Madonna and Child with Saint Paul, Saint Agnes and the Cassotti donors is a sumptuous mass of brilliant colour and glorious fabrics. The painting is structured by a series of echoes and symmetries, with the Virgin Mary and her Son forming the apex of a triangle with the saints below. The Christ Child is surrounded and framed by the other figures; but only the saints—depicted without attributes—look directly at him. The gentle incline of the Madonna’s head is repeated by the Child as he blesses Saint Paul, and is echoed in the angle of Saint Agnes’ arm. The female patron’s head is also bowed, contrasting with her spouse who looks straight at the viewer. The gold of her capigliara (an elaborately decorated hairpiece) is reprised in embroidered edgings, the hem of the Virgin’s diaphanous veils, the cushion and haloes. The donors’ sombre dress accentuates the richness elsewhere. It comes as no surprise, then, to discover the Cassotti business was in textiles.

A more complete title for this painting gives unusual prominence to the patrons: Virgin and Child with Saints Paul and Agnes, and the donors Paolo and Agnese Cassotti. Andrea Previtali follows many of the standard forms for a Holy Conversation (the Madonna and Child with attendant saints), but departs from convention in the way he portrays the individuals who commissioned the work. Traditionally donors ev[1]oked their name saints as intermediaries. In recognition of their earth-bound status and relative unimportance, they were often shown kneeling below, smaller than the divine figures. But here, neither Cassotti pays attention to the Madonna and Child. As Andrea Bayer points out, it is almost as if the saints are paying tribute to the donors.[2]

Paolo Cassotti, a prominent merchant, was one of the richest men in Bergamo. Agnese Avinatri, his second wife whom he married in 1517, was from a noble family. Like many other Bergamese, the Cassotti wealth came from wool and textile production; the family’s trading interests stretched throughout Italy and Egypt. Paolo, his brother and their cousins built houses on the via Pignolo, the main entrance to the city from Venice. The Cassottis were also key patrons of the arts, contributing to the decoration of the church of Santo Spirito, Bergamo, and ordering at least eight works from Lorenzo Lotto.[3] Indeed Previtali was probably drawn back to Bergamo from Venice by commissions from the Cassottis.3 The paintingis thus a powerful statement on the status of the rising Italian middle class.

Lucina Ward

[1] Villa Zogna, Paolo’s country villa designed by Pietro Isabello, included a fresco cycle commissioned from Previtali in 1512; these depictions of Bergamo’s daily life are now held by the Suardi family. Michelle DiMarzo,‘With a merchant’s eye: The mecenatismo of Paolo Cassotti’, unpublished MA thesis, Temple University, Philadelphia, 2010, see pp. 1–60. Previtali also painted a Transfigurationfor Paolo’s chapel in Santa Maria delle Grazie, and an altarpiece in Santo Spirito.

[2] Andrea Bayer, ‘Bergamo and Brescia’, in Peter Humfrey (ed.), Venice and the Veneto, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 285–326.

[3] Lorenzo Lotto (c.1480–1556/1557).