Annual Bulletin 5, 1981-1982

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Ugolino di Nerio: Saint Anne and the Virgin

by Laurence B. Kanter

Pages 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Notes

29 Stubblebine, op. cit., I, p. 173, II, fig. 426. R. Lehman, The Philip Lehman Collection, New York (Paris: 1928), no. XVII.

30 See De Nicola, loc. cit., E. Francolini, Memorie di San Casciano in Val di Pesa (Montepulciano: 1847); Vasari / Milanesi, I, p. 454. Stubblebine, op. cit., I, pp. 168-169, accepts De Nicola's thesis that Ugolino's panels were painted for Santa Maria Novella. He believes that they formed parts of two different a!tarpieces, both distinct from the one seen by Vasari, and that Ugolino painted all three of these altarpieces in the same short space of time in which he also painted the high altarpiece for Santa Croce (i.e., c. 1325). R. Offner, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting, III:V (New York: 1947), p. 89, 110 n. 5, summarizes the known history of the altarpiece seen by Vasari, painted after 1324 for the high altar and standing between c. 1485 and c. 1591 in the Spanish Chapel. That this altarpiece could in fact be the one today in the Chiostro Verde at Santa Maria Novella, signed by Bernardo Daddi in 1344, renovated shortly after 1485, and recorded as having come from the Spanish Chapel before 1790 seems probable to this writer. Daddi's signature was covered over by the fifteenth-century restorations, and revealed only in 1938 (Offner, p. 88). To assume Vasari was mistaken in his attribution is not unreasonable.

31 Vasari / Milanesi, I, p. 455, as 1349. In the first edition of the Lives this date appears as 1339, which was repeated by all subsequent writers. I. Ugurgieri- Azzolini, Le Pompe Sanese (Pistoia: 1649), p. 330, says of Ugolino, "...fù sepolto in Siena l'anno 1339. con questo breve Epitaffia: PICTOR DIVINUS IACET HOC SUB SAXO VGOLINUS / CUI DEUS ATERNUM [sic] TRIBUAT VITAMSUPERNAM."

32 J. Pope-Hennessy, Italian Gothic Sculpture, 2nd ed. (London: 1972), pp. 198-199, dates Giovanni di Balduccio's arrival in Milan before 1335. The document of that year, however, refers only to a resolution to build the Arca and to raise money for that purpose; it does not refer to work already in progress. R. Valentiner, "Giovanni di Balduccio a Firenze," L'Arte n. s. vi (1935), pp. 3-29, notes the hurried character of the sculpture on the Arca and consequently dates Balducci's departure for Milan to 1338.

33 M. Boskovits, "A Dismembered Polyptych, Lippo Vanni and Simone Martini," Burlington Magazine, CXVI (1974), p. 376. Boskovits (p. 372 n. 26) doubts the authenticity of the historical notice dating the foundation of Santa Maria al Prato at San Casciano to 1335, and would like to date the Crucifix and the pulpit to the 1320s.

34 Stubblebine, op. cit., I, p. 161, II, fig. 388. The fragmentary predella at Lucca (Stubblebine, op. cit., pp. 159-160, figs 375-382, 29 x 200 cm), which includes a bust-length figure of Saint Louis of Toulouse, originally stood beneath another heptaptych by Ugolino, the centre panel of which is likely to have been the Tadini Madonna. The latter, then, would also have to be dated to 1317 or after.

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