1 - Workshop Training and Neighbourhood Networking

Summary

Abstract: This chapter considers Francesco di Bartolomeo Alfei's family and his early access to officials in central government through the office of the Biccherna (chancellery of finance) and his father-in-law Meo di Lorenzo: contrasting the advantages of this with professional openings available through networking within his own artistic community, including receiving the commission from the Fraternita di Santa Maria degli Angeli e Compagnia di San Francesco. The workshop relationship established between the young artist, Giovanni di Paolo and Sano di Pietro in the ambit of the Biccherna, the Cathedral Works and the Franciscan conventual complex is outlined, along with an analysis of two panels associated with the church of San Francesco in Grosseto, variously attributed to Sano di Pietro, Francesco di Bartolomeo Alfei and the ‘Maestro dell’Osservanza’.

Keywords: neighbourhoods and networks; family relationships; Sano di Pietro; ‘Maestro dell’Osservanza’; government offices; the Biccherna.

Recent research has endowed Francesco di Bartolomeo Alfei with much greater stature and significance than that allotted to him by the nineteenth-century historians considered in Part One. This is in part due to the proposal put forward by Cecilia Alessi and Piero Scapecchi in 1985 that Francesco di Bartolomeo Alfei's name should be considered in the context of one of the most discussed and still challenging art historical debates concerning fifteenth-century Sienese art: authorship of the Birth of the Virgin altarpiece in Asciano. However, further findings by Maria Falcone switched art historical debate away from the spotlight on Francesco di Bartolomeo Alfei, concentrating attention instead on his contemporary (and possible master), Sano di Pietro. It seemed at that point that Francesco di Bartolomeo Alfei had been conclusively placed back into his somewhat insignificant box. That said, Alessi and Scapecchi's hypotheses concerning Francesco di Bartolomeo Alfei and the ‘Maestro dell’Osservanza’ threw up much information about the artist's earliest activities in Siena. Indeed, their research stimulated further enquiries about Francesco di Bartolomeo Alfei's training and the workshop relationships he appears to have had with Sano di Pietro before setting up his own independent painter's workshop. This in turn prompted renewed consideration of the ways in which fifteenth-century Sienese artists established themselves as independent masters, whilst at the same time collaborating (often in quite flexible ways) on joint projects.