Sacra conversazione

Example for a church by Giovanni Bellini, 1505, who also de-

veloped types for wealthy homes.[4]

Annalena Altarpiece with predella by Fra Angelico, c. 1438

40, sometimes considered the rst instance of the sacra conver-
sazione format[1]

In art, a sacra conversazione (Italian pronunciation:

[sakra komversattsjone], plural sacre conversatione)
meaning holy/sacred conversation, but usually left in
Italian, is a genre developed in Italian Renaissance paint-
ing, with a depiction of the Virgin and Child (the Virgin
Mary with the infant Jesus) amidst a group of saints in a
relatively informal grouping, as opposed to the more rigid
and hierarchical compositions of earlier periods.[2] Donor
portraits may also be included, generally kneeling, often
their patron saint is presenting them to the Virgin,[3] and
angels are frequently in attendance.
The term is often used as a title for paintings to avoid list-
ing all the individual gures, although the trend in muse-
ums and academic art history is now to give the full list.
The name, which only appears as a title retrospectively
in the 18th century, has been explained with reference to
their rapt stillness of mood, in which the Saints, scarcely
looking at one another, seem to communicate at a spir-
itual rather than a material level.[5] At least that is the
case in earlier examples; later ones, from the 16th century
onward, often give the impression of more conventional
conversations between the gures, who lean towards one
another and interact more.[6] In Italian the term is perhaps
used more often and more widely than is usually the case
in English, for example covering paintings in the tradition
Titian, Madonna and Child with Saints Dorothy and George,
151518
of Raphael's Sistine Madonna where the Virgin and Child
hover in the air well above the saints.[7]
1 Development
The sacra conversazione developed as artists replaced
earlier hieratic and compartmented triptych or polyptych
formats for altarpieces with compositions in which gures
interacted within a unied perspectival space.[8] While
traditional altarpieces generally retained a vertical for-
mat, the sacra conversazione had all the principal gures
on a single level, or nearly so. They therefore tended
to move towards a horizontal format, as there was little
but angels and architecture to put at the top of a vertical
one, unless the divine gures were raised on a very high

1
2 2
throne, as in the unusual composition of the Castelfranco
Madonna (Giorgione, c. 1503).[9] Here as in many works,
the Virgin and Child are seated on a throne,[10] but the
saints stand, so in more typical examples with the throne
only slightly raised on a dais, the adult heads are at about
the same level. The sacra conversazione was one of the
types of image that led to the horizontal format becom-
ing common in paintings; before the Renaissance it was
relatively rare in easel paintings. Often such works, espe-
cially if in a horizontal format and at half-length or with
seated gures, were painted for the homes of wealthy col-
lectors, whether for a private chapel or to be hung in other
rooms, treated not unlike portraits or secular scenes.[11]
Early examples are the Annalena Altarpiece (c. 1438
40), San Marco Altarpiece (c. 143843) and Fiesole Al-
tarpiece by Fra Angelico and the Barbadori Altarpiece
by Filippo Lippi (1437, Louvre). Having the Virgin the
same size as the other gures is often regarded as essen-
tial to the type, so disqualifying most earlier works, where
the Virgin is shown much larger. Among other artists to
depict such a scene are Piero della Francesca, Giovanni
Bellini, Paolo Veronese, and Andrea Mantegna.[12]
Early examples such as the Bellini illustrated rarely show
actual conversation or much interaction, though this
may be seen from the 16th century on,[13] as in the
Madonna and Child with Saints Luke and Catherine of
Alexandria by Titian. In the rst examples the setting is
normally architectural, loosely representing heaven, but
also, until Titians Pesaro Altarpiece (begun 1519), con-
tinuing the architecture of the architectural frame and
therefore that of the original church setting for which it
was painted. This was a radical rethink of the type, appar-
ently set outside some temple portico with large soaring
columns, viewed obliquely. The Virgin and Child are no
longer at the centre of the composition, but to the right
of the picture space.[14]
As in earlier altarpieces, the choice of saints is largely
dictated by the patron saints of the donor and their family,
and those of the church, city, diocese or religious order
concerned. The mixture of gures from dierent periods
that is normal in the type makes it clear than no historical
incident is being depicted, and whatever the setting, the
space should be understood as mystical rather than any
actual place.[15]
1.1 Landscape settings
Also in the 1510s, Titian and other Venetians had been
developing the mostly northern tradition of outside set-
tings in a garden or, especially later, an open landscape.
The height of Giorgione's Castelfranco Madonna in about
1503 had allowed a landscape to show above the lower
zone with the saints. Palma Vecchio became a specialist
in strongly horizontal sacre conversatione, with the gures
mostly seated or kneeling in a rather tight group, com-
bining informality and a monumental classicism.[16] Such
ORIGIN OF THE TERM
Landscape setting with a donor portrait, Palma Vecchio, c. 1519
compositions also drew on traditional outdoor groups fea-
turing the Holy Family such as the Rest on the Flight into
Egypt, the Adoration of the Shepherds and Madonna and
Child compositions with angels and other gures.[17]
A group of gures placed in an enclosed garden are
known as hortus conclusus, and when the subject is Mary
surrounded by female saints it is known as a Virgo in-
ter Virgines. These were a northern speciality, where
several of the gures beside the Virgin were sitting, on
a bench or bank or on the ground, usually in a garden
setting within an enclosure of some sort originally a
metaphor for the Virgins womb, as the hortus conclusus
began as a representation of the Annunciation, mark-
ing Marys conception of Christ.[18] These more relaxed
groups were continued in Venetian paintings set in open
landscape. By the end of the century, the dominant re-
lationships in an altarpiece such as Annibale Carraccis
Virgin and Child with St. Catherine and John the Evange-
list (1593, Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna) were not be-
tween the gures within the picture but between them and
the spectator.[19] By "Baroque painting the Virgin is re-
moved from the earth whenever the context allows, and
the scenes are often set among the heavenly clouds.[20]
Examples in sculpture are relatively rare, if only be-
cause of the number of gures involved. One exception
was planned by Michelangelo for the Medici Chapel in
Florence, though he left the project before the two Medici
patron saints anking his Virgin and Child were done;
these were made by others following his designs.[21]
2 Origin of the term
The term does not appear, referring to the subject of a
picture, before Italian references at the end of the 18th
century; in 1979 the earliest use found was in invento-
ries of the Pucci family from 1763 and 1797. But the
term, in its Latin equivalents santa conversatio and pia
conversatio, appears several times in the key texts of the
church, from the Vulgate Bible, to the Church Fathers
 3

Castelfranco Madonna,
Giorgione, c. 1503

The Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele, 143436

and Catholic liturgy. But in these its meaning is more

like pious conduct or holy community. The devel-
opment of meaning of the Italian conversazione is also
rather complex;[22] as in English, it was a long time be- Sistine Madonna,
fore the word came to mean merely people talking to- Raphael, 1512-13
gether (the 7th meaning listed in the OED). The earliest
English meaning, from 1340, is dened by the OED as
The action of living or having ones being in a place or
among persons, very close to the Latin.
As the description of a painting, the term remained lit-
tle used until the mid-19th century, when it was appar-
ently popularised, at least in English, by the History of
Painting in Italy (3 volumes, 18641866) by Crowe and
Cavalcaselle.[23] They claimed with remarkable lan"
that Palma Vecchio was the inventor of the large Sacra
Conversazione in which full-lengths of saints hold court
in the presence of the Virgin ....,[24] suggesting a rather
more narrow sense of the term than prevails today. Later
art historians have commonly placed the origin of the Andrea del Sarto,
type in works by Masaccio, Domenico Veneziano or Fra Madonna of the Harpies, 1517
Angelico, though Jacob Burckhardt was among those
complaining about its use.[25] Nigel Gauk-Roger says that
the rst true sacra conversazione was almost certainly
the Santa Lucia de' Magnoli Altarpiece (c. 14457, main
panel now Uzi).[26] All of these have standing saints in
an architectural setting. Rona Goen traces the origin
of the type further back, to the Trecento, examining sev-
eral examples, many from the Basilica of Saint Francis in
Assisi, and at half-length.[27]
Most accounts of the development restrict themselves to
Italy, ignoring northern parallels, despite the Virgin and
Child with Canon van der Paele (and two saints) by Jan
van Eyck clearly representing the same type, from as early
as 143436, as Otto Pcht has pointed out.[28] Titians Pesaro Altar-
4 4 NOTES

piece, begun 1519 4 Notes

[1] sacra conversazione in Encyclopedia Britannica; but not
by Grove

[2] Rylands,;NG

[3] Hall, 77, 297

[4] Grove
Virgo inter
Virgines, Gerard David, c. 1509, with two donor [5] Steer, 62, quoted; NG
portraits, in this case the artist and his wife.[29]
[6] NG

[7] Grove

[8] Grove; Hall, 331

[9] Steer, 7984; Grove

[10] Hall, 297

[11] RC, 214

Gerard [12] Grove

David, The Virgin and Child with Saints and Donor,
[13] NG
c. 1510, the hortus conclusus type.
[14] Hope, 16

[15] Hall, 331, giving a long list of saints on the next two pages.

[16] RC, 214; Grove; Rylands, Philip, Palma. Grove Art On-
line. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web.
26 Feb. 2017. subscription required
Hortus con-
clusus in Triptych of the Virgin and Child with [17] Grove
Saints depicted by a member of the Cologne school,
c. 1520 [18] Schiller, 5255 & gs 126-9

[19] Grove

[20] Hall, 327

[21] Hall, 325

[22] Goen, 198200

[23] Goen, 198 and note 4, who refers to the revised North
Italy volume of 1871

[24] Goen, 198199

[25] Goen, 199, citing several examples

Rubens, 1627 [26] Grove

[27] Goen, throughout

[28] Pcht, Otto, Van Eyck and the Founders of Early Nether-
3 See also landish Painting, p. 82, 1999, Harvey Miller Publishers,
ISBN 1872501281

Conversation piece [29] MBA Rouen page

 5

5 References
Goen, Rona. Nostra Conversatio in Caelis Est:
Observations on the Sacra Conversazione in the Tre-
cento, The Art Bulletin, vol. 61, no. 2, 1979, pp.
198222., subscription required
Grove": Nigel Gauk-Roger. Sacra conver-
sazione. Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online.
Oxford University Press. Web. 4 Mar. 2017.
Subscription required

Hall, James, Halls Dictionary of Subjects and Sym-

bols in Art, 1996 (2nd edn.), John Murray, ISBN
0719541476
Hope, Charles, Titians Life and Times, in Ja,
David (ed), Titian, The National Gallery Com-
pany/Yale, London 2003, ISBN 1 857099036

NG": Glossary: Sacra Conversazione. National

Gallery, 2013. Retrieved 4 March 2017

RC": Lucy Whitaker, Martin Clayton, The Art

of Italy in the Royal Collection; Renaissance and
Baroque, Royal Collection Publications, 2007,
ISBN 9781902163291

Schiller, Gertrud, Iconography of Christian Art,

Vol. I, 1971 (English trans from German), Lund
Humphries, London, ISBN 0853312702,
Steer, John, Venetian painting: A concise history,
1970, London: Thames and Hudson (World of Art),
ISBN 0500201013
6 6 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

6 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

6.1 Text
Sacra conversazione Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacra_conversazione?oldid=770894834 Contributors: Wetman, Xyzzyva,
Tom harrison, Ham II, Man vyi, Sketchee, Marudubshinki, FlaBot, TexasAndroid, Aeusoes1, Trovatore, Nikkimaria, SmackBot, Screw-
ball23, Los3, Wlos~enwiki, Tsca.bot, Ceoil, Jamoche, Jane023, Amandajm, Thijs!bot, Goldenrowley, Johnbod, SilvonenBot, Addbot,
LaaknorBot, Luckas-bot, Yobot, Ptbotgourou, Xqbot, GrouchoBot, Mattis, Erik9bot, EmausBot, Philafrenzy, Bill william compton, Chuis-
pastonBot, WNYY98, PrairieCat, Oirevas, IvanScrooge98 and Anonymous: 7

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File:1627_Rubens_Maria_mit_Kind_und_Heiligen_anagoria.JPG Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/
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Rubens
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koQ4IzRw at Google Cultural Institute, zoom level maximum Original artist: Andrea del Sarto
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pala_di_annalena_con_predella.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: http://www.aiwaz.net Original artist: Fra Angelico (circa 1395
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the_Virgins.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Museum page Original artist: Gerard David (circa 1450/14601523)
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License: Public domain Contributors: aQEsMGJ7vyk7dg at Google Cultural Institute, zoom level maximum Original artist: Gerard David
(circa 1450/14601523)
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3936122202. Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. Original artist: Giorgione
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Sacra_Conversatione.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Eigenes Foto Peter Geymayer, 2005, 2007-01-18 (original upload date)
Original artist: Giovanni Bellini (circa 14301516)
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Madone_au_Chanoine_Van_der_Paele.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: http://fabienneverdier.com/db/video/
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commons/a/a6/The_Virgin_and_Child_with_Saints_and_a_Donor_by_Palma_Vecchio.jpeg License: Public domain Contributors: http:
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