Stained and painted glass window in three sections, depicting the Adoration of the Magi, by Guillaume de Marcillat, from the Cathedral of Cortona, Italy, 1516

Stained and painted glass window in three sections, depicting the Adoration of the Magi. The Bible (Matthew 2:1-12) describes how Magi, or Wise Men, from the East followed a star to Jerusalem in order to worship the infant King of the Jews. King Herod (the Great), hearing of this, asked his advisers where the Magi would go to find the child. They suggested Bethlehem in Judaea, as prophesied in the Book of Micah. Herod then asked the Magi to report the exact location back to him so that he could ostensibly go to pay homage too. The Magi continued to follow the star to where the Virgin Mary was with her new son Jesus and presented to him three gifts of gold (for kingship), frankincense (for divinity) and myrrh (used in embalming, a foreshadowing of the crucifixion). Warned by God in a dream not to report back to Herod, they went home by an alternative route.
The Church commemorates the event as the Epiphany (or manifestation of Christ) on 6th January. The Magi were presumed to be three in number because they presented three gifts. They may have been astrologers at the Persian court and priests of the cult of Mithras then widespread in the Roman Empire. In subsequent centuries the story was embroidered - Tertullian (about 160-230 A.D.) called them Kings and by 9th century they were given the names Caspar, Balthazar and Melchior. They also came to symbolise global worship of Christ, each apparently from a different age group and being made to represent the three known Continents of Europe, Africa and Asia.
In Guillaume de Marcillat's depiction, the Virgin Mary in traditional blue holds the Christ Child upright on her knees to accept the worship of the Magi who present to him elaborate objects of contemporary goldsmiths' work. In the background are three members of the Magis' procession and a figure (presumably a local lad; possibly a shepherd boy) peeping at the scene from behind a column. The star is shown in front of the left-hand column. The columns, walls and floor are made of rather surprisingly grand marble. In the foreground are two identical coats of arms of Pope Leo X (Pope between 1513 and 1521), the shield bearing his family arms (he was Giovanni de' Medici) and with the Papal tiara as a crest with crossed keys alluding to St. Peter being given the keys of heaven by Christ. Behind these is an inscription which reads 'AB OR[ I ]ENTE VENERVNT'. The inscription is not evenly spaced but stretched in the middle to provide legibility.
Marcillat used French pot-metal glass with silver stain, painted washes and back-painted brushwork. The grisaille or shading techniques were achieved by stippling with vitreous paint containing either copper or iron filings, the flesh tone is a bloodstone pigment called sanguine and elements of the design are scratched.

The Adoration window was commissioned on 10th February 1516 by the Operai (Vestry Board) of Cortona Cathedral for the main choir chapel window behind the high altar. Marcillat's account books (1515-1529, now divided between Florence and Arezzo) describe it as follows: "la granda finestra con l'istoria de la Natività di Christo, e li tre Magi". (For details of the Nativity panel, see Historical Context Note). It was put in place on 24th July 1516. The glass with which it was made was acquired from France through a merchant of French origin in Rome (Guido Bressone). (This was not always the case - Marcillat sent one of his pupils for glass from Murano, Venice, in 1525 when working in Arezzo).
The window was removed from Cortona Cathedral about 1729-33 when the cappella maggiore was renovated. It was sold to the Ridolfini-Corazzi family of Cortona with whom it remained for many years. After a period of public exhibition in the Palazzo del Podestà (Bargello), Florence in 1870s, it seems briefly to have entered a private collection (unknown) in Rome before being sold in 1883. The Nativity panel was at that point separated from the Adoration when the former was bought by Richard and Eleanor Mortimer of Tuxedo Park, New York, and was ultimately purchased by Detroit Institute of Arts at the auction of the Mortimer estate in 1937, while the Adoration became part of the collection or stock of the dealer, Stefano Bardini. Durlacher Bros. of 142 New Bond Street, London, bought the Adoration at the Bardini sale of 1899, lot 646 (pl.88). The V&A bought the window for £1,239 in 1902. It is still one of very few panels of Italian stained glass in the V&A's collections.

Historical significance: Guillaume de Marcillat was one of the foremost designers and makers of stained glass for both churches and secular buildings in Rome, Florence and Tuscany for over 20 years to 1529. Several of his windows survive (though not all in their original settings), but many more were destroyed as a result of military turmoil in 1527 - the window leads were required for shot. Some frescoes and panel paintings also survive but it was in stained glass design that his real talents lay. Vasari, who wrote his life, was a pupil of Marcillat.
Born in France, Italy became Marcillat's adoptive country. He described himself and his birthplace as follows: "Guglielmo di Pietro (son of Peter) de Marcillat, prebte di natione francese, de la diocese Bituricense (Bourges), de uno castello chiamato La Chastre, em Berry". La Châtre is a small town in the département of l'Indre. He was born between about 1467 and 1473 (depending on his date of death) and studied design and made stained glass in his youth. The course of his life changed when he became embroiled with friends in a feud which resulted in the death of one of their opponents. To escape justice, he fled to Nevers where he became a Dominican monk. It is not entirely clear how Marcillat came to Italy, but Muntz says that the Vatican archives include a reference to Pope Julius II sending one Jacobus Gallicus to Paris at the end of 1505 to engage stained glass artists for the Vatican palace. Vasari says that Bramante gave the order to send to France for masters to fulfill Julius' commission for many windows for the papal palace - Luchs and Henry both find this plausible. Marcillat came to Italy with his fellow artist Claude (in Italian, Claudio Francese) who, however, died soon after from excessive feasting and drinking.
Marcillat's only work in Rome still surviving are his two windows in Santa Maria del Popolo (1508-10) with Julius II's arms and twelve stories of the life of the Virgin. These probably escaped destruction due to their obscure position behind the high altar. In a Bramante apse, they sat near Pinturicchio frescoes and Sansovino tombs. In 1510, Marcillat obtained Julius' permission to become an Augustinian, a more flexible order. This enabled Julius to grant him the prebend over a church at Thibault in the diocese of Verdun, which gave Marcillat financial independence.
In 1515, Cardinal Silvio Passerini, Papal datarius, and tutor to Alessandro and Ippolito de' Medici, asked Marcillat to decorate the facade of his palace in Rome with frescoes en camaieu. Passerini also had Marcillat decorate his villa at the gates of Cortona. Although the Cortona Cathedral Operai commissioned the Nativity and Adoration windows in 1516, the patron for most of the Cathedral's interior decoration was Passerini and he was probably involved in arranging for Marcillat to make the windows. Luchs suggests that the presence of Leo X's arms in the cappella maggiore windows (as well as in a Marcillat oculus commissioned by the Cardinal's brother Valerio in 1517, also once in the Duomo) indicates Passerini's intention of honouring his papal benefactor.
Marcillat worked extensively in Cortona and Arezzo, and to some extent in Florence, and Susan Atherly suggests that he may even have worked in Lombardy early on. His work once decorated nearly every church and convent in Cortona and Arezzo and his workshops trained many Italian apprentices in the skills of French stained glass making.. In Tuscany, his remaining work includes seven windows and the frescoes on the ceiling vaults in Arezzo Cathedral and some glass in the churches of San Francesco and Santissima Annunziata, Arezzo, as well Monte San Savino, Arezzo province. Apart from the glass from Cortona Cathedral, glass remains in a church in the Cortona suburb of Calcinaio. In Florence, glass from the Capponi Chapel, S. Felicita (1526) was removed in 1736-39 and is now in the Palazzo Capponi alle Rovinate.
In his will of 30th July 1529, Marcillat said he wished to be buried in the "Eremo" or Hermitage of the abbey of Camaldoli in the Casentino (on the Apennines about 50 kms. from Arezzo. He left most of his considerable fortune to the abbey and the remainder to friends and pupils. Although buried as he wished in the vestibule of the abbey hermitage, no trace remains of his grave today. Vasari claims Marcillat died in 1537 but most authors claim a date between 1529 (date of will and last entries in account book) and 1535.
Marcillat excelled as a colourist and draughtsman. His work blended Italian with northern European iconography and stylistic ideas. He gave an illusion of spatial depth and also managed to create with glass-making techniques realistic looking faces, costume, landscape and architectural materials. He was brought to Rome as a skilled French artist with up-to-date technical knowledge, to enhance the Vatican. His fashionable Roman style was then much in demand for modernising Tuscan churches. For example, the Nativity and Adoration at Cortona replaced a window of only 1460s/70s depicting four figures which was then used elsewhere in the Cathedral, and in Arezzo, the Operai asked Marcillat to replace an oculus which was a mere seven years old by an artist, Pecori, who was still working on the apse of the same Cathedral.

According to Domenico Tartaglini, "Nuova descrizzione dell'antichissima citta di Cortone" (Perugia, 1700), pp.84-85, as quoted by Raguin, Marcillat's Adoration of the Magi seems to have been placed below its companion window, the Nativity, in the main choir chapel window of Cortona Cathedral, rather than the two windows being side-by-side. The rather palatial setting viewed in the Adoration scene with its deceptively realistic marble columns and stone friezes and pavements echoes real Renaissance architectural forms and the altar in the cappella maggiore was marble as was the balustrade round the presbytery.
The Nativity window is now in Detroit Institute of Arts (inv.no.37.138) - see Object History Note. It measures 106" x 66" (269.2 x 167.6 cms.). As with the Adoration window, it shows another colonnaded setting (not exactly a stable!) with distant trees. On the left, the Virgin kneels in prayer before a seated Christ child flanked by two angels, kneeling and holding altar candlesticks. Joseph stands behind this group with arms spread out before him. An ox and ass stand behind Mary. There is a frieze of shells at the lower edge above an inscription, "QUE GENVIT ADORAVIT". This is an abbreviated form of the first antiphon for the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin, 2nd February, i.e. IPSUM QUEM GENUIT ADORAVIT MARIA (She worships him whom she bore).
The building of Cortona Cathedral dedicated to Sta. Maria dell' Assunzione, was begun in 1455-56 (by Bishop Mariano Salvini, described as being "creatura dei Medici") as a renovation of the old church of S. Maria della Pieve. The cappella maggiore was built by 1475 and the building as a whole completed by 1502 and consecrated in 1508. Marcillat's Nativity and Adoration windows of 1516 replaced a window depicting four figures (which had itself only been installed in the new building in the 1460s or 1470s).
The dedication of the Cathedral to Mary is reflected in the important place of Mary in the events narrated in both windows formerly over the high altar at Cortona. In the medieval Church, the Virgin was sometimes described as "fenestra coeli" (window of heaven) alluding to her role as a conduit for the Holy Spirit in the creation of the Christ child, so her depiction in the medium of a glass window is particularly meaningful.
The iconography of the Cortona windows is especially significant in relation to the position of the windows behind the altar. Christ is depicted not as a helpless babe but as a child able to hold himself upright with little assistance. He is the visual representation of the "living host" or the transubstantiated wafer given out by the priest at the altar and partaken by believers. Mary in the Nativity scene kneels like a Ghirlandaio donor. The angels of the Nativity scene imitate sculptural kneeling acolytes and Joseph spreads his hands like a priest presenting Mass. In the Adoration, the three gifts presented by the Magi are in the form of a ciborium or covered cup for the wafers, a monstrance to display the host (in the form of a Gothic building with sculptures), and a pyx (?), also to hold wafers.
Marcillat's windows had several purposes - they relieved the effect of masonry by letting in light, they added to the colour of the Cathedral's interior decoration, they paid homage to Pope Leo X, they told the accounts of the birth of Jesus to the faithful in accessible pictorial form, they honoured the Virgin Mary to whom the Cathedral was dedicated, and they emphasised the doctrine of transubstantiation, so soon to be questioned by the Protestant Reformation.

From the Cathedral of Cortona, Italy

Born in France, Guillaume de Marcillat was one of the foremost designers and makers of stained glass for both churches and secular buildings in Rome, Florence and Tuscany for over 20 years to 1529. His work once decorated nearly every church and convent in Cortona and Arezzo and his workshops trained many Italian apprentices in the skills of French stained glass making.

The Vestry Board (or Works Committee) of Cortona Cathedral commissioned Marcillat to make this window on 10th February 1516 and it was put in place behind the high altar of the main choir chapel on 24th July the same year. The Adoration was installed below a Nativity scene window now in the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts. The arms of Pope Leo X (Giovanni de' Medici), showing the Medici balls and papal tiara, are thought to have been included in the design as the Pope was the benefactor of Cardinal Silvio Passerini who was the patron for most of the Cathedral's interior decoration. The Cardinal was almost certainly involved in arranging for Marcillat to make the windows. The Adoration and Nativity windows replaced a window made only in 1460-80 which was re-used elsewhere in the Cathedral. The Marcillat windows were removed from Cortona Cathedral about 1729-33 when the cappella maggiore was renovated.

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