The Earliest Italian Representation of the Coronation of the Virgin Author(s): Gertrude Coor-Achenbach Reviewed work(s): Source: The

Burlington Magazine, Vol. 99, No. 655 (Oct., 1957), pp. 328-332 Published by: The Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/872245 . Accessed: 21/09/2012 15:40
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EDITORIAL

sketch book and the Liber Veritatis to the British Museum, where they will be more easily accessible for study, and in transporting the delicate Memling triptych to the National Gallery's air-conditioned rooms where it will be safer than anywhere else. It has been urged that the Hunting Tapestries should be returned to Hardwick; but there is no room for them there, unless some tapestries already hanging at as hanging in the Hardwick, which are listed in the i6oi Inventory veryplaces theynow occupy,were taken down. When the Hunting Scenes were at Hardwick they were in narrow strips and hung in spaces between the windows in the Long Gallery, where obviously (now that they have been pieced together) they cannot be put back. However, the rights and wrongs of

this case have become rather academic, now that the treasures have actually been transferred, at the height of the controversy, to London, and it is hard to imagine that the decision will now be reversed. One would like to think that on future occasions, when it is proposed to take works of art of the highest value in satisfaction of estate duties, more consideration will be shown (than was shown this time) for popular, local sentiment, and that the decent arguments in favour of housing treasures, which do not require special protection, in country houses or provincial museums, and thus stimulating an interest in art throughout the country instead of continuing a policy of concentrating everything in the capital, will be given a more sympathetic hearing.

GERTRUDE

COOR-ACHENBACH

The

Earliest

Italian

Coronation
UNTIL

of the Representation of the Virgin

century Psalter of St Louis and Blanche of Castille, in which, as in the mosaic, the Coronation is depicted above the Dormition.5A closer analogy to Torriti's crowning scene than that indicated by Alpatoff is found in a very unusual, unknown, unpublished Dugento panel painting (Fig.2), which calls for detailed consideration.6 The unknown painting, one of many gifts of the Viscount and Viscountess Lee of Fareham to the Courtauld Institute of Art, is a puzzling fragment. The trapezoidal original part of the picture has been eked out to a triangle by means of a recent, gilt and painted piece of wood of 41 by I7* in. which replaces a lost portion of the original (I by 45 cm), work. Without this triangle and the modern outer frame the fragment measures 18 by 65? in. (45 by 164 cm). It is disfigured by the fairly recent addition of two identical, large coats of arms, disrespectfully placed on top of the sections of The golden leaves and the mandorla flanking the Coronation. set mace in the coats of arms, against a dark blue ground, for the as clues provenance of the work.7 proved useless know only that the late we Concerning the provenance, the Lee Viscount picture in 1923 from an Italian purchased the and that dealer, painting was exported from Italy in that of year. August Apart from the additions referred to and a horizontal crack in the lower right side, the fragment is in fair condition. Christ's and the angels' hair have been retouched, the surface colour in His face and in the left angel's has been abrased, His dark red mantle has suffered some minor
5 Paris, Bibl. de l'Arsenal, MS.I 186, fol.29v.; reproduced in Alpatoff's article, pl.3 (Fig.5). Alpatoff did not point out that a part of the scene sequences in this manuscript follows the earlier tradition and reads from the top to the bottom and Descent from the Crosson fol.24r.) (e.g. the Crucifixion 6 I am very grateful to Prof. Ellis Waterhouse for making it possible for me to study in the Barber Institute of Fine Arts stored pictures from the Lee of Fareand for ham Collection, among which I discovered the unknown Coronation, having this picture photographed. Also, I am much obliged to Sir Anthony Blunt and to the Viscountess Lee of Fareham for permission to publish this note and for some information concerning the painting's history. Fig.2 is reproduced by courtesy of the Birmingham Museum. SAccording to a modern label on the painting, the arms are those of the Brandifoglio of Arezzo, but neither the director of the Arezzo Archives nor I have found any information relating to a noble family with that name.

1946, when Enzo Carli attributed the design of the stained glass window in the apse of the Cathedral of Siena to Duccio and connected it with documents of 1287 and 1288,1 the earliest Italian Coronationof the Virgin was generally thought to be Jacopo Torriti's mosaic in the apse of S. Maria Maggiore, Rome, signed and originally dated 1295 (Fig.7).2 in Carli observed that despite its earlier date the Coronation the window is compositionally, iconographically, and stylistically more advanced than Torriti's. By comparing the with the same scene in three Duccio school Siena Coronation he convincingly deduced that in the lost Coronation paintings of the Maesta of I308-11 Duccio repeated the composition of the crowned Virgin in the window.3 This figure is depicted in a submissive attitude, with inclined head and crossed arms, seated and turned toward Christ. The Italian scholar did not consider the source of this composition, but a study of a large number of early Coronations suggests that it was most likely a Gothic miniature or coloured drawing for a stained-glass window. Thirty years ago Michael Alpatoff proposed the same kind of sources for Torriti's quite different representation.4 He observed that the dissecting of the composition into symmetrical parts, the emphasis on and isolation of the main representation by means of a separate frame, the strong contrast in size between the major and the minor figures, the gay, varied colour-scheme and, most decisive, the reading from the bottom to the top of the superimposed scenes are characteristic of Gothic miniatures and glass windows. He in the mid-thirteenthadduced as an example the Coronation
Florence [I946], passim; first plate and pl.I, xIII. Vetrata duccesca, example still holds this position in the careful notes on the early A Critical and HistoricalCorpusof in R. OFFNER: iconography of the Coronation
1 E. CARLI:

2Torriti's

'Die Entstehung des Mosaiks von Jacobus Torriti in Santa Maria M.ALPATOFF: [1924-5], pp.I-I9. A third fur Kunstwissenschaft Maggiore in Rom', Jahrbuch late Dugento example, found in a Paduan Psalter in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (previously Collections T. H. Riches, Shenley; H. Y. Thompson, Painting in Florenceand Siena after the Black London), is referred to in M. MEIss: Death, Princeton [I951], P-44, n.I27. 3 CARLI, Op. Cit., pp.38 f. 4 ALPATOFF, loc. cit., pp.8 ff., I I f., I7 ff.

Florentine Painting, New York [I930],

SEC.II,vol. v [19471, pp.243-50;

see also

328

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ITALIAN

REPRESENTATION

OF

THE

CORONATION

OF

THE

VIRGIN

damage, and the beauty of the light blue colour of His dress has been diminished by dirt; but all the other representations and the warm gold of the haloes and background are well preserved. The colours are gay and include much red, blue, and green. The Virgin is depicted in a dark red dress, dark green mantle, and deep red slippers. Like Christ's, her. garments are striated with gold. The left angel wears a red dress and light blue mantle, his companion a green dress and rose mantle. The wooden throne has a light brown bottom part, green seat, lower posts, and arched top, blue upper posts, and a red hanging with black and gold ornament. The footstools are brown with red surfaces, and the mandorla is rendered in three gradated shades of blue. Study of the work establishes that it was composed and probably executed by Guido da Siena, the leading Sienese painter in the seventh and eighth decades of the thirteenth century and the head of a large shop, in which the master's art was at times very well imitated. Stylistically the painting is closely connected with Guido's altarpiece No. 7 in the Pinacoteca, Siena, according to the original inscription produced in the I270's (Fig.4).8 Compare especially the heads of Mary, and compare the Evangelist John's head with that of the left angel. Even the delicately engraved and stamped haloes of these figures, decorated with floral ornament, are closely analogous, as is the round trefoil arch over the main representation. All these ornamental shapes and techniques are known to have been employed frequently in
Guido's circle during the I270's and I280's, and the man-

dorla parts are closely matched in a Last Judgementpanel from Guido's shop at Grosseto.9 Also the broad wooden throne with an arched back and a hanging decorated with roundels is characteristic of this ambiente. Guido painted a similar throne as early as 1262,10 but in all intact examples from this artist's shop the lower part of the throne is shown from the both parts are shown from side, while in the Lee Coronation the front. This completely frontal view of the arched furniture is characteristic of Florentine painted thrones from the time of Coppo di Marcovaldo and the youthful Cimabue, beginning with Coppo's Madonna del Bordone of 126I in S. Maria dei Servi, Siena,"1 which probably influenced Guido. The Lee Coronationrecalls especially Cimabue's fresco of Christ and the Virgin Enthronedin Paradise in S. Francesco, Assisi, and one is led to wonder if Guido could have received inspiration from this fresco, which, on stylistic grounds, cannot be dated much before I28O.12 In addition to Guido's dated Madonna and Child with has important stylistic connexions Saints, the Lee Coronation with this artist's ThreeScenes from theLife of Christ,No.8 in the
8 For concise information on this work consult E. GARRISON: Italian Romanesque Panel Painting; an Illustrated Index,Florence [19491],No.430. l Ibid., No. i59. 10 Ibid., No.175. Ibid., No.I. 11xx 12 A. NICHOLSON: Princeton[i931], PP.4 f. (Fig.2o), and severalother Cimabue, students date Cimabue's frescoes in the upper church of S. Francesco, Assisi, about I 29, but a date toward 1280 is suggested not only by the Orsini arms in the Evangelist vault (cf. NICHOLSON, cit., p.4, and B. KLEINSCHMIDT: Die op. Basilika S. Francesco in Assisi, Berlin [1915-28], I1, pp.56-6I), but also by the relation of the architecture in Cimabue's north transept fresco of St PeterHealing theLameMan to that in the Flagellationof the early I28o's in the Frick Collection (NICHOLSON, op. cit., Fig.23; and Art Bulletin, Fig.i opp. p.95). xxximi [951], Reminiscent of Cimabue's representation of Christ and the VirginEnthroned in as well as of Guido's Coronation, Paradise, is a panel painting of Christand the in Paradiseof about 1290 by a Guido follower in the Convento VirginEnthroned delle Clarisse, Siena (GARRISON, op. cit., No.I6I).

Pinacoteca, Siena,13 and with the finest of the Twelve ChristologicalScenes which Guido produced in part with the help of assistants, and which have frequently been connected with the master's huge Madonna in the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena. 1 The stylistic relations lead one to ask if the Coronation might have belonged to the same work as the Twelve Scenes, which appears best placed close to 1280. The decoration of the haloes speaks against such a combination, as do the probable shape and approximate size of the painting of which the fragment formed a part. How did this painting look originally? A hypothetical completion of the mandorla and figures of the angels on the basis of the surviving portions and related intact representations, points to an original work of approximately 70-80 by 90-Ioo in. (175-200 by 225-250 cm), of low rectangular format, possibly with a gabled top, like the thirteenth-century Ascension mosaic on the fagade of S. Frediano, Lucca. The placing of the Coronation in the upper part of a large mandorla supported by flying angels suggests that the lower part of the almond-shaped light symbol contained an illustration of the Assumption. Compositional and spatial considerations point to a representation of the Assunta seated on an arc, as in Cimabue's fresco in Assisi, and as in the centre of the stained-glass window designed by Duccio.15 In most early representations of the Assumption Mary is depicted alone in the mandorla, but the two-figure composition and the frontal throne in the scene above the hypothetical one favour the possibility that Guido employed the rare iconography seen in Cimabue's Assumption, in which Christ's mother is shown ascending to heaven in the company of her son. 16 Where did Guido derive his main inspiration for his solemn Coronation? The unusual placing of this representation within a raised, round trefoil frame, within the upper part of a large mandorla, and the monumental character bring to mind the early Gothic reliefs in the tympanum and lintel of the central north portal of Notre-Dame, Chartres (Fig.3). In that decoration of the early thirteenthcentury, Christ and the crowned Virgin are shown seated under a round trefoil-arch canopy. There, too, the representation of the enthroned Saviour and his mother surmounts representations of earlier events in the Virgin's life, in that case her Dormition and Resurrection,and all these illustrations are framed by mandorla-related, concentric pointed arches. It seems quite possible that a representation such as this, which he may have known from some early reproduction, inspired Guido when he composed the paintformed a part. However, in ing of which the Lee Coronation contrast to the anonymous French sculptor and to Torriti,
13Ibid., No.414. 14 Ibid., Nos.297; 660-2; 671, 672, 687; 696-700, and 702. 15 NICHOLSON: first plate. Cimabue, Fig. 19; and CARLI: Vetrata duccesca, 16NICHOLSON, OP. cit., p.15, did not know an earlier example in art or literature of the iconography employed by Cimabue. Perhaps a Syriac version of the apocryphal account of the Assumption, according to which Christ and Mary were sitting together in a 'chariot of light' (as translated by w. WRIGHT in the Journal of SacredLiterature,n.s., vII [1865, p.-157) and in this ascending to heaven inspired earlier East Christian representations. In addition to Cimabue's, two early examples of this iconography can be pointed out in Umbrian painting: one of them, a fresco of about 30oo by an artist influenced by Cimabue and Guido, is in the former convent of S. Giuliana, Perugia (L'Arte, xxiv [1921], Figs.5-8, pp.I58 f.); the other, an early fourteenth-century wall painting by a follower of Meo da Siena, is in the Sacro Speco at Subiaco (VANMARLE: The Development of theItalian Schoolsof Painting, The Hague [1923-8], v, Fig.28).

329

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ITALIAN

REPRESENTATION

OF

THE

CORONATION

OF

THE

VIRGIN

who depicted Mary pointing with both hands towards Christ, the Sienese painter chose the archaic orant gesture with exposed palms. A detailed comparison between the Coronations by Guido and Torriti makes it evident that not only such details as the shape of the crown and the inscription in Christ's Book: VENI ELECTA MEA ET PONAM IN TE THRONUM MEUM17 are very similar, respectively identical, in the two works, but also the general colour scheme, the relation of the figures to the throne, and the figure composition. These similarities suggest that Torriti might have known Guido's painting. Perhaps he saw it during his Umbrian sojourn, because certain vault frescoes in the nave of S. Francesco, Assisi, indicate that Torriti was active in this church during
These words, related to certain passages in the Song of Songs, are derived from the Office of the Feast of the Assumption. They had been used in an equally conspicuous manner already about 1143, in the apse mosaic of the Enthroned Christ and CrownedVirgin in S. Maria in Trastevere, Rome, iconographically a preliminary step for Torriti's representation.
17

the I280's,18 and certain Umbrian paintings in Perugia and Assisi suggest that at the beginning of the last quarter of the thirteenth century Guido da Siena produced an important work for this region.19 will be restored It is much hoped that the Lee Coronation before long because this painting is important as an iconographically closely related earlier example and possible source ofJacopo Torriti's famous mosaic, and as the earliest known Italian representation of the Coronation. Furthermore, it is of great interest as a part of a compositionally and iconographically very unusual work by Guido da Siena, which has relations to Cimabue's art as well as to Torriti's, and which points to Assisi-Perugia as a possible region of its original location.
adduced in note 16, and other wall paintings by the same hand there and in S. Matteo, influenced by Guido's art is a Madonnatabernacle from the convent of S. Agnese in the Perugia Gallery (GARRISON, op. cit., No.348) and a Madonna panel in S. Chiara, Assisi (ibid., No.5).
18 Cf. KLEINSCHMIDT, op. Cit., II, pp.90-2. in the former convent of S. Giuliana, Perugia, 1' In addition to the Assumption

PETER

MURRAY

Art

Historians

and

Art

Critics-Iv*

XIV Uomini Singhularii in Firenze

IN the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence there is a miscellaneous codex (MS. 1501. G. 2) which is written in the handwriting of Antonio Manetti (1423-1497); because it is in Manetti's hand the actual authorship of the entire codex is sometimes attributed to him.' It is quite certain that he did indeed write some of the contents of this codex, for there are two signed colophons, and at least one other essay is known to be his on other grounds. The handwriting is undeniably his, and is consistent all through the manuscript, so that the portion of the codex known to art historians as the XIV Uomini must either be an original composition by Manetti or merely a copy made by him, for reasons of his own, from some other manuscript which is now lost and of which no other copy has survived. Almost exactly the same can be said of another anonymous Life of composition of the late Quattrocento, the Anonymous Brunelleschi,so we may now ask whether the XIV Uomini and the AnonymousVita are both by Manetti, or neither, or only one - and if only one, then which? It is often argued that the two compositions cannot be by the same author, since the AnonymousVita omits all mention of the Pazzi Chapel while it is recorded in the XIV Uomini. The AnonymousVita is also far more polemical in its general tone. However, the last Vita is still lost and we have no right to part of the Anonymous assume that this missing section did not contain a passage on the Pazzi Chapel: further, it is quite possible that the Chapel
* This articleis basedon materialcontainedin a thesison earlyItaliansources, submittedto the Universityof Londonfor the degreeof Ph.D in 1956. di 1 E.g. by MILANESI,who publishedthe XIV Uomini istoriche in his Operette Manetti Antonio [1887], pp.159ff.: cf. alsopp. vii if. The text was also published in 1887 by C. FREYin his Vasari/Brunelleschi, Iv, pp.I I9-2o and 205--6,and was storico in Archivio discussedby FABRICZY dell'arte [1892], pp.56 ff. The case is argued of the Anonymous Vitaor the XIV Uomini againstManetti'sauthorship in his publicationof the Pistoiafragmentof the Anon.Vitaby A. CHIAPPELLI attribuitaad AntonioManetti.. .' Archivio 'Della Vita di Filippo Brunelleschi
storicoitaliano[1896], xvn, pp.241 ff.

was deliberately omitted on account of the execration of the Pazzi family for many years after the failure of their Conspiracy against the Medici (Easter 1478). The failure of the Pazzi Conspiracy might provide a reason for silence had the AnonymousVita been composed in I478 or slightly later; but this necessarily implies that the XIV Uomini, which does record the Chapel, must have been written before Easter 1478, or else considerably later. The disastrous fire of 147I in Sto Spirito is recorded in the Anonymous Vita, but not in the XIV Uomini, so that the AnonymousVita was demonstrably composed after 147I. Nevertheless, the XIV Uomini was equally certainly written after I47I. The XIV Uomini was written as a continuation to the De fimosis civibus by Filippo Villani, written at the end of the Trecento. Not only did Manetti translate Villani into Italian, but the actual MS. of the XIV Uomini follows a MS. of the Famosis civibus in the Biblioteca Nazionale codex. The fourteen men chosen to continue the series of illustrious Florentines are writers and artists rather than soldiers, prelates, and statesmen: indeed, the author was overwhelmingly interested in the arts for no fewer than eight of the fourteen were painters or sculptors. Even more significant is the relative amount of space allotted to them, for sixty-nine of the total of seventy-nine lines in the MS. are devoted to them, leaving only ten lines to be shared out between four humanists and two theologians. Of the six who were not artists only three can be said to be well known now Lionardo Bruni, Giannozzo Manetti, and Poggio - while the others - Fra Luigi del Sala Marsili, Jacopo d'Agniolo, and Bartolommeo Lapacci - are known only to specialists. Presumably the choice of famous men reflects the sympathies of the author and gives us the first clue to his identity. The mention of Bruni, Giannozzo Manetti, and Poggio recalls the fact that the XIV Uominiwas not alone in the field,

330

2. The Coronation of the Virgin, here attributed to Guido da Siena. Panel, 56 by 164 cm. (Lee of Fareham Collection.)

3. Christ and the Crowned Virgin enthronedin Paradise. French, early thirteenth century. Tympanum relief, detail. (Notre-Dame, Chartres.)

4. Madonnaand Childwith Saints, by Guido da Siena. Signed and dated 127 . . . Panel, 85 by 186 cm. (Pinacoteca, Siena.)

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7. The Coronation of the Virgin, by Jaco giore, Rome.)