San Cassiano Altarpiece
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The ''San Cassiano Altarpiece'' is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master
Antonello da Messina Antonello da Messina, properly Antonello di Giovanni di Antonio, but also called Antonello degli Antoni and Anglicized as Anthony of Messina ( 1430February 1479), was an Italian painter from Messina, active during the Early Italian Renaissance. ...
, dating to 1475–1476. Commissioned for the church of
San Cassiano San Cassiano is a town and ''comune'' in the Italian province of Lecce and region of Apulia in south-east Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is lo ...
in
Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...
, it was disassembled in the early 17th-century and the reunited central portion is now housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in
Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...
. It was one of the most influential paintings in the Veneto area of the time.Description page at the museum's website


History

It is unknown when it was disassembled or why, but it was already in fragments when parts of it were documented by David Teniers the Younger for his
Theatrum Pictorium ''Theatrum Pictorium'', or ''Theatre of Painting'', is a short-hand name of a book published in the 1660s by David Teniers the Younger for his employer, the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria. It was a catalog of 243 Italian paintings in the Ar ...
in 1660. It wasn't until 1929 that three of the fragments were reunited by the Hungarian art historian
Johannes Wilde Johannes Wilde CBE (2 July 1891 – 13 September 1970) was a Hungarian art historian and teacher of art history. He later became an Austrian, and then a British, citizen. He was a noted expert on the drawings of Michelangelo. Wilde was a pione ...
. Other surviving fragments have been analysed to fit according to the model of a reconstruction in a virtual architectural study. Originally a larger altarpiece, it now comprises only the central panel with the Virgin Enthroned, and four half-busts of saints: St. Nicholas of Bari, Mary Magdalene (or Ursula), St. Lucy and St. Dominic. Allegedly inspired by another Holy Conversation by Giovanni Bellini in the church of San Giovanni e Paolo (now known only through copies), it features however a more balance composition and a more sober architecture. Antonello adopted a pyramidal layout, enhanced by the accurate use of light. The book with three golden balls held by St. Nicholas alludes to the episode in which he gave them to three girls to be used as dowry.


See also

*
Italian Renaissance painting, development of themes This article about the development of themes in Italian Renaissance painting is an extension to the article Italian Renaissance painting, for which it provides additional pictures with commentary. The works encompassed are from Giotto in the early ...


References

* J. Wilde, "Pala di San Cassiano" Rekonstruktionsversuch, Jahrbuch der Kunsthist. Samml. in Wien, n. s., III (1929), pp. 57-72


Sources

* scopamici


External links


Page at the museum's website

''Antonello da Messina: Sicily's Renaissance Master''
a full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on the altarpiece {{Antonello da Messina 1470s paintings Paintings by Antonello da Messina Paintings of the Madonna and Child Paintings in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Paintings depicting Mary Magdalene Altarpieces category:Paintings of Saint Ursula category:Paintings of Saint Lucy Paintings of Saint Nicholas category:Paintings of Saint Dominic Books in art