Part 2

“Technically as well as spiritually, the Sienese approached the artistic abstractions of China and Japan. The analogies between Sienese and Oriental Art have been observed by practically every writer on the Sienese School. They have been tacitly attributed however, to accidental similarities in ideals and modes in Siena and the East. As yet no one has been bold enough to suggest an influence derived from actual contact with Eastern Art, but such contact is not beyond the bounds of possibility. In the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries overland communication with the Near East and with China was common and secure. Merchants like the Polos, prelates like John of Monte Corsino, Andrew of Perugia and Friar Odoric of Friuli readily found the way to Cathay, as China was then called. Peking was made a Roman Catholic diocese and Pegolotti of the Bardi banking-house in Florence was moved to write a traveller’s itinerary, remarkably like a modern Baedeker, giving the most minute instructions as to inns, food, servants, and so forth, on the route from Constantinople to Peking. Moslems like Ibn Batuta travelled as widely as Christians, and Oriental travellers visited the Occident. Thus Bar Sauma, a Nestorian of Peking, visited the Pope in 1287 and passed through Tuscany on his way to Paris and Bordeaux two years after Duccio painted the _Rucellai Madonna_. Not only the Near East and China, but India, was opened to the European and we hear of the martyrdom of one Brother Peter of Siena at a place near Bombay. It was not until the end of the Fourteenth and the beginning of the Fifteenth Century that the conversion of the western Tartars to Islam, the advance of the Seljuk Turks, and the overthrow of the broad-minded hospitable Mongol dynasty in China closed the overland trade-routes. During the next hundred and fifty years while the sea-routes were being discovered Europe seems largely to have forgotten the existence of the Orient. Wild as the theory may sound, therefore, it is possible that actual contact with Oriental Art may account not only for the occasional Mongolian types and bits of Oriental armor to be observed in Sienese Art, but even for something of the spirit of the style.”--_Mediæval and Renaissance Paintings_ (Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 1927).

ST. FRANCIS AND THE BEGGAR.

_Sassetta_ (_1392–1450_).

_Collection of Mr. Clarence H. Mackay._

On September 5, 1437, the Minorites of Siena ordered an altar-piece for the Church of San Francesco at Borgo San Sepolcro from Stefano di Giovanni, better known as Sassetta. The artist promised “to paint it with fine gold, ultramarine, and other good colors, to employ all the subtleties of his art, and to make it as beautiful as he could.” Also he promised to complete it in four years. Sassetta, however, made a wrong calculation; for the work occupied him seven, instead of four, years. It was finished on June 5, 1444, and placed above the high altar at Borgo San Sepolcro, where it remained until 1752, when the panels were dispersed. From contemporary documents nine panels were proved in recent years to have been among the decorations of this famous altar-piece; and these panels were shown at the Retrospective Exhibition of Sienese Art held in Siena in 1904.

Seven of these nine panels are now in the Collection of Mr. Clarence H. Mackay: _St. Francis and the Poor Knight_; _St. Francis Renounces his Heritage_; _St. Francis and the Wolf of Gubbio_; _St. Francis before the Soldan_; _St. Francis before Pope Honorius III_; _St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata_; and _The Burial of St. Francis_.

Another panel, _The Marriage of St. Francis to Poverty_, is in the Chantilly Museum and the central panel of the altar-piece, representing _The Glory of St. Francis_, is in the Collection of Mr. Bernard Berenson.

The panel representing _St. Francis and the Wolf of Gubbio_ was long in possession of the Comte de Martel at the Château de Beaumont, near Blois, and the other six panels came from the Collection of the late M. Georges Chalandon, Paris.

It was obvious that for a church dedicated to St. Francis the story of his life should be told in paintings.

It is a little hard to realize that the frescoes by Giotto and his companions depicting the _Life of St. Francis_ had been admired and worshipped for a hundred odd years before Sassetta was called upon by the Sienese Minorites to tell the story again. Sassetta produced an entirely new version with regard to composition, color, and spiritual interpretation.

[Illustration:

_Collection of Mr. Clarence H. Mackay_

ST. FRANCIS AND THE BEGGAR

--_Sassetta_]

There is much to attract an artist in the story of St. Francis, for although his life is not one of much variety, it is full of striking episodes, which afford splendid pictorial opportunities. St. Francis, founder of the great Order of Friars Minor, or Franciscans, and called “the Poor Man of Assisi,” was born in Assisi in 1182, and died there in 1226. He was the son of a rich merchant, who, furious because his son lavished money on the starving poor of the vicinity, demanded that he should renounce his inheritance. This he did with a joyful spirit in public and before the Bishop of Assisi, thereafter devoting himself to the service of the poor. Disciples flocked to his little chapel, called the Portiuncula; and when the New Order celebrated its General

## Chapter in 1219, five thousand friars assembled there. The Order was

approved by Pope Innocent III and by his successor, Pope Honorius III. Poverty was the leading characteristic of the Franciscans, or Begging Friars; individually and collectively they refused to own anything whatsoever.

St. Francis journeyed about doing good. His wanderings took him as far as Egypt and Palestine; and it was in the year 1224, on the desolate Mount Alvernia, that he received the Stigmata, or Impression on the flesh of Our Lord’s Five Sacred Wounds, in memory of which the Church instituted a special festival. St. Francis was canonized in 1228, two years after his death.

_St. Francis and the Beggar_, shown here, tells two episodes of the story. On the left and in the immediate foreground the young St. Francis, having dismounted from his horse, whose head (very finely drawn) appears above his shoulder, is in the act of giving his cloak to a poor beggar; and the latter, very dramatically expresses his delight, surprise, and gratitude. Beyond these figures a winding road, bordered with cypress trees, leads to a handsome villa, presumably the home of St. Francis, beyond which little hills appear on the horizon. The sky, very expansive, is silvery above these hills and grows gradually bluer and bluer until it reaches the top of the picture, or dome of the sky, where a strange castle is seen with banners of the Holy Cross floating from its battlements and turrets. This castle really belongs to the second episode represented on the right, which shows St. Francis sleeping in a little room. This heavenly castle is the vision he has in his dreams. It would appear that the Angel, standing over St. Francis and pointing to the mystical castle in the clouds, is inspiring this mystical dream. It is interesting to note here that Giotto made at Assisi two pictures of _St. Francis and the Beggar_ and _The Dream of St. Francis_. Sassetta combined the two episodes into one picture.

“Even without documents,” says Berenson, “we should know that this Borgo San Sepulcro polyptych was painted by a contemporary of Masolino, Pisanello, Jacopo Bellini, and Antonio Vivarini. And that the master was a Sienese we should know not only from his pure, flat color and his devotion to line, but in other ways as well. At all events it is he, Stefano Sassetta, who has left us the most adequate rendering of the Franciscan soul that we possess in the entire range of painting.

“Sassetta was not only one of the few masters in Europe of imaginative design, but the most important painter at Siena during the second quarter of the Fifteenth Century, the channel through which Sienese Trecento traditions passed and became transformed into those of the Quattrocento, for nearly all the later painters of Siena were his offspring.”

Stefano di Giovanni was born at Siena in 1392. He was a pupil of Paolo di Giovanni Fei and was deeply influenced by the earlier Sienese painters, Duccio, Simone Martini, and the Lorenzetti brothers. In 1427 he was asked to furnish a design for the font in the Siena Baptistery and he painted the altar-piece of the _Madonna Enthroned with Saints_ in the church, since known as the Osservanza, built for St. Bernardine on the site of his hermitage. Sassetta’s work for the Borgo San Sepulcro did much to popularize Sienese ideas in Umbria. Sassetta made many paintings in Siena and at Cortona, where he was influenced by Fra Angelico. In 1447 he was commissioned to complete the frescoes on the Porta Romana at Siena, begun by Taddeo di Bartolo; and he died in 1450 from exposure while working on this gate. Fifteen years later the frescoes were finished by Sano di Pietro, one of Sassetta’s many pupils and followers.

For a long time Sassetta was forgotten; but of late years there has been much interest in his works, which are of great pecuniary as well as artistic value.

MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SAINTS AND ANGELS.

_Matteo di Giovanni_ (_1430?–1495_).

_Collection of Mr. Clarence H. Mackay._

Among the most important pupils of the famous Sassetta was the painter and sculptor, Lorenzo Vecchietta, who in turn was the principal master of Matteo di Giovanni, the most celebrated Sienese painter of his time. Therefore we have direct artistic ancestry for Matteo di Giovanni through Vecchietta to Sassetta and to Duccio.

Matteo di Giovanni, also called Matteo da Siena, was the son of a tradesman who came from Siena to Borgo San Sepulcro, where Matteo was born about 1430. His first master is supposed to have been the Umbrian, Piero della Francesca (or Pier dei Franceschi). Removing to Siena, Matteo spent the rest of his days there. His life was uneventful, for he gave all his time to painting. His domestic life must have been somewhat exciting for he was twice married--the second time to a countess--and he had a large family. Matteo was particularly famous for his Madonnas, tender and wistful, with very decorative accessories.

The lovely _Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels_, represented here, shows this decorative quality of Matteo in its highest expression. The Sienese love for Oriental fabrics[1] appears in the rich attire of the Virgin. Here is no peasant woman in simple robe and mantle, but a lady of high degree, wearing a gown of handsome brocade with the significant pattern of the pomegranate. A white veil, soft and transparent, lightly covers her forehead and her mantle is gracefully drawn up over her head to form a hood. The Holy Child rests comfortably upon her left arm while her right hand, large and firm, gives Him additional support. A light drapery passes around the body of the Holy Child--the Sienese were Oriental enough in their discriminating taste to avoid uninteresting nudity and they also knew how to manage both heavy and light materials--who grasps the Virgin’s tunic with His right hand and has placed his left hand over that of His mother. The golden _nimbus_ of the Virgin is inscribed “_Ave (Maria) Gratia Plena_.”

[Illustration:

_Collection of Mr. Clarence H. Mackay_

MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SAINTS AND ANGELS

--_Matteo di Giovanni_]

St. Catherine of Siena stands on the right, also wearing a handsome brocade gown and a white veil. She is holding a missal and a fragment of her wheel of torture. On the left we see St. Anthony, in monk’s habit, writing in a book. Behind this group two Angels are singing loudly and joyfully. The background and all the _nimbi_ crowning the heads of the figures are of gold, made the richer by burnished ornamentation.

This picture, painted in tempera on a panel 29 × 20 inches, came from the Collection of Lord Ashburnham, Ashburnham Place, Battle, Surrey, England. Of it Berenson says: “It is not only his (Matteo di Giovanni) most typical and his most characteristic, but also his most impressive and beautiful work; it has every advantage of ivory flesh, golden tone, and gorgeous brocade; and with all these decorative qualities it possesses real humility.”

Among Matteo di Giovanni’s other important paintings are: the _Madonna Enthroned_ (1470) in the Accademia; the _Madonna della Neve_ (1477) and the _Coronation of St. Barbara_ in St. Domenico, Siena; the _Assumption of the Virgin_ in the National Gallery, London; and _St. Jerome in his Cell_, in the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

ADORATION OF THE MAGI.

_Benvenuto di Giovanni _Collection of (1436–1518)._ Sir Joseph Duveen, Bart._

We have here a charming Sienese version of the ever-popular subject--the _Adoration of the Magi_. Everything about this picture is radiant, charming, and decorative. The groups in pyramidal form with masses at the base, made rich and beautiful by means of the wise lighting and graceful arrangement of draperies, balanced with lively animals on the right and left, rise higher and higher with more and more delicacy of treatment that suggests the technique of old ivory carving or the miniature painting of Mediæval manuscripts, until the peak is reached in the charming presentation of a lovely walled town with spires lifted heavenward.

[Illustration:

_Collection of Sir Joseph Duveen, Bart._

ADORATION OF THE MAGI

--_Benvenuto di Giovanni_]

The picture is full of movement, life, joy, and expression. The Holy Child is appreciative (which is an unusual feature) and the animals, too, are taking an enthusiastic part in the ceremony.

The tender and gentle Virgin, seated on a stone bench directly in front and wearing a red robe and a blue mantle, has the Holy Child comfortably placed on her knee. On her left hand she is holding one of the presents. The Holy Child, according to the Sienese fashion, is draped and the linen folded around Him is embroidered in gold. His expression is animated and very sweet and He is raising His little hand in blessing. The eldest of the Magi,[2] Melchior with white hair (what there is left of it) and white flowing beard, is kneeling before the Holy Child and kissing His right foot, wearing a rich golden mantle with a damask pattern in _raised_ gold relief, held by a jewelled girdle. The second Magus, on the left, Balthasar, is clothed in a red brocade mantle embroidered in gold. He has a dark complexion and is removing his crown from his thick black hair and holds in his right hand a piece of gold plate. The third King, Caspar, on the right, is the most attractive figure in the picture,--a typical young prince and dandy of the period dressed in a pale tunic, cut with point in front showing a rich brocade undergarment, and plaited and slashed and bordered according to the latest Fifteenth Century fashions. The sleeves are slashed and ornamented with puffs and a rich girdle holds the dagger with hilt of gold. Lilac trunk-hose, red shoes, and a golden crown complete the costume. His face is delicate and charming and his wavy hair is blonde. He, too, is bringing a piece of gold plate. This radiant figure looks as if he might have stepped from the pages of the _Romaunt of the Rose_. St. Joseph, behind Balthasar, leans his head on his hand as if he were puzzled. Each one of these six important figures has a flat golden _nimbus_. Behind St. Joseph, on the left, the ox and the ass, by the intelligent gleam in their eyes, allow us to believe in the legend that animals are endowed with the power of speech on Christmas Eve. Over the roof of their open shed sparkles and scintillates the Star of the East and under the Star we note a bush laden with fruit,--a real Christmas tree! On the right, the group is that of the retinue of the three Kings--people on foot, wide-eyed and curious, and knights on horseback. A beautiful white horse arches his head majestically and surveys the scene; behind him are a very superior horse and a very superior camel, who gaze downward somewhat haughtily, while a third horse looks backward at these companions to see what they are thinking of it all!

As in many ancient paintings, the scene is enacted for us in two episodes. If we look ardently we see the three Magi on their approach to the shrine. We can identify Balthasar on the left; Caspar in the centre; and Melchior on the left of Caspar, followed by their retinue defiling through the gateway of the machicolated wall, behind which the town, with its towers and turrets, domes and roofs, stands out clearly and poetically from its golden horizon.

This painting, tempera on panel (70 × 53 inches), came from the Collection of Sir William Neville Abdy, Bart., Dorking, Surrey, and was exhibited in Paris at the Salle des Etats, Musée du Louvre, in 1885.

Benvenuto di Giovanni di Meo del Guata, also known as Benvenuto da Siena, was, like Matteo di Giovanni, a pupil of Vecchietta. He was born in Siena, September 13, 1436, the son of a mason. In 1453 he was painting in the Baptistery in Siena. He painted in Siena all his life and aided in designing the inlaid marble pavement in the Cathedral and he also decorated the cupola. Benvenuto di Giovanni cared little about the scientific experiments the contemporary Florentine painters were essaying, content to paint in the decorative and charming traditional Sienese manner, of flat and ornamental designs beautifully enriched with gold. It is very interesting to compare this painting with the pageants of Benozzo Gozzoli and Gentile da Fabriano. It holds its own, thereby, for its high decorative quality and peculiar charm.

_FLORENTINE_

It is not strange when Sienese Painting was at its height that its influence should have been felt in Florence, which is only about forty miles distant. The fame of Cimabue (1240?–1301), the founder of the Florentine School, indeed, rests chiefly on the _Madonna_ in the Rucellai Chapel of S. Maria Novella, which modern criticism attributes to Duccio of Siena. Vasari was responsible for accrediting the _Rucellai Madonna_ to Cimabue; and Vasari’s story that when finished “it was carried in solemn procession with the sound of trumpets and other festal demonstrations from Cimabue’s house to the church, Cimabue being highly rewarded and honored for it,” reads like an echo of the triumphal procession of Duccio’s great altar-piece--the _Majestas_--from the house of that painter to the Cathedral of Siena.

Cimabue, whose name was Cenni dei Pepe, transitional from Byzantine to Gothic, is particularly famed for being the discoverer and teacher of Giotto.

Giotto di Bordone (1276–1336), sculptor and architect as well as painter, is the dominating personality in Trecento Art, and the first Gothic painter of Florence. Giotto’s influence lasted for a hundred years or more (see page 25).

One of Giotto’s associates and followers was Bernardo Daddi, son of Daddo di Simone, a Florentine. The date of his birth is supposed to have been 1280. He died in 1348. About 1317 he was admitted to the Arte de Medici e Speziale, the Guild of Doctors and Apothecaries, from whom the painters obtained their pigments. According to the laws of the period no painter could pursue his art unless he took his degree in that confraternity. The early painters became independent of the Guild of Doctors and Apothecaries after the Guild of St. Luke[3] was formed--the special brotherhood of all painters, which spread to every country and to every town--and there is a tradition that Daddi was one of the founders of this Compagnia di San Luca, which would show that this Florentine Guild of St. Luke was organized as early as 1348.

Daddi painted the fresco over the San Giorgio Gate of Florence about 1330 and he also painted the frescoes of the Martyrdom of St. Stephen and St. Lawrence in Santa Croce. Daddi comes very close to Giotto (1276–1336), in dates and in style, although he shows great sympathy with the Sienese painters.

Giotto’s followers--the Giotteschi--worked from about 1330 to 1430 and include: Taddeo Gaddi, Andrea di Cione (better known as Orcagna), Giovanni da Milano, Agnolo Gaddi, Cennino Cennini, Andrea di Firenze, Antonio Veneziano, Spinello Aretino, and Lorenzo Monaco.

These painters prepared the way for greater changes by studying perspective and the human form and by gradually introducing Classic Architecture into their pictures in place of Gothic decoration.

In studying Fifteenth Century Art in Florence we are struck by the great number of goldsmiths and other workers in metal who became painters. There is a reason for this. The most important work in Florence for twenty-two years was the making of the four bronze doors for the Baptistery, the competition for which was won by Ghiberti in 1401. The undertaking was so vast that Ghiberti engaged, at one time or another, nearly all the most talented artists and artisans of Florence. Many painters and sculptors who acquired fame afterwards, such as Masaccio and Donatello for instance, received their early training under Ghiberti.

Of the last-mentioned painter Leonardo da Vinci wrote:

“After the days of Giotto, painting declined again, because everyone imitated the pictures that were already in existence; and this went on until Tommaso of Florence, nicknamed Masaccio, showed, by his perfect works, how artists who would take any teacher but Nature--the mistress of all masters--labor in vain.”

Tommaso Masaccio (1401–1429?) and Tommaso Masolino (1383–1447) worked together in the Brancacci Chapel. Masaccio was the son of a notary in the parish of Castel S. Giovanni in Val d’Arno, learned to draw and paint, joined the Guild of St. Luke in 1424, and became Masolino’s assistant for painting the frescoes in the new Chapel built by Felice Brancacci in the Carmine. When Masolino went to Hungary, Masaccio worked there alone.

Masaccio’s frescoes made an epoch in art, although the painter was little appreciated in his day. He left his work suddenly and went to Rome. Nothing more was ever heard of him. He is thought to have died in Rome in 1429. Almost immediately Masaccio’s work began to be valued and all the Florentines of the Fifteenth Century flocked to study these Brancacci frescoes. Masolino (1383–1447) was appointed in 1423 to paint frescoes in the new Brancacci Chapel in the Carmine and two years later went to Hungary. Returning home after several years, he painted frescoes in various cities (see page 28).

Gerardo, better known as “Starnina” (1354–1408), a pupil of Antonio Veneziano, spent nine years in Spain and on his return to Florence, achieved great fame by his frescoes in the Carmine. The name was taken from that of his father, Jacopo Starna. It is said that “Starnina” was the master of Masolino and Fra Angelico.

Fra Angelico (1387–1455), brings us to another transitional period,--this time from the Gothic to the Renaissance. Fra Angelico, or Fra Giovanni da Fiesole, the angelic and mystical painter and the most beloved of all the early artists, spent his life painting frescoes and altar-pieces for churches and cloisters. He was frequently called by the Pope to Rome, where he died (see page 32).

To this period belong Andrea del Castagno (1390?–1457), a vigorous and austere painter, and Paolo Uccello (1397–1475), named Paolo di Dono, but called Uccello because he kept in his house and painted so many birds. Uccello began life as a goldsmith and assistant to Ghiberti.