Sassetta Madonna and Child Detail C 1435 National Gallery of Art Washington


	Sassetta, Adoration of the Magi; nearly 1435, Siena, Chigi-Saracini Collection (Monte dei Paschi)

Sassetta (Stefano di Giovanni)

Stefano di Giovanni, known as il Sassetta, (1392 – 1450 or 1451) was born in Siena, although in that location is also an hypothesis that he was born in Cortona. Nevertheless, the showtime historical tape of him was in Siena in 1423. Di Giovanni was probably the apprentice of Paolo di Giovanni Fei although it is besides thought that he may take studied under Benedetto di Bindo. He painted in the semi-archaic Sienese Schoolhouse manner of painting. Francesco di Giorgio due east di Lorenzo, amend known every bit Vecchietta, is said to take been his amateur. The date and place of his birth are uncertain. He seems to take been trained in Siena, and the force of the Sienese tradition is evident in the vivid colours and elegant utilise of line in the surviving panels of his kickoff deputed work, an altarpiece for the Arte della Lana in Siena (1423–26). His interest in the work of the first generation of Florentine Renaissance painters is reflected in the coherent spatial relationships of the monumental altarpiece of the "Madonna of the Snow," painted for Siena Cathedral in 1430–32. From this point on, under Gothic influence, Sassetta'southward mode assumes an increasingly decorative grapheme, manifest initially. Echoes of Masaccio and Paolo Uccello tin exist seen in the smashing Crucffix painted (probably in 1433) for the church of San Martino in Siena, some fragments of which are in the Chigi Saracini Collection, and in the polyptych of the church of San Domenico at Cortona. These are works that herald the condensed and still vibrant sculptural precision of this painter's subsequently style. This precision is represented past the San Sepolcro Altarpiece , the cracking polyptych on which the artist worked from 1437 to 1444 for the Franciscan church building of Borgo San Sepolcro, and which was dismembered at the beginning of the last century. Information technology is Sassetta'southward masterpiece and a work of capital importance for Sienese painting in the 15th century. While working on a huge Coronation of the Virgin in fresco higher up the gate of Porta Romana in Siena, the painter caught pneumonia and died of information technology on April 1 st, 1450. The fresco was completed by Sano di Pietro, but was almost entirely destroyed during the war in 1944. Sassetta had numerous followers who would contribute to influencing subsequently Sienese painting: among them Sano di Pietro, Pietro di Giovanni d'Ambrogio and the Master of the Observance.


Sassetta, City by the Bounding main (view of Talamone), (c.1340), Siena, Pinacoteca, formerly attributed to Ambrogio Lorenzetti
Sassetta'due south involvement in Florentine art is evident in his monumental Madonna of the Snow altarpiece for Siena Cathedral (1430 – 32) and in his about ambitious work, an altarpiece for San Francesco at Sansepolcro (1437 – 44). His fusion of traditional and contemporary elements transformed Sienese painting from the Gothic to the Renaissance fashion, and he is considered i of the greatest Sienese painters of the 15th century. On March 25, 1430, Sassetta was commissioned to paint an altarpiece of the Madonna with Saints with the legend of the founding of S. Maria Maggiore, Rome, in the predella. The Madonna of the Snowfall, as it is chosen, was finished by mid-October 1432. His style in this piece of work betrays the influence of Masaccio, peculiarly in the wide modeling of the Virgin and Child and in the organisation of figures in the predella. Little is known of Sassetta'due south activities between 1433 and 1436, though this is the period when he probably painted the Crucifixion for S. Martino (of which fragments remain) and the altarpiece for South. Domenico, Cortona. The altarpiece of the Madonna with Saints Jerome and Ambrose, dated 1436, in the Church of the Osservanza, Siena, formerly attributed to Sassetta, is now generally attributed to another creative person, the then-chosen Osservanza Master. Some critics would extend the oeuvre of the Osservanza Master to include the Birth of the Virgin in Asciano and the group of panels with the life of St. Anthony Abbot from an altarpiece dedicated to the saint. Madonna delle Nevi

Sassetta, The Virgin and Child with Saints, 1430-32, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
This altarpiece, known from its discipline as the Madonna delle Nevi (the Madonna of the Snows) was originally commissioned for one of the oldest and most venerable altars in the Siena cathedral. It stood immediately left of the doorway known as the Porta del Perdono - the side entrance to the cathedral that provided most immediate access to both the baptistery and to the civic centre of the Palazzo Pubblico and the Campo. Sassetta received the commission in 1430 from Ludovica Bertini, the widow of Turino di Matteo, the human being responsible for both the cathedral sacristy and the baptismal font. Sassetta came upward with an altarpiece in which a gothic baldachin was combined with an innovative, unified rectangular film surface, while its construction was based on that of Duccio'south doublesided loftier altarpiece, completed for the same Siena Cathedral in 1311. According to one local chronicler, Turino had died in 1423 and been cached in front of the Porta del Perdono. In the contract for the altarpiece, Ludovica makes it articulate that she is commissioning the work both in memory of her husband and also in her own right as a pious Franciscan tertiary, so the glaze-of-arms of her own family too every bit that of her married man appear prominently displayed on the richly ornamented material covering the Virgin's throne. Her commitment to the Franciscan Order is clearly demonstrated by the inclusion of Saint Francis in the right foreground of the principal panel of the altarpiece. The imagery chosen for the balance of the altarpiece, however, was entirely Sienese and civic in intention. It depicts the familiar field of study of the enthroned Virgin with the Christ Child on her lap and surrounded by angels and saints. The altarpiece therefore echoes the imagery of 2 of Siena's nigh revered borough icons - the forepart face of Duccio'southward loftier altarpiece for the cathedral and Simone Martini's mural in the council hall of the Palazzo Pubblico. That such an clan was explicitly intended is shown by the inscription engraved on the Virgin'due south halo: 'If you trust me, Siena, y'all will be full of favour'.
The imagery of the altarpiece was elaborated in order to honour two of the Virgin'due south titles - 'Queen of Heaven' and 'Our Lady of the Snows'. 2 angels behind the throne concur a crown over the Virgin's head. The angel on the left of the throne, meanwhile, carries a dish filled with snow and the affections on the right makes a snowball. The vii narrative scenes of the predella draw in detail the legend of Our Lady of the Snows. They show how, in the reign of Pope Liberius (352-66), the Virgin caused snow to fall miraculously in the rut of August on the Esquiline Hill in Rome. Furthermore, the snowfall fell precisely in the pattern of the basis program of a church. The Virgin then instructed a wealthy layman and his wife, and Pope Liberius, to build a church building in her laurels on this site - a church that became Santa Maria Maggiore, one of Rome's major basilicas. Quite unlike the hieratic aura of the main scene, the predella panel recording the phenomenon of the snow in founding of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, is full of naturalistic elements, and even the arrangement and presentation of the figures is casual and about journalistic. Although the condition of the predella is not as practiced every bit that of the chief panel, the atmospheric environment created for the outdoor scene is however legible.		Sassetta, Founding of Santa Maria Maggiore, 1430-32, Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence

Arte della Lana Altarpiece (Chantry of the Eucharist)

Sassetta, Death of the Heretic on the Bonfire, 1423, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. The picture shows one of the predella paintings of the Chantry of the Eucharist.
The Arte della Lana Altarpiece , the first known piece of work by Sassetta, was commissioned by the "Arte della Lana", i.eastward. the woolmerchants' lodge for the church of the Carmelite Order in Siena in 1423. Sassetta's Wool Guild altarpiece was an ingeniously movable nonetheless highly elaborate gothic triptych that the order used for its outdoor celebration of the Feast of Corpus Domini and otherwise stored in its palace. The triptych was dissembled in 1777, and the central panel is lost, just it is possible to reconstruct its original organisation from earlier descriptions. According to these, the central console represented the Holy Sacrament in an ostensory adored past a number of angels around it. Above this at that place was the scene of the Coronation of the Virgin, and on the sides Abbot S. Anthony and S. Thomas Aquinas were depicted. Above these the scene of the Annunciation was represented in 2 separate pictures. On the predella underneath the main panel, seven pocket-size panels showed the post-obit scenes: 1-2. Two scenes from the life of S. Anthony, i of them is most his temptation (Siena, Pinacoteca); 3. Execution of an Heretic on the Blaze (Melbourne Museum); 4. The Terminal Supper (Siena, Pinacoteca); 5. The Miracle of the Holy Sacrament (Barnard Castle, Bowes Museum); 6. S. Thomas Aquinas in Prayer in front end of the Chantry of the Virgin (Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts); 7. S. Thomas Aquinas in Prayer in front end of the Crucifix (Vatican, Pinacoteca). Further to the in a higher place mentioned ones we know eight panels from the external pillars that represented the Four Doctors of the Church: S. Jerome, Gregory, Ambrose, Augustine as well as the iv patron saints of Siena: Due south. Ansanus, Victor, Savinus and Crescentius. Two pocket-size panels from the pinnacles with the figures of the Prophets Elias and Eliseus nevertheless exist in the Sienese Picture Gallery. Under the fundamental panel the following inscription was visible: "Hinc opus omne Patres Stefanus construxit advertizement aras Senensis Johannis agens citra lapsus adultos". The interpretation of this distych is much debated. The iconographic programme of the altar was probably composed past the Carmelite monks. That is why the two prophets, Elias and Eliseus, the "Dux et Pater" and the Pater of the Carmelites were represented on the altar, and in Carmelite habit. We tin besides see a few Carmelite monks in the pictures of the predella. Sassetta, here shows that he was in touch with all the near recent tendencies of European late-Gothic (which probably came to him by style of the exquisite painting of Masolino da Panicale), while at the same time he went further with the Lorenzetti's intuitions of space, calculation realistic features unknown to the previous tradition. Thus, for example, in the St. Antony Beaten past Devils (one of the panels of the in a higher place-mentioned predella), the depth and articulation of the landscape is for the first time seen against a bluish sky streaked with white clouds, instead of the customary aureate background In the Admiration of the Magi in the Chigi Saracini Collection in Siena, a fragment of a larger limerick which included the Journey of the Magi in the Griggs Collection in New York, we clearly see that Sassetta was greatly attracted by the art of Gentile da Fabriano, who spent some fourth dimension in Siena in 1425 and 1426. But it is with the great altar-frontal of the Madonna della Neve, painted in 1430-32 for the Cathedral of Siena and at present in the Contini Bonacossi Foundation (Uffizi), that he clearly shows how far he adhered to the "great Florentine concepts of form in perspective" (Graziani), fifty-fifty if these practise not accept much issue on the composition, merely rather tend to stimulate occasional brilliant innovations. Art in Tuscany \| Sassetta \| Arte della Lana Altarpiece		St Thomas Inspired past the Dove of the Holy Ghost, 1423, Szépmûvészeti Múzeum, Budapest St Anthony the Hermit Tortured by the Devils, 1423, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena Sassetta, Miracle of the Sacrament, Durham, Barnard Castle, Bowes Museum



Sassetta, Phenomenon of the Sacrament, about 1430-1432, Durham, Barnard Castle, Bowes Museum[2]
The small panel, A Miracle of the Sacrament or A Miracle of the Eucharist by Sassetta, painted in Siena c1423-25, has a dramatic tale to tell. It shows a cleric, struck dead as he is offered the Host during Mass. Fifty-fifty more dramatically, a devil swoops downwards to snatch his soul as it leaves his body. The predella (narrative) panel from the Arte del Lana altarpiece is i of the oldest and nearly intriguing paintings in The Bowes Museum's collection. Other panels be in Rome, Budapest, Siena and Melbourne altar. To the right, a Carmelite lay blood brother has been struck dead, and just in a higher place him, a devil is conveying away his soul. The consecrated Host is bleeding, indicating perhaps that the lay blood brother had doubted the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. This little painting was once part of a large altarpiece, comprising 23 separate pictures telling a complex story. The altarpiece paid homage to the Virgin, saints and prophets, and promoted the belief that staff of life and wine shared during communion turn into the real flesh and blood of Jesus. At the same time it offered a warning to the growing number of people who by 1400 were challenging this belief. They were warned that they would be treated as heretics: excommunicated, executed, their bodies burnt, and the ashes thrown away, to deny them bodily resurrection and eternal life. The altarpiece was dismembered and dispersed c1790-1840, possibly later damage in an earthquake. "All knowledge of the artist, the subject of the painting and the circumstances of its creation were lost during this flow," said the Museum's sometime curator Elizabeth Conran, who devised the display as role of her recent work as Monument Trust Swain at The Bowes Museum. "It has taken art historians 100 years to remember its story."
Virgin with Child and Four Saints

Sassetta, Virgin with Child and Four Saints (detail, showing the caput of St Michael), Museo Diocesano, Cortona
In the centre of the polyptych there is an exquisite Virgin with Child. On the left side at that place are Sts Nicholas and Michael, wearing rare, refined, and precious garments. St Nicholas has a chasuble bearing a Pietà. The ii saints on the right side are St John the Baptist and St Margaret of Hungary. To a higher place the side panels are two tondi representing the Annunciation. The triptych was placed on a lateral altar in the church building of St Dominic in Cortona. At the beginning of the 2nd World War it was immured in the belfry where the forest suffered much damage due to humidity and temperatures. Information technology was necessary to detach the painted surface and transfer information technology to a new base. Information technology has been restored after many succeeding interventions. Unfortunately, it has lost its original solidity and need continuous reexamination.		Virgin with Kid and Iv Saints, Museo Diocesano, Cortona

Adoration of the Magi, nigh 1435
In the Adoration of the Magi in the Chigi Saracini Collection in Siena, a fragment of a larger composition which included the Journey of the Magi in the Griggs Drove in New York, we clearly see that Sassetta was greatly attracted by the art of Gentile da Fabriano, who spent some fourth dimension in Siena in 1425 and 1426.[1]		Sassetta, Adoration of the Magi, about 1435, Siena, Chigi-Saracini Collection (Monte dei Paschi)
The Journey of the Magi (fragment), ca. 1435 This panel originally formed the upper part of an Adoration of the Magi, of which the lower section shows the magi presenting their gifts to the Christ Kid (Chigi-Saracini Drove, Siena). The fragment shows the magi and their attendants on their manner to Bethlehem, and is i of Sassetta's near poetic works. The star at the lower correct originally hung over the figures of the Madonna and Child.		The Journey of the Magi (fragment), ca. 1435, Maitland F. Griggs Drove
		Stefano di Giovanni, The Vision of Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1423-1426. Tempera on wood panel. 25 10 28.8 cm. Moving-picture show Gallery. The Vatican.

		The Meeting of St. Anthony and St. Paul, 1445, woods, The National Gallery of Art at Washington
San Sepolcro Altarpiece

Sassetta, San Sepolcro Altarpiece, 1437-44, Musée du Louvre, Paris

Echoes of Masaccio and Paolo Uccello can be seen in the great Crucifix painted (probably in 1433) for the church of San Martino in Siena, some fragments of which are in the Chigi Saracini Collection, and in the polyptych of the church of San Domenico at Cortona. These are works that herald the condensed and yet vibrant sculptural precision of this painter's later on mode. This precision is represented by the great polyptych painted on both sides on which the artist worked from 1437 to 1444 for the Franciscan church of Borgo San Sepolcro, and which was dismembered at the kickoff of the last century. On the front were the Madonna and Child with Six Musician Angels, the Blessed Ranieri Rasini, St. Antony of Padua, St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, while on the back was St. Francis in Ecstasy flanked by eight Episodes from the Life of the Saint. It likewise had a predella. The work is now distributed between the Louvre, the Berenson Drove at Settignano, the National Gallery in London, the Musée Condé at Chantilly, and the Country Museums in Berlin, while four panels from the predella are either lost or unidentified. It is Sassetta's masterpiece and a work of capital importance for Sienese painting in the 15th century, since it incorporates and assimilates hints and features from an extremely broad-ranging culture; simply at the same time it is the quintessence of a culture that was clearly and unmistakably local, and that uniquely combined subtle intellectualism with "archaic" candour. Particularly memorable is the image of St. Francis in Ecstasy, firm and monumental in its construction, in which the saint is seen as a "second Christ." The eight Episodes are also remarkable for their rigour of composition, narrative effect and fine colouring. Art in Tuscany \| Sassetta \| San Sepolcro Altarpiece		Sassetta, Saint Francis in Ecstasy, 1437-1444, Florence, Vila I Tatti, Berenson Collection
In 1940 the critic Roberto Longhi realized that it was difficult to observe a place in the development of Sassetta's manner for the triptych showing the Madonna and Child between St. Jerome and St. Ambrose in the Basilica dell'Osservanza in Siena. The work was traditionally attributed to him, and bears the date 1436, but because it is even so highly Gothic in style he could not perchance take painted it later on the Madonna della Neve, finished in 1432. We therefore take to attribute this triptych, along with other similar works idea to exist by Sassetta, to some other painter, who was probably an assistant of his but inclined towards more than archaic forms. The figure of an anonymous painter thereupon began to accept on life, and considering of this triptych he is known as the Maestro dell'Osservanza.He probably collaborated with Sassetta on 8 charming panels dealing with Stories of St. Antony Abbot, now distributed among the museums of Berlin, Washington, New Haven, New York, and the Lehman Drove in New York. Later 1436 the same primary painted the famous altarpiece showing the Birth of the Virgin, formerly in the Collegiate Church and now in the Museum of Sacred Fine art in Asciano. Here we may note the influence of Domenico di Bartoio, while Sassetta'due south solidity of grade is replaced by more ii-dimensional solutions, though still very beautiful. Fine art in Tuscany \| Maestro dell'Osservanza

Master of the Osservanza, Birth of the Virgin with other Scenes from her Life, ca. 1428-39, Museo d'Arte Sacra, Asciano

Art in Tuscany \| Sassetta \| San Sepolcro AltarpieceArt in Tuscany \| Sassetta \| The Lana Altarpiece (Chantry of the Eucharist) Fine art in Tuscany \| Sassetta \| Virgin with Child and Four Saints
Eastward. Carli, Sassetta e il Maestro dell'Osservanza, Milan, 1958. Art in Tuscany \| Adoration of the Magi Machtelt Israels, ABSENCE AND RESEMBLANCE \| Early Images of Bernardino da Siena and the Upshot of Portraiture (With a New Proposal for Sassetta) \| www.itatti.it (pdf) [1] The Adoration of the Magi is the proper name traditionally given to the Christian subject field in the Nativity of Jesus in art in which the three Magi, represented as kings, especially in the Due west, having constitute Jesus by post-obit a star, lay before him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and worship him. In the church calendar, this event is commemorated in Western Christianity equally the Banquet of the Epiphany (January half dozen). The Orthodox Church building commemorates the Adoration of the Magi on the Feast of the Birth (Dec 25). Christian iconography has considerably expanded the bare account of the Biblical Magi given in the 2nd affiliate of the Gospel of Matthew (2:i-11) and used it to printing the point that Jesus was recognized, from his primeval infancy, equally rex of the earth. In the earliest depictions, the Magi are shown wearing Persian dress of trousers and Phrygian caps, usually in contour, advancing in stride with their gifts held out before them. These images adapt Late Antique poses for barbarians submitting to an Emperor, and presenting aureate wreaths, and indeed chronicle to images of tribute-bearers from various Mediterranean and ancient Near Eastern cultures going back many centuries. The earliest are from catacomb paintings and sarcophagus reliefs of the fourth century. Crowns are kickoff seen in the 10th century, mostly in the Due west, where their dress had by now lost any Oriental flavour in nearly cases.[1] Later Byzantine images often show small pill-box like hats, whose significance is disputed. They are usually shown as the same historic period until nearly this flow, merely then the idea of depicting the three ages of human is introduced: a particularly cute case is seen on the façade of the cathedral of Orvieto. The scene was ane of the most indispensable in cycles of the Life of the Virgin every bit well as the Life of Christ. Occasionally from the 12th century, and very oft in Northern Europe from the 15th, the Magi are also fabricated to represent the three known parts of the earth: Balthasar is very commonly cast as a young African or Moor, and old Caspar is given Oriental features or, more often, dress. Melchior represents Europe and middle age. From the 14th century onwards, large retinues are ofttimes shown, the gifts are contained in spectacular pieces of goldsmith piece of work, and the Magi's clothes are given increasing attentention.[1] Past the 15th century, the Adoration of the Magi is often a bravura piece in which the artist can brandish their handling of complex, crowded scenes involving horses and camels, simply besides their rendering of varied textures: the silk, fur, jewels and gold of the Kings prepare against the wood of the stable, the straw of Jesus's manger and the rough clothing of Joseph and the shepherds. The scene frequently includes a fair diversity of animals equally well: the ox and donkey from the Nascency scene are usually in that location, but besides the horses, camels, dogs, and falcons of the kings and their retinue, and sometimes other animals, such as birds in the rafters of the stable. From the 15th century onwards, the Adoration of the Magi is quite oftentimes conflated with the Admiration of the Shepherds from the business relationship in the Gospel of Luke (2:viii-20), an opportunity to bring in yet more human and animal diversity; in some compositions (triptychs for example), the ii scenes are contrasted or set up every bit pendants to the primal scene, usually a Nativity. [2] The collection of paintings at The Bowes Museum presents a comprehensive survey of European art from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. John Bowes bought his start old main painting in 1830 when travelling in Europe. By 1844 he had acquired l-7 paintings, more often than not from London dealers. Joséphine was a talented amateur painter, peculiarly interested in mod works. In the 1860s she bought work by major French painters such every bit Courbet, Fantin-Latour, Boudin and Monticelli, the latter being an influence on Van Gogh. Sadly she died just before the opening of the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874, and one can merely speculate where her taste might have led her. She tried to buy a painting by Manet at auction in 1868, but was outbid. Many of the Italian paintings were bought by John Bowes before he met Joséphine. The most of import is perhaps A Miracle of the Holy Sacrament past Sassetta, a console from a predella (a serial of narrative panels underneath an altarpiece) from a Sienese altarpiece, dating to 1423-26. www.thebowesmuseum.org.u.k. [3] John Pope-Hennessy's monograph Sassetta (1939) gives the facts of the creative person's life. Encounter as well Bernhard Berenson, A Sienese Painter of the Franciscan Fable (1909).
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