DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68796#0098
78 Mediceval Florence and Her Painters part i
and afterwards appeared to sleep, when an angel came to
them and hade them not return by San Lorenzo but by the
Roman gate, and this they straightway did.’1
§ 55. The artist studies from the pageants.
It needs only a moment’s reflection on a description like
the foregoing to realise the immense influence on Italian
painting of these mimic shows. The whole character of
that phase of art, as we shall presently see, was dependent
on the conditions under which it flourished. Its exuber-
ant life, its outwardness, its general want of true religious
depth and earnestness (which are exceptional when they
appear), its passion for large scenes crowded with figures
and glittering with ‘ properties,’—all in fact that gives it for
us its perennial charm, is just the crystallisation, so to say,
of the elements that floated so freely about the Italy of the
Festa and the Carnival. The connection is so patent that
direct evidence is hardly needed, yet the following may be
worth recording. Della Valle in his Lettere Sanesi sopra
le belle ArtiP in describing a picture of the Massacre of the
Innocents painted in 1491 by Matteo Giovanni of Siena,
explains the evident fascination of this scene for the
painters and the public of the time, by the fact that, as he
was informed by a book in his possession published in
Siena early in the sixteenth century, representations of this
and similar sacred incidents were wont ‘ to be performed
in the churches on certain solemn occasions for the enter-
tainment of the people,’ and he adds that the scenes were
evidently played in a manner more forcible than elegant,
and ended sometimes with a touch of buffoonery.
1 Gualveneus de la Flamma, in Muratori, Rerum Italicarum
Scriptores, Milan, 1728, tom. xii. col. 1017.
2 Romas, 1786, iii. p. 52 f.
and afterwards appeared to sleep, when an angel came to
them and hade them not return by San Lorenzo but by the
Roman gate, and this they straightway did.’1
§ 55. The artist studies from the pageants.
It needs only a moment’s reflection on a description like
the foregoing to realise the immense influence on Italian
painting of these mimic shows. The whole character of
that phase of art, as we shall presently see, was dependent
on the conditions under which it flourished. Its exuber-
ant life, its outwardness, its general want of true religious
depth and earnestness (which are exceptional when they
appear), its passion for large scenes crowded with figures
and glittering with ‘ properties,’—all in fact that gives it for
us its perennial charm, is just the crystallisation, so to say,
of the elements that floated so freely about the Italy of the
Festa and the Carnival. The connection is so patent that
direct evidence is hardly needed, yet the following may be
worth recording. Della Valle in his Lettere Sanesi sopra
le belle ArtiP in describing a picture of the Massacre of the
Innocents painted in 1491 by Matteo Giovanni of Siena,
explains the evident fascination of this scene for the
painters and the public of the time, by the fact that, as he
was informed by a book in his possession published in
Siena early in the sixteenth century, representations of this
and similar sacred incidents were wont ‘ to be performed
in the churches on certain solemn occasions for the enter-
tainment of the people,’ and he adds that the scenes were
evidently played in a manner more forcible than elegant,
and ended sometimes with a touch of buffoonery.
1 Gualveneus de la Flamma, in Muratori, Rerum Italicarum
Scriptores, Milan, 1728, tom. xii. col. 1017.
2 Romas, 1786, iii. p. 52 f.