CHAPTER I.
[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:
| The Early Part of the St. Francis Series (II-XVIII) | before | 1300 |
| The Mosaic of the Navicella (completely restored) | about | 1300 |
| Stigmatization of St. Francis (Louvre) | „ | „ |
| The Arena Frescoes | about | 1305 |
| The Madonna of Ognissanti | „ | „ |
| The Franciscan Allegories, Lower Church (design only) | „ | 1312–20 |
| The Stefaneschi Altar-piece (in part) | „ | 1320, perhaps earlier |
| The Peruzzi Chapel, Santa Croce | after | 1320 |
| The Bardi Chapel, „ „ | about | 1325 |
| The Dormition of the Virgin, at Berlin | „ | 1325 |
| Madonna, Ancona, Bologna (design only) | „ | 1330 |
| The Paradise in the Bargello | after | 1330 |
| Part of the Magdalen Legends there | „ | „ |
| Part of the Magdalen Legends, Lower Church, Assisi | „ | „ |
| Baroncelli Altar-piece (design only) | „ | „ |
| Small panels of the Life of Christ | ||
| at New York, Fenway Court, Boston; | „ | „ |
| Munich and Berenson Collection, | „ | „ |
| Settignano (bottega works) | „ | „ |
[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.