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of Saint Jerome written in the thirteenth cen-
tury.69 It describes how Saint Jerome and Saint
John the Baptist appeared to Saint Augustine in
a religious vision shortly before his death. It is
possible that d’Estouteville’s fine marble bust,
likewise by Mino, was originally meant to be
placed on the altar of Saint Jerome, ‘as a perpet-
ual reminder not only of his patronage of the al-
tar itself, but also as a sign of his continued de-
votion to ot the saint.’70
In light of Leonardo Salutati’s emphasis on
his career and status as iuris consultus on both his
tomb and altarpiece, his almost certain know-
ledge of d’Estouteville’s ambitious Saint Jerome
altarpiece in Santa Maria Maggiore (Fig. 11), and
both the relevance of Saint Jerome for Quattro-
cento notaries and for the Diocese of Fiesole, I
would like to suggest a new identification of the
two figures communicating with one another on
the Salutati Altarpiece’s right side, an identifica-
tion that situates both tomb and dossale in its
proper scholarly context.
It is quite striking and typical of Mino that in
both scenes – the marble relief for d’Estouteville’s
altar of Saint Jerome and the figures in relief on
the Salutati Altarpiece – the artist applies the ex-
act same types in depicting the saints (compare
figs. 7 and 11). Both reliefs show similar gestures,
postures and facial features of the seated saint,
with his open mouth including visible teeth, to
emphasize a form of visibile parlare, of dialogue
made visible, further stressed by the saint’s fine- ly carved ear in the Salutati Chapel. Both seat-
ed figures wear sandals and a simple tunic with a
girdle, both have short, curly hair and a remark-
ably full, curly beard. Mino, it seems, brought
this figure with him from Rome, where he had
been working on the cardinal’s Saint Jerome
altarpiece up until the Salutati commission. Yet,
if what we see is indeed a seated Saint Augus-
tine, looking up in surprise to what he sees –
possibly Saint Jerome in his vision, then Salu-
tati’s is a much more innovative interpretation
of the scene than its Roman counterpart, where
Saint John the Baptist and Saint Jerome appear
in a mandorla behind a cherub’s head and styl-
ized clouds.
There are several good reasons to assume
that the Salutati Altarpiece shows a combina-
tion of Saint Augustine with the much-venerat-
ed Saint Jerome. As we know, Leonardo Salutati
was very close to the congregation of the Her-
mits of Saint Jerome in Fiesole; he was a mem-
ber of the Buca di San Gerolamo, an important
brotherhood named after its foundation site in
the monastery of San Gerolamo in Fiesole.71 Jer-
ome was a Modeheiliger – a saint in vogue in the
fifteenth century and extremely popular among
humanists, scholars, and jurisprudents. Venera-
tion for Jerome and Augustine were closely inter-
twined in pre-Reformation Europe.72 Cardinal
d’Estouteville’s predilection for both Jerome and
Augustine is expressed in the fact that he named
his two sons after these saints.73 What is more,
jeanette
kohl164
69 Kaftal, Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting (cit. n. 50), p. 531.
70 Zuraw, The Sculpture of Mino da Fiesole (cit. n. 13), p. 648. Already Vasari notes a portrait of the cardinal on the
altar, see ibid, p. 154. This would make a direct influence on Salutati’s tomb monument and altarpiece even more
probable.
71 See L. Sebregondi, Tre confraternite fiorentine, Florence 1991. Vespasiano da Bistecci reports that several eminent
Florentine city officials, clerics and artists (the two Florentine bishops Amerigo Corsini and Saint Antoninus, as
well as Pope Paul II and Luca della Robbia) were members of the Buca di San Gerolamo, see H. Brockhaus, For-
schungen über Florentiner Kunstwerke, Leipzig 1902, pp. 111–112.
72 B. Hamm, Hieronymus-Begeisterung und Augustinismus vor der Reformation. Beobachtungen zur Beziehung zwis-
chen Humanismus und Frömmigkeitstheologie (am Beispiel Nürnbergs), in: Augustine, the Harvest, and Theology
(1300–1650). Essays Dedicated to Heiko Augustinus Oberman in Honor of his Sixtieth Birthday (ed. K. Hagen),
Leiden 1990, pp. 127–235.
73 Zuraw, The Sculpture of Mino da Fiesole (cit. n. 13), pp. 638s.
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Buch Der Arkadenhof der Universität Wien und die Tradition der Gelehrtenmemoria in Europa"
Der Arkadenhof der Universität Wien und die Tradition der Gelehrtenmemoria in Europa
- Titel
- Der Arkadenhof der Universität Wien und die Tradition der Gelehrtenmemoria in Europa
- Herausgeber
- Ingeborg Schemper-Sparholz
- Martin Engel
- Andrea Mayr
- Julia Rüdiger
- Verlag
- Böhlau Verlag
- Ort
- WIEN · KÖLN · WEIMAR
- Datum
- 2018
- Sprache
- deutsch
- Lizenz
- CC BY 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-205-20147-2
- Abmessungen
- 18.5 x 26.0 cm
- Seiten
- 428
- Schlagwörter
- Scholars‘ monument, portrait sculpture, pantheon, hall of honour, university, Denkmal, Ehrenhalle, Memoria, Gelehrtenmemoria, Pantheon, Epitaph, Gelehrtenporträt, Büste, Historismus, Universität
- Kategorien
- Geschichte Chroniken