Saint Louis of Toulouse, Robert of Anjou and Simone Martini

Saint Louis of Toulouse, Robert of Anjou and Simone MartiniAuthor(s): Julian GardnerSource: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 39. Bd., H. 1 (1976), pp. 12-33Published by: Deutscher Kunstverlag GmbH Munchen BerlinStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1481915 .

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Julian Gardner

Saint Louis of Toulouse, Robert of Anjou and Simone Martini

The painting of Saint Louis of Toulouse crowning Robert of Anjou now in the Museo di Capodimonte at Naples has remained the cano- nical image of the young Angevin saint' (Fig. I). It is thus all the more surprising that the subject matter of this panel has not provoked more discussion, despite the rarity of its iconography particularly in Italy2. The aim of the paper which follows is to investigate the sources of Simone's painting at Naples and subsequently to examine some of the problems which these findings raise3.

We must first turn our attention to the physical state of the painting, for it provides a number of fundamental clues. Despite the injuries, alter- nately of neglect and overcleaning, that it has suffered, its physical integrity - we are after all dealing with a painting almost six hundred and fifty years old - is comparatively well preser- ved4. The massive and elaborately worked original frame survives save for the disappearance of the pilasters originally attached to the sides, the existence of which may be deduced from their "shadows" left on the unpainted gesso at each side5 (Fig. 2). This observation proves that no other panels were attached at the sides6. Five broaid planks of poplar form the ground of the main panel, secured at the back by eight trans- verse wooden ties, the third of which retains two iron rings which originally helped to secure the painting in place. The back of the panel, most unusually, is decorated with gold fleur-de-lys on a deep blue ground7 (Fig. 3). The uppermost of the cross-braces is pierced by two rectangular slots, which surely indicate that another panel attached to the top of the truncated gable. A comparable method of attachment is visible in the polyptych painted by Pietro Lorenzetti for the Pieve at Arezzo in 13208 (Fig. 4). This missing panel must have made a significant addition to the iconographical programme - and to this point I shall return.

As so often it is the final, painted surface which has been most ill-used. Whereas the great wooden-framed morse with the coat of arms of Sicily and Jerusalem in gilt glass glowing on Louis'

breast is well preserved, his cope has lost almost all the paste pearls and gems which formerly decorated it (Figs 5, 6). In its original condition this copy must have resembled the cope of Opus Anglicanum given in July 1288 to his native town of Ascoli Piceno by the first Franciscan

Cat. No. 34. Main panel 2oo X 138 cms. Predella 56 X 138 cms. Cf. B. Molajoli: Notizie su Capo- dimonte. Naples 1964. p. 32. The most complete description of the painting remains that by R. Causa in Soprintendenza alle Gallerie della Cam- pania. IV Mostra di Restauri. Naples I96O. pp. 32 - 38. (= Mostra).

2 Two recent and important exceptions are F. Bo- logna: I pittori alla corte angioina di Napoli 1266 - 1414. Rome 1969. (= Bologna). C. Bertelli: "Vetri e altre cose della Napoli Angioina". Para- gone, 23, (1972), pp. 89 - io6. (= Bertelli).

3 An earlier, abbreviated version of this paper was read to a symposium on Hagiography at the Centre for Mediaeval Studies of the University of Reading in July 1974. In substantially its pre- sent form the material was presented in an inau- gural lecture at the University of Warwick.

4 Mostra pp. 33 ff. 5 This appears to have been misunderstood by Ber-

telli p. 92. 6 Vertical dividing elements in polyptychs invariably project beyond the painted surface. Cf. Mostra pp. 34 ff. for the dimensions of these lateral mem- bers. I have benefited from the helpful criticism of my wife, Dr. Christa Gardner von Teuffel on this and other structural points.

7 The backs of other panels by Simone are decorated, although their functions were different. Cf. Christ taking leave of his parents in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, No. 2787 (Foreign Schools Catalogue. Liverpool 1963. pp. 103 ff.) Cf. also the panels divided between Paris, Antwerp and Berlin where the Orsini coat of arms appears on the reverse of the Carrying of the Cross (Louvre). Cf. H. van Os, M. Rinkleff-Renders: De Recon- structie van Simone Martini's zgn. Polyptiek van de Passie. FestschriR Gerson (Nederlands kunst- historisch jaarboek, 23, (1973), pp. I - I4. p. 7 and Fig. 7. 8 M. Cimmerer-George: Die Rahmung der toska- nischen Altarbilder im Trecento. (Zur Kunstge- schichte des Auslands I39). Strasbourg 1966. pp. 147 ff. and Taf. 24 d. Cf. also the polyptych by Taddeo Gaddi in S. Giovanni Fuorcivitas, Pistoia. Cimmerer-George: op. cit. Taf. 2 b.

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sit

tit

... . .....

I. Simone Martini: St Louis of Toulouse crowning Robert of Anjou. Naples. Museo di Capodimonte

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2. Simone Martini: St Louis of Toulouse crowning Robert of Anjou. Side (detail)

Pope Nicholas IV, the pearls of which were strip- ped to pay a tax imposed by Napoleon9. Other copes with pearled borders occur in the inventory of the Holy See of I295g'. Louis' cope must indeed have scintillated yet more in its pristine state. Originally it was of silver with golden roundels, but the oxydization of the silver foil with the passage of years has dulled its iride- scence to a rusty brown". If in the mind's eye we try to visualize the pale fire of Louis' cope it becomes evident that it both echoed the muted and delicate hues of the hovering angels in the apex of the panel, and more nearly approached the gold and silverthread-work of contemporary ecclesiastical embroidery.

A few words must be devoted to the magnificent frame which sumptuously complements the main image. It is too often forgotten that in the fourteenth century the frame formed an integral part of the painting itself. Here the frame is a many layered construction with projecting fleur- de-lys of gilt gesso'2 (Fig. 7). These are designed so cunningly that at the sides and top the incomplete "petals" serve to knit the central dia- phragm to the frame, while across the bottom moulding they serve as a series of corbels. The frame of Simone Martini's panel is the most monolithic of its type since Duccio's great Rucel- lai Madonna commissioned in 128513 (Fig. 8). There seems little doubt that the frame of the Saint Louis panel was the conception of the painter Simone Martini. Certainly it is the first frame which elevates heraldry to a major

9 E. Langlois: Les Registres de Nicolas IV. (Biblio- theque des Ecoles Francaises d'Ath'nes et de Rome, II ser. 7). Paris 1892. No. 70Io. . . pretiosis margaritis ornatum..." (28th. July, 1288). Cf. A. G. I. Christie: English Mediaeval Embroidery. Oxford 1938. No. 50o. pp. 89 - 94.- P. 90. A rela- tion with the cope bequeathed by Louis of Tou- louse to Brignoles is postulated by E. Bertaux: "Les Saints Louis dans l'art italien", Revue des Deux Mondes, 158, (900oo), pp. 616 - 644. p. 630.

1o E. Molinier: "Inventaire du tresor du Saint Siege sous Boniface VIII a 1295." Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartres, XLIII, (1882), pp. 646 - 667. - XLIX, (1888), 226 - 237. Nos. 881, 883, 885. Pearl bordered mitres are also recorded, for example No. 668.

Ix Mostra p. 37. 12 Mostra p. 35. "... composti di stucco sostenuto

da una fibra vegetale..." '3 L. Marcucci: Gallerie Nazionale di Firenze. I Di-

pinti toscani del secolo XIII. Rome 1958. No. 22. pp. 63 - 68. Figs. 22, 22 b, 2.2 c. Cimmerer-George: op. cit. pp. 29 ff. and Schnitt 2.

14



3. Simone Martini: St Louis of Toulouse crowning Robert of Anjou. (back) 4. Petro Lorenzetti: Polyptych. Arezzo, Pieve. (back)

15



5. Simone Martini: St Louis of Toulouse crowning Robert of Anjou. morse (detail) 6. Simone Martini: St Louis of Toulouse crowning Robert Anjou. cope (detail)

16



expressive medium in painting; the painted surface too is rich in coats of arms. Whereas coats of arms had been used earlier in tomb sculptureI4, and works of art commissioned by Cardinal Stefaneschis, this prominent display of heraldry had been most fully adumbrated prior to the Saint Louis in the graceful baldachin sheltering the Virgin and her heavenly court in Simone's frescoed Maesta in the Palazzo Pub- blico at Siena of 1315i6. Robert of Anjou was a man in whose mind heraldry bulked large. In one of his many sermons the link he chose between the two Saints Louis, King of France and Bishop of Toulouse was heraldic, the text from Math. VI, 28 "Considerate lilia agri..."17 In the painting at Naples the effect of the fleur-de- lys on the frame, at once chivalric and solemn is picked up by the fleur-de-lys punches in the borders of the gold ground, perhaps the first in- stance of their occurrenceI8. In terms of surface complexity the panel is unsurpassed in Trecento painting. It was no doubt appropriately expen- sive. There could remain no doubt in the ob- server's mind that this was a quintessentially Angevin image, the great attached label at the top of the frame completing the armorial bear- ings of the dynasty, France ancient with a label (Fig. 9).

7. Simone Martini: St Louis of Toulouse crowning Robert of Anjou. frame and border (detail)

Charles II's second son Louis was born in February 1274 at Nocera dei Pagani, in South Italy near Salerno'9. Like Charles' other sons he was surrendered as captive to Alfonso III of Aragon, in place of Charles himself who had been captured at sea by Ruggero Loria in June 128420. As captive Charles II had succeeded to the throne at the death of his father, and his release became imperative. By the terms of the Treaty of Canfranc of October 1288 he was freed in exchange for his sons 2. In his seven year

14 Coats of arms appear prominently on the tombs, of, among others Cardinal Guillaume de Braye (t 1282) and Cardinal Pietro da Piperno (t 1302). Cf. J. Gardner: "Arnolfo di Cambio and Roman tomb design". Burlington Magazine, CXV, (1973), pp. 420 - 439. Figs. 13, 28.

5s For the triptych in Old St. Peters cf. G. de Ni- cola: "L'Affresco di Simone Martini ad Avig- none". "L'Arte, IX, (90o6), pp. 336 - 344. P. 339, note 4. 16 I. Hueck: ,,Friihe Arbeiten des Simone Martini". Miinchner Jahrbuch, XIX, (1968), pp. 29 - 6o. Fig. io. (= Hueck).

'7 Cod. Marciana L. III, LXXVI. f. 97. De sanctis Lodovico prasule et Lodovico rege. Cited in W. Goetz: K6nig Robert von Neapel (1309 - 1343). Seine Pers6nlichkeit und sein Verhiltnis zum Hu- manismus. Tiibingen 1910o p. 51, no. 93. Fleur-de- lys appear prominently on Robert's tomb. Cf. O. Morisani: "Aspetti della 'regalita' in tre mornu- menti Angioini". Cronache di archeologia e di storia dell'arte, 4, (1970), pp. 88 - 122. p. 102.

i8 Cf. Figs. and. The larger band of fleurs-de-lys are 'outlined' against a punched ground by means of a round-headed punch. The punch is used again on the decorated reverse of the St. John in the Barber Institute in Birmingham. There seems no reason to doubt the date 1320 on the front of

this panel. Cf. J. Pope-Hennessy: "Recent Re- search". Burlington Magazine, LXXV, (1939), pp. 128 - 130. p. 129. J. Rowlands: "A hitherto unknown panel by Simone Martini". Ibid., CII, (1960), pp. 67 - 68. p. 68. 19 The standard biography remains M. Toynbee: S. Louis of Toulouse and the Process of Canonization in the fourteenth century. (British Society of Fran- ciscan Studies 15). Manchester 1929. (= Toynbee) pp. 34ff. See also E. P~isztor: Per la storia di San Lodovico d' Angio. (Studi Storici io). Rome 1955. (= Paisztor).

20o Toynbee p. 49. 21 Toynbee pp. 52 ff.

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8. Duccio: Rucellai Madonna. Uffizi

captivity in Catalonia Louis became a devot, passionately and intransigently committed to the Franciscan ideal. Developments in European dynastic politics brought complications in the wake of the prince's conversion. Ladislas IV of Hun- gary had died without issue and Charles II's eldest son Charles Martel had succeeded to the throne of Hungary22. With the death of Charles Martel in the summer of 1295, and Charles ob- durate refusal to countenance the succession of his eldest son's heir Carobert to the throne of the Two Sicilies, Louis became next in line of suc- cession23. By this time however it had become clear that the king's third son Robert promised more as a future ruler of the Angevin dominions. On 20oth February 1296 Robert had been made Vicar of the Regno24. In any event Charles II accepted Louis' renunciation of his inheritance in a ceremony which appears to have taken place in Naples early in 129625. Louis' decision was confirmed by Pope Boniface VIII in a bull dated 24th February 1297, the year in which he canonized Louis' royal ancestor Louis IX of France26. Subsequently, Charles, who had received word of his second son's leanings toward the Friars Minor with alarm and rage, modified his

attitude so far as to press his son's claim to a cardinalate27. Already in October 1294 the twenty-year old prince had been assigned the administration of the diocese of Lyons by Pope Celestine V28. The disastrously incompetent le- gislation of Celestine's six month pontificate was set aside by his successor Boniface VIII29. How- ever Boniface agreed to accept Louis as successor to Hugues Mascaron, bishop of the large and disorderly diocese of Toulouse who had died at Rome in December 129630. It seems likely that Louis, with a calculation somewhat inappropriate in a man of God, forced the pope's hand by in- sisting that he would accept the episcopal mitre only on condition that he be admitted into the Franciscan order3I. Boniface consented and the prince was secretly professed on 24th December 129632. On 3oth December he was nominated to the see of Toulouse by the bull Fons sapientiae33. Louis had been in his diocese barely five weeks when he sickened and died at Brignoles in Pro- vence on 19th August 129734. His ecclesiastical career had proved to be tragically brief.

The death of Louis inevitably altered the focus

22 B. Homan: Gli Angioini di Napoli in Ungheria 1290 - 1403). Rome 1938. p. 143. R. Caggese: Ro- berto d'Angio e i suoi tempi. Florence 1922, 1930. I, p. 99. (= Caggese). E. Leonard: Les Angevins de Naples. Paris 1954. P. 197.

23 Toynbee pp. 97 if- 24 Caggese I, p. 7. 25 Toynbee p. IoI. 26 G. Digard et al.: Les registres de Boniface VIII.

Paris 1890 off. No. 1977. Incumbit nos. (= Reg. BVIII). Cf. E. Leonard: Histoire de Jeanne Ire. Reine de Naples. Paris 1932 - I937. I, p. II2. (Feb. 24th). St. Louis IX was canonized on IIth. August. Reg. BVIII No. 2047. Gloria, laus et honor.

27 H. Finke: Acta Aragonensia. Berlin/Leipzig 1908, 1922. II, Doc. 378, p. 588. The papal legate to Aragon noted that "El rey (Charles II) feu tot son poder, que Sent Loys fos feyt cardenal et nuylls temps poch obtenir".

28 M.-H. Laurent: Le culte de S. Louis d'Anjou '

Marseille au XIVe. sikcle. (Temi e Testi 2). Rome I954. p. (= Laurent).

29 T. S. R. Boase: Boniface VIII. London 1933. P. 55. Reg. BVIII No. 26770.

30 Toynbee p. IIo. It is not impossible that Boniface VIII had encountered the prince in Naples: cf. Laurent p. 36 note I8.

3i Toynbee p. 113. Cf. Processus Canonizationis et Legendae Variae Sancti Ludovici O. F. M. Epis- copi Tolosani. (Analecta Franciscana VII). Qua- racchi I95I. cap. xxxi, 15. (= PC).

32 Toynbee loc. cit. PC xxxi, 85. 33 Reg. BVIII No. 1521. 34 Toynbee pp. 129 ff. PAsztor p. I9.

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9. Simone Martini: St Louis of Toulouse crowning of Anjou. frame (detail)

of Charles' ambitions. Alive, the cardinalate: dead, canonization was an eminently desirable surrogate. In terms of dynastic politics it might, I suppose, be termed gelding the lily. We possess a great deal of information about the progress of the King's ambition, both from contemporary account and more especially from the Processus Canonizationis, the record of the inquest into the sanctity of the prince's acts and the testimony of many witnesses of his miracles35. Campaigns for canonization, then as now, were wars of attrition, and as such, costly. By 1300 Johan- nes de Rocco Guilelmi had been nominated royal procurator at the papal Curia to promote Louis' cause36. The papacy moved at a deliberate pace nonetheless, and the process of enquiry led by Gui de Neufville Bishop of Saintes and Raymond Bishop of Lectoure was initiated only in 1307 by the French pope Clement V, with the bull In- effabilis providentia Dei37. Charles II died in 1308, but the cause of the Franciscan prince was now supported by his younger brother Robert, crowned King of the Two Sicilies at Avignon, where he had hastened after his father's death, amid considerable precautions in August 130938. Saints in the family were a good thing. The French royal family already possessed its saint,

Louis IX - and very likely this example spurred the Angevins to emulation. It is perhaps legiti- mate to conjecture that the example of Saint Louis of France with his notorious fondness for the Mendicants influenced his great-nephew Louis of Toulouse39. Robert's motives were no doubt different from his father's but the canonization of Louis of Toulouse like that of Louis IX is a thread in the same pattern of statecraft40.

3s See note 31 above. A severe review of the publi- cation, by M.-H. Laurent appears in Revue d'Hi- stoire Ecclesiastique, 46, (1951), pp. 786 - 791.

36 Toynbee p. 152. PRisztor p. 23. 37 Registrum Clementis Papae V ed. monachorum

ordinis Sancti Benedicti. Rome 1885. No. 1777. PC pp. I ff.

38 Caggese I, io6. Robert's nervousness concerning the legitimacy of Carobert's claim is demonstrated by the fact that he took two renowned jurists with him to Avignon, Andrea d'Isernia and Bar- tolomeo di Capua: cf. L6onard: op. cit. (note 26 above), I, 114.

39 L. K. Little: "St. Louis' involvement with the friars". Church History, XXXIII, (1964), pp. 125 - 148.

40 It may be that the example of Elizabeth of Thu- ringia (1207 - 1231) the daughter of Andrea II of Hungary, canonized in 1235 provided an additional stimulus.

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Io. Simone Martini: St Louis of Toulouse crowning Robert of Anjou. Robert of Anjou. (detail)

Much has been written about the contacts between the prince in captivity and the leader of the Spiritual wing within the Franciscan Order Pietro Giovanni Olivi4*. It may indeed be that Louis' own Franciscanism was coloured under Olivi's influence, and the phrase employed by Clement V in his charge to his inquisitors to investigate Louis' alleged miracles and his wish "Christi pauperis vestigia persequens" lends this view some credibility42. Nevertheless it seems to me that very little of this may be read into the painting. Yet such an interpretation has recently been taken to extremes43. Reasons of state rather than states of mind provide a more compelling rationale for Simone Martini's painting.

The process of canonization reached its successful climax in the bull Sol oriens mundo of April 7th, 131744. This date is almost certainly a ter- minus post quem for the execution of the panel. The tenor of the papal letters to relatives of the new saint appear to guarantee this conclusion45. In that same year, 1317, the Angevin registers record an unusually large payment, of fifty gold

ounces, to a Simone Martini milite46. In view of the fact that homonyms occur and the name is not uncommon, it cannot be taken as established that this grant was to the Sienese painter Simone Martini47. Little time in any case had elapsed between the arrival in Naples of the letters announc- ing the successful culmination of the canonization inquest and the first celebration of the new Saint's feast on August 19th48. None of the available documentary evidence provides a demon- strable date for the painting. But Robert left Naples for Genoa by sea in July 1318 en route for his

Provencal domain, judging it prudent

politically in view of the European situation to be near the papal court at Avignon49. There he remained until 132450. Simone Martini's great polyptych for the Dominican Church of Santa Caterina at Pisa is dated I3195'.

Negotiations for the Neapolitan succession during the period 1328-1330 indicate that the Hungarian branch of the Angevins still main- tained an interest in its resolution which Caro- bert's actions at the death of Charles II had proved earlier 2. It is unsurprising, in view of this that Louis' surrender of his crown to his younger brother, created Duke of Calabria in February

41 Bologna p. 163. Cf. also M. van Heukelom: Spi- ritualische Str6mungen an den H6fen von Aragon und Anjou wihrend der HiShe des Armutstreites. (Abhandlungen zur mittleren und neueren Ge- schichte 38). Berlin/Leipzig 1912. Toynbee pp. 77, 87.

42 PC p. 2. 43 In particular by Bologna. Cf. however Bertelli

p. 104 note 26. 44 Registrum Clementis Papae V (cit. note 37 above)

No. PC pp. 395 ff. The ceremony is recorded in the fragmentary ordinal of Cardinal Stefane- schi: cf. L. H. Labande: "Le ceremonial romain de Jacques Cajetan". Biblioth que de l' cole des Chartres, LIV, (1893), pp. 45 - 74. PP. 56, 58 ff.

45 Laurent pp. 40 ff. 46 The document was published by H. W. Schulz:

Denkmiler der Kunst des Mittelalters in Unter- italien. Dresden I86o. IV, Doc. CCCLXIV, p. 163. see also note 47, below.

47 Doubted most recently by Bertelli p. Io2 note 14. 48 Laurent Doc. XII. 49 Caggese II, pp. 30 ff. Laurent pp. 48 ff. 50 Caggese p. 71. 5s G. Contini, M. Gozzoli: L'Opera completa di Si-

mone Martini. (Classici d'Arte 43). Milan 1970. No. 3 pp. 87 ff. G. Paccagnini: Simone Martini. Milan 1955. Pp. 30 ff. and pp. io6 ff. (= Paccag- nini).

52 Leonard: op. cit. (note 22 above) pp. 315 ff. Cag- gese I, pp. 661 ff. Homan p. 143.

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Ii. Malines, Bibl. Seminaire: Ms. I. Fol.

12. Robert of Anjou: British Museum Ms. Royal 6. E. IX, fol. Io vers.

13. Simone Martini: St Louis of Toulouse crowning Robert of Anjou. St Louis (detail)

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1296 should be rendered as plainly as may be53. Robert kneels to the right of his enthroned brother. His profile with its faintly vulpine glance, strong nose and bulbous forehead is known from other portraits, on his tomb, in the Bible (Figs Io, I1) now at Malines and the illuminated Address from Prato now in the British Museum54. The Angevins in Southern Italy had ever been fond of portraitsss. Louis, whose features haunt us from the Naples painting, is not portrayed: (Fig. 12, 13) the same face can be found in the frescoes by Simone at Assisi and in the Pisa poly- ptych56. The saint extends the crown to Robert with his left hand and clasps his crozier in his right. Above Louis' head two angels support a celestial crown ower the bishop's mitre. On this primary level the painting's theme is enunciated with utter clarity.

Subject matter apart, an artistic commission requires a patron and an executant. We know a good deal about Simone Martini and more about Robert of Anjou. The former was certainly the painter and the latter very prolbably the client57. It is however by no means clear why the Sienese artist Simone was chosen. Siena's connexion with the Angevins in Naples were cordial, but no more so than Florence, where in 1310o a large portrait of Robert, now lost, had been executed on an ex- terior wall of the Palazzo di Parte Guelfa58. Ro- bert had visited Siena also in 131o59, but the choice of Simone Martini in the second decade of the fourteenth century had not the inevitabi- lity art historians customarily assume. His first unanimously accepted work, the documented and signed Maestd in the Sala de' Nove of the Pa- lazzo Pubblico at Siena was commissioned in 1315, a bare two years before the canonization of Saint Louis of Toulouse6o. If the difficulties of the identification of Simone with that Simone Martini mentioned in the Angevin Registers are admitted - and Simone is nowhere in the surviving documents subsequently termed knight6'- the question of where the huge panel was actually painted remains open, although, as we shall see some features of its iconography may suggest that it was done in Naples. In 1319 Simone signed the Pisa polyptych, and in 1321 repaired his Pa- lazzo Pubblico Maestd62. Robert's absence in Provence after 1319 and the manifest veracity of his portrait on the evidence of numerous other

independent portraits - all incidentally later in date - suggest that the period shortly after

53 This has often been noted. Cf. most recently B. Cole: "Old and new in the early Trecento". Mit- teilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Flo- renz, XVII (I973), pp. 229 - 248. p. 241.

54 For Robert's tomb cf. Morisani: art. cit. pp. 102 ff. J. Pope-Hennessy: Italian Gothic Sculpture. Lon- don 1955. pp. 188 - 189. Plate 32 and Fig. 62. The Bible, Malines, Bibliothique Seminaire ms. I cf. Bologna pp. 276 ff. B. Degenhart and A. Schmitt: "Marino Sanudo und Paolino Veneto". R6misches Jahrbuch fiir Kunstgeschichte, XIV, (1973), PP. I - 137. pp. Io8 ff. The Address from Prato, Bri- tish Museum Ms. Royal 6. E. IX. Cf. E. Saenger: Das Lobgedicht auf Kdnig Robert von Anjou. Diss. Vienna I936. pp. 22 ff. Folio Io v. is reproduced in A. Smart: The Assisi Problem and the art of Giotto. Oxford 1971. Fig. 54 b. For the portraiture of Robert as a whole see the important remarks in H. Keller: ,,Die Entstehung des Bildnisses am Ende des Hochmittelalters". R6mi- sches Jahrbuch fiir Kunstgeschichte, III, (1939), pp. 227 - 356. pp. 264 ff., 307 ff., 320 ff., p. 324.

55 G. Gerola: "Appunti di iconografia angioina". Atti del Reale Instituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, XCI, (1931/1932), pp. 257 - 273.

56 For example cf. Contini, Gozzoli: op. cit. Tav. XI. (Pisa polyptych).

57 Queen Sancia is the other main candidate. Cf. note 143 below.

58 R. Davidsohn: Geschichte von Florenz. Berlin 1896 ff. III, pp. 390, 392 quoting Carte Stroz- ziani II, no. 76, p. 527. On relations between Florence and Naples cf. Leonard: Jeanne Ire. I, p. 93.

59 Caggese I, pp. 116 ff. A small triptych, now so abraded as to make exact attribution hazardous, but very close to Duccio (Siena, Pinacoteca No. 35: cf. C. Brandi: La regia pinacoteca di Siena. Rome 1933. PP. 70 - 71) is interesting in this con- text. Kneeling at the feet of the Madonna is a donor wearing a crown. The provenance of the triptych is unknown but the presence of 3 Do- minican saints at the base of the central panel suggests a Dominican connexion. Given the crowned donor it raises the possibility of a Neapolitan commission. Since the presenting saint is Peter this could conceivably represent Peter of Anjou Count of Eboli who was in Tuscany in 1313 (cf. Caggese I, p. I95) and who visited Siena in 1314 (id. I. p. 207). Reproduced and discussed in C. Brandi: Duccio. Florence I951. Plates IIo, III and pp. 143, 157.

60o P. Bacci: Fonti e commenti per la storia dell' arte senese. Siena 1944. PP. 134 ff. (= Bacci). Hueck pp. 32ff.

6x Bacci pp. 136 - 190o prints the documents. The document of 1317 (cf. note 46 above) does not term the recipient a painter, a point noted by Bologna p. 148. However the payments made to Cavallini in 13o8 refer to him as pictor. Cf. O. Morisani: La pittura del Trecento a Napoli. Nap- les 1947. P. 125.

62 Cf. note 5I above. Bacci p. I36. Hueck 31 ff.

22



Louis' canonization is the most plausible for the execution of the panel. This hypothesis is borne out by stylistic and technical comparisons with dated works of the 1320S63.

Robert of Anjou possessed that not uncommon combination of extensive erudition and mediocre intelligence64. Dante's characterization of him as Re da Sermone is hardly to be read as a compli- ment65. At the time of Louis' canonization he was forty years of age. The little boy who during his captivity in Catalonia like John Vavas- sour de Quentin Jones had been very fond of throwing stones had grown into an insatiable preacher and one of the most learned of contemporary monarchs66. He was the composer of a rhythmical office in honour of Louis of Toulouse and a number of sermons in his honour67. One of these sermons, although almost certainly later in date than the painting by Simone was on the happily apposite text Ecclesiasticus XLV, 14: "Corona aurea super mitram eius expresso signo sanctitatis, gloria honoris et opus virtutis...."68 The character of Robert of Anjou, surrounded by clerics after 1323 by special indult of the pope69 and his rabidly Franciscan queen Sancia of Ma- jorca (the adjective is not inappropriate to her hungry devotion to the Order), makes him prime candidate for the commissioner of the painting. Certainly to one so steeped in Biblical allusion (Pope John XXII in castigating the excesses of his private life felt obliged to call him a new Rehaboam)70 - the imagery of priest and king can hardly have been unfamiliar71. Assuredly when we probe the sources of the painting's iconography they serve to strengthen his candi- dature.

It was noted earlier that on structural evidence the panel of Saint Louis crowning Louis of Toulouse is incomplete. Although an unicum among Italian panel paintings a number of earlier models can be fouhd which help to complete the programme of Simone's painting. The isola- tion of the panel in fourteenth century Italian painting is indisputable. The known iconography of Saint Louis there is confined to a number of isolated images; a number of later panels, a lost textile altar frontal - the evidence is slight72. Yet while the Angevin and dynastic overtures of the painting as an object are immediately apparent, the image itself reveals successive layers of meaning. Essentially it represents a holy bishop crowning a kneeling king. Yet representations of contemporary coronations, as can be found in numerous Pontificals and illustrations in Coro-

nation ordines do not resemble it73. Simone's painting is so compact of meaning that we must try to elucidate it layer by layer.

Louis is enthroned on a richly draped, claw- footed throne placed on an Anatolian carpet74. Although opinions have differed on its type and date, the use of oriental carpets in contemporary paintings to represent an exalted or even celestial setting for the action is not unprecedented75. Like other artists Simone eagerly employed oriental

63 Cf. note I8 above. 64 Caggese II, 368. Pasztor p. 67. 65 Paradiso VIII, 148. 66 "... dominus Robertus... iactabat lapidem fre-

quenter". PC p. 50. Cf. Toynbee p. 49. 67 Goetz: op. cit. (note 17 above) lists 289 sermons,

of which 2 are in honour of St. Louis of Toulouse (Goetz Nos. 98, 216), sometimes as no. 98 (cf. note 17) in conjunction with another saint. A further 3 are in honour of an unspecified St. Louis. Cf. M. Dykmans ed.: Robert d'Anjou... La Vision Bien- heureuse. (Miscellanea Historiae Pontificiae XXXI. Rome 1970. pp. 44 iff. For the rhythmical office cf. Toynbee p. 205 note 3.

68 Ecclesiasticus XLV, 14. "Corona aurea super mitram eius expresso signo sanctitatis et gloria honoris opus virtutis et desideria oculorum ornata".

69 Caggese II, p. 42. 70 Raynaldus Annales Ecclesiastici. V, p. 25. Cf.

Caggese I, p. 652. 7x P. Schramm: ,,Das Herrscherbild in der Kunst des

friihen Mittelalters". Vortrdige der Bibliothek War- burg. II, (1924), pp. 145 - 243. pp. 187 ff. (= Schramm).

72 Among these the most important panel is that at Aix-en-Provence: reproduced in G. Previtali: Giotto e la sua bottega. Milan 1967. Fig. I99. Cf. Laurent pp. 59 ff. G. Yver: Le commerce et les marchands dans l'Italie meridionale au XIIIe. et au XIVe. siecle. (Bibliothkque des IRcoles fran- gaises d'Athknes et de Rome 84). Paris 1903. men- tions a textile altar-frontal in Castelnuovo (p. 93).

73 H. Bober: "The Coronation Book of Charles IV and Jeanne d'Evreux". Rare Books, VIII, no. 3. (November 1958), pp. I - io. publishes a French ordo of the early fourteenth century. Cf. H. P. Kraus: Catalogue 88. 50o Mediaeval and Renais- sance Manuscripts. (c. 1958). No. 23.

74 Bertelli p. 94 terms it a Konya carpet. Cf. also W. Bode: ,,Ein altpersischer Teppich im Besitz der kiniglichen Museen zu Berlin". Jahrbuch der kb- niglich preufiischen Kunstsammlungen, 13, (1892), pp. 26 - 49. It is authoritatively identified in K. Erdmann: Seven Hundred Years of Oriental Car- pets. London I970. p. 49 as an Anatolian animal carpet of c. 1270 - 1280.

75 Figured carpets appear in the Stefaneschi altarpiece (cf. Bode: art. cit. p. 47) and in the Louvre Stigmatization. Comparable carpets are recorded in the Inventory of the Holy See of 1295. Cf. Molinier: art. cit. (note io above) Nos. II02, 1460.

23



14. Seal of Louis X of France 1315, British Museum (cast)

textile designs in his paintings76. Enthroned ecclesiastics are unusual in Italian painting77, but frontally set rulers on animal headed thrones were not unknown in Angevin iconography - witness the massive incomplete marble figure of Charles of Anjou by Arnolfo di Cambio from the Capi- tol in Rome78. This figure itself had its inspira- tion very probably in the seated figure of Frede- rick II of Hohenstaufen on the Capuan gate79. The type was to be repeated on Robert's own tomb in Santa Chiara at Naples by Pacio and Giovanni da Firenzeso. But an enthroned bishop was different. Images of the pope in the guise of sovereign had occurred in the thirteenth century, and Boniface VIII had had the temerity to set up statues of himself on the gates of Or- vieto and elsewhere, but the outcry raised by these images was unlikely to encourage emula- tions'. The model for the enthroned Saint Louis is monarchical rather than episcopal, and as a ruler representation it is a political document.

One model may be the royal seals of Charles II

I5. Seal of Philippe V of France I319, British Museum

and Robert of Anjou8s. The similarities are unlikely to be coincidental (Fig. 14, I5). In court documents Robert's seal matrix showing the enthroned ruler is referred to as the sigillum

76 B. Klesse: Seidenstoffe in der italienischen Malerei des vierzehnten Jahrhunderts. Berne 1967. pp. 56, 131, 193 ff.

77 An important example is the dossal of Saint Ze- nobius Enthroned in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo at Florence. See E. B. Garrison: Italian Romanesque Panel Painting. Florence 1949. No. 363. Cf. Cole: art. cit. p. 246, note 47. Enthroned

Apostles appear subsequently in Sienese panel painting. Cf. among others the Saints Peter and Paul from Roccalbegna in G. Rowley: Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Princeton 1958. II, Plates 59, 6o.

78 A. M. Romanini: Arnolfo di Cambio. Milan 1969. pp. 158 ff. and Figs. 16o0 - 162. The unfinished state of the statue is evident in Romanini's Fig. 161. The statue was carved from a massive antique architectural fragment; surviving portions of the mouldings survive at the back of the seated king. Cf. P. Cellini: "L'Opera di Arnolfo all'Aracoeli". Bollettino d'Arte, XLVII, (1962). pp. 18o0 - 195. p. 184. I find many of Cellini's conclusions unac- ceptable. See also Morisani: art. cit. (note 17 above) p. IoI. 79 E. Langlotz: Das

Portri.t Friedrichs II. vom

Briickentor in Capua. Essays in honor of Georg Swarzenski. Chicago 1951. pp. 45 - 50.

o80 Cf. note 59 above. Morisani: art. cit. pp. IO2 ff. 81 C. Sommer: Die Anklage der Idolatrie gegen Papst Bonifaz VIII und seine Portr tstatuen. Freiburg I92O. W. Hager: Die Ehrenstatuen der Pipste. (R6mische Forschungen der Bibliotheca Hertziana VIII). Leipzig 1929. Schramm: art. cit. (note 71 above) pp. 184, 222.

82 Cf. L. Blancard: Iconographie des sceaux ... des archives d6partementales des Bouches-du-Rh6ne. Paris 186o. I, pp. 2 ff. esp. nos. ii and 16. II, Planches 11,2 (recte i) (Charles II 1307), 13,1 (Robert 1324). Cole: art. cit. p. 241, note 46 suggested a numismatic model.

24



16. Sacramentary of Henry II. Munich, Bayer. Staatsbibliothek, Cod. 4456, folio II r

maiestatis83. This, the pre-eminent royal seal, possessed a solemn authority which the hieratic image of the enthroned Franciscan prince in part shares. Ruler images in contemporary sphragistic differ markedly from the cross-legged pose fa- voured for monarchs in narrative illumination of the period, and, in this, seal iconography can be traced to older models84.

The theme of transference of rights is unusual in Italian painting - although in a nearly contemporary painting at Pernes (Vaucluse) Pope Clement IV entrusting Charles I of Anjou with the Kingdom of Sicily may be remarked85. Ro- bert kneeling before his brother can be compared with contemporary donor portraits, although his clasped hands are more to be interpreted as a feudal than prayerful gesture86. Monarchs nor-

17. Life of St Edmund. New York, Pierpont Morgan Library. Ms 736, fol 22 v

mally are shown kneeling only in the presence of divinity, and to this point we shall return.

At the beginning of this paper it was pointed out that on the evidence of its carpentry alone,

83 C. Minieri Riccio: Saggio di Codice Diplomatico. Supplemento. Parte seconda. Naples 1883. demonstrates that Robert's great seal was made between 5th. May 1309 (Doc. XLIII, p. So) and 6th. June 1309 (Doc. XLV, p. 52).

84 Schramm: art. cit. p. 178.

s85 P. Deschamps and M. Thibaut: La peinture mu- rale en France au debut de l'poque gothique. Paris 1963. pp. 229 ff. Cf. G. Ladner: I ritratti dei Papi. (Monumenti di Antichita Christiana, ii, s. iv). Citt' del Vaticano I970. II, pp. 161 ff. Ac- ting on a suggestion of Ladner's M. A. Lavin has recently brought the Pernes mural independently into relationship with Simone's panel. M. A. La- vin: "Piero della Francesca's fresco of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta before St. Sigismund. OE)2I AOANATQI KAI THI IIOAEI". Art Bulletin, LVI, (1974), PP. 345 - 374.

86 G. Ladner: The gestures of prayer in papal iconography of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Didascaliae. Studies in honor of Anselm M. Albareda. New York 1961. pp. 246 - 275. pp. 258 ff. comments on this relationship.

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the painting was incomplete. The iconography of the missing upper panel is suggested by a com- parison drawn from an area at first glance surprising. The Sacramentary of Henry II, a tower- ing achievement of Ottonian book painting, probably executed in the imperial scriptorium at Regensburg between 1002 and 1014 and now in Munich, contains a miniature of the Emperor Henry II crowned by Christ with the assistance of Saints Emmeran and Ulrich87 (Fig. 16). An important feature of the composition is of course, that it is a divine hand which places the crown upon the emperor's head. The iconographic tradition for divine coronation is a very ancient one, of which the Sacramentary illumination is but a magnificent example88. It makes it virtually certain that the missing panel of which we spoke was a representation of Crist89. A number of half length figures of Christ survive from Si- mone's circle which may reflect the lost pinnacle. Closest is very likely that at the top of the painter's Pisa polyptych of 131990. Two detached panels of the same subject, sometimes brought forward as early works by Simone, in the Vati- can and at Capodimonte itself are scarcely con- vincing as autograph works and thus very unlikely to have formed part of the Saint Louis, a work of exceptional accomplishment91. Louis, by God'.s grace heir to the crown of Sicily and Jeru- salem could with the sanction of His earthly vicar Pope Boniface VIII transfer his claim to a terrestrial crown to his younger brother Robert, Duke of Calabria. An upper pinnacle of Christ would have implied divine sanction for this act and also removed suggestions of a purely episcopal investiture.

Above Louis' mitre two angels bear the crown of sanctity. This type of image is far less common than representations of earthly coronation. Nonetheless its connexion with, and, I should suggest, influence upon Simone's composition is very consideraible. A striking resemblance exists the fourteenth century panel in Naples and the "apotheosis" miniature of another royal saint, Edmund the early ninth century king of East Anglia, the events of whose life are sumptuously depicted in a manuscript of the early twelfth century now in the Pierpont Morgan Library92 (Fig. I7). In this manuscript the hieratic, frontally enthroned Edmund is crowned by angels in a manner uncannily reminiscent of Simone's painting. Two religious kneel at his feet as Robert to the right of Loruis. Professor PTicht, who has devoted a luminous analysis to this manuscript

pointed out that the crown in the "apotheosis" miniature with the pronounced curved bar over the cranium was unknown in England but cur- rent in German illumination and he postulated an Ottonian model93. His conclusion brings us back to the Sacramentary of Henry II. Later we shall consider the possibility of formal as distinct from iconographical influences of such a model on Simone's painting. What is however very sug- gestive is that in 1316, a year before Louis' canonization, Robert of Anjou was negotiating to buy the imperial crown and regalia of the Em- peror Henry VII who had perished ignominiously from malaria at Buonconvento near Siena three years before, returning from his coronation in Saint Peter's which had been solemnized on June 29th. 131294. There can I think be little argument about the similarities between miniature and painting, although a direct link between them can almost certainly be excluded. But it illumi- nates the question of Simone's models and provides further powerful support for the suggestion of a learned programme for the painting, where the prototypes are regal and even imperial. In all this the austere Franciscanism of the young prince-bishop is given little or no emphasis, save for the pale brown habit which appears beneath the cope, originally providing an area of colour transition between the shimmering silver and the flesh hues. Renunciation of a claim by priano- geniture, divine approbation and coronation, the

87 G. Swarzenski: Die Regensburger Buchmalerei des X. und XI. Jahrhunderts. Leipzig 90oI. pp. 64 ff., Taf. VIII no. I9. 88 Schramm: art. cit. pp. 167 ff., pp. 209 ff.

89 This was of course suggested tentatively in Mostra P. 34.

90 Best reproduced in F. Enaud: Les fresques de Si- mone Martini a Avignon. (Les Monuments histo- riques de la France, Nouv. ser. IX, 3. (1963)). pp. II5 - i8o. p. 164.

9' The Vatican panel is reproduced in Hueck Fig. 24. That at Capodimonte in G. Contini, M. Goz- zoli: op. cit. Tav. VII. Bologna p. 172.

92 B. da C. Greene and M. Harssen: The Pierpont Morgan Library. Exhibition of illuminated manuscripts held at the New York Public Library Nov. 1933 - April 1934. P. 17. Ms. 736.

93 0. Picht, C. R. Dodwell, F. Wormald: The St. Albans Psalter. (Studies of the Warburg Institute 25). London I96o. p. II8. The link may have come through the influence on England of Imperial coronation ritual. Cf. P. L. Ward: "The coronation ceremony in mediaeval England". Speculum, XIV, (1939), pp. I6o - 178. p. 173, p. 176.

94 Minieri Riccio: op. cit. II, Naples 1879. Doc. XVI, 20oth. September 1316. Cf. Keller: art. cit. (note 54 obove) p. 304.

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apotheosis of the new Angevin saint and the continuance of the dynasty. Simone's panel cele- brates these themes rather than mendicant po- verty95.

Connexions with coronation iconography have already been remarked, but it was a subject matter rarely demanded of Italian artists. In France the Capetian Coronation ordo was in the process of revision, and such an activity can scarcely have remained unknown to the Angevins, a cadet branch of the French royal family96. But it is to the symbolic aspects of coronation imagery rather than to the minutiae of contemporary ceremonial that we should turn. On Italian soil the most impressive coronation images occur in the great religious foundations of the Norman rulers of Sicily97. At Monreale the great cathe- dral monastery founded by William II outside Palermo a coronation image in, mosaic is set above the royal throne th the right of the apse, and its meaning is unequivocal98 (Fig 18). In the Martorana at Palermo another mosaic shows Christ crowning Roger 1199. Norman Staatsym- bolik was eclectic and this imagery is deeply indebted to Byzantine models:00oo in Byzantium representations of the monarch kneeling before Christ are very oldT o. Robert, like William II kneels, and is effectively crowned by Christ.

It may well be that the formal reminiscence of the coronation of the Norman kings of Sicily was intentional, the deliberate choice of patron or adviser. The re-conquest of Sicily, an original part of the Angevin kingdom in Southern Italy, lost to them since the Sicilian Vespers of Easter 1282, was the constant aim of Charles II and Ro- berto02. In Robert it may be said to have amoun- ted to an obsession however incompetently the campaigns were conducted1o3. The legitimacy of Robert's claim to Sicily is perhaps alluded to, a piece of visual propaganda by way of riposte to the divine coronation iconography used by Peter of Aragon. In the Capella deli' Incoronata at Palermo, the chapel in which the sovereigns of the island from Roger onwards had been crow-

i8. Monreale. Coronation of William II by Christ

ned, Peter had set up images of himself crowned by God the Fatherlo4. These representations, in the tribune and above the entrance door could hardly have remained unknown to Robert of Anjou.

95 For the contrary view Bologna p. 167. 96 P. E. Schramm: "Ordines-Studien II: die Kr6nung

bei den Westfranken und Franzosen". Archiv fiir Urkundenforschung, XV, n. f. I. (1937), PP. 3 - 55. pp. 33 ff. Bober: art. cit. (note 73 above) p. 4.

97 Kitzinger: "The Gregorian Reform and the visual arts". Transactions of the Royal Historical So- ciety, 22, (1972), pp. 87 - 102. Id. "On the portrait of Roger II in the Martorana in Palermo". Proporzioni, III, (1950), pp. 30-35. S. Friedberg:

"I ritratti dei rei Normanni in Sicilia". La Biblio- filia, XXXIX, (1937), PP. I - 29. (separatim) Fig. 8.

98 Kitzinger: Gregorian Reform cit. p. 90. makes a comparable point on the Martorana mosaic.

99 Kitzinger: On the portrait cit. p. 30. Ioo R. Elze: "Zum Kinigtum Rogers II. von Sizilien".

Festschrift P. E. Schramm. Wiesbaden 1964., PP. Io2 - II6. p. III. An enamel in S. Nicola at Bari shows St. Nicholas crowning Roger II. Cf. Mostra dell'Arte in Puglia. Rome 1964. No. 35. PP. 34 - 36 and Fig. 38. Its dating and provenance are controversial.

IoI J. Scharff: ,Die Kaiser in Proskynese. Bemerkun- gen zur Deutung des Kaisermosaiks im Narthex der Hagia Sophia von Konstantinopel". Festschrift P. E. Schramm. Wiesbaden 1964. I, pp. 27 - 35. Schramm p. 220 ff.

Io2 Leonard: op. cit. (note 22 above) p. 224. Leonard: Jeanne Ire. cit. remarks on the political necessity of reconquest. I, p. 83.

o103 Caggese I, p. 2oo. Leonard: Jeanne Ire. loc. cit. o104 P. Gramignani: "La Capella dell'Incoronazione in

Palermo". Archivio Storico Siciliano, n. s. 54, (1934), PP. 227 - 259. PP. 237 ff.

27



Thus far emphasis has been laid on the iconographical models underlying the image of the main panel. The range of these models and their consistently non-Italian and regal nature is most plausibly explained by their being placed at the painter's disposal by a royal patron, very pos- sibly Robert himself, with a knowledge of the Sicilian mosaics and related monuments, and a specific programme which he wished the painter to realizeIo5. There seemed little likelihood that Simone knew the Sicilian mosaics at first hand, and although coloured miniature copies were being produced circa 1300, the channels of transmission from patron to painter remain an unsolved pro- blemio6. The other question is more purely artistic - that of the painter's conception, how Simone reacted to the task of creating a narrative iconography for the newly canonized saint in the scenes of the predella. Here the visual precedents were non-existent and the range onmodels utterly distinct. Their sources lie in a coinpletely different social and artistic milieu. It should be borne in mind in what follows that an analysis of the overlap between the artistic heritage which the Sienese painter Simone Martini brought to this unique commission and the programme with which he appears to have been confronted una- voidably implies a rather mechanistic division between the two which inevitably injures the majesty of Simone's final conception.

On documentary grounds Simone Martini's only certain work which can be dated before the Saint Louis is the Maestd in the Palazzo Pubblico at Siena. The highly worked surface with its en- crusted decoration and the great crystal glittering on the Virgin's breast demonstrates that the painter was already the master of a courtly idiom effortlessly adaptable to the regal image of the Angevin saint o07 (Fig. 8). In the panel the den- sely punched haloes and borders, fictive gems and gilt ?glass represent an increase in level of

decorationi compared with earl'ier Tuscan pain- tinglIo. Pastiglia or built up gesso ornament oc- curs in thirteenth century panels executed in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, but is apparently an innovation in TuscanyIo9. The Saint Louis panel is a work of the most cosummate technical skill which in its sumptuous ornament achieves in panel painting what, in an equally revolutio- nary manner the Palazzo Pubblico Maestd had in fresco.

Indeed the extent to which Simone's earlier style and technique were altered by the Neapo- litan commission with its novel and erudite con-

tent must be cautiously judged. It has been pointed out that a considerable resemblance exists between the Saint Louis and an early marble altarpiece by the Sienese sculptor Tino da Ca- maino, th'e Altar of San Raniero once in the Duomo at PisaIIO. In this relief the enthroned saint set above a predella of scenes from his life is undeniably close in its design, as is the truncated gable shape. Later tomb sculpture adopted comparable shapes and the hierarchical disposi- tion of sacred personagesI"'. Seal impressions may well have been shown to the painter by his patron, but already he had used a seal, brillantly imitated in paint beneath the enthroned Virgin of the Maestd to stress her juridical status as Capitano del Popolo, a post to which she had been elected in perpetuity on the eve of the battle of MontapertiII2. Guccio da Manaia the leading Italian goldsmith of the day was responsible for the matrix of the civic seal copied by Simone1I3.

os5 Kitzinger: Gregorian Reform cit. p. 9I. io6 H. Buchtal: Some Sicilian miniatures of the thirteenth century. Miscellanea Pro Arte. Hermann Schnitzler zur Vollendung des 6o. Lebensjahres am 13. Januar 1965. Diisseldorf 1965. pp. 185 - 19o. p. 187. Id., Notes on a Sicilian Manuscript of the Early Fourteenth Century. Studies in the History of Art presented to R. Wittkower. London 1967. pp. 36 - 39. p. 37 "The Norman mosaics were copied in a conscious attempt to revive the local tradition on essentially retrospective lines, in order to claim some kind of continuity with the past."

o107 Hueck pp. 41 ff. and p. 52. io8 Glass ornament may be found for example in the

work of Guido da Siena: cf. Garrison: op. cit. No. 175 and in Umbria in the work of the Maestro di S. Francesco: Garrison: op. cit. No. 52. This list could easily be extended. Bertelli p. 95 made the interesting suggestion that the morse might contain a relic. However Louis was not transla- ted until I319.

0o9 K. Weitzmann: "Thirteenth century Crusader icons on Mount Sinai". Art Bulletin, XLV, (1963), op. 179 - 203. pp. 186 ff. p. 189. Figs. 9 - 12.

I1o Bertelli p. 93. R. Papini: Catalogo delle cose d'arte e di antichith d'Italia. Pisa. Rome n. d. pp. 131 - 135. Cf. W. R. Valentiner: Tino da Ca- maino. Paris 1935. po. 8 ff. Plate I. Morisani: art. cit. p. 94 note 7. The relationship suggested by Bertelli aopears to be more direct than that with Vita-retables postulated by H. Hager: Die An- f.nge des italienischen Altarbildes. (Rdmische For- schungen der Bibliotheca Hertziana XVII). Mu- nich 1962. p. Ioo.

"ii Cf. the tombs of Cino da Pistoia and Ligo Am- manati. I. B. Supino: Arte Pisana. Florence 1904. pP. 255 if. and Figs. 152, 153.

112 Hueck p. 48 and Fig. 22. 113 I. Hueck: "Una crocifissione su marmo del primo

28



Yet no Italian ecclesiastical seal of the thirteenth or early fourteenth centuries known to me at all recalls the majestic bishop who gazes at us from the panel in Capodimonte"4.

Earlier I postulated a number of iconographical models underlying Simone's design. Now it must be asked how far the resonances of such models can be traced in Simone's formal composition. The Sacramentary miniature and probably to an even greater extent the Edmund's apotheosis miniature are compositions of many spatial planes. Carl Nordenfalk who devoted a brilliant paper to this type of layered composition characterized it as a Schichtenraum, like- ning one particularly virtuoso specimen, with a touch of understandable culinary exaggeration to a Tausendbliittertorte"5. One of the most striking elements in Simone's spatial composition is the repetition of the pattern on the wooden frame in the complex tooling bordering the gold ground. The spatial position of the border is defined by the insertion of the carpet on which intarsia - decorated dais and gilded throne rest. The narrow repeated octagons of the carpet pattern emphasize the spatial interval, and at its further edge it cuts across the fleur-de-lys punches in a manner precisely similar to that in which the inner frame moulding slices through the three-dimensional fleur-de-lys on the front surface of the frame. Into this constricted space are fitted the figures and the throne. Their relative positions are readily deducible, although the contour of the saint himself is nowhere overlapped by that of the kneeling king. The angels hover directly above Louis' mitre and partially obscure the tooled border. Louis' cope is echoed by the contour of the Chinese fabric draped over the throne seat. The enthroned figure, engraved in the crook of Louis' crozier, (now much abraded) was perhaps intended as a visual conceit, a picture within the picture (Fig. 19). The sense of a layered space before the gold background, filled by carefully weighted compositional elements encourages one to believe that Simone was shown, as opposed to told about, earlier manuscripts. The interaction of frame and border however, irre- sistibly reminds one of the canopy used by Si- mone in the Maestdi'6.

However attractive the hypothesis of earlier models for the main image of Saint Louis, a wholly different problem had to be solved in the predella narratives. Even by 132o a predella was a comparatively recent introduction to altarpiece design"I7. The first surviving example with nar-

I9. Simone Martini: St Louis of Toulouse crowning Robert of Anjou. Crozier (detail)

rative scenes is that of Duccio's Maestd for the Duomo of Siena. A predella's function was two- fold - to raise the main panel above the priest

Trecento e alcuni smalti senesi". Antichith viva, VIII, (1969), pp. 22 - 34.

II4 G. C. Bascape: Lineamenti di sigillografia eccle- siastica. Scritti storici e giuridici in memoria di Alessandro Visconti. Milan 1955. PP. 53 - 144. remains fundamental on this problem.

115 C. Nordenfalk: ,,Der Magister der Registrum Gre- gorii". Miinchner Jahrbuch, I, (I95o), pp. 61 - 77. pp. 69 ff. and p. 70. The term Schichtenraum was coined by W. Koehler: Die karolingischen Minia- turen. Die Schule von Tours. Berlin 1930ff. II, pp. 41ff. and p. 3Ioff. Picht: op. cit. p. 116 note 4.

ii6 For a comparable assimilation of the frame into the spatial composition of the painting cf. the Stefaneschi triptych. J. Gardner: "The Stefaneschi Altarpiece: a reconsideration". Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXXVII, (1974), PP. 57 - 103. p. 79.

"7 H. Hager: op. cit. p. II6. A. Preiser. Das Ent- stehen und die Entwicklung der Predella in der italienischen Malerei. (Studien zur Kunstgeschichte 2). Hildesheim/New York 1973. PP. 72 ff. Gard- ner: art. cit. (note II6 above) pp. 76 ff.

29



20. Simone Martini: Maesta. Siena, Palazzo Pubblico. Madonna (detail)

who celebrated mass on the altar before it, and to elevate his mind during that office"8. For Simone Martini the difficulties in conceiving scenes from Saint Louis' life must have been severe. Formally the design of his predella is revolutio- nary in that it is organized perspectivally around a central visual axis'"9. Iconographically it is equally inventive, for it effectively creates an iconography for the Angevin saint.

Many of the witnesses who had testified in the Processus Canonizationis were still at the Ange- vin court, and their evidence survives. Simone clearly adheres to the chronology given there'20. In the first scene, at the extreme left Louis accepts the bishopric conditionally upon permission to become a friar121 (Fig. 20). In underlying composition however the scene is that already cano- nical for the Approbation of the Franciscan Rule: this schema had already been used in a number of Vita retables and authoritatively adopted for the Life of Saint Francis in the Upper Church at Assisi'22. By the backward turning pose Simone emphasizes the prince's equivocal attitude to the mitre, while heraldry identifies the pope as Bo- niface VIII Caetani. Accurate chronology is preserved in the second scene by the architectural

subdivisions and the rather archaic device of con- tinuous narrative: Louis becomes a Franciscan on the left before being given the mitre by Boniface at the right (Fig. 21). Formally the central scene depicting Louis serving his new brothers in a meal at the Franciscan convent of Santa Maria in Aracoeli punctuates the smooth horizon line of the predella123 (Fig. 22). In so doing it may well reiterate the gable of the now lost upper panel. Contentually it differs from the Processus. There witnesses testify that Louis' ardent wish to wait upon the friars was frustrated by a newly in- cepted Franciscan, also of aristocratic birth, the Count of MontefeltroI24. The fourth scene shows the dead saint attended by prelates and friars (Fig. 23). A this early date his corpse had begun to work miracles - as Raymond de Baux testified to the papal inquisitors125. The design of this scene foreshadows the elaborate (and larger) Fu- neral of Saint Martin in the Cappella San Mar- tino in the Lower Church at Assisi commissioned by the executors of Cardinal Gentile da Monte- fioreI26. The final scene shows Louis' second post- humous miracle, interviewing to revive a still- born infant. This may be the miraculous cure recorded at Marseilles where according to the Processus Louis restored the child Johannes Mas- solto127 (Fig. 24).

ii8 The second of these functions has been consistently overlooked. Yet only the priest (s) would normally be near enough to "read" the predella narratives. Many artists adjusted the viewing di- stance accordingly: the predella was customarily viewed across the top of the altar slab, the main image, over the top of the celebrant's head, from the nave. This fundamental distinction is at the root of many discrepancies between predella sty- les and those of the main fields. It seems evident however that the abbreviated manner of the St. Louis predella scenes is entirely autograph.

119 Noted by J. White: The Birth and Rebirth of Pictorial Space. London 1957. p. 83.

i20 Bologna pp. 167 ff. 121 PC pp. 15. 103, 113. 122 Reproduced by Previtali: op. cit. Tav. XX. The

scene had appeared earlier on the Vita-Retable in the Bardi Chapel in S. Croce: cf. Garrison: op. cit. No. 405 and the Vita-Retable at Pistoia: Garrison: op. cit. No. 409. Bologna p. 156.

123 Bologna p. 167 stresses a vertical connexion on iconographical grounds.

124 PC p. 47. 125 For the correct form of this name (not Baucon as in PC) cf. Laurent: Review of PC cit. (note 35 above) p. 791.

126 Paccagnini: op. cit. Fig. 68. Cf. Bologna p. 156. i27 PC pp. 122 ff.

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21. Simone Martini: Saint Louis of Toulouse crowning Robert of Anjou. Predella. Scene I

22. Simone Martini: Saint Louis of Toulouse crowning Robert of Anjou. Predella. Scene 2



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The materials to Simone's hand were slight. On the authority of the testimony painstakingly assembled for the Processus Canonizationis we know that no miracle was recorded in either Aragon or Italy before 1308i28. The early cultus of Saint Louis was thus a purely ProvenFal phe- nomenon'29. None of Louis' miracles was out of the common run of cures and wonders familiar to the reader of mediaeval hagiography - if so paradoxical a description may be permitted130. Louis of Toulouse was a minor saint. Dynastic ambition as much as thaumaturgic virtuosity brought his canonization. The narrative substance at Simrone's disposal was exiguous. He thus relied on the adaptation of earlier scenes, most notably those of Saint Francis himself. Whereas Saint Louis had almost ostentatiously patterned himself on the example of Francis, it is difficult to judge how conscious was the paral- lelism on the painter's part. It is unlikely that such formal resemblances were unwelcome to his patron.

The backward torsion of the young saint's body in the first predella scene, so expressive of his attitude to the bishopric recurs in Simone's fresco at Assisi where Saint Martin abjures his military career136. The reiteration of the motif suggests that Simone adapted where possible and boldly invented where no pictorial precedent existed. Subsequently these inventions were re- used, even in contexts remote in historical period and narrative substance. This observation again raises the question of motif-booksI32. Si- mone's predella scenes are apt, but hardly me- morable. Tailored to the life of a new saint, they are also indebted to the received body of miracles and prodigies which occur so abundantly in mediaeval art and hagiography. In a comparable manner but for different reasons it is no more a portrait of the saint's actions than it is a record of his physical features.

Comparisons suggested so far have implied a chronological niche for the painting shortly after the date of the canonization, April 7th 1317 - in terms of Simone's known career after the Maestdc which was completed by June 1316, and prior to the polytych at Pisa of 13i9. Technically the relationship is closer, naturally enough to the great heptaptych from Santa Caterina than to the fresco'33. Colour, painting technique, the widespread application of pastiglia are all very similar. The lower level of surface ornamentation in the Dominican high altarpiece is readily ex- plicable in terms of cost and perhaps a reticence

on the part of the mendicant order which commissioned it. In decorative terms the civic commission of the Maestd is more comparable. Bet- ween the two works, the Saint Louis finds its probable place in Simone's chronology.

No definitive answer appears possible to the question of why Simone? If our dating is correct and the panel is after April 1317, Duccio may perhaps have been dead134. However at Rome Cavallini may still have been active, if of advan- ced age, and we have no evidence that he was a panel painter as distinct from mosaic worker and frescoist135. Giotto, the greatest painter of the day was however at the height of his career. A decade later he too came to Naples to enter Ro- bert's household as prothopictor136. The choice of Simone for the commission appears plausible in terms of an assured capability in a refined and elegant style, more nearly comparable to the elegant French courtly style doubtless familiar to

128 Toynbee pp. 214 ff. 129 Toynbee loc. cit. 130 This was confirmed for me by Dr. R. Finucane

who is preparing a study of mediaeval miracles. 131 Paccagnini: op. cit. Fig. 62. 132 E. Kitzinger: Norman Sicily as a source of in-

fluence on western art in the twelfth century. By- zantine Art an European Art. Lectures. Athens 1966. pp. 121 - 147. Pp. 139 ff. Gardner: art. cit. (note 1i6 above) p. 102 and note 254.

133 His wife is described as uxor olim Duccii pictoris in Siena ASS. Estimo catastale n. 12, libr. CX. c. 153. Brandi: op. cit. pp. 87 - 88. An unnoticed late reference to the painter was noted by W. Bowsky: The Finance of the Commune of Siena. Oxford 1970. p. 61 note 53. This indicates that the artist was still living on 9th. March 1317.

134 Evidence for his longevity was adduced by P. Fedele: "Per la biografia di Pietro Cavallini". Archivio di Societa Romana di Storia Patria, XLIII, (1920), p. 157. loc. cit. Cf. J. Gardner: "Co- pies of Roman Mosaics in Edinburgh". Burling- ton Magazine, CXV, (1973), PP. 583 - 591. PP. 587 ff.

135 The document terming him prothopictor, dated I6th. March, 1332 was published by N. Barone: "La ratio thesauriorum della cancelleria angioina". Archivio Storico per le Provincie Napoletane, XI, (1886), pp. 417-441. P. 424.

136 The tracery of the throne of Simone's Maesta has often been remarked: cf. the percipient comment of Hueck p. 41. While its detail is preponderantly Italianate, the five part division bears some resemblance to the south transept portal of Notre Dame in Paris. Cf. R. Branner: St. Louis and the Court Style. London 1965. pp. IoI ff. and Fig. 112. Dr. R. K. Morris has pointed out to me however that intersecting tracery is characteristically Eng- lish.

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the Angevins. The Maesta of 1315 had demonstrated Simone's mastery in this style, and perhaps already a knowledge of French monu- ments137. Style, perhaps stylishness may prove to have been the reason.

One final problem which should be touched on briefly is the function of the painting. What was its original purpose? The existence of a predella is a powerful argument for the supposition that Saint Louis crowning Robert of Anjou was an altarpiece. The painted reverse suggests that it was, if only occasionally and partially, visible from the rear. Its earliest recorded provenance, hanging between two chapels in the Angevin foundation of San Lorenzo at Naples is thus unlikely to have been the original site138. The iron rings indicate one of the original means of support and imply that the altar on which it stood was not entirely isolated from a back wall139. Unfortunately restoration of the lower predella moulding makes it impossible to ascertain whe- ther or not it was socketed into an altar top. From its iconography and the pictorial scale of main image and predella scenes it is perhaps more comprehensible as a chapel altarpiece of exceptional splendour than as an high altarpiece140. The tendency for high altarpieces to reflect the de- dication of their churches is confirmation of this. The panel's dimensions (2 M.: 1.38 M) are in fact too small for either of the high altars of either of the main Angevin foundations in Nap- les'4'. Santa Chiara the great Franciscan church was begun in I3Io and has perhaps the stronger claim, although incomplete during the period of the painting's executionl42. Robert's second wife Sancia of Majorca spent enormous sums on the building and she was an enthusiast form the cultus of Saint Louis, founding a convent dedicated to him at MarselillesI43. It should be remembered here that in Santa Chiara, as in Santa Croce the huge Franciscan church at Florence the side chapels were vaulted and decorated while the nave remained long unfinished144. It is tdhus possible that the ninth chapel on the south side of the nave, documented as the Capella Sancti Lodovici was the site for which Simone's panel was intended, if not specifically designed. But the evidence is fragile, and the shifting of the panel from San Lorenzo would remain unexplained. So revolu-

tionary in concept and design is the Saint Louis that an infraction of the normal rules cannot be absolutely excluded.

Simone Martini's panel of Saint Louis of Tou- louse crowning Robert of Anjou remains the ca- nonical image of the Angevin saint. In every sense it was a royal commission. With its distur- bing conjunction of regal and mendicant iconography, its overtones of imperium, extreme rich- ness in the honour of a saint who struggled toward an ideal of abject, apostolic poverty it accurately mirrors the tensions of Robert's court.

137 A. de Rinaldis: "Tavole di S. Lorenzo Maggiore nel Museo di Napoli". Napoli Nobilissima, n. s. II, (1921), pp. 97 - 1o4. p. 99. Vasari's description of the position of the position of the Louvre Stigmatization ...la quale oggi si vede in S. Francesco di Pisa in un pilastro a canto all'altare maggiore..." (G. Vasari: Le Vite... ed. R. Bet- tarini and P. Barocchi. Florence 1967. II, p. Io2) is too late to provide confirmation of a similar location.

138 Cf. Hager: op. cit. pp. 155 ff. for some compa- rative examples.

139 As a chapel altarpiece it would nonetheless have been an early example of the type. While it is very likely that Duccio's Rucellai Madonna was originally set up in the chapel of the Compagnia dei Laudesi in S. Maria Novella (but cf. contra Cdimmerer-George: op. cit. pp. 45 ff.) unequivocal evidence for chapel altarpieces is provided by the frescoed triptychs in the transept chapels of the Lower Church at Assisi. Reproduced by L. Coletti: Gli Affreschi della Basilica di Assisi. Bergamo 1949. Figs. 20o, 165.

140 The altar in S. Chiara measures 353 cms. in width. 141 Cf. E. Bertaux: "Santa Chiara de Naples". Me-

langes d'Archeologie et d'Histoire, i8, (1898), pp. 165 - 198. T. M. Gallino: II Complesso monumen- tale di Santa Chiara in Napoli. Naples 1963. For S. Lorenzo cf. R. Wagner-Rieger: "S. Lorenzo Maggiore in Neapel und die siiditalienische Archi- tektur unter den ersten Koinigen aus dem Hause Anjou". Miscellanea Bibliotheca Hertzianae. (Ri- mische Forschungen der Bibliotheca Hertziana XVI). Munich I96I. pp. 131 - 143.

142 Toynbee pp. 222 ff. Bertaux: art. cit. pp. 166 ff. 143 J. Gardner: "The early decoration of Santa Croce

in Florence". Burlington Magazine, CXIII, (1971), PP. 391 - 392. P. 391. Additional evidence is brought forward in A. Conti: "Pittori in Santa Croce: 1295 - 1341". Annali della Scuola Nor- male di Pisa. Classe di lettere e filosofia, ser. III, vol. ii, I. (1972), pp. 247 - 263.

I44 Gallino: loc. cit. note 17.

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Saint Louis of Toulouse, Robert of Anjou and Simone Martini

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