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Giovanni dal Ponte, The Garden of Love

Artist Giovanni dal Ponte, Florence, 1385–1437/38
Title The Garden of Love
Date ca. 1425–30
Medium Tempera and gold on panel
Dimensions overall 51.2 × 167.4 cm (20 1/8 × 65 7/8 in.); picture surface: 40.4 × 149.6 cm (15 7/8 × 58 7/8 in.)
Credit Line Bequest of Maitland F. Griggs, B.A., 1896
Inv. No. 1943.217
View in Collection
Provenance

Art market, Florence; Maitland Fuller Griggs (1872–1943), New York, 1927

Condition

The panel support, of a horizontal wood grain, ranges in thickness from 1.4 to 4 centimeters and exhibits a slight convex warp. It comprises one large plank with the addition of a 5-centimeter-wide board across the bottom that appears to be an old repair, secured to the main plank with four walnut butterfly wedges. Three more walnut butterfly wedges repair a prominent split originating at the right edge of the panel and reaching nearly half its full length. The top molding of the frame, approximately 10 centimeters of the right molding, and 43 centimeters of the left molding are original; the bottom molding and the lower extensions of both lateral moldings are modern repairs. The original cutout for the lock hasp, measuring 10 by 9.5 centimeters, centered at the top margin of the panel on the reverse, has been filled with later wood, probably at the same time as the addition of the bottom strip. A later hasp, measuring 14 by 11 centimeters, was affixed to the reverse at the top margin, 70 centimeters (on center) from the left edge of the panel. The keyholes from both hasps have been filled and repainted. The gilding and paint surface are severely abraded throughout—above all, in areas of green pigment. Prominent losses occur along the split at the lower right, along a broad horizontal scratch through the legs of the two figures at the left of the fountain, and in the feet of the seated musicians and a dancer at the far left of the composition.

Discussion

The panel, once the front of a cassone, has received scant attention in the literature, no doubt due to its present condition. Beyond affecting the appreciation of its artistic merits, the irreparable damage from past interventions has compromised an accurate reading of the composition. Paul Watson referred to the panel only sporadically in his studies on the Garden of Love in early Renaissance Tuscan art, mentioning it in the company of other works, mostly deschi da parto (birth trays), that celebrated the theme, beginning with the earliest known example in the Musée de la Chartreuse, Douai, France (fig. 1). The Yale version, at present best understood through comparisons with old photographs (fig. 2)—although these already reveal modern retouching—contains all the essential components of the allegorical Garden of Love: a flowery meadow bounded by trees; a fountain at its center; and groupings of elegant couples who dance, listen to music, and crown one another with flowers.1 These elements evoke the courtly atmosphere of chivalric romance found in the love lyrics of early troubadours and encapsulated by Guillaume de Lorris’s Roman de la rose (ca. 1230)—a work whose influence is traceable in the writings of Dante, Francesco Petrarch, and Giovanni Boccaccio.2 Echoing Lorris’s poem, Boccaccio described the garden as a place where “beauty, nobility, and worth, charming words, the very mould of virtue, and highest happiness dwell with love . . . there fulfilled are worldly dreams, and their sweetness is seen, and felt.”3

Fig. 1. Florentine School, Desco da Parto with the Garden of Love, ca. 1380. Tempera and gold on panel, Diam. 50 cm (19 5/8 in.). Musée de la Chartreuse, Douai, France, inv. no. 1089a
Fig. 2. The Garden of Love, 1943

Watson’s study highlighted the importance of the Roman de la rose among the multiplicity of sources that contributed to the development of the theme. His analysis of the Yale Garden of Love, however, did not fully explore the relevance of the poem as a source for some of the unique features that distinguish this composition from traditional representations of the subject as formulated by the Douai desco da parto. In contrast to the iconic character of that work and other images related to it, the Yale Garden of Love appears to follow a loose narrative structure that traces the progression of love from an awareness of its delights (in the garden) to the awakening of desire (at the fountain) and final attainment of the beloved—in a sequence of images that closely evokes the ekphrastic descriptions of the young Lover’s journey in the Roman de la rose. Paralleling the didactic aspect of the poem and borrowing elements that are specific to Lorris’s tale, the painting may be read as an allegorical lesson or reminder addressed specifically to a patrician Florentine groom about the proper conduct he should follow according to the conventions of courtly love.4

Foremost among the more unusual aspects of the Yale panel is the large flock of birds—now only partially visible—swooping and swirling together in the golden sky while carrying inscribed scrolls in their beaks. Aside from a few fragments of words, the inscriptions are no longer legible, but it may be presumed that they originally provided a poetic commentary on the painting. Watson, who remarked on the exceptional quality of the bird motif, related it to the Elysian imagery of Latin poetry. Medieval chivalric literature, however, is replete with ornithological references, where nightingales, in particular, take on the role of “singers of love” and champions of Venus in debates about the nature of love.5 In the Roman de la rose, the young narrator/Lover’s first experience of the garden is defined by the “heavenly” sound of countless varieties of birds, whose names are individually listed by the author; they are singing “amorous lays and courtly airs” throughout the garden, luring the listener like a siren song and filling him with immense joy. The God of Love himself, we are told, is “entirely covered with birds,” and nightingales flutter around his head.6 The message-carrying birds in the Yale panel immediately situate the image within the realm of love defined by the Roman de la rose. On the extreme left of the panel, two women stand in the background of an idyllic scene of music and dance. As in the Douai birth tray, a fashionably dressed trio, composed of a woman between two men, dances with interlocked hands to the music provided by two elegantly attired performers.7 A young woman seated on the ground delicately plucks the strings of a harp—the instrument of Venus—accompanied by an equally stylish young man playing a lute. She wears a rose-colored dress with fur cuffs and red sleeves; he is dressed in a fringed silver tunic with gold trim over red tights. As noted by Watson, the beautiful clothes of all the participants and the elegant rhythms of the dancers capture the leisurely atmosphere that was viewed by medieval poets as conducive to love.8 These qualities are personified by the characters in the Roman de la rose, where the lovely Lady Idleness lets the Lover into the garden, informing him that it belongs to a gentleman named Pleasure: “Pleasure and his followers, who live in joy and happiness, often come to amuse themselves and enjoy the shade of this place. Indeed, Pleasure is doubtless already there, listening to the song of the nightingales, thrushes, and other birds. He enjoys himself there and relaxes with his followers, for he could never find a finer spot or a fairer place in which to enjoy himself. And I assure you that Pleasure’s companions, whom he takes with him in his train, are the fairest people to be found anywhere.”9 Presiding over the gathering alongside Pleasure is his mistress, Lady Joy, who leads the dancers in song with her beautiful voice. A “mirthful lady” called Courtesy graciously invites the Lover to join in the dance, which is also attended by the God of Love in the company of Beauty.

As in other depictions of the Garden of Love, the focus of the Yale picture is the Fountain of Love. In this instance, it is an imposing octagonal marble structure that dominates the composition and defines the narrative, marking the transition from the pleasures of the garden to the discovery of sensual love. Rising from its center is a column that was originally surmounted by the standing figure of a naked Cupid; although the painted surface has mostly disappeared, the outlines incised in the gold background show that his left arm was extended outward, possibly clutching a bow and/or arrows. Standing to the left of the fountain and dipping his hands in the waters of love is a tall man wearing a red berretta, or cap, and an ermine-lined lucco—the floor-length crimson gown traditionally worn by fifteenth-century Florentine upper-class men after the age of eighteen.10 The prominence accorded this figure would appear to suggest that he may represent the young patrician groom for whom the chest was commissioned. Opposite him, on the other side of the fountain, is a knight with a hawk, a common medieval trope for sexual attraction that also appears in the Douai desco.11 Here, however, the knight does not merely stand in proximity to the fountain but appears to be gazing directly into it—one hand lifted in shock or surprise, the other carrying the hawk. The detail evokes the illustrations in illuminated manuscripts of the Roman de la rose (fig. 3), where the Ovidian pool of Narcissus is conflated with the image of the Lover looking into the Fountain of Love and falling under the spell of Cupid: “For Cupid, Venus’s son, sowed here the seed of love which covers the whole spring; here he set his nets and snares to trap young men and maidens, for Love wants no other birds. Because of the seed that was sown here, this spring was rightly called the Spring of Love, and many have spoken of it in many places, in books and romances.”12 In the poem, the fountain becomes an elaborate visual metaphor for the awakening of erotic desire and the transformative power of love; looking into the water’s depths, the young Lover sees two marvelous crystals that reflect every part of the garden in wonderous detail, including a rose bush that he had not previously noticed, whereupon he is suddenly seized by an overwhelming impulse to pluck one of its flowers.13 The God of Love, who has been stalking him through the garden, then immediately strikes the Lover with his arrows, making him his prisoner; the young man gladly surrenders to the god and agrees to become his “liegeman,” swearing to obey his “commandments.”14

Fig. 3. French illuminator, Young Man at the Fountain of Love, ca. 1400. Tempera on parchment. Biblioteca de la Universitat de València, MS 0387, Roman de la rose, fol. 12r

In the Yale panel, the progress from infatuation toward the attainment of the beloved is represented to the right of the fountain, where three ladies are seated on the grass weaving garlands of flowers, traditional tokens of love; in the Roman de la rose, as noted by Watson, Pleasure wears a chaplet of roses made for him by Joy, “for pleasure and for love.”15 Closing the composition are two young women crowning the young men kneeling before them with garlands, a recurrent motif throughout medieval literature and art, signifying the acceptance of the Lover’s suit.16 The unusual trio of seated women recalls a similar grouping, usually identified as a representation of Emilia and her companions gathering flowers, in a desco da parto by Mariotto di Nardo in Stuttgart, Germany, illustrating Boccaccio’s Teseida.17 Watson viewed the motif within the context of classical and medieval numerology, as a depiction of love itself or of the different phases of love.18 Three garlanded women, two of whom play musical instruments, kneel before the figure of Venus in Giovanni di Paolo’s marriage box in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, dated 1421 (see Giovanni di Paolo, Annunciate Virgin, fig. 7); they were identified by Millard Meiss as the Three Graces but have also been viewed as a depiction of the betrothed flanked by her attendants.19 In the Yale panel, there is a clear intent to relate the trio to the events on the other side of the fountain, for one of the seated women is undoubtedly the same garlanded maiden shown playing the harp. Her precise identity, however, remains unclear. Among the beautiful women in the garden of the Roman de la rose, Lady Joy stands out as the faithful sweetheart of Pleasure, her melodious voice unsurpassed by all others; her hair, “blond and shining,” is braided with gold thread and crowned with a magnificent gold-embroidered chaplet unlike any other.20 The virtues of joy and courtesy, along with an undivided heart, musical skills, dancing, and elegant attire, head the long list of commandments issued by the God of Love in the Roman de la rose. Since “words are less difficult to recall when they are brief,” Lorris explains, they can be succinctly summarized for the benefit of the young Lover as: “Anyone who wishes to make Love his master must be courteous and free from pride, elegant and light-hearted and esteemed for his generosity.”21

The Yale Garden of Love was acquired by Maitland Griggs in Florence in 1927 with an attribution to Giovanni dal Ponte, endorsed by both Bernard Berenson and Paul Schubring.22 Since then, the authorship of the painting has never been questioned, although its precarious state has hindered any meaningful discussion of its place in the artist’s oeuvre. Watson, following Charles Seymour, Jr., proposed a date around 1430, based on a supposed dependence of the seated harpist on the musician in a desco by Bartolomeo di Fruosino dated 1428, formerly in the New-York Historical Society.23 The figures are not identical, however, and both conform in their pose to other representations of seated women playing the harp in medieval manuscripts and model books. In his discussion of Giovanni dal Ponte’s activity as a cofanaio, or cassone painter, Lorenzo Sbaraglio argued more persuasively for an earlier chronology.24 According to Sbaraglio, the execution of the present work fell “a few years” after that of a cassone front with scenes from Boccaccio’s Teseida in the Museo Amedeo Lia, La Spezia (fig. 4), tentatively associated with a 1422 payment to the artist.25 The same author subsequently catalogued the Yale panel with a date between 1425 and 1430.26

Fig. 4. Giovanni dal Ponte, Stories from Boccaccio’s “Teseida,” ca. 1420–25. Tempera on panel, 55 × 159 cm (21 5/8 × 62 5/8 in.). Museo Amedeo Lia, La Spezia, inv. no. 282

As pointed out by Sbaraglio, the correspondences between the Lia painting and the Yale Garden of Love extend beyond the shared courtly atmosphere and palette to include similar figure types and idiosyncratic details—like the vortex of folds formed by the sleeve of the falconer’s dress, which mimics that of one of the characters in the first episode of the Lia panel. Indeed, it is through the Lia cassone that one gains a sense of the original appearance of the Yale panel. Its exquisite quality and the liveliness of the composition are still discernible in the fastidious attention to precious details in the figures’ clothing and in the energetic movements of the dancers and lunging poses of the two young women on the right side of the panel. It is not clear to what extent the unified picture field, more consistent with Giovanni dal Ponte’s other cassoni, is an indicator of a later date. The increased breadth of the composition and recession in depth of the solidly constructed fountain argue in favor of a slightly more sophisticated approach, while the looser drawing technique and dynamic folds of cloth seem to more nearly anticipate the artist’s fully developed mature style. Notwithstanding these distinctions, the Yale panel, like the Lia picture, certainly predates the monumental, eccentric qualities of Giovanni’s efforts in the fourth decade, as defined by the triptych in the abbey of Santa Maria in Rosano (Florence), dated 1434, and as reflected in other cassone paintings, such as the Garden of Famous Lovers in the Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris (fig. 5), and the pair in Madrid and ex-Bardini Collection.27 The relative chronology of Giovanni’s production before 1430, however, remains unsettled. The absence of securely documented works aside from the Marriage of Saint Catherine in the Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest, purportedly dated 1421, has resulted in often radically divergent opinions.28 Like the Lia picture, the Yale Garden of Love may be grouped with those works that reflect an intermediate phase of the painter’s career between 1420 and 1430, when his approach is consistent with the Late Gothic idiom of contemporary masters, such as Rossello di Jacopo Franchi (see Rossello di Jacopo Franchi, Pilaster Fragment with Saint Catherine of Alexandria and Rossello di Jacopo Franchi, Virgin and Child in Glory with Saint John the Baptist, Saint Peter, and Two Angels) and Paolo Schiavo (see Paolo Schiavo, The Realms of Love).

Fig. 5. Giovanni dal Ponte, The Garden of Famous Lovers, ca. 1430–35. Tempera and gold on panel, 42 × 146 cm (16 1/2 × 57 1/2 in.). Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris, inv. no. P1765

The possibility cannot be excluded that the present work, like the Lia panel, might relate to one of the cassoni executed in Giovanni dal Ponte’s workshop in the 1420s and recorded in documents. The list of the artist’s patrons comprises some of the most notable names in Florentine society, such as the Bardi and the Strozzi—cosmopolitan, educated members of the ruling elite who would have been familiar with the courtly atmosphere evoked by the Roman de la rose through intermediary sources or perhaps even a copy of the original text.29 A candidate for the present commission could be Matteo di Simone degli Strozzi (1397–1435), who is listed in the 1427 catasto as owing money to the artist for a pair of chests.30 A distant cousin but close family friend and protegé of Palla Strozzi, Matteo had been educated among the leading humanists of the period and was known for his intellectual and literary ambitions and diplomatic skills.31 Since Matteo’s own children were still infants in 1427, the cassone pair must have been intended for an unidentified female relative. The absence of any coats of arms on all of the surviving cassone paintings attributed to the artist, however, and the fact that the documents do not mention the subjects represented on the chests preclude any firm conclusions. —PP

Published References

, 66; , 250; , 1:91; , 152, 154, 315, no. 106; , 67–72, 290–91, no. 28, pl. 26; , 91, 600; , 64–66, 68, 70, 72, 78, 103, pl. 55; , 33, 63, no. 110; , 35, 45n17, figs. 3–4, 6; , 82n21; Lorenzo Sbaraglio, in , 207, no. 51; , 63, 68n2

Notes

  1. , 61–62. ↩︎

  2. The most comprehensive discussion of the impact of the Roman de la rose on thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Italian authors remains . More recently, Luciano Rossi (in , 201–19) highlighted the poem’s influence on Boccaccio, in particular. The earliest known Italian versions of the Roman de la rose are a late thirteenth-century shorter poem called Il fiore and an amatory lyric named Detto d’amore, both of which have been attributed to Dante. These works espouse the ideals of courtly love spelled out by the God of Love in the Roman de la rose, but they do not constitute an exact translation of the poem and do not contain any allusion to Lorris’s Fountain of Love. Il fiore is based primarily on the second half of the Roman, composed by Jean de Meun some forty years after Lorris’s text. See . These adaptations suggest that the Roman de la rose was already in circulation in Italy by the last quarter of the thirteenth century and that it enjoyed some favor in literary circles. In 1339 Petrarch presented a copy of the poem to Guido Gonzaga, duke of Mantua. ↩︎

  3. Boccaccio, Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine, quoted in , 73. ↩︎

  4. The narrator/dreamer/Lover in the poem, it bears noting, is a young man in his “twentieth year, at the time when Love claims his tribute from young men”; Romance of the Rose 1994, 3. As argued by Frances Horgan, Lorris’s poem “can be read as a kind of textbook, in which the Lover’s adventures illustrate the theoretical manual for courtly lovers dictated by the God of Love.” The author himself, she notes, “is at pains to stress the didactic aspect of his work. He introduces it as ‘the Romance of the Rose, in which the whole art of love is contained,’ and insists, when he comes to the commandments of the God of Love, that ‘anyone who aspires to love should pay attention, for the romance now improves’”; , xiii–xiv. Lorris consciously situates his text in the tradition of medieval treatises on love, exemplified by the twelfth-century De arte honesta amandi (The Art of True Love). ↩︎

  5. See , 13–16. ↩︎

  6. , 11–12, 15. ↩︎

  7. According to Watson, the dance formation in these works reflects fairly closely some of the actual dances of the early Renaissance, in which the participants, usually a lady and two men, interweave in patterns suggestive of “courtship, coquetry, pursuit, and capture”; , 68. ↩︎

  8. , 29. ↩︎

  9. , 11. ↩︎

  10. For the social connotations of class and privilege represented by this formal dress, see , 353–68. ↩︎

  11. See , 157–83. ↩︎

  12. , 25. ↩︎

  13. , 24–26. No other segment of Lorris’s poem has elicited as much discussion as the Fountain of Narcissus/Fountain of Love; generations of critics have tried to explain the relevance of Narcissus to the Lover’s own experience, parsing the text for the symbolic meaning of the two crystals at the bottom of the spring. For a summary of previous literature and a postmodern discussion of this passage in terms of medieval theories of visual perception and semantic interpretation, see . ↩︎

  14. , 30–31. ↩︎

  15. , 14, cited by , 72. ↩︎

  16. Watson refers to the drawings of a man and a woman crowning their respective lovers with garlands in a famous fourteenth-century model book in the Morgan Library and Museum, New York (inv. no. II, 2–25, fol. 14r, https://www.themorgan.org/collection/model-book/14), now attributed to the circle of Tommaso da Modena; see , 68–69. The image also appears in fourteenth-century ivories and marriage boxes; see , pls. 22, 27. ↩︎

  17. Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany, inv. no. 2693, https://www.staatsgalerie.de/de/collection/object/105FC6EF4176687A358C82A2621E2BAD; and , 82–83, no. 10. ↩︎

  18. , 69, 148n35; he quoted a medieval Latin refrain that states, “Three are the steps of love and triple is its grace: the first finds, the second nourishes, the third clinches the work.” ↩︎

  19. , 137–38; and Dóra Sallay, in , 416–17, no. E.28. Around the rim of the box runs an inscription that reads: “Let him who wishes to live happily behold this person [Venus] to whom love [amore] and the other gods are subject 1421”; , 137n2. ↩︎

  20. , 13–15. ↩︎

  21. , 34. It is worth wondering whether a version of this tenet was contained in the inscriptions of the Yale panel, as a befitting commentary on the painting. ↩︎

  22. According to Griggs, February 1928, recorded in the Frick Art Reference Library, New York. ↩︎

  23. , 146n10; and , 152, 154, no. 106. The desco last appeared in a sale at Sotheby’s, New York, January 27, 2011, lot 119. ↩︎

  24. , 35. ↩︎

  25. The Lia cassone, Sbaraglio proposed, might be one of a pair of chests commissioned by the Florentine merchant Ilarione de’ Bardi for the marriage of his niece Costanza to Bartolomeo di Ugo degli Alessandri, for which the artist received payment on March 25, 1422; , 35, 44n8. For this work, see also Lorenzo Sbaraglio, in , 108–9, no. 18. ↩︎

  26. Sbaraglio, in , 207, no. 51. ↩︎

  27. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, no. 2844, https://www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/obra-de-arte/las-siete-artes-liberales/89d9f351-fff6-4141-9efc-d5ea2951b488. The ex-Bardini panel, formerly in a private collection, last appeared on the art market in New York; see Christie’s, New York, April 14, 2016, lot 129. ↩︎

  28. Inv. no. 1139, https://www.mfab.hu/artworks/8676/. The fragmentary inscription below the Marriage of Saint Catherine, as reported by Sbaraglio (in , 66), reads: “[Q]UESTA TAVOLA AFATTA FARE LAPO DI TOMASO COREGIAIO PER RIMEDIO DELL . . . XI ADI XXIIII DI [LUGLIO]” (This painting was made on behalf of Lapo di Tommaso leathermaker [corregiaio] for the benefit of . . . XI on the 24th of [July]). The two surviving digits of the year “ . . . XI” could plausibly be read as 1411, 1421, or 1431. Following Andor Pigler’s reading of the date as 1421 (, 1:554–55), the Budapest panel has generally been considered the earliest fixed point in the artist’s career (, 63–86 [with previous bibliography]), but the stylistic and circumstantial evidence is not conclusive. ↩︎

  29. Based on the evidence provided by musical history, David Fallows concluded that “French remained a vital courtly language in many parts of northern Italy at least until 1450”; , 441. Around 1375, Benvenuto da Imola complained of the number of Italians, particularly the nobility, who affected to learn French, and by 1457, Galeazzo Maria Sforza could write to his father requesting the key to the French books in the castle library, adding that he himself preferred to read Latin but that French could be read aloud in company and “give everyone pleasure”; see , 431. Although these anecdotes are confined to northern Italian courts, it may be presumed that an understanding of written French, at least, was not uncommon among the educated Florentine elite and/or humanist class. ↩︎

  30. , 171, 179; and , 45n8. In 1427 Giovanni dal Ponte had entered into a partnership with the painter Smeraldo di Giovanni (1366–1444), but the exact nature of their collaboration is not known, and no works have hitherto been attributed to Smeraldo’s hand. Since the contract drawn up by the two artists stated that Smeraldo was to receive only 35 percent of the profits, it is generally assumed that he held a secondary position in the workshop, as decorator. See, however, , 44n6. ↩︎

  31. . Matteo, who was an intimate friend of Palla’s son Lorenzo, was instrumental in arranging the latter’s marriage to Alessandra de’ Bardi, daughter of Bardo de’ Bardi. The betrothal ceremony, which took place on May 23, 1428—when Alessandra was only eleven years old—consolidated the alliance between the two largest and wealthiest anti-Medici lineages in Florence; see , 111–12. ↩︎

Fig. 1. Florentine School, Desco da Parto with the Garden of Love, ca. 1380. Tempera and gold on panel, Diam. 50 cm (19 5/8 in.). Musée de la Chartreuse, Douai, France, inv. no. 1089a
Fig. 2. The Garden of Love, 1943
Fig. 3. French illuminator, Young Man at the Fountain of Love, ca. 1400. Tempera on parchment. Biblioteca de la Universitat de València, MS 0387, Roman de la rose, fol. 12r
Fig. 4. Giovanni dal Ponte, Stories from Boccaccio’s “Teseida,” ca. 1420–25. Tempera on panel, 55 × 159 cm (21 5/8 × 62 5/8 in.). Museo Amedeo Lia, La Spezia, inv. no. 282
Fig. 5. Giovanni dal Ponte, The Garden of Famous Lovers, ca. 1430–35. Tempera and gold on panel, 42 × 146 cm (16 1/2 × 57 1/2 in.). Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris, inv. no. P1765
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