To understand fourteenth-century Italian stained-glass windows in their full cul-tural context, it is necessary to consider the history of glass as well as the windows’
aesthetic and symbolic potential alongside the various other uses of trecento glass.
The Italian painters who were working with stained glass were also interested in other types of glass, either actual or illusionistic. Artists like Duccio, Simone Martini, and Taddeo Gaddi were all continuing in the long tradition of glass arts as well as adapting the medium to their unique situations.
In most Gothic stained glass windows, the imagery functioned as a sort of “illu-minated painting,” to borrow Anne Friedberg’s term.47 However, as Friedberg points out, the stained glass window was a nonperspectival picture plane.48 Friedberg does not speak specifically about Italian trecento windows. Had she done so, she might have noted how, in the hands of Duccio, the medium of stained glass took on a greater sense of perspective, particularly in his renderings of the evangelists at their
Figure 2.8: Taddeo Gaddi, Illusionistic Niche with Liturgical Vessels, ca. 1330, Baroncelli Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence. Source: Raffaello Bencini/Alinari Archives, Florence.
desks in the corners of the window for Siena’s cathedral. When employed by Sim-one and Taddeo, the window also showed signs of perspective—for instance in the pedestals on which the saints stand. The windows in Assisi and Florence also became more three-dimensional in the sense that they interacted with their surrounding decorative complex. The windows’ effects were not confined to the single plane of their glass panels; rather, they projected their colorful light, and their agency, into the pictorial reality around them and thus into the viewer’s space.
This chapter has demonstrated that Italian artists well known for their illu-sionistic space, naturalistic modeling, and narrative skills applied these same objectives when working with glass. Stained glass windows provided them new opportunities to advance these interests by harnessing the powerful and beau-tiful symbol of colored light to their artistic goals. Many of the ideas presented in the subsequent chapters have their roots in the artworks, artists, and ideas presented here. As this study will suggest, when working with gilded glass and transparent glass, some of these same trecento artists assimilated these media to their already-existing objectives and sensibilities rather than simply adopting the traditional methods of working with glass. In these ways it is possible to see that glass was both a reflection of and inspiration for trecento artistic production and, in turn, visuality.
Notes
1. This chapter is not meant to be a comprehensive treatment of all Italian early Renais-sance stained glass; many other works are not mentioned. Other projects include Maso di Banco’s work in Santa Croce and the contributions of Agnolo Gaddi, Ghi-berti, and Donatello at the Florence Cathedral. For more on Maso di Banco’s work see John White, Art and Architecture in Italy: 1250–1400 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 420; for the projects in the Florence Cathedral, see Nancy Thompson, “Designers, Glaziers, and the Process of Making Stained Glass Windows in 14th- and 15th-Century Florence,” Journal of Glass Studies 56 (2014), 237–51.
2. Thompson, “Making Stained Glass Windows,” 238, 249–51.
3. For more on this relationship, see ibid., 238–39 and Reneé Burnam, “The Glazing of Siena Cathedral’s fenestra rotunda magna: Preliminary Observations from a Pro-duction Standpoint,” in The Four Modes of Seeing: Approaches to Medieval Imagery in Honor of Madeline Harrison Caviness, eds. Evelyn Staudinger Lane, Elizabeth Carson Pastan, and Ellen M. Shortell (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009), 13–29.
4. Thompson, “Making Stained Glass Windows,” 239, 246–47.
5. This is not to say that French stained glass windows do not work in tandem with other artworks in their immediate environment. As Virginia Chieffo Raguin points
out there were significant and inspiring connections between the imagery in stained glass and reliquaries, as in the case of the tomb of Thomas Becket and between the glass and the architecture and sculpture; see Virginia Chieffo Raguin, Stained Glass:
From Its Origins to the Present (New York: Abrams, 2003), 17, 60. I do argue, how-ever, that the way in which the Italian artists discussed here incorporated the win-dows and their lighting effects into the adjacent frescoes specifically is something distinct to this artistic environment.
6. Anne Friedberg, The Virtual Window (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006), 107. Paul Lacroix Jacob notes evidence of glass windows used in Pompeii, though not wide-spread use; see Paul Lacroix, The Arts in the Middle Ages, and at the Period of the Renaissance (London: Chapman and Hall, 1870), 252–53.
7. For early history of windows in Latin churches and the specific role of the Bene-dictines, see Alan Macfarlane and Gerry Martin, Glass: A World History (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2002), 20.
8. For several other early references to glass windows in churches see Sarah Brown,
“Stained Glass,” in The Oxford History of Western Art, ed. Martin Kemp (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2000), 108; and Jacob, Arts in the Middle Ages, 252–53, which also describes the accounts of Gregory of Tours and Venantius Fortunatus as well as other early examples of stained glass windows.
9. Raugin, Stained Glass, 59. It is thought that the depictions in these fragments were complimented by a series of apostles, Christ, and the Virgin Mary.
10. Erwin Panofsky, Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St. Denis and Its Art Treasures (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), 63–65.
11. This idea was inspired by the writing of Pseudo-Dionysus who Suger mistakenly believed was Saint Denis. For more on this see Paul Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius: A Com-mentary on the Texts and an Introduction to Their Influence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); and Paul Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works (New York:
Paulist Press, 1987).
12. Panofsky, Abbot Suger, 53.
13. Raugin also cited the gem-stained glass connection using Suger’s sapphire comment;
see Raugin, Stained Glass, 10, 14.
14. Nancy Thompson, “The Franciscans and Stained Glass in Tuscany and Umbria,”
in Mendicant Cultures in the Medieval and Early Modern World: Word, Deed, and Image, eds. Sally J. Cornelison et al. (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016), esp. 24, 34–41. The scholarship of Nancy Thompson is indispensable in terms of understanding stained glass within a specifically Italian context. Also see Thompson, “Making Stained Glass Windows,” 237–51; and two forthcoming publications: Nancy Thompson, “The Creation of Stained Glass in Central Italy, 1250–1400,” in Reading Medieval Sources:
Stained Glass, eds. Elizabeth Pastan and Brigitte Kurmann-Schwartz (Leiden: Brill, 2018); and Nancy Thompson, “Networks and Materials: Italian Stained-Glass Win-dows ca. 1280–1400,” in an edited volume of the papers presented at the Andrew
Ladis Trecento Conference in November, 2016, eds. Sarah Wilkins and Holly Flora (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018).
15. As quoted in Thompson, “Franciscans and Stained Glass,” 31.
16. Ibid., 32–33.
17. See Martina Bagnoli, “The Stuff of Heaven: Materials and Craftsmanship in Medi-eval Reliquaries,” in Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in MediMedi-eval Europe, exh. cat., eds. Martina Bagnoli et al. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010), 138.
18. Theophrastus, On Stones, trans. Earle Radcliffe Caley and John F. C. Richards, Graduate School Monographs, no. 1 (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University, 1956).
19. Ibid., 50.
20. Dimitris Plantzos, Hellenistic Engraved Gems (New York: Clarendon Press, 1997), 110.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid., 32.
23. Spike Bucklow, “The Virtues of Imitation: Gems, Cameos, and Glass Imitations,” in The Westminster Retable: History, Technique, Conservation, eds. Paul Binski and Ann Massing (Cambridge: University of Cambridge, 2009), 143.
24. On Albertus Magnus’s summary of the properties of minerals see John M. Riddle and James A. Mulholland, “Albert on Stones and Minerals,” in Albertus Magnus and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays 1980 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1980), 209.
25. Bucklow, “Virtues of Imitation,” 143.
26. Bagnoli, “The Stuff of Heaven,” 138–39.
27. Spike Bucklow extends the powerful associations of the gems to colored-glass imita-tion of gems. “Virtues of Imitaimita-tion,” 98.
28. Bucklow, Ibid., 143–44.
29. Other variations on these techniques include basse-taille, plique-à-jour, and émail en ronde bosse. For more on this and the history of this tradition, see Janetta Rebold Benton, Materials, Methods, and Masterpieces of Medieval Art (Oxford: Praeger, 2009), 149, 153–55.
30. For more on the attribution and the various extant editions of this work see Theoph-ilus, On Divers Arts, trans. John G. Hawthorne and Cyril Stanley Smith (New York:
Dover Publications, 1979), xv–xxxv.
31. Ibid., 126–27.
32. Joyce Brodsky, “The Stavelot Triptych: Notes on a Mosan Work,” Gesta 11, no. 1 (1972): 31; William Voelkle, The Stavelot Triptych: Mosan Art and the Legend of the True Cross (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 20.
33. Diana Norman, Painting in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena: 1260–1555 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 76. The windows at San Francesco in Assisi predate the window in Siena, but these were designed by German artists around
ca. 1250; see White, Art and Architecture, 184. For more on Duccio’s window also see Marilena Caciorgna, Roberto Guerrini, and Mario Lorenzon, eds., Oculus cordis.
La vetrata di Duccio: Stile, iconografia, indagini tecniche, restauro (Ospedaletto: Pacini, 2007).
34. For other ways in which Duccio’s design challenged the traditional physical structure of the window glass and its supporting mechanisms see Burnam, “Preliminary Obser-vations,” 18–20.
35. The altarpiece was dismantled in the eighteenth century, and portions of it (the majority of which are in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena) can now be found in museums around the world.
36. Norman, Medieval and Renaissance Siena, 38.
37. Giotto also depicted similar glass drinking vessels in his Last Supper panel now in Munich’s Alte Pinakothek.
38. Other surviving examples of small, mostly clear glass drinking vessels dating from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries are found in David Whitehouse, Medieval Glass for Popes, Princes, and Peasants (Corning, NY: Corning Museum of Glass, 2010).
39. White, Art and Architecture, 361.
40. Paul Hills, The Light of Early Italian Painting (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987), 75–86; Diana Norman, “Those Who Pay, Those Who Pray and Those Who Paint: Two Funerary Chapels,” in Siena, Florence, and Padua: Art, Society and Religion: 1280–1400, ed. Diana Norman, vol. 2 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995), 169–79.
41. Hills, Early Italian Painting, 75.
42. He could have been exposed to interesting lighting effects through his father’s mosaic works, such as the Coronation of the Virgin located in the Duomo above the main entrance on the interior or, as will be discussed shortly, the eclipse of 1339.
43. There is a letter, thought by some to have been written by Taddeo, describing how he injured his eyes while trying to observe the solar eclipse. Paul Hills notes that Taddeo’s inspiration could have come from simply observing night scenes and their corresponding lighting effects in his daily life; Hills, Early Italian Painting, 81. For an overall summary of the debate see Norman, “Two Funerary Chapels,” 179 and R. J. M. Olson and J. M. Pasachoff, “Comets, Meteors, and Eclipses: Art and Science in Early Renaissance Italy,” Meteoritics and Planetary Science 37 (2002): 1567–1471.
44. 1 Cor. 12:13. For more on the panel see Norman, “Two Funerary Chapels,” 172; and Christine Sciacca, ed., Florence at the Dawn of the Renaissance: Painting and Illumina-tion 1300–1350 (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2012), 110–13, fig. 23.
45. See note 36, above, for more on this.
46. White, Art and Architecture, 413.
47. Friedberg, Virtual Window, 107.
48. Ibid., 107–8.
References
Bagnoli, Martina. “The Stuff of Heaven: Materials and Craftsmanship in Medieval Reliquaries.”
In Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe, exh. cat., edited by Martina Bagnoli et al., 137–47. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010.
Benton, Janetta Rebold. Materials, Methods, and Masterpieces of Medieval Art. Oxford: Praeger, 2009.
Brodsky, Joyce. “The Stavelot Triptych: Notes on a Mosan Work.” Gesta 11, no. 1 (1972): 19–33.
Brown, Sarah. “Stained Glass.” In The Oxford History of Western Art, edited by Martin Kemp, 108–123. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Bucklow, Spike. “The Virtues of Imitation: Gems, Cameos, and Glass Imitations.” In The West-minster Retable: History, Technique, Conservation, edited by Paul Binski and Ann Massing, 143–151. Cambridge: University of Cambridge, 2009.
Burnam, Reneé. “The Glazing of Siena Cathedral’s fenestra rotunda magna: Preliminary Observa-tions from a Production Standpoint.” In The Four Modes of Seeing: Approaches to Medieval Imagery in Honor of Madeline Harrison Caviness, edited by Evelyn Staudinger Lane, Elizabeth Carson Pastan, and Ellen M. Shortell, 13–29. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009.
Caciorgna, Marilena, Roberto Guerrini, and Mario Lorenzon, eds. Oculus cordis. La vetrata di Duccio: Stile, iconografia, indagini tecniche, restauro. Ospedaletto: Pacini, 2007.
Friedberg, Anne. The Virtual Window. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006.
Hills, Paul. The Light of Early Italian Painting. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987.
Lacroix, Paul. The Arts in the Middle Ages and at the Period of the Renaissance. London: Chapman and Hall, 1870.
Macfarlane, Alan, and Gerry Martin. Glass: A World History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.
Norman, Diana. Painting in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena: 1260–1555. New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 2003.
———. “Those Who Pay, Those Who Pray and Those Who Paint: Two Funerary Chapels.” In Siena, Florence, and Padua: Art, Society and Religion: 1280–1400, edited by Diana Norman, vol. 2, 169–194. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995.
Olson, R. J. M., and J. M. Pasachoff. “Comets, Meteors, and Eclipses: Art and Science in Early Renaissance Italy.” Meteoritics and Planetary Science 37 (2002): 1563–1578.
Panofsky, Erwin. Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St. Denis and Its Art Treasures. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1979.
Plantzos, Dimitris. Hellenistic Engraved Gems. New York: Clarendon Press, 1997.
Raugin, Virginia Chieffo. Stained Glass: From Its Origins to the Present. New York: Abrams, 2003.
Riddle, John M., and James A. Mulholland, “Albert on Stones and Minerals.” In Albertus Mag-nus and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays 1980. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1980.
Rorem, Paul. Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary on the Texts and an Introduction to Their Influence.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
———. Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works. New York: Paulist Press, 1987.
Sciacca, Christine, ed. Florence at the Dawn of the Renaissance: Painting and Illumination 1300–1350.
Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2012.
Theophrastus. On Stones. Translated by Earle Radcliffe Caley and John F. C. Richards. Graduate School Monographs, no. 1. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University, 1956.
Theophilus. On Divers Arts. Translated by John G. Hawthorne and Cyril Stanley Smith. New York:
Dover Publications, 1979.
Thompson, Nancy. “Designers, Glaziers, and the Process of Making Stained Glass Windows in 14th- and 15th-Century Florence.” Journal of Glass Studies 56 (2014): 237–51.
———. “The Franciscans and Stained Glass in Tuscany and Umbria.” In Mendicant Cultures in the Medieval and Early Modern World: Word, Deed, and Image, edited by Sally J. Cornelison, Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby, and Peter Howard, 22–44. Turnhout: Brepols, 2016.
———. “The Creation of Stained Glass in Central Italy, 1250–1400.” In Reading Medieval Sources:
Stained Glass, edited by Elizabeth Pastan and Brigitte Kurmann-Schwartz. Leiden: Brill, 2018.
———. “Networks and Materials: Italian Stained-Glass Windows ca. 1280–1400.” Turnhout:
Brepols, 2018.
Voelkle, William. The Stavelot Triptych: Mosan Art and the Legend of the True Cross. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1980.
White, John. Art and Architecture in Italy: 1250–1400. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993.
Whitehouse, David. Medieval Glass for Popes, Princes, and Peasants. Corning, NY: Corning Museum of Glass, 2010.