Comune di Fidenza
corpus Antelamicum
Who was Benedetto Antelami?
Was he the one who planned the façade of the Duomo of Borgo San Donnino?
Was he the artist of at least some of the sculptures seen there?
Many art historians have attempted to answer these questions, but in this case−as for Lombard art in general in the late Middle Ages−research to−date has been able to rely on very little documentary evidence which, in most instances, is developed deductively using information found in the works themselves.
Successful research in this field depends on the ability to correlate stylistic analysis with the historical context in which the artist worked and to be able to free oneself of unintentional preconceptions. In fact, it was these aspects that one of the main scholars of Gothic architecture, Willibald Sauerländer, highlighted when writing about the sculptor and architect Antelami, as well as the historiography that contributed to tracing his biographical profile.
First of all the known facts. To−date, only two written documents exist that speak of Benedetto Antelami.
The first is the epigraph on the panel depicting the deposition from the cross found in the Duomo of Parma. It dates from 1178 and on it is written: "ANNO MILLENO CENTENO SEPTUAGENO OCTAVO SCULTOR PATRAVIT MENSE SECUNDO. ANTELAMI DICTUS SCULTOR FUIT HIC BENEDICTUS"
The second is dated 1196 and is located on the north portal of the Parma baptistery: "BIS BINIS DEMPTIS ANNIS DE MILLE DUCENTIS INCEPIT DICTUS OPUS HOC SCULTOR BENEDICTUS".
The two epigraphs explicitly credit both the bas−relief and the baptistery—as a single sculpted/architectural unit−to Benedetto Antelami.
Sauerländer notes that the composing of hypothetical biographies starting from just a few facts, tended to be stimulated by the wealth of biographies of Renaissance artists. "Around a signed work− normally in complete isolation− a body of work of varying extent would be gathered and on the basis of comparative morphological observations, a whole life was put together: youthful and mature works, trips, study in foreign countries together with experiences that were artistically instructive. At the end of the process, medieval artists were thought to be known as well as Donatello and Michelangelo were." The historian continues, "the figure of Benedetto Antelami, sculptor and architect from northern Italy, alive for nearly one hundred years in art history literature and now a part of general cultural knowledge, is a typical example of the alluring suggestion represented by these legends."
The example given is the monumental study written by Geza de Francovich and published in 1956:
"With the imposing opus magnum by De Francovich, a dream of medieval art history reached its culmination. Where the sources say nothing, where it is not possible to go and read the biographies, the art historian reconstructs biographical information about the artist with the aid of stylistic and formal comparison. On the basis of pure morphology, he invents the ‘Legend of the Artist’."
According to Sauerländer, these include the journeys de Francovich hypothesizes Antelami might have taken to Provence in search of instruction and artistic stimuli. In this, De Francovich corroborates the view established by the study of Wilhem Vögel entitled "Die Anfänge des monumentalen Stils im Mittelalter" (The Beginnings of Monumental Style in the Middle Ages, published in 1894) which credited Provençal Romanesque sculpture as the role model for the birth of the Proto−Gothic style, i.e., the point−of−reference for any artist wishing to express himself in an innovative way. In 1897 Georg Zimmermann, after having compared the sculpture on the Parma baptistery and the Fidenza cathedral with that in Provence and Burgundy, concluded, "…there is no question but that Benedetto stayed and studied there," thus contributing to creating a misleading sedimentation in which, over time, hypothesis becomes given fact.
The question naturally comes to mind: was Benedetto Antelami the artist described by De Francovich?
In describing the personality of Antelami, De Francovich portrays an itinerant artist, native of the Lombard alpine foothills, who at a young age went to Provence, then Genoa and finally the Emilia region, specifically Parma, where he erected the gallery of the cathedral and, in Borgo San Donnino for the Duomo project. Following a second trip to Provence (subsequent to 1191), he reportedly returned to Parma where he produced the construction and decoration for the baptistery and to Borgo to return to working on the Duomo. He would later make a third trip to France, this time in the Ile de France, where he allegedly visited Laon, Vaucelles and Braisne, ending his career in Vercelli.
Or is the reality somewhat different?
Sauerländer proposes to "counterpoise to the legend […] the sobering information of the only written testimony in our possession." Benedetto is the creator of the Parma deposition and "the person who set his signature to the baptistery". The similarities between the sculptures in Parma and those in the Duomo of Fidenza and the collegiate church of Vercelli are evident but, he adds, “the problem is whether we are justified in giving a biographical explanation to these similarities, i.e., to attribute them to the figure and genius of a single leading artist, as has been the case for so long” and, he concludes, "therefore, from now on, the sculptural works in Parma, Fidenza and Vercelli shall not be designated as his ‘opus’, but simply as ‘corpus antelamicum’."
About this group of works directly and indirectly attributable to Benedetto Antelami between 1178 (certain date) and 1230 (presumed date), historians have developed a number of analyses, concentrating on the attempt to establish a chronography of works and whether they can be attributed to Antelami or his helpers and followers.
For example, examining the works for the Fidenza cathedral, Porter, Wagner−Rieger and Gandolfo have taken into consideration the interrelationship between the sculptural apparatus and the architectural forms in which it is inserted, while others (see the bibliography) have concentrated on the sculpture: Toschi, Zimmermann, Venturi, Bertaux, Hamann, Mâle, Vitzhum and Volbach, Ottaviano Quintavalle, Jullian, Tassi, Ragghianti etc....
Bearing in mind that at the end of the 12th century, or beginning of the 13th century, the Fidenza Duomo underwent significant re-engineering work, the fundamental question asked by Arturo Carlo Quintavalle is: "how and when did the architect who made overall modifications intervene and on the basis of what models?"
Quintavalle’s question is particularly significant because it does reach conclusions as to the author of the work and attempts to create a historiographic context based on all available variables.
The current−day appearance of the church leads to the idea of a site that was abruptly interrupted: "There are many reasons to believe that not only was the overall structure not completed, but that a part of the sculptures, perhaps left at the foot of the work in the area in which the stonecutters and architects worked, were placed in areas other than those originally planned to put in order a façade that, in any case, would have to undergo definitive arrangement." (Quintavalle, op.cit., p. 84)
What can be seen in what exists is that "the person who planned Borgo must have had in mind a connecting point between the old, pre−existing church that was not to be destroyed, but rather integrated and preserved, and the new façade.” In short, it seems that the architect intentionally planned to "reconnect old ancient themes, those on the lesser portals where the architect made use of some pieces from the former columned arches, to new themes; in other words, unite ancient images and new iconography."
Quintavalle adds: "For this reason, it would be limited to see the architect intent solely in repeating an old model (the Provençal model), and above all because, in reality, for the architect there are various models, also because his experience ranges back to ancient ones from which proceeds, above all, the scansion of the relationships between sculpted areas as they were in the early project, and the smooth sandstone areas…". And thus this façade, despite the fact that it is incomplete, “appears to be a synthesis of Lombard models, Norman structures and references to southern French culture."
The choice of solutions that recall those used in the Parma baptistery (the idea of the leaning semi−columns and the splay of the central portal) would lead one to believe that the architect of the Fidenza project could have been Benedetto.
According to Quintavalle, the plastic apparatus offers a nucleus that shares a very high sculptural level, comprised of the Virgin with Child−now in the Duomo museum but originally located in the niche in the bell tower−the two prophets David and Ezekiel flanking the central arch, the entire apparatus around the central portal (bas−reliefs with the stories of St. Domninus, the Eternal and the Prophets on the arch of the frontispiece) and, more generally, by other pieces such as the portrayal of the Prophet Enoch, Herod (left tower) and, on the interior, the Almighty on the right column.
Quintavalle attributes only the Virgin as having a potentially close relationship with Benedetto Antelami, ascribing the others to a sculptor "who, rather than from Chartres or Notre Dame of Paris, seems to draw on less aulic models with a more intense expressiveness" and "to possess a culture that lingers less on the relationship with ancient style than on the full, volumetrically constructed forms" of Antelami (Quintavalle, op.cit., p. 86). This anonymous "Master" was, therefore, a very strong presence on the Fidenza work site.
All the characteristics of the façade of Fidenza lead one to believe that its final appearance would have been closer to that of the Neo-Gothic of the Ile de France than Provençal, which the Master, on the other hand, seems to draw on. “It is therefore possible that the Antelami plan was provided by Benedetto Antelami in the early ’80s and carried out by a Master who also created the most number of pieces (Quintavalle, op.cit., p. 86).
Quintavalle’s hypothesis places the start of the work on the Duomo in the 1180s, thus overcoming the problems mentioned by Tassi. The overall project−Neo−Gothic and therefore stylistically innovative−could be attributed to Antelami who was present in Fidenza on occasion. The work site was directed by an anonymous Master with closer ties to the Provençal tradition that he applies with strong character and excellent technical skill.