Raphael: Vision of Ezekiel?

I believe that the small painting attributed to Raphael depicts the vision of St. John on the island of Patmos, and not the vision of Ezekiel. See below for my interpretation of this paining that originally appeared on this site some years ago. Note that in depictions of a vision, the visionary is a tiny figure, but the vision fills the painting.

Scholars still question Vasari's attribution to Raphael of a small painting called, The Vision of Ezekiel.   I will leave the question of attribution to others but I do think that the subject of the painting has been misunderstood ever since Vasari mentioned it in his biography of Raphael.

Raphael: Vision of Ezekiel

Here is what Vasari wrote:

At a later period, our artist painted a small picture, which is now at Bologna, in the possession of the Count Vincenzio Ercolani. The subject of this work is Christ enthroned amid the clouds, after the manner in which Jupiter is so frequently depicted. But the Saviour is surrounded by the four Evangelists, as described in the Book of Ezekiel: one in the form of a man, that is to say; another in that of a lion; the third as an eagle; and the fourth as an ox. The earth beneath exhibits a small landscape, and this work, in its minuteness—all the figures being very small—is no less beautiful than are the others in their grandeur of extent.*

Vasari said that the subject of the painting is “Christ enthroned amid the clouds.” He did mention that Christ was surrounded by the four animals that Ezekiel saw in his vision. Even though the painting called to Vasari’s mind the vision of Ezekiel, the artist, whoever he was, must certainly have had a different vision in mind.

The vision in this painting is the vision of St. John from the Book of Revelation (Apocalypse). Let’s just compare the two visions. Here is the account from the book of the Prophet Ezekiel.

As I was among the exiles on the bank of the river Chebar, heaven opened and I saw visions from God… Ezekiel 1:1 A stormy wind blew from the north, a great cloud with light around it, a fire from which flashes of lightning darted, and in the center a sheen like bronze at the heart of the fire. In the center I saw what seemed four animals. They looked like this. They were of human form. Each had four faces, each had four wings. …As to what they looked like, they had human faces, and all four had a lion’s face to the right, and all four had a bull’s face to the left, and all four had an eagle’s face.  Their wings were spread upward; each had two wings that touched, and two wings that covered his body;… Their wings were spread upward; each had two wings that touched, and two wings that covered his body…Ezekiel 1: 4-12

Between these animals something could be seen like flaming brands or torches, darting between the animals; the fire flashed light, and lightning streaked from the fire. And the creatures ran to and fro like thunderbolts.” Ezekiel 1: 13-14.

The animals are in Ezekiel’s vision but there is no God or Christ enthroned among them. Ezekiel’s vision found its way into the Book of Revelation, a book replete with imagery from the Hebrew Scriptures. Here is St. John’s vision (Jerusalem Bible).

My name is John…I was on the island of Patmos for having preached God’s word and witnessed for Jesus; it was the Lord’s day and the Spirit possessed me, and I heard a voice behind me, shouting like a trumpet, “Write down all that you see in a book…" Revelation 1: 9-13. 

Then, in my vision, I saw a door open in heaven and heard the same voice speaking to me, the voice like a trumpet, saying, “Come up here: I will show you what is to come in the future.” With that, the Spirit possessed me and I saw a throne standing in heaven, and the One who was sitting on the throne, and the Person sitting there looked like a diamond and a ruby….In the center, grouped around the throne itself, were four animals with many eyes, in front and behind. The first animal was like a lion, the second like a bull, the third animal had a human face, and the fourth animal was like a flying eagle. Each of the four animals had six wings and had eyes all the way around as well as inside;… Revelation 4: 1-8.

In John’s vision God the Creator, “the One” sitting on the throne in the midst of the four creatures, is the most prominent figure. Vasari identified the figure as Christ but the figure more closely resembles Michelangelo’s images of God the Father in the Sistine chapel. Only later in John’s account would the Lamb join the One sitting on the throne.

In the Vision of Ezekiel the small figure on the left receiving the vision must then be identified not as Ezekiel but John, exiled on the isle of Patmos. It is hard to tell, but he seems to be on an island facing a broad expanse of sea rather than in a crowd of people at the bank of the river Chebar.

Some scholars have argued that there is a companion piece to the Vision of Ezekiel that did not find its way back to Italy after the fall of Napoleon. In his study of Raphael Jean-Pierre Cuzin discussed a small oil on panel of the Holy Family.

The kinship in style and execution of the small Holy Family and the Vision of Ezekiel in the Pitti Palace at Florence, which have the same dimensions is striking: the rounded, thick-set bodies, strongly modeled by black shadows and lively touches of light, and the vigorous impasto execution, invite one to see an identical hand in both pictures—that of Penni, for Konrad Oberhuber. Others have more often thought of Giulio Romano. The Vision of Ezekiel, unlike the neglected picture in the Louvre, counts among Raphael’s celebrated works; it is identified with a picture described by Vasari at Bologna in the house of Count Ercolani. **

The small Holy Family is also a misnomer. It is actually a depiction of the encounter of Mary and the infant Jesus on their return from the flight into Egypt with her cousin Elizabeth and the infant John the Baptist. With or without St. Joseph, this legendary meeting was a very popular subject since it marked the initial acceptance of the mission of Christ. Usually the Christ child accepts a small cross from the young Baptist but in this case he accepts the Baptist himself.

If the two paintings are companion pieces, they would then represent the beginning and the end of Christ’s mission. The meeting of the two infants in the Judean desert recalls the words of the Baptist, “Behold the Lamb of God,” and in the vision from the Book of Revelation, the Lamb who was sacrificed will join “the One seated on the Throne.” 

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*Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, selected, edited and introduced by Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, Volume II, New York, 1967. p. 41.

**Jean-Pierre Cuzin: Raphael, His Life and Works, New Jersey, 1985. p. 226.

Lorenzo Lotto: Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine

In my interpretation of Giorgione's Tempest as "The Rest on the Flight into Egypt" I explained the reasons why Giorgione chose to portray St. Joseph as a virile, young man. Shortly after Giorgione's death, contemporaries like Paris Bordone, and Lorenzo Lotto also depicted a virile, youthful St. Joseph in versions of the Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine. Here is a discussion of Lotto's version.

Lorenzo: Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine

A painting by Lorenzo Lotto of the Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine provides another example of a young, virile St. Joseph by a contemporary of Giorgione. The painting is in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna where the man, formerly identified as St. James is now identified as St. Thomas. He kneels next to St. Catherine who gazes at him and not at the infant Christ. They are obviously exchanging vows., and it can only be St. Joseph who acts as a proxy for the marriage of the infant Child, and the legendary Queen of Alexandria. Joseph is shown with his staff but his virile good looks and the spear-point at the end of the staff have led scholars astray.

In his work on Lotto, Bernard Berenson identified the kneeling man as St. James the Greater but provided no explanation. In the catalog of the 1997/1998 Lotto exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, Peter Humfrey identified the man as St. Thomas because of the spear.* A decade later in the Bellini, Giorgione, Titian exhibition in Vienna, however, the man was still identified as St. James. There is no good reason for either St. James or St. Thomas to be in the desert participating in the mystic marriage of St. Catherine. 

On at least two occasions, and at about the same time as Lotto, Paris Bordone painted the mystic marriage of Catherine with a rustic-looking, vigorous Joseph playing a prominent role. 




One of Bordone’s versions was featured in the same Bellini, Giorgione, Titian exhibition. In that painting Joseph’s muscular, bare foreleg is evidence of his role as the proxy for the mystic union of Catherine with the Christ child. The other version is at the Hermitage and also features the muscular, bare leg. In that version the Madonna has already passed the infant Christ to Joseph.

In Lotto’s painting the Madonna holds the child out to observe the ceremony. In the Lotto catalog Peter Humfrey noted that the painting “is first recorded by Marco Boschini in his 1660 Venetian dialect poem La Carts del Navigar Pittoresco.” Boschini identified the man as St. Joseph. "The majesty to be found in the venerable and devout old St. Joseph is for me expressed by only one brush: a brush that is most singular and memorable!" 

Boschini’s description of Joseph as old, “vechiarelo,” is belied by the saint’s dark beard, full head of hair, and robust physique. In Humfrey’s opinion Boschini’s “accurate evocation of the pictorial qualities of the work is remarkable,” but he claimed that the identification of St. Joseph was “mistaken.” Humfrey believed that it was unlikely that Boschini had actually seen the painting in person, and that the spear-point told against St. Joseph. It is true that a point on the end of Joseph’s spear must be explained but on the whole it is much easier to explain that small item than it is to explain the presence of either St. James or St. Thomas at the marriage of Catherine, or the absence of St. Joseph from this familiar scene.

Years after writing this post in 2011, I can only guess that Joseph's protective role had assumed a martial aspect. The Man in the Tempest was called a "soldier" by a Venetian observer two decades after Giorgione's death mainly, I believe, because of his pose. But he carried a staff, a tradition associated with St. Joseph. For some reason, followers of Giorgione added a spear point to the staff, or even turned it into a halberd.**

Palma Vecchio or follower
Philadelphia Museum

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 *Lorenzo Lotto, Rediscovered Master of the Renaissance, New Haven, 1997. Catalog #31. “Virgin and Child with Saints Catherine of Alexandria and Thomas,” c. 1528-1530, oil on canvas, 113.5 x 152, Kunsthistorische Museum, Vienna.

** See the discussion of this painting in the previous post at Giorgione et al..

Paris Bordone: Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine

This year I have been posting my various Renaissance art discoveries, and while there is no doubt about the subject of Paris Bordone's depiction of The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine, I believe that I am the first to explain St. Joseph's prominence in the painting as well as his muscular bare leg. Below I reproduce an essay on the painting that first appeared on this site 13 years ago.

Paris Bordone's depiction of the Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine featured a young and virile St. Joseph in the center. Bordone's depiction confirmed my argument that the young man in Giorgione's Tempest was also St. Joseph. In looking at Bordone's painting at the remarkable Bellini, Giorgione, Titian exhibition at Washington's National Gallery in 2006, and again in Vienna in 2007, I also discovered the reasons for the prominence of Joseph's muscular bared leg, as well as a stunning visual trick used by Bordone to expose Catherine's thigh.

The highlight of the 2006 art world must surely have been the magnificent exhibition of Venetian Renaissance painting jointly sponsored by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and the Kunsthistorische Museum in Vienna. The exhibition, "Bellini, Giorgione, Titian and The Renaissance of Venetian Painting," also produced a beautiful catalog. Although the works of the three great masters named in the title were the focus of the exhibition, paintings by a few lesser known artists like Lorenzo Lotto and Paris Bordone were also included.

Indeed, one of Bordone's paintings, "The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine," was a real eye stopping crowd pleaser in both locations. Painted around 1524, this extremely colorful and dramatic painting which measures about 58 by 102 inches tells the story of the legendary marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria to the Christ child.

According to the medieval legend which Crusaders brought back from the East, Catherine was a Queen of Alexandria around the middle of the fourth century. In the story Catherine, even as a young girl, was enamored of philosophy. By her teens she was a student of Plato and Socrates and surpassed all the philosophers of Egypt in knowledge and wisdom. At the death of her father she became Queen of Alexandria but resisted all efforts by her nobles to impel her to marry. Eventually she converted to Christianity in order to marry Christ for she regarded Him as the only one greater than her in status, knowledge and wealth. Subsequently, when Catherine rebuffed the overtures of the Roman emperor in Egypt to have her for his own, he had her put to death. Initial attempts to break her on a wheel failed and she was finally beheaded. The wheel would become the symbol by which she can easily be identified in Medieval and Renaissance art.

Next to Mary Magdalen, Catherine became the most popular female saint in the Middle Ages. She was "venerated by men as the divine patroness of learning," and by women as "the type of female intellect and eloquence, as well as of courageous piety and chastity." Her "mystic marriage" became a favorite subject for painters especially in convents where the nuns could look to her "mystic marriage" to Christ as a prototype of their own. This was especially true among the Dominicans whose favorite daughter, Catherine of Siena, was often paired in paintings with her namesake from Alexandria.

The most common way to depict the "mystic marriage" was to tie it in with the biblical account of the Flight into Egypt. Even though Catherine was supposed to have lived about 350 years after the birth of Christ, artists were not so much interested in historical accuracy as they were in an allegorical rendition of a soul's spiritual union with Christ. So Catherine is usually depicted meeting the Holy Family as they are about to return to Judea from Egypt. We know that it is the return from Egypt because we see the young John the Baptist in the painting. According to another legend the Holy Family met the future Baptist, who had fortunately escaped the massacre of the Innocents, on their return from Egypt.

Paris Bordone's depiction of "The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine" is one of the most dramatic and unusual representations of this episode. Like other Venetian painters of the early sixteenth century, Bordone has chosen to move the Madonna and Child out of the center of the painting. They are at the left side with the cloth representing their throne hanging from a tree. The Madonna looks down and away from her Child at the Baptist who is depicted as a young boy clothed in his desert garb and leading a lamb. John looks at the infant Jesus as if to say "behold the Lamb of God."

More than anything else it is the portrayal of St. Joseph which is most dramatic and unusual in Bordone's painting. In a striking departure from traditional representations Joseph is portrayed as a virile young man. Moreover, he has been taken out of the background where we usually find him and placed right in the center of the painting. His powerful and uncovered foreleg is prominently displayed. As the beautiful Catherine approaches from the right, Joseph places his hand on her wrist and directs her outstretched finger to the wedding ring held out by the infant Christ.

As devotion to St. Joseph grew throughout the Quattrocento, he began to figure more prominently in representations of the Holy Family. His role as spouse, father, worker, and protector had a special appeal in the Renaissance. Nevertheless, in this painting there is something else going on that explains the central role of Joseph. In this painting Joseph is acting as a "proxy" for the marriage between Catherine and the infant Christ.

In marriages where the parties, usually royalty, were separated by distance, it was common to celebrate a marriage by proxy. Such a marriage was considered to be a real marriage, and not just a contract for some future event. In theory and practice both parties did not have to be present for a legal marriage to occur. It only required the consent of both even if one of the parties gave a written consent. It was not necessary for a clergyman to be present.

One particular way of "consummating" this marriage by proxy is alluded to in this painting. I don't know where or how it began, or how extensive it was, or when it ceased to be used but the practice was common in the sixteenth century. An ambassador or proxy would be sent to the court of the bride to perform the ritual. In the presence of notable witnesses, the young woman would be conducted to the nuptial bed wearing a loose fitting gown. The "proxy" would then remove his shoe and stocking from one leg before entering the bed. Apparently, he would then expose a part of her leg and touch it with his own to consummate the marriage.

Here is Hester Chapman's description of the "proxy" marriage of Mary Tudor, the beautiful 18 year old younger sister of Henry VIII to the elderly Louis XII of France in August 1514 at Greenwich. The Duc de Longueville acted as proxy.

After High Mass and a Latin sermon preached by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the marriage vows were exchanged and the ring was placed on the Princess's finger. The ceremonies did not end there. To make assurance doubly sure, Henry had arranged that symbolic intimacy should take place. Surrounded by his court and the foreign ambassadors...he talked informally with de Longueville, while Mary left to change her dress for a robe giving the effect of a nightgown. When she reappeared, Katherine and her ladies led her to a state bed, on which she lay down. De Longueville then advanced, pausing at the foot of the dais to take off one of his scarlet boots, thus revealing a bare leg. Lying beside the Princess, he touched one of her legs with his naked foot. His gentlemen then replaced his boot, and he came down into the hall, while Mary retired again to change into a ball-dress.

De Longueville acted as Louis XII. It was as if the King of France had really been there. From that moment Mary Tudor could call herself Queen of France.

Why did Paris Bordone choose to depict the "mystic marriage" of St. Catherine as a marriage by proxy? Countless paintings of the same subject during this era take a much more traditional approach. Catherine is usually shown in her regal robes kneeling before the Holy Family. Usually she is gazing lovingly at the infant Christ. Sometimes she will touch Him, and sometimes she will even cradle Him in her arms. Often, He is about to place a ring on her finger.

In fact, in another version of the "mystic marriage" Bordone also used the "proxy" theme. This painting hangs in the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg and appears to have been painted about the same time. In this version we again see the young, virile Joseph with his powerful foreleg exposed. However, now Joseph is placed on the right side and remarkably holds the infant Christ in his hands! Madonna, who has released her Child from her grasp, leans backward to hear Catherine's proposal. In this picture there is no John the Baptist.


Scholars date both paintings between 1520 and 1524. We are still in the High Renaissance but we are also in the beginnings of the Reformation. Perhaps after a century of growing devotion, Joseph had come to be seen as not only the protector of Madonna and Child but also as the protector of the Church. In these paintings does he represent the Church, the intermediary between God and man? In a "proxy marriage" the proxy was the representative of the King, and union with the proxy was union with the King. After Martin Luther's assault on the role of the Church as mediator, was Bordone or his theological advisor reaffirming the role of the Church?

In both paintings the Infant Jesus is moving away from the Madonna. Perhaps Bordone is recalling Christ's words about marriage. "For this reason a man will leave father and mother and cleave to his wife." But the painting could also refer to another biblical passage. "Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?" In Franciscan spirituality the nude infant Jesus is equated with the naked Christ on the Cross and with the Eucharist on the Altar. Marriage is the sacrament of love, the complete giving of one's life for another. On the return to Judea, Christ would begin his journey to Calvary. The legendary Catherine would stay in Egypt and give her life for Him.

Finally, a word about Catherine. Her gown is pink, almost matching the color of her skin. Has Bordone exposed a part of her right thigh? It is almost impossible to notice in a reproduction. Even standing in front of the painting it is not immediately obvious. But looking closely her gown appears to have parted to reveal a dark band across her exposed thigh. Bordone has played a masterful eye-catching trick here leaving it to the beholder to make up his or her own mind. This painting certainly deserves modern scientific treatment to discover if there is anything in the underpainting that would indicate that Catherine bared her leg in the same manner as Mary Tudor.

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Palma Vecchio: Allegory, or Rest on the Flight into Egypt.

This year I have been re-posting my interpretations of some mysterious Renaissance paintings by Giorgione and his contemporaries. Here is the latest, a painting, identified as Allegory in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, that bears a striking resemblance to Giorgione’s Tempest, even though there is no trace of a storm.

Palma Vecchio: Allegory

Edgar Wind, who identified the subject of the Tempest as “Fortezza e Carita,” pointed out the resemblance in his 1969 study, "Giorgione’s Tempesta."

This subject. Fortezza e Carita, was trivialized, inevitably, by some of Giorgione’s disciples. A Giorgionesque painting in the collection of the Marquess of Northampton and a painting by Palma Vecchio in the Philadelphia Museum omit the ominous character of the storm-swept landscape but retain the easy contrast between a soldier leaning on his lance and a woman seated on the ground, with a child or two. (p. 3)

In a footnote, Wind elaborated.

In Palma Vecchio’s tame conversation piece, which might be called ‘The Peaceable Warrior (ex bello pax)’, the children play like Eros and Anteros, whose mythological parents were Mars and Venus....The lethargic guardsman in this picture is a surprisingly weak invention, particularly if compared with the fine paraphrase of Giorgione's soldier in the altarpiece for Santo Stefano in Vicenza... (p, 21, n.13).

In the Philadelphia Museum website the painting is given the title “Allegory,” and is attributed to “a follower of Palma il Vecchio.” It is dated 1510. Over ten years ago, a curator at the Museum very kindly allowed my wife and I to view this spectacular painting that was in a basement studio under restoration. It is a very large canvas, much larger than the Tempest, and despite the need for restoration it is still a beautiful painting. Today, the Museum's website indicates that it is still not on public view.

I believe that this painting is a version of an episode deriving from the brief scriptural account of the   "Flight into Egypt.” The man is St. Joseph, dressed as a young Venetian patrician, standing watch over the Madonna who is seated on the left. The two children are the Christ child and John the Baptist, who is also identified by the lamb in the background. John is often introduced into the Flight into Egypt legend when he meets the Holy Family in the desert on their return from Egypt, a very common subject at the time.

The other painting mentioned by Wind is now on loan to the Fogg Art Museum. Attributed by Wind to a “Follower” of Giorgione, there are three figures in a landscape. In the foreground a fully clothed plainly dressed woman sits on the ground with her infant son standing beside her supported by her arm. She is left of center and looks to the right in the direction of an armored soldier standing guard. He leans not on a staff but on a formidable looking halberd. For Wind the subject of the painting was an allegory, “Fortezza and Carita,” the same subject he claimed for the Tempesta.

Follower of Giorgione: Rustic Idyll

This painting should also be recognized as a version of "The Rest on the Flight into Egypt." The only objections would be the plainly dressed Madonna and the armed virile Joseph.

In each painting Joseph’s traditional staff has become a halberd, the weapon of choice of the famed Swiss soldiers who had been introduced into Italy a few years earlier by Pope Julius II. Why is Joseph now being presented as an armed and armored protector of the Madonna and Child? Perhaps the Cambrai war required Joseph to take on a more martial aspect. It seems that it would be easier to answer that question than to try to fit these two paintings, which bear a striking resemblance to the Tempest, into an allegorical interpretation.

Another question arises about the plainness of the woman's attire in each painting. It is so plain that viewers have argued that the women are gypsies. When Marcantonio Michiel, a Venetian patrician and art collector, saw the Tempest in 1530 in the home of patrician Gabriele Vendramin, he described it as "the little landscape on canvas, representing stormy weather and a gipsy woman with a soldier..."* 

Giorgione Tempest

Of course the woman in the Tempest is nude but in the twenty years following Giorgione's death in 1510, paintings like the two discussed above might have led to Michiel's faulty description. 

Why did Marcantonio Michiel mistakenly identify the nude woman and the man in the Tempest as “a gipsy woman with a soldier”? After all, the nude woman nursing an equally nude infant does not resemble contemporary descriptions of a gypsy. Moreover, the young man’s posture might resemble that of a soldier but he is neither armed nor armored.

It seems obvious that Michiel’s notes were hastily drawn and fragmentary but why did he guess “a gipsy woman with a soldier” for the two characters in the famous landscape? I would like to offer the following as an hypothesis that would also apply to the two paintings mentioned above..

In one of his sermons Savonarola criticized the artists of his time for depicting the Madonna dressed in splendor and finery. He said, “think ye that the Virgin should be painted, as ye paint her? I tell ye that she went clothed as a beggar.”

This quotation from Savonarola’s “Prediche sopra Amos e Zaccaria,” is found in Professor Pasquale Villari’s monumental biography of Savonarola, originally published in 1888 after years of research in original sources, many of which he discovered hidden in Florentine archives. In his work Professor Villari devoted a few pages to the famous or infamous Dominican friar’s views on art and poetry. **

Villari disputed the notion, popular in his time and even more popular in ours, that Savonarola was a reactionary opponent of Art, Poetry, and Learning. Although known to popular history as the moving force behind the “Bonfire of the Vanities,” Savonarola was respected and admired by contemporary artists and philosophers including Botticelli and Michelangelo, "who, in his old age, constantly read and reread the Friar’s sermons, and never forgot the potent charm of that orator’s gestures and voice.”

In the beginning of the sixteenth century it would appear that attempts were made to portray the Madonna as a poor beggar especially in paintings depicting scenes from the Flight into Egypt. So even though Giorgione did not paint a “gypsy” woman or a soldier in the Tempest, the similarity of this painting with depictions of a Madonna dressed like a beggar in the desert with a protector standing guard might have led to Michiel’s mistake 20 years later.

Although most art historians have rejected Michiel's description, in 1995 Paul Holberton argued that the woman in the Tempest really was indeed a gypsy and offered a number of arguments and illustrations to prove his point. He went so far as to argue that some images, usually taken for the Madonna, were actually gypsy women. **

Holberton came so close. If he could only have seen the Tempest as Giorgione’s version of the "Rest on the Flight into Egypt", so much of his evidence would have fallen easily into place. Instead of claiming that identifications of images of the Madonna were mistaken, he should have asked why the Madonna came to be depicted wearing a gypsy headdress in some of the paintings he describes.

De' Barbari: Holy Family

For example, at one point he argued that a de’ Barbari drawing could not be a Holy Family because of the gypsy headpiece of the woman. Yet, Correggio painted a Madonna and Child where the Madonna appears with a similar headpiece, and it is commonly called La Zingarella.

Correggio: Madonna and Child

Edgar Wind was correct to see the similarity between the Tempest and the "Allegory" in the Philadelphia Museum, and "The Rustic Idyll" in the Fogg Art Museum, but we can now see them all as derived from the Flight into Egypt, one of the most common sources in the art of the Venetian Renaissance.

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*The Anonimo, Notes on Pictures and Works of Art in Italy made by an Anonymous Writer in the Sixteenth Century: ed. By George C. Williamson, London, 1903, p. 123.

**Professor Pasquale Villari, Life and Times of Girolamo Savonarola, New York, tenth edition, 1909. pp. 495-499.

***Paul Holberton: “Giorgione’s Tempest”, Art History, vol. 18, no. 3, September 1995. (Holberton has posted the article on his website with a slide show.) 

GiorgioneL Man of Sorrows

Back in 2011 I identified a painting often called "Homage to a Poet" as Giorgione's version of the Man of Sorrows. I reprise it here even though I believe that more work needs to be done. Nevertheless, I still believe this interpretation of the subject fits better than any other offered to date.

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In his monumental 2009 study of Giorgione, Enrico Maria dal Pozzolo began his discussion of the individual paintings with a work that is not usually given to the master from Castelfranco.*

In a clearing, a figure with a melancholy air, who is dressed in dark cloth save his showy yellow cloak, sits on a throne covered with an oriental rug, surrounded by books varying in size and sealed with metal clasps. Standing before him is a young boy wearing a heavy grey garment with a fur collar; he is staring straight ahead as if he were waiting for something. Behind him a servant kneels as he holds out a bowl full of flowers and leaves; he has taken off his hat as a sign of respect…On the first step of the throne a lute player, wearing tights and a pleated shirt, hints at a chord while staring in the direction of the viewer. (120) **

Pozzolo believed that this medium-sized panel (59x 48 cm), now at the National Gallery in London, “might be the first of Zorzi’s works to have been handed down to us." He called it a “bizarre” painting and pointed out the difficulties surrounding it.

The use of the conditional concerns every single aspect of it—the attribution, the date, the subject—because it is a work unlike any other from that time…” 
It was purchased by the National Gallery in London in 1885: from that moment on its attribution has bounced back and forth between the master… and his workshop or circle… Similarly, much uncertainty has always surrounded its dating (ranging from the early 1490s to around 1550) , and the subject it is supposed to represent. (120)

He noted that some have believed the main figure is David or Solomon, while others have argued for Jason or Zeus, or even an indistinct “Poet.” Then, Pozzolo himself went out on a limb and made an astounding assertion.

But the main figure is none other than Saturn, the god who devoured his own children, was castrated and denounced by Zeus, represented here in decline and exile in a hortus conclusus inside which human beings and animals live together in peace, all within the bounds of a “virtuous “laurel shrub….

Enrico dal Pozzolo is one of the world’s foremost Giorgione authorities and I have no problem agreeing with him that this work could be an early Giorgione. His interpretation, however, leaves much to be desired. He himself admits that even on those rare occasions when painters depicted Saturn, he was never shown as in this painting.

It seems much more likely to me that this painting is a version of the “Man of Sorrows” in a landscape filled with iconographical elements that Venetian artists like Giorgione loved to employ. Although not bare-chested, He has the same sorrowful visage of the “Man of Sorrows,” and looks out at the viewer in the same way that so many others do. He wears a royal golden robe and sits on a throne placed upon what could easily be the steps of an altar.

Instead of waiting to be devoured, the young men are in postures of humility and adoration. The one identified as a servant appears to be making an offering. The little baldachin above the figure of Christ has Eucharistic significance. I cannot identify all the iconographical elements in the painting but the peacock is usually a sign of incorruptibility or immortality, and the leopard a sign of sin. In the Giorgionesque rocky outcrop someone appears to be kneeling in contemplation.

A few years ago, my wife and I visited MOBIA, the now defunct Museum of Biblical Art in New York City, to view an exhibition entitled, “Passion in Venice, Crivelli to Tintoretto and Veronese."  The title of the exhibition was a little misleading since it was given over almost entirely to images of the suffering Christ or "Man of Sorrows." a popular subject in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. #

Its origins rooted in Byzantium, the figure entered Venetian art in the late Middle Ages after which it flourished locally for centuries, eventually acquiring its own name in dialect, Cristo Passo...

The first thing to note about the subject was its ubiquity. “Cristo Passo” was obviously popular in Venice but the exhibition had works from all over Europe. Moreover, the image appeared in all different types of media, “Illuminated manuscripts, paintings, prints, sculpture, and liturgical objects." There was even a striking polychrome paper mache relief based on a Donatello pictured here.

The next thing that struck me was that all the images, despite their obvious differences, were basically the same. It was as if all these artists, the great and the not so great, all used the same model, especially when it came to the head of Christ. Even without his cruciform halo, he is easily recognized. He is a man who has suffered, who has been beaten and humiliated, and whose head slumps to one side, usually his right. His beard is short and pointed albeit ragged. Artists could not depart far from this model.

In addition to the "Saturn Exiled" that Dr. Dal Pozzolo placed at the very beginning of Giorgione's career, the famous “Christ Carrying the Cross”  could also be a depiction of the "Man of Sorrows." Vasari claimed that this painting had miraculous healing powers from the time it was first unveiled in the Scuola di San Rocco. Vasari originally claimed that Giorgione did the painting, but in his second edition he gave it to Titian. Since that time scholars have not been able to resolve the question of attribution.

Whether by Giorgione or Titian, the face of Christ that looks out at the viewer, certainly seems derived from the standard image of the “Man of Sorrows.”

What was the reason for the popularity of the image of the “Man of Sorrows?” It was obviously based on the Gospel of Matthew. In chapter 8 after recording a number of the miracles of Jesus, Matthew echoed the words of Isaiah:“He took away our infirmities and bore our diseases.”

Matthew drew from the famous account in Isaiah 53 of the suffering servant:

A thing despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering… And yet ours were the sufferings he bore, Ours the sufferings he carried… Yet he was pierced through for our faults, Crushed for our sins. On him lies a punishment that brings us peace, And through his wounds we were healed.

The MOBIA exhibition demonstrated that every Venetian would have immediately recognized the figure in the painting in the National Gallery.

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*Enrico Maria dal Pozzolo, Giorgione, Milan, 2009. Giorgione catalogs by Anderson (1997), and Eller (2007) do not agree with dal Pozzolo's attribution. They accept the title "Homage to a Poet", but without much discussion.

# Passion in Venice: Crivelli to Tintoretto and Veronese, exhibition catalog, ed. Catherine Puglisi, 2010.

**Edit. 11/2/2013. Please notice the baldachino above the head of the Man in Giorgione's painting. It looks somewhat like an ornate lampshade. In an exchange with David Orme, an English friend and lover of Venice, he told me that he had seen similar fixtures still existing in Venice. Below is an image supplied by his friend, Albert Hickson.

It covers a Madonna and Child on the Rio Ognisanti near San Trovaso. Many thanks, David and Albert.