Professor Butter Beard and Duccio’s “Maestà”
“Fall has always been my favorite season. The time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale.” ― Lauren DeStefano, “Wither”
Have you seen Nellie dance? Tis the season, and believe me, it is worth the pre-dawn price of admission. The morning sky is just waking, pink and blue and violet. The wise deer, foxes and owls have all warned each other of Miss Nellie’s jubilant arrival. A slightly-salty breeze off the ocean waves arrives, navigating a path through the old oaks and maples, resulting in a choreographed ballet of twirling autumn leaves. Nellie leaps, spins, rolls and giggles, attempting to catch each leaf like snowflakes on Christmas morning. It is a triumphant blur of shimmering golds, royal purples, vivid scarlets, burnt orange, and earthy siennas.
And there it is. Siena. Even just saying the name of one of the most delicious cities in Italy conjures images of every color within the autumnal palette.
“Sienna: The Rise of Painting, 1300-1350” opens this week at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The perfect autumnal gift to us all. The exhibition examines an exceptional moment at the dawn of the Italian Renaissance and the pivotal role of Sienese artists – including Duccio di Buoninsegna, Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and Simone Martini – in defining Western painting. Just before the catastrophic onset of the Black Death in 1350, Siena was the site of phenomenal artistic innovation and activity combining Byzantine ethereal traditions with a new flare of human naturalism.
The exhibition brings together an impressive group of paintings by the principal painters of the period, including an unprecedented gathering outside of Siena of panels from the Maestà by Duccio who has been called “the flower from whose seed all Sienese art sprang.”
Joanna Cannon, reader in the history of art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, writes: “When the governing officials of Siena, the Nove (Council of the Nine), met in the council chamber of their newly built palazzo in November of 1310 to discuss the income and expenditure of the Opera del Duomo, the topic, urged to be completed as swiftly as possible, was the “nova et magna tabula” of the blessed and glorious ‘Mary ever Virgin’ – the Queen of Heaven.” Duccio and his assistants had nearly completed painting the massive two-sided altarpiece in his studio located on Via Stalloreggi, very close to the Siena Cathedral. The gilded masterpiece was installed in the cathedral on June 9th, 1311, after a procession of the work in a loop around the city. One person who witnessed this event wrote:
“On the day that it was carried to the Duomo the shops were shut, and the bishop conducted a great and devout company of priests and friars in solemn procession, accompanied by the nine signiors, and all the officers of the commune, and all the people, and one after another the worthiest with lighted candles in their hands took places near the picture, and behind came the women and children with great devotion. And they accompanied the said picture up to the Duomo, making the procession around the Campo, as is the custom, all the bells ringing joyously, out of reverence for so noble a picture as this. The poor received many alms, and we prayed to the Holy Mother of God, our patron saint, that she might in her infinite mercy preserve this our city of Siena from every misfortune, traitor or enemy.”
The center of the altarpiece was (and still is) dominated by the Virgin Mary and Child, a little over life size, framed by the splayed sides of their marble and mosaic encrusted throne, and attended by ten richly vested saints and twenty angels, with ten half-length apostles in the arcaded gallery above. Cannon continues, “For the viewer standing outside the choir enclosure, the canons would be seen to join the members of the heavenly court in their devotions to the Virgin.”
The finished masterpiece was designed exactly to stand on the altar of the cathedral, in the crossing just under the dome. As you approached the high altar, you would be able to make out, just at the bottom, an inscription that read “Holy mother of God, be the cause of peace to Siena, and to the life of Duccio, because he has painted thee thus.”
Besides the Heavenly Queen and her son, the saints depicted in the panels include John the Evangelist (to the left of the throne); Saint Paul; St. Catherine of Alexandria; John the Baptist (to the right of the throne); Saint Peter; Mary Magdalene, and Saint Agnes. In the foreground are Siena’s various patron saints: Saint Ansanus; Saint Sabinus; Saint Crescentius; and Saint Victor. Each inhabitant is truly unique and surprisingly recognizable via their attributes and attitudes. The colors are vibrantly pure and bold (for tempera) and are further enhanced with an extraordinary abundance of gold leaf.
Historians believe the roots of Duccio’s Maestà are many and varied. The master looked both within Siena and beyond, drawing on long-established forms and recent innovations. This new perspective elevated the prestige of Sienese painting. Cannon states it best: “Out of pigments, old leaf and a wooden framework, Duccio conjured up the illusion of credible worlds, combining close observation of the visible world – the here and now – with the imaginative visualization of the biblical past and the beauty of celestial eternity.”
As Nellie prances between the oaks wearing a shower of lively leaf crumbles, I giggle imagining her tumbling between the highly focused crowd of Duccio’s altar saints and angels clad in their autumnal finest. We make it home just as the sun beams announce their daybreak presence. Nellie gallops through her breakfast while I pour another mug of joe and punch down the pumpkin brioche dough, folding in the cider-soaked golden raisins. The house fills with the delicious smells of October as the rolls bake and swell, resulting in a Tuscan dome of burnt sienna encased in a golden halo. It’s as if “nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale.”
Pumpkin Brioche Rolls
Makes two dozen rolls
1 cup golden raisins, soaked in apple cider overnight
½ cup warm milk (not hot!)
¼ cup (4 Tbsp) honey
4 tsp instant dried yeast (I also add ¼ cup of my sourdough starter)
5 cups bread flour
1 ½ tsp fine sea salt
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1 Tbsp ginger
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
5 large eggs, room temperature
1 15oz can solid pack pumpkin
18 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
1) The night before baking, soak 1 cup of golden raisins in apple cider (or water).
2) In the bowl of a standing mixer, whisk together the warm milk, honey and yeast (and starter, if you choose). Let the mixture bloom for five minutes while you whisk together the dry ingredients in another bowl.
3) Add the eggs and pumpkin to the bloomed yeast mixture and whisk to combine. Add the dry mixture and mix on a slow speed for 2 minutes to combine the ingredients, then increase the speed to medium for 10 minutes to form a soft, elastic dough.
4) Add the butter, in 1 Tbsp pieces, and continue to mix on medium speed for a further 5 minutes until the dough is silky smooth.
5) Scrape the dough into a large greased glass bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise until double in size (about 1 hour). Drain the raisins and add to the dough. Fold in the raisins and re-cover with plastic wrap. Let rise again for 20 minutes.
6) Line two muffin tins with papers. Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and divide the dough into 24 even pieces. (I divide the dough in half, form each half into a thick log and then divide each log into 12). Shape the pieces into balls and place them in the paper liners. Cover the tins with plastic wrap and let rest/rise while you preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
7) Bake the rolls on the center rack of the oven, one tin at a time. Bake for 10 minutes, then rotate the tin and bake for another 6-7 minutes. Remove the tins to a wire rack to cool at least ten minutes before removing the rolls to serve.
