1 | Vittore Carpaccio (Italian, ca. 1464–1525/6), Meditation on the Passion, ca. 1490–1510, oil and tempera on wood, 273/4 × 341/8 in. (70.5 × 86.7 cm), New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. |
2 | On the Christian hermeneutical tradition of ascribing multiple meaning to Biblical figures and verses, see Smalley 1964. |
3 | |
4 | Hornik 2002. The other works of art featuring the figure of Job include Giovanni Bellini’s (Italian, 1435–1518) San Giobbe Altarpiece, Ca. 1445–1487, Oil on Wood, 15 ft. 5⅜ in. × 8 ft. 6 in. (471 × 258 cm), Venice, Galleria dell’Accademia. Giovanni Bellini’s The Sacred Allegory, ca. 1490–1510, oil and tempera on wood, 29 × 47 in. (78 × 119 cm), Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi. Vittore Carpaccio’s Dead Christ, 57 × 72¾ in. (145 × 185 cm), tempera on wood, ca. 1510–1520, Berlin, Staatliche Museum, Gemäldegalerie. To this list, addressed by Hornik, one should also add St. Job and St. Francis, a marble relief above the Church of San Giobbe by Pietro Lombardo (Italian, 1435–1515), and Marcello Fogolino’s (Italian, 1470/1488?–1548) Madonna and Child between Saints Job and Gothard), 79⅞ × 63 in. (203 × 160 cm), oil on wood, ca. 1508, Milan, Pinacoteca Brera. |
5 | It might be that one of them (Giovanni Bellini, Pietà, 1460–1465, canvas, 45¼ in. × 10 ft. 3/4 in. [115 × 317 cm], Venice, Doge Palace), a rare composition featuring Christ and two saints, was a precedent to Carpaccio’s Meditation. |
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8 | |
9 | |
10 | Saint Jerome, Letters, 22:3. |
11 | |
12 | For the scuole and their important part in the Venetian society, see Pullan 1971; for the specific significance of the scuole for interpretation of artworks featuring the figure of Job—see Moscovich 2015, p. 137 ff. |
13 | For details of Dead Christ, see endnote No. 3 above. |
14 | See below, in the Literature Review section. |
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16 | |
17 | |
18 | |
19 | |
20 | |
21 | |
22 | |
23 | |
24 | |
25 | |
26 | |
27 | |
28 | |
29 | Job, 29:17. |
30 | |
31 | |
32 | Blass-Simmen, ibid., 87. |
33 | |
34 | For the persistence of this literature during the Renaissance, see Cohen, ibid., passim, esp. Introduction; for the connection with Carpaccio’s oeuvre, see Cohen 53–134. |
35 | |
36 | |
37 | Several manuscripts written in Italian, most of them in the Tuscan dialect, were studied over a hundred years ago, see Kenneth McKenzie 1905, 380–433. However, one of these manuscripts, written in the Venetian dialect (probably od. C.R.M.248 [C, G, K], was found in the Museo Civico di Padova [Bibl. Comun.]. McKenzie does not provide enough information on this point. Yet, the provenance of the manuscript written in the Venetian dialect, is probably Venice, and perhaps was in Venice when Carpaccio’s Meditation was painted. Also see Cohen 2008, p. 6; Hassig 1995. A list of bestiaries can also be found on the online catalogue of bestiaries, http://www.bestiary.ca/articles/family/mf_other.htm.) |
38 | |
39 | |
40 | |
41 | |
42 | Baxter, ibid., p. 72. |
43 | Baxter, ibid., pp. 27, 72. |
44 | Baxter, ibid., p. 78. |
45 | |
46 | However, he also found texts written at a later date, and adapted for private reading, see Baxter, ibid., pp. 202–5. |
47 | Baxter, ibid., pp. 72, 82. |
48 | Baxter, ibid., esp. pp. 37–62. |
49 | Baxter, ibid., pp. 156–61, 179–81. Bestiaries that were not owned by monasteries, monks or clergy were very rare, see Baxter, ibid., p. 199. |
50 | James, 5:10–11. |
51 | Job, 19:25. |
52 | |
53 | |
54 | St. Gregory the Great, Moralia, II: XX, xl, 77. |
55 | Job, 19: 23–24. |
56 | |
57 | |
58 | |
59 | |
60 | |
61 | Levi D’Ancona (ibid., p. 148) quotes Fillippo Picinelli, Mundus Symbolicus, which is a late source, from the seventeenth century, but it is quite possible that this interpretation existed at an earlier date. |
62 | Job, 19:25. |
63 | |
64 | Job, 28:12; 28:20. |
65 | Job, 28:28. |
66 | Job, 19:15. |
67 | St. Gregory the Great, Moralia, Vol. II, Book XIV, xli, 49. |
68 | Voragine, vol. 6, pp. 83–94; for other versions and sources—see Heffernan 1975. However, since Voragine’s Golden Legend was translated into Italian by Nicolò Malerbi and published in Venice by Nicholas Jenson in 1475 (see Pignatti 1965), therefore it was, most probably, the source used by Carpaccio. Heffernan (p. 67) also mentions that St. Eustace first appears in the pseudo-Jerome Martyrology. It might worth further research, whether this text might have been known—and still attributed to Jerome—in Carpaccio’s milieu, which would form another connection with St. Jerome, and thus with the Mediation as well. |
69 | On the narrative parallels and linguistic similarities between the Life of St. Eustace and the Book of Job, see Heffernan, ibid, pp. 72–73. |
70 | The artworks commissioned specifically for San Giobbe are Lombardo’s relief and Bellini’s San Giobbe Altarpiece, both featuring St. Francis and Job. For an interpretation of the legend of St. Eustace as reflecting human compassion to all living creatures, due to its Buddhist sources, and for Buddhist influence on Franciscan reverence to all forms of life, see Wilson 2009, esp. pp. 179–83, 188–91, 192. See Heffernan 1975, for another opinion, rejecting the suggestion on the Buddhist source (p. 69), yet referring to the emphasis on the motif of compassion (p. 66). |
71 | Job, 5:23. |
72 | |
73 | |
74 | Richardson 1979, p. 118; Goffen, ibid, pp. 48, 139, 157; Rosand 2001, p. 100; for other dates in the history of Venice that were ‘adapted’ to the myths, see also Richardson, ibid., p. 108; Goffen, ibid, p. 149. |
75 | |
76 | Veneziano, The Virgin Blessing the Doge, a lunette on the tomb of the Doge Francesco Dandolo, Venice, Santa Maria Gloriose Dei Frari. A marble relief by Pietro Lombardo: Doge Leonardo Loredan in front of the Virgin, Venice, Doge Palace. A painting attributed to Vittore Carpaccio, The Virgin with SS. Christopher and John the Baptist and with the Doge Giovanni Mocenigo, 1478–1485, oil on canvas, 9 ft. 8¾ in. × 72½ in. (295.9 × 184.2 cm), London, The National Gallery. Giovanni Bellini, The Virgin blesses the Doge Agostino Barbarigo, 1488, oil on canvas, 8 ft. 30 in. × 87¾ in. (320 × 200 cm), Murano, San Pietro Martire. Jacopo Tintoretto (Italian, 1519–1594), The Madonna with the Doge Alvise Mocenigo and his Family, c. 1573, oil on canvas, 85 in. × 13 ft. 8⅜ in. (216 × 416.6 cm), Washington, National Gallery. Jacopo Tintoretto, The Virgin Blesses the Doge Pietro Loredan, oil on Canvas, Venice, Doge Palace. Jacopo Tintoretto, The Doge Nicolò da Ponte Invoking the Protection of the Virgin, 1584, oil on canvas, Venice, Doge Palace. |
77 | |
78 | |
79 | |
80 | One can see examples of this iconography in the relief Venice, attributed to Filippo Calendario, from the west façade of the Doge Palace, Venice; in the statue Justice by Bartolomeo Buon, Porta della Carta, also in the Doge Palace, Venice; in Jacobello del Fiore’s Justice with the Angels Michael and Gabriel, 1421, oil, 13 3/ 4 × 35 3/ 8 in. (35 × 90 cm), Venice, Galleria del’Accademia; and in Justice by Bonifacio dei Pitati and his studio, Venice, Galleria dell’Accademia. Also see Goffen 1986a, p. 144; Goffen 1986b, p. 64; Rosand 2001, p. 99ff. |
81 | |
82 | God gave King Solomon superior wisdom, Kings I, 3:13; for the Biblical description of the throne, see Kings I, 10:18–20. |
83 | |
84 | |
85 | Genesis, 49: 9. |
86 | Amos, 9:11: “In that day will I raise vp the tabernacle of Dauid, that is fallen, and close vp the breaches thereof, and I will raise vp his ruines, and I will build it as in the dayes of old” |
87 | |
88 | Explaining the verse “his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly” ( Job 40:16), which describes the mythological creature Behemoth, St. Jerome translated the Hebrew word “מָתְנָיו” as “loins”, and explains, “Thus, the descendant of David, who, according to the promise is to sit upon his throne, is said to come from his loins” (St. Jerome 1893, Letter No. 22, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001022.htm). |