An Art History C.S.I. and Wine and Poison, a Lethal Combo.

Well, there he is, a Renaissance rock star without the rock music. What he rocked was painting. You can tell by the expression on his face that he was a no-nonsence type of guy, rough around the edges and maybe at the core as well. While his given name was Tommaso, or Thomas, he was known as a big fellow who cared little for personal grooming, thus he was nicknamed, Masaccio. In its kindest form it means Big Thomas, but it also means Messy Thomas or Dirty Thomas. He blazed brightly in Florence in the 1420s before taking his talent to Rome in 1428, the hot spot for papal commissions. However, he never returned, as someone supposedly killed him there that same year. Our search to find out what happened begins there and with two of the several competing theories about how he died.

Producing colors, especially brilliant ones, was not an easy task in the early 15th century, so the idea that a formula for brilliant red was possible caused a great stir. One night as Masaccio walked down one of the narrow streets in Rome’s rabbit warren of small dark streets, a fellow artist, jealous of Masaccio’s talent and that newly created red, stabbed Masaccio in the back, leaving him to die on the street. I have searched for a printed version of this story but so far can only point to what the art historian said in the lecture.

The next story, I do have a written source for. It comes to us via Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists. It was written about 140 years after Masaccio’s death, but that is at least 460 years closer to Masaccio than we are. Vasari also believed that it was a jealous fellow artist who did Masaccio in, but this time it was by poison. One thinks immediately of the Borgias and their elaborate jeweled rings which held secret compartments of poison. A tilt of the hand and deadly powders could be dropped into the wine gobblet of some unsuspecting dinner guest. Given Masaccio’s crude life, it probably didn’t happen that elegantly. However, there is another problem here. Vasari’s writings, though well-studied and respected, have been investigated over the years and sometimes show gross inaccuracies. For instance, for centuries the art world took his story of Andrea del Castagno’s having murdered his rival Veneziano to be historical fact. However, in recent times, a bit more digging into the records shows that Veneziano outlived Castagno by five years, so if he was murdered, it was not Castagno who did it. Rest in peace Andrea, your reputation has been restored.

At this point, it might be better to take a look at why Masaccio was so famous. First of all, he was very young, still only 26 when he died. He was born near Arezzo in 1401, came to Florence in his late teens, managed to be accepted into the painter’s guild at age 19, and was befriended by Donatello and Brunelleschi, two of the greatest innovators in Florence at that time, one in sculpture and the other in architecture.

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Tommaso da Panicale was an older artist hired by the Brancacci family to work with Masaccio on their chapel. He became known as Masolino or Little/Delicate Thomas in contrast to his workmate, Big/Dirty Thomas. The older artist’s work here shows some awareness of the value of shadow in terms of making figures more natural looking (notice the shadow on Adam). His Eve, however, seems a lot flatter because of the lack of shadow, and both figures are rather placid though they are on the cusp of losing everything. Though the work of the two artists blended well, it was Masaccio’s figures that wowed the arts of Florence, and he was only beginning. Fifteenth century Florence was focused on the idea of creating depth in painting and drawing, of making something in two dimensions seem as though it contained three dimensions. Masaccio struck a major blow in that direction with his Holy Trinity, a painting in the Church of Santa Maria Novella.

This painting, especially as it was originally aligned with an entrance to the church, was designed to give the feeling of depth, as though one could continue down some hallway behind the crucifixion scene. There was even a stone ledge separating the top of the painting from the skeletal figure on a stone coffer at the bottom of the painting. This added to the visual tricks to make the eye see depth and reality instead of a just paint on a flat wall. In particular, the coffered ceiling forming a vault over what appears as a hallway behind the main scene was exactly the goal of Florence’s search for perspective, the visual creation of depth. The figures below the crucifixion are Mary and St. John on the upper tier and the two patrons who paid for the painting, a husband and wife, on the bottom tier. Notice how they are aligned like steps that lead to the central figure of Christ. To understand how Masaccio used linear perspective to achieve this illusion, the video Empire of the Eye: The Magic of Illusion: Holy Trinity – Masaccio, takes the painting apart using 3D computer technology to show how Masaccio created this work, youtube.com.

Needless to say, that it was not only Filippo Brunelleschi, the creator of the fabulous dome that covered the great church Santa Maria dei Fiori (the Duomo of Florence), who mourned the loss of this talented young painter. Brunelleschi said upon hearing that Masaccio had died, “We have suffered a great loss.” So we return to the question of how did he die. As has already been seen, his life is rather mysterious. He even goes by two formal names, Tommaso Cassai and Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone. While there are two stories of Masaccio dying because of artistic violence perpetrated out of jealousy, it is also quite possible that he died from either plague or perhaps the malaria that often infected Rome in the summers. There is a theory that he might have committed suicide, but there is no rationale given for why. Since he was already famous in Florence, it would seem he had a lot to live for, so I discount the suicide theory.

Michelangelo, of course, declared himself to be that person. Tired of his classmate’s arrogance and sharp tongue, Torrigiano punched him in the face, declaring later that it was his greatest pleasure to feel the bone of Michelangelo’s nose crunch between his knuckles. Thus the extremely flattened nose Michelangelo is always depicted with. A fist fight in the holy chapel, perhaps Masaccio’s death by foul play, the tales are many. One thing for sure is that Masaccio led the way into the Renaissance, and who knows, he may have discovered a formula for brilliant red. Just look at Mary Magdalene’s cape.

Sources used for this post come from Giorgio Vasari, Vies des Artistes, translated into French by Léopold Léclenché and published by Citadelle Mazenod, France. Notes are also from an art history lecture at the Petit Palais, Avignon.

Marjorie Vernelle is an artist, writer, college professor, and traveler. For more see the Pages at ofartandwine.com or her author page at amazon.com and her art at Vernelle Art Boutique vernellestudio.com.

©marjorie vernelle 2021

Wine and Poison, a Lethal History.

Shock, fear, loathing, shame, and blame, they can all be seen on the faces of the characters in this 17th century painting. Notice that Death is holding an hourglass in one skeletal hand while approaching one of reverlers who is seated at a table of good eats and wine. Of course, Jeanine Gros, a winemaker from France’s Côte d’Or states without equivocation, ” ‘Wine’ and ‘poison,’ these two words do not belong in the same sentence” (from The Assassin in the Vineyard). I wholeheartedly agree, but history often tells a different story.

One form of poison which came to be known as “the poison of kings and the king of poisons” was arsenic. While there are medical journal articles telling how arsenic has been used for “medicinal purposes” over the years to help with sleeping sickness and syphilis, it was known even in ancient times to be an effective, hard to detect way to move someone on to the After Life. Renaissance Italy was notorious for its use. In particular a certain concoction known as a cantarella (arsenic and toxic putrefaction alkaloids) got its name possibly from the small liqueur glasses that sweet dessert wines were served in. Just something a little extra to finish off a dinner. The fact that arsenic is odorless and tasteless means it can be mixed with food or wine very easily. The symptoms, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, are similar to many other common ailments. It could kill quickly in a day or be given slowly over a year’s time and was effective either way.

Arsenic became known as the “powder of succession.” There was even a type of school run in Italy by a Hieronyma Spara to help wealthy young wives become wealthy young widows. Of course, the Borgias, the pope and his children, Cesare and Lucrezia, were all known poisoners, with Cesare and his father, Pope Alexander VI, actually poisoning each other (Accidentally? Or was it a kind of “quick draw” poisoning match?) Wine was often the means of delivery as after a few cups, who was keeping track of which cup went where, or who was pouring? The Borgias were so notorious that word was out not to dine with them for one rarely survived the dinner.

Here I will make a little historical aside, as I want to point out that there were even more ingenious ways of getting someone out of the way. Queen Catherine de Medici of France, a woman from Renaissance Italy, was known for her collection of poisons and for perfumed and poisoned gloves. Catherine de Medici would visit the city of Grasse in the hills above the Côte d’Azur. I can remember seeing her home, duly marked by a historical plaque bearing her name and dates of residence, on several of my visits to the old part of that town. The emblem of Grasse is a sheep because before becoming a perfume capital, it was famous for fine sheepskin products like gloves. Queen Catherine may have been Grasse’s link between the making of gloves and the development of its perfume industry, as it is said that she was known to get to some of her victims by giving them luxurious gloves smelling of lavender or roses, which hid the scent of poisons that would soak through the pores in the victim’s hands. Supposedly that is how she killed the mother of Henry of Navarre, who still became king of France after Catherine and her heirs died. See this article at culturacolectiva.com on “Catherine de Medici, the Devil’s Queen.” Or see Sarah Albee’s Evil Mother Blog on “Deadly Gloves” at sarahalbeebooks.com

However, back to wine and poison, there are even more ingenious plots that have happened in recent times. In the 1980s, Austria, a producer of sweet wines highly favored by the Germans, went through a “sweetening” scandal when a few bad harvests produced sour grapes. The solution that a cabal of merchants put together was the addition of diethylene glycol to the wine. Not only was this not good for the wine drinkers, as once the scandal was discovered many wine products had to be recalled, it also killed the sewage system of a town when someone dumped 4,000 gallons of it into the sewers, destroying the useful bacteria used to process waste. See “Scandal Over Poisoned Wine Embitters a Village in Austria,” nytimes.com. However, there have been even thicker plots in recent years.

Kidnap the Vines; Ransom the Reputation.

This lovely patch of land is in a very special part of Burgundy in France. It is only 4.46 acres and only 20,000 vines, but it makes a wine that connoisseurs say can make one sure that there is “a Presence in the universe beyond our own.” These are the vineyards of Domaine Romanée-Conti, a producer of a Burgundy that is beyond the Pinot Noir grapes it comes from. Only 500 cases of this Burgundy are produced a year, and one is lucky to get a bottle for a mere $1,000. Generally, the cost runs around $10,000. Aged bottles have gone for as much as $124,000. Why? It is le terroir, the land that the vines grow on, which in this region is quite varied, but where the heavens aligned and gave Domaine Romanée-Conti the best possible growing conditions.

With a wine this famous, there was bound to be trouble at some point. That point came in 2010 when the vineyard owner received a mysterious note with a map of his vineyard showing a couple of specific areas. The note said that the vintner could go there and see that the vines had been poisoned to verify that his whole vineyard was indeed in peril. The note promised that more poisoned vines would be found in 10-15 days. Aubert de Villaine, the owner of the vineyard checked the spot indicated on the map and indeed found that someone had injected the roots with weed killer. He simply thought to pull up those vines and replace them; however, the next note indicated that an unspecified number of vines had been poisoned over a long period of time somewhere in the vineyard and that when the growing season with irrigation began, the poisons would rise to the surface and kill the vines and their precious grapes.

Now here is the really interesting part. In order for the location of those poisoned vines to be known, de Villaine would have to pay 1 million euros to be given the location so as to neutralize the poison before the sap rose in the vines, and the vineyard was permanently destroyed. The stellar reputation and high dollar value of the wines from Domaine Romanée-Conti were in the balance. A cloak and dagger, cat and mouse game ensued in which de Villaine had to carefully find trusted law enforcement outside of the limited local area in case some of the locals were in on this criminal activity. He went to the French Police Nationale and got the help he needed. To read the whole story of this wicked plot and see how it ended (yes, the guy got caught), just go to “The Assassin in the Vineyard” at vanityfair.com.

So, no, “wine” and “poison” are indeed two words that should not be mentioned in the same sentence. However, as can be seen, just like poison and perfume, they have often gone together.

References for this article are found in the blue linked articles throughout the blog post.

©marjorie vernelle 2021

Coming soon: Art, Artists, Money, and 90+ Point Wines to Spend It On.

For the Love of God by Damien Hirst, 2007. Image used for purposes of critique and review in accordance with Fair Use Policy.