Научная статья на тему 'AUGUSTINIAN HERMITS AS THE COMMISSIONERS AND THE AUDIENCE OF PAINTED ALTARPIECE IN RENAISSANCE ITALY'

AUGUSTINIAN HERMITS AS THE COMMISSIONERS AND THE AUDIENCE OF PAINTED ALTARPIECE IN RENAISSANCE ITALY Текст научной статьи по специальности «Философия, этика, религиоведение»

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AUGUSTINIAN HERMITS / AUGUSTINIAN ALTARPIECE / POLYPTYCH / ALTARPIECE ICONOGRAPHY / AUGUSTINIAN ICONOGRAPHY / ITALIAN RENAISSANCE PAINTING

Аннотация научной статьи по философии, этике, религиоведению, автор научной работы — Nazarova Olga A.

The paper is aimed to outline the specificity of the Italian Augustinian hermits in conceiving and projecting their altarpieces during the Renaissance period. Examination and confrontation of the painted polyptychs, created for the friars’ churches from the earliest known examples of Trecento to those of the 16th century, revealed the recurrence of approaches through the centuries. Like other mendicant congregations, the Austin friars used their altarpiece to represent the key aspects of their order’s identity by visualizing its mission, spiritual practices, and the important representatives of the order or saints chosen as role models. However, the high intellectual culture of the order gave rise to altarpiece programs that stood out for their complex and multilayered meanings. To develop their programs, the friars drew extensively from the theological heritage of their claimed founder and originated unique iconography that finds now parallel in Renaissance art. Their altarpieces, more than any other, required a specific way of perception, the so-called discursive perception, which was based on the viewer’s ability to establish connections between elements, draw parallels, evoke associations and synthesize all into a resulting meaning.

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Текст научной работы на тему «AUGUSTINIAN HERMITS AS THE COMMISSIONERS AND THE AUDIENCE OF PAINTED ALTARPIECE IN RENAISSANCE ITALY»

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DOI: 10.18688/aa2212-02-11

O. A. Nazarova

Augustinian Hermits as the Commissioners and the Audience of Painted Altarpiece in Renaissance Italy1

Artworks created for the Augustin hermits have been widely considered in recent scholarship [1; 9]. A number of special studies have focused on the selected polyptychs painted for the order [6; 12; 13; 18; 20; 21; 24; 10; 25], but the Augustinian altarpiece as a specific phenomenon has not been considered. It seems however, worthwhile, because the focused studies of the painted altarpieces produced for other congregations have proven to be very helpful in revealing the specific attitudes and approaches of each monastic order to meanings, iconography, structure, and ways of perception of their altarpieces [3; 4; 5; 6; 15; 22; 28].

It has been widely demonstrated that the friars themselves were the primary audience of the altar polyptychs and the main decision makers about their content and appearance [13; 16; 17; 19]. Many altarpieces were placed in the chapels that adorned both the high altar and the subsidiary altars of the choir chapels in the mendicant churches, despite the private status of these chapels. Every element of chapels' decoration, including frescoes, stained glass and altarpieces, although commissioned and paid for by lay donors who obtained rights for these chapels, made their contribution to the highly sophisticated overall programs developed by the friars for their churches.

It was the friars who took all the key decisions concerning the subjects, the structure, and the messages translated by the artworks in their churches, directing the finances and the initiatives of the lay owners, who obtained from the order the honorary right and duty to maintain and decorate their future burial chapels. By conducting the programs and the decoration of each single chapel, and by subordinating each single lapel's decoration to the general program, the friars finally obtained in their churches the total ensembles glorifying and representing the values of their order. These patronage peculiarities have been revealed in the Florentine churches of Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce [17], and Santo Spirito [13], Santa Maria degli Angeli [19].

It has been also shown that lay owners, in fact, had very limited access to their private chapels before they were buried in them, so the friars who served the masses were the primary audience of those programs and the viewers of the artworks. They were the only viewers who had the opportunity of prolonged and continuous contemplation of the chapel altarpieces, seeing them regularly and for a long period of time while serving the masses at the chapel altars. This audience had its own particular characteristics that made it differ significantly from the

1 The reported study was funded by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research according to the research project no. 20-012-00524.

common viewers, as it was educated, sophisticated, possessing the skills of spiritual practices, with a high level of self-awareness, and being acutely aware of their mission.

These characteristics of the primary audience defined the communicative strategies of the monastic altarpiece. The polyptychs of the Dominican, Franciscan and Carmelite friars [3; 4; 22; 28; 15] extended the conventional core meaning of an altarpiece, i.e. the prayerful intercession of the saints to Virgin and Child, by representing the key aspects of the order's identity. The multi paneled structure and a non narrative way of representation forced the painters to search for specific means to visualise the order's history and mission, the important representatives of the order and other saints chosen as relevant role models. The Augustinians followed other mendicant orders in realizing these strategies and did not lag behind them, although they had their own specificity that was determined by the specific identity of the Augustinian hermits.

The issues of the identity of the Augustinian Hermits have been illuminated by E. Saak [26; 27]. From the moment of their institution in 1256, the position of the Austin friars was somewhat precarious. They were the last mendicant order to achieve approval in the 13th century when the institution of new orders was in fact forbidden. Their claims to be the unique successors of the Bishop of Hippo and to have him as the direct founder, were questionable and problematic. They had to compete with the Augustinian canons, another congregation that followed the same rule from a much earlier time. This is why they strove to manifest their legitimacy, to prove their historical roots, i.e. they were founded before the 13th century, and to expand their influence.

To achieve these goals, the Augustinian myth was constructed during the 14th century [27, p. 109; 23]. It was based on the Medieval hagiography on St. Augustine and aimed to provide evidence for the most problematic issues, the foundation of eremitic communes in Tuscany by St. Augustine himself during his visit to Italy in 383-388 A. D., and the direct transmission of the Rule from the saint to the Tuscan hermits. The myth, however, required maintenance from the order's contemporary way of living. Intensive and extensive learning became the main strategy of the friars to confirm their spiritual succession from the Bishop of Hippo and to surpass their rivals. They aspired to become the most devoted scholars of the vast theological heritage of St. Augustin and its most learned interpreters. The Austin hermits became the order of scholars comparable to that of the Dominicans. They developed a four-step educational system, which required 19 years of learning to obtain the highest degree of magister.

Sometime after the approval of the order, the first specifically Augustinian artworks began to appear, confirming the identity of the order in different ways. The artworks created for the order reflected its self-identification myth and gave visual form to the constructed idioms. The historical claims have been reflected in the reliefs of the saint's tomb in Pavia [2] and in fresco cycle by Guariento in the Eremitani church in Padua [11]. Their scholarly ambitions defined the content and meaning of the fresco cycle by Benozzo Gozzoli in the altar chapel of the augustin-ian church in San Gimignano [7].

The augustinian polyptychs also followed these lines of argumentation, although using specific approaches. Some of them were borrowed from the altarpieces of the previously established mendicant orders of Dominicans and Franciscans, others were unique, developed by the hermits themselves for their special needs. Austin hermits adopted the type of two-storied polyptych developed by the Dominicans and Franciscans, with the main tier of saints in

prayerful intercession, flanking the central image of the Virgin and Child, and the upper tier of triangular gables with the figures of angels flanking the central image of Christ. Each order carefully selected the saints to be represented in the main tiers of their altarpieces. The figure of the order's founder always had a place of honor among them, and serves as a hallmark of the order to which the altarpiece once belonged.

The figure of St. Augustine was by no means exclusive to the Augustinian altarpieces. St. Augustine, as Father of the Church, and great bishop, the theologian, and the author of the monastic rule, was widely venerated. Dominicans, who also followed his rule, often chose to represent him in their altarpieces. However, Austin friars developed their own iconography of the saint [8; 29]. In the Augustinian polyptych he appears dressed in the black habit of the Augustinian monk under the bishop's preciously brocaded cope. As any other congregation, the augustinian hermits gave particular importance to their habit as a distinctive mark of anyone belonging to the order. Dressing their founder in the habit was an effective means to underline the connection of the friars to St. Augustine, to represent him as a first and exemplar Austin hermit, and to confirm their direct and unchallenged succession from the saint, both in spiritual and historical aspects. Such an image can be seen in the earliest known augustinian altarpiece, a fragmented polyptych by Simone Martini, c. 1320, from the church of St. Augustine in San Gimignano, now in the Fitzwilliam museum. And all the later augustinian altar images of the founder gave preference to this type of attire combined of monastic robes and episcopal cope [17]. He is often depicted holding a red book, presumably his rule.

Besides the veneration of their founder, each congregation expressed particular devotion to their order's saints and the blessed, establishing and promoting their cults. These saints protected and patronized their own order. Their sanctity, their fame, and the miracles they performed served as an indicator of power and efficiency of the order's ministry, as a means to attract worshippers and to expand influence. However, it was by no means easy for a newly established order to obtain an officially canonized saint. The first saint of the Austin friars was Nicholas of Tolentino, living between 1245-1305. The campaign for his canonization was launched by the hermits soon after his death in 1325, but was successfully completed only in 1447, more than 120 years later [14].

In such circumstances the Augustinians were forced to establish special relations with the recognized church saints with kindred spirit, ministry, and the way of living, committing themselves to their protection and addressing them as the order's patrons and role models. The primacy was given to the hermits. St. Anthony Abbot, the founder of heremitism, appears in the altarpieces as a counterpart to the figure of St. Augustine in the altarpiece from the hermitage of Santa Maria of Montespecchio by Master of Citta di Castello (1307, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena), as the hermitage had double consecration in honour of both St. Augustine and St. Anthony the Abbot [6, pp. 44-45].

Another early hermit saint venerated by the Austin friars was St. Fridianus, a native of Ireland, who after pilgrimage to Rome, withdrew to a hermitage on Monte Pisano near Lucca in Tuscany, and later became a bishop. As a bishop he could also make a counterpart to St. Augustin in the altarpieces, as we can see in the 15th-century Barbadori altarpiece in Florence by Fra Filippo Lippi (1438, Uffizi Gallery), where the two saints kneel down in front of the Virgin and

Child. The work was commissioned for the Augustinian church of Santo Spirito, and St. Fridi-anus was venerated as a patron of Santo Spirito district [25].

In the beginning of the 15th century the Augustinians succeeded in finding another mighty patroness and in establishing an important cult. In Ostia, the remains of St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine, were miraculously discovered [21]. The Augustinian lobby of the papal curia successfully insisted on their legitimization and transfer from Ostia to the church of San Tri-fono in Rome in 1430. Rapidly, the new autonomous cult of St. Monica spread and flourished under the full control of the Augustinians. This cult was particularly important, as it supported, by implication, the Augustinian claims to descend directly from the saint. According to Augus-tinian myth, after the death of St. Monica in Ostia, the Tuscan hermits attended Monica's funeral, and after sending her body to Carthage, St. Augustine allegedly remained with hermits for some time in Tuscany and united them into an order under his Rule. As Jan Holgate has shown, this cult was centered on the women of the Third Augustinian Order, which was dedicated to St. Monica. For them she proved to be the ideal role model, a pious and zealous daughter, wife, mother, and widow. The friars contributed greatly to the development of her hagiography and iconography. As a matter of fact, St. Monica was depicted dressed as an Augustinian nun in a black habit with a leather belt and blue mantle. She was deliberately fashioned after the example of the Virgin in the altarpiece by Francesco Botticini for the Santo-Spirito, Florence (late 1480).

Besides the officially canonized saints, every order supported and promoted the local cults of the blessed related to their order. A large part of the 70 Augustinian blessed belong to the 13th — early 16th centuries, and are native to Italian communes [14]. Not many of them were celebrated with artforms that survived or are known to us. There is, however, one famous example of the vita retable dedicated to the blessed Agostino Novello by Simone Martini (between 1324-1328, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena) [20]. Agostino Novello, a native of Sicily augustinina friar, died in the hermitage of San Leonardo al Lago near Siena. After his death, his remains were transferred to the Augustinian church of Siena. There, his tomb, accompanied by Simone Martini's altarpiece, became the center of his subsequent cult. The audience of this vita altar-piece was much wider than that of the altars in the choir chapels. The augustinian identity of the blessed stands out clearly from the painting. He is presented in the habit of an Augustinian hermit with a red codex in his hands, obviously fashioned after St. Anthony and St. Augustine depicted in small round medallions. His vita scenes present him as an exemplary friar, hermit, and a miracle performer.

Perhaps, the vast display of the Augustinan saints and the blessed was once manifested in the polyptych painted by Piero della Francesca for the friars of Borgo San Sepolcro [10]. Despite the dismembering of the polyptych and the significant losses of its parts, we still can appreciate the almost life size monumental, but delicately painted figures of St. Augustine and St. Nicholas of Tolentino, of St. John the Evangelist, and Michael the Archangel. Two small figures, of Santa Monica and of an unidentified blessed in augustinian attire, have been preserved, originating most probably from the edges of the predella. No doubt, other Augustinan role model saints and the blessed occupied the now lost buttresses of the frame.

To display the relevant saints in prayerful intercession addressing the Virgin was one of the ways, common to all the monastic congregations, to construct and represent their identity. Besides this, more sophisticated strategies have been used by the mendicant orders in their

altarpieces from the first decades of the 14th century. Using the non-narrative visual language of altar polyptych, limited to the rows of single figures and only scarcely complemented by history scenes, they represented complex and nuanced conceptualizations concerning their missions and ministry. In the most refined way, the Dominicans conveyed their ultimate mission of bringing people to salvation by ministering the word of God , in the polyptych from the church of Saint Catherine in Pisa (Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, 1319) [3; 4]. The Franciscans visualized the way of the Cross as the unique way to salvation in the altarpiece by Ugolino di Nerio in Santa Croce, Florence, now dismembered and partially lost [28]. The Carmelites presented their claims for antiquity and legitimacy in the altarpiece by Pietro Lorenzetti, for the church San Niccolo al Carmine in Siena (1328-1329, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena) [5; 15]. The Augus-tinians showed themselves true virtuosos in using this strategy and far surpassed other orders in constructing complex multilayered meanings in their altarpieces.

Augustinians saw their mission as being the true and unique heirs and followers of St. Augustine, and sought to realize it through continuous studying of St. Augustine's vast theological heritage [23; 26; 27]. Their devotion to the Augustinine studies was reflected in the altarpiec-es commissioned for them. Diana Norman illuminated how it happened in her analyses of Ambrogio Lorenzetti's altarpiece for the Augustinian church San Pietro al Orto in the Tuscan town of Massa Marittima (c. 1335, Museo di arte sacra, Massa Marittima) [24]. This polyptych contains the specific imagery that could hardly be understood by commoners or be relevant to anyone outside the order. The distinctive features of this altarpiece, that find no parallel in any other known painted polyptych of its time, include the principal subject with its iconography and meaning, the selection of the saints, and the inclusion of the allegorical figures.

This imagery can be explained through the specifically Augustinian ideas and texts, as well as through the specific spiritual practices of the Austin hermits. The subject of Ambrogio Lorenzetti's work has often been considered as Maesta, following the general idea of Maesta being a depiction of the Virgin and Child enthroned and surrounded by angels and saints. However, Lorenzetti's work differs from the exemplar panels on this subject by Cimabue, Duc-cio and Giotto, in that it lacks their principal motive, which defines the title Maesta, i. e. the angels that hold the throne of the Virgin and bring it down from the heavens, manifesting the glory of the Virgin as the Queen of Heavens. In Duccio's Maesta, destined for the main altar of Siena cathedral, this basic iconography was expanded by the host of intercessing saints, mostly apostles and city patrons, to present the Virgin as the protectress and the sovereign of the city of Siena.

In Massa Marittima's work we see the significant differences in the ways both the Virgin and the saints are represented. First, the throne is surrounded by angels, who make music, thurify, fix the pillows, and adorn the throne with flowers, suggesting that they are involved in liturgical service rather than bring the throne down to the earth. Second, the Massa Marittima work presents allegorical figures of the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity, placed on the steps of the Virgin's throne and clearly defined by the inscriptions, their respective attributes, (a mirror in which the Trinity is reflected, a tower, a heart pierced by an arrow), and colors. The allegories make this work quite exceptional. Allegorical figures and scenes are widespread in Trecento frescoes and in book miniatures, but we can hardly find another significant example of their incorporation in polyptychs.

Third, the selection of the saints and the ways they are depicted, are also specific. Here, we do not encounter the saints and the blessed traditionally associated with the Augustinian order, as we have discussed above. Among the ubiquitous in altar polyptych prophets, apostles and evangelists in this artwork, stand out two figures on the sides of the Virgin's throne, which are noticeably larger than the other, and hold huge codexes. These are the Evangelists St. John and St. Matthew. While St. Matthew is presented with a closed book, St. John is depicted with a stylus preparing to fill up the blank page of the codex. This page once had a barely visible trace of the capital I, indicating that St. John is preparing to inscribe In principio erat Verbum, the first verse of his Gospel.

The assembly of the first row saints is even more unusual. Besides the city patrons of Massa Marittima, St. Cerbonius with the geese as his attribute, we see St. Basil the Great (extremely rarely depicted in the altars), St. Nicholas of Bari, St. Francis on the right of the Virgin, and St. Benedict, dressed as a Cistercian, St. Anthony (founder of the hermitage), and St. Augustine wearing the friar's habit under the bishop's dress on her left. Such a selection accentuates their roles as the founders of monastic orders and the authors of the monastic rules.

Norman has shown that all these specific traits of this work can be linked to the theological concepts of the Incarnation and Trinity, developed by St. Augustine in his writings Enchiridion to Laurentius Concerning Faith, Hope and Charity; Tractates on the Gospel of John, as well as to the spiritual practices of the Austine friars, in particular those described in the Opera devotissi-ma de la vita Christiana, by an outstanding augustinian theologian Fra Simone Fidati.

The meaning of this altarpiece can be schematically outlined as follows. The central group of the Virgin and Child, attended by the serving angels, manifests the mystery of the Incarnation of Logos in Christ as the second person of the Trinity. This mystery is being revealed through the liturgy and is being testified by St. John, St. Matthew and other evangelists and apostles, and is beheld by all the saints, whose eyes are directed to the central group. The path to comprehending this mystery lies through the practicing of the three theological virtues, exemplified by the spiritual teachers of monasticism, presented in the first row. This assembly of the chosen saints must had been acted as an ideal role model for the Augustinian brothers in this practice, who were the main audience for this altarpiece. Thus, the conventional iconography and meaning of early 14th-century painted altar polyptych were significantly expanded and upscaled by the specific Augustinian concepts in the Massa Marittima work, by visualizing the specifically Augustinian theological themes.

A strikingly similar approach can be seen in the Augustinian altarpiece created two centuries later, the Costabili Polyptych by Dosso Dossi and Garofalo, commissioned by Antonio Costabili for the Augustinian church of St. Andrea in Ferrara in 1513. This highly unusual artwork presents a dramatic contrast between its modern painting and the anachronic multi paneled structure of the polyptych, though updated by means of a modern frame. The program and meaning of this work were analyzed and convincingly interpreted by G. Fiorenza [12]. It can be speculated that the choice in favour of the polyptych in this case, was predetermined by the complicated Augustinian program with specific meaning, which was developed for it by the Augustinian brother Andrea Braura.

Once again, we can see how uncommon elements are incorporated into the conventional iconography of the polyptych with the enthroned Virgin and Child, attended by the apostles

and saints, including city patrons, to translate the specifically Augustinian meaning. Besides the traditional figures, the altarpiece presents the figures of St. Ambrose, with a scourge, and St. Augustine dressed as Augustinian hermit, with an unusual red halo, and a fiery rain falling on him; angels holding scrolls with quotes from the Vulgate Isaiah 9: 6, and an image of the Resurrected Christ on the top of the central part.

As Giancarlo Fiorenza has demonstrated, all these elements helped to express the concept of bellum justum, just war, fought by God's will and protected by God, which was developed by St. Ambrose and St. Augustine in their writings. This concept provided the framework for the attitudes to the current political situation in Ferrara. At that time, the duke of Ferrara Alfonso d'Este, former gonfalonier of the church, i.e. leader of the papal troops, was fighting against Pope Julius II. The Pope had already conquered the Ferrarese cities of Modena and Reggio and imposed an interdict, first on Alfonso, and later on the whole city of Ferrara.

For his part, Alfonso inflicted a crushing defeat on the papal forces at the Battle of Ravenna on Easter Sunday 1512. This event was interpreted by Aegidius of Viterbo, the Vice General of the Augustinian order, as the sign of God's displeasure of papal aggression. The ferrarese, who were fighting for their political and spiritual survival, regarded their war as bellum justum, therefore relying on God's help and considering themselves worthy of it. Their victory at Ravenna strengthened their assurance in God's support and their hope of complete victory over the enemies who will be hit by divine wrath and fire. The awe-inspiring and triumphant atmosphere of this altarpiece is formed by its original iconography, as well as by the specific painterly manner, with light and color flashes upon gloomy backgrounds.

Augustinians of Ferrara, in the 16th century, followed the same path as the friars in Massa Marittima in the 14th century, when they envisioned and projected their altarpieces. Obviously, this can not be explained as a matter of direct influence from the earlier work on the latter. We can define the similarities as a specifically Augustinian approach to their altarpieces, which is based on implementing the Augustinian theological concepts to endow an altarpiece with a mul-tilayered and specific meaning that went far beyond the conventions of altarpieces of their time.

These approaches, naturally implemented in the polyptych with its multi paneled structure, are preserved in the Augustinian altarpieces even when they acquire a more modern form of pala quadra, which, at first glance, is less disposed to this way of perception. The research conducted by Antonia Fondaras on the late Quattrocento altarpieces from Santo Spirito, Florence [13], revealed that within the unified space of the altar panel, no image is intended as a plain narrative or illustration. Instead they are composed of an array of scenes, figures and singular motives with a multilayered meaning, that might interplay with each other in various ways, and require a viewer's active participation to create the synthetical meaning of the whole. This meaning always alludes to the subjects theologised by St. Augustine, and to the contemporary spiritual practices of the Augustinian friars. Liturgical connotations also make their contributions to the ultimate meaning.

Such an altarpiece implied a specific way of perception, the so-called discursive perception [13, pp. 133-135]. It is based on the viewer's ability to establish connections between elements, draw parallels, evoke associations, and synthesize into a resulting meaning. Single images or motives can refer to a whole variety of notions and complex concepts with a range of texts and practices behind them. It is important to note that, most likely, the whole does not work as

a visual rebus or charade that should be manifested through a collection of images in works. We can not expect a single intended meaning behind the whole, rather, the figures and their compositions evoke the bulk of ideas that are linked by a common theme and complement each other. We can extrapolate that the altarpiece imagery would set the framework within which the chains of thoughts and associations were generated in the viewer's mind and spirit in the course of prolonged contemplation. The viewer is thus responsible for recreating the whole meaning of the work. The ultimate meaning is always recreated anew in the process of perception by each viewer. Viewing of such an altarpiece becomes a spiritual practice in itself.

This way of perception requires a highly prepared viewer. The Augustinans, with their refined practices of meditation and contemplation, with their high erudition, developed through the years of learning, were the perfect medium of this type of interpretation. In some way, a contemporary scholar follows a similar path when addressing the writings of St. Augustine and the Augustinians, and drawing parallels between them and the images in the altarpiece, in attempts to interpret the meaning of such artworks. We can suggest that the Augustinians gave preference to an intellectualized perception of images, like the Dominican friars and unlike the Franciscans, who leaned towards a more affective way of contemplation.

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Title. Augustinian Hermits as the Commissioners and the Audience of Painted Altarpiece in Renaissance Italy

Author. Nazarova, Olga A. — Ph. D., associate professor. HSE University. Myasnitskaya ul., 20, 101000, Moscow, Russian Federation. olgalnazarova@gmail.com ORCID: 0000-0003-1143-0463

Abstract. The paper is aimed to outline the specificity of the Italian Augustinian hermits in conceiving and projecting their altarpieces during the Renaissance period. Examination and confrontation of the painted polyptychs, created for the friars' churches from the earliest known examples of Trecento to those of the 16th century, revealed the recurrence of approaches through the centuries. Like other mendicant congregations, the Austin friars used their altarpiece to represent the key aspects of their order's identity by visualizing its mission, spiritual practices, and the important representatives of the order or saints chosen as role models. However, the high intellectual culture of the order gave rise to altarpiece programs that stood out for their complex and multilayered meanings. To develop their programs, the friars drew extensively from the theological heritage of their claimed founder and originated unique iconography that finds now parallel in Renaissance art. Their altarpieces, more than any other, required a specific way of perception, the so-called discursive perception, which was based on the viewer's ability to establish connections between elements, draw parallels, evoke associations and synthesize all into a resulting meaning.

Keywords: Augustinian Hermits, Augustinian altarpiece, polyptych, altarpiece iconography, Augustinian iconography, Italian Renaissance painting

Название статьи. Монахи ордена отшельников Св. Августина как заказчики и зрители живописного алтарного образа в ренессансной Италии2

Сведения об авторе. Назарова, Ольга Алексеевна — кандидат искусствоведения, доцент. Национальный исследовательский университет «Высшая школа экономики», ул. Мясницкая, 20, Москва, Российская Федерация, 101000. olgalnazarova@gmail.com ORCID: 0000-0003-1143-0463

Аннотация. Статья посвящена специфике алтарных полиптихов, созданных под патронажем ордена августинских отшельников в Италии на протяжении всей эпохи Возрождения. За стилистическими различиями произведений разных периодов открываются повторяющиеся визуальные стратегии ордена. Подобно другим нищенствующим конгрегациям, францисканцам и доминиканцам, августинцы стремились в своих алтарных образах не только представить основателей ордена и почитаемых его представителей, но и отразить ключевые аспекты орденской идентичности, представления о миссии своего ордена, свои духовные практики. Сравнительный анализ алтарных образов, созданных в XIV-XVI вв. для монастырских церквей, позволяет увидеть, как намеренно культивируемый интеллектуализм ордена стал причиной возникновения особенно сложных, многоуровневых смысловых программ и уникальных иконографических решений, которые базировались на различных аспектах учения Св. Августина и требовали специфического дискурсивного зрительского восприятия. Полиптих как форма алтарного образа наилучшим образом соответствовал духовным потребностям и практикам августинцев-отшельников и потому сохранялся в этой среде вплоть до первой половины XVI в., оказывая влияние в том числе и на алтарный образ нового ренессансного типа.

Ключевые слова: августинцы-отшельники, августинский алтарный образ, ренессансный полиптих, иконография полиптиха, патронаж ордена августинцев, иконография ордена августинцев, живопись итальянского Возрождения

Исследование выполнено при поддержке РФФИ проект № 20-012-00524.

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