Chapter II: Part I (1)

Among the books of the Spedale di San Paolo, at Florence, is a volume marked on the cover ‘Testimenti,’ and lettered ‘B.’ It contains a record of all wills between the years 1399 and 1526 under which the hospital in any way benefited; and on fol. 16 _recto_ is the following entry: ‘Alexo di Baldovinecto Baldovinetti has this day, the 23rd of March, 1499, made a donation to our hospital of all his goods, personal and real, after his death, with obligation that the hospital support Mea, his servant, so long as she live: [the deed was] engrossed by Ser Piero di Leonardo da Vinci, notary of Florence, on the day aforesaid.’ ‘Alexo died on the last day of August, 1499; and was buried in his tomb in San Lorenzo; and the hospital remained the heirs of his goods. May God pardon him his sins!’[3] ¶ Milanese, who quotes this ‘ricordo’ textually, though not without some slight errors, in his notes to Vasari, states that the volume in which it occurs is preserved in the Archivio di Stato at Florence; whereas the archives of the hospital are now in the ‘Archivio’ of Santa Maria Nuova, San Paolo having been united to the latter hospital by the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo, c. 1783.[4] ¶ At first sight, this ‘ricordo’ would not seem to bear out the story which Vasari tells of Alesso and his dealings with the authorities of San Paolo. It states only that Alesso made a donation to the hospital of all his worldly goods after his death, upon the condition that his faithful servant, Mea, was to be lodged, clad, and fed, during her life; whereas Vasari, on the contrary, states that the painter himself became an inmate of San Paolo. ‘Alesso,’ he says, ‘lived eighty years; and when he began to grow old, desirous of being able to attend to the studies of his profession with a quiet mind, he, as many men often do, entered the Hospital of San Paolo: and in order, perhaps, that he might be received the more willingly, and be better treated (though it might, indeed, have happened by chance), he caused a great chest to be brought into his rooms, in the hospital; acting as if a goodly sum of money were therein: whereupon the master and the other ministrants of the hospital, believing that this was so, bestowed on him the greatest kindness in the world; since they knew that he had made a donation to the hospital, of whatever was found in his possession at his death. But when Alesso died, only drawings, cartoons, and a little book which set forth how to make the tesserae for mosaic, together with the stucco and the method of working them, were found therein.’[5] ¶ The apparent discrepancy between the ‘ricordo’ in the books of San Paolo and Vasari’s account led me to search, and not without success, for the deed by which Alesso’s property passed to the hospital. I found that both the name of the notary and the date of the execution of the instrument were incorrectly given in the ‘ricordo’ cited above. The instrument was engrossed by Ser Piero di Antonio di Ser Piero da Vinci, the father of Leonardo da Vinci, and executed on March 16, 1497-8. By this deed Alesso, _ex titulo et causa donationis_, ‘irrevocably gave and bequeathed during his life-time, to the Hospital of the Pinzocheri of the third order of St. Francis, otherwise called the Hospital of San Pagholo, and to the poor of Christ living in the said hospital for the time being,’ etc., ‘all his goods, real and personal, present and future, wherever situate or existent,’ etc., reserving to himself ‘the use and usufruct of the said goods,’ etc., ‘for the term of his natural life.’ The ‘rogiti’ of Ser Piero da Vinci for the year 1498 have not been preserved among the ‘protocols’ of that notary now in the Archivio di Stato at Florence; and so it is no longer possible to say under what conditions, if any, the donation was made: but it is to be presumed upon the evidence of the ‘ricordo’ cited above, that it entailed the obligation on the part of the hospital, to maintain Mea, his servant, during her life. ¶ On October 17, 1498, Alesso executed what was technically known as a ‘renuntiatio,’ which was likewise engrossed by Ser Piero da Vinci. This second instrument, which begins by reciting the former deed of donation in the terms quoted above, sets forth how, on that day, Alesso, ‘by reason of lawful and reasonable causes of motion influencing, as they assert, his mind, and by his mere, free, and proper will,’ etc., ‘renounced the said use and usufruct, expressly reserved to himself in the aforesaid donation, and freely remitted and released the said use and usufruct to the said hospital, and to the poor of Christ dwelling in the said hospital,’ etc. The text of this document, which is preserved in the Archivio di Stato at Florence, is printed at length at the end of this article.[6] It allows us to draw but one conclusion; namely, that when the painter executed the deed of donation on March 16, 1497-8, he had been left without wife or children; and that he anticipated but two contingencies against which he would provide after his death--the health of his soul and the maintenance of his faithful servant, Mea. ¶ Alesso had married late in life. It appears from the ‘Portata al Catasto,’ returned by him in 1470, that he was still unmarried at that time, and that he was possessed of no real property, but rented a house in the ‘popolo’ of San Lorenzo, in Florence, described in his later ‘Denunzie,’ as being in the Via dell’ Ariento, at the Canto de’ Gori.[7] In another ‘Denunzia’ returned in 1480, Alesso thus describes his family:--‘Alesso Baldovinetti, aforesaid, aged 60, painter; Monna Daria, his wife, aged 45; Mea, his maid-servant, aged 13.’ As a matter of fact, Alesso was 63 years of age, having been born on October 14, 1427, Milanesi, by the way, in his notes to Vasari, gives the name of his, Alesso’s wife, as Diana, in error for Daria.[8] According to the same ‘Denunzia,’ the painter was at that time possessed of a parcel of land of twelve staiora, situate in the ‘popolo’ of Santa Maria a Quinto, and another parcel of seven staiora, in the same ‘popolo,’ the latter having been bought in 1479, with a part of his wife’s dowry. It is, therefore, probable that he had not long been married at that time.[9] It appears from a yet later ‘Denunzia’ on which the ‘Decima’ of 1498 was assessed, though the return itself was probably drawn up in 1495, that he possessed, in addition to the two parcels of land in the ‘popolo’ of Santa Maria a Quinto, a third parcel of over eleven staiora, in the adjoining ‘popolo’ of San Martino a Sesto, on the road to Prato. He was still living at that time in the same house at the Canto de’ Gori; and he also enjoyed the rents of two shops, with dwellinghouses above, which had been made over to him for the term of his natural life, by the Consuls of the Arte dei Mercanti, on February 26, 1483-4, in payment of his ‘magistero e esercitio et trafficho,’ in having restored the mosaics of the Baptistery of San Giovanni.[10] ¶ The Spedale di San Paolo, of which the beautiful loggia, with its ornaments by Andrea della Robbia, still remains on the Piazza of Santa Maria Novella, was originally a hospital for the care of the sick; and as such it is mentioned in a document of 1208.[11] From the time that St. Francis himself is said to have lodged at San Paolo, the hospital appears to have been administered by Franciscans, called in the records ‘Fratres tertii Ordinis de Penitentia S. Pauli.’ During the fourteenth century, the house underwent certain reforms; and in 1398 it was decreed by the Signoria, ‘that the place was to be no longer a hospital, but a house of Frati Pinzocheri of the third order.’[12] Notwithstanding, the members of the community continued to devote themselves to the care of the sick; and a papal brief of 1452 directs that the revenues of the house were to be set apart for the infirm.[13] At an early period in the history of San Paolo, mention occurs of Pinzochere, that is to say, women attached to the community, no doubt for the service of the hospital; but unlike the men of the house, who are invariably called Frati Pinzocheri, they were not dignified by the title of ‘Monache’: from this Stefano Rosselli infers that they originally had no share in its government.[14] Owing, however, to some cause which is not very clear, the Frati Pinzocheri appear to have died out towards the latter part of the fifteenth century, leaving the women in possession of the hospital. From evidence that Rosselli and Richa adduce, it seems that in 1497 San Paolo was controlled and administered entirely by Pinzochere; and in the document of 1499, cited below, it is called ‘lo spedale di pizichora del terzo ordjne dj san franchesco.’[15] From this we must conclude that, when Alesso renounced the use and enjoyment of his property on October 17, 1498, he entered the hospital of San Paolo, not as a member of the community, but as a sick man who sought nothing more on earth than to be tended during the brief span of life that was left to him. He died ten months later, on August 29, 1499, and was buried in his own tomb in San Lorenzo.[16] The hospital of San Paolo probably inherited, along with Alesso’s other property, all his cartoons and drawings, as Vasari asserts: they, certainly, came into the possession of his books and papers, as we know. The little treatise on the art of Mosaic has long been lost; but Milanesi has stated in a well-known passage in his Vasari, that the autograph manuscript of certain ‘Ricordi’ of Alesso Baldovinetti still existed in his time, in the Archivio of Santa Maria Nuova, among the books of the hospital of San Paolo. He adds that these ‘_Ricordi_ were published at Lucca in 1868, by Dr. Giovanni Pierotti, _per le nozze Bongi e Ranalli_.’[17] Few of those innumerable, little pamphlets with which Italians, learned and unlearned, delight to celebrate the marriages of their patrons, friends, or relatives, are more difficult to find than the little brochure of ten leaves, in a green paper wrapper, to which Milanesi alludes. The title page runs thus: ‘Ricordi di Alesso Baldovinetti, pittore fiorentino del secolo xv. Lucca. Tipografia Landi. 1868.’ Unfortunately only a portion of Baldovinetti’s manuscript is given in this pamphlet. The extracts, which fill less than a half of its twenty pages, are partly given in the text, and partly in an abstract, of the original. The rest of the pamphlet is filled with the introductory preface and notes of Dr. Pierotti. ¶ It is now some years ago since I first made an attempt to find the original manuscript of these ‘Ricordi,’ in the Archivio of Santa Maria Nuova, only to discover that I was not the first student of Florentine painting to search in vain for the volume. Whether it had been borrowed by Pierotti, or merely mislaid, or in what way it had disappeared, no one could tell me. Not long after this attempt, however, I chanced upon what proved to be a clue to its history. While searching among the ‘Carte Milanesi,’ the voluminous manuscript collections which the famous commentator of Vasari left to the Communal Library of Siena, I came across a series of extracts from the ‘Ricordi’ of Baldovinetti, in the handwriting of Milanesi, with the title: ‘Estratto del libro dei Ricordi di Alesso Baldovinetti autografo essitente nell’ Archivio dello Spedale di Santa Maria Nuova di Firenze.--Libri dello Spedale di San Paolo, 12 Febb^o. 1850.’ On comparing these extracts with Pierotti’s pamphlet, I found that the two copies agreed word for word with one another. It was evident that Pierotti had made use of Milanesi’s manuscript (indeed, he owns as much in his concluding note), and that he may never have seen the original manuscript. ¶ Last autumn, having occasion to make some researches in the Archivio of Santa Maria Nuova, with my friend Sir Domenic Colnaghi, for his ‘Dictionary of Florentine Painters,’ I took the opportunity of renewing my search for the missing volume. On the top shelf of one of the presses which contain the books and papers of the hospital of San Paolo, I came across a ‘filza’ labelled ‘Libri Diversi,’ and filled with miscellaneous account-books of the hospital, chiefly of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Among these was a small, upright book of forty-seven leaves, bound in a parchment cover which was inscribed:--

RICHORDI[18]

·Ḅ̇·

On the recto of the first leaf was written: ‘1470. In this book I will keep a record of all the expenses that I shall incur in the chapel of the High Altar of Santa Trinita, namely of gold, blue, green, lake, with all other colours and expenses that shall be incurred on behalf of the said chapel; and so we may remain in agreement [I and] Messer Bongiani Gianfigliazi, the commissioner of the work, and the patron of the said chapel, as appears by a writing which I hold, subscribed by his own hand.’ ¶ Fol. 2 _tergo_, and fol. 3 _recto_, were filled with entries relating to the purchase of colours and other materials for the work of the chapel, and fol. 3 _tergo_ contained two further entries in the same hand; after which was written, in a different hand: ‘Here follow the records of the hospital of the Pinzochere of the third order of St. Francis, written by Giovanni di Ser Antonio Vianizzi.’ The remainder of the book was filled with entries relating to the hospital of San Paolo, the first of which recorded a payment of twenty-three lire, made by the hospital on October 19, 1499, to Luca d’Alesso Baldovinetti. On comparing the ‘Ricordi’ relating to Santa Trinita, with the ‘Portata al Catasto,’ returned by Alesso in 1471, it was clearly evident that both documents were in the handwriting of the painter. Of the ‘Portata al Catasto,’ returned by Alesso in 1480, two copies exist in the same hand; but they do not appear to have been written by the painter himself, although Milanesi has reproduced a portion of one of them, in his ‘Scrittura di Artisti Italiani,’ Florence, 1876, Vol. 1, No. 74, as a specimen of his handwriting. ¶ What is more, this manuscript, which I may call ‘Libro B,’ throws a light upon the nature of the missing volume, ‘Libro A.’ In the case of ‘Libro B,’ what undoubtedly happened was, that the good Pinzochere, on looking over Alesso’s property after his death, found an account-book of which only the first three leaves had been used. With a proper spirit of economy, they determined to make use of the rest of the book for the accounts of their hospital: but instead of tearing out the leaves containing Alesso’s ‘Ricordi,’ they fortunately allowed them to stand; their procurator adding the note I have cited above. The same thing probably happened in the case of ‘Libro A.’ From the extracts that Milanesi made, it appears that Alesso’s ‘Ricordi’ only filled some sixteen pages of a volume, that cannot well have contained fewer leaves than ‘Libro B.’ With this clue to its discovery, I leave my friends and rivals in Florence to continue the search for a volume, whose loss every genuine student of Italian painting must regret. ¶ The history of the Cappella Maggiore of Santa Trinita affords a curious instance of the tardy process by which many of the Florentine churches and their chapels were brought to completion. The present church of Santa Trinita was begun _c._ 1250, but many of the lateral chapels remained unfinished until the fifteenth century, and among them the Cappella Maggiore. On November 1, 1371, the abbot of Santa Trinita, _inter missarum solepnia_, made an appeal to many of the chief parishioners, who had assembled for mass, to contribute to the expenses necessary for the erection of the Cappella Maggiore.[19] The work appears to have proceeded very slowly, since it is on record that the chapel was but half built in the year 1463. In order to bring it to completion, the abbot, having assembled the parishioners in the church, gave notice that since money was wanting to finish the work, licence to do so would be granted to the family that was able and willing to undertake the expense; and accordingly on February 4 of the same year, the patronage of the chapel was granted by acclamation of the parishioners, to Messer Bongianni Gianfigliazzi and his descendants.[20] ¶ The Gianfigliazzi were an ancient Florentine family, of no little repute in the conduct of affairs and arms during the last two centuries of the republic. Ugolino Verino celebrates them in his Latin poem, ‘De Illustratione Urbis Florentiae’:--

Non genus externum est: agro venere paterno,
Janfiliazze, tui, si vera est fama, priores.
Protulit illustres equites generosa propago.[21]

According to Piero Monaldi, the Gianfigliazzi were descended and took their name from one ‘Ioannes filius Acci,’ who is named in a treaty concluded between the Sienese and Florentines in the year 1201.[22] Besides knights of Malta and Santo Spirito, this family boasted of ten gonfaloniers of the republic, and thirty priors; the first of whom held office in 1345. Gherardo Gianfigliazzi was gonfalonier in 1462; and Messer Bongianni, his brother, in 1467, and again in 1470. The latter, ‘magnificus miles’ as he is styled in documents, was a ‘cavalier spron d’oro,’ and famous in his day as a leader of the Florentine forces. He was several times created ambassador of the Florentine republic, and one of the Dieci di Balia. In 1471 he was one of the six ‘orators’ sent to felicitate Sixtus IV on his election to the papacy; and in 1483 he was appointed ‘commessario’ in the war against the Genoese, which ended in the capture of Sarzana. Alesso was not the only famous artist which this family patronized. Their shield of arms, carved with a lion rampant, by Desiderio da Settignano, is still to be seen on the front of their palace on the Lung’ arno Corsini, at Florence.[23] ¶ Giuseppe Richa states that the deed granting the patronage of the Cappella Maggiore of Santa Trinita to the Gianfigliazzi, was engrossed by Ser Pierozzo Cerbini on February 13, 1463-4, which we may well believe;[24] but he adds that the ‘ius patronale’ was vested in the persons of Messer Bongianni and Messer Gherardo.[25] The latter statement, however, would seem to be incorrect, for Gherardo was already dead at that time, as we learn from the inscription on the sepulchral slab (one of the most beautiful of its kind in Florence), which is still to be seen on the floor of the chapel, but now partly covered by a choir-organ:

GHERARDO . IANFILIATIO . DE . SE .
FAMILIA . ET . PATRIA . BE[? NE-
MERITO BONIOANNES] . FRATRI .
PIENTISSIMO . SIBI ..... IDVS . SEP .
AN . SAL . MCCCCLXIII

THE ALTAR-PIECE PAINTED BY ALESSO BALDOVINETTI FOR THE CAPPELLA MAGGIORE OF SANTA TRINITÀ, AT FLORENCE, AND NOW PRESERVED IN THE FLORENTINE ACADEMY]

Messer Bongianni appears to have proceeded at once with the work of finishing the chapel. His share of the work may yet be made out: the vaulting, with its heavy roll ribs, too large for the corbels on which they rest, was clearly erected by him. The corbels themselves probably date from the thirteenth century. Furthermore, he constructed the large window of two round-headed lights, and an a ‘occhio,’ or circular light, above, which is still to be seen in the head of the chapel. The structure being completed, he next turned to the decoration, which he began by filling the lights of the window with painted glass. Alesso Baldovinetti enters, in his ‘Ricordi,’ Libro A, that ‘Lionardo di Bartolommeo, surnamed Lastra, and Giovanni di Andrea, glazier, owe me this 14th day of February, 1465[-6], lire 120; which moneys are for the painting of a window placed in the Cappella Maggiore of Santa Trinita; and Bongianni di Bongianni Gianfigliazzi has ordered this window to be executed by the said Lastra and Giovanni, master-glaziers; and I, Alesso, have designed and painted it for them, at the rate of forty soldi the square braccio: the ‘occhio’ above being estimated with the said window, in the said sum, and according to the said measure.‘[26] It appears from the ‘Trattato’ of Cennino Cennini that it was the common practice of the ‘maestri di finestre’ in Florence in the fifteenth century not only to employ painters to design cartoons for their windows, but also to paint the design upon the glass. The ‘maestro di finistre,’ says Cennini, ‘will come to you with the measure of his window, both breadth and length. You will take as many sheets of paper glued together as will be necessary for your window; and you will draw your figure first in charcoal, afterwards you will outline it in ink, having shaded your figure as completely as if you were drawing it on panel. Then the master-glazier takes this design and spreads it out on a desk or board, large and even, and according as he wishes to colour the draperies of the figure, so, piece by piece, he cuts the glasses, and gives you a colour made of copper filings, well ground; and with this colour, piece by piece, you proceed with a little pencil of minever, having a good point, to contrive your shadows, making the joins of the folds and other parts of your figure agree, one piece of glass with another, just as the master-glazier has cut and put them together; and with this colour you are able, without exception, to shade on every sort of glass.’[27] ¶ In 1616, the glass designed and painted by Alesso, ‘being all spoiled, broken, and patched, in such a manner that it yielded no light, except where there was no wire-screen,’ the whole of the lights were reglazed anew, at the joint expense of the monastery and the patrons of the chapel.[28] The beautiful stonework of the window, however, designed in the classic taste of the time, with finely-wrought pilasters at the jambs and mullion, was restored and filled with modern stained-glass during the recent restoration of the church, in 1890-7. ¶ It appears from the ‘Ricordi,’ Libro A, of Alesso Baldovinetti, that the painter gave designs for several windows to the ‘maestri di finestre.’ In 1472, he designed an Annunciation to be executed in glass for the cathedral church of San Martino, at Lucca; and in 1481, he designed a window for the church of Sant’ Agostino, at Arezzo.[29] These windows have perished, but there still remains in Florence a painted window which was undoubtedly executed from a cartoon by Alesso. This window, which, so far as I am aware, has never been ascribed to him, is above the altar of the Pazzi chapel, in the first cloister of Santa Croce. [Plate I.] It consists of two lights, a lower circular-headed light containing a full-length figure of St. Andrew, the patron saint of the chapel, with the arms of the Pazzi below; and an upper round window, or ‘occhio,’ containing a half-length figure of God the Father. This window affords a good example of the use of the pure and brilliant colours which the Florentine ‘maestri di finestre’ employed in the fifteenth century, and which to our northern eyes are apt to appear crude and too little wrought upon. But seen, as such windows were doubtless intended to be seen, with the full power of the Italian sun upon them, their colours become fused, and take that jewel-like quality which is essentially distinctive of the finest painted-glass. The figure of St. Andrew is draped in a golden leaf-green robe, lined with a smalt blue, and worn over an underrobe of a warm and brilliant purple. The frieze of the niche behind the figure is of a colder purple; the capitals of a madder tint; the cupola of a smalt blue; and the sky in the background of a full ultramarine. The figure of God the Father in the ‘occhio’ above, wears a golden purple vest, and a mantle of smalt blue; and the curtains of a madder purple, lined with green, which are drawn apart, reveal a skyey background of ultramarine behind the figure. During the recent restoration of the Pazzi chapel, this window was repaired, and several missing pieces of the glass made good. These repairs are especially noticeable in the ultramarine glass. ¶ The high altar of Santa Trinita was originally placed immediately below the window, in the head of the Cappella Maggiore. Its beautiful marble frontal, carved with the symbol of the Trinity in relief, was found during the recent restoration of the church, in the Cappella della Pura, in Santa Maria Novella, and has once more been put to its original use. For this altar Alesso, as he records in Libro A, received the commission from Messer Bongianni, on April 11, 1470, to paint an altar-piece, in which was to be a Trinity with two saints, namely, St. Benedict and St. John Gualbert, and angels. He finished it on February 8, 1471, and received eighty-nine gold florins in payment for the work.[30] In 1569, the high altar was brought forward, and placed below the arch of the Cappella Maggiore; and the choir which anciently lay before the high altar, in the body of the church, was reconstructed in the chapel, behind the altar. In 1671, the crucifix of St. John Gualbert was brought from San Miniato, and placed upon the new high altar; and Alesso’s altar-piece was left hanging in its original position, below the window of the choir, where it was to be seen when Don Averardo Niccolini collected his notices of Santa Trinita, towards the middle of the seventeenth century.[31] At a later time the picture was removed into the sacristy; and finally, upon the suppression of the monastery in 1808, it was taken to the Florentine Academy, where it is still preserved, No. 159. [Plate II.] It is painted on a panel measuring 7 ft. 8½ ins. in height, and 9 ft. 1¾ ins. in length. God the Father is seated in the centre of the composition, in the midst of a glory of seraphim, supporting the cross on which the figure or Christ is hanging. The Holy Ghost, in the form of a dove, hovers above the crucifix; and at the foot of the cross, which rests upon the earth, is the skull of Adam. In the lower left-hand corner kneels St. Benedict, in the habit of his order; and on the opposite side of the picture kneels St. John Gualbert. In the upper corners, two angels draw back a curtain embroidered with pearls; while other angels hover around, against the skyey background. Dry, almost unpleasing as a whole, and with little or nothing of that delicate feeling for sensuous beauty which distinguishes Alesso’s early works, this altar-piece is, nevertheless, one of the most remarkable productions extant of Florentine painting in the fifteenth century. In execution, it shows a mastery of technique to which few of Alesso’s contemporaries attained. The draperies, for instance, are wrought with a richness of colour and texture which recalls the work of some great Fleming. In conception too severely understood, in presentation too precisely wrought out, and with too exacting a definition, this altar-piece seems to forestall something of that profoundly intellectual rendering of constructed form, which Michael Angelo afterwards carried to its height in the fresco of the Last Judgement. Certainly, there are few more striking instances of the manner to which the Florentine painters of the fifteenth century developed the technique and science of painting.

[_To be continued._]

THE EARLY PAINTERS OF THE NETHERLANDS AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE BRUGES EXHIBITION OF 1902

❧ WRITTEN BY W. H. JAMES WEALE ❧

ARTICLE IV

The Exhibition included a number of other works attributed to Memlinc. Three of these are supposed to have been executed in his early years: the Passion of Saint Sebastian (69), belonging to the Brussels Museum; the triptych with the Deposition of Christ in the centre, and Saints James and Christopher (92), formerly at Liphook in the Heath collection, now the property of M. R. von Kaufmann; and the Blessed Virgin and Child with a donor protected by Saint Anthony. The first of these was probably painted by a follower of Dirk Bouts; the second by an imitator of Bouts and Memlinc; the third only has any claim to be considered the work of Memlinc; the date 1472, inscribed in the background, is certainly modern, but probably copied from the frame when this was discarded. The Blessed Virgin and Child (78), lent by Mr. A. Thiem, is a school picture in not very good condition; another (83) belonging to Baron P. Bethune, having long served as the lid of a miller’s flour box, has very little of the original work left. A Madonna enthroned with two angels (82) entirely overpainted, lent by Mrs. Stephenson Clarke, and another belonging to the Museum of Woerlitz (29), are like similar pictures in the Museum at Vienna and in the possession of the Duke of Westminster, works probably painted after Memlinc’s death from his patterns by Louis Boels. The three large panels from the monastery of Najera (84), belonging to the Antwerp Museum, are fine decorative works painted about 1490 by an imitator of Memlinc and Van Eyck. As to the Annunciation lent by Prince Radziwill (85), said by Dr. Waagen to have been painted in 1482, I should, looking at the colour and execution, think it at least twenty years later, and am convinced that Memlinc never had anything whatever to do with it. Mr. Hulin calls it Memlinc’s most perfect composition; Dr. Friedländer, ‘an extremely original composition of remarkable delicacy of sentiment and execution’ (_von höchst eigenartiger Komposition und besonderer Feinheit in Empfindung und Durchführung_); while a writer in the _Athenaeum_ of September 20 says: ‘In conception it belongs entirely to the master, and the composition is as fine and original as anything to be found in his work,’ and thinks that ‘it was _a beautiful and new conceit_ thus to represent the Virgin as sinking down tremblingly at the angel’s word, but held by the supporting arms of two other attendant angels who look up to her with reassuring smiles.’ Now it is certain that Memlinc, far from being an innovator and an inventor of what the writer properly calls new conceits, was a faithful follower of ecclesiastical tradition, and would never have dreamt of introducing into the representation of this mystery these two sentimental and affected angels. No doubt the Gospel says that Mary was troubled at the words of the angel, but there is nothing to warrant this impertinent addition. The fact is that the beautiful long waving line of the Virgin’s robe with its sudden returning lines has made these critics shut their eyes to these points, which I think are by themselves sufficient evidence that the picture is the work of a sixteenth-century innovator. As to the six panels (176) lent by the Strassburg Museum, it is an outrage to suggest that Memlinc was their author. ¶ After Memlinc, the greatest master who worked at Bruges was another foreigner, Gerard son of John, son of David, a native of Oudewater in South Holland, who in all probability learnt his art either at Haarlem or under Dirk Bouts at Louvain. He came to Bruges at the end of 1483, and was admitted into the Guild of Saint Luke as free master on January 14, 1484. Although we have no written evidence as to his history previous to that date, yet certain details in his works make it almost certain that he had travelled in Italy after the termination of his apprenticeship. Bruges still possesses the earliest works by him of which the authenticity is established; these with a number of others by his followers not only afforded an excellent opportunity for studying the variations in his manner, but showed the great influence he exercised over his contemporaries and followers. In 1488 Gerard David was commissioned to paint two pictures by the magistrates elected by the three members of Flanders to succeed those who had been deposed after the imprisonment of Maximilian; they were intended by them to commemorate the execution of the judge Peter Lanchals and other members of the late administration who, having been found guilty of corruption and malversation, had been condemned to death and executed. Gerard, however, instead of painting the history of Lanchals, took for his theme an analogous subject originally recorded by Herodotus, which he probably drew from the then much better known works of Valerius Maximus. By so doing he avoided the resentment of the friends of the deposed magistrates, while the subject chosen was equally well adapted to recall to the sitting magistrates that they must be honest and impartial. In the first of the two panels (121), which we reproduce (as the frontispiece of this number), Cambyses, accompanied by his court, is represented entering the hall of justice and ordering the arrest of the unjust judge Sisamnes. In the background Sisamnes is seen at the porch of his house receiving a bag of money from a suitor. The groups of nude children and the garlands of fruit and flowers, the earliest instance of the occurrence of such details in a Netherlandish picture, must have been copied from Venetian or Florentine pictures, and the two Medicean cameos are almost proofs of a visit to Florence; one of these, the Judgement of Marsyas by Apollo, is represented as a breast ornament worn by Lucretia Tornabuoni (?) in the portrait of that lady by Botticelli in the Städel Institute at Frankfort. It is interesting to note that the square seen in the background is an almost exact representation of the Square of St. John at Bruges. The flaying of Sisamnes (122) is an extremely realistic picture vigorously painted with wonderful finish. The composition and pose of the figures in both scenes remind one of Carpaccio, the heads have a great deal of character, and the hands are admirably modelled. For the two pictures, which were not completed until 1498, Gerard received in three instalments the sum of £14 10s. ¶ The National Gallery contains two pictures painted between 1500 and 1510, both formerly in the Cathedral of Saint Donatian at Bruges, the one an altar-piece executed for Richard De Visch Van der Capelle, who held the office of cantor in that church; the other, the dexter wing of a triptych painted for Bernardine Salviati, a canon of the same cathedral. These of course were not at Bruges, but I mention them here because they form a connecting link with the triptych representing the Baptism of Christ (123), of which the centre and the inner face of the shutters were painted before 1502, and the outer in 1508. The next work in order of date, and in my opinion David’s masterpiece, is the picture (124) presented by him in 1509 to the convent of the Carmelite nuns of Sion at Bruges, and now in the Rouen Museum; it represents the Blessed Virgin and Child surrounded by virgin saints and two angels, the one playing a mandoline, the other a viola, whilst at the extreme ends in the background the painter has represented himself and his young wife. The composition is not quite original; Memlinc had already painted for John Du Celier a small Sacra Conversazione now in the Louvre, and another artist who has not as yet been identified had executed in 1489, for the Guild of Saints Mary Magdalene, Katherine, and Barbara, an altar-piece (114) which doubtless suggested not only the composition of this picture but the mode of characterizing the saints. The author of this earlier work, if one may judge by its colouring, was probably accustomed to design tapestries; most of the figures are exceedingly plain and wanting in expression, whereas in Gerard’s picture the colouring is harmonious and the figures remarkable for beauty of expression, the angels being amongst the most charming conceptions realized by the school.

The large triptych (125) lent by M. de Somzée, with life-size figures of Saint Anne with the Blessed Virgin and Child in the centre, and Saints Nicholas and Anthony of Padua on the shutters, painted for some Spanish church, is a late work inferior in execution to those already mentioned. Six other panels with scenes from the lives of the two saints, said to have been the predella of this altar-piece, not exhibited, are on the contrary charming works; they are now in the possession of Lady Wantage. Two shutters of a triptych (138) with full-length figures of four saints, lent by Mr. James Simon, of Berlin, appear to me to be authentic works; the Saints Christopher and Anthony are especially good. ¶ Of the other eleven works attributed to Gerard by their owners or by those who have written on the exhibition, I can only say _caveat lector_. We know no picture painted by Gerard before 1488 or after 1512, and the variation of style in the works executed between those dates of which the authenticity is established makes it difficult to say with certainty that any picture painted at Bruges between 1512 and 1527 is or is not by him, and it is certainly mere guesswork to attribute to him any pictures of an earlier date than 1488; it is indeed probable that, being a stranger, he would during his first four years at Bruges have confined himself to the execution of small pictures of religious subjects which would meet with a ready sale. The Adoration of the Magi (135) lent by the Brussels Museum, formerly supposed to be by John van Eyck, was first attributed to Gerard by Dr. Scheibler. Dr. Friedländer believes it to be an original work of about 1500, often copied. It was originally in the Premonstratensian abbey of Saint Michael at Antwerp, and I doubt its being a Bruges picture or an original composition. The original painting was certainly executed shortly after 1490 and was copied by the miniaturist who adorned a Dominican Breviary which was in the possession of Francis de Roias in Spain before 1497. ¶ The style of the figures and the colouring of the Annunciation (128) lent by the Museum of Sigmaringen are very much in Gerard’s manner, and it may possibly be by him; the Städel Museum at Frankfort contains a copy of these two panels apparently painted by a Netherlandish artist in the Peninsula or by a Portuguese artist in the Low Countries, the inscription on the border of the angel’s vestments being in Portuguese: _Modar de Senor_. A triptych representing the Deposition of Christ (126), which though thrice restored, in 1675, 1773, and 1827, is still in fairly good condition, was first included by me in 1863 among the works by Gerard on the authority of a document of the year 1675, preserved in the archives of the Confraternity of the Holy Blood, to which the picture has always belonged. It certainly differs considerably from the pictures painted by him between 1488 and 1510, and shows a strong influence of Quentin Metsys, and I do not think that the opinion of two or three modern critics warrants the rejection of the evidence in its favour. The picture was certainly painted _c._ 1520 in Bruges, where several old copies of it were preserved until the middle of the last century. ¶ A Holy Family (343) lent by M. Martin Le Roi is an excellent work painted about the same time, showing even more strongly the influence of Quentin Metsys, and I have little doubt painted by an Antwerp master. Yet this is classed by Dr. Friedländer as an excellent work of David’s later time (_Vortreffliches Werk aus der Spätzeit Davids_), although there is neither tradition nor documentary evidence in favour of this attribution. The Transfiguration (117) belonging to the church of Our Lady, another work of about the same date, is of interest as representing an event rarely treated by the early masters of the Netherlands. The composition shows an Italian influence; the figures, especially those in the group on the left, that of Gerard; the colouring is light and cool; the picture has suffered very much from neglect. The shutters of this altar-piece, not exhibited, were painted by Peter Pourbus. The lunette (149) lent by Baron de Schickler is a fine piece, but the types of the figures are unlike any in Gerard’s authentic works. ¶ Gerard was not only a painter but also a miniaturist, and as such a member of the Guild of Saint John and the head of a school of miniaturists. Two specimens of his own work--(129) Saint John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness and the Baptism of Christ--and three by his wife, Cornelia Cnoop, were formerly in the Cistercian abbey of Saint Mary in the Dunes; the three last (130), lent by Messrs. P. and D. Colnaghi, are here reproduced; they have been framed as a triptych.

[_The previous articles of this series were published in Nos. 1, 2, and 3 of_ ~The Burlington Magazine~ _for March, April, and May, 1903._]

EDITORIAL NOTE

We give reproductions of the portraits of Thomas Portunari and his wife, referred to by Mr. Weale in his third article (~Burlington Magazine~, No. 3, May 1903, p. 336), as they may be of interest to students of Flemish art, since their authorship is a disputed question. These portraits have hitherto been attributed to Memlinc, but, when they were exhibited at Bruges last year, this attribution was doubted by many critics. Mr. Weale, as our readers know, has suggested that the portraits may be early works of Hugh van der Goes. The question is one on which further opinion will be welcome. Amateurs of mediaeval jewellery, by the way, should notice the very beautiful necklace worn by Portunari’s wife, which is a remarkably fine example of fifteenth-century work.

ON ORIENTAL CARPETS

❧ ARTICLE III.--THE SVASTIKA ❧

Until a comparatively few years ago, the literature of science was almost wholly silent on the subject of the Svastika. Professor Wilson, of the Smithsonian Institute, writing in the early nineties, sets forth that in most of the best-known encyclopedias, both European and American, the word Svastika is not so much as mentioned. It was indeed, he says, this to him incomprehensible omission, and consequent admittedly general ignorance, that prompted him to make an exhaustive study of the subject, and to embody the results of his researches in what is undoubtedly the standard work on Svastika at the present time. Yet even Professor Wilson, while giving to his readers the great mass of evidence he has collated, is chary of expressing any definite opinion as to the origin and significance of this universal symbol. In this reserve he is doubtless prudent, at least in so far that he has avoided entering upon a controversy which must probably be endless. The theories, indeed, that have been presented concerning the origin and the symbolism of the Svastika are as numerous as they are diverse. Every kind of suggestion has been made as to its relation to the most ancient Deities, and as to its typifying of certain qualities. Various writers have regarded it as being the emblem, respectively, of Zeus and of Baal, of the Sun God, of the Sun itself as a God, and of the Sun chariot. Of Agni (the Ignis of the Romans) the fire God, and of Indra the rain God. In the estimation of others, again, it is typical of the sky and of the sky God; and finally of the Deity of all Deities, the great God, the maker and ruler of the universe. Again, it has been held to symbolize light and the God of light, and the forked lightning, as a manifestation of that Deity; and yet again, according to some, from its intimate association with the Lotus, it has been regarded as the emblem of the God of water. That it is the oldest known Aryan symbol is hardly in dispute. There are writers who have announced their conviction that it represents Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, the creator, the preserver, and the destroyer. Certainly it appears in the footprints of Buddha, engraved upon the living rock of Indian mountains; equally certainly it stood for the Jupiter Tonans and Pluvius of the Latins, and for the Thor of the Scandinavians, though that it represented a variety of the ‘Thor hammer’ is now considered to be disproved. Many have attributed a Phallic meaning to it, or, regarding it as the symbol of the female, have claimed that it represents the generative principles of mankind, while its appearance on the person of certain Goddesses, Artemis, Hera, Demeter, Astarte, and the Chaldean ‘Nana,’ the leaden Goddess from Hissarlik, has caused it to be claimed as a sign of fecundity. But, as Professor Wilson points out, and as every other writer has allowed, whatever else the Svastika may have stood for, and however many meanings it may have had, it was always, if not primarily, ornamental. It may have been used with any or all and other than the above significations, but it was always ornamental as well. ¶ But in whatever other connexion it may have been employed, it was invariably, and still is to-day, an auspicious sign. It is still used by the common people of India, of China, and of Japan, as a sign of ‘long life, good wishes, and good fortune.’ Among many North American Indian tribes it is called ‘the luck,’ and the men wear it embroidered on their garters, and the women on the borders of their skirts; and in ancient times it was wont to be embroidered in quills on the bags in which they carried their medicinal herbs. In Thibet it is a not uncommon mode of tattooing; and in this connexion it is interesting to note that Higgins in his ‘Anacalypsis’ says, concerning the origin of the cross, that the official name for the Governor of Thibet comes from the ancient Thibetan name for cross, the original spelling of which is “Lamh.” Davenport corroborates this view in his “Aphrodisiaco.” There is, according to Balfour, despite Mr. Gandhi’s contradictions of Colonel Cunningham, a sect in Thibet who receive their name from this symbol. They are the ‘Tao-sse’ of the Chinese. The founder of this doctrine is said to have flourished ~B.C.~ 604 to 523. They were rationalists who held that peace of mind and contentment were the only objects worthy of attainment in this life. They assumed the name of Tirthakar, or pure-doers. Professor Max Müller, discussing the question why the sign should have had an auspicious meaning, mentions that Mr. Thomas, the distinguished oriental numismatist, has called attention to the fact, that in the long list of the recognized devices of the twenty-four Jain Tirthankara[32] the sun is absent, but that while the eighth Tirthankara has the sign of the half moon, the seventh is marked with a Svastika, _i.e._ the sun. Here, then, is clear indication that the Svastika with the ends pointing in the right direction was originally a symbol of the sun, perhaps of the vernal sun as opposed to the autumnal sun, the ‘Suavastika,’ and therefore a natural symbol of light, life, health, and wealth. This ‘Suavastika,’ Max Müller believes, was applied to the Svastika sign with the ends bent to the left, but with the exception of Burnouf (‘Des Sciences et Religions’) no one agrees with him. Burnouf supports his theory (which is, that the word Suavastika is a derivation of the Svastika, and ought to signify ‘he, who, or that which bears or carries the Svastika or a species of Svastika’) by the story of Agni (Ignis), the god of Sacred Fire, as told in the ‘Veda’ (the four sacred books of the Hindus). ‘The young Queen, the Mother of Fire, carried the Royal infant mysteriously concealed in her bosom. She was a woman of the people, whose common name was Arani--that is, the instrument of wood (the Svastika) from which fire was produced by rubbing.’ Burnouf says that the origin of the sign is now easy to recognize. It represents the two pieces of wood which compose the Arani, of which the extremities were to be retained by the four nails. At the junction of the two pieces was a fossette or cup-like hole, and there was placed a wooden upright in the form of a lance (the pramantha), the violent rotation of which (by whipping after the fashion of the whipping-top) brought forth fire.

Zmigrodski agrees with this view; but, as with every other theory connected with Svastika, it has many opponents. ¶ Professor Dumontier holds that Svastika is nothing else than a development of the ancient Chinese characters C. h. e, which carries the idea, according to Count Goblet D’Alviella (in ‘La Migration des Symboles’), of perfection or excellence, and signifies the renewal and perpetuity of life. Max Müller, Waring, and D’Alviella are agreed that neither in Babylonia nor in Assyria are any traces of Svastika to be found. Ludwig Müller, however, finds ample evidence of it on Persian coins of the Arsacides and Sassanides dynasties. ¶ Arsacides was the name of the Parthian kings whose family name was Arseus. The Arsacidean kings of Armenia, according to Moses of Chorene, began to reign ~B.C.~ 130, and ruled until ~A.D.~ 45, when the Armenian kingdom was extinguished. The Sassanian kings of Persia ruled from ~A.D.~ 226 to 641, when the last monarch, Yez-de-jird the Third, was overthrown by the Mahomedans. This monarchy took its origin when Artaxerxes (the Greek and Roman way of pronouncing Ardeshir) overthrew the Parthian dynasty. This prince, Ardeshir Babekan, son of Sassan, was an officer of King Arsaces Artabanus the Fifth, whom he murdered, assuming the Persian throne as the first of the Sassanian dynasty. ¶ Ohnefalsch Richter holds the view that although no trace of Svastika had been found in Phoenicia, yet that travellers to that country had brought it from the Far East, and had introduced it into Cyprus, and into Carthage and the north of Africa generally. As against the denial of it in Assyria, however, is Wilson’s assertion that the three-rayed design is found on Assyrian coins, as also as a countermark on those of Alexander, ~B.C.~ 333 to 323. Professor Sayce, on the other hand, is of opinion that Svastika was a Hittite symbol which passed by communication to the Aryans, or to some of their important branches before their final dispersion took place. The Professor regards it as being fairly established that the symbol was in more or less common use among the peoples of the bronze age anterior to either the Chaldeans, Hittites, or Aryans.

With circle. Plain.]