Icon and Vision: Giovanni Bellini's Half-Length Madonnas

Author(s): Rona Goffen

Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Dec., 1975), pp. 487-518
Published by: College Art Association
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 487

Icon and Vision: Giovanni Bellini's Half-Length

Madonnas*
Rona Goffen

I. Giovanni Bellini in Context
Venice and the Byzantine East
Giovanni Bellini's half-length Madonnas, produced for
private devotion throughout his long career, embody in
microcosm the stylistic development of Venetian painting
from the Early to the High Renaissance. Since Bellini's
working years spanned approximately six decades, such
changes in style are understandable. In iconography and in
composition, however, his paintings of the Madonna remain
remarkably constant. As a group, they share certain formal
characteristics: Mary is typically seen in a frontal position,
alone with her son, in half-length behind a parapet. Only
in Bellini's imagery, compared with that of his contem-
poraries, is the isolation so intense, even severe. His awesome
simplicity, his renunciation of the traditional means of
of course the cause of the greatest flight westward, but even
before that time the Greek community in Venice constituted
one of the city's largest foreign groups, and of these it was
the most important politically, economically, and intel-
lectually. In 1456, Greeks were given permission to worship
in the Latin churches by Senate decree, and in 1514 the
community won the right to build its own church and
cemetery.3
Venetian tolerance of Greek custom, although surely
inspired by practical motives, may also have been related
to a special identification of the Byzantine with the
sacred, despite the city's own adherence to the Church of
Rome. This religious association is rooted in earliest
Venetian history. The cult of the first patron saint of the
republic, St. Theodore, was of Greek derivation. Also
in the tradition of the Eastern Christians was the Venetian

pictorial enrichment, of the anecdotal and the decorative,
indicate more than his personal taste. These aspects of his
Madonnas - especially their half-length and iconic auster-
ity, physical and psychological - signify Bellini's intentional
evocation of the venerable models of Byzantium. Primary,
therefore, to an interpretation of his Marian imagery is an
understanding of that special kinship between the Eastern
empire and the Venetian Republic.
From her early days as a satellite of the Byzantine empire
to her triumph as mistress of the Adriatic, Venice bore a
unique relationship with the East.1 Her ancient and contin-
uing ties predisposed Venetians toward a conscious, even
self-conscious, identification with Byzantium. After the
Latin conquest of Constantinople in 1204 the reversal of
roles of political domination did not alter - indeed, it
perhaps increased - Eastern influence in Venice. One
immensely important consequence of the conquest, for
example, was the influx of Byzantine spoils into Venice;
their display and imitation greatly influenced Venetian
taste.2 Another result of the conquest was the ever-increas-
ing flow of Greek refugees to the West and especially to
Venice. Later, the constant threat of Turkish invasion in-
spired and, in the fifteenth century, forced Greek Christians
to emigrate. The loss of the capital to the Turks in 1453 was
dedication of churches to Old Testament prophets, treated
as saints; Jeremiah, Isaiah, Daniel, Samuel, Ezekiel, and
Moses were honored in this way. Furthermore, according
to the count of one modern theologian, of the 150 saints
depicted in the mosaics of S. Marco, fully one third are
Eastern - and these are given key positions within the
cycles.4
The Basilica of S. Marco, the most sacred, and politically
the most important church of the city, embodies the
singular bond of piety between Venice and Byzantium. The
plan of this Apostoleion and ducal chapel is derived from a
Constantinopolitan model, the sixth-century Church of the
Holy Apostles.5 The decoration, with panels of elaborately
veined marble, Greek reliefs, and gold-ground mosaics,
is similarly Byzantine. The remarkable altarpiece of S.
Marco, the jeweled Pala d'Oro that marks the site of the
Evangelist's tomb, consists of Byzantine enamels on gold
recombined in a fourteenth-century Venetian enframe-
ment. Here the phenomenal luxury of the East is associated
by the Venetians with extraordinary sanctity.6
Although S. Marco is the most notable instance of the
association of the holy with the Byzantine, other illustra-
tions indicate the universality of this idea in Venice. In
addition to the veneration of Greek saints and of Old

* This article is based on my dissertation, "Icon and Vision:officials'

The Half-titles, daily life, and court protocol (Geanakoplos, 1966, I6f.;
Length Madonnas of Giovanni Bellini," Columbia University, 1974.
see also Cessi, I3-22; and Pertusi, passim.)
am indebted to Howard McP. Davis, Felton L. Gibbons, Rosalie B. 2 Demus, 1955, 348-361. See also D1olger, 238-249; Grabar and Muraro,
Green, and Howard Hibbard for their many pertinent suggestions; to 1963, passim; and Muraro, 1972, 180-201.
Kurt Weitzmann and Francesco Valcanover for the kind loan of photo-
graphic materials; and to David Rosand, who has been immeasurably 3 For the Greek community in Venice see Geanakoplos, 1966, I 14ff. On
helpful and generous in his guidance of my work, as my academicGreek worship in the Serenissima, see also Pisani, 361-384.
adviser and as a critic of this manuscript. 4 Tramontin, n.d. [1968], 3.
Research for the article was supported in part by the Princeton 5 Demus, 1960, esp. 9off. The Old Testament mosaic cycle of the atrium
University Committee on Research in the Humanities and Social is also based on a Greek model, a manuscript of the type of the Cotton
Sciences and by the Spears Fund of the Princeton Department of Art Genesis (British Museum, Ms Cotton, Otho B VI). On this subject see
and Archaeology.
Weitzmann, 1955, I12ff., and 1956, 152-53-
N.B. A bibliography of sources follows the footnotes. 6 Grabar, 1956, 51, emphasizes this association of ideas.
1 Byzantine influence was all-pervasive, affecting Venetian dialect and

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488 THE ART BULLETIN

Testament figures, evidence of this association is afforded by Byzantinizing scheme of the Greek cross within a squa
the innumerable Byzantine cult objects, the cherished icons crowned by a dome on pendentives. The decorative det
and reliefs found throughout the city. The paintings of the and surface articulation, however, are in the style of
Byzantinizing Madonneri were not exotic but, rather, a Early Renaissance of mainland Italy. Byzantine decorat
popular art.7 In Venice the maniera greca was not arcane although avoided by the architects, was nonetheless reviv
but familiar - an alternate, native means of expression. by contemporary painters in their fictive church co
And it was indeed more than this, for there is every in- structions, notably in the use of gold mosaic domes
dication that in Venice the Greek manner was a style of semi-domes and richly variegated marble paneling. Th
innate prestige.8 major altarpieces by Giovanni Bellini, those of S. Gio
In the later decades of the fifteenth century - the years of (ca. 1485), the Frari (1488), and S. Zaccaria (I50
Giovanni Bellini's greatest activity - there was also a feature such settings (Figs. I, 2, 3).13 Although Bellin
revival of Greek literature and of Greek arts, heightening architecture and mosaic decoration are his own inventions
the underlying and constant Grecophilia of Venice. This in the Venetian context, mosaic settings for holy fig
revival was related in part to the contemporary political evoke not only Byzantium in general, but S. Marc
situation: the exaggerated influx of Greeks caused by the particular. These painted reminiscences of the basilica wer
Turkish conquest of Constantinople. That the refugees combined by Bellini with the special ambience of S. Marco
chose to settle in Venice was a tacit acknowledgment of the as Theodore Hetzer has written, with "the warm brow
ancient ties, and not only perpetuated but enhanced those the walls, the golden twilight of the apses and cupolas
bonds. Greek studies, already well-established, enjoyed This gilded atmosphere, captured by Bellini in his paintin
a renaissance: Venice became the center of Greek learning becomes characteristic of his style in the 1480's and is
in the West.9 naturalistic vehicle for his depiction of a supernatur
In this context, Cardinal Bessarion's legacies to the light.16 Bellini's glowing light is as palpable a referenc
Venetian Republic can be understood as his recognition ofS. Marco as the more obvious architectural quotation
the city's special status. For Bessarion, as for other Eastern- other masters. Marco Marziale, for example, leaves li
ers, Venice was another Greece: "As all peoples of almost doubt that the basilica is meant as the site of the Circum-
the entire world gather in your city, so especially do thecision, which is signed and dated 1500 (Fig. 4)17 Similarly,
Greeks. Arriving by sea ... they debark first at Venice . . . Leonardo Boldrini recreated a simpler version of S. Marco
and there they seem to enter another Byzantium."lo Thefor a Presentation, which possibly dates as early as 1475
Cardinal's library greatly benefited Byzantine studies in (Fig. 5).18 There is more involved here than the somewhat
Venice since most of the manuscripts were Greek, many of naive chauvinism that places biblical narratives in familiar
them previously unavailable in the West. The library, settings: here the environment chosen is not merely
combined with Venetian interest in Greek studies and the Venetian, but Byzantine, a confirmation of a special
association of the sacred with the Greek. The aura of S.
Greek community itself, led Aldus Manutius to establish
his Hellenic academy and press in Venice.11 Marco transforms these sacred narratives and sacre con-
This new Eastern influence was also reflected in the
versazioni, endowing them with its multi-leveled implica
visual arts. In architecture, a quite exceptional revival
tions, of
religious and political.19
In addition to Bellini's architecture, other aspects of hi
Byzantine modes is evident in the plans and spatial qualities
of numerous churches built between the early I490's oeuvre,
and especially after about 1475, make comparabl
the 1530's, such as S. Giovanni Chrysostomo, begun ca.
references to Eastern prototypes. Salient motifs are th
1495 by Mauro Codussi.12 The architect employed the initials, the occasional use of gold striations, the
Greek

category, in addition to S. Giovanni Chrysostomo, such as S. Maria

7 On the Madonneri and their works in Venetian collections, see Bettini,
1933. More recent, and with a different viewpoint, is Chatzidakis,
Formosa, begun 1492, and S. Salvatore, begun in 1507. For "The
1962. According to information cited by Geanakoplos (1966, 134, Centrally
n. 47) Planned Church and the Renaissance," see Wittkower,
over one hundred Cretan painters are listed in the Venetian archives1-32. as
having been in Venice between ca. 1300 and 1500. 13 See also the Altarpiece of S. Giovanni Chrysostomo, of 1513, with a
8 For the triumphal - and political - implications of the fagade gold o-
mosaic arch that carries a lengthy Greek inscription (Robertson,
S. Marco, e.g., the grouping of the bronze horses, see Demus, 128-131
i960 and pl. cxiii).
I 13f.; and Grabar, 1956, 48. 14 See Keydel, passim.
9 On the historical and cultural situation, see Logan, 38ff. and 68ff.
15 Hetzer, I, 24.
10 Cardinal Bessarion to Doge Cristoforo Moro, in a letter of 146816on his
Rosand (1971, I96f. and 211) explains Titian's use of the gold mosaic
intention of giving his manuscript collection to the Serenissima (quoted
in his Pieta (Venice, Accademia) as a revival of Bellini's imagery,
in Geanakoplos, 1966, 116). Still an important source on therelating
Greek this to S. Marco's mosaic domes.
prelate is the study by Vast. See also Tomadakis, 29-40. For the cardinal's
17 Davies, 345-46, No. 803. See also Marziale's Sacra Conversazione,
legation at Venice (I462-64), see Vlachos, 123-25. For the library, see
signedofand dated 1507 (ibid., 346-47, No. 804), and his Circumcision of
Mioni, 61-83. For the prelate's other donation to Venice, the relic
S. Teodoro, see Fogolari, 1922-23, 139-160. 1499, a half-figure narrative related to the London painting (Mariacher,
I 10-1 I, No. 1893).
11 Aldus came to Venice in 149o and began publishing in Greek in 1495-
The biography by Firmin-Didot remains a basic study. For more 18 recent
Mariacher, 60o-6, No. 62.
bibliography, see Cordie, 561-67; and Quaranta, 147-158. On Venetian
19 See the bibliographical references cited above in note 8, and Rosand,
Hellenic studies, see Geanakoplos, 1962; and cf. Diller, 313-321. 1970, 74. Cf. also Panofsky (1953, 133ff.), who discusses the architectural
12 On Codussi, or Coducci, see Angelini. For the revival of thesymbolism
Greek of Eyckian painting, with Romanesque and Gothic as meta-
phors for
plan in Venetian churches, a subject that has received little attention, see the Old and New Dispensations.
McAndrew, 15-28. He lists a number of churches that belong in this

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 GIOVANNI BELLINI S MADONNAS 489

I S. Giobbe Altarpiece, ca. 1485. Venice, 2 S. Zaccaria Altarpiece, 1505. Venice

Accademia (photo: Soprintendenza alle (photo: Soprintendenza alle Gallerie)
Gallerie)

3 Triptych, 1488. Venice, S. Maria Gloriosa dei Frari (photo: Anderson)

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490 THE ART BULLETIN

areas of
Virgin's low coif, and spatially neutral settings (e.g., the 6costumes, however, are painted in tempera
Figs.
and 7).20o Moreover, Bellini emphasized certain qualities
and swirl in elaborate arabesques.23 The flesh is still painted
of the Virgin's physiognomy that recall Byzantine
with that types
softness already found in the works of the
(Fig. 8): tapered oval faces with broad cheeks; straight,
trecento.

narrow noses; small mouths; large eyes - although in

By comparison, Jacopo Bellini's surviving painting
Giovanni's Madonnas the eyes are sometimes partly closed
less ornate than the works of contemporary masters su
as the Virgin gazes down at her son. This Jacobello
conception or Antonio Vivarini. There is no use of ge
remains consistent throughout the oeuvre, and is clearly
wood to achieve three-dimensional effects, and the appl
different from Bellini's other female characterizations, such is limited. Yet certain elements in Jacopo's
tion of gold
as that of the Magdalene in the Pesaro Coronation (Fig.
reflect the9),
richness of the contemporary style. A half-le
with her high forehead and rounded, cleft chin; or the
Madonna in the Accademia, which is preserved wit
attendant saints in the Madonna and Child with Two Female original frame, has a background of cherubim painted w
fine
Saints (Fig. io); or in the S. Zaccaria Altarpiece (Fig. 2). If gold lines (Fig. I3).24 The Virgin's gown is stip
any of these faces were seen out of context, none couldwith be gold, and gold decorates the Child's garment as
taken as a Madonna by Giovanni Bellini. His modellingThe of effect, now lost under layers of dirty varnish, mus
the Virgin's face, for example, the shadow between lip andhave been elegant (if not quite elaborate) in the Ven
chin, often seems to repeat Byzantine patterns of facial tradition. As is generally true of paintings in the In
national Style in northern Italy, the colors here are
lighting (Figs. I, 6, 7, I I, and 12). The mood of Bellini's
Madonnas also associates them with the icons, and, as we Mary wears dark ultramarine blue with a mantle lin
shall see, this psychological kinship, with the emphasisdarkon rose, and the Child's cushion is red with a gold
Byzantine qualities of formality and severity, is justpattern.
as
significant as the quotation of specific motifs. The Madonnas
Seen in this context, the early paintings of the Mado
of the icons continued to live in the Renaissance imagery
by Giovanni Bellini are striking in their austerity. F
of Giovanni Bellini, working in the context of what may his
be debts to Jacopo and to other sources of his
Giovanni represents from the start a new vision, a
called the "Greek Revival" of the later fifteenth century in
Venice.21 manner, a new attitude toward the image. The deeper h
of his father's color scale are replaced at first by su
Bellini and the Venetian Tradition paler harmonies, and later with richer, luminescent
Bellini differed from his predecessors and contemporaries Incidentals of any sort are stripped away and anec
in certain significant aspects of style, in his marked elementssim- ignored in order to concentrate entirely o
plicity, and in his use of specific formal (and iconograph- figures. These take on a grandeur that is enhanced by t
ical) images. In particular his avoidance of ornamentation relationship to their environment. Even in Jacapo's wor
may be understood as a deviation from the figures Venetian still retained an ornamental quality, being in ef
traditions of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Masters elements of a larger design. Giovanni's work, on the
of the trecento had fully indulged the Venetian love of hand, sacrifices decoration to monumentality and subju
luxury in the embellishment of their images, juxtaposing setting to the figure. All the severities of his manner-the s
hard, glittering areas of gilding with the soft, gently limitations of color, the restriction of metallic gold to h
modulated areas of flesh.22 Perhaps the ancient icons, with and to delicate border details, the elimination of gesso r
the holy faces framed in gold and jewels, suggested to and of stamped textures, and the avoidance of patterned
Venetian painters the similar but less costly comparison of rics - can be seen as a purposeful rejection of earlier Ven
flesh and gilded parts. The faces are often modelled with styles. For variety of hue, Bellini substitutes variety of s
great sensitivity, whereas the figures in their garmentshe replaces the light of gold with the glow of flesh tone
remain areas of flat pattern. of the sun itself. Texture is eschewed in favor of mode
In this sense, the Venetian trecento can be seen as a three-dimensional form in light and shade. Inste
lengthy preamble to the International Style there. For luxurious brocades, the Madonna's gown and mantl
example, in Jacobello del Fiore's Justice triptych dated 1421, plain red and blue; and these stylistic limitation
the figures are encrusted in richly patterned garments matched by compositional restrictions, primarily the h
built up in high relief and covered with gilding. The drapery length. These restrictions of composition and color are

20 It has been suggested (e.g., by Robertson, 79) that such Christ

paintings as the Keys to St. Peter (Mariacher, 99-IoI). The keys
Giving
the Madonna greca (Fig. 7) may have been commissioned by Greek
selves are the most striking features in the painting, their iconogra
importance
patrons. This hypothesis ignores the profundity of Bellini's Hellenism,stressed visually by their considerable relief, built
however, the familiarity of Venetians with Byzantine art, gessoand
andthe
gilded. In this way, the keys are depicted exactly as
viz., out
esteem in which it was commonly held. We need no more search three-dimensional
an and metallic. Gilding is used elsewhere, e.
thedepiction
Eastern patron for the Accademia Madonna (Fig. I5), a strict stamped designs of Christ's robe. Thus varying degrees of relie
of the Virgin as Hodegetria, than for those paintings in which Bellini with gold to enrich the image.
used together
used the Greek monogram or other such motifs. 23 Marconi, 28-29.
21 Noting this survival of the icon in Venetian art, Grabar (1956,
24 The 55) is signed on the frame: OPUS.IACOBIBELLINI.
painting
also credits Byzantium as the source of the Venetian "taste VENETI.for the is strong evidence for Jacopo's having accompanied
There
sumptuous, sense of pictorial magnificence, and priority given to color."
Gentile da Fabriano to Florence. For this and for bibliography on the
22 See, for example, Lorenzo Veneziano's signed and dated elder(1369)
Bellini, see Robertson, 5 and notes.

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 GIOVANNI BELLINI S MADONNAS 491

4 Marco Marziale, Circumcision, 5 Attributed to Leonardo 6 Lochis Madonna, ca. 1480.

canvas, 1500. London, National Boldrini, Presentation of the Christ Bergamo, Accademia Carrara
Gallery (photo: National Child in the Temple, ca. '475. (photo: Accademia Carrara)
Gallery) Venice, Museo Correr (photo:
Museo Correr)

7 Madonna greca, ca. 1476--1477. 8 Byzantine, Annunciation (detail), 9 Piethi

Milan, Brera (photo: Brera) 12th century. Moscow, Tretiakov Pesaro C
Gallery (courtesy Kurt Vatican City, Pinacoteca (photo:
Weitzmann) Pinacoteca)

io Madonna and Child with SS. Catherine and Mary Magdalene, ca. 1
Accademia (photo: Soprintendenza alle Gallerie) Venice, Madonna dell'Orto
(photo: Soprintendenza alle
Gallerie)

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 492 THE ART BULLETIN

formal counterpart of Bellini's iconographical inter-

Coronation of the Virgin in Pesaro (Fig. 9), in favor of a generally
pretation: his style is a function of the meaning
darker ofandhis
warmer palette, the predominance of certain
Madonna paintings. Byzantine formal devices, and a heightened mood of
Among the earliest known surviving works that help
austerity andtosadness. His choice of colors, as well as the
establish the identity of the young Giovanni exclusion
is the Davis
of sky and open air, stresses the sobriety of these
panels.
Madonna, which represents his manner of ca. 1460 (Fig. His choice of light is altered too, from the clear
14).25
By that time he had already conceived the basic com- of day with its light-filled atmosphere to an
illumination
position of the subject that was to dominate his "internalized"
attention - light. In this context of darker surroundings,
and that of his shop and followers - for thethe
next five
blond Child in particular takes on luminosity and
decades. The Virgin, hands folded in prayer, is seen a mezza
dominates the painting, as in the Madonna greca, a work not
figura behind a stone parapet on which her son sleeps,
later his
than 1476-77 (Fig. 7).27 Bellini's chromaticism, with
head resting on a pillow.26 Sky and landscapehisprovide a
newly deepened palette, enhances the somber mood
majestic background. Empty sky fills over a third of the
ofsuch images and demonstrates a greater subtlety oflighting
composition and functions in much the same way as heretofore.
than a gold The contemporary Lochis Madonna (Fig. 6),
mosaic or painted ground: it presents a spaceless, mono-
for example, is a tour deforce: it combines the most sensitive
chromatic, and luminous ambience for the holy figures.
observationThe
of light, shadow, and reflected light in the flesh
landscape is limited to the central zone of the picture space
parts with a remarkable revival of the use of gold striations
and to the small areas on either side of the Madonna's for modelling drapery. The Madonna's blue mantle is in-
shoulders and arms. With her massive form and the rathersistently sculptural with deep shadows, but its highlights are
large folds of her drapery, juxtaposed in this manner with
painted with fine parallel strokes of metallic gold.28
the minute landscape, she seems all the more immense and In the early 1480's Bellini returned to a landscape back-
isolated from the setting. There is no middle ground; ground,
the which he had used for the Davis and other early
contrast between the immediate presence of the Madonna Madonnas, but abandoned in the paintings of the seventies.
and the great distance of the landscape is understoodBehind at the Mother and blessing Child of the Contarini
once and underscores the monumentality of her simple Madonna (Fig. 15) opens an expanse of countryside with
form. Mother and Child exist in total isolation, in no buildings
way and low mountains. In this comparatively
"modern" setting Bellini has presented a highly formal
related to the landscape, so tiny in scale, behind them. The
disjunction of scale and space between figures and land- grouping of Mother and Child as an almost textbook
scape is purposeful: the lack of spatial continuity functions
illustration of the Hodegetria.29 Bellini's use of this type at the
with the Madonna and Child types and their positionsbeginning
to of the eighties must be recognized as another
enhance the viewer's impression that the image is extra-
intentional archaism, comparable to his revival of the gold
ordinary, beyond empirical definition, and apart from any
ground in the Madonna dell'Orto panel (Fig. I I), of the gold
environment. striations in the Lochis Madonna (Fig. 6), and of the wimple
In the Davis panel, as in other early works, Bellini's
placed low on the Virgin's forehead in the majority of his
colorism is delicate, a choice that favors harmonies of only a
fifteenth-century works.30
few closely related hues. Contrasts between highlight Dating
and from the I490's, the Madonna and Child with Two
dark in the flesh areas are not strong, and there is corres-
Female Saints (usually identified as SS. Catherine and Mary
pondingly little variation in value among the colors of the
Magdalene) represents a strking culmination of Bellini's
garments. The figures are lit principally from the leftchromaticism
and and interests in modelling (Fig. o). He
cast shadows to the right, but there is no sharp division
abandoned his formula background of a cloth of honor and/
between lighted and shaded parts. The painting seems or landscape in favor of a uniform dark ground (its exact
infused with light. color is now indistinguishable) against which the figures
In the mid-seventies Giovanni rejected the blond glow. Warm colors once again dominate the palette: the
tonalities, the closely related, especially pale hues, and the brunette saint, called Catherine, wears a dark red cloak over
light-infused quality of the earlier works culminating in the a brocade gown of deep orange; the blonde, called Mary

25 Zeri, 1973, 5-6. For copies and variations of the Davis Madonna, 28 The Lochis panel is usually dated to the mid-seventies; see, for
see Heinemann, I, 3, No. Io. For Bartolomeo Vivarini's version, omitted example, Robertson, 78. Because of the qualities of modelling, however,
by Heinemann, see Pallucchini, n.d., I26 and fig. 195. On the Bellini the painting seems to me to belong to the end of the decade. There is
studio, see Tietze-Conrat, 1948, 379-382; and the dissertation (1961) the same shallowness that characterizes the folds of the Frizzoni Madonna
and the several articles by Gibbons, Arte veneta, 1962, 42-48; Art Bulletin, (Mariacher, 5i), the highlights are strong almost to whiteness, and the
1962, 127-131; and 1965, 146-155. On the Venetian workshop in shadows are neither deep nor very dark. The handling of light and shade
general, see the articles by Tietze, 1939, 34-35, 45; and 1952, 89-98. in the Lochis Madonna recalls much more the Madonna greca.
For the workshop use of drawings see Tietze and Tietze-Conrat, 1944, 29 Hodegetria (OAHFHTPIA) means "Indicator of the Way." The types of
1, 1-28.
Byzantine Madonnas are explained in Lasareff, 1938, 26-65. The deter-
26 The parapet, the cushion as an accoutrement of the symbolism of mining factor is the action of the Virgin: if she presents, indicates, or puts
death, and the iconography of the Child whose sleep prefigures his death
the Child forward, rather than embracing him in a motherly way, she
are discussed in Part ii. may be described as Hodegetria. Bellini often used the Hodegetria or a
27 The Brera Madonna greca, formerly in the Ufficio dei Regolatori of very
the close variation, whereas his contemporaries preferred less formal,
more affectionate postures. The type was held to have been an invention
Scrittura in the Palazzo Ducale, is so-called for the Greek initials MP OY
inscribed on the background on either side of the Virgin's shoulders. of St. Luke, as discussed in Part In.
30 On a comparable archaism and revival of medieval motifs for sacred
The Virgin is similarly identified in Bellini's Crespi Madonna (Cambridge,
Mass., Fogg Art Museum, ca. 1470); and in the panel of the Madonna themes, see Tolnay, 205-241.
dell'Orto in Venice (Fig. I i).

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 GIOVANNI BELLINI S MADONNAS 493

A Mii~~iii~

;iiiiii~iiiii~lowsi

12 Madonna and Child, 1510o. Milan, Brera (photo: Brera)

Magdalene, is also clothed in dark red, with with

gray(?)
Bellini's more ethereal Madonnas of the quattroc
sleeves. These colors, seen against the dark ground, Nevertheless,
give the Giovanni presents images of the Virgin
painting a rich lustre, which becomes luxurious arewith the
intentionally archaic, both in type and in relatio
addition of glowing pearls and jewels, painted with small
to their surroundings. The juxtaposition of figure to
touches of impasto. In the words of Ciriaco d'Ancona,
scape is purposefully remote, at the very time that Bell
written in admiration of the Flemings, but applicable
centralalso
Italian contemporaries were exploiting the na
istic aspects of this relationship. Furthermore, B
to Bellini's handling, this is "gold really resembling gold;
adheres
pearls, precious stones, and everything else you would think even in these latest Madonna paintings t
to have been produced not by the artifice of human hands
Hodegetria, which he uses with an almost archaeolo
but by all-bearing nature herself.",31 exactness. Although masters like Botticelli and Rap
The two similar Madonnas of 15o9 and 151 o also combine
were rejecting ancient prototypes and exploring new me
innovation with conservatism (Fig. 12).32 In these works
of presenting the mother and child in ways readily und
enough of the figure is portrayed to eliminate resemblance
stood in natural and human terms, Bellini preserve
interpretation of the Virgin and Christ as divine b
to the half-length format (and the parapet) that dominated
Bellini's conception of Mary in the preceding century. As in
before whom the pious come to worship.
many images of the cinquecento, these Madonnas too Thearesalient qualities of Bellini's Madonnas are ex
shown with a white veil pushed back to reveal their hair.
tional, combining decorative and psychological aust
This display, their facial types, the greater variety with the archaic half-length format and the hierar
of color
in their garments, and the arrangement of their mantles
parapet. None of his contemporaries presents the Vir
consistently in this way. Moreover, Bellini's distinc
combine to give them a worldly appearance in comparison
31 The quotation from Ciriaco, writing in 1449, is taken fromesp. Panofsky,
62ff.).
1953, 2; cited also in Meiss (1956, 58) who finds the illusionistic painting
32 For Bellini's Madonna dated 1509, see Valentiner, 18-22.
of gems indicative of Netherlandish influence on Italian painting (see

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 494 THE ART BULLETIN

austerity of appearance is matched by an emotional vultus, that part of a man considered by the Romans to be
severity. His Mary is not maternal, and her relationship most characteristic.36 Thus representations of the dead by
with her child is not to be understood as such. "His expres- their faces alone could evoke their presence and acknow-
sion of certain emotions," in the words of Roger Fry, ledge their memory. Portraits in relief on sarcophagi
"... is never ecstatic or excessive; with him sorrow is never
followed the same pattern of concentration on the face: hence
desperate, compassion never effeminate, nor does the the typical imagines clipeatae, in which the dead are seen as
tenderest affection ever verge on sentimentality.''33 half-figure, bust, or neck-length likenesses within a ring
Both spiritually and physically Bellini's Madonnas are frame, the clipeus.37 Also common were tomb monuments
self-contained. He differs, then, from his peers, Venetian consisting of rows of bust portraits, in some cases combining
and non-Venetian, not only in his use of particular formal representations of the living and the dead in testimonial to
and compositional devices but also in the spirit of his the continuing vitality of the gens. The representation of the
presentation. The former are the instruments of expression survivor is so labeled, vivit, to distinguish him from the dead.
of the latter; and the most important of these means is also So too did the still-living express his hope for his own
the most obvious, the half-length figure itself. prosperity. Grabar has noted the fundamental distinction
that, unlike the imagines clipeatae, these bust portraits in
rectangular frames purport to go back to images taken from
II. The Iconography of Bellini's Half-Length life.38 That the absent could be literally, as well as
Madonnas metaphorically, evoked by such depictions is demonstrated
by the use of the royal image. The imperial portrait was
Survival and Revival of an Ancient Motif in the necessary for the legal passing of a sentence: in effect, the
Renaissance portrait - a bust or half-length image - replaced the
The history of the half-length figure starts sovereign
in antiquity,
himself.39 Similarly, the dead could be considered
specifically Italian antiquity, and from early
presenttimes it death by means of the display of their
even after
acquired particular associations. Possibly motivated
portraits. at
first by the convenience and practicality of the
These partial
various uses of the facial portrait are clearly inter-
figure, the ancients customarily employed it for depictions
related. Whether of the living or the dead, they share certain
of rulers. A commonplace example, coinage, demonstrates
characteristics. The evocation of presence is always in-
the "clich6" of the bust as an archetypal royal portrait. The is present in the tribunal, the ancestor
tended: the emperor
repeated association of kingship with the bust motif even-
among his family by means of the portrait. By the same
tually invested the form with innate symbolic values.
means, So is made eternal. Again, the portraits
the presence
pervasive and elementary is this association of ahave
ruler with feature of dedication: as votive offerings,
the common
the partial figure that Sixten Ringbom has deduced that the model. Furthermore, they serve
they commemorate
the type is in fact tantamount to a symbol for anmonarchy.34
apotropaeic function, protecting those who honor them
There is merit to Ringbom's contention, but theand who perform under their aegis. Thus the consul's
significance
of the form is even more complex. It is the commemoration
authority is guaranteed by the emperor who appears above
of the individual, combined at its most basic level
him,with the in consular diptychs; and the well-being
half-length,
hope for eternal life, that is crucial here: the attribute
of the gensof the
is guarded by the ancestral portraits displayed in
half-length subsumed the conception of immortality, the atrium, the as
at first real, then symbolic hearth-center.
funerary usage of the motif imbued it with this Lastly,symbolic
there is the basic intention of self-perpetuation. The
significance. emperor may be shown thus on his coinage with, on the
In Roman funerary practice, described by Polybius, verso, the Dioscuri, representatives of Eternity.40 The dead
portrait masks, most likely made (at least at first) from conquer death via their portraits, whether animated
death masks, were worn in procession by imitators of the by actors in funeral processions or borne by winged genii on
deceased and of his ancestors.35 Thereby the dead were sarcophagus reliefs, on which other indications of eternal
reanimated, primarily by virtue of their facial features, the life may also be depicted.41

33 Fry, 47. 38 Grabar, 1968, 74-

34 Ringbom, 1965, 42ff.
35 Polybius vI. 53; and cf. Pliny xxxv. 2 and 44. See also Toynbee,
and especially Zadoks-Jitta, 22ff., with further references. I am grateful
to my colleague, Professor William A. P. Childs, for his helpful sugges-
tions on the ancient usage of the half-length.
36 Richter, I, 3. Whereas for the Romans the vultus alone embodied
personality, for the Greeks, on the contrary, personality was expressed
by the entire body.
37 On the imago clipeata, see Bolten; for its original use as a funerary
portrait, see Grabar, 1968, 73f. Grabar publishes a pagan grave stele
with an imago clipeata of a mother holding her child directly before her
torso; the stele is in the Archaeological Museum, Aquileia (p. 36 and
fig. 92). Such images are the obvious source, as Grabar indicates, of the
Byzantine Madonna Nikopea.
39 Ibid., 64. The contemporary equivalent of this practice of performing
official duties under the eyes of the ruler portrait is the display in
government offices of ruler portrait photographs - commonly half- or
bust-length, at that. Note also that divine honors were offered to imperial
portrait busts in temples; for this see Goldscheider, Io. Cf. Panofsky,
Titian, 1969, 48f. and n. 44-
40 Bronze coins of Maxentius show, recto, his profile bust with the legend
AETERNITAS AUG(USTI) N(OSTRI) and, verso, Castor and Pollux,
symbolic of Eternity. The coins and their meaning are discussed by
Cumont, 92ff., and, for the Dioscuri on Christian sarcophagi, I03.
41 Examples are published by Panofsky, n.d. [1964], figs. 126 and 127.
On the subject of death and rebirth imagery in general, see s'Jacob,
passim. On the triumphal character of Byzantine half-length emperor
portraits, see Grabar, 1936, I1.

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a:,
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13 Jacopo Bellini, Madonna and Child, ca. 1445. Venice,
Accademia (photo: Soprintendenza alle Gallerie)
These portrait and funerary types - imagines clipeatae,
busts, and coins - survived the institution of Christianity
and continued in use.42 More than representational con-
venience was involved: the ancient implications of por-
traiture were quite clear to Renaissance theorists. In the
words of Alberti, "Et cosi certo il viso di chi gii sia morto,
per la pittura vive lunga vita."43 Likewise, such masters as
Giorgione and Titian inscribed the letters "V." or "V.V."
("Vivus," etc.) on the parapets of their portraits, so reviving
that ancient affirmation of eternal life.44 Along with por-
traiture, then, that other aspect of the half-length was also
preserved, signifying the immortality of the deceased.
When the art of independent painted portraiture was
revived in the fourteenth century, the standard form re-
42 See Grabar, 1968, and Panofsky, n.d. [1964]. For the bust form in
particular, see I. Lavin, 207-226. Masks - casts made from the living or
the dead - were explained ca. 1400oo by Cennino Cennini, I23ff.; and
by Vasari, who discussed Verrocchio's use of a death mask for his
Colleoni (Vasari-Milanesi, i11, 368). See also Zadoks-Jitta, 9f. and 94f.,
for the medieval and Renaissance usage of masks. The imago clipeata
occurs in sculpture (for example, in the marble medallions of the
Sforzas, ill. Seymour, 194-195 and pl. 135 A) and in painting (as in
Mantegna's fictive medallions of Roman emperors on the vault of the
Camera degli Sposi). The derivation of Renaissance medals from ancient
coins is well documented; see, for example, Hill, passim.
43 Alberti, 76.
44 This has been the subject of a recent article by De Grummond. See,
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GIOVANNI BELLINI'S MADONNAS 495
14 Davis Madonna, ca. 1460. New York, Metropolitan Museum of
Art (photo: Metropolitan Museum)
mained the half-length, as it had been in antiquity. In
quattrocento portraiture the half-figure was at first ex-
ecuted in profile, as in the oeuvre of Pisanello. Later masters,
abandoning the profile for the full- or three-quarter face,
nevertheless preserved the half-length format.
Again, in the mid-fifteenth-century revival of portrait
sculpture, the favored forms were the bust and the medal.
A Venetian example from the 1490's reveals the en-
durance of its ancient prototype: a bronze portrait bust of a
young man, his face based on a mask (Fig. 16).45 The youth
is clothed all'antica, with the material covering only one
shoulder, rather than in contemporary dress. The bronze bust
has an equivalent in painting, the so-called Portrait of a
Humanist ascribed to Giovanni Bellini (Fig. 17).46 Olive
for example, the bust portrait of a youth from the Palazzo Giustiniani,
ascribed to Giorgione, in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin, with the in-
scription "V.V."; the canvas attributed to Titian in the Kress Collection
of the National Gallery, Washington, also depicting a young man and
inscribed "V.VO."; and the portrait of a lady by Cariani, with the
letter "V.," formerly in the Quincy Adams Collection in Boston (ill.
Berenson, 11, pl. 732).
45 According to Seymour (pp. 202-03), the bust was based on a mask;
cf. above, n. 42.
46 The painting is not always accepted as autograph (e.g. Robertson,
107). The hair style, however, is identical to that of the Correr bust,
placed in the 1490's by Seymour, ibid.
496 THE ART BULLETIN

portraits but did not use it for sacred subjects. These and
numerous other examples demonstrate that the ancient
connotations of the half-length as a portrait form were
consciously maintained in the Renaissance. The association
of the form with its traditional meaning must have been
inescapable: the half-figure in a rectangular frame is to be
seen as the mark of a portrait. But only Giovanni Bellini
and the Venetians used this portrait motif consistently for
paintings of the Madonna as well.

The Half-Length Madonna as Regina Coeli

Although the half-length form had been used for the
Virgin from very early on - apparently even in the cata-
combs49 - it was not standard for images of the Madonna
in the fifteenth century. The very years that marked a
resurgence of bust and half-length portraiture witnessed a
decline in the painting of the Madonna a mezza Jigura. For
native Venetian artists of the trecento, the Virgin enthroned
or standing had been more usual than the half-length.
Evidently it was Jacopo Bellini (Fig. 13) and contemporary
painters such as Squarcione and the Vivarini who first
began to favor the form that was to become a hallmark of
Giovanni's art.50 In fact, it is precisely in these years that
the term mezza figura comes into use.51 During those
decades the painting of the half-length Madonna increases
and then, almost suddenly, declines. In his later years even
Giovanni seems to have preferred other types; and in the
oeuvres of the most important of his successors it is rare.
Thus we find that the period of the half-length Madonna's
15 Contarini Madonna, ca. 1480. Venice, Accademia (photo: greatest popularity corresponds with the career of its
Soprintendenza alle Gallerie) greatest proponent, Giovanni Bellini. Assuming that his
choice must have been deliberate and therefore significant,
one must ask what the half-length could have meant to
leaves form a poet's fillet in the young man's hair, enhancing Bellini. Certainly for him as for all Venetians the Byzantine
the imagery of antichitd and the liberal arts. connotations of the type would have been suggestive. But
The unique surviving example of Giovanni's state por- beyond this, what meanings were inherent in the form ?
traiture is the image of Doge Leonardo Loredan, ca. I502: A primary meaning of the half-length must have been its
here too the traditional half-length was still maintained historical and continuing associations with the portrait and
(Fig. i8).47 Clearly for Bellini, as for his contemporaries above all with the depiction of kingship. This innate
both north and south of the Alps, the half-length was the connection alone makes the form appropriate for the Virgin,
standard portrait type. From the J'rg Fugger of 1474 to the herself a queen, the Regina Coeli, whose depiction in so many
Fra Teodoro of Urbino of 1515, all of Giovanni's individual ways absorbed the patterns of pagan royal portraiture. The
portraits are half-lengths. So too are Perugino's portraits of formulae established by Early Christian artists naturally
himself and of others; but only once did he employ the derived from the models of their non-Christian predecessors
half-length for a sacred theme, in the St. Mary Magdalene.48 and contemporaries. In pagan antiquity the monarch had
The saint's position, the slight tilt of her head, and especially been associated with divinity; in Christian art the Godhead
her folded hands, resting apparently on the lower edge ofwas to be represented by forms evolved for worldly king-
the picture space - all are formulae used by Perugino in his ship.
portraits. Raphael, while favoring the half-figure for Another accoutrement of royal imagery was also adapted
portraiture, also avoided it in his religious works. And the Christian purposes, frequently in conjunction with the
to
same is true of Botticelli, who employed the half-figure in his half-length, to enhance the impression of nobility: the cloth

PICTOR./PERDITA
47 Davies, 55-56, No. 189. Ducal portraits by Gentile SI FVERAT PINGENDI./ HIC RETTVLIT
Bellini, who
ARTEM./
preceded his brother as "state painter," were likewise SI NVSQVAM
half-length, but INVENTA EST/HACTENVS IPSE
DEDIT.
in profile rather than full-face. See, for example, the portrait of Doge
Francesco Foscaro (Mariacher, 32-33, No. 14). 49 For example, the Catacombs of Priscilla and of the Cimitero Maggiore,
Rome; see
48 Florence, Pitti, and a replica in Rome, Villa Borghese Grabar, pls.
(Bombe, 1968, 9 and pl. 13-
214, 215). It is noteworthy too that Perugino's fresco cycle
50 E.g., of Uomini
Squarcione's Madonna and Child in Berlin (Coletti, 66). For the
famosi, gods, and Virtues for the Collegio del Cambio of his native
half-length Virgin city
and Child (as independent images) by the Vivarini,
is signed (evidently by a posthumous addition) with see
Perugino's
Pallucchini,portrait
n.d., passim.
bust, simulating a framed panel painting seemingly hung on the wall.
Above is an inscription: PETRVS PERVSINVS EGREGIVS/. 51 Ringbom, 1965, 40.

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 GIOVANNI BELLINI S MADONNAS 497

_ i-i -:I:--: g.

~
i
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16 Attributed to Andrea Briosco, I1 17 Giovanni Bellini( ?), Portrait of a 18 Doge Leonardo Loredan, ca. 1502.
Riccio, Bust of a Young Man, bronze, Humanist, ca. 1485. Milan, Civiche London, National Gallery (photo:
ca. 1490. Venice, Civico Museo Correr Raccolte d'Arte, Castello Sforzesco National Gallery)
(photo: Museo Correr) (photo: Civiche Raccolte d'Arte)

of honor. In addition to kingship, the cloth denotes triumph,

piece of 1505 (Fig. 2).55 Significantly, the cloth in the ha
and this can have implications beyond those of earthly length Madonnas is often the only decoratively elabor
victory. For example, a victorious leader is shown twice on in the composition; whereas Mary's garments ar
item
his sarcophagus, once as conquerer surrounded by his plain fabric, the royal cloth of honor is frequently a
soldiers and by kneeling captives, and again as a frontalbrocade. It should be noted, furthermore, that Bellini
half-figure behind whom two genii hold such a cloth use of the cloth represents another deliberate archaism
his imagery, like the half-figure itself and the form
hanging.52 In context, the portrait with its supernaturally-
Madonna types. The cloth of honor, which had be
held curtain may be interpreted as a timeless representation
of triumph, the victory being one of immortality, whilestandard
the device in paintings of the Madonna in the trecen
narrative scene at the left depicts the sort of victoryin the
the quattrocento was an infrequent motif; and Giovann
general enjoyed in life. cloth of honor is customarily a rigid, panel-like hang
This motif of the cloth was transferred directly to rather than an easy draping of material.
Christian iconography: the portrait's place was frequently In Bellini's oeuvre, then, the connotation of royalty
taken by Mary, the roles of the curtain-bearers by angels.
clearly preserved and deliberately intended. Moreover
Such is the case, for instance, in the tomb panel of Dogeseems that another, purely theological conception is mean
Francesco Dandolo, painted by Paolo Veneziano in 1339: the curtain betokens sanctity and the presentation of div
both temporal and heavenly rulers may be honored (Fig. 19) sacrifice.
.53 The author of the "Letter to Hebrews" made this
In Paolo's Coronation of the Virgin the cloth is used again,distinction
its in his description of the tabernacle of the First
specific context clarifying the reference to Mary's queen-
Covenant. He explained that the sanctuary was divided
ship.54 Giovanni Bellini also employed the cloth in this way,
into two parts by a curtain that separated the outer sphere
as homage to the sacred royalty of the Madonna and Child (where men came to worship) from the sanctum sanctorum.
(e.g., Figs. 7, I I, 12, and 20). Indeed, in his austere images,
This Holy of Holies was "entered . . . by the high priest
the cloth of honor is all but unique in this regard, as an and even then he must take with him the blood which
alone,
he offers on his own behalf and for the people's sins of
accessory of divine royalty, along with the half-length itself.
The connotation of monarchy, despite the lack of the more ignorance. By this the Holy Spirit signifies that so long as
usual secular paraphernalia (such as crowns, jewels, furs),the earlier tent [the tabernacle of the Old Testament] still
is evident in Bellini's close juxtaposition of the cloth of honor
stands, the way into the sanctuary remains unrevealed ....
with the Madonna's throne in the destroyed Altarpiece Butof
now Christ has come .... The tent of his priesthood is a
SS. Giovanni e Paolo and in the later S. Zaccaria Altar- greater and more perfect one ... ; the blood of his sacrifice is

52 Grabar, 1968, 299. iconography. For Mary as Sedes sapientiae, see Bouyer, and most recently,
53 Muraro, 1970, 33-35. Statues of Mother and Child were honored with
with an extensive bibliography, Forsyth. The biblical locus classicus
is 14,
such cloth hangings in churches; see Forsyth, 1968, 217 and 221, n. the Old Testament apocryphal book, Ecclesiasticus, 24. St. Lorenzo
with citations of I4th- and 15th-century texts. Giustinian (+1456) also eulogized the Madonna as "un throno di
Sapienza," 149r. In one instance, Giovanni Bellini associated the throne
54 Polyptych of St. Clare, with the Coronation of the Virgin, Venice,
also with the Passion. The Virgin's throne in the Uffizi Allegory is
Accademia (Muraro, 1970, pls. I13-115). decorated with a baldachin bearing Eucharistic grapes and a chalice;
55 A watercolor copy of the lost SS. Giovanni e Paolo Altarpiece is painting see Verdier, 97ff.
on this
published by Fry, pl. xiiI. The Virgin's throne also has its particular

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.498 THE ART BULLETIN

his own blood . . .; and thus he has entered the sanctuary Liberale witness the Madonna in glory in an altarpiece by
once and for all and secured an eternal deliverance."56 Thus Carpaccio, they envision her as a half-length Madonna with
the idea of the veil is closely allied to that of honoring the the Child, appearing above them in a vaporous opening of
clouds and cherubs (Fig. 22).62 And when a monk is shown
holy, and also includes the use of the cloth as an identification
of a place of sacred devotion and of sacrificial offering. praying in his studio, in an illustration from a Venetian
In S. Marco, silk veils were hung behind the Eucharist,Psalter of 1520, the Madonna who comes in response to his
very likely suspended from the columns of a Byzantine prayers is pictured as a half-length Eleousa in a flaming
ciborium displayed above an altar.57 Again there is amandorla (Fig. 25).63
confluence of ideas - homage, the monstrance, and (poten- This visionary association of the partial figure explains
tial) sacrifice - that is paralleled in Bellini's imagery. There in part the depiction of miraculous images as half-lengths.
it is the Madonna who is honored, she who presents the When St. Catherine of Alexandria hoped to see the mother
child who is the Eucharist and whose sacrifice is implicit.and child, she won that privilege through her devotion to
Whereas in the tabernacle of Moses man paid sacrificialtheir image: St. Catherine's miracle-granting Madonna
homage to God beyond such a curtain, now it is God's
was, again, a half-length, depicted as such in a fourteenth-
sacrifice for the benefit of mankind that is offered to view.58
century relief in Naples.64 In the Miracle of Galla Placidia, a
The curtain in Christian usage is then doubly significant, as panel by Bellini's follower Niccol6 Rondinelli, the wondrous
an affirmation of the Madonna's queenship and of her role work is achieved in the presence of a half-figure Madonna
as Hodegetria. and blessing Child, represented as an altarpiece within the
painting (Fig. 24).65 The book of the Fioretto della Bibbia,
Miraculous Images published in Venice in 1515 by Giovanni Tacuino, has as
In the context of painting of the Madonna the half-its frontispiece yet another half-length Virgin, an Eleousa
length carried still other significations aside from those of displayed on an altar between two lighted candles (Fig. 23).
portraiture, kingship, and immortality. These are the Marvelously, this image is animated, and all around it the
related connotations of the vision and the mystery of faithful kneel in prayer.66 Such depictions may suggest a
divinity. One of the explanations proffered by Nikolaosrelationship to miraculous images, themselves character-
Mesarites (writing ca. 1200) for the portrayal of theistically partial figures of varying lengths. This includes,
Pantokrator en buste is that this is a metaphor for mankind's for example, the acheiropoetai (images not made by human
partial knowledge of the whole God.59 The inexplicable hands), most notably the sudarium of Veronica; and the
nature of divinity is thus expressed in representations of the countless Madonne nere and pictures of the Virgin attributed
partial figure. Similarly, in depictions of apparitions and of to St. Luke.67
sacred characters in miraculous situations the actors are In view of such depictions, then, it seems highly probable
commonly portrayed as half-lengths.60 In Pisanello's
that the ordinary half-length Madonna would have
Madonna Appearing to SS. George and Anthony Abbot, for
partaken of those traditions, carrying the additional signi-
fications of the miraculous image and of the vision. In
example, the Virgin is revealed in the sky as a half-figure
surrounded by waving rings of supernatural light (Fig. 2 Bellini's
I).61 works, the striking attention paid to cast shadows on
When SS. Vidal, James, John the Baptist, Valeria, and the parapet and cloth of honor may be understood as further

56 Hebrews 9:6-12; cf. Exodus 26. See also Durandus, 15 and cf. 6of.for example, or when Mary and Christ inspire the building of S. Maria
I am grateful to Mr. Allen Rosenbaum for his valuable suggestions ondella Neve (Masolino's panel in the Capodimonte, Naples), they are
this subject.
57 Until 1885, the 6th- or 7th-century Byzantine ciborium was dis-
played behind the Pala d'Oro. Iron fixtures on its capitals were likely
used as attachments for the cloth. See Volbach in Hahnloser, 8 and
pl. v.
58 A third reference may also be intended. The curtain is closely associ-
ated with the church portal, as in a 5th-century carved wooden door in
S. Sabina, Rome (the frontispiece in Kantorowicz). The Pantokrator
stands between the columns of a church portal to which two curtains
have been attached. The connotation of royalty is joined to the imagery
of the portal, which is the division between the heavenly and the worldly.
Among her many laudatory appellations the Virgin is also called a
doorway, the sole portal of Heaven. On the realization of this imagery
in Renaissance art see Berliner, 7ff., and Birkmeyer, i If. Cf. also the
doors on sarcophagi and on the base of Donatello's Gattamelata (Panofsky,
n.d. [1964], figs. 1 6, 134,1 35 and 392).
59 Downey, 869-70. Describing the dome mosaic, Nikolaos writes that
the Pantokrator looks "out as though from the rim of heaven ... but not
with His whole body or in His whole form. This I think was very wisely
done by the artist ..., because for one thing, I believe, we now know in
part . . . the things concerning Christ . . ., and for another thing the
God-Man will appear to us from heaven at the time of His second
sojourn on earth . . ., and because He himself dwells in heaven in the
bosom of His Father .... Wherefore one can see Him, to use the words
of the Song [Cant. 2:9], looking forth at the windows, leaning out as far
as His navel through the lattice at the summit of the dome .... ."
6o When God the Father appears at the Annunciation or the Baptism,
represented as half-figures. On the depiction of the vision in general, see
Panofsky, 1953, 376ff.; idem, 1962, 9f.; and Damisch, i 19. On the image
of the Virgin in sole, see Ringbom, 1962, 326-30, esp. 328. For the
problem of supernatural apparitions in a different context, see Meiss,
197o, 64-65-
61 Davies, 439-440. See also the similarly visionary Madonna and Child
with clouds and golden rays of light by the Bellinesque painter Pier
Maria Pennacchi, ca. 1505, now in the Sacristy of S. Maria della Salute,
Venice (Heinemann, I, 128, and 11, 305).
62 For Carpaccio's painting, dated 1514, see Lauts, 249. The painting is
still in situ on the high altar of S. Vidal in Venice.
63 Psalterium, Melchior Sessa and Pietro Ravani, Venice, 1520 (D'Essling,
17o, No. 174, and ill. 171).
64 Meiss, 195 1, 107 and fig. 10o3; also White, pl. 134A.
65 Ricci, 1907, 302, No. 452, and pl. 59.
66 D'Essling, 164. Tacuino used the scene again in another publication
of 1515, Miracoli de la Madonna (ibid.), but lacking the two other
narratives below: left, God the Father (a half-figure) appearing to King
David; right, the Descent of the Holy Spirit.
67 For miraculous images of the Virgin in Venice, see the anonymous
Venezia favorita di Maria .... For Venetian churches dedicated to the
Madonna, see Marchiori, I I, and cf. 15f. All but one of the miraculous
images mentioned are half-lengths (the exception being the full-figure
statue of the Madonna dei Miracoli, for which a church was constructed in
1481-98 by Pietro Lombardo). On the cult of Mary in Venice, see also
Musolino in Tramontin, 1965, 239ff.

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Irr
lift
i.MI
ig
S.
affirmations of the Virgin's physical presence. For example,
in the Madonna degli Alberetti of 1487 (Fig. 20), the shadow
cast by the Virgin's head is given compositional pre-
dominance. This shadow ostentatiously interrupts the pale
green of the cloth of honor. Cast shadows, shadows that
soften features and blur their edges, shadows that darken
colors to varying intensities - these negative aspects of light
certainly concerned Bellini. But they have an iconographic
function too: the shadow cast by the Virgin asserts the
reality of her presence, compelling the viewer's acknow-
ledgment of her being. The reality of her person is under-
scored by such signs, even as the half-length format
encourages the worshipper's hope that the Madonna may
respond to him as she had to the saints and to the pious
monk. Hence the meaning of the half-figure as a royal
portrait is enriched by its special associations in sacred art
with the divine apparition and the enactment of miracles.
The Parapet
One form in particular confirms the status of the Madonna
a mezza figura in Bellini's conception as a portrait, vision,
and guarantor of immortality. This is the parapet, shown at
the bottom edge of the picture space, painted to imitate
stone and usually parallel to the picture plane. It contains
in nuce the meaning of Bellini's Marian imagery. That the
artist applied the same motif, along with the half-length,
both to Madonna and to portrait painting is not coin- Madonna and Child, permitting the intimacy between the
cidental. Appearing with regularity in his portraiture (Fig. sacred beings and the worshipper that is basic to the
18), the parapet was clearly an essential term in Bellini's
secular vocabulary. Of his contemporaries, however, only
those of Giovanni's circle customarily included the parapet
in their Madonnas; painters of other schools tended to use
it exclusively in portraits, as did Bellini's great Venetian
68 For more theoretical consideration of related issues, see Schapiro,
223-242-
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GIOVANNI BELLINI S MADONNAS 499
Pao 2o
Mar Ac
Gallerie)
successors, Giorgione and Titian. Giovanni's use of this
portrait device in Madonna painting underscores the
identification of those half-length images with portraiture.
This association was founded in the legend of St. Luke who
was traditionally recognized as the first artist to have
painted the Virgin and whose legendary picture was indeed
a portrait. But the parapet has significance even beyond
this allusion.
The importance of the ledge lies partly in the fact that is
is an illusionistic insertion, at the level of the picture plane,
between the frame (which exists in the viewer's space) and
the image (which exists in its own fictive space).68 It
establishes thereby another, deliberately ambiguous spatial
zone. In addition to acting as a transitional form between
frame and image, the ledge also functions as a border for the
figures and as a spatial reference for them.
As the most prominent component of spatial illusion, the
parapet may serve as a three-dimensional support for
figures or for objects, which may in turn overlap the barrier,
thereby projecting into the viewer's space. The parapet may
also indicate the setting in an abbreviated form, suggesting
the ledge of a window or a balcony, although more often it
remains architecturally inexplicit. By emphasizing the
picture plane, however, the ledge establishes the relative
positions in space of forms behind (or before) the plane. In
this way the parapet defines the viewer's relation to the
conception of the image for devotion. At the same time,
however, the parapet acts as a barrier between the wor-
shipper and the holy. In this paradoxical double function
the parapet is the meeting-place of the two realms, sacred
and worldly.
500 THE ART BULLETIN
One of the earliest examples of the parapet and
in Tymotheos
painting extends his right hand over this ledge, on
can be found in a half-length image of the nursing which he casts a slight shadow. Because the parapet is
Madonna,
parallel
a panel of the Venetian school of the late thirteenth to the picture surface it is read as flush and con-
century.69
The stone ledge, supported by consoles, juts forward
into space like a shelf, creating a vigorous sense of depth in
perspective. Projecting forward from the picture space as it
does, the parapet brings the image closer to the viewer even as
it separates him from the figures behind, who exist in their
own distinct and holy realm. Simultaneously, the realism of
the parapet endows the sacred characters with some of its
own immediacy.
It is possible that such architectural settings for half-
length figures were indigenous to Venice. A fragmentary
fresco of the late dugento survives in the Church of S. Zan
Degolk showing St. Helen half-length behind a shelf of
dentils and within the higher and wider central arch of a
three-arched pediment. Both the parapet and the arches
are shown at an angle to the picture plane, and the complex
is strongly suggestive of palace architecture.70
Other early examples of the use of the parapet (or of
similar forms) are rare, and indeed there seem to be no
parapets in Italian painting in the decades after the middle
of the fourteenth century. Perhaps the spatial realism of the
form and its implications of the proximity of the sacred
figures to the worshipper appeared unceremonious to the
generation that, after the Black Death of 1348, stressed the
isolation of God from men, and thought the divine acces-
sible only through the Church and its dogma.71
Interest in the parapet and its implications revived
shortly after the turn of the century; but the most suggestive
example from the first half of the fifteenth century, however,
is not Italian but Netherlandish, and not a Madonna but a
portrait. It is Jan van Eyck's panel of 1432 inscribed
TYM. WOEOC. and LEAL SO VVENIR.72 The sitter is seen
half-length and in three-quarter view, at an angle to the
picture plane. Tymotheos appears behind a stone ledge in-
cised with inscription and date and cracked with age, suggest-
ing that he has already enjoyed long memory. The parapet is
seen in perspective, its top more brightly lit than its face,
69 Museo di S. Marco, Venice; Pallucchini, 1964, 12; and Zuliani in
Venezia e Bisanzio, 66. This picture was in the Atrio and then in the
Cappella S. Teodoro of S. Marco in the early 16th century. See also the
Madonna by Duccio or a close follower, using a similar form of parapet
on consoles, from the Stoclet Collection, Brussels (ill. Cattaneo and
Baccheschi, 87). Professor Howard Davis of Columbia University very
kindly called my attention to this panel.
70 Fiocco, 7-14; Pallucchini, 1964, 1o; and Muraro in Venezia e Bisanzio,
6o. For a comparable Paduan example of a half-figure in niche archi-
tecture, see Hueck (2of. and n. 53), who relates such architectural
enframements to icons from the Sinai cloisters of the 6th through the 8th
centuries.
71 Meiss, 1951, remains the major study of the art of this period.
72 Panofsky, 1953, I96ff. and fig. 261. Roger van der Weyden used a
similar form in religious painting (ills. idem, ii, figs. 317, 368 and 370).
73 See Sandstr6m, 62f.
74 Comparable illusionistic environments are the shell niches used by
Fra Filippo Lippi, ca. 1435-1445, with the Child seated on the bottom
edge which acts as a parapet (Madonna, formerly Berlin, now Washington,
D.C., National Gallery, Oertel, pl. Io3; and the panel in Florence,
Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, ibid., pl. o104); and by an anonymous Floren-
tine, formerly identified as Masolino, in a Virgin and Child in New York
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sequently spatially equal with the plane. Tymotheos's right
hand must therefore be understood as breaking through the
picture plane as defined by the stone barrier.73
Renewed use of the ledge in mid-fifteenth-century
Venetian art may have been related to Jan's work or
conceivably to the illusionistic painted enframements of
Italian masters,74 although the late dugento fresco of St.
Helen and the anonymous Venetian panel of the nursing
Madonna should be recalled as local precedents. These, how-
ever, remained isolated examples. Apparently it was Jacopo
Bellini who popularized the motif, as he had the form of the
half-length Madonna (Fig. I3). The elder Bellini used the
parapet in almost all of his surviving half-figure Virgin and
Child compositions. His albums of drawings in London and
Paris reveal that Jacopo's interests comprised ancient as
well as contemporary sources, and it may be that the pro-
truding lower edges of self-framed reliefs seemed to Jacopo
an antique pedigree for the parapet in painting.
As the Madonna is seen just behind the parapet, her own
proximity to the surface and thus to the viewer is accentu-
ated. In Giovanni Bellini's works, the ledge establishes the
point of view as well, as the unique architectural element
in the half-length Madonnas (not counting occasional
background buildings), and as the only foreground structure
drawn in mathematical perspective. Bellini invariably chose
a low viewpoint in works executed for church altars and in
the large-scale votive painting of Doge Agostino Barbarigo
(Fig. 26), (so that we look up at the figures and up into the
canopies, semi-domes, and barrel-vaults above them),
but in images for private devotion he generally favored a
higher viewpoint. The low vantage point for altarpieces is
spatially logical with respect to their scale, their compara-
tively high position on the wall, and the illusionistic role
played by the painted architecture in associating the
imaginary with the real space.75 The small-scale works, on
the other hand, were not designed for specific settings. Their
(Zeri, 1971, 94-95). For half-figures in shell niches, see I. Lavin, 211,
with further references. Conversely, the parapet itself is used by Piero
Pollaiuolo in a Madonna with a partial landscape background (Gloucester,
Parry Collection, Van Marle, xI, 252, fig. 407); and by Verrocchio and
his followers in several paintings (Madonnas in Berlin, Staatliche
Museen, ibid., 323, fig. 523; and in New York, Metropolitan Museum,
ibid., fig. 525, and Zeri, 1971, 151-53)-
75 In the lost Altarpiece of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, and in the S. Giobbe
Altarpiece, the Frari triptych, and to a lesser extent the S. Zaccaria and
S. Giovanni Crysostomo Altarpieces, Bellini duplicated in his painted
architecture the forms of the real architecture of the frame. In this way
the picture space appears as a continuation of the church space in which
the worshipper kneels to pray. Behind the altar opens the sacred realm
of the Madonna and saints that, although clearly their separate precinct,
becomes connected to the space of the church by means of the frame.
That space is itself a special realm, to be distinguished from mankind's
world although it is yet a part of it. Hence, the spatial aspects of Bellini's
architecture also have the result of transforming the picture space into a
shrine. The framing of the major altarpieces is the subject of a disserta-
tion by Keydel. On the symbolic use of architecture, see Panofsky, 1935,
433-473; and idem, 1953, 144-48. More recently, Dorment has analyzed
architectural symbolism in Titian's Pieti, 399-418.
 GIOVANNI BELLINI S MADONNAS 501

becomes
only architectural component, the parapet, does not the grave of Christ. Moreover, in miraculous
function as a bond between picture and site. accounts
It does,of the transformation of the Host into the Christ,
however, act in a general way as a reference to the the Christ is often represented as the Child.77 Thus the
viewer's
world, as we have seen, projecting forward illusionistically
Infant on the parapet is associated with the sacrifice offered
from the picture space toward that world. Because the which is celebrated in the Mass. The Child there
by Christ,
parapet is unique within the Bellini composition represents
in itsthe relic - the holiest of relics - that each
consecrated
perspective illusion, it acquires a special realism as an altar must contain. The altar, too, like the
parapet in Bellini's pictures, is where both sacred and
object. Moreover, beyond establishing the high viewpoint,
the parapet has a controlling spatial function: the loca-combine to enable man's worship.78
terrestrial
That Giovanni's paintings of the Madonna should recall
tions of all forms in the painting are understood in relation-
the Passion
ship to it. Since the parapet itself is to be interpreted asfor which the Child was born is consistent with
Catholic
existing closest to or even in the viewer's space, any tradition. Just as the Old Testament was inter-
object
resting upon it or overlapping its surface acquires apreted as foreshadowing the New, so were the events of the
corollary
immediacy, partaking of the ledge's proximity and Childhood illusion ofseen as foretelling the Passion.79 A Madonna
reality. panel attributed to Bartolomeo Vivarini conveys this idea
What are these forms in the Bellini oeuvre that share the directly: on its frame are putti holding the Instruments of
parapet's illusion of reality? Major among them is the
the Passion (Fig. 27).80 In Carlo Crivelli's Madonna della
Passione, the Innocents, the first martyrs for Christ, present
Child himself, standing, sitting, or reclining on these stone
ledges and casting his shadow upon them. the Instruments (Fig. 28).81 Here too the parapet is em-
In Bellini's half-length Madonnas, the central act is the ployed, but Jesus now stands on a cushion that rests in turn
on a cloth.82 The Infant, looking toward Mary and gestur-
Virgin's presentation of the Child, and the site of this action
is the parapet. At this meeting of sacred and worldly realms, ing towards the Innocents who kneel to offer the sponge,
she offers the infant as an object of devotion. Thus the ledgethe
is cross, and crown of thorns, is enclosed within the
the support for the Child not only physically but symbolic- praying hands of his mother. The swag of fruit above her
head includes grapes, referring to the Eucharistic wine and
ally as well. Two related images are evoked, that of the offer-
to Redemption. Perched on the fruit are two goldfinches,
ing on an altar and that of the adult Christ dead in his tomb.
birds specifically associated with imagery of death.83
The altar is the locus of worship where the blood sacrifice
of Christ is re-enacted in the Eucharist. In addition, theClearly the mother and child are cognizant of the future
altar must house a sacred relic. The Host may also be used,
and accept their roles as pious offerer and willing offering
however, as a substitution for a saint's relic, since the of the ultimate sacrifice. Crivelli's intentions are con-

consecrated wafer is literally the Corpus.76 As the altar firmed by his inclusion of the Crucifixion itself in the rig
houses the Eucharistic bread and therefore the body, it background.

76 Thus St. John Chrysostomos explains, "This infant ... you do not see
in his crib, but on the altar; you do not see a woman holding him, but a
priest standing nearby, and the Holy Ghost with its abundance soaring
above" (quoted in Vloberg, 52). See also Hirn, 68. Cf. the predella by
Uccello in which the Host bleeds (Urbino, Galleria Nazionale delle
Marche; M. A. Lavin, 1-24; and Pope-Hennessy, 22f., I56f. and pls.
87-1oo).
7 Hirn, 12ff. and I27f. (cf. also pp. 476ff. above-Ed.)
78 Masaccio's Trinity fresco (Florence, S. Maria Novella), a work
possibly known to Bellini through his father, is organized in an elaborated
form of this spatial and symbolic conception. Farthest from the viewer-
worshipper are the most sacred characters, the beings of the Trinity, in a
holy place clearly separate from other spaces, pictorial and real. Next,
in an intermediate position suitable to their intercessory theological
roles, stand the Madonna and the Evangelist John. Finally, the donors
themselves kneel in prayer. Masaccio's fictive architecture leaves no
doubt that they are outside the holy realm and must be understood as
existing in the same space as the viewer. Recent bibliography on this
much-discussed work includes: Coolidge, 382-84; Dempsey, 279-281;
Schlegel, 19-33; and Simson, I 19-159.
9 Giotto's cycle at Padua, Cappella Scrovegni, illustrates this belief;
see Alpatoff, 149-154. Cf. Panofsky, 1939, 490f., and 1953, 261.
80 Pallucchini, n.d., 15, No. 129. The panel, bearing the arms of the
Bevilacqua of Verona, has also been attributed to Mantegna by
Kristeller, 20off. The forms of the Virgin's short mantle, pinned at the
neck, evoke Bellini's handling in the Frizzoni Madonna in the Correr
(Mariacher, 50-51).
81 Signed OPUS.KAROLI.CRIVELLI.VENETI. This painting has a
Venetian provenance, coming from the Monastery of S. Lorenzo there.
Such imagery seems to have been especially popular in northern Italy,
above all in Venice. See also, for example, the Madonna of the Fan by
Francesco Benaglio (Verona, Castelvecchio; Coletti, 107). On the
ledge of an architectonic fictive-stone enframement the Christchild
sits on a cushion. Sharing the parapet with him is a putto who offers
grapes to the Infant.
82 The cloth may refer to the winding cloth, itself prefigured by the
swaddling clothes and ritualized as the sindone, or corporale, the cloth
spread on the altar to receive the wafer. See Hirn, 79f.; and Panofsky,
Diirer, 1955,39-40. Noting the symbolic implications of the cloth, Panofsky
cites as examples Michelangelo's Madonna of the Steps and Raphael's
Madonna with the Veil. The symbolism of the cushion is discussed below,
p. 503 and notes.
s3 Friedmann, passim; and the review by Wilson (121-25), in which an
alternate and equally apt meaning is suggested: the goldfinch, in Latin
lucina or lucinia, may signify the "bringer of light," that is, of grace.

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502 THE ART BULLETIN

2i Pisanello, Madonna and Child Appearing to 22 Vittore Carpaccio, Madonna 23 Anonymous Veneti
SS. George and Anthony Abbot, ca. 1450. London, and Child Appearing to St. Vidal and woodcut, published
National Gallery (photo: National Gallery) Other Saints, canvas, 1514. Venice, Venice, I515 (from
S. Vidal (photo: Soprintendenza
alle Gallerie)

24 Niccol6 Rondinelli, Miracle ofGalla Placidia, ca. 1505. Milan, Brera 25 Anonymous Venetian, Psalterium... Romane, woodcut,
(photo: Brera) published by Melchior Sessam and Petrum de Ravanis,
1520 (from D'Essling)

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 GIOVANNI BELLINI'S MADONNAS 503

The motif of the sleeping Child whose sleepMadonna simulatesrefers: the Child's sleep is a death, prefiguring the
his eventual death evidently originated in trecento death for which he was born.
Venice,
and enjoyed its greatest popularity in the quattrocento.84 Giovanni represented the sleeping Child infrequently, but
The subject was much favored by the Vivarini, he and
also used other positions to signify his future, just as the
invariably, in paintings by Antonio, Bartolomeo, or Alvise, with an orb evokes the adult Salvator Mundi.
blessing Child
when the Child is depicted as sleeping the MotherThe Madonna greca (Fig. 7), probably painted ca. 1476-
is shown
in prayer.85 His sleep, more than natural rest, is aa pre-
77, is case in point. As in other pictures by Bellini,
figurement, and once more the Virgin is prescient. meaning is conveyed primarily by the gestures and posi-
When Andrea Mantegna paints the Child tions asleep, of mother
he and child. The figures are stiff and
makes his meaning poignantly clear by the slack wooden, positionespecially
of Jesus, who seems to hang from the
the Infant, his shroud-like garments, the gray tinge Madonna's
of his arms like a broken doll. His slack body and the
flesh, and the way his mother holds him. This way Mary grasps him under his arm evoke scenes of the
is especially
striking in the Poldi Pezzoli Madonna (Fig. 29) in which dead Christ
the held by his mother or by angels. The most
Virgin supports the Child's limp head between the striking
fingers resemblance
of is with Giovanni's canvas in the Ducal
her hand. The abnormal malleability of the flesh Palace,
anddated
the1472 by Ridolfi (Fig. 30).90 In each case,
unnaturally opened mouth would appear grotesque Christ's were
upper arm rests on Mary's, and her hand lies on his
not the image so moving. Here, as elsewhere, chest.theHis sad,
arm, bent at the elbow, hangs limply over hers,
withdrawn face of the Madonna reflects her awareness and and his fingers curl as though partially clenched. The
her suffering. stigmatum in the hand of the adult may explain this
Among Bellini's Madonnas with a sleeping Child, the gesture by the child. Moreover, the reference to his future
early Davis Madonna (Fig. 14) poses the Infant in a referencedeath is affirmed by his cruciform halo and by the apple
to types of the Pietat.86 The Child's right arm lies at his clutched in his left hand. The apple signifies the Original
side and his left rests on his chest, while his head falls at anSin that he can redeem only by his dying.91 The grief-
awkward angle onto the pillow. Behind the parapet the stricken faces of mother and son express their under-
Mother prays and looks down at the Child lying upon it.standing of his purpose. His delicacy and sadness, under-
The association of the "dead" Christ with cushion and scored by Mary's bulky draperies that fill the picture space,
her restraining hands, the tilt of her head toward his, and
parapet is crucial. The pillow has tassels on its four corners,
as usual with Bellini, and may therefore be specifically her mournful expression, all imbue the painting with pathos.
related to the similar tasseled cushions used in German wood- Similar connotations of death and redemption are con-
cuts as the support for the Infant Christ holding the cross.87 veyed through Giovanni's use of landscape settings. Behind
The motif of a pillow used as a support for an effigy has Madonna and Child (Fig. 15) opens an almost micro-
lineage that dates to the Etruscans. The lids of cinerary scopic view of trees, hills, and a city that the observer is
urns commonly provide a couch or bed for the deceased compelled to understand as extraordinary. Their surround-
who often support themselves with cushions. The resulting ings do not envelop Mary and the Infant, but are merely
half-sitting, half-reclining position was adapted, along with background (or backdrop), as usual with Bellini who was
the couch and pillow, for monumental tombs in the fifteenth not concerned with the physical reality or verisimilitude of
and sixteenth centuries. Tomb sculptures represented the the relationship of the Madonna to her environment. The
dead resting comfortably, propped up with cushions, as purposeful illogic of landscape-figure relationships in the
though their death were a peaceful rest.88 Other tombs paintings indicates that the world must be understood to
make the reference to sleep directly and represent the have symbolic meaning, signifying the Paradise to which
deceased reclining as on a bed, with their heads resting on man's return is made possible through the birth and the
pillows.89 Their death is a kind of sleep, from which they sacrifice of Christ, the second Adam.92 Because the funerary
will rise, as did Christ, at the time of the Last Judgment. It theme of resurrection belongs a priori to the iconography of
is to the tragic aspects of this idea that Bellini's Davis the relic, in this case Christ himself, the themes of his

84 In some cases, the Child's sleep is evidently innocent, as in the
charming panel by Jacobello in Venice (Mariacher, 96). In other
examples, however, it is surely symbolic of his death and Resurrection.
See Firestone, 43-62; Gilbert, 206ff.; Meiss, "Sleep in Venice," 1966,
348ff.; and idem, 1967, 271-279. Cf. Dominici, I3I. The Beato Dominici
(1356-1420) recommends as a worthy subject of a painting, with which
young children can empathize, "Iesu che dorme in grembo della
Madre." Dominici preached at SS. Giovanni e Paolo in Venice in 1391,
and was resident there for several years thereafter. Like so many images,
this too has an ancient ancestry: sleep is a temporary death and death an
eternal sleep. Thus Roman epitaphs may invoke Somnus aeternus (or
aeternalis); Hypnos and Thanatos are called brothers; and the sleeping
Eros is described as sleeping the sleep of death. See Cumont, 36off. and
4o7ff. See also Durandus, 165, who declares that the awakening of
children is a foretelling of the coming of the light.
85 See, among many examples, Pallucchini, n.d., figs. 73 (Antonio),
149 (Bartolomeo), and 224 (Alvise).
86 The infant in Bellini's Madonna and Child Enthroned (Marconi, 65-66)
repeats the pose of the Christ in his Pieth (ibid., 75-76). On the sources of
the Pieta see Dobrzeniecki, 5-24-
87 Cornell, 52ff. Cf. royal cushions, such as those on the throne of the
Madonna, or cushions used in the Madonna of Humility showing the
Virgin crowned as Queen of Heaven, despite her position on the ground.
It is certainly possible that some royal connotations cling to the cushion
when it is used in conjunction with the parapet, but the overriding
associations conveyed in this context are those with death and the tomb.
88 Panofsky, n.d. [1964], 82, and figs. 367 and 371.
89 Andriolo de' Santi, Tomb of Jacopo da Carrara, 1351, Padua,
Eremitani (ill. White, pl. I89A); and Antonio Bregno, Monument of
Doge Francesco Foscari, after 1467, Venice, Frari (ill. Seymour, pl.
138). On the related subject of lying in state, see Wright, 224-243.
90 Ridolfi, 48.
91 Apples evoke the story of Eve and the Original Sin, to be redeemed
by the fruit of the Second Eve, the Virgin Mary. See Bergstr6m, 1955,
304; and 1957, 4f.
92 On the symbolic landscape, see Giamatti, I Iff.; and Turner, 57ff.

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504 THE ART BULLETIN

- Pl, 7#UUk1Ii I-I''i i4

26 Votive painting of Doge Agostino Barbarigo, canvas, 1488. Murano, S. Pietro Martire (photo: S
alle Gallerie)

Resurrection, the resurrection of the dead, and of the flank the reliquary opening of the Sedia di S. Marco in the
Paradise landscape are complementary.93 The harmoni- Tesoro of the Basilica.96 The implication is that the trees
ous landscape represents at once the beauties of this world, surround a sacred representation, a holy figure, or relic of a
the memory of the Garden of Eden, and the promise of the saint.

Kingdom of Heaven. The symbolic settings, gestures, and accoutrements, such

A related iconography is found in the Madonna degli as the pillow, vary from panel to panel; but the motif
Alberetti of 1487 (Fig. 20), named for the two trees that of the parapet is a constant in Bellini's paintings of the
dominate the landscape to the left and right of the Virgin. Madonna. The connotations of death and resurrection in

Alike in shape, although slightly different in size, the trees
are overlapped both by the cloth of honor and by the
Madonna's mantle. In this way they act as a living en-
framement for the holy figures, and may in fact represent
a symbolic enframement as well. According to Paoletti,
followed by Molmenti and Ludwig, these paired trees
represent the Old and the New Testaments.94 This remains
a moot point. It would seem by inference from certain
Early Christian and medieval works, however, that
flanking trees were meant to honor the image. The portrait
of St. Prosdocimus, an imago clipeata carved on the face of
his sarcophagus in the Paduan Church of S. Giustina, is
seen between two trees.95 Palm trees are used again to
his Marian imagery become clearer with further examina
tion of the parapet itself.
As mentioned earlier, Giovanni's parapet, no matter what
the position of the child upon it may be, is the equivalent of
the altar-tomb. Its appearance, frontal and parallel to th
picture surface, suggests the sarcophagus of Christ. In many
quattrocento (and earlier) works, such as that by Donatello,
the dead Christ is seen half-figure, rising above his coffin and
supported either by angels or by Mary and John th
Evangelist.97 In his early Pieta of this type, Bellini depicted
the tomb of Christ as a marble parapet of the same sort he
used in his half-length Madonnas (Fig. 30).98 In this an
other images of the dead Christ, Bellini maintains the

Mark, was located behind the high altar of the Basilica until 1534;
93 Grabar, 1954, 28.
Grabar in Hahnloser, 9, Cat. No. io and pl. vi. For a scholarly study o
94 Molmenti and Ludwig, I Io, find the origins of the motif in Speculum
the relic and its iconography, see Grabar (1954, 19-34), who relates th
humanae salvationis. See also Paoletti, 173. For the closely related subject
flanking trees to the Lamb under the Tree of Life on the back of th
of the Tree of Knowledge, see Marquand, 22. throne.

95 Trees may signify shrines in ancient art. An example is the plane tree
97 On the high altar of S. Antonio, Padua, 1446-1450 (Janson, 162ff.
marking the shrine of Apollo Smintheus (Sminthe is on Lemnos) and in a
pl. 83d).
Hellenistic relief published by Bieber, 489. Agamemnon planted a plane
98 The grave is also made to resemble a parapet in half-length narrative
tree at Delphi, Apollo's home (Iliad 2. 305ff., followed by Pliny
paintings such as the Bellinesque and the Mantegnesque Entombments:
xvI, 85). In Christian usage, trees in general may signify grave markers
School of Bellini, Lamentation, Stockholm, Staatsgalerie, ca. 1500;
(Firestone, 56). For St. Prosdocimus, see Grabar, 1968, 73, No. 179.
Mantegnesque, Entombment, Angri, Chiesa dell' Annunziata, ca. 1515-
96 The Sedia di S. Marco, said to contain the episcopal throne of St.

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 GIOVANNI BELLINI'S MADONNAS 505

fourteenth-century (and originally Byzantine) association terize another group of objects, the tabernacles of the
of altar and tomb.99 Male has analyzed these images as Christian altar. Consisting essentially of doors between
abbreviations of the story of the Mass of St. Gregory the columns or pilasters and crowned with a lunette, taber-
Great. The "Christ of Pity" reveals the vision that appeared nacles were meant to contain the Host. Mary herself had
during the saint's celebration of mass when the Eucharist was performed such a function: a sermon of St. Lorenzo
miraculously transfigured into the Christ himself, still in Giustinian, the first Patriarch of Venice, dramatizing the
pain and yet already dead. The nude half-figure of the traditional metaphor, attributed to the Virgin words in
Savior in his altar-tomb, flanked by Mary and John, which she speaks of herself in such terms: "Et quello che mi
expresses an eternal Passion - a timeless conflation of ha creato, s'e riposato nel mio tabernacolo."102 Such verbal
Crucifixion, Lamentation, Entombment, and promised imagery is forcefully translated in Bellini's visual language.
Resurrection. The text of a sacramental hymn explains that Moreover, the relationship of the half-figure to its enframe-
ment may suggest a further Marian appellation, the
this is so because the Eucharistic wafer signifies (re)birth as
well as sacrifice: "Ave, verum Corpus, natum de Maria Fenestra coeli, through which the faithful hope to approach
Virgine."100 Paradise.103
In addition to the visual associations of the ledge with These evocations of sacrifice, death, resurrection, and
tomb and altar, images of mother and child with a parapet redemption adumbrated in Bellini's parapet are expressed
also evoke epithets of the Madonna herself as altar, taber- also in the types and positions of mother and child, and in
nacle, and grave. In the words of an Easter hymn attributed the basic features of the half-length composition itself. All
to St. Ambrose, "Qui natus olim ex vergine/Nunc e elements - figures, parapet, and the half-length - unite to
sepulcro nasceris."101 convey to the worshipper the essential article of his faith,
Such conceptions are the essence of Bellini's half-length that the Child-God, aware of his fate, was born of the
Madonnas. Hence the resemblance is significant between Virgin in order to redeem man's Original Sin in the eyes of
the ancient Roman ancestral effigies in their shrines and the the Father and then to rise again in his ultimate conquest
Bellinesque ensemble, the Virgin as a half-figure behind a over death.
parapet and in a frame of pilasters supporting a lunette.
The ancient portrait shrine could be pedimented, with or III. The Madonna of St. Luke
without doors, and was often flanked by columns. The hous-
ing for the effigy, the relationship of one to the other, and The Legend of St. Luke
their joint function are very like those of the half-length The half-length Madonnas by Giovanni Bellini recall
Madonna. Her presence too is summoned - in the image another venerable tradition related to ancient portraiture.
and in prayers addressed through it to her - just as rep- This is the Byzantine heritage of the icon, and above all the
resentations of deceased forebears and of ruling emperors legendary icons of St. Luke.104 The Byzantine emendation
by their faces alone could acknowledge their memory and of the saint's legend, that he had portrayed Mary in art as
evoke their presence. Pagan and Christian grave monu- well as in words, can be dated to the literature of the sixth
ments and half-length royal portraits had expressed the century if not earlier.105 These accounts appeared in Greek
hopeful assumption of after-life; the Madonna's image writings throughout the following centuries, but the legend
represented a confirmation of that desire. came to the West only ca. I 150, through the Latin trans-
Similar purpose, setting, and iconography also charac- lation of works of St. John of Damascus.106 The Damascene,

99 In this canvas, traditional altar candlesticks are displayed at either

references; and Hartt, 329ff.
end of the parapet-tomb, and two attendant saints, Mark and Nicholas,
102 Giustinian, 44r.
kneel in prayer, as before an altar. Cf. Shearman, 148-I 72. Similar ideas
are expressed in Nativity and Adoration paintings that include sarco-103 See Hibbard (03-10o4, n. 76) for the sermon attributed to St.
Augustine, extolling Mary as Window of Heaven; also Hirn, 343ff-
phagi (Hirn, 371). A notable example is Domenico Ghirlandaio's panel
Such conceptions - altar, tomb, and Fenestra coeli - are of course wholly
of 1485 (the Altarpiece of the Cappella Sassetti, S. Trinita, Florence)
that shows the Madonna and shepherds kneeling in adoration ofconsistent
the with the use of Bellini's images in a funerary context. For
Child who lies in the ground before a Roman sarcophagus carved with theira placement and usage, see Part Iv.
swag of fruits and with an inscription speaking of Resurrection. Masaccio,
104 Saintly attribution and veneration of images of the Virgin arose in
also, in his Madonna and Child from the Pisa Altarpiece (Davies, 348-351),
tandem with the Marian cult; see Jameson, 9ff.; Klein, passim; and the
made an abbreviated reference to this imagery by picturing the base of under "Maria, santissima," Enciclopedia cattolica, 92ff. On the
entries
the Virgin's throne as a coffin; its strigilated pattern, a motif commonly
development of the cult of images, see Grabar, 1968, 81ff. For the Marian
used in Roman sarcophagi, makes the reference strikingly clear. That cult in Venice, see Contarini; Marchiori; Musolino in Tramontin,
this is no casual decoration is demonstrated by the actions of the figures:
1965, 241-274; Picchini, 5-16; and Tramontin, n.d. [1968].
the Child eats the grapes proferred by his mother, thus signifying the
105 Klein, 8f. Also Dlling, 16off.; and Aherne, 422. Luke's closeness to
acceptance of his adult role; meanwhile, the angel to the right weeps,
the Virgin as reflected in his Gospel is emphasized by such authors as
having understood the Child's actions. Fra Bartolommeo expressed such
Jacopo da Voragine, 626: "For it is believed that the evangelists
ideas overtly in his Salvator mundi (Florence, Pitti). Here the risen Christ
consulted her [Mary] about many things, and that she gave them sure
stands above an altar table while below putti hold the paten and chalice,
knowledge. And this is thought regarding Luke especially, who had
the implements of the Mass that are themselves symbolic of the Passion
recourse to her as to the Ark of the Testament, particularly concerning
(cf. Hirn, 79f.) .Thus the Resurrected is shown as the sacrifice presented
those things which she alone knew, such as the Annunciation and the
upon the altar. He himself appears instead of the commemorative bread birth of Christ, and such like; for Luke alone has written of these
and wine that normally signify his presence: the miracle of transub- things."
stantiation is here made literal.
106 Klein, II, dates the Latin translation of John's work between Ii45
100 Quoted by Mhele, 98ff. as
and and I153. The first mention of Luke-as-painter in Western literature
269. These paintings represent yet another
example of the half-length vision.
occurs in the Canonicus of Nicolaus Maniacutius, a catalogue of in-
101 Quoted in Himrn, 337. See also Bergstr6m, 1957, 17, with further
dulgences for pilgrims in Rome, written ca. 1i8o.

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506 THE ART BULLETIN

i-ii

27 Attributed to Bartolomeo Vivarini, 28 Carlo Crivelli, Madonna della 29 Andrea Mantegna, Madonna and
Madonna and Child, ca. 1455. Berlin, Passione, ca. 1460-65. Verona, Sleeping Child, canvas, ca. 1470. Milan,
Staatliche Museen (photo: Staatliche Museen) Museo di Castelvecchio (photo: Museo Poldi Pezzoli (photo: Museo
Museo di Castelvecchio) Poldi Pezzoli)

one of the leading iconophiles of the eighth century, had from life. The legend of Luke had been enriched: not only
sought to demonstrate legitimacy for holy images in part had the saint painted pictures of Mary, but she had actually
with the reminder that an Evangelist had been an artist, an appeared before him to inspire and to bless her portrait.110
iconographer.107 This was the defense of images, for Three groups of objects are related to the artist Luke.
example, proffered by theologians to the iconoclastic These are, first of all, Madonnas attributed to the Evan-
Emperor Theophilus (829-842): "The Holy Apostle gelist's hand; Madonnas as the saint's attribute; and nar-
Evangelist Luke made on wood with a mixture of colors rative depictions of Luke as an artist, shown painting the
the divine and venerable portrait of the very chaste mother Virgin. The belief that he had been a painter influenced
of God."10S Luke's devotees through the professional identification of
According to a legend of the fifth century, the original artists with their patron. As early as the fourteenth century,
painting, and the particular type of the Madonna that if not before, the Apostle was venerated by painters as the
Luke is credited with having invented, is the Hodegetria of patron of their guilds.111 This professional consciousness
Constantinople. This panel was supposedly acquired by provides the context in which two of the types of Luke must
Eudocia, Empress of Theodosius II (408-450), while in the be understood: the painting as attribute, and Luke as
Holy Land, and sent to her sister-in-law Pulcheria in the artist. Beyond this, it suggests another level of meaning in
capital.109 By the ninth century, if not before, Pulcheria's the duplication or adaptation of the saint's supposed
Hodegetria had acquired, in addition to the evangelical Madonnas.

attribution, the remarkable claim of having been painted Precedents for the representation of Luke as painte

107 For the writings of St. John, see Chevalier. For an analysis medieval
of John'sidentification as artists of such biblical heroes as Solomon and

theory of images, see the bibliography cited below, n. 13 I. Moses: see Durandus, 45.) From very early in the Church's history the
desire for
108 From a letter by the patriarchs Job of Alexandria, Christopher ofexact records of appearance of the holy ones led to attempts at
Antioch, and Basil ofJerusalem, quoted in Rohault de Fleury, 11, providing
35. such images. This explains the various acheiropoetai, above all
the sudarium of Veronica, and is the ultimate source for the idea of
109 The image, which became an object of cult in Constantinople, was
attribution of images to St. Luke. For the sudarium and other "images
housed in the Hodegon cloisters from which it took its name. For the
made without hands," see especially Dobschtitz, 1-357; also Paicht, 405f ;
legend, preserved in a I4th-century source, and the Madonna and, for an explanation of the "veronica" as a synonym for "vera icon,"
type, see Nicephoros Callistus, PG, LXXXVI, 165; Cabrol and Leclerq, Panofsky, "Facies illa Rogeri," 1955, 395. Recently another famed
2611-2614; D611ing, 16off.; Grabar, 1968, 84; Greppo; Henze; Hollander, acheiropoeton has been receiving attention and study, the so-called "Shroud
I 19-122; Jameson, Iof., 96; Klein, 7ff.; Lasareff, 1935, 48ff.; Mufioz, of Turin" that bears the image of a man's body, purportedly Christ's:
16; and Rohault de Fleury, In, 35. On a related subject, two Madonnas New rork Times, 24 November i973, 3-
venerated as Luke's in Rome, see the monographic studies by Berthier,
483-494, and by Cellini. 111 Acta sanctorum, viii, October, Paris and Rome, 1866, 297; and Klein,

110 The identification of Luke as an artist was not without precedent: I3ff. The painters' guild of Venice had a written constitution as early
as 1271: Monticolo, 1891, 31 ff.; and 1905, 363ff. Monticolo publishes
it clearly recalls accounts of late antique and Early Christian authors the Venetian documents, in which, however, St. Luke is not mentioned
who had recorded presumptive portraits of the saints and of Christ as guild patron. It is significant, however, that in August, 1463, a body
himself. Thus the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostle John, a Greek text of identified as the saint's came to Venice from Bosnia. Although its
the 2nd century, include the story of the saint's disciple Lycomedes. identification was challenged, Cardinal Bessarion himself defended it as
The acolyte had an artist-friend paint a portrait of St. John from life, the true relic of St. Luke. Presented by Doge Cristoforo Moro to the
which he then placed behind an altar with candles. This procedure Church of S. Giobbe, it was carried there in procession in December,
represents yet another Christian borrowing from imperial imagery, as
the bust portraits of emperors are shown exactly in this way in the 1463 (Cicogna, VI, 53Iff.).
4th-century Notitia dignitatum; see Grabar, 1968, 66ff. and 79. (Cf. the

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 GIOVANNI BELLINI'S MADONNAS 507

originated, as had the legend, in the Byzantine East.112

who are as resplendent as the sun, very beloved and all-
An early Western example was the altarpiece by Niccol6gracious mother of God, Mary! St. Luke, source of
di Pietro Gerini, now lost but known from Vasari'seloquence,
des- most knowledgeable physician, perfect master
cription, that was dedicated in 1383 by the painters'and doctor accomplished in all the sciences and in all
guild
in the Florentine Church of S. Maria Nuova.113 In the fields of wisdom, after having been sanctified by the
central panel, according to Vasari, St. Luke was shownprecepts of the Gospel, which he preached by word and
painting the Madonna; in the predella, members of which
the he wrote, desired to show evidently to all the world
guild and their wives knelt in prayer. The juxtaposition is
the deeply worshipful love that he had for your gracious
and
significant. By presenting Luke as a painter, Niccol6 has divine grandeur: he considered, and rightly, that,
shown him as the model for his artist-followers who of all that he possessed in learning and in spiritual
pray
to him as he portrays the Virgin. wealth, there was nothing worthy of being offered to you,
if it were not the representation of your admirable and
Among the chief exponents of the theme in the fifteenth
century was Rogier van der Weyden. In discussing his
most charming beauty, which he had contemplated in
work, Panofsky emphasized that in the representation of fact with his own eyes. This sainted and wise man
the
saint portraying the Madonna, "the art of painting renders employed all the resources of colors and of gilded mosaics
an account of its own aims and methods." That is to in say,
order to paint and to record faithfully this image on his
panels, after the rules of his art. In my turn, I, feeble
when a master depicts Luke as artist, his identification with
the saint is inherent in the subject itself. Thus, "figuratively
imitator, have wished to follow in the steps of this wise
speaking, representations of this kind were always man, self-and I have given myself to sacred painting, with the
portraits." Later examples became literally self-portraits,
hope that my means shall not fall short of my good desire,
as is evidently the case with Rogier and others.114 to accomplish my duty towards your holy person, your
A similar treatment of the subject appeared in Italy as
venerable grandeur and your admirable magnificence.
well. The primary example is the altarpiece from SS. With
Lucareverent diffidence, the artist-monk continues to
e Martina given in 1577 to the Roman Academy of St.
apologize for his lack of skill sufficient to achieve his goal
and
Luke.115 The artist, a follower of Raphael, has included hisinvokes the Virgin's help in his work. The dedication
master's portrait in the work, so that Raphael himself ends with his prayer that, with the help of her intervention,
witnesses Luke's artistic achievement (once again, hismay hope for the happiness of beholding the
he too
Madonna herself, in his words, "face to face."117 What the
painting of a half-length Hodegetria). Here, as in the Rogerian
version, the half-kneeling position of the artist-saint suggests
Greek monk described in words, Niccol6 di Pietro Gerini,
a genuflection: the act of painting is paralleled to that
Rogierofvan der Weyden, and others expressed in their
worship.116 art: the depiction of the Madonna is a kind of prayer, the
Perhaps the artists' self-portraits as Luke are imbued with act of painting an act of devotion.
a similar hope for worshipful proximity to the Madonna. Another category of Lukan imagery signifies this
This pious desideratum is expressed in the dedicatory prayer professional-religious association in brevis: the saint is
of the monk Dionysius in his painter's book of Mt. Athos, a identified by a painting (almost always of the Madonna)
work of the eighteenth century that evidently repeats a that he holds instead of the more common evangelical pen
manuscript of 1458: and scroll.118 Such use of a Madonna as the saint's attribute
To Mary, Mother of God and Eternal Virgin O Thou, was a reassertion of the professional identification that we
112 St. Luke is shown at work, the Madonna posing before him, in117
a Dionysius of Fourna, 1-5. For the date of the manuscript that the
Greek manuscript of the Homilies of St. Gregory Nazienzen, of the third painter's book of Mt. Athos preserves, see Thieme-Becker, Ix, 318.
quarter of the i Ith century, in Jerusalem, Patriarchal Library, Kurt Weitzmann kindly informs me that he too sees in Dionysius's book
Taphou 14, fol. io6. See Lazarev, 1967, 188, with further bibliography, the preservation of older traditions. Of relevance here, in addition to the
and fig. 202; cf. 282 for a gospel book in the Vatican (Ms gr. 1159) that artist's identification with Luke, is the tradition of the Madonna's
also illustrates St. Luke painting a picture of the half-length Hodegetria.
protection of those who represent her. Thus in a triforium window in
The earliest known Western representation of Luke at work is the gospel Le Mans Cathedral, the devil is thwarted by Mary when he destroys
book of John of Troppau, 1368. Vienna, National Bibliothek, Ms I182, the scaffolding of an artist painting the Virgin and Child; as the painter
fol. 91 v, published by Trenkler. In this case, Luke is seen painting not begins
his to fall, he is saved by his Madonna who reaches out to catch him;
favorite subject but a Crucifixion flanked by figures of Mary and John ill. Egbert, 91.
the Evangelist.
118 Giusto de' Menabuoi identified St. Luke in this way in a fresco in the
113 Vasari-Milanesi, I, 675 and n. 1. Vasari attributed the altarpieceCappella
to Belludi (or Bulludi) in S. Antonio in Padua in the I380's;
Jacopo di Casentino, but the editor cites the Libri d'amministrazione of see
the Bettini, 1944, 99ff. and 136-37, with further bibliography; and
Spedale di S. Maria Nuova in which is recorded payment of ten florins
Delaney, r, 263-77, and I1, 388-92. Giusto's name was (wrongly)
associated with a miraculous half-length Madonna in the Cathedral
to Niccol6 for the work in 1383. Cf. Offner, ii, Part I, 91; and Klein, 26f.
of Padua, a bequest of Antonia Zabarella (d. 1441). In a guide to Padua
114 Panofsky, 1953, 252ff. Rogier depicted the Virgin as actually present;
cf. ibid., 2541, Horae, ca. 1430-1435, Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery of 1682, Thesaurus urbuspaduanae, Petrus Saviolus quotes one Bernardinus
Scardeonius on the painting. "It is said that he [Giusto] also painted the
(Nis 281, fol. 17), in which Luke sees a vision of Mary; and pl. 105, fig.
228, Colin de Coter (after Robert Campin), Church at Vieure, in which Madonna that is worshipped with extraordinary fervor .... He painted
the Madonna is present "on earth." Although she appears as a full it expertly with his brush and paints, as well as he could, in imitation of
figure, Colin's Luke paints her as a half-length. On self-portraits as St. St. Luke." This Bernardinus is evidently otherwise unknown, as are the
Luke, see also idem, "Facies illa Rogieri," 1955, 397ff.; and Klein, 38ff. date of his commentary and whether it preserves an older tradition of
comparing the painter of a miraculous image to St. Luke. At any rate,
115 Klein, 83f.; Noehles, 46; and Ricci, i920, 89ff. For the Roman he postdates Antonia Zabarella (whose date of death is incorrectly
Academy, see Pevsner, 55-66.
given as 1341 in Petrus's guidebook). For the quotation, the original
116 Panofsky, 1953, 254, analyzes Rogier-Luke's worshipful position, Latin, and the Paduan Madonna, see Van Os, 5.
comparing it to Gabriel's in Annunciation scenes, and emphasizes the
regal setting. This is not the artist's studio, but "an ideal throne room."

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508 THE ART BULLETIN

have seen expressed elsewhere, in literature and in the arts. appellation became so commonplace that it seems to have
The Venetian painters Antonio Vivarini and Giovanni been the complimentary sine qua non of contemporary
d'Alemagna used this motif in the Altarpiece of the writings on art.
Coronation of the Virgin and in the vault fresco of the There are strong indications that Renaissance masters
Cappella Ovetari. In the chapel fresco, Luke paints a understood these references not only as praise but as implied
three-quarter-length Madonna and Child, whereas the other challenge: the achievements of antiquity were to be
Evangelists are engaged in the more traditional acts equalled at least, surpassed at best. This is implicit in Alberti's
involved with their Gospels: John writes, Mark reads, and ekphrasis of Apelles' most famous work, the Calumny. In rec-
Matthew listens to angelic literary criticism.119 The St. ommending the istoria above other categories of painting,
Luke of the Coronation is also identified by his Madonna, with Alberti had specified the Calumny of Apelles as an exemplar.125
its own gilded Gothic frame, to which he points with his Botticelli's panel is perhaps the most renowned derivation
free, right hand.120 His painting rests on his closed book - from Alberti's description but, among others, Mantegna
books are held by the other three Evangelists as well - and also depicted the Calumny.126 Repetition of this narrative
this intimate association of Luke's Gospel with his picture was tantamount to self-identification with Apelles, a visual
is significant. The one is analogous to the other. In the counterpart to the literary eulogia.
words of St. Basil, "What the word [i.e., Scripture] trans- The painter as Luke is the Christian parallel to this
mits through the ear, that painting silently shows through ancient simile. The documentation of the beliefs of
the image."121 In this case, Luke's painting of Mary be- Renaissance artists about their Classical predecessors
comes the equivalent of his Gospel, since both instruct the affirms our suggestion that the saint's paintings were under-
world about the Madonna. stood as an archetype. Such an interpretation is wholly
Finally, in the Cappella Mantegna, in S. Andrea, consistent with the evidence, both written (Dionysius and
Mantua, where the artist is buried, a follower has shown the Greek iconophiles) and visual: the pictorial depictions
Luke in this way, as a painter-saint known by his work.122 of Luke as painter and the use of his attributed paintings as
In such a context, the family chapel and tomb of a greatsacrosanct models.
As we have seen, St. Luke is specifically associated with
master, the inference is clear: the artist and the Evangelist
are identified with each other by their mutual profession.the Madonna as Hodegetria, the type he was supposed to
This may represent, in a sense, the eulogy of a follower of have invented. Moreover, almost all known examples of the
Mantegna to the master. Alternatively, doubtless remember-Madonna said to be by the saint show her as a half-length
ing this motif from the example by Vivarini in the Ovetari figure. This is also true of pictures held by Luke as his
Chapel, where Mantegna achieved his first great success, he identifying attribute and of those that he creates when
himself may have planned for the inclusion of the depictionsshown in the act of painting. Very nearly without exception,
of Luke in a project for his own chapel, which was decoratedLuke's image is the Madonna a mezzafigura.
in 1516, a decade after his death. Among the countless paintings ascribed to the Evangelist
The locus classicus for this sort of professional identificationwas the icon of Pulcheria that was incorrectly identified
is the prototypical association of outstanding artists withwith the Madonna selected by Doge Enrico Dandolo as
Apelles.123 At least since the time of Giotto - and possiblypart of the Serenissima's booty after the conquest of
even as early as the fourth century124 - contemporary Constantinople in 1204.127 Dandolo's treasure, given to
artists had been praised by the flattering recollection ofS. Marco in I234, later acquired the name Nikopeia,
their ancient predecessor. The spectrum of artists to enjoy "Victorious," and its special cult was a development of the
this allusion, from the lowly to the sublime masters of the sixteenth century. It was venerated as a Madonna of St.
Renaissance, indicates the omnipresence of the epithet. The Luke, however, presumably since its presentation by Enrico

Rosand, 1971-72, 527-546. On related subjects, see Blankert, 32-39;

119 Pallucchini, n.d., pls. 86-89: vault frescoes with the four Evangelists,
Ovetari Chapel, Eremitani, Padua, 1448-1450. Dempsey, 1967, 420-25; and Meller, 69.
120 Ibid., pl. 44: Coronation of the Virgin, signed and dated 1444,
124S.Kennedy, 160, citing K. Lehmann.
Pantalon, Venice. In his version of the Coronation, a dated work of 1447,
125 Alberti, 104-105; cf. 85 for the istoria as the painter's greatest
Michele Giambono preserved the idea of Luke's painting as attribute,
endeavor. For the theme itself, deriving from Lucian's "Slander,"
but changed the detail (Marconi, 26-27). Giambono's St. Luke has (359-393),
a see Altrocchi, 454-491; Foerster, 1886, 337-363; idem,
painting of the praying Virgin in half-length, with two angels hovering1887, 29-56, 89-113; idem, 1894, 27-40; Giglioli, 173-182; and Piot,
above to crown her. In this way Luke's painting not only identifies him as
passim.
the artist of the Madonna but also relates to the central narrative of the
126 For attempted reproductions of ancient works in the Renaissance,
panel, the crowning of Mary as Regina Coeli by Christ himself. Luke has
see Foerster, 1922, 126-136.
represented the idea in nuce, Giambono has presented it as an istoria,
but their roles are comparable and parallel. 127 Da Mosto, 94. This Madonna and others in Venice have been the
121 St. Basil, Discourse 19, "On the Forty Martyrs," PG, xxx, cited subject
in of several special studies: Venezia favorita da Maria; Corner;
Ouspensky and Lossky, 32, cf. also 37. Gallo, 133-155; Molin; Thiepolo; and Veludo in Ongania, 127-137. In
addition to the Nikopeia, another half-length Hodegetria came to Venice
122 Kristeller, 333ff. and fig. I1'7. Kristeller suggests that the master
from Constantinople in 1445, its arrival accompanied by rays of light
himself must have made detailed drawings and plans for the cycle. and a comet. It worked so many miracles ("continuamente operava
miracoli") that it was entitled the Madonna delle Grazie; Venezia
123 On comparisons to Apelles, see especially Kennedy, 16o-I70;
favorita, 67-68, 71 ; see also Contarini, 151.
Panofsky, i951, 34-41; idem, 1960, 26; idem, "Erasmus and the Visual
Arts," 1969, 200-227; Posner, 369f., with a lengthy bibliography; and

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 GIOVANNI BELLINI S MADONNAS 509

something of this quality. In Bellini's Madonnas, it is on

and is identified as such in fifteenth-century inventories.128
Furthermore, the Nikopeia must have been regarded as the
again a parapet, as altar and tomb, that also designat
this character of the shrine.
palladium of the Republic, since it was carried in procession
on 15 August, the Feast of the Assumption. This practice
The Bellini Madonna as the Icon of St. Luke
was recorded by Marin Sanudo, writing in I500: "Fo fato
The
la precessiom atorna la piaza, e il patriarcha canto la credo of the icon, expounded most forcefully by S
messa,
e fo porth una nostra Dona a torno, si dice fata di Basil and John Damascene, was still vigorously upheld
man de
San Lucha."129 The diarist's language suggests that the fifteenth century. Thus in 1450, at the Council of
the
Sophia, the Greeks reproached Western Christians for
display of the icon in procession was by that time a custom-
ary event. their failure to repeat ancient images.133 The Venetians, in
The typical Lukan Hodegetria was half-length, and justice,
the should have been exempt from this general co
significance of that choice may be determined with demnation,
refer- for they, like the Easterners, tended to conser
ence to the ancient and continued usage of the form: hallowed
the original designs in sacred and in secular art. T
Ducal Palace murals, for example, as well as later S. Ma
half-length, as we have seen, connotes portraiture, especially
mosaics,
royal portraiture; in tomb effigies, it connotes triumph over closely echo their lost predecessors because ancien
death; in Christian art, it is the form that denotes a images,
vision. closer to the original person (or event), are sacr
Since royal portraits were commonly half-length,sanct and must be closely emulated in order to maint
so too
theirhad
must be the portrait of the Queen of Heaven. St. Luke validity, which lies in resemblance.134 Such repe
tion,
painted his Queen as a portrait, thereby affirming that hisitself a Byzantine characteristic of Venetian art, is t
guarantor of authenticity. When the model is itself Byzan
was a true image, an actual likeness of the Virgin commemo-
tine, a significance of prestige and piety adheres to t
rating her appearance before him. It should be recalled
duplication,
that Early Christian icons of saints and bishops that because of the special associations of Venice an
the East.
purported to be portraits drawn from life also followed this
traditional pattern.130 The icon-relics of St. Luke provided venerable candidates
forsome
In Byzantine iconology "portrait" and "icon" are to repetition, such imitation belonging to a tradition of
repeating acheiropoetai and other holy images. For instance,
extent synonymous. An icon is capable of transmitting
prayer dedicated to the sacred being it representsthe legendary sudarium of Veronica inspired innumerable
because
paintings, intended as replicas, in Italy as well as in the
it embodies an authentic reminiscence of appearance.131
North.135
Herein lies the significance of the use of the icon as devo- Such examples reconfirm the special association
tional image: by means of its visual record of the ofpro-
the half-length portrait of Mary with St. Luke and, by
totype, prayers addressed to the icon are conveyedinference,
to the the hope that something of the sanctity of the
relic may adhere to its copy.
holy personage. Therefore, in order to preserve the efficacy
of the icon, an embodiment of appearance, an artistWhereas must other masters copied Madonnas by St. Luke
literally, Giovanni Bellini attempted to render a spiritual
maintain its features despite the vagaries of individual
likeness. Bellini's conception is essentially iconic: simple,
style. Byzantine art is apparently repetitive because potency
is contained in this continued resemblance of the imageemotionally
to restrained, psychologically distant. Gestures
the archetypal model. Images of the Madonna said to be are never dramatic but suggest the sacramental. Mary and
by St. Luke are such icons, preserving the appearance the Child are never contained by narrative events or by
of the
model, the Virgin herself. settings and are therefore unlimited by time or by space.
Luke's icons are also, by definition, relics of that Although
saint. volumetrically modelled, the holy figures never
This compounded sanctity relates in turn to the image violate the picture plane that Bellini has reinforced with the
in its
frame as a relic in its shrine: because the icon is sacred, that Most important, the austerity of mood, as of
parapet.
image, associates his works with the Byzantine tradition.
which contains it becomes, in a certain sense, a reliquary.132
By extension, then, images inspired by St. Luke's takedistinctive
This on feeling is seen in a Greek icon belonging to

sures, just as the other relics are almost hidden by their shrines.
1s8 The Tesoro inventory of 30 September 1463, speaks of "I figura
Virginis manu beati Luce cum suo ornamento in uno quadro ex argento
133 Vast, 16. I thank Sarah Wilk for bringing this reference to my
et auro." (Venice, Archivio di Stato, Chiesa di S. Marco, B. 79, attention.
published in Gallo, 146; see also Veludo, 128.) Cf. Dandolo, Io9 (Liber
134 For the palace cycles, see Tietze-Conrat, 1940, 15-39. On Bellini's
viI, capitulum II, pars 9, of Dandolo's chronicle), who writes of a
murals see Huse, 56ff.
Aladonna, describing the "sancte Marie yconiam ... quam Lucas ipso
adhuc vivente depinxit" that was a palladium of the Constantino-135 See the bibliography listed in n. Io9 and also Heydenreich, 83-109.
politans. Several Northern examples of copying after the Evangelist's Madonnas
129 Sanuto (or Sanudo), III, 632. Another Marian feast, the Visitation,
have also been documented. Panofsky (i953, 297) cites a half-figure
Madonna venerated as Luke's in Cambrai Cathedral since 1450, which
2 July, a celebration of Eastern origin, was observed in Venice from the
was repeated fifteen times. (This Madonna is Glykophilousa, that is, an
year 1385 by the exposition of sacred images of the Madonna in the
affectionate variant of the Hodegetria.) Noting that none of Rogier van
Basilica of S. Marco; see Contarini, 255. der Weyden's half-length Madonnas predates 1450, Panofsky suggests
130 Grabar, 1968, 74ff- that the Cambrai picture is the source for this form and for many other
131 On the definition of icons and the defense of images, see Chatzidakis, basic traits of the artist's Madonnas. See also Holbein's replica of 1493
1972, 11-40; Kitzinger, 83-150; Ladner, 1940, 127-149; idem, 1953, after the renowned Hodegetria ascribed to St. Luke in S. Maria del Popolo
1-34; and Ouspensky and Lossky, passim. in Rome (idem, 15i), and Albrecht Altdorfer's Virgin in Regensburg, also
132 Cherished Byzantine icons, such as the Nikopeia, were often enshrined copied after a Lukan Madonna (D611ing, i49ff.).
in gold and jewels. Frequently the image is all but covered by its trea-

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510 THE ART BULLETIN

30 Pietac, canvas, 1472. Venice, Palazzo Ducale (photo: Soprintendenza alle Gallerie)

S. Giorgio dei Greci in Venice, in which the Madonna and archaisms, but contain profound significance.
merely stylistic
Child are characterized by their psychological detach-too is entirely consistent with his adherence
The association
ment, quite unlike the typically alert expressions ofhalf-length,
to the their the form of portraiture, and with his
Western counterparts.136 This mood characterizes Bellini's
preference for the Hodegetria, the type presumably invented
actors also. In the S. Giobbe Altarpiece (Fig. byi),
St.for
Luke. And it is in accord as well with both the
professional
example, the group of Mother and Infant, rigid in their un-and devotional aspects of artistic association
compromising frontality, belie any warmly human with the Evangelist, which Bellini, no less than Mantegna,
identity.
wouldVirgin's
The Child's downward gesturing arm is a foil for the have known.
raised left hand, palm outward in the ancient gestureTheseof
interests
the are subsumed in the form of Bellini's
signature
orante. Their gazes are abstracted, forbidding personal - a significant departure from the anonymity of
contact
with the worshipper. Madonna and Child here are the
the iconographer. His signature is included either as a
solitary figures of tragedy, not the gracious core inscription
of intimate in the fictive stone parapet or written on
communication among the saints, for the S. Giobbe Altar-
cartellino, an illusionistically painted label rendered as thoug
superimposed upon the image.137 Shown realisticall
piece is no sacra conversazione, despite its unified architectural
environment. Flanked by the two carefully balanced groups
usually trompe-l'oeil, the cartellino heightens the illusionist
of saints, the enthroned Madonna and Child are as effects of the parapet in perspective and seems literally to
psychologically isolated here as they are in the half-length project from the picture plane (as defined by the ledg
compositions, where they are physically alone as well. toward the viewer. The prominence of Bellini's signature is
Bellini did not always, as in the Contarini Madonna clearly a confirmation of his professional identity, in which
(Fig. 15), paint Greek types; in fact, he was inventive in the like other artists, he would have associated himself with St
posing of his figures. Nor do Bellini's paintings resemble Luke. The signature on the cartellino is also germane to th
Byzantine icons stylistically - except, as we have seen, in worshipful aspects of this professional identification, t
a few instances: he was not a Madonnero. But the essence of equation of Luke's painting with genuflexion. It is Bellin
the icon is in his work too, the simple and strongly-heldmeans of asserting his role as creator of the image and
conviction that the image presents the Godhead to the interpreter of the imagined, i.e., God, to man. His prom
faithful, that the sacred image of God properly contem-inently-placed signature is like a signature by a witnes
plated will lead the worshipper to God himself. The icon-The name "loannes Bellinus" inscribed on his paintings
image becomes the imagined. This conviction underlies the Madonna is thus analogous to the signature of Jan v
Bellini's Madonnas, both large and small. Eyck in his painting of Giovanni Arnolfini and his bride.1
Although none of Bellini's Madonnas is a copy of aAs Jan testifies to the wedding of his Italian patron,
painting attributed to the Evangelist, the conclusion seems Giovanni Bellini testifies to the presence of the Madon
nevertheless inescapable that he was referring to theand Child evoked in his images. (It was, we recall, Luke
tradition of the icon of St. Luke. This association explainsact of painting Mary that inspired her appearance befo
the importance of his Byzantine motifs, which are more than him.) In signing his name on the cartellino affixed to t

St. Eustace,
136 Chatzidakis, 1962, 9-11 and pl. 2. Mrs. Wilk drew my attention to London, National Gallery), because it is clearly meant to be
a label, not a scroll, and attached onto (not incorporated into) the
the resemblance between this icon and Bellini's in the Madonna dell'
Orto (Fig. i1i). image. Evidently a Northern device, it seems to have been first used in
Italy
137 For the signature itself, see Meiss, 1960, 97-11 2. The cartellino, by Fra Filippo Lippi in his Tarquinia Madonna of i437 (Rome
as its
name implies, is an imitation of a paper or parchment label. It is Palazzo
to be Barberini) ; Meiss, I957, 28.
distinguished from the banderoles of trecento and early quattrocento 138 Panofsky, 1953, 203, with further bibliography.
painting (Giotto's prophets in the Scrovegni Chapel vault; Pisanello's

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 GIOVANNI BELLINI S MADONNAS 511

parapet, Bellini bears witness both to his faith and Rogier

to his van der Weyden and his followers. In these works
profession. the donor (usually in the right panel) directly confronts the
Madonna and Child (in the left) whom he worships. Sixten
Ringbom has called these devotional diptychs a kind of
IV. Conclusion: The Image for Private "perpetualized prayer" that is undefined by narrative and
Devotion chronological restrictions, and therefore eternal.141 As we
have seen, comparable qualities characterize Bellini's half-
The Madonna in half-length duplicates the forms of length images, which also signify perpetual worship. His
portraiture, thereby embodying presence; of triumphant
Madonnas, however, reveal few, if any, indications of
funerary effigies, hence signifying immortality; and private
of ownership: no coats-of-arms or dedicatory inscrip-
miraculous apparitions, thus commemorating divine grace.
tions proclaim the patron's identity. For these reasons, it
These connotations are mutually confirmatory: half-lengthseems that the half-figure Madonnas were not painted for
images of the Virgin recall the legend of St. Luke as herindividuals. Such anonymity is consistent with the numbers
portraitist, whose representations in turn record the of studio replicas and variants of compositions extant; these
Madonna's miraculous appearance before him. Moreover,
Madonnas were staples of the Bellini shop and were
these interrelated aspects of meaning, and the form of thefrequently produced in series.142
half-length itself, enhance the sense of direct confrontation The votive painting of Doge Agostino Barbarigo (Fig. 26)
between worshipper and image, and therefore with the is based on the same devotional premise as the half-lengths,
imagined deity. The essence of the devotional image is just
but here in an extended format and with the inclusion of the
this intimacy of contact. Durandus had appreciated the donor. Barbarigo's picture preserves the type of official
significance of such proximity for devotion, noting the votive images that were displayed in the Palazzo Ducale
importance of the half-length itself in promoting the sense in a private commission, executed for Barbarigo as an
of nearness to the divine. "The Greeks," he wrote "... employ
individual and displayed in his family palace - his will even
painted representations, painting ... only from the navel up-
specifies the location, the crozola ("crossing") of the palace.
wards, that all occasion of vain thoughts may be removed.139Barbarigo bequeathed his painting to the Convent of S.
This focus of attention was part of Giovanni Bellini's
Maria degli Angeli in Murano, where two of his daughters
achievement. The truncation of the figure, combined with
were nuns, with the supplication that they and the other
the closeness of Mary and the Child to the parapet andsisters pray before it for the benefit of his soul after his
frame, and hence to the viewer, further enhance the sensedeath, as he himself had done during his lifetime - and as he
of proximity. Even the small scale of Bellini's Madonnascontinues to do in the painting itself.143 In this way the
encourages devout intimacy. In every way, he kept the private votive image became an ex voto, an offering by the
approach to divinity straightforward, concentrated, and donor who hoped thereby to gain divine mercy. Although
direct. The inactivity of Mother and Child and their com-
Barbarigo wears the garments and insignia of his high
plete isolation, physically and emotionally, make profound
office, and although the compositional type was employed
their concentration on each other and the worshipper's for state devotional portraits, previous and contemporary
on them. This isolation also means that comprehension usage
is shows that the format was also suitable for personal
immediate: the worshipper enters at once, and by emotionsstatements of worship. The lunette of Doge Francesco
rather than by intellect, into the meditative quiet condu-
Dandolo's tomb (Fig. 19) is a work of this sort in a funerary
cive to prayer. Panofsky found this to be the core of the
context, and a painting by the Bellinesque master Bastiani
devotional picture, or Andachtsbild: it is a work that invitesshows
- exactly the same type of devotional painting adapted
one might say, compels - "the beholder to lasting and
for a private citizen (Fig. 31).
emphatic meditation rather than a narrative arousing hisA function of the devotional use of the image is its place-
interest in a specific event."140 Bellini's devotional picturesment. Barbarigo's large canvas, originally displayed in the
are Andachtsbilder in their expression of the central mystery "crossing" of his palace, was probably exceptional, but we
of the Christian faith; their very limitations make them un-
cannot know whether the painting was actually planned for
limited.
that location, as major altarpieces were for theirs. Clearly,
The Madonnas also resemble another type of Northernsuch was not the case with the half-figure Madonnas.
devotional image, the diptychs in half-figure associated withDespite this, however, and despite the fact that none of them

139 Durandus, 43. See also the description of the Church of the Holy 142 For replicas and variants produced by the Bellini shop, see the
Apostles by Nikolaos Mesarites in which he discusses the significance of bibliography in n. 25.
the half-length form (Downey, 869-870). Grabar publishes in part a
143 Will of Doge Agostino Barbarigo, 17 July (and codicil, 15 August),
mid-15th-century play of the Passion from Reims that reveals a
1501: Venice, Archivio di Stato, Not. de Floriani, B. 416, c. 6. A partial
similar approach to worship. The faithful are urged, "Vous pescheurs
I9th-century copy is found in the same Archive, S. Maria degli
d6sirans avoir grace,/Levez vos yeulx, regardez cette face . . ./Voicy la
Angeli, B. 18. See also Zanetti, 51ff. Barbarigo had been a procurator of
portraicture humaine/De la face tant gracieuse .. ." (1923, 18).
the convent before his dogate. The painting was to be displayed on the
140 Panofsky, 1956, 95. Panofsky adds that the Andachtsbild is character- high altar of the church, "sopra l'altar grando di quel devotissimo et
istically half-length in the I5th century (ibid., IIi and I3i, n. 43). religioso monasterio le qual semo certo che in ogni tempo le habia a
See also idem, 1927, 261-308; and Meiss, 1936, 452. Recently Huse pregare Idio per I'anima nostra e de tuti li nostri che sono passati da
(47-48) has discussed Bellini's Madonnas as Andachtsbilder. questa vita." For related material on similar donations, see Sinding-
141 Ringbom, 1965, 45ff. For Rogier's diptychs, see Panofsky, 1953, Larsen, 139-158.
294ff.

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512 THE ART BULLETIN

31 Lazzaro Bastiani, Votive painting of Giovanni degli Angeli (d. 1481). Murano, S. Donato (photo:
Soprintendenza alle Gallerie)

is now in situ, something may be known about their as an original

image for private devotion.147 The recent reappear-
locations from narrative paintings, for example, ance of the Kimbell Madonna,148 almost a replica of
the Dream
ofSt. Ursula by Carpaccio. Next to the saint's bed,Navagero's
Carpacciopainting, seems to confirm this hypothesis: these
has painted a half-length Madonna with its own
paintings,
gildedalthough evidently autograph, belong to the
studio
frame to which a candle is attached.144 Still other repertoire of compositions and were not unique
examples
show such paintings of the Madonna affixed directly to the
inventions for individual patrons. Their function, however,
head of the bed itself; by displaying their images in these
was similar, and in the light of the testaments of Agostino
Barbarigo
domestic surroundings, the pious invite the Virgin's and others, we may deduce that Luca Navagero
daily
presence and protection.145 too had given his Madonna so that the faithful might con-
tinue to pray
In addition to this sort of residential use, examples are before it, thereby commemorating his
known of the placement of private images over altars,
donationoften
and the common hope for salvation.
in association with tombs and in the context of com- This was surely the intention of the patrons of the Frari
memorative bequests. A case in point is the paintingtriptych
in the (Fig. 3) and of the Sacra Conversazione in S.
Cappella Navagero in the Madonna dell'Orto (Fig.Francesco
I I).146 della Vigna (Fig. 32), works commissioned to
fulfil the
Luca Navagero died in 1488 - the same year in which specific functions, to be sure, but again having
Barbarigo and Frari paintings were completed - elements
and wasin common with the half-length Madonnas. Like
the left
buried at the foot of the altar of the first chapel on the panel
ofof the Madonna dell'Orto (Fig. I1), both the
that church. Three years earlier, in 1485, the altar hadand the Sacra Conversazione are situated on altars
triptych
already been constructed, probably at Navagero'sabove behest.
graves. The altarpiece and chapel of the Frari
The painting may have been put in place at that time sacristy were endowed in memory of Franceschina Tron
- at
least, there is no indication that any other picture ever
Pesaro by her sons, Nicol6, Benedetto, and Marco, and her
occupied this space. The Virgin itself, however, was husband,
mostPietro; her tomb in the chapel pavement is
probably painted earlier; stylistically and in type, itinscribed
recalls with their names and the date 1478.149 The male
the "Byzantine Madonnas" dating from a full decade members of the family are represented in the altarpiece by
before (e.g., Fig. 7). Giles Robertson, following Crowe and their name saints. In the central panel, above the heads of
Cavalcaselle, plausibly suggests that the panel in the Mother and Child, a brief prayer is written in the gold
Madonna dell'Orto was indeed painted in the seventies, and apse mosaic: "IANVA CERTA POLI DVC MENTEM

144 Ursula's father also has such a devotional image in his private
his nephews, who may have been involved in the endowment, have not
been found.
chamber, in a detail from the Reception of the English Ambassadors. Under
the aegis of Mother and Son, Ursula and the king debate the advantage
147 Robertson, 78; and Crowe and Cavalcaselle, I, 151.
for the faith of her marrying the pagan prince, thereby winning converts
to Christianity; and Ursula dreams of the martyr's palm profferred 148
byBrown, 27-29.
the angel. On Carpaccio's cycle for the Scuola di S. Orsola in Venice,
149 Fogolari, 1931, unpag. (text for pl. 24). It is likely, then, that 1478
is the date of commission; this might explain the triptych form of the
executed in the 1490's, and now in the Accademia of Venice, see Lauts,
18-26, 227-230. altarpiece, which seems archaic for I488, the date of Bellini's signature.
145 Held, 233-37. Bellini had used a unified setting for the Madonna and saints as early as
the mid-seventies, the time of the lost altarpiece of SS. Giovanni e
146 Cicogna recorded the inscriptions that are the source for thisPaolo.
in-
formation, HI, 26o-61. The testaments of Luca Navagero or those of

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 GIOVANNI BELLINI'S MADONNAS 513

iii:~i

-.:: ---:::
--:- ---

i i-
-:: ::-

ii-

ii:-iii~iiiai:i
: :w-.:::

:- :::

:-.

i,~ii i

:::~:- :

:-:1:::: ?

::::I::

32 Sacra Conversazione, 1507. Venice, S. Francesco della Vigna (photo: Soprin

DIRIGE VITAM/QVAE PERAGAM COMMISSA et sopra dito altar sia posta la mia pala over ancona la
TVAE SINT OMNIA CVRAE" ("Sure Gate of Heaven, qual al presente me fa messer Zuanne Belin con li sui
lead my mind, direct my life, may all that I do be commit- adornamenti et cum la cortina davanti come se rechiede.152
ted to thy care").150 "Gate of Heaven" is among the Comparable funerary and commemorative use of the
traditional appellations for Mary, stressing her role at the half-length Madonna is found in many Renaissance tomb
time of death, when, through her, the devout will enter the monuments. In the Tomb of the Cardinal of Portugal, for
celestial kingdom.151 This sentiment is then especially example, Antonio Rossellino carved a tondo of the Virgin,
poignant and significant in such a context. a half-figure, flanked by two flying angels.153 This pattern
The testament of Giacomo Dolfin, endowing a chapel corresponds to the ancient imago clipeata supported by the
(now the Cappella Santa) of S. Francesco della Vigna, figures of flying genii.154 In each case, pagan and Christian,
reveals similar motives. He arranged for his burial in the the complex is symbolic of immortality. In the former, the
church and for an altar where his votive painting was to be apotheosis of the deceased is represented; in the latter,
displayed: Christ's triumph over death is signified and man's hope for
El mio corpo sia posto in la sepoltura mia in cesia de san immortality expressed. The placement of Luca Navagero's
francesco dela Vigna se quela havero fata far avanti la Madonna, of Giacomo Dolfin's half-length Sacra Conversa-
mia morte et se veramente quela non havesse fato far zione, and of the Frari triptych are comparable to the many
voglio che per li mei comesarii subito la sia fato far in examples of sculpted burial monuments. We recall too that
questo modo et in terra il mio corpo sia posto in deposito related images of shrine and tomb were symbolized in
dela quondam mia madre. Voglio et ordeno che in la Bellini's parapet, the grave there being that of Christ through
cexia predita de messer san francesco sia fato uno altar whose Resurrection the pious hope to achieve their own
con la sepoltura davanti come se quelo da cha grimani conquest over death.

150 For the inscription, see Robertson, 89. i6th century.

151 The appellation "Gate" may also refer to the Madonna's virginity: 153 Hartt, Corti, and Kennedy, 79-Ioo. The type exists also in fresco;
Hirn, 335ff. an example is the detached lunette from the Atrium of S. Angelo in
152 Venice, Archivio di Stato, Not. Cristoforo Rizzo, B. 1228, fol. 205- Formis, dating from the end of the 12th century (Furlani in Venezia e
(See also Bode, Gronau, and Von Hadeln, 89-90.) Dolfin made his will Bisanzio, 45).
on 7 February 1505 (equals 1506), and the half-figure Sacra Conversazione 154 Ill. Panofsky, n.d. [1964], fig. 126. For the imago clipeata, see supra,
is signed and dated 1507. The donor portrait was repainted in the mid- p. 494 and n. 37-

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514 THE ART BULLETIN

As images of devotion, Bellini's Madonnas evoke his owntheage to creations that were never without charm."155
sort of response invited by an icon that is worshipped In fact,as Bellini
a did not duplicate particular models, but
proxy for the prototype represented, because adoration captured instead the mood of the icons. The Virgin's
offered to the image reaches mother and child themselves. presence was evoked by, even contained within, these
These images, both Bellini's and the Byzantine, are images in much the same way as a portrait of a man calls
meant
forth or reminds one of his presence. The proximity to the
to convey a special reality in one sense: they are understood
as likenesses, in some ways exact, in others differing model,
fiom the sense of immediate confrontation achieved by
the model. But in every other sense they are insistently means of the half-length and the parapet, invites prayers
unreal: timeless, spaceless, motionless, they arethat eternal
speak directly to the Madonna or her Child. Jacobus de
pictures of the immortal. This ancient conception in Voragine had explained that the Son was born so that men
Renaissance form was the ideal devotional image for the might gain forgiveness: although some are unworthy to
Venetian, equally accustomed to worship the icons from the address Christ in his glory or during the Passion, all may
East and to appreciate the newer beauties of contemporary approach the Infant.156
art. It was their cognizance of these archaic features of In his adaptation of the great examples of Byzantium,
Bellini's conception that led Crowe and Cavalcaselle to for the inner meaning as well as the outward appearance of
postulate his having actually repeated ancient images. his Madonnas, Bellini created the Western equivalent of
Writing about his Madonnas of the seventies and eighties, the icons of the East. This is what makes them so effective.
they suggest that Giovanni "preserved the traditions of his Giovanni Bellini was indeed, as Baldinucci said of him,
school, reproducing perhaps, at the bidding of a patron, an "singular in the painting of sacred images, to which are due
old Madonna sanctified by the veneration of previous marvelous devotion."'57
generations, yet always adding something of the spirit of Princeton University

155 Crowe and Cavalcaselle, 151.
156Jacobus, 51, explaining the reasons for the Nativity, writes of a
repentant prostitute who had little hope of forgiveness: "And since she
deemed herself unworthy to invoke the Christ glorious, or Christ in His
Passion, she bethought herself that children were easier to mollify:
wherefore she called upon the Child Christ, and a voice made known to
her that she was pardoned."
157 Baldinucci, III, 124-

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 GIOVANNI BELLINI'S MADONNAS 515

Cordie, C., "Una grande famiglia di editori umanisti: I Manuzio

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