DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52600#0037
EARLY PERIOD
7
unquestionable documentary evidence with works by
Bartolomeo Montagna refer to paintings which are no
longer in existence or cannot now be traced. Thus
the artist is recorded as having, on August 15, 1482,
entered into an agreement with the Scuola Grande di
San Marco at Venice, in accordance with which he was
to paint two canvases for the Albergo of that brother-
hood, the one representing the Deluge, the other the
Creation of the World or some other subject from
Genesis, which would be worthy and fitting for the
purpose (congrua'), according to the orders which would
be given him ; the price of each was to be one hundred
ducats.1 Sansovino says that he began The Ark of
Noah, but is silent as to the other picture.2 Whatever
Montagna painted in the house of the Scuola was
destroyed by the fire which ravaged it in 1485.3
1 See for the text of this document infra, Documents, No. I. It was
first published (not quite correctly) by Prof. Paoletti (Raccolta di
documenti inediti 'par servire alia storia della pittura veneziana nei secoli
XV. e XVI. i. 11 sqi).
2 Sansovino, Venetia citta nobilissima et singolare, p. 286 : “ Vi fu anco
cominciata 1’arca di Noe da Bartolomeo Montagna, su la quale Benedetto
Diana diede principio a una fantasia che non fu finita da lui per 1’incendio.”
3 It is tempting to connect a splendid drawing by Montagna, now
in the collection of Mr. C. Fairfax Murray, of London, with his activity
in the building, the decoration of which kept so many of the most
prominent Venetian painters busy. (As a matter of fact, a picture of
el diluvio et Varela de Noe had already in 1470 been ordered by the
Scuola from Giovanni Bellini [Paoletti, op. cit. i. 11] who thus does not
seem to have fulfilled the commission.) The said drawing represents the
Drunkenness of Noah, from whose history as we have seen the subject of
one of the pictures bespoken from Montagna was borrowed ; and when
one recollects the words which are used in the contract about the theme
of the other one—“ e su 1’altro far la creazion del mondo o v[e]ramente
veder in sul Genesis de farlj far qualche altra chosa degna e congrua
segondo lisara ordenado ”—the suggestion that we here are concerned
with a sketch for that other painting seems quite admissible. The
subject was not considered unsuited to a sacred building (c/., e.g., the
frescoes of Benozzo Gozzoli [Pisa, Camposanto] and Michelangelo
[Sixtine Chapel]). For details about the drawing, see infra, p. 109.
7
unquestionable documentary evidence with works by
Bartolomeo Montagna refer to paintings which are no
longer in existence or cannot now be traced. Thus
the artist is recorded as having, on August 15, 1482,
entered into an agreement with the Scuola Grande di
San Marco at Venice, in accordance with which he was
to paint two canvases for the Albergo of that brother-
hood, the one representing the Deluge, the other the
Creation of the World or some other subject from
Genesis, which would be worthy and fitting for the
purpose (congrua'), according to the orders which would
be given him ; the price of each was to be one hundred
ducats.1 Sansovino says that he began The Ark of
Noah, but is silent as to the other picture.2 Whatever
Montagna painted in the house of the Scuola was
destroyed by the fire which ravaged it in 1485.3
1 See for the text of this document infra, Documents, No. I. It was
first published (not quite correctly) by Prof. Paoletti (Raccolta di
documenti inediti 'par servire alia storia della pittura veneziana nei secoli
XV. e XVI. i. 11 sqi).
2 Sansovino, Venetia citta nobilissima et singolare, p. 286 : “ Vi fu anco
cominciata 1’arca di Noe da Bartolomeo Montagna, su la quale Benedetto
Diana diede principio a una fantasia che non fu finita da lui per 1’incendio.”
3 It is tempting to connect a splendid drawing by Montagna, now
in the collection of Mr. C. Fairfax Murray, of London, with his activity
in the building, the decoration of which kept so many of the most
prominent Venetian painters busy. (As a matter of fact, a picture of
el diluvio et Varela de Noe had already in 1470 been ordered by the
Scuola from Giovanni Bellini [Paoletti, op. cit. i. 11] who thus does not
seem to have fulfilled the commission.) The said drawing represents the
Drunkenness of Noah, from whose history as we have seen the subject of
one of the pictures bespoken from Montagna was borrowed ; and when
one recollects the words which are used in the contract about the theme
of the other one—“ e su 1’altro far la creazion del mondo o v[e]ramente
veder in sul Genesis de farlj far qualche altra chosa degna e congrua
segondo lisara ordenado ”—the suggestion that we here are concerned
with a sketch for that other painting seems quite admissible. The
subject was not considered unsuited to a sacred building (c/., e.g., the
frescoes of Benozzo Gozzoli [Pisa, Camposanto] and Michelangelo
[Sixtine Chapel]). For details about the drawing, see infra, p. 109.