Siena and the Levant in the Later Dugento

Author(s): Anne Derbes

Source: Gesta, Vol. 28, No. 2 (1989), pp. 190-204
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the International Center of Medieval
Art

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Siena and the Levant in the Later Dugento*

ANNE DERBES
Hood College
Abstract
It is well known that Sienese artists like Guido da
Siena and Duccio derived much from contemporary
Eastern art. This study suggests that, at least on occasion, the reverse was also true: artists in the Levant at
times appropriated images that probably originated in
Siena. The key monuments that attest to this interdependence between East and West are Nicola Pisano's
Crucifixion relief from the Siena pulpit, completed in
1268, and three Eastern works: two Cilician manuscripts, dated ca. 1270 and 1272, and a Crusader icon
that is probably contemporaneous with the manuscripts. Both the manuscripts and the icon include
several motifs, in particular a dramatically swooning
Virgin, that derive from Nicola's Crucifixion. Other
aspects of these works strongly resemble the work of
Guido da Siena, active from ca. 1260-ca. 1285. Textual
evidence corroborates the visual evidence provided by
these images: a little-known document states that in
1268 the Sienese were granted privileges of commerce
in Acre, capital of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and
a major Levantine port. The Sienese presence in the
Eastern Mediterraneanthus firmly established, the paper then examines other images that also suggest
artistic interconnections between Italy and the Levant
in the later thirteenth century.

Duccio must have studied Byzantine art avidly as a

young painter in Siena in the 1270s. This master's general
debt to Byzantium has long been acknowledged, and
Stubblebine has demonstrated it with new precision, documenting in Duccio's work not only a generic resemblance
to Eastern art but specific stylistic and iconographic links
to Paleologan painting.' More recently Belting has explored further the question of Duccio's beginnings and
Byzantine art, proposing that he could have come into
contact with Eastern icon painters working in Tuscany.2
Deuchler even has revived Berenson's notion of his possible
sojourn in the East.3
Another approach to the question is to consider the
broader context of contemporary commercial and artistic
interconnections between Siena and the Levant. This study
will present evidence of these interconnections especially
during the 1270s, when Duccio began his career. Duccio's
awareness of Byzantine art is but one aspect of a larger
picture: artists in Siena certainly appropriated ideas and
images from the East, but their counterparts in the Levant
seem to have been, at least on occasion, equally receptive
to motifs that probably originated in Siena.
190

"jit

FIGURE 1. San Bernardino Master, Madonna and Child, 1262, Siena,

Pinacoteca Nazionale (photo: Alinari).

A consideration of the interdependence of Siena and

the Levant in this period begins with Duccio's predecessor,
Guido da Siena. Born around 1240, Guido was the leading
painter in Siena in the 1260s and 1270s.4 Guido shared
with Duccio a keen interest in Byzantine art; Guido's
study of Byzantine prototypes becomes evident when two
versions of the Madonna and Child produced in his workshop are compared. Most examples of the theme from the
1260s and early 1270s, such as a panel in Siena by an artist
close to Guido (Fig. 1),5 depict the Christ Child holding
the scroll and sitting erect, with legs uncrossed. By
GESTA XXVIII/2 ? The International Center of Medieval Art 1989

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ca. 1275-1280, however, a new version appeared, which

may have been introduced in the monumental Madonna
and Child from the San Domenico Altarpiece (Fig. 2).6
Now the Child no longer holds the scroll and no longer
sits rigidly upright but reclines in Mary's arms, with
chubby legs crossed. This engaging, baby-like behavior is
an important development in Sienese painting, anticipating, for instance, the naturalistic treatment of the Christ
Child by Ambrogio Lorenzetti.7 But like much that is new
in Dugento painting, Guido's innovative treatment reflects
Byzantine sources: a twelfth-century icon of Simeon Holding the Christ Child (Fig. 3) provides us with a fairly clear
idea of the sort of image Guido must have known.8

el

Ott Ills

FIGURE 2. Guido da Siena, Madonna and Child, from the San Domenico Altarpiece, ca. 1275-80, Siena, Palazzo Pubblico (photo: Alinari).

A comparison like this provides us with one example

of the Sienese sensitivity to, and ingenious adaptation of,
Byzantine ideas in the later Dugento. It provides us, too,
with some sense of the motivation that frequently seems to
have prompted such adaptations. Tuscan artists were eager
for fresh approaches to traditional religious subjects, especially for approaches that allowed them a more expressive,
more human depiction of sacred figures. The casually
reclining Christ Child is an apt example; after decades of
more conventional, stiffly posed renditions, this image
must have seemed a revelation. The same fascination with
depicting Christ in newly human terms can be seen repeatedly in Dugento Passion iconography. Though Byzantium was not the only source for this sort of vivid new
imagery, it was the most richly mined.9
But if the example of Guido's reclining Christ Child is
instructive, it is not startling. Less predictable is the fact
that a corollary of sorts exists: Italian artists' interest in
Eastern ideas was at times reciprocated. A group of paintings produced in the Levant illustrates one aspect of what
has been called the "cultural symbiosis" of East and
West.10 These paintings, executed during just the period
that Guido and the young Duccio were studying Byzantine
art so assiduously, include motifs that seem to have originated in Siena: they evoke both a major sculptural monument in Siena and the work of Guido da Siena and his
followers. Furthermore, the motivation for the borrowing
seems similar to Guido's, for the Eastern artists responded
to Italian compositions that infuse new poignancy and
immediacy into traditional religious subjects.
The central work in this group is an icon depicting
the Crucifixion (Fig. 4). Published by the Soterious, it was
attributed by Weitzmann to a Crusader artist, for it closely
resembles several versions of the same scene in a group
that Weitzmann has studied at length." Both the provenance and the chronology of this group are uncertain.
Weitzmann originally assigned them to Acre, capital of
the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1244 to 1292, but
more recently proposed that some were executed at Saint
Catherine's on Mount Sinai, where they remain.12 The
icons cannot be precisely dated, but Weitzmann has placed
most of this group in the third quarter of the thirteenth
century.
Of Weitzmann's group, an example from a doublefaced or bilateral icon13 (Fig. 5) is especially close to the
first icon (Fig. 4). Compare, for instance, the uncommon
gesture of St. John, the dramatically gesticulating angels,
the dotted haloes, even the unusual use of a single nail to
pierce Christ's feet. As Weitzmann stresses, these features
are unknown in Byzantine art and indicate the Western
origins of the painter. On the other hand, in several
respects the first version (Fig. 4) stands apart from all the
other Crucifixions published by Weitzmann. Here Christ's
loincloth is dark and striated, in contrast to the plain light
cloth in the bilateral icon (Fig. 5) and all other examples.
191

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FIGURE 4. Crucifixion, probably 1270s, Mount Sinai, Monastery of

Saint Catherine (reproduced through the courtesy of the MichiganPrinceton-Alexandria Expedition to Mount Sinai).

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FIGURE 3. Simeon Holding the Christ Child, twelfth century, Mount

Sinai, Monastery of Saint Catherine (reproduced through the courtesy of
the Michigan-Princeton-Alexandria Expedition to Mount Sinai).

More striking is the greater complexity of this version,

which is considerably expanded beyond the usual threefigure Crucifixion seen elsewhere in the group. The Virgin
now swoons, supported by two holy women; a third,
identified by her plunging neckline and red garment as
Mary Magdalen, throws her arms into the air in despair; a
cowled, gesturing centurion and soldiers with helmets and
spears crowd together to the right. The Crucifixion is thus
transformed from a simple tableau to an impassioned
drama, a vivid recreation of Christ's death on the cross.
These new features are of particular interest not only
because of their expressive power but also because several
of them recur in other versions of the scene produced in
the Levant. One example occurs in a manuscript from
Armenian Cilicia, the Gospels of Queen Keran, written at

Sis in 1272 (Fig. 6).14 Here, too, the Virgin swoons into
the arms of the holy women; her stance, with left arm bent
at the elbow and right arm dangling limply, is very close
to her stance in the icon. It is not identical, however. In
the icon the holy woman on the right places her hand at
Mary's armpit, so that her unsupported left arm bends at
the elbow in defiance of gravity, whereas in the manuscript
the holy woman's hand is far more logically placed under
Mary's forearm. Other details also tend to link the two
works, such as the gesturing, cowled centurion and helmeted, spear-bearing soldiers to the right, and especially
the mourning angels in the manuscript, which are virtual
twins of those in the icon.
A second Cilician manuscript, the Gospels of Prince
Vasak, includes a very similar version of the Crucifixion
(Fig. 7). Dated less precisely than the Keran Gospels, this
manuscript is generally placed around 1270.15 In some
respects its Crucifixion is not as close to the icon as the
version in the Keran Gospels: conventional angels replace
the distinctive mourning angels, John holds a book, the

192

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FIGURE 5. Crucifixion, probably 1270s, Mount Sinai, Monastery of

Saint Catherine (reproduced through the courtesy of the MichiganPrinceton-Alexandria Expedition to Mount Sinai).

holy women gaze at Christ instead of the Virgin, and the

spears are absent.
These minor differences do not obscure the fundamental kinship between the three versions of the Crucifixion. Though it might seem impossible to determine
whether the composition first appeared in Cilicia or in a
Crusader workshop, two details in the Keran Crucifixion
(Fig. 6) may provide a clue. The first is the solid, massive
cross. Folda has aptly described this type as "beveled" and
has observed that it is characteristic of Crusader artists.16
These beveled crosses do not occur in earlier Cilician
illumination, and in particular are not found in the work
of T'oros Roslin, in whose shop the painter of the Keran

Gospels was probably trained.17 The second detail of

interest is the dotted haloes in the Keran Gospels. Such
ornamental haloes are found in relatively few illuminations in the manuscript, in only one scene in the Vasak
Gospels,18 and not at all in earlier Cilician manuscripts;
but they occur so frequently in Crusader icons that Weitzmann has called them a trademark of the group.9 It
therefore appears that the Cilician illuminator derived
these two details, as well as the general composition of his
Crucifixion, from a Crusader product much like our icon.20
The features that separate our icon (Fig. 4) from most
other Crusader versions of the Crucifixion especially recall
works of art in Siena. Consider, for instance, the helmet
and chainmail worn by the soldiers to the right. This
helmet, ridged in the center and brimmed at the base, is a
variant of the Western chapel-de-fer. Though it is not
exclusively Sienese, it appears, in combination with chainmail, fairly often in Siena, as in a Mounting of the Cross
by Guido da Siena (Fig. 8).21 The strongest link to Siena,
however, is found in the motif common to both the icon
and the Cilician manuscripts, the swooning Virgin. This
motif appears in Byzantine art by the late eleventh century
and recurs occasionally thereafter; generally Mary rests
her head on the shoulder or chest of St. John (Fig. 9).22 In
Italy, however, the fully developed swoon is rarely seen
before the middle of the thirteenth century, and when it
does appear the holy women rather than John usually
support the Virgin.23Several early examples all date to the
1250s and early 1260s. Of these, two-a panel of 1255-65
by a Lucchese painter, the Oblate Master (Fig. 10) and a
relief from the pulpit in the Baptistry of Pisa by Nicola
Pisano (Fig. 11)-are particularly interesting because both
contain very early occurrences of a second motif found in
our icon, the single nail that pierces Christ's feet.24 Despite
the iconographic correspondence, however, neither the
Lucchese panel nor the Pisan relief greatly resembles the
icon: in the panel, Mary collapses with both arms hanging
limply, while in the relief, she bends at the waist. The next
example occurs just a few years later, in Nicola Pisano's
pulpit of 1265-68 in the cathedral of Siena (Fig. 12).
Again a single nail pierces Christ's feet, and now Mary's
stance looks a great deal like the two Eastern examples:
her right arm dangles while her left is bent at the elbow
and supported by a holy woman. Nicola, not surprisingly,
betrays none of the anatomical confusion of our icon
painter: the holy woman logically places her hand under
Mary's forearm, as in the Keran Gospels.
The painted versions do not, of course, entirely duplicate Nicola's image. Most obviously, they "correct" the
position of Mary's head by inclining it to the right instead
of the left. The change perhaps reflects a desire to restore
the symmetry between the Virgin and John, both of whom
traditionally bend their heads in the direction of the cross.
Despite this difference, the basic resemblance of the motif
193

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FIGURE 7. Crucifixion, Gospels of Prince Vasak, ca. 1270, Jerusalem,

Armenian Patriarchate, Ms. 2568, fol. 88 (photo: Library of Congress).

FIGURE 6. Crucifixion, Gospels of Queen Keran, 1272, Jerusalem,

Armenian Patriarchate, Ms. 2563, fol. 362v. (photo: Library of Congress).

in each version remains. In some respects the Keran

Crucifixion (Fig. 6) resembles Nicola's relief more closely
than the icon does. Not only does the holy woman actually
support the Virgin's arm in both works, but her gesture is
almost identical in the two, with her index finger extended
and touching Mary's sleeve. And in each work, the gesturing centurion clutches his mantle with his left hand-an
expressive motif that rarely appears before Nicola's relief
(Fig. 12).25 These similarities are especially interesting in
view of the dotted haloes that appear in the Keran Gospels
but not in the closely related Vasak Gospels (Figs. 6, 7). It
again appears that the Keran version more faithfully follows the archetype; the Vasak version could have been
adapted from the Keran, but the reverse could not have
occurred. Perhaps the Vasak Gospels, generally dated

..

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FIGURE 8. Guido da Siena, Mounting of the Cross, ca. 1275-80,

Utrecht, Rijksmuseum, Het Catharijneconvent (photo: Museum).

194

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FIGURE 9. Arrest of Christ, Theodore Psalter, 1066, London, British

Library, Add. Ms. 19352, fol. 45v (by permission of the British Library).

ca. 1270, was in fact executed slightly later, that is, after
the Keran Gospels of 1272. Alternatively, we can speculate
that a third example, which included both the dotted
haloes and the Pisanesque details, was available to both
artists, and that the Keran master merely reproduced it
more conscientiously than did his colleague.26
We can fairly readily imagine how these motifs from
Nicola's Crucifixion were transmitted to the Levant. His
pulpit greatly impressed central Italian painters; many
writers have noted both the depth and the persistence of
its influence. His Crucifixion in particular made an impact
on his contemporaries, several of whom freely borrowed
central elements from it. Thus, an Umbrian master working in the 1270s (Fig. 13) appropriated his swooning
Virgin, even imitating Nicola in turning the Virgin away
from Christ.27Here the single nail affixing Christ's feet to
the cross may also derive from the Siena relief, and both
that motif and the striated loincloth recall the Crusader
icon (Fig. 4). But reverberations of Nicola's pulpit were
strongest in Siena.28 In a Guidesque Crucifixion at Yale
(Fig. 14), probably of the 1270s, both the single nail
piercing Christ's feet and much of the right portion, such
as the crouching figure in the corner, reflect Nicola's
design.29This Guidesque panel also seems linked with the
icon (Fig. 4) in several respects: the stance of John, the
uncommon gesture of the centurion, who raises both his
index finger and little finger in acclamation, the unusual
prominence accorded Mary Magdalen,30 and again, the
striated loincloth. The Crusader icon therefore seems
closely related to the Yale panel and the Umbrian cross in
several ways, not the least of which is their common debt
to the Siena relief. It thus appears that some version of
Nicola's composition of 1268, probably painted by an
artist close to Guido, had migrated to the Levant by 1272
and perhaps as early as 1270.

FIGURE 10. Oblate Master, Crucifixion, ca. 1255-65, Florence, Uffizi

(photo: Alinari).

These Sienese elements in the art of the Mediterranean

East are, at first, difficult to explain. Sienese citizens are
known to have made occasional trips East in the latter
half of the thirteenth century. For instance, a Franciscan
friar from Siena was sent to Constantinople as a papal
legate in 1264, and a second Sienese Franciscan went to
Constantinople in 1278-79.31 The commune did not, however, play a major role in Mediterranean commerce, which
was dominated by Genoa, Venice and Pisa. So slender is
the evidence of Sienese involvement in the Levant that it
merits no more than an infrequent footnote in studies of
Levantine trade.32 But there is reason to believe that the
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!ij
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FIGURE 11. Nicola Pisano, Crucifixion, from the Pisa pulpit, 1260,
Pisa, Baptistry (photo: Alinari).

v w.

FIGURE 13. Gualdo Tadino Master, Cross, 1270s, Cambridge, Fogg

Art Museum (photo: Museum).

FIGURE 12. Nicoila Pisano, Crucifixion,from the Siena pulpit, 1265-68,

Siena, Cathedral (photo: Alinari).

Sienese had joined other Italian merchants in the Mediterranean East at precisely the date suggested by the visual
evidence. A document of 1268, published in the nineteenth
century, informs us that in July 1268 Conrad II, or Conradin, King of Jerusalem, conceded to Siena exemptions
from taxes and privileges of commerce in Acre.33News of
this grant must have been hailed by Sienese merchants and
financiers. The Sienese had traded in Acre earlier in the
century, but without privileges of commerce; they circumvented this problem by representing themselves as Pisans

and conducting business under a Pisan flag.34The grant of

1268 seemed to offer at least the possibility of freedom
from this sort of subterfuge and from dependence on
Pisan good will. Whether it actually did is not certain.
Conrad was only the titular ruler of Jerusalem and was
executed less than four months after issuing the grant.35
But at least initially, Sienese merchants almost certainly
tried to exercise their newly conferred privileges. In fact,
the very existence of the 1268 record may attest to increased Sienese activity in Acre at just this time.36
To recapitulate: the grant of 1268 provides documentary evidence that corroborates the visual evidence
presented here. It demonstrates that the Sienese had reason
to venture east in 1268, exactly when Nicola completed his
pulpit for the Cathedral. The Gospels of Queen Keran,
executed in 1272, establish a date by which the Pisanesque
motifs had reached the Levant, and the resemblance between the icon (Fig. 4) and the works from Guido and his
school (Figs. 8, 14) suggests that a Sienese artist close to

196

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Guido was the link between Nicola's relief and the Eastern
works it spawned.
Despite this confluence of time and place, several
qualifications are necessary. First, the icon with the swooning Virgin (Fig. 4) was not necessarily executed at Acre,
nor was its painter necessarily trained there. The number
and variety of surviving versions of the type suggests that
others must have existed. Further, the constant flow of
people and objects along the major routes of the Levant,
just where the compositions occur, makes it impossible to
specify a point of origin within the Mediterranean East.
Given Acre's preeminent position as a hub of Levantine
commerce, it remains a plausible port of entry from which
the composition could have passed, in one form or another,
to Cilicia,37 Sinai, and Cyprus, but other scenarios are
likely too. The possibility that at least some of the compositions and motifs discussed here entered the Levant via
Cilicia or Cyprus should not be dismissed. Cilicia had
extensive independent contacts with the West during the
thirteenth century,38 and Cyprus had been in Western
hands since 1191, when Richard Coeur de Lion conquered
the island; it served as a major commercial center and base
for crusaders throughout the thirteenth century.39
Other groups may also have contributed to the evident
popularity of the Pisanesque composition in the Levant.
In particular, a case can be made for the Franciscan
Order. Der Nersessian has suggested that the Franciscans
were responsible for the nearly simultaneous appearance
of one image, the Madonna of Misericordia, in Cilicia and
Siena, and Helen Evans has considerably expanded her
arguments.40 In tenor and in specific features, our composition would certainly have appealed to the order. As
noted above, the icon (Fig. 4) distinguishes itself from the

more common three-figure Crucifixion by its dramatic

intensity: the swooning Virgin, the theatrically gesturing
Magdalen, and the nail piercing Christ's feet all heighten
the immediacy and the emotional power of the scene. This
expressive sensibility is not uniquely Franciscan, but was
certainly encouraged by them. In fact it can be argued that
key motifs in the Crusader icon (Fig. 4) were favored by
the Franciscans. As Hamburgh has shown, references to
the Virgin's swoon occur repeatedly in Franciscan literature,41 and Testi has claimed that the order popularized
both the swooning Virgin and the three-nail Crucifixion.42
The Lucchese diptych of 1255-65 (Fig. 10) tends to corroborate her argument: one of the first extant works to
combine the two, it was a Franciscan commission that
originally hung in the convent of Santa Chiara in Lucca.43
Two other of the earliest appearances of the swooning
Virgin are also found in Franciscan monuments. The first
occurs in a manuscript in Friuli dated 1254; the second, in
a Lamentation, is in the mother house of the order, San
Francesco, Assisi.44 Also in Assisi is another work that
our icon recalls, Cimabue's Crucifixion, in the Upper
Church of San Francesco.45 There, as in our icon, the
Magdalen throws her arms up in a gesture of anguish.
Though she gestures similarly in a host of Lamentations
and Entombments, these two works are the first versions
of the Crucifixion I know that include this dramatic
stance. Its presence at Assisi confirms the importance of
the Magdalen to St. Francis and to his followers; as
penitential figure par excellence, the Magdalen figures
prominently in Franciscan art and thought.46
The many parallels that our composition finds in
Franciscan art and literature may suggest that the order
was partially responsible for the image's diffusion in the

0,10,
.ge

FIGURE 14. Assistant of

Guido da Siena, Crucifixion,
1270s, New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, James
Jackson Jarves Collection
(photo: Gallery).

197

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Levant. Certainly Franciscans had settled at many of the

specific sites under discussion. They had established a
convent in Acre early in the thirteenth century, and are
recorded in Cyprus about the same time.47 As Evans has
shown, Franciscan papal legates played an important role
in Cilicia in the late 1240s and early 1250s, and the order's
influence grew during the reign of 48Leo III (1269-89),
?
whose advisers included a Franciscan.48 By the 1280s the
order had founded a monastery in Sis, where the Gospels
of Queen Keran were written. Prince Vasak's brother
Hethoum, who became king of Cilicia in 1289, was himself
a Franciscan.49It may be, then, that the composition came
to the attention of the Franciscan enclave in Acre and
then made its way to Cilicia and Cyprus.
Other hypotheses might be advanced to explain the
resemblance between the Sienese and Eastern works. For
instance, could common sources in French manuscripts or
ivories account for their kinship? Nicola's debt to Gothic
art is well known,50 as is the French presence in Cilicia.51
The swooning Virgin occurs repeatedly in fourteenthcentury ivories, but the theme appears only rarely in
Northern Europe before then.52 What is ultimately of
Northern European origin in the Crusader icon-certainly
the three-nail Crucifixion, and possibly other elements as
well-seems to owe its interpretation to Nicola Pisano,
and details like the helmets and the striated loincloth
suggest that they were then reinterpreted by a Sienese
painter close to Guido.
Despite the many uncertainties, the interconnections
between Siena, Cilicia, and Acre in the 1270s may have
interesting implications. For specialists in Crusader, Cilician, and even Cypriot art, Sienese activity in the Levant
may explain several unusual compositions and motifs. The
possibility of Tuscan imagery in Crusader icons is especially important. Weitzmann has stressed Venetian and
French elements in Crusader paintings, but scholars have
cited few specific examples of features that may be Tuscan.
The most likely prospect, Pisa, has yielded surprisingly
few comparative works, but aspects of at least an occasional Sinai icon find parallels in Sienese painting. For
instance, one icon published by Weitzmann is a triptych of
which the central panel depicts the Virgin and Child (Fig.
15). Though Weitzmann has associated it with Apulian
frescoes,53the Virgin's facial type, with its almond-shaped
eye, smoothly arched brow and especially its demure
smile, recalls a type that recurs repeatedly in the oeuvre of
Guido and his circle (compare Fig. 1). This engaging
smile, which contrasts with the melancholy aloofness typical of most Byzantine Virgins, is especially characteristic
of Guido, as Stubblebine has observed.54The affectionate
gestures of the Christ Child, who reaches for his mother's
shoulder and grips her fingers, are ultimately French, but
appear in Tuscan painting in the last quarter of the
Dugento. The Child similarly reaches for the Virgin's

AtL

FIGURE 15. Virgin and Child, later thirteenth century, Mount Sinai,
Monastery of Saint Catherine (reproduced through the courtesy of the
Michigan-Princeton-Alexandria Expedition to Mount Sinai).

shoulder in two Cimabuesque paintings that have been

attributed to Duccio, while the motif of the Child holding
Mary's hand or fingers was a favorite of Duccio and his
shop.55
As for Cilicia, further connections between Siena and
the Levant occur in illuminations from precisely the same
Cilician manuscripts already cited. Consider, for example,
the dedication page of the Vasak Gospels (Fig. 16). As
Der Nersessian has observed, it and a related illumination
strongly resemble Duccio's Madonna of the Franciscans.56
Duccio's panel is one of several early versions of the
Virgin of Mercy, or Schutzmantelmadonna. In addition to
the two Cilician examples, related compositions appear in
Cyprus around 1300.57 1In other words, this cluster of
images occurs in just the same Levantine sites as the
Pisanesque Crucifixion. Though the origin of the composition is disputed, it seems likely, as Der Nersessian argued,
that both Duccio's panel and the Cilician illuminations
158
derive from an1 earlier Western prototype.5 The image
seems to have been known in Siena by mid-century, for
Sienese legends connect it with the Virgin's miraculous

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FIGURE 17. Nativity, Gospels of Queen Keran, 1272, Jerusalem, Armenian Patriarchate, Ms. 2563, fol. 21 (photo: Library of Congress).

FIGURE 16. Dedication page, Gospels of Prince Vasak, ca. 1270, Jerusalem, Armenian Patriarchate, Ms. 2568, fol. 320 (photo: Library of
Congress).

intervention on their behalf in the Battle of Montaperti in

1260;59 the possibility that Guido da Siena painted a
version of the theme cannot be dismissed.60 Whatever its
ultimate source, however, the nearly simultaneous occurrence of the composition in Cilicia and Siena now seems
less surprising; it provides additional evidence of the artistic interdependence of Siena and the Levant in the later
thirteenth century.
Still another Cilician illumination, the Nativity from
the Keran Gospels (Fig. 17), further confirms this pattern.
It depicts the oldest Magus kneeling before Christ-a
Western motif, though hardly specifically Sienese.6 In
both the manuscript and in Nicola's Adoration of the
Magi from the Siena pulpit (Fig. 18), the Magus kneels on
both knees-an unusual contrast to the more common
genuflecting stance, but again, not unprecedented.62 But

one detail in the Keran Nativity can be especially closely

associated with Nicola Pisano: the grazing horse, with its
neck lowered, in the lower right corner. This motifanother of the naturalistic touches favored by the later
Dugento-appears frequently in works by Nicola and his
circle, e.g. in Nicola's Pisa and Siena pulpits, in his son
Giovanni's chancel relief in Pisa, and, as Stubblebine has
observed, in Guido da Siena's oeuvre as well.63 But only in
the Siena pulpit and in the Cilician manuscript is the
grazing horse joined by two others, one pawing the ground,
the other, of which only the neck and head are shown,
facing the opposite direction, and only in these two instances does this group appear in the lower right corner of
the composition. Again it seems that imaginative devices
seen in Siena in 1268 had, by 1272, found a receptive
audience in the Levant.
Finally, for scholars of Dugento and early Trecento
painting, the Sienese adventure in Eastern commerce
should be of particular interest. First, it should clarify the
reciprocal relationship that existed between East and West:
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FIGURE 18. Nicola Pisano, Adoration of the Magi, from the Siena
pulpit, 1265-68, Siena, Cathedral (photo: Alinari).

similar images, fresh and expressive, evidently appealed to

artists and patrons of both cultures. It would provide an
additional route through which Sienese painters like Guido
and the young Duccio could have acquired Byzantine
models.64 The art of the Levant may also help us fill in
some of the gaps in our knowledge of Tuscan art of this
period. We can be fairly sure, for instance, that Guido's
narrative cycle of ca. 1275-80 was not the first visual
record of Nicola's Siena pulpit-not surprising, since the
pulpit was completed in 1268. It is in the Levant that we
may find analogues of such major monuments of Tuscan
painting as Cimabue's Crucifixion at Assisi and Duccio's
Madonna of the Franciscans. As our understanding of the
art of the Eastern Mediterranean increases, more glimpses
of the lost works of the Dugento and their sources may
similarly appear.

NOTES
*

Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the State University

of New York, Binghamton, October, 1980, and at the College Art
Association, Los Angeles, February, 1985. I am grateful to Professor Kurt Weitzmann for discussing this material with me and for
permitting me to publish the Sinai icons in this paper. Thanks are
also due to several people for their comments and suggestions:
Rebecca Corrie, Anthony Cutler, Jaroslav Folda, David Jacoby,
Robert Nelson, and John Yiannias. Finally, I would like to thank
Helen Evans for her careful reading of an earlier draft, and for
several references to Cilician manuscripts.

1. J. Stubblebine, "Byzantine Sources for the Iconography of Duccio's

Maestai,"AB, LVII (1975), 176-85; Stubblebine, Duccio di Buoninsegna and His School (Princeton, 1979), I, 6, 20, 49-54.

2.

H. Belting, "The 'Byzantine' Madonnas: New Facts about Their

Italian Origin and Some Observations on Duccio," Studies in the
History of Art, XII (1982), 7-22. Other scholars have argued that
Byzantine icon painters were at work in Siena in the later Dugento.
For instance, E. Carli, Sienese Painting (Florence, 1982), 4, has
suggested that a hagiographic panel of John the Baptist, always
before ascribed to a Sienese artist active in the 1260s, is the work of
a "Latinized" Eastern painter. H. Van Os, Sienese Altarpieces 12151460, I (Groningen, 1984), 17, similarly considers it a Byzantine
work. See also the article by Belting just cited, 15-17. For more
specific evidence of Greek masters' activity in Italy, see R. Nelson,
"A Byzantine Painter in Trecento Genoa: The Last Judgement at
S. Lorenzo," AB, LXVII (1985), 548-65.

3.

F. Deuchler, Duccio (Milan, 1984), 24. See also J. White, Art and
Architecture in Italy, 1250-1400, 2nd ed. (London, 1987), 297. In
his monograph, however, White argued that such a sojourn is not
necessary to explain the Eastern elements of Duccio's style; see
Duccio: Tuscan Art and the Medieval Workshop (London, 1979),
55-58.

4.

See Stubblebine, Guido da Siena (Princeton, 1964), 5-15. Guido

seems to drop from sight around 1285.

5. This panel, sometimes attributed to Guido himself, is more likely by

another hand, as Stubblebine (ibid., 61-64) suggests; because the
panel once hung in the church of San Bernardino, Siena, the artist
is usually referred to as the San Bernardino Master. A document of
1655 records the original inscription, which dated the panel to 1262.
Stubblebine questions this date, preferring to place the work in the
early 1270s (ibid.), but other scholars tend to accept the date as
recorded (e.g. White, Duccio, 32; Van Os, Sienese Altarpieces, 23).
The relationship between Guido and the San Bernardino Master is
also controversial; White argues that the San Bernardino Master is
in fact the more important of the two (ibid., 27-32).
6.

The San Domenico Altarpiece is not precisely dated, but is probably

from the late 1270s. Scholars tend to place it in the 1270s or early
1280s; thus E. B. Garrison, Italian Romanesque Panel Painting
(Florence, 1949), no. 297, dates it ca. 1270; Stubblebine, Guido, 15,
places it in the early 1280s; White, Art and Architecture, 170, dates
it 1275-80; Van Os, Sienese Altarpieces, 28, ascribes it to the 1270s.
For Guido's two formulae, see Stubblebine, ibid., 30-42.

7.

Consider, for instance, Ambrogio's Presentation in the Temple in

the Uffizi, where the Child sucks his fingers. See E. Borsook,
Ambrogio Lorenzetti (Florence, 1966), figs. 57-59.
8. On this icon, see G. and M. Soteriou, Icones du Mt. Sinai, I
(Athens, 1956), 245. R. Corrie has shown that Guido's contemporary, Coppo di Marcovaldo, knew a very similar Byzantine image
("The Byzantine Iconography of a Madonna by Coppo di Marcovaldo," Byzantine Studies Conference, 1984.) On the iconographic
type, see H. Maguire, "The Iconography of Symeon with the Christ
Child in Byzantine Art," DOP, XXXIV-XXXV (1980-81), 261-69.
A. W. Carr has observed that it was especially venerated in the
Holy Land and Cyprus ("East, West, and Icons in Twelfth-Century
Outremer," in The Meeting of Two Worlds: Cultural Exchange
between East and West during the Period of the Crusades, ed.
V. Goss and C. Bornstein, Studies in Medieval Culture, XXI [Kalamazoo, Mich., 1986], 352); this is of interest in view of the Sienese
presence in the Levant in the 1270s, which will be discussed below.
9.

On Passion iconography in particular, see A. Derbes, "Byzantine

Art and the Dugento: Iconographic Sources of Passion Scenes in
Italian Painted Crosses," (Dissertation, University of Virginia, 1980).
The question of motivation has been raised by R. Nelson in two
conference sessions that he chaired: "Italy and the Levant in the
Late Middle Ages," College Art Association, 1985; "The Byzantine
Question," Byzantine Studies Conference, 1985. The papers pre-

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sented at both conferences suggest that a range of answers applies;

in some instances, political motives seem to lie behind Italian
adaptations of Eastern images (e.g. D. Pincus, "Varieties of Byzantine Appropriation in Thirteenth-Century Venice," College Art
Association, 1985; R. Corrie, "Siena and the East," Byzantine
Studies Conference, 1985).
10. Carr, "East, West, and Icons," 349.
11. K. Weitzmann included this icon in a list of Crusader works in the
first of his pioneering studies ("Thirteenth-Century Crusader Icons
on Mt. Sinai," AB, XLIV [1963], 203, n. 127, reprinted in his
Studies in the Art of Sinai [Princeton, 1982], 291-315). In addition
to the article of 1963, see in particular "Icon Painting in the
Crusader Kingdom," DOP, XX (1966), 51-83 (Studies, 335-43),
"Crusader Icons and the 'Maniera Greca,'" in II Medio Oriente e
I'Occidente nell'arte del XIII secolo, Atti del XXIV Congresso
Internazionale di Storia dell'Arte II, ed. H. Belting (Bologna, 1982),
71-78, and an expanded version of that paper, called "Crusader
Icons and Maniera Greca," in Byzanz und der Westen, ed. I. Hutter
(Vienna, 1984), 143-70. V. Pace has recently devoted several studies
to the Sinai icons and their connections with Italian painting: "Italy
and the Holy Land: Import-Export. I. The Case of Venice," in The
Meeting of Two Worlds, 331-45; "Italy and the Holy Land:
Import-Export. II. The Case of Apulia," in Crusader Art in the
Twelfth Century, ed. J. Folda, B.A.R. International Series 152,
(Jerusalem, 1982), 245-69; "Armenian Cilicia, Cyprus, Italy, and
Sinai Icons: Problems of Models," in Medieval Armenian Culture,
ed. T. Samuelian and M. Stone, Proceedings of the Third Dr.
H. Markarian Conference on Armenian Culture, Philadelphia, 1982
(Chico, Calif., 1983), 291-305; "Presenze e influenze cipriote nella
pittura duecentesca italiana," in XXXII Corso di cultura sull'arte
ravennate e bizantina: Seminario internazionale di studi su "Cipro e
il Mediterraneo orientale" Ravenna, 1985, 259-98. Belting, in his
introduction to II Medio Oriente, 3, questions the designation of
these icons as "crusader art," and would term these and related
works "the art of the Mediterranean commonwealth of Venice."
12. On the provenance of the group, see Weitzmann, "A Group of
Early Twelfth-Century Sinai Icons Attributed to Cyprus," in Studies
in Memory of David Talbot Rice, ed. G. Robertson and G. Henderson (Edinburgh, 1975), 256, the annotations to his Studies, 433-37,
and "Crusader Icons and Maniera Greca," 146. For a description of
the cultural milieu of Acre in the thirteenth century, and a discussion
of the questions surrounding Acre ateliers, see J. Folda, Crusader
Manuscript Illumination at Saint Jean d'Acre, 1275-1291 (Princeton, 1976), 3-26. On the dating of the group, see Weitzmann,
"Thirteenth-Century Crusader Icons," 180-84; "Icon Painting,"
62-64.
13. Weitzmann, "Thirteenth-Century Crusader Icons," 183-84; "Icon
Painting," 65-66. The other side depicts the Anastasis.
14. See A. Mekhitarian, Treasures of the Armenian Patriarchate of
Jerusalem (Jerusalem, 1969), 23-24; B. Narkiss, ed., Armenian Art
Treasures of Jerusalem (New Rochelle, N.Y., 1979), 63-64, 149-50,
with bibliography. For a color reproduction, see S. Der Nersessian,
Armenian Art (London, 1978), fig. 104. W. Grape, Grenzprobleme
der Byzantinischen Malerei (Vienna, 1973), 79-81, also compares
the Keran Gospels with the Crusader icon.
15. Mekhitarian, Treasures, 24; Narkiss, Armenian Art, 149-50. A
third version occurs in the Gospels of Archbishop John (Erevan,
Matenadaran, No. 197, fol. 101v.), dated 1287; see S. Der Nersessian, The Armenians (New York, 1970), fig. 71.
16. J. Folda, "Painting and Sculpture in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1099-1291," in K. Setton, ed., A History of the Crusades, IV:
The Art and Architecture of the Crusader States, ed. H. Hazard
(Madison, 1977), 267.

17. For this suggestion see H. Evans, "Canon Tables as an Indication of

Teacher-Pupil Relationships in the Career of T'oros Roslin," in
Samuelian and Stone, Medieval Armenian Culture, 277-79. For
examples of the Crucifixion by Roslin, see Baltimore, Walters Art
Gallery, No. 539, fol. 124; S. Der Nersessian, Armenian Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery (Baltimore, 1963), pl. 58; Jerusalem, Armenian Patriarchate, No. 3627; Der Nersessian, Etudes
Byzantines et Arminiennes (London, 1973), fig. 251.
18. The presentation page, fol. 320; for a color photograph, see Narkiss,
Armenian Art, fig. 79.
19. Weitzmann, "Thirteenth-Century Crusader Icons," 195. For an
especially close parallel, compare the haloes in the double icon of
the Virgin Kykkotissa and St. Procopius (Weitzmann, "Icon Painting," figs. 33, 34, 37, 38) with those in several scenes from the Keran
Gospels (fols. 21, 25, 284, 380; photos available at Dumbarton
Oaks.) They are virtually identical, consisting of a double row of
pearls interrupted by losenge-shaped jewels. Pace has also observed
these similarities ("Armenian Cilicia," 292), but concludes that the
icons reflect a Cilician model. Given the general absence of patterned
haloes in Cilician illumination, this seems unlikely. More plausible
is the derivation of the decorative halo from Cyprus; see n. 26.
20. For a different interpretation, see Grape, Grenzprobleme, 79-81.
See also the remarks of O. Demus, "Zum Werk Eines Venezianischen Malers auf dem Sinai," in Hutter, Byzanz, 141.
21.

Stubblebine, Guido, fig. 26. See also fig. 59 and idem, Duccio, pls.
103-9. This variant is not, however, confined to Siena; it occurs
elsewhere, as in an Umbrian version of the Stripping of Christ; see
F. Santi, Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria. Dipinti, sculpture, e oggetti d'arte di eta romanica e gotica (Rome, 1969), fig. 12c. The
generic chapel-de-fer was widely diffused, and even appears occasionally in Crusader manuscripts: see Folda, Crusader Manuscript
Illumination, figs. 101, 165. In these examples, the helmet lacks the
ridge and knob seen in the Crusader icon and the panel by Guido.

22. For the Theodore Psalter, dated 1066, see S. Der Nersessian,
L'Illustration des psautiers grecs du Moyen Age, II: Londres, Add.
19352, Bibliotheque des Cahiers Archeologiques, V (Paris, 1970);
For other instances, see the Gelat Gospels (Tbilisi, Institute of
Manuscripts, fol. 136v.), T. Velmans, La peinture murale byzantine
h lafin du Moyen Age, I, Biblioth'que des Cahiers Archeologiques,
XI (Paris, 1977), fig. 128, or the fresco at Sopo'ani, ibid., fig. 131.
Occasionally the women, not St. John, support Mary, as in the
Mavriotissa, Kastoria; see A. Wharton Epstein, "Middle Byzantine
Churches of Kastoria," AB, LXII (1980), 202-7 and idem, "Frescoes
of the Mavriotissa Monastery near Kastoria," Gesta, XXI (1982),
21-29.
23.

Several twelfth-century examples in Italy suggest the beginnings of

a swoon, but in none of these does the Virgin actually collapse. In
all, the holy women hold her arms or hands. One very early
example appears in an Exultet Roll in Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale,
N. A. lat. 710, ca. 1115 (M. Avery, The Exultet Rolls of South Italy
[Princeton, 1936], pl. LXXIII). For other examples, see E. SandbergVavali, La croce dipinta italiana e l'iconografia della passione
(Verona, 1929), 148-51. A Passion play from Montecassino, ca.
1150, describes the Virgin swooning beneath the cross; see H. Hamburgh, "The Problem of Lo Spasimo of the Virgin in Cinquecento
Paintings of the Descent from the Cross," Sixteenth Century Journal, XII (1981), 54.

24. For the Oblate Master, see Garrison, Italian Romanesque Panel
Painting, 24, no. 243. The three-nail Crucifixion is generally believed
to have been introduced to Italy by Nicola Pisano; see E. Angiola,
"Nicola Pisano: The Pisa Baptistry Pulpit," (Dissertation, Columbia,
New York, 1975), 60. Among the earliest examples of a fully developed swooning Virgin in Italy is one in a manuscript in Cividale del

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Friuli, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, ms. LXXXVI, dated 1254; it

has been ascribed both to Bologna and to Venice. See G. C. Menis
and G. Gerbamini, La miniatura in Friuli (Milan, 1972), no. 12. I am
grateful to Helen Evans for this reference. Other approximately
contemporary examples of the swooning Virgin occur in a Bolognese
miniature, ca. 1260, in the Dyson Perrins Collection (G. Warner,
Descriptive Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts in the Library of
C. W. Dyson Perrins [Oxford, 1920] I, 139-44; II, pl. LIV) and in a
panel in New York, ca. 1260-70, by the Santa Maria Primerana
Master (see Garrison, Italian Romanesque Panel Painting, no. 303).
Mary swoons also in a Lamentation in the Lower Church, San
Francesco, Assisi, recently dated 1260-65; see J. Cannon, "Dating
the Frescoes by the Maestro di S. Francesco at Assisi," BM, CXLIII
(1982), 65-69. The early occurrences of the motif in Pisa and Bologna, and its continued popularity in Bologna (e.g. a panel by the
Faenza Master, Garrison, Italian Romanesque Panel Painting, no.
293; a late thirteenth- or early fourteenth-century manuscript, Paris,
Bibliotheque Nationale, Smith-Lesouef 21 [T. Velmans, "Deux manuscrits enlumin6s in6dites et les influences r6ciproquesentre Byzance et
l'Italie au XIVe siecle," CA, XX (1970), 207-34, fig. 15; M. Jacoff,
"The Bible of Charles V and Related Works: Bologna, Byzantium
and the West in the Late Thirteenth Century," in Belting, II Medio
Oriente, 165-66]), suggest the possibility of a lost prototype by
Giunta Pisano, active in Bologna ca. 1250-54. As Garrison has
noted, the Santa Maria Primerana Master, though Florentine, was
much influenced by Giunta ("Post-War Discoveries. Early Italian
Paintings. IV," BM, LXXXIX [1947], 299-303).
25. The presence of Ecclesia and Synagogue in both the Keran Crucifixion and Nicola's relief is less suggestive; that motif was already
established in Cilicia, appearing in, for instance, the two Crucifixions
by T'oros Roslin cited in n. 17.
26. One more Crucifixion in the Mediterranean East belongs, though
less obviously, with this group: a fresco in Cyprus, at Kalopanayiotis
(Monastery of St. John Lampadistis, St. Heracleidius). S. H. Young,
"Byzantine Painting in Cyprus during the Early Lusignan Period,"
(Dissertation, Pennsylvania State University, 1983), 180-81, 224,
has compared this fresco with the first icon (Fig. 4) and the
Crucifixion in the Keran Gospels (Fig. 6); on the basis of this and
other comparisons, she dates the fresco 1270-80. The Cypriot
example is clearly more distantly related to the group in several
respects, but one point of difference is significant: the Virgin swoons
to the left, away from Christ. In this respect, and in her limply
dangling right arm, the fresco closely resembles Nicola's relief, as
Young (177) has noted. The Cypriot work thus offers further
evidence that Nicola's composition was known in the East, and
preserves in the position of the Virgin a form somewhat closer to
the archetype in Siena. The variations within the surviving Levantine descendants of Nicola's Crucifixion suggest that these represent
only a fraction of those that existed originally.
The artist responsible for the Crucifixion at St. Heracleidius
also painted a standing St. Michael there; the saint's halo has an
ornamental pattern that closely resembles those in certain Crusader
icons, particularly the diptych of Procopius and the Virgin and
Child (see n. 19). It is tempting to believe that this further indicates
that Crusader models were available to the Cypriot artist, but this
diptych has been attributed to a Cypriot painter, and in fact
physiognomically the Procopius seems almost the brother of the
Michael. For the complexity of the Cypriot/Crusader connections
in the thirteenth century, see D. Mouriki, "The Wall Paintings of
the Church of the Panagia at Moutoullas, Cyprus," in Hutter,
Byzanz, 171-213, especially 207-11; Weitzmann, "Icon Painting,"
68-69; Pace, "Armenian Cilicia." For the twelfth century see
Weitzmann, "Twelfth-CenturySinai Icons."
27. See Garrison, Italian Romanesque Panel Painting, no. 464. That an
Umbrian artist should adapt an image found in Siena is not

surprising; the two were closely linked in the later Dugento, and
Meiss has referred to Umbria as "an outpost of the Sienese style"
("A Dugento Altarpiece at Antwerp," BM, LXXI, [1937], 24).
Recently Pace, "Import-Export. I," 336-37, has posited "mutual
exchanges between Cilicia and Umbria." There are several aspects
of the icons discussed here that especially recall Umbrian art, as I
pointed out in a paper read at Binghamton in 1980. But the
interconnections between Umbria and Siena, and their relationship
with the art of the Levant, require further study. Suggestive of the
complexity of these issues is the Umbrian triptych in Perugia that
Pace and Grape have associated with Cilician illumination (ibid.;
Grape, Grenzprobleme, 145); Stubblebine has argued (Guido, 5457, 59) that the program of this panel reflects Guido da Siena's San
Domenico Altarpiece. (Stubblebine's reconstruction of the altarpiece has not been universally accepted; see, for instance, Van Os,
Sienese Altarpieces, 28.)
28.

For motifs that both Guido da Siena and Duccio derived from
Nicola, see Stubblebine, Guido, 92; M. Meiss, "A New Early
Duccio," AB, XXXIII (1951), 101-2; B. Cole, Sienese Painting
from its Origins to the Fifteenth Century (New York, 1980), 3-4;
Carli, Sienese Painting, 3; Van Os, Sienese Altarpieces, 34.

29. The debt to Nicola has long been observed; see Stubblebine,
Guido, 92. Stubblebine dated this panel to the 1280s, stating that
elements here derive from the Crucifixion from Badia Ardenga,
which he places in the early 1280s. However, the resemblance to
that panel is merely generic, while the ties to Nicola's relief are far
more precise. A date closer to the relief thus seems more likely. The
Yale panel is also dated to the 1270s by Garrison, Italian Romanesque Panel Painting, no. 298. C. Seymour's date of 1260-70 (Early
Italian Paintings in the Yale University Art Gallery [New Haven
and London, 1970], 14-15) seems too early; the panel must postdate
Nicola's relief, completed in 1268.
30. Interestingly, she also plays a prominent role in a panel already
cited, the Santa Maria Primerana Master's Crucifixion; see n. 24.
There, as in the Guidesque panel, she is placed at the foot of the
cross.
31. G. Golubovich, Biblioteca bio-bibliografica della Terre Sante e
dell'Orientefrancescana, I (Florence, 1906), 254, 299-300.
32.

For instance, the basic texts of W. von Heyd, Histoire du commerce

du Levant au moyen age (Leipzig, 1885-86), and E. Ashtor, Levant
Trade in the Later Middle Ages (Princeton, 1983), omit any reference to Siena.

33. G. MUller, ed. Documenti sulle relazione delle citta toscane coll'oriente cristiano e coi turchi (Florence, 1879), 100. D. Abulafia,
"Marseilles, Acre and the Mediterranean," in Coinage in the Latin
East, ed. P. W. Edbury and D. M. Metcalf (Oxford, 1980), 38,
n. 39, states that the grant would have cut taxes on imports and
exports to only 1%.
34.

See R. Davidsohn, Forschungen zur Geschichte von Florenz, II

(Berlin, 1900), 298, for a document of 1245 referring to Sienese
merchants trading under a Pisan flag. The practice of posing as
Pisan was widespread among Tuscan merchants in Acre; by this
stratagem citizens of San Gimignano established a thriving trade in
saffron. For these Tuscan "pseudo-Pisans" see D. Abulafia, "Crocuses and Crusaders: San Gimignano, Pisa and the Kingdom of
Jerusalem," in Outremer: Studies in the History of the Crusading
Kingdom of Jerusalem Presented to Joshua Prawer, ed. B. Z.
Kedar, H. E. Mayer, R. C. Smail (Jerusalem, 1982), 233-43; for
specific references to the Sienese, see 234, 239. See also J. RileySmith, "The Government in Latin Syria and Commercial Privileges
of Foreign Merchants," in Relations between East and West in the
Middle Ages, ed. D. Baker (Edinburgh, 1973), 109-32. He refers to
Conradin's grant to Siena on 124, n. 18.

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35. On Conradin's brief reign see J. Strayer, "The Political Crusades of

the Thirteenth Century," in Setton, History of the Crusades, II,
366-67. S. Runciman, "The Crusader States, 1243-1291," in Setton,
II, 567, states that Conradin's rights were "scrupulously regarded"
by lawyers in the Latin Kingdom, but this view may not have
extended to commercial privileges.
36. I owe this observation to Prof. David Jacoby, who reasons that the
grant was probably extracted from Conradin under pressure by
Sienese merchants. I am grateful to Prof. Jacoby for discussing
Levantine trade with me, and for the references cited in n. 34.
37. Weitzmann has already suggested that certain details in Cilician
illumination derive from Crusader icons ("Icon Painting," 59).
38. Among them, Armenian settlements in Italy; see Grape, Grenzprobleme, 144-46, and Pace, "Import-Export. I," 336-37.
39. On Cyprus see the fundamental study by G. F. Hill, A History of
Cyprus, 4 vols. (Cambridge, 1940-52).
40.

S. Der Nersessian, "La Vibrgede Misericorde,"in btudes Byzantines

et Arminiennes (London, 1973), 585-90; Evans, "Cilician Illumination and the West in the Thirteenth Century," Byzantine Studies
Conference, 1984 and "The Franciscan Impact on Cilician Art in
the Second Half of the Thirteenth Century," annual meeting of the
College Art Association, New York, 1986.

41.

Hamburgh, "Lo Spasimo," 55-64.

42. Testi, "Nicola Pisano e la committenza dell'Arcivescono Federico

Visconti," Critica d'arte, XXI, n.s. (1975), 18. Both she and W. R.
Valentiner, "Studies on Nicola Pisano," Art Quarterly, XV (1952),
24-27, also note the presence of another Franciscan motif, the
lignum vitae, in the pulpit. For the importance of the Franciscan
order in Siena at this time see J. Hook, Siena: A City and its
History (London, 1979), 120-21.
43.

Garrison, Italian Romanesque Panel Painting, no. 243.

44.

Both are cited in n. 24.

45.

E. Battisti, Cimabue (University Park, Pa., 1967), fig. 26.

46.

On the cult of the Magdalen, see V. Saxer, Le Culte de Marie

Magdalene (Paris, 1959). For her growing importance in Tuscan
Passion iconography, see Derbes, "Byzantine Art and the Dugento,"
243-44, 329-31, and R. W. Sullivan, "The Anointing in Bethany
and Other Affirmations of Christ's Divinity on Duccio's Back
Predella," AB, LXVII (1985), 42-49, which focuses on the Magdalen's role in Siena. The absence of the swooning Virgin in
Cimabue's Crucifixion may reflect the ambivalence expressed in St.
Bonaventura (d. 1274), who stressed her great suffering but maintained that she did not faint. See his Vitis Mystica sou Tractatus de
Passione Domini in The Works of Bonaventura, tr. J. de Vinck
(Paterson, N.J., 1960), I, 175-76; see also Hamburgh, "Lo Spasimo,"
55.

47.

H. D. Purcell, Cyprus (London, 1969), 151.

48.
ViArge,"
Evans, "Cilician Illumination." See also Der Nersessian, "La
592-95.
49.

Der Nersessian, "La Vibrge," 592-95. See also the two papers by
Evans cited in n. 40.

50.

See, for instance, C. Seymour, "Invention and Revival in Nicola

Pisano's 'Heroic Style,'" in Romanesque and Gothic Art, Acts of
the Twentieth International Congress of the History of Art, I
(Princeton, 1963), 213-16, who posits for Nicola a sojourn in
France.

51. Intermarriages between French and Armenian families are recorded

in the early twelfth century and continued in the thirteenth; see, for
instance, Der Nersessian, The Armenians, 51-52.

52. G. Schiller, Iconography of Christian Art, II (Greenwich, Conn.,

1972), publishes two twelfth-century German examples (figs. 505
and 506). Sandberg-Vavala, Croce dipinta, 165, n. 33, refers to a
thirteenth-century English version in the Missal of Henry of Chichester; this example is especially interesting because here, too,
Christ's feet are pierced by a single nail. For this manuscript see
A. Hollaender, "The Sarum Illuminator and his School," Wiltshire
Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, I, (1942-44), 23062, and N. Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts, II, 1250-1285 A
Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, IV (London,
1988), 57, fig. 32, where the manuscript is dated ca. 1250. I am
grateful to Adelaide Bennett for a copy of the article by Hollaender.
As Sandberg-Vavala notes (149), even when the theme does become
common in France it lacks the rich diversity of type that occurs in
Italy.
53. Weitzmann, "Icon Painting," 69-70.
54.

Stubblebine, Guido, 8.

55.

For the reaching position of the Child, see F. Bologna, La pittura

italiana delle origini (Rome, 1963), pls. 84-85; the first he attributes
to Cimabue and Duccio, the second to Duccio. For the fingerholding Child, see Stubblebine, Duccio, II, figs. 44, 140, 176, 183,
189, 224, 234, 235, 258, 288, 339, 419, 433.

56.

Der Nersessian, "La Vibrge," 192-95. On Duccio's panel see

Stubblebine, Duccio, I, 19-21.

57.

Deuchler, Duccio, 24, 42, 46, fig. 27; Young, "Byzantine Painting,"
342-72.

58.

Der Nersessian, "La Vierge," 192-95. The first known image of the
Madonna of Mercy appeared on a lost banner given to a Roman
confraternity in 1267; for a comprehensive study of the theme, see
the recent dissertation by William Levin, "Studies in the Imagery of
Mercy in Late Medieval Italian Art," 3 v. (Dissertation, University
of Michigan, 1983), especially 437-501. Though Levin views the
theme in general as Western, he assumes that an Eastern variant
existed, and considers the Cilician manuscript in the Stoclet collection and Duccio's panel as examples of that variant (439 and 52122, n. 5). Other scholars place the origins of the theme more
definitely in the East; see, for instance, C. Belting-Ihm, Sub matris
tutela. Untersuchen zur Vorgeschichte der Schutzmantelmadonna
(Heidelberg, 1976), 68-9, who stresses the connection with the
Byzantine Blachernitissa, and Belting, "The 'Byzantine' Madonnas,"
20, who likewise argues that Duccio's panel reflects "the milieu of
the so-called Crusader art in the Eastern Mediterranean."
Without question, the veneration of the Virgin's mantle began
in Constantinople; the relic was enshrined at the Church of the
Blachernae, and the image of the Blachernitissa, in which the Virgin
extends her hands in an orant stance and thus emphasizes the
mantle, reflects that veneration; see Levin, "Studies," 473-81. But,
as Levin makes clear, the Blachernitissa bears little resemblance to
the Western image of the Madonna of Mercy. The Blachernitissa is
invariably an isolated figure, while the Western version includes
human supplicants seeking protection beneath the Virgin's outstretched mantle. Though the examples by Duccio and the Cilician
illuminators are not as symmetrical and axial as later Western
versions of the scene, their compositions are far more closely
connected to the Western image than to the Blachernitissa. Legends
of the Virgin offering shelter beneath her mantle were transmitted to
the West fairly early, and were well established in the West by the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries; see Levin, "Studies," 481-87. On
the development of the image in the West, see also the recent study
by S. Solway, "A Numismatic Source of the Madonna of Mercy,"
AB, LXVII (1985), 359-68. Solway claims that the theme first
appears on Cistercian seals of the fourteenth century; she does not
discuss Duccio's panel or the Eastern examples.

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59. Stubblebine, Duccio, 20-21; Hook, Siena, 72-73. C. Weigelt, Duccio

di Buoninsegna (Leipzig, 1913), 162, n. 1, claimed that the image of
the outstretched mantle actually originated in Siena after the Battle
of Montaperti. Though Levin and others reject this assertion
("Studies," II, 521-22), it is still reasonable to believe that the image
would have especially appealed to the Sienese, particularlyjust after
Montaperti. Levin quotes a poem by the fifteenth-century Sienese
writer Gentile Sermini which demonstrates the continuing importance of this image in Siena: "Your entire city [Siena] she will cover
over with her holy mantle" ("Studies," II, 492).
60.

Stubblebine, Duccio, 20-21, speculates that Guido may have painted

a work "comparable"to Duccio's panel.

61. On the iconography of the Magi, See H. Kehrer, Die Heiligen Drei
Konige in Literatur und Kunst (Leipzig, 1908).
62. As J. Poeschke notes (Die Sieneser Domkanzel des Nicola Pisano
[Berlin, 1973], 17), this marks a change from the Pisa pulpit, where
the more conventional genuflectingpose appeared. See G. Swarzinski,
Nicola Pisano (Frankfort am Main, 1926), 37, for a discussion of
other innovative aspects of this scene.
63.

Stubblebine, Guido, 46, fig. 21. For the reliefs in Pisa, see Kehrer,
Kanige, figs. 56, 59. The inclusion of the horses seems to originate
in early Gothic France; see R. D. Wallace, L'Influence de la France

gothique sur deux des precurseurs de la Renaissance italienne:

Nicola et Giovanni Pisano (Geneva, 1953), 57-58, 70.
64. The Sienese presence in the Latin Kingdom may also explain
idiosyncracies in Sienese painters like the Guidesque Clarisse Master.
This artist, active in the 1290s, introduces several details that do not
occur in earlier Sienese painting, but that do appear in Crusader
icons. First, his Crucifix in San Gimignano (Stubblebine, Guido,
fig. 55) contains the sort of pastiglia halo characteristic of many
Crusader icons. He includes in another work, a tabernacle in
Krakow (ibid., fig. 56), the small kneeling donors that are so often
seen in work from the Levant, as well as the dramatically gesticulating angels seen repeatedly in Crusader icons but unknown in earlier
Sienese art. Both the donors and the pastiglia halo have been
especially associated with Cyprus, where many Franks settled after
the fall of Acre in 1291. (On the halo, see M. Frinta, "Raised
Gilded Ornament of the Cypriot Icons, and the Recurrence of the
Technique in the West," Gesta, XX [1981], 333-48; on both the
halo and the donors see V. Pace, "Icone di Puglia, della Terra Santa
e di Cipro," in Belting, II Medio Oriente, 185 and 191, n. 35.) The
inclusion of these elements, all new to Sienese painting, may suggest
that this artist had come into contact with work produced in Cyprus
after the fall of Acre. For a lengthy discussion of the influence of
Crusader illumination in the West in the later thirteenth century see
Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 119-57; for Italy in
particular see 130-42.

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