The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting: Volume V

526 Pages·1925·28.244 MB·English

by  Raimond van Marle (auth.)

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ITALIAN
SCHOOLS OF PAINTING
MADONNA
Umbrian school o.fthe early XIV century, Gallery, Perugia.
Pliolo A11derson.
THE DEVELOPMENT
OF THE
I tali an Schools
of Painting
BY
RAIMOND VAN MARLE
Doctor of the Faculty of Letters of the University of Paris
VOLUME V
With 3 collotype plates and 284 illustrations
•
SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
1925
ISBN 978-94-015-1660-0 ISBN 978-94-015-2796-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-2796-5
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Preface
X
Chapter I: Umbria.
I
Chapter II: Painting in The Marches
I27
Chapter III: Painting in Pi sa, Lucca, Sardinia, Liguria and
in small Tuscan centres . I99
Chapter IV: Trecento painting in Naples and neighbouring
regwns . 3 I 4
Chapter V: Fourteenth century painting in Lazio, the
Abruzzi, Apulia and Sicily . . 348
Supplementary notes and illustrations to Volumes 1-V 405
Indices on Volume V . 485
Indices on the Supplementary notes and illustrations to
Volumes 1-V. 5I2
N.B. The terms "right'' and "left" are used from the standpoint of the
spectator unless the contrary be stated.
PREFACE.
At the outset of this work I thought it possible that I might have to
lay down my pen at the end of the fifth volume, but it is with con
siderable pleasure I learn that my readers have been in great enough
number and sufficiently satisfied with the work for my editor and
myself to continue the enterprise and undertake a study of the
fifteenth century, similar to that which has already appeared on the
fourteenth.
The spontaneous manifestations of sympathy that I have received
from many different countries give me the impression that there exists
a group of readers who will not be disappointed to hear of my intention
to continue this history of Italian painting, at least until the end of
the fifteenth century which is a period not rn any way less glorious
than those with which I have already dealt.
I should like to give one word of warning to the authorities of
galleries and to private collectors who of late have started buying
pictures of the thirteenth century. Notwithstanding the fact that the
interest in this form of art is of recent date, the amount of facticious
paintings of this period is already very considerable. Many of them are
half-length figures of the Madonna painted on late Byzantine panels
of the same subject; Greek Madonnas of the sixteenth and seven
teenth centuries are in this way transformed into Italian pictures of
the thirteenth. Other panels really dating from the thirteenth century,
which I saw some years ago, in a poor and very ruinous condition,
have recently been offered for sale "in a perfect state of preservation''.
To those whose interest in masters of this remote period was
roused by my first volume, I only think it just to give here a word of
warning which at the present moment is urgently needed.
It has been remarked that I have given little space to facts con·
cerning the surroundings in which the different Italian schools origin
ated and flourished, and this absence has been benevolently explained
YIII PREFACE.
by my desire not to further increase my already bulky volumes by
the addition of new elements.
This is quite true but I must say there was still another reason
why I did not dwell on this subject and that is that I do not really
think that many exterior elements helped in the formation of the im·
portant schools of painting. The courts of the different princes were
obviously common meeting ground~ for great artists, but these artists
frequently came from distant towns and did not always influence the
formation of those local schools.
On the other hand, we find that extraordinary centres of civili·
zation, such as those of Bologna) and Pisa, with universities of world
wide fame, possessed painters of a very mediocre standing, while a
city like Siena, certainly of considerable importance but chiefly a
town of merchants with a much more highly developed taste for fast
and pleasures than for culture and intellectual matters, was the centre
of the most important school of the fourteenth century. Also m
Florence, notwithstanding its great poets, we find few traces of
intellectual life during this period.
Nor do I think that we have any reason to believe that the artistic
prosperity of a community or region was influenced by the greater
or lesser religious fervour of its inhabitants. Umbria, the home of St.
Benedict, St. Francis and St. Clare, and one of the sites where
mystical movements always found very many zealous adherents, did
not possess a really important school of painting, except for a short
period in the second half of the fifteenth century.
Generally speaking I should say that those parts of Italy which
once formed Etruria are those which at later dates produced the
more important schools, however there is no trace of an artistic
tradition from Etruscan times until the middle ages.
Although a great deal has been written and said about the surround
ings in which important centres of art came into existence, I do not
think there is much truth in it. It is quite a different matter for the
courts of the art loving princes and I shall make frequent reference to
them in the following volumes.
San Marco di Perugia, Dec. 1924. R.v.M.
CHAPTER I.
UMBRIA (1).
Umbria is situated between the three towns, Siena, Florence
and Rimini, each of which, in the qth century, produced an
important school of painting, and as the Umbrian artists appar
ently were wanting in individuality, their works can be classed
as dependent on, or at least influenced by, one of these three
neighbouring centres. We must not forget, however, that in the
very heart of Umbria, there existed one of the most important
nuclei of Tuscan masters of the Trecento, namely at the Basilica
of S. Francesco, Assisi, where Giotto, Simone Martini and
Lorenzetti with their assistants have left us works of the utmost
significance.
Nevertheless in spite of their actual presence in the district, it
(I) Umbrian painting has but rarely been fortunate in the authors who
have recorded its history. The book by W. Rothes, Anfange u Entwicke
lungsgange der alt-Umbrische Malerschulen; insbesondere ihre Bezie
hungen zur fru-Sienesischen Kunst, Strassburg, 1908, is of no merit and is so
full of mistakes that I shall not refer to it. E. jacobsen, Umbrische Malerei
des Vierzehnten, Funfzehnten, u Sechszehnten Jahrhunderts, Strassburg,
1914, although somewhat superficial, is a more trustworthy work but the
author hardly deals at all with the 14:h century. The same may be said of the
Abbe Broussolle, in his "Jeunesse du Perugin" who, beginning with the
Flood works up to the middle of the 15th century, passing over the 14'h with
scarcely a stop. G. Giovagnoli, Le origini della pittura umbra, Citta di Cas
tello, 1922, is a little book in which the author's good intentions can be dis
covered but to which I shall not again refer. On the other hand, much pre
cious information will be found in U. Gnoli, L' Arte Umbra alia mostra
di Perugia, Bergamo, 1908, and Pittori e miniatori nell' Umbria, Spoleto,
1923-24, appearing in fascicles. The author, who is director of the Gallery
of Perugia and superintendent of Fine Arts for the province of Umbria, has
published in the Rassegna d' Arte Umbra, and other periodicals contribut
ions of great value for our knowledge of Umbrian painting. W. Bombe,
Geschichte der Peruginer Malerei bis zu Perugino u Pinturicchio, Berlin,
1912, based for the greater part on Adamo Rossi's researches in archives,
is also a serviceable work.
v
2 UMBRIA.
is impossible to affirm the direct influence of these masters on
the different artistic currents in Umbria. Thus, for example,
Giottesque or Florentine works are extremely rare and of the
Sienese currents it was particularly Lorenzetti's manner which
made its influence felt, while Simone's art had, except at Orvieto,
but few adherents.
It should also be noted that the school of the adjoining prov
ince of The Marches had no influence whatsoever on Umbrian
painting; nor had Duccio's art, although one of his works is
preserved in the Gallery of Perugia, and a production of an
immediate follower is found at Citta di Castello, while yet a
third Ducciesque Maesta, now in a private collection, originated
from the environs of Perugia.
A certain resemblance to Sienese painting- though I do not
think it is due to a Sienese influence--is seen in the art of minia
ture painting, of which Perugia in particular had a very im
portant school, while it should not be forgotten that Gubbio
produced the miniaturist, Oderisi, whose praises were sung by
Dante (1).
As early as 1310 the corporation of miniaturists was recog
nized by and represented in the government of Perugia, which
fact is confirmed by a document dating from 1324 and by a
statute of Perugia of 1342 (2).
After the first half of the qth century the production of minia
tures in Perugia was so great and of such a fine quality - as is
proved by the numerous examples that the town still possesses
- that there were no grounds for envy between the Perugian
miniaturists and those of the rival Tuscan town, indeed quite
the contrary as we shall see, for Perugia even executed minia
tures to adorn the official registers of the town of Siena.
Perugian miniatures can be divided into two distinct groups,
the first of which is characterized by reminiscences of Byzantine
(1) For Umbrian miniatures v. Ansidei, La miniatura alia mostra d'antica
arte Umbra, AugustaPerusia, H)07, p.78. Gnoli, L'Arte Umbra, p. 67. Bombe,
op. cit., P·47· Serafini, Ricerche sulla miniatura Umbra, I, L'Arte, 1912, p. 41.
As far as dating of works of the 14th century is concerned this last article
unfortunately is full of mistakes. The author has placed almost all the J 4th
century miniatures, even those that can be exactly dated, in the rsth century.
(2) Bombe, op. cit., p. 14.