One of Father Arlotto's Tricks

Arlotto Mainardi was a real parish priest, of San Cresci a Maciuoli in the hills north of Florence, and he died in 1484. His jokes outlived him because a friend wrote them down, and that collection was printed and reprinted for the next two centuries, which is why a painter working around 1640 could count on Florentines recognising a scene from it. In this one Arlotto has been sent down to the cellar to draw the wine, a chore he resented, and has come back up to the table to announce that he forgot to close the tap. The host is already out of his chair. Volterrano worked it in tempera on canvas rather than oil, which was the ordinary choice by then. For most of the 19th century the picture carried another painter's name, Giovanni da San Giovanni, until Odoardo Giglioli gave it back to him in 1908.