Una 'Sant'Agnese di Montepulciano' di Domenico Beccafumi. Per una revisione dell'attività giovanile del pittore

Domenico Beccafumi was present in Montepulciano in 1507 as certified by Andrea Giorgi's documentary research presented in this same volume of 'Prospettiva'. His presence coincides with the appointment of Lorenzo Beccafumi, the painter's protector, as podestà of the city of Poliziano. This allows us to link the artist with a canvas of 'Saint Agnese Segni' until now of uncertain attribution, conserved in the Civic Museum and Pinacoteca Crociani at Montepulciano. The painting, cut in length, was originally a gonfalone commissioned by the Commune as a votive object. Stylistic features − marked by the iconic mode of the type − evoke the culture of Pietro Perugino, who had arrived in Siena in 1506. According to Giorgio Vasari's 1568 biography of the Sienese artist, Perugino had fascinated Domenico in his initial years. Such peruginesca culture interwoven with early echoes of the young Raphael and of Leonardo himself links the canvas with a series of panels attributed until now to an anonymous painter known as the 'Maestro delle eroine Chigi Saracini', presumably active in Siena during the second decade of the Cinquecento. Anchoring this series of panels to the 'gonfalone poliziano' of 1507 allows us to give these works to the young Beccafumi and to date them at the beginning of the century. These years precede both Domenico's first stay in Rome and his execution of the Triptych of the Trinity, attested in 1513 for the Cappella del Manto in the hospital of Santa Maria della Scala. Among the most convincing pieces in the series are the three Chigi Saracini heroines − 'Giuditta', 'Cleopatra,' 'Artemisia' − preserved in the aforementioned Chigi Saracini collection in Siena, the 'Madonna and Child with the young Saint John' in a private collection in Florence, and the tondo of the same subject, in the State Museums of Berlin. Two coffin headboards in the Pinacoteca Nazionale of Siena complete this group of artworks; they depict 'Saint Augustine', 'Saint Galgano', 'Saint Paul' and 'Christ in pietà' and slightly precede the dossal for the hospital.

Index

Roberto Bartalini Ambrogio Lorenzetti a Montesiepi. Sulla committenza e la cronologia degli affreschi della cappella di San Galgano
read abstract » pag. 2-18
Rosanna De Gennaro, Paolo Giannattasio Messina in the travel diary and drawings of Willem Schellinks
read abstract » pag. 19-49
Gail A. Solberg Taddeo di Bartolo e Rinaldo Brancaccio a Roma: Santa Maria in Trastevere e Santa Maria Maggiore
read abstract » pag. 50-73
Alessandro Angelini Una 'Sant'Agnese di Montepulciano' di Domenico Beccafumi. Per una revisione dell'attività giovanile del pittore
read abstract » pag. 74-93
Andrea Giorgi "Domenicho dipentore sta in chasa di Lorenso Bechafumi". Di alcuni documenti poliziani intorno al culto di Agnese Segni e ai suoi riflessi in ambito artistico (1506-1507)
read abstract » pag. 94-103
Claudio Gulli Girolamo del Pacchia's cataletto for the Confraternity of San Bernardino in Siena
read abstract » pag. 104-121
Giovanni Agosti A short note about Titian
read abstract » pag. 122-131
Patrizia Tosini Boncompagni and Guastavillani patronage in the Capuchin church at Frascati: an addition for Niccolò Trometta and a hypothesis about the 'Painter of Filippo Guastavillani'
read abstract » pag. 132-141
Fausto Nicolai Cesare Nebbia and the decoration of the Florenzi chapel in San Silvestro al Quirinale. The contract of 1579 and Nebbiaʼs working relationship with Girolamo Muziano
read abstract » pag. 142-151
A Neapolitan altarpiece by Alessandro Casolani: "Sant'Alfonso quando riceve l'habito sacerdotale dalla Madonna"
read abstract » pag. 152-161
Marco Tanzi Tanzio da Varallo: a Neapolitan portrait
read abstract » pag. 162-176
Tomaso Montanari “Chi perde vince” ("He who loses wins"): a 'Salvatore' by Gian Lorenzo and Pietro Bernini (circa 1617-19)
read abstract » pag. 176-191
Jacopo Stoppa Ferdinando Porta's curriculum in Marcello Oretti's papers
read abstract » pag. 192-204