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San Sepolcro Altarpiece:
Catalogue entry

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Entry details

Full title
San Sepolcro Altarpiece
Artist
Sassetta
Author
Dillian Gordon and Susanna Avery-Quash

Catalogue entry

, 2003

Extracted from:
Dillian Gordon, The Fifteenth Century Italian Paintings, Volume I (London: National Gallery Company and Yale University Press, 2003).

© The National Gallery, London

© The National Gallery, London

© The National Gallery, London

© The National Gallery, London

1437–44

Egg tempera (identified) on poplar (identified), each panel c. 89.5 x 54.5 cm

The seven panels NG 4757 to NG 4763, depicting scenes from the Life of Saint Francis (d. 1226), founder of the Franciscan Order, come from a double‐sided altarpiece commissioned in 1437 from Sassetta by the friars of San Francesco, Borgo San Sepolcro, and delivered in 1444. The front showed the Virgin and Child with Saint Anthony of Padua, Saint John the Evangelist (all Paris, Louvre), Saint John the Baptist and Blessed Raniero Rasini (both Settignano, Berenson Collection), while the back showed Saint Francis in Glory (also Berenson Collection), flanked by eight compartments showing scenes from his life, seven of which are in the National Gallery and are discussed individually below; the eighth is in the Musée Condé, Chantilly.

General Technical Notes

Restoration

Restored between 1819 and 1840.1 Cleaned and restored in 1977,2 at which time the opportunity was taken to make a full technical examination, the results of which were published in the National Gallery Technical Bulletin.

Examination by infra‐red reflectography has revealed some underdrawing outlining forms and drapery folds, and cross‐sections from a few small samples show some grains of black between gesso and paint, indicating the presence of an underdrawing.3 The medium was found to be egg.4

The principal pigments used were ultramarine, artificial malachite, vermilion, red lake possibly deriving from kermes, and lead‐tin yellow. For the flesh, the undermodelling was done not in terra verde but in verdaccio (lead white with yellow ochre and black). Joyce Plesters wrote of the skies that: ‘The subtle gradation of the blue…depends not only on increasing the proportion of ultramarine to lead white for the deeper shades, but also on increased particle size of the ultramarine.’5

The decorative effects used are elaborate: as well as the traditional gold leaf, for the background and elsewhere, silver leaf has been used in every panel except the Stigmatisation (NG 4760), and glazed with red lake, blue or green; this, added to the substantial use of silver and gold leaf on the Virgin and Child panel, helps to explain the extremely high sum of 510 florins paid to Sassetta, which must have included the cost of materials as stipulated in the contract of 1437 (see below), and the frame.

[page [326]][page [327]]

All seven scenes are painted on poplar panels with a vertical grain. The surviving parts of the original frames, including the inner mouldings of the trefoil tops, are of softwood (silver fir).6 A narrow (1–2 mm) band of bole and gold leaf running along the periphery of the painted surface between the gesso ground and the paint layer indicates that the panels were already fixed in their frames when the frames and backgrounds were gilded in a single operation. The painting in Chantilly (fig. 4) retains its original frame and pastiglia decoration in the spandrels, but the seven National Gallery pictures were, at an unknown date after 1903 (see below), separated from their original frame mouldings and spandrels. The panels were planed and cradled, and then reset in modern frames incorporating the original spandrels.7 There is evidence of original engaged capitals which have been removed on the right and left edges. It is impossible to be certain how much of the pastigliadecoration was replaced when the spandrels were regilded.8

[page 328]

NG 4757 
Saint Francis meets a knight poorer than himself and Saint Francis’s vision of the founding of the Franciscan Order

On the left, Saint Francis, on his way to the wars in Apulia, has dismounted from his horse to give his clothes to a poor knight. Francis still wears his silver garment and spurs. A shadowy figure with a donkey in the background is about to enter the gates of a walled castle. Behind this figure is yet another tiny figure, apparently behind a cart and followed by a dog.

On the right, an angel shows the sleeping saint a vision of a castle in the sky, with flags and coats of arms bearing a red cross on a white ground. Francis’s wealth is emphasised by his golden bed, which has a blue canopy and gold stars, and he rests his head on a patterned cushion with red tassels.

Technical Notes
Panel construction

Maximum height of panel 89.5 cm, maximum height of painted surface 87 cm; width of panel 54.5 cm, width of painted surface 52.5 cm; thickness of original panel 0.8 cm, thickness of panel including cradle 3.5 cm.

Some square patches of canvas incorporated beneath the original gesso preparation are visible in the X‐radiograph.

Condition and technique

The condition overall is good; there are minor scattered losses in the forest, sky, robes of the poor knight and green chest of the bed. There is a major loss from the green below the knight’s chin and in the horse’s chest.

The use of silver leaf is extensive throughout the altarpiece. Here silver has been used for Saint Francis’s spurs, and his robe is silver incised with tiny vertical strokes and painted over with red lake.9 The red lake has flaked off the silver, both in the figure of the saint standing at the left and in his sleeping figure. His belt is punched with a single point punch.

Gold as a decorative element, either with a coloured glaze or with sgraffito, is used throughout the altarpiece. Here the bedhead is gold, with a granulated stipple on the sides. sgraffito has been used extensively – for example, in the canopy, which is ultramarine mixed with white, where the stars are scratched through to the gold (see fig. 1); in the bed cover, which has small strokes hatched in the green to delineate the folds and then a dark green glaze, which has flaked widely; in the pillow, which is lead white over gold, with a red lake tassel at the corners; in the angel’s wings, which are vermilion with some white over gold, with tiny strokes for feathers scratched through to the gold; and in the angel’s dress, which is red lake and lead white over gold scratched through with small vertical lines, then painted with a red glaze. The strands of the angel’s hair have been incised and then painted over with brown.

Although the documentary evidence shows that the altarpiece was very carefully planned, there are a number of pentimenti throughout. Here there is a pentimento in the horse’s tail, which was originally painted further down, and many architectural lines have been incised, but not always used.

Subject

The eight scenes of the life of Saint Francis, of which these two are the first, follow in the main the text of Saint Bonaventura’s Legenda Maior, while including details from other sources, such as Celano’s life of the saint.10

In this pair of scenes only the one on the right, showing Saint Francis’s vision of the castle, was asked for by the friars of San Francesco. However, the combination of the two scenes is implicit in the accounts of both Celano and Bonaventura, where the incidents follow closely on one another. The Legenda Maior is probably the main source since this talks of arms marked with the Cross of Christ:11 Saint Francis had a vision of a palace with the arms of Christ and was told that it belonged to him and his soldiers. At first he interpreted the dream literally, but he then realised that it represented the army of Franciscan friars in the Order which he was to found. Saint Francis was thought to have been granted the vision because of his generosity to the poor knight.

The first scene (but not the second) is also depicted in the Upper Church of San Francesco, Assisi.

© The National Gallery, London

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© The National Gallery, London

[page 330]

NG 4758 
Saint Francis renounces his Earthly Father

On the right, Bishop Guido of Assisi covers the naked Francis with his cope. Saint Francis’s discarded boots, shirt and hose lie in a heap on the floor to the left; his father has snatched up Francis’s costly outer garment, while his companion seeks to restrain him from attacking his son. Other figures watch in consternation. In the background of the pink architectural complex a cleric walks peacefully, apparently unaware of the events taking place in the foreground.

© The National Gallery, London

Technical Notes
Panel construction

Maximum height of panel 89.3 cm; maximum height of painted surface 87.5 cm, including a band of approximately 0.5 cm of retouching along the base. Maximum width of panel 54.4 cm, maximum width of painted surface 52.4 cm; thickness of original panel 0.7 cm, thickness of panel including cradle 3.4 cm.

Condition and technique

The overall condition is good. There is some abrasion of the blue marbling of the step and in the father’s blue robe and his vermilion left hose. There are scattered losses in the vermilion headdress of the left‐hand figure and across his shoulder, in the pink of the father’s robe, in the architecture and in the two horizontal bands to the left and above Saint Francis’s head.

Silver leaf has been used extensively, either left plain or glazed. Silver has been detected under the father’s blue robe,12 and the saint’s discarded robe of silver with a red glaze is the same as in the first two scenes. The windows on the left are silver leaf, whereas the windows above the reading figure in blue are silver over gold over bole, possibly originally gilded in error.

sgraffito, similar to that used for Saint Francis’s bed cover in NG 4757, has been used for the bishop’s cope, where the green glaze, which has darkened, has flaked badly, as has that on the back of his mitre; red lake has flaked from the border of his cope and from the shadowed side of the canopy behind him. The sgraffito is particularly elaborate in the canopy, which has been identified as having three layers over the gold – lead white, vermilion and a red glaze – producing a lavish brocade effect.13 The cushion is white lead with sgraffito, and the cloth hanging from the throne is gold leaf, incised and painted with a brown glaze.

The water‐gilding of the background is badly worn and all the silver damaged, and the contour of the tree on the left has flaked from the gold.

The architectural lines have been incised, but not always followed, as elsewhere in the altarpiece, and there is a slight pentimento in the position of the father’s left foot. Underdrawing is visible in Saint Francis’s robe held by his father.

Subject

This incident occurred not long after that shown in NG 4757 and was a further step in Saint Francis’s renunciation of the world. Saint Francis had given the Church some money belonging to his father. His father appealed to the civil courts and then to the bishop of Assisi. Francis tore off his clothes and restored them to his father, saying that he no longer recognised any father but God. The bishop covered the naked saint with his cope.

The episode is recounted by both Celano and Bonventura.14 It is significant that Francis’s father has snatched up the costliest garment (depicted with silver leaf with a red lake glaze), leaving the rest discarded in a heap on the floor.15

[page 331]

© The National Gallery, London

[page 332]

NG 4759 
Saint Francis before the Pope: The Granting of the Indulgence of the Portiuncula

The pope, Honorius III, blesses Saint Francis, watched by the cardinals of the papal curia, all dressed in red save one who is in blue, and a crowned figure. Behind the cardinals are lay figures and clerics. Francis’s four companion friars kneel behind him; the one looking back may possibly be intended for Raniero Rasini (see below). Over a door is the papal coat of arms of crossed keys, which also form the decoration of the hanging behind and above the pope. The green architecture with slender gold columns seems entirely fanciful.

Technical Notes
Panel construction

Maximum height of panel 90 cm, maximum height of painted surface 88.4 cm; maximum width of panel 54.2 cm, maximum width of painted surface 52 cm; thickness of original panel 0.8 cm, thickness of panel including cradle 3.5 cm.

Shallow indentations left by dowels fixing the panels together are visible in the spandrels at the back, but these spandrels were not necessarily originally attached to this particular panel. On the back is a label: C.8357. C.M. 7.

Condition and technique

The condition is less good than that of NG 4757 and NG 4758. There are losses affecting the green pillar down the left‐hand side, and fine flaking from the areas of dark red, presumably where the red lake was applied over vermilion, particularly in the folds of the robe of the cardinal standing at the right‐hand side and on the inside brim of all the cardinals’ hats. The right‐hand side of the robe of the figure standing in the doorway has been much repainted. In the seated cardinal wearing blue in the foreground the red lake in the shadow is abraded and may have faded. There is a fairly large loss from the green paint of the architecture along the top and from the green balustrade, and almost all the green paint of the lunette above the door is lost. The water‐gilded background is very abraded, as is the gilding of the columns.

Although the paint surface has suffered, the faces and some of the coloured areas, and the white sgraffito hanging with a papal key motif, are well preserved.

Gold and silver, with sgraffito or with a glaze, are again a typical feature. The crown and robe of the king were originally gold leaf and silver leaf. The pope’s gilded cope, now damaged, is decorated with an incised pattern and modelled with red glazes; his sleeves were silver leaf, which has been damaged.

Silver, now tarnished and abraded, has also been used for the tall hat of the standing figure and for his robe, as well as for the sleeves of the robe worn by the fair‐haired figure beside him. The robe of the fair‐haired figure may originally have been a dark blue pigment, now discoloured, over silver. The windows are silver‐leaf roundels within squares outlined in black, with the corners filled in with coloured pigment, of which an occasional trace of red lake remains, and possibly some green.

Although Sassetta seems to have eschewed mordant gilding, two small exceptions may have been the crossed papal keys in the lunette, which were presumably gold and silver, and which have come away in a manner characteristic of mordant gilding (see also NG 4763).

As in the other panels, the architectural lines have been incised, but not always followed.

Subject and Iconography

This scene has in the past been thought to represent the blessing of the Franciscan Order by Pope Innocent III in c. 1210. In fact, according to the scripta detailing the programme of the back of the altarpiece, drawn up by the friars of San Francesco (see below), it represents Pope Honorius III granting the Indulgence of the Portiuncula in 1216.16

Neither Celano nor Bonventura describes the granting of the indulgence, so for this event Sassetta turned to a narrative showing another Franciscan saint before another pope: the presence of a king, an unlikely figure at the papal court, was explained by Martin Davies, who showed that Sassetta derived the scene from Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s fresco of Saint Louis of Toulouse before Pope Boniface VIII in San Francesco, Siena, which legitimately shows a king, namely Louis’s father, Charles of Anjou, present at Louis’s meeting with the pope.17

The friar looking out at the left may be intended for Blessed Raniero Rasini (he appears in the front main tier, and scenes from his life were in the back predella), who may have been thought to have been the Raniero d’Arezzo who witnessed the granting of the indulgence.18

The prominence given to the pope’s left hand, clasping Saint Francis’s right, and to his blessing hand, both having a prominent red circle in the centre of the pontifical glove, may be intended to draw attention to Saint Francis’s stigmatisation, shown in NG 4760.

© The National Gallery, London

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© The National Gallery, London

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NG 4760 
The Stigmatisation of Saint Francis

Saint Francis kneels in prayer,19 his left hand casting a shadow on the rock behind him; the rock beside him casts a shadow on the chapel façade. In the sky is a visionary figure of Christ, with arms extended as if on the cross and with six seraph’s wings (see detail below). The stigmata are miraculously impressed upon Francis’s flesh; small white rays emanate from the wounds, but there are no continuous rays connecting them with the similarly short rays emanating from Christ. In a recess carved into one of the rocks are a cross bearing the letters I.N.R.I. (Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudeorum: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews), nails which have miraculously begun to bleed, and a crown of thorns. In the foreground is Brother Leo. The chapel in the background has a roof made of slabs of slate, a tiny campanile with a bell and cross, and a lunette over the doorway with an image of the Virgin and Child.

Technical Notes
Panel construction

Maximum height of panel 89.6 cm, maximum height of painted surface 87.8 cm; maximum width of panel 54.2 cm, maximum width of painted surface 52.5 cm; thickness of original panel 0.8 cm, panel thickness including cradle 3.5 cm.

As in NG 4759, shallow indentations left after removal of the dowels, which fixed the panels together laterally, are visible in the spandrels on the back. On the back is a label like that on NG 4759.

Condition and technique

The condition is generally good. There are small losses from the bush at the left corner, a few scattered losses in the background from the rocks and the chapel, and a large loss from the base of the cross. A long scratch runs down through the tree to the edge of Fra Leo’s head.

The gilding and sgraffito of the mandorla and seraph have survived well. The seraph is modelled with vermilion over the gold, and the strands of Christ’s hair and the feathers of the wings finely incised. The features of Christ’s face have been delineated with black, and the lines emanating from his wounds with red and black.

The stigmata on Saint Francis’s body have been identified as vermilion glazed with red lake.20

The lines of the architecture and niche have been incised, but not always followed.

Subject

The stigmatisation occurred in 1224 at La Verna, not far from Bibbiena in Tuscany. Saint Francis was alone at the time, but it became customary to show Brother Leo as witness to the event.21 The stigmatisation was the culminating miracle of Saint Francis’s life and is recounted by both Celano and Bonaventura.22

A cross represented with a crown of thorns hung over it is not unusual and could reflect contemporary practice.23

© The National Gallery, London

[page 335]

© The National Gallery, London

[page 336]

NG 4761 
Saint Francis before the Sultan

The Sultan of Egypt is enthroned on the left. Saint Francis, shown with the stigmata and making the sign of the cross, prepares to walk through fire, while Brother Illuminato and the Sultan’s magicians look on. As in the other panels, the green architecture with its slender marble columns and pink mouldings seems entirely fanciful.

Technical Notes
Panel construction

Maximum height of panel 88.5 cm, maximum width of painted surface 86.4 cm; maximum width of panel 55 cm, maximum width of painted surface 53.2 cm; thickness of original panel 0.8 cm, thickness of panel including cradle 3.5 cm.

On the cradle at the back are the pencilled numbers 7533 and 1944, and on the back is the same label as on NG 4759 and NG 4760.

Condition and technique

The paint surface has been extensively damaged by flake losses. Some of the losses are circular in form, and this suggests that the painting may have been attacked by mould. There are fairly extensive losses from the architecture in the upper part, particularly to the left of the right‐hand capital indentation. The friar behind Saint Francis is much damaged and areas of reconstruction include his left eye, much of his cheek, and the eye of the figure to his left. The step is badly damaged, and the detail of the marbling on the steps and columns is greatly abraded, as is the landscape behind Saint Francis’s halo and arm. Smaller losses have occurred from Saint Francis’s habit and from the group on the right, and the right eye of the bearded old man has been reconstructed.

The areas of gilding are also badly worn and have suffered from flaking, especially the hanging behind the Sultan, and his robe. The Sultan’s tunic was originally lead white over gold with a vertical sgraffito pattern, and the lining was green over gold. The hanging behind the Sultan, which is gold with vermilion and red lake, with sgraffito, is badly damaged, as are the costumes of the pink‐turbaned figures behind the friar, one of which is red lake over silver leaf and one red lake over gold leaf. There are major losses from the flames of the fire, which were originally vermilion over gold, with the exposed gilding of the flames stippled with a punch.24 The costume of the standing figure with a sword on the right was originally silver, with a red lake glaze: much of the silver is still present but most of the glaze is lost. His sword and belt, which are blue over silver, and the blue of the arm of the adjacent figure across his shoulder are reasonably well preserved. The pink‐turbaned figure on the right seems also to have been wearing blue over silver.

Again, the lines of the architecture have been incised, but not always followed.

Subject

This incident took place c. 1219 at the time of the siege of Damietta during the Fifth Crusade, when Saint Francis, accompanied by Brother Illuminato, was admitted to the presence of the Sultan (al‐Malik al‐Kamil, Sultan of Egypt 1218–38). The Sultan listened patiently to Saint Francis as he expressed his readiness to go though fire for his faith, but he was not called upon to do so. The Sultan then sent him and his companion back with a safe‐conduct.25

In the Legenda Maior (IX:8) the Saracens are compared to wolves, and it may have been this that gave the friars the idea of including the Wolf of Gubbio as the next scene (NG 4762) when they were planning the programme.26

© The National Gallery, London

[page 337]

© The National Gallery, London

[page 338]

NG 4762 
The Wolf of Gubbio

The scene takes place before the town gate of Gubbio. The wolf, the remains of whose victims are scattered around the background, puts his right paw into Saint Francis’s hand and agrees to stop terrorising the inhabitants of Gubbio in return for being fed at public expense. A notary writes down the pact. Saint Francis is shown with his stigmata. Behind the saint are the male inhabitants of the town and one of Francis’s friar companions. The women watch from a safe distance, peeping between the battlements of the city gate.

Technical Notes
Panel construction

Maximum height of panel 89.3 cm, maximum height of painted surface 87 cm; maximum width of panel 54.5 cm, maximum width of painted surface 52.4 cm. Like the others in the series, the panel has been planed and cradled: thickness of original panel 0.8 cm, thickness of panel including cradle 3.5 cm.

In the right‐hand spandrel of the original frame, now encased in a modern frame, are the traces of a dowel (visible in the X‐radiograph).

On the frame is a label: 99119F/ Duveen. On the cradle is the number 7534 in ink.

© The National Gallery, London

Condition and technique

The condition is uneven. Some areas are relatively well preserved; for example, the sky, which has only a few losses and some heavy cracks in the ground caused by knots.

The painting has suffered extensively from flaking. Circular losses, as in NG 4761, again suggest damage from mould. The areas of the paint surface badly affected include much of the gate wall, although the survival of fragments of paint and the incised lines mean that none of the reconstruction is conjectural. In the figures the damage is particularly in the areas of red, such as the notary’s hat, the red drapery of the figure behind the man with the tall hat, and the figure in red behind Saint Francis, whose robe has been almost entirely reconstructed. Damage to this figure has affected the contours of both Saint Francis and the friar. Also damaged are the face of the figure in red (whose left eye has been reconstructed) and that of the young boy behind (partly reconstructed), and the contour along the back of the head of the fair‐haired man, as well as his forehead, ear and neck. There are small flake losses around the wolf’s muzzle and paw and around Saint Francis’s hand. Saint Francis and the friar are relatively well preserved, but have suffered damage to their contours and small flake losses. The onlooking women are well preserved apart from the last one, who has a slightly damaged eye.

In the landscape there are losses immediately to the left of the group of trees and in the path. The shape of the small lump of flesh lying beyond the path is determined by the fact that it is the only surviving fragment of paint in the centre of a large loss and may originally have been larger and more recognisable as a limb.

As elsewhere, Sassetta has used silver leaf to convey richness of fabric. The notary wears blue over silver leaf with a few small losses, and the lining of his robe is red lake over silver. The fair‐haired man behind the notary wears a tabard of red lake (of which only fragments survive) over silver leaf, and sleeves of blue over silver leaf. The tall hat of the man beside him is blue or purple over silver, the tabard is blue over silver and the undersleeves are red lake over silver.

Sassetta originally incised a straight line for the flight of birds, although in the final painting they fly in a sublime curve. The flight of cranes, although this time in a straight line, similarly incised, had earlier been used by Sassetta in his Journey of the Magi (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art).27

Subject

This is the only scene of the nine narratives that is not in the Legenda Maior, but it precisely follows the account in the Fioretti (The Little Flowers of Saint Francis), Chapter XX, where it says that the wolf lifted his right paw and placed it in the hand of Saint Francis. The notary is not mentioned in the text.28

[page 339]

© The National Gallery, London

[page 340]

NG 4763 
The Funeral of Saint Francis and Verification of the Stigmata

The body of Saint Francis lies on a bier in front of the altar of a church; the lady Iacopa kisses his hands and the doubting knight Jeronimo assures himself of the wound in his side. A bishop reads the funeral service from a liturgical book held up by an acolyte. A young deacon holds a staff with a cross and a banner. Two laymen hold candles. A friar covers his face in sorrow, while the other friars hold candles, one lighting his from the flame of his neighbour’s. A small boy peeps at Saint Francis’s body from behind the friar. On the altar in the background is an altarpiece (see fig. 2) showing the Virgin and Child with Saints Peter and Paul, and in the central pinnacle the Blessing Redeemer, in red holding a blue book(?), in the left pinnacle the Angel Gabriel carrying a lily, and in the right pinnacle the Annunciate Virgin.

Technical Notes
Panel construction

Maximum height of panel 90 cm, maximum height of painted surface 88.4 cm; maximum width of panel 55.8 cm, maximum width of painted surface 53.5 cm; thickness of original panel 0.7 cm, thickness of panel including cradle 3.5 cm.

On the back is a label with the number C8359 /7 / M.

Condition and technique

The central group of figures is fairly well preserved, except for a horizontal damage, possibly due to a knot, across the chest of the friar looking upward on the left, and extending to the shoulder of the friar beside him. The two figures behind the bishop are well preserved.

The figures at the right‐hand side at the end of the bier, the foreground in front of them and the architecture behind them have all suffered extensive flaking. Areas that have been reconstructed include much of the face and head of the acolyte holding the book, and the nose and eyes of the bishop; the missing upper part of the friar beside him has also been restored. As well as having suffered from flaking, some of the paint surface is abraded, especially in the blue of the vaults.29

Most of the gilded areas are badly worn, including the gold‐leaf sky, the altarpiece (although there the painted figures are well preserved), and the processional crucifix and banner.

Many of the decorative features applied over gold or silver have been lost. On the banner there remain only traces of red lake over incised vertical lines and a dark green border, and traces of the black paint for the body of Christ. Also damaged is the dark green with white pearls on the terminals of the gilded crucifix.

The cope of the bishop, which was originally gold leaf with vermilion and red lake with a vertical sgraffito pattern, has suffered large losses; only traces of the red lake remain in a border of green and white, while his crozier has lost almost all of its original gold. The border of the robe of the acolyte carrying the crucifix has a dark green pattern with white dots for pearls; the lining of the sleeves is blue, possibly with a red lake glaze. The pillow beneath Saint Francis’s head is gold with a dark green glaze and sgraffito.

The knight is dressed in a blue cloak with a red lake lining and sleeves of purple, all over silver; of the red lake only traces survive, but the blue and purple have adhered reasonably well.

Some of the details have been water‐gilded, such as the flames of the candles (each with an added flicker of red paint), the asperger and the censer, all of which have survived well.

In the fictive altarpiece, Saint Peter’s gold and silver keys and Saint Paul’s sword represent another rare instance of mordant gilding in the altarpiece. The throne of the Virgin in the centre panel was originally covered with a red textile, of which only traces remain. The decoration of the frame of the fictive altarpiece is inconsistent: some of the colonettes have been punched, some left plain; the profile of the crockets and finials has been scratched out of the blue of the vaults in order to obtain a sharp profile. The predella of the altarpiece is dark green with a sgraffito pattern; in the gables, the Angel of the Annunciation wears a white robe modelled with pale blue and carries a stalk, presumably of a lily; there is the trace of a green glaze on the angel’s wing.

As in the other panels in the altarpiece, the lines of the architecture have been incised, but not always used. There are several inscribed arcs and arches in the vaults which are difficult to interpret; they appear to represent earlier ideas for a different vaulted bay.

Subject

Saint Francis died in 1226 in a hut close by the Portiuncula, near Assisi. He was buried in Assisi, in the church of San Giorgio (now attached to Santa Chiara), but his remains were later transferred to the church of San Francesco built in his honour.

The lady Iacopa was a Roman supporter of Saint Francis and the only woman to be admitted at the saint’s death. Her name is given as de Septemsoliis and she appears to have married a Frangipani. She was probably a Franciscan tertiary who died at Assisi. Saint Francis had begun a letter to her, summoning her to his deathbed, but she arrived of her own accord before the letter was completed.30

The scene shows the Funeral of Saint Francis rather than his death, which was required in the scripta (see below). This is probably because this scene was immediately adjacent to the Stigmatisation (see the order of scenes proposed below) showing the saint receiving the wounds that the knight is probing. The verification of Saint Francis’s stigmata as recounted in the Legenda Maior (XV:4) draws a parallel between this event and that of Thomas doubting Christ’s wounds, thereby emphasising Francis as alter Christus.

Davies suggested that Saints Peter and Paul may have been included in the fictive altarpiece because of Saint Francis’s particular devotion to those saints,31 or they may refer to the direct dependence of the Franciscan Order from the papacy.

[page 341]

© The National Gallery, London

[page [342]]
Fig. 1

Detail from NG 4757 showing the angel appearing to the sleeping Saint Francis (© The National Gallery, London)

[page 343]
Fig. 2

Detail of the fictive altarpiece in NG 4763, showing the Virgin and Child with Saints Peter and Paul, and in the pinnacles the Angel Gabriel, the Blessing Redeemer and the Annunciate Virgin (© RMN, Paris)

[page 344]
Fig. 3

The back of Sassetta’s Mystic Marriage of Saint Francis (shown opposite) (© RMN, Paris)

[page 345]
Fig. 4

Sassetta, The Mystic Marriage of Saint Francis with Poverty, Chastity and Obedience. Tempera on wood, 92.5 x 54.3 cm. Chantilly, Musée Condé. © Photo: Bridgeman Art Library, London

[page 346]
Fig. 5

The high altar of San Francesco, Borgo San Sepolcro, constructed in 1304 (© Fratelli Alinari, Florence. All rights reserved 2003 2024 )

Fig. 6

Plan of San Francesco, Borgo San Sepolcro (courtesy of Donal Cooper) (© Courtesy of Donal Cooper)

KEY:
C friars’ choir stalls
H high altar
T tramezzo or screen
A St Anthony of Padua altar
B St Bonaventura altar

The History of the High Altarpiece of San Francesco, San Sepolcro, before the commission was given to Sassetta

The church of San Francesco, Borgo San Sepolcro (see plan, fig. 6), was founded in 1258 and the fabric of the church completed by 1300.32 The high altar table or mensa was, according to its inscription, constructed in 1304,33 when the local Blessed Raniero Rasini died and was buried in the altar below (fig. 5).34 In 1306 Cardinal Napoleone Orsini granted 100 days’ indulgence to whoever visited the high altar of the church,35 and it became a centre of pilgrimage. According to Vasari, Giotto painted an altarpiece for it, which was dismantled and taken to Arezzo by Pier Saccone Tarlati in 1327.36

On 2 August 1426 the operai of San Franceso contracted a local carpenter, Bartolomeo di Giovannino d’Angelo, to build a wooden altarpiece with ‘floribus’ and embellishments; it was to be like the altarpiece of the abbey church of San Sepolcro, except that it was to be double‐sided and could be painted on both sides.37 It is interesting that from the very outset it was intended to be double‐sided; the friars may have wanted it to emulate the altarpiece in San Francesco al Prato, Perugia, painted by the Sienese artist Taddeo di Bartolo in 1403, although this is never specified. Another possible model could have been an altarpiece in San Francesco, Città di Castello (see discussion below).38

On 9 October 1430 the friars and operai of San Francesco, Borgo San Sepolcro, commissioned a local painter, Antonio di Giovanni d’Anghiari, to paint the front side of the wooden structure already in place on the high altar with figures and stories, according to the wishes of the friars.39 The painter was to be paid 140 florins and was to complete the work within [page 347]three and a half years. Piero della Francesca, who was then working as an assistant to Antonio d’Anghiari, began work on the altarpiece between June and December 1432, when he and his father were credited 56 florins for materials and for Piero’s labour.40 How far Piero advanced the altarpiece is not known: in the contract with Sassetta of 1437 the altarpiece is described as already constructed and gessoed (‘iam constructe et ingesate’).41 For some unknown reason, d’Anghiari did not complete the commission42 and a new commission was awarded to Sassetta in September 1437, although d’Anghiari did not relinquish his right to paint the altarpiece until January 1438.43

The Contract of 1437

Two copies survive of the contract with Sassetta of 5 September 1437, one for the painter and one for the friars.44 Sassetta agreed to make and construct a wooden altarpiece identical in proportion, ornaments (that is, ornament on the frame, such as finials, crockets, etc.) and dimension to that already in existence,45 and to paint it on both sides with stories and figures according to the dictates of the Guardiano and friars of San Francesco, with gold, the best ultramarine (‘azurrum finum’)46 and other fine colours, to the best of his skill and ingenuity. Sassetta agreed to hand over the completed altarpiece in the city of Siena within four years.47 He was to be paid 510 florins in three instalments: at the beginning of the commission, halfway through it, and on completion.48 Sassetta agreed to transfer the altarpiece to Borgo San Sepolcro in person, set it up on the high altar, and adapt it as necessary. He would be lodged in Borgo San Sepolcro at the friars’ expense and make good any damage incurred during transport.49 The method of construction of the altarpiece meant that it was relatively easy to transport in separate units, the main tier and pinnacles consisting of five separate vertical planks, painted on both sides and dowelled together.50 This system had been used by Taddeo di Bartolo in his altarpiece for San Francesco al Prato, Perugia, which, as mentioned above, was probably one of the models for Sassetta’s altarpiece.51 The two predella panels and the two columns (painted on three sides, except at the top, where they seem to have been painted on four sides; see Reconstruction, figs 9 and 10) were probably separate items. The whole would therefore have been assembled in situ.

The Scripta of 1439

In 1991 James Banker published an important set of documents recording the intervening stages between the contract of 1437 and the final installation of the altarpiece.

On 11 February 1438, a month after d’Anghiari had relinquished his right to paint the altarpiece, Sassetta was paid the first instalment.52 On 23 January 1439, nearly one year after the initial payment, two friars – Fra Francesco di Simone da Borgo San Sepolcro and Fra Michelangelo d’Asciano – journeyed to Siena with a scripta detailing the commission from the Guardiano, Operai and friars, to convey to Sassetta their wishes regarding the subject matter of the altarpiece and the disposition of the scenes. Fra Francesco and Fra Michelangelo were to assist the painter (‘de ordinare et componere le figure et l’istorie della taule sì como pare a noi et al maestro insiemi’).

According to the scripta, the altarpiece was to be arranged as follows: in the centre the Virgin and Child with angels, as seemed best to the painter;53 on the right‐hand side Saint John the Baptist and on the left‐hand side Saint John the Evangelist; next to the Baptist, Saint (sic) Ranieri;54 next to the Evangelist, Saint Anthony of Padua; above the Virgin and Child, the crucified Christ with the Virgin Mary and John, with Saint Francis at the foot (of the cross), and above them God the Father; in the predella, four scenes of the Passion; in the pinnacles (‘colmi’), Saints Peter, Paul, Louis of Toulouse and Clare; in the columns, Saints Lawrence, Stephen, Michael and Christopher; at the base of the columns in the predella, half‐length figures of Saints Benedict and Dominic.

On the back, in the centre, were to be Saint Francis enthroned (‘in trono’), as in Castello (that is, Città di Castello),55 with the virtues above him and the vices at his feet. At the sides were to be eight stories of Saint Francis: In the predella were to be four stories of Blessed Raniero, to be sent to Sassetta by Fra Francesco and Fra Michelangelo; in the central pinnacle, the story of the Annunciation, and above, the Redeemer; in the other pinnacles, Saints Nicholas, Augustine, Gherardo and Elizabeth; in the columns, Saints Matthew, Bartholomew, Catherine and Agatha, and at the base two half‐figures of Saints Anthony Abbot and Ambrose; at the sides of the columns, Blessed Robert and Blessed Bonaventura cardinal, Saint Lucy and Saint Margaret, Saint Jerome and Saint Gregory; in the top (‘principio’) of the columns (which must each have had four facets), Saint Blaise, Saint Ansanus, Saint Peter of Siena, Blessed Margaret of Cortona, Saint Florido bishop, Saint Donato, Saint Silvester and Saint Andrew.57

  • 1. when Saint Francis was shown the palace (‘quando a San Francescho fo demostrato quello palagio’);
  • 2. when he refused the inheritance/patrimony of his father in the arms of the bishop (‘quando rifiutò ala heredita del padre in mano de’vescovo’);56
  • 3. when the indulgence of Assisi was confirmed by the pope (‘quando fo confirmato el perdono d’Asesi dal papa’);
  • 4. when he received the stigmata (‘quando recevè le stimate’);
  • 5. when he reconciled the people of Gubbio with the wolf (‘quando repacificò el popolo d’Ugubio col lupo’);
  • 6. when he espoused the three virtues (‘quando sposò quelle tre virtù’);
  • 7. when he appeared before the Sultan and entered the fire (‘quando andò innanzi al sodano et che intrò ne’fuocho’);
  • when he died (‘quando morì’).

In the predella were to be four stories of Blessed Raniero, to be sent to Sassetta by Fra Francesco and Fra Michelangelo; in the central pinnacle, the story of the Annunciation, and above, the Redeemer; in the other pinnacles, Saints Nicholas, Augustine, Gherardo and Elizabeth; in the columns, Saints Matthew, Bartholomew, Catherine and Agatha, and at the base two half‐figures of Saints Anthony Abbot and Ambrose; at the sides of the columns, Blessed Robert and Blessed Bonaventura cardinal, Saint Lucy and Saint Margaret, Saint Jerome and Saint Gregory; in the top (‘principio’) of the columns (which must each have had four facets), Saint Blaise, Saint Ansanus, Saint Peter of Siena, Blessed Margaret of Cortona, Saint Florido bishop, Saint Donato, Saint Silvester and Saint Andrew.57

‘principio’) of the columns (which must each have had four facets), Saint Blaise, Saint Ansanus, Saint Peter of Siena, Blessed Margaret of Cortona, Saint Florido bishop, Saint Donato, Saint Silvester and Saint Andrew.57

) of the columns (which must each have had four facets), Saint Blaise, Saint Ansanus, Saint Peter of Siena, Blessed Margaret of Cortona, Saint Florido bishop, Saint Donato, Saint Silvester and Saint Andrew.57

57

Ten days later, on 3 February 1439, the two friars recorded in a general way their agreement with Sassetta, repeating some of the clauses of the contract of 1437, and stating that the figures and stories were to be as had been described in the scripta vulgare by the Guardiano and friars, and that Sassetta had kept simulacra (presumably drawings) of the figures and stories.58

[page [348]]

Saint Francis meets a knight poorer tham himself (NG 4757), detail (© The National Gallery, London)

[page 349]
Fig. 7

Johann Anton Ramboux, Saint Francis in Glory, c. 1842 (vol. VIII, p. 19) . Pencil on paper, 32.5 x 21.5 cm. Frankfurt‐am‐Main, Städelsches Kunstinstitut. © Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt am Main, Städel Museum, mounted in the album “Sammlung von Umrissen und Durchzeichnungen”, vol. 8, fol. 19; inv.-no. Bib. 2472

Fig. 8

Saint Francis in Glory from Giovanni Rosini, Storia della pittura italiana, 1839, vol. I, plate L. © The National Gallery, London

The Completion of the Altarpiece

The altarpiece is documented as having been installed on the third day of Pentecost, 2 June 1444,59 when it was formally accepted by the operai, with Sassetta given quittance on 5 June 1444.60 Christa Gardner von Teuffel has published a drawing by Johann Anton Ramboux of c. 1842 (fig. 7), showing that the altarpiece was signed and dated: OPUS·M·STEFANI· DE·SENIS·ANO·1444.61

The Patrons and Payments for the Altarpiece

The benefactor of the first altarpiece was Donna Lucia, widow of Baldo di Vivo di Baldo Iacopini, who agreed to pay d’Anghiari 140 florins through the concession of two houses.62 Saint Lucy was one of the saints shown in the side columns of Sassetta’s altarpiece.63

Later, in 1443, Marcholino de’ Pichi purchased land from the Franciscans for 994 lire with the stipulation that the money was to go to Sassetta for the high altarpiece.64

Banker makes the point that the Franciscans were exceptionally unencumbered by the wishes or stipulations of benefactors, and entirely free to choose their own images.65 The tight control exercised by the friars throughout the commission is evident from the very outset, with the carpenter required to follow the specifications of one of the friars of the convent in 1426, and with the friars stating their right to determine the subject matter in 1430, and again in the contract, scripta and résumé in 1437 and 1439.

The final inscription, recorded in the nineteenth century beneath the central panel with Saint Francis (see figs 7 and 8) and presumably by that date remaining only as a fragment of a longer inscription, named the two operai responsible for the commission: CRISTOFORVS FRANCISCI FEI E[T] ANDREAS IOHANNIS TANIS OPERARIVS A.[D]. MCCCCXXXXIIII,66 who had their patron saints, Christopher and Andrew, represented on the columns of the altarpiece.

The Dismantling of the Altarpiece

The altarpiece was dismantled between 1578 and 1583; the convent was suppressed during the Napoleonic suppressions of 1808–10, and the altarpiece taken over by the Sergiuliani family and the fragments eventually dispersed.67

Reconstruction of the Front Main Tier, Pinnacles and Predella

The organisation of the subject matter as described in the scripta is in many ways eccentric and has confounded several seemingly logical aspects of the reconstructions of the altarpiece proposed by scholars prior to its discovery.

[page 350]
Fig. 9

Reconstruction of the front of Sassetta’s San Sepolcro altarpiece (© RMN, Paris)

SURVIVING FRAGMENTS:

Main tier

CENTRE:
  • The Virgin and Child with Angels (Paris, Louvre)
LEFT:
  • Blessed Raniero Rasini (Settignano, Berenson Collection)
  • Saint John the Baptist (Settignano, Berenson Collection)
RIGHT:
  • Saint John the Evangelist (Paris, Louvre)
  • Saint Anthony of Padua (Paris, Louvre)

Predella

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT:
  • The Agony in the Garden (Detroit, Institute of Arts)
  • The Betrayal (Detroit, Institute of Arts)
  • The Ascent to Calvary (Detroit, Institute of Arts)

Pilasters

TOP LEFT:
  • Saint Lawrence (Moscow, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts)
TOP RIGHT:
  • Saint Stephen (Moscow, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts)
BOTTOM RIGHT:
  • Saint Christopher (Assisi, Sacro Convento, Mason Perkins Collection)

Pinnacle

CENTRE:
  • Saint Francis before the Crucifix (Cleveland Museum of Art)
MISSING FRAGMENTS

Left pilaster

FROM TOP TO BOTTOM:
  • Saint Peter of Siena; Saint Blaise; Saint Bonaventura; Saint Margaret, Saint Michael; Saint Gregory; Saint Benedict

Pinnacles

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT:
  • Saint Louis of Toulouse; Saint Peter; Saint Paul; Saint Clare

Right pilaster

FROM TOP TO BOTTOM
  • Saint Andrew, Saint Ansanus; Saint Dominic
[page 351]
Fig. 10

Reconstruction of the back of Sassetta’s San Sepolcro altarpiece (© RMN, Paris)

SURVIVING FRAGMENTS:

Main tier

CENTRE:
  • Saint Francis in Glory (Settignano, Berenson Collection)

Narrative scenes

TOP ROW, LEFT:
  • Saint Francis meets a Knight poorer than himself and Saint Francis’s vision of the founding of the Franciscan Order (NG 4757)
  • Saint Francis renounces his Earthly Father (NG 4758)
BOTTOM ROW, LEFT:
  • Saint Francis before the Pope: The Granting of the Indulgence of the Portiuncula (NG 4759)
  • The Mystic Marriage of Saint Francis with Lady Poverty (Chantilly, Musée Condé)
TOP ROW, RIGHT:
  • Saint Francis before the Sultan (NG 4761)
  • Saint Francis and the Wolf of Gubbio (NG 4762)
BOTTOM ROW, RIGHT:
  • The Stigmatisation of Saint Francis (NG 4760)
  • The Funeral of Saint Francis and Verification of the Stigmata (NG 4763)

Predella

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT:
  • The Liberation of the Prisoners of Florence (Paris, Louvre)
  • The Apparition of Blessed Raniero Rasini to a Cardinal (Paris, Louvre)
  • Raniero Rasini shows the Friars the Miser of Citerna’s Soul carried by Demons to Hell (Paris, Louvre)

Pilasters

TOP LEFT:
  • Saint Matthew (Venice, Cini Collection)

Pinnacles

CENTRE:
  • The Annunciation (New York, Metropolitan Museum, Lehman Collection)
RIGHT:
  • Saint Augustine (private collection)
MISSING FRAGMENTS

Left pilaster

FROM TOP TO BOTTOM:
  • Blessed Margaret of Cortona; Saint Florido; Blessed Robert; Saint Lucy; Saint Catherine; Saint Jerome; Saint Anthony Abbot

Pinnacles

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT:
  • Saint Gherardo; Saint Nicholas; Saint Elizabeth

Right pilaster

FROM TOP TO BOTTOM:
  • Saint Silvester; Saint Donato; Saint Bartholomew; Saint Agatha; Saint Ambrose
[page 352]
Fig. 11

Sassetta, The Virgin and Child enthroned with Six Angels. Tempera on wood, 207 x 118 cm. Paris, Musée du Louvre. Photo: Daniel Arnaudet

Fig. 12

Sassetta, Saint Francis before the Crucifix. Tempera on wood, 81 x 40.2 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Mr and Mrs William Marlatt Fund, 1962.36 CMA 962.36. © The Cleveland Museum of Art

Fig. 13

Sassetta, The Agony in the Garden, 53.270 (48.9 x 64.1 cm). Tempera on wood. The Detroit Institute of Arts. Founders Society Purchase, Ralph Harman Booth Bequest Fund. © The Detroit Institute of Arts. Photograph 1988

Fig. 14

Sassetta, The Betrayal of Christ, 46.56 (45.4 x 59.3 cm). Tempera on wood. The Detroit Institute of Arts. Founders Society Purchase, General Membership Fund. © The Detroit Institute of Arts. Photograph 1988

[page 353]
Fig. 15

Sassetta, The Ascent to Calvary, 24.94 (48.9 x 63.5 cm). Tempera on wood. The Detroit Institute of Arts. City of Detroit Purchase. © The Detroit Institute of Arts. Photograph 1988

Fig. 16

Sassetta, The Annunciation. Tempera on wood, 76 x 43.3 cm. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Robert Lehman Collection, 1975 (1975.1.26). © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The first plausible reconstruction of the front of the altarpiece was made by Enzo Carli, who in 1951 identified the front main tier as having been composed of the Virgin and Child (fig. 11) now in the Louvre, Paris, with Saint Anthony of Padua and John the Evangelist, also in the Louvre, and Blessed Raniero and John the Baptist, now in the Berenson Collection, Settignano.68 Other reconstructions followed,69 varying the placement of these four saints, until their correct positions were arrived at by Dominique Thiébaut,70 and by Henk van Os, who plotted the position of dowel holes recorded by Van Asperen de Boer,71 and eventually confirmed by Banker’s discovery of the scripta (see reconstruction, fig. 9). Of the four front predella scenes from the Passion of Christ required in the scripta, only three survive. They are probably identifiable as the Agony in the Garden (fig. 13), the Betrayal of Christ (fig. 14) and the Ascent to Calvary (fig. 15) (all in Detroit), first identified as part of the altarpiece by Michel Laclotte72 and previously thought by scholars to have been on the back, until the publication of the scripta. Given that the extant scenes measure approximately 63 cm each, and that the scripta specifies four scenes, that leaves a discrepancy of 92 cm. Christa Gardner von Teuffel has suggested that missing from the centre is a fifth scene showing the Entombment – or, less likely, the Resurrection – which would directly refer to the town’s name, San Sepolcro (Holy Sepulchre), a connection established later in the predella of Piero della Francesca’s Misericordia polyptych, commissioned in 1445.73 Another argument in favour of a missing central Passion scene is that the Ascent to Calvary unusually shows Christ moving from right to left rather than left to right, perhaps because it was intended to show him moving towards his Crucifixion or Entombment in the centre. However, the scripta explicitly calls for only four scenes on each face of the predella, and it is therefore difficult to argue for a fifth scene. The possibility therefore remains that the centre of the predella was purely decorative, as has been suggested may be the case with Piero della Francesca’s polyptych for Sant’Agostino in Borgo San Sepolcro, commissioned in 1454, or that it carried an inscription.74

It was previously assumed that the Annunciation (fig. 16) in the Lehman Collection, thought to have been part of the altarpiece, would have gone above the panel with the Virgin and Child.75 However, the scripta calls for a Crucifixion in this position, with Saint Francis at the foot of the cross; this must be the panel in the Cleveland Museum of Art (fig. 12), a panel which had originally been thought to fit perfectly above the figure of Francis in Glory (the alter Christus) on the back.76 Although the scripta required the Virgin and John the Evangelist in the Crucifixion scene, it is possible that the painter decided to omit them on compositional grounds. The scripta makes it clear that the details were a matter for the friars and the painter to resolve (‘de ordinare et componere le figure e l’istorie della taule sì como pare a noi et al maestro insiemi’). There are some incontrovertible deviations from the scripta, such as the addition of an episode to the first scene (see NG 4757 above), so it is possible that subsequent changes may have been made according to verbal agreement. If the Lehman Annunciation and Cleveland Crucifixion were indeed [page 354] the pinnacles of the altarpiece, then their shape does not allow for yet another panel above them and it must be assumed that this was one of the adjustments made by the painter, and that the God the Father and Blessing Redeemer detailed in the scripta were omitted.77

Fig. 17

Sassetta, Saint Francis in Glory. Tempera on wood, 195 x 119.5 cm. Settignano, Berenson Collection. © Photo: SCALA, Florence

Reconstruction of the Back Main Tier and Predella

While the discovery of the scripta solves many of the problems of the original appearance of the front of the altarpiece, the reconstruction of the back is more problematic. The front and back of the main tier were painted on five vertical panels,78 each approximately 4 cm thick, which were sawn in half when the altarpiece was dismantled. The centre of the main tier showed Saint Francis in Glory (fig. 17)79 and is now in the Berenson Collection, Settignano, corresponding precisely in its dimensions to the Virgin and Child panel in the Louvre. Above the central panel was the Annunciation, probably the Annunciation (fig. 16) now in the Lehman Collection, which in the past was thought to have been situated on the front.80 In the side pinnacles, Saints Peter and Paul were on either side of the central panel above the two Saint Johns, while the two Franciscan saints, Louis of Toulouse and Clare, were situated above the two Franciscan saints in the main tier.

The back predella showed scenes from the Life of Blessed Raniero Rasini which had previously been placed by scholars on the front of the altarpiece, where the main tier panels included the image of Raniero Rasini. Three of the four panels survive: the Liberation of the Prisoners of Florence (Paris, Louvre; fig. 18), the Apparition of Blessed Raniero Rasini to a Cardinal (Berlin, Dahlem; fig. 19), and Raniero Rasini shows the Friars the Miser of Citerna’s Soul carried by Demons to Hell (Paris, Louvre; fig. 20).81 Again the combined width of four scenes, each originally some 63 cm, leaves a gap of 92 cm, but again, since only four scenes were asked for, it is difficult to argue for a fifth.82 It may be that the centre was purely decorative or carried an inscription.

Fig. 18

Sassetta, The Liberation of the Prisoners of Florence. Tempera on wood, 45 x 65 cm. Paris, Musée du Louvre. © RMN, Paris © GrandPalaisRmn (musée du Louvre) / Franck Raux

[page 355]

The main problem of the reconstruction of the back of the altarpiece concerns the disposition of the eight scenes from the life of Saint Francis that were ranged on either side of the central panel. Even before the discovery of the scripta it had been recognised that these were the seven scenes in the National Gallery and the Mystic Marriage of Saint Francis with Lady Poverty (fig. 4) now in the Musée Condé, Chantilly.83 The narrative scenes were probably painted in pairs on the backs of the four vertical planks of wood showing the four standing saints on the other side. However, evidence of their order which might have been obtained from X‐radiographs showing the wood grain has been destroyed, since all seven National Gallery panels have been cut from their spandrels, planed and cradled, as described under NG 4757. Photographs of the National Gallery panels published by Bernard Berenson in 1903, when they were all in the Chalandon Collection (with the exception of the Wolf of Gubbio, which was in the collection of Count Mantel), show the paintings in their correct frames before this process was undertaken.84 Of the seven paintings in the Gallery, four (NG 4757, 4758, 4761, 4762) have chamfered corners, indicating that they came from the top register, and three (NG 4759, 4760, 4763) are rectangular and must have come from the lower register. The Chantilly Mystic Marriage panel, which retains its original trefoil stepped frame and pastiglia spandrels, is rectangular in shape and must therefore have been in the lower register, as is confirmed by the presence of candle burns; since Saint Francis is shown with the stigmata, the scene has been placed after the Stigmatisation, in the group on the right (but see below).85 Braham had already pointed out that the Funeral of Saint Francis also had to be a lower tier panel, since it fits into only one of the frames, which is a rectangular one. Banker reconstructed the scenes according to the order listed in the scripta.86

However, if the scenes are arranged in approximately chronological order according to the written sources and the events of Saint Francis’s life – Legenda Maior, I:2 and 3; II:4; year 1216 (the year the indulgence was awarded); VII:6; IX:8; Fioretti, XX; Legenda Maior, XIII:1–3 = year 1224 (the year of the stigmatisation); Legenda Maior, XV:4) – and organised in pairs from left to right, taking into account the chamfered and rectangular shapes, they not only make visual and thematic sense but they also form a visual pattern, as adduced by Braham, alternating gold backgrounds and blue skies.87 Confirmation that this system of alternating blue and gold skies was intended lies in the anomaly of the background in Saint Francis before the Sultan, where the sky seen through the arch of the building is blue, while the sky above the building is gold leaf.

The reconstruction proposed here (fig. 10) results in a different position for the Mystic Marriage from that in the reconstructions by Braham and Banker (and most previous ones), which show the Stigmatisation in the lower tier, immediately to the left of the central panel and the Mystic Marriage in the corresponding position on the right.88 Van Os points out that the indentations left by the four dowels in the Mystic Marriage (fig. 3) fit on the back of either the Saint John the Baptist or the Saint John the Evangelist.89 If the Marriage is placed on the left of the central panel (see Reconstruction), opposite the Stigmatisation,90 then the three virtues of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience fly up to the right towards the central panel to crown the figure of Saint Francis.91

This visually and thematically logical arrangement means that all the scenes on the left concern Saint Francis’s renunciation of the material world and establishment of a new religious Order, while the scenes on the right relate to his miracles.92 The demonstrable changes to the programme of the scripta, such as the inclusion of the saint giving his cloak to the poor knight, and the depiction of Saint Francis in the central panel of the main tier not enthroned but crowned by Poverty, Chastity and Obedience, underline the theme of the renunciation of the material world, appropriate for an Observant convent.93

Fig. 19

Sassetta, The Apparition of Blessed Raniero Rasini to a Cardinal. Tempera on wood, 45 x 62 cm. Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen, inv. no. 1945. © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Photo: Jörg P. Anders Photo: Berlin State Museums, Gemäldegalerie / Jörg P. Anders Public Domain Mark 1.0

Fig. 20

Sassetta, Raniero Rasini shows the Friars the Miser Citerna’s Soul carried by Demons to Hell. Tempera on wood, 45.3 x 58.7 cm. Paris, Musée du Louvre. © RMN, Paris © GrandPalaisRmn (musée du Louvre) / Franck Raux

[page 356]
Fig. 21

Sassetta, Saint Augustine. Tempera on wood, 44.5 x 37 cm. Private collection. © Photo: Courtesy of Hall & Knight, New York, USA Photo: The Picture Art Collection / Alamy Stock Photo

The Columns and Side Pinnacles

Other surviving panels from the altarpiece are a pinnacle panel with Saint Augustine (private collection, on loan to the Metropolitan Museum, New York; fig. 21)94 and pilaster figures of Saint Lawrence (fig. 22) and Saint Stephen (fig. 23) (both in the Pushkin Museum, Moscow), Saint Christopher (Assisi, Sacro Convento, Mason Perkins Collection; fig. 24),95 and an Evangelist (Venice, Cini Collection; fig. 25) now identifiable as Saint Matthew, asked for in the scripta. The columns were painted on three sides where level with the main tier and predella, and on four sides where level with the pinnacles at the very top. The wording of the scripta of 1439 reflects the way in which the pairs of saints were to balance each other: for example, Peter and Paul, Louis and Clare, Lawrence and Stephen, etc. The major female saints, apart from those belonging to the Franciscan Order, were grouped in pairs at the side and back of the lower tier of the columns. Gardner von Teuffel has shown that in addition to the commemoration of the local cult figure, Blessed Raniero Rasini, in the front main tier and in the back predella, the programme of the columns helped to anchor the altarpiece in its locality: Saint Floridus was bishop of Città di Castello, in whose diocese San Sepolcro lay, and he is paired with Saint Donatus of Arezzo, the neighbouring diocese.96 Other saints in the pinnacles and columns reflect the name saints of those involved in the commission; as well as the saints for the operai, Christopher and Andrew, all the name saints of the friars were represented, namely John the Baptist for the Guardiano in the main tier, and in the subsidiary elements Augustine, Anthony, Blaise, Louis and Michael.

Setting, Design and Iconography

The high altar of San Francesco stands before a thirteenth‐century rectangular cappella maggiore (now obscured by a semi‐circular partition, see fig. 6)97 originally decorated with frescoes painted in 1403.98 The original position of the fifteenth‐century choir stalls, now in the Pinacoteca in San Sepolcro, is uncertain.99 The present width of the main tier is approximately 347 cm and the width of the altar mensa is approximately 344 cm, so the fit was a tight one, and the columns would have overhung on either side, with supporting columns attached to the floor in the type of ‘buttressed’ altarpiece discussed by Gardner von Teuffel.100 Allowance was made for the spranghe (iron bars) needed to support the columns, mentioned in the specifications given to the carpenter of the first altarpiece in 1426.101

The formula of representing standing saints with narrative scenes from their lives was common from the thirteenth century.102 The design of a trefoiled top with pastiglia in the spandrels was also common in Sienese painting and is found in one of the surviving scenes from a now lost altarpiece in Città di Castello, suggested by van Os as having been the model for the design of the back of Sassetta’s altarpiece.103 Van Os first noted that a model for the altarpiece itself was Taddeo di Bartolo’s altarpiece in Perugia. Donal Cooper has convincingly argued that Sassetta’s altarpiece was a hybrid of that in Città di Castello and that in Perugia.104 The iconography of the narrative scenes of the life of Saint Francis is on the whole probably the product of Sassetta’s imagination, drawing on the written sources.105 However, he also used visual sources in an eclectic way. Although Sir John Pope‐Hennessy claimed that ‘there is good reason to think that Sassetta never visited Assisi’,106 it seems highly likely that he did. The influence is not pervasive, but small details appear to have come from the equivalent scenes in San Francesco, Assisi. For example, the man restraining Saint Francis’s father in NG 4758 and the way in which the father carries Francis’s clothes over his arm are found in the equivalent scene in Assisi. The pose of the saint, save for the turn of his head, in the Stigmatisation seems also to derive from the Upper Church version in Assisi, as do the winged seraph and Brother Leo reading, except that in the Assisi version he is absorbed in his book, whereas in Sassetta’s version he is involved in the vision: one would expect Sassetta to have taken a model for this, the quintessential Franciscan scene. The Funeral of Saint Francis seems to owe something to the funeral of Saint Martin in the frescoes by Simone Martini in the Lower Church.107 For the scenes which have no equivalent in Assisi, Berenson noted the derivation of the Mystic Marriage from the version of that scene (fig. 26) by the Gubbian painter Ottaviano Nelli in part of an altarpiece painted c. 1425 for the church of San Francesco, Gubbio (Rome, Pinacoteca Vaticana),108 and that a version of the legend of the Wolf of Gubbio was in a fresco attributed to the school of Bartolo di Fredi in San Francesco, Pienza;109 in the fresco the accompanying friar makes a gesture similar to that of the friar in Sassetta’s version.

Sassetta’s route between Siena and San Sepolcro may have exposed him to new influences; in 1437 Santa Margherita in [page 357] Cortona acquired a new altarpiece signed and dated by Andrea di Giusto (now Florence, Accademia, inv. no. 1890.3236) with the Assumption in the centre, on the left Saint Catherine and on the right the standing Saint Francis showing his stigmata. Certainly the iconography of the central panel in Sassetta’s altarpiece seems to owe more to this image than to the altarpiece by Taddeo di Bartolo (particularly in the outstretched hands, although Sassetta has shown the palms turned more upward), and Gardner von Teuffel has discussed the influence of the Volto Santo in San Sepolcro.110 As mentioned above, Sassetta almost certainly saw Taddeo di Bartolo’s altarpiece in Perugia, and he probably also saw there Gentile da Fabriano’s altarpiece for San Domenico (now in the Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, Perugia), since the gold‐leaf throne of the Virgin with thorny branches at the sides and roses at the top seems to stem from the throne in that altarpiece, itself a motif rooted in north Italian tradition.111

Fig. 22

Sassetta, Saint Lawrence. Tempera on wood, 76 x 25 cm. Moscow, Pushkin State Museum. © Photo: SCALA, Florence

Fig. 23

Sassetta, Saint Stephen. Tempera on wood, 76 x 25 cm. Moscow, Pushkin State Museum. © Photo: SCALA, Florence

Fig. 24

Sassetta, Saint Christopher. Tempera on wood, 72.5 x 23.5 cm. Assisi, Museo‐Tesoro della Basilica di San Francesco, Perkins Collection. © Museo Tesoro Basilica di San Francesco. Assisi Photo: DeAgostini Picture Library/Scala, Florence

Fig. 25

Sassetta, Saint Matthew. Tempera on wood. Venice, Cini Collection. © Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice Photo: Fotoflash di Zennaro Elisabetta

The high quality of the painting, even in the pilaster panels, and the overall coherence of style indicate the control exercised by Sassetta over the execution of the altarpiece. Although he seems to have had assistance in some parts of the altarpiece, for example in the figure of Saint Anthony of Padua, all the Saint Francis scenes in the National Gallery seem to be attributable exclusively to him.112

The altarpiece was not only inventive in its iconography and evocative in its compositions, but also extremely rich in its colouring and elaborate in its technique. This, added to its impressive size, made it one of the outstanding commissions of the fifteenth century.

Provenance

The altarpiece is thought to have remained in San Francesco, Borgo San Sepolcro, until probably 1808, and then to have been bought by Cavalier Sergiuliani of Borgo San Sepolcro.113 Sergiuliani presented what may have been the whole altarpiece to the Canonico (Giulio Anastasio?) Angelucci of Arezzo, who in turn gave some parts at least to his brother, Priore Pietro Antonio Angelucci, of Montecontieri, near Asciano, who still owned them c. 1823.114 It is probable that Canonico Angelucci’s gift to his brother did not include NG 4757–4763 or the Chantilly panel: what were obviously these eight panels are stated to have been sold in 1819 or later by the Abate Angelucci of [page 358] Arezzo to the Florentine dealer Carlo del Chiaro.115 A few years before 1840 they are stated to have passed into the collection of Count Anatole Demidoff at Florence.116 In 1840 Frederic Reiset bought the panel now at Chantilly.117 Six of the National Gallery panels are stated to have been acquired from a church in Corsica by Emmanuel Chalandon of Lyon, who lent them to the Exposition Rétrospective at Lyon in 1877 .118 NG 4758 and NG 4761 were lent by Chalandon to the exhibition at Siena in 1904 (catalogue p. 335, nos 10108 and 10107); the six Chalandon pictures were purchased by Duveen from Georges Chalandon in 1925.119 NG 4762 passed by inheritance from the Comte de Martel at Cour‐Cheverny to the Comtesse de Féligonde,120 from whom Duveen purchased it in 1926. All seven were bought in 1927 by Clarence Mackay of Long Island, New York; purchased from him through Duveen, Grant‐in‐Aid and Temple‐West Funds, with contributions from the NACF , Benjamin Guinness and Lord Bearsted, 1934.

Fig. 26

Ottaviano Nelli (1380–1448), The Mystic Marriage of Saint Francis, c. 1425. Tempera on wood, 70.1 x 31.8 cm. Rome, Pinacoteca Vaticana, inv. no. 40213. © Musei Vaticani, Archivio Fotografico, Vatican City, Photo: M. Sari Photo: Historic Images / Alamy Stock Photo

Exhibited

London 1945–6, NG , National Art Collections Fund Exhibition (34); London 1995, NG , Shadows: the Depiction of Cast Shadows in Western Art (E.H. Gombrich), pp. 47–9 (NG 4760 only). See also under Provenance for loans.

Select Bibliography

[page 359]

Notes

1. See note 115 below. (Back to text.)

3. Ibid. , p.10. (Back to text.)

4. Ibid. , p.17. (Back to text.)

5. Ibid. , p.13. (Back to text.)

7. For illustrations of the eight panels before cleaning, see Berenson, BM , 1903, pp. 3–35. They may have been removed from their frames when in the Duveen Collection (see Provenance). See Wyld and Plesters, NGTB , 1977, p. 3, and Braham, BM , 1978, pp. 389 and n. 14. According to Davies 1961 , p. 502, the grouping in pairs dates from 1935, i.e. after the paintings had been acquired by the National Gallery. (Back to text.)

9. This technique seems to have been introduced into Tuscany by Gentile da Fabriano and was picked up and widely used by Florentine painters, including Masaccio (see NG 3046, p. 205) and Fra Angelico. Sassetta could have learnt it from Florentine painters or from Gentile: Gentile was in Siena in 1424 or 1425 (see p. 67, note 33). For a discussion of the spread of the technique by Cecilia Frosinini and Roberto Bellucci of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure e Laboratori di Restauro, Florence, see The Panel Paintings of Masolino and Masaccio. The Role of Technique (ed. C. Strehlke with C. Frosinini), Milan 2002, pp. 39–40. (Back to text.)

10. The mixture of textual sources was pointed out by Davies 1961 , pp. 502ff. See also Van Os 1990, II, p. 95. For Celano’s Vita Prima (completed 1229–31) and Vita Secunda (completed 1246–7), see Vita Prima S. Francisci Assisiensis, Quaracchi 1926, and Vita Secunda S. Francisci Assisiensis, Quaracchi 1927. For Bonaventura’s Legenda Maior written in 1263, see Legenda Duae de Vita S. Francisci Seraphici, Quaracchi 1923. For the dating of the texts, see J.R.H. Moorman, The Sources for the Life of St Francis of Assisi, Manchester 1940; and for a full bibliography, R. Manselli, Nos qui cum eo fuimus, Rome 1980. For Sassetta and his sources, see most recently B. David, ‘Pope‐Hennessy, Derrida, and “Literary Residue” in visual images: The case of Sassetta’s Borgo San Sepolcro Altarpiece’, Studies in Iconography, 19, 1998, pp. 1–30. (Back to text.)

11. Celano, Vita Secunda, Part I, Ch. 5–6; Bonaventura, Legenda Maior, Ch. I:2 and I:3. Sassetta’s painting was evidently the model for Benozzo Gozzoli’s version of that subject in the fresco cycle of San Francesco, Montefalco, painted in 1452 (reproduced in D. Cole Ahl, Benozzo Gozzoli, New Haven and London 1996, pl. 61). (Back to text.)

13. Wyld and Plesters, NGTB , 1977, p. 12, and pl. 2c for an illustration of the cross section. (Back to text.)

14. Celano, Vita Prima, Part I, Ch. VI; Vita Secunda, Part I, Ch. VII; Bonaventura, Legenda Maior, Ch. II:4. (Back to text.)

15. Trexler’s observation that ‘Francis’ clothes lie on the ground at Pietro’s feet’ fails to grasp this point (R. Trexler, Naked before the Father. The Renunciation of S. Francis of Assisi, New York, Bern, Frankfurt and Paris 1989, p. 98). (Back to text.)

16. The indulgence of the Portiuncula was a plenary indulgence granted to anyone visiting the Portiuncula at Santa Maria degli Angeli near Assisi on 1/2 August. For the silence on the subject in the early biographies, see P. Sabatier, Tractatus Indulgentiae S. Mariae de Portiuncula, Paris 1900. Had Sassetta had access to a written account, he might have included less generic details. For example, several of the accounts describe how Francis went to Rome with three companions, taking with him three white and three red roses (Sabatier 1900, pp. lxxxv, xciii and 21). (Back to text.)

17. Davies 1961 , p. 503, and p. 508, n. 4. Also Van Os 1990, II, p. 96. For the cardinal in blue, see Davies 1961 , p. 508, n. 6. (Back to text.)

18. See Sabatier 1900 (cited in note 16), p. xlv. Kern doubts that the Raniero concerned was Raniero Rasini (see L. Kern, ‘Le bienheureux Rainier de Borgo San Sepolcro’, Revue d’histoire franciscaine, 7, 1930, pp. 250–4) – if it was indeed he, it would have meant that he was very old when he died in 1304 (see note 54 below). However, even if it was only the friars’ belief that it was he, this could explain why they wanted this unusual scene. See also Gardner von Teuffel, Städel Jarhbuch, 2000, p. 189, and p. 206, n. 140. (Back to text.)

20. Wyld and Plesters ( NGTB , 1977, p. 17) point out that this precisely corresponds with the method of painting blood recommended by Cennino Cennini. (Back to text.)

22. Celano, Vita Prima, Part II, Ch. III, and Tractatus de Miraculis, Ch. II; Bonaventura, Legenda Maior, Ch. XIII:1–3. (Back to text.)

23. See, for example, in a fourteenth‐century Bolognese confraternity manuscript (I. Baldelli, Mostra Storica e Documentaria, in Appendix 9 of 1960 to the Deputazione di Storia Patria per l’Umbria, 1962, p. 633, Tav. I: Biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio di Bologna. Cod. Ospedale Battuti, f.1r); in Taddeo Crivelli’s illumination to the opening of the Office of the Cross in the Gualenghi‐d’Este Hours (see Kurt Barstow, The Gualenghi‐d’Este Hours. Art and Devotion in Renaissance Ferrara, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles 2000, pl. 5); or in Bellini’s Blood of the Redeemer (NG 1233; see Davies 1961 , pp. 60–1). Possibly more relevant are the intarsia choir stalls of 1501 from Città di Castello, published by Salmi (M. Salmi, ‘Commento al Coro della Chiesa di San Francesco a Sansepolcro’, Commentari, anno XXIII, fasc. IV, 1972, p. 364, fig. 33). (Back to text.)

25. Davies 1961 , p. 505. (Back to text.)

26. ‘cum autem processissent ulterius, occurerent ei satellites Saraceni, qui tamquam lupi celerius accurentes ad oves, servos Dei feraliter comprehensos crudeliter contemptibiliter pertreciarunt.’ Bonaventura, Legenda Maior, Ch. IX:8. The fire is not mentioned by Celano in his account of Francis’s encounter with the Sultan (Vita Prima, Part I, Ch. XX:57). (Back to text.)

27. See A. Angelini in Sassetta e i pittori toscani tra XIII e XV secolo. Collezione Chigi‐Saracini, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, eds L. Bellosi and A. Angelini, Florence 1986, pp. 37–42; also Keith Christiansen in the exhibition catalogue Painting in Renaissance Siena 1420–1500, Metropolitan Museum, New York 1988, p. 83. The New York panel is the upper half cut from the Adoration of the Magi (Siena, Monte dei Paschi, Chigi‐Saracini Collection). (Back to text.)

28. Joanna Cannon has drawn attention to the presence of a notary writing down the accounts of witnesses in the canonisation trial of Blessed Margaret of Cortona, shown in the eighteenth‐century copy of a lost fourteenth‐century cycle of frescoes. See J. Cannon and A. Vauchez, Margherita of Cortona and the Lorenzetti: Sienese Art and the Cult of a Holy Woman in Medieval Tuscany, University Park 1999, pp. 250–1. Sassetta, who was born in Cortona, could also have seen the frescoes when he painted the altarpiece for the church of San Domenico in Cortona, commissioned by Niccolò di Angelo Cecco for a chapel built between 1430 and 1436 to the left of the high altar; see p. 97 of this catalogue. Pope‐Hennessy (1939, p. 96) believed that the San Sepolcro commission was given to Sassetta as a direct result of his success in Cortona. (Back to text.)

29. The yellow of the vaults has been identified as lead‐tin yellow. Wyld and Plesters, NGTB , 1977, p. 13. (Back to text.)

30. Davies 1961 , pp. 505–6. (Back to text.)

31. Davies 1961 , p. 506. (Back to text.)

33. The altar table, which is 181 cm deep, is inscribed: ANNO DOMINI M.CCC.IIII. IN FESTO O[MNI]UM S[ANCT]O[RUM] S[AN]C[TU]S RANIERUS MIGRAVIT AD DOMINUM. QUO ANNO. HOC ALTARE CO[MUN]E BURGI FIERI FECIT AD HONORE[M] DEI ET MAGNIFICIENTIAM DICTI S[AN]C[T]I AM[EN]. See J. Gardner, ‘Some Franciscan altars of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries’, in The Vanishing Past. Studies of Medieval Art, Liturgy and Metrology presented to Christopher Hohler, Oxford 1981, p. 32. Van Os, Simiolus, 1974, p. 123, erroneously states that the altar was erected in 1403, although the correct date is given in the caption to the illustration of the altar on p. 125, fig. 13. (Back to text.)

[page 360]

34. It seems clear from references (with the exception of Wadding) cited by Kern that Beato Raniero was buried beneath the high altar: the present crypt arrangement dates from 1874. In 1306 Cardinal Napoleone Orsini granted an indulgence which describes the high altar as ‘altare majus in quo sacre reliquie requiescunt’; Kern, Revue d’histoire franciscaine, 1930 (cited in note 18), pp. 244, 239 and n. 1, and p. 245. For Raniero Rasini, see also Kaftal 1952 , no. 265, cols 883–6. (Back to text.)

36. Vasari, Vite, ed. Milanesi , I, 1878, pp. 395–6. It has been suggested that this may have been the altarpiece showing seven scenes from the Life of Christ of which the Pentecost is in the National Gallery (e.g. by Davies 1961 , p. 231, n. 2; F. Bologna, I pittori alla corte angioina di Napoli: 1266–1414: e un riesame dell’arte nell’età fridericiana, Rome 1969, pp. 190 and 229, nos 79–81 and idem, Novità su Giotto: Giotto al tempo della cappella Peruzzi, Turin 1969, pp. 97–9). An alternative for the provenance of this altarpiece has been suggested as San Francesco, Rimini (see D. Gordon, ‘A dossal by Giotto and his workshop: some problems of attribution, provenance and patronage’, BM , 131, no. 1037, 1989, pp. 524–31), rejected in the exhibition catalogue Il Trecento Riminese. Maestri e botteghe tra Romagna e Marche, exh. cat. (Rimini, Museo della Città), ed. D. Benati, Milan 1995, p. 56, n. 14, and considered inconclusive by Giorgio Bonsanti, Giotto. Bilancio critico di sessant’anni di studi e ricerche (ed. A. Tartuferi), Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence 2000, cat. 23, pp. 174–7. (Back to text.)

37. ‘edificare et construere unam tabulam de lignamine ad altare maius dicte ecclesie cum floribus et ornamentis, prout est tabula altaris maioris Abbatie Burgi, ornatum tamen ex utroque latere et ut ab utroque latere pingi possit et hoc omnibus ipsius Bartholomei magisterio, lignamine, colla et aliis, exceptis duabus ferris ad cortinas tirante ferro et duobus sprangeis sustinere debentibus columpnas dicte tabule’; transcribed by Banker, I Tatti Studies, 1991, p. 47, doc. 1, also listing previous transcriptions – first published by Milanesi (G. Milanesi, Nuovi documenti per la storia dell’arte Toscana dal XII al XV secolo, Florence 1901, p. 80, doc. 96). As noted by Christa Gardner von Teuffel (‘Masaccio and the Pisa Altarpiece: A New Approach’, JBM, 19, 1977, pp. 34–6, n. 40), the model was the altarpiece showing the Resurrection of Christ, which includes several Camaldolese saints (Borgo San Sepolcro, Pinacoteca Nazionale), probably painted for the Camaldolese Abbey of San Giovanni Evangelista, although Polcri, who attributed it to Niccolò di Segna, has wrongly suggested that it was originally painted in 1346–8 for Sant’Agostino (F. Polcri, ‘Un nuovo documento su Niccolò di Segna autore del polittico della Resurrezione di Sansepolcro’, Commentari d’arte, 2, 1995, pp. 35–40); see Gardner von Teuffel, Städel Jahrbuch, 2000, pp. 170–1, and p. 201, n. 35. Davies ( 1961 , p. 509, n. 14) and Banker (I Tatti Studies, 1991, p. 20) interpret ‘floribus’ as flowers; it seems more likely that crockets and finials were intended. The carpenter was paid 250 lire of Cortona (= 50 florins). (Back to text.)

38. For a recent reconstruction, see G.E. Solberg, ‘A reconstruction of Taddeo di Bartolo’s altar‐piece for S. Francesco a Prato, Perugia’, BM , 134, no. 1075, 1992, pp. 646–56. Taddeo Bartolo’s altarpiece itself replaced a thirteenth‐century double‐sided altarpiece by the Maestro di San Francesco. See D. Gordon, ‘A Perugian provenance for the Franciscan double‐sided altar‐piece by the Maestro di S. Francesco’, BM , 124, 1982, pp. 70–7. For other Franciscan double‐sided altarpieces in Umbria, see eadem, ‘The so‐called Paciano Master and the Franciscans in Perugia’, Apollo, 143, no. 409, March 1996, pp. 33–9. See also note 55 below for the altarpiece in Città di Castello. (Back to text.)

39. ‘…pingere et ornare prout decet…tabulam positam ad altare maius dicte ecclesie Sancti Francisci, scilicet partem anteriorem que respicit altare predictum et portam maiorem dicte ecclesie… cum illis figuris et ystoriis prout videbitur et placebit dictis fratribus et aliis fratribus dicti loci’ (transcribed by Banker, I Tatti Studies, 1991, p. 48, doc. 2, also listing previous transcriptions – first published by Milanesi 1901 (cited in note 37), doc. 99, pp. 81–2). For Antonio d’Anghiari, see F. Dabell, ‘Antonio d’Anghiari e gli inizi di Piero della Francesca’, Paragone, 417, 1984, pp. 73–94; he transcribes the document of 9 October 1430 on pp. 83–4. Creighton Gilbert (‘Peintres et menuisiers au début de la Renaissance en Italie’, Revue de l’Art, 37, 1977, p. 12) suggests that it was for financial reasons that the friars asked for only one side to be painted. (Back to text.)

40. ‘pro salario et debito Petri filii dicti Benedicti pictoris et mercede dicti Petri pro laboreriis prestitis dicto magistro Antonio… pro fornimentis picturarum tabule altaris maioris’ (Banker, I Tatti Studies, 1991, p. 19 and n. 23). See also J. Banker, ‘Un documento inedito del 1432 sull’attività di Piero della Francesca per la chiesa di San Francesco in Borgo San Sepolcro’, Rivista d’Arte, XLII, 6, 1990, pp. 245–7. (Back to text.)

41. Banker (I Tatti Studies, 1991, p. 20 and n. 25) suggests that Piero could have applied pastiglia around the frame, although he concludes that this is more likely to have been done by the carpenter. While Sassetta was instructed to copy d’Anghiari’s altarpiece, it is difficult to assess how far he followed these instructions literally and whether pastiglia decoration had been part of the first design (Gardner von Teuffel, JBM, 1977, cited in note 37, p. 36, n. 40). (Back to text.)

42. Banker (I Tatti Studies, 1991, p. 20) argues that d’Anghiari was exceptionally busy in these years, and in a forthcoming study intends to demonstrate that d’Anghiari delayed starting the altarpiece beyond the contractual obligation to complete the altarpiece within three and a half years. (Back to text.)

43. Banker, I Tatti Studies, 1991, p. 21. There is no obvious reason why the friars should have renewed their attempts to obtain an altarpiece in 1437, but the impetus could have come from the fact that Pope Nicholas V made a pilgrimage to Assisi to view Saint Francis’s body in 1437 (Sabatier 1900, cited in note 16, p. cxxxv) – something must have prompted them into action after waiting for seven years. (Back to text.)

46. The only blue pigment identified on the National Gallery panels was ultramarine Wyld and Plesters, NGTB , 1977, p. 13). Dr J. Van Asperen de Boer, in a typescript of his studies of the altarpiece dated May 1977 in the National Gallery archives, notes that there is ultramarine in the panel of Saint Francis in Glory in the Berenson Collection. (Back to text.)

47. Although Van Os (II, 1990, p. 91) says that Sassetta ‘refused to come to Borgo’, the contract was in fact drawn up in Borgo in his presence. Moreover, he would have had to study the model in situ. Gilbert (Revue de l’Art, 1977, cited in note 39, p. 12) stressed that the original structure is likely to have remained in Borgo San Sepolcro, and in fact James Banker has published documents showing that in 1451 the friars of San Francesco sold the wooden structure for 20 florins to Agnilo (Angelo) di Giovanni di Simone, who conceded it to the friars of Sant’Agostino in San Sepolcro; Piero della Francesca, who had already worked on the altarpiece (see note 40), was commissioned in 1454 to paint one side of it (J.R. Banker, ‘Piero della Francesca, the carpentered altarpiece of San Francesco, his Sant’Agostino polyptych and Quattrocento high altarpieces in Borgo San Sepolcro’, Arte Cristiana, 89, no. 804, 2001, pp. 210–18). In view of this documented link, it is fascinating to note how closely Piero followed Sassetta’s poses for Saints John the Envangelist and Anthony of Padua in the Sant’Agostino altarpiece. (Back to text.)

48. Carli, BM , 1951, p.146, n. 2, lists some comparative payments for altarpieces painted on one side only. However, the high price of the altarpiece may in part be due to the high price at that time of gold and silver, both of which were used extensively throughout the altarpiece. Not only is the use of silver and gold widespread in the National Gallery panels, but silver was used for the floor and for the angels’ robes in the Virgin and Child panel, and has been noted on the Lehman Annunciation (see J. Pope‐Hennessy, assisted by L.B. Kanter, The Robert Lehman Collection: Italian Paintings, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, vol. I, 1987, p. 104). Silver is also present on the robe of the pinnacle panel of Saint Augustine (for which see note 94 below). The Virgin’s throne is incised into the gold‐leaf background, thus involving more extensive use of gold leaf than strictly necessary. The extravagant use of silver and gold is all the more remarkable given that in the 1430s and 1440s there was a shortage of both throughout Europe (see P. Spufford, Handbook of Medieval Exchange, London 1986, [page 361]p. 356). Spufford (p. 339) notes that because ‘from around 1435 availability of silver was greatly restricted, its price in terms of gold rose accordingly’. (Back to text.)

49. The contract was transcribed by Banker, I Tatti Studies, 1991, p. 51, doc. 3. He also lists previous transcriptions. (Back to text.)

50. This system had also been used by the Sienese painter Ugolino di Nerio for his altarpiece of c. 1325, possibly painted in Siena, for the Florentine church of Santa Croce; see D. Gordon and A. Reeve, ‘Three newly‐acquired panels from the altarpiece for Santa Croce by Ugolino di Nerio’, NGTB , 8, 1984, pp. 36–52, and also D. Bomford et al. , Art in the Making. Italian Painting before 1400, exh. cat., National Gallery, London 1989, p. 104–7. See further N.E. Muller, ‘Reflections on Ugolino di Nerio’s Santa Croce Polyptych’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 57, 1994, pp. 45–74. (Back to text.)

51. See Solberg, BM , 1992 (cited in note 38), p. 648, figs 19 and 21, for the dowelled construction. (Back to text.)

52. The payment is transcribed by Banker, I Tatti Studies, 1991, p. 53, doc. 4. Although Banker suggests (p. 28) that part of Sassetta’s delay may have been due to involvement in other works, or in building the wooden structure, it is more likely to be explained by the fact that Sassetta was waiting for his initial payment in order to purchase materials, and the friars could not make this payment until they were released from any obligation to d’Anghiari. They made the initial payment as soon as they were in a position to do so. (Back to text.)

53. For a discussion of the iconography of the Virgin and Child requested in the scripta, see Banker, I Tatti Studies, 1991, p. 25. (Back to text.)

54. The friars meant the local Blessed Raniero Rasini, buried under the high altar (see note 34 above); he was never canonised. Saint Raniero was/is patron saint of Pisa (see Kaftal 1952 , no. 264). (Back to text.)

55. See Banker, I Tatti Studies, 1991, p. 34, for the problems of interpreting ‘in trono’. See also Donal Cooper, ‘Spinello Aretino in Città di Castello. The lost model for Sassetta’s Sansepolcro Polyptych’, Apollo, 154, 2001, pp. 22–8, where it is argued that one of Sassetta’s models was a presumed double‐sided altarpiece over the tomb of Beato Jacomo in San Francesco, Città di Castello, of which only the Nativity (London, Courtauld Institute) and the Sanctioning of the Rule (Art Institute of Chicago) survive. (Back to text.)

56. Banker (I Tatti Studies, 1991, p. 36) interprets ‘in mano de’vescovo’ as meaning that Saint Francis refused the patrimony of his father and conveyed it into the hands of the bishop. (Back to text.)

57. Transcribed by Banker, I Tatti Studies, 1991, pp. 53–5, doc. 5. (Back to text.)

58. As Banker (I Tatti Studies, 1991, p. 27) points out, Sassetta had two sources from which to work: a written scripta and visual simulacra. (Back to text.)

59. Banker, I Tatti Studies, 1991, p. 56, doc. 7. Keith Christiansen notes that F. Dabell pointed out that the sequence in the Mass for the third day of Pentecost, when the altarpiece was set up, invokes the Holy Spirit as ‘Pater Pauperum’ (Father of the Poor) and that there may have been an intentional reference to Saint Francis as such (Christiansen, Colnaghi catalogue, 1988, p. 142, n. 23). For Saint Francis as ‘patriarcha pauperum’, see Van Os, Simiolus, 1974, p. 126, n. 27. (Back to text.)

60. Banker, I Tatti Studies, 1991, pp. 57–8, doc. 8. (Back to text.)

62. Banker, I Tatti Studies, 1991, p. 18. D’Anghiari had possession of the two houses by 1437 and was evicted from one of them in 1438 ( ibid. , p. 21 and p. 21, n. 27). For Donna Lucia, see ibid. , p. 22 – she had died by 20 May 1436 (Dabell, Paragone, 1984, cited in note 39, p. 78, n. 11). (Back to text.)

64. Banker, I Tatti Studies, 1991, p. 13, n. 3. On the basis of 5 lire of Cortona to the florin, this would amount to just under 200 florins. Banker points out (p. 22, n. 31) that various bequests were made towards the altarpiece. (Back to text.)

65. Banker, I Tatti Studies, 1991, pp. 18, 21 and 22. (Back to text.)

66. This inscription was recorded in the Ramboux drawing (see fig. 7) published by Gardner von Teuffel (Städel Jahrbuch, 2000), and in the line drawing of the central panel with Saint Francis (see fig. 8) made by G. Rosini, Storia della Pittura Italiana, II, Pisa 1842 (separate volume of plates), pl. L. The names and date are corroborated by the documentation. See also Banker, I Tatti Studies, 1991, pp. 40–1, for a discussion of the discrepancies in the widths. The inscription is given in ibid. , p. 40, and see p. 43, for the operai. (Back to text.)

67. See R. Lapucci, ‘Fonti d’archivio per la storia delle arti durante la soppressione napoleonica a Firenze’, appendix: ‘Elenco completo dei conventi soppressi da Napoleone’, Rivista d’Arte, XXXIX, serie quarta, III, 1987, pp. 475–93 (491). P. Scapecchi, ‘La rimozione e lo smembramento della pala del Sassetta di Borgo San Sepolcro’, Prospettiva, 20, 1980, pp. 57–8. Scapecchi disproves Pope‐Hennessy’s statement (1939, p. 97) that the altarpiece was dismantled in 1752, and also notes that the Sergiuliani family came from Borgo San Sepolcro, not Arezzo. By 1583 the panels with Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Anthony of Padua had been moved to an altar dedicated to the Birth of the Virgin, while the central panel of the Virgin and Child had been moved to an altar dedicated to the Assumption. The panel with Blessed Raniero probably remained in the choir. By 1622 one of the (probably) four predella panels featuring scenes from the life of Raniero seems to have been missing: only three are described by Castiglione (see note 81 below). (Back to text.)

68. Carli, BM , 1951, pp. 145–52. For a summary of the studies of the altarpiece previous to that, see Banker, I Tatti Studies, 1991, pp. 13–14. Krüger says that the front of the altarpiece reflected the dedication of the altar ‘Ad Honorem Dei’ (see note 33 above), while the back with Saint Francis in Glory reflected the dedication of the church (K. Krüger, Der frühe Bildkult des Franziskus in Italien: Gestalt‐ und Funktionswandel des Tafelbildes im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert, Berlin 1992, pp. 91–2). Kern (Revue d’histoire franciscaine, 1930, cited in note 18, p. 243 and p. 243, n. 2) points out that the inscription is not the titulus of the altar and the dedication of the altar is not known, Saint Francis being a possibility. (Back to text.)

70. Thiébaut 1990, p. 82, n. 10; reconstruction on pp. 81 and 85. (Back to text.)

71. Van Os, II, 1990, pp. 92–3. (Back to text.)

73. See Gardner von Teuffel, op. cit. , p. 179. See A. Paolucci, Piero della Francesca, Florence 1989, p. 108, for Piero’s polyptych. (Back to text.)

74. A. Di Lorenzo (ed.), Il Polittico Agostiniano di Piero della Francesca. Museo Poldi Pezzoli. Quaderni di Studi e Restauri, II, 1996, p. 34. See also note 47. Gardner von Teuffel (Städel Jahrbuch, 2000, p. 182) excludes the possibility of an inscription in the centre predella panel of Sassetta’s altarpiece. (Back to text.)

75. It is quite possible that the first proposals for the altarpiece followed a perhaps more logical programme, but when the friars saw the drawings they asked for the predella and pinnacle panels on the back and front to be switched. (Back to text.)

76. Van Os, Simiolus, 1974, p. 126. H.S. Francis, ‘Sassetta: Crucifixion with St François’, Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, L, 1963, pp. 43–9. Francis notes that the edges of the gesso are intact. See also E. De Fernandez‐Gimenez, European Paintings before 1500. Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974, no. 43, pp. 121–4. Béguin, in exh. cat., 1978, p. 34, had suggested that the central panel with the Virgin and Child was crowned with God the Father or the Blessing Redeemer, in fact asked for in the scripta. (Back to text.)

77. Banker, I Tatti Studies, 1991, pp. 27–8, also allows for the possibility of subsequent adjustments to the programme. (Back to text.)

78. See J. Gardner, ‘Fronts and Backs: Setting and Structure’, in La pittura nel XIV e XV secolo, eds H.W. van Os and J.R. Van Asperen de Boer, Bologna 1983, p. 302. Gardner says that the panels were 8 cm thick; this is inherently unlikely. Thiébaut (1990, p. 80) questions whether the two sides were painted on two separate layers and the front and back nailed together (like Duccio’s Maestà), or painted on the front and back of a single panel, as suggested by Gardner. In fact, the correspondence of the shallow dowel [page 362]indentations in the central panels and in the Chantilly panel and the panels of the two Saint Johns (noted by Van Asperen de Boer in the typescript of May 1977 cited in note 46 above) suggests that the paintings were on the back and front of a single panel and that the panels were approximately 4 cm thick. It is significant that the predella panels in Berlin and the Louvre retain their original back surface and thickness (Thiébaut 1990, p. 82, n. 25): presumably the back and front predellas were painted on two separate planks and could be separated without being sawn in half. See also note 83 below. (Back to text.)

79. For a discussion of the iconography of the central panel and the variation from the description in the scripta, see Banker, I Tatti Studies, 1991, pp. 26 and 34. See also Van Os 1990, II, pp. 94–7. Van Os had previously convincingly shown that the altarpiece was modelled on that by Taddeo di Bartolo for San Francesco al Prato, Perugia (Van Os, Simiolus, 1974, pp. 115–32). (Back to text.)

80. Pope‐Hennessy 1987 (cited in note 48), pp. 102–4. (Back to text.)

81. The three scenes had been cited in 1622 by Castiglione (see Kern, Revue d’histoire franciscaine, 1930, cited in note 18, pp. 281–3), but until 1987 only two were known, the panel in Berlin having been identified as belonging to the altarpiece by Pope‐Hennessy. The scene with the Miser of Citerna was only recently discovered. See D. Thiébaut, ‘Un nouveau tableau de Sassetta au Louvre’, Revue du Louvre, no. 2, 1988, pp. 153–4; idem, ‘Sassetta tel un puzzle’, Connaissance des Arts, 434, 1988, pp. 48–54; and idem, Nouvelles acquisitions du département des Peintures: 1987–1990, Musée du Louvre, Paris 1991, pp. 156–9. For a discussion of the iconography of these scenes, see Banker, I Tatti Studies, 1991, pp. 38–41. (Back to text.)

82. Gardner von Teuffel (Städel Jahrbuch, 2000, p. 186) suggests that the missing fourth scene could be the Resuscitation of Two Men, but does not suggest a subject for a possible fifth scene – which would have been necessary if there were five scenes on the back predella, as on the front. (Back to text.)

83. The Chantilly panel had first been associated with the altarpiece by R. Langton Douglas (‘A Forgotten Painter’, BM , 1, 1903, p. 314), and the eight scenes with the life of Saint Francis identified as the back of the Borgo San Sepolcro altarpiece by Pope‐Hennessy (1939, p. 108). For the Chantilly panel, see E. de Boissard and V. Lavergne‐Durey, Chantilly, Musée Condé: Peintures de l’Ecole italienne, Paris 1988, pp. 150–2, no. 81. I am grateful to Mme Nicole Garnier for allowing me to consult the dossier which contains a report made by J. Marette on 3 February 1971 recording that this panel has an added top moulding of 2 cm which is not original, and an added piece at the left‐hand side. The panel has been thinned to 1.9 cm. Marette estimated the original thickness to have been 3 cm by doubling the indentation left by the removal of four dowels. The Mystic Marriage is described in the Legenda Maior, VII:6. (Back to text.)

84. I owe this observation to Machtelt Israëls. (Back to text.)

86. Banker, I Tatti Studies, 1991, fig. 34. Banker (p. 14, n. 9) lists the reconstructions previous to his discovery of the scripta, and illustrates some of them: fig. 29 (Carli, BM , 1951), fig. 30 (Salmi 1971, cited in note 69), fig. 31 (Béguin in exh. cat., 1978), fig. 32 (Braham, BM , 1978), fig. 33 (Thiébaut 1990). (Back to text.)

87. Braham, BM , 1978, p. 389 and figs 53 and 54. Braham’s reconstruction has been widely accepted. (Back to text.)

88. For example, Béguin in exh. cat., 1978, p. 32; Braham, BM , 1978, p. 391, fig. 53; Thiébaut 1990, p. 85; Christiansen, Colnaghi catalogue, 1988, pp. 47–50. Braham (p. 389, n. 10) points out that Salmi’s reconstruction of 1971 cannot be correct, since it places the Chantilly panel in the upper tier. The Mystic Marriage and the Stigmatisation are the only two narrative panels not to contain any silver leaf, not only as befits their subject, but also because these two scenes counterbalanced each other. Krüger 1992 (cited in note 68), p. 102, notes that the Stigmatisation is often paired with the Preaching to the Birds. (Back to text.)

89. Van Os 1990, II, p. 93. See also the typescript of J. Van Asperen de Boer’s analysis of the panels dating from May 1977 in the National Gallery archives, cited in note 46 above. The presence of the dowel indentations on both sides indicates that the panel was not an outside panel attached to the frame, but dowelled into panels on either side. The indentations left by dowels, visible on the back of the spandrels of NG 4759 and NG 4760, indicate that the dowels fixing the panels laterally were aligned horizontally and not irregularly placed as they were in the Santa Croce altarpiece (cited in note 50 above), and so would have been of little assistance in confirming the original arrangement of the eight scenes, even if the panels had remained in their original frames. (Back to text.)

90. The Mystic Marriage was placed here by Carli ( BM , 1951, p. 151, fig. B) ‘for purely aesthetic reasons’ and by L. Vertova in B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance… Central Italian and North Italian Schools, London 1968, vol. II, fig. 557. (Back to text.)

91. A similar concept in reverse is found in Giovanni del Biondo’s altarpiece of 1379 for the Rinuccini Chapel in Santa Croce, Florence, where eight Virtues fly around the head of the Virgin and Child enthroned, while Poverty has split off to put a ring on the figure of Saint Francis in a side compartment. For an illustration, see Offner and Steinweg 1969, sec. IV, vol. V, Giovanni del Biondo, Part II, pp. 77ff. and pl. XX3. (Back to text.)

92. For the more detailed arguments for this reconstruction and the textual sources of the Mystic Marriage, see Gordon, BM , 1993, pp. 620–3. (Back to text.)

93. Gardner von Teuffel, Städel Jahrbuch, 2000, p. 188, analyses the Observant iconography and programme. (Back to text.)

98. O.H. Giglioli (Sansepolcro, Florence 1921, p. 17) said that the remains of frescoes in the choir bore a fragmentary inscription with the date. The frescoes are referred to but not described in A.M. Maetzke and D. Galoppi Nappini, Il Museo Civico di San Sepolcro, Florence 1988, p. 113. The church almost certainly had a tramezzo, with the choir stalls in the cappella maggiore (see the plan of the church, fig. 6, and Cooper, Apollo, 2001, cited in note 55). (Back to text.)

99. Van Os, Simiolus, 1974, fig. 12. Maetzke and Galoppi Nappini 1988 (cited in note 98), pp. 55–60. Mario Salmi, Commentari, 1972 (cited in note 23), pp. 351–65, has argued that they were situated in front of the choir, which would raise the question of why the altarpiece needed to be painted on both sides. (Back to text.)

100. C. Gardner von Teuffel, ‘The buttressed altarpiece: a forgotten aspect of Tuscan fourteenth‐century altarpiece design’, JBM, 21, 1979, pp. 21–65. Gardner von Teuffel points out (p. 34) that the altarpiece from San Giovanni in Borgo San Sepolcro, the model for the altarpiece in San Francesco, would originally have had such supporting columns, probably painted with small figures. (Back to text.)

101. Thiébaut in the 1990 Polyptyques exhibition catalogue (p. 80) suggests that the fixings on the frame were for curtains to be pulled across to divide the nave from the choir. However, it seems more likely that the fixings were for curtains for drawing across the altarpiece, as was common practice ‘duobus ferris ad cortinas tirante’ – see note 37 above. (Back to text.)

102. Banker, I Tatti Studies, 1991, p. 36, lists the examples with Saint Francis. For the development of the Saint Francis Vita retable, see Krüger 1992 (cited in note 68), passim. The particular combination of scenes in the Sassetta altarpiece is not found in any earlier surviving Vita retables. (Back to text.)

103. The scene of Pope Innocent III sanctioning the Rule of Saint Francis, c. 1390–1400 (Art Institute of Chicago – see C. Lloyd, Italian Paintings before 1600 in The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago 1993, pp. 222–5), came from a private collection in Città di Castello. Van Os’s supposition (Simiolus, 1974, p. 125, n. 25) that it was part of the model on which Sassetta’s altarpiece was based has been confirmed by the request in the scripta of 1439 for Saint Francis to be ‘in trono’, as in Castello. See further Cooper, Apollo, 2001 (cited in note 55). (Back to text.)

[page 363]

104. Van Os, Simiolus, 1974, passim. For the Perugia altarpiece, see note 38 above and Cooper, Apollo, 2001, cited in note 55. (Back to text.)

105. See also note 10 above. (Back to text.)

106. Pope‐Hennessy 1939, p. 131, n. 13. (Back to text.)

107. Denied by Pope‐Hennessy, loc. cit. He saw the bier and figure of the kneeling knight in the Funeral of Saint Francis as deriving from the lost fresco of the Funeral of Saint Jerome in the Carmine by Starnina (reproduced in C. Syre, Studien zum Maestro del Bambino Vispo und Starnina, Bonn 1979, fig. 60). (Back to text.)

108. Illustrated in B. Berenson, Sassetta: un pittore senese della leggenda francescana, Florence 1946, fig. 24. For the Vatican panel, see also F. Rossi, Il Trecento. Umbria – Marche, Italia del Nord. Catalogo della Pinacoteca Vaticana, vol. III, Vatican City 1994, cat. 10, pp. 39–42 and fig. 30. It is interesting in this connection that d’Anghiari was an associate of Ottaviano Nelli (Pope‐Hennessy 1939, p. 96). The similiarity to the Gubbian Mystic Marriage is clarified by a comparison with the quite different version in the Lower Church of San Francesco, Assisi. (Back to text.)

109. Berenson 1946 (cited in note 108), fig. 16. (Back to text.)

110. For the altarpiece, see Krüger 1992 (cited in note 68), p. 189 and fig. 357. He cites the copy made by N. Catalano (Il Fiume del Terrestre, 1652, pp. 388–9), but seems not to have identified the extant work. The copy of the figure of Saint Francis was made on 24 November 1647, when the altarpiece was in the Baldelli chapel. (Back to text.)

111. For Gentile’s painting, see A. De Marchi, Gentile da Fabriano. Un viaggio nella pittura italiana alla fine del gotico, Milan 1992, pp. 49–50, where he dates the Virgin and Child with Saints Nicholas and Catherine and a Donor (Berlin, Gemäldegalerie) after 1405, and corrects Christiansen (Gentile da Fabriano, London 1982, pp. 5–9, and cat. 1, pp. 83–4), who improbably placed it as Gentile’s earliest work. (Back to text.)

112. Although Christiansen, in Colnaghi’s catalogue of 1988, p. 44, says it is impossible to ascribe any of the surviving fragments to assistants. (Back to text.)

113. See Scapecchi, Prospettiva, 1980 (cited in note 67). Davies ( Davies 1961 , p. 511, nn 25 and 26) cites Romagnoli’s MS in the Biblioteca Comunale of Siena, since published as Biografia Cronologica de’ Bellartisti Senesi, vol. IV, 1835 (reprinted Florence 1976), p. 428. (Back to text.)

114. Romagnoli 1835, vol. IV, p. 432 (see note 113 above). Davies points out that no Christian names are given for Canonico Angelucci of Arezzo, but an Abate Giulio Anastasio Angelucci published books on Arezzo in 1816 and 1819. Romagnoli clearly refers to the two central panels and to the four standing saints. Pope‐Hennessy 1939, pp. 129–30, n. 4. (Back to text.)

115. G. Rosini, Storia della Pittura Italiana, 1840, text vol. II, pp. 165 and 193–4, n. 5, and vol. I of the plates volume, pl. XXV (the Chantilly picture then in the Demidoff Collection); the seven other pictures are mentioned as representing scenes of Saint Francis but are not described or illustrated. According to Rosini the eight paintings were in ‘uno stato deplorabile’, and given to Antonio Garagalli for restoration in Florence when in the del Chiaro Collection. (Back to text.)

116. Rosini 1840 (cited in note 115), text vol. II, pp. 193–4, n. 5. No other record of the pictures in the Demidoff Collection has been found, but some del Chiaro pictures were bought by Prince Demidoff ( Vasari, Vite, 1568, ed. Milanesi , II, 1878, p. 625, n. 5). (Back to text.)

117. From the catalogue of the Frederic Reiset Sale, Paris, 28 April 1879, lot 35. The sale did not in fact take place by auction, since the Duc d’Aumale bought the entire Reiset Collection. Reiset bought the panel from Mantion and Wagner, who had bought the painting in Italy (de Boissard and Lavergne‐Durey 1988, cited in note 83, p. 150). (Back to text.)

118. Apparently as Fra Angelico; the pictures are mentioned in the Gazette des Beaux Arts, 1877, ii, p. 265. One of the frames still retains a fragmentary label of the Exposition Retrospective at Lyon (date missing). For the Christian name of the owner and the provenance, see J‐B. Giraud’s Memorial Volume on the Lyon exhibition of 1877, 1878, p. 5. Davies ( 1961 , p. 512, n. 30) points out the provenance from Corsica is connected with the fact that the Berlin panel was originally in the collection of Cardinal Fesch (1763–1839) and that a large number of Cardinal Fesch’s pictures passed by bequest to the town of Ajaccio and to other places in Corsica. But no record of the Chalandon pictures has been found in the inventory of the effects of Cardinal Fesch begun on 5 September 1839 (Rome, Archivio di Stato, Archivio dei Notari Capitolini, Ufficio 11, Notaio Augusto Apollonj, vol. 611; copy in Rome, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Notaio Augusto Apollonj, 1839, no. 141 – published in full by Thiébaut (Ajaccio, musée Fesch. Les primitifs italiens, Paris 1987, pp. 160ff.). The newly found predella panel in the Louvre was also in the Fesch Collection (Thiébaut, Connaissance des Arts, 1988, cited in note 81, p. 54; Thiébaut 1990, p. 84; and Thiébaut 1991, cited in note 81, p. 156). For the Chalandon Collection, see J.‐F. Garmier, ‘Le goût du moyen‐âge chez les collectionneurs lyonnais du XIXe siècle’, Revue de l’Art, 47, 1980, p. 58. (Back to text.)

119. Henceforward much of the provenance is from a letter from Duveen of 12 December 1934, in the NG archives. (Back to text.)

120. Presumably Odette de Martel, the wife of Comte Charles de Féligonde (Bottin Mondain for 1928). (Back to text.)

Glossary

bole
A red clay applied to the gessoed surface of a panel as an adhesive underlayer for gold leaf
cope
A semicircular cloak worn by a bishop (sometimes called a pluvial)
crozier
A staff carried by a bishop
Eucharist
The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper
intarsia
Inlaid wood
lake
A pigment made by precipitation onto a base from a dye solution, resulting in a comparatively transparent pigment often used as a glaze
Mass
Church service commemorating the sacrifice of Christ with the celebration of the Eucharist
mitre
A liturgical hat worn by a bishop
mordant gilding
The process of applying gold leaf to an adhesive or mordant, usually done in the final stages of a painting
pastiglia
Raised gesso, usually in a foliate pattern, which is gilded; often used to decorate the wider surface areas of frames, particularly in the spandrels or predella
pentimento
Literally ‘repentance’ – used to describe changes made by the artist during the execution of a drawing or painting
scripta
AA private written record of a transaction
sgraffito
Literally ‘scratched’ – the process whereby paint is applied to a gilded surface and the paint then scraped away to reveal the gold beneath, generally used to convey the texture or patterns of textiles
Tertiary
A member of a Third Order – a religious organisation, attached usually to one of the mendicant Orders, especially the Franciscans and Dominicans; a term used to distinguish it from the First Order (men) and Second Order (women)
water gilding
Gold leaf applied to wetted bole and then burnished

Abbreviations

Institutions
NG
National Gallery, London
Periodicals
BM
Burlington Magazine, London, 1903–
JWCI
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes
NGTB
National Gallery Technical Bulletin
Frequently cited works are given in abbreviated form throughout, as listed below:
Davies 1961
M. Davies, National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools, 2nd revised edn, London 1961
Kaftal 1952
G. Kaftal, Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting, Florence 1952
Vasari, Le Vite, ed. Milanesi
G. Vasari, Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architetti, ed. G. Milanesi, 8 vols, Florence 1878–85

List of archive references cited

List of references cited

Angelini 1986
AngeliniA., in Sassetta e i pittori toscani tra XIII e XV secolo. Collezione Chigi‐Saracini, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, eds L. Bellosi and A. Angelini (exh. cat.), Florence 1986
Baldelli 1962
BaldelliI., ‘Mostra Storica e Documentaria’, in Deputazione di Storia Patria per l’Umbria, 1962, Appendix 9 of 1960
Banker 1990
BankerJ., ‘Un documento inedito del 1432 sull’attività di Piero della Francesca per la chiesa di San Francesco in Borgo San Sepolcro’, Rivista d’Arte, 1990, XLII6245–7
Banker 1991
BankerJ., ‘The Program for the Sassetta Altarpiece in the Church of S. Francesco in Borgo S. Sepolcro’, I Tatti Studies. Essays in the Renaissance (also printed as a separate volume, Florence 1991), 1991, 411–58
Banker 2001
BankerJ., ‘Piero della Francesca, the carpentered altarpiece of San Francesco, his Sant’Agostino polyptych and Quattrocento high altarpieces in Borgo San Sepolcro’, Arte Cristiana, 2001, 89804210–18
Barstow 2000
BarstowK.The Gualenghi‐d’Este Hours: Art and Devotion in Renaissance FerraraLos Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2000
Béguin 1978
BéguinS., in Retables italiens du XIIIe au XVe siècle (exh. cat. Les dossiers du département des peintures, 16, Réunion des Musées nationaux), Paris 1978
Berenson 1903
BerensonB., ‘A Sienese painter of the Franciscan Legend: [part 1]’, Burlington Magazine190333–35; ‘[part 2]’, 19033171–84
Berenson 1926
BerensonB.Sassetta: un pittore senese della leggenda francescanaFlorence 1946
Berenson 1968
BerensonB.Italian Pictures of the Renaissance… Central Italian and North Italian Schools3 volsLondon 1968
Bologna 1969
BolognaFerdinandoI pittori alla corte angioma di Napoli: 1266–1414: e un riesame dell’arte nell’età fridericianaRome 1969
Bologna 1969a
BolognaFerdinandoNovità su Giotto: Giotto al tempo della cappella PeruzziTurin 1969
Braham 1978
BrahamA., ‘Reconstructing Sassetta’s Sansepolcro Altar‐piece’, Burlington Magazine, June 1978, 120903386–90
Cannon and Vauchez 1999
CannonJ. and A. VauchezMargherita of Cortona and the Lorenzetti: Sienese Art and the Cult of a Holy Woman in Medieval TuscanyUniversity Park 1999
Carli 1951
CarliE., ‘Sassetta’s Borgo San Sepolcro Altarpiece’, Burlington Magazine, 1951, 93578145–52
Catalano 1652
CatalanoN.Il Fiume del Terrestre ParadisoFlorence 1652
Celano
CelanoVita Prima S. Francisci AssisiensisQuaracchi 1926 (Vita Secunda S. Francisci AssisiensisQuaracchi 1927)
Christiansen 1982a
ChristiansenKeithGentile da FabrianoLondon 1982
Christiansen 1988
ChristiansenK., in Gothic to Renaissance. European Painting 1300–1600 (Colnaghi catalogue), London 1988, 41–52
Christiansen 1988a
ChristiansenKeith, in Painting in Renaissance Siena 1420–1500 (exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum, New York), New York 1988
Cole Ahl 1996
Cole AhlD.Benozzo GozzoliNew Haven and London 1996
Coleschi 1886
ColeschiL.Storia della Città di SansepolcroCittà di Castello 1886
Cooper 2001a
CooperD., ‘Spinello Aretino in Città di Castello. The lost model for Sassetta’s Sansepolcro Polyptych’, Apollo, 2001, 15422–8
Cooper 2001b
CooperD., ‘Franciscan Choir Enclosures and the Function of Double‐sided Altarpieces in pre‐Tridentine Umbria’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 2001, LXIV1–54
Dabell 1984
DabellF., ‘Antonio d’Anghiari e gli inizi di Piero della Francesca’, Paragone, 1984, 41773–94
David 1998
DavidB., ‘Pope‐Hennessy, Derrida, and “Literary Residue” in visual images: The case of Sassetta’s Borgo San Sepolcro Altarpiece’, Studies in Iconography, 1998, 191–30
Davies 1961
DaviesMartinNational Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools, 2nd revised edn, London 1961 (1st edn, London 1951)
De Boissard and Lavergne‐Durey 1988
De BoissardElisabeth and Valérie Lavergne‐DureyChantilly, Musée Condé: Peintures de l’Ecole italienneInventaire des collections publiques françaisesno. 34Paris 1988
De Fernandez‐Gimenez 1974
De Fernandez‐GimenezE.European Paintings before 1500. Cleveland Museum of ArtCleveland, Ohio 1974
Da Marchi 1992
De MarchiA.Gentile da Fabriano. Un viaggio nella pittura italiana alla fine del goticoMilan 1992
Di Lorenzo 1996
Di LorenzoA., ed., Il Polittico Agostiniano di Piero della Francesca. Museo Poldi Pezzoli. Quaderni di Studi e Restauri, 1996, II
Francis 1963
FrancisH.S., ‘Sassetta: Crucifixion with St François’, Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1963, L43–9
Frugoni 1993
FrugoniC.Francesco e l’invenzione delle stimmate: una storia per parole e immagine fino a Bonaventura e GiottoTurin 1993
Gardner 1983
GardnerJulian, ‘Fronts and backs: setting and structure’, in La pittura nel XIV e XV secolo: il contributo dell’analisi tecnica alla storia dell’arte, eds H.W. van Os and J.R.J. van Asperen de Boer (Atti del XXIV Congresso del Comitato Internazionale di Storia dell’Arte, Bologna, 1979), Bologna 1983, 297–322
Gardner von Teuffel 1997
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Gardner von Teuffel 1999
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GordonD., ‘The so‐called Paciano Master and the Franciscans in Perugia’, Apollo, March 1996, 14340933–9
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Lapucci 1987
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List of exhibitions cited

Lyon 1877
Lyon, Exposition Rétrospective, 1877

The Organisation of the Catalogue
Chronological and geographical limits

Included in this volume are works by artists or workshops the bulk of whose surviving work falls within the first half of the fifteenth century, i.e. around 1400–60: Starnina (d. 1413), Lorenzo Monaco (d. c. 1423), Gregorio di Cecco di Luca (d. c. 1428), Masaccio (d. 1428/9), Masolino (d. c. 1436), Giovanni dal Ponte (d. 1437), Sassetta (d. 1450), Master of the Osservanza (active second quarter of fifteenth century), Francesco d’Antonio (active until 1452), Jacopo di Antonio (Master of Pratovecchio?) (d. 1454), Fra Angelico (d. 1455), Pisanello (d. 1455), Pesellino (d. 1457), Domenico Veneziano (d. 1461), Bono da Ferrara (active until 1461), Apollonio di Giovanni (d. c. 1465), Zanobi Strozzi (d. 1468), Filippo Lippi (d. 1469), Giovanni da Oriolo (d. by 1474), Uccello (d. 1475), Marco del Buono (d. after 1480), Giovanni di Paolo (d. 1482).

The exceptions to this are two paintings whose previous attributions were to artists represented in this catalogue but which are now attributed to artists active primarily in the second half of the fifteenth century. The Virgin and Child with Angels (NG 5581) used to be catalogued as by a follower of Fra Angelico. Now, it is generally accepted as being an early work of c. 1447 by Benozzo Gozzoli, and it is therefore included here. However, his work as an independent painter dates from 1450, and his altarpiece dated 1461 for Santa Maria della Purificazione, Florence, will be considered in a subsequent catalogue. A panel of the Nativity (NG 3648) used to be given to a follower of Masaccio, but technical evidence links it to the altarpiece attributed to the Master of the Castello Nativity (active mid‐fifteenth century), recently identified as Piero di Lorenzo di Pratese – a painter deeply enmeshed in the history of the Trinity altarpiece by Pesellino (NG 727 etc.) considered here.

The majority of the paintings included in this catalogue are from Tuscany, with the exception of those by Pisanello, his pupil Bono da Ferrara and his follower Giovanni da Oriolo. Because so few Venetian paintings in the collection date from the first half of the fifteenth century, those which do will be considered in another volume.

Artists: The artists are catalogued in alphabetical order. Autograph works precede those which are attributed.

Attribution: A painting is discussed under the artist where the attribution is not considered to be in doubt. ‘Attributed to’ implies a measure of doubt. ‘Workshop of’ indicates that the work has been executed by a member of the workshop, sometimes with the participation of the artist concerned.

Title: The traditional title of each painting has been followed, except where further research has made a more precise description possible.

Date: Reasons for the date given in the head matter are explained in the body of each entry.

Medium: This is generally assumed to be egg. Where this has been identified, it is stated.

Support: This is generally assumed to be poplar. Where this has been identified, it is stated.

Dimensions: The overall dimensions are given in the head matter. Height precedes width. More precise dimensions are given in the discussion of each work.

Restoration: The history of the restoration of a painting before it entered the National Gallery is not given unless specifically known.

Technique and condition: These are discussed together, since the condition of a painting is often the result of the techniques employed. Where pigments seemed unusual, samples were examined by Ashok Roy and in some cases the medium has been analysed by Raymond White.

Method: Every painting was examined and measured in the Conservation Department with a conservator – usually Jill Dunkerton, but in some instances Martin Wyld, Larry Keith and Paul Ackroyd. Some paintings were examined by Rachel Billinge with infra‐red reflectography (see p. 478).

X‐radiographs, infra‐red photographs and infrared reflectograms: The reader may find it frustrating that reference is sometimes made to X‐radiographs, infra‐red photographs and infra‐red reflectograms without their being illustrated. This is because once they are reduced to page size they are often no longer decipherable.

Bibliographical information: At the end of every catalogue entry is a Select Bibliography listing the main publications relevant to that entry, in chronological order. The works in this list are cited in abbreviated form in the notes following the entry. Full references to all works cited in the catalogue are given in the List of Publications Cited (pp. 435–55).

Comments: I have attempted to give as full an account as possible with regard to attribution, patronage, date, related panels, original location, subject matter, iconography, etc., and to make this information accessible and interesting to the lay reader as well as to the art historian. Inevitably the text contains some speculation – I have tried to make it clear when an argument is hypothetical. For ease of reference the comments are given subheadings, but their sequence varies according to the requirements of the argument.

Dating and Measurements

Dates – old style and modern

Dates are given in the modern style, but the old style (o.s.) is indicated where pertinent.

Florence:
The calendar year began on the feast of the Annunciation, 25 March.
Pisa:
The year began on 25 March, but anticipated the Florentine year by one year (i.e. 1 January–24 March = modern).
Pistoia (stile della Natività):
The year began on 25 December, anticipating modern style (i.e. 1 January–24 December = modern).
Siena:
The year began on 25 March, but sometimes followed the Pisan system.

(See A. Cappelli, Cronologia Cronografica e Calendario Perpetuo, 2nd edn, Milan 1930, pp. 11–16.)

Measurements

The Florentine braccio (fioretino da panno) was the standard unit of linear measurement in Florence from at least the fourteenth until the nineteenth century and was equal to approximately 58.4 cm. In Siena the braccio (per le tele) before 1782 was 60 cm, although Siena also used the braccio of 58.4 cm.

(See A.P. Favaro, Metrologia, Naples 1826, pp. 85 and 118; R. Zupko, Italian weights and measures from the Middle Ages to the 19th Century, Philadelphia 1981, p. 46.)

Infra‐red reflectography

Infra‐red reflectography was carried out by Rachel Billinge using a Hamamatsu C2400 camera with an N2606 series infra‐red vidicon tube. The camera is fitted with a 36mm lens to which a Kodak 87A Wratten filter has been attached to exclude visible light. The infra‐red reflectogram mosaics were assembled on a computer using an updated version of the software (VIPS ip) described in R. Billinge, J. Cupitt, N. Dessipris and D. Saunders, ‘A note on an improved procedure for the rapid assembly of infrared reflectogram mosaics’, Studies in Conservation, vol. 38, 11, 1993, pp. 92–8.

About this version

Version 1, generated from files DG_2003__16.xml dated 07/03/2025 and database__16.xml dated 09/03/2025 using stylesheet 16_teiToHtml_externalDb.xsl dated 03/01/2025. Structural mark-up applied to skeleton document in full; entry for NG583, biography for Uccello and associated front and back matter (marked up in pilot project) reintegrated into main document; document updated to use external database of archival and bibliographic references; entries for L2, NG215-NG216, NG1897, NG2862 & NG4062; L15, NG727, NG3162, NG3230, NG4428 & NG4868.1-NG4868.4; NG583; NG663.1-NG663.5; NG666-NG667; NG766-NG767 & NG1215; NG1436; NG2908; NG3046; NG4757-NG4763; NG5451-NG5454; NG5962-NG5963; and NG6579-NG6580 prepared for publication; entry for NG583 proofread and corrected.

Cite this entry

Permalink (this version)
https://data.ng.ac.uk/0E95-000B-0000-0000
Permalink (latest version)
https://data.ng.ac.uk/0E6A-000B-0000-0000
Chicago style
Gordon, Dillian. “NG 4757–4763, Seven Scenes from the Life of Saint Francis”. 2003, online version 1, March 9, 2025. https://data.ng.ac.uk/0E95-000B-0000-0000.
Harvard style
Gordon, Dillian (2003) NG 4757–4763, Seven Scenes from the Life of Saint Francis. Online version 1, London: National Gallery, 2025. Available at: https://data.ng.ac.uk/0E95-000B-0000-0000 (Accessed: 19 March 2025).
MHRA style
Gordon, Dillian, NG 4757–4763, Seven Scenes from the Life of Saint Francis (National Gallery, 2003; online version 1, 2025) <https://data.ng.ac.uk/0E95-000B-0000-0000> [accessed: 19 March 2025]