The Cardinal and his Painters
Giacomo Stefaneschi, Giotto and Simone Martini between Rome and Avignon
By (author) Julian Gardner
Hardback (Published)
(March 2026)
ISBN: 9791257010973
Price: $53.00
On back order
Cardinal Stefaneschi was a Roman aristocrat and a graduate of Paris University. He composed poems on the election, abdication and canonization of Celestine V and the coronation of Boniface VIII. He later moved to Avignon, where he lived uneventfully until his death in 1341. Early recognizing the brilliant young Giotto, he commissioned two prestigious works for Saint Peter’s. Little survives of the monumental Navicella mosaic, one of the most revolutionary works of European art. Giotto’s second commission, the double-sided high altarpiece still survives. It set new standards for patron’s portraits and historical representations of martyrdom, and was also a manifesto of Giotto’s colour. The early dating proposed here is buttressed by new evidence. In Avignon Stefaneschi turned to poetry, liturgy and music. He commissioned the Master of the Codex of Saint George. More significant still was his championing of Simone Martini, who frescoed the Madonna of Humility in Avignon cathedral. Stefaneschi’s patronage impacted on Robert of Anjou and cardinals Napoleone Orsini and Guillaume Godin. The octogenarian cardinal re-emerged as creative patron of the greatest painters of the age.
Cardinal Stefaneschi was a Roman aristocrat and a graduate of Paris University. He composed poems on the election, abdication and canonization of Celestine V and the coronation of Boniface VIII. He later moved to Avignon, where he lived uneventfully until his death in 1341. Early recognizing the brilliant young Giotto, he commissioned two prestigious works for Saint Peter’s. Little survives of the monumental Navicella mosaic, one of the most revolutionary works of European art. Giotto’s second commission, the double-sided high altarpiece still survives. It set new standards for patron’s portraits and historical representations of martyrdom, and was also a manifesto of Giotto’s colour. The early dating proposed here is buttressed by new evidence. In Avignon Stefaneschi turned to poetry, liturgy and music. He commissioned the Master of the Codex of Saint George. More significant still was his championing of Simone Martini, who frescoed the Madonna of Humility in Avignon cathedral. Stefaneschi’s patronage impacted on Robert of Anjou and cardinals Napoleone Orsini and Guillaume Godin. The octogenarian cardinal re-emerged as creative patron of the greatest painters of the age.
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1. The Education of a Patron
- 2. Cardinal Stefaneschi’s Roman Circle (circa 1295-1305)
- 3. Giotto in Rome I: The Navicella
- 4. Giotto in Rome II: Cardinal Stefaneschi’s Triptych
- 5. Cardinal Napoleone Orsini and the Cappella San Nicola, Assisi
- 6. Prelate, Politician, Exile
- 7. Rome on the Rhône: Simone Martini and Others
- Conclusion. Cardinal Stefaneschi in Retrospect
- Bibliography
- Index
- By (author) Julian Gardner
Other Titles in this Series
Lordships of Southern Italy
Rural Societies, Aristocratic Powers and Monarchy in the 12th and 13th Centuries
Volume 5
Similar Books
A Collaborative Tapestry in Honour of Shirley Ann Brown / Une fresque brodée en l’honneur de Shirley Ann Brown
The Bayeux Tapestry Seen by her Colleagues and Friends / La Tapisserie de Bayeux vue par ses collègues et amis
Balthasar Caymox of Nuremberg
Early Modern German Print Publishers: Popular Prints of the Seventeenth Century
ENTANGLED AFRICA
Intra-African Relations Between Rain Forest and Mediterranean from Around 4,000 BCE to 1,500 CE
Gold, Silver and Glass: Power Networks, Cultural Identities, Technology Transfers and Agency across the Old World (7th Century BC – 1st Century AD)
Proceedings of a Conference Held at the British Museum, 16–18 June 2023
Legal Visuality
Exegesis, Ambiguity, and Dissimulation of the Donation of Constantine in the Early Modern Period
Listening to the Swan Song
More-than-Human Beings and Sounds in Literature and Culture Through the Ages
Monastic Manuscripts from the Eastern Mediterranean (Sinai, Jerusalem, Antioch)
Production, Use, and Contexts
Naples as Laboratory / Laboratorium Neapel
Style Options, Artistic Rivalry and Self Fashioning in Neapolitan Baroque Painting / Plurale Stilbildung, Kunstlerkonkurrenz und Self Fashioning in der neapolitanischen Barockmalerei
Nurturing the Elite
Representations of Drinking, Eating, and Religious Vessels in Palmyrene Funerary Iconography
Volume 13
Portraying the Individual in the Roman East
Local–Imperial Entanglements in Sculpture, Mosaics, and Paintings (First–Fourth Centuries AD)
Volume 18
Technical Studies of Asian Art
Proceedings of the Seventh Forbes Symposium at the Freer Gallery of Art
