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An Early Renaissance Altarpiece by Domenico Veneziano: A Case of Visual Argumentation?

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Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to show the argument-establishing features of a Renaissance altarpiece. Looking to Panofsky’s seminal studies and to more recent contributions, this essay shows how in a special environment like the Florentine pre-Renaissance, people could easily relate to the evocative and contrastive potential of images. In the Santa Lucia de’ Magnoli Altarpiece painted by Domenico Veneziano we see an interesting dialogue between the main piece and the predella panels. This juxtaposition can be formalized into a basic argumentative text.

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Notes

  1. All translations from Latin into English are mine. Patristic sources have been consulted in the Migne (1864) edition. For the text of the Vulgate I followed the text established by Weber in (1994).

  2. I am very grateful to Dr. Christopher Tindale for giving me the opportunity to teach a few classes of the graduate course Advanced Studies in Argumentation, offered by the Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation and Rhetoric of the University of Windsor, and to all the doctoral students who participated in its activities, a constant example of commitment and scholarship. Special thanks also to the anonymous readers of the paper, who have contributed much to its betterment.

  3. All images are courtesy of Wikipedia Commons Open Source. They are in the Open Domain and re-usable as per standing regulations in the United States and the Netherlands.

  4. The very same herculean pose survives even in Amos Nattini’s oil on wood Il Palafreniere [The Palfrenier], 1959, now in the Molinari Collection of Parma.

  5. For the special status of the Baptist, almost a ‘double’ of his first cousin Jesus, see Crossan (1994). The sources for John’s Descent to Hell are discussed in Sheerin (1976). The crack in the ground as an allusion to a descent into the underworld is quite common, and two good examples are the Nativity by Lorenzo Monaco, painted in 1414 and now in the Galleria degli Uffizi, as well as Botticelli’s Sistine fresco on the Korah episode, completed in 1482.

  6. PL CCX col.717d.

  7. PL CCXVII col. 533c.

  8. I followed the text established by Maggioni (Da Varazze 1998).

  9. Tseronis studied three posters produced for the campaign. They all include captions and deal with ‘women in the military’; ‘Internet privacy’; and ‘gun control’. Each poster, much like the famous Rubin vase, can be read either top-down, or down-top, and presents views which are, respectively, pro or against the above-mentioned notions. In addition to written propositions that are specific to the pro and against stances, each poster’s side bears the same legend: “Voice your view”. I firmly believe in Tseronis’ conclusive contention that, by emphasizing each side of the debate equally, the Guardian’s aim is to make any reader ‘at home’, and—by underscoring with the Gestalt bravura of visual artist Noma Bar how any issue is inherently two-sided like a coin—to proclaim the ‘standpoint’: “The Guardian presents both sides of the story.”

  10. This is quite antithetic to the perception of a byzantine school golden background piece, where the absence of a geometrical grid of reference, as well as of linear perspective, emphasizes the passive attitude of the viewer before the majestic epiphany of the Divine (Evdokimov 1985). Obviously, the linear perspective’s call on the viewer’s active participation in the fruition of the painting is the fitting formal counterpart of the call to human agency inspired by the panels (where the saints ‘earn’ their sainthood via concrete actions).

  11. Wadding also reports the existence of a mural painting portraying both Francis and Dominic placed on the façade of an adjacent building.

  12. Kjeldsen goes so far as to advocate a fusion of Discourse Analysis/Semiotics with Argumentation Theory. Such a unification would give birth to ‘Rhetoracy’, rhetorical ‘double’ of literacy relying on the viewer’s agency (Kjeldsen 2018).

  13. Somewhat similar conclusions have also been reached in the past by epic poetry experts who studied reiterated allusions to the same theme, or episodes which echo, and hence reinforce, each other (Otis 1966; Iannucci 1981; Conte 1986).

  14. This becomes particularly tempting considering the frontal nature of Saint John’s pose (both in the main piece and the predella panel) and the analysis of his gesture in the ‘sacred conversation’ presented above (Baxandall 1972).

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  1. Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, University of Windsor, Windsor, Canada

    Antonio Rossini

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Rossini, A. An Early Renaissance Altarpiece by Domenico Veneziano: A Case of Visual Argumentation?. Argumentation 34, 39–53 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-019-09489-9

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