Private Anguish, Public Martyrdom: the funeral monument plaque of Francesca Pitti Tornabuoni

This post is about a portrayal of maternal death and stillbirth--if you'd prefer not to read about this, please stop now.

Bas-Relief of the death of Francesca Pitti Tornabuoni, designed by Andrea del Verocchio, circa 1480.

I saw this panel at an exhibition at the Baths of Diocletian in 2023, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head. This is the sole remaining piece of what was a monument to Francesca Pitti Tornabuoni, commissioned by her husband, a few years after her death in childbirth. It is disturbing and beautiful. This panel, which might have been one of a few which portrayed scenes from her life, is split into two different moments: on the right, Francesca's moment of death, with her stillborn child held by a companion; on the left, the midwife presenting the dead infant to the father, Giovanni. The strong division of the two scenes, which lean away from each other in the center, creating a gap, suggests different rooms where the events have occurred. The women's side, on the right, has a lot of dynamic action from the mourners, with the midwife and the propped-up Francesca forming a center of stillness in the chaos. The men's side (with the midwife, baby, and two attendants from the women's side) is much more static. The men's postures are mainly upright, with grim expressions. Nonetheless, the father and the midwife form a similar v-shaped center in the group. The midwife seems more emotional among the men (where she holds the dead child), than when she is among the women. There, she is a solemn nurse among distraught attendants.

Close-up of Francesca and the Midwife

This part of the panel centers on the midwife holding Francesca's limp arm in both her hands. Francesca in death is wrung-out: her hair droops with sweat; her clothes are twisted about her body, exposing one breast. Her face is expressionless. She dominates the scene by being carved on a larger scale than the other women. If she were to stand-up, she'd be a head taller than the mourners. Below both Francesca and the midwife is a woman collapsed on the floor, shrouded, and rocking with grief, much like mourning figures in earlier art.

Funeral pleurant from sarcophagus of a king, originally in 14th century Dijon, now a plaster-casting in the Museum of Architecture and Patrimonie, Paris.

The mourner beneath Francesca is a kind of stock character in funerary art; It is devoid of personhood; a representation of a totality of grief. Its facelessness suggests that the loss of the decedent overcomes the presence of the living.

Close-up of mourner and figure with the stillborn child

This mourner is on the other side of the spectrum of grief: she is screaming and tearing at her hair. There is also a suggestion in the carving that she, too, is pregnant. She and the attendant beneath her lean toward Francesca, as do the mourning women on the midwife's side. It's as though Francesca's moment of death is like a vortex, pulling in the witnesses. Poignantly, the seated attendant presents the child (what a shame her face has been damaged--I'd like to know if she gazed out at the viewer or down at the child). The child's face is toward us, and almost seems to have an expression of calm. It is tightly swaddled, with its wrappings evocative of a burial shroud.

Close-up of left-side mourners

These women are carved at different levels of relief. The one on the right, with her head in her hand, is in a pose of distress and sadness used frequently in medieval art. She is almost flat in the scene. On her left, behind the forward mourner, is a woman who is crying harder, with her hands clasped to her heart. The center figure almost leaps out of the composition--her arm and her face carved almost completely, like a full statue. She, like the woman on the right side, howls with grief and tears at her hair. She leans against the death-bed for support.

Scene of Mourning over the Dead Christ, Bertoldo di Giovanni, 1460

This plaque, made 20 years earlier, is every bit as emotional as in the Francesca Tornabuoni panel, and very similarly composed. Mary and her son are the still center of a circle of grief surrounding them. Mary Magdalene gently props up Jesus' head. Martha (probably) holds Jesus' leg in a tender lift, which is echoed in the Francesca panel by the midwife. The midwife is dressed identically to this Mary. The mourners have anguished expression and gesture broadly, very much in distress.

Laying Christ in the Tomb, panel in the Monument to San Eustorgio, 1339, Milan, by Giovanni di Balduccio

This is a representation of the same event as in the bronze plaque, but it is much more subdued. The mourning figures are in a ring around Mary and Christ. Nicodemus holds up the shroud behind Christ as Mary lifts him up a bit (not unlike the upright Francesca). Mary Magdalene (lower left) and (probably) Martha (lower right) touch his limbs tenderly. So, there is a tradition in this depiction of the laying of Christ in the tomb, but in the earlier version, the mourning is much more restrained, as saintly persons were/are usually drawn as serene.

Art historians have likened the Francesca panel to a Roman sarcophagus representation of the death of Meleager. According to the Met Museum, the Renaissance used this Roman motif as a reference for artists creating scenes of the deposition of Christ. I think it's better to refer to the Renaissance motifs as referencing the Laying in the Tomb, because depositions have the Cross central to the construction, making it more vertical, while the laying in has Christ on a horizontal surface. (I discussed depositions in this post.). The connection to Meleager is significant, because it likens Francesca to an heroic figure. Her battle was noble, but it killed her. The connection is heightened by the artistic choice to dress all the Francesca panel's figures in Roman clothes. The Francesca panel is more direct in its classical touches than medieval Christian ones shown above and below here.

So, we have references to the deposition and heroic death for Francesca, but there is equally present allusions to the Nativity. Except, in the case of Francesca, hers is a failed nativity--a double death. Nonetheless, Verocchio draws on medieval models of Mary's giving birth to underscore what should have been Francesca's fate, but which she was denied.

Birth of Christ, Giovanni Pisano, ca. 1310, Pisa Cathedral

Going back even earlier than the San Eustorgio monument, there are two panels which seem similar to the way the Francesca panel is configured, and but much different in their emotional tenor. Above, there is the swirl of activity around Mary. Her face expresses a mixture of joy, relief, and exhaustion as she gaze down to watch her son being bathed for the first time. Unfortunately, the baby in this panel has been broken off, so you can only see its legs and a bit of torso. The scene is emotional, but not dramatically so; regardless, it is one of the few representations of Mary as distressed in her birthing.

Nativity, with visitation by the shepherds, Giovanni Pisano, ca. 1310, Pisa Cathedral

In the panel next to the birthing scene, the Nativity is much more calm and orderly, as is typical of such scenes. The infant appears twice: being bathed beneath Mary, then swaddled and placed in the manger beside her. Mary lounges and gazes lovingly at her child. Everyone else is busy. This Mary is a more modest version when compared to of Pisano's father's Nativity, on the other side of the cathedral.

Nativity, Pisa Cathedral, 1260, Nicolo Pisano (photo by Joanbanjo, creative commons, wikimedia)

Nicolo Pisano's Nativity depicts Mary as a Roman matron, imposing and triumphant. In both scenes, son's and father's, Mary is surrounded by other figures, and is larger in scale compared to the others. These two madonnas are posed the same (indeed the elements match practically one-to-one), but Nicolo (the father)'s Mary regal, and Giovanni (the son's) Mary is more modest and emotional.

The serenity and stillness in both these works is characteristic to the bulk of medieval Nativity scenes I've encountered. Mary has a similar posture to Francesca's (upright), but the Nativity is a triumph, where Francesca's stillbirth is a tragedy. While we have no idea what the rest of Francesca Tornabuoni's monument looked like, it's clear that her representation, even in death, is likened to heroes both classical and Christian, male and female.

In comparison to the figures in the birthing room on the right-side of the panel, the group on the left-side are still and contained emotionally. Let's look at the full panel again:

Bas-Relief of the death of Francesca Pitti, designed by Andrea del Verucchio, circa 1480.

The division between the two groups suggests that there are two different rooms. This is supported by the fact that the midwife and the infant appear in both groups. The center is the empty space where the split occurs in the composition. The figures framing that central space lean away from each other, starting with the heels of their feet. I have no satisfactory answer for why the group on the left which occurs after the death of Francesca is placed before the group surrounding Francesca in her moment of passing. My only hypothesis is that, given that Westerners "read" images from left to right, the artist wanted the viewer of the panel to end on the point of greater drama. This allows the emotion of the scene to conclude with a crescendo. On the left, we see a group in shock, subdued where only the midwife appears to be talking, perhaps sobbing, as she presents the father with his dead newborn. The scene on the right explains the horror of what has occurred.

Close-up of the group of figures on the left side of the panel

The composition of this scene only hints at the similarity to the composition on the right. The foreground figures flanking the father lean in, but at a less-acute angle than the women in the birthing room. The midwife and the father lean toward each other, much like how the midwife leans toward Francesca on the right, but there is no whirlwind of outcry surrounding the man and midwife. One of the male figures to the left of center inclines his head downward, probably in sadness, but still stoic. He seems to be reaching his left hand to comfort or steady the largest figure in the ensemble--Francesca's husband, Giovanni Tournabuoni.

Closeup of Giovanni Tournabuoni, Lorenzo de' Medici (probably), and the Midwife

Giovanni's identity has been confirmed by art historians who recognize him in a later portrait in the Tornabuoni chapel in Florence. An image of Francesca is also painted there, but it's a posthumous and fictionalized portrait. Giovanni is carved on a larger scale among this group. He wrings his hands (or begs for the truth not to be) at the sight of his dead child. The man at Giovanni's side sure looks to me like Lorenzo de' Medici (a beloved friend). He wears a chaperon, which was a middle-class style often worn by Lorenzo de' Medici to portray himself as more down-to-earth than he actually was. Verrocchio, the artist here, also carved a bust of Lorenzo that looks just like this portrayal. Giovanni was related by marriage to the Medici family, and became one of their chief bankers. So, it's plausible that Lorenzo is present here as family, and as a patron, but also as a support for Giovanni in this instance. The significance, I think, is that the room where the men wait is where business and family mingle, where a new son would be a future business partner or a daughter could make possible prosperous marriage of powerful families down the line.

But the political and financial importance of a new child is not meant to dismiss Giovanni's heart-felt grief. That he had a monument made to honor his wife is out of the ordinary. That he depicted her in a moment most private for families at the time, and that she is suggested to be both a hero and a martyr, is extraordinary. Giovanni's grief is documented in a letter to Lorenzo de' Medici:

"Carissimo mio Lorenzo. Son tanto oppresso da passione e dolore per l’acerbissimo e inopinato chaso della mia dolcis- sima sposa, che io medesimo non so dove mi sia. La quale, chome avrai inteso ieri, chome piacque a Dio a hore XXII soppra parto pass` o di questa presente vita, e la creatura, sparata lei, gli chavano di chorpo morta, che m’` e stato anchora doppio dolore."

Translation: My dearest Lorenzo. I am so oppressed by passion and pain for the bitter and unexpected death of my sweetest wife, that I myself do not know where I am. Who, as you will have heard yesterday, as it pleased God at hour twenty-two she passed from this present life, and the child, having violently ravaged her, was cut from her dead body, which has been a double pain to me.

The sentiment of his letter is consistent with the composition of the panel. The largest figures are Giovanni and his beloved. The infant may appear twice, but it is miniscule and without character in both scenes. The scenes have an orderly presentation of the child, but the violence to the mother and the state of the child's body are depicted in a way which belies the horror of the event.

While the tragic story of Giovanni and Francesca's separation is singular in the Renaissance, it does open the door to later funeral narratives of the husband who loses his wife in childbirth.

Only in post-1600s English tombstones and monuments have I witnessed grave markers that explicitly commemorate women dying in childbirth. The most striking example is in Westminster Abbey, in the monument of Lady Elizabeth Nightingale and her husband Joseph. Elizabeth died in childbirth in 1731, at the age of 24. The infant daughter survived the birth. Joseph dies in 1752, and is survived by only one of their children, Washington, who commissions this monument in his will.

"Harrowing" is the best word for it, I believe. The monument shows Joseph, a man notably older than his wife, trying to protect her swooning body from Death itself. Death emerges from the implied crypt beneath them and grasps toward Elizabeth's feet.

Lady Elizabeth Nightingale monument, ca. 1755, Westminster Abbey

Death is wrapped in a burial shroud, in a contrapposto pose which seems a mockery of classical models of young men. His weapon for attacking Elizabeth is a sharpened stick.

While Joseph is trying to defend Elizabeth from Death, the fact that their daughter survived is not of importance in this composition--even less so than the dead infant in Francesca's panel. The men are mourning their beloved wives, and count their loss as a grief which overshadows love and care for their children. The horror is the acknowledgement that the infants were the cause of death, quite opposite of the usual narrative of children as symbols of life and survival.