'The Burning of a Heretic' by Sassetta

 

In this short article I would like to draw attention to a small picture in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria (the NGV) in Melbourne, The Burning of a Heretic by Stefano di Giovanni, better known as 'il Sassetta' (1392 - 1450). In recent times, this little painting has popped-up in my life, first directly and then indirectly, in two different places, that is to say, in two different books: the first was in Federico Zeri's Dietro l'immagine: Conversazioni sull'arte di leggere l'arte (1990), and the second was The Art of Florence, Vol. 1 - in an essay called The Decline of Trecento Sculpture (Hunisak, 1988)1.

Zeri's wonderful little volume concerns the problems of identification, restoration and copies - not to say forgeries - of works of art. On page 125 he discusses our painting in relation to the identification of its subject which clearly has something to do with the Eucharist, depicted on the right side; the problem was, what is going on in the centre of the image, or, more exactly, who is the heretic? Although not pertinent to this article, Zeri states that the heretic in question is the Bohemian Jan Hus (1369 - 1415), burnt at the stake for his views, amongst others, concerning the trans-substantiation of the Eucharist.

The Burning of a Heretic, 1423 -1426, by Sassetta (Stefano di Giovanni) 

tempera and gold leaf on wood panel, 24.6 x 38.7 cm, The National Gallery of Victoria, Australia

Image by kind permission of the NGV.

Hunisak's essay in The Art of Florence makes reference to the small losenge-shaped relief sculptures formerly on the Campanile (the bell tower) of the cathedral at Florence, that is, the Duomo or Santa Maria del Fiore; these reliefs, now replaced with replicas, are today exhibited in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo. Those that bear on this discussion are thought possibly to have been made by Alberto di Arnoldo (documented in Florence in 1351 - died post-1364). In any case, one of those lozenges is a remarkable image of part of the celebration of the Eucharist, the raising of the Host during the Mass. It is, to my mind, an extraordinary conception, like many previously on the Campanile, due to its 'modernity': its pared-down, broad statement, apparently simple yet conveying entirely the essence of that most important moment of the ceremony, its centrality and indeed its symmetry. In addition, this is achieved with the even more extraordinary view from the back; although Giotto and others had portrayed (usually) minor figures from the back in their narratives, this relatively small low-relief sculpture is unusual in this regard, albeit that the artist is representing what was in fact the reality: that is, as was the custom at the time, the congregation saw the priest and his assistant (or acolyte) from behind when the Host was raised. 

The Sacrament of the Eucharist, 1343 - 1360, by Alberto di Arnoldo (?), carved stone on a glazed  background; originally on the Campanile of the Duomo of Florence, now in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo which incidentally attributes the relief (2017) to 'Workshop of Andrea Pisano'.  (Photo: the author)

What concerns us here is the relationship between these two works, that is, The Eucharist (possibly by Alberto di Arnoldo) and The Burning of a Heretic (by Sassetta). To begin with, clearly the former is a low-relief carving, a sculpture on a blue-glazed background, while the latter is a painting; and, to be precise, a quite small painting which originally - as we know from documents - was a part of the predella 2 of a much larger altarpiece painted for the Arte della Lana (the wool merchants' guild) of Siena between the years 1423 and 1426. As unfortunately frequently occurred, due to a change in taste, to damage or sometimes the need for cash, the altarpiece was dismembered in the 17th or 18th century (Zeri; while others specify 1777) and the various parts dispersed and/or lost. Fortunately however (unfortunately according to Zeri!), one of the predella paintings ended-up in Melbourne in 1976 after having been purchased in London.

If we look carefully at the Sassetta picture we will notice the representation in the right foreground of a priest, supported by an acolyte, in the act of raising the Host - the Eucharist - during a Mass; this little group seems to have been taken directly from the sculpture and used as a model for the painting; in fact, it is an almost exact adaptation which includes not only the acolyte kneeling and holding the priest's vestment, indeed, precisely the same type of vestment as is in the relief, but also the Pascal candle (Hunisak); both figures are in the same relation to each other in both works, that is, the priest is in the centre and the attendant is lower, to his left; the only but extremely important compositional difference is that, in the Campanile sculpture, the scene is viewed from directly behind, whereas in the painting, the view is more from the right. 

Left: The Eucharist by Alberto di Arnoldo and right, a detail of The Burning of a Heretic by Sassetta (location and image: the National Gallery of Victoria)

What is the significance of this obvious borrowing? In a general and even in a specific sense - that is, in terms of our enjoyment of these works or in terms of the particular statement that each work makes - nothing of importance to the casual visitor to the art museums concerned. But to the art historian (which the present writer does not claim to be) such relationships are extremely interesting, not to say important. To start with, given that the sculpture was in Florence and predates the painting, this suggests that the painter, Sassetta (from Siena or perhaps Cortona), had either visited Florence himself - a real possibility - or that, if not, he must necessarily have seen someone's drawing of that work - at the time, a common manner for the spread of influence. This sort of information allows art historians to trace the movements, and possibly therefore the development, of any given artist and further, the influence of that artist on the places visited or, conversely, the influence of those places on that particular artist (in fact, Sassetta's work does progressively exhibit more and more Florentine influence). As well, as is the case with our painting, the 'flow' Alberto-Sassetta indicates another interesting phenomenon: the influence of these two 'sister' arts, one upon the other (sculpture-painting, sorelle as Vasari described them 3). Although there are many such examples of this cross-over of influence, perhaps the most obvious and celebrated example is the profound effect of Michelangelo's work - both sculpture and, perhaps particularly, his painting - on not only his contemporaries, but also on generations of artists who followed: Vasari himself is perhaps the 'classic' example but earlier Florentine Mannerists, such as Pontormo, were deeply influenced by many aspects of Michelangelo's art.

1 Dietro l'immagine: Conversazioni sull'arte di leggere l'arte (Behind the image: Conversations about the art of reading art) by Federico Zeri, Edizione TEA Arte, 1990, pp125-127; and The Art of Florence by G. Andres, J.M. Hunisak and A. R. Turner, Abbeville Press, NY, 1988; pp270 ff; note: the two photos of Alberto's Eucharist relief, one in colour (p 256) and the other in black-and-white (p 271) are reversed: the black-and-white version is the correct one!

2 'Predella' is the name given to the substantial base structure of an altarpiece and which also houses small paintings; such altarpieces for this reason are sometimes referred to as polyptychs (lit. having many folds or sections); the main part of an altarpiece normally consisted of a (large) central panel with adjacent subsidiary ones, sometimes two per side which, in some cases, could be folded inwards (hence the Greek polyptych) to enclose the principal image; as well, these large compositions (as opposed to much smaller domestic examples) were framed at the sides and above with more carpentry containing other smaller paintings. The small pictures housed in the predella illustrated events from the life of one or more of the characters in the upper main fields. As the 15th century moved into the 16th, these structures tended to simplify somewhat with only a single large image above the predella - but there are many exceptions (for example: Vasari's Pala Albergotti of 1567 in Arezzo with at least 13 panels!).

3 Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori (The Lives of the most excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects), Vol 1, Edizioni dell'Orso, 2018 (a critical re-edition of the so-called Giuntina edition (1568) of the Lives of Vasari). In the Proemio di tutta l'opera, p76, during a long discussion of the so-called 'Paragone' - the argument about which of the two arts, painting and sculpture, is the noblest - Vasari says this: "Dico adunque che la scultura e la pittura per il vero sono sorelle, nate di un padre, che è il disegno, in uno sol parto et ad un tempo, e non precedono l'una alla altra ... " (I say therefore that sculpture and painting are in truth sisters, born from a single father, which is drawing, simultaneously in a single birth, and [that] one doesn't take precedence over the other ...). He goes on to say that the difference really is that between different masters: sometimes a painter is better, sometimes a sculptor (p77). It may be remarked also Vasari's designation of 'disegno' (in a way, both drawing and design) as the father of, in fact, all the visual arts; Vasari's emphasis on the fundamental importance and function of drawing is well-known and often debated!