The Fifteenth Century Italian Paintings, Volume 1
National Gallery Catalogues
Dillian Gordon and Susanna Avery-Quash
London, 2003
Summary
The National Gallery holdings of Italian paintings are both deep and wide-ranging. This new, richly illustrated catalogue deals with artists the bulk of whose work falls within the first half of the fifteenth century, around 1400–1460, predominantly in Tuscany. Yet within this relatively narrow chronological and geographical confine we find some of the most influential and innovative painters of the Italian Renaissance, including Masaccio, Fra Angelico, Pisanello and Uccello. The examples of their work represented here, the extent of the discoveries that have been made, and are still to be made, about their origins, and the scholarship brought to bear on them, emphasise the richness and the importance of this area of the Gallery’s collection.
Since the publication in 1961 of Martin Davies’s catalogue of the earlier Italian Schools, much new evidence has become available – through both scientific and archival investigations. Discoveries have been made and new theories advanced, not only about the identity of the artists but about the nature of their subject-matter and the original settings of their work. Among the new findings published here are the discovery of a concealed signature on an Annunciation by the Florentine painter Zanobi Strozzi and the identification of the missing predella panel from the Trinity altarpiece, begun by Pesellino and completed by Filippo Lippi. An essay by Susanna Avery-Quash traces the growth of interest in early Italian paintings in Britain.
Online extracts from this catalogue
- Fra Angelico, 'Fiesole San Domenico Altarpiece'
- Fra Angelico, 'Saint Romulus: Frame Panel'
- Domenico Veneziano, 'Carnesecchi Tabernacle'
- Giovanni di Paolo, 'Baptist Predella'
- Fra Filippo Lippi, 'Medici (Overdoor?) Panels'
- Lorenzo Monaco, 'San Benedetto Altarpiece'
- Masaccio, 'Santa Maria Maggiore Altarpiece'
- Masaccio, 'The Virgin and Child'
- Francesco Pesellino, 'Story of David Panels from a Pair of Cassoni (?)'
- Francesco Pesellino, 'The Pistoia Santa Trinità Altarpiece'
- Pisanello, 'The Vision of Saint Eustace'
- Sassetta, 'San Sepolcro Altarpiece'
- Paolo Uccello, 'The Battle of San Romano'
Online biographies from this catalogue
About the text
These catalogue entries are a mixture of new ‘born digital’ entries, and entries from previously published catalogues. A third of the previously published entries were chosen from among the Gallery's most important paintings, and two thirds from paintings that are interesting, but often overlooked.
When converting the previously-published files we have tried to stay as close to the original texts and arrangements as possible, whilst also creating online entries that are self-contained. This means that sections like bibliographies and appendices appear in the individual entry webpage. Bibliographies have been collated from various sources (this is why, for example, individual references may be formatted differently). The way we tag items to add them to lists of references may mean that the hyperlinking of references appears inconsistent – we’ll be working on improving this.
Editorially, we have corrected any known errors. We have also acquired and cleared new images, so credit lines have been updated. Images, which often fell in the middle of running text, have been moved to the next paragraph break. The main image for each entry has been moved to the top. Captions which applied to more than one image have been divided so that each image has its own caption.
Texts remain as they were published. In a few cases an ‘update’ section summarises recent research.
