An Early Quattrocento Trinity

An Early Quattrocento TrinityAuthor(s): Michael MallorySource: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Mar., 1966), pp. 85-89Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3048340 .

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AN EARLY QUATTROCENTO TRINITY

AN EARLY QUATTROCENTO TRINITY

MICHAEL MALLORY

A small volume on the Cappella Minutolo in Naples cathedral, published in 1778, contains a detailed description of an "antichissima cona di legno," a painting that is still in that chapel today (Figs. 4-7).1 The passage reads: "But to return to the Minutolo Chapel, there is also on the left side an altar of the Holy Trinity where one can see a very old altarpiece of wood, gilded and painted with the best of taste and deli- cacy attainable by art. It was a little portable altarpiece that folded up, the inseparable companion of Cardinal Enrico Minutolo, who used to celebrate the holy sacrifice of the Mass in front of it wherever he carried it. After his death, he wished it replaced in this chapel. It represents the Holy Trinity with the Eternal Father holding to his bosom his only son, crucified, under whom is the great Virgin Mother, grieving, with St. John the Evangelist and Mary Magdalen. On the two little doors, one observes four very beautiful images of other saints and on the back part, that which faces the wall of the altar, one sees the coat of arms of the cardi-

1 B. Sersale, Discorso istorico intorno alla capella de' signori Minutoli, Naples, 36f.

85

Santa Croce Altar of 1601-1602, now in Grasse, influenced by both

Caravaggio and Van Veen, and the great and fundamental change evident in the Chiesa Nuova Altar, now in Grenoble, of 1606-1608.8 The maniera veil hangs heavily over the High Renaissance sources for the three paintings. Whether it be Raphael or Giulio Romano or Michelangelo in the Baptism, or Raphael and Giulio Romano in the Transfiguration, all three panels are coated with the glistening lights of Tintoretto, while hav-

ing the over elaborate figural arrangement of the late sixteenth century.9 The reconstruction of the center panel, in its present state, indicates a more complex composition and spatial arrangement, with a very rich

array of portraits. The Raphaelesque twisted "Solomonic" columns are to become favorite motifs in Rubens' mature works such as the Queen Tomyris in Boston, the Triumph of the Eucharist sketches in Madrid, or the London Whitehall ceiling panels where Rubens reverts to Veronese

compositions and uses foreshortened twisted columns in a Veronese manner.10 In the same Sotheby auction at which the sketch of the halberdier was sold, there was a drawing for the Queen Tomyris (a study for the engraving by Paulus Pontius which Rubens published in 1630) whose composition comes closer to the Mantua altar panel than the

painting in Boston, in that the columns are shown in perspective behind a balustrade looking into a barrel vaulted opening.11 In the Mantua Trinity panel I believe that Rubens deliberately used the two rows of six columns each in reference to those of Saint Peter's, as a holy temple.12 The last set of ancient columns had been removed under Clement VIII

(1592-1605) and Rubens not only could have seen them in Saint Peter's in 1601 but with his avidity for things ancient he was certainly aware of their previous position.l3 Thus, the Cadioli description "il Tempio della SS. Trinita" becomes more meaningful, especially since Rubens combines the twisted columns with a kind of School of Athens architecture in the Queen Tomyris drawing.14 The Raphaelesque columns are combined in both the drawing and the Mantua panel with another feature-the open expanse beyond a balustraded terrace--which is certainly Venetian in origin.15 In 1606, Rubens placed a full-length figure on an

open balustraded terrace against an asymmetric architecture, and created

a new portrait type.18 There seems to be every indication that Rubens' portrait style had taken a great step forward in the center panel of the Mantua Altarpiece. I think that not only the combination of the portraits with the composition indicates Venice, but the portraits themselves re- veal the fact that Rubens was copying an increasing number of Titian portraits, not only while he was in Mantua, where there were a great number, but also in Spain before he started the Mantua commission.17 In this respect a drawing published in 1951 by Voss makes an amusing connection.18 It is a drawing done in Madrid in 1603 after Titian's portrait of Duke Federigo Gonzaga of Mantua. The dog jumping up on the side of the Duke is steadied by his hand, in a fashion similar to the fragment of the dog and the young girl in the altar, and this motif would have been a familiar and perhaps pleasing touch to the members of the Gonzaga family.

University of North Carolina

8 For the two most important recent articles on Rubens in Italy see M. Jaff6, "Peter Paul Rubens and the Oratorian Fathers," Proporzioni, 4, 209-40, and J. Miiller- Hofstede, "Rubens' first bozzetto for Sta. Maria in Vallicella," BurlM, 106, 1964, 442--50.

9 See M. Jaffe, "Rubens and Giulio Romano at Mantua," AB, 40, 1958, 327 n. 28, on the influence of Raphael's loggie on the Baptism. Note the similarity of the angel in the upper right hand corner of the center panel to the nereids in the Yale Hero and Leander, illustrated and discussed in M. Jaffe, "Rubens in Italy: Rediscovered Works," BurlM, 100, 1958, 419ff. All three paintings for Santissima Trinita parallel in size the huge maniera frescoes of Cavaliere d'Arpino in San Giovanni in Laterano which imitate a Raphael tapestry style of decoration as late as 1600.

10 Oliver Millar, "Rubens: The Whitehall Ceiling," Charlton Lectures on Art, 40, London, 1958, 3-25. Rubens, of course, had used twisted columns in the Santa Croce Altar (now in Grasse). In the main panel of St. Helen, the columns have bases and composite capitals. There, as in the later Judgment of Solomon (Copenhagen), he used the columns in the context of their "Solomonic" tradition. If F. Zeri ("Un ritratto di Pietro Paolo Rubens a Genova," Paragone, 67, 1955, 46-52) is correct in his attribution, the twisted column would appear first in portraiture in a portrait of a young Genovese nobleman. Having recently seen this painting, however, I see no reason to take it away from Van Dyck.

11 Sotheby, Catalogue, No. 61, 38f., with illustrations. 12 See J. B. Ward Perkins, "The Shrine of St. Peter's and its Twelve Spiral Columns,"

JRS, 13, 1952, 21-33. 13 B. M. Apolloni Ghetti, A. Ferrua, E. Josi, E. Kirschbaum, Esplorazione sotto la Con-

fessione di San Pietro in Vaticano eseguite negli anni 1940-49, Vatican City, 1951, I, 216. Also Herbert Siebenhiiner, "Umrisse zur Geschichte der Ausstattung von St. Peter in Rom von Paul III bis Paul V (1547-1606)," in Festschrift fiir Hans Sedlmayr, Munich, 1962, 229-320, where late 16th century descriptions and views

of the ancient columns are discussed. The Bramante-Peruzzi "camera" or altar- house which contained the columns was destroyed in 1592. At least four of the columns were in Saint Peter's in 1605-06 when the painter-architect Lodovico Cigoli drew up a pre-Bernini project for a colossal high altar supported by four spiral vine-covered columns which was intended to replace the temporary Paul V altar construction (Uffizi A 2639v). That Cigoli was thinking in terms of the ancient columns as early as 1604 is evident in a drawing he made for the altar painting of the southwest cupola pier, St. Peter Healing the Lame, where the columns appear in perspective in the background (Uffizi 1006). For Rubens connections with Cigoli, see W. Friedlaender, "Rubens and Cigoli," Festschrift fir L. H. Heydenreich, Munich, 1964, 65-82.

14 G. Cadioli, Descrizione delle pitture, sculture et architetture che si osservano nella Citta di Mantova, Mantua, 1773, 42.

15 See H. Tietze, Tizian, London, 1950, pl. 277, Allegory of the Battle of Lepanto (Madrid, Prado) where there is a balustraded terrace and columns in perspective, and pl. 271, Doge Grimani Kneeling before Faith (Venice, Ducal Palace) where the two guards to the right are very close to those of Rubens, especially the one in the front whose pose, with his head turned over the shoulder, is similar to that of the halberdier to the right.

16 L. Burchard, "Genuesische Frauenbildnisse von Rubens," JPKS, L, 1929, 319-49, fig. 2, the Lehnert lithograph of Marchesa Brigitta Spinola-Doria, with an asymmetric orthogonal projection of a Genovese palace in the background.

17 Gerson (H. Gerson and E. H. Ter Kuile, Art and Architecture in Belgium 1600-1800, Penguin, 1960, 75) stresses the Venetian style of the panel.

18 H. Voss, "Eine unbekannte Rubens-Zeichnung nach Tizian," Miscellanea D. Rog- gen, Antwerp, 1957, 279.



86 The Art Bulletin

nal.'"2 Sersale, the author of these lines, goes on to describe minor em- bellishments to the original altarpiece, but these, as he recognized, dated from a later era. He also records a commemorative inscription of 1754 that refers to this painting. The inscription states in abbreviated form some of the information related by Sersale and adds that the cardinal's death occurred in 1412.3

The four saints mentioned by Sersale as depicted on the shutters are

Peregrinus, Catherine of Alexandria, John the Baptist, and, in all probability, Januarius, the patron saint of Naples. Above these standing figures are two busts of prophets in roundels, Isaiah at the right and an unidentified prophet at the left, and in the three gables of the triptych appear the Annunciation and a bust of the blessing Saviour. A representation of a pelican feeding her young by piercing her own breast, a common symbol of Christ's sacrifice for mankind, can be seen over the head of God the Father. Although Sersale omitted these subsidiary scenes from his description of the painting, his account is still remark- able for its completeness and accuracy, particularly when one considers the treatment usually accorded mediaeval paintings at that time. The author's admiration of the painting was partially based on aesthetic

grounds-the phrase "dipinta col piix bel gusto, e delicatezza dell'arte" attests to this-but the fact that the triptych was once owned by such an illustrious member of the Minutolo family as Cardinal Enrico Minutolo surely made it of even greater interest to Sersale. We have no

way of knowing if what the author and the lost inscription of 1754 re- late to us about the early history of the painting was based on documented fact, but as we shall see, the substance of the statements is in all likelihood true. In fact an investigation into the historical circumstances surrounding the life of the patron of the Naples altarpiece provides important clues to the date and iconography of the painting.

The portable altarpiece in the Minutolo Chapel is today universally accepted as one of the finest works of the Sienese artist Paolo di Gio- vanni Fei (active 1369 to 1411).4 The characteristics of Fei's style are

clearly evident in this painting; the elongation of the faces and bodies, the personal treatment of certain facial features such as the puffed eye- lids, and the sensitive rendition of the flesh tones are all typical. My recent identification of one of Fei's important documented works, the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Fig. 2), of ca. 1398, makes it possible to establish with some certainty the relative position of the painting in Naples within Fei's oeuvre.? I outlined briefly at that time Fei's stylistic development and stated that the Presentation stood at the threshhold of the

master's late manner, which culminated in works such as the Assump-

tion of the Virgin, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Fig. 1),6 and the Trinity triptych, the subject of our study here.

The painting in Naples is governed by the same stylistic principles that were already at work in the Presentation of ca. 1398, and in some re-

spects presents a marked evolution over the datable altarpiece. In the Presentation, we can observe the artist's interest in a clear arrangement of the figures within the pictorial space, a lively posing of the figures, and a vivid exposition of the narrative through the dramatic gestures and emotional expressions of the personages depicted. In the Trinity (Fig. 5), Fei shows the same concern for spatial clarity. All of the figures are arranged within the picture space so that their relative positions are easily understood; they are disposed in a series of closely spaced parallel planes beginning with the kneeling Magdalen and terminating with God the Father seated in a mandorla. Both the foreground figures and the angels' wings overlap the tooled borders of the gold ground giving it the character of a solid plane that defines the depth of the pictorial space. The figures in the triptych present us with an even more lively pantomime than those in the Presentation. The physical and mental agonies of Christ, the Virgin, the Magdalen and St. John are clearly read in their faces and gestures while St. John the Baptist, on the

right shutter (Fig. 6), is more animated and spirited than is any other of Fei's numerous earlier representations of the saint.7 As regards the ex-

pressiveness of the figures, then, the Trinity represents a considerable development over the Presentation. The tooling in the triptych, which is made up of relatively simple designs, and the drapery borders, which are also rather plain, are typical of Fei's late manner in which he moves

away from the very lavish and ornate decorations of his early works. The sharp contrast between liberally applied highlighting and dark, rich flesh tones is another feature of several of Fei's latest works and one

that is very pronounced here. All of these considerations suggest that Fei executed the Trinity triptych during the last few years of his career, from around 1405 to 1411, that is to say about a decade after his Presen- tation altarpiece.

Certain events in the career of Enrico Minutolo, who commissioned the Trinity altarpiece, confirm the conclusion that it was painted after the Presentation of ca. 1398. The Minutoli were among the most important families in Naples and Enrico himself was Bishop of Bitonto from 1382 to 1389 and Archbishop of Naples from 1389 to 1400. He was ele- vated to cardinal with the title of Sant'Anastasia by Boniface IX, a

Neapolitan pope, and was later appointed Cardinal-Archbishop of Tus- colo by the same, in 1405. It has escaped the notice of scholars that the date of Enrico's elevation to the college of cardinals-probably December

2 "Ma per tornar alla Cappella Minutolo, nello stesso lato sinistro v'? un altare della SS. Triniti, ove s'osserva un antichissima cona di legno indorata, e dipinta col pid bel gusto, e delicatezza dell'arte. Era quella un altarino portatile, che dall'una, e l'altra parte chiudevasi, indivisibil compagno del Cardinal Enrico Minutolo, innanzi a cui, in qualunque luogo egli portavasi, celebrava il santo sagrifizio della Messa, e dopo sua morte volle, che in questa Cappella si riponessi. Rappresenta la SS. TrinitA, tenendo l'eterno padre il suo unigenito figliuolo crocifisso nel seno, sotto del quale vi 6 la gran Virgine Madre addolorata con S. Giovanni Apostolo, e S. Maria Maddalena, ne'due portellini s'osservano quattro bellissimi immagini d'altri Santi, e dalla parte di dietro, che corrisponde col muro dell'altare, veggonsi tuttavia I'arme del Cardinale."

3 VETUSTISSIMAN ICONEM/ CUI SACRIFICIUM INCRUENTUM HENRICUS MIN- UTULUS/ S.R.E.: CARDINALIS ARCHIEPISCOPUS NEAPOLITANUS/ DOMI FORISQUE OFFEREBAT/ MORIENSQUE AVITO HUIC SACELLO RELIQUIT A. MCCCCXII/ RETENTA ANTIQUITATIS FACIE/ JOHN: BAPTISTA MINUTULUS EX PRINCIPIBUS CANUSII/ EQUES HIEROSOLYMITANUS E BENEFICIATUS/ TUTIORI FORMA GENTILIBUS POSTERIS/ SERVADAM CURAVIT A. MDCCX-

LIV. The above inscription has disappeared. A date of 1412, which obviously re- ferred to the year in which the painting came into the chapel, also once appeared on the altarpiece (W. Rolfs, Geschichte der Malerei Neapels, Leipzig, 1910, 63). Berenson (A Sienese Painter of the Franciscan Legend, New York, 1909, 59n.) was misled by this date and believed that the painting was executed in 1412.

4 F. M. Perkins (BurlM, 2, 1902, 325) first recognized that the painting was by Fei and challenged the older opinion of Crowe and Cavalcaselle (A History of Painting in Italy, L. Douglas, ed., London, 1908, III, 127f.) that it "recalled the manner of Andrea Vanni." All published attributions subsequent to that of Perkins have given the work to Fei.

5 M. Mallory, AB, XLVI, 1964, 529-36. 6 The attribution of this painting to Fei is unquestioned. 7 Cf. the panel in the museum at Bayeux, the polyptych in San Bernardino, Siena

(C. Brandi, Quattrocentisti senesi, Milan, 1949, pl. 1), the polyptych in the Siena Gallery (Mallory, AB, 1964, 529-36, fig. 2), and even the panel in the Pinacoteca Stuard, Parma (La Diana, 7, 1933, 7), a fairly late work by the master.



AN EARLY QUATTROCENTO TRINITY 87

18, 13898-provides a terminus post quem for Fei's triptych, for a cardinal's hat crowns each of the two Minutolo coats of arms on the reverse

of the painting (Fig. 8).9 However, stylistic evidence suggests a date

considerably later than this terminus. An episode of the late years of Enrico's life indicates, in fact, a more specific date for the execution of the painting. Minutolo and his fellow cardinals elected Angelo Correr as Pope Gregory XII on November 30, 1406. This was, however, under the condition that Gregory would strive for the immediate reunification of the church, which at that time was still torn apart by the Great Schism. Negotiations were opened with the French pope, Benedict IX, and it was agreed that the two rivals would meet at Savona during the later part of 1407. Gregory and his cardinals therefore departed from Rome in the late summer of that year. Their first stop was Viterbo and even at that early point in the journey it was decided that Savona was not a satisfactory site. The pope then opened discussions with the Sienese who were very anxious to have the proposed meeting held in their city. Soon after Gregory went to Siena. He was accompanied by the Curia, which included Minutolo in the important capacity of Cardinale Camer- lingo di Santa Chiesa.o10 The papal party entered the Porta Romana on September 4, 1407, and remained in the city until January 22, 1408.11

After departing from Siena, the pope and his party spent the remain- der of the winter in Lucca. During these months it became increasingly obvious to Gregory's cardinals that the proposed meeting would never actually take place. The pope's constant vacillation and pusillanimous concern for his own welfare, it seems, were the cause of the delay and finally, on May 11, several of the cardinals deserted Gregory and fled from Lucca. Minutolo stayed behind, at least until May 18, but only because he was indisposed.12 In July, 1408, Gregory returned to Siena with either four13 or five14 cardinals and stayed there for three months. It is uncertain whether or not Minutolo accompanied him on this second trip to Siena, but it is known that by the autumn of 1408 Minutolo had separated from Gregory for at that time he joined with many of the pope's disillusioned cardinals to issue a joint resolution calling for the convening of the Council of Pisa. Minutolo later attended this council in June, 1409, where he helped to elect a new pope, Alexander V. In the same year Minutolo was made Cardinal-Bishop of Sabina and he also carried out important duties for Alexander's successor, John XXIII, which took him to several cities in northern and central Italy. His body was returned to Naples after his death in 1412.

The date that I propose for the Trinity triptych, deduced from a study of its style, coincides with the period that Cardinal Enrico Minutolo was

in residence in Siena, a coincidence that suggests very strongly that the

prelate commissioned the work from Fei during his visit. The nearly five months that Enrico was certainly in Siena, from September 4, 1407, to January 22, 1408, would have allowed sufficient time for the painter to complete the relatively small work, and in any case Fei could easily have forwarded it to the cardinal some months later. Since it appears that Fei never wandered far from Siena, particularly toward the end of his career, and that Minutolo himself is not known to have traveled in Tuscany before his journey with Gregory, the probability that the painting was commissioned during Enrico's visit to Siena becomes even stronger. The form of the triptych further confirms this assumption for Minutolo would have been most likely to desire a portable altarpiece at a time when he was away from home, a painting that could be, as Sersale commented, the cardinal's inseparable companion on his travels.15

The choice of Peregrinus, a pilgrim saint, and of Januarius, the patron saint of Naples, for a portable altarpiece commissioned by a high prelate of a Neapolitan family is logical and appropriate. There is in addition good reason to suppose that these two saints allude specifically to Minu- tolo, the owner of the altarpiece, and that one of them may even refer to contemporary events at the time of the commission. It is curious, for

example, that Januarius (Fig. 6) should wear the pallium of an archbishop, for he is usually portrayed as a bishop saint.16 Is it not possible that by this addition the figure is intended to allude to Enrico himself, who had been archbishop of Naples for about ten years? And if this is so, might not the corresponding saint on the opposite shutter, St. Pere- grinus (Fig. 4), allude also to Minutolo, serving at the time of the painting as an influential member of Gregory's wandering court? Pope Gregory had promised "... to meet with Benedetto even if he had to make a

pilgrimage on foot with a staff in his hand,"'17 and he and his party actually followed the most important pilgrimage route, the old Claudia, to Viterbo and Siena on the way north.s18 Peregrinus was a legendary saint who personified the foreign pilgrim and much of the dispute between the two popes centered about the issue of whether they would meet on French or Italian soil. Had the meeting taken place in France or in one of France's territories, Gregory and the Curia would have been indeed foreign pilgrims in their quest for unity. St. Peregrinus was also the patron saint of Modena and Lucca; his remains are preserved in the church of San Pellegrino in Lucca and he was the titular saint of a church in Siena as well. These facts become relevant when we recall that the

pope and Curia made extended visits in each of the two Tuscan cities. All of the above considerations may have prompted the choice of Pere-

8 The earliest account, H. Garumberto, La prima parte delle vite overo fatti di tutti i cardinali, n.p., 1568, 495f., is not specific as to the date (". .. Henrico Minutolo, Nobile Napolitano, che dalla Chiesa di Trani, lo promosse a quella di Napoli, poco dipoi a Cardinale.

... .") but other sources, such as B. Chioccarello, Antistitum

praeclarissimae Napolitanae ecclesiae catalogus, Naples, 1643; A Ciaconii and A. Oldoino, Vitae, et res qestae pontificum romanorum et S.R.E. cardinalium ab initio nascentis Ecclesiae usque ad Clementem X P.O.M., Rome, 1677, II, 705; Biografia eclesiastica, Madrid, 1842, XIV, 93; G. Moroni, Dizionario di erudizione storico- ecclesiastica, Venice, 1847, XLV, 203; and C. Eubel, Hierarchia catholica . . . , Munich, 1913, I, 25, give the date of December 18, 1389.

9 The design of both coats of arms within their tooled frames proves that the hat was originally included and not added at a later date. Otherwise the shield would have been centered within the quatrefoil rather than lowered into one of its points. The arrangement chosen is clearly intended to make room for the hat on top. It could be argued that both the coats of arms and their frames were added to the painting at a later date, but the tooling and brush work do not indicate this.

10 Moroni, Dizionario, XLV, 203. 11 A. Lisini, "Papa Gregorio XII e i senesi," Rassegna nazionale, 81, 1896, 97-117;

280-321. For the best general account of the events during this period, see J. Hefele,

Histoire des conciles, Dom. H. Leclercq, ed. and trans., Paris, 1914, 1326ff. 12 Lisini, Gregorio XII, 299 and n. 2. 13 Lisini, Gregorio XII, 309f. 14 Hefele-Leclercq, Histoire des conciles, 1361. 15 Sersale and the Latin inscription that he records are probably incorrect in one de-

tail, however, for each implies that Enrico had the altarpiece both on his travels and at home ("... volle, che in questa capella si riponessi," and . . . DOMI FORISQUE OFFERBAT . . . ; see notes 2 and 3 above). Enrico was very much occupied with duties outside of his native Naples during the last five years of his life, that is to say from 1407 to 1412, the maximum period during which he could have owned the painting, and it is likely that he never took it to Naples.

16 Januarius' usual attribute, the miraculous ampules of blood, is not visible in Fei's representation, but the book and the palm, the two other attributes of the saint, are shown, leaving little doubt that it is Januarius and not another saint who is depicted.

17 L. von Pastor, Geschichte der Plipste seit dem ausgang des Mittelalters, Freiburg, 1886-1933, I, 145.

18 Lisini, Gregorio XII, 98.



88 The Art Bulletin

grinus, who is infrequently portrayed in Tuscan painting, for the Trinity altarpiece.19 St. James, an extremely popular pilgrim saint at this time, would otherwise have been an equally appropriate choice for a portable altarpiece.

Another aspect of the iconography of Fei's painting is pertinent to a discussion of the circumstances of its commission. The central scene has been for some time recognized as an antecedent for Masaccio's famous fresco of the Trinity in Santa Maria Novella.20 Both artists fused into one scene a narrative representation of the Crucifixion (the crucified Christ with John and Mary) with an iconic image of the Trinity, a combination extremely rare in Tuscan art. There are, however, two earlier Sienese works that seem to adumbrate this solution: Luca di Tomme's signed and dated panel (1366) in the Pisa Gallery (Fig. 9),21 and the same artist's portable triptych in the Thomas Hyland collection (Fig. 3).22 These two paintings contain many of the iconographic and formal elements that were to appear later in Fei's work, yet neither is its true prototype. The panel of 1366 in Pisa is a scene of the Crucifixion in which the other two persons of the Trinity appear, but God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are not linked in such a way as to indicate that the Trinity is the main theme of the picture. The three persons, of course, are frequently present in representations of the Annunciation and almost always (and as the principal figures) in scenes of the Baptism, yet in these cases a representation of the Trinity is not intended. That the same is true in this instance is most strongly indicated by the fact that God the Father is a much smaller figure than Christ, a most unlikely relationship were Luca portraying the Trinity. Rather, what we have here is a scene of the Crucifixion in which God and the Holy Spirit appear in heaven above. The picture in the Hyland collection does depict the Trinity, as a triple-torso figure behind the cross, but this representation is not fused with the scene of the Crucifixion, as is indicated by the fact that Christ appears twice.2s What we have in this second painting, then, are two adjacent scenes, a Trinity and a Crucifixion. Fei, and later Masaccio, make a single figure of Christ serve a double duty and thereby merge the two scenes. Thus they depict a Crucifixion-and-Trinity. Since Christ is, on the one hand, part of the Trinity, the Logos, and, on the other hand, part of the Crucifixion, the man sacrificed, there is an ines- capable suggestion in Fei's representation of the Trinity of the theological concept of the two natures of Christ as God and man, the word made flesh which is still the word.

In compositional format, Luca's portable triptych in the Hyland collection also anticipates certain solutions in Fei's work. The personification of the Trinity is similar to Fei's Almighty in that both are depicted as full-length figures seated in a mandorla. Both paintings, in addition, pro-

vide a broad and open field for the placement of the figures. Both also include a third saint at the foot of the cross, although in Luca's work, this kneeling figure wears the robes of a Franciscan and is therefore not properly a part of the narrative, while in Fei's work the saint is the Magdalen, who is often shown in scenes of the Crucifixion. Fei, however, does not take over Luca's strict, hierarchical figure scale, a prominent and unnaturalistic feature of the Hyland collection painting. Indeed, one

aspect of Fei's painting that distinguishes it from the earlier Sienese works is the factual presentation of the events and of the holy personages. God the Father and the Dove of the Holy Spirit are shown as physical realities; their actual presence in the scene of the Crucifixion is implied far more strongly than in the other two Sienese paintings. This serves to convey the spiritual relationship among the principal figures even more effectively.

In the light of the iconographic and formal innovations of the Trinity panel, then, Fei's triptych in the Cathedral of Naples emerges as an ex-

tremely important painting. It is the first among known works to have evolved the schema of the Crucifixion fused with the Trinity and therefore stands at the beginning of the development of a new iconographic type to which Masaccio's Trinity belongs.24 Until recently, though, no direct link between Fei's triptych and Masaccio's monumental fresco in Santa Maria Novella had been uncovered and the question of how Ma- saccio could have been familiar with the scheme employed in Fei's painting, which after all was in the Minutolo Chapel in the Cathedral of Naples by the year 1412, had not been answered. Recently, however, Creighton Gilbert25 has supplied a convincing theory to explain this rela-

tionship. His argument centers around the person of Giovanni Dominici, the intellectual leader of the Dominican order in Florence for some

years during the early part of the fifteenth century. It is Gilbert's belief that the iconography of Masaccio's fresco is based upon ideas developed by the Florentine Dominicans during that period, a theory that might seem difficult to reconcile with the prior establishment of the icono-

graphic type in Fei's triptych were it not for the fact that Dominici, like Minutolo, was a member of the Curia when it stopped in Siena in 1407- 1408. Moreover, he too appears to have been one of the more important members of the papal court, since Gregory made him cardinal on May 9, 1408, only a few months after the party had left Siena. Gregory did so in violation of an earlier pledge to create no new cardinals, and he hon- ored Dominici by selecting him as one of a relatively small group of four new designates, two of whom were the pope's own nephews. Further- more, Dominici was unquestionably the outstanding intellectual among the members of the Curia that accompanied Gregory. All of this suggests that it might have been Dominici who supplied the program for Fei's

19 G. Kaftal, Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting, Florence, 1952, 796, lists only one example from the 14th century, a Florentine work done before 1350, and none except Fei's from the early Quattrocento.

20 M. Meiss, Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death, Princeton, 1951, 35 n. 86 and U. Schlegel, AB, 45, 1963, 25.

21 The provenance of the panel in the Pisa Gallery is unknown but E. Carli, Pittura pisana del trecento, Milan, 1961, II, 19f., is of the opinion that Luca worked in Pisa first in 1362-63 and again in 1366 when he executed this painting.

22 Meiss, Painting in Florence and Siena, 34f., first published this work as "probably an early work of Luca di Tomme" and later (AB, 45, 1963, 47f.) unequivocally attributed it to this master.

23 Meiss, Painting in Florence and Siena, 35, first discussed the fact that Christ appears twice in the Hyland collection painting.

24 The existence of another Sienese painting of the Trinity (published by Meiss, AB, 28, 1946, 6 as Andrea di Bartolo), which "resembles closely" the iconography of the central panel of Fei's triptych, lends further support to the arguments advanced here concerning the commission of Fei's Trinity in the Capella Minutolo. It is possible, in chronological terms, that the painting by Andrea (active 1389-1428) was

executed before that by Fei, but a great body of stylistic evidence would deny such a relationship. Fei stands out among his contemporaries as inventive and progres- sive (e.g., his treatment of the scene of the Presentation of the Virgin), while Andrea was strongly inclined to follow the lead of others. His style, while often

pleasing, must be considered retardataire. If we accept the precedence of Fei's painting over Andrea's, the existence of the latter supports my contention that Fei's work was executed in Siena and not elsewhere. It also strongly suggests that Fei's new iconographic type had superseded that of earlier related images such as those of Luca di Tomm6.

25 I am very grateful to Dr. Gilbert for having relayed the following information to me and for having made numerous suggestions which have reinforced my arguments. In the course of his investigation of the historical factors surrounding the Curia's trip to Siena, he arrived at conclusions identical with mine concerning the date of Fei's painting, a deduction mentioned briefly in a paper, "The Form and Theme of Masaccio's Trinity," given at the 1965 College Art Association meeting in Los Angeles. It is gratifying to have Dr. Gilbert's concurring opinion, arrived at independently, concerning the non-stylistic part of my argument.



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PAOLO DI GIOVANNI FEI. Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art

1. Assumption of the Virgin 2. Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, ca. 1398



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9. Luca di Tommb, Crucifixion, 1366. Pisa, Museo Civico



TITIAN I A RECONSTRUCTED CEILING

TITIAN'S CEILING IN THE SCUOLA DI SAN GIOVANNI EVANGELISTA*

JUERGEN SCHULZ

With the acquisition in 1954 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation of Titian's St. John the Evangelist on the Island of Patmos (Fig. 2) an un- fortunate chapter in the history of the decorative cycle of which this painting was the centerpiece came to an end. The cycle originally hung upon the ceiling of the Albergo or board room of the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista in Venice. Its twenty-one paintings were one of the well-known sights of the city and every guidebook from 1581 down to the fall of the Republic recommended them to the visitor's attention.1 But when in 1806 the Scuola, like most of the confraternities of Venice, was disbanded by governmental decree and its possessions declared for- feit to the state, the ceiling paintings in the Albergo--of which only twenty were left by then--were among the furnishings seized.2 Then began a long period of neglect. Around 1812 the pictures were trans- ferred to the new Academy of Fine Arts in Venice but soon afterward

the centerpiece was alienated from the collection and lost from sight.3 Subsequently, the smaller paintings became the subject of critical doubts. With the exception of Crowe and Cavalcaselle, who clung to the old attribution of the entire cycle to Titian himself, the scholarly consensus was that the small panels were studio work.4 As a result they were rele- gated to storage where they deteriorated and were generally forgotten until the Titian exhibition of 1935.

At that time the four oblong panels with symbols of the Evangelists (Fig. la, b, c, d) were exhibited as Titian's work and interest in the entire cycle revived.5 After World War II these four panels were placed on exhibition in the reopened Accademia as the work of "Titian and studio," an attribution that is clearly correct.6 Finally, in 1954, the then Director of the Kress Foundation, Wilhelm E. Suida, succeeded in tracing the centerpiece and acquiring it for the Foundation.7 It is now on exhibition as a permanent loan at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. (Fig. 2). Although in this way the ceiling has become permanently divided, major portions of it are once more on public view and the long period of neglect may be considered to have come to an end. Now seems the proper moment to inquire into the history of the cycle, to seek to reconstruct its appearance before it was divided, and to establish the tradition of interior decoration to which it belonged.

It is not difficult to locate the original site of the ceiling within the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista. All the old guidebooks place the Albergo in a room on the piano nobile, in a portion of the Scuola built ex novo between 1540 and 1545 adjoining the Sala della Croce (see Fig. 10).8 Originally a private house had stood on this spot. In September, 1533 it was proposed that the chapter of the confraternity purchase the house and build a new Albergo on its site.9 A new board room for the governors of the Scuola was needed because official meetings in the Sala della Croce interfered with public access to and veneration of the relic of the True Cross, the confraternity's single most valued pos- session, which was kept in the Sala. Only in the spring of 1540, however, did the proposal lead to action. The house was purchased, used briefly by the Scuola and then demolished.10o On its foundations a new struc-

* I first attempted a reconstruction of Titian's ceiling in a doctoral dissertation pre- pared between 1954 and 1958 at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, under the supervision of Professor Johannes Wilde. I am approaching the subject once again here with the help of documents that have newly come to light. However, I remain deeply indebted to him for the guidance I received at the time and am most grateful for it now as then.

I am grateful as well to the many persons who aided my search for photographs and information: Prof*a A. Ghidiglia Quintavalle, Soprintendente alle Gallerie di Parma; Dottea Giorgia Scattolin, Istituto Universitario di Architettura, Venice; Dottsa Anna Maria Tiepolo, Archivio di Stato, Venice; and Prof. Francesco Val- canover, Soprintendente alle Gallerie di Venezia.

1 E.g., F. Sansovino, Venetia citt4 nobilissima descritta in XIII libri, Venice, 1581, 101; M. Boschini, Le minere della pittura, Venice, 1664, 295; D. Martinelli, 11 ritratto di Venezia, 2nd ed., Venice, 1705, 378; A. M. Zanetti, Tutte le pubbliche pitture di Venezia, Venice, 1733, 294. Source books also deal with them: C. Ridolfi, Le mara- viglie dell'arte, Venice, 1648, I, 186 (ed. D. von Hadeln, Berlin, 1914-24, I, 205); A. M. Zanetti, Della pittura veneziana, Venice, 1771, 124 (2nd ed., 1792, I, 171).

2 They were accessioned to the domanial magazines of the new royal government in 1808, by which time one of the smaller panels with cherub heads had already disappeared: Document VIII. For a general account of these seizures of paintings, see the introduction in S. Moschini Marconi, Le Gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia: Opere d'arte dei sec. XIV e XV, Rome, 1955.

3 It was traded to a dealer (along with three other paintings, attributed to Tintoretto, Veronese and Paris Bordone) for a work by Bartolomeo Schedone. S. Moschini Marconi, Le Gallerie dell'Accademia . .. : Opere d'arte del sec. XVI, Rome, 1962, 262f. gives a full account of the history of the pictures from 1812 forward.

4 The compilers of the Elenco degli oggetti di belle arti disposti . . . nella R. Accade- mia in Venezia (Venice, 1817, 31) and F. Zanotto (Pinacoteca della I. R. Accademia di Belle Arti, Venice, 1833, I, fasc. 53 bis) were the first to express doubts about their quality. O. Fischel, in the last edition of the Klassiker der Kunst volume, Tizian:

des Meisters Gemlilde, 5th ed., Stuttgart/Leipzig, 1923, omits them altogether. J. A. Crowe and G. B. Cavalcaselle, The Life and Times of Titian, 2nd ed., London, 1880, II, 416, on the other hand not only preferred to believe they were by Titian, but spoke of the "great mastery" with which they were painted. For a more complete review of modern critical opinion see the full catalogue entry by S. Moschini Mar- coni, Le gallerie dell'Accademia . . . Opere del sec. XVI, 262f.

5 G. Fogolari, Mostra di Tiziano, Venice, 1935, Nos. 36-39. Fogolari's effort at a re- habilitation of at least part of the group was met with a curt rejection by H. Tietze, Tizian, Vienna, 1936, II, 312, who called them all "unbedeutende Werkstattarbeiten."

6 S. Moschini Marconi, Le gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia, Venice, 1949, 103. 7 [W. E. Suida and F. H. Shapley] Paintings and sculpture . . . acquired by the S. H.

Kress Foundation, 1951-1956, Washington, D.C. (National Gallery of Art), 1956, 186. 8 For the guidebooks see note 1 above. Also, G. Dionisi, Sommario di memorie, ossia

descrizione succinta delli quadri . . . di S. Giovanni Evangelista, Venice, 1787, 22. 9 Venice, Archivio di Stato, Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista, No. 141

(Notatorio, II, 1526-59), c. 28 to: "i533. A'di 14 settembre . . . El se rittrova qui ap- presso una casa da sazenti, la qual se potria tuor in la scuola, et de quella far uno Albergo dove potesse star la bancha . . . L'anderA parte che mette ms. Domenego honoradi guardian grando, che per auttoritA de questo capitolo gli sia concesso poter tuor ditta casa et fabricar' uno Albergo. .. ."

10 The act of acquisition does not survive, but there is record of an appropriation of funds for the purchase on May 31, 1540; A. d. S., loc.cit., cc. 89-89to.

On August 1, it was decided to break through doors into the newly acquired building and to use it as it stood until plans for a new structure were ready: Docu- ment I. This may never have been done however since doors still needed to be broken through to the new Albergo in 1544: see Document III below.

By October 24, the old building was gone and foundations for the new structure already existed: Document II. The older structure's foundations may have been reused, a common practice in Venice.

89

altarpiece, as his ideas later provided the theological basis for the iconography of Masaccio's Trinity in the Dominican church in Florence. Even if Dominici did not provide the program for Fei's altarpiece, it is virtually certain that he was familiar with the Sienese work. He therefore provides us with at least one means by which the iconography of Fei's Trinity could have been transmitted to Santa Maria Novella.

Through various channels of inquiry, then, considerable evidence can be found to date at least the commission, and most probably the execution, of Fei's portable altarpiece of the Trinity during the latter part of 1407 or in the first month of 1408. This work, important as the initiator of an iconographic type, can now in addition provide us with another valuable point of reference from which to establish the chronology and contributions of Fei, an obscure and, in my opinion, greatly underrated artist.

Brooklyn College of the City University of New York



An Early Quattrocento Trinity

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