A history of Italian tiles - Infotile

figure B
artistic were, in part, such that as
the population fell demand for labour
stabilised and inflation became
minimal, which led to increased wages
and a broader based social prosperity.
Naturally, art historians have sought a
link between this devastating event
and ensuing artistic developments.
Two theories that have emerged in
the last few decades deserve some
attention. The first presents the theory
that the plague and the social chaos
that followed resulted in a rejection of
the avant-garde naturalism of Giotto
and his disciples in the early 14th
century and a return to an earlier, more
traditional form, exhibiting spiritual,
iconic images. However, another
historian has argued that the increase
in conventional pictorial styles could be
explained by the expanding market for
devotional artwork sought by emerging
social groups who had hitherto been
unable to afford them or disinclined to
want them. Consequently workshop
production became more organised
and sophisticated, but as prices fell
so too did the quality. Only during the
early part of the quarttrocento did a
smaller or more discriminating group of
patrons express a taste for expensive
and innovative works of art.
Perhaps the most definitive portrait we
have of a member of this emergent
social group is provided by the letters
figure C
figure C. Hexagonal maiolica floor
tile, circa 1465, from the
duomo at capua. it shows
a craftsman at work.
of the wealthy 14th century merchant
Francesco Datini, published in The
Merchant of Prato by Iris Origo. In
1358 Datini, who had planned his
house for many years, bought land in
Prato, but progress was very slow. It
was 1388 before the upstairs loggia
was nearing completion. By summer
the inner walls were plastered and the
brick floors were being laid.
An inventory drawn up in 1407
described it as “a large and handsome
house... with a court and loggia and a
cellar, all painted and fine,” and set its
value at 1,000 florims. All Francesco’s
downstairs rooms had vaulted ceilings
- some of them painted - and “brick
floors, carefully polished and waxed.”
In this period the division between
what we class the fine arts and the
decorative arts did not exist. If anything
the latter took precedence over the
former and to draw a firm distinction
between artists and artisans, or
between high art and craft, will miss
the true nature of both. For example,
we now know that Sandro Botticelli’s
painting of the ‘Primavera’ was once
part of a freestanding or day-bed.
At about this point Bodkin returns
to the issue of a reaction to Giotto’s
naturalism which he had noticed well
before it was developed into a theory.
He points out that in Naples and
the north, where Giotto also worked,
there was no discernable shift. Indeed
his admiration for Giotto seems only
slightly less than Vasari’s, whom he
quotes here. “In my opinion painters
owe to Giotto... exactly the same debt
they owe to nature, which constantly
serves them as a model and whose
finest and most beautiful aspects
they are always striving to imitate and
reproduce.”
Giotto (1266/7-1337) was apprenticed
to Cimabue (1240-1302) and together
they paved the way for the painters of
the Rinascimento. As Vasari puts it, “In
this work [the fresco for the hospital
of the Porcellana] Cimabue broke
decisively with the dead tradition of
the Greeks, for whereas their paintings
and mosaics were covered with heavy
lines and contours, his draperies,
vestments and other accessories were
somewhat softer and more realistic
and flowing.”
In transactions with the artists who
painted his house, we see Datini to
be impatient and exacting and miserly
when it came to pay. Almost all the
orders for pictures from his branch
office in Avignon specify the precise
measurement required; the price of a
picture largely depending on its actual
size, and on the quality of the colours
used.
Figure B. the sienese she-wolf
surrounded by the
symbols of the allied
cities completed
originally in 1373 in
marble mosaic it was
recomposed by leopoldo
maccari in 1864-65. it
graces the floor of the
nave in the cathedral
of siena. the work
symbolises the heritage
of rome, and the ancient
cities of etruria which
are each depicted by a
specific creature.
Giotto was the greater of the two
painters and eventually his reputation
brought him to the attention of Pope
Benedict IX, who ordered him “to
decorate the interior of St Peter’s.
First Giotto painted in fresco an angel
fourteen feet high... The Navicella
mosaic above the three doors of
the portico in the courtyard of St
Peter’s is also by Giotto; this is a
really miraculous work, rightly praised
by all discerning minds because of
the excellence of the drawing and
the grouping of the apostles who in
various attitudes strain to guide their
boat through the raging sea while the
wind fills a sail which seems to be
in such high relief that it looks real.
I must have been extremely difficult
to achieve with pieces of glass the
harmonious composition shown in the
lights and shadows of the great sail;
even a painter working deftly with his