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The late P. Antonio Sartori published a great number of documents concerning the Chapel of S. Giacomo (now S. Felice) in the Santo, Padua, and the nearby Oratory of S. Giorgio. To him, they proved the sole authorship of Altichiero of both fresco decorations, and the final impossibility of Avanzo's having been his collaborator. However, although the crucial documents concerning Altichiero were published in his 1963 article, both the most recent major discussions of this subject have produced variations on the collaboration theory. The documents have still not been fully discussed. Such a discussion will result in a much clearer dating of the frescoes and in the clarification of the position concerning the possible intervention of Avanzo. This latter purpose will also be aided by a more thorough examination of the attributional history of the two chapels than has hitherto been undertaken.
Briefly, the most important of the documents show that in 1379 Altichiero was paid by Bonifacio Lupi for painting the Chapel of S. Giacomo and its sacristy, and that on 30 May, 1384, Altichiero and Bonifacio Lupi mutually agreed that each had fulfilled his part of the contract for Altichiero's decoration of S. Giorgio. This latter included the decoration of the tomb of the man who had originally commissioned the work from Altichiero, Raimondino Lupi, who had died on 30 November, 1379, leaving Bonifacio as his commissary. The initial contract for building the chapel of S. Giacomo is dated 12 February, 1372.
1 Sartori, A., ‘Nota su Altichiero’, Il Santo iii, 3 (1963), 291–326Google Scholar (hereafter Sartori 1963) and Sartori, A., ‘La Cappella di s. Giacomo al Santo’, Il Santo vi, 2–3 (1966), 267–360Google Scholar (hereafter Sartori 1966), both with illustrations. On each occasion there was an accompanying article by Fiocco, G.: ‘La Rivincita di Altichiero’, Il Santo iii, 3 (1963), 283–89Google Scholar (hereafter Fiocco 1963); and ‘“Storia e Storie” della Cappella di s. Giacomo al Santo’, Il Santo vi, 2–3 (1966), 261–66Google Scholar (hereafter Fiocco 1966).
2 Kruft, H. W., Altichiero und Avanzo, Untersuchungen zur oberitalienischen Malerei des ausgehenden Trecento, doctoral dissertation presented at Bonn in 1964Google Scholar (hereafter Kruft); Mellini, G. L., Altichiero e Jacopo Avanzi, Milan, 1965Google Scholar (hereafter Mellini).
3 For the purposes of this paper the stylistic evidence of the frescoes is almost entirely ignored. I intend to discuss the frescoes more fully elsewhere.
4 Sartori 1963, 320, no. 37. This and the related documents come from the Archivio di Stato, Florence, Spedale di s. Giovanni Battista detta di Bonifacio, filza 183 (Bonifacio Lupi founded the hospital). The ‘libro de la capella’ referred to was a collection of all the material connected with the construction, decoration and endowment of the chapel of S. Giacomo bound together by Bonifacio, who did the same in the case of S. Giorgio. Both books are now lost. See Sartori 1963, 298, where he quotes a description of the book of S. Giorgio given in a document of 26 August, 1388, which includes the phrase ‘… in quo quidem libro descripta sunt et registrata omnia iura et instrumenta spectancia capellae …’ It was given by Bonifacio on behalf of the founder, Raimondino, to the nuns of the convent whose duty it was to provide from their endowment for the celebration of Mass in the Oratory of S. Giorgio. Some of the documents concerning S. Giacomo—including the payment to Altichiero of 1379—were published or summarised in Gualandi, M., Memorie originali italiane risguardanti le belli arti, Serie vi, Bologna, 1845Google Scholar (hereafter Gualandi). They became better known through being referred to in Gonzati, B., La Basilica di s. Antonio di Padova descritta ed illustrata, 2 vols., Padua, 1852Google Scholar (hereafter Gonzati).
5 Sartori 1963, 320, no. 33. This document appears under the year 1377, out of the strict calendar order which is usually followed: thus the year 1376 is specified in the entry. Gualandi (150–51, n. 5) quoted this document and stressed that this must have been the stone cornice of the chapel. The idea of putting this in place after the start of fresco painting, as Mellini and Sartori believe, is an odd one, whichever is referred to of the two cornices specified in Andriolo's contract (Sartori 1963, 312, clauses 11, 12: these are the matching cornices on the façade and altar wall of the chapel).
6 Sartori 1963, 320, no. 32. On its own, the reference in the singular to ‘lo dipinctore’, although suggestive, would not be enough to point to a sole author of the frescoes, rather than to a collaboration. In view of the other evidence it is more important.
7 Under 1376 we find: ‘Ancora per spexe fate del mese de zugno, coè per una fenestra fata per magistro Thomaxin da Venezia, ch'e de vedri, a la segristia, ducati II soldi XXXVI’ (Sartori 1963, 320, no. 30). Mellini (44) claimed that the mats corresponded to the five bays on the altar wall and that the lower part of the decoration was therefore begun at this date, March 1377, and the upper part including the lunettes would have been begun in 1374. The reasoning behind this is obscure, but it seems to be a variation on Sartori who claimed that the Crucifixion on the altar wall must have been painted by 1374 as vestments and other equipment for the chapel were beginning to be bought in that year. Sartori believed that the Crucifixion would have had to have been finished before the celebration of Mass began, something implied by the purchase of vestments (Sartori 1963, 300); the upper parts would then have been painted and would have been finished in March 1377 (ib. 302). Vestments and many kinds of furnishings for the chapel in fact continued to be bought (under the direction of Bonifacio's wife) at least until 1396. Cf. Sartori 1963, 316–7.
8 Sartori 1963, 320, no. 34. ‘Ancora per spese, fate del meso de zenaro, per ligname da l'armamento, ducati VII soldi LVII.’
9 Sartori 1963, 320, no. 35.
10 Clause 25 of Andriolo's contract specifies ‘da ciaschuno capo de la deta capella, uno cimero intagliato e relevato conesso l'arma de sotto’ (Sartori 1963, 314). Altichiero's contract for S. Giorgio shows that he was responsible both for the frescoes on the walls ‘… et etiam occaxione archae et ornamentorum vel causa colorum quam auri’ (Sartori 1963, 306, II). These ornaments included standing helmeted warriors (cf. Mellini pls. 148, 159). An idea of ‘lo cimiero’ in S. Giacomo may perhaps be gained from that surviving on the exterior gable of the S. Giorgio façade. In attempting to interpret the often obscure terminology of the documents I have referred to the Dizionario Etimologico and Accademia della Crusca.
11 Sartori 1963, 313.
12 ‘Ancora e spexi, gi quà sono dati, in piu volte, a magistro Andriolo e a magistro Zoane per l'overa de le arche, da dì XX novembre de MCCCLXXIIII in fin a dì XX del meso de março del predito MCCCLXXVI, ducati CCCCC’ (Sartori 1963, 319, no. 27). There is no suggestion here, incidentally, of Andriolo's being dead by this date as is often assumed.
13 See n. 7 above; Sartori 1963, 299–300. He used a similar argument in the case of S. Giorgio which is discussed below.
14 Sartori 1963, 320, no. 36.
15 Sartori 1963, 320, no. 38.
16 Sartori 1966, 281.
17 Mellini 45.
18 See note 12 above.
19 Cf. Sartori 1963, 314–5, XI, and 299–300.
20 Ib.
21 Sartori 1963, 315.
22 Sartori 1966, 303–5.
23 Ib. 305–6.
24 Cf. Sartori 1963, 300. An examination of the stone suggests that it was inserted into a previously completed fresco surface.
25 Cf. Sartori 1966, 307.
26 Cf. Sartori 1966, 309–10.
27 Cf. n. 22 above.
28 Cf. Sartori 1963, 307–8.
29 Sartori 1963, 297. He was partly relying on the document of 1 December, 1379, discussed below, which does not in fact prove that services had begun by that date.
30 Mellini does not discuss the dates of the S. Giorgio frescoes save for a brief mention on p. 76, where he states that they were possibly done before 1382–3, and finished in 1384. He refers to Ragghianti's proposed intervention by Altichiero in Giusto de' Menabuoi's Belludi Chapel in the Santo (Ragghianti, C. ‘Problemi Padovani: Battistero, Cappella Belludi’, Critica d'Arte 45, 1961Google Scholar).
31 Cf. Sartori 1963, 296–8.
32 Cf. Sartori 1963, 307–8.
33 Ib.
34 Sartori 1963, 308–9.
35 Sartori 1963, 305–6, I.
36 Sartori 1963, 306, II.
37 Glasser, H., Artists' Contracts of the Early Renaissance, Ph.D. dissertation at Colombia University 1965, 73, 78, etc.Google Scholar
38 Sartori 1963, 313 and 314 respectively.
39 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Cod. Lat. 6069F.
40 Discussed below in more detail.
41 Sartori 1963, 307, IV. Altichiero seems to have been listed in the Paduan painters' guild in 1382. Cf. Moschini, G., Dell'Origine e delle Vicende della Pittura in Padova, Padua, 1826, 9Google Scholar.
42 It cost the equivalent of about three ducats. This sole documentary evidence of Altichiero's activity as a panel-painter was published by Coletti, L., ‘Altichiero e Avanzo’, Rivista d'Arte xii (1931) 363Google Scholar. See Sartori 1963, 305. Attempts made to identify any surviving panels as his seem to me unsatisfactory, e.g. Mellini pls. 294, 313, although the former of these, a triptych in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, seems to have the closer connections with Altichiero, on the evidence of photographs.
43 Sartori 1963, 324–5, XVII. Marco di Giovanni is one of only two painters actually mentioned in documents as having any connection with Altichiero, the other being his nephew, Antonio. Sartori thought (1963, 304) that Marco di Giovanni must have been an assistant of Altichiero, but there is no proof that he was. Antonio, on the other hand, probably was an assistant of Altichiero's for in a document of 1402 he is identified as the nephew of Altichiero rather than, as would be usual, by reference to his father:
‘Committens committo ego mag. Antonius pictor, nepos q. Altichierii de Verona et nunc habitator Paduae, vobis mag. Marco Cortese compatri meo de Veneċiis …’ (Sartori 1966, 277)Google Scholar Presumably this mode of identification would enhance Antonio's professional standing, a parallel for which is to be found in the case of Donatus Giotti, another painter taking the name of his famous master (see Becker, Marvin B., ‘Notes on the “Monte” holdings of Florentine Trecento Painters’, Art Bulletin 46 (1964), 377CrossRefGoogle Scholar).
44 Sartori 1963, 306–7, III, and Sartori 1963, 295.
45 The phrase is Fiocco's; cf. Fiocco 1966, 265. As mentioned before, the situation has been confused by the rapid growth of speculative attributions to ‘Avanzi’ and to Altichiero, e.g. Ragghianti art. cit. 1961; Ragghianti, C., ‘Ricognizioni Padovane I–II’, Critica d'Arte, 112–13 (1970)Google Scholar.
46 Neither Mellini nor Kruft could read a signature there.
47 Förster, E., Die Wandgemälde der S. Georgenskappelle zu Padua, Berlin 1841Google Scholar, translated by Selvatico, P. as Förster, E., I Dipinti della cappella di s. Giorgio in Padova, traduzione dal tedesco di Pietro Selvatico con note ed aggiunte del traduttore Padua, 1846Google Scholar (hereafter Förster/Selvatico).
48 Förster/Selvatico 23.
49 Ib. 57, n.A. He later changed his mind again and claimed that the signature was ‘Avancius Ve …’.
50 Fiocco 1963, 284.
51 Sartori 1963, 295–6, and the second (un-numbered) illustration.
52 Michiel, M., Notizia d'opere di disegno nella prima metà del secolo XVI esistenti in Padova Cremona Milano Pavia Bergamo Crema e Venezia, ed. Morelli, D. Iacopo, Bassano 1800Google Scholar (hereafter Michiel).
53 Michiel 6.
54 Savonarola, M., Libellus de magnificis ornamentis Regie Civitatis Padue, ed. Segarizzi, A., in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, Muratori, L., xxiv, 15Google Scholar, Città di Castello 1902, col. 1169–70 (p. 44) (hereafter Savonarola).
55 Sartori, A., ‘Da s. Giacomo a s. Felice’, Il Santo v (1965)Google Scholar.
56 Mellini of course chose the Bolognese Jacopo Avanzi whose signed Crucifixion is in the Colonna Gallery in Rome. There was indeed a Paduan Avanzo, who is documented as representing the painters of the city in a document of 1405 (Sartori 1963, 325), and in addition a Vicentine, active in Vicenza in 1379 and 1389 (Sartori 1966, 325–6).
57 Michiel, 5–6. As Sartori shows, it is a curious fact that the date on Bonifacio's tomb refers not to the date of Bonifacio's death, but to the date of the (earlier) placing of the tombstone (Sartori 1963, 322). Equally, the inscription on the tombstone of his wife Caterina did not apparently carry the date of her death but that of the positioning of the stone (Sartori 1966, 276–7; and see Cenci, C., ‘Bonifacio Lupi di Soragna e i frati minori’, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 57 (1964), 91)Google Scholar. The date on Bonifacio's inscription is 23 January, 1389, although he actually died about 21 June, 1390. Thus Michiel's date is wholly wrong.
58 Savonarola, 12–13.
59 Savonarola, 44.
60 Cf. Sartori 1963, 296–7.
61 Scardeone, B., De Antiquitate Urbis Patavii etc., Basel 1560, 414–5Google Scholar.
62 See n. 57 above.
63 Vasari, , Le Vite etc., ed. Milanesi, G., Florence, 1906, iii, 634Google Scholar.
64 Ibid.
65 Sartori seems to have thought that Vasari was thinking of the sacristy of S. Giacomo (Sartori 1963, 303). The question of where the sacristy may have been is difficult owing to the many changes in this part of the Santo. There is no sign that there was ever an entrance from it through a side wall of the chapel. Rather, one must look for an adjacent building within the church from which the priest could proceed to the chapel, having entered the sacristy from the cloister. The building may have had only the one window mentioned in June 1376 (see n. 14 above) but must have been just big enough to have been decorated by Altichiero. The only possibility seems to me to be the site occupied by the small chapel (of the Cross) immediately to the west of S. Giacomo, now with a modern interior. The present doorway from the cloister in that position does not communicate with the modern chapel, but there are clear signs of an earlier doorway at this point in the wall which may have done so. Over the level of the present roof of this modern chapel can be seen the signs of an archway let into the wall of the S. aisle of the Santo, and since filled in. When the S. Giacomo chapel was made, apart from the interior construction of its own vaults, various exterior alterations were made, including the filling-in of the lower windows in the transept end, the window on the west side-wall being remodelled. The annexe would have been added at this date, being later altered or demolished and turned into a chapel. Gonzati (ii, 89) had no doubt that this was the case, the Chapel of the Cross replacing Altichiero's sacristy in 1624.
66 Polidoro, V., Le Religiose Memorie etc., Venice 1590, 37Google Scholar.
67 In the case of his equally inaccurate information about the Sala Virorum Illustrium, it is possible the decorations had been destroyed by the time he wrote. These latter decorations are discussed below.
68 Loc. cit.
69 Michiel, 30.
70 Savonarola, 49; Mommsen, T. E., ‘Petrarch and the Decoration of the Sala Virorum Illustrium in Padua’, Art Bulletin 34 (1952), 101CrossRefGoogle Scholar (hereafter Mommsen). Mellini nowhere shows himself to be aware of Mommsen's fundamental article, ignorance of which leads him seriously astray (Mellini 36–7) in the case of the Petrarch Triumph of Fame illustrations discussed below, as well as in the whole question of the Sala Virorum Illustrium (Mellini, 94–8). Mellini's approach seems to be mainly based on von Schlosser's original publication in 1895 of the Darmstadt Codex (State Library, Darmstadt, Cod. 101), where von Schlosser identified its illustrations as a record of the lost originals of the Sala Virorum Illustrium (von Schlosser, J., ‘Ein Veronesisches Bilderbuch und die höfische Kunst des XIV Jahrhunderts’, Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kàiserhauses xvi (1895), 183–93Google Scholar). For Mellini's following of von Schlosser's suggestion for the Triumph of Fame originals see n. 79 below.
71 Mommsen, 102.
72 Ibid.
73 Cf. Mommsen, 101; Savonarola, 49. For the hall's title cf. Mommsen, 100 and 103.
74 Mommsen, 101.
75 See Mommsen, 107–8; Schorr, D., ‘Some Notes on the Iconography of Petrarch's Triumph of Fame’, Art Bulletin xx (1938), 100–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar of which figs. 1–3 are relevant to this discussion (the manuscript references are inaccurate).
76 E.g., Mellini on comparison with the Martyrdom of St. George in the Oratory of S. Giorgio (Mellini, 37); Kruft on the basis of similarities with the Crucifixions in the two chapels (Kruft, 138).
77 Mommsen, 106.
78 Cf. Mellini pl. 284. See Fiocco 1963, 285; Magagnato, L., Arte e Civiltà del Medioevo Veronese, Turin 1962, 86–8, 109Google Scholar. I am inclined to accept this attribution despite the difficulties of finding suitable comparative material (the landscape in the Martyrdom of St. George is, as Fiocco suggests, similar) for the circumstantial evidence in favour of Altichiero is strong. Although much damaged during copying, having been pricked over the outlines of the animals for use as a sort of cartoon, and scratched, with the loss of the lion's off hind leg, the quality both of draughtsmanship and colouring is high, not easily appreciable in reproduction. It bears all the signs of a fresco painter working on a small scale, rather than of an illuminator. The border, of light yellow, red, and blue, set in a ‘marble’ frame, is of a type used in fresco. The handling ranges from the finely detailed (in the billowing sail) to the extraordinarily free with all the appearance of a water-colour. The charm extends to the inclusion of a black and white bird with a red bill (an oyster-catcher?) in the marshy background.
79 Schorr, 1938, 103 (‘probably towards the end of the century’); Mommsen, 107–8, and 99 especially; illus. Mommsen figs. 5 and 7–31. From Mommsen the implication is clear that, of the two similar versions of the Triumph of Fame in Paris, that in monochrome must be the earlier (dated 1379) as it is the headpiece to the prime original book, Lombardo's completed manuscript of Petrarch's Epitome. Cod. Lat. 6069I is thus a necessarily later copy, and its headpiece therefore also post-dates the monochrome illustration. Mellini's ignorance of Mommsen's discussion led him to date the coloured version earlier than the monochrome, and furthermore to associate it with Altichiero's lost frescoes for Cansignorio in Verona, following von Schlosser (1895; Mellini, 37). Magagnato (1962, 86 and pl. 110) mixes up Cod. Lat. 6069I with Cod. Lat. 6069F, and again following von Schlosser makes the same connection (p. 88) as Mellini with the lost Veronese Trionfi (Magagnato also does not cite Mommsen's article). Schorr's remark of the coloured Triumph of Fame, that in comparison with the monochrome ‘the drawing … is inferior and the arrangement of the figures on horseback gives the composition a crowded appearance’, is entirely right (1938, 103).
80 See note 86 above. Cod. 101 in Darmstadt is Donato Albanzani's Italian translation of Petrarch's De Viris Illustribus. It dates from around the year 1400. See von Schlosser, 1895, and Mommsen, 107.
81 Schorr, 1938, 104.
82 von Schlosser, 1895, 190. See Mommsen, 107.
83 For the exact way in which this is true see Mommsen, 107 ff.
84 See Mommsen, 107.
85 See below.
86 Mommsen, 100.
87 This important point, of the frescoes' precedence over the book, is established by Mommsen, 98–9. The portraits, however, of Petrarch and of Lombardo della Seta which appeared in the hall may well have been painted in 1379–80 at the time that Altichiero produced the headpieces for Cods. Lat. 6069F, 6069G. Mommsen (99–100) and Wilkins, E. H. (Petrarch's Later Years, Massachusetts, 1959, 302)Google Scholar are both inclined to think they would not date from before Lombardo's completion of the Epitome and Compendium.
88 Mommsen, 96–9.
89 Cf. Mommsen, 98–9, concerning Manno Donati, which seems curiously irrelevant; but see Wilkins, 1959, 301. Manno Donati did not die until c. 1374, but the date on his tombstone in the Santo is 31 August, 1370. See Wilkins, E. H., ‘Petrarch and Manno Donati’, Speculum xxxv (1960), 381–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For parallels of this practice, again in the Santo, see n. 57 above.
90 The significant likelihood is that this work in Verona included a series of Roman heads for the Loggia of Cansignorio's Sala Grande, which is recorded as having been built in 1364. The main part of the decoration, which included frescoes of the Jewish War by Flavius Josephus, has been lost, but Mellini rediscovered the series of Roman heads on the soffitts of the arches of the Loggia, and they are fully illustrated in Mellini pls. 1–21 (Mellini, 28). Thus Mommsen in 1952 was unaware of their existence when he wrote ‘there was nothing Roman … in the hall at Verona’ (116). Although not a specifically Petrarchan decoration, a portrait of Petrarch was traditionally reported in the decoration.
91 Mommsen, 96.
92 Mommsen, 100. For Lombardo della Seta see Ferrante, G., ‘Lombardo della Seta umanista padovano’, Atti d. R. Istituto Veneto d. Scienze Lettere ed Arti xciii, 2 (1933–1934), 445–87Google Scholar. For an outline of Bonifacio Lupi's life see Sartori 1963, 321–2; and see Galeazzo, B. and Gatari, B., Cronaca Carrarese, ed. Medin, A. and Tolomei, G. in Muratori, L., Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, xvii, 1, Città di Castello 1914Google Scholar, which dates from the end of the fourteenth century, and C. Cenci, 1964.
93 Mommsen, 100; see Billanovich, G., Petrarca Letterato, Rome 1947, i, 334 ffGoogle Scholar.
94 Sartori 1963, 311–4.
95 Sartori 1966, 314–5.
96 Sartori 1963, 321.
97 Sartori 1966, 305.
98 Sartori 1963, 318, no. 2.
99 Sartori 1963, 318, no. 4.
100 Sartori 1963, 314.
101 Mommsen, 109. Kruft (16) speculates on the possibility of personal friendship between Bonifacio and Petrarch. That they would have known each other may be assumed.
