The Immaculate Conception in the Art of the Renaissance

In my interpretation of Giorgione's "Tempest" as "The Rest on the Flight into Egypt", I argued that Giorgione had the audacity to portray a nude Madonna in an attempt to depict Mary as the Immaculate Conception. Although the era of the Renaissance witnessed a tremendous increase in interest in the Immaculate Conception, artists were struggling to find a way to depict the mysterious doctrine that had no settled artistic tradition to use. Below is a section from my paper that sought to explain Giorgione's idiosyncratic use of a nude nursing Madonna as the Immaculate Conception.

The explanation lies in the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, a doctrine of which every Venetian would have been aware. Simply put, the doctrine affirms that Mary had been created free from the stain of original sin inherited by every other descendant of Adam and Eve. Indeed, Mary was regarded as the "new" or "second" Eve.

Significant developments in the 15th century had brought the idea of the Immaculate Conception to prominence by the end of the century. In the first place, the century witnessed a continued increase in devotion to the Madonna, which naturally led to an increased interest in the "Conception." This interest was fostered by religious orders, most notably the Franciscans. Secondly, controversy about the doctrine between the Franciscans and the Dominicans, the two great teaching orders, contributed to its development.[i]

In 1438 the Council of Basel, no doubt responding to the upsurge of devotion to Mary, affirmed the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, but only after Papal legates and others had left the Council. Without Papal support the Council and its decrees could not become binding on the Church. Nevertheless, the concept of the Immaculate Conception had been given tremendous impetus. Nowhere did it receive greater support than in Venice.

In her study of Venetian patrons and their piety, Rona Goffen  argued that Venice itself became identified with the Immaculate Conception by the end of the Quattrocento.[ii] Besides the many churches and innumerable altars dedicated to the Madonna, churches like S. Maria dei Miracoli and S. Maria della Carita were dedicated specifically to the "Immaculata." In 1498, the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception was founded in Venice, and it worshipped at the Frari's famous Pesaro altar, itself dedicated to the Immaculate Conception.

 Two great figures played a key role in the spiritual life of Venice in the 15th century. Goffen noted the importance of the sermons of St. Bernardino of Siena, who was made a patron saint of Venice in 1470; and of Lorenzo Giustiniani, the saintly first patriarch of the Republic.

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. Nonetheless, 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.[iii]

After his death in 1453, Giustiniani’s sermons circulated widely and were finally published in Venice in 1506.

The Papacy also played a role. Francesco della Rovere, the scholarly Vicar-General of the Franciscan order, was elected Pope Sixtus IV in 1471. In the previous year he had written a treatise on the Immaculate Conception in which he had tried to reconcile the differing opinions of supporters and opponents. Subsequently, he added its Feast to the liturgy for the entire Western Church, and ordered new offices to be composed. One was even composed especially for Franciscan use.

Art followed doctrine although the doctrine was a difficult subject to render. After all, it dealt not with Mary's birth but with her conception. Early attempts in the 15th century had crudely attempted to portray an infant Mary in the womb of her own mother, Anne. By the end of the century this image, which bordered on heresy, was being replaced by a combination of three symbolic images taken from different scriptural sources.

First, there was the image of the woman crushing the serpent beneath her heel from Genesis 3:15. The Latin Vulgate gave this passage as, "inimicitias ponam inter te et mulierem et semen tuum et semen illius ipsa conteret caput tuum et tu insidiaberis calcaneo eius." "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed; she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel." This image first began to appear in the early 15th century.[iv]

Secondly, there was the image of the spouse from the Song of Songs 4:7, "Thou art all fair my love, and there is no stain in thee." In this image, the "tota pulchra es," Mary is not a Madonna holding her infant Son, but a beautiful woman standing alone and surrounded by images from the Old Testament that symbolize her purity and role. Rona Goffen noted the prevalence of this image in the devotional literature of the time especially in the “offices for the feast of the Immaculate Conception by Nogarolis and by Bernardino de Bustis.”[v]

Grimani Breviary

Finally, the image of the woman from the Book of Revelation "clothed with the sun" with "stars in her crown" and standing on the crescent moon (which would become the standard after the Reformation) began to appear. These images were rarely used alone but most often in combination. In the Grimani Breviary, named for the Venetian cardinal and art collector who was a contemporary of Giorgione's, there is a miniature of the Woman of the Apocalypse and the "tota pulchra es."[vi] Interestingly, on the facing page in the Breviary there is an image of the “Rest on the Flight into Egypt.”

Grimani Breviary

Advocates of the Immaculate Conception regarded Mary as a new Eve, whose status was the same as Eve's before the Fall. Giorgione had the audacity to portray a "nude Madonna" as Eve would have appeared before the Fall.

Addendum:  In the "Tempest" the Madonna's heel is shown over a dead section of a plant that looks like belladonna, a plant associated with witchcraft and the devil. Despite the storm in the background of the painting, the woman is clothed only in bright sunlight. Finally, no one has ever doubted her beauty. She is "all fair." ###

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[i] For a comprehensive discussion of the doctrine and the controversy surrounding it see The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception, History and Significance, ed. Edward Dennis O’Connor, University of Notre Dame Press, 1958, c. VI. See also the article on the Immaculate Conception in The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1910.

[ii]Rona Goffen,  Piety and Patronage in Renaissance Venice,  Yale, 1986, p. 154.

[iii]Goffen, op. cit.  p. 79.

[iv]For a discussion of these images see Maurice Vloberg, "The Immaculate Conception in Art," in  The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception,  University of Notre Dame Press, 1958, pp.463-507.

[v] Goffen, op. cit. p.149.

[vi]The Grimani Breviary, Levenger Press, DelRay Beach, Florida, 2007, plate 109. See also, Vloberg, op. cit.  plate XIV.

Giorgione: "La Tempesta"

In “Giorgione’s Tempest”, famed Italian art historian Salvatore Settis discussed practically every important commentary on Giorgione’s most beautiful, famous, and mysterious painting. The book was first published in 1978 but I use the 1990 English version published by the University of Chicago Press. To assist the reader Settis provided a convenient chart that listed 28 different commentators who had produced a total of 25 different interpretations of the subject.

Settis compared the painting to a jigsaw puzzle and argued that any interpretion must identify all the pieces of the puzzle and fit them easily together. In his chart he identified the pieces as the Man, the Woman, the child, the lightning, the pillars, the serpent, the city, and the bather seen only by x-ray. Actually, it would take a great deal of imagination to see a serpent, and it would probably have been better if he had used the prominent plant in front of the woman. Also, he did not include the bird on the roof in the backround as one of the pieces. Obviously, a pentimento like the bather can not be part of the completed puzzle.

Interestingly, hardly any of the commentators tried to identify all of the pieces of the puzzle, much less fit them together. Settis, himself, tried to fit them all together in his interpretation of the painting as Adam and Eve after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Perhaps this is why he saw a serpent rather than a plant root in the painting.

The Adam and Eve interpretation met the same fate as all the other interpretations mentioned in the book. It was rejected by leading scholars and has never gained wide acceptance. Since the book’s publication many other interpretations have been proposed especially after Giorgione’s fame grew immensely as the five hundredth anniversary of his death approached in 2010. In 2004 a groundbreaking exhibition jointly sponsored by the Accademia in Venice and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna produced a catalog that offered at least three competing interpretations of the Tempest. The editors of the catalog had to admit that the painting was still as mysterious as ever.

One of the interpreters listed by Settis was Robert Eisler, an outsider to the art history world. In 1935 Eisler tried to identify the subject of the painting as the discovery of the infant Paris by a shepherd and his wife. Settis described the attempts of Eisler to penetrate the world of Art History.

It is impossible not to feel a certain sympathy for this scholar (1882-1949), who never taught and never managed to publish his book New Titles for Old Pictures, part of which was devoted to Giorgione. (After Richter dated it with a reference ‘London, 1935’ it was quoted by a long line of scholars as though it were a published work!) After various adversities, one of which was a long imprisonment in Nazi camps, Eisler discovered that some of his ideas on Giorgione were beginning to circulate through Richter’s book and attempted to draw attention to this fact in a letter to the Times Literary Supplement (1946). He corrected the proofs but only a third of his letter was finally published… regarding the Tempest, while the rest, on the Three Philosophers, is still unedited… The proposition quoted here is not included in the typescript of the book, and is only formulated in the letter to the Times Literary Supplement. (The Eisler Papers are preserved in the Warburg Insitute, where I was permitted , with a customary perfect courtesy, to examine them at my leisure.*

I also feel a certain sympathy with Eisler and his efforts. Like Eisler I had a long and successful career in another field but lacked the credentials and a certain amount of scholarly expertise. I earned a PhD in History long ago in the area of eighteenth century British politics. I taught European history at a local college but left to pursue a career as a financial advisor. Only as I neared retirement in 2005 did I return to History and come upon Giorgione’s "Tempest" in an old travel book. It was primarily intuition that led me to see the painting as an idiosyncratic version of “The Rest of the Holy Family on the Flight into Egypt.”

Subsequent investigation showed that this interpretation provided an explanation for all the pieces of the puzzle and fit them together nicely. I sent my interpretation to most of the leading scholars and institutions in the field but received little response. Professor Settis was one of a handful who had the kindness and courtesy to at least respond and offer words of encouragement.

In 2006 I did send an abbreviated version of the "Tempest" essay to the Wall St. Journal for possible publication in their new weekend Masterpiece column. It was published there on May 13, 2006. Attempts to publish an expanded version in scholarly journals came to nothing. In 2010 I did read the paper in a small panel at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America held that year in Venice.

It was a nice experience but I realized that I would have to find another way to get my work out there. It was then that I decided to create my blog, Giorgione et al… The blog has been relatively successful in that I have met with and corresponded with interested parties all over the world. However, there is still a great reluctance on the part of many scholars to use the Internet. Some have told me that they won’t read anything that appears there. I can understand a certain level of concern but I imagine the same fears were present 500 years ago after the advent of the printing press.

Today marks the eighth anniversary of the publication of my initial brief explanation of the "Tempest" in the Wall St. Journal.  The editor cautiously added the sub-title, "A Renaissance Mystery Solved?" I reproduced it last year on this site. For the full essay and other papers that have flowed from the realization that the painting had a "sacred" subject, please visit my website, MyGiorgione.

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* Salvatore Settis, Giorgione's Tempest, 1990, c. 5, n. 45.

   

Giorgione: More Tempests

Giorgione’s most famous painting is called the “Tempest” because of the storm that dominates the background. Why did Giorgione use this device? Was it his own invention or did he rely on a motif common during his time? Are there other examples?

Giorgione: TheTempest

Three years after Giorgione’s untimely death in 1510, his younger associate Titian, who had worked with him on the fresco cycle on the Fondaco dei Tedeschi received a commission from the Venetian government to paint a battle scene for one of the rooms in the Ducal palace. Here is Carlo Ridolfi’s account from his biography of Titian written in the mid seventeenth century.

It was then decreed by the senate that he should paint for the Sala del Gran Consiglio the armed encounter at Cadore between the imperial troops and the Venetians. In this work, he imagined the natural site of his hometown with the castle situated above on a high mountain where the flash from a lightning bolt in the form of an arrow is suspended and misty globes in the manner of clouds are forming, mixed among the terrors of the unexpected tempest; meanwhile the battlefield is obstructed by the horrible conflict of knights and foot-soldiers, some of whom were defending with their rapiers the imperial flag, stirred by the wind and boldly moving in the air.*

Titian: Battle of Cadore (engraving)

The editors of a modern translation of Ridolfi note that Titian’s painting was begun between 1513 and 1516 but that it was only completed in 1537-8. The also point out that the painting was destroyed by fire in 1577 and that Ridolfi was confused about the subject, since the battle depicted was a legendary battle of Spoleto in which Venetian forces did not take part.

Nevertheless, either the painting was described to Ridolfi or he saw an engraving made before the fire. Despite the confusion about the subject, there seems no reason to doubt that shortly after Giorgione’s death Titian used a storm and a bolt of lightning to indicate a scene of violent death and destruction taking place below.

Joachim Patenier was another contemporary of Giorgione. In one of his many versions of the “Rest on the Flight into Egypt”, now in the Prado and dated around 1515, Patenier painted a storm in the left background above the city from which the Holy family had fled. The narrative follows their route since we see the legendary wheat field in the right mid-ground. The field is bathed in light and the sky above is blue with a couple of white clouds. The Madonna and Child sit in the foreground also bathed in bright sunlight.

Joachim Patenier: Rest on the Flight into Egypt

The stormy clouds in the background above the city indicate another scene of death and destruction. This time it is not a battle but the Massacre of the Holy Innocents. It was not uncommon to see some reference to the Massacre in versions of the flight into Egypt.

Finally, although not a painting, Pietro Aretino’s gave a very vivid image of the scene of the Crucifixion in his “Humanity of Christ.”

Meanwhile the darkness which had lasted from the sixth hour to the ninth, grew so black that it seemed day had hidden beneath the cloak of night. The clouds driving through the air and obscuring vision resembled a thousand banners of vast size arrayed against the eye of the sun. The sky itself groaned in unprecedented horror. The pallid lightning flashed. The very globe appeared about to dissolve in mist.**

Once again dark clouds interspersed with lightning cover a scene of death and destruction. Could Tintoretto have been aware of Aretino’s description?

Tintoretto: Crucifixion

Aretino’s popular religious work was written twenty five years after the death of Giorgione but the origins of his imagery can be found much earlier. In 1538 Aretino quarreled with Niccolo Franco, one of his many hangers on, and threw him out of his house. In his biography of Aretino James Cleugh printed Franco’s letter justifying his behavior.

The Aretine cannot say I am ungrateful’—he wrote to the scholar Francesco Alunno,…’for even though I admit he sometimes fed me, he cannot deny that I repaid this courtesy sevenfold by the work I did for him. Everyone knows that if it had not been for me he would not have had the skill to translate all those legends of the Holy fathers which he embroiders and passes off as his own.*** 

It would appear that many of the details in Aretino’s “Humanity of Christ” came from earlier but now forgotten popular religious works.

In each of these three examples a storm signals a tragedy going on below. I have argued that in the “Tempest” Giorgione's painted a version of the “Rest on the Flight into Egypt” where he used the storm and lightning for much the same purpose. Just as in Patinier’s painting Giorgione's Madonna and Child rest in bright sunlight while the storm rages over the city of Bethlehem in the background.

Moreover, in my interpretation I agreed with those who had argued that the city in the background of Giorgione’s painting could also be Padua during the War of the League of Cambrai. In 1509 Padua had been lost, retaken, but then besieged by Imperial forces over the summer. The storm of war was indeed over the city.

Scholars should consider looking for the source of the storm not in antiquity or humanist tracts but in popular vernacular religious stories. They might also consider the theatrical performances so popular in Italy during this time.

On a visit to her home town of Ferrara in 1503 Isabella d’Este, the famed Marchioness of Mantua, attended an elaborate dramatization at the Archbishop’s house on the occasion of the feast of the Annunciation. She wrote,

I…saw the wooden stage which had been erected for the occasion. A young Angel spoke the argument of the play, quoting the words of the Prophets who foretold the Advent of Christ, and the said Prophets appeared, speaking their prophecies translated into Italian verse. Then Mary appeared, under a portico supported by eight pillars, and began to repeat some verses from the Prophets, and while she spoke, the sky opened, revealing a figure of God the Father, surrounded by a choir of angels, and six other seraphs hovered in the air, suspended by chains. On the center of the group was the Archangel Gabriel, to whom God the Father addressed His word, and after receiving his orders, Gabriel descended with admirable artifice, and stood, half-way in the air, at the same height as the organ. Then, all of a sudden, an infinite number of lights broke out at the foot of the angel-choir, and hid them in a blaze of glory…At that moment the Angel Gabriel alighted on the ground, and the iron chain  which he held was not seen, so that he seemed to float down on a cloud, until his feet rested on the floor. After delivering his message he returned with the other angels to heaven, to the sound of singing and music and melody…when they had ascended into heaven, some scenes of the Visitation of St. Elizabeth and St. Joseph were given, in which the heavens opened again and an angel descended,…to manifest the Incarnation of Jesus to Joseph, and set his doubts to rest regarding the Conception of the Holy Virgin. So the festa ended. #

One can only imagine what special effects they might have used in celebrations of the Adoration of the Magi, or the Massacre of the Innocents.

It could also be that Giorgione and Titian were both just painting from nature. In all my years I have never heard a thunderstorm so violent and dramatic as the one I witnessed on a visit to beautiful Lake Garda a few years ago. All night long lightning flashed and thunder reverberated back and forth through the foothills of the Dolomites not far from the respective birthplaces of both Giorgione and Titian. ###

*Ridolfi, Carlo: The Life of Titian, edited by Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella, Bruce Cole, and Jody Robin Shiffman, Penn State, 1996, p. 75.This biography of Titian was part of a larger work, “Le Maraviglie dell’arte ovvero le vite degli illustri pittori veneti e dello stato,” originally printed in 1648.

**Quoted in Cleugh, James: The Divine Aretino, NY, 1966, p. 196-7.

***Cleugh, p. 174.

# Cartwright, Julia, Isabella D’Este, Marchioness of Mantua, 1474-1539, London, 1932, v.1, p. 251.

Giorgione's Tempest: A Renaissance Mystery Solved?

In the Fall of 2005 while preparing for a trip to Venice I looked into Edward Hutton’s nearly century old travel book, “Venice and Venetia,” and saw a reproduction of Giorgione’s “Tempest” for the first time. I had been a fan of Hutton’s for some years but was surprised to see his effusive praise for Giorgione—someone I had never heard of. Even though Hutton hardly ventured a guess at the subject of the painting, I had an intuition that I was looking at the Holy Family in a landscape.

I began to look into the matter and soon discovered that despite many different interpretations, there was no agreement on the subject of the “Tempest.” Even though I was still involved very heavily in my financial planning practice, I put together a little essay and naively sent it off to the sponsors of the ground-breaking 2004 Giorgione exhibition, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and the Accademia in Venice. I never heard from the latter but a staff member of the KHM had the courtesy to reply even though she insisted that she could never agree that the painting represented a sacred subject. She did, however, offer a number of objections that forced me to look deeper.

At about the same time the Wall Street Journal had begun to publish a Saturday edition that included a weekly art column entitled “Masterpiece.” Thinking it would be an appropriate venue, I sent the paper to them and a few months later, they decided to print a shortened version.

Below, on the 5th anniversary of its publication, find my “Tempest” interpretation as it appeared in the WSJ on May 13, 2006 entitled, “A Renaissance Mystery Solved?” The most recent version can be found on my website.

"Giorgione "La Tempesta": A Renaissance Mystery Solved?"

No great work of art has mystified art historians and critics more than Giorgione’s “Tempesta,” one of a handful of paintings definitively attributed to the Venetian Renaissance master. After his untimely death in 1510 of the plague at about the age of 30, most of his paintings were either lost or completed by others, especially his colleague, Titian.

Although little is known of his life, Giorgione was apparently apprenticed to the great Giovanni Bellini at the outset of his career, and certainly was a major influence on Titian. In June the National Gallery in Washington will be hosting a Bellini, Giorgione, Titian exhibition.

While the “Tempesta” is universally admired as a pioneering work of landscape art because of its dramatic use of color and shadow, art historians have not been able to agree on the subject matter of this masterpiece of the High Renaissance. More than the painting itself, it was the mystery about its subject matter that first attracted me to it, and which prompted a trip to Venice last year.

This relatively small painting (82x73cm.) currently hangs in the Accademia in Venice. Over a hundred years ago my favorite travel author, Edward Hutton, described it as “a delicious landscape of green and shady valley, of stream and ruin and towering country town.” The town is visible in the background and above it, clouds and a flash of lightning indicate that a storm is raging. In the middle distance, separated from the town by a bridge, are overgrown ruins and two broken columns. In a glade in the foreground, a nude woman nursing an infant sits on the right, while on the left, a young man dressed in contemporary Venetian clothing holds a long staff.

Although never named by Giorgione himself, the painting is usually called “La Tempesta” because of the storm. Sometimes it is called “The Soldier and the Gypsy,” even though critics have pointed out that the man is not a soldier and the nude woman is not a gypsy.

One tends to accept works of art at face value, particularly when they are as famous as this one. But one question struck me: Why is the woman nude? Other than a white cloth draped around her shoulder, there is no sign of any clothing. After all, it isn’t necessary for a woman to completely undress to nurse a baby. I believe that if the nursing woman were clothed, the subject would be immediately recognizable for what it is: a “Flight of the Holy Family into Egypt.”

The “Flight” is a common subject in the history of art. It illustrates a passage from the Gospel of St. Matthew in which Jesus, Mary and Joseph, escaping from the deadly designs of King Herod, find an idyllic rest stop upon arrival in Egypt. Giorgione’s painting has all the elements common to a “Flight” image: Mary holding or nursing the baby Jesus; Joseph standing off to the side or in the background; a town in the distance; and ruins.

Why ruins? Emile Male, the great French art historian, pointed out that it was common for medieval artists to draw on the legend of the “Fall of Idols” when painting the “Flight.” According to it, when the infant Jesus entered Egypt, all the idols crumbled. Artists commonly used broken columns to represent this episode.

Giorgione was a master of artistic narrative. In this painting the Holy Family has left Judea and its dangers, symbolized by the storm, behind. They have crossed the bridge and stream representing the border between Judea and Egypt. They have entered Egypt and the idols, symbolized by the broken columns, lie broken behind them. We notice that the tempest is raging in the distance. The glade in which they rest is serene. Now they rest in safety.

It is only the depiction of the man and the woman that has deterred experts from recognizing this painting as the ”Flight into Egypt.” Joseph is usually portrayed as an old man by Medieval artists. Nevertheless, in the 15th century he began to be depicted as a young, virile carpenter. In Raphael’s depiction of the marriage of Joseph and Mary, the ”Sposalizio,” Joseph appears to be about the same age as Giorgione’s man. Italians especially found it unseemly to show Mary being married to an old man.

But why the nude Madonna? The explanation lies in the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, a doctrine of which every Venetian would have been aware. Simply put it was the belief that Mary from the first moment of her existence had been created free from the stain of original sin which every other descendant of Adam and Eve had inherited.

The concept of Mary’s Immaculate Conception had been vigorously debated by theologians during the previous 250 years. The great advocates of the doctrine were the Franciscans; whose center in Venice, the “Frari” became a virtual shrine to the Immaculate Conception. Special impetus to the belief had been given by Pope Sixtus IV, himself a Franciscan, in 1476 when he added the feast of the Conception to the liturgy of the entire Western Church.

Theologians called Mary the new or second Eve. Artists had difficulty in expressing this increasingly popular doctrine. By Giorgione’s time they had not yet come up with the now familiar image of the “Woman Clothed with the Sun” from the Book of Revelation. Giorgione had the unprecedented audacity to portray a nude Madonna as Eve would have appeared in the Garden of Eden before the Fall.

Nothing is in Giorgione’s painting by accident. The white cloth on which the Madonna sits is a symbol of the winding sheet or burial cloth of Christ. Franciscans regarded Mary as the altar on which the Eucharist rested. The altar was always covered with a white cloth.

Finally, in front of the Madonna a scraggly bush rises out of bare rock. Artists frequently used plants or flowers symbolically to identify characters. From the way it is growing, the plant could be a member of the nightshade family, a common plant found in Italy at the time. The most well known form of nightshade is the aptly named “belladonna.” This plant is associated with witchcraft and the Devil. Is that why the plant below the heel of the Woman has withered and died?

Francis P. DeStefano

5/13/2006

Titian: Vendramin Family

Titian's depiction of Gabriele Vendramin and his brother Andrea venerating (along with Andrea's seven children) a relic of the True Cross is as much a primary source for the owner of Giorgione's "Tempesta" as any written document. Scholars are unsure which of the two men is Gabriele but nevertheless, he must have made it clear to Titian that he wanted to be depicted in an attitude of religious devotion.


In 1530 Marcantonio Michiel saw the Tempesta in the “portego” or Salon of Gabriele Vendramin. It is the first historical reference to the painting. In his notes Michiel described the Tempesta in this way.

“ The little landscape on canvas, representing stormy weather and a gipsy woman with a soldier, is by Giorgio di Castelfranco.”

We cannot be certain that Vendramin initially commissioned the painting although a strong case can be made. I believe that it is more likely that he acquired it as he did other works of art by trade or purchase, perhaps after the death of the original owner. (See previous blog entry for "the Discovery of Paris" Sept. 13, 2010.) We do know that he prized his collection highly and insisted that it not be broken up or sold.

However, other than the portraits listed in the inventory below, all of Vendramin's other paintings are of sacred subjects. Right after the “Tempesta” entry, note the description of a version of a Flight into Egypt by Jan Scorel of Holland.

Michiel’s notes were originally discovered in the early 19th century without an indication of the author. That is why the initial publication of the notes attributed them to the “anonimo.” The English translation of 1903 has recently been reissued in paperback. References below are to the page numbers in the paperback.

The Anonimo: Notes on Pictures and Works of Art in Italy Made by an Anonymous Writer in the Sixteenth Century, translated by Paolo Mussi, edited by George C. Williamson, London, 1903.

In the House of Messer Gabrieli Vendramino: 1530.

122. The portrait of the same Messer Gabriel in half length, life size, in oil, on canvas, was painted by Giovannini del Comandador. The gold foliage decoration all around it was executed by the Priest Vido Celere.

123. The little landscape on canvas, representing stormy weather and a gipsy woman with a soldier, is by Giorgio di Castelfranco.

The picture representing Our Lady with St. Joseph in the desert, is by John Scorel of Holland.

The dead Christ in the Sepulchre, with the Angel supporting Him, is by Giorgio di Castelfranco, but was repainted by Titian.

The three small portraits in tempera, one representing Messer Filippo Vendramino in a three-quarter view, and the others two young gentlemen in profile, are by Giovanni Bellini.

The small oil picture on panel representing St. Anthony, with the portrait of Messer Antonio Siciliano in full length, is by…a Flemish master, and it is an excellent work, specially in the painting of the heads.

124. The small oil picture on panel representing Our Lady standing up, crowned, with the Child in her arms, in a Flemish church, is by Roger of Bruges, and is a perfect work.

The portrait of Francesco Zanco Bravo, in chiaroscuro, with black ink, is by Giacometto.

The large book of drawings, executed with a lead pencil on bombasin paper, is the work of Jacopo Bellini….

The two drawings in pen-and-ink, the one on vellum containing the history of Attila, and the other on bombasin paper representing the Nativity, are by Raphael.

Note: Even the abovementioned “history of Attila” deals with St, Peter and St. Paul.

Manchester Madonna

In my interpretation of Giorgione's La Tempesta as the "Rest on the Flight into Egypt," I admitted that the great difficulty was the nude woman. A "nude" Madonna is, as one scholar said, "unimaginable." Even though I argued that Giorgione stretched the envelope further than anyone else, there is evidence that the imagination of another great artist might have been moving in the same direction.




The contract for Michelangelo’s famous Pieta has strange wording which is usually overlooked.

“che ci faccia una pietra di marmo, cioe una Vergine Maria vestita con Christo morto, nudo in braccio, per ponere in una certa Capella.”

The strange wording is “Vergine Maria vestita.” Why would the contract call for a “dressed” or “clothed” Virgin Mary? Wouldn’t that go without saying? In 1497 was the young Michelangelo considering a “nude” Madonna for the Pieta?

It seems unimaginable but then there is the unfinished "Manchester Madonna" in the National Gallery in London. The Painting is a depiction of the return from the flight into Egypt since Mary and her Child have met up with the young John the Baptist who announces the mission of Christ.

Some have doubted the attribution to Michelangelo but it would appear that most scholars today accept it, Nevertheless, Augusto Gentili argued that the Michelangelo attribution is difficult precisely because of the Madonna’s exposed breast. Here is his description of the "Manchester Madonna".

“The general theme is the announcement of the Passion…In this context, it is entirely implausible that Mary should expose her breast, and even more implausible that she should expose it in such a way, having apparently snatched it abruptly from within her robe. Those wishing to support the controversial attribution to Michelangelo must take these disturbing anomalies into account.” P. 154.

"Painting in the National Gallery London," Augusto Gentili, William Barcham, Linda Whitely, Boston, New York, London, 2000.

What could have prompted Michelangelo to consider this dissheveled Madonna?

Giorgione: The Tempest

Below is an abstract of a paper delivered in April, 2010 at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America in Venice. Subsequently, the paper was also delivered at the 2011 annual meeting of the South Central Renaissance Conference in St. Louis. The paper itself can be found on my website, MyGiorgione by using the link on the right.

Giorgione: The Tempest

Abstract:This paper identifies the subject of Giorgione’s "Tempest" as "The Rest on the Flight into Egypt." This interpretation is the only one that identifies all the major elements in the painting. The nude woman nursing an infant is the Madonna. The man standing at the left functioning as an “interlocutor” is St. Joseph with his staff. The broken columns featured so prominently are commonplace in depictions of the rest on the Flight into Egypt. The city in the background is Judea from where the Holy Family has fled but could also be equated with Padua during the Cambrai war. The scraggly plant in the foreground is identified as a “belladonna” a plant associated with witchcraft and the Devil. No other interpretation of this painting has even attempted to identify the plant.

The great difficulties of this interpretation, the “nude Madonna” and the “young” Joseph are dealt with in the paper. The nude Madonna is Giorgione’s idiosyncratic way of depicting the concept of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, a doctrine of great importance at this time, especially in Venice. If the association with the War of Cambrai is correct, this interpretation dates the painting in 1509, a year before Giorgione’s death.

The paper also does discuss the relevance to the “Tempest” of a heretofore misidentified copy by David Teniers of a “lost” Giorgione. This painting is usually identified as “The “Discovery of Paris,” but it is actually Giorgione’s depiction of an apocryphal episode on the Flight of the Holy Family into Egypt which I call "The Encounter with the Robbers on the Flight into Egypt."

David Teniers; Copy of a lost Giorgione

My research on the "Tempest" has led to a number of other discoveries. For example:

1. The Giorgione painting in the Pitti Palace sometimes called the "Three Ages of Man" can now be identified as "The Encounter of Jesus with the Rich Young Man." See the  essay on MyGiorgione.

Giorgione: Three Ages of Man

2. A painting attributed to Palma Vecchio that is now in storage in the Philadelphia Museum bears a marked resemblance to the "Tempest," but it has usually been identified simply as "Allegory." This painting is now identified as "the Encounter of the Holy Family with the Infant John the Baptist on the Return from Egypt. See blog post dated November 21, 2010.

Palma Vecchio: Allegory

3. Titian's famous painting the "Sacred and Profane Love" is now identified as "The Conversion of Mary Magdalen." This paper was presented at the annual meeting of the South Central Renaissance Conference held in 2012 in New Orleans. See the full paper at My Giorgione. http://www.giorgionetempesta.com.

Titian: Sacred and Profane Love

4. The "Pastoral Concert" that now hangs in the Louvre has been variously attributed to Giorgione and Titian. Not only do I agree with those who attribute it to Titian but I also believe that it is Titian's "Homage to the Recently Deceased Giorgione." All the Giorgionesque elements in the painting were Titian's way of honoring his deceased friend. For the full paper see MyGiorgione. 

Titian: Pastoral Concert

Dr. Francis P. DeStefano holds a PhD in History from Fordham University but he is not associated with any educational institution. Although early in his career he taught History at a university in Fairfield, CT, he left teaching to build a financial planning practice. He retired in 2008 and now devotes himself to writing and lecturing on History, especially Art History.

Dr. DeStefano currently resides in Fairfield, Ct. His email address is drdestefano@mac.com.