Giotto\'s Eloquence

SOURCE: Notes in the History of Art, 23. 3. 2004 © Norman Land

aonasT6lia regularum

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presumably of the

ghll'divided into two

GIOTTO'S ELOQUENCE

Yzrious beasts, whose r unclear, and eleven liacent verses. In ad-

irures

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Norman Land

published by

f,- Bolduc, "silence's s: The MedievalBesI cd D. Hassig (New

Images of Romance: Silence." Arthuriana

rLins, "GenderTrou: History: Two Case

tl l6 (1994):1-36; bncn in the Middle

1ic Economy (Phila-

In his Trecentonovelle, witten

between

1389 and 1392, Franco Sacchetti (13321400) tells two closely related tales (LXIII

and LXXV) about Giotto

di

Bondone.r

Although Sacchetti's stories are well known to students of fourteenth-century art and literature, they have not been thoroughly examined for what they tell us about Giotto's "literary legend," particularly about the presentation of the artist as a singular

genius, one who was skilled in both the visual and verbal arts. This is especially true

of the better known of the two

novelle

(LXID, which was repeated almost verbatim by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the

Artists (Florence, 1568). Surprisingly, Vasari offers no comment on the significance

of the story, in which Giotto is

brought kind of civil court by a disgruntled patron. Perhaps that significance escaped Vasari, or the implications of the story might have been so obvious to him that he felt no need to explain them. In one novella (LXXV), which takes place on a Sunday, Giotto and a group of friends are walking to the now-destroyed church of San Gallo. As they pause for a moment in the Via del Cocomero for Giotto to tell a tale, some pigs begin to pass. All of a sudden one of the pigs darts between the painter's legs, sending him flying to the ground. Without a word of complaint, Giotto gets to his feet with the help of his before

a

friends. As he stands up, he remarks that the

pigs have just cause for their action, for he has made a great deal of money from their bristles (used to make brushes) but has never given them even a bowl of broth in retum. His friends, finding his remark very

humorous, respond, "What can we say? Giotto, you are the master of everything, and you have never painted any subject as well as you have painted the case of these pigs." Giotto, Sacchetti implies, is not only a great painteq he is also excellent at the true representation of nature with words. On returning from San Gallo, Sacchetti continues, Giotto and his companions, as was their custom, pause to look at paintings in the churches along the way. When the group stops to consider a representation of the Virgin Mary and Joseph, someone asks Giotto to explain why the latter is always depicted with a melancholic expression. Giotto replies that Joseph has good reason to look disturbed, for he can see that his wife is pregnant but does not know who got her that way. Everyone present agrees that Giotto is a master not only of painting, but of the seven liberal arts. Later, Sacchetti says, several intelligent people recount the witty remarks that Giotto made that day, exclaiming that his words are worthy of a philosopher. Surely, Sacchetti did not intend to suggest that Giotto was literally a master of the seven liberal arts or a professional philosopher, although, as a painter he would have

il-

t6 been conversant

with at least part of

the quadrivium-arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. Moreover, his verbal skills, as exemplified by his storytelling and

witty

remarks, associate him with the triviumgrammar, rhetoric, and logic. Still, Sacchetti presents Giotto as an exceptionally intelligent man and the equal of a philosophel high praise for a painter in fourteenthcentury Florence.2

In illustrating Giotto's quick wit

and

ready response, Sacchetti echoes Giovanni Boccaccio's tale (Decameron 6.5) about the

painter and a famous jurist, Forese da Rabatta.3 In that story, Giotto appears as a man of outstanding talent ("ingegno") and as a painter

who deserved to be called

m.aes-

tro. Andjust as Sacchetti does in his tale, Boccaccio presents the artist as a storyteller-indeed, he says that Giotto is an accomplished teller of tales, "un bellissimo favellatore." Boccaccio also presents Giotto as a man with a keen sense of humor.a When he and Forese are returning from a visit to

social world that he needs to have an escutcheon or buckler decorated with his arms. Accordingly, he visits Giotto's shop and asks the artist to carry out the task. Giotto agrees and tells the man to leave the buckler and return for it in a few days. He also notices the man's manner-although courteous to Giotto, he brought a servant, rvho walks behind him carrying the buckler. After the man departs, Giotto is puzzled and offended by the man's visit and behavior. He wonders if the artisan had been sent as a joke to mock him, for no one---certainly not an upstart simpleton ("omicciatto semplice") who acts as if he were French royalty-had ever brought a buckler for him to paint. The artist then draws a design on the buckler as odd and uncouth as the artisan and gives it to an assistant to paint. His design includes "a helmet, a gorget, a pair of bracelets, a pair of iron gauntlets, a pair of breast-plates, armour for both legs, a sword, a knife, and a lance."

By such means, Giotto attacks and ultimately deflates the artisan's overblown image of

the countryside, they are wet, covered in mud, and dressed in peasants'clothing. The jurist, whose success would have depended in part on his verbal skills, remarks that no one seeing Giotto in his present condition would believe him to be the best painter in the world. Giotto immediately replies that anyone seeing Forese would not believe he

himself.u

knew the alphabet.

what he ordered-that is, his arms-and the man sarcastically exclaims that it seems so-"Ben isth," he says. Giotto then gives

If, in the Decameron, Giotto's brilliant

surpasses that of a jurist, in Sacchetti's other novelia (LXII) the painter himself plays the part of a lawyer.5 That is to say, Giotto argues his own defense in a complaint brought against him by a dissatisfied

wit

customer.

In Sacchetti's story, a crude artisan, or "grossolano artefice," has so risen in the

"F

When the artisan returns and asks for his buckler, Giotto does not bring it to him. Rather, he tells his presumptuous patron to go and fetch it. Examining the buckler closely, the man is dismayed by the nonsense of Giotto's design and refuses to pay for the work. Giotto asks him if he has not received

the man a thorough tongue-lashing, calling him a no-account fool who does not know who his ancestors are. His actions, Giotto continues, might be appropriate to someone

from the Bardi family or to the duke of Bavaria, but not to an insignificant nobody like him.

The angr-v a insulted him a then leaves Gir

to the

Grascia

authority over Giotto sunrno only to make i for the money

makes a countr party to the dis

his claim, but he states his

,

argues his. ln t to take his hrcl the artist is exc

In this storl trates Giotto's has attained a: lowly anisanis worthy of st

wealthy banke and once agair famous and r man of ou6tan to possessing

tongue, he ha

win his case h

Possibly, Sa

records, an rc

or perhaps th story. In eithei

Boccaccio's st ti suggests th and convincin Forese da Rab

We should not clear on c about the loca artisan left Gi take the objet with Giono? over the buckl

17

* to have an rated with his ts Giotto's shop

ry out the task. lran to leave the a ferv days. He nner-although nght a servant, Eng the buckler.

lmo is puzzled bi

and behavior.

d been sent as a e--certainly not fuo.emplice")

ft

rol

alty-had

in to paint. The I tbe buckler as n

and gives it to

ligl includes "a rlets. a pair of l-plates, armour E, and a lance." ks and ultimate-

blo,*'n image

of

nd asks for his ring it to him. hous patron to

p buckler closehe nonsense of i to pay for the

hs not received

lams-and

the

r that it seems otto then gives hshing, calling does not know rtions, Giotto iate to someone

b

the duke of

rificant nobody

The angry artisan replies that Giotto has insulted him and has ruined his buckler. He then leaves Giotto's shop and goes straight to the Grascia, an official body that has

authority over the various guilds. He has Giotto summoned, and the artist appears, only to make an appeal against the artisan for the money owed him. The man in turn makes a counterclaim against Giotto. Each party to the dispute has a turn at presenting his claim, but Giotto wins the day because he states his case better than the artisan argues his. In the end, the artisan is ordered to take his buckler and to pay Giotto his fee; the artist is exonerated. In this story, Sacchetti once again illustrates Giotto's singularity. As an artist, he has attained a social status above that of the lowly artisan. Indeed, as Sacchetti hints, he is worthy of serving only the best peoplewealthy bankers, royalty, and the nobilityand once again Giotto appears not only as a famous and accomplished painter, but as a man of outstanding verbal skills. In addition to possessing a quick wit and a sharp tongue, he has the ability to argue and to win his case before judges. Possibly, Sacchetti's tale reflects, or even records, an actual incident in Giotto's life, or perhaps the author simply invented the story. In either case, Sacchetti's tale echoes Boccaccio's story about Giotto, for Sacchetti suggests that the artist was as eloquent and convincing a speaker as a lawyer like Forese da Rabata would have been.' We should notice here that Sacchetti is not clear on two points. He is not specific about the location of the buckler when the artisan left Giotto's studio. Did the artisan take the object with him, or did it remain with Giotto? If Giotto had simply handed over the buckler without receiving payment

for it, the artisan would have had no reason to seek assistance from the Grascia. We may assume, then, that Giotto kept the buckler. Also, Sacchetti tells us nothing about the nature of either Giotto's argument or that of the artisan before the Grascia. The context of the story suggests that the painter might have pointed out to the judges how ridiculous the lowly and presumptuous artisan and his novel request seemed to him; but, from a legal perspective, that argument would surely not have caried the day. Another, more compelling, explanation of Giotto's argument is that Sacchetti's tale illustrates a particular point of law. In other

tale-or at least the latter part of have been suggested to Sacchetti by a certain passage in Francesco da Barberino's Documenti d'amore, which was words, the

it-might

composed between 1309 and 1313. There, briefly paraphrasing an argument in Justinian's Institutes (II, title 1, paragraph 34) and

echoing Dante's famous lines about the transitory nature of fame in Purgatory (XI.94-96), Francesco explains that it would be absurd for a painting by Cimabue or Giotto to be considered a mere decoration of a panel that is otherwise without value ("ridiculum enim esset picturam Cimaboris et Giottis in accessionem vilissime tabule cedere").8 In fact, the latter part of Sacchetti's tale precisely illustrates Justinian's point, which is as follows: Where . . . one man paints a picture on

another's board, some think that the board belongs, by accession, to the painter, others, that the painting, however great its excellence, becomes part of the board. The former appears to us the better opinion, for it is absurd that a

painting

by Apelles or

Parrhasius

18

should be an accessory of a board which, in itself, is thoroughly worthless. Hence, if the owner of the board has possession of the picture, and is sued for it by the painter, who nevertheless refuses to pay the cost ofthe board, he will be able to repel him by the plea of fraud. If, on the other hand, the painter has possession, it follows from what has been said that the former owner of the board, [if he is to be able to sue at alll, must claim it by a modified and not by a direct action; and in this case, if he refuses to pay the cost of the picture, he can be repelled by the plea of fraud, provided that the possession of the painter be in good faith; for it is clear, that if the board was stolen by the painter, or some one else, from its former owner, the latter can bring the action of theft.'g

who certainly would have claimed that the buckler belonged to him and would have claimed, too, that Giotto's ridiculouS design

was worthless and that he (the artisan)

should, therefore, not be required to pay the artist. The other point of view described by Justinian is that of Giotto. The artist eloquently explained to the judges, we must imagine, that the buckler was relatively worthless until he drew upon it and had it painted by his assistant; and even though he made a nonsensical design, it was nevertheless by

his hand, the product of his skill. Like Apelles (himself a wit), whose designs increased the value of the supports on which

he painted, he, Giotto, transformed a worthless buckler into a valuable work of art and

deserved to be paid for his design.

Above all Sacchetti's tale is about the value of the artist's skill. Because Giotto is

a painter of great talent, everything

Read with Justinian's example in mind, Sacchetti's tale seems to offer an answer to

this question: Who owns a panel once its value has been increased by the addition of a painting or other design by a superior artist?

According to Justinian, some believe that the board belongs to its original owner no matter what the painter has added to it. As Sacchetti's story suggests, that must have been the argument of the hapless artisan,

he

touches turns to gold, even if the design of his work is unacceptable to his patron. The patron, in other words, does not decide the value of the work of art; the value is determined by the status of the particular artist and by the quality of his hand. Had Giotto been a lowly and ineloquent painter, the artisan no doubt would have been able to retrieve his buckler without paying for the artist's silly design.

NOTES 1. Throughout, I have referred to the text in Franco Sacchetti, Il Trecentonovelle, ed. Emilio Faccioli (Turin: 1970), pp. 158-160 (novella L)fltr) and 193194

(novellaLXXY).

2. For trecento novelle and the social position of

the artist, see Rudolf Wittkower and MargotWittkow-

>

er, Bom under Satum: The Character and Conduct of Arrisls (NewYork and London: 1963), p. 14. 3. Throughout, I have referred to the text in Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameroa ed. Vittore Branca

(Florence: 1999), pp. 398-399. 4. For Giotto's wit and humor, see the invaluable

essay by

Andrtr

and the Areoa O 596. I am mucbi

5. For Bocc Mazzott4 The I meron" (PriM 6. As Lauric S

me, Sacchetti'*

the Oedipal (castrated)

tdi

arm

t

tion to be a noil Oedipus comfi (NewYork:1990

t9 that the

essay by Andrew Ladis, "The Legend of Giotto's

design artisan) to pay the by Jus-

eloquently

f

imagine, worthless painted by

he made

a

by

skill. Like designs on which a worthof art and

is about the Giotto is

Ite

ins

Wit

and the Arena Chapel," Art Bulletin 68 (1986);581596. I am much indebted to this article. 5. For Boccaccio's "sense of law," see Giuseppe Mazzott4 The World at Play in Boccaccio's "Decatneron" (Princeton: I986), pp. 213-240. 6. As Laurie Schneider Adams has pointed out to me, Sacchetti's's tale may be read as an example of the Oedipal talion law: Giotto gives dismembered (castrated) arms to an upstart for his grandiose ambition to be a nobleman. For the subject of art and the Oedipus complex, see her Art and Psychoanalysis (NewYork: 1993), pp. 73-116.

would have

he

design of patron. The decide the is deter-

icular artist Had Giotto painter, the been able to ing for the

and Conduct of

p.14. the text in GioVittore Branca the invaluable

-

7.

Sacchetti also echoes the well-known tale

ofa

lowly and presumptuous cobbler who is put in his place by a great artist, Apelles.

8. Francesco da Barberino, Documenti d'amore secondo

i manoscritti originali, ed. Francesco Egidi,

2 vols. (Rome: 1905), U, p. 94. Francesco's reference

is briefly discussed by Enid T. Falaschi, "Giotto: The Literary Legend,l' Italian Studies 2i7 (1972):4. 9. The Institutes of Justinian, 5th ed., trans. J. B. Moyle (Oxford: 1913), pp. 4243. For the Latin text, see Justinian's Institutes, trans. Peter Birks and Grant Mcleod (Ithaca, N.Y.: 1987), p. 12.