Giovanni di Paolo_ The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 46 ..

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Four figures of female saints at the Metropolitan also datefrom this or from a rather later time. They represent SaintsCatherine of Alexandria, Barbara, Agatha, and Margaret,and each is accompanied by her emblem (figs. 48-5 I).Saint Catherine holds a section of a wheel and the handleby which it was rotated, Saint Barbara a rectangular tower,Saint Agatha a dish containing her breasts and the instrumentwith which they were cut off, and Saint Margaret hasa dragon at her feet. Two more panels from the series recentlyreappeared in a private collection; they show theMagdalene and Saint Agnes with her lamb (figs. 52, 53).Three of the saints face to the right and three to the left, sothey must originally have formed the left and right pilastersof an altarpiece. The six saints are shown standing on amarbled floor, and from their positions on the pavement wecan infer that Saints Barbara and Agatha were at the top,with Saints Catherine and Margaret under them and SaintsMary Magdalene and Agnes at the bottom of the two pilasters.A number of small altarpieces in the form of triptychswith pilasters at the sides were produced by Giovanni diPaolo in the last two decades of his life, and it is from oneof these that the present panels must come. The haloes areshown in perspective, as they are in two much coarser pilastersin the Siena Pinacoteca. Perspective haloes tooled likethe haloes of the six saints appear only in one large panel, abeautiful Nativity in the Kereszteny Museum, Esztergom,Hungary, and it is very possible that this painting (fig. 54),two panels at Avignon that are associable with it, andthe pilaster panels formed part of a single altarpiece.Painting in Siena in the fifteenth century was subject tothe simple law of supply and demand. The norm is suppliedby that little-studied artist Sano di Pietro, whose workmerits reconsideration not so much from an artistic as froma socio-historical point of view (fig. 55). His simple uninflectedpaintings must in the fifteenth century have beenfound in practically every house. We know almost nothingabout his studio, but it was evidently very fully staffed andseems indeed to have been the place where most of thepainters of the later fifteenth century, including Neroccio,Matteo di Giovanni, and Benvenuto di Giovanni, receivedtheir early training. It would be generally agreed that Sano'scolossal productivity was made possible by the use of modelsor pattern books in which clients could select the typeof composition they preferred-whether in a Madonna andChild the Child's head was to be partially concealed behindthe Virgin's cheek or whether the Virgin's cheek was to bebroken by the circle of the Child's head, whether the Childshould look into or out of the picture space, and how manyangels were to be included and which conventional saints.It was a placid art in which the dominant factor was theillustrative content of the painting and in which experimentwas rigorously eschewed.54. Giovanni di Paolo. The Nativity. Kereszteny Museum, Esztergom,Hungary39
Page 1 and 2: ,. < { K~~TheMetropolitan Museum of
Page 3 and 4: JOHNPOPE-HENNESSYI_IGIOVANNI DI PAO
Page 5 and 6: Director'sNoteIn 1937 the London pu
Page 7 and 8: RELATIONSHIPS WITH ARTISTS of the p
Page 9 and 10: exiled from Athens, is crushed bene
Page 11 and 12: 6(I I I ''88) 888I 'sjaqiLJg ijapno
Page 13 and 14: by the operaio, the sculptor Jacopo
Page 15 and 16: I 5. Gentile da Fabriano. The Prese
Page 17 and 18: I7. Giovanni di Paolo. The Creation
Page 19 and 20: I9. Fra Angelico ( 387-I455). The L
Page 21 and 22: 2 . Giovanni di Paolo. The Baptist
Page 23 and 24: 25. Giovanni di Paolo. TheAngel Gab
Page 25 and 26: but about I440 it reappears in the
Page 28 and 29: 2633. Giovanni di Paolo. The Miracu
Page 30 and 31: 35. Giovanni di Paolo. SaintJohn th
Page 32 and 33: 38. Giovanni di Paolo. The Adoratio
Page 34 and 35: 3240. Giovanni di Paolo. Saint Ambr
Page 36 and 37: 45. Giovanni di Paolo. SaintJerome
Page 38 and 39: 3648-5 I. Giovanni di Paolo. Four S
Page 42 and 43: 55. Sano di Pietro (I406-I48I). Mad
Page 44 and 45: 57. Giovanni di Paolo. The Crucifix
Page 46 and 47: 446 3. Giovanni di Paolo. The Coron
Page 48 and 49: 66. Giovanni di Paolo. Pieta. Priva
Page 50 and 51: NOTESPhotography of Robert Lehman C
Page 52: N1>~~~~~~~~i.~~~~~~~~~~~~~7-__U, LL

Giovanni di Paolo_ The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 46 ..

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