Communities: The Rise of the Amateur in Eighteenth-Century Paris,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 45, no. 4 (2012): 519–547.

Exceeding Expectations 259 Haskell, Francis and Nicholas Penny. Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500–1900 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981). Lightbown, Ronald W. “Correggio and Begarelli: A Study in Correggio Criticism,” The Art Bulletin 46, no. 1 (1964): 7–21. Lillis, Julia Kelto. “No Hymen Required: Reconstructing Origen’s View on Mary’s Virginity,” Church History 89 (2020): 249–267. Lugli, Adalgisa. Guido Mazzoni e la rinascita della terracotta nel Quattrocento (Turin: Umberto Allemandi & C, 1990). Marchand, Eckart. “Plaster and Plaster Casts in Renaissance Italy.” In Plaster Casts: Making, Collecting, and Displaying from Classical Antiquity to the Present, edited by Rune Frederiksen and Eckart Marchand, 49–79 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010). Nagel, Alexander. The Controversy of Renaissance Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011). Neff, Amy. “The Pain of Compassio: Mary’s Labor at the Foot of the Cross,” The Art Bulletin 80, no. 2 (1998): 254–273. Pentcheva, Bissera. “Hagia Sophia and Multisensory Aesthetics,” Gesta 50, no. 2 (2011): 93–111. Philipp, Hanna. “Winckelmann und das Weis des Rokoko,” Antike Kunst 39, no. 2 (1996): 88–100. Pope-Hennessy. John. Cellini (London: MacMillan Ltd, 1985). Primavesi, Oliver. “Artemis, Her Shrine and Her Smile: Winckelmann’s Discovery of Ancient Greek Polychromy.” In Circumlitio: The Polychromy of Antique and Medieval Sculpture, edited by Vinzenz Brinkmann, Oliver Primavesi, and Max Hollein, 24–77 (Frankfurt am Main: Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung, 2010). Prisco, Gabriella. “La restauración del Hércules y la Flora Farnese.” In Velázquez: Esculturas para el Alcázar, edited by Ramón González de Amezúa y Noriega, 225–242 (Madrid: Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, 2007). Rausa, Federico. “Le collezioni farnesiane di sculture antiche: storia e formazione.” In Le sculture farnese. Storia e documenti, edited by Carlo Gasparri, 15–80 (Naples: Electa, 2007). Richardson, Johnathan Senior. An Account of Statues, Bas-reliefs and Drawings in Italy, France, etc. with Remarks (London: J. Knapton, 1722). Shearman, John. Only Connect… Art and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). Soli, Gusmano. Chiese di Modena, 3 volumes (Modena: Aedes Muratoriana, 1974). Vasari, Giorgio. Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori scultori e architettori, 1568 edition, edited by R. Bettarini and P. Barocchi (Florence: S.P.E.S., già Sansoni, 1966–1987). Vedriani, Lodovico. Raccolta de’ pittori, scultori, ed architetti modonesi più celebri, nella quale si leggono l’opere loro insigni, e dove l’anno fatte, Cavata da vari autori, e dedicate alla virtuosa Accademia de’ pittori modonesi (Modena: Bartolomeo Solani, 1662). Venturi, Adolfo. “Di un insigne artista Modenese nel secolo XV,” Archivio Storico Italiano 14, no. 144 (1884): 339–366.

16 Conversation on the Terracotta Sculpture in the Renaissance Recollections, Reflections and Proposals Giancarlo Gentilini Università di Perugia, Florence, Italy

Introduction1 After a long career as an academic teacher in Pisa, Lecce and Perugia, I retired on the first of September 2021. This period of transition, which coincided with the conference held at the University of Warsaw, has encouraged me to look back on my own studies on painted and glazed terracotta in the Renaissance. The topic has occupied me for nearly fifty years and was marked by numerous publications, exhibitions and training of a new generation of scholars. As the present volume demonstrates, the study of terracotta sculpture is now wellfounded and diffused, both geographically and thematically. The investigations into terracotta sculpture encompass the analysis of forms, attributions, techniques, studies on the relationship between painting and sculpture, as well as the cultural and anthropological strand of research. Thus, with its multifaceted and wide-ranging scope, the current state of research is dramatically different from the first years of the 1970s, when the field was highly limited. The interest in the material, so vivid in the nineteenth century, has been exhausted, and the sculpture modelled in clay has been all but forgotten. Wilhelm von Bode (1845–1929) was the pioneer of the terracotta sculpture studies and an avid collector of works in terracotta, stucco and cartapesta. His skilled acquisitions, made directly in Italy and indirectly through his international contacts, have enriched the collection of Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum in Berlin (present-day Bode-Museum). In his publications, he laid foundations for the systematic study of terracotta sculpture, as well as highlighted some key research avenues and challenges of direct relevance for researchers today. To name just a few, Bode lamented on the fact that devotional images in terracotta were almost non-existent in Italian museums, and where they were on display their state pointed to the lack of interest in such typology. Furthermore, he proposed that coloured and glazed terracotta should be considered together, as illustrated in his juxtaposition of the sculpture by young Lorenzo Ghiberti and Luca della Robbia, in his essay, “Die Italienischen Skulpturen der Renaissance in den königlichen Museen zu Berlin. V. Die Florentiner Thonbilder in den ersten Jahrzehnten des Quattrocento”, published in Jahrbuch der Königlich Preuszischen Kunstsammlungen (1885). Apart, from defining research aims for the study of terracotta sculpture, Bode should be credited with generating an international interest, clear in the early twentieth century, in the devotional terracotta sculpture. He observed Stefano Bardini’s collection of the Renaissance Virgin and Child reliefs, presented in the fashion of “the wall full of the Virgin” (Figure 16.1), which he later mimicked in the display of sculptures in the museum in Berlin. Photographs of those assemblages of different compositions, types, materials DOI: 10.4324/9781003327462-21

Conversation on the Terracotta Sculpture in the Renaissance 261

Figure 16.1 Wall full of the Virgin, Stefano Bardini, Florence, archival photograph c. 1910. © Giancarlo Gentilini’s archive

and motifs have nourished my passion for cataloguing, classification and reconstruction of the sculptural repertoire. I have obtained a large-scale reproduction of the photograph showing Bardini’s display of reliefs and began to cut out the single representations of the Virgin from the collective image. I considered their attributions, chronologies and typologies, and thought about the ways, in which certain models were altered or translated into different compositions. I am delighted to see that now new possibilities for this type of research present themselves thanks to the photographic archive of the Museum of Stefano Bardini. Scholars such as Eleonora Belli, David Lucidi and others, make important contributions to our understanding of those reliefs, as well as working in the important field of the provenance research.2 Many of these reliefs were sold to Bode and other collectors, and these reliefs reemerge in recent years on the antiquarian market. The decline in the interest in terracotta sculpture over the course of the twentieth century can be aptly illustrated by André Malraux’s “imaginary museum of world sculpture” of 1952, which included only one sculpture in clay, namely St. Jerome by Pietro Torrigiani, from Seville. My suspicion is that Malraux did not know that the figure was in terracotta, a material clearly censored by the historiography at that point. Things were not much better in John Pope-Hennessy’s Italian Renaissance Sculpture published in 1958. The volume listed only three sculptures in terracotta: The Lamentation by Guido Mazzoni and the other one by Niccolò dell’Arca, and Donatello’s Madonna and Child from the Louvre. However, in the catalogue of Italian sculpture in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (1964), Pope-Hennessy showed a clear attention to surprising sculptures, such as artworks by Michele da Firenze, or to the front of the cassone, covered with a transparent glaze. As argued by scholars, including Luciano Bellosi, this work by a young Donatello was the first step towards glazed terracotta, a technique developed by Luca della Robbia.

262  Giancarlo Gentilini Crucial for the field of terracotta studies was also the monumental catalogue of the exhibition curated in 1979–1981 by Charles Avery, which showcased the collection of terracotta sculptures of Arthur M. Sackler.3 The exhibition was held in three different venues, namely at the National Gallery in Washington, in the Metropolitan Museum in New York and at the Fogg Art Museum in Cambridge. The cover of the catalogue showed a detail of the Bust of Christ the Redeemer by Agostino de’Fondulis and inside, facing the title page the Virgin and Child by Sandro di Lorenzo, at that time still identified as “Master of the Unruly Children”.4 In the introduction, Seymour Slive, the then director of the Fogg Art Museum, has posed a fundamental question, followed by an observation: “Why have terra-cottas been “second-class” sculptures? Fortunately, there is good reason to believe that this will soon change”. The comment proved prophetic; seen as today we discuss terracotta sculpture with colleagues from many nationalities. My own interest in the field evolved initially under the guidance of my master Carlo Del Bravo. In his seminal work on the humanism of Luca della Robbia published in 1973, he drew attention to the role of decorative details.5 The sensitivity to those elements, which framed the figurative scene, informed recent studies by researchers, including Roberta Olson and Federica Carta. They also permitted the full understanding of the varied production of the Della Robbia workshop and drew attention to Luca della Robbia, as a painter in the context of the pictorial decoration on the surface of the vault in the studiolo of Piero de’ Medici. I remember looking with Del Bravo at the magnificent figure of St. Sebastian by Andrea della Robbia (c. 1500–1510), in the collection of the Museum in Montalcino (Figure 16.2). The sculpture was subsequently displayed in exhibitions,

Figure 16.2 Carlo Del Bravo in the Museo di Montalcino looking at Saint Sebastian by Andrea della Robbia. Photograph made by a student, c. 1975. © Giancarlo Gentilini’s archive

Conversation on the Terracotta Sculpture in the Renaissance 263 which I curated in Fiesole (1998) and Arezzo (2009), and most recently in the exhibition Body and Soul: Italian Renaissance Sculpture from Donatello to Michelangelo held in Paris and Milan (2020–2021).6 Under the influence of Del Bravo’s inspirational teaching and specifically after a field trip to different locations near Siena, I have decided to write my thesis on the Della Robbia works. I was particularly struck by the beauty of figures by Andrea della Robbia, such as the Virgin Annunciate from San Quirico d’Orcia, Santa Maria di Vitaleta, at that time almost unknown. Initially, Del Bravo wanted me to focus exclusively on Andrea, thinking about his oeuvre along the lines of iconology, form, the artist’s role in the humanist culture and the philosophical milieu. However, I soon realised that I cannot devise an accurate chronology of works by Andrea without studying carefully works by Luca, since they have collaborated for almost forty years, and of Andrea’s five artistic sons, who shared the prolific workshop. The output of the Della Robbia workshop was closely connected to the production of Benedetto and Santi Buglioni. Hence, the work soon grew exponentially. Moreover, the research made evident to me the number of artworks that escaped the repertoire compiled in publications by Allan Marquand.7 Until today, there is not a single day, quite literally, that someone would not show me a new work of art from the ambit of the Della Robbia, most of which remain unpublished (Figure 16.3). The period of retirement will provide a chance to dedicate time to the work on the expansion of

Figure 16.3 Andrea della Robbia, The Adoration of the Christ Child, with angels, God the Father and the Holy Spirit, c. 1470/75, glazed terracotta, Private Collection, USA, on loan to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. © Giancarlo Gentilini’s archive

264  Giancarlo Gentilini the catalogue of the known Robbiane and to establish the chronology of specific formal solutions and figurative types. The careful study of specific works has nourished more general lines of enquiry, including the socio-economic aspects of serial production of devotional reliefs in terracotta and stucco. These themes were explored in the 1981 exhibition of La Misericordia di Firenze. Archivio e raccolta d’arte, with discussion of a well-known model attributed to Ghiberti, which survived in over a hundred examples. I investigated the relationship between the pious demand for domestic statues at various levels of society, and the significance of terracotta as a medium, which enabled a production of religious sculptures at a reduced cost. Inevitably, the cost of those figures was linked to the polychromy, which allowed artists to vary their work from cheaply made to highly sophisticated reliefs, painted by such successful artists as Neri di Bicci or the so-called Pseudo Pier Francesco Fiorentino. The prices of reliefs depended on the time required to complete certain commission and on the materials used. If one thinks of the application of polychromy using blue obtained from the precious lapis lazuli with fine gilding, the expenses would be significantly higher than the prices fetched by figures without polychromy, especially if made using the moulds.8 At the same time, in considering, these economic aspects I aimed to be sensitive to the differences in perspectives of the devotees and of those who commissioned and paid for those devotional reliefs. The understanding of the material and the quality of polychromy might have differed dramatically within various groups of beholders. This is reflected in written sources, most notably inventories, which demonstrate diverse level of attention to the material of an inventoried relief. A widespread availability of sculptures produced in gesso, cartapesta, stucco or terracotta generated further demand for these products, which perhaps justifies Vasari’s comment that the Della Robbia fortune was made by the Florentine dealers. Beyond the economic considerations, I investigated the technical details of the production of terracotta sculptures. In the exhibition La civiltà del cotto (1980), I explored the processes of working the clay, modelling, hollowing out, sectioning and firing.9 I benefitted greatly from the possibility to learn directly from the conservators of the Opificio Pietre Dure in Florence. This was a pioneering approach, because at that time scholars of Renaissance sculpture focused predominantly on the formal analysis not on the artisanal practices. This research proved highly fruitful and I was able to determine the differences in approaches to terracotta sculptures. If one compares modes of hollowing out, the definition of modelling of artists such as Michele da Firenze, Nanni di Bartolo, Donatello or Luca della Robbia striking differences come to the fore. I investigated the morphology of individual sculptures and examined in detail the work undertaken in different workshops.10 The other avenue, which I would like to work on in a systematic manner, is the issue of the revival of the Della Robbia sculptures in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in particular in the work of the Pre-Raphaelites. William Holman Hunt had in his collection works by the Della Robbia. The relief of the Virgin adoring Christ Child by the workshop of Andrea della Robbia, now in the collection of the Courtauld Gallery in London, was included in the background of his painting of The Lady of Shalot (1886–1905), now in Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford (Figure 16.4). Holman Hunt was interested also in the Della Robbia repertoire of motifs and compositions, which he translated into his paintings. Luca della Robbia’s marble Cantoria for the Florentine Cathedral informed the figures of the singers in Hunt’s May Morning on the Magdalen Tower (1888–1891), Port Sunlight, Lady Lever Art Gallery. The vivid interest in the Della Robbia sculptures can

Conversation on the Terracotta Sculpture in the Renaissance 265

Figure 16.4 William Holman Hunt, The Lady of Shalot, 1886–1905, oil on canvas, 189 × 146 cm, Wadsworth Atheneum of Art, Hartford, CT, The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1961.470. Photo credit: Allen Phillips/Wadsworth Atheneum

be illustrated by the suggestive substitution of a landscape by a follower of Turner, which hung in the study of John Ruskin in Brentwood before 1880. It was replaced by The Nativity relief by Andrea della Robbia and his workshop (1480–1490), acquired thanks to Charles Fairfax Murray in 1880 (since 1961 in the collection of the National Gallery, Washington). This is a clear testimony of the love for the glazed terracotta sculptures in the English-speaking world and an understudied aspect of the afterlife of the Robbiane. The fortune of the Della Robbia sculptures in the milieu of the Pre-Raphaelites and in that of the Symbolist painters in England can be traced through copies of the Della Robbia and Buglioni compositions reproduced by the Ginori manufactory from Doccia, near Florence. One example of this practice is the copy of a relief by Benedetto Buglioni of the Adoration of the Christ Child (1510–1520), in the Museo di Palazzo Taglieschi, Anghiari (on a long-term loan from Museo del Bargello) depicted behind the seated figure of the English painter, George Fredric Watts (1817–1904) (Figure 16.5). The relief was thought to have been dispersed,11 but it subsequently reappeared on the antiquarian market and was signalled to me by a collector from Gubbio, who believed it might be a genuine Renaissance work. Unable to consult the relief in person due to the ongoing pandemic, from the photo, I identified the sculpture as a relief owned by Watts, sold by his widow in 1938. The historic photographs showing the exposition of works by the Ginori manufactory at the National Exposition in Turin of 1884, proves that such reliefs were available for purchase at that time.

266  Giancarlo Gentilini

Figure 16.5 Louis Reid Deuchar, George Frederic Watts (after a photograph by George Andrews, 1895), 1899, oil on canvas, 92 × 71.5 cm, inv. no. NPG 5223, National Portrait Gallery, London. © National Portrait Gallery, London

This observation points to another significant area, that calls for further research, namely the issue of copies, imitations, fakes and derivatives. Such works were created from the half of the eighteenth century to the first decades of the twentieth century. Ginori from Doccia is but one example of the manufactory, which satisfied the increasing demand for the Robbiane, notable across Europe and America. To name just a few, the production of the imitations thrived in Giuseppe Devers’s workshop active in Paris, or the manufacture called the Della Robbia Pottery, active from the end of the nineteenth century in England promoted by John Ruskin, William Holman Hunt and George Fredric Watts. The close reading of works created in the Cantagalli and Ginori manufactories points to the important issue of identification. How can we distinguish Renaissance artworks from later copies? The juxtaposition of the original tondo by Andrea della Robbia from the Ospedale degli Innocenti in Florence and a mid-nineteenth-century copy by the Ginori manufactory reveals a number of notable differences, including the sectioning of the figures and the backgrounds. One may also note a more glossy quality of Ginori’s glazes and the slightly smaller figure of the swaddled child in relation to the original work, related to the use of the moulds, which resulted in the necessarily reduced dimensions of the nineteenth-century tondi. However, despite those differences, Della Robbia scholars have in the past published works by Ginori, as original fifteenth-century sculptures. Such was the case with the stemma of the Silk Guild (Arte della Seta) from the Florentine Orsanmichele dated to 1858, but frequently published as a genuine Renaissance artefact.

Conversation on the Terracotta Sculpture in the Renaissance 267

Figure 16.6 Domenico Pesenti, Piper before the Torre dei Marsili in Borgo San Jacopo, Florence. Print from an album Gli artisti pei poveri, 1880. © Giancarlo Gentilini’s archive

The Della Robbia works to me are deeply ingrained in the Florentine visual culture and in the material fabric of our city. In the words of Walter Pater: “nothing brings the real air of a Tuscan town so vividly to mind as those pieces of pale blue and white earthenware, by which he [Luca della Robbia] is best known”.12 Therefore, it is striking that even though these artworks are considered fundamentally Tuscan and Florentine, the vast majority of literature on the subject was written by German, French, English and American scholars. Until my monograph of 1992, there was no study by a Florentine historian of the perception of the Della Robbia works, of something that so thoroughly belongs to the specific cultural environment.13 On the very street, on which I live, works by the Della Robbia were sold in the 1830s by Giuseppe Sorbi, an antique dealer, who traded in the Robbiane from the sequestered Florentine convents. His activity is manifested in reliefs, which until this day are affixed above the doorway to his gallery in borgo San Jacopo (Figure 16.6). This is why I believe that of utmost importance for future studies is the retrieval of the original context for individual works. The research into the Della Robbia works should aim to reconstruct the setting of the altarpieces and lunettes, moved to different, often very distant locations, and to highlight the dialogue between the painted and the sculpted images in specific architectural contexts. Finally, I would like to invite ideas and suggestions for the life of this unpublished material, photographs and notes, which I have accumulated over forty years of work.

268  Giancarlo Gentilini Notes 1 This chapter is a transcription of a keynote lecture delivered at the University of Warsaw in September 2021 and conversations with Zuzanna Sarnecka. Its informal character is related to the conversational nature of the remarks. 2 Eleonora Belli, Antonella Nesi, Madonne Bardini. Madonna Reliefs from the Second Half of the Florentine Quattrocento (Florence: Centro Di, 2017). 3 Lois Katz, Charles Avery and Laing Alastair, Fingerprints of The Artists – European TerraCotta Sculpture European Terra-Cotta Sculpture from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections (Washington, DC: Harvard University Press, 1981). 4 For the most detailed account of the artist see Lorenzo Principi, Il Maestro dei bambini turbolenti: Sandro di Lorenzo scultore in terracotta agli albori della Maniera (Perugia: Aguaplano, 2020). 5 Carlo Del Bravo, “L’umanesimo di Luca della Robbia”, Paragone 24 (1973): 1–34. 6 Exhibition curated by Marc Bormand, Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi and Francesca Tasso. 7 Allan Marquand, Luca Della Robbia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1914); Idem, Giovanni della Robbia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1920); Idem, Benedetto and Santi Buglioni (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1921); Idem, Andrea della Robbia and his Atelier (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1922); Idem, The Brothers of Giovanni della Robbia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1928). 8 Giancarlo Gentilini, “La scultura fiorentina in terracotta del Rinascimento: tecniche e tipologie”, in La scultura in terracotta, tecniche e conservazione, ed. Maria Grazia Vaccari (Florence: Centro Di, 1996), 64–103; Giancarlo Gentilini, “Scultura dipinta o pittura a rilievo? Riflessioni sulla policromia nel Quattrocento fiorentino” in Terre cuites de la Renaissance: matière et couleur, ed. Anne Bouquillon and Marc Bormand (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2011). 9 Giancarlo Gentilini, “Nella rinascita delle antichità”, in La civiltà del cotto. Arte della terracotta nell’area fiorentina dal XV al XX secolo, cat. mostra a cura della Cooperativa OPERA, ed. Antonio Paolucci and Giovanni Conti (Florence: Coop. Officine grafiche, 1980) 67–99. 10 Giancarlo Gentilini, op. cit. note 8. 11 Louise Boreham, “G. F. Watts’s della Robbia tondo”, The Sculpture Journal, no. 22/ 1 (2013): 133–137. 12 Walter Pater, “Luca della Robbia”, in The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry, 1893, ed. Donald L. Hill (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 49–51. 13 Giancarlo Gentilini, I Della Robbia. La scultura invetriata nel Rinascimento (Florence: Cantini, 1992), 2 vols.

Bibliography Belli, Eleonora and Antonella Nesi, Madonne Bardini. Madonna Reliefs from the Second Half of the Florentine Quattrocento (Florence: Centro Di, 2017). Boreham, Louise, “G. F. Watts’s della Robbia tondo”, The Sculpture Journal, no. 22/1 (2013): 133–137. Del Bravo, Carlo, “L’umanesimo di Luca della Robbia”, Paragone 24 (1973): 1–34. Gentilini, Giancarlo, “Nella rinascita delle antichità”, in La civiltà del cotto. Arte della terracotta nell’area fiorentina dal XV al XX secolo, cat. mostra a cura della Cooperativa OPERA, ed. Antonio Paolucci and Giovanni Conti (Florence: Coop. Officine grafiche, 1980), 67–99. Gentilini, Giancarlo, I Della Robbia. La scultura invetriata nel Rinascimento (Florence: Cantini, 1992), 2 vols. Gentilini, Giancarlo, “La scultura fiorentina in terracotta del Rinascimento: tecniche e tipologie”, in La scultura in terracotta, tecniche e conservazione, ed. Maria Grazia Vaccari (Florence: Centro Di, 1996), 64–103. Gentilini, Giancarlo, “Scultura dipinta o pittura a rilievo? Riflessioni sulla policromia nel Quattrocento fiorentino” in Terre cuites de la Renaissance: matière et couleur, eds. Anne Bouquillon and Marc Bormand (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2011).

Conversation on the Terracotta Sculpture in the Renaissance 269 Katz, Lois, Charles Avery and Laing Alastair, Fingerprints of the Artists – European Terra-Cotta Sculpture European Terra-Cotta Sculpture from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections (Washington, DC: Harvard University Press, 1981). Marquand, Allan, Luca Della Robbia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1914). Marquand, Allan, Giovanni della Robbia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1920). Marquand, Allan, Benedetto and Santi Buglioni (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1921). Marquand, Allan, Andrea della Robbia and his Atelier (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1922). Marquand, Allan, The Brothers of Giovanni della Robbia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1928). Pater, Walter, “Luca della Robbia”, in The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry, 1893, ed. Donald L. Hill (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 49–51. Principi, Lorenzo, Il Maestro dei bambini turbolenti: Sandro di Lorenzo scultore in terracotta agli albori della Maniera (Perugia: Aguaplano, 2020).

Index

Note: Italic page numbers refer to figures. ’s-Hertogenbosch 23 Aardenburg 18, 21 Abrantes 52 Alfonso, Álvaro 53 Alfonso Henriques 54 Alfonso V of Aragon 54 Albasini, Carlo 74, 77, 80, 81, 83, 84 Alberti, Leon Battista 90, 91, 114, 119, 120, 129, 133, 134 Albertinelli, Mariotto 3, 123, 130, 133 Albertus Magnus 247 Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo NY 145 Alfani, Alessandra 206 Allegrini, Francesco 174, 182, 183 Altoviti, Bindo 129, 135 Amerbach, Basilius 5 Amersfoort 24 Amsterdam 8, 11, 15, 18, 19, 23, 27, 28, 33, 245; Rijksmuseum 245 Andreas of Austria (Margrave Andrew of Burgau) 69, 71, 72 Andrew Butterfield Fine Arts 7, 116, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 128, 133 Anne of Bohemia and Hungary 75 Anthony, saint, of Padua 223, 241 Antinori, Niccolò 154, 155, 160, 162, 164, 165, 210, 211 Antwerp 18, 30, 52, 53 Aquila, Silvestro dell’ 232 Aragon 50, 54 Arcangeli, Silvestro 229, 234 Arezzo 77, 263 Ashmolean Museum, Oxford 165, 166, 169, 231 Athens 221 Atz, Karl 73, 82, 84 Augsburg 41, 47, 49, 69, 71, 81, 82, 84; Basilica of Saint Ulrich and Afra 71; Maximilianmuseum 69, 81; Zeughaus 71 Augustine, saint 142, 220–224 Avery, Charles 262, 268, 269

Avicenna 247 Azeitão 52, 57, 61, 63 Babo, Count of Habsburg 73 Bachiacca (Ubertini, Francesco) 128 Badia of Passignano 130 Bandinelli, Baccio 123–129, 124, 132–134 Baraldo, Giuseppe 252 Barbieri, Giuseppe Maria 193, 200, 201 Barcelona 39, 40, 45; Cathedral 39 Bardini, Stefano 126, 132, 182, 183, 185, 261, 268 Bariola, Giulio 192, 200 Bassano 224, 226 Bauer, Thomas 74, 82, 83, 84 Bavaria 7, 10, 41, 69, 71, 74 Begarelli, Antonio 186–201, 238–259 Beja 52, 55, 60, 64; Convent of Nossa Senhora da Conceição 55 Belém, Hieronymites Monastery, Santa Maria 56 Beliardi, Giacomo 191, 192, 199 Belli, Eleonora 261, 268 Bellosi, Luciano 220, 225, 227, 261 Benay, Erin 211, 212, 216 Benocci, Carla 145, 149 Bentivoglio, Giovanni Battista 188 Bergamo 224 Bergen op Zoom vermunt–33; Het Markiezenhof 16, 25; Hoogeboomstraat 18 Oude Potterstrate 18; Weele 18 Bernard of Clairvaux, saint 164 Biringuccio, Vannoccio 90, 93, 97, 101 Blaise, saint 141–144 Bloch, Amy 7, 10, 42, 43, 47, 48, 216, 218 Blumka Gallery, New York 126 Bode Museum, Berlin 114, 171–185, 190, 192, 199, 260 Bologna 54, 132, 188, 196, 200, 244; San Martino 195, 196, 197, 200, 201; Santa Maria della Vita 244 Bolzano (Bozen) 69, 81, 84

Index  271 Bongianni, Jacopo 207–208 Bonsanti, Giorgio 198–201, 251, 253–258 Borghini, Raffaello 90–91, 104, 117, 118, 120, 127, 132, 134 Borgvliet 16, 18 Borsook, Eve 96, 99, 170, 181, 182, 184 Bos, Cornelis 52 Boucher, Bruce 7, 44–48, 97, 100, 117, 118, 120, 121, 131–134, 180, 183, 184, 225, 227, 255, 258 Boyd, Rachel 93, 97, 99, 235 Brabant 15, 17, 19, 23, 27–32 Bracciolini, Poggio 89 Braga 59; Church of Our Lady of Mercy 59 Brandenburg, Francesca of 243 Brentwood 265 Brescia 224 Bressanone (Brixen) 69–84; Museo Diocesano Hofburg 70–76; Eder 77 Brisighella 233 Brooklyn Museum, New York 93, 154–157, 162, 164, 165, 217 Bruges 21, 31, 46, 49 Bruhn, Thomas 74, 77, 82, 84 Brunico (Bruneck) 81 Buczynski, Bodo 40, 47, 48 Bufalini, Leonardo 229 Buglioni 56, 209, 213, 214, 215, 218, 233, 265; Benedetto 167, 209, 234, 263; Santi 167, 209, 213, 214, 217, 263 Burgos 58 Cadiz 89 Cafaggiolo 52, 95 Caglioti, Francesco 61, 64, 116–121, 170, 180, 181, 234, 236 Calenzano 95 Caliphate of Córdoba 51 Campana collection, Rome 88, 96 Capponi 140, 141, 143, 144; Giovanni 140, 148 Carafa, Diomede 88, 96, 99 Careggi 95 Carpi, Santissimo Crocifisso in 193, 194 Carpi, Ugo da 240 Carradori, Francesco 44 Carta, Federica 1, 139–150, 182, 184, 262 Cartaro, Mario 229 Castel Durante, Urbania 54 Castile 34, 50, 54, 75 Caterina, Antinori 164 Catherine, saint 129, 214, 218, 219 Cato 89, 95 Cennini, Cennino 129, 175, 183, 185 Ceriotti, Maria Chiara 195 Chagford 247, 248 Chanterene, Nicolau 56 Charles III, Duke of Savoy 54

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor 58 Chastello San Giovanni 94 Childebert I 74, 77 Childeric 72, 78, 79 Christ 4, 8, 40, 44, 93, 94, 102, 104, 106, 109, 115, 117, 119, 121, 126, 154–165, 188–192, 199, 207–212, 217, 221, 224–225, 240–256, 262–265 Christina of Lorraine 78 Cicero 221 Cirujano, Conja 35, 36, 46, 48 Claperós 39, 40, 45, 47; Antoni 39, 47; Juan 40 Coimbra 51, 52, 57–63; Machado de Castro National Museum 59 Colette of Corbie, saint 57 Colleoni, Casandra 243 Cologne 8, 10, 23, 29, 185 Colombe, Michel 38 Columella, Lucius Junius Moderatus 86, 88–91, 95, 97–100 Corinth 6, 221 Correggio, Antonio Allegri da 243, 251–254, 257–259 Correggio, Borso da 243 Correggio, Giberto X 243 Correggio, Niccolò da 243 Cortona, Santuccia da 206 Cortonesi, Alfio 230, 234, 236 Cosimo, Piero di 89, 97, 99, 100, 158, 166, 168 Costa, Jorge da 53 Costoli, Leopoldo 176 County Museum of Art, Los Angeles 127 Credi, Lorenzo di 106, 111, 114, 119, 125, 207 Cremona 224, 240 D’Agnolo, Baccio 123 D’Este; Alfonso I 195; Ercole 240; Francesco IV 240 Da Corte, Zan Francesco 187 Darius III 56 De Albuquerque, Brás Afonso 61 De Artiaga, Sebastião 59 De Cernache, Cristóvão 59 De Cervantes, Juan 34 De Clercq, Wim 16, 18, 28–29, 31 De Fondulis Agostino 262 De Fondulis Giovanni 222–224, 227 De Herrera, Pedro 52 De Holanda, Francisco 58 De Lemos, Duarte 59 De Maria, Giacomo 196 De Ruão, João 58 De Staulis, Rinaldo 43, 44, 47, 48 De Usesques, Fontaner 34 De Vries, Vredeman 52 Degli Agli, Antonio 139, 147–150 Dei Bianchi, Tommasino see Dei Lancellotti

272 Index Dei Lancellotti, Tommasino 240, 248, 249, 253, 254, 256 Dei Medici 77–78, 86–88, 94–96, 99–101, 106, 123, 125, 127, 130, 133, 139, 148–150, 155, 175, 181, 183, 185, 231, 235, 255, 262 Del Bravo, Carlo 262 Del Ghirlandaio, Ridolfo 208, 216–219 Del Pollaiuolo, Antonio 54 Del Sarto, Andrea 123, 126–130, 133, 135, 182, 246, 255 Del Tasso, Giovan Battista 125, 131, 134 Del Verrocchio, Andrea 2, 102, 103, 110, 112, 114–122, 124, 181 Delft 19 Dell’Arca, Niccolò 44, 244, 251, 261 Della Porta, Guglielmo 252, 255, 258 Della Robbia 6, 42, 50, 53, 56, 57, 61, 63, 118, 133–134, 151–152, 205, 206, 214–218, 233–237, 266, 269; Andrea 55, 56, 88, 127, 130, 143, 146, 153, 205, 207–208, 231, 263—266; Francesco (Fra Ambrogio) 233, 234; Giovanni 93, 94, 154–158, 161–167, 200, 208–212, 214; Girolamo 92, 123, 127, 129, 132, 235; Luca 3, 6, 11, 54, 87, 88, 90–100, 139—142, 144—147, 151–153, 205, 206, 208, 231, 260–264, 267; Marco (Fra Mattia) 165, 167, 169, 209, 231–232, 235; Simone di Marco 94 Della Volpaia, Lorenzo 124, 131 Deruta 54 Deuchar, Louis Reid 266 Di Bartolo, Nanni 264 Di Bicci, Neri 198, 201, 264 Di Lorenzo, Sandro 2, 7, 10, 123, 126, 127, 131, 132, 135, 262, 268, 269 Doccia 265–266 Donatello 7, 9, 10, 46, 48, 80, 97, 100, 117, 120, 121, 127, 128, 132, 134, 135, 164, 167, 168, 180, 181, 184, 185, 208, 223–227, 261, 263, 264 Dordrecht 23 Dossi, Dosso 187, 197 Dreyfus, Gustave 102 Dürer, Albrecht 111, 112, 119, 121, 240, 246, 254 Ebner, Margareta 4 Écouen 60, 63, 144, 148 Eleanor of Viseu 55 England 23, 29, 247, 255, 258, 265, 266 Ericani, Giuliana 224, 226, 227 Eulalia, saint 39, 47 Évora 52, 53, 61, 62, 65 Facchi, Matteo 43, 47, 48, 226 Faenza 52, 54, 96, 100, 198, 201, 213, 233 Farnese, Alessandro 54, 61, 62

Federighi, Benozzo 94, 147 Fei, Alessandro 125 Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor 69, 75–78 Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria 69, 76, 77, 79 Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor 34 Ferrara 7, 9, 56, 132, 135, 186, 195, 217, 219, 235, 248, 256; Palazzo dei Diamanti 56; Sant’Antonio in Polisene 248, 256 Ferrucci, Andrea 129–130, 133 Ferrucci, Francesco di Simone 106–107, 109, 112, 113, 118–122 Fiesole 95, 106, 133, 166, 168, 263 Filarete (Di Pietro Averlino, Antonio) 88, 95, 96, 99 Filicaia, Averardo da 125, 131 Fiorentino, Pier Francesco (pseudo) 264 Fiorentino, Rosso 2, 123, 128–130 Firenze, Michele da 42–44, 48, 261, 264 Flanders 18, 21, 27, 28, 31, 32, 46, 49, 52, 91 Flora, saint 147 Florence 53, 54, 71, 77–80, 83, 94–97, 102, 104, 123, 125–135, 139, 152, 158, 161, 164, 206, 207, 210, 211, 216, 244, 264, 265; Baptistery (Florentine Baptistry) 255; Cathedral (Santa Maria del Fiore; Florentine Duomo; Duomo) 145, 257; Churches: San Jacopo di Ripoli 156, 164–165, 207–208; San Marco 129, 130, 133, 212; San Miniato al Monte 88, 139, 145–146; San Pancrazio 156; San Pier Maggiore 206; Santa Croce 108, 139 (Pazzi Chapel 139, 145, 147, 148; Salviati Chapel 78); Santa Maria Novella 132, 212, 217, 257; Santa Trinita 151 (Chapel Antinori 155, 165); Santissima Annunziata 123, 131, 139 (“Chiostrino dei voti” 123, 130); Santo Spirito 127, 131, 157; Palaces: Boni (Palazzo Antinori) 155; Gualfonda 244, 255; Rucellai 177; Strozzi 102; Vecchio 102, 125, 131, 184; Venturi Ginori 176; Places: “Sapienza” 123, 127; Chiostro dello Scalzo 128; Galleria Palatina 129; Loggia dei Lanzi 79, 83; Loggia of the Accademia di Belle Arti 207, 208; Museo dell’Opera del Duomo 152; Museo Nazionale del Bargello 77, 154, 164, 167, 205, 206, 213–215; Opificio Pietre Dure 264; Orsanmichele 94, 127, 130, 152, 210, 240, 246–247, 266; Orti Oricellari 175, 178, 183; Ospedale degli Innocenti 266; Piazza del Mercato Nuovo 124; Piazza della Signoria 127, 130; Piazza San Pier Maggiore 206; Ponte Santa Trinita 78; Via dei Calzaioli 127, 130; Via dei Lamberti 127, 130; Via dell’ Agnolo 206; Via della Scala 175, 178, 208; Via delle Rose 206; Via Nazionale 161; Villa La Quiete 165, 208–210 Floris, Jan 52

Index  273 Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge MA 262 Forciroli, Francesco 251 Forteguerri, Niccolò 106, 109–110 Fossa, Tommaso da 59, 63 Fra Angelico 212 Fra’ Bartolomeo 2, 123, 129–130, 133 Francavilla, Pietro 77 France 29, 34, 38, 39, 52, 58, 92; Île de France 34 Franchois, Frans 52–53 Franciabigio (di Cristofano, Francesco) 123, 182 Francis, saint 146, 220, 232, 241, 245 François Ier (Francis I of France) 92 Friedrich III, Holy Roman Emperor 69 Frisia 19 Funchal, Casa-Museu Frederico de Freitas 53 Gagliardelli, Giovanni Francesco 232 Gais, Neuhaus Castle 81 Galen 158 Gambara, Veronica 243, 254 Gasparotto, Davide 193 Gaurico, Pomponio 90 Genoa 42, 254 Gentilini, Giancarlo 4, 7, 10, 44–46, 89, 96–101, 119, 121, 131–134, 139, 141, 147–150, 158, 165–168, 181, 185, 205, 216, 225–227, 231, 234–236, 261 Gerhard, Hubert 71, 82–84 Germany 3, 5, 29–30, 40–41, 45, 69 Ghent 18, 31 Ghiberti, Lorenzo 6, 42–44, 151, 220, 260, 264 Giambologna 71, 74, 77–79, 81, 116, 123 Ginori, manufactury 265–266 Giovanni, Bertoldo di 95 Girona, Cathedral 39 Gnocchi, Lorenzo 95 Goedereede 24 Goes (Goos), Jan 52 Gouda 19 Góis, Church of Santa Maria Maior 59 Gozzoli, Benozzo 2 Granacci, Francesco 128 Grillenzoni, Orazio 251 Groeneweg, Gerrit 15, 17, 24, 26 Gualterotti, Raffaele 78 Guelders 19 Guerzoni, Lidia Righi 197 Guijarro, Fernán Martínez 52 Guillouet, Jean-Marie 58 Hedwig, saint 4 Herculaneum 251 Hodart, Philippe 58, 59 Holland 18, 19, 23, 27 Horowitz, Maryanne 95

Hulst 21 Hunt, William Holman 264, 265 Illán, Adelina 37, 38 Impruneta 139–150 Innsbruck 69–70, 77, 80; Hofkirche 70, 77; Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum 69 Isabella of Portugal 58 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston MA 154 Islamic states (Al-Andalus) 50 Italy 6, 29, 40–45, 54, 89, 91, 106, 220, 224, 244, 251, 260 James, saint 39, 141, 144, 165 Jean V 34 Jean le Bon of France (John II of France) 42 Jerome, saint 115, 129, 146, 187, 241, 242 John the Baptist, saint 4, 55, 111, 115, 119, 142, 144, 187, 206, 231, 241 Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin 126, 260 Kohl, Jeanette 171, 181 Kriegbaum, Friedrich 72–74, 77, 80–82 Kronbichler, Johann 74–75, 77 Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin 112–114, 241 Kupiec, Catherine 1, 88, 96, 100, 156, 165, 216 L’Aquila 232 Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight 264 Lamone, val di 233 Landshut 41; Church of St Martin and Kastulus 42 Larciani, Giovanni 128 Lawrence, saint 232 Lazio 234, 236 Lazzarelli, Mauro Alessandro 190, 199, 201 Lehmann, Ann-Sophie 7, 10, 91 Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 5, 40 Lightbown, Ronald W. 252 Lillie, Amanda 94 Lippi, Filippino 116, 120, 157 Lippi, Filippo 3 Lisbon 51, 52, 55–57, 59; National Museum of Ancient Art 55, 56 Livy 221 Lombardo, Pietro 224 Lombardo, Tullio 244, 255 Lombardy 29, 41, 43, 48, 220, 224 London 55, 96; British Museum 60, 116, 118, 120; Courtauld Gallery 34, 217, 264; National Portrait Gallery 266 Lorch, Church of St Martin 40 Lorenzo, Sandro di 2, 7, 123, 126, 127, 132, 262 Loreto, Francisco 58 Loreto, Holy House 126, 132

274 Index Louis I, Duke of Orléans 42 Low Countries 7, 16, 18, 19, 22, 29 Lucca 29, 126, 129, 200 Lucidi, David 1, 2, 261 Luke, saint 139, 144 Machiavelli, Niccolò 56, 183 Magliani, Mauro 189, 190, 193, 194 Magnani, Luigi 192 Maiano, Benedetto da 108, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 180, 181, 182 Malaga 51, 54 Malavasi, Giuseppe 190, 199 Malle 21 Mallorca 54 Malraux, André 261 Mampieri, Antonella 196 Manises (Valencia) 51 Mantegna, Andrea 240, 241, 246 Mantova, Cathedral 194 Manuel I of Portugal 51, 54–58 Marche 232, 233 Margarete, Countess of Tyrol 75 Marquand, Allan 231, 263 Marques, Sofia 93 Marseille 55 Martelli 155 Mary Magdalene 71, 74, 154, 210, 211, 212, 217 Mary of Burgundy 75 Masaccio 3 Master of the Singing Angels 44 Matos 52 Matsche, Franz 74, 77, 80 Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor 69, 70, 75, 83 Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor 77 Mazzoni, Guido 3, 187, 242, 250, 251, 253, 261 Medici de’ 87, 88, 94, 123, 125, 128, 155; Cosimo 139; Cosimo III 69; Ferdinando 77, 78; Francesco I 125; Francesco Armellini 231–235; Giovanni di Cosimo 127, 130; Giuliano 106; Lorenzo di Piero (Lorenzo il Magnifico) 95, 139, 175; Piero 86, 95, 139; Medici palace (Palazzo Medici Ricardi) 86 Mendicant orders: Augustinians 220, 224, 234; Dominicans 123, 129, 148, 164, 207, 208, 211, 212, 247; Franciscans 220, 232, 244, 248, 249, 256 Mercadante, Lorenzo 34–46 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 124, 153 Michelangelo, Buonarotti 5, 104, 238, 242, 244, 246, 247, 250, 252, 263 Michelangelo Ferrucci, Andrea di 130 Michelozzo 146 Middle Rhein 40

Milan 42, 263; Banco Medicea 42; Cathedral 42, 46 Millán, Pedro 35 Minelli, Giovanni 224 Minerbetti, Andrea 128 Minerbetti, Tommaso 128 Modena 187, 188–190, 192, 193, 195–197, 248, 249, 250; Accademia delle Belle Arti 240, 252; Cathedral 188, 250; Churches: San Domenico 240, 243; San Francesco 238, 239, 242, 247; San Giovanni Battista 242; San Salvatore 188, 190, 197; Santa Cecilia 240; Santa Margherita 240, 249, 250, 251, 257; Santa Maria dei Servi 198; Places:Galleria Estense 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 196; Museo Lapidario Estense 249; Palazzo Comunale 192 Monica, saint 222, 223, 224 Monte Amiata, Church of Santa Fiora 145, 146 Monte Comum 53 Montecassiano 229 Montelupo, Baccio da 2, 123, 124, 126, 127, 130, 132 Montorsoli, Giovann’Angelo 245 Moreno, Manuel Gómez 34 Morlans 34 Mugello 94, 95 Multscher, Hans 5 Munich 71, 74, 174, 180; Bayerisches Nationalmuseum 175, 177, 180, 182; Church of St. Michael 71 Murray, Charles Fairfax 265 Musée Conde, Chantilly 114 Musée du Louvre, Paris 41, 110, 113, 129, 172 Musée Jacquemart André, Paris 129, 130 Museo de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid 252 Museo di Montalcino 262 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 6 Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest (Szépművészeti Múzeum) 125, 222, 223, 224 Museum of Fine Arts, Houston 115, 263 Nagel, Alexander 247 Naples 55, 187 Narni, Giovanni di Ludovico di 230 National Gallery of Art, Washington 2, 102, 103, 106, 107, 116, 165 Nelli, Plautilla 214 New Amsterdam (New York) 18 New York 124, 126, 128, 130, 153, 155, 262 Niemeijer 16 Nijmegen 18 Nofri, Giulano di 40 Noordgeest 16

Index  275 North Holland 19, 23 Nuremberg 5, 29, 30, 40; Germanisches Nationalmuseum 41 Olson, Roberta 1, 94, 262 Oosterhout 19, 24 Orcia, San Quirico di 263 Ourém, Church Collegiate 54 Overijssel 19 Padovani, Antonio 78 Padua 54, 224 Pagani, Gian Filiberto 190 Palissy, Bernard 92, 155 Pancras, saint 224 Paris 41, 92, 102, 110, 113, 129, 263, 266 Pater, Walter 267 Pavia 43, 45; Certosa 42, 43 Pedro, Duke of Coimbra 53 Pellegrini, Antonio 43, 44 Peltzer, Rudolf 73, 77 Perugino, Pietro 207 Peruzzi, Baldassarre 188 Pescia 139, 141, 144, 145; Cathedral 140, 143; Chapel of the archbishop, Palazzo Episcopale 140; Chapel of the mason, Hospitaler Order of Altopascio 140 Pesenti, Domenico 267 Petrarch (Petrarca, Francesco) 95, 221 Philip I of Castile 75 Philipp II of Spain 77 Piccioli, Prudenzio 195, 196, 197 Piccolomini, Aeneas Sylvius 95 Piccolpasso, Cipriano 44, 90, 91 Pisano, Niculoso Francisco 52 Pistoia, Cathedral 106 Pistoia, Fra’ Paolino da 130 Pitti, Piero 124, 125 Planiscig, Leo 142 Pliny the Elder 6, 151, 152, 158, 159, 161, 162, 164, 220, 221, 251, 252 Poggio a Caiano 95 Polo, Agnolo di 127 Pontormo (Carucci, Jacopo) 123, 128, 129 Pope: Leo X (de 'Medici, Giovanni) 127, 130, 175, 231; Pius II Piccolomini 140, 229; Sixtus IV 206 Pope-Hennessy, John 89, 94, 142, 144 Porrini 250, 251 Porrini, Francesco, 250 Porrini, Monica Trotti 240, 249 Porrini, Ottavo 249 Porrini, Polisenna 250 Port Sunlight 264 Portigiani, Pagno di Lapo 140, 141 Portugal 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 147

Possis (Possonio) 152 Prato 95 Praun, Paulus 5 Praxiteles 251, 252 Putti, Giovanni 196 Quadri, Giovanni Battista 72, 76 Quinta da Bacalhoa, Azeitão 57 Quintilian 95 Rafanelli, Lisa 211, 212 Raimondi, Marcantonio 240 Raphael 116, 140 Reichle, Hans 69, 71–81 Rhineland 21 Riario, Raffaele 170 Ricca, Bernardino 240 Riccardi 88 Ripatransone 232 Rodrigues, Justa 56, 57 Rome 54, 88, 89, 221, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 242; Biblioteca di Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte 229; Castel Sant’Angelo 229; Churches: Aracoeli 230; Il Gesù 230; Pantheon 231; San Domenico e Sisto 230; San Lorenzo in Piscibus 231, 232; Santa Maria sopra Minerva 246; St. Ivo dei Bretoni 230; St. Peter’s Cathedral 230 Romero, Rafael 37, 38 Rossellino, Antonio 4 Rossellino, Bernardo 4, 146 Rosso Fiorentino 2, 123, 128, 129 Rouen 52 Rovezzano, del da 129, 130 Rucellai 156, 174; Bernardo di Giovanni 174, 175, 176, 177; Palla di Bernardo 177, 178, 179 Rudolf I of Germany 69 Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria 75 Rupert of Deutz 4 Ruskin, John 265, 266 Rustici, Giovan Francesco 123, 126, 215 Rusticucci, Girolamo 231 Sächsishe Landesbibliothek, Dresden 112 Saedler, Aegidius II 57 Saint Omer 55 San Tommè a Baroncelli 94 Sangallo, Francesco da 245, 246, 247 Sansovino, Andrea 54 Sansovino, Jacopo 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130 Santo Domingo de la Calzada, Cathedral 58 Sanzio, Raphael 240 Saragossa 35, 51; Palacio de la Diputación del Reino de Aragón 35 Sarnecka, Zuzanna 1, 152

276 Index Savonarola, Girolamo 208, 212 Schardt, Johan Gregor van der 5 Schiedam 24 Schlegel, Ursula 173 Schongau 69, 71 Sebastian, Saint 262, 187, 230 Serra, Alberto 231, 233 Setúbal 52, 57; Monastery of Jesus 57 Seville 34, 35–37, 39, 40–45, 51, 52, 55, 261; Cathedral 34, 35, 36 Sforza, Guido 145 Siena 54, 115, 263; Convent of Santa Caterina 214; Palazzo Chigi-Saracini 115 Silveira, Luís da 59 Sinnacher, Franz 71, 72 Sintra 52, 56; Hieronymite Convent of Nossa Senhora da Pena 56; National Palace 52 Sirigatti, Ridolfo 127 Slive, Seymour 262 Slootmans, Korneel 15, 16 Smith, Pamela 91 Solari, Francesco 43, 44 Solosmeo, Antonio 123, 127 Sorbi, Giuseppe 267 South Holland 19, 23 South Kensington Museum 6, 88 Spain 34, 51, 52, 58, 89 Spilamberto 196, 197; Church of Sant’Adriano 196 Strocchia, Sharon 208 Strozzi, Filippo 170, 171, 172, 174, 179 Suplicio 59 Tegelen 16, 17, 18, 19, 23, 27 Teodósio I, Duke of Bragança 52 Terzio, Francesco 77, 78 Tienen 21 Tinkhauser, Georg 72, 76, 77, 80 Titian 57 Toledo 51, 58; Cathedral 58 Tomar 57 Tomba, Giulio 191 Tongeren 18 Torrigiano, Pietro 58 Trebbio 95 Triana 52 Tribolo, Niccolò 123, 127 Trofa do Vouga, Church of São Salvador 59 Turin 265 Tuscany 41, 55, 69, 139, 156, 161, 187, 220 Tyrol 69, 70, 75, 81; South Tyrol 69, 81 Unghero, Nanni (d’Alesso, Giovanni) 127 Urbino 54 Utrecht 19, 23, 39 Valdarno at Santa Maria dal Tartigliese 94 Valencia 51, 52, 54, 55

Valla, Lorenzo 171 Valladolid 58 Valone, Carolyn 242 Valori, Baccio 231 Van de Watering, Kees 15 Van Rummelen, Frans 16 Van Wageningen, Robert 16 Varchi, Benedetto 231 Varro, Marcus Terentius 89, 152 Vasari, Giorgio 54, 88, 102, 104, 106, 114 –116, 123 –125, 127, 129, 130, 152, 170, 173, 215, 231, 238, 239, 247, 250, 252, 264 Vedriani, Lodovico 251, 252 Vendramin, Andrea 244 Venice 126 Venturi, Adolfo 224 Vermunt, Marco 16, 22 Verona 43, 44, 45; Basilica of Sant’Anastasia 44 Victoria and Albert Museum 87, 88, 90, 92, 110, 242, 243, 261 Vigivano, Antonio di 230 Vinci, Leonardo da 252 Virgil 89, 158 Virgin Mary 3, 55, 125, 158, 159, 160, 162, 164, 243 Visconti, Gian Galeazzo 42 Visconti, Valentina, Duchess of Orléans 42 Vitaleta, Santa Maria di 263 Viterbo 6 Volterra 126 Von Beckerath, Adolf 224 Von Bode, Wilhelm 173, 177, 260 Von Fabriczy, Cornelius 224 Von Usedom, Guido 178 Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford 264, 265 Walters Art Museum, Baltimore 163 Washington 7, 102, 103, 104, 107, 114, 262, 265 Watts, George Fredric 265, 266 Weber, Beda 73 Weber, Siegfried 192 Weijs, Louis 15, 16 Welser, Philippine 69 Wilhelm V, Duke of Bavaria 71 Wilm, Hubert 40 Winckelmann, Johann Joachim 251, 252 Woensdrecht 16 Wright, Alison 152, 155 Zacchi, Zaccaria 124, 126, 127 Zamboni, Silla 192 Zeeland 18 Zeuxis 152 Zierikzee 18 Zocchi, Giuseppe 174 Zolli, Daniel 42, 43 Zuiderzee 19