A history of Italian painting

1. For the altar as tomb-shrine see Yrjö Hirn’s learned and fascinating book, The Sacred Shrine, London, 1912.

2. For the Byzantine pictorial style see the excellent summary in Fogg Art Museum, Collection of Mediaeval and Renaissance Paintings, Harvard Univ. Press, 1919, pp. 3–10; also a more extended treatment in O. M. Dalton Byzantine Art and Archaeology, Oxford, 1911, chapters V, VI, VII.

3. For the influence of St. Dominic, St. Thomas Aquinas, and St. Francis read the respective chapters in Taylor, The Mediaeval Mind; for St. Francis, Thomas Okey’s translation, The little Flowers of St. Francis in “Everyman’s Library.” E. Gebhart, Italie Mystique, Paris, 1908, is also enlightening.

4. Burlington Magazine, Vol. XXXII (1918) pp. 45–6. Mr. Berenson in Rassegna d’Arte, “Dedalo,” Vol. II., (1921) fasc. V, makes this superb Madonna a Constantinople picture of the late 12th century. His confessedly slight argument fails to convince me. Aside from the air of the picture, the form of the wooden throne is specific for Tuscany and the second half of the 13th century.

Cimabue. Andreas Aubert, Cimabue Frage, Leipzig, 1907, is the standard work. The various views on the early frescoes of the Upper Church at Assisi are well summarized in Brown and Rankin, A Short History, pp. 54 and 57–59.

An unsuccessful attempt to reduce Cimabue to a myth has been made by Langton Douglas in his edition of C. &. C., Vol. I., p. 187–193. The constructive and accepted view is that of Aubert. My list differs slightly from his and is:

Louvre Madonna, about 1275, Louvre.

Trinità Madonna, about 1285, Uffizi.

The frescoes of the Choir and transepts of S. Francesco at Assisi, saving possibly the big Ascent to the Cross, circa 1296, Assisi.

Madonna with St. Francis (fresco), after 1290, Assisi, Lower Church of San Francesco.

St. John in mosaic in the Apse of the Cathedral at Pisa, 1301.

Venturi’s endeavor to attach to Cimabue some of the later New Testament mosaics in the vault of the Florentine Baptistry, see Storia, Vol. V., p. 229—is plausible but not convincing. His attribution of lost frescoes in the portico of old St. Peter’s, known from sketch copies, Storia, Vol. V, p. 195—has no solid basis. Two fresco fragments, heads of Peter and Paul, remain, and are published by Wilpert, Die Mosaiken &, bd. I, fig. 144, and by him correctly assigned to Cavallini or some Roman follower.

R. van Marle, in La Peinture Romaine, Strasbourg, 1921, has made a most careful study of all the earliest frescoes in the Upper Church. Generally I concur in his conclusions, but cannot see Cavallini in the far abler work of the Isaac Master. The date, 1296, which Van Marle found in the Choir at Assisi, makes it pretty certain that all the frescoes in the Upper Church were executed between 1293–5 and 1300.

In Toskanische Maler im XIII Jahrhundert, Berlin, 1922, Dr. O. Sirén makes a comprehensive survey of the earliest painters of Lucca, Pisa, and Florence. He endeavors to reconstruct the works of Coppo di Marcovaldo whom he regards as a formative influence on Cimabue. To the usual list of Cimabue’s works Dr. Sirén adds, with Aubert, a great Madonna in the Servi, Bologna; and also a Madonna in the Verzocchi Collection, Milan; and an extraordinarily fine crucifixion in the d’Hendecourt Collection, London. Dr. Sirén also accepts for Cimabue the triptych of Christ, St. Peter and St James, which Berenson first published in Art in America, for 1920. Of these accretions none but the d’Hendecourt Crucifixion is at all persuasive to me.

5. The latest and fullest discussion of Pietro Cavallini is by Stanley Lothrop in Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, Vol. II, 1918. I think he is in error in seeing Cavallini at Assisi and Perugia. Van Marle, note above, has thrown additional light on the continuity of a Roman school.

6. C. &. C. (Ed. Hutton) Vol. I, pp. 194–5. Zimmermann (Giotto &c., Leipzig, 1899), H. Thode (Franz von Assisi, Berlin, 1904), and Fr. Hermanin (Gallerie nazionali Italiane, Vol. V (1902), p. 113) ascribe the Stories of Isaac and some other superior frescoes of the upper row to youthful Giotto. They seem too accomplished and mature for that and are all allied to Gaddo Gaddi’s mosaics at Rome.

7. Giotto. Osvald Sirén, Giotto and Some of his Followers, Cambridge, Harvard Univ. Press, 1917, in 2 Vols., gives a reasonable chronology and is valuable for illustrations.

Roger E. Fry, Monthly Review, Vol. I, pp. 126–151; Vol. II, pp. 139–157; Vol. III, pp, 96–121 is an admirable critical analysis of Giotto’s style, but the ascriptions and chronology are often doubtful. Excellent on the frescoes at Sta. Croce. The essay is reprinted in Vision and Design, London, 1921.

J. B. Supino’s startling views in the chronology of Giotto, expressed in Giotto, Florence, 1920, in 3 Vols., seem to me fantastic.

His general order is the Allegories of the Lower Church and the Baroncelli altar-piece about 1300, the Arena frescoes 1305, the St. Francis series in the Upper Church about 1310, the Peruzzi Chapel about 1312, etc.

My list would be:

8. Padre Angelis, Collis Paradisi, 1704, I, p. 33.

9. About the 28 stories of St. Francis there is no agreement except that Nos. I and XXVI-VIII are by the “Cecelia Master.” Venturi sees Giotto only in the later stories. I agree with Berenson that the ruder frescoes, II-XVIII, which are based on the so-called Roman work above show us Giotto at his beginnings. For the various views consult Brown and Rankin, A Short History, pp. 48–9, 59, 61.

10. Alex. Romdahl’s attempt to set the upper row many years later than the rest is entirely unconvincing to me. See Jahrbuch der K. Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, 1911, pp. 3–18.

11. John Ruskin, Mornings in Florence, passim.

12. Giotto’s Followers. Osvald Sirén, Giotto and Some of his Followers, see note 7, may be freely consulted for illustrations and very cautiously for attributions.

13. Peleo Bacci’s ascription of the recently discovered Passion frescoes in the Badia to Buffalmacco seems reasonable, Bollettino d’ Arte, V (1911) pp. 1–27. Dr. Sirén ascribes these frescoes to Nardo di Cione and follows Venturi in identifying Buffalmacco with the “Cecelia Master.” Burlington Magazine, Vol. XXXVI, p. 10. The hypothesis still lacks solid foundation.

14. By Vasari the Spanish Chapel was divided between Taddeo Gaddi and Simone Martini. C. &. C. discovered that the work was by an Andrea da Firenze who as a document attests painted stories of S. Ranieri at Pisa, in 1377. The contract which proves this Andrea to have been Andrea Bonaiuti, active 1343–77, was published in Arte e Storia, Florence, Feb., 1917, p. 33. It gives the date of the contract for the Spanish Chapel, 1365.

The very elaborate decoration of the Spanish Chapel is fully described in C. &. C. (Hutton) Vol. I., pp. 309–312. There are useful literary illustrations in Venturi, Storia dell’ arte italiana, Vol. V., pp. 792–809. Ruskin in Mornings in Florence gives a partial analysis which is fascinating from a literary point of view, but badly overestimates the merit of the work.

15. The fact that the Madonna of the Palazzo Pubblico had been much repainted in Duccio’s time not unnaturally threw Milanesi and other critics off the track. But the date is entirely genuine (see C. & C. [Douglas] Vol. I, p. 162, note 1*; and E. Jacobsen, Das Trecento, p. 18). The latter writes, “The signature and date are genuine. There is no tenable ground for doubting them.”

I have satisfied myself by close inspection that such is the case, and the half dozen or so other panels associated with this Madonna stylistically all seem to belong to the first half of the 13th century.

16. Sirén, Burlington Magazine, XXXII (1918) p. 45, ascribes this panel to Cavallini. Berenson in Dedalo, Vol. II, fasc. v, allots it to Constantinople at the end of the 12th century. Neither view is even plausible to me.

17. Duccio. A. Lisini, Notizie di Duccio &c. Siena, 1898. Curt Weigelt, Duccio di Buoninsegna, Leipzig, 1911, the standard monograph, well illustrated.

18. The whole matter of the Rucellai Madonna is well discussed by Douglas in his edition of C. & C., Vol. I. Appendix to chapter VI. Andreas Aubert, Cimabue, p. 138 ff., and Curt Weigelt, Duccio, both agree that the Rucellai Madonna is the picture called for by the contract of 1285, hence is by Duccio. Aside from many stylistic similarities to Duccio’s early Madonna with Franciscans in the Siena Academy, the exquisitely drawn bare feet of the Angels in the Rucellai Madonna amount almost to a signature for Siena’s greatest painter. H. Thode and O. Sirén hold that a picture designed and begun by Duccio was finished by Cimabue, Toskanische Maler, pp. 308–9, and note 41 to latter page. The hypothesis that Duccio was strongly influenced by Cimabue in this work seems simpler.

19. The contract is worth quoting in part from G. Fontana, Due documenti inediti riguardanti Cimabue, Pisa, 1878; it is reprinted in Strzygowski, Cimabue und Rom, Wien, 1888. The papers were recovered from a grocer who was about to use them for wrappers.

“Which picture of the Majesty of Divine and Blessed Virgin Mary and of the Apostles and other saints is to be made in columns and in the predella and [main] spaces of the picture good and pure florin gold shall be used; the other pictures which are to be made in the aforesaid panel above the columns in tabernacles, gables, and frames shall be made ... of good silver gilt.”

The picture apparently was a polyptych of three, five, or seven panels with columns and round arches, with an upper order of gables and tabernacles. It seems to have been the first well-peopled Madonna in Majesty, and it probably served as Duccio’s exemplar. Cimabue died before finishing it, but since in Nov. 1302 he received a large installment of 40 Pisan lire, he must at least have fully drawn the composition on the panel.

20. Simone Martini. See the standard work by Raimond van Marle, Simone Martini, Strasbourg, 1920.

There is considerable difference among critics in dating these frescoes, and no objective evidence. The early date, 1322–25, suggested by Venturi and Van Marle, is confirmed by the stylistic character of the work. It lacks the calligraphic, linear formulas which abound in Simone’s works after 1330. The early date also agrees with the general probabilities of the course of events in the decoration of the Lower Church at Assisi.

21. Frey’s ed. Berlin, 1886, p. 42.

22. The contract for this altar-piece is translated in the illustrations to chapter II, p. 106.

23. Venturi, Vol. V, pp. 680–694, offers a sensible compromise view of the authorship of this series, assigning to Pietro himself only the Deposition, Entombment, Stigmatization of St. Francis and a Madonna and Saints, ascribing most of the subjects to an assistant. Dr. Ernest Dewald in a forthcoming Princeton dissertation takes a more skeptical view than Venturi as to Pietro’s presence at Assisi.

24. However the “Cecelia Master,” active about 1300, deals ably with such spatial problems. See O. Sirén, Burlington Magazine, Vol. XXXIV, p. 234, and XXXVI, p. 4. and Giotto, plates 11–13, Vol. II.

25. Sassetta. Bernard Berenson. A Painter of the Franciscan Legend, (Sassetta), London and New York, 1909.

26. Matteo di Giovanni. We have the standard work of G. Hartlaub, Matteo da Siena, Strassburg, 1910. Mr. Berenson in Essays in the Study of Sienese Painting, New York, 1918, essay on Cozzarelli, has made useful criticisms of the list of pictures usually ascribed to Matteo.

27. Sodoma. Hobart Cust, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, usually styled “Sodoma,” New York, 1906.

28. Matteo Villani, Istorie, Florence, 1581, Lib. I, cap. iv, pp. 5–6.

29. Lorenzo Monaco. The standard work is by O. Sirén, Don Lorenzo Monaco, Strassburg, 1905.

30. Fra Angelico. Langton Douglas. Fra Angelico, London and New York, 1900.

Vasari’s Life is admirable and in essentials correct.

31. Masolino-Masaccio. The summary in C. & C. (Douglas) Vol. IV; (Hutton), Vol. II, reasonably brings the controversy up to date. The latest review is by Dr. Richard Offner, Art in America, Vol. VIII, pp. 68–76, A St. Jerome by Masolino. Dr. Offner, in Dedalo, Mar., 1923, publishes a fine St. Julian, by Masolino, which reveals in a new light that artist’s romantic temperamentalism. Mr. Berenson, l. c., publishes a predella piece for the same panel.

The large album of plates accompanying August H. Schmarsow’s Masaccio, der Begründer des Klassischen Stils &c. Kassel, 1900, is indispensable to the serious student. It is available in the great libraries. Cuts of all the works involved in the controversy are more readily attainable in P. Toesca’s Masolino da Panicale, Bergamo, 1908, and in Venturi, Storia, Vol. VII, pt. I.

32. The rider with his back turned at the left of the fresco of the Calvary has a rondel protecting the nape of his neck. It is a short-lived and unsuccessful invention which was not used before 1435–40. This information, which I owe to Dr. Bashford Dean of the Metropolitan Museum, dates the Calvary well after Masaccio’s death, and, inferentially, all the other frescoes in the same chapel.

33. Cassoni and other Furniture Panels. The standard work is by Paul Schubring, Cassoni &c. Leipzig, 1915.

Many of the examples in American Collections have been published and discussed by William Rankin and myself in the Burlington Magazine, Vol. VIII, IX. See also a popular sketch by me in Arts and Decoration, Dec. ’05. The furnishing and decoration of a patrician Florentine house in the 15th century is learnedly and delightfully treated by A. Schiaparelli, La Casa fiorentina &c., Florence, 1908.

34. See my article in Art in America, Vol. VIII, p. 154, and in Arts and Decoration, Note 6, above.

35. Masaccio, bibliography in Note 4 above.

In essentials the view and chronology of Masaccio’s works here given differs from Cavalcaselle’s only in relegating the frescoes in S. Clemente to Masolino and their proper date in the late 30s or early 40s. In this I have been partially anticipated by Pietro Toesca, Masolino da Panicale, Bergamo, 1908.

The reader may justly wish me to commit myself on this most disputed question to the extent of a list. I give it in a tentative chronological order assuming that Masaccio may have begun to work as early as 1420.

36. Schmarsow, Masaccio Studien, bd. 3. p. 27, 8.

37. Andrea del Castagno, see the important articles by Herbert P. Horne in the Burlington Magazine, Vol. VII, 1905. Richard Offner, in Art in America, Vol. VII, pp. 227–35, first published the admirable portrait in Mr. Morgan’s Library, New York. A magnificent tournament shield with the figure of a David is in the Widener Collection, Elkins Park, Penna., and was first published by Guido Cagnola in Rassegna d’ Arte, Vol. XIII (1913), p. 49.

Andrea worked at Venice in 1442. See G. Fiocca, Burlington Magazine, Vol. XL, p. 11.

38. Alesso Baldovinetti. See E. Londi, Alesso Baldovinetti, Firenze, 1907.

39. Fra Filippo Lippi. Edward C. Strutt, Fra Filippo Lippi, London, 1906. Vasari’s Life is capital. Robert Browning’s poem, in Men and Women, an admirable side-light.

40. Benozzo Gozzoli. I accept Col. G. F. Young’s date for these frescoes. See The Medici, New York, 1909, Vol. I., Chapter vii, where there is a good analysis of this decoration.

41. Antonio Pollaiuolo. Maud Crutwell’s Antonio Pollaiuolo, London and New York, 1907. For later information consult Venturi, Storia, Vol. VII, pt. I, pp. 558–578.

42. Piero della Francesca. W. G. Waters, Piero della Francesca, London, 1901; and Corrado Ricci’s superbly illustrated folio, Piero della Francesca, Rome, 1910.

43. Early Frescoes of the Sistine Chapel. Magnificently reproduced in the album accompanying Ernst Steinmann’s Die Sixtinische Cappelle, Munich, 1901.

44. Francesco Pesellino. Consult Dr. W. Weisbach’s able and beautifully illustrated work, Francesco Pesellino und die Romantik der Frührenaissance, Berlin, 1901. For cuts of Cassoni, Paul Schubring, Cassoni, Leipzig, 1915, and the books and articles already cited in note 6 to Chapter 3.

45. Domenico Ghirlandaio. A copious and satisfactory life is that of Gerald S. Davies, Ghirlandaio, London and New York, 1909. Briefer but of greater cultural scope is Ghirlandaio, by Henri Hauvette, Paris, “Les maîtres de l’art.” For a summary criticism my article in The Nation (N. Y.), Aug. 20, 1908, p. 167. Ruskin’s famous assault on Ghirlandaio in Mornings in Florence is joyous reading if whimsically exaggerated.

46. Botticelli. The standard work is Herbert P. Horne, Sandro Botticelli, London, 1908. A little additional information may be found in Crowe and Cavalcaselle, A History of Painting in Italy, Hutton Ed. Vol. II, and in Venturi, Storia dell’ Arte Italiana, Vol. VII, pt. 1.

Walter Pater’s essay in The Renaissance offers beautifully a one-sided view. The essays, the Soul of a Fact, and Quattrocentisteria, in Maurice Hewlett’s Earthwork out of Tuscany are poetically illuminative. Mr. Berenson’s analysis in Florentine Painters of the Renaissance is important. I have written more fully on Botticelli in Estimates in Art, New York, 1912.

Botticelli’s Dante illustrations are published in a cheaper and more sumptuous form by Friedrich P. Lippmann. Botticelli, Zeichnungen von Sandro Botticelli, Berlin, 1896.

Lists of Botticelli’s works differ considerably. I incline to accept a number of early paintings which are neglected by such exclusive critics as Berenson and Horne. My own list, which for reasons of space cannot be given here, would not differ much from that of A. Venturi, in Storia VII, i, 588–642.

47. Filippino Lippi. I. B. Supino, Les deux Lippi, Firenze, 1904.

48. Piero di Cosimo. Fritz Knapp, Piero di Cosimo, Halle, 1899. As usual later information in Venturi, Storia, Vol. VII, pt. 1.

49. This extraordinary series of which four have been recovered is fully discussed and somewhat differently interpreted by Roger E. Fry, in Burlington Magazine, Vol. XXXVIII, p. 131f. See also letter on page 257.

50. Leonardo da Vinci. The standard life is by W. von Seidlitz, Leonardo da Vinci, Berlin, 1909. The early work of Leonardo and his relations with Verrocchio have been thoroughly and lucidly analyzed by Jens Thys, Leonardo da Vinci, London, 1913. Amid the confusingly rich bibliography, the student may do well to stick to Vasari’s admirable Life in any of the translations, to Dr. O. Sirén’s scholarly and cautious book Leonardo da Vinci, New Haven, and London, 1916 and to the late Dr. J. P. Richter’s incomparable work “The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci,” London, 1883, obtainable only in libraries. Giovanni Poggi, Leonardo da Vinci, Firenze, 1919, has thoroughly edited Vasari’s Life, and should be consulted for latest views and for illustrations. My own view on the early development of Leonardo, a most disputed matter, is set forth more fully in Art and Archæology, Vol. IV. pp. 111–122.

For literary side-lights Walter Pater’s essay, in The Renaissance; for an iconoclastic view Berenson in Study and Criticism of Italian Art, Fourth Series, New York, 1920. Edward McCurdy’s selected translations from The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, New York, 1906, are valuable for those to whom Richter is inaccessible. Leonardo’s drawings, which are no less important than his paintings, may best be approached through Mr. Berenson’s monumental work, The Drawings of the Florentine Painters, New York and London, 1903, while the drawings before 1480 are clearly and ably discussed by Dr. Thys.

51. The capital mistake of the more exclusive critics of Leonardo’s early work is that they set this delightful little masterpiece at the beginning of the series in an impossibly early date. There is no such manipulation of paint and no such feeling for unity of landscape before 1475 or so. Being a revision of the design of the Uffizi Annunciation, it is necessarily later.

My list of Leonardo’s would include, in approximate order:

1.

In Verocchio’s Baptism. The landscape at left and distance, the Angel kneeling to right, about 1470, Uffizi.

2.

Madonna and Child with an Angel, design by Verrocchio, London.

3.

The Annunciation, design mostly by Verrocchio, about 1475, Uffizi.

4.

Portrait of a Girl, possibly a Verrocchio, Prince Liechtenstein, Vienna.

5.

Annunciation, Louvre.

6.

Benois Madonna, about 1478–9, Petrograd.

7.

St. Jerome, unfinished, Vatican, Rome.

8.

Adoration of the Magi, left unfinished about 1481, Uffizi.

9.

Cartoon of St. Ann, Burlington House, London.

10.

Madonna of the Rocks, between 1480–83, Paris.

11.

So-called Belle Ferronnière, perhaps bottega piece, about 1490, Paris.

12.

Girl with an Ermine, perhaps a bottega piece, about 1495, Cracow.

13.

Clay model of the Sforza horse, destroyed in 1500.

14.

Last Supper, 1498, Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan.

15.

Cartoon for a St. Ann, lost but represented by sketches at Venice, 1503.

16.

Madonna of the Distaff, represented by old copies.

17.

Cartoon for Battle of Anghiari, only central group painted, partly represented by sketches and old copies, 1504.

18.

Portrait of Mona Lisa, Paris.

19.

Cartoon for a standing Leda, probably only the figure, since numerous old copies have widely varying accessories.

20.

Madonna of the Rocks, 1507, London.

21.

Cartoon for a Kneeling Leda, the figure only. Sketches and old copies.

22.

Madonna and St. Ann, Paris.

23.

St. John, half-length, Paris.

All Leonardo’s main activity as a painter lies from 1470–1500. He painted a picture about every two years.

Various sculptures have been ascribed to Leonardo. Of these only two, which will have been made in Verrocchio’s bottega and under his direction, seem to me to deserve the distinction. A terra cotta Madonna and Child in the Metropolitan Museum, there ascribed to Verrocchio’s school, may represent Leonardo’s modelling about 1465. A stucco Madonna owned by Mr. George Diblee, at Oxford, is perhaps ten years later. The first is discussed by me in Art and Archaeology, Vol. IV, p. 122; the second is reproduced and accepted as a Leonardo by Prof. A. Venturi in L’ Arte, Vol. XXV, p. 131.

52. The best study of this picture and of its contemporary influence is that of George Gronau in Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst. N. F. Vol. XXIII, pp. 253–259. He fails to perceive that so primitive a picture as late as 1478 furnishes the best reason for accepting most of the rejected early Leonardos.

53. In all this matter Jens Thys’s admirable studies are indispensable. See note 5 above.

54. The Lady and the Ermine and the Belle Ferronnière are thoroughly discussed by H. Ochenkowski, Burlington Magazine, Vol. XXXIV, p. 186 f., where a full bibliography will be found.

55. This error which has persisted since Vasari was finally corrected by the great restorer Cavenaghi in his report of the last restoration. Malaguzzi Valeri in Milano, Bergamo, 1906, pt. 2, p. 14, first advanced the correct view that the painting was done in tempera.

56. Kenyon Cox, Concerning Painting, New York, 1917, p. 73.

57. Fra Bartolommeo. The standard work is Fritz Knapp’s Fra Bartolommeo della Porta, Halle, 1903. H. v. d. Gablentz, Fra Bartolommeo in 2 vols., Leipzig, 1922.

58. Andrea del Sarto. H. Guinness, Andrea del Sarto, London and New York, 1901. Andrea’s drawings are finely analyzed by Bernard Berenson in The Drawings of the Florentine Painters.

59. Bronzino. Hans Schulze, Die Werke Angelo Bronzino’s, Strassburg, 1911.

60. Pontormo. We have two admirable books by the same writer, Dr. F. M. Clapp; Les Dessins de Pontormo, Paris, 1914; Pontormo, his Life and Work, New Haven, 1916.

Pontormo’s supreme masterpiece of portraiture, The Halberdier, is published by myself in Art in America, Vol. X, p. 66.

61. Gentile da Fabriano. A. Colasanti, Gentile da Fabriano. Bergamo, 1909. Also my Essay review. The Nation, Vol. 89 (1909) pp. 168–170.

62. Andrea da Bologna. The Nation (N. Y.) Vol. 95. (1912) p. 392.

63. Fifteenth Century Umbrians. Walter Rothes, in Anfänge ... der Alt-Umbrischen Malerschulen, Strassburg, 1908, gives excellent illustrations for the Early Umbrian Artists. Also for cuts, U. Gnoli, La Mostra Umbra, Bergamo.

64. Melozzo da Forlì. A. Schmarsow, Melozzo da Forlì, Berlin, 1886, and C. Ricci, Melozzo da Forlì, Rome, 1911, are the standard works.