Scolaio Di Giovanni (Master of Borgo Alla Collina)
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Scolaio di Giovanni (Master of Borgo alla Collina) (Florence 1369-1434) Ca. 1405-1410 Madonna with Child worshiped by two angels and Saint Francis of Assisi and Julianus Tempera on wood. 93 x 52 cm Provenance: Collection F. von Wolff-Ebenrod 1920s; Private property in succession, North Rhine-Westphalia Bibliography: unpublished Cited Literature: A.Bernacchioni, in Mater Christi Austellungskatalog (Arezzo 1996), Cinisello Balsamo 1996, p.46; Alberto Lenza, Il Maestro di Borgo all Collina.Proposte per Scolaio di Giovanni pittore tardogotico fiorentino, Florence 2012; Gaudenz.Freuler, in: Gherardo di jacopo Starnina, in: The Middle Ages and early Renaissance Paintings and Sculptures from the Carlo De Carlo Collection and other Provenance, Florence 2011, p. 58-67; Lorenzo Monaco.Dalla tradizione giottesca al Rinascimento, (exhibition catalogue, Florenz Galleria dell’ Accademia 2006), Florence 2006 Our Lady stands before the shimmering golden ground. Her face is tenderly turned towards the boy Jesus, whom she holds lovingly embraced in her arms. In a childlike emotion, he reaches with his left hand for the tip of her white headscarf, while he starts to suck his thumb on the other one. With his lively gaze directed at the viewer, he communicates with him and places him in a state of contemplative meditation. Two angels in profile as well as the Franciscan founder of the Order, Francis of Assisi, and Julianus, dressed in a noble ermine-lined red cloak, are also witnesses of this intimate divine gathering of Mother of God and Child. The unknown Florentine gold ground image, which has been withheld from research so far, shows some changes; with the exception of the original preserved aureoles, the gold ground in particular has been restored and some abrasions and losses of the upper painting layer are visible. The graceful picture of the Madonna, a typical product of late Gothic Florentine painting at the beginning of the 15th century, eclectically combines the pictorial ideas of the protagonists of this artistic movement on the threshold to the Renaissance. Thus the picture commissioned by a wealthy citizen for his private devotion in Florence corresponds to a type of picture similar to the one created in Agnolo Gaddi's workshop - for example, the Madonna picture formerly embodied in the Moretti Florence Gallery (fig. 1). This pictorial idea was often repeated and developed by Gaddi in several, slightly altered variations, which in the end unmistakably indicates that it was apparently a considerable commercial success. 1 2 3 4 It is therefore this type of painting that forms the basis of our panel and other paintings by the same painter (fig. 2,3,4), which is hardly surprising when we consider the evolutionary history of its creator, Scolaio di Giovanni, to whom the work in question here can undoubtedly be attributed. The attribution to this painter results not only from the use of a common pictorial invention, but also from details such as the curved cloak-saws or headscarf folds of the Madonna (fig.5-7). Consistency with Scolaio's work can also be asserted for the somewhat pithy male faces of saints, which correspond exactly to our painter's repertoire of figures. 5 6 7 The faces of other paintings by our painter, such as that of Dominic of a panel formerly in the Galeria Salamon in Milan (fig. 9) or the face of Joseph or of a shepherd worshipping the child of the former Kofler-Truniger collection in Lucerne (fig. 10,11), are also designed in the same way as our Francis (fig. 8). 8 9 10 11 Finding the true name Scolaio di Giovanni is a relatively recent achievement in art history and replaces this Florentine painter’s placeholder name. For a long time he was named after one of his main works, the large altarpiece in the parish church of San Donato in Borgo alla Collina (fig.12), created in 1423, and was thus called the master of Borgo alla Collina. 12 Late payments to Scolaio di Giovanni, who has so far only been known through biographical data – until now only a painter without an oeuvre - by the priest of Borgo alla Collina around 1430 for his altar for Borgo alla Collina dated 1423, allowed its author to be identified as Scolaio di Giovanni (Annamaria Bernacchioni, 1996, p.46; Alberto Lenza, 2012 , p. 17, 154). With these new insights, the biography of the painter, especially his creative period, could also be outlined more precisely. Scolaio di Giovanni was born around 1369/70 and his training as a painter probably took place around 1385. Since his artistic roots can be traced back to Agnolo Gaddi's art, there is some evidence that he was trained in the workshop of this very painter. 1391 the Scolaio is called "dipentore", which probably means that he had finished his apprenticeship at that time and was accepted into the Florentine painters' guild, which happened sometime between 1386 and 1391. Between 1393 and 1410 the documents on Scolaio di Giovanni were silent, which suggested that the painter might have joined the Florentine painter Gherardo Starnina (Lenzi, 2012), who apparently followed the Florentine merchant colony to Spain, where he must have made a successful debut as a sought-after painter. Starnina's paths probably led via Barcelona to Valencia and Toledo. Scolaio's return to Florence probably took place around 1403, when Starnina was again active in Florence and quickly became the most sought- after and most original painter with Lorenzo Monaco (G. Freuler, 2011, pp. 58-67). After his return to Florence, Scolaio di Giovanni must have quickly re-established himself in the Florentine painting scene. From 1410-1411 he is mentioned alongside a collective of painters that included Niccolò di Pietro, Ambrogio Baldese, Lippo d'Andrea and the Portuguese Alvaro Pirez, who were responsible for the frescoing of the villa of the famous merchant from Prato, Francesco di Marco Datini. Scolaio di Giovanni's apprenticeship with Agnolo Gaddi and his work with Starnina had a striking influence on his art. Agnolo Gaddi's models and Starnina's pictorial world are therefore important and decisive sources for Scolaio's art. But we cannot escape the fact that Lorenzo Monaco's influences on Scolaio di Giovanni's artistic work became increasingly influential. This comes as no surprise, especially since the paths of Scolaio and Lorenzo Monaco may have crossed early during their joint training period with Agnolo Gaddi. The extraordinary talent of the Camaldolese painter monk could hardly have remained hidden from our painter. (Lorenzo Monaco, 2006, p. 20 ff, 106-117) Agnolo Gaddi, Lorenzo Monaco and Starnina are also the triumvirate that has decisively artistically inspired the panel painting discussed here. As already mentioned, Agnolo Gaddi's pictorial ideas are at the base of our painting. It is easy to see that the latter had inspired the prototype (fig.1) for our Madonna picture (fig.4), the Madonna panel of the Scolaio di Giovanni sold in May 1995 at Sotheby's in New York (fig.2). This probably earliest Madonna painting by our painter, probably dating back to the 1390s (Alberto Lenza 2012, p. 21), was undoubtedly the origin of another panel, formerly in the Saulmann Collection in Florence, which has only been handed down to us through an old photograph (fig. 3) and whose creation by Alberto Lenza is dated to the first decade of the 15th century (Alberto Lenza, 2012, p. 26). In fact, in this later version of this pictorial idea, expanded by a larger number of figures, somewhat elongated figures can be seen in more strongly moved draperies that correspond to the late Gothic aesthetic feeling of the early 15th century. 13 14 16 It is easy to see that for these two works (figs. 2-7,13) our painter used a motif for the communicative and lively Christ boy which Starnina also used for his Madonna in the Crespi Collection in the Museo Diocesano in Milan (fig.14). It is possible that this motivic delicacy of the thumb-sucking Christ boy, like the detail of the child playfully reaching for the headscarf, goes back to a pictorial idea of Agnolo Gaddis that can no longer be traced today. In any case, the rare motif of the sucking boy is preformed in Agnolo Gaddi's picture world, a panel (fig.16) in a private collection in Monte Carlo today. Scolaio di Giovanni's lost and photographically handed down panel formerly in Florence (fig.3) undoubtedly presents itself as an immediate model for our painting down to smaller details - even concerning the identity of the saints - but in addition to smaller, barely perceptible variations, the variant in question here now contains an artistic ideal that, in contrast to earlier interpretations, strives for greater linearity, a dynamisation of the elongated forms and generally an increased precision. Thus the painter obviously sought to incorporate Lorenzo Monaco's pictorial world into his work, which can be illustrated by a comparison with Lorenzo Monaco's Madonna with Child in Lastra a Signa (fig. 17- 20), a work created between 1404 and 1410. 17 18 19 20 21 It is probably the very moment in Lorenzo Monaco's career when, in the first decade of the 15th century, Lorenzo led the late-Gothic stylistic phrases ad infinitum in their dynamics and at the same time forced the ornamental richness of his pictures, which our painter here aspired to for his picture. Similar to Lorenzo Monaco, he made the mantle seams of Our Lady vibrate and, with reference to the richly worked golden Madonna mantle, he almost anticipated solutions that later - in a certainly more refined form - Gentile da Fabriano would also magnificently place at the service of his Gothic ideal of beauty.