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Lot Essay
Though Marchigian by birth, it was in Venice, between around 1408 to 1415 that Gentile da Fabriano truly made his name, emerging as one of the most eminent and influential Italian painters of the early fifteenth century. Gentile was awarded the city’s most prestigious public commissions and was lauded by his contemporaries, particularly for his cycles of wall paintings. Precious few paintings from the artist’s Venetian sojourn have avoided destruction. This masterful Saint Paul the Hermit is therefore an exceptionally rare surviving work, a fragment from one of just two Venetian altarpieces by Gentile referenced in ancient sources.
During his stay in Venice, Gentile lived in the parish of Santa Sofia. In his 1581 guide to Venice, Francesco Sansovino dedicated most of his description of the church there to an altarpiece by the artist, ‘Vi dipinse la palla di San Paolo primo heremita & di Santo Antonio, Gentile da Fabriano’ (‘There, Gentile da Fabriano painted the altarpiece of Saint Paul, the first hermit, and of Saint Anthony’; loc. cit.). It was on the basis of Sansovino’s description that Keith Christiansen in 1982 first connected the present Saint Paul the Hermit—at the time only tentatively attributed to Gentile—with the Sandei family and their altar at Santa Sofia.
On 22 May 1406, the textile merchant Francesco Sandei agreed plans with the church of Santa Sofia for a chapel, including a family tomb and an altar, to be built along the church’s southern wall. Francesco had been entrusted with the family’s business affairs in Venice by his father, Enrico di Duccio Sandei and lived in the Sandei palazzo beside the church. The Sandei family had amassed a great fortune in the silk and wool business and, though they had been in Venice for two generations, were originally from Lucca. As Machtelt Brüggen Israëls notes, the Sandei’s Lucchese roots excluded them from Venetian nobility, so ‘a wish to assert themselves on the Venetian scene may have attracted the [family] to the rising young artist Gentile da Fabriano’ (loc. cit., p. 284).
In 1995, Matteo Ceriano and Emmanuela Daffra identified two small pilaster panels, depicting Saints James the Greater and Peter (fig.1), in the Berenson collection at Villa I Tatti as belonging to the Sandei altarpiece, thanks to an inscription on the reverse of the former (loc. cit.). The writing, only faintly visible and transcribed under ultra-violet light, appears to reveal the artist’s original date and signature, 140[?] Gentilio de Fabriano pinxit and, in another hand:
‘A[lcuni] fragmenti ch[e] era nella capella overa / altar n[ost]ro di casa Sandei nela chiesa / di Santa Sofia quando io feci raco[n]ciar / lanno 1610. cioe dalle bande della / palla con certi intagli all’antica / i quali da tarli erano corroti / per la longhezza del tempo.’
(‘Several [?] fragments that were in the chapel, or our altar, of the Sandei family in the church of Santa Sofia when I had it [the chapel] renovated in the year 1610. That is from the sides of the altarpiece with certain carvings in the old manner, which due to the passing of time have been much deteriorated by woodworm.’
The Berenson panel’s inscription sheds light on the subsequent history of the Sandei altarpiece, expanded with the help of archival research by Anna Pizzati (A. Pizzati in A. De Marchi et al., 2006, pp. 109-110). During a pastoral visit to Santa Sofia in 1593, the Patriach Priuli had ordered the altarpiece be dismembered, presumably due to the aforementioned damage from woodworm. The family’s chapel was renovated in 1610, when, according to the inscription, the pilasters were removed and most likely taken to the Sandei country house in Zero, Treviso where four of them appear in Alvise Sandei’s posthumous inventory of 1627 (ibid.). The inscription refers to them as ‘fragmenti’ so it is unclear whether the narrative panel including Saint Paul the Hermit was together with them at this point. We do know, however, that by 1648 it was recorded by Carlo Ridolfi as being in the church of San Felice, ‘Gentile […] Fece in oltre una tavola in San Felice de’ santi Paolo ed Antonio eremiti.’ (‘Gentile[…] also did a panel in San Felice of hermit Saints Paul and Anthony.’; loc. cit.). Pizzati asserts that this was almost certainly a mistake on the part of Ridolfi, however, and that the author confused San Felice with the neighbouring church of Santa Sofia, an error that was subsequently perpetuated for centuries (loc. cit., p. 110).
In 2004, Daniele Benati discovered two further apostle saints, possibly Andrew and Anthony, of the same dimensions as the Berenson panels and with identically tooled halos, in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna (fig. 2). In 2006, Christiansen tentatively proposed the Madonna and Child with angels in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, as a plausible candidate for the altar’s central panel, imagining the present Saint Paul the Hermit and the now lost Saint Anthony to have flanked it and with the apostles in the lateral pilasters, an opinion he has since revised (K. Christiansen, op. cit., 2006, p. 144; private communication 19 July 2022).
Andrea De Marchi, however, believes the saint to be a fragment of a central narrative panel, with twelve apostle saints on the buttresses at left and right, a hypothesis favored by Israëls (A. De Marchi, op. cit., 2006, p. 124; M. B. Israëls, op. cit.). According to De Marchi, the panel would likely have depicted Saints Paul and Anthony Abbot seated in the wilderness, in the act of breaking bread together. This is certainly supported by Sansovino’s description, which implies the two saints were the altarpiece’s most prominent feature. Ceriana and Daffra also indicate that, while rare, the subject did have a precedent in Venice, in Guariento’s painting for the Sala del Maggior Consiglio in the Doge’s Palace (op. cit., p. 142).
Venetians were particularly devoted to Saint Paul the Hermit, his body having been brought to the city from Constantinople in 1240, and a now fragmentary statue of Saint Anthony Abbot in Santa Sofia attests to his specific importance within the parish. Israëls writes that the subject of the two hermit saints’ meeting in the wilderness, ‘with its implications of frugal and secluded life would have had personal appeal for Francesco Sandei, who supported the contemplative order of the Carthusians’ (op. cit., p. 285). Francesco’s choice of meditative subject matter for the altar would have been counterbalanced by the luxurious opulence of its gold ground and rich, costly pigments. This, matched with his selection of Gentile for its execution—the artist tasked with decorating the walls of the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, at the very heart of Venice’s political institution—would have proved a formidable assertion of the Lucchese merchant’s wealth and social standing, regardless of his noble status.
During his stay in Venice, Gentile lived in the parish of Santa Sofia. In his 1581 guide to Venice, Francesco Sansovino dedicated most of his description of the church there to an altarpiece by the artist, ‘Vi dipinse la palla di San Paolo primo heremita & di Santo Antonio, Gentile da Fabriano’ (‘There, Gentile da Fabriano painted the altarpiece of Saint Paul, the first hermit, and of Saint Anthony’; loc. cit.). It was on the basis of Sansovino’s description that Keith Christiansen in 1982 first connected the present Saint Paul the Hermit—at the time only tentatively attributed to Gentile—with the Sandei family and their altar at Santa Sofia.
On 22 May 1406, the textile merchant Francesco Sandei agreed plans with the church of Santa Sofia for a chapel, including a family tomb and an altar, to be built along the church’s southern wall. Francesco had been entrusted with the family’s business affairs in Venice by his father, Enrico di Duccio Sandei and lived in the Sandei palazzo beside the church. The Sandei family had amassed a great fortune in the silk and wool business and, though they had been in Venice for two generations, were originally from Lucca. As Machtelt Brüggen Israëls notes, the Sandei’s Lucchese roots excluded them from Venetian nobility, so ‘a wish to assert themselves on the Venetian scene may have attracted the [family] to the rising young artist Gentile da Fabriano’ (loc. cit., p. 284).
In 1995, Matteo Ceriano and Emmanuela Daffra identified two small pilaster panels, depicting Saints James the Greater and Peter (fig.1), in the Berenson collection at Villa I Tatti as belonging to the Sandei altarpiece, thanks to an inscription on the reverse of the former (loc. cit.). The writing, only faintly visible and transcribed under ultra-violet light, appears to reveal the artist’s original date and signature, 140[?] Gentilio de Fabriano pinxit and, in another hand:
‘A[lcuni] fragmenti ch[e] era nella capella overa / altar n[ost]ro di casa Sandei nela chiesa / di Santa Sofia quando io feci raco[n]ciar / lanno 1610. cioe dalle bande della / palla con certi intagli all’antica / i quali da tarli erano corroti / per la longhezza del tempo.’
(‘Several [?] fragments that were in the chapel, or our altar, of the Sandei family in the church of Santa Sofia when I had it [the chapel] renovated in the year 1610. That is from the sides of the altarpiece with certain carvings in the old manner, which due to the passing of time have been much deteriorated by woodworm.’
The Berenson panel’s inscription sheds light on the subsequent history of the Sandei altarpiece, expanded with the help of archival research by Anna Pizzati (A. Pizzati in A. De Marchi et al., 2006, pp. 109-110). During a pastoral visit to Santa Sofia in 1593, the Patriach Priuli had ordered the altarpiece be dismembered, presumably due to the aforementioned damage from woodworm. The family’s chapel was renovated in 1610, when, according to the inscription, the pilasters were removed and most likely taken to the Sandei country house in Zero, Treviso where four of them appear in Alvise Sandei’s posthumous inventory of 1627 (ibid.). The inscription refers to them as ‘fragmenti’ so it is unclear whether the narrative panel including Saint Paul the Hermit was together with them at this point. We do know, however, that by 1648 it was recorded by Carlo Ridolfi as being in the church of San Felice, ‘Gentile […] Fece in oltre una tavola in San Felice de’ santi Paolo ed Antonio eremiti.’ (‘Gentile[…] also did a panel in San Felice of hermit Saints Paul and Anthony.’; loc. cit.). Pizzati asserts that this was almost certainly a mistake on the part of Ridolfi, however, and that the author confused San Felice with the neighbouring church of Santa Sofia, an error that was subsequently perpetuated for centuries (loc. cit., p. 110).
In 2004, Daniele Benati discovered two further apostle saints, possibly Andrew and Anthony, of the same dimensions as the Berenson panels and with identically tooled halos, in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna (fig. 2). In 2006, Christiansen tentatively proposed the Madonna and Child with angels in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, as a plausible candidate for the altar’s central panel, imagining the present Saint Paul the Hermit and the now lost Saint Anthony to have flanked it and with the apostles in the lateral pilasters, an opinion he has since revised (K. Christiansen, op. cit., 2006, p. 144; private communication 19 July 2022).
Andrea De Marchi, however, believes the saint to be a fragment of a central narrative panel, with twelve apostle saints on the buttresses at left and right, a hypothesis favored by Israëls (A. De Marchi, op. cit., 2006, p. 124; M. B. Israëls, op. cit.). According to De Marchi, the panel would likely have depicted Saints Paul and Anthony Abbot seated in the wilderness, in the act of breaking bread together. This is certainly supported by Sansovino’s description, which implies the two saints were the altarpiece’s most prominent feature. Ceriana and Daffra also indicate that, while rare, the subject did have a precedent in Venice, in Guariento’s painting for the Sala del Maggior Consiglio in the Doge’s Palace (op. cit., p. 142).
Venetians were particularly devoted to Saint Paul the Hermit, his body having been brought to the city from Constantinople in 1240, and a now fragmentary statue of Saint Anthony Abbot in Santa Sofia attests to his specific importance within the parish. Israëls writes that the subject of the two hermit saints’ meeting in the wilderness, ‘with its implications of frugal and secluded life would have had personal appeal for Francesco Sandei, who supported the contemplative order of the Carthusians’ (op. cit., p. 285). Francesco’s choice of meditative subject matter for the altar would have been counterbalanced by the luxurious opulence of its gold ground and rich, costly pigments. This, matched with his selection of Gentile for its execution—the artist tasked with decorating the walls of the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, at the very heart of Venice’s political institution—would have proved a formidable assertion of the Lucchese merchant’s wealth and social standing, regardless of his noble status.