Cennino Cennini

Cennino Cennini (* 1370 in Colle di Val d' Elsa, Florence, † 1440 in Florence; d' Andrea Cennini also Cennino ) was an Italian painter.

Famous and important but until today he is as the author of a manual on the painting, the Libro dell'Arte della o trattato pittura. This written around 1400, spread first by manual transcripts was the most influential textbook on the painting of the late Middle Ages. Today, it is of immense cultural and historical and art-historical importance.

The technical writer

Even if the work Mappae clavicle was from about the 9th century and 12th century the work of the monk and goldsmith Theophilus Presbyter De Artibus Diversibus about painting, stained glass windows and the goldsmith's art, so is Cenninis work the first book, in which a professional artist in detail the artistic skills of the craft of painting wrote.

Cennini in the tradition, which goes back to Giotto di Bondone in the late 13th century. Giotto, who is considered by many art historians to be the founder of Renaissance painting in Italy, had learned all the technical skills at his master Cimabue, which he had learned from Greek icon painters, but they extended to then-radical ideas about the mix of colors and storytelling with pictures. Gaddo Gaddi, who had worked closely with Giotto, taught his son Taddeo Gaddi the art, in turn transmitted it to his son Agnolo Gaddi, in whose workshop Cennini learned 12 years and worked.

The biography of Agnolo Gaddi, the taskmaster Cenninis, by the painter, builder and Kunsthistoriograph Giorgio Vasari is also the most important, but scarce source via Cenninis life (besides his own book ). He then received his first painting lessons from his father, later he was a member of the workshop of Gaddi, where he learned the technique of painting grotteschi.

A manuscript of this work was discovered in the early 18th century in the Vatican Library, 1821 printed in Italy, 1844 translated by Marry Merrifield into English, translated into French in 1858 and 1871 by Albert Ilg into German. The book was published in German in Vienna in 1871. The discovered in the Vatican manuscript was provided in the postscript with the date July 31, 1437 and there contained the remark " ex Stincarum, ecc ," a Latinized name of the prison in Florence. The prison Le Stinche in Florence was built in 1297-1304. With a " stinker " as Victoria Finlay explained in The Secret of the colors, the matter has not begun. The name derives from a castle in Tuscany between Florence and Siena, the " Castello delle Stinche " which was once owned by the Cavalcanti family. The Cavalcanti were followers of the Ghibellines, the party that violated " the fatherland " rose - and lost. In August 1304 was the Castello delle Stinche of Ruggeri di Dovadola Condottiere of the Florentines besieged, after 20 days gave the inhabitants and were transferred as prisoners to Florence. In the new dungeon on an island in the Arno, called " la Ghibellina ", which was named soon after its first " guests" Stinche. From Castello delle Stinche, 1452 destroyed more or again, we now know not even exactly where it was located, whether in Stinche di Sopra or Stinche di Sotto. From the leftover after the destruction of the castle building materials houses were built. This detention of a literate prisoners led art historians to believe at first, Cennini himself had been sitting in jail and how Marco Polo used the time for writing the work.

In addition to basic designs for painting, the book contains a multitude of manual descriptions, recipes for the manufacture of paints, information on raw materials, such as that the masters of the 13th and 14th centuries were to want to paint on wood panels fig wood well suited to the priming canvases, basic techniques about how to copy using transparent homemade, namely dünngeschabtem and soaked with linseed oil goat parchment a master drawing, how to gold-plated tin, to refresh old paintings, made from cheese or lime glues manufactures and green color with the help of wine vinegar aufbessert.

This wealth of knowledge and techniques opened up again only the forgotten craft of painting this time. In addition to a Bible of art historians and conservators of the book has also become the bible of art forger. Thus accesses the known art forger Eric Hebborn in his book The Art Forger 's Handbook back to many recipes Cenninis.

The painter

Documented dive Cennini in 1388 for the first time as a painter of frescoes on the life of St. Stephen in the church of San Lucchese in Poggibonsi. He apparently brought to a longer time in Padua, where he was married to Donna Ricca from Cittadella. What is certain is that he was staying there in 1398 in the district of San Pietro.