Personal Marks
In what ways did patrons leave their own personal marks on commissioned pieces?
The largest mark left by the patron on the monstrance is the inscription itself. Personalized inscriptions on commissioned objects weren't unusual. Patrons would also include heraldries/coats-of-arms and lineages/genealogies. [2]
On the stem of the monstrance are saints, indicated by the haloes around their heads. These saints could have been family saints, or saints favored by Petrucci herself.
The materials used and the size of the commissions could identify the social class of the person in the form of an indirect mark. [3] Copper wasn’t a luxury item, although rock crystal was. The monstrance itself is just over three feet. The height and the fair cost of the monstrance could indicate that Petrucci could have been a minor noblewoman. As Florence was a major trading post (part of why the Black Death impacted the Florentine population), she could have also been a female relative of a successful merchant.
Although there isn’t much room to place a lengthy genealogy on the monstrance itself, the lack thereof could indicate Petrucci’s shame over her possible merchant background. Many wealthy merchants did not want to admit that they came from a family that was once considered lower-class. [4] Often, ancestors that were further down the lineage would be excluded or only cursorily mentioned in inscriptions of lineages.
Women were more exposed to visual images of religious iconography during the Medieval era. It was believed they would better absorb religious lessons if they could see images depicting religious figures and events. [5] It’s possible this was impressed upon Petrucci, who included multiple images of saints and iconographic images on the monstrance itself.
____________________
[2] Jill Caskey, Art and Patronage in the Medieval Mediterranean: Merchant Culture in the Region of Amalfi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004): 136.
[3] Jill Caskey, "Whodunnit? Patronage, the Canon, and the Problematics of Agency in Gothic and Romanesque Art," in A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2010): 196.
[4] Jill Caskey, Art and Patronage in the Medieval Mediterranean: Merchant Culture in the Region of Amalfi, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004): 169.
[5] Holly Flora. "Patronage," Studies in Iconography 33 (2012): 213. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23924284.