Duccio s Metropolitan Madonna Between By

2010-2011
IV serie - anno I, 2010-2011
Spedizione postale gruppo IV 70%
SilvanaEditoriale
Lynley Anne Herbert
DUCCIO’S METROPOLITAN MADONNA:
BETWEEN BYZANTIUM AND THE RENAISSANCE
Estratto dalla rivista Arte Medievale
IV serie - anno I, 2010-2011 - pagine 97-120
DUCCIO’S METROPOLITAN MADONNA:
BETWEEN BYZANTIUM AND THE RENAISSANCE
Lynley Anne Herbert
A
tiny but complex work by the Sienese
painter Duccio di Buoninsegna, previously known to scholarship as the
Stroganoff or Stoclet Madonna,1 was purchased
in November of 2004 for $ 45 million dollars by
the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
[1]. Commonly dated to c. 1300,2 this 8 1/4 by 11
inch painting (21 cm by 27,9 cm), which I will
henceforth refer to as the Metropolitan
Madonna, was hailed by the Metropolitan
Museum as a work by one of the «founders of
Western European painting».3 Such a view presents Duccio with the benefit of hindsight.
Through the filter of the Renaissance, Duccio’s
work is seen as art, and he as artist. The
Metropolitan Museum’s press release claimed
that with this painting, «Duccio has redefined
the way in which we relate to the picture: not as
an ideogram or abstract idea, but as an analogue
to human experience».4 This formulation seems
to frame a contrast with other images that are
‘abstract ideas’, and alludes to the common conception of the pictures called ‘icons’ in modern
scholarship, pictures associated with the
medieval and Byzantine tradition. Yet this is the
very tradition upon which Duccio’s paintings
build. Divorcing him from that, and setting up a
strong dichotomy between Eastern, medieval
«icons» and Western, Renaissance ‘art’ creates a
false and violent break with tradition that
Duccio himself would not have experienced.5 In
this paper I will argue for new ways of understanding Duccio’s Metropolitan Madonna – not
looking back from the Renaissance, but instead
looking forward from a medieval and specifically Byzantine tradition, and ultimately at its context in Siena at the dawn of the 14th century.
It is perhaps more appropriate to begin
exploring this topic with a brief discussion of
the painting in question.6 It depicts the Virgin
Mary holding the Christ Child on her left arm,
with an unusual row of architectural corbels
running along the bottom of the image. As I
will offer my own interpretation of this work
below, I would like to first present some com-
monly accepted views. Several scholars have
understood the Virgin as standing behind a
parapet,7 the meaning of which was most trenchantly explained by the wall text from the
Metropolitan Museum’s 2005 exhibition of its
newly acquired painting, which described it as
«a device that simultaneously connects and separates the timeless, hieratic realm of the painting and the real space and time of the viewer».8
In his recent article about the acquisition, Keith
Christiansen, the Metropolitan Museum’s Curator of European Paintings, suggested that the
angle of the corbels relates to the intended
viewing of the painting as one kneels in prayer.9
Scholars have tended to interpret the Child as
playful, which they believed was a new invention
by Duccio intended to show Christ in a more
human, realistic way by creating a tender interaction between a mother and child as might be seen
in life.10 In his article, Christiansen applied Hans
Belting’s poetic assessment of this same gesture in
Duccio’s Madonna di Crevole to the Metropolitan
Madonna. Belting explained that Duccio:
«…surprises us with the playful behavior of the Child,
who grasps his Mother’s veil as if he wanted to distract
her from her melancholy. Like the realism of the Child’s
costume, the tender touch suggests a private idyll of the
nursery…».11
Christiansen himself, in his recent book published by the Metropolitan Museum, suggests
that the Child is «reaching up to push aside his
mother’s veil so he can see her» which he
believes was intended to strike «a chord so
familiar as to make this image register as real».12
Another interpretation, by John White, considered this motif a «gesture of affection and communication» with which the Child comforts His
mother in anticipation of her future sadness.13
Overall, this painting has been viewed as a creative, new, emotionally accessible interpretation
of an outdated theme, and more importantly, a
true work of art rather than a cult object whose
functional aspect predominated over its emotional or aesthetic qualities.14
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LYNLEY ANNE HERBERT
1. New York,
Metropolitan
Museum of Art.
Duccio di
Buoninsegna,
Metropolitan
Madonna, c. 1300.
The Metropolitan Museum’s enthusiasm for
this painting is understandable. Although the
cost was enormous, the Museum’s then
Director Philippe de Montebello defended this
extravagant expenditure by explaining that it
fills a gap, and «the addition of the Duccio will
enable visitors for the first time to follow the
entire trajectory of European painting from its
beginnings to the present».15 While some
98
reviewers cynically pondered better uses for the
money,16 most faithfully characterized this as a
landmark Renaissance painting by one of the
first true great Western artists.17 The exhibition
created around the Duccio at the museum
emphasized this idea, and its place as one of the
first expressions of Renaissance art seemed supported by the plethora of ‘Duccesque’
Madonnas grouped with it in the room, as well
DUCCIO’S METROPOLITAN MADONNA: BETWEEN BYZANTIUM AND THE RENAISSANCE
2. New York,
Metropolitan
Museum of Art.
Icon with the Virgin
Eleousa, early 14th
century. Gift of
John C. Weber, in
honor of Philippe
de Montebello,
2008.
as the later works that followed in the adjoining
gallery. Yet, permanently hung in an art gallery
for the first time in its 700 years of existence,
and treated as ‘art’, this small, intimate devotional painting almost appeared out of place,
and had difficulty competing with the ornate
altarpieces it is believed to have inspired.
If Duccio inspired all of this, what inspired
Duccio? He was not creating art in a vacuum.
The Byzantine tradition was clearly influential to
this painter’s work, yet there was no Eastern art,
or even significantly earlier Western art displayed with the Duccio. The exclusion of such
material denied the viewer the chance to make
comparisons that would support the wall text’s
assertion that «…the picture marks the transition from medieval to Renaissance image making».18 While this statement was rather vague,
99
LYNLEY ANNE HERBERT
the press release was more precise, stating that
«Duccio’s infusion of life into time-worn,
Byzantine schemes» was probably influenced by
popular devotional and love poetry, as well as
Giotto’s frescoes, and that «it was an art that
embraced the complex and varied world of
human experience, rather than one based on
codified types, as had been the case with
medieval and Byzantine painting. Duccio
responded by exploring in his own art this new
world of sentiment and emotional response…».19
This emphasis on the newness of emotional
and human qualities in these images, and the
assertion that this was an ‘Italian’ invention of
this period, is questionable. Far from being a
Western novelty, this was more likely an aspect
that was coming from the East, particularly during the Palaeologan era. This period saw the
flowering of a poignant iconography characterized by scholars as the Mother of God
Eleousa,20 or literally ‘Mother of Tenderness’ or
‘Merciful’, which was well established by the
year 1300, as can be seen in a micromosaic at
the Metropolitan Museum [2].21 The Metropolitan Madonna draws heavily on this type, as
well as on the more formal iconography that
scholars refer to as the Hodegetria,22 or ‘She
who shows the way’, which was based on the
famous icon in Constantinople that depicted
Mary holding the Child on her left arm and presenting him to the worshipper. Duccio’s debt to
Byzantine art has in fact long been recognized.
James Stubblebine discussed the issue at some
length in his 1966 article «Byzantine Influence
in Thirteenth-century Italian Panel Painting».23
Stubblebine argued for a close, careful relationship between Duccio’s paintings and the contemporary artistic currents of the East, and in
particular those coming from Constantinople.
John White, in his 1979 monograph on Duccio,
asserted that «at every stage of his career, the
connections with Byzantine art are as visible as
they are vital».24 Anne Derbes has further
argued that there was an open and enthusiastic
artistic reciprocity between the Sienese and the
Levant during Duccio’s formative years.25 The
current tendency to stress Duccio’s efforts to
break with Eastern tradition within his
Metropolitan Madonna is at odds with this earlier scholarship, to which it does not respond.
However, even those who support a Byzantine
connection tend to do so on an aesthetic, rather
than functional, level. I would argue that we
should not assume one aspect was adopted
100
without the other. Duccio’s work, and especially the Metropolitan Madonna, is strongly evocative of Eastern art, and of Byzantine icons. For
Hans Belting an icon, or ‘Holy Image’, referred
pre-eminently to the venerated «images of persons that were used in processions and pilgrimages and for whom incense was burned and
candles were lighted».26 This included private
icons, which were characterized by their small
scale and emotional expressiveness.27 Duccio’s
Metropolitan Madonna explicitly recalls this
tradition. It is icon-like in its golden field, its
emotive quality, and its small, portable size. It
represents the ‘Holy Images’ of two people,
both the Virgin and Christ, whose half-length
portrait type was, according to Belting, reintroduced to the West from the East, and reflects
the legend of the miracle-working authentic
portrait that St. Luke painted of the Madonna
and Child.28 I will argue below that the
Metropolitan Madonna was in fact designed to
retain something of that magical quality, and
would likely have been considered apotropaic
by its patron. We even know that the Metropolitan Madonna was actually used and venerated in the way that Belting associates with
Byzantine icons, evidence for which is physically present in the burn marks left by centuries of
candles having been lit along the bottom of the
frame.29 No aspect of this painting would prevent it from being used or characterized as an
icon. Perhaps rather than focusing on how
Duccio disrupted this tradition, we should be
asking how, and why, he embraced it.
The main hesitation to view Duccio’s painting in this way appears to have been due to the
place of its creation, and the nationality of its
creator. That Duccio was Italian seems to have
exempted him from the possibility that he
might have desired to retain an iconic function
in his work, and to exempt his patrons from
desiring it. Of course, it must be remembered
that much of what gives an image power lies in
how it is viewed and used, and ultimately we
cannot know the beliefs of its original owner of
the panel who is, in any event, unidentified.
However, one’s location or nationality need not
be taken as defining beliefs. There was in fact a
strong interest in, and belief in the power and
importance of, Byzantine icons and imagery in
the West in the 13th and 14th century. After the
Latin invasion of Constantinople in 1204,
Byzantine icons of all types flowed into Italy,
and into Venice in particular. The church of S.
DUCCIO’S METROPOLITAN MADONNA: BETWEEN BYZANTIUM AND THE RENAISSANCE
Marco became, according to Belting, «a pilgrimage church of the Byzantine kind».30 Many
of these images were seen as extremely powerful, even miraculous, and both original Eastern
images and replicas of them were quickly disseminated throughout Italy.31 In Rome, a late
13th century Byzantine mosaic was given pride
of place in a renowned reliquary at the Basilica
di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.32 At least one
Byzantine icon was in Siena by the time Duccio
was painting, for a 13th century icon of the
Madonna and Child, inscribed «Mother of
God» in Greek, belonged to the Chiesa del
Carmine.33 Paintings and manuscripts known
in scholarship as «crusader art», works produced in Eastern provinces for the Crusaders
that often blended Eastern and Western
iconography, were also circulating throughout
the West.34
Hayden Maginnis has argued for an increasingly miraculous view of images in the West
after 1200, which he attributed to the Western
presence in Crete, Cyprus, and Constantinople.
He suggested this exposure both led to the
«absorption of Eastern thought» and «influenced expectations of how images might
behave».35 There were numerous accounts of
the miraculous activities of icons in Italy at that
time. For instance, the possibility of interacting
with an image’s prototype through the image
itself was not only believed in, but also actively
promoted through saints’ legends. St. Francis’
conversion due to the miraculous intervention
of Christ through a painted crucifix was a wellestablished tale by the time Duccio was working.36 This miracle was actually absent from
Thomas of Celano’s original account of Francis’
life, and in fact only appeared in the second Life
of 1240, written 35 years after the event would
have taken place.37 The addition of this story in
the later revision perhaps indicates an increased
interest in and acceptance of the power of
images in Italy by the mid 13th century. St.
Catherine was also converted due to her contemplation of a panel painting through which
she interacted with the prototypes, and in that
case it was the Madonna and Child.38 An icon of
Christ in Venice even bled when it was cut with
knives in 1290.39
Most of the image types circulating in Italy at
this time either drew upon or claimed to be
Eastern art. Eastern images were not treated
just as booty, or curiosities, but were instead
often given more authority than Western
images. Venice even adopted the 11th century
Constantinopolitan icon they called the
Nicopeia, taken during the siege on Constantinople and credited with the Latin victory, as
its palladium.40 Eastern images were intentionally used or referred to, and for a reason – it was
believed they had immense spiritual power.41
Harnessing that power would have been an
important goal for the painter and his patron.
The desires of the patron are an important
issue to consider here, for since Duccio
depended on commissions for his livelihood, he
would have had to adhere to their demands.
Therefore, to read into the Metropolitan
Madonna modern ideas about artistic creativity,
wherein the artist tries to break free of convention and do something radically new, is problematic and anachronistic. As Anthony Cutler
has succinctly put it, «until the 16th century
none of the cultures to which we have referred
‘conceived’ [his emphasis] of originality in our
sense, let alone thought it virtuous».42 This is
not to say that artists could not be innovative,
only that their form of creativity may not fit our
modern conceptions.
The supposedly unique elements of this
painting warrant a closer examination. The
Child’s gesture has been seen as a new invention with which Duccio was experimenting,
thought to convey the human interaction
between a playful child and his mother and
viewed as a realistic detail taken from life experience.43 I would argue, however, that Duccio
was doing something very different. As John
White pointed out, the Child appears to be
comforting the Virgin in her sadness.44 Duccio
was working with a Byzantine type, that of the
lamenting mother of the Threnos, known in
Italy as the Mater Dolorosa or ‘Mother of
Sorrows’, but used it in a new way. Compare,
for instance, Duccio’s Madonna with that from
one of Cimabue’s late 13th century crucifixes
[3].45 Note the inclination of her head, as well as
the bunched cloth that she holds to her eyes.
Although here the cloth is a separate element,
there are other instances, such as a c. 1300
Venetian triptych now in a private collection in
Dordrecht, where she uses her very veil to dab
her eyes.46 The similarity of her pose and gesture to that found in the Duccio painting is
uncanny, only Christ’s hand has replaced
Mary’s in holding the cloth to her eyes to catch
her tears, the future event recognized by Him
in His omniscience.
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LYNLEY ANNE HERBERT
3. Arezzo, San
Domenico. Cimabue,
Crucifix, detail,
the Virgin Mary.
The recognition of and intentional interplay
between the Mother and Child and the Mother
of Sorrows had a strong artistic and linguistic
tradition in the Byzantine world. Constantinople’s most famous icon, the Hodegetria, was
double-sided and depicted the Virgin and
Child on one side, and the Crucifixion on the
other.47 In literature, the connection was explicitly made in the Virgin’s lament in the Greek
recension of the Acta Pilati.48 Similar concepts
in texts and art had been transmitted to Italy by
the 13th century, as Anne Derbes and Rebecca
Corrie have demonstrated.49 A close parallel to
the iconography of the Constantinopolitan
Hodegetria can in fact be found in an Umbrian
diptych from 1260 [4].50 That Duccio understood this relationship is unquestionable, for he
102
visibly juxtaposed the two events in his early
14th century triptych of the Crucifixion [5]. The
position of Mary’s head and the expression on
her face are nearly identical in both of her roles
as new mother and Mother of Sorrows.
I propose that Duccio was trying to create an
image of deeper meaning by combining several
Byzantine image types, for in this image can be
found the formality of the Hodegetria, the tenderness of the Eleousa, and what I perceive to
be the foreshadowed compassion and sadness
of the lamenting mother of the Threnos. Its
poignancy is heightened by the Child’s loving
gesture, and certainly this interpretation, tracing Duccio’s inventive manipulation of various
sources, does not detract from, but rather adds
to, Duccio’s accomplishment. However, those
DUCCIO’S METROPOLITAN MADONNA: BETWEEN BYZANTIUM AND THE RENAISSANCE
4. London, The
National Gallery.
Virgin and Child
and the Man of
Sorrows, diptych,
c. 1260.
5. London, The
Royal Collection of
Her Majesty Queen
Elizabeth II.
Duccio di
Buoninsegna and
workshop,
Crucifixion with
Mary and John,
c. 1308-1311.
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LYNLEY ANNE HERBERT
who wish to view this as a Renaissance painting
may not agree, for this form of creativity may
have more in common with medieval artistic
practices, where painters worked from received
traditional types rather than directly from
‘nature’. Recent scholarship has begun to recognize similar inventive reuse and recombination of Byzantine image types in Duccio’s
Tuscan predecessors. Rebecca Corrie has
argued that Coppo di Marcovaldo, when painting the Madonna del Bordone for Siena in 1261,
«brought together a group of motifs derived
from Eastern images whose meanings and
power he and his clients understood».51 A similar argument has been made for Cimabue’s
painted crucifixes by Anne Derbes, who
claimed that «much that is new here stems not
from Cimabue’s success in liberating himself
from Byzantium, but rather from his appreciative study of images recently introduced from
Byzantium».52 While still creating something
new and of artistic value, these artists ultimately chose to integrate specific Eastern image
types into their work, and I suggest that Duccio
was consciously working within this tradition.
The final and most distinctly different element in this painting, the so-called ‘parapet’,
has been the subject of much discussion.53 In
1979 John White set the tone:
«…it now stands as the first, lonely forerunner of that
long line of Italian Madonnas with a parapet which
achieved its finest flowering almost two centuries later
in Giovanni Bellini’s splendid variations on the
theme».54
Hindsight is not always reliable. A comparison of Duccio’s Madonna and Bellini’s paintings reveal they have little in common, for
Bellini went to great lengths to situate his
Madonna and Child figures into an actual spatial setting with a background [6]. They interact with the architectural ledge, which is entirely different from Duccio’s both in its perspective and in its symbolism as an altar-tomb.55 Can
we really read meaning back into Duccio’s
painting based on something Bellini would do
two hundred years later? Would the average
Trecento Sienese citizen have interpreted
Duccio’s architecture in this way? Victor
Schmidt and Keith Christiansen have offered
examples of panels with what they view as similar architectural elements running along the
bottom,56 both pointing for instance to Simone
Martini’s Saint John the Evangelist. However,
104
Martini’s painting comes two decades after
Duccio’s, and the ledge along the bottom is
both visually completely different, lacking the
corbel motif, and contains an inscription, thereby taking on a different function. In fact, none
of the suggested comparisons date earlier than
this, leaving a generational gap between
Duccio’s work and anything similar, works that
even then do not use the corbels we see in
Duccio. I would argue that a seemingly similar
motif’s use at a later date is not proof of
Duccio’s intentions.
Are there other ways of understanding the
corbelled ledge in the Metropolitan Madonna?
It seems to invoke the da sotto in su effect so
often used in Italian painting to create the illusion of seeing something from below, yet this
painting is much too small to be set up high
enough for this effect to have worked correctly.57 The motif itself was consistently employed
by painters to convey architecture at a great
height, often as a cornice indicating the top of a
wall or the bottom edge of a roof. That this illusionistic device was understood and used in this
way can be demonstrated both before and after
Duccio painted his Metropolitan Madonna
around 1300.
In the 13th century this architectural element
was used in the frescos often attributed to
Giotto in the church of St. Francis in Assisi,
such as in the Dream of pope Innocent III [7].
Here the same painted corbels have been used
to indicate height in two ways – both in the
faux architecture high on the wall of the church
above which the fresco itself was placed, as well
as in the cornice of the church Saint Francis
holds within the painting. Many of the frescos
in Assisi use this architectural motif, and their
height allows it to be viewed more or less at the
correct perspective. Scholars often compare
Duccio’s motif to that used in Assisi since they
are confident he visited there, and if in fact he
did, he would have seen it in use.58 Another
example of this type of illusion can be found
slightly later in the work of an anonymous
artist, known as the Master of Badia a Isola [8].
Dated between 1310-1320, this large lunette of
a Madonna and Child, measuring 124 by 147
cm (or about 4 by 5 feet), has painted consoles
that not only run along the bottom, but along
the arch as well, and were presumably intended
to allow the panel to appear attached to the
architectural setting for which it was originally
made.59 The use of faux consoles was therefore
DUCCIO’S METROPOLITAN MADONNA: BETWEEN BYZANTIUM AND THE RENAISSANCE
6. New York,
Metropolitan
Museum of Art,
Robert Lehman
Collection, 1975.
Giovanni Bellini,
Madonna and
Child, c. 1470.
understood here as an architectural setting, not
as a balcony or parapet.
Duccio used this customary architectural
motif differently from the artists in the above
examples due to the small scale of his works in
which it appears. If we look at his most celebrated work, the Maestà, he provided clues as
to his own ideas about the application of this
motif. Although it was begun in 1308, which is
probably slightly later than the Metropolitan
Madonna, the Maestà is the only major example
of Duccio’s use of architecture, and it is also his
only signed work. This altarpiece in fact contains a number of small panels depicting the
type of architecture that is found in the ‘parapet’. Only one of these includes corbels in a balcony-like setting, and that is in the Temptation
on the Temple. However, in the panels depict105
LYNLEY ANNE HERBERT
7. Assisi, upper
church of St.
Francis. Attributed
to Giotto, the
Dream of pope
Innocent III,
c. 1297-1299.
ing the Teaching in the Temple [9], and Judas
Taking the Bribe, the painted consoles, which
here are almost identical in both angle and style
to those in the Metropolitan Madonna, have
been used to designate the top of a wall, or the
bottom edge of a roof - ‘not’ spaces where
someone stands. In these, then, Duccio was
106
using a miniature form of a monumental motif
to signify architecture at a great height. If we
view the ‘parapet’ of the Metropolitan Madonna in light of Duccio’s own later work, it is
not clear that this architecture refers to a balcony or parapet. What other purpose might this
device serve? Although one could argue that he
DUCCIO’S METROPOLITAN MADONNA: BETWEEN BYZANTIUM AND THE RENAISSANCE
8. Montepulciano,
Museo Civico.
Master of Badia a
Isola, Virgin and
Child between
Two Angels,
c. 1310-1320.
was experimenting, I must stress again that his
freedom of expression would only have gone so
far. The Metropolitan Madonna was commissioned by someone for his or her personal use,
and the patron would have been paying for
each element.60 Therefore, the cornice motif
must have fulfilled some desired effect requested by the patron, or at least must be thought of
in that context.
As I mentioned above, the obvious, and most
likely correct, comparison has been consistently drawn between Duccio’s painted consoles
and those found at Assisi. The comparison is
convincing, and yet making this identification
of his motif’s possible source really does not
offer any explanation for what it means to the
painting. Only one image known to me appears
to employ this architectural element in the same
way as Duccio’s, and it is a marian icon from the
13th century in S. Marco, Venice, known now as
the Madonna del latte [11]. Considered to be
from either a Veneto-Byzantine or Tuscan
school, it strongly recalls Byzantine art, especially in the Virgin’s gesture.61 Its similarities to
the Metropolitan Madonna are minimal, for the
Madonna del latte is surrounded by saints62 and
holds Christ on her right arm while nursing
him. It is also extremely large, measuring 67 by
50 inches (170,18 cm by 127 cm). However, the
‘parapet’ at the bottom is intriguingly similar,
and it uses remarkably similar corbels and is
even angled to offer the effect of looking at it
from below and to the left, just as Duccio’s
painting does.
Could Duccio have seen this painting, and
been inspired by it? It is possible, since it is
believed he spent seven years traveling,63 and if
he was interested in Eastern art forms, S. Marco
was a major pilgrimage church that would have
given him access to a wide variety of Byzantine
images. It is also quite likely that there may
have been other, now lost images circulating in
Italy that employed a similar device.64 As the
Venetian icon appears to be the only other surviving panel to include this same architectural
motif, however, I searched for explanations for
this work’s ‘parapet’. It is striking that while
this painting’s architecture is virtually the same
as the Duccio, I have found no suggestion that
it represents a balcony. The two exhibition cat107
LYNLEY ANNE HERBERT
9. Siena, Museo
dell’Opera del
Duomo. Duccio di
Buoninsegna, Maestà,
Teaching in the
temple, c. 1311.
108
alogs in which the Madonna del latte appeared
simply stated that the architectural element was
an unusual feature in this type of painting.65
Victor Schmidt suggested it may have been
mounted within the church, and that the corbels may possibly have been continued on the
wall as a sort of faux architecture.66 Belting’s
explanation, however, was that Eastern panel
paintings were meant to be hung, and illequipped to sit on the altar of the Western
church, therefore leading to improvised ways to
make the image transition between painting
and mounted altarpiece.67 While either of these
might offer a feasible explanation for the large
S. Marco image, they are not convincing when
applied to Duccio’s painting. As a newly made
private piece for the home, it had no need for
modifications to accommodate an altar, something it is doubtful the donor would have had.68
I was not, however, the only one to notice the
similarity of this strange feature in these two
paintings. Schmidt drew the comparison in his
recent book, but felt that the similarity was
superficial and that the architecture did not
serve the same function due to the difference in
size and function of the paintings.69 Mojmir
Frinta, however, in his 1987 article Searching for
an Adriatic Workshop with Byzantine Conne-
DUCCIO’S METROPOLITAN MADONNA: BETWEEN BYZANTIUM AND THE RENAISSANCE
10. Siena, Museo
dell’Opera del
Duomo. Madonna
degli occhi grossi,
mid 13th century.
ction, mentioned the two paintings in a footnote, and suggested the architectural element
might refer to the tradition of attaching palladia
above the gates in Constantinople70 and may be
a record of a famous image in that type of
installation.71 He went no further with his
thought, and did not explore how this worked
with these images. Could he have been right?
And if so, how might we interpret Duccio’s
painting from this vastly different point of
view? At first it seems unlikely that this tiny
Sienese painting would make such a reference.
109
LYNLEY ANNE HERBERT
11. Venice, S. Marco.
Madonna del latte,
13th century.
110
However, one unusual element of this painting,
never discussed in any depth,72 may lend support to this possibility. I refer to the faintly
etched decorative inner border, now very much
faded along with the rest of the gold. I would
argue, in fact, that it is highly important; I propose it acts as a frame within a frame. If so, it
may indicate that this painting is meant to be
read as an image ‘of’ an image, which would
further support the possibility that Duccio was
referring to another painting.
Although such decorative borders are not
unknown in panel paintings, Duccio’s incised
design is very distinct, and corresponds closely
to actual frame decoration of the time. It is
comprised of alternating lozenges and floriated
vines, each divided from the other by rectangular bars. The closest parallels for this type of
decoration all fall within the Crusader art tradition.73 Crusader icons and manuscript illuminations often combine lozenges and floral designs
on their frames.74 For example, there is a
Cypriot icon of the Mother of God Arakiotissa,
dating from the late 12th century, that has
lozenges divided by bars along the sides, with a
vine pattern, now barely visible, along the top
and bottom.75 A similar border pattern can be
found in a late 13th century manuscript illumination of the Crucifixion from Acre, the capital
of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem.76 Dating to
the third quarter of the 13th century, this miniature’s frame intersperses the lozenge and vine
motifs. A third Crusader image, an icon of Saint
George from Lydda or possibly Cyprus, dates
from the mid 13th century and employs raised
gesso vine patterns on both its frame and its
background [12]. These distinctive floriated
vines are nearly identical to those Duccio
inscribed into the inner ‘frame’ of the
Metropolitan Madonna, and similar types can
be found in many other Crusader images.
Athanasios Papageorgiou argued that since
the specific combination of geometric and
plant motifs appeared in both Crusader icons
and Syriac manuscripts, it was probably coming to the West from Constantinople.77
Whether or not this Constantinopolitan origin
is accepted, the combination of lozenges and
vines may have signified an intentional and
desired connection with the East. Thus, with a
subtle scrawled design and a simple illusionistic architectural effect, employed as a sign
rather than as realistic perspective, Duccio was
able to allude to the grandeur of the
Constantinopolitan icon of the Virgin protectively set up upon the gates, and more importantly, to imbue this tiny painting with an
immense amount of power for its owner.78
Why would an upper-class Italian living in
Siena want such a reference in their home’s
devotional image? It appears that the answer to
this question lies in Siena’s own history. The
often cited account by Niccolò di Ventura, who
wrote of Siena’s history in the 1440’s, claimed
that when the city was under siege by the
Florentines in September of 1260, one of its citizens, Buonaguida, gathered the people together and went to the cathedral.79 There the bishop joined him, and the two went and knelt, and
in fact Buonaguida prostrated himself, before
the Madonna degli occhi grossi on the cathedral’s altar [10]. They prayed, and Buonaguida
asked for the Virgin to protect Siena, vowing to
dedicate the city to her in return.80 The battleground was veiled with a mysterious white mist,
and the next day, the Sienese defeated the
Florentines in the battle of Montaperti.81
DUCCIO’S METROPOLITAN MADONNA: BETWEEN BYZANTIUM AND THE RENAISSANCE
The details of this story may very well be
later fabrications, as no contemporary accounts
survive.82 There was, however, a historic battle
at Montaperti against the Florentines, and the
Sienese victory was a source of pride for centuries to come.83 It has come down through history, via authors such as Niccolò di Ventura,
that from 1260 on the city of Siena was believed
to be under the Virgin’s protection.84 Rebecca
Corrie has convincingly argued that a painting
signed and dated 1261 by Coppo di Marcovaldo, known as the Madonna del Bordone, was
meant to commemorate the victory over the
Florentines as well as Siena’s amplified relationship with the Virgin [13].85 A drastic iconographic shift occurred here. The earlier
Madonna degli occhi grossi was of a type derived
from Romanesque Maestà sculpture - frontal,
enthroned, and in slight relief.86 It is interesting
to note that at least two large Madonnas of this
type were made in Florence around 1260,
where it was a popular form of marian imagery.
Perhaps the Ghibelline Sienese were reacting
against the images preferred by their enemy,
Guelph Florentines, for suddenly the Sienese
created an entirely different Madonna to celebrate their victory over Florence: a panel painting that corresponded to the Byzantine image
type referred to in art historical literature as the
Hodegetria.87
That the Sienese would choose the famous
Hodegetria of Constantinople as their model is
not so strange. In Images of the Mother of God,
Michele Bacci explained that by the 12th and 13th
centuries the fame of the Hodegetria was widespread outside of Constantinople, and many
cities not only copied the painting but also the
rituals and miraculous properties associated with
88
it. This led to what Bacci termed the «cult of
89
Constantinople’s palladium» in Italy. Rebecca
Corrie related this phenomenon to Siena:
«Byzantine art as the style of the major Mediterranean
capitals may have been of particular interest to cities on
the rise, such as Siena after Montaperti. A desire to rival
other Mediterranean capitals, and Constantinople in
particular, might have furthered Siena’s imitation and
importation of Byzantine and Byzantinizing art».90
She went on to suggest that «the use of some
Byzantine elements in their image of the Virgin
and Child might have been a means of associating Siena with Constantinople directly».91
When this idea is viewed in concert with other
aspects of Siena, a possibility emerges that they
were intentionally fashioning themselves after
Byzantium’s greatest city. William Bowsky
pointed out the striking similarity between the
name of Siena’s financial magistracy, the
Biccherna, and Constantinople’s public office
district called the Blachernae, which he suggested was intentional.92 The Sienese city seal
depicted the Virgin and Child, as did the imperial seal of Constantinople.93 Furthermore,
Annemarie Weyl Carr has pointed out that the
use of the Virgin’s veil as a topos for her protection, an idea with long roots in Constantinople,
was in use in Siena, for she has suggested that
the white veil worn by Sienese Virgins is a reference to the protective white mist that veiled
the battle of Montaperti.94
The most compelling evidence of emulation,
at least for our purposes, is the fact that the
Sienese placed painted images of the Virgin on
their city gates. Although imagery was also
12. London, British
Museum. Crusader
icon of Saint George
and the youth
of Mytilene, mid
13th century.
111
LYNLEY ANNE HERBERT
13. Siena, S. Maria
dei Servi. Coppo di
Marcovaldo, Madonna
del Bordone, 1261.
112
DUCCIO’S METROPOLITAN MADONNA: BETWEEN BYZANTIUM AND THE RENAISSANCE
employed over the gates of some other cities
such as Florence, Julian Gardner and Felicity
Ratté have pointed out that Siena was distinct
in using only painted imagery instead of sculpture, which was more common.95 Ratté especially contended that these must have had an
apotropaic quality, echoing the earlier words of
Judith Hook:
«Paintings of the Virgin on the city-gates, like those at
Camollia and Porta Romana, were placed there to provide a magical defense at the city’s weakest points, for,
if the Virgin was Queen of Siena, she had certain obligations towards her city, including that of defending it
from its enemies».96
Records survive in the Archivio di Stato di
Siena that provide evidence of the Virgin gracing four of the gates, and Gardner has stated
that every gate bore her image following the
victory of Montaperti.97 The earliest surviving
record is a commission from 1309, designating
two artists to paint the Virgin and saints on the
Porta Camollia, which was one of the main
entrances into the city. However, a carpenter
was also included in the commission, and his
task was to ‘repair’ the roof over the image.98 It
is logical, then, that there may have been an
image there previously since the roof already
existed, and its function was to protect the
painting from the elements. Records show that
the image on the Porta Camollia was maintained through repainting over the course of at
least the next fifty years, with repairs made in
1333, 1346, and 1362.99 The shortest period of
time between these is thirteen years. Therefore,
if the commission of 1309 was for a ‘repainting’,
it is likely that the original image would have
already been in place before 1300. This possibility is further supported by the fact that the
antiporta for the Porta Camollia was completed
by 1270, therefore allowing ample time for an
NOTES
I am deeply grateful to Dr. Lawrence Nees of the University
of Delaware for his endless support and guidance, and to Dr.
Anne Derbes for offering her advice and encouraging me to
pursue these ideas. I would also like to thank Dr. Gary Vikan
and the Walters Art Museum for providing financial support
for this publication.
This painting, having no known original title, is referred
to by the names of its two documented owners. The
1
image to be installed before Duccio painted his
Metropolitan Madonna.100
In their very specific use of the Virgin and
Child imagery, the Sienese were intentionally
invoking the most powerful icon of the Virgin
known at that time – one that had protected the
great city of Constantinople for centuries, and
one that still held power in 1261 when the Latin
occupation ended, and the Hodegetria was triumphantly processed through the streets of the
city.101 By the time Duccio was painting his
Metropolitan Madonna, the imagery of the
Hodegetria type was firmly in place in Siena as
the city’s protectress and ruler. I propose, therefore, that Duccio’s Metropolitan Madonna is the
product of this civic marian cult. Much as the
Sienese as a whole seem to have done, Duccio
may have combined his own city’s protective
Virgin with the greatest and most powerful palladium of all, the Hodegetria of Constantinople.
This was the ultimate miracle icon, both in its
origin as a painting by Saint Luke102 and in its
apotropaic quality, and Duccio found a way to
recreate it for personal use, deftly increasing his
version’s potency, and counterbalancing its
small scale, by depicting it in its traditional protective position above the gates.103
In conclusion, the interpretations I have put
forth squarely place this painting into the realm
of the icon, for they mean Duccio was consciously and intentionally referring to and
recreating both established Byzantine images
and monumental paintings in Siena in order to
retain their power and meaning. Although we
may never know for sure what Duccio intended, or how this image was actually used, I hope
to have at least demonstrated that the accepted
ideas about the Metropolitan Madonna are not
the only possible interpretations, and that perhaps it is us, not Duccio, who must break free
of convention.
Metropolitan Museum’s press release states it is most commonly known as the Stroganoff Madonna after its first
recorded owner, Count Grigorii Stroganoff. However, the
painting is also known by the name of Adolphe Stoclet, the
man who purchased it after Stroganoff’s death in 1910, and
whose family sold it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Although the museum has chosen to title the piece simply
Madonna and Child, I have decided for clarity to refer to
it here as the Metropolitan Madonna. For the press release,
see Metropolitan Museum of Art, Early Renaissance
Masterpiece by Duccio Acquired by Metropolitan Museum,
113
LYNLEY ANNE HERBERT
press release (November 10, 2004), p. 1. This can be found
on the museum’s website in the «Press Room» - Press
Release Archive, November 2004. Available: www.metmuseum.org/Press_Room/full_release.asp?prid.
2
J. WHITE, Duccio: Tuscan art and the medieval workshop,
New York 1979, p. 63, dates it to 1295-1300; Metropolitan
Museum of Art, Early Renaissance Masterpiece, p. 2, dates
it to c. 1300; K. CHRISTIANSEN, The Metropolitan’s Duccio,
«Apollo», CLXV (2007), pp. 40- 47: 47, suggests a broader range of 1295-1305.
3
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Early Renaissance Masterpiece, p. 2.
4
I will be quoting from two sets of wall text from the
Duccio exhibition – one which was the main text to introduce the exhibition, and one which labeled the
Metropolitan Madonna itself. Both are available online.
The quote I have included here is from the Metropolitan
Madonna wall text, which can be found on the museum’s
website: Duccio di Buoninsegna: Madonna and Child
(2004.442), in «Timeline of Art History», available:
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/07/eust/hod_2004.
442.htm. The main texts about Duccio and his time that
introduced the visitor to the exhibition are also available
online, at http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Duccio/
duccio_more.htm#4.
5
Indeed, Hans Belting did term Duccio’s paintings ‘icons’.
H. BELTING, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image
Before the Era of Art, trans. E. Jephcott, Chicago 1994,
p. 370.
6
It should be noted, however, that the Metropolitan
Madonna has been mostly inaccessible until its purchase
by the Metropolitan Museum in 2004, for it was still in private hands, and only a turn-of-the-century black-and-white
photograph of it was known. Consequently, it shows up in
very few discussions of Duccio’s paintings, and most other
discussions draw on these few. The fundamental publications, with earlier literature, are two influential monographs written in 1979, one by John White, referred to in
note 2 above, and another by J. H. STUBBLEBINE, Duccio di
Buoninsegna and his school, Princeton 1979. Only recently
has new information been published, primarily by the
Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Curator of European
Paintings, Keith Christiansen. See CHRISTIANSEN, The
Metropolitan’s Duccio, pp. 40-47, and ID., Duccio and the
Origins of Western Painting, New York 2009.
7
Duccio exhibition wall text (see note 4). The text states
that «The Madonna is shown as though standing behind a
parapet». Other authors who have spoken of it in similar
terms are WHITE, Duccio, p. 62. He states that «it now
stands as the first, lonely forerunner of that long line of
Italian Madonnas with a parapet»; STUBBLEBINE, Duccio di
Buoninsegna, p. 28, says the parapet imposes a specific
viewpoint on viewer, and also removes the Madonna and
Child from space of the viewer. He connects this motif to
those by Giotto in Assisi; Duccio: alle origini della pittura
senese (exhib. cat. S. Maria della Scala, Museo dell’Opera
del Duomo, Siena, Oct. 4, 2003-Jan. 11, 2004), a cura di A.
Bagnoli, Milano 2003, p. 136. This exhibition catalog
equates the parapet to a windowsill supported by a row of
consoles, and also relates it to Giotto and Assisi.
8
Duccio exhibition wall text. Victor Schmidt has recently
expanded the discussion of this element of the painting,
although he argues for the same interpretation. See V.
114
SCHMIDT, Painted Piety: Panel Paintings for Personal
Devotion in Tuscany, 1250-1400, Firenze 2005, pp. 141158. See also CHRISTIANSEN, Duccio, pp. 50-52 for the most
recent discussion of this, which expands upon the wall text
and offers similar arguments to Schmidt’s.
9
CHRISTIANSEN, The Metropolitan’s Duccio, p. 46.
10
STUBBLEBINE, Duccio di Buoninsegna, p. 28; B. HEAL,
‘Civitas Virginis’? The significance of civic dedication to the
Virgin for the development of Marian imagery in Siena before
1311, in Art, Politics and Civic Religion in Central Italy,
1261-1352: Essays by Postgraduate Students at the Courtauld
Institute of Art, ed. J. Cannon and B. Williamson, Aldershot
2000, pp. 295-305: 300; CHRISTIANSEN, Duccio, p. 55.
11
BELTING, Likeness and Presence, p. 370, as quoted in
CHRISTIANSEN, The Metropolitan’s Duccio, p. 44.
12
CHRISTIANSEN, Duccio, p. 55.
13
WHITE, Duccio, p. 24. White believes Duccio may have
invented this gesture. He discusses it more in terms of the
gesture found in the Crevole Madonna, which is essentially the same as that found in the Metropolitan Madonna,
and sees it as Christ acknowledging his future passion,
and his mother’s intuition of it because he reaches up to
comfort her. However, the main reason he gives for reading it this way is that the red color under her veil, which
he touches, alludes to the blood he will shed later. This
red color is not repeated in the Metropolitan Madonna,
however.
14
BELTING, Likeness and Presence, pp. XXI, 458-490. If we
consider Hans Belting’s influential view, thinking of
Duccio’s painting this way would be highly anachronistic,
for he has argued that art as we think of it did not begin to
be produced for another two hundred years.
15
Metropolitan Museum, Early Renaissance Masterpiece,
p. 1.
16
G. L O N E Y , $45 Million ‘Stroganoff Madonna’
on View, «Curator’s Choice», January (2005),
http://www.nymuseums.com/lm04124t.htm. Loney points
out, «This staggering sum for a small piece of wood has
been paid out of the Met’s Acquisitions Fund. They could
have bought a lot of Andy Warhol prints for that money.
Or even a small collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings by
Burne-Jones and others of his ilk».
17
This raises an interesting question: why is the
Metropolitan Museum of Art referring to c. 1300 as the start
of the Renaissance, as they do imply in the title of their press
release? This view is one perpetuated by Giorgio Vasari, as
in his The Lives of the Artists: Volume I, trans. G. Bull,
Baltimore 1987, pp. 45-81, and has long since been reevaluated, with the Renaissance usually having its inception in
the Quattrocento. This dating is typical in modern scholarship, such as in D. NORMAN, Painting in Late Medieval and
Renaissance Siena, 1260-1555, New Haven 2003, in which
Norman gives the starting date of 1420 to her chapter on
«Renaissance Painting in Siena». It has literally become the
textbook definition of Renaissance dating, as can be found
in F. HARTT, History of Italian Renaissance Art: Painting,
Sculpture, Architecture, New Jersey 1994, pp. 104-132,
where Hartt places Trecento Sienese art into his chapter on
the «Late Middle Ages». In fact, the Metropolitan
Museum’s own timeline on its website places Duccio in the
later Middle Ages, and as an example of «Private Devotion
in Medieval Christianity», not the Renaissance. Under
Department of European Paintings, see Italian Painting of
DUCCIO’S METROPOLITAN MADONNA: BETWEEN BYZANTIUM AND THE RENAISSANCE
the Later Middle Ages, in Timeline of Art History,
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/iptg/hd_iptg.htm.
It is strange that in their press release and initial discussions of the Duccio acquisition, the museum perpetuated
earlier narratives such as Vasari’s, in which artists such as
Duccio and Giotto are promoted as the Renaissance’s
founding fathers.
18
Duccio exhibition wall text.
19
Metropolitan Museum, Early Renaissance Masterpiece, p. 3.
20
Many images exist that were originally inscribed
‘Eleousa’ by their makers, and not all are in the same pose
but rather carry the same sentiment. Examples of these can
be found in the exhibition catalog Mother of God:
Representations of the Virgin in Byzantine Art (exhib. cat.
Benaki Museum, Athens, 2000), ed. M. Vassilaki, Milan
2000, nos. 67, 69, 73, 75, 76, 80.
21
The small icon referred to here was on display at the
Metropolitan Museum, one floor below the Duccio exhibition. This work, a delicate micro-mosaic dating to the early
14th century and considered to be Constantinopolitan,
offers a remarkably strong parallel to the Duccio
Madonna. In light of the numerous parallels of both composition and feeling between the two images, and the fact
that their creators were contemporaries, it is surprising
that the mosaic was not included in the Duccio exhibition,
although it might have challenged rather than supported
the assertion that Duccio was doing something revolutionary. At the very least, the absence of the mosaic prevented
viewers from making the comparison and coming to their
own conclusions.
22
This term ‘Hodegetria’ specifically refers to the icon of
the Virgin and Child housed in the Hodegoi church in
Constantinople, which was venerated for its miraculous
qualities, and which is believed to have depicted the Virgin
with Christ on her left arm. However, the term has also
come to be used in modern scholarship to describe images
similar to this miraculous painting, and it is important to
note that this was not a label used with any consistency in
the Medieval era. For a clear and concise explanation of
this issue, see R. MANIURA, Pilgrimage to Images in the
Fifteenth Century: The Origins of the Cult of Our Lady of
Czestochowa, Woodbridge 2004, pp. 23-24. Maniura
explains it best by suggesting, «These labels must be seen
as epithets attaching to the Virgin herself and not a formal
image type».
23
J.H. STUBBLEBINE, Byzantine Influence in ThirteenthCentury Italian Panel Painting, «Dumbarton Oaks
Papers», XX (1966), pp. 85-102: 99-100.
24
WHITE, Duccio, p. 57.
25
A. DERBES, Siena and the Levant in the Later Dugento,
«Gesta», XXVIII (1989), pp. 190-204.
26
BELTING, Likeness and Presence, p. 3.
27
Ibid., p. 262.
28
Ibid., p. 58.
29
Metropolitan Madonna wall text.
30
BELTING, Likeness and Presence, p. 203.
31
Ibid., p. 330.
32
C. BERTELLI, The Image of Pity in Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, in Essays in the history of art presented to Rudolf
Wittkower, ed. D. Fraser, H. Hibbard & M.J. Lewine,
London 1967, pp. 40-55. Most recently, see R. CORMACK,
M. VASSILIKI, Byzantium, 330-1453, London 2008.
33
BELTING, Likeness and Presence, p. 341.
For more on the very complicated issue of Crusader art
of this period, see J. FOLDA, Crusader Art in the Holy Land,
from the Third Crusade to the Fall of Acre, 1187–1291, New
York 2005. In ibid., p. 526, he points out that while we
know this art, and especially icon paintings, played an
important role in transmitting Eastern ideas and had a
strong impact on Western art of this time, the exact
process of transmission has yet to be sorted out fully. See
also R. CORRIE, Coppo di Marcovaldo’s Madonna del bordone and the Meaning of the Bare-Legged Christ Child in
Siena and the East, «Gesta», XXXV (1996), pp. 43-65.
35
H.B.J. MAGINNIS, The World of the Early Sienese
Painter, trans. of the Sienese Breve dell’Arte dei pittori by
G. Erasmi, University Park, Pennsylvania 2001, p. 169.
For a fascinating new discussion of the interaction
between people, images, and their prototypes, with possible roots in the Mediterranean but enacted in Siena during Duccio’s time, see J. CANNON, Kissing the Virgin’s
Foot: Adoratio before the Madonna and Child Enacted,
Depicted, Imagined, «Studies in Iconography», XXXI
(2010), pp. 1-50.
36
THOMAS OF CELANO, First and Second Life of St. Francis,
trans. P. Hermann, Chicago 1962.
37
MAGINNIS, The World of the Early Sienese Painter, p. 167.
38
For an excellent discussion of Catherine’s story and its
relationship to art, see V.M. SCHMIDT, Painting and
Individual Devotion in Late Medieval Italy: The Case of St.
Catherine of Alexandria, in Visions of Holiness: art and
devotion in Renaissance Italy, ed. A. Ladis and S. E. Zuraw,
Athens, Georgia 2001, pp. 21-36: 21-22.
39
BELTING, Likeness and Presence, p. 197.
40
Ibid., p. 203.
41
Ibid., pp. 305, 348-352.
42
A. CUTLER, Originality as a Cultural Phenomenon, in
Originality in Byzantine Literature, Art, and Music: a collection of essays, ed. A.R. Littlewood, Oxford 1995, pp. 203216; repr. in Byzantium, Italy and the North: Papers on
Cultural Relations, London 2000, p. 36. Citations are to the
London edition.
43
A.W. CARR, Threads of Authority: the Virgin Mary’s Veil
in the Middle Ages, in Robes and Honor: the Medieval
World of Investiture, ed. S. Gordon, Basingstoke,
Hampshire 2001, pp. 77-78. Annemarie Weyl Carr has
suggested another possible way of understanding this
iconography. She views it in light of the Virgin’s veil as a
metaphor for protection at the time. Carr suggests that the
Metropolitan Madonna was a first step toward the ideas
achieved in his London triptych of 1315, in which the
Child grabs the veil and pulls it across his bare chest. In the
latter image, she suggests the veil is meant to «cloak her
child’s divinity and shroud his mortality», and that the thin
fabric is «powerless to protect». This is certainly a convincing interpretation of the London triptych. However, as the
Child in the Metropolitan Madonna does not pull the fabric toward himself, nor is he mostly nude and vulnerable as
he is in the London work, I would suggest perhaps there is
another possible interpretation for the gesture here.
Perhaps, beyond the interpretation I suggest above, the
gesture of the Child grabbing the veil may be a way to
emphasize her protective abilities, which would further
heighten the apotropaic quality of the painting.
44
See note 12.
45
See Anne Derbes’ discussion of this iconography in her
34
115
LYNLEY ANNE HERBERT
book Picturing the Passion in Late Medieval Italy: Narrative
Painting, Franciscan Ideologies, and the Levant, Cambridge
1996.
46
Triptych with Man of Sorrows, Mother of Sorrows, and
John (image when closed depicts two Dominican friars), c.
1300. This work offers a perfect comparison, as Mary’s
pose, gesture, glance, and use of her own veil to dab her
eyes are nearly identical. It is in a private collection in the
Netherlands, and I was unable to secure the rights to
reproduce the image here. It has recently been published
in A. DERBES, A. NEFF, Italy, the Mendicant Orders, and the
Byzantine Sphere in Byzantium: Faith and Power
(1261–1557), ed. H. C. Evans, New York 2004, pp. 448461: 457, fig. 14.14. For a full discussion of the triptych,
see H.W. VAN OS, The Discovery of an Early Man of
Sorrows on a Dominican Triptych, «Journal of the Warburg
and Courtauld Institutes», XLI (1978), pp. 65-75.
47
M. BACCI, The Legacy of the Hodegetria: holy icons and
legends between East and West, in Images of the Mother of
God: Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium, ed. M.
Vassilaki, Aldershot 2005, pp. 321-336: 325.
48
M. ALEXIOU, Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition,
Cambridge 1974, pp. 68-69. The Virgin cries, «give way to
me, men, that I may reach him who was fed on the milk of
my breasts…». For further discussion of this and other
Byzantine works that connect the Virgin’s early motherhood with the Passion, see also A. DERBES, Byzantine Art
and the Dugento: Iconographic Sources of the Passion Scenes
in Italian Painted Crosses, Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia
1980, pp. 209-210, 252, nn. 22-24; H. MAGUIRE, Art and
Eloquence in Byzantium, Princeton 1981, pp. 91-108.
49
DERBES, Byzantine Art and the Dugento, p. 252, nn. 2224; CORRIE, Coppo di Marcovaldo’s Madonna del Bordone,
pp. 43-65.
50
This diptych offers important parallels to the
Metropolitan Madonna in several ways. It couples the two
components Duccio blends together, and its small scale
indicates that it was also intended for private devotional
use (each panel measuring 32.4 by 22.8 cm, or about 13 by
9 inches). On both the Duccio and the Umbrian paintings,
a decorative inner frame can be found within an engaged
frame. Intriguingly, in both of these the inner frames only
run along the top and the sides of the image, which,
although not completely unique, appears to be an unusual
design element in paintings from this period.
51
CORRIE, Coppo di Marcovaldo’s Madonna del Bordone, p. 58.
52
DERBES, Picturing the Passion, p. 28.
53
The unusual feature of the ‘parapet’ has in fact recently
led to the suggestion that this painting could not be genuine. In July 2006, the attribution to Duccio and c. 1300
date of the painting was challenged by James Beck. Beck
asserted that the Duccio painting must be a later forgery
since the idea of a parapet creating a plane in front of the
figures would have been anachronistic in Duccio’s time,
and is «a characteristic of Renaissance, not Medieval pictures».See the article: D. ALBERGE, $50m ‘Masterpiece’ is
Poor Forgery, Says Arts Professor, «The Times Online»,
July (2006), available: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-2257809,00.html. The possibility that this
painting is a later forgery has been dismissed by the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as leading Duccio
scholars such as Luciano Bellosi, who assert that the piece
has been analyzed both stylistically and scientifically,
116
including pigment tests and X-rays, all of which revealed
the painting to be «entirely consistent with others from the
period». See this rebuttal in R. POGREBIN, Authenticity of a
Duccio Masterpiece at the Met is Challenged, «New York
Times», July 8 (2006), available: http://www.nytimes.com/
2006/07/08/arts/design/08ducc.html. Beck’s point of
departure, that of the problematic making the architectural motif in the Duccio painting a parapet and forerunner of
the later motif by Bellini et al, however, perhaps has some
validity. See the above discussion for an alternative view.
54
WHITE, Duccio, p. 62.
55
R. GOFFEN, Giovanni Bellini, New Haven 1989, p. 34.
56
SCHMIDT, Painted Piety, pp. 145-149; CHRISTIANSEN,
Duccio, pp. 50-52.
57
CHRISTIANSEN, The Metropolitan’s Duccio, p. 46.
Christiansen suggests the angling of the consoles this way
may mean that the painting was meant to be viewed while
kneeling.
58
Metropolitan Museum, Early Renaissance Masterpiece, p.
4; STUBBLEBINE, Duccio di Buoninsegna, p. 28; WHITE,
Duccio, p. 62; Duccio alle origini della pittura senese,
pp. 134-136.
59
V. SCHMIDT, The Lunette Shaped Panel and Some
Characteristics of Panel Painting, in Italian panel painting of
the Duecento and Trecento, ed. V. M. Schmidt, Washington
D.C. 2002, pp. 83-101: 85. Schmidt says it was most likely
«an overdoor or part of sepulchral monument». In ID.,
Painted Piety, p. 144, the author specifically compares this
painting to the Duccio, and concludes the corbels do not
have the same function in both works since the architecture in the Montepulciano work is intended to embed the
painting in the wall. The Metropolitan Museum has however cited this painting as proof of the contemporary use of
a parapet motif in Duccio’s sphere in POGREBIN,
Authenticity of a Duccio Masterpiece, p. 2.
60
MAGINNIS, The World of the Early Sienese Painter, p. 109.
Maginnis notes that «the size and variety of content, limited or extensive, were undoubtedly determined by the
patron’s expenditure».
61
Il Museo di San Marco, ed. I. Favaretto, M. Da Villa
Urbani, Venice 2003, p. 103.
62
Ibid. The saints are identified as Peter, Paul, Mark,
Nicholas, the Magdalene, and Margaret. Along the top
edge of the frame are archangels flanking a Christ
Pantocrator, whose book reads «I am the light of the
World».
63
Although we have official documentation for much of his
life, there is a gap in the documents during the period of
the Metropolitan Madonna’s creation, between 1295 and
1302. See Duccio di Buoninsegna: The Documents and Early
Sources, ed. J.I. Satkowski, H.B.J. Maginnis, Athens, GA
2000, pp. 63-64. It has therefore been suggested by some
scholars that Duccio traveled during this time, and their
thoughts on where he went range from Rome, to Paris, and
even to parts of the Byzantine world. STUBBLEBINE, Duccio
di Buoninsegna, p. 4, suggests other regions of Italy, particularly Rome, and possibly Paris; WHITE, Duccio, p. 56,
suggests it is possible he could have ventured into the
Byzantine world, which could be achieved by simply going
to the «Eastern shores of the Adriatic» which would have
artistically been viewed as Byzantine outposts. He does
not, however, see any evidence that Duccio did so. D.
NORMAN, Duccio: the recovery of a reputation, in Siena,
DUCCIO’S METROPOLITAN MADONNA: BETWEEN BYZANTIUM AND THE RENAISSANCE
Florence, and Padua: Art, Society, and Religion 1280-1400,
ed. D. Norman, New Haven 1995, pp. 49-71: 55-57.
Norman believes he may have traveled to Cyprus, for she
cites a mural there that may be the prototype on which
Duccio based his Madonna of the Franciscans, painted
between 1295 and 1300.
64
E.B. GARRISON, Note on the Survival of ThirteenthCentury Panel Paintings in Italy, «The Art Bulletin», LIV
(1972), p. 140. Garrison points out the percentage of panel
paintings lost from this period is incredibly high – possibly
as much as 99%.
65
Ibid.; Venezia e Bisanzio (cat. della mostra, Venezia,
Palazzo Ducale, 8 giugno-30 settembre 1974), ed. I.
Furlan, G. Mariacher, Milan 1974, nr. 66.
66
SCHMIDT, Painted Piety, p. 143.
67
BELTING, Likeness and Presence, p. 203.
68
SCHMIDT, Painting and Individual Devotion, p. 31.
69
SCHMIDT, Painted Piety, p. 143.
70
NIKETAS CHONIATES, O City of Byzantium: Annals of
Niketas Choniatïs, trans. H. I. Magoulias, Detroit 1984, pp.
209-210. In the Annals it states that in 1186, when John
Branas’ army was about to attack Constantinople, the
Emperor Isaakios Angelos called on the Virgin to protect
the city. «He carried up to the top of the walls, as an
impregnable fortress and an unassailable palisade, the icon
of the Mother of God taken from the monastery of the
Hodegoi where it had been assigned, and therefore called
Hodegetria».
71
M.S. FRINTA, Searching for an Adriatic painting workshop
with Byzantine Connection, «Zograf», XVIII (1987), pp.
12-20: 12, n. 6. An article that has recently been called to
my attention and that makes this argument more fully is
J.T. WOLLESEN, The Case of the Disappeared Stoclet
Madonna, «Pantheon», LVI (1998), pp. 4-9. He does not
appear to be aware of Frinta’s thought on this, and seems
to have come up with a similar theory independently.
Although he does argue that this image is intended to show
the Hodegetria of Constantinople in situ, he does not
appear to consider it to retain its icon status, but rather
believes it to be a «variation of an official Madonna and
Child configuration (…) in order to make it fit into a new
and unprecedented context of the private pictorial and
devotional realm of Western panel paintings». It is interesting to note that this idea put forth by both Frinta and
Wollesen has not been mentioned by the Metropolitan
Museum, nor does it appear to have had any impact on
their, or anyone else’s, perceptions of the Metropolitan
Madonna.
72
CHRISTIANSEN, The Metropolitan’s Duccio, p. 44.
Christiansen briefly describes the border’s design and
relates it to a few other borders used by Duccio in terms of
how it helps date the painting, but he goes no further with
his analysis of the design itself. He does, however, discuss
it as original to the painting, and states that it is not a
punched design but is «entirely hand-inscribed and of
great elegance».
73
D.P. WALEY, Siena and the Sienese in the Thirteenth
Century, Cambridge 1991, pp. 149-150. It was common for
the Sienese of both genders to designate considerable parts
of their wills to the aid of the Crusaders and their expeditions, especially in the last quarter of the 13th century. The
brethren at S. Maria della Scala are even known to have
included the Crusaders in their prayers. Therefore, there
was considerable awareness of and interest in the Crusades
in Siena by the time Duccio was creating the Metropolitan
Madonna. It is not impossible that this painting was created for someone with this interest, or who was in some way
involved in the Crusades.
74
D. MOURIKI, Thirteenth-century Icon Painting in Cyprus,
Athens 1986, pp. 15-16. She points out that the specific
combination of floral geometric patterns appears frequently in Syriac manuscripts.
75
Mother of God, no. 62.
76
I was unable to secure rights to publish this image,
Perugia, Biblioteca Capitolare. Ms. 6, fol. 182v. See H.
BUCHTHAL, Miniature Painting in the Latin Kingdom of
Jerusalem, Oxford 1957. Reprint, London 1986, pl. 57a.
77
Mother of God, no. 62, p. 406. Athanasios Papageorgiou
argues this in the catalog entry for the icon of the Mother
of God Arakiotissa.
78
C. BARBER, Figure and likeness: on the limits of representation in Byzantine iconoclasm, Princeton 2002, p. 29.
He explains that the «icon could be a copy of a miraculous image and still claim the same status as the original.
Thus, the painted icon must be understood as both a
depiction and a relic». See also G. VIKAN, Ruminations
on Edible Icons: Originals and Copies in the Art of
Byzantium, in Retaining the Original: Multiple Originals,
Copies, and Reproductions, ed. K. Preciado, Washington
1989, pp. 47-59.
79
D. NORMAN, Painting in Late Medieval and Renaissance
Siena, 1260-1555, New Haven 2003, p. 41.
80
The concept of the Virgin and Child being called on as a
city’s protectors, and their image being invoked as a palladium against enemies has obvious roots in Constantinople,
but it had also been adopted in other parts of the West. For
instance, see F. PRADO-VILAR, The Gothic Anamorphic
Gaze: Regarding the Worth of Others in Under the
Influence: Questioning the Comparative in Medieval
Castile, ed. C. Robinson and L. Rouhi, Leiden 2005, pp.
67-100: 79-81. Prado-Vilar relates that in the Cantigas de
Santa Maria, created in Spain in the late 13th century for
King Alfonso X, Mary was «presented as head and protector of an inclusive national identity». In Cantiga 292, the
king says that when going into battle against the Moors, his
father carried a statue of the Virgin with him, and whenever he conquered one of their cities, he put an image of the
Virgin on the gate of the mosque. One of the illuminations
shows Muslim and Christian soldiers marching together
under the banner of the Virgin during the siege of
Marrakesh. When they were victorious, they attributed
much of their success to the Virgin’s help.
81
H.W. VAN OS, Sienese Altarpieces, 1215-1460: Form, content, function, trans. M. Hoyle, Groningen 1984, p. 11.
82
HEAL, ‘Civitas Virginis’?, p. 297.
83
WALEY, Siena and the Sienese, p. 116.
84
HEAL, ‘Civitas Virginis’?, p. 297. Heal has argued that
Ventura’s story, and in general the intense dedication to the
Virgin in the 13th century was a later fabrication read back
into the city’s history. She believes it was the spirituality of
the mendicants that stimulated the marian cult, and that
the commune worked to propagate the concept of the
Virgin as protectress of Siena only by the early 14th century. She suggests that earlier art and events were reinterpreted to build up the cult which was firmly in place by the
time of the unveiling of Duccio’s Maestà. If we accept her
117
LYNLEY ANNE HERBERT
interpretation, the mechanisms of propaganda would still
have been well underway by the time Duccio was painting
the Metropolitan Madonna in 1300, since by 1302 the
commune was paying him for a Maestà panel for the Nine
(Siena’s leaders), and in 1308 he was given a huge commission to paint the city’s new monumental Maestà altarpiece,
the ultimate statement of dedication to the Virgin by the
city of Siena. For these commission records see
SATKOWSKI, MAGINNIS, Duccio di Buoninsegna: The
Documents, pp. 66, 69-71.
85
R. CORRIE, The Political Meaning of Coppo di Marcovaldo’s Madonna and Child in Siena, «Gesta», XXIX
(1990), 1, pp. 61-75: 62. Although Coppo was a Florentine,
she argues that he was imprisoned after the battle and this
painting was his payment for his freedom.
86
BELTING, Likeness and Presence, p. 387.
87
Perhaps it is no coincidence that in 1261, the same year
that Coppo painted his Madonna for Siena, the power of
the Hodegetria was reinstated in Constantinople. This timing may have been persuasive in the Sienese choice to emulate that image. Rebecca Corrie, in Coppo di Marcovaldo’s
Madonna del Bordone, p. 58, believes that the protective
power of the Byzantine Virgin type would have been recognized by the Sienese.
88
BACCI, The Legacy of the Hodegetria, p. 323.
89
Ibid., pp. 324-327. An example of this is found in the
monastery of S. Maria del Patir in Calabria where a careful
copy of the Hodegetria was known as the Neodigitria or
«New Hodegetria» by 1111.
90
CORRIE, The Political Meaning, p. 68.
91
Ibid., n.79.
92
W.M. BOWSKY, The Finance of the Commune of Siena,
1287-1355, Oxford 1970, p. 2.; CORRIE, The Political
Meaning, n.79. She notes this connection as well.
93
B.V. PENTCHEVA, The ‘activated’ icon: the Hodegetria procession and Mary’s Eisodos in Images of the Mother of God,
pp. 195-207: 196. Her discussion includes two imperial
seals from Constantinople – one from the 7th century and
one from the 11th. Although they change somewhat over
time, this demonstrates a long tradition of the Madonna
and Child on the Byzantine imperial seal.
94
CARR, Threads of Authority, p. 77.
95
F. RATTÉ, Architectural Invitations: Images of City Gates
in Medieval Italian Painting, «Gesta», XXXVIII (1999),
pp. 142-153: 143; J. GARDNER, An Introduction to the
Iconography of the Medieval Italian City Gate,
«Dumbarton Oaks Papers» (Studies on Art and Archeology
in Honor of Ernst Kitzinger on His Seventy-Fifth Birthday),
XLI (1987), pp. 199-213: 212.
96
J. HOOK, Siena, a City and its History, London 1979, p.
132; RATTÉ, Architectural Invitations, pp. 142-143; CORRIE,
Coppo di Marcovaldo’s Madonna del Bordone, p. 57. Corrie
agrees that images on the gates would have «acknowledged
and perhaps assured her protection»; STUBBLEBINE, Duccio
di Buoninsegna, p. 122. He sees these images of the Virgin
as less of a protective force in the Byzantine sense, and
more as part of a system of signs, «signs in the popular use
of the term and signs as emblems of ideas and means of
propaganda. Images of the Virgin on the city gates, in the
cathedral, on the Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala, or
in the Palazzo Publico told visitors of the city’s dedication
118
and its special devotions».
97
MAGINNIS, The World of the Early Sienese Painter, p. 132.
The four gates identified as having images of the Virgin are
the Porta Camollia (known through commission records),
the Porta Romana (known only through an eyewitness
account), the Porta Salaia (known through a commission
for a roof over it), and the Porta San Viene (known from a
commission - this was actually a panel painting). I should
note that even in light of such overt declarations of devotion, Hayden Maginnis expresses his doubts about the
spiritual character of Sienese art, and of the Sienese themselves; GARDNER, An Introduction, p. 212.
98
MAGINNIS, The World of the Early Sienese Painter, p. 131.
The two painters are Ciecco and Nuccio, and the carpenter is a man named Chello. Maginnis assumes it is a «roof
projecting over the image to shield it, at least partially, from
the weather». The archive he cites is ASS, Biccherna 122,
fol. 201v.
99
Ibid. I would suggest that the faithful repainting of the
Virgin on the gate over this stretch of time, by lesser artists
and not by the city’s famous painters, might support the
concept of a functional, protective purpose for these
images rather than a strictly artistic one.
100
GARDNER, An Introduction, p. 212.
101
BELTING, Likeness and Presence, p. 75.
102
For an excellent discussion of when and how the
Hodegetria came to be viewed as a Saint Luke painting, see
M. BACCI, With the Paintbrush of the Evangelist Luke, in
Mother of God, pp. 79-89. According to Bacci, the
Hodegetria icon, or the icon that belonged to the Hodegoi
monastery of Constantinople, was probably not initially
believed to be by Saint Luke, but was labeled as a Saint
Luke icon well after it was painted. He believes it probably
gained this reputation because the Hodegoi monastery had
connections with Antioch, Luke’s birthplace, and because
of the miracles it performed.
103
I should note that I have looked at the gates of Siena to
see if there is any correlation between the built structure
and Duccio’s corbels. While there appears to be some
similar corbelling very high on the walls on some of the
gates, such as can be seen near the top of the Porta
Romana’s antiporta, it does not correspond to where the
image would likely have been placed on the gate.
Presumably the image would have adorned the front of
the main gate, where today a small roof protrudes to provide shelter. There is, however, a small ledge along the
bottom of that niche. It is possible there was such a ledge
beneath the painting in Duccio’s time as well, and perhaps it looked much like the one he employs. I would still
argue, however, that Duccio was most likely using a common artistic convention when he painted his corbels, and
was probably not concerned with a precise rendering of
the built environment, since that was not yet common
practice.
PHOTO CREDITS
2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 13 (Art Resource)
1, 6 (Art Stor’s Images for Academic Publishing)
5 (London, The Royal Collectionnof Her Majesty the Queen)
8 (Montepulciano, Museo civico)
11 (Venezia, San Marco)
12 (London, British Museum)
DUCCIO’S METROPOLITAN MADONNA: BETWEEN BYZANTIUM AND THE RENAISSANCE
LA MADONNA DI DUCCIO DEL METROPOLITAN:
TRA BISANZIO E IL RINASCIMENTO
Lynley Anne Herbert
Nell’autunno del 2004 il Metropolitan
Museum of Art di New York ha acquistato una
piccola tavola dipinta da Duccio di Buoninsegna per 45 milioni di dollari. Una spesa di tale
entità è stata giustificata esaltando Duccio, e in
particolare questa tavola, come una delle prime
espressioni del Rinascimento. Il Museo ha
affermato che l’opera mostra una chiara e consapevole rottura rispetto alle raffigurazioni rigide e schematizzate, considerate caratteristiche
delle tradizioni occidentale e bizantina. Le basi
di tale affermazione risiedono sia nella nuova
interazione, intensamente umana e naturalistica, creata da Duccio tra Maria e Cristo, sia nella
presenza di un insolito elemento architettonico,
definito parapetto, che è interpretato come il
precursore di un motivo utilizzato da Giovanni
Bellini e da altri artisti del Quattrocento.
Questo contributo esplora nuovi modi di
vedere la Madonna del Metropolitan di
Duccio – non guardando all’indietro, a partire
dal Rinascimento, ma in avanti, da una prospettiva medievale e bizantina. Gli elementi
umani utilizzati da Duccio – considerati una
novità – potrebbero effettivamente essere una
sintesi creativa di citazioni ed evocazioni delle
icone orientali. Considerato alla luce delle
ricerche di Hans Belting sulla trasmissione
delle icone, tali citazioni orientali potrebbero
indicare l’intenzione di infondere il potere spirituale delle icone in questo dipinto. Il contributo suggerisce, inoltre, che la Madonna del
Metropolitan è stata progettata per evocare
specifiche tradizioni all’interno del culto
mariano nella città natale di Duccio, Siena.
Molti indizi, infine, inducono a ritenere che
nella Madonna del Metropolitan Duccio abbia
fatto riferimento e abbia ricreato sia tipi bizantini consolidati, sia opere civiche senesi, trasformando abilmente il loro potere e il loro
significato allo scopo di farne un’immagine
devozionale privata.
119