PDF hosted at the Radboud Repository of the Radboud University Nijmegen The following full text is a publisher's version. For additional information about this publication click this link. http://hdl.handle.net/2066/61104 Please be advised that this information was generated on 2021-09-26 and may be subject to change. Sassetta's Madonna della neve: An Image of Patronage by Machtelt Israëls Review by: Bram de Klerck Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, Vol. 31, No. 1/2 (2004 - 2005), pp. 108-110 Published by: Stichting voor Nederlandse Kunsthistorische Publicaties Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4150580 . Accessed: 05/03/2012 08:32 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Stichting voor Nederlandse Kunsthistorische Publicaties is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art. http://www.jstor.org io8 Book reviews quiredby the FlorentineCount Contini Bonacossi,who had it restored. The main panel of the altarpieceis in a gilt wooden frame Machtelt Israils, Sassetta's Madonna della neve: an im- with a tripartite,somewhat protruding baldachin of two point- age of patronage (Istituto UniversitarioOlandese di Storia ed archesflanking a round one in the center below an unchar- dell'Arte,vol. 15), Leiden (PrimaveraPers) 2003 acteristichorizontal top, which gives the work as a whole the form of an almost perfect square. This panel depicts a sacra One of the most important works by the fifteenth-century conversazionewith the Madonna and Child enthroned, sur- Sienese painter,Stefano di Giovanni,better knownas Sassetta rounded by angels and Sts Peter, Paul, John the Baptist and (1394-1450), is the Ecstasy ofSt Francis, now in Villa I Tatti in Francis. The coats of arms of the patrons' families are dis- Settignanonear Florence. It was bought by BernardBerenson played unusuallyprominently on the front of Mary'sthrone. around 1900, and legend has it that his brother-in-law,Logan To do justice to the intriguingname, Madonna of theSnow, by PearsallSmith, discoveredthe panel "on a cart,being takento which the altarpieceis known, the angel to the left of Mary be made into a tabletop."'This in a way charmingyet rather carriesa platter filled with snow, while his companionon the horrifyingstory reflectsthe neglect into which many worksby right is kneading a ball from the snow in a second dish that early RenaissanceItalian artists outside that triumphantfif- rests on the thronebeside the Virgin. teenth-century canon of, say, Donatello, Fra Angelico and The depictionof snow in this altarpiecenot only servesas a Botticelli, had fallen by the beginningof the twentieth centu- referenceto the Virgin'spurity, but also to the popularlegend ry.2 Sassetta'sreputation had been suffering for a long time. of the foundationof the church of Santa Maria Maggiorein Berenson himself devoted no more than a few lines to him in Rome. The events of this legend are depicted in seven narra- his Central Italian painters of the Renaissance (1897) but six tive scenes that make up the predella, some of which are so yearslater, as if to makeup for this, the Americanconnoisseur badly damagedas to be barelylegible. Thirteenth-centurypa- was to play an importantpart in the beginningof a reappraisal pal bulls recount that, one hot summer'sday in August of the by publishing a pair of essays on Sassetta in The Burlington year 352, snow fell on the Esquiline hill in the shape of the Magazine.3 groundplan of a church.The previousnight, the VirginMary However, after publicationson Sassetta and his oeuvre by had revealed this event in visions experiencedby both Pope such illustrious scholarsas Pope-Hennessy (1939), and Carli Liberiusand a Romanpatrician by the nameofJohn. The out- (I957),4 there was no modern, comprehensivemonograph on lines of the miraculoussnowfall were to become the ground the artist. As she herself acknowledgesin the forewordto her plan of a church dedicatedto the Virgin herself:Santa Maria book, Machtelt Israelshas taken up the challenge.It is telling Maggiore.By financingthe building of the church,the child- of both the wealth of materialrelating to the Sienese master less patricianand his wife found a pious way of disposing of waiting to be studied, and Israels's meticulous scholarly ap- their fortune. proachthat, afterhaving published three importantarticles on The enchanting, poetic legend of the Madonna of the individualpaintings by Sassetta,5she chose to devote her en- Snow, its appearancein the visual arts, and especiallyits rela- tire doctoral dissertationto just one: the so-called Madonna tion to the city of Siena, have been studied thoroughlyby van dellaneve altarpiece. The panel was commissionedby one Lu- Os, who publishedhis findingsin 1968.6 Depictionsof the leg- dovica Bertini of Siena in 1430, and was placed over the altar end of the Madonna of the Snow have been known in Italy of a chapel in Siena Cathedralthree years later. The work from about 1300 onwards,reaching a peakin the Quattrocen- made its appearancein art-historicalliterature in 1862, when it to, in worksby, amongothers, the Florentinepainters Masoli- was rediscovered in the church of San Martino in Tuscan no and Masaccio, and the VenetianJacopo Bellini. In Siena, Chiusdino-almost typicallyit was in a deplorablestate of re- the iconographybecame particularlypopular during the fif- pair because of exposure to humidity and rain coming in teenth and early sixteenth centuries, in manuscriptillumina- through leakingroofs. In the mid-193os the painting was ac- tions in liturgicalbooks, as well as in narrativesequences on I See K. Clark,"The workof BernardBerenson," in idem, Momentsoflvision 4 J. Pope-Hennessy, Sassetta, London 1939; E. Carli, Sassetta e il Maestro other New York Milan &5 essays, 1981, pp. I Io-i I. dell'Osservanza, i957. 2 A second, perhaps even more astonishing example is the rediscovery in 5 M. Israels, "New documents for Sassetta and Sano di Pietro at the Porta 1909 of a polychromedwooden statue of a man on horsebackattributed to an- Romana, Siena," The Burlington Magazine 140 (1998), pp. 436-44; idem, "Sas- other Sienese artist,Jacopo della Quercia.The group had been tucked awaybe- setta's Arte della lanaaltar-piece and the cult of CorpusDomini in Siena," The hind a pile of firewoodin the cellarof an oratoryin San Cassianodi Contronein Burlington Magazine 143 (200oo), pp. 532-43; idem, "Sassetta, Fra Angelico and the province of Lucca. See G. Rosario(ed.), II cavalieredi San Cassiano,Flo- their patrons at S. Domenico, Cortona," The Burlington Magazine 145 (2003), rence 1995. PP. 760-76. 3 B. Berenson,"A Sienese painterof the Franciscanlegend," TheBurlington 6 H.W. van Os, "Schnee in Siena," Nederlands Kunsthistorisch 7aarboek 19 Magazine 3 (1903), pp. 2-35, This text has been republished and trans- (1968), pp. 1-50o. lated severaltimes. 171-84- Io9 the of Matteo di Giovanni the of the more than predellas altarpieces by (i477), iconography altarpiece, being just a Gerolamo di Benvenuto (1508), and, the earliest and most demonstration of Ludovica Bertini's efforts to honor her hus- elaborate of all, Sassetta. Van Os stressed the fact that it would band's memory, should be interpreted in the light of Turino's seem appropriate to find so many depictions of the Madonna own involvement with the painting. The extent to which it is della neve in the city which had considered itself to be no less legitimate to consider the highly personal involvement of pri- than civitas Virginisever since it had been dedicated to Mary to vate individuals in a decoration in Siena Cathedral is convinc- implore victory over a Florentine army in 1260. Whereas van ingly illustrated by a lengthy discussion of other private com- Os did not seem to bother much about the precise identity of missions in that church. the patrons of Sassetta's altarpiece, merely referring to them In the case of Sassetta's altarpiece, St Francis, who figures as "cives Virginis,"7this is a crucial issue in Israels's study. prominently in both the panel and the contract of commission In nine nicely rounded short chapters, each of which is con- (being the only saint to be given a laudatory qualification: veniently headed by a summarizing introduction, the author "seraphic"), should be seen in relation not only to Ludovica, investigates virtually every aspect of the altarpiece's physical who became a secular member of the Order of Franciscan appearance, style, iconography, commission, and original set- Tertiaries after her husband's death, but also to Turino, who ting in order to present an account of the way in which the himself had belonged the confraternity of San Francesco. And work's "genesis and patronage" have together determined its the choice of the Madonna of the Snow as the subject, which appearance. This question is typical of many studies of the re- was particularly dear to Franciscan spirituality, proves to be lationship between form, patronage and function of Renais- more appropriate to both husband and wife than to the widow sance altarpieces that have been undertaken in the past few alone. Had not the Virgin Mary appeared to a childless Roman decades. Only too often this kind of research is hampered by a patrician to suggest that he use his wealth to finance a church? lack of documentary evidence, and it is precisely in this re- Just like the legendary fourth-century Roman couple, Turino spect that Israels's book is a fortunate exception.