sehepunkte 23 (2023), Nr. 7/8

Giampaolo Distefano: Esmaltis viridibus

Giampaolo Distefano's thorough contribution to the history of medieval enamels brings together a wealth of information in one, lavishly illustrated, handheld volume. Images, catalogue information, as well as a recension of primary source material are assembled to venture an answer to the question that has occupied specialists of the Gothic sumptuary arts for over a century: what are the origins and dissemination of émail de plique in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries? That is the revival of cloisonné enamels, specifically translucent and mostly green (the esmaltis viridibus of the title), ornamented with trefoils, quatrefoils, circles, and other miniature motifs. The topic is a timely one, as the origins of this technique are bound up with issues like political self-fashioning, technological advancement, and inter-regional exchange. The trajectory of the de plique enamels furthermore makes an important contribution to the history of taste, following a technique's popularization and commercialization, from exclusive royal workshops to widely available buttons for bourgeois embroidery.

Distefano's book is organized in three main sections, and flipping between them is the most rewarding way to engage with the volume. First is the narrative text, composed of seven chapters plus an introduction and conclusion. Second, a catalogue of extant de plique enamels, abundantly illustrated, offering provenance information, technical data, and bibliography on the corpus. Third is a registry of primary textual sources on de plique enamels, separated into first sacred and then secular inventories, closing with a variety of documents concerning goldsmiths and the commercial circulation of enamels. This compendium furnishes much of the interesting new material that Distefano includes in his analysis, and the reader wishes that the typeface here was not so small. It is not to be overlooked. An impressively multilingual bibliography and an index of names and places (but not keywords or themes) closes the volume.

Growing from the author's doctoral dissertation, the discursive text begins with the historiography, the erroneous importance placed on the named goldsmith Guillaume Julien (d. ca. 1316) in the early scholarship, and an investigation of the origins of the term de plique in the source material. On this it is important to note that de plique (from plico, plicere, to fold, bend, or flex) [1] refers to the wrought golden wires which are folded to create the cells or cloisons into which the powdered glass is placed before firing. The textual sources thereby do not help distinguish between the vast variety of cloisonné enamels produced across Western Eurasia in the period 1000-1400 - Byzantine, Fatimid, Sicilian, Carolingian, Ottonian, for example - and the new technique that appeared in the latter half of the thirteenth century in Paris that employed translucent enamel seeded with floriate or geometric forms. The papal inventories of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century focus not on the cloisonné technique but instead on the translucent green which becomes prototypical of Parisian production, describing dozens of pieces of goldsmiths work as with green enamels (cum esmaltis viridibus) some also naming the opaque motifs (ad rosas or ad stellas).

In terms of the argument, Distefano makes the most significant contributions in Chapters 2 and 3. Here he argues cogently, with graceful references to the contributions of his interlocutors such as Marie-Madeleine Gauthier and Danielle Gaborit-Chopin, that the trajectory which gave raise to Parisian de plique enamels begins in the ateliers of the Rhine-Meuse region around the year 1200. Distefano enumerates a number of important examples where goldsmiths from the region experiment with incorporating cloisonné techniques into their champlevé repertoire: his examination of the Berlin-London altar cross, where the ornamental sections are incised into the same plaques as the figurative scenes, is especially convincing, removing all fear of nineteenth-century reorganizations. [2] While goldsmiths within the French kingdom began tentatively deploying cloisonné in other contexts, Distefano pinpoints the commissions of King Philippe Auguste for the Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis as the arena in which cloisonné work was transplanted to the capital. Although the majority of those works were melted during the Revolution, the exceptional survival of the Reims coronation chalice offers invaluable evidence for the mixed technique of champlevé and cloisonné in Paris in the first half of the thirteenth century, as well as the mixture of translucent and opaque glass which is one of the key characteristics of later de plique enamels.

In contrast to the earlier scholarship which figured the era of Philippe le Bel (1285-1314) as the high point of de plique enamel, tied to the career of the named goldsmith Guillaume Julien, Distefano pushes the flourishing earlier, to the reign of Louis IX (1226-1270). A fascinating piece of evidence are two illuminated manuscripts from Cambrai which emulate de plique enamels in the display initials; remarkably, these are dated to 1266 by a colophon, and so Distefano argues they demonstrate the circulation and appreciation for Parisian de plique enamels already by mid-century. [3] A key object is the extraordinary Crucifixion enamel in the Bibliothèque nationale's Cabinet des médailles (inv. 325) - sadly not included in the new galleries opened in 2022. Exceptional in being figurative [4], the Crucifixion plaque was accessioned together with works from the Sainte-Chapelle and Saint-Denis during the French Revolution. Frustratingly, it has not hitherto been identified with any of the objects described in the historic inventories from those foundations. Distefano brings our attention to "la belle pareure de toalle" which is ornamented with large figurative gold enamels ("magnis esmaildis aureis ad ymagines") together with pearls, sapphires, and other gems, mentioned already in the first inventory of the Sainte-Chapelle in 1268-1279. [5] It is an association which I find compelling, though it cannot be absolutely conclusive. And yet Distefano backs away from the evidence, and argues for a 1275-1300 date for the enamel, based on comparisons with sources from the Holy Roman Empire. However, the corpulent body of Christ on the Cross resonates particularly well with the depiction of the Crucifixion on the First Evangeliary of the Sainte-Chapelle (before 1248), suggesting an earlier date preceding the inventory. [6] In any case, the bountiful vine motif that fills the background of the enamel offers an important precedent for the naturalistic foliate forms that come to dominate the de plique enamels ca. 1300, rather than the symmetrical geometrical configurations that Distefano takes as characteristic of early production of the ornamental de plique enamels.

Later chapters move beyond the French kingdom to deal with contacts with the Italian peninsula. Chapter 5, entitled "Hypotheses on origins: Byzantium, Sicily and Venice," surveys the extant evidence for cloisonné enamels in those regions before the thirteenth century, all named in previous literature as being the inspiration for the development of the de plique genre. While Distefano brings some interesting pieces to the discussion - the mitre of Linköping now in Stockholm was a piece unknown to this reader - there is little proof that any of these artistic arenas had an impact on the development of de plique enamels laid out in previous chapters, as Distefano himself concludes. Chapter 6, "From France to Italy" is more convincing, with clear social ties not only between the Parisian goldsmiths who accompanied the Angevin court to Naples, but also with French ties to the papal curia and the arrival of the Francophile Aragonese after the Sicilian Vespers.

Priced at an extremely reasonable 35€, Distefano's book should find a place on every medieval art historian's shelf. It is the definitive word for a generation on these fascinating enamels and offers scholars much food for thought regarding questions of style, interregional court relations, and the internal rhythms of the sumptuary arts.

Notes:

[1] Camille Enlart: "L'émaillerie cloisonnée à Paris sous Philippe le Bel et le maître Guillaume Julien", in: Monuments et mémoires de la Fondation Eugène Piot 29 (1927-1928), 1-97. Note that confusion about this term still circulates: de plique is not an error for appliqué, referring to an applied element.

[2] Berlin, Kunstgewerbemuseum, inv. O-1973, 187-189, and London, British Museum, inv. 1856,0718.1.

[3] Cambrai, Bibliothèque municipale, mss 189 and 190. See Ellen Judith Beer: "Das Scriptorium des Johannes Philomena und seine Illuminatoren. Zur Buchmalerei in der Region Arras-Cambrai, 1250 bis 1274", in; Scriptorium 23 (1969), 24-38. The images of the initials are the only ones in the volume where I would complain of the quality.

[4] Distefano gives the four avian plaques today on a box in the Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala, Siena (cat. 43) to Venice or Paris in the mid-fourteenth century because of the use of colourless glass; yet the Crucifixion plaque (as well as the reliquary of the Holy Blood in Boulogne-sur-Mer, cat. 14) makes excellent use of colourless glass already at an earlier date.

[5] Alexandre Vidier: Le Trésor de La Sainte-Chapelle: Inventaires et Documents, Paris 1911, p. 3, no. 24 "Item deux petiz chandelliers et la belle pareure de toalle," described with further detail in 1341 (p. 21, no. 106).

[6] Paris, BNF MS latin 8892. Iconographic details that Distefano cites, like the mantels drawn up to the faces of Mary and John, also have precedents in Parisian works from the mid-thirteenth century.