Francesco di Giorgio Martini
Studies on Francesco di Giorgio [Martini], a Sienese painter, sculptor and architect of the fifteenth century (1439-1501), call to mind certain police investigations that follow leads chosen with indomitable confidence, usually on the basis of the investigator’s competence or preferences, in which some pieces of evidence are altered, others disappear, and others still, too obvious, are simply declared false. An expert in Renaissance painting will declare him a painter, with some excursions into architecture; a scholar of architecture will read his paintings in search of quotations of ancient monuments or designs for churches and palaces; an expert in the history of military architecture, such as his first biographer Carlo Promis, will speak of his fortified strongholds.
The unpleasant thing is that each of them, in order to support his own critical approach, will feel the need to belittle whatever activity of Francesco di Giorgio lies outside his own horizon of interest. Those who see him as an architect will say that his paintings are angular and indebted to many masters, and will draw a veil over his sculpture, while those who consider him above all a painter will take from him the authorship of important buildings, preferring to leave it to artists shrouded in mystery. And so, as with the crimes in detective novels until the very last page, works remain in circulation in search of an author.
One clarification before we begin: the question of the name. The “Martini” placed in brackets can be eliminated, even if this means going against a usage that has become irremediably established in art history books and in noble encyclopaedias. The Register of Baptisms, kept in the State Archives of Siena, reads as follows: “Franciescho Maurizio, son of Giorgio di Martino, poulterer, was baptised on the XXIII day of September; the godmother was Monna Gemma di Bindo Tosini of Brolio.”
The addition of the surname Martini is contrary to custom, and not justified by the artist’s signatures or by documents of the period. We shall therefore use the short form, in good company with the English school (J. Pope-Hennessy first and foremost), but we warn that to find information about Francesco di Giorgio it is better to search under the letter M.
To analyse the critical fortune, or misfortune, of Francesco di Giorgio, the work of the architect Carlo Promis, mentioned above, is useful, because he left words that are exemplary in their failure to recognise the artist’s worth and that aptly represent the one-way (alternating one-way, we might say) attitude of which the Sienese artist has been a victim. Moreover, Promis exercised a lasting influence on later scholars: he is still found quoted and taken at his word in recent essays. When, to his credit, he published the Treatise on Civil and Military Architecture of Francesco di Giorgio in 1841, after four centuries of oblivion, he thought it useful to make himself its biographer and critic, but he used the parameters of his own speciality, the history of fortifications. “I shall point out, rather than dissect, the works that our Cecco executed in painting, in bronze, in marble; but I cannot agree to the infinite number of civil buildings that his fellow citizens ascribe to him. Nor will his merit be diminished thereby, for it is truly founded on his military works, on his treatise and on the codex of drawings in which he laid the foundations of the modern art of fortification.” Thus the first biography of “Cecco” opened with a declaredly partisan approach. On his activity as a painter, a concise judgement: “I shall say, however, that Francesco is not a painter of renown, although his panels are not few in number; but in them the composition is poor, a defect of the times, the colouring dull and the relief almost nil: no errors can be laid against him, but no merits are found in him either.” For the sculpture, two lines of silence: “Later, leaving aside the compasses, he became a modeller, a founder and a chaser of bronzes.” Speaking of non-military architecture, the condemnation is almost total: “Of civil buildings nothing else can be attributed to him with certainty except the stable that he built for the Duke of Urbino, in which city I know not, but certainly not in the palace of Urbino itself.” Then, amid learned dissertations on the art of fortification, a disconcerting confession: “not having travelled through all those provinces”. Promis did not know Siena or Cortona, and probably not even Urbino, and he had seen the church of the Madonna delle Grazie al Calcinaio only in a drawing. Evidently, at that time, consulting the archives was preferred to verification on the spot, since as early as 1795 Abbot Luigi Lanzi wrote of the “celebrated architect” Francesco di Giorgio: “He was also a good sculptor, according to the custom of those times of not separating the three fine sister arts, and he was a painter, but of little renown.” Ettore Romagnoli, for his part, commented on the Nativity in 1835: “The manner is dry… as were the paintings made around the middle of the 15th century.” Having found precursors for Promis, it must be said that he also had followers. Cavalcaselle and Crowe (1902) judge the figures painted by Francesco di Giorgio to be “gaunt, senile and angular, with movements rendered awkwardly, and often pompously affected… The tone is cold, without relief, smooth, and grey in the shadows…” To conclude this review of denigrations, in 1902, celebrating in Siena the fourth centenary of the artist’s death, the Commissione Senese di Storia Patria recalled how the “learned studies and research of Promis, of Milanesi… and of others have today placed the figure of this man in its truest light: the artist has perhaps lost a little by it, but the scholar and the scientist have gained much.”
Since then something has changed in the overall assessment of Francesco di Giorgio’s work, yet as late as 1987 one could read in Francesco di Giorgio Martini – Pittore e scultore, by Ralph Toledano, that his fame as an architect was due to the high esteem in which architecture itself was held, to the aura of humanist he had won by writing the Treatise, and to some errors by Vasari, who among other things had wrongly attributed the Palazzo Ducale of Urbino to him; whereas “the technical specialities in which Francesco had become a master are linked to questions of hygiene (aqueducts), security (bastions) and survival (fortifications). One need only think of the importance of a field bastion in a peninsula divided into rival states bounded by few natural frontiers.” In reality, the Sienese Francesco di Giorgio was sought after as an architect by Milan, Naples, Urbino, Pavia, Rome, Cortona and Lucca; and it would take a very long time to list the tributes of esteem he received: he was called “my most beloved architect” by Federico of Urbino, “architetectorem egregium” by the Elders of the Republic of Lucca, and “nobilis in architectura vir” by Gian Galeazzo Sforza in the letter in which he thanks the Signoria of Siena for having allowed him to make use of his advice. Indeed, as someone has noted, his work as a painter and sculptor would have been judged much more favourably had it not been overshadowed by his great fame as an architect and as a civil and military engineer.
Francesco di Giorgio and Luciano Laurana
It is best to tackle at once a rather thorny question: the part played by Francesco di Giorgio in the design and construction of the Palazzo Ducale of Urbino, which is commonly ascribed to Luciano Laurana. The attribution rests on the famous “letters patent” of 1468 with which Count Federico of Montefeltro appointed Master Luciano chief engineer for the construction of “a beautiful and worthy dwelling, as befits the condition and laudable fame of our forebears, and also our own condition”. Luciano Laurana, a mysterious figure about whose training there are only hypotheses, apart from his association with Leon Battista Alberti in Mantua, and whose recognised works, once those considered merely probable are set aside, for Federico until 1472; he then went to Naples, to the court of King Ferrante, as “mestre de artilleries”, that is, master of the artillery. Anyone who has observed the monumental scale of the work, and considered the enormous preparatory labour of excavation and foundations needed to level the hill on which the palace stands, will wonder how it could have been completed in so few years, even assuming that work began immediately after the commission was granted. To correct Vasari, who, let us remember, attributed its authorship to Francesco di Giorgio, a great critic such as Milanesi pushed the start of the work back to 1447, that is, when “our Francesco was 8 or 9 years old.”
This information was later proved false, but it should in any case have cast doubt on the authenticity of the letter of appointment to Luciano Laurana: such are the problems that arise from archival research. Someone also happened to come across a forged document and take it at face value because it contributed to the cause (in this case, the glorification of Laurana), without noticing that Giovanni Santi, in his Chronicle celebrating Federico of Montefeltro, did not in fact pass over the artistic contribution of Francesco di Giorgio in silence, but that some unknown hand had covered a couple of the original sheets with new ones in a different handwriting and ink. The stuff of rogue secret services: not because there was a cultural conspiracy against Francesco di Giorgio, but simply because it was better to keep him in the shade, since Laurana’s heirs were having trouble asserting certain unspecified rights granted by the late Duke. To determine who the author of a work is, would it not be advisable to turn also to the characteristics of style, and to the material nature of the building components, for example the origin of the bricks and their dating? In the case of the Palazzo Ducale, the intervention of Francesco di Giorgio appears evident in the luminous courtyard, in the solutions given to the meeting of the colonnades, in the spaciousness of the surfaces, and in many elements such as doors, windows, cornices and capitals, always of perfect proportion and delicate design.
The history of the palace’s construction also records the count of Montefeltro’s advance in honours, as he was raised to duke in 1474; the recurring celebratory monogram changes from F C to F D, or FE DUX. The first monogram is still visible in some parts of the building, but in the inscription running along the architraves of the courtyard it takes on the value of a date and shows that Laurana, having already left for Naples a couple of years earlier, could not have taken part in the construction of what is considered the focal centre of the palace.
And the main courtyard of Urbino so closely recalls the courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale in Gubbio, built between 1474 and 1476 (the same columns with the same bases and the same capitals, an identical curve of the arches, the same archivolts, roundels and entablatures), that some have thought of attributing it to Laurana, although there is no trace of his ever having been in Gubbio, whereas all his contemporaries recognised the hand of Francesco di Giorgio in the design and in the architectural solutions.
Adolfo Venturi, attributing it to the Sienese artist, commented thus: “The courtyard of the Palace of Gubbio is an echo of Laurana’s courtyard in Urbino; on three sides the portico with columns of the composite order was repeated, and on the upper floor the series of windows separated by pilasters; the very beautiful solution of the corners was repeated, as was the series of hollow roundels between arch and arch; the model had captivated the eyes of the Sienese.” But, ruling out the blatant plagiarism that would follow from supposing two different authors, which would be the only case in the whole of the Renaissance, it is more likely that both courtyards were born from designs by the Sienese architect. The patron was the same, Federico of Montefeltro again: it seems, in fact, that at Gubbio he wished to put to the test the artist to whom he intended to entrust the completion of the Palazzo Ducale of Urbino. And Federico, the enlightened patron praised by Baldassarre Castiglione in The Book of the Courtier, was certainly no stranger to architecture and must have been a severe judge.
An apprenticeship between painting and architecture
But before arriving (when he was over thirty, a mature age in those times) at the palace of Urbino and at Federico’s esteem, what works had Francesco di Giorgio produced besides the courtyard in Gubbio already mentioned, and what had his studies and his masters been? We know that he had attended the school of the painter and sculptor Vecchietta, but in Siena the “new” architecture had no representatives capable of doing, or at least appreciating, what Brunelleschi had expressed in Florence in order to break free from the constraints of the style of the medieval builders. The only architect from whom Francesco di Giorgio might have learnt a feeling for volumes and proportions seems to have been Federighi, author in Siena of the slender Loggia del Papa, judged “frail” by some when in fact it dares to break the old rules of heaviness. Like Brunelleschi, who came to architecture at around forty, Francesco di Giorgio had no practical experience of building sites, but once he had decided to learn the art of building he devoted himself to the study of the classics, mathematics, geometry and perspective, sparing himself no effort. “And desiring to attain some true and well-founded knowledge in the art of drawing and of architecture, I made a firm resolve to spare no labour that I saw to be necessary to reach this end.”
Evidence of so much study is provided by the words of the Treatise and by the notebooks of drawings of Francesco di Giorgio, who wandered among the Roman remains and studied them, making surveys and measurements in the hope of reproducing their geometrical harmony in new forms. He also tried his hand at translating the work of Vitruvius, whom he regarded as the most valid authority in the world of the classics, almost completing it before abandoning the undertaking in the face of a Latin that was too difficult.
He studied the ten books of De architectura, compared them with the Roman remains and, with a very modern and scientific attitude, appreciated both the solutions proposed and the questions left open: “… we must give thanks not only to those who in the arts have left us the truth elucidated, but also to those who have raised questions about certain secrets, because through them we have arrived at true knowledge…”
From this he drew rules that he always kept in mind: mathematics above all, geometry as an essential element, the rule of proportion and the module as the measure of all things. His notebooks of drawings are not the only evidence of his passion for ancient monuments; much of his output as a painter is rich in quotations of classical or invented architecture. The Nativity in the church of San Domenico in Siena is the work that best represents the way Francesco di Giorgio introduced architecture into his paintings. The great broken triumphal arch takes up a theme that was almost fashionable at the time: representing the birth of the Redeemer against the background of a collapsing pagan world, an excellent metaphor that gave the artist the opportunity to display his knowledge of ancient art. Botticelli, Perugino and Ghirlandaio would also set the Nativity among Roman ruins; but they would not do so as architects, because they would reproduce the ruins, using them as stage wings rather than re-creating them.
Francesco di Giorgio declares that he respects the rules of the ancients, but claims for his own “feeble wit” the invention of the forms of the temples and palaces inserted into his paintings. For all his modesty, he is rightly proud of his ability to apply to new works the rules and modules he had derived – one might say “extracted” – from the study of the classics. In the Nativity the enormous triumphal arch plays the leading role and, on close inspection, it is not really so ruined, nor even so Roman.
On the left side it is intact and reveals all its inventive character and its Sienese imprint: it shows long, slender columns and fluted pilasters on which rest very elaborate capitals with confronted dolphins – a critic of the “pictorial” school recently took them for goat’s horns – masks and garlands (they can be seen executed, on columns that are of course sturdier, in the portal of the church of San Bernardino), and it has a cornice of improbable projection. The whole is rendered with an almost pungent precision, conceding nothing to pictorial approximation. But the panel contains other architectural elements, two entirely invented buildings placed in the distance, almost hidden. Both are centrally planned, a theme that often recurs in the notebooks of drawings; one is hexagonal and characterised by massive buttresses which, together with a tall plinth and a solemn flight of steps, give it an almost pyramidal structure; the other has a cubic central body with four lateral bodies forming a Greek cross, surmounted by a small dome set on cylindrical drums with conical roofs. Almost all the geometrical solids are there. Finally, on a distant hill to the right of the arch appears the outline of a towered city and, on the opposite side, another building on a circular plan and some towers can be glimpsed through the haze.
If the famous City Perspective in the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino, somewhat rigid and desolate, is of doubtful attribution, architectural motifs, whether or not justified by the scene depicted, recur in a great many other works by Francesco di Giorgio: in the Nativity with Sts. Bernard and Thomas Aquinas we see part of a circular aedicule and cities in the distance; in the wooden inlays of the floor of Siena Cathedral the city of Bethulia is depicted, with bizarre loggias and carefully rendered windows within the crenellated walls; in the Triumph of Chastity, defeated Love makes his sorrowful way towards a small circular temple with an irregularly shaped balustrade, and other cities and an isolated little church appear in the background. In the Madonna and Child in Avignon a portico rises from the water of a river city; an elaborate temple and a walled city enclose the scene of the Punishment of Psyche; and of course the Three Episodes from the Life of St. Benedict must be mentioned: the city that appears on the hill in the Visit of King Totila is a compendium of Roman monuments. To record every occurrence of “painted” architecture in the work of Francesco di Giorgio would make too long a list; but mention must also be made of the bronze plaque of the Flagellation and the plaster relief of a Mythological Scene, in which the architectural and monumental setting carries a weight that goes beyond that of mere scenery.
Two churches by Francesco di Giorgio
Civil architecture
Military architecture
Besides being a painter, architect, town planner and an accomplished sculptor (see the candelabrum-bearing angels on the high altar of Siena Cathedral, the bronze plaque of the Deposition in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Venice, and the wooden St. John the Baptist), Francesco di Giorgio was also an expert in hydraulics, in engineering – called upon to solve the major problem of the tiburio of Milan Cathedral, he saw his proposal preferred to Leonardo’s – and in artillery. He brought order to the naming of firearms, classifying them by the length of the piece and its calibre, defining the bombard and the mortar, the spingarda and the scoppietto, so as to do away with fanciful names, perhaps coined by individual craftsmen, such as culverin, serpentine and cacciacornacchie (“crow-chaser”). On the practical side, he devised and detonated one of the first mines in history, the one that on 27 November 1495 wrecked part of Castel Nuovo and allowed its reconquest by the troops of King Ferdinand. His expertise in weapons and explosives made him one of the foremost designers and builders of defensive works of his time. He understood at once that, given the development of artillery, it was not a matter of making the walls of fortresses ever thicker, but that their shapes had to be varied and adapted to the terrain on which they were to stand. He perfected the walls, giving them scarps up to two thirds of their height so as to offer projectiles a sloping, glancing surface and to render useless the attackers’ ladders, which were bound to break under their own weight “because of the distance there is from the ladder to the wall”; and with the “capannato” (a kind of casemate) he created a form of advanced defence that took up the idea of the Roman testudo, turning it from mobile to fixed and connected to the fortress. The capannato, as can be deduced from the drawings, had a plan pointed towards the outside, with gabled, domed, barrel-vaulted or pyramidal roofs; it was often accompanied by towers on a pentagonal base, with the sharpest angle naturally facing the open country, in the direction of the likely attack.
In this way the medieval castle lost its massive, flat appearance and took on the articulated form of the bastioned fortress. Examples, drawn with loving attention to detail in the Treatise or actually built, are not lacking: from the Rocca di San Leo to those of Cagli and Sassocorvaro.
It is interesting to observe how, in these works where function is paramount, Francesco di Giorgio almost amused himself by putting into practice the principles of symmetry and modularity so dear to his heart. Geometry above all: “And so, having examined within myself which figure would be most useful for walls, I have concluded that in circuits the form of the rhombus and of the rhomboid is more perfect than the others. After this, the equilateral, the isosceles and the scalene; likewise the quadrangle, and also the rectangle, the pentagon, the hexagon and other singular figures.” Utility as a pretext, then; and it should come as no surprise that Francesco di Giorgio’s fortresses appear as strange and perfect objects, whether on a mountain top, on a plain or by a seaport; in building them, the celebrated military architect was able to play like a child.
Architecture
View from the west of the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino
The façade of the Torricini of the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino
The east flank and the façade of the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino
A two-light window on the east flank of the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino
The hanging garden and the north front of the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino
Door and windows on the north side of the façade of the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino
The courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino
The south side of the courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino
The grand staircase of the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino
The throne room in the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino
The connecting door between the throne room and the upper loggias in the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino
The room known as the Sala del Magnifico in the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino
Door of room IX of the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino
The front of the Palazzo Ducale in Gubbio facing the town
The 14th-century part of the Palazzo Ducale in Gubbio
The 14th-century hall of the Palazzo Ducale in Gubbio
The courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale in Gubbio
A capital in the courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale in Gubbio
A first-floor door in the Palazzo Ducale in Gubbio
The Loggia of Pope Pius II in Siena
The church and convent of San Bernardino in Urbino
The façade of the church of San Bernardino in Urbino
The right flank and the bell tower of the church of San Bernardino in Urbino
The interior of the church of San Bernardino in Urbino
The interior of the church of San Bernardino in Urbino
The cloister of the convent of San Bernardino in Urbino
The church of Santa Maria del Calcinaio near Cortona
Upper part of the façade of the church of Santa Maria del Calcinaio near Cortona
Upper part of the north arm of the church of Santa Maria del Calcinaio near Cortona
The interior of the church of Santa Maria del Calcinaio near Cortona
The interior of the long arm of the church of Santa Maria del Calcinaio near Cortona
The vaults over the transept in the church of Santa Maria del Calcinaio near Cortona
The unfinished façade of the church of San Francesco in Siena
The façade of the church of San Francesco in Siena as it appears today after several rebuildings
The doorway of the church of San Francesco in Siena
The doorway of the church of San Francesco in Siena as it appears today after several rebuildings
The crossing tower of the church of Santa Maria degli Angioli in Siena
Panoramic view of the church of Santa Maria degli Angioli in Siena
The Palazzo del Comune in Jesi after the rebuilding of the tower
The two upper floors of the façade of the Palazzo del Comune in Jesi
The courtyard of the Palazzo del Comune in Jesi
The ground-floor armoury of the Palazzo del Comune in Jesi
The portico of the façade of the Palazzo degli Anziani in Ancona
The south front of the Palazzo degli Anziani in Ancona
The second floor of the east front of the Palazzo degli Anziani in Ancona
The great tower of the Rocca di Cagli
A tower of the Rocca di Mondavio
The Rocca di Mondavio
The Rocca di San Leo seen from the west
The Rocca di San Leo seen from the south
The south front of the Rocca di San Leo
The Rocca di Sassocorvaro seen from the south in 1905
The Rocca di Sassocorvaro seen from the west in 1905
The keep and the small loggia in the courtyard of the Rocca di Sassocorvaro
The Ponte di Macereto over the Merse
The Ponte di Macereto over the Merse as it appears today after the bombing of the Second World War
Painting
Nativity
This work, still tentative in its naive outcome, is considered one of Francesco di Giorgio’s earliest works and is dated to around 1460.
Although there are evident echoes of Vecchietta and Sano di Pietro, Francesco’s stylistic traits are already timidly expressed in the face of the Madonna and in St. Joseph, depicted in the typical figura sedens, with his cheek resting on his hand and his eyes lowered.
Miniatures of the De Animalibus Codex
This is the first page of the treatise De Animalibus by Albertus Magnus. It contains five miniatures which are, generally, attributed to Francesco di Giorgio.
At the top left, a young woman is seated, before whom a unicorn bows, while to her right sits a griffin. In the background, a landscape made up of a row of rather unusual-looking trees, hills and a stretch of water with barely visible sailing boats.
The three roundels on the right represent the three labours of Hercules, from above: Hercules and the Nemean Lion, Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra, Hercules and the centaur Nessus.
Below, two genii holding coats of arms, who hold up the coat of arms of Alessandro da Sermoneta, physician and professor at the University of Siena.
The woman has Francesco’s typical female face, high, broad cheekbones, fine brow arches and a fleshy chin.
Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife
This cassone panel illustrates a passage from the Old Testament which tells how Joseph, bought by Potiphar as a slave, is appointed by him steward of his house. Joseph is then insistently courted by Potiphar’s wife, but he firmly rejects her.
The scene depicts the moment when Joseph, seized by his garment by the woman, runs off, fleeing and leaving in her hands the clothes torn from his body. The woman, following this event, accused Joseph of having forced himself on her, having him unjustly thrown into prison.
In this panel the influence of Vecchietta is very evident, especially in the antique-style palace and in the figures, depicted with narrow, elongated forms.
Triumph of Chastity
Thanks to the coats of arms depicted, on the right that of the Luti family and on the left that of the Gabrielli family, the cassone can be dated to around 1464, the year of the marriage between the two families.
The scene represented relates to Petrarch’s Triumph of Chastity. Chastity is represented by the figure of Laura, seated on a canopied throne, set on a chariot drawn by two unicorns (symbols of chastity).
Laura is depicted holding a shield, thanks to which she has succeeded in defending herself from Cupid.
On the left walks Love defeated, depicted naked, blindfolded and with his wings tied.
In front of the chariot are eight figures representing the eight Virtues mentioned by Petrarch: Honesty, Modesty, Wisdom, Humility, Habit with Delight, the Perseverance of Glory.
The hexagonal temple has often been identified with the house of Scipio Africanus, where the procession, on its way to Rome, brings the defeated god to repentance.
Nativity
This painting, as regards the composition, is compared to the one in Chiusi but shows greater awareness and maturity on the part of the artist, factors that allow it to be dated to around 1465. St. Joseph leans on his elbows much more naturally and, with his bald, round head, recalls the figures of Filippo Lippi.
The Virgin’s face is more intense and the folds of her cloak become less rigid. The atmosphere is the intimate, gentle one of Sano di Pietro, but the Virgin shows the typical features of the most beautiful Madonnas that Francesco di Giorgio would paint in the course of his artistic career.
Madonna and Child with Two Angels
What most distinguishes this Madonna and Child from all the others painted by Francesco is the oval brooch fastening her cloak, a typical element of Verrocchio’s art.
Indeed, whereas the drapery of Sienese Madonnas generally leaves the edges of the cloak free to fall over the shoulder, so as to form a soft ornamental line, here the brooch interrupts the line and creates a typically Florentine articulation.
This painting is, usually, dated between 1465 and 1466.
Madonna of the Earthquake
The small panel can be divided into two distinct parts. The lower part shows the coats of arms of ten families and an inscription in which, besides the date 1 January 1466, one can read the names of the ten families represented by the aforementioned coats of arms.
In the upper part, another inscription reads ALTENPO DETREMUOTI, below which the city of Siena can be recognised by its many towers and by the large domed church, with walls in horizontal white and dark bands (the Cathedral).
In the foreground, outside the walls, a cluster of tents and huts can be seen, which were intended to house the population that had fled Siena because of the earthquake.
At the top, the Virgin surrounded by angels, among whom the one at bottom right shows the typical features dear to Francesco di Giorgio, broad cheeks and long, fine brow arches
Madonna and Child Enthroned with Four Angels
This fresco, probably detached at the beginning of the 20th century, is fairly well preserved in its upper part, while the lower part is badly damaged.
It is compared to the Madonna and Child in the Kress collection in Coral Gables. Here too, in fact, the Child is characterised by luxurious clothes and the typical curly hair, and the Virgin shows the same gentle, calm demeanour.
The angels, who hold the crown on the Virgin’s head, show a pose that is still somewhat awkward but hints at the nimble gesture of the angels holding up the platform in the Coronation of the Virgin.
The fresco is dated between 1465 and 1469.
Madonna and Child with Sts. Peter and Paul
It is commonly thought that the painter would first paint the Madonna and Child, and then wait for the patron to request the possible addition of saints in the background. It is perhaps for this reason that the saints often take on, in these paintings, an almost applied, extraneous air.
The Child, here too luxuriously dressed, has a livelier gaze than usual, while the Virgin, despite her characteristic face, has a slimmer neck than the previous ones and a longer torso.
The painting is dated between 1466 and 1469, that is, after the arrival of Liberale da Verona at Monte Oliveto, whose teaching can be recognised in the round, energetic face of St. Peter.
Madonna and Child, angels and Sts. Jerome and Anthony of Padua
Unlike those encountered so far, the saints and angels in the background are treated differently here. They are indeed shown half-length, but with such care in the details as to give them greater vitality.
There are analogies between the Child and St. Jerome depicted here and the Child and St. Joseph of the Blumenthal Nativity in New York of 1469, and between the two angel figures and those in the von Thyssen Madonna, also of 1469. These analogies, together with some elements faintly recalling the work of Neroccio, allow this painting to be dated to around 1469, that is, when the period of collaboration between Francesco di Giorgio and Neroccio de Landi had only just begun.
Virgin Annunciate
This painting has been badly damaged, as the Virgin’s cloak was completely scraped away to recover the lapis lazuli powder of which it was made.
It certainly represents the right-hand part of a diptych, whose left panel depicted, most probably, the Angel of the Annunciation.
Despite the evident damage it has suffered, one cannot fail to notice the great mastery and finesse with which the artist painted the Virgin’s face and hands, whose grace recalls Neroccio, but still reflects a naive, youthful character.
On this basis, the painting is dated to around 1469.
God the Father among the Angels
All the critics who have written on this painting have been unanimous in recognising that it was certainly a fragment of a larger work, probably a Nativity or an Annunciation. Of them all, perhaps the most thorough explanation was given by Federico Zeri, who put forward the hypothesis that the fragment was the upper part of the Nativity in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. According to Zeri, this panel was cut down to an oval, making use of the original arched top, and he dates the painting no later than 1470.
Elements of Florentine culture can be recognised in this work, juxtaposed with purely Sienese ones. Indeed, God the Father is almost identical to the one painted by Girolamo da Cremona in an Annunciation (Siena, Pinacoteca Nazionale), while the putti floating naked in the ether clearly derive from those of Lorenzo Ghiberti.
Nativity
In this painting the various influences that progressively enriched Francesco di Giorgio’s art are easily recognisable. The river landscape recalls the meticulousness of those painted by Alessio Baldovinetti; the Virgin shows a precision of line that immediately points to Pollaiolo, although the gentleness of the movements and her blond curls reveal that the first contacts between the artist and Neroccio had recently been established. Nevertheless, the Virgin is depicted with the typical elements that characterise Francesco di Giorgio’s female faces: high, broad cheeks, long, fine brow arches and a dimple in the fleshy chin.
In handling the colours, instead, especially the bright yellow of St. Joseph’s cloak, Francesco had probably drawn on the miniature painting of Liberale da Verona.
Madonna and Child, Saint Catherine of Siena and angels
In this painting, Francesco draws closer to his workshop companion Neroccio, and this can be seen in many small details: the stylisation of the Virgin’s cloak, the long-fingered hands and, above all, the figure of St. Clare, with her pale complexion and her extremely narrow, undulating eye slits.
The Child takes on a new physiognomy. Francesco, in fact, starting with this painting, no longer depicts him as chubby and curly-haired; here the head lengthens and the face becomes thinner, coming closer, in a certain sense, to those depicted by Filippo Lippi and Matteo di Giovanni.
Another element of rupture, with respect to the earlier works, lies in the background, which, usually gold, here takes on the appearance of a drape of fabric that recalls the one in the Berenson Madonna by Veneziano.
The painting can be dated to around 1470, a period in which the Florentine tradition is still perceptible, in Francesco’s art, only through the details.
Annunciation
Looking at this painting, one cannot help noticing that there is something strange and illogical in the perspective, so much so that the vanishing lines of the architecture cannot be made out. Turning to the episode itself, the amazement that shakes the Virgin at the moment she learns the news seems striking: her body seems to sway and the book she was holding appears almost on the point of falling. In this painting, too, there is a clear blend of elements from Florentine and Sienese culture. One senses, in fact, the typical dreamlike atmosphere and the poetry of Siena in the use of flowing lines and in the singular gazes of the figures depicted, but one also notices Francesco’s skill in the minute description of details, learned from the Florentines. There is, in fact, a clear derivation from Verrocchio in the depiction of the wooded landscape, and the position of the Virgin’s legs recalls Pollaiolo.
The painting must be dated no later than 1470, a period when Francesco’s relations with Neroccio were beginning but when he had not yet become familiar with the art of Filippo Lippi.
Madonna and Child with an Angel
In this painting too, and perhaps more than in any other, Francesco succeeds in achieving a perfect balance between the two cultures dear to him: the Sienese and the Florentine.
Indeed, in the characters and their far off and melancholic glances we find all the poetry of Neroccio, whilst the elegance of the Child perfectly recalls Matteo di Giovanni. Once more, however, it is the details that highlight the Florentine teaching: the perfection of the articulation of the hands and the splendid landscape that may be glimpsed between the shoulders of the Virgin and the angel, recall Verrocchio and Filippo Lippi.
The date can be set at around the beginning of 1470
Procession of Chaste Love
With some variations, the three cassone paintings depict the same theme.
There are many iconographic interpretations of these depictions. At first sight, in fact, it seems that it was Petrarch who inspired Francesco, but on closer attention one can see that the possible sources of inspiration in these paintings are many. The scene on the left, for example, shows a chariot drawn by griffins that evokes a Canto of Purgatory (Dante, Divine Comedy) preceding the one on the Triumph of Beatrice.
Having taken note of all the various analyses made by the critics on this theme, it seems essential to us to emphasise that the paintings deal with the struggle between Chaste Love and Carnal Love, through a mechanism of interlinked symbolic elements: the felled stag, the laurel against which arrows are shot, the two chariots advancing against each other, one drawn by griffins and the other by swans, and so on.
The three paintings can probably all be dated between 1470 and 1471.
Madonna and Child
Attempts have been made to classify this painting as a late work by Francesco, but certain elements need to be highlighted in order to see that this would be a mistake.
The river landscape in the background had been used by Francesco in his youth. Furthermore, the broad perspective, which brings Alessandro Baldovinetti to mind, the nervous articulation of the Virgin’s hand, a typical element of Verrocchio, and the Virgin’s hairstyle, with perfectly ordered locks, are all elements that conflict with the hypothesis of a late date, since they generally characterise Francesco’s art of the years around 1470.
Coronation of the Virgin
In this Coronation of the Virgin the architectural elements are almost entirely hidden and replaced by a crowd of forty figures, most of whom have been identified.
At the centre is an altar of polychrome marble, above which rises a large ciborium, formed, however, at the base by a group of angelic creatures and at the top by Christ in the act of crowning the Virgin, kneeling before him.
At the top is God the Father, surrounded by heavenly creatures. He floats in a vortex that represents the motion of the heavenly bodies and evokes, in a poetic way, the Ptolemaic astronomical system, which remained in force until the discoveries of Galileo.
The great crowd in the painting and the wide variety of colours give, at first sight, an idea of disorder, but, the longer one looks at it, the painting appears as a sparkling spectacle, and one understands why it has been identified as Francesco di Giorgio’s most original work.
It is evident that Francesco did not focus here on any one current in particular. He gives equal importance to Sienese and Florentine teachings, so much so that we find in the painting elements in common with Simone Martini, Sassetta, Neroccio, Filippo Lippi, Verrocchio, Pollaiolo and many others, while always bringing out his own personality: the female faces with the usual fleshy, dimpled chin and high, broad cheekbones, and the men with round heads and lively gazes.
The painting, thanks to numerous documents that have been found, can be dated with certainty to around 1472-1473
Three Episodes from the Life of St. Benedict: the cave of Subiaco, the miracle of the broken sieve, the visit of King Totila
The three episodes are all painted on the same panel, which, probably, formed the predella of a large altarpiece.
It must be made clear, first of all, that this work was executed by Francesco in close collaboration with Neroccio. All the figures, in fact, are by the hand of Neroccio, with the exception of the flying devil in the first scene, whose boldness and imagination are rather foreign to Neroccio’s spirit.
Belonging, instead, to Francesco, are the backgrounds and the landscapes, a fact that is obvious if one looks, at the last scene, the camp of tents among the hills, which reminds us of the Madonna of the Earthquake. Moreover, the architecture painted in two of the scenes is characteristic of his culture, indeed, the artist always showed great interest in round or centrally planned buildings.
The work is dated to 1473-1475.
Nativity with Sts. Bernard and Thomas Aquinas
This painting, the only one that is documented with certainty, is also the one in which Francesco moved furthest away from local Sienese culture. It dates from 1475, the year in which his close collaboration with Neroccio came to an end, and, perhaps for this reason, Francesco tries to draw above all on Florentine culture. The painting seems somewhat too static compared with the earlier ones; the figures, indeed, are certainly more elegant but lose their classic spontaneity. The Virgin’s face has softened, the cheeks are less high, giving the face an oval shape. The various figures create a calm rhythm and the painting seems marked by vertical rhythms, barely disturbed by the two angels on the right.
The Punishment of Psyche
The scene tells an episode from the life of Psyche, a slave of Venus, who, trying to escape, is captured and tortured by the servants and finally brought back before the goddess.
On the left, under the portico, a column surmounted by a gilded statue, representing Cupid, in front of which stands Mercury. The state of preservation, relatively good, suggests that it was originally part of a wall decoration.
Some elements, such as the elegance of the drawing and the refinement of the architectural details, suggest that it was painted around 1475-1480, the period in which Francesco stayed in Urbino.
Story of Helen and Paris
The panel is one of those least willingly attributed to Francesco di Giorgio. Indeed, despite the inclined position of the women’s necks, quite frequent in the artist’s work, the physiognomies of the faces take on a different character from usual. It is therefore thought that the scene was conceived by Francesco but then executed by one of his pupils.
The elegance of the composition and the treatment of a profane episode from mythology, allow the painting to be dated between 1475 and 1480, Francesco’s Urbino years
Allegorical Combat
This panel shows a great many analogies with that of Helen and Paris. We can therefore state that the same comments made in the description of the previous panel, regarding the doubtful authorship of Francesco di Giorgio, apply in this case too.
To Francesco, in fact, we certainly owe only the dynamic composition, while as for the execution one can speak, in this case too, of the involvement of one of his pupils, not the same as the previous one, and the same dating, between 1475 and 1480, is proposed.
Fidelity
Most of the critics who have written on this painting, have recognised the hand of Francesco di Giorgio and identified the subject as Fidelity.
There are clear references to Sienese culture, so much so that this painting is compared to Sassetta’s Marriage of St. Francis to Poverty, but, as always in Francesco’s art, typically Florentine elements are not lacking: the symbolic language, the preciousness of the details, which in some parts, such as the embroidery on the sleeves of the dress, comes close to goldsmith’s work, and the woman’s skilfully arranged hair. The face retains all the now familiar characteristics of the women painted by Francesco di Giorgio but, in this case, takes on an almost superficial appearance.
It is thought that the fresco may have come from one of the palaces of Urbino, and it is dated no later than 1485.
Nativity
The element that most dominates the background of this extraordinary painting is a monumental triumphal arch in ruins, decorated with fluted pilasters with composite capitals; two slender columns, surmounted by the same type of capitals, serve as supports for the projections of the architrave.
Between the two pairs of pilasters are two medallions imitating bronze. The one on the right shows Mucius Scaevola burning his hand on the brazier, while the one on the left may represent the legend of Marcus Curtius leaping with his horse into a chasm that had opened in the Roman Forum, in order to make it close again. The legend relates, in fact, that, according to the oracle, to fill the chasm it was necessary to throw into it that which constituted the strength of Rome. Very probably an analogy was sought between these patriotic sacrifices and the Passion of Christ.
In the background a landscape of lakes and mountains can be glimpsed; on the left, rises a hexagonal temple, almost an imprint of Francesco di Giorgio, the architect.
The Nativity scene presents a perfectly symmetrical composition, while the various blocks of marble which, fallen from the arch, serve as seats for the various figures, symbolise Antiquity, on whose ruins Christianity is born.
The Madonna’s face is the typical one of the women depicted by the artist but, as in all his works, there is an infinity of elements common to the various cultural currents that Francesco made his own over the years.
A date between 1485 and 1490 is proposed for this painting, that is, after the meeting between Francesco and Luca Signorelli.
Scipio Africanus
This custom of depicting heroes was very common in Renaissance Italy, we find illustrious examples in Taddeo di Bartolo, Domenico Ghirlandaio and in Perugino.
In the picture in question, which depicts Publius Cornelius Scipio, hero of the Second Punic War and victor over Hannibal at Zama, Francesco probably painted only the hero’s face. Indeed, the small fleshy mouth and the dimple on the chin are elements we now know well, and the melancholy gaze recalls the Madonnas he painted during the period of his collaboration with Neroccio. Nevertheless, there is also a roundness of the cheeks and a proud bearing typical of the artist’s last period, after the contacts Francesco established in Umbria.
Madonna and Child with Two Saints
This painting has often been compared to Neroccio’s Madonna and Child with Sts. John the Baptist and Andrew of 1496, since they share numerous elements.
What is most surprising is that relations between the two had ended some twenty years earlier. One may, however, suppose a resumption of their relationship, in this period, facilitated by the fact that the two were commissioned to paint part of the cycle of Famous Men, for which Neroccio painted Claudia Quinta and Francesco Scipio Africanus.
Nativity Birth of the Virgin
Many documents have been found attesting that the Cappella Bichi was decorated in the years from 1488 to 1494. We must, therefore, to assume that these two frescoes too were executed in that span of time.
While, as regards the artist, various attributions have been proposed by the critics. Among the most frequent are the names of Francesco di Giorgio and of Luca Signorelli. We can, however, to support the hypothesis that the attribution to Francesco di Giorgio rests on essentially stylistic grounds.
Turning to the analysis of the two frescoes, we see how the artist has achieved a great compositional harmony and perspectives that seem almost restful.
The faces of the figures have softened, their movements have acquired great naturalness and the folds of the garments no longer have that typical rigidity learned in his early years from the northern miniaturists.
There are, however, elements typical of the artist: the position of St. Joseph is identical to the one in which he was depicted in the Blumenthal Nativity in New York; the Virgin is very similar to the one in the Nativity of 1475, in the tilt of the neck, the gaze and the articulation of the hands; the two shepherds, standing behind the Virgin, evoke the figures of the Coronation of the Virgin.
In the Birth of the Virgin, too, we find elements dear to Francesco: the Joachim, for example, is depicted in the typical pose of the figura sedens. In this second painting the hand of an assistant can perhaps be detected, probably a pupil of his, and this can be seen in the fact that the figures tend to appear rounder.
In the Birth of the Virgin we must emphasise the masterly use of perspective. The artist, in fact, after all the years he had devoted to the art of building, he had acquired great ease in transferring architectural realities to his paintings.
Finally, it must be emphasised that Francesco had made his own, in his last years, the Florentine teachings, too, on volumes and on the naturalness of the figures’ movements, which he then succeeded perfectly in fitting into great architectural spaces
The Disrobing of Christ
Although critical opinion on this painting has been highly contradictory, it can be stated with certainty that the main part of the work, the lower one, was executed by Francesco and then completed by his workshop. Certainly autograph, in fact, are the faces of the Virgin, of Christ and of the white-bearded St. Joseph.
The upper part, instead, appears quite foreign to the manner of Francesco and his workshop. It, in fact, it seems to have been painted by someone more attached to the themes of Signorelli and Sodoma.
The work, which cannot be given a definite date, should be placed between the last months of Francesco’s life and the period immediately following his death, which took place in 1501.
Sculpture
St. John the Baptist (detail)
This is, perhaps, the only 15th-century Sienese statue in which the lesson of Donatello has been understood in spirit and not only in form. The two works by the Master covering the same subject (the relief in the Baptistery and the figure of the Cathedral) are assimilated in an interpretation that unites solemn dignity and energy full of pathos.
Deposition
This relief was at first given various attributions by the critics: Verrocchio, Leonardo da Vinci, Bertoldo di Giovanni, Pollaiolo, and others. In 1923 Venturi attributed it to Francesco di Giorgio and his opinion was accepted almost unanimously.
The plaque is, also compared to the Medal of Federico da Montefeltro, since the duke’s profile can be recognised in both works.
The elements that make it possible to recognise Francesco’s hand are the male figures on the left, very similar to St. Joseph in the Nativity of 1475, and the sleeping boy on the right, depicted in the typical figura sedens, so dear to our artist.
As in all Francesco’s works, in this plaque, too, one recognises elements typical of Sienese and Florentine culture. È, in fact, typically Florentine is the dramatic character of the scene, but the traditional Sienese traits are not lacking: such as the angels flying and wringing their hands, evidently powerless in the face of the event.
It is notable how Francesco has here relied on contrasts of relief: in the foreground the figures appear fully in the round, while, in the middle ground, barely stand out from the background. The work was executed, probably, around 1477, as soon as Francesco arrived in Urbino to enter the duke’s service.
Medal of Federico da Montefeltro
The first to attribute the Medal to Francesco di Giorgio was Hill in 1910, who interprets the episode on the reverse as St. George slaying the dragon.
This interpretation makes it possible to date the work to 1475, after the duke was made a knight of St. George.
Maltese, on the other hand, in 1949 interprets the scene depicted on the reverse of the medal as the Chimera slain by Bellerophon, and proposes the same dating as Hill. We may note that the two interpretations do not cancel each other out, since they represent two symbols that can quite easily coexist: the hero Bellerophon triumphantly confronting the Chimera and the martyr saint confronting the dragon are both symbols of virtue struggling against evil.
Federico da Montefeltro, as a knight of Christendom, is associated with these two figures.
The Judgement of Paris
After the various disagreements among critics regarding the attribution and interpretation of the work, the conclusion has been reached that the author is Francesco di Giorgio and that the subject depicted is The Judgement of Paris. Hera, Athena and Aphrodite appear to Paris, asking him to name the most beautiful of them. Paris gives the apple with which he consecrates the winner to Venus, thus unleashing the envy of the other two and the alliance between them.
The analogy between some elements of this plaque and those of the Deposition allows the work to be dated to around 1477.
Mythological scene
These two reliefs differ only in a few details and probably represent models for a bronze casting that was never executed or has not yet been located. What makes it possible to attribute these two works to Francesco is the architectural setting, in which one recognises the types of building so dear to the artist. In addition, the dramatic quality of the central figure recalls the Magdalene of the Venice Deposition, and the male figures are similar to those depicted in the Flagellation.
Panofsky’s interpretation of the scene, according to which it would be the Myth of Lycurgus and the Maenads, seems quite plausible. Hera sends Iris, messenger of the gods, to Dionysus to convince him that Lycurgus is his friend and to urge him to go and visit him with his retinue. At the same time, Iris is ordered to go to Lycurgus to stir him up against Dionysus and prepare him to receive the enemy on a war footing. And so it happens, and Dionysus, to save his life, throws himself into the sea with his retinue.
Some elements, such as the violence of the movements and the evident search for brilliant effects are signs of a still youthful temperament, which makes it possible to propose a dating of the work no later than 1480.
Flagellation of Christ
Recognised as a work by Francesco di Giorgio by Schubring, after having received the most varied attributions, from Bertoldo to Pollaiolo, from Verrocchio to Leonardo, this very beautiful relief, datable to around 1475, bears witness not so much to a superficial relationship with the anatomical dynamism and soft plasticity of Florentine sculpture of the later Quattrocento as to a personal reading of Donatello. The transitions between the planes of the relief, down to stiacciato, and the sprezzatura and synthesis of the modelling in the details are in fact used for expressive rather than naturalistic or illusionistic purposes, and answer to a lyrical vision, to a feeling of moral disquiet and of pietas.
Saint Jerome in the Desert
Washington, National Gallery of Art, Kress Fund From the elements that characterise it, it is rather evident that this plaque is the work of Francesco di Giorgio: the pictorial conception of the work, the similarity between the drapery of St. Jerome’s robe and that of the St. John the Baptist in the same museum, and the little toe set back, an element also present in the St. Joseph of the Nativity in the Metropolitan in New York and in that of San Domenico in Siena.
This work is clearly a derivation from Leonardo, mainly in the pictorial conception of the landscape. This plaque seems to belong to a more mature Francesco and, therefore, a date of around 1485-1490 is proposed.
Mythological scene
This work was perhaps destroyed during the Second World War and we owe our knowledge of it to a photograph. This too must have been a preparatory model for a bronze plaque that is still unknown and, from the elements that characterise it, such as the presence of figures similar to others depicted by the artist, it can be determined that the author was Francesco di Giorgio.
Unlike the reliefs in London and Siena, here there is no search for brilliant effects and, therefore, a date similar to that of the St. Jerome in Washington can be assigned to it, placing it around 1485-1490.
Mythological scene
This work was perhaps destroyed during the Second World War and we owe our knowledge of it to a photograph. This too must have been a preparatory model for a bronze plaque that is still unknown and, from the elements that characterise it, such as the presence of figures similar to others depicted by the artist, it can be determined that the author was Francesco di Giorgio.
Unlike the reliefs in London and Siena, here there is no search for brilliant effects and, therefore, a date similar to that of the St. Jerome in Washington can be assigned to it, placing it around 1485-1490.
Two little candle-bearing angels
From the surviving documents on the commissions for the making of the high altar of the Duomo in Siena, it is clear that the two little angels are the work of Francesco di Giorgio.
They display the typical elements of Florentine culture, but one recognises in particular the influence of Verrocchio and Donatello, thanks to the similarities found with the ornaments of the Tomb of Giovanni and Piero de’ Medici and with the three bronze angels of the Baptistery in Siena. The roundness and the physiognomy of the two little angels are, in fact, clearly derived from Donatello. The dating is around 1489-1490.
Two candle-bearing angels
Although some years had passed since the making of the two little angels, it is strange to note how Francesco di Giorgio here returns to appropriating the elements most strictly belonging to Sienese culture. These two angels are indeed close to Donatello’s figures as regards the elegance of their bearing and their decidedly classical features, but they are typically Sienese in their childlike grace and in their particular ability to convey a sense of weightlessness.
Like many of Francesco’s bronze works, these too seem translated from painting. In the folds of the robes, in fact, it is as if we were seeing again the angels of the Nativity in San Domenico in Siena, to which they have often been compared.
The dating falls between 1495 and 1497.
Saint Christopher
From the documentation that has come down to us, it is clear that this wooden statue was originally placed inside the Bichi Chapel in Sant’Agostino in Siena. As always, there are various attributions of the work, but what leads us to suppose that it was executed by Francesco is its resemblance to the candle-bearing Angels of the Duomo in Siena. As Von Fabriczy pointed out in 1907, these works are in fact similar in the drapery of the robes, in the movements of the legs and in the studied position of the feet, all elements that give the figure a certain spirituality, accentuated by the features of the face, which lend him a sad and vague air, reminding us of Francesco’s Neroccesque period.
The most probable dating is around 1498.
Man with a snake (the fight between Hercules and Achelous)
In this case too, as with the St. Christopher, the attribution to Francesco di Giorgio rests mainly on a comparison with the candle-bearing Angels of the Duomo in Siena. The characteristics that unite them are the sensation of flight and the almost dancing pose that the figure assumes.
The most evident problems, on the other hand, concern the interpretation of the subject of the work, so much so that critics have never reached a unanimous conclusion. We may put forward the hypothesis that it represents the fight between Hercules and Achelous. Achelous was in fact the river god who was defeated by Hercules, with whom he was contending for Deianira, and who changed first into a bull and then into a snake. It was probably intended as the subject of a fountain, the water of which would have gushed from the snake’s mouth. The work is dated to 1497-1500.
