in Arezzo, in which everything, from the subject to the materials and the
structure, is precisely detailed. Other documents give us a brilliant, anec-
dotal immediacy, such as the financial accounts for Jacopo di Cione’s San
Pier Maggiore altarpiece (National Gallery, London) of 1370–71, in which
the prices for the nails, eggs, pots, pigments, and gold are listed individu-
ally. This documentation even includes an entry that notes the charge for
“taking and fetching the altarpiece to and from Santa Maria Nuova when
it has been varnished.” This record provides one of the few references in
early Italian sources to the varnishing of painted altarpieces.
One of the most evocative of all documentary discoveries
occurred in 1968, when some accounts were found in the state archive in
Florence that provided information about the arrival in Florence of Hugo
van der Goes’s Portinari Altarpiece, the date of which had never been
known for certain. These accounts detail the transport of the triptych by
sea from Bruges via Sicily to Pisa, and then along the Arno to Florence,
where it arrived at the San Frediano Gate on 28 May 1483. The documen-
tation provides a vivid impression of the sheer size of the triptych and the
physical difficulty of handling it: sixteen men were required to move it to
its destination on the high altar ofthe Church of Sant’Egidio in the hospi-
tal of Santa Maria Nuova, where it was regarded as a marvel by all who
sawit (it is now in the Uffizi). There is, incidentally, a technical curiosity
about the portrait ofthe donor Tommaso Portinari on the left wing of
the altarpiece. X rays reveal that it was painted separately on a sheet of
tinfoil or parchment, which was then glued to the panel. Portinari left the
Netherlands for Italy in 1477, before van der Goes had begun the wings of
the triptych; apparently van der Goes insisted on painting a live study of
his patron before Portinari’s departure for Italy—and then incorporated
the portrait into the triptych later.
Most documents are either of a legalistic or financial nature, or
consist of practical treatises on the procedures of painting. Painting on
wood at this period was the norm; there was little choice available. When
wood as a material is mentioned at all, it is simply in terms of how to pre-
pare it for painting. These documents occasionally mention the problems
ofwood—such as moisture, knots, and protruding nails—but the charac-
ter of wood is seldom mentioned. Cennino Cennini is almost unique
in referring specifically to different woods for different purposes. He
recorded the use of poplar, linden, and willow for ancone or panels; box-
wood for little drawing panels; maple or chestnut for brush handles; birch
for drawing styluses; and nut, pear, or plum wood for boards on which to
cut metal foil.
In general, though, available documentation provides meager
information about painters’ views of the wide variety of woods used for
painting supports, or their attitudes toward the material qualities they
exploited in making their art. Clearly, wood fulfilled many of the painters’
requirements through its versatility as a medium—but was it the servant
or the master of those who used it?
Such documentation does little to solve one of the recurring para-
doxes of the history ofpainting materials: Did painters simply choose
materials that fitted their perceived objectives, or did the nature of the
materials themselves dictate the directions in which works of art devel-
oped? The safe answer suggests that the two notions are inextricably inter-
dependent, although there are certainly moments in the history of art
when the emergence or reassessment of materials seems to have deter-xvi Bomford