History of Italian Renaissance art - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture

644 Pages·1973·152.01 MB·English

by  Frederic Hartt

HISTORY
* OF
ITALIAN
R€NAISSANC€
ART
PAINTING SCULPTURE
ARCHITECTURE
• •
FREDERICK HARTT
A
ABHAMS
I
—
;
FOREWORD
A book in English dealing with the art of the Italian objectivity. First, forinstance, I admit toa personal slant
—
Renaissance painting, sculpture, and architecture in favor of Tuscany, and especially Florence, which I
needs no apology for its existence. In recent decades would be willing to relinquish if it could be proved to
several single-volume introductions to Italian Renais- me that the Renaissance originated anywhere else.
sance painting have appeared in Enghsh, a few on archi- Second, it has seemed to me more important to write at
tecture, and only one on sculpture. None, to my knowl- lengthabout revolutionaryfiguresand majormovements
edge, has attempted to treat all three. Yet all three were than to include certain minor masters, no matter how
closely related in Renaissance Italy. Often the same delightful their works may be. I have tried to be fair,
masterpracticedtwoofthemajorartswithequalsuccess despite my Tuscan bias. I may be castigated for having
sometimes he achieved commanding stature in all of omitted, for example, Torriti and Rusuti, Foppa and
them.And,especiallyintheearlyRenaissance,architects, Bergognone, Mazzolino and Ortolano, Romanino and
sculptors, and painters interchanged their ideas with the Moretto, Bartolommeo and Alvise Vivarini. I can only
greatest freedom, often going so far as to borrow for reply that, for the same reasons of relative importance
exploitation in their own arts effects which seem more and quality, I had to pass over such Tuscans as Pacino di
appropriate to other techniques and other media. This Bonaguida and Giovanni del Biondo, Luca di Tomm^
book may, therefore, fairly claim to fill a gap. and Taddeo di Bartolo, Bartolommeo di Giovanni,
The organization ofthe book has precipitated a series Neroccio, Agostino di Duccio and Mino da Fiesole,
A
of difficult choices. comprehensive treatment of all Bacchiacca and Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio.
the gifted masters atwork from theAlps to Sicily, during My guiding principle of selection has meant that
the period of roughly three centuries which can be em- certainpictureshavehadtobereproducedherenomatter
braced by the term Renaissance, the whole compressed how often the reader may have seen them elsewhere;
between one pairofcovers, mighthaveproduced a useful otherwise I would have had to refer him to a hbrary of
handbook but not a readable account. Worse, it would other volumes. But even here, from time to time I have
not have been possible to illustrate all the works of art changed the traditionalemphasis, and put in freshworks
mentioned in the text with photographs oflegible scale that I thought deserved to be better known, and left out
and quality. I chose, instead, the twin principles of ex- some familiar warhorses. Sometimes it has been im-
tended discussion and adequate illustration. In fact, no possible to give a fair account of the work of an artist
work ofart treated in the book is left unillustrated. with so few examples. Pazienza, as the Italians would
In making my choices I have tried to leave some for say; the works ofart themselves are in the galleries and
other teachers. While my own undergraduate course in churches to be enjoyed and thought about, and the rich
Italian Renaissanceartcovers manymoreworksthancan literature about them is on the shelves to be read. My
possibly be discussed or illustrated in a single book, I goal will be attained if I have stimulated the reader's
have never attempted to treat in my lectures all the appetite to do both.
masters who appear in the following pages. Individual Throughout the book I have attempted, where possi-
teachers may wish to t—ake up artists I omit, orvice versa, ble, to present the individual work ofart in its context of
—andthegeneralreader whose rightsshouldberespected contemporary history, to show how it fulfilled specific
ought also to be able, ifhe wishes, to get a wider view needs on the part ofartist and patron, and how its mean-
ofthe subject than can be fitted into any college course. ing was intended to be interpreted. Sometimes the texts I
Reasons could be advanced for every inclusion, every quote may seem abstruse and remote from our own
omission; but equally persuasive arguments will doubt- experience; that is not their fault. An iconologist
less be produced by critics who do not agree with my (one who interprets the meaning ofworks ofart through
judgments. Neither they nor I can claim complete texts) often meets with the objection, "But aren't you
reading all this into the work ofart?" Ifthe iconologist basicnotionson Ghiberti and Alberti,aswellason many
has found the right texts, he has discovered only what another aspect of Italian architecture and sculpture, I
was intended to be seen in the work ofart, and what the owe to Richard Krautheimer. Ugo Procacci, Leonetto
forgetfulness ofcenturies has caused to be read out ofit. Tintori, their colleagues in the Gabinetto dei Restauri
Aesthetically, of course, a work of art is no less inter- attheUfiizi,and ElizabethJonesatthe FoggArt Museum
esting if we do not know what it represented. But a havetaught mewhatlittle 1 knowabouttheall-important
knowledge of its meaning can admit us into realms of question oftechniques and their relation to style. Many
experience, in both the personality ofthe artist and the colleagues, youngerand older, have helped mewith ideas
period to which he was speaking, that would otherwise and criticism, especially Ludovico Borgo, Samuel Edger-
have been inaccessible. Such knowledge can also open ton, Sydney Freedberg, H. W. Janson, Charles Seymour;
our eyes to previously unobserved qualities ofform and Charles Sterling, and Jack Wasserman. My students at
color in the work ofart. And it can tell us much—about Washington University, the University ofPennsylvania,
why the artist did certain things the way he did and and the University of Virginia have not only listened to
even, at times, give us a flash of insight into the forces me and given me unspoken help and inspiration, but
which cause styles to change or disappear and new ones off"ered many crucial suggestions. Finally, the example,
to take their places. the confidence, and the unfailing assistance of Bernard
In quite a number ofinstances I have presented tenta- Berenson and Nicky Mariano, dear departed friends,
tive ideas, labeled as such, which will eventually, I hope, have helped me in innumerable ways.
be more completely expounded elsewhere, supported by The HarvardUniversityCenterforItalianRenaissance
all the necessary evidence. Would it have been better Studies at Villa I Tatti, which has fulfilled so well the
to leave them out? Rightly or wrongly, I have always high ideals of its founder, has granted me study space.
felt that I owed the student in my courses the benefit of Despite its devastation by natural disaster in 1966 the
my thoughts even when not fully tested by proof, and I Gabinetto Fotografico at the Uffizi has responded un-
sawno reasonwhyI shouldnotfollowthe sameprinciple failinglytomyinsistentrequestsforphotographs,ashave
in this book. Fratelli Alinari from their unparalleled photographic
I have reason to be grateful to many persons, and archives.
first to my mentors in the field of Italian art. Richard Month after month Dianne Hess patiently and ac-
Offner, Walter Friedlaender, and Erwin Panofsky left curately typed out the text. Patricia Egan and Mary Lea
a profound impression on the minds of their students, Bandy helped smooth out many a knotty passage.
and I am no exception. But above all I am thankful to Barbara Adler hunted down elusive photographs. Dirk
Millard Meiss, who gave me thirty-five years ago the Luykx is responsible for the handsome design and
best possible introduction to the systematic study of layout ofthe book. Harry N. Abrams, F. H. Landshoff,
Italian painting, whose writings have influenced me and Milton S. Fox met my every need, and gave me the
deeply ever since, and who has hstened to my ideas and warmest encouragement pubhshers could offer. Calix
read mywork withhischaracteristic indulgence. Certain mens uberrimus est.
F. H.
Old Ordinary
Charlottesville, Virginia
April 25, 1969
PART ONE
THE
LATE
MIDDLE
AGES
.1
Italy and Italian Art
I.
The matrix of Italian art is Italy itself, a land whose ning, patience, and skill. The Italian climate is less
physical beauty has attracted visitors from time imme- gentle than its reputation. While the winters seldom
morial. The variety of the Italian landscape, even over match the severity of those in the United States or
short distances, transforms a country roughly the size northern Europe, neither can they offer brilliant days
of California into a subcontinent, harboring a seeming of blue skies and flashing snowfields. Even in southern
infinity of pictorial surprises. Alpine masses shining Italy and Sicily, winter is dark, wet, and interminable.
with snow in midsummer, fantastic Dolomitic crags, Summer is hot, autumn rainy, and spring capricious.
turquoise lakes reflecting sunlight onto precipices, wide Yet in three millennia orso ofconstant and often stormy
plains of profound fertility, poplar-bordered rivers, marriage with the land, the Italians have created a
sandy beaches. Apennine chains enclosing green valleys, harmony between human life and the natural world not
vast pasture lands, glittering bays enclosed by moun- to be met with elsewhere. The forms of man's construc-
tains, volcanic islands, dark forests, eroded deserts, tions and the spaces provided by geography seem to fit.
—
gentle hills all these combine to make up the inex- In the second halfofthe twentieth century the relentless
haustible Italy that rewards and defeats a lifetime of forces of industrialization are draining the hill farms of
explorations. their population. Thousands of stone farmhouses are
But not all the beauty ofItaly was provided by nature. now abandoned, among untended olive trees and weedy,
More than any other country in the Western world, crumbling terraces. The modern suburbs ofthe growing
Italy may be said to have been humanized. The country cities have marred, with endless blocks of apartment
and its people have made their peace in an extraordinary houses and factories, the beauty of many a valley and
way. Most towns, even some large cities, do not lie in plain. The hydra ofthe modern motor highway and the
the valleys as we think they should, but are perched on compulsion of a newly prosperous population to take
hilltops, sometimes at dizzying heights. The reason for their holidays at the sea, have ruined many a magical
such positions is not hard to discover, for most Italian vista. But the basic concord of man and nature in Italy
towns were founded when defense was an essential. But still survives. The country roads are still traveled, and
the views from their ramparts offered for the inhabitants the hill farms still worked, by pairs of colossal and
not only a military but an intellectual command of sur- surprisingly gentle, long-horned oxen. The smoke still
rounding nature. Even the hills that are not crowned rises from the ancient towns on their hilltops. And views
—
with cities, villages, castles, or villas and most ofthose across the lines ofcypresses and up the rocky ledges still
—
that are have been turned into stepped gardens, man- reveal what might be the background of a fresco by
made terraces which hold, growing constantly and to- Benozzo Gozzoli. The vast Umbrian spaces are still
—
gether, those essentials of Italian civilization wheat, much as Perugino saw them. The rustling woods here
the olive, and the vine. Only here and there in Italy does and there in the Venetian plain still seem ready to dis-
one come across wild tracts whose rocks or sand have close a nymph and a satyr from the paintings of Bellini.
defied all attempts at cultivation. Everywhere cities can
be seen from cities, towns from towns. Agriculture and THE CITIES. It is the hard-won harmony between man
forests are alike submitted to the ordering intelligence and nature which makes not only the landscape of Italy
of man. On the Lombard plains the plots of woodland but the art of its people different from any other in the
are marshaled in battalions; like perfect sentinels the world. But this art in its entirety predates the rise ofthe
disciplined cypresses guard the Tuscan hills. Three- national state. The Italian language uses the same word
hundred-year-old olive trees shimmer in gray and silver, (paese) both for village and for country, in the sense of
winter and summer alike. The gardens are not flower- nation. No wonder, because to the medieval Italian and
beds but hedged and terraced evidences ofhuman plan- to millions of Italian peasants and villagers today the
ITALY AND ITALIAN ART / II
boundaries of "country" do not extend beyond what public, powerful merchants, all struggled to gain control
can be seen from a hilltop village. A map of Italy in the ofthe prosperous towns, and the rate oftheir success in
late Middle Ages or early Renaissance would look like the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries measures that of
a mosaic, every piece representing a separate political the destruction of communal liberties. The most suc-
entity hardly larger than the modern Italian village. cessful of all these super-polities was the papacy, which
These communes, which have often been compared with maintained varying degrees of control over a wide belt
the city-states of ancient Greece, were all that was left of Central Italian states.
ofthe Roman Empire, or let us say ofthe kingdoms and Some of the republics were destined for greatness.
dukedoms founded in the disorders following the bar- Venice, at the top of the Adriatic, had by the thirteenth
barian invasions and the ensuing break-up of ancient century extended an enormous colonial empire, largely
Roman society. During the later Middle Ages, from the in order to maintain its commercial ties with the East.
eleventh through the fourteenth century, these city- Florence, in Tuscany, by the end of the thirteenth
states were quite independent ofone another. Each had century was trading with northern Europe and with the
set up its own peculiar polity, at least outside of the Orient, and had branches of its banking firms all over
fairly monolithic South, the so-called Kingdom of the Europe, so much so that Pope Innocent III declared
Two Sicilies, or Kingdom of Naples. Each ruled its that there must be five elements, rather than four, be-
surrounding area of farmland and villages from the cause wherever Earth, Water, Fire, and Air were found
central city. At the outset of the later Middle Ages, in combination, one saw also Florentines. There were
most ofthe city-states were republics, but in Lombardy other important republics as well: Siena, Lucca. Pisa.
— —
many were ruled by their bishops. In general, they were Genoa all separate, proud, independent states and
merchant cities, and the republican governments were many much smaller. Each state, whether republic or
dominated by manufacturers, traders, and bankers. The despotism (duchy, marquisate, county, or merely
—
republics were in a state of endemic if sporadic war signoria lordship) tended to absorb its smaller neigh-
with each other, even with visible neighbors (Florence bors, either by conquest or by purchase, so that by the
with Fiesole, Assisi with Perugia). Fiercer even than the end of the fifteenth century the peninsula was divided
intercommunal wars were the civil eruptions, family into a much smaller number ofpolities, each now domi-
against family, party against party. Under such condi- nating a considerable subject territory. Yet none was
tions it was easy for powerful individuals to undermine able to unite against the menace of the increasingly
the independence ofa city-state. Nobles in their castles, centralized monarchies of the rest of Europe which, in
mercenary generals ostensibly hired to protect the re- the sixteenth century, were to submerge Italy almost
entirely.
The most striking phenomenon of any one of these
Italian city-states is a dense huddle of houses of almost
— —
uniform height regulated by law crowding up the
slopes and toward the summits of the hills chosen for
defense, often still surrounded by city walls with gates
and towers. The jumbled planes of the tiled roofs are
punctuated here and there by the loftier walls and towers
ofthe churches and civic buildings. The town houses of
the great noble and commercial families also generally
culminated in towers, built to secure the fortunes, and
even the lives, of their owners. Only in a few isolated
towns are some ofthese house-towers preserved to their
full height because, in the later Renaissance, when the
small republics had coalesced into a few larger prince-
doms, the owners were forced by decree to crop these
means of defense.
In or near the center of every town is the piazza, the
great square which is the focus ofcivic life. It is. above
all. essential to understanding the civic nature of Italian
art. Surrounded by a natural world which man is con-
stantly trying to dominate. Italian art is based on
communication between people in the square and its
adjoining streets where the life of the community takes
place. In those smaller Italian towns where the great
I. Plan of Florence. Cross-hatched area,
original Roman city; inner black line, 13th-century walls; squares have not become parking lots, this is still true.
how
outer line, 14th-century walls and fortifications In even the earliest Italian paintings it is striking
12 / ITALY AND ITALIAN ART
,^'^,y
2. View of Florence from the south
>\/' /
immediately the circumstances of life, the people, and on one side, is indicated by cross-hatched lines. Within
the architectural background of their existence are it, all the streets were straight, and intersected at right
transported to the works of art. The visual field, the angles. By the thirteenth century there were far more
painting or the work of sculpture, under the guise of inhabitants in the suburbs clustering around the gates
religious or historical narrative, presents a permanent than remained inside the Roman walls, and a second
image of the continuing reality of everyday life—the circle of fortifications, much less regular, had to be
contact, conversation, conflict, between people, which built. In the fourteenth century a third circle of walls
constitutes the drama of the piazza. was constructed, which the city was destined never to
In her ground plan Florence shows the nature of the fill. Even today, when Florence has grown to nearly half
expansion of the Italian city-state (fig. i). A bird's-eye a million and the suburbs straggle up and down the
view shows the great city in the fifteenth century, the Arno Valley, a few huge gardens remain inside the
largest in Europe, even if considerably reduced by the boulevards which have largely replaced the walls. The
Black Death from the more than one hundred thousand streets were and still are narrow. They must have been
inhabitants it counted a century earlier, at a time when overcrowded even in the Middle Ages and the Renais-
London and Paris were towns oftwenty thousand or so sance. They are flanked by towering buildings of stone,
apiece, and Bruges and Ghent, the trading cities of the often roughly cut, and when the house-towers were
North, did not surpass forty thousand. The colossal standing, must have presented an even more forbidding
dome, whose construction we will presently follow, appearance.
forms a focus for the city which is surrounded by the Siena (fig. 3) is some forty-five miles to the south over
—
circle of walls and then by the Tuscan hills (fig. 2). In winding roads in the Middle Ages probably a day's
the accompanying plan one can watch the metropolis journey by post-norses. The bitter commercial and
grow. Roughly oriented from east to west in the ordi- political rival of Florence, Siena was eventually to
nary manner of the ancient Roman town of the plains, succumb to her hated enemy in the middle of the six-
the original square Roman city plan, slightly expanded teenth century. To a degree difficult for a foreigner to
ITALY AND ITALIAN ART / I3
3. View of Siena from the west
4. View of Venice from the southeast
5. Northwest corner,
Orsanmichele, Florence.
Rebuilt 1337 (statues
here visible, 141 1-29)
conceive, Siena is still the archetype of the resentful the position of the guilds was symbolized by the niches
vanquished. It is a hill town, straggling along in the reserved for each of the principal guilds in a curious
shape of a "Y" along the crest of three hills, in the building to which we will frequently return, the center
midst of a magnificent landscape. Instead of the four- ofthe food supply ofthe RepubUc in an era threatened
—
square intersections and powerful cubic masses of constantly by famine the combined grain exchange
Florence, Siena presents us with a picture of constant and shrine known as Orsanmichele (fig. 5). This was an
climbs and descents, winding streets, and unexpected enormous three-story structure in the center ofthe city,
vistas. In comparison with the logic of Florentine whose Gothic arches were, in those days, still open to
architecture and planning, it appears illogical, spon- the streets. Between the arches were the niches in which
taneous, roughly organized, and very beautiful. each guild had the civic responsibility to place a statue
The third city which will concern us chiefly, Venice, ofits patron saint. The seven major guilds {Arti, as they
needs scarcely to be described, save to emphasize that were called) included the Arte della Calimala, the re-
its position, supported on wooden piles on hundreds of finers of imported woolen cloth; the Arte della Lana,
marshy islets in a sheltered lagoon along the Adriatic the wool merchants who manufactured their own cloth;
shore, rendered unnecessary either the city walls or the the Arte dei Giudici e Notai, or judges and notaries;
massive house construction of the mainland towns (fig. the Arte del Cambio, or bankers' and money-changers'
4). The result was an architecture whose freedom, open- guild; the Arte della Seta, or silk-weavers; the Arte dei
ness and brilhant color come as a release after the Medici e Speziah, or doctors and pharmacists; and the
fortress-like character of so many other Italian cities. Arte dei Vaiai e Pellicciai, or furriers. The painters,
oddly enough, belonged to the guild ofthe doctors and
THE ARTIST AND THE GUILDS. The typical Central and pharmaci—sts, to which they wer—e admitted in 1314,
North Itahan city-state of the later Middle Ages was perhaps as is generally believed because they ground
dominated by the guilds, in every phase of its com- their own colors as the pharmacists ground their own
mercial and pohtical life. Florence was a republic materials for medicines. In the 1340s the painters were
founded on commerce and ruled by an organization of classified as dependents of the physicians, perhaps be-
guilds. These were independent associations of bankers cause painters and doctors enjoyed the protection of
and artisan-manufacturers. The guilds were self-per- the same patron saint, St. Luke, reputedly both artist
petuating and self-regulating except insofar as they and physician. And in 1378 the painters found them-
were forced to accept the domination of the Guelph selves as an independent branch ofthe Medici e Speziali,
party, the single pohtical entity permitted in a democra- one ofthe seven major guilds ofthe Republic.
cy which, however restrictive by modern standards, was There was a constantly shifting number of medium
in advance of anything that had been conceived in and minor guilds. Among the former, and never ad-
western Europe since the days of Pericles. In Florence mitted to the rank of the major guilds, was the Arte
ITALY AND ITALIAN ART / I5