- 112
Giovanni di Marco, called Giovanni dal Ponte
Description
- Giovanni di Marco, called Giovanni dal Ponte
- God the Father sending forth the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, surrounded by four seraphim
- tempera on panel, gold ground, a pinnacle with 19th century gilt additions
Provenance
Condition
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Catalogue Note
In his 1878 edition of Vasari’s Vite, Gaetano Milanesi noted one Giovanni di Marco recorded as “Giovanni dal Ponte”, due to the proximity of his workshop to the church of Santo Stefano al Ponte beside the Ponte Vecchio in Florence.2 This identification, bolstered by numerous documents in Florentine archives, allowed the preliminary reconstruction of the painter’s oeuvre offered in 1904 by Carlo Gamba and Pietro Toesca.3 It had been thought that Giovanni trained in the workshop of Spinello Aretino, though Boskovits thought it more likely that he learned his skill from a number of painters in “in a late-gothic Florentine milieu”.4 While close to Spinello Aretino, Giovanni’s work also bears the influence of contemporary painters such as Lorenzo Monaco and Gherardo Starnina.5
The panel can be dated to the first half of the 1420s. Prior to that decade, in the artist’s so-called “Iberian” period, his style was closely related to those of Starnina and Alvaro Pirez, employing a severe palette and conveying intense emotion.6 Yet by the 1420s, Giovanni’s output was characterized by a chromatic softness that is evident both here and in the Martello Archangel. The artist’s sfumato effects became more delicate, as visible here in the mantle and in the pleasing transition of color, from pale rose to grey shadow. The painter’s imagination had by now been captured by new influences in sculpture, particularly in works by his contemporaries Lorenzo Ghiberti and Niccolò Lamberti. In acknowledgment of the sculptors’ artistic advancements, Giovanni’s figures adopted a greater sense of plasticity, and his works conferred a stronger narrative as opposed to the direct, almost abrasive emotion of earlier models.
As Andrea G. De Marchi indicates, the gilt additions, lending the panel its new quadrangular format, were produced in Rome in the very early 19th century and are themselves of great interest.7 This period saw the beginning of the “rediscovery” of the Italian Trecento and a renewed interest and veneration for the art and literature of the period, from Giotto and the Pisani to Dante and Petrarch. The highly decorative punch work in the three adjoining sections was intended to compliment the panel’s own gold-ground decoration. This panel was clearly prized by its then owner, given the great care and expense dedicated to its new framing element.
We are grateful to Lorenzo Sbaraglio, Andrea G. De Marchi and Sonia Chiodo for independently endorsing the attribution on the basis of photographs.
1. Private written communication with the owner, dated 12 May 2014; M. Boskovits, The Martello Collection, Further paintings, drawings, and miniatures, 13th-18th century, Florence 1992, pp. 82 – 83, reproduced p. 83.
2. G. Vasari, Le vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori, G. Milanesi ed., vol. I, Florence 1878, pp. 633, note no. 2.
3. C. Gamba, “Giovanni dal Ponte”, in Rassegna d'Arte, IV, 1904, pp. 177-186; P. Toesca, “Umili pittori fiorentini del principio del Quattrocento”, in L'Arte, VII, 1904, pp. 49-58.
4. M. Boskovits, op. cit.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Private written communication, dated 7 October 2014.