Salve, sodalis doctissime,
Res confusa mihi videtur. Duo pictores - ut scis - collaboraverunt, Italicus (Antonio Vivarini) et ille Germanus.
FABIO BISOGNI
The Martyrdoms of St. Apollonia in Four Quattrocento Panels
Author(s): FABIO BISOGNI
Source: Studies in the History of Art, Vol. 7 (1975), pp. 41-47
Published by: National Gallery of Art
Stable URL:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/42617892scripta dua - non "nostri" Eusebii - repperit, quae Fabioni explicationi usui esse videntur:
Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina (Brussels, 1898-1899), no. 641. An Officium Proprium evidently derived from this legend has been published by Guido Maria Dreves, Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi V (Leipzig, 1889), no. 43, pp. 1 29-1 31. Cf. also Maurice Coens, "Une Passio S. Appoloniae inédite . . . Analecta Bollandiana, 70 (1952), 147-148.
The manuscript at the Royal Library in Brussels bears the number Ms 7917, and the legend of St. Apollonia is on fols. 55V-8or. The manuscript comes from St. Jerome d'Utrecht.
Ad aspectum celerem sententiae huius disputationis:
The Martyrdoms of St. Apollonia in Four Quattrocento Panels FABIO BISOGNI It is well known that the four wooden panels (figs. 1-4) dispersed among the National Gallery in Washington, the Carrara Academy in Bergamo, and the Civic Museum in Bassano1 have undergone changes in attribution many times in the past, until the attribution to Antonio Vivarini was finally settled upon.2
However, the icono- graphie content of the four paintings, each of which depicts a scene from the life of a female saint, has never been critically discussed nor challenged, and it is this problem that I wish to confront here. To question the iconography of the two panels in Bergamo might appear to be a useless exercise, since it seems clear that one of the two scenes (fig. 1) represents the typical martyrdom of St. Apollonia: she is being tortured by having her teeth pulled out.
The other panel (fig. 2) depicts St. Lucy, whose eyes are being poked out. But the latter scene arouses suspicion, because this particular martyrdom of St. Lucy, painted around 1450, would not usually have been depicted in Italian painting until at least the end of the quattrocento; in fact, its subject is not even mentioned in literary sources. It is true that many images of the saint holding her eyes in her hands can be found, but these images come from a popular reading of the legend, according to which St. Lucy's disfigurement is self-inflicted; to escape her insistent fiancé who was attracted by her beauty, St. Lucy poked out her eyes and sent them to him on a silver plate.3
In addition to the problem with the St. Lucy panel, the Wash ington panel (fig. 3) presents some difficulty in its identification. Traditionally described as "St. Catherine casting down a pagan idol," this painting shows a crowned saint, and we know that in the legend Catherine was the daughter of a king. Such an interpretation may have been suggested and further supported St. Apollonia and St. Lucy panels could only represent St. Catherine of Alexandria, who was so often joined to the other two saints in such a grouping.
However, it does seem strange that the Washing-ton scene does not depict a martyrdom as the other three panels do. Furthermore, the name Eusebius written on the front of the terrace at the upper right also presents a problem.
The argument that the name probably refers to the Palestinian bishop Eusebius is not very convincing, because it is not clear what his relationship to the saint from Alexandria might have been and since his name never appears in any of the legends about St. Catherine; and there is no apparent reason why a bishop's name would appear in that position. Finally, although in the legends about St. Catherine's life there are various references to her invectives against idols, she is never cited as being materially responsible for the distruction of any idol. It is also doubtful that the scene has an allegorical meaning, given the fact that such a pictorial representation of an allegory was rather rare until the end of the quattrocento. Thus it would seem that the iden- tification of St. Catherine, even as an allegorical representation, is so uncertain that it can only mean we have not found, or searched for, the correct literary source.
Finally, the fourth panel, the one in Bassano (fig. 4) depicting a female saint being dragged by a horse with a sack tied to her neck, has always been an iconographie mystery. But by studying this panel and the two Bergamo paintings in relation to an investigation of the panel of St. Catherine at the National Gallery in Washing- ton, I have been able to resolve the iconographie problem of both the Bassano painting and the entire series.4
The name spelled on the terrace in the Washington painting prompted a search for an Eusebius connected with the life of a female saint. The search brought me to the incipit of a legend about St. Apollonia: S. Apol- lonia unica exstitit filia Eusebii imperatoris Graecorum , the text of which is still unpublished.5 It seemed immediately clear that the name Eusebius written on the balcony above the arch in the Na- tional Gallery painting lends itself more to the celebration of an emperor than of a bishop, and the fourteenth-century manuscript text of the entire unpublished legend, preserved in the Royal Library in Brussels, confirmed this supposition. But it also turned out that all four panels represent scenes from this same legend of St. Apollonia - that is, the legend preserved in that manuscript, which seems not to have been widely diffused.6 Here, then, is the explanation of the four scenes following the development in the text of the manuscript7.
1 . St. Apollonia, daughter of Emperor Eusebius destroys an idol ( fig. 3 ) : Sancta Apollonia cepit de Christo suo predicare patenter, sacrificia y dolorum abhorrens incensa eis immolanda proie cit et conculcavi, deosque áureos et argenteos in turri et camera existentes constanti mente contrivit et solum Christum Ihesum creator em celi et terre adorandum libera voce insinuavit .
2. Her father the emperor, unable to convince his daughter to make a sacrifice to the pagan gods, has her undergo various torments, one of which is the removal of her tongue. When the emperor sees that this fails, he has Apollonia^ teeth pulled out (fig. 1
4 I was able to solve this iconographical problem thanks to the magnificent library that exists at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C.; I should like to thank that institution and its director of studies, Professor William C. Loerke.
5 Cf. Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina (Brussels, 1898-1899), no. 641. An Officium Proprium evidently derived from this legend has been published by Guido Maria Dreves, Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi V (Leipzig, 1889), no. 43, pp. 1 29-1 31. Cf. also Maurice Coens, "Une Passio S. Appoloniae inédite . . . Analecta Bollandiana, 70 (1952), 147-148.
6 The manuscript at the Royal Library in Brussels bears the number Ms 7917, and the legend of St. Apollonia is on fols. 55V-8or. The manuscript comes from St. Jerome d'Utrecht.
7 For the texts reproduced here, see Ms 7917 in the Royal Library in Brussels, fols. 68v (scene 1 ), 72Г (scene 2), 72V (scene 3>,73v (scene 4). A difference will be noticed between the text and the fourth panel inasmuch as the painting shows the saint being dragged through the streets of the city tied to a horse and not, or not yet, in the arena about to be crushed by horses' hooves. Perhaps the painter or, more likely, whoever commissioned the work misunderstood the Latin text or used a text that was slightly different from this on.
The Martyrdoms of St. Apollonia in Four Quattrocento Panels Author(s): FABIO BISOGNI Source: Studies in the History of Art, Vol. 7 (1975), pp. 41-47 Published by: National Gallery of Art Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/42617892vale
Thrasybulus