Giovanni Gualberto, the founder of the Vallombrosan branch of the Benedictine order, stands before a crucifix with his brother’s murderer kneeling beside him. Instead of avenging his brother’s death, the saint forgave the murderer, and the image of the crucified Christ is said to have nodded in approval of this act of charity. The picture was probably painted for a Vallombrosan church, but its composition seems to derive from a scene by Giovanni del Biondo in an altarpiece in Santa Croce, Florence. It dates from the last years of the fourteenth century.
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Title:An Episode from the Life of Saint Giovanni Gualberto
Artist:Attributed to Niccolò di Pietro Gerini (Italian, Florentine, active by 1368–died 1414/15)
Medium:Tempera on wood, gold ground
Dimensions:Arched top, 57 3/4 x 28 1/2 in. (146.7 x 72.4 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Gwynne Andrews Fund, 1958
Accession Number:58.135
Inscription: Inscribed (on cross): I·N·R·I·
?General Sir Edward Kerrison, 1st Baronet (until d. 1853); his daughter, Lady Bateman (Agnes Burrell Kerrison), Oakley Hall, Eye, Suffolk (1853–d. 1919; posthumous sale, Christie's, London, July 25, 1919, no. 126, as "Saints in Adoration before a Crucifix," without attribution, for £273 to Martin); Raymond Wyer, Worcester, Mass. (in 1920); Eugene L. Garbáty, ?Schloss Alt-Doebern, Nieder Lausitz, and Scarsdale, N.Y. (by 1940–56; sale, Sotheby's, London, April 25, 1956, no. 81, for £1,500 to Fenouil); [Rudolph Fenouil, Paris, from 1956]; [Arthur Kauffmann, London, until 1958; sold to The Met]
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "Arts of the Middle Ages," February 17–March 24, 1940, no. 60 (lent by Eugene L. Garbáty, New York).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Florentine Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum," June 15–August 15, 1971, no catalogue.
Osvald Sirén. "Lorenzo di Niccolò." Burlington Magazine 36 (February 1920), pp. 72, 77–78, pl. I, as in the collection of Raymond Wyer, Worcester, Mass.; identifies the subject, attributes it to Lorenzo di Niccolò, and dates it about 1400.
Raimond van Marle. The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. Vol. 5, The Hague, 1925, p. 481, attributes it to Lorenzo di Niccolò.
Arts of the Middle Ages. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Boston, 1940, p. 21, no. 60, pl. XLIV, attributes it to Lorenzo di Niccolò and notes that it was probably made for a Vallombrosan church.
Roland L. Redmond James J. Rorimer. "Eighty-Ninth Annual Report of the Trustees for the Fiscal Year 1958–1959." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 18 (October 1959), p. 37, ill. p. 41, attribute it to Lorenzo di Niccolò.
Bernard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Florentine School. London, 1963, vol. 1, p. 123, pl. 389, attributes it to Lorenzo di Niccolò.
Guy-Philippe de Montebello. "Four Prophets by Lorenzo Monaco." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 25 (December 1966), p. 156, attributes it to Lorenzo di Niccolò.
Federico Zeri with the assistance of Elizabeth E. Gardner. Italian Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Florentine School. New York, 1971, pp. 52–53, ill., attribute it to Lorenzo di Niccolò and date it to the last years of the fourteenth century; suggest that it was modeled after a scene of the same subject from a triptych by Giovanni del Biondo in the Bardi di Vernio chapel in Santa Croce, Florence, or that both works derive from the same prototype
.
Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972, pp. 80, 420, 609, as "Conversion of St. John Gualbert"; attribute it to Lorenzo di Niccolò Gerini.
Miklòs Boskovits. Pittura fiorentina alla vigilia del Rinascimento, 1370–1400. Florence, 1975, p. 412, figs. 170 (detail), 172, attributes it to Niccolò di Pietro Gerini and dates it 1375–80.
Everett Fahy. "On Lorenzo di Niccolò." Apollo 108 (December 1978), pp. 375–76, fig. 1, rejects the attribution to Lorenzo di Niccolò and assigns it to Niccolò di Pietro Gerini; dates it about 1380.
Carl Brandon Strehlke. "Cenni di Francesco, the Gianfigliazzi, and the Church of Santa Trinita in Florence." J. Paul Getty Museum Journal 20 (1992), p. 39 n. 108, states that though the provenance is unknown, it must have come from a Vallombrosan church.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 10, ill. p. 11.
Barbara Drake Boehm. "Choirs of Angels: Painting in Italian Choir Books, 1300–1500." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 66 (Winter 2009), p. 26, fig. 31 (color), calls the saint John Gualbert.
Christopher W. Platts inFlorence at the Dawn of the Renaissance: Painting and Illumination, 1300–1350. Ed. Christine Sciacca. Exh. cat., J. Paul Getty Museum. Los Angeles, 2012, p. 131 n. 21.
Giovanni Gualberto was an eleventh-century Florentine nobleman and the founder of the Vallombrosan branch of the Benedictine order. This scene shows the saint forgiving his brother's murderer as a crucifix miraculously leans forward in approval. It was probably painted for a Vallombrosan church.
It seems that the composition is modeled on a scene of the same subject from an altarpiece by Giovanni del Biondo in the Bardi di Vernio chapel in the church of Santa Croce, Florence, or that both works derive from a common prototype.
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