National Gallery of Art NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART ONLINE EDITIONS Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries Puccio di Simone and Allegretto Nuzi Puccio di Simone Florentine, active c. 1330 - 1360 Allegretto Nuzi Umbrian, active from c. 1340; died 1373 Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints and Angels, and Saints Anthony Abbot and Venantius [entire triptych] 1354 tempera on panel Inscription: left panel, on Saint Anthony's halo: .S[AN]C[TU]S.ANTONIVS.D[E].VIENA; middle panel, on the Madonna's halo: .S[AN]C[T]A.MARIA.MATER.DEI.; middle panel, on the Child's halo: IIS . XRO . M;[1] middle panel, along the base: [MCCC]LIIII.QUESTA TA[VOLA HA F]ATTA F[A]RE. FRATE GIOVANNI DA [...] (1354, this picture was commissioned by Fra Giovanni); right panel, on Saint Venantius's halo: .S[AN]C[TU]S . VENANCIVS . M[A]RTIRI (Saint Venantius Martyr) Andrew W. Mellon Collection 1937.1.6.a-c ENTRY This triptych is in some respects unusual, even unique, in fourteenth-century painting in central Italy. First, it is unusual for an altarpiece of this kind to be characterized by such a disparity both in the distribution and in the proportions of the figures: numerous and small in the center, large in the laterals—even larger in scale than the Madonna enthroned in the main panel. Second, another very rare feature is that one of the saints, Anthony Abbot, appears twice, once in the central panel and again in the left lateral. [1] Third, and uniquely, a practically identical version (only slightly larger in size) exists in the Duomo of Macerata, though with a provenance from the church of Sant’Antonio Abate in that town. [2] It is dated 1369, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints and Angels, and Saints Anthony Abbot 1 and Venantius [entire triptych] National Gallery of Art NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART ONLINE EDITIONS Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries and the fact that, at an interval of fifteen years, both triptychs were commissioned and their iconographic program established by a member of the Antonine order named Giovanni (Johannes) makes it likely that both were executed for the same patron. [3] The composition at the center, with tiered angels and saints flanking the enthroned Madonna, was probably based on a model developed in a portable triptych from the shop of Bernardo Daddi (active by 1320, died probably 1348) or perhaps by the hand of Puccio di Simone himself. [4] Mary holds in her arms the naked child, who is draped from the hips downward in a precious gold-embroidered cloth [fig. 1]. With an apparently playful gesture, she points her index finger at him. [5] The Christ child is wearing a necklace with a small branch of coral as a pendant. [6] With his left hand he grasps a small bird, [7] while with the other hand he holds onto the hem of his mother’s mantle. The Madonna and child are flanked on either side by nine angels, probably alluding to the nine choirs of angels. [8] The raised throne is approached by two steps, flanked in the foreground by four saints. To the left we see Saint Catherine of Alexandria (unusually wearing the imperial crown and with a palm branch in her right hand, while her other hand is supported on the toothed wheel, instrument of her martyrdom) [9] and Saint Benedict. [10] On the other side, closest to the throne, is Saint Anthony Abbot, patron saint of the Order of Hospitallers of Saint Anthony, better known as the Antonines, dressed in the dark brown tunic and beige mantle of his order. The saint supports himself on the T- shaped handle of his staff, while at his feet a small black pig, his usual attribute, can be glimpsed. [11] The female saint standing next to him can be recognized as Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, another exemplary figure of Christian charity, who gathers up her dress in front to support a posy of brightly colored flowers. [12] Above the Madonna, Christ Crucified appears in the quatrefoil medallion of the gable. [13] In the left lateral, Saint Anthony Abbot appears once again. He is accompanied by his usual attributes. Directing his gaze at the Virgin and Child, he raises his left hand in a gesture of homage and service, [14] while with his other hand he holds the T-shaped staff. The half-figure Angel of the Annunciation appears in the trefoil medallion in the gable above his head. In the right lateral the martyr Saint Venantius is represented as a young knight dressed in a precious gold-embroidered brocaded tunic. [15] He supports a standard in his right hand. The half-figure of the Virgin Annunciate appears in the trefoil medallion above his head. Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints and Angels, and Saints Anthony Abbot 2 and Venantius [entire triptych] National Gallery of Art NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART ONLINE EDITIONS Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries It is not known at whose suggestion this triptych, on its appearance in a London sale catalog of July 25, 1916, was cited as “A Triptych...attributed to Allegretto Nuzi da Fabriano.” Presumably, Bernard Berenson had occasion to see it before the sale and to connect it with the catalog of works he had begun to assemble under the name of this Marchigian master some years earlier. [16] It cannot be excluded, however, that the painting entered the Russell collection already with this attribution in the course of the nineteenth century, given its provenance from a church (and then from a collection) in Allegretto’s hometown. In fact, even if the original provenance of the altarpiece from the church of Sant’Antonio Abate in Fabriano is undocumented, it can be regarded as virtually certain. It is suggested first and foremost by the double presence of the patron saint of the Antonine order, and also by the circumstance that another work by Allegretto, dating to the year before the triptych discussed here, is also known to have a provenance from the church of Sant’Antonio fuori Porta Pisana. [17] In any case, the attribution of the triptych to Allegretto was supported with complete conviction by Berenson (1922, 1930), followed by Osvald Sirén (1924), Luigi Serra (1925, 1927–1928, 1929), Bruno Molajoli (1928), Roger Fry (1931), Lionello Venturi (1931, 1933), Umberto Gnoli (1935), Luigi Coletti (1946), Ugo Galetti and Ettore Camesasca (1951), and Pietro Toesca (1951). Robert Lehman (1928), on the other hand, accepted the attribution with some reservations. [18] The doubts can be traced back to Raimond van Marle, who in 1924 detected in the triptych the presence of elements of Daddesque culture that he found incompatible with the attribution to Allegretto. [19] Richard Offner (1927), Helen Comstock (1928), and Mario Salmi (1930) endorsed van Marle’s doubts. [20] Some years later, Offner recognized that the work is the result of two hands: that of Allegretto, who painted only the left lateral, and that of an anonymous Florentine follower of Daddi whom Offner dubbed the “Master of the Fabriano Altarpiece” and who, he argued, was responsible for the rest of the altarpiece. These conclusions, reported for the first time in the catalog of the National Gallery of Art (NGA 1941) and then explained in detail by Offner himself (1947), were gradually accepted in all the more recent literature on the painting. [21] After more than a decade, Roberto Longhi (1959) succeeded in identifying the anonymous Florentine painter with Puccio di Simone. [22] Offner did not accept the proposal, [23] and the name of the Master of the Fabriano Altarpiece continued to survive for several years in the art historical literature. Since the mid-1970s, however, the triptych in the National Gallery of Art has been generally, and correctly, recognized as the joint work of Puccio (central and right panels) and Allegretto (left panel). Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints and Angels, and Saints Anthony Abbot 3 and Venantius [entire triptych] National Gallery of Art NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART ONLINE EDITIONS Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries The execution of an altarpiece by two different artists can hardly have been a rarity in the practice of fourteenth-century painters: one of the most famous examples of such a collaboration is that of Simone Martini (Sienese, active from 1315; died 1344) and Lippo Memmi (Sienese, active 1317/1347) in the triptych dated 1333 now in the Uffizi, Florence, signed by both artists. [24] What is more rare is the execution of a painting by two unrelated painters of different origin and formation, such as Puccio from Florence and Allegretto from Fabriano. They could have gotten to know each other during Allegretto’s documented residence in Florence in 1346, but the style of the earlier works by this painter suggests that while in Florence he probably frequented the shops of Maso di Banco and the young Orcagna (Andrea di Cione) and not that of Bernardo Daddi, who was the mentor of Puccio in those years. [25] It is probable that the Marchigian artist remained in contact with the Florentine scene also around 1350, when perhaps he returned to work there after the devastating outbreak of the Black Death in 1348. Nor can it be excluded that it might have been at the request of the Antonine canons of Fabriano, and not by personal choice, that he sought the collaboration of a Florentine painter for the works that the order had commissioned from him in his hometown. [26] Though its style and other data suggest that Puccio should be given credit for the overall planning of the triptych, the parts executed by the two masters can be clearly distinguished. The ornamentation of the two lateral panels—a decorative frieze delimiting the gold ground; a series of miniature lunettes around the arches, within each of which an elegant foliated motif is inserted; [27] and the decoration of the carpet that covers the floor—is identical and repeats types of decoration found in other, presumably earlier works by Puccio di Simone. [28] The central panel proposes a composition of tiered angels and saints flanking the Madonna that is unusual in paintings on a monumental scale but recurs in Puccio’s smaller panels clearly destined for private devotion. The severe and solemn figure of Saint Anthony Abbot in the left lateral [fig. 2], seen in half-profile while he raises his left hand with a nonchalant gesture of locutio, forms part of the figurative repertoire of Puccio di Simone. [29] Yet the hermit saint seems more noble in feature and more youthful in appearance than similar figures painted by Puccio, while his unwrinkled face and the fixed gaze of his almond eyes immediately betray the identity of the master who painted him: Allegretto. Allegretto, in fact, would repeat the image of the saint in a very similar way in later works, such as the lateral of a triptych in the Pinacoteca Civica in Fabriano. [30] Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints and Angels, and Saints Anthony Abbot 4 and Venantius [entire triptych] National Gallery of Art NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART ONLINE EDITIONS Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries A very different humanity is evident in the image of Saint Venantius [fig. 3], a somewhat effeminate youth with a soft complexion, snub nose, and sharp little eyes, whose long blond locks fall over the shoulders of his sumptuous court dress. [31] With a slight smile playing on his thin lips, he complacently surveys the saints gathered around the Virgin’s throne; they too have personalities, each with individual features: etiolated and reserved female saints, their gestures expressing timidity; self-assured monks with thick, silky beards and minutely described and shadowed faces; and angels who move and dart glances with the alert grace of college girls, completely filling the available space on both sides of the throne. The naturalistic tendency that distinguishes Puccio’s style in this phase has sometimes been related to the presence in Florence of another great non-Florentine painter, Giovanni da Milano, [32] but more likely it depends rather on other artistic developments that began to appear in Florence even earlier than the midcentury. I refer in particular to the activity, undoubtedly important (even if still difficult to quantify), of Stefano di Ricco [33] and of the Master of San Lucchese, [34] pioneers of that minute vision to which Puccio would accede after the death of Bernardo Daddi and that would characterize his output during the last decade of his life. [35] The panel now in the Pinacoteca of Fabriano and the triptych discussed here testify that in the years c. 1353–1354 Puccio had resolutely embarked on the path of pictorial realism. He is to be considered not a follower of Giovanni da Milano or of Giottino but their fellow traveler, or even perhaps their predecessor. Miklós Boskovits (1935–2011) March 21, 2016 COMPARATIVE FIGURES Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints and Angels, and Saints Anthony Abbot 5 and Venantius [entire triptych] National Gallery of Art NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART ONLINE EDITIONS Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries fig. 1 Detail of Madonna and Child (central panel), Puccio fig. 2 Detail of Saint Anthony (left panel), Puccio di Simone di Simone and Allegretto Nuzi, Madonna and Child and Allegretto Nuzi, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Enthroned with Saints and Angels, 1354, tempera on Saints and Angels, 1354, tempera on panel, National panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Andrew W. Gallery of Art, Washington, Andrew W. Mellon Collection Mellon Collection Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints and Angels, and Saints Anthony Abbot 6 and Venantius [entire triptych] National Gallery of Art NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART ONLINE EDITIONS Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries fig. 3 Detail of Saint Venantius (right panel), Puccio di Simone and Allegretto Nuzi, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints and Angels, 1354, tempera on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Andrew W. Mellon Collection NOTES [1] It seems possible, however, as Shapley pointed out, that the triptych originally had a rather different iconographic program. “The cut running Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints and Angels, and Saints Anthony Abbot 7 and Venantius [entire triptych] National Gallery of Art NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART ONLINE EDITIONS Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries round the saint through the gold background,” wrote Shapley with regard to the left lateral with Saint Anthony, “may indicate that Nuzi replaced a damaged or unfinished figure.” Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols. (Washington, DC, 1979), 1:384. Another theory is that the “cut” is the incised line for a different figure, but the plan for that figure was abandoned before it was painted and the figure of Saint Anthony was painted instead. Technical examination with x-radiographs and infrared reflectography cannot conclusively determine whether what Shapley referred to as a “cut” is deliberate or might actually be just a somewhat anomalous crack around the figure of Saint Anthony, which could have occurred during the thinning or possible transfer of the panel. If that is the case, then this figure is not a replacement. [2] Alberto Rossi, in Pittura del Marceratese dal Duecento al tardo gotico(Macerata, 1971), 62–64, gives the measurements of the panel as 152 × 177 cm. The triptych in Macerata bears the inscription ISTAM/TABULAM FECIT FIERI FRA/TER IOHANNES CLERICUS PRECEPTOR/TOLENTINI: ALEGRITTUS DE FABRIANO ME PINXIT [. . .] MCCCLXVIIII. See Luigi Serra,L’arte nelle Marche, vol. 1, Dalle origini cristiane alla fine del gotico (Pesaro, 1929), 287, 296. That painting, which Ricci recorded as having come to the cathedral from the church of Sant’Antonio Abate in Macerata, therefore had been commissioned by another community of the Antonine order and then transferred to its present site following the suppression of the religious orders in the Napoleonic period. Amico Ricci, Memorie storiche delle arti e degli artisti della Marca di Ancona, 2 vols. (Macerata, 1834), 1:89–90. [3] Luigi Serra, L’arte nelle Marche, vol. 1, Dalle origini cristiane alla fine del gotico (Pesaro, 1929), 287, conjectured that the same person had commissioned both this altarpiece and its prototype, now in Washington. The various houses of the order were called preceptories, so it may be surmised that, at least in 1369, Johannes clericus—the donor cited in the inscription—was the superior of the house of the Antonine order in Tolentino and, perhaps, the promoter of its daughterhouse in Macerata. For the term preceptor, cf. Charles du Fresne Du Cange, Glossarium mediæ et infimæ latinitatis, 10 vols. (Niort, 1883–1887), 6:451. [4] Richard Offner, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting: The Fourteenth Century, sec. 3, vol. 5, Bernardo Daddi and His Circle, ed. Miklós Boskovits, Ada Labriola, and Martina Ingendaay Rodio, new ed. (Florence, 2001), 394 n. 1, already observed that “the grouping of the attendant figures in tiers on either side of the Virgin has been handed down by Bernardo Daddi” in works such as Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels. He also drew attention to the anomaly of the portrayal of the Madonna in a smaller scale than the saints in the laterals. This was probably a solution imposed by the need to follow a model specified by the donor, perhaps a painting Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints and Angels, and Saints Anthony Abbot 8 and Venantius [entire triptych] National Gallery of Art NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART ONLINE EDITIONS Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries similar to Daddi’s aforementioned work or a similar composition by Puccio himself. On the works of this type produced in the shops of Bernardo Daddi (active by 1320, died probably 1348) and Puccio di Simone, cf. Offner 2001, 404 n. 2; on the relevant iconography, see Barbara Bruderer Eichberg, Les neufs choeurs angéliques: Origine et évolution du thème dans l’art du Moyen âge (Poitiers, 1998), 62–67. [5] Dorothy C. Shorr (1954) stated, “This action conceals some peculiar significance and may possibly refer to the sacrificial aspect of the Lamb of God” (cf. Jn 1:29; Rev 5:6). On the other hand, as Offner (2001) notes, in Puccio’s earlier paintings “the Virgin is almost always engaged in play with the Child.... The painter studiously endows the Child with artlessness and the Mother with appropriate happiness untouched by the shadow of prophecy.” See Dorothy C. Shorr, The Christ Child in Devotional Images in Italy during the XIV Century (New York, 1954), 168; Richard Offner, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting: The Fourteenth Century, sec. 3, vol. 5, Bernardo Daddi and His Circle, ed. Miklós Boskovits, Ada Labriola, and Martina Ingendaay Rodio, new ed. (Florence, 2001), 340. [6] This iconographic detail reflects a widespread practice in the Middle Ages, when small necklaces with miniature branches of coral as pendants frequently were given to children to wear to protect them from harm, thanks to the apotropaic power attributed to coral. See Wolfgang Brückner, “Koralle,” inLexikon der christlichen Ikonographie, ed. Engelbert Kirschbaum and Günter Bandmann, 8 vols. (Rome, 1970), 2:556. [7] Small birds, mainly fastened to a cord, were widely used as children’s toys in the Middle Ages. But symbolic significances were also attributed to them, with reference to the Passion, death, and Resurrection of Christ. Cf. Herbert Friedmann, The Symbolic Goldfinch: Its History and Significance in European Devotional Art (Washington, DC, 1946). [8] See Barbara Bruderer Eichberg, Les neufs choeurs angéliques: Origine et évolution du thème dans l’art du Moyen âge (Poitiers, 1998), 62–67. [9] For the iconography, see George Kaftal, Saints in Italian Art, vol. 1,Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting (Florence, 1952), 225–234. The peculiar form of her crown, conical with pointed termination, corresponds to that introduced by Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII and appears with some frequency in the central decades of the fourteenth century not only in representations of emperors but also in scenes of the Coronation of the Virgin—for example, in Puccio di Simone’s version of the theme in a panel in the Musée de Valence in Valence; see Richard Offner, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting: The Fourteenth Century, sec. 3, vol. 5, Bernardo Daddi and His Circle, ed. Miklós Boskovits, Ada Labriola, and Martina Ingendaay Rodio, new ed. (Florence, 2001), 404–408. On the historical circumstances surrounding the realization of this Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints and Angels, and Saints Anthony Abbot 9 and Venantius [entire triptych] National Gallery of Art NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART ONLINE EDITIONS Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries form of crown, cf. Percy Ernst Schramm, Herrschaftszeichen und Staatssymbolik: Beiträge zu ihrer Geschichte vom dritten bis zum sechzehnten Jahrhundert, 3 vols. (Stuttgart, 1954–1956), 3:1015–1019. [10] For the iconography of Saint Benedict, cf. George Kaftal, Saints in Italian Art, vol. 1, Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting (Florence, 1952), 145–174. The presence of the saint, founder of Western monasticism, in the place of honor, at the right-hand side of Mary and her son, is probably motivated by the fact that the motherhouse of the Antonine order, St. Antoine-en-Viennois, was originally a Benedictine abbey. [11] See Laurence Meiffret, Saint Antoine ermite en Italie (1340–1540): Programmes picturaux et dévotion (Rome, 2004). The cult of the fourth- century hermit saint was especially spread in Italy through the hospitals run by the Antonines after the lay confraternity established at La-Motteaux-Bois was transformed into a religious order. La-Motteaux-Bois was the site of the Benedictine abbey, later called St. Antoine-en-Viennois, where the relics of Saint Anthony had been transferred in the eleventh century. The inscription above the saint’s halo also alludes to the French origin of the order. [12] Saint Elizabeth, the founder of a hospital, was especially venerated in the Middle Ages for her charitable activities; cf. Sankt Elisabeth: Fürstin, Dienerin, Heilige (Sigmaringen, 1981), 101–116 and passim. For her iconography, see George Kaftal, Saints in Italian Art, vol. 1, Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting (Florence, 1952), 337–343. [13] On the unusual motif of the isolated figure of the crucified Christ in the gable medallion of an altarpiece, which recurs in some works of Allegretto Nuzi and also in Florentine paintings of the second half of the fourteenth century, see Richard Offner, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting: The Fourteenth Century, sec. 3, vol. 5, Bernardo Daddi and His Circle, ed. Miklós Boskovits, Ada Labriola, and Martina Ingendaay Rodio, new ed. (Florence, 2001), 394 n. 3. [14] See François Garnier, Le langage de l’image au Moyen Age, vol. 1, Signification et symbolique (Paris, 1982), 174. [15] On Saint Venantius, martyred under the persecutions of Decius, see C. Boccanera, “Venanzio da Camerino,” in Bibliotheca sanctorum, 12 vols. (Rome, 1969), 12:969–978. The saint, patron of the city of Camerino in the Marche, was also the titular saint of the Collegiata (cathedral since 1728) of Fabriano. [16] See Bernard Berenson, The Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance, 2nd ed. (New York, 1909), 131–132. [17] I refer to the panel of Saint Anthony Abbot with a group of devotees mentioned in Provenance note 1 above. The painting, dated 1353, was first attributed to Allegretto Nuzi by Ricci in 1834. Although Offner in 1927 Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints and Angels, and Saints Anthony Abbot 10 and Venantius [entire triptych]