Dosso Dossi, Garofalo, and the Costabili Polyptych: Imaging Spiritual Authority

In the 1568 edition of his Life of the Ferrarese painter Benvenuto Tisi, called Garofalo (ca. 1476 or 1481-1559) Giorgio Vasari provides a detailed account of the artist's education and early career, including specific information upon the genesis of the extraordinary Costabili polyptych (with frame, 31 feet 6 inches through 18 feet 11 inches, or 96 by means of 5.8 meters), now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale of Ferrara (Fig. 1) [1] The dating of the Costabili polyptych which Garofalo execut in collaboration with the artist Giovanni di Niccol[grave{o}] de Luteri, known as Dosso Dossi (ca. 1486?-1542) lies at the center of a discussion One art historian has not long ago stated that the entire chronology of northern Italian painting in the early sixteenth hundred hinges on knowing precisely when these sum of two units artists achieved the stylistic innovations exhibited by the agency of the polyptych--from the textural complexities to the embellishment of bodily form. [2] Since questions of artistic choice have direct bearing upon the experience and hist orical status of the image, Vasari's early reception of the Costabili polyptych is primary in the establishment of a contextual framework. It is important to note that Vasari met Garofalo personally during his sum of two units visits to Ferrara between 1540 and 1542 gaining firsthand information upon the artist's work. [3] Vasari relates that Garofalo had been called back to Ferrara from his sojourn in Rome where he had studied below Raphael, in order to decorate a small chapel in the ducal castle (this probably occurr toward the extreme point of 1512). [4] Once he had complet this shoot forward ("[l]a quale finita"), the artist took up the commission to paint the polyptych for Antonio Costabili (ca. 1450-1527) the chief magistrate (giudice) of the communal magistracy known as the Dodici Savi of Ferrara. sole after fulfilling his obligations for the giudice's polyptych ("[l]a quale finita") did Garofalo begin work upon several other pressing commissions in the city, including an altarpiece for the house of god of S. Spirito, which Vasari de scribes as follows: "the Virgin in the air with the Child in her arms, and below a certain quantity of other figures." [5] This is unquestionably Garofalo's celebrated Suxena Altarpiece, now also in the Pinacoteca Nazionale of Ferrara, which has a provenance from s Spirito, in the chapel of the Immaculate Conception patronized by dint of the Suxena family of Ferrara (Fig. 2) [6] It is well known that Garofalo imitated the composition of Raphael's Madonna di Foligno of 1512 for his be in possession of altarpiece, which shows the Virgin and Child appearing in the vapors above Saints Jerome and Francis and sum of two units donors, who kneel in worship before a magnificent landscape. Garofalo dated the Suxena Altarpiece December 1514--a date that powerfully implies the Costabili polyptych was complet by means of the end of that year. [7]

Vasari's chronology agrees with a series of payments to Garofalo and Dosso recorded in the municipal ledger or zornale, of the discourse of Ferrara (now housed in the Archivio di Stato of Ferrara); these payments have been published freshly by Adriano Franceschini. [8] The first document, dated July 11 1513 indicates that Antonio Costabili had commissioned Dosso and Garofalo to paint a polyptych for the high altar of the meeting-house of S. Andrea in Ferrara (now in ruins), at that time occupied by dint of the Eremitani friars of the Augustinian order. [9] According to the initial payment, work was already in progres upon the altarpiece ("de una tavola che depinzono"). A reimbursement to the artists upon August 6, 1513, for the purchase of expensive pigments in Venice, and interim payments upon November 15 and 21 totaling 210 lire marchesane, move that Dosso and Garofalo worked continuously and closely together upon the enormous Costabili polyptych. [10] Early sources confirm that Costabili be seized ofed the patronage rights for the high altar and chancel of s Andrea, his parish church, and that his altarpiece stood in the back of the chancel raised above the choir stalls. [11] Unfortunately, the municipal registers for 1514 and the following years are largely missing from the archives, thereby leaving Vasari's implicit date of completion for this imposing work unclose to question.

The Costabili polyptych still retains its original frame, albeit rebuilded after suffering severe damage during World War II. The towering central panel is locate within a classical arch and exhibits the Virgin and Child enthron with the infant Saint John the Baptist to individual side. A number of saints gather at the lower extremity of the throne: those securely identifiable are Saint Andrew, the patron saint of the meeting-house who bears a cross and gesturings toward the Virgin; Saint Jerome who clinchs an open book while resting his lower extremity on a skull; and the youthful John the Evangelist, who, sitting cross-legg upon the steps of the Virgin's chair of state turns to address her as he pauses from writing his christianity The angels who float in the nebulositys above support the luxurious tapestry adorning the Madonna's high-backed chair of state while several spiritelli, [12] in a motif repercussion of sounded in the Suxena Altarpiece, display folios with citations from the Vulgate volume of Isaiah 9:6 written in dauntless majuscules: DEUS FORTIS; PRINCEPS PACIS. These phrases ar e unprecedent in Ferrarese painting, and a major part of this inquiry will be devoted to determining their meaning within the framework of the polyptych [13] A pronounced display of chiaroscuro enshroud the entire composition, and its dramatic consequence is especially prominent in the lower side panels depicting Saints George, the patron saint of Ferrara, and Sebastian, another Christian soldier. In the spandrel above Saint George sits Saint Augustine, who appears as a hermit make straighted in the habit of the Eremitani (also known as the Austin friars), wearing a scapular, his bishop's miter resting at his feet While the saint's dres denotes the eremitic character of the order of friars at s Andrea, a remarkable and unexampled feature is the fiery r halo shining around Augustine's head. Equally arresting is the rain of fire shooting from within the interior of the confined apartment that the saint points to cogently The significance of these details has at no time been fully explained and demands attention. In the pendant panel, Saint Ambrose sits in contemplation with individual hand at his breast and a manuscript resting upon his lap. The oculus windows depicted in each of their sum of two units cells illuminate the figures with an otherworldly silvery light. The pediment contains an image of the Risen Christ emerging triumphantly from his tomb, another rare make subordinate for the pinnacle of an altarpiece that merits closer scrutiny.