Dominican Women and Renaissance Art: The Convent of San Domenico of Pisa 9780754655305, 9781315257426
Starting from an inventory and other documents, Ann Roberts has identified some 30 works of art that originated from the
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Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 CHIARA GAMBACORTA AND THE HISTORY OF SAN DOMENICO OF PISA
The Life of Chiara Gambacorta
Pisa in the Fifteenth Century
Dominican Culture at San Domenico
Books and the Dominican Ideal
2 THE SETTING: THE BUILDINGS OF SAN DOMENICO
Building San Domenico
Cloister and the Problem of Convent Architecture
Later Alterations to the Complex at San Domenico
3 THE IMPACT OF THE FOUNDRESS
Chiara Gambacorta as Patron
The Image of the Foundress
A Candidate for Sainthood
4 THE CONVENT AUDIENCE
Brides of Christ and Virgin Martyrs
Martha and Mary Magdalene
Monastic Ideals
The Bridegroom
5 AN OBSERVANT IDENTITY
Dominican Traditions in Works of Art for San Domenico
From Dominican to Observant: Echoes of San Marco
6 NUNS AND THE WORLD
Family Ties
Clients and Patrons
Nuns and Soldiers
7 PATRONS AND PAINTERS
Nuns as Patrons
Doing It Themselves: Nuns as Artists
Conclusion
Catalogue of Renaissance Paintings from San Domenico
Appendix 1 Inventories of Works of Art and Other Objects from San Domenico
Appendix 2 Census
Appendix 3 Renaissance Prioresses
Appendix 4 The Women of San Domenico
Appendix 5 Selected Letters From and About the Nuns
Appendix 6 Relics in San Domenico by 1557
Bibliography
Index
Citation preview
Dominican Women and Renaissance Art
While adopting many of the strategies of traditional art history investigating issues of style, taste, iconography, and sources, Roberts employs these not as ends in themselves but to answer questions about patronage, audience, and meaning, providing new insights into how nuns related to art and how they shaped the artistic program of their convent. Especially noteworthy in this study is the extent to which the author has been able to identify works from the internal spaces of the convent and to reconstruct decorative programs based on inventories and archival documents. – Marilyn Dunn, Loyola University Chicago, USA
An Ashgate Book
Dominican Women and Renaissance Art The Convent of San Domenico of Pisa
ANN ROBERTS
ANN ROBERTS
www.routledge.com
Jacket illustration: Detail from Johannes Blaeu, Engraved Map of Pisa, 1633. Private collection, Illinois. Photo: Author.
WOMEN AND GENDER IN THE EARLY MODERN WORLD
DOMINICAN WOMEN ANd RENAISSANCE ArT
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Women and Gender in the Early Modern World Series Editors: Allyson Poska, The University of Mary Washington, USA Abby Zanger Women and Gender in the Early Modern World reaches beyond geographical limitations to explore the experiences of early modern women and the nature of gender in Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa. Titles in the series From Wives to Widows in Early Modern Paris Gender, Economy and Law Janine M. Lanza Education and Women in the Early Modern Hispanic World Elizabeth Teresa Howe Midwifery, Obstetrics and the Rise of Gynaecology The Uses of a Sixteenth-Century Compendium Helen King Gender, Race and Religion in the Colonization of the Americas Nora E. Jaffary Genre and Women’s Life Writing in Early Modern England Edited by Michelle M. Dowd and Julie A. Eckerle Ottoman Women Builders The Architectural Patronage of Hadice Turhan Sultan Lucienne Thys-Senocak Women and Authorship in Revolutionary America Angela Vietto Re-membering Masculinity in Early Modern Florence Widowed Bodies, Mourning and Portraiture Allison Levy
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Dominican Women and Renaissance Art The Convent of San Domenico of Pisa
ANN rObErTS Lake Forest College, USA
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First published 2008 by Ashgate Publishin g
Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © Ann Roberts
Ann Roberts has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Dominican women and Renaissance art : the Convent of San Domenico in Pisa. - (Women and gender in the early modern world) 1. Convento di San Domenico (Pisa, Italy) - Art patronage 2. Convento di San Domenico (Pisa, Italy) - Art collections 3. Convento di San Domenico (Pisa, Italy) 4. Art patronage - Italy - Pisa - History - To 1500 5. Convents - Italy Pisa - History - To 1500 6. Women art patrons - Italy Pisa - History - To 1500 7. Art, Italian - Italy - Pisa 15th century 8. Renaissance - Italy - Pisa 9. Art and religion - Italy - Pisa - History - To 1500 I. Roberts, Ann 709.4'555'09024 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Roberts, Ann, 1952 Dominican women and Renaissance art : the Convent of San Domenico of Pisa / Ann Roberts. p. cm. -- (Women and gender in the early modern world) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7546-5530-5 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Christian saints in art. 2. Painting, Renaissance--Italy--Pisa. 3. Painting, Italian--Italy- Pisa--15th century. 4. Church decoration and ornament--Italy--Pisa. 5. Art patronage--Italy- Pisa--History--15th century. 6. Dominican sisters--Italy--Pisa. 7. Convento di San Domenico (Pisa, Italy) I. Title. ND1432.I8R63 2008 704.9'482094555--dc22
2007029207
ISBN 9780754655305 (hbk)
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Contents List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction
vii xv 1
1 CHIARA GAMBACORTA AND THE HISTORY OF SAN DOMENICO OF PISA The Life of Chiara Gambacorta Pisa in the Fifteenth Century Dominican Culture at San Domenico Books and the Dominican Ideal
9 9 16 18 25
2 THE SETTING: THE BUILDINGS OF SAN DOMENICO Building San Domenico Cloister and the Problem of Convent Architecture Later Alterations to the Complex at San Domenico
43 43 57 61
3 THE IMPACT OF THE FOUNDRESS Chiara Gambacorta as Patron The Image of the Foundress A Candidate for Sainthood
71 71 94 106
4 THE CONVENT AUDIENCE Brides of Christ and Virgin Martyrs Martha and Mary Magdalene Monastic Ideals The Bridegroom
123 123 133 148 155
5 AN OBSERVANT IDENTITY Dominican Traditions in Works of Art for San Domenico From Dominican to Observant: Echoes of San Marco
167 167 180
6 NUNS AND THE WORLD Family Ties Clients and Patrons Nuns and Soldiers
213 213 220 225
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7
PATRONS AND PAINTERS Nuns as Patrons Doing It Themselves: Nuns as Artists Conclusion
237 237 242 261
Catalogue of Renaissance Paintings from San Domenico
269
Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Appendix 3 Appendix 4 Appendix 5 Appendix 6
285 315 317 319 329 335
Inventories of Works of Art and Other Objects from San Domenico Census Renaissance Prioresses The Women of San Domenico Selected Letters From and About the Nuns Relics in San Domenico by 1557
Bibliography Index
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337 369
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List of Figures 1
Chiara Gambacorta and the History of San Domenico of Pisa
1.1 Stemma of Gambacorta family, on façade of convent of San Domenico, Pisa. Photo: author. 1.2
Bara of Chiara Gambacorta, detail of the tomb in the Convent Church of San Domenico on the Via della Faggiola, Pisa. Photo: author.
1.3 Andrea di Bartolo, Madonna of Humility, Samuel H. Kress Collection, Image copyright Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. 1.4 Andrea di Bartolo, Crucifixion, Samuel H. Kress Collection, Image copyright Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. 2
The Setting: The Buildings of San Domenico
2.1
Johannes Blaeu, Engraved Map of Pisa, 1633. Private collection. Photo: author.
2.2
Detail of Figure 2.1: Map Showing San Domenico. Photo: author.
2.3
Plan of San Domenico, Pisa. Diagram after nineteenth-century plans.
2.4 Cloister of San Domenico to South as it was restored in the 1990s. Photo: author. 2.5 Cloister of San Domenico to Northeast as it was restored in the 1990s. Photo: author. 2.6
Façade of Church of San Domenico, Pisa. Photo: author.
2.7
Façade of Dominican Church of Santa Caterina, Pisa. Photo: author.
2.8
Plan of Church of San Domenico. Diagram after nineteenth-century plans.
2.9 Interior of Public Church of San Domenico, in 1990s, to East. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 2.10 Interior of Nuns’ Choir of San Domenico, in 1990s, to West. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa.
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3
The Impact of the Foundress
3.1
Giovanni di Pietro di Napoli, Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa.
3.2 Simone Martini, Polyptych of Saint Catherine. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: Scala/Art Resources. 3.3 Anonymous Tuscan artist, Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Siena. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 3.4
Giovanni di Pietro di Napoli, Crucifixion with Saints. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa.
3.5
Fra Angelico, Crucifixion. Louvre. Photo: Erich Lessing/Art Resources.
3.6
Giovanni di Pietro di Napoli and Martino di Bartolomeo, Polyptych of the Madonna Enthroned. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa.
3.7 Martino di Bartolomeo, Left Predella Panel of Polyptych of the Madonna Enthroned: Birgitta Writing Words of the Angel. Staatliche Museen zu BerlinGemäldegalerie. Photo: Jörg Peter Anders. 3.8 Martino di Bartolomeo, Left Predella Panel of Polyptych of the Madonna Enthroned: Birgitta Writing What Christ and the Virgin Dictate. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Gemäldegalerie. Photo: Jörg Peter Anders. 3.9 Martino di Bartolomeo, Center Predella Panel of Polyptych of the Madonna Enthroned: Nativity according to the Vision of St Birgitta. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Gemäldegalerie. Photo: Jörg Peter Anders. 3.10 Martino di Bartolomeo, Right Predella Panel of Polyptych of the Madonna Enthroned: Birgitta Appears in the Dream of the Princess. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Gemäldegalerie. Photo: Jörg Peter Anders. 3.11 Martino di Bartolomeo, Right Predella Panel of Polyptych of the Madonna Enthroned: Birgitta Delivers Pilgrims from Shipwreck. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Gemäldegalerie. Photo: Jörg Peter Anders. 3.12 Pisan artist (Turino Vanni?), Nativity according to the Vision of St Birgitta. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 3.13 Bara of Chiara Gambacorta. Convent Church of San Domenico (on the Via della Faggiola), Pisa. Photo, author.
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ix
3.14 Fra Angelico, Detail of the Predella from the Altarpiece of San Pier Martire of Florence: Two Female Saints. Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery, London. 3.15 Anonymous Tuscan artist, frescoed Crucifixion and Saints, in niche in nuns’ choir of fifteenth-century Church of San Domenico, Pisa. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 3.16 Anonymous Tuscan artist, detail of frescoed Crucifixion in Figure 3.15: detail of soffit depicting Christ and Apostles. Photo: author. 3.17 Anonymous Tuscan artist, detail of frescoed Crucifixion in Figure 3.15: Chiara Gambacorta. Photo: author. 3.18 Giovanni Tempesti, Chiara Gambacorta Removed from the Convent of San Martino by Her Brother. Pisa, Palazzo Reale. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 3.19 Giovanni Tempesti, Chiara Offering Shelter to the Family of Her Father’s Murderer. Pisa, Palazzo Reale. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 3.20 Giuseppe Rossi, Death of Chiara Gambacorta, engraving after destroyed Tempesti painting for San Domenico. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 4
The Convent Audience
4.1
Bicci di Lorenzo (attributed), Altarpiece of Saint Eulalia. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa.
4.2 Anonymous Pisan Artist, Altarpiece of Saint Ursula. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 4.3 Anonymous Tuscan artist, Reverse of Altarpiece of Saint Ursula in Figure 4.2 with Drawing of Catherine of Alexandria. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 4.4 The Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy, Altarpiece of Saint Catherine of Alexandria. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 4.5 Anonymous Tuscan Artist, Resurrection of Lazarus. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 4.6
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Fra Angelico, Resurrection of Lazarus, from the doors of the Silver Cabinet. Museo di San Marco, Florence. Photo: Nicolo Orsi Battaglini/Art Resources.
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4.7 Ambrogio d’Asti, Christ Enthroned between Martha and Mary Magdalen. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 4.8 Ambrogio d’Asti, Predella of Figure 4.7: Christ in the House of Martha and Mary. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 4.9 Ambrogio d’Asti, Predella of Figure 4.7: Raising of Lazarus. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 4.10 Ambrogio d’Asti, Predella of Figure 4.7: Noli me tangere. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 4.11 Anonymous Tuscan artist, Saint Peter. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 4.12 Taddeo di Bartolo (attributed), Saint John the Baptist. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 4.13 Anonymous Tuscan artist, Saint Jerome. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 4.14 Fra Angelico, The Redeemer. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 4.15 Giovanni di Paolo, The Miraculous Communion of Saint Catherine of Siena. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Michael Friedsam, 1931. The Friedsam Collection. Photo: Museum. All rights reserved. 5
An Observant Identity
5.1
Fra Angelico, Altarpiece for San Pier Martire. Museo di San Marco, Florence. Photo: Scala/Art Resource.
5.2
Francesco d’Antonio, Dominican Saint and Saint Michael. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa.
5.3
Francesco d’Antonio, Virgin Martyr and Saint Catherine of Alexandria. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa.
5.4
Francesco d’Antonio, Madonna and Child with Swallow. Denver, Art Museum Collection. Gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation; 1961.157. Photo: Museum.
5.5
Fra Angelico, Eighteen Dominican Beati. Portion of the Predella from the Fiesole Altarpiece. London: National Gallery of Art. Photo: Museum.
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xi
5.6
Fra Angelico, Eighteen Dominican Beati. Portion of the Predella from the Fiesole Altarpiece. London: National Gallery of Art. Photo: Museum.
5.7
Benozzo Gozzoli and workshop, Crucifixion with Dominican Saints, fresco from Refectory at San Domenico. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa.
5.8
Benozzo Gozzoli and workshop, Saint Dominic Urging Silence, fresco from Refectory at San Domenico. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa.
5.9
Benozzo Gozzoli and workshop, Detail of Refectory Crucifixion, Figure 5.7: Center Group of Mourners. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa.
5.10 Benozzo Gozzoli and workshop, Detail of Refectory Crucifixion, Figure 5.7: Saints Catherine of Siena, Dominic, and Peter Martyr. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 5.11 Benozzo Gozzoli and workshop, Detail of Refectory Crucifixion, Figure 5.7: Saints Thomas Aquinas, Vincent Ferrer and Martha. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 5.12 Fra Angelico, Christ on the Cross with the Virgin and Saints. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913. Photo: Museum. All rights reserved. 5.13 Fra Angelico, Crucifixion with Saints. Chapter House, San Marco, Florence. Photo: Scala/Art Resource. 5.14 Benozzo Gozzoli and workshop, Sinopia of Refectory Crucifixion. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 5.15 Benozzo Gozzoli and workshop, Detail of Figure 5.14: Sinopia of Refectory Crucifixion. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 5.16 Benozzo Gozzoli and workshop, Detail of Figure 5.14: Sinopia of Refectory Crucifixion. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 5.17 Benozzo Gozzoli and workshop, Detail of Figure 5.14: Sinopia of Refectory Crucifixion. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 5.18 Benozzo Gozzoli and workshop, Detail of Figure 5.8: Saint Dominic Urging Silence. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 5.19 Fra Angelico, Saint Peter Martyr Urging Silence, from cloister at San Marco, Florence. Photo: Scala/Art Resource.
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6
Nuns and the World
6.1
Pisan Artist (Cecco di Pietro?), Paschal Candlestick. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa.
6.2
Pisan Artist (Cecco di Pietro?), Detail of Paschal Candlestick, Figure 6.1: Noli me tangere. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa.
6.3
Workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio, Saint Sebastian. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa.
6.4
Follower of Benozzo Gozzoli, Crucifixion with Ten Thousand Martyrs. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa.
7
Patrons and Painters
7.1 Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy and Others, Triptych of Saint Catherine of Alexandria. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 7.2 Anonymous Tuscan artist, Right Wing of the Triptych of Saint Catherine of Alexandria. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 7.3 Anonymous Tuscan artist, Detail of Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine, Left Wing of Triptych of Saint Catherine of Alexandria. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 7.4 Anonymous Tuscan artist, Detail of Catherine Disputing with the Philosophers, Right Wing of the Triptych of Saint Catherine of Alexandria. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 7.5 Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy, Center Predella of the Triptych of Saint Catherine of Alexandria: The Miracle of the Wheel. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 7.6 Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy, Center Predella of the Triptych of Saint Catherine of Alexandria: Martyrdom of Saint Catherine. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 7.7
Francesco Rosselli, Flagellation of Christ. Engraving, Art Institute of Chicago: Gift of Mr And Mrs Potter Palmer, Jr. Photo: Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.
7.8 Anonymous Tuscan artist, Predella of the Left Wing of the Triptych of Saint Catherine of Alexandria: Catherine Being Tortured. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa.
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7.9 Anonymous Tuscan artist, Predella of the Right Wing of the Triptych of Saint Catherine of Alexandria: Burning of the Converted Philosophers. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 7.10 Francesco Rosselli, Agony in the Garden. Engraving, British Museum. Photo: Museum. 7.11 Anonymous Tuscan artist, Center Predella of the Saint Ursula Altarpiece, Figure 4.2: Voyage of Saint Ursula and Her Companions. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 7.12 Right Predella of the Saint Ursula Altarpiece, Figure 4.2: Martyrdom of Saint Ursula and Her Companions. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa. 7.13 Martyrdom of Saint Apollonia, Woodcut from Legendario dei Sancti, published in Venice 1518. Photo: Newberry Library, Chicago. 7.14 Anonymous Tuscan artist, Madonna and Child with Saint Giovannino. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Photo: AF Soprintendenza BAPPSAE Pisa.
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Acknowledgements This project has absorbed almost two decades of research and writing, during which time I have developed obligations to many individuals and institutions. I owe a great deal to the two academic institutions that I have called home while working on this book: the University of Iowa and Lake Forest College. Both institutions supported me with research grants and time, not to mention the support and fellowship of colleagues. I also owe debts to many libraries, archives, and museums across the United States and Europe. The first debt goes to the Archivio di Stato in Pisa, where I first encountered the documents that led me to this project and stimulated my interest in the historical study of religious women. I was also welcomed at the Archives of the Archbishopric of Pisa, as well as the Biblioteca Cateriniana. Also in Pisa, the staffs at the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo and the Soprintenza per I Beni Archittetonici e Per Il Paesaggio, per il Patrimonio Storico, Artistico ed Etnoantropologico per le Province di Pisa e Livorno gave me access to objects, archives, library materials, and photos for which I am grateful. I called upon the Archivio Fotografico of the Soprintendenza numerous times, and I wish to express my thanks to them. I also profited from the generosity of the librarians at the Università di Pisa. Elsewhere in Tuscany, the Archivio di Stato of Florence and the Archive of the Accademia in Florence were important sources, as were the librarians of the Biblioteca Centrale and the Riccardiana. The sisters at the current convent of San Domenico gave me access to their new church, and allowed me to photograph the bara and reliquary of Chiara Gambacorta, for which I am grateful. Fabbio Rede accompanied me on a visit to the dilapidated church of San Domenico, while Roberto Mariani shared with me his observations on the architecture of the fifteenth-century convent of San Domenico on the Corso Italia in Pisa. Any work like this depends on libraries and other research centers. I would like to particularly acknowledge the staffs and scholars at the following libraries: the British Library, the Library of Congress, the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts in Washington, the Bibliothèque Royale in Brussels. My thanks go also to the staffs at the Newberry Library, Northwestern University Library, the University of Chicago, the Ryerson Library at the Art Institute of Chicago, the New York Public Library, the Medieval Institute at Notre Dame University, the University of Iowa, and the hardworking librarians at Lake Forest College.
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My thanks go as well to the editors and publishers of two of my earlier treatments of some of this material, the University of Pennsylvania Press and the Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, for permission to reuse some of the language of those earlier essays. The whole has been substantially updated since those articles were published. I have shared thoughts and received encouragement and counsel from many friends over the years as I worked on this book, among them Charles Cuttler, Elissa Weaver, Mary Beth Rose, Andrea Pearson, Sharon Strocchia, Jeryldene Wood, Chris Reed, Sandra Hindman, Gail Geiger, Diane Cole Ahl, Gary Radke, Jonathan Nelson, Janet Smith, and Carlo Silvestrini. I would also like to thank Armando Petrucci and Franca Nardelli for their instruction in the ways of Italian archival study. Of course, all errors are mine. I am also grateful to the editorial staff at Ashgate, especially Erika Gaffney, who patiently answered my questions and offered encouragement. In all matters, however, my greatest debt is owed to my husband, Philip Hersh, who has been my chief supporter and coach. I dedicate this book to him.
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Introduction The goal of this book is to introduce into the literature of Renaissance Art and History a group of fifteenth-century women and the works of art with which they lived. The women in question were Dominican nuns who spent their lives in an enclosed convent in the quiet Tuscan city of Pisa. As with the city itself, the convent was both controlled and overshadowed by Florentine interests and personalities through much of the fifteenth century. Nonetheless the nuns we encounter in this book built institutions and structures, commissioned works of art, acquired manuscripts and other books, and used works of art to communicate with each other and with the world. The shadow of Florence has continued to dominate Pisa, at least as far as the literature of art history has been concerned. There have been some recent studies that have reconsidered Pisa’s contribution to the art of the Renaissance,1 though many of them have concentrated on Florentine artists working in Pisa.2 There has been much less on the issues of Pisan patrons, Pisan artists, or specifically Pisan iconographies. One aim of this book is to consider an ensemble of works of art, commissioned over a century or so by a single institution in Pisa, to see how the works of art influenced each other and were changed over the period. While a number of studies have been produced in recent years that treat individual works of art from a religious institution, or examine the patronage of convents of different orders, this book examines the patronage of a single institution over time, during a period of economic stress and political uncertainty. That the women of this convent continued to devote some portion of their resources to the making of images and the adornment of their house in these times reflects the importance they must have placed on the task. Nuns have become a topic of great interest to historians of many disciplines since the 1990s. The classic studies of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries3 have been supplemented and indeed rewritten since the late 1990s by distinguished scholars from many fields.4 In the history of art, the lead in the study of religious women and art has been taken by Jeffrey Hamburger, whose works on religious women in Northern European convents has been revelatory in many respects; his work has been important not only for the conclusions he has argued, but for the variety of methodologies he deploys for arguing those conclusions.5 Other scholars making important contributions to the study of religious women’s history and patronage in Northern Europe include Craig Harline, Walter Simons, Joanna Ziegler, Andrea Pearson, Pia Cuneo, and Kate Rudy.6 Gabriella Zarri has spearheaded the historical study of Italian convents; her work is invaluable for anyone interested
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in religious women of early Modern Italy.7 For the patronage of Italian convents during the late medieval and early modern, important studies in English have been published by, among others: Jeryldene Wood, Carolyn Valone, Marilyn Dunn, Caroline Bruzelius, Karen-edis Barzman, MaryAnn Winkelmas, Gary Radke, Kate Lowe, Anabel Thomas and Helen Hills.8 Another recent phenomenon has been exhibits dedicated to works of art either made or used by women. While some exhibits have focused on works from a single convent, others have brought together works of art from many houses that demonstrate the range of objects women used or made.9 This book enters into the conversation in progress, by offering an example of a convent studied over time, and within different contexts. In different chapters, the book explores the Dominican convent of San Domenico of Pisa at the moment of foundation with the historical and personal circumstances that surrounded its charismatic foundress, as well as the institutional ethos that was established at the convent. It explores the expansion of the community and the resulting architectural exigencies, and considers the implications of cloister for this house as well as convent design in general. The initial embellishment of the house is studied as a refraction of the personality of the foundress, while her afterlife as a Beata becomes an important part of the convent’s identity. The use of the visual arts to inculcate Dominican and community values among the nuns is another theme of the book, especially in Chapter 4, which examines the appearance of exemplars of monastic virtue and feminine paths to power in works of art for the convent. The relation of the convent to the Dominican establishment finds expression in a variety of works of art from San Domenico, from the earliest moments of its patronage to the latest we know. It becomes clear in this study that the nuns used works of art to interact with individuals and groups in the world. The women in the convent seem to have developed a particular set of expectations for imagery for their house, and they enforced those expectations on the artists who worked for them. The literature on nuns’ patronage has highlighted the following issues: were nuns the agents responsible for the shape of their commissions? Was it nuns who made the choices? Or did their secular, and largely male, protectors choose the artists, the themes and the messages of the works of art? Did nuns even have access to many of the works of art in their houses? What sorts of choices did they make? What were they trying to achieve by commissioning works of art? To whom were they addressing their messages? Is the message different for lay people, priests, members of their order, their sisters? These questions will come up many times in the discussions of works from San Domenico. The question of nuns as patrons intersects with questions raised by considering nuns as the makers of art. Jeffrey Hamburger’s important book, Nuns as Artists, focuses a microscope on a group of manuscript illuminations made by a Benedictine nun in early sixteenth century Germany; his study reveals the complexities that lie behind the apparently “naïve” images that are the work of the Malerin of Saint Walburg.10 As any artist does, this anonymous illuminator drew from other works of
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art she knew in the creation of her own works; Hamburger argues that her spiritual goals and the life of prayer that shaped her days informed her creations and that these images expose the primacy of visual formulations for religious women. Jeryldene Wood has noted the mutual dependence of text and images in the illuminations by the Italian mystic, Catherina Vigri.11 Gary Radke has provided an overview of the state of research about Italian religious women as artists.12 For most of these women, professional training was not a possibility, so the limits of their technique are a product of their circumstances, not their native gifts. Exceptionally, Plautilla Nelli seems to have been at the center of a veritable coven of women artists at Santa Caterina in Florence, as Catherine Turrill has explored.13 Some of the women at San Domenico were also artists, as this book will argue. Many of the works of art made by nuns were intended for other religious women. Given the primacy of their faith in the lives of nuns, the literature on nuns as audience for works of art has tended to focus on the mystical side of their response. Hamburger’s work is important here as he has interpreted works of art used by and created by nuns as multi-layered media, with references to liturgical, para-liturgical, and devotional literature. Wood has pointed to the affirmation of the women’s role in their order, their commitment to poverty, their links to their communities, and their use of art to evoke spiritual responses. The consideration of the nuns as audience for works of art is another of the issues to which this book will return. My aim is to reconstruct the way the nuns would have seen and used the images that surrounded them. For those images for which there is evidence (either documentary or circumstantial) to suggest that the object was once in the nuns’ precincts, the point of the analysis is to read the images as the women of the Renaissance period might have. What would the women have brought to an understanding of the pictures before them? Their liturgies, their rule, their devotional reading are all part of this mental background for “seeing” the pictures. Furthermore, where either visual or documentary evidence exists, I read the pictures as social and political documents. The current scholarship in the visual arts has tended to keep the discussion of nuns and their art focused on a mystical reading of images, but this book argues for the social and communal work that the images perform. Private, mystical communion is but one form of religious expression for nuns; the goal of the monastic life was as much communal harmony as it is personal salvation. I argue that the images that nuns saw every day instructed them about how they should behave to contribute to the harmony of the convent and the health of their cities. Sources At the heart of this study stands an inventory made at the beginning of the nineteenth century, at a moment when the convent was being suppressed. Such suppressions were a feature of late eighteenth-century secular policy, and in Italy, were accelerated by the Napoleonic invasions of the 1790s.14 The document in question, from the Archivio di Stato of Pisa, is transcribed and reproduced here in Appendix I.15 It is a
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room-by-room inventory of the movable items in the convent, and includes everything from linens to liturgical objects. As part of the process of inventorying the convent’s goods, an expert on Pisan art was brought in to evaluate and appraise the works of art in the convent. This was Alessandro da Morrona, who had published a very thorough guidebook to Pisa for the Grand Tourists of the late eighteenth century.16 Da Morrona’s estimo of the works of art from the convent is included here as Appendix I, Doc. 2.17 After the initial inventorying was completed, the most valuable, and most movable, works of art from the convent were transferred to the City and installed in a new museum in the Camposanto. Again, a document of 1810, this time by Carlo Lasinio, provides more information about many of the works of art.18 Many of the objects from the convent thus entered the collection of what became the Museo Civico and then the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Their catalogs, especially the catalog of 1906 by Augusto Bellini-Pietri, are important sources of information.19 A late nineteenth-century inventory of the church of San Domenico fills in the gaps about the convent’s holdings after the nuns were permitted to return to their ancient church, although not the ancient convent buildings, and is included as Appendix I, Document 5.20 In addition to this archival information, I have studied eighteenthand nineteenth-century guidebooks to the city, and architectural and cartographic surveys of Pisa. A fundamental source for this study has been the 1914 monograph by Canon Nicola Zucchelli on Chiara Gambacorta and San Domenico;21 this study was itself republished in abridged and altered form in 1985 to celebrate the 600th anniversary of papal approval of the convent.22 (For this edition, Don Lino Bernardi appended a memoir about events surrounding the 1943 destruction of the remaining convent buildings and the relocation of the sisters to a new convent near the Piazza dei Miracoli.) Zucchelli’s book is a comprehensive history of the convent, from its founding to 1914, and was based on documents then extant in the convent’s archive. Zucchelli published excerpts from the convent’s archives on which I have depended, as so much of the San Domenico’s documentation has since been lost. I have also consulted documents in Pisa and elsewhere that originate from or pertain to the convent, as well as the official Dominican sources, such as the Bullarium Ordinis Praedicatorum, for primary materials. Major studies of Dominican history, institutions, spirituality, and art have also been crucial to this study. In addition to these written sources, I have studied the works of art themselves, and what is left of the convent in Pisa. The catalog in the appendix summarizes the links between the works of art and the inventories. In most cases, the documents point directly at the works of art here discussed; in some cases, the links between San Domenico and the specific work of art are less well documented, but the official provenance remains the convent. My focus is the paintings, from San Domenico, and thus I have not discussed the surviving wooden sculptures from the convent.23 Some portions of the original structures of San Domenico remain, although the convent has not been much studied. These still surviving fragments and other sources, such as old ground plans, inventories and descriptions, documents and
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representations in maps and other renderings allow me to sketch the architectural history of the institution. (This is undertaken in Chapter 2.) Close study of the works of art has revealed a great deal about their origins and transformations over time. This necessitates and is aided by the deployment of rather traditional art historical methods, such as connoisseurship, iconography, and the study of sources. For artists like the nuns of San Domenico, whose activity as artists has not been acknowledged or analyzed, the questions of the “old” art history are still new. So inquiring about which works of art the artists knew, which models they had access to, and how the artists transformed their models can offer insight into the nuns’ working methods, concerns, and attitudes. As will become apparent, I also believe that style can be analyzed as a means to answer questions about patronage, audience, and meaning. The physical formats, materials, and the “look” of works of art can inform us about the preferences and ideals of the nuns who commissioned them. A Note on Calendars Throughout the book, I will translate the Pisan calendar into the more common usage of Tuscany. In much of Tuscany, the year began on March 25, the feast of the Annunciation, and this convention was followed in Pisa. But from the Middle Ages into the eighteenth century, Pisans reckoned the new year as beginning from the Incarnation of Christ, not his birth, as was the practice in Florence and Siena. Therefore a fifteenth-century date in Pisan style is a full year in advance of neighboring Florence. I will translate the Pisan dates into the Florentine calendar to make them more digestible for modern readers. (It would be more complicated to translate the dates into modern reckoning, even without attempting to compute the difference between the Julian and the Gregorian calendar.) For Florence, a date prior to March 25 will be recorded as the previous year; to correlate it to a more modern calendar requires treating it as the year that begins on March 25. But in Pisa, a date prior to March 25 will correspond to the new year in Florence, while a date after March 25 will be a year ahead of the new year in Florentine reckoning. Where dates are crucial to an argument, the Pisan style will be noted in parentheses. Notes For example, among others, Enzo Carli, La pittura a Pisa dalle origini alla “bella maniera” (Pisa, 1994); Roberto Paolo Ciardi, Claudio Casini, and Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi, Scultura a Pisa tra Quattro e Seicento (Pisa, 1987); and Miria Fanucci Lovitch, Artisti attivi a Pisa fra XIII e XVII secolo. Biblioteca del “Bollettino Storico Pisano” Strumenti (2 vols, Pisa, 1991–95). On late medieval sculpture in Pisa, see Lorenzo Carletti and Cristiano Giometti, “Medieval Wood Sculpture and Its Setting in Architecture: Studies in Some Churches in and around Pisa,” Architectural History, 46 (2003): 37–56. 2 Maria Luigia Orlandi, Benozzo Gozzoli a Pisa: i documenti, 1468–1495 (Pisa, 1997); Jean K. Cadogan, “Sulla bottega del Ghirlandaio,” in Wolfram Prinz and Max Seidel 1
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(eds), Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1449–1494: atti del convegno internazionale, Firenze, 16–18 ottobre 1994 (Florence, 1996), pp. 89–96. 3 Lina Eckenstein, Woman under monasticism: Chapters on Saint-lore and convent life between AD 500 and AD 1500 (Cambridge, 1896) and Eileen Power, Medieval English Nunneries ca. 1275–1535 (Cambridge, 1922). 4 Important reassessments of women’s monasticism, from a variety of disciplines and viewpoints include: Jo Ann Kay McNamara, Sisters in Arms. Catholic Nuns through Two Millenia (Cambridge, MA, 1996); Gabriella Zarri (ed.), Il Monachesimo Femminile in Italia dall’alto medioevo al secolo XVII a confronto con l’oggi (Verona, 1997); Barbara Newman, From Virile Woman to Womanchrist. Studies in Medieval Religion and Literature (Philadelphia, 1995); Penelope Johnson, Equal in Monastic Profession: Religious Women in Medieval France (Chicago, 1991); Jane Schulenburg, Forgetful of Their Sex: Female Sanctity and Society, ca. 500–1100 (Chicago, 1998); Jutta Sperling, Convents and the Body Politic in Late Renaissance Venice (Chicago, 1999); Roberta Gilchrist, Gender and Material Culture. The Archaeology of Religious Women (London and New York, 1994). For overviews of recent work on Italian religious women, see Gabriella Zarri and Lucetta Scaraffia (eds), Women and Faith. Catholic Religious Life in Italy from Late Antiquity to the present (Cambridge, MA, 1999) and Daniel Bornstein and Roberto Rusconi (eds), Women and Religion in Medieval and Renaissance Italy (Chicago, 1996). 5 Jeffrey Hamburger’s many studies of art for and by nuns include: The Rothschild Canticles: Art and Mysticism in Flanders and the Rhineland (New Haven, CT, 1990); Nuns as Artists: The Visual Culture of a Medieval Convent (Berkeley, 1997); and the collected essays in The Visual and the Visionary: Art and Female Spirituality in Late Medieval Germany (New York, 1998). 6 Craig Harline, The Burdens of Sister Margaret (New York, 1994); Walter Simons, Cities of Ladies. Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries, 1200–1565 (Philadelphia, 2001); Joanna E. Ziegler, Sculpture of Compassion: The Pietà and the Beguines in the Southern Low Countries (Brussels and Rome, 1992); Andrea Pearson, “Nuns, Images, and the Ideals of Women’s Monasticism: Two Paintings from the Cistercian Convent of Flines,” Renaissance Quarterly, 54 (2001): 1356–1402; Pia Cuneo, “The Basilica Cycle of Saint Katherine’s Convent: Art and Female Community in Early-Renaissance Augsburg,” Woman’s Art Journal, 19 (1998): 21–25; and Kathryn M. Rudy, “‘Den aflaet der heiliger stat Jherusalem ende des berchs van Calvarien.’ Indulgenced Prayers for Mental Holy Land Pilgrimage in Manuscripts from the St. Agnes Convent in Maaseik,” Ons Geestelijk Erf, 74 (2000): 211–254. 7 Zarri’s many studies of Italian convents and the role of religious women in early modern society only start with Le Sante Vive: Profezie di corte e devozione femminile tra ‘400 e ‘500 (Turin, 1990); Donna, disciplina, creanza cristiana tra XVe e XVIIe secoli: Studi e testi a stampa (Rome, 1996); Il Monachesimo Femminile in Italia dall’alto medioevo al secolo XVII a confronto con l’oggi (Negarine [Verona], 1997); Per lettera: la scrittura epistolare femminile tra archivio e tipografia (Rome, 1999) and Recinti: donne, clausura e matrimonio nella prima età moderna (Bologna, 2000). 8 Jeryledene M Wood, Women, Art, and Spirituality. The Poor Clares of Early Modern Italy (Cambridge, 1996); Carolyn Valone, “Women on the Quirinal Hill: Patronage in Rome, 1560–1630,” Art Bulletin, 76 (1994): 129–146; Marilyn Dunn, “Nuns as Art Patrons: The Decoration of S. Marta al Collegio Romano,” Art Bulletin, 70 (1988):
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451–477; Caroline Bruzelius, “Hearing is Believing: Clarissan Architecture, ca. 1213–1340,” Gesta, 31 (1992): 83–91; Karen-edis Barzman, “Devotion and Desire: The Reliquary Chapel of Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi,” Art History, 15 (1992): 171– 96; Mary-Ann Winkelmes, “Taking Part: Benedictine Nuns as Patrons of Art and Architecture,” in Geraldine Johnson and Sara Matthews Grieco (eds), Picturing Women in Renaissance and Baroque Italy (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 91–110; Gary M. Radke “Nuns and their Art: the Case of San Zaccaria in Renaissance Italy,” Renaissance Quarterly, 54 (2001): 430–459; K.J.P. Lowe, ‘Nuns and Choice: Artistic DecisionMaking in Medicean Florence’, in Eckart Marchand and Alison Wright (eds), With and Without the Medici, Studies in Tuscan Art and Patronage 1434–1530 (Aldershot, 1998), pp. 129–153; the same author’s “Elections of Abbesses and Notions of Identity in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Italy, with Special Reference to Venice,” Renaissance Quarterly, 54 (2001): 389–429; and her Nuns’ Chronicles and Convent Culture in Renaissance and Counter-Reformation Italy (Cambridge, 2003); Anabel Thomas, Art and Piety in the Female Religious Communities of Renaissance Italy. Iconography, Space, and the Religious Woman’s Perspective (Cambridge, 2003); Helen Hills, Invisible City. The Architecture of Devotion in Seventeenth Century Neapolitan Convents (Oxford, 2004). 9 These exhibits include Paul Vandenbroeck et al., Le Jardin Clos de l’Ame: L’imaginaire des religieuses dans les Pays-Bas du Sud, depuis le 13e siècle (Brussels, 1994); Leo Pée and Aimé Stroobants, 500 jaar Zwarte Zusters te Dendermonde 1491–1991: catalogus van de tentoonstelling in het Zwijvekemuseum, van 26 september tot 10 november 1991 (Dendermonde, 1991); and Jutta Frings and Jan Gerschow (eds), Krone und Schleier: Kunst aus mittelalterlichen Frauenklöstern (München, 2005). 10 Hamburger, Nuns as Artists. 11 Wood, Women Art and Spirituality, 121–144. 12 G. Radke, ‘The Nun Artist in Historical Context’, in Jonathan Nelson (ed.), Suor Plautilla Nelli (1523–1588). The First Woman Painter of Florence. Italian History and Culture Yearbook of Georgetown University at Villa le Balze, Fiesole (Fiesole, 2000), pp. 13– 17. 13 C. Turrill, “Compagnie and Discepole: The Presence of Other Women Artists at Santa Caterina da Siena,” in Jonathan Nelson (ed.), Suor Plautilla Nelli (1523–1588). The First Woman Painter of Florence. Italian History and Culture Yearbook of Georgetown University at Villa le Balze, Fiesole (Fiesole, 2000), pp. 83–102. 14 For the suppression of monastic establishments throughout Europe at the end of the eighteenth and into the early nineteenth century, see McNamara, Sisters in Arms, pp. 553–559. For the suppression of convents in Italy, see Gregorio Penco, Storia della chiesa in Italia (Milan, 1978) vol. II, pp. 205–224; for suppressions in Tuscany, see Osanna Fantozzi Micali and Piero Roselli, Le soppressioni dei conventi a Firenze: riuso e trasformazioni dal sec. XVIII in poi (Florence, 1980). 15 At the Archivio di Stato of Pisa, it bears the number: Corporazione Religiose Soppresse, San Domenico, 1228 (19 old number). 16 Alessandro da Morrona, Descrizione della Città di Pisa per servire di guida al viaggiatore (Pisa, 1792). The guidebook went through several editions. Morrona wrote other guides to the city as well. 17 This estimate is part of the same cache and bearing the same number as the general inventory.
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18 Florence, Archive of the Accademia delle Belle Arti. Carteggio della Commissione di Scienze e Arti, 1810–1811. 19 Augusto Bellini-Pietri, Catalogo del Museo Civico di Pisa (Pisa, 1906). See also the same author’s Guida di Pisa (Pisa, 1913). 20 “Inventory of works of art in San Domenico in 1897. Pisa, Soprintendenza Beni Ambientali, Architettonici, Artistici e Storici di Pisa, Livorno, Lucca e Massa Carrara. Dossier sul Monasteri di San Domenico, 1897.” 21 Niccola Zucchelli, La Beata Chiara Gambacorta. La Chiesa ed il Convento di San Domenico in Pisa (Pisa, 1914). 22 Il Monastero di San Domenico in Pisa. Un Monumento di Arte e di Fede 1385–1985 (Rome, 1985). This is an abridgement of Zucchelli, with a contribution by Don Lino Bernardi. 23 The modern convent preserves a wooden crucifix as a relic of Chiara Gambacorta; see Chapter 3 for that object’s history. Furthermore, two carved statues of the Annunciation in the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo may be the ones listed in the inventory in Appendix 1, n. 122: “Due piccole Statue rappresentanti la ssma annunziata assai meschinamente e rivestite” in the nuns’ choir.
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Chapter 1
Chiara Gambacorta and the History of San Domenico of Pisa Just south of the Piazza dei Miracoli and the Leaning Tower in Pisa, on one of the narrow streets that run towards the River Arno, an arch in one of the walls that define the street is adorned with a coat of arms (Figure 1.1). This is the only marker on the street of the presence of the convent of San Domenico of Pisa. Significantly, the arms are of the Gambacorta family, signaling this family’s patronage of the convent, and the identity of its most famous inhabitant. Inside the small church a visitor may see the preserved body of the foundress, Chiara Gambacorta, and the fifteenth-century sculpted tomb slab that once covered that body (Figure 1.2). This community is a living link to one of the most important female Dominican houses in Italy in the fifteenth century. The vicissitudes of the modern world have not been kind to this community, but the calm of their house in Pisa belies the troubles they have endured. The body of the foundress is the most important relic that the modern community has preserved from the fifteenth century. Most of the other works of art and items of value were long ago destroyed or removed to museum collections. The identification of these works and the reconstruction of the decorative program is a major goal of this book. This chapter begins the story of these works of art, by introducing the figure of the foundress of the community and situating her life and achievements within the history of Pisa and the Dominican Order. The chapter will also consider the intellectual and social climate of the convent. The Life of Chiara Gambacorta The convent of San Domenico was founded through the efforts of Chiara Gambacorta, whose history and spirituality marked the character of the convent. She was a strong-minded and self-assured woman, who turned her family’s resistance to her vocation into their financial and personal support of her new foundation. Inspired by the example of Catherine of Siena, Chiara made her convent the wellspring of the Dominican Observant movement.1 Born in 1362, Chiara was the daughter of Pietro di Andrea Gambacorta, the ruler of Pisa from 1369 to 1393. The Gambacorta family had played an important role in Pisan politics and society throughout the fourteenth century, producing in addition to numerous political leaders, an archbishop (Lotto Gambacorta) and another Beato,
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1.1 Stemma of Gambacorta family, seventeenth century Chiara’s cousin Pietro Gambacorta, who founded the order of the Penitence of St Jerome.2 The name of Chiara’s mother is less certain.3 Pietro Gambacorta’s only daughter, called Tora (a diminutive of either Theodora or Victoria), was born while her family was exiled from Pisa. As a pawn in her family’s dynastic politics, she was betrothed at age seven (during the year her father returned to Pisa and took the reins of government) and married at age 12, in 1374, to a member of another important Pisan family with political ties to the Gambacorti, Simon da Massa.4 Although Tora had displayed an early dedication to chastity, she obediently acceded to her family’s insistence on marriage.5 Her vita describes her mortifications of the flesh and charity to the poor both
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11
1.2 Portrait of Chiara Gambacorta from her Bara, c.1420
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before and within her marriage. Her husband died in 1377 after three years of marriage.6 The young widow tried to avoid what was certain to be another politically arranged marriage. In a letter written to her about this time, Catherine of Siena, whom Tora probably had met during the saint’s sojurn in Pisa in 1375, encouraged her efforts to renounce the world.7 In desperation, Tora secretly entered the nearby Franciscan convent of San Martino, where she took the name Chiara. Her enraged family forcibly removed her from it, threatening the entire community unless she returned home. She endured five months of virtual imprisonment in her father’s house, although she still managed, with the help of a disciple named Stefano Lapi, to distribute what wealth she still controlled to the poor. In the fall of 1378, Pietro Gambacorta asked Alfonso Pecha da Vadaterra, a friend and fellow pilgrim to Jerusalem, to convince Chiara to obey his wishes and consent to another marriage. Alfonso Pecha da Vadaterra, the Archbishop of Jaen (Spain), had been the confessor of the Swedish mystic, Birgitta, whose Revelations he edited and distributed.8 In spite of his friend’s commission, Alfonso encouraged Chiara’s vocation and taught her about Birgitta. According to Chiara’s vita, Alfonso gave her a book of Birgitta’s “Histories” and Chiara took Birgitta as a special patron.9 Facing such opposition, Chiara’s father finally capitulated. For reasons not articulated in her vita, instead of returning to the Franciscan house of San Martino in Kinzica, Chiara entered the Dominican convent of Santa Croce in Fossabanda (just outside the walls of Pisa) on November 30, 1378.10 Pietro Gambacorta promised at this time to build a new convent for his daughter. Chiara found the conditions at Santa Croce too relaxed for her interpretation of the religious life. While a part of this community, she tried to adhere more strictly to the Rule than most of the sisters and obtained permission to pray and perhaps even to live apart from the other nuns.11 After the death of Chiara’s mother, Pietro Gambacorta married a noble Genoese woman, Orietta Doria, who encouraged the building of the new convent.12 Thus prodded, Gambacorta purchased the necessary structures and land to inaugurate and endow the new convent, and in June 1382, Chiara and five other women from Santa Croce moved into the new institution. This small community included Filippa Albizzi, the first prioress, Maria Mancini, Andrea Porcellini, Agnese Bonconti, and Giovanna Del Ferro; most of these women were daughters of Gambacorta’s political allies.13 The new community received official sanction with the Bull of Urban VI dated September 17, 1385. While Pietro Gambacorta was the Rector and Patron of the convent, the frate of the Dominican house of Santa Caterina served as confessors and protectors.14 Their first confessor, Fra Domenico Peccioli of the convent of Santa Caterina, wrote a chronicle and some vitae of the early years of the community.15 The Gambacorta government in Pisa was brutally overthrown on October 21, 1392, when Pietro Gambacorta was assassinated by an erstwhile political ally, Jacopo d’Appiano, who then seized power. A dramatic passage in her vita reports that Chiara’s brother Lorenzo fled the assassins and sought asylum in San
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13
Domenico.16 Chiara feared that the assassins would follow him into the convent, break the seal of cloister, and endanger the nuns. She also feared that her brother would be excommunicated for himself having violated the cloister. She refused to admit him, he fell into the enemy’s hands, and he died several days later. In making such a terrible decision, Chiara must have vividly remembered the trauma of her own family’s invasion of the cloister of San Martino 16 years earlier. Both the political and the financial fortunes of her family were overturned by these events, and many members of her family were killed or exiled. Her stepmother seems to have entered the convent at this point. In 1398, when the Appiano political fortunes turned, Chiara welcomed into the community the wife and daughters of the man responsible for the deaths of her father and brothers. In her vita and later imagery, this action was lauded as an example of her charity and forgiveness. Her refusal of her brother’s entry into the convent was a sign of her allegiance to the new family she had created at San Domenico. Chiara became prioress of San Domenico in 1395, having served as subprioress for ten years. (These offices were only inaugurated when the community received papal sanction in 1385.) She was only 33 in 1395, still quite young to be prioress: the Dominican Constitutions recommend that someone at least 40 years old hold this office. While engaged in providing for the material and spiritual well-being of her community she also conducted an active ministry beyond it. Through acts of charity, and written exhortations to other religious and to members of the laity, she offered an example and counsel to others. The convent was a constant giver of alms, and Chiara directed some gifts intended for her house to other charitable institutions.17 Dedicated as she was to careful observance of her order’s Rule, Chiara was quick to criticize dereliction to duty, especially by the religious. According to the vita written by one of her sisters, if Chiara heard of a wayward priest she would send for him to hear her confession and spend the interview castigating him. The vita also describes Chiara’s propensity to offer advice and counsel: With sweet charity Chiara did her best to draw out each one in order to do him good. She spoke of God in the most wonderful manner, and there was no one who did not heed her and strive to change his life. She had spiritual sons and daughters in every walk of life. Her lips abounded with words of salvation, her tongue never ceased to praise the works of God. In order to render her word more efficacious, God gave to Sister Chiara the gift of discernment that she might know the interior movements of the mind. Knowing the sentiments and feelings of her subjects, she was better able to lead them aright. She had a spirit so kind that when she talked with a person she was able to understand his interior feelings, and often told the Sisters what temptations they were undergoing. Truly it was not always agreeable to have her about; but in her position of authority, this gift helped much to her success and her charity in using it was a real consolation.18
This picture of Chiara as perhaps somewhat overbearing is corroborated by an anonymous pastoral letter addressed to Chiara, the principal theme of which is the difficulty of correcting others and exacting obedience.19
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Chiara’s correspondents included seculars and religious, the lowly and the high. She corresponded with the Master General of the Dominican Order, and the leader of the city of Lucca, but the best surviving evidence of Chiara’s apostolate is revealed by her correspondence with Francesco di Marco Datini, the famous “Merchant of Prato,” and his wife, of which 14 letters survive. These letters have a pastoral tone; they urge Francesco to prayer, to charity, and to devotion to Mary. Chiara seems especially interested that Francesco and Margherita read; in a letter to the latter written probably in 1395, she writes: “It gives me great pleasure to learn that you know how to read, and I pray you make use of your knowledge. For the Saints have taken pains to write books, that we may see ourselves therein, and that we may adorn ourselves with virtue, and that we may remove the stains of sins which pollute the soul.”20 The letters give us a glimpse of her level of education, as well as her spirituality. We are encouraged to believe that Datini profited by Chiara’s letters, not only because of their number, but because of the documented reaction to them.21 For example, Ser Lapo Mazzei, Francesco’s notary, wrote in October 1395 to Francesco: “I am waiting to write your response to the letter from this holy sister, and I am waiting to copy it with my own hand ... in your little book. I do not know yet how to begin a response, because in good faith, I lack the virtue or ingenuity ...When I have time, I will show the letter from the Sister to Guido.”22 Another correspondent of Francesco Datini, the Franciscan Bonifazio Ruspi, recommends Chiara as a “person worthy of reverence and well known.”23 In conducting such an apostolate by correspondence, Chiara belonged to a tradition of epistolary creation to which many nuns of the Renaissance—such as Catherine of Siena and Caterina de’ Ricci—contributed.24 The convent of San Domenico and its foundress were very highly regarded in the fifteenth century, by laity and clergy alike. The daughters of the most important families of Pisa were attracted to the institution, and postulants came from other cities of Italy: from Florence, Lucca, Siena, Genoa, Venice, and even from Spain.25 While not a large house by the standards of the wealthy Benedictine communities in bigger cities, the community at San Domenico grew in the fifteenth century from the six women who founded it in 1382 to a moderate family numbering 30 to 40 chapter nuns in the fifteenth century.26 Gifts to the convent came from many quarters, including Francesco Datini of Prato, Simone Doria of Genoa, and Giovanni de’ Medici of Florence and his heirs. When Pisa came under Florentine rule in 1406, the convent received an exemption from the gabelle (a tax) and an annual gift of salt from the rulers of the city. When, in 1494, the city of Pisa rebelled against the hated rule of Florence, one of the first moves taken by the anziani (the elders of town) was to continue the privileges and exemptions awarded to San Domenico.27 The convent played an important role in Dominican politics and spirituality, too. Chiara’s admirers included Giovanni Dominici, who led the reform movement in Italy; Tommaso Aiutamicristo of Pisa, who was prior of the Dominican friary in Venice; and Tommaso Caffarini of Siena, who was influential in promoting the cult of Saint Catherine of Siena. Chiara also had spiritual sons in the Pisan friary of Santa Caterina and had an interest in establishing reform there; she persuaded the
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Dominican Master General Raymond of Capua to let Dominici preach in Pisa in 1399, suggesting that it might inspire the Pisan friary to reform.28 The connections between other Observant houses and San Domenico were numerous and complex; on March 14, 1400, Pope Boniface IX granted a special indulgence providing for full remission of sin to the women of San Domenico and by July of 1400, Giovanni Dominici was assuring the nuns of the convent of Corpus Domini in Venice that this indulgence extended to them.29 San Domenico also received gifts from other members of the Observant branch of the Dominican order, including Frate Niccolo Gittalebraccia of the Pisan house,30 Fra Bartolomeo Lapacci de’ Rimbertini who professed at Cortona,31 and St Antoninus, the prior of San Marco and Archbishop of Florence.32 San Domenico was the model of reform followed by many other feminine institutions in the late fourteenth and into the sixteenth centuries, indicating that subsequent generations upheld the strict observance begun by Chiara Gambacorta. Not only did Giovanni Dominici follow Chiara’s example when he founded the convent of Corpus Domini in Venice in 1394, he continually held Chiara’s example up to the nuns of this convent.33 Dominici’s letters to the nuns speak of exchanges of individuals between the two houses, but whether such exchanges took place is hard to know.34 It was only in 1435, however, that Pope Eugene IV granted Corpus Domini the same strict interpretation of cloister that had been granted to San Domenico in 1387.35 The example of San Domenico was followed in several other important convents, usually carried there by the movement of nuns to the convent to be reformed. Martin V reformed the ancient Dominican convent of San Sisto in Rome in 1426 exhorting these nuns to “cloister themselves and to imitate the holy rule observed in the celestial paradise of San Domenico in Pisa.”36 The Pisan nuns were called to Florence to help found the monastery of San Pier Martire, which the Dominican Master General Leonardo Dati was establishing; in 1419 Martin V granted permission for several women from San Domenico to transfer to this new foundation.37 In 1445, Suor Filippa Doria and Suor Tommasa Gambacorta of San Domenico went to Genoa to found a convent there, which was originally dedicated to Corpus Christi, but was commonly known as San Silvestro of Pisa, after the Parish church and grounds which the sisters took over.38 In 1501, four nuns went from San Domenico to reform the Dominican convent in Lucca;39 and in 1520 two nuns went to reform the convent of San Paolo all’Orto in Pisa.40 But the impact of San Domenico’s example was not restricted to women; with the example of the Pisan convent before him, Giovanni Dominici went on to reform two Dominican male houses in Venice and numerous other houses in Tuscany, including San Domenico of Fiesole, from which sprang San Marco of Florence. As this history demonstrates, San Domenico may truly be called the Mother House of the Dominican Observant movement.41 Chiara died on April 17, 1419 and was immediately venerated as a Beata. The convent chronicle claims that some 15,000 people visited the tiny church of San
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Domenico hoping for a glimpse of the body. Chiara was buried inside the nuns’ choir at the foot of the altar. Miracles, often resolving doubts about some issue of faith, were ascribed to her intercession. A fifteenth-century description of Pisa includes Chiara among the “holy and venerable bodies in the city of Pisa.”42 Perhaps in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Chiara’s transfer to the new house of San Domenico, her tomb was opened in 1432; witnesses said it exuded a sweet odor, and her tongue was found intact; this miracle had also been also ascribed to the great Franciscan preacher, St Anthony of Padua. Chiara’s body was then installed in a more splendid container, that was itself replaced in 1687. Chiara’s tongue was placed in a silver reliquary and had miracles ascribed to its intercession. In addition to many miraculous cures, Chiara’s remains were said to rattle in warning that one of the sisters would shortly die. This was significant, because Chiara had prayed that no member of her community might be damned; the rattling of her relics warned the sisters to be ready for death, so that they would be wise virgins ready to meet their bridegroom.43 Several historians of late medieval spirituality have analyzed Chiara’s vita. Although she does not appear among the 864 saints whose lives were analyzed by Weinstein and Bell, Chiara is in many ways typical of the late medieval saints they describe: she is from Italy, from the urban patriciate, and follows the general trend for female saints of entering the convent and living a life of austerity. Like many late medieval saints, she had to fight the resistance of her family, especially her father, to her conversion.44 Rudolph Bell and Richard Kieckhefer point out the importance of the Dominican order to the creation of female saints in this period. Bell includes Chiara Gambacorta among the women he defines as Holy Anorectics, women who practiced extreme mortification of the flesh as part of their spirituality.45 Richard Kieckhefer, however, cites Chiara as a model of sanity, not given to extremes, who practiced austerities, but did not make them the focus of her spirituality.46 Pisa in the Fifteenth Century Despite its distinguished history as a mercantile power throughout the Middle Ages, by the end of the fourteenth century Pisa had become a pawn in the larger wars that then ravaged the Italian peninsula.47 Pietro Gambacorta, Chiara’s father, led the city of Pisa wisely by most accounts, attempting to create by diplomacy a league of Tuscan cities to the benefit of all parties. His assassination and the usurpation of power by Jacopo d’Appiano in 1392 was but one of a series of reverses that afflicted Pisa during Chiara’s lifetime.48 In 1399, Gherardo d’Appiano sold the city of Pisa to Gian Galeozzo Visconti of Milan, touching off another episode of internal strife and external power politics. Visconti died in 1402, but he bequeathed the city to a natural son, Gabriele Maria Visconti, and his mother. Florence coveted Pisa because of its port and attempted to gain control of the city through military means as well as by outright purchase. Gabriele Maria looked to Genoa for assistance against these Florentine maneuvers, but the Genoese and their French overlords ultimately sold the city to Florence in 1405. The Pisans resisted the occupation of their city by
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Florence, but were betrayed in October 1406, when one of the trusted captains of the city, Giovanni di Coscio Gambacorta, Chiara’s cousin, opened the gates of the city to the Florentine army. This began a period of domination of Pisa by Florence that endured until the rebellion of 1494. Florentine rule resulted in the depopulation of the city and a severe economic decline. Many of Pisa’s wealthiest families left or were exiled; they settled in Palermo, Naples, Genoa, and elsewhere. Florence established a stranglehold on the economic assets of Pisa, especially the port; but they also closed down industries that competed directly with Florentine industries and subjugated Pisan guilds to Florentine guilds. Florentine craftsmen had open access to the Pisan market, while Pisan craftsmen and merchants were severely restricted. As a result, the city could not afford much in the way of public works projects and many of the religious institutions in the city could not afford to make repairs to their properties. In a period of declining urban services, the plague returned to the city in 1478 and again in 1496.49 To the economic and political domination, the Florentines added the religious and cultural domination of Pisa. In 1419, the Florentine Giuliano di Giovacchino de’ Ricci became Bishop of Pisa. He was succeeded in this dignity in 1461 by a Medici (Filippo di Vieri di Niccolo de’ Medici, a distant cousin of Cosimo de’ Medici). The Florentine hold on the Archbishop’s palace continued with two members of the Riario family, Francesco Salviati Riario (1475–78) and Rafaelle Riario (1479–99). The Medici were much involved in the affairs of religious houses in Pisa, of both sexes.50 In the 1470s Lorenzo de’ Medici inaugurated the University of Pisa, building the Sapienza as the home of this institution.51 If prior to 1406, Pisan artists were oriented towards Siena, after this date they were dominated by Florence.52 The most famous commissions given to Florentine artists in the fifteenth century were the Polyptych painted by Masaccio (1426) for the church of the Carmine in Pisa, and Benozzo Gozzoli’s frescoes for the Camposanto of Pisa, which were executed from 1468 to 1480. But many other artists from Florence worked in Pisa, including Donatello, Lorenzo Monaco, Francesco di Antonio, Bicci di Lorenzo, Paolo Schiavo, Alesso Baldovinetti, Cosimo Rosselli, and the Ghirlandaio shop. The commissions given to Benozzo Gozzoli and Ghirlandaio by the Bishop of Pisa for the Cathedral and Camposanto exemplify the dominance of Florentine artists in the city. Artists from other parts of Italy are documented to have worked in Pisa during this period as well, including Gentile da Fabriano and Francesco Squarcione.53 Under such conditions, it was difficult for a local school of artists to flourish. Circumstances changed for a brief period at the end of the fifteenth century, after the Medici were expelled from Florence in 1494. Inspired by promises made (and then broken) by Charles VIII of France, Pisa rebelled against Florentine domination, and proceeded to remove Florentines from their midst. Florence responded by laying the Siege of Pisa, which lasted until 1509. During the period of the siege, the anziani of Pisa attempted to win diplomatic and military victories over Florence, but
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ultimately the city succumbed to Florentine control again.54 It remained a province of Florence throughout the Granducal period, admired for its medieval monuments and University. Dominican Culture at San Domenico Chiara Gambacorta established her convent while her father still ruled in Pisa. Her goal was to correct the laxity that she and others found in other religious houses by an extremely strict observance of the Rule of Saint Augustine and the Constitutions of the Dominican Order, to which all Dominican houses subscribed. Between them, the Rule of St Augustine and the Constitutions defined the spiritual and physical terms of life in the convent. At its foundation, the Dominican order had adopted the Rule of Saint Augustine, which had been used for houses of Augustinian canons and which marked the fundamentally clerical character of the masculine side of the Order.55 The Augustinian Rule has community living as its foundation; the first substantive sentence says, “The chief motivation for your sharing life together is to live harmoniously in the house and to have one soul seeking God.”56 It goes on to provide advice about how to achieve such harmony and concord in community. If the Rule was a general document, largely confined to establishing the philosophy that lay behind the life of religious community, the Dominican Constitutions regulated many details of life in the cloister, from the number of times the nuns could receive communion to the times of the year they could cut their hair. The Constitutions clarify how one is to bow during the offices, how one is to behave at meals, to confess in chapter, or to perform one’s work. The Constitutions were composed in the thirteenth century to direct the manner of life and liturgy practiced by the Preaching Friars. In the 1250s the Dominican Master General Humbert of Romans adapted the Constitutions for use by Dominican nuns, and except for certain small emendations (e.g. the order of topics, an increase in the number of times tonsuring is allowed, and some post-Tridentine restrictions on speaking) they remained largely unchanged until the twentieth century.57 The Constitutions clarify and establish the difference between the missions of the Friars and the Sisters. Where the preamble to the Friars’ Constitutions clearly defines the goal of the men to be preaching and study, the women’s Constitutions avoid any mention of such activities. Where the men’s Constitutions spell out how changes in the document may be effected, the women’s Constitutions confirm that the nuns are subject to the authority of the Master General, the Provincial, or his Vicar, and make no mention of legislative action. The Second Distinction of the men’s Constitutions is devoted to discussions of legislation and elections within the order; as the women had no voice in such activities, their Constitutions omit these topics.58 Some of the differences between the two Constitutions reflect not only the different social and political situations of men and women, but incorporate other late medieval notions about women. The most apparent difference concerns cloister: where the men were expected to travel in pursuit of their missions and to expect
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guests in their convents, women were to remain within the convent in which they professed for their entire lives; entry into their convents was strictly controlled (Chapter 26). Such restrictions were also prescribed for secular women, although not to the degree that they applied to nuns. The degree to which cloister succeeded in separating women from the world may be debated, but the intention to do so is made clear in the rulings about cloister long before the Council of Trent imposed cloister more widely on communities of religious women.59 This is, however, only one (albeit very important) difference. The women’s Constitutions also omit any mention of study by the nuns, except to foster greater devotion, and naturally omit any reference to preaching. The only time a woman is given any authority to discourse or preach is when the prioress feels it will be of some benefit to her sisters in the chapter meetings (Chapter 22). Some of the sermons by Suor Tommasina Fieschi of Genoa have survived as examples of such preaching.60 Secular women, too, were believed incapable of public discourse and encouraged to remain silent. The Constitutions define the hierarchy within the convent, and the roles of different officers within the convent. A Dominican house was headed by a prioress, with the assistance of a subprioress; a cellaress, whose duties involved keeping track of material goods and supplies and keeping the accounts; a sacristan, in charge of maintaining liturgical practices and objects; a vestarian, who was charged with keeping the linens and clothing in good order; an infirmarian, charged with caring for the sick and seeing to the dead; and a novice mistress, charged with instructing postulants in the manner of life and forms of the convent. While these and similar offices were paralleled in houses of friars, others were not. A treatise by Humbert of Romans called the “Instructiones de officiis ordinis” spells these duties out more fully; this text was translated into the vernacular for houses of Observant Dominican women in the fifteenth century. One office not found in masculine houses was that of the “circulators.” These were senior nuns who made the rounds of the convent to keep watch for any infractions of the Rule or scandalous behavior. Similarly, pairs of elder nuns were assigned to accompany any nun—even the prioress—who wished to speak with seculars; all conversation had to take place within the hearing of these auditors (Chapter 12). The men as priests, confessors, and preachers were certainly not bound to such stipulations. The women were restricted in their speech to a much greater degree than the men; the monastic tradition of silence was extended to include any speech with secular people, and permission to speak was forbidden at specific hours and seasons. Perhaps the greatest degree of difference between expectations for men and women is expressed in the descriptions of faults, which are characterized as Light Faults, Grave Faults, Very Grave Faults, and Most Grave Faults. The text for the women is modeled on the text for the men, and what has been deleted from the men’s Constitutions to adapt them reveals the greater scope of men’s activities. While both men and women sin lightly for infractions of decorum in the convent, for tardiness or for carelessness at work or the divine office, only the men are told that their sins
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might include breaches of decorum in public, or not getting a blessing on leaving or returning from a journey. And only the men commit a light fault for not attending lectures, for reading forbidden books, for neglecting their studies or their writing; these sins are not foreseen in the women’s Constitutions. Grave faults for both men and women include being quarrelsome, lying, spreading malicious gossip, or breaking assigned fasts. Grave faults for the men also include spreading gossip that cannot be proven, eating meat or handling money when traveling, or extending a journey without good cause. Only theologians, inquisitors, or preachers general may receive letters without having had them read by the superior. The very grave faults for both men and women include insubordination and open rebellion, striking someone else, or some other capital crime. Such crimes are punished by beatings in chapter and ostracism within the community; friars are also forbidden to preach or act as priest or deacon while under such a punishment. But the men’s Constitutions enumerate a wide variety of crimes of this degree that men might commit: forgery, theft, murder, or assault, the carrying of weapons, gambling, sins of the flesh, and generally bringing the Order into bad repute. The men’s Constitutions also consider how to handle sins that occur when the friars are in public, such as any of the above crimes, or suspicious attachments. But it appears that women are not deemed capable of this array of crimes, as their Constitutions cite only “she who falls into sins of the flesh, which should be even more gravely punished and which we censor and abominate above all” (Chapter XVIII). The crime of sexuality is the women’s very grave fault. While for both men and women, incorrigibility is the most grave fault, the Constitutions allow the men to be expelled from the order; the women must be imprisoned. Any who abet a sister in leaving the convent should also be imprisoned. This was the manner of life the women of San Domenico vowed to live. But the Bull of 1385 authorizing the foundation of the Pisan community granted them the right to even more stringent conditions. These nuns were to live in the strictest of cloisters: their door was to be triple locked (the constitutions only required two locks); a heavy linen curtain hung before the grate which provided the only contact with the outside world, more effectively sealing the women from the sight of men; excommunication was the penalty for anyone who entered without authorization. That access was extremely limited: workmen were few and always supervised, priests could only enter to give communion to the very ill or to administer Last Rites, and even the Provincial or General of the Dominican order had limited access. Sisters could see parents, brothers, or sisters on two occasions only, through a small window, and could not see other relatives after profession.61 Cloister was only one aspect of the religious life fostered at San Domenico. While a contemporary description of the manner of life observed at San Domenico is not available, a description of life at the convent of Corpus Domini in Venice probably pertains to the Pisan house as well, because its practices were modeled on San Domenico’s. This description occurs in the chronicle of Corpus Domini, and because it was written by one of the suore, Bartolomea Riccoboni, this document offers a glimpse of what the women themselves thought was important about their lives.62
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Riccoboni first praises the spirit of community created at Corpus Domini, in which the hearts and minds of all the women shared a perfect love of Christ; in this, she echoes the Rule of Saint Augustine. She next describes the convent’s practice of the discipline of silence, which was so strict that their confessors marveled at the “perfect silence” of their house. The only noise one might hear was the nuns crying out the name of Jesus in their prayers. Private meditation and constant prayer are described next; these devotions were so fervent that the prioress had to order the nuns to eat, which they did out of obedience only. Their protector, Giovanni Dominici, was so impressed by their sanctity that he said Mass for them and brought communion to them every Sunday. This is truly exceptional, as the Constitutions only require communion 15 times a year (Chapter 11), and many theologians argued against women’s receiving communion with great frequency. The chronicle next mentions the austerity of life in the convent; they slept little, and when they did, they eschewed even the sacking allowed by the Constitutions for nuns to sleep on. Instead of sleeping, they spent more time in the choir praying or saying the divine office. During the offices some of the sisters had ecstatic visions of angels, devils, or of Christ himself. They ate little and were fervent in administering discipline. Because some sisters were severely injuring themselves by this, Dominici ordered that no discipline could be administered without the permission of the prioress and that all must eat enough to sustain themselves. The nuns of Corpus Domini were attentive to every aspect of the Constitutions of their order: they followed the ceremonies prescribed by the Order, held the chapter of faults every night, contented themselves with whatever items of clothing the vestry could offer; they owned all property in common. They were so obedient, the chronicler says, that “if a priest said, throw yourself in a fire, they would have done it.” Writing to the women of Corpus Domini in 1401, after he had been exiled from Venice, Giovanni Dominici says that he had no reason to return to their city, save for their affection. He only values more, he wrote, “the women of Pisa ... in whom I have found true obedience and humility, and who have never contradicted any of my wishes... .”63 Apparently, there were some exchanges of sisters between the two houses: one Suor Teodora da Venezia is mentioned in lists of San Domenico; she may have been sent on to Florence to reform San Pier Martire.64 Dominici wrote often of his admiration of Chiara and held her up as a model for the nuns of Corpus Domini. In addition to providing the nuns of Corpus Domini with spiritual guidance, Dominici arranged for some of the material needs of the convent. He was much involved with locating books for the women to use, to the extent of writing and illuminating them. He also arranged to provide each cell of the Venetian convent with a small devotional panel, or ancona, which were apparently in place in time for the dedication of the convent in 1394. Creighton Gilbert has identified a doublesided panel attributed to the Tuscan painter Andrea di Bartolo, now in the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., as one of these images.65 The painting depicts on one side the Madonna of Humility (Figure 1.3) and on the other a Crucifix (Figure 1.4). The small size of the painting requires that it be viewed from very near.
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1.3 Andrea di Bartolo, Madonna of Humility, c.1394
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1.4 Andrea di Bartolo, Crucifixion, c.1394
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Depicted at the feet of the Madonna of Humility is a tiny figure of a nun, in what Gilbert identified as the internal habit of the Dominican order for women. She kneels up close to the figure of Christ in his mother’s lap, to venerate the Corpus Domini, for which this convent was named. This small panel gives us a hint about what sort of imagery Dominican nuns lived with in their cells, and while it is not from San Domenico of Pisa, the many references to pictures in the cells of corali (choir nuns) in the Inventory of 1808 (Appendix 1, Document 1) suggest that similar imagery may have been provided for the Pisan house. We get a further glimpse of life at San Domenico in Chiara’s letters, her vita and a few surviving short vitae of other nuns. Chiara’s biographer emphasizes her asceticism, her ardent prayer, her humility, her guidance and counsel to both her sisters and to others, and her charity to all. Chiara’s surviving letters offer not only evidence for her life, but for her spirituality. She urges her correspondents to pray, to be charitable, to read, to confess and take communion often, to obey the commandments, to reflect on their salvation. She cites the example of the saints many times. While much has obviously been lost, it seems that the other women of San Domenico, usually the prioresses, followed her example in carrying on an apostolate by correspondence. The archives of the Medici correspondence in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries preserve many letters from various members of this community. Most of these letters ask for alms or other assistance for the convent or for other individuals, but they also urge prayer and offer consolation in times of loss. The later prioresses of San Domenico did not shy from petitioning the Papal Curia for assistance, as they did to achieve to exemption from imposts awarded them by Eugene IV in 1443.66 And they remained engaged in the affairs of the Order; in 1493, the prioress of San Domenico wrote to Savonarola to challenge, it seems, his plans for creating the Tuscan Congregation (see Chapter 5). Two letters written to the elders of Pisa by the prioress during the Siege of Pisa urge the beleaguered populace to specific devotions (see Chapter 6). The few surviving entries in the fifteenth-century necrology of San Domenico, which was written by a member of the community, also indicate what the nuns valued in their lives. These brief vitae praise careful observance of the rule, the keeping of vigils, the nuns’ fervor at prayer, their personal humility, and their fasting. Many times the sisters are praised for their charity and service to the other sisters. The taking of the sacrament was especially prized. Patience in the face of suffering was also admired; the obituary describes many cases where the women cheerfully tolerated grave illness and pain.67 Similar concerns are highlighted in the necrology of the Venetian house of Corpus Domini.68 The vita of the other prominent Beata of San Domenico also offers insight into the spirituality of the house. Maria di Bartolomeo Mancini was among the first members of San Domenico, who transferred from Santa Croce de Fossabanda.69 She had outlived three husbands and many children to become a Dominican tertiary, during which time she became a friend and correspondent of Catherine of Siena;
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one letter to her from the Sienese saint has survived. Her vocation as a nun was revealed to her in a vision in which she was given the Dominican habit by an angel, after which she entered the Dominican convent of Santa Croce di Fossabanda. Maria Mancini experienced numerous visions, some of them prophetic. Those visions which have been recorded are often shaped by her experience of trecento art. For example, one night she was interrupted in her meditation to feed her infant and, while nursing her child, contemplated the “celestial contentment” felt by the Virgin as she nursed the Child Christ;70 she must surely have seen images of the Madonna of Humility, a theme that was created in the fourteenth century and championed by the Dominicans.71 This is the theme of the ancona installed at Corpus Domini (Figure 1.3). Another vision occurred to Maria on the feast of All Saints, when she saw the throne of God surrounded by choirs of angels, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors, virgins, and others of the elect;72 this sounds a great deal like the registers of saints in a Last Judgment, such as the one attributed to Francesco Traini in the Camposanto of Pisa.73 One of her visions was probably inspired by works of art in the Dominican church of Santa Caterina, near where Maria had lived when she was a Tertiary. At the death of the first prioress of San Domenico, Filippa Albizzi, Maria had a vision in which she saw Suor Filippa accompanied by Saint Dominic holding a book in his hand, Saint Thomas Aquinas also holding a book, and Saint Augustine dressed as a Bishop.74 According to the vita, Maria saw the following words in Dominic’s book: “Abbiate la carita, osservate l’umilta, tenete ferma la poverta volontaria.” Thomas Aquinas’ book was inscribed, “Cantico dei Cantici.” The description of the two Dominican saints accompanied by the author of the Rule of Saint Augustine recalls the two important trecento altarpieces that adorned Santa Caterina, the “Saint Dominic Altarpiece” in the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo in Pisa by Francesco Traini and the mid-fourteenth century panel depicting “St Thomas Aquinas in Glory” still in Santa Caterina.75 Angels inhabit many of Maria Mancini’s visions and often they explain the significance of details in them; for example, a vision of a gem-studded tree is explicated as the Tree of Life by an angel.76 Much as Catherine of Siena’s visions depend on works of art with which she was familiar,77 Maria Mancini’s visions were shaped by the visual culture of trecento Pisa. Books and the Dominican Ideal Chiara Gambacorta was especially concerned that her spiritual children should read, and certainly reading was an important element in the life of this Dominican house, as it was in others.78 Chiara herself must have been literate (although perhaps not able to read Latin); not only do we have letters from her own hand, but several times she mentions that she has written prayers.79 The vita of Filippa Albizzi, the convent’s first prioress, records that she had learned “to read, to write and copy music” in so short a time that it was reckoned miraculous.80 Even the converse of San Domenico learned to read, if a bull of 1480 addressed to them by Sixtus IV condemning the practice is any indication.81
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Two undated letters document Chiara’s efforts to obtain books for her community. Written to a book dealer, one letter asks him to find her a Lectionary or Bible, which were needed for the Divine Office. In this letter she says, “We are glad of all books, but I have named these two, of which we have the most need.”82 In another letter to the same book dealer, she thanks him for sending a book, of which she says, “It is not of our Order. It is true that it contains things that are useful to us, and because it is not expensive, we are agreed to accept it. If one exclusively of our Order should come into your hands, it would be more useful to us.”83 Her response reveals that the literature of religious life of many orders was read at San Domenico, although Dominican literature was preferred. It is likely that some of the sisters came to the convent with breviaries or missals given them by their families, as is occasionally documented elsewhere.84 At least one such case is known from the sparse documentary indications published by Zucchelli: in 1478, the convent received a sum of money for a breviary for Suor Niera del Lante given by her relatives.85 The document does not specify however, whether the breviary was to be made in the convent or outside of it, although the high cost might suggest the latter. Suor Niera appears on a list of the convent’s membership for 1486; she died in 1493 (see Appendix 4). Individual breviaries were a luxury, one that the late fifteenth-century reformer Savonarola deplored. In a letter on the religious life written to Maddalena Pico della Mirandola in 1495, Savonarola describes a private breviary as a threat to the nun’s vow of poverty. He specifically complains of lavishly illustrated breviaries and urges that nuns use printed breviaries owned in common, or no breviary at all as they say the Divine Office.86 Yet the Mass books and communal books were necessities, which the new community had to obtain. The Dominican liturgy specified 14 books needed by each community, including an ordinary, martyrology, collectionary, processional, psalter, breviary, lectionary, antiphonary, gradual, pulpitary, conventual missal, epistolary, evangelary, and a missal for the minor altars.87 The community had either to purchase the books, solicit a donor to pay for them, or, if they were poor, make them themselves. In addition to Chiara’s efforts discussed above, a few documents inform us about the acquisition of books at San Domenico. In 1436, the Prioress Filippa Doria obtained the funds for two Bibles, which apparently were being purchased for her by a friar.88 In 1441, money was given to a priest named Bartolomeo for the binding and illumination of a diurnal.89 And in 1519, the women had a lectionary illuminated in Florence, with the convent’s confessor serving as the intermediary for the commission.90 The women also produced their own books. In a letter Chiara Gambacorta wrote to Francesco Datini in January 1397 she solicits the supplies for making books:91 I beg either you or Madam ... to buy us a quantity of paper for we are writing a book of Epistles, and we are in great need of it. It would be a very great charity as we are poor in books and this one is very necessary; we shall write it ourselves. Brother Angiulo who brings you this letter is coming to Pisa, and I should be happy if he would bring (the paper) back to me. He will know how much we need.
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Three years later, in February 1400, she wrote to Francesco to thank him for the donation of materials: “I received by your charity, the paper to write the Epistles.”92 This transaction had slightly later repercussions; apparently Chiara received a bill for this paper in 1407 and wrote immediately to Francesco to complain of it. Datini’s response was simply to pay it.93 These indications demonstrate that early in the history of San Domenico the nuns were active in the making of books. And the nuns acted not only as scribes, but also as illuminators. In their search for books they were assisted by Giovanni Dominici, who arranged the exchange of books between San Domenico and the convent of Corpus Domini in Venice.94 In a letter dated July 1400, Dominici asks the nuns of Corpus Domini to send “the office of Advent and also all that you do not need to your sisters in Pisa.” He goes on to say that he has begun at the expense of the Pisan nuns to make an antiphonary for the Venetian convent.95 This probably means that the Pisan women supplied him with paper, for in another letter a few weeks later, Dominici informs the Venetian nuns that he had already written the better part of the antiphonary from Advent to Epiphany, “because I have good paper.” He asks the Venetian nuns to “send to Pisa that which you have from the hands of Tommaso Aiutamicristo.” In the context of the letter, this must mean some sort of text.96 At least one scholar claimed that Dominici himself instructed the women of San Domenico in the art of illumination, but this is probably because Dominici did instruct the nuns in the Venetian house in this art.97 There is no evidence of his teaching the women of San Domenico the art of illumination directly, although his own works may have served them as models. Women in many convents practiced the art of manuscript writing and decoration, although their work has still not been well studied. Their activities as scribes are sometimes overshadowed when professional artists illustrated manuscripts that women had copied.98 Women are known to have painted in books throughout the Middle Ages, and for the Italian quattrocento the only women artists about whom we know were nuns, whose mode of life and gender isolated them from professional training.99 We know the names of artists like Maria Ormani, Antonia the Carmelite daughter of Paolo Uccello, Francesca da Firenze, and Caterina Vigri of Ferrari, but for most of these women we know very little about their lives and less about their art. The Dominican order’s emphasis on the intellectual arts made the copying and illuminating of books a natural form of expression for women in their convents.100 Both Giovanni Dominici and Savonarola encouraged Dominican nuns in this art form.101 What is more, nuns were also involved in the new technology of printing books; one of the earliest printing houses in Florence was established at the Dominican convent of San Jacopo da Ripoli.102 The women of San Domenico were, it seems, well known for their skill as book illuminators. At least three nuns of San Domenico had reputations as excellent miniature painters in the fifteenth century: Suor Agata Celestrina Doria, Suor Gabriella, and Suor Nicolosa.103 The name of Suor Agata Celestrini Doria appears on a list of members of the community in 1426 (Appendix 4). Hers was one of
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the leading families of Genoa, which had marriage alliances with the Gambacorti (Chiara’s stepmother was from this family); there were many Doria women in the convent of San Domenico. Suor Gabriella may be either Gabbriella Zene Doria, whose name appears on the same list of 1426, and thus a relative of Suor Agata; or she may be Gabbriella di Andrea di Bonconti, whose name appears on a similar list for 1453 and who died in 1499, after serving as prioress from 1485.104 There is good indication that this Suor Gabriella wrote, anyway, as she seems to have been the author of several of the ricordi (record books) that survived from the convent into the twentieth century for Zucchelli to study.105 Suor Nicolosa is probably Niccolosa di Bindo de’Galletti, who appears on the 1453 list and who died in 1503.106 Members of her family seem to have been well-off residents of the Quartiere di Mezzo in Pisa.107 (The only other Niccolosa I have been able to identify among the nuns of San Domenico transferred to San Pier Martire in Florence in 1420.108) A reference dated 1533 in a Libro di Entrata e Uscita (account book) from San Domenico to books “adorned with the work of Suor Agata,” probably Agata Celestrina Doria, is a tantalizing confirmation of the sisters’ work as miniaturists, as early as the first quarter of the fifteenth century.109 Taurisano also reported that in 1502, four other sisters from San Domenico of Pisa were sent to reform the convent of San Domenico in Lucca and to teach the art of miniature painting there. Their names are cited in the documents as “Sororibus Agneti, Benedicta, Christina et Raphaela de Luca.”110 They are probably the women whose names appear on the roster of 1494 as: Agnese di Guaspari Becchaio da Lucca, Benedetta di Bartholomeo Arnolfini da Lucca, Cristina di Messer Nicholaio Burlamacchi, and Raphaella di Giovanni Burlamacchi (see Appendix 4). All four women were thus Lucchese by birth, and their return to Lucca was a repatriation of sorts that may have been inspired as much by the climate of Pisa during the Siege by Florence as by a desire to reform the convent of San Domenico of Lucca.111 These Lucchese women thus elected to return to their native city. According to Taurisano, Suor Benedetta was the first miniaturist at San Domenico of Lucca.112 The nuns of San Domenico in Lucca in turn taught other Dominican women the art of writing and illuminating books. The chronicle of another Dominican convent in Lucca, San Giorgio, informs us that Suor Alessandra Guidiccioni “was one of those who remained at San Domenico (of Lucca) for three years to learn to write lettera formata and illuminate books, and therefore she wrote three of them, large and beautiful, to sing the divine office.”113 The woman about whom we know the most from this convent is Suor Eufrasia Burlamacchi, of the distinguished Lucchese clan (which had sent many women to San Domenico of Pisa; see Appendix 4); the necrology of this convent reports that she “wrote by her own hand the books to sing the divine office in large letters with the notes at the head of the verses and painted very beautifully, that is, three Antiphonaries, a Graduale, a psalmista, and a colletario.” Several of her works have survived in the possession of the nuns of San Domenico of Lucca.114 By the beginning of the sixteenth century, some of these women were also painting on a larger scale, a fact to which we shall return.
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Another house reformed by the nuns of San Domenico of Pisa, San Silvestro in Genoa, produced its own tradition of painting.115 Sister Tommasina Fieschi entered the convent of San Silvestro around 1490; in 1497 she transferred to the convent of Saints Philip and Jacob in Genoa where she lived until 1534. She was noted in the documents for her piety, asceticism, embroidery, and painting. Fieschi also followed the pattern established by Catherine of Siena and Chiara Gambacorta in writing letters of spiritual instruction.116 Apparently, the reform of a house went hand in hand with the making of books; this implies that in order to be truly Observant, a convent needed books and intellectual employment. From such circumstances, we may conclude that the nuns of San Domenico were still illuminating books and, as we shall see, working in other art forms at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The books acquired and executed by the nuns of San Domenico of Pisa have disappeared today.117 But at least some books were still in the convent in the early nineteenth century. The 1810 inventories of the convent mention that there were 24 choir books, “fra grande e piccoli” stored in the sacristy (Appendix 1, Doc. I, n. 65). As no books by these women have yet come to light, it is difficult to assess either their imagery or their style. But these documents remind us that books played an important role in convents, not only for their words, but also for their images. We also find in these documents evidence that the nuns of San Domenico made images themselves. Books entered the convent in a variety of ways, by purchase or by gift, but they could then be used to supply other necessities of the house. For example, in 1433 the nuns sold a “little Bible” which had been given to them by Fra Girolamo Burlamacchi because they needed the 10 florins obtained by the sale for the convent.118 A similar use of books was suggested by Giovanni Dominici to the nuns of Corpus Domini in 1400: he told them that the Antiphonary they expect to buy can be sold to Frate Filippo for 25 ducats, after they finish singing from it at Easter.119 But such books were assets in other ways to the cloistered women. The entry of professionally written and illustrated books into the convent not only filled the liturgical and logistical requirements of the community; they also provided models and compositions for the women who wrote and illuminated their own books within the convent. No trace of the library of San Domenico is known to me, but certainly books other than service books, office books, and Bibles were read in the convent, though these texts were the fundaments of a nun’s life. The Rule of Saint Augustine stipulated that the Rule itself should be read at least once a week; Chiara’s knowledge of the Rule, and adoption of its principles inform a letter to Margherita Datini, dated 1396:120 I have heard that you know how to read. Use this knowledge well, for Saint Augustine says reading prepares the soul for prayer. The soul is filled by reading, and in praying, by means of this reading the soul receives in itself great light; and, between prayer and reading we are instructed by Jesus Christ and his saints on what we have to do to acquire grace in this life.
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The nuns would also read, or have read to them, the Constitutions of the Dominican order, to whose fulfillment the community was pledged. While the Constitutions do not require that the sisters be entirely literate,121 they demand that the women be able to write their names; what is more, reading was prescribed at chapter, during mealtimes, and while working. In addition to scripture, the nuns would read or have read to them various sorts of devotional literature in the vernacular, a genre that historians have noted was aimed at women in the late Middle Ages.122 Although, to my knowledge, no inventory of the library of San Domenico survives, other Dominican convents had extensive libraries of devotional literature, some of it in Latin.123 While Dominican friaries have been very well explored for the contents of their libraries, we have much less information about the specific texts that women might have read.124 Certainly women’s houses were expected to have libraries; in the mid-fifteenth century, Johannes Meyer translated Humbert of Romans’ text on the duties of officials in a Dominican convent into German, specifically for the use of nuns in Observant houses of that Province. His translation included the duties of the Librarian, and the text implies that the library will have books in both Latin and the Vernacular, on subjects ranging from books of the Bible to patristic commentaries, to saints’ lives and histories.125 The establishment of the Observance in the Dominican monasteries of Saint Catherine in Nuremberg and Saint Catherine in Saint Gall resulted in the enlargement of the libraries in those houses; the Nuremberg monastery had some 370 codices while the convent in Saint Gall had 323 titles, more than half in Latin.126 Further insight is gained by individual volumes whose provenance leads us to a feminine house. Moreover, the occasional surviving inventory from a convent, like the fifteenth-century inventories of the Convent of Clares at Longchamps, offers some idea of the scope of libraries in convents of women.127 Several catalogues of the Library of Saint Catherine’s of Nuremburg also survive now in the Stadtbibliothek of that city. This aristocratic convent owned almost 200 books by the late fifteenth century, including grammars, books of sermons, bibles and commentaries, saints’ lives, philosophy and natural science.128 From such sources, we may get an idea of what the sisters at San Domenico would have read. The Lives of Saints probably made up a large quotient of this sort of reading in redactions such as the Dominican Jacobus da Voragine’s Golden Legend. A last will and testament of Francesco Datini, drawn up in June 1400, describes his plan to leave just such a book to San Domenico. In a letter to Francesco written about this time, Chiara says, “The book, which ... you wish to leave us after your life, we accept; and it is more dear to us because you enjoy it now.”129 As heirs to a longstanding monastic tradition, the Dominicans seem especially to have encouraged nuns’ reading of the Lives of the Desert Fathers (Vite dei Santi Padri) as exemplars for women in cloisters.130 A popular vernacular version of these lives was written in Pisa in the mid-fourteenth century by Domenico Cavalca, a friar at the Dominican house of Santa Caterina. It is likely that the nuns were familiar with this redaction. In fact, an examplar from Cavalca’s Vite is held up to Chiara
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Gambacorta in a pastoral letter written to her by an unnamed correspondent.131 The nuns probably also knew Cavalca’s other devotional tracts, such as the Specchio di Croce, the Pungilingua, and the Frutti di Lingua. For example, the Brigittine convent of Paradiso in Florence owned a manuscript of Cavalca’s Frutti del Lingua, now in Florence (Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Ms. Conventi Soppressi F.3.1372). This book has a colophon indicating its origin in the Brigittine house.132 Dominicans also placed special emphasis on the lives of members of their order, so the women likely owned some text detailing the lives of prominent Dominicans. Through her connections with Giovanni Dominici and Tommaso Caffarini, Chiara must have obtained a copy of one of the vitae of Catherine of Siena, most likely the Legenda Maior, written by Raymond of Capua, the Master General of the Order and one of Chiara’s correspondents. We know from her vita that Chiara was given a text by or about Birgitta of Sweden by Alfonso of Jaen. The women probably knew other sorts of devotional texts, like the pseudo-Bonaventure’s Meditations on the Life of Christ, or Bonaventure’s De Perfectione vitae ad sorores.133 Other genres of vernacular texts which the women read, or heard, were sermons and pastoral letters, not all of which survive to us. Sermon collections and compilations of such letters survive from many houses of medieval women.134 The mutual admiration between Chiara and Giovanni Dominici suggests that Dominici’s sermons and letters reflect shared spiritual concerns; a large number of Dominici’s letters to the nuns of Corpus Domini in Venice survive, many of them in compilations written by or in Dominican houses of women, and these may give us insight into the sort of letter that the nuns of San Domenico read.135 One such letter written to Chiara herself survives in a fifteenth century collection of pastoral letters copied for a Genoese woman; Giovanni Dominici may have written it.136 The convent may well have owned a collection of Catherine of Siena’s letters, many of which were directed at religious; the Brigittine house in Florence owned a manuscript containing 170 of these letters and there are surviving fifteenth-century manuscripts of Catherine’s letters from other Dominican convents in Tuscany.137 Collections of the sermons of other prominent friars in the vernacular are also likely to have been known to these women; in particular, they were probably familiar with some of the sermons of Giordano of Pisa, a fourteenth-century Dominican, who was a member of the community at Santa Caterina in Pisa and greatly admired by the first confessor of San Domenico, Domenico de Peccioli.138 These types of books were precisely the sort which were urged on secular women of the period, too, at least in the courtesy books and educational treatises of the Renaissance; among the books most often recommended for girls and women were: the Bible, the Little Office of our Lady, Legends of Saints, or the Vite dei Santi Padri.139 Readings of this sort helped not only to inform the sisters of various points of Christian dogma, but also to present them with exemplars for leading their own lives. They provided the nuns with language and imagery to express their faith and shape their spiritual aspirations. This study will draw on such texts to shed light on the images that surrounded the nuns. I recognize that most of this literature is not by
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the women themselves, and that some of it is in fact prescriptive, urging women into roles which male authorities felt appropriate for them. Yet in the absence of much direct testimony from the women, such texts allow us some measure of access to the spiritual messages they were coached into reading in specific themes or figures. We have only a few surviving texts by the women of San Domenico themselves, which point to certain emphases in the women’s spirituality; these texts, too, help to reconstruct the attitudes and concerns the women themselves brought to the images around them. Notes 1 In addition to the vita written by the Bollandists in the Acta Sanctorum (Aprilis, vol. II, Antwerp, 1675, cols. 503–516), the sources for Chiara’s life include a vita written by a contemporary in the community, as well as several later redactions, some in manuscript, some edited. See S. Ferrali, “Gambacorta, Chiara, beata,” Bibliotheca Sanctorum, 6 (1965): 23–26. A key source remains Niccola Zucchelli, La Beata Chiara Gambacorta. La Chiesa ed il Convento di San Domenico in Pisa (Pisa, 1914). The only biography in English was done by Sister Mary Evelyn Murphy, O.P., Blessed Clara Gambacorta (Freibourg, 1928). See also Daniel Mortier, O.P., Histoire des Mâitres Généraux de l’Ordre des Frères Precheurs (Paris, 1902–1920), vol. III, pp. 584–593. A popular version appeared by the Comtesse de Courson, “The Beatified Women of the Dominican Order,” The Rosary Magazine, 43 (August 1913): 126–127; this was based on Marianne de Ganay’s compendium, Les bienheureuses Dominicaines: 1190–1577 (4 ed., Paris, 1924). 2 There is some confusion as to the exact relationship between the two Gambacorta beati; Pietro, born 1355 and died 1435, is sometimes identified as the son of Pietro Gambacorta but also identified as the son of Gherardo Gambacorta, Pietro’s brother. See Acta Sanctorum, June, vol. III, 331–341; P. Ferrara, Il Beato Pietro Gambacorta e la sua Congregazione (Vatican, 1964) and the biography of Pietro Gambacorta in Sajanello Giambatista, Historica monumenta ordines Sancti Hieronymi congregationis B.Petri de Pisis, Volume I (Venice, 1760), 1–144. 3 Some authorities, such as the author of the Memorie istoriche di piu’ uomini illustri pisani (Pisa, 1790), vol. 1, p. 360, identify her as Raniera Gualandi. Another tradition identifies this woman as the mother of Chiara’s cousin, Pietro Gambacorta, the founder of the Poor Hermits of Saint Jerome; Murphy, Blessed Clara, p. 36. 4 Simone di Piero da Massa was a member of the “brigate” of young men of San Martino in Chinsica; see Ranieri Sardo, “Cronaca Pisana,” in Archivio Storico Italiano, 6/ 2 (1845): 184. 5 There is even some debate as to whether Chiara maintained her virginity within her marriage; the author of the vita in the Acta Sanctorum, col. 507, claims she did; Murphy, Blessed Clara, 42, muses that she probably did not. 6 According to Murphy, Blessed Clara, p. 42, he died of plague. 7 This text appears in Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 25–28. See Le Lettere di S. Caterina da Siena, Niccolo Tommaseo and Piero Misciattelli (eds) (Florence, 1860), vol. III, letter n. 262.
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For Alfonso of Jaen, see Arne Jonsson, Alfonso of Jaen: His Life and Works with Critical Editions of the “Epistola Solitarii,” the “Informaciones,” and the “Epistola Servi Christi” (Lund, 1989). 9 The Italian text uses the term “istorie,” which was translated into the Latin version of the vita in the Acta Sanctorum as “vita ejus descriptam historiam” (Aprilis, II, col. 510). Was it a vita or Birgitta’s Revelations? 10 The date is the feast of Saint Andrew, which may contain an element of irony, because Chiara’s brother Andrea had forced her to leave San Martino. 11 She seems to have had a separate cell for her private devotions; Murphy, Blessed Clara, pp. 50–60. 12 Her father, Araone Doria was potestà of Pisa in 1392; Roncioni, “Storie Pisane,” in Archivio Storico Italiano, 6/1 (1844): 949. 13 For example, the Pisan ambassador to Urban VI was Piero di Albizo da Vico, who must be the brother of Filippa, the first prioress; another of the ambassadors sent by Gambacorta was Andrea di Giovanni Bonconte, a relative of Agnese Bonconte; see Sardo, ‘Cronaca Pisana’, in Archivio Storico Italiano, 6/2 (1845): 200. 14 The text of the Bull of Urban VI appears in Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 43–44. 15 This chronicle has been published in Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 390–399. For Domenico da Peccioli, see T. Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum Medii aevi (Rome, 1970), vol. I, pp. 333–334. 16 This event, however, is not mentioned in the chronicles published in the Archivio Storico Italiano for 1845. 17 According to her vita, she directed alms intended for her own house to a nearby hospital for foundlings, Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 68–70. According to Janet Ross, Story of Pisa, p. 369, Chiara even administered the Pia Casa dei Trovatelli for a while. 18 This is a translation by Murphy, Blessed Clara, p. 72, of a passage from the manuscript dossier compiled for Chiara’s canonization proceedings by Tantucci and Lupi, which I have been unable to consult. 19 Discussed in Genvieve Hasenohr-Esnos, “Un recueil inèdit de lettres de direction spirituelle au XVe siècle, le ms. vat. lat. 11259 de la Bibliothèque Vaticane,” Melanges d’archéologie et d’histoire, 82 (1970): 486–500. 20 Chiara Gambacorta, Lettere della Beata Chiara Gambacorta, Cesare Guasti (ed.) (Pisa, 1871), letter 2; translation by Murphy, Blessed Clara, p. 111. For Chiara’s role as spiritual advisor to Datini, see Giorgio Petrocchi, ‘Dispute per l’anima di un mercante’, in Ascesi e mistica trecentesca (Florence, 1957), esp. pp. 189–192. 21 In a letter to Datini dated May 11, 1396, Chiara reports that “Master Dominic [da Peccioli] has told me that you have received with good will that of which I wrote you”; Gambacorta, Lettere, letter 6; translated by Murphy, Blessed Clara, p. 119. 22 Mazzei, Lettere d’un notaro a un mercante del secolo XIV, Cesare Guasti (ed.) (Florence, 1880), pp. 115–116. The letter in question does not survive, as the earliest known has been dated to December 1395. 23 In a letter he sent to Datini in 1401, he encloses a letter to Chiara which he asks Datini to forward: “O fatta una letteruza a suora chiara. Pregovi la mandiate bene in servigio, in Charraya San Gili. Credo sappiate che e, ch’e persona degna di riverenza e conssciuta la fama sua”; see R. Piattoli, “Un mercante del Trecento e gli artisti del tempo suo,” Rivista d’Arte, 11 (1929): 250. 8
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24 For which, see the introduction and several of the essays in Gabriella Zarri, Per Lettera. La scrittura epistolare femminile tra archivio e tipografia (Rome: 1999) as well as the same author’s “Le scritture religiose,” in Alessandra Contin and Anna Scattigno (eds), Carte di donne: per un censimento regionale della scrittura delle donne dal XVI al XX secolo (Roma, 2005), pp. 45–58. 25 See the Roster of women, in Appendix 4. 26 See Appendix 2: Census of nuns in the fifteenth and early sixteenth century. 27 See M. Lupo-Gentile, “La politica religiosa di Pisa durante l’assedio (1494–1509),” Bollettino Storico Pisano, 5 (1937): 147, where he quotes a decision taken by the Anziani of Pisa on December 24, 1494: “confirmaverunt omnia privilegia exemptionis et immunitatis quas habuerunt et habent ... moniales S. Dominici tam tempore libertatis Pisanae tam tempore quo Florentini erant domini civitatis Pisarum ita quod uti possint inviolabiliter.” 28 Mortier, Histoire des Mâitres Généraux, vol. III, p. 592. 29 “Credo voi abbiate tutta l’indulgenza di colpa e di pena in articolo di morte, pero che il papa l’ha concessa al munistero di S. Domenico di Pisa e a voi e concessa ogni indulgenzia di ciascun altro munistero; e questo fu l’intenzione del papa al quale parlai”; Giovanni Dominici, Lettere Spirituale, M.-T. Casella and G. Pozzi (eds) (Freiburg, 1969), p. 131. The text of the bull appears in Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 157–158. 30 Gittalebraccia received the habit from Giovanni Dominici himself, and also lived in Dominican priories in Florence, Città da Castello, and Venice. In F. Bonaini (ed.), “Chronica antiqua Conventus Santae Caterinae,” Archivio Storico Italiano, 6/2 (1845): 585–586, he is called a “son” of Chiara Gambacorta: “Devotus et obediens, abdicavit temporalia; dedit partem sibi contingentem, quantum sua interfuit, monasterio sancti Dominici de Pisis: nam fuit de intimis filius sororis Clarae de Gambacurtis; licet preadictum monasterium habuerit parum vel nihil.” 31 When he professed at the observant convent of San Domenico di Cortona in 1417, Lapacci gave 50 gold florins to San Domenico of Pisa; “Item, reliquit amore dei monialibus monasterii et ecclesie sancti Dominici de observantia de Pisis floreno quinquaginta auri quos voluit et mandavit expendi in earum necessitatibus ad discreptionem et conscientiam honesti religiosi fratris Andree de Palaria ordinis predicti et magistri Bartholomei predicti, vel alterius eorum superviventis altero mortuo, et ambobus mortuis, ad discreptioniem priorisse dicti monasterii pro tempore existentis.” For him, see Thomas Kaeppeli, “Bartolomeo Lapacci de’ Rimbertini (1402–1466) Vescovo, Legato Pontificio, Scrittore,” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 9 (1939): 86–127. 32 Antoninus’ gifts to the convent are cited in Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 297: “1441. Dall’Arcivescovo di Firenze f. 10;” Ibid., p. 298: “1446. Dallo nostro Reverendissimo Padre frate Antonino.” 33 Dominici, Lettere Spirituale, pp. 167 and 170–171. 34 In a letter of June 8, 1401, Dominici informs the Venetian nuns that “Suora Teodora trovasi a Lucca. Era fatta concordia fra suora chiara ed essa di entrare nel munisterio a Pisa”; Dominici, Lettere Spirituale, p. 155. While awaiting license to enter the convent, Theodora stayed in Lucca. Dominici explains that if the Venetian women wish to make a vendetta, a nun of the Pisan house, Suora Agnese, will come to them. This may be Agnes Bonconte, who was among the first nuns of San Domenico (see Roster, Appendix 4). He says that Chiara told him “Voi farete vendetta,” but that it would be a good exchange (Ibid., p. 156). Theodora must have spent some time in the Pisan house, for in a letter
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dated April 1402, Dominici reminds the Venetian women of the example of Chiara Gambacorta and San Domenico and says that Suor Theodora can inform them about the Pisan modus vivendi; Ibid., pp. 170–171. However, neither Theodora or Agnes appear in the Necrology of Corpus Domini, published in Lettere Spirituale, pp. 295–330, which may indicate that she was not a member of that community when she died. 35 The text of this bull, dated May 29, 1435, quotes the Bull regarding San Domenico in its entirety; Bullarium Ordinis Praedicatorum, Thomas Ripoll (ed.) (Rome, 1731), vol. III, pp. 38–39. 36 Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 158–159. Translation in Murphy, Blessed Clara, p. 78. Boniface IX had attempted a similar reform of the Roman convent in 1398, with the Bull “Circa statum” dated October 22 1398; Mortier, Histoire des Mâitres Généraux, vol. III, p. 602. 37 There is some confusion as to precisely how many Pisan nuns transferred. Mortier, Histoire des Mâitres Généraux, vol. IV, pp. 121–122, reports that two sisters were sent to Florence, with the provision that they could eventually return to Pisa. One of these women, at least 50 years old, was to be the first prioress at S. Pier Martire; the other, at least 35, was to be novice mistress. Giuseppi Richa, Notizie istoriche delle chiese fiorentine (Florence, 1762), vol. X, p. 203, reports slightly different numbers, however. According to a ricordanze in the convent, he says, three women came from Pisa: S. Andrea di Paolo Tommasi da Firenze, S. Teodora Guidoni da Venezia, and S. Niccolosa di Giovanni Baroncelli. Richa then offers another narrative, based on Stefano Rosselli’s Sepoltuario, which claims that on May 19, 1419 only one nun, S. Andrea di Tommasi, came from Pisa; she was followed in July of 1420 by three other sisters, S. Bartholommea di Piero Merciari di Firenze, S. Teodora di Firenze, and S. Niccolosa di Giovanni Baroncelli, widow of Andrea della Stufa, who became the first prioress. Unfortunately, none of these women appear on the incomplete rosters we have for San Domenico, except for S. Teodora of Venice, who appears on a list for 1404 and who may be the woman discussed by Giovanni Dominici in his letters to Corpus Domini. The Bull addressed to the nuns of San Pier Martire by Martin V on May 4, 1420 assigns two nuns of San Domenico to be transferred there, one at least 50 years old and the other at least 35, but does not name them. The task of these nuns, “expertas in observantia regulari” was “pro instructione vestra in hujusmodi regulari observantia”; Bullarium Ordinis Praedicatorum, vol. II, pp. 581–582. 38 Mortier, Histoire des Mâitres Généraux, vol. IV, pp. 346–347 and Murphy, Blessed Clara, p. 79. The Bull founding the community was issued by Nicolas V on March 13, 1450, and names “Philippe de Auria and Thomasie de Gambacurtis, Monialium Monasterii Sancti Dominici Pisan” as among the petitioners seeking permission to establish “Unum Monasterium dicti Ordinis sub vocabulo Corporis Christi, pro use & habitatione quarundam Monlialum, sub cura hujusmodi, ac regulari observantia” for which they sought the use of the church and buildings of “Parochialem Ecclesiam Sancti Silvestri Januen”; Bullarium Ordinis Praedicatorum, vol. III, p. 278. By 1452, this community had attracted “plures mulieres Januen” to its ranks, but the Pope had to intervene in a dispute regarding some of the buildings that were part of the original foundation; Bullarium Ordinis Praedicatorum, vol. III, pp. 309–311. An accord was finally reached in 1453, recorded in a Bull dated January 4, 1453; Bullarium Ordinis Praedicatorum, vol. III, pp. 314–315. Pope Pius II had to confirm the convent’s use of the buildings once again in 1459: Bullarium Ordinis Praedicatorum, vol. III, pp. 391–393. For more on these events, see Silvia Mostaccio,
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Osservanza vissuta osservanza insegnata. La domenicana Genovese Tommasina Fieschi e I suoi scritti (1448 ca-1534) (Florence: 1999), pp. 52–55. 39 Taurisano, I Domenicani in Lucca (Lucca, 1914), p. 159. 40 ASP, Corporazione Religiose Soppresse, San Domenico, 1228. “Entrate e Uscita di Denari 1556–1571,” on the page after f. 275: “Ricordo questo di 25 di Novembre 1521 al pisano. Come a richiesta del Reverende padre frate Baptiste di ser Charoli da Firenze dignosso vichario generale della congregationi di Thoscana se mandato con molto nostro amaritudine et dolori due delle suore, cioe la venerabile madre suor Lorensa da Cieuli et suor Lena dello Apostulo per riformare el monastero di San Paulo al Orto con questa conditione che lle possono a ogni loro posto et volunta ritornare al nostro monastero senza contraditione alchuna a cosi faremo della buona voglia.” 41 Point made by Marchese, Scritti Vari (Florence, 1855). 42 See the description of Pisa dated c.1422 published by I. Supino in Arte Pisana (Florence, 1904), p. 314. 43 Nor is this sort of intervention unique to San Domenico; the nuns of Chiarito in Florence were also warned of approaching death by the rattling bones of relics in their church; see E. Viviana Della Robbia, Nei Monasteri fiorentini (Florence, 1946), p. 30. 44 Rudolph Bell and Donald Weinstein. Saints and Society (Chicago, 1982). 45 R. Bell, Holy Anorexia (Chicago, 1985). 46 Richard Kieckhefer, Unquiet Souls. Fourteenth-Century Saints and Their Religious Milieu (Chicago, 1984). 47 For an overview of Pisa’s history in the fifteenth century, see Emilio Tolaini, Pisa (Rome, 1992). Pisa’s medieval context is analyzed in David Herlihy, Pisa in the Early Renaissance: a Study of Urban Growth (New Haven, 1958). See also, F. Bonaini, “Breve degli Anziani di Pisa,” Archivio Storico Italiano, 6/ 2 (1845): 635–812. 48 For Pietro Gambacorta’s rule in Pisa, see P. Silva, Il governo di Pietro Gambacorta e le sue relazioni col resto della Toscana e coi Visconti (Pisa, 1910). See also Ottavio Banti, Iacopo d’Appiano: economia, società e politica del comune di Pisa al suo tramonto: 1392–1399 (Pisa, 1971). For a contemporary encomium on Gambacorta by the Dominican friar Simone da Cascina, see Marina Soriana Innocenti, “Un sermone Goliardico in onore di Pietro Gambacorta, Signore di Pisa,” Bolletino Storico Pisano, 60 (1991): 311–322. 49 Tolaini, Pisa, pp. 73–82. See also Michael Mallet, “Pisa and Florence in the Fifteenth Century. Aspects of the period of the first Florentine Domination,” in Nicolai Rubinstein (ed.), Florentine Studies: politics and society in Renaissance Florence (Evanston, 1968), pp. 403–441. 50 Lorenzo de’ Medici’s involvement with Pisan religious institutions has been discussed by Kate Lowe in, ‘Lorenzo’s Presence at Churches, Convents and Shrines in and outside Florence’, in Michael Mallett and Nicholas Mann (eds), Lorenzo the Magnificent Culture and Politics (London, 1996), pp. 23–36. See also Justine Heazlewood, “Postcards from the Edge: Pisan convents and the territorial expansion of Florence,” in Peter Howard and Cynthia Troup (eds), Cultures of Devotion: Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Religion (Melbourne, 2000). 51 The building of the Sapienza is treated by Maria Adriana Giusti in Gabriele Morolli, Cristina Acidini Luchinat and Luciano Marchetti (eds), L’Architettura di Lorenzo il Magnifico (Milan: 1992), pp. 206–207. 52 For the artistic context of Pisa in the fifteenth century, see Enzo Carli, La pittura a Pisa dalle origini alla “bella maniera” (Pisa, 1994), especially pp. 159–187.
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53 Numerous documents on artists working in Pisa have been published by Miria Fanucci Lovitch, Artisti Attivi a Pisa fra XIII e XVIII secolo (Pisa, vol. 1, 1991; vol. 2, 1995.) 54 For the siege of Pisa, see Gino Benvenuti, Storia dell’assedio di Pisa (Pisa, 1969) and Michele Luzzati, Una guerra del popolo (Pisa, 1973). 55 See W. A. Hinnebusch, History of the Dominican Order (New York, 1966), vol. I, pp. 44–47. 56 G. Lawless, Augustine of Hippo and his Monastic Rule (Oxford, 1987), p. 110. 57 Humbert finished his adaptation of the Rule by 1257; some revisions were made in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries and the Rule was revised again in 1930; Hinnebusch, History of the Dominican Order, 380–382. For the text of the Constitutions, see Analecta Sacri Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum, III (1897). 58 In the following comparison between the rules for men and women, I have benefited from the publication by William Hood of a copy of the Dominican Constitution in use at San Marco of Florence in the fifteenth century, and the attendant translation by Simon Tugwell, O.P. in Fra Angelico at San Marco (New Haven, 1993), pp. 279–301. I have based my analysis on the version of the women’s Constitutions published by Raymond Creytens, O.P., “Les Constitutions primitives des soeurs Dominicaines de Montargis,” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 17 (1947): 41–84. 59 For legislation on these issues, see Elizabeth Makowski, Canon Law and Cloistered Women. Periculoso and its Commentators, 1298–1545 (Washington, D.C., 1997). 60 See Mostaccio, Osservanza vissuta, pp. 125–148. 61 These stringencies were proudly listed as part of the culture of San Domenico in the vita of Chiara Gambacorta written by one of her sisters in religion. For this, see Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 378: “Volse la Beata Chiara, et l’altre Suore che alla grata si mettessi un panno grosso, et incerato, accio che volendo parlare con le genti di fuora, non fusseno viste, ne potessino altrui vedere: volseno ancora, che la porta con tre chiavi fussi serrata, et che drento nessuno potessino entrare, se non per caso di necessita, cioe per ministrare i Sacramenti in caso di morte: fu al principio dato licentia, per velare le Suore, ma poi visto, che si poteva velare senza entrare, quello entrare fu levato: al presente ne puo ne Maestro, ne Provinciale, entrare piu d’una volta l’anno l’uno di lore, per ben che volessino, et questo e confermato dal Papa con le Bolle: ordinono etiam per soddisfare a Parenti, che due volte le Suore, si mostrassino, da un piccholo sportello come appare, et questo si facessi, come al Padre, Madre, Fratelli, e Sorelle carnale, l’una volta, se vogliano li Parenti, prima che faccino la professione, et l’altra, poi che e velata … .” 62 The text of the chronicle is published as an appendix in Giovanni Dominici’s Lettere Spirituale; the description of the community appears on pp. 266–270. This text has been translated by Daniel Bornstein, and published as Sister Bartolomea Riccoboni, Life and Death in a Venetian Convent. The Chronicle and Necrology of Corpus Domini, 1395– 1436 (Chicago, 2000). For the section which follows, see pp. 34–38. 63 Dominici, Lettere Spirituale, p. 167. 64 See Appendix 4. According to Richa’s history of S. Pier Martire, in Notizie istoriche delle chiese fiorentine, vol. X, p. 204, the records of the Florentine house name their first prioress as “S. Teodora Guidoni da Venezia” who had come from San Domenico of Pisa. 65 Creighton Gilbert, “Tuscan Observants and Painters in Venice ca.1400,” in D. Rosand (ed.), Interpretazioni Veneziane: Studi di storia dell’arte in onore di Michelangelo Muraro (Venice, 1984), pp. 109–120; See also Riccoboni, Life and Death, p. 33 for a description of the enclosing ceremony.
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66 The Bull, dated January 4, 1443, is published in Bullarium Ordinis Praedicatorum, vol. III, p. 163. 67 These obituaries appear in Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 336–342. 68 See the entries translated by Bornstein in Riccoboni, Life and Death in a Venetian Convent, pp. 64–101. 69 For her vita see Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 121–128; Mortier, Histoire des Mâitres Généraux, vol. III, 589; G. Sainati, Vite dei santi, beati e servi di dio nati nella diocesa pisani (Pisa, 1859), pp. 144–163. See also Maiju Lehmijoki-Gardner, Dominican Penitent Women. Classics of Western Spirituality (New York, 2005), pp. 16 and 248. 70 This vision is described in Sainati, Vite dei sainti pisani, p. 146. 71 Demonstrated by Millard Meiss, Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death (Princeton, 1951), pp. 132–156. For the Dominican promulgation of this theme see J. Cannon, “Dominican Patronage of the Arts in Central Italy: the Provinica Romana c.1220–1320” (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation: University of London, 1980). 72 Sainati, Vite dei santi pisani, pp. 152–153. 73 The literature on the Camposanto Last Judgment is vast. It is summarized in Hayden Maginnis’s introduction to his edition of Millard Meiss’s Francesco Traini (Washington, D.C., 1983), pp. xii–xxiv. 74 Sainati, Vite dei santi pisani, pp. 160–161. 75 See Meiss, Francesco Traini, figures 1 and 2. 76 Sainati, Vite dei santi pisani, pp. 151–152. 77 As argued by Meiss, Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death, pp. 105–116. 78 For libraries in convents of nuns, see Hinnebusch, History of the Dominican Order, vol. II, pp. 203–204. See also, Jeffrey Hamburger, “La Bibliotheque d’Unterlinden et l’art de la formation spirituelle,” in Madeleine Blondel et al., Les dominicaines d’Unterlinden (Paris, 2000), pp. 110–159. 79 In a letter to Francesco Datini she writes, “Comfort [your wife] ... and tell her the prayer I have written for her to say I shall say for her myself.” Murphy, Blessed Clara, p. 121: Gambacorta, Lettere, letter 7. And writing to Monna Margherita (Francesco’s wife), Chiara says, “I send you this little prayer that you may recite it one hundred times a day from Ascension day until Pentecost”; Murphy, Blessed Clara, p. 131; Gambacorta, Lettere, Letter 5. 80 “In parvo tempore legere, scribere et notare didicit plene sic ut pro miraculo putaretur ...”; Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 394. 81 Published in Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 160–161 and the Bullarium Ordinis Praedicatorum, vol. III, pp. 590–591: “7 July 1480. Sixtus Episcopus, Servus Servorum Dei. Ad Perpetuam Rei Memoriam. Apostilice Sedis pis solicitudo requerit etc. Sane pro parte dilectarum in Christo filiarum Priorisse, & Sororum Domus Sancti Dominici Pisan., Ordinis Sancti Augustini, suc cura Fratrum Predicatorum degentium, Nobis exhibita petitio continebat, quod, si statueretur, & ordinaretur, quod de cetero Sorores dicte domus, in qua regularis viget observantia, converse nuncupate, nunc inibi pro tempore existentes habitum Nigrum per eas juxta consuetudines dicte domus gestari solitum, mutare, & habitum album Sororibus eiusdem domus, velatis nuncupatis, duntaxat exhiberi solitum, assumere non valerent, ac postquam in eadem domo in Conversas recepte fuerint, literas discere non possent, sed in statu, in quo recepte fuissent, permanere deberent, & quod de Confessore minime grato provideri sibi non posset, profecto paci, & quieti Priorisse, & Sororum earundem consuleretur. Quare pro parte Priorisse & Sororum predictarum
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Nobis fuit humiliter supplicatum, ut eis in premissis opportune providere de benignitate Apostolica dignaremur. Nos igitur, qui pacem, & quietem singularum personarum Deo devotuarum intensis desideriis affectamus, huiusmodi supplicationibus inclintai, auctoritate Apostolica, tenore presentium, statuimus pariter & ordinamus, quod de cetero perpetuis furturis temporibus Converse dicte domus, nunc inibi pro tempore existentes, habitum Album Sororum Velatarum dicte domus gestare, aut nigrum mutare, ipseque Converse jam recepte & in dicta domo pro tempore recipiende, literas discere nullatenus possint, aut debeant, sed in eo, in quo recepte sunt, habitu conversarum, & simplicitate, ac literarum inscientia perseverare teneantur, quodque nullus in Confessorem Priorisse & Sororum predicatrum absque ipsarum, vel majoris partis earundem expresso consensu deputari queat per alium, quam Generalem Magistrum Ordinis Fratrum Predicatorum pro tempore existentem, & aliter deputatus non possit per Priorissam & Sorores predictas sine expressa Apostolice Sedis licentia recipi, vel admitti. Non obstantibus constituionibus, & ordinationibus Apostolicis, ac domus & Ordinum predictorum, juramento, confirmatione Apostolica, vel quavis firmitate alia roboratis, statutis, & consuetudinibus, ceterisque contraries quibuscunque. Nulli ergo &c nostrorum statuti & ordinationis infringere &c. Si quis &c. Datum Rome apud S. Petrum Anno Incarnationis Dominice Millesimo Quadringentesimo Octuagesimo, Nonis Julii, Pontificatus nostri anno Nono.” 82 Murphy, Blessed Clara, p. 146; this is my translation, however. 83 Ibid., p. 149. 84 For example, a breviary commissioned of the Florentine miniaturist, Bartolomeo d’Antonio di Bartolo Tucci in the early 1470s: “quello lavoro in miniare uno breviario camereccio overo portatile fecie fare detta Monna Tommasa per suora Marietta e Perpetua due filgiole monache nelle Murate ...”; published in M. Levi d’Ancona, Miniatura e Miniatori a Firenze dal XIV al XVI secolo (Florence, 1962), p. 35. 85 “1478: Item avemo piu per mano di fra Lodovicho in ditto anno f. vinti larghi da Lucha dell’Ante per lo breviario di Suor Niera vagliano Lire 111 centoundici”; Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 302. 86 See Lettere di Girolomao Savonarola, R. Ridolfi (ed.) (Florence, 1933), pp. 83–84. 87 For this requirement see A.A. King, Liturgies of the Religious Orders (London and New York, 1955), p. 336 and Paola Raffaelli, I manoscritti liturgico-musicali della Biblioteca Cateriniana e del Fondo Seminario Santa Caterina dell’Archivio Arcivescovile di Pisa (Florence, 1993), p. 10. 88 “1436. Gennaio. Dalla Priora fiorini 4 in oro li accatto sopra due Bibbie e diele a frate Niccolo”; Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 296. 89 “1441. Diei a prete Bartolomeo per legare e miniare lo Diurno f. 1”; Ibid., 297. 90 “1519. Al Padre nostro confessoro L. 13.10 li quali seli deno per far miniare e’lectionario a Firenze” and “1520. Ad di 19 di ditto [not specified] per lo Lectionario che la miniato lire 7”; Ibid., p. 309. 91 “Ora o a voi o alla donna chiegio, per amor di questo glorioso Bambino, che ci paghiate tante carte, che noi iscriviamo un Pistolarium. Abianne gran nicissita; ed e monto buona limosina. Noi sia’ poveri di libri, e nicissita e: e noi ce lo iscriveremo. Frate Angiulo, che vi da questa lettera, viene a Pisa: serebemi caro che l’arecasse: e vi sapra dire quanti quaderni, cioe il gosto”; Gambacorta, Lettere, n. 8. Murphy, Blessed Clara, pp. 126–129. 92 “Ho ricevuto le carte, per vostra charita, da far lo Pistolario”; Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 354. 93 Gambacorta, Lettere, p. 382, n.2.
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94 Gilbert, “Tuscan Observants,” p. 110. 95 “Quanto vi vien fatto, mandate l’ufficio dell’avvento e ancora tutto che a voi non bisogna alle vostre suore di Pisa. Ho cominciato alle spese loro per voi un antidonario di quaderni trenta”; Dominici, Lettere Spirituale, p. 131. 96 “Quello dell’avvento fino all’epifania l’ho scritto buona parte, perche ho carte belle. Mandate a Pisa quello avete di mano di frate Tommaso Aiutamicristo; mandatelo per la via di Firenze e siami serbato la”; Ibid., p. 133. 97 Taurisano, Dominicane a Lucca, p. 159. 98 An excellent example of this phenomenon has been analyzed by K.J.P. Lowe, in “Women’s Work at the Benedictine Convent of Le Murate in Florence: Suora Battista Carducci’s Roman Missal of 1509,” in Lesley Smith and Jane H.M. Taylor (eds), Women and the Book: Assessing the Visual Evidence (Toronto, 1997), pp. 133–146. 99 For this topic in general see, Whitney Chadwick, Women Art and Society (London, 1990), pp. 39 ff.and 60–61 and for women of a later era, Vera Fortunati, Vita artistica nel monastero femminile (Bologna, 2002). 100 Hinnebusch, History of the Dominican Order, vol. I, p. 385 and vol. II, p. 210. 101 R. Steinberg, Fra Girolamo Savonarolo, Florentine Art and Renaissance Historiography (Athens, OH, 1977) pp. 8–11. See also Gilbert, “Tuscan observants.” 102 See the study by Melissa Conway, The Diario of the Printing Press of San Jacopo di Ripoli, 1476–1484: Commentary and Transcription (Florence, 1999). 103 Taurisano, I Domenicani in Lucca, p. 159. 104 Gabriella d’Andrea Bonconti was a nun at San Domenico by 1453. Her father is the 17-year-old capofamilia listed in the Catasto of 1427/28 who was not yet married according to the documents published in Bruno Casini, Il Catasto di Pisa del 1428– 29 (Pisa, 1964), p. 373, n. 1516. So she had to be born sometime after this. Suora Gabriella was elected prioress on June 22, 1485, the feast of the Ten Thousand martyrs (Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 418) and died in that office on November 6, 1499 (Ibid., p. 341). 105 She was the author of the “Libro di diversi ricordi antichi,” quoted by Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 418 and the author of the “Ricordi di Beata Chiara” of 1487 quoted in Ibid., p. 127. 106 Ibid., p. 426 and pp. 341–342. 107 Casini, Catasto, pp. 273–74, n. 1110. Suor Niccolosa may be the infant daughter Francesa named in the Catasto of 1427. 108 Richa, Notizie istoriche delle chiese fiorentine, vol. X, p. 203. Her name is reported by Richa to be Niccolosa di Giovanni Baroncelli. 109 “1533. Per li libri che si sono acconciati di lavoro di S. Agata che si sono missi in comune L.1”; Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 310. 110 Taurisano, Dominicani a Lucca, p. 159. 111 According to the chronicle of San Domenico of Lucca, as extracted by Domenico Di Agresti, Sviluppi della riforma monastica savonaroliana (Florence, 1980), p. 216, the new convent was to be composed of nuns who transferred voluntarily, from either San Niccolo of Lucca or from San Domenico of Pisa. 112 Taurisano, Dominicane a Lucca, p. 159. 113 “fu una di quelle che stesse tre anni in sancto Dominico nel qual tempo imparo a schrivere lettera formata et solfare libri et miniarli et cosi ne schrisse poi tre grandi et belli da cantare il divino offitio”; Ibid., p. 160.
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114 Ibid., pp. 160–161. For an antiphony now in the Biblioteca Statale of Lucca, see the reproduction in Memorie Domenicane (1990). 115 See Marchese, Memorie dei più insigni pittori, scultori e architetti domenicani (Florence, 1846), pp. 346–350. 116 On Suor Tommasini Fieschi, see Silvia Mostaccio, “Delle ‘visitationi spirituali’ di una monaca. Le lettere di Tommasina Fieschi O.P.,” in G. Zarri (ed.), Per lettera, pp. 287–311. See also Mostaccio, Osservanza vissuta, osservanza insegnata. 117 Taurisano, Domenicani a Lucca, p. 159 reported that by 1914 the choir books illuminated by the nuns of San Domenico of Pisa were “mislaid.” 118 “1433. D’una Bibbia pichola ci lasso frate Girolamo Burlamachi per l’amor di Dio vendendola per la necessita del Monastero f. 10”; Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 296. 119 “Ancora che l’antifonario comperammo, il potete vendere a frate Filippo per ducati venticinque, tenendolo infino a pasqua, perche possiate cantare ...”; Dominici, Lettere Spirituale, p. 133. 120 Gambacorta, Lettere, number 4; Murphy, Blessed Clara, p. 117. 121 On this point, see Brett, Humbert of Romans, pp. 23–24. 122 Herbert Grundmann, Religious Movements in the Middle Ages trans. Steven Rowan (South Bend, Indiana, 1994) but first published as Religiöse Bewegungen im mittelalter in 1935. For this topic, which has grown since the 1980s, see also Katherine Gill, “Women and the Production of Religious Literature in the Vernacular, 1300–1500,” in E. Ann Matter and John Coakley (eds), Creative Women in Medieval and Early Modern Italy (Philadelphia, 1994), pp. 64–104 and Gabriella Zarri, “Monasteri femminili e città (secoli xv–xviii),” in Giorgio Chittolini and Giovanni Miccoli (eds), Storia d’Italia: La Chiesa e il potere politico dal Medioevo all’eta contemporanea (Turin, 1986), pp. 393–394. 123 Hinnebusch, History of the Dominican Order, vol. I, pp. 385–386. 124 For the libraries of Dominican friaries, see T. Kaeppeli, “La Bibliothèque de SaintEustorge à Milan à la Fin du Xve siècle,” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 25 (1955): 5–74, with the publication of an inventory from the Milanese friary, and also, “Antiche Biblioteche Domenicane in Italia,” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 36 (1966): 5–80. Kaeppeli confesses that the libraries of feminine houses are outside his purview. 125 A copy of the Ämterbuch by Meyer for the Dominican convent of Saint Catherine’s of Nuremburg is preserved at the Lilly Library of the University of Indiana in Bloomington. See Susan von Daum Tholl, A Catalogue of Selected Illuminated Manuscripts in the Lilly Library, Indiana University. Indiana University Bookman, vol. 17 (Bloomington, IN, 1988), pp. 68–75. The section of this text on the Librarian’s duties was published by Karl Christ, in “Mittleälterliche Bibliotheksordnungen für Frauenklöster,” Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, 59 (1942): 1–29. 126 Hinnebusch, History of the Dominican Order, vol. I, p. 385. 127 See G. Mlynarczyk, Ein Franziskannerinnenkloster im 15. Jahrhundert. Edition und Analyze von Besitzinventaren aus derAbtei Longchamp (Bonn, 1987). 128 See Paul Ruf, Mittelälterliche Bibliothekskataloge. Deutschlands und der Schweiz, III (Munich,1932), cat. 116. See also, Marie-Luise Ehrenschwendtner, “A Library Collected by and for the Use of Nuns: Saint Catherine’s Convent, Nuremberg,” in Lesley Smith and Jane Taylor (eds), Women and the Book: Assessing the Visual Evidence (Toronto, 1997), pp. 123–132.
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129 “Lo libro, ci ha ditto Manno ci volete lassar doppo vostra vita, l’accettiamo; e moncto ci e caro ora il godiate voi”; Gambacorta, Lettere, Letter 8, p. 326 (My translation). Datini’s will drawn up on June 27, 1400 records the following gift: “Item, reliquit monasterio Pisano in quo est reclusa amore Deri uxor et filia olim domini Petri de Gambacurtis unum Librum magnum, quem habet ipse Testator, in cartis pecudinibus, cupertum panno rubeo, in quo est Vita extensa omnium Sanctorum, singulariter cuiusque de per se. Item, amore dei eidem conventui florenos auri centum; ut intercedant ad Deum pro anima sua.” Ibid., 326, note 1. However, as Guasti reports, Datini revised his will in 1410 and the later document makes no mention of San Domenico; Ibid., p. 332, note 1. 130 See Jeffrey Hamburger, “The Use of Images in the Pastoral Care of Nuns: The Case of Heinrich Suso and the Dominicans,” Art Bulletin, 71 (1989): 20–46; reprinted in The Visual and the Visionary: Art and Female Spirituality in Late Medieval Germany (New York, 1998), pp. 197–232. See also Hamburger’s, The Rothschild Canticles (New Haven, 1990), esp. pp. 143–154. 131 Published by Hasenohr-Esnons, “Un recueil inèdit,” p. 490. The impact of Cavalca’s Vite dei Santi Padri on the visual arts has been somewhat explored by Ellen Callmann, “Thebaid Studies,” Antichità Viva, 14 (1975): 3–22 and M. Lavin, “Giovannino Battista: a Study in Renaissance Religious Symbolism,” Art Bulletin, 37 (1955): 85–102. 132 Renzo Lotti, “I manoscritti dei Frutti di Lingua,” Memorie Domenicane, 16 (1985): 291. For Cavalca’s writings, see Kaepelli, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, vol. I, pp. 304–314. For the female audience of Cavalca’s texts, see Katherine Gill, “Women and the Production of Religious Literature in the Vernacular.” 133 For the Meditationes Vitae Christi and its relationship to Pisa, see Holly Flora and Arianna Pecorini Cignoni, “Requirements of Devout Contemplation: Text and Image for the Poor Clares in Trecento Pisa,” Gesta, 45 (2006): 61–76. 134 See, for manuscripts of letters of Saint Antoninus from women’s houses, Stefano Orlandi, O.P., Bibliografia Antoniniana (Vatican City, 1962). 135 For the manuscript tradition of Dominici’s letters, see Dominici, Lettere Spirituale, pp. 9–26. 136 See Hasenohr-Esnos, “Un recueil inèdit,” pp. 401–500. 137 See R. Fawtier, Catherine de Sienne (Paris, 1921) vol. II, pp. 47 ff. 138 For manuscript collections of sermons by Jordan of Pisa, see Carlo Delcorno, Giordano da Pisa e l’antica predicazione volgare (Florence, 1975). 139 Paul Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance: Literacy and Learning, 1300–1600 (Baltimore, 1989), pp. 87–95.
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Chapter 2
The Setting: The Buildings of San Domenico A convent consists of both the community and the structures built for it. As the setting for daily life, work, and the divine office, the architecture of an individual convent is an important expression of the community’s goals. This chapter argues that San Domenico’s location is a reflection of Chiara Gambacorta’s family network, while the architecture of the convent—which is unusual among major Pisan institutions—is an expression of the community’s allegiance to the ideals of Dominican observance. The major issue of how to build to preserve cloister was addressed at the outset by this community, which had deliberately chosen a strict interpretation of enclosure. The solution to the problem the nuns of San Domenico chose became the preferred building plan for post-Tridentine convents. Building San Domenico When Chiara and her companions first formed a Dominican community in the summer of 1382, they established themselves in a house in the Carraia Sant’Egidio (or Gilli) which had been purchased for the purpose by Pietro Gambacorta. The Carriaia Sant’Egidio is now called the Corso Italia; it is the main shopping street in Pisa. It has long been the principal thoroughfare in the south end of the city, as it leads to the Ponte Mezzo—an important link between the northern and southern halves of Pisa.1 The site chosen was at the south end of the street, close to the city wall (see Map, Figure 2.1). Gambacorta had purchased a “piece of earth with a house with an attic, a walled cloister, a well and enclosed garden.” These structures apparently included a small church or chapel; all were part of a defunct convent called Santa Maria della Valle Verde, which was owned by the nuns of the Misericordia della Spina when purchased by Gambacorta. The convent was thus located in the section of Pisa south of the Arno, in the district known as Kinzica, where the Gambacorti owned much property already2 (Figure 2.2). In fact, the Gambacorta palace, today Pisa’s city hall, is but a short walk up the street. Certainly, such geographic proximity was a consideration when Gambacorta selected this location; as the principal family in the neighborhood, they could execute the functions of patronage with ease.3 A number of the Pisan women who professed at San Domenico were, in fact, from this district.4 Gambacorta may have had other motives for building the
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2.1 Johannes Blaeu, Engraved Map of Pisa, 1633 convent here, as the women would enjoy the protection of the city walls. By contrast, the community at Santa Croce in Fossabanda, where Chiara had entered the Dominican order, had to leave their establishment outside the city walls in 1400, for fear of the various armies then crossing the Tuscan countryside. Such depredations were an important factor in the increasing urbanization of religious houses of both men and women.5 The thirteenth-century structures already standing on the property had to be put into order to accommodate a community of women living under a Rule. The institutional approval of the foundation of the community came in September 1385, with a bull issued by Urban IV.6 By May 1386, the bull’s requirements for the financial and physical establishment of the convent had been met. This bull established the maximum size of the community as 20. The buildings into which the community moved probably comprised two main structures: the building which fronted the street on the west (See Figure
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2.2 Detail of Figure 2.1: San Domenico, 1633 2.3), which was replaced by the tall structure of the Istituti di Ricovero at the end of the nineteenth century, and the still standing east wing of the convent. The oldest masonry in the surviving buildings appears in or near these two areas.7 A cloister walk connected the two structures, although only a little of this arcade survives (Figure 2.4). The east building (Figure 2.5) held the refectory at ground level and a dormitory above. (The third story is a modern addition.)8 The rooms at ground level in this building had no windows in the east wall, but the west side opened onto the cloister through an arcade. The west building along the street had a dormitory on the upper story, but the rooms on the ground story served other purposes, including a small church that was used by the nuns when they first moved into the convent.9
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2.3 Plan of Convent of San Domenico, Pisa, based on nineteenth-century plans
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2.4 Cloister of San Domenico to South, in the 1990s
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2.5 Cloister of San Domenico to Northeast, in the 1990s
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The Church By 1395, the year Chiara Gambacorta became prioress, the nuns decided to build a new church. Her father having died in 1392, and her family ruined in the ensuing political upheaval, Chiara had to seek funding for this project elsewhere. In a letter dated February 23, 1396, Chiara asks Francesco Datini of Prato for help with this building project, already under way:10 My dear friend, we are building a church, of which we have great need; because the one we have, that built by Master Peter, is so small and damp that we attribute to it all our sickness. For this reason we have begun to work on that which Master Peter founded for us. It has pleased God to make this an occasion of merit to several persons. We are poor, and being poor we recommend ourselves to you for the love of Christ, that in our present need you will remember to give us whatever assistance God will inspire you to give. Alms is a good thing and this devout convent prays and will continue to pray for you, and you will participate in the fervent prayers which will be said in that church: therein will be said the Divine office day and night ... .
In a slightly later letter in which she reiterates her quest for alms for the church building, Chiara says, “I should have had some valuable assistance from Genoa, but owing to bad conditions in the city, they cannot give us what would have been a great advantage.”11 In a letter of 1397, Chiara thanks Datini for his alms: “You have given us generous alms for the church, and you would rejoice if you could see this act of yours in the world, but in paradise you will rejoice much more.”12 Chiara’s relationship with Francesco Datini continued through the next decade, with Datini making important contributions to the convent. Zucchelli concluded that the church building was completed by 1408,13 although, as we shall see, works of art were already being commissioned for it by 1404. Work in the church seems to have continued into the 1430s: there are indications that the portico was being built in 1436.14 Unspecified work was also being done in the convent in 1445.15 Windows in the church were being glazed in 1452–53.16 The official consecration of the church did not take place until 1457, in the names of the Virgin, Saint John the Baptist, and Saint Dominic. The difficult economic and political situation in Pisa during the city’s first domination by Florence (between 1406 and 1494) may have slowed the progress on this structure, as it affected other religious houses in town.17 With the new church completed, the nuns turned the small church of the earlier convent into a parlatorio (or parlor): the room in which the nuns could converse with, although not see, seculars with whom they had business. It seems to have been in use as such until the nineteenth century.18 The new church, which may have incorporated some parts of the earlier church in its western zone, was built at right angles to the street. The fifteenth-century façade is still visible on the Corso Italia (Figure 2.6). The façade is simple and unadorned, pierced by a single door and gothic window.19 The structure lacks the marble arcading for which Pisan churches, including the church of the Dominican priory of Santa
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2.6 Façade of Church of San Domenico, 1430s
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2.7 Façade of Church of Santa Caterina, Pisa. Fourteenth century Caterina (Figure 2.7), are well known. This simplicity may be partly a result of financial limitations, but it is also in keeping with Observant Dominican principles. One finds similar simplicity in the structure of San Domenico of Fiesole, among other Observant Dominican houses of the period.20 Apparently a fifteenth-century fresco of the Annunciation adorned the lunette above the door; this was remade in the nineteenth century, when the current canopy was installed to protect it.21 Although it was altered and reroofed in the eighteenth century (these alterations will be discussed below), the church that still stands at the south end of the Corso Italia in Pisa probably preserves much of the original scheme. This is a very simple brick structure in the form of a single nave or rectangular hall, divided into two separate parts by a common wall (See plan, Figure 2.8). In the terminology of Patetta, this is a “double church.”22 The exterior church (Figure 2.9) served the laity and held the altar at which the priest would say mass. During the fifteenth century, this space was slightly smaller than it appears in the plan,23 but it must have been large
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2.8 Plan of Church of San Domenico, built 1395–1457
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2.9 Interior of Public Church of San Domenico, in 1990s, to East
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2.10 Interior of Nuns’ Choir of San Domenico, in 1990s, to West
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enough to hold the high altar and the two low altars that were already ancient by the seventeenth century. Except for the likelihood of some sort of altar decorations and the installation of some marble inscriptions that survive, presumably from the exterior church, there is no information about the appearance of the public church prior to its eighteenth-century transformation. The presumption is that the public church was without much architectural complexity, so that the focus of decoration was the altars. As with the interior church, there were windows on the south wall only, the north being attached to other conventual buildings. The church would have been lit also by the window over the entrance portal; however, the light had to filter through a second story gallery, which still stands at the west end of the public church, and which appears to date from the quattrocento. (The columns that still support this gallery look like fifteenth-century work, and contrast starkly with the ornate twisted columns of the eighteenth-century altars.) Access to this gallery was probably gained through the conventual structures directly north of the church, which suggests that some members of the community used the space; perhaps it was occupied by converse or other members of the community who did not participate in the activities of the choir nuns. It is likely that both halves of the church were covered originally by a wooden trussed roof, the impression of which may be perceived from the rebuilt roof of the nuns’ choir (Figure 2.10). As with the simple façade, this choice would accord with the Dominican emphasis on architectural poverty;24 it also compares with the building practice at other observant communities, like San Domenico of Fiesole.25 The outer church was reroofed in the eighteenth century, and provided with a vault. This vault, in turn, was rebuilt after the building was bombed in 1943. The high altar of the public church backed up to a solid wall that divided the exterior church from the interior.26 Behind this wall was the choir, where the nuns would gather for offices, Masses and prayers. Even in the twentieth century, this space was very simple in architectural terms; the north wall, which gave onto the cloister itself, was unfenestrated, but the south wall had several high windows. The north wall of the nuns’ choir preserves several brick arches, once hidden beneath surface plaster, which may have been part of an earlier cloister walk that was incorporated into the walls of the fifteenth-century church. The walls of this simple space were, it appears, gradually covered with images, both in fresco and in panels or canvases, so that the eighteenth-century inventories mention, in addition to the altarpieces singled out as of most value, “Seventeen various pictures attached to the walls of the choir, of little value” (Appendix 1, Document I, n. 129). This list, however, does not include the fifteenth-century frescoes known to be in the nuns’ choir.27 The focal point of the nuns’ choir was the altar that backed up to the high altar on the exterior church. The only access between the inner and outer church was a grate at this altar through which the nuns could hear the priest saying Mass and see the elevated host,28 and a second grate through which communion could be administered.29 It is to the direction of this common wall that the nuns’ prayers were oriented. To further limit access, the nuns of San Domenico covered these grates
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with canvas. The grate over the altar was enlarged in the seventeenth century, and closed on the nuns’ side with a painting on panel of Saint Dominic and other saints, which could be raised during Mass so the nuns could witness the ceremony.30 Convent Buildings Although approved for only 20 nuns, by 1404 the community at San Domenico had grown to at least 25. By 1406, the community numbered 30 professed nuns alone, and an unspecified number of novices and converse (See the census of nuns in Appendix 2.) This far exceeded the numbers permitted in the foundation bull, and outstripped the facilities. By 1409, there were 39 nuns and a total of 50 bocche, or mouths to feed, a number that would include converse, agents, factors, or other servants. The rapid growth of the community required serious architectural undertakings, and by 1406, the construction of a new dormitory was under way. To finance this structure, Chiara again had to seek donations from various wealthy contributors, including Francesco Datini of Prato and Simone Doria of Genoa. A letter written by Chiara to Datini in 1409 refers to the dormitory as under construction: “Obliged by necessity we have begun the work—a dormitory.”31 Again on July 17, 1409, she writes to Datini: “this seems the opportune time to roof the dormitory, and we therefore, earnestly beg you ... to lend us what we ask of you for a few months and more if God so inspires you. And when God gives us the means we want to repay you the thirty florins.”32 The loan is recorded in a document of January 20, 1410. The dormitory lay north of the new church, perpendicular to the earlier conventual structures (See Figure 2.3). After its construction, the convent comprised the church at the southwestern perimeter which gave onto an arcade, the earlier conventual building along the street forming the western border, the older dormitory at the eastern edge, and the new dormitory at the northern perimeter. This corridor extended eastward beyond the original dormitory to give on to a garden that was enclosed by a high wall. This new dormitory was a simple rectangular structure, consisting of two stories. The ground floor, which held communal and work rooms, was fronted by a groin-vaulted arcade resting on round-headed arches; some parts of this arcade seem to date to the eighteenth century. Individual cells were on the upper story. In 1808, there were 17 cells for nuns, and 12 assigned to converse, though their exact disposition throughout the establishment is not clear.33 Like their masculine counterparts, these Dominican nuns did not share large communal sleeping quarters, but lived in private cells. While Dominican men might use the cell for study and writing, the nuns’ cells served for sleeping and private prayer. An eighteenth-century representation of such a cell may be seen in Figure 3.20, depicting the death of Chiara Gambacorta. Details of the disposition of other rooms are also difficult to obtain, but we know that the conventual buildings included a parlatorio and a chapter house. The parlatorio, which was created out of an older chapel, was in the west wing fronting
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the Carraia S. Egidio.34 As its name implies, the parlatorio was a room set aside for speaking, principally for conversations between the nuns and seculars with whom they had business. A document of 1417 in which the nuns established a procurator for the convent records that the parlatorio was “near the chapter house” of the convent; this would place the chapter house in the same building.35 In the sixteenth century, however, a vaulted chapter house was constructed in the cloister just east of the nuns’ choir.36 The internal business of the convent and the chapter of faults, during which discipline was meted out to those who transgressed the Rule or Constitutions, took place in the chapter house. Several individual chapels were added to the community over time: the cell in which Chiara Gambacorta lived and died was eventually turned into an oratory. According to a note in the nineteenth century, this cell was in the west wing, that is, in the oldest building that fronted the street.37 This oratory was also called the chapel of Saint Dominic, for in the seventeenth century an image of Saint Dominic of Soriano was installed there.38 This image, dated by inscription to 1648, is still preserved by the community of San Domenico in the convent on the Via della Faggiola. Prior to World War II, this image adorned the main (west) altar of the nuns’ choir.39 Presumably, it was moved to the nuns’ choir after the suppressions and confiscations of both works of art and buildings took place in the nineteenth century. The inventories of 1808 also mention a chapel to Saint Nicholas with an altar dedicated to the Rosary (Appendix 1, Doc. 1, Room XI) and a chapel at the head of the first dormitory dedicated to the Madonna (Appendix 1, Doc. 1, Room XII). Cloister and the Problem of Convent Architecture The architectural forms we see at San Domenico had their origins in the conflicts between the monastic ideal of seclusion from the world and the practical exigencies of the late Middle Ages. Also playing a role in the development of these forms were contemporary attitudes concerning all women: as Leon Battista Alberti prescribed, women should be locked up inside and not allowed to wander in public:40 Women are almost all timid by nature, soft, slow and therefore more useful when they sit still and watch over things. It is as though nature thus provided for our well-being, arranging for men to bring things home and for women to guard them. The woman, as she remains locked up at home, should watch over things by staying at her post, by diligent care and watchfulness.
But a group of women living together offered particular dangers, not only because of contemporary notions about women’s greater sinfulness, but also because of real dangers to their persons. Humbert of Romans, a thirteenth-century Master General of the Dominican Order and a key figure for the establishment of feminine Dominican houses, articulated the ideology behind cloister in a model sermon he proposed be addressed to Dominican nuns:41
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Another text [a preacher might choose for a sermon] is Eccles. 7:26, “Do you have daughters? Guard their bodies.” Notice that no one can guard anyone else’s heart, but it is possible to guard someone else’s body. And this is useful in many ways in the case of women. Women’s feet are prone to useless gadding about, their eyes prone to inquisitive prying, their ears to idle gossip, and so on. Religious life with an enclosure protects women from gadding about outside and from having too many visitors inside, and from seeing and being seen, hearing and being heard, giving and receiving presents, touching and being touched, and the rest of it.
Yet the ideal of keeping religious women apart from the world clashed in the late Middle Ages with the reality of constant warfare, financial business, and family solidarity. The protection of nuns in convents and their reputations was not just a matter for families who wished to avoid any connection with scandal, but also a matter of policy for cities, which believed their well-being depended on the prayers of “honest virgins.”42 By the fourteenth century, very few female houses were established outside the protection of city walls (although apparently some were established near city gates), and as the number of female religious houses increased in Florence, certain areas of town became thick with convent walls.43 Writing about convents for women in his treatise On Architecture, Leon Battista Alberti prescribed that they “should be neither too much in the city, nor too much out of it. For though in a solitude they may not be so much frequented, yet any one that has a design may have more opportunity to execute any villainous enterprise where there are so few witnesses.” He goes on to define the architectural elements that will prevent evildoers from entering a convent:44 Every entrance must be so secured that nobody can possibly get in, and so well-watched that nobody may loiter about ... No camp for an army should be so well guarded ... as a monastery ought to be by high walls, without either doors or windows in them, or the least hole by which not only no violator of Chastity, but not so much as the least temptation either by the eye or ear may possibly get in.
Because they were unable to remove themselves physically from the surroundings of the city, convents of women and their ecclesiastical protectors took special precautions to limit the inevitable consequences of the proximity of nuns to seculars. The constitution Periculoso promulgated by Boniface VIII in 1298 had required strict cloistering of women,45 so the church hierarchy prescribed architectural forms that would effectively seclude women in their convents. The statutes of the Episcopal Synod of Fiesole for 1306 and 1517 defined some of these architectural forms: convents needed walls high enough to prevent contact with seculars, with windows placed out of reach of everyone; necessities should be passed through to the nuns through a rota or ruota; this is a narrow passageway, usually in the form of a turntable.46 In the church itself, the nuns were to be kept separate from the laity and the priests. Access between these two parts of the church was possible only by small openings between the outer and inner church, each opening covered by an iron grate and separated by at least a hand’s width. Such openings were for the
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nun’s reception of communion, their confessions, and in some convents, it seems, their only opportunity to converse with seculars. Larger communities would assign a separate room as a parlatorio, but in them would maintain the grates that separated the nuns from the laity.47 As at San Domenico, some convent churches for cloistered nuns also included a grated opening over the altar, so the nuns could hear the priest saying Mass and perhaps see the elevated host during the service. The plan of the church at San Domenico, which likely was established with the church built from 1395–1408, was but one of the architectural solutions developed to address the problem of cloister. Indeed, through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, churches in women’s cloistered communities followed a wide variety of plans. In his Trattato di Architettura, Filarete designed a convent for his ideal city: this plan placed the nuns in chapels raised above the sacristies that flank the choir.48 At Santa Chiara in Assisi, the nuns’ choir was set at right angles to the public church; this seems to have been the arrangement at the Benedictine convent of San Pier Maggiore in Florence as well.49 At Santa Maria Donna Regina in Naples, a western gallery separated the nuns from the laity, but allowed the nuns visual access to the altar.50 At the early quattrocento church, called “Paradise,” built in Florence for the nuns of the Brigittine order, the nuns also gathered in an elevated choir opposite the altar.51 This arrangement appears also at the Dominican convent of Matris Domini in Bergamo.52 Other communities of Dominican nuns in Tuscany followed the plan used at San Domenico, with two separate rooms sharing a common wall: at San Jacopo da Ripoli in Florence, and two convents in Prato, San Vincenzo and San Clemente.53 Another solution, a chapel off the main nave, has been suggested as a solution for the fourteenth-century Clarissan church of San Martino in Kinzica in Pisa.54 As this quick survey demonstrates, architects and communities devised numerous solutions to the problem posed by cloistering women, although modern scholars have much work still to do to analyze them.55 The stark simplicity of the rectangular plan at San Domenico is probably also related to its liturgical simplicity. Unlike the larger mendicant churches for friars, like Santa Caterina of Pisa, there were no private chapels and few altars in the public church. In addition to the high altar, the public church seems to have had two other altars during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries; the baroque church had a total of three altars in the public church, probably reflecting the earlier arrangement.56 In San Jacopo da Ripoli of Florence, the outer church also had two altars in addition to the high altar. Further simplicity was assured by canon law. Mendicant churches for friars became popular places for the laity to be buried and memorialized, resulting in a proliferation of tombs, foundations, altars, and images.57 But this privilege was not extended to monasteries of women.58 Some churches attached to Benedictine convents seem to have served as burial places, for example, San Pier Maggiore and Santa Felicità, both in Florence; but on the whole churches for mendicant women did not serve as burial places for the laity. Patrons like the Gambacorti were allowed to affix their stemme to the exterior of the building, as did Giovanni Benci at Le
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Murate in Florence and Cosimo de’ Medici at convents under his sponsorship.59 Pious benefactors, like Manno degli Agli, who made donations to San Domenico in their wills, were memorialized with stone inscriptions and with masses (for which the nuns had to pay the celebrant) rather than private chapels or sepulchers.60 While the friars’ churches had to be large enough to accommodate tombs, altars and large audiences for preaching, the public half of the women’s church required much less floor space. This difference is reflected in the greater simplicity in the ideal church Filarete designed for Clares compared to the one he designed for Franciscan friars; not only was the women’s church smaller, Filarete planned no altars or chapels in its nave, while he planned eight chapels in the nave of the ideal friars’ church.61 Nor did the nuns’ choir require as many altars as the choirs of churches for Dominican friaries. Many Dominican friars were priests, with the privilege of saying Mass, so numerous altars could be staffed. Although the nuns enjoyed no such privilege, and under the clausura established at San Domenico, priests were admitted to the nuns’ choir only in the rarest of circumstances, it seems that their choir did have several altars.62 First among them would be the altar abutting the high altar of the public church with the grate through which the women could see the Mass taking place. The sources tell us that a miraculous Crucifix was placed on the high altar in the nuns’ choir that could be seen from the public church through the grate.63 This altar was modernized in 1633.64 But it seems there were other altars in the nuns’ choir, as well. In June of 1492, an altar was dedicated in the interior church; into this altar were placed a piece of the Cross, a thorn from the crown, and a stone from the Holy Sepulchre, as well as relics of Saints Philip, Simon, Steven, and one of the 11,000 virgins.65 The altar was probably the one dedicated to the “Corpo di Cristi,” for which the nuns paid a mason in May 1492.66 There were likely two further altars in the choir, as the inventories of 1808 describe four altars in the nuns’ choir at San Domenico. These altars were simply adorned; they bore only candles, altarcloths and pictures (Appendix 1, Doc. 1, Room V). The nuns’ choirs in other convents of cloistered women seem to have been equipped with at least one altar, as for example at the Brigittine convent, at the Dominican convent of Santa Caterina da Siena, and at the Benedictine convent called Le Murate, all in Florence.67 Such altars served to focus the devotions of the nuns as they heard (but in many cases did not see) the Mass, and performed the divine office and other ceremonies in their choir. Even without a priest, an altar could be effective; the altar dedicated in 1492 at San Domenico provided the nuns with an indulgence of 40 days, if they visited it at specified feasts. The image of San Domenico of Soriano set up in the oratory of Chiara Gambacorta in the seventeenth century was also indulgenced. Until we have more study and analysis of the architecture of women’s houses,68 it is difficult to say just how common, or effective, such architectural solutions were in preventing a nun’s contact with the world, or what effect they had on her spiritual life. Historians have noted that religious women’s devotions often focused on the Eucharist, and that many visions were associated not with the ingesting of the
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communion wafer, but with the sight of the host being elevated at Mass.69 How much did the women’s physical removal from the priest celebrating Mass and glimpses of the elevated host through a grate contribute to such Eucharistic fervor? Furthermore, we need a history of these building types. Why are the Fiesole synod’s stipulations of 1517 so much less specific with regard to details about grates, walls, etc., than those for 1306? Was the requirement of cloister less emphatic in the early sixteenth century than the early fourteenth century? Or was it simply assumed that the earlier regulations were still in force? How might fluctuations in ecclesiastical attitudes affect the design of convent churches? Are there regional preferences in the design of convent churches? Are there preferences by order or affiliation? Much more study of individual convents of different orders needs to be undertaken before any sort of synthesis can be approached.70 After the Council of Trent, with its renewed emphasis on the cloistering of women, architectural forms enforcing cloister were imposed on women’s convents of all affiliations and all forms of life. It is just the sort of divided structure built for the nuns at San Domenico that Charles Borromeo describes in the prescriptions for the building of convents in his Instructiones Fabricae.71 The Tridentine legislations concerning cloister and its architectural requirements were not accepted by convents of women without protest, however. Caterina de’ Ricci and the nuns of San Vincenzo in Prato were among those who resisted the Tridentine norms. As tertiaries, their form of life had not required cloister, so their church had a door allowing access between the public and private parts of the church and neither the nuns nor their patrons wanted to close it up. Ultimately, however, they acceded.72 Other features of the architecture of convents expressed the ideology that informed the creation of enclosures for women. Prominent features of many convent buildings were the heavy doors, small windows, and strong grates at points of access. Prescribed both in the Dominican Constitutions and in Borromeo’s Instructiones Fabricae, such features recall Alberti’s comparison of a convent to a military fortification. Helen Hills has argued that the very conspicuous display of high walls, grates, strong doors, and other features of enclosure in feminine monasteries serve to advertise the holiness of the women enclosed within.73 Thus the architectural elements not only physically enclose the women, they symbolically represent their chastity to the world. Roberta Gilchrist has noted a pattern in the internal arrangement of women’s convents in which women’s bodies are situated in the deepest precincts of the building, as far as possible from the outside world.74 By the same token, commentators and confessors to nuns saw the parlatorio as the point of weakness in the fortress of the convent, precisely because it was there that the women could encounter the outside world.75 Later Alterations to the Complex at San Domenico Owing to both internal and external pressures, the institution established by Chiara Gambacorta has been much altered since the sixteenth century. The sisters added a
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piece of land to the convent in 1560; this was walled by March of 1562 when the nuns held a formal procession to mark their possession of it. This may have been the part of the convent north of the newer dormitory.76 Part of the cloister walk along the dormitory was also added or altered in the eighteenth century.77 The church itself was completely remodeled beginning in 1724; at this point the nuns gave over seven braccia (c.4 meters) of the interior church to enlarge the exterior church and had the exterior church vaulted.78 The nuns’ choir, however, seems to have retained its simple wooden roofing. Three marble altars were installed in the public church; each of them supported an altarpiece. The main altar had an image, now apparently lost, of “Saint Dominic Preaching” by an unknown hand. The altar to the right (south) side of the nave bore an image by Felice Torelli (sometimes attributed to his wife, Lucia Casalini) of Saint Pius V and the Virgin.79 The altar on the left (north side) held the panel of the Crucifixion with the Ten Thousand Martyrs attributed to the school of Benozzo Gozzoli, now in the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo (Catalogue 10). Furthermore, the walls and the vault of the exterior church were adorned with a variety of frescoes, stuccoes, and canvases.80 These images will be discussed below. The civil world intruded rudely into the confines of the cloister in the nineteenth century. Along with the Napoleonic invasions of the late eighteenth century came the secularizing forces of suppression and confiscation. This occurred in several stages. In 1799, the French merely demanded the silverware owned by the nuns. But the officials of the French government returned in June 1808 to inventory all the goods and property of the community. A transcription of this inventory appears as Document 1 in Appendix 1. Prior to the taking of this inventory, in May 1808, the nuns had been ejected from their ancient home; they went to live in another Dominican community in Pisa, Santa Marta. The nuns were able to return to their convent in August 1808. In 1810 another attempt was made to expel the nuns, also short lived. But during this year, the most valuable works of art in the convent were confiscated by the authorities.81 The collapse of the French empire brought a return of peace to the community, but not the return of their goods or works of art. And the forces of secularization were not turned back. In 1861, the city of Pisa decided to create a hospice called the Ospizio di Mendicita, or the Istituto di Ricoveri, for which they confiscated parts of the convent of Santa Maria delle Carmine and much of San Domenico. The small community of nuns continued to occupy some parts of the old convent until 1896, when they moved into new quarters just south of their Church. Some of the conventual buildings were destroyed or profoundly altered during their occupancy by the hospice.82 So while the church building retained its eighteenth century appearance and function, the convent buildings did not. To this series of uncivil intrusions into the cloister must be added a final blow: the destruction of this newer convent during World War II. The church and convent of San Domenico were only a few blocks from the railway station in Pisa, and thus very close to what was the principal objective of these bombing raids. The church
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itself was severely damaged during a raid in August of 1943: it lost its roof, and much of the south wall, especially of the interior church. According to Don Lino Bernardi, who assisted the nuns during these events, the nuns took refuge at the north wall of the interior church, near an image of Chiara Gambacorta (the fresco in a niche, catalogue number 1).83 The conventual buildings then occupied by the nuns were destroyed, and two women were killed. Most of the ancient conventual buildings north of the church, then part of the Istituto per Ricoveri, were spared. In 1955, the women of the community were established in a new convent, near the Piazza dei Miracoli, on the Via della Faggiola.84 The quattrocento church of San Domenico was partially restored after the War: the walls were rebuilt and the church was re-roofed. The conventual buildings that were part of the hospice were modified to become a commercial and residential development by the Pisan architect Roberto Mariani in the mid-1990s. In the late 1990s, the church was refurbished and it is now in use by the Knights of Malta (Sovrano Ordine Militare di Malta). Notes 1 In the late fourteenth century, this bridge was called the Ponte Vecchio and was made largely of wood, Pietro Gambacorta was responsible for rebuilding it in stone in 1388. Ross, Story of Pisa, pp. 144–145. 2 In fact, the property had been owned by the Gambacorti in earlier centuries. 3 For the importance of neighborhood in defining one’s status and social interactions in fifteenth-century Tuscany, see D.V. and F.W. Kent, Neighbors and Neighborhood in Renaissance Florence: The District of the Red Lion in The Fifteenth Century (Locust Valley, N.Y., 1982). 4 For example, Giovanna di Benenati Cinquini, who was a member of the community in 1426 (Appendix 4) and the seventh prioress of San Domenico (Appendix 3), was probably the sister of Gherardo di Benenato Cinquini, whose family is listed in the 1427– 28 Catasto as domiciled in the Cappella S. Martino in Kinzica (Casini, Catasto, p. 60, n. 259). Battista di Piero Benvenuti, who was part of the community between 1479 and 1486 (Appendix 4) must be the daughter of Piero di Andrea Benvenuti, the capofamilia named among the Cappella di San Cosimo in Kinzica in the 1427–28 Catasto (Casini, Catasto, p. 128, n. 547). Two sisters (or cousins) who professed in 1499, Mariette and Teodora de Salmuli (Appendix 4) belong to the Salmoli family prominent in the Cappella S. Maria Maddelena in Kinzica. And Magdalena Lancilotti de Appiano, a nun of San Domenico by 1494 (Appendix 4), was the grandaughter of Ser Matteo di Fanicco d’Appiano, notaio, listed in the capella di San Martino in Kinzica in 1427–28 (Casini, Catasto, p. 58, n. 253). 5 Richard Trexler, “Le celibat à la fin du Moyen Age: Les religieuses de Florence,” Annales ESC, 27 (1972): 1330–1331. 6 See above, Chapter 1. 7 According to the “Relazione” prepared for the reconstruction of these buildings into new commercial and residential uses by the architect Roberto Mariani. His office was assisted
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in the historical research by the architectural historian Fabbio Rede. I am grateful to Mr Mariani for sharing his information with me. 8 The third story was added in the early twentieth century, judging from photographs of the structures that appear in Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, opposite p. 288. 9 For a brief architectural history, see Franco Paliaga and Stefano Renzoni, Le chiese di Pisa. Guida alla conoscenza del patrimonio artistico (Pisa, 1991), pp. 123–126. 10 Murphy, Blessed Clara, p. 115. 11 Ibid., p. 119. 12 Ibid., p. 127. 13 Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 208, although his reasons are unstated. 14 From the documentary references recorded by Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 295: “1431. 1 Luglio. Da Suor Paula che gli avveva acchattati per lo portico della Chiesa, f. 2”; Ibid, 296: “1436. Detti alla donna di Giovanni da S. Sisto per lo legname del Portico.” 15 Ibid., p. 297: “1445. Diei a Maestro Paulo per compimento dello lavoro che a fatto al Monastero e ci e pagato in tutto fiorini quattro larghi valseno f. XVI l’uno in tutto sono lire dicenove f. IIII.” 16 Ibid., p. 298: “1452. Diei per far la finestra del vetro di Chiesa f. 1. Diei al prete per la finestra del vetro di Chiesa f. 14”; “1452. Diei per la finestra del vetro per fare la rete f. 14.” “1453. Diei per lo telaio e per la rete della finestra del vetro f. 16.” 17 During this period many convents could not even make the repairs they needed on existing structures; see Tolaini, Pisa, pp. 75–78. 18 The inventories of the convent refer to the “capella del parlatorio” (Appendix 1, Doc.1, Room n. XV). 19 This window was replaced at some point (during the baroque remodeling?) and then restored in the nineteenth century, so its original aspect is not certain. 20 For the Dominican attitude towards excessive display in their buildings, see G. Meersseman, “L’architecture dominicaine au XIIIe siècle: Legislation et pratique,” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 16 (1946): 136–190. See also for French Dominican structures, R. Sundt, “Mediocres domos et humiles habeant fratres nostri: Dominican Legislation on Architecture and Architectural Decoration in the 13th Century,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 46 (1987): 394–407. On the architecture of San Domenico of Fiesole see Paul Cardile, “Fra Angelico and his Workshop at San Domenico (1420–1435): the Development of his Style and the Formation of his Workshop” (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation. Yale University, 1976). In a study about the convent of San Sisto in Rome, Joan Lloyd Barclay argues that nuns’ churches were usually kept simple; see “The Architectural Planning of Pope Innocent III’s nunnery of San Sisto in Rome,” in Andrea Sommerlechner (ed.), Innocenzo III: urbs et orbis (Rome, 2003), p. 1305. 21 Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 222–223. 22 Luciano Patetta, “La tipologia della chiesa ‘doppia’ (dal Medioevo alla Contrariforma),” in Storia e tipologia. Cinque saggi sull’architettura del passato (Milan, 1989), pp. 13– 71. 23 It was enlarged by 7 braccie when it was vaulted in the eighteenth century. The Pisan braccia measures 58.4 cm. 24 Thirteenth-century Dominicans, emphasizing poverty, prohibited masonry vaults and high structures, but by the fourteenth century, these restrictions had eased. See Richard Sundt,
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“Mediocres domos,” pp. 394–407, and the analysis by G. Meersseman of the architectural requirements of the Constitutions, “L’architecture dominicaine,” pp. 136–190. 25 On which see, P. Cardile, “Fra Angelico at San Domenico,” pp. 22–29. 26 It is difficult to say at this juncture whether this wall rose completely to the ceiling, or stopped short of the ceiling. It may have divided the space visually without completely reaching the ceiling. This was one of the characteristics of “double churches” emphasized by Liliana Grassi, “Iconologia delle chiese monastiche femminili dall’alto medioevo ai secoli XVI–XVII,” Arte Lombarda, 9 (1964): 131–150. The appearance of just such a church may be found in a fifteenth-century Netherlandish panel depicting Saint Catherine of Genoa venerated by a Bolognese family now in the Courtauld Collection in London. On the right is a view of the main altar of the public church; next to it is a window through which the body of the Saint could be viewed. The altar wall rises about two-thirds the height of the room, and a single wooden barrel vault covers both parts of the church; see Wood, Women, Art and Spirituality, figure 82. 27 On which, see Chapters 3 and 4. 28 A grate must have stood over the altar in the fifteenth century, as Chiara Gambacorta’s vita describes how the nuns placed the body of the Beata on the altar of the inner church so that seculars could see it from the outer church. 29 In the eighteenth century, the nuns opened another grate between the inner and outer church left of the high altar so that they could display the body of Chiara Gambacorta to the populace on her feast day. See Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, plate opposite page 176. 30 In Ibid., pp. 209–210, Zucchelli reports the opinion of Tantucci that this took place about 1633. In 1747, he records, the nuns decided to close the grate with a glass window. 31 Murphy, Blessed Clara, p. 143. 32 Ibid., p. 145. 33 The inventories speak of separate branches for converse and corali (choir nuns). 34 Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 204–206. 35 ASP, Diplomatico, Aquista Coletti, n. 267. 36 According to the architect’s report cited in Note 7. 37 See Note 82 below. 38 A note from the convent archives records the following: “A di 24 Maggio 1673 (pisano) ... si fece Oratorio della cella della nostra Beata Chiara Gambacorti ... e si ci messe p. Altare un Immagine del nostro padre S. Domenico di Soriano indulgenziata fia donata al mostro monastero dal R. signor Alessandro Scarlatti religioso ...”; Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 242. For a similar cell turned into an oratory, see Ileana Tozzi, “Devozione Mariana. Il Monte Calvario nella cella della Beata Colomba,” Arte Cristiana, 87 (2000): 231–233. 39 See image in Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, opposite page 176. 40 These ideas are not original to him, but Leon Battisti Alberti articulated common ideas in his treatise on the Family: “... it would hardly win us respect if our wife busied herself among the men in the marketplace, out in the public eye. It also seems somewhat demeaning to me to remain shut up in the house among women when I have manly things to do among men, fellow citizens and worthy and distinguished foreigners.” See The Family in Renaissance Florence. Book Three of I Libri della Famiglia. Trans. Renee Watkins (Prospect Heights, IL, 1994), pp. 207–208. An excellent summary of the ideology behind the restrictions on women is provided in Saundra Lynn Weddle,
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“Enclosing le Murate: The Ideology of Enclosure and the Architecture of a Florentine Convent, 1390–1597” (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Cornell University, 1997), pp. 29–48. 41 This text comes from Humbert of Roman’s model sermons. Translated in S. Tugwell, Early Dominicans: Selected Writings (New York, 1982), p. 329. 42 R. Trexler, Synodal Law in Florence and Fiesole, 1306–1518 (Vatican City, 1971), p. 101; Pio Paschini, “I monasteri femminili in Italia nel ‘500,’” in Convegno di Storia della chiesa; Problemi di vita religiosa in Italia nel Cinquecento : atti del convegno di storia della Chiesa in Italia (Padua, 1960), pp. 31–60; and R. Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (New York, 1980), pp. 35, 51. 43 Ibid., p. 51 and Trexler, “Le Celibat ... .” 44 Leon Battista Alberti, Ten Books on Architecture, translated into Italian by Cosimo Bartoli and translated into English by James Leoni, J. Rykwert (ed.) (London, 1755; reprint London, 1955), p. 90. 45 On Boniface’s Periculoso, see Elizabeth Makowski, Canon Law and Clostered Women. Periculoso and its Commentators (Washington, D.C., 1997). 46 Such a device is described already at San Sisto in Rome in the thirteenth century. In Beata Cecilia’s text describing the Miracles of Saint Dominic, the founder of the order passes a chalice full of wine to the nuns through the “turn;” Tugwell, Early Dominicans, p. 391. 47 For these Episcopal statutes see R. Trexler, Synodal Law in Florence and Fiesole, pp. 93–94. 48 In Book Ten of his treatise: Filarete (Antonio Averlino), Trattato di Architettura, edited by Anna Maria Finoli and Liliana Grassi (Milan, 1972), pp. 294–295. For the treatise in English, see Treatise on Architecture, trans. John Spencer (New Haven, 1965), vol. I, pp. 134–135; vol. II, Fol. 78r. 49 For Santa Chiara of Assisi, see Fausta Casolini, Il protomonastero di Santa Chiara di Assisi (Milan, 1950). For San Pier Maggiore, see W. Paatz, Die Kirchen von Florenz (Frankfurt, 1952), vol. IV, pp. 629–657. 50 See Caroline Bruzelius, “Hearing is Believing: Clarissan Architecture ca. 1212–1340,” Gesta, 31 (1992): 83–91. 51 See Mina Gregori, et al, Il Paradiso in Pian di Ripoli (Florence, 1985). 52 For this convent, see Vanni Zanella, et al., Il Monastero Matris Domini in Bergamo (Bergamo, 1980). 53 For San Jacopo da Ripoli, see Richa, Notizie istoriche delle chiese fiorentine, vol. IV, 305 and Paatz, Kirchen von Florenz, vol. II, 434–441. For the Pratese houses, see S. Bardazzi and E. Castellani, Il Monastero di S. Clemente in Prato (Prato, 1986) and Il Monastero di San Vincenzo in Prato (Prato, 1982). 54 For this church, see Holly Flora and Arianna Pecorini Cignoni, “Requirements of Devout Contemplation: Text and Image for the Poor Clares in Trecento Pisa,” Gesta, 45 (2006): 61–76. 55 See the introduction by Caroline Bruzelius and Constance Berman to the special volume of Gesta dedicated to “Monastic Architecture for Women,” Volume 31 (1992): 73–76. See also the analysis of forms of English nunnery churches in Roberta Gilchrist, Gender and Material Culture. The Archaeology of Religious Women (London and New York, 1994) and the discussion of the issues of architectural responses to enclosure by Jeffrey Hamburger, in “Art, Enclosure and the Pastoral Care of Nuns,” in his Visual and the Visionary, pp. 48–57.
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56 Among the documentary references published by Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 313, are two dated 1688, which refer to the low altars of the public church: “A di 2 agosto a maestro Michele legnaiolo per chiodi e suo lavoro per risarcire gli altari bassi della Chiesa di fuora del tutto rovinati 4.” and “A di 27 di Luglio per assettatura di duo Altari bassi della Chiesa di fuori del tutto rovinati fra calcina mezzane gesso, travicelli, e due giornate di murature 13, 11, 14, e piu le grappe per i suddetti.” 57 On this phenomenon, see Rona Goffen, Piety and Patronage in Renaissance Venice (New Haven, 1986), pp. 23–24. 58 Recorded in Antoninus, Summa Theologica (Verona, 1740), vol. III, cap. v, col. 477, “De Sepulturis”: “quod quum haec constitutio sit juris veteris correctoria, & sit restringenda ... ad alios, quam ad minores, & praedicatores non est extenda ... Unde, si quis eligeret sepulturam apud sorores ordinis minorum vel praedicatorum, quum haec constitutio sit restringenda, non habet locum in eis, secundum Franciscum de Zabarellis.” For this restriction as it pertains to the Poor Clares, see Wood, Women, Art and Spirituality, p. 51 and note 37. 59 See Megan Holmes, “Giovanni Benci’s Patronage of the Nunnery, Le Murate,” in Giovanni Ciappelli and Patricia Lee Rubin (eds), Art, Memory, and Family in Renaissance Florence (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 118–119. 60 The stone tablet in honor of Manno degli Agli, who was an associate of Francesco Datini in Pisa, still survives at San Domenico. Manno degli Agli died in 1400, but it took several years for the tablet to be inscribed and installed. In an undated letter to Francesco Datini, which Guasti places between 1407 and 1410, Chiara discusses the installation of the tablet. See below, Chapter 3. 61 Filarete, Trattato, pp. 132–134. 62 The issue of whether there were altars in nuns’s choirs—and thus whether there could be altarpieces—was raised by Julian Gardner, who answered the question negatively. See his essay, “Nuns and Altarpieces: Agendas for Research,” Römisches Jahrbuch der Biblioteca Hertziana, 30 (1995): 27–57. 63 See below, Chapter 3, Note 2. 64 Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 209. 65 ASP, Diplomatico, San Domenico, n. 291. 1493, June 28. Zaccaria of Pisa, the Bishop of Calcedonia performed the ceremony, and at the same time conceded an indulgence of 40 days to those of the nuns who visited the altar during prescribed feasts. 66 The document was published in Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 303: “1493. Ricordo a di 16 di Maggio feci murare l’Altare del Corpo di Cristo e la fighura era venuta da Firenze di giorno 8 e in quelli pagai a M. Thomaso muratore di tutte le sue fatiche e robbe interamente prese da lui, in fine a questo di 16 di questo 1493 e diedi lire 187.” For more on these circumstances, see Chapter 4. 67 A document of 1463 records a payment to a carpenter “per lavorii di legname fa pel coro delle suore cioe parapetti, speliere e l’assito da pie delle prospere, e l’altare colla predella ...”; reported in Giuseppina Bacarelli, “L’edificio conventuale nel quattrocento: in nuovi lavori di ampliamento e la definitiva sistemazione,” in M. Gregori et al., Il Paradiso in Pian di Ripoli, p. 48. For Santa Caterina da Siena, see Richa, Notizie istoriche delle chiese fiorentine, vol. VIII, p. 284 and the essays in Jonathan Nelson (ed.), Suor Plautilla Nelli (1523–1588): The First Woman Painter of Florence (Fiesole, 2000). For Le Murate, see K.J.P. Lowe, Nuns’ Chronicles and Convent Culture, pp. 126–127.
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68 Many of the classic studies of medieval architecture, and even the architecture of the mendicants, fail to even consider the churches attached to women’s communities. Perhaps the suppression of many of these institutions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries created obstacles to research. Many scholars are currently exploring this important issue. 69 Bynum, “Women Mystics and Eucharistic Devotion in the Thirteenth Century,” Women’s Studies, 11 (1984): 179–214. 70 Convent designs for a slightly later period are analyzed by Gabriella Zarri, in “Recinti sacri sito e forma dei monasteri femminile a Bologna tra ‘500 e ‘600,’” in Sofia Boesch Gajano and Lucetta Scaraffia (eds), Luoghi Sacri e Spazi della Santita (Turin, 1990), pp. 381–396. A recent attempt at analysis of the spaces of Italian Renaissance convent buildings occurs in Part Two of Anabel Thomas, Art and Piety in the Female Religious Communities of Renaissance Italy (Cambridge, 2003). 71 See Borromeo, Instructiones Fabricae et Supellectilis Ecclesiasticae, published in Milan in 1577. While portions of this treatise are available in Paola Barocchi, Trattati d’arte del cinquecento (Bari, 1962), vol. III, the only English translation I know of is available in Evelyn Voelker’s dissertation, “Charles Borromeo’s Instructiones Fabricae et Supellectilis Ecclesiasticae, 1577. A translation with Commentary and Analysis” (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Syracuse University, 1976). 72 Saint Catherine de Ricci, Selected Letters, Domenico di Agresti (ed.), and trans. Jennifer Petri (Oxford, 1985), pp. 17–22. 73 Helen Hills, “Iconography and Ideology: Aristocracy, Immaculacy and Virginity in Seventeenth-Century Palermo,” Oxford Art Journal 17 (1994): 16–31. See also her Invisible City: The Architecture of Devotion in Seventeenth Century Neapolitan Convents (Oxford, 2004). 74 See Roberta Gilchrist, “Medieval Bodies in the Material World: Gender, Stigma and the Body,” in Sarah Kay and Miri Rubin (eds), Framing Medieval Bodies (Manchester, 1994), pp. 55–57. 75 Roberts, “Le Fenestre delle morte: The parlatorio in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries” (Unpublished paper read at Renaissance Society of America meeting, March 1992). 76 Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 310–311: “1560. Ricordo faccio io Suor Lucrezia Vernagalli al presente Camarlinga ... con il consenso di tutto il Convento se’preso tutto il chiostro con un pesso del campo p.ampliare il nostro Monastero e cosi questo di 9 di settembre 1560 al pisano se’misso mano a murare ...”; “1562 Ricordo faccio io Suor Lucrezia Camarlinga come per gratia del signore se’funita la nostra muraglia questo di 13 Marzo 1562 di volonta del Rev.do P. Priore sopraditto tutte andammo a procissione a pigliar il possesso cantando il Tedeum.” 77 According to the report made for the 1990s construction, see Note 7. 78 Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 211 ff. 79 For this altarpiece, see C. Sicca, “Et in Arcadia Pisae: Pittori Eccelenti e gusto protoneoclassico a Pisa,” in Roberto Paolo Ciardi, Settecento Pisano, Pittura e Scultura a Pisa nel sec. XVIII (Pisa, 1990), pp. 247 and 416. For Torelli, see Dwight Miller, “Felice Torelli, pittore Bolognese,” Bolletino d’Arte, 49 (1964): 54–66. 80 The documentation for these alterations was published by Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 211–223. 81 For these events see Ibid., pp. 182–188.
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82 In 1892, the sisters recorded the destruction of the most ancient part of the convent, presumably the section that fronted the Corso Italia, where, “c’era una Cappellina fatta nella cella dove mori la Beata Chiara”; Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 331. 83 Father Bernardi reported that “il gruppo delle Monache si e rifugiato sotto il vecchio muro della Beata Chiara,,” on page 87 of the 1985 edition of Zucchelli’s monograph. 84 The new convent is at the Via della Faggiola, 26. Some of the works of art still in the convent at mid-century have been transferred to this convent, although most of the most ancient and valuable works are now either in the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo or in the stores of the Soprintendenza of Pisa. The new convent retains possession of the relics of Chiara Gambacorta, her original marble tombstone, and her miraculous crucifix.
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3.1 Giovanni di Pietro di Napoli, Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, 1403
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Chapter 3
The Impact of the Foundress With the building of the convent underway, the community at San Domenico began to obtain works of art to serve their needs. This chapter argues that the patronage of the convent in its earliest years reflected the personality and goals of the founding prioress. It begins by examining the works of art commissioned during Chiara Gambacorta’s term as prioress. The character of the imagery and the style of the objects served to link San Domenico to the Dominican order, while articulating specific messages to audiences both in the convent and in the world. Yet Chiara continued to dominate the convent even in death, as the community venerated her body and her legacy through works of art. The changing imagery of Chiara Gambacorta, from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, charts the impact that she had on her convent over this span of time. Chiara Gambacorta as Patron During the earliest years of the convent, when Filippa dell’Albizzi da Vico was prioress from 1382 until 1395, the first priority of the community was simple survival. This meant welcoming an appropriate number of nuns into the convent and establishing a financial and physical order for the house. There is little evidence about commissions for works of art during the initial years of the community. The earliest church seems to have had some frescoes remaining in it, which apparently sufficed as long as the nuns used that structure as a church. (See Catalogue 5 for mentions of no longer surviving frescoes.) When Chiara Gambacorta was elected prioress, the community began to expand, which necessitated new construction, first of dormitories and then of a new church. Gambacorta also undertook the furnishing and embellishment of the convent. She was concerned not only to provide books for her sisters, but it appears from documents and from surviving works of art that after Chiara took the reins in 1395, the convent began to commission works of art. Images began to fill the spaces of the convent, some of them addressed to the sisters and some addressed to the public. The Two Saints Catherine The earliest dated painting from San Domenico is a panel depicting the Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria (Catalogue 15 and Figure 3.1). Against a gold ground, the painting depicts the Virgin holding her Child in her lap, while he
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3.2 Simone Martini, Polyptych of Saint Catherine, c.1320
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places a ring on Catherine’s finger. The Virgin and Child are larger in scale than the kneeling Saint Catherine, and these three figures tower over the even smaller figure of a donor at the lower center. Without naming the donor depicted, an inscription beneath him dates the picture to April 1403 and characterizes him as a benefactor of the house.1 In the late eighteenth century, the painting hung on a wall in the nuns’ choir, where da Morrona saw it (Appendix 1, Doc. 2). Its gabled format is not typical of early fifteenth-century altarpieces, so it may have been meant from the start to hang on a wall. The inscription seems to be addressed to the nuns—it exhorts them to pray for their benefactor—which would suggest that the panel was intended for a spot somewhere within the nuns’ own precincts. It is significant that Catherine of Alexandria is the subject of one of the first works commissioned for the convent. She is a patron saint of the Dominican order and her feast day was important in the Dominican calendar. The nuns also owned relics of the saint. (See Appendix 6.) Ecclesiastical geography may have affected the subject matter, too, as the principal Dominican foundation in Pisa was dedicated to Saint Catherine of Alexandria; the friars of this house served the nuns of San Domenico as confessors and protectors. The friars’ high altar was adorned with an important polyptych by Simone Martini that gives special emphasis to Saint Catherine (Figure 3.2).2 But unlike the image for the friars’ church in which individual saints are represented in a hieratic, non-narrative image, the painting for San Domenico focuses on an episode from Catherine’s life. The moment chosen, the mystic marriage of Catherine to Christ, had special importance to nuns. As Michael Goodich has pointed out, her cult was especially appropriate for women who emulated Catherine and became brides of Christ upon taking the veil.3 Many scholars have underscored the ubiquity and the power of the imagery in the Canticle of Canticles for religious women.4 As the imagery of the mystic marriage occurs in another image from the convent, the meaning of this painting will be discussed below. Although neither signed nor documented as such, this painting is probably the work of the painter Giovanni di Pietro di Napoli, who was active in Tuscany in the first decade of the fifteenth century.5 From 1402 until 1404, Giovanni di Pietro di Napoli shared a workshop with another painter in Pisa, Martino di Bartolomeo of Siena, to whom is sometimes assigned a share of this panel. The nature of the relationship among the artist (or artists), the donor, and the sisters in the convent eludes us, because we have no contract or other contemporary documentation that might explain it. It may be that the donor chose the artist (and therefore the style) of the image, but certainly the nuns and their prioress determined the subject. No donor intervenes in another image commissioned for San Domenico of the other Catherine—Catherine of Siena—nor is the name of the artist known to us (Catalogue 17 and Figure 3.3). The provenance of this painting of the Mystic Marriage of Catherine of Siena has been obscure, but documents link it securely to San Domenico (See Appendix 1, Document 4). In this 1810 inventory of works gathered from suppressed religious institutions in Pisa, Carlo Lasinio clearly
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3.3 Tuscan artist, Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Siena, c.1400
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describes this picture as one of the works from San Domenico: “A painting on panel representing Saint Catherine of Siena on her knees below a building, various saints in a glory, in the good style of the 1400s.” The painting has been assigned to an anonymous Pisan artist and dated anywhere from 1385 to 1450. When one considers the object in the context of San Domenico, however, both dates seem extreme, and another alternative can be proposed. The painting has a problematic relationship to the description of Catherine’s mystic marriage in Raymond of Capua’s Legenda Maior, which was composed between 1385 and 1395 and circulated beginning in 1398.6 While some details follow this authorized vita, other details diverge from it. Following Raymond of Capua’s text, the painting depicts Catherine’s vision in which the adult Christ gives her a ring as token of spiritual marriage, while several saints witness the betrothal. Although the vita says this took place in Catherine’s cell at her parents’ home, the architecture here, with its oratory and high walls resembles a convent; the lily makes the wall enclose a garden, evoking the imagery of the Song of Songs and its nuptial themes. Catherine looks up to receive a ring from Christ, who appears to her in a cloud above the wall, accompanied by the Virgin and Saints Peter, Paul, and Dominic. Here again the image diverges from Raymond of Capua’s account of the event; the Legenda Maior describes John the Evangelist and King David among the saints attending Christ, and does not mention Saint Peter. And although carefully described in Raymond’s account of the event, this painting does not represent the Virgin holding Catherine’s hand as Christ places a ring on her finger. This latter detail is probably the most surprising omission, as it is common to many later images of Catherine’s betrothal.7 In this early formulation of the Sienese saint’s iconography for San Domenico, the Virgin’s role is played down and the details are more open to interpretation. This alone might suggest a date for the image prior to the circulation of Raymond of Capua’s definitive vita. What is more, two of the nuns of San Domenico, Chiara Gambacorta and Maria Mancini, were correspondents and associates of Catherine of Siena. They may have had access to versions of Catherine’s life other than the Legenda Maior.8 The nuns may also have had their own reasons for diverging from Raymond’s text; for example, the inclusion of Saint Peter may be a reference to the patron of the convent, Pietro Gambacorta, Chiara’s father. The Mystic Marriage of Catherine of Siena is similar in size, if not in format, to the Mystic Marriage of Catherine of Alexandria, which may lead to speculation that they were meant to be companions. Such a relationship might suggest that the panel depicting Catherine of Siena is earlier than the panel depicting Catherine of Alexandria, as the latter spozalio incorporates the motif of the Virgin intervening in the event, as Raymond of Capua’s biography of Catherine describes. The possibility that the two works complement each other suggests that they be read together. Perhaps the relative lack of prominence of the Virgin in Catherine of Siena’s espousal is balanced by her prominence in Catherine of Alexandria’s. Both images set the event in a garden, place the sposa di Cristo in the same location in the composition, and give her the same gesture. This gesture, in which the left hand is held against the
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breast while the right hand is extended toward Christ, had already been established in images of the marriage of the Virgin and the mystic marriage of Catherine of Alexandria; its appropriation for Catherine of Siena enhances the import of the Dominican’s parallel experience.9 San Domenico’s Mystic Marriage of Catherine of Siena, which Meiss argued was the earliest representation of an event from Catherine’s legend,10 was probably commissioned as part of a Dominican effort to have her canonized, an effort that was spearheaded by members of the Dominican order committed to its reform. Chiara Gambacorta had a definite stake in Catherine of Siena’s cult—as a Dominican, as an Observant, and as an individual whose life had been deeply affected by the Sienese tertiary.11 Her own vocation as a bride of Christ was fostered by Catherine of Siena. Hence the selection of Catherine’s mystic marriage, chosen from among numerous episodes in the saint’s life (for example, the stigmata, the exchange of hearts with Christ, her reception of the habit from Dominic) for San Domenico’s painting may be the result of Chiara’s own connection to the Sienese tertiary. The painting, however, would also present the nuns of San Domenico with an important exemplar for their own religious lives. If the images of the two Catherines were meant to be viewed together, by the nuns themselves, they must have hung somewhere in the nuns’ precincts. The subject matter of espousal that the two images share suggests an original placement in the nuns’ choir (where at least one of these images hung in the eighteenth century) as a reminder to the sisters of the ceremony in which they participated to become Spose di Cristo themselves. The ceremony of profession was a form of marriage ceremony, which involved dressing the “bride” in a garment symbolic of her new role and placing a ring on her finger as a token of the marriage.12 This contrasts to the ceremony of profession for friars, which as A.H. Thomas has argued, derives from the medieval ceremonies of vassalage, in which the hands of the initiate are enclosed in the hands of the superior.13 So despite the widespread use of nuptial imagery in more androgynous terms to refer to the soul, the marriage of Saint Catherine was inherently more meaningful for nuns than for friars, as the women’s entry into the religious life was marked by an anagogical repetition of Catherine’s betrothal. Similarly, the nuns’ appropriation of the title, Sposa di Cristo, is as literal as it is figurative for these women. This profession ceremony had strong visual and symbolic links to secular marriage ceremonies, as Lowe has demonstrated.14 What is more, the community at San Domenico insisted that the ceremony of veiling take place within their own precincts and not in public.15 Their ceremony may have been more like the one depicted in a miniature from a Rituale executed for the Venetian convent of S. Servolo, in which the nuns stood on one side of a grill and the priest performing the ceremony stood on the other.16 One part of the profession ceremony involves the priest (or Bishop, depending on who is presiding) giving the new nun a ring, as a direct parallel to secular wedding practices.17 The submissive gesture made by the two Catherines in the paintings parallels the gestures prescribed for the profession ceremony. One further detail that links the two pictures together may also
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link it to Dominican practice: in each painting, Christ places the ring on the third finger of the Sponsa, rather than the usual fourth finger. This practice is a Dominican variant on the profession ceremony, in use as late as the 1940s.18 So the images of the two Saints Catherine performing the same actions that the nuns themselves performed would serve to remind the nuns of their status as Brides of Christ and the vows that they made to attain this status. If both pictures were executed in the first years of the fifteenth century, they were made at a time when the community was growing exponentially: approved for 20 nuns in 1385, the convent counted 25 nuns in 1403 (when the Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria was painted) and increased to 43 nuns (plus other members of the famiglia) by 1410 (see Census, Appendix 2). There must have been many professions taking place in the nuns’ choir during this decade, perhaps in front of these two pictures. The primary audience for these images was the community of nuns who participated in and whose lives were transformed by these rituals. The Crucified Another painting executed for San Domenico during this period depicts the Crucifixion with Saints (Catalogue 6 and Figure 3.4). This painting is unusual in having been painted on canvas rather than in fresco, on rather a large scale (288 × 206 cm). A Latin inscription at the bottom of the image informs us that the work was painted for the monastery of San Domenico while Chiara Gambacorta was prioress, gives the date as 1405 (Pisan style), and tells us the name of the donor and the name of the artist, Giovanni di Pietro di Napoli, to whom the Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria has also been attributed.19 This painting does not take the form of an altarpiece. Rather it was conceived as a wall decoration; the painted frame surrounding the image encloses the composition as would a frescoed frame.20 But it remains to be seen why it was painted on canvas and not in fresco.21 Could this medium have been chosen as a less expensive alternative to fresco? Was the picture intended for some spot in the convent still under construction in 1404–5? I have not been able to identify the original location intended for this painting within the convent, although its large size suggests that it was meant for some communal gathering spot. It may have been painted for the refectory, as it was Dominican practice to place an image of the Crucifixion there and by the late fifteenth century San Domenico’s refectory had another image of the Crucifixion frescoed on its wall (on which see Chapter 5). We do know that by the eighteenth century, this painting hung in the nuns’ choir.22 For this painting, we know the name of the donor, and something of his association with San Domenico and Chiara Gambacorta. Stefano Lapi was a wealthy Pisan and converso (lay brother) of the convent, whose daughters and, eventually, wife joined the community. Conversi associated with Dominican convents were responsible for seeing to the worldly needs of the sisters.23 His headgear resembles that worn by the two men identified as tertiaries in Angelico’s predella from the Fiesole altarpiece,
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3.4 Giovanni di Pietro di Napoli, Crucifixion with Saints, 1405 now in London24 (the two men at the lower right in Figure 5.6), although Lapi’s garments are a different color. His daughter Giovanna is listed among the members of the community in 1403; her death in June 1403 is recorded in the convent’s obituary with a resume of her life, and an encomium on her parents.25 Lapi is depicted here with a younger man, presumably his son.26 Stefano Lapi had long been a disciple of
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Gambacorta; according to Chiara’s vita, he assisted her in disposing of her wealth before she entered the religious life.27 His long friendship with the prioress suggests his familiarity with her principles and his role as converso would have made him an executor of her wishes. Although Lapi may have paid for the painting, and probably negotiated with the artist, it is likely that Gambacorta was involved in shaping its content and perhaps its form. In its basic elements, this interpretation of the Crucifixion is familiar from countless versions of this theme executed throughout the trecento, but the variations here deserve exploration. Perhaps the most obvious is the presence of Saint Francis, who embraces the cross and kisses the feet of Christ. The participation of Saint Francis in the drama of Calvary has precedents in Franciscan imagery of the fourteenth century, for example in Cimabue’s ruined fresco in the upper church at Assisi. Despite Francis’ close associations with the cross, the figure who traditionally embraces it is Mary Magdalene. A follower of Giotto depicted the Magdalene embracing the cross with Francis gesturing opposite her in a Crucifixion in the lower church at Assisi. A comparison, indeed conflation, of the two saints is implied in such images. Francis behaves with the lack of decorum usually associated with the Magdalene, and assimilates to himself characteristics of feminine mourners.28 Wilk has noted that observant Dominicans also commissioned images in which Dominican friars stand in for the Magdalene and suggests it reveals the high regard in which the Observants held her.29 I would suggest that the women of San Domenico revered Saint Francis enough to place him in the Magdalene’s traditional spot. But why should Francis be so prominent in an image clearly intended for a Dominican convent? One cannot discount the will of the donor, who may have had his own reasons for wishing to honor Saint Francis,30 but the Gambacorta family also had ties to the Franciscans: the family tomb was in the Franciscan church in Pisa. It should also be remembered that Gambacorta began her religious career in a Franciscan house and took the name of the foundress of the Poor Clares. Furthermore, Chiara and her sisters had a special relationship with the Franciscan order. In May of 1402, at the meeting of the Chapter General of the Franciscan Order, Frate Enrico, the master of the order, confirmed that Gambacorta and all the religious of the Monastero di San Domenico of Pisa could participate in the spiritual benefits of the Franciscan order, in life as well as in death.31 As this grace was conceded to Chiara only a few years before Giovanni di Pietro di Napoli’s painting was executed, it seems likely to have been a factor in the selection of the imagery. The composition of this image also expresses the community’s adherence to Observant principles. The narrative theme is reduced to the bare essentials—there is no detail of setting or supporting cast—but includes an exemplar of the religious life. Such images occur with great frequency in works commissioned for Observant convents of different religious orders, whether Carthusian or Dominican;32 the most familiar examples come, of course, from San Marco of Florence. Although more overtly emotional, the contemplative tone achieved in this Crucifixion makes one think of the later frescoes by Angelico at both Fiesole and San Marco;
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3.5 Fra Angelico, Crucifixion from Fiesole, c.1425–30
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particularly close to this composition is the fresco of the Crucifixion with Dominic embracing the foot of the Cross now in the Louvre, but detached from the refectory of San Domenico at Fiesole (Figure 3.5). The Fiesole fresco dates from the 1420s or later, and is echoed in several frescoes from San Marco in which Saint Dominic kneels and embraces the cross.33 The moving force behind the establishment of the Fiesole friary, Giovanni Dominici, had long been aware of the reform established by Chiara Gambacorta at San Domenico and may well have been aware of the decorative program at the Pisan convent. Could the Pisan Crucifixion have provided inspiration for the Fiesole Crucifixion through the intermediary of Giovanni Dominici? Both images for Observant houses follow a similar composition, in which a mendicant saint grasps the foot of the cross in the place of the Magdalene, in an image that starkly reduces the landscape and narrative contexts to a bare minimum. There are, however, other specifically Dominican images from the late fourteenth century that have a similar composition, including a Florentine panel now in the Vatican.34 Additionally, the Crucifixion with Saint Antoninus in the Museo di San Marco and a small panel now in the Fogg, which represents another Dominican cardinal at the foot of the Cross follow this general scheme. The austere images from San Marco in Florence—especially the Crucifixions from the novitiate quarter of the monastery—reveal the same characteristics; beneath images of Christ on the cross, Dominic prays in different modes.35 Giovanni di Pietro di Napoli’s Crucifixion for San Domenico participates in this pattern of imagery for Observant houses. An Early Altarpiece The same year that Giovanni di Pietro di Napoli painted this Crucifixion, he and Martino di Bartolomeo executed another painting for San Domenico. This is a wellpreserved Polyptych of the Madonna Enthroned (Catalogue 12a and Figure 3.6) at the center of a group of saints, separated by the arcades of a gold-leafed frame. Here we are definitely dealing with an altarpiece, in a format Henk van Os has termed “standard” for Sienese altars of the period.36 In the privileged spot to the right of the Virgin stands Saint Dominic with his book and lily; on the Virgin’s left is John the Evangelist. Female saints are placed in the outer flanks of the altarpiece: next to Dominic is the Magdalene and next to the Evangelist is Birgitta of Sweden. The latter saint has often been misidentified in the past, as Saint Scholastica, probably because she wears the habit of a nun,37 but her veil bears a red cross, linking her to the Brigittine order, and an inscription identifies her as “Sancta Brigita Principessa.” Medallions above the standing saints hold depictions of John the Baptist and Saint Stephen. A fragmentary inscription in the center panel dates the painting to April 1404 (1405 Pisan style).38 The altarpiece may be the object mentioned in a document from Chiara’s own hand, dated 1405, which records a legacy left to the convent by Chiara’s aunt, Monna Giovanna; among the gifts listed were funds for building the church and “la tavola dello altare.”39 Her gift may be one reason for the prominence of John
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3.6 Giovanni di Pietro di Napoli and Martino di Bartolomeo, Polyptych of the Madonna Enthroned, 1404
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the Evangelist in the painting, as Giovanni Evangelista would be her patron saint. Chiara would thus have been involved with this commission not only as prioress of the convent, but also as a close family member of the donor. As Dominic, titular of the church, stands in the position of privilege, it seems probable that this altarpiece was intended for the high altar of the newly built public church; the church was dedicated to Saint Dominic, the Virgin and John the Baptist, all of whom are depicted here. Only a few years earlier, in 1402, the nuns had received the gift of a relic of Saint Dominic in a silver tabernacle from the Duke of Milan, through the intermediary of Giovanni Dominici.40 The gift of the relic and the imminent completion of the church would be reason enough to commission an altarpiece for the high altar, but they had also contracted for memorial masses on the feast days of the Magdalene, Birgitta, John the Baptist, Dominic and the Virgin as the result of the foundation established for the soul of Manno degli Agli of Florence (a friend and factor of Francesco Datini), who died in 1400.41 A marble inscription installed sometime after 1406 (probably in the public church) records the nuns’ obligation to have masses said on the feast days of the Magdalene, Saint Birgitta, John the Baptist, Saint Dominic, and the Birth of the Virgin.42 As all the saints named appear in this altarpiece, this obligation would also have been served by the painting. Here again is reason to believe the altarpiece was destined for the public church, where the priest would say the masses required. For this altarpiece to serve this function, it must have been in the public church, not the nuns’ choir. As such, the altarpiece publicly proclaims the spiritual affiliation of the convent. Not only the choice of saints, but their depiction in full length flanking the Virgin results in a static, non-narrative image of a sort the Dominican order seems especially to have preferred, at least for the high altars of their churches. The enthroned Virgin, representing the Queen of this celestial court and the Church itself, is thoroughly conventional. Yet this description of the altarpiece from San Domenico is incomplete. The polyptych may have had gable elements as so many contemporary works do. Conventionally, these would include an Annunciation with perhaps a Crucifixion in the center that would have further expressed the Eucharistic content of the altarpiece. In addition to the gable, the altarpiece once had a predella. Miklos Boskovits has identified five predella panels in Berlin as the parts of this original predella, attributed on the basis of style to Martino di Bartolomeo.43 The artist seems also to have executed some of the figures in the main panel, including Saint Birgitta herself. These predellas (Catalogue 12b) have as their theme the achievements and miracles of Saint Birgitta of Sweden (1303–73). She was an aristocratic woman who, after a worldly life that included courtly service, marriage, and the birth of eight children, devoted her life to God. She left Sweden on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1341, and never returned. She spent the last 23 years of her life in Italy, where she attempted to end the Babylonian captivity of the papacy and reform the church. During this period she dictated a series of visions and prophecies to several
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scribes; among them was her last confessor, Alfonso Pecha de Vadaterra (in Spain), Bishop of Jaen. The most important compilation of her visions was the Liber celestis revelationum. She also founded a monastic order, based, like the Dominican order, on the rule of Saint Augustine. Her order flourished in the fifteenth century not only in her native Sweden, but in Italy, the Lowlands, and England. Birgitta was canonized in 1391, and her sanctity was confirmed in 1419 by Martin V.44 After her death, her visions and prophecies were edited by her confessor, Alfonso da Vadaterra. He circulated copies of the Liber Celestis Revelationum all over Europe. Although she was championed by powerful members of the order, including Tommaso Caffarini and Cardinal Torquemada, her feast was not entered on the Dominican calendar. So her presence in the high altarpiece for the church of San Domenico cannot be linked to the order’s own liturgy. As reconstructed, the predellas depict from left to right: Birgitta writing down the words of an angel (Figure 3.7); Birgitta writing down what Christ and the Virgin dictate (Figure 3.8); the Nativity of Christ as Birgitta experienced it in a vision in Bethlehem (Figure 3.9); her appearance in the dream of a Swedish princess, standing on a column with red and white roses pouring from her mouth (Figure 3.10); and her delivery of pilgrims from a shipwreck (Figure 3.11). Thus, two images of Birgitta receiving divine dictation appear on the left, while the two images of her miracles appear to the right. At the center is the Nativity, the most influential of Birgitta’s visions; it stood directly below the Virgin and Child in the main section of the altarpiece. If in fact a lost gable section depicted the Crucifixion, the central portion of the altarpiece would have clarified the process of redemption, from Christ’s birth to his sacrifice. The emphasis on Birgitta in this altarpiece is surprising. If this were the main altarpiece in the public church, one might expect the predella to focus on Dominic, the titular, or at least to give equal space to the other saints depicted on the main panel. What is more, the depiction of the Swedish saint here postdates her canonization by fewer than 15 years and precedes by as many years the second papal confirmation of her sanctity, accorded in 1419. As we have seen, an inscription below this figure identifies her as “Sancta Brigita Principessa.” Other Italian images of this period also stress her royal status.45 In fact, the Vita of Birgitta written by her confessors, Master Peter and Prior Peter, make her status as “principessa” an important aspect of her identity.46 But if the inscription stresses the saint’s social status, her garments highlight her role as a religious, the book she carries highlights her role as author, and the staff highlights her role as pilgrim. These aspects of her life are treated in the predella. When we examine the altarpiece in the context of the spiritual and liturgical life of San Domenico, the focus on Birgitta becomes clearer. As we have seen, Chiara Gambacorta was especially devoted to Saint Birgitta, about whom she learned from Birgitta’s own confessor and editor. Chiara’s Vita reports that she owned a copy of Birgitta’s Istorie,47 a gift from the Bishop of Jaen; this was probably the Revelations.48 There are certain parallels between their lives that may explain why
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3.7 Martino di Bartolomeo, Left Predella Panel of Polyptych of the Madonna Enthroned: Birgitta Writing Words of the Angel, 1404
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3.8 Martino di Bartolomeo, Left Predella Panel of Polyptych of the Madonna Enthroned: Birgitta Writing What Christ and the Virgin Dictate, 1404
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3.9 Martino di Bartolomeo, Center Predella Panel of Polyptych of the Madonna Enthroned: Nativity according to the Vision of St Birgitta, 1404
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3.10 Martino di Bartolomeo, Right Predella Panel of Polyptych of the Madonna Enthroned: Birgitta Appears in the Dream of the Princess, 1404
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3.11 Martino di Bartolomeo, Right Predella Panel of Polyptych of the Madonna Enthroned: Birgitta Delivers Pilgrims from Shipwreck, 1404
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Birgitta had such appeal for Gambacorta: both were widows, both were concerned with reforming the church, both had the gift of seeing into people’s hearts. And Chiara Gambacorta used her considerable influence in Pisa to promote the Swedish mystic’s cult. Special celebrations were held in San Domenico on the saint’s feast day, and Chiara arranged for public preaching about Birgitta.49 San Domenico also owned a relic of the saint (See Appendix 6). Chiara seems also to have maintained close ties with the Brigittine foundation in Florence, the double monastery called Paradiso: at one point about 1395, a rumor circulated that Chiara intended to leave San Domenico and enter the Florentine Birgittine house.50 Her admiration for the Swedish saint was shared by Giovanni Dominici.51 So the altarpiece, probably destined for the high altar of the public church of San Domenico, not only reflects Chiara Gambacorta’s personal devotion to Saint Birgitta, but is part of a deliberate effort on her part to promote the cult of Saint Birgitta in Pisa. As such, the themes for the predella must have been chosen to underscore the aspects of Birgitta’s life that Gambacorta felt were most important or most persuasive to an audience in Pisa. Therefore, the predella does not show the founding of her order, which is depicted in several Tuscan manuscripts of the Revelations and in altarpieces for the Florentine Brigittine house, or the transmission of her Revelations to the Kings of the Earth, which is depicted in some of the earliest manuscripts of her Revelations.52 The predella instead emphasizes Birgitta’s writing, her visions and her miracles. Two of the images, in fact, stress Birgitta’s access to divine truth by representing her taking dictation from an angel and from Christ and the Virgin. Rather than presenting the content of her visions, these images stress their divine source and Birgitta’s active role in recording them. She is not depicted dictating the text, although her vita makes clear that her usual procedure involved a scribe. The central predella panel describes her most famous vision, which was popularized by her writings and represented in a number of Tuscan versions. The choice of miracles depicted was equally selective. Although the canonization documents describe numerous miracles of healing the blind or paralytic, or Birgitta’s intervention in difficult childbirths, these predellas focus on other issues. The fourth image attests to the persuasiveness and inspiration of Birgitta’s words, which fall from her mouth like roses before a spellbound audience of lay people in the dream of a Swedish princess.53 Often in her vita and in the canonization documents Birgitta is heralded for having converted a sinner by her words. A local interest may have played a part in the selection of this event from among Birgitta’s miracles; a member of the community at San Domenico, Maria Mancini, had a similar vision. Having heard about Saint Birgitta, she desired to see and hear the Swedish saint, and was blessed with a vision of the saint, who instructed her in aspects of the spiritual life.54 The final image in the predella represents Birgitta’s rescue of seafaring pilgrims, a choice certainly apposite in the seagoing culture of Pisa, with perhaps a personal significance for Chiara Gambacorta, whose father had been a pilgrim to the Holy Land with Alfonso of Vadaterra.55 Birgitta is presented in these panels as learned, authoritative, mystically inspired, and a potent intercessor. The predella offers the
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viewer in the public church of this convent not only a catalogue of qualities that Chiara Gambacorta admired in Birgitta, but qualities that the viewer also could associate with the nuns in San Domenico. Confronted with a commission to execute these scenes of a relatively new saint without a standard iconography, Martino di Bartolomeo likely looked for models in the illustrated manuscripts of Birgitta’s Revelations, of which several late fourteenthcentury Italian examples survive. He probably found little in the Sienese tradition to supply him with sources, as the studies of Grazia Vailati Schoenburg and Henk van Os indicate.56 Closer parallels may be seen in manuscripts produced in Naples (an early center of Brigittine devotion), such as Morgan Library M. 498, which Carl Nordenfalk has identified as one of a series of illuminated Revelations that date shortly after Birgitta’s death.57 The frontispiece of this manuscript depicts Birgitta seated at a desk in the lower right corner of the composition. Martino di Bartolomeo’s Birgitta sits in much the same posture, in the same direction, with a book in her lap and her hand upraised as in the Morgan miniature. A similar depiction of the saint occurs in an historiated initial on f. 8 of the Morgan manuscript.58 Although the Morgan manuscript may have been executed in Naples, it then traveled to Genoa as the property of Alfonso da Vadaterra, who had given a copy of the Swedish mystic’s Istorie to Chiara Gambacorta probably in 1378. We cannot be certain that the book Alfonso gave to Chiara was decorated, but Alfonso was distributing such deluxe manuscripts all over Europe at the time and he may have given the daughter of Pisa’s ruler a book rather like his own. The similarities in parts of Martino’s predella to some of the images in the Morgan manuscript suggest that he was looking at something like the Morgan Revelations, for which Gambacorta would be the logical intermediary. Chiara, then, would have been important to the altarpiece not only in selecting the themes to be depicted, but also in providing models from which the artist could work. Devotion to Saint Birgitta Chiara Gambacorta was probably the force behind the commission of another work of art dedicated to Saint Birgitta, an image of her Nativity according to the Vision of St Birgitta, also in Pisa’s museum and with a firm connection to San Domenico (Catalogue 8 and Figure 3.12). This panel has been assigned to several Pisan artists, but is currently attributed to the Pisan painter Turino Vanni. The theme is the same as the central predella of the high altar. In her vision, Birgitta saw the Virgin dressed in a gown of white, having cast off her outer garment and shoes, adoring the newborn Christ who lay naked on the ground. She describes Saint Joseph holding a candle whose light was outshone by the supernatural glow of Mother and Child. Popularized by her Revelations, this vision greatly influenced the iconography of the Nativity in the fifteenth century.59 The painting from San Domenico faithfully depicts these details in the context of an otherwise conventional Nativity scene, which includes such standard features
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3.12 Pisan artist, Nativity according to the Vision of St Birgitta, c.1400 as the ox and ass, music-making angels and the Annunciation to the shepherds in the distance. The mountainous setting refers to the grotto where the vision took place. This mountain formation has three alcoves in which the figures are placed, with the
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Virgin and Child in the largest opening at the center, Joseph in a separate alcove on the right, and Birgitta herself in an alcove on the left. In a mandorla above the scene appears God the Father, from whom rays of light descend on Christ, the Virgin, Saint Joseph, and Birgitta herself. Birgitta is thus a partner in this event, equal at least to Saint Joseph; in fact, her position at the left of the composition makes her more prominent than Saint Joseph. There was another Tuscan version of this theme current in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century, which has survived in a fresco at Santa Maria Novella in Florence60 and at least two paintings, one in the Vatican and one in the Johnson Collection in Philadelphia, attributed somewhat tentatively to Niccolo di Tommaso.61 While rendered in different styles, both of these versions place Saint Birgitta outside the main space the image in the lower right corner of the composition and do not give her the prominence she is given in the Pisan painting. If the main point of San Domenico’s image is to convey the content of Birgitta’s vision of the Nativity, a secondary function is to celebrate the author of the vision. The special connection noted between Chiara and Saint Birgitta suggests that Chiara was again the force behind the commission. Chiara’s death in 1419 would then be the terminus ante quem for this painting, as Birgitta’s canonization in 1391 must be the terminus post quem. Little else in the documents helps to pinpoint the date of this image, and the style of Turino Vanni is not well enough understood to suggest a date on this basis. Perhaps, however, a relationship to the predella of the 1404 altarpiece may help to date this image more precisely. Both Nativities share the basic details of Birgitta’s vision in a similar arrangement, although figures rendered in three-quarters view in the painting are in profile in the predella: the ox and the ass and the rendering of the Child are strikingly similar. God the Father also appears in the predella, but its horizontal format requires him to be pushed off to one side rather than appear at top center. The shared details of the two works, yet the greater complexity and symmetry of the Vanni picture, suggest that it may have been one of the models consulted by Martino di Bartolomeo when he painted the predella for the altarpiece dated April 1404. If so, the painting attributed to Turino Vanni would have had to be in San Domenico before 1404. Here again, I would suggest, the prioress took an active role in leading the artist to an appropriate model for his picture. She would thus be involved not only in the content, but the form of the painting. Her role in the making of these images is as complex as her role in overseeing the enlargement of the convent buildings. If she did not deal with masons or carpenters on a daily basis, she was involved in raising funds, keeping the projects going, and seeing them to completion. She surely made her wishes known in the works paid for by her family and supporters. It is worth noting that the paintings executed during the era that Chiara Gamabacorta was prioress gave special prominence to exemplars of the religious life (Catherine of Alexandria, Francis of Assisi, Catherine of Siena, Birgitta of Sweden) and to female saints. The primary audience of several of these images—for example, the
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two Catherines, the Crucifixion with Francis of Assisi—was probably the nuns themselves, but the altarpiece was aimed at the public who had access to the outer church of the convent, where the nuns did not go. Not only did this altarpiece serve the needs of the liturgy and promote to the public those saints revered by the order and the prioress, but its emphasis on the visions and miracles of Saint Birgitta demonstrated to the laity the important role that religious women played in the lives of secular men and women. The functions of these images were many: to enhance the liturgies celebrated in the church; to encourage devotion to the saints preferred by both the order and by the foundress; to teach seculars about the value of supporting religious foundations; and to teach the nuns how to improve their vocations by emulating the correct role models. The actively engaged patronage of Chiara Gambacorta set a pattern for the women who followed her as prioress, as the following chapters will demonstrate. The Image of the Foundress Chiara Gambacorta died on April 17, 1419 (1420 stile pisano) and was immediately considered by her sisters and many Pisans to have died in the odor of sanctity. Chiara’s death marked her transition from a charismatic individual with a reputation for sanctity into a popularly venerated Beata. At news of her death, the chronicles report, citizens of Pisa crowded the Church of San Domenico for a glimpse of Chiara’s body. According to Chiara’s vita, more than 15,000 persons visited the public church during the week after her death; the nuns made special provisions to allow for the viewing of the body by opening the grate between the outer church and the nuns’ choir, so that the public could see into the choir. (The nuns stayed out of the choir so as not to be seen.) Chiara among the Dominicans The veneration accorded Chiara made the commission of an appropriate funerary monument for her a priority. This marble relief is now preserved in the postwar convent of San Domenico in the Via della Faggiola in Pisa (Figure 3.13). Probably executed shortly after her death in 1419, perhaps with the aid of a death mask, the monument depicts Chiara as if sleeping, with her head resting on a pillow inclining slightly to her left and her hands crossed on her torso. An inscription carved into the frame identifies the deceased as Sister Chiara, daughter of Pietro Gambacorta, who had been foundress and prioress of the house. The relief measures 234 by 88 cm. The inscription along the sides reads: “Hic jacet devotissima Religiosa Soror Clara vita et miraculis gloriosa Priorissa, atque fundatrix huius Monasterii filia olim magnifici Domini Petri de Gambacurtis obiit anno MCCCCXX die XVII Aprilis aetatis autem LVII et in Monasterio vixit anno XXXVII.”62 The name of the sculptor responsible for Chiara’s tombstone is not recorded.63
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3.13 Bara of Chiara Gambacorta, c.1420
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The form and technique of Chiara’s monument originates in the burial practices of members of Pisa’s mercantile nobility. It belongs to a genre of tomb monuments for laypersons (who wished to be buried inside a church) that flourished in Pisa (and indeed, throughout Italy) through the trecento and into the early quattrocento.64 Chiara’s monument is quite close to a tomb slab in the Dominican Church of Santa Caterina of a woman who died in 1401; except for details of the costume and decorative embellishments these two reliefs could be executed from the same pattern and one is tempted to link them to the same workshop. The bara is also the result of certain exceptional aspects of Chiara’s death. Instead of being buried in the usual spot, which would have been a cemetery attached to the convent where her sisters rested, Chiara’s grave was dug inside the nuns’ choir at the foot of the altar. Canon law disapproved of interments in churches attached to feminine convents, so this was an exceptional grace, resulting from a workman’s error, which the nuns considered a divine acknowledgement of the foundress’s sanctity.65 A location like this would almost certainly have required that Chiara’s monument take the form of a floor slab, so as not to impede the sisters’ view of the altar. Such floor slabs seem to have been the usual form chosen by Dominican friars who wished to be buried close to an altar.66 In fact, Chiara’s relief takes part in a Dominican tradition. In both medium and posture the tomb relief is comparable to the tomb of Leonardo Dati at Santa Maria Novella, executed by Lorenzo Ghiberti in 1425.67 Chiara’s monument should also be compared with the one executed in Rome for Fra Angelico on his death in 1455.68 The effigies depict the two Dominican men in much the same form, but the gothic elements of Chiara’s monument have been transformed into classicizing elements in Angelico’s. Like the friars, Chiara wears her habit, but where Dati holds a book and a baton, Chiara holds a lily in her hand. This flower likely refers to her purity; but it has a more specifically Dominican resonance, too. Images of Saint Dominic from this period, for example, the depiction of Dominic in the 1404 altarpiece (Figure 3.6), show him with a lily. The lily, then, places her in the company of other Dominican Beati and Saints, but also links her to the founder of the Dominican order. Images of Saint Catherine receiving the habit of Dominicans also include Dominic giving her his lily. The iconography of Chiara Gambacorta’s bara links her to both the founder of the Order and its reformer, Catherine of Siena. Yet another factor bears consideration here. Unlike many other funerary images of abbesses or prioresses, Chiara’s carries no attribute of her station.69 The Dominican Constitutions establish that the prior (or prioress) is the first among equals, rather than a parent figure; this structural difference between Benedictine and Dominican houses may account for the lack of insignia of office in Chiara’s effigy. Compare her representation, for example, with images of Venetian abbesses of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and the image of Jeanne de Boubais, Abbess of the Cistercian abbey of Flines (in Northern France), in which the crozier is an important signifier of the status of the nun.70 Here again, one motive behind this detail of the image may be the full observance of the Dominican Constitutions.
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A Gothic tabernacle with a pointed and cusped arch topped by finials encloses Chiara’s full-length effigy; this frame resembles those enclosing painted panels that depict saints in the convent. In the spandrels above the arch are two angels, who add to the effect of saintliness achieved by the frame.71 (In many baras, this space is occupied by stemme or coats of arms of the deceased.72) In fact, the lack of any heraldry is itself noteworthy; while the inscription identifies Chiara by her family name, no other symbols of her family are represented. The angels in the spandrels may be an echo of the sepulchre of Catherine of Siena in Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome, built at the instance of Raymond of Capua in the 1380s’; this monument was replaced in the 1430s, but some portions, including an angel holding an inscription are still preserved.73 With this detail, Chiara’s tomb may link her once more to her Dominican mentor. The bara is a visual expression of the nuns’ veneration of their foundress as a beata and part of the communio sanctorum.74 The format in which Chiara Gambacorta is depicted—full-length, holding an attribute, framed by an arch above which angels appear—was not only part of a Dominican past, but pointed to the future of Dominican imagery; this same format was adopted for the earliest woodcut images of Dominic and Thomas Aquinas published in Venice in the midfifteenth century.75 As far as is known, however, no images of Chiara were installed in the outer church for public veneration during the fifteenth century. If they existed, such images have not survived. And an immediate iconography beyond the tomb is difficult to secure, although some possible representations of Chiara might be identified. For example, Diane Cole Ahl suggested that the unidentified Dominican nun depicted in the predella of the Altarpiece executed by Fra Angelico for the Florentine convent of San Pier Martire in the late 1420s might be Chiara Gambacorta76 (Figure 3.14). There is nothing to confirm such a supposition in the image, however, except perhaps a general similarity in posture between the nun in the predella and the effigy of Chiara. However, the Florentine house of San Pier Martire was founded in 1421 and initially populated by sisters from San Domenco, so perhaps these women requested an image to honor their recently deceased prioress, whom they considered a beata. At any rate, the woman depicted in this predella is not likely to be Catherine of Siena, as she wears the habit of a second order nun, not a tertiary, a distinction that Angelico would certainly have known.77 Similarly, one might nominate Chiara Gambacorta as the unlabeled Beata depicted among the cloistered nuns in the predella of Angelico’s Fiesole altarpiece, now in London, which depicts an ideal gathering of Dominican Beati (Figure 5.5).78 Here a figure in the habit of an enclosed Dominican nun kneels behind the labeled figures of Margaret of Hungary, Agnes of Montepulciano, and Sibyllina de Biscossis. Angelico worked on this project from 1419 until 1421, shortly after Chiara’s death, so the popular veneration that followed her death would likely have been known in the house founded by Giovanni Dominici. There is, however, no evidence that Fra Angelico himself knew Chiara, and little in the image to identify this figure as Gambacorta. Chiara’s cult seems to have remained largely confined to Pisa.
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3.14 Fra Angelico, Two Female Saints, from Predella of the Altarpiece of San Pier Martire of Florence, c.1423
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A Shrine for the Beata Chiara’s sanctity was demonstrated in quite canonical ways within two decades of her death. Thirteen years after Chiara’s death and burial, in 1432 (1433 stile pisano) her body was exhumed; the nuns discovered a sweet odor emanating from the grave, saw that her bones had been preserved perfectly, and her tongue was still intact. From this moment her body became a relic and was housed in a cypress reliquary, in which it could be displayed. By the late eighteenth century, Chiara’s body was enshrined in a canopied reliquary that was placed at the intersection of the nuns’ choir and the public church; her body was exhibited to the faithful on the anniversary of her death (April 17). When her body was exhumed, her tongue was placed in water in a reliquary. Her sisters in the convent attributed miracles to these relics. Most important and consistent (even until the nineteenth century) among the miracles associated with Chiara’s relics were warnings about approaching death; the bones rattled when one of the sisters was near death, allowing the nuns to prepare to meet their spouse. The timing of the exhumation of Chiara’s body is intriguing, as we can only speculate about the motive for it. On the one hand, 1432 was 50 years after the community at San Domenico first inhabited their convent (to which they moved in 1382, although the Bull that authorized the community was not granted until 1385), so perhaps the timing of this event was stimulated by the celebration of a jubilee in the convent. The chronicle that describes the event merely says that the nuns wished to do her more reverence. (The nuns dated the beginning of their house from 1382, not 1385, as is demonstrated by the inscription on Chiara’s tomb, where she is said to have lived in that house for 37 years. The date of 1382 for the beginning of the community is also noted in the fifteenth-century vita of Chiara written in the convent.79) External factors may have been at work also. The year 1432 was the moment when a new monument to Catherine of Siena was completed in the Roman church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva.80 The patron of this new monument was the current prior of the Roman friary, Antoninus Pierozzi, who was a son of the Observance, and a disciple of Giovanni Dominici. The erection of this new sepulcher marked the renewal of efforts to gain canonization for Saint Catherine, which ultimately bore fruit in 1461. Furthermore, a new sepulcher was established for Saint Monica in the church of Sant’Agostino in Rome in 1430, which marked an upswing of veneration for Saint Augustine’s mother among the laity and clerics alike, the Order of Preachers included.81 The Observants, and especially Antoninus, were active in promoting the reputations of their saintly women at just this period. Although just what connection Antoninus may have had to San Domenico during the decade of the 1430s is unclear, convent records of 1441 and 1446 confirm that he was giving them alms;82 his association with Giovanni Dominici would have made him aware of the zeal of San Domenico in the reform and the reputation of the founding prioress. Antoninus may have encouraged, if not suggested, the exhumation of Gambacorta’s body. The extracts that Zucchelli published from the account
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3.15 Tuscan artist, Crucifixion and Saints, fresco in niche in nuns’ choir of fifteenth-century Church of San Domenico, Pisa, c.1435
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3.16 Detail of Fig. 3.15: soffit depicting Christ and Apostles books of the convent record a gift in 1434 from Frate Stefano di Lapo di Stefano da Fucechio “per i bisogni di Suor Chiara,” which may refer to the exhumation and monument.83 It was probably after the body was exhumed, in the mid- 1430s, that the nuns made a shrine to Chiara that still stands in the church of San Domenico. Chiara’s marble bara was installed in a protective niche in the north wall of the nun’s choir, left of the east altar of the inner church where it stayed until the twentieth century (Catalogue 1 and Figure 3.15). The niche takes the form of an arch recessed into the wall; the resulting lunette provides the field for a fresco of the Crucifixion. The soffit of the arch contains painted medallions with cusped frames in which the Apostles are depicted. Christ appears at the keystone of this arch, with Peter on his right and Paul on his left (Figure 3.16) with the other apostles below them. The exterior of the arch bears traces of an architectonic frame: painted pilasters support a painted arch from which spring acanthus leaves. The fictive architecture frescoed around the niche further separates this zone from the rest of the nuns’ choir. The marble tomb slab was inserted into this new context, providing it with a more monumental setting and preserving it from wear. It lay at the base of the fresco, at the foot of the image of the Crucifixion. This arrangement echoes some funereal monuments of late medieval Florence; it is a variant of the wall tomb that encompasses a bier covered by a sculpted canopy, which Butterfield says is a rare type used to commemorate individuals.84 The arch above the bier, and its painted decoration, transform the tomb
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slab into a much more distinguished shrine for the beata, of a sort reserved for the most honored individuals.85 The Crucifixion fresco in this niche is the last remaining vestige of figure painting still visible on the walls of the fifteenth-century church of San Domenico. (There are also some fragments of purely decorative frescoes.) The fresco is unsigned and undated. Since the reinstallation of the tomb slab must have followed the exhumation of Chiara’s body, the ensemble must date to the mid-1430s, during the time Filippa Doria was prioress. An attribution for the fresco has not, to my knowledge, ever been attempted; nor do documents survive that might inform us about the circumstances of its commission. The fresco is in ruinous condition: there are significant losses along the lower passages of the lunette, and especially on the right half. The upper left is also damaged, above the figure of the Virgin, while it appears that a gap in the upper right, including the head of Saint John, may have been repainted at some point. The medallions with the apostles in the soffit are also damaged, most particularly along the base. These losses make attempts at attribution perilous, but what remains of the original painting seems to me to have a great many points in common with frescoes by Bicci di Lorenzo.86 This Florentine painter was a member of a family of painters, and was quite busy in and around Florence from the 1420s to his death c.1460. To him has been attributed another painting—on panel—which came from San Domenico, the Saint Eulalia now in the Pisan Museum (Figure 4.1) which stood on an altar in the nuns’ choir, and which probably also dates to the 1430s. A strong likeness can be noted between the figure of Christ blessing in the gable of this altarpiece and the figure of Christ in the medallion at the keystone of the soffit. To Bicci di Lorenzo has also been attributed the program of frescoes for the house of Franciscan tertiaries in Florence, Sant’Onofrio, called Foligno, dated to the mid-1420s and later.87 This series of frescoes includes a variety of themes, including Benedictine as well as Franciscan imagery, and scenes from the life of Christ. There are numerous parallels between the Foligno frescoes and San Domenico’s Crucifixion, especially in the figures of Christ on the Cross, and the figures of Saint Francis below the Cross at Foligno and Saint Dominic in the Pisan fresco. Saint Dominic’s features also compare strongly with the figures who listen to Saint Benedict teaching in the fresco on that subject from Foligno. Chiara’s figure in the Pisan fresco should be compared with the figures of nuns to whom Saint Ivo hands a charter in the Fresco of Saint Ivo at Foligno. The profile features of the Magdalen in the Pisan image are similar to those of the praying tertiary in the fresco of the Annunciation at Foligno, while the Annunciata in this fresco has features like the Virgin in Pisa. The head of St Peter in the soffit medallions at Pisa has much in common with the head of Saint Peter in the “Arma Christi” fresco in Foligno. While this number of similarities is not conclusive, I think there is a strong possibility that Bicci di Lorenzo’s prominent and busy workshop was called on to execute the fresco in the nuns’ choir at San Domenico. Nonetheless, I have not found any documentary evidence for the artist’s presence in Pisa.
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The arch encloses a large-scale image of Christ on the cross surrounded by mourners against a dark ground. Accompanying the Virgin on the left and John the Evangelist on the right, the Magdalene kneels at the foot of the cross and moves to kiss Christ’s feet. Behind the Virgin is a nun in the habit of the second order of Saint Dominic and behind Saint John stands Saint Dominic himself. The sexes are segregated in this image; the two Maries and the nuns occupy the left half to the right of Christ; Saints John and Dominic occupy the right half. As a result, the nun occupies the position of privilege at the left, while Saint Dominic appears on the right. Both Dominican figures appear in slightly smaller scale than the historical personages. No other details of setting or narrative distract the viewer of this image from a close contemplation of the Crucified and his disciples. The nun represented in this fresco (Figure 3.17) is sometimes identified as Catherine of Siena. She does not wear the white veil of the tertiary, however, and the guidebooks claim it is an image of Chiara Gambacorta herself. A comparison between the features of this individual and the effigy on Gambacorta’s funeral slab assures this identification. She is further distinguished by the form of the halo which surrounds her head: instead of the disc-shaped haloes of the other figures, her halo is made of rays, which effectively discriminates between the status of these canonized saints and the Beata. She is placed opposite Dominic, implying a comparison between the founder of the Order and the foundress of the convent dedicated to him. The soffit images of Christ and the apostles also relate to the culture of the Order of Preachers, which places special emphasis on the vita apostolica. Cloistered women of this order did not fully participate in the active ministry of the friars, being prohibited from preaching by the Constitutions of the order. Nonetheless, the vita apostolica comprised also a life shared in community and apostolic poverty, to which the nuns could aspire as well as their brothers. And as Chiara’s own life indicates, some avenues of action beyond the saying of prayers were open to women in convents. The reform that Chiara helped to initiate spread from the convent in Pisa to Florence, Venice, Genoa, Rome, Lucca and elsewhere and, through her relationship with Giovanni Dominici, even influenced the reform of male houses. Although the ideal of cloister attempted to cut off the nuns from the affairs of the world, Chiara kept up a lively correspondence with those in the civil condition, offering advice and prayers, and often asking for alms. Her successors at San Domenico followed this example (see Chapter 6). Perhaps the ideal of apostolic poverty, peregrination, and preaching was not open to these women, but the Apostles were relevant role models to them nonetheless. What is more, the convent owned relics of eight of the 12 apostles, including Saint Paul among them (see Appendix 6) and many of the nuns took Apostles’ names when they professed (see Appendix 4). The appearance of the two Dominicans at the foot of the Cross in such a stark setting immediately calls to mind the numerous frescoes of Saint Dominic at the foot of the cross from both the refectory at San Domenico of Fiesole (Figure 3.5) and in the cloister of San Marco of Florence, and a comparison among them is instructive of the different contexts and messages which the frescoes express. Perhaps foremost to be
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3.17 Detail of Figure 3.15: Chiara Gambacorta
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noted are the locations of all three frescoes: the Angelican images were made for less sacral spaces (a refectory and a cloister) than this fresco, which must have served as an important liturgical focus in the nuns’ choir. Its function as a memorial to Chiara Gambacorta also distinguishes this image from the Angelican frescoes. One message of the Pisan fresco is the likeness of Chiara to Dominic as well as her closeness to Christ. Nonetheless, there are striking visual similarities: like these slightly later works by Fra Angelico or his workshop, the Pisan fresco has a dark background that isolates the figures in the frontal plane of the picture. The Angelican pictures also placed the Virgin and Saint John at the scene.88 But where the Florentine and Fiesolan images depicted Christ still alive, his head still supported by his neck, the Pisan image portrays Christ as dead, his eyes closed and his head hanging. Another parallel between the Fiesole image and the Pisan one lies in the figure of the Virgin, who in each picture gestures with her right hand towards her son; this gesture, however, may have a common source in the “Trinity” fresco by Masaccio in the nave of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. In the Fiesole painting, the Virgin’s gesture serves to direct the viewer’s attention to the figure of Christ, an interaction that is further accented by the eye contact that the Virgin makes with the viewer. The painter of the Pisan Crucifixion did not direct the Virgin’s glance outwards towards the viewer, but towards Christ. Whether by virtue of the conventions to which the painter subscribed, or the desires of the community at San Domenico, the fresco in Pisa is more self-contained, more psychologically distant than the Fiesole picture. One of the most distinctive elements of these Angelican frescoes is the placement of Saint Dominic at the foot of the cross. While not invented by Fra Angelico, this motif saw its most developed expression at San Marco. Its origin lay in the iconography of Saint Francis, the alter Christus, who embraces the cross in numerous fourteenthcentury images and in the canvas painted for San Domenico by Giovanni di Pietro di Napoli in 1404 (Figure 3.4). The painter of the Pisan fresco is more faithful to the narrative of the Crucifixion and portrays the Magdalene in the action of mourning Christ. She kneels at the foot of the cross to embrace it, her face adjacent to Christ’s feet. In the nuns’ own choir, it is not Dominic or Francis, but a female exemplar who instructs the nuns about devotion and contemplation on the passion of Christ. The presence of both Dominic and the foundress of the convent at the foot of the cross would encourage the women in the community to identify with them, just as the community of men at San Marco identified with the Dominican figures in the frescoes there. Such images teach the nuns, “by word and by example,” the path to closer union with their Spouse. The austere image of the Crucifixion offers the community a focus for meditation much like the fresco from Fiesole or the images in the cells at San Marco. The most important exemplar for the sisters in the fresco is Chiara herself, who lived and died in the convent and whose bier lay at the base of this composition. Although none of the sources make this clear, it is likely that the bara was arranged to place Chiara’s head at the left, below her frescoed image. In the ensemble of fresco and sculpture, Chiara would thus be seen twice, in death on the tomb and
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in life in the fresco. Within the nuns’ choir as a whole, there would be a triple remembrance, as the body of the Beata was also a physical presence as a relic. The fresco highlights the aspects of Chiara’s life and spirituality that the nuns of a later generation venerated and hoped to emulate. For this reason, the choice of the Crucifixion as the principal theme was more than liturgical or even Dominican in inspiration, for the passion had special meaning for Chiara. According to the author of her vita, she referred to her deathbed as her cross; on her deathbed, she is reported to have stretched her arms out and cried, “O my Jesus, here am I crucified.”89 Her own physical suffering was her passion. The fresco depicts her achievement of total identification with her Spouse, and her eternal closeness to him. Her sisters could see in Chiara’s own story the route that they should follow to attain similar union with their Bridegroom. Painted within the choir in which the nuns spent countless hours reciting the office, attending the mass, or saying private prayers, this fresco kept the image of the foundress of San Domenico constantly before the eyes and in the minds of her sisters. Chiara’s example, and her reform, could thus be kept alive in the convent she established. A Candidate for Sainthood Chiara continued to be revered both within the convent and in Pisa long after this monument was completed. Somewhat later in the fifteenth century, another fresco project within the convent depicted Chiara, although without much specificity in the features. (This will be discussed below in Chapter 5.) Her body was placed in a container of cypress, which was itself replaced in 1687 by a casket of pearwood and crystal.90 There is a modern painting by an unknown artist of Chiara, still in the possession of the sisters of San Domenico, which depicts her holding a crucifix close to her face. In the early twentieth century, this painting hung above the prioress’s throne in the nuns’ choir, establishing the current prioress as the successor to the foundress.91 The presence of the Crucifix in this image may refer in a general way to Chiara’s devotion to the Passion, but it may also refer to a particular event in Chiara’s life: the miraculous arrival of a Crucifix in the convent (to be discussed below). This imagery, however, may also borrow from the iconography of Catherine of Siena, who was also frequently depicted in this fashion.92 Such choices visually linked the two contemporary women devoted to the reform of the Order. The iconography of Chiara Gambacorta was substantially enlarged and altered in the early eighteenth century, when the outer church of her convent was remodeled.93 The remodeling began in 1724, but within a very short time after this date, new miracles and prodigies attributed to Chiara were recorded. In 1728, eight nuns of the convent signed an affidavit swearing that Chiara’s bones had rattled to warn them of a sister’s approaching death. In 1742, the nuns offered validation that the relics preserved in the church were actually Chiara’s. By 1755, the prioress of San Domenico had initiated the correspondence with Rome that she hoped would open a processus for Chiara Gambacorta’s canonization. This
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investigation of Chiara’s life, virtues, and miracles resulted in 1830 with her being officially designated a Beata. The process of canonization required a variety of documents to be gathered, copied, and presented to a commission in Rome. While the papacy had attempted to control the popular veneration of saintly individuals for centuries, the schisms of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and the challenge of the Protestant Reformation made it difficult to exercise that authority completely. In 1642, Urban VIII established and codified new procedures for canonization; these rules were themselves clarified and ordered by Benedict XIV in the 1730s. These procedures articulated new criteria for sainthood, beyond the “fama sanctitatis” and miraculous intercessions that identified saints in the later middle ages.94 After Urban VIII, candidates for sainthood had to be nominated by a Bishop, and data about their lives and beliefs collected and examined for orthodoxy and veracity, before the case could be presented in a trial (processus) in Rome. Witnesses had to be presented and evidence amassed about the sanctity of the individual and any miracles associated with them. If the candidacy survived these steps, the individual might be beatified; further proofs were needed for canonization.95 The criteria by which one could be adjudged a saint changed from the quattrocento to the settecento; by that time, Rome was suspicious of mystics and others whose claim to sanctity rested on ecstasies, prophecies or raptures.96 It was also suspicious of any individual venerated as a saint before undergoing the official trial. Such popular cults had to have been established for a minimum of 100 years prior to the edict by Urban VIII before candidates could be canonized. For such candidacies, it was necessary to prove that there had been an unbroken tradition of veneration of the individual.97 Furthermore, it was necessary to prove that the candidate for sainthood was heroic. This could be demonstrated by martyrdom, or, in the case of confessors or virgins, by heroism of virtue. Urban VIII had defined these characteristics in terms of the theological and cardinal virtues. The biography of the individual had to be examined for evidence of such virtue to support their candidacy. Witnesses were required to attest to the exemplary heroic virtue of the candidate. With these criteria, the saint becomes less a worker of miracles than a moral exemplar for others.98 Chiara Gambacorta’s candidacy for sainthood had to traverse the changing criteria for this status. Having died in 1419 in the odor of sanctity, she was venerated popularly as a saint immediately. As her relics had been preserved and venerated in the convent she founded, an unbroken cult could be demonstrated from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. Members of her convent attested to her miracles and a fifteenth-century vita was copied and presented to the authorities. But proponents of her candidacy had to demonstrate her heroic virtue to the Curia. New works of art were commissioned to help make the case. As the foundress was being promoted for canonization, the convent was undergoing a remodeling that radically changed the appearance of the outer church. The outer church was enlarged and vaulted, new marble altars were installed and
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a new decorative program was undertaken. The architectural changes have been discussed in Chapter 2, but in addition to the updating of both the architecture and the furnishings, the outer church was adorned with a series of reliefs and paintings that documented and celebrated the sanctity of the convent’s foundress. These images recast the character of Chiara’s sanctity by careful selection of events that had never been depicted before and by eliminating the more mystical themes that dominated the earlier renderings of the foundress. The artists involved are all named in documents that Zucchelli found in the archives of the convent. Almost all the funds for this project came either from the convent as a whole or from specific nuns within the community. The decoration proceeded in stages. First to be completed was the ceiling painting on the new vault of the refurbished outer church: Tommaso Tommasi of Bologna was paid for painting the vault in 1736.99 In 1738, Giovanni Ridolfo Frullani was paid for creating stucco reliefs that were installed in the church at the altar wall and the entry wall. Frullani’s reliefs on the altar wall celebrate the two Saints Catherine; on the right of the altar was the Mystic Marriage of Catherine of Alexandria, on the left Catherine of Siena receiving the Stigmata. The echoing reliefs on the portal wall seem to depict nuns more generically. According to Bellini-Pietri, two paintings flanked the doors near the altar; they depicted Chiara Gambacorta with Bishop Alfonso of Jaen and an episode in the life of Maria Mancini.100 As far as I know, these paintings have not survived. Another Bolognese artist, Felice Torelli, was tapped to paint an altarpiece depicting Saint Pius V venerating the Virgin, in 1731; this was also destroyed in the World War II bombing.101 (Torelli executed another image in which Pius V venerates Thomas Aquinas, in the company of other saints, for the Church of Saint Dominic in Reggio Emilia; this may provide an echo of the lost picture for San Domenico of Pisa.102) The altar on the north wall supported the panel of the Crucifixion with Ten Thousand Martyrs (Catalogue 10 and Figure 6.4) from the late fifteenth century. On the High Altar, according to the descriptions, was an image of Saint Dominic preaching, of unknown manufacture. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, however, the church was best known for its series of paintings on the life of the foundress.103 The painting by Tommasi on the vault of the public church demonstrated Chiara’s sanctity through a miracle that was widely witnessed by her contemporaries. This now destroyed fresco depicted the arrival at San Domenico of a miraculous crucifix. The story of this miracle does not appear in the vita written by Chiara’s contemporary, but was recorded in another sixteenth-century document from the convent, and copied from that by others.104 According to this document, in 1398, when Chiara was praying in the choir after Matins, she heard a voice that told her to go to the door, where her Spouse awaited her. Following the procedures laid down in the Rule, she took two senior sisters with her to the door, and there saw Count Galeazzo surrounded by many Pisan citizens who had a small Crucifix that they were carrying very reverently. Galeazzo reported that he was in Siena when he passed a ruined church where he saw this crucifix stuck in a window. It
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called out to him, “Carry me to San Domenico of Pisa.” Numerous citizens and retainers accompanied Count Galeozzo as he carried the crucifix to the doors of San Domenico. Chiara and her sisters accepted the crucifix and performed processions in its honor before installing it on the High Altar. The miraculous crucifix itself has been preserved by the nuns, and in fact, is still owned by the convent of San Domenico as a relic in its own right. Although this fresco was destroyed in 1944, when it was painted in the eighteenth century it served to demonstrate Chiara’s reputation for sanctity and represented a divine sign to support her candidacy for canonization. The fresco painted in 1736 stresses the public and historical manifestation of divine intervention in Chiara’s life. This miracle may also serve to affirm Chiara’s “orthodoxy of doctrine,” which is one of the criteria that must be considered in a candidate for canonization. Almost 30 years later, the nuns awarded a series of commissions to Gian Battista Tempesti who painted four canvases for the walls of the church.105 It took the sisters almost 20 years to complete the series, although they seem to have been conceived as a single program. The earliest of these canvases was finished in 1763 and hung on the north wall of the church, nearest the altar. It depicted Chiara being removed from the convent of San Martino by her brother. Next to be completed was the painting opposite this one, on the south wall of the church; it depicted the death of Chiara Gambacorta and was finished in 1766. The third canvas, completed in 1782 depicted Chiara welcoming the widow and daughters of her father’s killer into the convent. This image hung on the north wall nearest the door. The final canvas was not completed until 1802; it depicted Chiara’s exemplary service to the women of the Appiano family and other members of the community. The nuns themselves paid for the first three canvases and an unnamed friend of the convent, “Seeing that our public church lacked a picture,” paid for the remaining one.106 A Latin inscription accompanied each painting to explicate the event.107 Because of the destruction in the church in 1944, only two of the paintings survive; the Death of Chiara Gambacorta and Chiara Serving Her Sisters both hung on the south wall of the church, which collapsed in the bombing. The surviving canvases are now housed at the Palazzo Reale in Pisa. The two surviving canvases were painted some 20 years apart, but the artist must have composed them to be seen together. In the earlier painting, Chiara Removed from the Convent of San Martino by Her Brother, Tempesti depicts Chiara at the center of a whirl of figures being forced from the safety of the convent at right108 (Figure 3.18). Her arms are flung outward in a gesture of pleading as she gazes back towards the convent door. Her brother guides her away from the convent, while armed men wield spears on either side of the central figures. The nuns in the convent to the right gesture ineffectually, as they are unable to prevent Chiara’s removal from their cloister. Chiara’s brother leads her forcefully away from the convent and towards the street, where in the distance the Palazzo Gambacorti is carefully depicted. A mother with her children in the left corner hints at the future Chiara’s family forsees for her.
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3.18 Giovanni Tempesti, Chiara Gambacorta Removed from the Convent of San Martino by Her Brother, 1763
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3.19 Giovanni Tempesti, Chiara Offering Shelter to the Family of Her Father’s Murderer, 1782
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The second surviving canvas, Chiara Offering Shelter to the Family of Her Father’s Murderer, depicts Chiara at the top of a rising diagonal bathed in light, as she offers her hand and the safety of her own convent to the family members of her father’s killer109 (Figure 3.19). Her gesture is reminiscent of the gesture of her figure in the earlier canvas, but here she is more commanding and in control. Her powerful figure replaces the impotent nuns who could not prevent her brother from removing her from San Martino. Other echoes of the earlier canvas include the chaos in the streets where again men with weapons disturb the peace. San Domenico provides the sanctuary for the Appiano women that San Martino could not provide for Chiara. Zucchelli published the 1782 document recording the payment for this canvas, in which the subject is described in terms that the clerics judging the canonization processus would recognize: “Representing the Blessed Chiara Gambacorta when with an heroic act she welcomed the wife and daughters of Jacopo d’Appiano.”110 As far as I know, the composition of the third canvas in the series has not been preserved. It depicted Chiara’s charity and humilty as she served her own relations and the Appiano relatives at table.111 In so doing, Chiara demonstrates to the viewer of the image the ideals of the communal life shared inside the convent. Family quarrels and political feuds are put aside in favor of communal harmony achieved by obedience to the rule and humble service to others. The inscription accompanying this painting underscores her “charity” towards her guests. Although the final canvas, depicting Chiara’s death, was destroyed, an engraving made by Giuseppe Rossi in the early nineteenth century preserves its composition112 (Figure 3.20). This composition celebrates Chiara’s exemplary death, without complaint and in full compliance with the sacraments. The inscription makes clear that her merits and works earned her the privilege of foreknowledge of her death, which she met joyfully. In this image, one gets a glimpse of the cell of the Beata: she lies on a straw-covered pallet on the floor in a room bare of adornments, save a crucifix on the wall. Her cell had been turned into a chapel by the seventeenth century, and was used by the nuns as a place of prayer. The program of these paintings marks Chiara’s progression towards the ideal of community. The first image depicts her struggle to free herself from her natal family. The second demonstrates her magnanimity and forgiveness as she welcomes into the convent family, the relatives of those responsible for her own family’s destruction. In the third image, she shows her humility and charity as she serves members of her natal family and the Appiano family at table. Finally, she is depicted making a good death, receiving the sacraments and being heralded by putti bearing crowns. The two canvases on the north wall stressed the fortitude and charity of the foundress: her fortitude in persevering to fulfill her vocation in the face of her family’s resistance, and her charity in offering refuge to the old enemies of her natal family. Taken together, the two images celebrate the victory of the convent family over the natal family of the foundress. On the south wall, the images of Chiara’s death
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3.20 Giuseppe Rossi, Death of Chiara Gambacorta, engraving after destroyed Tempesti painting of 1766 and her humble service to the women of her house, including her family’s enemies, stress her Hope, her Charity, and her Obedience to the monastic ideal. All of these are expressed in heroic terms and with careful attention to historical details such as costume and architecture.113 The ceiling depiction of the arrival of the miraculous crucifixion affirms the orthodoxy of her faith and provides evidence of a “verifiable”
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miracle, as the convent still owned the crucifix in question. The program of the paintings in the public church amounts to a visual argument for her canonization by addressing just the criteria that the Holy See had requested for official canonization since the time of Urban VIII. This public argument for Chiara’s sainthood differs markedly from the earlier images of Chiara that still remained in the nuns’ choir from the fifteenth century. The fresco in the nuns’ choir emphasizes Chiara’s closeness to Christ and her devotion to the passion. She is presented there as an exemplar of individual behavior that the nuns could emulate to achieve a similar state of mystical union with Christ. But this criterion was suspect in the eighteenth century, and certainly not appropriate for lay people to emulate; nor did it accord with eighteenth century notions of what was appropriate feminine behavior.114 In the outer church, in the context of an effort to persuade the Curia to canonize Chiara, specific details of her life were chosen to demonstrate her fitness as a saint, according to the qualities that the Church sought in its saints in the eighteenth century. The paintings were commissioned to persuade both laity and clerics that Chiara deserved the crown of sainthood. Notes 1 The inscription reads: “mcccciiii Aprile fu il mese, preghiamo dio per chi fa le spese.” 2 For this altarpiece as a Dominican product, see Joanna Cannon, “Simone Martini, the Dominicans, and the Early Sienese Polyptych,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 45 (1982): 69–93. 3 Michael Goodich, “The Contours of Female Piety in Later Medieval Hagiography,” Church History, 50 (1981): 20–32. 4 For example, E. Ann Matter, “Mystical Marriage,” in Gabriella Zarri and Lucetta Scaraffia (eds), Women and Faith. Catholic Religious Life in Italy from Late Antiguity to the Present (Cambridge, MA, 1999), pp. 31–41 and also, The Voice of my Beloved, The Song of Songs in Western Christianity (Philadelphia, 1990); Jeffrey Hamburger, The Rothschild Canticles (New Haven and London, 1990), especially pp. 84–87; and Ruth Bartal, “Where Has Your Beloved Gone? The Staging of the Quaerere Deum on the Murals of the Cistercian Convent at Chelmno,” Word and Image, 16 (2000): 270–289. 5 For Giovanni di Pietro di Napoli, see Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (Leipzig: 1907—50), vol. 14, p. 140; Richard Offner, Italian Primitives at Yale University (New Haven, CT, 1927), p. 42; Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, Central Italian and North Italian Schools (London, 1968), vol. I, pp. 182–183. 6 For the text of Raymond of Capua’s vita of Saint Catherine of Siena, see the Acta Sanctorum (Paris: 1866), April, vol. 3, cols. 861–986. A convenient English translation is The Life of Catherine of Siena, translated and annotated by Conleth Kearns (Wilmington, DE, 1980). 7 See the examples in George Kaftal, Saint Catherine in Tuscan Painting (Oxford, 1949), pp. 46–51. 8 Meiss, Painting in Florence and Siena, 111–113, discusses a version of Catherine’s life, the Miracoli, written in 1374. The mystic marriage took place prior to 1362, that
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is, before Catherine had met either Maria Mancini or Chiara Gambacorta, which was probably in 1375 when the Sienese tertiary sojourned in Pisa. Both nuns were included on Tommaso Caffarini’s list of potential witnesses for Catherine of Siena’s canonization processus, early in the fifteenth century. See Robert Fawtier, Sainte Catherine: essai de critique des sources (Paris, 1921), p. 43. 9 See Meiss, Painting in Florence and Siena, figures 99, 100, 105, 107. 10 Ibid., p. 113, n. 33. This conclusion depends on his placing the panel around 1385, which I have argued is not likely. It must further be modified by the dating of a painting in the Museo Vetreria in Murano of Catherine of Siena’s stigmata to the 1390s by Gaudenz Freuler, in “Andrea di Bartolo, Fra Tommaso d’Antonio Caffarini, and Sienese Dominicans in Venice,” Art Bulletin, 69 (1987): 570–86. This painting, too, comes from a house of Observant Dominican women. 11 Two letters from Catherine of Siena to Chiara Gambacorta (addressed to “Monna Tora, figliola di Misser Pietro Gambacorta”) encourage the newly widowed young woman to persist in her desire to leave the secular world. The letters are published in Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 22–28. They are numbers CXCIV and CCLXII in Niccolo Tommaseo’s edition of S. Caterina da Siena: Le Lettere (Siena, 1913–1923), vol. 3, pp. 105 and 416. 12 The ceremony is described by M. Auge, in the entry, “Consecrazione delle vergine,” Dizionario degli Instituti di Perfezione (Rome, 1975), vol. 2, cols. 1613–27. 13 A.H. Thomas, “La Profession religieuse des Dominicains: formule, ceremonies, histoire,” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 39 (1969): 5–52. 14 K.J.P. Lowe, “Secular Brides and Convent Brides: Wedding Ceremonies in Italy during the Renaissance and Counter-Reformation,” in Trevor Dean and K.J.P.Lowe (eds.), Marriage in Italy, 1300–1650 (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 41–65. 15 According to the vita of Chiara written by her contemporary, the convent “fu al principio dato licentia, per velare le Suore, ma poi visto, che si poteva velare senza entrare, quello entrare fu levato: al presente ne puo ne Maestro, ne Provinciale, entrare piu d’una volta l’anno”; Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 378. 16 Lowe, “Secular Brides and Convent Brides,” pp. 60–61. 17 Images of this part of the profession ceremony may be found in Lowe, “Secular Brides and Convent Brides,” p. 55 and in Gabriella Zarri, “La Vita Religiosa tra Rinascimento e Controriforma. Sponsa Christi: Nozze Mistiche e Professionione Monastica,” in Monaca Moglie Serva Cortigiana, Sara Matthews-Grieco and Sabina Brevaglieri (eds) (Florence, 2001), pp. 103–151. 18 While I have been unable to locate a customary for San Domenico, a printed Customary from 1948 gives the following instruction for this part of the ceremony of final profession: “The celebrant then sprinkles the rings with holy water. Putting the ring on the sister’s third finger of the right hand, the celebrant says … .” From the Congregation of the Holy Cross, Diocese of Brooklyn, Customary of the Sisters of Saint Dominic (New York, 1948), p. 49. 19 It reads, “Factum fuit tempore sororis clara priorisse istius monesterii anno domini MCCCCV. Fieri fecit stefanus lapi domini lapi. Roghate deum pro eo. Iohannes Petri de neapoli pinsit.” 20 Compare this decorative pattern with that of the early fifteenth-century fresco that once stood in San Domenico in Pistoia depicting the Penitent Magdalen and a Dominican nun; Millard Meiss, The Great Age of Fresco (New York, 1970), p. 103.
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21 The likeness of this painting to a fresco has led many scholars to discuss it as a fresco transferred to canvas, but Bellini-Pietri, Catalogo del Museo Civico di Pisa, p. 134, refers to this as “uno dei pochi grandi dipinti su tela dell’epoca.” For a discussion of the relative costs and possible reasons for choosing canvas over panel, see Diane Wolfthal, The Beginnings of Netherlandish Canvas Painting (Cambridge, 1989). See also, Martin Wackernagel, The World of the Florentine Renaissance Artist, trans. Alison Luchs (Princeton, NJ, 1981), pp. 154–155. Adrian Hoch raises interesting questions about the commission of canvas and linen paintings for monastic houses, in “Pictures of Penitence from a Trecento Neapolitan Nunnery,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 61 (1998): 206–226. 22 Da Morrona’s description of the nuns’ choir of San Domenico clearly refers to this painting, Pisa Illustrata, p. 325, but his estimate of the most valuable paintings in the convent does not include it (Appendix 1, Doc. 2). The painting is described in the 1897 inventory; see Appendix 1, Doc. 5. It was transferred to the Pisan Museum in 1898. 23 R. Creytens, O.P., “Les convers des moniales dominicaines au moyen âge,” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 19 (1949): 5–48. 24 Pope-Hennessy, Fra Angelico (Ithaca, NY, 1974), plate 5; Kanter and Palladino, Fra Angelico, p. 67. 25 “Soror Joanna quae ex bonis parentibus sicut ex bono stipite, bona planta surrexit, filia enim fuit, ex Stephano nostri Monasterii converso, cuius vita dicto Monasterio suis laboribus hutile et deo gratus in conspectu eorum qui videretur devotus ex hac vita eius exitus comprobavit et ex dicta dna Margarita iugali sua idem dicti Monasterii cum dictor Stephano viro suo durante vita consortes, in claustro nostro, pro servitiis nostris, conversa permansit, deinde non passa externa distractiones cum Marta, cum Maria intra septa Monasterii nostri, conventus consensu, ad pedes Jesu partem devota consedit ... [Ioanna] demum post probatum patientiam in longa infirmitate et dura quam libentur subibat, vigesimo aetatis suae anno, ad Dominum et sponsum suum Iesum Cristum libens, et laeta volavit Anno Domini 1403 die 14 Mensis Junii et a fundatione Monasterii nostri Anno 18”; Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 397–398. 26 On whom see Chapter 6. 27 See the vita in Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 371. Sainati, Vite dei Santi pisani, p. 121, says Lapi had two daughters and that Giovanna died in 1407, but Zucchelli transcribes a contemporary source that must be taken as more trustworthy. 28 Bynum notes how both Francis and the Magdalen were associated with devotion to Christ’s toes; see “The Body of Christ in the Later Middle Ages: A Reply to Leo Steinberg,” Renaissance Quarterly, 39 (1986): 437, n. 80. On the behavior of women at occasions of mourning, see S. Strocchia, “Funerals and the Politics of Gender in Early Renaissance Florence,” in M. Migiel and J. Schiesari (eds.), Refiguring Woman. Perspectives on Gender and the Italian Renaissance (Ithaca, 1991), p. 166. 29 See Sarah Wilk, “The Cult of Mary Magdalen in Fifteenth-Century Florence and its Iconography,” Studi Medievali, ser. 3, vol. 26 (1985): 685–698. 30 According to the contemporary vita of Chiara, she first encountered Margarita and Stefano Lapi in the home of a Franciscan Tertiary, Madonna Vanuccio, where Chiara spent time serving the sick; Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 367. Whether Lapi himself was linked to the Franciscan order is unclear, but these circumstances may be connected to the iconography of the image. 31 A document in the Archivio di Stato of Pisa, Diplomatico San Domenico 147 bis., dated May 17, 1402, records this special relationship.
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32 As several scholars have pointed out, the format one sees in these images—in which a narrative theme is reduced to the bare essentials but includes representations of exemplars of the religious life—appears with great frequency in observant convents of different religious orders. For example, Charles Sterling has identified some early fifteenth-century images by Jean de Beaumetz from the Chartruese de Champmol in Dijon which reflect this approach to the image; Carthusian monks kneel at the foot of the cross in paintings intended for the cells of the brothers. See “Oeuvres retrouvées de Jean de Beaumetz, peintre de Philippe le Hardi,” Musées Royaux des Beaux Arts Bulletin, 4 (1955): 59–62. One such painting is in Cleveland, at the Cleveland Museum of Art, for which see, The Cleveland Museum of Art, European Paintings Before 1500 (Cleveland, 1974), pp. 12–15. 33 For the Fiesole fresco, see Cardile, “Fra Angelico at San Domenico,” pp. 74–78. 34 This panel in the Pinacoteca Vaticana bears the inventory number 118. It is reproduced in Cleveland Museum of Art, European Paintings Before 1500, fig. 13a. See also O. Siren, “Alcune note aggiuntive a quadri nella galleria vaticana,” L’Arte, 24 (1921): 98–99, where it is linked with Andrea Buonaiuti. 35 William Hood, “Saint Dominic’s Manners of Praying,” Art Bulletin, 68 (1986): 195–206; and Hood, Fra Angelico at San Marco (New Haven and London, 1993). 36 Henk van Os, Sienese Altarpieces, 1215–1460: Form, Content, Function, II, 1344–1460 (Groningen, 1990), pp. 35–64. 37 Giorgio Vigni, Pittura del Due e Trecento nel Museo di Pisa (Palermo, 1950), p. 70, calls her Scholastica, as does Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: North Italian Schools, vol. 1, p. 183. 38 The inscription reads: “M CCCC V dAbrile Io H … Ise Pregiamo dio … .” 39 “Anno Domini MCCCCVI Noi Monache del Monasterio di Santo Dominico abbiamo ricevuto da monna Giovanna donna che fu di Choscio Gambacorta fiorini CCC. [the document then clarifies how this sum was to be divided among monna Giovanna’s heirs, the friars minor, and the convent of San Domenico] Ancora per denari ci die quando si fe la chiesa grossa limosina e per la tavola dello altare; ci oblighamo e promettermo di darci per lle e per lli sui morti tre messe la settimana.” The document is in the Archivio di Stato of Pisa, in the Diplomatico of San Domenico. This transcription is from Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 197–198. 40 Recorded by Domenico da Peccioli in his history of the convent, published as follows by Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 88–89: “non est silentio omittendum ut rei certae notitia, transmittatur ad posteros, nec a devito gratitudinis, in quantum nobis est, per ignorantiam excusemur. Qualiter Dominus Johannes Dominicus, Monasterii et Conventus nostri valde devotus, olim referendarius in Civitate Bononiae per illustri Principe Domino Duce Mediolani ex Reliquiis B. Patris Dominici in dicta civitate existentibus, unum ex dentibus honorifice collocatum in quodam tabernaculo argenteo, ad praefatum vestrum Monasterium transmisit, quem habemus apud nos. A.D. MCCCCIII.” As Giangaleozzo died in September 1402, these events must have taken place before this date; Peccioli uses the Pisan calendar. 41 For Manno degli Agli, see Iris Origo, The Merchant of Prato, pp. 93 and 326. 42 The inscription, transcribed by Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 243, reads as follows: “Memoria dun limosina che Manno Degli Agli da Firenze lasso almonistero di san Domenico di pisa con condisione che le monache faccino dire ognianno nella loro chiesa cinque messe perlanima sua in perpetuo cio e lo di di santa maria Maddalena lo di di
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santa brigida lo di di santo johanni baptista lo di di sancto dominico lo di di sancta Maria di septembre et in quanto lassasseno questo fare lo dicto lassito lasso alla chiesa di sancta maria maggiore di firenze colla dicta a dire le dicte messe nei dicti di mori di luglio mcccci.” In writing about this stone memorial for Manno degli Agli to Francesco Datini Chiara mentions the “pietra colle parole ed arme” for which she was waiting; see her Lettere, n. 10. But the surviving tablet has no arms. Perhaps she expected the tablet to look like the one given to the convent by Simone Doria, which does include his arms. 43 Miklos Boskovits, Frühe Italienische Malerei Gemäldegalerie Berlin (Berlin, 1988), pp. 103–106. 44 For Birgitta, see the entry by M.C. Celleti in the Biblioteca Sanctorum, vol. 3, p. 530. The canonization documents have been published in Acta et Processus Canonizacionis Beate Birgitte, Isak Collijn (ed.) (Uppsala, 1924–31). For her iconography, see George Kaftal, The Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting (Florence, 1952), pp. 218–20. Less useful is Anthony Butkovich, Iconography of St. Birgitta of Sweden (Los Angeles, 1969). Birgitta is one of the saints depicted praying according to the modes of Saint Dominic in Tommaso Caffarini’s copy of his treatise on the Stigmata, now in Siena (Biblioteca Communale, Ms. T.I.2. See Freuler, ‘Andrea di Bartolo’, p. 576. 45 Carl Nordenfalk discussed a manuscript now in a private collection in Stockholm in which Birgitta is depicted with a crown at her feet to emphasize her status as “principessa di Nericia.” He assigned this manuscript to an early fifteenth-century Florentine hand, in “Saint Bridget of Sweden as Represented in Illuminated Manuscripts,” in Millard Meiss (ed.), De artibus opuscula XL: Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky (New York, 1961), pp. 371–393. 46 The Life of Birgitta written by these two men and used in the canonization hearings in the 1370s has been published in the Acta et Processus Canonizacionis Beate Birgitte. An English translation of this vita appears in Marguerite Tjader Harris (ed.), Bridget of Sweden. Life and Selected Revelations, trans. A. Ryle Kezel (New York, 1990). 47 Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 373: “li disse di Santa Brigida, et delli il libro della sua Istoria, et Ella la prese in tanta devossione, et fece la sua advocata, et da Lei ricevute molte gratie.” Jonnson takes the latin term reported in the Acta Sanctorum “vitae ejus descriptam historiam” to refer to the liturgical office of Saint Bridget which Alfonso wrote; Jonnson, “Alfonso of Jaen,” p. 65. Meanwhile, some scholars have concluded that the “official” version of Birgitta’s vita entered into the canonization hearings in 1378–80 was a redaction by the two Peters made by Alfonso; see the “Introduction” by Tore Nyberg to the English translation of the Vita edited by Tjader Harris, Bridget of Sweden, p. 16. 48 To my knowledge, no manuscript of the Revelations from San Domenico survives, but San Domenico’s sister house of Corpus Domini in Venice owned a manuscript of the Revelations (in Latin), which is now in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice, Ms. Lat. III 225. The manuscript, dated to the early 1400s, includes the following note: “Primum volumen revelacionum beate brigide monasterii corporis christi de veneciis ordinis predicatorum.” See Sancta Birgitta Revelaciones Liber I, Carl-Gustaf Undhagen (ed.) (Stockholm, 1977), p. 164. It should be remembered that these two houses exchanged books for copying, so Corpus Christi’s manuscript may have been made after a manuscript from San Domenico. 49 Mentioned by Kieckhefer, Unquiet Souls, 45–46. 50 Reported in a letter of Ser Lapo Mazzei, the notary of Francesco Datini, dated November 13, 1395: “Ben farei a dare alcuna cosa di mia mano: che so che vale quello che vi disse la
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Monaca da Pisa: ma voi non ve ne ricordate. Ella viene ora a entrare nel santo monistero di Santa Brisida, che fa messer Antonio ...”; Mazzei, Lettere, Cesare Guasti (ed.), vol. I, p. 120. See also, Hasenohr-Esnos, “Un recueil inèdit,” p. 420. 51 See Nirit Ben Aryeh Debby, “The Images of Saint Birgitta in Santa Maria Novella in Florence,” Renaissance Studies, 18 (2004): 509–526. 52 For these other images of Birgitta, see Kaftal, Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting, pp. 218–220 and Carl Nordenfalk, “Saint Bridget of Sweden as Represented in Illuminated Manuscripts,” pp. 371–393. 53 Boskovits identified the subject of this predella, the textual source for which is an eighteenth century vita of Birgitta: G. Burlamacchi, Vita della serafica madre S. Brigida di Svezia (Naples, 1709), p. 118. 54 This event is reported in the vita of Maria Mancini by Sainati, in Vite dei santi pisani, pp. 156–157. 55 Diane Cole Ahl discusses Pisa’s dedication to pilgrimage in, “Camposanto, Terra Santa: Picturing the Holy Land in Pisa,” Artibus et Historiae, 24 (2003): 95–122. 56 G. Vailati Schoenburg Waldenburg, “Le Rivelazioni di Santa Brigida Ms. I V 25/26 della Biblioteca Communale di Siena,” in G. Vailati Schoenburg Waldenburg (ed.), La Miniatura Italiana in eta Romanica e Gotica (Florence, 1979), pp. 553–574. Henk van Os finds little interest in Birgitta in Sienese art as a whole; Sienese Altarpieces, pp. 119–120. 57 Nordenfalk, “Saint Bridget of Sweden represented in Manuscripts,” p. 373; for the Morgan manuscript, see also the description in Sancta Birgitta Revelaciones Liber I, pp. 156–160. 58 Nordenfalk, “Saint Bridget of Sweden represented in Manuscripts,” fig. 9. I made these points in an essay entitled, “Chiara Gambacorta as Patroness of the Arts,” in E. Ann Matter and John Coakley (eds), Creative Women in Medieval and Early Modern Italy (Philadelphia, 1994), pp. 120–154. 59 Henrik Cornell, Iconography of the Nativity of Christ (Uppsala, 1924) and Erwin Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting (Cambridge, MA, 1953), pp. 125–127. 60 See Debby, “Images of Saint Birgitta,” for this panel. 61 For the Philadelphia panel, see Philadelphia Museum of Art, Catalogue of Italian Paintings: John G. Johnson Collection (Philadelphia, 1964), p. 58; and Frederick Antal, Florentine Painting and its Social Background (London, 1948), p. 199, where both the Philadelphia panel and the Vatican panel are assigned to Niccolo di Tommaso. 62 For the relief, see Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 238–239 and Roberto Paolo Ciardi, et al., Scultura a Pisa tra Quattro e Seicento (Pisa, 1987), pp. 17–18. 63 Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 238, suggested it may have been a stoneworker by the name of Giovanni picchia pietre, who contributed a great deal of labor to the monastery out of respect for Chiara. 64 See M. Paoli, “Un Aspetto Poco Noto della Scultura Trecentesca Pisana: La Lapide Sepolcrale con Ritratto,” Antichità Viva, 21 (1982): 38–47. For the social meanings of such tombs, see Andrew Butterfield, “Monument and Memory in Early Renaissance Florence,” in Giovanni Ciappelli and Patricia Lee Rubin (eds), Art, Memory and Family in Renaissance Florence (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 135–160. 65 The fifteenth-century vita of Chiara records the following circumstances: “La sere medesima facendo le monache entrar drento duo homini della familglia di fuori per il facessine la fasso per sotterare detto corpo. Sogne quelli entrando usati a sotterrare del
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altri non ferno la detta fossa nel luogo solito, ma in chiesa a piedo del grado del altare poche sopra dove alhora era posta la bara col corpo ...”; Pisa Archivio Capitolare, Ms. C 13, “Vita della Beata Chiara Gambacorta,” f. 39. The same text was published by Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 363–389. Bellini-Pietri, Guida di Pisa, reports that the bara was once on the pavement in the middle of the choir. 66 Cannon, “Dominican Patronage of the Arts,” p. 133. 67 Panofsky, Tomb Sculpture (New York, 1964), p. 72, fig, 306. See Richard Krautheimer, Lorenzo Ghiberti (Princeton, 1956), pp. 147–148 and Plate 75. 68 Illustrated in Pope-Hennessey‚ Fra Angelico, Plate 143. 69 Chiara’s bara may be compared with the numerous funerary monuments of the abbesses of the Benedictine convent of La Trinité in Caen; especially the tomb of Catherine de Vicomte (+1422) recorded in Jean Adhémar, “Les Tombeaux de la Collection Gaignières,” Gazette des Beaux Arts (1974), p. 190, n. 1070, or the tomb of Marie de Survie (+1434), Gazette des Beaux Arts (1976), p. 4, n. 1094. 70 See K.J.P. Lowe, “Elections of Abbesses and Notions of Identity in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Italy, with Special Reference to Venice,” Renaissance Quarterly, 54 (2001): 389–429. For Jeanne de Boubais, see Andrea Pearson, “Nuns, Images, and the Ideals of Women’s Monasticism: Two Paintings from the Cistercian Convent of Flines,” Renaissance Quarterly, 54 (2001): 1363. 71 This suggestion was made by Ciardi, Scultura a Pisa tra Quattro e Seicento (Pisa, 1987), p. 18. 72 See Paoli, “Un aspetto poco noto,” figs. 3, 5, 6, 9, 10. 73 For the sepulcher of Catherine of Siena commissioned by Raymond of Capua, see, Lidia Bianchi, “Il sepolcro di S. Caterina da Siena nella basilica di Santa Maria sopra Minerva,” in L. Bianchi (ed.), Iconografia di Santa Caterina da Siena (Rome, 1988), especially pp. 18–23. 74 This is the way that the Dominican nuns in Germany thought about their deceased sisters, according to Gertrud Lewis, By women, for women, about women: the Sisterbooks of fourteenth-century Germany (Toronto, 1996), p. 121. 75 Examples of these woodcuts are in the Lessing Rosenwald Collection in the National Gallery, Washington; for a woodcut Saint Dominic dated about 1450 which follows this format, see Richard Field, Fifteenth Century Woodcuts and Metalcuts from the National Gallery of Art Washington D.C. (Washington, D.C., 1965), catalogue n. 221. The association between such woodcuts and “pierres tombales” was made by Henri Saffrey, in “Les images populaires de saints Dominicaines à Venise au XV siécle et l’edition par Alde Manuce des Epistole de saint Catherine de Sienne,” Italia Medioevale e Umanistica, 25 (1982): 241–312. 76 See Diane Cole, “Fra Angelico; His Role in Quattrocento Painting and Problems of Chronology” (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Virginia, 1977), p. 205. 77 For a discussion of the identity of this figure, see Laurence Kanter and Pia Palladino, Fra Angelico (New York, 2005), pp. 88–90. 78 See Hood, Fra Angelico at San Marco, pp. 66–69 and Kanter and Palladino, Fra Angelico, pp. 64–72. 79 Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 377. For a discussion of the difference between the date of ingress into the houses purchased by Gambacorti, in 1382, and the canonical foundation of the community with the Bull of Foundation in 1385, see Ibid., pp. 41–49. 80 Lidia Bianchi, Iconografia di S. Caterina da Siena, pp. 23–51.
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81 I owe thanks to Gail Geiger for suggesting a relationship between Chiara’s new monument and the revival of interest in Saint Monica. 82 Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 297–298. 83 Ibid., p. 296. 84 Butterfield, ‘Monument and Memory’, pp. 144–145. 85 Ibid., pp. 148–152. 86 For Bicci di Lorenzo see Fremantle, Florentine Gothic Painters, pp. 471–482; ThiemeBecker, Allgemeines Lexicon, vol. III, col. 605. 87 For the history and current dating of these frescoes, see Anabel Thomas, Art and Piety, pp. 165–192. 88 See Hood, Fra Angelico at San Marco, p. 210, for the Virgin and Dominican saints in Crucifixion scenes in the San Marco frescoes, especially those in the clerics’ dormitory. 89 “Gesu mio, eccomi crocifissa”; see Sainati, Vite dei Santi pisani, p. 138 and Kieckhefer, Unquiet Souls, p. 45. 90 Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 95. 91 This painting is illustrated in the 1985 edition of Zucchelli, Monastero di San Domenico, on page 22. The original edition shows its location in the nuns’ choir in a photograph published on page 177. 92 Bianchi, Iconografia di S. Caterina da Siena, cats. 26–31. 93 For the architectural history of the remodeling, see Chapter 2. 94 For which see, Andre Vauchez, Sainthood in the later Middle Ages, trans. Jean Birrell (Cambridge, 1997). 95 For these procedures, see Kenneth L. Woodward, Making Saints: How the Catholic Church Determines Who Becomes a Saint, Who Doesn’t, and Why (New York, 1990), pp. 77–86; and Eric W. Kemp, Canonization and Authority in the Western Church (London, 1948). 96 On the changing criteria for sainthood, see Peter Burke, “How to be a Counter-Reformation Saint,” in The Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Italy: Essays on Perception and Communication (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 48–62. 97 Woodward, Making Saints, p. 75. 98 Ibid., pp. 225–226. 99 The same artist was paid for painting the “Macchina delle 40 ore” in 1739. The Quarantore was a devotion requiring 40 hours of continuous prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. This form of devotion began in the sixteenth century and was codified by Pope Clement XII in 1731. 100 Bellini-Pietri, Guida di Pisa, p. 252, says further images on canvas “sulle porticine all’estremo delle due pareti” depicted on right some deed of Maria Mancini; on left Chiara in conversation with Bishop Alfonso da Vadaterra. 101 Some guidebooks say this painting was by Lucia Casalini, the wife of Torelli. But in Chiara Gambacorta, p. 229, Zucchelli published a document recording that Felice Torelli was paid for this picture in 1731. It was paid for from funds of two nuns. On Felice Torelli, see Dwight Miller, “Felice Torelli, pittore bolognese,” Bolletino d’Arte, 49 (1964): 54–66 and Valter Curzi, “Due opere di Felice Torelli e Francesco Monti a Senigallia,” Paragone, 38 (1987): 42–46. Torelli worked in Pisa in 1729 at which point he painted a panel for the Duomo of Pisa; Ciardi, Settecento Pisano, pp. 380–381. 102 See Adriano Cera, La pittura bolognese del ‘700 (Milan, 1994), Torelli: n. 7.
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103 For example, Pandolfo Titi, Descrizione della Citta di Pisa per servire di guida al viaggiatore (Pisa, 1792), pp. 161–162; Alessandro da Morrona, Pisa, vol. III, p. 324; Ranieri Grassi, Descrizione Storica e Artistica di Pisa e de’ suoi contorni, vol. 3, pp. 169–171. 104 Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 104–113. 105 For Tempesti, see Marco Ciampolini, “Alcune precisazione a proposito di una biografia di Giovan Battista Tempesti,” in Roberto Paolo Ciardi, Antonio Pienlli and Cinzia Maria Sicca (eds), Pittura toscana e pittura europea nel secolo dei lumi: atti del convegno Pisa, Domus Galilaeana, 3–4 dicembre 1990 (Florence, 1993), pp. 163–185. 106 Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 226–227. 107 Inscription under Chiara Removed from the Convent by her Brother: “Quo die—Beata Clara—in ceonobitarum Virginum Divi Martini coetum—cooptatur —–ab Andrea fratre—vi atque armis erepta—domum iterum nubenda reducitur” (1762). Under Chiara Offers Shelter to the Family of her Father’s Murderer: “Parricidae ingratissimi—Jacobo ab Appiano—uxorem et filias—inclita sui victrix Clara—magnanimo exceptas osculo— sanctiori tutatur hospitio” (1782). Under Chiara Serving Guests at the Convent: “Orietta de Auria Noverca in sodalitium—et vidua gnatisque Jacobi Appiano—et Petri parentis ac fratrum peremptoris—in hospitium receptis—iis B. Clara—mira caritate famulatur” (1802). Under The Death of Chiara Gambacorta: “Praenunciata mortis hora—meritus laboribusque plena—laeta—inter filiam brachia—migravit ad Sponsum die XVII aprilis A.D. MCCCCXX” (1766). These texts all come from Ibid., pp. 226–227. 108 The painting, in oil on canvas, measures 222 × 372 cm. For this painting, see the entry in Roberto Ciardi, Da Cosimo III a Pietro Leopoldo. La pittura a Pisa nel Settecento (Pisa, 1990), cat. 62, pp. 70–71. 109 Ciardi, Da Cosimo III a Pietro Leopoldo, Cat. 63, pp. 71–72. It measures 222.4 × 372 cm. 110 Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 227: “Rappresentante la B. Chiara Gambacorta cuando con atto Eroico riceve la Moglie e Figlie di Jacopo d’Appiano … .” 111 Ciardi, Da Cosimo III a Pietro Leopoldo, p. 70. 112 Ranieri Grassi mentions the engraving by Rossi in Descrizione di Pisa, p. 171. For the engraving, see Ciardi, Da Cosimo III a Pietro Leopoldo, pp. 321–322, and cat. 124. The engraving measures 24 × 18 cm. 113 Ibid., p. 72. 114 See Karen-edis Barzman, “Sacred Imagery and the Religious Lives of Women, 1650– 1850,” in Gabriella Zarri and Lucetta Scaraffia (eds), Women and Faith. Catholic Religious Life in Italy from Late Antiquity to the Present (Cambridge, MA, 1999), pp. 238–239.
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Chapter 4
The Convent Audience During the middle years of the fifteenth century, the nuns at San Domenico commissioned works of art that related specifically to their liturgies, their ideals, and their life in community. This chapter examines a group of paintings of female and male saints from the convent that were in all likelihood intended to be seen only by the nuns themselves. The sisters interacted with these images on many levels; one aim of this chapter is to explore the meanings the convent audience drew from them. Brides of Christ and Virgin Martyrs Chiara Gambacorta’s death in 1419 signaled another phase in the history of San Domenico. Another charismatic nun, Maria Mancini succeeded her as prioress. She died in 1430, also venerated as a beata. (See Appendix 3 for the prioresses who succeeded her.) Chiara’s successors attempted to follow in the foundress’s path by carefully overseeing the convent’s resources in a time of economic uncertainty and yet continuing the work of construction and adornment of the convent. Thus work continued on the building of the new church during the 1430s and 1440s until it was finally ready for consecration in 1457. While seeing to the architecture of the convent, the community also continued to acquire works of art for their house. The works that Chiara herself had commissioned set a model for her sisters to follow. Chiara used works of art to proclaim the Dominican identity of the convent, to address liturgical needs and the bequests of donors, to encourage devotion to saints to whom she herself felt drawn, such as Birgitta of Sweden, and to provide exemplars for her sisters to follow. Her patronage of art established an iconographic and visual tradition in the convent that later generations respected and enlarged. As we have seen, among the earliest works obtained for the nuns were panels depicting Saint Catherine of Alexandria’s Mystic Marriage and Saint Catherine of Siena’s Mystic Marriage (Figures 3.1 and 3.3). Both of these images represented the saint accepting a ring from Christ in an attitude that the nuns themselves would mimic during their profession ceremonies. Other paintings obtained by the convent in the fifteenth century created a gallery of role models for the nuns. For example, guidebook descriptions of the convent describe frescoed images of Saints Agnes and Catherine on the walls of the nuns’ choir1 (Catalogue 2). These have not survived, but were probably single figures in a
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4.1 Bicci di Lorenzo (attributed), Altarpiece of Saint Eulalia, 1430s
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row. When Chiara Gambacorta died, the form of her bara implied that she had joined the community of saints. The Altarpiece of Saint Eulalia If those frescoes can no longer be seen, several panel paintings focusing on Virgin saints that once had a place in the nuns’ choir have survived. These panels are interrelated, making for a rather complex history among them, as the nuns seem to have combined and recombined a group of panel paintings into statements about the dignity and character of virginity. Of this group of panel paintings the earliest is a work attributed to Bicci di Lorenzo, probably dating to the decade of the 1430s. This panel depicts a virgin martyr identified in the inscription as “Sancta Hularia de Barzalona, vergine e martire” (Figure 4.1). Hers is an unusual cult in Italy and this appears to be the Catalan saint’s unique appearance in Tuscan art. (See Catalogue 18.) The main panel of this altarpiece depicts Eulalia as a full-length standing figure holding a Lily emblematic of her virginity and a palm emblematic of her martyrdom. Although not required by her legend, she holds a book with her left hand. Eulalia stands before a gold ground; there is no pavement or groundline to support her, which is unusual in Bicci di Lorenzo’s oeuvre. Two vignettes in the predella depict episodes from Eulalia’s martyrdom: the left scene shows her being tortured in a hot oven, while the right one depicts her decapitation. In these narratives, the saint wears the same white gown as in the main panel, making clear that she is the focus of the storiette. In the gable above, a figure of the Lord blesses with one hand and holds a book inscribed “Alpha” and “Omega.” There is an inscription in the left scene that shows the saint praying during her torture, but it does not refer to Eulalia specifically. On a scroll that curves outward from the saint is a quote from Psalm 44: “Adducentur regi virgines post eam: proximae ejus afferentur tibi.” (“After her shall virgins be brought to the king: her neighbors shall be brought to thee.”) In narrative terms, this inscription seems to have little relationship to the action of the predella and the use of Latin in this predella inscription is odd when the principal text in the main panel is in Italian. One interpretation may be that Eulalia is reciting this text as she endures the torture, praying that she may be brought before the king. At the same time, the text must be read in close proximity to the panel itself and may be addressed to the viewers in the nuns’ choir. This phrase would have been well known to the nuns who prayed before this image; not only did it form part of the Divine Office, and thus was recited at regular intervals by the nuns, it was assigned to be read during the liturgy for a Virgin saint. What is more, it is a principal element in the formula for the consecration of virgins.2 The text excerpted here says that those close to the saint “shall be brought close to thee,” which refers to the King, or Christ. The nuns must be those metaphorically close to the saint, for she is here depicted as the Bride of the King, described in
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Psalm 44, verse 11: “who stood on the right hand, in gilded clothing.” The figure of Christ in the gable raises his right hand, reminding the viewer that he is the King and the Groom. Eulalia’s sumptuous garments and the aureole of gold that surrounds her were inspired by the phrase immediately preceding the inscription on the panel: “All the glory of the King’s daughter is within in golden borders, clothed round about with varieties” (Psalm 44, 15). To read the tiny inscription, the nuns would also have to be physically close to Eulalia and to the predella. Confronted by this text, they would once again be reminded of their status as brides of Christ. Eulalia’s suffering to preserve her virginity is presented for the nuns’ emulation. It may be worth noting that the format of this altarpiece is paralleled in the bara for Chiara Gambacorta (Figure 3.13). If my reconstruction of events surrounding the exhumation and creation of the shrine for Chiara is correct, this painting would have been roughly contemporary to the fresco of Chiara at the Crucifixion and the reinstallation of the bara at its base. So the sculpted bara, created around 1420, with its slim colonnettes and crockets as framing devices may have provided a model for the format of the altarpiece of Saint Eulalia and subsequent paintings for the nuns’ choir, as we shall see. The Altarpiece of Saint Catherine/Ursula Another panel depicting a virgin saint from the convent, which likewise has a complicated history provides evidence that this visual tradition persisted in the convent. By the late eighteenth century, the Saint Eulalia panel had been joined to two other panels to form a triptych. The Eulalia panel was the left wing; a panel depicting Christ Enthroned between Martha and Mary stood at the center (about which more shortly); and a panel depicting Saint Ursula formed the right wing (Catalogue 23 and Figure 4.2). The format and size of the Saint Ursula panel corresponds very closely to the Eulalia panel: the Eulalia panel measures 198 × 68 cm; the Ursula panel 195 × 72 cm. Each depicts a full-length figure against a gold ground. An inscription on the Ursula panel reads “Sancta Orsula Regina di Bretagna” in a location on the front of the panel like that on the Eulalia picture. Three images in the predella tell her story: from left to right we see Ursula praying (in the presence of her fiancé), Ursula and her companions on a boat, going on pilgrimage to Rome, and Ursula’s martyrdom by arrow, with the heads of ten of her fellow martyrs before her. The image in the gable depicts the “Throne of Pity,” a Trinitarian pietà. If its iconography is fairly straightforward, this painting offers special challenges regarding its style. The predellas are executed in a linear, two-dimensional style that is not only different from much of the central panel, but not what one might expect of a professional hand. The figure of Ursula in the main panel wears an ornately rendered brocade that makes for a very rich, if busy, effect. She also bears a crown and halo that, along with the upper border of her cloak, are raised from the flat surface of the panel. The contours of the figure stand out against the flat gold
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4.2 Pisan Artist, Altarpiece of Saint Ursula, sixteenthcentury painting on fifteenth-century panel
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4.3 Tuscan artist, Reverse of Altarpiece of Saint Ursula in Figure 4.2 with drawing of Catherine of Alexandria, mid-fifteenth century
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surface of the field. Furthermore, Ursula’s hands and face have been painted in a smoothly modulated style that emphasizes volumes instead of contours, and which is juxtaposed incongruously with the rest of the picture. Some of the strangeness of the panel is clarified when it is studied closely. A careful look at the right predella reveals vestiges of an earlier cycle bleeding though: just visible under the surface paint is a Catherine wheel and the foreshortened figure of an angel sent to destroy it. The suspicion that this painting originally depicted St Catherine of Alexandria is confirmed by a look at the reverse of the panel (Figure 4.3), which preserves a drawing in mid-quattrocento style of a standing female saint holding a book and a palm leaf and wearing a crown. Indications of highlights for modeling and the inclusion of two different positions of the figure’s right arm suggest the artist working out the composition here, or perhaps demonstrating to the patron what the finished work would look like. From this, I suspect that the drawing was done before, not after the front was painted, and that it provides a clue to the panel’s original appearance. It thus appears that this painting is an early fifteenth-century panel of Saint Catherine of Alexandria that was remade into an image of Saint Ursula at some point after its arrival in the convent. The original panel may well have looked like the Saint Eulalia panel: each depicted a full-length standing female figure, holding a book with her left hand and a palm (and perhaps a lily) with her right hand. The frames were quite similar too. The distinctive attribute for Saint Catherine is her crown, which identifies her as a princess. The predella in this panel was probably also comparable to the Eulalia panel, originally divided into two storiette; this is suggested by the landscape elements (a tree and rocks) from the left predella which bleed into the center predella of the remade painting, indicating that the left predella was originally somewhat wider than it is now. (For a closer look at the predella see Figures 7.11 and 7.12.) When this panel was repainted, the figure of Saint Ursula followed the contours of the original image, but some of the attributes were altered to change the identity. The crown worn by Catherine was appropriate for Ursula, as were the lily and palm of the Virgin Martyr. To these attributes was added a banner with the flag of Pisa. Only the book held by Catherine—a symbol of her learning—was inappropriate to Ursula, but it was retained nonetheless. Books are important throughout the imagery at San Domenico, and are often represented in the hands of women. The repainted predella was constrained by the earlier image, too, as not only the pentimento of the Catherine wheel, but the landscape elements between the left and center predellas reveal. Saint Catherine of Alexandria was recast as Saint Ursula in this panel. The choice of subject relates also to the lives and the liturgies of the nuns of San Domenico. Ursula was an important exemplar of virginity and steadfast endurance of martyrdom whose relics the convent owned. (See Appendix 6.) She is also a saint of local importance, venerated as a protector and patron of Pisa. She is depicted here several times holding the banner of Pisa, even at the point of her martyrdom. What is more, the Dominicans in Tuscany promoted Ursula’s cult; Giordano of
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Pisa, in a sermon “for saint Ursula” describes the events from the saint’s life and closes by describing a convent dedicated to Saint Ursula in Cologne which preserved numerous relics of the saint and her companions. Ursula’s martyrdom is linked immediately to feminine monastic life in the sermon. She took a place among the other representations of Virgin saints that were installed in the nuns’ choir. The Altarpiece of Saint Catherine of Alexandria Later in the fifteenth century, the nuns at San Domenico obtained another image of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, the work of a Flemish artist known as the Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy (Catalogue 16 and Figure 4.4). Despite its Flemish origin, this altarpiece follows the same format and a similar composition to that used in the Eulalia and Ursula panels, making it a very unusual object in Netherlandish art history. (The route by which it arrived in Pisa, and the transformations it underwent after it came to the convent will be discussed in Chapters 6 and 7.) This panel celebrates the life and passion of Saint Catherine, using the visual language of Flemish naturalism to represent the saint standing in a loggia wearing a rich brocade and crown, and holding a sword and a book. She stands triumphant over the Emperor Maxentius, whose philosophers and magicians she converted to Christianity. If this pose was somewhat unusual for Italy, it was standard for Northern Europe. Beyond the saint a landscape opens up to reveal a view of the city of Bruges, as it looked around 1490; from this a date for the panel seems to fall in the last decade of the fifteenth century. Given its date and origin, the most surprising thing about this painting is its format, which is not the type of altarpiece one normally finds in the Netherlands. This altar panel includes not only the full-length figure of a saint, but also a gable and a predella. In the gable above the head of the Saint the artist has depicted an image of the Coronation of the Virgin; the Virgin in this theme has been assumed bodily into heaven, where her son welcomes her as both Mother and as Sponsa. She represents all Virgins who aspire to enter Heaven as the spouse of Christ. So the highest level of the panel points to the end to which Saint Catherine and the female viewers of this panel are striving. The predella panels treat the passion and death of Saint Catherine: she is imprisoned, tortured with the wheel, and ultimately beheaded. As she endures these trials, Catherine is given heavenly aid: while in prison, she is consoled by Christ and angels; as the wheel threatens her, it is destroyed by an angel; after she is beheaded, her body is carried by angels to Mount Sinai to be entombed. In subject and in format, this Flemish panel is a sister to the panels depicting Saints Eulalia and Ursula. It is also of a comparable size, measuring 208 × 82 cm. Thus the nuns of San Domenico owned three large images of virgin saints depicted as Sponsae Christi in rich costumes dressed to meet the King. Each of the panels has images in the predella depicting the torments that each virgin suffered before meeting her Bridegroom. Each of the saints endures her passion with humility and forbearance. The evidence indicates that all three panels were installed in the nuns’ choir, so they offered the nuns who would have seen them exemplars to follow to
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4.4 The Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy, Altarpiece of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, 1490s
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persevere as Spose di Cristo. Yet the images stress the saints’ constancy and suffering as much as their physical status. Virgin saints may have communicated mixed messages to a community like the one at San Domenico. A portion of the nuns, including its two Beate, Chiara Gambacorta and Maria Mancini, were widows, yet the nuns were expected to aspire to the ideal state of virginity. Christ himself likened the elect in paradise to “wise virgins” who were prepared when the Bridegroom arrived to meet them (Matthew 25: 1–13). This text was the gospel reading in the Dominican missal for the feast of Saint Catherine and other virgin saints, reinforcing the link between the Bride of Christ and the virginal state. The teachings of the church fathers (Jerome, Ambrose, and Chrysostem, for example) and the sermons, letters, and devotional tracts the women heard or read were designed to encourage the nuns to renounce their sexuality and model themselves after the virgin martyrs. Some early medieval nuns responded to these exhortations by undergoing self-mutilation or a horrible death to preserve their bodily integrity.3 Women in convents were constantly confronted by images both verbal and visual that reinforced the Church’s doctrine that virginity was the highest state to which a woman could aspire. The large-scale paintings and frescoes of virgin saints in the nuns’ choir at San Domenico continued this tradition. Despite the constant messages about the status of virginity, when we turn to the nuns’ own writings—such as the vita of Chiara Gambacorta, the necrology of San Domenico, the chronicle and necrology of Corpus Domini of Venice—we find that the physical virginity of the nuns seems less important to them than other measures of sanctity. An obituary of 1486 to 1503 from San Domenico, published by Zucchelli, describes the lives of 20 nuns who died during this period. Of these only five are singled out as virgins, and that only in passing. Some of the nuns who may have been virgins are not mentioned as such. The necrology of Corpus Domini describes 48 women; this document follows a formula that identifies nuns by their sexuality, and roughly half of them are noted as verzene. Most of the remaining nuns are specifically identified as widows; some cases are unclear. Distinctions of sexuality were certainly made by the women who wrote the obituaries, but such distinctions were not stressed. These women do not seem to have been as anxious over bodily integrity as the theologians were. Several historians have argued that notions of virginity changed from the earliest medieval period to the fifteenth century.4 Catherine of Siena herself, in her Dialogues, equated virginity with chastity: “There are those who … have renounced worldly riches and vanities, some in the state of virginity, some in the fragrance of continence after they have lost their virginity. These observe obedience by subjecting themselves to some other person whom they try to obey with perfect obedience until they die.”5 Among religious women, virginity could be a symbolic, as well as a physical, condition. Also striking in the obituaries from the two Italian Dominican convents is what they reveal about the women’s own priorities in their religious lives. These documents describe the women’s service and kindness to the others in the community, the fervor
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with which they said the offices or made their private devotions, their humility and obedience, or their preparation for a good death. One of the recurring themes is the women’s patient endurance of illness and physical suffering. In San Domenico’s obituary, Suor Paraclita Ricci is praised for her “miraculous patience in her suffering” and so is Suor Nicholosa Galletti, who died after a long illness, “which she suffered with patience and devotion.”6 The women’s valorization of this behavior is modeled on the virgin saints before whose images they prayed. For example, one of the nuns of Corpus Domini is described thus: “She [Suor Diamante] had a great desire for martyrdom; Saint Ursula and all her company appeared to her and revealed to her that she would be a member of that company. And in a short while she was ill from a terrible infirmity … this blessed lady always had a smiling face, with so much patience that her sisters marveled …” She was sick for seven years. The “passions” of the saints, as well as the passion of Christ, are the models for such behavior.7 The association of virginity with illness has been remarked in the visionary literature of religious women of the late Middle Ages, where we also find that “heroic” virgins are those who endure the suffering of illness. In the later middle ages, martyrdoms like Ursula’s at the hands of Huns was not likely to happen to enclosed nuns within city walls. As historians have demonstrated, religious women’s routes to martyrdom often took the form of extended fasting, sleep deprivation, the mortification of the flesh, and physical pain. Images of virgins, like Eulalia, Catherine of Alexandria, or Ursula, whether the saints are depicted in beatific calm in the central sections of altarpieces or shown being tortured or killed in predellas, present models of patience in suffering to the nuns who lived their lives in their presence. These painted virgins show the living women how to endure so that they may join the company of their spouse. Martha and Mary Magdalene Virgin Saints are not the only female exemplars who appear in images from the nuns’ choir at San Domenico; the sisters Martha and Mary play prominent roles, as well. Mary Magdalene has appeared as a figure among the images for San Domenico in the altarpiece for the high altar of the public church (Figure 3.6) and as a participant in the Crucifixion already discussed (Figure 3.15). Her importance to the Dominican liturgy, and the specific liturgical needs of San Domenico has already been noted. The Magdalene was one of the most popular of late medieval saints, as the contemporary scholarly literature on her has demonstrated quite vividly.8 Sara Mathews Grieco has argued that in the fifteenth century, the preferred aspect of the Magdalene, at least as appears from surviving images, was the emaciated prophetess, while in the late sixteenth century the preference was for images of the Magdalene as repentant courtesan.9 Two further large-scale objects from the convent further demonstrate the role this saint and her sister played in the lives of the sisters of San Domenico. Both represent departures from tradition for such representations.
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Sisters in Persuasion: The Resurrection of Lazarus The first is a large panel depicting the Resurrection of Lazarus, now in the Pisan Museum (Catalogue 9 and Figure 4.5), which probably dates from the third quarter of the fifteenth century. The painting has been little studied, as neither the artist nor the style has attracted much scholarly interest. Sometimes associated with Paolo Schiavo, the picture has also been attributed to the Master of San Miniato. The inventories make clear that it is from San Domenico and was probably there from the fifteenth century until the early nineteenth century, when it was transferred to the state. Its large-scale and horizontal format suggest it once hung on a wall, rather than having sat on an altar, but there is no indication of where in the convent it might have been placed. The iconography of this image of the Resurrection of Lazarus, however, reflects a special interest in the role of the women in this miracle and suggests that it was hung in a spot where the nuns could see it. While the theme is a frequent one in medieval art, it is not often treated separately on such a grand scale. (The panel from San Domenico is over two meters wide.) It is much more common for the Resurrection of Lazarus to be depicted as part of a narrative cycle of the life or miracles of Christ (such as Giotto’s frescoes at the Arena Chapel in Padua or Duccio’s narratives for the Maestà). A contemporary image from the workshop of Fra Angelico, the Scenes from the Life of Christ painted on the Silver Cupboard for the Sanctissima Annunziata now at the Museo di San Marco10 (Figure 4.6), offers a comparison to the Pisan image. The traditional focus of this narrative is the compelling moment when Christ calls Lazarus to “Come forth” from his grave. In most depictions of this subject the figure of Christ stands opposite the shrouded Lazarus in an implied comparison that prefigures Christ’s own resurrection, which accounts for the importance of the theme. The painting from San Domenico follows this tradition, as the words “Lazarus, come forth” (“Lazarus veni foras”) and “Unbind him” (“Solvite eum”) appear as if coming from Christ’s mouth, while Lazarus himself rises from his tomb. This composition places Christ off to one side of the composition, leaving Lazarus to occupy center stage. A group of witnesses on the right balance the group of Christ and the Apostles on the left. Several elements soften the usual confrontation between Christ and Lazarus, which is clearer in the Angelico image. In addition to a large number of witnesses to the miracle, many of whom are women in the Pisan picture, three Apostles assist Lazarus in coming out of the tomb. The two Apostles on either side of Lazarus must be Peter and John, from the traditional characteristics and physiognomies assigned to them. These two figures support the shrouded figure and enable the miracle to be viewed. But more unusual in the Pisan image is the role of Lazarus’ sisters in the event. As the gospel describes their presence at the miracle, they are often included in depictions of the theme; they appear in the versions by Giotto and Duccio and in numerous fourteenth- and fifteenth-century images.11 In Giotto’s and in the Angelican image, the two sisters kneel before Christ as they plead for their brother’s life; in the
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4.5 Tuscan Artist (Paolo Schiavo?), Resurrection of Lazarus, third quarter of fifteenth century
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4.6 Fra Angelico, Resurrection of Lazarus, from the doors of the Silver Cabinet, c.1448–1450 composition invented by Duccio and used by other Sienese artists, the Magdalene kneels before Christ, while Martha stands next to him. In the Resurrection of Lazarus by Benozzo Gozzoli in Washington, which was executed in the 1490s, the two sisters kneel off to one side of the stone cavern that serves as the tomb of Lazarus.12 These compositions make the sisters a secondary focus of the composition, to which the eye travels after the confrontation between Christ and Lazarus. By contrast, in the painting from San Domenico the two sisters appear in front of Lazarus’ tomb at the center of the composition; they are, in fact, framed by the
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marble rectangle of his sarcophagus. They are the only two figures in the foreground plane and the only figures in other than completely vertical, static postures. The black habit anachronistically worn by Martha, in vivid contrast to the bright garment and free-flowing hair of the Magdalene, also serves to attract the eye to the pair of sisters. As a result, the two women literally upstage the traditional focus of the scene on Christ and Lazarus. This interpretation of the narrative, then, stresses the successful intercession of the two sisters as well as the miracle of Lazarus’ resurrection. The painting thus illustrates the power of the women to persuade Christ to action, which is the path to power open to nuns in the cloister. The image may also be related to the specific service that cloistered nuns offer to their families and donors by praying for the deceased. For example, nuns performed processions and other rituals for those near to them. The Dominican Order prescribed a procession for the commemoration of a death for which the readings and hymns focus on Lazarus and his sisters. In the Processionarium Ordinis Fratrum Predicatorum published in Venice in 1494, the office “In commemoratione fidelium,” begins with this Hymn: “Qui Lazarum resuscitasti a monumento fetidum. Tu eis domine dona requieum et locum indulgentie …” and the reading for this ceremony (John 11: 21–27) is: Martha therefore said to Jesus: Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But now also I know that whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. Jesus saith to her: Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith to him: I know that he shall rise again, in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said to her: I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, although he be dead, shall live: And every one that liveth and believeth in me shall not die for ever. She saith to him: Yea, Lord, I have believed that thou art Christ, the Son of the living God, who art come into this world.
The text of the office highlights the role that Martha and her sister Mary played in successfully pleading for Lazarus, with the result that Christ reveals his divinity to the sisters. This text encourages nuns to persevere in their spiritual duties for the benefit of their families, even as the image highlights the role played by Lazarus’ sisters in effecting his resurrection. One might hypothesize that the painting once hung in a location in the convent where the processions for the departed faithful took place. Links with this Dominican liturgy may be found throughout the painting. Chapter 11 of John’s Gospel provides many details that the artist has used in this picture. For example, after Martha’s conversation with Christ, she seeks out her sister and sends her to plead with him: “When Mary therefore was come where Jesus was, seeing him, she fell down at his feet.” It is just this posture that the painter depicts and which is rare in earlier versions of the theme. The image also stresses the two speeches that Christ makes in the presence of the witnesses: “he cried with a loud voice: Lazarus, come forth. And presently he that had been dead came forth, bound feet and hands with winding bands. And his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus said to them: Loose him and let him go.” The painting adheres closely to the account of the miracle given by John, who appears in a prominent position in the
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composition. John is thus featured as a witness to this moment and the transcriber of the event whose version the nuns would use for their liturgy and the artist would mine for the composition of this painting. In addition to the liturgical sources, devotional literature for nuns also lays stress on the role of Martha and Mary in this event; the author of the Meditations on the Life of Christ, written for a Franciscan nun, describes this affective power of Lazarus’ sisters: “When the Lord saw His beloved in affliction, tearful and bereft of her brother, He also could not restrain His tears and cried.”13 In the gospel text, in the devotional text and in the image, Christ responds immediately to the pleas of Martha and Mary. Further details suggest that the painting reflects the interests of the nuns. Although Martha’s black garb does not appear to be a Dominican habit, its presence identifies one of the women as a nun. And the point of the painting is the power of the sisters’ joint appeal to Christ for their brother, certainly a resonant theme for the sisters in the convent. As Barbara Newman has pointed out, one of the most pressing duties of nuns was to pray for members of her family—parents, husbands, brothers—whether living or dead.14 Members of the community of nuns who owned this picture would find in Martha and Mary Magdalene potent exemplars of the kind of power their prayers could have. The Altarpiece of Christ Enthroned The two sisters appear together in another picture from San Domenico. This is the central panel from the triptych assembled from three works of art executed by different artists at different times; the eighteenth-century documents describe the three panels as part of the same altarpiece. In his description of San Domenico in 1793, Da Morrona specifically describes this altarpiece: “Conserved in the interior church of the nuns are various panel paintings. Among them we may point out a painting divided in three parts with a frame in German-gothic architecture. There is depicted the Redeemer, Saint Martha and the Magdalene, all the figures well painted and with handsome heads and there we find written, Ambrosius Astensis p. 1514.”15 In 1808, Da Morrona provided a more precise description of this altarpiece in his estimo of the most valuable pictures in the convent: “The painting on the first altar on the left of the high altar [i.e. the south wall] representing Christ with two female saints Saint Ursula on the right and Saint Ularia [Eulalia] on the left, good painting on panel—there one reads the inscription, P. Ambrosius Astenis 1514” (Appendix 1, Document 2). At the suppression of the convent, this altarpiece was confiscated by the state and set up in the museum in the Camposanto. Carlo Lasinio describes it there in 1810, although he misreads (or misremembers) the name on the inscription as “Zanobio d’Aste nell 1500” (Appendix 1, Document 4). All three parts of the triptych described by Morrona are now in the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. The center of this triptych is the panel depicting Christ Enthroned between Martha and Mary Magdalene (Catalogue 11and Figure 4.7). On the left was the
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4.7 Ambrogio d’Asti, Christ Enthroned between Martha and Mary Magdalene, 1513/14
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painting attributed to Bicci di Lorenzo depicting St Eulalia and on the right, another panel depicting St Ursula. The context of this combination of paintings is worth considering. On the one hand, the documents make clear that the picture stood in the nuns’ choir. On the other hand, the images of virgin saints that flanked the image of Christ Enthroned suggests that the nuns who placed the three paintings together saw them as a formal and iconographic unit. So an emphasis on the female saints seems to be the reason for placing the three separate images together. The painter of the central panel depicting Christ between Martha and Mary signed and dated his work. The inscription in a medallion at Christ’s feet reads “Ambrosius Astensis Pinxet 1514.” Until recently little was known about Ambrogio d’Asti, although his name suggests an origin in the Piemonte and his style suggests the influence of Ghirlandaio.16 Tanfani Centofanti suggested that Ambrogio d’Asti could be the garzone named Ambrogio who worked with Domenico Ghirlandaio painting in the tribune of the Pisan Duomo in the early 1490s. An Ambrogio di Giovanni, “Maestro dipintore,” was working on the mosaics in the Pisan duomo in 1515; the possibility exists that these documents and the inscription refer to the same painter.17 Enzo Carli, however, concluded that the Ambrogio di Giovanni working in the Pisan Duomo was “certamente diversa dall’ Ambrogio d’Asti.”18 Since then, Miria Fanucci Lovitch has published two volumes of additional extracts from documents for Pisa, and a “Master Ambrogio” appears several times between 1514 and 1519 working in and around Pisa. Here the artist is identified as “Ambrogio di Giovanni di Marco Bussa da Asti, pittore.” One entry describes a contract in which the artist undertakes “di dipingere una tavola da altare,” although not this one. (The contract specifies that four figures were to be included.)19 This Ambrogio d’ Asti would appear to have been the Ambrogio di Giovanni who worked in Ghirlandaio’s shop in the 1490s. He next appears in Pisan documents after 1510, when the siege of Pisa by Florence was lifted, so he may have had to leave Pisa during the siege as so many other artists with Florentine connections did. He is recorded in Piombino in 1518, in a receipt for an altarpiece of the Madonna with Saints Nicholas and Jerome.20 Ambrogio d’Asti’s painting depicts the seated Christ in an attitude of benediction, while two women stand behind his throne. Some authors have identified the figures on the left as the Virgin and the figure on the right as an angel anointing Christ’s head, which would certainly be an exceptional iconography.21 But as Morrona reported in the eighteenth century and Ruth Wilkins Sullivan has demonstrated, the figure anointing Christ is Mary Magdalene; the other, almost hidden behind Christ’s blessing gesture must be Martha, Mary’s sister. Not only do the predellas depict the two sisters, Martha’s veil and garment identify her as a nun. The pose and gesture of the seated Christ are rather byzantinizing; this effect is enhanced by the use of a gold ground behind the figures in the main panel. In fact, the entire composition of this panel echoes the apse mosaic executed about 1300 in the Duomo of Pisa, which depicts an enthroned Christ holding a book with the inscription “Ego Sum Lux Mundi” flanked by the Virgin on the left and John the Evanglist on the right.22 Like the mosaic, the painted figure of Christ is larger than
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the two flanking figures, is seated in a throne, bears a cruciform halo, lifts his right hand in blessing, and holds a book with his left; the principal difference between the two lies in their style, with Ambrogio d’Asti’s Christ rendered in a form more current in the early sixteenth century. The echo of the Duomo may have been intentional; most of the sisters in the house at this point were Pisan by birth (See Appendix 4 for the roster of sisters in 1510) and must have been very familiar with this powerful mosaic, yet once professed, they would never see it again. Since Ambrogio d’Asti had worked with the Ghirlandaio shop on the Duomo mosaics, he must have known the composition well. The artist here used the old-fashioned vertical format with predella and gable that we have already seen in use at the convent. Complemented by a gold ground and gothic frame, this format results in a consciously archaizing image. Like the Saint Eulalia panel, which was attached to it, and the Flemish Catherine of Alexandria panel, the painting depicts full-length figures, although this painting differs from the earlier works by including three figures instead of one. All three panels are approximately the same size, that is, about 2 meters high. (The panel depicting Christ Enthroned between Martha and Mary measures 216 × 79 cm; the Saint Catherine of Alexandria measures 208 × 82; the Saint Eulalia measures 195 × 68.) These elements must have been stipulated by the commission, for they are unlikely to have been the choice made independently by a painter working in Tuscany in 1513–14. A further link between the Eulalia panel and this one is the figure of Christ himself: the Christ at the center of Ambrogio d’Asti’s painting echoes the figure in the gable above Saint Eulalia. The nuns must have required these details of format and presentation, to maintain their visual tradition. The nuns probably also stipulated the subject of this painting. Its unusual iconography sheds further light on their concerns. The figure of the adult Christ dominates the painting; the two women stand behind him and are partially hidden by him. Christ is the physical and psychological center of the painting, as he is the focus of the composition and the object of both women’s gazes. The two saints minister to Christ as the nuns would; their proximity to Christ certainly reflects the desire of the nuns who were the audience for this image. As in the Resurrection of Lazarus panel, Martha and the Magdalene stand in for the nuns themselves. The Magdalene’s action, pouring the unguent over Christ’s head, is reported by two Evangelists (John reports the anointing of Christ’s feet) as an action worthy of remembrance: “For in pouring this ointment on my body she has done it for my burial ... wherever in the world this gospel is preached, this also that she has done shall be told in memory of her” (Matthew 26: 12–13). Certainly, the link between the anointing and Christ’s burial is made visually in this altarpiece: the vertical axis—which depicts the Pietà at top, the anointing in the center, and the Resurrection of Lazarus in the predella—depicts both the prefiguration and the death of Christ. John’s version of the event (John 12: 2) says that Martha was present when Christ was anointed at Bethany, which explains her appearance here in narrative terms. In fact it is John’s version, in which the Magdalene kneels down
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to anoint Christ’s feet while he sits at a banquet, that is most frequently depicted in the period.23 Ruth Sullivan Wilkins, who has studied the iconography of this altarpiece, concluded that it emphasizes Christ’s status as King-Messiah. Wilkins points out several elements in the imagery that are unusual: most importantly, the image depicts Mary Magdalene anointing an already enthroned king, rather than following the narrative accounts from the gospels. The association thus becomes less to death than to triumph. What is more, Mary Magdalene is here given an office that is usually reserved for a priest. Wilkins concludes that the image celebrates the dignity of women, especially nuns, and that it may have been for a chapel dedicated to the two sisters.24 As the documents show, however, the painting stood on an altar in the nuns’ choir at San Domenico, for which it was presumably commissioned. This image works less as a depiction of an event than as a static devotional image. It is in many ways a Christocentric Sacra Conversazione, with Christ in the place usually occupied by the enthroned Virgin holding the Child. By the conventions of this genre, the two women should stand in front of the enthroned Christ, mediating between the viewer and the divinity. Here, however, the attending saints stand behind Christ and the viewer has direct access to him. In fact, a distinction between a narrative and a sacra conversazione may be difficult to draw; Charles Hope has observed that in most fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century altarpieces the patron’s main concern was that specific figures be represented. He points out that historical moments may be depicted simply as a way of identifying the saint whom the patron desired to reverence.25 By this definition, the Magdalene’s act of anointing Christ may be seen as her attribute or identifying element. This choice may reflect a Dominican preference, for a Dominican missal printed in Venice in 1550 by the Giunta press illustrates the liturgy for the Magdalene’s feast with an image of the Magdalen anointing Christ.26 Nonetheless, the composition emphasizes the figure of Christ, by placing the two women behind him. The predella scenes describe selected storie of the saints’ lives. The left section depicts Christ in the House of Martha and Mary: Mary sits at Christ’s feet in the foreground, while Martha in the background places items on a table. Through a door is glimpsed the kitchen with a roaring fire in the fireplace (Figure 4.8). Christ sits on a raised chair that resembles the throne in the central panel. He uses a counting gesture to enumerate the arguments he makes to instruct Mary. The center section depicts the raising of Lazarus, where again Mary is the more visible of the two sisters (Figure 4.9). The shrouded figure of Lazarus rises from a tomb in the floor of a Renaissance style structure. The composition is carefully balanced to show Christ and the apostles on the left and a group of women, headed by the Magdalene, on the right. The right section depicts Mary again kneeling before Christ, this time in a walled garden (Figure 4.10); this would seem to refer to the Noli me tangere. Here again, Christ sits on a throne with some of the same architectural elements as the one in the main panel, including a pedestal and volutes. These two scenes are mirror images of one another with the Magdalene kneeling before the seated
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4.8 Ambrogio d’Asti, Predella of Figure 4.7: Christ in the House of Martha and Mary
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4.9 Ambrogio d’Asti, Predella of Figure 4.7: Raising of Lazarus
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4.10 Ambrogio d’Asti, Predella of Figure 4.7: Noli me tangere
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Christ. Here, however, Christ reaches over to bless the kneeling figure of Mary, in a scene that is reminiscent of images of the profession ceremony for nuns that appear in contemporary editions of Pontificals.27 This is the moment when Christ commissions Mary to inform the Apostles of the news of his resurrection, making her the apostolorum apostola.28 Thus the image draws a parallel between the nuns’ own lives and the vita apostolica.29 A small vignette in the gable depicts the Pieta; here the Virgin holds her dead Son in her lap, while an angel supports Christ’s torso and the Magdalene his feet. While the painting includes both Martha and her sister, special emphasis is laid on the Magdalene. It is she who appears closest to Christ, even holding him, in these images. One reason for the convent’s desire to have the saint featured so prominently may well be liturgical, as the nuns owned a relic of the saint. The seventeenth century description of the church by Paolo Tronci records that the convent owned a bone (an ossa) of Saint Mary Magdalene (Appendix 6). The Magdalene was a popular patron among believers of both sexes in the late Middle Ages. As a spectacularly forgiven sinner, she was a potent exemplar of the virtue of penance.30 She was also an important saint in the Dominican liturgy; her feast day of July 22 received totum duplex status as early as 1300.31 Dominican devotion to the Magdalene increased when the order took control of the church of La Madeleine at La Saint Baume in southern France, the spot associated with her hermit life. At this point, the Magdalene became a patroness of the Order.32 The Dominican order also considered her a role model for preachers: Giovanni Dominici lauded the Magdalene, Martha, and their brother Lazarus for having given up their goods and passing to “altissima poverta” in order to preach the divine word in foreign lands.33 Bishop Antoninus of Florence praised her as the “Apostle to the Apostles.”34 Rather than her preaching, however, the images here suggest that other aspects of the Magdalene’s career were most relevant to the women of San Domenico. The devotional literature of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries identifies the Magdalene as the figure of the Contemplative Life, because instead of attending to Christ’s material wants, as did Martha, she sat and listened to his words.35 In the episode depicted in the left predella, Christ tells Martha, when she complains of her sister’s attention to His words instead of actively serving Him, “Mary has chosen the better part.” These words spoken by Christ himself reinforce the value of the contemplative life led by the nuns at San Domenico. The theme of the Noli me tangere, which appears on the subject of the right predella in the altarpiece, also emphasizes the Magdalene as contemplative: her vision of Christ, whom she sees but may not yet touch, was a paradigm for medieval visionaries.36 Even the act of anointing Christ, which is the main subject of the panel, was singled out by Domenico Cavalca as a sign that Christ preferred the Contemplative Life: “And this devotion is figured in the unguents of this Maria, who signifies the contemplative life, with which we read that she anointed Christ many times, for which Christ much praised and commended her.”37
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Archbishop Antoninus identified another aspect of the Magdalene’s career that had special significance for some women. Part of her legend described her life as a prostitute before she met Christ; if so, she was no virgin. Dominicans were not comfortable with this characterization of the Magdalene; Domenico Cavalca’s Life of the Magdalene, included in his Vite dei Santi Padri, muses that while the Magdalene may have lived wantonly, she remained chaste.38 Antoninus himself acceded to this opinion, claiming that she was too rich to have been a prostitute, as was reputed.39 In the letter to a female correspondent cited above, Saint Antoninus explained that a woman who has lost her physical virginity cannot regain it, but through penitence she may acquire “mental virginity”; because the Magdalene made perfect penitence, she reacquired the crown of virginity.40 A great many women in convents, among them San Domenico, were widows; to them Antoninus offers the Magdalene as an exemplar whose loss of physical integrity was compensated by her contemplative and penitent career. It was this line of thinking that made the Magdalene the patron saint of convertite, ex-prostitutes who rejected their old lives to take the veil.41 The Magdalene was a role model for the Blessed Battista da Varano of the convent of Santa Chiaro, Camerino; in her devotional autobiography, the Vita Spiritualis, she identifies more with the Magdalene than the Virgin.42 Religious women of many orders seem also to have had special devotion to the penitent Magdalene, although one cannot be sure whether the devotion is linked to the Magdalene’s redemption of her sexual status; she appears, for example, as the special patron of the Dominican nun portrayed in the donor’s spot in a fourteenth-century fresco in the Dominican friary at Pistoia.43 It is worth noting that the convent roster of 1510 (Appendix 4) includes the names of two sisters named for the saint: Suor Magdalena di Lancilotto d’Appiano, and Suor Maria Magdalena di Anthonii di Pagno. For many reasons, the Magdalene was venerated at the convent of San Domenico. The emphasis in the painting by Ambrogio d’Asti seems to be less on the Magdalene’s penitence, than on her closeness to Christ; she is depicted five times in the altarpiece, and in each image she is either near Christ or responding directly to him. While Antoninus urged the example of the Magdalene’s penitence, the images of the Magdalene at San Domenico seems closer to the character of the Magdalene that Catherine of Siena described to the Mantellate of Siena:44 See, dearest daughters, how Magdalene knew herself, and humbled herself. With what great love she sat at our gentle Saviour’s feet. And speaking of showing him love, we surely wept after not finding him in the place where you had lain him. So, oh Magdalene, love, you were beside yourself; you had no heart, since it was buried with your dearest Master and our dear Saviour. But you took it upon yourself to find your dear Jesus. You didn’t give up, you didn’t stop grieving. How commendably you acted! For you found out that by persevering you were able to find your Master.
The principal theme and message to the nuns who were the audience for this image seems to be the Magdalene’s example as a faithful disciple, a contemplative, a persevering lover. Her behavior at Christ’s feet, at the cross, in pleading for Lazarus,
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and in seeking Christ on Easter morning are endorsed and offered up to the nuns as exemplary. This altarpiece celebrates the Magdalene’s—and to a lesser extent her sister Martha’s—role in assuring the triumph of Christ over death. Monastic Ideals These female saints served as exemplars for the convent audience of the mode of life they had chosen. Images of patient suffering, of dedication to Christ, of the special intercessory power of religious women all speak to the nuns about their role in the church and in society, and exhort the women to greater dedication to that role. Monastic iconography had long depended on the presence of such exemplars to encourage imitation in a community.45 But not every such exemplar in a convent of women had to be female. Jeffrey Hamburger has pointed out the importance of John the Evangelist as a model for religious women.46 And while Dominican women revered Saint Catherine of Siena, they also revered the founder of their order, the many male saints that the order produced, and empathetic figures like Francis of Assisi. We have already seen Francis of Assisi’s presence in an early work for the convent. Other male saints could serve as exemplars for religious women, as much as for men. Several images from San Domenico make this clear. These are panels depicting Saints Peter, John the Baptist, and Jerome. Saint Peter The inventories of 1810 describe a panel in San Domenico that depicted Saint Peter. After listing a “quadretto,” and a “quadro piccolo,” the receipt for paintings confiscated from the convent cites a “similar one with Saint Peter” (Appendix 1, Doc 3). Another inventory (Appendix 1, Doc 4) describes “a little pyramid shaped panel of the 1300s, by Orcagna, representing Saint Peter.” The Museo Nazionale di San Matteo preserves a panel that may well be the Saint Peter in question (Catalogue 21 and Figure 4.11). This small panel depicts Saint Peter at half-length holding a book and his identifying keys in a vertical rectangle that terminates in a pointed arch. It probably dates to the early years of the quattrocento at the latest. The documentation does not suggest where in the convent the panel originally stood, but its scale suggests a placement more intimate than an altarpiece in the public church. Placed before the eyes of the nuns, the panel may have served several functions. Saint Peter is, of course, a crucial saint who represents the authority of the Catholic Church and its earthly head, the Pope. Dominicans had special veneration for Saint Peter,47 and the community at San Domenico had special reason to remember their patron, Pietro Gambacorta. The image may have been paired with a similar depiction of Saint Paul, as the two foundational saints were represented in tandem often in the late Middle Ages. They appear together, for example, in the panel that stood on the altar in the nuns’ choir at the end of the nineteenth century, and that is now in the convent of the modern community of San Domenico in Pisa.48 As princeps
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4.11 Tuscan artist, Saint Peter, c.1400
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apostolorum, Peter was also a reminder to a Dominican viewer of the apostolic character of Dominican monastic life, with an emphasis on poverty, community, and allegiance to the institutional Church. Saint John the Baptist Another small panel now in the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo has been associated with San Domenico. Attibuted to Taddeo di Bartolo, this is a painting of Saint John the Baptist (Catalogue 20 and Figure 4.12). Although experts have varied their opinions about when the panel was executed, a date in the first decade of the fifteenth century seems reasonable.49 The Baptist also appears in one of the medallions of the 1404 Altarpiece from the public church, which reflects his role as one of the principal patrons of the church and the main altar; in addition, his feast day was an important anniversary of the convent, for it was on the feast of the Decollation of Saint John that the first members of the community of San Domenico entered their new convent.50 This panel was certainly not meant to dominate an altar as an altarpiece, nor does it seem to have been part of a larger altarpiece. Its small scale and self-sufficiency imply its use as a devotional panel for individual contemplation. As such, it was likely part of the adornment for the nuns’ precincts of the convent, perhaps even for one of the cells. In scale it is similar to the panels identified as cell paintings from Corpus Domini. (See Figure 1.3.)51 The painting depicts the Baptist in his hairshirt and holding a cross and a banner with the words, “Ecce Agnus Dei.” This iconography is fairly standard, yet the artist took pains to place the saint in a barren landscape that refers to his exile in the desert rather than his public ministry. For the cloistered women of San Domenico, the image emphasizes John’s role as a hermit saint, rather than as public preacher; as such, it emphasizes the contemplative, rather than the active, part of his ministry. The landscape in this panel is not only desert, it is also mountainous, with a vertical shelf of earth rising behind the figure. This detail may refer to a specific moment in the elaborated life of the Baptist, popularized in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries by Fra Domenico Cavalca, in which the saint climbs the Mount of Penitence during his exile in the desert.52 As such, the image also underscores the life of penitence that the Baptist led; Cavalca describes him mortifying his flesh, crying, and constantly meditating on the passion of Christ.53 Such activity corresponds precisely to the piety of religious women in the late Middle Ages, as described in hagiographies of the period. The penitential activities of the women of Corpus Domini in Venice, described by Bartolomea Riccoboni, reflect this ideal.54 Cavalca’s text appeared in a compendium of the lives of the desert fathers that was available in the vernacular by the mid-fourteenth century as the Volgarizzamento delle vite dei SS. Padri. As Cavalca was a Pisan by birth and a friar at the Dominican house of Santa Caterina in Pisa, it is very likely that the nuns possessed or had access to a copy of his treatise. His work is reflected in the subject of the Thebaid
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4.12 Taddeo di Bartolo (attributed), Saint John the Baptist, c.1400
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for the Camposanto of Pisa. Hermit orders of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries modeled themselves on the lives of desert saints.55 Cavalca’s characterization of the Baptist makes him an appropriate role model for the nuns; his frequent appearance in imagery for houses of religious women may result from his being held up as an exemplar to them.56 Giovanni Dominici’s surviving sermon to the nuns of Corpus Domini in Venice specifically urges the Baptist’s example of abstinence.57 The figure’s gesture and glance suggest this direct communication with the onlooker and her identification with his penitential practices. Saint Jerome Another exemplar of penitence and contemplation who figures in the imagery from the convent is Saint Jerome. While modern viewers might find it odd that such a famous misogynist should be featured in the imagery for a feminine house, one cannot forget that Jerome was an important figure in the establishment of female monasticism, and that his letters to religious women counted among the most widely circulated devotional texts in the Middle Ages.58 The picture from San Domenico is a curious composition with an uncertain authorship (Catalogue 19 and Figure 4.13). Not much studied by modern scholars, the work was assigned by Berenson to an unidentified Florentine in the wake of Masaccio;59 this would tend to date it to the second quarter of the fifteenth century. Recently the attribution of the picture has been more focused; Carli suggested that the Massaciesque elements may link it to Andrea di Giusto, who was an apprentice to Massacio when he worked at the Carmine of Pisa.60 Linda Pisani attributed it to an artist close to Priamo della Quercia, called provisionally, the “Maestro dei Santi Quirico e Giulitta.” This artist has been identified as the Pisan artist Borghese di Piero. Along with this attribution, Pisani has suggested a date c.1450–1455.61 For her part, Anabel Thomas has dated it to the late fourteenth century.62 The documents from San Domenico indicate that the picture must be the “quadretto con S. Girolamo” included in the receipt of 1810 (Appendix 1, Document 3). This painting’s original location within the convent is suggested by a notation in the 1808 inventory of the altar of Saint Jerome at one end of the first Dormitory, with a “piccolo quadro” (Appendix 1, Document 1, item 193). The trapezoidal panel is divided into three fields. At the top of the panel, the figure of Christ emerges from his sarcophagus in an abbreviated image of the Man of Sorrows. Below this devotional image are two narratives, divided from one another by a vertical bar. The left half depicts Saint Jerome in penitence in the wilderness; the right half depicts Saint Jerome in his study, with his pen in hand. The two aspects of Jerome’s career emphasized by the image are those stressed in the Dominican liturgy for the saint—his penitence and his learning—and the painting expresses the Dominican reverence for the saint.63 The Man of Sorrows was also an image that the Dominican order promulgated, so a further Dominican element may be perceived here.64
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4.13 Tuscan artist, Saint Jerome, c.1430
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The depiction of Jerome in the Wilderness underscores his role as a hermit saint and a contemplative, while the other image focuses on his scholarly work, which implies his active life. A visual balance between the contemplative and the active is suggested, while the image of Christ above keeps the viewer focused on the reasons for choosing either path. A small figure of a nun appears in the representation of the saint in his cell. Thus Jerome’s cell becomes analogous to the cells of the nuns, even as this image stood on an altar outside their cells. The picture of the solitary figure of Jerome writing and meditating was installed in the area of convent where the nuns followed their own private devotions. Its function may have also been apotropaic: Domenico Cavalca reported the story of a nun who was protected from the devil by a picture of Saint Jerome that was in her cell.65 Cavalca also stresses the long time (50 years and six months) that Jerome labored on his writings, all the while “persevering in holy virginity until the end of his life.”66 The nun depicted in Jerome’s study at such a small scale is generally thought to be the donor of this work, although there is no corroboration of this assumption.67 The identity of this nun is not provided; could she have been a donor for whom Jerome was a patron saint? In fact, a membership list of 1426 includes Gerolima Niccholai da Cascina among the community (Appendix 4). However, if this were a work commissioned privately by a member of the community it would be unusual among the surviving fifteenth-century works from San Domenico, most of which seem to have been either commissioned by the community as a whole (through the efforts of the Prioress) or by donors external to the convent. The emphasis on personal poverty and holding goods in common, which was the ideal of the community at San Domenico, might also argue against such a private commission. In such circumstances, it might be more accurate to consider this figure a type, or an exemplar, rather than a portrait of an individual donor. The nun, who is portrayed in the enclosure of Jerome’s cell, not in the wilderness, would be an example to the women of San Domenico, who would see this image before retiring and upon waking each day. Personal connections to Saint Jerome are not necessary to account for an image in his honor at a feminine convent, regardless of the order or dedication of the house. Saint Jerome was a founding father of female monasticism who encouraged the establishment of women’s communities in the early Christian period. Eugene Rice has explored the importance of Jerome to nuns in the late Middle Ages; late medieval nuns often copied Jerome’s letters to Paula and Eustochium as instructions for the contemplative life. Rice has collected several fascinating images in which nuns are shown in especial veneration of Saint Jerome. Furthermore, there was a family connection, of sorts, between the foundress of San Domenico and the order of hermits dedicated to Saint Jerome. One of Chiara’s cousins, Pietro di Gambacorta, left his natal town in 1380 and founded the “Order of Saint Jerome” (Girolimini), which gained papal approval beginning in 1421, and continued to grow in size through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.68 Rice has linked the iconography of Saint Jerome in the wilderness to the growth of these orders of hermits. At San
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Domenico, though, the image in the dormitory wing of the convent instructs the viewer about how to behave in her cell. Each cell in the convent was furnished with the items the nun would use in private; in the inventories of 1810, most of them have an armoire (armadio) or strongbox (casse), a bed, and a prie-dieu (inginocchiatoio). These are described in Appendix 1, Doc. I: especially the entries for rooms 40 and following. Their cells were equipped so that the nuns could pray individually as well as communally. Some of the cells were also equipped with work tables and writing tables (scrivanie). So even if there is no evidence that their cells were book-lined, as the room in which Saint Jerome is depicted, it appears that the two activities the Saint performs in this image corresponded to the activities that the nuns performed in their cells. The Bridegroom The inventories tell us somewhat laconically that the cells of the nuns included many “quadri” or “quadretti,” which have disappeared without a trace. (See the entries for rooms 40 to 68 in Appendix 1, Document 1.) Most of the cells also included a “crocifisso,” which was likely the focus of the individual nun’s prayers. It is likely that many of those lost “quadretti” or “stampe” depicted episodes of the life of Christ, who was the Bridegroom to whom the nuns were pledged. If we cannot examine such lost images, one image that survives offers a glimpse of an unusual image of Christ in a painting attributed to Fra Angelico or a close follower (Catalogue 7 and Figure 4.14). This image is painted on canvas; it corresponds to a painting cited in the 1810 receipt for pictures removed from the convent by Carlo Lasinio: “A Christ painted on linen, the figure life-sized” (Appendix 1, Document 3). Although it would seem to have been confiscated by the state in 1810, several writers claim that it was “found in a corner of the monastic buildings [in the nineteenth century] much injured by damp, after which it was transferred to the Museo Civico.”69 It is usually identified simply as The Redeemer, but considering the object in light of its provenance from this community of women helps to clarify aspects of both its form and its iconography. Because it is painted on canvas, it has been proposed that the painting served as a processional banner. The size of the image (it measures 193 × 78 cm) and its vertical, rectangular format is comparable to other surviving banners, as is its composition emphasizing a single, full-length figure.70 Unlike most other surviving banners of the period, however, it lacks a border design and supplicant figures; this may be a reflection of an Observant preference for simplicity. Or it may be evidence that the image served some other function. The image depicts a life-sized, frontal figure of Christ standing before a brocaded backdrop, holding a large chalice in his left hand and holding up his right hand, as if in speech or blessing. In narrative terms, such details would suggest that the painting depicts the Last Supper or the Communion of the Apostles,71 but neither table, nor Apostle, is present, and the wounds in Christ’s hands and feet tell us this Christ has
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4.14 Fra Angelico, The Redeemer, c.1450
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already resurrected after the Crucifixion. This must, then, be more a symbolic than a narrative image. In fact, the figure of Christ and the prominence of the chalice here suggest a specific liturgy: Corpus Christi.72 Instituted late in the thirteenth century, Corpus Christi is an important feast in the Dominican calendar, for which Thomas Aquinas wrote the office and whose liturgy is quite elaborate.73 The main theme of the Corpus Christi devotion is the real presence of Christ’s body and blood in the Eucharist, as the office for the feast demonstrates: “For my flesh is food indeed and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him.”74 Its secondary theme is the Eucharist as a memoria Passionis, commemorating Christ’s death and resurrection. The imagery of host and chalice abounds in the text of the office and in the images adorning manuscripts or editions of the office.75 The Angelican image responds well to this liturgy: Christ offers his blood in the chalice, while the wound visible on Christ’s right hand makes explicit the comparison between his sacrificed body and the Eucharist. But Christ is not only the sacrificial body in this image; he is also represented as a priest. The chalice he holds signifies his priesthood, as the conferring of the chalice on Saints Stephen and Lawrence is emblematic of their ordination in Angelico’s frescos in the Vatican. Such parallels may argue for a late date for this painting vis-àvis Fra Angelico, as those authorities who assign it to him place it late in his career.76 Another detail suggesting this dating is the brocade motif behind the figure, which is comparable to the frescoed brocades in Nicholas V’s chapel. Christ as the “eternal priest” is in fact the first phrase in the Dominican office for the feast of Corpus Domini.77 San Domenico’s painting represents Christ as both the substance and the provider of the Eucharist. Corpus Christi was also characterized by lavish processions in which the consecrated host was placed in a receptacle (a reliquary or monstrance) and carried out of the church and through the city. The Corpus Christi processions became important civic, as well as ecclesiastical, events, as various political and social groups vied for distinction in participating in them. Distinction was measured by proximity to the viaticum, but only priests could actually touch the host.78 Cloistered nuns, who had retired from the world, did not take part in the public processions that accompanied the feast of Corpus Christi; they stayed inside their convents and prayed or staged their own processions.79 As they could not handle the host, their processions took place without the Eucharist being present; their celebrations occurred in the absence of the Body of Christ.80 The imagery and medium of Angelico’s painting suggests it may have been used in the Corpus Christi celebrations at San Domenico, perhaps as a processional banner. If so, it was obtained for the use of the nuns in the enclosure, so its audience was the nuns themselves; it is this audience’s response to the image that should be explored. If the painting expresses the central mystery of the real presence, it also describes Christ as the priest who offers the sacrament to the women, in the absence of his earthly representatives. The Angelican image depicts Christ as both the subject
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and the object of the sacrament: he is both the giver and the given. With this image before them, the nuns could envision direct communion with their spouse. That the women of San Domenico followed the liturgy of Corpus Christi may be assumed: as Observants such careful adherence to the liturgies was their primary goal. Further confirmation of the sisters’ devotion to this cult is provided by documents from later in the century. In May of 1492 (1493 stile pisano) the nuns paid to have an altar constructed in honor of the Corpus Christi; this is probably the altar that was dedicated by a Bishop in June of the same year, and into which were placed several relics associated with Christ.81 As this altar was indulgenced for the nuns, it had to be somewhere accessible to them, probably the nuns’ choir. For this altar, the nuns record, “the figure had come from Florence ....”82 Interpreting this record is problematic: the meaning of “figura” is obscure here. Was it the design for the altar? Was it a sculpture? Another painting? The Angelican canvas? With such an altar in their choir, the nuns could contemplate the Corpus Christi at any time, and earn an indulgence of 40 days for praying at the altar during specific feasts. Such incentives would merely stimulate a devotion to the Eucharist that was widespread among religious women. A vision experienced by the Beata Maria Mancini, who was one of the founding sisters of San Domenico and the prioress of the house from 1419 until 1429/30, exemplifies the Eucharistic devotion the nuns of this convent professed throughout the century. One of Mancini’s most memorable visions occurred while she, like Chiara, was a member of the community of Santa Croce of Fossabanda; while praying one night during a terrible storm, she saw the tabernacle open and the host leave Santa Croce and fly to the new church of San Domenico escorted by numerous angels. When she cried, “Alas you are leaving Lord,” an angel told her: “You will follow him and live in this house.”83 To Maria Mancini, the host was Christ and Christ was the host. A story from the chronicle of the convent of Corpus Domini of Venice further reveals both the liturgical significance of Corpus Christi and its affective meaning for cloistered nuns. The chronicle describes a special grace given these nuns during the feast of Corpus Christi [to which, of course, their convent was dedicated] in 1397. A procession of friars entered their church and left some consecrated hosts in a chalice which was placed in a tabernacle in the public church for an entire octave (eight days). This was obviously a rare honor, and the sisters were so consoled by the constant presence of their spouse, that they kept open the window between the inner and outer church so they could gaze on the chalice.84 They prayed, cried, had visions and were completely overcome by the close proximity to the host, to which they spoke as if it were Christ himself. During vespers of the eighth day, a wind rose and toppled the chalice, spilling the hosts into the nuns’ choir and all over the sisters. The sisters were terrified and afraid to touch the consecrated hosts; “almost all began to cry mercy, beating their breasts with many tears and sighs as if they were seeing the Lord Jesus Christ dead when they saw those most holy hosts on the ground.”85 The sister serving as sacristan covered her hands to pick the hosts up and replace them
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in the chalice. To these women the hosts were Christ, and the accident was a terrible affront to him. Writing to console them after the event, Giovanni Dominici explained that Christ wanted to be nearer to them than the public church, that he wanted to make merry, talk and dance with them. Dominici assured them that Christ preferred the nuns’ processions to those made by the friars, else why would the hosts have fallen towards rather than away from the women?86 In both the women’s reactions to the accident and in Dominici’s explanation of it, the Eucharist is understood to be Christ. An emphasis on the Eucharist was a characteristic of women’s spirituality in the later Middle Ages according to many historians and historians of theology.87 Most women had limited access to the sacrament: not only were they not permitted into the priesthood to administer the sacrament, they were often limited as to how often they could take communion. It was rare that women—even cloistered nuns in the most pious convents—could take communion more frequently than once or twice a month. (The Dominican constitutions allowed for nuns to take communion 15 times per year.)88 Women responded to the Church’s restrictions on their access to the Eucharist with visions that eliminated the priest as an intermediary; women experienced Eucharistic ecstasies at the elevation of the host, rather than the taking of communion, and in many visions Christ offers the host or a chalice directly to the woman.89 Religious women’s spiritual focus on the Eucharist is documented in numerous paintings in which Christ dispenses the host directly to the nun; for example, Quirizio da Murano’s image in the Accademia of Venice‚90 or Giovanni di Paolo’s image of Saint Catherine of Siena receiving communion from Christ in the Metropolitan Museum in New York (See Figure 4.15).91 San Domenico’s canvas image, a life-sized simulacrum of Christ offering the chalice to the nuns, may be read as an analogous document: only, in this case, the living nun completes the composition. The nun’s participation in the composition is necessary to the fulfillment of its message. The circumstances by which this image was commissioned or obtained by the nuns are unknown. Therefore, any role the nuns may have had in formulating the imagery is also unknown. However, this is a unique image among works associated with Angelico or his shop, not only in its canvas support, but also in its composition.92 The earliest notice of San Domenico’s painting dates from the early nineteenth century, but there is no reason to doubt that the painting had been there since the fifteenth century. Its unusual character and its lack of impact on other artists might suggest that the object was removed from the sight of other artists shortly after its completion; this would be the case had it entered the strict cloister of San Domenico. Had the nuns commissioned it, one might expect the painting to have been in their possession before the death of Fra Angelico in 1455. Perhaps a canvas support made the image more affordable to nuns, which would suggest that the women themselves commissioned it.93 Diane Cole Ahl’s point that Angelico had no known connections in Pisa94 should be heeded, however, so the intermediary of a third party might be proposed. One possibility is that the intermediary was
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4.15 Giovanni di Paolo, The Miraculous Communion of Saint Catherine of Siena, c.1460 Antoninus of Florence, who made several donations to the convent. Alternatively, the picture may be the one mentioned as “the figure from Florence” which arrived in 1492; the painting may have been obtained from another owner in Florence, or even from San Marco itself.
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This reading of the image presupposes a feminine audience for it, but it does not exclude a different meaning for a different audience. A Dominican friar, who would likely have been a priest, would probably have seen in such an image an exemplar for his own priesthood. But for nuns, who did not have the privileged access to the sacrament that the friars did, this painting is less an exemplar for their lives, or even an illustration of a central tenet of their faith, than a life-sized image of their spouse, offering them directly the sacrament they crave and were often denied. Notes 1 Although Bellini-Pietri said they were fourteenth century, they could not have been painted before the church was built in the fifteenth century. 2 Dario Covi, The Inscription in Fifteenth Century Florentine Painting (New York and London, 1986), no. 107 and pp. 358–359. 3 See Jane Schulenberg, “Strict Active Enclosure and its Effects on Female Monastic Experience (ca. 500–1200),” in John A. Nichols and Lillian Thomas Shank (eds), Distant Echoes (Kalamazoo, MI, 1984), pp. 51–86. 4 Clarissa Atkinson, Immaculate and Powerful: Female and Sacred Image and Social Reality (Boston, 1985) and John Bugge, Virginitas: an essay in the history of a medieval ideal (The Hague, 1975). See also Franca Ela Consolino, “Female Asceticism and Monasticism in Italy from the Fourth to Eighth Centuries,” in Gabriella Zarri and Lucetta Scaraffia (eds), Women and Faith. Catholic Religious Life in Italy from Late Antiquity to the Present (Cambridge, MA, 1999), pp. 8–30. 5 Catherine of Siena, The Dialogues, trans. Suzanne Noffke (New York, 1980), p. 355. 6 Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 338, 342. 7 For the passion of Christ as models for suffering, see Peter Schmidt, “L’usage de la gravure aux XVe et XVI siècles au couvent d’Unterlinden,” in Les Dominicaines d’Unterlinden, p. 244. 8 For example, Katherine Ludwig Jansen, The Making of the Magdalen. Preaching and Popular Devotion in the Later Middle Ages (Princeton, 2000); Magdalena Carrasco, in “The Imagery of the Magdalen in Christina of Markyate’s Psalter (St Albans Psalter),” Gesta, 38 (1999): 67–80, proposes that the figure of the Magdalene played a special role in referencing both the monastic life and the life of the Anchoress Christina of Markyate. 9 Sara F. Matthews Grieco, “Models of Female Sanctity in Renaissance and CounterReformation Italy,” in Lucetta Scaraffia and Gabriella Zarri (eds), Women and Faith. Catholic Religious Life in Italy from Late Antiquity to the Present (Cambridge, MA, 1999), pp. 164–169. 10 Pope-Hennessy, Fra Angelico, pp. 216–218 and figure 44. The panels for this cupboard seem to date from the early 1450s. 11 For a convenient review of some fourteenth-century paintings, see Ruth Wilkins Sullivan, “Duccio’s Raising of Lazarus Reexamined,” Art Bulletin, 70 (1988): 374–387. For further examples of the theme, see Schiller, Iconographyof Christian Art, trans. Janet Seligman (Greenwich, CT, 1971), vol. 1, 189–194. 12 Diane Cole Ahl, Benozzo Gozzoli, pp. 198–199.
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13 Saint Bonaventure, Meditations on the Life of Christ: an Illustrated Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century, Isa Ragusa and Rosalie Green (trans. and eds) (Princeton, 1961), p. 300. The cycle of images planned for the manuscript of the Meditations published by Ragusa and Green included 14 drawings (never completed), which indicates how the gospel narrative was enlarged to expand the roles of Martha and Mary in this text written for a nun. 14 Barbara Newman, “On the Threshold of the Dead,” in From Virile Woman to Womanchrist. Studies in Medieval Religion and Literature (Philadelphia, 1995), pp. 114–115. 15 Da Morrona, Pisa Illustrata, p. 325. 16 P. d’Achiardi, “Ambrogio d’Asti,” in Thieme-Becker, Allgemeines Lexicon, I (1907): 390–391. 17 Tanfani Centofanti, Notizie di Artisti tratte dai documenti pisani, pp. 21–22. 18 Carli, “Sibille a Pisa,” Antichità Viva, 29 (1990): 8. 19 Fanucci Lovitch, Artisti a Pisa, vol. I, p. 9; vol. II, p. 12. 20 David Franklin, “Rosso Fiorentino and Jacopo V Appiani: art in Piombino in the first part of the sixteenth century,” in Pontormo e Rosso: atti del convegno di Empoli e Volterra— progetto Appiani di Piombino (Venice, 1996), pp. 292–293. 21 I. Supino, Catalogo del Museo Civico di Pisa (Pisa, 1894), p. 110; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, A History of Painting in Italy (London, 1909), vol. II, p. 471. 22 Documents demonstrate that this mosaic was executed by Francesco da Pisa; see Antonio Caleca, “Pittura nel Duecento e del Trecento a Pisa e a Lucca,” in Enrico Castelnuovo (ed.), La Pittura in Italia. Il Duecento e il Trecento (Milan, 1986), p. 243. For a good image of the mosaic, see M. Burressi and A. Caleca, Cimabue a Pisa (Pisa, 2005), p. 93. 23 Schiller, Iconography of Christian Art, vol. I, 155–160. 24 Ruth Wilkins Sullivan, “Mary Magdalen Anointing Christ’s Head: A Rare Devotional Image,” Arte Cristiana, 78 (1990): 307–24; Jansen, Making of the Magdalen, p. 194, note 91b “It is tempting to speculate that this devotional image of female authority was commissioned by the nuns themselves.” 25 Charles Hope, “Altarpieces and the Requirements of Patrons,” in Timothy Verdon and John Henderson (eds), Christianity and the Renaissance. Image and Religious Imagination in the Quattrocento (Syracuse, NY, 1990), pp. 535–571. 26 The liturgy for the Magdalen appears on folio 184. I consulted the edition preserved at the British Library (C. 52. f. 15), which has the name of a nun in the binding: Suor Zaneta Fenelosi. 27 See the Pontificale Sacrorum Ritum sacrosanctae Romane Ecclesie, published in Venice in 1520, reproduced in Sara Matthews-Grieco and Sabina Brevaglieri (eds), Monaca Moglie Serva Cortigiana: Vita e imagine delle donne tra Rinascimento e Controriforma (Florence, 2001), p. 130 fig. 36. 28 Jansen, Making of the Magdalen, p. 186. 29 Ibid., pp. 49–115. 30 See Jansen, Making of the Magdalen, pp. 199–244, on the Magdalen as a penitent; see also Carol A Farr, “Worthy Women on the Ruthwell Cross: Women as Sign in Early AngloSaxon Monasticism,” in Catherine E. Karkov et al. (eds), Insular Tradition (Albany, NY, 1997), p. 53. 31 Bonniwell, A History of the Dominican Liturgy, pp. 237–238. 32 M. LaRow, “The Iconography of Mary Magdalen: The Evolution of a Western Tradition until 1300” (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, New York University, 1982), pp. 144–148. See also Jansen, Making of the Magdalen, pp. 44–45.
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33 Giovanni Domini, Regola del Governo di Cura Famigliare, ed. Donato Salvi (Florence, 1860), p. 108. 34 In a letter to an anonymous female correspondent published as Letter VIII in the “Lettere di S. Antonino,” in Antonmaria Biscioni (ed.), Lettere di Santi e Beati Fiorentini (Florence, 1736), pp. 224–225. 35 For example, Antoninus in Ibid., pp. 224–225. 36 Elizabeth Petroff, Medieval Women’s Visionary Literature (New York, 1986), p. 11; Larow, “Iconography of Mary Magdalen,” p. 40. Jansen, Making of the Magdalen, p. 289. 37 “L’ottava si e la sua singular divozione, pero che Cristo piu se ne diletta. E questa divozione e figurata in delli unguenti de’ quali Maria, che significa la vita contemplativa, leggiamo che unse Cristo piu volte, per la qual cosa Cristo molto la lodoe e commendoe. Onde pero dan Bernardo dice: ‘Che buono e l’unguento della contrizione, lo qual si confece della memoria de’ peccati; ma molto e miglio quello della divozione, lo qual si confece per la memoria de’ beneficii’”; Quoted from “Frutti della Lingua,” in A Levasti (ed.), Mistici del Duecento e del Trecento (Milan, 1935), p. 601. 38 Domenico Cavalca, Volgazzarimento delle Vite de’ Santi Padri di frate Domenico di Cavlaca e del Prato Spirituale de Feo Belcari, ed. Basilio Puoti (Naples, 1870), vol. I, p. 131. 39 Antoninus, Letter VIII, in Biscioni, Lettere, p. 224. 40 Ibid., p. 225: “La virginita perduta o lecitamente per matrimonio, o inlecitamente fuori di matrimonio; la corporale non e possibile de racquistarla, ne la corona riservata a essa: la mentale per vera penitenzia si racquista, e cosi la corona riservata a essa. E perocche Maria Maddalena fe perfetta penitenzia, racquisto la verginita colla corona sua.” See also Jansen, Making of the Magdalen, pp. 286–294. 41 S. Cohen, “Convertite e Malmaritate: Donne irregolare e ordini religiosi nella firenze rinascimentale,” Memoria. Rivista di Storia della donna, 5 (Nov. 1982), and Jansen, Making of the Magdalen, pp. 168–196. 42 Wood, Women, Art, and Spirituality, p. 117. 43 Reproduced in M. Meiss, The Great Age of Fresco (London, 1970), p. 102, where she is identified as a tertiary, although the habit is that of a cloistered nun. 44 Catherine of Siena, The Letters of Catherine of Siena, trans. Suzanne Noffke (Binghampton NY, 1988), p. 42. 45 On monastic imagery and exemplars, see Léon Pressouyre, “St Bernard to St Francis: Monastic Ideals and Iconographic Programs in the Cloister,” Gesta, 12 (1973): 71–92 and Hood, Fra Angelico at San Marco. 46 Jeffrey Hamburger, “Brother, Bride and alter Christus: The Virginal Body of John the Evangelist in Medieval Art, Theology and Literature,” in Ursula Peters (ed.), Text und Kultur: Mittelälterliche Literatur 1150–1450. Deutsche ForschungsgemeinschaftSymposium (Stuttgart, 2001), pp. 296–328. 47 Hood, Fra Angelico at San Marco, p. 53. 48 This panel is illustrated in the 1985 edition of Zucchelli, Il Monastero di S. Domenico, 1385–1985 (Rome, 1985) on p. 103 and is described in Appendix 1, Document 5: “Tavola d’altare racchusa di eleganti decorazione di legname intagliato e dorato. Rappresenta Nostra Donna seduta, col putto in grembo circondata di Santi e Angioli, opera della fine del XV secolo tutta ridipinta rozzamente e completamente guastata. Nel gradino della medesima epoca e pur esso ritociato sone nove storiette di piccole figure. E la tavola dell’altare principale del coro monastico.”
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49 Giorgio Vigni, Pittura del Due e Trecento nel Museo di Pisa (Palermo, 1950), pp. 63–64 assigns the panel to the first decade of the fifteenth century. It bears comparison with the figure of the Baptist in a panel now in Memphis, TN, which has been dated to c.1410; Fern Rusk Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. Italian Paintings XIII–XV Centuries (London, 1966), p. 63. This peripatetic Sienese painter worked in Pisa several times in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Tanfani Centofanti, Notizie di artisti, pp. 474–475, cites documents putting Taddeo di Bartolo in Pisa from 1390–1396. Taddeo’s busy career in Siena from 1404 until his death might suggest the Baptist panel should be dated prior to his undertakings in Siena. 50 Sainati, Vite dei santi pisani, p. 130. 51 For which see, Gilbert, “Tuscan Observants and Painters in Venice,” pp. 109–120. 52 Marilyn Lavin demonstrated the extensive influence of Cavalca’s Vita of the Baptist on Tuscan painting in the fifteenth century in “Giovannino Battista: a Study in Renaissance Religious Symbolism,” Art Bulletin, 37 (1955): 85–102. 53 “Or cosi stava Giovanni nel diserto, e quando contava e quando orava e quando gridava ... quando piagneva dolorosamente per compassione del suo Maestro Giesu Cristo. Fiammai non istava ozioso nella mente, e giammai non ristava d’affaticare la mente e il corpo ... E cosi pensava tuttle le cose che dovevano essere fatte nel corpo di Giesu Cristo, e tuttle le faceva nella sua carne, selvoche quella della morte,” quoted in Lavin, “Giovannino Battista,” p. 91. 54 Suor Bartolomea Riccoboni, Life and Death in a Venetian Convent, pp. 36–37. 55 See E. Callman, “Thebaid Studies,” Antichità Viva, 14 (1975): 3–22. 56 For example, according to Neri di Bicci’s Ricordanze, a nun of the Brigittine house called the Paradiso in Florence commissioned a painting of the Assumption of the Virgin which included a scene of Saint John in the Desert. See K. Lowe, “Nuns and Choice: Artistic Decision-Making in Medicean Florence,” in Eckhart Marchand and Alison Wright (eds), With and Without the Medici: Studies in Tuscan Art and Patronage 1434–1530 (Aldershot, 1998), pp. 134–135. 57 Published in Lettere Spirituale, p. 254. For a discussion of a specifically Venetian composition in which the young Baptist is an exemplar of humility, see Brian D. Steele, “The Humblest Prophet: The Infant Baptist in Venice Ca. 1500,” Studies in Iconography, 16 (1994): 165–190. 58 Eugene Rice, Saint Jerome in the Renaissance (Baltimore, 1985). 59 Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Florentine School (New York, 1963), p. 219. 60 Carli, La Pittura a Pisa, pp. 166–167. 61 Linda Pisani, in Maria Teresa Filieri (ed.), Sumptuosa tabula picta. Pittori a Lucca tra gotico e rinascimento (Livorno, 1998), p. 394. She had suggested this attribution in “Appunti su Priamo della Quercia,” Arte Cristiana, 84 (1996): 171–186. 62 See Thomas, Art and Piety in Female Religious Communities, pp. 13–15. 63 On the Dominican devotion to Jerome see Berhard Ridderbos, Saint and Symbol. Images of Saint Jerome in early Italian Art (Groningen, 1984). The picture from San Domenico is discussed on p. 25. 64 See Henk Van Os, “The Discovery of an Early Man of Sorrows on a Dominican Triptych,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 41 (1978): 65–75. 65 In the Vita of Saint Jerome that was part of Cavalca’s Vite de’ Santi Padri (Naples, 1870) vol. 3, p. 88 and Rice, Jerome in the Renaissance, p. 59.
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66 Cavalca, Vite de’ Santi Padri, vol. 3, p. 5. 67 For example, Ridderbos, Saint and Symbol, p. 25 and similarly in Pisani, in Sumptuosa tabula picta, p. 394. 68 For these events, see Rice, Jerome in the Renaissance, p. 71 and Elisabetta Pagello, Le Maddalene: Il Monastero padovano della Congregazione del Beato Pietro da Pisa (Roma, 1998), pp. 57–59. 69 Ross, Story of Pisa, p. 267. Bellini-Pietri, Catalogo del Museo Civico, p. 144. 70 Bellini-Pietri, Catalogo del Museo Civico, p. 144. E. Jacobsen, “Das neue Museo Civico zu Pisa,” Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, 18 (1895): 100, refers to it as a “Processionsfahne.” Pope-Hennessy, Fra Angelico, p. 231, calls it a banner. Martin Wackernagel, The World of the Florentine Renaissance Artist. trans. Alison Luchs (Princeton, 1981) p. 140, note 72, calls it a banner. Compare with the banners catalogued in Francesco Santi, Gonfaloni umbri del Rinascimento (Perugia, 1976). 71 Which is how Gertrude Schiller identified it in, Iconography of Christian Art, vol. II, p. 49. 72 See W. J. O’Shea, “Corpus Christi,” in New Catholic Encyclopedia, IV (1967): 345–346. For the processions that accompanied the feast of Corpus Christi in the late middle ages, see Miri Rubin, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge, 1991), esp. pp. 243–271. 73 For the liturgy, I have consulted the Processionarium secundum ritum et morem Fratrem Praedicatorum (Venice, 1545) at the Newberry Library in Chicago. 74 Missale ad usum fratrum Predicatorum (Venice, 1590), the gospel text is John 6: 55. 75 A chalice with a host appears with the liturgy for Corpus Christi in the Processionariu[m] Ordinis Fratru[m] Predicatorum (Venice, 1494), f. xix. 76 The frescoes in the Vatican were executed from 1446 until 1447, see Pope-Hennessy, Fra Angelico, pp. 212–214; Antonella Greco, La Capella di Niccolo V del Beato Angelico (Rome, 1980); and Creighton Gilbert, “Fra Angelico’s Fresco Cycles in Rome: Their Number and Dates,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 38 (1975): 245–265. 77 The office for Corpus Christi in the Breviarium secundum ordinem sancti dominici printed in Venice in 1481 begins with an antiphon: “Sacerdos in eternum Christus dominius cum ordinem melchisedech panem et vinum obtulit.” 78 Rubin, Corpus Christi, p. 255. 79 Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, p. 360. 80 Rubin, Corpus Christi, p. 247. 81 See Chapter 2, Note 66. 82 “1493. Ricordo a di 16 di maggio feci murare l’altare del corpo di Christo e la fighura era venuta da Firenze ...”; Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 303. 83 Her vita is recounted in Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 121–128; in Mortier, Histoire des Mâitres Généraux, vol. III, p. 589; and in G. Sainati, Vite dei santi pisani, pp. 144–163. 84 The text of the chronicle uses the word “portello.” Writing the sisters about this event, Dominici uses the word “fenestrella”; Dominici, Lettere Spirituale, p. 71. 85 See Dominici, Lettere Spirituale, pp. 271–272 and the translation of the chronicle by Bornstein, in Riccoboni, Life and Death, pp. 40–41. 86 Dominici, Lettere Spirituale, pp. 71–74. 87 Carolyn Walker Bynum makes this point in Holy Feast and Holy Fast and also in ”Women Mystics and Eucharistic Devotion,” pp. 179–214.
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88 The times when nuns could receive communion are delineated in the thirteenth century Constitutions of Montargis, published by Creytens, “Les Constitutions primitives,” p. 72; the same number is prescribed in the Constitutiones Sororum Ordinis Praedicatorum (Paris, 1625), p. 8. 89 Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast, pp. 186 and 193. 90 Reproduced in Ibid., Figure 25. 91 For which see Keith Christiansen, Laurence B. Kanter and Carl Brandon Strehlke, Painting in Renaissance Siena, 1420–1500 (New York, 1988), Catalogue 38g, pp. 234– 234. 92 Vasari, Le Vite de’ più eccelenti pittori, scultori ed architettori italiani, ed. and annotated by Gaetano Milanesi, vol. II, p. 507, reported that Angelico made organ shutters for Santa Maria Novella that were also on canvas. These depicted an Annunciation; PopeHennessy, Fra Angelico, p. 237. 93 See D. Wolfthal, The Beginnings of Netherlandish Canvas Painting, pp. 154–155. 94 Diane Cole Ahl, Benozzo Gozzoli, pp. 246–247.
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Chapter 5
An Observant Identity As Dominicans, the nuns of San Domenico were committed to following the Rule of Saint Augustine, the Constitutions of the Order of Preachers, and the liturgies established for the Order. Although their gender prevented women of the Order of Preachers from fulfilling all aspects of the Order’s mission, they were an important part of the Dominican establishment. The nuns’ commitment to reform and careful observance of the Rule linked them with a powerful movement in fifteenth-century Italy, from which they found protectors and supporters like Fra Giovanni Dominici and Bishop Antoninus Pierozzi, and from which they inherited certain preferences for visual formulations and themes in works of art. This chapter explores the Dominican character of the works from San Domenico and tracks a shift in the imagery from broadly Dominican to Observant elements in them. Dominican Traditions in Works of Art for San Domenico If the altarpiece now in Pisa, attributed to Giovanni di Pietro di Napoli and Martino di Bartolomeo (Figure 3.6) sat on the high altar of the public church, one of the functions it performed there was to establish the Dominican character of the convent. The prominence of Saint Dominic in the altarpiece was one way this function was served, as was the depiction of the saints in full-length flanking the Virgin; this composition results in a static, non-narrative image of a sort the Dominican order seems especially to have preferred, exemplified by Simone Martini’s Altarpiece from the Dominican friary in Pisa, Santa Caterina.1 (Figure 3.2) William Hood has defined the tradition of Dominican high altarpieces as follows: an emphasis on Dominican iconography expressed through legible texts and geometrically related symbols rather than narrative.2 The enthroned Virgin, representing the Queen of a celestial court and the Church itself, is a special patron of the Order, and her role in the history of redemption is a recurring theme in Dominican patronage.3 The most distinctive element in San Domenico’s representation of the Virgin and Child is the Goldfinch, a symbol of the Crucifixion, as its wingspan imitates a cross. Following a common Tuscan variation on the theme, the bird pecks vigorously at Christ’s finger;4 its action reminds the viewer of the physical pain which Christ would endure during the Passion. In this way, the central image refers not only to the Incarnation, and Mary’s important role in the process of salvation, but also to the sacrifice of Christ and the Eucharistic re-enactment of it.5 A final characteristic of Dominican imagery, according to Hood’s definition, is an emphasis on the Apostolic
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character of the Order; in the 1404 altarpiece, Saint John the Evangelist, the beloved disciple, is Dominic’s opposite number. The characterization of Saint John is unusual, however; he is not depicted as the beardless youth of the Last Supper, but as a mature, bearded author, whose gravitas is unmistakable. He is both Evangelist and Apostle, and reminds the viewer of the Apostolic mission of the Order. The format chosen for this altarpiece was quite common in early fifteenth-century painting in Tuscany, especially in Siena. It accords very well with the format that has been described as the “standard Sienese altarpiece” of the early fifteenth century.6 Two comparable polyptychs from Pisa still survive in the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo: a late fourteenth-century polyptych which originated from the Benedictine nunnery of San Matteo; and the polyptych executed by the same artists responsible for San Domenico’s altarpiece for the Hospital of Santa Chiara.7 San Domenico’s polyptych is somewhat smaller and simpler than these others. This format was, however, not restricted to Siena, or to cities under Sienese sway, such as Pisa. Many Dominican altarpieces from Florence also followed or adapted this format: for example, the Strozzi altarpiece for Santa Maria Novella in Florence, finished in 1357.8 There are also several altarpieces by Fra Angelico, such as the altarpiece for the Observant friary of San Domenico of Fiesole9 and the altarpiece for the feminine convent of San Pier Martire in Florence, which employ this format (Figure 5.1). The community at San Pier Martire was established under the sponsorship of the Dominican Master General Leonardo Dati in 1420; the bulls which grant the foundation specify that the manner of life lived at this community would emulate that practiced at San Domenico of Pisa, including the strict interpretation of cloister and limited access by males into the cloister. In order to achieve this, Pope Martin V approved the transfer to the new Florentine house of two nuns of San Domenico who were expert in the observance and who had reached the ages of 50 and 35.10 The altarpiece that survives from this community was executed by Fra Angelico by at least 1429, and is now preserved in the Museo of San Marco in Florence, though its predella is now in London.11 The painting depicts the enthroned Virgin and Child flanked by four standing saints: Saints Dominic, John the Baptist, Peter Martyr, and Thomas Aquinas. Angelico’s altarpiece places the emphasis strictly on masculine saints of the Dominican order. It is only in the predella that the altarpiece from the Florentine convent depicted feminine exemplars, one of whom is dressed in the habit of a Dominican nun (Figure 3.14).12 These half-length figures of female saints flank a central section that depicts the Man of Sorrows attended by the Virgin and John the Evangelist, a formula that had been used by Simone Martini for the predella of his altarpiece for Santa Caterina of Pisa.13 Narratives that focus on the preaching and martyrdom of the titular saint occupy the upper spandrels of the altarpiece in a format that was more common in Siena than elsewhere in Tuscany. This choice may have been imposed on the young Fra Angelico by the nuns of San Pier Martire, who were the group responsible for paying the artist; if the Pisan women who had inaugurated the Florentine house were still in the community, their experience of Sienese-inspired art in Pisa may well have suggested the format.14
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5.1 Fra Angelico, Altarpiece for San Pier Martire, c.1423
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The impact of the nuns on this work may have been even greater, for the San Pier Martire altar echoes the altar from San Domenico in another detail. Like San Domenico’s altarpiece, the San Pier Martire altar depicts the Virgin and Child in larger scale than the flanking Saints. In his other work for Dominican communities which follow this scheme, such as the Fiesole, Cortona, and Perugia altarpieces, Angelico finds means to elevate the central figure of the Virgin above the flanking saints, but otherwise keeps her scale similar to her companions (as she is seated, she is still presumably larger than her standing attendants, but not to the degree visible in the San Pier Martire work). This somewhat old-fashioned device to stress the most important figure in the composition may be more than an echo of Sienese practice; it may reflect the desire of the daughters of San Domenico of Pisa to emulate an important work in their mother house.15 If so, the 1404 Altarpiece had an impact beyond the convent walls of San Domenico, through the nuns who commissioned the altarpiece of San Pier Martire. A Second Altarpiece for San Domenico The altarpiece of 1404 may have been the model for a second altarpiece that was executed for the women of San Domenico (Catalogue 13). Now dismembered, the altarpiece comprised two wings now preserved in the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo in Pisa (Figures 5.2 and 5.3) and a central section that is now in the Denver Art Museum (Figure 5.4). Although the central section was first published in 1905 as Parri Spinelli, most authorities have concurred in assigning the painting to Francesco d’Antonio, a Florentine painter active in the first half of the fifteenth century.16 Its date is less precise, but on the basis of Francesco’s other works, it likely was executed in the early years of the 1420s.17 Thus it probably was painted after Chiara Gambacorta’s death and during the prioracy of Maria Mancini. As reconstructed, this altarpiece depicts the Enthroned Virgin and Child flanked by two pairs of saints. The Christ Child, wrapped in a cloth, holds up a bird, probably a Goldfinch, who turns to peck at his finger. The Mother sits dispassionately on her throne, her body swathed in a dark blue mantle, creating quite elegant cascades of drapery across her torso. Although the throne is shadowed and foreshortened, the forms are set against a gold background, rather than in depth; the artist emphasizes the surfaces of the painting, an effect enhanced by the punched patterns in the haloes. The surface emphasis is maintained in the wings, where again the figures inhabit the front plane. The saints stand on the same fictive marble floor as the Virgin and are backed by the same gold ground. The left wing depicts two male saints, one in Dominican habit, and the other with the attributes of Saint Michael the Archangel; the right wing depicts two female saints, of whom only the rightmost figure is easily identifiable as Saint Catherine of Alexandria. For the most part, the saints wear pastel garments: Saint Michael wears a yellow tunic with a pink robe; Saint Catherine’s dress is also pink. The woman next to Catherine wears a scarlet dress with a dark blue mantle, but the mantle is lined in the same yellow as the Archangel’s
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5.2 Francesco d’Antonio (attributed), Dominican Saint and Saint Michael, 1430s
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5.3 Francesco d’Antonio (attributed), Virgin Martyr and Saint Catherine of Alexandria, 1430s
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5.4 Francesco d’Antonio (attributed), Madonna and Child with Swallow, 1430s
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tunic and his boots are the same color as this woman’s gown. Across all three parts of the altarpiece, the artist has weighted the composition with darker colors on the left and lighter colors on the right. Above the main figures a smaller drama unfolds. In a medallion above the left wing is Gabriel with hand raised as if speaking; above the right wing, the Virgin reacts to his words. The Lord appears above the central panel, holding a book inscribed with the alpha and omega and gesturing towards the Annunciate. That the triptych was conceived as a unity, and the reconstruction of the now separated sections is correct, seems clear from these observations. We have no information as to how this triptych came to San Domenico and do not know whether it was a commission by the nuns directly or by a donor as intermediary. There are no documents for its origin and no inscriptions. The triptych’s provenance from San Domenico may be linked to a generic description of panels, “with two saints on each of them” (Appendix 1, Doc. 3), and by the later catalogues of the Pisan museum. As reconstructed, the ensemble functions as a complement to the altarpiece of 1404. Among the features that suggest this is the format, complete with an overlarge figure of the Virgin. Such differences in scale do not occur in other triptychs by Francesco d’Antonio, such as his paintings in Cambridge and Grenoble. Also similar to the 1404 picture are the medallions above the wings and the arcade separating the flanking saints. Zeri remarked on the lack of cusping in Francesco d’Antonio’s altarpiece, which is also apparent in the Giovanni di Pietro di Napoli altarpiece. They share a similar arrangement of figures across the surface, with similar color schemes (pinks yellow, and scarlet alternating with darker colors); and even share a detail like the bird biting the Christ Child’s finger. Francesco d’Antonio’s altarpiece is smaller than the earlier triptych and overall more modestly conceived; it apparently did not have quite the same lavish carving or gilding as the 1404 altarpiece and, as far as is known, had no predella. The original frame is gone, however, and the aspect of the whole work is hard to assess. The paintings also complement each other in the choice of saints; except, of course, for the Virgin and Child, no saint is repeated between them. Like the earlier altarpiece, this painting flanks the Virgin and Child with two male and two female saints, only this time the men occupy the portion of the altarpiece to the viewer’s left, and the women occupy the sections on the viewer’s right. This layout corresponds to contemporary practice in secular visual culture, as for example, in heraldic conventions, and has the effect of privileging the male saints.18 Each figure holds some sort of attribute, but gender distinctions can be noted here as well. The women brandish the palms that identify them as martyrs; beneath the circular image of the Virgin being overtaken by the Holy Spirit at the Annunciation are images of other women to whose bodies something was done and who passively accept their fates. Beneath the announcing figure of Gabriel, the two men wield instruments of action, in the form of Michael’s sword and the cross that is held by the Dominican.
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But the identities of only two of the saints on Francesco d’Antonio’s altarpiece are straightforward: the Archangel Michael standing atop a dragon (as he does in Orcagna’s Strozzi altarpiece for Santa Maria Novella in Florence, whose general figure he emulates) and Saint Catherine of Alexandria standing next to her wheel. The Archangel stands atop the defeated dragon closest to the Mother and Child; this evokes the theme of the Woman of the Apocalypse (Revelations XII), an eschatological theme of daily importance to the religious. Devotion to Saint Michael has a long history in monastic art. If the altarpiece was executed during the decade of the 1420s, as most authorities seem to believe, the influence of the then prioress, Maria Mancini—whose visions were full of angelic messengers—may be partly responsible for the prominence of the Archangel. The presence of Saint Catherine of Alexandria is likely a reflection of the devotion of the Dominican Order to this saint, both martyr and princess, who was renowned for her learning and oratory. The other female saint in the altarpiece is more difficult to identify. She holds a palm and is bare-headed, so she must be a Virgin Martyr. She also holds a book, but this provides little help in narrowing her identity. Even where not appropriate, the images from San Domenico put books in the hands of women. The list of relics from the convent indicates that the nuns held relics of several early Christian virgin saints, including Agatha, Agnes, Barbara, Cecilia, Lucy, and Margaret. Each of these saints has a well-established iconography that does not appear here. Catherine of Alexandria was frequently paired with Saint Barbara, as the two saints symbolized the contemplative and the active life; but the identifying detail of a tower is missing from this figure. She may also be meant to represent Saint Ursula, whose numerous companions in martyrdom supplied large numbers of relics for the altars of late medieval churches. Yet Ursula’s iconography usually calls for a crown (she was a princess), sometimes calls for an arrow and does not call for a book.19 By the late fourteenth century Ursula was revered as a patron saint and protector of Pisa, in which guise she appears in a fascinating painting from the church of San Paolo al Ripa d’Arno now in the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo.20 A certain symmetry could also be envisioned in the pairing of two princess martyrs, though the lack of a crown for this figure probably argues against such an interpretation. Another possibility is that she is meant to be Saint Thecla, the early Christian martyr who was converted by Saint Paul and is one of the few women allowed to preach; a figure of Thecla on the façade of the Duomo of Milan also depicts her holding a book and a palm.21 There could be an iconographic logic to having Saint Catherine paired with Saint Thecla, as both women were renowned for preaching. And for the women of the Order of Preachers, Thecla may be an attractive exemplar. In the early sixteenth century, at least one of the nuns at San Domenico took Thecla as her name in religion, so the veneration of this virgin martyr had currency in the period.22 Nonetheless, the identity of this figure remains uncertain. The Dominican friar in this altarpiece is equally mysterious; several authors have referred to him as Dominic,23 but this is certainly not the case. Not only does he not carry Dominic’s usual attributes, his halo distinguishes him from the other saints in
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the altarpiece; the other saints bear fully worked haloes, but his halo is composed of radiating lines that surround his head, a convention which the hierarchically sensitive Dominicans, especially, used to distinguish a Beato. If this man is not canonized, then he cannot be either Peter Martyr or Thomas Aquinas, whose iconographies differ from this figure in any case. Who might he be? Dominic, Peter Martyr and Aquinas are the only figures that the Dominican Constitutions required a Dominican house to represent, and they are the most ubiquitous Dominican saints, but none of them would suit this image. That this Dominican is not canonized opens up the possible candidates. Tuscan Dominicans made a practice of representing Dominican brethren in the guise of Beati as in the Panel of the Dominican Effigies in Santa Maria Novella in Florence or in the predella to the altarpiece of San Domenico of Fiesole executed in the 1420s by Fra Angelico and now in the National Gallery of London.24 Perhaps the iconography of Angelico’s 26 assembled Beati (Figures 5.5 and 5.6) may help identify the mysterious Dominican in San Domenico’s contemporaneous picture. The unnamed Dominican friar from San Domenico holds a book filled with nonsensical scribbling and, in the other hand, a golden cross. One convention of depicting saints is to represent the author of a text holding a book; in the 1404 altarpiece, the book held by Saint John the Evangelist symbolizes his identity as author of one of the gospels; Thomas Aquinas’ book in Fra Angelico’s San Pier Martire altarpiece refers to his prodigious literary output. Another convention may be at work here, however; the Dominican friar in Francesco d’Antonio’s altarpiece supports the book with covered hands. Such a gesture is done out of respect for the object being held, and would not be appropriate for one’s own writing. Where Dominicans constantly are represented with books in hand, those hands are usually directly on the book. One exception to this rule that comes immediately to mind is the image of Saint Dominic in the altarpiece for San Domenico of Fiesole by Fra Angelico, in which the saint holds his identifying Lily and a book with covered hands.25 As Dominic left no large body of writing, not even a Rule, when he is represented holding a text, it is taken from scripture or the Rule of Saint Augustine, not from his own pen. Such is the case in the Saint Dominic altarpiece in Pisa, by Francesco Traini, in which Dominic’s text is from Psalm 34.26 Such a convention suggests that the mysterious friar may not be an author, but a reader of scripture; he may be an exemplar of the contemplative life, paired here with the active Archangel, but complementing his opposite number, Catherine of Alexandria. Perhaps his other attribute, a cross, may provide the key to his identification. The only Beato on Angelico’s Fiesole predella to hold a cross is Beato Marcolino Amanni of Forli, who died in 1397. Marcolino da Forli was not an eloquent preacher, preferring individual prayer in his cell, where he was reputed to speak with saints. His strict observance of the rule, however, made him an object of admiration among the reformers in the Order, including Giovanni Dominici who wrote his vita, and Raymond of Capua, both of whom may have encouraged his veneration at San Domenico.27 In Angelico’s predella (Figure 5.6), however, he also holds three nails,
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which the figure in San Domenico’s painting does not.28 Nonetheless, there is hardly a standardized iconography for this man, so perhaps he should not be ruled out altogether. Perhaps one should entertain the possibility that Dominici himself may be the figure represented. He died in 1419, and although he was not officially entered on the canonization lists until the nineteenth century, he was venerated as a Beato by his brothers in the Observance, and is painted as such by Angelico in the Chapter House of San Marco and elsewhere in Dominican convents.29 The only evidence for this identification, however, would be physiognomic similarities between Angelico’s representation and the figure on this altarpiece; such evidence is exceedingly subjective and unpersuasive. Furthermore, Dominici was a cardinal, and when he is depicted elsewhere he wears the robes and hat of a cardinal. Yet another possible identity for this figure is Vincent Ferrer, the charismatic preacher and author who died just before Chiara Gambacorta in April 1419.30 Canonization proceedings for the friar were begun in 1453, the official vita was written in 1455, and he was canonized in June of 1455. The timing of these circumstances would make it unlikely that the nuns of San Domenico would have commissioned an altarpiece honoring him in the first half of the 1420s, although his cult was adopted at San Domenico in time for him to appear in another painting executed for the refectory in the 1480s, to be discussed below. Nor does the representation fit his usual iconography: because of his powerful oratory, Dominicans associated him with fire, and a ball of fire is his attribute in Angelico’s Fiesole predella. In place of these more familiar Dominican Beati, I propose another candidate for this figure, one who would have had closer connections to San Domenico: Beato Giordano of Pisa. Giordano da Rivalto (da Pisa) was a fourteenth-century friar affiliated with Santa Caterina of Pisa, who was famous for his effective preaching. Collections of his sermons were copied throughout the fifteenth century; nuns copied some of the surviving manuscripts of his sermons.31 Although he died in Piacenza in 1311, his body was carried back to Pisa and buried in a sarcophagus in Santa Caterina, demonstrating his importance to the city, which celebrated him as a Beato immediately.32 (He appears among the assembled Beati in Figure 5.5 as the friar at the left of the middle row, holding a skull.) To feature him in a painting for San Domenico would have been an act of homage for a local saint, and a gesture of respect towards the priory that served the nuns. An even closer connection exists between San Domenico and Giordano of Pisa, in the person of Domenico da Peccioli, a friar of Santa Caterina who was the first confessor of San Domenico. Peccioli wrote a chronicle for Santa Caterina, which gives special emphasis to Giordano as both a preacher and as a champion of reform.33 Furthermore, Peccioli says that when Giordano was preaching, a reddish cross appeared on his brow, as a sign of his holiness.34 The local connection, the admiration of Domenico da Peccioli, the latter’s description of the preacher’s mode of preaching all converge to suggest that this may be an early image of the Pisan
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5.5 Fra Angelico, Eighteen Dominican Beati. Portion of the Predella from the Fiesole Altarpiece, c.1421
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5.6 Fra Angelico, Eighteen Dominican Beati. Portion of the Predella from the Fiesole Altarpiece, c.1421
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preacher.35 Although we don’t know when it was acquired, the convent of San Domenico owned a relic of Giordano by the early twentieth century.36 The altarpiece by Francesco d’Antonio shares many features with the altarpiece by Giovanni di Pietro di Napoli; even though distant by some twenty years, the two objects destined for the same institution seem to intersect. The similarity of formats and iconographies in both works suggest that they were intended to complement one another; perhaps they were intended to stand near one another in the public church of the convent. Alternatively, perhaps one was destined for the inner church as an echo of the altarpiece in the outer church. A third possibility is that this echo of the high altar was meant for the chapel of the Virgin in the Dormitory (see Appendix 1: Document One, Room XII), at which the night office would be said, corresponding to the function of the fresco in the Dormitory hall at San Marco.37 At any rate, it seems that the nuns exercised control over the content, format, and style of the work by Francesco d’Antonio, to the extent that the artist followed old-fashioned forms (not usual in his oeuvre) in this work for the convent. It may also be significant that the artist at work here is a Florentine, revealing both the paucity of local Pisan talent in the mid-quattrocento and also the freedom of Florentine artists to work in the Florentine-dominated town. We may also see in this altarpiece another example of a Dominican tradition of altarpieces in hierarchical compositions of individual saints rather than extensive narrative imagery. From Dominican to Observant: Echoes of San Marco San Domenico helped to inaugurate the reform of monastic life known as the Observance, which became one of the most important religious phenomena of the fifteenth century. Nonetheless, the political and administrative history of the Observant movement reflects the tensions that the movement engendered. While Observant friaries and convents appealed strongly to the laity, who made them the object of much almsgiving, the internal relations between the observant and more relaxed conventual houses were often strained. Reformers wanted to link the friaries devoted to the Observance—houses in Venice, Lombardy, Tuscany, Umbria, and elsewhere in central Italy—not only by a common ideal, but also by an administrative structure. The Dominican order had traditionally governed their houses by geographical units (provinces) under the governorship of a Provincial, with the Master General at the top of the hierarchy. But the coming of the reform movement under Raymond of Capua created another administrative structure that conflicted with the geographic divisions within the order. Regardless of their geography, the houses devoted to the Observance were grouped together into a congregation under the leadership of a Vicar General, infringing on the authorities of the Provincials, who resisted the institution of this new structure. Raymond of Capua appointed Giovanni Dominici as Vicar General of the reformed Dominican houses in Italy in 1393, but his authority as such was challenged on the death of the Master General in 1399. Subsequent Masters General varied in their
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attitudes towards an independent congregation of reformed houses. Leonardo Dati supported a separate vicariate for all the reformed convents of Italy, but could not get such a structure approved. Instead a “Tuscan Congregation” of reformed houses was created by 1424, of which Fra Antoninus Pierozzi was vicar until at least 1436. By 1437, a “society” of reformed friaries, was formed, which finally achieved the status of a “Congregation” by Papal sanction in 1459, after much dissent and disagreement within the Order.38 San Marco of Florence joined the “Lombard Congregation” in 1459. Despite the kinship of purpose between the nuns of San Domenico of Pisa and the Observant friaries of their order, the structure of the Dominican order did not allow for their inclusion in the Lombard Congregation when it was finally approved. Each Dominican convent of women was dependent for spiritual guidance and care on the local friary. For San Domenico, the cura monialium fell to the friary of Santa Caterina of Pisa, a convent with a distinguished history and individual friars favorable to reform, but a house that stubbornly resisted reform through most of the fifteenth century.39 While specific Observant friars might make donations to San Domenico, as did Fra Bartolomeo Lapacci dei Rimbertini at his profession at San Domenico of Cortona in 1417,40 the conventual friars of Santa Caterina were the women’s primary contact and governors. The fact of their gender made the nuns anomalous: spiritually, they belonged to the Observant branch of the order, but administratively, they were part of the Roman province along with Santa Caterina. They could not, as did the nuns of the Florentine convent of San Jacopo of Ripoli, choose to switch their care from a conventual house [Santa Maria Novella] to an Observant friary [San Marco],41 because there was no Observant friary in their city. For women, geographic proximity trumped institutional identity. This situation changed late in the fifteenth century. In 1488, the friars of Santa Caterina joined the Observant branch of the Dominican Order in Italy, the Lombard Congregation.42 Among the parties interested in effecting this reform was Lorenzo de’ Medici, who was also a patron of San Domenico.43 To effect the reform, about 20 friars came from San Marco in Florence, also then part of the Lombard Congregation, to Santa Caterina in August 1488, and the unreformed friars were removed.44 The impact of this change was felt immediately at San Domenico; according to documents from the convent, the “frati di San Marco” took over the government of San Domenico in September 1488.45 The connection between the friars from San Marco and San Domenico was still in force in 1491, when the records of San Domenico record their relationship with the “frati e Padri nostri di Santa Caterina.”46 During this period, sometime in 1491–92, Savonarola himself, then the prior of San Marco, came to Pisa to preach.47 This chronology reveals that at the end of the 1480s, the convent of San Domenico finally belonged both culturally and administratively to the Observant branch of the Dominicans, the Lombard Congregation, and that this affiliation was accomplished through a link to San Marco of Florence. In the absence of documents that provide more complete details, these circumstances may account for the appearance of
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imagery in San Domenico that emulates the Florentine observant house. With such images the sisters inscribe themselves within a specifically Observant tradition. Imagery for The Refectory In addition to the Angelican canvas depicting Christ (Figure 4.14) a connection with San Marco is visible in two other works for the convent: in the refectory were two frescoes,48 one depicting the Crucifixion (Catalogue 3 and Figure 5.7) and the other Saint Dominic (Catalogue 4 and Figure 5.8). (Because this part of the convent was taken over by the state and turned into a hospice for the poor in the mid-nineteenth century, the frescoes are described in most of the late nineteenth-century guidebooks as belonging to the Ricovero di Mendicità, and not to San Domenico.) The artist responsible for the design, if not the execution, of San Domenico’s frescoes is probably Benozzo Gozzoli, who worked on the Camposanto of Pisa from 1468 to 1484, and lived and worked in the city off and on until 1494. Little discussed in the literature, these frescoes are uncertain in date; they belong rather late in Gozzoli’s career, to the 1480s at the earliest, and their execution was probably left to Gozzoli’s assistants.49 These frescoes have also suffered from several restorations and from being removed from the wall. They are now on display in the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo in Pisa. One of the people who restored the frescoes in the eighteenth century was a member of the convent, Suor Orsola Gioli, who signed the fresco of the Crucifixion as its restorer. A document refers to her restoration in 1730.50 Another restoration occurred in 1853;51 then in 1869 the Arno flooded the city and came, according to reports, about a third of the way up the fresco, causing further damage. The fresco of the Crucifixion occupied the south wall of the refectory, that is, one of the short sides of the rectangular room in the structure on the east side of the convent (See plan in Figure 2.3). As was the norm, the refectory was on the ground floor. Framed by a fictive pilaster, the fresco depicts Christ on the Cross surrounded by 13 figures, most of them identified by labels in their haloes. Nearest the cross are the actors in the historical drama of the crucifixion: Mary, John the Evangelist, and the Magdalene (Figure 5.9). On the left, behind the Virgin, are Saints Peter Martyr, Dominic, and Catherine of Siena (Figure 5.10); on the right, behind the Evangelist, are Saints Thomas Aquinas, Vincent Ferrer, and Martha (Figure 5.11). At either side of the composition, at its outermost edges, are pairs of nuns in the habit of the second order of Saint Dominic. These women are squeezed into the image, crowding its margins; they are slightly smaller in scale, and set back from the plane inhabited by the row of saints. While Saints Catherine of Siena and Martha inhabit the same plane as the painted pilasters, the nuns are depicted behind these architectural framing elements. These women are not identified, but the two most prominent nuns bear haloes that are rendered as a series of radiating lines, rather than as disks. This identifies the women as Beate; the nuns thus depicted are probably Chiara Gambacorta and Maria
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5.7 Benozzo Gozzoli and workshop, Crucifixion with Dominican Saints, fresco from Refectory at San Domenico, c. 1490
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5.8 Benozzo Gozzoli and workshop, Saint Dominic Urging Silence, fresco from Refectory at San Domenico, c.1490
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5.9 Benozzo Gozzoli and workshop, Detail of Figure 5.7: Center Group of Mourners
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5.10 Benozzo Gozzoli and workshop, Detail of Figure 5.7: Saints Catherine of Siena, Dominic and Peter Martyr
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5.11 Benozzo Gozzoli and workshop, Detail of Figure 5.7: Saints Thomas Aquinas, Vincent Ferrer and Martha
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Mancini. It is hard to say which woman is which; the portraits do not seem specific enough to distinguish Chiara by comparison to the other portraits of her in the convent; however, as the more important figure, she may be the woman on the left side of the composition, closest to Catherine of Siena. Flanking the raised figure of Christ are eight lamenting angels, three of whom hold vessels for collecting Christ’s blood from the wounds at his hands and side. A landscape opens up behind the figures. Refectories in monastic houses were traditionally painted with religious themes, often with an image of the Last Supper, which has obvious anagogical relationships with the actions performed in the refectory.52 An alternative tradition called for an image of the Crucifixion in the refectory. For example, Taddeo Gaddi painted the Refectory in the Franciscan friary at Santa Croce in Florence with a mystical Crucifixion and a Last Supper, along with scenes from the lives of Christ and Franciscan saints. The refectory of the Benedictine convent of Sant’Apollonia in Florence includes scenes from Christ’s Passion and Resurrection above the famous Last Supper by Castagno.53 Dominicans preferred Crucifixions in their refectories. A Crucifixion seems to have originally adorned the refectory at San Marco; in the sixteenth century, Sogliani painted there an image of the Dominican Providence (the miraculous provision of food for a meal at which Dominic took part, and which was served by angels). Even so, above this is a Crucifixion. A contemporary at San Marco mentioned that Angelico painted a Crucifix in the convent’s refectory.54 San Domenico at Fiesole had an image of the Crucifixion in the refectory,55 as did the Dominican friary of Santa Caterina in Pisa.56 Instead of the newer tradition of refectory Last Suppers, which seems to have been established by the second half of the fifteenth century, the nuns at San Domenico adhere to an older tradition preferred by their order, and one which focuses less on an anagogical repetition of the act of eating and more on the sacrificial act of the Crucifixion. It is not only the choice of subject matter which links this refectory fresco to the Dominican order, nor is it simply the presence of Dominican saints at the foot of the Cross. The style of San Domenico’s refectory Crucifixion is as important as its subject, for it is inspired in its iconography and composition by the works of Fra Angelico. The closest extant Angelican model for the San Domenico fresco is a panel of Christ on the Cross with the Virgin and Nine Saints now at the Metropolitan Museum in New York57 (Figure 5.12). The figures of Christ, the Virgin, Saint John, and the Magdalene refer to this model. Similar, too, is the organization of equal numbers of saints on either side of the composition along a narrow plane. The Metropolitan’s panel has been tentatively identified with an item listed in an inventory of the Medici household in 1492.58 If so, Benozzo Gozzoli may have been familiar with it from his Medici contacts in the 1460s, even if it were not produced during the period when Gozzoli worked with Angelico. Another important source for the fresco at San Domenico is the fresco painted by Angelico in the Chapter House at San Marco, which Gozzoli certainly
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5.12 Fra Angelico, Christ on the Cross with the Virgin and Saints, c.1440
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5.13 Fra Angelico, Crucifixion with Saints, Chapter House of San Marco, Florence, c.1440
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knew (Figure 5.13). Both frescoes depict a series of saints kneeling in acts of contemplation or prayer at the foot of the cross. Some of the gestures and attitudes of the saints in the Pisan fresco derive from those in the Florentine chapter house; Saint Thomas Aquinas’ open-handed gesture imitates Dominic’s in Angelico’s image, and Vincent Ferrer in the Pisan fresco emulates Saint Francis’s gesture of holding his head in his right hand in the Florentine one. The depiction of Peter Martyr in the Pisan fresco could be a reversed version of the same figure in San Marco. San Domenico’s fresco is much less grand than San Marco’s, and reduces the number of participants and witnesses to the event of the Crucifixion. Some scholars believe that Gozzoli may have aided Angelico in executing the chapter house fresco; if so, certainly he would have had it in his mind’s eye when designing San Domenico’s fresco.59 An important difference between the San Domenico fresco and both of these Angelican prototypes lies in the identities of the figures grouped around the cross. The New York Crucifixion includes Saints Monica, Augustine, Francis, and Elisabeth of Hungary, as well as the two Dominican Saints. For the chapter house of his convent, Angelico included not only Dominican notables, but the founders and leading figures of other orders including: Saints Jerome, Francis, Bernard, Giovanni Gualberto, Ambrose, Augustine, Benedict, and Romuald. Dominic kneels at the head of this august assembly of monks and friars, implying the leadership of the Dominican order in monastic observance. In the frame below the Chapter House Crucifixion, portrait medallions of important Dominican figures are arranged according to their rank in the Church hierarchy, with popes and cardinals nearest Dominic at the center and the remaining friars in descending ecclesiastical rank.60 At San Domenico, the gathering of saints beneath the cross includes not only two women saints, but the nuns themselves. Furthermore, where Angelico includes saints of many different monastic orders, San Domenico’s fresco depicts only saints of the Dominican order [although not technically a Dominican, Saint Martha was a patron of the order]. Like Angelico’s images, the figures are arranged in a gendered hierarchy; in both the New York panel and at San Domenico, the men are closer to Christ and the women are on the margins. These differences may lie at the heart of the meanings of the two frescoes. Angelico’s chapter house fresco emphasizes the Dominican role in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, an appropriate theme for the room in which the friars participated in legislative gatherings, like the General and Provincial Chapters. The participation of the friars in the legislative aspects of the Order is codified in their Constitutions. Dominican women, however, did not participate in the administration of the order beyond the walls of their own convent. Their Constitutions, though parallel in many ways to the male Constitutions, deliberately avoid any discussion of such governance activity for women.61 The dependence and subservience of the women to the friars is institutionalized in their Constitutions; even the election of a prioress was not official until ratified by the Master General or Provincial Prior of the order. The chapter meetings of the Lombard congregation, for example, frequently dealt with
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issues concerning women’s institutions under their control; they limited the size of women’s houses, the number of years a confessor could serve a single house, and even the number of years a prioress could hold office.62 This element in the lives of the sisters may account for some of the difference between Angelico’s images and the image at San Domenico. Where the San Marco fresco places the Dominican figures among the founders of monasticism and within the larger history of monasticism, the San Domenico fresco places the women strictly within the order. Only Dominic and Martha parallel the group of founders of monastic orders in the San Marco fresco; as we have seen, Martha was thought to be the first nun. Where the men operate in a wide sphere, the women are more confined. As Marek points out, San Marco’s chapter house could be visited by those outside the order, both secular and ecclesiastical, so a proclamation of the order’s larger history and significance would be addressed to those within and outside the order.63 But only Dominican women, and on occasion, a Dominican friar, would have access to the image in San Domenico’s refectory. This image of the nuns as part of a larger Dominican community appears in the very room where one of the principal communal functions of San Domenico took place. The forging of a community was one of the primary goals of convent life; just as one’s goods became common property, individual identity was to be subsumed into the corporate identity. Chiara herself placed a great deal of emphasis on communal property and a communal life; the author of a pastoral letter addressed to her reinforced such ideals.64 The ideal of community was equally important to Giovanni Dominici and Antoninus Pierozzi.65 Anthropologists have studied the rituals of eating as an important element in the creating and maintenance of community. The discipline of the monastic rituals restrains individual will and maintains harmony in the community, while the common meal is a “sign and instrument of unity in Christ.”66 The women of San Domenico gathered in the refectory at tables along the wall; their places were assigned hierarchically with the prioress at the head. The Constitutions prohibit others from eating at the first table,67 and the custom was for the women to sit only at one side of the table; there are many depictions of monks and nuns at table from this period that give an idea of this arrangement. Probably most members of the community, sitting along the long walls of the refectory would have had clear views of the fresco on the short wall. Silence was maintained at table, while one sister read aloud from devotional or scriptural texts. Thus the community in the refectory consisted of solitary individuals silently meditating on the Passion while in a group,68 in essence recreating the scene depicted in Gozzoli’s fresco. The emphasis in the fresco on the blood of Christ, being collected from three wounds by angels, serves to remind the viewer of the greater import of spiritual than earthly nourishment. In this way, the image reinforced the notion of community, expressed the Eucharistic piety of the nuns, and encouraged their food-related disciplines.69 As in the many images at San Marco that depict Dominican figures in contemplation, this fresco provided the women of San Domenico with exemplars, both male and female, whom they could emulate.
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Revelations of the Sinopia Because the fresco was taken down from the wall on which it was painted, we have a further glimpse at what the fresco may have originally meant to the sisters at San Domenico. Along with the much restored and badly damaged surface of the fresco, the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo also preserves its sinopia, which reveals important differences between the initial design and the finished fresco (Figure 5.14). The sinopia of the painting is as battered as the fresco, so interpretation is difficult, but the changes from the first design to the finished product are remarkable. Simply put, the initial design for the fresco gave much more prominence to women than the finished product. Judging from the remains of the sinopia, the first project included the Christ on the Cross and the three historical mourners (Figure 5.15), a female on the right side of the fresco behind Saint John (Figure 5.16) and a group of nuns to the left, behind the Virgin (Figure 5.17). The male Dominicans who appear in the finished fresco are invisible in the sinopia, with the possible exception of one figure sketched in behind the Virgin; his open handed gesture is repeated by Saint Dominic in the finished fresco. The identities of the women are not provided at sinopia level, though all appear to wear veils and habits. The woman in profile on the right in the sinopia corresponds in many details to the figure identified as Saint Martha in the finished fresco; the biggest difference is the placement of her hands: in the sinopia, she crosses her hands on her breast, in the fresco, one hand rests on her breast and the other gathers her mantle at her waist. The crossed hand gesture is given to one of the convent’s Beate behind Saint Martha in the finished fresco. The left side of the sinopia is more complicated, showing several figures overlapping and perhaps some changes of position among the figures represented. I count at least four individual nuns here, and perhaps some other figures. But at fresco level, Catherine of Siena, rendered in profile, dominates the left half of the composition; Dominic and Peter Martyr are inserted between Catherine and the Virgin Mary; and the attending nuns are reduced to two women squeezed into the corner. The central part of the fresco is the least changed from the sinopia, but even here change is visible. The biggest change in the figure of Christ is in the proportions: he seems much slimmer in the sinopia than in the fresco. The Virgin is changed very little, but Saint John’s gesture and posture have been altered; he seems much more contemplative in the fresco, more emotional in the sinopia. The Magdalene is also much changed, but she has also been heavily reworked in the fresco, so it is hard to say if her emphatic grip of the cross and the gaze lifted up at Christ were executed in the original fresco layer or resulted from a later repainting. The angels who lament and collect Christ’s blood are also visible in the sinopia. The style of the sinopia seems to confirm that the original design for this fresco was Benozzo Gozzoli’s. The veiled women are comparable to the women in the sinopie assigned to Benozzo in the Camposanto, and the figure of the Evangelist is comparable to the Magus from the Camposanto; even the rendering of the naked
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5.14 Benozzo Gozzoli and workshop, Sinopia of Refectory Crucifixion, c.1490
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5.15 Benozzo Gozzoli and workshop, Detail of Figure 5.14
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5.16 Benozzo Gozzoli and workshop, Detail of Figure 5.14
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5.17 Benozzo Gozzoli and workshop, Detail of Figure 5.14
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leg underneath the garment appears in other sinopie by Gozzoli.70 Gozzoli often altered the finished fresco from the sinopia he executed, so perhaps the change in this fresco is due at least in part to his rethinking of the image. But the differences are substantial enough to result in a change of emphasis, if not in meaning, from the first to the finished composition. The sinopia reflects an initial design that focused less on the luminaries of the Dominican order and more on the direct access of women to the Crucifixion. Paolo Schiavo painted a similar theme in a fresco for the Benedictine nuns of Sant’Apollonia in Florence. It is unclear where this fresco originally stood in Sant’Apollonia, but it does not seem to have been the refectory.71 This fresco depicts the Benedictine women directly beneath the cross, almost touching Christ. Women’s access to the body of Christ is represented here in direct and powerful terms. By contrast, in the sinopia from San Domenico, the Virgin, Saint John, and the Magdalene stand between the nuns and Christ, which gives the image a more historical, and less iconic, emphasis. Yet the identification of nuns with all three of these historical figures—the Virgin, the Magdalene, and Saint John—still allows the nuns a close association with the Body of Christ on the cross. Before the paint layer was applied, however, a change was made in the fresco at San Domenico to include the four Dominican men at the same time that the nuns were pushed out to the borders of the fresco; they are further removed from Christ, and their access to him is mediated by the Dominican friars. Certainly this revised composition reflects the actual situation of the nuns, dependent as they were on Dominican friars to receive the spiritual food of the Eucharist. Less apparent are the circumstances surrounding the change from sinopia to fresco. Did the women themselves decide to change the emphasis of the image to more strongly express their connection with the Dominican order? Were they advised to include the Dominican friars by either the artist or their confessor, who might have known the Angelican models? (It seems unlikely that the nuns, even before they took the veil, would have had access to San Marco’s frescoes.) It is difficult to reconstruct the motives for the change from sinopia to fresco, which occasioned a change of meaning. If in the sinopia the emphasis is on the community of Dominican women, in the fresco the community is redefined to include the friars. Perhaps this redefinition is a product of the changed circumstances of the nuns, who were finally linked administratively to the Observant Movement. This link finally occurred in 1488, when Santa Caterina joined the Lombard Congregation. The Value of Silence Another fresco from San Domenico’s refectory has also been removed from the wall; originally it stood on the same wall as the Crucifixion fresco over a door to the right. This fresco depicts Saint Dominic holding his finger to his mouth in the admonition to silence known since antiquity, while behind him two angels hold a cloth of honor72 (Figures 5.8 and 5.18). This fresco has suffered the same interventions as the
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5.18 Benozzo Gozzoli and workshop, Detail of Figure 5.8: Saint Dominic urging Silence Crucifixion in the same room, so that its condition might argue against an association with Gozzoli. But it was probably executed at the same time and during the same campaign as the Crucifixion, so at least its design should be associated with Benozzo Gozzoli. As with the Crucifixion, there was a particular function associated with such an image in a convent. According to the Rule, silence was to be maintained by the nuns, especially during meals, so the location of this image in the refectory accounts to some degree for its theme. According to her vita, the first prioress of San Domenico, Suor Filippa d’Albizzo da Vico, was especially concerned to uphold the rule of silence;
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5.19 Fra Angelico, Saint Peter Martyr Urging Silence, from cloister at San Marco, Florence, c.1440
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silence was also immensely important to the nuns of Corpus Domini in Venice.73 In this image, Dominic holds a bundle of reeds in his hand; this traditional instrument of correction reflects the stern discipline that was the ideal of Chiara Gambacorta. Probably also designed by Gozzoli, this fresco reprises another image by Fra Angelico: St Peter Martyr performs this function in a fresco from the cloister of San Marco, which appears above the door to the sacristy (Figure 5.19). There was a long tradition of such images in convents for both sexes as, for example, at the Badia of Florence and at San Pancrazio in Florence.74 At San Domenico, Gozzoli recast the figure as Saint Dominic, whose admonishment to silence is made more forceful by the instrument of discipline in his hands. Some of the formal changes Gozzoli made from his model tend to soften the power of Angelico’s image: the scale of his figure within the field has diminished; Dominic glances to the right and not directly at the viewer, as does the figure of Peter Martyr; and the presence of angels with the cloth of honor tends to lift Dominic to another sphere of existence, where Peter Martyr confronts his brothers as if encountering them in the cloister. While some of these changes may result from Gozzoli’s different artistic personality, rather than a change of context from a masculine to a feminine institution, the tone of the two images is decidedly different: Angelico’s Peter Martyr offers collegial admonishment to his brothers to stay silent for the sake of study, represented by the book in his hand; Gozzoli’s Saint Dominic is more distant and threatening, and holds no book or object of study to suggest a reason for silence. Where Angelico’s Peter Martyr addresses fellow members of a fraternity, Dominic’s relationship to the women of his order is more paternalistic. The rule of silence was basic to monastic houses, silence being requisite for prayer, for meditative reading, and for contemplation. However, the prescription to silence in the monastery did not necessarily mean there was constant quiet in the cloister. Because medieval people read aloud, the murmur of individuals reading or praying would be audible.75 And while silence was imposed during meals in the refectory, a member of the community would read aloud from edifying texts throughout the meal, as does the figure of Beata Humility in one of the narratives flanking the central image of the pala of Beata Humility attributed to Pietro Lorenzetti and divided between the Uffizi and the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin. Observant Dominicans were dedicated to claustral silence as necessary for study and contemplation, but its imposition was not absolute. After all, preachers must ultimately break the rule of silence if they are to be effective. The miraculous cure of Giovanni Dominici’s stuttering was a turning point in the life of this subsequently eloquent preacher.76 For women, however, this was not the case, as silence was thought especially virtuous in their sex. The value of silence was especially trumpeted to women, notorious throughout the middle ages for their loquaciousness; the garrulous woman is the nightmare of the medieval misogynist.77 This long tradition informs the cultural notions of the Dominican thinkers of the fifteenth century; for example, Antoninus includes among his alphabetic listing of the vices of women “Garrulum Guttur” or loquaciousness.78 Numerous writers exhort members of the female sex to
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be silent. Humbert of Romans counseled silence especially for cloistered women; in his model sermon to enclosed women, he called nuns who longed for news of the outside world or who gossiped cloistered in body, but not in mind.79 Silence, then, is the attribute of the successfully cloistered nun. As loquaciousness is specifically a female vice, maintaining silence means the nun transcends the weakness of her sex, and becomes more like a man. While the cloister frescoes at San Marco from which Gozzoli derived his image of silence includes other images that exhorted the friars to other virtues, such as hospitality to travelers, the admittedly more limited program at San Domenico privileges silence above these other virtues. The Dominican pastoral epistles to women, of which the letter by Humbert of Romans is the model, illuminate some of the reasons behind the choice of this motif. The Context of the Refectory Frescoes Although it could be argued that mere coincidence (that is, that Gozzoli happened to be working in Pisa) resulted in the repetition of themes from San Marco at San Domenico, it seems to me that in the choice of image, and perhaps of artist, the Pisan convent was consciously emulating the leading Observant community in Tuscany. The influence of the program at San Marco on the decoration of San Domenico attests to the prestige of both the Florentine house and Angelico’s work there. Although it is hardly a certainty, circumstantial evidence indicates that the frescoes, which so closely recall San Marco, were executed during the initial period of reform of Santa Caterina by “frate di San Marco,” from 1488 to 1494. By this time, Gozzoli had finished his work in the Camposanto. Our other documentary indications reveal him performing minor commissions in Pisa in 1489 and 1492. He had definitively left the city by late 1494. The latest documents for him in Pisa are dated April 29, 1494 (1495 Pisan style) and August 2, 1494 (1495 Pisan style). As a Florentine, he would have been suspect in Pisa after the city’s rebellion from Florentine control in November 1494; he was in Florence in 1495 and 1496.80 One other element may aid in dating this project. The Crucifixion depicts two nuns in habits of the second order with striated haloes, distinguishing them as Beate. Obviously the principal Beata of the convent was Chiara Gambacorta herself, whose remains had been preserved as relics since 1432. The other prominent Beata of San Domenico was Maria Mancini, who had died in 1430. According to an entry in the ricordi written by Prioress Gabriella Bonconte, her body was exhumed in May of 1492 and her remains immediately caused miracles.81 This new evidence of Mancini’s sanctity may have stimulated the sisters’ desire to honor her in the refectory fresco. While the documents don’t claim this, it is possible that the miracles—some of which occurred outside the convent—brought new donations to the convent that allowed the sisters to commission the frescoes. The project recorded in the sinopia, then, with its emphasis on the nuns themselves, describes the community of the nuns with Chiara and Maria Mancini at their head. The finished project places the two Beate in company with the principal Dominican saints. Such circumstances would date the
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inception of the project shortly after the exhumation in 1492, while the rebellion of Pisa in November 1494, and Gozzoli’s subsequent departure from the city, provides a terminus ante quem for the design, at least. Thus, I propose that the images which so markedly recall the Angelican program at San Marco date to a period when an administrative link was forged between San Domenico and San Marco, which may account for the choice of artist and the compositions of the frescoes. Even as the nuns unearthed new evidence of their convent’s historical importance, they were emphatically stating their identity as a convent of the Observance. Both style and subject matter in these frescoes proclaim this identity to the sisters in the convent, and anyone privileged to visit their refectory. But the ambitions of Girolamo Savonarola to create a new congregation of Observant houses, with San Marco at its head, had important repercussions for the nuns of San Domenico. The prioress, Gabriella Bonconte, must have complained directly to Savonarola of the disruptions caused by his plans to break away from the Lombard Congregation; in a letter dated September 1493, Savonarola wrote directly to the Prioress to defend his actions.82 Savonarola’s plans had succeeded in May 1493, when he received papal sanction to separate from the Lombard Congregation; in November of that year, Savonarola was given the authority of a Provincial.83 He began a program of bringing other reformed houses in Tuscany under his stewardship, including Santa Caterina of Pisa, and in August 1494, the Pisan house was joined to Savonarola’s newly formed Congregation of San Marco.84 The nuns of San Domenico were immediately aware of these events.85 One result of these power struggles was that the Father Confessor of San Domenico, Fra Arcangelo da Brescia, was removed from this office in August of 1494.86 The women were placed again under the direct control of Savonarolite friars.87 External events moved to alter this relationship quickly. In November of 1494, inspired by the arrival of Charles VIII of France, the Pisan republic rebelled against the rule of Florence. Determined to subdue the Pisans, Florence laid the Siege of Pisa. Because the Savonarolite friars were headquartered in enemy Florence, the Pisan friary was pressured by the city to leave the congregation of San Marco.88 This was accomplished by January 1495, when the nuns record that the “frati di fra Girolamo” were removed from Santa Caterina, which then rejoined the Lombard Congregation; the women had to wait until June of 1495 for a new confessor to be assigned to them.89 The allegiance of the women both to the city of Pisa and to the Lombard Congregation made them welcome this last change of affiliation. Their relationship with the friars of San Marco could not have been smooth during these power struggles, given that the prioress had challenged Savonarola’s scheme. The ricordi of Gabriella Bonconte reveal the evident joy she took in the removal of Savonarola’s followers from Pisa. But there were further upheavals to come. In November 1496, Savonarola’s Congregation of San Marco was ordered by Pope Alexander VI to be absorbed into the newly formed Tuscan-Roman Congregation and Santa Caterina
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was ordered to join the new congregation.90 The Anziani of Pisa were alarmed at the re-affiliation with enemy Florence, and did what they could to prevent it, but Santa Caterina was a member of this Congregation from 1497.91 Here again, the women of San Domenico were affected by these shifts. Their spiritual care was assigned in 1503 to the new Prior of Santa Caterina, Fra Vincentius a Brachis, by order of the Master General.92 The Tuscan-Roman congregation chose another confessor for San Domenico in 1522.93 All of these events demonstrate just how fraught and complex the fact of the nuns’ dependence on the Dominican hierarchy made their lives. But these events occurred long after the frescoes were painted in the Refectory of San Domenico. These images are the surviving monuments of the nuns’ attempt to identify with the leading Observant community in Tuscany. Although the women of San Domenico had been instrumental in founding the Observant movement, by the time of Saint Antoninus and then Savonarola, the reform movement in Tuscany was identified with San Marco of Florence; visually, this tradition was exemplified by the cycle of images that Angelico painted at San Marco. The renewal of the Observant movement in Tuscany in the 1480s, culminating from the nuns’s point of view in the reform of Santa Caterina and thus their own affiliation with the Lombard Congregation, provides a motive for the women’s commissioning frescoes that echo the program at San Marco. These images offer an opportunity to analyze the transformation of visual models from a masculine house into new versions for a feminine house and to elucidate the difference between the function and meaning of these images. The renewal of the Observant identity of San Domenico may have inspired the exhumation and renewed attention to the Beata Maria Mancini, who had been both a founder of the convent and a friend and correspondent of Catherine of Siena. If the style and composition of the frescoes in the Refectory of San Domenico express their connection to the Observant house of San Marco, the prominence given the two Beate of the convent, Chiara Gambacorta and Maria Mancini, in the Crucifixion fresco reflect the convent’s position in the history of th Observant movement. Notes J. Cannon, “Simone Martini, the Dominicans and the Early Sienese Polyptych,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 45 (1982): 69–93. See also, William Hood, Fra Angelico at San Marco (New Haven, 1993). 2 Hood, Fra Angelico at San Marco, pp. 61–63. 3 Cannon, “Dominican Patronage of the Arts in Central Italy.” 4 Friedmann, Herbert, The Symbolic Goldfinch (Washington, D.C., 1946), pp. 112–113. 5 There is also some possibility that an association between the Goldfinch and the Passion of Christ held special meaning for nuns. According to the vita of Catherine de Ricci, during a procession celebrating the feast of Saint Agnes in 1553 in the convent of San Vincenzo in Prato, Catherine, in the figure of Christ, “gave to each of [the nuns] a little painted Jesus that embraced a bullfinch”; quoted in Trexler, Public Life, p. 195. 6 Henk van Os, The Sienese Altarpiece (Groningen, 1990), vol. II, p. 35 ff. 1
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7 These two altarpieces are illustrated in Carli, Museo Civico, figure 101, cat. 79 and figure 76, cat. 54. 8 On the Strozzi altarpiece, see John Paoletti, “The Strozzi Altarpiece reconsidered,” in Memorie Domenicane, 20 (1989): 279–300. 9 Datable about 1425, the Fiesole altarpiece originally placed the saints flanking the Virgin against a gold ground, each separated by the arcade of the frame; Pope-Hennessy, Fra Angelico, pp. 188–189 and Hood, Fra Angelico at San Marco, pp. 66–72. 10 The Bulls in question may be found in the Bullarium Ordinis Praedicatorum, vol. II, pp. 576 and 581. 11 For this altarpiece, see Pope-Hennessy, Fra Angelico, pp. 190–191 and Hood, Fra Angelico at San Marco, pp. 72–73. 12 The linking of the predella in the Courtauld Gallery with the San Pier Martire altarpiece has been questioned, although mildly, by William Hood, Fra Angelico at San Marco, p. 309, note 17. 13 Hood, Ibid., p. 74, says this model could not fail to have been known to the nuns of San Pier Martire, which assumes that the commissioner of the altarpiece was one of the nuns who transferred from Pisa. 14 Hood, in Ibid., p. 76, makes this argument. 15 In Ibid., p. 80, Hood observed the difference in scale in the San Pier Martire altarpiece, and suggested in a general way that the “clients” of the altarpiece may have suggested it to Fra Angelico, underlining the “Sienese” flavor of Pisan visual culture. I argue more directly that the women had a specific, not a general idea and that they are the agents behind this particular aspect of the altarpiece. 16 For Francesco d’Antonio, see M. Salmi, “Francesco d’Antonio fiorentino,” Rivista d’Arte, ser. 2, 1 (1929): 1–24; G. Gronau, “Francesco d’Antonio pittore fiorentino,” Rivista d’Arte, ser. 2, 4 (1932): 382–383; R. Longhi, “Fatti di Masolino e di Masaccio,” Critica d’Arte, 5 (1940): 186–187 and C. Shell, “Francesco d’Antonio and Masaccio,” Art Bulletin, 47 (1965): 465–469. 17 Zeri reconstructed the triptych, in “Note su quadri italiani al estero,” Bolletino d’Arte, 34 (1949): 22–26, and assigned it a date in the early 1420s. Shell says it is datable around 1420. The artist worked in the Duomo of Pisa in the later 1420s, but apparently rented space for a workshop in Pisa only much later, in 1449. He is recorded again in 1452; Fanucci Lovitch, Artisti a Pisa, 112–113. 18 The heraldic convention of placing men in the privileged spot to the right of God (and left of the onlooker) is discussed in Roberts, “The Chronology and Political Significance of the Tomb of Mary of Burgundy,” Art Bulletin, 71 (1989): 376–400. 19 Kaftal, Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting, pp. cols. 995–1001. A later image of the saint which the convent owned did give her a book; in fact, it emulates this saint’s pose rather directly (See Catalogue 23 and Figure 4.2). 20 Carli, Museo Civico, pp. 82–83, n. 80. 21 This would be Saint Thecla of Iconio, about whom see the entry by Umberto M. Fasola, in the Bibliotheca Sanctorum, XII, cols. 176–177. For the sculpture on the Duomo of Milan, see the figure on col. 175 of this entry. 22 Sister Tecla Friderici is included on the roster of nuns in 1524. See Appendix 4. 23 Berenson, Pictures: Florentine School, p. 64. 24 Hood, Fra Angelico at San Marco, pp. 66–70. Pope-Hennessy, Fra Angelico, p. 189, suggests a date for the Fiesole altarpiece in the late 1420s while, on the basis of influence
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perceived on Fra Angelico from the dated Quaratesi polyptych by Gentile da Fabriano, Hood, Fra Angelico at San Marco, pp. 70–72, gives the Fiesole picture a terminus post quem of 1425. 25 See the photo in Hood, Fra Angelico at San Marco, p. 67. 26 Ibid., p. 59. 27 V. Marchese, Scritti Vari (Florence, 1855), p. 32; Mortier, Histoire des Mâitres Généraux, vol. III, pp. 564–568. The vita was written in the form of a letter commending Fra Marcolino to Raymond of Capua in 1397; for it, see Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, vol II, p. 2291. 28 Martin Davies, Earlier Italian Schools. National Gallery Catalogues (London, 1951), p. 19. 29 For example, in a fresco in the library of the Convent of San Domenico in Taggia (Genoa), painted in the second half of the fifteenth century. On this fresco, see Massimo Bartoletti, Il Convento di San Domenico a Taggia (Genoa, 1993), p. 33. 30 See the entry on Vincent Ferrer by Sadoc M. Bertucci in the Bibliotheca Sanctorum, vol. XII, cols. 1168–1176. 31 For Giordano da Rivalto see Carlo Delcorno, Giordano da Pisa e l’antica predicazione volgare (Florence, 1975). The manuscripts of Giordano’s sermons written by or for nuns are: Florence, Laurentiana, Archburnham ms. 533; Florence, Riccardiano, ms. 2627; and Parma, Biblioteca Palatina, Fondo Palatino ms. 23. All are described in Delcorno, “Per l’edizione delle Prediche di Fr. Giordano da Pisa,” Studi di Filologia Italiana, 22 (1964): 73, 99 and idem, “Nuovi codici delle Prediche di Frate Giordano da Pisa,” Studi di Filologia Italiana, 24 (1966): 40. The first of these came from the Florentine Dominican convent of Santa Caterina di San Gaggio. 32 For Giordano’s death and cult, see C. Delcorno, Giordano da Pisa, pp. 26–28. The description of Pisa c.1422, published by Supino, in Arte Pisana, p. 314, lists “Beato Giordano da Pisa” among the “santi venerabili corpi” in the city. 33 Delcorno, Giordana da Pisa, p. 3: Giordano was “Uno dei massimi campioni della primitiva cultura e spiritualità domenicana.” 34 “Dum enim innumerabili populo preadicaret, crux rubra in eius fronte, cunctis videntibus et mirantibus, impressa semel, ostendit eius testimonium sanctitatis”; Delcorno, Giordana da Pisa, p. 27; Bonaini, “Chronica Sanctae Caterinae,” p. 451. 35 The earlier “portraits” in manuscripts identified by A. Levasti, Mistici del Duecento, p. 480, are far too generalized to be of use in confirming or disproving this hypothesis. 36 Murphy, Blessed Clara, p. 163. 37 Hood, Fra Angelico at San Marco, p. 255. 38 For this history, see Mortier, Histoire des Mâitres Généraux, vol. III, pp. 564–68 and R. Creytens and A. D’Amato, “Les actes capitulaires de la congregation dominicaine de Lombardie (1482–1531),” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 31 (1961): 213– 306. 39 Chiara herself worked behind the scenes to encourage reform at Santa Caterina, and an attempt was made to reform it in 1408; Mortier, Histoire des Mâitres Généraux, vol. IV, pp. 22–23. The prior at Santa Caterina from 1452 to 1487, Luigi Mancini da Teramo, preferred the prerogatives of the conventuals to the austerities of the Observants; Ibid., pp. 168–169. 40 Reported in Kaeppeli, “Bartolomeo Lapacci de’ Rimbertini (1402–1466). Vescovo, Legato Pontificio, Scrittore,” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 9 (1939): 86–127.
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41 Richa, Notizie delle chiese fiorentine, vol. IV, p. 305, reports that these nuns elected to switch to San Marco in 1490; in 1556 they returned to the obedience of Santa Maria Novella. See also Di Agresti, Sviluppi della riforma, p. 20. 42 For the history of the Lombard Congregation, see Creytens and D’Amato, “Les actes capitulaires … congregation Lombardie” pp. 213–306. 43 See Nikolai Rubenstein, “Lay Patronage and Observant Reform in Fifteenth-Century Florence,” in Timothy Verdon and John Henderson (eds), Christianity and the Renaissance (Syracuse, 1990), pp. 72–75. Lorenzo had given alms to the convent of San Domenico in 1477 and, in the same year, Suor Paraclita dei Ricci wrote him pleading for further charity to repair “cierti hedificii” in the convent; see Appendix 5, letter V for her letter. 44 For these events see the “Estratti degli Annali del Convento di Santa Caterina,” which follows the “Chronica antiqua’”of the convent edited by Bonaini, pp. 604–607. 45 “1489. Ricordo come i nel Mese di Agosto in fra piu volte vennero in Santa Caterina li frati di San Marco e in settembre ebbero lo nostro governo”; Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 302. 46 “1492. Ricordo come a di primi di settembre 1492 hanno cominciato li frati e padri nostri di Santa Caterina a officiarsi e devono avere lire 130 per tutte le loro fatiche”; Ibid., pp. 302–303. 47 See Emilio Panella, “La Cronaca di Santa Caterina usa lo stile pisano?,” Memorie Domenicane, n.s. 16 (1985): 331–332, who examines the timing of the reformation of Santa Caterina. 48 I. Supino, in “Le opere minori di Benozzo Gozzoli a Pisa,” Archivio Storico dell’Arte, 7 (1894): p. 242: “Se Benozzo dipingisse in questo convento tutte le storie relative alla vita di San Domenico, come afferma il Vasari, noi non siamo in grado di dire.” Probably following Supino, Van Marle also says Vasari described a cycle of the life of Saint Dominic at San Domenico painted by Benozzo in The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, vol. XI, p. 209. Both authors must have confused San Domenico with another convent in Pisa, San Benedetto a Ripa d’Arno, in which Vasari does mention a cycle of the life of St Benedict; Vasari, Le Vite, Milanesi (ed.), vol. III, p. 50. 49 Padoa Rizzo, Benozzo Gozzoli pittore fiorentino (Florence, 1972), p. 84, associates this fresco with a panel dated 1471 by a workshop assistant of Benozzo’s. Van Marle gave these frescoes a date in the 1480s in Italian Schools, vol. XI, p. 209. Berenson, Pictures: Florentine School, p. 96, indicated only that the Crucifixion is late and in great part by Benozzo. In her most recent catalogue of Gozzoli’s works, Padoa Rizzo, Benozzo Gozzoli Catalogo Completo (Florence, 1992), p. 121, characterized the fresco as “una tipica opera di Benozzo della sua ultima fase pisana.” Diane Cole Ahl, Benozzo Gozzoli (New Haven, 1996), pp. 189–190, assigned them to Gozzoli’s shop. 50 “1730. Suor Orsola Gioli Conversa ha fatto ritoccare tutta la pittura del frontespizio del suddetto refettorio che era tutta guasta dal fumo ...”; Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 319. Her name appears on a list of the members of the community for 1739; Ibid., p. 432. 51 Ibid., pp. 232–233. 52 Creighton Gilbert, “Last Suppers and their Refectories,” in C. Trinkaus and H. A. Oberman (eds), The Pursuit of Holiness in Late Medieval and Renaissance Religion (Leiden: Brill, 1974), pp. 371–402, points out the anagogical relationship between the Last Supper and the function of the refectory.
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53 For the tradition of painted refectories, see Luisa Vertova, I Cenacoli Fiorentini (Turin, 1965) and R. Scott Walker, “Florentine Painted Refectories: 1350–1500,” (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Indiana University, 1979). For interpretations of the Castagno fresco, see Andree Hayum, “A Renaissance Audience Considered: the Nuns at S. Apollonia and Castagno’s Last Supper,” Art Bulletin, 88 (2006): 243–66 and Eckart Marchand, “Monastic Imitatio Cristi: Andrea del Castagno’s Cenacolo di S. Appollonia,” Artibus et Historiae, 24 (2003): pp. 31–50. 54 Walker, “Florentine Painted Refectories,” pp. 231–232. For an overview of the Dominican traditions in Refectory imagery, see Roberts, “Plautilla Nelli’s Last Supper and the Tradition of Dominican Refectory Decorations,” in Jonathon Nelson (ed.), Suor Plautilla Nelli (1523–1588) The First Woman Painter of Florence (Fiesole, 2000), pp. 45–56. 55 Now removed from the wall and preserved at the Louvre. See Paul Cardile, “Fra Angelico and his Workshop at San Domenico.” 56 The chronicle of Santa Caterina records that Fra Domenico da Parlasco (+ 1348) paid for a crucifix, probably a frescoed crucifixion, above the prior’s table in the refectory of the Pisan friary; Cannon, “Dominican Patronage of the Arts,” p. 146. 57 Pope Hennessy, Fra Angelico, p. 229 places it about 1440–45. 58 Federico Zeri, Italian Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. North Italian School (New York, 1986), pp. 77–79. 59 Pope-Hennessy, Fra Angelico, p. 205, assigned at least one figure to Gozzoli. 60 For a political reading of this fresco, see Michaela J. Marek, “Ordenspolitik und Andacht. Fra Angelicos Kreuzigungsfresko im Kapitelsall von San Marco zu Florenz,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 48 (1985): 451–475. 61 For these differences, see Chapter 1 above. Edward T. Brett, “Humbert of Romans and the Dominican Second Order,” Memorie Domenicane, ns. 12 (1981): 1–25, discusses the structural differences in the rule of men and that written by Humbert for women. See also R. Creytens, “Les Admonitiones de Jean de Luto aux moniales Dominicaines de Metz (c. 1300),” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 21 (1951): 215. 62 See Creytens and D’Amato, “Les actes capitularies … congregation Lombardie,” pp. 255, 256, 257, 263, 266, 267. 63 Marek, “Ordenspolitik,” pp. 451–475. 64 See Hasenohr-Esnos, “Un receuil inédit,” pp. 490–491. 65 On this issue, especially its importance to Giovanni Dominici, see Antoninus’ Summa Theologica, vol. III, Tit. 16, cap. 1, col. 860–870. 66 Patricia Curran, Grace Before Meals. Food Ritual and Body Discipline in Convent Culture (Urbana, IL, 1989), p.154. 67 “Servitrices autem incipiant ab inferioribus usque ad mensam priorissae ascendentes. Nulla soror a prima mensa remaneat, preter servitrices, nisi de licentia”; Creytens, “Les constitutions primitives,” p. 70. 68 Curran, Grace Before Meals, p. 117. On the importance of the refectory, see also Dominique Rigaux, “Women, Faith, and Image in the Late Middle Ages” in Lucetta Scaraffia and Gabriella Zarri (eds), Women and Faith. Catholic Religious Life in Italy from Late Antiquity to the Present (Cambridge, MA, 1999), pp. 79–80. 69 On medieval women’s tendency to use food as a means of expressing their spirituality, see Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast. 70 Padoa Rizzo, Benozzo Gozzoli Catalogo Completo, p. 121, termed the sinopia “certo autografa.”
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71 Paatz, Die Kirchen von Florenz, vol. I, pp. 211–225. 72 Supino, “Le opere minore di Benozzo Gozzoli,” pp. 233–248. 73 Sainati, Vite dei santi pisani, p. 271. For the dedication of the nuns of Corpus Domini to silence, see Riccoboni, Life and Death, pp. 34–35. 74 Vasari, Vite, Milanesi (ed.), vol. II, 513–514, attributes to Angelico a fresco of Saint Benedict “che accenna silenzio” that stood in the cloister of the Badia of Florence; see Pope-Hennessy, Fra Angelico, p. 237. Neri di Bicci painted a figure at San Pancrazio in Florence, which was probably of a similar sort; “sopra l’uscio del dormentorio uno mezzo Santo Benedetto…”; Le Ricordanze, B. Santi (ed.) (Pisa, 1976), pp. 22–23. 75 Paul Gehl, “Competens silentium: varieties of Monastic Silence in the Middle Ages,” Viator, 18 (1987): 125–60. 76 Recounted in Mortier, Histoire des Mâitres Généraux, vol. III, pp. 552–3. 77 See Howard Bloch, Misogyny, Misandry, and Misanthropy (Berkeley, 1989). 78 Summa Theologica, vol. III, Tit. 1, caput 25, col. 119. 79 Humbert of Romans, sermon “A tutte le religiose in Clausura”: “Ce ne sono altre che, non solo non rinchiudono il cuore, ma anche, il che e ancora peggio, non tengono chiusa la bocca ... Da questo racconto risulta chiaro quanto sia viziosa e grave la loquacità in una religiosa …”; C. Casagrande, Prediche alle donne del secolo XIII (Milan, 1978), p. 40. 80 For these circumstances, see the brief vita in Padoa Rizzo, Benozzo Gozzoli Catalogo Completo, p. 152. 81 “Ricordo a di 14 di Maggio 1493 [pisan style] a hore 16 si schava le sanctissime reliquie della nostra veneranda M.re S.r Maria le quali ossi, chon l’acqua e’la si lavorno, fece molitssimi miracoli nel Monastero e fuor del Monastero, erano state sotto la terra anni 63”; Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 126–127. 82 The text of this letter is published G. Savonarola, Le Lettere, R. Ridolfi (ed.) (Florence, 1933), pp. 31–38. 83 For the creation of the Congregation of San Marco, see Roberto Ridolfi, The Life of Girolamo Savonarola, trans. Cecil Grayson (New York, 1959), pp. 54–65. 84 Bonaini, “Chronica antiqua,” pp. 609–610. For the event from the point of view of the friars at San Marco, see the extract from the chronicle of San Marco in Di Agresti, Sviluppi della Riforma Savonaroliana, p. 191: “Eo itaque tempore, cum populus et Dominatio florentina, cives nobiliores et magistratus cernerent qum bonum fuerat eis pro dictis fratribus separationem prefatam obtinuisse – nam fratres bene usi liberatione prefata, quia propter illam religio non est in aliquo minuta sed aucta vehementer—viderentque fratres fesulanos ad ipsum modis omnibus affectare et expeterent, statuerunt et illi impretrare similiter a Pontifice eius modi liberationem a Congregatione Lombardie pro conventu Sanctae Catherinae de Pisis, qui tunc a fratribus dictae Congregationis detinebatu r... .” 85 “1495. Ricordo come la Vigilia di S. Bernardo vennero a Pisa i frati di S. Marco separati dalla Congregazione di Lombardi e cacciorno quelli della Congregazione li quali si partirno lo stesso girono dopo la venuti di quelli. Restocci lo padre nostro Rev. Fra Arcangelo da Brescia perche era infermo, per confessarsi, e cosi ci confesso, comunico lo di di S. Giov. Batti. decollato e partissi da noi. Restammo afflitte a morte e sappiamo d’aver perduto tanto per el suo saggio governo. Iddio ci provegga”; Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 304. 86 Frater Archangelus Bonetti, of Brescia, was subprior at Santa Caterina from 1491 until 1493. He was prior of the Pisan friary in August of 1494, when the convent was joined to the San Marco congregation; Bonaini, “Chronica antiqua,” pp. 608–609.
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87 “1495. A di 29 di Agosto detti al nostro Fra Arcangelo fiorini 10 che fu lo pagamento di tutto Sett. e rimanevimo private dello Governo con grandissimo dolore, in mano e al governo delli devoti frati di Fra Girolamo...”; Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 304. 88 See M. Lupo-Gentile, “La politica religiosa di Pisa durante l’assedio,” pp. 147–162. For the reaction by the friars of San Marco, see Di Agresti, Sviluppo della riforma, pp. 192–193: “Et Pisani, ab excelso dominio florentino deficientes omnino, se rebellarunt et inimicitiae maximae, quae contra florentinos in consiliis Pisanorum diu latuerant, iam patefactae sunt, quia magnae crudenlitatis signa erga florentinos exercerunt ab urbe Pisarum expellentes et bonis omnis generis expoliantes et alia crudelia erga ea patrantes … Sed quid referendum, quid erga moniales egerunt, cum Christum dominum et sancti omnes prophetantes etiam Dei servos iniuriis et contumeliis affecerunt? Nos igitur partem nostram iniuriarum sicut et acceptam persensimus, ita paucis ad futuram memoriam referamus. Nam post multas iniurias, minas et verbera illata et post furorem popularem plurimum et alias violentias fratribus nostris irrogatas, conventum Sanctae Catharinae abstulerunt et violenter de ipso conventu et de eorum civitate eiecerant. Et fratres lombardi una cum pisanis, qui iam antea quam nostri de conventu et civitate pellerentur, miserunt aliquot fratres illuc talibus institutos moribus, qui maledictis et opprobriis fratres nostros mansuetissimos exercerent in virtutum omnium necessaria patientia.” 89 “1495. Adi 19 Genn. detti a Fra Stefano L. 13 fiorini 4 e faccio ricordo chome a di 17 di ditto furno levati li frati di fra Girolamo, rimase lo Priore e pochi altri li quali furno levati a di 16 Ferraio, fu raccomandato il Convento a Fra Andrea da Faenza de nostri Monaci aspettando li Venerandi e S. Padri nostri della Congregatione con grande allegressa”; “1496. Oggi questo di 6 di Aprile sono venuti li Rev.mi Padri nostri della Congregazione abbiamo avuto letitia gaudio spirituale in Christo Iesu speranzia nostra ...”; “1496. Ricordo come a di 6 giugno torno dal Convento della Congregazione lo P. Priore fra Ieronjmo e meno seco lo Padre Fra Vincentio da 20millia (Ventimiglia) assegnato dalli Venerandi e S. Padri della Congregazione a noi, cioe al Monastero di S. Domenico, per Padre spirituale confessor e governatore e abbiamolo ricevuto con grande gaudio e spirituale letitia”; Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 304–305. Fra Jeronimo must be “Frater Hieronymus ab Urceis, oppido Brixiensis agri” who was elected Prior “circa initium anni MCDLXXXVI” or 1495 common style; Bonaini, “Chronica antiqua,” pp. 610–611. 90 For these events, see R. Creytens, “Les actes capitulaires de la congregation ToscanoRomaine O.P. (1496–1530),” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 40 (1970): 125–133 and Lupo-Gentile, “Politica religiosa,” pp. 152–153. 91 Lupo-Gentile, “Politica religiosa,” pp. 152–155. 92 “Eodem etiam tempore, Magister Ordinis, anno scilicet MDIV, curam monasteriorum sancti Dominici et sancti Pauli [San Paolo all’Orto], Priori Conventus commisit; quae (ut ego puto) eatenus Fratribus illis novae Congregationis Etruscae subdita fuerant. Hoc tempore, electus est in Priorem Frater Vincentius a Brachis, Pisanus, qui sedit anno MDIV et sequenti. Aetate quidem juvenis erat, ut qui vix vigesimum octavum expleverat annum; at senilibus moribus fulgebat, et in regimine Conventus et monasterii sancti Dominici, cujus etaim curam susceperat, qualis esset ostendit”; Bonaini, “Chronica antiqua”’, p. 612. 93 From Creytens, ‘Les actes … congregation Toscano-Romaine’, p. 177: “Imprimis ordinatum est quod fraters assignati Pisis, etiam si confessores sint monasteriorium civitatis, intelligantur et sint assignati pro uno anno tantum, scilicet usque ad sequens
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capitulum. Et hoc ad eorum levamen, videlicet ut anno sequenti alii in eorum loco ponantur, si ante assignati recedere voluerint. Item per predictos ordinati sunt confessores monasteriorum que Pisis sunt, videlicet: pro S. Dominico: fr. Damianus de Florentia ...”; the congregation assessed the women for financial support in 1526: “Determinatum fuit quod monasteria sororum nostre congregationis persolvere debeant contributiones rev. do vicario generali in hunc modum, videlict: Mon. S. Dominici Pisanum L.7”; Ibid., p. 186.
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Chapter 6
Nuns and the World Although in theory they had withdrawn from the world, the nuns of San Domenico preserved many links to it. This chapter explores the nature of these links and the role of works of in the maintenance and expression of those ties. Despite being “dead to the world,” according to the monastic ideal, the reality was that the nuns had to live in it, so their security and financial health, the pastoral care they could expect, the peace of the cloister itself depended on the city’s own security and political stability. But Pisa was not to enjoy such stability in the fifteenth century. To the death of Pietro Gambacorta in 1392, and the sale of Pisa’s sovereignty to the Visconti, was added the conquest of Pisa by the Florentines in 1406, which lasted through most of the fifteenth century. This conquest effectively relegated Pisa to the status of a colony: it was ruled from Florence, bled by taxes, and exploited by various industries and trades in Florence. Many of the wealthiest families of Pisa either fled or were exiled.1 These events had important ramifications for the women of San Domenico, both directly—by virtue of lost and found patronage—and indirectly—by virtue of changed social and economic conditions that affected the nuns within their cloister. Family Ties The most important links between the nuns and the world were of course their families. Kinship and social status remained a fact of life for these women, although in the abstract they should have lost sight of and interest in such issues. The names of the choir nuns of San Domenico represent the highest levels of Pisan society in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: Gambacorta, Bonconti, Gittalebraccia, Doria, da Cascina, Ciampolini, Cinquini, Galletti, Dell’Lante, among others.2 These family ties were often reinforced within the convent walls, with networks established among kinswomen. As was often the case, sometimes more than one member of a family would profess in the same house: so in 1404 two daughters of Stephano di Sancto Pietro were nuns at San Domenico and in 1494 two daughters of Francesco da Chatignano were professed there.3 In fact, generations of women from these families became nuns at San Domenico, for example, members of the Gambacorta family, the Bonconti, the Ciampulini, and the Gualandi. This pattern created family ties within the cloister, which certainly reinforced those without. When a woman professed as a nun, she often changed her given name to another, but she continued to be identified by her father’s name and kin. Her ties to her family outside the cloister were real and enduring.
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Despite such conventions of naming and the likelihood of strong affective ties with a natal family, pastoral literature and sermons directed at enclosed women encouraged them to “forget thy father’s house” (Psalm 44) and to do no more than to pray for the spiritual welfare of their kin. Having joined a new family in the convent, nuns were urged not to think too much about their natal families. So in his model sermons for religious women, Humbert of Romans exhorted nuns to “cut the umbilical cord that through the flesh connects them to their relatives.”4 Other confessors, like Saint Antoninus of Florence, directed religious women to keep their families in their prayers.5 In an effort to attain the ideal of distance from the family, the observance established by Chiara Gambacorta allowed professed nuns to see their relatives only twice in their lifetimes.6 These conflicting goals affected the acquisition and perhaps the use of works of art at San Domenico. Having placed their daughters in a convent would give a family an interest in the welfare and reputation of the house. Even if they did not want their daughters to make any larger claim on the patrimony, the honor of a family could be affected by any notoriety attached to their daughter’s convent.7 Families of the nuns could thus be counted on to contribute to the upkeep, enlargements, or adornments of the house. This could be small, like the gift of a breviary, or large, like funds for new building. The most important patrons at San Domenico were, of course, the Gambacorti, who established the convent. It was this family that had the right to install their coat of arms prominently in the church as a sign of their patronage. (The surviving carved Gambacorta stemma, however, was given to the convent in the seventeenth century. It is now installed in the new convent. See Figure 1.1.) But the fortunes of the family were permanently damaged when Pietro Gambacorta was assassinated in 1392, ten years after Chiara and her companions moved into the convent; the deaths of all the male members of the family left alive only the pregnant bride of one of Chiara’s brothers. She fled to her native Genoa and produced a son to carry on the family name. The family’s fortunes were further rocked in 1406 when Giovanni Gambacorta, Chiara’s cousin, betrayed the city of Pisa by opening the gates for the invading Florentine army, which resulted in the subjugation of Pisa to Florence. As with many other noble Pisan families, the other branches of the Gambacorti fled the conquered city, with many members of the family establishing themselves in Palermo.8 The remaining heirs of Pietro Gambacorta in Genoa were so impoverished that in the 1450s Andrea di Lorenzo Gambacorta, great grandson of Pietro, wrote to Piero di Cosimo di Medici describing his family’s desperate circumstances and asking for help.9 He seems to have returned to Pisa after this, as his son Pietro was deeply involved in Pisan military and diplomatic efforts against Florence during the Siege of Pisa.10 Such circumstances curtailed the active efforts that the Gambacorta family could have performed as patrons of San Domenico, although Gambacorta women continued to profess in the convent.11 There were, however, gifts made to the convent by members of more distant branches of the Gambacorta family. Several members of the Gambacorti of Pistoia made legacies or sold property for the convent in the early 1400s.12 One of the more
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interesting of such family interventions was a gift made by Madonna Giovanna, widow of Coscio Gambacorta, among which were funds for building the church and “la tavola dello altare.” The gift was recorded in 1405 (1406 Pisan).13 This woman was the daughter of Giovanni Bonconti, thus she was also a kinswoman to Agnes Bonconti, who was one of the original members of the community at San Domenico. Coscio Gambacorta, her husband, was a cousin of Pietro Gambacorta who served as anziano of the city in 1355 and 1372. It appears that the couple had two sons, Francesco di Coscio and Giovanni di Coscio, both of whom were anziani in 1387.14 This Giovanni Gambacorta was made captain of the city in the spring of 1406 and then betrayed the city to Florence in October of that year. Mona Giovanna’s donation to the convent was made before these terrible events took place. She was an experienced patron of the arts, having already commissioned an altar painting for the altar of San Giovanni Battista in the Duomo from Turino Vanni in 1391.15 It is also possible that she brought this artist to Chiara’s attention, as to him has been attributed the panel of the Nativity according to Saint Birgitta (Catalogue 8 and Figure 3.12) that the convent owned. The document describing her gift to San Domenico of money for a painting may well refer to a still surviving painting, the Polyptych of the Madonna Enthroned, which bears an inscription dating it to April 1404 (Catalogue 12 and Figure 3.6). Part of an inscription survives on the central panel, which reads “pregiamo dio ...” and should conclude with “for him [or her]” and name the donor; however, this part of the inscription is missing. Still, the saint to the right of the Virgin in this polyptych is Giovanni Evangelista, one of the patron saints of Mona Giovanna, her father, and her son. This polyptych, already discussed in terms of its Dominican content, was probably the result of a negotiation between the desires of the donatrix and the needs of the community.16 In light of the tragedies that befell her family, it is not surprising that Chiara looked elsewhere for support for her convent. We know that she actively and successfully solicited alms from Francesco di Marco Datini and his wife Margherita, but she certainly sought help from other leading families in Tuscany and beyond. For example, the community attracted the notice of Manno degli Agli, a member of an ancient noble family of Florence and a friend and associate of Francesco Datini. He died of the plague in 1400 and a foundation was established at San Domenico in his memory.17 Manno degli Agli’s donation to the observant community in Pisa may have played some role in stimulating his cousin, Barnaba degli Agli, to leave in his will of 1418 the funds to rebuild the observant friary in Fiesole, founded by Giovanni Dominici.18 A marble inscription installed sometime after 1406, probably in the public church of San Domenico, records the nuns’ obligation to have masses said for Manno degli Agli on the feastdays of the Magdalen, Saint Birgitta, John the Baptist, Saint Dominic, and the Birth of the Virgin.19 All the saints named in this inscription are represented in the altarpiece apparently paid for by Mona Giovanna, that is, the painting dated 1404. Thus this painting would have served the fulfillment of the obligation imposed on the nuns by
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this foundation. Here again is reason to believe the altarpiece was destined for the public church, where the priest would say the masses required. It must have been the prioress, Chiara Gambacorta, who saw to it that one painting, paid for by her kinswoman, served so many purposes: proclaiming a Dominican affiliation for the community, honoring the memory of her kin, and responding to the liturgical needs of the church. In the difficult times of Pisa’s first domination by Florence and the loss of its principal patrons, the community had to look elsewhere for donors to the house. Despite the uncertain political fortunes of the city of Pisa in the years around 1400, the community continued to grow and by 1406 Chiara, as Prioress, saw the need to build a new dormitory and sought support for the project. A note from the archive of San Domenico reports that this project could not have been built without the generosity of Simone Doria of Genoa.20 Simone Doria of the famous Genoese family was a merchant with ties to Francesco Datini who lived in Pisa in the early fifteenth century. He may have been a benefactor of the convent prior to this; in a letter to Francesco Datini in 1396 asking for assistance to build the new church, Chiara says that she would have had enough of a subsidy from Genoa for the project, but the bad conditions there prevented it.21 We cannot be sure that Simone Doria was the Genoese donor to whom Gambacorta refers in this letter, but a stone inscription dated July 1402 preserved from the convent records a promise made to say masses for the soul of “Simone De Auria.” The inscription is accompanied by a coat of arms of the Doria family.22 The installation of such a plaque was a privilege reserved for those who made substantial gifts to a convent, so the very existence of this inscription testifies to the depth of Simone Doria’s association with San Domenico. A letter in the Datini archive confirms Simone Doria’s presence in Pisa in November 1402, at which time he was involved in a scheme to get a painting into Pisa through the Florentine blockade of its ports.23 Doria’s connections with San Domenico were familial as well as spiritual, as the convent housed many women from this clan. Chiara Gambacorta’s stepmother, Orietta, the daughter of Araone Doria, entered the convent when her husband was assassinated. A document of 1404 which names the nuns of San Domenico includes two Doria women: Tomase Araonis de Aurea (from Genoa) and Filippe Stephani de Aurea, who became prioress of San Domenico in the 1430s (Appendix 3) and who transferred to Genoa to install the Observance in the convent of Corpus Christi there. Doria women continued to profess at San Domenico through the first half of the fifteenth century: Gabriella Zene Doria, Agata Celestino Deoria, Isabette Pauli Deoria and Felicis Celsi Deoria all appear on rosters of San Domenico in 1426 (Appendix 4). Any specific connections between these women and Simone Doria are not known, but the presence of his kinswomen in the convent surely contributed to his interest in San Domenico. There is no evidence that Simone Doria made further embellishments to San Domenico beyond his gifts for the dormitory and the marble inscription, which was installed in the public church of the convent. There is, however, a painting from San
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Domenico which dates to the period of Simone Doria’s gifts to the house, and which may be connected to them (Catalogue 15 and Figure 3.1). A painting of The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, dated 1403, depicts an unidentified man as the donor, with an inscription that says, “let us pray to God for the one who pays.” The inscription does not specify what the donor pays for, and there are no heraldic marks or other marks of identity, but the timing of this commission coincides with Simone Doria’s association with San Domenico, so perhaps it is his many gifts that are here remembered. Although the circumstances surrounding the donation of this painting are not clear, the inscription on another painting from San Domenico provides the name of another patron of the convent who had family ties to the sisters. Stefano Lapi was a wealthy Pisan and converso of the convent; his two daughters and, eventually, his wife, Margarita, became nuns in the convent. His daughter Giovanna is listed among the members of the community in 1403; her death in June 1403 is recorded in the convent’s obituary with a resume of her life.24 Stefano Lapi himself was an old friend of Chiara Gambacorta: he aided her in the founding of the monastery and, prior to that, assisted her when she was being held prisoner in her father’s home.25 He spent his later years in close association with San Domenico, as a converso of the house.26 Conversi associated with Dominican houses were responsible for seeing to the worldly needs of the sisters.27 Lapi’s name is inscribed at the foot of a large painting of the Crucifixion, which was executed for the house in 1405 (Catalogue 6 and Figure 3.4). A Latin inscription here echoes the formal tone of the marble inscription in memory of Simone Doria: “This was made in the time that sister Clare was Prioress of this monastery, in the year of our Lord 1405. Stefanus Lapi, Lord of Lapi, had it made. Pray to the Lord for him. Johannes Petri de Neapoli painted it.” Stefano Lapi is painted in the donor’s position at the foot of the cross, accompanied by a younger man, who is probably his son. This younger man seems to have become a friar at Santa Caterina; he is mentioned in their chronicle as a friar around 1425.28 There is further mention of a donation by a Frate Stefano di Lapo di Stefano to San Domenico in 1434.29 As is argued in another chapter, this painting seems to have been intended for a spot inside the convent proper, away from the eyes of seculars who would admire the donation Stefano Lapi had made to the convent, and directed towards the conventual family whom Stefano served. If so, both the text and the image of the donors functioned to remind the nuns to include them in their prayers. Of course, donors to their convent had a special place in the prayers of cloistered women. Any benefactor to a convent expected efforts on the part of the nuns directed towards their spiritual health. But when this painting was completed in 1405 the community at San Domenico may still have included members of Lapi’s immediate family; for these women the portraits of the male members of the family would have special importance. Cloistered nuns in a strictly observant house like San Domenico were not allowed access to their relatives, and their vows of poverty would theoretically preclude private ownership of portraits or other memorabilia that reminded them
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of family members in the world. If so, an image like this one depicting close family members would have a function similar to that proposed for portraits made of daughters who became nuns: to preserve the bonds between the daughter and her natal family.30 Images like this one of donors to the convent could both remind the community at large to pray for their souls and remind their daughters of their familial bonds and the special obligation they had to pray for their families. Both the Constitutions and the Dominican missal spell out the spiritual duties nuns owed to their families.31 Family members like Stefano Lapi not only gave gifts of money or objects to the convent, they performed services for the convent; they provided counsel, purchased goods, served as go-betweens for the cloistered women and the secular world. Lapi’s work in these areas was part of his obligation as a converso. The nuns referred to those who served them in such capacities as the famiglia di fuori, which might include factors, or agents, those who oversaw agricultural properties or the collection of rents. Often relatives of the nuns held such positions; for example, a document of 1416 (1417 Pisan style) names Ranieri del fu Giovanni dei Gualandi as one of the procuratore e sindaci of the convent.32 The Gualandi family had been linked to the Gambacorta family by marriage and political alliance; Chiara’s mother may have come from this clan. The job of the factor was to purchase goods for the convent, oversee property, execute their contracts, or run their errands. Factors were important servants of the convent, and were sometimes related to the nuns in convents they served;33 for example, the goldsmith Ranieri d’Antonio, who is the factor named in a document of 1462 (discussed in Chapter 7), was the father of Suor Brigida di Ranieri who appears on the lists of the convent at mid-century (Appendix 4). This document describes his role as the middleman between the nuns and a painter with whom they had contracted for a painting; he carried the payments, explained the commission, and did what he could to bring the project to completion. It is difficult to determine how the requirements of the donors of such images intersected with the needs of the nuns, in terms of liturgies, personal devotions, or the requirements for images in specific locations. Certainly the donors must have been responsible for selecting the artists who executed these paintings. They would, in fact, be in a much better position than the enclosed women to choose and contract with artists in the world. That Mona Giovanna Bonconti had already had dealings with Turino Vanni, for example, may have brought this particular painter to the notice—and patronage—of the nuns of San Domenico.34 Nonetheless, the selection of subject matter for a religious house would be informed by the wishes of the nuns, if not dictated by the women. Another case for intervention and donation by a family related to the nuns may be made for the Altarpiece of Saint Eulalia (Catalogue 18 and Figure 4.1), which has been dated by its style to the 1430s. Representations of this saint are very unusual in Tuscan art; the cult of Saint Eulalia was centered in Barcelona, and does not seem to have taken root in Italy.35 As far as is known, there was no relic or specific liturgy
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of the saint at San Domenico, yet the evidence indicates that this panel was in San Domenico in the fifteenth century. Given the lack of liturgical requirements for an image of this saint, perhaps one should seek an explanation in the larger network of donors who contributed to the convent. There we find a series of relationships that may provide a context for this painting. In 1434, one Madonna Ularia, a relative of the Prioress Filippa Doria (prioress between 1430 and 1440), made a donation to the convent. A document names the intermediary for this donation as “Messer Dinco Chatelano,” which supplies a Catalan connection for the gift of four gold florins.36 Could these circumstances be related to the presence in San Domenico of a painting of the Catalan saint, perhaps as a memorial of the donor or as a result of a foundation established at this time of which no further record remains? Regardless of who paid for the picture and under what specific circumstances, the painting may have had a special impact on a young woman who professed at San Domenico; by 1461, the roster of nuns includes “Heulalia di baptista de nerli da Firenze.”37 Despite the rarity of this name, and this saint, in Tuscany, this Florentine woman chose Eulalia as her name of religion. In this choice, she may have been affected by the striking painting of the Catalan saint in the convent. Similar power may have been exercised by the much earlier images of Saint Birgitta in the convent, for women of each generation at San Domenico chose this Swedish saint as their name saints, despite the newness of the saint and her cult in Italy (see Appendix 4).38 If the wishes of a donor introduced a foreign saint into the convent, at least this saint was painted in a familiar style. Another donation to the convent brought a painting of a familiar saint that was executed in a foreign style. This is the Flemish Altarpiece of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, which must have been the gift of the family whose coat of arms is painted on the original frame39 (Catalogue 16 and Figure 4.4). The colors of the escutcheon have darkened over the years and become somewhat difficult to read, but examination reveals that it is composed of three diagonal gold bars on a dark green field. This coloration and configuration corresponds to the arms borne by the Baldovini family of Pisa.40 Members of the Baldovini family participated in both the civic life of Pisa and the religious life of San Domenico in the fifteenth century. The Baldovini lived in the Kinzica quarter of Pisa, the same neighborhood as San Domenico, and they seem to have been upwardly mobile in the social vacuum created in Pisa during the fifteenth century by the exile or ruin of many prominent families.41 In the middle years of the fifteenth century, Mariano di Baldovino served as notary for the convent at least once, and possibly more.42 But at the end of the century his son, Bernabas Ser Mariani Baldovini, was elected one of the anziani of the reestablished Republic of Pisa several times during its brief existence from 1494 to 1509; he also participated in the city’s defenses against Florence while the city was under siege.43 At the end of the century, Bernardo di Mariano Baldovino and Barnaba di Mariano Baldovino, baptized several children, some of whom became nuns at San Domenico.44 Barnaba’s daughter, Suor Nastazia, was a member of the community by 1503, and her cousin,
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Caterina di Baldovino, witnessed a contract of lease for the convent in l522; this may be the Caterina di Mariano Baldovini who was baptized in 1507, in which case she was only fifteen and probably not yet professed when she witnessed the contract.45 Alternatively, this may be another member of the clan, who took the name Catherine at her profession. From this evidence, the links between the Baldovini family and San Domenico seem to move from external service (in the form of notarial duties) to the acceptance of their daughters into the community. Such movement may reflect the improving social status of the clan, which continued its ties to the convent of San Domenico into the seventeenth century.46 Their gift to the convent of an expensive, imported altarpiece may have been part of a strategy for acceptance into the community, and thus a symbol of their status in the city as a whole. The choice of subject matter for this painting is not hard to fathom: it was probably fairly simple for this family, with daughters named Catherine, to negotiate the gift of an image of Saint Catherine of Alexandria to this Dominican community. What remains obscure, however, are the means by which some member of this Pisan family obtained a painting from an artist whose base of activity was Bruges. The artist to whom this painting is attributed, the Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy, may have worked for other Italian patrons, as several works from this painter’s assembled oeuvre have a provenance from—or other connection with—Italy. However, the complete lack of Italian influence in this or in any other work by the Lucy Master makes the prospect that he traveled to Pisa very unlikely.47 Furthermore, the use of oak for both the panel on which the figure is painted and for the frame, as well as the very un-Italianate carving of the frame point to their manufacture in Northern Europe. While it might be supposed that the artist himself traveled to Italy from Bruges, it is much less likely that he took along with him a carpenter or other craftsman to prepare oak panels for him. But late fifteenth-century Bruges supported a large population of Italian merchants, including merchants from Pisa.48 In 1496, the re-established Republic of Pisa sent Pietro di Girolamo da Cascina to Bruges as their representative to the northern city, in hopes of persuading the emperor Maximilian to support their cause; this man seems to have remained in Bruges, where he died in 1500.49 Pietro da Cascina was joined in Bruges by two of his countrymen, Francesco di Catignano and Gian Bernardino dell’Agnello. The former had two daughters who had professed in San Domenico by 1494;50 perhaps he was the intermediary by which the Baldovini family commissioned the painting of an artist in Bruges. Whether through personal contact with the painter or through an intermediary, some member of the Baldovini family probably commissioned the Flemish painting in the North and then had it imported to Pisa. Clients and Patrons In their efforts to support their house, serve the laity, and worship God, the nuns wrote numerous letters to those in the world; Chiara Gambacorta’s surviving correspondence with the Datini spouses is probably only a small part of the correspondence she
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wrote. Her successors in the office of prioress and other members of the house also wrote to seculars, seeking donations, offering counsel and prayer, or petitioning for special graces for others. A glimpse of the variety of such letters can be seen in the letters the sisters wrote to the Medici. As the most prominent family and de facto rulers of Florence and Pisa, the Medici were logical targets for any letters of supplication coming from religious houses. The archive of their correspondence maintained in the Archivio di Stato of Florence preserves numerous such requests from religious establishments in Tuscany, including some 25 letters from women of San Domenico of Pisa. The Medici showed an interest in San Domenico early in the fifteenth century, even before their status in Florence was assured; in 1417, Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici gave 25 gold florins to the convent for prayers for the soul of Giovanni di Francesco Gagliano.51 The support of the Medici family continued throughout the fifteenth century. Indeed, Cosimo de’ Medici is termed a “father” of the house by Suor Paraclita dei Ricci in the 1460s (Appendix 5, Letter I); while a letter to Lorenzo de’ Medici in 1484 requests alms from him as his family had always been benefactors of the convent.52 The connection between Cosimo de’ Medici and the Observant movement in Florence is well known, so he certainly knew San Domenico and may have found it both piously and politically useful to adopt an active role in the well-being of the only Observant Dominican convent in Pisa. For his part, Lorenzo was sympathetic to the situation of Pisa, where he saw to repairs and reformed the university.53 And the sisters wrote to Cosimo and his heirs with what appears to be some regularity, asking for financial help, thanking them for gifts made, asking for help for a third party, requesting exemptions from taxes, sending along condolences in time of trouble.54 As K.J.P. Lowe has characterized Lorenzo’s relationship with convents, he was “their agent and fixer as well as their benefactor and protector.”55 While it seems that such correspondence came mostly from the prioresses, from time to time letters from other nuns in the convent were directed to the Medici. In March 1460, Suor Paraclita dei Ricci wrote to Giovanni di Cosimo de’ Medici pleading her poverty and asking him to purchase 10 braccia of cloth for a new habit (“di vestirmi”). This letter is transcribed in Appendix 5, Letter I. The same nun wrote to Lorenzo de’ Medici in March 1477 thanking him for one donation, and asking him to visit the convent (the letter was addressed to him in Pisa), so that she may explain in person (“per boccha”) why his alms were sought for “certain much needed buildings” (Appendix 5, Letter V). This Suor Paraclita was very well connected; she was the daughter of Giovacchino dei Ricci, a member of one of the leading families of Florence. Her brother, Giuliano di Giovacchino dei Ricci was Bishop of Pisa from 1420 until 1461.56 Rarely, however, do the surviving letters from San Domenico to the Medici refer even obliquely to works of art. I have found only one such letter which may be linked to a surviving object. In 1473 and 1474, the prioress Antonia di Antonio di San Casciano petitioned Lucrezia Tornabuoni and her son Lorenzo de’ Medici to donate a paschal candle (specified in one letter as weighing 14 libre) to the convent.57
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6.1 Pisan Artist (Cecco di Pietro?), Paschal Candlestick, c.1400
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Although the response to this particular request is not known, Lucrezia Tornabuoni made other gifts to the convent through the offices of Leonardo Spina; a letter of November 1474 from him to Donna Lucrezia reports to her his charitable acts to the convent in Pisa.58 When provided to the convent, such a candle would have been used in the wooden candelabrum standing some five feet high which survives from San Domenico (Catalogue 20 and Figure 6.1) and which, as late as 1906, was still used in liturgical ceremonies at San Domenico from Holy Saturday until the Ascension.59 Carved and gilded, the candelabrum is adorned by an octagonal crown with gables painted with images of saints Michael the Archangel, Dominic, Francis, Paul, Peter, John the Baptist, and the Virgin. Also depicted on the candlestick is the Magdalene at the feet of Christ in the narrative of the Noli me tangere (Figure 6.2), an appropriate subject for its use at Eastertide. The object itself probably dates from early in the century; its most recent attribution is to the Pisan painter Cecco di Pietro. The selection of saints for the gable fits in nicely with the liturgical and devotional practices of San Domenico.60 Merely owning such an object, which needed expensive materials to perform its ritual function, obliged the nuns to make contact with possible donors in the world. The nuns could not avoid other sorts of turmoil to which their city was subject in the fifteenth century, including conquest, depopulation, and economic exploitation. They were as subject to pestilence as other Pisans; the plague ravaged Tuscany throughout the fifteenth century, including in 1478 and in 1496. These conditions may account for the existence of another painting that has been linked to San Domenico, depicting the Saint most invoked against the plague, Saint Sebastian (Catalogue 22 and Figure 6.3). Details of this painting’s provenance from San Domenico and its original location there are obscure. I cannot locate it among the inventories. Its original format, to which it has now been returned after having been squared off at the top, suggests that it may have been intended to hang on a wall. There is no record of any relic of Saint Sebastian at San Domenico, which should rule out an
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6.2 Pisan Artist (Cecco di Pietro?), Detail of Figure 6.1: Noli me tangere
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6.3 Workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio, Saint Sebastian, c.1480
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altar to the plague saint. The painting probably served a devotional function, as the focus of prayers invoking the aid of the Saint.61 But whether those prayers came from the nuns inside the cloister, or the laity in the public church must be left open, as the information about this painting is so sparse. This image is clearly Florentine in inspiration and probably in execution, as well. The painting has been associated both with Botticelli and with Davide Ghirlandaio; it is very similar to another painting assigned to Davide, also in the Pisan Museum, which depicts Saints Sebastian and Roch. That work has been dated to the 1470s and bears the arms of the Medici family.62 Vasari reported that it had been given to the convent of San Girolomo ai Gesuati in Pisa, by “I don’t know which Medici,” although he identified the arms as those of Leo X.63 As San Domenico’s Saint Sebastian reprises the figure in this Medici commission, perhaps one should seek either direct or indirect input from them in the creation of this painting. However, the only documented circumstance that may relate to this picture is the presence of the Ghirlandaio shop in Pisa at the end of the fifteenth century, another example of the cultural domination of Pisa by Florence during this period.64 Nuns and Soldiers Pisa tried to put an end to this domination abruptly in the fall of 1494. The expulsion of the Medici from Florence, with the attendant political upheaval there, and the arrival in Tuscany of Charles VIII of France provided an opportunity for Pisa to remove the yoke of Florence. The Florentines responded by laying siege to the city. Pisa was a pawn in the political games played by the European powers of France, the Empire, the Papacy, Florence, Venice, and Spain. Enduring long years of warfare, plague and famine, the Pisans did not capitulate until 1509, when the city definitively succumbed to Florentine domination.65 The events of the siege had immediate repercussions in the convent. The women were relatives of the anziani who were trying to re-establish the sovereignty of Pisa; they were partisans of their city.66 In January of 1495, the nuns were deprived of a confessor when the city of Pisa pressured the friars of the newly Observant convent of Santa Caterina to leave the Congregation of San Marco, because of its links to Florence.67 Between 1494 and 1510 the community was reduced from 41 nuns and 9 converse to 29 nuns and 8 converse (Appendix 4). It seems that most of the “foreign” sisters left the community during the siege, as the Lucchese, Florentine and Genoese nuns no longer belonged to the house in 1510. One of the most dramatic battles of the war with Florence, the battle of Stampace, took place a short distance from the convent itself: the Florentines stormed the fortress of Stampace in the southeast corner of the city in August of 1495 and bombarded the walls between the fortress and the church of San Antonio. Although the walls withstood the bombardment and the attack was unsuccessful, the noise and fear of this event at such a proximity to their convent must have been frightening.68 As with other effects of the war, the nuns must have been as hungry as anyone else in Pisa during the siege.69
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Two letters written by the prioress of San Domenico record the nuns’ direct engagement in the battles fought by the city.70 In July 1504, Suor Lorenza Ceuli wrote to the city fathers of the embattled Pisan republic urging that their devotions be directed to the Ten Thousand Martyrs. She had heard, she wrote, that the Signoria of Pisa had vowed to celebrate the feast of the Ten Thousand Martyrs and to stage a procession that would terminate at San Domenico, but that when the saints’ day arrived (June 22), the Signoria had done nothing, and the city had suffered terrible consequences. The event to which she refers was probably the capture of Pisan troops by the Florentine forces described by Luca Landucci as occurring on June 29, 1504, only days before she wrote the letter.71 Suor Lorenza urged the new Signoria to repair the damage and restore the protection of these military saints to the Pisan army, by fulfilling the vow and mounting the processions (Appendix 5, Letter VI). A year later, in July 1505, she wrote again to the Gonfalonieri of the city, thanking them for having kept the vow and assuring them of the intercession of the Ten Thousand Martyrs in their battles. She also thanks the Signori for alms sent to the convent and assures them that the sisters will continue to pray for their army (Appendix 5, Letter VII).72 This episode is instructive on several levels. News of what happened on the battlefields reached these cloistered nuns in a very short time. Probably the nuns’ family sources informed them of these events. Suor Lorenza di Guglielmo da Ceuli had three brothers who served the city of Pisa as anziani in the 1490s and early 1500s.73 The parlatorio must have buzzed with news of each event. And the nuns responded to this bad news by prescribing spiritual medicine. In corresponding with civic leaders in a moment of crisis, Suor Lorenza was fulfilling an advisory function that cloistered women often claimed for themselves.74 This intervention by the nuns in the political and military situation of the city during the siege may have been inspired in part by a painting that stood in the public church of the convent until the 1940s. Although now in the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, this painting, depicting the Crucifixion with many figures, adorned the altar to the left of the high altar (the cornu evangelium) in the chiesa fuora. It escaped unscathed the remodeling of the eighteenth century to remain there until its transfer to the Pisan Museum after World War II (Catalogue 10 and Figure 6.4). The painting has been linked to Benozzo Gozzoli, with whose school, if not hand, it bears most affinities. Most scholars associate it with a follower of Benozzo, rather than the artist himself, and a date around 1500 is probable. Many writers have mis-identified the subject of this painting, calling it the Crucifixion with the 40 Martyrs, because there are precisely 40 figures flanking the cross.75 This particular cult, however, is exceedingly rare in Western art prior to the seventeenth century,76 and does not seem to have been practiced at San Domenico. However, the sisters did possess a relic of another group martyrdom, the Ten Thousand Martyrs of Mount Ararat (See Appendix 6). These were Roman soldiers led by Acacio, all of whom were converted to Christianity by an angel, and crucified by Hadrian on Mount Ararat.77
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6.4 Follower of Benozzo Gozzoli, Crucifixion with Ten Thousand Martyrs, c.1500
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The cult of the Ten Thousand Martyrs only began to have an impact on Tuscan art after 1500, although an unidentified Florentine press published a sacra rappresentazione on the “Historia de’ Dieci mila Martiri Crucifissi” about that time.78 However, the Dominican order promoted this cult across Europe; the Dominican Breviary had elevated the cult of the 10,000 martyrs to a feast of nine lessons in the early fifteenth century.79 At San Domenico, the cult was definitely practiced by 1485; in that year, Gabriella Bonconte was elected prioress in a chapter meeting held on the feast day of this group of martyrs, June 22.80 Certainly it is this group martyrdom that is celebrated in San Domenico’s painting, as it was this group to whom Suor Lorenza Ceuli urged the city’s devotion. The prioress’ prescription for processions to the church of San Domenico and her statement that the anziani had promised to stage processions to the church suggests that by 1504, there was already an altar in honor of the Ten Thousand Martyrs in the public church of the convent. If there was an altar to this group of saints by 1504, it may have already been adorned with an altarpiece on the subject. This suggests a terminus ante quem for the installation of the painting, which accords well with a date around 1500. In addition to the Dominican promulgation of these saints, perhaps the donor of the altarpiece was important to the choice of this subject. An unidentified man appears in half-length at the base of this painting. His smaller scale and position in front of the foreground saint locate him outside the space of the saints. His name may have been noted on the original frame of the painting, which was probably replaced during the eighteenth-century remodeling; there is nothing with which to identify him now.81 The half-length format in which he is rendered is another element that points to a date around 1490–1500, as it appears about this time in Tuscan art.82 Rendered in profile, wearing black garments, this man is among the best-realized figures in the painting. Unlike the saints who surround the Cross, he does not gaze directly at Christ. He looks straight ahead, and participates in this company only indirectly. Account books at San Domenico recorded that masses in honor of these saints were said in the church from 1507 until 1774 (Pisan style) and that in 1518 the city gave alms to the convent for their feast.83 The continued presence of the altarpiece in the public church at San Domenico must be related to the masses said in honor of these saints through the eighteenth century. Another Pisan image of the Ten Thousand Martyrs once adorned a house of Dominican tertiaries, called San Paolo all’Orto. Now in the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, this painting uses a much different composition, depicting ten crucified figures flanked by Saints Roch and Sebastian. The presence of these two plague saints is a reminder that the plague devastated Pisa in 1496. At the base of this horizontal panel is a predella with five Dominican saints.84 The two Pisan works for Dominican women take different approaches to the representation of this bloody theme. The panel from San Paolo all’Orto uses one crucified figure to stand for a thousand of his fellows; thus ten crucifixes with their gruesome cargoes fill the frontal
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plane of the picture. Each one of these martyrs is a variation on the theme of Christ crucified, an equivalence between their passion and Christ’s which is emphasized in the Dominican liturgy for these saints.85 The panel from San Domenico is much less graphic in its representation, preferring to let the rather tiny palm fronds held by each man symbolize his passion. San Domenico’s image is much more decorous and solemn, despite the crush of figures surrounding the cross which elevates the body of Christ above their heads. The martyrs, none of whom is dressed as a soldier, bear witness to Christ’s death on Golgotha, marked by the skull at the foot of the cross. Here again an equivalence is drawn between this group martyrdom and the death of Christ: not only did these martyrs suffer every torment that Christ did (according to the Dominican liturgy), but every sign that attended Christ’s death—earthquakes, eclipse, darkness—also occurred at their deaths.86 Hence the appearance of the sun and moon in the upper right corner, a conventional iconography for the Crucifixion of Christ, is appropriate in an image dedicated to these martyrs, as well. Such details of a Dominican character may suggest that the nuns dictated elements of the commission to the painter. At any rate, this painting in was not meant for the eyes of the nuns, but for the laity and priests who had access to the public church. Like the altarpiece on the high altar, with its emphasis on Saint Birgitta, the nuns used this image in the public sections of the church to propound a cult to which they and their order were attached. Regardless of the role of the donor in selecting the theme or choosing the artist, the women of the convent made the object work for their own purposes, even to the point of intervening in the military affairs of their city. Notes 1 See Michael Mallett, “Pisa and Florence in the Fifteenth Century. Aspects of the Period of the First Florentine Domination,” in N. Rubinstein (ed.), Florentine Studies (London and Evanston, 1968), pp. 403–441. For a history of Pisa in the Fifteenth Century, see Michele Luzzati, ‘Il Quattrocento: dall’avvento della dominazione Fiorentia (1406) alla “guerra di popolo” (1494–1509)’, in Pisa Iconografia a stampa dal XV al XVIII secolo (Pisa, 1991). 2 See the roster of nuns from the fifteenth century in Appendix 4. 3 See Appendix 4. 4 Quoted in C. Casagrande, Prediche alle donne del secolo XIII (Milan, 1978), p. 36. 5 This is what Saint Antoninus defines as a nun’s duty to her parents in his discussion of the 10 commandments addressed to religious women; Biscioni, pp. 251–263. 6 Sainati, Vite dei santi, p. 131. 7 On the relationship between nunneries and family honor, see Trexler, Public Life, pp. 36–37. 8 Emilio Tolaini, Pisa (Rome, 1992), p. 75. See also “Notizie della Famiglia Gambacorti,” a manuscript in the Archivio di Stato di Pisa, Ms. Bonaini, V, Pt. 8. 9 Andrea Gambacorti wrote to Piero di Medici: “Messer Piero Gambacurta in stato a Pisa, da chi lui molto si fidava e ..fue tradito; e morto lui e tuti soi figlioli, rimase la dona di
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Lorenzo figliolo grossa, la quale essendo sorella di Meser Antonio da Montaldo, el quale a quello tempo era Duxe de Genua, fue conducta a Genua, e li aparturi Lorenzo nostro padre, el qule habito continuamente a Genua: mori gia sono circa XIIII anni, e lasso VII fanciule femine, e quatro maschi, doe ne erano fanciulini, e’l maggiore avea circa xx anni, et io circa XViii. Io per conseglio de alcuni parenti nostri fui mandato a studio; e l’altro mio fratello magiore rimase a casa: el quale exercitandose alla mercantia, come faxea nostro padre, e non essndo molto pratico, como comunamenti sono tuti giovani, confidandosi troppo di molti, da li quali non li fue facto el dovere; lui per servare l’honore suo e satisfare ad altri, consumo tutti quelli beni mobili e immobili che nostro padre avea lassato a Genua, e di la si parti per andar cercando altrove qualche aviamento. Rimasse a Genua nostra madre cum la famiglia, potendo comodamenti fugre, per non avere el modo a spendere, rimase in villa presso alla terra mezo meglio, dove si mori cum titi di casa, e perdesse le persone e la roba per non esservi vhi ne avesse cura; remasse una nostra sorella, la quale era in Pisa, che al maritate e gia piu che matura; e per non avere el modo, per infino a chi non l’habbiamo facto. De beni solament se rimasto alcune poche cose in Pisa; el piu e ’l meglio e una casa in al quale habitano Consuli, de la quale habbiamo una picola pixione.” Roncioni, “Istorie Pisane,” Archivio Storico Italiano, ser. 1, vol. 6, part I, 1844, p. 954. 10 See M. Lupo-Gentile, “La Repubblica di Pisa durante gli anni 1497–99,” Bolletino Storico Pisano, 9 (1940): 21; and M Luzzati, Una guerra di populo, pp. 93, 141. 11 Suor Agate Juliani Gambacurtae is listed on the roster for 1426 and Suor Thomasia Gambacorta transferred from San Domenico in 1445 to reform a convent in Genoa. See Appendix 4. 12 In 1401 (1402 Pisan), Maria di Giovanni di Minuccio, wife of Bartolomeo di Niccolo dei Gambacorti left the convent 150 gold florins, to be controlled by Chiara (ASP, Aquista Coletti, n. 257). In 1419 (1420 Pisan) the same Bartolomeo sold some land for the convent (ASP, Aquista Coletti, n. 270). 13 A document in Chiara’s own hand in the Diplomatico of San Domenico at the Archivio di Stato of Pisa records the following donations (this transcription comes from Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 197–198): “Anno Domini MCCCCVI Noi Monache del Monasterio di Santo Dominico abbiamo ricevuto da monna Giovanna donna che fu di Choscio Gambacorta fiorini CCC …[the document goes on to clarify how this sum was to be divided among monna Giovanna’s heirs, the frati minori, and the convent of San Domenico] ... Ancora per denari ci die quando si fe la chiesa grossa limosina e per la tavola dello altare; ci oblighamo e promettemo di darci per lle e per lli sui morti tre messe la settimana... .” 14 Bonaini, Archivio Storico Italiani, 6 (cited in Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 17). 15 Miria Fanucci Lovitch, Artisti Attivi a Pisa Fra XIII e XVIII secolo (Pisa, 1991), vol. I, p. 278, reports the following information: Turino di Vanni del fu Turino “promette a Giovanna del fu Giovanni Bonconti, vedova di Coscio di Francesco Gambacorta, di dipingere la tavola che, su disegno dello stesso Turino, far maestro Gugliemo del fu Orlando da Piacenza, con due figure intere per lato e in mezzo la Madonna con gli Angeli. La tavola era destinata all’altare di s. Giovanni Battista, nel Duomo.” 16 As would have been typical for the patronage of high altarpieces according to Christa Gardner von Teuffel, “Clerics and Contracts: Fra Angelico, Neroccio, Ghirlandaio and Others: Legal Procedures and the Renaissance High Altarpiece in Central Italy,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 62 (1999): 203–204.
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17 For Manno di Albizzo degli Agli, see Iris Origo, Merchant of Prato, pp. 93 and 326. Manno’s father was a knight, who served as castellan of Civita Vecchia. For the Agli family, see Eugenio Gamurrini, Istoria Genealogica delle Famiglie Nobili toscane et umbre (Florence, 1685), vol. V, pp. 279–294. 18 On these circumstances, see Paul Cardile, “Fra Angelico and His Workshop at San Domenico’, pp. 22 ff. 19 The inscription, transcribed by Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 243, reads as follows: “Memoria dun limosina che Manno Degli Agli da Firenze lasso almonistero di san Domenico di pisa con condisione che le monache faccino dire ognianno nella loro chiesa cinque messe per lanima sua in perpetuo cio e lo di di santa maria Maddalena lo di di santa brigida lo di di santo johanni baptista lo di di sancto dominico lo di di sancta Maria di septembre et in quanto lassasseno questo fare lo dicto lassito lasso alla chiesa di sancta maria maggiore di firenze colla dicta a dire le dicte messe nei dicti di mori di luglio mcccci..” In writing about this stone memorial for Manno degli agli to Francesco Datini Chiara mentions the “pietra colle parole ed arme” (Gambacorta, Lettere, Guasti (ed.), Letter 10), which she was waiting to be delivered. But the surviving tablet has no arms. Perhaps she expected the tablet to look like the one given to the convent by Simone Doria, which does include his arms. 20 Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 402: “Simone Doria, lo quale fu grande benefattore di questo Monasterio, et molte limosine ci fece, et infra lantre limosine, che elli ci fece, fu questa, che facendosi lo dormitorio nostro grande, et non potendosi lavorare per non avere, elli dono assuor Chiara ... fiorini novanta.” 21 “Avei avuto assai sussidio da Genova, che per le male codissione della citta no’posano”; Ibid., p. 348. 22 The plaque now adorns the new convent of San Domenico. It reads, “Domina Soror Clara priorissa huius monasterii sancti Dominici cum ceteris sororibus promiserunt facere dici omni ebdomada in perpetuum domino simoni de auria duas missas pro anima sua et domine francische et heredis suorum et orare pro ispsis. A.D. MCCCCIII die II iulii”; Ibid., p. 243. The plaque bears two coats of arms, those of the Doria and another unidentified stemma, which must be those of Domine Francische (Simone’s wife?). 23 Written by Frate Bonifazio Ruspi from Corsica, this letter describes a scheme to get a painting to Corsica from Florence during a period when Pisa and Florence were at war and normal courses of trade through Pisa were disrupted. Doria was planning to assist the transaction. See Renato Piattoli, “Un mercante del Trecento e gli artisti del tempo suo,” Rivista d’Arte, 11 (1929): 253. 24 “Soror Joanna quae ex bonis parentibus sicut ex bono stipite, bona planta surrexit, filia enim fuit, ex Stephano nostri Monasterii converso, cuius vita dicto Monasterio suis laboribus hutile et deo gratus in conspectu eorum qui videretur devotus ex hac vita eius exitus comprobavit, et ex dicta dna Margarita iugali sua idem dicti Monasterii cum dicto Stephano viro suo durante vita consortes, in claustro nostro, pro servitiis nostris, conversa permansit, deinde non passa externa distractiones cum Marta, cum Maria intra septa Monasterii nostri, conventus consensu, ad pedes Jesu partem devota consedit: Non solum ab adolescentia sed ab infantia suave Cristi iugum subivit; erat enim triennis dicta Ioanna dum nostro consortio voluit aggregari, deinde aetate crescente, et sensu boni moris crevit et virtutibus aucta est: in simplicitate et pudicitia sua incendens ut merito in vita sua cetus semper corporale comitata femineo censeri possit, semper fuisse ab humanis non solum actibus sed obtutibus aliena. Itaque in cerimoniis ordinis devota existens, in divinis
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officiis sollicita, Deo grata fuit: Majoribus suis in obedientia et reverentia mansueta, sororibus in convictu pacifica: demum post probatum patientiam in longa infirmitate et dura quam libentur subibat, vigesimo aetatis suae anno, ad Dominum et sponsum suum Iesum Cristum libens, et laeta volavit Anno Domini 1403 die 14 Mensis Junii et a fundatione Monasterii nostri Anno 18”; Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 397–398. 25 Ibid., p. 371. 26 According to the fifteenth-century vita of Chiara Gambacorta, Stefano Lapi had two daughters in the convent; Ibid., p. 371. The early lists only name Giovanna. See also Sainati, Vite dei santi pisani, p. 121. 27 R. Creytens, O.P., “Les convers des moniales dominicaines au moyen âge,” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 19 (1949): 5–48. 28 He is listed in the “Annali di S. Caterina da Pisa,” edited by Bonaini in Archivio Storico Italiano, VI/2 (1845): 599, as “Frater Stephanus Lapi a Fucechio, genere non patria, floruit circa annum MCDXXV.” 29 “1434. Da frate Stefano di Lapo di Stefano da Fucechio per i bisogni di Suor Chiara e del convento, f. 22 ...”; Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 296. 30 Diane Owen Hughes, “Representing the Family: Portraits and Purposes in Early Modern Italy,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 17 (1986): 25. 31 Chapter Three of the Constitutions, “On Suffrages,” allots a special day (the third day after the Purification) for prayers for “Anniversarium patrum et matrum.” See Creytens, “Constitutions primitives,” p. 70. 32 ASP, Aquista Colleti, n. 267. This contract, dated September 5, 1417, established the procurators and sindaci as Ranieri dei Gualandi and Giovanni del fu Ranieri Botticella, both citizens of Pisa. 33 See Definition 5 of “Fattore” in the Grande Dizionario della lingua italiana (Turin: 1968), vol V, col. 735: “inserviente dei conventi, dei monasteri (part. Di donne) incaricato di fare spese e commissioni fuori del convento.” 34 See above Note 13. 35 See the entry on Eulalia in the Bibliotheca Sanctorum, vol. V, cols. 204–209. 36 Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 296: “1434. Da Messer Dinco Chatelano avemo f. 4. in oro che li mando per l’amor di Dio Suor Paula Doria monaca in S. Paulo e Madonna Ularia donna che fu di Gabriello Squarciafico e Antonio Doria nipote di Suor Filippa Priora ....” It is probably a coincidence that Dominican reformer, Lorenzo of Ripafratta, preached in the Duomo of Pistoia on the feast of Saint Eulalia in 1435 and 1436. Stefano Orlandi, O.P., Il Beato Lorenzo da Ripafratta (Florence, 1956), p. 39. 37 See Appendix 4 for several notations about this nun, who professed by 1455, was still among the community in 1494, but apparently died before 1510. 38 For the problem of nuns’ choice of names, see K.J.P. Lowe, Nuns’ Chronicles and Convent Culture in Renaissance and Counter-Reformation Italy (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 161–165; and Sharon Strocchia, “Naming a nun: Spiritual exemplars and Corporate Identity in Florentine Convents, 1450–1530,” in William Connell (ed.), Society and Individual in Renaissance Florence (Berkeley, CA, 2002), pp. 215–240. 39 The wings of the altarpiece also once bore escutcheons, but they have been gouged out and nothing remains to identify them. 40 The arms of the Baldovini (Baldvini, Balduini) are reported in J.B. Rietstap, Supplement a l’Amorial General (Paris, 1904), vol. I, p. 216: “De Sinople a trois bandes d’or”; and in G.B. di Crollalanza, Dizionario Storico Blasonico dell Famigle Nobile e Notabile
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Italiane Estinte e Fiorenti (Bologna, 1965; reprint of Pisa, 1886–1890 edition), vol. III, p. 156: “Di verde a tre bande d’oro..” The same arms are ascribed to the Baldovini family in a manuscript by F. Bonaini at the ASP, Ms. Bonaini V, Parte IV, f. 83. 41 During the period of the first domination by Florence, it has been estimated that 908 families moved away from Pisa, including 42 of the 67 richest families. See Tolaini, Pisa, p. 75. 42 A document drawn up by him is recorded in a protocol preserved at the Archivio di Stato in Florence, Notarile Anticosimene, B1418, cc 28r–30v, 1455. 43 F. Bonaini, “Breve degli Anziani di Pisa,” Archivio Storico Italiano, VI/2 (1845): pp. 794, 797, 799, 807. R. Roncioni reported that Barnaba di Mariano Baldovino held several offices during the siege; he also served as commissioner of the Val di Serchio in 1496 and Castellan of Cascina in 1497; “Famiglie Pisane,” (Pisa, Library of the Universita degli Studi, Ms. 725), fol. 30. The use of the honorific “Ser Mariano” suggests that this family of notaries was upwardly mobile in the social strata of a Pisa that had lost a large percentage of its noble families. The Baldovini may have been only recently ennobled when the painting was done. 44 Baptismal records transcribed by M. Luzzati, in I Battesimi di Pisa dal 1457 al 1509 (Pisa, 1979), record that Bernado di Mariano Baldovini, notaio, baptized a son, Mariano di Bernardi, in 1478 (vol. II, p. 11); a daughter, Lucrezia, in 1482 (vol. II, p. 46) and a son, Bernardo, in 1489 (vol. II, p. 104). Barnaba di Mariano Baldovino, notaio, baptized a daughter, Checca, in 1484 (vol. II, p. 57) and a son, Baldovino, in 1489 (vol. II, p. 107). By 1505, Mariano di Bernardo Baldovino was baptizing his own children, all daughters: Tommasa in 1505 (vol. III, p. 98), Caterina in 1507 (vol. III, p. 117); and Clarice in 1508 (vol. III, p. 139). 45 See Appendix 4. Could Nastazia di Barnarbo be the girl Checca, who was baptized in 1484? See previous note. 46 In 1620, Cosimo Baldovino, a friar at Santa Caterina of Pisa, served as procurator of San Domenico; Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 438. 47 To my knowledge, no one has ever argued for Italian influence in the work of the Lucy Master. However, I have argued in my dissertation, ‘The Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy; a Catalogue and Critical Essay’ (Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1982), pp. 148–153, that the Lucy Master exported works to Italy on several occasions and suggested his contact with Italian merchants in Bruges. 48 For the presence of Italian merchants in Bruges, see Richard de Roover, The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank, 1397–1494 (Cambridge, MA, 1963) and the same author’s, Money, Banking and Credit in Medieval Bruges (Cambridge, MA, 1948). The classic art historical study of Italian patronage of Flemish artists is Aby Warburg’s, “Flandrische Kunst und florentinische Frührenaissance,” in his Gesämmelte Schriften (Leipzig, 1932), pp. 370–380. More recently, see R. Salvini, Banchieri Fiorentini e Pittori di Fiandra (Modena, 1984) and Paula Nuttall, From Flanders to Florence: The Impact of Netherlandish Painting 1400–1500 (New Haven, CT, 2004). 49 G. Benvenuti, Storia dell’assedio di Pisa (Pisa, 1969), p. 57. W.H.J. Weale discovered in the archives of Saint Jacob’s in Bruges, a record that one Pieter da Cassina, Merchant from Pisa (“Coopman van Pysen”) was buried before the high altar of this church in 1500. Bruges, Stadbibliothek, Ms. 599, “Notas Weale,” Reg. 25, ”Eglise Saint Jacques, Enterrements, 1499–1529,” f. 17.
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50 They are Suor Brigida di Maestro Francescho da chatignano and Suor Alessandra di Maestro Francescho da chatignano who appear on the rosters made in 1494 and in 1510; Appendix 4. 51 These letters can be found in the Fonds Mediceo Avanti il Principato at the Archivio di Stato of Florence, here abbreviated as ASF, MAP. For the gift by Giovanni de’ Medici, see ASF, MAP, Filza LXXXII, c. 100: “Johanni di Rimerci boctinelli di pisa, sindaco et procurator del monasterio delle monache di san domenicho di pisa per contracta del sindaco rogata da me Juliano notaio sottoscripto a di xxi di Jugno mccccxvi al corso di pisa, confesso avere avuto da Iohanni di Bicci de medici di Firenze dispensante per lanima di Iohanni di Francescho da ghagliano di firenze fiorini vinti cinque doro di firenze ... de quali fiorini vinticinque si chiamo ben contento et pagate. Carta nappare per me Juliano notaio di cosimo da san Iusto di pisa a di xxvi di septembre mccccxviii ind. x a lo corso di pisa.” 52 ASF, MAP, Filza XXVI, n. 473. Letter from “Priora e monache di Santo Domenicho di Pisa” dated October 30, 1485. 53 Benvenuti, Storia dell’assedio, pp. 26–27. 54 I would like to thank Sharon Strocchia for alerting me to the presence of these letters in this archive. 55 Lowe, “Lorenzo’s Presence,” pp. 33–34. 56 Suor Paraclita’s name appears already among the nuns of San Domenico in 1453, and she died in 1486; see Appendix 4. For the Ricci family, see Scipione Ammirato, Delle Famiglie Nobili Fiorentine (Florence, 1615), pp. 165–166. 57 ASF, MAP 39, n. 205 (March 23, 1473, Pisan style). The text is transcribed in Appendix 5, Letter III. Another letter with a similar request is preserved at ASF, MAP 30, n. 166 (March 18, 1474). 58 In a letter dated November 6, 1474, Spina records alms given to the convent of San Agostino in Pisa; he then says, “A San Domenico andro domani per intendere chome di sopra, e di quello aranno piu bisognio si procurro, e diciendo loro dell’orazione partichulare ... .” The letter is published in Lucrezia Tornabuoni, Lettere, Patrizia Salvadori (ed.) (Florence, 1993), p. 135. 59 Pisa Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, inv. 4918. Bellini-Pietri, Catalogo del Museo Civico, p. 160. This may be the object listed in the 1810 receipt as “Un Candelabro del sec. 1400 con sua padella”; Appendix 1, Doc. 2. However, guidebooks to Pisa from the nineteenth century make a point of mentioning “un candelabro di legno, ove si mostrano quattro (sic) graziosissime figure di mano del ridetto Benozzo”; Grassi, Descrizione di Pisa, vol. III, p. 171. Pietro Serri, Nuova guida per la citta di Pisa (Pisa, 1833), reports that such a candelabra was used during Eastertide. 60 Kathleen Giles Archer suggested that the candlestick may have served as a funeral torch because of the imagery of resurrection and the presence of Saint Michael, the conductor of souls to heaven. While possible, such usage is not borne out by the documentary evidence. See Archer, “A New Document on Andrea Orcagna in 1345,” in Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorisches Institutes in Florenz, 32 (1988): 521–524. 61 For the imagery of Sebastian as a plague saint, see Louise Marshall, “Manipulating the Sacred: Image and Plague in Renaissance Italy,” Renaissance Quarterly, 47 (1994): 485–532. 62 Carli, Museo Civico, p. 103, n. 109. 63 Quoted from Vasari by Carli, Museo Civico, p. 103.
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64 For which see, Tanfani Centofani, Notizie di artisti, pp. 143–144 and Jean Cadogan, “Sulla bottega del Ghirlandaio,” in Wolfram Prinz and Max Seidel (eds), Domenico Ghirlandaio 1449–1494. Atti del convegno internazionale Firenze, 16–18 Ottobre 1994 (Florence, 1996), pp. 89–96. 65 For the siege of Pisa, see G. Benvenuti, Storia dell’assedio and M. Luzzati, Una Guerra di popolo. 66 For example, two of the women listed in the convent roster of 1494 (Appendix 4) are Brigida and Alessandra di Francesco di Catignano. Francesco di Catignano was ambassador for the republic of Pisa to Venice in 1497; M. Lupo-Gentile, “La Repubblica di Pisa durante gli anni 1497–1499,” Bolletino Storico Pisano, 9 (1940): 20. The father of Suor Veronica di Lucha dell Lante was also an ambassador in 1497; Ibid., p. 29. The Pisan ambassador to Milan in 1495 and 1496 was Gerardo Bonconte, probably a relative of the prioress Gabriella Bonconte; M. Lupo-Gentile, “La politica religiosa di Pisa durante l’assedio,” p. 150. 67 See Chapter 5. 68 For this battle see Benvenuti, Storia dell’assedio, p. 78 with the narrative by Portoveneri: “A di 6 d’Agosto di ditto, e Fiorentini ebbono misso in terra di molto muro tutto tra Stampacie e Santo Antonio, sino all porta eran circa braccia dugento cinquanta, e Stampacie tutto rotto di fuori. E tra Stampacie e Santo Antonio aveano tagliato colli scapelli per circa braccia cento di muro e messo in puntelli, e dipoi di gran grossi corpi di bombarde nel muro ov’era scarpellato per volere farlo cadere drento sul riparo. Come piacque alla piatosa Maria, mai el muro si mosse, ansi si rimase ritto su’ puntelli.” 69 For the famine in Pisa during the siege, see M. Lupo-Gentile, “La Repubblica di Pisa durante gli anni 1497–1499,” pp. 1–81. 70 The letters were first published by Bonaini, but also by Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 174–181. See also Luzzati, Guerra di Popolo, p. 149. 71 See Luca Landucci, A Florentine Diary from 1450 to 1516, with notes by Iodoco del Badia and translated by Alice de Rosen Jervis (London, 1927), p. 215. 72 One wonders if Suor Ceuli was the catalyst for the commission of the painting of the Ten Thousand Martyrs for the convent of San Paolo all’Orto, now in the Pisan Museum (see below, Note 84). In 1520, she moved from San Domenico to San Paolo to reform it, and became prioress there. 73 The 1494 Roster lists Suor Lorenza’s full name as Lorenza di Guglermo da Cieguli (Appendix 4). The three sons of Guglielmo da Ceuli must be her brothers: Franciscus Guglielmi da Ceuli, who served the city in 1493; Ioannes Guglielmi da Ceuli, who served in 1497, 1505, and 1520; and Ranierus Guglielmi da Ceuli, who served in 1499, 1503, 1506, 1516 and 1520; see B. Casini, Il ”Priorista” e i “libri d’oro,” p. 51. 74 See Gabriella Zarri, and Giulia Barone, “‘Society and Women’s Religiosity, 750–1450,” in Lucetta Scaraffia and Gabriella Zarri (eds), Women and Faith. Catholic Religious Life in Italy from Late Antiguity to the Present (Cambridge, MA, 1999), p. 67. 75 For example, Carli, Museo Civico, p. 101; Supino, Catalogo, p. 241. 76 W. Braunfels (ed.), Lexikon der Christlichen Ikonographie (Rome, 1976), vol. VIII, cols. 550–553. 77 B. Cignitta and M. Chirar Celletti, “Acacio di Armenia e Diecimila Compagni,” Bibliotheca Sanctorum, vol. I, cols. 134–138. See also Braunfels, Lexikon der Christlichen Ikonographie, vol. V, cols. 15–21.
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78 It does not appear in Kaftal’s compendium, The Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting (Florence, 1952). Durer’s two versions of the marytrdom, one in paint the other in print, are probably the best known images of the group. The Florentine edition is cited in Ludwig Hain, Repertorium bibliographicum in quo libri omnes ab arte typographica inventa usque ad annum MD typis expressi ordine alphabetico vel simpliciter enumerantur vel adcuratius recensentur (Stuttgart, 1826–38) and Ludwig Hain, Supplement to Hain’s Repertorium bibliographicum; or, Collections toward a new edition of that work. [In 2 parts: the first containing nearly 7,000 corrections of and additions to the collations of works described or mentioned by Hain; the second, a list with numerous collations and bibliographical particulars of nearly 6,000 volumes printed in the fifteenth century, not referred to by Hain.] W.A. Copinger (ed.) (Milan: Görlich, 1950). 79 The order first celebrated the feast in 1423. On its addition to the liturgy see Bonniwell, A History of the Dominican Liturgy, p. 253. Two nuns of the Dominican convent of San Lucia in Via San Gallo in Florence copied a “Volgarizzamento della leggenda dei diecimila martiri secondo Anastasio Armarista,” in a codex which combines a variety of devotional texts in the vernacular, including several letters of Giovanni Dominici. This codex is now in Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, Ms. 2105. See Dominici, Lettere Spirituale, pp. 14–16. 80 A “Libro di diversi ricordi antichi,” written at San Domenico, published in Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 418, recorded the following: “Io S. Gabbriella ... fui electa e confermata prior con mio grandissimo dolor nel 1486 a di 22 di giugno di delli X.i Ma. Martiri circha ore 13.” 81 Polloni, Catalogo … Pisa, p. 26, says it may be Benozzo himself. 82 See for example, Filippino Lippi’s Vision of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux in the Badia of Florence, of c.1485–90, in which the donor appears in the same format; see also an altarpiece of the late fifteenth century attributed to Raffaellino del Garbo in the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo (Carli, Museo Civico, cat. 111, fig. 129). Carli, Pittura a Pisa, p. 175 dates this panel to 1493. 83 Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 321 and 309. 84 The panel also bears coats of arms and an inscription: “opus fecit fieri johannes petrus de viviana pro salute anime sue et suorum fidelium decem milium crucifixos.” Carli, Museo Civico, p. 89. Iohannes Petrus Bartholomei Viviani was an anziano in 1514, according to Casini, Priorista, p. 162. His family is probably the one in the Catasto of 1427–8 at n. 938 in Casini, Catasto, p. 228, with the following information: “Ser Vivano di ser Giovanni da Marti, notaio, 52; Mattea, mo. 37; Bartolommeo, fig. 21... .” The date of the panel from San Paolo all’Orto thus would seem to fall in the early years of the sixteenth century, although Carli, Pittura a Pisa, p. 175, places it at the end of the quattrocento. 85 From the third lesson in the Breviarium secundum ordinem sancti dominici (Venice, 1481) Sanctorale: “et omnia tormenta que passus est christus iesus dominus noster illata si eis [the decem milia martyrum].” 86 Breviarium secundum ordinem sancti dominici (Venice, 1481), Sanctorale, for feast of Decem milium martyrum, Lectio VI: “Hora vero sexta diei illius terremotus factus est magnus, petre scissiunt, sol enim obscurans est, et tenebre facte sunt et omnia signa que in passione domini apparaverrunt etiam ibi visa sunt.”
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Chapter 7
Patrons and Painters The preceding chapters have explored a number of works of art in use by the nuns of San Domenico throughout the fifteenth century and into the early years of the sixteenth century. This chapter will consider the mechanics by which the nuns obtained such works of art. Despite the community’s strong commitment to clausura with, ideally, as little contact with the world as possible, the women were able to dictate their wishes to artists outside the convent walls and to be introduced to new iconographies and compositions. After a review of the evidence for nuns’ patronage in general, I will introduce an episode that documents the means by which the women of San Domenico gave very specific orders to artists who worked for them. I will also argue that when their access to images was inhibited, either by financial, logistical, or circumstantial limits, religious women responded by making works of art themselves. I also offer here a method for arguing that an otherwise anonymous work of art was the work of a nun in a specific community, even in the absence of documents or signatures. Nuns as Patrons Even as scholars are demonstrating that nuns were important patrons of the visual arts in the Renaissance, questions have been raised as to what extent they exerted control over the works of art that came into their convents. This is a difficult question, made more complex by factoring in the activities of donors to the institutions. Nonetheless, a great deal of evidence has come to light since the late 1990s demonstrating that women in convents were indeed active agents in obtaining images for or enlarging the architecture of their convents. With recent studies of the patronage of religious women, our information about this process has grown, although the mechanics of patronage, especially when cloistered women made the commission, are still being explored.1 The ideology of clausura would suggest that women in cloistered convents were utterly dependent on their masculine advisors and employees in situations when they required something from the secular world. But cloister in practice seems to have been a more permeable fabric than is described by its theory.2 Convents like the one founded by Chiara Gambacorta were among the most important commissioners of altarpieces in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. From a survey of contracts surviving from the Renaissance, Christa Gardner von Teuffel has concluded that monastic and mendicant institutions purchased the majority of high altarpieces during the period, in part because these churches were relatively
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new. Older churches, like cathedrals and parish churches usually had a high altarpiece in place, and thus did not need to commission new ones. It was the newly founded institutions that needed to commission more works of art than long-established ones. Convents of men as well as convents of women relied on intermediaries (in the form of procurators and syndics) to negotiate for them, so the question of agency is as problematic for some male monastics as it is for women. Gardner von Teuffel’s study of the documents reveals that cloistered nuns gave orders for their commissions “ante grates” or before the window grilles in their parlatorii when an intermediary did not do the negotiating for them.3 In any case, the parlor was probably where the nuns through their spokeswomen, such as the cellerer or the abbess, gave instructions to their intermediaries. Whether directly or through an agent, nuns were involved in the details of commissions for their institutions. Assuming that nuns did, in fact, take an active role in commissioning works of art, how did they find or choose artists to work for them? As a result of her survey of fifteenth-century nuns, Lowe has pointed out that this was a “far from random activity.”4 Artists were selected for a variety of reasons: on the basis of propinquity, location, past commissions, politics, connections between family and clan in addition to issues of value, experience, and reputation, among other criteria. These criteria seem to apply to patronage activities at San Domenico. We have already seen that family connections were maintained from within the convent. What is more, the nuns brought with them into the convent the tastes and experiences from their upbringing. There is a good deal of evidence from other convents that artists who worked for the families of nuns were often hired to work for the convent as well, for example among the Benedictine nuns at Sant’ Apollonia in Florence or San Zaccaria in Venice.5 Family contacts seem to be the principal means by which the nuns of San Domenico connected with secular artists. Turino Vanni, to whom has been assigned the Nativity according to the Vision of St Birgitta (Figure 3.12) had worked for Madonna Giovanna Gambacorta in 1391.6 (Vanni worked in Pisa until the 1440s, including some work for the convent of Santa Caterina,7 so there are several routes by which he could have come into contact with the nuns.) Family connections may have brought other artists to the convent: Bicci di Lorenzo’s Saint Eulalia panel (Figure 4.1) may have come to the convent through relatives of the prioress Filippa Doria. It may be that this initial contact with the Florentine painter led to the commission of the fresco of the Crucifixion with Chiara Gambacorta, which occurred around the same time. Another family with daughters in the convent, the Baldovini, introduced a work by a Flemish artist, the Saint Catherine of Alexandria altarpiece (discussed below). It is more difficult to know who introduced Giovanni di Pietro di Napoli and Martino di Bartolomeo to the convent. The earliest dated work by them was the Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of 1403 (Figure 3.1), but there is no documentation for the donor. I have proposed that he may have been Simone Doria, and thus a relative of members of the convent. But the same team of artists
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was hired by two other donors to the convent: Mona Giovanna Gambacorta (1404) and Stefano Lapi (1404).8 One could argue that the workshop established by the team was selected by the donors simply because they were available in Pisa, but the link among the donors may also be the convent; the sisters (or Chiara Gambacorta herself) may have directed the commissions to a workshop with which they had successful relations. In some convents, a single benefactor dominated the patronage activities and would be the conduit that brought individual artists to work at the institution.9 At San Domenico, however, a number of patrons contributed to the embellishment of the convent over an extended period of time. This was a product of the ruin and exile of the Gambacorta family from Pisa through most of the fifteenth century, which left the convent without a single actively involved and generous benefactor to see to its needs. San Domenico was hardly unique in this circumstance, though, as a similar proliferation of donors occurs at other convents.10 In addition to individual donors and family members, members of various institutions with which the convent had contact during the period likely served as sources of information and references for the nuns. Santa Caterina, the Dominican friary, was an important conduit for information, recommendations, and sometimes funding. The Bishop of Pisa, who during the 1450s had a sister in the convent (Suor Paraclita de Ricci), was another potential source of information for the nuns of San Domenico. So, too, were other clergy who performed functions at the convent. For example, the selection of Benozzo Gozzoli for the fresco projects in San Domenico’s refectory in the late 1480s may have come either from the friars at Santa Caterina, who had encountered his work in Florence at San Marco, or from the Bishop of Pisa, who was the principal patron of the Camposanto project.11 The reference may even have come from Lorenzo di Medici himself, who was a donor to the convent during the 1470s. Another link between the nuns and Benozzo Gozzoli may have been their legal advisors. The notary Carlo da Vecchiano, for example, worked for the curia of Pisa; he accompanied the Bishop on his pastoral visits to religious establishments in 1463;12 he served the convent of San Domenico (on which see below), and he was involved in the family affairs of Benozzo Gozzoli. It seems quite likely that he and other notaries who worked for the convent, as for example the Baldovini family, served as go-betweens for the nuns and artists working in the city—and beyond.13 The Role of the Factor The notary Giovanni di Carlo da Vecchiano recorded a documented episode in which one of the factors of the convent acted as an intermediary between the nuns and a particular artist. In the late nineteenth century Milanesi published a document that records Raniero d’Antonio, a Pisan goldsmith, making payments to the painter Paolo Schiavo for the prioress of San Domenico.14 This Raniero had a daughter in the convent, so there was a family connection as well.15 According to the document,
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Paolo Schiavo was living in the house of Battista Lanfreducci when, in June 1456, the factor paid “magister paulus sclavus pinctor” twenty four florins, for which the painter promised the lady prioress and the nuns of the convent of San Domenico in the carraria Sancti Egidi to paint a particular tavola (“tabulam”) or colmo (“seu quoddam colmum”). He was sent in his role as factor to take the instructions (“Parabola” may refer to her words) of the prioress as well as the payment to the painter for his part in the making of the painting. A second document discovered by Fannuci Lovitch and summarized in her compilations of Pisan artists adds some more detail to the transaction.16 The same notary, Carlo da Vecchiano, took the testimony of a carpenter named Antonio di Giovanni, who reported that in June of 1456 the convent had given a certain figure and a colmo (panel) with leaves and colonnettes to the painter Paolo Schiavo so that he could paint a Saint Catherine (“una certa figura ed un colmo con fogliami e colonnelli”). The testimony of the “maestro di legname” does not say that the carpenter made the panel, but that he knew it had been given to the painter. The word colmo suggests a gabled format for the “tabulam seu quoddam colmum.”17 These two documents provide a glimpse of how the nuns of San Domenico went about the process of commissioning works of art for their convent. From the documents, it seems they relied on the factor, who happened in this case to be in a visual trade as a goldsmith, to serve as a go-between. He negotiated with the other artists and gave them the orders of the nuns. In this case, a “colmo” with colonettes and foliage was given to master Paolo Schiavo to paint. One of the witnesses here was a carpenter, Antonio di Giovanni. That these witnesses were giving sworn testimony in 1462 suggests that the project was not completed at that point. At any rate, Paolo Schiavo had left Pisa and was working in Florence by 1463. If the references gathered by Lowe are any indication, Schiavo was frequently hired by convents of women to make paintings for them.18 Perhaps there were networks of nuns sharing recommendations among different houses? Schiavo was to work on a prepared panel and paint a figure of Saint Catherine. Given the date, 1456, this must have been a depiction of Catherine of Alexandria, as Catherine of Siena was not canonized until 1461. It would appear that the nuns prescribed not only the subject matter, but also the format of the panel they were buying. The word “parabola” used in the document may indicate either the subject matter or more general instructions of the prioress. The description of the panel as having colonnettes and foliage would make it correspond to the design of the panel depicting Saint Eulalia, which I have argued probably dates to the 1430s. This suggests that in the mid-1450s the nuns commissioned a painting that would coordinate with a panel that probably dates to the 1430s. That the “certain figure” was of Saint Catherine points further to the panel that now depicts Ursula on its front (Figure 4.2): the carpentry of the panel is very like the St Eulalia panel and the format with the two predella images in an octagonal shape is the same. It may be that the original commission to Bicci di Lorenzo included two panels, but for some reason, the second was not completed. Alternatively, the Eulalia panel could have
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been a model for a newly carved “colmo.” The “figura” mentioned in the documents may well refer to the sketch on the reverse of the panel (Figure 4.3). If Paolo Schiavo did complete the panel, his work is now hidden under later layers of overpainting. Certainly the panel in question once had an image of Catherine of Alexandria on it; the pentimenti on the predella make this clear (See Figures 7.11 and 7.12 and discussion below). Despite the holes in the documentation, these circumstances reveal that the nuns had definite ideas about what they wanted, and used their male interlocutors to make their wishes known to the artists they hired. What is more, the nuns at San Domenico established a pattern for the images they commissioned. This pattern began at least as early as the St Eulalia panel, with its tall, gabled format, and predella; this format was repeated for the first Catherine of Alexandria panel (later transformed into Saint Ursula painting), and then used as the model for the Flemish Saint Catherine of Alexandria in the 1490s (Figure 4.4). Finally, they commissioned the Martha and Mary Magdalen panel by Ambrogio d’Asti in 1514 in the same format (Figure 4.7). All of these paintings are similar in scale and composition, and have comparable framing elements. At the very least the nuns seem to have chosen to keep to a single formula for images that the evidence indicates were all intended for the nuns’ choir. These are not mainstream formats, even in centers outside the dominant artistic milieus of Venice and Florence. This suggests that the installation of the Eulalia picture (or perhaps another, not surviving, painting) established a pattern for the nuns to which later generations of sisters at San Domenico consciously sought to adhere. These nuns had other criteria for their commissions than those desired by their secular counterparts: new formats, tricks of perspective, or integration of new “antique” modes of decoration were apparently not of interest to them. These nuns were not initiates into the humanist culture of the period and so had no access to the theoretical issues (the revival of antiquity, the mimesis of nature) that inform High Renaissance art in Florence and other major centers. Furthermore, as structural innovations in picture making, like perspective, were based on masculine proportions and ways of thinking that were taught only to men (like geometry), the nuns had no relationship to these issues.19 In place of the standards defined by art theorists from the sixteenth century to the present, the women of San Domenico were dedicated to creating an environment for themselves within the nuns’ choir that celebrated female sanctity in images of full-length standing saints in glory. They adhered to older patterns of gold grounds, gothic arches, and complicated tooled surfaces that were the means by which figures of the saints were associated with the celestial.20 It would be overstating the matter to call this pattern an aesthetic, but it seems to be a visual tradition in the convent. Such a tradition may have been self-perpetuating in that the images likely shaped the nuns’ own notions of what a painting should look like, to the point that later generations of sisters replicated the conventions in new commissions.
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Doing It Themselves: Nuns as Artists Another strategy by which the women of San Domenico could act to embellish their convent was to make works of art on their own. We know that the sisters of San Domenico worked as miniaturists, but there is no documentation for their work on larger-scale paintings, at least for the fifteenth century.21 There were artists in women’s convents elsewhere in Italy in the fifteenth century, however, and we have documentation for even more in the sixteenth century. Of course, the non-professional quality of works by such artists combines with their anonymity to relegate them to the storerooms of most museums which own them today, unless, like the work of Caterina Vigri they are venerated as relics and kept under lock and key in church treasuries.22 It is not surprising to find Dominican nuns working as painters, as the order encouraged its members to find work that could combine the monastic dictates of work and prayer into one activity.23 Copying manuscripts was a task that fits these criteria perfectly, but illuminating books, making papier-maché figurines, or printing holy books or images could fulfill the same goal.24 Another motivation for nuns to make images was financial. They could stretch their resources further by re-using panels that needed repair or had been rendered obsolete by the acquisition of new images.25 Painting images on a larger scale for their convent would be a logical step for many communities. Training in the arts of painting was probably only available within the convent itself. Like their secular sisters, nuns did not have access to the professional training available to men. One of the few women artists discussed by Vasari, Suor Plautilla Nelli, was a Dominican nun in the convent of Santa Caterina da Siena in Florence. Suor Plautilla also began her artistic career as a miniature painter and also depended on other works of art as models. Vasari noted that she owned drawings by Fra Bartolomeo from which she studied. He concluded that “The works from her hand which are best are those that she has derived from others, in which she shows that she would have done marvelous things if, as men do, she had been able to study and attend to disegno and portray living and natural things.”26 Vasari here outlines an important obstacle to a nun’s artistic achievement. Not only could women not be trained in the techniques taught in the workshops of the professional artists, they did not have the opportunity to draw from life and the antique. But within the convent, sister taught sister; nuns shared their knowledge in an effort both to praise God and to support their community. In addition to Suor Plautilla, other nuns of Santa Caterina da Siena in Florence are known to have been artists, among them the sculptors Suor Vincenzia Brandolini, Suor Maria Angelica Razzi, and Suor Dionisia Niccolini. Santa Caterina also nurtured a school of miniaturists, including Felice Lupoiccini and Suor Angiola Minerbetti.27 But other, less well-known Dominican nuns in Tuscany painted panels, and several of them seem to have been self-taught. Just as Fra Bartolomeo’s drawings
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were studied by Plautilla Nelli, his disciple, Fra Paolino of Pistoia, a friar at the Dominican house of San Romano in Lucca, probably provided inspiration for the nuns at San Domenico of Lucca. Fra Paolino painted at least two panels for the Lucchese convent, one for the public church and one for the nuns’ choir (chiesa nostra di drento).28 One sister in the Lucchese convent, Suor Peregrina di Cesare de Nobili, who professed in 1525, was celebrated in the convent’s Necrologio for being a painter, “the which art she learned almost without a teacher, for she had only a few things to show it to her; and she did her best through her own inclination.”29 Taurisano suggests that the works of Fra Paolini were these “few things” which she could study. At the other Dominican convent in Lucca, San Giorgio, Suor Brigida Franciotti, was also a self-taught painter: “she learned to paint by herself and made beautiful paintings of various things, gilding many things made in our church... .”30 Not only did the nuns teach themselves the technique of painting in tempera, which would have been available through the tradition of miniature painting in these houses, but they learned how to work with gold as well. Convents like these Lucchese Dominican houses and Santa Caterina da Siena became centers for the making of art, just as in Northern Europe convents were a place where women learned such skills.31 As with Suor Plautilla Nelli, such artists must have relied not only on the images that happened to belong to their institutions; convent artists could become aware of wider currents in the arts through portable media, like drawings and prints. Prints and manuscripts, as well as professional works by secular artists, contributed to the artistic education of the cloistered nun. Prints may have entered the convent as aids to devotion and as inexpensive alternatives to larger art forms. For example, Columba da Rieti’s little “Monte Calvario” still preserved in Perugia, at the Monastero delle Colombe combines a calvary group made of papier maché and cloth, depicting the calvary group; attached to it are fifteenth-century prints.32 Dominican nuns in the convent of Unterlinden also used prints to adorn their books and as models for their own illustrations.33 We know that there were unspecified prints in the convent of San Domenico by the eighteenth century; the inventory made in 1808 mentions “stampe” numerous times (Appendix 1, Document 1). In addition to single sheet prints, printed images in editions of devotional texts also served as models for cloistered women. Several examples from San Domenico demonstrate the importance of prints and printed books as sources for the nuns’ own artistic endeavors. The Triptych of Saint Catherine of Alexandria A variety of works by professional artists that entered the convent of San Domenico informed a project to enlarge the Altarpiece of Saint Catherine of Alexandria (Catalogue 16 and Figure 7.1) some time after it arrived in the convent.34 The central section of the altarpiece was executed in a purely Flemish
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7.1 Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy and Others, Triptych of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, c.1490–1510 style by one of the leading artists of Bruges, probably in the early 1490s. As has been noted, this panel has a format similar to other works owned by the nuns of San Domenico, and seems to have been intended to complement panels already existing in the convent. This very unusual format for the altarpiece by the Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy argues against its having been made for the general market, and for its being the product of a detailed commission. The remains of the coats of arms on the frame of the central panel also suggest a particular commission at work. That this commission was given and executed in Bruges, and not in Pisa as the result of a fortuitous visit there by the artist, is suggested by the very Flemish carving of the oak panel. If the artist were traveling with
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7.2 Pisan artist, Right Wing of the Triptych of Saint Catherine of Alexandria: Catherine Disputing with Philosophers
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oak panels to capitalize on any work that came his way, it is unlikely that they would have had the chevron carved colonnetes and the tall finials that frame this panel. A Flemish carpenter must have done the carving and the whole project was probably executed in Bruges. Saint Catherine is presented in a rather generic iconography, which may also suggest some distance from the Dominican convent for which it was destined. The altarpiece must have made its way to Pisa before the siege of that city was laid by Florence in 1494: closing off the city’s ports and blockading its imports were old strategies for besieging a city that Florence had used before in the fifteenth century. Once the panel arrived in Pisa, it underwent a transformation. For reasons that are unclear and undocumented, two wings were added to the central panel to turn the whole into a triptych with fixed wings. The wings were painted by a different hand in a medium that does not appear to be oil, and on a type of wood that was not used by Flemish artists, but by artists in Tuscany. (It is probably poplar, and is definitely not oak, the usual support for Flemish painting and the type of wood used in the central panel.) The wings are joined rather clumsily to the central panel, whose shape, size, and decorative details they copy. (See Figure 7.2.) If the center panel was made in Bruges, the wings were made in Pisa. Although later interventions on the faces of the left wing have changed their aspect, both wings seem to have been the work of the same artist at the same time (Figures 7.3 and 7.4). The artist responsible for the wings made a concerted effort to integrate all three panels into one entity. Thus the wings follow the format and size of the central panel. In addition to these general qualities, the artist has borrowed heavily from the central panel for the frames and other decorative elements within the paintings. The pattern of Catherine’s brocade in the wings depends on the Flemish painting at the center. The characterization of the emperor Maxentius with a heavy beard and imperial crown is based on the figure at Catherine’s feet in the central panel. Even the architecture of the Flemish panel, with depressed arches and patterned tiles, is repeated in the right wing, as are some of the landscape devices. To a certain extent, these borrowings help to integrate the wings with the central panel, yet the whole effect is rather naïve in its hybridity. There is even a greater dependency by the wings on the central panel, though, because in several cases their very compositions are based on the Flemish panel. A close look at the left wing, which depicts the Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine, reveals that the figures of Catherine and Christ and the two angels at the upper right (Figure 7.3) are enlargements from the leftmost scene in the Flemish predella, which depicts Christ visiting Catherine in prison. The same phenomenon occurs in the Dispute with the Philosophers on the right wing (Figure 7.4), where the pose and gesture of the Emperor imitate those of his alter ego in the Flemish center predella (Figure 7.5). The costumes and gestures of the philosophers in this painting derive from the witnesses to Catherine’s martyrdom in the right predella of the Flemish altarpiece (Figure 7.6). In short, whoever
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7.3 Pisan artist, Left Wing of Triptych of Saint Catherine of Alexandria: detail of Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine painted the wings to this altarpiece looked to the Flemish painting not only for decorative details, but also mined it for figures and compositions. Yet there are still some important changes in the figures adapted from the Flemish models. Their proportions are broader and more regular, and their features are defined in more linear terms than in the Flemish painting. When combined with the poplar panel and the technique, it seems clear that the artist was an Italian. The artist probably knew the Crucifixion with Ten Thousand Martyrs that stood in the outer church of San Domenico, as the crowd of philosophers with whom Catherine debates in the right panel share many similarities with the crowd of martyrs flanking the Crucifixion in that painting (Figure 6.4). The artist also used iconographies for the Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine that were particular to Tuscany: the mystic marriage takes place with an adult Christ, as we see in the Mystic Marriage of Catherine of Siena from San Domenico (Figure 3.3). And the Virgin guides Saint Catherine’s hand towards the ring offered by Christ, in an iconography we have already discussed for the 1403
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7.4 Pisan artist, Detail of Figure 7.2
Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine by Giovanni di Pietro di Napoli (Figure 3.1). So the artist blended Northern and Italian models in fashioning the larger areas of the wings. A similar blend occurs in the predellas of the wings, which derive not only from the Flemish central panel but also depend on a set of engravings that must have been imported from Florence. This is a series of 15 engravings on
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7.5 Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy, Center Predella of the Triptych of Saint Catherine of Alexandria: The Miracle of the Wheel the Life of the Virgin and Christ, attributed to Francesco di Lorenzo Rosselli.35 Rosselli worked as a miniaturist and engraver in Florence and elsewhere from about 1470 until his death in 1513. He had ties with the Dominicans: under the influence of Savonarola, he donated property in 1499 to the convent of Santa Caterina da Siena in Florence where his daughters took the veil.36 These prints have been dated to between 1470 and 1490; one of the prints, the Flagellation
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7.6 Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy, Center Predella of the Triptych of Saint Catherine of Alexandria: Martyrdom of Saint Catherine of Christ, was reworked in a second state; the first state usually is dated c.1470 (Figure 7.7).37 The Flagellation engraving was the principal source for the image of St Catherine tortured in prison, which appears in the predella of the left wing
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7.7 Francesco Rosselli, Flagellation of Christ, c.1470
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7.8 Pisan artist, Predella of the Left Wing of the Triptych of Saint Catherine of Alexandria: Catherine Being Tortured (Figure 7.8). The predella follows the arrangement and setting of the print very closely, except for two changes: Christ at the Column is replaced by Catherine, and the two classically draped flagellators are replaced by more modestly dressed characters, one of whom has been given the garments and features of Catherine’s jailer in the left panel of the Flemish predella. The other predella scenes borrow bits and pieces of the Rosselli engraved series, such as architectural elements, gestures of figures, and small details. The predella depicting the “Burning of the Converted Philosophers” on the right wing of the triptych (Figure 7.9) is based on two of the figures in one of the prints from the series, “The Agony in the Garden” (Figure 7.10) and a figure from the print depicting “Christ Among the Doctors.” In these borrowings figures are reversed and sometimes altered, but the relationship to the model is quite close. The remaining
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7.9 Pisan artist, Predella of the Right Wing of the Triptych of Saint Catherine of Alexandria: Burning of the Converted Philosophers
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7.10 Francesco Rosselli, Agony in the Garden, c.1470–90
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predellas of the wings likewise depend on either the Rosselli prints or the central panel. The most Italianate sections of the wings are the two gables, depicting Gabriel on the left and the Virgin Annunciate on the right. Elsewhere, the paintings of the wings are peppered with details of costume and landscape that come directly from the Flemish panel. Such very close study of the central panel, borrowings from other pictures from within the convent, and the influence of prints that could be brought into a convent easily led me to argue that the painter responsible for the wings of this altarpiece was one of the nuns of San Domenico. The dates of the models—the Flemish central panel (before 1493, according to architectural elements in the landscape), the engravings (1470–80), and the Crucifixion with 10,000 Martyrs in the public church (c.1490–1500)—suggest that the wings were added within a few years after the Flemish painting arrived in Pisa. A date around 1500–10 seems appropriate for the wings and the project to expand the single panel of Saint Catherine of Alexandria into a triptych. This would date the manufacture of the wings to the period of the Siege of Pisa, when the opportunities for commissioning professionally made works of art would have been limited by both the community’s resources and by the city’s circumstances. Yet at the same time, the spiritual needs of the convent would have been sorely felt, as the women suffered the privations brought about by the Siege. The right wing places a specifically Dominican emphasis on Catherine’s oratory and preaching, while the left wing places a specifically feminine emphasis on Catherine as Sposa di Cristo. Making this argument from a close study of the sources allows for a discussion about nuns’ work that does not condescend about the style of the images or the naiveté of the image’s content. Instead of focusing on the distance between these images and those being produced by professional artists in larger and more prosperous artistic centers, this method treats the images as seriously as art historians have always treated the works of Perugino or Raphael, both of whom also painted works for houses of nuns.38 Studying the sources and reading the iconography in the context of the picture’s function points to a nun as the artist. Who else would have access to this variety of specific sources, if not a member of the community? The Saint Ursula Altarpiece The arrival of the Saint Catherine Altarpiece in the convent probably resulted in the remaking of the quattrocento panel of Saint Catherine (perhaps the very panel cited in the documents about Paolo Schiavo) into an image of Saint Ursula (Figure 4.2). The main figure was repainted following the contours of the original image, yet altering the figure’s identity. Because the decorative elements in the repainted image—the brocades worn by the saint and the tiles on the floor—are based on the Flemish painting of Saint Catherine, this repainting must have occurred after the
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7.11 Pisan artist, Center Predella of the Saint Ursula Altarpiece, Figure 4.2: Voyage of Saint Ursula and Her Companions latter painting arrived in the convent of San Domenico, that is, in the last years of the fifteenth century at the earliest. As the painter was confined to the quattrocento format and composition of the earlier image, continuity with the earlier work was assured. The repainted predella was also constrained by the previous image. Given the bleeding of elements at the divisions of the current predella, like the landscape forms between the left and center predellas (Figure 7.11) and the Catherine wheel that is still visible in the rightmost storiette (Figure 7.12), the original predella was likely divided into two parts, probably like that of the Saint Eulalia panel. While some forms from the earlier image could be adapted for the new iconography, the painter of the remade predella had to find other models for the predellas as a whole.
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7.12 Pisan artist, Right Predella of the Saint Ursula Altarpiece, Figure 4.2: Martyrdom of Saint Ursula and Her Companions The closest stylistic and compositional models I have been able to find for these predellas come from Florentine woodcuts that illustrated the Sacre Rappresentazioni published throughout the sixteenth century. Many of the surviving examples of these publications, however, are later versions of a genre of printed text that had its origins in the fifteenth century; often these editions would be reprinted at later dates, so the precise date that a motif from them appeared can be hard to pin down. Recent research has revealed how important the Sacre Rappresentazioni were to the cultural lives of cloistered women;39 the circulation of these printed dramas was widespread. Several different Sacre Rappresentazioni seem to have been known to the artist responsible for these predellas: the praying figure of Saint Ursula in the left predella resembles her counterpart in a woodcut from the 1554 edition of the Rapresentazione di San Orsola.40 The image of the boat at sea and
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7.13 Venetian artist, Woodcut from Legendario dei Sancti, published in Venice 1518: Martyrdom of Saint Apollonia the convention for depicting water are comparable to an image in the Hystoria di Sancta Maddalena published in Florence in the late fifteenth century;41 the mast of the boat in the predella seems to be modeled on this woodcut. The simple compositions and the linear vocabulary of such woodcuts thoroughly inform the style of the repainted predella. Another source of the imagery in this predella is a printed edition of a Lectionary in Italian, published in Venice in 1520 (Figure 7.13).42 The figure of the executioner of Saint Apollonia in this edition, is reversed and reclothed, but otherwise recognizable as the prototype for the man taking aim at Saint Ursula in the predella depicting her execution (Figure 7.12). This type of model suggests once again that the painter of the image of Saint Ursula was a member of the cloistered community at San Domenico. Such borrowings reveal that the nuns used these books of devotional literature to feed their artistic needs as well as their liturgical and spiritual needs.
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The sources on which the artist drew for the various elements of this altarpiece provide some evidence for dating the repainting of this panel to the early years of the sixteenth century. With the arrival of the Flemish Saint Catherine of Alexandria altarpiece, the community could recycle a panel that depicted the same saint and expand their decorative program to include an image of an important exemplar of virginity whose relics the convent possessed. Saint Ursula is also a local patron of the city. She is twice depicted in the altarpiece holding the banner of Pisa. This kind of patriotic gesture might suggest that this repainting also took place during the siege of Pisa, at which point the nuns and all other citizens of the town were suffering great privation to attempt to overthrow the yoke of Florentine domination. The circumstances of the siege would have made the women’s access to artists that much more difficult, and inspired them to remake the panel themselves. The Madonna and Child with St Giovannino Another quattrocento panel from San Domenico seems to have been recycled in a similar manner. This panel, depicting the Madonna and Child with Saint Giovannino, is about 2 feet high and takes the form of an ancona, a small devotional panel (Catalogue 14 and Figure 7.14). The design of the frame and especially the pilasters flanking the image appear to be quattrocento work. The execution of the painting has an untutored quality that suggests a non-professional hand. The image depicts the enthroned Madonna with the Child standing on her lap. She is surrounded by angels, two of whom play musical instruments while others hold a brocaded cloth of honor behind her. At the Madonna’s feet kneels a small figure of the youthful Saint John the Baptist, who points at Christ and holds a cross-topped staff. Above the main figure are small images depicting Gabriel in the act of Annunciation, the Nativity of Christ, and the Virgin Annunciate. An inscription on the base for the throne reads, “Regina Cieli.” The catalogues of the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo assign this painting a provenance from San Domenico; the inventories are not specific enough to identify this object among the works at San Domenico, but it may be the Madonna panel described in the Gallery (ballatoia) of the public church (Appendix 1, Doc. 2). Here again there are numerous references to other works already in the convent. For example, the brocade of the cloth of honor has a pomegranate pattern in red and gold that appears to be based on the brocade of the cloak of Saint Catherine of Alexandria in the Flemish panel (Figure 4.4). The foliate elements on the frame in gold and black resemble the decorative painting on the frame of the Flemish panel. The two angel musicians, one playing a fiddle and the other a lute, emulate the angel musicians in the left wing of this altarpiece (Figure 7.3). The angels who hold up the cloth of honor imitate the angels performing the same function in the fresco of Saint Dominic urging Silence from the Refectory (Figure 5.8). The Christ Child is in a pose unlike the other surviving Madonna figures from the convent, but
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7.14 Pisan artist, Madonna and Child with Saint Giovannino, early sixteenth century he holds a bird in one hand the way he does in the earlier images from the convent (Figures 3.6 and 5.4). Again, this combination of elements informing the design seems to point to a member of the community as the artist. The one element that may point to a new source being used by the artist is the figure of Giovannino. We have already seen that the convent probably owned a
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small panel of the young Baptist (Figure 4.12) and noted that the saint was admired by the nuns, but the composition and posture of Saint John in that picture is very different from this one. The pointing gesture the young Saint performs in this panel was popular beginning in the first decade of the cinquecento: one finds it in works by Leonardo (Saint John the Baptist) and other Florentine artists, such as Andrea del Sarto. This figure is especially close to a Madonna and Child with San Giovannino now in the Capponi Collection in Florence, and sometimes attributed to Fra Bartolomeo. Dated c.1520, it depicts Giovannino standing rather than kneeling, but with the same arm gesture, small cross and outward glance.43 The composition was probably transmitted to the convent by prints or manuscript illustrations (in fact, the features of this figure have a distinctly miniaturistic quality, as do the storiette in the upper frame). If this motif is the most up to date element of the composition and it can be dated to the early 1500s, we have evidence to date the re-painting of this panel to no earlier than about 1510, and perhaps closer to 1520. In this panel, as with the Saint Ursula altarpiece, the nuns remade an existing panel into a new image by reworking or painting over it. It is impossible to say just how common this practice was, especially as such remade images are rarely of interest to modern collectors or connoisseurs, and therefore rarely survive. But the same practice occurred in at least two other convents contemporary to San Domenico. The trecento high altarpiece of the Franciscan convent of Monticelli in Florence, which depicts the Virgin and Child flanked by Saints Clara and Catherine of Alexandria, is now in the Accademia; it bears an inscription stating that the nuns had commissioned it in 1383 and had it restored in 1513.44 And in 1558–60 the convent of San Domenico of Lucca, which had been reformed by sisters who transferred there from San Domenico of Pisa, paid Suor Plautilla Nelli for “re-making the Annunciation of the altar,” which presumably required re-using a panel.45 This practice was certainly not confined to nuns; for example, in 1501, the frate of San Domenico of Fiesole had Lorenzo di Credi paint over the background of the altarpiece that Fra Angelico had painted for them.46 For communities with limited financial means, restoring or remaking a painting was an economical way either to preserve a venerable object or adapt it to changing liturgical needs. Conclusion The inventories with which this study began reveal that the nuns at San Domenico lived their lives in the presence of numerous visual objects, from crucifixes in their cells to large frescoes in their refectory. Identifying and placing these objects within the context of the convent sheds light on the objects themselves, and their relationships to each other, but it also reveals something about the nuns who lived with them. The process of studying the objects illuminates the nuns’ financial and family backgrounds, their relationships to the Dominican order, their individual attempts to perform the opus Dei by making works of art. In this, the study of the objects from San Domenico enlarges our picture of Renaissance Art.
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Although not every Renaissance painting from San Domenico survives, a rather large number of them do. So does a tantalizing quantity of documentation that reveals that these women exerted strong control over both subject matter and style in the works they commissioned. The prioress’s dictation to Paolo Schiavo about both format and subject matter is probably paradigmatic of how they dealt with other artists they hired. Although they used a factor as a go-between, that man followed their wishes; the presence of factors or procurators in documentation for commissions for nuns is not evidence that the nuns were passive in the process of patronage. From the acquisition of the Saint Eulalia Panel in the 1430s and throughout the fifteenth century, the nuns of San Domenico favored a single format and recurring subject matter for works of art that they obtained for their choir. The character of their patronage is, by usual art historical notions of “progress” in Renaissance art, rather conservative. Instead of mythological characters in heroic narratives, they commissioned images of saints in static presentations. The styles and formats they chose were out of mainstream taste, at least as that taste has been defined from the point of view of Florence or Venice. The artists they hired were not the heroes of Vasari’s biographical development of the Renaissance artist, but the chefs d’ateliers who fulfilled the requests of patrons of modest means. For financial exigency was a fact of life for many convents of women, and in this San Domenico was very typical. This would be especially true in a city like Pisa, which during the Renaissance endured very difficult political and economic circumstances. The study of religious women and their art—both the objects they commissioned or obtained and the objects that they made—often requires that we define the word “art” more broadly than has been done in art history in the past. In some cases, this has meant being open to styles and forms of art that have rarely been deemed worth investigation before, such as un-professional execution or marginalized subject matters. Jeffrey Hamburger’s work has shown us how much we have to learn from these marginalized objects.47 In addition to miniatures, gesso reliefs, papier-maché objects and re-used panels, women’s art making activities included making collages of sculptural and painted materials, like the jardins clos popular in Netherlandish convents.48 Such objects spoke directly to the women who made them, even if they seem unusual to modern eyes; the very process of making such objects was the point, not external aesthetic concerns.49 Both the professional painters and the priests preferred to keep religious women amateurs,50 even if the rare nun painter was to be admired and collected, as much for her virtue as for her skill.51 The nun artists at San Domenico did not develop a reputation beyond their convent. Their reputation was for sanctity and dedication to their religious life. The works of art they commissioned and the alterations and additions they made to works of art in their own convent reveal that they took a keen interest in their visual environment. Their spiritual and liturgical needs, their social ties and communal experiences, their tastes and visual preferences shaped the commissions these women made and formed them as artists.
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Notes 1
Gary M. Radke, “Nuns and their Art: the Case of San Zaccaria in Renaissance Italy,” Renaissance Quarterly, 54 (2001): 430–459; Megan Holmes, “Giovanni Benci’s Patronage of the Nunnery, Le Murate,” in Giovanni Ciappelli and Patricia Lee Rubin (eds), Art, Memory, and Family in Renaissance Florence (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 114– 134; K.J.P. Lowe, “Nuns and Choice: Artistic Decision-Making in Medicean Florence,” in Eckart Marchand and Alison Wright (eds), With and Without the Medici, Studies in Tuscan Art and Patronage 1434–1530 (London, 1998), pp. 129–153; Marilyn Dunn, “Nuns as Art Patrons: The Decoration of S. Marta al Collegio Romano,” Art Bulletin, 70 (1988): 451–477; Mary-Ann Winkelmes, “Taking Part: Benedictine Nuns as Patrons of Art and Architecture,” in Geraldine Johnson and Sara Matthews Grieco (eds), Picturing Women in Renaissance and Baroque Italy (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 91–110; Jeryledene M. Wood, Women, Art, and Spirituality: The Poor Clares of Early Modern Italy (Cambridge, 1996). The literature is also growing for Northern Europe, including a number of important studies by Jeffrey Hamburger, such as Nuns as Artists: The Visual Culture of a Medieval Convent (Berkeley, 1997) and his contribution to the catalogue of Les Dominicaines d’Unterlinden (Paris, 2001). See also the work of Andrea Pearson, such as her “Nuns, Images, and the Ideals of Women’s Monasticism: Two Paintings from the Cistercian Convent of Flines,” Renaissance Quarterly, 54 (2001): 1356–1402. 2 The limits of enclosure have become more apparent as scholars have begun to study the reality of women’s lives in convents. See for example, Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast, p. 87. Silva Evangelisti, “Wives, Widows and the Brides of Christ: Marriage and the Convent in the Historiography of Early Modern Italy’, Historical Journal, 43 (2000): 233–247. 3 Christa Gardener von Teuffel, “Clerics and contracts: Fra Angelico, Neroccio, Ghirlandaio and Others: Legal Procedures and the Renaissance High Altarpiece in Central Italy,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 62 (1999): 190–208. 4 K.J.P. Lowe, “The Progress of Patronage in Renaissance Italy,” Oxford Art Journal, 18 (1995): 147. 5 For the former, family ties may have been essential in bringing Andrea del Castagno to work for the nuns, while family connections have also been proposed as the root of Castagno’s commission for the Venetian house. See Gary M. Radke, “Nuns and their Art: the Case of San Zaccaria,” p. 441. 6 Fanucci Lovitch, Artisti a Pisa, vol. I, pp. 278, 167; here the commission is specified to be “una tavola per l’altare di S. Giovanni Battista situato nel Duomo” with the design made by “maestro Turino di Vanni.” 7 Fanucci Lovitch, Artista a Pisa, vol. I, p. 285. 8 Martino di Bartolomeo was in Pisa by 1394, when he first appears in documents. In April of 1404 he was paid for another “figura di tela, cioè dipintura”; Fanucci Lovitch, Artisti a Pisa, vol. I, p. 205. 9 See Wood, Women, Art, and Spirituality, p. 148 for Santa Chiara Novella in Florence and Holmes, “Giovanni Benci’s Patronage,” for the patronage of Giovanni Benci at le Murate in Florence. 10 Wood, Women, Art, and Spirituality, p. 148. 11 Michele Luzzati, “Filippo de Medici arcivescovo di Pisa e la visita pastorale de 1462– 63,” Bolletino Storico Pisano, 33/34 (1964–66): 384.
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12 Ibid., p. 399. 13 For Gozzoli’s links to Carlo da Vecchiano, See Maria Luigia Orlandi (ed.), Benozzo Gozzoli a Pisa: I documenti, 1468–1495 (Pisa, 1997); the earliest mention in Orlandi is from 1471, when Carlo da Vecchiano, records a livello (contract) between Benozzo and the rector of the church of Sant’Alessandro di Ponte in Pisa (Ibid., pp. 151–152). See also Ibid., pp. 98–100, 112–115, 119–121 for other contacts between the notary and the painter. 14 “1462, 9 Januarii (secondo lo stile pisano) Ranerius Antonii aurifex civis pisanus constitutus in mei notarii, testiumque infrascriptorum presentia ad declarationem veritatis et ut ipsa veritas patens fiat et non repereatur inopia testium vel absentia; suo iuramento coram me notario et testium infrascriptiorum prestito, dixit, et ad sancta Dei evangelia tactis corporaliter scripturis, iuravit, quod cum magister paulus sclavus pinctor, tunc habitans Pisis sub domo bapstiste Lanfreduccii, promisisset domine priore, et monialibus monasterii Sancti Dominici de Carraria Sancti Egidi de Pisis, pingere quandam tabulam seu quoddam colmum; ipse testis mandato et parabola suprascripte domine priore, ut factor dicti monasterii, dedit solvit et numeravit in duabus vicibus suprascripto magistro paulo viginti quatuor floren. den. parvor. pro parte facture dicte picture. Interrogatus in causa scientie; dixit quod presens fuit, dedit et solvit. Interrogatus de tempore; dixit de anno 1456 et mense Junii dicti anni vel alio veriori tempore. Interrogatus de loco; dixit in apoteca ipsius testist, [etc.] Actum Pisis, iuxta apotecam dicti testis, presentibus Mariano Antonii del Poggio, et Mariano Nannis Coli de Campo, aurifice, pisanis, civibus, testibus, in die viiii Januarii 1462”; from Gaetano Milanesi, Nuovi Documenti per la storia dell’arte Toscano dal XII al XVI secolo (Rome, 1893 and Florence, 1901; Reprint Soest: Davaco, 1973), p. 112, n. 132. 15 Ranieri di Antonio is noted until 1475 in documents assembled by Fannuci Lovitch, Artisti a Pisa, I, p. 258. His daughter, Brigida, appears among the women of San Domenico in the middle years of the century (Appendix 4). 16 Fanucci Lovitch, Artisti a Pisa, II, p. 328, provides more information about this transaction, although it is unclear whether in fact she refers to the same document or another one. “Gennaio 1456 e 9/1/1462. Nella seconda data Ranieri di Antonio orafo, teste indotta ad eterna memoria, dice come fattore e procuratore del monastero di S. Domenico, aveva pagato una somma di denaro a maestro Paolo Schiavo pittore, allora dimorante sotto la casa di Battista Lanfreducci dove esercitava la sua arte, per una tavola di S. Caterina che lo stesso Paolo aveva dipinto nel 1456 per detto monastero. Analoga testimonianza venne fatta da Antonio di Giovanni tavolaio, maestro di legname, che ricordava come nel gennaio del 1456 detto monastero dette a dipingere a maestro Paolo Schiavo una certa figura ed un colmo con fogliami e colonnelli.” (The documents in question are ASF NA, 4265, cc 350r, 365r.) 17 The term appears, for example in the inventory of the Medici household taken in 1492 to refer to devotional panels: Pope-Hennessy, Fra Angelico, p. 238 and Eve Borsook, “Review of Neri di Bicci: Le Ricordanze,” Art Bulletin, 56 (1979): 318; “the word cholmo was used to describe the domestic tabernacles which Neri produced in such large numbers, evidently they frequently had a Gothic gable.” 18 Many of the Florentine institutions surveyed by Lowe hired Schiavo; see K. Lowe, “Nuns and Choice: Artistic Decision-Making in Medicean Florence.” 19 For the education and background required to understand the devices of perspective or the revival of classical subjects, see M. Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth
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Century Italy (Oxford, 1972) and Paul Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy: 1300– 1600 (Baltimore, 1989). For women’s lack of access to these topics, see W. Chadwick, Women, Art and Society (London, 1991), pp. 65–67. 20 Wood, Women, Art, and Spirituality, p. 144: for the nuns at Corpus Domini of Bologna, “the shining gold and vibrant colors of paintings heighten the beholder’s sensory awareness and, in doing so, evoke what is otherwise indescribable.” 21 We know that Sister Orsola Gioli restored the fresco in the refectory in the eighteenth century; Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 319. 22 Wood, Women, Art, and Spirituality, pp. 121–123. 23 See Hamburger, Nuns as Artists, p. 184 and surrounding pages for discussion of Dominican attitudes towards women’s creative work. 24 For documentation on the nuns of Santa Caterina da Siena of Florence in the sixteenth century, see Catherine Turrill, “Compagnie and Discepole: The Presence of Other Women Artists at Santa Caterina da Siena,” in Jonathon Nelson (ed.), Suor Plautilla Nelli (1523– 1588) The First Woman Painter of Florence (Fiesole, 2000), pp. 83–102. 25 Padoa Rizzo noted that the “economical” nuns of San Domenico reused panels and painted them themselves for the same reasons, in “Review of Carli, La Pittura a Pisa dalle origini alla ‘bella maniera’,” in Antichità Viva, 34 (1995): 61–63. 26 “Ma quelle cose di mano di costei sono migliori, che ella ha ricavato da altri, nelle quale mostra che arebbe fatto cose maravigliose se, come fanno gli uomini, avesse avuto commodo di studiare ed attendere al disegno, e ritrarre cose vive e naturale ...”; Vasari, Le vite, G. Milanesi (ed.), vol. 5, p. 80. For Suor Plautilla, see the essays in Jonathan Nelson (ed.), Suor Plautilla Nelli (1523–1588) The First Woman Painter of Florence. 27 Richa, Notizie istoriche delle chiese fiorentine, vol. VIII, p. 283. See also, Catherine Turrill, “Compagnie and Discepole.” 28 Two extracts published by Taurisano, I Domenicani in Lucca (Lucca, 1914), p. 164, from the Libro delle Priore of San Domenico of Lucca document the commissions: “La octava Priora fu suor Lucina figliuola di Nicolao Cenami … fece fare una bellissima Tavola a laltar della chiesa nostra di fuora per mano del Padre Fra Paolino da pistoia dipintore eccelente ... La nona Priora fu Suor Arcangela figliuola di Pier Ciomei ... de ordine col Padre fra Paolino da Pistoja di fare una tavola in chiesa nostra di drento.” 29 Ibid., p. 164: “lei fu dipintora la qual arte imparo quasi senza maestro, in poi che poche cose li furon dimostre; e si andava industriano con la propria inclinatione. Fece la immagine del Padre S. Domenico che e alla entrata del Monastero, altra grande della vamano, due altre piu piccole, una di S. Tommaso nostro, la pieta del nostro altare di chiesa et piu altre figure.” Further information about her work is provided from the Libro delle Priore: “Fece dipinger la Pieta con 4 figure cioe il Padre S. Domenico, da una testa, della tavola sotto la grata del detto altare, S. Vincenzo nostro dall’altra testa, In mezzo accanto la pieta S. Maria Magdalena et S. Orsola alla sopra detta suor Peregrina”; Ibid., p. 164. 30 Ibid., p. 165: “Suor Brigida Franciotti ... era di singular ingegno, per il quale imparo a dipinger da se a se et faceva belissime dipinture di variate cose mettendo a oro onde molte cose fece alla chiesa nostra … .” 31 See Hamburger, Nuns as Artists. In Bruges in 1500 a secular woman, Grietkin Sceppers, worked for the Carmelite convent of Sion, and may have been involved in teaching the craft to the sisters there; Alain Arnould, O.P., De la production de miniatures de Cornelia van Wulfschkercke (Brussels, 1998), pp. 11–12, with earlier bibliography.
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32 See Ileana Tozzi, “Devozione Mariana. Il Monte Calvario nella cella della Beata Colomba,” Arte Cristiana, 87 (2000): 231–33. 33 Peter Schmidt, “L’usage de la gravure aux XVe et XVI siècles au couvent d’Unterlinden,” in Blondel, et al., Les Dominicaines d’Unterlinden, pp. 226–247. See also the many prints reworked by nuns in Vandenbroeck, Paul, et al., Le Jardin Clos de l’Ame. L’imaginaire des religieuses dans les Pays-Bas du Sud, depuis le 13e siècle (Brussels, 1994). 34 For much of what follows, see Roberts, “North Meets South in the Convent: The Altarpiece of Saint Catherine of Alexandria in Pisa,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 50 (1987): 187–206. 35 A. Hind, Early Italian Engraving (London and New York, 1938–48), vol. I, catalogues B.I, 1–17; plates in vol. III, figures 172–190. For Francesco Rosselli, see the biography by Konrad Oberhuber in Jay Levenson, K. Oberhuber and J. Sheehan, Early Italian Engravings from the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C., 1973), pp. 47–59; and M. Levi d’Ancona, “Francesco Rosselli,” Commentari, 16 (1965): 56–76. 36 Richa, Notizie delle chiese fiorentini, vol. VIII, p. 279: “Trovo risconto (Suor Lucia) di gettarne il primo fondamento sulle Case della Famiglia de’ Rosselli, lo dove si vede di present situato, perche possedute allora da Franceso Rosselli Padre di tre Fanciulle di onestissima vita, che con essa leo disposte si erano a ritirarsi dal Mondo ... le tre Filie del suddetto Franceso Rosselli chamarosni in Religione Suor Fede, Suor Speranza e Suor Maria ... .” 37 Madeline Cirillo Archer underscored the relationship between this series of prints and the 15 mysteries of the Rosary, which was a Dominican-sponsored devotion; Madeline Cirillo Archer, “The Dating of a Florentine Life of the Virgin and Christ,” Print Quarterly, 5 (1988): 395–402. 38 See J. Wood, Women, Art, and Spirituality, pp. 104–110 and 157–158, for these projects. 39 Elissa Weaver, “Spiritual Fun. A Study of Sixteenth-Century Tuscan Convent Theatre,” in M. B. Rose (ed.), Women in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Syracuse, 1986), pp. 173–205 and Convent Theater in Early Modern Italy: Spiritual Fun and Learning for Women (Cambridge, 2002). See also K.J.P. Lowe, Nuns’ Chronicles and Convent Culture, pp. 263–265. 40 The Rappresentazione di San Orsola was published in Florence in at least eight editions from 1516 until 1589; Paul Kristeller, Early Florentine Woodcuts (London, 1897), n. 309, pp. 119–120. Some elements of the predella resemble woodcuts in the Rappresentazione di San Eustachio, which appeared in nine editions from the late fifteenth through the sixteenth century; Ibid., n. 141, p. 49, fig. 129. 41 For this woodcut, see Tammaro De Marinis, Catalogue d’une collection d’anciens livres à figures Italiens (Milan, 1925). 42 For the woodcut which illustrates the martyrdom of S. Appolonia from an edition of the Legendario de Sancti published in Venice in 1518, see Victor Massena (Prince d’Essling), Les Livres à Figures Venitiens (Florence, 1908), vol. II, n. 689, pp. 160–170. 43 See Serena Padovani (ed.), L’età di Savonarola. Fra’ Bartolomeo e la scuola di San Marco (Florence, 1996), n. 42, pp. 150–151. 44 “MCCCLXXXIII hoc opus fecerunt fieri moniales Sancte Clare et restauratum fuit MCCCCCXIII”; in Ugo Procacci, La R. Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze (Rome, 1936), p. 31.
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45 In 1558–60 “a fatto rifare la Nonziata dell’altare a Suor Plautilla Nelli suora di S. Caterina di Firenze e pagatola scudi 7”; see Venturino Alce, O.P., “Tre Documenti su Fra Bartolomeo della Porta (1472–1517),” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 56 (1986): 73. 46 Pope-Hennessy, Fra Angelico, p. 189. 47 Hamburger, Nuns as artists. 48 See the exhibit catalogue edited by Vandenbroeck, Le Jardin clos de l’ame, for a variety of such objects from Northern convents. 49 Wood, Women, Art, and Spirituality, pp. 121–144. 50 In her essay, “Women’s Work at the Benedictine Convent of Le Murate in Florence: Suora Battista Carducci’s Roman Missal of 1509,” in Lesley Smith and Jane H.M. Taylor (eds), Women and the Book: Assessing the Visual Evidence (Toronto, 1997), p. 143, K.J.P. Lowe argued that ecclesiastical hierarchy disapproved of professionalism in women’s art forms, thus works by women had to be “trifling, or homey, or both.” 51 As was the case for Plautilla Nelli; see Fredrika Jacobs, Defining the Renaissance Virtuosa: Women Artists and the Language of Art History and Criticism (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 120–121.
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Catalogue of Renaissance Paintings from San Domenico The catalogue is organized using the following scheme: items are grouped first by medium, and within each media section by iconography. Iconographic sections are arranged by themes focused around Christ, then the Virgin, and then saints in alphabetical order. Numeration is continuous throughout. Frescoes These are arranged by location, whether they are still in their original location or their original location is documented. In the Nuns’ Choir Catalogue 1: Crucifixion with Virgin and Saint John, Saint Dominic and Chiara Gambacorta. Busts of apostles and Christ in soffit of arch. Still on the north wall of the nuns’ choir of the fifteenth-century church of San Domenico, Pisa. Anonymous Tuscan Artist. Fresco, c.1430–35. Figures 3.15–17. Width of niche 233 cm; depth of niche 65cm; thickness of archivolts 44 cm. Originally the niche enframed the bara of Chiara Gambacorta. Literature: Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 239–240, published a report made in 1828 by experts called in to examine the condition of the sarcophagus and fresco: “We have made diligent observation of the painting in fresco existing in the niche inside the wall in which is installed the said sarcophagus of marble and we have found depicted images of the Crucifixion, the Virgins [sic], and of other figures in Dominican monastic habits in acts of adoration, with haloes in the manner of the quattrocento ... they are entirely of the same ancient epoch, well conserved, without retouchings ... and the interior of the picture, which is in contact with surface of the sarcophagus reveals no indication of joints existing in limestone (calce) or in paint, but the totality of the picture and sarcophagus were made simultaneously for the same purpose.”
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The fresco was described in the 1897 inventory of San Domenico (Appendix 1, Document 5): “Frescoes of the first part of the XV century which adorn the background and arch of the space which contains the funeral casket in which is enclosed the body of Blessed Clara. In the field is painted Jesus Crucified between the Virgin, S. John the Evangelist, the Magdalen and Saints Dominic and Caterina. In the soffit of the arch in some panels are the heads of the twelve Apostles.” Bellini-Pietri, whose guidebook mentions much more of the interior church than others, describes the fresco as follows (Guida di Pisa, p. 252): “Noteworthy are ... [frescoes] of the XIV [sic] in the lunette of an arch on the left wall, with Christ Crucified, the Maries, S. John the Evangelist, and at the edges the blessed Clara and S. Domenico; in the sott’arco medallions with heads of Christ and saints.” The fresco was included in a catalogue of medieval Pisan frescoes by Burresi, where it was assigned to Turino Vanni and dated after 1417, though reasons for these choices were not cited; Burresi, Affreschi medievali a Pisa, p. 181. Catalogue 2. Saints Catherine and Agnes (destroyed). Frescoes on south wall of nuns’ choir at San Domenico, now destroyed. Documentation: Described as being in ruinous condition in 1897 (Appendix 1, Document 5): “The bottom parts of two figures of saints painted in fresco on the left wall [south], work of the early XVI century covered in large part by whitewash.” Literature: Bellini-Pietri, Guida di Pisa, p. 252: “Noteworthy on the right (south) wall are the little remains of two lovely frescoes of the XIV century: S. Agnes and S. Catherine.” In the Refectory Catalogue 3. Crucifixion with Dominican Saints and Nuns. From the Refectory of San Domenico, which was transformed into the Ospizio per Mendicità in the nineteenth century. Removed from the walls after 1945. Now in the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, Pisa. Fresco, detached from wall: 235 × 440 cm. Figures 5.7, 5.9–11. Sinopia (also detached): 240 × 430 cm. Figures 5.14–5.17. c.1490. Attributed to Benozzo Gozzoli and shop. Literature: Supino, “Opere minore di Benozzo a Pisa,” p. 242, says the fresco is certainly by Benozzo. In Development of the Italian Schools, XI, p. 209, van Marle gives to Benozzo. Bellini-Pietri, Guida di Pisa, 251, describes the fresco as follows “In a ground floor room [of the Ospizio di Medicita] on one of the minor walls, a large fresco by Benozzo Gozzoli ... It has been judged as flaccid and late work, perhaps a rather severe judgement, but it convinces that the work is not
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among Benozzo’s best.” Ross, Story of Pisa, p. 266, reports, “The greater part of the monastic buildings have been converted into the Ricovero per Mendicità, or workhouse, and there, in the former refectory of the nuns, will be found two frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli, both belonging to his latest period. A Crucifixion occupies the whole width of the wall, which although superficial in feeling and very mannered in technique, forms a pleasant wall decoration. On the left are the Madonna, SS. Mary Magdalen, Peter Martyr, Dominic, Catherine, and two mantellate, while on the right are SS. John the Evangelist, Thomas Aquinas, Vincent, Martha, and two more mantellate. In the background is a city, possibly meant for Pisa, in the midst of a woolly landscape. In the sky appear the sun and the moon and some very busybody angels. The whole picture is the work of a tired, feeble man. To the right of it is a very much injured figure of Silence, a Dominican monk with his finger on his lip and a scourge in his hand. Two angels hold up a curtain in the background.” Venturi, in Storia dell’arte italiano, VIII, p. 405 gives to “followers of Benozzo.” Berenson, Pictures: Florentine School, p. 96, says it is in great part by Benozzo, but late work. Padoa Rizzo, Benozzo Gozzoli: pittore fiorentino, p. 121, calls it “a typical work of Benozzo of his last Pisan phase.” Pons, in Padoa Rizzo, Benozzo Gozzoli: catalogo completo, pp. 130– 131, says the sinopia is “sicuramente autografa” but the “realizzazione pittorica” was “forse lasciata in larga parte alle bottega sempre attiva al fianco del maestro negli anni pisani.” Carli, Pittura a Pisa, p. 175, “giudico autografa e di alta qualita la sinopia parzialmente ritrovata. Ma l’esecuzione prevalentamente di aiuti.” Cole Ahl, Benozzo Gozzoli, pp. 189–190: “Benozzo’s expressive sinopie was translated prosaically by assistants.”
Catalogue 4. Saint Dominic Urging Silence. From the Refectory of San Domenico, transformed into the Ospizio per Mendicità in the nineteenth century. Removed from wall after 1945. Now in the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo in Pisa. Detached fresco. 129 × 162 cm. Figures 5.8, 5.18. Benozzo Gozzoli and workshop. Literature: Bellini-Pietri, Guida di Pisa, p. 251, described it: “Above a door on this wall, also in fresco, is represented, as a symbol of silence, a Dominican friar who makes the sign of silence.” Padoa Rizzo, Benozzo Gozzoli in Toscana, p. 132, reported that, according to Nicoletta Pons, the fresco was removed from the wall in 1992, in “pessimo stato conservativo … fortemente alterato da ridipinture … è possibile che il Gozzoli, nel momento in cui realizzo la Crociffisione abbia eseguito anche il San Domenico (c.1488–90) fors’anche con la collaborazione di qualche auito, completando cosi la decorazione del vano conventuale.” Cole Ahl, Benozzo Gozzoli, p. 248, says, “its execution by Benozzo and his shop is unquestionable.” Dates it to 1488–90.
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In Other Parts of the Convent Catalogue 5. Indications of lost frescoes of the Madonna in chapels and the parlatorio, reported in Da Morrona, Pisa Illustrata, p. 325: “Nell’oratorio detto della B. Chiara sono nel muro dipinte due Madonne che sembrano allo stile del 1200 incirca. L’altra poi pure a fresco situata presso il ricetto [parlatorio] del monastero colla solita stella sul manto si accosta al secolo di Giotto.” Paintings on Canvas Catalogue 6. Crucifixion with Saint Francis and Donor Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Inv. 4917. Tempera on canvas (or detached fresco?). 210 × 270 cm. Figure 3.4. Giovanni di Pietro di Napoli. Dated 1404. Inscription at bottom: “Factum Fuit Tenpore sororis clare priorisse istius monestarii anno domini m cccc v Fieri fecit Stefanus Lapi domini Lapi roghate deum pro eo iohes. petri de Neapoli pinsit.” Documentation: Described by Da Morrona, Pisa Illustrata, p. 325: “In una pittura sulla tela che sembre a tempera e scritto: Factum fuit tempore Sor Clare Priorisse istius Monast. AD 1405. Johannes Petri de Neapoli pinxit.” In the 1897 inventory of S. Domenico, it was described as being in the nuns’ choir high on the wall dividing the choir from the public church [i.e. the west wall of the choir] (Appendix 1, Doc. 5): “A canvas painted in tempera representing Jesus Crucified with our Lady, S. John the Evangelist, S. Francis, and S. Clara [sic]. At the bottom is an inscription which writes the name of Iohs. Petri de Neapoli painter of the xv century. Attached on high on the divider between the church and choir.” Literature: Bellini-Pietri, Catalogo del Museo Civico, p. 134, describes the painting as being on canvas (“su tela”), and in fact cites it as “one of the few large paintings on canvas of the period.” It is described as such by Da Morrona in the eighteenth century. Yet many scholars discuss this as a detached fresco, seemingly following Berenson, Italian Pictures: Central Italy, vol. I, pp. 182–183. For example, Vigni, Pittura del Due e Trecento nel Museo di Pisa, pp. 66–67, says it is a fresco “riportato su tela.” See also Burresi, Affreschi medievale a Pisa, p. 250. Catalogue 7. The Redeemer. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, Inv. 1724. Tempera on canvas. 193 × 78 cm. Figure 4.14. Attributed to Fra Angelico or a close associate.
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Documentation: Described in Appendix 1, Doc. 3: “Un Cristo dipinto sulla tela figura grande al vero.” Literature: Supino, ‘Relazione sul Museo Civico in Pisa’, pp. 108–109, assigns it to Angelico. Bellini-Pietri, Catalogo del Museo Civico, p. 144 also gives to Angelico. Ross, Story of Pisa, p. 315, says, “The full-length figure is simple and majestic, and one of the most beautiful that Fra Angelico ever painted.” She also reports, p. 267: “Lost sight of for a long time, it was found in a corner of the monastic buildings in the last century much injured by damp, after which it was transferred to the Museo Civico.” Most scholars, including the cataloguers of the Pisan museum have assigned this picture to Fra Angelico or his shop and given it a date around 1450; here is a brief review of this literature. Berenson, Italian Pictures: Florentine School, p. 100, gives to Angelico. Van Marle, Development of the Italian Schools, vol. X, p. 162, assigns to the Angelico shop. Carli, Museo Civico, p. 97, says it is Angelico. Pope-Hennessy, Fra Angelico, p. 231, says “this processional banner, though much worn is of good quality and is perhaps in part autograph”; he considers it late work. Baldini, Beato Angelico, p. 273, argues that the state of preservation makes assessment as to autograph work difficult. Spike, Fra Angelico, p. 245, says it appears to be an autograph work after 1436 and calls it a Processional banner. Diane Cole Ahl, Benozzo Gozzoli, pp. 246–247, has attributed it to Benozzo Gozzoli and proposed a date in the 1480s at about the time Gozzoli was designing the Refectory frescoes for San Domenico. She points out that Angelico had no ties to Pisa, while Gozzoli spent 25 years there. Yet the strong similarities between this image and the frescoes in the chapel of Nicholas V, on which both artists worked, suggests the painting was made close to this time, that is near 1450, whether by Angelico or Benozzo. Panel Paintings Catalogue 8. The Nativity according to the Vision of Saint Birgitta. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Inv. 1633. Tempera on panel. 132 × 100 cm. Figure 3.12. Anonymous Pisan artist (Turino Vanni?). Date: after 1391, but perhaps before 1405. Documentation: Probably to be identified as the “Natività di Jesu” mentioned in the receipt of 1810 (Appendix 1, Doc. 3). Lasinio describes the object more fully in his inventory of works in the Camposanto: “A painting in panel representing the Nativity of Jesus, with another female saint, and the Eternal Father in Glory, from the 1300s of the school of Giotto” (Appendix 1, Doc. 4).
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Literature: Polloni, Catalogo … Pisa, p. 6, describes it: “La Ss. Vergine, S. Giuseppe, e S. Brigida in atto di adorare il Bambino Gesu. In eminenza l’eterno Padre con coro di Angioli. Quadro in tavola di maniera Giottesca. Renossa dal Monastero di S. Domenico.” Bellini-Pietri, Catalogo del Museo Civico, p. 92, says it belongs to the Florentine school of Giotto, fourteenth century. H. Cornell, Iconography of the Nativity, p. 14, gives it to Turino Vanni. Vigni, Pitture del due e trecento, pp. 111–112, assigns to the “Scuola Pisana tra la fine del sec. XIV e Il principio del XV.” Carli, Museo Civico, pp. 79–80, attributes to the “Supposto Bernardo Falconi.” Carli, Pittura a Pisa, p. 100, says that it is an “opericciola di controversa attribuzione e di estremeo interesse piu ancora che per non spregevoli qualita stilistiche, sopratutto per la rarita del soggetto fedelmente esemplato sul testo dell Revelationes.” Catalogue 9. The Resurrection of Lazarus Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Inv. 1717. Tempera on panel. 179 × 229 cm. Figure 4.5. Attributed by some to Paolo di Stefano (Paolo Schiavo) or to an anonymous Pisan artist. Dated: 1460–80. Documentation: This painting is probably the one listed on the 1810 receipt as “Quadro grande rappresentante la resurrezione di Lazzaro” (Appendix 1, Doc. 3). It has been in the Pisan museum since the nineteenth century. Literature: The painting has been linked with Paolo Schiavo since at least 1906, by Bellini-Pietri, Catalogo del Museo Civico, pp. 144–145. Yet Ross, Story of Pisa, p. 315, saw it as “of the school of the Lorenzetti, a remarkable composition for the fourteenth century.” Van Marle, Development of the Italian Schools, vol. IX, p. 43, placed it late in Schiavo’s career, near his death in 1478. Berenson, Italian Pictures: Florentine School, pp. 145–147, assigned it to the “Master of San Minato.” In his catalogue of the Pisan museum, Carli, Museo Civico, pp. 89– 90, assigned it to an anonymous Pisan painter of the second half of the fifteenth century. Covi, The Inscription in Florentine Painting, p. 517, cites it as Paolo di Stefano (Schiavo). Recent studies of and attributions to Schiavo seem to me to offer strong points of comparison with this painting. For Paolo Schiavo, see A. Padoa Rizzo, “Aggiunte a Paolo Schiavo.” Though a close associate or assistant of this artist may have been involved in the execution, I think an attribution to Paolo Schiavo is a strong possibility. For his part, Carli, Pittura a Pisa, p. 169, is inclined to associate the picture with the son of Paolo Schiavo: “A Paolo Schiavo il Cavalcaselle attribui con lieve riserva una grande tavola con la Risurrezione di Lazzaro proveniente dal monastero di S. Domenico … attribuzione accolata come opera tarda di questo pittore dal Van Marle (1927) ma non registrata sotto il suo nome negli ‘Elenchi’
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del Berenson. Lo Schiavo ebbe un figlio, Marco, anche lui pittore, detto ‘il Rosso’ e poiché dalle recenti ricerche della Lovitch (1991) esso risulta frequentemente documentato a Pisa dal 1470 al 1492 mi viene il sospetto che si debba a lui questa luguberrima tavola dalle accentuazioni quadi espressionsistiche ad esempio nei truci volti dei personaggi e dove l’ampio paesaggio sembra una version duramente medievalizzata di certi sfondi dell’Angelico.” However, there doesn’t seem to be much known about Marco il Rosso to make such an attribution more than speculation. Catalogue 10. Crucifixion with Ten Thousand Martyrs and Donor. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, Inv. S.n. 7. Tempera on panel. Approximately 150 × 75 cm (I have not been able to confirm the measurement.) Figure 6.4. Benozzo Gozzoli or close follower. 1490–1500. Documentation: Stood on an altar of the public church of San Domenico until 1943 (Appendix 1, Doc. 5). Literature: Polloni, Catalogo …isa, p. 26, exclaimed, “Nella chiesa di questo stesso convento [San Domenico] evvi un lavoro stupendo del Gozzoli, consistente in un quadro da altare, ove si esprimo la crocifissione di Nostro Signore figurato con 40 martiri ai di cui volti tu dici, senza saperlo, che sono altrettanti ritratti che li dipingeva Benozzo. In basso v’e una mezza figura, che sebbene...esser quella la vera sua [i.e. Benozzo’s] effigie.” Ross, Story of Pisa, pp. 267–268, says of it: “But there is still one remarkable picture in the church, a Crucifixion, over the altar on the left, which was perhaps laid in by Benozzo Gozzoli, but evidently finished by some painter who was strongly influenced by Domenico Ghirlandaio. The forty martyrs appear (martyred in early Christian days by being forced to stand up to the neck in icy water), filling the composition with a mass of heads and figures, while, below is a very fine portrait of the donor by a different and greatly superior hand.” Crowe and Cavalcaselle, History of Painting in Italy, VIII, p. 122, gave it to Benozzo. Supino, “Relazione sul Museo Civico,” p. 241, also assigned it to Benozzo. Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 230, listed it as school of Benozzo. Van Marle, Development of the Italian Schools, XI, p. 209, says school of Benozzo. Carli, Museo Civico, p. 101, gives to Benozzo. Covi, The Inscription in Florentine Painting, pp. 508–509, gives to Benozzo and assistants. Carli, Pittura a Pisa, pp. 175–176, says it is Gozzoli or workshop, speculates whether may be one of Benozzo’s sons. Diane Cole Ahl, Benozzo Gozzoli, pp. 268–269, dates it c.1480–1500, “without question inspired by Gozzoli … at the same time, the painting is not by the master and may be related to his shop only peripherally, if at all … the panel appears to be by a local follower of the master.”
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Catalogue 11. Christ between Martha and Mary Magdalen In the Gable is a Pietà. The Predella depicts Christ in the house of Martha and Mary, the Resurrection of Lazarus, and the Noli me tangere. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, Inv. 1695. Tempera on panel. 216 × 79 cm. Figures 4.7–4.10. Signed and dated: Ambrogio d’Asti, 1513 (1514 Pisan style). Inscription: “AMBROSIUS ASTENSUS PINXIT 1514” Documentation: Described by Da Morrona, Pisa Illustrata, p. 325: “Si conservano nella chiesa interna delle Monache varie dipinture in tavola. Fra queste si distingue un quadro diviso in tre parti con architectura gotico-tedesca. Vi e effigiato il Redentore, S. Marta, e S. M. Maddalena figure ben panneggiate, e corredate di belle teste e vi e scritto Ambrosius Astensis p. 1514.” In the estimo of 1810, Da Morrona described it on an altar in the nuns’ choir (Appendix 1, Doc. 2). Lasinio says it was placed in special room of Camposanto where altarpieces were stored. He records expenses for moving it (Appendix 1, Doc. 4). Literature: Supino, “Relazione sul Museo Civico,” p. 110, said that the painting represents Christ in the act of blessing between the Virgin and an angel who pours oil on his head. He identified Ambrogio d’Asti as a “ritardatoio” who followed the manner of Ghirlandaio. This iconography was accepted by Bellini-Pietri, Catalogo del Museo Civico, p. 174, who assigned the predella to another hand and confirms its origins in the nuns’ choir at San Domenico. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, History of Painting in Italy, vol. II, p. 471, agreed with this description. Carli, Museo Civico, identified the two flanking figures as the Madonna and the Magdalene and repeated this identification in Carli, Pittura a Pisa, 165. In her article, “Mary Magdalen Anointing Christ’s Head,” Ruth Wilkins Sullivan has identified the principal theme of the central panel as a triumphal image of Christ being anointed as King by Mary Magdalene with Martha as a witness. See also Katherine Jansen, Making of the Magdalen, p. 194. Signed by Ambrogio d’Asti and dated 1513 (1514 Pisan style). However, the artist is not well understood and the picture has not been much discussed. While the panel is overall in quite good condition, these predella scenes appear to have been touched up at some point; the contours of many of the forms seem to have been strengthened. Catalogue 12. Polyptych of the Madonna Enthroned. a) The Virgin and Child flanked by Saints Dominic, John the Evangelist, Mary Magdalen and Birgitta. In roundels above, Saints John the Baptist and Stephen. Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, inv. 1663.
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Tempera on panel. Overall size: 134 × 198 cm; central panel: 112.5 × 198 cm; wings: 83 × 63.5 cm. Figure 3.6. Attributed to Giovanni di Pietro di Napolo and Martino di Bartolommeo. Dated by inscription 1404 (1405 Pisan style). Inscriptions: central panel: “M CCCC V dAbrile io h ...ise pregiamo dio... .”; left wing: “SCA MARIA MADALENA,” “SANTUS DOMINICHUS”; right wing: “SCS IOHIS EVANGLISTA,” “SCA BRIGITA PRICIPISA.” b) Predella panels now in Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, cats. 1105–07. Left predella (cat. 1105) depicts, on the left, Birgitta appearing in the dream of a Swedish princess (12.9 × 23.2 cm) and, on the right, Christ and the Virgin dictating to Birgitta (13.2 × 24.2 cm). Figures 3.7–8. Center predella (cat. 1106) depicts Birgitta’s vision of the Nativity (13.4 × 37.4 cm). Figure 3.9. Right predella (cat. 1107) depicts, on the left, Birgitta saving pilgrims from shipwreck (13.5 × 24.1 cm) and, on the right, an Angel dictating to the writing Birgitta (13.5 × 23.7 cm). Figures 3.10–11. Documentation: Museum catalogues link the altarpiece to the convent. The predella is described quite specifically by Carlo Lasinio (Appendix 1, Doc. 4): “Un gradino d’altare, che fu poi ridotti in tre quadretti, rappresentante due Fatti di Sta Brigida ed uno la nascita di Gesu, l’autore del 1300... .” Literature: Bellini-Pietri, Catalogo del Museo Civico, pp. 99–100, describes as “Sienese school.” Much of the literature debates the extent to which Giovanni or Martino worked on specific sections of the ensemble. For example, Vigni, Pittura del Due e Trecento nel Museo di Pisa, p. 70, tries to distinguish the hands of the two painters. Carli, Museo Civico, p. 63, summarizes these efforts. Boskovits, Frühe Italiensiche Malerei, pp. 103–106, reconstructs the predellas with the triptych in Pisa. See also, Filieri, Sumptuosa tabula picta, p. 204. Catalogue 13. Triptych of the Madonna Enthroned. a) Central panel, Virgin and Child, Denver Art Museum on loan from the Samuel H. Kress Collection, n.K453. Tempera on panel. 112.7 × 54 cm. Figure 5.4. b) Wings, Left: Saint Michael the Archangel and a Dominican Beato and Right: Saint Catherine of Alexandria and a Virgin Martyr. Pisa Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, Inv. 1616–18. Tempera on panel. 95 × 54 cm. Figures 5.2–3. Attributed to Francesco d’Antonio. Dated c.1420–25.
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Documentation: Inventory descriptions are not precise enough to identify the parts of this although the notation for the side panels may be: “Due Quadretti in Tavola, con Fondo d’oro, a piramide, rappresentanti due santi d’ognuno” (Appendix 1, Doc. 4) and one of the many references to images of the Madonna and Child may apply to the central panel. Literature: Museum catalogues link the wings to San Domenico, as does BelliniPietri, Catalgo del Museo Civico, pp. 139–140. Zeri linked the central panel to the wings; his reconstruction was proposed in the Bollettino d’Arte, 34 (1949), pp. 22– 24. See Fern Rusk Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection, p. 92. Carli, Pittura a Pisa, p. 166, assigns a date about 1420. Catalogue 14. Madonna and Child with St Giovannino. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, inv. 1722. Tempera (?) on panel. 63 × 45 cm. Figure 7.14. Anonymous fifteenth century Tuscan artist; the panel was repainted probably in the early sixteenth century. Inscription: “Regina Cieli.” Documentation: Linked to San Domenico by museum catalogues, for example, Bellini-Pietri, Catalogo del Museo Civico, p. 176, n. 24. It may be one of the several “Madonna with Jesus” panels that appear in the lists by Lasinio (Appendix 1, Docs. 3 and 4). Literature: Reproduced only in Zucchelli, Il Monastero di San Domenico, p. 113, but not discussed there. Catalogue 15. Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, inv. 1668. Tempera on panel. 163 × 78 cm. Figure 3.1 Attributed to Giovanni di Pietro di Napoli and Martino di Bartolommeo. Dated by inscription to 1403 (1404 Pisan style). Inscription: “mcccciiii aprile fu il mese, preghiamo dio per chi fa le spese.” Documentation: Alessandra da Morrona located the painting in the nuns’ choir in the estimo of 1808 (Appendix 1, Doc. 2). It appears in the 1810 inventory of works of art transferred from San Domenico (Appendix 1, Doc. 4) as “Un Quadro in Tavola rappresenta Maria, Gesu, che da l’anello a Sta Caterina, del 1300.”
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Literature: Bellini-Pietri, Catalogo del Museo Civico, pp. 133–134, attributes to Giovanni di Napoli and Martino di Bartolomeo. Carli, Museo Civico, p. 64, assigns to Martino di Bartolomeo and Giovanni di Pietro da Napoli. Carli, Pittura a Pisa, p. 102, later assigned this panel to the “Master of Saint Ursula” who worked in Pisa at the end of the fourteenth century. See also Roberts, “North meets South in the Convent,” p. 199.
Catalogue 16. Triptych of Saint Catherine of Alexandria. Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Inv. 2155–57. Figure 7.1. a) Central panel: Oil on oak panel. 208 × 82 cm. Figures 4.4 and 7.5–6. Attributed to the Flemish Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy, ca. 1490–93. b) Wings: Tempera on panel. Tuscan artist early sixteenth century. Figures 7.2–4 and 7.8–9. Documentation: Museum catalogues link the triptych to San Domenico, and it may be the object described in the estimo of 1810 as on an altar in the nuns’ choir next to the triptych signed by Ambrogio Asti on the central panel (Cat. 11) as “Cosa parimente,” since the formats would be similar (Appendix 1, Doc. 2). Literature: Bellini-Pietri, Catalogo del Museo Civico, pp. 160–161, questions an attribution to Lucas van Leyden, that had been made by Polloni, Catalogo … Pisa, p. 11. Ross, Story of Pisa, 317, also was dubious: “In a corner room [of the Pisan Museum] is S. Catherine of Alexandria, a sixteenth-century Dutch picture attributed somewhat doubtfully to Lucas van Leyden.” A.M. Roberts, “The Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy: A Catalogue and Critical Essay,” p. 95, argues a date for it around 1493. Roberts, “North meets South in the Convent,” discusses the history of the attributions of the triptych to both Flemish and Spanish artists and argues that the wings are the work of an anonymous nun of San Domenico. Padoa Rizzo, Benozzo Gozzoli, Catalogo Completo, p. 19, thinks the wings of this Altarpiece are by Alesso di Benozzo, towards 1503 and beyond. Carli, Pittura a Pisa, concurs with Roberts. See also Thomas, Art and Piety, p. 20. Catalogue 17. Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Siena Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Inv. 1657. Tempera on panel. 107 × 71 cm. Figure 3.3. Anonymous Tuscan artist, late fourteenth or early fifteenth century. Inscription: “BEATA CATERINA DA SIENA SPOSA DI CRISTO.”
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Documentation: Described by Carlo Lasinio in the 1810 inventory of the Camposanto as from San Domenico: “A painting on panel representing Saint Catherine of Siena, on her knees below a building, in a glory various saints, in the good style of the 1400s” (Appendix 1, Doc. 4). Probably the object described simply as “Altro con la B. Caterina” in the 1810 receipt (Appendix 1, Doc. 3). There is some confusion as to its provenance; Carli, Museo Civico, p. 83, says it came from the Zucchetti collection, and its relationship to San Domenico seems to have been obscured fairly soon after its confiscation. Literature: Bellini-Pietri, Catalogo del Museo Civico, Sala V, n. 27, as anonymous painter of Pisa. Ross, Story of Pisa, p. 314, describes it as follows: “No. 27, The Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine of Siena, by a Pisan painter of the fifteenth century, is an originally composed picture.” Vigni, Pittura Pisana del due e trecento nel Museo di Pisa, pp. 112–113, attributes it to a Pisan painter of the end of the fourteenth or beginning of fifteenth century. Carli, Museo Civico, p. 83, assigns it to Master of Saint Ursula, a Pisan painter of the late fourteenth century. Carli, Pittura a Pisa, p. 102, reiterates an attribution to the Master of Saint Ursula. Catalogue 18. Saint Eulalia Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Inv. 2159. Tempera on Panel. 198 × 68 cm. Figure 4.1. Attributed to Bicci di Lorenzo. c.1430–35. Inscription: “Sancta Hularia de Barzalona vergine e martire.” Documentation: The panel was once joined with the panel of Christ between Martha and Mary by Ambrogio d’Asti (Catalogue 11) and is described as such in the estimo by Morrona in 1818 (Appendix 1, Doc. 2). Literature: In his 1837 Catalogo … Pisa, p. 30, Polloni described the triptych formed around the Asti painting, including this panel. Yet Bellini-Pietri, Catalogo del Museo Civico, pp. 159–169, provides a provenance for this panel from a private donor, Cavaliere Giuliano Prino. This provenance is also mentioned by Carli, Pittura a Pisa, pp. 163–164. Rowlands, Masaccio: Saint Andrew, p. 72, note 171, connects the painting to a chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine dedicated to Saint Eulalia and ceded to the Confraternity of Catalan Merchants in Pisa, for whom Eulalia was the patron. Nonetheless, the earlier documentation for the provenance suggests that the painting came from San Domenico. Catalogue 19. Saint Jerome: in the Wilderness and in his Study. The Man of Sorrows in the gable above.
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Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, inv. 1625. Tempera on panel. 75 × 53 cm. Figure 4.13. Attributed to an anonymous Tuscan artist (Borghese di Piero?) and dated c.1430. Documentation: Probably to be linked to the following description from the general inventory of the convent made in 1808: “Another altar called of Saint Jerome situated in the further end of the first dormitory, with a little panel with its curtain (tenda) and an old crucifix” (Appendix 1, Doc. 1: Item 193). This object was transferred to the state in 1810; it appears on the receipt issued by Lasinio to the nuns: “Quadretto con S. Girolamo” (Appendix 1, Doc. 3) and again in the inventory of works in the Camposanto made up by Lasinio: “Due quadretti piccoli ... l’altro S. Girolamo ed altro santo del 1400” (Appendix 1, Doc. 4). Literature: Polloni, Catalogo … Pisa, p. 26, gives a description: “L’anacoreta St. Girolamo, ed alto santo appresso. Nel di sopra evvi una pieta con due serafini. Lavora della ridetta forma piramidale diviso nel mezzo. Segna l’epoca del 1400. Appartenne al nostro convento di San Domenico.” Bellini-Pietri, Catalogo del Museo Civico, p. 110 (Sala 4, no. 34) repeats this information. Ridderbos, Saint and Symbol, p. 26, n. 12, associates with a follower of Masaccio. Carli, Pittura a Pisa, 166–167, leaves anonymous, but after Masaccio’s work at the Carmine. An attribution to the Pisan artist, Borghese di Piero, a follower of the Sienese Priamo della Quercia, was made by Linda Pisani, in “Appunti su Priamo della Quercia,” Arte Cristiana, 84 (1996): 171–186 and in Maria Teresa Filieri (ed.), Sumptuosa tabula picta, p. 394. Thomas, Art and Piety, pp. 14–15, calls anonymous late fourteenth century. Catalogue 20. Saint John the Baptist Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, inv. 1684. Tempera on panel. 80 × 32cm. Figure 4.12. Attributed to Taddeo di Bartolo. c.1400. Documentation: Museum catalogues link to San Domenico. Literature: Bellini-Pietri, Catalogo del Museo Civico, p. 143, assigns it an origin in San Domenico and attributes it to the Pisan School. Berenson, Italian Pictures: Central Italian Schools, p. 421, assigns it to Taddeo di Bartolo, as does Vigni, Pittura del Due e Trecento nel Museo di Pisa, pp. 63–64, and S. Symeonides, Taddeo di Bartolo, p. 242, who reports the variations among the attributions. Caleca’s “Handlist” of 1978, assigns to Taddeo di Bartolo. Zucchelli, Il Monastero di San Domenico, p. 108. illustrates the painting without comment.
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Catalogue 21. Saint Peter Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, Inv. 1664. Tempera on panel. Figure 4.11. Tuscan artist. Early fifteenth century. Documentation: Two lists composed by Carlo Lasinio describe an image of Saint Peter from San Domenico. In the first, a receipt for works taken from San Domenico (Appendix One, Doc. 3), reads: “Altro simile [i.e., piccolo quadro] con S. Pietro.” In an Inventory of paintings in the Camposanto, also composed in 1810 (Appendix 1, Doc. 4), Lasinio describes among the works from San Domenico: “Un piccolo quadretto piramide, del 1300, viene dall’Orgagna, Rappresenta S. Pietro.” There are two possible candidates for this object still in the collections of the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo in Pisa, both half-length depictions of St Peter. Because this object corresponds to the description by Lasinio and bears an inventory number close to other works from San Domenico, I believe this panel is the one from San Domenico. In the catalogue for Alla ricerca di un identità, Burresi identifies another panel of Saint Peter, inventory number 5731, as the one from San Domenico. Literature: Caleca, “Handlist,” 1978, gives the painting to Taddeo di Bartolo. Catalogue 22. Saint Sebastian Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Inv. 1714. Tempera on panel. 149 × 96 cm. Figure 6.3. Anonymous Florentine artist close to Ghirlandaio, last quarter of fifteenth century. The painting originally terminated in the semicircle, but was later installed in a square frame, which necessitated an addition at the top edge. This has been removed. Documentation: Bellini-Pietri, Catalogo del Museo Civico, Sala VI, n. 13, is the earliest author to link the painting to S. Domenico. Literature: Ross, Story of Pisa, 315: “S. Sebastian, of the Umbro-Florentine School of the fifteenth century, with the saint relieved against the sky, is interesting.” Berenson, Italian Pictures: Florentine School, p. 73, gives it to Davide Ghirlandaio. Carli, Museo Civico, p. 103, n. 110, sees it as close to Botticelli. Carli, Pittura a Pisa, pp. 178–179, says this painting was copied “almost literally” from another Ghirlandaesque image that depicts Saint Sebastian and Saint Roch.
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Catalogue 23. Saint Ursula Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Inv. 2153. Tempera (?) on panel. 195 × 72 cm. Figure 4.2–3, 7.11–12. Anonymous Tuscan artist. Early sixteenth-century remaking of fifteenth-century panel. Documentation: Described as attached to the Ambrogio d’Asti panel (Cat. 11) in estimo of 1810 (Appendix 1, Doc. 2). Literature: Ross, Story of Pisa, p. 315, describes the painting: “Sala VI, first picture, S. Ursula in a Gothic frame, possibly by Bernardino di Mariotto. The saint is standing against a gold background in a red and gold brocade mantle; at her feet is the inscription, ‘Sca Orsula Regina di Bretagna.’ Above is the Trinity and below are small scenes from her life. Originally the left wing of a triptych, its naive and sweet central panel is no. 19 in Sala VII and the right wing is No. 28 in this same Sala VI, representing S. Eulalia di Barcelona.” Caleca, “Handlist,” assigns it to an eighteenth-century imitator of the quattrocento. Carli, Pittura di Pisa, pp. 164–165, assigns the panel to Niccolo dell’Abrugia. Catalogue 24. Paschal Candlestick with images of Saints Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Inv. 4918. Tempera on Wood. Height 152 cm. Figures 6.1–6.2. Attributed to Cecco di Pietro. Early fifteenth century. Documentation: This is perhaps to be identified with the object listed in Lasinio’s receipt of 1810 as “Un Candelabro del sec. 1400 con sua padella” (Appendix 1, Doc. 3). It may also be the “Candelabro di Legno dorato in parte, e adorno di piccole figure antiche assai vaghe” cited in one of the sacristies (Room III) of the inventory made in 1808 (Appendix 1, Doc. 1). The object would seem to have been returned to the convent. Literature: Grassi, Descrizione storica di Pisa, II, p. 171, discusses the object: “E degno altresi d’osservazione un candelabro di legno, ove si mostrano quattro graziosissime figure di mano del ridetto Benozzo.” Bellini-Pietri, Catalogo del Museo Civico, p. 160, (Sala sesta, n. 29), gives more particulars: “Questo candelabro viene ogni anno ritornato alla chiesa di San Domenico per il periodo di sacre funzione che corre dal sabato santo all’ ascensione.” Pisa, Camposanto. Mostra d’Arte Sacra Antica, Cat. 21, p. 23, assigns it to the “Bottega di Agnolo Gaddi.” Caleca, “Handlist,” gives it to Cecco di Pietro.
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Appendix 1
Inventories of Works of Art and Other Objects from San Domenico Document 1: Inventory of the Convent of San Domenico, June 1808 ASP, Corporazione Religiose Soppresse, San Domenico, 1228 (19 old number) This is a comprehensive inventory of objects in the convent, including the public church and nuns’ choir as well as the living areas in the convent. The inventory has several subdivisions, which focuses on different sorts of object, but the following is the master list. The manuscript of the inventory is written on unpaginated paper folios. The inventory is organized by room, each of which is assigned a Roman numeral. Each item is also numbered, and these room and item numbers are maintained throughout the different versions. Sometimes new information about either the room or the objects can be learned from the other versions; where this occurs, I have inserted this information in the transcription of the master list. Inventario Generale delli Arredi Sacri, e mobili del soppresso monastero di San Domenico di Pisa 1808 Inventario generale della Mobilia di ogni Specie, Arredi Sacri, e altri Generi esistenti nel Soppresso Monastero di S. Domenico di Pisa cominciato questo di 2 Giugno 1808 da me infrascritto Commissario in Compagnia del Delegato del Cancelliere, ed alla presenza della Priora di detto Convento Suor Madre Crocifissa Mazzantini, e che comprende tanto i Generi che rimangono nel Monastero medesimo a disposizione dell’ Amministrazione del Demanio, che Quelli, che si consegnano per il proprio uso alle respettive Religiose destinate a passare nel Monastero di S. Marta di questa stessa Citta, come appresso. No. 1 Nella sagrestia [accanto alla chiesa] 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
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4 Pianete di piu colori ordinarie1 1 Detta da Morti usa 1 Roccetto ordinario 1 Camicie usa 15 Amitti
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6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.
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58 Purificatoi 29 Pezzuoline 5 Messali, che due da Morti 5 Cassette di Legno 3 Piccoli piatti per l’Ampolle 3 Bacchetti per uso della Sagrestia 1 Armadio poco buono 7 Quadretti e Stampe2 6 Seggiole usate di Baglia 2 Seggiole, 1 sgabello, 1 tavolino piccolissimo 1 Tavolino di Legno tinto 1 Crocifisso di Legno 1 Panchetta di Noce 1 Secchiola di Ottone col suo Aspersorio
No. II [Nella Sagrestia grande] 20. 4 Paliotti di Velluto ben laceri 21. 1 Piedistallo per la Croce dorato, e tinto 22. 1 Ciborio di Legno dorato in parte 23. 2 Piedistalli per le Reliquie dorati in parte 24. 2 Bacini d’Ottone grandi 25. 1 Piccolo Paliotto di Stofa 26. 2 Corone da Monacande di Lustrini di Talco 27. 1 Piccola Residenza per la Comunione 28. Parecchie Rappe di Fiori da Altari 29. Altre Rappe di Fiori 30. Una Cassetta con entrovi 13 Tovaglie 31. Una detta con numero 12 Sopra Tovaglie 32. Una detta con numero 3 Tovaglie 33. Altra detta con entrovi una Mantellina di Brociato, ed un Baldacchino per il Crocifisso 34. Un Ombrellino di Dammasco Cremisi usa 35. Un velo da Comunione di Mantino bianco ricamato in oro e seta 36. Tre tende di Mantino cremisi 37. Quattro Copertine da Cassetto di Stoffa 38. Tre Mantelline per il SSmo Crocifisso, che due di Broccato Vecchio, ed una di Stoffa 39. Tre pezzi di Mantino a Strisco Rosse, e gialle alquanto laceri 40. Altri due Pezzi di Mantino simili 41. Due Pezzi di Seta celeste e Gialla 42. Un Paliotto per un piccolo altare 43. Una Coperta per la Pisside
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44. Una Cassetta con entrovi vari boccioli da Candelieri inargentati 45. Dodici Candelieri grandi di Legno inargentato 46. Ventiquattro Candelieri piccoli usa 47. Quattro Reliquiari grandi di Legno dorati in parte 48. Dodici Paliotti assai laceri con Otto fregi 49. Otto Abiti per Immagini grandi di Chiesa 50. Quattro Bandinelle, che tre per il Leggio, ed una per la Croce 51. Otto Guanciali di piu qualita 52. Una Cassettina con entrovi vari drappi vecchi per cuoprir Croci 53. Due Pianete Rosse guarnite di Trina d’oro 54. Due Pianete bianche, che una di Broccato di Argenti, e l’altra ricamata a oro e argento 55. Altra Piantea bianca di Stoffa ricamata a Colori 56. Una detta di Velluto Paonazzzo 57. Altra detta di Broccato antico 58. Due Dette di Stoffa guarnite d’oro 59. Quattro pianete di Stoffa di diversi colori 60. Un Piviale con sue Tonicelle, e Velo di Nato bianco con piccola Guarnizione in Oro 61. Una Pianeta da Morti con sue Tonicelle guarnite in oro3 62. Una Pianeta con Suo Piviale, e due Tonicelle compagne di Amuerre bianco ricamato in seta e Oro e guarnita nell’istessa forma. 63. Un Paliotto con Fregi in Seta di diversi colori 64. Una Gradinata di Legno da Altare 65. Ventiquattro Libri da Coro fra grandi e piccoli 66. Dodici Camici di Tela di diversa qualita 67. Sei Roccetti di Tela usa 68. Sette Portiere di Tela bianca di diversa grandezza 69. Quattro Sopra Tovalgie di Tela con righe Turchine 70. Tre Tovaglie a Sopra Coperte Vsa piu grandi 71. Quattro Asciugamani di Tela 72. Quattro Sopra Veste di Tela 73. Quattro Coperte di Tela bianche per i Paliotti 74. Dieci Pezzuoline di Tela 75. Un Paliotto di Stoffa molto lacero 76. Un Vassaio di Mistua con suo mesciroba di Stagno 77. Un Piedistallo di Croce di Legno inargentato 78. Quattro vasi da fiori di Legno consimili 79. Tre Leggii di Legno dorati 80. Una Scatola con numero 4 Berrette da Prete 81. Un Sepolcro di Legno dorato in parte per uso della settimana santa 82. Una Saetta per luso suddetto
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83.
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Quattordici Armadi, e un Cassone, ivi si contiene tutta la roba descritta nel numero II
[From the Nota di Supplemento at the end of the inventory Sette Ammitti Due Asciugamani] No. III [Sagrestia del Dormitorio delle converse] 84. Un Armadio con entrovi sei Paliotti tre di Stoffa e tre di Raso bianco 85. Tre Fregi di Paliotto di Legno dorato 86. Un gradino di Legno dorato in parte 87. Due Mori di Legno dorato in parte 88. Un Candelabro di Legno dorato i parte, e adorno di piccole Figure antiche assai vaghe 89. Due Leggii, uno di Noce vecchio, l’altro di Legno dorato 90. Cinque Camici coi respettivi Cordoni 91. Quattro Asciugamani 92. Due Bandinelle 93. Una Cassa Vecchia che contiene la Sudetta Biancheria 93. Tre Coperte da Paliotti una Tovaglietta, e un Tovagliolo, entro una piccola Cassa di Legno assai vecchio 94. Una Cassa sopra due Coprette con numero 12 Rappe di Fiori 95. Un piccolo Armadio vecchio 96. Altro simile con entrovi un piccolo Gonfalone4 [From the Nota di Supplemento at end of the Inventory Due Armadi Quattro Cassette Una Paniera] No. IV [Sagrestia del Dormitorio] 97. Due Seggioloni antichi di Dommasco 98. Due Cantorali di Tela dipinta per l’Altar Maggiore della Chiesa 99. Un Tavolino di Noce assai vecchio 100. Sieti vasi Bianchi da Fiori di Legno inargentato 101. Una piccola Cassa con entrovi numero 11 piccoli vasi da Fiori diversi, e in parte rotti 102. Una Cassa d’albero grande con entrovi numero 8 Vasi da Fiori inargentato 103. Due Rappe grandi di Fiori, e numero due maniglie di Ottone, che appartengono alla porta esterna della Chiesa 104. Dodici Candelieri di Legno inargentati con loro coperta
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Dieci Candelieri diversi di Legno dorati coi loro finimenti, che esistono in una piccola cassetta a parte Due Candelabri vecchi Un’Armadio contenete i suddetti camdelieri inargentati Una cornice da Paliotto appesa al Muro5 Una Paniera appesa al Muro usa
[From the Nota di Supplemento at the end of the inventory Un Confessionario] No. V Nel Coro dell’interno del Monastero 109.
Un Altare de Legno dorata con grata e tavola di Pittura antica col Ritratto di S. Domenico nel mezzo coperto con mantellina di Stoffa, e Tenda grande di Tela Turchina, che cuopre tutta l’altare 110. Due Candelieri di Ottone dell’altezza di un braccio 111. Una piccolissima Lampada di Ottone appesa dirimpetto all’altare 112. Altra simile piu grande 113. Due lucerne con Bracci di Ottone attacate al muro 114. Una Tovaglia di Tela, che cuopre il suddetto Altare 115. Due Altari di Legno anzi con tavole di Legno di antiche pitture 116. Due tende che cuoprono i suddetti altare 117. Due Tovaglie di Tela sopra le Residenze dei Medesimi 118. Un piccolo Armadio vecchio con entrovi diverse Ciarpe di poco o nessun valore, e numero 16 Boccioli di Ottone 119. Un Altare grande dirimpetto al primo con tavolo di pittura antica e la solita coperta di Tela Turchina 120. Una Tovaglia di Tela biancha che cuopre il suddetto Altare 121. Due Candelieri di Ottone dell’altezza di un Braccio circa 122. Due piccole Statue rappresentanti la ssma annunziata assai meschinamente e rivestite. 123. Due Candelabri di Legno con Sopra numero 2 lucernette di Ottone 124. Altra Tenda di Tela Turchina assai Lacera, che cuopre una Residenza over esiste una Tavola di Marmo, in ivi e Scolpita l’Immagine della Beata Chiara Gambacorti 125. Un Piccolo Secchio di Ottone con ‘Aspersorio per l’aqua Bendetta 126. Una Lampada di Ottone in mezzo della Chiesa o Coro 127. Due Vecchi Leggii, che uno con una vecchia e Lacera coperta 128. Un Banco da Coro lungo le Parete del Medesimo molto antico e di semplice albero Diciasette Quadri diversi appesi alle pareti del coro e di pochisssimo valore 129. 130. Una Via Crucis usa 131. Scale, Paniaccie e Inginocchiatoio diversi
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No. VI Nella Stanza del Capitolo 132.
Un Vecchio Banco di Legno, che la circonda, e numero 8 quadri di nessun valore
No. VII Nella Chiesa 133.
Un’Altare detto l’Altar maggiore tutto di Marmo con Ciborio simile, il di ivi Sportello e coperto di una Lamina di Argento in cui e scolpito il Pellicano 134. Otto Candelieri di Ottone dell’altezza di Braccio circa 135. Un Cristo di Legno, anzi una Croce ci Legno dorato con Cristo di Marmo 136. Un quadro Rappresentante la SSma Annunziata di Pittura Moderna esistente sopra il detto Altare 137. Una Tovaglia di Tela bianca, che cuopre il sudetto altare 138. Tre Cartaglorie 139. Un Altare a man diretta dell’Altare maggiore tutto di marmo 140. Due Candelieri di Ottone 141. Tre Cartaglorie 142. Un Cristo di Legno dorato 143. Una Tovaglia di Tela gialla 144. Un Quadro Antico sopra detto altare rappresentante la crocifissione 145. Altro altare compagno con Tovaglia gialla 146. Un crocifisso di Legno dorato 147. Una Cartagloria 148. Un Quadro sopra l’Altare rappresentante S. Pio 149. Dodici Panche di Noce collo Stemma del Convento 150. Un’Inginicchiatoio consimile 151. Una gradinata da Altare di Legno 152. Due Baldacchini con Cornici d’Oro, e suoi Tendoncini, gli uno rosso, e gli altri Bianchi 153. Sei Quadri moderni attaccati alle pareti della chiesa 154. Tre Messali, e un Leggio di Noce, e Campanelli di Ottone 155. Un Organo movibile con sua Cantoria ricoperta di Foglio 156. Tre Tendine bianche con suoi Cordoni, e nappe, attaccate alle Finestre della Chiesa 157. Una Tenda turchina alla Porta di Ingresso 158. Due Candelabri amovibile, uno Sportellino, ed una Mensola di Legno dorato esistenti a mano sinistra dell’altar maggiore ed un Baldacchino No. VIII Piccola sagrestia a diritta 159.
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Un Tavolino di Noce vecchio con coperta bianca e turchina
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160. Due Sgabelli di Noce vecchi 161. Cinque Quadretti di poco valore 162. Una mensola di Legno tinto attaccata al Muro 163. Una Tendino di Seta rossa con suo ferro annesi al Paravento No. IX Altra Sagrestia a Sinistra 164. Un Seggiolone di noce coperto di Tela gialla con guanciale 165. Una Seggiola con quattro sgabelli di noce vecchi 166. Una panca compagna a quelle di Chiesa 167. Un’Inginocchiatoio di Noce Vecchio 168. Un Banco di Legno, con sopra una Mensola 169. Cinque Quadretti di pochissimo valore 170. Un Cappellinaio 171. Un’Asciugamano di Tela 172. Una Catinella, e Brocca di Terra 173. Una Tendina di Seta rossa unita al Paravento 174. Altra detta di Tela No. X Nel Ballatoio 175. Un Inginocchiatoio 176. Quattro Panche Vecchie 177. Sei Panchette da inginocchiarsi vecchie 178. Cinque Quadretti diversi 179. Nel Campanile si trovano una Campana e una Campanella No. XI In cappella di S. Niccolaio 180.
Un altare di mattoni con un Quadro rappresentante la Madonna del Rosario, con un Rosario, anzi con una Corona d’Argento assai piccolo, ed un altra simile sopra la Testa del Gesu Bambino 181. Una Tenda assai lacera che cuopre il Quadro 182. Un Crocifisso di Legno dorato assai vecchio 183. Due Leggi di Noce vecchi 184. Panchette attaccate al Muro, che circondano la detta Cappella in pessimo stato 185. Una Lampada di Ottone 186. Nove quadretti vecchi No. XII [Capella della Madonna nella Testata del Dormitorio delle Converse] 187. Altare che si ritrova nella testata del primo Dormitorio tutto di Mattoni con una Tovaglietta
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188. 189. 190. 191. 192.
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Una Tenda Turchina assai vecchia Una Croce assai vecchia Due Candelieri, con una Lampada d’Ottone Quattro Panche Quattro Quadretti in cattivo stato
No. XIII 193. Altro altare detto di S. Girolomo situato nell’altra estremita del primo Dormitorio con un piccolo Quadro con sua Tenda e un Crocifisso vecchio 194. Quattro quadretti vecchi [Un Lampione con suo Candeliere d’Ottone] No. XIV Nell’oratorio di S. Domenico 195. 196. 197.
Un’ Altare di Legno con un Quadro sopra Rappresentante S. Domenico con sua Tenda de Tela Turchina vecchia e Tovaglia Un piccolo Cassettone, una Panca, e due Sgabelli Un Crocifisso e numero 14 Quadretti diversi
No. XV Nella Stanza interna del parlatorio [Cappella del Parlatorio] 198.
Un’Altare di Mattoni con due Candelieri di Ottone, e una Lampada di Ottone 199. Un Crocifisso di Legno 200. Due Immagini di gesso dorate in parte 201. Cinque Quadretti in cattivo stato No. XVI [Nella Terza stanza dell’Infermeria] 202. Una Cassa con entrovi numero 66 Candelieri piccoli da Legno inargentato 203. Una Macchina di Legno tinto per uso delle Quarant’Ore 204. Tre Seggioloni di Dommasco Cremisi per Servizio della Messa Cantata 205. Un piccolo Armadio Vecchio di Noce 206. Uno Spinetto Vecchio senza corde 207. Una Seggiola, e due Cassette Vecchie 208. Un Crocifisso e un’Immagine vecchia 209. Tre Stoie per le Finestre No. XVII [Nella Stanza di faccia alla sudetta] 210.
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Due Scale, e diversi Legni per servizio delle Quarant’Ore
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211. Al N. XV [Stanza interna dell’Parlatorio], oltre la Roba descritta si trovano tre Armadi vecchi, e una seggiola e una Panca in cattivissimo Stato No. XVIII 212.
Due Panche, e una Cassetta
No. XIX [Stanza del Camarlinghe] 213. Un’Armadio grande 214. Cinque Casse, che in una entrovi numero 7 Tende, che sei bianche, e una di Colore, Due Lenzuola, una Tovaglia, Tre Tovaglietti e due Canovacci 215. Cinque Leggiole di diversa Specie 216. Due Tavolini vecchi 217. Diverse Tavole 218. Due Coppi vuote nello stanzine contiguo No. XX [Granaio] 219. Sei Casse vecchie 220. Due Tavolinetti 221. Un Stajo e un Bugliolo 222. Quattro Seggiole vecchie 223. Una Scala di Legno 224. Diverse Tavole No. XXI [Stanza del Sperieria] 225. Un Armadio 226. Altro detto 227. Due Panche vecchie 228. Una Cassa Vecchia 229. Un quadro 230. Un Tavolino, e una Sgabellaccio cattivo No. XXII Nel parlatorio 231. Un’Armadio 232. Quattro Panche e un impiantito di Legno 233. Nove Seggiole e uno Sgabello 234. Otto quadri Tre portiere6
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No. XXIII [Stanza sull chiostro contigue a quella della Farina] 235. Un’Armadio vecchio 236. Otto Cassaccie vecchie No. XXIV Stanza della Farina 237. 238. 239. 240.
Un Cassone con Buratto Due Madie vecchie Quattro Corbelli Quattro Sporte da Farina
Di Sopra a detta Stanza 241. Tre Cassoni No. XXV 242. 243.
Diversi Legni per uso della Luminara Un Nastrello della Chiesa Una Cassa con Lampada e vari altri attrazzi
No. XXVI [Nel Lavatoia] 244. Tre Cassaccie 245. Una Scala di Legno No. XXVII [Stanza accanto al Refettorio] 246. Tre Armadi 247. Una Scala di Legno 248. Due Panche No. XXVIII Nel Refettorio 249.
Dieci Tavole vecchie che circondano il Refettorio, e un Sedile inotorno al Muro7 250. Due Armadi 251. Un Tavolinetto vecchio 252. Venti Boccali di Terra 253. Un Campanello di Bronzo 254. Sul Pulpito, un Leggio di noce
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No. XXIX Nella Cucina 255. Quattro Armadi vecchi assai8 256. Un Tavolino vecchio 257. Una Grattugiaccia 258. Una Caldaia grande, e due piccole 259. Tre Paioli 260. Due Pentote di Rame 261. Tre Ramini 262. Un paio di Alari 263. Tre Padelle 264. Sette Catinelle di Rame 265. Trenta piccoli Piatti di Stagno 266. Tre Catini e una Secchia di Rame 267. Tre .. .illegible [From the Nota di Supplemento at the end of the Inventory Due gratelle di Ferro Un Gran Treppiede Tre forme da Cecalini Una Paletta e un paio di Molle] Nella Stanza dietro alla Cucina [No. XXX Nella Canova] 268. Un’Armadio 269. Due Tavole assai cattive 270. Altra detta coperta 271. Quattro Panche vecchie 272. Due Armadi grandi e uno piccolo No. XXXI Stanza della Pasta 273. Due Armadi vecchi 274. Una Madia, una cassa e tre Tavolini in pessimo stato 275. Alcune Tavole e Legnami vecchie No. XXXII 276. Una Madia 277. Un Banco 278. Un Tavolino 279. Sei Tavole da Pane 280. La Coperta del Forno di Lamiera di Ferro
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No. XXXIII [Coppaio] 281. Uno, Nove Coppi da Olio vuoti 281. Due, Un Gifone? di Latta 282. Alcuni piccole Vasi di Terra 283. Due Tavolini No. XXXIV [Stanza accanto al Coppaio] 284. Sei Armadi in cattivissimo stato No. XXXV [Stanza contigua all’orto] 285. 286.
Dodici Armadi fra grandi e piccoli Un Tavolino vecchio
No. XXXVI In Cantina 287.
Diciotto Botti di varia grandezza, che una Bieria, e una con pochissimo vino 288. Sette Barile vuoti 289. Cinque Tavolini Vecchi 290. Un Armadio, e una seggiola 291. Diversi Vasi da Vino [From the “Nota di Supplemento” at the end of the inventory: Due Cannelle di Legno per lo Botte] No. XXXVII Nel Chiosto 292.
Quattro armadi vecchi
[From the “Nota di Supplemento” at the end of the inventory: Diverse Ferri per le Tende] No. XXXVIII [Nello Stanzone] 293. 294. 295.
Un’Armadio Quattro Casse Dentro a una delle suddette Casse si trovano 2. Portiere, e quattro Strati di Panno Rosso e un Panno di Lana bianco da Stirare 296. Cinque quadri vecchi 297. Un Banco di Legno vecchio
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No. XXXIX Corridore detto il Dormitorino 298. Tre Armadi vecchi 298. Due Candelabri grandi di Legno dorati ed un Crocifisso dentro uno delli Armadi Suddetti9 No. XL10 299. Una Cassa con Biancheria per uso particolare 300. Altra Cassa con gli Abiti 301. Un Inginocchiatoio 302. Un Tavolino 303. Quattro Seggiole 304. Quattro Quadretti 305. Un Letto con Panche di Legno 306. Un Cassa per i Coltioni? (Vedi Nota di No. 9 per le converse) No. XLI 307. Due Armadi 308. Due Casse 309. Un Inginocchiatoio 310. Cinque Seggiole 311. Un Letto con Panchette di Legno (Vedi Nota di No. 8 Stessa (converse) No. XLII 312. Una’Cassa con Biancheria 313. Un’Armadio 314. Cinque Seggiole 315. Cinque Quadretti 316. Un Letto con Panche (Vedi Nota di No. 7 converse) No. XLIII 317. 318. 319. 320. 321.
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Una Cassa con Biancheria, e Abiti Una Cassettina Un’Inginocchiatoio Due Armadi, e due Armadini Quattro Quadri
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322. 323. 324.
Quattro Seggiole Un Crocifisso Letto con Panche (Vedi Nota di No. 2 converse)
No. XLIV 325. Una Cassa con Biancheria 326. Un’Inginocchiatoio 327. Cinque Seggiole 328. Un Capo Letto e Cornice 329. Sei piccoli Quadretti 330. Un Letto con Panche di Legno (Vedi Nota di No. 1 converse) No. XLV 331. Due Casse con Biancheria 332. Un’Inginocchiatoio 333. Un Tavolino 334. Quattro Seggiole 335. Sei Quadretti 336. Una Cassa con robe diverse 337. Un Letto con Capoletto Cornice 338. Una Lucernini di Ottone (V. Nota di No. 11 converse) No. XLVI 339. 340. 341. 342. 343. 344. 345. 346.
Un’Armadio Una Cassa con Biancheria Un’Inginocchiatoio Quattro Seggiole Una Lucerna Una Cassettina Quattro Quadretti Un Letto con Panche (Vedi Nota di No. 6 converse)
No. XLVII 347. 348.
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Una Cassa con Biancheria e Abiti Un’Inginocchiatoio
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349. Un Tavolino 350. Un Armadio 351. Un Lavamano 352. Una Lucerna di Ottone 353. Cinque Seggiole 354. Sedici Stampe e Quadretti 355. Una Brocca di Rame 356. Un Letto con Capoletti, sopra cielo e Panche di Legno (Vedi Nota di No. 17 Corali) No. XLVIII 357. Una piccola Cassetta con Biancheria 358. Un’Inginocchiatoio 359. Due Armadi 360. Quattro Seggiole 361. Cinque quadretti 361. Una Cassa da Sapone11 362. Un Letto 363. Un Crocifisso (Vedi Nota di N. 4 Converse) No. XLIX 364. Una Cassetta piccola con Biancheria 365. Due Armadi 366. Quattro Seggiole 367. Cinque Quadretti 368. Una Cassetta 369. Un Letto 370. Un Crocifisso (Vedi Nota di N. 3 Converse) No. L 371. Una Cassa con Biancheria 372. Un’Inginocchiatoio 373. Un’Armadio 374. Un Letto 375. Quattro Seggiole 376. Sei Quadretti (Vedi Nota di N. 10 Converse)
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No. LI 377. 378. 379. 380.
Una Cassa con Biancheria Un’Inginocchiatoio Un’Armadio Un Letto (Vedi Nota di N. 5 Converse)
No. LII 381. 382. 383. 384.
Una Cassetta con Biancheria Un Lavamani Un’Armadio Un Letto (Vedi Nota di N. 12 Converse)
No. LIII 385. Una Cassa con Biancheria 386. Altra Cassa con Abiti 387. Un’Inginocchiatoio 388. Un Tavolino 389. Due Armadi 390. Cinque Seggiole 391. Dieci quadretti 392. Un Lavamani 393. Una Lucerna d’Ottone 394. Una Brocca di Rame 395. Un Letto 396. Un Crocifisso (Vedi N. 14 Corali) No. LIV 397. 398. 399. 400. 401. 402. 403. 404. 405.
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Una Cassa con Biancheria e alcuni Abiti Un Tavolino, e un’Inginocchiatoio Un’Armadio Un Lavamani Una Lucerna di Ottone Quattro Seggiole Dieci quadretti Un Letto Una Brocca di Rame
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301
Un Crocifisso (Vedi Nota di N. 13 Corali)
No. LV 407. Una Cassa con Biancheria 408. Un’Inginocchiatoio 409. Un Tavolino 410. Due Armadi 411. Un Lavamani 412. Una Lucerna 413. Cinque Seggiole 414. Sei Quadretti 415. Un Letto (Vedi Nota di N. 17 Corali) No. LVI 416. Una Cassa con Biancheria e Abiti 417. Un Inginocchiatoio 418. Un Tavolino 419. Cinque Seggiole 450. Un Lavamani12 451. Sei Quadretti 452. Due Armadi 453. Un Letto 454. Una Lucerna (V. Nota di N. 11 Corali) No. LVII 455. Una Cassa con Biancheria 456. Un’Altra con Abiti 457. Un’Inginocchiatoio 458. Un Tavolino 459. Due Armadi 460. Cinque Seggiole 461. Sei piccole Quadri 462. Un Lavamani 463. Una Lucerna 464. Un Letto Guarnito (Vedi Nota di N. 5 Corali)
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No. LVIII 465. Una Cassa con poca Biancheria 466. Un’Altra Cassa con Abiti 467. Un’Inginocchiatoio 468. Un Tavolino 469. Un Lavamani 470. Una Lucerna di Ottone 471. Due Armadi 472. Due Armadini 473. Cinque Seggiole 474. Dieci Quadretti 475. Un Crocifisso 476. Una Brocca di Rame 477. Un Letto (Vedi Nota di N. 6 Corali) No. LIX 478. 479. 480. 481. 482. 483. 484. 485. 486. 487. 488.
Due Casse con Biancheria e Abiti Un’Inginocchiatoio Un Tavolino Due Armadi Un Lavamani Una Lucerna di Ottone Quattro Seggiole Dieci Quadretti Un Letto Una Brocca di Rame Un Crocifisso (V. Nota di N. 7 Corali)
No. LX 489. Due Casse 490. Un’Inginocchiatoio 491. Due Armadi 492. Due Tavolini 493. Cinque Seggiole 494. Quadretti Sei 495. Un Letto 496. Una Brocca 497. Un Lavamani (Vedi Nota di N. 1 Corali)
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No. LXI 498. Una Cassa con Biancheria 499. Una detta con Abiti 500. Un’Inginocchiatoio 501. Un Tavolino 502. Due Armadi 503. Un Lavamani 504. Dodici Quadretti 505. Cinque Seggiole 506. Una Lucernitia di Ottone 507. Una Brocca di Rame 508. Un Crocifisso 509. Il Letto (Vedi Nota di N. 16 Corali) No. LXII 510. Una Cassa con Biancheria 511. Una detta con Abiti 512. Un’Inginocchiatoio 513. Due Tavolini 514. Due Armadi 515. Quattro Seggiole 516. Otto Quadretti 517. Un Lavamani 518. Una Brocca di Rame 519. Una Lucerna di Ottone 560. Un Letto Capoletto13 561. Un Crocifisso (Vedi Nota di N. 3 Corali) No. LXIII 562. Una Cassa con Biancheria 563. Una detta con Abiti 564. Un’Inginocchiatoio 565. Un Tavolino da Cella 566. Uno detto da Lavoro 567. Due Armadi 568. Cinque Seggiole 569. Una detta da Lavoro 570. Un Lavamani con Catinellai
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571. 572.
Una Lucerna Un Letto guarnito (Vedi Nota di N. 4 Corali)
No. LXIV 573. Un Letto con Panche 574. Un’Inginocchiatoio di Noce 575. Due Casse 576. Due Tavolini 577. Due Armadi di Legno 578. Una Scrivania 579. Un Canterale 580. Sei quadretti 581. Sei Seggiole 582. Una Brocca di Rame 583. Una Lucerna piccola 584. Bicchieri ed altri vetri 585. Biancheria necessaria (Vedi Nota di N. 10 Corali) No. LXV 586. Una Cassa con Biancheria 587. Un’Inginocchiatoio 588. Un Tavolino 589. Cinque Seggiole 590. Otto Quadretti 591. Due Armadi 592. Un Letto 593. Un Lavamano con Brocca e Catinella 594. Una Lucerna (Vedi Nota di N. 8 Corali) No. LXVI 595. Una Cassa con Biancheria 596. Un’Inginocchiatoio 597. Un Tavolino 598. Un’Armadio 599. Una Lucerna di Ottone 600. (The same item cancelled) 601. Cinque Seggiole
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602. Otto Quadretti 603. Un Crocifisso 604. Una Brocca di Rame 605. Un Letto (Vedi Nota di N. 2 Corali) No. LXVII 606. Un Lavamano con Brocca Catinella 607. Una Cassa con Biancheria 608. Un’Inginocchiatoio 609. Un Tavolino 610. Cinque Seggiole 611. Otto Quadretti 612. Un’Armadio 613. Altro Armadio 614. Il Letto 615. Una Lucerna (Vedi Nota di N. 15 Corali) No. LXVIII 616. Una Cassa con Biancheria 617. Altro detta con Abiti 618. Una Scrivania 619. Un Tavolino 620. Un Armadio 621. Un Letto (Vedi Nota di N. 9 Corali) No. LXIX [Stanzone degli archi]14 621. 622.
Due piccoli Armadioli vecchi Una Cassapanca vecchia
No. LXX 623.
Un’Armadio
No. LXXI 624.
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Un’Armadio
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No. LXXII [Nella quarta stanza del Infermeria accanto al Noviziato] 625. Uno Spinetto vecchio 626. Tre Quadri No. LXXIII 627. 628.
Un Capo Letto di Legno tinto Dieci Quadretti e un Crocifisso
No. LXXIV [Noviziato vecchio] 629.
Dieci Quadretti
No. LXXV [Cucinetta del Noviziato vecchio] 630. Un’Armadio vecchio 631. Due Tavolini vecchi 632. Tre Casse 633. Un Cassettoncino assai vecchio No. LXXVI 634. 635.
Due Armadi Una Banca
No. LXXVII [Nella second stanza dell’Infermeria] 636. Tre Tavolini vecchi 637. Un Capo Letto 638. Sei Seggiole e uno Sgabello 639. Tre Quadri No. LXXVIII [Nella stanza d’Infermeria sullo Stanzone degli Archi] 640. 641. 642. 643. 644. 645.
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Una Cassa Un piccolo Armadio Quattro Cassette Un’Tavolino Due Seggiole Due Panconi di Legno
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646.
Un Libro grande di Cartapecora legato Frustagno verde di Lettera N intitolato Conduttore di Debitori 647. Altro Libro grande ricoperto di Cartapecora con tre Splanghe di Letter G intitolato Entrata e Uscita di Danari Contanti 648. Cinque Campioni in Foglio grande di diverse Epoche contenenti la descrizione dei Beni di Monastero e Loro Livellari ed altre cose interessanti per lo Stato attivo del Patrimonio 649. Un’Involto contenente una Sentenza a favore del Monastero e diverse altre Lettere 650. Un Pacchetto di Foglie ricoperti con due Cartoni in cui sopra si legge Contratti diverse, e diverse Scritte e Copie di Sentenze 651. Simile legato con dello Spage contenente parimente varie Scritte ed altri Documenti Originali 652. Un Libro in Quarto ricopeto di Cartone intitolato spoglio dall’anno 1773 all’anno 653. Filza di Vari Istrumenti antichi e Contratti sciolto e dentro una cartapecora 654. Una Filza ricoperta con due Cartone nella Quali si legge Contratti e Scritte 655. Un Libro in Cartone di Lettera B intitolato Debitori e Creditori 656. Simile di Lettera A intitolato Debitori e Creditori 657. Un Libro in Cartapecora di Lettera C, uno simile di Lettera H, ed altro simile pure di Lettera E intitolato Libro di Contratti 658. Simile in Cartapecora di Contratti di Lettera F 659. Simile pure di Contratti di Lettera B 660. Un Campione del 1582 con sue Piante 661. Simile in Frustagno intitolato Conduttore di Lettera M 662. Due Libri in Cartone con Spranghe di Cartapecora intitolati Entrata, e Uscita 663. Tre Bacchette in Cartone, che due di Spese di Vitto, ed una di Spese minute 664. Diversi Libri di Vecchia Amministrazione 665. 130 Circa Cartpecore, ed altri Documenti antichi dovranno essere esaminati dal Sr. Commissario delegato a quest’effetto 666. Uno Scartafaccio dell’Entrata, e Uscita del Monastero dal 24 Aprile al di 6 Giugno 1808 667. Un Pacchetto di Ricevute delli anni 1807, e 1808 668. Un Fascetto di diversi Conti di Manifattori ed altri Creditori 669. Alla Finestra del Dormitorio primo Due Secchie con Canopo e sue Catene e Carriola di Ferro 670. Sei Campanelli esistenti nel Chiostro del Monastero di diversa grandezza 671. Quattro Secchie con Canapo e Carriola e Catene di Ferro esistente nel Suddetto Chiostro
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Ultimato il presente Inventario generale dei Mobili, arredi ed attrazzi del Soppresso Convento di S. Domenico di Pisa questo di 7 Giugno 1808. [Signed] io S. M. Crocifissa Mazzantini [priora] io S. M. Giuseppa Pucciareli [sacrestana] Pacchioni Delegato Dalle Fioraja Commissario Document 2: Estimate (Estimo) of Value of Paintings, 1808 Pisa, Archivio di Stato, Corporazione Religiose Soppresse, San Domenico, 1228 (19 vecchio numero) Inventario degli Arredi Sacri e Mobile di San Domenico. 1808 Inventario dei Quadri di maggior valore esistenti nel Soppresso Monastero di Sa Domenico di Pisa, e che di commissione di Noi infrascripti sono stati stimati dal Sre Alessandro Morrona di detta citta come appresso no. 5 Nella Chiesa Interna
Stima
Il Quadro dell’altare di Legno dorato
L.70---
Il Jesu Cristo nel Paliotto di Legno di detto altare
14---
Il Quadro del primo Altare a sinestra dell’altar maggiore rappresentant Gesu Cristo con due Sante S. Orsola a destra e Sant’Ularia a sinistra, buona pittura in Tavola-Vi si legge l’inscrizione P. Ambrosius Astensis 1514 210--Il Quadro del second Altare a sinistra C[o]sa parim[en]te in Tavola buona pittura del secolo 14 ma questo affatto guasta dal cattivo pulimento
35---
Un Quadro a piramide attaccato al Muro a man destra dell’Altar maggiore, e rappresentante la Madonna col Bambino e Santa Caterina 28--Un S. Domenico attaccato al Muro a man sinistra
ANN ROBERTS.indb 308
14---
segue L 371---
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Nella Chiesa Esterna Il Quadro di S. Domenico, o sia il Quadro dell’ altar maggiore rappresentante la predicazione di S. Domenico
35---
Un Quadro sopra l’altare a man diritta dell’ altar maggiore in Tavola 84--Un Quadro sopra l’Altare a man sinistra dell’ Altar maggiore in Tela 40--A man diritta dell Altar maggiore Sull pareti dela chiesa Un quadro piccolo ovato
35---
Un quadro grande in Tela
560---
Altro detto simile
420---
A man sinistra dall altar maggiore sulle pareti della chiesa Un quadro piccolo ovato
35---
Un quadro grande in Tela
700---
Altro simile cosa
350---
No 10 Nel Ballatojo Un Quadro rappresentante una
segue
L2630---
Madonna dipinta in Tavola del secolo 14mo
3--
Somma
L 2633--
Io Alessandro Morrona ho stimato come sopra manoscritto Document 3: Receipt for Paintings Transferred from San Domenico in 1810 Archivio del Monastero di S. Domenico. Foglie sparsi. Published in Zuchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 187–188, p. 187, note 2. In quest’epoca passarano nella Conservatoria dell’antico Camposanto di Pisa numerosi tesori d’arte come risulta dai seguenti document:
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“Io sottoscrito Professore Ime.le, del Accademia delle Belle Arti di Firenze Conservatore del Antico Campo-Santo di Pisa, uno de’ Delegati della Comissione ordinata dal Governo pella raccolta e conservazione dei monumenti attenenti all’antiquaria e Belle Arti ove se ne fa raccolta in questo Insigne Campo-Santo Patrio avendo chiesto alla Superiora del Retiro di San Domenico di questa citta unitamente al Sig. Cappellano Molto R.endo D. Antonio Fabrini vari quadri in tavola parte logori e parte in mediocre stato tutti della Scuola Pisano del 1300–400 del sud.to Convento, per conservarsi, uniti agl’altri nelle Cappelle del Campo-Santo ed avendomeli concessi, percio ne faccio la presente ricevuta sottoscritta di mia propria mano—questo di diecinove Novembre 1810. Nota de’quadri Natività di Gesu La Madonna Gesu e S. Catterina Due pezzi bislunghi a Piramide con due santi d’ognuno Altro con la B. Catterina Quadro con mezza figura vestita da Domenicano Altri due pezzi a Piramide con due Santi ogn’uno Un gradino d’altare dipinto con varie rappresentanze della vita di Gesu, ed altri Santi Quadretto con S. Girolamo Altro picolo con la Vergine e Gesu Altro simile con S. Pietro Io Carlo Lasinio ho ricevute li sop.a d.ti dodici quadri di varie grandezze tutti logori per conservarsi nel Campo-Santo come Conservatori di Belle Arti ne. Med.emo esistenti (mano propria) Mobili da consegnarsi al Direttore dell’Accademia di Belle Arti di Pisa Una cassa del sec. 1500 Un Candelabro del sec. 1400 con sua padella Un piede del leggio, in cattivo stato Una cassina del 1400 Una piccola Madonna scolpita in legno 6 Panchetti del 1500 Un piccolo cofanetto Dipinti Una Madonna col Gesu, che si trova nel Coretto Un Cristo dipinto sulla tela figura grande al vero Quadro grande rappresentante la resurrezione di Lazzaro”
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Document 4: Inventory of Paintings Confiscated by the City of Pisa and Transferred to the Camposanto, 1810 Florence, Archive of the Accademia delle Belle Arti. Carteggio della Commissione di Scienze e Arti, 1810–11. Nota dei Quadri in Tavola e in Tela Levati secondi gli ordini del Sig.re Maire di Pisa Dai conventi soppressi di questa citta e trasportati nel Campo Santo Patrio nell anno 1810 ... [made by Carlo Lasinio] Quadri in Tavola, ed in Tela, Levati dai soppressi conventi, di questa città di Pisa, dietro gli ordini, da me Ricevuti, dal Sig.re Maire Ruschi, e posti a conservarsi, nel campo santo patrio ... Quadri Ricevuti dal Cappellano Soldaini, dalla casa di Ritiro di S. Domenico Un piccolo Quadretto piramide, del 1300, Viene dall’Orgagna, Rappresenta S. Pietro. Un Quadro in Tavola rappresenta Maria, Gesu, che da l’anello a Sta Caterina, del 1300. Un quadro in Tavola rappresenta la Natività di Gesu, con altra santa, e in gloria il Padre Eterno del 1300, dalla scolo di Giotto. Un quadro in Tavola rappresenta Sta Caterina di Siena, in Ginocchio sotto ad una Fabbrica, in gloria vari santi della buona maniera del 1400. Una testa di Domenicano, in Tavola del 1500. Due Quadretti, in Tavola, con Fondo d’oro, a piramide, rappresentanti due santi d’ognuno. Altri due Quadretti rappresentanti due santi d’ognuno in Tavola con Fondo d’oro a Piramide del 1300, tutti quattro. Due quadretti piccoli in tavola, uno Rappresenta Maria, e Gesu l’altro S. Girolamo ed altro santo del 1400. Un gradino d’altare, che fu poi ridotti in tre quadretti, rappresentante due Fatti di Sta Brigida ed uno la nascita di Gesu, l’autore del 1300...
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Further in Same Manuscript Quadri nella Capella del Pozzo detta la Tribuna dove si dice messa ogni giorno quasi tutti tavole d’altare ... Tavole due che stava in San Domenico una di Benozo l’altra di Zanobio d’Aste nell 1500 ... Still Further Dare e Avere delle Spese fatte da me Carlo Lasinio nel Campo Santo di Pisa l’an 1810 Per il trasporto ordinato dalla commune delle ogetti di Belle Arti ... A maestro Luigi petrocchi per il trasporto dei quadri e accomadato il muro dove stavono nel convento soppresso di S. Domenico ... L 10 Al S. Luigi Bellacchini pittore per aver dipinto il muro dove stavano le due tavole d’altare antiche statte trasportate nel Camposanto del Convento soppresso di S. Domenico ... L 10 Document 5: Inventory of Works of Art in San Domenico in 1897 Pisa, Soprintendenza Beni Ambientali, Architettonici, Artistici e Storici di Pisa, Livorno, Lucca e Massa Carrara. Dossier sul Monasteri di San Domenico, 1897 Elenco delle opera d’arte esistenti nella Chiesa di S. Domenico di Pisa e locali annessi. Tavola d’altare rappresentanti i quaranta martiri attorna al Crocifisso. Opera di Benozzo Gozzoli esisstente nell’altare a destra. Quadro d’altare in tela rappresentante S. Pio Papa e la Vergine in gloria opera di Lucea Casalini Torelli collocata nell altare a sinistra. Quadro in tele raffigurante l’apparizione di Nostra Donna a S. Domenico, mediocre opera del XVIII secolo situata sull’altare maggiore. Quattro dipinti in tela del pisano Giovan Battista Tempesti raffiguranti storie della B. Chiara Gambacorti, scorti alle pareti della chiesa fra e mezzo la decorazione ornamentali di stucco. Due tele del XVIII secolo pur esse alle parete e rappresentanti fatti dell vita della stessa Beata.
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Chiesa interna o coro monatrici Lastrone funerario di marmo bianco, nel quale e scolpito di bassorilievo la figura giacent della Beata Chiara Gambacorti morta nel 1420. Affreschi de’prima del XV secolo che adornocino il fondo e l’arco del vano che contiene il cassone funebra dove stava racchiuso il corpo della Beata Chiara. Nel fondo e dipinto Gesu Crocifisso, fra la Vergine, S. Giovanni Evangelista, la Maddalena ed i Santi Domenico e Caterina. Nel sott’arco in tante formelle sono i testi dei dodici Apostoli. Tavola d’altare racchusa di eleganti decorazione di legname intagliato e dorato. Rappresenta Nostra Donna seduta, col putto in grembo circondata di Santi e Angioli, opera della fine del XV secolo tutta ridipinta rozzamente e completamente guastata. Nel gradino della medesima epoca e pur esso ritociato sone nove storiette di piccole figure. E la tavola dell’altare principale del coro monastico. Quadro d’altare composto di varii parti di pitture colla figura di S. Domenico dipinta in un quadretto affilicato nelle parte central e attorno nostra Donna vari santi e angeli e racchiuso da ricca ed elegante decorazione archittonica ed ornamentale di legno con intaglio e doratura. Dipinti ed intagli sono opera della fine del XVI secolo e sono addottati alla pareti che divide la chiesa dal coro monastico a tergo dell altar maggiore. Tela dipinta a tempera rappresentante Gesu Crocifisso con Nostra Donna, S. Giovanni Evangelista, S. Franceso e Sta Chiara. En basso e una iscrizione che scriva il nome di Iohs. Petri de Neapoli pittori del XV secolo. E appesa in alto al divisione tra la chiesa e il coro. La parte inferior di due figure di Santi dipinta a fresco sulla parete sinistra, opera de primi del XVI secolo coperta in gran parte dallo scialbo. Due pilastri a candelabri di pietra con ricche orniati scolpito di bassorilievi avanti di un lavabo che servono oggi a decorare una specie di tabernacoletto nella parete destra. Un paliotto dipinto a tempera con fondo stoffato a varie formulette, nelle quali uno avanzi di mezze figure di vari santi. Opera della I meta del XVI secolo tutto guasto. Un paliotto dei primi del XVI secolo che ha nel centro la mezza figura della Pieta. Il fondo stoffatto e intramente ridipinto. In varie parti dell ex-monastero
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Crocifisso di maniera pisano del XIV secolo in tela applicate sopra cristalla e racchiuso da cornice dorata. E stato guasto e ridipinto in gran parte nel XVII secolo. Un paliotto di legno con fondo stoffato con un tendo nel centro e nove piccoli tendi nel fregio continente avanzi di figure dipinte a tempera. Opera delle fine XV secolo. N. 31 tra quadri e quadretti fra i quali alcuni in tavola. Opere tutte di modesti … [illegible] e di vellum fregio … [illegible] Un cassone di legno intagliato. lavoro della fine del XV secolo in cattivo stato. Un leggio di legno moderno circitizione con un pezzo di cuio in presso del XVII secoli. Stemma marmoreo e dipinto della famiglia Gambacorti, opera del XV secolo restaurato nel 1693 in sottostante lapide moderno. Due lapide marmore, uno del 1401 ed una del 1403 con iscrizione a caratteri gotici relative alle fondazione del Monastero di S. Domenico. Notes 1 The indication in the right column records that these objects will “rimangano nel Monastero” and therefore be at the disposal of the state. I will indicate where objects are consigned to the sisters. 2 One of the later inventories lists “sei quadretti e stampe.” 3 In left margin an X. 4 In left margin an X. 5 The manuscript repeats the number. 6 In another hand, without number. 7 The last clause crossed out in the manuscript. 8 Cinque crossed out and replaced by Quattro. 9 The manuscript repeats the number. 10 The following items are indicated as “In S. Marta” indicating that they were destined to follow the nuns to the convent to which they were sent at the suppression. 11 The manuscript repeats the number. 12 The numbers jump abruptly at this point. 13 The numbers jump abruptly at this point. 14 From this point in the inventory, the objects are indicated to be in S. Domenico.
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Appendix 2
Census This overview of the growth of the Community of San Domenico in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is based on data provided in Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta (noted here as Z) and in a variety of other documents. Number of Persons
Date
1382 7 1385 Approved for 20 1404 at least 25 (Z, 423–4) 1406 30 professed 1407 40 bocce (mouths) (Z, 164) 1409 50 mouths 39 nuns (Z, 159) c. 1410 43 nuns + conversi (Z, 202) 1419 44 nuns + conversi (Z, 127) 1426 32 nuns in chapter (Z, 127) 1494 41 nuns + 9 conversi 1503 at least 23 nuns ( Z,427–8) 1510 29 nuns, (+5 novices, +8 conversi) 1510 41 mouths 1524 30 nuns in chapter 1560 78 mouths 1567 75 mouths (47 nuns, 14 novices, 14 conversi) 1582 58 choir nuns
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Appendix 3
Renaissance Prioresses Source: Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 418–420.
This is based on a “Libro di diversi ricordi antichi,” which Zucchelli consulted. This list begins with a notation that it was composed by S. Arcangela Gambacorta, prioress of the convent in 1599; her retrospective list provides the names of the earlier prioresses, but some of her dates conflict with other documents. The dates I provide here are those in which the woman is known to have been prioress (independently documented) but are not brackets of her prioracy. Filippa dell Albisi da Vico (+1395) 1382 1395 Clara di Pietro Gambacorta (+1419) 1419 Maria Bacciomei Mancini (+1430) 1435/36 Filippa di Stefano Doria Cecilia Ciampulini da Pisa 1440 Cristina de Micheli da Lucca 1455/1461 Giovanna Benenato Cinquini Chaterina Ciampulini 1464/1467 Bartholomea di Guaspari da Citta del Castello 1473/1478 Antonia d’Antonio da San Casciano Michaela di Pandolpho Ciampulini da Pisa 1485/1494 Gabriella Buonconti da Pisa (+1499) 1503 Niccholosa Galletti da Pisa (+ 1503 in office) 1504/1505 Lorenza Ceuli Evangelista di Banduccio Bonchonti Theodora da Genova Domenica della Seta 1509 Clementia di Banduccio Bunchonti 1515 Thomasa Lecchavele da Genova
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Appendix 4
The Women of San Domenico The following is a partial list of the women who professed or served at San Domenico, from its founding until about 1510. This information is based on Zucchelli’s publication, especially pp. 423-429, and unpublished documents in Pisa and Florence, as cited. 1382 Filippa Albisi (+1395) Andrea da Porcellinis (+1392) Clara Petri de Gambacurtis (+1419) Catarina Bacciomei Moncini (Maria Mancini) (+1430) Agnes filia Lucensis Bonconti Joanna de Ferro 1386–1403 Francisca de Lavaiano Ranieri de Lavaiano (+1387) Petra de Obriachis (+1385) Ioanna Stephani Lapi (+1403) Marietta de Ianua (+1403) Iacoba de Gittalebraciis (+1403) Orietta Doria di Genova 1404 Bartholomee Bartholomei Ammanati vicarie Brigide Stephani de Sancto Petro suppriore Bernarde Gerii spadari Ioanne Stephani de Sancto Petro Isabette Bartali de Sancto Petro Dominice Magistri Monis Augustine magistri Tomasi Tomase Araonis de Aurea de Ianua
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Francische Manni de Palaria Catherine Filippi de Ianua Cole Vincentii de Chianni Angele Iacobi de Septimo Beatricis Stephani de Lucca Andree Vannis Nicholosi Filippe Stephani de Aurea Lucie Nuccii de Bolsena Petre comitis Laurentii Ursule Matheri cimatoris Cecile Laurentii Ciampolini Evangeliste Nicholosi de Senis Paule Francisci de Cascina Ilarie Francisci de Senis Theodore de Venetiis Paule Ioannis de Cascina Christine Bartholomei Micheli de Lucca 1419–1420 Several nuns transferred from San Domenico of Pisa to San Pietro Martire in Florence. Among them, according to the ricordanze of the convent: S. Andrea di Paolo Tommasi da Firenze, S. Teodora Guidoni da Venezia, S. Niccolosa di Giovanni Baroncelli. S. Teodora was the first prioress. Conflicting information, however, was supplied by Stefano Rosselli in his Sepultuario: May 19, 1419, only S. Andrea di Paolo Tommasi transferred. She was then followed by S. Bartolommea di Piero Merciari di Firenze, S. Teodora di Firenze, and S. Niccolosa di Giovanni Baroncelli, widow of Andrea della Stufa. This latter became the first prioress. For this see, Richa, Notizie istoriche delle chiese fiorentine, vol. X, p. 204. 1426 Benedicte Petri Mazini Magdalene Ambrosii Guisolfi Clementie Amichetti De Pin0 de Ianua Gabbrielle Zene Doria Paule Iohannis de Cascina Crestofane Bartholomei Michaelis Raffaele Gerardi Burlamacchi Columbe magistri de Baptista Iohanne Benenati Cinquini
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Caterine Iohannis Ciampolini Francische Benedicti De Aretio Bartholomee Guasparis de Civitate Castelli Augustine Iohannis Alsfonsi de Sibilia Appollonie Antonii De Aretio Agate Celestrini Deoria Tomase Francisci Leccha Isabette Pauli Deoria Felicis Celsi Deoria Beatricis Bartholomei De Ambacho Agate Iuliani Gambacurtae Petre Nocchi de Lavaiano Laurentie Adriani Grimaldi Antonie Bernardi Ascanii Angeleche magistri Righi Vegetti Iacobe Dini de Podio Gerolima Niccholai de Cascina 1429 Mariecta Nicholay de Nigris de Luca 1436 Cristina Michealis Micheli Raffaella Iohannis Burlamacchi Martha Benedicti de Aretio Clara Mariani di Ficecchio Cecilia Bonaccursii de Boncontibus March 13, 1450 Among the nuns who transferred from San Domenico of Pisa to Corpus Christi in Genoa was S. Thomasia Gambacorta. For this, see Mortier, Histoire des Maitres Généraux, vol. IV, pp. 346–347. Bullarium Ordinis Praedicatorum, vol. III, p. 278. “B. Votis fidelium.” 1453 Antonia di Antonio da S. Casciano sottopriore Domenica di Alfonso da Siviglia Paraclita di Giovacchino dei Ricci
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Michela di Landolfo Ciampolini Maria di Battista del Besso di Pisa Piera di Andrea Marracci di Pisa Iacopa di Colo Porcellini Pietra di Michele Burlamacchi da Lucca Niccolosa di Bindo de’ Galletti Brigida di Ranieri, orefice Gabbriella di Andrea de’ Bonconti Raffaella di Giovanni Burlamacchi 1455 Soror Iohanna olim benenati de cinquinis de pisis, priorissa Soror Antonie Antonii de Sancto Casciano suppriora S. Lucie nucii de bolsena S. Magadelena domini Ambroxii ghisolfi de Janua S. Ursule mattei cinatori de pisis S. Clarisie domini Amichetti de pino de Janua S. Mariette nicholai de nigris de luca S. Martha benedicti de Aretio S. Bartholomea domini Guasparis de castello S. Domenica dAlfonso da Sibilia S. Aghate domini celestrini de aurea di Janua S. Antonie Antonii saponarii de Aretio S. Felice domini celsi de aurea di Janua S. Beatrice domini Bartholome de Ambacho di pisis S. Laurentie domini Adriani di grimaldis de Janua S. Clare mariani di ficechio de pisis S. Cecile bonacursi de boncontili a pisis S. Paraclita Iohavachini de ricci S. Michaelle pandolfi ciampolini a pisis S. Eularie batiste a nerli S. Piera andrei marracci de Pisis S. Jacoba Coli porcellini a pisis S. Petris michaelis burlamacchi de luca S. Niccolose bindi galleti di pisis S. Brigida Ranieri orafi de pisis S. Baptista Pieri benvenuti de pisis S. Ghabriella andrea boncontis de pisis S. Raffaelle Johannes de burlamacchi de luca S. Christine nicholai burlamachhi de luca Source: ASF, Notarile Antecosimene, B1418, c. 28r.
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1461 “Del Lante Arcangela di Bartolommeo messa in S. Domenico, a causa del divorzio con Gregorio Da Cevoli, il 3 agosto 1461, dai Commissari Apostolici Lorenzo e Agapito Vescovi di Ferrara e di Ancona.” Reported in Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, p. 426. 1461–1464 Suor Giovana priora, de benenato cinquino da pisa S. Ciclia soppriora, di buonacorsa bonconti da pisa S. Lucia di Nuccio da bolsena S. Magdalena di Messer Ambrosio di ghisolfi, da genova S. Orsula, di Matheo cimatore da pisa S. Katerina di Giovanni ciampulini da pisa S. Bartholomea, di Messer Guaspari da cita di castello S. Domenica, dalfonso di sibilia S. Aghata di Messer Celestrino doria da Genova S. Appollonia d’antone saponaio daresso S. Felice di Messer Celsi doria da genova S. Lorensa di Messer Adorna grimaldi da genova S. Chiara di Mariano da ficechio da pisa S. Paraclita, di Iovachin de ricci da firenze S. Antonia, di Antone da San chasciano da pisa S. Michaella di pandolfo ciampulino da pisa S. heulalia dai baptista de nerli da pisa S. Piera dandre marracci da pisa S. Iacopa di Colo porcellini da pisa S. Pietra di michele burlamacchi di Luccha S. Nicholosa di bindo di ghalleti da pisa S. Brigida di ranieri orafo da pisa S. Baptista di piero di benventui da pisa S. Gabbriella dandrea bonconte da pisa S. Raffaella di Iovanni burlamacchi da luccha S. Cristina di Niccolao burlamacchi da luccha S. Angiula di benedetto santini da luccha S. Margharita di baldasarrio damonte catino S. Filippa di Ser Gherardo da pietra sancta S. Agustina di iacopo di bergho da pisa S. Andrea di Maestro Andrea franceschi da Fiesole(?)” Source: ASF, Notarile Antecosimene 4265 “Protocollo of Carlo di Giovanni da Vecchiano, 1461–1464. Folio inserted at p. 51.”
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1479–1499 Battista Pieri Benvenuti Cristina Niccolai Burlamacchi 1486 Paraclita de Ricci morta Andrea da Fiesule Niera del Lante 1495 Agata della Spina 1496 Cecilia Bonconte Mattea di Settimo 1497 Antonia Pappona 1497 Elisabetta del Crecco pisana profession 1498 Marta da S. Michele Bartolomea Morella Fioretta de’ Bonsi da Firenze 1499 Marietta del Salmulo professa Teodora de’ Marini da Genova prof Brigida Donati fiorentina prof 1499 Angeletta Vivaldi Teodora de Salmuli Source: from the “Libro delle Vestizioni e Professionie, e dal Libro dei Morti” del Monastero, reported in Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta. Before 1488 Brigida figlia di maestro Rainieri became prioress of San Paolo all’Orto before 1488, when she participated in the transfer of some property owned by that convent. See Maria Luigia Orlandi, Benozzo Gozzoli a Pisa: I documenti 1468–1495 (Pisa, 1997), p. 130. 1503 Vangelista de Bonchontibus subpriora Filippa Gerardi de Petrasancta Agnes Guaspari Botarii Laurentia Guglielmi de Ceuli Thomasa Maffei Lechaveli Magdalena Lancilotti de Appiano Alfonzina Iacobi Compagni Ursula de Marracis Clementia Banducci de Bonchontibus Katerina Pellegrini de Lambardis
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Maria Iacobi de Pantaleonibius Iacoba Bartholomei de Varna Nastazia Bernabo Baldovino Izabetta Iohannis del Lante Lina Antonii de Apostolis 1505 Brigida da Cattignano Alessandra eiusdem Margherita Lodovigi di S. Casciano M. Maddalena Pagni Marietta Gottifichi Dominicha Francisca della Spina Theodora de’ Marinis Baptista Iohannis de Donati Veronica Mattei Elena dello Apostolo Agata dello Apostolo Angiula Bacci 1494–1509 “Queste sono le monache che erano nel 1494” S. Gabriella d’andrea bunconti S. Cecilia di buonacorso bunconti S. Michaella di pandolfo ciampulini S. Ulalia di baptista de nerli da Firenze S. Petra di Michele Burlamacchi da Luccha S. Nicholosa di bind0 Galletti S. Raphaella di Giovanni burlamacchi S. Angeletta di Messer Ottaviano de vivaldi da Genova S. Piera dandrea marracci S. Cristina di Messer Nicholaio burlamacchi S. Angiula de Vellutelli da Luccha S. Filippa di Ser Gherardo da pietra sancta S. Agnese di Guaspari becchaio da Luccha S. Lorensa di Guglerino da Ciegula S. Thomassa di Messer Maffeo Lecchavela da Genova S. Vangelista di Landuccio bonchonti S. Magdalena di Lancilotto dappiano
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S. Eugenia danbrogio coltellinaio S. Bendetta di bartholomeo Arnolfini di Luccha S. Alfonzina di iacopo di Compagno S. Orsola di Domenicho Spadaio S. Clemensia di landuccio bonchonte S. Katherina di Pelligrino Lanbardi S. Maria di iacopo panchaleoni da Firenze S. Giovanni di Gismondo de Gualandi S. Jacopa di barthalomeo da varna S. Brigida di Maestro Francescho da chatignano S. Alessandra di Maestro Francescho da chatignano S. Anthonia di Guido papponi S. Margarita di Ludovicho da San Chasciano S. Angelica di Ludovicho da San Chasciano S. Barthalomea di barthalomeo morelli S. Veronica di Lucha de Lante S. Maria Magdalena di Anthoni di pagno S. Firetta di Bernardo bonci da Firense S. Agatha di ser bartholomeo della spina S. Marietta di Gottisfre de psalmuli S. Domenicha di Francescho della Seta S. Theodora di Messer pelegro de Marini da Genova S. Baptista di Giovanni baptista donati da Firenze S. Nastagia di bernale Rigattieri Le converse per lli servitii del Monastero S. Paula da Luccha S. Marta di San Michele S. Francescha da Pistoia S. Scholasticha di Valdiserochio S. Vincentia da Fanugla S. Victoria da Napuli S. Mactea da Settimo S. Lucia di Corscha S. Buona di Fanugla Fuora del monastero al Nostro Servigio Due homini e tre Donne Queste sone le monache che sono al presente 1510 S. Clementia de landuccio bunchonti
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S. Thomasa di Messer Maffeo Lecchavela S. Filippa de Ser Gherardo da pietra Santa S. Lorensa di Guglermo da Cieguli S. Vangelista di Landuccio bunchonti S. Magdalena di Lancilotto dappiano S. Orsula di Domenico Spadaio S. Katherina di pellegrino lambardi S. Maria di Jacopo panthaleoni S. Jacopa di barthalameo da Varna S. Brigida di Maestro Francescho da Chatignano S. Alexsandra di Maestro Francescho da Chatignano S. Maria Magdalena di Anthonii di Pagno S. Marietta di Messer Gottifredi psalmuti S. Domenicha di Francescho della Seta S. Theodora di Messer pelegro di Marini S. Baptista di Giovanbaptista de donati S. Nastagia di bernale Rigattierii S. Lena danthone dellapostulo S. Bartholomea di Francescho della Seta S. Agatha di Anthone dellapostulo S. Cecilia di Nicholaio burlamacchi S. Angiula di baccio dal bagno S. Giovanna di Gismondo De Gualandi S. Maxsimilla di Ranieri Rospinini S. Petra paula di luchha dellante S. Raphaella di Nicholaio burlamacchi S. Maria Vincentia di Thaddeo di pier diponi S. Izabetta di Guaspari dellapostulo Oltre ne abbiamo per vestire cioe la figliuola de Jacopo de Galetti due da luccha la figliuola di Nicholaio balbani et la figliuola di Frederigo de trenta da Luccha. Le converse per lli serviti S. Paula da Luccha S. Francescha da pistoia S. Scholasticha da valdisechio S. Vincentia da Fanugla S. Buona da Fanugla S. Ufrasia da Lugnano S. Constantia S. Barbara Fuora del monsterio a nostre spese
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El prochuratore el confessore eum vetturale uno commisso con lla sua donna” Source: Pisa, ASP, Misc. Mss. No. 36. “Elenche delle monache di vari monasteri di Pisa e documenti relativi” List 9. Monastero di S. Domenico 1522 Domenica de Seta Catarina de Baldovino Agata dalla Porta Barthomea de Seta Cecilia de Burlamacchi Agnola Barsi de Balneo Giovanna de Gualandis Petropaula del Lante 1524 Lucretia Pieri Pauli de Vernagallis Mascimilla Rainerii de Rosselmini Raffaella Nicholai Burlamacchi Cristina Friderici Tecla Friderici Thomasia Stephani
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Appendix 5
Selected Letters From and About the Nuns Letter I. Suor Paraclita de Ricci requests that Giovanni di Cosimo de Medici provide her with cloth, March 6, 1460. Source: Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Fonds Mediceo Avanti il Principato, Filza 6, cc 461––461v.
Honorando et karissimo fratello johanni figliuolo di Chosimo de Medici in Firense Honorando et karissimo fratello in christo jesu La grazia del signore nostro messer yhesu christo sia et permangha sempre in nell anima vostra Rienpiendola senpre dello suo Timore et alluminandola si che in tutti vostri fatti risplendi in voi lo lume della divina grazia e mendiante esso andiate al lume della eternale gloria A quem nos producat que es benedetto in secula seculorum amen. La chagione del mio scrivere dilettissimo fratello a voi chosi nuovamente si e per grande desiderio che ho di sapere chome voi state e simile di tutta la chasa vostra e non vi sia po amiratione per che in fine ahora non labbi facto che sono statta tanto iovenetta che non ho avuto ardire di presumere di questo fare non che in del mio chuore non abbi senpre sentito di voi grande amore e senpre della poverta mia per voi preghato sicche pertanto vi pregho che vogliate hora karo e dolce fratello fare ragione che ssia vostra sorella chome sono figlio da la charne e sse non volete farlo per parentado fatelo per christo Po ho tenso eso fratel mio che hora in questo sancto tempo della quaresima fate molte limozine e vestite di molti poveri chosta e fuora di chosta della quella chosa ho e gran piacere accio che in voi sia adempiuto il chomandamento che ffu lo signiore per lo suo propheta sancto frange esurienti panem tuum et egenos vagosque induc in domun tuam cum videris nudum operi eum e chosi vorrei dillettissimo fratello che sse piace alla vostra karita faceste quello che ssegquita e carnem tuam ne despesseris ait dominus deus noster omnipotens (Isaiah 58,7) Voi sapete fratel mio quanto li nostre fratelli sono affannati e quando ben fusseno il contrar non sono digna e non aspetto Marcho per io grande tenpo e baldaxari si dice sia in sulle ghalee che de non venire non so pero la verita e quando ben fusse vero sono cierta di non potere avere lo mio bizognio e ho stretta necessita di vestirmi sicche richorso alla vostra karita fratel mio che non mi abbandeniate che vi piaccia per amore didio di farmi avere braccia x di perpingnana* accio abbiate grazia dal signiore ssighondo lo vostro desiderio cioe davere flutto e io nel preghero con tutto le
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cuore se disponete di questo fare potrete dare ditta conmessione a Matteo Mazi e egli mi servira beni volentieri alla lettere non ardischo di chiedervi Responso ma beni mi sarebbe kara quanto chosa che avere potessi Non altro per questa Pax dei quae exuperat omnem sensum chustodiate chorda vostra. (Phillipians, 4,7) racchomandatemi pur assai a chosimo e abbraciate la vostra e mia madre Madonna Contessina per mia parte e tutti li altri confortate facto A di 6 di marso 1460. Per la vostra sorella S paraclita in San Domenico in pisa. [*perpignano is ‘panno ordinario di lana proveniente da Perpigan’ according to the Dizionario Etimologico Italiano, vol. 4, col. 2863.] Letter II. Extract from Letter of condolence sent from: ‘Suora Bartolomea indegna priora del munister di san domenico di pisa’ to Piero di Cosimo dei’ Medici, August 2, 1464 on the death of his father, Cosimo dei’ Medici. Source: ASF, MAP, 163 ff., 34v–35.
al glorioso dio chiamate a se la benedetta anima della buona memoria de nostro e vostro padre messer Cosimo ... sono certo che grandi oratione si fanno per lanima sua ... habbiamo facto et faremo sempre orationi per lui...Racomandovi la monastero siete in verita nostro padre et noi vostre minime figlie et assidue vostre oratrici ricordivi di noi per nelle limosine farete siamo bisognose come sapea la buona memoria padre vostro cosimo perdonatimi se havesse dicto troppo ... Letter III. Prioress Anthonia requests funds for a paschal candle from Lucrezia Tornabuoni dei’ Medici, March 23, 1473. Source: ASF, MAP, Filza 29, carta 205.
Egregia e virtuosa honoranda donna Lucretia de medici in firenze [notation of receipt: 1473 da pisa a di 25 di marzo] ihesus Honoranda e karissima in luogho di madre Di po le debite salutatione, e recammendatione a voi promisse, la chagione di questa sie prima per dessiderio di sapere come voi state, e simile delli vostri figliuoli e di tucti alli quali siamo grandemente oblighate per lli continui beneficii che da voi riceviamo. Secondario sie che pigliamo sigurta della vostra benigna, e uzata karita la quale non negha mai cosa che demandiamo il per che pigliamo confidentia in tucti nostri bisogni a essa ricorere. e come sapete saperissima lo tenpo della gloriosa sompllennita della santa pasqua raccomandomi alla vostra karita duno cero di libre quatordici per benedire fate questa offerta allo signore in questa sacratissima sompllenita si
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come soferse lui per noi al presente eterno morendo in sulla croce per noi degna cosa e che lli rendiamo gratitudine di tanto beneficio il per che ci raccomandaiamo allo vostra benignita che ci consoliate avisandovi che non abbiamo le modi di fare la spesa, ponendo questo beneficio a presso degli alltri che dalla vostra karita abbiamo ricevuti. E iddio sommo vii bene retribuera per noi al quale preghiamo vi mantengha in felice stato dell anima, e del corpo. Per hora non achade alltro salvo che ci raccomandiamo senpre alla vostra reverentia, e karita lo simile. A Madonna contessina, e, a vostri magnifici figliuoli, et salutate chiarisia da prete nostro che laltissimo sempre da male vi guardi. Data in pisa, addi 23 di marso, 1473 Suora Anthonia indegna priora del monastero di San Domenico di pisa. Letter IV. Letter to Lucrezia Tornabuoni dei’ Medici from Leonardo Spina in Pisa regarding Medici gifts to San Domenico, November 6, 1474. Source: Lucrezia Tornabuoni, Lettere, P. Salvadori (ed.) (Florence, 1993), p. 135, no. 86.
Magnifica donna monna Lucrezia deí Medici in Firenze Al nome di Dio a di vi di novembre 1474 Ieri ebbi una vostra risposta. Andai stamani a Santo aghostino e parlai cholla Maggiore per intendere il bisogno: dichono essere 26 e che vorrebbono 2 tonacielle per uno per potersi mutare, e che nne sono in somma neciessita. Fannosi díun cierto panno saonese, che spendera circha di L120. Domani cierchero del panno e manderonne, per insino non e altra risposta da voi per farne prima per uno. Dí essere perfetta limoxina siatene cierta, pertanto vi conforto le chontentiate che tanto piu staranno a chiedere. A San Domenicho andro domani per {segue: facto depennato} intendere chome di sopra, e di quello aranno piu bisognio si procurro e diciendo loro dellíorazione partichulare. Non mi potete chomettere chosa che pui volentieri che questa faccia, perche sono achora del male inpedito e volentieri vo a queste luoghi … Ne altro per ora achade. A vostri chomandi. In Pixa, che Dio vi guardi, per Leonardo Spina. Letter V. Suor Paraclita de Ricci urges Lorenzo de Medici to make further gifts to the convent, March 5, 1477. Source: ASF, MAP, Filza 35, carta 254.
Magnifico e potentes homo Lorenzo de Medici in Pisa Ihesus Honarandissimo e maggior fratello La grazia del altissimo dio sempre sia chonesso voi La chagione che de presente alla magnificentia vostra scrivo sie
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prima per rendervi grazie della limozina che o per parte vostra da Leonardo spini ricevuta e avendo da lui inteso chome dicta limozina volete fare piutempo io piglo confidentia della vostra benignita di dirvi quello che llanimo mio desidera per chagione che dentro in del monasterio ci sono cierti hedificii molto necessarii li quali sono incompatti e male ordinati et per tanto vorrei preghar, la vostra karita che lli piacesse volere usare tanta largita inverso di noi che quello che llanimo vostro a disposto darmi in piu volte me li deste Alpresente insieme per la stessa chagione. E a presso vi vorrei strettamente quanto in e possibile preghare che vi piaxi venirmi a visitar, e ab boccha meglio me vinformero del mio desiderio e a voi se mi fate questo chontento sempre in i terro oblighata a preghar iddio che vi mantenghi in felice stato con salute voi e vostri figliuoli che christo da male vi ghuardi. In pisa a di 5 di marzo 1477 S. Paraclita indegna monacha in del monastero di San Domenicho Letter VI. Letter from Suor Lorenza Ceuli to the Signoria of Pisa, July 9, 1505 (that is, July 1504). Source: Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 175–178.
Magnifico signore messer Michele Mastiani degnissimo Signore gonfalonieri della illustrissima citta di Pisa, in Palasso YHS Magnifici signori et padri nostri, il sommo onnipotente Signore de’signori vi doni il suo potente aiuto, mediante il quale voi possiate ottenere la desiderata vittoria dei vostri nimici. Magnifici signori et amabili padri nostri, in ne’quali abiamo molta confidentia, et sicondo la carita ci stringe, pigliamo fiducia di conferire gli animi nostri con vostre Signorie come colli propri cuori nostri, essendo costrette dallo caritativo affetto che portiamo alla patria, et dallo acceso desiderio abiamo della liberatione di tutti. Daro luogo alla riverentia, sicondo l’uso della carita che nolla cognosce, presumero un poco piu che non mi si conviene, non per darvi legge ne consiglio ma per darvi quello aiuto che possiamo per ogni via et modo a noi possibile; pregando vostre Signorie piglino le mie parole con quella carita ch’io le scrivo, et manco che si puo si palesino; ma date loro effetto, et proveretele esser verissime. Piu tempo fa fui preghata da certe persone dovesse mandare a dire alla Signoria facesse voto alli Diece Mila Martiri et facesselo fare al populo, di celebrare la festa loro con solennita, et arebbenli in naiuto in molte tribolatione che ci avevano a venire; et che si facesse dire al populo, che ciascuno che aveva eta di discritione dovesse obligare alla nostra Donna di dire ogni settimana le avemarie dello rosario, che sono centocinquanta; et lei insieme col soprascritto esercito vi sarebbeno in protessione in elle grande tribolatione che ci avevano a essere. Unde considerando io, escire le parole di buon luogo e esservisi fatto ogni prova condiligentia in modo che erano degne di fede, non
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volendo romper la fede a chi me l’aveva rivelate in secreto, ne dare opinione di persona che non fusse, ne mettere il monasterop ne me in nome di rivelatione profetiche,; mandai per messer Nicholaio della Colomba, et secretamente gli dissi, che avisasse la Signoria, ch’era allor, delle sopra scritte cose, dando meno notitia che potea dove l’avesse avute. Il quale mi rispuose, ch’io avevo penato troppo a manifestarlo, peroche le tribulatione stimavano fussen finite per esser data or raccomandata la terra a potenti: e dicea, sicondo s’intese poi, del papa et duca Valentino. Pur, per non volere resistere a quello li diceo, mi promisse dirlo. Di li a pochi giorni venne, et dessemi come li Signori aveane fatto uno partito di fare guardare la festa de’ sopraditti Martiri, et fare fare processione solenne che venissse infine qui al monasterio, et mandarci certo numero di messe, et altre cose, come devote avere la memoria. La vigilia de’ Dieci mila Martiri mandai a dire a messer Nicolaio, che si ricordasse di ricordare alla Signoria che soddisfaceseno il voto che avean fatto. Mandomi a dire, si farebbe tutto; et non si fece niente. Per la quale cosa sono seguite di molte tribolatione dintorno alla terra et in mare, che se ci pensate, c’e state piu rotte dalla sopraditta festa in qua, che poi e stato la Guerra. Pregho vostre magnifiche Signorie piacci loro rimettere la nigligentia de’ Signori passati, per la quale ingratitudine et pigritia sono seguiti molti danni: pero sono turbati li capitani di questo mirabile esercito, et non vi guardano li vostri soldati come soleano: preghovi gli vogliate riconciliare, poi si degnano esser vostri protettori. Alle cose che accadeno, pare che Dio e li suoi Sancti vi voglino aiutare a vostra forsa, tanto siette da loro privatemente fatti aveduti delli vitii et peccati della terra, per li quail le tribulatione durano, et del bene che dovreste fare per escirne, che pare piu desiderino loro che voi la vostra liberta; ma la poca fede vi nuoce assai. Preghovi che in questo siate contenti fare sperientia. Fate fare una processione solenne; et fate vi siano gli soldati tutti et le fanciulle vestite di bianco; et in nella bandiera della Madonna vi siano li capitani del glorioso esercito: et fermate il voto di farlo in perpetuo, se vi danno vitoria; et vederete per experientia la protexione arête da Dio per loro mezzo: pero sono benigni et placabili: et se rimetterete quello s’e lassato, gli arête piu propitii che mai. Perdonimi vostre Signorie se sono troppo prolisa: per chiarirvi l’ordine di tutto, o presso sighuta di tediarvi un poco. Preghovi non facciate chome s’e fatto dell’altre volte, che sara con vostro danno et di tutti tenetelo in nel segreto de’ vostri petti; et se volete qualche notitia piu, tirate da parte fra voi il nostro confessoro Fra Mariano, et prestateli a quello vi dira, che ne la potete prestare. Altro al presente non mi accade, salvo a vosro Signorie il monasterio sempre racchomando. Valete in Domino semper, et timete eum. In nel monasterio di Sancto Domenico, a di 9 Luglio. Inutile serva di Yesu Cristo Suor Lorenza indegna priora di San Domenico et tutte le Sore vostre oratrice, con raccomandatione pregando Vostra Signoria tutto tenga in el suo solo pecto.
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Letter VII. From Suor Lorenza Ceuli to the Gonfalonieri of Pisa, July 29, 1506 (that is 1505), thanking them for the previous alms and urging them to take Saint Dominic as a patron, too. Source: Zucchelli, Chiara Gambacorta, pp. 179–180.
Magnifico signore Gonfalonieri et tucti della inlustrissima cita di Pisa, in Palasso. YHS Magnifici signori et padri nostri, il sommo onnipotente Signore delli eserciti vi doni il suo sancto aiuto, mediante il quale possiate ottenere la vittoria de’vostri inimici interiori et exteriori, et con tranquilla pace servire alla sua Maesta in ella vita presente, si che lo possiate fruire in la futura con Gloria. Solo questa per render gratie alle magnifiche Signorie vostre dello honore avete fatto al glorioso esercito de’ nostri et vostri avocati et potenti difensori di che tutte vi rendiamo gratie infinite: pero ci parea fare loro villania pregandoli sempre, et non facendo sodisfare la promessa s’era loro fatta; pero che “melius est non vovere, quam post votum promissa non reddere.” Poi lo avete soddisfatto, con molta piu fiducia et sigurta li preghiamo et per le Signorie vostre et per la patria tutta, sperando in nella clementia della Divina Maesta, et nelle prece et meriti della sua dolce Madre, et delli gloriosi cavalieri, et altri eletti, che sarete liberi da tanti affanni. Confortovi con riverentia, come aute soddisfatto a questo voto, vi piacci sodisfare agli altri accio abbiate propitia tutta la corte del sommo Imperatore: et moltiplicando gli intercessori, multiplicheranno le gratie. Ricordivi la vigilia di San Domenico dovea dare Paulo Vitelli la battaglia, et trovandosi Carlo Bonconte gonfalonieri, si avoto di fare guardare la festa per la citta et fello fare a noi: et quell di detteno la morte a molti che s’acchostono alle mura, et la battaglia non si dette mai. Piaccivi avere caro il Patriarca et Padre nostro infra’ vostri intercessori, pero ch’e ottimo protettore de’ suoi devoti. Et piu ringratio vostre magnifiche Carita della elimosina che ci avete mandata. Con riverentia ve l’o fatto dire per li affanni che so che avete; ma la necessita ci stringe: et pero vi pregho ci abbiate sempre per rachomandate. Altro al presente non accade, salvo vi raccomandiamo la propria vostra et nostra patria, pregandovi attendiate a levare li vitii piu che potete; peroche sono i primi innimici interiori, et quelli che mantengano li exteriori. Siamo sempre a’ comandi vostri et spirituali beneplaciti. In Sancto Domenico di Pisa, addi 29 di luglio 1506. Inutile serva di Yesu Cristo, Suor Lorenza, indegna priora et tutte suo sorelle et madre, vostre oratrice.
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Appendix 6
Relics in San Domenico by 1557 Source: Pisa, Archivio di Stato, Carteggio Centofanti. N. 36.
“Sepoltuario Pisano e Fondazione di tutte le chiese … copia di parte del codice cartaceo in foglio della Riccardiana di Firenze segnato n. 3333 che ha il seguente titolo: Sepotuario Pisano in cui di dimostra la pieta, la santita, la dottrina e de’ Pisani di Pa.e 1557. Non compresa la tavola delle materie della Pa.a II donce comincia la segnaturea fina alla 685.” Folio ii, recto: In questo monastero [San Domenico] si conservano molte sacre reliquie: Un osso di Sant’Agata Vergine e Martire Di Sant’Agnese Vergine e Martire Di Sant’ Andrea Apostolo Di Sant’ Agostino Vescovo e Confessore Di Santa Barbera Vergine e Martire Di San Bartolomeo Apostolo Di San Benedetto Abbate Di Santa Brigida Di Santa Caterina Vergine e Martire, olio e sangue Una costa di Santa Caterina da Siena Un osso di Santa Cecilia Vergine e Martire De’ capelli di S. Clemente Papa e martire Di San Cornelio Martire Della croce di Cristo Un dente di San Domenico Un osso di San Felice Vescovo e Confessore Di San Filippo Apostolo Di San Giorgio Martire Di Santa Geltrude Vergine Di San Jacopo Apostolo Di San Jacopo minore Apostolo Di San Lorenzo Martire Di Santa Lucina Vergine e Martire
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Di Santa Margherita Vergine e Martire Di Santa Maria Maddelena Di San Martino Confessore Di San Niccolaio Vescovo Di Santa Orsola Vergine e Martire Di San Pietro e Paolo Apostoli Di Diecimila Martire Di San Regolo Vescovo e Martire Di San Silvestro Papa Di Santo Stephano Protomartire Di Santo Servazio Vescovo Di San Tommaso Apostolo Di San Torpete Martire Di Vincenzio Confessore Il corpo intiero dell Beata Chiara Gambacorta che in una cassa si ritrova nella Chiesa interiore. Dicano le monache che quando una di loro deve morire sentano di battere l’osso di questa Beata, che ancora ha lingua bellisima. Hanno ancora il corpo della Beata Maria Mancini nobile Pisana monaca in detto Monasstero, che fu Priora in tempo della Beata Chiara. Il tutto si ricava dal loro archivio.
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Pisa, Soprintendenza Beni Ambientali, Architettonici, Artistici e Storici di Pisa, Livorno, Lucca e Massa Carrara. Tronci, Paolo, Descrizione delle chiese, monasterii e oratori della città di Pisa 19th century copy of manuscript of 1643. Dossier sul Monasteri di San Domenico, 1897. Handlist of work in the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo. Opere d’arte fino al XV secolo, Antonio Caleca (ed.) (Pisa, 1978). Printed Primary Sources Acta Sanctorum (Antwerp: Meursium, 1643 ff.). Alberti, Leon Battista, Ten Books on Architecture, translated into Italian by Cosimo Bartoli and into English by James Leoni; edited by James Rykwert (London, 1755 edition; reprint New York: Transatlantic editions, 1966). The Family in Renaissance Florence. Book Three of I Libri della Famiglia, trans. Renee Watkins (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1994). Ammirato, Scipione, Delle famiglie nobili fiorentine (Florence: Appresso G. Donato e B. Giunti & compagni, 1615). Analecta Sacri Ordinis fratrum Praedicatorum, III (Rome: ad Sancta Sabinam, 1897). Antoninus, Saint (Pierozzi), Summa Theologica (Verona, 1740; Reprint: Graz, 1959). Augustine (Saint), Regula B. Augustini episcopi, et constitutiones fratrum. et sororum Ordinis Praedicatorum (Paris, 1625). D.M. Rogers (ed.), Saint Austin’s Rule Together with the Constitutions (1636) [English Recusant Literature, 1558–1640, vol. 45] (Menston [Yorkshire], England, 1971). Birgitta (Saint), Revelacions Liber I, Carl-Gustaf Undhagen (ed.) (Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksells, 1977). Biscioni, Antonio Maria (ed.), Lettere di Santi e Beati Fiorentini (Florence: Stamperia di F. Moucke, 1736). Bonaini, F., “Chronica antiqua Conventus Sanctae Caterinae de Pisis et Excerpta Annalium conventus Sanctae Catherinae de Pisis,” Archivio Storico Italiano, ser. I, v. 6, pt. 2 (1845): 397–633. Bonaventure (Saint), Meditations on the Life of Christ: an Illustrated Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century, trans. and eds Isa Ragusa and Rosalie Green (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961). Breviarium secundum ordinem sancti dominici (Venice: Johannes Hamman de Landoia?, 1481). Bullarium Ordinis FF. Praedicatorum, Thomas Ripoll (ed.) (Rome: Typographia Hieronymi Mainardi, 1730–1731) vols II–III. Caesarius, of Arles (Saint), Oeuvres Monastiques. T.I: Oeuvres pour les moniales, trans. and ed. A. de Vogüé and J. Courreau (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1988). Catherine, of Siena (Saint), Le Lettere di S. Caterina da Siena, N. Tommaseo e P. Misciattelli (ed.) (Florence: Giuntini, Bentivoglio, 1860).
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Processionarium secundum ritum & morem Fratrum Praedicatorum (Venice, Giunta, 1545). Richa, Giuseppe, Notizie istoriche delle chiese fiorentine (Florence: P.G. Viviani, 1754–62). Riccoboni, Suor Bartolomea, Life and Death in a Venetian Convent: The Chronicle and Necrology of Corpus Domini, 1395–1436, trans. and ed. by Daniel Bornstein (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). Roncioni, R.,“Storie Pisane,” in Archivio Storico Italiano, VI/1 (1844). “Famiglie Pisane,” Archivio Storico Italiano, VI/2, sec. 3 (1845). Titi, Pandolfo, Descrizione della Citta di Pisa per servire di guida al viaggiatore (Pisa, 1792). Tronci, Paolo, Memorie istoriche della città di Pisa (Livorno: Bonfigli, 1682). Vasari, Giorgio, Le Vite de’ più eccelenti pittori, scultori ed architettori italiani, ed. and annotated by Gaetano Milanesi (Florence: Sansoni, 1878–85), 9 vols. Secondary Sources Achiardi, P., D’, “Ambrogio d’Asti,” in Thieme-Becker, Allgemeines Lexicon der bildenden künstler von der antike bis zur gegenwart, I (Leipzig: W. Engelmann, 1907): 390–391. Adhémar, Jean, “Les Tombeaux de la Collection Gaignières,” Gazette des beauxarts, 74 (1974). Alce, Venturino, O.P., “Tre Documenti su Fra Bartolomeo della Porta (1472–1517),” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 56 (1986): 73. Antal, Frederick, Florentine Painting and its Social Background (London: K. Paul, 1948). Archer, Madeline Cirillo, “The Dating of a Florentine Life of the Virgin and Christ,” Print Quarterly, 5 (1988): 395–402. Arnould, Alain, O.P., De la production de miniatures de Cornelia van Wulfschkercke (Brussels: Vicariat Général des Dominicains, 1988). Atkinson, Clarissa, Immaculate and Powerful: Female and Sacred Image and Social Reality (Boston: Beacon Press, 1985). Auge, M., “Consecrazione delle vergine,” Dizionario degli Istituti di Perfezione, 2 (1975): 1613–1627. Avray, D.L, D’, The Preaching of the Friars. Sermons Diffused from Paris before 1300 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985). Baldini, U., Beato Angelico (Florence: Edizioni d’arte il Fiorini, 1986). Banti, Ottavio, “Il Monastero di S. Domenico in Pisa tra il ‘300 e il ‘400,” Nuovi Studi Cateriniani, 3 (1988): 144–155. et al., Pisa, Iconografia a stampa dal XV al XVIII secolo (Pisa: ETS, 1991). Iacopo d’Appiano: economia, società e politica del comune di Pisa al suo tramonto: 1392–1399 (Pisa: Universita degli studi di Pisa, 1971).
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Index Agli, Manno degli 42 n. 129, 60, 67 n. 60, 83, 99, 117 n. 42, 215, 231 n. 19 Aiutamicristo, Tommaso 14, 27 Alberti, Leon Battista 57–9, 61 Albizzi da Vico, Filippa 12, 25, 71, 199 Alexander VI, Pope 203 altars in convents 60, 152, 158 Ambrogio d’Asti 140, 138–48, 241, figs. 4.7–4.10 Andrea di Bartolo 21–24 Andrea di Giusto 152 Angelico, Fra 79, 96, 97, 103–5 Altarpiece of San Domenico of Fiesole 261, 176–7, figs. 5.5, 5.6 Altarpiece of San Pier Martire 168–70, 176, figs. 5.1, 3.14 Chapel of Nicholas V 157 Christ on the Cross with Virgin and Saints, 188, fig. 12 Crucifixion, from Fiesole 79, fig. 3.5 Redeemer, from San Domenico of Pisa 155–161, fig. 4.14, cat. 7 Resurrection of Lazarus, from Silver Cupboard 134, fig. 4.5 San Marco of Florence, frescoes 188, 192, 201, figs. 5.13, 5.19 Antoninus Pierozzi, Saint 15, 81, 99, 146–7, 160, 181, 192, 201, 214 Apostles as role models 146, 167–8 Appiano, Jacopo di 12–13, 16, 109–12 Appiano, Suor Magdalena di Lancilotto di 147 Arcangelo di Brescia 203–204 Arnolfini, Suor Benedetta di Bartholomeo 28 Augustine, Saint 176 Baldovino family of Pisa 219–238 Baldovino, Suor Nastazia di Barnaba 219
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Baldovino, Suor Caterina di Mariano 219–220 Bartolomeo, Fra 240 Becchaio, Suor Agnese di Guaspari 28 Bell, Rudolph 16 Bellini-Pietri, Augusto 4, 108, 270 Bergamo, Matris Domini 59 Berlin, Staatliche Museen: Gemäldegalerie Martino di Bartolomeo, Stories of Saint Birgitta, 83–93, figs. 3.7–3.11, cat. 12b Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint 191 Bernardi, Lino 4, 63 Bicci di Lorenzo 102, 125–6, 138, 141, 238, 240, fig. 4.1 Birgitta of Sweden, Saint 12, 31, 81, 83–94, 229 Blaeu, Johannes, Engraved Map of Pisa, figs. 2.1–2 Bonaventure, Saint 31 pseudo-Bonaventure 31, 138 Bonconti family of Pisa 213, 215 Suor Agnese 12 Suor Gabbriella di Andrea 28, 40 nn. 104–5, 202–204, 228 Boniface VIII, Pope 58 Boniface IX, Pope 15, 35 n. 36 bridal imagery 16, 73, 76–7, 106, 125–6, 130–133, 155, 255 Brigida di Ranieri, Suor 218 Bruges 220, 244–5 Burlamacchi family 28–9 Caffarini, Fra Tommaso 14, 31 Carli, Enzo 140, 152 da Cascina, family of Pisa 213, 220 Suor Gerolima Niccholai 154 Catalans in Pisa 218–219
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Catherine of Alexandria, Saint 71–3, 75–7, 93, 108, 170, 175, 176, fig. 3.1 Altarpiece of Saint Catherine of Alexandria 126–33, 141, 219–20, 243–255, 244–55, figs. 4.4, 7.1 Catherine of Siena, Saint 9, 12, 14, 24, 29, 31, 73–7, 93, 96–7, 106, 108, 132, 147–8, 182, 247, fig. 3.3 Cavalca, Fra Domenico 30–31, 146–7, 150–152, 154 Cecco di Pietro 222 da Ceuli family 226 Suor Lorenza di Guglielmo 36 n. 40, 226–8, 332–4 Charles VIII, King of France 17, 203, 225 Charles Borromeo, Saint 61 di Chatignano family 213, 220 Chicago Art Institute Francesco Rosselli, Engravings of the Life and Passion of Christ, fig. 7.7 Cimabue 79 Cinquini family 63 n. 4, 213 cloister (clausura) 18–20, 57–61, 157, 159, 217, 237 Cole Ahl, Diane 97, 159 Colmar, Unterlinden convent 243 Columba da Rieti 243 community as monastic ideal 2, 18, 43, 103, 105, 112, 123, 125, 132, 148, 150, 154, 192, 198, 202, 218 contemplative life 146, 150, 154, 175 converso (i) 25, 55–6, 65 n. 32, 77–9, 217–8 Corpus Christi, feast of 60, 157–9 cura monialium 73, 181, 202–4, 213 Dati, Leonardo 96, 168, 181 Datini, Francesco di Marco and Margherita 14, 26–7, 29–30, 49, 56, 83, 215–6, 220 Denver, Art Museum Francesco d’Antonio, Madonna and Child 170–74, fig. 5.4 Dominic, Saint 96, 97, 102–103, 108, 148, 168, 176, 182, 191 Dominicans (Order of Preachers) Congregation of San Marco 214, 202–4, 225
ANN ROBERTS.indb 370
Constitutions 13, 18, 30, 57, 61, 96, 159, 167, 176, 191–2, 199 — Women’s 18–21, 191 Iconography 83, 96, 103, 148–150, 152, 167–204 Liturgy 73, 137, 142, 146, 152, 157–8, 228 Lombard Congregation 191, 198, 202–4 Observance 15, 29, 30, 51, 76, 79–81, 96, 158, 180–204, 221 — History 180–181, 202–4 Rule 18, 21, 29, 167 Tuscan-Roman Congregation 203–4 Dominici, Giovanni 14, 15, 21, 27, 29, 31, 81, 83, 90, 97, 99, 103, 152, 159, 167, 176–7, 180, 192, 201 Doria family 213, 216 Suor Agata Celestrina 27–8 Suor Filippa 15, 26, 216, 219, 238 Suor Gabbriella Zene 28, 216 Suor Orietta 12, 215 Simone 14, 56, 216–7, 238 Duccio, Maesta, Resurrection of Lazarus 134–5 Dunn, Marilyn 2 Eucharistic piety 158, 198 Eugene IV, Pope 15, 24 Eulalia, Saint 125–6, 218–19 Eustochium and Paula 154 factor’s role in convent 218, 232 n. 33, 239–40, 262 family interests in convent 58, 213–220 Fannucci Lovitch, Miria 140, 240 Fieschi, Suor Tommasina 29 Fiesole, Episcopal Synod 58, 61 Fiesole San Domenico 15, 51, 55, 81, 103, 168, 188, 261 — Angelico, Altarpiece of San Domenico 77–8 Filarete 59, 60 Florence Badia 20, 201 “Le Murate” 59–60
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Index Museo di San Marco — Angelico, Altarpiece of San Pier Martire, 168–9, fig. 5.1 — Angelico, Resurrection of Lazarus from Silver Cupboard 134, fig. 4.6 “Paradise”, Brigittine convent 31, 59, 60, 90, 164 n. 56 San Jacopo da Ripoli 27, 59, 181 San Marco 15, 79, 103–5, 160, 177, 180, 181–2, 188–204 — Angelico, Chapter House Crucifixion, fig. 5.13 — Angelico, Saint Peter Martyr Urging Silence, fig. 5.19 San Pier Martire 15, 21, 28, 35 n. 37, 97, 168–70 Sant’Apollonia 188, 238 Santa Caterina da Siena 3, 60, 242, 249 Santa Felicità 59 Santa Maria Novella 93, 96, 105, 181 — Strozzi Altarpiece 168, 175 — Panel of the Dominican Effigies 176 — Nativity according to Saint Birgitta 93 Sant’Onofrio (Fuligno) 102 Florentine artists in Pisa 17, 180 Francesco d’Antonio 170–180 Francis of Assisi, Saint 77–9, 93, 105, 148 Frullani, Giovanni Ridolfo 108 Gaddi, Taddeo, Last Supper and Crucifixion 188 de’ Galletti, Suor Niccolosa di Bindo 28, 133 Gambacorta family 9, 12, 43, 59, 79, 214–5 Andrea di Lorenzo 33 n. 10, 214 Giovanna de’ Bonconti 81–3, 215, 218, 238, 239 Giovanni di Coscio 17, 214–5 Pietro 9–12, 16, 43, 49, 75, 94, 148, 213–4 Pietro, Blessed 9–10, 32 n. 2, 154–5 Suor Tommasa 15 Gambacorta, Blessed Chiara 24–5, 29, 43, 56–7, 61, 123, 132 Art Patronage of 84–94 Bara of 94–7
ANN ROBERTS.indb 371
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Biography 9–15, 108–114 Iconography of 97, 106, 182–88, 202–4 Sainthood, campaign for 106–7 Shrine of 99–106 Genoa, San Silvestro 15, 29, 35 n. 38 Ghiberti, Lorenzo 96 Ghirlandaio, Davide 225 Ghirlandaio, Domenico 140, 222–5 Gilbert, Creighton 21, 24 Gioli, Suor Ursula 182 Giordano da Rivalto, da Pisa 31, 130, 177–80 Giotto, Arena Chapel, Resurrection of Lazarus 79, 134 Giovanni di Paolo, The Miraculous Communion of Saint Catherine of Siena 159, fig. 4.15 Giovanni di Pietro da Napoli Crucifixion with Saints 77–79, 105, fig. 3.4 Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria 73–6, 238–9, fig. 3.1 Polyptich of Madonna Enthroned 81–3, 167, 180, fig. 3.6 Gittalebraccia family 213 Niccolo 15, 34 n. 30 goldfinch 167–8, 170 Gozzoli, Benozzo and shop 17, 62, 136, 202–3 Camposanto frescoes 193 Crucifixion with Dominican Saints 182–204, figs. 5.7, 5.9–11 Crucifixion Sinopia 193–198, figs. 5.14–17 Crucifixion with Ten Thousand Martyrs 108, 226–9, 247, fig. 4.4 Saint Dominic Urging Silence 198–202, figs. 5.8, 5.18 Gualandi family 32 n. 3, 213, 218 di Guaspari, Suor Agnese 28, 324, 325 di Guaspari di Citta del Castello, Suor Bartolomea 317, 321–3, 330 Hamburger, Jeffrey 1–3, 148, 262 hermits 32 n. 3, 150–52, 154–5 Hills, Helen 2, 61 Hood, William 167
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Humbert of Romans 18, 19, 30, 57, 202, 214 Humility, Beata 201 illness 24, 133, 106 Jerome, Saint 132, 148, 152–155, 191, 280–81, fig. 4.13 John the Baptist 150–52, 168, 259–61, fig. 4.12 John the Evangelist 168, 176, 182 Kieckhefer, Richard 16 Kinzica quarter of Pisa 12, 43–4, 59, 63 n. 4, 219 del Lante family 213, 235 n. 66, 323, 325–8 Suor Niera 26, 324 Lapacci de’ Rimbertini, Fra Bartolomeo 15, 34 n. 31, 181 Lapi, Fra Stefano di Lapi 78, 101, 217, 232 n. 28 Lapi, Stefano 12, 77–9, 115 n. 19, 116 n. 30, 217–8, 239, fig. 3.4 Lapi, Suor Giovanna di Stefano 78, 116 n. 27, 217, 391 Lasinio, Carlo 4, 73, 138, 155, 273, 276–8, 280–83, 309–312 Lazarus, Saint 134–38, 142–48, figs. 4.5, 4.6, 4.9 Leo X, Pope 225 London, British Museum Francesco Rosselli, Engravings of the Life and Passion of Christ, fig. 7.10 London, Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery Angelico, Two Female Saints (San Pier Martire predella) 97, 168–9, fig. 3.14 London, National Gallery Angelico, Eighteen Dominican Beati (Fiesole predella) 176–80, figs. 5.5–6 Lorenzetti, Pietro, Pala of Beata Humility 201 Lorenzo di Credi 261 Lowe, K.J.P. 2, 76, 221, 238, 240 Lucca San Domenico, Dominican convent 15, 28, 261 San Giorgio, Dominican convent 28 San Romano, Dominican friary 243
ANN ROBERTS.indb 372
Man of Sorrows 152, 168 Mancini, Suor Maria 12, 24–5, 90, 108, 114 n. 8, 121 n. 100, 123, 132, 158, 170, 175, 182–3, 188, 202–4, 317, 319, 336 Mariani, Roberto xv, 63, 63 n. 7 Martha, Saint 133–148, 182, 191 Martin V, Pope 15, 35 n. 37, 168 Martini, Simone 73, 167, 168, fig. 3.2 Martino di Bartolomeo 73, 81, 83–91, 93–4, 167, 238, figs. 3.6–11 Mary Magdalene, Saint 79, 133–148, 182 Masaccio 17, 105, 152 da Massa, Simone 10–11 Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy 130–33, 220, 243–55, figs. 4.4, 7.1, 7.5–6 Maximilian, Emperor 220 Mazzei, Lapo 14, 118 n. 50 Medici family 14, 17, 24, 188, 221, 225 Cosimo de’ 60, 221, 330 Filippo di Vieri de’ 17 Giovanni di Bicci de’ 14, 221, 234 n. 51 Giovanni di Cosimo de’ 221, 329 Lorenzo de’ 17, 181, 221, 239, 331–2 Lucrezia Tornabuoni de’ 221–2, 330–1 Piero di Cosimo de’ 214, 229 n. 9, 330 Meyer, Johannes 30, 41 n. 125 Michael the Archangel 170, 175–6, 222, 277 da Morrona, Alessandro 4, 73, 116 n. 22, 138, 140, 272, 276, 278, 280, 308–9 names and naming 12, 103, 147, 175, 213–14, 219–20 Naples, Santa Maria Donna Regina 59 Nelli, Suor Plautilla 3, 242, 261 di Nerli, Suor Eulalia di Baptista 219 New York, Metropolitan Museum: Angelico, Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saints 188, fig. 5.12 Giovanni di Paolo, Miraculous Communion of Saint Catherine of Siena 159, fig. 4.15 Nicholas V, Pope 35 n. 38, 157 notaries 14, 219–20, 233 n. 43, 239–40, 264 n. 13 nuns as artists 27–28, 243–61 Nuremberg, Saint Catherine 30
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Index Orcagna, Andrea 148, 175 di Pagno, Suor Maria Magdalena di Anthonii 147, 326, 327 Paolino of Pistoia, Fra 243 Paolo Schiavo 17, 134, 198, 239–41, 255, 262, 264 n. 16, 274–5 Paris, Louvre: Angelico, Crucifixion fig. 3.5 Peccioli, Fra Domenico 12, 31, 117 n. 40, 177–80 Pecha da Vadaterra, Alfonso, Bishop of Jaen 12, 31, 84, 90–1, 108 penitence 147, 150, 152 Peter, Saint 75, 101–2, 134 148–50, 222, 282, fig. 4.11 Peter Martyr, Saint 168, 176, 182, 191, 193, 201, 271 Pico della Mirandola, Maddalena 26 Pisa 16–18, 213–14, 219, 222, 225–9, 246, 255 Camposanto 4, 17, 25, 138, 152, 182, 193, 202, 239, 273, 276, 280–2, 309, 311–12 Duomo, Apse Mosaic 205 n. 17, 215, 262 n. 6 Hospital of Santa Chiara 168 Museo Nazionale di San Matteo: — Ambrogio d’Asti, Christ Enthroned between Martha and Mary figs. 4.7–10, cat.11 — Angelico, Redeemer fig 4.14, cat. 7 — Anonymous, Madonna with Saint Giovaninno fig. 7.14, cat. 14 — Anonymous, Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Siena fig. 3.3, cat.17 — Anonymous (Turino Vanni?), Nativity according to Saint Birgitta fig. 3.12, cat. 8 — Anonymous (Paolo Schiavo?), Resurrection of Lazarus fig. 4.5, cat. 9 — Anonymous, Triptych of St Catherine of Alexandria 7.1–6, 7.8–9, cat. 16 — Anonymous, Saint Jerome fig. 4.13, cat. 19 — Anonymous, Saint Peter fig. 4.11, cat. 21
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373 — Anonymous, Saint Ursula Altarpiece fig. 4.2–3, 7.11–12, cat. 23 — Bicci di Lorenzo, Saint Eulalia Altarpiece fig. 4.1, cat. 18 — Cecco di Pietro, Paschal Candlestick fig. 6.1–2, cat. 24 — Francesco d’Antonio, Two Altarpiece panels figs. 5.2–3, cat. 13b — Ghirlandaio Workshop, Saint Sebastion fig. 6.3, cat. 22 — Giovanni di Pietro di Napoli, Crucifixion fig. 3.4, cat. 6 — Giovanni di Pietro di Napoli, Mystic Marriage of Catherine of Alexandria fig. 3.1, cat. 16 — Giovanni di Pietro di Napoli and Martino di Bartolomeo, Polpytich of the Madonna Enthroned fig. 3.6, cat. 12a — Gozzoli follower, Crucifixion with Ten Thousand Martyrs fig. 6.4, cat. 10 — Gozzoli and Workshop, Crucifixion fresco and sinopia figs. 5.7, 5.9–11, 5.14–17, cat. 3 — Gozzoli and Workshop, St Dominic Urging Silence figs. 5.8, 5.18, cat. 4 — Martini, Simone, Altarpiece of Santa Caterina fig. 3.2 — Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy, St Catherine Altarpiece fig. 4.4, cat. 16a — Taddeo di Bartolo, Saint John the Baptist fig. 4.12, cat. 20 Palazzo Gambacorta 109 Palazzo Reale — G. B. Tempesta, Chiara Gambacorta Removed from the Convent of San Martino by her Brother 109–112, fig. 3.18 — G. B. Tempesta, Chiara Offering Shelter to the Family of her Father’s Murderer 112, fig. 3.19 Ricovero di Medicità (Istituto di Ricovero) 45, 62–3, 271 San Antonio 225
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San Domenico — Building history 43–57, 61–63, 107–8 — Crucifixion with Chiara Gambacorta 99–106, figs. 3.15–17, cat. 1 — Modern convent on Via della Faggiola 57, 63, 94, 148, 214, figs. 1.1, 1.2, 3.13 — Suppression 62–3, 138 San Francesco 79 San Martino in Kinzica 12, 13, 59, 109 San Matteo 168 San Paolo al Ripa d’Arno 175 San Paolo all’Orto, 15, 228 Santa Caterina 12, 30, 51, 59, 73, 96, 150, 167–8, 177, 181, 188, 202–4, 225 Santa Croce in Fossabanda 12, 24, 44, 158 Santa Maria del Carmine 62 Santa Marta 62 Stampace Fortress 225 Pistoia, San Domenico 147 Pius II, Pope 35 n. 38 procurator 57, 218, 232 n. 32, 233 n. 46, 234 n. 51, 238, 262, 264 n. 16, 326, 327, 328 Prato, San Vincenzo 59, 61 della Quercia, Priamo 152 Quirizio da Murano 159 Radke, Gary 2–3 Raniero d’Antonio 239–40 Raymond of Capua 15, 31, 75, 97, 176, 180 Relics 8 n. 23, 25, 32, 60, 69 n. 84, 73, 83, 90, 99, 103, 106–107, 109, 129–30, 146, 158, 175, 180, 202, 218, 222, 226, 242, 259, 335 Ricci Giuliano di Giovacchino de’ 17, 221 Saint Catherine de’ 14, 61, 204 n. 5 Suor Paraclita de’ 133, 221, 234 n. 56, 329–30, 331–2 Riccoboni, Suor Bartolomea 20–24, 150 Rice, Eugene 154 Rome Santa Maria sopra Minerva 97, 99 San Sisto 15, 66 n. 46
ANN ROBERTS.indb 374
Rosselli, Francesco di Lorenzo 249–255, figs. 7.7, 7.10 Rossi, Giuseppe 112, fig. 3.20 Sacre Rappresentazioni 228, 257–8 da San Casciano, Suor Antonia di Antonio 230–1 Savonarola 24, 26, 27, 181, 202–4, 249 Sebastian, Saint 222–5, fig. 6. 3 silence 19, 21, 198–202 Sixtus IV, Pope 25 Sogliani, Giovanni Antonio 188 Spina, Leonardo 222, 331 Taddeo di Bartolo 150–2, fig. 4.12 Tanfani Centofanti, Leopoldo 140 Taurisano, Innocenzo 28, 243 Tempesti, Giovanni Battista 109–112, figs. 3.18–20 Ten Thousand Martyrs, Saints 226–229 Teodora da Venezia, Suor 21, 34 n. 34, 35 n. 37, 37 n. 64 Thecla, Saint 175 Thomas, Anabel 2, 152 Thomas Aquinas, Saint 97, 157, 168, 176, 182, 191 Tommasi, Tommaso 108 Torelli, Felice 62, 108 Traini, Francesco 25, 176 Trent, Council of 19, 61 Turrill, Catherine 3 Urban VI, Pope 12, 44 Ursula, Saint 126–30, 175, 255–9, figs. 4.2, 7.11–12 Vanni, Turino 91–94, 215, 218, 238, 273–4, fig. 3.12 Van Os, Henk 87, 91 Vasari, Giorgio 166 n. 92, 207, 209, 225, 242, 262 da Vecchiano, Carlo 239–40, 323 Venice Corpus Domini 15, 20–24, 27, 31, 132–3, 150, 158, 201 San Zaccaria 238 Vigri, Saint Catherine 3, 27, 242
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Index
375
Vincent Ferrer, Saint 177, 182, 191 virginity 126, 129, 132–3, 147, 154 Visconti, Gian Galeozzo 16, 83, 108–109
widows 90, 109, 132, 147 Wilkins Sullilvan, Ruth 140, 142 Wood, Jeryldene 2, 3
Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art: Andrea di Bartolo, Crucifixion, fig. 1.4 Andrea di Bartolo, Madonna of Humility fig. 1.3 Weinstein, Donald 16
Zarri, Gabriella 1 Zeri, Federico 174 Zucchelli, Nicola 4, 26, 28, 49, 99, 108, 112, 132
ANN ROBERTS.indb 375
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