The Burlington magazine

by Unknown

PART I

AMONG the books of the Spedale di San Paolo, at Florence, is a volume marked on the cover ‘Testimenti,’ and lettered ‘B.’ It contains a record of all wills between the years 1399 and 1526 under which the hospital in any way benefited; and on fol. 16 recto is the following entry: ‘Alexo di Baldovinecto Baldovinetti has this day, the 23rd of March, 1499, made a donation to our hospital of all his goods, personal and real, after his death, with obligation that the hospital support Mea, his servant, so long as she live: [the deed was] engrossed by Ser Piero di Leonardo da Vinci, notary of Florence, on the day aforesaid.’ ‘Alexo died on the last day of August, 1499; and was buried in his tomb in San Lorenzo; and the hospital remained the heirs of his goods. May God pardon him his sins!’[3] ¶ Milanese, who quotes this ‘ricordo’ textually, though not without some slight errors, in his notes to Vasari, states that the volume in which it occurs is preserved in the Archivio di Stato at Florence; whereas the archives of the hospital are now in the ‘Archivio’ of Santa Maria Nuova, San Paolo having been united to the latter hospital by the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo, c. 1783.[4] ¶ At first sight, this ‘ricordo’ would not seem to bear out the story which Vasari tells of Alesso and his dealings with the authorities of San Paolo. It states only that Alesso made a donation to the hospital of all his worldly goods after his death, upon the condition that his faithful servant, Mea, was to be lodged, clad, and fed, during her life; whereas Vasari, on the contrary, states that the painter himself became an inmate of San Paolo. ‘Alesso,’ he says, ‘lived eighty years; and when he began to grow old, desirous of being able to attend to the studies of his profession with a quiet mind, he, as many men often do, entered the Hospital of San Paolo: and in order, perhaps, that he might be received the more willingly, and be better treated (though it might, indeed, have happened by chance), he caused a great chest to be brought into his rooms, in the hospital; acting as if a goodly sum of money were therein: whereupon the master and the other ministrants of the hospital, believing that this was so, bestowed on him the greatest kindness in the world; since they knew that he had made a donation to the hospital, of whatever was found in his possession at his death. But when Alesso died, only drawings, cartoons, and a little book which set forth how to make the tesserae for mosaic, together with the stucco and the method of working them, were found therein.’[5] ¶ The apparent discrepancy between the ‘ricordo’ in the books of San Paolo and Vasari’s account led me to search, and not without success, for the deed by which Alesso’s property passed to the hospital. I found that both the name of the notary and the date of the execution of the instrument were incorrectly given in the ‘ricordo’ cited above. The instrument was engrossed by Ser Piero di Antonio di Ser Piero da Vinci, the father of Leonardo da Vinci, and executed on March 16, 1497–8. By this deed Alesso, ex titulo et causa donationis, ‘irrevocably gave and bequeathed during his life-time, to the Hospital of the Pinzocheri of the third order of St. Francis, otherwise called the Hospital of San Pagholo, and to the poor of Christ living in the said hospital for the time being,’ etc., ‘all his goods, real and personal, present and future, wherever situate or existent,’ etc., reserving to himself ‘the use and usufruct of the said goods,’ etc., ‘for the term of his natural life.’ The ‘rogiti’ of Ser Piero da Vinci for the year 1498 have not been preserved among the ‘protocols’ of that notary now in the Archivio di Stato at Florence; and so it is no longer possible to say under what conditions, if any, the donation was made: but it is to be presumed upon the evidence of the ‘ricordo’ cited above, that it entailed the obligation on the part of the hospital, to maintain Mea, his servant, during her life. ¶ On October 17, 1498, Alesso executed what was technically known as a ‘renuntiatio,’ which was likewise engrossed by Ser Piero da Vinci. This second instrument, which begins by reciting the former deed of donation in the terms quoted above, sets forth how, on that day, Alesso, ‘by reason of lawful and reasonable causes of motion influencing, as they assert, his mind, and by his mere, free, and proper will,’ etc., ‘renounced the said use and usufruct, expressly reserved to himself in the aforesaid donation, and freely remitted and released the said use and usufruct to the said hospital, and to the poor of Christ dwelling in the said hospital,’ etc. The text of this document, which is preserved in the Archivio di Stato at Florence, is printed at length at the end of this article.[6] It allows us to draw but one conclusion; namely, that when the painter executed the deed of donation on March 16, 1497–8, he had been left without wife or children; and that he anticipated but two contingencies against which he would provide after his death—the health of his soul and the maintenance of his faithful servant, Mea. ¶ Alesso had married late in life. It appears from the ‘Portata al Catasto,’ returned by him in 1470, that he was still unmarried at that time, and that he was possessed of no real property, but rented a house in the ‘popolo’ of San Lorenzo, in Florence, described in his later ‘Denunzie,’ as being in the Via dell’ Ariento, at the Canto de’ Gori.[7] In another ‘Denunzia’ returned in 1480, Alesso thus describes his family:—‘Alesso Baldovinetti, aforesaid, aged 60, painter; Monna Daria, his wife, aged 45; Mea, his maid-servant, aged 13.’ As a matter of fact, Alesso was 63 years of age, having been born on October 14, 1427, Milanesi, by the way, in his notes to Vasari, gives the name of his, Alesso’s wife, as Diana, in error for Daria.[8] According to the same ‘Denunzia,’ the painter was at that time possessed of a parcel of land of twelve staiora, situate in the ‘popolo’ of Santa Maria a Quinto, and another parcel of seven staiora, in the same ‘popolo,’ the latter having been bought in 1479, with a part of his wife’s dowry. It is, therefore, probable that he had not long been married at that time.[9] It appears from a yet later ‘Denunzia’ on which the ‘Decima’ of 1498 was assessed, though the return itself was probably drawn up in 1495, that he possessed, in addition to the two parcels of land in the ‘popolo’ of Santa Maria a Quinto, a third parcel of over eleven staiora, in the adjoining ‘popolo’ of San Martino a Sesto, on the road to Prato. He was still living at that time in the same house at the Canto de’ Gori; and he also enjoyed the rents of two shops, with dwellinghouses above, which had been made over to him for the term of his natural life, by the Consuls of the Arte dei Mercanti, on February 26, 1483–4, in payment of his ‘magistero e esercitio et trafficho,’ in having restored the mosaics of the Baptistery of San Giovanni.[10] ¶ The Spedale di San Paolo, of which the beautiful loggia, with its ornaments by Andrea della Robbia, still remains on the Piazza of Santa Maria Novella, was originally a hospital for the care of the sick; and as such it is mentioned in a document of 1208.[11] From the time that St. Francis himself is said to have lodged at San Paolo, the hospital appears to have been administered by Franciscans, called in the records ‘Fratres tertii Ordinis de Penitentia S. Pauli.’ During the fourteenth century, the house underwent certain reforms; and in 1398 it was decreed by the Signoria, ‘that the place was to be no longer a hospital, but a house of Frati Pinzocheri of the third order.’[12] Notwithstanding, the members of the community continued to devote themselves to the care of the sick; and a papal brief of 1452 directs that the revenues of the house were to be set apart for the infirm.[13] At an early period in the history of San Paolo, mention occurs of Pinzochere, that is to say, women attached to the community, no doubt for the service of the hospital; but unlike the men of the house, who are invariably called Frati Pinzocheri, they were not dignified by the title of ‘Monache’: from this Stefano Rosselli infers that they originally had no share in its government.[14] Owing, however, to some cause which is not very clear, the Frati Pinzocheri appear to have died out towards the latter part of the fifteenth century, leaving the women in possession of the hospital. From evidence that Rosselli and Richa adduce, it seems that in 1497 San Paolo was controlled and administered entirely by Pinzochere; and in the document of 1499, cited below, it is called ‘lo spedale di pizichora del terzo ordjne dj san franchesco.’[15] From this we must conclude that, when Alesso renounced the use and enjoyment of his property on October 17, 1498, he entered the hospital of San Paolo, not as a member of the community, but as a sick man who sought nothing more on earth than to be tended during the brief span of life that was left to him. He died ten months later, on August 29, 1499, and was buried in his own tomb in San Lorenzo.[16] The hospital of San Paolo probably inherited, along with Alesso’s other property, all his cartoons and drawings, as Vasari asserts: they, certainly, came into the possession of his books and papers, as we know. The little treatise on the art of Mosaic has long been lost; but Milanesi has stated in a well-known passage in his Vasari, that the autograph manuscript of certain ‘Ricordi’ of Alesso Baldovinetti still existed in his time, in the Archivio of Santa Maria Nuova, among the books of the hospital of San Paolo. He adds that these ‘Ricordi were published at Lucca in 1868, by Dr. Giovanni Pierotti, per le nozze Bongi e Ranalli.’[17] Few of those innumerable, little pamphlets with which Italians, learned and unlearned, delight to celebrate the marriages of their patrons, friends, or relatives, are more difficult to find than the little brochure of ten leaves, in a green paper wrapper, to which Milanesi alludes. The title page runs thus: ‘Ricordi di Alesso Baldovinetti, pittore fiorentino del secolo xv. Lucca. Tipografia Landi. 1868.’ Unfortunately only a portion of Baldovinetti’s manuscript is given in this pamphlet. The extracts, which fill less than a half of its twenty pages, are partly given in the text, and partly in an abstract, of the original. The rest of the pamphlet is filled with the introductory preface and notes of Dr. Pierotti. ¶ It is now some years ago since I first made an attempt to find the original manuscript of these ‘Ricordi,’ in the Archivio of Santa Maria Nuova, only to discover that I was not the first student of Florentine painting to search in vain for the volume. Whether it had been borrowed by Pierotti, or merely mislaid, or in what way it had disappeared, no one could tell me. Not long after this attempt, however, I chanced upon what proved to be a clue to its history. While searching among the ‘Carte Milanesi,’ the voluminous manuscript collections which the famous commentator of Vasari left to the Communal Library of Siena, I came across a series of extracts from the ‘Ricordi’ of Baldovinetti, in the handwriting of Milanesi, with the title: ‘Estratto del libro dei Ricordi di Alesso Baldovinetti autografo essitente nell’ Archivio dello Spedale di Santa Maria Nuova di Firenze.—Libri dello Spedale di San Paolo, 12 Febb^o. 1850.’ On comparing these extracts with Pierotti’s pamphlet, I found that the two copies agreed word for word with one another. It was evident that Pierotti had made use of Milanesi’s manuscript (indeed, he owns as much in his concluding note), and that he may never have seen the original manuscript. ¶ Last autumn, having occasion to make some researches in the Archivio of Santa Maria Nuova, with my friend Sir Domenic Colnaghi, for his ‘Dictionary of Florentine Painters,’ I took the opportunity of renewing my search for the missing volume. On the top shelf of one of the presses which contain the books and papers of the hospital of San Paolo, I came across a ‘filza’ labelled ‘Libri Diversi,’ and filled with miscellaneous account-books of the hospital, chiefly of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Among these was a small, upright book of forty-seven leaves, bound in a parchment cover which was inscribed:—

RICHORDI[18]

·Ḅ̇·

PAINTED-GLASS WINDOW DECORATED WITH FIGURES OF GOD THE FATHER AND ST. ANDREW, FROM CARTOONS BY ALESSO BALDOVINETTI; OVER THE ALTAR OF THE PAZZI CHAPEL IN THE CLOISTER OF SANTA CROCE, FLORENCE

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On the recto of the first leaf was written: ‘1470. In this book I will keep a record of all the expenses that I shall incur in the chapel of the High Altar of Santa Trinita, namely of gold, blue, green, lake, with all other colours and expenses that shall be incurred on behalf of the said chapel; and so we may remain in agreement [I and] Messer Bongiani Gianfigliazi, the commissioner of the work, and the patron of the said chapel, as appears by a writing which I hold, subscribed by his own hand.’ ¶ Fol. 2 tergo, and fol. 3 recto, were filled with entries relating to the purchase of colours and other materials for the work of the chapel, and fol. 3 tergo contained two further entries in the same hand; after which was written, in a different hand: ‘Here follow the records of the hospital of the Pinzochere of the third order of St. Francis, written by Giovanni di Ser Antonio Vianizzi.’ The remainder of the book was filled with entries relating to the hospital of San Paolo, the first of which recorded a payment of twenty-three lire, made by the hospital on October 19, 1499, to Luca d’Alesso Baldovinetti. On comparing the ‘Ricordi’ relating to Santa Trinita, with the ‘Portata al Catasto,’ returned by Alesso in 1471, it was clearly evident that both documents were in the handwriting of the painter. Of the ‘Portata al Catasto,’ returned by Alesso in 1480, two copies exist in the same hand; but they do not appear to have been written by the painter himself, although Milanesi has reproduced a portion of one of them, in his ‘Scrittura di Artisti Italiani,’ Florence, 1876, Vol. 1, No. 74, as a specimen of his handwriting. ¶ What is more, this manuscript, which I may call ‘Libro B,’ throws a light upon the nature of the missing volume, ‘Libro A.’ In the case of ‘Libro B,’ what undoubtedly happened was, that the good Pinzochere, on looking over Alesso’s property after his death, found an account-book of which only the first three leaves had been used. With a proper spirit of economy, they determined to make use of the rest of the book for the accounts of their hospital: but instead of tearing out the leaves containing Alesso’s ‘Ricordi,’ they fortunately allowed them to stand; their procurator adding the note I have cited above. The same thing probably happened in the case of ‘Libro A.’ From the extracts that Milanesi made, it appears that Alesso’s ‘Ricordi’ only filled some sixteen pages of a volume, that cannot well have contained fewer leaves than ‘Libro B.’ With this clue to its discovery, I leave my friends and rivals in Florence to continue the search for a volume, whose loss every genuine student of Italian painting must regret. ¶ The history of the Cappella Maggiore of Santa Trinita affords a curious instance of the tardy process by which many of the Florentine churches and their chapels were brought to completion. The present church of Santa Trinita was begun c. 1250, but many of the lateral chapels remained unfinished until the fifteenth century, and among them the Cappella Maggiore. On November 1, 1371, the abbot of Santa Trinita, inter missarum solepnia, made an appeal to many of the chief parishioners, who had assembled for mass, to contribute to the expenses necessary for the erection of the Cappella Maggiore.[19] The work appears to have proceeded very slowly, since it is on record that the chapel was but half built in the year 1463. In order to bring it to completion, the abbot, having assembled the parishioners in the church, gave notice that since money was wanting to finish the work, licence to do so would be granted to the family that was able and willing to undertake the expense; and accordingly on February 4 of the same year, the patronage of the chapel was granted by acclamation of the parishioners, to Messer Bongianni Gianfigliazzi and his descendants.[20] ¶ The Gianfigliazzi were an ancient Florentine family, of no little repute in the conduct of affairs and arms during the last two centuries of the republic. Ugolino Verino celebrates them in his Latin poem, ‘De Illustratione Urbis Florentiae’:—

Non genus externum est: agro venere paterno,

Janfiliazze, tui, si vera est fama, priores.

Protulit illustres equites generosa propago.[21]

According to Piero Monaldi, the Gianfigliazzi were descended and took their name from one ‘Ioannes filius Acci,’ who is named in a treaty concluded between the Sienese and Florentines in the year 1201.[22] Besides knights of Malta and Santo Spirito, this family boasted of ten gonfaloniers of the republic, and thirty priors; the first of whom held office in 1345. Gherardo Gianfigliazzi was gonfalonier in 1462; and Messer Bongianni, his brother, in 1467, and again in 1470. The latter, ‘magnificus miles’ as he is styled in documents, was a ‘cavalier spron d’oro,’ and famous in his day as a leader of the Florentine forces. He was several times created ambassador of the Florentine republic, and one of the Dieci di Balia. In 1471 he was one of the six ‘orators’ sent to felicitate Sixtus IV on his election to the papacy; and in 1483 he was appointed ‘commessario’ in the war against the Genoese, which ended in the capture of Sarzana. Alesso was not the only famous artist which this family patronized. Their shield of arms, carved with a lion rampant, by Desiderio da Settignano, is still to be seen on the front of their palace on the Lung’ arno Corsini, at Florence.[23] ¶ Giuseppe Richa states that the deed granting the patronage of the Cappella Maggiore of Santa Trinita to the Gianfigliazzi, was engrossed by Ser Pierozzo Cerbini on February 13, 1463–4, which we may well believe;[24] but he adds that the ‘ius patronale’ was vested in the persons of Messer Bongianni and Messer Gherardo.[25] The latter statement, however, would seem to be incorrect, for Gherardo was already dead at that time, as we learn from the inscription on the sepulchral slab (one of the most beautiful of its kind in Florence), which is still to be seen on the floor of the chapel, but now partly covered by a choir-organ:

GHERARDO . IANFILIATIO . DE . SE .
FAMILIA . ET . PATRIA . BE[? NE-
MERITO BONIOANNES] . FRATRI .
PIENTISSIMO . SIBI ..... IDVS . SEP .
AN . SAL . MCCCCLXIII

Photo, Alinari

THE ALTAR-PIECE PAINTED BY ALESSO BALDOVINETTI FOR THE CAPPELLA MAGGIORE OF SANTA TRINITÀ, AT FLORENCE, AND NOW PRESERVED IN THE FLORENTINE ACADEMY

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Messer Bongianni appears to have proceeded at once with the work of finishing the chapel. His share of the work may yet be made out: the vaulting, with its heavy roll ribs, too large for the corbels on which they rest, was clearly erected by him. The corbels themselves probably date from the thirteenth century. Furthermore, he constructed the large window of two round-headed lights, and an a ‘occhio,’ or circular light, above, which is still to be seen in the head of the chapel. The structure being completed, he next turned to the decoration, which he began by filling the lights of the window with painted glass. Alesso Baldovinetti enters, in his ‘Ricordi,’ Libro A, that ‘Lionardo di Bartolommeo, surnamed Lastra, and Giovanni di Andrea, glazier, owe me this 14th day of February, 1465[-6], lire 120; which moneys are for the painting of a window placed in the Cappella Maggiore of Santa Trinita; and Bongianni di Bongianni Gianfigliazzi has ordered this window to be executed by the said Lastra and Giovanni, master-glaziers; and I, Alesso, have designed and painted it for them, at the rate of forty soldi the square braccio: the ‘occhio’ above being estimated with the said window, in the said sum, and according to the said measure.‘[26] It appears from the ‘Trattato’ of Cennino Cennini that it was the common practice of the ‘maestri di finestre’ in Florence in the fifteenth century not only to employ painters to design cartoons for their windows, but also to paint the design upon the glass. The ‘maestro di finistre,’ says Cennini, ‘will come to you with the measure of his window, both breadth and length. You will take as many sheets of paper glued together as will be necessary for your window; and you will draw your figure first in charcoal, afterwards you will outline it in ink, having shaded your figure as completely as if you were drawing it on panel. Then the master-glazier takes this design and spreads it out on a desk or board, large and even, and according as he wishes to colour the draperies of the figure, so, piece by piece, he cuts the glasses, and gives you a colour made of copper filings, well ground; and with this colour, piece by piece, you proceed with a little pencil of minever, having a good point, to contrive your shadows, making the joins of the folds and other parts of your figure agree, one piece of glass with another, just as the master-glazier has cut and put them together; and with this colour you are able, without exception, to shade on every sort of glass.’[27] ¶ In 1616, the glass designed and painted by Alesso, ‘being all spoiled, broken, and patched, in such a manner that it yielded no light, except where there was no wire-screen,’ the whole of the lights were reglazed anew, at the joint expense of the monastery and the patrons of the chapel.[28] The beautiful stonework of the window, however, designed in the classic taste of the time, with finely-wrought pilasters at the jambs and mullion, was restored and filled with modern stained-glass during the recent restoration of the church, in 1890–7. ¶ It appears from the ‘Ricordi,’ Libro A, of Alesso Baldovinetti, that the painter gave designs for several windows to the ‘maestri di finestre.’ In 1472, he designed an Annunciation to be executed in glass for the cathedral church of San Martino, at Lucca; and in 1481, he designed a window for the church of Sant’ Agostino, at Arezzo.[29] These windows have perished, but there still remains in Florence a painted window which was undoubtedly executed from a cartoon by Alesso. This window, which, so far as I am aware, has never been ascribed to him, is above the altar of the Pazzi chapel, in the first cloister of Santa Croce. [Plate I.] It consists of two lights, a lower circular-headed light containing a full-length figure of St. Andrew, the patron saint of the chapel, with the arms of the Pazzi below; and an upper round window, or ‘occhio,’ containing a half-length figure of God the Father. This window affords a good example of the use of the pure and brilliant colours which the Florentine ‘maestri di finestre’ employed in the fifteenth century, and which to our northern eyes are apt to appear crude and too little wrought upon. But seen, as such windows were doubtless intended to be seen, with the full power of the Italian sun upon them, their colours become fused, and take that jewel-like quality which is essentially distinctive of the finest painted-glass. The figure of St. Andrew is draped in a golden leaf-green robe, lined with a smalt blue, and worn over an underrobe of a warm and brilliant purple. The frieze of the niche behind the figure is of a colder purple; the capitals of a madder tint; the cupola of a smalt blue; and the sky in the background of a full ultramarine. The figure of God the Father in the ‘occhio’ above, wears a golden purple vest, and a mantle of smalt blue; and the curtains of a madder purple, lined with green, which are drawn apart, reveal a skyey background of ultramarine behind the figure. During the recent restoration of the Pazzi chapel, this window was repaired, and several missing pieces of the glass made good. These repairs are especially noticeable in the ultramarine glass. ¶ The high altar of Santa Trinita was originally placed immediately below the window, in the head of the Cappella Maggiore. Its beautiful marble frontal, carved with the symbol of the Trinity in relief, was found during the recent restoration of the church, in the Cappella della Pura, in Santa Maria Novella, and has once more been put to its original use. For this altar Alesso, as he records in Libro A, received the commission from Messer Bongianni, on April 11, 1470, to paint an altar-piece, in which was to be a Trinity with two saints, namely, St. Benedict and St. John Gualbert, and angels. He finished it on February 8, 1471, and received eighty-nine gold florins in payment for the work.[30] In 1569, the high altar was brought forward, and placed below the arch of the Cappella Maggiore; and the choir which anciently lay before the high altar, in the body of the church, was reconstructed in the chapel, behind the altar. In 1671, the crucifix of St. John Gualbert was brought from San Miniato, and placed upon the new high altar; and Alesso’s altar-piece was left hanging in its original position, below the window of the choir, where it was to be seen when Don Averardo Niccolini collected his notices of Santa Trinita, towards the middle of the seventeenth century.[31] At a later time the picture was removed into the sacristy; and finally, upon the suppression of the monastery in 1808, it was taken to the Florentine Academy, where it is still preserved, No. 159. [Plate II.] It is painted on a panel measuring 7 ft. 8½ ins. in height, and 9 ft. 1¾ ins. in length. God the Father is seated in the centre of the composition, in the midst of a glory of seraphim, supporting the cross on which the figure or Christ is hanging. The Holy Ghost, in the form of a dove, hovers above the crucifix; and at the foot of the cross, which rests upon the earth, is the skull of Adam. In the lower left-hand corner kneels St. Benedict, in the habit of his order; and on the opposite side of the picture kneels St. John Gualbert. In the upper corners, two angels draw back a curtain embroidered with pearls; while other angels hover around, against the skyey background. Dry, almost unpleasing as a whole, and with little or nothing of that delicate feeling for sensuous beauty which distinguishes Alesso’s early works, this altar-piece is, nevertheless, one of the most remarkable productions extant of Florentine painting in the fifteenth century. In execution, it shows a mastery of technique to which few of Alesso’s contemporaries attained. The draperies, for instance, are wrought with a richness of colour and texture which recalls the work of some great Fleming. In conception too severely understood, in presentation too precisely wrought out, and with too exacting a definition, this altar-piece seems to forestall something of that profoundly intellectual rendering of constructed form, which Michael Angelo afterwards carried to its height in the fresco of the Last Judgement. Certainly, there are few more striking instances of the manner to which the Florentine painters of the fifteenth century developed the technique and science of painting.

[To be continued.]

THE BLESSED VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH ANGELS, SURROUNDED BY VIRGIN SAINTS (DEXTER: SS. FAUSTA, AN UNKNOWN SAINT, AGNES, CATHERINE, AND DOROTHEA; SINISTER: SS. APOLLINA, GODELIVA, CECILIA, BARBARA, AND LUCY); IN THE BACKGROUND, THE PAINTER AND HIS WIFE ON EITHER SIDE; BY GERARD DAVID; IN THE ROUEN MUSEUM

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