Note 19 — Chapter II · SIENA AND THE CONTINUING OF THE MEDIÆVAL STYLE
Reading edition
The contract is worth quoting in part from G. Fontana, Due documenti inediti riguardanti Cimabue, Pisa, 1878; it is reprinted in Strzygowski, Cimabue und Rom, Wien, 1888. The papers were recovered from a grocer who was about to use them for wrappers.
“Which picture of the Majesty of Divine and Blessed Virgin Mary and of the Apostles and other saints is to be made in columns and in the predella and [main] spaces of the picture good and pure florin gold shall be used; the other pictures which are to be made in the aforesaid panel above the columns in tabernacles, gables, and frames shall be made ... of good silver gilt.”
The picture apparently was a polyptych of three, five, or seven panels with columns and round arches, with an upper order of gables and tabernacles. It seems to have been the first well-peopled Madonna in Majesty, and it probably served as Duccio’s exemplar. Cimabue died before finishing it, but since in Nov. 1302 he received a large installment of 40 Pisan lire, he must at least have fully drawn the composition on the panel.