Flemish tour de force

Some years ago I was walking through the closed galleries of the Uffizi with a group of journalists, when we passed the Portinari Altarpiece. In those spaces, free for once of jostling crowds, it was suddenly obvious what a wonderful work of art this mighty triptych was. With paintings, as with people, you often get an instantaneous impression — in this case of force, density, presence. In comparison, the big Botticelli pin-ups looked flimsy. Despite the surrounding competition (which is hot, to say the least), here clearly was one of the greatest pictures in Florence. And it is not a masterpiece by a Florentine, or even an Italian, but a Fleming: Hugo van der Goes.

It caused a sensation when it arrived in 1483, by sea to Pisa, then up the Arno before being carried by 16 straining porters from the Porta San Frediano to the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. It was a gift to the hospital’s church from Tommaso Portinari (1428–1501), an agent of the Medici bank in Bruges, who was, like many patrons of the arts, a slightly dodgy financier. He had made money by lending to the Dukes of Burgundy, a type of borrower deemed by his Medici masters to be risky — not to say sub-prime.

Portinari sent this lavish work of art to Florence partly to provide a focus for daily masses said for the souls of himself and his family in this church. Partly too, one suspects, to make a splash back home. His predecessor as Medici agent in Bruges had also commissioned a great Flemish altarpiece — a ‘Last Judgment’ by Memling. Unfortunately, however, the boat carrying it was seized by Hanseatic pirates, who took the painting to Gdansk (where it remains). Portinari was luckier. His painting arrived. So here, in Florence — the HQ of Italian art — was a spectacular demonstration of the richness and refinement that the medium of oil paint could produce in the hands of Flemish painters.