Full title | Incidents in the Life of Saint Benedict: Predella Panel |
---|---|
Artist | Lorenzo Monaco |
Artist dates | active 1399; died 1423 or 1424 |
Series | San Benedetto Altarpiece |
Date made | 1407-9 |
Medium and support | Egg tempera on wood |
Dimensions | 28.4 x 52 cm |
Acquisition credit | Bought, 1925 |
Inventory number | NG4062 |
Location | Room 60 |
Art route(s) | A |
Collection | Main Collection |
In this painting, we see two stories from the life of Saint Benedict happening at once. On the left Benedict tells Saint Maurus to rescue Saint Placidus, who has fallen in the lake while fetching water. Maurus walks out on to the lake as if it were land and pulls Placidus – still grasping his jug – out by the hair. On the right Benedict visits his sister, Saint Scholastica. When he refuses her invitation to stay the night, she prays for him to remain and a miraculous rainstorm prevents him leaving; you can see the rain lashing the roof.
This panel comes from the predella, or bottom tier, of a large altarpiece painted for San Benedetto fuori della Porta Pinti, just outside Florence. It emphasises not just Benedict but the role of his followers, especially youthful monks, and the power of prayer – very suitable for the monks of San Benedetto.
This painting shows two stories from the life of Saint Benedict happening at once. Benedict, reading in his cell, had a vision that one of his disciples was drowning. On the left, we see him tell Saint Maurus to run down to the lake and rescue Saint Placidus, who has fallen in while fetching water. Maurus has walked out on to the lake as if it were land and is pulling Placidus – still grasping his jug – out by the hair. On the right, Benedict visits his sister, Saint Scholastica, who is near death. When he refuses her invitation to stay the night, she prays for him to remain and a miraculous rainstorm prevents him leaving; you can see the rain lashing the roof.
Saint Maurus’s halo was initially left out, perhaps by mistake, and was added later using a type of lead-white oil mordant (or adhesive) that Lorenzo Monaco used elsewhere in the altarpiece.
Although members of the Benedictine Order wore black, here they are dressed in the white habits of the Camaldolese Order, founded in the eleventh century as a reformed branch of the Benedictines, as this panel was painted for them. It comes from the predella of a large polyptych (a multi-panelled altarpiece) painted for a church just outside Florence. That church, San Benedetto fuori della Porta Pinti, was eventually destroyed, but it belonged to the Camaldolese Order. Saint Benedict was the church’s patron saint, and the small scenes in the predella show episodes from his life (another is also in our collection – Saint Benedict admitting Saints Maurus and Placidus into the Benedictine Order). A third panel, showing Saint Benedict’s death, is on permanent loan to the National Gallery.
The predella originally had three compartments with two scenes in each. When they were in the altarpiece, the predella panels were set into shaped compartments in the base of the frame, which diagonally covered the top and bottom left-hand corners. When the frame was removed it left unpainted triangles which have been filled in with modern paint. The predella panels seem to have been done by different painters, presumably assistants in Monaco’s workshop.
The scenes in the predella emphasise not just Benedict but the role of his followers, especially youthful monks, and the power of prayer and obedience. They would have been very suitable for San Benedetto, only recently founded as a dependent house of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence.
We don't know exactly when the altarpiece was taken apart, but the predella panels show no sign of the water damage which affects the main tier panels. If, as seems likely, this damage was caused by the devastating floods of 1557 in Florence, the predella must have been separated from the rest of the altarpiece before then, probably in 1529 when the church at San Benedetto was destroyed.
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Incidents in the Life of Saint Benedict
San Benedetto Altarpiece
A glorious, glowing, multi-coloured company of saints and angels surround Christ and his mother as he delicately places a golden crown on her head, making her Queen of Heaven. This huge polyptych (multi-panelled altarpiece) was painted for the high altar of the monastery of San Benedetto fuori della Porta Pinti in Florence. It was originally even bigger: its main panels are in the National Gallery, but other parts are scattered in collections across the world.
The Camaldolites (a religious order founded in 1012) were famous for their strict lifestyle, although they lived among great visual riches. The monastery’s register records how it was commissioned by a Florentine citizen, Luca Pieri Rinieri Berri, who was to pay almost the entire cost. In recompense his name was painted on the altarpiece – a few letters can be made out on the grey step of dais – so that he would be remembered in the monks' prayers.
A glorious, glowing company of saints and angels surround Christ and his mother, watching as he delicately places a golden crown on her head. This is heaven seen through fifteenth-century eyes. Crowns and haloes shimmer with burnished gold; angels with multi-coloured wings swing censers and make music; ranks of saints in gorgeous colours gesture gracefully to each other or gaze adoringly at the culminating drama of the life of the Virgin – her coronation as Queen of Heaven.
This huge polyptych was painted for the high altar of the monastery of San Benedetto fuori della Porta Pinti in Florence between 1407 and 1409. It was originally even bigger and more complex: its main panels and parts of the predella are in the National Gallery, but other parts are scattered in collections around the world.
The panels which make up the main tier – The Coronation of the Virgin, Adoring Saints: Left Main Tier Panel and Adoring Saints: Right Main Tier Panel – were originally constructed and painted as a single panel. We don‘t know exactly when it was split into three, although the altarpiece was probably taken apart when San Benedetto was destroyed in the run up to the siege of Florence in 1529. At some point, two vertical bands about seven centimetres wide were lost between the side and main panels. These missing sections have been reconstructed in the structural elements of the modern frame.
In the predella were scenes from the life of Saint Benedict, patron saint of the monastery: we see him admitting Saints Maurus and Placidus into the Benedictine Order and telling Maurus to save Placidus from drowning. A panel showing Benedict’s death is now on indefinite loan to the National Gallery, and other panels are in the Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome and the National Museum, Poznań. The pinnacles at the top showed the Annunciation flanking Christ the Redeemer. There were Old Testament prophets in the pilasters at the sides, and a tier showing Abraham, Noah, Moses and David (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) between the predella and the main panels.
San Benedetto belonged to the Camaldolites, a reformed branch of the Benedictine Order, famous for their strict lifestyle although they lived among great visual riches. The artist, Lorenzo Monaco, was himself a Camaldolite monk, and this painting is a kind of dress rehearsal for his most important surviving work, the great altarpiece for Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence. Even this smaller and simpler version measures almost 265 by 360 cm.
Unusually, we know quite a lot about why and when this altarpiece was made. The monastery’s register records how it was commissioned in 1407 by a Florentine citizen, Luca Pieri Rinieri Berri, who was to pay almost the entire cost. In recompense his name was to be included on the altarpiece – a few letters of an inscription can be made out on the grey step of dais – so that he would be remembered in the monks’ prayers. The altarpiece was never to be removed from the high altar, on penalty of a fine of 200 gold florins. It was in place by 1409 when the monks moved choir stalls from a side chapel into the main church.





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