"Me Guido de Senis diebus depinxit amoenis
Quem Christus lenis nullis velit angere poenis."[1]
Next we may refer to the two colossal Madonnas by Cimabue, preserved at Florence. The first, which was painted for the Vallombrosian monks of the S. Trinità, is now in the gallery of the academy. It has all the stiffness and coldness of the Byzantine manner. There are three adoring angels on each side, disposed one above another, and four prophets are placed below in separate niches, half figures, holding in their hands their prophetic scrolls, as in the old mosaic at Capua, already described. The second is preserved in the Ruccellai chapel, in the S. Maria Novella, in its original place. In spite of its colossal size, and formal attitude, and severe style, the face of this Madonna is very striking, and has been well described as "sweet and unearthly, reminding you of a sibyl." The infant Christ is also very fine. There are three angels on each side, who seem to sustain the carved chair or throne on which the Madonna is seated; and the prophets, instead, of being below, are painted in small circular medallions down each side of the frame. The throne and the background are covered with gold. Vasari gives a very graphic and animated account of the estimation in which this picture was held when first executed. Its colossal dimensions, though familiar in the great mosaics, were hitherto unknown in painting; and not less astonishing appeared the deviation, though slight, from ugliness and lifelessness into grace and nature. "And thus," he says, "it happened that this work was an object of so much admiration to the people of that day, they having never seen anything better, that it was carried in solemn procession, with the sound of trumpets and other festal demonstrations, from the house of Cimabue to the church, he himself being highly rewarded and honoured for it. It is further reported, and may be read in certain records of old painters, that, whilst Cimabue was painting this picture, in a garden near the gate of San Pietro, King Charles the Elder, of Anjou, passed through Florence, and the authorities of the city, among other marks of respect, conducted him to see the picture of Cimabue. When this work was thus shown to the King it had not before been seen by any one; wherefore all the men and women of Florence hastened in crowds to admire it, making all possible demonstrations of delight. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood, rejoicing in this occurrence, ever afterwards called that place Borgo Allegri; and this name it has ever since retained, although in process of time it became enclosed within the walls of the city."
[Footnote 1: The meaning, for it is not easy to translate literally, is "Me, hath painted, in pleasant days, Guido of Siena, Upon whose soul may Christ deign to have mercy!">[
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In the strictly devotional representations of the Virgin and Child, she is invariably seated, till the end of the thirteenth century: and for the next hundred years the innovation of a standing figure was confined to sculpture. An early example is the beautiful statue by Niccolà Pisano, in the Capella della Spina at Pisa; and others will be found in Cicognara'a work (Storia della Scultura Moderna). The Gothic cathedrals, of the thirteenth century, also exhibit some most graceful examples of the Madonna in sculpture, standing on a pedestal, crowned or veiled, sustaining on her left arm the divine Child, while in her right she holds a sceptre or perhaps a flower. Such crowned or sceptred effigies of the Virgin were placed on the central pillar which usually divided the great door of a church into two equal parts; in reference to the text, "I am the DOOR; by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved." In Roman Catholic countries we find such effigies set up at the corners of streets, over the doors of houses, and the gates of gardens, sometimes rude and coarse, sometimes exceedingly graceful, according to the period of art and skill of the local artist. Here the Virgin appears in her character of Protectress—our Lady of Grace, or our Lady of Succour.
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In pictures, we rarely find the Virgin standing, before the end of the fourteenth century. An almost singular example is to be found in an old Greek Madonna, venerated as miraculous, in the Cathedral of Orvieto, under the title of La Madonna di San Brizio, and to which is attributed a fabulous antiquity. I may be mistaken, but my impression, on seeing it, was, that it could not be older than the end of the thirteenth century. The crowns worn by the Virgin and Christ are even more modern, and out of character with the rest of the painting. In Italy the pupils of Giotto first began to represent the Virgin standing on a raised dais. There is an example by Puccio Capanna, engraved in d'Agincourt's work; but such figures are very uncommon. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries they occur more frequently in the northern than in the Italian schools.
In the simple enthroned Madonna, variations of attitude and sentiment were gradually introduced. The Virgin, instead of supporting her Son with both hands, embraces him with one hand, and with the other points to him; or raises her right hand to bless the worshipper. Then the Child caresses his mother,—a charming and natural idea, but a deviation from the solemnity of the purely religious significance; better imagined, however, to convey the relation between the mother and child, than the Virgin suckling her infant, to which I have already alluded in its early religious, or rather controversial meaning. It is not often that the enthroned Virgin is thus occupied. Mr. Rogers had in his collection an exquisite example where the Virgin, seated in state on a magnificent throne under a Gothic canopy and crowned as queen of heaven, offers her breast to the divine Infant Then the Mother adores her Child. This is properly the Madre Pia afterwards so beautifully varied. He lies extended on her knee, and she looks down upon him with hands folded in prayer: or she places her hand under his foot, an attitude which originally implied her acknowledgment of his sovereignty and superiority, but was continued as a natural motif when the figurative and religious meaning was no longer considered. Sometimes the Child looks up in his mother's face with his finger on his lip, expressing the Verbum sum, "I am the Word." Sometimes the Child, bending forwards from his mother's knee, looks down benignly on the worshippers, who are supposed to be kneeling at the foot of the altar. Sometimes, but very rarely he sleeps; never in the earliest examples; for to exhibit the young Redeemer asleep, where he is an object of worship, was then a species of solecism.
When the enthroned Virgin is represented holding a book, or reading, while the infant Christ, perhaps, lays his hand upon it—a variation in the first simple treatment not earlier than the end of the fourteenth century, and very significant—she is then the Virgo Sapientissima, the most Wise Virgin; or the Mother of Wisdom, Mater Sapientiæ; and the book she holds is the Book of Wisdom.[1] This is the proper interpretation, where the Virgin is seated on her throne. In a most beautiful picture by Granacci (Berlin Gal.), she is thus enthroned, and reading intently; while John the Baptist and St. Michael stand on each side.
[Footnote 1: L'Abbé Crosnier, "Iconographie Chrétienne;" but the book as an attribute had another meaning, for which, see the Introduction.]