In 1457, the year that Fra Filippo’s son Filippino was born, his
household effects and box of colours were seized for debt. He lived on
until October 4, 1469, when he died of a sudden and somewhat mysterious
illness. The Frate, who is the connecting link between Masaccio, the
first blossom, and Raphael, the full flower of Florentine painting, was
the master of Botticelli. A small _Madonna and Child_ (No. 1345) has
little claim to be regarded as the work of Fra Filippo.
In our attempt to unravel the skein of Italian art in this collection
and to sketch its history in strict chronological order we may now
consider two small predella panels of (_a_) _St. Francis receiving
the Stigmata_ and (_b_) _An Incident in the Life of St. Cosmo and St.
Damian_ (No. 1414) by Francesco Pesellino (1422-1457). The former deals
with a subject we have already met with in this Gallery (No. 1312); the
latter is a new theme. St. Cosmo and St. Damian were wealthy men and
spent their time in doing charitable works as doctors without monetary
reward, and are thus sometimes known as “the Holy Money-despisers.”
According to the legend here represented, a Christian was one day
praying to these saints in the church dedicated to them in Rome in
the fervent hope that he might be healed of cancer in the leg. While
thus at prayer he imagined that his leg was amputated and replaced by
that of a dead Moor. In this small panel the saints are shown in the
act of placing the black man’s limb on the body of the Christian, who,
no doubt, will before long be healed. St. Cosmo and St. Damian being
patron saints of the Medici family are often met with in Florentine
art. We have already in this collection looked at a picture (No. 1293)
by Fra Angelico illustrating their martyrdom. Pesellino, who studied
the art of Fra Angelico, Masaccio, and Domenico Veneziano, and followed
somewhat closely in the steps of Fra Filippo Lippi, can hardly have
painted the small three-panel picture officially ascribed to him of
(_a_) _The Dead Christ_, (_b_) _A Cardinal supporting the Bodies of Two
Men who have been hanged_, and (_c_) _A Cardinal appearing in a Vision
to a Bishop_. This small work (No. 1415), which was formerly in the
Campana collection, has been claimed by Dr. Venturi and Mr. Berenson to
be by the Umbrian artist, Fiorenzo di Lorenzo.
The _Madonna and Child and St. Augustin, St. John the Baptist, St.
Anthony, and St. Francis_ (No. 1661), which is officially catalogued
as being by an Unknown Florentine artist, and has been variously
attributed to Andrea del Castagno, Fra Filippo Lippi, and Andrea
Verrocchio, may be assigned to that nameless contemporary of Pesellino
whose artistic personality was a few years ago constructed by Mrs.
Berenson under the name of “Compagno di Pesellino.”
The art of the Umbrian artist, Piero dei Franceschi (1415?-1492), who
is so well represented in the National Gallery, is not seen at the
Louvre, where, however, a _Madonna and Child_ passes under his name.
This panel (the official number of which is given in the Catalogue
as 1300B and on the frame as 1300A) was formerly in the Duchâtel
collection before passing into that of the Duc de la Trémoïlle, from
whom it was purchased in 1898 for £5200 by the _Société des Amis du
Louvre_. It was recognised over twelve years ago by M. Ary Renan as
the work of Alessio Baldovinetti (14271499), who, like Piero dei
Franceschi, was formed on Domenico Veneziano, and was also influenced
by the discoveries and methods of Uccello.
Crowe and Cavalcaselle also had made that attribution before the
question was taken up by Mr. Berenson, who on morphological and
æsthetic grounds unhesitatingly ascribes it to Baldovinetti. “Compared
with Baldovinetti,” writes Mr. Berenson, “Piero dei Franceschi is
sterner and harder and more monumental. Piero’s Madonnas have a fixed
and severe physiognomy, massive structure and immobile pose; never a
smile, never a touch of tenderness.” How different from all this is the
_Madonna_ by Baldovinetti before us, with her “refined features and
her pensive gaze of adoration—a look that unveils her inner life, a
look that will soon develop into the mystery which we feel in the face
of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.” Vasari tells us that Baldovinetti
was “extremely careful and exact in his work, and of all the minutiæ
which Mother Nature is capable of presenting, he took pains to be the
close imitator. He delighted in the representation of landscape, which
he depicted with the utmost exactitude; thus we find in his pictures
rivers, bridges, rocks, herbs, fruits, paths, fields, cities, castles,
sands, and objects innumerable of the same kind.” A goodly number of
these are included in the background of this picture.
With Antonio Pollaiuolo (1429-1498) and his brother Piero (1443-1496)
we enter on a more scientific era in Florentine art. Masaccio had
already advanced the study of the nude, and the influence of Donatello
(1386-1466) and other sculptors had drawn the attention of all
art-workers to the fuller significance of the human form. A more
serious attempt was now made by the rising generation of sculptors and
painters, among whom Antonio Pollaiuolo and Verrocchio (1435-1488)
now played the leading parts, to impart to the human figure a more
exact physiological accuracy and so give it greater effectiveness. The
advance made by Baldovinetti in landscape tended also to a more real
sense of movement in a natural environment. The Louvre catalogues no
picture under the name of either of the Pollaiuoli, but a _Madonna_
(No. 1367A) here credited to Bastiano Mainardi was probably executed by
Piero, who frequently worked on his elder brother’s designs.
The influence of Alessio Baldovinetti is reflected in the pictures of
Cosimo Rosselli (1437-1507). Nothing is officially ascribed to him in
this collection, but the _Annunciation, with St. John the Baptist, St.
Anthony, St. Catherine, and St. Peter Martyr_ (No. 1656), which is here
catalogued as by an Unknown fifteenth-century Florentine painter, is
apparently his work. It is inscribed with the date A.D.M.CCCCLXXIII.