Benozzo Gozzoli's Frescoes of the Life of Saint Augustine in San Gimignano: Their Meaning inContextAuthor(s): Diane Cole AhlReviewed work(s):Source: Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 7, No. 13 (1986), pp. 35-53Published by: IRSA s.c.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1483246 .Accessed: 07/06/2012 08:59

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DIANE COLE AHL

Benozzo Gozzoli's Frescoes of the Life of Saint Augustine in San Gimignano: Their Meaning in Context

For Frederick Hartt

In his own day, Benozzo Gozzoli was a most admired artist. After his apprenticeships to Fra Angelico and Ghiberti, he obtained commissions that took him to Rome and Umbria as well as throughout Tuscany. That Benozzo was chosen by the Medici to decorate the private chapel in their palazzo suggests his renown by mid-century. Less than five years after the

completion of these frescoes, Giusto di Andrea agreed to work with him for expenses alone - an unusual arrangement - on a series of paintings in San Gimignano.1

Completed in the early-to-mid 1460's, Benozzo's works in that city include several altarpieces, two murals of Saint

*This article is based on papers presented at my Jones Lecture at Lafayette College; the testimonial in honor of Frederick Hartt, University of Virginia, March 31, 1984; and at the "Christianity and the Renaissance" symposium, Florence, June 6, 1985. It is part of a monographic study on Benozzo Gozzoli which I am completing. I wish to thank Lafayette College for their generosity in supporting my research. For their assistance, I am grateful to Gino Corti; Yvonne Lanhers; Father Joseph Schnaubelt, O.S.A., Director of the Augustinian Historical Institute at Villanova University; the staff at the Biblioteca Comunale in San Gimignano; Father James K. Farge, C.S.B.; Ailsa Turner; and Paul Barolsky.

1 For the relevant text from the now-lost ricordi of Giusto di Andrea, see G. Gaye, Carteggio inedito d'artisti dei secoli XIV, XV, XVI, I, Florence, 1839, p. 212.

2 P. E. Giudici, "Les Fresques de San Gemignano (sic.)", Gazette des Beaux-Arts, II, 1859, pp. 172 - 76; G. Gruyer, "Les Monuments de I'art a San Gimignano," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, IV, 1870, pp. 162

Sebastian, and the restoration of a Maesta in its Palazzo Comunale.2 The most important of these commissions is the choir he frescoed in the church of Sant'Agostino [Fig. 1]. Seventeen scenes recount the life of the great theologian and Church Father whose Rule the monastery followed. Despite the number of Augustinian foundations in Italy, there are only three known fresco cycles of the saint's life from the Quattrocento: the choir by Ottaviano Nelli in Sant'Agostino, Gubbio, from the turn of the century; the murals by Giovanni Pietro da Cemmo in Cremona; and the chancel in San

Gimignano.3 Benozzo's chapel seems to be the only fresco

- 70; M. Faucon, "Benozzo Gozzoli a San Gimignano", L'Art, IV, 1881, pp. 125 - 34; 189 - 205; N. Baldoria, "Monumenti artistici in San Gimignano", Archivio storico dell'Arte, III, 1890, pp. 40; 48 - 55; and E. Castaldi, Scritta per la costruzione della Cappella di San Bartolo su disegni di Giuliano da Maiano, Colle d'Elsa, 1921, pp. 41 - 3, with documents for some now-lost works.

3 See the respective chapters on these cycles in J. and P. Courcelle, Iconographie de Saint Augustin: les cycles du XVe si6cle, Paris, 1969. This magisterial, two-volume study (also see their Icono- graphie de Saint Augustin: les cycles du XIVe siecle, Paris, 1965) must be the starting-point for any research on the saint's iconography. A series of frescoes, some of which depict Saint Augustine, is located in the cloister of San Salvatore, Lecceto. According to G. T. Radan, who will be publishing studies on the murals with Father Benedict Hackett, O.S.A., they date from the Quattrocento, but do not constitute a narrative cycle.

35

1) Choir, Sant'Agostino. San Gimignano (Photo: Author).

cycle of the life of Saint Augustine in all of Tuscan Renaissance art. Though there are manuscripts, altarpieces, and isolated images of the saint from this period, the unique place of this chapel in the history of sacred art is clear. What seems less evident - and until now, a question never answered satisfac- torily, much less posed - is why these murals were painted in San Gimignano.

2) Botticelli, ((The Vision of Saint Augustine)). Florence, Ognissanti (Photo: Alinari).

The frescoes are of particular importance to our knowledge of Quattrocento painting, but they have been studied little. Despite his fame in the fifteenth century, Benozzo is no longer esteemed a major figure, and his works, consequently, have received insufficient attention by recent scholars. Yet the significance of the chapel for our understanding of central Italian art seems apparent. The cycle reveals the Renaissance

36

3) Carpaccio, ((The Vision of Saint Augustine). Venice, Scuola di San Giorgio (Photo: Alinari).

conception of the saint during a period of intense religious reform, synthesizing a rich hagiographic tradition with the

image of the theologian that the Order sought to promote at the time. Next, the chapel is critical to our comprehension of the character of narrative painting in the 1460's and '70's, for Benozzo was among the most important mural painters of the period. Finally, the frescoes are significant because of their patronage. Though the identity of the donor, Fra Domenico Strambi, has always been known, his purpose in commissioning the chapel has not been explored. Through newly-discovered documentary evidence, his biography now can be reconstruct- ed, and from this, his reasons for having the choir painted with the life of Augustine can be surmised. Indeed, his involvement with the Augustinian reform movement, examined in the context of these frescoes for the first time, suggests that the chapel expresses the ideal of the saint fostered by the Osservanza.

To appreciate the iconographic and historic significance of the San Gimignano frescoes, one must understand the

prevalent conception of Saint Augustine during the Renais-

4 See R. Arbesmann, O.S.A., "Outstanding Augustinian Human- ists", The Tagastan, X, 1947, pp. 101 - 12; idem., "Der Augustiner- eremitenorden und der Beginn der humanistischen Bewegung," Cassi- ciacum, XIX, 1965, pp. 603 - 35; P. 0. Kristeller, "Augustine and the

4) Choir, Sant'Agostino. San Gimignano (Diagram: James Somogyi).

sance. From Petrarch, whose volume of the Confessions

accompanied his ascent of Mount Ventoux, through the Humanists, men of letters exalted Augustine's reconciliation of Christian doctrine with Platonism.4 The saint's lifelong commitment to learning, the lucidity of his prose, and the brilliance of his argumentation became their ideal. Accordingly, there are a number of images from the period in which he is

Early Renaissance", Studies in Renaissance Thought and Letters, Rome, 1956, pp. 355 - 72; and C. Trinkaus, In Our Image and Likeness, Chicago, 1970, which documents almost throughout the influence of the Church Father's writings on Humanist thought.

37

5) Benozzo, ((Saint Augustine Brought to the Grammar Master)). San Gimignano, Sant'Agostino (Photo: Alinari).

portrayed as scholar and visionary.5 Botticelli's fresco in

Ognissanti [Fig. 2] is probably the best known. Augustine's vision of Saint Jerome is the subject: according to apocryphal epistles variously attributed to Augustine, to Cyril of Jerusalem,

5 For the textual sources for both paintings cited here, see H. J. Roberts, "Saint Augustine in Saint Jerome's Study: Carpaccio's Paint- ing and Its Legendary Source", Art Bulletin, XLI, 1959, p. 288f. The most recent discussions on the Ognissanti and Scuola di San Giorgio images are, respectively, R. Lightbown, Sandro Botticelli, I, Berkeley- Los Angeles, 1978, pp. 50 - 1, and M. Kemp, "The Taking and Using

and to Eusebius of Cremona, Jerome appeared to Augustine at the very moment of his death to describe the inutterable

beauty of Paradise. With his head craned forward and

impassioned gaze, Botticelli's Augustine seems to intuit

of Evidence; with a Botticellian Case Study by Martin Kemp", Art Journal, XLIV, 1984, pp. 207 - 15; and J. Lauts, Carpaccio: Paintings and Drawings, New York, 1962, pp. 230 - 33, and F. H. Jacobs, "Carpaccio's Vision of Saint Augustine and Saint Augustine's Theories of Music", Studies in Iconography, VI, 1980, pp. 83 - 93.

38

6) Benozzo, ((Saint Augustine Teaching in Rome)). San Gimignano, Sant'Agostino (Photo: Alinari).

another's presence. The same moment is depicted in Carpac- cio's canvas in the Scuola di San Giorgio [Fig. 3] from the first years of the sixteenth century. As he gazes out the window of his light-filled study, Augustine seems to hear the transcendent music of the celestial spheres. Both of these works express the conception of the saint that the Augustinian Order was anxious to promote during this period, which was one of intense reform within its Congregations. They embody the ideals of scholarship and faith that the learned theologian endeavoured to reconcile in himself.

The commission at San Gimignano made different demands upon Benozzo. The cycle was to narrate various episodes of Augustine's life, in some ways, a more difficult task than that of creating a merely symbolic image of the theologian. While being appropriately decorative in its overall arrangement and style, the series of scenes had to recount several important events in Augustine's life as well as his spiritual evolution. Seventeen individually framed compartments are painted in three registers, with Latin inscriptions below identifying each scene [Fig. 4]. There are five of them painted on each of the

39

7) Benozzo, ((Saint Augustine Leaves Rome)). San Gimignano, Sant'Agostino (Photo: Alinari).

side walls, the uppermost being lunettes, while seven surround the chapel's single window. The Evangelists appear in the vaults.

Unlike most fresco cycles, this narrative begins on the lowest row, closest to the worshipper. It unfolds from

left-to-right across the choir so that the last scene in the saint's life is on the highest row on the right. The narrative

6 Two Trecento examples of ascending narrative in the Lower Church are the Magdalene Chapel and Simone Martini's Montefiore Chapel (kindly pointed out to me by Eve Borsook in a communication of September 4, 1984). For Benozzo's frescoes of the life of Saint Francis, see A. Boschetto, Benozzo Gozzoli nella chiesa di San Francesco

thus ascends, leading our eyes upward as Augustine's life

progresses. The episodes preceding his conversion are on the lowest register, while the climactic scenes of his sacred

bishopric and death direct our vision towards the vaults.

Following Trecento examples in nearby Assisi, Benozzo

employed this mode of narration at Montefalco, and it earlier had appeared in the North Doors of the Florentine Baptistery.6

di Montefalco, Milan, 1961. As Creighton Gilbert has observed, the example of the North Doors would have impressed Benozzo especially, for he was, as Ghiberti's former student, intimately interested in its style and narrative structure.

40

8) Benozzo, <<Adoration of the Magi). Florence, Palazzo Medici-Riccardi (Photo: Artini).

However, this seems to be the first time that it occurs in a mural cycle in Tuscany. The ascending narrative serves as a pictorial metaphor for the spiritual evolution of Augustine, who moves away from the sin and folly of his misspent youth to a greater understanding of God.

An examination of several of these scenes reveals Benozzo's distinctive interpretation of the saint's life as well as his response to the demands of narrative. In the earliest of these, Augustine is enrolled in grammar school [Fig. 5]. On the left, the overly solicitous master is entrusted with his young charge as Saint Monica looks away with dismayed resignation. On the right, another teacher, identically dressed, brandishes the scourge with which he will beat one of his rowdy pupils.

Benozzo uses the groups as foils for each other, contrasting the concern of mother and schoolmaster to the harsh reality of a schoolboy's life awaiting Augustine. At the same time, the setting is lively. The boisterous children, bright colors, and cunning perspective vistas tempt us to meander through the streets of Carthage, and correspond to the high-spirited if misspent life that the saint recounts he led as a youth. In one of the next episodes [Fig. 6], he is no longer a mischievous lad, but a scholar teaching Rhetoric in Rome. The artist's conception is appropriately restrained and stands in deliberate contrast to that of his enrollment in school. Now the setting is an enclosed room, the composition is balanced precisely, and the gestures of the scholars are controlled, suggesting

41

9) Benozzo, The <(Tolle, lege). San Gimignano, Sant'Ago- stino (Photo: Alinari).

the order and discipline of true learning. The following scene [Fig. 7] shows the introspective scholar leaving Rome for Milan, where he is to meet Saint Ambrose and abandon his dissolute ways at last. In showing Augustine as a traveller, Gozzoli has been faithful to the spirit of the saint's Confessions, for upon his arrival in Milan, the errant Christian refers to his journey as a wandering or pilgrimage.7 The city of Rome, a symbol of paganism and its worldly snares, appears in the distance as the past he is leaving behind. Almost lost in the landscape, the cortege continues on its way at the upper right. While the lush foliage and entourage call to mind those of

the Palazzo Medici chapel [Fig. 8], the mood is not celebratory. The gait of the horses is measured and stately, the crowd is less populous, and the expression of the saint is resolute as he travels forth. This is not a pageant, but a pilgrimage the doubting scholar takes to find God.

Beginning with the scenes of Augustine's acceptance of Christ [Fig. 9], the compositions become increasingly simplified. Considering the anguish the saint experienced before his vision of truth, this rendition of his conversion is remarkably restrained. Seated beneath the fig tree in the garden in Milan, he hears a voice counseling him to "take up [his book] and read." The text to which he turns is that of Saint Paul, admonishing sinners to renounce their ways and return to Christ. Two of his friends recoil, drawing back from his new world, while his spiritual companion Alypius calmly approaches, extending his hand. The same economy of gesture is evident in all of the scenes on the window wall. It is seen in the episode opposite the conversion, where Augustine is baptized by Saint Ambrose [Fig. 10]. The hands of only one of the men encircling the saint are visible, their prayerful gesture echoed by that of Augustine. Except for Monica, who looks heavenward in thanksgiving, all solemnly lower their eyes. The intimacy of this sacred moment is enhanced by the setting, for the baptistery's colonnade seems to frame and embrace the figures. This pious mood continues through the funeral of Saint Augustine [Fig. 11 ] several episodes later, where the configura- tion of monks around the bier recalls that of Giotto's Death of Saint Francis [Fig. 12] in the Bardi Chapel. While a panelled wall forms the simple backdrop to the scene at Santa Croce, Benozzo's setting is an entire cloister. The low pallet is framed by the outer walls of the church and a circle of bereaved monks, the slow rhythm of the arches behind it evoking solemnity and mourning.

Close study of the cycle suggests that the sequence and placement of the individual episodes were contrived carefully. Episodes that are directly opposite from, or adjacent to, one another serve as complements or foils, enhancing our under- standing of the narrative. The outermost scenes on the lowest row are Augustine's Enrollment in Grammar School and Augustine's Departure for Milan. They function as transitions from the public space of the nave to the inner sanctuary of the monks' choir, for both are crowded, outdoor episodes full of movement and color that display Benozzo's virtuosity in the art of perspective. They stand in contrast to the adjacent depictions of the saint's intellectual activity. In the restrained

7 Saint Augustine, Confessionum (K. von Raumer, ed.), Gutersloh, 1876, v.23, p. 119: "...peregrinationem meam satis episcopaliter dilexit".

42

Augustine admitted to the University of Carthage [Fig. 13] and Augustine Reading Rhetoric in Rome, the protagonist is placed in rooms whose floors and low ceilings are in carefully drawn perspective. Groups of standing and seated students balance the space. Two repoussoir figures of nearly identical appear- ance, probably based on the same cartoon, are set into the left foreground of each. Such repetition enhances the continuity, visual symmetry, and scansion of the individual scenes. Adjacent to Augustine Admitted to the University of Carthage is Monica Praying and Bidding Farewell to Augustine [Fig. 14]. The postures of the vainglorious scholar kneeling before his professor and of his devout mother genuflecting before the altar as she prays for her unregenerate son are intentionally similar. Surely Benozzo was evoking a contrast between the realm of profane knowledge and that of faith, between Augustine's pride and the pious humility of Saint Monica.

The scenes that introduce the next register are public ones. Augustine Arrives in Milan [Fig. 15] and the Episodes with Ambrose [Fig. 16] display brightly dressed crowds and highly foreshortened architecture. They stand in contrast to the adjacent Tolle, lege where Augustine receives the Word of the Lord in the solitude of a garden. The placement of this episode above Monica Praying for his conversion is deliberate, for Monica's uptilted profile directs us to consider the scene of answered prayer above. It is no coincidence that both episodes are placed behind the actual altar of the chapel, or that four of the seven scenes on the eastern wall describe conversion or revelation. Other such correspondences obtain throughout the cycle. They complement the integrity of the narrative and provide continuity between the individual regis- ters and scenes.

The Sant'Agostino frescoes reveal a clarity of conception that is absent from both of Benozzo's major commissions from the 1450's, the chancel of San Francesco, Montefalco, and the chapel in the Palazzo Medici. The scenes from the life of Saint Francis at Montefalco display the strong influence of the artist's master, Fra Angelico, and of the Chapel of Nicholas V on which they collaborated. But while the relationships between sacred actors and their settings seem harmoniously balanced in the Vatican chapel, the figures in the Umbrian cycle are quite overwhelmed by their environment [Fig. 17]. Architecture and landscape seem to have been conceived first, dwarfing the participants in the religious drama who are wed but uneasily to them. Perspective is inconsistent, the great leaps of scale from foreground to back impairing the legibility of several scenes, some of which represent as many as two or three episodes. Though the ascending narrative at Montefalco anticipates that of San Gimignano, the corre-

10) Benozzo, ((The Baptism of Augustine)). San Gimigna- no, Sant'Agostino (Photo: Alinari).

spondences and parallels between scenes that are so resonant at Sant'Agostino have not as yet been developed. Benozzo seems to conceive of narrative as a series of independent events. His approach is still static and linear.

The Adoration of the Magi in the chapel of the Palazzo Medici presented an entirely different problem for the painter. The murals chronicle only a single moment in time. There are no individual scenes, no registers, no protagonist. The uptilted space, richly foliated landscape, brilliantly dressed men and their caparisoned mounts, leaping hart, and throngs of birds

43

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ANMA INCELIS COMI- - TANT-BV ANGELIS FER'RI- VISA. L-: A!\/M.. MOhVM INOB3ITV LBEATI AV(3VSTINI AOQVAMPLVUUIMIS [iE/S A NI MA INCELIS COMITANTIBVS ANGELS FERRI V ISA t ST

11) Benozzo, Tlhe Death of Augustine. San Gimignano, Sant'Agostino (Photo: Alinari). 11) Benozzo, <(The Death of Augustine)). San Gimignano, Sant'Agostino (Photo: Alinari).

suggest that Benozzo's inspiration was that most decorative of media, tapestry. While it is thus not truly comparable to the San Gimignano cycle, the earlier discussion of Saint

Augustine Leaving Rome and the Adoration from the south wall is revealing. Instead of a solemn procession slowly winding through the landscape, there is an endless parade; in lieu of the hills that serve as mere backdrop, two-thirds of the space is mountain, tree, or field; anecdotal detail, from the hunters

pursuing their quarry to the soaring birds, abounds. The

pageantry and decorative brilliance of the frescoes in the

8 For Piero's activity in Arezzo, see E. Battisti, Piero della Francesca, I, Milan, 1971, pp. 132 - 259. On Fra Filippo's late career, see E. Borsook, "Fra Filippo Lippi and the Murals for Prato Cathedral", Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, XIX, 1975, pp. 1 - 144, and the still-valuable account by L. Fausti, "Le pitture di

Palazzo Medici chapel seem the antithesis of the cycle at

Sant'Agostino. The Sant'Agostino frescoes document an important mo-

ment in Tuscan narrative painting. By the time Benozzo began this chapel, the most innovative painters of the previous generation - his teacher Angelico, Andrea del Castagno, and Domenico Veneziano - were dead. Piero della Francesca and Fra Filippo Lippi executed major fresco cycles in the fifties and sixties, but these were all outside of Florence.8 Pollaiuolo's embroideries of the life of Saint John for the Florentine

Fra Filippo Lippi nel Duomo di Spoleto", Archivio per la storia ecclesiastica dell'Umbria, II, 1915, pp. 1 - 36. It seems that commis- sions for major mural cycles in Florentine churches virtually ceased in the 1450's and '60's: a satisfactory explanation for this phenome- non has yet to be offered.

44

Baptistery, while begun around 1460, were not completed until more than two decades later.9 The careers of Botticelli and Ghirlandaio were just in their infancy. Together with Piero's frescoes in Arezzo and Donatello's pulpits for San Lorenzo, the chapel in San Gimignano was one of the most

important narrative cycles to have been executed in Tuscany during this period.

The iconography of these frescoes is inspired by the saint's own Confessions as well as by a wealth of apologetic, biographical, and historical literature.10 The Confessions is a

spiritual autobiography that transcends the particulars of its author's life, and as such, reveals more of the saint's inner self than it records his actual chronology. Because it left so much unsaid, a number of biographies were composed, ranging from the contemporary account of Augustine's colleague, Saint Possidius, to the mid-fourteenth century Vita SanctiAugustini by Jordanus of Saxony. In addition to these chronicles, there are many apocryphal texts, the account in Voragine's Golden

Legend, and other hagiographies. Each text has its own

particular focus. Possidius' vita summarizes the years before the saint's conversion tersely, in marked contrast to the

guilt-ridden discourses of the Confessions. Augustine's later life is set forth at length, from the theological controversies in which he was embroiled to his teachings, temperament, and mode of dress. Another popular source for the saint's life is Henry of Friemar's Treatise on the Origin of the Hermit Friars of 1334.11 It is an etiological history that attempts to trace the problematic origins of the Order in Tuscany to Augustine himself, and describes his role as founder imaginatively.

A rich iconographic tradition was inspired by these writings. In addition to manuscripts and isolated images of Augustine that date before the Renaissance, twenty-one European cycles of the saint's life from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries have been analyzed in the magisterial studies of Jeanne and Pierre Courcelle. Though certain scenes, including the saint's conversion and baptism, are found in almost all of these narratives, each cycle has a unique focus. The iconography of the frescoes at San Gimignano is distinguished from all of these. Considering the saint's depraved early years and the sensational aspects of his life chronicled in the Confessions,

9 Entry by L. Becherucci, II Museo dell'Opera del Duomo di Firenze (L. Becherucci and G. Brunetti, eds.), II, Florence, 1971, pp. 156 - 59; 259 - 67.

10 In addition to the sources identified by Courcelle, 1969, op.cit., pp. 89 - 106, and the survey by P. Courcelle, Les Confessions de Saint Augustine dans la tradition litt6raire, Paris, 1963, p. 266ff., see Saint Possidius, Vita sancti Aurelii Augustini, in Patrologiae cursus comple- tus..., series "prima" latina (J. Migne, ed.), XXXII, Paris, 1841, col. 33 - 63; Jordan of Saxony, Jordani de Saxonia Ordinis Eremitarum Sancti

12) Giotto, ((The Death of Saint Francis)). Florence, Santa Croce, Bardi Chapel (Photo: Alinari).

the portrayal here is restrained. None of the many posthumous miracles in the Golden Legend is illustrated: the cycle ends with the bishop's death. The episodes of his conversion and

baptism are devoid of drama: there is little sense of the miraculous about them. What prevails in fully half the scenes is the noble conception of the saint as student, teacher, and scholar, from the first scene, where the boy Augustine is delivered to the grammar master, to the penultimate, where, while composing a tract in his cell, he mystically communes with Saint Jerome [Fig. 18]. The Latin inscriptions along the lower border of each panel further emphasize the didactic intent of the murals, for some begin QUEM AD MODUM, as if presenting painted exempla.

Of all the episodes, there is one in particular that exemplifies the uniqueness of the iconography [Fig. 19]. Three events are illustrated within the borders of a single frame: Augustine's meeting with the Christ Child on the seashore; his visit to the hermits in Tuscany; and his bestowal of the Order's Rule on Monte Pisano. The first was inspired by an apocryphal letter

Augustini Liber Vitasfratrum (R. Arbesmann, O.S.A. and W. Humpfner, eds.), New York, 1943; R. Arbesmann, O.S.A., "Jordan of Saxony's Vita S. Augustini, the source for John Capgrave's Life of Saint Augustine", Traditio, I, 1943, pp. 341 - 53; and Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend (trans. and adapted by G. Ryan and H. Ripperger), New York, 1969, pp. 485 - 501.

11 R. Arbesmann, O.S.A., "Henry of Friemar's 'Treatise on the origin and development of the Order of the Hermit Friars and its true and real title"', Augustiniana, VI, 1956, pp. 37 - 145.

45

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?'~" . ?*'. .:E . -, @ @ 4tfl C , $ ] .^ - * ̂ ''y ̂ **'-**'"!:.^ :;:71~::; * i? *!iii!!e ^& ' *^*^...a2 "y?*^TW 1.-

13) Benozzo, ((Augustine Admitted to the University of Carthage)). San Gimignano, Sant'Agostino (Photo: Alinari).

by the saint to Cyril of Jerusalem. 12 While meditating on the nature of the Trinity as he walked along the shore, Augustine met a little boy trying vainly to spoon the ocean into a hole he had dug in the sand. When the bishop gently chided him for undertaking such an impossible task, the divine Child admonished him that his desire to apprehend the Mystery of the Trinity was no less futile. This parable, which suggests

12 First identified by L. Pillion, "La Legende de Saint Jerome d'apres quelques peintures italiennes du XVe siecle au Musee du Louvre", Gazette des Beaux-Arts, XXXIX, 1908, p. 312, n. 2. The sources for the legend are discussed by H. I. Marrou, "Saint Augustin et I'ange, une legende medievale", L'Homme devant Dieu, Melanges offerts au P. de Lubac, II, Paris, 1964, pp. 137 - 49.

13 Earlier treatments discussed by J. and P. Courcelle, "Scenes anciennes de I'iconographie augustinienne", Revue des 6tudes augus- tiniennes, X, 1964, pp. 57 - 60.

the unbridgeable distance between faith and reason, is, so far as we know, illustrated for the first time at San Gimignano. Surely this reveals that the author of the program was

exceptionally well-versed in Augustinian writings. While the rendition of this apocryphal episode is important

because it is without precedent, the other scenes in the same

panel are no less significant. They show Augustine vested as a Hermit Friar with the monks of the Rule bearing his name.13 The inscription beneath identifies this as his presentation of the Rule on Monte Pisano. The facts on this score are

unequivocal: such a depiction is wishful thinking. While the Italian Hermit Friars may have shared a spiritual bond with the monastic communities first established by Augustine in North Africa during the fourth century, there is no historical evidence that he had ever travelled to Tuscany, let alone founded his Order there. In contrast to the Franciscans, whose founder was granted the Charter of its Rule during his own lifetime, the Order of Augustine appears to have arisen in Italy after the saint's death and without his direct sanction.14 In fact, the communities associated with his name seem to have been without a consistent, written Rule before the Great Union of 1256. It was to silence these controversies over the foundation and Rule of the Order that Henry of Friemar

composed the aforementioned treatise on the origin of the Hermit Friars.

The Augustinian historian recorded a persistent oral and written tradition that the saint may have spent as many as two or three years in Tuscany following the death of his beloved mother.15 If these pious legends were to be believed, the grief-stricken Augustine had lived for a time with a

community of monks on Monte Pisano. Furthermore, he had

given his original Rule to them. That the saint himself had not recounted this crucial episode in the Confessions was dismissed as inconsequential by Henry of Friemar: after all, did Augustine not state that he had neglected to record many events in his

autobiography because of his sorrow over Saint Monica's death?16 The hagiographer's account was accepted readily because it seemed to confirm the Order's origins in Tuscany, a stronghold of the Hermit Friars, of which Sant'Agostino was a congregation. Benozzo's rendition of the Rule's bestowal

14 Arbesmann, op.cit, 1956, pp. 39 - 44, and K. Elm, "ltalienische Eremitengemeinschaften des 12. und 13. Jahrhundert", L'Eremitismo in occidente nei secoli XI e XII, Milan, 1965, pp. 491 - 559.

15 Arbesmann, op.cit., pp. 55 - 56. However, Jordan of Saxony, op. cit., IXXIV-V, - v, decries this episode as apocryphal.

16 Augustine, ix.17, p. 226: "Multa praetereo, quia multum festino. Accipe confessiones meas et gratiarum actiones, Deus meus, de rebus innumerabilibus etiam in silentio".

46

lends credence to this legend. In the background, the saint converses with his followers, while in the foreground, he

presents them with what history seems to have denied them: a written Rule.

So thorough a knowledge of the sources for the Church Father's life is revealed here that an Augustinian scholar must have composed the program for the cycle. The identity of the

patron is known from an inscription in Augustine's Departure for Milan, which praises him as the eloquii sacri doctor

parisinus... Dominicus. The importance of Fra Domenico's role in shaping the commission has not been appreciated fully, however, nor has the cycle been interpreted in its historical context. Without an understanding of the donor's life and of the circumstances that inspired these frescoes, our apprecia- tion of their meaning is limited. A series of documents, many of which are unpublished, helps elucidate the character of the eloquii sacri doctor praised for his magnanimity in adorning Sant'Agostino. Considering his commitment to scholarship and reform, there can be little doubt that he was the author of the cycle's program. Though several of the sources

concerning his life have been lost, those that do survive help to reconstruct the biography of this remarkable man.

Fra Domenico was a luminary not only of San Gimignano, but of the Augustinian Order. He was a scholar, a patron of the arts, and a religious reformer. The portrait that emerges from the documents is a compelling one: once ostracized by his fellow monks, the friar left his native town to study theology at the Sorbonne, returning an esteemed scholar committed to the reform of his monastery. Nothing is known of his early life. His birthdate and the year of his religious profession have not been ascertained. The first notice concerning Fra Domenico records his presence in Sant'Agostino in 1445.17 From a late

seventeenth-century chronicle of San Gimignano by Fra Giovanni Coppi, we learn that the friar did not get along well with the other brothers. According to this account, Fra Domenico was so derided by the monks that he had to leave

Sant'Agostino. 8

Though Coppi does not explain the antagonism that the friars felt towards him, their antipathy may have been due to

17 S. Lopez, O.S.A., Chartularium conventus Sancti Geminiani, O.E.S.A., Rome, 1929, p. 95. Fra Domenico is designated as celebrant of Masses for the testatrix.

18 G. Coppi, O.P., Annali, Memorie ed huomini illustri di San Gimignano, Florence, 1695, p. 369, recounts that Fra Domenico "ricevendo, per aver detto una buaggine, uno schiaffo da un altro Frate, ed essendo per ci6 da tutti deriso, si parti di San Gimignano come svergognato". Though Coppi suggests that the friar left the monastery in dishonor, it seems unlikely that the priors of San Gimignano would have supported him at the Sorbonne, as discussed below, had this been the case. Despite careful research, I have been

14) Benozzo, ((Saint Monica Praying and Bidding Farewell to Augustine). San Gimignano, Sant'Agostino (Photo: Alinari).

his commitment to reforming the monastery.'9 Many docu- ments regarding Sant'Agostino during the Renaissance have been lost, but those that are extant reveal that it had become

quite lax by the mid-fifteenth century. Seeking to reform the

monastery, the town council of San Gimignano hoped to place it under the jurisdiction of Lecceto, motherhouse of the

unable to confirm other statements by Coppi, and must question his reliability as a source.

19 L. Pecori, Storia di San Gimignano, Florence, 1853, pp. 415 - 16, n. 1, and unpublished notices (such as San Gimignano, Biblioteca Comunale, Archivio del Comune, NN 132 (Libro di deliberazioni e riforme P, 1476 - 1480), 297 r., March 20, 1480, refer "ad suam intentionem reformari". On the monastery's failure to live up to the ideals of its founder, see Pecori, op.cit., pp. 415 - 18, and L. Bertoni, "II Declino di un'Osservanza, San Martino in Siena della Congregazione leccetana (1522 - 1620)", Analecta Augustiniana, XXIX, 1966, pp. 317 - 18.

47

I

. -15) ..'.Benozzo, ( tine Arivs in Mil).

15) Benozzo, ?,Augustine Arrives in Milano.

Augustinian Osservanza.20 Despite San Gimignano's geo- graphical proximity to Lecceto, the friars seem to have been untouched by its intense spirituality, its zeal for austerity, its renewal of the original ideals of Augustinian monasticism. The monks' opposition to the Osservanza may have provoked Fra Domenico's departure. By 1450, the friar had left Sant'Agos-

20 On the Osservanza and its ideals, see, among many sources, A. Landucci, O.S.A., Sacra Ilicetana Selva, sive origo et chronicon breve coenobii et congregationis de Iliceto in Hetruria Ord. E.S.P. in Tuscia, Siena, 1653; F. Roth, O.S.A., "The Great Schism and the Augustinian Order", Augustiniana, VIII, 1958, pp. 281 - 98; F. X. Martin, O.S.A., "Giles of Viterbo and the Monastery of Lecceto: the Making of a

San Gimignano, Sant'Agostino (Photo: Alinari).

tino, supported financially by the town fathers who shared his belief in reform. He was to be the beneficiary of their

generosity for seven years. A series of unpublished letters that Fra Domenico wrote

to the comune as well as notices from registers of the Sorbonne indicate that the friar had gone to study Theology in Paris.

Reformer", Analecta Augustiniana, XXV, 1962, pp. 225 - 53; F. Mathes, O.S.A., "The Poverty Movement and the Augustinian Hermits", Analecta Augustiniana, XXXI, 1968, pp. 5 - 154; XXXII, 1969, pp. 5 - 116; and K. Walsh, "The Observant Congregations of the Augustinian Friars in Italy, c. 1385 - c. 1465", University of Oxford (doctoral thesis), 1972.

48

".:. .-~.:

.. . .!. --

:: s 4'

16) Benozzo, ((Episodes with Ambrose)). San Gimignano, Sant'Agostino (Photo: Alinari).

On September 5, 1450, he had matriculated as a Bachelor beginning sententias.21 A letter that he wrote from Paris to his benefactors four years later complains of the expense of living there, and in elegant Latin reminds them that he had spent "annis quinque ad sacras litteras incumbens, dies et

21 H. Denifle, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, IV, Paris, 1897, p. 692, entry 2661. This appellation designates that he already had received the baccalaureate, implying nine or ten years of intensive theological training prior to his matriculation. Due to the loss of earlier registers from the Sorbonne, I have been unable to corroborate Pecori, op.cit., p. 232, who states that the monk had been awarded this degree from the University of Paris.

22 Unpublished letter of July 3, 1454, recorded in deliberations

nocte vigilare non desino, qui extra lares, patrios...".22 His request for an additional subsidy was granted by the town fathers, who praised his dedication to sacred studies. Fra Domenico was called to the license on March 4, 1456, and exactly a year later, he received his doctorate from the Faculty

of October 5, 1454, in San Gimignano, Biblioteca Comunale, Archivio del Comune, NN 124 (Libro di deliberazioni e riforme G, 1452 - 1456), 227 r. - v. Six other unpublished notices from the same archive aid in reconstructing his request for financial aid which was paid by the comune. Except for a single reference in R 10 (Debitori e creditori della comunita G, 1454 - 1457, 49 v.), they are all in NN 124, on 227 v., 255 r. - v., and 258 v. (three notices on a single folio).

49

r(

17) Benozzo, (Scenes from the Life of Saint Francis). Montefalco, San Francesco North Wall (Photo: Artini).

50

of Theology, ranking first in his class.23 On December 15, 1457, the comune recalled the scholar to reform the monastery he had left less than a decade earlier.24

There is a gap in our knowledge of his whereabouts between that time and 1462, when he was summoned by the Prior General of the Order.25 He was sent to London, where he served as collector of revenues in 1462 and 1463, an indication of the trust with which he must have been regarded. On

January 16, 1464, he was documented in San Gimignano again. Only eight days later, custodianship of the choir of

Sant'Agostino was transferred from the Dietiguardi family to Fra Domenico himself.26 The frescoes that celebrate the

scholarly ideals of Augustine, so important to the monk himself, were begun that very spring.27

Despite the efforts of Fra Domenico, the monastery proved resistant to reform for many years. By 1470, the friar left

again for England, where he achieved distinction as an arbitrator of disputes within the Order, and two years later, on May 28, he was appointed Vicar of the Augustinians in London.28 On

May 21, 1478, he was recalled to Tuscany, and on April 25, 1479, the Augustinian Prior General, Ambrogio da Cora, designated him Vicar of the Province of Siena. As illustrious

23 For the license, see Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, ms. lat. 5657-C (Registre de Laurent Poutrel, principal bedeau et receveur de la faculte de theologie de Paris), 26 r.; and ms. lat. 15440 (Collectio catalogorum dd. baccalaureorum licentiatorum ab anno 1373 ad annum 1774), 34 r. For the doctorate, see ms. lat. 5657-C, 33 r. After completing my research on Fra Domenico's academic career, I learned that the notices in 5657-C had been published by J. B. Weber, "The Register of the Beadle (Receipts and Expenses) of the Faculty of Theology of Paris from 1449 - 1465", University of Notre Dame (doctoral thesis), 1975, pp. 187; 218.

24 Pecori, op.cit., pp. 415 - 16, n. 1. 25 Biographical information from 1462 - 63 extracted from F.

Roth, O.S.A., The English Austin Friars, 1249 - 1538, II (documents transcribed by A. de Meijer), New York, 1966, pp. 350; 354. There is no evidence to support Coppi's statement, op.cit., p. 187, that he taught at Oxford, for he is not recorded in A. B. Emden, Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to AD 1500, Oxford, 1957 - 59, and the assistant archivists at the University could not trace any reference to him (communication of September 17, 1984). Lopez, op.cit., p. 102, publishes the notice of January 16.

26 Pisa, Archivio di Stato, Corporazioni religiosi soppressi 72 (Sant'Agostino, San Gimignano), 1933 (Stati di consistenze 1333 - 1808), B XIV, January 24, 1464, unnumbered folio. Ailsa Turner kindly has allowed me to publish this reference.

27 A DI PRIMO DAPRILE MILLE CCCCLXIIII is inscribed on the baptismal font in the Baptism of Saint Augustine [Fig. 10], a scene in the middle register on the eastern wall. That execution was protracted through the following year is indicated by the inscription of M.CCCC.LXV. on the cartiglio in Saint Augustine's Departure for Milan [Fig. 7], the last scene on the southern wall.

18) Benozzo, (<The Vision of Saint Augustine)). San Gimignano, Sant'Agostino (Photo: Alinari).

28 All notices from the 1470's cited here were published by L6pez, op. cit., pp. 175; 176. An extract from the same register records that he was appointed judge on December 28, 1470, of an altercation between the English provincial and the Anglo-Irish monks under the provincial's jurisdiction. On this, see F. X. Martin, O.S.A., "The Irish Augustinian Reform Movement in the Fifteenth Century", Medieval Studies Presented to Aubrey Gwynn, S.J. (J. A. Watt, J. B. Morall, F.X. Martin, O.S.A., eds.), Dublin, 1961, pp. 245 - 46. In light of Fra Domenico's commitment to the reform, it seems significant that the two Priors General who appointed the monk to his posts in England in 1463 and 1470 were both supporters of the Osservanza.

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19) Benozzo, ((The Founding of the Order and the Parable of the Trinity)). San Gimignano, Sant'Agostino (Photo: Alinari).

as were his achievements, the town fathers of San Gimignano regreted his peregrinations. Deliberations of the town council from March 20, 1480 record with concern that the "reverendus pater et eximius sacre theologie doctor magister Dominicus... eius fama et opera testificantur" had moved again, this time to Lucca.29 The famous orator Onofrio di Pietro was sent to

29 San Gimignano, Biblioteca Comunale, Archivio del Comune, NN 132 (Libro di deliberazioni e riforme P, 1476 - 1484), 297 r;

urge him to return. Fra Domenico declined to do so until

Sant'Agostino had completed the reform he himself had tried to institute without success.30

Indeed, his repatriation seems to have been contingent on

just this condition. In October of 1480, the town fathers, joined by the Cardinal of Siena, implored the Pope to convert

unpublished resolution of the town priors. 30 Pecori, op.cit., p. 416.

52

the monastery into an Observant congregation.31 On May 3, 1481, with the reform underway, Fra Domenico again was beseeched to return by the priors. Praising the beauty of the church he had decorated - "nostri templi Heremitarum Sancti

Augustini, picturas iocalia aliaque ornamenta" - they nonethe- less grieved that it seemed empty without him - "[s]ed quid nobis de tot ornamentis? Quid de toto ipso conventu sine te?"32 In spite of his financial obligations to the town that had supported him at the Sorbonne, he refused to return, as his terse response of July 1, 1481 indicates.33 On July 20, a final letter was sent to the erstwhile reformer, proclaiming that at last, the monastery.had been placed under the spiritual aegis of Lecceto by the Prior General of the Order.34 Less than a month later, the long-awaited union was celebrated

solemnly in the chancel whose decoration had been commis- sioned by Fra Domenico some two decades earlier.35

The purpose of the frescoes in the choir of Sant'Agostino thus seems inseparable from the intended reform of the

monastery by their patron. The program expresses those ideals of scholarship and faith that were being revived and renewed

31 Ibid. 32 San Gimignano, Biblioteca Comunale, Archivio del Comune,

NN 133 (Libro di deliberazioni e riforme Q, 1480 - 1484), 68 v.; unpublished letter.

33 Ibid., 88 r. The brevity, if not curtness, of his reply posits an ironic contrast to the eloquent sentiments expressed in the long letter of the priors. While he dryly declares his obedience to their bidding, stating that he will return equitandi, as soon as his gout allowed, three additional letters from the priors asking him to return are recorded in NN 133, the last of July 20 displaying anger at his refusal.

through the Osservanza at that very moment. It seems to have been composed by the cycle's own donor, whose commitment to reform when the congregation's spiritual mission was faltering can be documented. Inspired by a multitude of sources, the program reveals the erudition attained

by its author's years of study in Paris. The scenes were to serve as both admonition and instruction to the friars, for they recounted the life of their reverend father, who had been redeemed from moral destitution through faith and the pursuit of sacred knowledge. The emphasis on learning in half the scenes is unmatched in any other Augustinian cycle and

expresses the ideals promoted by the Osservanza and aspired to by the donor himself. Fra Domenico's role in shaping the

spiritual destiny of Sant'Agostino at a decisive moment in its

history was recognized in his own lifetime as well as by posterity. Indeed, in his chronicle of Lecceto, the Order's great historian Ambrogio Landucci immortalized Fra Domenico as one "cui non immerito tribuitur nomen Fundatoris vetustissimi ac nobilissimi Monasterii Sancti Augustini".36

34 Pecori, op.cit., p. 416. 35 Bertoni, op.cit., pp. 317 - 18. It should be noted, however, that

the transition to the Osservanza was not an orderly one. Pecori, op.cit., pp. 416 - 18, describes the opposition of some friars to the conversion, as do some of the unpublished town council deliberations in NN 133. On September 7, 1499, a papal Bull reconfirmed the Observant status of the monastery, as Pecori, op.cit., p. 417, recounts. No further disturbances are recorded.

36 Landucci, op.cit., p. 149.

53