Domenico di Bartolo (birth name Domenico Ghezzi), born in Asciano, Siena, was a Sienese painter of the early Renaissance period. In the Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, Giorgio Vasari says that Domenico was the nephew of Taddeo di Bartolo. Influenced by the new Florentine style of painting, Domenico di Bartolo was the only Sienese painter of his time to receive commissions from clients in Florence. In Siena, he was employed by Lorenzo di Pietro (known as Vecchietta), to help execute the fresco The Care of the Sick, in the Pilgrim's Hall of the Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala.
Domenico is first recorded in 1420 when he and several other Sienese artists, is documented as part of a project to paint in Siena Cathedral.STREHLKE, C. B. (1986). Domenico Di Bartolo (Italy, Siena, Painting, Hospital, Renaissance). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (303414358). (Order No. 8610816). He is first recorded as a master in 1428, in a list of the painters' guild (ruolo dei pittori). His first surviving signed and dated work comes from 1433: The Madonna of Humility and Four Music-Making Angels.Giovanna Damiani. "Domenico di Bartolo." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 2 November 2017. http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T023181 In 1433 he also painted the Virgin and Child Surrounded by Saints. A year later, in 1434, Domenico provided a design for a pavement plaque in Siena Cathedral, based on a drawing of the Emperor Sigismund, who stayed in Siena from 1432 to 1433. From 1435 to 1440 Domenico was engaged in a fresco commission for the cathedral's sacristy. This work, however, was interrupted in 1438 which gave Domenico time to go to Perugia to paint an altarpiece for the monastery church of Santa Giuliana, which is now displayed in the Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria. In 1437 he also took on a contract to execute an altarpiece for the monks of Saint'Agostino at Asciano. By 1439, Domenico had been paid to work in the hospital of Santa Maria della Scala (Siena).
The frescoes executed in the Pellegrinaio of the hospital between 1439 and 1440 represent scenes of the institution's history and good works; they are the artist's last finished works and are considered to be his masterpieces. For the most part, Domenico's works were based in Perugia, and his only known activity outside of Siena may have been at Florence as his first biographer, Giorgio Vasari, records works carried out by him in the Carmine and Santa Trinita. In January 1440 Domenico di Bartolo was married to Antonia Pannilini, and on 18 February 1446, Antonia Pannilini was officially mentioned as a widow.
Early life Domenico di Bartolo was born in Asciano, which was a province in Siena in the Italian region Tuscany. Domenico carried the family name Ghezzi. There is only one document that could have been associated with Domenico before 1428. As observed by Johns Hopkins art history professor Carl Strehlke, in the Opera del Duomo payments for 1420, a certain Domenico di Bartolo—otherwise unidentified—is compensated two soldi (a medieval Italian silver coin) for his work as a "gharzone di bottega". The term gharzone may define someone's position ranging from a full-fledged apprentice to a mere helper or worker. If the document indeed were to refer to Domenico, he was most likely at the beginning stages of his artistic training, and only eight years later in 1428 he finally made a standing for himself by being acknowledged in the painter's guild. On the basis of this payment document in 1420, it is most probable that Domenico was born sometime between 1400 and 1405. However, more accurate sources that record his exact date of birth have yet to be discovered today.
Carl Brendon Strehlke further elaborates that the payment documents for the Opera del Duomo show that, at the time, the Opera was overseeing several important sculptural commissions: a new pulpit for the Council of Siena, the decoration of the cathedral pavement, and most importantly the construction of a new baptismal font. It is recorded that some of the most progressive artists in all of Tuscany were involved in these projects, names which include Ghiberti, Donatello, Francesco di Valdambrino, Domenico di Niccolo' de Cori, and Jacopo della Quercia. It is therefore not a surprise that Domenico's first extant painting, the Madonna of Humility of 1433, possessed strong sculptural qualities. Art historians such as Strehlke and Bruce Cole claim that it is highly likely that during the time that Domenico worked as a Gharzone for the Opera's projects, he received many influences from many of the mentioned sculptors. Other contemporary artists that existed during Domenico di Bartolo's time were Stefano di Giovanni and Giovanni di Paolo, who were already active master painters by their early twenties. Both di Giovanni and Giovanni di Paolo placed emphasis on more of the linear and emotive qualities of drawing, whereas di Bartolo conceived of forms in rounded masses.
Madonna of Humility (1433)
Domenico di Bartolo's Madonna of Humility of 1433 is recorded to be the artist's first-ever commissioned piece of artwork.Cole, Bruce. Sienese Painting in the Age of the Renaissance. Indiana University Press, 1985 Renaissance Scholar Bruce Cole refers to Domenico's Madonna of Humility with Angels as "one of the loveliest works of the early Sienese Quattrocento". When observed comparatively, the painting traces back to hints of Masaccio as well as the sculptor Jacopo della Quercia. Jacopo was likely to have influenced Domenico's painting more directly, for the practical reason that the two artists were in closer proximity to each other, and in addition, they had the experience of working together for the Opera of Duomo. It is hence also entirely possible that Jacopo della Quercia could have even provided some guidance in the creation of Domenico di Bartolo's work. This type of mentorship is comparable to that of Lorenzo Ghiberti in Florence, who, as stated in the Commentary, provided the same kind of assistance to the painters in that city during his time.Maiganga, Theophilus J. Self Discovery: The Eagle Bird Gives a True Picture of Divinity. Dorrance Publishing, 2012 Another situation that can attest to Jacopo and Domenico's professional relationship comes from the written record that after Jacopo was elected to be the overseeing operator of the Cathedral of Siena's works, Domenico di Bartolo secured himself works to paint in the sacristy.Ladis, Andrew. The Music of Devotion: Image, Voice and the Imagination in a "Madonna of Humility" by Domenico Di Bartolo. Art and Music in the Early Modern Period. 3–26. 2003. Scholars such as Bruce Cole commend Domenico's Madonna of Humility, because it is unlike any Sienese painting of its time. This is for several technical and stylistic reasons, all of which give insight into Domenico di Bartolo's keen eye for adaptation and observation from fellow artists. In particular, much of the art critiques give recognition to Domenico's painting because of its strong sculptural references, many of which align with Jacopo della Quercia's style.Norman, Diana. Painting in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena (1260–1555). New Haven: Yale University Press
The composition of the painting is centred with a very volumetrically and triangularly depicted Madonna. Behind her are five angels, who form a semicircle that gives further movement and depth into the painted space. Referring back to several of the Madonna panels by Masaccio that have survived until today, a similarity between them and Domenico's Madonna is that the large figures created dominating geometrical forms that give the overall image a strong sense of sculptural stability and gravity. Art historians also mention that the colour palette of the painting is of particular skill and thoughtfulness. The green, pink and blue of the Madonna's robes in contrast with the paleness of the angels' garments and the pale green of the cloth on the infant all come together to display a trait that was peculiar to the Sienese paintings that were produced around the 1400s. Such peculiarity comes from the fact that the mixing of these colours was more definitive to Florentine-styled art.Enzo, Carli. Sienese Painting. Scala Books, Harper and Row Publishers, 1983 Hence, colour, geometric orientation, costumes, and faces all come together to suggest that Domenico would have received his early apprentice training from someone in Siena with strong Florentine influences. Two possible candidates that Bruce Cole introduces are Paolo di Giovanni Fei or Taddeo di Bartolo.
Logistically, Taddeo would especially be a likely possibility because of his apparent Florentine styles in his art. Having this kind of mentorship would have most definitely have encouraged Domenico to observe and attempt to adapt to the latest Florentine artistic styles, techniques, trends and developments. More so than any other Sienese painter of his time, Domenico well understood Masaccio's well-recognized realistic and straightforward style of painting. In particular, he was able to incorporate Masaccio's styles into his own paintings without distorting or misrepresenting them. Domenico di Bartolo must have visited Pisa and Florence sometime in the late 1420s, where he would have witnessed paintings executed by Masaccio, who was considered by Giorgio Vasari to be one of the best painters of his time, as well as the first great Italian painter of the Quattrocento Renaissance period.Pope-Hennessy, John. "The Development of Realistic Painting in Siena-II". The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, vol. 84, no. 495, 1944, pp. 139–145. . Masaccio was commended for his refined skills in imitating nature, recreating lifelike movements in his subjects, as well as his consistent success in creating a convincing three-dimensionality to his paintings.Borsi, Stefano. Masaccio. Giunti Editore, 1998 Domenico's observations of Masaccio's painting would have proved to be an educational experience as he later is seen to utilize a type of artistic technique called circular-arc composition within the Madonna of Humility. The five angels are arranged in a semi-circle, creating significantly more tangible space for the presentation of the Virgin, without, however, affecting the flat picture plane caused by the isocephalic distribution of the angels' heads. This kind of semi-circular composition was used by Masaccio in works such as the Adoration of the Magi for the Pisa altarpiece. This technique was considered to be an effective way of organizing a large number of figures that exist in a complicated narrative scene, into a single simple geometric configuration.
In regards to sculptor Jacopo della Quercia, Domenico's Madonna of Humility shows hints of adaptation by displaying similarities to Jacopo's Madonna in the Fonte Gaia. Both portray a new kind of gothic flexibility in the draper, which creates soft pockets of shadows that add a new kind of weightiness to the figure and to the overall image. Domenico's Madonna of Humility eventually ended up contributing significantly more to Florentine than to Sienese art. During the time that the painting was released to the public, appreciation and recognition from Sienese art critics were minimal. To serve as evidence that there had been some kind of a partnership to exist between Jacopo and Domenico, John Pope-Hennessy's research confirms that the major works of Domenico for the Cathedral of Siena were commissioned at the time when Jacopo was the overseeing operational director of the Opera del Duomo. When Jacopo Quercia left Siena in 1435, he had selected two counsellors to proceed with his job. Domenico was one of the two witnesses to approve of Jacopo's nomination decisions.Pope-Hennessy, J. (1944). "The Development of Realistic Painting in Siena-I". The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, 84(494), 110–119. .