THE WIT AND HUMOR OF MAESTRO ZOANEAuthor(s): Norman E. LandSource: Source: Notes in the History of Art, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Summer 2008), pp. 16-19Published by: Ars Brevis Foundation, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23207903 .

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THE WIT AND HUMOR OF MAESTRO ZOANE

Norman E. Land

As is widely known and appreciated, Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists (Florence: 1568) is filled with humorous tales and anecdotes about artists. Generally less well known are the stories from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that portray the wit and humor of artists. An exception to that rule is Giovanni Boccaccio's famous story in the Decameron

(6.5) about the elderly Giotto, who was phys ically ugly. Boccaccio says that one summer, while traveling through the Mugello, Giotto and the renowned jurist Forese da Rabatta, who was also ugly, became rain-soaked, di

sheveled, and splattered with mud. Giotto, a beautiful storyteller, was spinning one of his

yarns, when suddenly Forese burst out laugh ing. The jurist exclaimed that if a stranger could see Giotto at that moment, he would not believe him to be "the best painter in the world." The artist quickly replied that the

stranger might do so because, seeing Forese, he would not believe the jurist knew his ABCs.1 In Boccaccio's story, Giotto's ap pearance belies his genius: although ugly and

hardly presentable, he is not only a master of the art of painting, he also possesses a pene trating verbal wit.

Giotto s way with words is comparable to that of many other figures in the Decameron. He is also like the fourth-century b.c.e. Greek

painter Apelles, who made witty remarks to

socially superior people. For example, ac

cording to the Roman author Aelian (170 230 c.e.) in his Varia historia (2.3), when Alexander the Great saw his likeness painted

by Apelles at Ephesus, the general failed to

praise the picture sufficiently. Then Alex ander's horse, Bucephalus, whinnied at the

painted image as if it were the general him

self, and Apelles remarked, "Your Majesty, the horse seems to have better taste in art than

you do."2 In the fifteenth century, Ferrarese poet and

humanist Lodovico Carbone (1435-1482) offered another instance of verbal wit on the

part of an artist. Among art historians, Carbone is perhaps best known for his associ ation with his compatriot Cosimo Tura

(1430-1495), whom he called a "pictor nobi lissimus."3 He is more widely known for a collection of humorous stories, his Facezie, which he composed probably between 1466 and 1471 and dedicated to Borso d'Este

(1413-1471). Of the 130 facezie originally contained in Carbone's collection, only 108 are known. One facezia (68) comprises two related anecdotes about a seemingly fictional

painter named Maestro Zoane, who lived in Ferrara. The first anecdote is as follows:

Master Zoane the painter, a very facetious

man, had grown pale, yellow, and smelly. The Marchese Niccolo [d'Este], entering his chancellery and seeing Zoane there as

usual, said: "What are you doing here, Zoane?" He immediately replied: "Sir, I know that at your councils every sage is

needed; and I believe that in all of Ferrara there is no man more mature than I, and so I remain always ready."4

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17

The humor of this anecdote turns on a pun. Zoane uses the word maturo to mean that he

is mature in wisdom as well as in age. No one in Ferrara is wiser or older than he.

out of the tradition of humorous tales about artists that was already well established in

Italy by the end of the fifteenth century.

Carbone was not the only fifteenth-century author to collect humorous anecdotes about artists. For example, in the so-called Detti Piacevole (or Bel Libretto), widely believed to be the work of Angelo Poliziano (1454 1494), there is another anecdote—about an artist—that also turns on a pun. According to that tale, Donatello was once asked to

identify the best thing that the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti had ever made ("facesse"). Donatello replied, "Selling Lepriano because that was the only villa from which he took little fruit."5 This anecdote owes its humor to a play on the word facere, which can mean both "to make" and "to do." Donatello is asked about the best piece of sculpture that

Ghiberti had ever made, and intentionally ignoring his rival's accomplishments as a

sculptor, Donatello draws attention to the best thing that Ghiberti had ever done.

Of special interest in Carbone's anecdote is the manner in which Niccolo d'Este (1384 1441) speaks to Zoane. Although he respect fully addresses the artist using the formal voi rather than the familar tu, there is the hint that

Zoane, a mere painter and old to boot, does not belong at the chancellery. Otherwise, the marchese would not have questioned Zoane about his presence there. The painter's witty

response, however, proves that he is a worthy

person. Although Carbone's anecdote is slight, it

recalls Boccaccio's tale about Giotto and

Forese da Rabatta. Like Giotto, Maestro

Zoane is old and ugly; and, again, like Giotto, he exhibits his personal worth by making a

witty reply to a socially superior person. Seemingly, then, Carbone's modest joke grew

Certainly that was the case, as is confirmed

by Carbone's second anecdote, which con cerns Zoane's relatives and their preparations for the inevitable.

Realizing that Zoane was close to dying, his relatives asked him if he wanted to

arrange one thing more than the other

[for his funeral]. He said: "Why, yes—I want a favor from you: that Fra Zucone with that twisted [or crooked] mouth of

his, not sing over my corpse, because I will need to appear wise with my hands

united, but if by some stroke of bad luck, that Fra Zucone sings over me, I will not be able to keep from laughing.6

Maestro Zoane wants to make sure that Fra Zucone—Brother Pumpkinhead—who is

musically challenged, does not sing at the

painter's funeral. The reason for this request is that Zoane wishes to appear wise and dig nified in death with his hands joined over his

chest. He is afraid that the frate, with his de formed mouth, would sing so cacophonously

that Zoane would burst into laughter, even

though he is dead, and spoil the decorum of the moment.

The mildly anticlerical element of Car bone's anecdote again echoes other stories about artists. For example, in a tale by an

anonymous author of the last half of the

fourteenth century, Giotto gently ridicules

bishops for knowing neither the Old Testa ment nor the New.

They say that, beyond the art of painting, Giotto was a perceptive, able, and elo

quent man. While he was painting a chap el in Bologna, the cardinal, who at that time was legate and vicar of the church in

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Bologna, going often to see the painter, enjoyed conversing with him. One day when Giotto was depicting a bishop, and

particularly the miter, the cardinal, sim

ply to hear the artist's reply, asked him

why he put a miter on the bishop and what the two peaks [that is, the cornua, or horns] of the miter signified. Giotto

replied: "Sir and reverend father, you know the answer, but because you wish

to hear it from me, I'll explain. These two horns [that is, the peaks] signify and demonstrate that whoever holds the

position of bishop, or some other clerical office that requires a miter, must know both the Old Testament and the New." The cardinal, not content with only this

reply, which, however, pleased him, asked the painter about the significance

of the two strips of cloth [that is, the

lappets] hanging behind the miter.

Giotto, noticing that the cardinal seemed

delighted with his [previous] reply and that he could joke around with him, said: "Those two bands mean that pastors today know neither the Old Testament nor the New, which they have thrown behind them."7

1. Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, trans. G. H.

McWilliam, 2nd ed. (London: 1995), pp. 457-459.

2. Aelian, Historical Miscellany, ed. and trans. Nigel G. Wilson, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.:

1997), pp. 170-171.

3. On the association of Carbone and Tura, see

Stephen J. Campbell, Cosme Tura of Ferrara: Style, Politics, and the Renaissance City, 1450-1495 (New Haven: 1998), pp. 10-11.

4. I have translated the text that appears in Novelle

del Quattrocento, ed. Aldo Borlenghi (Milan: 1962), p. 709: "Maestro Zoane depintore, omo molto faceto, era

diventato tuto palido e giallo e marzo. Entrando il

marchese Nicolo [d'Este] in la soa cancellaria e ve

dendo costui in su l'usso, disse: 'Che fatti voi qui, M.

Zoane?' Lui subito rispose: 'Signor, io so che agli con

segli vostri bisogna omini maturi, non credo che in Fer

raria sia il piu mature omo de mi, si che sto aparechia to.' Siando il predicto in su il morire, gli parenti il

domandavono se volesse ordinare piu una cossa, che

un'altra. Disse lui: 'Mai si, ch'io voglio una gratia da

voi: che frate Zucone, cum quella soa boca storta, non

mi canti sopra il corpo, perche il mi bisognara star

NOTES

Although Carbone does not present Zoane as a great painter, he is, in one important respect, like Apelles, Giotto, Donatello, and other great artists. His wit and humor demon strate that, apart from his abilities as an artist—whatever they might have been—he is a "perceptive, able, and eloquent man" and a

figure worth remembering.

savio cum le man zunte, ma se per la mala ventura

questo frate Zucone mi cantera sopra, non potro star che

non rida'."

5. Angelo Poliziano, Detti Piacevoli, ed. Tiziano

Zanato (Rome: 1983), p. 51, no. 42: "Simile fa il motto

di Donatello, il quale, dimandato qual fusse la miglior cosa che facesse mai Lorenzo di Bartoluccio, scultore,

rispose: —Vendere Lepriano—impero che questa era

una sua villa da trarne poco frutto." See also Creighton

Gilbert, ed., Italian Art, 1400-1500: Sources and Doc

uments (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: 1980), pp. 170-171.

6. See n. 4, above.

7. I have translated the text in Anonimo Fiorentino,

Commento alia Divina Commedia, ed. Pietro Fanfani, 3 vols. (Bologna: 1868), II, p. 188: "Et dicesi che, oltre

all'arte del dipigniere, egli fa intendente et valente et elo

quente uomo: et dipigniendo a Bologna una cappella, il

Cardinale che a quel tempo era Legato et Vicario della

Chiesa in Bologna, andando spesso a vederlo, gli gio vava di ragionare col lui: et faccendo un di et dipig niendo un Vescovo, et facendogli la mitria, il Cardinale,

per udirlo, il dimandd un di per che a' vescovi si facea

la mitria, et che volevon dire quelle due corna della mi

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tria. Giotto gli rispose: Signore et padre reverendo, voi

il sapete; ma poi che vo volete udirlo da me, queste due

corna significano et dimostrono che chiunque tiene lu

ogo di vescovo, o d'altro cherico che porti mitria, egli debbe sapere il Testamento vecchio et il nuovo. II car

dinale, non contento a questa risposta, che gli piacque,

il dimando che vogliono dire quelle due bende che si

pongono pendenti dirietro alia mitria? Giotto, accor

gendosi ch'egli avea diletto di lui, et ch'egli l'uccellava, disse: Queste due bende significano ch'e Pastori d'oggi che portono mitria, non sanno ne il Testamento vecchio

ne il nuovo, et pero l'hanno gettate dirietro."

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