Category Archives: Places

Michelangelo or Leonardo?

Posted on by

In March this year I posted an item stating that Michelangelo’s portrayal of God in The Creation of Adam section of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, represented Leonardo da Vinci.

More recently there was much press coverage given to research by the scholar and author Adriano Marinazzo who hypothesised that Michelangelo painted himself as God.

Marinazzo based his judgement primarily on a sketch drawn alongside a sonnet Michelangelo had written to a friend. In an interview with Julie Tucker of the Muscarelle Museum of Art on May 12, this year, Marinazzo explained: 

“In my study, I pointed out the intriguing resemblance between Michelangelo’s self-portrait silhouette and the artist’s depiction of God in “The Creation of Adam.” In Michelangelo’s self-portrait, his right arm is extended toward the ceiling’s surface to give life to the stories of the book of Genesis. The artist holds a brush that approaches the vault’s surface but does not touch it. This gesture recalls Michelangelo’s painting of God’s index, who gives life to Adam without touching him. Plus, in his self-portrait, Michelangelo represented himself with his legs crossed; this is a curious pose for somebody who is painting on a scaffolding. But Michelangelo also painted God with his legs crossed while giving life to Adam. I also pointed out that in his self-portrait, Michelangelo idealises himself. The features of his face, viewed in profile, are gentle and harmonious. But in real life, Michelangelo had rough features, characterised by a flattened nose. I concluded by pointing out that Michelangelo goes towards the surface he is painting, as God goes towards Adam. The profile of the artist is flawless, like that of God.”

Marinazzo added in another report (New York Post) that it was when he turned the sketch on its side he experienced an “epiphany” and “discovered the self-portrait looked almost identical to the God that is seen on the ceiling of the chapel.”

Creation of Adam, Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel,

Michelangelo’s sketch is not unfamiliar to me. In an earlier post I compared it to one of the figures in Botticelli’s Primavera painting, presented at surface level as the man generally assumed to represent the mythological Roman god Mercury. Botticelli also applied other identities to the figure, another being the painter Filippino Lippi, one of several Florentine artists commissioned earlier to paint the walls of the Sistine Chapel. In fact, Botticelli had a field day portraying extended arms in the Primavera painting. All the figures are depicted with an arm or arms outstretched.

Primavera, Sandro Botticelli, Uffizi, Florence
Baptism of Christ, Andrea del Verrocchio and Leonardo da Vinci, Uffizi, Florence

But the link doesn’t stop there. Michelangelo’s sketch, transformed into the figure of God in the Sistine Chapel, can be sourced back to a much earlier painting attributed to Andrea del Verrocchio in which Leonardo da Vinci is said to have contributed some of the finer detail. Notice in this painting the figure of John the Baptist with his extended right hand stretched upwards.

Another work that can be recognised as influencing Botticelli’s stretching figure in Primavera is Leonardo’s painting of The Annunciation. Leonardo is often criticised for his portrayal of the Virgin Mary with an extra-long right arm, but this was intentional. Leonardo was making a point about the figure of John the Baptist in Verrocchio’s painting as well as referring to a water feature in The Annunciation. And so in Primavera, Botticelli continued stressing the same point with his figure of Mercury, his arm extended and pointing to a water feature, just as the figure of John the Baptist, with his arm outstretched baptising Jesus with water.

The Annunciation, Leonardo da Vinci, Uffizi, Florence

Botticelli continued the outstretched arm reference in his Birth of Venus with the Hora of Spring offering cover for the naked Venus.

Birth of Venus, Sandro Botticelli, Uffizi, Florence

So in actuality, Michelangelo brought the narrative full circle and back to Leonardo to whom his pointing man relates to. Adriano Marinazzo accessed a page in the story but not the complete narrative. Decades after Michelangelo completed painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, another artist, Giorgio Vasari, provided more clues about the man with the extended arm in his painting of the Battle of Marciano on one of the long walls in the Palazzo Vecchio’s Hall of Five Hundred. The fresco covers an earlier battle scene, The Battle of Anghiari painted by Leonardo da Vinci in which he depicted another version of a man with an extended arm.

Battle of Marciano, Giorgio Vasari, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

There is another feature attached to the narrative of the man with the extended arm, and that is a wing. The feature appears prominently in  two places in the Baptism of Christ. It also explains why the Archangel Gabriel was given an extended wing in The Annunciation; why Mercury’s left hand-on-hip is wing-shaped; why Michelangelo’s loose sketch shows his left hand on hip; and finally, why God’s left arm is also shaped as a wing covering the woman he created, which begs the question: Who was this particular woman?

Creation of Adam detail, Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel
Detail from Virgin of the Rocks, Leonardo da Vinci, Louvre, Paris

Botticelli is the child that bears the left hand of God on his right shoulder. Observe the shape of the hand. It is the same as the right hand of Mary which bears down on the shoulder of the Infant John the Baptist in Leonardo’s painting of the Virgin of the Rocks (Louvre version).

Leonardo continued the narrative even in his painting of The Last Supper. There are several references to wings and long arms, and Sandro Botticelli and Domenico Ghirlandaio, who both figured in Verrocchio’s Baptism of Christ, are depicted at at the table.

The Last Supper, Leonardo da Vinci, Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan

Leonardo’s monumental cliffs

Posted on by

According to the historian Silvano Vinceti, another detail in the Mona Lisa painting that helped identify the Romito di Laterina bridge was the rock formation behind the sitter’s right shoulder. Vinceti described them as clay pinnacles located ten miles away from the bridge, as presented in the photograph below.

Most likely they are the monumental rocks known as the balze (crags) of Valdarno, “created from sand, clay and gravel, and shaped by the wind and rain in a place where millions of years ago, there was a huge lake…”

Vinceti was not the first to associate these crags on the shoulder of Mona Lisa with those of Valdarno, located between Florence and Arezzo. Other researchers have pointed out the similarity. However, what no-one has yet discovered is that Leonardo embedded in his depiction of the crags a likeness to one of his sketchbook drawings from 1478, the head captioned: ‘Fioravante di Domenico… in Florence is my most cherished companion, as though he were my…’” I presented details about this last month at this link.

To best visualise the feature and make a comparison to the drawing, the painting needs to be rotated 90 degrees to the left. When the painting is rotated 90 degrees to the right then another feature appears, the head of a lion, and representing Leonardo, the other head in the sketch. 

detail from the Mona Lisa painting showing the profile of a lion’s head
The heads of ‘Domenico and Leonardo da Vinci’… resurface and face each other again as ‘Domenico and the Lion’s Head’ in Leonardo’s painting of the Mona Lisa.
detail from the Mona Lisa painting – a pointer to the Archangel Uriel?

A third figure is also embedded in the crags, its head reminiscent of the Archangel Uriel’s turned head in Leonardo’s Virgin of the Rocks (pictured right), perhaps suggesting the cavernous backdrop in this earlier painting was also inspired by the baize of Valdarno.

Another feature in the Mona Lisa painting is the winding path from the lion’s head. This too is possibly a pointer to one of Leonardo’s first paintings, the unfinished portrayal of Jerome in the Desert which also features a rocky backdrop, and a lion with a winding tail.

But why would Leonardo want to reference in the Mona Lisa painting an earlier drawing of the head of a man made around 1478? And could the faceless ‘Uriel’ and the ‘Mona Lisa’ be connected in some way, or be even the same person?

St Jerome in the Desert, Leonardo da Vinci, Uffizi, Florence

This is what Leonardo wrote in his notebook on the subject of pareidolia: 

A Way of Development and Arousing the Mind to Various Inventions:
“I cannot forbear to mention among these precepts a new device for study which, although it may seem but trivial and almost ludicrous, is nevertheless extremely useful in arousing the mind to various inventions. And this is, when you look at a wall spotted with stains, or with a mixture of stones, if you have to devise some scene, you may discover a resemblance to various landscapes, beautified with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, wide valleys and hills in varied arrangement; or again you may see battles and figures in action; or strange faces and costumes, and an endless variety of objects, which you could reduce to complete and well drawn forms. And these appear on such walls confusedly, like the sound of bells in whose jangle you may find any name or word you choose to imagine.”

THE NOTEBOOKS OF LEONARDO DA VINCI, CHAPTER IX, THE PRACTICE OF PAINTING

A visit to the Barber

Posted on by

Today I was able to visit the Barber Institute to study Sandro Botticelli’s painting of The Virgin and Child with John the Baptist.

I’ve posted on this painting previously at these links:
In the beginning was the Word
Three times a lady

But I have since discovered the painting has a strong link to Leonardo da Vinci’s Mother and Child with St Anne, and I shall be posting more about this.

Today’s visit was rewarding. I was able to recognise a feature I hadn’t picked up on before. As I looked at the painting, I wondered about the thin gold strip between the Baptist and the Virgin. It forms part of the background scene but yet seems out of place. Was it there to link the two figures in any way? And then the answer came to me.

Embedded in the Virgin’s mantle is a Picasso-like facial feature, perhaps pointing to one of her titles, Our Lady of Sorrows. The lower half of the face is veiled. Above that are depicted the nose and the eye. 

The Baptist is shown clothed in a camel skin. So the thin gold strip represents a needle and is Botticelli’s way of pointing to the verse from Matthew’s gospel about the danger of riches, when Jesus said to his disciples, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven” (20:19).

Rotate the painting 90 degrees and notice the shape of a camel’s head in John the Baptist’s camel-skin garment.

The Virgin represents Our Lady of Mount Carmel from which the Carmelite Order takes its name. The mount was also given the name Camel Nose or Antelope Nose because of its shape. The Virgin is shown barefoot, and so represents the Order of Discalced Carmelites, the reformed section of the Order whose members walk with their feet uncovered.

An annunciation

Posted on by

In an earlier post I explained that Giorgio Vasari, in his painting of the Battle of Marciano, portrayed Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo as two musketeers standing side by side.

I revealed in another post how Vasari placed references in the scene to Leonardo’s painting, Lady with an Ermine, and also intimated that other works attributed to Leonardo were referenced, namely the Mona Lisa and the Salvatore Mundi.

One painting for sure that Vasari utilised in the battle scene was Leonardo’s Annunciation.

Detail of the Angel Gabriel from The Annunciation, by Leonardo da Vinci, Uffizi, Florence

I was intending to use this post to explain the connections Vasari made to The Annunciation, but having examined Leonardo’s painting in more detail, I shall delay on that and instead reveal some surprising embedded elements not normally recognised with what is said to be the earliest extant painting produced by Leonardo. 

Botticelli had knowledge of the underlying detail. He made reference to it in the Uffizi version of The Adoration of the Magi. So did Vasari in the Battle of Marciano.

By the hand of Leonardo

Posted on by

I mentioned in the previous post that the study and placement of hands was important to Leonardo da Vinci in his work. It is claimed that Leonardo may have suffered with ulnar palsy, or what is known as “claw hand”. I posted about this diagnosis at the link below.

Leonardo’s claw

Botticelli, Mantegna and Ghirlandaio are three artists who portrayed Leonardo with a clawed hand and Giorgio Vasari made reference to this disability in his Battle of Marciano fresco. He shows Leonardo’s right hand gripping the wedge-shaped flask while refilling the musket with gunpowder. Notice also the horse-tail at the side of the flask. This is a reference to the flask also representing the shape of a Greek harp or lyre. Leonardo made a similar instrument in the shape of a horse head as a gift for Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. This gift is also alluded to elsewhere in the fresco.

The hand also represents a crab, the fingers its legs. An eye is depicted in the corner of the pouch between the thumb and forefinger. The crab feature is also part of a group of disguised creatures listed as forbidden food in the Book of Leviticus, written in Hebrew from right to left. Leonardo was known to write with his left hand, possibly because of the abnormality in his right hand. He generally wrote from right to left on the page in a style known as mirror-writing.

Having pointed out in my previous post the connection between Leonardo’s musket and his painting of the Lady with an Ermine, (the ermine is a type of weasel, one of the forbidden foods) are there any other Leonardo’s paintings to be found in this section of Vasari’s fresco? 

Let’s look at the honey or gold-coloured sleeve covering Leonardo’s left arm. Could this be a pointer to the rippling folds in the gold-coloured sleeves of the famous Mona Lisa painting? Cerca Trova (Seek and Find).

Another painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci is the controversial Salvatore Mundi, sold at auction in 2017 for $450 million U.S.  Could there be any indication that this work features in Vasari’s Marciano fresco. I believe there is.

My understanding is that the Salvatore Mundi is a mirror reflection of Leonardo. Observe the globe held in the claw hand of Christ’s left hand, but in reality Leonardo’s right hand if we keep in mind it is a “mirror” portrait. And so the hand raised in blessing is therefore Leonardo’s left hand, and perhaps a pointer to the Salvatore Mundi portrait being made by “the hand of Leonardo”.

There is another reference to the Salvatore Mundi elsewhere in this section of Vasari’s fresco, and to an earlier painting by Leonardo: The Annunciation. More about this in a future post.

The Annunciation, c. 1472-76, Leonardo da Vinci, Uffizi, Florence

About ALONg MUSKet

Posted on by

Having identified one of the musketeers in the foreground of Vasari’s Battle of Marciano fresco as representing Leonardo da Vinci, and linking this likeness to Michelangelo’s depiction of God on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, I can now reveal further evidence that the soldier pouring powder into the barrel of his musket is portrayed as Leonardo.

The identification is linked to Leonardo’s painting known as Lady with an Ermine. The woman is said to be Cecilia Gallerani, a mistress of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. The painting is dated 1489-91 and is now housed in the Czartoryski Museum in Kraków, Poland.

Lady with an Ermine, Leonardo da Vinci, Czartoryski Museum in Kraków, Poland

The ermine or stoat excretes a strong, musky odour when excited. Musk scents were used to ward off more unpleasant smells. For instance, burnt gunpowder can smell like rotten eggs caused by sulphur dioxide gas. Vasarai linked the word musk with musket and borrowed elements from Leonardo’s painting to illustrate the connection in a novel way.

Wikipedia describes Musk as “a greasy secretion with a powerful odour, produced in a glandular sac in the abdomen of a male musk deer and used in traditional medicines and formerly in the manufacture of perfumes… It has a substance of a reddish brown colour, and when fresh the consistency of honey.”

This colour description can be recognised in the clothes of the two musketeers. The red vent and honey-coloured trim on the woman’s sleeve can be likened to the similar colours and vents on Leonardo’s pantaloons, while the white leg of Michelangelo, the soldier alongside Leonardo, can be matched to the colour of the ermine or stoat, the vents as secretions.

Leonardo’s musket is another representation of the ermine’s long body (the barrel) and short legs (the stock). The trigger is shaped as the ermine’s rounded ear. The woman’s black beads around her neck can be interpreted as a mix of black powder and musket balls that Leonardo is pouring down the throat of the musket.

Notice Leonardo’s hand gripping the musket’s barrel and his two cropped fingers. The hand appears to be shaped as a heart and the trimmed fingers as blood vessels entering the heart.

Here Vasari has not only referenced drawings of the heart made by Leonardo, but connected the shortened fingers to the left hand of Cecilia Gallerani hidden beneath her right arm. This feature is not very clear on the original painting and I’ve lightened the area in the reproduction alongside. Perhaps Cecilia’s right hand can be interpreted as having her hand on her heart.

The study and placement of hands was important to Leonardo in his work. Vasari knew this and highlighted another example of “by the hand of Leonardo” in this group of two musketeers. More on this in a future post.

• The name Gallerina connects to the word “galleria” or gallery. The long barrel of the musket, or the long body of the ermine, can be linked to read “long gallery”, the famous kilometre-long corridor designed by Giorgio Vasari that connects the Palazzo Vecchio to the Palazzo Patti. At the time of its construction the meat market of Ponte Vecchio was moved to avoid its smell reaching into the passage. The Uffizi Museum section of the Vasari Corridor houses some of its famous paintings.

American soldiers and a Polish liaison officer pose with Leonardo’s Lady with an Ermine painting upon its return to Poland in April 1946. Observe the 20th century muskets.
Photo archive, Monuments Men Foundation.

Look-a-likes and the Big Reveal

Posted on by
Battle of Marciano by Giorgio Vasari, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

Just why did Giorgio Vasari embed so many bearded look-a-likes in his Battle of Marciano fresco in the Palazzo Vecchio? A clue can be found in a similar motif, the rows of round-helmeted soldiers lined up as peas in a pod, appearing to be cast from the same mould. Musket balls, maybe?

The musket-ball motif can link to the two men firing muskets in the section of the painting I pointed out in my previous post, the “Sons of Thunder”, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti. Leonardo is depicted as one of the many bearded look-a-likes.

That Leonardo is placed shoulder-to-shoulder with Michelangelo is for a reason. Vasari has utilised a similar motif from one of the most famous fresco scenes in the world – The Creation of Adam – that forms part of the Sistine Chapel ceiling painted by Michelangelo.

Creation of Adam, Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo

In making this connection Vasari revealed, quite intentionally, and confirmed in another section of the Marciano fresco, that Michelangelo’s portrayal of God is, in fact, Leonardo da Vinci!

The angel portrayed behind God’s right shoulder is Michelangelo. Another artist portrayed in the “pod” is Sandro Botticelli. Here, Michelangelo, like Vasari, referenced paintings by Botticelli and Leonardo to create this scene, and I shall explain more about this in a future post.

“God created Man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.…” (Genesis 1 : 27), which explains the bearded men motif in the Vasari fresco, all made in the image of God.

But was Vasari pointing to another scenario, and two more famous paintings associated with Leonardo: the Mona Lisa, and the portrait of Christ known as Salvatore Mundi?

Some art researchers have hypothesised that Leonardo is the model for both paintings – “male and female he created them.”

The Mona Lisa (Louvre) and the portrait known as Salvatore Mundi

Brothers in arms

Posted on by

Now the sun’s gone to hell
And the moon’s riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it’s written in the starlight
And every line in your palm
We’re fools to make war
On our brothers in arms

Mark Knofler, Dire Straits

This scene from the Battle of Marciano, frescoed by Giorgio Vasari on the East wall of the Hall of Five Hundred in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, is said to cover an earlier fresco by Leonardo de Vinci depicting the Battle of Anghiari.

At that time Leonardo was battling with another artist, Michelangelo, who had been commissioned to paint the Battle of Cascina on the opposite West wall. The two artists did not see eye to eye. Both were critical of each other’s work and seemingly verbally aggressive to each other. And yet both were blessed with amazing artistic talents. Brothers in arms so to speak.

Vasari depicted both men in several ways in his Marciano fresco, even as brothers in arms, matching them to the brothers James and John, who Jesus referred to as “Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3 : 17).

In the clip below, Vasari portrays Leonardo (left) and Michelangelo as musket men standing side by side – “Sons of Thunder”. Notice the plumes on their helmets continuing their personal battle. Leonardo’s plume is portrayed as an ape, a reference to his claim that monkeys and humans are close cousins; Michelangelo’s plume is portrayed as an aggressive cockerel, a subtle reference to the uncompromising display of genitalia on his famous statue of David (who battled against Goliath) and other works of nudity that were later covered over after Church authorities deemed them offensive.

This narrative of twinning and covering up extends to other parts of Vasari’s painting. More on this in a future post.

More masking clues

Posted on by
Battle of Marciano by Giorgio Vasari, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

In a post made last month, I pointed out the Dante death mask feature on the peak of a cavalryman’s helmet. A similar feature appears on another rider’s helmet and is meant to represent the head of a faun, the sculpture that Michelangelo is said to have made as his first piece of work in the garden of Lorenzo de’ Medici.

Wikipedia states;

Head of a Faun is a lost sculpture by Italian Renaissance master Michelangelo, dating from c. 1489. His first known work of sculpture in marble, it was sculpted when he was 15 or 16 as a copy of an antique work with some minor alterations. According to Giorgio Vasari’s biography of the artist, it was the creation of this work that secured the young Michelangelo the patronage of Lorenzo de’ Medici.

Left: Dante’s death mask and its representation in Vasari’s fresco. Right: the lost Head of a Faun and Vasari’s version in the Battle of Marciano painting.

Vasari writes:

“[Michelangelo] set himself to counterfeit from a piece of marble an antique head of a Faun that was there, old and wrinkled, which had the nose injured and the mouth laughing. Michelagnolo, who had never yet touched marble or chisels, succeeded so well in counterfeiting it, that the Magnificent Lorenzo was astonished; and then, perceiving that, departing from the form of the antique head, he had opened out the mouth after his own fancy and had made a tongue, with all the teeth showing, that lord, jesting pleasantly, as was his wont, said to him, “Surely you should have known that old folks never have all their teeth, and that some are always wanting.” It appeared to Michelagnolo, in his simplicity, both fearing and loving that lord, that he had spoken the truth; and no sooner had Lorenzo departed than he straightway broke one of the teeth and hollowed out the gum, in such a manner, that it seemed as if the tooth had dropped out. And then he awaited with eagerness the return of the Magnificent Lorenzo, who, when he had come and had seen the simplicity and excellence of Michelagnolo, laughed at it more than once, relating it as a miracle to his friends.”

Can it be a coincidence that both cavalrymen are almost identical in facial features? Other riders in Vasari’s painting of the Battle of Marciano are also closely matched with these men as if they are made from the same mould? What could be the reason for this? Was Vasari insinuating that Dante’s death mask and the faun mask, were replicated at times? Certainly the Dante mask displayed in the Palazzo Vecchio and pictured above is a plaster copy. The Head of the Faun was the property of the Bargello Museum in Florence, but looted in August 1944 by Nazi troops.

“Counterfeiting” or emulating, or copying, is a theme that appears throughout the Marciano battle scene. Take, for instance, the repetition of files of soldiers in the painting, and Vasari’s mention of Bandinelli copying Michelanglo’s cartoon, and Daniele Volterra adapting some of Michelangelo’s drawings for his own use. Vasari, himself, also relied on portraits painted by other artists as references in his work.

This link at Visit-Florence-Italy provides some interesting detail about the Dante death mask.

A painting produced in 1638 by the Florentine artist Octavio Vannini shows Michelangelo standing by the bust of the Head of a Faun before the seated Lorenzo de’ Medici.

I shall explain in a future post why Vasari connected the Head of the Faun to this particular rider and how it links to Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Greek gifts… to and fro

Posted on by

I came across an interesting report by Min Chen this week, published on the Artnet website.

Briefly, it stated: “Following an order from Pope Francis, the Vatican Museums has finalized an agreement with Greece to repatriate three Parthenon sculpture fragments from its collection.”

When I viewed the three images at the Vatican Museums website, they seemed familiar, and then I realised that the fragments are referenced in Giorgio Vasari’s fresco depicting the Battle of Marciano.

Could it be that the pieces arrived in Florence at some time during the 15th century as a gift for the Medici family and later placed in the sculpture garden of Lorenzo de’ Medici, so giving access to Vasari?

I’ll explain the connection in a future post.

The head of a young man, one of three sculpted fragments that Pope Francis has gifted to. Ieronymos II, archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Church. Photo: Vatican Museums.

Seeing double

Posted on by

Pairings and couplings are a significant feature of Vasari’s Battle of Marciano fresco. In a previous posts I pointed out the pairing of Dante Alighieri and Virgil, his guide through the Divine Comedy’s first two parts, Inferno and Purgatorio. 

Giorgio Vasari (above) doubling as Baccio Bandinelli (below).

Another pairing is the artist himself, Giorgio Vasari, the knight featured in the bottom right corner of the frame with his head turned to the viewer. He applied a second identity to the figure, the sculptor and painter Baccio Bandinelli; the connection being that Vasari was once a pupil in Bandinelli’s workshop.

In his book of the Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Artists, Vasari tells of the time when the young Bandinelli, bore hatred toward another sculptor and painter, Michelangelo:

“It was at this time that the cartoon of Michael Angelo in the Council Hall was uncovered [depicting the Battle of Cascina], and all the artists ran to copy it, and Baccio among others. He went more frequently than any one, having counterfeited the key of the chamber. In the year 1512, Piero Soderini was deposed and the house of Medici reinstated. In the tumult, therefore, Baccio, being by himself, secretly cut the cartoon into several pieces.

“Some said he did it that he might have a piece of the cartoon always near him, and others that he wanted to prevent other youths from making use of it; others again say that he did it out of affection for Lionardo da Vinci, or from the hatred he bore to Michael Angelo. The loss anyhow to the city was no small one, and Baccio’s fault very great.”

Seemingly Michelangelo never forgot this act of vandalism and Bandinelli’s continued malice against him and others. Years later, when Michelangelo was commissioned to paint the Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, he made sure that Bandinelli’s “crime” was recorded in the fresco, and in a similar way Vasari later represented his tutor as a second identity applied to a single figure.

In a previous post I explained how Michelangelo referenced his feud with Leonardo da Vinci. I wrote:

“…Michelangelo never actually put paint on the wall, although he did complete cartoons in preparation, as he was summoned by Pope Julius II to come to Rome and paint the Last Judgement. Leonardo did start to paint but encountered technical difficulties with the materials he used. It is said that because the paint or wall coating was mixed with a wax substance parts of the fresco eventually started to slide down the wall. Leonardo abandoned the project and returned to Milan.

Michelangelo was more than aware of Leonardo’s misfortune and continued the feud by referencing in a most unusual and abiding way in the Last Judgment fresco what had happened to his adversary.

Seated on a cloud at the feet of Christ is the bulky figure of St Bartholomew. He is one of many muscular men in the scene. Leonardo didn’t have a good word to say about Michelangelo’s figures. He once described them as looking like sacks of walnuts. Hence Bartholomew holding his flayed carcass, devoid of body parts and looking like an empty sack of walnuts. Michelangelo even went to the extent of painting his own face on the carcass, distorted and seemingly slipping downwards. An obvious reference to Leonardo’s failed fresco sliding down the wall and a retort to the cutting remark made two decades before about muscles and walnuts!”

Michelangelo also likened the carcass to the cartoon he prepared and laid over the wall on which he was commissioned to paint the Battle of Cascina, later mutilated and cut into pieces by Bandinelli. So how does this connect to the figure of St Bartholomew? Bandinelli’s birth name was Bartolomeo (Bartholomew) Brandini.

A further connection made by Michelangelo was the second identity given to the figure of Bartholomew, that of Pietro Aretino, an influential writer and critic, and a “lover of men” who declared himself a sodomite since birth. Considered by some to be a blackmailer, he criticised the Last Judgement fresco in an open letter dated November 1545, and reminded Michelangelo he had promised to send him some of his drawings. This request may have been made in an earlier letter sent in January 1538. Michelangelo completed the Last Judgement in 1441.

Aretino wanting drawings by Michelangelo paralleled the desire of Bandinelli copying and eventually cutting up the cartoon drawings prepared for frescoing the Battle of Cascina. It is theme that Vasari links to two other identities portrayed in his Marciano battle scene – Daniele Volterra and Tommaso dei Cavalieri – shown below.

Volterra (left), a close friend of Michelangelo, was the painter assigned to overpaint and cover some of the nude features in the Last Judgement fresco. He also utilised many of Michelangelo’s drawings to produce some of his own paintings, most notably The Descent from the Cross frescoed in the church of Trinità dei Monti, Rome. (More about this and how it connects to Vasari’s Battle of Marciano fresco in a future post).

Tommaso Cavalieri, the figure with his right hand raised, was the platonic lover of Michelangelo. They first met in 1523. Michelangelo was 57 years old at the time; Tommaso, about 20. Vasari wrote about four drawings which Michelangelo produced and gifted to Cavalieri, two of which were a pair:  “…a Ganymede rapt to Heaven by Jove’s Eagle, a Tityus with the Vulture devouring his heart…”

Michelangelo’s drawings of The Punishment of Tityus, and The Rape of Ganymede

The name Cavalieri connects with the cavalier on the horse mounted by the dual identities of Vasari and Bandinelli. Features of the vulture and eagle are paired on the representation of Cavalieri. Face on is the moustache and beak features (the peaked hat). Tommaso’s left shoulder is shaped as the yellow beak of an eagle and points to the devoured heart in the shape of a red shield. However, in Michelangelo’s drawing it  is the vulture who devours the heart.

So how are Tityus and Ganymede depicted? They are paired as the bloodied kneeling figure, face down on the ground. The figure also represents another pairing: Aeneas from Virgil’s The Aeneid, and Michelangelo.

• More on this in a future post.

On the verge of Hell

Posted on by

In my previous post I revealed the identity of Dante Alighieri in Giorgio Vasari’s fresco depicting the Battle of Marciano. His guide through the first two parts of the Divine Comedy, Inferno and Purgatario, was the Roman poet Virgil.

Vasari portrayed Virgil as the faceless head alongside the helmet representation of the exiled Dante, and partly overshadowed by the helmet of the rider at his left shoulder, emphasising his role as a ‘shade’ or spirit of both darkness and light.

Notice also the helmet’s egg-shape, a reference to the sea-front Castel dell’Ovo (Egg Castle) in Naples and its egg legend associated with Virgil.

Vasari also played on the word Virgil as meaning verge or fringe, hence why he placed Dante’s guide at the edge of the frame.

The helmet’s sickle-shape weld, or fringe, suggests a merger of two parts. Here Vasari connects Virgil and the Egg Castle’s location to the sickle-shape coast-line of the Gulf of Naples; and then plays on the word gulf with Guelphs, a name associated with the political faction that supported the Papacy, as opposed to the Ghibellines who favoured the Holy Roman Emperor. Dante Alighieri took the side of the Guelphs.

Castel dell’Ovo (Egg Castle), Naples, Italy

Within sight of Naples and a short distance of about 20 kilometres is the volcano Mt Vesuvius, which is another pointer to the ashen colour of Virgil’s helmet and armour. Dante’s red plume – suggesting the features of “a man of sorrow” can also be visualised as a fiery eruption and a pointer to the descent and journey of both poets into Hell, or Inferno, the first part of the Divine Comedy.

Naples, Italy, with Mount Vesuvius in the background.

As well as embedding references in the Marciano fresco to Dante’s journey through Hell and Purgatory to finally reach Paradise, Vasari also included pointers to Virgil’s famous poem, The Aeneid, the story of Aeneas who fled the fall of Troy and made his way to Italy where he became the ancestor of the Romans.

Vasari merged elements of these two narratives with content from other artistic works to form a framework of connections and links to produce a new creation. The work  was commissioned by the Florentine duke Cosimo I, to cover over the fresco depicting the Battle of Anghiari that was started and abandoned by Leonardo da Vinci some 60 years earlier.

I shall explain in a future post how Vasari called upon and utilised a particular image from a very rare Late Antique illuminated manuscript, now referred to as Vergilius Vaticanus, as part of the process off merging narratives of myth and truth in his Battle of Marciano fresco. 

What ‘Robert Langdon’ failed to see…

Posted on by

In Dan Brown’s Inferno novel the fictional character Robert Langdon, a Harvard University professor of history of art and “symbology”, is tasked with deciphering clues embedded in the works of Sandro Botticelli, Giorgio Vasari and the first part of Dante Alighieri’s poem Divine Comedy (Inferno).

The Vasari work is the Battle of Marciano, frescoed on the south wall of the  Palazzo Vecchio’s Hall of Five Hundred. The wall is believed to cover over the surface on which Leonardo da Vinci began to paint the Battle of Anghiari.

Battle of Marciano by Giorgio Vasari, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

What caught Langdon’s attention in the fresco was a green flag blazoned with the words Cerca Trova (Seek and Find). But other than that the Harvard professor “failed to see how Vasari’s Battaglia di Marciano could possibly relate to Dante’s Inferno…”.

The Green Flag detail from the Battle of Marciano by Giorgio Vasari, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

Langdon and his colleague Sienna then moved on to seek out Dante Alighieri’s death mask, located elsewhere in the building. But when they reached the room where it was kept they discovered the mask had been stolen.

Had Langdon made a closer inspection of Vasari’s Battaglia di Marciano he might have spotted not only a reference to the Dante mask but probably also recognised characters and scenes associated with the poet’s journey through Hell as described in Inferno.

The “Harvard professor” would likely have understood as well how Vasari adapted elements from Leonardo’s Battle of Anghiari fresco to include in his “cover-up”.

The section of the battle scene shown below is where Dante and the Inferno references can be found. So let’s “seek and find” the man known as il Sommo Poeta – the Supreme Poet.

Detail from the Battle of Marciano by Giorgio Vasari, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

Many associate the words “Seek and Find” with those recorded in the gospels of Matthew and Luke when Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, and said: “Search and you will find…”. But there is an earlier biblical reference to this instruction in the Book of Jeremiah. It is this particular mention that Vasari has flagged as a pointer to Dante Alighieri, linking the poet’s exile from Florence with the Jewish people’s exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

Left: The prophet Jeremiah by Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel.
Right; Dante Alighieri by Sandro Botticelli, private collection.

The prophet Jeremiah was inspired by God to write a letter of encouragement and hope to the people carried off into exile by Nebuchadnezzar (Jeremiah 29 : 4-23) in which was said: “When you seek me you shall find me, when you seek me with all your heart, I shall let you find me – it is the Lord who speaks” (29 : 13-14).

And when Jeremiah was first called to his vocation as a prophet he complained to God that he was still a child and did not know how to speak. But God told Jeremiah not to fear and to say whatever he was commanded to say to the people he was sent to. Jeremiah wrote: “Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me: ‘There! I am putting my words into your mouth…’” (1 : 6, 9)

Along with the quotation from Jeremiah’s letter to the exiles, Vasari also linked to the hand of God putting words into the prophet’s mouth to identify his portrayal of Dante.

Vasari made a third connection with Jeremiah and Dante’s identity in the Battle of Marciano. This time it referred to a verse by Dante in Canticle 20 when Dante wept with pity for the disfigured, weeping souls in the fourth trench of Hell. 

Truly I wept, leaning upon a peak
Of the hard crag, so that my Escort said
To me: “Art thou, too, of the other fools?”

Jeremiah wept much throughout his ministry for the people of Judah who refused to listen to his call for repentance, so much so that he became known as “the weeping prophet”.

The reason Vasari made three connections between Jeremiah and Dante was to correspond with the Divine Comedy’s structure based on the number 3 which threads throughout the poem as an acknowledgement to the Trinitarian nature of God.

Detail from the Battle of Marciano, representing Dante Alighieri and Cante Gabrielli di Gubbio
Death mask of Dante Alighieri, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

Pictured above is detail from Vasari’s fresco and shows two cavalry men, similar in appearance, placed side by side. The head on the right side represents Dante Alighieri; the head on the left, Cante dei Gabrielli di Gubbio, the man who exiled Dante from Florence.

The face of each man does not reveal their identity, but their helmet does. The head shape on the peak of Dante’s helmet refers to the poet’s death mask. Its mouth is covered or ‘masked’ by a scroll. The scroll refers to both Dante as a writer and the prophet Jeremiah’s letter to the Jewish people in exile. The scroll also invokes the time when God touched Jeremiah’s mouth with his hand and said: ‘There! I am putting my words into your mouth…”

The scene also represents when Dante entered the fourth trench of hell and wept, while ‘leaning upon a peak’ when he saw the people there with their heads reversed on their bodies, unable to look forward and walking backwards.

And people saw I through the circular valley,
Silent and weeping, coming at the pace
Which in this world the Litanies assume.
As lower down my sight descended on them,
Wondrously each one seemed to be distorted
From chin to the beginning of the chest;
For tow’rds the reins the countenance was turned,
And backward it behoved them to advance,
As to look forward had been taken from them.
Perchance indeed by violence of palsy
Some one has been thus wholly turned awry;
But I ne’er saw it. nor believe it can be.
As God may let thee, Reader, gather fruit
From this thy reading, think now for thyself
How I could ever keep my face unmoistened,
When our own image near me I beheld
Distorted so, the weeping of the eyes
Along the fissure bathed the hinder parts.
Truly I wept, leaning upon a peak
Of the hard crag, so that my Escort said
To me: Art thou, too, of the other fools?

Canto 20 – WRITEWORDS.COM

Notice the Dante mask feature placed on the helmet’s peak, and then observe the shape and placement of the red plume on Cante dei Gabrielli’s helmet. The lion-head shape and colour represents Rubicante, one of the twelve Malebranche demons who guard Borgia Five of the Eighth Circle in Inferno. Rubicante represents Cante dei Gabrielli who cast Dante out of Florence, and so, in turn, the poet casts his accuser into Hell.

The lion also represents the symbol of Judah and its people who refused to listen to Jeremiah and the words God put into his mouth. The helmet’s peak is also an identifier as its crescent shape forms part of the Gabrielli coat of arms.

While Dante’s ‘Escort’ at this stage in his poem is the Roman poet Virgil, Vasari infers Cante is also an ‘Escort’ accusing Dante of being “of the other fools”, those other Florentines who found themselves on the wrong side of Cante’s position of power and judgement as mayor of Florence. 

Dante’s tears – another connection to Jeremiah who was known as the “weeping prophet” – can be understood as the three long streams which descend from the top of the sculpted head on the helmet’s peak. This is a pointer to the plume on the silver helmet and its embedded facial feature depicting a “man of sorrow”.

• More on this section of Vasari’s Battle of Marciano in a future post.

Walls of remembrance

Posted on by

This detail is taken from the bottom right corner of the Giorgio Vasari fresco that depicts the Battle of Marciano displayed on the East wall of the Hall of Five Hundred in the Palazzo Vecchio.

Detail from the Battle of Marciano by Giorgio Vasari, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

Vasari erected a wall in front of Leonardo’s commission so as not to paint directly onto the earlier battle scene, but in doing so, and in order to preserve and pay tribute to the polymath’s abandoned fresco, he embedded cryptic references to the Battle of Anghiari on this corner section of his own own fresco.

The scene also makes reference to Michelangelo who was also commissioned to paint a battle fresco on the opposite wall in the Hall of Five Hundred around the same time Leonardo started working on the Battle Anghiari. The two artists were seen to be competing against each other – there was no love lost between the pair – and so, in a sense, it can be said they were also engaged in battle with each other and themselves.

Detail from the Last Judgment by Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel

As it was, Michelangelo never actually put paint on the wall, although he did complete cartoons in preparation, as he was summoned by Pope Julius II to come to Rome and paint the Last Judgement. Leonardo did start to paint but encountered technical difficulties with the materials he used. It is said that because the paint or wall coating was mixed with a wax substance parts of the fresco eventually started to slide down the wall. Leonardo abandoned the project and returned to Milan.

Michelangelo was more than aware of Leonardo’s misfortune and continued the feud by referencing in a most unusual and abiding way in the Last Judgment fresco what had happened to his adversary.

Seated on a cloud at the feet of Christ is the bulky figure of St Bartholomew. He is one of many muscular men in the scene. Leonardo didn’t have a good word to say about Michelangelo’s figures. He once described them as looking like sacks of walnuts. Hence Bartholomew holding his flayed carcass, devoid of body parts and looking like an empty sack of walnuts. Michelangelo even went to the extent of painting his own face on the carcass, distorted and seemingly slipping downwards. An obvious reference to Leonardo’s failed fresco sliding down the wall and a retort to the cutting remark made two decades before about muscles and walnuts!.

In Vasari’s corner scene the figure on its knees represents both Michelangelo and Leonardo.

Leonardo is also represented in the figures of the two men cowering beneath the horse. A second identity Vasari applied to the bearded man with his hand outstretched Is Tommaso Cavalieri, a friend of Michelangelo. The second identity of the man looking up at the horseshoe was also a friend of Michelangelo – Daniele da Volterra.

I shall explain how Vasari pieced these identities together in a future post.

The Vasari code

Posted on by

While still attempting to turn up a high-resolution image of the marriage scene located in the Palazzo Vecchio’s room dedicated to Pope Clement VII, I’ve switched my attention to another Vasari fresco in the same building (in the Hall of the Five Hundred); the Battle of Marciano, also known as the Battle of Scannagallo.

Battle of Marcian by Giorgio Vasari, Hall of Five Hundred, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.

The fresco is probably more famous in recent times for its mention in the Dan Brown novel Inferno and the research carried out by a team led by Maurizio Seracini to discover a fresco painted by Leonardo said to be covered and protected by a wall on which Vasari painted the Battle of Marciano. Seracini’s research proved inconclusive and was halted by local authorities to avoid any damage to the Vasari fresco.

Seracini based his theory and investigation on a small detail in the Vasari fresco, a green flag bearing the words Cerca Trova, generally translated as “seek and you will find”. This led him to believe that Vasari had not painted directly over Leonardo’s fresco that depicted the battle of Anghiari, but had instead built a wall in front with a cavity behind. A cavity was discovered by Seracini but no proof of any lasting image of Leonardo’s fresco other that some residue fragments of white paint. Had Seracini been allowed to continue his research he may have indeed discovered more evidence.

My take on the green flag inscription is that it does refer to Leonardo’s fresco of the Battle of Anghiari. However, the flag’s cryptic message was also designed to alert observers to another conflict, an ongoing  antagonism between Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti.

My next few posts will deal with how Giorgio Vasari embedded references in his Marciano painting to the conflict between Leonardo and Michelangelo by recycling elements from the Battle of Anghiari ‘lost’ fresco.

A view of the Hall of Five Hundred in the Palazzo Vecchio.
Vasari’s Battle of Marciano is the panel seen at the right edge of the frame.

Clementines

Posted on by

Giorgio Vasari applied more than one identity – usually two or four – to most of the figures in his fresco depicting the Marriage of Henry, Duke of Orleans, and Catherine de’ Medici.

The marriage between Henry, Duke of Orleans and Catherine Medici, Giorgio Vasari, Palazzo Vecchio

In previous posts I revealed four identities to the moustached man placed at the shoulder of Pope Clement VII:
Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan
Giovanni Andrea Lampugnani, assassin of Galeazzo Maria Sforza
Alessandro de Medici, Duke of Florence
Gaston de Foix, Duke of Nemours, nicknamed The Thunderbolt of Italy

The central figure in the fresco, Pope Clement VII, bishop of Rome, is one of four identities. Not surprisingly two of them relate to previous popes: Clement I, and the anti-pope Clement VII (Robert of Geneva). The fourth identity connects to the two Roman mythology figures portrayed in the corner of the frame, Saturn and Ops. They parented five children, Jupiter being one of them, and it is Jupiter, representing the god of sky and thunder, who Vasari has embedded as the fourth identity.

Jupiter, the god of sky and thunder and protector of laws and the state

Two symbols associated with Jupiter are an eagle and a lightening bolt. The latter connects to the identity of the head on Jupiter’s shoulder, Gaston de Foix, the Thunderbolt of Italy. As for the eagle, noted for its large hooked beak, we can recognise this feature in another identity given to the head on Jupiter’s shoulder, Galeazzo Maria Sforza. 

The head of Jupiter can also be visualised as the head of a raptor, perhaps a bearded vulture, the red cape spread out like wings, and hands represented as claws digging into the arms of Henry and Catherine – or even the head of the bearded Jupiter as depicted in ancient statues of the chief deity of the Roman State religion.

Primavera by Sandro Botticelli, Uffizi, Florence

This figure represented as both a god of the sky and Pope Clement VII connects to the central figure in Botticelli’s Primavera representing the Assumption of the Virgin Mary into Heaven and to a lost fresco in the Sistine Chapel. The Chapel was dedicated to the Assumption of Mary by Pope Sixtus IV on her feast day of that name, August 15, 1483.

A drawing made by Pinturicchio, one of Perugini’s assistants, of the lost Assumption of the Virgin, the fresco covered by Michelangelo’s Last Judgment fresco.

Covering the whole wall behind the altar in the Sistine Chapel is a fresco illustrating the Last Judgement, painted by Michelangelo between 1535 and 1541. However, the wall was originally frescoed by Pietro Perugino in the early 1480s depicting the Assumption of the Virgin. 

The Last Judgement by Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel

It was Pope Clement VII who commissioned Michelangelo to overpaint or cover up Perugino’s Assumption fresco with the Last Judgment painting shortly before his death in September 1534, less than a year after attending the wedding of Catherine de’ Medici and Henry of Orleans at Marseille in France.

A 14th-century miniature symbolising the schism.
Grandes Chroniques de France, BnF, department of Manuscripts

The French connection introduces the anti-pope Clement VII (Robert of Geneva) who was elected pope in September 1378 by cardinals who opposed the return of the papacy from Avignon to Rome. His reign as anti-pope lasted until his death in September 1394, but what became known as the Papal Schism within the Catholic Church lasted until 1417. Robert of Geneva’s claim as pope was never recognised by the Church of Rome, hence Giulio de Medici taking the name Clement and listed as the legitimate Pope Clement VII. The irony is that Giulio himself was born illegitimate, the son of Fioretta Gorini. Illegitimacy is one of the themes iulioembedded in the Vasari fresco.

Giulio’s birth was legitimised with a papal dispensation issued by Pope Leo X in 1513 when it was declared that his parents, Giuliano de’ Medici and Fioretta had been “wed according to those present”. However, the declaration was made 35 years after Giulio was born and the witnesses were said to be two monks and a relation of Fioretta Gorini. Seemingly Fioretta had died by then and was not able to verify the witnesses evidence. So were the claims of the three witnesses legitimate? 

Close inspection of Pope Clement VII’s red bonnet, shows it partially covering another. This reflects the suppression of Robert of Geneva’s false claim to the papacy. It also refers to the covering up of Perugino’s Assumption fresco that showed Pope Sixtus IV kneeling among the group of the Twelve Apostles. It is said that Sixtus instigated the Pazzi Conspiracy which resulted in the assassination of Giuliano de’ Medici, considered to be the father of Clement VII, hence the reason for the Medici pope wanting Michelangelo to cover the scene with a new fresco.

Sixtus IV also makes a connection to Jupiter. His birth name was Francesco della Rovere. Rovere translates as “oak”, and the oak tree was another symbol associated with Jupiter the “sky god”. Sixtus incorporated the oak tree in his papal arms. Arms and armour is another embedded them in the Vasari painting.

Pope Clement I, and the coat of arms for Pope Sixtus IV

The iconography related to Clement I is the purse hanging from the side of the papal figure. Clement I was martyred by being thrown into the sea and weighed down by an anchor. He is usually portrayed with an anchor at his side. The purse feature relates to the anti-pope Clement VII, an ambitious and stubborn man who resorted to extortion and simony – “the act of selling church offices and roles or sacred things”. Simony relates to the account of Simon Magus (Acts of the Apostles), a magician whom the people considered a divine power and called Great (another connection to the Magnificat and its meaning of greatness as explained in the previous post).

Simon Magus offered the apostle Peter money to receive the power to be able to lay hands on people for them to receive the Holy Spirit. But Peter, who had ordained Clement I by laying hands on him, dismissed the offer of money by Simon Magus and said: “May your silver be lost forever, and you with it, for thinking that money could buy what God has given for nothing” (Acts 8  20). Then Simon, weighed down by guilt and fear, pleaded with Peter to pray for him. 

Clement VII was not without his faults in a manner that drained the Vatican treasury. He assigned positions in the Church, titles, land and money, in favour of his Medici relatives. This also makes a connection to Simon Magus as a magician. Note the proximity of Catherine de’ Medici’s dark right hand to Clement’s purse. It is claimed that Catherine was a practitioner of the dark arts, who relied on soothsayers, seers, mystics and astrologers to forecast her own and family’s future.

But this juxtaposition of hand and purse is another piece of iconography adapted from Botticelli’s Primavera. With Pope Clement substituted for the figure of Mary’s assumption (Venus), Catherine is a replacement for the figure of Botticelli’s Flora dispensing flowers from her apron purse.

So now the four identities associated with the central figure in the marriage scene are:
Pope Clement VII (Giulio de’ Medici)
Anti-pope Clement VII (Robert of Geneva)
Pope Clement I (Clement of Rome)
Jupiter, son of Saturn and Ops

• I hope to continue posting information about this Vasari fresco when I can source a higher resolution digital image of the work. The low-res version available on the internet lacks important visual detail to explain clearly some of the narratives embedded by the artist. If anyone out there has access to a better-quality version than I have used so far for my posts on this subject, please contact me.

Parrot fashion

Posted on by

This striking portrait is of Marguerite de Navarre, also known as Marguerite of Angoulème. She was the sister of the French king Francis I.

Note the green parrot perched on her right hand.

The painting is attributed to Jean Clouet, thought to be originally from the Lowlands, probably Flanders, but relocated to France and worked for the French court.

The drawing alongside is also of Marguerite de Navarre, produced later in her life by François Clouet, son of Jean. Francois was known for his portraits of the French ruling family and court members. Note the lap dog.

Giorgio Vasari combined elements of both artworks to create the identity of Marguerite of Angoulème for his fresco depicting the marriage of Henry, the second son of Francis I, to Catherine de’s Medici.

Marguerite is the woman in the centre of the group shown below.

Another level of identities: Gaston de Foix, Marguerite de Navarre, and Bona, Duchess of Milan.

In this scenario, the head on the left represents Gaston de Foix, said to be Marguerite’s one real love in life. He died in the Battle of Ravenna fighting for the French against combined Spanish and Papal forces. His unfinished tomb is located in Sforza Castle, Milan, and so makes the connection to the head’s principal identity, Galeazzo Maria Sforza. Note the similarity to the head of the effigy on Gaston’s tomb, to the head given to Galeazzo by Vasari.

The tomb of Gaston de Foix, Duke of Nemours, located at Sforza Castle, Milan.
Bona of Savoy

A third identity attributed to the woman opposite Galeazzo is his wife Bona of Savoy. Two other identities are Maria Salviati and Fioretta Gorini.

Bona connects with another identity to the central woman, Teresa of Avila, as explained in a previous post. Vasari made two connections to these two women – the locations Avila and Angoulème. Bona, Duchess of Milan was born in Avigliana, Turin. The name Angoulème puns with the angle formed by Galeazzo’s nose.

Marguerite makes a connection with Teresa of Avila. The writings and actions of the Spanish Carmelite were seen as part of the Catholic Revival against the growing Protestant Reformation movement in Europe that  influenced Marguerite and her writings, particularly her poem Mirror of the Sinful Soul. Note the head of a dog – a bloodhound – over Marguerite’s chest. Perhaps a reference to Cerebus, the dog associated with Hades, but countered by the Dominican Order’s symbol of the “hound of the Lord”, and so another pointer to Botticelli’s Primavera and its similar symbolism.

The Antelope Nose and the Carmelites

Posted on by

Here’s another set of figures from Vasari’s painting of the marriage of Henry, the second son of the French king Francis I, with Catherine de’ Medici, daughter of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino.

The way they relate to each other is by their association with the Carmelites, a religious order for men and women.

In a previous post I pointed out that the moustached man represents both Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan and his assassin Giovanni Lampugnani who attempted to escape the scene of his crime by concealing himself amongst a group of women inside Milan Cathedral. Hence the man being shown ‘veiled’.

In the mid-fifteenth century a Carmelite convent and church (Santa Maria del Carmine) was built near to Castello Sforzesco, home of the Sforza ruling family of Milan. The church and convent were patronised by the Sforza’s, including Galeazzo Maria Sforza.

Vasari has linked Galeazzo’s prominent nose to a similar profile associated with Mt Carmel, a mountain landmark referred to by ancient Egyptian seafarers as the Antelope Nose. Turn the image on its side and see how Vasari incorporated the profile of the mountain as a shadow area inside the veil.

Another connection to the House of Sforza is the veil worn by the woman opposite to Galeazzo. In this instance she represents Fioretta Gorini. Notice the shape of a snake head on the edge of the veil pointing in the direction of Galeazzo, its body represented by the veil’s wavy edge, snaking both down and across. The snake reference is to the Milanese and a Sforza emblem known as the Biacione

Fioretta was said to be the mistress of Giuliano de’ Medici, who’s was assassinated a month before she gave birth to his son and who later went on to become Clement VII, the Pope she stands behind in Vasari’s painting. After giving up her child to the Medici family she later joined a Carmelite convent in Florence, and was enclosed or ‘walled-up’ as an anchoress.

That she was walled-up links back to Galeazzo who was not adverse to walling up alive anyone who may have upset him. Enclosure or walling up is also a clue to the other veiled woman, another Carmelite, the mystic Teresa of Avila who was later declared a saint by the Catholic Church. The wall reference is associated with where she came from, Ávila, the Spanish city known for it magnificent encircling wall that still stands today.

The Spanish city of Ávila with its centuries old walled enclosure.

Teresa seems to rise above the others and that’s a pointer to the occasions she is said to have levitated. It’s also another reference to Botticelli’s Primavera and it central figure depicting the Virgin Mary seen to be raised off the ground, but a feature that indicates her assumption into Heaven. Teresa of Ávila claimed she experienced moments of ecstasy as if she had been raised into Heaven.

• Vasari also applied second identities to the two women which I shall explain in a future post

The marriage between Henry, Duke of Orleans and Catherine Medici, Giorgio Vasari, Palazzo Vecchio
Primavera, by Sandro Botticelli, Uffizi, Florence

A touch of the Tetrarchs

Posted on by

I had intended for this post to explain how Pontormo’s portrait of Lorenzino de’ Medici connected with the image of King Francis I in the Vasari painting of the marriage between Henry II and Catherine de’ Medici, but instead I shall focus on the group of four figures to the right of the French king (shown below).

Tucked in immediately behind Francis is Lorenzino de’ Medici. Next is Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici. Behind him is the Spanish priest and former soldier Ignatius Loyola, placed next to another cardinal, Girolamo Verallo.

What binds these four men together is that they all have a connection with Venice. The group can also be split into two pairs: Lorenzino connects with Ippolito; Ignatius links with Verallo.

Giorgio Vasari or his assistant Giovanni Stradano (and I’m beginning to sense it was Stradano who was responsible for the composition) connected the four-man group to a famous porphyry sculptured group of figures known as the Portrait of Four Tetrarchs and attached to the façade of St Mark’s Basilica in Venice. The two sets of sculpted tetrarchs are located on the south corner of the Basilica and were brought to Venice as loot following the Sack of Constantinople in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade.

This also makes a connection to the figure of Pope Clement VII and the Sack of Rome in 1527 by rogue troops of Emperor Charles V. Clement was kept captive for six months in Castel Sant’Angelo. While imprisoned, Clement grew a beard which he kept for the rest of his life as a sign of mourning for the sack of Rome, an example followed by his successor Paul III, placed at Clement’s right shoulder and looking upwards.

An earlier Sack of Rome by Visigoths happened in 410, about a century after the figures of the Four Tetrarchs were said to have been sculpted. As to their identity one theory is “they represent a dynastic group of the Constantinian dynasty”. If so, this in turn would connect with the figure of Lorenzino de’ Medici who, in a drunken state as a youth, set about decapitating and mutilating some of the statues on the Arch of Constantine in Rome. His actions would have served as a painful reminder to Pope Clement VII of the sack of Rome and his own captivity. For his crime, Lorenzino was exiled from Rome.

Left to right: Lorenzino de’ Medici, Ippolito de’ Medici, Ignatius Loyola and Girolamo Verallo.

Now to the Venice connections. Lorenzino was assassinated in Venice on February 26, 1548; Ippolito was once a papal legate assigned to the Republic of Venice by his cousin Pope Clement VII. They are paired because of their same interest in deposing Alessandro de Medici as Duke of Florence.

Ignatius Loyola was ordained priest in Vienna on June 24,1537. He renewed his vows of poverty and chastity to the then papal legate to Vienna, Cardinal Girolamo Verallo who became the priest’s protector. Verallo was already acquainted with Pope Paul III as his father served as the pope’s personal physician. Hence Girolamo’s placing behind the figure of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, standing in line for the papacy behind Pope Clement VII. Girolamo’s head is also placed immediately behind the head of Henry, Duke of Orleans, later to become Henry II of France. After Julius III was elected to the papacy in 1550 the new pope made Girolamo legate a latere to Henry II the following year.

It’s important to note that some of the figures in the marriage scene have been assigned more than one identity by the painter.

• More disclosures on this work in my next post.

When opposites attract

Posted on by

This post presents more details about Vasari’s marriage scene between Henry, Duke of Orleans, and Catherine de’ Medici, and how it was inspired by Sandro Botticelli’s Primavera painting. 

The male and female mythology figures, Saturn and his consort sister Ops, placed at the right edge of Vasari’s picture, simulate the pairing of Zephyr and Chloris in Primavera, with one head turned and another looking down, except the male and female roles are reversed. Their disguised identities in both paintings are Leonardo da Vinci and Fioretta Gorini. Yes, Fioretta appears more than once in each work, and there are several references to Leonardo embedded in both, too.

A third level of identities given to the pair is Adam and Eve. This introduces another painter into the scenario, Michelangelo, and is a pointer to one of the ceiling scenes he painted in the Sistine Chapel. I shall post about this connection at another time.

Michelangelo appears in Vasari’s marriage scene and is placed at the extreme left of the painting, depicted as the Archangel Michael – hence the arch shape of the frame next to the figure. Note also the frame’s arch connected to Saturn and Ops, and how it corresponds with the arched trees and figures of Zephyr and Chloris in Primavera.

That representations of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci are placed at opposite walls of the frame is also a pointer to the occasion when both artists were commissioned to paint battle scenes on opposite walls in the Palazzo Vecchio’s Hall of Five Hundred which was later extended and decorated by Giorgio Vasari.

Hall of the Five Hundred, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence