Titian: Pastoral Concert, Bibliography

I originally published some bibliographical notes on Titian's Pastoral Concert on this site on May 26, 2012 in preparation for publishing online my interpretation of the famous painting as Titian's "Homage to the Recently Deceased Giorgione."  This year in my previous two posts I have reposted my interpretation, as well as a comparison of it with that of Dr. Joost-Gaugier who also sees the painting as Titian's Homage to Giorgione.To complete the discussion I would like to re-post the bibliographical information here.

The December 1957 issue of The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism featured an essay on the painting by Philipp Fehl entitled, “The Hidden Genre: a Study of the Concert Champetre in the Louvre.”[i] In his study Fehl limited himself to a discussion of the two female nudes in the painting.

My present proposition is simply this: the two women are not human. They are nymphs of the wood who, having been attracted by the music and the charm of the young men, have joined their concert. They are as invisible to the young men as they are, in the full beauty of the landscape which they bodily represent, visible to us. [157]

From this insight that was based primarily on an extensive analysis of literary sources, Fehl drew the following conclusion about the painting.

The picture, if we choose to look at it from this point of view, is now a true pastoral, in the spirit of the idylls of Theocritus. [157]

He did admit that a really convincing proof would require a poem or text which, unfortunately, he had not been able to find.

However, a year later famed Art historian Edgar Wind seemed to add his weight to Fehl’s description of the two nudes in Pagan Mysteries of the Renaissance.[ii]

The same 'philosophy of clothes' can be studied in Giorgione's 'Fete Champetre' in the Louvre. The nymphs, distinguished from the musicians by the absence of clothes, are meant to be recognized as 'divine presences', superior spirits from whose fountain the mortal musicians are nourished…

Wind’s comment was only in a footnote and one would suspect that he came upon Fehl’s interpretation while his own book was in process of publication.

In any event, in 1959 Patricia Egan took Fehl’s analysis a step further in an essay, “Poesia and the Fete Champetre” that appeared in the Art Bulletin.[iii] Egan also concentrated on the two nude females, but she regarded them as muses rather than nymphs. They are sister beings who “constitute the first and strongest section of the picture.”

the left side comprises the water-pouring “muse,” the fine young lute-player, the white gabled building by the lake, and the farther landscape; the enclosed landscape on the right side contains the flute-playing ”muse,” the shepherd boy, the farmhouse, the grove, and the goatherd with his flock. [305]

Egan found a contemporary “Tarocchi” card with an image identified as “Poesia”. Although clothed, she carried the pitcher and pipe (aulos) seen in the “Pastoral Concert”.

Tarocchi card C-27

Entitled Poesia, the girl is seated beside a fountain on grass or leaves, using one hand to play a flute while with the other she empties a pitcher into a small body of water at her side….If we accept this degree of meaning to be implicit in the scene, we may add, tentatively, to the titles already bestowed on the picture, that of “Allegory of Poetry.” [304]

Egan admitted that the connections in the Tarocchi card have become somewhat weaker in the “Pastoral Concert.” “Poesia” has “twinned”, and each twin performs one of the actions depicted on the playing card.

Poesia as the personification of academic eloquence has twinned, and her actions, though simultaneous, no longer depend so closely on one another. [312]

Although Egan identified the nudes as muses and not as nymphs, she agreed with Fehl: the “muses’ belong to one world, the boys to another, the world of Poetry includes them all.” [312]

In 2006 Jaynie Anderson, in the catalog entry for the Bellini, Giorgione, Titian exhibition jointly sponsored by Washington’s National Gallery and Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, noted the contributions of Fehl and Egan, and claimed that their observations about the unworldly nature of the two nudes were now generally accepted by scholars.[iv] I fully agree and believe that in no way can these two females be considered as girl friends or prostitutes.

Note: Since I originally wrote the above words, I discovered the following sources: 

Joost-Gaugier, Christiane L. The mute poetry of the Fete Champetre: Titian’s memorial to Giorgione. Gazette des Beaux Arts, January 1999, Issue 1560, pp. 1-14.  After my initial intuition I  discovered that famed art historian S. J. Freedberg had also seen the painting as a homage to Giorgione, and noted that in my paper.  S.J. Freedberg, Painting in Italy, 1500-1600, London, 1990, pp. 139-140.

Freedberg just provides a brief mention but Joost-Gaugier's paper is detailed and extensive, and argues that the painting is indeed Titian's Memorial to Giorgione. In my previous post on this site, I have discussed her paper and pointed out areas of agreement and disagreement with my own interpretation.

I also reposted my interpretation on this site earlier this month. My interpretation can also be found   on academia.edu.  I agree with Dr. Joost-Gaugier that the painting is Titian's memorial or homage to Giorgione but disagree with her description of the figures in the painting. 

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[i]Philipp Fehl: “The Hidden Genre: A Study of the Concert Champetre in the Louvre,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, XVI, 2, 1957, pp. 154-168.

[ii] Edgar Wind: Pagan Mysteries of the Renaissance, New Haven, 1958. P.123, n.1.

[iii] Patricia Egan: “Poesia and the Fete Champetre”, The Art Bulletin, Vol. 41 (Dec. 1959), pp. 303-313.

[iv] Brown, David Alan, and Ferino-Pagden, Sylvia, Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting, Washington, 2006. Catalog entry #31 by Jaynie Anderson.  

Doni Tondo Bibliography

This week I have put the latest version of my interpretation of Michelangelo's Doni Tondo on my website, MyGiorgione. Last year at Giorgione et al... I published an initial exploration of the famous painting but then followed it with four essays revising the initial interpretation. Now I have put them all together and available in one place at MyGiorgione. Here is a link.

Below are some of the sources that I have used in trying to understand the Doni Tondo.  

D’Ancona, Mirella Levi : “The Doni Madonna by Michelangelo: An Iconographic Study.” Reprinted in Michelangelo, Selected Scholarship in English, edited with Introduction by William E. Wallace, New York and London, 1995, V. 1.Life and Early Works, p. 403-412. (numbers in brackets refer to the pages in the Wallace collection).This study first appeared in the Art Bulletin in 1968.

Franceschini, Chiara: “The Nudes in Limbo: Michelangelo’s “Doni Tondo” Revisited”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 73 (2010), pp. 137-180.

Goffen, Rona: Renaissance Rivals. Yale, 2002.

Hayum, Andree: “Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo: Holy Family and Family Myth.” Reprinted in Michelangelo, Selected Scholarship in English, edited with Introduction by William E. Wallace, New York and London, 1995, V. 1.Life and Early Works, p. 417-459. This paper first appeared in Studies in Iconology, 7-8 (1981-2), 209-251.

Olsen, Roberta J. M. : The Florentine Tondo, Oxford, 2000.

Steinberg, Leo: “Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo,” Vogue, December 1974, pp. 138-39.

Verdon, Timothy: Mary in Florentine Art, Firenze, 2003.

Wallace, William ed.: Michelangelo, Selected Scholarship in English, New York and London, 1995. In addition to the articles on the Doni Tondo mentioned above, this three volume collection contains a number of papers on the Sistine Chapel that shed light on the Doni Tondo.

Whitford, David: The Curse of Ham in the Early Modern Era, Ashgate, 2009.

Below find an image of Luca Signorelli's Medici Madonna, another tondo often compared to the Doni Tondo, especially because of the semi-nude young men in the background. 

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Giorgione, Titian Bibliography

Below find a bibliography of works consulted in my interpretation of Giorgione's "Tempest" as the "Rest on the Flight into Egypt". Some of the works have already been discussed or reviewed in previous postings. Just search under the author's name or click on the sidebar. I also append an additional list used in my interpretation of Titian's "Sacred and Profane Love" as "The Conversion of Mary Magdalen."*

Giorgione: Tempest

Giorgione: Tempest Bibliography.

Anderson, Jaynie: Giorgione, 1997.

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.

The Bible of the Poor, (Biblia Pauperum), a Facsimile and Edition of the British Library Blockbook C. 9 d. 2, translation and commentary by Albert C. Labriola and John W. Smeltz, Pittsburgh, 1990.

Bembo, Pietro: History of Venice, edited and translated by Robert W. Ulery, Jr.,Cambridge, MA, 2008, vol. 2, books v-viii (1499-1509).

Brown, David Alan, Leonardo Da Vinci, Origins of a Genius, Yale, 1998.

Brown, David Alan, and Ferino-Pagden, Sylvia, Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting, Washington, 2006.

Campbell, Stephen J: “Giorgione’s Tempest, Studiolo Culture, and the Renaissance Lucretius,” Renaissance Quarterly, 56 (2003) 299-332.

Cartwright, Julia, Isabella D’Este, Marchioness of Mantua, 1474-1539, London, 1932.

Christiansen, Keith: “Giovanni Bellini and the Practice of Devotional Painting,” in Giovanni Bellini and the Art of Devotion, Indianapolis, 2004.

Colonna, Francesco, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, The Strife of Love in a Dream. The entire test translated for the first time into English with an introduction by Joscelyn Godwin, New York, 1999.

Dal Pozzolo, Enrico Maria: Giorgione, Milan, 2009.

Ekserdjian, David: Correggio, Yale, 1997.

Eller, Wolfgang: Giorgione Catalog Raisonne, Petersberg, 2007.

Ferino-Pagden, Sylvia, and Nepi-Scire, Giovanna: exh. Cat. Giorgione, Myth and Enigma, Vienna, 2004.

Filas, Francis L., Joseph: The Man Closest to Jesus, The Complete Life, Theology and Devotional History of St. Joseph, Boston, 1962.

Fleming, John V. From Bonaventure to Bellini, an Essay in Franciscan Exegesis, Princeton, 1982.

Gilbert, Creighton E.: How Fra Angelico and Signorelli Saw the End of the World, Penn State, 2003.

Goffen, Rona: Piety and Patronage in Renaissance Venice, Yale, 1986.

The Grimani Breviary: Levenger Press, DelRay Beach, Florida, 2007.

Hall, Marcia: Color and Meaning, Practice and Theory in Renaissance Painting, Cambridge, 1992.

Hennecke, Edgar: New Testament Apocrypha, ed. By Wilhelm Schneemelcher, Volume One, Gospels and Related Writings, Philadelphia,1963.

Holberton, Paul: Giorgione’s Tempest or ‘little landscape with the storm with the gypsy’: more on the gypsy, and a reassessment,” Art History, Vol. 18, No. 3, September 1995, pp. 383-404.

Humfrey, Peter: Painting in Renaissance Venice, Yale, 1993.

Humfrey, Peter: Titian, London, 2007.

Howard, Deborah: “Giorgione’s Tempesta and Titian’s Assunta in the Context of the Cambrai Wars, Art History, Vol. 8, No. 3, September 1985, pp. 271-289.

Hutton, Edward: Venice and Venetia, NY, 1911.

Impelluso, Lucia: Nature and Its Symbols, translated by Stephen Sartarelli,Los Angeles, 2003.

Jameson Mrs. Anna: Legends of the Madonna, Boston, 1885.

Joannides, Paul: Titian to 1518, the Assumption of Genius, Yale, 2001.

Kaplan, Paul H.D.: “The Storm of War: The Paduan Key to Giorgione’s Tempesta,” Art History, Vol. 9, No. 4, December, 1986.

Kasl, Ronda ed.: Giovanni Bellini and the Art of Devotion, Indianapolis, 2004.

King, Margaret L.: Venetian Humanism in an Age of Patrician Dominance, Princeton, 1986.

Lugli, Emanuele: Between Form and Representation: the Frick St. Francis.” Art History, Vol. 32, No. 1—February 2009, pp. 21-51.

Male, Emile: Religious Art in France, The Late Middle Ages: A Study of Medieval Iconography and Its Sources, Princeton, 1986.

Male, Emile: Religious Art in France, The Thirteenth Century, Princeton, 1986.

Norwich, John Julius: A History of Venice, NY, 1982.

O’Connor, Edward Dennis, ed.: The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception, History and Significance, Notre Dame, 1958.

Pignatti, Terisio and Pedrocco, Filippo: Giorgione, Rizzoli, NY, 1999.

Rapp, Jurgen: “The ‘Favola’ in Giorgione’s Tempesta,” Giorgione, Myth and Enigma, 119-123.

Ridolfi, Carlo: The Life of Titian, ed. Julia Conway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella, Bruce Cole, and Jody Robin Shiffman, Penn State, 1996.

Rosand, David: Painting in Cinquecento Venice: Titian, Veronese, Tintoreto, Yale, 1982.

Schier, Rudolf: “Giorgione’s Tempesta, a Virgilian pastoral,” Renaissance Studies, 22 (May 2008), issue 4, 476-506.

Schwartz, Sheila: “The Iconography of the Rest on the Flight into Egypt,” unpublished doctoral dissertation, NYU, 1975.

Settis, Salvatore: Giorgione’s Tempesta, Chicago, 1990.

Steinberg, Leo: Leonardo’s Incessant Last Supper, New York, 2001.

Steinberg, Leo: The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion, NY,1983.

Wilson, Carolyn: St. Joseph in Italian Renaissance Society and Art, Philadelphia, 2001.

Wind, Edgar: Giorgione’s Tempesta, Oxford, 1969.

Wind, Edgar: Pagan Mysteries of the Renaissance, New Haven, 1958.

Titian: Sacred and Profane Love

Titian: "Sacred and Profane Love" Bibliography.

Cleugh, James: The Divine Aretino, NY,1966.

Goffen, Rona: Titian’s Sacred and Profane Love and Marriage, The Expanding Discourse, Feminism and Art History, ed. Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard, NY, 1992. Pp. 111-125.

Goffen, Rona: Titian’s Sacred and Profane Love: Individuality and Sexuality in a Renaissance Marriage Picture “ in Titian 500, ed. Joseph Manca, Washington, 1993.

Goffen, Rona: Titian’s Women, Yale, 1997.

Haskins, Susan: Mary Magdalen, Myth and Metaphor, NY, 1994.

Hope, Charles: Titian, NY, 1980.

Jansen, Katherine Ludwig: The Making of the Magdalen, Preaching and Popular Devotion in the Later Middle Ages, Princeton, 2000.

Joannides, Paul: Titian to 1518, Yale, 2001.

Masson, Georgina: Courtesans of the Italian Renaissance, NY, 1971.

Panofsky, Erwin: “The Neoplatonic Movement in Florence and North Italy (Bandinelli and Titian”, Studies in Iconology, NY, 1962. Pp. 129-171.

Rosand, David: Titian, NY, 1978.

Rowland, Ingrid: From Heaven to Arcadia, The Sacred and the Profane in the Renaissance, NY, 2005.

Titian, catalogue edited by David Jaffe, London, 2003.

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*Copies of either bibliography will be sent to interested students upon request.

Bellini, Giorgione, Titian bibliography

I would highly recommend the following three short books for anyone interested in the Venetian Renaissance. I have written about them at length in earlier posts but would just like to present a brief overview here.

The authors are Salvatore Settis, one of Italy’s leading art historians and cultural figures and the director of Pisa’s famed Scuola Normale Superiore; the late Rona Goffen, who before her death was one of America’s leading and most prolific historians of Venetian Renaissance art; and John V. Fleming, Professor emeritus of Literature at Princeton University.

Giorgione: Tempest
Accademia, Venice

In researching my interpretation of the Tempest as “The Rest on the Flight into Egypt,” no book has been of greater assistance than “Giorgione’s Tempest,” written by Salvatore Settis in 1990. In his introduction Professor Settis laid down a series of iconographical ground rules that should be used in any interpretation. *

For example,

Interpreting the Tempest means providing “a well documented explanation for each feature, and fitting all together into one persuasive framework. (2)

He argued that the famous painting must be treated like a puzzle and that any interpretation must be sure that all pieces fit, and fit easily without being squeezed into position.

He gave a very comprehensive analysis of practically every interpretation up to 1990 and included a very useful comparison chart. Even though his own very detailed and erudite explanation of the Man and the Woman as Adam and Eve was strongly criticized, his book remains today the most useful starting point for any study of Giorgione and his famous painting.

Titian: Pesaro Altarpiece
Frari, Venice

I owe a great debt to Rona Goffen. When I originally saw the nudity of the woman in the Tempest as Giorgione’s way of depicting the Immaculate Conception of Mary, I just assumed that the doctrine was important in Catholic Italy. However, it was only after a chance encounter with Goffen’s “Piety and Patronage in Renaissance Venice” that I came to realize just how important the Immaculate Conception was in Giorgione’s Venice. **

Goffen wrote many books and articles on the Italian Renaissance but in my opinion “Piety and Patronage in Renaissance Venice” was her best work. Subtitled, “Bellini, Titian and the Franciscans,” she never discussed Giorgione’s “Tempest” but her discussion of the historical background solidified my thoughts about the famous painting. Moreover, she insisted that the art of the Venetian Renaissance could only be understood by attempting to see it through the eyes of contemporary Venetians.

She studied the writings of prominent clerics like Bernardino of Siena, a patron saint of Venice, and Lorenzo Giustiniani, the saintly first Patriarch of Venice, and pointed out the importance, but also the difficulty, of seeing things through their eyes.

                 

Their influence on Venetian piety must have been as pervasive during the Renaissance as it is difficult today to gauge in any precise way. Nevertheless, their thoughts and writings constitute part--a very important part--of the original context of sacred art in Renaissance Venice. One must attempt to reconstruct that context in the historically informed imagination.

In this book Goffen concentrated her attention on the Frari and on its incomparable altarpieces. The dust jacket of her book gives a good summary.

The church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice encapsulates the history of Venetian Renaissance art as well as the histories of a patrician family, a religious order, and a city….All this is embodied in the altarpieces painted for the Frari by two of the greatest masters of Venetian art—Giovanni Bellini and Titian.

Any trip to Venice must include the Frari.

Giovanni Bellini: St. Francis in the Desert
Frick Museum, NY

Finally, I include John V. Flemings study of Giovanni Bellini’s famous “St. Francis in the Desert”, entitled “From Bonaventura to Bellini.” Fleming argued that Bellini followed an iconographical scheme based on a profound understanding of Franciscan spirituality.***

He questioned the prevailing “Stigmatization” interpretation and offered an alternative based on his knowledge of medieval Franciscan texts.

It is a painting full of ideas, ideas much in vogue among serious Christians of the later Middle Ages and almost universally ignored by modern art history. The purpose of my own study is to give some account of these ideas—that is to say, in some fashion to “explain” the painting….the more profound and difficult intention is to suggest some of the ways in which fundamental Franciscan ideas, ideas often by nature more poetic and pictorial than discursive, could find powerful expression in word and image. (5)

He argued that every detail in the painting is there by design, and proceeded in chapter by chapter to present a masterful explanation of all the iconographical elements in the painting: the city in the background, the flora and fauna, the details of the saint’s habitat, and even the tiny chartula tucked in his belt.

He realized that he had to deal with accumulated prejudice.

For critics of a certain viewpoint, the word ‘medieval’ is naughty, , and the suggestion that, for instance, Bellini might have had medieval inspiration in painting a Madonna must be advanced apologetically. By implication, his sources should be pagan and cabbalistic, not scriptural and patristic. (7)

Fleming’s book is a primer on how to look at a Renaissance painting. He did not discuss Giorgione’s Tempest but I was emboldened by his attempt to take on the prevailing interpretations. I also found a degree of similarity between the Tempest and Bellini’s St. Francis. In particular, Fleming’s analysis of the prominent bird in the mid-ground helped me to identify the mysterious bird on the rooftop of Giorgione’s painting.

The book by Settis is still available in paperback. The other two are harder to find. ###

*Salvatore Settis, Giorgione’s Tempest, Interpreting the Hidden Subject, Chicago, 1990.

**Rona Goffen, Piety and Patronage in Renaissance Venice, Yale, 1986.

***John V. Fleming:  From Bonaventure to Bellini, an Essay in Franciscan Exegesis, Princeton, 1982.

       

        

       

Giorgione: Rona Goffen's Venetian Eyes

Giorgione"s Tempest or "Rest on the Flight into Egypt."


I owe a great debt to the late Rona Goffen. When I originally saw the nudity of the woman in the Tempest as Giorgione’s way of depicting the Immaculate Conception of Mary, I just assumed that the doctrine was important in Catholic Italy. However, it was only after a chance encounter with Goffen’s “Piety and Patronage in Renaissance Venice”* that I came to realize just how important the Immaculate Conception was in Giorgione’s time.

Goffen wrote many books and articles on the Italian Renaissance but in my opinion this small volume was her best work. In her book, subtitled, “Bellini, Titian and the Franciscans,” she never discussed the Tempest but her discussion of the historical background of the controversial doctrine of the Immaculate Conception solidified my thoughts about Giorgione’s most famous painting. Moreover, she insisted that the art of the Venetian Renaissance could only be understood by attempting to see it through the eyes of contemporary Venetians.

In discussing the writings of prominent clerics like St. Bernardino of Siena, a patron saint of Venice, and Lorenzo Giustiniani, the saintly first Patriarch of Venice, she pointed out the importance, but also the difficulty, of seeing things through their eyes.

In these and other similar passages, Bernardino and Giustiniani declared their belief in the Immaculacy of the Madonna. Their influence on Venetian piety must have been as pervasive during the Renaissance as it is difficult today to gauge in any precise way. Nevertheless, their thoughts and writings constitute part--a very important part--of the original context of sacred art in Renaissance Venice. One must attempt to reconstruct that context in the historically informed imagination. (79)

Seeing through Venetian eyes means understanding first of all the great importance of religion to the ordinary Venetian. Because of its many disputes with the Papacy Venice is sometimes regarded as a proto-Protestant state when in reality it was usually more Catholic than the Pope. Goffen understood that the Republic identified itself with the Madonna and her Immaculate Conception.

No Venetian--and no Venetian Franciscan--could have been unaware of the rich associations, both political and spiritual, of the Madonna in Venice, and indeed of the identification of the one with the other. After all, Venice, too, was apostrophized as a Virgin, always safe in the embrace of her beloved Evangelist St. Mark...(145).

This confluence of the sacred and the secular found its way into Venetian art.

And both Pesaro altarpieces embody that singular combination of sacred and civic elements that characterizes Venetian art, Venetian history, and Venetian piety, together with the very personal concerns and ambitions of the donors, concerns in themselves both spiritual and secular. In Venice the image of the Immaculate Conception combines the sacred and the secular in a very particular way. (136)

In her book Goffen concentrated her attention on the Frari, itself dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, and on its incomparable altarpieces. The dust jacket of her book gives a good summary.

The church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice encapsulates the history of Venetian Renaissance art as well as the histories of a patrician family, a religious order, and a city. The decoration of the Frari—notably commissioned by members of the Pesaro family—not only reflects their piety but their rivalry; in addition, it represents the particular concerns and the character of the Franciscan order and alludes to the relationship between church and state in Renaissance Venice. All this is embodied in the altarpieces pain ted for the Frari by two of the greatest masters of Venetian art—Giovanni Bellini and Titian.

In chapter 2 Goffen described the influence of Franciscan spirituality on Bellini’s famous triptych.

The Frari triptych was his fourth (and last) great commission of works painted for the Franciscan order or with a specifically Franciscan theme,...Bellini learned much about Franciscan sensibility and Franciscan spirituality. (54)

Titian: "Assunta", Frari, Venice. 1516

Chapter 3 deals with the “Assunta”, the painting that established Titian’s reputation. Although called the “Assunta”, the “theological and spiritual context is the triumph of the Immaculate Conception.” (74)

For Titian and his Franciscan patrons, there can be no doubt that "S. Maria Gloriosa" implied "S. Maria Immacolata"...Given the liturgical and theological assimilation of the Virgin's Immaculate Conception with her Assumption, it comes as no surprise that the visual imagery of the former was frequently based upon representations of the latter. (93)

Goffen found the source of Titian’s work in a sermon by Lorenzo Giustiniani, whose collected sermons had been printed in Venice in 1506.

There is another text, however, that can almost be read as the libretto for Titian's "opera," and that is the sermon for the feast of the Assumption by Lorenzo Giustiniani...it seems that the artist or his Franciscan patrons must indeed have been referring to Giustiniani's text, or something very like it.

Chapter 4 is devoted to Titian’s famed Pesaro altarpiece. Looking at that painting through Goffen’s eyes is a revelation.

This dual sacred and secular imagery, combining the representation of the Immaculate Conception with references to the Serenissima, is embodied also in Titian's Assunta of the high altar.

In her last chapter, “The Cult of the Madonna in Venice,” Goffen claimed the Bellini triptych, Titian’s Assunta and Pesaro altarpiece, and even his Pieta were representations of the Immaculate Conception.

Titian's Pieta must be considered, therefore, together with Bellini's triptych and Titian's own earlier works for the Frari. The four altarpieces (or the three alone, in situ) represent the dedication of the Frari to the Immaculate Conception in visual imagery that suggests the similarities of the Madonna, and hence her church, with the Most serene republic of Venice. (154)

In the year 1500 Venice was not only the greatest city on the Italian peninsula but it was also the wealthiest and most powerful nation in Europe. England, France and Spain were just emerging from a century of civil wars. Germany was hopelessly divided and the Emperor was little more than a penniless figurehead. The Papacy was still contending with threats to its authority from Roman warlords and Conciliarist bishops. Only Venice seemed to have the will and wherewithal to deal with the Ottoman Empire.

To read Rona Goffen’s book is to understand that in Giorgione’s time every Venetian would have believed that they owed it all to the Immaculata. Yet in history things can sometimes turn on a dime. Only a decade or two after Giorgione’s death radical Protestant reformers were destroying images of the Madonna all over Europe.

It is hard for moderns, even Catholics, to understand or sympathize with the beliefs of Giorgione and his patrons. Interestingly, in the 19th century as hordes of Catholic immigrants were pouring into the United States, the Catholic hierarchy dedicated the country to the Immaculate Conception. Today, most of the descendants of those immigrants have no idea of the meaning of the doctrine.

Rona Goffen's book is not just her best work: it is probably the single best guide to the Venetian Renaissance.

*Rona Goffen:"Piety and Patronage in Renaissance Venice". Yale, 1986.

Giorgione Tempest: Adam and Eve?

In researching my interpretation of the Tempest as “The Rest on the Flight into Egypt,” no book has been of greater assistance than “Giorgione’s Tempest,” written by Salvatore Settis in 1990. In addition to providing an in depth analysis of practically every previous interpretation, Professor Settis also laid down a series of iconographical ground rules that should be used in any interpretation.

For example, in his introduction he noted: “Interpreting the Tempest means providing “a well documented explanation for each feature, and fitting all together into one persuasive framework.”(2)

Indeed, he came very close to identifying the subject of Giorgione’s most famous painting. At least he did see that the painting had a “sacred subject” but instead of seeing the Woman as the new or second Eve, he identified her as the original Eve nursing her first-born son, Cain. The Man in the painting is Adam in the guise of a Venetian aristocrat accompanying his wife after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

Even though his book is a must for anyone interested in Giorgione, his ingenious and painstaking interpretation came under serious criticism and was accepted by virtually no one. He argued that the famous painting must be treated like a puzzle and that any interpretation must be sure that all pieces fit and fit easily without being squeezed into position.

Unfortunately, he had to violate his own maxim. The major pieces of the puzzle are the Man, the Woman and Child, the broken columns, the plant in the foreground, and the storm and city in the background.

For Settis, the Man is Adam after the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. The nude Woman is Eve nursing the "newborn" Cain. The broken columns are a symbol of death which has entered the world as a result of sin. The plant is there to cover Eve’s nakedness, although obviously doing a very poor job. The city in the background is the lost Paradise forever barred to the Man and Woman who are doomed to a life of toil and hardship. The storm and lightning represent the wrath of God not only on the erring couple but also on what he called a serpent slithering into the rock beneath the heel of the woman.

Here are his words concerning the Man and the Woman:



“Adam leans, not on the short-handled spade of his Bergamo counterpart, but on a singularly long staff: various interpreters have agreed that this could be a soldier’s lance, a traveler’s wand or simply a generic tool. The allusion to the manual labor prescribed in the biblical text is underplayed, almost fleeting, for this Adam is an elegant Venetian…The medieval tradition portraying Adam at work…has evolved to show Adam at rest, with Eve as mother at his side….”(113)

“The handsome clothes belong to a Venetian gentleman, not to a peasant or a fisherman, and are appropriate with the attenuated image of the tool: in the hands of this meditative, or resting, figure the staff must allude to manual labour. Neither spade nor hoe, it has a point at one end but so hidden in the grass that it is only visible on a close and careful examination.”(114)







. “Eve is seated opposite him a white wrap that barely covers her. The baby in her lap and her own nakedness indicate recent childbirth, a familiar schema in earlier art. The slender bush that grows out in front of her cannot be a simple decoration in this painting of such deliberate construction: its compositional importance has already been noted by other interpreters…who have tried in vain to establish its meaning.”



In chapter 4 Settis provided a number of images of Adam and Eve after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. It was an impressive feat but in every image the Man and the Woman do not exhibit the disparity of clothed and unclothed figures found in the Tempest.

For example, in Amadeo’s, Bergamo bas-relief, both Adam and Eve are nude, just as they are in Jacopo della Quercia’s relief in St Petronio in Bologna. In all the other images it is the same. Either Adam and Eve are both nude, or both clothed.

The Adam in these images is always a rustic laborer, and not the poised Venetian aristocrat of Giorgione’s painting. This development is one of the main props for the “hidden subject” thesis proposed by Settis. Moreover, the Adam in these images is usually the central or focal point, but in the Tempest the Man directs the viewer’s attention to the Woman and Child.

The Woman’s nudity is only explained as a sign of “recent childbirth,” but the child in the Tempest is obviously almost a year old. He holds himself up nicely while nursing. Settis did not identify the plant in the Tempest, but he did argue that it is there to cover the Woman’s nakedness. He also argued that the dead root beneath the woman’s heel was not part of the plant but the “serpent” slithering into the rock fleeing God’s wrath.

Also, like some others, Settis argued that the lightning bolt in the background was a symbolic representation of God, and that it and the storm were hovering over the couple forever banished from Paradise. The gates of Paradise have forever been closed to them and the broken columns are symbolic of death. Yet according to the rules of perspective the storm and lightning bolt are miles in the distance. Moreover, in the foreground the couple is bathed in sunlight. They show no trace of fear, anxiety, or loss.

Speaking of Paradise, why would one of the buildings show an emblematic representation of Padua’s Carrara family?

Despite his thesis there is much in this work by Professor Settis that could support an interpretation of the "Tempest" as "The Rest on the Flight into Egypt." See below.

“it is usually the case that we instantly recognize a picture of a woman and child as Mary and Jesus….We recognize Virgin and Child above all by means of the many different images in our memory and form, as it were, a single type. It is visual experience itself, repeated over and over again, but always receptive, that tells us the title of the picture.” (82)

“But that memory can be lost; and when this happens an image that was created for a public that could understand it becomes incomprehensible to observers who are alien to that particular figurative culture. This can give rise to absurd and fantastic interpretations.” (82)

“In choosing a painting as a vehicle for expressing personal feelings, ‘inventiveness’ must have been severely hampered by the inescapable weight of authority represented by previous iconographic tradition. The transformation of an ‘interior subject’ into something less comprehensible entailed searching out an unusual iconography, and also perhaps attenuating its meaning by eliminating or toning down its essential features.” (129)

“Even more complex and difficult was the task of fitting a religious theme into this ‘closed’ and private use of art….But to a painter in the time of Palma il Vecchio and Giorgione, a Christian subject would have had a different weight….The codification of iconography for religious subjects must have been that much more forceful for being accepted as serving the true Christian faith. Equally, it was that more difficult to dare to choose a Christian theme as a way of expressing personal thoughts.” (129/130)

Salvatore Settis, Giorgione’s Tempest, Interpreting the Hidden Subject, Chicago, 1990. Page references are in parentheses.

Dr. Francis P. DeStefano
5/6/2011

Giorgione Catalogs

In the past fifteen years five major Giorgione catalogs have appeared. This truly remarkable publishing phenomenon must be due not only to an increasing interest in Venice and the Venetian Renaissance, but also to the mystery surrounding Giorgione. Below find brief reviews of the five catalogs, all of them beautifully illustrated. The images are from the covers of the respective catalogs.

In addition to a brief outline of their contents, I have tried to point out their divergent views on the "Tempest" and on the David Teniers' copy of the "lost" Giorgione, usually called the "Discovery of Paris." The learning and exhaustive research of the various authors has been of great value to me, but I do admit that none of them has been able to see the "Tempest" as "The Rest on the Flight into Egypt." Moreover, when they discuss the "Discovery of Paris," , they invariably follow Marcantonio Michiel's mistaken identification of the "Discovery of Paris." For my interpretation of both paintings see my profile on academia.edu.



Anderson, Jaynie: "Giorgione, the Painter of Poetic Brevity," Paris, 1997.

Jaynie Anderson’s study is a solo work of almost 400 pages. Seven essays by the author take up the first three quarters of the book. Anderson studies Giorgione’s “poetic style;” his biographers and connoisseurs; the results of scientific analysis of his paintings; his patrons; his imagery of women; his critical fortunes; and his work on the Fondaco dei Tedeschi.
This comprehensive catalog is broken up into accepted works; controversial attributions; copies after Giorgione; and rejected attributions. All are discussed in varying degrees.

Concerning the Tempest Anderson strongly rejected the Adam and Eve interpretation of Salvatore Settis, as well as all other previous explanations that might be connected with a “story or text.”
For her the “most convincing interpretation” of the Tempest can be found in Colonna’s “Hypnerotomachia Poliphilo.” The painting depicts the encounter of the “young hero Poliphilo” with a deity. Although Anderson does not follow Marcantonio Michiel’s identification of the “soldier and the gypsy,” she does accept his description of the Teniers copy of the so-called “Discovery of Paris.”

A very valuable feature of Anderson’s catalog is the collection of documents relating to Giorgione in the original Italian at the back of the book.

Pignatti, Terisio and Pedrocco, Filippo: "Giorgione," Rizzoli, NY, 1999.

This catalog came two years after Jaynie Anderson’s but it obviously represented a lifetime of work on the part of the two Italian authors. A little less than half the catalog is an essay on “The Life and Work of Giorgione,” by Terisio Pignatti. The author discusses the life and background of Giorgione but then devotes about 40 pages to a discussion of the attributed works.
In the second half of the book Filippo Pedrocco provides an invaluable summary of the attribution, provenance, and interpretive history of each attributed work. Especially valuable is their attempt to date the various works from early, through middle, to late career.

Although Pedrocco lists all the different interpretations of the Tempest, Pignatti concludes that there is an “undoubted presence of an underlying theme” but that the painting still “remains difficult to interpret.” Like Anderson the authors do not contest Michiel’s identification of the Teniers copy of the so-called “Discovery of Paris.”


Ferino-Pagden, Sylvia, and Nepi-Scire, Giovanna: exh. Cat. "Giorgione, Myth and Enigma," Vienna, 2004.

If I could only have one catalog in my library, my choice would be “Giorgione, Myth and Enigma,” the exhibition catalog for the groundbreaking 2004 Giorgione exhibition jointly sponsored by the Accademia in Venice and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Both institutions contributed their Giorgione works to the exhibition, and for the first time the Tempest traveled outside of Italy for the Vienna show.

The catalog featured a number of essays by leading scholars highlighted by a brilliant essay on the Castelfranco altarpiece by Salvatore Settis. There were also four essays offering differing interpretations of the Tempest.

The 25 catalog entries were written by a group of world-class scholars including Giovanna Nepi-Scire and Sylvia Ferino-Pagden, the respective curators from the two Museums sponsoring the exhibition. In her essay on the Tempest, Nepi-Scire declined to take sides in the interpretation controversy.

This catalog is especially noteworthy for the appendix that includes three essays on the extensive scientific studies conducted in preparation for the exhibition.


Brown, David Alan, and Ferino-Pagden, Sylvia, "Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting," Washington, 2006.

Two years after the 2004 Giorgione exhibition an equally ambitious venture was jointly launched by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and the National Gallery in Washington. The resulting catalog reflected the attempt of the exhibition to cover the broad range of the Venetian Renaissance.

The catalog featured works of Giorgione along with those of Giovanni Bellini, Titian, and lesser artists like Paris Bordone and Lorenzo Lotto. In the catalog these works were arranged according to themes just as in the actual exhibition.

After four introductory essays different scholars each took a theme: Peter Humfrey “Sacred Images;” Mario Lucco “Sacred Stories;” Jaynie Anderson “Allegories and Mythologies;” Sylvia Ferino-Pagden “Pictures of Women—Pictures of Love;” and David Alan Brown, the curator of the National Gallery, “Portraits of Women.”

Of all the catalogs this one is the broadest in scope but since the Tempest was not included in the exhibition, there is no separate catalog item on Giorgione’s most famous painting.

Eller, Wolfgang: "Giorgione Catalog Raisonne," Petersberg, 2007.

Wolfgang Eller’s “Giorgione, Catalogue Raisonne,” was not associated with any exhibition. Subtitled, “Mystery Unveiled,” this solo effort obviously represents a lifetime of work on the part of this scholar.

Twelve introductory essays take up a little less than a quarter of this 200 page volume, but they are packed with information and learning. Especially valuable is his essay, “The most Significant Stylistic and Painterly Criteria for an Attribution to Giorgione.” No one looks at a painting or describes it more closely than Eller.

It appears to me that his strong point is attribution and he makes some radical departures from the usual. He gives the Pastoral concert to Giorgione, and also believes that he participated in Titian’s, “Noli Me Tangere.”

If Eller is strong on attribution and painterly criteria, I believe that his interpretations are often overly complicated. His interpretation of the Tempest is so involved that it is difficult to follow. He accepts with some puzzlement the identification of the Teniers copy of the lost Giorgione as the “Discovery of Paris.”

Finally, his catalog is extremely valuable since, like Anderson, he provides a discussion of every painting that was ever associated with Giorgione—even the false attributions. This feature alone makes this relatively inexpensive, and easily usable catalog a must for any student.