Laura Alidori Battaglia, Una coppia di salteri per SMN: riflessi cimabueschi nei libri liturgici del convento domenicano, «Arte Cristiana» vol. 99 (nov.-dic. 2011) 401-14.
Sommario in pg 401 sin.: «In
the last quarter of the 13th century the Dominican convent of Santa Maria Novella produced its own liturgical manuscripts, many of which are stili in its library. This article analyses two unpublished psalters from this group now in the Comites Latentes collection in the Geneva Library and the Museo di San Marco in Florence (ms. 624). The decoration of these two manuscripts is by a so far unidentified illuminator, whose style shows the strong influence of the works of Cimabue in the 1280s and 1290s. Two additional manuscripts currently in the collections of the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence (mss. Pal. 643 and C.S. F 7.378), one of which also came from Santa Maria Novella, may be referable to the saure artist.The two psalters from Santa Maria Novella are characterized by an unusual iconography of Saint Dominic climbing a ladder to reach the heavens, which should be interpreted as an adaptation of the Dominican legend of the vision of Fra' Guala to the iconography of Christ climbing the Cross, thus presenting the Dominican saint as an 'alter Christus'».
Tra i ringraziamanti, p. 14 sin.: «Nei miei studi sul convento di Santa Maria Novella e la liturgia domenicana mi sono potuta avvalere dei preziosi consigli di Padre Emilio Panella O.P., a cui va il mio ringraziamento». Visita ArchSMN maggio 2010, m'invia lettera 13.I.2012.
20.I.2014. Dear Padre Panella,
I am delighted to announce the publication of my book, 'Religious Poverty, Visual Riches. Art in the Dominican Churches of Central Italy in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries'. As you know, for many years I have found your web site, and the SMN web pages, enormously helpful to my research. As a small 'thank-you' I would like to send you a copy of my book. Could you please let me know the exact address to which the book should be delivered. I would be very interested to hear any comments you may have about the book, especially (but not exclusively) the discussion of SMN. I look forward to meeting you in person on my next visit to Florence.
Apologies for writing in English - please reply in Italian.
All good wishes for 2014,
Joanna Cannon, Reader in the History of Art, Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London.
Joanna CANNON, Religious Poverty, Visual Riches. Art in the Dominican Churches of Central Italy in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2013, pp. XII-444. "Printed in China"(!). Me lo invia l'Autrice, lo ricevo il 31.I.2014. Grazie di cuore!
Abstract, nel foglio di copertina:
«Dominican friars
were vowed to a life of religious poverty, and yet by the end of the fourteenth century their churches contained many visual riches: works of great aesthetic, spiritual and sometimes also financial value. This book – the first to be devoted to art in the Dominican churches of Cenural Italy in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries – seeks to understand how and why the friars accumulated and then put to use such visual wealth.Based on extensive new research and photography, this study draws on diverse medieval and later sources (legislation, convent chronicles, wills,sermons, liturgy, hagiography) and considers a wide range of object types: not only panel paintings and frescoes, but also choir book illustration and stained glass, carved crucifixes and tombs, goldsmiths`work and luxury textiles. The decoration and contents of the celebrated church of S. Maria Novella in Florence are set beside those of less studied monuments such as S. Caterina in Pisa, and the Dominican houses in Arezzo, Orvieto, Perugia, Pistoia, Rieti, Siena, Spoleto and elsewhere. Works by supreme practitioners – Cimabue, Duccio, Giotto, Simone Martini and Francesco Traini – are considered together with more modest productions.
Besides the reconstruction of physical and visual settings within the Dominican church and convent, other contexts are also crucial to this analysis: the institutional structures of the Dominican Order; the training and careers of the friars; their daily and annual activities; the stories of their founding fathers. At the heart of the book is the Dominicans' evolving relationship with the urban laity, expressed at first by the partitioning of their churches, and subsequently by the ever-increasing sharing of space, and of the production, viewing and use of art».
CONTENTS, pp. V-VI:
Acknowledgements, Note to the Reader
Introduction: Art and Order, pp. 1-21
□ PART I: THE ECCLESIA LAICORUM IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY, pp. 23-105.
1. The Salve regina Procession and the Screen
2. The crocifixo grande
3. 'Whose image is this?'. The Virgin and the ecclesia laicorum
4. Dominican santi and beati in the ecclesia laicorum
□ PART II: THE ECCLESIA FRATRUM BEFORE AND AFTER 1300, pp. 107-173.
5. The
Friars within the Choir Enclosure6. Choir Books before 1300
7. The Polyptych on the High Altar alter 1300
8. The Adoration of the Cross. Men, Women and the Choir Enclosure
□ PART III: BESIDE THE CHURCH, BEYOND THE CHURCH, pp. 175-223.
9. Cloister and Chapter House. Images of the Order, for the Order
10. Dominicans and the Personal Possession of Paintings
□ PART IV: Sharing THE CHURCH IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY, pp. 225-338.
11. Lay Burials and the Architectural Spaces of S. Caterina, Pisa
12. Altar, Chapel and Altar-Chapel
13. Creating Images for Altars. Friars and Laypeople Working Together
14. Wall Paintings in the ecclesía laicorum. Order or Disorder?
15. Sharing the Walls and Windows of the cappella maggiore
16. S. Maria Novella. A Case Apart?
Conclusion: Visual Riches in the Provincia Romana, pp. 339-359.
Notes, Bibliography, Illustration Credits, Index, pp. 360-444.
■ Gran bel lavoro, illustrato da molteplici e preziose riproduzioni. Frutto di enorme e rigoroso lavoro. Meticolosa conoscenza di conventi e storia dei domenicani della provincia Romana. Mi colpisce positivamente la naturale coniugazione tra testimonianze testuali e testimonianze iconiche, tra parola e immagine; il sistematico intreccio tra analisi estetica delle opere d'arte e loro destinazione nella vita quotidiana dei religiosi domenicani; complementarità spesso sorvolata, e tuttavia ineludibile per la stessa valutazione estetica d'un prodotto artistico. Pensiamo, ad esempio, alla "croce corale" di SMNovella (opera di Giotto di Bondone, in questo caso): sarebbe incomprensibile e deviante commentare dimensioni e contenuto della croce fuori e senza la sua destinazione logistica sul "ponte" che divideva chiesa dei frati e chiesa dei fedeli, in rapporto all'altare maggiore e sua funzione liturgica.
Piacevole sorpresa: ampio uso, e frequenti citazioni nelle note, di quanto negli ultimi anni ho elaborato nei miei siti web! - oltre alle scontate pubblicazioni a stampa (cf. pp. 421-422). Dunque anche internet può diventare quotidiano strumento di... seriosa diffusione scientifica!
A proposito delle pagine dedicate a Representations of Individual Friars (pp. 212 ss), annoto signifativa testimonianza di pitture sacre serbate nelle celle dei frati: «Conceditur magistro Alex(andr)o [= maestro Alessandro dei Luchini da Firenze? † 1532] conventus Sancte Marie Novelle quod post mortem magistri Ioannis Caroli [= Giovanni di Carlo da Firenze, OP paulo ante 1445, † 15.V.1503] possit accipere quatuor quadretos in quibus continentur misteria rosarii, mapa mundi, versus quosdam sancti Bernardi et quedam picture diverse; et non potest in his ab aliquo molestari» (Regesta litterarum generalis magistri ordinis Predicatorum, AGOP IV.13, f. 44r, maggio 1500).
Pg. 306a: «There was another factor that could, in a handful of cases, affect the choice of artist: the employment of a fellow friar. In the fourteenth century we have evidence for friar-architects, friar-masons, friar-carpenters, friar-engineers, and occasionally friars who undertook manuscript illumination or sculpture. A field in which a more discernible pattern of Dominican involvement emerges in the fourteenth century is the production of stained-glass windows. Although very little glass of the fourteenth century now exists, several friars were involved in making windows not only for Dominicans but also for other recipients». Importante annotazione su fatto costantemente testimoniato dalle cronache conventuali nel descrivere competenze e lavoro del singoli frati , specie dei conversi. Un caso di frate (chierico!) artigiano di vetrate ("stained-glass windows")? →..\nomen2\cosimo1.htm
Pg. 315a, a metà pagina: «... were full friars, rather then laybrothers». L'espressione ricorre anche altre volte - se ben ricordo (cf. p. 15a) -, e potrebbe esser malintesa. Il lettore è portato a credere che il frate "corverso" non fosse "full friar" come quello chierico, ma quasi frate... a metà. Il controllo delle costituzioni domenicane suggerisce di riformulare l'espressione. Il chierico e il converso domenicani sono frati a tutti gli effetti, senza alcuna diversità costituzionale, a motivo della medesima professione religiosa ed emissione dei medesimi voti. Le diversità si dànno in base al sacramento dell'ordine sacerdotale e al suo servizio; e in base alla tipologia di lavoro, frutto di differenti e personali competenze professionali (cosa che si dava e tra chierici e tra conversi).
Pg. 359b, brano
conclusivo: «The results of this study are, inevitably, provisional, supplying some answers but also showing how much remains to be explored. Many visual riches from the Dominican churches of central Italy have been lost, damaged or decontextualised, but what has been recorded or survives can be better appreciated and better understood, as this book has sought to show, if it is set within the context of what is known about the friars of the Provincia Romana, the physical spaces that they inhabited and their relations with the laity to whom they ministered. The great works of creativity that have been discussed here have long had a piace within narratives of Western European art. But also significant is the way in which the visual, often expressed at a more modest artistic level, became an integral part of friar-lay interactions. The Dominican contribution to the nature and growth of art in central Italy in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries can be characterised not only as the realisation of artistic achievement but also, above all, as the creation of opportunities for an ever increasing number of people to be involved in making, seeing and using art».■ Molte altre citazioni di Religious Poverty le troverai nella sezione "aggiornamento" degli altri titoli di questo sito web, circa materia ad essi più pertinente.
■ Genn. 2015: Guardo e riguardo! Non ritrovo CANNON, Religious Poverty tra i libri della mia stanza! Che fine avrà fatto? Prestato a qualcuno?
Anne Huijbers, Zealots for Souls. Dominican Narratives between Observant Reform and Humanism, c. 1388-1517, (PhD-thesis at Radboud University Nijmegen) 2015, pp. 416. Speditomi per posta dall'A., accompagnato da lettera autografa, ricevo il volume il 17.II.2016. Molti i rinvii alle mie pubblicazioni, specie tramite il sito web https://www.e-theca.net/emiliopanella/index.html: vedi cap. 4 sulle cronache conventuali, pp. 115 ss.
«After the outbreak of the Great Western Schism (1378-1417), Europe faced a serious religious crisis. Within religious orders, so-called ‘Observant’ reformers tried to halt the perceived decline in morals and religious Observances. They wanted to reform their own orders, and through this, society at large. This thesis investigates the collective self-understanding of one of the main missionary orders in this period: the Order of Preachers, commonly called Dominicans after their order founder St. Dominic. With biblical metaphors, Dominican authors emphasized their unique role in salvation history. They presented themselves as zealots for souls and stars in sanctity. Observant Dominicans wrote history to justify their own reform agenda. The thesis also reveals how Italian Dominicans, trained in the studia humanitatis, tried to make the Dominican literary tradition compatible with humanist standards by rewriting the lives of brothers in Ciceronian Latin».
Da pag. 4 di copertina: «This thesis
investigates the collettive identity of the Order of Preachers between 1388 and 1517, a period characterized by great concerns over reform and by the breakthrough of the humanist movement. It explores historical and hagiographical narratives written by Dominicans to serve a predominantly Dominican audience, considering them as expressions of a common Dominican self-understanding.Through an analysis of texts written in different parts of Europe, the research demonstrates how the context and formation of the author conditioned the way he presented the Dominican order. It shows that the Observants (and not the Conventuals) were the main constructors of the Dominican narrative identity. The Observants considered the reform of their order as a necessary step in a larger reform process, which eventually had to affect the whole Christian world. The thesis also reveals how Italian Dominicans, trained in the studia humanitatis, tried to make the Dominican literary tradition compatible with humanist standards by rewriting the lives of brothers in Ciceronian Latin».
