Resumen de I'Crocifissi' lignei di Giuliano, Antonio e Francesco da Sangalllo
The wooden 'Crucifixes' of Giuliano, Antonio and Francesco da Sangallo.
Over forty years since the fundamental studies of Margrit Lisner on the wooden 'Crucifixes' of Giuliano, Antonio and Francesco Sangallo, the present article aims to take the subject up again in the light of new developments that have emerged in recent studies and restoration programmes, and of some important new attributions presented by the author both at the 26th International Seminar on the History of Architecture promoted by the Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio in colaboration with the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz-Max-Planck-Institut (Vicenza, Palazzo Barbarano, 7-9 June 2012), and in the doctorate thesis "Crocifissi lignei toscani fra tardo Duecento e prima metà del Cinquecento. Linee di sviluppo e diffusione territoriale", discussed at the Università degli Studi "Federico II" of Naples in June 2013.
The present study again reviews the long period of the Sangallo family's activity as carvers of 'Crucifixes', starting with Lisner's treatment of the subject and in the light of archive documents and information provided by the "Lives" of Giorgio Vasari. Since these masters were so authoritative in the field of architecture, their activity as carvers of wood and in particular of "Crucifixes", has long been overlooked, and quite unjustly. In line with developments in Florentine sculpture between the 15th and the 16th century, and alternating periods of varying fortune, the Sangallo family's production of 'Crucifixes' lasted for almost seventy years: from 1481-82, the period of the splendid example by Giuliano once on the high altar of Santissima Annunziata in Florence ( the first sculpture documented by the master), to about 1550, that is, when his son Francesco managed the workshop the death of Antonio the elder (m. 1534).
Proceeding chronologically, and starting with the 'Crucifixes' by Giuliano, the analysis of the single works confirms and intensifies their connections with the fundamental models of reference, identifiable in the celebrated wooden 'Crucifix' by Filippo Brunelleschi in the Gondi Chapel in Santa Maria Novella (circa 1410), and in the one by Antonio Pollaiolo today in the Basilica of San Lorenzo although originally from the church of San Basilio degli Ermini (circa 1470-80). Research carried out by the author in the present-day provinces of Siena and Grosseto, Firenze, Pistoia and Prato, Pisa and Livorno, has led to the rediscovery of an unpublished 'Crucifix' by Giuliano da Sangallo in the parish church of Santissima Annunziata di Montisi (San Giovanni d'Asso, Siena):a small wooden carving that can be placed among the rare autograph pieces hitherto known by this extraordinary master. At the same time, the author attributes to the workshop of Giuliano da Sangallo the example conserved in the visiting room of the monastery of San Clemente in Prato, previously believed to be the work of a follower of Baccio da Montelupo.
The work by Pollaiolo, and the latter's renowned attention to the study of human anatomy, confrimed by famous works like the 'Battle of the Nudes' engraving (circa 1460-65), are an unavoidable point of reference for the first known sculpture by Antonio the Elder: the 'Crucifix' from the old Agostinian convent of San Gallo in Florence, today in the vestibule of the Cappella dei Pittori in Santissima Annunziata in Florence (circa 1490), which reveals a still close affinity with the works of Giuliano prior to the 'modern' turning-point of the great 'Crucifixes' of San Domenico at Fiesole (in all probability from the church of the Nunziatina in Florence, datable to around 1520) and of Sant'Agostino at Montepulciano (documented in 1533). The small unpublished work of the Collegiata dei Santi Lorenzo e Apollinare at Sarteano (Siena) can now be added to these mature works by Antonio.
The years between 1520 and 1540 see the emergence in the family workshop of Antonio the Elder's nephew, Francesco da Sangallo. The relationship between the two artists is well represented by the processional 'Crucifix' of San Biagio at Petriolo. The reconstruction of the catalogue of Francesco's wooden 'Crucifixes' is based on the attribution to this sculptor of the great example presently in the deposits of the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence. For this monumental work, identified by Lisner and generally considered to have been executed between about 1515-20 and 1525-30, a later date is now argued, betwwen about 1540 and 1550, thanks partly to the recovery of two unpublished 'Crucifixes' in the choir of the monastery of Santa Cristiana at Santa Croce sull'Arno (Pisa) and at Castel di Poggio (Fiesole), and of an example, unfortunately lost though attributable to the master's workshop, once in the church of Santo Stefano at Tizziano in the 'comune' of Bagno a Ripoli (Firenze).
The study ends with a proposal to attribute to the early maturity of Francesco da Sangallo a small terracotta figure of 'Mary Magdalen' that recently appeared on the antique market.
