picturing the passion in late medieval italy. narrative painting, franciscan ideologies, and the...

Picturing the Passion in Late Medieval Italy. Narrative Painting, Franciscan Ideologies, and theLevant by Anne DerbesReview by: Victor M. SchmidtSimiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, Vol. 26, No. 1/2 (1998), pp. 116-120Published by: Stichting voor Nederlandse Kunsthistorische PublicatiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3780873 .

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i i6

Book reviews

Anne Derbes, Picturing the Passion in late medieval Italy. Narrative painting, Franciscan ideologies, and the Levant, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press) I996*

Anne Derbes's book, the basis for which was laid in her I980 dissertation for the University of Virginia, is a study of pre- dominantly thirteenth-century Passion scenes in central Ital- ian painting, and their relationship to Franciscan spirituality and to the art of painting in the eastern Mediterranean, Byzan- tium in particular. This approach has resulted in a book far more probing (if less extensive in its sweep) than Evelyn Sand- berg Vavala's monumental study of 1929,I which had always been the standard work of reference for Passion iconography in early Italian painting.

In her introductory chapter Derbes demonstrates that Pas- sion cycles took pride of place in Dugento narrative painting. In the realm of panel painting it was the croci dipinte that were of particular importance. In the course of the thirteenth century the iconographic type of the Christus triumphans was gradu- ally replaced on these painted crosses by the Christus patiens. This is a well-known fact, but as the author rightly argues, the change was but a symptom of a total transformation in the depiction of the Passion, with Christ's metamorphosis going hand in hand with a new program of Passion scenes or the re- vitalization of scenes that already had an established iconographic tradition. In both cases more emphasis was placed on Christ's suffering. Tracing these changes in the iconography of the Passion is Derbes's first objective.

Another aim is to reveal how and why those changes took place. This issue is explained in chapter i, which is divided into four sections. The first consists of a brief discussion of the current state of research into the relationship between Dugen- to painting and Byzantium. The second focuses on the Fran- ciscans as patrons of art. As Derbes shows, the Franciscans differed from the Dominicans in their great predilection for narrative scenes, particularly those illustrating the Passion, and indeed a substantial proportion of thirteenth-century Pas- sion scenes can be associated with the order. Moreover, this devotion to the Passion can be elucidated with the aid of Fran- ciscan writings, including the Office of the Passion by St Fran- cis himself and several devotional works by St Bonaventure

(minister general of the order from I257 to I274) and by anonymous authors. Those by the latter include not only the famil- iar Meditationes vitae Christi, which was formerly attributed to St Bonaventure himself, but also the earlier Dialogus Beatae Mariae et Anselmi de Passione Domini and the De meditatione Passionis Christi per septem diei horas libellus. It is only recently that a convincing case has been made for locating the latter two works, formerly attributed to Anselm of Canterbury and the Venerable Bede respectively, in Franciscan circles, and Der- bes's book is one of the first to benefit from this insight. She correctly points out, incidentally, that the Franciscans were neither first nor alone in having such a devotion to the Passion, but that they did have a special reason for it, for their founder was "the" alter Christus, as demonstrated so supremely by his stigmatization. Here the author rightly refers to Henk van Os's article that appeared in this journal in 1974.2 The panora- ma sketched by Derbes does indeed suggest that iconographic innovations in thirteenth-century Passion scenes were at the very least propagated by the Franciscans.

In the third section the author endeavors to unite the "Byz- antine question" and her ideas on Franciscan patronage. She gives a brief outline of the order's intense activities in the Le- vant and its possible involvement in the transmission of art. That the order was extremely active in the eastern Mediterra- nean is beyond dispute, and it is perfectly conceivable that it played a mediating role in artistic as well as other matters. I nevertheless feel that some shifts in emphasis in this and the first section on the "Byzantine question" would have provided a better context for the problem. It was not just the Francis- cans who were active in this region, but the Dominicans, Carme- lites, Knights Templar and Cistercians as well. The western, Latin presence in the Levant was certainly substantial. Con- stantinople itself was under Latin rule from I204 to I26I, there was a Latin kingdom in the Holy Land until the fall of Acre in I291, and Cyprus had been a kingdom under the French house of Lusignan since II96. This political background was an element in the "Byzantine question," and has to be taken into account. The Levant and Byzantium are quite simply not synonymous. Anyone desiring to study the influence of the Levant on Dugento painting therefore also has to consider the art in regions which, although they may have been formed by Byzantium, had also absorbed western ele- ments or, to put it a better way, did not consider themselves completely tied to the Byzantine canon of iconographic for- mulae. I am thinking here of crusader art in general, the illuminated manuscripts from the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia,

* Review translated from the Dutch by Michael Hoyle. i E. Sandberg-Vavala, La croce dipinta italiana e l'iconografia della Passione,

Verona I929.

2 H.W. van Os, "St Francis of Assisi as a second Christ in early Italian painting," Simiolus 7 (I974), pp. 1I5-32.



II7

and the murals in Serbia and Macedonia. Although the author appears to be aware of this problem, and discusses comparative materials from Cyprus (in chapter 2) and the Balkans (in chapters 2, 4 and 6), and even says in so many words that it is sometimes impossible to discover where a particular motif originated (pp. 26-27), she nevertheless tends in practice to fo- cus firmly on just three "Kunstlandschaften": Italy, Byzan- tium and "the north." In chapter 6, in particular, this leads her into difficulties, as will be explained below.

Derbes closes this chapter with a discussion of Cimabue's cross in the Museo dell'Opera di S. Croce in Florence. Her purpose is to demonstrate that the artists and their Franciscan patrons not only displayed an interest in Byzantine iconography but that it was governed in part by the extent to which that iconography could express the ideals of the order. This strikes me as being broadly correct, but the example chosen to illus- trate the thesis is not very fortunate. Derbes remarks, and correctly so, that the almost transparent loincloth worn by Cimabue's Christ has precedents in Byzantine painting. This detail was supposedly adopted to make Christ look virtually naked. That, in turn, apparently had a special significance in the light of the Franciscan ideal of poverty-Bonaventure makes a direct connection between Christ's nakedness and his poverty in several of his writings. The strict ideal of poverty was fiercely defended by the Spirituals, and that was the very faction within the order that put up heavy resistance to the building of the new church of S. Croce, for which Cimabue's cross was very probably intended. According to Derbes this paradox can be resolved if one assumes that Cimabue's cross was a compromise. "It celebrates nudissima paupertas even while it also declares the legitimacy of images, and, by exten- sion, the legitimacy of the building in which it hung" (p. 33). This, I feel, is a little forced. I am not certain that Cimabue really needed a Byzantine model for his well-nigh transparent loincloth, and I also suspect that it imitates a material that was anything but cheap. As a result of the floods of i966 the cross is now a well-conserved ruin, but I would not be surprised if the cloth originally looked as if it was embroidered with gold thread, as can still be seen here and there in Giotto's later painted cross for S. Maria Novella in Florence.

The selective use of Byzantine models is the leitmotif run- ning through the next five chapters, which contain detailed discussions of, respectively, the Betrayal of Christ, the Trial of Christ, the Mocking of Christ, the Way to Calvary, and the Stripping of Christ and his Ascent of the Cross. It may seem odd that the important scene of the Flagellation is omitted, but there is a good reason for this, since it played no role at all in Byzantine art. These chapters broadly follow the pattern of the discussion of Cimabue's cross. Derbes first sketches the earlier iconographic tradition in Italy before discussing the innovations that took place after the middle of the thirteenth century. She then examines the extent to which the icono-

graphic innovations derive from Byzantine models, and finally establishes connections and parallels with Franciscan spirituality. All the innovations tend to accentuate Christ's suffering. The painters were guided by Byzantine iconography, but only in so far as the interpretation of the subject tied in with Fran- ciscan spirituality. If it did not they had no compunction about making major changes to the Byzantine iconography, as emer- ges from chapters 4 and 5 on the Mocking of Christ and the Carrying of the Cross. The main changes that took place in the depiction of the former around the middle of the century were that Christ was shown blindfolded, and seated instead of standing. This was very probably influenced by models from north of the Alps, from France in particular. Other, more secondary motifs like the crowd of mockers, including figures blowing a shofar, appear to have been inspired by Levantine models. One finds a similar pattern with the Carrying of the Cross. In earlier scenes it was Simon of Cyrene who carried the Cross, but around mid-century the task was taken over by Christ himself. In all likelihood this modification, too, was inspired by models from north of the Alps, where it had been customary since the end of the eleventh century to show Christ carrying the Cross-probably in response to the cli- mate created by the crusades. Derbes argues, however, that the new type of scene should not be viewed solely in the light of devotion to the Passion. It also evokes Christ's own call to take up the Cross and follow him (Matthew I6:24), S0 it also appealed to the Franciscans' missionary zeal. Secondary details were probably once again derived from Byzantium, among them the rope around Christ's neck. That too, though, had an important role in Franciscan spirituality as a sign of penitence.

Two iconographic oddities are the Stripping of Christ and his Ascent of the Cross, which are examined in chapter 6. Both depict episodes immediately preceding the Crucifixion, and made their first appearance in Italian painting around I260. One of the earliest examples, very significantly, is a fragmen- tary fresco in the lower church of S. Francesco in Assisi. Christ is stripped to his loincloth while the Cross awaits in the background, a ladder leaning against it. One step further, liter- ally, is illustrated on Coppo di Marcovaldo's cross in S. Gi- mignano: Christ, stripped, is already setting foot on the ladder. A subsequent stage is shown in a small panel attributed to Guido da Siena in the Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht (fig. i), where Christ is climbing the ladder. The Stripping of Christ very probably evolved from Byzantine scenes of the preparations for the Crucifixion in which Christ stands immediately in front of the Cross with his hands bound but still wearing his tunic. I have no difficulty in assuming that the second scene, the Ascent, developed from the first, but Derbes perceives a different, separate Byzantine model. It is a pity that she glosses over the problematical aspects of this assumption in the main body of her text, merely touching upon them in a



iI8 BOOK REVIEWS I ^- ^ I Guido da Siena, The mounting of the . .. . ....... Cross. Utrecht, Museum Catharijne- 4:i2 i A X <~u*-;*A I t f <#t < > ffi i convent (on loan to the Rijksmuseum,

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note by referring to an earlier study that she made of this subject (p. 239, note 28).3 The point is that until recently it was generally assumed that the Ascent of the Cross originated in Italy, but that theory seems to have been demolished by the discovery of a miniature in an Armenian manuscript in Yere- van, the so-called Vehap 'ar gospels. The text of the manuscript was written in the eleventh century, but not everyone agrees whether the miniatures were executed simultaneously or only in the thirteenth century. Outside Italy one finds this iconography chiefly in Serbian and Macedonian murals from the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The earliest examples, however, are considerably younger than Guido da Siena's panel: the frescoes that Derbes cites in S. Kliment in Ohrid are dated 1295, and those in S. Nikola near Prilep in Macedonia I298-99. In other words, there are no known examples from Byzantium itself, merely from its outlying regions. Given this state of affairs, a derivation of the Ascent of the Cross from a Byzantine model does not seem compelling, and it is equally possible that the scene did originate in Italy after all or, as I think more likely, more or less simultaneously in Armenia, the Balkans and Italy. There does not always have to be a proto- model from which all others are descended. It is just as pos-

sible that people in different regions arrived at similar depic- tions of such crucial moments in the story of Redemption quite independently of one another. That artists in both Italy and the Balkans experimented with the Ascent of the Cross is clear from the iconographic variants that Derbes discusses in her I995 essay. The Italian examples differ from the Balkan in the prominent presence of the Virgin. The scene evolved further in the Balkans, for the fresco of ca. 1314 in the Serbian church of S. Nikita near Cucer follows another formula from that in S. Kliment, yet both fresco cycles are signed by the same artists.

Be that as it may, both the Stripping of Christ and the As- cent of the Cross in Italian painting can also be associated with Franciscan spirituality. The former was interpreted by Fran- ciscan authors as a sign of poverty, which played such an important role in the ideology of the order. Christ's Ascent of the Cross, and thus his unequivocal readiness to accept death on the Cross, is described as such in devotional writings of the Franciscans. It is nevertheless a pity that the author fails to take into account an earlier study of this subject in which Mikl6s Boskovits established a connection with contemporary Passion plays.4 The one would not appear to exclude the other.

In the closing chapter Derbes gives a measured account of

3 A. Derbes, "Images east and west: the Ascent of the Cross," in R. Ouste- rhout and L. Brubaker (eds.), The sacred image: east and west, Urbana & Chicago 1995, pp. 110-31.

4 M. Boskovits, "Un'opera probabile di Giovanni Bartolommeo Cristiani

e l'iconografia della 'Preparazione alla Crocifissione'," Acta Historiae Artium I I (1 965), pp. 69-94, reprinted in a revised form in idem, Immagini da meditare: ricerche sculpture dipinti di tema religioso nei secoli XII-XV, Milan I994, pp. I89- 23I.



BOOK REVIEWS "9

the relationships between the innovations in the Passion iconography and the Franciscans. This develops into a discussion of all twelve Passion scenes on a dossal in the Timken Art Mu- seum in San Diego by two anonymous Florentine painters of the second half of the thirteenth century: the Magdalen Mas- ter and the Master of San Gaggio. Here Derbes rightly makes the important observation that it is not always possible to de- termine the precise provenance of these panels. It seems very likely that the dossal was commissioned by the Franciscans (St Francis himself kneels at the foot of the Cross in the Crucifix- ion scene), but the problem is that the panel is supposed to have come from S. Maria dei Candeli in Florence, which is commonly believed to have been a convent of Augustinian nuns. However, in support of her otherwise convincing sug- gestions for a Franciscan provenance, Derbes could have men- tioned here a papal bull of I372 referring to the "monasterium s. Mariae de Candiculis tertii ordinis S. Francisci" at Flor- ence.5 On top of this, as Derbes is at pains to point out, the new Passion iconography may have sprung from the bosom of the Franciscan order, but the friars did not have sole and ex- clusive rights. Other orders and groups adopted it after a while.

The discussion of all the Passion scenes on the dossal in San Diego reminds the reader that elsewhere in the book individu- al works are in general not discussed in their entirety. The author deals with Passion scenes without dividing them up into medium or type of object. That can be justified in the light of Derbes's objectives. In the case of the croci dipinte, however, this creates a strange problem. A substantial part of the material examined is indeed concerned with the narrative scenes flanking the figure of Christ. Almost no heed is paid to the fact that such crosses with narrative scenes fell into disuse in the course of the thirteenth century, being replaced by ones with just the crucified Christ, like Cimabue's in S. Croce. This de- velopment was also encouraged by the Franciscans, as is amply demonstrated by the kneeling figure of St Francis contempla- ting Christ's nailed feet on many of these crosses. Once again, the emphasis is on compassio, and this is reinforced by the ab- sence of narrative scenes. All the same, it is a little paradoxical that the order that supposedly encouraged modifications to the Passion scenes was also responsible for their removal from the croci dipinte. One would have expected some comment about this, particularly since studies have recently been published on this very subject.6

Finally, a few remarks about some aspects of the "Byzan- tine question." From the outset Derbes is critical of Hans Bel- ting's thesis as formulated in his well-known Das Bild und sein Publikum (Berlin I99I) that Byzantine art had the status of a "privileged form (that is, of the model)" in the Latin west. She justly takes Belting to task for in fact demanding general valid- ity for a thesis that he formulated on the basis of non-narrative devotional scenes (icons, in other words). Derbes lucidly ex- plains that this theory must be radically revised in the case of Passion scenes. It would also be interesting to re-examine it as it applies to 'icons.'

The status of Byzantine art in the west is inextricably bound up with the problem of how artists came by their models. Derbes constantly stresses that this is indeed a difficult matter. Although she suggests in the first chapter that the Franciscans played an important part here, she tones this down in the conclusion to the observation that her iconographical analysis proves that the painters certainly did have access to Byzantine objects, "or very good copies" (p. I59). However, if it is not clear how the process of influence took place, then it is also difficult to imagine that the painters or their Franciscan patrons made selective use of those models. But perhaps the nature of the comparative Byzantine (or generally Levantine) material Derbes cites itself gives a clear pointer. It consists almost exclusively of frescoes and illuminated manuscripts, with very few panel paintings. That is probably not so surprising. Monumental croci dipinte were not a Byzantine phenomenon, and apart from the Crucifixion, Passion scenes are relatively rare on icons. Ergo, the dissemi- nation was probably mediated by illuminated manuscripts, or by model books and collections of artistic motifs compiled by artists. It is an old hypothesis, and one that remains difficult to prove, because one has to assume a common practice on the basis of very little extant material, such as the well-known sheet of parchment in the Augustinermuseum in Freiburg, and the so-called model book in the Herzog-August-Bibliot- hek in Wolfenbuttel .7 All the same, this hypothesis is also worth considering in the case of non-narrative devotional scenes.

Notwithstanding these points of criticism, Anne Derbes has made a very solid contribution to resolving the thorny question of the relationship between Italian Dugento painting and that of the eastern Mediterranean. The nucleus of her stu-

5 G. Richa, Notizie istoriche delle chiesefiorentine, io vols., Florence 1754-62, vol. 2, pp. 290-91. The monastery was in existence by I258 as a convent of Ca- maldolite nuns, but must later have adopted the Augustinian rule. The bull of Gregory xi, dated Avignon, 28 April I372, is in Bullariumfranciscanum, 7 vOls., Rome I759-1904, vol. 6 (1902, ed. C. Eubel), p. 475, nr. I I90.

6 In addition to K. Kruger, Derfruhe Bildkult des Franziskus in Italien, Berlin

1992, which Derbes refers to on several occasions, she could also have consulted a work like E. Lunghi, II Crocefisso di Giunta Pisano e licona del 'Maestro di San Francesco'alla Porziuncola, S. Maria degli Angeli 1995.

7 See R.W. Scheller, Exemplum: model-book drawings and the practice of artistic transmission in the middle ages (ca. goo-ca. I470), Amsterdam 1995, cat. nrs. 8 and I3.



I20 BOOK REVIEWS

dy, the innovations in the iconography of the Passion and their connection with Franciscan spirituality, is clearly presented, well-informed, and backed by extensive quotations from Franciscan writings. The questions and aims defined in this book make it not only required reading for all art historians concerned with early Italian painting, but also extremely use-

ful for anyone interested in late medieval spirituality in general and devotion to the Passion in particular.

VICTOR M. SCHMIDT

ISTITUTO UNIVERSITARIO OLANDESE DI STORIA DELL'ARTE

FLORENCE

Jan de Jong, Mark Meadow, Herman Roodenburg and Frits Scholten (eds.), Pieter Bruegel, Zwolle (Waanders Uitgevers) I997 (Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 47 [I996])

The Fall of Icarus crops up repeatedly in this volume, not only in reference to Bruegel's painting of the subject, known in two versions, but also to the various ways in which the myth itself was employed by Bruegel's contemporaries to symbolize ideas as diverse as overweening social ambition, financial insolven- cy, and artists who reach beyond their talent and training. These are only a few of the themes treated by these nine studies, a rich harvest of scholarship that includes one essay in German, two in Dutch, the remainder in English, each one ac- companied by a brief English summary. Beginning with a short introduction by Mark Meadow, the volume concludes with Jurgen Muller's valuable bibliography on Bruegel of some 25 pages. The essays range from Bruegel's relations to his cultural and social milieu and his treatment of religious subjects to the responses of later artists and critics to his work. These essays also manifest a wide range of approaches, although with one exception, they generally eschew the kind of iconographical analysis favored by earlier Bruegel scholars.

The one exception is "Pieter Bruegels Nestrover en de mens die de dood tegemoet treedt" (Pieter Bruegel's Nest-robber and the man who goes to meet death) by Pierre Vinken and Lucy Schluter, a revision of Vinken's article on the Vienna Peasant and the nest-robber published in Het Boek in 1958. After a few preliminary observations on stylistic sources, the authors fo- cus on the content. The picture is traditionally seen as an illustration of the proverb, "He who knows where the nest is, knows it; he who has the nest, has it," alluding to the futility of knowledge unaccompanied by action. Vinken and Schluter decisively reject this interpretation because it fails to explain a number of details: the hulking peasant whose next step seems likely to cast him into the ditch in the foreground, the prominent plants near the ditch, the sack and crooked willow in the

left middle distance, and the horses in the background. The peasant, they argue, personifies Everyman, about to tumble into the abyss of death. This thesis is developed through a minute analysis of the picture with references to contemporary literature, which can only be summarized here. Theft and more specifically nest-robbing were common metaphors for Death, and the bird itself served as a metaphor for the soul. (In this connection, the authors erroneously identify a winged, black-hooded devil in Bosch's Death of the miser as the miser's soul departing his house; as far as I know, souls in medieval art were never depicted with wings of any form.) The plants by the ditch, Vinken and Schluter observe, are not the species typical of watery environments, but are woodland plants, many of them traditional symbols of death. The iris, for example, was symbol of transience; it blooms but one day, hence its name of doodsbloem or eendagslelie (death flower or one-day lily). The blackberry bush growing back toward the earth sym- bolizes vanity and death, referring to Genesis 3:19, "dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return;"' it has this meaning in an illustration in Georgette de Montenay's emblem collection of 1567. Emblems by Jacob Cats and Jan Luyken are used to identify the pollarded willow (knotwilg) as another symbol of vanitas and death. The sack on the ground and the farm scene symbolize the earthly goods of this affluent peasant, whose power and influence, we are told, are manifested by the horn and knife that he carries. Even his discarded hat plays its alle- gorical part, representing a play on the words hoed (hat) and behoeden (to protect or guard against). Thus unable to protect himself against his own bad actions or their consequences, the peasant stands on the brink of death, signified by the water in the ditch (with a reference to Psalms 69:2-3). In a final twist in this argument, we learn that since the stock that he holds can signify Faith, Hope, and Love (with a reference to a play in the Ghent landjuweel of 1539), the peasant, following the prece- dent of Elckerlijck and Everyman, strides forth to meet his death peacefully, even joyfully, directing an admonitory finger at the viewer, presumably to remind him of his own end.

I In this context, the authors also refer to Psalms 90:3-4, but I cannot find the reference.



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