Artibus et Historiae no. 13 (VII)
1986, ISSN 0391-9064Up
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AUGUSTO GENTILI - New Documentation and Background Material for the Later Carpaccio. I: Joachim Meets Anne for the Chiesa di S. Francesco in Treviso
The altarpiece, painted by Vittorio Carpaccio in 1515, is analysed on the basis of the documentation and with regard to its iconography. Archive files and the recollections of scholars enable us to reconstruct the commissioning of the altar and the altarpiece, by Libera de Claudis in memory of her dead husband Alvise da Prato, in the context of the Chiesa di S. Francesco, a kind of local pantheon for the patrician families in Treviso. They also enable us to identify the saints at the sides as S. Luigi IX and S. Libera, the patron saints of the sponsors and to see in the emotional hug of the two protagonists in the painting a reference to private matters.
Anyway in the context of Franciscan thinking the choice of Joachim and Anne also serves as praise of the Immaculate Conception. Thus Carpaccio's altarpiece painted from the same church by Alvise Vivarini for the Lancenigo altar, with the same mingling of family remembrances and purposes of public worship.
