A Renaissance Audience Considered: The Nuns at S. Apollonia and Castagno's "Last Supper"

A Renaissance Audience Considered: The Nuns at S.
Apollonia and Castagno's "Last Supper"

Author(s): Andre Hayum
Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 88, No. 2 (Jun., 2006), pp. 243-266
Published by: College Art Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25067244
Accessed: 11-12-2015 20:40 UTC
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The Nuns
Considered:
Audience
and Castagno's
Last Supper
A Renaissance
at S. Apollonia
Andr?e Hayum
It is not difficult
to explain why, until relatively recently,
to Florence
visitors
routinely
tourist
attraction
during
who
Vasari,
the
course
refers
to a
at
Castagno
the
of
fifteenth
con
Nuova,
on the subject of the S. Apollonia

version, which does not
in
the
literature
before
the
1870s
and, at first, without
appear
secure
attribution.2
use
as a
of
space
refectory
for
this
the
of
time
its
the
military.3
Benedictine
former
suppres
was put to
in 1866, S. Apollonia
institution
warehouse
storage
at
Furthermore,
sion as a religious
even
Yet
once
the
was
establishment
Via
and
was
S. Gallo
the complex
has been
Lately,
it
been
transformed
having
for the perennially
inaccessible
periodically
and
renovation,
repair,
undergoing
further
into
overcrowded
and
of
portions
classroom
space
of
facilities of the University
If they did not actually see it firsthand,

in art history
training
art
in American
once
cially
it
form
textbooks
history
to appear
began
several
a textbook
do's
much
count,
play
more
role
fresco,
of
revisions
in
began
the
treating
same
to alert
to's Arena
Florence,
principal
cycles
a more
a
to
of
Chapel.
the Last
scene
refectories?something,
later,
his
gno's
nious
of
mode
l'oeil
particular
the
subject had
Life
An
scholarly
specialized,
contextual
setting
and
Passion
important
was
Supper
and focus
long formed
shift occurred
of
the
has
it,
that
began
its
the
backing
Castagno's
chronological
position
on
perspec
treatise
of
of
in Giot
and
It
seems
at
first
and
now,
By
as
patrons
Stewart
younger
to be
and
of
as well
sure,
the
that
however,
say,
contemporaneous
were
more
engaged
women
and
artists,
past
of
ingredients
to
in
appeal
is very differ
the
situation
collectors?from
turning
as
con
to art
the
iconographie
patrons
by male
of
generation
after the
patronage
more
central
to
fair
fuel
Gardner?are
productively
ceremonies
a decade
not
and
much
in
and,
which
inquiries,
identities
by manifestly
even
if determined
Isabella
A
not
feminist
viewers.8
study.
book,
to become
be
was
work
avant-garde
of
than
should
substantial
into. Within
issues
more
religious
a
such
relevant
art,
female
stylistically
art were
was
definitively
That
of Vertova's
of
or
has been
1350 with Taddeo Gaddi's fresco at S. Croce (Fig. 1). There,

the gabled end wall is covered with a representation
of Christ
inge
Apollonia."7
so
she further delved
careers
the
Sant'
of
commissioning
investigations.
concerns
did
part of
about
Casta
its
scene, with
measuring
its
ta Alberti's
patrons
estimation,
something
to
of
had done.
for
present,
of monastery
of
in
revetments
Vertova,
Battis
nuns
these
responsible
Vertova's
male
when,
Leon
after
scholars
works
in
nature
standpoint,
of marble
refectory";
in terms
Benedictine
by
to become
monumentalized
for the end walls
consensus
as
of Christ,
a formal
tive, intriguingly puts it this way in her book / Cenacoli fioren

tini: "the first [fully] Renaissance
Florentine
refectory is that
the
this
like
.6 In this line of thinking,
innovative
of the illusion of a projected
here
decade
of
for
conditions
scholars
phenomenon
the
from
rendition
for
Suppers
achievement
emergence
literature
the
(Fig.
seemingly palpable presence of Christ and the Apostles
2). Thus, Gilbert refers to it as "the first of our familiar Last
ac
representa
least
sharpening
that
radical
to reflect
less
the
about
agreement
at
example,
those
human
with
dining
ent. Women
type of Last Supper. The

narrative
universal
room?is
arrangement
for Christ and the Apos
del Sarto, S. Salvi, 1511-27)
historical
theme.
time,
us
In
the middle
the more
by
superseded
some
staged
fifty years
and
tradition
iconographie
the
was
Supper
of Leonar
table"-like
"high
or
more
meant
publication
text of works
stays in the mind

Last
formulation)
was
most
later
pages
Supper
decoration.
Identifying
eloquently
in the
veining
to an Abstract
point
in Milan,
toward
painted
is
century,
At
Andrea
espe
of H. W.
vantage
example
its
were
Castagno's
retrospective
celebrated
1960,
hundred
Leonardo
drama
tion
the
Castagno's
fifteenth
is the
audience
from
made
editions
in such a global gallery of art. But what most

to
Castagno's
around
in successive
accessible
canvas,
Expressionist
of
of
idea
of the fresco
Janson's
of Art.5 Aspects
History
as
such
the
marble
characterized,
"explosive"
is sometimes
which
compared
background,
made
those with
however,
an
after his Last Supper at S. Apollonia
formal power
debut
could
of Franciscan
image
across
the entire
hor
extends
in terms
and Creighton
Gilbert examined
in the course of the
tradition that develops
ca. 1447, and
fifteenth century (Castagno at S. Apollonia,
now
at
S. Maria Nuova, completed
Ghirlandaio
lost;
1457,
S. Marco, 1477-80, and Ognissanti,
and
continues
well
1480)
into the sixteenth (Franciabigio, Convento della Calza, 1514;
mere
Florence.
basic
a favored
of Life,
Last
Luisa Vertova
of a Florentine
trompe
restoration.4
fragmented,
office
the wall
tuting
there
opened to the public in 1891 and after it officially became a

in 1911, the building that sits between Via
Castagno museum
S. Reparata
it was
while
The
tles?obviously
of the actual
by
painted
is silent
Supper
S. Maria
of
complex
as the Tree
(to use Eve Borsook's
Giorgio
century.1
Last
cross
the
izontal field at the bottom frame, forming, in effect, a giant

predella for an implied triptych format of the scenes consti
at S.
and
on
iconography.
of the city became
of monasteries
the
now-destroyed
nearby
few
Casta
works
Ang?lico's
in the north
its concentration
in
dense
notably
vents
Fra
containing
this neighborhood
Marco,
del
the fresco is hardly off the beaten

two blocks from that more publi
gno's Last Supper, although

track at S. Apollonia. Only
cized
see Andrea
to
went
Isabella
the
subject
historians
and
its attention
literary
and
of
art
d'Est?
intensive
historians
to the histories
artistic
production
of female religious orders of the late medieval

to late Renais
sance periods, exploring the role of the visual arts in the lives
of
women
such
shedding
art
still
and,
commissioned
a
frequently
through
archival
light on the choice of artists employed
tendency
in
female
communities.9
by these
to
these
works
studies
employ
research,
and types of
Yet
there
of
art more
is
ART BULLETIN
244
VOLUME
2006
JUNE
LXXXVIII
NUMBER
1 Taddeo Gaddi, Last Supper with Tree

ca. 1350,
Other Scenes,
S. Croce,
Florence,
refectory
in the public
domain;
(artwork
and
of Life
fresco.
provided by Alinari/Art
photograph
New
Resource,
ysis of
as with
be
rather
it comes
when
tile,
in
of
quality?products
not
necessarily
the important
Given
and
and
indeed,
by
of Renaissance
now
and
per,
of
even
a canonical
this mural
of
visual
for
issues
sustained
visual
monument?
major
in our
point
remarkable
Sup
audience
seems
thus
study
Last
to an
related
in this
stimulated
of
all
the
endeavor
to be a recur
has proved
of women
artists
the
since
representations,
the
interventions
in the 1970s right up to
From
the
time
teenth
century,
lenged.13
became
one
artist's
For
style,
frescoes
this
the
of
name
Castagno's
the S. Apollonia
modern
student,
considered
from
being
has
attribution
the works
though,
started
associated
in the later part of the nine
the
in
remained
fact,
most
Last
representative
perspective
seem
an
del
may
study, Andrea
Castagno
to choose
for a group
of women
religious
the
unchal
of my
unlikely
as their
Supper
of
present
candidate
artist.
Here,
of
portrayal
Domenico
colleague
and
jealousy
even
if
cannot
rage,
to death
but
help
evidence
documentary
as a murderer,
Castagno
Veneziano
of
1461.
the
plague,
as the
Insofar
seem
would
our
this
proved
beat
professional
perception,
dis
account,
Lives of theArtists, to be
young in 1457 during an
Vasari's
through Giorgio
false.14 Castagno died relatively
in
who
in
affect
later
seminated
and
to follow
obvious
four
styles
before
years
a
has
story
Veneziano's
of
ring
truth,
from distinctions,
to
also
representational
sive contouring,
of
the modern
two
these
it
sharply drawn
by
between
viewer,
the
inci
Castagno's
earthen
tonalities
painters:
and
death
however,
dense,
rugged
figures,
the traits of a dominant,
up
conjuring
aggressive
personality
when
effect
the delicate
of Veneziano's
pitted
against
pastel
hues
of form.
the
and
Furthermore,
optical
transparencies
come
to mind
extant
that first
when
personages
reviewing
works
from
short
from
this Last
career,
apart
Castagno's
are
Supper,
whether
neighbor
other
even
assertive,
militant
male
figures,
the equestrian
da Tolentino,
portrait of Niccol?
to Uccello's Sir John Hawkwood
in the cathedral of
or
Florence,
the
condottiere
Pippo
from
Spano,
the
"Huo
Famosi" cycle of the Carducci family villa at Legnaia

(Fig. 3). But just as Meyer Schapiro in his essay "Freud and
Leonardo: An Art Historical
Study" supplied evidence of
mini
Leonardo
ments
present.
with
the
be
focus.11
on
out
the
that
words,
dramatic
Vasari
marginal
exclusive
the
his
outbreak
(manuscript
in material
(tex
and/or
viewers,
of the feminist movement
beginning
the
even
may
convent
by
the theme of the Last Supper, that proto

in our mind's eye by its
assembly exemplified
famous
target
ring
female
newly
More
in which
typical male
most
reference
Castagno's
would
have
lying
in other
as
in a
scale
to
piety,
on
a
reflection
examples,
in fact,
can,
output
carried
being
interroga
the anal
patrons.10
in
culture,
women's
critical
comprised
exclusively
more
We
pressing.12
by ways
female
themselves
research
art?such
how
altarpiece,
interest
impermanent
in purpose
visual
lent
aspects
of
of
group
occasional
have
analysis
main
embroideries),
papier-m?ch?),
gender
the
Pertinent
to
artistic
possible
is often
miniature
production
illustrations,
with
form.
like
their
association
women,
of
types
picture
conventional,
identified
deserving
drawn
from
consequences
structures
inherent
certain
themselves
objects
interpretative
their
over,
as
than
illustratively
with
tion,
York)
da
well
form
to be
featuring
figures
interest
scenes
in
of
Leonardo's
fueling
human
singled
female
are
some
out
for
deformity,
in order
violence
feminine
output,
a Castagno
to invoke
seemed
pieces
mosi"
and
of a predominantly
notion
Freud's
and
Vinci's
of warfare,
so,
who
during
his
narrative
subjects.15
of the first
Among
monumental
instru
to redress
ideal of subject
we
conversely,
his own
do
lifetime
and
cycles
the "Huomini
renditions
altar
Fa
of
and biblical heroines, Queens Tomyris and Esther

celebrated Mary
(Fig. 4). A lost fresco from S. Annunziata
classical
THE
2 Andrea
del
and
Magdalene
Martha.
The Death
mosaic
Venice's
Last
Castagno,
The
was
impressive
We
will
much
lauded
rendition
of
never
its convents
and
depended
a matter
of much
been
ties?connections
In this
part.
vein,
the
its own
links
come
to
the
or
commission
S. Apollonia
played
of artists
networks"
with
their
may
Castagno
for
lately
reali
practical
of
by way
expansion,
link worth
the
further
high
Tarasio
suggests
the
paintings
between
investigation
these
of
degree
That
tives.21
residing
the
the Venetian
Chapel
their
nuns'
convents,
direct
role
decision
executed
and
frame
the
bears
of
names
in
this
making
by Neri
evidence
however,
the main
of
the
the
altarpiece
abbess
and
commission.22
is affirmed
di Bicci
in the
At
in
assess
to
Neri
of
room
its
subject
iconographie
a
says,
Ma
central
prioress
S. Apollo
case
of
the
the
nuns
the
standing
single,
in later
presence
To
convent.25
on
figure
had
by
judge
the
frontis
of rules of the Benedictine
edition
as well
as her
conspicuous
pair
in Filippino Lippi's sizable panel of

ing with Saint Benedict
in
church of S. Ponziano
about 1483 for the Benedictine
these
Lucca,
S.
Andrea
the
honored
del
no
initiating
for
payments
convent,
if
extant
from
name
plans,
the
major
cloister
large
actual
Castagno's
early
his
patrons
1420s
and
Cecilia
abbess,
and
that
documents
oversee
to
additions
and
the
time
working
at
into
di Pazzino
and
agreements,
forging
to be
saint
(Figs. 6, 7).26
with
the
renovations
the
including
Even
rule
transactions
records,
repeatedly
female
principal
comparable
Castagno's
convent
Apollonia,
Donati,
are
there
While
discuss
images
at the time with Benedictine
associated
space.27
S.
for
to women,
pertaining
and
a
as
Alexandria
is a recurring
done
to
from
Benedictine
martyr
Observant
of a 1529 printed
piece
direc
frescoes
appearance
as
1470s, only
us
and
virgin
of
in 1339,
and
the mid-1440s,
in the
Ricor
Conversazione
at S.
Apollonia
in a small
housed
they want,"
settlement
dedicated
conveys
abbess's
nuns
the
and
enabling
third-century
this
order
him
a Sacra
for
is now
"in which
altarpieces
earliest
makes
abbess
In his
there.
employed
commission
and layout in light of the nuns' reported
the
lonia,
her
possible
well
have
his
domain;
and Child and two pairs of flanking saints: Benedict

on the right (viewer's left), Apollonia
and
and Ludovico
Catherine, on the left (viewer's right) (Fig. 5).24 Saint Apol
ing
self-determination
carved
refectory,
been
the time of its architectural

in Florence,
altarpiece
the
commissions.20
of
both
during
was
he
Florentine
At
nia,
especially
when
Florence."25
whom
extant dated work (inscribed 1442), likewise for an observant

Order of Benedictine
the Gothic
nuns, when he decorated
vault of the S. Tarasio Chapel at S. Zaccharia in Venice with
the figure of God the Father flanked by the Evangelists and
two Old Testament
the Venetian
Prophets.19 Considering
of
his
active
of
the convent
IV,
support
Pope Eugene
origins
of S. Apollonia,
the
His
instructions,
this
has
"from
to
the
245
donna
art
if, rather,
agents
Certain
along
and
of
issuing
matter
An
of
was
of
danze,
in the public
SUPPER
Florence)
Castagno
writes
adjacent
Whether
or
artists
intermediaries
has
been
patrons
explored,
to Medici
influence.18
Thus,
and
in
Neri
LAST
CASTAGNO'S
(artwork
refectory
Fotogr?fico,
after
generation
as
cycle
artist's
choice
the works
convenience?undoubtedly
idea of "Benedictine
the
lost
our
for
refectory.
discussion.17
and
Mary's
depicting
how
much
aesthetic
influenced
handpicked
on male
in
death.16
iconographie
for the S. Apollonia
drea
del Castagno
nuns
of
itself
commissioned
community
former
Florence,
the
Chapel
but
especially
sure
considerations
of
Castagno
for S. Maria Nuova
executed
for
know
to
of debate,
by Vasari,
the scene
S. Apollonia,
AND
AT S. APOLLONIA
per i Beni Artistici e Storici, Gabinetto
in the Mascoli
a matter
be
may
of the Life of the Virgin
process
fresco.
1447,
attribution
of the Virgin
S. Marco
Florence
ca.
Supper,
provided by the Soprintendenza
photograph
NUNS
the
refectory
took
place
the subsequent abbess, Apollonia

di Piero Firenzi, in
the latter half of 1447, as seems to be the case, it is likely that
under
Cecilia
part
Donati
of her
increasing
first
overall
numbers
extended
plans
for
the
expansion
by the middle
to
commission
of
the
Castagno
convent,
of the fifteenth
as
whose
century
ART BULLETIN
246
3 Castagno,
Pippo
2006
JUNE
ca.
Spano,
LXXXVIII
VOLUME
fresco
1448,
detached
NUMBER
from
loggia
of Villa Carducci, Legnaia. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

(artwork in the public domain; photograph provided by
Alinari/Art
New
Resource,
4 Castagno,
York)
the daughters of some of the most prominent

families, such as the Strozzi and the Portinari.28
the motivations
Whatever
and dynamics
involved in the
of
commissioning
tain?within
seen
more
strictures
the
gathering
place
fresco
daily?indeed,
stressing, especially
awareness
precise
on
nuns'
concomitant
convent/church
to deliberately
such
as
the
Once
precincts.29
the S. Apollonia
confrontation
frame
of
structuring
signed
corresponds
several
one
the
thing
nuns
times
is cer
would
This
day.
in light of the growing

literature
in liturgical
late medieval
the
concerning
proceedings
and
which
architecture,
and
could
and
early
be
altarpieces
inside
the
contained
vast
an
and
within
their
unobstructed
inhabitant
could
i Beni
e Storici,
Artistici
Last
whose
Castagno's
Supper,
to the
viewer's
level
eye
standing
the
fresco
end
of
the
room.30
Within
the
escape
confines
the
the
funerary.
loggia
Gabinetto
of
purposes,
At
ranging
of
death
to frame
in order
days
to
others
the
the church itself and

from the alimentary to
a sister,
the
absence
her.31
for
the
example,
nuns
the
at
S.
the
rules
for
his
have
fresco
of
the
would
as a
compelling
and
tangible
and
its horseshoe
year
to conform
always
have
extent,
moreover,
familiar
step
or
especially
to
reader
daylight
platform
arrives
vivid
evo
imagine.32
those
throughout
hours,
Casta
visible.33
the work
the
the
during
adjusted
to
remained
realm:
nun,
done
for
the Medita
of
a Franciscan
of silence when, with mealtimes
seasons
a space
author
in an
must
Apollonia
create
and
When
contemplate
the Life of Christ,
addressing
Lord's
he engages
Supper,
of all aspects
of this scene
the
So
her
on
tions
gno's
To
8).
apart from
as
functioned
refectory
specify that her place at the table be set and served for thirty
periods
of
bottom
(Fig.
principal public
fulfilled multiple
cation
sacred
the
furthermore,
chamber
de
Seated, the nuns would most likely have faced in from the far
side of two long, narrow tables placed at either long wall
toward
from
Florence)
convent,
at
space
not
the
Re
cut off or permit only a partial view of
refectory,
with
Supper,
for meals,
recent
in
participation
naissance
works
Last
Castagno's
this
isworth
point
the
detached
include
Florentine
have
fresco
1448,
Tomyris,
per
Soprintendenza
Fotogr?fico,
would
Queen
of Villa Carducci, Legnaia. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

(artwork in the public domain; photograph provided by the
presents
foreshortened
mirrors
itself
flooring
the
refectory's
own; the brick red tiles of the sloping roof that caps the
chamber of the Last Supper in the mural mimics the convent
THE
architecture's
actual
Life-size
roofing.
are
figures
NUNS
AT S. APOLLONIA
AND
LAST
CASTAGNO'S
SUPPER
247
spread
nearly the width of the bottom half of the picture space, each
with clearly differentiated
hair types, features, and gestures:
Andrew
and
next
Bartholomew,
to each
the
other
dark
whereas
brown,
chestnut-colored
is
hair
hair
right,
next
the
Apostle
(Fig. 9); Matthew's

to
back
pushed
our
the one gray-white,
Thaddeus,
over, is beardless with cropped
on
other,
both have long hair and full long beards,
reveal
wavy,
smooth,
shaven profile at the left end of the table (Fig. 10). With arms
and hands opening outward and grayish brown beard, James
the Less, at the right head of the table, could be responding
to Matthew, his counterpart at the other end (Fig. 11). The
enumerates
latter
a discussion
of
points
as
the
of
fingers
his
left hand touch the table's top edge. Philip, who looks at
next to him, holds up his hands, palms facing
Matthew
as
forward,
if
to Matthew's
surrendering
argument
10).
(Fig.
Such details must have become part of an ongoing dialogue

with whoever was in the fresco's orbit. Though
the work is
forceful as a totality, Castagno's precise edging of figures in
to
relation
a
and
the
ground,
uniformly
sharp
and
to
response
as
gesture,
might
the Greater,
James
by
character
occasion:
one
in
part,
or
or
have
that
the
to hold
toward
Benedictine
their
section
to
the
when
hands
in the
and
the
of
side
his
in a gesture
face
of
as
Viewed
13).
a whole,
that shoot
marble
the
earthen
of
admixtures
oranges,
the Apostles'
through
have
panels?would
but
intense
with
gray
and
a visual
to
counterpoint
the black over white of the nuns' own habits as they filed
to
Access
from
the
the
end
the
central
evidence
make
convenient
and
trecento
posed
flanked
on
Resurrection
a
under
tions,
to
read
where
and
scenes
of
of
the
abraded
section
This
and damaged
eliminated
Last
of
the
emphasis
Passion
on
of
is superim
Supper
the
Christ.
one
side
remained
it was
until
is often
three
cov
(Figs. 8, 15). As in
on
Entombment
other.
whitewash
Castagno's
the
the
scenes
(Fig. 1). At S. Apollonia,
edges of its architectural chamber.

tier, it is not simply to redress
because
of
room
the most
also provide
uncovered
condition,
in
is cut
Mary
Magdalene
right
a manifest
(Fig.
level
would
in these
embraces
the
supports
Marys
Magdalene
15).
of
is the
close
to his
witness
often
be
the Gospels
followers
his women
of
and
Resurrection,
represent
to
Christ at the time of his death, ministering

first
of women.
it may
central
the
consti
personae
For while
representations,
association
at
group
audience
dramatis
history.
primary
tall, the
personages
to our
the
16).
(Fig.
a
stands
the
bracketing
these
relevance
of religious
of Mary
figure
Together,
of
space
as
refectory
reappears
foreground,
in visual
to
to him, bearing
of
the word
spreading
his divinity, news that was received by Christ's male disciples

with varying degrees of doubt and belief. With their particu
lar
vantage
convent's
scenes
these
of
community
female
Matthew
"many
the
distance,
of
and
women"
same
looked
for
the
narrative
who
"were
women
after
the
who
in addition,
accounts
set
example,
the
be
of
the
for
stage
the perspec
by positing
there,
had
the
tier,
upper
might,
to Gospel
and Mark,
portion
of
viewers
of as a living parallel
thought
Galilee
onto
point
of
it is diffi
other
the
cloaked
treatment
this
tive
about
closest
the
hidden
two
the
toward
the
heavily
to the
climactic
reproduc
to the
framing
protagonists
tute
Nor
forward
and
mourner,
this
Ifwe begin with the upper

its frequent neglect, but
female
faces
it is
and
of
Entombment,
Crucifixion;
textbook
down
and
the
not
archi
the
a Crucifixion
in S. Croce,
the
of
layer
1890.36 In much
cult
view
and
plans
.35 Entering
14)
doorway would
the Last Supper

scenes
by
(Fig.
tier of the frescoed wall
example
over
clear
space
In
underplayed
themselves
initially
one
while
cross,
a distortion
at
doorway
to the
indicated
ground
early
encompassing
the upper
ering
through
as the
on
cloister
the original
through
the
large
nave-shaped
it is today,
but
the fresco,
opposite
as
wall,
of
right
tectural
was
refectory
a central
the
side,
the
into
room.
the
provided
grieving Madonna. An unusual garbed female figure, possibly

the third Mary, sits hunched on the ground to the right of the
figure
extreme
greens
and the painted
draperies
formed
tonalities?
violets
S. Apollonia,
1472.
Conversazione,
in the public
domain;
photograph
Resource, New York)
by Alinari/Art
cross
consternation
that the artist had previously used for his grieving Madonna
in the frescoed Crucifixion for S. Maria degli Angeli
(Figs. 11,
umbers,
Sacra
(artwork
at
the mensa;34 Thomas, his left hand aimed at supporting his

chin, head cocked back in wondrous
contemplation
(Fig.
12) ;or Simon, at the right, the palm of his opened right hand
spanning
di Bicci,
the
drank
they
5 Neri
Florence
instructed
fact,
vessels
light,
the
Supper
individual
pertinent
both
left,
the chalice
in
of
Last
other
the
rules,
earthenware
this
the
been
his cup as a priest would
holding
manner
overall
clarifying
each
throughout
to address
viewer
the
encourage
composition
part
nuns
consistent
focus
watching
followed
Jesus
from
from
. . ,"37
him.
As for the Last Supper, this fundamental

theme telescopes
the central tenets of Christian history, theology, and liturgy.
But for our purposes, we should consider this subject in light
of
en's
recent
research
piety.
Scholars
interrelated
ical
perspective
into
late medieval-early
such as Caroline
Walker
fields of inquiry ranging

of women's
worldly
Renaissance
Bynum,
wom
probing
from the anthropolog

role
as
food
preparers
ART
248
BULLETIN
2006
JUNE
LXXXVIII
VOLUME
NUMBER
7 Filippino Lippi, Saints Benedict and Apollonia, ca. 1483,

tempera glazed with oil on panel, 62 X 23% in. (157.5 X 60
6
to
Saint
Apollonia,
frontispiece
Patre nostro, Venice,
Benedetto
1529
New
York
the
Collection,
Spencer
The
cm).
del Sanctissimo
Regula
by
(photograph
provided
Public
As tor, Lenox
Library,
Norton
earlier version
and Tilden Foundations)
showing
of the subject
meals
en's
to a
providers
devotion,
ence,
were
have
shown
and
psychology
religious
how
imagination,
food-related
of wom
phenomenology
and
mystical
and
practices
Martha
experi
characteristic
for
of Hungary.39
Elizabeth
prominent
lactation
for men?and
charity
distinction
in
of
the
Lidwina
such
of
to
Louvain
and
are
"feeding" miracles
Similarly,
of women:
hagiographies
of Schiedam,
route
this
explained
as Ida
cases
the
multipli
of food for the hungry by Margaret of Faenza, the

raining down of food from Heaven for Agnes of Montepul
cation
ciano.40
Food-related
characterizations
abound
metaphors
own
their
of
in
of
experience
the "food of spiritual

spoke of receiving
God."
James of Vitry referred
"devouring
ecstasies
of Mary
Historians
also
S. Onofrio
with
dealing
with
begun
number
of early
women's
convents,
as
of Oignies
new
such
Last
di Foligno
as
reading" and of
to the religious
the
to
Suppers
fine
example
in Florence,
the
register
that
have
considerable
were
made
tions
ican
nun
by Perugino
itself substituting
for
for an
convent
Benedictine
in
of S. Anna
lives
quotidian
of members
of Le M?rate,
in Florence,
Last
contemporaneous
nearly
Plautilla
Nelli,
painted
on
reports
Supper
by
convent
her
for
ence
of
Last
refectory
surely
female
Franciscan
tertiary
structurally
strategic
Suppers,
further
needing
donor
at
who
the
presence
of
investigation
in the
the
of
of
S. Cate
Taddeo
namely,
kneels
foot
the Domin
ifwe go back to our first
rina da Siena hear S. Marco.44 And
garments
cross,
female
Gaddi's
is the
along
in
saints
with
the
pres
a
of
the
small
diamonds
studding the illusionistic frame of the Last Supper
there (Fig. I).45
In considering
the important role of food in terms of
piety,
the Eucharistie
along
religious,
for
of
and Saint
to Vasari for a Last Supper, albeit in

the 1546 commission
oils, for its refectory.43 In his Lives of theArtists, Vasari men
women's
"inebriation."41
the visual arts of the period
awareness
refectory
women's
holy
the divine:
Ida
convent
the Franciscan
at
(Marriage
community."42 A 1597 chronicle
renowned
of
example
in S. Croce,
the miraculous
spontaneous
the
at
Kitchen)
accompanying
preparation
of Saints Mary and Martha,
"commemorations
of the female
piety.38 Already during the

Middle Ages, preachers apparently associated the charitable
distribution of food with women?almsgiving
being the more
charismatic
as
Foligno
metaphors
to women's
fundamental
in Her
and
Supper
food
and/or
di Bicci. Domi
there by Neri
a Last
Cana, Christ in theHouse

and
Pasadena
Foundation,
characterizes
Rigaux
nique
scenes
Simon
scholars
motif
with
have
it to
related
in the lives of female

devotions
to
the
body,
the
dominance
of
saints and women

the wounds,
and
the blood of Christ.46 At S. Apollonia, we see this illustrated

in a fresco now detached
from a wall of the upper loggia.
Painted
by
possible
teacher
of
Castagno,
Paolo
Schiavo,
it
THE
NUNS
AT S. APOLLONIA
AND
CASTAGNO'S
LAST
SUPPER
249
I01
former
S. Apollonia,
del
frescoes
by Andrea
refectory
with
Castagno
(artwork in the public domain;

photograph by Ralph Lieberman)
I^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^HB^^^a
^^>___^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^n^^^^?^g
*i?E.i^^^H^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Bf?w
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H?
9 Castagno, Last Supper, detail of center

York)
(artwork in the public domain; photograph
provided by Scala/Art Resource,
New
ART BULLETIN
250
2006
JUNE
LXXXVIII
VOLUME
NUMBER
10 Castagno, Last Supper, detail of left side with Saints

Matthew and Philip (artwork in the public domain;
photograph provided by the Soprintendenza per i Beni
Artistici e Storici, Gabinetto Fotogr?fico, Florence)
to
dates
same
the
as
years
the
Last
11 Castagno, Last Supper, detail of right side with Saints Simon

and
nuns
(Fig.
lives
holy
of the
parcel
of women
creation
nourishment
and
of
spread
devotions
special
cussed
Florentine
to
in respect
extensively
can also
ties. One
find
as
milieu,
evidence
at
the
surrounding
such as the feast of Corpus
has been
Christi,
Belgian
for this
dis
communi
religious
in the
phenomenon
another
Benedictine
S. Ambrogio,
convent with strong links to S. Apollonia. Although

she does
not deal with it in terms of gender, Eve Borsook explains the
motivation
for its artistic commissions
during this period to
be
the
interrelated
"long before
Christi
and
cults
they
the
Immaculate
official
the Last Suppers of both

(Taddeo Gaddi and even Leonardo)
and/or
the
to
viewer
Eucharistie
and wine,
carafes
over,
the
tablecloth
take full measure

ing
in
his
the
delicately
table
effect
of
form
of
reflecting
(Figs.
of
of the items displayed

asceticism
foods
to
mainly
dinner
rolls,
glasses
and
More
9-11).
the mensa?and
of
band
ability
that
to
on the table, further

even,
that
is
significant
of
domain;
public
per i Beni
other
alimentary
were
of men,
the
identity
of
worldly
of fasting.50 Within
to
pertaining
the
female
the
and
part
renunciation
the practice
in
prevalent
frequently
to
central
feature
namely,
through
more
much
miracles,
than
religious,
Florence)
Fotogr?fico,
women
structure
narrative
sainthood,
the
fasting
the miracle
of surviving on the
often served to highlight
Eucharist alone. In Raymond of Capua's life of Saint Cathe
rine,
he
says,
profound
the Blessed
"All who
and
knew
Sacrament
were
Catherine
reverence
characteristic
of
the
strength
Benedictine
and
the
. . .without
for
rhythms
such
toward
It was
Lord."
receives Holy
"kept up her
as
Insofar
food."51
to
attempt
fasting,
our
of
of her
devotion
Catherine
lived and
other
any
taking
for women
rules
aware
well
and
Body
popularly reported that "the maiden

Communion
every day," and she
should
regulations
the
intake
food
regulate
be
seen
extremes
of potentially destabilizing
against the background
of renunciation.52
Similarly, the privilege granted by Pope
Eugene
often
their
(about
the
white
a viewer's
overhang?limits
spareness,
of
opulence
selection
length
sharp
foreshortening
of
starkness
the horizontal
the
the
the
punctuate
relative
restricts
staples?bread,
through
earlier and later artists

tilt the tabletop toward
artist's
dominant
marks
Castagno
visible
that
demonstrate
tableware,
there,
of Corpus
sanction,"
Conception.48
While
the
celebrated
"precociously"
received
Gabinetto
Eucharistie
2).
kneel on either side of the crucified Christ while angels above

extend their chalices to catch the blood that issues from his
chest wound
(Fig. 17). That women were important in the
Eucharist,
in the
(artwork
e Storici,
Artistici
Resident
Supper.
the Less
James
photograph
they wished
convent
church,
seven
well respond
so
frequently
To
rehearse
broadly
work
nuns
IV to the
as
based
in which
years
at S.
Apollonia
to be allowed
and
recorded
before
to take
in a document
Castagno's
fresco
was
some
the
facets
tendencies
to
consider
lives
of
of
these
female
in
the Host
dating
begun),
to the virtual craving for the Eucharist

marked
as
Communion
to reserve
to 1439
may
that had
saints.53
documented
and
broadly
an
new
frame
provides
important
the original
of Casta
reception
THE
12 Castagno, Last Supper, detail of left side with Saints Thomas

and
the Greater
James
e Storici,
Last
gno's
ence
of
Gabinetto
a discussion
Supper,
to the distinctiy
Saint
Before
ishment of death by burning

of pagan
idols,
her
identifying
with
of
dentists
feature:
tongs,
and
that
granting
a more
have
for
religious
scious?outlined
pointed
some
representation
appeal
the
of
cisive, even harsh mode
audience?
tional
setting
Before
was
mode
should admit
ible in works
picture
types,
decoration.
phasis,
the complex
to characterize
we
conclude
patron
But
Supper
were
into
deep
sharp
that Castagno's
by his
be
it altarpiece,
this
Presumably
sharp
own
distinctions
of this
brown
with
of
overall
artist
was
witness
employed
between
was
or
to
forms
the
explain
the
and
simply
pursuing
even
his
own
of
this
on
for
exempla
the
constant,
safeguard
Saint
Catherine's
as when
characteristic,
the
female
virtue
as
virility
aware
of
us
she
states
Catherine
instance,
"like
"she
was
the
devil
if
the
to
of
faith.
fre
urges
the
"virily,
account.58
apocryphal
history
as well
Tomyris
and
battle,
murdered
was
was
This
for Mary
prototypes
of
suicide,
she
Testa
"Since you be
and Esthers
to
that
Old
strengthened,"
that Castagno
the Judiths
committed
Ida of L?au
and
type
women
as the
exemplary
Lucretia?who
stood
up
and
life of
set the standard.

heart
your
is described
seizing
weapons"
in a
womanly
way."57
not
fear
appropriate
in constancy."
a man
like
a man,
like
man
strong
like Judith
heroines
haved
came
that
"renders the soul virile."56 Ida of Louvain
fact to portray at Legnaia:
secular
catego
em
linear
Yet
another
fought
or
and ground,
figure
in space
that seemed
achievement.55
as
for
is,
makes
invocation
the
extension,
sur
starts
discourse
Renaissance
almost
that
one
the moment
For
there.
encounters,
Mattioli
of God
ment
we
perceived
critical
nuns
need,
being
claims
same
here,
patrons
the
late medieval-early
heroine
and,
by
one
as
facial
that
representa
monument,
coherence
time;
foreshortenings
Castagno's
our
that
civic
New
Resource,
recipient of one of her letters to be "like a virile knight,

fighting virily for the praise and glory of God's name." In
in
Castagno's
relief,
quent
women
uncon
his depiction
piety,
virility?the
Umberto
could
and
reconcile
characters,
teeth
the mouth.54
who
to
the
Christian
saint
Last
the
Former
(artwork in the public do
by Alinari/Art
provided
251
a well-established
topos for
stylistic bent at S. Apollonia,
female sanctity would have rendered his presentation
highly
veying
became
the high degree of stylistic coherence discern

done by this artist for varying situations and
in Castagno's
Renaissance
writers
the
we
determined
actually
that
the
spectators
do
to argue
try
affirmed
ries
of
features
we
of
of portrayal,
cast
masculine
her
photograph
fresco.
detached
1442,
di S. Maria degli Angeli
relevant
pun
to the worship
reasons?conscious
how
meeting
tearing out of her
of
to
refer
exclude
torture
the
rendering
diseases
for
above,
their
voluntarily
the brutal
ultimately
such
not
for her resistance
intercessor
main;
ca.
Crucifixion,
LAST SUPPER
CASTAGNO'S
York)
in the story of the life
underwent
Apollonia
of
pair
ruggedly
shadows
per i Beni
should
"oral" component
herself.
Apollonia
that
13 Castagno,
Florence)
Fotogr?fico,
AND
AT S. APOLLONIA
Convento
domain;
photograph
Artistici
in the public
(artwork
NUNS
says
was
in
of Jewish
antiquity?Queen
went
authority,
in their
the
turns,
into
be
herself.59
In his study on the new brand of refectory Last Supper,

characterized
its illusionistic
Gilbert perceptively
Creighton
mirroring
of
the
actual
space
as a
playing
out,
in
particularly
ART BULLETIN
252
LXXXVIII
VOLUME
2006
JUNE
NUMBER
,??:
Y?i
1 ::
a;?:?'-??lc?Ca;7?,???""""
""""""""?P-"U?Y"I~^"rs?::?
?':
:;4?
3i3?S
?-:
i?i)?
14 Convent
of
S. Apollonia,
plan,
Stato,
Florence,
c.l
82, m.207,
Soppressi,
Archivio
1741.
Convenu
di
in
(artwork
the public
Renaissance
of
can,
the moral
no
be
course,
rationalized
monastery
fact
the
by
convent
and
at
that
from
Supper
the
are
1970s
in
least,
to be
provocations,
art world and its institutions
the more
mural
18),
and
is a
Supper
herself
nude,
theless,
these
logical
inclusion
nuns
charge,
that
when
must
also
they
personages
emotions
may
their
images,
be
seen
artists
precise
intuit
our
such
or
yearning
of
ac
its
and
to
us: an early trecento gold-ground panel of a distaff Last Supper

(Fig. 20), a school of Amiens Priesthood ofMary (dated 1438,
Fig. 21), the Crucifixion of a Female Saint (circle of Hierony
mus Bosch, Fig. 22)?paintings
substitute
that conspicuously
women for liturgical roles and canonical
themes habitually
embodied by male protagonists.60 These should be weighed
the
certain
who
to pursue
the
gamut
religious
women,
holy
could
become
formed,
others
with
along
within
disguised
the monastic
legendary
(the most
freaks
of
in
cross-dressing
sphere:
as Thecla
such
who,
a follower
themselves
life of
of
famous among
nature,
of
Saint
in men's
the
or
of
lives
thus
only
Paul,
trans
the many
clothing
extreme
More
learning.61
the bearded,
them being
transvestism
female
involving
legends
in order
female
Saint Wilgeforte),
the
part
they
sacred
and
to
as
cases
eccentric
that
their
explain
in
topoi,
of
issue
the
was
sphere
in
marriage
these women.62
of
evidence
reveal
religious
more
a male
by
Christian
"virile
their
gender
to some
always
to be
perceived
beginning
stricter,
are
not
says
monastery,"
instinct
is to resist
lance
council
of
the
of
its
the
form,
fundamental
might
pi
that
the
from
concomitantly,
of
than
the
leave
is
the
women,
for men.63
those
of
confinement
If my
for women.64
the
literally
S. Apollonia
the
own
clausura"
"perpetua
the
documents,
in 1421 for surveil
in Florence
its convents
for
enclosure
rule
too
of
virginity was the sine qua
to
the wish
demonstrates
convents
that
and
the
was
sometimes
of nuns
and protection
The
of outside
determining
aggression.
was
that woman,
the
idea
sure,
however,
sexual
which
a more
also had
virility
state
of virginity,
her
guard
There
of constant
vigilance.
to
of
the
pillaging
meant
inhabitants
saints
of
the more
of
it.65
enforcing
had evil or demonic
one
and
idea
to
unrelieved
established
of
the
projection?with
rules
permitted
the Benedictine
security
keep
actively
of
Records
rape
to
and
produced
more
taking
in one
prescribed
special
for
in need
woman
holy
were
unfailingly
"The nuns
also
things
was
certainly
that from the beginning,

the
for
with
identification
the divide.
aim:
defensive
of
considered,
exhortation
this
for women,
and
All
vehicles
could bridge
agreement
non
god.
heroine"
strategies?or
specific
state
terms
human
fundamental
were
the
the
and
gift
and
extent problematic and ripe for fantasy revisions. This applies

to the worldly politics of church hierarchy as well as in the
Yet
for
these
transgression
within
viable
apposite
historically
viewers
unknown
intended
collective
of
think
ous women
psycho
drives
or
sex
of
martyrdom
religious
we
for
realistic
search
existence
the
they beheld
Indeed,
certain
the
as miraculous
perceived
renunciation
self-willed
on
Whether
acceptance
presents
instances
these
the
of
and
community
even
as,
fresco,
aspirations,
exemplars.
to invest
Cox
the
Castagno's
conventional
as moral
to
impelled
race
of
agent
Last
(Fig. 19). None
ambivalence,
have
confronted
us
help
examples
emotional
the
to more
cording
photographic
decorum
the expected
American
artist
Ren?e
in the central place of Christ

notable
(Fig.
Yo Mama's
to
challenge
the African
as
gender,
recent
in
sure,
terms of the contemporary
in
favor
The
this goal transcended
gender boundaries.
principle,
modern feminist works to which I alluded at the outset of this
essay are revealing in this regard. Judy Chicago's Dinner Party
and Mary Beth Edelson's Some Living American Women Artists/
Last
in
beard
the Imitatio Christi. That
between
distinction
to Christian
central
striving
of holiness,
its pursuit
made
Gilbert
of
form,
piety and
domain;
by K. Dahab)
photograph
forces
at
any
time
importance
of
become
these
for
this
to real
linked
motivation
as
raging within
and
abduction
the
need
daughter
security
dangers
for enclo
of Eve,
herself, which,
unleashed.
notions
to
Beyond
the Chris
in
THE NUNS
15 Castagno,
end
wall
of
the
of
refectory
S. Apollonia
above (artwork in the public domain; photograph
with
the Last
ingly
Malleus
into
the
implicated
maleficarum,
nature
of
women.
whose
evil
and
the
It culminated,
successive
demonic
as we
printed
and
Supper
AND
the Resurrection,
LAST
CASTAGNO'S
Crucifixion,
and
SUPPER
253
Entombment
provided by Scala/Art Resource, New York)
tian interpretation of the Creation story in the Hebrew Bible,

of
the period of Castagno's Last Supper saw a groundswell
inquiry
AT S. APOLLONIA
that
know,
editions
increas
in
the
from
1486 on quickly made

this text familiar and authoritative,
on
as
it
the heretical
role women
did
centering
played
one might well
witchcraft.
and
Accordingly,
through sorcery
ask
ations
how
the
about
ethical
women's
extremes
nature
that
within
characterized
a Christian
consider
universe
254
ART BULLETIN
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2006
VOLUME
LXXXVIII
NUMBER
16 Castagno,
of
of
refectory
detail
of
end
wall
the
portion
the upper
of the
with
S. Apollonia
the
Crucifixion (artwork in the public

domain; photograph provided by
Alinari/Art
have
would
an
affected
New
Resource,
of
audience
female
York)
in
religious
its
of a subject such as the Last Supper, whose drama

perception
on
its
moral polarities. Certainly, Castagno brings such
pivots
to
tensions
the
terms
formal
and
S. Apollonia,
the
much-noted
frames
the
through
backs
expressively
at
surface
dramatic
slab
Peter
node
in
them
signaling
"marble"
that
Judas
its eruption of thick, high-contrast

ripples of
(Fig. 9). Most striking is the artist's unforgettable
veining
of Judas. Judas's right hand holds up the sop
rendition
Christ with
from
received
tures
that
ing?and
His head
truding
the most
17 Paolo Schiavo, Crucifixion with Nuns
detached
fresco.
S. Apollonia,
domain; photograph
York)
Florence
inDevotion, 1447-49,
(artwork
in the
public
Resource, New
art?here
for
crisscross
when
Satan
beard,
long,
biting
actually
to have
associated
enclosure
hooked
follows
palpably
which
from
conveyed
ges
bless
refers us to this
entered
and
nose,
the
satyr's
of Judas
embodiment
with
hand
betrayer.
its pitch black hair and pro
characterizations
is the
right
of Saint John
was
of
choreography
good?Christ's
in sharp profile, with
"incarceration"
originally
enon
of
elaborate
evil.66 The Gospel
moment
crucial
in an
Christ
thus
of
the
his
Satan.
notion
ear?one
of
in the history of
The
of
presence,
by Castagno's
necessity
was
clausura
this
phenom
foreshort
THE
18 Mary Beth Edelson,

Women
Some Living
Artists/Last
AND
CASTAGNO'S
-v-ts*
Supper,
**?;^^-^?^^^crs^^"^E|?^^S:??Lp:
SUPPER
255
***
^?ff^?A^^M?^
;^%*'^^^#^>';
provided by the
1972 (photograph
LAST
-::%?
American
AT S. APOLLONIA
NUNS
artist)
ened chamber with the airtight

impression made
by its
all'antica marble facing (Fig. 15).67
To identify Judas by placing him on the viewer's side of the
table had of course become
and would
(Taddeo Gaddi)
remain
Leonardo's
(until
the
example)
conventional
way
of designating
his lapsed moral status, but at S. Apollonia,
deviates
from convention
the profile
by flipping
Castagno
view of Judas so that he appears to the (viewer's) left of
to a
center.68
Ascribing
this
part?a
convenient
way to ensure
and
purely
on
the
artist's
the full visibility of Christ
as
insufficient
John?seems
move
formal
an
the
given
explanation,
intensity of this portrayal of Judas and once we attend

of
"moralized
geography"
Christ's
Entombment
scenes
of
dically
related
to
the
central
the
upper
zone.
and
Resurrection
to the
two
the
There,
are
viewer's
confirmed
by
of
quence
frescoed
stool
on
that
light
receding
which
nuns
ations
Judas
tine
the
that
scene would
consciousness.
convent
of
found
scriptions
when
en's
orders:
judged
and water
to warrant
to be
general
The
the M?rate
in
the
eaten
from
on
not
own.
For
refectory's
have
triggered
room was
sometimes
could
humiliation
and
rigor
have done
of
from
and
elaborates
Benedictine
rules
the
the
refectory.69
the
have
by
a
is also
there
means
of
and bodily
the
of Alberti's
a matter
as significant
and
and
precision
the
being
his
about
Casta
Floren
was
On
to
with
spot
unmistakable
and
the
table,
on
the
it is John's
visual
given
field,
the
the
strict
seem
position
central
symmetry
au
particular
I refer not to
13:23-26),
Jesus'
I had
that
to
in response
which,
in visual representations
the
been
its apparent
context.
This
of John.
(John
back
has
not
intention
arrangement
considering
of him
"leaning
it. Rather,
on
derives
theoretical
the figurai
on
asleep
to all the
illusionistic
is the placement
description
Jesus"
that
before
long
over,
slouching
of
organization
is faithful
which
from
for this fresco
the biblical
tant
its realization,
a feature
case,
speculated
dience
of
coherence
reli
harmonious
perspective?as
literature?does
as the fact of Castagno's
nature
the
in the
to
its women
by Castagno's
for
enacted
seems
that
a more
his fresco
and
community
the combi
subjugation
and
suggested
prescriptions
discussion
some
of
of
for
message
was
men
both
a chastisement
Benedictines
gentler
identification
for
goal?significantly,
was
space
refectory
reserved
been
gious.
But
away
bread
of
of food deprivation
made
or defiant
behavior
slovenly,
was
to a diet
restricted
of
floor
nation
standard motif
pre
wom
the
silence,
banish
meals
sense
sustaining
the
within
associ
on
the
was
rules
she
facedown,
scheduled
in the Benedictine
to
the
little to keep at bay
chronicle
recurring
women?testimony
even
in
that,
that,
re
leashlike
floor.70 While
from
confinement
solitary
censure
next
and punish
severity
to
the refectory
that
specify
or
neck
victim's
her body on
prostrate
ment
further
to the
attached
on
for
general
it, a nun
wooden
furthermore,
to the
surviving
reiterates
careless,
the
the table but just below,
as the site for public
threat
right
se
of
side
three-legged
him,
grounds
that supports
analogous
visually
at S.
this
Apollonia,
image
to the way
their own dining
gno's projected
from
sits
tile floor
to function
ment,
panels
to be
in the
slivers
the
(Figs. 2, 11). The
the step platform

the
at
seems
that
reading
two open
penetrates
marble
chamber
orientation,
earthly
be
details
like the blessed in a Last Judgment?at

the (heraldic) right of
at the left (Fig. 15). By contrast, in
center, the Entombment
to
the lower level of the Last Supper, Judas' s (dis) placement
our left shifts the moral contrast between left and right sides
to the
straint
of his spatial stage. Whether
heral
the Resurrection?
Crucifixion,
accounts
these
occasion,
"reclining
until Leonardo
at
the most
axis,
an
created
became
breast,"
did
axis
impor
that
by
the
is
six
marble panels backing the figures (Fig. 2). In such a compo

sitional system, this placement would be enough to signal his
primary significance, which is further expressed by the dra
matic
inflection of the principal protagonists,
Christ and
we have
turn
to
who
their
attention
him
Once
9).
Judas,
(Fig.
the
nuns
at S.
Apollonia
in mind,
an
aspect
of John's
persona
widely popularized
through texts like the Legenda ?urea and
the subject of popular devotions becomes
the likely motiva
256
ART BULLETIN
2006
JUNE
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NUMBER
print, 30 X 150 in. (76.2 X 381 cm)
19 Ren?e Cox, YoMama's Last Supper, 1996, cibachrome

provided by Robert Miller Gallery, New York)
tion for the central placement
of this sleeping
hair
and
smooth-skinned
long, wavy
rations
for Mary's
Jacobus
obsequies,
between
exchange
bearer
to John,
fitting
entire
of
the
de
which
palm,
youth with his
ends
prepa
Describing
with
shall be
the
awarding
it
Peter
"for thou wert chosen a virgin by the Lord; and it is

that the Virgin's palm be carried by a Virgin!"71 If the
illusionistic field of the S. Apollonia
Last Supper stim
nuns
ulated
the
culine
virtue,
breach
of
Sexual
in
faith,
the person
to
themselves
project
chaste
the
of John
aggressiveness
vigilance
center
presents
as prototypical
and
into
against
innate
the
of mas
guise
temptation
sexual
in women
may
and
in
purity
have
been
considered endemic; at the same time, feminine purity, the

virtue embodied by John the Evangelist, was, not surprisingly,
as mirroring
understood
that defining feature of Mary's own
of the Death of the Virgin, her
sanctity. Representations
Assumption,
Pentecost,
and
Christ's
Ascension
had
by
motifs
in
her
then
made Mary a familiar sight in the company of Christ's Apos

tles, so John's centrality in this Last Supper, with his epicene
youthfulness and gentle passivity, could hardly have failed to
conjure up the idea of Mary for this convent audience, just as
the
(artwork ? Ren?e Cox; photograph
fresco
would,
presence.73
visual
by
For
accompany
those
lecterns
and
as
Incarnation,
Domenico,
her
the
in
scenes
as
in Donatello's
by Fra Damiano
the
on
to
pertaining
Annunciation
or
Parma)
the
Garofalo
by
in
sixteenth-century
da Bergamo
in
Furthermore,
Bologna).74
the ends of the

that contain or
throne,
in
prie-dieux
the
painted
classicizing,
(Fig. 23), or especially
in Padua
Nazionale,
tarsia version
of
sides
Mary?the
in the Santo
example
have
association,
example,
sphinxlike guardian figures that punctuate

Apostles' bench often embellish furnishings
(Pinacoteca
virgin youth.72
excess
other
suggested
an
relates
Vor?gine
over who
and Peter
John
virgin's
face.
(Basilica di S.
the
S. Apollonia
fresco, flowering plants pattern the cloth that lines the Apos
tles' bench and hangs on the wall behind Christ and his
disciples (Figs. 9-12). Defined by somewhat more thinly and
loosely applied strokes of paint than are the figures and
these
architecture,
backdrop
or,
at
flowers
times,
to
appear
to grow
from
from
sprout
out
of
the
glass
their
dark
vases
that
rest on
the table, evoking a fertile field that viewers here

to representations
would also have connected
of the Virgin
or the
be
it
the
enclosed garden of the Annunciation
Mary,
within
the
tomb left empty by her
spontaneous
flowering
was
a popular image and
The
latter
this
time
Assumption.
by
20
Pistoian
painter,
Scenes from
the
Life of Saint Irene, 1325-30. Private

collection,
New
York
(artwork
public domain; photograph

by Sotheby's)
in the
provided
21
School
of Amiens,
The Priesthood
1438. Mus?e
ofMary,
du Louvre,
Paris (artwork in the public domain; photograph provided by

R?union
one
of
des Mus?es
Nationaux/Art
that Castagno
the
almost
treated
at
frescoes
S. Apollonia
Resource,
New
immediately
in
when,
the
contrast
too,
were
with
the marble
signifiers
a
chastening
suggested,
the
for
revetments
convent
completion
now
panel
above.
in
These,
as we
with
empanelization,
which
have
Alesso
also sealed off his presentation

of the Virgin
Baldovinetti
in the Chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal at S.
Annunciate
Miniato
(Fig. 24).
of Christ
incisive delineation
Indeed, in spite of Castagno's
and
the
demanding
our
way
panels,
field
their
disciples,
a viewer's
eyes
which
as do
Didi-Huberman's
inevitably
actually
diverse
scrutiny,
ages,
we must
gravitate
as
occupy
the all-important
discussions
large
and
types,
also
toward
figures
of
hair
take
those
an
area
of
of
faux
marble
the
pictorial
fictive
of Hieronymus
Venice
Palace,
marble
just
cance
the
the
in
figure
netti's
the
areas
angular
the monastery's
traces
of
ulate
colors
visual
on.77
of
the
Crucifixion
in the public
a Female
of
domain;
have
SUPPER
From
257
Saint.
touch
of
the
so-called
culture
The
contrasting
are
and
of Venice,
square
signifi
intercon
By
colorful
where
Castagno
frameworks
coloration
at
S.
enclosing
Apollonia
they
in
manip
the
us
engages
marble
had
central
l'oeil
facing
to
worked
serial
also
to
allowed
in the trompe
was
architecture
key
rect
four
replicating
Castagno
inherent
white
Ang?lico
as
at
attempt
that
of
brush
they
in Baldovi
the Shadows
of
Fra
his
contrast,
reminded
interior
of
gestures
over
any
material.76
We
Madonna
is the way
corridor
as
perspective,
of those
the monks/viewers
prevail
their
the
Incarnation,
Didi-Huberman's
and
(completed
to
of
Markers
the
the sense of tangibility
exterior
us
of the birth and death of Christ,
on
east
S. Marco
sensitized
context.
scenes
below
to
stone
rendition.
the
in
example.
effects
possible
actual
Bosch,
at neighboring
Castagnos)
Christian
especially
the
LAST
(artwork
bodily extremes
nected
CASTAGNO'S
by Osvaldo B?hm, Venice)
before
through
gestures
stock
(Figs. 9, 15). Georges
comparable
School
panels by Fra Ang?lico
on
just
22
AND
AT S. APOLLONIA
photograph
York)
audience,
NUNS
Doge's
Berlin, he tellingly clothed Mary with wimple and black man

tle, as if in nun's habit.75 In his Last Supper, this organic
treatment of flowers and foliage is all the more striking given
the
THE
on
the
early
panels
bring
to
ART BULLETIN
258
2006
JUNE
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VOLUME
NUMBER
beige hatching
against a blue background
hairline
white
veining produces a calmer
interspersed with
at
stone
in
Saint Andrew's place (Fig. 9). Where
the
effect
is marked by
and Thaddeus
Bartholomew
sit, the marble
allover
Christ;
of
striations
veins
(Fig.
white,
the far right,

antico
verde
approaching
written
descriptions?from
vored
the
qualities
rhetorical
us
to orient
"marble"
at S.
Apollonia,
panels
they are not mere

separate
and
copius
in which
ekphrases
marble
natural
the
heavens.79
into
the
more
23
del
Santo,
and
Madonna
Donatello,
Padua
(artwork
some
mind
of
the
early
domain;
Chiesa
altar,
photograph
and
aesthetic
powerful
as
at
S.
presbyterial
additions
Saba
on
work
marble
Cosmatesque
churches,
of main
church
enclosures?
to
Rome's
S. Lorenzo
and
fuori
Surveying
Castagno's
fresco
from
left
to
right:
uniformly
James;
lets
color
dramatic
the
square
red-orange,
of marble
black,
white,
at
the
level
and
of
gray
Judas
rivu
and
two
a bearded
fifteenth
stars
toward
in his Treatise
Filarete,
at prayer
in
the
to
envoy
veins
At
S. Marco.80
Spanish
in
well
gravitate
in Venice's
century,
verbally
or
continuing
readings,
sometimes
the
decorative
the
clouds,
rivers,
hermit
of marble
slabs
of
Pro
passages,
are transposed
formed hallucinations:
sees
by
classic
patterns
could
century,
but constitute
the
Sophia
that
the
the
east,
Ruy Gonz?lez de Clavijo, beheld in the natural markings and

veining of certain white marble panels at Hagia Sophia "the
most
Blessed Virgin Mary, who holds our Lord Jesus
. . ."81 Given
Christ.
that
on
a wall
battles,
Castagno's
audience
ary
a viewer's
in Leonardo's
affirmed
animals,
dark bluish green panel is associated with Saints Matthew and

Philip; next comes the porphyry-like slab near Saints Thomas
and
precisely
stains
le Mura.
fifteenth
the
and
colors
meadows,
phenomena:
Such
metaphoric
on Architecture,
connecting
turn of
Resource, New York)
thrones
furnishings?bishops'
were
such
that
medieval
Child, detail
in the
public
facing
into
the
at the Hagia
the
note
Accounts
contain
Silentarius
Paulus
of
potential
once
we
them.
above
context,
Byzantine
especially
zone
discrete
and
sa
Another
stone.78
for the figures
backing
panel.
Vasari?that
actual
rich
in the
especially
to the
transformational
tradition,
serves
of
first
the
remind us of the many
through
varieties
and
blue
greenish
of
color
in the panels
Pliny
by white
interrupted
a darker
the
echoes
visible distinctions
These
black
and
orange,
15). At
the
helping
so
and
revetments
on?we
provided
on
stimulated
further
and optically mesmerizing
24 Alesso
Baldovinetti,
trait
random
heads,
envisage
can
appreciate
convent
the
field and springboard
something
tual level by repetitive
to
artist/viewer
landscapes,
"marble"
with a meditative
experience,
imaginative
propensity?a
comments
about
well-known
for vision
a percep
patterns
Annunciation,
fresco, Chapel of the Cardinal of

Portugal.
S. Miniato,
Florence
(artwork in the public domain;

photograph provided by the
Soprintendenza per i Beni Artistici e
Storici,
Gabinetto
Fotogr?fico,
Florence)
in
THE NUNS
AND
AT S. APOLLONIA
CASTAGNO'S
LAST SUPPER
259
111
ca. 1455,
Saint Julian,
Castagno,
fresco.
SS. Annunziata,
Florence
in the public
domain;
(artwork
25
photograph
New
Resource,
York)
the painted architecture,

white horizontal slabs on
eight design in the frieze
the marble
Traversing
of John the Evangelist in
at
the
tier
upper
can
level
upper
(Fig.
be
such as the shuttling black and

the ceiling or the undulating figure
just below.
panels vertically through the figure
the Last Supper, we arrive once again
15).
For
as
perceived
one
when
stands
the
back,
a dream
if it were
or
vision
that issues from the sleeping John. The central axis of the
juncture of marble panels behind him is aligned with the
base
of
the
cross
above,
version
straightedge
of
Castagno's
tendency to display a visionary object directly above its earthly

subject, seen in such other works as the Vision of Saint Jerome
and
the
Saint
Julian
scene,
both
at
frescoes
(Fig. 25). As basic as the ideas about death

were
to
the
Catholic
at
community
large,
SS.
Annunziata
15).
parallel
Venerable's
visual
link
sometimes
letter
between
clausura
and
at
the
occasion
as in Peter
of
Peter
Eastern
the
Abe
learned
discussions
enclosure
that
to
traditions
his
explain
bearded
to Christ's
compared
number
been
both
the monastic
likens
of
her
Western
invoke
face
clean-shaven
countenance
in the Last
Supper below (Fig. 15).83 Castagno may well have drawn on

these disparate iconographie
traditions. But just as the large
Christ
entombment
invoked by theologians,
to H?lo?se
when
reveals
was
he
several
of
subject
versus
and resurrection
Castagno
where
death,
of
a
Christ,
their more specialized meaning

for this audience by employ
ing the same marble
facing for the tomb of Christ in the
upper zone that he uses for the enclosed chamber below (Fig.
This
lard's
to a body buried alive and that awaits

religious community
the glory of the Resurrection.82
Interestingly, the only figure
that looks directly out at the viewer in the upper zone is the
Resurrected
Christ to our left (Fig. 26). He has been the
female
of
the
in
protagonists
reminder
comforting
so the choice
of
the
Resurrection,
the
of
upper
tier would
women's
youthful,
beardless
through
its
closer
solidarity
Christ
have
with
a
for
resemblance
to the sleeping Saint John and to the female viewers,

the promise of
expressed with immediacy for this audience
transcendence.
In
a more
itant
these
of
mundane
manner,
too,
level could provide mental
the upper
the
scenes
convent.
reveal
In
a
spatial
frescoes
Castagno's
liberation
of
their
abraded
spite
is the
ambience
that
in
to the inhab
condition,
obverse
of
ART BULLETIN
260
JUNE
2006
VOLUME
LXXXVIII
NUMBER
_i
-i:iI
I:
i
:r
26
r
the sharply delimited

Supper chamber below,
zone
upper
was
at what
chamber
landscape,
look
must
up
have
are
to
terrain
comparable
tombment,
breathing
Apollonia.85
far and wide,
situated
frequently
a nature bathed
by unifying
that
fields
and
the
roof
an
been
the
Resurrection
the
for
There,
on
and
deep
sunlight
the
whose
encompassing
horizon's
Crucifixion,
afforded
restricted
a nun's
basis,
daily
the distance.
into
eyes
by
Piero
of
far back
Those
En
imaginary
at S.
viewers
could
pressed
come
narratives
initial
roam
of
in
as
Accordingly,
sive actions
the
patrons
Supper began
Even
up
of
a shock
to
"nuns"
and
features
of women
for
the
such
as
in
the
York)
were
never
commis
see
inac
been
our
to punctuate
were
passing
context
original
the
preponderance
scenes
of
upper
es
that,
of Renaissance
to a decade
and the Entombment seemed germane

new
New
symptomatic
development
and
viewers
literature.
something
provided by
S.
is nonetheless
the
the upper
of the
the
with
S. Apollonia
in the public
(artwork
Apollonia
has
religious
female
It
of
female
wall
Resource,
at
frescoes
this Last
when
pecially
of
end
domain; photograph
Alinari/Art
information.
"convent"
foreground
views
edge.
sioned
the
panoramic
and stretching
Castagno's
for a group
modern
enclosed
Veneziano,
Castagno's
must
have
otherwise
the
That
cessible
fenestra
vistas developed
Baldovinetti,
against
of
impressive
Domenico
at
undulates
surrounding
space
over
to those distinctive
similar
colleagues
Castagno's
painter
and Alesso
della
Francesca,
figures
by
uninterrupted
(Fig. 15).84 As the nuns did then, so the
can
viewer
especially
originally
tion it now contains

modern
of the Last
projection
if, as I think can be argued,
architectural
detail
the
of
refectory
Resurrection
ii
the
Castagno,
of
portion
style,
sup
generally
it could
ago,
to
reference
of
this
and
the
work.
expres
Crucifixion
to think about from this
with
the conviction
I, for one,
proceeded
a difference
and would
surely made
gender
to consider
be a fruitful
this
work
way
by Castagno.
striking
a female
order
would
have
Does
that patronage
this mean
by
or
even
most
in
the
of
the
determined
choices
all
artist's
that
perspective;
the issue
of
THE NUNS
of this project? If ingrained traditions of person

ification for John the Evangelist, combined with the compo
sitional choice for his location on this frescoed wall, do not
to this gendered context, it is
suffice to convey his pertinence
realization
a devotional
that
noteworthy
tracted
from
Last
the
Supper
female
within
popular
arm
Granted
such
enfolds
direct
artist
and
this
to
appeal
patron
cherished,
the
youngest
disciple.86
at S.
Apol
as
themselves
convent-viewer
obviously
positioned
well in terms of the burgeoning

artistic role the Last Supper
was coming to play, especially as it had been developing
within the representational
spotlight of the Florentine mon
astery
refectory.
Looking
strictly
I have
speaking,
of women
to
and
artistic
beyond
(religious)
the
phenomena:
and
virile
of
even the projected

to
reiterate
mean
both
the
key
nuns
the
only
sense. With
its broadest
features.
Of
could
have
a painting
Renaissance
the
the
of
opposite
polar
times
in Erwin
eral
the
Apollonia
them
among
realization
our
leaves
may
be
illusion
spatial
that must
in viewers,
more
needs
from,
apart
structured
theological
we wonder
how
by
certain
respect
neously
impact
preparedness
a Renaissance
on
aisle
to
of
its
signals
of an
realization
notion
of
of
creasingly
sense
of his
an
to
the
common
artist
Castagno's
dealt
in
the
and
First
of
power
and facilitated
with
the
Duomo
the
presents
However,
accessibility.
us not
to be too literal
immediate
a
project,
ideal,
especially
even
this
because,
future
or
community
by
areas
at S.
"living"
Apollonia?in
where
upper-story
loggia,
pious
the
nuns
such
com
contrast
expectations
artistic
reception
extensive
of
intention
this
in
simulta
comparison
by
in
da Tolentino
the
and
period,
seems
the
in
artist's
unconsciously?an
the
that
S. Apollonia
is the sheer affirmation

evinced
time,
the
given
clausura
have
obvious
in our
on
audience
broader,
finally,
an
fact
of
the
cultural
same
words,
stricture
to
of
ground
At the
In other
approach
inform?consciously
own
output.
Remarkable,
Benedictine
at
issues.
force
in its audience.
be publicly
accessible.
how would
the
context,
to bear
side
seeing
an "ex
frescoes
Castagno's
mission? His fresco of the equestrian Niccol?

the
but
in
in the scale of the

recognize
a
toward
composition
geared
a visceral
re
provoke
bodily
as conduit
and
also
to, those
not
would
conventual
come
of
incapable
contemplating
the
conceptual
We
in this
and
a work
how
reception.
effect
sponse
in
sustained
us
sev
"Studies
anything
Supper
very
impulse
to the
challenge
would
have
lowered
its women
while
the
as
the
from
table
assertive
works
to
and
mealtimes?87
imagery
and
the
appeal
paradox
which
inclined,
place,
at S.
a
order,
their heads
during
presence
Last
such
Benedictine
place
toward
imperative
indisputably
of
keeping
proceeding
at
when
on
the
readings
the manifest
to commission
rules
not
Does
Apollonia,
of a work
commitment
eyes
focused
and
such
to a more
suggest
Castagno's
Supper,
on the
and flexible
attentiveness
part of its audience
vigorous
a
nuns
and
conviction
about
what
these
would
be destined,
motivated
to
take
in?
isprofessor of art history atFordham University. She
articles
and books on both northern
of several
art. Her
book The
Isenheim
Altarpiece:
and
God's
Italian
Med
icine and the Painter's Vision (Princeton University Press) won

the Charles Rufas Morey Award in 1991 [Department ofArt History
and Music, Fordham University, 113 West 60 Street, Room 423,
New York,N.Y.
10023].
one
invoked
essay
is
of
(school
Notes
I want, first of all, to express my appreciation
to colleagues
and friends at
Smith College
"five colleges") who provided
such a
(and at the surrounding
and stimulating forum for me when, as Ruth and Clarence Kennedy
welcome
in the Renaissance
Professor
of 1995, I first
the spring semester
during
lecture. On the occasion
of her
many of these ideas in a public
presented
I also want to acknowledge
Elizabeth
C. Parker, my longtime
retirement,
in art history at Fordham University's
and
Lincoln Center Campus,
partner
our dialogue about this and many other
readers
subjects. The two anonymous
for The Art Bulletin have my gratitude
for their thorough
and insightful
many aspects of which they will, I hope, find reflected here.
commentary,
Unless otherwise
translations are mine.
specified,
1. See Richard
with
and
reactions
bushman"
who
Last
in
be thought of as
in these frescoes have both demanded
concern
figures
dramatic
also
the
floor
Last Supper,
contemporary
seminal
Panofsky's
other
viewing
as that
Iconology":
in a
of
representation
dinner
cited
party."
The
level of achievement
S.
"Australian
in the
Renaissance
not
does
this work
like Castagno's
and
public
ical
is author
rugged
ele
these Apostles,
this
within which my study is taking place might
the main
di Jacopo Franchi), which shows Saint Apollonia

a
nun?as well as in destination points
Benedictine
blessing
at the convent like the church and the refectory. Should we
Andr?e Hayum
given
the
understood
Crucifixion fresco, or in the

on
doorway
261
images
of
course,
interior
SUPPER
Rossello
indeed,
decorative
participants,
or the marble
revetments,
hanging
an
LAST
CASTAGNO'S
audience
these
perceptions
meal
itself,
space that tightly encloses
certain
that
its male
floral
an
what
have drawn from
particular
communal
sacred
typology
as the
such
ments
nuns'
directives,
patron's
to consider
sought
might
the
identify
or
intention
over
lunette
AND
in Paolo Schiavo's
ing in devotion
see
mainly
orders north
whose
lonia,
ex
sculpture
became
of the Alps; the typical

religious
shows John leaning familiarly against the figure of
example
Christ,
in wooden
type
scene
AT S. APOLLONIA
of identity this
decorations
passageways,
were
shown
such
kneel
as
C. Trexler,
The Nuns of
"Celibacy in the Renaissance:
in The Women of Renaissance Florence, vol. 2
Florence,"
reprinted
(Asheville, N.C.: Pegasus Press, 1998), 6-30. See also Saundra Lynn
and the
Weddle,
"Enclosing Le M?rate: The Ideology of Enclosure
of a Florentine
Architecture
vol. 1 (PhD diss.,
Convent,
1390-1597,"
Cornell University,
1997), esp. 84-105.
2. Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de'pi? eccellenti pittori scultori ed architettori, ed.

Gaetano Milanesi
(Florence: G. C. Sansoni,
1878), vol. 2, 673. This ref
erence occurs in a combined
and Domenico
chapter on Castagno
Veneziano
In an inventory
(667-82).
(Ufficio Catalogo,
Soprinten
denze alle Gallerie)
compiled
by Carlo Pini in January 1863, at the
time of the final suppression
of monasteries
and convents by the Ital
no. 80 refers to the Last Supper in the refectory of
ian government,
S. Apollonia,
but no artist is named.
3. Legislation
in
the suppression
of monasteries
and convents
affecting
Florence began with Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo,
the next,
1770-85;
more
of religious houses was
thoroughgoing
phase of the disbandment
initiated by the French government
in 1808 (S. Apollonia
appears in
Archivio
di Stato, Florence
[hereafter ASF], Corporazioni religiose sop
were rein
presse dal governo francese, vol. 136, no. 82). The Benedictines
stated at S. Apollonia
in 1824, but by 1866 the Italian government
fi
nalized
the suppression
of this convent. See also Piero Roselli and
Osanna Fantozzi Micali, Le soppressioni dei convenu a Firenze (Florence:
Librer?a Editrice Fiorentina,
1980), 82-83.
Of the streets that now form the boundaries
of this complex,
the
called Via del Campaccio
in docu
(sometimes
parallel Via S. Reparata
ments of the 1840s) and Via S. Gallo are
original. The current en
trance to the museum
is on the Via XXVII Aprile, a street that was cut
Piazza S. Marco and the
through in the nineteeth
century, connecting
This was in the planning
newly created Piazza della Indipendenza.
now in the Archivio
in documents
stages in 1841 and 1842, as revealed
Storico del Comune
di Firenze
(hereafter ASCF) Affare Convento
ART BULLETIN
262
JUNE
2006 VOLUME
LXXXVIII
NUMBER
Santa Apollonia
of demol
1842, no. 40) that discuss the consequences
side in order to create the
ishing part of the convent on the northeast
street. However,
to judge by contemporary
this project was
guidebooks,
realized only in late 1849 or early 1850. Up through the fifth edition of
the Nuova guida di Firenze (Florence: Editore Angiolo Garinei,
1849),
the maps
included do not yet show the new street, whereas
it
L289d,
in
the
Guida
di Firenze of the following year (Florence: Editore
appears
Vincenzo
it was re
Bulli, 1850), L290. Initially called Via S. Apollonia,
in April 1889 to commemorate
events of April
named
the revolutionary
Stradario storico biogr?fico delta
27, 1859. See also Demetrio
Guccerelli,
citt? di Firenze (Florence: Vallecchi,
1929), 493.
4.
In the course of 1890, the refectory space was made

ready for its open
took place on April 1, 1891. Arte e Storia 9, no.
ing to the public, which
16 (June 25, 1890): 126; no. 24 (September
20, 1890): 182; no. 30 (No
vember 20, 1890): 231; 10, no. 7 (March 31, 1891): 54ff. Articles
in Arte
e Storia 30, no. 3 (March 15, 1911): 90; no. 4
(April 15, 1911): 125, and
a second stage of organization
La Nazione document
of the refectory
into a Castagno museum,
where other works by
space of S. Apollonia
the artist, such as the frescoed Crucifixion from S. Maria degli Angeli
and eventually
the Villa Pandolfini
frescoes, would also be displayed.
5. The
fourth edition of Helen Gardner, Art through theAges, ed. Sumner

Brace and World,
1959), 304, seems to
Crosby (New York: Harcourt,
to reproduce
be the first American
textbook
Last Supper.
Castagno's
it was included,
from the first edition on, in H. W. Jan
Subsequently,
New York:
son, History of Art (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall;
1962), and Frederick Hartt, History of Italian Renais
Harry N. Abrams,
sance Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams,
1969).
6. Eve Borsook,
The Mural Painters of Tuscany, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford
See especially Luisa Vertova, / Cenacoli
Press, 1980), 42-43.
University
Italiana, 1965); and
(Turin: Edizione Radio-Televisione
fiorentini
"Last Suppers and Their Refectories,"
in The Pursuit
Gilbert,
Creighton
in Late Medieval and Renaissance Religion, ed. Charles
ofHoliness
Trinkaus
and Heiko A. Oberman
The
(Leiden: Brill, 1974), 371-402.
of this subject, as destined
for the monas
history of the representation
in Florence,
has,
tery refectory context and in terms of its development
in turn, provided
the orientation
for such later studies as R. Scott
Walker, Florentine Painted Refectories (Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI, 1979);
in Cristina Acidini Luchinat
and with full-dress colorplates
and Ro
sanna Caterina Proto Pisani, La tradizione florentina dei Cenacoli (Flor
ence: Scala, 1997).
7. Gilbert,
"Last Suppers," 377; Vertova.
I Cenacoli, 31: "II primo refettorio
rinascimentale
florentino
? quello delle monache
benedettine
di Santa
See also Martin Wackernagel,
The World of theFlorentine Re
Apollonia."
naissance Artist, trans. A. Luchs
Press,
(Princeton: Princeton University
1981), 127.
to a
8. Jaynie Anderson
takes stock of these questions
in her introduction
special issue of Renaissance Studies 10, no. 2 (June 1996) that is devoted
to the subject women patrons of Renaissance
David
art, 1300-1600.
"Woman as Artist and Patron in the Middle Ages and the Re
Wilkins,
in The Roles and Images ofWomen in theMiddle Ages and Re
naissance,"
of Pitts
naissance, ed. Douglas Radcliff Umstead
(Pittsburgh: University
Isabella d'Est? and Gioanna
de
burgh Press, 1975), 107-31, highlights
Piacenza as exemplary
female collector and/or patron of the arts, in
an essay that the author called, at the time, "a prolegomena
for further
study" (107).
9. Key to these developments
has been the work of several European
his
see Anna Benvenuti
torians. For the later medieval
Papi. whose
period,
are collected
in "In Castro Poenitentiae"
essays starting in the mid-1970s
(Rome: Herder Editrice e Librer?a, 1990). Gabriella Zarri is important
not only for her own publications
since the early 1970s on female sanc
tity and female religious communities
through the late Renaissance,
in the Bolognese
but also as a catalyst for further re
milieu,
especially
search by other scholars, through organizing
conferences
and editing
several significant anthologies.
Jeffrey Hamburger,
placing
special em
set an
phasis on the visual culture of nuns in the medieval
period,
in The Rothschild Canticles (New Haven: Yale Uni
important precedent
versity Press, 1990). For a brief overview of this general
subject, see
"La donna,
la fede, l'immagine
Dominique
Rigaux,
negli ultimi secoli
del medioevo,"
in Donne efede: Santit? e vita religiosa in Italia, ed.
Lucetta Scaraffia and Gabriella
Zarri (Rome-Bari: Editori Laterza e
orders, see Jeryldene M. Wood,
Figli, 1994), 157-75. For the Franciscan
Women, Art, and Spirituality: The Poor Clares of Early Modern Italy (Cam
Press, 1996); Gary M. Radke, "Nuns and
University
bridge: Cambridge
Their Art: The Case of San Zacear?a in Renaissance
Venice," Renais
sance Quarterly 54, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 430-59;
and, most recently,
treatment of the subject by Anabel Thomas, Art and
the comprehensive
Piety in theFemale Religious Communities of Renaissance Italy (Cambridge:
Press, 2003).
University
Cambridge
10. See Ann M. Roberts,
"North Meets South in the Convent: The Altar
in Pisa," Zeitschrifi fur Kunstge
of Alexandria
piece of Saint Catherine
"Nuns and Altarpieces:
schichte 2 (1987): 187-206; and Julian Gardner,
for Research," R?misches Jahrbuch der Biblioteca Hertziana 30
Agendas
are Filippo Lippi's altarpieces

of the
(1995): 27-58. Notable
exceptions
Annunciation
and Coronation of the Virgin for the convents of S. Ambro
in Florence,
and their treatment by Megan Holmes,
gio and Le M?rate
Fra Filippo Lippi, the Carmelite Painter (New Haven: Yale University
Press,
Le Suore. Altarpieces
for Two Floren
1999), esp. chap. 9, "Representing
tine Benedictine
I benefited
from
Churches,"
215-44;
Nunnery
Holmes's
readings of these works already as put forward in "'Frate Fi
Fra Filippo Lippi and Florentine
Renais
lippo di Tommaso
Dipintore':
sance Religious
Practices"
(PhD diss., Harvard University,
1993).
11. Kate Lowe, "Women's Work at the Benedictine
Convent
of Le M?rate
in Florence:
Suora Battista Carducci's Roman Missal of 1509," in
Women and theBook, ed. Jane H. M. Taylor and Lesley Smith (London:
British Library; Toronto: University
of Toronto
Press, 1997), 133-46.
Lowe cites such activities as
Apart from the copying of manuscripts,
fabrics, and gesso reliefs. She
producing
gold thread, linen and woolen
in her recent book Nuns' Chronicles and Con
expands on this account
vent Culture in Renaissance and Counter Reformation Italy (Cambridge:
Press, 2003), esp. chap. 8, "Convents and Art,"
Cambridge
University
318-94. Radke,
"Nuns and Their Art," refers to needlework
and certain
some of the
discusses
objects in gold and silver. Jeffrey F. Hamburger
awkwardnesses
and idiosyncrasies
of the images produced
by the nuns
to Nuns as Artists (Berkeley: University
in the introduction
of California
Press,
1997).
of main docu
12. For monograph,
raisonn?, and reprinting
catalogue
ments on the artist, see Marita Horster, Andrea del
Castagno (Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell University
Press, 1980). A significant
separate study of
Last Supper is Dominique
Castagno's
Rigaux, Un banquet pour l'?ternit?:
La C?ne d'Andr?a del Castagno (Paris: Mame,
1997), an extremely
treatment accompanied
and theologically
informed
thoughtful
by ex
cellent reproductions.
This monographic
essay does not, however,
dwell on the issue of gender or on the fresco's particular patronage
more
and audience
of women?the
since Rigaux did just
surprising
that in her earlier study of the stylistically more modest
in
decorations
the refectory at the convent of S. Anna at Foligno
(see n. 42 below).
Eckart Marchand,
"Monastic Imitatio Christi: Andrea del Castagno's
Ce
nacolo di S. Apollonia," Artibus etHistoriae 24, no. 48 (2003): 31-50, fol
in stressing the stimulus to contemplation
lows Rigaux
of these paint
as individual exemplars.
The essays
ings, with the Apostles
functioning
combined
in Rosanna Caterina Proto Pisani, ed., Luce e disegno negli
affreschi di Andrea del Castagno (Livorno: Sillabe, 2000), were occasioned
that spring, of the frescoes at S. Apollo
by the conservation
campaign,
nia.
13. Sir J. A. Crowe and G. B. Cavalcaselle
attribute
the work to Castagno
not in their first (1864) edition of A New History of Painting
in Italy but
in the subsequent German
translation, Geschichte der italienischen Malerei,
vol. 2 (Leipzig: S. Hirzel,
1870), 41, adding that the fresco had some
times been thought to be by Paolo Uccello.
Three years later, Susan
Horner
and Joanna Horner, Walks in Florence, vol. 2 (London: Strahan,
Cenacolo as a work by Castagno
1873), 183, include the S. Apollonia
and praise his handling
of the composition
and delineation
of figures.
Jacob Burckhardt,
by the third edition of his Cicerone, vol. 3 (Leipzig:
E. A. Seemann,
the fresco in his account of
1874), 883, also discusses
oeuvre.
Castagno's
14. Vasari,
Le vite, vol. 2, 674-79,

embellished
and, through the agency of
a murder
rendered more accessible
story already narrated by
printing,
Antonio
Billi in the later years of the fifteenth
century and relayed by
the An?nimo magliabecchiano
(ca. 1540). II libro di Antonio Billi (Le sue
(Florence,
copie nella Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze), ed. C. von Fabriczy
1891; reprint, Farnborough:
1969); and L'anonimo
Gregg International,
ed. A. Ficarra (Naples: Florentino,
1968), 106.
magliabecchiano,
in 1956, is reprinted
15. Meyer Schapiro's
in Theory
essay, first published
and Philosophy of Art: Style, Artist, and Society (New York: George Bra
ziller, 1994), see esp. 182-85.
16. See Vasari, Le vite, vol. 2, 677, for a close description
of Castagno's
now-lost Death of the Virgin at S. Maria Nuova. Female religious, both as
patron and as subject, also had an important place in this artist's ca
reer. In addition
to S. Apollonia,
Vasari, 672, reports that Castagno
a fresco of Saint
worked for the nuns at S. Giuliano. At SS. Annunziata,
Jerome having a vision of the Holy Trinity shows him flanked by fe
male clerical saints, Paola and her daughter Eustochium.
The artist's
for the no-longer-existing
(commissioned
altarpiece of the Assumption
church of S. Miniato
fra le Torri, now in the Gem?ldegalerie,
Berlin)
in clerical garb. See Marita Horster, Andrea del
the Virgin
presents
Castagno, 34ff., 181ff., 27, 177, pis. 7, 3.
17. See Catherine
Matrons,
King, "Medieval and Renaissance
Italian-Style,"
Zeitschrift f?r Kunstgeschichte 55, no. 3 (1992): 372-93; and Kate Lowe,
in Medicean
"Nuns and Choice: Artistic Decision-Making
in
Florence,"
With and Without theMedici, ed. Eckart Marchand
and Alison Wright
Art and Piety,
1998), 129-53. Anabel Thomas,
(Cambridge: Ashgate,
Bodies:
and Less
Insiders, Outsiders,
esp. chap. 20, "Commissioning
Familiar Asides," discusses variations
in respect to responsibility
for pa
contexts.
conventual
tronage in differing
THE NUNS
18. John R. Spencer, Andrea del Castagno and His Patrons (Durham, N.C.:
Duke University
Press, 1991), 106ff.; and Lowe. "Nuns and Choice,"
136.
19. Marita
und seine Werke der

Horster,
"Castagnos Fresken in Venedig
15 (1953): 103-34;
vierziger Jahre in Florenz," Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch
and Radke, "Nuns and Their Art."
in the S. Tarasio Chapel was commissioned

22. The main altarpiece
by the
Abbess Elena Foscari and Prioress Marina Donato
and executed
by An
tonio Vivarini, Giovanni
and Ludovico
da Forli. Inscrip
d'Alemagna,
tions on the two smaller side altarpieces
also clearly identify its nun
patrons.
23. Neri
di Bicci, Le ricordanze (1453-75),

ed. Bruno Santi (Pisa: Marlin,
1976), 393, no. 736 (June 8, 1472): "Richordo ch'el sopradetto d? i' ?
tolto a fare fare di legniame e dipigniere
dalla badessa e monache di
Santa Apollonia di Firenze una tavola. ..." (my emphasis).
24.
Ibid.: unella quale vogliono in mezzo dipinta Nostra Donna

chol Figliuolo
e Santo
in chollo e da-llato ritto Santo Benedetto
vestito biancho
e Santa Chate
Lodovicho
veschovo, da man sinistra Santa Apollonia
rina...
." (my emphasis). Neri's formulation
regarding a Coronation
of the Virgin for the convent
is further revealing
in this regard. Ibid.,
414, no. 771 (July 17, 1473), where the artist records having turned
over to the nuns at S. Apollonia the
for their
completed
altarpiece
church: "Richordo ch'el sopradetto di rendei finita di tuto alle monache di
Santa Appollonia una tavola d'altare per la loro chiesa. ..." (my empha
sis). This panel has been identified with Neri's Coronation in the Galle
at S.
r?a dell'Accademia,
is currently being displayed
Florence, which
Apollonia
along with his Sacra Conversazione.
25. A wall of the trecento church has frescoes by Cenni di Francesco with
individual scenes from Saint Apollonia's
life. See Giuseppina
Bacarelli
e una leggenda
Novit?
in?
Locoratolo,
"Sant'Apollonia:
iconografiche
dita," Paragone 33, nos. 383-85
1982): 101-7. Saint
(January-March
Apollonia,
along with Saints Lucy, John the Baptist, and Jerome,
flanked a now-lost central section of the main altarpiece
for the con
vent's remodeled
life
church, as events from Apollonia's
Cinquecento
and legend detail the surviving predellas painted by Francesco Gra
nacci in 1516-17. Christian Von Hoist, Francesco Granacci (Munich: Ver
She is also represented
in one
1974), figs. 97-107.
lag F. Bruckmann,
of the pendentives
of the cupola, frescoed by Bernardino
Pocetti
of the Virgin. At the front of the
shortly after 1600 with a Coronation
tribune was an altarpiece by Agosto Veracini with Saint Apollonia
in
below.
glory in the upper register and a scene with Saint Benedict
Paolo Pierleoni, Denti e santi, il mito di Apollonia
(Milan: Stampa Galli
1991), 13-21.
Thierry,
26. Regula del Sanctissimo Benedetto Patre nostro: Tradutta in quelle parte che con
vengono a noi monache (Venice, 1529), New York Public Library, Spencer
an apparent wing of an altar
Collection.
For Filippino Lippi's painting,
"ANew Monumental
piece, dated ca. 1483, see Millard Meiss,
Painting
attrib
by Filippino Lippi," Art Bulletin 55 (1973): 479-93. A painting
uted to Vitale da Bologna
the
Saints
in the
(George Kaftal, Iconography of
1978], 87, no. 26a, fig.
Painting ofNorth East Italy [Florence: Sansoni,
in the garb of a Benedictine
114) shows the single figure of Apollonia
nun. The other female saint sometimes
shown with Benedict
is, of
course, his sister, Scholastica.
"Per l'architettura
27. See especially Bacarelli,
florentina," who includes
contracts dating to March
of agreements made between Ce
1441/42
cilia Donati and two bricklayers for work to be undertaken
on the large
cloister of the convent, visible on the plan of the convent
(Fig. 14) and
still to be viewed from the original
on the inte
lower-story fenestration
rior long wall of the refectory.
S. APOLLONIA
AND
CASTAGNO'S
LAST
SUPPER
263
"Altre note"; Spencer,

28. Fortuna,
Castagno and His Patrons, 106; and
Frederick Hartt and Gino Corti, "Andrea del Castagno: Three Disputed
di Piero di Giovanni
Dates," Art Bulletin 48 (1966): 228-33. Apollonia
Firenze's name as abbess at S. Apollonia
has been found in documents
in February
starting
29.
20. See Giuseppe

Richa, Notizie istoriche d?lie chiese florentine, pt. 4 (Florence:
Pietro Gaetano Viviani,
1759), esp. 300ff., Lezioni 25, 309-10, Lezioni
"Altre note su Andrea del Castagno," LArte,
26; Alberto M. Fortuna,
n.s., 26, year 60, no. 3 (July-September
1961): 165-76; Giuseppina
"Per l'architettura florentina
del quattrocento:
Il chiostro di
Bacarelli,
Rivista d'Arte57, 4th ser., 1 (1984): 133-63; and Spen
Sant'Apollonia,"
IV placed S. Apollo
cer, Castagno and His Patrons, 102ff. Pope Eugene
nia directly under papal jurisdiction,
the convent by order
expanded
of smaller neighboring
such as S. Paolo
institutions,
ing the absorption
in Pinti and S. Maria a Mantignano,
the convent
and, by releasing
from certain debts and taxes and allowing for the sale of some of its
saw it increase its revenues.
properties,
"Per l'architettura florentina."
For the situation at S. Zac
21. Bacarelli,
see especially Radke, "Nuns and Their Art"; see also
charia in Venice,
Nuns as Patrons of
Mary-Ann Winkelmes,
"Taking Part: Benedictine
Art and Architecture,"
in Picturing Women in Renaissance and Baroque
and Sara F. Matthews Grieco
(Cam
Italy, ed. G?raldine A. Johnson
discus
Press, 1997), 91-110. Winkelmes's
bridge: Cambridge
University
sion of the sixteenth-century
decorations
for the Milanese
Benedictine
convent of S. Maurizio,
in another
section of the same article, is also
in its evaluation
of apparently unmediated
decisions made
important
by its nuns as patrons.
AT
6, 1446.
See the introductory

remarks by Caroline A. Bruzelius
and Constance
to special issue of Gesta 31, no. 2 (1992), and Bruzelius,
H. Berman
ca. 1213-1340,"
Clarissan Architecture,
83-91.
"Hearing Is Believing:
Here
is discussed
the evolution
of the nuns' choir, which was at first
situated in a manner
that afforded no direct line of sight to the altar.
to the growing
in response
of Eucharistie
devo
Eventually,
importance
the altar with grated openings
the nuns
tion, a place behind
permitted
to view the altar at the moment
of the elevation of the Host.
In dia
"Nuns and Altarpieces,"
and Jeffrey F. Hamburger,
logue with Gardner,
in the Guise of
and the Curia Monialium:
"Art, Enclosure
Prolegomena
a Postscript," Gesta 31, no. 2 (1992): 108-34, both of whom
emphasize
on nuns' access to the art in their convents, Radke,
the restrictions
more
"Nuns and Their Art," posits
nuanced
of "framed
possibilities
and controlled"
rather than prohibited
viewing for the nuns, a more
flexible
situation also sensitively characterized
by Winkelmes,
"Taking
of the convent of S. Maurizio
in Milan.
Part," in her discussion
30. That we do not find written evidence of the exact seating arrangement
in surviving documents
and habitual
probably reflects how accepted
such an arrangement
not in need of recording. How
was, something
are instructive in this
ever, certain depictions
regard, for example,
Pietro Lorenzetti's
panel from the polyptych of S. Umilt?, now in the
Galler?a degli Uffizi, Florence
(Carlo Volpe, Pietro Lorenzetti, ed. Mauro
Lucco
[Milan: Electa,
1989], 179, cat. nos. 141-64, fig. 144). This
panel shows nuns seated at a table running along one side of the room
as well as the front end wall, a second
long wall being hidden from our
view. A horseshoelike
format is indicated
in certain relevant Florentine
now in the Louvre, Saint
(such as a predella by Fra Ang?lico,
examples
Dominic Served by theAngels, in Gilbert,
"Last Suppers," fig. 4). The com
scene and Giovanni Antonio
this predella
positional
similarity between
treatment of the same subject in a refectory
Sogliani's
sixteenth-century
at the monastery
of S. Marco
suggests that a fresco by Fra Ang?lico
to Sogliani's depiction
may well have been precursor
(Gilbert, "Last
is visible in sev
Suppers," 381ff., fig. 3). Such a format for the table(s)
eral Last Supper scenes, such as Cosimo Rosselli's
at S. Giorgio
alia
at S. Onofrio
Costa and Perugino's
di Foligno
(Vertova, / Cenacoli, fig.
"Plautilla Nelli's Last
22, pi. 23). See comments
by Ann M. Roberts,
of Dominican
in Plau
Supper and the Tradition
Refectory Decorations,"
tilla Nelli (1523-1588):
The First Woman Painter ofFlorence, ed. Jonathan
Nelson
(Fiesole: Cadmo,
2000), 44-55.
31. Regula
del Sanctissimo Benedetto, fol. 35v
32. Meditations
(Princeton:
(38v).
on the Life of Christ, ed. Isa Ragusa and Rosalie

Princeton University
Press, 1961), 309-17.
B. Green
33. Regula del Sanctissimo Benedetto, chap, xli, fol. 22v: "A che hora sia con
veniente
che le sorelle mangino,"
where
it is advised that the evening
so that lamplight will never be needed;
meal should be scheduled
this
passage ends (fol. 23r), "Ma & da ogni tempo de lanno lhora della
cena & della refectione
sia in tal modo
che con la luce ogni
temperata,
cosa facia finita."
34.
Ibid., fol. 23v: "bevono

con due mane
quando
chieri di vetro. . . ."
in refectorio
beveno: ma
nelle coppe di terra, tenendole

in altri luoghi possino usare bic
35. Plan of convent dated 1741, ASF, Convenu

82, m.207, cl.
Soppressi,
One can still see the imprint of the original door frame on the refecto
room (origi
ry's outside wall from what is now an enclosed
contiguous
nally the small "Cortile del Silenzio"). This and other details were re
vealed to me in a memorable
of the entire complex of S.
walk-through
several years ago in the expert company of Brenda Preyer.
Apollonia
that valuable orientation,
I now owe her a tre
Having
acknowledged
mendous
debt of gratitude
on
for last-minute Florentine
interventions
and in clearing the bureau
my behalf to secure missing photographs
cratic paths necessary
for their publication.
36. Arte e Storia
1891): 54ff.
in
windows
mento, exh.
9, no. 30 (November
30, 1890): 231; 10, no. 7 (March 31,
The 1891 notice also mentions
the closing up of the two
the upper zone. Mostra di quattro maestri del Primo Rinasci
cat., Palazzo Strozzi, Florence
(Florence: Tipograf?a Giun
tina, 1954), 141ff., cat. no. 59, refers to the 1953 restoration by L.
Tintori
in which
the sinopia drawings of the upper scenes were first
to light. I want to thank
for generously
brought
Giorgio Bonsanti
join
on one occasion,
ing me at S. Apollonia
during the summer of 1996,
to review at firsthand aspects of the present condition
of this entire
wall of frescoes.
37.
Theferusalem
27:55-56.
38. Caroline
Bible
Walker
(Garden
Bynum,
City, N.Y.: Doubleday,
1966),
62; Matthew
Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious
Signifi
ART BULLETIN
264
canee of Food
1987).
39.
Ibid., 80, 88.
40.
Ibid.,
41.
JUNE
toMedieval
2006 VOLUME
Women
LXXXVIII
(Berkeley: University
NUMBER
of California
126, 125.
Ibid., 59, 116, 124.
see Vertova,
the example by Perugino,
/ Cenacoli, pis. xxm-xxv.
at the Convent of
"The Franciscan Tertiaries
Dominique
Rigaux,
at Foligno," Gesta 31, no. 2 (1992): 92-98.
Sant'Anna
43. Cronache delMonastero
(Bibl. Naz.), Flor
(M?rate), Biblioteca Nazionale
of Vasari's Last Supper 2&
ence, II, II, 509, 139v, 176. For discussion
see Lowe, Nuns' Chronicles.
mentioned
in this chronicle,
42.
to this privilege
1439. Reference
is also found in Regula del Sanctissimo
there is good reason "se
Benedetto, fol. 21v, every Sunday or whenever
condo la licentia data alii monachi
da papa Eugenio
quarto."
Press,
For
54. The most elaborate

is in Jean Fouquet's manuscript,
representation
done within a decade of Castagno's
S. Apollonia
frescoes, for Etienne
Chevalier
ill. in Fran?ois Avril, ed., fean Fou
(Mus?e Cond?, Chantilly),
Nationale
de
quet: Peintre et enlumineur du XVe si?cle (Paris: Biblioth?que
actu
rendition
France/Hazan,
2003), 214, no. 24.46. This sophisticated
scene
of the event. The culminating
ally treats a theatrical presentation
from the life of Saint Apollonia
and its illustration
is also a recurring
as in a 1492
Sacre Rappresentazioni,
subject in early printed Florentine
version in the Bibl. Naz., Florence
(BR 189 S 614d). See also Nerida
and Other Martyred Virgins: Did Floren
Newbigin,
"Agata, Apollonia,
tines Really See These Plays Performed?"
in European Medieval Drama,
ed. Sydney Higgens
(Camerino: Universit?
degli Studi di Camerino,
1997), 175-97. It appears on one of the predella panels by Francesco
now in the Accademia
in Florence,
for the main altarpiece
of
Granacci,
an ex
the church at S. Apollonia
(see also n. 25 above). Accordingly,
tracted tooth held by Saint Apollonia
within a pair of tongs became
as we see in Neri di Bicci's altar
in visual representations,
her attribute
to the Benedictine
rules
piece for the convent and in the frontispiece
for women,
both mentioned
above (Figs. 5-7). Apollonia
is also some
times shown in disputation
with the doctors of the church, as in an
44. Vasari, Le vite, vol. 5, 79; this occurs while reviewing the works of sev
artists within
eral women
the chapter on Properzia de' Rossi, 73-81.
on Nelli
in Nelson,
See the papers from the symposium
Plautilla Nelli,
to Jonathan Nelson
for including me in
127-32, pis. 3-8. I am grateful
a small group, several years ago, for which he arranged access to see
canvas. Nelli's Last Supper now hangs in the modern
this enormous
friars at S. Maria
(not the original)
refectory used by the Dominican
Novella.
coat of arms appears on the fresco, the wife of Filippo
45. As the Manfredi
for the
Manfredi, Monna Vaggia, who died in 1345, has been suggested
not accepted,
identification
of this figure, something
however, by An
drew Laddis, Taddeo Gaddi (Columbia: University
of Missouri
Press,
1982), 172-73.
46. Caroline Walker Bynum,"Women
in
Mystics and Eucharistie Devotion
the Thirteenth
Century," Women's Studies 2 (1984): 179-214.
at the present refec
in the small anteroom
47. This work is now exhibited
in Museo
Storico To
tory entrance. A plan of the convent, formerly
now in ASCF, amfce 0394 (cass. 11, ins.
"Firenze Com'era,"
pogr?fico
contains written annotations
D), with an attributed date of 1808-10,
on the lower right that refer to this painting
still in situ, "In una p?rete
un
nella terrazza del primo piano vi esiste un fresco rappresentante
Cristo in Croce, opera di Paolo di Stefano fatta nell' anno 1442." Anna
Padoa Rizzo, "Aggiunte a Paolo Schiavo," Antichit? Viva 14, no. 6
is "signed and dated by Paolo Schiavo
(1975): 3-8, says this picture
1448." But, as noted by Luciano Berti, "Appunto su Andrea del
a San Zacear?a," Acropoli 3, no. 4 (1963): 261-92,
the chrono
Castagno
the left side, that of
logical evidence of two papal coats of arms?at
the painting must have
Eugene TV, at the right, Nicholas V?means
IV on February 23, 1447.
been begun before
the death date of Eugene
at the bottom of the
In fact, the date inscribed
in Roman numerals
appears to include four Xs before fading out at the end:
painting
1449 the latest possible
which would make
D.M.CCCC.XXXX[-],
of this work.
year of completion
48. Eve Borsook,"Cults
and Imagery at Sant'Ambrogio
in Florence," Mittei
Instituts in Florenz 24, no. 2 (1981): 147-202.
lungen des Kunsthistorischen
Documents
cited by Borsook make evident the close association
be
even in regard to practical artistic
tween S. Ambrogio
and S. Apollonia
matters
and exchanges.
See also Laura De Angelis,
"Un libro antico
della Sagrestia di Sant'Ambrogio,"
Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore
di Pisa, 3rd ser., 4, no. 1 (1976): 97-102. Blue pigment was sent from
to S. Apollonia
to be employed
Venice
by Filippo Lippi in his Corona
tion of the Virgin, the main altarpiece
for S. Ambrogio.
This painting,
on January 21,
now in the Uffizi, was, in fact, taken to S. Apollonia
it was brought
touches by Lippi, before
for finishing
1446, presumably
in January 1447?thus,
in the very
back to S. Ambrogio
seemingly,
years Castagno was at work on his frescoes at S. Apollonia.
49. On the technical
level, some of the objects on the table were treated a
secco. These passages have flaked off and thinned out over time, which
to making
the details of the table setting less than clearly
contributes
legible. Placed toward the back of the tabletop are several plates, hold
it is this de
of small, rock-shaped
objects. Presumably,
ing low mounds
tail that Hartt, Italian Renaissance Art (4th ed., 1994), 271, refers to
on the table.
salt as one of the items appearing
when he mentions
and Holy Feast, 93, 134, 165ff.
da Capua, 5. Caterina da Siena: Legenda maior, trans. P.
(Siena: Edizioni Cantagalli,
1994), 188, no. 170, 322,
Tinagli
Giuseppe
sanno con me quanto fosse
no. 312: "Tutti quelli che la conobbero,
verso il santissimo Corpo del Si
grande e sp?ciale la sua devozione
tanto che, per riceverlo
la voce che
spesso, corse fra il pop?lo
gnore,
al
Caterina
si comunicasse
ogni giorno, e con questo senza prendere
tro cibo, vivesse mantenendosi
in perfetta
salute." The original Latin of
was soon translated
into the vernacular,
and
this life of Saint Catherine
version became one of the first printed books to
this Italian-language
in
sisters of S. Jacopo di Ripoli
be issued in 1477 by the Dominican
Florence.
50. Bynum,
51. Beato
"Women Mystics,"
Raimondo
52. Regula del Sanctissimo Benedetto, chap, xxxix, fol. 22r: "Delia misura
cibi," fol. 22v: "Della misura del bevere," fols. 23, 23v.
53. ASF, Diplom?tico
lunghe
Sant'Appollonia
di Firenze,
October
18,
de
other of the predella narratives by Francesco Granacci.

Public speaking
for a female subject was exceptional. When
it was, at times, exemplified
of Siena.
by a female saint, it would most
typically be by Catherine
Given the bodily site of Apollonia's
and teeth,
torture, at the mouth
to a veritable miracle.
this capacity in her case amounts
55.
I am thinking here of the terminologies

of style used by Renaissance
writers such as Alberti and Cristoforo
Landino
(Disegnatore, Amatare delle
in Michael
Baxandall,
diff culta, Scorci, and so on) as discussed
Painting
and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford Univer
"Pictures
139-46.
and
esp.
sity Press, 1988), pt. 3,
Categories,"
"La tipologia
'virile' nella biograf?a e nella lettera
Atti del Congresso Internazionale di Studi Cateriniani,
Siena/Rome, April, 1980 (Rome: Curia Generalizia,
1981), 198-222.
n. 68.
57. Bynum, Holy Feast, 318-19
56. Umberto Mattioli,
tura cateriniana,"
58. Marina Warner, Monuments

and Maidens: The Allegory of theFemale Form
and Nicolson,
1985), 163ff.; and Yael Even,
(London: Weidenfeld
of the Female Hero,"
"Mantegna's Uffizi Judith: The Masculinization
nos. 1-2 (1992): 8-20.
Konsthistorisk Tidskrift61,
59. Creighton
"On Castagno's Nine Famous Men and Women:
Gilbert,
Sword and Book as the Basis for Public Service," in Life and Death in
Fifteenth-Century Florence, ed. Marcel Tetel, Ronald G. Witt, and Rona
Goffen
Press, 1989), 174-92. Here
(Durham, N.C.: Duke University
the interesting point that Castagno
is exceptional
Gilbert makes
among
as exemplary
in portraying women
civic models.
his contemporaries
see
and Maidens,
For Mariological
Warner, Monuments
164ff.;
meaning,
in the Renaissance
and especially Elena Ciletti, "Patriarchal Ideology
of Judith," in Refiguring Woman: Perspectives on Gender and
Iconography
the Italian Renaissance, ed. Marilyn Migiel
and Juliana Schiesari
(Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell University
Press, 1991), 35-70.
in the lower
central female at table, whose martyrdom
is depicted
as the
register of the distaff Last Supper (Fig. 20), has been identified
Saint in Tus
saint Irene by Brendan Cassidy, "A Byzantine
Byzantine
for the Solution of a Trecento
cany: A Proposal
Enigma," Arte Cristiana
the panel is attributed
83, no. 769 (July-August
1995): 243-56, where
to an anonymous
Pistoian painter,
interest for
1325-30. Not without
our purposes was the purchase
of this picture at auction by the pop
star Madonna
(Sotheby's, Important Old Master Paintings, New York, Jan
see
uary 17, 1992, lot 16, as "Master of 1310"). For the Louvre picture,
1400-1500
Grete Ring, A Century of French Painting
(London: Phaidon,
1949), 218, no. 158, pi. 97; and Charles Sterling and H?l?ne Adh?mar,
Mus?e National du Louvre: Peintures ?colefran?aise XTV, XV etXVI si?cles
is
des Mus?es Nationaux,
(Paris: ?ditions
1965), 16, no. 40. There
that the coats of arms and date of 1462 inscribed above
agreement
were later additions
to the picture, which was commissioned
by Jean du
in 1438.
of Puy Notre-Dame
Bos, master of the confraternity
d'Amiens,
The most recent labeling of the Sacerdoce de la Vierge, acquired by the
Louvre in 1938, refers to the "Ma?tre des Heures Collins." The cruci
as being in the
fied female saint is part of a triptych that is recorded
of the Doge's Palace already in Antonio Maria Zanetti, Della
collection
a jubilee exhibi
pittura veneziana (Venice, 1771). In the 1958 catalog of
tion at the Rijksmuseum
(150 faar Rijksmuseum: Middeleeuwse Kunst der
1958, no. 73, pi. 39), the work was
Noordelijke Nederlanden, Amsterdam,
identified as Triptych with Martyrdom of Saint fulia. For an overview of
to Bosch and con
the issues regarding
the attribution
of this painting
the identification
of the crucified female figure, also thought
cerning
see Roger H. Marijnissen,
to represent Saint Wilgeforte,
Hieronymus
Bosch: The Complete Works (Antwerp: Mercatorfonds,
1987), 260-69.
60. The
61. The
early fifteenth
century was, of course, witness
to the living example
THE NUNS
in masculine
of a heroine
guise in the person of Joan of Arc. Apart
from male dress, cutting off the hair is a frequent feature in accounts
of the transvestism of female saints. From a considerable
literature
"Female Saints in Mascu
dealing with this subject see Marie Delcourt,
in Hermaphrodite
line Clothing,"
(London: Studio Books, 1961), 84-102;
"Female Transvestite
in Early Monasticism,"
Viator 5
John Anson,
in Pagan
(1974): 1-32; and Mary Ann Rossi, "The Passion of Perpetua,"
and Christian Anxiety, ed. Robert C. Smith and John Lounibos
(Lan
Press of America,
ham, Md.: University
1984).
ou Ontcommer,"
Le
"La l?gende de sainte Wilgeforte
62. Jean Gessler,
Les
and Hyppolyte
Folklore Braban?on 15 (1936): 307-401;
Delahaye,
(Brussels: Soci?t? des Bollandistes,
1927), 44,
l?gendes hagiographiques
of Paris about
103ff., 195, 198. In the artistic and intellectual milieu
Nadar and the novelist-critic
1900, the portrait photographer
J. K.
took a particular
interest in the phenomenon
of bearded
Huysmans
women
as with a statue of the cruci
saints and their representations,
to this more
fied Saint Wilgeforte
found in Beauvais. For references
see Sylvie Aubenas,
modern
cultural context,
"Beyond the Portrait, be
yond the Artist,"
Philippe N?agu,
1995, 95-106.
in Nadar, by Maria Hambourg,

exh. cat., Metropolitan
Museum
Fran?oise Heilbrun,
of Art, New York,
and Its Effects on

63. Jane Tibbetts
"Strict Active Enclosure
Schulenburg,
inMedieval Religious Women, ed. John
the Female Monastic
Experience,"
A. Nichols
and Lillian Thomas
Shank, vol. 1, Distant Echoes (Kalamazoo,
Mich.: Cistercian
Publications,
1984), 51-86; and idem, "The Heroics
in Women in
of Virginity?Brides
of Christ and Sacrificial Mutilation,"
theMiddle Ages and theRenaissance, ed. Mary Beth Rose
(Syracuse: Syra
cuse University
Press, 1986), 29-72.
64. Regula
uscire
del Sanctissimo Benedetto, fol. 33r: "Le Monache

la clausura del monas tero."
non possono
65. ASF, Diplom?tico

di Firenze, June 20, 1435.
lunghe, Sant'Appollonia
see Gene Adam Brucker,
For Florentine
surveillance
of convents,
in
in Quattrocento
"Monasteries, Friaries, and Nunneries
Florence,"
and John Hender
Christianity and theRenaissance, ed. Timothy Verd?n
son (Syracuse: Syracuse University
Press, 1990), 41-62.
treatment of Judas within
the context of
66. For an illuminating
general
see Birgitte Monstadt, Judas beim Abendmahl
Last Supper representations,
1995), 166-78 for Castagno's
(Munich: Scaneg Verlag,
example.
"doorless chamber" as "sealed
67. Leo Steinberg
aptly describes Castagno's
an "encapsulation
of human fig
off," its "company as if enshrined,"
footnote
ures," in an extended
(n. 11) in "Leonardo's Last Supper,"
Art Quarterly 36 (Winter 1973): 297-410.
But rather than seeing in
of some contextually
relevant
these features a metaphoric
expression
such as clausura, he discusses
them in terms of a not yet
condition,
of the scene, something
that, in Steinberg's
fully developed
handling
in effect, improve oil
and other later artists would,
view, Ghirlandaio
and correct by providing
evidence of a place of entry and exit
plausible
for their figures.
68. A conspicuous
later example of this placement
of Judas at left of cen
ter, his profiled head facing to the right, is in Plautilla Nelli's
large
for her convent of S. Caterina da Siena at Piazza S. Marco
painting
one cannot help but wonder
if, as
(see also n. 44 above). Accordingly,
a woman
not Benedictine,
she
(albeit of a Dominican,
order),
religious
refec
might at some point have had access to the nearby S. Apollonia
tory.
69.
in refettorio mangi
Cronache delMonastero
(M?rate), fol. 47r: "laMattina
in terra solo pane et vino," fol. 47v: "et chi non fussi con l'altre alia
la sua parte in terra." The general for
beneditione
della mensa, mangi
in refettorio"
is repeated on fols. 47v, 48r. Re
mula "facci la disciplina
gula del Sanctissimo Benedetto, fol. 5r: "e degiuna una volta in pane e
in terra in refectorio.
..." 7r: "Ma chi contrafara
aqua, mangiando
cose degiuni
in pane e aqua in terra in refectorio
nelle preditte
totiens
quotiens."
70. Regula del Sanctissimo Benedetto, fol. 34 (37): "digiuni una volta in pane
con la correg?a al eolio."
in terra in refectorio
& aqua, mangiandolo
dica quivi in
Cronache delMonastero
(M?rate), fol. 47v: "et transgredendo
neces
penitentia
cinque Pater bocconi in terra," or "chi senza occasione
il silentio dica una volta il salmo Miserere Mei Deus
saria vi romper?
esca di refettorio"
prostrata in terra bocconi, prima che il convento
(my
for reviewing with me the termi
emphasis). My thanks to Elissa Weaver
nology as well as the customs in these cases and for steering me, all
as here: Francesca
references,
along, toward significant bibliographical
in Donna disciplina
Bianchini,
"Regola del vivere, regola del convivere,"
creanza cristiana dal XV al XVII sec?lo, ed. Gabriella
Zarri (Rome: Edi
zioni di Storia e Letteratura,
1996), 189-204.
The Golden Legend, trans, and ed. Granger Ryan
71. Jacobus de Vor?gine,
and Helmut
(New York: Arno Press, 1969), 452. I first articu
Ripperger
in one of three public lectures as Ruth and
lated these observations
at Smith College
in spring 1995.
Clarence Kennedy Visiting Professor
Birgitte Monstadt, Judas beim Abendmahl, 178, also importantly notes
John's
dolph
AT S. APOLLONIA
placement
of Saxony
AND
CASTAGNO'S
LAST SUPPER
the meditational
here, emphasizing
writings
in connection
with John's state of virginity.
265
of Lu
recent study of the phenomenon

of the virginity of
enlightening
and the theme of his kinship with Mary is Jeffrey F.
John the Evangelist
"Brother, Bride and Alter Christus: The Virginal Body of
Hamburger,
in Medieval Art, Theology
and Literature,"
in Text
John the Evangelist
und Kultur Mittelalterliche Literatur 1150-1450,
ed. Ursula Peters (Stutt
2001), 296-327.
gart: J. B. Metzler,
72. An
73. Not
treated these
only paintings but also the Sacre Rappresentazioni
see Nerida Newbigin,
"Cene and Cenacoli in the As
themes, for which,
cension and Pentecost
of Fifteenth-Century
in
Florence,"
Companies
(Kalamazoo, Mich.: Me
Crossing the Boundaries, ed. Konrad Eisenbichler
dieval Institute Publications,
such as Jean
1991), 90-107.
Theologians,
Gerson,
apparently
grappled with the thought of Mary's participation
in the Last Supper
itself. See Margaret R. Miles,
"The Virgin's One
Bare Breast," in The Expanding Discourse, ed. Norma Broude and Mary
D. Garrard
(New York: Harper Collins,
1992), 26-37; and Hilda Graef,
Mary: A History ofDoctrine and Devotion, vol. 1 (London: Christian Clas
Dan
and Sheed and Ward,
sics, Westminster
1963), 313ff. Whether
Brown's positing of an actual female figure
identified as
(although
for the John the Evangelist of Leonardo's
Last Supper
The Da Vinci Code is done with any awareness of the
associative
tradition of John the Evangelist with virgin
long-standing
of this
youth and Mary is an open question. The author's presentation
as a heretical
feature,
long suppressed by the official church, suggests
an answer in the negative.
Mary Magdalene)
in the bestseller
Annunciation
74. For Garofalo's
Parma, inv. no.
(Pinacoteca Nazionale,
372), see Anna Maria Fioravanti Baraldi, 77 Garofalo (Rimini: Luise Edi
tore, 1993), 224, fig. 154. The intarsia Annunciation was kindly brought
see P. Venturino
to my attention by Claire Renkin,
for which,
Alee, II
cow intarsiato di San Domenico in Bologna (Bologna: PDUL Edizioni
Stu
dio Domenicano,
relief by Agostino
2002), 121, pi. 40. A small marble
di Duccio, Metropolitan
Museum
of Art, New York, also shows a sphinx
at the side of the seat of a clerically garbed female figure, formerly
thought to represent Mary. This appears most recently in Keith Chris
tiansen, ed., From Filippo Lippi toPiero della Francesca: Fra Carnevale and
theMaking
Press,
(New Haven: Yale University
of a Renaissance Master
2005), 238, no. 39. The female figure joins right hands with a youthful
Christ who holds up a scroll with his left hand. James Draper's
catalog
of this subject as Saint
entry informs us of the newer identification
the rules of the order, but adds, "The
Bridget of Sweden receiving
feet endows her low throne with the authority of
sphinx at Bridget's
the Virgin Mary's Sedes Sapientiae." For general discussion
of the motif
of the sphinx, see Andr? Chastel,
"Note sur le sphinx ? la Renais
also on the so-called Ma
sance," Archivio di Filosofa 5 (1958): 179-83;
see John Shearman, Andrea del Sarto, vol. 1 (Ox
donna of theHarpies,
ford: Clarendon
Press, 1965), 48ff.; and Heinz Demisch, Die Sphinx:
Geschichte ihrerDarstellung von den Anf?ngen bis zur Gegenwart (Stuttgart:
Urachhaus,
1977).
75. See n. 16 above.

76. Georges Didi-Huberman,
Fra Ang?lico: Dissemblance
of Chicago Press,
J. M. Todd
(Chicago: University
trans.
and Figuration,
1995), esp. 28-34.
in the Baptistery of San

77. See Debra Pincus, "The Stones of Venice
Marco: Eastern Marbles
inWestern Mosaics,"
in Architectural Studies in
Memory of Richard Krautheimer, ed. Cecil L. Striker (Mainz: Philipp von
Zabern,
1997), 137-41; and Paul Hills, Venetian Colour: Marble, Mosaic,
Press, 1999),
(New Haven: Yale University
Painting and Glass 1250-1550
and Mosaics,"
23-55.
esp. chap. 2, "San Marco: Marbles
78. Pincus, "Stones of Venice," provides an important
summary of the dif
ferent types of marble,
their geographic
derivations
and possible
signif
to the ever growing
orientation
literature
icance, as well as a welcome
on the subject. I am also
to
Irina
and
Alex
Oryshkevich
grateful
Nagel
for sharing aspects of their knowledge
about the long history of de
scriptive writings on stones and gems.
79. Relevant passages from the writings of Procopius
and Paulus Silentarius
are contained
in Cyril Mango,
The Art of the Byzantine Empire: Sources
and Documents
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall,
1972), 76, 85ff.
(Englewood
This is not the place to rehearse a comprehensive
but for
bibliography,
a few provocative
of the representation of marble,
considerations
both in
see Jurgis Baltrusaitis, Aber
and by way of written descriptions,
painting
rations (Paris: Olivier Perrin, 1957), esp. "Pierres imag?es," 47-72; John
in Late Antiquity," Art History 3,
"Abstraction and Imagination
Onians,
no. 1 (March 1980): 1-23; and Didi-Huberman,
Fra Ang?lico, 28-34 and
see also Fabio Barry, "Painting in Stone: The
throughout;
Symbolic
in the Arts of Antiquity
until the Age of
Identity of Colored Marbles
(a pr?cis of a major forthcoming
Enlightenment"
study, Center 23,
CASVA, National Gallery of Art, Washington,
D.C., 2003), 48-51.
80. Filarete's Treatise on Architecture, trans. John R. Spencer,
2 vols. (New Ha
ven: Yale University
Press, 1965), vol. 1, bk. 3, 31. This passage seems
on a similar case expounded
to depend
by Albertus Magnus, whose
266
ART BULLETIN
influential Mineralia
teenth century.
JUNE
2006 VOLUME
was written
shortly after
LXXXVIII
the middle
NUMBER
of the thir
trans. Guy
81. Ruy Gonz?lez
de Clavijo, Embassy to Tamerlane, 1403-1406,
Le Strange
and Sons, 1928), 75. I am
(London: George Routledge
at Fordham,
to acknowledge
for
Kimberly Bowes, my colleague
pleased
me with this text by Clavijo, for generously
bib
acquainting
providing
to other such ekphrases, especially from the Byz
references
liographical
re
antine context, and for the stimulation
of our ongoing
discussions
lating to this rich subject.
litt?raires et
82. Pierre Ab?lard, Pierre le Venerable: Les courants philosophiques,
artistiques en Occident au milieu du Xlle si?cle; Actes et memoirs du colloque
international (Paris: ?ditions
du Centre National
de la Recherche
Scien
tifique, 1975), 23-27, for this letter in Latin; 29-37 for an early transla
tion into French. For this metaphoric
enclo
parallel between monastic
see also Hartt, Italian Renaissance Art (4th ed.,
sure and entombment,
Carthusian monk
1994), 270, who brings up the fourteenth-century
of Saxony in this connection.
Ludolph
83.
See, for example, Luciano Berti, "Miniature dell'Angelico

(e Altro),"
esp. 305 n. 29, for a short survey of
Acropoli 2, no. 4 (1962): 277-308,
the early history of bearded
and beardless
of Christ.
representations
/ Cenacoli, 35-36; and Borsook, Mural Paint
Also discussed by Vertova,
ers of Tuscany, 87. Rather than in terms of a strict contrast between
bearded
and beardless Christs, Marilyn Lavin, The Place ofNarrative
of Chicago Press, 1990), 146ff., sees in Castagno's
(Chicago: University
a cycle of increasing rejuvenation,
counterclock
presentation
moving
wise from the bearded Christ in the Last Supper, through the Entomb
ment and Crucifixion above, and culminating
in the clean-shaven
Christ
of the Resurrection at the upper left side of the wall.
84. Two ground plans of the convent dating to 1824 (Museo di Firenze
Com'era, ASCF, Reali Fabbriche,
2097, inserto 10; see also n. 3 above)
on the Last Supper wall of the refectory
that do show a pair of windows
were drawn up on the occasion
of the reinstallation
of Benedictine
nuns at S. Apollonia
after the convent's
suppression
by the French gov
ernment
in 1808, when
the need arose to segregate a small place for
a confraternity
been meet
the Buca di S. Antonio,
that had meanwhile
the plans dating to 1741 (see n. 35
however,
ing there. Significantly,
above and Fig. 14) do not indicate any windows on that wall of the re
at this west/northwest-oriented
of exposure
fectory. The desirability
inhabitants or for
wall, either in terms of the comfort of the convent's
is at the very least open to question,
the visibility of the frescoes,
and,
one notices
on the Via S. Reparata,
from outside
the building,
that
n.
were
at
some
two
these
windows
36 above).
point walled up (see also
The fact that their place in the original program has gone mainly un
stems from their apparent function
in separating
doubted
three dis
tinct narrative events (Resurrection,

But
Crucifixion,
Entombment).
the treatment of certain motifs within
the fresco itself suggests a uni
fied field. For one thing, the undulating
horizon
line appears to be
a feature that would be reinforced
continuous,
by the way the flying
from one side of the wall to the other across the
angels are distributed
in fact, wind up
entire width of the sky. The existing arched windows,
two of those six angels atop voids or negative areas. Addition
stranding
the tombs in the Resurrection
squares that comprise
ally, the marble
zones
and Entombment,
rather than fitting neatly into their respective
on either side of the windows,
are actually interrupted
at the window
of the
level, certain photographs
edge (where, on an archaeological
section, as if the wall had
sinopias reveal a highly uneven,
damaged
been broken roughly). Seemingly
of
unconcerned
with the presence
these windows
and dealing
rather with the chronology
of the frescoes,
in Hartt and Corti, "Castagno: Three Disputed
Frederick Hartt,
Dates,"
nevertheless
sheds light on what the intended
rationale and effect of
the scene as a whole might have been: "a continuous
narration before
.. .": in other words, a mode
a vast, open landscape.
of presentation
related to Masaccio's
in the Tribute Money in S. Maria del Carmine,
where successive moments
of the story coexist within one coherent
space.
terms about the pure
"Taking Part," speaks in parallel
in murals decorating
the chapels that radiate from the
landscapes
nuns' passageway
along the outside of the choir at the Benedictine
convent of S. Maurizio
in Milan. Her interpretation
has merit
in its
to the conventual
technical
context, even if subsequent
responsiveness
later date for
analysis of these landscape murals has suggested a much
their completion.
See Sandrina Bandera
and Maria Teresa Fiorio, eds.,
a Milano: Gli
Bernardino Luini e la pittura del Rinascimento
affreschi di San
Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore
(Geneva: Skira, 2000), 115-16.
85. Winkelmes,
86. Reiner Haussherr,

Zum Prob
"?ber die Christus-Johannes-Gruppen:
lem 'Andachtsbilder'
und deutsche Mystik,"
in Beitr?ge zur Kunst des
Mittelalters: Festschrift f?r Hans Wentzel, ed. R. Becksmann,
U. D. Korn,
and J. Zahlten
and
(Berlin: Gebr?der Mann Verlag,
1975), 79-103;
in Mystik am
Ewald M. Vetter,
"Das Christus-Johannes-Bild
der Mystic,"
im Breisgau
Oberrhein, exh. cat., Augustinermuseum,
Freiburg
Karl Schillinger,
1978), 37-50, nos. 1, 2.
(Freiburg: Druckerei
87. Regula del Sanctissimo Benedetto, fol. 9r, speaks of demonstrating
humility
through the body itself, in whatever place in the convent and in what
ever attitude: "sedendo, andando,
stando, stia sempre con el capo incli
de suoi
nato, con li occhi defixi in terra, estimandosi
sempre culpevole
In the Cronache del Monastero
(M?rate), fol. 47v: "Chi non terra
peccati."
li occhi fissi in su lamensa
..."
rizzisi in pi?, et dica un Ave Maria.

A Renaissance Audience Considered: The Nuns at S. Apollonia and Castagno&#39;s &quot;Last Supper&quot;

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A Renaissance Audience Considered: The Nuns at S. Apollonia and Castagno&#39;s &quot;Last Supper&quot;

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A Renaissance Audience Considered: The Nuns at S.

Apollonia and Castagno's "Last Supper"

to explain why, until relatively recently,

on the subject of the S. Apollonia

for the perennially

facilities of the University

If they did not actually see it firsthand,

1350 with Taddeo Gaddi's fresco at S. Croce (Fig. 1). There,

she further delved

for the end walls

tive, intriguingly puts it this way in her book / Cenacoli fioren

.6 In this line of thinking,

of the illusion of a projected

type of Last Supper. The

for Christ and the Apos

del Sarto, S. Salvi, 1511-27)

stays in the mind

in such a global gallery of art. But what most

after his Last Supper at S. Apollonia

opened to the public in 1891 and after it officially became a

(to use Eve Borsook's

izontal field at the bottom frame, forming, in effect, a giant

of the city became

the fresco is hardly off the beaten

gno's Last Supper, although

of female religious orders of the late medieval

light on the choice of artists employed

1 Taddeo Gaddi, Last Supper with Tree

in the 1970s right up to

in the later part of the nine

Famosi" cycle of the Carducci family villa at Legnaia

of the feminist movement

the theme of the Last Supper, that proto

and biblical heroines, Queens Tomyris and Esther

of rules of the Benedictine

in Filippino Lippi's sizable panel of

at the time with Benedictine

and layout in light of the nuns' reported

and Child and two pairs of flanking saints: Benedict

the time of its architectural

extant dated work (inscribed 1442), likewise for an observant

for S. Maria Nuova

per i Beni Artistici e Storici, Gabinetto

of the Life of the Virgin

provided by the Soprintendenza

the subsequent abbess, Apollonia

of Villa Carducci, Legnaia. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

the daughters of some of the most prominent

in light of the growing

the church itself and

of silence when, with mealtimes

cut off or permit only a partial view of

of Villa Carducci, Legnaia. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

(Fig. 9); Matthew's

the one gray-white,

over, is beardless with cropped

both have long hair and full long beards,

Such details must have become part of an ongoing dialogue

(Fig. 1). At S. Apollonia,

edges of its architectural chamber.

Christ at the time of his death, ministering

his divinity, news that was received by Christ's male disciples

Ifwe begin with the upper

the Last Supper

A Renaissance Audience Considered: The Nuns at S. Apollonia and Castagno's "Last Supper"

A Renaissance Audience Considered: The Nuns at S. Apollonia and Castagno's "Last Supper"