A second note on Michelangelo's face in the skin of Bartholomew (II)

An additional note on Michelangelo's face in the skin on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel:

In reading about the confraternities which existed in Florence in the fifteenth century, it occurred to me that perhaps there might be yet another reference present in the hanging skin of St. Bartholomew that contains the self-portrait of Michelangelo on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel (1541).


Bartholomew is the patron saint of tanners and, as such, was adopted by the parishioners of the Church of Santa Croce, as a model for a confraternity that held meetings within the confines of that church as early as 1439 (See J. Henderson, Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence (1994).  The confraternity was known as the Compagnia di San Bartolommeo detta della Capanna (the Confraternity of Saint Bartholomew known as the "Tent.")
         Michelangelo's house, now the Casa Buonarroti in Florence, on Via Ghibellina, 70, is in the parish district of Santa Croce, and Santa Croce is the place where Michelangelo's body is brought from Rome to be buried after he dies. That he chooses the Santa Croce district in which to settle in 1508, the year he buys the house, is probably because his family had originally had a house on Via dei Bentaccordi, also in the Santa Croce district, when they returned to Florence from Caprese near Arezzo, where Michelangelo was born. His later choice to paint himself as a skin held by the patron saint of tanners shows his attachment to the Santa Croce district even near the end of his life.
         The vats for the treating and dyeing of cloth, including leather, were in the Santa Croce district, some of them on Corso dei Tintori (whose name contains still a reference to the colors used by the dyers, Road of the Tinters.) St. Bartholomew would be the saint of choice for tinters and tanners to pray to, since he died by being skinned alive. 
         Was Michelangelo as a youth a member of the Compagnia di San Bartolommeo della Capanna? Was he remembering his youth and the activities of Santa Croce which he engaged in as part of that Compagnia by painting himself as the skin of St. Bartholomew in the Last Judgment? He does not paint his face in the face of St. Bartholomew himself but rather puts his facial features in the skin. Is he thus identifying with the poorer people of his parish who were the tanners and dyers who handled "skin"in their work? and who used colors as he does on the wall? Is the image of the artist held out for the viewer by St. Bartholomew, then, a reminder
that Michelangelo came from Florence and the district of the tanners, of Santa Croce?











As a member of that parish in his youth he may have seen the altarpiece by Andrea Della Robbia where Bartholomew features prominently in the center as the model for youths in the compagnia to follow. (now in the Museo di Santa Croce.)      

In the image so intimately attached to that saint and his death, could he not be remembering the Latin phrase underneath the saint there, "Saint and Father Bartholomew, PRAY FOR US?
       

In painting a wall of Last Judgment that includes his own death and afterlife, the artist

perhaps thinks back to his childhood and the models available to him artistically in the parish of his youth. From the viewer's point of view, his painted Bartholomew turns left with his right hand holding the knife, exactly as the sculpted Bartholomew does in Della Robbia's bas-relief altarpiece. The turn of the head, the beard, the knife held out as the symbol of his identity are the same in both images. The face of the artist is suspended between early life and the end of life in his remembrance of the Santa Croce of his youth. "Pray for us, Saint Bartholomew," the skin says, "in the hour of our need."  

DELLA ROBBIA's TOBIAS AND THE ANGEL

ANDREA DELLA ROBBIA's TOBIAS AND THE ANGEL

The altarpiece today found in the Museum of Santa Croce in Florence in glazed terracotta
is a work by Andrea della Robbia of c.1460. In the center is an empty tabernacle opening with an arch above in which a bas-relief representation of Saint Bartholomew appears with the knife which is his attribute (he was flayed alive for his Christian beliefs.)  

The left side of the altarpiece shows St. Francis receiving the stigmata from a half-figure of Christ surrounded by seraphim in the sky, while Francis' companion, Leo, is seen from behind looking up at the same figure. Above St. Francis' head is a church at the top of a hill, presumably a reference to the location at La Verna where Francis received the wounds in his hands and feet and chest in imitation of Christ's wounds. (On a side note La Verna became an important Franciscan site which was decorated by the Della Robbia family in the 15th century, which might explain why the church in this bas-relief resembles the chapels actually on the site.)

 

      The right side of the altarpiece shows us two figures walking with a dog, one with wings and one holding a fish. The winged figure is the Archangel Raphael and the boy with the fish is Tobias, who caught a fish on his trip with the archangel and took medicine made from the fish innards to cure his father's blindness on the return from his trip (a story in the book of Tobit - see previous blog.) Raphael is holding a box for the
medicine in his right hand.
At the bottom of the altarpiece is a Latin inscription:
 SANTE E PATER BARTOLOMEE ORA PRO NOBIS
                                                   (Saint and Father Bartholomew, PRAY FOR US.)
                 

What a lot is going on in this altarpiece!  
Two name saints, Francis and Bartholomew, and the Archangel Raphael with his protege, Tobias. How can we account for all of these figures in one location in Santa Croce in the middle of the 15th century?
          In some altarpieces from this period we might assume that all of these names refer to patrons' names, choices that can be explained by the patrons' own wish to be remembered and protected in the
afterlife by their name saints. Such is certainly the case in the Peruzzi Chapel of Santa Croce where the patron, whose name was Giovanni, John, makes sure he covers all the bases by including in the decoration of that chapel the lives of both saints with that name, John the Baptist and John the Evangelist.
          In the case of this sculpted bas-relief altarpiece, however, other explanations are in order. St. Francis is here because Santa Croce is a Franciscan church, and, if the altarpiece was originally in the location of the cloister of this Franciscan church, in the Cerchi Chapel, where it appears at present, the
presence of Francis would be understandable.

 If, as seems likely, too, this chapel was used for the Confraternity of the Archangel Raphael for its prayers, the presence of Raphael and Tobias, along with the dog and fish, would be appropriate. Francis, Raphael, and Tobias, would all be good models of behavior to exhibit visually for the youth of the parish to follow in a room used for meetings of younger people under the auspices of the Confraternity of Raphael.
          But then, what about Bartholomew of the flayed skin? Why is he an "exemplum" for young people
to look to in learning about Christian values and proper behavior and manners?
          Bartholomew is given center stage here and called to in the inscription. But his figure is cut in half
and enclosed within an arch as a visual pun for the phrase:  San Bartolommeo della Capanna - Saint
Bartholomew of the Tent. Capanna in Italian means covered shelter or manger and was used in the 15th century to refer to the Manger in the Nativity scene, a scene reenacted by the youth in the community of Santa Croce in pageants on feast days. The group which gathered several times annually to present the Christian story was known as "Compagnia di San Bartolommeo detta della Capanna." This confraternity, much like the confraternity of Raphael, met in the Cerchi Chapel in the cloisters of Santa Croce as early as 1439, according to John Henderson, p.450, in his book Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence (1994). 
          Would that not explain then the presence of all three of these holy figures? The church is dedicated to Francis, a model for young boys, the confraternity of Raphael meets in the room of the altarpiece,
and Raphael is a model for Tobias and other youths. And Bartholomew is the model for another confraternity, the Compagnia di San Bartolommeo detta della Capanna, which puts on plays, either in the chapel room or out in the streets on floats, and whose feast day falls on August 24, a day certain never to be too cold to perform.  
          For boys growing up in Renaissance Florence, these splendid terracotta dramas presented on the altarpiece now in the Museo di Santa Croce would pronounce visually the moral excitement of leading the good life.

The words would echo the sentiments of the sermons heard in the room and echo the prayers to the holy Apostle who had been willing to martyr himself for his religion. The emphasis in the bas-relief, though,
is not on the horrors of martyrdom, or even of stigmata, but on the companionship of Francis with Leo
and Tobias with Raphael. The boys could see themselves in Tobias, with his dog and fish, and enter vicariously into the life of the Franciscan church through the glad stepping of the boy they see guided by the angel in the Della Robbia sculpture. Under the guidance of Della Robbia, these boys would have found themselves on familiar ground.

LIST of TOBIAS AND THE ANGEL PAINTINGS

LIST of TOBIAS AND THE ANGEL PAINTINGS

Here is a partial chronological list of Italian Renaissance paintings with the subject of Tobias and the Angel:

1465-70 – Antonio Pollaiuolo  - Tobias and the Angel

Original location – Vasari mentions a pilaster in Orsanmichele or the Mercanzia since Pollaiuolo did the Virtues around same time for the merchant court there.

Now – in Galleria Sabauda, Torino 

              

1470 – Botticini -  Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael with Tobias; large painting with 3 archangels and Tobias.Orig. location - unknown.

Now in Uffizi. 

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1475-80 – Filippino Lippi –  Tobias and the Angel Raphael, dancing feet (see previous blog on Lippi's Tobias and the Angel)

Orig. locat. unknown

Now in National Gallery, Washington, D.C.  

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1477-78 – Filippino Lippi – Tobias with three Archangels, large.

Orig. in Galilei family collection before coming to Torino.

Now in Sabauda, Torino. 

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1470-75 – Andrea Verrocchio – Tobias and the Angel

Orig. location unknown

Now National Gallery, London   

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1520 – Titian – Tobias and the Angel,

Orig. location-  Santa Caterina, Venice

Now in Accademia, Venice.

ALTARPIECES WHERE Tobias' story is secondary to Madonna:

1490-95 – Botticelli, Trinity, with Tobias and angel below crucifix

Orig. location - Santa Elizabetta delle Convertite, prostitute reform church in Florence.

Now in Courtauld Institute, London.

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1495 – Botticini – Virgin and child altarpiece with Raphael and Tobias on right of Virgin (viewer’s perspective).

Orig. location unknown

Now in Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh. 

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1496-1500 – Perugino, Madonna with Gabriel and child,altarpiece; left panel - St. Michael,

rt. panel - Raphael and Tobias.

Orig. location - Certosa di Pavia.

Now in National Gallery, London.

                                                                 

                                                              

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1513-1514 - Raphael - The Holy Family with Raphael, Tobias, and Saint Jerome, or the Virgin with a Fish
Orig. location - commissioned by Geronimo del Doce for the chapel of Saint Rosalie at the Monastery of San Domenico, Naples.
Now in Prado, Madrid, Spain

Notes from Prado website:

Provenance- Royal Collection (Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Madrid, “Iglesia Vieja”, 1839)

Seated on a throne, the Virgin holds the Christ Child in her lap. On the right, Saint Jerome dressed as a Cardinal reads the Vulgata (The Bible he, himself, translated into Latin.)Below Jerome the lion that symbolizes him. The Archangel Raphael stands with Tobias, who holds the fish with which he will cure his father's blindness.
The use of color and the masterful composition whose apparent simplicity hides complex triangular, rectangular and diagonal forms, recall the Stanza d'Heliodoro painted by Raphael at the Vatican.
There are preparatory drawings for the present work at the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence, and at the National Gallery of Scotland in Edimburgh.
The Viceroy of Naples acquired this work for Felipe IV (1605-1665) and, after a brief period in the chapel of Madrid's Alcázar Palace, it entered the Monastery of El Escorial in 1645. From there, it entered the Prado Museum Collection.

OTHER TOBIAS WORKS OF ART:

Giovanni Santi, Tobias and angel, 1460?

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 Benozzo Gozzoli, pillar in S. Agostino, Tobias and the Angel, 1464-65, San Gimignano, Italy.

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Benozzo GOZZOLI, Montefalcone, San Francesco, 1446-61, Tobias’ face damaged.

 

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 Botticini, Tobias and angel, 1495, Old Sacristy, S.M. del Fiore, Florence.

Andrea del Sarto, 1514, Archangel Raphael with Archangel Gabriel, donor, dog, and Tobias, now in Vienna.

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Andrea del Sarto, Madonna and child with angel and saint (Paul?), 1522-23, now in Prado, Madrid.

Bartolommeo Sogliani, Madonna and child with St. Augustine and Tobias and angel.

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Bonifazio Veronese, 1520, Madonna, child, and Joseph, with Elizabeth and John the Baptist and Tobias and Angel, orig. Venice.

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Altobello Melone, 1521-23, Tobias and angel, now in Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

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Salvoldo, Tobias and the Angel, 1542, now in the Galleria Borghese, Rome.

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Titian, San Marziale, Tobias and the Angel, 1530:

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Cima da Conegliano, 1540, Madonna and child, with Tobias and angel:

END OF PARTIAL LIST