Madonnari

MADONNARI. - This was the name given in Venice to those painters of sacred images, mostly of Cretan origin, who already in the 14th century, but even more from the 15th until almost the 19th, worked and had their workshops in that city, where a flourishing colony of Greeks existed which, at the end of the 15th century, succeeded in obtaining its own "school" and its own church. From there they spread their products in great abundance throughout the Balkan and Russian world as well as, more limitedly, in Italy itself. The last heirs of the Byzantine tradition, they debased it into a mechanized repetition of ancient schemes in which it was rare to find anything more than artisan skill. And if, through contact with Italian and particularly Venetian art, they grafted new elements onto their manners, and justified for themselves the designation of Veneto-Cretan, they seldom succeeded in assimilating them to good effect.

The most typical m. was Andrea Rico of Candia, active in the late 15th century; in the following century the role of head of the school was held by Michele Damasceno, and in the 17th century the most notable personalities were those of Emanuele Zanfurnari and Emanuele Zane of Rethymno, a poet and priest as well as a most prolific iconographer. Of greater interest, however, is the figure of Giorgio Clontza, who lived between the two centuries, who, like Theodore Pulaki of Cydonia later and the painters of the Ionian Islands, drew particularly on Italian Mannerism with results of a certain value. Mention is also made of Domenico Theotocopuli, who was a native of Crete and in the initial phase of his artistic activity was closely linked to the painting of the m., while already interpreting it with personal inspiration (v. triptych of the Galleria Estense in Modena).

In the images of these painters the subject of the Madonna with the Child prevailed at first (whence the name of m.), but later also the Savior, the saints and the principal scenes of the Old and New Testament. To these icons, not only in the Orthodox world but also in the Catholic West, there was a tendency to attribute a special religious value and even miraculous virtues, perhaps in the belief that they went back to archetypes of somehow prodigious origin. Above all, the tradition was alive of the portrait that St. Luke was said to have made from life of the Madonna and sent to Theophilus. So runs the legend, but there must certainly have existed a prototype with the Virgin in a rigid, frontal pose, holding on her arm the Child who blesses and holds in His left hand the scroll of the Law: it is the type known by the name of ἡ Ὀβηγήτρια, from which the others derived with few variations (for example, the Glykophilousa and the Eleousa, in an affectionate attitude, the Galaktotrophousa, who suckles the Child, etc., and finally the Madonna of the Passion with two half-figures of angels bearing the signs of Christ's martyrdom).

Thus also for the other images the iconography remained generally tied to traditional models. Christ was for the most part depicted as the blessing Savior or as King of Kings, enthroned and with the mitre on His head. The saints were naturally those most venerated in the Eastern Church. From the Gospel the episodes preferred were those corresponding to the "great feasts" or those that recur in the Sunday liturgy, in conformity with the custom of the Orthodox Church of exposing to the veneration of the faithful during the sacred rites the icon referring to the Gospel passage that is read or to the feast being commemorated. The religious value, therefore, and the use of such icons, which were also hung on the closure, called precisely iconostasis, separating the Sancta Sanctorum from the rest of the church, enormously favored their sale; and now they are encountered somewhat everywhere in museums, private houses and convents. Particularly, in the Vatican Pinacoteca, in the National Museum of Ravenna, in Florence, at the community of Orthodox Greeks in Venice; in the Byzantine, Benachi and Loverdos Museums of Athens; in the monasteries of Patmos, of Athos and of Sinai (where, moreover, their production still continues); in the Museums of Moscow and Leningrad.

Πραγματεία της Ἀκωδημίας Ἀθηνῶν, 1939; S. Bettini, Pitture cretesi-veneziane, slave e italiane del Museo nazionale di Ravenna, Ravenna 1940; S. Marconi, La raccolta di icone veneto-cretesi della comunità greco-ortodossa di Venezia, in Atti dell'Istituto veneto di scienze, lett., arte, 1947, 1948 and 1949.

Sandra Marconi Moschini