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Images of the desert, religious renewal and the eremitic life in late-medieval Italy: a thirteenth-century tabernacle in the National Gallery of Scotland Vol. I Amelia Hope-Jones PhD History of Art The University of Edinburgh 2019 !1 Declaration I declare that this thesis has been composed solely by myself and that it has not been submitted, in whole or in part, in any previous application for a degree. Except where stated otherwise by reference or acknowledgment, the work presented is entirely my own. Amelia Hope-Jones September 2019 !2 Abstract The image of the desert at the heart of this thesis is contained within a late thirteenth-century Italian tabernacle, on long-term loan to the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh. It is a striking and intricate narrative painting, showing numerous scenes of eremitic life and death in a mountainous desert landscape. The central panel of the Edinburgh Tabernacle represents the earliest surviving example of ‘eremitic landscape’ painting in Italy (dated to some fifty years earlier than the well-known Lives of the Anchorites fresco in the Camposanto of Pisa). It contains a unique combination of iconography that draws from both East and West. Yet it has been largely overlooked in the extensive literature on Italian panel painting of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, and its patronage, origins and intended function are not well understood. This thesis examines the Edinburgh Tabernacle in some depth, drawing on recent technical analysis prompted by my research. Seen as part of a wider cultural and religious context, it emerges as an object of considerable artistic and historical significance. The tabernacle provides persuasive visual evidence for a profound interest in the desert among the increasingly urban landscape of late thirteenth-century Italy. In addition, it raises important questions concerning the legacy of the Desert Fathers in late-medieval Italy, the spirituality of the recently-formed Mendicant Orders, and the relationship between Italian religious life and the monastic culture of Byzantium. This study pursues the impulse that lies behind the making of the Edinburgh Tabernacle. It explores connections between the tabernacle, the religious context from which it emerged, and a number of eremitic landscape paintings made in central Italy for different patrons between c.1330-1500. In doing so, it aims to shed new light on the function of the object, and the significance of the eremitic life, in late-medieval Italy. !3 Lay Summary At the centre of this thesis is a highly unusual painted tabernacle, showing saints and hermits in a desert landscape. My research seeks to understand why this painting, which I refer to as the Edinburgh Tabernacle, was made in late thirteenth- century Italy. It considers the object’s potential sources and origins in Byzantium, and what it might have meant to its unknown audience. It considers how the desert was understood: as a symbolic place of religious retreat; a historical setting in which Christian monastic life began; and an antithesis to the urban environment in which many of these images were made and experienced. It asks what this, and other comparable late-medieval images, can tell us about contemporary ideas of the desert. Acknowledgements My sincere thanks are due to the following people, who have contributed significantly to the completion of this thesis. This project was made possible by funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and has been sustained by the support of my supervisor, Claudia Bolgia. The initial inspiration for this thesis was provided by Claudia, whose academic rigour and insight, and confidence in my work, were invaluable to me in the course of my PhD. I am very grateful to Luca Palozzi for the time and attention he has given my work over the years. His input on the structure of my thesis and the ideas contained within it were very helpful to me, particularly in Chapter Two. And I thank my second supervisor, Heather Pulliam, whose timely advice was especially useful in the completion of Chapter Three. Joanna Cannon offered invaluable insights on my work and the ways in which it might be taken forward in the future. Tom Tolley provided clear and helpful suggestions on clarifying the arguments contained within this thesis. And Donal !4 Cooper contributed to the formation of my ideas early on in this project. I am grateful to them all for their advice and encouragement. My access to the Edinburgh Tabernacle relied on the willing co-operation of the Chief Curator at the National Gallery of Scotland, Aidan Weston-Lewis, to whom I extend my sincere thanks. His generous contribution of time and expertise was central to my understanding of the painting at the heart of this thesis, and the technical examinations of the tabernacle undertaken in April 2018 made possible by his support. I would also like to thank Lesley Stevenson, Conservator, for her knowledge and enthusiasm during the course of these analyses. I am grateful for the academic support and understanding of Carol Richardson and Kirsten Lloyd, both in the department of History of Art at ECA. For their help in proofing and editing this thesis, I thank Amy Jennings and David Hope-Jones. The completion of this project is indebted to the love and support of family and friends. I am especially grateful to my husband David, for his patience and ability to reassure. I thank Kedzie Penfield for her empathy. And I thank my parents and their partners, Jacquie and Peter, Frank and Rachel, for their support, financial and otherwise, and my sister Rowena for her encouragement. Finally, this thesis is dedicated to my sons, Bertie and William, who were both born during its completion. !5 Contents Volume I Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..6 Chapter One: Ascetic literature and the legacy of the Desert Fathers……………..33 Chapter Two: The Edinburgh Tabernacle: a thirteenth-century image of the desert ………………………………………………………………………………………………66 Chapter Three: The image of the desert between Byzantium and the West: Orthodox spirituality and monastic practice…………………………………………..116 Chapter Four: The religious landscape of Italy and the eremitic ideal, c.1220-1500 ……………………………………………………………………………………………..159 1. The Franciscans, the Spiritual controversy and Pope Celestine V……..161 2. The other Mendicant Orders: a) The Dominicans……………………………………………………..186 b) The Carmelites and Augustinian Hermits…………………………205 3. Flagellant confraternities and eremitic sainthood…………………………226 Conclusion: The Edinburgh Tabernacle and the eremitic life in late-medieval Italy: a new proposal……………………………………………………………………………..248 Volume II Illustrations…………………………………………………………………………………2 List of illustrations……………………………………………………………………….67 List of abbreviations…………………………………………………………………….76 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………77 !6 Introduction The image of the desert at the heart of this thesis is contained within an extraordinary painted tabernacle from central Italy (figure 1). The tabernacle is currently dated to c.1280-90, and is on long-term loan to the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh.1 Its central panel represents a complex narrative scene, with dozens of hermit monks and saints, wild animals and birds occupying a steep and verdant mountain landscape. There is a funeral at its lower edge, to which many hermits travel, and numerous additional scenes of eremitic life in the ascending slopes above. Over the summit of the mountain, the soul of the deceased is carried by angels. Several details of this image, such as the stylite saint at its centre, strongly suggest a connection with the artistic and religious traditions of Byzantium. The folding wings of the tabernacle contain six scenes from the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, and a surmounting central pediment shows Christ Redeemer flanked by six angels. Both the minutely-detailed image of the desert in the central panel, and its juxtaposition with a Christological narrative in the wings, appear to be unique and without precedent in Byzantine or Italian art. Yet despite its exceptional quality and originality, this remarkable panel painting has been relatively little studied to date. Its origins, patronage and function remain obscure, and the motivation behind its making is still unclear. This thesis seeks to redress this oversight, asserting the importance of the tabernacle in art-historical and more broadly historical terms. In doing so, it aims to shed light on the relationship between images of the desert, and the persuasive power of the eremitic ideal, in the late-medieval imagination. The thirteenth-century tabernacle - which I will refer to as the Edinburgh Tabernacle - marks the beginning of a two hundred-year period in which the eremitic life constituted a prominent theme in the art of central Italy. Images of the desert can be connected to each of the major Mendicant Orders, lay patrons, and the reformed Benedictines between c.1290-1500, revealing the nature and extent of 1 Boskovits 1988, 122-123; Tartuferi 2002, 398; Malquori 2012, 53-54. I argue for a slightly later date, c. 1295. See below, p. 19-20, and chapter two. !7 contemporary interest in the eremitic life across a wide spectrum of late-medieval society.