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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