From Duccio's Maestà to Raphael's Transfiguration

Book excerpt: Christa Gardner von Teuffel's studies of Italian altarpieces have provided fundamental insights concerning the original structure and setting of some of the canonical monuments of Italian late medieval and Renaissance painting. Studies of panel type and frame architecture are combined with an investigation of original sites. Archival discoveries at Florence and Palermo have led to a new assessment of institutional patronage and private benefaction, and illuminated the formulation of altarpiece programmes, such as Perugino's Vallombrosan Assumption and Raphael's Lo Spasimo. These essays contribute enduringly to our understanding of contractual obligation, design process and altarpiece installation, and demonstrate the nexus between ecclesiastical and lay patrons, artists and congregations. The author's pioneering examination of Carmelite patronage and subsequent investigation of the iconographical impact of Benedictine and Franciscan reform movements have prompted others to re-assess the patronage of religious Orders in the Quattrocento. The pervasive iconographical influence of the Holy Land is traced through Sansepolcro, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme at Rome and as far as the astonishing View of Sinai by El Greco.