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Chap. XIV. PUCCIO CAP ANNA. 377 Badia 1 at Florence, S. Cataldo of Rimini, 2 Bologna, 3 where it is hard to find frescos in a church which Vasari does not condescend to name, no longer yield any clue to Puccio’s style. Scenes illustrative of the Passion in the Lower church of Assisi would do him honour, were it possible to forget that Giotto is the author of them; 4 or did Vasari, in assigning them to Puccio, merely intend to suggest that he helped his master. Surely the Aretine did not intend to pass him off as the painter of frescos in the north transept. The critic might be forced to fall back at once upon the so called Puccios at Pistoia, were he not induced to pause before the wall paintings of the Maddalena chapel in the Lower church of Assisi, where, it is clear, none but a pupil of Giotto laid out the varied scenes of the lives of the Magdalen and S. Mary of Egypt. 5 The chapel was devoted to the re mains of Pontani, bishop of Assisi, whose days were finally numbered in 1329, — whose arms certify that he is represented receiving consecration from S. Rufinus in the spandrils of one of the feigned arches of the chapel. Amongst the thoroughly Giottesque compositions of a series clearly due to a pupil of the Florentine master, 1 Puccio painted the chapel of theCovoni near the sacristy. Ibid, p. 337. An altarpiece in that chapel is mentioned by Cinelli, in Eicha, ub. sup. Vol. I. p. 199. 2 Here lie painted a wreck in which his own likeness was intro duced. Ibid. p. 336. 3 Ibid. Vol. I. p. 338. 4 Assigned to Puccio by Vasari. Vol. I. p. 337. 5 In a triple course of frescos, six scenes from the life of the Magdalen, and S. Mary of Egypt are depicted. Lunettes — (3) the communion, where 3 figures look on and four angels carry the saint to heaven; — the gift of his gar ment to Mary by Zosimus, the saint, being in her cave; — the ascension of the Magdalen, car- I ried to heaven in a mantle by ’ two angels supported by two others. In the lower courses, Christ an ointed by the Magdalen, the re surrection of Lazarus, the Noli me tangere and Lazarus miracu lously reaching the port of Mar seilles. In the spandrils of painted arches, imitating recesses in the side walls of the chapel, the con secration of bishop Pontani, the figure of a female saint, another female saint, raising a kneeling monk, and a half figure of Laza- ! rus, 12 figures of saints male and female in the entrance vaulting, amongst them S.S. Peter, Matthew, Chiara. Ceiling in diagonals, Sa viour, Magdalen, S. Mary of Egypt, Lazarus in medallion. Pon tani is buried in the chapel.