Tátrai Vilmos szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 95. (Budapest, 2001)
FRANKLIN, DAVID: Giorgio Vasari's Marriage Feast at Cana in Budapest
for dating all of the paintings relating to this project (not just the Budapest one) are much wider than previously considered (see the Appendix). 7 Another unpublished document of 28th September 1569 which records Vasari's final payment of about nineteen florins for unspecified painting done on behalf of San Pietro in Perugia for the nuns, is not relevant for the three vast refectory paintings, as we know from his biography that these were personally installed by the painter in 1566, but may have some relation to the other two paintings done for the Benedictines, mentioned only in the ricordanze, presumably the Re leas e of Saint Peter, which was explicitly produced for the Benedictine monache} The documented chronology leaves little doubt that this main work was completed, not in situ in Perugia, but in Florence, during a period when Vasari was occupied with the vast decorations in the Palazzo della Signoria for Duke Cosimo de' Medici. So despite the regional destination of the paintings, the commission must be understood in an exclusively Florentine context in which Vasari was competing rather than an Umbrian one, not least because the Badia in Florence was the intermediary for the contract. One payment makes reference to the commission having come from the Abbot of San Pietro in Perugia, but also, significantly, mentions the influential prior of the Innocenti hospital in Florence, Vincenzo Borghini, who also happened to be a Benedictine monk in the Badia Fiorentina. It is clear from the ledger entries that the Hospital effectively acted as Vasari 's bank for the Perugian project. 9 The potential significance of this documentary citation will be returned to in the context of the patronage of the Budapest picture. In addition to the Marriage Feast at Cana, a panel of the same reduced dimensions (40 x 29 cms.) related to the painting of Prophet Elisha sweeting the pottage from the Perugia commission survives in the Uffizi (fig. 57). 10 It is logical to assume that there also once existed a smaller treatment of the narrative of Saint Benedict predicting the arrival of two hundred measures of flour. But what is the status of these supplementary paintings? Are they painted sketches ("modelli") analogous to drawings produced during the process of creating the larger originals, or are they replicas produced in Vasari's workshop after, or possibly during the production of the principal commission for 7 The earlier dating of the initiation to this project in 1564 is supported by a document paraphrased (without providing a source) by Montanari, M., Mille Anni della Chiesa di S. Pietro in Perugia e del suo patrimonio, Foligno 1966, p. 239. In that year a woodworker was ordered to undertake a wooden frame for the refectory. 8 Florence, Archivio di Stato, Corporazioni Religiose Soppresse dal Govemo Francosé, Convento 78, Monasterio della Badia di Firenze, n. 12, Debitori e Creditori, fol. 64 verso: "1569, Mercoledi a di 28 [detto] Settembre / Al Monasterio di San Pietro di Perugia fiorini dicianove et lire 2 piccoli et per lui a maestro Giorgio Vasari per resto di pagamento della pittura fatta per il monasterio et monache di spera Dio, porto contanti maestro Cesare dipintore, a libro a carte 111 — fiorini 19 lire 2." 9 Richard Reed has kindly pointed out to me that the payments published here in the appendix are repeated in Florence, Archivio dell'Ospedale degli Innocenti, CXX, no. 18. Debitori e Creditori, 1564-74, fols. 47, 113, 159. 10 See Berti, L. et al., Gli Uffizi. Catalogo Generale, Florence 1979, p. 581, PI 853. The Florence painting has no recorded provenance prior to the eighteenth century when it is recorded in the Palazzo Pitti. S4
