Virgin of sorrows

There are not only precious Oriental silks[1], but also mediaeval Tuscan paintings showing fabrics decorated with inscriptions in Arabic script[2].  Textiles adorned with epigraphic friezes appeared from 1270-1280 onwards in the work of Cimabue[3], Deodato Orlandi[4] and in the “Virgin Enthroned” by Guido da Siena[5], and became particularly widespread in the fourteenth century. They were then reproduced by many famous painters of the time such as Giotto, the Lorenzetti, Bernardo Daddi, Barna da Siena, Duccio di Buoninsegna, Simone Martini. In the fifteenth century, though still featured in works by Fra Angelico, Paolo Uccello[6], Gentile da Fabriano and Pinturicchio, they became rarer, before their most characteristic forms disappeared at the end of the century.

The realistic nature of these representations is such that it is possible to identify the models from among Islamic fabrics dating from around the same period. These textiles of wool and linen or of silk have a characteristic epigraphic border in Kufic or cursive script, of which the style[7] is sometimes faithfully reproduced, even if the whole sequence of letters is never legible. From written evidence, we know that the surviving originals were of Egyptian[8], Spanish[9] and Iranian[10] fabrication. Similarities with Egyptian cloths are particularly striking : woollen and linen furnishing fabrics from the ninth- tenht century, a set of woollen and linen shawls from Fayoum, produced right up to the twelfth - thirteenth century, tirâz turbans, linen and silk cloths from the Fatimid period (eleventh -twelfth century) and certain printed cotton fabrics common in Mamluk Egypt (fourteenth -fifteenth century), probably produced in India for exportation.

Like their original models, the numerous textiles reproduced by Tuscan painters can be divided into two main groups. The placing of the epigraphic frieze upwards or crossways on the fabric requires different weaving techniques. In the first case, the fabrics, small or medium-sized, were generally used for clothing accessories (caps, shawls, scarves, belts, handkerchiefs), for domestic items (tablecloths, hand-towels, cushions etc.), liturgical items (altar cloths, pallia, small ceremonial cloths) and funeral use (winding-sheets), with a predominance of simple caps in the form of veils for the Virgins and loincloths for the Christs. In the second group, we find larger fabrics : ample and luxurious clothing, bed-covers and wall-hangings, with a large frieze in the centre or a frieze at each end. All these can be seen in the miniature Islamic world represented around that time[11], proof too of their wide circulation.

The manners and chronology of these representations in Tuscan paintings of the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries mirror the commercial relations between Tuscan cities and the centres of production of the Islamic textiles. The earliest pictorial evidence is focused in the area of Pisa just after the middle of the thirteenth century, at a time when Pisa was playing an essential role in commercial ties[12] with the Islamic countries. During the fourteenth century Florence and Siena came to the fore[13] and it was painters associated with those two cities who represented the fabrics the most. The painting of these textiles disappeared in the course of the following century, when demand for the luxury fabrics of Venice and Florence grew ever greater.

[2] Some examples can be found in Soulier 1924a, p. 212-217 and 1924b.

[3] By Cimabue, apart from the object here described, one can see the drapes on the throne in the Maestà painted for the Church of S. Francesco da Pisa (1268-70), today in the Louvre, and in that kept in the Uffizi in Florence.

[4] Frescoes in the Church of S. Pietro in Grado, 1275.

[5] V. 1280, Siena, Palazzo Pubblico.

[6] Cf. the Nativity in the frescoes he did in 1440 in Prato Cathedral.

[7]They are not only pseudo-epigraphic characters, widely used in the Islamic world,but also inscriptions, which, while remaining illegible, resemble their Arabic prototypesvery closely in their lettering and distribution, but also in the cartouches containing them.

[8]Linen cloth with epigraphic borders, silk, Berlin, State Museums, Islamic collection, textile collection, Schloss Museum. 

[9] E.g. the fragment in the Musée national du Moyen Age in Paris, inv. CL.21.876.

[10] E.g. the fragment in the Musée national du Moyen Age in Paris, inv. CL.21.876.

[11] For different examples of the Iraki school of the 13th century, cf Ettinghausen 1977,  ill. p. 101, 106-107, 111,113, 114, 116; for the various uses of these fabrics in the Islamic world cf also Tissus d’Egypte, 1993, p. 22-34.

[12] Pisa established commercial links with both Spain and Egypt from the first half of the 12th and at the beginning of the 13th centuries. It also took a substantial rolein commerce with the Levant.

[13] Between the end of the 13th and first half of the 14th centuries, Florence and Siena participated actively in trade with Persia.  It was Florence specifically which tookthe place of Pisa, the victim of unfavourable political events, in the principal markets of the Levant, the Maghreb, Spain and Byzantium.