Fourteenth century italian altarpieces the metropolitan museum of art bulletin v.40 #1 1982

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FOURTE ALTARPIEC ITALIAN

by KeithChristiansen

The

Museum Metropolitan

of

Art

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NOTE DIRECTOR'S

Cover:detailof SimoneMartini, MadonnaandChild(figure31) Insidefrontcover:detailof Bartolo di Fredi,Adorationof theShepherds

(figure36)

Readers of EdithWharton may recall the protagonist of False Dawn, Lewis Raycie, the son of a wealthy New Yorkerwho is sent to Europe by his father to buy Old Master paintings for the Raycie gallery. Duringhis travels Lewismeets up withthe criticJohn Ruskin,underwhose tutelage he purchases works by such little-appreciated painters as Giotto, Piero della Francesca, Fra Angelico, and Carpaccio. When Mr. Raycie sees the small tempera-and-gold picturesthat his son has broughthome, he is outraged. "Thatpack of bones and mummers'finery,"he shrieks. "Why, let alone the rest,there's not a full-bodied female among them." He dies a year later, his health destroyed by the shock of his son's gullibility.

Lewis,however, opens a gallery of Christianart, which is received firstwith ridiculeand then with complete apathy. Only two generations later is it realized what a treasure Lewis had acquired.

Farfetchedthough this story may seem, Lewis Raycie was in fact patterned on a fascinating individual,ThomasJefferson Bryan(1800-1870), the earliest serious collector of Old Masterworks in New York.The story of his collection, whose real novelty was a group of twenty fourteenthand fifteenth-centuryItalian pictures, is indicative of the general disregard for early Italian paintings prevalent in the United States through the nineteenthcentury.The BryanGalleryof Christian Art opened on the corner of Broadway and 13th Street in 1853, and after years of public neglect, its contents were donated to the NewYork Historical Society in 1867. This was three years before the Metropolitan Museum was incorporated and thirteen years before it opened its doors on FifthAvenue. Among Bryan'searly Italianworks were several of true distinction,including the great Madonna and Child with Four Saints by the mid-fourteenth-centuryFlorentine Nardo di Cione, which is, happily, now on longterm loan to the Metropolitan.

Thefirstgroup of early Italianpicturesto enter the Metropolitan came not from an American but from an Italian collection. In 1888 the law firm of Coudert Brothersdonated a number of objects and paintings that had belonged to a former client in Florence, and through this gift the Museum came into the possession of Lippo Memmi's Saint Paul. The Metropolitan only began an earnest effort to purchase comparable

The MetropolitanMuseumof Art Bulletin VolumeXL,Number 1 (ISSN0026-1521)

works after 1905. By that date many of the greatest masterpieces of Gothic and early Renaissance painting had found permanent homes in the museums of Europe, a fact that makes the acquisition in 1911 of so outstanding a work as Giotto's Epiphanyall the more remarkable. Other pictures came to the Museum as a result of the generosity of its patrons. Saint Andrew by Simone Martiniwas part of the collection of George Blumenthal,who was president of the Metropolitanfrom 1933 untilhis death in 1941; the painting hung in the palatial setting of the Velez Blanco Patio when it was part of his house on ParkAvenueand 70th Street.Two companion panels, the Madonna and Childillustrated on the cover of this publication and a figure of SaintAnsanus, were purchased early in this century by Philip Lehmanand came to the Museum in 1975 as part of The RobertLehmanCollection.

Otheroutstandingworks were given by Maitland FullerGriggs, an avid collector of Italian paintings, and Irma Strauss. So the prejudices that EdithWhartondescribed really were reversedprimarilythroughthe writingsof BernardBerenson, who knew George Blumenthaland Philip and RobertLehmanand whose advice was sought from time to time by the Metropolitan.

Thoughthe collectionof fourteenth-centuryItalian paintings in the Metropolitan is now one of the most notable in the United States, almost all of the pictures are single panels from large altarpieces and were never intended to be seen separately. Anyone who has been fortunate enough to see such an altarpiece decorating the church or chapel for which it was created, the flickering light of candles giving life to its gold background, will appreciate just how much the individual panels lose through their isolation.

Thispublicationwas writtenby KeithChristiansen, Associate Curatorin the Departmentof European Paintings, to redress this false impression-at least for the mind's eye-by reconstructingthe altarpieces to which some of the most important of the Museum'sfourteenth-centuryItalianpaintings originally belonged.

Philippe de Montebello Director

Summer1982

Publishedquarterlycopyright? 1982 by The MetropolitanMuseumof Art, FifthAvenue and 82nd Street, New York,N.Y. 10028.

Second-class postage paid at New York,N.Y.and AdditionalMailing Offices. Subscriptions$18.00 a year. Single copies $4.75.

Sent free to Museum members. Four weeks' notice requiredfor change of address. Back issues available on microfilm,from (1905-1942) available as a clothboundreprintset UniversityMicrofilms,313 N. FirstStreet,AnnArbor,Michigan.VolumesI-XXVIII or as individualyearly volumes from TheAyer Company,Publishers,Inc.,99 MainStreet,Salem, N.H. 03079, or fromthe Museum, Box 700, Middle Village, N.Y. 11379. Unless otherwise noted, photographyby MetropolitanMuseumPhotographStudio (color photographyby Sheldon Collins, MetropolitanMuseumPhotographStudio).General Manager of Publications:John P. O'Neill.

Editorin Chief of the Bulletin:Joan Holt. Editorof this issue: Joanna Ekman.Design: RobertaSavage.

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INTRODUCTION

In the fourteenth century in Italy an artist could expect to undertakea varietyof tasks that ranged fromdesigning embroideriesfor churchvestments to decorating the walls of a chapel or palace with large, complex narrative murals. However, the bulk of his activitywas likely to center on the production of altarpieces. Some of these were small in scale, consisting of two or three individual panels hinged together so that they could be folded and carried from place to place; they were essentially privateworks of art with a fairly extensive market, and they were produced in great quantities.Others consisted of only a single panel, usually of the Madonna and Child, and these, too, were suitable decoration for a small

1. Paintedin 1454 by Giovanni di Paolo, thisaltarpieceis exceptional for being nearlyintact.Thespiral colonnettesand moldings between the individualcompartmentsare modern,butthe gilt area decorated witha raised floralmotifabove the arches is original.As in Lippo Vanni'sfrescoed polyptych(figure 8), therewould have been a row of smaller,pointed panels above the largerones, and a predella below.

Thesmallerpanels may be identifiedwiththe series of the Four Evangelistsand ChristBlessing in the ChiaramonteBordonarocollec-

private chapel or a room in a palace. But the mostdemanding were large, complex polyptychs that were made to order for the altar of a particular chapel or church.

The only example of this type in the paintings galleries of the Metropolitan is by the Sienese artist Giovanni di Paolo (figure 1). Though it dates from the fifteenthratherthan the fourteenth century, the altarpiece has a typically Gothic format. Itshows at the center the Madonna and Childseated on a bench covered with a brocade cloth of honor while two music-making angels kneel before them; at the sides life-size figures of Saints Monica, Augustine, John the Baptist, and Nicholas of Tolentino stand on a pavement

tion in Palermo(figure2), which is contemporaryand of the requisite dimensionsand employs the same tooled haloes. Twopanels showing miraclesof Saint Nicholas of Tolentino(inthe John G. Johnson Collectionin the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Gemaldegalerie derAkademie der BildendenKunstein Vienna)are sometimes identifiedas coming fromthe predella, buttheirexceptional height would create an unusuallytall, narrowaltarpiece.

Saint Nicholas of Tolentino,who was canonized in 1446, is shown

at the extremerightwearing the black habit and leatherbelt of the Augustinianorder.Thetwo saints at the left of the Madonna and Childare Augustineand his mother,Monica.

83/2 x 991/2 inches. Bequest of

Michael Friedsam,1931, The FriedsamCollection (32.100.76)

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of richlyveined green marble. Thoughthe fictive space of this altarpiece is continuous, the work is actually composed of five separate wood panels that are joined together. Each panel has been built up at the top and bottom to create a projecting Gothic arch, and the aggregate impression is of an arcade beneath which are placed freestanding painted statues. One of the notable features of this work is the relation of the silhouettes of the saints to the profile of the frame: the manner in which, to take just one example, the curve of Saint Monica's shoulder at the extreme left echoes that of the projecting leaves of the capitals. Indeed, the frame is integral to the conception of the altarpiece, and in

2. Thoughthese five panels of the FourEvangelistsand ChristBlessing have been framedas an independent altarpiece, therecan be no doubt thatoriginallythey were the pinnacles of one of Giovanni di Paolo's large polyptychs-quite possibly the one in the Museum's collection. Inaccordance withtheir high placement the lecternsare portrayedas though viewed from below and the figureof Christis shown withdowncast eyes.

ChiaramonteBordonarocollection, Palermo

4

this respect the work differs profoundlyfrom later paintings, where a rectangular panel or canvas was conceived and painted prior to framing.

Likea numberof other Gothic altarpieces, this polyptych was probably intended to include a series of smaller panels above the main ones -perhaps the FourEvangelistsand the figure of Christ Blessing in the Chiaramonte Bordonaro collection in Palermo (figure 2)-as well as a base, known as the predella, that would have been decorated with scenes from the life of one or more saints. There would also have been finialsrisingfromeach capital between the arches -the molding in these areas is, in fact, modern -and these would have masked the abrupt

change in height between the center and side panels. The entire altarpiece would have been framed by large, buttressingpiers.

Though most Gothic altarpieces depicted a Madonna and Childwith saints, they were by no means limitedto this arrangement. Some had at theircenter a narrativesubject and were flanked by full-length saints, such as Simone Martini's Annunciation with Saints Ansanus and Massimas

(figure 3), painted in 1333 for the Cathedral of Siena and now in the Uffizi,or Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Presentation

in the Temple (figure 4),

dated 1342, which originally had lateral figures of Saints Crescentius and Michael. Still others showed a figure of a saint or the Madonna and

3. SimoneMartiniexecuted his Anone of thegreatmasternunciation, pieces of ItalianGothic painting, in collaborationwithhis brotherin-law,LippoMemmi,for a side altarof the Cathedralof Siena in 1333. Itillustratesa passage from the Gospel of Luke(1:29) where it is recountedthatwhen the Virgin saw the angel arrivein her chamber,"shewas troubledat his saying, and considered in her mindwhat mannerof greetingthisshould be."

Simone'sabilityto describeemotion was unsurpassed,and his picture was to remainthe most extreme and refinedinterpretationof the themefor betterthan a century.

Especiallybeautifulis the manner in whichthe pose of the figureshas been calculated in relationto the

shape of the centralpanel: the way the angel's wings fillthe lefthand archwhile his head is bent forwardintothe centralfield, and the way the Virgin'srecoilingpostureis emphasized by framingher head between the two capitals of the right-handarch. Originallythis tripartitedivisionwas even more emphatic,forin place of the elaborate, curvedtympanaof the presframe,there ent,nineteenth-century were probably simple, straight gables. Thelateralfiguresshow SaintAnsanus,the patronof Siena, and probably his godmother, Massima.

Galleria degli Uffizi,Florence

4. LikeSimone Martini'sAnnunciation,AmbrogioLorenzetti'sPresentation in the Temple,dated 1342, was painted for the Cathedralof Siena, and italso had lateralpanels of standing saints, now lost. The frameof the centralpanel is original, and its conception is as novel as the churchinteriorthat it surrounds.Theside elements are conceived as buttressingpillars,their lower halves ornamentedwith feigned mosaics and theirupper portionswithGothic windows.

Galleria degli Uffizi,Florence

5

Child flanked by narrative scenes, and sometimes the altarpiece was painted on both sides so thatthe faithfulwere presentedwithone image while the monks or clergy seated in the choir saw another. The most famous example of this type was Duccio's Maest6 (figure 5), which on June 9, 1311, was carried from his studio outside the Portaa Stalloreggi in Siena to the cathedral amid a great procession of clergy, city officials, and citizens.

What these altarpieces had in common was an elaborate carpentry frame that unified the disparate parts in an architecturalsetting. There were colonnettes (those on the Giovanni di Paolo altarpiece are modernreplacements),pinnacles,

5. Completedin 1311 forthe high altarof the Cathedralof Siena, Duccio'sMaest6 was probably the most complex and awe-inspiring Gothicaltarpiece ever produced.

Itshows on the frontthe Virginand ChildEnthronedin Majesty (hence the name Maest6), surroundedby angels and saints. Above, arched frames (now lost) separated halflength figuresof apostles, and above these were two furtherrows of pointed panels, one showing scenes fromthe life of the Virgin and the otherhalf-lengthfiguresof angels. Below was a predella with scenes fromthe youthof Christ.

Thereverseside containeda series

6

crockets, and piers serving as buttresses-the whole repertory of Gothic architecture. When complete, many of these altarpieces vied in complexity with the porches and facades of Gothic churches.Inevitably,when Gothicarchitecturefell out of favor, these altarpieces were replaced or altered to conformwith currenttaste. Sometimes the old frame was removed and the pointed shape of the panels adjusted so that they fit a rectangular frame with classical detailing-this is what happened with an altarpiece by Taddeo Gaddi in the Museum's collection (figure 6), whose originalpolyptychformhas been disguised by the late fifteenth-centuryaddition of prophets to the spandrels. But more frequently the out-

of over fortyotherscenes fromthe life of Christ.Inits richand subtle use of color and the tremulous beauty of the figures,this work remainedthe keystone of painting in Siena forthe nexttwo centuries.

Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena

moded Gothic altarpiece was simply discarded, cut up, and sold. The historyof Duccio's Maest6 presents a typical case. In 1506 it was moved from its central position on the high altar of the Siena cathedralto a subordinatelocation against a wall in the transept. Then, in 1771, it was sawn apart. The two largest pieces were used to decorate altars near the choir, while the smaller ones seem to have been placed in the sacristy,whence a numberwere sold to private collectors: one of the scenes from the predella is now in the Frick Collection,and two more are in the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. From a small, painted book cover of 1483 it is possible to acquire some idea of the appearance of the altarpiece,

6. Inthe 1568 edition of his Lives

of thePainters GiorgioVasarimen-

tions an altarpiece by Taddeo Gaddi in the church of Santo Stefano in Florence.Thisworkhas been tentativelyidentifiedas the altarpiece by Taddeo in the Museum, which in fact shows Saint Stephendressedas a deacon, holding a palm and book, withthe rockof his martyrdomwedged into his head. However,thisprovenance cannot be proven. Whatis clear is thatsometime in the last quarterof the fifteenthcenturythe original Gothicpolyptychformof the altarpiecewas modifiedto conformto Renaissancetaste. The

with the small scenes separated by gilt moldings and colonnettes and the top crowned with gilt pinnacles, but of this framework virtually nothing remains.

The size and complexity of these altarpieces had, of course, to be carefully planned to accord with the intended setting. The factor of height and breadth, conditioned by the actual width of the altar and the architectureof the chapel, had to be considered, as did the factor of light,which was most frequently augmented by candles: in the case of Duccio's Maest6 the front and back were illuminatedby candles held by small carved and gilt angels. One of the rare records of the sorts of demands that confronted the artist con-

framewas disfourteenth-century mantled,the centralpanel was cut down, and the area between the spandrelswas filledto obtaina rectangularpicturefield. Classical pilastersand prophetswere painted to camouflage these changes and a Renaissance frame was added. Thisunhappysolution imposed a unifedspace that was clearlycontraryto Taddeo's intentions, and it introduceda frameall out of proportionto the figuresit encloses.

4314 x 901/8inches. Rogers Fund,

1910 (10.97)

7

cerns the productionof the altarpiece for the high altar of the Pieve di Santa Maria in Arezzo (figure 7). On April 17, 1320, Pietro Lorenzettiagreed to undertakethe commission; he had, according to Vasari, already decorated the tribune of the churchwith scenes from the life of the Virgin.He was to paint the Virgin Mary and Child at the center of the altarpiece and four figures of saints at the sides. Additionally,there were to be prophets and other saints-these were painted in a second tier of smaller panels-"according," the contract read, "to the wish of the lord Bishop," Guido Tarlati.Thealtarpiecewas to be six braccia long (about nine and one-half feet). There were to be two columns or piers decorated with six 7. PietroLorenzetti'searliest documentedworkis the altarpiece he painted in 1320 forthe Pieve di Santa Mariain Arezzo. Likeso manyGothicaltarpieces, it has lost its framingelements-not only the colonnettesand moldings that originallyseparated the various figuresor the finialsthatadorned the uppermostpanels, but also the piers thatflankedthe whole altarpiece and the predella. Despite these losses it is stillpossible to appreciatethe mannerin which Pietrohas linkedfigureto figure througha varietyof poses and expressivegestures.Thealtarpiece has been conceived as if it were the arcade of a Gothicchurchfilled withsculptedfigures.Indeed,there can be little.doubtthat Pietrohad in mindone of GiovanniPisano's marblegroups of the Madonna and Childwhen he created his own verymovingand tightlyknit compositionforthe centralpanel.

Pievedi Santa Maria,Arezzo

8

figures flanking the main panels, and these were to be one-half braccia in width (just under one foot). In executing the altarpiece, Pietro was to use the best available gold (the quantity of 100 leaves per florin is specified) and fine silver, and in painting the figures of the main panels he was to employ only the best ultramarineblue.

Inthe case of Pietro'saltarpiece it seems fairly clear from the existing documents that he not only painted the individual panels but also designed the overall structure.This dual role was not always the rule,however.Sometimesthe artist was responsible only for painting the panels of an altarpiece constructed by someone elseusually a carpenter-and he therefore had to

accommodate himself to a preconceived structure. There can be little doubt, however, that every painter had to have at least a working knowledge of architecturaldesign if the structure and figurativecontentof the altarpiece were to enhance each other. It is importantto recall thata numberof fourteenth-century painterseither advice on large architecture or gave practiced architecturalprojects. In 1334 Giotto was made capomaestro (master builder) of the cathedral of Florence, in 1341 Lippo Memmi was called upon to design the crown of the Torre della Mangia of the Palazzo Pubblicoof Siena, and in 1358 Orcagna was made capomaestro of the cathedralof Orvieto. Smallwonder thatthrough-

out the fourteenthcenturythe evolution of altarpieces parallels that of architecture.

Only a handful of these altarpieces have survived intact. Sometimes, as in Orcagna's great altarpiece commissioned in 1354 for the Strozzi Chapel in Santa Maria Novella, a frame of recent date seems to follow fairly closely the original one (Orcagna's is known from drawings). And occasionally, as in LippoVanni'sfrescoed altarpiece of about 1370 in the church of San Francesco in Siena (figure 8), it is possible to get a reasonably complete idea of the delicacy the structuralparts could attain and the relation the figures bore to the frame. But generally, even where mostof the painted panels of an altarpiece

8. Throughoutthe fourteenthcenturythe largestexpense in commissioning an altarpiece was for the carpentryand materials,not the painter'slabors.A cheaper alternativewas to commissionan altarpiece in whichthe carpentrywas simulatedin fresco, such as this one, paintedby LippoVanniforthe churchof San Francescoat Siena around1370. Itis fromsuch a fresco thatwe can most keenly appreciatethe carpentryof now lost or drastically altered altarpieces, withtheirfrequentlyexuberant detailing.Itis also easier to understandhow such altarpieces, whichderivedtheirformsfrom contemporaryarchitecture,would have been censuredby latercritics like Vasari,who in his Livesof 1568wrote:"[In]the buildingsof those days withtheirdeformed parts-pilasters, columns,bases, capitals, and cornices... there is nothingthathas eitherorderor good countenance."Vasarihimself was personallyresponsible for removingand dismantlingnumerous Gothicaltarpieces.

LippoVanni'sfigures,like those of Ambrogioand PietroLorenzetti, are emotionallycharged and conceivedinactivepostures.Moreover, the artisthas so increased their size in relationto the framethatat variouspoints the silhouetteof each figureis broken,accentuating the physicaltension.

San Francesco,Siena

9

have survived-as with PietroLorenzetti'sArezzo polyptych-a good partof the frame has been altered or lost, and an effort of mental reconstruction is necessary if we are to appreciate the full subtlety of the work.

Of the fourteenth-centuryItalian paintings on exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum a number are wings of small portable diptychs and triptychs. Two panels in the LehmanCollection by the Master of Monte Oliveto, one showing the Madonna and Child Enthronedwith Angels and the other the Crucifixion(figures 9 and 10), were originally hinged together to form a folding diptych, and the Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels by Lippo Memmi (figure 11)

9, 10.A modest followerof Duccio, the Masterof Monte Olivetoseems to have specialized in small-scale, portablepaintingslike the present ones, whichwere originallyhinged to forma diptych.Thisscale suited the miniaturisttechniqueand fine detailingin gold of his best work.

Again and again this anonymous artistrevertedto compositionsby derives Duccio;herethe Crucifixion froma paintingin the Museumof 10

FineArtsin BostonfromDuccio's workshopthatwas itself the centerof a portable triptych,while the figuresof the Madonna and ChildEnthronedare loosely based on those of the Maesta.

Eachpanel 15 x 105/ inches.

RobertLehmanCollection, 1975 (1975.1.1, 2)

probably also had a companion panel that showed the Crucifixion(figure 12). Two rare examples of single panels are Paolo di Giovanni Fei's beautiful Madonna and Child, which still has its original tooled frame ornamented with paintedglass medallions(figure13), and the small pax with the head of Christattributedto Niccolo di Tomasso (figure 14). But the majority of the pictures, whether they show half-length saints, the Madonna and Child, or scenes from the life of a saint, are parts of altarpieces, whose structures to a large extent determined their appearance. What did these altarpieces look like?

11, 12. Despite its small scale, the paintingat the upperleft ranks among LippoMemmi'smostrefined and beautifulcreations. Itshows the Madonna, her body positioned obliquelyin relationto the picture plane, holding the ChristChild, who wears a transparentblouse and offers his mothera small rose.

Toeitherside stand diminutive figuresof SaintJohn the Baptist and SaintFrancis,while along the

sides of the gable are the nine choirsof the Celestial Hierarchy holdingtheirattributes:(fromlower left to top to lower right)angels with wands; principalities with branchesof lilies; powers with staffs; cherubimwithbooks; six wingedseraphim;throneswithfaldstools; dominionswithcensers; archangels withswords; and virtues withgirdles. Theframeof this exquisitepainting is largely new,

and the molding thatseparates the predella withhalf-lengthsaints fromthe mainscene is a modern insertion.Ifthis molding were removed and the predella rejoined to the main scene, the panel would have the same dimensions as a Crucifixion( upper right;location unknown)formerlyin the Richard von Kaufmanncollection in Berlin; therecan indeed be no reasonable doubtthatthe two are wings of the

same diptych,in which the lyrical beauty of the Virginand Child amidstthe Heavenly Hostwas contrastedto the tragic mood of the Crucifixion.Thediptychwas probably painted late in LippoMemmi's career,perhaps about 1350.

261/4x 13 inches. Bequestof MaitlandF Griggs,1943, Maitland F Griggs Collection (43.98.6)

11

13.Some of the most appealing images of the fourteenthcentury are based on the theme of the Virginnursingher Child-the Madonna del Latte.Thegreat innovatorof thisgenre was Ambrogio Lorenzetti,whose Madonna del Lattein the PalazzoArcivescovile in Siena is unsurpassedin its vividtreatment.Paolo di Giovanni Fei'sremarkablepainting in the Museum-in which the solemn Virginis portrayedfrontally,while the feet, the rightleg and arm,and the head of the lively-posed Christ Childare aligned along a diagonal thatcrosses hertorso-probably derivesfroma lost painting

by Ambrogio,thoughthe Virgin's displaced breast is a peculiarityof Fei'simagination.Forboth the tactilityof the formsand the uncompromisinglyregularbrushwork withwhichthey are described, this is an exceptionalpicture.Itwas probablypainted fairlyearly.in Fei'scareer,about 1380,when he was most influencedby Ambrogio's work.

Almostas remarkableas its conceptionis its almost-perfectstate of preservation(thoughthe blue of the Madonna's ermine-lined cloak has, as is usual, darkened) and the survivalof the original frame,whichis decorated with raised floralpatterns,cabochon jewels, and glass medallions in verre 6glomise showing the angel and the Virginof the Annunciation (details,above left and right)and varioussaints. Inthe executionof thesemedallions,theglass was first backed with gold and then engraved and painted. Theengravingwas done witha freedomthatis in markedcontrastto Fei'spainting technique.

3414 x 231/4inches. Bequest of

George Blumenthal,1941 (41.190.13)

12

14. Itis probable thatthispicture attributedto Niccol6 di Tomasso, whichis in its originalthoughregilt frame,was painted not as a small, portablealtarpiece, butto serve as a pax-a tablet used in passing the kissof peace duringthe mass.

Suchtablets were employed with increasing frequency in the thirteenthand fourteenthcenturies, and althoughthey were commonly made of metal, a few painted panels are known.Especiallyappropriateto this liturgicalfunction is the Latininscription,"Mypeace Igive untoYou"(John 14:27),on the collarof Christ'sblue robe, whichunderscoresthe intense, hieraticqualityof his frontallyviewed face shown against a patterned clothheld by two diminutiveangels.

Thepax dates fromabout 1370.

115/8x 81/8inches. Giftof TheJack and Belle LinskyFoundation,1981 (1981.365.2)

13

FOURTEENTH-CENTURY ITALIAN ALTARPIECES

I

The earliest fragment in the Metropolitan is a small panel in the LehmanCollection that dates from the thirteenthcentury (figure 15). It shows two apostles, one in front of the other, standing beneath an arch supported by porphyrycolumns with blue foliated capitals and yellow bases. A faint inscription on the arch identifies the two saints as Simon and Bartholomew.There can be no doubt that the painting is a fragment: the columns have been sliced in half, and in each of the spandrelsthere is one-half of a circularrecess with an abstract floral motif which, on analogy with other thirteenth-centurypaintings, originally would have been filled with a glass or crystal medallion. Five additional fragments (figure 16) obviously from the same altarpiece are known.

Four of these show a single apostle standing beneath an arch, and the fifth shows a figure of Saint Francis turned to the right. The foliated capitals in the six fragments match up, and it is apparent they were painted on a single horizontal panel with Saint Francis at the left and Saint Peter at the right extremities and the apostles between grouped in pairs. Logic dictates that this is only half of the original altarpiece, which would have shown all twelve apostles grouped around a central image, perhaps an enthroned Christ. This arrangement is more common to sculpted than to painted altarpieces, but one with a similar format, dated 1333, is in the Stadelsches Kunstinstitutin Frankfurt.

The Frankfurt altarpiece was double-sided, and so mighthave been the altarpiece to which Saints Simon and Bartholomewbelonged: in the Galleria Nazionale at Perugiathere exist two scenes of the Passion of Christ as well as a standing figure of Saint Anthony of Padua that demonstrably formed an altarpiece of measurements virtuallyidenticalto those of the series of apostles and could have made up the recto.

What is peculiar to the present panels is the appearance of Saint Francisamong the apostles, but in the thirteenthcentury, Saint Francis was seen as their heir, in part because of his literal 14

interpretationof Christ's charge of poverty to them, recounted in Mark 6:7-13. It is his presence in one of the divisions that necessitated showing two apostles rather than one on the Lehmanpanel, and it is his presence that assures us that the altarpiece was intended for a Franciscan church.This fact is not surprising,for the author of these panels is an anonymous artist who seems to have been principally employed

by Franciscansin and around Assisi. He painted a large rectangular panel with Saint Francisand two angels for the Portiunculachapel near Assisi (his name derives from this work), he painted a large crucifix,dated 1272, for San Francesco al Pratoin Perugia, and he covered the walls of the nave of the lower church of San Francesco at Assisi with scenes from the life of Saint Francis and the Passion of Christ.

The two scenes of the Passion of Christ at Perugia are known to have come from San Francesco al Prato, and on the whole it is more likely that the altarpiece was painted for this churchthan for San Francesco at Assisi, though the latteris usually cited as the original location.

Indeed, the iconography of the altarpiece-with its scenes from the Passion of Christ,its standing figures of prophets and saints, and its central image showing the Madonna and Child on one side and the apostles, Saint Francis, and Christ Enthronedon the other-would have been redundant in the context of the lower church at Assisi, where some of the scenes are repeated.

When the Lehmanpanel was painted, probably about 1272, Gothic was still a new style in Italy.The early Gothic church of San Francesco at Assisi was not consecrated until 1253, and Giovanni Pisano's full-blown Gothic design for the facade of the Cathedral of Siena dates from after 1284, so it is not surprisingthat the form of the altarpiece was extremely simple. The frame would have consisted of a flat molding, possibly decorated with glass medallions, and it would have formed an unadorned peak at the center, over the figure of Christ.

15.An artistof considerable narrative gifts and expressivepower, the Masterof Saint Franciswas the leading local painterin Umbriain the second half of the thirteenth century.TheLehmanpicture,which is a fragmentof a long, low altarpiece (ordossal),showstheApostles Bartholomewand Simon. This is the only compartmentof the altarpiececontainingtwo apostles ratherthan one, and to minimize thisdifferencethe figuresstand one in frontof the otherso that theirsilhouettesoverlap and their feet forma symmetricalshape.

Thelinearpatterningof the beards, fingers,and draperyand the beautifullycontrastingcolors are typical of thisanonymousartist.

83/4x 83/4inches. RobertLehman Collection,1975 (1975.1.104)

15

16

16. Thealtarpiece to whichthe LehmanSaintsSimonand Bartholomew belonged originallyshowed the twelve apostles and Saint Francis beneath a series of arches. This sort of arrangement, with the figuresclad intogas, holdingbooks or scrolls, and grouped in pairs as if in dispute witheach other,derivesfromEarlyChristiansarcophagi. Only six compartments,all fromthe left-handside of the altarpiece, survive.At the centerwas probablyan enthronedChrist.The frame would have been quite simple, consistingof a flat molding withpainted glass medallions. Itis probable thatthis unusuallylong

altarpiece (overtwelve feet) was painted on both sides. Itdates from about 1270 and seems to have been designed forthe high altar of San Francescoal Pratoin Perugia.

Leftto right:Saint Francis(Galleria Nazionale, Perugia);SaintsSimon and Bartholomew(figure15);Saint James Major,SaintJohn the Evangelist (National Gallery of Art, Washington,Samuel H. KressCollection);SaintMatthew(Galleria Nazionale, Perugia);Saint Peter (PrivateCollection)

17

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17, 18. Firstcut down and then enlarged on the rightto obtain a symmetricalshape, this pictureis obviouslya fragmentof a much largercompositionthatmay have resembled the painting of the Madonna and Childin the church of Santa Maria dei Serviin Bologna (below), plausibly attributed to Cimabue,where the ChristChild has a similarstridingstance. The Museum'spictureis by an anonymous Florentinepainter whose name, the Masterof the Magdalen, derives froma painting in the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence thatshows Saint MaryMagdalen flankedby eight scenes of

her life. Theartistseems to have had an extremelybusy workshop in the second half of the thirteenth century.Thepresentpictureranks among his best work, and if its relationto the picturein Santa Mariadei Serviis morethancasual, it would date muchlater in his careerthan usuallythought-at the very end of the thirteenth century.

Left:29/2 x 181/4inches. Gift of IrmaN. Straus,1964 (64.189.1).

Below:Santa Maria dei Servi, Bologna

The only other thirteenth-centuryfragment on exhibit at the Metropolitan is a much-cut-down Madonna with part of the ChristChild, painted in the last quarter of the centuryby a Florentine artist known as the Master of the Magdalen (figure 17). It was not unusual to salvage the principal part of a venerated image that had been damaged and to create a new setting for it.

This may have been done to the present work, where an addition has been made on the right side to give the present symmetrical shape resembling a keyhole. There are traces of a cloth of honor behind the Virgin, and it is probable that the panel originally was quite large and showed an enthroned Virgin and Child with angels muchlikethe Madonna and Childin Santa Maria dei Servi in Bologna (figure 18), which may have provided the model for the striding pose that the Child evidently had. The simple shape of the panel-originally a gabled rectangle-would have been complemented by an equally simple frame.

19

19.A workof great delicacy and coloristicsplendor,thispictureof the LastSuppercomes fromthe predella of Ugolino di Nerio's polyptychforthe highaltarof Santa Croce in Florence.As described in the Gospels, the twelve apostles are gathered in a room fortheir Passovermeal. Thetable has been set withplattersof lamb, fruit,and glasses of wine. Christ,who is shown at the left withSaintJohn asleep on his bosom, has justannounced thatone of the disciples willbetrayhim,and he handsJudas a morselof bread to indicate that he is the traitor;Judas is the only figureshown withouta halo. Saint

20

Peter,to Christ'sleft, raises one hand in astonishmentwhile perplexityand consternationcan be read in the faces of the other apostles.

ThoughUgolino was in many respects Duccio'smost faithfulfollower,he preferredmore intense, contrastingcolors that underscore the higher-keyedemotional pitch of the stories he represented.

57/8x 223/4inches. RobertLehman Collection, 1975 (1975.1.7)

20. Whenthis drawingof Ugolino di Nerio's altarpiece was made, between 1785and 1789,the polyptychhad long since been removed fromits position on the high altar of Santa Croceand was being stored in a dormitoryof the church.

Severalof the panels, including the centralMadonna and Child, had been damaged, and itseems probable thatvariousportionsof the framehad also been lost or altheodd, triangulartered.Certainly shaped panel witha pelican above the ruinedCrucifixionis a replacementfor a tallerone that probablyshowed God the Father Blessing.Theremayalso have been

piers flankingthe altarpiece.Nonetheless, takentogetherwiththe remainingpieces (see figures 19 and 21), the drawinggives a remarkablycompleteidea of itsoriginal appearance. Evenfor its time, this was an extraordinarilyelaborate altarpiece. Thestripthat divides the mainpanels fromthose above is decorated withconnected quatrefoilsthatalternatelyshow heads and a geometricpattern, and thoughthe molded pilasters thatseparate the pairs of saints in the intermediatestoryrepeat the formof the massive, octagonal piers in the nave of Santa Croce, the arches theysupportare far

more ornatethan the simple ones of the church.Inits delicate, High Gothic detailing, the frame of the altarpiece resembles the church'smultistory,elegantly carved rood screen, which,though destroyed, is knownfroma fourteenth-century drawing. The rood screen was builtin the 1330s, and Ugolino's altarpiece may have been contemporary.

Soon afterthisdrawingwas made the altarpiece was dismantled, its structuralmembersdiscarded, and the better-preservedpaintings sold to the Englishcollector WilliamYoungOttley.Inaddition to the LehmanLastSupper,

variouspanels are preservedin the National Gallery,London,the Gemaldegalerie, Berlin-Dahlem, and the Los Angeles County Museumof Art. BibliotecaVaticana

The other fragments at the Metropolitan date from after 1300, and the altarpieces of which they formed parts were consequently of a more elaborate character.One, TheLastSupper in the LehmanCollection by Ugolino di Nerio (figure 19), came from a multistoryaltarpiece that stood on the high altar of Santa Croce in Florence until about 1566, when it was replaced by a ciborium designed by Vasari. The altarpiece, still intact, was seen by the Sienese historian Guglielmo della Valle in the upper dormitoryof the monastery priorto 1785, and shortlythereaftera sketch of it (figure20) was made for inclusion in S6roux d'Agincourt's L'Histoire de I'art. Della Valle describes the altarpiece as "of a bulk and height that correspond in a fashion to the church and the altar for which it had to serve. It is full of many and varied large and small figures of incredible workmanship.... The great frame of the altarpiece is richwith ornaments.The figures are separated from each other by small pyramids and more or less pointed frames." Composed of four stories, the altarpiece rose to a height of over ten feet. There were seven main panels of the Madonna and Child flanked by saints (see figure 21), a predella with seven scenes from the Passion of Christ,pinnacles with three prophets to either side of the Crucifixion,and an intermediate story containing saints and apostles. There may also have been large piers at either side, and these would have impinged on the predella, accounting for the small triangular indentations -now filled-at the bottom left of the Lehman paintingand the bottom rightof another predella scene, The Resurrectionin the National Gallery in London.

Ugolino received the commissionfor thisaltarpiece sometime after 1320. And as della Valle's description implies, foremost in the artist's mind musthave been the enormous size of the polygonal apse of Santa Croce (figure 22), with its pointed entrance arch and series of tall lanceolate windows. By this date Ugolino may already 21

21. Only threeof the main panels fromUgolino di Nerio's altarpiece forSanta Crocesurvive.Of these, the SaintJohnthe Baptistis perhaps the most distinguished.He is shown withascetic butelegant features,his hairdisheveled, and beneath his cloak he wears a shirtof camel hair.Thescroll he holds is inscribedwithverses fromJohn 1:29-31. Inthe spandrels above himare two angels, and the halflengthfiguresin the uppertierare SaintsMathiasand Clare.Although the framesare original, except for the outermolding, the two smaller saints seem to have stood not over the figureof SaintJohn the Baptist

butover that of SaintAnthony of Padua, and it is forthis reason thatthey face in the opposite directionfromSaintJohn.

Gemaldegalerie, Berlin-Dahlem

have completed the high altarpiece for the rival Dominican churchof Santa Maria Novella, and this fact cannot have escaped the Franciscans.

Butthe determiningfactor in giving the commission of the Santa Croce altarpiece to this Sienese artistmusthave been his status as the most faithful of Duccio's pupils: he, better than anyone else, could produce an altarpiece comparable in its splendor to the Maest6 of the Siena cathedral. Itis indeed clear that the design of several individual figures, including the Madonna and Child, and the composition of three narrative scenes derive fromthe Maesta. However, in each case details have been altered to conform with the new position of the individual panels in the altarpiece. In Duccio's Maest6 the narrative scenes on the back were intended to be read up and down, while in the Santa Croce altarpiece they were part of a predella and were read from left to right. In The Last Supper, Ugolino has moved Christfrom a central position to the left, where he initiatesthe narration,and the apostles have been arranged accordingly.Similarchanges can be found throughoutthe altarpiece. The most significantchange, of course, was not in the pictorial content but in the transformation of the simple, open field of Duccio's Maest6 into a complex Gothic structurethat when seen from the nave of the Gothic church would have appeared singularlyharmoniouswiththe elaborate design of the apse.

22

22. One of the largest and most richlydecorated Mendicant churchesin Italy,Santa Croce had its originin a small house set up

by Saint Francisin 1211-12. By 1225 a churchhad been constructed,and this church,in turn, was enlarged or rebuiltby 1252.

Suchwas the popularityand growth of the Franciscanorderthat scarcely threedecades laterplans were underway forthe present structure,the foundationsof which were laid in 1295. Thearchitect who envisaged the simple, basilican churchwitha wooden roof and the elegant, five-sided vaulted apse flankedby chapels may have

been Arnolfodi Cambio, who was also employed in designing the Florentinecathedral. Construction began at the east end, withthe apse and chapels, and by 1310 the roofingof this area seems to have been completed. Decorationof the chapels, includingthe two by Giotto immediatelyto the rightof the choir, was carriedout over the nextthree decades, butthe choiritself was frescoed by Agnolo Gaddi only towardthe end of the fourteenth centuryand the churchwas not consecrated until 1442. Like Ugolino di Nerio's polyptychfor the high altar,the frescoed decorationemploys an architectural

framework:spiral columnsand arches decorated withcrockets that framethe upperwindows; a feigned-marblerevetment;and an integrationinto thisscheme of the rectangularpicturefields by means of theirpainted borders.Originally the view fromthe nave of the choirand transeptswas partlyobstructedby a multistoriedrood screen. This,along with Ugolino's altarpiece, was removed by Vasari in 1566. Thepresentpolyptychon the high altar was set up about 1869and is composed of fragments of unrelatedaltarpieces.

23

23. WhenLippoMemmipainted thispanel of Saint Paul,which belonged to a large seven-part polyptych(figure25), he was workingclosely withSimone Martini,whomhe assisted on the altarpieceof the Annunciationfor the Cathedralof Siena (figure3).

Despitethisassociation, Lippowas an artistof distinctindividuality.

Hisdrawingis tighterand less descriptivethanSimone's, and he preferred more subdued, less sumptuouscolors. Althoughhe neverachieved Simone's range of expression,his figureshave a forthright,determinedqualityand are animatedby a nervousenergy.

Especiallycharacteristicof Lippo's workis Saint Paul's deeply furrowed brow,his intentgaze, and the elegant butinsecuregrip he has on the fourEpistles,the firstof whichis inscribed"Tothe Romans."

373/4x 19 inches. Gift of Coudert

Brothers,1888 (88.3.99)

24

24. SaintClarewasamongSaint

Francis'searliestfollowersand was

thefounderof thePoorClares,

ment.TheSaintClare,though

somewhat dam(aged, is amongthe

finestof theparielsfromthe

whose habit she wears. Thepanel

altarpiece and iisprobably by

oil lamp is viewed frombelow and the book tiltedoutward,to conformwiththe painting'shighplace-

1964 (64.189.2)

is fromthesamealtarpieceas the SaintPaul:itmay,indeed,have stooddirectlyabovethelatter.The

LippoMemmihlimself.Thetabernacleframewithspiralcolonnettes is modern.

19x 8 inches.Giftof IrmaN.Straus,

Two panels by Lippo Memmi showing halflength saints (figures 23 and 24) derive from a demonstrablysimpler polyptych.They are parts of a double-story altarpiece in which the seven main panels with a Madonna and Child at the center were surmounted by a series of smaller panels (figure25). There may also have been a predella. The larger of the two panels in the Metropolitan shows Saint Paul holding in one hand the sword with which he was beheaded and in the other four of his Epistles-the first is addressed "Tothe Romans."He stands beneath a trilobe Gothic arch that is inscribed beneath a plain pointed one. We know from the original frames of the two saints from the altarpiece now in Siena (Saint Francis and Saint Louis of Toulouse) that above the pointed arch was a further extension decorated in fine tooling on a silver ground. Above this sat the panels with smaller saints, includingthe Museum's panel (now in an imitationGothictabernacleframe of recentdate), which shows Saint Clare wearing the habit of a Poor Clare and holding a book and a flaming lamp. The underside of the lamp is prominently displayed, and the book is tilted outward in accordance with the panel's high placement in the altarpiece. The polyptychdates from about 1330 and seems to have been painted for the churchof San Francescoat Colle di Val d'Elsa, midway between Florence and Siena, since the two panels now inSiena were stillin the churchpriorto 1867.

In LippoMemmi's altarpiece the figures have been conceived as complementary pairs. Saints Louisof Toulouse and Francisboth turn inward, and in each figure, one hand is raised while the other is parallel to the bottom edge of the panel.

Saints Paul and Peter are shown frontally; and Saint Paul holds the sword in his right hand and the Epistlesin his left, while Saint Peter holds the keys in his right hand and a book in his left. In each of the panels the saints are aligned along the vertical axis. This predilection for formal arrangementand repetitionof gestures was typical of LippoMemmi'sworkthroughouthis career.

25

25. Theearliestsurvivingexample of a seven-panel altarpiece (or heptaptych)was paintedby Simone Martiniin 1319 forthe churchof Santa Caterina in Pisa. Lippo Memmimusthave had that work in mindwhen, around 1330, he was commissionedby a Franciscan church-probably San Francesco at Colle di Vald'Elsa-to paint the altarpiecereconstructedbelow. In some respectshe simplified Simone'sscheme by eliminatingan intermediarystorybetween the mainpanels and the pinnacles, but he also gave his worka more pronouncedGothic appearance by makingthe panels tallerand

26

narrower,by bringingthe molded, trefoilarches to an emphaticpoint, and by giving the altarpiecea more brokensilhouette. Originally,there would have been finialsrisingbetween each of the main panels withshorterones flankingthe pinnacles and, doubtless,two buttressing piers, one to eitherside.

Throughoutthe Middle Ages paintingwas a profession thatwas frequentlypassed fromfatherto son and could evolve into a family enterprise.LippoMemmi'sfather and brotherwere both painters; moreover,in 1324 Lippo'ssister marriedSimoneMartini,withwhom Lippowas to collaborate.Itis there-

fore not surprisingthatthis large altarpiece was the productof collaborationand thatclose examination reveals differences among the parts. Itis largely owing to the variationamong the panels that the reconstructionof the altarpiece is a recent achievement. The association of all the main panels, based on theirsimilarityof design, dimensions,and tooling, was first proposed in 1961 and the pinnaclesfirstsuggested in 1974.Even thisreconstructionremainsto some extentconjectural.Itis not certain thatthe fragmentaryMadonna and Childbelongs to the altarpiece, and thoughthe orderof the larger

figurescan be convincinglyestablished, thatof the smaller figures cannot.

Pinnacles,left to right:Saint Dorothy (Museo Poldi-Pezzoli,Milan); SaintClare (figure24); Saint Anthonyof Padua (Collectionof TheFrickArtMuseum, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania);MaryMagdalen (Museumof Art,Rhode Island Schoolof Design,Providence);Saint Agnes (Collectionof TheFrickArt Museum,Pittsburgh).Main panels: SaintLouisof Toulouse(Pinacoteca, Siena); Saint Paul (figure23); Saint Johnthe Baptist(National Gallery of Art,Washington,D.C., Samuel H. KressCollection);Madonnaand

Child (Gemaldegalerie, BerlinDahlem);SaintJohnthe Evangelist (YaleUniversityArtGallery, New Haven, Connecticut,Bequest of MaitlandF.Griggs, B.A. 1896); SaintPeter(Louvre,Paris,photo courtesyR6uniondes musees nationaux);Saint Francis(Pinacoteca, Siena).

27

26. OfGiotto's pupilsandfollowers onlyMasodi Bancoapproached paintingwitha seriousness

andsobrietycomparableto the master'sown.Inthispainting Franciscan ofthethirteenth-century of Padua,Masohas SaintAnthony focusedattentionon thepensive gazeof thefigureandontheseemprotectivemaninglyunconscious, nerinwhichhe holdshisbookby thesilhouetteto an exsimplifying ceptionaldegree;by avoiding of thedraperyfoldsas treatment andbyemphadecorative patterns; sizingthesolidityof theforms.

Whereasinso manyfourteenthcenturypicturesthe gold back-

groundreadsas <a decorative heere,byvirtueof the embellishment, delicacy of the modelingandthe suggestionof a s.oftlight,thegold takeson an almost atmospheric quality.Butas rennarkableas Saint is inisol(ation,muchof its Anthony impactdependsoinitsbeingseenin withtheotherpanels conjunction thatmadeupthealtarpiecefrom whichitcomes(fiigure27).

29'/4x 16inches.Bequestof MaitlandF.Griggs,1'943,MaitlandF n (43.98.13) GriggsCollectior

The altarpiece by Maso di Banco to which the Museum's Saint Anthony of Padua (figure 26) belonged is of an altogether differentorder. The polyptychmay have consisted of only one row of five simply arched panels, above which there would have been gables and finials (figure 27).

Fourof these panels were owned by the KaiserFriedrich-Museumin Berlin: the Saint Anthony was sold in 1926; the center panel, a beautiful Madonna and Child, is now in the Staatliche Museen at Berlin-Dahlem;and two further lateral panels of Saints John the Baptist and Anthony Abbot were destroyed in World War II. The novelty of this altarpiece resided not in the details of its apparently spartan frame but in Maso's freedom from the restrictionsit imposed.

None of the figures is strictly aligned along a vertical axis, and the figure of Saint Anthonyof Padua has been conceived in terms of its relation to the central panel, toward which he gazes.

His torso is turned obliquely, in response to the pose of the Virgin,and whereas her body is well to the left of center, Saint Anthony'sis displaced to the right.Maso interpretedthe frame as an open loggia that markedoff the space behind at regular intervals.This was a concept that seems to have evolved out of his contemporaryfrescoes in the Bardidi Vernio Chapel in Santa Croce (see figure28), where the figures and the architectural settingare frequentlyconceived in counterpoint.

Typicalalso of Maso is the careful definitionof the planes of the head of Saint Anthonyand the way the cubic mass of the book is suggested by the placement of his hands. It is because of the figure's intended relation to the Madonna and Child and its marked displacement to the right that, in the Museum'sgalleries, Saint Anthonyof Padua registers so markedly as a fragment.

28

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27. Only two altarpieces by Maso di Bancosurvive.Theearlierof the two is in the churchof Santo Spiritoin Florenceand the other, of whichfourpanels are known butonly two survive,is reconstructedhere. Theframeof the presentone seems to have been quite unusual.Departingfromtraditionalpractice, Maso has left an unadornedstripbetween the tooled verticalbordersof the gold ground and the edge of the panels. This suggests thatthe five panels abutted against each otherand were separated by freestandingcolonnettes,therebyenhancingthe effect

of a unifiedspace behind a loggia.

Toan unusualdegree the Madonna and Childare the compositional and emotional focus of the altarpiece. Therighthand of the Virgin and thatof SaintAnthonyof Padua are placed along parallel diagonals, as is the scroll of SaintJohn the Baptistand the left foot of the ChristChild,and the oblique position of SaintAnthonycorresponds to thatof the Virgin.

Leftto right:Saint John the Baptist(destroyed;formerly Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, Berlin); Madonnaand Child(GemaldegalSaintAnthony erie, Berlin-Dahlem);

of Padua (figure26); SaintAnthony Abbot (destroyed;formerlyKaiserFriedrich-Museum, Berlin).All photos except SaintAnthonyof Padua courtesy of Staatliche Museen PreussischerKulturbesitz,Berlin

28. Legendhas it thatwhile he was afflictedwithleprosy,the emperor Constantinehad a dream in which SaintsPeterand Paulappeared and instructedhimto send forSylvester,the bishop of Rome. When he arrived,Sylvesterbroughtwith hima portraitof the two saints, whomConstantinerecognizedfrom the dream,and the bishop counseled the emperorto be baptized.

Thebaptismcuredthe leprosy.On the left of this fresco by Maso di Banco,Sylvesteris showing the portraitof Saints Peterand Paulto Constantine,seated in an inner chamberof his palace. Tothe right the emperoris being baptized.

One of the most original features of thisfresco fromthe Bardidi VernioChapel in Santa Croce is the way the figuresat the left are not centeredbeneath the arcade butplaced off-axis to establish a counterpointto the architectureand give the scene an effect of greater immediacy.

Bardidi VernioChapel, Santa Croce,Florence 29

29. Inthe middleyears of the fourteenthcentury,paintingin Florence was dominatedby Andreadi Cione (betterknownas Orcagna) and his brotherNardo.Andreawas notonlya painterbutalso an architectand sculptorof distinction,and not surprisingly,his paintingsare organizedwiththe structurallogic of an architectand show a sculptor'sfeeling forform.Nardo, by contrast,was exclusivelya painter, and althoughhe workedalongside Andreain the StrozziChapel in Santa MariaNovella, his workis characterizedby a delicacy and innatefeeling for color foreign to Andrea'swork.Nardo's altarpiece

illustratedhere was probably painted in the mid-1350s, and in boththescale of thefiguresand the mannerin whichtheyfillthe arched space of the panel it is comparable to his frescoesintheStrozziChapel.

Unusuallybeautifulis the depiction of the ChristChild(detail, right), whose nakedness is scarcely concealed by the transparentveil the Virginholds in frontof him.The birdin his left hand is a goldfinch, symbol of Christ'sPassion.

Threeof the saints portrayedJohnthe Baptistin the left foreground,and Zenobiusand Reparatainthebackground-are patrons of Florence.Thisfact, coupled

withthe tall, narrowshape of the painting,suggests that it may have adorned one of the pillarsof the nave of the cathedralin Florence.

Thepresentframedates fromthe nineteenthcentury,and the original one would have had a large gable decorated with the bust-length figureof ChristBlessingformerly in the Artaudde Montorcollection and knownfroman engraving (figure30).

88/2 x 49 inches. Lentby the NewYorkHistoricalSociety,TheBryan Collection

InFlorentinepainting a line of descent may be traced from the work of Giotto through that of his pupil Maso to that of Andrea di Cione, better known as Orcagna. It is Orcagna's younger brother, Nardo, who is the author of what bids to be by far the greatest painting in America from the middle years of the fourteenth century: the altarpiece of the Madonna and Child with FourSaints, on loan from the BryanCollection of the New-YorkHistoricalSociety (figure 29). This is a large panel-it measures over six feet in height and three feet in width-and it is fragmentaryonly in the sense that it has lost its original frame, which included in the gable a bust of Christ Blessing that was reproduced in an engraving (figure30) made when the picturewas in the Artaudde Montorcollection in the early nineteenth century.The present frame seems to date from the middle of the nineteenth century and differs from the original in its lack of architectural elements. The original frame would certainlyhave includedat the sides pilasterscrowned with finials.

Not all altarpieces were placed on altars in chapels. Some, having the tall, narrow dimensions of this painting, were hung on pillars in the naves of large churches or on the walls of public buildings. We know, for example, that a large panel by Nardo of the Madonna and Child,dated 1356, hung in a room of the Gabella de'Contratti in Florence. Of the four saints shown in the present work, Saint John the Baptist in the left foreground and SaintsZenobius and Reparata in the background are patrons of Florence. Saint Reparata was, additionally, the titular saint of the cathedral of Florence, which also housed the relics of Saint Zenobius. On the basis of these facts it has been suggested that the Madonna and Child with FourSaints may originally have decorated one of the large composite pillars of the Florentinecathedral.

When Nardo painted this work he had already completedthe enormousfresco cycle inthe Strozzi 30

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30. Thisimage of the Blessing Christ,knownonly froman engraving, stood above the Madonna and Childwith FourSaintsfrom the New-YorkHistoricalSociety (figure29).

32

Chapel of Santa Maria Novella, for which his famous brother painted the altarpiece. It is Orcagna's influencethat informsthe structureof the New-York Historical Society panel, where the angled placement of Saints John the Baptist and Johnthe Evangelistmarksoff the foreground; the frontal pose of the Virgin with her ample, rectangular lap defines a middle space; and Saints Zenobius and Reparata establish the distance in front of the cloth of honor. The rotating movement of the ChristChild and the sensuous beauty of the Virgin, her right hand elegantly raised along a horizontalat two-thirdsthe height of the panel, are conceived in contrast to this rigidly architecturalscheme.

Another, though far from common, type of altarpiece produced in the fourteenth century was composed of a numberof individuallyframed panels that were hinged together in such a way that they could be folded together and the altarpiece moved from place to place. Three of the most beautiful half-length figures in the Metropolitan, a Madonna and Child and a Saint Ansanus in the Lehman Collection (figures 31 and 32) and a Saint Andrew in the paintings galleries (figure33), came from thistype of altarpiece (see figure34). Whereas in stationarypolyptychs the central panel was invariably larger than the lateral panels, here all of them have the same dimensions,and whereas fourteenth-century panels of this size are generally arched, here the picture field is rectangular, as in the small diptych by the Master of Monte Oliveto (figures 9 and 10). The frames-that on the Saint Andrew is original while the others are either copies or heavily restoredoriginals-have the same tooled and pigmenteddecoration on all sides and would be inappropriate for anything other than a folding altarpiece. Thoughthis work was intended to be portable and was not necessarily conceived for a particularaltar or chapel, it mustnevertheless have been painted for a communal body ratherthan a private individual, as the figure of SaintAnsansus at the far left holds the black and white flag of the city of Siena just as he does in Simone Martini'saltarpiece of the Annunciation (figure 3).

Likemost Gothic polyptychs the present altarpiece was the product of a workshop, and its creation involved a degree of collaboration. The righttwo wings are executed with a delicacy and variety of brushworkthat contrast with the more schematic technique employed in the Madonna and Child and the Saint Ansanus. For example, much of the subtlety of the marvelously drawn hands of the Saint Andrew is lost in those of the Madonna. Yet all of the panels were manifestly conceived by the same artist. Despite an old

31. Ourabilityto reconstructthe artist activityof a fourteenth-century depends upon two kindsof information:the signaturesand dates thatoccasionally appear on paintings; and such documentsas a contractor notice of paymentfor a workof art. Only in rarecases does biographical information emerge, and our understandingof the artist'spersonalityand its bearingon hisworknecessarilyremains highly conjectural. Despite his widespreadfame-he was knighted in 1317 and is knownto have been a friendof Petrarch-Simone Martiniis no exception. Thereis, forexample, no documentaryevidence forhimbetween 1333 and 1340 and no dated workbetween the Annunciationof 1333 (figure3) in the Uffiziand the small painting of 1342showing the Holy Family (WalkerArtGallery, Liverpool).It is thereforenot surprisingthatthis paintingof the Madonna and Child has long puzzled critics,for though the figuretypes are Simone's, there is no exact parallel in his workfor theirvolumetrictreatmentand the remarkabledynamicpose of the Child.However,at least two of the companionpanels (see figure34) are demonstrably painted by Simone,and the Madonna and Childwouldthereforeseem to documentan unexpectedfacet of his career.Itsconception may be seen as evolving out of the dramatically complexAnnunciationof 1333, whichit would thereforepostdate.

221/2x 15/8 inches. RobertLehman Collection, 1975 (1975.1.12)

33

32. Of noble Romanbirth,Saint Ansanuswas raised a Christian.

He was beheaded near Siena by orderof Diocletianfor proselytizing, and it was in Siena that his cult grew.He is shown here as the patronsaint of the city,holding its whiteand black bannerin one hand and the palm of martyrdom in the other.Thoughthe figureof the saint is well preserved, in the past, forsome reason, the gold backgroundwas scraped down and the halo ineptlyrepainted, deprivingthe pictureof the resonance Simone Martinioriginally intendedit to have. (Thiswas also done to the companionSaintPeter.)

228 X 141/2inches. RobertLehman Collection,1975 (1975.1.13)

34

33. No Trecentopainterpossessed a greaterdescriptiveabilityor a morerefinedtechniquethanSimone Martini.Bothof these qualities have been broughtto bear in this pictureof SaintAndrew,of whom Jacopo da Voragine,the thirteenthcenturyauthorof The Golden Legend,says, "He was beautifulin hislife,responsivein his wise teaching, virilein suffering,and esteemedby all forhis manlyvirtues."

Especiallyremarkableis the rich patterningof the folds of the pink cloak modeled in green, and the marvelouslydrawnhands. The saint is identifiedby the traces of an inscriptionto the left and right of his head.

22/2 x 1478 inches. Gift of George

Blumenthal,1941 (41.100.23)

35

attributionto LippoVanni,the artistis more likely to have been Simone Martini.Typical of Simone is the rich patterning of the drapery and the manner in which the book held by Saint Peter rests on the frame and leans inward while that held by Saint Lukeis open and projects beyond the frame. And though the Madonna and Child seem to have been painted not by Simone but by a gifted assistant, the conception, with the Child drawing the Virgin'sveil across his body protectively,is remarkable. Especially beautifulare the manner in which the Virgin's body is turned so that her rightshoulder and arm are on the same plane as the left foot and arm of the Child; the alignment of the Christ'sleft foot and arm along 34. Thealtarpieceto whichthe

MadonnaandChildandSaint AnsanusintheLehmanCollection andtheSaintAndrewinthepaintings galleries belonged was composed of five individuallyframed pictureshinged togetherso that the altarpiececould be collapsed and easily transported.Thesimple, rectangularshape of each of the panels was complementedby an elegant butsimple frame:thaton the SaintAndrew,thoughseparatedfromthepanel and slightlycut down, is originaland the others are eithercopies or reworkedoriginals. Despite the fact that it was intendedto be portable, the altarpiece measuredabout seven feet in lengthand musthave been an importantcommission.

Inadditionto the Museum'spanels, the altarpiece includedfigures of SaintPeter,who holdsthe keysof the gate of heaven, and Saint Luke, shown withhis attribute,the ox.

Leftto right:SaintAnsanus (figure 32);SaintPeter(PrivateCollection);

MadonnaandChild(figure31);

SaintAndrew(figure33); Saint Luke(J.P GettyMuseum,Malibu, California)

two parallel diagonals; and the conjunction of the Virgin'shalo with the cruciformnimbusof the Child. Itis an image as carefully planned and as radical in its description of emotions as Simone's great Annunciationin the Uffizi.

on theLife 35,36. TheMeditations of Christ,writtenin the thirteenth century,describes how, afterthe birthof Jesus, Mary"kneltto adore Himand to renderthanksto God, saying 'Ithankyou, most Holy Father... and Iadore you... Son of the livingGod....' " Thispassage is the subject of the Cloistersaltarpiece(below), whichmay be partof a polyptychseen in the cloistersof the conventof San Domenico in San Gimignano in 1802.

Thepolyptychincludedlateralpanels of the FourEvangelistssurmountedby pinnacles,one of which showed the VirginAnnunciate,and a predella. A related altarpiece in

the churchof SantiFiorae Lucillain Torrita,south of Siena (figure39), gives some idea of its original appearance. Itis possible thatthe VirginAnnunciatein the YaleArt Gallery (left)-which seems to be contemporary,is framedsimilarly, and employs the same toolingis one of the pinnacles.

Left:YaleUniversityArtGallery, Bequestof Maitland F Griggs, B.A. 1896. Below: 697/x 451/8

inches. TheCloistersCollection, 1925 (25.120.288)

36, detail. Such early sources as the apocryphal Proto-Evangelium and Gospel of Pseudo Matthew describe the birthof Christas taking place in a cave ratherthan in a stable. Likemost fourteenth-century Italianpainters,Bartolodi Fredi remainedfaithfulto these sources, though he has also provided a tiled overhang as protectionfor the Holy Family.A detail of great charmis the mannerin whichthe ChristChildeyes the not especially benign ox and ass, as though He were only too well aware that He is lying in theirmanger.

The polyptych with a central image of the Madonna and Childflanked by saints may have been the most common format for altarpieces, but it was not the only one. By a curious coincidence, the Metropolitan owns two large narrative panels by Bartolo di Fredi. One, at The Cloisters, shows the Adoration of the Shepherds and has much of its original gilt gesso molding at the top still intact (figure 36). The other, in the LehmanCollection, is a cut-down panel showing the Adoration of the Magi (figure 37), the upper portion of which is in the Mus6e des Beaux-Arts at Dijon and shows the Journey of the Magi (figure38). Bothappear to have been the center panels of large altarpieces. The original appearance of the Cloisterspanel can be partlydeduced from the remains of a triptych in the church of Santi Fiora e Lucillain Torrita,south of Siena, in which the center panel again depicts the Adoration of the Shepherds and two lateral wings show standing saints (figure 39). There is, indeed, the possibility that the Cloisters panel formed part of an altarpiece seen in 1802 by the Sienese art historianEttoreRomagnoli in the cloisters of the convent of San Domenico in San Gimignano. He described it as "a Nativity of Our Lord. At the sides are the Four Evangelists;above the Virgin of the Annunciation[figure 35], the Coronation of the Virgin, the Baptism of the Saviour; in the predella SaintJohn the Evangelistwith two other saints. At the base is writtenBartholusM[agister] Fredi. 1374." According to this description there would have been five main panels, each surmounted by a pinnacle containing an episode from the life of the Virginand Christ-the Coronation would normally have been at the center -and the predella perhaps showed miracles from the life of Saint John the Evangelist,though this is not clear. Inany event, it is evident that like the altarpiece Romagnoli described, the Cloisters painting was originally crowned by a large pinnacle, and the work arguably dates from the 1370s-several years after Bartolo had 38

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37, 38. Bartolodi Fredi'sAdoration of the Magi in the Lehman Collection(left)is a fragmentin two senses. Likethe CloistersAdo-

rationof theShepherds(figure36),

it was the centerpanel of a polyptych,the lateralpanels of which probablyshowed standingsaints.

Additionally,itsupper,pointedportion has been cutoff. Theabsent piece of the painting,whichshows the Journeyof the Magi to Bethlehem, is now in the Musee des Beaux-Artsat Dijon (below): the missing legs of the figuresand dog along its lower bordercan be seen along the upperedge of the Lehmanpicture.Strangethough

such a mutilationmay seem, Sassetta's famous littleJourneyof the Magi in the Museumis the resultof a similaract, obviouslyperformed to obtain two salable pictures.

TheLehmanpicturewas painted more than a decade laterthan the Cloisterspicture,and during thatintervalBartolodi Fredihad brightenedhis palette considerably and aimed for greater elegance and refinement.

Left:783/4x 47/4 inches.RobertLehman Collection, 1975 (1975.1.16).

Below: Mus6e des Beaux-Arts, Dijon

completed his fresco cycle of the Old Testament in the Collegiata at San Gimignano.

In aesthetic terms Bartolo di Fredi was not a great artist, but in the third quarter of the fourteenth centuryhe seems to have been one of the most popular in Siena, and he was one of the few who had an extensive career as a mural painter.Itwas from his activityas a fresco painter that Bartoloevolved the facile but pleasing style of the Cloisters picture, which is notable not for the casual manner in which it is composed but for the coarse realism of its details. By the time he painted TheAdoration of the Magi, perhaps a decade later, his style had become somewhat dilutedthroughcontact with more refined artists, and despite its beauties of color and design, the Lehmanpictureis in many respects a bland reinterpretationof TheAdoration of the Magi in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena.

39. Bartolodi Fredibased at least two altarpieces on the Cloisters

Adorationof theShepherds,but

only this one at Torritapreserves two of the lateralpanels withfiguresof SaintsAugustineand AnthonyAbbot.

Santi Fiorae Lucilla,Torrita

41

40. Threeconsecutiveevents from the life of SaintJohn the Baptist are unitedin thispanel of the Feast of Herod.Inthe rightforeground Salome performsa dance before Herod,while to the left she presents the head of SaintJohn to her schemingmother.Infrontof the adjacentstructure,whose crenellationidentifiesitas a prison,Saint Johnis beheaded. Itis the straightforward,almostnaive approachto narrationthatconstitutesthe charm of thispicture,fromwhichany hint of tragedyhas been eliminated.

17111/6X 19V2inches. RobertLehman

Collection,1975 (1975.1.103)

42

The majority of fourteenth-centurypaintings at the MetropolitanMuseum are Florentineand Sienese. Thisis as it should be, for either directly or indirectlythese two Tuscancenters influenced the course of painting throughoutItaly.InRimini, on the coast of the Adriatic, the frescoes in San Francesco at Assisi and Giotto's work at Padua and in Riminiitself were determining influences that significantly altered the figural style of a whole school of painting. The formats of the altarpieces, however, evolved along purelylocal lines and frequently reflect a conservative outlook. Althoughthe Riminesepanel of the banquet of Herod (figure 40) in the Lehman Collection may have been painted as late as 1330-40,

the altarpiece of which itformed a part (figure41) seems to have had the simple rectangularshape of a thirteenth-centuryaltar frontal or dossal.

In the center was almost certainly the elegant Madonna and Childwith Angels now in the National Gallery in Washington, and to either side of the Virgin were probably distributed eight scenes of the life of Saint John the Baptistin two superimposed rows. A notable feature of this altarpiece would have been the irregular patternof the divisions imposed by the greater width of the Lehman scene. Though somewhat unorthodox, this casual approach to organization is also found in Riminesefresco cycles. The larger format of the Lehman picture was, of course,

dictated by the nature of the story depicted and by the desire to unite three separate episodes.

Two of these take place before the delicately described palace, from which a rich cloth of honor hangs. On the right a diminutiveSalome dances before Herod, who, judging from the attitudes of his advisers, seems to be reflecting on the reward he will grant the young girl. On the left Salome presents the charger bearing the head of John the Baptistto her mother,Herodias.

Abutting against the palace is a buff-colored prison where an executioner is dealing the final blow to Saint John. It is indicative of the outlook of this gifted anonymous artist,who is known as the Master of the Life of Saint John the Baptist,

thatthe same raised hand is employed by one of Herod's advisers to express concern and by the women to either side of Herodias to express surprise and horror.

40, detail. One of the most attractive featuresof Riminesepainting is the mannerin whichpatterns are created by scratchingaway the surface pigment witha stylus, in an amazinglyfree manner,to reveal an underlyinglayerof silver.

Thedress of Herodias as well as thepatternson the clothhangingbehindthe figureshave been created in this fashion. Equallybeautiful and characteristicof Riminese painting is the subdued, almost smokyqualityof the colors, which contrastswiththe more brilliant palette of Florentinepainters.

43

41. Thoughthe altarpiece to which The Feastof Herod belonged was paintedtowardthe middle of the century-about 1340-its large, rectangularformatis characterdossals. isticof thirteenth-century Theadvantage of thisshape lay in the flexibilityit allowed the artistin determiningthe size of the individual scenes. Thisis especially apparentin the largersize of The Feastof Herod,whichwas dictated by the complexityof its subject. Varioustheorieshave been advanced about the original number of scenes. Throughan errorof identificationit has been thought thatnine-not eight-scenes sur-

44

vive,and ithas also been suggested thatthe series may originallyhave numberedthirteen.Itis, however, difficultto imagine what further episodes fromJohnthe Baptist's life could have been shown on these additionalfive panels, since several of the extantpanels show more thanone episode and the presentgroup is perfectlycoherent. Thenarrativebegins in the upper left, where an angel suddenly appears to a startledZaccharias, who was officiatingin the synagogue while "thewhole multitude of the people were prayingoutside at the time of incense" (Luke1:10), and announces thathis aged wife,

Elizabeth,willgive birthto a son. In the adjacentscene two nursemaids bringthe newbornJohnto Elizabeth, who is shown restingin bed.

Tothe rightan obviously unhappy John is circumcisedwhile, in answer to the queryof two relatives, Zacchariaswriteson a piece of paper, "Hisname is John."Inthe touchingscene in the lower left, an angel appears to the infantJohn and directshimintothe wilderness, where the futureprophetkneels and praysin isolation. Immediately adjacentto thisscene two episodes were probablyshown: SaintJohn preachingthe repentanceof sins to the Jews, and SaintJohn disput-

ing withthe Pharisees.Only a fragmentof the lattersurvives.Tothe rightof the Madonna and Childis the Baptismof Christ,and in the upperrightis a scene-heretofore unpublished-of, at the left, Saint John in prisoninstructingtwo disciples to ascertainwhetheror not Jesus reallywas the Messiah, and, to the right,the two apostles confrontingChrist.Inthe lower tier is the Feast of Herodand, in the lower right,SaintJohn in limbo announcingthe coming of Christ.

Thesubjectof this scene is taken fromthe apocryphalActs of Pilate.

Ithas been argued thatthe centralimage of this engaging narra-

tive should show SaintJohnthe Baptist,butthis is almost certainly incorrect.TheMadonna and Child at the National Galleryis exactly the requisiteheight, and the backgroundis decorated withthe same freelyincised decoration of leaves foundin the eight lateralpanels.

Moreover,the ChristChildholds a marvelouslydrawngrasshopper, whichis sometimes explained as a symbolof convertedpaganism but is more likelya referenceto the locustson whichSaintJohn is said to have lived in the wilderness.

Leftto right,top row:Annunciation to Zaccharias (PrivateCollection); Birthof SaintJohn, Madonna and

Child,Baptismof Christ(National Galleryof Art,Washington,Samuel H. KressCollection);SaintJohn in Prison(PrivateCollection).Lower row:SaintJohn in the Wilderness (PinacotecaVaticana);SaintJohn and the Pharisees(SeattleMuseum of Art,Samuel H. KressCollection); The Feast of Herod (figure40); SaintJohn in Limbo(Private Collection)

45

In the Italian region of the Marches it was Allegretto Nuzi who acquainted local artistswith the achievements of Florentinepainters. Listedin the painters' association of Florence in 1346, he would have been a contemporary of Orcagna and Nardo di Cione, who, along with Bernardo Daddi, most influenced him. By 1354 he had returnedto his native city, Fabriano, in the company of an artist perhaps identifiable as Puccio di Simone. There his chief pupil was Francescuccio Ghissi. Ghissi is principallyknown as a painterof Madonnaswhose compositionsdepend on those of his teacher, but he, not Nuzi, is the more likely author of an altarpiece of which three narrativescenes are on exhibitin the paint-

42. Tothe left,Satheus, who has justbeen resurrectedby SaintJohn, tells two formerdisciples, Acteus and Eugenius,"of the glory of Paradiseand of the pains of Hell whichhe had justseen withhis own eyes." Astoundedby his words, Acteusand Eugeniusreturnto Saint John,offertheirriches,and beg forgiveness.Theapostle tells them to do penance forthirtydays.

Thescene, by the Marchigian artistFrancescuccioGhissi, is from thesame seriesas figures43 and 44.

Itis consistentwithGhissi'schildlike approachto narrationthatParadise is shown as an enormousdisc in the skyemanatinggold rays.

143/8X 1674 inches. Giftof Mrs. W.

MurrayCrane, 1969 (69.280.2)

46

ings galleries (figures42-44). Likethe altarpiece by the Master of the Life of Saint John the Baptist,Ghissi's (figure45) had a large central image -The Crucifixion,now in the Art Instituteof Chicago-flanked by two superimposed rows of eight scenes from the life of Saint John the Evangelist. And although there were molded arches dividing the panel into five vertical fields, the presence of either a saint or seraph in each of the spandrels proves thattherewere no elaborate pilasters topped by finials. The frame may have consisted of a rather plain surround.

It could not be maintained that Ghissi was an originalartist-the Crucifixioninthe presentwork derives directlyfrom Nuzi-but his approach to

43. "WhenSaintJohnhad preached throughoutAsia,"Jacopo da Voragine writes,"theidolatorsdragged himto the temple of Diana, and triedto force himto offer sacrifice.... Thenthe saint proposed this alternativeto them:... if by calling on Diana, theysucceeded in overthrowingthe churchof Christ, he would offer sacrifice to Diana; butif on the contrary,by calling upon Christ,he destroyedthetempleof Diana, they would have to believe in Christ.... Johnthen ordered out of the temple all who were within and whenhe prayed,thetemplefell to the ground,and the statue of Diana was reducedto dust."Ghissi is faithfulto Voragine'stextin all butone detail: the statue is not of Diana butof Mars or Jupiter.

14?8x 1514inches. Giftof Mrs.W. MurrayCrane, 1969 (69.280.3)

44. The Golden Legendtells how one day SaintJohnthe Evangelist encounteredthe funeralcortege of Satheus,a young man who had died thirtydays after his marriage.

Atthe entreatiesof the young man's widow and mother,SaintJohn revived him.Inthispicture,the widow and the motherare shown on eitherside of the funeral bieras Satheus, bound for burial, raises his head in response to the saint's command. Thespectatorsare grouped at the sides so thatJohn'soutstretchedarmand the upraisedhand of one of the spectatorsare isolated against the

gold background.Ghissi is not noted for his originality,and a compositionas remarkableas this one may be presumedto derive froma prototypeby anotherartist, in this instance Giotto's fresco of the Raisingof Drusianain the PeruzziChapel of Santa Croce.

WhetherGhissi knew this fresco directlyor, as seems more likely, derivedthe composition fromhis teacher,AllegrettoNuzi, cannot be demonstrated.Whicheverthe case, a comparisonof Ghissi's scene withGiotto'semphasizes the degree to whichthe somber, serious mood of the latterhas been re-

placed by Ghissi'sfairy-talecharm.

141/8X 161/8inches. Gift of Mrs. W.

MurrayCrane, 1969 (69.280.1)

47

45. Likethe altarpieceby the Master of the Lifeof SaintJohn the Baptist (figure41), this workby FrancescuccioGhissihad a simple,rectangularprofile.However,the shape of the individualscenes was determinedby a series of five molded archesthatwere originallysupportedby pilasters,and thisgave the workan updated, more architecturalappearance. Therewould also have been a horizontalmolding to separate the upperscenes fromthe lower ones.

Thenarrativeof SaintJohnthe Evangelist'slife seems to have been takenfromJacopo da Voragine's Golden Legend.Inthe upper-left scene SaintJohnresuscitates Drusiana,a devoted friend,outside the walls of Ephesus.Next to this the philosopherCratodisplays his abhorrenceof worldlygoods by smashingdiamonds.SaintJohn reprovedCrato,notingthatthe rejectedrichesshould have been used to benefitthe poor, and thereupon restoredthe gems. At the bottomleft is shown how two converts,Acteusand Eugenius,came to regretthe loss of theirwealth and asked SaintJohnto restoreit to them.Nextto this is SaintJohn the EvangelistraisingSatheus to life (figure44). Then,in the two upper-rightscenes, SaintJohn is depicted withthe repentantActeus and Eugenius(figure42), and causing a pagan temple to collapse (figure43). Inthe sole surviving scene fromthe bottom-righttier SaintJohndrinks,unharmed,the poison thathad already killedtwo men. Thelost scene probably showed eitherSaintJohn baptizing the highpriestAristodemusor the funeralof SaintJohn.

TheCrucifixion mightseem out of place in thisaltarpiece, but it was at the Crucifixionthat Christ's special affection forSaintJohn was manifested,when he declared thathenceforthJohnshould take Hisplace as the Virgin'sson.

Amongthe saints in the spandrels are SaintJohnin the cauldronof boilingoil, SaintFrancis,and Saint Louisof Toulouse.

Leftto right,upperrow: ThePortlandArtMuseum,Portland,Oregon, SamuelH. KressCollection;North CarolinaMuseumof Art,Raleigh, SamuelH. KressCollection;The ArtInstituteof Chicago; figure42; figure43. Lowerrow: NorthCarolina Museumof Art,Samuel H. KressCollection; figure 44; NorthCarolinaMuseumof Art, SamuelH. KressCollection

48

narration has a directness and simplicity that complement perfectly Jacopo da Voragine's Golden Legend, which was probably the textual source for the scenes of Saint John the Evangelist. Inthe upper-leftscene SaintJohn encounters the funeral cortege of the disciple Drusiana outside a higgledy-piggledy Ephesus. Raising his hand, the apostle cries, "Drusiana, my Master Jesus Christraises thee to life! Arise, go into thy house and prepare my repast!" At these words the diminutivefigure of Drusiana sits uprighton her bier, her hands clasped in response to Saint John. The next four scenes recount the story of two young men who, havingwitnessed SaintJohn miraculously repair diamonds that had been

smashed by the philosopher Crato, convert, give away their riches, and then repent of theiraction.

Inthe lower-left scene, Saint John has rocks and reeds brought to him, which he transforms into diamonds and gold for the two lapsed disciples, while in the adjacent scene he raises a young man to life in their presence. The resurrected man thereupon tells the two "that they had lost everlastingpalaces, builtof preciousstones, filled with marvellous light, furnished with delicate viands, and replete with everlasting joys and delights," and the two, not surprisingly,return to the saint. These events are shown in the arched scene to the right of the Crucifixion.In the last two extant scenes Saint John destroys a pagan

templethroughprayerand thendrinks,unharmed, the poison that had killed two men. Throughout there is a use of gesture to underlinethe meaning of each event. Where, for example, the resurrectedyoung man tells the two formerdisciples of the treasuresof eternal life they have lost, his right hand is extended toward them and his left is raised to the blue disc of heaven, and their wonder is expressed by the upraised arms of the one and the manner in which the other clasps his companion. When, in the same scene, they returnto Saint John, their humilityis expressed by their kneeling posture and the outstretched handfilled with jewels. Only one of these scenes, however, rises above this charming level, and

that is the depiction of Saint John raising the young man, Satheus, to life. Only here is there a fairly consistent description of space withfigures grouped in compact masses, and only here does the central gold void register as a dramatic device. The reason for the exceptional character of this scene is that the composition derives from Giotto's fresco of the Raising of Drusiana in the Peruzzi Chapel of Santa Croce. Ghissi is not likely to have known this fresco firsthand, but Nuzi did, and it is probable that this remarkable little scene follows a design Nuzi himself had adopted from Giotto's fresco.

49

46. Giotto was unquestionablythe most famous artistof his day, and his influencedominated painting in the firsthalf of the centuryin a way comparableto Michelangelo's two hundredyears later.He is mentioned in the Divine Comedy as the leading painterof the day and was the subject of one of the novelle of Boccaccio's Decameron.

Therewas, indeed, scarcely a majorpolitical figurein Italywho did not employ Giotto in some capacity.ForCardinalJacopo Stefaneschi he oversaw the executionof the high altarpiece forSaint Peter's in Rome;in 1328 he began work for Robertof Anjouin Naples; and

several years laterhe was sent by the communeof Florenceto work forAzzone Viscontiin Milan. To comply withthese numerouscommissions Giotto developed a large workshopthatwas able, if necessary,to functionwitha minimumof his own intervention.Thisarrangementfreed Giotto to give close attention to a relatively small numberof works,includingthe series to whichthe Museum'spanel of the Epiphanybelonged.

Of modest dimensions, the Museum's panel is characterizedby a clear organizationof space-the hillhas been divided into a series of plateaus, and the stable is

viewed as thoughseen fromslightly to the rightof center-and a concernforsimplifiedshapes that set it apart fromthe majorityof the worksproduced in the fourteenthcentury.Petrarchprobably was alludingto such featureswhen he described a pictureby Giotto thathe owned as having a beauty that "was not understoodby the ignorantbutthatstupefied those instructedin the arts."Thoughthe design of this workand the painting of such figuresas the Magi are doubtless by Giotto, a shop assistantwas probablyemployed in the executionof such details as the ox or the draperyof Joseph. Thestar

Thoughthe layoutof these narrativealtarpieces resembles that of fresco cycles, the diminutive size of the individualscenes and the brillianceof the requisite gold background created a different set of demands in which delicacy, refinement, and decorativeness counted for more than effects of monumentality,breadth, and simplicity.

One of the very few small fourteenth-century paintings to which this distinctiondoes not pertain is The Epiphany in the paintings galleries (figure 46). The economic means by which the setting of this picture is described and the monumental bearing of the figures, whose contours have been simplified as though they were lifesize ratherthan nine inches tall, are departures from normal practice. Equallyexceptional is the claritywith which the composition is organized.

The space is divided into four distinctareas: the foreground, occupied by the three Magi, Saint Joseph, and the goats and sheep; the plateau with the manger, the ox, and the ass; the raised area occupied by the stable, the Virgin,and the dog; and the notional plateau behind the hillock on which the shepherds presumably stand. And the stable is portrayedas thoughseen from below and slightly to the right-even the braces at the corners conform to this viewpoint. In the fourteenth century there was only one artist whose work was conceived along such lines, and that was Giotto.

A current view maintains that except for the very large painting of the Madonna and Child in the Uffizi, Giotto painted only frescoes, but this notion runs counter to what we know of artistic practice in the fourteenth century, and it runs counter to what early sources record of Giotto's activity. A substantial number of pictures and altarpieces thatwere quite apparently produced in his workshop exist, and of these, roughly ten reflect in varying degrees Giotto's participation.

In some, like the altarpiece from Santa Maria degli Angeli, Bologna, now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale of that city, or the altarpiece in the Baroncelli Chapel of Santa Croce in Florence, 50

witha tail is a modernaddition; traces of the originalstar are visible justabove and to the left of the presentone.

173/4x 171/4inches. JohnStewart KennedyFund, 1911 (11.126.1)

Giotto may be presumed to have laid in the design and then left the execution to his pupils: this is the obvious explanation for the appearance of his signature on both works. In others, such as the altarpiece from the Church of the Badia, now in the Uffizi, or the dispersed altarpiece whose central panel is in the National Gallery, Washington, and whose lateral panels are in the Museo Home, Florence,and the Musee Jacquemart-Andre at Chaalis, Giotto may be held responsible not only for the design but also for much of the execution. The Museum's panel belongs to this second category. It is difficultto conceive who other than Giotto himself could have painted the three solemn figures of the Magi, their faces modeled in broad planes and the folds of their drapery arranged so as to define the position of their arms and shoulders.

The tentative modeling of the cloaks of Saint Joseph and the Virgin,on the other hand, are the products of an assistant.

The Museum's picture is part of a series including six other known scenes (see figure 48), all roughly the same size and with the gold laid on the same unusual greenish preparation: The Presentationin the Temple, now in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston; The Last Supper, The Crucifixion,and The Descent into Limbo, in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich; The Entombment,in the Harvard Center for Renaissance Studies in Florence; and The Pentecost, in the National Gallery in London. It is a curious group. There are two scenes from the childhood of Christand four that recount his Passion, and the fact that such traditional scenes as the Annunciation and the Resurrection do not figure among these has led some students to conclude that the series is incomplete. While there is no proof that this is not so, there are parallels for the present grouping, and it is significant that three of the extant scenes show events that preceded the Crucifixionwhile three show events that followed it.

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46, detail: Therevolutionary changes thattook place in painting duringthe earlyyears of the fourteenthcenturywere preceded by a large body of Franciscan devotional literature,the most famousexample being the Meditations on the Lifeof Christ,in which the readeris urgedto visualizethe events of Christ'slife in concrete terms,as thoughtheywere contemporary.Thisapproach seems to underlieGiotto'sconception of the eldest magus as having removed his crownin respect and impetuouslyfalling to his knees before the ChristChildto lift Him fromthe manger.Thereis no liter-

52

arysource forthis depiction, which Giottohas made the compositional and dramaticfocus of the painting.

47. Theindividualpartsof altarpieces were bound togetherby wooden braces, knownas battens, whichwere nailed to the backs of the panels. Tracesof such battens are visible on the back of The Epiphanyas well as on fourof the otherscenes fromthe same series.

Inevery case they runin a vertical directionbut do not align with each other.Toeitherside of the battenon The Epiphanythe panel was gessoed and painted withan decorationthat imitation-porphyry has been partlyobliteratedby graffiti,some in a fourteenth-or hand. early fifteenth-century

Assumingthatthe group is complete, what can one state of its original context? A number of theories have been advanced. One posits that the panels were parts of a piece of ecclesiastical furnitureand may have decorated the doors of a sacristy cupboard. However, if this had been true, the panels would have been arranged in superimposed rows-either two rows of four panels each or three of three-which the present number simply does not permit. Moreover, on the gessoed backs of five of the panels there are traces of wooden braces, known as battens (see figure 47), which, while they runin a vertical direction, do not seem to align and therefore cannot have bound the present panels together.

There is, finally,the fact that a numberof panels making up a series by Giotto's pupil, Taddeo Gaddi, which are known to have formed the doors of a sacristy cupboard in Santa Croce, are encased in elaborate quatrefoil frames. The absence of such frames or theirtrace on the picture field is yet another piece of negative evidence. A more viable theory suggests that the panels formed either some kind of independent altarpiece or the predella of an altarpiece. Three observations supportthis view. First,the pictures are painted on poplar panels with the grain of the wood runningin a horizontal direction, as is characteristicof scenes from a predella. Second, along one or both of the vertical edges of most of the scenes are strips of gold that must originally have separated the panels from each other (the strips are not visible in all of the photographs). And third, along the left vertical edge of the Museum's picture and (possibly) the right edge of the Londonpictureare traces of a raised surfacewhere a frame originallyjoinedthe panel.

Taken together, this evidence would seem to indicate that the series was painted on a long horizontal panel contained in a single molding or framewithgold stripsseparating the individual scenes. Althoughthe square shape of each scene is unusualfor a predella, a parallel exists in the 53

48. Theseries of paintingsto which the Museum'sEpiphany(figure46) belongs seems to have formedthe predella of an altarpiece, though looked whatthe superstructure like is a matterof conjecture.

Thescenes would have been separated by thinstripsof gold, remnantsof whichare visiblealong the verticaledges of most of the panels.

Thoughonly two of the scenes show events fromthe childhood of Christwhile the otherfourrelate to the Passion, Giotto seems to have createdintentionalvisuallinks between the variousscenes. A notable example of this is the way in

whichMaryis shown faintingat the left in The Crucifixionand The Entombment.Lessobvious is the way the bent postureof Simeon in

of theInfantJesus ThePresentation in the Templeis mirroredby that

of ChristinTheDescentintoLimbo and the gesture of Maryreaching forher Childin the formeris repeated by an old woman reaching for Christin the latter.More conspicuous, perhaps, is the manner in whichthe table and the balcony supportedby consoles in The Last Supperdividethe scene horizontally in preciselythe same fashion as the backgroundplateau and the marblesarcophagus in The En-

tombment.Such a rich,allusive use of motifswas typical of Giotto'smuraldecorations,and itunderscores the fact thatwhetherhe was paintinga large-scale mural or a small, narrativepanel painting, the same principles were broughtto bear.

Leftto right:The Epiphany(figure

of theIn46);ThePresentation fantJesusintheTemple(Isabella

StewartGardnerMuseum,Boston);

TheLastSupper,TheCrucifixion

(AltePinakothek,Munich);The Entombment(BerensonCollection, Florence,Reproducedby permission of the Presidentand Fellows of HarvardCollege); The De-

altarpiece showing Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata, now in the Louvre,that was designed

by Giotto for the churchof San Francesco in Pisa.

Clearly,if these scenes formed the predella of an altarpiece, it musthave been a work of some importance, and we would expect it to be identifiableas one of the altarpieces mentioned by early writers.Unfortunately,such descriptions as are available are very cursory.However, two clues present themselves. The firsthas to do with a general observation that the only altarpieces Giotto seems to have had a direct hand in executing were destined for Florentine churches; those commissionedfor other cities seem to have been consigned to pupils in his workshop. The second clue is that in the scene of the Crucifixion a man and a woman in contemporarydress are shown to the rightof the cross while Saint Francis is shown embracing Christ'sfeet to the left.

The man and the woman are obviously portraits of the donors of the altarpiece, and, were they identifiable,the provenance of the panels could be established. The presence of Saint Francis probably indicates that the series was commissioned for a Franciscanchurch. This is of some importance,for among the altarpieces Giotto is said to have painted for Florentine churches, only four were done for a Franciscan establishment-Santa Croce. Threeof these have been plausibly identified. One is still in situ in the 54

scent into Limbo(AltePinakothek, Munich);Pentecost(TheNational Gallery,London,reproducedby Courtesyof the Trustees)

BaroncelliChapel; one, fromthe PeruzziChapel, is in the North Carolina Museum of Art at Raleigh;and the third,fromthe Pulci-BerardiChapel, is divided among the National Gallery, Washington,the Museo Home, Florence, and Chaalis.

The width of these altarpieces is comparable to that of the series in question, and it therefore seems possible that the Metropolitan'sEpiphany formed partof an altarpiecefor the BardiChapel, which was frescoed with scenes from the life of Saint Francis by Giotto and his workshop. It is true that in the 1568 edition of the Lives Vasari mentions a Crucifixionby Ugolino di Nerio on the altar of the chapel, but by that date the rood screen of Santa Croce as well as many of the altarpieces had been dismantled and moved about, and it seems more likely that Giotto, having decorated the chapel with frescoes, also painted its altarpiece. There was, moreover, a tradition of paralleling the life of Saint Francis with that of Christ, so it may not be a coincidence that just as there are seven scenes in the present series, so the chapel was decorated with seven scenes from the life of Saint Francis:three to each lateral wall and one, of Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata, over the entrance arch.

This would not be the only case where the subject of the narrativepanels of an altarpiece was conceived to complement that of the murals in the same chapel; but it would be one of the rare

49. At the courtof the sultan in Egypt,Saint Francisproposed that both he and the sultan'spriests walk throughfireto test the validityof theirfaith. Upon hearingthe saint's words, an aged priestmade a hurriedexit. InGiotto's fresco fromthe BardiChapel in Santa Croce,the enthronedsultan'scommandinggesture has been made the focus of the compositionto point up the contrastbetween the resolutionof Saint Francis,shown about to enterthe fireat the right with his timorous companion, Illuminatus,and the hasty retreat of the magnificentlygarbed priests, theirarmsraised in protestand

humiliation.No otherfourteenthcenturyartistwas capable of both distillingthe dramaticcontentof such a storyinto a few meaningful gestures and maintaininga solemn dignity.

BardiChapel, Santa Croce, Florence

instances in which the same principles that governed the design of the large-scale muralswere applied to the panels. When, for example, interiors are portrayed in the frescoes, they tend to be viewed straight on, as in the panels of the LastSupper and the Pentecost, ratherthan from an angle. And if the Museum's panel is compared to the fresco of Saint Francis Walking ThroughFire (figure 49), which was painted entirelyby Giotto, it will be found that a purposeful use of gesture and a beautiful,ponderous rhythm linking the groups of figures are common to both. In these respects a deliberate effort has been made to negate the limitationsimposed by the dimensions of the panel.

Theories have a logic of their own that may or may not bear on historicaltruth,and in this case we are dealing with a theory, not a probability.

Nevertheless, the problems of reconstruction posed by the Museum's panel are indicative of the complexities raised by most paintings from altarpieces, for few fragments now in museums have a demonstrableprovenance,and theiroriginal setting is a matter of informed speculation.

Thisfact should not inhibitour enjoymentof them.

An altarpiece, like a Gothic cathedral, was far more impressive than its parts, but such was the care and thought that governed its creation that even in isolation these fragments are able to convey something of the whole.

55

All works are tempera and gold on wood, unless otherwise noted. Inthe measurementsheight precedes width, and dimensions include frame, where shown.

Notes p. 8 The contract for Pietro Lorenzetti'saltarpiece in Arezzo is transcribedby S. Borghesi and E. Banchi,Nuovi documentiper la storia dell'arte senese, Siena, 1898, pp. 10 ff.

21 G. della Valle, Letteresanesi, vol. 2, Rome, p.

1785, p. 202.

E. Romagnoli, Biografia cronologica de' 38 p. bellartistisenesi, c. 1830 (reprintedFlorence, 1976), vol. 3, p. 129.

56

Selected Bibliography M. Boskovits,"A Dismembered Polyptych,Lippo Vanniand Simone Martini,"BurlingtonMagazine 116 (1974): 367 ff.

C. Gilbert, "Peintres et menuisiers au debut de la Renaissance en Italie," La Revue de I'art, no. 37 (1977), pp. 9 ff.

D. Gordon, "A PerugianProvenancefor the Franciscan Double-Sided Altarpiece by the Maestro di S. Francesco," BurlingtonMagazine 124 (1982): 70 ff.

M. Hall, "The Tramezzo in Santa Croce, Florence, Reconstructed,"ArtBulletin56 (1974): 325 ff.

M. Laclotte, in Retables italiens du Xllle au XVe siecle, exh. cat., Louvre,Paris, 1978.

H. Loyrette,"Une Source pour la reconstruction du polyptyque d'Ugolino da Siena a Santa Croce," Paragone, no. 343 (1978), pp. 15 ff.

M. Mallory, "An Altarpiece by Lippo Memmi Reconsidered,"MetropolitanMuseumJournal 9 (1974): 187 f.

R. Offner, "Four Panels, a Fresco and a Problem," BurlingtonMagazine 54 (1929): 224 ff. . Corpusof FlorentinePainting,section IV, vol. 2, Gluckstadt, 1960.

F.Santi, Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria,Rome, 1969, pp. 26 ff.

P.Scarpellini,IITesorodella basilica di San Francesco di Assisi, le pitture, Florence, 1980, pp. 42 ff.

J. Schultze, "EinDugento-Altar aus Assisi? Versuch einer Rekonstruktion,"Mitteilungendes KunsthistorischenInstitutes in Florenz 10 (1961): 59 ff. . "Zur Kunst des 'Franziskusmeisters,'" 25 (1963): 109 ff.

Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch C. G. von Teuffel, "The ButtressedAltarpiece: A ForgottenAspect of Tuscan FourteenthCentury Altarpiece Design," Jahrbuchder Berliner Museen 21 (1979): 21 ff.

R.Traldi,"Due precisazioni per Bartolodi Fredi," Prospettiva,no. 10 (1977), pp. 50 ff.

F.Zeri, "Note su quadri italiani all'estero," Bollettino d'arte, no. 1 (1949), pp. 21 ff.

Insideback cover: detail of Giotto, The Epiphany(figure46) Backcover: detail of Masterof the

Lifeof SaintJohntheBaptist,The Feast of Herod (figure40)

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