Art in Tuscany | Giovanni di Paolo | The Malavolti altarpiece

Giovanni di Paolo | The Malavolti altarpiece

The city-state of Siena, a large Italian hill town some 70km south of Florence, had its golden age in the early trecentro under the artistic genius of Duccio (c.1260–1319) and Simone Martini (c.1285–1344). They developed a rich courtly style dependent on a dancing line rather than the naturalistic concerns of Florentine painters such as Giotto. Giovanni di Paolo’s altarpieces payed homage to this legacy, to which he was bound by a continuous workshop tradition. The artist seems to have been enormously popular in his own lifetime and over two hundred generally-accepted autograph works survive.[1]

Giovanni di Paolo was an independent artist who managed to thrive in a Siena which was on the one hand conservative and on the other responsive to such inventive minds as Sassetta and the Osservanza Master. Like these artists, Giovanni di Paolo had remarkable narrative gifts as an artist as is clear from such masterpieces as The Life of John the Baptist (Art Institute of Chicago), The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden (Robert Lehman Collection, Metropolitan Museum, New York) and the Paradise (Metropolitan Museum, New York). His early training seems to have included contact with Lombard artists (his earliest patron was the Lombard Anna Castiglione a relative of Cardinal Castiglione Branda, patron of Vecchietta) and probably French artists too. He could, for example, have known the Limbourg brothers, the Franco-Flemish illuminators who were in Siena in 1413. Certainly the nervous, staccato quality of line that distinguishes his work from that of his Sienese contemporaries betrays an assimilation of Lombard and French Gothic forms. By the mid 1420s Giovanni di Paolo's career was flourishing and from that period come the Pecci and Branchini altarpieces (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena and Norton Simon Museum, San Marino) which both show the influence of Gentile da Fabriano who had painted a (now lost) altarpiece in 1425/6 for the Sienese Notaries Guild.

The original Malavolti polyptych is Giovanni’s earliest known altarpiece, painted in 1426 when he was twenty-three, for the large church of San Domenico in Siena. Throughout his career he worked for the Dominican Order and its austerity may have encouraged his lifelong path toward an ever more mystical expressionism. This early masterpieces by Giovanni di Paolo was originally part of an altarpiece in the chapel of the Malavolti family in the church of San Domenico in Siena. The main altar panel, dated 1426 and depicting the Virgin and Child flanked by saints, is in Italy. The predella panels show, chronologically, the Resurrection of Lazarus, the Way to Calvary, the Descent from the Cross, and the Entombment. Originally, an image of the Crucifixion (now in Germany) would have been in the center. Throughout his career, Giovanni di Paolo referred to the pictorial tradition of his native Siena that was rooted in Byzantine art and is characterized by, in particular, the gold ground and the stylized rock formations. In this altarpiece, its intact state rare for works from this period, the enthroned Virgin Mary, surrounded by angels, holds up the Christ Child to be worshiped. A monk, probably the donor of the painting, kneels below in prayer. The central panel is flanked by two side panels depicting the bishop St. Nicholas of Bari on the left and St. Galganus on the right. The latter is being instructed by the archangel Gabriel where to build his hermitage on Mount Siepi (in central Italy), and he thrusts his sword into the rock. St. Dominic, above, and St. Bartholomew, below, are represented on the left panel, and on the right panel is St. Francis of Assisi above St. John the Baptist. In the three pinnacles, Christ is framed by the archangel Gabriel and the Virgin of the Annunciation. The original Malavolti polyptych is Giovanni’s earliest known altarpiece, painted in 1426 when he was twenty-three, for the large church of San Domenico in Siena. Throughout his career he worked for the Dominican Order and its austerity may have encouraged his lifelong path toward an ever more mystical expressionism. In The Entombment, the shadow points up Nicodemus as the key figure who gave up his tomb for the burial of Jesus. This unusual act of charity may be a reflection of the Malavolti family’s commission of the altarpiece, and their relationship to the mendicant order. five predella panels from the Malavolti family altarpiece. Four are in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. The fifth and central panel, which I have seen only in black and white reproduction, The Crucifixion, is in the Lindenau Museum in Altenburg in Germany.




Giovanni di Paolo, The Resurrection of Lazarus, 1426, tempera and gold leaf on panel, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore
The Resurrection of Lazarus This is one of four early masterpieces by Giovanni di Paolo in the Walters. It was originally part of a predella (paintings on the base of an altarpiece) in the chapel of the Malavolti family in the church of San Domenico in Siena. The main altar panel, dated 1426 and depicting the Virgin and Child flanked by saints, is in Italy. The predella panels show, chronologically, the Resurrection of Lazarus, the Way to Calvary, the Descent from the Cross, and the Entombment. Originally, an image of the Crucifixion (now in Germany) would have been in the center. The resurrection of Lazarus was considered a model for the Resurrection of Christ, and the first panel thereby indicates what will happen after the Entombment. The scenes from Christ's Passion emphasize his humanity through his sufferings. The panels demonstrate Giovanni di Paolo's mastery of multi-figured, dramatic narrative scenes executed in the late-Gothic style. The agitated figures reveal extreme emotional states-from the onlookers overwhelmed by the stench from Lazarus's tomb to the desperate sorrow of the participants of the Passion scenes. Throughout his career, Giovanni di Paolo referred to the pictorial tradition of his native Siena that was rooted in Byzantine art and is characterized by, in particular, the gold ground and the stylized rock formations.(4)


Giovanni di Paolo, The Way to Calvary, 1426, tempera and gold leaf on panel, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore



Giovanni di Paolo, Crucifixion, 1426, tempera and gold leaf on panel, Altenburg, Lindenau Museum



Giovanni di Paolo, The Descent from the Cross, 1426, tempera and gold leaf on panel, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore


Giovanni di Paolo, The Entombment, 1426, tempera and gold leaf on panel, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore
In The Entombment, the shadow points up Nicodemus as the key figure who gave up his tomb for the burial of Jesus. This unusual act of charity may be a reflection of the Malavolti family’s commission of the altarpiece, and their relationship to the mendicant order.

[1] Biography Giovanni di Paolo – also known as Giovanni di Paolo di Grazia – was born in Siena, probably towards the end of the fourteenth century. Although his training is not recorded, it is likely that he had early Lombard patrons, and was influenced by Lombardian book illumination. His first recorded commission was in 1417 for a Book of Hours, and Giovanni executed both illuminations and panel paintings throughout his career. In 1420 he was paid for two important, now untraced, paintings for the convent at San Domenico and for the monastery of St Marta in Siena. The first work securely attributed to him is the Triumph of Venus 1421 (Louvre, Paris). In the early 1420s Giovanni painted four altarpieces for San Domenico, Siena. The panel with Christ suffering and triumphant (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena) is probably from the first. The other polyptychs – the Pecci altarpiece 1426, the Branchini altarpiece 1427, and the Guelfi altarpiece 1445 – are now dispersed. In the Pecci altarpiece, Giovanni adhered to the Late Gothic tradition, with its sinuous lines and decorative details, while the Branchini altar shows the influence of Gentile da Fabriano. Giovanni joined the Sienese painters’ guild, the Ruolo dei pittori, in 1428, and became its rettore in 1441. In 1436, he produced the predella of the Fondi Altarpiece for San Francesco, Siena, and the Madonna della Misericordia, for the Servite church, Siena. In the period 1438–44 Giovanni created sixty-one miniatures of the Paradisoto illustrate Dante’s Divine Comedy (British Museum, London). In 1440 he painted the Crucifixion for the church of the Osservanza, Siena (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena). In the mid-1440s Giovanni collaborated with Sano di Pietro on a panel (untraced) for the Compagnia di S Francesco. He also produced his only fresco, the Crucifixion, in the hermitage of St Leonardo al Lago, and the Antiphonal made for the Augustinian monks at Lecceto (Biblioteca Communale degli Intronati, Siena). Two masterpieces of 15th-century Sienese art, Giovanni’s Paradise c.1445 and the Creation and the Expulsion from Paradise c.1445 (both Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), are generally held to have been part of the Guelfi altarpiece, the last painted for San Domenico. From the 1440s Giovanni created numerous fine, artistically mature works, many of which are dated. He returned to earlier themes, devising new and innovative solutions. He also depicted subjects rarely treated in Sienese art, including scenes from the lives of Sts Catherine of Siena, Ansanus, John the Baptist, Clare and Galganus. In 1445 and a decade later he painted two versions of the Coronation of the Virgin (S Andrea, Siena and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). Between 1447 and 1449 Giovanni executed an important altarpiece for the church of Sta Maria della Scala, Siena, now dispersed. In the 1450s his style showed more clearly defined volumes and spatial relations, features which are evident in the architectural backgrounds of his most ambitious narrative cycle, the scenes from the Life of St John the Baptist. The St Nicholas altarpiece 1453 (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena) shows a close adherence to the style of Sassetta, an interest which proved fertile and around 1450–55 led to the production of some of his greatest works, including the altarpiece the Virgin and Child with SS Peter Damian, Thomas, Clare and Ursula(Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena) and perhaps four predella panels with scenes from the Life of St Clare(various collections). The altarpiece which Giovanni produced in 1463, for Pius II’s new cathedral in Pienza, remains in situ. His last works are the predella of the San Galgano Altarpiece, c.1470 and the altarpiece for San Silvestro di Staggia, once signed and dated 1475 (both Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena). From the Sienese quarter known as the Poggio dei Malavolti, near Sant-Agostino, Giovanni di Paolo made his will and died in 1482. [biographical information sourced from Giovanna Damiani, ‘Jacopo di Cione’ in The Grove Dictionary of Art Online, L Macy (ed), (accessed August 2002), http://www.groveart.com] [2] Giovanni di Paolo and the Sienese tradition offer alternate models to the clichés of the Western realist tradition. The reevaluation of the Sienese achievements began with the cultural diversity of Modernism. John Pope- Hennessy first made the connection between the irrational mysticism of Giovanni and contemporary surrealism of the thirties. [3] Art in Tuscany \| Sienese Biccherna Covers \| Biccherne Senesi [4] Source: art.thewalters.org
Giovanni di Paolo, Crucifixion with donor Jacopo di Bartolomeo \| National Gallery of Australia, Canberra \| www.nga.gov.au Lucina Ward, and drawing on J. Pope-Hennessy, ‘A Crucifixion by Giovanni di Paolo’ in Art and Australia, vol.16, 1978, pp.66–67. Lindenau-Museum Altenburg \| Early Italian panel paintings \| www.lindenau-museum.de The international standing of the Lindenau Museum is built on its collection of some 180 early Italian paintings, one of the largest in Europe outside the country of origin, Italy. An extraordinary and not very well known collection consisting mainly of Italian Gothic and Renaissance paintings was gathered during the first half of the 19th century in Turingia, in the small city of Altenburg by an art enthusiast, baron Bernhard August von Lindenau (1779-1854), who then donated the collection to his city. Few other museums all over the world can boast such a rich and precious collection of works of Sienese artists like the one in Altenburg, which has paintings of notable interest, both for their artistic quality and because often they are lost pieces of a large mosaic which make it possible to reconstruct the large altar paintings anciently dismantled and dispersed but able to clarify lesser known aspects on the pictorial production of Siena between the 13th and 14th century. The museum’s founder, Bernhard von Lindenau, was fascinated by the naive simplicity and the brittle charm of these precious devotional pictures and altar pieces, painted with tempera on wood. Panels from Siena and Florence are particularly well represented in the collection. Following Lindenau's tradition, the pictures in the gallery are arranged according to schools. The oldest panels date from the 13th Century and were probably painted by Guido da Siena. There follow the Siena masters of the 14th Century, such as Pietro Lorenzetti, Lippo Memmi, and of the 15th Century, Giovanni di Paolo, Sano di Pietro, each of whom is represented with several panels. The Florentine school includes panels by Bernardo Daddi, Lorenzo Monaco, Masaccio, Filippo Lippi, Fra Angelico, and Sandro Botticelli with what is presumably the best known work in the collection, a portrait of a noblewoman (Caterina Sforza) as a saint. The last group comprises Umbrian and Northern Italian painters, including artists such as Luca Signorelli, Pietro Perugino and Marco Zoppo. Museum on Exhibition exhibition website: www.rinascimentosiena.it http://www.rinascimento.terresiena.it/renaissance/arti_siena_primo_rinascimento_mostra.en.html
Hidden away from mass-tourism, discover a piece of Italy which remained largely unchanged both nature and lifestyle-wise. The peacefulness of the countryside, the various unique villages and the friendly atmosphere will no doubt pleasantly surprise you. Secret treasures in southern Tuscany \| Podere Santa Pia
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Podere Santa Pia	Podere Santa Pia, garden view, April	Pienza

The towers of San Gimignano	Montalcino	Siena, Duomo