Filarete's Hilaritas: Claiming Authorship and Status on the Doors of St. Peter's

THE ART BULLETINA Quarterly Published bythe College Art Association

December 2012Volume XCIVNumber 4

Regarding Art and Art History REBECCA ZORACH 487

Notes from the Field: Detail SUSAN HILLER, SPIKE BUCKLOW,

JOHANNES ENDRES, CARLO

GINZBURG, JOAN KEE, SPYROS

PAPAPETROS, ADRIAN RIFKIN,

JOANNA ROCHE, NINA ROWE,

ALAIN SCHNAPP, BLAKE STIMSON,

ROBERT WILLIAMS 490

Interview

Iconoclasts and Iconophiles: Horst Bredekamp in Conversation with Christopher S.Wood CHRISTOPHER S. WOOD 515

Articles

The Judgment of Paris in Roman Painting J. KEITH DOHERTY 528

The Judgment of Paris is one of a handful of extremely popular mythologicalnarratives that dominate the corpus of extant Roman wall paintings. A recur-ring feature of the Roman compositions is a broad water channel that sepa-rates Paris from the goddesses. These intrusive channels, more than merestreams, can be seen as miniature, quasi-cartographic representations of theHellespont, the famous strait that separates Europe from Asia. The arrange-ment may allude to the fact that the judgment indirectly caused the TrojanWar, an event that in turn set in motion a permanent cycle of violence betweenEast and West.

Filarete’s Hilaritas: Claiming Authorship and Status on the Doors of St. Peter’s ROBERT GLASS 548

Filarete placed an unprecedented number of self-portraits and signatures onthe bronze doors he made for St. Peter’s in the Vatican, including an enig-matic relief on the reverse depicting himself and his assistants celebratingtheir achievement. Recent scholars have assumed that the representationconceals allegorical or esoteric meaning. However, careful examination of therelief’s iconography, inscriptions, physical characteristics, and relation to thelarger project suggests that Filarete, in the hope of increasing his socialstanding at the papal court, conceived the work as a clever play on rituals usedby the contemporary elite to express status and honor.

Signature Killer: Caravaggio and the Poetics of Blood DAVID M. STONE 572

Blood is one of the most powerful metaphors in art and literature. In his 1608altarpiece for the Knights of Malta, The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist,Caravaggio signed his name “in the blood” of the executed saint. This wittyand violent gesture, fruit of the predicament that had brought him to theisland—murder, exile, and the chance for redemption—engages in a numberof personal and political discourses, some inspired by his honorary knight-hood. The signature, which builds on self-fashioning themes explored inCaravaggio’s earlier paintings, also makes a bold contribution to the poetics ofconcettismo.

“A Call to Action”: Visual Persuasion in a Spanish American Painting LUISA ELENA ALCALA 594

In the 1680s, a painting representing Franciscan missions and indigenouspeoples in Central America was sent to Madrid from Mexico as a tactic to lobbyfor continued royal support. The discovery of this historical circumstanceprovides a means to analyze this work in depth as an example of visualpersuasion in a transatlantic context. Because it was meant to be viewed farfrom its place of production, the painting offers a unique opportunity toconsider the interpretative model of connectedness (rather than influence)for the study of art in the Iberian Atlantic world.

ContentsVolume XCIV Number 4 December 2012

Filarete’s Hilaritas: Claiming Authorship and Status onthe Doors of St. Peter’sRobert Glass

One of the most unusual and imaginative claims of author-ship by an artist in the early modern period was made byAntonio Averlino, called Filarete, on the bronze doors of St.Peter’s in the Vatican (Fig. 1). Ordered by Pope Eugenius IVin 1433 and installed in the central portal of the basilicatwelve years later, in 1445, this monumental work was one ofthe most prestigious sculptural commissions of its day, andFilarete went to unprecedented lengths to declare himself itsmaker. He placed two self-portraits and three signatures onthe front of the doors and an additional relief depictinghimself and his assistants celebrating their achievement onthe otherwise unornamented reverse. Statements of author-ship on important works such as this are not unheard of atthe time—Lorenzo Ghiberti included his name and portraiton each of the two sets of doors he made for the Florentinebaptistery (1403–24; 1425–52)—but nothing comes close tomatching the number and variety of Filarete’s self-referenceson the Vatican doors.

Filarete’s originality in this respect has not gone unno-ticed. Scholars have focused in particular on the relief on thereverse of the doors (Fig. 2). Mounted at ground level on theback of the left wing, the unusual scene shows Filarete lead-ing six assistants in what appears to be a procession or dance,framed by a figure on a mule laden with wine on the left andanother on a camel playing a set of pipes on the right.Copious inscriptions gloss the representation. Most arestraightforward, recording the names of those portrayed andthe date the work was completed, but a few appear crypticand ambiguous. The peculiarity of the iconography, obscureinscriptions, and placement of the relief makes this one ofthe most curious artist’s signatures of the Renaissance.

A number of interpretations have been proposed, but ananalysis that plausibly accounts for all of the work’s idiosyn-crasies has yet to be offered. New insight can be gainedthrough close examination of the relief itself, considerationof its relation to the front of the doors, and reconstruction ofthe circumstances in which it was made. These methods mayseem obvious, but significant visual, technical, and historicalevidence has been overlooked in the previous scholarship.Analysis of this material will suggest that the inspiration forFilarete’s unprecedented display of self-commemoration wasthe example of his patron, Pope Eugenius IV, whose achieve-ments Filarete memorialized on the front of the doors in fourreliefs. The enigmatic scene on the reverse can be under-stood as a clever imitation of these representations adaptedto Filarete’s own position and accomplishment. By portrayinghimself in this manner, Filarete sought to make a claim notonly of authorship but also of status at the papal court.

An Iconographic PuzzleFilarete’s unusual depiction of himself and his assistants onthe back of the doors has long interested commentators, and

with the rise of iconographic analysis as a favored method ofinquiry in the mid-twentieth century, increasingly elaborateinterpretations have been proposed. Before reviewing thisscholarship, however, we should take a closer look at therepresentation itself. The scene is framed by two boxlikeforms that suggest freestanding doorways. An inscriptionpunched into the one on the left reads “AD MCCCCXLV DIES

VLTIMVS IVLII” (AD 1445, the last day of July), presumably thedate on which the work was finished. Next to this doorway, anolder man wearing a cap, hooded smock, and rough trousersis shown seated on a laden mule (Fig. 3). A bulging pigskin,rendered with remarkable fidelity, hangs from his saddle. Itscontents are surely wine, for the figure holds up a pitcherwith his left hand in what looks like a toast. Notably, his leftindex finger does not curl around the handle as one wouldexpect but points upward, apparently indicating the doors asthe achievement he honors with the raising of the pitcher.1 Apunched inscription on either side of his head gives hisname, “PETRVTIVS,” in Italian, Petruccio. Below the belly of themule, five larger, cast letters appear: “APO CI.” No consensushas been reached as to their meaning. Petruccio is paralleledby another rider just inside the doorway on the opposite sideof the relief (Fig. 4). This figure is dressed similarly but ridesa camel, sitting between its two humps. His contribution tothe scene is music: he plays a set of panpipes. Raised letters ofuncertain significance appear on either side of his head, “PIO”to the left and “VI” to the right. Between the legs of his mount,more cast letters spell out “DROMENDARIVS,” mistakenly iden-tifying the animal as a dromedary. (Dromedary camels haveonly one hump; Filarete has depicted a two-humped Bactriancamel.)

The wine and music provided by the two riders seemintended for the enjoyment of the figures that appear be-tween them (Fig. 5). Filarete and his team of six assistants areshown moving from left to right, in single file, with handsjoined. The group is enlivened by a turn halfway down theline in which the final three figures are shown passing, orabout to pass, under the raised arm of the one precedingthem. The lively movement and linked hands have led schol-ars to characterize the scene as a dance. At the same time, thetools held up by the figures, especially the first four, give thegroup a ceremonial quality that recalls a procession. Filarete(Fig. 6), at the head of the line, wields a large compass,complete with the circle it traces, apparently intended tosignify his intellectual abilities and role as the designer of thedoors.2 In contrast, the assistants who follow him carry toolsof manual labor. The same distinction is apparent in theclothing. Filarete is dressed in a fine robe with broad sleeves,a belt with a clasp, a hat with a button or other ornament ontop, and what appear to be delicate sandals worn over stock-ings. His assistants wear simpler clothes and the protectiveaprons used in the workshop. Filarete’s position as the leader

1 Filarete, central portal, St. Peter’s,Rome, 1433–45, bronze, height(including 17th-century additions)approx. 23 ft. 5 in. � 11 ft. 103⁄4 in.(7.14 � 3.63 m) (artwork in thepublic domain; photograph © Fab-brica di San Pietro in Vaticano)

F I L A R E T E ’ S H I L A R I T A S O N T H E D O O R S O F S T . P E T E R ’ S 549

of the group is also spelled out in the inscription that appearson either side of him: “ANTONIVS ET DISCIPVLI MEI” (Antonioand my disciples). The followers are named as well, but insmaller, stamped letters placed at their feet.3

A final inscription appears above the group: “CETERIS OP-ER(A)E PRETIVM FASTVS [??]MVS VE MIHI HILARITAS.” The fifthword, the first few letters of which are damaged, is tradition-ally restored as “[FV]MVS.” Possible translations include “Forothers, the reward of the work [is] pride or smoke; for me[it’s] joyfulness” and “For others, the price, pride, or smokeof the work; for me, joyfulness.” The last word, “hilaritas”(joyfulness), the letters of which have been cut into thebronze rather than cast in relief like those of the preceding

words, curves down toward Filarete’s face. Evidently, the in-scription was intended to be understood as a statement em-anating from his mouth.4 The final elements of the relief aretwo small animals, variously identified, that appear betweenFilarete and the camel.

Though unusual, the basic message of the scene seemsclear. Filarete and his assistants are celebrating, with wine,music, and a merry procession or dance, the completion ofthe doors. The earliest commentators described the relief inthis way. As Giorgio Vasari put it in the second edition of Levite de’ piu eccellenti pittori, scultori et architettori (1568), “on theplate at the foot of the inner side of the said door, to amusehimself, Antonio made a little scene in bronze, in which he

2 Filarete, Self-Portrait with Assistants, reverse of the left door, central portal, St. Peter’s, Rome, 1445, bronze, approx. 9 � 48 in.(23 � 122 cm) (artwork in the public domain; photograph by the author, © Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano)

3 Detail of Fig. 2 showing Petruccio, the wine bearer, on amule (artwork in the public domain; photograph by theauthor, © Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano)

4 Detail of Fig. 2 showing the piper on a camel (artwork inthe public domain; photograph by the author, © Fabbrica diSan Pietro in Vaticano)

550 A R T B U L L E T I N D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 2 V O L U M E X C I V N U M B E R 4

portrayed himself and Simone and their disciples going withan ass laden with good cheer to take their pleasure in avineyard.”5 Seventy years later, Giacomo Grimaldi character-ized the work similarly in the codex he produced document-ing the monuments of Old St. Peter’s for Pope Paul V (1619):“on a bronze plate on the reverse of the door at the verybottom is expressed the joy of the artist Antonio of Florenceand his associates, riding and rejoicing in having completedthe work of the doors.”6 Grimaldi’s younger colleague Fran-cesco Maria Torrigio provided a comparable assessment in Lesacre grotte vaticane (1631): “on the inside part [of the doors]at the end . . . there are various figures, who show the dancesand festivities carried out as an indication of the completionof the work. . . .”7

Modern art historians have naturally discussed the relief ingreater detail, seeking to explain each inscription and icon-ographic feature. The significance of the most puzzling ele-ments, however, such as the camel, the word “[fv]mvs” in thestatement emanating from Filarete’s mouth, and the inscrip-tions “APO CI” below the mule and “PIO VI” on either side of thepiper’s head, has proved difficult to determine. In general,two approaches can be distinguished. The first understandsthe relief as Filarete’s response to mistreatment experiencedwhile making the doors. This thesis is based on the belief thatthe inscription represented as issuing from Filarete’s mouthis a statement of grievance. Such a reading is first docu-mented in the first half of the seventeenth century on adrawing of the relief from the collection of Cassiano dalPozzo (Fig. 7).8 The annotation below the illustration begins,“One understands from the inscription the little earningsthat Antonio Filarete gained from the work of the bronzedoors of St. Peter’s, at the foot of the reverse of which herepresented himself leading a celebration with his disciples,who profited most from it.”9 Around the same time, Sebas-tiano Vannini, who discussed Filarete’s doors in his Life ofCardinal Pietro Stefaneschi (1642), read the inscription in thesame way.10 The reasoning behind this interpretation is ap-parent once the transcriptions of the central inscription onthe drawing and in Vannini’s account are examined. In both

cases, the final word, “hilaritas,” has been left out. The en-graved technique, awkwardness of the lettering, and curvedform apparently led early observers to assume the word was alater, spurious addition. Torrigio, who published the inscrip-tion in Le sacre grotte vaticane around the same time, omitted“hilaritas” as well.11 Without this crucial word, the inscriptioncoming from Filarete’s mouth seems to read, “For others, theprice of the work; for me, the pride or smoke.” No wonder

5 Detail of Fig. 2 showing Filarete and his assistants (artwork in the public domain; photograph by the author, © Fabbrica di SanPietro in Vaticano)

6 Detail of Fig. 2 showing Filarete’s self-portrait (artwork inthe public domain; photograph by the author, © Fabbrica diSan Pietro in Vaticano)


the author of the comment on the Cassiano drawing andVannini thought Filarete was not rewarded for his work.

This misunderstanding persisted until the late nineteenthcentury, when Albert Jansen first published the completeinscription in his entry for Filarete in the Allgemeines Kunstler-Lexikon (1878).12 But the recognition that Filarete’s state-ment concluded with “mihi hilaritas” (for me, joyfulness) didnot put an end to the idea that Filarete intended it as agrievance. In their 1908 monograph on Filarete, MicheleLazzaroni and Antonio Munoz suggested that the inscriptioncould still be taken to mean that Filarete was poorly treated.In contrast with the author of the comment on the Cassianodrawing and Vannini, who understood the “others” noted inthe inscription to be Filarete’s assistants, Lazzaroni and Mu-noz assumed them to be the papal representatives who over-saw the project. In their view, the inscription could meanFilarete “was not well compensated, and the honor was givento those who had the work carried out, overshadowing theartist, who, without complaining too much about it leaveshappily with his disciples, dancing.”13 Lazzaroni and Munozprobably advanced this dubious theory because it provided apremise for an interpretation of the wine bearer and piper.As they explained, “The two figures on the sides, one on theass, the other on the dromedary, labeled with those mysteri-ous inscriptions, could be satirical representations of those towhom the honor of the work was given.”14 In the end,though, Lazzaroni and Munoz admitted their interpretationwas unlikely. The relief on the back of the doors, they con-cluded, was an enigma.

Their concession, however, did not mark the demise of thegrievance hypothesis. A new variation has been proposed inrecent years. In this version, the phrase “mihi hilaritas” isunderstood not as Filarete’s joy but, rather, as hilarity at hisexpense, in other words, ridicule. The “others” are artists whoreceive just rewards for their work, in contrast with Filarete,

who received only laughter for the doors. The wine bearerand piper, following Lazzaroni and Munoz’s supposition, areinterpreted as satirical caricatures of Filarete’s detractors.The cryptic inscriptions accompanying them are read in away that identifies the wine bearer as Filarete’s patron, PopeEugenius IV, and the piper as the Byzantine emperor JohnVIII Palaeologus, both of whom Filarete portrayed with dig-nity on the front of the doors.15 Yet the figures do not exhibitobvious attributes that would support these identifications,and it seems unlikely that Filarete would dare to lampoon thepope and the emperor in the first place. More fundamentally,the idea that Filarete’s “hilaritas” refers to ridicule ratherthan joy is thoroughly antithetical to the merry celebrationpictured below it.

A second, more widely accepted approach recognizes “hi-laritas” as joyfulness and the depiction as celebratory in na-ture but assumes that the enigmatic elements point to ahidden allegorical meaning that transcends a simple messageof worldly celebration. In his survey text on fifteenth-centuryItalian sculpture, published in 1966, Charles Seymour offeredthe first interpretation of this type. As he described it, thescene represents

the master with his assistants (“discipuli”) who weave theirway in a “dance of life” away from Intemperance, symbol-ized by a figure holding a jug, o[n] an ass, in order toapproach Virtue and Right Judgment (Giudizio), symbol-ized, as in medieval bestiaries, by a dromedary. The playon the idea of Virtue (��) in the artist’s own cogno-men of Filarete gives the inner relief the value of a signa-ture.16

Though the word filarete, derived from the Greek for “lover ofvirtue,” is widely used as the artist’s name today, it appears inonly two places in connection with him during his lifetime,

7 Drawing of Filarete’s Self-Portraitwith Assistants on the reverse of thedoors of St. Peter’s, Rome, first halfof the 17th century, ink and wash onpaper. British Museum, London,2005,0927.115 (artwork in the publicdomain; photograph © The Trusteesof the British Museum)


his architectural treatise and an epigram written in his honorby the humanist Francesco Filelfo, both of which were com-posed in Milan in the 1460s.17 It cannot, therefore, be di-rectly related to the relief as Seymour suggested, but it iscertainly possible that Filarete’s interest in the concept ofvirtue originated before his time in Milan.

Seymour’s brief allegorical reading has been expanded onby later scholars. Some have elaborated the symbolism Sey-mour attributed to the animals;18 others have identified ad-ditional ways in which the scene could be understood to referto virtue. Pietro Cannata proposed, for example, that Fi-larete’s movement toward the camel and his statement thathe labors for joy rather than pride or money allude to Christ’swell-known simile, “it is easier for a camel to go through theeye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom ofGod.”19 Catherine King instead observed that Filarete relatedthe ideas of joy and virtue in his treatise. When describing hisdesign for the “House of Virtue,” Filarete explains that fameis best achieved through virtue and that acting virtuously,though arduous, brings joy. The joyfulness expressed in therelief, King speculates, might therefore allude to Filarete’svirtue.20 Though these proposals offer intriguing observa-tions about the symbolic potential of certain elements of thework, none of them is substantial enough to serve as the basisfor an explanation of the relief as a whole. A more extensivereading along these lines was proposed by Matthias Winnerin 2001.21 Drawing parallels with texts from a panoply ofChristian and pagan sources, Winner posits that the scene isan elaborate allegory of the worthiness of Filarete and hisassistants to enter the kingdom of heaven. Winner does little,however, to demonstrate that the extraordinary, logocentricmanner of working implied by his complex, erudite interpre-tation was characteristic of Filarete’s approach.

One further observation about Filarete’s relief has beenmade that does not follow either of the approaches men-tioned above. In 1990 King proposed that Filarete was in-spired to make the work by a passage in Pausanias’s Descriptionof Greece.22 In his discussion of the throne of Apollo atAmyklai made by the artist Bathykles of Magnesia, Pausaniascomments that the sculptural decoration included “a dancinggroup—the Magnesians who worked on this throne alongwith Bathykles.”23 Though Pausanias’s text, available only inGreek, could be read by few and rare in Italy at the time, Kingnotes that copies were owned by Niccolo Niccoli in Florenceand Cardinal Bessarion in Rome and thus potentially withinFilarete’s milieu.

King’s hypothesis has often been repeated in the recentliterature and is perhaps the only explanation of the relief tohave found widespread acceptance. Its favorable reception isdue in part to the fact that Pausanias’s text seems to providea precedent for two unusual aspects of Filarete’s representa-tion: the portrayal of his assistants and the dancing motif.Equally important is the appeal of this type of explanation.Identifying Pausanias as Filarete’s source implies a set ofrelations that scholars of Renaissance art have been keen todemonstrate ever since the seminal iconographic studies ofAby Warburg, Edgar Wind, and Erwin Panofsky: causal rela-tions between texts and images, between humanist advisersand artists, and between the legacy of antiquity and theRenaissance. King’s hypothesis is seductive because it con-

firms beloved beliefs about the distinctive characteristics ofthe period.

Such connections certainly played a role in Filarete’s art,but in this case, the link does not hold up under scrutiny.Pausanias’s text, it must be admitted, was obscure at the time.The manuscript owned by Niccolo Niccoli in Florence, nowlost, is the only exemplar documented in Italy when Filaretewas working on the doors. Scholars have dated the copycommissioned by Cardinal Bessarion, which was made fromNiccoli’s manuscript, between 1450 and 1468.24 Since thedoors were completed in 1445, this cannot have been Fi-larete’s source, as is usually assumed. It has also been pro-posed that Filelfo, who was in Florence from 1429 to 1434,might have seen Niccoli’s copy and told Filarete about thepassage at that time.25 It must be remembered, however, thatthough Niccoli seems to have assisted Filelfo with his move toFlorence, he was hostile toward him when he arrived. By 1430Filelfo and Niccoli had developed a bitter feud, which even-tually led to Filelfo’s falling-out with the Medici and flightfrom the city in 1434.26 Though this of course does not provedefinitively that Filelfo did not see Niccoli’s Pausanias, itseems likely that Filelfo did not have easy access to Niccoli’slibrary.

The theory that the Pausanias passage was Filarete’s inspi-ration is further weakened by the superficiality of the corre-spondence between the text and Filarete’s depiction. Fi-larete’s assistants are only one element of a complex compo-sition, and their poses suggest procession as much as dance.The brief passage from Pausanias offers no insight into themeaning of the relief as a whole or its most puzzling fea-tures.27 No explanation has been offered of the process bywhich Filarete, if Pausanias’s text was his starting point,ended up producing the relief he did. The correlation per-ceived between text and image is likely coincidental ratherthan causal. Its repetition in the literature seems inspiredmore by the principles it implies rather than the understand-ing it provides of the relief itself.28

While the interpretations reviewed here differ in a numberof ways, most assume that the work was designed to conveysymbolic or allegorical meaning. This search for a hiddenmessage has drawn attention away from what is so clearly seenin the relief: the joy Filarete and his assistants felt when theyfinished the doors. A triumphal procession, supplied withmusic and wine, enlivened with dancing and a turn under thearm—what better way to convey the joyfulness, or merriment,as the word hilaritas can also mean, that must have accompa-nied the completion of the project. In seeking to explain theenigmatic features of the representation, scholars have down-played this meaning. Careful examination of the relief and itshistorical context indicates that the puzzling elements can beaccounted for in ways entirely consistent with a straightfor-ward, literal reading of the scene.

Close LookingWe can start with the inscription over the central figuregroup (Fig. 5). As noted above, the damaged fifth word hastraditionally been read as “fumus” (smoke). This interpreta-tion can be traced back to the first half of the seventeenthcentury. Torrigio, Vannini, and the artist who made thedrawing for Cassiano dal Pozzo (Fig. 7) all rendered it this


way, and it has been repeated with few exceptions eversince.29 Nevertheless, the significance of “fumus” in the con-text of the inscription has never been clear. The few scholarswho have sought to make sense of it have had to resort tocreative translations.30 Close examination of the relief revealsthat the beginning of the fifth word is not entirely illegible, ashas been assumed; traces of the damaged letters remain (Fig.8). The second letter does indeed appear to be a V; part ofthe diagonal running from the bottom center to top right isvisible. Of the first letter, the bottom two-thirds of a verticalbar on the left side survive, but it does not appear to be an F.At the midpoint of the vertical, which is well preserved, thereis no trace of a horizontal bar extending to the right. Instead,there seems to be a fragment from a diagonal proceedingfrom top left to bottom right. This is most likely the letter N,which would make the word “num(m)us” (money).31 In con-trast with “fumus,” this makes perfect sense in the context ofthe statement, which can be translated as “For others, thereward of the work [is] pride or money; for me, [it’s] joyful-ness.” Because the word “pretium” in the inscription wasoften read in earlier interpretations as “price” or “money,”the message of the statement is similar to what most scholarshad intuited, but now there is no longer any mystery about it,nor are verbal gymnastics required to work out a meaningfultranslation. The statement is clear and logical and makessense as a declaration emanating from Filarete’s mouth.

The losses apparent in the first two letters of “nummus”appear to be the result of damage incurred during the mold-ing or casting process. Filarete was quite ambitious in tryingto cast the most important inscriptions in relief, an approachhe largely avoided on the front of the doors.32 The delicate,narrow ridges of the letters did not always survive intact orcome out clearly. Beautiful relief lettering of this type iscommon on medals made at the time, but these works aresmall and could be handled delicately during the modelingand casting processes. By contrast, Filarete’s depiction occurson a massive bronze plate. The unwieldiness of this objectmay have complicated the reproduction of the relief.

Problems with the letters almost certainly also account forthe unusual rendering of the last word of the central inscrip-tion, “hilaritas,” which has been cut into the bronze (Fig.9).33 As noted above, the rather crude appearance of this

word seems to have led early commentators to conclude thatit was not part of the inscription preceding it. There can belittle doubt, however, that it was intended from the start. Notonly does it complete the text in a meaningful way, butFilarete’s use of the bullets in the inscription—between eachword but not at the beginning or end (Fig. 5)—suggests thatanother word is indeed expected after “mihi.” It seems likelythat the word “hilaritas” was originally sculpted in relief onthe wax model like the rest of the inscription but sufferedserious losses during the casting process. Numerous pitsformed by air bubbles can be observed in the bronze aroundthe letters. Chisel marks and a shallow concavity in the reliefsuggest that bronze was carved away in this area. The lettersmust have come out so poorly that Filarete decided to cutaway all traces of them and engrave the word into the plate.He seems to have been under considerable pressure to com-plete the project in its final years,34 and the clumsy letteringwas perhaps all he could manage in the time available. Thesolution is not pretty, but Filarete must have felt that in thiscase legibility trumped aesthetics. “Hilaritas” is, after all, thekey word in the statement. Filarete’s joyfulness, signifiedverbally in the inscription and visually in the festive scenebelow, is the primary message of the relief.

The word “nummus,” by contrast, was less essential. In theinterest of expediency and visual coherence, Filarete mayhave decided that here the flawed letters were better leftalone. Cutting away the fragments and carving new lettersinto the bronze in the middle of the line would have giventhe inscription an incongruous appearance. The change intechnique is less distracting in the case of “hilaritas” since theword occurs at the end of the line. Furthermore, rendering“hilaritas” differently from the rest of the inscription, thoughborn of necessity, had the effect of reinforcing the message ofthe statement by emphasizing the most important word.

Pits left by air bubbles can also be observed above andbelow the letters making up “opere ● pr” (Fig. 5). Thebronze has been cut away here as well, awkwardly leaving theletters on a raised strip. Chisel marks can in fact be observed

8 Detail of Fig. 2 showing the damaged word “[NV]MVS” in thecentral inscription (artwork in the public domain; photographby the author, © Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano)

9 Detail of Fig. 2 showing the engraved word “HILARITAS” inthe central inscription and the head of Filarete’s lead assistant,Varrone (artwork in the public domain; photograph by theauthor, © Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano)


in the background all around the primary inscription. Fi-larete seems to have sought to improve its legibility bysmoothing the bronze, but he did not have time to polish outthe tool marks entirely. Traces of chisel marks can likewise beobserved in the area around the inscription identifying Fi-larete, “Antonivs et mei discipvli” (Fig. 6). Here it seems thatFilarete tried to cut away bronze between some of the indi-vidual letters.35 A concern with legibility is also apparent inthe treatment of the “pio vi” and “dromendarivs” inscriptions(Fig. 4). In this case, Filarete used a punch to engrave thesurrounding area with a pattern of tiny circles. His intentionseems to have been to make the letters stand out by com-pressing the bronze around them and creating a contrasting,decorative background. He used this technique effectively inseveral places in the relief depicting the martyrdom of Peteron the front of the doors, for example, around the inscrip-tion “Opvs Antonii” in the medallion on the pedestal (Fig.23). With the “Pio Vi” and “Dromendarivs” inscriptions, how-ever, the result was not as successful, and presumably for thisreason Filarete chose not to use the technique with the otherinscriptions in the relief on the back of the doors.

Awareness of the difficulties encountered in the casting ofthe inscriptions and Filarete’s approach to dealing with themcan also help make sense of the enigmatic letters under themule carrying the wine bearer, “APO CI” (Fig. 3). This isprobably not, as has often been assumed, an inscriptionconsisting of two abbreviated words but, rather, a single wordin which three of the letters have been lost. In the centralinscription, Filarete demarcated the words by placing bulletsbetween them. Here, as he did with most of the other single-word inscriptions on the relief, Filarete used two bullets toframe the text (“● APO CI ●”).36 The large gaps next to thebullets suggest that the first and last letters are missing, alongwith another between the O and the C. The lost letters wereprobably not sufficiently attached to the wax model and wereknocked off as the mold was being made.37 Examinationunder raking light reveals a faint outline left by what appearsto have been a letter C in the space between the survivingletters (Fig. 10). Unfortunately, only a small, meaninglessfragment has been preserved of the letter at the end of theword and no trace at all of the one at the beginning.

The letters that remain, however, are sufficient to proposea reconstruction. The word is probably “Capoccie.”38 In thelate medieval and early modern period, this was the name of

the part of the Esquiline Hill in Rome where the ruins of theBaths of Trajan are located. As numerous fifteenth-centurysources attest, including Poggio Bracciolini, Giovanni Rucel-lai, and Francesco di Giorgio Martini, in Filarete’s day theruins were widely known as the Capoccie.39 AlessandroStrozzi represented and so labeled the area in the plan hemade of Rome in 1474 (Fig. 11).40 But, most important,Filarete himself describes it in his architectural treatise. In apassage lamenting the poor condition of Rome’s ancientmonuments he writes, “there is another [palace] there”—Filarete believed the remains of the baths to be those of animperial palace—“that is called the Capoccie, which is nearthe Colosseum. It is entirely in ruins and there are manyvineyards on it. Part of one of its courtyards is there, and init there is a stone basin of a single piece, still intact, that isabout thirty braccia in circumference.”41 The monumentalbasin Filarete mentions can be seen in the drawing onStrozzi’s map and was later taken to the Vatican by PopeJulius II.42 Filarete’s earlier observation explains why he in-cluded the word under the wine bearer in the relief—theCapoccie were covered with vineyards (vigne).43 Further-more, we can be sure that the vigne of the Capoccie includednot only country retreats, as the word could sometimes mean,but plots where vines were cultivated and wine produced.Nikolaus Muffel, a German who wrote a description of Romein 1452, noted that the structure at the Capoccie popularlyknown as the Sette Salle, a series of underground vaultedspaces that originally served as the cistern for Trajan’s baths,was used as a wine cellar. On the land above, he states,grapevines grew as high as a lance, and good wine was madefrom them.44

The inscription under the mule is therefore a well-knowngeographic tag that tells us that the lively celebratory paradeof Filarete and his assistants was happening in, or at leastsupplied with wine from, the vigne on the Esquiline. As withthe word “nummus” in the central inscription, Filarete must

10 Detail of Fig. 2 showing the inscription “● APO CI ●” belowthe mule of Petruccio (artwork in the public domain; photo-graph by the author, © Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano)

11 Alessandro Strozzi, View of Rome, detail, from Res priscaevariaque antiquitatis monumenta undique ex omni orbe conlecta,1474. Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence, MS Redi 77,fol. VIIv (artwork in the public domain; photograph providedby the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana)


have decided against trying to restore the letters lost duringthe casting process. The reference may have been obvious tocontemporaries even without them. Vasari, it will be recalled,wrote that the relief showed Filarete and his assistants “goingto take their pleasure in a vineyard [vigna].”45 The rider,Petruccio, who carries the wineskin and raises the pitcher andpoints toward the doors in a toast, is probably a specificperson. His name, stamped in the same small letters used forthe names of Filarete’s assistants, was not uncommon inRome at the time,46 and his face is modeled with the speci-ficity of a portrait. It seems probable that Petruccio on hismule should be taken for exactly what he appears to be: afriend who supplies Filarete’s celebration with good winefrom the Capoccie.

Petruccio’s counterpart on the opposite side of the relief,the piper (Fig. 4), can be explained literally as well. Asdiscussed above, the camel he rides, which seems so out ofplace on the relief, has often been understood as symbolic inmeaning. The impressive detail with which Filarete renderedthe beast, however, leaves little doubt that he had seen suchan animal in person. Two contemporary diarists tell us that

the Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini sent a camel to Rome at thetime Filarete was finishing the doors. Paolo dello Mastrowrites:

I, Pavolo, remember that in 1444 in the month of [a spaceleft for the month was never filled in], the Monsignor ofSant’Angelo, a Roman of the Cesarini family who lived inPellicciaria and was one of the most valiant men in Italy,and who was sent by Pope Eugenius to Turkey to com-mand the faith and conquer many countries, sent to thepope, at the time mentioned above, an animal called adromedary. It was as you see represented on this side [ofthe page]. It was a female and pregnant, and in Rome itgave birth to a female dromedary and raised it. It waslarger than any horse and when one had it go at a strongpace the horses were tired running to reach it. It was saidthat in the case of need it would walk a hundred miles ina day and when it was tired it tightened its so-calledhumps. When one wanted to load it, it pressed itself to theground, and when it had such a load that was enough, itraised itself and turned away. This animal was in Romemore months and I, Pavolo, mounted my son Rienzolo,who was very small, on it.47

The camel also made an impression on Niccolo della Tucciaof Viterbo, who provided a more detailed account of itsappearance:

Among other things, the said cardinal [Cesarini] gainedthere [in Turkey] an animal larger than a buffalo. It hada head like a camel, and a neck as long as a good stride,and feet like an ox without nails, and a short, bovine tail,and on its back it had two mounds like two little children,and on top there were certain shaggy locks, and it seemeda monstrous thing. It was called a dromedary, and as anoble gesture he sent it to present to the pope.48

The camel Filarete represented is surely the one Paolo andNiccolo describe. All the features Niccolo so carefully re-corded can be observed in Filarete’s relief. Filarete’s incor-rect label, “dromendarivs,” must reflect contemporary usage,for Paolo and Niccolo use variations of the same term (dor-mentario, dromedario).

Judging by the absence of a comment in the modernedition of Paolo’s text, the image of the camel on the side ofthe page to which Paolo refers does not appear in any of theextant manuscripts. A drawing likely depicting the same an-imal does survive, however, on a sheet traditionally attributedto Uccello or his circle (Fig. 12).49 Curiously, the artist rep-resented the camel mounted by a child, as in Paolo’s recol-lection.

If the date of the preceding entry in Paolo’s diary, Septem-ber 12, can be taken as a terminus post quem, the camelarrived in Rome during the last quarter of 1444. Similarly,Niccolo mentions the camel when discussing the events ofOctober and November 1444.50 Filarete likely began work onthe relief on the back of the doors, inscribed July 31, 1445,not more than a few months later. The detail with whichPaolo and Niccolo described the camel’s qualities demon-strates that it was a marvel in Rome at the time, and, based onPaolo’s anecdote about placing his young son on it and the

12 Attributed to Paolo Uccello or his circle, drawing of acamel and a “castoro,” ca. 1445, pen and ink on preparedpaper, 101⁄8 � 67⁄8 in. (25.8 � 17.5 cm). Nationalmuseum,Stockholm, NMH 45a/1863 recto (artwork in the publicdomain; photograph © The Nationalmuseum, Stockholm)


drawing showing what is presumably a different child ridingit, we can be sure that the camel circulated among thegeneral public. By including the famous animal witnessinghis celebratory procession on the relief, Filarete seems to beusing a current icon of popular spectacle to assert the impor-tance and wonder of the occasion. The depiction would haveobviously been familiar to contemporaries and continued tobe recognized by some viewers as late as the seventeenthcentury. The commentary on the Cassiano drawing (Fig. 7)notes, “That camel had been given to the Pope by CardinalCesarini.”51 Vannini goes further, repeating some of the de-tails related by Paolo dello Mastro.52

The musician playing his pipes atop the famous beast mayrepresent, like Petruccio, a specific individual. At the veryleast, both figures portray types that would have been easilyrecognized at the time. Providers of sustenance and musicwere likely familiar presences at important celebrations inRome. Evidence of this is preserved in a liturgical manuscriptcommissioned by Giovanni Barozzi in the early 1450s.53

Barozzi was a subdeacon of Eugenius IV and later madebishop of Bergamo by Nicholas V in 1449. The manuscript isthought to have been made in that city, but the illustrationsdecorating the text document the ceremonial practices thatBarozzi observed as a member of Eugenius’s household inthe 1430s and 1440s, the same years in which the doors weremade. Of interest here is the image that accompanies thedescription of the papal coronation ritual and the processionthat followed, known as the possesso (Fig. 13).54 The lavish

depiction begins in the initial, where the pope is shownenthroned in front of St. Peter’s, crowned with the papaltiara. To the left, the cortege departs, winding counterclock-wise around the text. The representation is remarkable forthe attention paid to the distinctive costumes and ceremonialobjects of the various participants.55 Filarete seems to havedrawn formal inspiration as much from manuscript illustra-tions such as this as from contemporary or ancient sculpture;indeed, quattrocento courtly painting provides a fundamen-tal clue as to the origins of his unusual style. For the presentpurposes, however, the Barozzi illumination is most revealingin its iconography. Accompanying the magnificent proces-sion are two simply dressed figures. A piper on foot appearsin the margin to the left of the initial, and a vendor riding anass, seated on a bulging sack and carrying a basket of geese,is shown at the bottom of the page in the center. In theirdress and activities, these figures bear a striking resemblanceto the piper and Petruccio in Filarete’s relief (Figs. 4, 3).Given the care with which the official members of the possessohave been portrayed, it seems plausible that the musician andfood vendor are accurate renderings of figures who werecommonly seen at such events. They were probably includedhere to attest to the feasting and celebration that accompa-nied the papal investiture ceremonies.56 The piper and winebearer in Filarete’s relief were likely intended to be under-stood along the same lines.

What remains uncertain is the significance of the letters“PIO VI” on either side of the piper’s head. Unlike the inscrip-

13 Marginal illustration depictingthe papal coronation and possesso,from the Pontifical of GiovanniBarozzi, early 1450s. BibliotecaApostolica Vaticana, Vatican City,vat. lat. 1145, fol. 36v (artwork inthe public domain; photograph© Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana)


tions discussed above, none of these seems to have been lostor damaged. Scholars have assumed they represent two ab-breviated words, but no reading that makes sense in relationto the scene has been proposed.57 It seems more likely thatthe letters constitute a single, complete word. Abbreviationsare rare on the doors. “AD,” anno domini, is the only onedemonstrably used on this relief. The few that appear in theinscriptions on the front of the doors are likewise conven-tional and easily understood in their respective contexts: “PP”for papa, “S” for sanctus, “D” for dominus, “IMP” for imperator,and “C” for castellanus. The placement of “PIO” and “VI” oneither side of the piper’s head was probably meant to associ-ate the word with the figure of the piper rather than toindicate a break between the letters. In precisely the sameway, Filarete placed “ANTO NIVS” on either side of his self-portrait (Fig. 6) and “PETRVT IVS” on either side of the winebearer’s head (Fig. 3). With the exception of the piper, everyperson represented on the relief is clearly labeled with hisname, on either side of or directly below his portrait. “Piovi,”though admittedly unusual for a name, appears to be thelabel for the piper.58

It is noteworthy, however, that unlike the names of theother secondary figures, which were stamped in the bronzewith small punches, “Piovi” was rendered in large cast letters,a treatment reserved for the principal inscriptions. Filaretehimself is the only other figure whose name is cast in relief.This might suggest that the piper was a figure of some re-nown. Alternatively, the prominent inscription may havebeen prompted by the fame of the camel rather than that ofits rider. The fact that the only bullets in the text associatedwith the pair occur before “Piovi” and after “dromendarivs”seems to suggest that the two words constitute a single phrase,“● Piovi dromendarivs ●.” If “Piovi” is in the genitive, thephrase could be read as “Piovo’s dromedary.” Whatever itssignificance, the piper’s label probably would have been clearto contemporaries. It appears obscure to us today because ofour limited knowledge of Filarete’s milieu rather than delib-erate obfuscation on Filarete’s part.

Several remaining features of the scene require explana-

tion. The two small animals at Filarete’s feet have beenvariously identified and explained in the literature,59 butclose examination leaves little doubt about their nature. Theanimal on the left is probably a small dog (Fig. 14). A caninemuzzle and bony ribs can be discerned, and its tail appears tobe docked. Behind the dog is a cat (Fig. 15). Its features aresomewhat difficult to make out, but a feline face with fluffyjowls and clipped ears, furry haunches, and a long tail seemto be represented. The attention paid to rendering the dis-tinctive characteristics of each animal makes it likely thatthese are depictions of a specific dog and cat. They wereprobably the companions of Filarete and his assistants, famil-iari who roamed the workshop as the doors were being made.The project now completed, the pair have turned out alongwith Petruccio on the mule and the piper on the camel tohonor Filarete and his team as they celebrate, the faithful dogeagerly looking up at his master as he approaches.

The final elements of the relief are the two boxlike door-ways that frame the scene (Fig. 2). These openings havetypically been understood as gates from which the figureshave exited. In some cases, they have also been attributedsymbolic significance.60 Their purpose, however, is probablycompositional rather than iconographic. In contrast to thearchitectonic forms of the functional gates and portals Fi-larete represented in the scenes commemorating Pope Eu-genius’s achievements on the front of the doors (Figs. 16,18), these structures are composed of simple, abstract planes.Furthermore, the figures directly in front of them, Petruccioon the mule and the piper on the camel, are taller than theopenings and show no signs of lateral motion.

Rather than playing a role in the narrative, the doorwayswere probably included to give the scene a spatial setting.Though at first glance the figures might seem to be arrangedin a single plane, flat against the background, they are actu-ally depicted as if occupying an illusionistic space. The door-ways, rendered in perspective, define a shallow stage onwhich the figures are positioned.61 The front of this space isdemarcated by a prominent lip connecting the structures.Petruccio on the mule, the piper on the camel, and the dog

14 Detail of Fig. 2 showing the dog at Filarete’s feet (artworkin the public domain; photograph by the author, © Fabbricadi San Pietro in Vaticano)

15 Detail of Fig. 2 showing the cat at Filarete’s feet (artworkin the public domain; photograph by the author, © Fabbricadi San Pietro in Vaticano)


and the cat are all positioned close to this edge. Filarete, too,with his weight-bearing leg, enters this zone. The assistantswho follow him, for their part, look as if they are a littlefarther away. This is evident from their slightly smaller sizeand the position of their feet farther from the edge demar-cating the front of the space. Within this group, there is alsovariation. The third assistant, Pasquino, stands a little bitcloser than the others but not as far forward as Filarete. Hestands with his weight on his right leg, pausing for a momentas he turns back to allow the figures behind him to passunder his upraised arm. In contrast, the other assistants aredepicted in motion. With the exception of the figure passingunder Pasquino’s arm, each is shown moving forward ontohis left foot, his right leg trailing behind him. Pasquino,stationary and closer to the viewer, punctuates the line ofassistants at its midpoint, imparting a sense of rhythm to thegroup. The procession thus seems to undulate subtly throughspace, moving not only from left to right but also frombackground to foreground.

The illusion is strengthened by the addition of the assis-tants’ names at their feet (Fig. 5). Arranged along a singleline running parallel to the front edge of the space, thenames effectively delineate a fixed depth within the sceneand help convey the relative positions of the figures. Most ofthe assistants appear to be positioned directly above theirnames, stepping directly on or over the line formed by theletters. But Pasquino and Filarete, whose feet extend fartherdown, seem to stand in front of them. The interspersing ofthe names among the feet and legs of the assistants at a fixedheight as Filarete has done seems unusual enough to inti-mate that this effect was intentional.

Though subtle, the movement of the procession frombackground to foreground is perceptible, and Filarete seemsto have taken some care in creating this effect. The undulat-ing, rhythmic motion not only enlivens the group and helpscommunicate the celebratory nature of the procession butalso serves to distinguish Filarete and his assistants from thestationary figures on either side. Petruccio on the mule, thepiper on the camel, and the dog and the cat are not part ofthe procession but wait at the front of the scene as the artistsapproach from the left background. The doorways framingthe figures do not play a part in this narrative. Their role issimply to help define the illusionistic space in which thenarrative takes place.

Filarete’s ProjectIf, then, no esoteric symbolism or learned allegories areconcealed in the relief on the back of the doors, and the basicmessage is exactly what it appears to be, the joy and celebra-tion that accompanied the completion of the work, we shouldnot mistake this straightforwardness for simplicity or naıvete.The representation is still very unusual and highly contrived.Any compelling account of its significance must also explainhow Filarete came up with the idea and what he hoped toachieve with it. Answering these questions requires consider-ing the relief in relation to the larger project: Filarete’ssignatures and self-portraits on the front of the doors, to besure, but also the representations of other contemporaryfigures that appear there.

For the most part, the iconography of the doors consists offamiliar, timeless themes. Traditional Christian subjects oc-cupy the six large panels (Fig. 1): Christ and the Virgin sitenthroned at the top, Paul and Peter stand in the middle,and the martyrdoms of Paul and Peter are represented at thebottom. The decoration of the borders that surround thesepanels is more unusual. Acanthus vines sprout from the baseof each door and wind up the sides. Their tendrils arepopulated with portraits of Roman emperors and episodestaken from ancient mythology, history, and fable. Thoughunexpected in this context, this imagery is for the most partlargely conventional, drawn from well-known historical ma-terials.62

The subjects of the four horizontal sections of the bordersbetween the main panels, however, are wholly different.These reliefs celebrate the accomplishments of the doors’patron, Pope Eugenius IV. Because three of them depictevents that took place five to nine years after the project wasbegun, they could not have been planned from the start.They show episodes from the Council of Ferrara-Florence,the ecumenical gathering at which the Greek Church andseveral other Eastern Christian sects agreed to unificationwith the Latins and acknowledged the pope’s primacy. Therelief on the upper left portrays the voyage of the Greeksfrom Constantinople and the meeting of the Byzantine em-peror John VIII Palaeologus and Pope Eugenius (Fig. 16);the one on the upper right, the council in session and theGreeks’ departure from Italy (Fig. 17). These events tookplace in 1438–39. The relief on the lower right shows theCoptic and Ethiopian delegations that came to the council in

16 Filarete, The Voyage of the Greeks from Constantinople to Italy and The Reception of the Greeks by Pope Eugenius IV, left door, centralportal, St. Peter’s, Rome (artwork in the public domain; photograph by the author, © Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano)


1441 (Fig. 18). In the end, the historic reunification achievedby Eugenius proved short-lived, but at the time it was under-stood as an epoch-making event—one significant enough towarrant commemoration on the doors of St. Peter’s and theremaking of parts of the borders. The fourth relief, on thelower left, does not show events from the council but, rather,the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor, Sigismund ofLuxembourg, performed by Eugenius in 1433 (Fig. 19). Thisevent took place in the same year the doors were commis-sioned, but the decision to include a representation of it wassurely made only when the scenes of the council wereplanned. In the original program, the spaces occupied by theEugenius reliefs were presumably filled with the same sort ofpeopled acanthus vines that fill the rest of the borders.

This history is well known, but the implications for Fi-

larete’s self-portraits and signatures have not been explored.The modification of the program to include the scenes me-morializing Eugenius’s achievements appears to have em-boldened Filarete in his thinking about his own commemo-ration. All of the references to Filarete occur on panels thatwere made after this change was introduced. The self-portraitFilarete placed in an acanthus scroll on the left door, for exam-ple, was cast as part of the relief celebrating Eugenius next to it(Fig. 20). Although the vertical continuity of the winding vineshides the fact, the panels with the Eugenius scenes span theentire width of each door and include the acanthus tendrils oneither side. The boundaries of each relief as originally castcan be approximated from the seams and fills visible wherethey fit together with the vertical sections.63 The parts withthe acanthus decoration actually extend slightly above and

17 Filarete, A Session at the Council of Florence and The Departure of the Greeks, right door, central portal, St. Peter’s, Rome (artwork inthe public domain; photograph by the author, © Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano)

18 Filarete, The Coptic Delegation Receives the Bull of Union from Pope Eugenius IV and The Coptic and Ethiopian Delegations Enter the City ofRome, right door, central portal, St. Peter’s, Rome (artwork in the public domain; photograph by the author, © Fabbrica di SanPietro in Vaticano)

19 Filarete, The Procession of Pope Eugenius IV and Emperor Sigismund to the Castel Sant’Angelo and The Coronation of Emperor Sigismundby Pope Eugenius IV in St. Peter’s, left door, central portal, St. Peter’s, Rome (artwork in the public domain; photograph by theauthor, © Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano)


below the edges of the central section, giving the panel theshape of an uppercase letter I turned on its side.

The casting of the new reliefs in this form, which was likelydetermined by structural needs, gave Filarete the opportunityto change the figures in the acanthus vines next to theEugenius scenes. The scroll containing Filarete’s self-portraitprobably originally displayed the head of an ancient Romanemperor, empress, or hero like those found elsewhere inborders. When designing the relief below, with the corona-tion of Emperor Sigismund, Filarete made similar substitu-tions, portraying a contemporary humanist and prelate, pre-sumably men who advised Filarete on the project, in thescrolls on either side (Fig. 21). In the original program, thesespots were likely occupied by all’antica heads as well.

Along the lower edge of this relief, under the scenes of thecoronation of Emperor Sigismund, Filarete carved a signa-ture inscription, “OPVS ANTONII DE FLORENTIA” (the work ofAntonio of Florence). It has been assumed that this is part ofthe square panel depicting the martyrdom of Paul below (Fig.1, lower left), but the bar on which the inscription occurs wasactually cast with the coronation relief. Filarete signed themartyrdom of Paul relief elsewhere, placing a self-portrait me-dallion on the pedestal (or broad console) at the bottom of thepanel (Fig. 22). A punched inscription encircling the imageproclaims “ANT(O)NIVS PETRI DE FLORENTIA FECIT MCCCCXLV” (An-tonio di Piero from Florence made [this], 1445). In the sameposition in the adjacent relief showing the martyrdom ofPeter (Fig. 1, lower right), Filarete included another medal-

lion, in this case containing a signature inscription renderedin large cast letters, “OPVS ANTONII” (the work of Antonio)(Fig. 23). Judging from the date on the left medallion, 1445,and the style of the martyrdom scenes, scholars agree thatthese panels were among the last made.64

All of the references to authorship on the front of thedoors, then, date from after the design was modified toinclude the scenes celebrating Eugenius’s achievements. Thedecision to introduce contemporary figures and events intothe program meant that the subject matter was no longerlimited to traditional, eternal themes, and Filarete evidentlysaw in this change license to celebrate himself as well. On thefront of the doors, he did this with relatively straightforwardself-portraits and authorship inscriptions. On the reverse,though, he came up with something far more imaginative,but here, too, he drew inspiration from the Eugenius reliefs.

The first step in understanding the logic behind Filarete’sextraordinary representation is recognizing the physical qual-ities of the object on which it appears. The relief is part of alarge bronze plate, more than six feet wide, that spans theentire width of the door leaf (Fig. 24). The scene itselfoccupies about four feet in the center; in reproductions, theblank portions on either side, which extend upward to givethe plate a truncated U shape, are typically cropped out. Asimilar slab of bronze, identical in shape but undecorated, isin the same position on the back of the other leaf of thedoors. Two more are located at the top of each leaf. Clearly,these are structural components. The primary purpose of the

20 Expanded view of The Voyage of the Greeks from Constantinople to Italy and The Reception of the Greeks by Pope Eugenius IV, left door,central portal, St. Peter’s, Rome, showing the full dimensions of the panel as cast, including Filarete’s self-portrait in the acanthusscroll on the left, overlaid with lines indicating visible seams, cracks, and fills (artwork in the public domain; photograph andoverlay by the author, photograph © Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano)


bronze plate on which Filarete’s relief appears is functionalrather than artistic.

Unlike Ghiberti’s two sets of doors for the baptistery inFlorence, which are supported by solid-cast bronze frames,Filarete’s doors at St. Peter’s are built on wooden cores. Thefour bronze plates on the back of the doors are the mostvisible parts of the brackets Filarete designed to carry them.Each is a massive cuplike support, cast in a single piece. Theyencase the ends of the wooden cores on all sides and providethe pivots on which the doors turn. From the front, thebrackets are entirely hidden by the overlapping decorativereliefs when the doors are closed, but the pivot encasementsand edges can be seen when the doors are open (Figs. 25,26). The configuration we see today dates from 1619, whenthe doors were reinstalled after St. Peter’s was rebuilt.65 Tomatch the greater height of the new central portal, thewooden cores of the doors were extended, and additionalreliefs were added to the top and bottom on the front side(Fig. 26). Given the structural function of the brackets, wecan be sure that they occupied the same positions in Fi-larete’s installation.

The essential role played by the brackets makes it clear thatFilarete did not conceive the scene on the back of the doorsas an independent work, as previously thought. Rather, headded it to a component that was required for structuralreasons. This accounts for the unexpected placement of therelief at ground level. Furthermore, the support bracketswere almost certainly the last parts of the doors made, and

their exposed backs happen to be similar in shape to theborder reliefs with the scenes celebrating Eugenius’s achieve-ments.66 It seems likely that Filarete, his appetite for self-commemoration whetted by the example of these reliefs andthe signatures and self-portraits he had already added to thefront of the doors, recognized in the structural brackets anopportunity to create a narrative depiction for himself akin tothe ones he had made for the pope. He placed the scene inthe central horizontal band as he had done with the earlierreliefs, but the parallels run much deeper. Filarete also drewon the content of the Eugenius reliefs.

Each consists of two types of scenes, one showing the popeenthroned, presiding over foreign dignitaries, and the otherportraying the same dignitaries processing or traveling in alltheir splendor. The scenes of the first type attest to the pope’spreeminence: foreign sovereigns kneel before him (Figs. 16,19), sit on chairs less elevated than his own (Fig. 17), oraccept his bulls (Fig. 18). In addition to these indicators ofstatus, Filarete meticulously depicted the lavish ceremonialobjects and luxury goods used to communicate rank andhonor on such occasions. The scenes of the second type, therepresentations of foreign princes and prelates in processionor traveling, seem to have been conceived largely as anopportunity to produce such displays of princely magnifi-cence. Filarete portrayed the visiting dignitaries with impres-sive retinues and the full regalia of their offices. The exoticappearance of the foreigners made a great impression on theItalians at the time,67 and Filarete presented their distinctive

21 Expanded view of The Procession of Pope Eugenius IV and Emperor Sigismund to the Castel Sant’Angelo and The Coronation of EmperorSigismund by Pope Eugenius IV in St. Peter’s, left door, central portal, St. Peter’s, Rome, showing the full dimensions of the panel ascast, overlaid with lines indicating visible seams, cracks, and fills (artwork in the public domain; photograph and overlay by theauthor, photograph © Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano)


clothing, headgear, and facial features with remarkable de-tail. Here in bronze relief we find the same concern withstatus and display apparent in the possesso manuscript illus-tration made a few years later for Giovanni Barozzi (Fig. 13).

In creating the scene on the reverse of the doors, Filareteplayfully adapted the narratives, hierarchical structures, andvisual language he used in the Eugenius reliefs to fashion ananalogous commemorative depiction appropriate to his ownposition and accomplishment. The scene is a variation on thesecond type: Filarete and his assistants celebrate the comple-tion of the doors with their own procession. Rather thancrucifixes, swords, and scepters (Figs. 18, 19), they hold upthe tools of their craft (Fig. 5). In contrast with the solemnityof the curial ceremonies, the artists join hands and skipalong, giving the march the appearance of a dance. Themerry, lighthearted troupe amusingly mimics the formal pro-cessions in the Eugenius reliefs while also expressing thejoyfulness proclaimed by Filarete in the central inscription.68

But however witty the depiction may be, Filarete’s portrayal isno joke. In wittily imitating the rituals of the court in a morepopular key, Filarete’s relief does not degrade them. To thecontrary, by constructing a version of them commensuratewith his own position, Filarete confirmed their validity as ameans of demonstrating honor and asserted his aspirations ofstatus within court society.

Filarete articulated this claim by employing the same indi-cators of rank he used in the Eugenius scenes: ceremonialprotocol and material display. He portrayed himself followedby a train of assistants and announced his leadership of thegroup in the inscription at his side, “Antonio and my disci-ples” (Fig. 6). His fine clothing and hat, lack of a workshopapron, and compass, a tool of intellectual rather than manual

labor, further attest to his superiority over his companions.His retinue itself is also ordered according to rank (Fig. 5).69

Each assistant wears an apron and has his name stamped athis feet, but the first three hold their tools more ceremoni-ously and wear more sophisticated hats than the three whofollow.70 The latter are likely garzoni, shop boys with the leastresponsibility in the project.71 Appropriately, it is theseyouths who engage in the playful movements that animatethe train. The three more dignified figures that precedethem must be the senior assistants. The first and third havebeen identified as Beltrame Belferdino, called Varrone, andPasquino da Montepulciano, artists documented carrying outindependent commissions in the years after the doors werecompleted.72 Varrone’s status as the lead assistant, evidentfrom his position directly behind Filarete at the head of thetrain, is perhaps also signaled by the inscription at his feet.He is the only assistant to have his origin inscribed along withhis name, “Varrus Florentiae.” Filarete has portrayed himselfas the ruler of his own little court, complete with its own logicof rank and honor, a humorous parallel to the princelyhierarchies documented in the Eugenius reliefs.

The other figures in Filarete’s self-portrait scene can alsobe understood as witty adaptations of elements expressinghonor in the Eugenius depictions. Petruccio on the mule andthe piper on the camel frame the procession, paying tributeto Filarete and his team much like the peripheral figures inthe earlier reliefs. Petruccio with his wineskin and raisedpitcher (Fig. 3) take the place of the imposing captain of theCastel Sant’Angelo, Antonio de Rido, with his arms andbanner, who flanks the scene of Pope Eugenius and EmperorSigismund on horseback (Fig. 19, left). De Rido’s statelybulldog is transformed into the eager mutt at Filarete’s feet

22 Filarete, self-portrait medallion on the pedestal at the baseof the Martyrdom of Paul panel, left door, central portal, St.Peter’s, Rome (artwork in the public domain; photograph bythe author, © Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano)

23 Filarete, signature inscription on the pedestal at the baseof the Martyrdom of Peter panel, right door, central portal, St.Peter’s, Rome (artwork in the public domain; photograph bythe author, © Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano)


(Fig. 6). Music is provided by the piper (Fig. 4) rather thanthe group of trumpeters on the ship in the scene of theByzantine emperor’s departure (Fig. 17, right). Finally, thefamous meticulously rendered camel adds a sense of exoti-cism analogous to the impression made by the unusual ap-pearance of the Eastern dignitaries, such as the Copts andEthiopians (Fig. 18). Filarete has created a personal versionof the Eugenius scenes, cleverly translating the spectacle andprotocol of court ceremony into popular terms fitting hisposition. The result is a playful, amusing work that honorsFilarete through both the representation itself and the inge-nuity and wit implicit in its invention.

Filarete’s decision to enliven the procession with move-ments suggesting dance strengthens this effect. Though notdepicted in the reliefs on the front of the doors, dancing wasan essential component of court life. As Jennifer Nevile hasshown, public displays of carefully scripted dance were one ofthe ways in which the elites of Filarete’s day expressed andconfirmed their social status and power.73 By incorporatingdance, Filarete not only gave the procession a lighthearted,celebratory air but created another allusion to the rituals ofcourt society and the honor they implied.

The central inscription, the statement emanating fromFilarete’s mouth, merits further consideration in this context.“For others, the reward of the work is pride or money; for me,it’s joyfulness”: this remarkable declaration is without prece-dent among artists’ signatures of medieval and RenaissanceItaly.74 The claim can hardly be taken at face value. Theextraordinary number of self-references Filarete placed onthe doors attests to the immense pride he took in the work.Filarete’s decision to include an inscription explicitly denyingthis, along with the importance of money, and instead toproclaim hilaritas—joyfulness, cheerfulness, merriment—ashis reward, must have been carefully calculated. The termhilaritas could carry a variety of connotations at the time.Antiquarians might have associated it with ancient Romannumismatics. The word occasionally appears personified onimperial coins as a woman holding a cornucopia and palmbranch, a symbol of the joyous prosperity fostered by the

emperors.75 In the 1460s a Hadrianic example of this type wasreplicated on the reverse of a portrait medal of Pope PaulII.76 The fourteenth-century Benedictine writer Pierre Ber-suire, by contrast, elaborated the significance of hilaritasbased on biblical texts in his Repertorium morale, distinguishingthree types. Merriment resulting from worldly excess, such asliberal consumption of wine, was considered negative, whilethe cheerfulness characteristic of the virtuous and the per-petual joy of the blessed were positive.77 But hilaritas alsoappears as an attribute of the ideal prince in medieval chi-valric literature and continued to be valued as such in theItalian courts of the fifteenth century.78 Dancing presented aprime opportunity to express this virtue. In an anonymouspoem describing the festivities and dances staged in Florencein 1459 on the occasion of the visit of Galeazzo Maria Sforzaand Pope Pius II, for example, the author repeatedly re-marked on the gaiety of the participants: “festive, joyful, andwith a happy face,” “full of hilarity, joy, merriment, andlaughter,” and “so joyful that no other festival could ever becompared to it.”79

Filarete’s hilaritas is best understood in this courtly context.In emphasizing this virtue, however, Filarete does more thansimply allude to the good cheer befitting a courtier andcourtly celebration. By setting hilaritas in opposition to prideand money in the inscription, naming it as the sole reward forhis work, and disavowing forms of compensation typicallysought by artists, Filarete makes a claim for the nobility of hischaracter. The statement suggests that he is not burdenedwith mundane concerns, such as earning a living or provinghimself, and pursues his undertakings simply for pleasure.Implicit in the conceit is denial of the great toil involved inmaking the doors for St. Peter’s. The casting, cleaning, chas-ing, and assembling of the bronze reliefs required years ofphysically demanding manual labor. Filarete, in asserting hedid the work purely for the joy of it and depicting himselfdressed in fine clothes, carrying the compass, and dancing,concealed this effort and presented himself as a graceful,would-be courtier. The deception exemplifies what Baldas-sare Castiglione would later call sprezzatura in The Book of the

24 Reverse of the doors with the lowersupport brackets visible at the bottom,central portal, St. Peter’s, Rome (art-work in the public domain; photo-graph by the author, © Fabbrica diSan Pietro in Vaticano)


Courtier (1528).80 Filarete’s hilaritas masks the arduous natureof his accomplishment and manifests his pretensions to statusand honor.

The Artist at CourtThe rise in the status of the artist has long been recognized asa key characteristic of the Renaissance. It became possible asthe visual arts gradually shed their connection with manualcraft and were redefined as liberal arts. In his groundbreak-ing book The Court Artist: On the Ancestry of the Modern Artist,Martin Warnke surveyed this transformation and argued thatthe driving force behind it was court culture and patronage.The theoretical justification, as Warnke summarized it, was asfollows:

An “art” (ars) was “free” (liberalis) if it was worthy of a freeman, that is to say if it involved no physical labour and wasnot practised for gain—if its sole aim was disinterestedpleasure. For such an art was the product of a “virtue”(virtus) that found expression in an unmistakable “talent”(ingenium). This virtue was conferred by God or Nature. Itspractise was “invention” (inventio), guided by good “judg-

ment” (iudicium). In the practice of virtue, judgment em-ployed recognizable rules and techniques, and these con-stituted the “science” (scientia) of an ars. Anyone who wasintellectually active found the work (opus) ready-made inhis head and could leave its realization to others, to crafts-men who were able to master the techniques of the “sci-ence.” This secondary activity could be measured andremunerated. The real product of virtue was immeasur-able and could only be “promoted” and “encouraged.” Toserve a prince was essentially a “free” activity, engaged innot for reward, but in the cause of virtue. . . .81

Warnke collected an impressive body of evidence document-ing the origins and development of this idea in Europe fromthe fourteenth through the seventeenth centuries, includingmore than a few examples drawn from Filarete’s treatise. Butperhaps no single work of art embodies the essence of theconcept more cogently or ingeniously than the relief on thereverse of the doors of St. Peter’s. Here Filarete portrayedhimself as a noble artist-inventor, who works only for plea-sure, leading the craftsmen who carried out his designs in acelebratory procession and dance inspired by the example ofthe Italian courts.

Such a statement may seem extraordinary for its time—theideal Warnke described would be fully realized only in thefollowing century—but Filarete’s aspirations were hardlyunique. The type of recognition Filarete hoped to receivemay best be demonstrated by the career of Pisanello. Eagerlysought by the leading princes of his day, Pisanello achieved astatus at court comparable to that of experts in the traditionalliberal arts. In a safe-conduct letter issued by Pope Eugeniusin 1432, Pisanello is identified as a member of the papalhousehold (familiaris) and called “beloved son,” and in 1449King Alfonso V granted him the equivalent status in the royalhousehold and a large annual stipend at the court in Na-ples.82 Court humanists produced more praise for Pisanellothan for any other artist of the first half of the fifteenthcentury.83 A medal portraying him, probably dating from the1440s and designed by Pisanello himself, adopts the sameconventions used in the medals the artist produced for hisprincely patrons (Fig. 27). On the obverse, the artist appearsin profile wearing fine brocade and a sumptuous hat—thepose and dress of the elite. The reverse, displaying the firstletter of each of the theological and cardinal virtues sur-

25 Pivot encasement, lower support bracket, left door (openposition), central portal, St. Peter’s, Rome (artwork in thepublic domain; photograph by the author, © Fabbrica di SanPietro in Vaticano)

26 Front of the bottom of the left door (open position) withpart of the support bracket visible behind the reliefs, centralportal, St. Peter’s, Rome (artwork in the public domain;photograph by the author, © Fabbrica di San Pietro inVaticano)


rounded by a laurel wreath, celebrates Pisanello’s noble char-acter rather than his craftsmanship.84

A key theoretical contribution to the liberation of thevisual arts from the status of manual craft was made not longafter Filarete began work on the doors of St. Peter’s by LeonBattista Alberti. A learned court humanist as well as a prac-ticing artist and architect, Alberti was uniquely qualified andmotivated to promote this cause. His well-known treatise Depictura, written in Florence in 1435, provides a new theoret-ical explication of painting.85 Drawing comparisons with clas-sical rhetoric and poetry, Alberti foregrounded the intellec-tual aspects of painting and emphasized its pleasing qualities(he himself, Alberti made clear, painted for pleasure). Paint-ing was, in short, an art worthy of free men.86 In the 1430sAlberti also seems to have produced the first independentself-portrait of the period. Drawing inspiration from ancientRoman coins and gems, he portrayed himself in profile on alarge bronze plaquette (Fig. 28).87 Filarete’s two profile self-portraits on the front of the doors—one likely substituted, itwill be recalled, for the portrait of an ancient Roman in theacanthus tendrils of the borders (Fig. 20, left) and the otherat the base of the relief depicting the martyrdom of Paul in amedallion resembling a medal (Fig. 22)—are products of thesame early impulse on the part of artists operating in a courtly

milieu to proclaim status using visual forms valued by theelite. Filarete’s unusual relief on the reverse of the doors canbe seen as a more elaborate, highly imaginative example ofthe same strategy.

The near-total absence of documentation relating to Fi-larete’s activities in Rome makes it difficult to determine hissocial standing at the time or to trace his interaction with thepapal court. The pope and Curia were, in any case, absentfrom the city for nine of the twelve years Filarete spentmaking the doors, initially owing to political instability andthen on account of the Council of Ferrara-Florence. Onlywith the return of the pope in September 1443 could Filaretehave truly pursued the project of making a name for himselfat court. The opportunity seems to have fired his ambitionand imagination. As we have seen, during the next two yearsFilarete finished the reliefs for the front of the doors, madethe support brackets, including the remarkable scene com-memorating himself and his assistants, and installed the com-pleted work in the central portal of St. Peter’s.

There can be little doubt that the doors were well receivedby Filarete’s contemporaries in the Curia. The papal human-

27 Pisanello and/or workshop, self-portrait medal, 1440s,bronze, 21⁄4 in. (5.8 cm). National Gallery of Art, Washington,D.C., Samuel H. Kress Collection (artwork in the publicdomain; photograph provided by the National Gallery of Art) 28 Leon Battista Alberti, self-portrait plaquette, 1430s, bronze,

77⁄8 � 53⁄8 in. (20.1 � 13.6 cm). National Gallery of Art,Washington, D.C., Samuel H. Kress Collection (artwork in thepublic domain; photograph provided by the National Galleryof Art)


ists Flavio Biondo and Maffeo Vegio praised them, and Fi-larete soon received another important sculptural commis-sion, the tomb of Cardinal Antonio Martinez de Chavez in S.Giovanni in Laterano.88 A document from the archives of theOspedale di S. Spirito in Sassia may preserve a record of oneof the ways Filarete sought to advance his social standing inthe wake of this success. The hospital, located in the Borgonear the Vatican, was restored by Eugenius, and in a bull datedApril 25, 1446, the pope also reconstituted the confraternityassociated with it.89 A number of important members of theCuria, including Eugenius himself, the head of the ApostolicCamera, Cardinal Ludovico Trevisan, and Cardinals Bessa-rion and Martinez de Chavez, all joined, as well as at least oneItalian prince, Ludovico Gonzaga, marquis of Mantua.

Among the persons of lesser rank following these illustri-ous men in the matriculation records is an artist with thesame name as Filarete. The entry reads, “Master Antonio[son] of Master Pietro, painter from ——, matriculated onday —— 1446; paid 3 ducats” [Mag. Antonius mag. Petri, pictorde ——, intravit die —— 1446; solvit duc. .III.].90 Filarete is notknown ever to have worked as a painter, but it is possible thathe was mistakenly identified as such by the scribe who madethe record. The fact that the scribe left Antonio’s origin andthe date of matriculation blank suggests that he was unfamil-iar with the details of the transaction. Five years later, thesecretary of Francesco Sforza made the same error. In a letterwritten not long after Filarete arrived in Milan, the secretary,apparently not knowing the exact area of Filarete’s expertise,also called him a painter.91 I have not found any record of apainter named Antonio di Pietro working in Rome in the1440s,92 and the dues for entry into the confraternity of thehospital, three ducats, are substantial enough that only themost successful artists could have considered joining. If theAntonio recorded there is Filarete, it would indicate thatFilarete in fact achieved some level of social interaction withthe elite of the papal court.

At the time, Filarete could hardly have known that hisdreams of social advancement would be cut short, as wasoften the case in Rome, by the death of the pope. Not longafter Eugenius’s successor, Nicholas V, took office in 1447,Filarete appears to have lost favor and fallen victim to thescheming of his enemies. By 1449 he had been imprisoned(falsely, it seems) for attempting to steal the relic of John theBaptist’s head and exiled from Rome.93 Filarete returned tohis native Florence but did not remain there for long. By1451 he had found employment with Francesco Sforza inMilan. Filarete’s successes and failures during the fourteenyears he spent at the Sforza court cannot be considered here,but it is worth noting that Filarete continued to devise inno-vative means of promoting himself during this period, espe-cially as his position weakened in the early 1460s. In hisarchitectural treatise, for example, Filarete makes a case forthe recognition and respect he longed to receive. No merecraftsman, Filarete’s architect is an intellectual, knowledge-able not only in building and the fine arts but also in letters,geometry, astrology, arithmetic, philosophy, music, rhetoric,medicine, civil law, and history.94 Esteemed by his noblepatron, among other honors he is provided with a generoussalary and an elaborately decorated house.95 In Filarete’swishful narrative, the aspirations hinted at in the relief on the

back of the doors of St. Peter’s are spelled out at length.96 Hisuse for the first time in the treatise of the learned epithet“filarete” and the casting of a self-portrait medal are furtherexamples of his efforts to enhance his image and status at theSforza court.97 Filarete’s remarkable presentation of himselfon the Vatican doors, carried out fifteen years earlier, is thefirst manifestation of this fervent desire to move in socialcircles above the realm typically associated with artists at thetime and to make a name for himself at court.

Robert Glass received his doctorate from Princeton University in2011. He is currently revising his dissertation for publication as abook on Filarete’s sculpture and is visiting assistant professor of arthistory at Oberlin College [Department of Art, Oberlin College, AllenArt Building, 91 North Main Street, Oberlin, Ohio, 44074;[email protected]].

NotesThe research for this article was carried out during a predoctoral fellowshipprovided by the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the NationalGallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and I am grateful to the CASVA deans,Elizabeth Cropper, Therese O’Malley, and Peter Lukehart, for this support. Ipresented parts of the article at the Sixth Quadrennial Italian RenaissanceSculpture conference in Memphis in 2008 and the College Art AssociationAnnual Conference in 2011 and am indebted to the organizers and audiencesof those sessions for their valuable feedback. Finally, my sincere thanks toPatricia Fortini Brown and Leonard Barkan, who offered essential commentson an early draft, and to The Art Bulletin’s editor-in-chief, Karen Lang, copyeditor Fronia W. Simpson, and two anonymous readers, whose suggestionssignificantly improved the final manuscript. Unless otherwise indicated, trans-lations are mine.

1. The only commentator to note the pointing finger is Matthias Winner,“Filarete tanzt mit seinen Schulern in den Himmel,” in Italia et Germa-nia: Liber amicorum Arnold Esch, ed. Hagen Keller et al. (Tubingen: MaxNiemeyer Verlag, 2001), 279, who proposes that it was intended to in-dicate heaven.

2. See Catherine King, “Filarete’s Portrait Signature on the Bronze Doorsof St. Peter’s and the Dance of Bathykles and His Assistants,” Journal ofthe Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 53 (1990): 297. It is unlikely, as hassometimes been assumed, that Filarete included the compass as a refer-ence to architectural activity, since his career as an architect seems tohave begun in Milan only in the 1450s. The compass, though later as-sociated with architects, was also used by sculptors and painters. Forexample, King, 297 n. 9, notes the self-portrait of a trecento goldsmithand miniature painter holding a compass. The device also appears onthe tomb monument of the sculptor Andrea Bregno (d. 1503) in S.Maria sopra Minerva, Rome. In his architectural treatise, Filaretemakes it clear that the compass is necessary for design in the broadestsense. In the section on drawing, for example, he twice calls it an “in-strument without which nothing could be done” and includes a mar-ginal illustration of a compass measuring a square. Filarete, Trattato diarchitettura, ed. Anna Maria Finoli and Liliana Grassi, 2 vols. (Milan: IlPolifilo, 1972), vol. 1, 148, 196, vol. 2, 641–43, 650–51, 655; and idem,Treatise on Architecture, trans. and ed. John R. Spencer, 2 vols. (New Ha-ven: Yale University Press, 1965), vol. 1, 65–66, 87, 297–98, 302, 304.On this topic, see also Ulrich Pfisterer, “Ingenium und Invention beiFilarete,” in Nobilis arte manus: Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag von AntjeMiddeldorf Kosegarten, ed. Bruno Klein and Harald Wolter-von demKnesebeck (Dresden: n.p., 2002), 275; Joanna Woods-Marsden, Renais-sance Self-Portraiture: The Visual Construction of Identity and the Social Statusof the Artist (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 56–57; andE. M. L. Wakayama, “Filarete e il compasso: Nota aggiunta alla teoriaprospettica albertiana,” Arte Lombarda 38–39 (1973): 161–71.

3. From left to right, these labels read “ANGNIOLVS,” “IACOBVS,” “IANNELLVS,”“PASSQVINVS,” “IOVANNES,” and “VARRVS FLORENTI(A)E.” Passquinus andVarrus have been identified, as discussed below.

4. First noted by Hans von Tschudi, “Filaretes Mitarbeiter an denBronzethuren von St. Peter,” Repertorium fur Kunstwissenschaft 7 (1884):292–93. That Filarete is meant to be speaking to the observer is alsoconfirmed by the fact that in the inscription supplying his name, “An-tonivs et mei discipvli,” the first-person possessive is used in the phrase“my disciples.”


5. Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ piu eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori: Nelleredazioni del 1550 e 1568, ed. Rosanna Bettarini and Paola Barocchi, 6vols. (Florence: Sansoni, 1966–97), vol. 3, 244: “E dalla banda di den-tro, a pie di detta porta, fece Antonio per suo capriccio una storietta dibronzo nella quale ritrasse se e Simone et i discepoli suoi, che con unasino carico di cose da godere vanno a spasso a una vigna.” Englishtranslation adapted from Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors,and Architects, trans. Gaston du C. De Vere, ed. David Ekserdjian, 2vols. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), vol. 1, 390. Vasari erroneouslybelieved that Filarete carried out the doors together with a certain Si-mone, whom he identified as the brother of Donatello. No Simoneappears on Filarete’s relief.

6. Giacomo Grimaldi, Descrizione della basilica antica di S. Pietro in Vaticano:Codice Barberini latino 2733, ed. Reto Niggl (Vatican City: BibliotecaApostolica Vaticana, 1972), 389: “[R]etro in imo est expressa aerealamina laetitia Antonii de Florentia artificis eiusque sodalium equitan-tium et laetantium in absoluto opere portarum.” Michele Lazzaroniand Antonio Munoz, Filarete: Scultore e architetto del secolo XV (Rome: W.Modes, 1908), 89.

7. Francesco Maria Torrigio, Le sacre grotte vaticane (Rome: Jacomo Fac-ciotti, 1635; reprint, Rome: V. Mascardi, 1639), 155. Torrigio’s muchshorter first edition, published in 1618, does not include discussion ofthe doors. When describing the relief on the back of the doors, Torri-gio also recorded the central inscription and noted the camel and por-traits. The full passage reads: “dalla parte di dentro nella estremita vi silegge in intaglio, ‘Ceteris operae pretium, fastus, fumus ve mihi.’ E vison varie figurine, che dimostrano balli, e feste fatte in segno dital’opera finita, e vi e un Camello con altre picciole effigie, e vi fuposta adı 14. d’Agosto.” His rendering of the inscription will be dis-cussed below. The date he provides is the day the doors were installedat St. Peter’s as reported by the contemporary chronicler Paolo diLello Petrone, not the date that appears on the relief. See Paolo diLello Petrone, La mesticanza di Paolo di Lello Petrone, ed. FrancescoIsoldi, vol. 24, pt. 2, Raccolta degli storici italiani (Citta di Castello: S.Lapi, 1910–12), 59.

8. The drawing, published here for the first time, has received little atten-tion from scholars. It was briefly described by Cornelius C. Vermeule,“The Dal Pozzo–Albani Drawings of Classical Antiquities in the BritishMuseum,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, n.s., 50, no. 5(1960): 33, cat. no. 502. The only mention of the drawing in the Fi-larete literature was made by King, “Filarete’s Portrait Signature,”297 n. 5, who transcribed the inscriptions on it in a note.

9. The full inscription reads, “S’intende da l’inscrizzione il poco guad-agno, che trasse Antonio Filarete dal lavoro de la Porta di bronzo di S.Pietro, a pie del cui riverso egli si rappresento conduttore d’un tripu-dio co’ suoi Discepoli, che n’hebbero l’utilita maggiore; tra’quali fuSimone fratello di Donatello Scultori ambedui eccellenti. Quel Drom-edario era stato donato al Papa dal Cardinale Cesarino.” The referenceto the camel is discussed below.

10. “Antonio sı poco gustato del pagamento, che qua s’invidiava il guada-gno a’ suoi creati, a’ quali dice, esser stato molto ben pagate le suegiornate, a se’ rimanendo il fasto et fumo di capo e maestro dell’opera.”Vannini’s manuscript, preserved in Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, VaticanCity, barb. lat. 4875, was published by Cristina de Benedictis, “La vita delCardinale Pietro Stefaneschi di Sebastiano Vannini,” Annali della ScuolaNormale Superiore di Pisa, Classe di Lettere e Filosofia 6 (1976): 955–1016.My thanks to Frances Gage for alerting me to this text, which has neverbeen noted in the Filarete literature. Vannini’s comments on the doors(978–81), which are among the most substantial of the early modernperiod, cannot be quoted or discussed here in full, though several ad-ditional references are made to them below.

11. See n. 7 above.12. Albert Jansen, in Allgemeines Kunstler-Lexikon, ed. Julius Meyer (Leipzig:

W. Engelmann, 1878), s.v. “Averulino,” vol. 2, 472.13. Lazzaroni and Munoz, Filarete, 82.14. Ibid. For the solutions Lazzaroni and Munoz proposed for the inscrip-

tions accompanying these figures, see nn. 38, 57 below.15. The reading of “hilaritas” as ridicule and the piper as a representation

of the Byzantine emperor was first advanced by Lucia Piola Caselli, “La‘storietta’ del Filarete dietro le Porte di San Pietro,” L’Urbe 45 (1982):232–39. Angela Cianfarini accepted her interpretation and added thereading of the wine bearer as Pope Eugenius in Luoghi vaticani: La ba-silica antica e rinascimentale, la necropoli, la tomba di Pietro, l’atrio e le cinqueporte della basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano (Rome: ATS Italia Editrice,2002), 123–25; and idem, “Iconografia e significati della porta bronzeadel Filarete in S. Pietro,” in Temi profani e allegorie nell’Italia centrale delQuattrocento, ed. Anna Cavallaro (Rome: Vecchiarelli, 1995), 113–14.“Hilaritas” as laughter at Filarete’s expense is also accepted by AntonioPinelli, Roma instaurata: Arte del Quattrocento alla corte di papi e cardinali(Pisa: Tipografia Editrice Pisana, 1998), 46. For the readings of the in-scriptions on which Piola Caselli and Cianfarini based their identifica-tions of the piper and wine bearer, see nn. 38, 57 below.

16. Charles Seymour Jr., Sculpture in Italy: 1400–1500 (Harmondsworth,U.K.: Penguin, 1966), 116.

17. Peter Tigler, Die Architekturtheorie des Filarete (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1963),2; and Maria Beltramini, “Francesco Filelfo e il Filarete: Nuovi con-tributi alla storia dell’amicizia fra il letterato e l’architetto della Milanosforzesca,” Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Classe di Lettere eFilosofia: Quaderni, 4th ser., 1–2 (1996): 119–25.

18. Enrico Parlato, “Il gusto all’antica di Filarete scultore,” in Da Pisanelloalla nascita dei Musei capitolini: L’antico a Roma alla vigilia del Rinasci-mento, ed. Anna Cavallaro and Parlato, exh. cat. (Milan: Arnoldo Mon-dadori Editore; Rome: De Luca Editore, 1988), 122, esp. n. 48; Woods-Marsden, Renaissance Self-Portraiture, 55; and Francesca Petrucci, inL’uomo del Rinascimento: Leon Battista Alberti e le arti a Firenze tra ragione ebellezza, ed. Cristina Acidini and Gabriele Morolli, exh. cat. (Florence:Mandragora/Maschietto Editore, 2006), 108–9, cat. no. 36. All threeauthors read Petruccio’s mount, identified as an ass, as a symbol ofsloth. Woods-Marsden and Petrucci also see the camel as a symbol oftemperance.

19. Pietro Cannata, “Le placchette del Filarete,” in Italian Plaquettes, ed.Alison Luchs (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1989), 37.The simile is found in the Gospels of Matthew 19: 24 and Mark 10: 25.

20. Catherine King, “Italian Self-Portraits and the Rewards of Virtues,”in Autobiographie und Selbstportrait in der Renaissance, ed. GunterSchweikhart (Cologne: Konig, 1998), 69–71.

21. Winner, “Filarete tanzt mit seinen Schulern,” 267–89.

22. King, “Filarete’s Portrait Signature,” 296–99.

23. Pausanias, Description of Greece 3.18.14, trans. King, “Filarete’s PortraitSignature,” 298.

24. The copy of Pausanias’s Description of Greece owned by Niccolo Niccoliwas in his possession by 1418 and after his death in 1437 passed withthe rest of his library to the convent of S. Marco. It is last documentedin a library inventory from about 1500. Eighteen fifteenth-century cop-ies survive, including the manuscript owned by Cardinal Bessarion, butall are believed to date from after 1450 and can be traced back to Nic-coli’s lost original. See Celine Guilmet, “Humanist Manuscripts of thePeriegesis,” in Following Pausanias: The Quest for Greek Antiquity, ed. Ma-ria Georgopoulou et al. (New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 2007), 74–77; Aubrey Diller, “The Manuscripts of Pausanias,” Transactions and Pro-ceedings of the American Philological Association 88 (1957): 169–88, esp.170–71; and idem, “Pausanias in the Middle Ages,” Transactions andProceedings of the American Philological Association 87 (1956): 86, 94–96.

25. Pietro Zander, in Il ’400 a Roma: La rinascita delle arti da Donatello a Pe-rugino, ed. Maria Grazia Bernardini and Marco Bussagli, exh. cat., 2vols. (Milan: Skira Editore, 2008), vol. 2, 211, cat. no. 120.

26. On Filelfo in Florence, see Diana Robin, “A Reassessment of the Char-acter of Francesco Filelfo (1398–1481),” Renaissance Quarterly 36, no. 2(1983): 214–24. Niccoli’s initial assistance and then hostile receptionof Filelfo are noted by Arthur Field, “Leonardo Bruni, Florentine Trai-tor? Bruni, the Medici, and an Aretine Conspiracy of 1437,” RenaissanceQuarterly 51, no. 4 (1998): 1119 n. 41, 1120 n. 45.

27. Both Winner, “Filarete tanzt mit seinen Schulern,” 283, and AndreasThielemann, “Altes und neues Rom: Zu Filaretes Bronzetur, ein Dreh-buch,” Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch 63 (2002): 63–65, propose connectionsbetween adjacent passages in Pausanias’s text and aspects of the doors,but their arguments are unconvincing.

28. Also superficial and likely coincidental is the connection proposed by anumber of scholars between the relief and Filarete’s use of dance as ametaphor for building in his treatise. See Evelyn Welch, Art and Societyin Italy, 1350–1500 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 94; MariaBeltramini, “Porta (1433–1445),” in La basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano,ed. Antonio Pinelli, 4 vols. (Modena: F. C. Panini, 2000), Schede, 486;Francis Ames-Lewis, The Intellectual Life of the Early Renaissance Artist(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 237–38; and Thielemann,“Altes und neues Rom,” 37.

29. For Torrigio, see n. 7 above. For Vannini, see De Benedictis, “Sebas-tiano Vannini,” 978. For the exceptions, see n. 31 below.

30. For example, King, “Italian Self-Portraits,” 69: “For others the price ofthe work, or the heady fumes of pride, but for me joyfulness”; and Jan-sen, “Averulino,” 472: “Andern lohnt Prahlerei oder Beraucherung dieArbeit, mir Lustigkeit.”

31. “Nummus” was proposed instead of “fumus” by Piola Caselli, “La ‘stori-etta’ del Filarete,” 237, based on the premise that three letters, ratherthan two, were missing at the start of the damaged word. Perhaps be-cause this is clearly not the case, her suggestion has been ignored bylater scholars in favor of “fumus.” The only exceptions are Parlato,who, in “Il gusto all’antica di Filarete scultore,” 122, reports Piola Ca-selli’s reading but reverts to “fumus” in “Filarete a Roma,” in La Romadi Leon Battista Alberti: Umanisti, architetti e artisti alla scoperta dell’anticonella citta del Quattrocento, ed. Francesco Paolo Fiore and Arnold Nessel-


rath, exh. cat. (Milan: Skira Editore, 2005), 311; and Woods-Marsden,Renaissance Self-Portraiture, 257 n. 19. A third possibility, “humus,” wassuggested by Winner, “Filarete tanzt mit seinen Schulern,” 275–76. Thereduction of a double consonant to a single one, as assumed in myreading, is common in medieval Latin.

32. Most of the inscriptions on the front of the doors were either engravedor stamped into the wax model or the bronze after casting. The onlyexceptions are several brief inscriptions that occur in the panel depict-ing Peter’s martyrdom, such as Filarete’s signature “Opvs Antonii” inthe medallion on the pedestal (Fig. 23).

33. The only scholar to offer an explanation of this feature is Winner, “Fi-larete tanzt mit seinen Schulern,” 277, who argues that “Hilaritas” wascarved into the plate to indicate a spiritual connotation for the word incontrast to the worldly nature of the rest of the inscription.

34. John R. Spencer, “Filarete’s Bronze Doors at St Peter’s: A CooperativeProject with Complications of Chronology and Technique,” in Collabo-ration in Italian Renaissance Art, ed. Wendy Stedman Sheard and JohnT. Paoletti (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), 38; and Bel-tramini, “Porta (1433–1445),” 482.

35. For example, between the A and N in “Antonio,” and on either side ofnearly all the occurrences of the letter I.

36. Other examples of single words framed by bullets include the punchednames at the feet of Filarete’s assistants. Filarete’s use of bullets in in-scriptions elsewhere on the relief is not always consistent.

37. A similar loss occurred in the inscription on the obverse of a medaldepicting the emperor Claudius made by Filarete’s assistant, Varrone.See Louis Waldman, “Varrone d’Agniolo Belferdino’s CommemorativeMedal of an Unknown Lady,” American Journal of Numismatics, 2nd ser.,3–4 (1992): 110 and n. 21; and John R. Spencer, “An Unknown Fif-teenth Century Medallist: Varro, Beltrame Belfradelli,” Medal 13 (Au-tumn 1988): 4.

38. Piola Caselli, “La ‘storietta’ del Filarete,” 235, suggested a similar resto-ration. She proposed both “[c]apo[c]ci[us],” understood as referringto the head (capo) of the work, and “[p]aro[c]c[us],” which she stateswas a medieval term for a food supplier at worksites. She consideredthe latter the better solution, but neither word fits the physical evi-dence. There is space for only one letter between the I and the finalbullet. Cianfarini, Luoghi vaticani, 124; and idem, “Iconografia e signifi-cati,” 114, accepted Piola Caselli’s first solution, arguing that “[C]a-po[c]ci[us]” identified the wine bearer as the patron of the project,Pope Eugenius. Other scholars have attempted to decipher the inscrip-tion as two abbreviated words: Lazzaroni and Munoz, Filarete, 79 n. 3,“Apo(llo) Ci(tharedus)”; and King, “Filarete’s Portrait Signature,” 297,“Apo(stoli) Ci(vitate).”

39. Poggio Bracciolini, Lettere, ed. Helene Harth, 2 vols. (Florence: L. S.Olschki, 1984), vol. 1, 110; F. W. Kent, Giovanni Rucellai ed il suo zibal-done, 2 vols. (London: Warburg Institute, University of London, 1981),vol. 1, 77; and Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Trattati di architettura in-gegneria e arte militare, ed. Corrado Maltese, 2 vols. (Milan: Edizioni IlPolifilo, 1967), vol. 1, 277, pl. 135, 285, pl. 163. Other early referencesto the Capoccie include Giovanni Dondi, Iter romanum (ca. 1375), theanonymous Tractatus de rebus antiquis et situ urbis Romae (AnonimoMagliabechiano, ca. 1411), and Leon Battista Alberti, Descriptio urbisRomae (ca. 1450), all in Codice topografico della citta di Roma, ed. RobertoValentini and Giuseppe Zucchetti, 4 vols. (Rome: Tipografia del Sen-ato, 1953), vol. 4, 73, 126, and 220, 222, respectively. See also the dis-cussion of the toponym by Lorenzo Bianchi, Case e torri medioevali aRoma (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 1998), 43–44.

40. For the bibliography on Strozzi’s drawing, see Desiree Tommaselli, inBernardini and Bussagli, Il ’400 a Roma, vol. 2, 165–66, cat. no. 3.

41. Filarete, Trattato, vol. 2, 33–34; idem, Treatise, vol. 2, 6v: “[U]n altro cen’e che lo chiamano le Capoccie, il quale e presso al Coliseo, che etutto in ruina, sul quale e molti vigne; evi un pezzo d’uno suo cortile,nel quale e uno vaso di pietra d’nuno pezzo, il quale e ancora intero,che e di giro circa di trenta braccia.” Finoli and Grassi transcribe theword as “Capocce.” This spelling was not uncommon, but the word isspelled “Cappocie” in the Codex Magliabecianus, the copy of Filarete’streatise on which their edition is based (Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale,Florence). If their reading is derived from the Codex Palatinus, theonly other extant early copy of Filarete’s treatise (Biblioteca NazionaleCentrale, Florence), Finoli and Grassi did not note the substitution inthe apparatus. More likely, they made the adjustment as part of theirstandardization of Filarete’s spelling. Variations in the Renaissancesources include Capoccie, Capocce, Chapocce, Capoze, Capociae, Ca-paciae, Capaces, and Capaquae.

42. Rodolfo Amedeo Lanciani, The Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome: ACompanion Book for Students and Travelers (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,1897), 365–66.

43. The prevalence of vigne in this area can be observed on later printedmaps of Rome, for example, on Giambattista Nolli’s famous map of

1748. See Amato Pietro Frutaz, Le piante di Roma, 3 vols. (Rome: Isti-tuto di Studi Romani, 1962), vol. 3, map 169a, pls. 407–8.

44. Nikolaus Muffel, Descrizione della citta di Roma nel 1452, trans. and ed.Gerhard Wiedmann (Bologna: Patron Editore, 1999), 112: “Item essind auch drey weinkeler der ein ligt zwischen San Johanns und SandPeter in vincula, der hat neun gewelb und ydes gewelb so vil thur; wanman darunter stet so sicht man neun thur auf al ort als hernach stetund man mag noch uber das eingevallen ist wol XII hundert pfert stel-len, darauf wechst guter wein und man sicht den wein sten hohere daneiner glefen hoch als de wein gangen ist.” Valentini and Zucchetti, Co-dice topografico, vol. 4, 370. Muffel’s description of the vaulted space isclearly a reference to the Sette Salle, as noted by Wiedmann as well asValentini and Zucchetti. The Sette Salle are best known as the site nearwhich the famous ancient statue of Laocoon and his sons was discov-ered in 1506. In some sources, especially from the sixteenth centuryon, the Sette Salle themselves are identified as the Capoccie. Filarete,however, used the term to refer to the ruins of the baths in general.

45. See n. 5 above.

46. Variations on the name of Peter were naturally common in Rome. See,for example, the occurrences of Petrutius and Petruccio in the indexesof Anna Maria Corbo, Artisti e artigiani in Roma al tempo di Martino V edi Eugenio IV (Rome: De Luca, 1969), 253–54; and Maria Chiabo et al.,eds., Alle origini della nuova Roma: Martino V (1417–1431) (Rome: Isti-tuto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 1992), 675–76.

47. Paolo di Benedetto di Cola Dello Mastro, “Il ‘memoriale’ di Paolo diBenedetto di Cola dello Mastro del rione di Ponte,” in Isoldi, La mesti-canza di Paolo di Lello Petrone, 92: “Recordo io Pavolo che nelli 1444 delmese di —— monsignior de S.to Angilo, era romano, lo quale era decasa delli Cesarini et avitava in Pellicciaria, e fu uno delli piu valentihuomini di Italia, lo quale fu mannato da papa Eugenio in Turchia percommattere la fede e conquistare de molto paese; e in nello so-prascritto tiempo manno allo papa, uno animale chiamato dormen-tario, et era secunno vederete fegurato in questa faccia, et era femminaet era prena, et infantatose in Roma, fece una dormentaria femmina,et allevosse; et era de grannezza piu che niuno cavallo, e quanno sefaceva annare forte de passo avevano fatiga li cavalli a giognierlo cor-renno. Contavase che per uno bisognio avria camenato in un dieciento miglia, e quanno era stracco strengeva li ditti cummi, e quannosi volea caricare, se calcava in terra, e quanno avea tanta soma che libastasse e quello se rizava e tirava via; e questo animale stette in Romapiu mesi et io Pavolo ce cavalcai Rienzolo mio figlio che era molto pic-colino.”

48. Niccolo della Tuccia, Cronache e statuti della citta di Viterbo, ed. IgnazioCiampi (Florence: Tipi di M. Cellini, 1872), 197: “Tra l’altre cose ciguadagno detto cardinale un animale maggior d’un bufalo. Aveva latesta come un camelo, e il collo lungo un bon passo, e li piedi comeun bove senza unghia, e la coda bovina e corta, e sul dorso aveva duemonticelli a modo di due fanciulle, e sopra erano certi crini pelosi, epareva una cosa mostruosa; chiamavasi dromedario, e mandollo pernobilta a presentare al papa.”

49. Hugh Hudson, Paolo Uccello: Artist of the Florentine Renaissance Republic(Saarbrucken: VDM Verlag Dr. Muller, 2008), 323–24, cat. no. 55; andBernhard Degenhart and Annegrit Schmitt, Corpus der italienischen Zeich-nungen, 1300–1450, pt. 1, 4 vols. (Berlin: Mann, 1968), vol. 2, 388, cat.no. 304, vol. 4, pl. 279.

50. Cesarini most likely brought the camel back with him to Hungary afterthe campaign he waged against the Turks in Serbia and Bulgaria fromOctober 1443 to January 1444 and then sent it to the pope in Romelater that year before departing in September to engage the Turksagain. This second campaign ended in disaster at the battle of Varnaon November 10, 1444, with the defeat of the Christians and Cesarini’sdeath. Niccolo della Tuccia mentions the camel in the context of Ce-sarini’s victories against the Turks, which must refer to the first cam-paign. For these events, see Colin Imber, The Crusade of Varna, 1443–45(Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2006); Martin Chasin, “The Crusade ofVarna,” in The Impact of the Crusades on Europe, ed. Harry W. Hazardand Norman P. Zacour, vol. 6, A History of the Crusades, ed. KennethMeyer Setton (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), 276–310;and Kenneth Meyer Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, 1204–1571, 4vols. (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1976), vol. 2, 67–91.

51. See n. 9 above.

52. De Benedictis, “Sebastiano Vannini,” 978–79. Vannini’s source, andlikely that of the author of the comment on the Cassiano drawing aswell, was Alfonso Chacon, Vitae et res gestae pontificvm Romanorvm etS.R.E. cardinalivm ab initio nascentis Ecclesiae, vsque ad Vrbanvm VIII. pont.max. (Rome: Typis Vaticanis, 1630), 1144, who paraphrases (with onemisreading) much of Paolo dello Mastro’s account.

53. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican City, vat. lat. 1145. For a de-scription of the manuscript and earlier biliography, see Giovanni Mo-rello and Silvia Maddalo, eds., Liturgia in figura: Codici liturgici rinasci-


mentali della Biblioteca apostolica vaticana (Vatican City: BibliotecaApostolica Vaticana, 1995), 121–26, cat. no. 14. My thanks to MariaSaffiotti Dale for suggesting I look at this publication. Coincidentally,Barozzi also happens to be the bishop who later employed Filarete torebuild the cathedral of Bergamo. See Graziella Colmuto Zanella, “Ilduomo filaretiano: Un progetto e la sua ‘fortuna,’ ” in Il duomo di Ber-gamo, ed. Bruno Cassinelli et al. (Bergamo: Bolis, 1991), 136–49.

54. For a description of these ceremonies, see Bernhard Schimmelpfennig,“Die Kronung des Papstes im Mittelalter dargestellt am Beispiel derKronung Pius II (3. 9. 1458),” Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischenArchiven und Bibliotheken 54 (1974): 192–270.

55. The illumination does not match the prescription given in the accom-panying text exactly, but many details are accurate. See Marc Dykmans,“D’Avignon a Rome: Martin V et le cortege apostolique,” Bulletin del’Institut Historique Belge de Rome 39 (1968): 291–93.

56. Schimmelpfennig, “Die Kronung des Papstes,” 246, discusses the ban-quet that took place after the coronation ceremonies.

57. Lazzaroni and Munoz, Filarete, 79 n. 4, “pio (�ı�) vi(num)”; King, “Fi-larete’s Portrait Signature,” 297 n. 7, “Pio(rum) Vi(rtus)”; Piola Caselli,“La ‘storietta’ del Filarete,” 237, “P(alaeologus) Io(hannes) Vi(ii).”

58. Winner, “Filarete tanzt mit seinen Schulern,” 276, also concluded thatthe inscription was the piper’s name, though he assumed it consistedof two abbreviated words and did not offer a solution.

59. Lazzaroni and Munoz, Filarete, 79: two dogs; Piola Caselli, “La ‘storietta’del Filarete,” 236: a piglet (“chiara allusione al lardo vergine di porcousato nella fonderia”) and a cat; Cannata, “Le placchette del Filarete,”50 n. 11: a pig and a cat; King, “Filarete’s Portrait Signature,” 297, “apig and another animal” (“underlying that this is something of adrolerie”); Cianfarini, Luoghi vaticani, 125, and idem, “Iconografia esignificati,” 114: a wolf and a cat (symbolizing the spheres of the West-ern and Eastern churches respectively); King, “Italian Self-Portraits,”269, and Thielemann, “Altes und neues Rom,” 36: a piglet and a lamb(to be roasted for the celebration feast); Parlato, “Filarete a Roma,”311: a dog or lamb and a pig; and Petrucci, in L’uomo del Rinascimento,109, cat. no. 39: a pig and a lion cub (the first symbolizing gluttonyand lechery, the second, moral fortitude).

60. Cianfarini, Luoghi vaticani, 125, and idem, “Iconografia e significati,”114, suggest that the doorways represent Rome and Constantinople;Winner, “Filarete tanzt mit seinen Schulern,” 279, wonders whether theone on the left could represent the gate of heaven.

61. The orthogonals of the doorways do not converge precisely at a singlepoint, but their recession in space is convincing nonetheless.

62. For the scholarship on the doors, see the recent overviews provided byBeltramini, “Porta (1433–1445),” 480–87; and Parlato, “Filarete aRoma,” 302–13.

63. Especially useful in determining the boundaries between the panels asoriginally cast (indicated in Figs. 20, 21) are the photographs takenduring the restoration of the doors in 1962 in the Archivio Fotograficoof the Musei Vaticani.

64. Lazzaroni and Munoz, Filarete, 119–20; and Beltramini, “Porta (1433–1445),” 482.

65. Grimaldi, Descrizione della basilica, 386.

66. The date stamped on the left doorway in the relief, July 31, 1445, isonly two weeks before the day on which the doors were installed at St.Peter’s, August 14 (see n. 7 above). The bracket must have been begunless than a year before, since, as we have seen, the camel depicted inthe relief arrived in Rome in the fall of 1444. The basic similarity informat between the Eugenius reliefs and the scene on the back of thedoors was noted in passing by Lorenzo Gnocchi, “La porta del Filareteper Eugenio IV,” Artista, 1999, 39.

67. For example, Vespasiano da Bisticci, Le vite, ed. Aulo Greco, 2 vols.(Florence: Instituto Nazionale di Studi di Rinascimento, 1970–77), vol.1, 19; and Christopher S. Celenza, Renaissance Humanism and the PapalCuria: Lapo da Castiglionchio the Younger’s “De curiae commodis” (Ann Ar-bor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 170–73.

68. Cf. Gnocchi, “La porta,” 39–40, who compares the jovial nature of therelief to Poggio Bracciolini’s Facetiae, a collection of humorous and of-ten bawdy, satirical short tales, and suggests that the wine bearer couldbe a parody of a clergyman.

69. Spencer, “Filarete’s Bronze Doors,” 39, elaborated by Parlato, “Filaretea Roma,” 311.

70. King, “Filarete’s Portrait Signature,” 297, distinguishes the first two as-sistants “as a little older and as wearing stiffer, more elaborate hats.”

71. Spencer, “Filarete’s Bronze Doors,” 39.

72. First identified by Tschudi, “Filaretes Mitarbeiter,” 291–94. Varrone(1420–after 1457) remained in Rome after Filarete’s departure and isdocumented working on various papal projects. See Francesco Quinte-rio, “Varrone d’Angolo di Belferdino (detto Varro o Verrone), mar-

moraro,” in Maestri fiorentini nei cantieri romani del Quattrocento, ed. SilviaDanesi Squarzina (Rome: Officina Edizioni, 1989), 111–15; and Wald-man, “Commemorative Medal,” 105–16. Pasquino da Montepulciano(ca. 1425–1485) is documented working in Florence, Urbino, andPrato. See Antonio Natali, “Pasquino (di Matteo) da Montepulciano,”in The Dictionary of Art, ed. Jane Turner, 34 vols. (New York: Grove’sDictionaries, 1996), vol. 24, 232.

73. Jennifer Nevile, The Eloquent Body: Dance and Humanist Culture in Fif-teenth-Century Italy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), 44–46, 49–52; and idem, “Dance and Society in Quattrocento Italy,” inDance, Spectacle, and the Body Politick, 1250–1750 (Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press, 2008), 80–93.

74. Nothing similar appears among the artists’ signatures collected andanalyzed by Albert Dietl, Die Sprache der Signatur: Die MittelalterlichenKunstlerinschriften Italiens, 4 vols. (Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2009);and David Boffa, “Artistic Identity Set in Stone: Italian Sculptors’ Signa-tures, c. 1250–1550” (PhD diss., Rutgers, the State University of NewJersey, 2011).

75. For example, British Museum, London, R.9525; Harold Mattingly, Coinsof the Roman Empire in the British Museum, 6 vols., 2nd ed. (London: Brit-ish Museum Publications, 1968–76), vol. 3, 446, no. 1372.

76. George Francis Hill, A Corpus of Italian Medals of the Renaissance beforeCellini, 2 vols. (London: British Museum, 1930), no. 785.

77. Petrus Berchorius, Dictionarii seu repertorii moralis, 3 vols. (Venice: apudhaeredem Hieronymi Scoti, 1574–75), vol. 2, 197. My thanks to one ofthe anonymous readers for The Art Bulletin for alerting me to thissource.

78. C. Stephen Jaeger, The Origins of Courtliness: Civilizing Trends and theFormation of Courtly Ideals, 939–1210 (Philadelphia: University of Penn-sylvania Press, 1985), 168–73; and Joanna Woods-Marsden, The Gonzagaof Mantua and Pisanello’s Arthurian Frescoes (Princeton: Princeton Univer-sity Press, 1988), 156–57.

79. The relevant section of the poem is transcribed and translated in Nev-ile, The Eloquent Body, 141–57: “Festanti, allegri & cholla faccia lieta”(145), “ylar, giubilli & pien di festa & risa” (146), and “sı giuliach’alchuna [festa] ne fu mai simile a questa” (157). English transla-tions are from Nevile with one modification.

80. For Castiglione’s notion of sprezzatura, see Harry Berger, The Absence ofGrace: Sprezzatura and Suspicion in Two Renaissance Courtesy Books (Stan-ford: Stanford University Press, 2000), chap. 1, reprinted in BaldassarreCastiglione, The Book of the Courtier: The Singleton Translation and an Au-thoritative Text Criticism, ed. Daniel Javitch (New York: W. W. Norton,2002), 295–307.

81. Martin Warnke, The Court Artist: On the Ancestry of the Modern Artist,trans. David McLintock (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1993), 34.

82. Dominique Cordellier, ed., “Documenti e fonti su Pisanello (1395–1581circa),” Verona Illustrata 8 (1988): 48–50, doc. 15, 151–53, doc. 68. Forthe title familiaris, see Warnke, The Court Artist, 114–16.

83. Michael Baxandall, Giotto and the Orators: Humanist Observers of Paintingin Italy and the Discovery of Pictorial Composition, 1350–1450 (Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1971), 91.

84. Joanna Woods-Marsden, “Pisanello et le moi: La naissance del’autoportrait autonome,” in Pisanello: Actes du colloque organise au Museedu Louvre par le Service culturel, les 26, 27, et 28 juin 1996, ed. Domi-nique Cordellier and Bernadette Py, 2 vols. (Paris: DocumentationFrancaise, 1998), vol. 1, 263–95.

85. The literature is vast. For a recent discussion with earlier bibliography,see Anthony Grafton, Leon Battista Alberti: Master Builder of the ItalianRenaissance (New York: Hill and Wang, 2000), 111–49, esp. 116, 138.

86. Leon Battista Alberti, On Painting and On Sculpture: The Latin Texts of DePictura and De Statua, trans. and ed. Cecil Grayson (London: Phaidon,1972), 66–67.

87. For a summary of the scholarship on Alberti’s plaquette, see EleonoraLuciano, in The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini, ed. KeithChristiansen and Stefan Weppelmann, exh. cat. (New York: Metropoli-tan Museum of Art, 2011), 190–92, cat. no. 60; and Woods-Marsden,Renaissance Self-Portraiture, 71–77.

88. For the passages by Biondo and Vegio praising the doors, see J. M.Huskinson, “The Crucifixion of St. Peter: A Fifteenth-Century Topo-graphical Problem,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 32(1969): 158–60. For the tomb for Cardinal Martinez de Chavez, whichwas completed by Isaia da Pisa after Filarete was forced to abandon theproject, see Michael Kuhlenthal, “Zwei Grabmaler des fruhen Quattro-cento in Rom: Kardinal Martinez de Chiavez und Papst Eugen IV,”Romisches Jahrbuch fur Kunstgeschichte 16 (1976): 17–55.

89. Pietro Egidi, ed., Necrologi e libri affini della Provincia romana, 2 vols.(Rome: Forzani e c., Tipografi del Senato, 1908–14), vol. 2, 108.


90. Ibid., vol. 2, 118.

91. Lazzaroni and Munoz, Filarete, 164 n. 1. Alternatively, it is possible thatFilarete may have called himself a painter in the context of the courteven though he worked as a sculptor. Warnke, The Court Artist, 189,notes a number of cases in which sculptors are identified as painters atcourts in the sixteenth century. In Filarete’s time, Pisanello signed hismedals “pittore,” but he, of course, was actually a painter. However,Filarete’s head assistant, Varrone, also signed his Claudius medal with“pittore,” but is not known ever to have worked as such (see n. 37above).

92. No painter by this name appears, for example, in the many archivalreferences to artists published by Anna Maria Corbo, I mestieri nella vitaquotidiana alla corte di Nicolo V (1447–1455) (Rome: Edilazio, 1998); andidem, Artisti e artigiani in Roma.

93. Lazzaroni and Munoz, Filarete, 148; Filarete, Trattato, vol. 1, 103–4, vol.2, 690–91; and idem, Treatise, vol. 1, 44, 322.

94. Filarete, Trattato, vol. 2, 428–29; and idem, Treatise, vol. 1, 198–99.

95. Filarete, Trattato, vol. 1, 44–46, vol. 2, 430–31, 557; and idem, Treatise,vol. 1, 18–19, 199–200, 257. In Filarete’s narrative, this ideal treatmentof the architect is not always experienced by the protagonist directlybut is often documented in “the golden book,” an account he finds ofthe building activities of an ancient king and architect.

96. On the aspirations expressed by Filarete in the treatise, see also An-dreas Tonnesmann, “Filarete im Dialog: Der Architekt, der Furst unddie Macht,” in Dialog und Gesprachskultur in der Renaissance, ed. BodoGuthmuller and Wolfgang G. Muller (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz in Kom-mission, 2004), 153–63.

97. For the epithet, see n. 17 above; for the self-portrait medal, see Woods-Marsden, Renaissance Self-Portraiture, 79–84; Martin Warnke, “Filaretes Selb-stbildnisse: Das geschenkte Selbst,” in Kunstler uber sich in seinem Werk, ed.Matthias Winner (Weinheim: VCH, Acta Humaniora, 1992), 101–12; andEnrico Parlato, in Cavallaro and Parlato, Da Pisanello, 133–34, cat. no. 42.


Filarete's Hilaritas: Claiming Authorship and Status on the Doors of St. Peter's

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