Master of Saint Cecilia

A painter of the Middle Ages in northern Italy is called the Master of St. Cecilia ( Italian Maestro della Santa Cecilia ) or Master of the Altar of St. Cecilia . The artist, who is not known by name, was probably active in Florence between 1290 and 1320 . Since there are Greek inscriptions on pictures of the master, as can also be found in Rome on old frescoes and mosaics , it can be assumed that he might have come to Florence from Rome. His style of painting reveals the influence of Byzantine painting and Giotto's .

Naming

The master of St. Cecilia got his emergency name from an altarpiece of St. Cecilia that he created for her church of Santa Cecilia in Florence. The church was destroyed by fire in 1304, the altarpiece, which can be dated to the time shortly before, was saved and has recently found its way into the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence.

The altar of St. Cecilia

The altarpiece, which gives the master of St. Cecilia his emergency name, is painted in tempera on wood and is approximately 85 × 181 cm in size. It shows St. Cecilia in the middle. She is surrounded on both sides by eight pictures with scenes from her life, a legend as it is told in the Legenda Aurea :

• Left side
  • The wedding of St. Cecilia
  • Cäcilie confesses her faith to her bridegroom Valerian
  • Cecilia converts Tiburtius, Valerian's brother
  • Cäcilie teaches Valerian and Tiburtius their faith
• right side
  • Pope Urban at the baptism of the converted Maximus
  • Cecilia preaches her faith
  • Cäcilie is brought before the Prefect Almachius
  • The henchmen try to kill Cäcilie on the orders of Almachius in the bath with boiling oil

More works by the master

• painting
  • A few other paintings are assigned to the master saint Cecilia through style comparison, for example a Madonna and Child in the Getty Museum in Los Angeles or the picture of St. Margaret in the church of Santa Margherita a Montici near Florence.
• Frescoes in Assisi
  • It is believed that the Master of St. Cecilia could have painted one of the scenes in the frescoes depicting the life of St. Francis in the upper church of Assisi .

Master's style

The style of the master of St. Cäcilie is somewhat reminiscent of Giotto's painting , even if it seems less closely related, such as the style of Taddeo Gaddi or Maso di Banco . The master shows the adoption of Giotto's new naturalistic painting style and, like him, a new understanding of spatiality. The use of buildings as an architectural framework is particularly noteworthy. Thanks to their warm colors, the figures of the Master of St. Cecilia appear livelier and softer than some figures from other Giotto's successors. Like the master of St. Francis and his work in Assisi, a combination of Italian and Byzantine icon painting can also be seen in the work of the master of St. Cecilia , but like this one also detailed painting and colors that are alien to the Byzantine style.

The later master of the polyptych of the Capella Medici shows some similarities in painting style with that of the master of St. Cecilia.

Identification with Buffalmacco

Sometimes attempts are made to equate the master of St. Cecilia with the legendary artist figure Buonamico Buffalmacco .

literature

• Osvald Sirén : An Altar Panel by the Cecilia-Master. In: The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs. Volume 44, No. 255, 1924, ISSN  0007-6287 , pp. 271-278.
• Master of St. Cecilia . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 37 : Master with emergency names and monogramists . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1950, p. 62 .
• Alastair Smart: The St Cecilia Master and His School at Assisi - II. In: The Burlington Magazine. Vol. 102, No. 691, 1960, pp. 430-437, 439.
• Richard Offner: Master of the St Cecilia Altarpiece . In: The Fourteenth Century . Section 3, volume 1 . Giunti Barbèra, Florence 1986, p. 55–148 (English, books.google.de ).
• Master of St Cecilia. In: Ian Chilvers (Ed.): The Oxford Dictionary of Art. 3rd edition. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-860476-9 .

Web links

• The Altar of Saint Cecilia ( Memento of November 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), Virtual Uffizii (accessed 2010)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Luigi Coletti: Gli affreschi della Basilica di Assisi. Instituto Italiano d'arti grafiche, Bergamo 1949.