evidence for buglioni's authorship of the glazed terra-cotta tympanum at the chiostro dello...

EVIDENCE FOR BUGLIONI'S AUTHORSHIP OF THE GLAZED TERRA-COTTA TYMPANUM ATTHE CHIOSTRO DELLO SCALZO, FLORENCEAuthor(s): Douglas N. DowSource: Source: Notes in the History of Art, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Winter 2010), pp. 15-20Published by: Ars Brevis Foundation, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23208611 .

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EVIDENCE FOR BUGLIONI'S AUTHORSHIP OF THE GLAZED TERRA-COTTA

TYMPANUM AT THE CHIOSTRO DELLO SCALZO, FLORENCE

North of the Piazza San Marco in Florence, above the entrance to the Chiostro dello Scalzo on Via Cavour, is a glazed terra-cotta lunette (Fig. 1). Commissioned to mark the

entry to the oratory of the Florentine confra

ternity of San Giovanni Battista dello Scalzo, the tympanum shows a half-length figure of the Baptist flanked on either side by a kneel

ing confratello (Fig. 2). The flails, made of knotted cords that dangle from the clasped hands of the brothers, reveal that these men are members of a flagellant company. Fur

thermore, the lay brothers direct their atten tion to their patron saint, John the Baptist, and wear the black robes of the Scalzo. For his part, the Baptist remains unaware of the adoration of the confratelli: his head is tilted down toward passers-by, but his distant gaze

suggests that he is lost in his own thoughts. In a monograph from 1921 on Benedetto

Buglioni and his adopted ward and pupil, Santi, Allan Marquand attributed, on stylistic grounds, this lunette to Benedetto.1 This at

tribution, although not rejected outright, has been questioned several times in the litera ture. In their 1953 treatment of the oratory of San Giovanni Battista, Walter and Elisabeth Paatz gave Giovanni della Robbia credit for the tympanum, although this seems to have

been done in error and not as a challenge to

Marquand's assessment.2 In 1985, Giancarlo Gentilini acknowledged Marquand's attribu tion but tentatively suggested that the relief could have been produced by the workshop of Giovanni della Robbia.3 Gentilini's sug

Douglas N. Dow

gestion was reiterated with more certainty in a small guide to the Chiostro dello Scalzo by Rosanna Caterina Proto Pisani published in 2004.4

Unfortunately, the archival records of the

confraternity are no longer extant for the

probable period of the lunette's manufacture,

making it virtually impossible to establish de

finitively the identity of the relief's author. The earliest voting records and minutes of the

company's meetings date from 1527; and al

though opinions as to the identity of the

sculptor of the tympanum vary, no scholar has suggested that the lunette was sculpted later than 1510.5 The confraternity's earliest financial records date from 1514 and contain no references to the tympanum.6 There are, however, a few entries to be found in the

records of the Scalzo that reveal Benedetto

Buglioni's status as a member of the confra

ternity, as well as a payment that he received from the company. For example, in a list of

confratelli that witnessed the testament of Ja

copo Saltini in 1511, there appears one "Benedicto Joannis scultore."7 That this man is Benedetto Buglioni seems likely when one considers that he was sometimes referred to in documents as Benedetto di Giovanni scul tore ,8 On February 2, 1514/15, Buglioni makes a more definitive appearance in the

confraternity's financial records, where 53 lire is credited to "Benedetto d[i] Giovanni

Buglioni."9 Although they are few, these references to

Benedetto Buglioni provide enough evidence



16

Fig. 1 Entrance to the Chiostro dello Scalzo. Via Cavour, Florence. (Photo:

author)



17

Fig. 2 Benedetto Buglioni, Saint John the Baptist with Two Flagellants. 1490s. Glazed terra-cotta,

65 x 115 cm. Via Cavour, Florence. (Photo: author)

of his involvement with the confraternity and of the Scalzo's willingness to commission work from him to cast doubt on the possibil ity that Giovanni della Robbia sculpted the

company's tympanum. It has been noted in the literature that membership in a confra

ternity often provided access to commissions for artists, and it would have been unusual for the Scalzo to have ordered a relief from Giovanni della Robbia when Buglioni was

present in the organization's membership.10 If Buglioni received the commission for the lunette at the Scalzo in the 1490s, it would

have come at a time when he was just estab

lishing his workshop in Florence and would have presented a tremendous opportunity for him to showcase his skill as a sculptor.11 At

any rate, it seems likely that Buglioni would have used his presence in the confraternity to secure the commission for the tympanum and that the company would have steered the

job to one of its members.12 Indeed, com

missioning works of art from members was one way to forge strong ties between the con

fratelli and the organization, and member

ship in a company presented the benefit for



18

In addition to promoting these types of economic ties, confraternities also facilitated the importation of external networks into the

corporate structure of the organization. The

lay companies, for example, encouraged the

participation of individuals from the same

family by offering reduced entrance and

membership fees to those who already had relatives on the company's rosters.13 Because the bylaws of the companies offered finan cial incentives to family members to join, it is not unusual to find fathers, sons, and brothers all inscribed in the same confrater

nity. As it happens, Benedetto Buglioni's adopted ward and pupil. Santi di Michele

Buglioni, was closely involved with the Scalzo throughout his life.14 In 1534, on one of the earliest surviving rosters of the con

fraternity's officers, Santi di Michele, scul

tore, was listed as one of the Scalzo's

almoners (limosinieri). Over the course of the next thirty-six years, Santi was elected to office on twenty-nine additional occasions,

including the eight terms that he served as the brotherhood's governor (governatore) between 1543 and 1568.15 Santi, of course, also carried on as the head of Benedetto's

workshop, and in 1568 Vasari remarked that he was the last person in Florence who knew the secret to glazing terra-cotta in the Rob bian manner.16 If, as the evidence presented here suggests, Benedetto was the sculptor of the tympanum above the entrance to the or

atory of the Scalzo, it is not surprising that Santi took such an active role in the confra

ternity. Santi must have felt especially close

individual artists of new possibilities for commissions. Thus, when the confraternity acted as patron to an artist inscribed in its

ranks, it not only performed a service for that

member, but also reaped the benefit of a closer bond to that particular brother.

to the brotherhood that not only counted his mentor and adoptive parent as a member, but

very likely provided Benedetto with one of his earlier and more visible public com missions in Florence. In addition to the

iconographic significance it held for the indi vidual members of the Scalzo as a represen tation of their patron saint and their principal form of devotion, the tympanum would have

acquired a much more personal meaning for Santi. As he passed under it to attend the

company's meetings—or, at times, even to lead them in his role as governatore—Santi would have been confronted with physical evidence of the confraternity's role as patron to his mentor's workshop and of Benedetto's dedication to the organization. In this way, the lunette reminded Santi of his own place within a familial and professional tradition of service to the brotherhood and of the ben efits afforded through membership. These are precisely the kinds of bonds that bene fited the lay companies, since a strong sense of connection between the individual and the

corporate body would encourage a con

fratello to maintain an active presence in the

organization, in much the same way that Santi Buglioni took on a significant role in the administration of San Giovanni Battista dello Scalzo.

Although the documents do not provide conclusive evidence of Buglioni's author

ship of the tympanum at the Chiostro dello

Scalzo, the circumstantial evidence pre sented here—Benedetto's membership in the confraternity and his employment by the

company, as well as the extensive involve ment of his adopted ward, Santi Buglioni— makes the attribution of the lunette to Giovanni della Robbia less tenable and

strengthens Marquand's assertion that Bene detto Buglioni sculpted the relief.



19

APPENDIX

Document 1: Credit of 53 lire to the account of Benedetto Buglioni by the company of San Giovanni

Battista dello Scalzo, February 2, 1514/15 (ASF, Com

pagnie Religiose Soppresse 1198.28, 26 dexter):

Benedetto d[i] Giovanni Buglioni de avere addi ij di

feb[r]aio 1514 l[ire] cinquantatre p[iccio]l[i] sono

p[er] tanti disse avere spese [illegible] bolla vechio da

roma di quali gli far fatto stantjam[en]to a lib[r]o di

partiti sotto di 11 di marzo E p[er] fave nere e

bian[ch]e a [carta] 39

Document 2: Debit of 53 lire against the account of Benedetto Buglioni with the company of San Giovanni

Battista dello Scalzo, April 15, 1515 (ASF, Compagnie

Religiose Soppresse 1198.28, 26 sinister):

Benedetto di Giovanni buglioni de dare addi 2 di

febraio 1514 1 [ire] anzi addi 15 daprile 1515 1 [ire]

cinquantatre p[iccio]l[i] porto c[ontan]ti aluscita a

[carta] 139 e i[n] q[uest]o [libro] appresa a [carta] 25

Document 3: Cash withdrawal of 53 lire from the ac

count of Benedetto Buglioni with the company of San

Giovanni Battista dello Scalzo, April 15, 1515 (ASF,

Compagnie Religiose Soppresse 1198.28, 25 dexter):

E adi detto l[ire] cinquantatre p[iccio]l[i] paghati a

betto buglioni p[er] tanti disse avere spessi [proposed

reading: spese] nella bolla o amedre iconfesionale

a[v]uto [illegible] e no[n] icome p[er] partito a libro

[blank] a aspese 139

NOTES

This article grew out of my dissertation on the art pa

tronage of the company of San Giovanni Battista dello

Scalzo. I would like to thank the Samuel H. Kress

Foundation, the Renaissance Society of America, and

the Pennsylvania State University for providing fund

ing for my research in Florence.

1. Allan Marquand, Benedetto and Santi Buglioni (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1921), p. 18.

2. Walter Paatz and Elisabeth Paatz, Die Kirchen

von Florenz: Ein kunstgeschichtliches Handbuch, 6

vols. (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1940-1955),

V, pp. 78, 84. In their note, Paatz and Paatz cited Mar

quand's monograph on Giovanni della Robbia as the

source of this information, but they explained that they had not consulted the text itself: "(? Zur Zeit nicht

zuganglich)." 3. "Sul portale della Confraternita di S. Giovanni

Battista o 'dello Scalzo' (Via Cavour) lunetta con S.

Giovanni Bat. fra due confratelli, attribuita a

Ben[edetto] Buglioni, ma forse della Bottega di Gio

vanni djella] R[obbia] (1510c.)." Giancarlo Gentilini, Le Robbiane: Itinerari 3.1, Associazione intercomu

nale n. 10, Area fiorentina (Florence: 1985), n.p. 4. "L' opera, tradizionalmente ritenuta di Benedetto

Buglioni, e stata assegnata piu recente (Gentilini,

1985) a Giovanni della Robbia, che l'avrebbe eseguita nel 1510 circa." Rosanna Caterina Proto Pisani, II

Chiostro dello Scalzo a Firenze: Studio e scuola di pit ture (Florence: Sillabe, 2004), p. 21.

5. Marquand placed the lunette within a group of

works he thought were executed between 1480 and

1490. Gentilini suggested a date around 1510. These

estimates are within the boundaries provided by the

date of the contract that records the purchase of the

land upon which the entrance was built (1487) and the date of earliest extant account book (1514). For a his

tory of the oratory's construction, see Douglas N.

Dow, "Confraternal Piety and Corporate Patronage: A

Reconstruction of the Art and Oratory of the Com

pagnia di San Giovanni Battista dello Scalzo, Flo

rence" (Ph.D. diss., Pennsylvania State University, 2006), 102-114.

6. The records of San Giovanni Battista dello

Scalzo are conserved in the collections of the Capitoli delle Compagnie Religiose Soppresse da Pietro

Leopoldo (hereafter CapCRS) and the Compagnie Re

ligiose Soppresse da Pietro Leopoldo (hereafter CRS) at the Archivio di Stato, Firenze (hereafter ASF). The

capitoli, or statutes, are of no help in determining the

identity of the lunette's author. For the company's ear

liest financial records, see ASF, CRS 1198.28 Libro

Maestro (B), 1514-1536. For the earliest minutes and

voting records, see ASF, CRS 1197.21 Libro di Partiti

e Ricordi, 1527-1558.

1. ASF, CRS 1190.7.A, Testamenti e Contratti e



20

Serine, 1400-1783.

8. In the record of his imprisonment for debt in Pe

rugia in 1488, Buglioni was called "magister bene

dictus Iohannis lapicida florentinus"; and in 1489, when he married Lisabetta Mori, his name was ren

dered as "Benedetto di Giovan[n]j schultore." Mar

quand, p. xxvi.

9. There are three entries related to this payment in

ASF, CRS 1198.28, c. 25-26. In two of these entries, the payment is described as remuneration for a

"bolla." One of the entries cross-references the vote to

approve the allotment of these funds ("di quali gli far

fatto stantjam[en]to a lib[r]o di partiti sotto di 11 di

marzo"), but the book of voting records to which it

refers is no longer extant. It is possible that the "bolla"

referred to is the indulgence granted to the members of

the company by the Florentine archbishop Bartolomeo

Uliari in 1386, and that the confraternity had com

missioned a glazed terra-cotta plaque of this conces

sion for display in the oratory. A transcription appears in Giuseppe Richa, Notizie istoriche delle chiese

fiorentine, 10 vols. (1754-1762; repr., Rome: 1989),

VII, pp. 197-198, where Richa refers to the document

as a "bolla." The document is also called a "bolla" in

two eighteenth-century transcriptions found in the

confraternity's records: ASF, CRS 1189.1, C2; ASF,

CapCRS 80, 20. For more on the indulgence, see

Alana O'Brien, "Andrea del Sarto and the Compagnia dello Scalzo," Mitteilungen des kunsthistorischen In

stitutes in Florenz 48, nos. 1/2 (2004):258. On Uliari,

see La Chiesa Fiorentina (Florence: Curia Ar

civescovile, 1970), pp. 22-23. In 1510, the confrater

nity received another important proclamation (referred

to in the documents as a "breve") from Pope Julius II, who appointed Lodovico Adimari and Leonardo Dati

to settle a dispute between the Scalzo and the neigh

boring Celestine monastery of San Piero del Murrone.

For summaries of this brief, see ASF, CRS 1189.1, C2,

G3; ASF, Patrimonio Ecclesiastico 537.

10. Nicholas A. Eckstein, The District of the Green

Dragon: Neighbourhood Life and Social Change in

Renaissance Florence (Florence: Olschki, 1995), pp. 50-51.

11. With the exception of a lost Christ in Limbo

sculpted for Santissima Annunziata, most of

Buglioni's early works are found outside of Florence.

Marquand, pp. 3-18; Giancarlo Gentilini, IDellaRob

bia: La scultura invetriata nel Rinascimento, 2 vols.

(Florence: Cantini, 1992), II, pp. 391-394; Fiamma

Domestici, "Benedetto Buglioni (Firenze, 1459/60

1521)," in I Delia Robbia e I'arte nuova della scul

tura invetriata, ed. Giancarlo Gentilini (Florence:

Giunti, 1998), pp. 332-333.

12. One scholar has called for a more consistent ex

amination of "how patronage networks emerged from

confraternal membership," arguing "that practically

every artist and artisan was a member of at least one

confraternity, as was true of adult males across Eu

rope." Barbara Wisch, "Incorporating Images: Some

Themes and Tasks for Confraternity Studies and Early Modern Visual Culture," in Early Modern Confrater nities in Europe and the Americas: International and

Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Christopher Black

and Pamela Gravestock (Aldershot, Eng.: Ashgate,

2006), p. 245. 13. In the statutes drawn up by the Scalzo in 1579,

reduced fees are offered to anyone who has a father,

grandfather, great-grandfather, or brother in the con

fraternity. Instead of paying 7 lire piccioli, a member

who received this benefit paid an entrance fee of 1 lira

18 soldi. ASF, CapCRS 86, 8r. Bartolomeo Masi, who

kept track of his confraternal memberships in his ri

cordanze, noted that he received a discount of 10 soldi

when he joined the company of San Zanobi in 1512 on

account of "el benifizio di Bernardo mio padre." Bar

tolomeo Masi, Ricordanze di Bartolomeo Masi

calderaio fiorentino dal 1478 al 1526, ed. Giuseppe Odoardo Corazzini (Florence: Sansoni, 1906), p. 114.

14. For Benedetto Buglioni's adoption of Sand, see

Marquand, pp. xxxii-xxxiii; Gentilini, I Delia Rob

bia, II, p. 436.

15. Santi Buglioni almost always appears in the

records as "Santi di Michele, scultore" with the ex

ception of one entry on 7 Ian. 1542/43, where he is

listed as "Santi di Michele Buglioni" (ASF, CRS

1195.13, 52r), and another, where he is called "Santi

di Michele Viviani" (ASF, CRS 1195.14, 37v). Santi's

earliest term as limosiniere is recorded in ASF, CRS

1195.13, 24v. For his terms as governatore, see ASF, CRS 1195.13, 52r, 70r, 83v, 104v, 135v; ASF, CRS

1195.14, 16r, 27r, 44r.

16. "Dopo Benedetto, rimase il segreto a Santi

Buglioni, che solo sa oggi lavorare di questa sorte

sculture." Giorgio Vasari, Le opere di Giorgio Vasari, ed. Gaetano Milanesi, 9 vols. (1906; repr., Florence:

Sansoni, 1973), III, p. 376.



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