medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear Erik,
I think Jim's got it right, tho' the translation he's used may be suspect in
parts. Several sculptural images of the infant John the Baptist exist from
Florence from the 1440s onwards, including terracottas which allowed
multiples. Giovanni Dominici also mentions images of the Holy Innocents,
which is more of a puzzle, but I think survival rates from the period are so
low that the non-existence of such objects should not lead us to doubt the
authenticity of the text. It's always possible, of course, that G.D was
describing the sort of images he would have liked to exist, and that he
succeeded in creating a demand for a novel kind of image, but I don't think
we have to assume this. Images could be on furniture, combs, boxes and all
sorts of ephemera as well as panels.
As to natural gesture, take a look at Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Christ Child
sucking his thumb (Siena, Presentation in the Temple), or the child cowering
under St Peter's cloak in Giotto's Expulsion of the Merchants from the
Temple... both 75-100years before GD's text. Naturalism didn't start with
Masaccio (or 'my guy' Giotto, come to that).
all best
Laura
----- Original Message -----
From: "Erik Drigsdahl" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 23 November 2005 18:28
Subject: Re: JdV's 'estate sermons'
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> Jim, this sounds extraordinary modern in my ears.
> Are you absolutely sure that the edition from 1860
> by D. Salvi not is a free interpretation of the original,
> or manipulated to suit the spirit of the 19th cent.?
> [Are you quoting something from the french edition of the
> 'Lucula noctis' by R. Coulon from 1908? ]
>
> Giovanni Dominici (John the Dominican, beatified 1832)
> wrote his 'Regola del governo di cura famigliare' around
> 1400-1405, and if he makes reference to pictures of John
> the Baptist as a child does it ring a kind of alarm bell
> in me as an art historian. What kind of pictures did he
> have in mind, showing 'movements and signs' of children?
> There is an anachronism here. It was before any woodcuts
> were available for sale on the open market, and long before
> pictorial representation of children could be expressed
> and conceived as showing natural gestures. Even in Florence
> was it well before Masaccio. Fra Angelico could very well
> have been inspired by such ideas, but it was also twenty
> years after the death of Giovanni Dominici.
>
> I am sceptical, mainly because it sounds too good to be
> true! It sounds more like the ideas of the so-called
> 'Nazarenes' - 19th century painters with engravings after
> Perugino, Raphael and Leonardo hanging on their walls in Rome.
>
> By 1400 was there no engravings on the walls of a family home
> in Toscana. And certainly no paintings of Saint John as a
> child. Where can we find the original text in italian,
> seen as it was, without any 19th century filters?
> I am just really curious about this.
> All best
> Erik Drigsdahl
>
>
> At 17:01 +0100 23/11/05, Jim Bugslag wrote:
>>This may be a bit late for you, but at the beginning of the 15th century
>>the prior of
>>the Dominican convent in Florence, Giovanni Dominici, wrote his Regola del
>>Governo di cura famigliare, in which he advised parents to have images of
>>the
>>Christ Child and infant saints, such as the young John the Baptist, in
>>their homes to
>>serve as models for their own children: "one should have in the home
>>images of
>>child saints, male and female, in which your infant, still in its diapers,
>>can see their
>>own likeness, for it is in this way that this can be accomplished between
>>the infant
>>and the infantile image, with the movements and signs that are typical of
>>children."
>>Sorry for the inelegant translation from the French. This has been
>>published, in an
>>edition by Salvi Domenico (Florence, 1861). Although later than Giotto,
>>it certainly
>>recalls aspects of St Francis's creche.
>>Cheers,
>>Jim Bugslag
>>
>
> _____________________________________________________________________
>
> Mag.art. Erik Drigsdahl CHD Center for Haandskriftstudier i Danmark
> Kapelvej 25B 3.tv Phone: +45 +35 37 20 47
> DK-2200 Copenhagen N Email: <[log in to unmask]>
> DENMARK http://www.chd.dk
>
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