The Miracle of the Desecrated Host

Last updated
The Miracle of the Desecrated Host (c. 1467-1469) by Paolo Uccello PredelleUccello.jpg
The Miracle of the Desecrated Host (c. 1467-1469) by Paolo Uccello

The Miracle of the Desecrated Host is a six-panel tempera-on-panel predella by Paolo Uccello, painted between 1467 and 1469 for the Confraternity of the Corpus Domini and their oratory in the Corpus Domini church in Urbino. The predella was completed before van Wassenhove's work and Uccello received his last payment on 17 October 1469 (folio 37v) and the rules made by folio 38r (a total of 18 florins and 16 bolognini). [1]

Contents

Uccello had also originally been commissioned to paint the altarpiece to which this predella would be attached, but that work was instead entrusted to Justus van Gent, who completed the main altarpiece Communion of the Apostles in 1474. [2]

Measuring 42 cm by 361 cm, the predella was moved to Santa Agatha then to the Scolopi College. It was then lost until 1858, when it was rediscovered in a barn and moved to the Ducal Palace. It had probably been used as a masons' bench and had been damaged, with the colours altered by traces of lime. [1] It was restored in 1954, revealing previous repainting and repairs. [1] It is now in the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche in Urbino.

Description

It shows a story of host desecration, possibly inspired by Bernardino of Siena's sermons, [1] running from left to right and with each scene separated from the next by separately-painted half-balustrades. From left to right these show

  1. a woman exchanges a host with a Jewish merchant for a mantle or a Jewish usurer for money
  2. the Jew tries to burn the host, but it starts to bleed, alerting the guards
  3. a procession is organised to re-consecrate the host
  4. despite repenting, the woman is going to be hanged at the tree, however an angel descends from heaven to save her soul
  5. the Jew and his family are burned at the stake
  6. two angels and two devils argue over the woman's body


Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paolo Uccello</span> Italian painter and mathematician (1397–1475)

Paolo Uccello, born Paolo di Dono, was an Italian painter and mathematician who was notable for his pioneering work on visual perspective in art. In his book Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, Giorgio Vasari wrote that Uccello was obsessed by his interest in perspective and would stay up all night in his study trying to grasp the exact vanishing point. Uccello used perspective to create a feeling of depth in his paintings. His best known works are the three paintings representing the battle of San Romano, which were wrongly entitled the Battle of Sant'Egidio of 1416 for a long period of time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Altarpiece</span> Religious artwork behind an altar

An altarpiece is an work of art in painting, sculpture or relief representing a religious subject made for placing at the back of or behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting or sculpture, or a set of them, the word can also be used of the whole ensemble behind an altar, otherwise known as a reredos, including what is often an elaborate frame for the central image or images. Altarpieces were one of the most important products of Christian art especially from the late Middle Ages to the era of Baroque painting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piero della Francesca</span> Italian painter

Piero della Francesca was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. To contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting is characterized by its serene humanism, its use of geometric forms and perspective. His most famous work is the cycle of frescoes The History of the True Cross in the church of San Francesco in the Tuscan town of Arezzo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Santissima Annunziata, Florence</span>

The Basilica della Santissima Annunziata is a Renaissance-style, Catholic minor basilica in Florence, region of Tuscany, Italy. This is considered the mother church of the Servite Order. It is located at the northeastern side of the Piazza Santissima Annunziata near the city center.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Filippo Lippi</span> Italian Renaissance painter (c. 1406–1469)

Filippo Lippi, also known as Lippo Lippi, was an Italian painter of the Quattrocento and a Carmelite priest. He was an early Renaissance master of a painting workshop, who taught many painters. Sandro Botticelli and Francesco di Pesello were among his most distinguished pupils. His son, Filippino Lippi, also studied under him and assisted in some late works.

<i>Polyptych of the Misericordia</i> Altarpiece by Piero della Francesca

The Polyptych of the Misericordia is a painting conserved in the Museo Civico di Sansepolcro in the town of Sansepolcro, region of Tuscany, Italy. The painting is one of the earliest works of the Italian Renaissance painter Piero della Francesca, who was born in the town. The central panel is of the common motif of the Virgin of Mercy or Madonna della Misericordia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giovanni di Paolo</span> Italian painter and illustrator of manuscripts (c.1403-1482)

Giovanni di Paolo di Grazia was an Italian painter, working primarily in Siena, becoming a prolific painter and illustrator of manuscripts, including Dante's texts. He was one of the most important painters of the 15th century Sienese School. His early works show the influence of earlier Sienese masters, but his later style was more individual, characterized by cold, harsh colours and elongated forms. His style also took on the influence of International Gothic artists such as Gentile da Fabriano. Many of his works have an unusual dreamlike atmosphere, such as the surrealistic Miracle of St. Nicholas of Tolentino painted about 1455 and now housed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, while his last works, particularly Last Judgment, Heaven, and Hell from about 1465 and Assumption painted in 1475, both at Pinacoteca Nazionale (Siena), are grotesque treatments of their lofty subjects. Giovanni's reputation declined after his death but was revived in the 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ducal Palace, Urbino</span> Palace in Urbino, Italy

The Ducal Palace is a Renaissance building in the Italian city of Urbino in the Marche. One of the most important monuments in Italy, it is listed as UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1998.

<i>Baronci Altarpiece</i> Painting by Raphael

The Baronci Altarpiece was a painting by the Italian High Renaissance artist Raphael. His first recorded commission, it was made for Andrea Baronci's chapel in the church of Sant'Agostino in Città di Castello, near Urbino. The altarpiece was seriously damaged during an earthquake in 1789, and since 1849 fragments of the original painting have been part of different collections.

<i>Mond Crucifixion</i> Painting by Raphael

The Mond Crucifixion or Gavari Altarpiece is an oil on poplar panel dated to 1502–1503, making it one of the earliest works by Italian Renaissance artist Raphael, perhaps the second after the c.1499-1500 Baronci Altarpiece. It originally comprised four elements, of which three survive, now all separated: a main panel of the Crucified Christ with the Virgin Mary, Saints and Angels which was bequeathed to the National Gallery, London, by Ludwig Mond, and a three-panel predella from which one panel is lost; the two surviving panels are Eusebius of Cremona raising Three Men from the Dead with Saint Jerome's Cloak in the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, in Lisbon, and Saint Jerome saving Silvanus and punishing the Heretic Sabinianus in the North Carolina Museum of Art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bartolomeo di Giovanni</span> Italian painter

Bartolomeo di Giovannidi Domenico was an Italian Renaissance painter active in Florence. His works were first identified by the art historian Bernard Berenson, who did not know the painter's real name so called him the "Alunno di Domenico". This name was based on Berenson's observation that the painter executed the predella of Ghirlandaio's Adoration of the Magi (1488) in the Ospedale degli Innocenti, the foundling hospital in Florence. Archival research later yielded the painter's real name as Bartolomeo di Giovanni. Bartolomeo also collaborated with Sandro Botticelli.

<i>Annunciation of Cortona</i> Painting by Fra Angelico

The Annunciation of Cortona is a panel-painting altarpiece or retable by the Italian Renaissance painter Fra Angelico: once housed in the Church of Gesù of Cortona, it is now held at the Museo Diocesano in Cortona.

<i>Martinengo Altarpiece</i>

The Martinengo Altarpiece is a painting by the Italian High Renaissance painter Lorenzo Lotto, finished in 1516. It is housed in the church of Santi Bartolomeo e Stefano in Bergamo in northern Italy.

<i>Fano Altarpiece</i>

The Fano Altarpiece is a painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Pietro Perugino, executed in 1497, and housed in the church of Santa Maria Nuova, Fano, central Italy. It also includes a lunette with a Pietà and several predella panels.

<i>Communion of the Apostles</i> (Signorelli)

The Communion of the Apostles is a painting by Italian Renaissance artist Luca Signorelli, dating from around 1512. It is now in the Diocesan Museum of Cortona, Tuscany, Italy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrea di Giusto</span> Italian painter

Andrea di Giusto, rarely also known as Andrea Manzini or Andrea di Giusto Manzini was a Florentine painter of the late Gothic to early Renaissance style in Florence and its surrounding countryside. Andrea was heavily influenced by masters Lorenzo Monaco, Bicci di Lorenzo, Masaccio, and Fra Angelico, and tended to mix and match the motifs and techniques of these artists in his own work. Andrea was an eclectic painter and is considered a minor master of Florentine early Renaissance art. Andrea trained under Bicci di Lorenzo as a Garzone. He painted his most significant works, three altarpieces, in the Florentine contado, or countryside; these altarpieces were created for Sant’Andrea a Ripalta in Figline, Santa Margarita in Cortona, and the Badia degli Olivetani di San Bartolomeo alle Sacce near Prato. Aside from his major altarpieces, Andrea painted several Frescoes over the course of his career. He, along with other minor masters, are also known to have provided several different types of art, including triptychs and frescoes, for Romanesque pievi, or rural churches with baptistries. Moreover, he was well known for several types of smaller craft objects, such as small tabernacles. He is said to have worked between 1420 and 1424 under Bicci di Lorenzo on paintings for Santa Maria Nuova. He is said to have worked with Masaccio in painting the Life of San Giuliano for the Polyptych of Pisa, including the painting of the Madonna and Child, in 1426. He also appears to have collaborated in 1445 with Paolo Uccello in the Capella dell'Assunta in the Prato Cathedral. In 1428, he is listed as a member of the Arte dei Medici e Speziali guild in Florence as "Andrea di Giusto di Giovanni Bugli". His son, Giusto d'Andrea, was also a painter and worked with Neri di Bicci and Benozzo Gozzoli. Andrea died in Florence in 1450.

<i>SantAgostino Altarpiece</i>

The Sant'Agostino Altarpiece is a painting by Perugino, produced in two stages between around 1502 and 1512 and then around 1513 to 1523. The altarpiece's 28, 29 or 30 panels were split up during the Napoleonic suppression of religious houses - most of its panels are now in the Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria in Perugia. It is notable as the painter's last masterwork before he moved into his late phase producing more provincial commissions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pisa Altarpiece</span> Dismembered altarpiece by Masaccio

The Pisa Altarpiece was a large multi-paneled altarpiece produced by Masaccio for the chapel of Saint Julian in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Pisa. The chapel was owned by the notary Giuliano di Colino, who commissioned the work on February 19, 1426 for the sum of 80 florins. Payment for the work was recorded on December 26 of that year. The altarpiece was dismantled and dispersed to various collections and museums in the 18th century, but an attempted reconstruction was made possible due to a detailed description of the work by Vasari in 1568.

<i>The Thebaid</i> (painting) c. 1460 painting by Paolo Uccello

The Thebaid is a tempera on canvas painting by Paolo Uccello, executed c. 1460, also known as Scenes from the Lives of the Saints and Monks and The Life of the Holy Fathers. It was originally painted for the monastery of San Giorgio alla Costa in the Oltrarno area of Florence and later moved to the Uffizi. It is now in the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence.

<i>Communion of the Apostles</i> (Justus van Gent)

The Institution of the Eucharist or Communion of the Apostles is a 1472–1474 tempera on panel painting by Justus van Gent. Commissioned as an altarpiece, it post-dates its 1460s predella, The Miracle of the Desecrated Host by Paolo Uccello. Both Institution and Miracle are now in the Galleria nazionale delle Marche in Urbino.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Jean Louis Schefer
  2. Archives of the Confraternity of the Corpus Domini. Book B (entries and expenses).

Bibliography