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Sources of Donatello's Pulpits in San Lorenzo Revival and Freedom of Choice in the Early Renaissance*

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Sources of Donatello's Pulpits in San Lorenzo Revival and Freedom of Choice in the Early Renaissance* ! " #$ % ! &'()*+',)+"- )'+./.#')+.012 3 3 %! ! 34http://www.jstor.org/stable/3047811 ! +565.67552+*+5 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=caa. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. 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For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. http://www.jstor.org THE SOURCES OF DONATELLO'S PULPITS IN SAN LORENZO REVIVAL AND FREEDOM OF CHOICE IN THE EARLY RENAISSANCE* IRVING LAVIN HE bronze pulpits executed by Donatello for the church of San Lorenzo in Florence T confront the investigator with something of a paradox.1 They stand today on either side of Brunelleschi's nave in the last bay toward the crossing.• The one on the left side (facing the altar, see text fig.) contains six scenes of Christ's earthly Passion, from the Agony in the Garden through the Entombment (Fig. I); that on the right contains five of the post­ Passion miracles, from the Marys at the Tomb through the Pentecost, and in addition the Martyrdom of St. Lawrence (Fig. 2). The pulpits have been recognized almost universally as key monuments of the master's final years; and yet possibly less is known about them than about any other of his major works. To begin with, not a single document relating to their commission or execution has survived. Vasari and others relate that, ordered by Cosimo de' Medici, they were left unfinished when Donatello died (I 466), and had to be completed by workshop assistants.• The pulpits do in fact present a number of stylistic anomalies that create delicate problems of attribution-problems which, owing to insufficient evidence, may never be fully resolved.' Nevertheless, agreement is by now fairly general that Donatello was responsible for the basic conception. 1 But if so, he brought together such a bewildering variety of elements, formal as well as iconographical, that it becomes essential to determine whether some reasonable principle might have governed his selections. This question is perhaps capable of solution, and the present paper is intended as a preliminary step in that direction. The procedure will be to define system­ atically, at least in general terms, the kinds of material that Donatello utilized in designing both *The author wishes to record his gratitude to Professors Baccio Bandinelli, Letter to Duke Cosimo of Florence, Decem­ Karl Lehmann and H. W. Janson, who guided the initial stages ber 7, 1547, in G. Bottari and S. Ticozzi, RaccolJa di lettere of this investigation at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York .•. , Milan, 1822-1825, I, pp. 7if. All the references are University. Professors Erwin Panofsky, Martin Weinberger, quoted in translation by Janson. and Ulrich Middeldorf were kind enough to read various 4. Vespasiano da Bisticci (Joe.cit.) speaks of four assistants, drafts of the manuscript, offering important criticisms and only two of whom (Bellano and Bertoldo) are known from suggestions. Several improvements accrued from stimulating Vasari; see also U. Middeldorf, review of Kauffmann, ART conversations with Messrs. Clarence Kennedy, James Hodgson, BULLETIN, XVIII, 1936, p. 579 n. 14. There is evidence, how­ and Albert Meisel. Without the support and encouragement of ever, to support the hypothesis that some of the stylistic dis­ Dr. W. W. S. Cook the research would never have been crepancies may have a chronological explanation. The pulpits undertaken. are usually dated to the period between Donatello's final re­ 1. For a complete summary of information concerning the turn to Florence from Siena about 1460 and his death in 1466. Pulpits, see now the definitive catalogue of Donatello's oeuvre But for several reasons {relationships to Mantegna in the left by H. W. Janson, The Sculpture of Donatello, Princeton, 1957, pulpit, the generally more rationalistic organization of certain u, pp. 209ff. (hereinafter referred to as Janson); also H. of its scenes compared with most of those on the right), it Kauffmann, Donatello, Berlin, 1935, pp. 177ff.; M. Semrau, seems possible that in part the pulpits may have been con­ Donatellos Kanzeln in San Lorenzo (Italienische Forschungen ceived earlier, after Donatello's return from Venice and before zur Kunstgeschichte u), Breslau, 1891. The pulpits are most he went to Siena, i.e. 1453-1457. See the arguments for this commonly dated ca. 1460-1466 (see Janson, pp. 214-215, but possibility in the writer's M.A. thesis, "The Sources of Dona­ also note 4 below) • tello's Bronze Pulpits in San Lorenzo," New York University, 2. This, however, was not their original position; see below, 1951, pp. 69ff.; now also the review of Janson in The Times p. 23 and note 29. Literary Supplement, September 5, 1958, p. 490, col. 5, and 3. Vasari, Le vite ••• , ed. G. Milanesi, Florence, 1878- J. Pope-Hennessy, Italian Renaissance Sculpture, New York, 1885, u, pp. 416, 425; vu, pp. 141-142; Vespasiano da Bisticci, 1958, pp. 286ff., esp. p. 288. Life of Cosimo de' Medici, ed. A. Mai, Spicilegium romanum, 5. Cf. Janson, p. 217. Rome, 1839-1844, I, p. 341 '(Milanesi, ea.cit., u, p. 421 n. 1); 20 THE ART BULLETIN the over-all form of the pulpits and the individual scenes. We shall find that several important observations can be made on the basis of information thus obtained. Of no less interest, however, is the material that Donatello rejected. And from the combination of evidence, direct as well as indirect, it will appear that Donatello's reaction to tradition was indeed consistent, and of perhaps unsuspected significance. II 10 7 s 9 N 0Altar \ 4 3 5 l ___L ___ a b PULPITS IN SAN LORENZO LEFT PULPIT RIGHT PULPIT a. Flagellation of Christ 6. Three Marys at the Tomb b. St. John the Evangelist 7. Christ in Limbo 1. Christ on the Mount of Olives 8. Resurrection 2. Christ before Pilate and Caiphas 9. Ascension 3. Crucifixion 10. Pentecost 4. Lamentation 11. Martyrdom of St. Lawrence 5. Entombment c. Evangelist Luke d. Mocking of Christ (Numbered scenes are original; lettered scenes are later additions.) From the earliest Christian times the recitation of extracts from the Bible had formed an integral part of the liturgy of the mass. 8 The recitations are generally two in number: the Epistle, which is read first and consists usually of selections from the letters or the Acts of the Apostles, and the lesson from the Gospel. In some churches, two pulpits or ambos were employed for the readings,7 and it became a universal rule, replete with symbolism, that in an oriented church the Gospel be read from the north side, the Epistle from the south. 8 Compared to single pulpits, which are among the most ancient of church furnishings, the use of paired pulpits in this fashion seems to have been neither a very early nor a very widespread custom.' Preserved examples, at any rate, are relatively rare, most notable being those of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in the Roman basilicas such as San Clemente and Santa Maria 6. For an account of the evolution of the liturgical lessons, Gemma animae 1, 22 (Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 172, see J. A. Jungmann, Missarum Sollemnia, English ed., The col. ss 1) Mass of the Roman Rite, New York, I, 1951, pp. 391ff. The development of this tradition and its relation to paired 7. For ambos and pulpits generally, cf. C. Rohault de pulpits is discussed by J. Sauer, Symbolik des Kirchengebiiudes, Fleury, La Messe, Paris, 1883-1889, 111, pp. 1ff.; F. Cabrol, Freiburg i. B., 1924, pp. 87ff., and Jungmann, op.cit., I, pp. Dictionnaire d'arcneologie chretienne et de liturgie, Paris, 1907- 412ff. 1953, I, cols. 133off., Enciclopedia italiana, Rome-Milan, The church of San Lorenzo is "wested" (i.e., the altar is in 1909-1948, n, pp. 793ff., xxvm, pp. S32ff. the west) ; but the liturgical directions take precedence, and 8. According to mediaeval directional symbolism the north for purposes of symbolism left facing the altar (the "Gospel is the seat of evil ; hence the women were restricted to that side side") is equivalent to north. The earliest mention of Dona­ of the church, and hence the Gospel is to be read there in tello's pulpits (Albertini, Memoriale di molte statue e pitture order to combat evil the more effectively; e.g., Honorius of della citta di Firenze, 1510, ed. Milanesi, Florence, 1863, p. Autun (first half of the 12th century) : 11) speaks of "Pergami di bronzo per Evangelio et Epistola." ... secundum solitum morem se ad aquilonem vertit (i.e., See below, and Janson's remarks (pp. 211ff.) refuting Kauff­ Diaconus) ubi feminae stant, quae carnales significant, quia mann's hypothesis (op.cit., pp. 1 7 Bf.) that they were intended Evangelium carnalis ad spiritualia vocat.
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