Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes (83), 2020
Davide and Benedetto Ghirlandaio's close association with their brother Domenico has made it diff... more Davide and Benedetto Ghirlandaio's close association with their brother Domenico has made it difficult to individuate their own artistic styles and evaluate their contributions to the Ghirlandaio workshop. Benedetto's artistic character is particularly elusive, since the Nativity in the church of Notre-Dame in Aigueperse, Auvergne, is the only work firmly attributed to him. This paper proposes a reconstruction of Benedetto's career by reassessing the works once ascribed to a painter known as the Master of the Saint Louis Madonna. Most of these paintings, centred on the eponymous work in the Saint Louis Art Museum, have been incorporated into Davide's oeuvre. Stylistic analysis, however, reveals their distinct artistic character and uncovers numerous points of comparison with the Aigueperse Nativity. On that basis they are reattributed here to the young Benedetto in his initial Florentine period. This identification is also corroborated by an analysis of his sojourn in France between 1486 and 1493, where he developed his technical skills and his interest in Netherlandish painting, possibly through the interaction with the Master of Moulin (Jean Hey). The paper then goes on to an examination of his activities after his return to Florence, and the ways in which he integrated his experience gained in France into the late Ghirlandaio workshop style. Benedetto's artistic development revealed by this reconstruction suggests a rich cross-fertilisation within the Florentine workshops in the late fifteenth century, with particular focus on the artists around the Verrocchio workshop in the early 1480s and those who participated in the Ghirlandaio workshop after Domenico's death. Also, as Benedetto was one of the few Italian painters who worked north of the Alps, the reappraisal of his career offers insights into the ways in which travelling artists could interact with local artistic environments and develop their own styles.
Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Classe di Lettere e Filosofia, 2004
L'attuale quarta serie è pubblicata, con periodicità semestrale, in due fascicoli di circa 350 pa... more L'attuale quarta serie è pubblicata, con periodicità semestrale, in due fascicoli di circa 350 pagine ciascuno, più due volumi di Quaderni.
This essay discusses the reconstruction of Domenico Ghirlandaio’s double-sided altarpiece for the... more This essay discusses the reconstruction of Domenico Ghirlandaio’s double-sided altarpiece for the cappella maggiore of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, based on an unpublished manuscript by the Dominican friar Vincenzio Fineschi. Written in the late eighteenth century, the manuscript describes the altarpiece when it still stood in the church, also providing rich information about the predella panels. In addition to the three panels mentioned in earlier studies, the author identifies four, possibly five, panels whose relationship to the altarpiece has been hitherto unrecognized. These works can be attributed to the anonymous artist known as Pseudo Granacci, who also participated in other projects by Ghirlandaio workshop around the time of Domenico’s death. Furthermore, the manuscript reveals that the saint on the far right side in the Virgin in Glory in Munich (central front panel), now commonly supposed to be Saint John the Apostle, is in fact Saint Thomas. The article also reconsiders the arrangement of the saints’panels in the main tier, since the arrangement deduced from Fineschi’s manuscript does not correspond to the now widely accepted 1969 reconstruction by Christian von Holst. It is argued, however, that the panels of the altarpiece must have been rearranged before Fineschi’s time, most probably during the mid-sixteenth-century church renovation by Giorgio Vasari. A re-examination of the iconographic relationship between the altarpiece and the mural in the chapel leads to a new arrangement, in which Saint Peter Martyr takes the place of Antonino Pierozzi on the left wing of the reverse side.
See for example E. Capretti, "La cappella e l'altare: evoluzione di un rapporto," in C. Acidini L... more See for example E. Capretti, "La cappella e l'altare: evoluzione di un rapporto," in C. Acidini Luchinat ed., La chiesa e il convento di Santo Spirito a Firenze (Florence, 996), 229-238.
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes (83), 2020
Davide and Benedetto Ghirlandaio's close association with their brother Domenico has made it diff... more Davide and Benedetto Ghirlandaio's close association with their brother Domenico has made it difficult to individuate their own artistic styles and evaluate their contributions to the Ghirlandaio workshop. Benedetto's artistic character is particularly elusive, since the Nativity in the church of Notre-Dame in Aigueperse, Auvergne, is the only work firmly attributed to him. This paper proposes a reconstruction of Benedetto's career by reassessing the works once ascribed to a painter known as the Master of the Saint Louis Madonna. Most of these paintings, centred on the eponymous work in the Saint Louis Art Museum, have been incorporated into Davide's oeuvre. Stylistic analysis, however, reveals their distinct artistic character and uncovers numerous points of comparison with the Aigueperse Nativity. On that basis they are reattributed here to the young Benedetto in his initial Florentine period. This identification is also corroborated by an analysis of his sojourn in France between 1486 and 1493, where he developed his technical skills and his interest in Netherlandish painting, possibly through the interaction with the Master of Moulin (Jean Hey). The paper then goes on to an examination of his activities after his return to Florence, and the ways in which he integrated his experience gained in France into the late Ghirlandaio workshop style. Benedetto's artistic development revealed by this reconstruction suggests a rich cross-fertilisation within the Florentine workshops in the late fifteenth century, with particular focus on the artists around the Verrocchio workshop in the early 1480s and those who participated in the Ghirlandaio workshop after Domenico's death. Also, as Benedetto was one of the few Italian painters who worked north of the Alps, the reappraisal of his career offers insights into the ways in which travelling artists could interact with local artistic environments and develop their own styles.
Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Classe di Lettere e Filosofia, 2004
L'attuale quarta serie è pubblicata, con periodicità semestrale, in due fascicoli di circa 350 pa... more L'attuale quarta serie è pubblicata, con periodicità semestrale, in due fascicoli di circa 350 pagine ciascuno, più due volumi di Quaderni.
This essay discusses the reconstruction of Domenico Ghirlandaio’s double-sided altarpiece for the... more This essay discusses the reconstruction of Domenico Ghirlandaio’s double-sided altarpiece for the cappella maggiore of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, based on an unpublished manuscript by the Dominican friar Vincenzio Fineschi. Written in the late eighteenth century, the manuscript describes the altarpiece when it still stood in the church, also providing rich information about the predella panels. In addition to the three panels mentioned in earlier studies, the author identifies four, possibly five, panels whose relationship to the altarpiece has been hitherto unrecognized. These works can be attributed to the anonymous artist known as Pseudo Granacci, who also participated in other projects by Ghirlandaio workshop around the time of Domenico’s death. Furthermore, the manuscript reveals that the saint on the far right side in the Virgin in Glory in Munich (central front panel), now commonly supposed to be Saint John the Apostle, is in fact Saint Thomas. The article also reconsiders the arrangement of the saints’panels in the main tier, since the arrangement deduced from Fineschi’s manuscript does not correspond to the now widely accepted 1969 reconstruction by Christian von Holst. It is argued, however, that the panels of the altarpiece must have been rearranged before Fineschi’s time, most probably during the mid-sixteenth-century church renovation by Giorgio Vasari. A re-examination of the iconographic relationship between the altarpiece and the mural in the chapel leads to a new arrangement, in which Saint Peter Martyr takes the place of Antonino Pierozzi on the left wing of the reverse side.
See for example E. Capretti, "La cappella e l'altare: evoluzione di un rapporto," in C. Acidini L... more See for example E. Capretti, "La cappella e l'altare: evoluzione di un rapporto," in C. Acidini Luchinat ed., La chiesa e il convento di Santo Spirito a Firenze (Florence, 996), 229-238.
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The article also reconsiders the arrangement of the saints’panels in the main tier, since the arrangement deduced from Fineschi’s manuscript does not correspond to the now widely accepted 1969 reconstruction by Christian von Holst. It is argued, however, that the panels of the altarpiece must have been rearranged before Fineschi’s time, most probably during the mid-sixteenth-century church renovation by Giorgio Vasari. A re-examination of the iconographic relationship between the altarpiece and the mural in the chapel leads to a new arrangement, in which Saint Peter Martyr takes the place of Antonino Pierozzi on the left wing of the reverse side.
The article also reconsiders the arrangement of the saints’panels in the main tier, since the arrangement deduced from Fineschi’s manuscript does not correspond to the now widely accepted 1969 reconstruction by Christian von Holst. It is argued, however, that the panels of the altarpiece must have been rearranged before Fineschi’s time, most probably during the mid-sixteenth-century church renovation by Giorgio Vasari. A re-examination of the iconographic relationship between the altarpiece and the mural in the chapel leads to a new arrangement, in which Saint Peter Martyr takes the place of Antonino Pierozzi on the left wing of the reverse side.