The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting: Volume IV

543 Pages·1924·24.173 MB·English

by  Raimond Van Marle (auth.)

NOTICE.
In the "Table of Contents" of Vol. III it is stated that
a Preface should precede the text. This. however, is not
so. There is no Preface to that volume.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ITALIAN
SCHOOLS OF PAINTING
MADONNA (IJ70)
By Barnaba da Modena, Gallery, Tim'n.
Pltoio Atinari.
THE DEVELOPMENT
OF THE
Ita ian Schools
of ai ting
BY
RAIMOND V AN MARLE
Doctor of the Faculty of Letters of the University of Paris
VOLUME IV
With 4 collotype plates and 254 illustrations
THE HAGUE
MAR II U IJHOFF
1924
ISBN 978-94-015-2209-0 ISBN 978-94-015-3437-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.10071978-94-015-3437-6
Softcover reprint of the hardcover I st edition 1924
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Chapter I: Venice and the neighbouring regions I
Chapter II: The Painters of Padua, Verona and Treviso IIO
C ha pte rIll: Painting in Lombardy and Piedmont 209
C hap t e r IV: The Painters of Rimini . 279
C hap t e r V: The Painters of Modena. 355
C hap t e r VI: The School of Bologna . 394
Chapter VII: Painting in Ferrara and other little centers in
Emilia 482
Additions and corrections 509
Indices . 5I I
N.B. The terms "right" and "left" are used from the standpoint of the
spectator unless the contrary be stated.
CHAPTER I.
VENICE AND THE NEIGHBOURING REGIONS (1).
If, in writing the history of the minor Italian schools of the
14th century, we begin with that ofV enice, it is because, as in .the
past, the City of the Lagunes took rather an unusual place in the
development of painting. We must admit, however, that it was
not a very distinguished one. Venetian painting, more than that
of any other region, remained under the domination of the Byzan
tine tradition. The geographical situation of the city suffices to
explain this persistence, and the specimens of art that we find
along the Dalmatian coast are abundant proof of the route by
which the Byzantine style reached Venice. Nevertheless if the
city had possessed any painters of exceptional talent, it is very
probable that the Oriental domination would have disappeared
long before the 15th century; but the Venetian artists, although
skilful in technique and very capable, had little individuality.
However we cannot deny the presence of characteristics pecu
liar to the Italian national art in almost all the pictorial pro
ductions of Venice, and the struggle which took place between
the Byzantine and the Western elements in the rest ofItaly more
than a hundred years before, is manifest in Venetian painting of
the 14th century. The Occidental form of art, however, had
acquired a different aspect. Whereas in the 13th century, we
called the current manner of painting during the transition stage,
(1) Zanetti, Della pittura veneziana e delle opere pubbliche de veneziani
maestri,Venezia, 177I. B. Cecchettl~ Saggia, Arch. Venet., XXXIII, 1886. Caffi,
Pittore veneziani dall 1300, Arch. Venet., XXXV, 1888, p. 57. Flat, Les
premiers Venitiens, Paris, 1899. P. Moi111enti, I primi pittori veneziani, Ras
segna d'Arte, 1903, p. 129. L. Venturi, Le origini della pittura veneziana,
Venice, 1906. L. Testi, La storia della pittura veneziana, I, Bergamo, 1909.
IV I
2 VENICE AND THE NEIGHBOURING REGIONS.
the Italo·Byzantine style, in Venice during the 14th, we have to
give it another name and that which I think best describes it is
Gothico-Byzantine. It is however a Gothic element peculiar to
Venice and very different to the Northern Gothic.
There are also some Venetian productions of the 14th century
which are entirely Byzantine, at least there is no trace of Goth
icism in them. These are not any older than the others; on the
contrary the most striking example, that of the mosaics in the
Baptistery of S. Marco, dates from about 1350, while some of
the panels are still later. There was not a great number of paint
ers at the end of the 13th or beginning of the 14th century. It is
true, however, that as early as 1271,Venice had already a corpor
ation of painters (1) and although this is the oldest with which
we meet in Italy, it seems to have been composed uniquely of
painter-decorators (2).
Paintings in Venice of about the year 1300 are the frescoes in
the church of the SS. Apostoli which I have already dealt with
in the first volume of this work, the crucifix on the altar in the
Chapter room of S. Marco, and in the church of St. Agnese, a
panel from a box belonging to the Blessed Juliet which was
adorned in 1297 with a figure of the saint herself and with those
of SS. Cataldus and Blasius (3). Executed about the same time
and very much after the same manner, is a panel in a room over
the sacristy of the school ofS. Giovanni Evangelista. It comes
from the Badoer Hospital and represents the Virgin as Orante
with the Child Jesus blessing between SS. John the Baptist,
Peter, John the Evangelist and another figure which has now
disappeared. The picture is signed: "Francisclls Pinsis ocp",
which might very well be the signature of a certain "Francesco
pittore a S. Croce" who is mentioned in a deed of 1291 (4).
These panels however are of little importance as they do
not possess any local individuality. The first typically Venetian
painting which is of some artistic value is found in the church of
S. Donato at Murano; it represents a large figure of this saint in
(1) G. Monticolo, Il capitolare dei pittori a Venezia, Nuov. Arch. Veneto,
I, p. 321. L. Testi, op. cit., p. 137.
(2) This is the opinion held by L. Venturi, op. cit., p. 15.
(8) P. Mo/menti, Rassegna d' Arte, 1903.
(4) L. Testi, op. cit., p. 171.
VENICE AND THE NEIGHBOURING REGIONS. 3
Fig. I. Venetian School, Relief of St. Donato, 1310. S. Donato, Murano.
Photo Alinari.
low relief and coloured and two miniature painted figures of the
donors (fig. I).
Below to the left we read: "Corando MCCCX l'lIdl"dOll VIII in