National Gallery Catalogues
The Italian Paintings before 1400
Dillian Gordon
Master of the Albertini (Master of the Casole Fresco)
active early fourteenth century
This anonymous Sienese painter takes his name from a detached fresco of the Virgin and Child Enthroned from the Albertini Chapel in Casole d’Elsa, near Siena, now in the museum of the Collegiata there. Newly discovered documents have revealed that the patronymic of the supplicants kneeling at the feet of the Virgin and Child is not Aringhieri, as had previously been thought, but Albertini (note 1). On the Virgin’s proper left is Ranieri, described in the inscription as Bishop of Cremona, being presented by Saint Nicholas, to whom it is now known that the chapel was dedicated (note 2). On her right is his brother, known, and described in the inscription, as ‘il Porrina’, being presented by Saint Michael. A firm terminus post quem for the fresco is 1296, when Ranieri became Bishop of Cremona (note 3). Confusion has surrounded the dates of death of the brothers: il Porrina probably died in 1309 and Ranieri in 1312 (note 4). Ada Labriola and Julian Gardner have taken 1312 as a terminus ante quem (note 5), while Alessandro Bagnoli and Maria Merlini saw 1312 as a terminus post quem (note 6). The discovery of frescoes of a Last Judgement, with Christ enthroned within a mandorla, angels holding instruments of the Passion, and the twelve seated Apostles, confirms that this was a funerary chapel. The year of il Porrina’s death, probably 1309, is therefore a possible terminus post quem (note 7). Bagnoli takes Ranieri’s death in 1312 as a certain terminus post quem, dating the frescoes on a stylistic basis to around 1315 (note 8).

The core group of four paintings by the Master of the Albertini was first put together by Raimond van Marle in 1928 (note 9). It consists of the Virgin and Child with Six Angels in the National Gallery (NG 565), the Casole fresco (note 10) and two panel paintings in Siena Pinacoteca: the Virgin and Child Enthroned, no. 18 (formerly in the Sienese church of San Pellegrino alla Sapienza), and the Virgin and Child, no. 592 (note 11). An expansionist view was taken by James Stubblebine, who accepted the core group but added to it (note 12).

The painter has often been discussed as transitional between Duccio, the Master of Città di Castello and Pietro Lorenzetti (note 13). Ada Labriola and Gaudenz Freuler identified him as the Master of Città di Castello himself (note 14). However, Bagnoli has demonstrated convincingly that there are subtle differences in their technique and that they were two separate artists with parallel careers (note 15). They were quite possibly two individual partners collaborating in the same workshop (note 16).

NG 565 The Virgin and Child with Six Angels
c.1310–15(?)
Egg tempera on synthetic support, transferred from wood, 194.2 × 170.6 cm

The Virgin and Child are seated on a curved marble throne with an arched top and carved foliate decoration. The sides of the throne are formed of tall niches inlaid with panels of cosmati. Beneath her cloak the Virgin’s hair is tied up with a red head cloth decorated with gold. Part of her cloak is tucked behind a patterned cushion. Between her thumb and her index finger she holds a fold of the Child’s pink drapery. The Child, dressed in a transparent dress under a pink wrap, is perched in the crook of the Virgin’s left elbow, legs crossed, raising his right hand in a slightly hesitant blessing, his left hand resting on the Virgin’s thumb. Three angels stand on each side in various poses.

Technical Notes
Panel Structure and Condition
Total panel 194.2 × 170.6 cm (pointed top); height from base to shoulder 135.0 cm. Painted surface 190.0 × 166.1 cm; height of painted surface from base to shoulder 132.2 cm.

The original wood panel was made up of five boards with a vertical grain. The paint, ground and original canvas layers were transferred to a synthetic rigid support in 1958. When the back was exposed, infrared photographs were taken of drawings on the back of the canvas showing a sphinx (FIG. 3), a game board, and either a window or a bishop’s mitre(?) (FIG. 2). Some writing was also visible through the back of the canvas.

The bottom has almost certainly been cut (note 1); the Virgin was probably originally shown full length; the panel may have been damaged when Santa Croce (see Provenance) suffered from flooding, either in 1333 or in 1557 (note 2). Incised lines are visible at the edges of the top part and, less clearly, intermittently at the sides and bottom; these incisions may have been made when the picture was cut down (note 3).

Painting Condition and Technique
Cleaned and restored in 1934–5.

The condition is poor. Several large areas have been completely repainted and the surface has suffered from four vertical splits (FIG. 4). The picture has a long and continuing history of flaking.

Infrared reflectography reveals that the composition was extensively underdrawn in a liquid medium applied with a brush using fluent lines, often ending with a blob of paint or a hook (FIG. 8). The underdrawing is visible to the naked eye in the pale pink cloak of the angel in the bottom left-hand corner, in the Virgin’s red dress and around her hands and those of the Child. Straight lines in the architecture of the throne were incised with the help of a straight edge; the drapery folds of the Virgin’s cloak were also incised. The final painting follows the incisions, which do not always coincide with the underdrawn lines. The painter did not always complete the reserved areas, so that there are places where the paint is not edge to edge. One such area is the thumb of the Child’s left hand (FIG. 5) which is not underdrawn and may be a misinterpretation by a modern restorer filling in the reserved area not covered by the pink of the drapery.

The water-gilded background on red bole is in poor condition. The haloes have been punched with a five-petal rosette punch (FIG. 6) (note 4), used in a double ring around the circumference of the Virgin’s halo, in a single ring around the Child’s halo, and to outline the cross within his halo; it has also been used for the angels’ haloes. The haloes are inscribed with foliate patterns (FIG. 7) or geometric shapes, interspersed with cross-hatching; the halo of the middle left-hand angel is incised with pseudo-kufic lettering.

The mordant gilding, applied with a brown mordant, has survived reasonably well and decorates the Virgin’s red headdress, the borders of her cloak, which also has a single line of gold edging, those of her red dress at the collar and cuff, and two stripes down the Child’s transparent dress. The dresses of the angels are also variously mordant gilded with a doubleline border and embroidered panels.

The flesh has been underpainted with green earth, now showing through more than was probably intended.

The Virgin’s cloak is painted with azurite, mixed with white for the pale lining. The painter has applied white in thin layers around the outside of the Child’s right arm in order to convey the transparency of his dress, and in denser layers to show
the white stitching around the neckline and wrists (FIG. 9).

Attribution, Iconography and Date
NG 565 came into the National Gallery as a work by Cimabue.
It was recognised as being Sienese in 1898 by J.P. Richter, who related it to Duccio’s workshop (note 5).

Apart from one rogue attribution (note 6), NG 565 has generally been accepted as belonging with a group of paintings first put together by Raimond van Marle in 1928 (note 7). The core group consists of NG 565, the detached fresco in the Albertini Chapel in the museum of the Collegiata in Casole d’Elsa (note 8), and two panel paintings in Siena Pinacoteca: the Virgin and Child Enthroned (no. 18) formerly in the Sienese church of San Pellegrino alla Sapienza and the Virgin and Child (no. 592; see biography above) (note 9).

The relative chronology of the paintings is not straight-forward, compromised as it is by the poor condition of both the Casole fresco and NG 565. James Stubblebine saw NG 565 as a mature work, executed some time after the Casole fresco; he dated it around 1325, partly because he associated it with the completion of the east end of Santa Croce, which he dated to the early 1320s (although see below), and also because he dated the fresco around 1320, that is, after 1317, which he wrongly thought was the date of the death of Ranieri, Bishop of Cremona (see biography above), one of the supplicants in the fresco. Julian Gardner dated NG 565 around 1315, after Duccio’s Maestà of 1311 for Siena Duomo, on the grounds that the painting takes up the motif of a spur of the Virgin’s drapery tucked behind her cushion and that the iconography of the Child is based on that Maestà (note 10). In fact the spur of drapery is a common motif, almost certainly deriving from Duccio’s lost Maestà of 1302, and the pose of the Child is very different from that of the Child in the Maestà of 1311 (see p. 174, FIG. 1). Ada Labriola, who identified the painter as the Master of Città di Castello, dated NG 565 to the second decade of the fourteenth century (note 11). Gaudenz Freuler saw the painter, whom he also identified as the Master of Città di Castello, as having collaborated with Duccio on the Rucellai Madonna of 1285 and as a consequence obtaining the commission to paint NG 565 for Santa Croce (note 12). Maria Merlini dated NG 565 to no later than the first decade of the fourteenth century and preceding the Casole fresco, which she saw as having a terminus post quem of 1312 (see biography) (note 13). Sabina Spannocchi has dated NG 565 after the Siena Pinacoteca Virgin and Child (no. 592), which she dates to the early fourteenth century and close to the Siena Virgin and Child Enthroned (no. 18), which she dates to the second decade of the fourteenth century (note 14).

Merlini suggested that Siena no.18 shows a knowledge of Giotto’s Virgin and Child from San Giorgio alla Costa, and in fact the abandonment of mordant-gilded drapery folds in favour of more realistic modelling in light and shade may be the result of the painter’s Florentine experience, given the probably Florentine provenance of NG 565 (see below). The date of the Casole fresco, around 1309–15 (see biography), provides a time frame for the painter. In his panel paintings he seems to progress away from the very Ducciesque painting of the Virgin and Child in Siena no. 592 to the more Giottesque Virgin and Child Enthroned of Siena no. 18, particularly in the monumental frontal view and the symmetry of the Virgin, with NG 565 falling as transitional between the two.

NG 565 represents the type of large gabled Maestà of an enthroned Virgin and Child with angels popular throughout central Italy during the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. The marble throne in NG 565 seems to have already been common in the 1290s: it is found in simple form, for example, in the ruined fresco by the Umbrian Ruggerino da Todi, dated 1295, in the church of San Niccolò, Sangemini (between Todi and Terni) (note 15). Gertrude Coor-Achenbach noted that the design of the throne in NG 565 is very similar to that in the Maestà from San Quirico d’Orcia, now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington (Kress Collection) (note 16). Also similar to that painting is the way in which the angels rest their hands on the flat sides of the throne, the fall of drapery across the Virgin’s knees, and the way in which she holds the Child’s robe between her thumb and index finger, a motif found also in the Virgin and Child in Buonconvento, now attributed to Duccio (note 17).

The eclectic iconography falls within the ambit of the works by the Badia a Isola Master and the Città di Castello Master. The poses of the two uppermost angels in NG 565 repeat almost exactly those of the upper angels in the Maestà by the Badia a Isola Master, while an angel with arms crossed over its breast is found in the Maestà by the Città di Castello Master (note 18). The motif of the Child’s feet crossed, to a greater or lesser degree – alluding to the Crucifixion – occurs also in the Badia a Isola panel, as well as in the Virgin and Child by the Master of Città di Castello in Copenhagen (note 19).

Function and Location
NG 565 has been said to be the panel seen by Vasari on a pilaster in the choir of Santa Croce (see Provenance). Gardner argues on the basis of its old-fashioned shape that it must have been a confraternity panel, commissioned by the Laudesi, who met in the Bardi Vernio chapel in Santa Croce; he considers it to have been the second Sienese confraternity panel for a major Florentine church, Duccio’s Rucellai Madonna having been the first (note 20). This is a possibility.

There is also the possibility that it was originally on the high altar, before being replaced by the altarpiece by Ugolino di Nerio (see p. 473). Although it is now considerably smaller in width, it might originally have had a relatively wide frame, which could have included saints relevant to the Franciscan order in roundels, in a manner similar to the Rucellai Madonna and Cimabue’s Maestà for San Francesco, Pisa (for which see also p. 36). Against this is whether it is likely that the friars would have commissioned a relatively second-rank painter to paint the high altarpiece for Santa Croce. The foundation stone of the present church was laid on 3 May 1295, one of the east end chapels was complete by 7 January 1299 and the transept was roofed in 1311 (note 21), with the east end of the church being in use certainly by 1312 (note 22); the confessio (the crypt below the high altar) was in use by 1304 (note 23).

Alternatively, this type of gabled Maestà is of the kind that Andrea De Marchi has argued was situated on the tramezzo (rood screen) of churches. However, he has cast doubt on the veracity of Santa Croce as the provenance of NG 565, seeing
it as invented by the dealer for reasons of prestige (note 24).

Provenance
Stated to come from Santa Croce, Florence (note 25). Apparently the Virgin and Child recorded by Vasari in 1550 on a pilaster in the choir of Santa Croce (note 26); Vasari’s picture may be the undescribed painting recorded over a side door leading to the cloister by Bocchi in 1591 (note 27). The picture described by Bocchi was moved to the Tosinghi / Spinelli chapel (the chapel immediately to the north of the cappella maggiore) in 1595, where it is recorded (as a Madonna) in Rosselli’s Sepoltuario of 1657 (note 28). Purchased by Lombardi and Baldi from the convent of Santa Croce (note 29); acquired with other pictures from the Lombardi-Baldi Collection, Florence, 1857 (note 30).

Notes to the Biography
1. See Bagnoli 2010, p. 99, and p. 110, note 16. Consequently the painter, who had been named the Casole Fresco Master by Stubblebine (1979, pp. 110–16) and was renamed Master of the Aringhieri (see the exh. cat. Duccio 2003, pp. 306–11), has again been renamed, this time as Master of the Albertini. I am extremely grateful to
Alessandro Bagnoli for providing me, before publication, with the text of his catalogue, which has a detailed description of the new discoveries, a fortuna critica of the fresco, and a discussion of authorship, iconography and date.
2. Bagnoli 2010, pp. 92 and 98. The bishop saint is therefore neither Saint Donato nor Saint Giusto, as had previously been thought. For the inscription see Bagnoli 2010, p. 110, note 27. Bagnoli notes that in the seventeenth century the title of the chapel was changed to the Visitation.
3. Eubel 1898, I, p. 222; likewise Gams 1957, p. 790.
4. See Bagnoli 2010, p. 111, note 38. Ranieri’s date of death is correctly given as
1312 by Labriola 1988, p. 256, and p. 264, note 36; also Gardner 1999, pp. 110–11, esp. p. 110, notes 7 and 11, and p. 111, note 14, both authors citing Eubel (see note 3 above). An incorrect date of 1317 is given by several authors, citing F. Ughelli, Italia Sacra, IV, Venice 1719, p. 610, including Giovanna Damiani in Mostra di opere d’arte restaurate, II, 1981, cat. 3, pp. 20–4, Cianferoni and Bagnoli 1996, pp. 61–2, and Angeloni 2001, p. 138, note 12. Il Porrina probably died in 1308/9: Wolff 2002, p. 176, gives his death date as between 14 April 1308 and 14 April 1309. See also Pecori 1853, p. 132, for il Porrina having died by 14 April 1309. The death date for il Porrina is given as 1313 in Cianferoni and Bagnoli 1996, pp. 61–2.
5. Labriola 1988, p. 256; Gardner 1999, p. 111. Alessandra Angeloni dated the fresco between 1296 (when Ranieri became Bishop of Cremona) and il Porrina’s death in 1309 (see Angeloni 2001, pp. 135–46, esp. p. 137, note 10).
6. Bagnoli in the exh. cat. Duccio 2003, pp. 268–9, and Merlini in ibid., p. 307; Merlini in Bagnoli, Bartalini, Bellosi and Laclotte 2003, pp. 332–3.
7. The discovery of the Last Judgement is first referred to by Alessandro Bagnoli in the exh. cat. Duccio 2003, pp. 268–9. See further Bagnoli 2010, pp. 96–9.
8. Part of Bagnoli’s dating rests on the similarities of a sinopia sketch of a woman’s profile to heads in works by Simone Martini, particularly his Maestà of 1315; for the intriguing implications see Bagnoli 2010, pp. 102–8. It is not, however, impossible that the frescoes were commissioned by Ranieri in 1309 after the death of his brother, who is shown with Saint Michael, traditionally associated with the weighing of souls.
9. Van Marle 1924, II, pp. 85–9, as by the ‘Pseudo maestro Gilio’. Cesare Brandi separated NG 565 and Siena Pinacoteca no. 592 from the group, as by the ‘Maestro
della Maestà di Londra’ (Brandi 1951, p. 149), while Enzo Carli accepted only NG 565 and Siena Pinacoteca no. 18 as being by the same hand, attributing the Casole fresco and Siena Pinacoteca no. 592 to a different painter (Carli 1965, p. 97). Berenson 1968, p. 120, listed NG 565 as by the same hand as Siena no. 592, while (p. 119) attributing Siena no. 18 to a follower of the Master of Città di Castello.
10. See Bagnoli 2010, pp. 92–3.
11. For the paintings in Siena Pinacoteca see further Torriti 1980, pp. 85 and 86; Maria Merlini in the exh. cat. Duccio 2003, cat. Nos 44 and 45, pp. 308 –11; and Sabina Spannocchi in Bagnoli 2010, nos 34 and 35, pp. 264–71.
12. Stubblebine added to the work of this painter a fresco of the Virgin and Child in San Domenico, Arezzo; a fresco of the Virgin and Child in Santa Maria a Tressa; a Virgin and Child in the Pinacoteca, Montepulciano; a fresco of the Virgin and Child outside the city gate of Due Porte in Siena (Stubblebine 1979, pp. 110–16, figs 268, 269, 270, 274).
13. Weigelt 1911, pp. 196–7, and Weigelt 1930, p. 70, note 30; De Nicola 1912–13,
p. 147; Toesca 1951, p. 517; Torriti 1980, pp. 85–6. Freuler 2001, pp. 37 and 40–2, suggested that Pietro Lorenzetti might have trained in his workshop, a hypothesis rejected by Laclotte in the exh. cat. Duccio 2003, p. 404.
14. Labriola 1988, pp. 247–66; Freuler 2001, pp. 27–50; Freuler 2004, p. 590.
15. Bagnoli in the exh. cat. Duccio 2003, pp. 268–9. Bagnoli points out the differences in the brushwork, in the way of lighting and in the modelling of the flesh. It is also notable that the Master of Città di Castello did not highlight along the tops of lips, while the Master of the Albertini copied this from Duccio. See also Sabina Spannocchi in Bagnoli 2010, nos 34 and 35, pp. 264–71, with bibliography.
16. One might suggest that they may have been brothers working in close collaboration, like the Lorenzetti. They evidently shared a five-petal rosette punch (Bagnoli in the exh. cat. Duccio 2003, p. 268), found also in NG 565 (see fig. 6, p. 328). Hayden Maginnis (2001, pp. 47–8) lists the numerous families of painters who worked together in fourteenth-century Siena (as they did throughout Italy).

Notes
1. Stubblebine (1979, I, pp. 114–15) considered that NG 565 might be complete, partly because Siena no. 18 (see biography above) is also cut off at the bottom. However, that panel, which had been cut by 1895, was probably cut during the nineteenth century, but retaining the original frame moulding along the bottom. See Merlini in the exh. cat. Duccio 2003, p. 310.
2. See Conti 1968, pp. 3–22, esp. p. 3; also Carbonai, Gaggio and Salmi 2004, p. 243.
3. A photograph in the National Gallery Conservation dossier, taken on 17 June 1955 (i.e. before the picture was transferred to its synthetic support) shows a detail of the top left edge with what appears to be an area of unpainted wood, exposed after removal of the frame. It is uncertain whether the diagonal profile is the original one.
4. Found also in the Virgin and Child by the Master of Città di Castello now in Siena Pinacoteca, originally from Montespecchio (see Cannon 1994, pp. 44–5); Bagnoli in the exh. cat. Duccio 2003, p. 268, and cat. 42, pp. 296–300.
5. Richter 1898, p. 8.
6. Venturi 1907, V, p. 584, cited Suida’s attribution of the Città di Castello Maestà and NG 565 to Meo da Siena; Venturi himself (p. 586, note 1) disputed the attribution to Meo, and called the painter of NG 565 a follower of Duccio. Coor-Achenbach 1960, p. 143, note 6, related NG 565 to the Maestà originally in the Collegiata of San Quirico d’Orcia, now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington (Kress Collection); for this painting see Shapley1979, I, pp. 172–3, and II, pl. 118. See also Alessandro Bagnoli in the exh. cat. Duccio 2003, pp. 271–2.
7. Van Marle 1924, II, pp. 85–9, as by the ‘Pseudo maestro Gilio’. NG 565 had first been associated with Siena no. 18 by De Nicola 1912–13, p. 147. Doubts were expressed by F. Mason Perkins in La Balzana, 1928, pp. 100 and 112. Cesare Brandi separated NG 565 and Siena Pinacoteca no. 592 from the group and attributed them to the ‘Maestro della Maestà di Londra’ (Brandi 1951, p. 149), while Enzo Carli accepted only NG 565 and Siena Pinacoteca no. 18 as being by the same hand, attributing the Casole fresco and Siena Pinacoteca no. 592 to a different painter (Carli 1965, p. 97). Berenson 1968, p. 120, listed NG 565 as by the same hand as Siena no. 592, while (p. 119) attributing Siena no. 18 to a follower of the Master of Città di Castello.
8. See Bagnoli 2010, p. 92.
9. For the paintings in Siena Pinacoteca see further Torriti 1980, pp. 85–6; Maria Merlini in the exh. cat. Duccio 2003, cat. nos 44 and 45, pp. 308–11; and Sabina Spannocchi in Bagnoli 2010, nos 34 and 35, pp. 264–71.
10. Gardner 1999, p. 111, but see also p. 113 (giving a date of c.1310–15). The spur of drapery behind the cushion is foreshadowed in the robes of Christ in the Coronation of the Virgin in the window designed by Duccio for Siena Duomo in 1287 (see the illustration in the exh. cat. Duccio 2003, p. 169) and it cannot be excluded that the motif might have first appeared in Duccio’s lost Maestà of 1302 for the residence of the Nove in Siena, since it features in several of the paintings listed by Stubblebine (1972, pp. 239–68) as possibly reflecting the lost painting. Although Gardner describes the Child as standing in his mother’s lap, he is in fact sitting perched in the crook of her arm, with his legs crossed.
11. Labriola 1988, p. 258. See also biography above.
12. Freuler 2001, p. 39. See also biography above. Stubblebine’s attribution of one of the pinnacle angels on Duccio’s Maestà of 1311 to the Master of the Albertini is not convincing (see Giovanna Ragionieri in the exh. cat. Duccio 2003, cat. nos 33 and 34, pp. 232–3).
13. Merlini in the exh. cat. Duccio 2003, p. 307.
14. Spannocchi in Bagnoli 2010, p. 330.
15. See Santi 1959, p. 171 and fig. 2; also Todini 1989, I, p. 309, and II, fig. 102. See also Gordon 1979, p. 143, note 30, and p. 355.
16. Coor-Achenbach 1960, p. 143, note 6.
17. See the exh. cat. Duccio 2003, cat. 23, pp. 156–7.
18. For the Badia a Isola Master see the exh. cat. Duccio 2003, p. 281, for his eponymous panel see Alessandro Bagnoli in ibid., cat. 39, pp. 282–5, and for the Master of Città di Castello see Bagnoli in ibid., pp. 288–9 (his Maestà was not included in the exhibition).
19. Illustrated in Stubblebine 1979, II, fig. 193. For the significance of the Child’s crossed feet see also note 50 on p. 201 of this catalogue.
20. Gardner 1999, p. 113. See also Gardner 2011, forthcoming.
21.Wood for the transept was ordered in December 1310 (see Schwarz with Zöschg 2008, pp. 411–12).
22. According to Paatz 1940, I, p. 499, the chapels flanking the cappella maggiore were being built during 1295–1301. For the church being in use by 1312 see Richa 1754, I, p. 56; cited by Carbonai, Gaggio and Salmi 2004, pp. 243 and 252.
23. Loughman in Nelson and Zeckhauser 2008, p. 136, and p. 146, note 13.
24. De Marchi 2009, p. 61. De Marchi suggests that the painting seen by Vasari was in fact the thirteenth-century Virgin and Child now in the nearby church of San Remigio. See also De Marchi 2009a, pp. 611–14, esp. pp. 613–14, suggesting that it could also have been the eponymous Maestà by the Master of Figline.
25. National Gallery MS catalogue 10/3; National Gallery Annual Report 1858/9 (NG 17/2), p. 60, presumably on the basis of a statement supplied by Lombardi and Baldi. 26. Vasari, Vite, 1550 edn, p. 127; 1568 edn, I, p. 83; ed. Milanesi, I, p. 249: ‘una tavola drentovi una Nostra Donna, la quale fu ed è ancora appoggiata in un pilastro a man destra intorno al coro’; eds Bettarini and Barocchi, II, 1967, p. 37. The picture is also mentioned by Antonio Petrei c.1550 in the Libro di Antonio Billi, ed. Frey 1892, p. 57: ‘appoggiato a un pilastro’.
27. Bocchi 1591, p. 153. In Bocchi (1591) 2006, p. 146, note 456, Frangenberg and Williams identify this as the Crucifix by Cimabue.
28. Rosselli’s Sepoltuario of 1657 (ASF, Manoscritti 624, f. 280): ‘Verso tramontana segue la cappella degli Spinelli, già della Famiglia de Tolosini, dalle quale (secondo dice il Libro dei Frati) passò per eredità in mj Tommaso di Lionardo Spinelli. E intitolata nell’Assunzione della Madonna e l’anno 1595 vi si messe la Madonna grande che era sopra la porta che va nel chiostro de Morti verso mezzo dì.’ Mencherini 1929, p. 23, no. 2, states: ‘La cappella dell’Assunzione della Madonna è di tutta la famiglia de’ Tolosini. Nel lib. del 1441 si dice di Tommaso di Leonardo Spinelli’; see also ibid., p. 31, no. 30; and Paatz 1940, I, p. 595 and pp. 687–8, note 561, stating that it was probably moved after 1566. Giovanni Cinelli’s revision of Bocchi (Bocchi and Cinelli 1677, p. 316) merely records that the picture mentioned by Bocchi had been removed. Davies (1961, p. 177, note 13) points out that presumably Bocchi’s picture is the same as ‘une madone. Cimabue’ seen in 1739 by Charles de Brosses (De Brosses, Lettres familières, I, p. 456). For a plan of the chapels in Santa Croce see Baldini and Nardini 1983, pp. 48–9.
29. See note 25 above.
30. See Davies 1961, Appendix I, pp. 565–7, for the Lombardi-Baldi Collection.

This catalogue has been funded with a grant from the American Friends of the National Gallery, made possible by a generous donation from Arturo and Holly Melosi through the Arthur and Holly Magill Foundation

For Simon, Alice and Olivia

© National Gallery Company Limited 2011

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First published in Great Britain in 2011 by
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FRONTISPIECE: Duccio di Buoninsegna, The Annunciation (NG 1139), detail
PAGE VI: Jacopo di Cione, Adoring Saints (NG 569.2), detail
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Photographic credits
All photographs are © The National Gallery, London, unless otherwise indicated.
p. 196, fig. 13; p. 197, fig. 14: © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
p. 198, fig. 15; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York © Image copyright The
Metropolitan Museum of Art / Art Resource / Scala, Florence
p. 199, fig. 16. Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, Perugia © Photo Scala, Florence – courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali