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Provenance: Vittadini collection, Arcore, before 1900 (see note);
Private collection, Zurich;
Private collection, Lugano.
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Literature: L. Beltrami, Ambrogio da Fossano detto Bergognone, Milan 1895, p. 59, cat.no. 50;
G. Carotti, "La villa Vittadini in Arcore", in Ville e Castelli d'Italia. Lombardi e Laghi, Milan 1907, p. 672;
J.A. Crowe and G.B. Cavalcaselle, A History of Painting in North Italy, London 1912 (later edition, ed. by T. Borenius), vol. II, p. 373
A. Venturi, Storia dell'Arte Italiana, La Pittura del Quattrocento, Ulrico Hoepli, Milan 1915, vol. II, reproduced, plate 602;
B.Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian School, vol. I and III, London 1968, p. 42, reproduced, vol, III, plate 1479;
A. Morandotti, Il Collezionismo in Lombardia. Studi e ricerche tra '600 e '800, Milan 2008, pp. 283, 293-4, footnote 55.
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Notes: Lombard painters of the fifteenth century were deeply influenced by Netherlandish painting examples which existed in many of the region's collections; indeed the vogue for them was nowhere greater in Italy than in the province's capital city of Milan. While some Milanese artists were influenced by such foreign sensibilities, Bergonogne (whose soprannome means the "Burgundian" thus suggesting at least an openness to non-native art) remained a bulwark of the local Lombard tradition, taking on only slight influence from Northern painting and from Leonardo himself. The present Madonna and Child ("Maria Lactans") by Bergognone is a fine example of his work; the image is carefully built up with layers of paint and glazes, and stylistically it is still concerned with and steeped in the local traditions and conventions that invoke Lombard painting of the quattrocento. Bergognone was among the most admired and sought-after artists in the later years of the Sforza court, having frescoed the transepts and supplied the many altarpieces of the family's most significant religious institution, the Certosa di Pavia. But in addition to the large-scale frescoes and cult images he produced there, he was also capable of painting on a smaller scale, particularly Madonnas and half-length saints, which appear especially poignant and tender to the modern eye. Bergognone is first recorded at the Certosa of Pavia in 1488 and signed two chapel altarpieces in 1490. Both of these works and other subsequent altarpieces show Bergognone working in different styles; however, the facial and figural types are broadly the same--the Virgin continues to give the beholder the sidelong glance through her almond eyes which became a trademark of the artist, and Christ remains ethereally lithe. Bergognone employed these figural types throughout his oeuvre, and they may also be seen in other Madonne by the artist, such as the examples in the Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan; the National Gallery, London; and in a private collection.υ1 All three pictures relate closely to the present picture: the child is seen holding the Rosary with the Virgin's devotional book open on the parapet near her child's side, as the Virgin mournfully stands nearby. In the Poldi Pezzoli and private collection panels, the child is seated on a pillow, as in the present picture, with windows through which a town or landscape on either side of Mary can be seen. Among the differences in the present picture that are the most significant is the iconography of both subject and text. Here, one notices that Mary is fulfilling her maternal role in nursing her child. Her devotional book is closed and rosary lay untouched on the parapet. These taken together would have drawn the contemporary viewer away from the thoughts of the spiritual towards thoughts of the physical realm, reminding one of the Child's fully human and fully divine status. The "Maria Lactans" type, which Berenson numbers as many as four in his inventory of Bergognone's work, was a popularly depicted subject since the 13υth century.υ2 At one point considered unseemly to expose the breast, it became more widely accepted to reveal it, again emphasizing the Child's human frailty. In the present panel, Bergognone shows the Virgin's breast in such a manner: keeping the Child close with her left hand, she nevertheless appears far from concerned with what she is doing. The text that appears in mordant gilt along the Virgin's halo and sleeve of her mantle is so stylized as to not be fully legible. In fact what seems only slightly readable in the halo is "ALLE(LUIA)", nearest the Child's head. It might be presumed that the picture reads like that in the private collection Madonna mentioned earlier; that also has text along the Virgin's sleeve and halo, where one can read: "REGINA CELI LETARE ALELU(IA)".υ3 In the present picture, "AVE MARIA" can also be made out on the Virgin's sleeve. However the remaining inscription may read, it most certainly speaks to the popularity of the Marian cult, which had grown significantly throughout the 14υth and 15υth centuries. The "Maria Lactans" iconography in particular was important to Augustinians, as it was said that Saint Augustine experienced a vision in which the Virgin pressed her hand to her breast to squirt a stream of milk to his lips. Many of Bergognone's patrons belonged to or had close connections to the scholarly Augustinian monastic community. In around 1511, Bergognone painted the central portion of a cycle for the Sala Capitolare of the church of Santa Maria della Passione in Milan, in which he portrayed Christ surrounded by the apostles, with the adjacent walls frescoed with saints of devotional importance to the Augustinians, who officiated at the church. It is quite possible that the patron of this painting was also involved with the Augustinian order. The technique in the present picture is quite refined with strikingly beautiful passages throughout: the gradations between light and shade, in particular in the modeling of flesh, are less marked; individual highlights are painted with great care, especially in the hair and beads of the rosary; the surfaces of the picture are intended to have a more enameled appearance, with the draperies harder and the color more saturated. Above Mary's left shoulder appears a passage of excitingly loose landscape painting so typical of Bergognone's town and landscapes, scenes of a familiar fortress or castle that would made the experience of the picture so immediate for the Renaissance spectator. Roberto Longhi singled out this startling naturalism long ago with "shocking" details reproduced by him to form part of his concept of a realistic Lombard tradition.υ4 Note on Provenance:
The earliest record of this beautiful Madonna and Child is when it was in the possession of the Giovanni Battista Vittadini (1855/6-1904), a Milanese collector and businessman who took a keen interest in the arts (see fig. 1).υ5 Vittadini was one of a group of five founders of the very influential journal Rassenga d'Arte, a monthly publication dedicated to "antique" art. He was also charged with the arrangement of the collections of the Castello Sforzesco, which was being restored by his friend Luca Beltrami.υ6 Vittadini was a significant collector himself, and put together a sizeable collection, mostly focused on Lombard art. His collection was described at length by Giulio Carotti (see literature), and included in addition to Renaissance pictures, other works of art and a good collection of porcelain, of which Vittadini was regarded as an exceptional connoisseur. In 1894, he bought the 16υth century Villa Cazzola in Arcore--a small town outside of Milan-- from the noble Durini family, and set about adapting and modernizing it. There, he arranged his gallery of pictures in the manner then in vogue with other fashionable Milanese collectors (see fig. 2).υ7 The present Madonna and Child, in fact, may be seen in the photograph of part of his collection, on a type of wooden stand against the back wall, between two other of his best pictures, a Saint Anthony Abbot (location unknown), also by Bergognone, and a Madonna and Child with Angels by Gaudenzio Ferrari which was considered so significant that it became known as the "Vittadini Madonna" in the subsequent literature. He appears to have corresponded and worked with a number of the most important scholars of his day, including Tancred Borenius and Bernard Berenson, whose fototeca included a photograph of the present painting, and with whom Vittadini corresponded. Despite the civic-minded example of other collectors, Vittadini did not leave his collection to city of Milan, and it was broken up after his death. His widow did, however, did allow the Brera to acquire the predella to the famous and important Polyptych delle Grazie by Vincenzo Foppa which he had bought in circa 1900/01. 1. See G. Sciolla, Ambrogio da Fossano detto il Bergognone: Un pittore per la Certosa, Certosa di Pavia, Pavia, 1998, pp. 364-65, no. 78; pp. 366-67, no. 79.
2. See B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Central Italian and North Italian Schools, London 1968, vol. I pp. 42-46.
3. The inscription derives from the venerable hymn Regina Caeli (Queen of Heaven), particularly sung at Easter.
4. See R. Longhi, "Questi Caravvaggeschi," Pinacoteca, I, 1928-29, pp. 262-63. Another article which speaks of Longhi's interest and identification of Bergognone's abilities as a landscape painter is "Ambrogio Borgognone in a Recent Publication", Evelyn Sandberg-Vavala, The Burlington Magazine for Connoissuers, vol. 89, no. 536 (Nov., 1947), pp. 305-309. Here, the author is reviewing a recent monograph on Bergognone by Nietta Apra entitled, Ambrogio da Fossano detto il Bergognone, (Milan, 1945). She states (p. 306): "The detailed photographs give the book its high value--not details of figures, but, following out a happy initiative of Professor Longhi [she cites the Pinacoteca p. 262], details of those delicious landscapes with which Borgognone loved to set off his demure and dreamy Madonnas. The book, in fact, meant chiefly to me an added awareness of Borgognone as a landscape painter."
5. For a fuller discussion of Vittadini's many activities, please see A. Morandotti, op. cit., pp.282-286, and footnotes 48-73.
6. Luca Beltrami (1854-1933) was a fascinating figure. Architect, writer and cultural arbiter, his activities were varied and important. In addition to work on the Castello, he built a number of important buildings in Milan, including the Palazzo Marino and the Permanente, as well as having the oversight of restoration of a number of other buidlings and monuments. He was also an art historian, and wrote on a number of subjects, including a lengthy work on the Duomo and a book on Bergognone, the first place were the present painting appears to have been published (see literature).
7. The arrangement of the Vittadini collection must have been somewhat influenced by that of the Poldi Pezzoli in the center of Milan; indeed, Vittadini wrote an article about the museum, and clearly was inspired by it (see G.B. Vittadini, "Novità artistiche del Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Milano", in Archivio storico dell'arte,VII, 1895, pp. 199-217.
