Category Archives: Antonio Pollaiuolo

Clothed in splendour

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The Monforte Altarpiece by Hugo van der Goes, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

In the Monforte Altarpiece the painter Hugo van der Goes has grouped the ‘Three Kings’ and the figure of Joseph to represent the Four Latin Doctors of the Church: Joseph as St Ambrose; Melchior as Pope St Gregory the Great; Caspar as St Jerome; and Balthazar as St Augustine. This is qualified by the liturgical colours of their ‘vestments’ worn by priests for celebrating Mass. Ambrose wears Rose, Gregory wears Red, Jerome is in Black (his attribute, the kneeling ‘lion’ alongside, is draped in Purple), while Augustine is robed in Green.

The focus on the distinct coloured vestments also serve a purpose: to highlight the cloth manufacturing industry of Bruges and Florence. In his book The Silk Industry of Renaissance Venice, Luca Molà writes:

“In the second part of the fifteenth century, the silk industry, driven as usual by Italian entrepreneurs, pressed its triumphal march further north, reaching Flanders. It found fertile ground in Bruges, a city that specialised in the production of a light fabric in which silk was mixed with other fibres. This ‘satin of Bruges’ was of considerable renown in European markets during the Renaissance, and in 1496 its manufacturers were numerous enough to found a guild of its own.”

His name is John… one of the embroidered
vestments depicting the life of John the
Baptist, designed by Antonio Pollaiuolo.

TEMPLES AND THREADS
There is another vestment allusion in this section of the painting which connects to Florence and its famous baptistery of San Giovani: the gold strands on the floor beside the large stone. They refer to a famous set of gold-embroidered liturgical vestments designed and produced by another Florentine artist Antonio Pollaiuolo between 1466 and 1479.

The vestments depict the Life of St John the Baptist, patron saint of Florence. They were for use in the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, situated next to the Battistero di San Giovani. Nineteen of the embroideries survive in various condition, but not the vestments.

Just as Pollaiuolo embroidered the life of the Baptist on vestments, so Hugo van der Goes paints a variety of narratives on his panel, threading and fusing a tapestry of themes and events which relate to a key period in his life. “Clothes maketh the man” and so Hugo spins, measures and cuts the cloth to drape his figures who, like the infant Jesus, were all born naked into the world. The garments are designed to be admired and to express the wearer’s status in life, but Hugo also uses them to depict the measure of the man and what fate has in store, revealing possibly that the artist may have had a fatalist temperament which contributed to his instability and uncertainty in later life.

This self harm attempt probably explains Hugo’s inclusion of the quatrefoil and its reference to the Sacrifice of Isaac. Abraham’s hand was held back from killing his son Isaac by an angel’s intervention. Likewise when Hugo made what is said to be a suicide attempt he was prevented from doing so by the group of monks he was travelling with after visiting Cologne. This excursion or ‘pilgrimage’ was likely to have been to Cologne Cathedral which houses the Shrine of the Three Kings and where there is a reliquary said to contain their bones. Also displayed in the cathedral at the time was Rogier van der Weyden’s triptych known as the St Columba Altarpiece (Cologne Cathedral is dedicated to St Columba). Its central panel portrays the visit of the Magi. Van der Weyden’s painting may also have served as inspiration for Hugo’s version of the Adoration of the Kings.

Another pointer to the Florentine cloth industry is the gold ciborium placed on the large stone in the foreground. In this instance its quatrefoil shape relates to a design feature that frames a series of panels on a set of bronze doors of the Battistero di San Giovani in Florence. This particular set of doors was commissioned by the Arte di Calimala, the cloth importers guild, and made by Lorenzo Ghiberti, the famous Florentine goldsmith and sculptor. A trial panel was commissioned by the guild who specified it should depict The Sacrifice of Isaac within a quatrefoil surround.

This biblical narrative, also known as the Binding of Isaac, is found in the Book of Genesis 22. God sends Abraham to the land of Moriah and asks him to sacrifice his son Isaac. After making an altar and binding his son, an angel appears and prevents Abraham from taking Isaac’s life and a ram is used as the sacrifice instead.

So in this scenario we see why Hugo has depicted the Infant Jesus staring directly at the ciborium on a stone altar, and why he is seated on a white cloth that features the outline of a ram in its folds. The Child is portrayed as the Redeemer, the unblemished Lamb of God.

Leonardo’s crossbows

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The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, 1475, by Antonio and Piero del Pollaiuolo, National Gallery

Here’s another painting with a multiplicity of Leonardo figures. This version of the Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian is attributed to the Pollaiuolo brothers Antonio and Piero. It is displayed in the National Gallery, London, and the date attribution is 1475. However, if the painting is meant to refer to the charge of sodomy made aganst Leonardo then the earliest completion date would be 1479.

Saint Sebastian survived his ordeal as target practice for a group of archers that had left him for dead. He was nursed back to health by Irene of Rome, the widow of the martyred St Castlus. However, Sebastian was later clubbed to death and his body dumped in a sewer.

Leonardo felt deeply wounded and fearful when he and four other men were brought before authorities and charged with sodomy in April 1479. Although the written accusation wasn’t signed Leonardo suspected that one of his own kind, another artist, had lodged the complaint. He likened the betrayal to the Greek fable of The Eagle Wounded by an Arrow (vaned with its own feathers), and alluded to this in the angel figure he painted for Verrocchio’s Baptism of Christ.

But there is another take on the fable: “the misery of realising that one has contributed to one’s own injury but also as a warning against self-reliant pride”. (Wikipedia)

This explains why Leonardo is depicted as self-harming by firing arrows at himself – and in another sense a form of self-flagellation to mortify the flesh against temptation. Notice also that the limbs of the crossbows are all shaped as a bird’s wings.

Battle of the Naked Men (1465-75) engraving by Antonio Pollaiuolo

Antonio del Pollaiuolo produced a similar work with the Battle of the Naked Men, an engraving where ten look-a-like figures are depicted battlling with weapons against each other. It is no coincidence that the warriors share similar physical features and some of the faces are modelled on Leonardo, similar to the St Sebastian painting, and so meant to portray the battle with self and attempting to eliminate what may appear to be faults or weakness in one’s own eyes and the eyes of others.

Botticelli also produced a version of St Sebastian and Leonardo was the model.

Look-a-like Leonardos’… (left to right) from Botticelli’s version of St Sebastian; seen in the Uffizi version of the Adoration of the Magi; and Antonio Pollaiuolo version of St Sebatian.

Could Antonio and Piero del Pollaiuolo’s painting of San Sebastian and the six archers have inspired Leonardo in conceiving a plan to produce a giant crossbow. A drawing of such a large-size weapon appears in one of Leonardo’s notebooks.

Leonardo’s notbook drawing of a giant crossbow. Codex Atlanticus (1488-89)

But what if the Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian was produced later than the current attribution date of 1475, perhaps after the charge of sodomy against Leonardo? This would push the date on to at least 1479. It would also allow for other identities to be given to the archers – perhaps to include Leonardo’s accuser Domenico Ghirlandaio and maybe others.

Of the two bendng men placed in the centre, one is faceless, the other is beardless and can be said to represent Leonardo. Both men are in the process of loading their crossbows ready to fire at at Leonardo. The four other men are all variations on Ghirlandaio, possibly representing his brothers who worked alongside him at his workshop. An item of clothing common to all of the men is a garland – making the connection to the nickname ‘il Ghirlandaio’ – garland maker.

So now the composition can be understood as the two men in the forefront contributing to their own injury. Their perceived behaviour and actions in loading the bolts provide ammunition for Ghirlandaio and the other archers to take aim and fire darts at Leonardo in particular, naked and tied to the tree stump, and portrayed naked again as a reference to Antonio Pollaiuolo’s engraving, the Battle of the Naked Men.