Enciclopedia Cattolica

MATTEO DI GIOVANNI (MATTÉO DI SIENA)

Matthew of Giovanni (Matteo di Siena)

Volume VIII · p. 307 · 1952

English translation · Testo originale italiano

Image from page 307
Image from page 307

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

MATTEO di Giovanni (Mattéo di Siena). - Matteo di Giovanni (Mattéo di Siena), in S. Giovanni, 8 (1894), pp. 502-505; G. Sommerfeld, Über den Verfasser und die Entstehungszeit der Traktate de squaloribus Curiae Romanae, in Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberheins, 57 (1903), pp. 417-331; J. Franke, Matthaeus von Krakau, sein Leben, sein Charakter und seine Schriften zur Kirchenreform, Greifswald 1901; M. Grabmann, Storia della teologia cattolica, trad. it., 2a ed., Milano 1939, p. 166; H. Jedin, Storia del Concilio di Trento, I, Brescia 1949, p. 18.

Of M.’s works, amid so many external influences, what stand out are the incisiveness of his style, the sharply defined forms, the composition laid bare on the surface despite the intended perspectival effects in certain backgrounds, and above all the clear, enamel-like, and precious colouring. These characteristics are evident both in his pleasing Madonnas—refined examples of a dreamy and nostalgic world—among which, besides the altarpieces mentioned at Pienza and Siena, one may recall the Assumption in London, that in Grosseto, and the exquisite St Barbara in S. Domenico, Siena (1478)—and in his celebrated Massacres of the Innocents, angular arabesques of contorted faces and taut limbs, which M. depicted in the floor tiles of Siena Cathedral (1481) and repeated in several panels preserved in Siena (churches of S. Agostino, 1482, and of S. Maria dei Servi, 1491) and in Naples (Pinacoteca, 1488).

BIBL.: P. M. Perkins, s. V. in Thieme-Beker, XXIV, p. 256 ff. with the preceding bibliography; id., Pitture senesi, Siena 1933, pp. 15 ff., 35 ff., and passim; R. Van Marle, The development of the Italian Schools of painting, XVI, The Hague 1937, p. 318 ff.; P. Bacci, Fonti e commenti per la storia dell'arte senese, Dipinti e sculture..., Siena 1944, p. 231 ff.; E. Carli, Capolavori dell'arte senese, Firenze 1946, p. 80 ff.; J. Pope-Hennessy, La peinture siennoise du Quattrocento, Paris 1947, p. 17 ff.; C. Brandi, Quattrocentisti senesi, Milano 1949, p. 144 ff.; J. Pope-Hennessy, M. di G.'s Assumption altarpiece, in Proporzioni, 3 (1950), p. 81.