Trumpeters and Young Girls Dancing, 1431-1438. Images via

The consecration of Florence’s Santa Maria del Fiore on March 25, 1436, must have been, even by Renaissance standards, a day of unrivalled spectacle and splendor. The jeweled vestments of Pope Eugene IV dazzled alongside the glittering garments of the Medici retinue. Brunelleschi’s dome resounded with polyphony by Guillaume Du Fay and the inimitable organ improvisations of maestro Antonio Squarcialupi. The maestro would have had his choice of grand instruments: the one above the south sacristy door housed in a marble loft decorated by Donatello or the one in the north sacristy decorated by Luca della Robbia. Three of the latter’s marble panels form the core of “Make a Joyful Noise,” a small exhibition of pieces traveling during a renovation of the cathedral museum.

Considered along with Brunelleschi, Donatello, Masaccio, and Ghiberti to be one of the five founders of Florentine Renaissance art, Luca della Robbia (1399/1400–1482) secured his reputation with the cathedral’s Cantoria, or “singing gallery” as the organ loft was known. Della Robbia worked for most of the 1430s to carve the Cantoria’s ten relief panels, its decorative pilasters, and the Latin inscription taken from Psalm 150. The Cantoria shows della Robbia moving from tentative and cautious to progressively more ambitious groups of young, primarily male singers and instrumentalists. Although he worked in a representational style, della Robbia mixed the realities of Renaissance performance practice with an idealized classical aesthetic. As he grew more confident, della Robbia even pushed the boundaries of decorum, integrating female figures into his compositions and depicting secular instruments in what would have been a strictly liturgical setting.

Documentary evidence shows that in 1435 after completing four panels, della Robbia received an increase in compensation from his employer, the Opera del Duomo, a secular institution in charge of construction, maintenance, and administration for the cathedral. Having gained the confidence of the operai (officers of the Opera), della Robbia could spend more time on the panels and introduce greater ingenuity in his compositions. Of the three panels on display here, Boys Singing From a Book (early 1430s) represents della Robbia’s earliest efforts. Five boys in draped tunics sing with expressive faces while two angels in low relief listen attentively, making the point that music appreciation is just as important as performance. In his catalogue essay, the art historian Gary Radke notes that with this composition and the similar panel Boys Singing From a Scroll (not seen in the exhibition), della Robbia leaves behind the juvenile putti of the elder Donatello and follows his own impeccable style, one that masterfully balances the energy and exuberance of youth with grace and congeniality.

 

Boys Singing from a Book, 1431-1438

In Boys Singing With Organ, Harp, and Lute (mid 1430s), della Robbia conceived an innovative composition with nine figures and three meticulously-detailed musical instruments. Here, the illusion of depth is contrived through a skillful molding of deeply-excavated legs and densely-placed, interlocking figures. Della Robbia’s handling of the musical instruments is particularly remarkable. In the foreground, a seated boy pushes the buttons of a portable organ with his right hand while he works the bellows with his left; each of the organ’s twenty pipes have been hollowed out to a realistic depth. At the right, a stocky-legged boy plays a lute of four double and single drone strings. Immediately behind him, another boy plucks a twenty-pegged harp. The result is an extraordinarily vivid image of harmony and companionship.

Trumpeters and Young Girls Dancing (late 1430s) is a tour de force of relief carving. Della Robbia renders a complex scene of ten figures: some playing trumpets, others cavorting. While two children merrily dance, hair flying and linen tunics bouncing, two others help to hold up three long trumpets. The trumpeters are hard at work, their cheeks puffed out with the effort. As Radke observes, the balance of “energy and composure” in this panel demonstrates della Robbia’s characteristic reconciliation of Roman idealism and humanist realism.

Also included in the exhibition are three examples of the kind of elaborate choirbooks produced in Florence in the fifteenth and early sixteenth century. In her fascinating catalogue essay, the musicology professor Marica Tacconi describes the collaborative nature of manuscript production, which could take years as each specialist—parchment-preparer, scribe, illuminator, bookbinder, goldsmith, silk merchant—completed his respective task. As Tacconi notes, Florence’s new cathedral served as a symbol of the city, and everything associated with it had to epitomize all that was the finest in luxury and opulence—well-thumbed choirbooks from the thirteenth century simply would not do. The resulting campaign to replace the psalters, graduals, and antiphonals with aesthetically appropriate manuscripts led to the creation of some forty-one choirbooks by 1526. Because these books were designed primarily as commemorations of particular events or religious festivals, the artisans took creative license, omitting musical notes or changing dates to coincide with feast days. The cathedral’s new choirbooks were indeed surpassingly beautiful, but frequently the old ones had to be brought out to conduct a proper Mass.

 

Francesco di Antonio del Chierico (Italian, 1433-1484). Illuminated Manuscript (Choir Book)

 

Also in the exhibition is a late sixteenth-century lectern from the Florence Baptistery, made from walnut wood. This nine-foot-tall lectern is carved in the grotesque style and would have held four massive choirbooks for display or for singers to use during Mass. This particular example protected several choirbooks during the catastrophic 1966 Arno River flood.

It is a rare privilege to see works such as these at eye level, especially della Robbia’s marble panels which, in situ, would have been far out of sight. Photographs of the accompanying Cantoria by Donatello hint at the more riotous and decorative approach taken by della Robbia’s rival. Maybe the next renovation of the cathedral museum will allow us to view the dueling Cantorie side-by-side.

 

“Make a Joyful Noise”: Renaissance Art and Music in Florence Cathedral is on view at the High Museum in Atlanta, Georgia through January 11, 2015.

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