DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61670#0241
THE MADONNAS
125
It was executed for the chief portal of the Church of
S. Piero di Buonconsiglio, called S. Pierino to distinguish it
from the now destroyed S. Pier Maggiore, Luca’s own parish
church and burial-place. S. Pierino was razed to the ground
with the Mercato Vecchio and the old buildings of the Ghetto,
to make way for the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele and the sur-
rounding streets.
Harsh criticism of the poorest of the atelier work is
perhaps unjust, when one considers the charm even these
have in their original surroundings. It is the art for country
setting, for the wayside shrine and the discoloured wall, an
art which needs isolation and the sobering effect of grey stone
and sprouting fern. In the Tuscan lane, set deep in the moss-
grown niche, with a couple of tall dark cypresses to lend it
dignity, the most trifling of these polychromatic reliefs has
poetry and aesthetic value. No works of art lose so much
by museum arrangement, by the close packing and hetero-
geneous mixture which reminds one of nothing so much as
a porcelain factory. Yet, witnessing year by year the gradual
destruction of one of Luca’s noblest, most inspired works, left
in its original place, we are almost reconciled to see his splendid
Madonnas wedged tightly between the poorest school produc-
tions in the Museo Nazionale.
I speak of the Lunette of the Madonna and Angels in
the Via dell’ Agnolo, over the door of what was formerly the
Scuola de’ Cherici, a dependency of S. Pier Maggiore,1 next to
the Duomo reliefs the finest of the enamelled terra-cottas.
1 It was in Luca’s time a convent of nuns, “ Monastero delle Monache,”
or Eremite di S. Giovanni Laterani (see. Baldinucci, Notizie v. 220). I
believe I am right in saying that when the Child is clothed it signifies always
that the work was executed for nuns.
The initials on the stemma close by (S. P. M.) on which some critics have
based the early dating of the Lunette, supposing them to be those of Pope
Martin V., who died in 1431, are in reality the initial letters of the Parish
Church, S. Pier Maggiore, which was burnt down in the last century, and of
which only part of the seventeenth century facade remains.
125
It was executed for the chief portal of the Church of
S. Piero di Buonconsiglio, called S. Pierino to distinguish it
from the now destroyed S. Pier Maggiore, Luca’s own parish
church and burial-place. S. Pierino was razed to the ground
with the Mercato Vecchio and the old buildings of the Ghetto,
to make way for the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele and the sur-
rounding streets.
Harsh criticism of the poorest of the atelier work is
perhaps unjust, when one considers the charm even these
have in their original surroundings. It is the art for country
setting, for the wayside shrine and the discoloured wall, an
art which needs isolation and the sobering effect of grey stone
and sprouting fern. In the Tuscan lane, set deep in the moss-
grown niche, with a couple of tall dark cypresses to lend it
dignity, the most trifling of these polychromatic reliefs has
poetry and aesthetic value. No works of art lose so much
by museum arrangement, by the close packing and hetero-
geneous mixture which reminds one of nothing so much as
a porcelain factory. Yet, witnessing year by year the gradual
destruction of one of Luca’s noblest, most inspired works, left
in its original place, we are almost reconciled to see his splendid
Madonnas wedged tightly between the poorest school produc-
tions in the Museo Nazionale.
I speak of the Lunette of the Madonna and Angels in
the Via dell’ Agnolo, over the door of what was formerly the
Scuola de’ Cherici, a dependency of S. Pier Maggiore,1 next to
the Duomo reliefs the finest of the enamelled terra-cottas.
1 It was in Luca’s time a convent of nuns, “ Monastero delle Monache,”
or Eremite di S. Giovanni Laterani (see. Baldinucci, Notizie v. 220). I
believe I am right in saying that when the Child is clothed it signifies always
that the work was executed for nuns.
The initials on the stemma close by (S. P. M.) on which some critics have
based the early dating of the Lunette, supposing them to be those of Pope
Martin V., who died in 1431, are in reality the initial letters of the Parish
Church, S. Pier Maggiore, which was burnt down in the last century, and of
which only part of the seventeenth century facade remains.