'-•*■ . ■ ''"^^"i^l^ii^i IW"''M' ti?L;:,lii!l>*liii!'i mmi mrngmmM: ■.I'.'iiiiihl'iliiCl.'iii'iiHh'ilii; i wuz■yArJm.^ir:v^^^Js:^ ^fejbaaiaititeyfYjWBi'w f ;'?:;'S^r/^a^ffiia■,«;r^f■.■/ftrr,•i(«^fi«4^a'L(iIi(iiliKfivffliffli? y,lAfa^^yn^^,}j^^y;feI^AV^YAVAV^Y^/^AVAV.^MigllM CORNEL-L UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1 89 1 BY"" HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924019889074 ITALIAN SCULPTURE OF THE RENAISSANCE 2^^ Q Pi < Ph ^ o z, w f^ l-l 1-1 Q d < o o s 1 w o o ^^ u o pq b! c! W > ITALIAN SCULPTURE OF THE RENAISSANCE BY L. J. FREEMAN, M.A. KTefo g0tfe THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. I9OI All rights restrved Copyright, 1901^ By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. Notisodl) ^rtes : J. 8. Cuihing & Co. — Bervick k Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION PAGE On the Enjoyment of Sculpture i PART I TIf£ EARLY RENAISSANCE CHAPTER I. The Characteristics of the Early Renaissance . .21 11. The Origins: The Pisani 37 III. Jacopo della Quercia ^i VJ^f Ghiberti /S9 V. DONATELLO L 7' VI. LUCA DELLA ROBBIA 89 VII. The Minor Sculptors of the Early Renaissance . . 99 TChe Marble Workers : — Benedetto da Maiano, 1442-1497 103 Desiderio da Settignano, 1428-1464 105 Antonio Rosseliino7i427-i479 106 ' — — , Mino da Fiesole, 1430-1484 107 The Bronze Workers : — Andrea del VerrocchiOj^i43S-i488 ..... 112 Antonio Pollajuolo, 1429-1498 114 vi CONTENTS PART II THE LATE RENAISSANCE CHAPTER PAGE I. The Characteristics of the Late Renaissance . .117 II. The Sansovini 13; Andrea Sansovino, 1460-1529 137 Jacopo Sansovino, 1477-1570 141 III. Giovanni da Bologna 145 IV. Benvenuto Cellini 157 vV'. MickELANGE\p . . . , 165 First Period 169 I Second Period \ 175 VI. Sculpture outside of Tuscany 189 Appendix 199 ILLUSTRATIONS Verrocchio and Leopardi. Bartolomeo Colleoni. Piazza SS. Gio- vanni e Paolo, Venice Frontispiece PAGE NiccoLA PiSANO. Pulpit. Baptistery, Pisa . . . Facing 40 Roman Sarcophagus. Hippolytus and Phaedra. Campo Santo, Pisa Facing 41 NiCCOLA Pisano. Detail (Samson) of Pulpit. Baptistery, Pisa Facing 42 Giovanni Pisano. Pulpit (Reproduction). Museum, Pisa Facing 44 Andrea Pisano. Panel. The Beheading of John. Baptistery Gates, Florence Facing 46 Orcagna. Tabernacle. Orsanmichele, Florence . . Facing 47 Orcagna. Sposalizio. Detail of Tabernacle. Orsanmichele, Florence Facing 48 Della Quercia. The Expulsion. Panel in Gesso. Cathedral Li- brary, Siena Facing j; Della Quercia. Left of Portal. S. Petronio, Bologna . Facing 56 Jacopo della Quercia. Tomb of Ilaria del Carretto. Cathedral, Lucca Facing 58 Ghiberti. Panels of First Gates. Baptism of Christ, Left Panel. Andrea Pisano. Panels of Gates. Baptism of Christ, Right Panel. Baptistery, Florence Facing 62 Ghiberti. Second Pair of Gates. Baptistery, Florence . Facing 64 Ghiberti. Panels of Eastern Gates. The History of Noah. ^Sc^p- mon and the Queen of Sheba. Baptistery, Florence . Facing 67 DONATELLO. St. George. Bargello, Florence . . . Facing 76 DONATELLO. Annunciation. S. Croce, Florence . . Facing 78 Donatello. Bronze David. Bargello, Florence . . Feeing 80 vii viii ILLUSTRATIONS PAGB LuCA BELLA RoBBiA. DoNATELLO. Cantorie. Museo del Duomo, Florence Facing 82 DoNATELLO. Gattamelata. Padua Facing 84 DONATELLO. Bronze Pulpit. S. Lorenzo, Florence . . Facing 86 LuCA DELLA RoBBiA. Madonna of the Roses. Bargello, Florence . Facing 92 LucA DELLA RoBBlA. Via dell' Agnolo, Florence. Bargello, Florence Facing 94 Andrea della Robbia. The Coronation. Osservanza, Siena Facing 96 Benedetto da Maiano. Pulpit. S. Croce, Florence . Facing 103 Maiano. Death of St. Francis. From Pulpit in S. Croce, Florence . Facing 104 Desiderio. Tomb Marsuppini. S. Croce, Florence . . Facing 105 Antonio Rossellino. Tomb Cardinal of Portugal. S. Miniato, Florence Facing 106 Mmo da Fiesole. The Madonna and Saints. Cathedral, Fiesole Facing 108 MiNO da Fiesole. Madonna. Bust of a Woman. Bargello, Florence Facing 109 Verrocchio. David. Bargello, Florence .... Facing 112 Andrea Sansovino. Tomb Sforza. S. M. del Popolo, Rome i^a«»g- 138 Andrea Sansovino. Detail, Prudence. Tomb Sforza . Facing 140 Jacopo Sansovino. Bacchus. Bargello, Florence . . Facing 142 Giovanni da Bologna. Mercury. Bargello, Florence . Facing 148 Giovanni da Bologna. Rape of the Sabines. Loggia de' Lanzi, Florence .' Facing 150 Panel of Bronze Gates. Visit of the Magi. Duomo, Pisa. (Period of Late Renaissance) Facing 154 Cellini. Perseus. Loggia de' Lanzi, Florence . . . Facing 162 Michelangelo. Pietk. St. Peter's, Rome . . . Facing 171 Michelangelo. David. Accademia, Florence . . . Facing 173 Michelangelo. Tomb of Giuliano, Duca di Nemours. Giuliano, Night, Day. Sacristy S. Lorenzo, Florence . . . Facing 177 Michelangelo. Tomb of Lorenzo, Duca di Urbino. " II Pensieroso," Dawn, Twilight. Sacristy S. Lorenzo, Florence . . Facing 178 Michelangelo. "II Pensieroso," Night. Sacristy S. Lorenzo, Florence Facing 184 INTRODUCTION ON THE ENJOYMENT OF SCULPTURE INTRODUCTION ON THE ENJOYMENT OF SCULPTURE When the work of art, in becoming historic fact, has ceased to be aesthetic fact, we are, in our deal- ings with it, justified in making the outer eye play the part of catspaw for the inner eye, in making the sense of sight minister to our " literary " and scien- tific rather than to our aesthetic enjoyment. When, however, the work of art remains aesthetic fact, that is, when there can be gained from it data of observa- tion which are so tinged with a certain sense pleasure that they are thereby distinguished from data gained through the action of any other sense or by any purely mental operation, then we are in common sense bound to regard such aesthetic data as the primary, because peculiar, values of that work of art. And such other values as exist for us in a work of art (and there are many, both suggestive and scien- tific) will be properly regarded as secondary values, since they may be obtained from other objects, and, wherever obtained, take the same place in our favorite 3 4 INTRODUCTION mental operations. For instance, the historian and the philosopher may value the data gained from ancient art exactly as they value the data gained from ancient writers, and may work both into their schemes of things on the same terms. The scientist may classify Greek marbles as dispassionately as he would beetles, and presumably obtain in both instances the same intel- lectual pleasure. The man who prefers to use his data of observation imaginatively, be he dreamer or writer, may find in the work of art the same suggestions for his fancy that he finds in music, in natural objects, in the spoken word. It follows, then, that to fail to obtain the primary values of a work of art is to defraud oneself of enjoy- ment as truly as if one valued an orchid only for its rarity, or went to the opera merely for the sake of seeing the costumes. Unless the architect who studies Brunelleschi's dome feels the unique beauty of its wonderful curve, unless the archaeologist who dates a Greek vase is in some degree teased out of thought by its loveliness of form, unless the poet, to whom Botticelli's Spring is a Lucretian allegory of the seasons, sees and feels the pattern of line inter- twining with line, he is as blind to primary values as were the Roman peasants who made a quarry of the Forum, and burned antique marbles to procure the lime for their wretched huts. Although he has made ON THE ENJOYMENT OF SCULPTURE 5 art serve his ends, he has refused a gift to be obtained nowhere else, the pleasure offered to his sense of sight. He could have exercised the same faculties in the same way on other material. Fool and blind, he has overlooked the primary value of a work of art, the power to give him a pleasure determined by the special sense to which it appeals. That each art gives its peculiar pleasure, condi- tioned by the sense to which it appeals, is self-evident to anybody who takes the trouble to analyze his sen- sations. We speak of "harmonies" of color, "pictu- resque " sculpture and music, showing, in our very borrowing of adjectives, that we make a distinction in our sensations. A scrupulosity in marking this dis- tinction is the first step toward enlarging our individual field of aesthetic pleasure, and as our concern here is with our enjoyment of sculpture, we must analyze the sensations given by objects of three dimensions through the sense of sight. Now such an analysis in its scientifically exact form is to be found in the psychologic text-books, where it is too often so elaborated that it requires a special education to understand its terminology. It con- vinces our reason that our recognition of form by sight is based upon our sense of touch, that from our ancestors and our own infancy we have inherited the power of instantaneously identifying sight symbols 6 INTRODUCTION with the results of touch experience, so that at bottom our sensations of form are sensations of touch, and it has traced for us the processes by which we gained this power back through the mazes of our own infancy and that of the race. For a personal realiza- tion of the truth of this theory and of the nature of those far-away processes, a little actual modelling is more enlightening than a study of treatises. Suppose one is modelling some small object in clay from a plaster cast. The sensations of depression and pro- jection which his hand gets as he moulds the clay con- tinually change as he endeavors to reach a combination of planes which will reflect the light in the same way that his cast does, that is, which will give the same signals to his eye. He begins to understand then, as he pushes the clay up for a high light and makes hollows for shadows, that gradations of light mean gradations of plane, mean sensations of touch of the hand. As for the more involved sensations of body, which the psychologist includes in the sensation of touch, the process by which they are translated into terms of sight is analogous to the sculptor's experi- ence in modelling a figure. As he works, he feels, beside the sensations of objective touch, the bodily sensations appropriate to the state and action of the object he is making. He tests the relations of parts by his own sensations, by translating strain, relaxation, ON THE ENJOYMENT OF SCULPTURE 7 pressure, etc., into sight terms. The sculptor's expe- rience may hint to us of the way in which in our mysterious psychic past we learned to recognize form by sight. In the present the sight symbols are first- in our consciousness, and their connection with touch sensations is apparent to us only in this fact, that they seem to produce in consciousness imagined sen- sations which are copies of the originals. Such im- agined sensations, it goes without saying, vary in intensity according to temperament and training. When the sculptor looks at an object, the light and shade which meet his eye speak to his hand, which feels in fancy the very sensations of modelling. When he looks at a figure, he tests by the imagined sensa- tions of his body the symbols of strain, relaxation, etc. Now the imagined touch sensations, which, for the sculptor, follow so definitely upon sight, are in kind the same that the rest of the world feels in a fumbling, confused way, and which, according to their character, determine our aesthetic pleasure in form. For if, as an object of three dimensions, the piece of sculpture rouses in us imagined sensations, as an art object its function is to make those sensations the pleasantest possible, to give them a more enjoyable quality than could the natural object which it repre- sents. How is this brought about? We know that we take pleasure in the recognition of objects, and 8 INTRODUCTION that there are certain qualities of form which give us pleasure. Now in a statue the sculptor aims to disen- tangle the important elements from the superfluous so that our recognition is quicker, and therefore pleasanter, than it is in the case of a natural object. Moreover, he presents to us in his synthesis, not only a synthesis of the significant elements, but a synthesis of those elements which are of the most beauty. For instance, compare the difference in the pleasant effect of a photograph and a portrait. If the artist's synthesis is a good one, we shall notice that our recognition of the person is quicker and more pleasant in the case of the portrait than in that of the photograph, because the artist's mind has selected, whereas the lens has caught every detail without emphasis of the important, or the most attractive. Moreover, in being able to select the elements of his synthesis, the artist is able to give us sensations experienced under ideal conditions, sensa- tions which are not accompanied by the fatigue of bodily waste, and which are of larger scope than we could of ourselves imagine. Should I ever be able to feel for myself in reality the muscular sensations which become mine in imagination when I identify myself with the Discobolus.? I enjoy the pleasure of per- fect human action without any of the physical waste. If I look at the Shaw Monument, I can extract the pleasure of rhythmic, concerted movement without ON THE ENJOYMENT OF SCULPTURE 9 feeling any of the discomfort attendant upon actual marching. I may even exceed the normal experience of the body, and possess, as I look at the Fates of the Parthenon, the imagined physical potentialities of the gods. Besides creating ideal conditions, the artist's syn- thesis is in addition more pleasurable to us than is the natural object, because it is permanent, and conse- quently we can both accumulate imagined sensations through contemplation, and can examine them as our mood suggests. In an analytical examination, it is clear enough that such sensations are the true pro- genitors of emotions and ideas which we consider properly aesthetic, since they are shaped and tinged from their source. Their stir in the mind is practi- cally coincident with that of the imagined sensations which determine their character and extent. Recog- nition of an object seems to start many mental vibra- tions, but, as such recognition is inextricably dependent upon the actual touch sensations which have preceded it, and the imagined ones which follow, it is really those sensations which set agog all that psychic region of ideas and emotions which can be properly termed aesthetic, in distinction from those aroused by other stimuli. While, in theory, such directly aesthetic ideas and emotions can be separated from those induced by non-sense stimuli, in practice, the law of association of lO INTRODUCTION ideas operates to make their isolation extremely diffi- cult, and doubtless affects their quality. Sometimes by continuing them in pleasant channels, it prolongs their life, and gives us an extension of aesthetic pleasure. For instance, the directly aesthetic feelings aroused by a medallion of a mother and child are the fruit of our recognition of the differences in imagined sensa- tion given by the two figures and of the relations between them. But we are accustomed to associate with that relation a network of feelings which con- tinue the directly aesthetic feelings, and make a pleas- ant irradiation of emotion. Sometimes, by checking the directly aesthetic feeling by some irrelevancy, the association of ideas causes the intrusion of pain. There is in Rome a colossal statue of the infant Her- cules. The sense impression of colossal proportions becomes painful when confronted with our associations of the tender helplessness of childhood. Often the ideas associated with material are at variance with the ideas of its form. The white marble sunbonnets, lace collars, and netted jerseys in which the modern Italian workman dresses his statues are disagreeably at vari- ance with the ideas of texture, flexibility, etc., which we associate with sunbonnets and collars and jerseys. Most indirect of all associations, and most often the farthest removed from our sensations, are the ideas and emotions aroused by the expression of a subject ON THE ENJOYMENT OF SCULPTURE .11 in words. The real subject is our recognition based upon our sensations. The real subject sometimes coincides perfectly with the expressed subject, some- times coincides partly, sometimes coincides not at all. The degree of its coincidence affects the flow of our aesthetic ideas and emotions, and therefore indirectly affects our aesthetic pleasure. In perfect art, words are unnecessary, or merely, afford the intellectual satis- faction of expressing one's thoughts in words. Whether the Theseus of the Parthenon be called Theseus or Mt. Olympus it has the same aesthetic meaning to me, for my sensations are so adequately evocative of ideas and emotions that definition by words adds practically nothing. In Rodin's War, the naming of the figure merely brings to the focus of a spoken word those ideas and emotions that my sensations have already induced. In less perfect art, the spoken subject counts for more. It adds or detracts. Both possibilities are illustrated by the Prudence of Paul Ill's tomb in St. Peter's. Under the figure of the Pope reclines the half draped figure of a woman whose attitude and bodily form are replete with vo- luptuous suggestion. As an allegorical embodiment of the virtue Prudence it is ugly to me because of the shock between the real subject as recognized by my sensations and the ideas associated with the expressed subject. When however I find that the figure is a 12 INTRODUCTION portrait of the mistress of Pope Paul III the shock is removed, and the figure and the subject reenforce each other. Considering the relativity of the aesthetic field con- sequent upon varying individual sensibility and associ- ation of ideas, it becomes but too clear that we cannot say with certainty where the aesthetic enjoyment of any work of sculpture melts into that adumbration of emotions and ideas which may be only indirectly con- nected with our imagined touch sensations. For each temperament there will be a different standard of aes- thetic value. That it shall be really aesthetic is the main necessity. It will be such if we demand that the work of sculpture shall meet two conditions. It shall produce pleasant imagined sensations which are unlike those obtained from any other source, and they shall be evocative of emotions and ideas which are felt to be in accord with them and with one another. The three great periods of sculpture, the Greek of the fifth century, b.c, the mediaeval of the thirteenth, and the Renaissance of the fifteenth have met the zes- thetic demand in different ways. It is because Greek sculpture meets most perfectly the two conditions stated that we call it the greatest sculpture. "That is the best art which best expresses the thing it can best express," which gives the especial aesthetic pleasure ON THE ENJOYMENT OF SCULPTURE 13 pertaining to it in purest form. How did the Greek meet the first requirement, that is, what means did he employ which can give the pleasantest possible sensations? In the first place he chose the human figure, preferably the nude, which is the object best able to give the most intense imagined sensations. He modelled it in broad planes, subtly flattened, so that the eye quickly and easily grasps the essentials. Under Greek conditions of physical life he had the nude figure constantly before his eyes in the gymnasia and the games. He therefore knew the appearance to the eye of every part of the symmetrically developed body in every posture of action. Such education of the eye has never been possible since in any other civilization. The modern sculptor knows his anatomy from dissection; the Greek probably knew only the look of the muscles, etc., from the outside. The mod- ern sculptor, relying more upon his knowledge than upon the eye, builds up his figure on a wooden core by laying muscle on muscle, tendon on tendon. Strangely enough he gains by this exact method no greater appearance of reality, and the eye is tired by the details thrust upon it, details which it would never see for itself, but which the sculptor represents because he knows from his anatomy that they are there. Not only is the synthesis of the Greek a composition of the elements most significant in recognition, but it is 14 INTRODUCTION as well a composition of elements which we call most beautiful because experience has shown us that they are most pleasant. The union of the most significant and the most pleasant sensations gives us the rarest, the most complete and most delightful of imagined sensations, namely, that of perfect physical self-posses- sion. Actual life furnishes only broken hints of such a sensation, just enough to make the imagination leap to meet the ideal of Greek sculpture, which as sculp- ture not only induces the imagined sensation of perfect human self-possession of body, but, by representing the gods as magnified humanity, raises that sensation to divine power, and makes real to us the apotheosis of all physical potentialities. The accompanying ideas and emotions seem in- cluded in a corresponding mental self-possession, which is not that obtained by the mastery of one part of the nature by another, that conquest of flesh by spirit suggested by the Christian art, but is a state simultaneous with the physical, and in perfect accord. So well known to us are those maxims of the Greeks which express their racial thought, that we are glib enough in translating our ideas into such words as "definiteness," "repose," "serenity," "ideality," etc. Had we never heard, however, of the "characteristics of the Greek Spirit," Greek sculpture would still have been able to give us direct notions of an intellectual ON THE ENJOYMliWi uF SCULPTURE 15 steadiness, a moral balance, and a spiritual serenity, illustrating perfect self-possession of body and soul, the "mens sana in corpore sanoV As a word from time to time changes its value in the vocabulary of a people, so an art from one age to another changes its value as a means of expres- sion. Sculpture was for the Greeks the art-word expressing their deepest views about life. For the Middle Ages the expressive word was architecture, and sculpture became the explanatory adjective. Therefore, the monumental sculpture of the Middle Ages is best considered in relation to the architec- ture which determined its character. In looking at the cathedral statues, the eye repeats in miniature the motions that it makes in going over the architecture. Our sensations, then, are practically those which architecture rather than sculpture gives, that is, the sensations of adjusted weight and of press- ure and of the balance of related masses, a set of feel- ings pleasant but less invigorating than those produced by detached figures whose proportions are human. So far, then, as our ideas and emotions follow directly on imagined sensations, they will be those connected with the qualities of dignity, strength, saintly simplic- ity and power, as contrasted with demonic distortion. But in this sculpture mediaeval Christianity meant to embody its complex theology and its mystic senti- i6 INTRODUCTION merits. Such an aim was doomed to defeat. The stones could never be other than crude symbols of spiritual things, symbols which had perhaps to the mediaeval peoples wide associations, theological and mystical, but which, to the ordinary observer of to- day, are merely symbols of a state of mind of past ages. When this great cathedral sculpture chooses, in its more plastic moments, the bodying forth of determinate conceptions in the illustration of Scrip- ture incident and character, its aesthetic appeal is direct and strong within limitations. It has to be said, however, that, taken as a whole, the interest of this sculpture is greater than its aesthetic appeal, the working out of its meaning and moral more engross- ing than its sense appeal. Its value as aesthetic fact is for most people swallowed up by its value as his- toric fact, for its field of association is so wide and so interesting that one naturally becomes symbolist or scientist, and leaves sensation far behind. The early Renaissance inherited religious feeling from the Middle Ages, and since sculpture of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is destined for church and shrine, its formal subjects are religious, but, unlike those of the preceding centuries, they are not theological. The classic revival and the awaken- ing to nature leads it to throw off the incubus of dogma and of gloomy intricacy of feeling, and to ON THK JtlMJUVMiiJNl OF SCULPTURE \^ choose the more definite aspects and clearer senti- ments which are capable of representation in art. As in Italian architecture, the Gothic, true growth of the North, had never been other than a graft upon the classic tradition, rooted and grounded in the soil, so the subtleties and dark extremities of medi- aeval faith had never fully possessed a people whose senses awoke at the first breath of the classic revival. Their formal subjects, then, are those incidents and sentiments of Bible story which form, as it were, the lyric matter of Christian poetry, and which, therefore, are in accord with and radiate from their direct sub- jects, which are the poetic threads of the fabric of thought, since they concern the innocence of child- hood, the chastity of delicate womanhood, the spirit of youth, the dignity of maturity, and the repose of death. Unable to grasp a whole design wherein each thread has its proportionate part, they seize now this thread, now that, and work it in with common stuff. For their newly awakened senses were incapable of seeing form steadily and seeing it whole, but were intoxicated by this or that fragment of beauty. Their sculpture, then, cannot give us an imagined sensation, like that of the Greek, of a perfect physical self-possession which includes all special sensations, but our imagined sensations are localized and specialized, made ecstatic by emphasis and contrast with the common, so that i8 INTRODUCTION there is more variation of physical mood possible than in Greek sculpture. It differs most from the Greek by inducing a set of imagined touch sensations rarely reported by healthy nerves. These are sensations largely dependent upon the working of the material. Let one who is familiar with originals of both Renais- sance and of Greek art compare their respective casts in a museum. He will realize this, that although the Greek cast echoes but feebly the sensations given by the original, yet that echo comes nearer to duplicat- ing the sensations that the original gave, than the Renaissance cast can come to duplicating the sensa- tions that its original gave. The reason is this: that in the Greek, the form, aside from the material and the workmanship of the marble, is the essential to which all else is subordinated ; in the Renaissance a good half of our enjoyment depends upon the material, upon its surface treatment, its color, its polish. So great has been the sculptor's longing for beauty that, although in the cramped physical life of the Middle Ages his eyes have never beheld nor his heart con- ceived the perfect forms of Greek life, and he has but caught fragments of beauty, a forehead, or a mouth, or a hand, and has set them inadequately, yet, out of his longing for beauty, he has lavished toil upon the details, working the marble as if it were wax, aiming at a subtle play of light and shade over its surface, ON THE ENJOYMENTT)F SCULPTURE 19 and has invented a new melody of sight to entrance the eye. And so strongly is his own desire of beauty thereby reflected to us, that we too ache for beauty. Certain delicate sensations of touch which it suggests, as the passing of the finger-tips over subtly modelled surfaces, the fall of eyelids on the cheek, and others as inexpressible in words, give pleasure as poignant as that which comes with the sudden per- fumes wafted over Tuscan hedges in spring, and attends the lingering afterglow of clear yellow sunsets hung behind the purple curves of Tuscan hills. Part I THE EARLY RENAISSANCE CHAPTER I THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EARLY RENAISSANCE CHAPTER I THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EARLY RENAISSANCE (1400-1500) So subtle is the aesthetic appeal of Renaissance sculpture, so varied and delicate are the imagined sensations induced, and so gently do the emotions and ideas which they arouse melt into the atmos- phere of poetry which the word " Renaissance " car- ries with it, that it is a difficult matter to isolate the purely aesthetic element of the general poetic appeal. To think and to feel without words is direct aesthetic enjoyment. When, however, we attempt to define our enjoyment in words, we think that we realize better our attitude toward the art object if we understand how that object came to be "as in itself it really is." In other words, if we can logi- cally see how the general characteristics of any historical period show themselves as formative influ- ences in the art of that period, we add to our field of association many ideas which seem to cast light on our aesthetic enjoyment. 23 24 ITALIAN SCULPTURE Behind all the visible manifestations of the human spirit during the Renaissance was the unexplainable awakening of spiritual energy. Of the observable causes accelerating onward movement, the enthusiasm for Antiquij^and the enthusiasm for Nature are the most clearly marked. In art these are the discovered headwaters, the two tributary sources, which, under general Renaissance influences, send down the dry bed of mediaeval art a spring flood whose great wave changes the face of the country through which it passes, and which, despite diminishing force, rolls in turn through every nation of Western Europe. How did these two tributaries show themselves in the general current? Let us con- sider first the enthusiasm for Antiquity, an influence so prominent in all Renaissance activity that to early historians it suggested the figurative name of " re-birth." In the Early Renaissance, the influence of Antiquity I upon art was indirect ; that is, it resulted in inspiration rather than in imitation. It was communicated through the Latin classics. The painter or sculptor or jeweller may have owned and read for himself his Cicero or his Lucretius or his translation of Plato. But, even if his contact with the classics were not at first hand through his own study, he was in the way of frequently hearing the Latin worthies read and commented upon by the scholars who owned the same patron as himself. He CHARAC I'iiRlS riCS 2$ was one of the company who sat at table with his princely patron, and, while his eyes wandered over the rich colors of vaulted ceiling and frescoed walls, or perhaps fastened upon some fragment of antique marble recently acquired and proudly displayed, his ears were hearing dissertations on the lives and ideals of the ancient Romans by the most noted humanists of the day. Or in Lorenzo's villa at Fiesole he listens to the discussion of Aristotle's idea of beauty, while his eyes drink in the clear distance-color of Tuscan landscape, and the lovely curves and modelling of Tuscan hills. Therefore, when he draws his subject from classic story, as did Botticelli in his Birth of Venus, he conceives it in a romantic spirit as far removed from the classic, as is the physically complacent Venus de' Medici from that pale wistful goddess of Botticelli, who resembles her prototype only in name and an echo of pose. Per- haps he had studied Antiquity in Rome itself with the ardor of Brunelleschi or of the young Donatello. After- ward he draws upon his sketch-book for classic motifs of decoration, but he works those motifs into his own original ornamental schemes, untrammelled by classic treatment and tradition. Even when he is most strenu- ously endeavoring to work in the classic manner, as is plainly the case with Donatello in his David of the Bargello, he has not made a conglomeration of bodily forms from fragments of the antique that have 26 ITALIAN SCULPTURE come to his notice, but, stopping far short of imitation, he has tried to imbue the statue with certain classic quaUties, as he understood them, and has secured the life of his statue by working from a living model. Perhaps, like Ghiberti, he was an enthusiastic collec- tor of antique marbles, with so keen an appreciation of their beauties as to say that "the touch only can discover its beauties which escape the sense of sight in any light." But unmistakable as is the classic influence in the grace and suavity of Ghiberti's Bap- tistery gates, there is no direct imitation there. The copper of the bronze is not more inseparably fused with the other elements of the compound than is the classic with the Gothic and the individual, to make the unique beauty of the wonderful doors. Ghiberti's willingness to spend over a score of years in combining various elements of beauty illustrates the truest and deepest influence of the Antique upon the sculptors of the Early Renaissance. They were not yet learned enough to reduce classic art to a set of for- mulae, nor did they comprehend its conventions, its ideals, or its spirit. But their brooding enthusiasm for its imagined beauties kindles a passion for beauty, for ^,11 beauty, which burns out of their work the stupidities of tradition and the grossness of insensibility. The reflex of this spirit upon us makes much of the charm of the minor sculptors. Lacking the intensity of such \^Xl/i.i\..tt.V^liLJVAoTICS 27 genius as Ghiberti's, which could strike out into defi- nite forms its visions of IbveUness, the minor masters are yet agitated by that desire of beauty which per- vades the artistic atmosphere. Not a bit of sculptured ornament, nor a relief, not a bust but shows in its careful planning, its conscientious cutting, and its pains- taking finish, its maker's longing to make the work of his hands a thing of beauty. It is, moreover, this keen desire of beauty which discovered and made possible in sculpture certain rare and delicate appeals, as the exquisite structure of the hands, and of the emaciated faces of old men, the curves of girlish foreheads, and the folds of women's eyelids. Such being the deepest influence of the enthusiasm for Antiquity, it is to it rather than to the enthusiasm for Nature that the aesthetic character of Early Renais- sance sculpture is due. The latter influence is the greatest evolutionary force, and determines the progres- sion of the art. The sculptors labor steadily, even joyfully, upon those problems which concern the rep- resentation of visual facts, problems of anatomy, of human proportions, and of the technique of material, and their success in solving them accounts not only for the steady evolution of sculpture as compared with the more fluctuating course of painting, but also deter- mines the short life of sculpture, which, like some natural organism developing under the most favorable 28 ITALIAN SCULPTURE conditions, was thus enabled to proceed with no hin- drances through the processes of growth, culmination, and decay. So orderly is its movement and so natural is its rise and fall, that we divide the semicircle of its course into two arcs called the " Early " and the " Late " Renaissance, which are distinguished from each other in spirit, subject, and technique. Most apt is the application of the adjective "youth- ful " to the spirit of the Early Renaissance in all of its phases and manifestations. As regards sculpture, in freshness of feeling, in naive representation of what attracts it, in satisfaction with the beauty that strikes the sense, void of any evidences of struggle to express a deep spiritual significance, its spirit is truly youthful. Its high estimate of its own productions, even while it vaunted those of Antiquity, implies a confidence in its own taste and a disposition to be a law unto itself, which, while it is also youthful, is yet the natural safe- guard of the artist spirit in any period. Its two crowning qualities, however, are those which, alas, are too rarely the endowment either of the artist or of youth, namely, its intellectuality and its emotional sensi- bility. It had the willingness to think; it had the capacity for sentiment. It was intellectual and it was also poetic. Has the possession and exercise of brain ever been more strikingly shown in art than in those two splendid equestrian statues, the Gattamelata and CHARACTERISTICS 29 the CoUeoni which, in composition, grasp of character, and mastery of material, have hardly been equalled in modern times, and have surely never been surpassed? Or could certain sentiments be more poetically ex- pressed? — that feeling for the dead, for instance, which is the theme of Renaissance tombs ? Could any elegy better voice the Christian's thought of the dead, as of those who rest from this life and await that which is to come, than that figure of the young Cardinal of Portugal lying on his tomb in San Miniato, the frailty of the physical pathetically suggested by the wasted face and hands, the surety of the spiritual by the essen- tial dignity of the lifeless body that was once its tene- ment? This poetic^ spirit finds itself in happy harmony with the subjects that sculpture was called upon to treat. Art is still the handmaid of religion; but as if both are conscious that separation is near at hand, they accommodate their positions to each other, the one satisfied with such Ariel service as the other is eager to give. Sculpture is not compelled, as in earlier times, to the hopeless task of embodying in stone the mys- teries and terrors of the Last Judgment, nor, mutiny- ing against religion, as in later days, does it pretend to serve, calling by the names of saints and virtues, statues, which in voluptuous appeal minister to the flesh, not to the spirit. It is at one with the church 30 ITALIAN SCULPTURE in the possession of a kind of religious sentiment which its genius is admirably fitted to express. By preference the sculptor pays his devotions to the Ma- donna and to some few favorite patron saints. He establishes them in their shrines with all due rever- ence, but, led by his naturalistic instinct to give them the forms and features which charm his eye in the actual world that he knows, he thereby seems to bring them within the palpable reach of human affection, into a relation of friendly neighborliness. In its reliefs sculpture treats again and again simple incidents in scriptural narrative and in the lives of the saints, feel- ing no apparent weariness in telling over and over stories which it still wholly loves, and doubtless more than half believes. Its free statues are those of saints or prophets, holy characters, but actual men notwith- standing ; Zachariah, with bald head, beloved St. Ber- nard, toothless, but with kindly eyes; In its secular subjects, its intellectuality finds larger scope in its portraiits, which, few in number as com- pared with collections of ancient and modern busts, are yet the masterpieces of the world. The Egyptian attained actual imitation of human features; the Ro- man succeeded in representing the man, but the Re- naissance did more than either, for it comprehended and expressed the character, and yet made the outer presentment of the man an object beautiful in itself. CJrlAKAt.iiiK.iaTICS 31 This habit of prizing the aesthetic possibilities of the portrait appears fully developed in the tombs, where the effigy of the man is framed, as it were, in an elab- orate composition of decorative surfaces, of which the face and hands form the keynote of color, the domi- nant value in the scale of light and shade which com- pose the ordered and melodious whole. The examination of any one tomb of the Early Renaissance gives us an idea of the technique of all the marble workers. There they show themselves mas- ters of the harmonies of light and shade, and display their skill in combining every value of figure, relief, and texture in panels, mouldings, figures, and drapery. But the same technique is as evident in every piece of marble that left their hands, and is the trademark to distinguish any Renaissance work whatsoever from the marbles of other times. The technique of the Re- naissance sculptor is his own. The Greek sculptor could no doubt have played with his chisel any trick that seemed worth while. We are not able to judge with conviction of the surface of Greek marbles nor of Greek use of color. That later Greek art begins to care more for texture than did Phidian art seems plausible from the careful and soft treatment of surface in the Hermes of Praxiteles. The Renaissance sculptor cared over- whelmingly for surface effect, and enjoyed producing! it, as all workmen like to do what they can do easily 32 ITALIAN SCULPTURE and satisfactorily. The reasons for his facility are not far to seek, and are two. He is the descendant of the stone carver, and the apprentice of the goldsmith. From the first, he inherits a dexterity of hand which renders marble like wax to his touch. In the shop of the second, his hand has been trained to habits of accu- racy and delicac y, and his eye to the lo ve "of"~|gracef ul and inventive detail. His eye, however, has learned its- power of discriminating niceties of light from painting. So much has he learned from that source that he seems often to look at his work with a painter's rather than with a sculptor's eye, for, to obtain a variety of values approaching those at the command of the for- mer,, he borrows from him linear perspective, and he plans the color of his stone, the lights of high to low relief, of polish and of texture, as does a painter the color scheme of his picture. It is this sort of " picturesqueness," this quality de- pendent upon surface technique, which makes the unique sense charm of Renaissance marbles and gives us a set of imagined sensations as delightful as rare. Delicate modelling, skilful handling of planes, subtle balance of textures, suggest through their many grada- tions of light and shade a sequence of refinements, of touch sensations referred to the palm and the finger-tips, which seem to belong to some sense inactive in our ordinary experience, since they give us an imagined CHARACTERISTICS 33 sensibility of a degree of keenness that only the blind know. As in all good art, the sense pleasure is firmly bound in with the emotional pleasure to round out our sesthetic enjoyment. To describe the latter is as difficult as to analyze the pleasant agitation produced in us by a bar of Schubert, a cadence in Wordsworth, or by "that green light that lingers in the west." The charm of its types we partly understand. They have the particularly modern charm of incompleteness, of that deviation from the typical, that inequality of attri- butes which, in our eyes, constitute individuality and suggest personalities with which our spirits discover sympathies. Each of the minor sculptors has a way of recaptur- ing and repeating favorite types in which he finds an evident expressiveness, with the result that we not only feel as if admitted to a sort of intimacy with him, since he so frankly reveals his likings, be it in his favorite bend of neck, contour of cheek, curve of brow, but we make acquaintance with the vision that is his type, which we may henceforth admit to our fancies, or look for in our experience. In the work of all there are types possessed of all the outward and visible signs of spiritual distinction, suggesting high passions, quickened sensibility, the stuff of poetry and romance. 34 ITALIAN SCULPTURE So much for the charm of this sculpture. What is its value as seen historically? Every period of an art practically contributes to the general progress and content of that art in two ways : first, by treating of new things, second, by treating old things in a new way. Now, in the limited field of sculpture, it is even less possible than in painting to treat of strictly speaking "new things." No doubt severe logic would place even the so-called " originals " of the Renaissance in the category of old subjects ; yet so distinctly new is the method of approach that the result is really a new thing, and an original. To speak more concretely — the portrait, the relief, and ■ the tomb are the originals of this period, and are its : contributions to the content of sculpture. We know / the beauty of the idealized Greek bust, we know the realistic Roman portrait, and we know that the Re-j naissance portrait is a new art object, combining the \ qualities of both, perhaps, but making a new aesthetic appeal. There were tombs of some architectural pre- tension in Gothic days ; indeed, in the Italian churches they may be found side by side with Renaissance tombs on the same wall, but the latter, rich creations of an architect-decorator-sculptor, are hardly distant cousins of the former, and are new appearances in sepulchral art. The Egyptians employed the lowest relief, the CHARACTERISTICS 35 Romans the highest. The Greeks used several planes, and even conventions of perspective with so exquisite a taste that one is allowed to think that their reliefs surpass in plastic beauty those of the Renaissance. But, nevertheless, the latter are an advance in the his- tory of sculpture, for they mean new sensations, and the further development of the capabilities of material. In its free statues, and in its equestrian statues, the Renaissance did not create new things. Its niched prophets are an advance in realism over the cathedral statues, and its two magnificent equestrian statues at Padua and at Venice outrank in life and power the Marcus Aurelius of Rome; but both illustrate a new, mildly new, method of treating old subjects, and give no originals to the history of sculpture. It is left for Michelangelo in the Late Renaissance to contribute further. CHAPTER II THE ORIGINS: THE PISANI CHAPTER II THE ORIGINS: THE PISANI To pass from the mention of the "originals" of a period to a discussion of its origins impHes a mental journey from the complete to the incomplete, as it were a passing from the symphony to the notes of its simple theme, and means a constant diminishing of pleasure. It is more exhilarating to pass from the imperfect to the more perfect, from the origins to the originals. There are only fitful gleams of aesthetic pleasure to be found in the beginnings of Italian sculpture. The intellect and the imagination fare bet- ter than the senses, yet the student will find, in study- ing the works of the Pisani, that his interest in them as links in the evolution of the art is accompanied by a genuine if vague sense pleasure. For the progression toward a satisfactory imitation of the human figure corresponds to an agreeable imagined sensation of growth, which is heightened by the contrast of Pisan sculpture with the deteriorated Byzantine types and the rude native stone carving which preceded, and whose conventionalized distortions appear here and there 39 40 ITALIAN SCULPTURE in the new sculpture, side by side with living natural forms, like withered leaves in spring foliage. The sculpture of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, when regarded from the standard of architectural decoration, is interesting and effective. As sculpture, however, it can give few imagined sensations of touch that are agreeable. In fact, it is because we think of it as ornamental pattern woven of grotesques, that we do not feel the pain of its deformities. The figures seem to have been bound, according to the Chinese punitive method, into torturing, unnatural attitudes. The man who releases them, who first makes possible normal attitudes and natural movement for the cramped limbs, is Niccola Pisano, the first of the Pisani, who changes them from symbols into imita- tions. The state of the stone carvers of Niccola's day is comparable to that of a child before his first draw- ing lesson. He draws his picture of a man after the traditional pattern of childhood, making a little circle for the head, an oblong for the body, and hooks for legs and arms ; and this he finds a satisfactory symbol, for he has never thought of the actual look of a man. Now at his first drawing lesson he is given a cast of a man or an actual object to draw from, and his art education has begun. There happened something like that in Tuscan sculpture. For Niccola of Pisa, already a famous architect, was dissatisfied with stone sym- NICCOLA PISANO Pulpit Baptistery, Pisa THE ORIGINS: THE PISANI 41 bols, and gave himself drawing lessons from the reliefs upon an old Roman sarcophagus which still stands in the Campo Santo of Pisa. He profited from his les- sons, and the sculpture of the Renaissance was born. The way of it was this. The city of Pisa had fin- ished its magnificent new Baptistery, and desiring a marble pulpit fittingly rich for the same, gave the commission to Niccola, the architect. Now an origi- nal and skilful architect like Niccola has no trouble with his main design. He plans his pulpit as a six- sided box, supported on six pillars of different colored marble. He connects the pillars by Romanesque arches which he fills with Gothic cusps. The sides of the box he plans to fill with panels in high relief representing scenes from Scripture. Since he is not a sculptor, it is for the sake of these reliefs that he takes his drawing lesson. From an old sarcophagus, on which is carved in Roman style the story of Hip- polytus and Phaedra, he copies attitudes, figures, heads, every fragment that he can work into his compositions for the Bible themes. In the Adoration of the Magi the seated Madonna is copied from the Roman matron who, on the sarcophagus, appears as Theseus's wife. The Samson who stands above the capital of a pillar at the left is copied from the Hippolytus of the sar- cophagus. Everywhere, in the heads of youths, in the draperies, in gestures, in the horses, are transposi- 42 ITALIAN SCULPTURE tions as skilful as his unpractised hand could make. Wherever he has had no model, as, for instance, in the two cramped figures crowded into the triangular spandrels on either side of the erect, vigorous Sam- son, the dependence of his untrained hand and eye upon a model is obvious. The impression made by this characteristic corner of Samson and the prophets is repeated in every other part of the carv- ing. There is the vivid difference in sensation be- tween human proportion and human distortion a.nd the contrast in idea which it suggests, and there is all the interest of separating the copied parts from the other cruder parts, and of comparing the former with their prototypes on the Roman sarcophagus. And at a distance the panels are seen to be, in rela- tion to the pulpit as a whole, a rich decoration for a .well-proportioned piece of church furniture, whose mellow color, rich material, and harmonious structure make, it a delight to the eyes. It may be said, paraphrasing the words of an old writer, that the Renaissance sculptors issued from the Pisan pulpit as the Greeks from the Trojan horse, for there follow upon its completion commissions from the other Tuscan cities for works of the new sculp- ture; Niccola trains his son and his workmen to his enlarged view of form, and thus forms the so-called " Pisan School." Of that school there are three NICCOLA PISANO Detail (Samson) of Pulpit Baptistery, Pisa THE ORIGINS: THE PISANI 43 master sculptors whose works mark steps of progres- sion, — Giovanni his son, Andrea da Pontedera, and Orcagna the Florentine. For many years Giovanni works with Niccola in the latter's semi-classic man- ner, yet with some slight indication of his own strong individuality, which bursts forth finally after his father's death in his independent works. His hand and eye have indeed been trained to a degree of freedom and of amplitude of form, yet the classic qualities which attracted Niccola are to him inade- quate means for the expression of a dramatic and passionate view of religion, more akin to medizeval violence than to classic serenity. In feeling the beauty of the classic type of form, Niccola was far in advance of an age whose true affinity was with the Gothic, as the works of Giovanni and of the later Pisani imply in their susceptibility to the influence of the French Gothic. The classic had served Niccola for a model. When, in beginning to work, he had not been content to follow the crude manner of his pred- ecessors, he had used the antique as a means toward the satisfying of his idea of natural form. His son, Giovanni, passes on from the study of the model to the study of nature direct. But he learns nature's combinations slowly, and, filled as he is with the mystic and dramatic spirit of Gothic Christianity, his conceptions far outrun his skill of hand. Therefore, 44 ITALIAN SCULPTURE while in dramatic action and feeling he far outranks Niccola, in the beauty of figures and of detail he is less satisfactory. To compare the restored pulpit of Giovanni in the museum of Pisa with that of his father in the Baptistery is to feel at first glance a dif- ference in the spirit of the two. Giovanni's aggrega- tion of symbols and allegories is a find for the religious symbolist, and perhaps a bit of a nightmare for the non-strenuous pleasure seeker. The panels, are, like Niccola's, overcrowded with figures in high relief, which evidence more feeling for human move- ment, and perhaps less feeling for human form. As illustrations, that is, as illustrations adapted to Gio- vanni's day, they are realistic and impressive. The figures of the supports are expressive individually and are remarkably full of life, but, collectively, they are somewhat irritating, because of their difference of scale and their function in the architectural structure. As allegory and symbol, they are to most of us as unmeaning as the local hits of a Latin play, but they were no doubt a forceful bodying forth of contem- porary ideas. In fact, not only in expressiveness, but in naturalness, Giovanni's art was a revelation to his time, and its influence spread throughout all Italy. He pointed to Italian art its true path, the study of nature. Yet although many sculptors worked under him in all parts of Italy, they made no appreciable GIOVANNI PISANO Pulpit (Reproduction) Museum, Pisa THE ORIGINS: THE PISANI 45 advance, since they rather preferred to copy his designs than to seek to complete his view of natural objects. His true successor is Giotto. The torch which Gio- vanni, the architect-sculptor, had lighted is passed on to painting, and "Giotto is the greatest work of the Pisani." Giotto's influence was felt in all branches of art, in architecture and sculpture as well as in painting. It is by his aid that Andrea, the third great Pisan, carries sculpture beyond Giovanni's stopping-place. | His re- liefs on Giotto's campanile, and on the bronze doors which he cast for the Florentine Baptistery, have all the clearness and sententiousness of Giotto's frescos; they show a better observation of nature than Giovanni was capable of at his best, and there is a restraint and quietness about the figures which seems the blossoming of Niccolam attempt to reproduce the antique propor- tions. For the first time in the progression of Italian sculpture, one feels that the human framework is put toge^0ier in normal average proportions capable of ordi- nary controlled movement. Notice, for instance, in the panel chosen for illustration. The Beheading of John, that the two quietly posed figures of the guards are, by virtue of their normal proportions and correct ar- ticulations, expressive of the latent possibility of any vigorous human movement. The weight and substance of their sturdy figures, their bearing down upon the 46 ITALIAN SCULPTURE ground, is well contrasted with the lifting-up sensation communicated by the poised figure of the executioner. The latter, in its preparedness for action, shows Andrea's instinctive choice of the truly sculptural moment. Gen- uinely plastic in his use of few figures, fewer planes, and scarcely any accessories, his gates contrast most interestingly with those on the opposite side of the Baptistery made as their pendant by Ghiberti. Both have for their theme the story of John the Baptist, but the first are to the second as, in the " Ancient Mari- ner," the quaint, succinct, prose outline is to the vivid, detailed poetry which it accompanies. Andrea's clear- ness of silhouette and of narrative is pleasant to eye and mind alike, and many of his heads and figures have the charm of felicitous phrases in a well-told story. Andrea's doors are incised and gilded by goldsmiths whose craft is the starting-point for both sculptors and painters. It is in the goldsmith's shop that Orcagna, the last of the Pisan school, receives a training which colors all of his artistic output, be it painting, sculp- ture, architecture, or poetry. To remember that fact is to explain to oneself the impression made by the only authentic piece of his sculpture that we possess, that is, the tabernacle which he made to enshrine the miraculous picture of the Virgin of Orsanmichele. The tabernacle is a Gothic structure of finely grained. ^mmtsmae^tBgammmgi W:. '^.£u||^^^^^^^^^|HH|[^^^^^^^HI^^vl^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H^n 1 MHi^^^^^^i^^^^^?IH ■ 1 1 w^M/^^^mM^t^^ 1 1 I » 1- 1 'f. f 1 li^ 1 .^18MBRi'BPiMpBIMp3PHBIB \ m ANDREA PISANO Panel. The Beheading of John Baptistery Gates, Florence ORCAGNA Tabkunacle Orsanniichcle, F'lorencc THE ORIGINS: THE PISANI 47 mellow-tinted marble, and every mch of it is enriched with carved ornament, mosaics, and sculpture, so that it seems planned as an enlarged jewel casket. In the upper part statuettes and busts are used with rich ornamental effect. The lower part is surrounded by a band of panels in relief, whose subjects are incidents in the life of the Virgin, and which are separated from each other by charming statuettes of the Virtues. Time has given to the marble the look of ivory-colored wax, and the impression of delicate softness of structure is increased by the refinement and loveliness of the figures. The chief characteristic of the figures, indeed, is a re- finement which results from the elimination of violent action, and from the use of drapery, and which, while it affords no positive stimulus, means a tranquil satis- faction born of the absence of positive distortion. The details of the drapery and of the figures are pleasing, and the bounding lines are often so graceful that, one' longs to follow them with the finger as well as with the eye. They tell the story of Mary with a simple reverence and sweetness that become traditional in the treatment of the subject in Florentine art. In the Sposalizio, for instance, there is in the relations of the three figures, a tender girlishness in the half-shrinking Mary, a beneficence in the officiating priest, and a guilelessness in the Joseph for which even Perugino and Raphael, commanding the resources of painting 48 ITALIAN SCULPTURE can, in later days, find no substitute. When one is not in the mood to enjoy detail, and to appreciate in turn, carving, mosaic, statuette, construction, this aggre- gation of small perfections loses half its charm, and seems a less noble work than the great arches of the vaulted roof above, in which, says tradition, Orcagna the architect had large share. And yet there remains in the mind so deep an impression of the richness and loveliness of the tabernacle that, as we construct it in memory out of its many exquisite components, it makes for Orcagna as strong a claim to fame as do his frescos at Santa Maria Novella or his Loggia del Bigallo. The progress of the Pisan school in representation of form may be briefly summarized as follows : Niccola rejects the lifeless, formal symbols of mediaeval carvers, and adapts to his uses a form that is an imitation, as far as it goes, of natural proportions, and which, therefore, bears with it ideas of its own. Giovanni does not confine his work to the scale of proportion which was Niccola's model, but passes on to the observation of nature, and to the representa- tion, as it were, of new facts of form. These facts he is not always able to bind together into co- herent relations, although in accuracy and extent they form a remarkable collection. Andrea learns, perhaps from Giotto, to separate the significant facts ORCAGNA Sposai.izio. Detail of Tabkknacle Orsanmichele, Florence THE ORIGINS: THE PISANI 49 from the insignificant, and to so relate them that his figures are orderly, clear syntheses of the important elements of form. Orcagna has not Andrea's power of noting the significant, but he groups many graceful facts heretofore unnoticed, and, hinting at the Floren- tine mood which enjoyed detail in all the arts, he foreshadows Ghiberti, in whose work that mood found its most complete expression. CHAPTER III JACOPO DELLA QUERCIA CHAPTER III JACOPO BELLA QUERCIA (1371-1438) Although to make direct connection between the tentative appearance of certain tendencies in the last of the Pisan school and their establishment as domi- nant qualities in the first of the Florentines, one has but to walk from Orsanmichele to the Baptistery, yet, chronologically, there exists between Orcagna and Ghi- berti a sculptor who was the genius of the Sienese school, and whose works are too important to be over- looked. Therefore we make the journey from Orsan- michele to the Baptistery by way of Siena, and the actual geographical detour is paralleled by the break in continuity of mood. Orcagna heralds Ghiberti as streaks of light in the east announce the rising sun. Jacopo della Querela interrupts natural progress like lightning at sunrise. For, although being older than Ghiberti, he marks, in a way, the transition from the Pisan to the Florentine manner, yet so pronounced is his individuality that, despite many Gothic mannerisms S3 SA ITALIAN SCULPTURE which connect him with his predecessors, his concep- tion of form is so personal that he seems to stand outside of any school, and in boldness of vision and in vigor of thought he is nearer to Michelangelo than he is to his Florentine contemporaries. So striking was the effect of his style in his first masterpiece, the Fontegaja of Siena, that he was straightway called Jacopo of the Fountain. Of that famous fountain there remain only a few fragments which are huddled together in the cathedral museum. The modem, reproduction of the fountain, which occu- pies in the piazza the site of the original, is interesting as giving an idea of a design which was unique and effective. It consists of a three-sided parapet surround- ing the pool and affording space on its long side for niched statues of the Seven Virtues and a Madonna and Child, while the two shorter ends are filled by two reliefs, the Creation of Adam, and the Expulsion from Paradise. The modern copy is still white and new, and the figures have a sort of smug completeness which stands much in need of the ravages of time to soften into beauty. The fragments of the museum are more interesting, broken and rusted as they are. Their relationship to the mediaeval type of the Virtues is evident in their heavy outlines and twisted draper- ies, but there ends their kinship to the meagre, ascetic type of Gothic woman. For these large-framed fig- JACOPO DELLA QUERCIA 55 ures have bodies under their draperies, and the mus- cular necks, ample bosoms, and vigorous limbs had clearly more meaning for Delia Querela than had the faces. A model in stucco for The Expulsion may be seen in the cathedral library, where, in proximity to Pinturiechio's dandies clad all in purple and fine linen, its powerful nudity has the effect of a thunder- clap breaking in on the shrill pipings of frogs. Such a powerful conception of the human figure is the most direct vision of muscular action as idea that we find in sculpture before Michelangelo. That it exerted an influence upon Michelangelo through the reliefs of the great portal of San Petronio at Bologna is more than probable. Time has dealt so hardly with the great door, and so blackened and eaten the stone, that the action of the figures is best studied from pho- tographs and casts. In actuality, their indistinctness adds, no doubt, to their suggestiveness. Looking up from the broad steps of approach, the huge doorway seems to be framed in blurred shadows, from which are emerging the nude, muscular figures of men and women, which appear, even in these small panels, to be of heroic proportions. Considering their few inches of height, and the shallowness of the relief, they pro- duce imagined sensations of remarkable intensity, as far removed from the ordinary as is the primeval from the civilized. For their emphasized muscularity sug- 56 ITALIAN SCULPTURE gests strange capabilities of such movement as is born of primitive passions. Man's first existent state of harmony with himself and with his Maker is directly and strongly expressed by the powerful, free-moving figure of the newly created Adam who speaks face to face with his Creator, and by the perfect Eve who "lightly draws her breath and feels her life in every limb." What a tragedy is there in the contrasting fig- ures of the fallen Adam who bends over his spade in sullen fury, and the Eve who, hampered by drapery, holding a distaff, and bound to the two infants at her feet, is caught in the toils of experience! Blurred as are the figures of Adam and Eve in the Expulsion, they yet give us the sense of looking backward through the ages at the primeval human outlined against the clouds of God's wrath, and they tell the tragedy of man's fall with a force equalled only by Milton, by Masaccio, and by Michelangelo. Such power to express movement — a power so rare in Tuscan sculpture that we must wait until Michelan- gelo appears for its rebirth — is not often compatible with an ability to express perfect repose. And yet there is an early work of Delia Querela, the tomb of Ilaria del Carretto at Lucca, which is a famous exam- ple of the quality of " Repose." What remains of the original monument is placed in a transept of the cathe- dral of Lucca, and consists of the sepulchral effigy of DELLA QUERCIA Leff (IK Portal S. Petronio, Bologna JACOPO BELLA QUERCIA $7 the Lady Ilaria, a figure outstretched upon a low, rec- tangular base which is encircled by a frieze of garland- bearing cupids, vanguard of the cherubic host of Renaissance art. The figure is one of the most beau- tiful in all sepulchral art. The head is supported by pillows, the shoulders rest firmly on the slab, the arms lie quietly at full length with folded hands, the drapery, settled into long, still folds, covers the quiet limbs. There is no detail, from fallen eyelids to motionless feet, that does not contribute to the impression of a perfect repose which is neither the rigidity of death nor the relaxation of sleep, but perfect sculptural arrest. A round headdress, bound with sprays of convention- alized roses, makes with the plaited hair a frame for a face whose contours of brow, and cheek, and chin are most lovely, and which lifts itself above the curved collar covering the long throat as might a flower from its sheathing calj^. The repose of the figure, the simplicity of the drapery, the sweet delicacy of the features, fill one's sense with much tranquil pleasure, and suggest a possible and poetic type of woman. Is it a faithful portrait? Did so sweet a creature ever mate with the tyrannous and hated Lord of Lucca, and carry that flowerlike face into the midst of his roistering men-at-arms? Coming into the dim cathedral from the hot piazza, glaring under a July sun, one finds it easier to fancy that the quiet 58 ITALIAN SCULPTURE figure is the image of cool and temperate spring, wait- ing there until the heats have passed and the bare winter gone. When the first roses bloom in the hedges, those quaint sprays of her chaplet will unfold, a rose flush will creep down her white brow, the lids under the arched brows will lift, the tender bosom will rise and fall, and, sheathed in her green mantle, while the little loves swing their garlands about her, the spring will pass from the shades of the cathedral into the light and fragrance of blossoming vineyards. CHAPTER IV GHIBERTI CHAPTER IV GHIBERTI (1378-14SS) No greater contrast in style, and therefore in result- ing aesthetic enjoyment, can be imagined than that ex- isting between the bas-reliefs of the portal at Bologna,, and those which were being moulded at the same time in Florence for the bronze doors of the Baptistery by the young Ghiberti whose trial piece for the commis- sion had outclassed both Delia Quercia's and Bru- nelleschi's. In going from Bologna to Florence, in visiting Ghiberti's door after Delia Quercia's, one seems at first to shrink from the Titan to the petit- maitre in exchanging the stimulus of the muscular nude for that of the elegantly draped. [The figures of the former are but little larger than m6se of the latter, but they completely fill their panels, gaining by their isolation from natural objects and from other persons an added effect of individual power. Ghiberti's figures are seen in relation to a background and with other figures, and give not an impression of 61 62 ITALIAN SCULPTURE grandeur but of grace, while picturesque effect replaces more plastic feding. These doors and those made later for the east en- trance of the Baptistery represent the artistic product of Ghiberti's life, for he worked on them from the age of twenty-five, and finished the second pair only a few years before his death. He filled other commissions through the years, but we are unable to judge of his work as a jeweller as nothing has escaped the melting pot, and his several large statues of bronze, on the whole much less successful than his smaller castings, show no merits not better displayed in his gates. His gates, then, are both the summary and the exposition of his characte ristics^ The general plan of the first gates, their division into panels, filled by medallions containing reliefs and separated by mouldings, was determined by the plan of Andrea's gates to which they were to be pendant. In any comparison of the two, their resemblances are seen to be but frail threads binding together works which are widely dissimilar in technique and in spirit. Sev- eral of the panels have for their subjects the same incidents, but, whereas Andrea's main purpose is to say a something, Ghiberti's is to say that something in the most attractive way. He accomplishes his end by abandoning Andrea's sententiousness, the natural plain speech of the sculptor, and by admitting every GHIBERTI Panels of First Gates. Baptism of Christ, Left Panel Baptistery, Florence ANDREA PISANO Panels of Gates. Baptism of Christ, Right Panel Baptistery, Florence GHIBERTI 63 detail of narrative for which he can find place, and ever;fbeaiatY_jof_„groiiping, of di^Eejyi. and of figure that study can discover, and, as his best means to an end, he begins to make use of ljnear__p£]:spective;^ Both sculptors have made the Baptism of Christ by John the subject of one panel. As a narrative of a Biblical incident with which we have certain associa- tions, Andrea's is the better. The figures of John and of Christ express in their attitudes that impetu- osity of the disciple and that earnest dignity of the master which accord with our conceptions of their character, and the figures of the angel and of the dove add sufficient narrative detail to make the panel a good illustration of an incident with which we are familiar. If we linger over the panel, it is to find ourselves thinking no longer of what speaks directly through our eyes, but of the characters and the story, in short, following the associations of the subject. Now, in Ghiberti's panel,' the starting-point of formal subject is the same, but our thoughts take us into another sphere. As illustration, it holds us only long' enough for us to note the incongruity of the studied attitudes and the effectiveness of the detail. But as a composition of lines to be followed and related, as modelling which varies from high relief to stiacciato, and contrasts the nude with the draped, as an effort to Use perspective in representing the motion toward GHIBERTI Second Pair of Gates Baptistery, Florence GHIBERTI 65 is a door of richly sculptured bronze, the unity of whose plan is felt even while the diversity of its com- ponents is seen."; It consists of ten panels in relief, which are separated by a moulding in which at regular intervals are placed niched statuettes and heads — a plan of division as simple and yet as varied as that of a garden plot divided into flower-beds by borders wherein the same color occurs at regular intervals, but the flowers that make each color spot are sprung from different seed. The heads placed at the corners of the panels are some of them portraits, some ideal, and the statuettes are similar only in their exquisite grace and finish. As for the panels, what wonderful seed sown there has blossomed into shapes of youths and maidens, and stately elders grouped before spa- cious porticos, beneath trees, and under skies through which are flying the angelic hosts ! One sees at once why Ghiberti is said to have made " pictures of bronze on a canvas of_atgel." He has placed his figures of varying proportions in landscape and architectural backgrounds at varying distances from the eye, mak- ing use of the laws of linear perspective to perfect the illusion of ^a third dimension. The liking to call them " pictures in bronze " comes more from the mind's recognition of the skilful use of many planes and of graduated proportions, than from actual, visual impression of depth. For although photographs of 66 ITALIAN SCULPTURE the reliefs look much like photographs of paintings, so marvellous has been the application of the laws of linear perspective, yet in reality aerial perspective is as necessary here for effects of space as in any of Ucello's painted problems in the "dolce cosa." So many are the charms of the crowd of little figures, that one is in no haste to read the stories of the panels. Each is delightful just in itself, without thought of its role in the narrative. So gracefully posed are they, so elegantly draped, so exquisitely wrought, that one quite longs to take them in one's hands, to finger them, examine each perfect little whole on all sides. ' Yet this feeling for the separate figure, akin as it is to our feeling toward the bijou, is, : when we consider the figures in their relations to each other and to the backgrounds, lost in a surpris- ing largeness of effect, in a recognition of significant action taking place in spacious surroundings. How little actual size restrains greatness and dignity of impression is illustrated by the panel whose limits expand to furnish a fit setting for the visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon. ' The meeting takes place before a vast palace whose porticos stretch far back into the distance. Attendant upon the royal personages are their respective retinues, a crowd of figures, counsellors, women, men-at-arms. The sug- gestion of a crowd of people has been obtained before GHIBEKTI Panels of Eastern Gates Teie IIis'ioky of Noah. Solomon and the Queen of Sheba Btiptistery, Klotep^r GHIBERTI 67 by use of fewer figures, as witness the procession of the Parthenon. The marvel here is that so many fig. ures have been disposed without confusion in so limited a space. Ghiberti's mastery of perspective is well-nigh absolute. The figures in the immediate foreground are in the round, and project beyond the cornice of the panel. The relief subtly and con- stantly diminishes until a few lines drawn on the background represent the figures farthest away from us. Each remains in its proper plane, each has free- dom of movement. The halves of the panel balance perfectly, and Ghiberti's consummate skill in compo- sition is shown in the variety in grouping and in atti- tude of the figures making up the balanced parts. Contrast also the listening dignity of the attendants who are assembled about the royal personages with the animation of the gossiping groups who wait in the outer court. These latter contain some beautiful figures of youths. The horseman at the right is worthy a place amongst the Athenian youth of the Parthenon frieze, and the youths in the foreground, in their finely wrought armor and their carefully draped cloaks, have a vigor and beauty of form which might make them seem indeed a " renaissance " of the youth of Antiquity, And when, to their company, we add from the other panels and the mouldings other types of beauty, the angels who appear to Abraham, the lovely, newly 68 ITALIAN SCULPTURE created Eve, the sons of Noah, the young David, etc., we have a pageant of selected types whose beauty and variety remind one of the year's procession of flowers. Indeed the keynote is selection, which admits no element, not even the smallest detail, that is not capable of adding to the sum total of enjoyment. The inven- tiveness and richness of detail must have delighted the Florentines who were, and are, peculiarly susceptible to the appeal of cumulative detail. The panel which relates the story of Noah is almost as delightfully garrulous as a fairy tale. There is pleasure merely in the recognition of the animals who march so gravely around the ark, and the several stock incidents in the life of the patriarch, his coming from the ark, his sacri- fice, and his drunkenness before his sons are all related with fulness of detail, even while they are all combined into one harmonious composition. He who is versed in the Scriptures sees with amazement that in each panel are several scenes, yet so clever is the composition that each panel appears to the eye as one scene, and, without sacrifice of clarity or harmony, there is an immense gain in richness and interest. Far more study is necessary to gain an adequate appreciation of the skill in composition and in technique of these famous doors upon which Ghiberti spent the greater part of his life. The excitement of overcoming diflfi- GHIBERTI 69 culties in casting, etc., the pleasure of mastering the principles of perspective, the unremitting search after beauty, were more to the artist than were the formal subjects. And we, too, when we have once compre- hended the stories, set them aside and take our en- joyment from what meets the eye and leads the thought into other regions than those of the old book. In its charm of variety for the eye in small compass, the door is more properly goldsmith's work than sculpture. Yet its nobility of scope and beauty glorify it into a kind of sculpture never dreamed of before, and it makes a unique aesthetic appeal which is not that of sculpture, nor of painting, nor of goldsmith work, but has some flavor of them all. The labor of thirty years of hand and brain, the study of the classic and of nature, have left us grace and beauty incarnated in youthful figures who move in rhythmic measure through spacious scenes, denizens of a poet's " realm of gold." CHAPTER V DONATELLO CHAPTER V DONATELLO (1386-1466) Ghiberti stands for one kind of artistic vision ; Donatello is typical of another more rare. To the first certain qualities of form make so strong and con- stant an appeal, that all his work from his earliest to his latest seems the continuous effort to find their adequate expression. The latter pays no lifelong ser- vice to any one ideal combination of qualities, but uses varying symbols of form to express what appeals to him in different objects at different seasons of his life. With men like Ghiberti, it is as if in early life they heard a melody which enraptured them. All later study and experience from youth to age is forced to contribute to their power of reproducing it. Varied, enriched, developed as their work grows to be, through it all runs the old melody, the stuff of its weaving is always the same. In Renaissance painting, Botticelli is a familiar illustration of this temperament. In all of his pictures he seems to be tracing the same pat- 73 74 ITALIAN SCULPTURE tern of line, and face after face suggests the same mood. Perhaps this is part of his attraction for the present day. In this epoch of specialization, we are wonted to the special personal vision, which, when genius goes with it, gives us art, if narrow yet intense, and of poignant aesthetic appeal. In artists like Donatello, however, the energy of imagination is so great that it extends itself over a broader field, and the intelligence is so penetrating "that it sees in each object its own significant features. Therefore we have sculpture ranging in technique from the equestrian statue of Gattamelata to the deli- cate bas-relief of the young St. John, and in subject, from the joy of singing children to the agonized re- pentance of a Magdalen. We recognize his hand in a work, not by the appearance of some favorite combina- tion of qualities, but in the serious effort to express directly and definitely the visual truth of each object. In literature, Shakespeare is the perfect illustration of this artistic temper. His characters have been created into life, each a personality with which actions and speech are congruous, so that, as individuals, they are even more real to us than is Shakespeare himself. A marvellous ventriloquist is Browning, but we feel that it is he, and not his characters, who speaks, despite the clever mental makeup. Our enjoyment of subjective art will always be limited by mood ; objective art, on the DONATELLO 75 contrary, has in its wider scope more chances of meet- ing different moods. Ghiberti makes hundreds of fig- ures, but no matter with which figure one identifies himself, he will find himself stepping to the same music. But each of Donatello's characters moves to the music which he alone hears, and, therefore, while for us they all have this common characteristic, that they communicate life, in each we can live a different moment of life. In each there is always on the sculp- tor's part the same sureness in the selection and em- phasis of the expressive appearance, and on our part the same ease in recognition as if the sense of sight had been so quickened that it connects by a lightning flash the processes resulting in sensations, emotions, and ideas. Such in^ght into chagracter, such- .choice of the expressive appearance, such communication of the life of forms are Donatello's characteristics. His work, then, is not an orderly progression toward the adequate voicing of an ideal, not, as with Ghiberti, the unfolding of a perfect flower of art, but each work gives its individual impression, and to gain a just idea of Donatello each should be studied. But it is pos- sible to divide roughly into four chronological periods, since certain influences and circumstances of growth bind together, although very loosely, certain groups of works. There is the monumental period from about 1405-1433; the classic period from 1433-1444; the 76 ITALIAN SCULPTURE period of maturity spent at Padua, 1443-1453; and the period including his last years in Florence until 1466. Donatello's earliest commissions were for statues for the fa9ade of the Duomo, and for the niches of Orsan- michele at Florence. As might be expected from the sculptor's youth and the existent strong tradition of cathedral sculpture, there is at first no violent break with the conventional types, and yet gradually his genius forces a current of life into them such as they never knew before, and working as he d6e" s~from livin g models he makes persons of them one and all. Dona- telTo begins by imbuing with some semblance of life the traditional ecclesiastic characters; he ends by creat- ing absolutely new types, expressive, but realisticJ»--the verge ofjigliness. In the -St. Geor ge of Orsanmichele He best realizes the embodiment of a syn^erdefimte, pleasant thou ght in form a° simpk and d?finitf> nnd, ple asant. The bronze figure in the beautiful niche at Orsanmichele is a copy of the marble original now in the national museum, the Bargello, where, in a plaster niche, in indoor light, the weather-stained sturdy figure looks strangely out of place. Years of battle with the fierce winds and rains of Florence have streaked the armor with gray and stained the marble, adding immensely to the sentiment, since the scarred shield and begrimed face speak of conflict already won. The figure stands on-bot h^feet. as ^firnTly_ as g rr.f;]^^j-.alor,/^pr^ DONATELLO St. George Bargello, Florence \»i\(D DONATELLO 'J^ by the heavy shield, and a mantle which fortunately falls behind the figure. An effect of a readiness for forward action which, as legend hath it, caused Michel- a^igeio upon seeing it to exclaim, " March ! " comes from the drawing— back,,^__th e_ left leg j jid__sliQulder and the slight twistn5f~the-~tQrs2' emphasized by the pose of the head and the knitted brows. "The satisfac- tory fii-rnness of the figure is not the rigidity of the armor, but the steady^upport of muscles underneath. The pose has no especial grace or nobility, there is no charm of line or modelling. What is it, then, that makes the St. George, as every frequenter of the Bar- gello knows, one of the most popular of statues ? It is because it is the well-nigh perfect illustration of one of our most familiar and fond imaginations, "the sol- dier-saint," the knight sans peur et sans reproche stand- ing ready in strength of purity and of youth to do battle for right. The trMtment ot the figure, its solid mass— ua w c ak c n cd b y detaif , its quiet pose and broad migdelliBg, and its jtl^ head, make for the impression of youthful str ength of body, and the face, unlined as yet by age and disillusion, completes the character in its resol.uteJ2rows_and chin, its glanceof ardent pur- poser~an4-4ts--ssffiet_.si^!dy_jtnmi^t^^ The bodily forms selected stand for few and simple imagined sensations, but they connect immediately with a definite stock of our pleasantest associations. There is, in looking at it, 78 ITALIAN SCULPTURE all the pleasure of recognizing an adequate illustration of a favorite thought, and of feeling, as we identify ourselves with the character, the working in us of its invigorating qualities of youth ^ourage. and hope.r A transition in thought, if not in date, between the, in a sense, Gothic sculpture of this first period, and the next period when classic influence shows itself, is made by the shrine in Santa Croce, with its bas-relief of the Annunciation. The architectural framing, in its design and its details of mouldings, etc., is evidently inspired by the classic, but the simplicity of thought and execu- tion in the figures connects them with the St. George. The relief and the frame are cut from pietra serena, a soft gray stone, and the details of the mouldings and. the background are picked out in gold. The figures,: almost in the round, are of the same race as St. George. Broadly and simply modelled as they are, their ample proportions and smooth youthful faces make clear to us our pleasure in tranquil, vigorous bodies and un- troubled spirits. The Madonna turns a bit awkwardly,,: as if startled by the appearance of the messenger, but the certainty expressed by the angel's steady pose and earnest gesture is answered by the serenity of her face. As with the St. George, the work is satisfactory illus- tration because of its inclusion of the true associa- tions and its exclusion of lalse associations. An angel filled with joyous solemnity bears God's word DONATELLO Annunciation (^-^ S. Croce, Florence DONATELLO 79 to the chosen woman, who trembles, yet rejoices. That is the familiar subject. The associations that cluster about it have been created by the simple Bibli- cal narrative, and are here adequately suggested by the distinction of the figures, the serenity of expression, the delicacy and purity of color and ornament. Nor is the hint of mysticism lacking, if one views the relief from the nave or the farther aisle. Seen through the gloom, the broadness of modelling, and the color and softness of the stone combine to make the figures creations of gray mist, which, in the trembling light cast upon them by the red glow of the shrine lamp and the flickering votive candles, seem to palpitate with emotion. Dnnat plln had plwayg V>PPn 3, st udent of the antique. During the years following a visit to Rome in 1433, ^^ restored many ancient marbles for Cosmo de' Medici, made for him a set of medallions for his palace after antique gems, and, in other works of this time, shows a classic influence which reflects not only the enthu- siasm of his patron, but his own admiration as well. Yet for him, even more than for the other masters of the Early Renaissance, the antique is a teacher of gejh eral principles of technique and proportion, not a formula to be repeated. Its" influence is-presenrin these years as a Torce"to modify his strong bent toward realism, and marks a period containing the works of 8o ITALIAN SCULPTURE greatest beauty. The most obvious traces of classic form are found in the David, a bronze figure of a youth, made for Cosmo de' Medici, and now in the Bar- gello. The first nude bronze of the Renaissance, it must go back to Roman times for a predecessor. Its easy pose, with one hip thrown out, is distinctly remi- niscent of that type of athlete deriving from the Praxite- lean. The bodily forms are most interesting in being a combination of ideal and natural, as if made with the antique in mind and with a model before the eyes. The two elements are easily distinguishable, but are felt to vibrate in harmony with the life of the whole figure. Perhaps herein lies the charm, in the naive yet amazingly clever union of the ideal with the realis- tic, the echoes of the antique blent with the strident modern. The spare, yet well-covered, torso, and the legs so graceful in action and in outline, contrast with bony, protruding shoulder blades, and awkward skinny arms, apparently truthfully copied from some young Florentine. The same charm exists in the con- trast between the classic details of the armor, the giant's casque, and the rustic hat (is it a leaf from the edge of the brook, or the petasos of Mercury ?) which covers the long locks, and shades a face whose dimpled chin and low brow are those of an Italian goatherd such as one may meet any day in the campagna. Who seeks in this slight languid boy an illustration of Bibli- DONATELLO 8i cal story must perforce content himself with what sug- gestion he can find in the stone half concealed in the left hand, in the sword, and in the head of the poor giant himself whose beard is so carefully arranged and whose helmet is so beautifully wrought that I fear his chief value is artistic rather than narrative. Evidently Donatello himself has been more concerned with mak- ing the head a fine decorative base for his statue than with the expression of the dramatic or the moral. His interest has been in the modelling of the nude, in the goldsmith work of detail, and our pleasure comes from the contemplation of these same things. In a bronze, the " architectonic " appeal of structure, the hold of the muscles on the bones, is more obvious to us than in a marble where the material gives a chance to represent the texture of the skin. This figure, by the careful severity of the modelling, the apparent " hardness " of the muscle, gives the effect best brought out by bronze, and its size makes effective in bronze what would be insignificant in marble. The decorative details speak of Donatello's early training in a goldsmith's shop as well as of his study of classic ornament. The helmet, with its design of busy cupids, is worthy of a Roman hero, and each strap and greave is as beautifully wrought as a bit of jewelry. Of all the Davids to follow from other masters, none compares with this in masterly treatment of material, and in that charm which 82 ITALIAN SCULPTURE suggests, now the youthful athlete, now the herd boy of the campagna. The effect of Donatello's visits to Rome appears in a quite different way in another work of this period, the Cantoria or singing-loft, made for the Duomo in competition with Luca della Robbia. JThe class ic infl uence is shown in the architectural and ornamental forms, and—in— the_use—o£- mosaic,.. to^ fill in the sp aces of _the_Jia.ckgrQii.ad. A favorite Roman motive, the cupid, becomes the theme as a band of dancing chil- dren. They are broadly treated with reference to the height above the eye, and make a picture of living line, and of pleasant light and shade, and give an im- pression of childish joy in abandonment to music. In its presentation of one simple idea, the movement of dancing children, it contrasts with Luca's'^^Qft, whose panels sing with the music of children and youths and divers instruments. Donatello's direct subject is clearly the whole gamut of movement possible to childhood. And its sense appeal is the stronger be- cause the child is the only type used, and each atti- tude reenforces and enlarges the appeal to one type; and in retrospect it is more delightful than Luca's, because the one definite feeling caused by it is more easily revived. Luca's is more elaborate and careful work, and, because of its variety and associations has a stronger attraction for those who prefer the pleas- DONATELLO 83 ures of recognition and suggestion. Truly it is a thing to come many times to see until one has made friends with each little chorister. At Donatello's, let one look long and steadily, and then forget it as a stone frieze made by one Donatello. Only keep it a place in one's mind as a memory of something seen once, perhaps 'twixt sleep and waking, — a band of chil- dren, half real, half marble, dancing and carolling to happy music. The third period of Donatello's artistic development, comprising the years (i 444-1 454) spent at Padua in making the bronze altar for San Petronio, and the equestrian statue of the condottiere Gattamelata, is the time of maturity in technical skill and in range of thought. Donatello is now fifty-eight years old ; for about forty years he has been constantly studying nature, the antique, and his trade. One might reason- ably expect, then, to find in this, the only important commission outside of his own city, a tour de force. And such it is, for it comprises reliefs which are his masterpieces in relief, separate statues of great char- acter and beauty, and much ornamental detail exqui- sitely designed and wrought. The parts of this altar which were scattered about the church have recently been put together, but one cannot judge with certainty of the original effect. However, in the Gattamelata, Donatello's genius comes to a focus, plain for all men 84 ITALIAN SCULPTURE to see. There appear his boldness and originality, because this is the first equestrian statue since the Marcus Aurelius of Rome; his energy and industry, because he has made a careful anatomical study of a horse — no small thing to do when one is fifty-eight years old ; his power of seeing the essential visual facts in objects and of expressing character thereby, because, although a regiment of equestrian statues has been made since, this of a petty captain of the fif- teenth century is still one of the finest in the world. Consider your nearest park statue. Perhaps the horse is most cleverly made ; he rears with great spirit upon his hind legs, and, most like, his rider, famous general though he be, serves the ignoble end of a lump of lead to hold Pegasus to earth. Perhaps the figure, dignified and commanding, is only spoiled by being set upon so fantastic a base. Or perhaps the group' is picturesquely treated, — one is glad to catch sight of it as one moves by at a brisk pace, to feel the communication of its motion, its pressure against the air, obtaining the same kind of effect that one gets in all its intensity in the moving pictures of the biography A five-minutes' stop of steady contemplation would bore us, would make us quite sensible of the emptiness of its content as a whole. The Gattamelata is great because it has none of these defects, and some positive- merits. There is, to be sure, a defect of observation in DONATELLO Gattamelata Padua \IA\ DONATELLO 85 the movement of the legs of the horse, but he is well studied for all that, and gives our imagination all that it finds necessary. Moreover, the horse is properly subordinated in interest to the rider, who is one of the most living of Donatello's creations. And yet, it is not a portrait of Gattamelata, it is a portrait of Gattamelata-condottiere-on-his-horse. A vast difference there! As a study of character, it gains much of its force from the fact that, for the -first time, the sculptor has a chance to portray a man of his own day with- out the toga-cloak disguise of a Biblical personage, clad in his own proper equipment, and as the centre of a contemporary pageant. And yet, although it is a moment, and a man of the Renaissance that he has set there, he has represented those things that are eternal, namely, the powers of a man to command his fellows. C Where the impression of a personality might so easily have been sunk in the exhilaration of action, in rich effect of armor and harness, it is the character of the man and the reality of the mo- ment that impress us. There were crises in those days, and men to meet them! There is this thought for the mind, and there is inexhaustible treasure for the eye. What sureness of modelling in the head, what exquisite exactness of bone, and hollow, and wrinkle in the face, and .in the ungloved hand ! How carefully the horse has been studied, joint, and muscle. 86 ITALIAN SCULPTURE and vein ! Here is a war-horse of the Middle Ages ! With the smooth surface of his powerful body contrasts the rich trappings and armor. "One of the charming putti from the richly decorated saddle, one square inch of the horse's trappings, would furnish matter for a discourse and make the reputation of a collection,", Donatello's last years wei^ passed for the most part at Florence, in designing and beginning the two pulr pits of bronze for the church of San Lorenzo. A phenomenon which often strikes one in following the mental life of men of genius as shown in their works is that, in the last years of their lives, their thoughts tend to become too deep for formulation, and their art suffers under the pressure of matter too weighty for its expression. King Lear is not a suc- cess on the stage. Donatello's latest designs for San Lorenzo are so charged with dramatic intention that they overstrain the limits of relief. That they are in great part the work of his pupils, must be taken into account when, at the first glance, and hindered by the gloom of the church, it seems impossible to make out the figures. After some study one gets the subjects and the action, and is aware that they have conveyed to him a sense of the confusion of crowds, of the dramatic aspects of the scenes of the passion, and an echo of the emotion that is aroused by the Crucifixion of Tintoretto. But he is conscious that it is his own DONATE LLO Bronze PcLPir S. Lorenzo, Florence DONATELLO 87 thought, rather than what meets his eye, that is lead- ing him into well-known paths of association. Now and again a part of a figure, a thigh or a shoulder, or the powerful torso of a Roman centurion makes the appeal of generous modelling, but the planes are so confused that all is blurred that should be clear, and only fragmentary, broken sensations are possible. In a photograph one grasps at once the boldness and origi- nality of the scenes, and the invention and beauty of the details. But it is another matter to stand under the sombre bronze boxes in the dark church and strain eyes and neck in looking. The man who looks at sculpture because it gives him pleasure, and is honest in his accounts with himself, may feel that the fatigue of working for his impression rather overpays its value when obtained. Now, although in his latest work Donatello seems to have strained his art, yet his influence upon Renais- sance sculpture really tended to keep it within true plastic limits and to balance the picturesque influence exerted by Ghiberti. His positive influence must be looked for in Florentine painting rather than in sculp- ture. For his studies of the nude, of anatomy, and of drapery were of great service to a school of painting which concerned itself before all with the representa- tion of form. For the rest, we read that he was much beloved of his friends for a kind of simplicity of nature 88 ITALIAN SCULPTURE which found fine clothes unbearal>le and a country estate not to be endured. He probably never bothered himself about the ethics or aesthetics of his art, but enjoyed his feste and spent his workdays in hard labor of head and hand — a true artist life whereof we profit. CHAPTER VI LUCA BELLA ROBBIA CHAPTER VI LUCA DELLA ROBBIA (1400-1482) With Ghiberti and Donatello ranks Luca Delia Robbia, the third bright star in the Early Renaissance heavens. But little younger than they, he sprang from the same soil, and came under the same influences. The same sun and rain, the awakening to nature and Antiquity, aided in his growth as in theirs. But each developed after his kind. From nature they were busy getting much the same sort of fact: the difference in temperament comes out more evidently in their respec- tive attitudes toward the antique. Ghiberti was- an enthusiast, he reckoned time by Olympiads, he collected antique marbles and was enraptured' with their beauty. On his .wonderful gates he transposes the Hebrew narrative into suave Vergilian metre, melodious and graceful. Donatello has studied the remains of An- tiquity at Rome, he restores marbles for Cosmo de' Medici, he makes medallions in the classic style, he constantly uses classic decorative motifs. Yet he is 91 92 ITALIAN SCULPTURE always at heart a realist. The classic but frees him from mediaeval convention, gives him leave to be faith- ful to nature, but teaches him how to see it. Now Luca, with scantier knowledge of the antique, and showing in his work fewer formal traces of it, is the most nearly Greek of them all, for he approaches his work in the Greek spirit with that fine plastic intelli- gence which feels the limits of its material and brings out the greatest beauty within those limits. Neither Ghiberti nor Donatello held the classic attitude toward their subjects. The first sunk the plastic in the pic- turesque, the second in the naturalistic and dramatic. Luca's range of feeling is not great, but he is always truly plastic in its expression. The classic arouses in Ghiberti an enthusiasm for grace and harmony, which, uniting with his Gothic inheritance, produces a new and unique beauty. Donatello learns from the classic to be faithful to nature and to his own view of her, but his thought is so entirely that of his own day that his work is most unantique, most typically Renaissance. Luca's subjects are, on their face, quite as unclassic as can be. No Greek would have thought of represent- ing mothers and babies. But the impression which those quiet mothers, rounded babies, and blithe angels make upon us is that there exists a joyful oneness of physical and spiritual health, which, after all, is surely the Greek motif translated into the vernacular. LUCA DELLA ROBBIA Maddnna of the Roses Bargello, Florence LUCA BELLA ROBBIA 93 His work is commissioned from ecclesiastic sources, or is at least to answer a religious purpose, and must be an Adoration, or a Visitation, or the patron saints, but, despite varying names and symbols, Luca's blue and white is singing over and over the same song of serene physical well-being, animated by a mind as tran- quil. There are critics who trace the evolution of Luca's conception of the Madonna through his types. Here he is thinking of the Queen of Heaven, there of simple maternity, etc., a species of botanizing which may add to the valuable information which we store away on our bookshelves, but for which we care not a whit when we come upon Luca's flowers in their locum proprium, the cool dark of churches, or grow- ing in narrow dirty streets as the dust-powdered gen- tians in the highway, and accomplishing our happiness much as do all of "nature's old felicities." One may see in the Bargello a fine collection of Delia Robbias, as clean and shining as any good housewife's best china. The polish vaguely disturbs one for a time, although it perhaps intensifies the impression of exqui- site cleanliness, an integral part of a charm which is made up of all those elements of color and of form which spell refreshment to our senses and convince the spirit that innocence, simplicity, and joy are as common as motherhood. The works of Luca, in theme, color, and form are the 94 ITALIAN SCULPTURE notes of an exquisite chord. The modelling is broad, because the clay surface must be smooth enough to take evenly its coat of enamel, but shows a knowledge of form as exact as Donatello's, and a love of its beau- ties as keen as Ghiberti's. The faces are not classic, but very modern in delicacy of feature and sweetness of expression. Select the sweetest faces of any nation- ality, and you will find Delia Robbia types. They speak then a universal language equally intelligible to the different nationalities who pass before them in the museum, equally intelligible to the different sects and ranks who pass their shrines in the streets. The mes- sage of youth, of health, of serenity, is always there to be read, and, in addition, each work has of course its special associations, as it has its individual fornas. Luca conveys much by the expression of his faces. Compare, for example, the gracious worldliness of ex- pression in the group of the Via dell' Agnolo with the rapt devotion of the group of the Bargello. In the former, the attendant angels, justifiably proud of their service, seem to mark with alert eyes the effect of the benediction of the divine child. In the latter, the angels and the Madonna herself gaze upon the divine infant with eyes which have the clairvoyant expression of those of the Sistine Madonna. That Luca's charm depends upon his skilful obseri vation of the limits which he sets is clear enough in LUCA DELLA ROBBIA Via dell' Agnolo, Florence The Bargello, Florence LUCA DELLA ROBBIA 95 considering the later Delia Robbias who violated those limits and whose work steadily deteriorates. Andrea, Luca's nephew, was, to be sure, a man of great talent, and his work is often as lovely as Luca's. In general, however, it is more elaborate in composi- tion and in ornamental details. One of the loveliest of Andrea's reliefs, and one which circumstances combine to render most pleasure- giving, is that of the Coronation at the convent of the Osservanza in the environs of Siena. It is usually in the spring that the traveller finds himself in Siena, and his visit to the Osservanza takes him out from the town into a spring landscape that tunes his mood to the spirit of the early Delia Robbias. Moreover, he has left behind him in that grim town of Siena, whose towers and battlements are, as he looks across the ravine, a frowning silhouette against the blue, an art whose memories lie back of his eyelids like those of strange dreams. He remembers the treasures of design in the rich gloom of the cathedral; he sees the brilliant frescos of the library with the red, and green, and gold splendors of its ceiling, and he has not forgotten the primitifs of the Accademia, those Byzantine Virgins clad in the glowing ashes of their splendor, and with some element, almost of malevo- lence, in their gaze. With such memories, as of the occasional strange gleams and palpitations of sunrise 96 ITALIAN SCULPTURE in this weird hill country, the Delia Robbia to which he comes seems to afford the contrast of the blue-and- white familiarity of high morning. Tranquillized by the sanity and serenity of nature under this blue dome of spring sky, he is in the mood to fancy that Andrea has incarnated those qualities in his figures. The for- mal subject, to be sure, is the Coronation, a subject which the Renaissance treats as a well-known melody, making its essentials always the same, the grace of Mary's head bent in meekness, the tender beneficence of the Holy Father, the rapture of attending angels, and the joyful adoration of the saints, and the result one of the loveliest lyrics of the Christian anthology. Andrea's treatment is the simple one that belongs to his material, and is only noticeable in a choice of refined, graceful forms, which make the expression and the sentiment one. The composition is simple and clear. The two halves of the panel balance pleasantly, are charmingly diversified in grouping and in individual attitude, and are connected with the central action by the ring of cherubim. There is also a variety in the expression of the faces which makes personalities, not only of the saints, but even of the heads of the cher- ubic frame. The figures are accurate, and satisfacto- rily felt under their simple drapery. The modelling of the faces and hands is careful and delicate, that in especial of the thin faces of the male saints being of ANDREA DELLA ROBBIA The Coronation Osservanza, Siena LUCA BELLA ROBBIA 97 a degree of exquisiteness that would be more evident in other material. The color is almost pure blue and white, for Andrea was even more sparing in liis use of color than was Luca. A duller blue is used for the cavern in the predella, the palm of martyrdom is green, and the details of drapery, halos, etc., are lightly gilt. The sense elements and the emotional are the notes of a chord sounded together. Certain qualities of form which very commonly exist before our eyes in actuality, yet are so embedded in coarser stuff that they escape our notice, are here refined from the acci- dental, and made clear to our appreciation, and like- wise, certain qualities of character, beauties of holiness, are made clear to our apprehension, as it were the flowering to our inward eye of some sweet seed existent in humanity. The later Delia Robbias exceed the limit, first in introducing other colors in great masses which give a disgustingly crude effect, and also in departing from a simplicity of composition which included only a few figures and scanty accessories. When Giovanni makes an Adoration in which he tries to find place for the familiar properties of the contemporary painter, and, moreover, colors them to resemble a heap of winter vegetables, his art product is as far removed from Luca's as the squash is from the white rose. H CHAPTER VII THE MINOR SCULPTORS OF THE EARLY RENAISSANCE CHAPTER VII THE MINOR SCULPTORS OF THE EARLY RENAISSANCE The Marble Workers DoNATELLo's Communication of vitalities, Ghiberti's gilded rhythms, Luca's blue and white divinations of the Hellenic, make us the richer by three individual habits of seeing form; but the works of the younger generation, of the minor sculptors, and speaking now more especially of the marble workers, are so much the product of one habit of sight that they continue us in the same mood with variation only of the sub- tlest, and might almost be, in effect upon us, the expres- sion of one temperament. As the production of men of an equal calibre, who have been trained to an equal dexterity of hand, and who are working in the same spirit to meet the same ideal of taste, the work of the minor sculptors in marble bears the stamp of its period more obviously than does the work of the three mas- ter sculptors whose varying genius reacted against the same environment with distinctly individual results. I02 ITALIAN SCULPTURE The same convulsion of the earth's surface forms the peaks and the foothills, but the winds and the streams of the heights will carve for each an individual pro- file, while the foothills will always resemble one an- other. As in a literary period marked as such by certain general characteristics, as for instance in that defined period of the Elizabethan dramatists, the time- spirit, so clearly present in the work of a Peel, a Greene, or a Nash as a shaping force, is to be traced in its Shakespeare as itself directed by his individual spirit, so the forces which but aid in the development of the great sculptors of this period have their own way in the moulding of the minor men. Donatello had his moments of caring for surface effect, and Ghiberti occupied himself often with decorative detail^ and Luca is frequently content with merely facial expression of limited, quiet feeling. But these quali- ties found here and there in the masters' works, and included as elements of their effect, are the ever pres- ent and determining characteristics of the works of the minor sculptors. As a result, and with the mar- ble workers especially in mind, one feels that the sense appeal of the many works is practically one and the same, and that the emotional appeal varies only by the slightly differing suggestions of portraits and of favorite types. And therefore the distinctive aes- thetic appeal of the marbles of the Early Renaissance^ BENEDETTO DA MAIANO I'ui.prr S. Croce, Florence MINOR SCULPTORS 103 which, resulting from the harmonic treatment of Ught and shade, and from the selection of rarities of struc- ture, is so productive of delicate imagined sensations and of lyric emotion, is found in its essential simplicity in the work of such men as Maiano, Desiderio, the Rossellini and Mino, and in what we have called the "originals" of the period, in the architectural decora- tive sculpture of pulpit and tomb, in the portrait, and in the relief. Benedetto da Maiano, 1442-1497 Maiano 's pulpit in Santa Croce is an epitome of the decorative values of marble carving. Its warm color, a coffee color with a pinkish suggestion, and the soft smooth appearance of its surface, obtained by both the mechanical treatment of the finely grained stone and also by the grades of relief of its carving, make it seem less a construction of marble than of some mate- rial akin to jade or ivory with all of their peculiar power of touch appeal to the skin. Considered archi- tecturally, it has the studied elegance of proportion and the rhythm of structure which distinguish an artist's creation from a natural object, and in the impression which it makes of human intelligence behind effect it gives a meaning to the word "art." Its decorative plan makes it an elaborate frame and support for five panels in relief whose subjects are incidents in the 104 ITALIAN SCULPTURE founding of the Franciscan order. As may be seen in the illustrations, the reliefs follow in narrative treatment the frescos of Ghirlandajo, and in technique they are related, in their picturesque quality, to the manner of Ghiberti, although a less skilful use of perspective results in less agreeability of illusion. The figures, clad in ungainly monk's robes, are good in attitude but deficient in interest, and while true to the monk- ish type are yet without personality. The intrinsic qualities of the reliefs are best discerned in the terra- cotta models now preserved at the South Kensington Museum, for in Santa Croce their values are much affected by their setting, and the mind refuses for long to consider them apart from it or as other than organic parts of a whole. Interest in them as illustration fades before the pleasure of running one's eye down the mouldings of the cornice, down the channel of a fluted column, along the flourishes of a console, and over the slant of the base to the attaching point on the great pier. And for the lateral glance there is first the flat frieze beneath the cornice whose repeating notes are the objects of the passion, and next the richer frieze below the panel with its effect of rounded fruits and cherubic faces. The recesses between the consoles have two sides embroidered in a flat floral pattern seen originally against a gilded background, and the third side is niched to receive a statuette of a virtue MAIANO Death of St. Francis From Pulpit in S. Croce, Floienc DESIDKRIO TdMll .MaKSI:|'I'INI S. Croce, Florence MINOR SCULPTORS 105 which in its finish and perfection is worthy of embodi- ment in a precious material. Desiderio da Settignano, 142 8-1 464 As faultless in architectural composition as Maiano's pulpit, but more original in its decorative surfaces and far more sculptural in its elements, is that tomb placed across the nave in Santa Croce, made for :the Cardinal Marsuppini by Desiderio. Its figures are .life- size and unusually well studied for tomb statuary. The slender children who support the armorial shields are not the ordinary boneless and characterless putti, and the youths above, who bear the garlands on their shoulders, are also uncommonly animated and realistic. The lunette with the Madonna and Child is unfortu- nately much in the shadow of the arch. But enough is seen to show qualities which riemind one of Dona- tello's manner at its sweetest. The focus of the cqm- position is the sarcophagus and effigy, the richness of which is emphasized against a plainly panelled back- ground of dark porphyry. The light is reflected in many modulations from skilfully varied textures, from the waxen smoothness of the face and hands, from the flat stehcilled-like surface of the stiff drapery of cloth of gold, from the scales forming the covered top of the sarcophagus, and from the foliaged corners of the base. Other Renaissance tombs show mastery io6 ITALIAN SCULPTORS of marble technique, and possess ornament and reliefs of much beauty; but no other equals Desiderio's mas- terpiece in giving an impression of a whole of which every part is original and charming. Antonio Rossellino, i^2'j—i^'j() Even Rossellino's famous tomb of the young Cardi- nal of Portugal at San Miniato cannot, in composi- tion • and in ornamental detail, equal the merits of ■ Desiderio's; but as often happens as compensation for unevenness of excellence, there is the emphasized appeal of a special quality. The special appeal is. here, I think, to be found in the expressiveness of the figures, — an expressiveness not nearly so confined to facial meaning as was habitual with both contemporary sculp- tors and painters. For instance, the two angels who bear up the roundel of the Madonna advance with a swift action of the limbs, and there is a gayety of mdve- ment in the ripple of draperies and of extended wings which reenforces the expression of blithe agitation in their faces, and in the faces of the cherubim surround- ing the relief. There is in their alertness a kinship to the expression of the infants of the sarcophagus, and even to that of the Madonna, whose downcast lids seem to veil an intelligence of glance belonging to a personality partially revealed by the half-smiling mouth. The animation, apparently so near the surface, of the ANTONIO ROSSELLINO ToMH Cardinal of Poriugal S. Miniato, Florence [INOR SCULPTORS 107 attendant figures I but naakes more impressive the still- ness of the sepulchral figure from which the tide of thought and feeling has withdrawn into hidden depths. The repose of the figure is absolute. The folded hands are exquisitely modelled, as is also the face, with a feeling for that delicate bony structure which the eye delights to trace in emaciation and associates with the pathetic refinement of illness and the contempla- tive life. Scarcely a line marks the face, and its placidity accords well with our idea that death is the kindly blotter-out from the human countenance of all records of life's passions, and too with our fancy of the character of this virgin cardinal, who " lived the life, we may say, rather of an angel than a man." To the Christian no stronger symbol could be given of a spirit sealed in slumber to await its resurrection ; and in show- ing impressively the dignity that the human body may express when freed of all the accidental agitations of life, it suggests equally noble possibilities to be obtained by the human spirit in less troubled spheres. Mino da Fiesole, 1430- 1484 Of all the minor sculptors, the name of Mino is most familiar, made so by the number of works attrib- uted to him rather than by their surpassing excellence. In fact Mino was overburdened with commissions, and, as often follows popularity, much of the sculpture called io8 ITALIAN SCULPTURE his is the product of his atelier. If he be judged by striking a balance of his many works, he could not rank with the Rossellini, or with Desiderio, or with Civitali, for his work is very uneven in value. ' At its worst it is insipid and stupid. But at its best it has a sweet distinction of technique and of type which, in this age of lyric sculpture, gives it the place due to exquisite expression of refined, if limited, sentiment. Mino's forte was the amalgamation of sculpture, preferably basso relievo, with architectural elements, using such nicety of taste that the monument or altar so made is not sculpture framed, nor a small fa9ade decorated with sculpture, but has the true artistic unity of a poem or of a musical composition. The altar at Fiesole, although an early work, is evidently one upon which he worked with care, and achieved an exquisite result as compact as a sonnet. It is made of a milky marble of fine grain treated with the waxy finish characteristic of Mino, and unstained by incense as it is, the full value of its delicate carving and chan- nelling may be appreciated. The figures, with the exception of the two infants, the Christ and the lit- tle St. John which are in the round, are modelled with much accuracy and grace, but there has been little attempt to realize the figures as figures. The heads and the hands indeed have been carefully treated for expressive value, but the bodies are only suggested MINO DA FIESOLE The Madonna and Saints Cathedra], Fiesole Hh B^^^^t afeaaB^*.' gfe' * % % ^ 1 1 — : ' --^,'ia:-3g !i3 MINOR SCULPTORS 109 enough to make plausible the draperies and the attachment of heads and hands. The Madonna is planned on a larger scale than are the attendant saints, but her kneeling attitude of adoration lessens the unpleasantness of resulting effect. The droop of the head, showing thereby the eyelids and the forehead and the hair with its pointed fillet of pearls, comes with Mino to be like a favorite cadence in a poet's lines. It is a cadence repeated in the relief of the Madonna of the Bargello, which, whether actually from Mino's chisel or not, has the charm of his types in the arched brows, the curve of the drooped lids, the cleft chin, and the strangely contrasting blunted ears. The head is set rather haughtily upon a long neck whose lines flow gracefully into the outline of shoulders not too correctly modelled. The child is in high relief, its feet projecting beyond the frame. The finish of the nude is exquisite, and the long slender hands rest upon the child's body with pleasant pressure. The drapery suggests, as is usual with Mino, some pliant stuff with peculiar wrinkles and shallow folds. Its border of gold holds it to the gilded background and the frame, against which the relief, with its satiny finish, reminds one of a dimmed pearl in a setting of tarnished gold. In the same room at the Bargello are several fine specimens of Mino's work in low relief. The Bust no ITALIAN SCULPTURE of a Woman is remarkable for the richness of effect and of personality obtained from low relief. The face, to be sure, although well modelled and with all the truth to nature which makes Florentine portraiture of the fifteenth century what it is, has more subtlety of finish than of modelling. And to the representation of the richly embroidered gown and the carefully arranged hair, Mino has devoted much thought, treat- ing them as important elements in a composition of surfaces. Stronger work in portraiture exists in connection with the tombs of the Badia by which he is perhaps most fairly to be estimated, although in the decorative parts there is a certain monotony, a repetition of motives which makes the remembrance of Mino easy and yet which becomes a tiresome reminder in his poorer work. The Bronze Workers The difference in the vigor and realism of the con- temporary bronzes when compared with the rather languid sweetness of the marbles is not fully accounted for by the explanation that the workers in bronze, Verrocchio and the Pollajuoli for instance, were of that energetic temperament which finds its interest in the harder problems of that material and of naturalism, in distinction from temperaments such as Mino's, which, with the classic sense of restraint strong upon it, is MINOR SCULPTORS in content to limit its field to a small cycle of sentiments. That difference is further explained by the fact that each material has peculiar possibilities of appeal, — a fact too often lost sight of since the Renaissance when the masters had a comprehension and mastery of the effects proper to each. With the marble workers if" is as if the translucent material itself lured them into a technique and even into a conception of their subjects especially fitted to bring out the surface possibilities of their material. The surface effects to be obtained in bronze are different, and in comparison meagre. The ^ effects of gilding and of patina are at the m ercy of tim e. Such effect a s is gained by decorative detail is that of clarity of design and silhouette. Finally, as regards the figure, that field of achievement in bronze which only the masters are able to conquer, the essential appeal, is that of gtructi ire and action, of bone s and muscles, and therefore, while in good work the invigorating quallFy is~direcF"an3 delightful,~m weak work there is little opportunity to balance defects of structure and action by clever treatment_o£. flesh, skin, and drapery. The contours of superfluous flesh, any effect of soft- ness of surface, is not pleasant in bronze. Sagging cheeks and double chins, which in marble are not unpleasant as values in the light and shade scheme of a portrait bust, appear in bronze as petrified de- formities. 112 ITALIAN SCULPTURE Andrea del Verrocckio, 1435-1488 Bearing in mind then that l ^onze as an artistic- ■JS5tHi^--§?£9BS!:^.J][^^*-"^P*°'^ ^^ representing the bony structure of the human^ figure bound together as it, is and moved by its_ covering muscles, a representatien in art which we enjoy because it suggests sensations of body which are among the most direct of which we are conscious, we are much better equipped for the enjoyment of such a bronze as Verrocchio's David than are critics whose faint praise includes such state- ments as this of Symonds : " As a faithful portrait of the first Florentine prentice who came to hand, this statue might have merit but for the awkward cuirass and kilt that partly drape the figure," or this of Scott: " Scriptural tradition is defied by his being represented in a corselet; and the left hand resting on the hip gives a flippant attitude, very much at variance with the subject." This offending corselet, which adds to the sin of awkwardness a defiance of " scriptural tradi- tion," is, nevertheless, very well in ac cord with artistic tradition which sanctions the use of_drapery_for its contrast with the jiude, a contrast made in this case by_the_chased borders and ornamental work of the sl ight an mor, which serves also another artistic merit in that it rather emphasizes than conceals the action of the torso Tha t Ihe - a ctiOTT'ortHe hip can be so VEKROCCHIO Ua\-iji Baigello, Florence MINOR SCULPTORS II3 clearly understood under the "kilt," gives even that a piykward^ garment an artistic va.lue. The "flippant" attitude of the left hand may be forgotten in noting its perfect modelling. The right hand grasps the sword with a force that seems really to extend through the muscles of the forearm, and although "/the arms are the lean, veined arms of a stone-hewer or gold- beater," the slender well-knit legs have in their easy action all the grace possible to youth. The giant's head in collapse at the boy's feet is, despite its techni- cal merit, the most unj^asantly realisdc_ note__in_ the whole, since it fails to stir the imagination. That ppwer is monopolized by the head of the David , whose face is the first appearance in art of that type of_22t£Ilt sugges tion which Verroc^ hio firetjdrearned, and_which later haunts Jhe^jworks of his pupils, Leonardo j.nd Lorenzo_^|i_Credi,^„ The fascination of its enigmatical expression is alone able to hold one before the statue for more than a passing glance. And when one is also so fortunate as to be able to feel the pleasure that comes from seeing the com- mon from an uncommon standpoint, a form of aesthetic appeal which has been since the Dutch mas- ters the very backbone of a school of painting, and when one can therefore obtain from the artist's repre- sentation, from his synthesis and emphasis, an enjoy- ment which the natural object represented would 114 ITALIAN SCULPTURE utterly fail to stimulate, he will find himself consider- ing this small bronze David to be one of the most charming statues of the Renaissance, and quite suf- ficient to prove Verrocchio a bronze master of the first order without even the witness of that famous equestrian statue in Venice which will be noticed later. Antonio Pollajuolo, 1429-1498 As Verrocchio, his contemporary Pollajuolo was worker in metals, painter, and sculptor, and devoted to the scientific side of art, but unlike Verrocchio his eagerness to extend the realistic powers of sculpture was not accompanied by a keen sense for the beauti- ful as existent in the actual. His two masterpieces, the tombs of Innocent VIII and of Sixtus IV, in St. Peter's, at Rome, are both badly lighted and unfortunately placed. The details are practically inaccessible to the eye, and the general impression produced is more one of admiration for the sculptor, who in an epoch of shallow carving could plan such ensembles and so successfully cast both figures and reliefs, than of pleasure in the contemplation of the works themselves. The few pieces of the Bargello afford one a better idea of the qualities of vigor and boldness present in Pollajuolo's characteristic style. The terra-cotta Bust of a Young Warrior is most attractive in its portrayal of youthful fire and pride. MINOR SCULPTORS 115 The little bronze of Hercules strangling Cacus, while too harshly realistic and scientific to be wholly pleas- ant, is interesting as typical of that strenuous and bold endeavor after accuracy in representation which relates the minor bronzists to the great masters of the Early Renaissance, and makes clear in what man- ner the fifteenth century built a foundation upon which rests that facility of representation which marks the century to follow, makes of it another epoch, to which is given the title of the " Late Renaissance." Part II THE LATE RENAISSANCE CHAPTER I THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LATE RENAISSANCE CHAPTER I THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LATE RENAISSANCE (1500-1600) The use by historians of the qualifying adjectives^ " Early " and " Late " to designate Renaissance art of I the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries respectively indi- | cates not only a recognized progression in time, with | its inevitable difference in product, but it implies as well a recognition of the presence, in the art activity of the Renaissance, of processes of growth, culmination, and decay, similar to those so often traced in the regions of its literature and politics. The linking together, however, of manifestations of artistic power into a progressive series is a delicate and difficult task. For the work of art is double- faced: it presents itself to us objectively as expression and subjectively as impression, and, while it has its place as factor in a progression in the growth of power to represent, it is also typical of one stage in the growth of the power to please, and, as with the parts of a reversible puzzle, each piece has its differ- 119 I30 ITALIAN SCULPTURE ent function in two designs, and each face its fixed place in one design. If we choose to follow on the fabric of Renaissance art the pattern woven also into literature and politics, we must look at it from only one side, must find which aspect of the works of art under consideration, the objective or the subjective, will illustrate our preconception of development. That, on the subjective side, we shall not be able to trace successive stages of growth, of culmination, and of decay in aesthetic appeal requires no demonstration, since aesthetic values vary with the individual and with the age. There will always be temperaments which gain more pleasure from Ghiberti's suavity than from Michelangelo's terribilita, and which in imagined sen- sation find the rude uncertain force of Delia Quercia's Adam more stimulating than the perfect muscular adjustment of the famous Mercury, and such ages as our own, which, with its craving for the vague, finds in the very incompleteness of undeveloped tech- nique a stimulus more pleasant than is the satisfaction in adequate expression of idea, and which rather pre- fers to expand in imagination the suggestions of a Mino than to rest in the achieved sweetness of a Raphael or a Sansovino. Obviously then it is not the power to please, which, in Renaissance sculpture, can be followed in orderly growth from blade to fruit, and through ripening to decay. CHARACTERISTICS 121 Our purpose, rather, is to trace tKe development of a power which is under no circumstances to be confused with the power to please by one who values his aesthetic salvation and which has its logical plan of progression, namely, the jower to represent. That is, it is the development of the power to p ut before us accurate ly and correctly such facts and relations of form as express to us recognizable conceptions whose course ma y be Sjmibojjzed by a line which rises steadily to its climax to descend again, and which, in its comparatively short extent, is so re markably inclusive of the successi ve moments in the evolution of man's power to represent ioi-m that it affords a concrete instance of the working of general laws. For, in general, the power to repre- sent form has its logical development in the race as in the individual. Both the child and the savage are strangely enough content with the abstract symbol which represents the idea of ,form to the mind rather than the form itself to the eye. Advance over the symbol comes, in the experience of the student of to-day who follows a beaten track as in the experience of the many individuals of past ages who opened out that track, by the gradual mastery of nature's combi- nations as presented to the eye in separate instances, and results naturally in an art of crude naturalism in which the actual model is reproduced with as much slavish exactness as skill of hand permits, unsynthesized, and 122 ITALIAN SCULPTURE without showing conscious emphasis upon this part or that. Mastery of the laws of nature's combinations follows, and, whether a conscious working possession or not, its acquirement, as individual or racial attain- ment, both precedes the power to see and to represent the significant in the special model, and is a necessary- concomitant of the highest degree of power, the ability to create the ideally significant form. ' Along such general lines of evolution of technical power will the sculpture of any period proceed, making such deflections as the forces of its environment direct, and to such a course did the advance of Renaissance sculpture conform, displaying a swiftness in its move- ment, a luxuriance in its growth, and a variety in its product due without doubt to the vigor of those two influences which have before been mentioned as the shaping agents in the art activity of the period, that is, to the enthusiasm for nature and the enthusiasm for antiquity? Casnng aside Byzantine symbolism, sculpture in the hands of Niccola Pisano replaced the conventional symbols of form by actual imitation of forms, guided in its choice of copy by Niccola's pre- dilection for the antique, and passing by the aid of Giovanni to the study of the living model. The imi- tation of nature thus inaugurated does not develop into a jcrude naturafism as_ it might have done had the enthusiasm for antiquity not„been coexi stent with CHARACTERISTICS 123 the enthu siasm for nature. Instead of such result,^ there is, throughout the entire first century of the Renaissance, an action and reaction of the two influ- ence s upon each other whic h greatly accelerates intel- ligent and correct re prese ntation. From the study of anatomy and from the observation of the living model, the sculptor l earns farts of stn.i£.tiu: £--a.mi- ijf artinn, while his ten dency to imitate the individual and often ugly proportions of his model is checked by his appre- cJati£n_of_Jjb£-.,gKeater.„Jba^^ as seen in the few antique statues that he knows, and there is formed, therefore, the habit of selecting and of modifying parts as a means of o btaining the great- est ha rmony that the actual permits. There is reach edi then, in the works of the Early Renaissance, that state in the representation of objects wherein it appears that the sculpto r has learned to p resent a synthesis of the significant and beautifu]_jsjQUjadLmJiliii,,the li mits of the a ctual; while i n the works of the masters. ,al:.. though seen less characteristically in Donatello thap in ^hikj ertflmS in Im^ tcaekoLMeal groportioiiS,.-i--6afF@--wfe4eb-''bee0'm«&- the- -special-^HSobleinj- of the maste rs of the next, century. For its solution there is at hand aid too importunate to be overlooked. Lorenzo de' Medici has opened his garden gallery of antiques. On every side there are growing collections of classic art and discussion of its canons. Instead 124 ITALIAN SCULPTURE then of passing through an experimental period in seeking for the general laws of a pleasant artistic propor- tion, the sculptflii^dQptsJtJinse whirh he . caiL^dgducg from_ his classic model, and which have not only the authority of the scholars, but have also the sanction of his own half-Latin senses. And it is by reason of his clever amalgamation of the facts of classic propor- tion and meth6d~wTfh the J[act^.;;^accumulated byThe study_jof__nature, that the sculpture„flf-J-he ^ early six- teenth century jdiffers so widely from-Jthat^of the fif- teenth^ncL that nudes such, Jpr instance, as,.Donatello's David and Giovanni da Bologna's Mercury, could never change places with each other chronologically. Having mastered both nature's laws of structure and action, and the classic laws of proportion and pose, those masters of the Late Renaissance before Michel- angelo and those later men who are unswerved by his influence show themselves d esirous and able to create figures which unite with the living quality of forms imitated from tKe^ individtJaT the' Tiarmony' of pro por- tion_iaiind in the scale of parts adopted fr om the clas- sic^ Had the genius of Michelangelo not upburst into sculpture, there might have been from this point a gradual development of a type wholly national, but in Michelangelo are achieved the results of generations of ordinary striving. His genius leaps to that culmi- nating point in the representation of form where it is CHARACTERISTICS 125 possible to create figures of the highest expressive value, which are ideal in proportion and even in struc- ture, and which, without breaking nature's laws, extend them to combinations which are not nature's, but are the creations of the sculptor. In Michelangelo, the enthusiasm for nature and the enthusiasm for antiquity which had combined to shape Tuscan art are fused to feed the flame of his genius, and appear no longer as living forces in sculpture. Enthusiasm for Michelangelo takes their place, and decay in the representation of form is rapid. The art of relief is quite lost, and in statue-making, the mannerists of the last years of the sixteenth century no longer study for themselves either nature or the antique, and in their ignorance of underlying law are as incapable of putting together coherently the facts that they copy from Michelangelo as is a child, too young to speak his own tongue, of forming into words the letters of a foreign alphabet. While as a direct influence in representation, the' enthusiasm for the classic cannot be traced in the sculpture of the Late Renaissance after imitation of Michelangelo set in, yet as an indirect influence in determining the subject and the spirit of conception, it has supreme sway from the beginning of the cen- tury until far past its close. The formal subjects of a period are naturally, in greater or less degree, deter- 126 ITALIAN SCULPTURE mined by art patronage, and, historians affirm, are illus- trative of the mental fashions of their times. The classical, mythological, and allegorical figures of Late Renaissance sculpture are meant to body forth in visible substance the characters with which devotion to the Latin authors has peopled the popular mind. Whether its patrons be princes, citizens, or ecclesiastics, whether its destination be church, or public piazza, or private palace, it must meet the demand for classic or allegorical subject. Given, in the names that this sculpture bears, its formal subjects, shall we find them coincident with the direct subjects as apprehended through our senses.? In the least intelligent produc- tions, whatever their titles and the conscious inten- tion of the sculptor, the senses feel the direct subject to be a discordant jumble of echoes, and the mind defines it as an inarticulate mumbling of classic ideas. In the best work, however, the rapport between the classic formal subject and the direct subject is within a certain limit perfect. For, so far as the direct subject is an expression, of an unspiritualized joy in the natural life of the senses, it is an expres- sion of an element that had its prominent place in the Latin ideal, and the figures created, as " genial seed-bearing vessels of nature," are true to the concep- tions of both epochs. For the richest and fullest expression in Renaissance art of this pagan feeling, CHARACTERISTICS 127 an expression struck out when Renaissance and Latin paganism were most truly identical, one must go to Venetian painting, to find there the splendid portrayal of " the lust of the eye and the pride of life." Yet in some of its aspects it is not inadequately treated in sculpture, and indeed is the theme of the best work accomplished by the Late Renaissance sculptors, ex- cepting of course Michelangelo, and in fact is what the sculpture of the period expresses to us when it is sufficiently coherent to express anything. It gives its charm to the great output of decorative sculpture. It animates a whole host of satyrs, and nymphs, and grotesque godlings, who ornament palaces and squares, and dwell in fountains and gardens. Because circumstances imposed the classical subject upon the sculptors of this period, and because, despite a knowledge of the ideals and practices of the ancients, they were unable to reproduce them in art, except as some residue of their composing elements survived and existed in the racial temperament, there was fostered a spirit which left its traces on the sculpture of the times, and detracts from its aesthetic value. For the sculptor works no longer in that free spirit of youth, which, raising the altar of its devotion to the unknown beauty, accepts what thrills its senses in the world about as revelation of that beauty, as a fragment of a beautiful whole believed in if not yet 128 ITALIAN SCULPTURE seen in its wholeness, and worthy his attention and imi- tation. With maturity has come the comprehension of the discovered standards of classic beauty. He is by nature, as a lineal descendant from the Latins, dis- posed to find those standards adequate. Moreover, he is forced to conform to them by the pressure of the culture of his day, which accepts them as authorita- tive, and he is no longer free, nor has the wish, to express empirical knowledge of the beautiful, except such as is in accord with the accepted standard. 'Therefore it comes to pass that he is filled, not with the desire of beauty, but with the desire of classic beauty. In contrast with the intellectuality and sen- sibility of the Early Renaissance, it seems as if the Late Renaissance did not think, it merely adapted thought; it did not feel, it appropriated the masks of classic feeling. And hence there is an element of insincerity and of self-consciousness in much of the work of this period which diminishes its aesthetic appeal, since we feel that the sculptor is straining to conform to a standard that he but dimly understands. More- over, since personal preference is barred out in the creation of types of general beauty, there is an absence of that naive self-revelation which, as the suggestive quality in fifteenth-century sculpture, made it possible for us to share in individual visions. Yet, when he is master of his idea, his technical ability enables him CHARACTERISTICS 129 to express it with a clearness and exactness truly sculpturesque.j When genuine feeHng swallows self- consciousness, and he dares to express himself, his work is conceived with a boldness and a joy which give to it, whatever its subject, a high aesthetic value in and for itself; and which, whatever its shortcomings as an interpretation of classic subject, endows it with more merit as the aesthetic expression of at least one aspect of the Latin ideal than has often been recog- nized, although one might think that the present gen- eration, so eager in its wish to restore to physical life its lost dignity, would be more responsive to the appeal. And yet we happen to be somewhat unfortunately placed for the appreciation of this comparatively small part of the body of historical sculpture, for several circumstances have prevented us from giving it that degree of attention which is necessary for vivid sensa- tion. For our inheritance of " classic " sculpture, rang- ing from the early Greek to the latest "revival," is appallingly large. Nor is it to be expected that our eyes, opened as they have been to the glories of the fifth-century Greek sculpture, should look upon these few classically inspired statues of the Renaissance, in so far as they are meant to be interpretations of antiq- uity, as other than empty husks, which hold never a kernel. Although we are afar off from the Hellenic tempera- 130 ITALIAN SCULPTURE ment, and have to our prophets, instead of a Winckle- mann, a Lessing, a Goethe, a Keats, who without see- ing have divined the Greek ideal, archaeologists who give us facts and fragments, yet because, owing to their labors, our eyes have seen the actual work of Phidias, we have felt in fuller measure than any pre- vious century the physical and spiritual exaltation of the Greek conceptions as made corporeal in sculpture. It is not then to the Renaissance but to the Greek that we go if we seek the refreshment of the antique ideal. As regards the great mass of Roman art, which is to the Greek the coarsened and inadequate rendering of a poet's discourse by the man in the street, we of necessity discriminate, prizing much of it as hints of Greek originals, broken reflections of what has been lost to sight, and finding it not the least wearisome, paradoxically enough, when it is least Greek, when it shows itself most blind to the subtlety of Greek pro- portions and is perhaps vulgar, but alive and Roman. Now the pseudo-classic sculpture of the eighteenth century neither voices the real passions of its day nor echoes the beauty of lost antiques, and therefore is it a burden on our eyelids. Cold, academic, meaning- less except to the historian and the pedant, it truly encumbers the earth ; and even in Italy itself it suf- focates with its presence sculpture, which, generated it would superficially seem, by the same standards of form. CHARACTERISTICS 131 yet had the advantage to be born alive, with the life current of its own times to make it individual and real, if not classic. Could we purge our eyes of their memories and look upon Sansovino's Bacchus or upon the flying Mercury as did the Florentines who saw them first, we should no doubt respond with an excitement and sur- prise as keen as theirs to the novel appeal of unexag- gerated action and structure so clearly felt from the nude, and seeming to at last give form to the dreams of study. Moreover, not only does the accumulation of sculp- ture patterned after the classic make us inattentive to the Late Renaissance sculpture as one interpretation more, but we are prevented from fully appreciating the intrinsic aesthetic value which its figures pos- sess as artistic creations by the peculiar bias of the modern temperament. The temperament of the six- teenth century with its absorption and delight in the representation of un beau corps nu found in them a representation of form by far the most satisfactory and stimulating that it had seen, and found there, too, the illustration of its fondest ideal of man as a being free, dignified, self-sufficient for the world that he lives in. Qualities of order, of balance, and of sanity, so new to him in art, are to us the catalogued beauties of an old enthusiasm. They leave our imagination 132 ITALIAN SCULPTURE unstirred. Half living as we can through the means that science and history have given us, a hundred different lives of the imagination, we are most easily thrilled in art by that which suggests rather than defines, which, instead of confining us to a definite feeling, a recognizable and therefore limited sensation, sets fire to trains of fancy and starts the nerves into a vague quiver which promises, if it does not provide, rare sensations. In short, the greatest fault to be found with this sculpture as a whole, excepting of course with the w6rk of Michelangelo, is that for us, from an aesthetic point of view, it is completely lacking in that "charm," for which our appetite is omnivorous. It is true that its mastery of technique enables it to express its thought fully and clearly. But we are not at all moved by that thought. And moreover its greatest merit sculpturally, its restraint and its scrupulous rejection of extraneous matter, is for us a demerit since it lessens our chance of aesthetic enjoyment as we can find no avenues of escape into associated fields of our own imagining. Finally, we may be sensitive to its aesthetic appeal and obtain the aesthetic pleasure that it can give, if, non-expectant of participation through imagined sen- sation in the Greek life of poetically conceived sensa- tion, we can key ourselves to joy in the exuberance of unsated, unmoralized sense life, and, resigning the CHARACTERISTICS 133 dear delights of diffusive emotion induced by promises of sensations, are content to identify ourselves with simple action and submerge ourselves in one state of sensation. It is plain enough that the sculpture of Michel- angelo carries us into realms of feeling and thought which are immeasurably distant from the confines of the limited mood which is typical of the Late Renais- sance when not under his spell. The aesthetic appeal of his creations will be considered later. His con- temporaries, with the exceptions of Cellini and of Gio- vanni da Bologna, were dazzled by his genius, and the works of the masters who had preceded him came to be noticed no more than are the stars after the sun has risen. They have failed also to have any apprecia- ble effect upon the style of modern sculpture, which, susceptible to the charm of the Early Renaissance and studious of the methods of Michelangelo, has found little to attract it in the period between. That period created no new things in sculpture, and is to be valued historically for its excellent technique, and as the last sincere expression in sculpture of unashamed, unphi- losophized absorption in the sensuous life. CHAPTER II THE SANSOVINI CHAPTER II THE SANSOVINI Andrea Sansovino, 1460-1529 Standing between those , chronological groups of works of art, which, because of marked common char- acteristics, are said to constitute a "period," there are always to be found so-called " transitional " works which bear on their surface reflections of the period which disappears, and foregleams of that which comes. As both postlude and prelude, such work is the especial delight of the scientific art critic whose business lies with the construing of resemblances into relations. Outside of its interest, however, unless the union of new and old is unusually piquant, transitional work has not the zesthetic value possessed by the repre- sentative work of a period. It is apt to be reminiscent without spontaneity, and tentative without conviction. While in Andrea Sansovino, in whom is traceable the transition from the Early to the Late Renaissance ideal of form, there is not the originality and energy 137 138 ITALIAN SCULPTURE of artistic power to make for piquancy of effect, there is on the other hand a natural disposition toward an ordered and general beauty which gives him firm hold upon the classic manner. In his early works he joins hands, loosely enough, with the fifteenth-century Florentines; but in his last works he is at one with the sixteenth century in spirit and type. He is clearly transitional in the great tombs of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, the masterpieces of his maturity, and invites comparison of the manner of the two periods, since there he is treating an old object, of the Early Renaissance, namely, the architectural sculp- tural monument, in. the new manner of the sixteenth century. It is unfortunate for the purposes of. comparison that there are not in Santa Maria del Popolo any, typical Early tombs. Passing down the church, one .nQtes some of Mino's stupidest, most, barren work, and has thriist upon one's notice Bernini's restless saints, all of a frozen flutter in the nave, and finally comes;. to Sansovino's tombs enclosed in the choir behind •, the high; altar, in the mood to feel that they are stately monuments of a well-ordered elegance. One's feeling of satisfaction, however, is but too short-lived, for the ■tombs themselves revive memories of the tombs of the early men, of Desiderio and Civitali, and Rossellino; and such memories convince us that we shall not get ANDREA SANSOVINO Tomb Cardinal Sforza S. Maria del Popolo, Rome THE SANSOVINI 139 an equal pleasure here. Analysis of the effects of the parts brings out the reasons for the emptiness of the whole impression. The arched recess, that principal feature in the plan of the Early Renaissance tomb, has been expanded here into a petite fa9ade, broken with projections and recesses, holding free statues in its niches, and covered with a veil of fine ornament. The monument is, architecturally, put together with good taste in the use of classic members and mould- ings, but with an absence of focus. This defect, more- over, is in no degree mitigated by the distribution of the ornament, which, while in itself of much beauty of design, is ineffectual in its application since it does not emphasize the structure, nor serve to give calculated values in the light and shade scheme of the whole composition. Evidently the sculptor has not had in mind the old idea of the construction of a frame properly subordinated in structural and decora- tive effect to the central sarcophagus. Indeed, the effigy of the dead and the roundel of the Madonna, upon which were once concentrated the attention, are here but pale gleams from the past, and are quite lost to notice in the glory of the niched figures, which, from the care bestowed upon them and the prominence given them, are surely the foci of the monuments. They are unequivocally of the Late Renaissance in type, and no doubt their ease of pose and their ampli- I40 ITALIAN SCULPTURE tude of proportion, as well as their grace of drapery and regularity of feature, gave much real aesthetic pleasure to their day. But they exert over us no spell of the novel, and, lacking in our eyes both the subtlety and the intellectual content of the antique, lacking also the suggestiveness of the individual, their " catalogued beauties " fail to charm. The figure of Prudence on the tomb of the Cardinal Sforza is sometimes said to be one of the most beautiful figures of the Renaissance. The eye acknowledges the excellence of the representation of an evenly developed female type, but counts its aesthetic appeal as nil beside the feeling induced by Delia Quercia's incorrect but stimulating • nudes, Duccio's figures, unsubstantial but alluringly draped, or even beside the charm of Mino's curving eyelids. Identify yourself with it, there is nothing represented in its action, or in its character, or in its physical life to give higher quality to your moments. None of the figures has any connection with the others as a member of a group, nor with the sepul- chral figure which itself is not, either in sentiment or in composition, the keynote of such an elegy in stone as Rossellino and Desiderio could compose. Misled, perhaps by a desire for novelty, in the treatment of the sepulchral figure Andrea has achieved signally unhappy results. Abandoning the traditional outstretched pos- ANDREA SANSOVINO Detail "Prudence" Tomb Cardinal Sforza THE SANSOVINI 141 ture, he has here rep resented the figures as half reclin- ing, leaning on their elbows and with their legs crossed, yet with neither the decent composure of the dead nor the animation of the living, so that the hybrid attitude is, physically, most painful to the spectator, while it drives from his mind those sentiments wont to hover near the thought of death, and which are so easily respondent to any poetic treatment of the theme. Jacopo Sansovino, 1477-15 70 In emphasizing in Andrea Sansovino a lack of poetical sentiment as typical of the sixteenth century in comparison with the fifteenth, there comes, to qualify any too sweeping a generalization, the thought of An- drea's closest pupil, that Jacopo Tatti called Sansovino from his master, the body of whose production, to be sure, goes to swell the great paean on the splendid joys of living which Venice gave the last years of the century, yet who, before he went to Venice, made in Florence a statue of Bacchus which is a perfectly rounded stanza of the "poetry of earth" which "is never dead." The Bacchus is a statue, under life size, of slightly yellowed marble, showing little morbidezza in the treatment of its surface and little detail in the model- ling. There is no distinction in the forms except in 142 ITALIAN SCULPTURE those of the face. The balance of the members and their proportions are evidently inspired by the classic, yet the whole figure moves with the living rhythm of an individual. Indeed, so real is its communication of movement, that it is almost possible in imagined sen- sation to feel in oneself that smooth muscular adjust- ment which we call perfect grace. What pleasure, as of embodying in muscular movement a cadence of music, to sway forward with the weight on one side, while at the same time the leg muscles on the other side gently straighten, and the balancing arm circles upward toward the lifted head ! Sansovino has repre- sented the pleasantest moment of that action, the mo- ment that holds in itself the inevitable suggestion of the muscular sensations that preceded it, and even sug- gests, in the expectant joy written on the face, the sen- sations to follow, as the polished cup shall touch the lips and the wine flood the sense with gracious warmth. And to such imagined sensation the mind is quick to fit a concept of the "pure joys of living." So long as we can dwell with pleasure on that idea, and so long as in imagination we can submerge our physical feel- ing in the life current which pulses in the Bacchus, so long will the statue hold us. For its aesthetic ap- peal lies in its power to give us that thought and that feeling, and it is not adulterated nor even perceptibly extended by associative values, either mythological or JACOPO SANSOVINO Bacchus Bargello, Florence THE SANSOVINI 143 historical. As an interpretation of its subject, it is sincere because it is no echo of ancient feeling, but is the embodiment of the temperate Italian's enjoyment of good wine, and of his happiness in his vineyards. This young god is not Greek nor Roman, but pure Tuscan, the concentration into concrete, tangible vision of what is rendered to the senses in a Tuscan vine- yard, a being who incorporates into leaf-crowned form the grace of the festooned vines, and seemingly into his structure that very sweetness and warmth of sun and soil which swells the purple grapes with nectar. One nuance he is of the Greek Dionysos, but only a flash, as it were, of that prismatic religious concept, of that cult to which each early people of Greece added its local color, until, poetized and philosophized, it held in any one of its symbols the recognition of the life generated from the earth by sun and dew, and of the essential oneness of such phenomena with the less clearly discerned changes in man's state as body and soul. Yet the suggestion here for such associative idea is of the slightest. And there is no hint of the Roman patron of orgy. His only attendant is a baby Pan. It is later, in Venetian painting, that the Bacchus of Latin poetry appears, and brings with him all his train of revellers. The Bacchus of Sansovino is, after all, less classic in matter than in manner, for it is not the interpretation of a Greek or a Roman myth, but is 144 ITALIAN SCULPTURE actual myth-making from home-grown stuff, and it pre- sents a nature incarnation with a clearness of outline and an exclusiveness of association which is truly sculptural and creates for the spectator a concrete sensation and emotion. CHAPTER III GIOVANNI DA BOLOGNA CHAPTER III GIOVANNI DA BOLOGNA (1530-1608) The power to think sculpturally, to see a definite idea incorporated in a form which is the distillation of all those related sensations which make the idea, a power which the Greeks possessed in the highest im- aginable degree, and which belongs also in generous measure to the best sculptors of the Late Renaissance, although it is unfortunately exercised on a body of shallow ideas, finds no better representative in this period than Giovanni da Bologna. Although a con- temporary of Michelangelo, he is little affected by the latter's technique, and not at all by his thought, and makes his own figures the embodiment of rather obvious ideas, which are usually those of physical state and action. His masterpiece, a thing, as the Italian says, " molto ingegnosa e rarrissima" is the bronze Mercury of the Bargello. From all the shapes, which, shifting quick- silver-Uke, belong to the Greek Hermes of the many epithets, and to the Roman Mercury, god of gain and 147 148 ITALIAN SCULPTURE eloquence, Giovanni has made choice of one, of Hermes Di^kteros, who is Mercury the messenger of the gods, known by his attributes, the petasus and the caduceus and the winged feet; and of all the god's possibilities of action, he has chosen the power of swift movement through the air. The figure, in fact, sums up for the eye the bodily sensations of the ideal runner, adding to our realization some indescribable element of enjoy- ment such as the eye seizes for us from the flight of a bird and the swoop of a yacht. For Giovanni has rep- resented that moment, in the rhythm of running, when the wave of motion passes from one set of levers to the other, and the exhilaration of the effort is at its highest. And he has been able to isolate his chosen moment by means of his knowledge of anatomy, and his skill in the balancing and casting of bronze figures. The body as a whole is charged with the idea, and the head is made no more expressive than the foot, indeed is, as is the pedestal, merely a necessary ter- mination. The relation of the arms to the action of the legs is perhaps somewhat artificial, too evidently de- termined by the idea of controposto, and could hardly be justified by any instantaneous photograph of the run- ning movement ; but, seen in silhouette, it adds to the impression of forward-upward motion, and the pose as a whole is a synthesis of the running movement which we readily accept as true. The modelling is suited to GIOVANNI DA BOLOGNA Mercury GIOVANNI DA BOLOGNA 149 both the material and the subject by its clear indica- tion of structure and muscles, and by its avoidance of any surplusage of flesh. The patina, of a myrtle green color, which has formed on the cheek and upper legs, is not unpleasing in effect, and is altogether a less re- grettable souvenir of the figure's sojourn in the garden of the Villa Medici at Rome than are the scars mark- ing where the statue was broken in its careless trans- portation to Florence. On the old site of the Mercury in the garden of the Villa Medici, now occupied by the French Academy, there stands a replica with its surface corroded to the bright green tint fancied by modern Italians. It is only a copy, but, taken in connection with its situation, it teaches us how the enjoyment of an object is enhanced and prolonged by appropriate surroundings. The Mer- cury of the Bargello, confined with scores of other statues in the gloomy prison of the ancient state, was created, it seems, for the open air and the delightful freedom of a garden. His part there is played by a replica, but, so far as general impression is concerned, with slight loss to us. Entering the garden at the side, one passes down alleys bordered with box and filled with a pale green light which filters through overhanging ilex, and bay, and pine, and as one approaches the lawn before the villa, one sees there a flash of green flame, the Mercury, and perceives on coming nearer that he faces the open- ISO ITALIAN SCULPTURE ing of the high terrace, and that space is clear before the speed of his feet across gardens and city walls to the azure Alban hills and the snow peaks of the Apennines. Although Giovanni had not always the success in fusing subject with material which makes the Mer- cury his masterpiece, he is preeminently a bronze mas- ter, fond of energetic action, of epigrammatic contours, and of all the problems that find their best solution in that material. Yet he could work in marble. Indeed, it is said that he made the marble group known as the Rape of the Sabine, to prove that the fragility of the marble was no bar to the force and fashion of his skill. He convinced his public. For the science displayed in his group was keenly appreciated by his times, which it seems found pleasure in discussing technique much as it is discussed in the art schools of to-day, and so well did he hit off the popular taste, its worship in art of un beau corps nu, its liking for stimulating forms, that praises were lavished upon him, and the laudatory verses attached, as was then the ingenuous custom, to the group itself, were suflS- cient to make a printed volume. In their prodigious effusion of sentiment and superlatives, they seem a reproach to the laconic guide-book and the calm critic of to-day; but the group, in its solution of technical problems, is really rather "art for the artist" than a GIOVANNI DA BOLOGNA Rapk ok the Sahines Loeffia de' Lanzi. Florence GIOVANNI DA BOLOGNA 151 satisfaction for the ordinary visitor. And that the sculptors have studied it with both pleasure and profit is evident from the number of groups, especially in France, which have been inspired by it. Yet even the unprofessional who give it their attention cannot fail to see the skill shown in its balance and in the management of projecting members and the knowledge of anatomy. The central figure is modelled with the most detail. Its action calls into play some of the most powerful muscles of the torso, and brings out the typical contours of the male for emphatic contrast with those of the female figure. In the latter, the emphasis is placed upon the softness and roundness of flesh, not only as characteristic of the sex, but of the period of adolescence as well, for the sculptor's design was to make the group an illustration of the three ages, by reproducing the soft contours of youth, the muscular development of maturity, and the more angu- lar forms of old age. To group the three figures to- gether, he makes use of the incident dedicated by tradition to the display of the nude, and to the con- trast of the male and female figures. Most character- istic of the period is the treatment of the figures as three types of body, not three characters; so that, although his figures live, they seem to be animated by instinct, rather than by the passionate intelligence belonging only to man. It has been said of the IS2 ITALIAN. SCULPTURE creations of Greek sculpture, that they do not "act," they "are." How far, then, from the Greek are such figures as these which do not exist as characters but as poses! Once the group was set up in the Loggia, it was given the specific title. The Rape of the Sabines, after much popular discussion. The name matters little to us. The savage passion which we associate with the legendary episode has no illustration in the balanced figures of the group; but in the relief of the pedestal, which was made after the naming of the group, and which is Giovanni's best work in relief, there is a successful attempt to convey the wildness and bar- barity of the struggle. And the group itself takes on, when seen across the piazza, an animation of meaning lost on nearer approach, as one sees in the shadow of the Loggia the uplifted white arms of the struggling woman and the straining shoulders of her captor. Although Giovanni's Mercury and his Rape of the Sabines demonstrate his ability to handle both bronze and marble in the single figure and in the group, and place him in the first rank of the sculptors of the sixteenth century, he shows himself to be inferior to the masters of the fifteenth in the treatment of bas- relief, whether we judge him from his best work, the relief of the Rape of the Sabines, or from his least GIOVANNI DA BOLOGNA 153 successful, the pedestal of the equestrian statue of Cosmo de' Medici. The bronze doors of the cathedral at Pisa, which have been until recently ascribed to him, in design at least and partially in execution, are shown by recent research to be in all probability the work of another hand. So well, however, do they illustrate Giovanni's shortcomings in the treatment of relief, in illustrating the inferiority of the manner of his century to the manner of the fifteenth in that branch of sculpture, that they may with propriety be considered here. Whoever the sculptor was, he had not the faculty of using his plans with that lucidity and effectiveness which was attained with so little apparent effort by even the minor sculptors of the previous century, and, needless to say, is far from possessing Ghiberti's power to handle the laws of perspective as magic formula of enchantment. One may stand before those dusty doors in Florence, while every sense registers per- sonal discomfort, and gradually becoming oblivious to the odors, the dust, and the noise of a city square, swarming with the deformities of actuality, be rapt away by Ghiberti's harmonies, as truly as a Keats by the song of a nightingale, to worlds where discord has no part. At Pisa one is scarcely so fortunate, although here, as is rarely the case, the surroundings of the cathedral attune one to sensitiveness, for the 1 54 ITALIAN SCULPTURE three stately buildings stand in a field of green and look over the city wall toward encompassing purple hills. The transition to ideal scenes would be easy, and one's fancy needs but a hint to . be off. But the Pisan gates are ineffectual; they preach no new gospel of beauty, cast no spell over eye and imagina- tion. They have their value in the general effect of the fa9ade as a space of rich green in a color effect of yellow and red and green marble and brilliant mosaic. The weathering, however, which has given them their effective patina, has done its part in oblit- efatirig relief which could never have been very clear. The action of time has but increased a fundamental confusion of plants and an indistinctness of silhouette, which makes the effort to . disentangle ; the design fatiguing and irritating to a degree little conducive to aesthetic enjoyment. Ihave chosen fbr illustration one the clearest' panels, the Visit of the Three Kings. Compared in composi- .tion, in types, in technique, with any of Ghiberti's panels, it has not a large excuse for bei,ng. - The figure that strikes the eye first is that of a naked slave, not of the Madonna nor of oiie of the Three Kings. The bounding lines of the figures of the groups are so con- fused, and their planes are so wavy, that the eye finds it difficult to place any separate figure. The ugly crowns arranged to mark successive planes are hardly PANEL OF BRONZE GATES Visit of the MAGr Duomo, Pisa (Period of Late Renaissance) GIOVANNI DA BOLOGNA 155 successful in creating the illusion of distance, and the perspective view of that stock feature of the paintings of the incident, the retinue of the Kings, is a complete failure. Its first spirited figures, however, the horse and its advancing sheik, are interesting, and, with the nude in the foreground, are most detachable and come the nearest to possessing that quality of attraction for the inquiring fingers which, felt so strongly in Ghiberti's panels, is properly the appeal of goldsmith work. The clean firmness of outline, the sign manual of that train- ing in the goldsmith's shop which so influenced the technique of the early bronze workers, is wanting to the figures, and is an even greater loss to the over- heavy border. So overcrowded and so little conven- tionalized are the fruits and flowers composing it that the design is smothered in the foliage, as are some charming small lizards and birds which surely deserved a better fate. Even although these tiny creatures of the gates must, with the reliefs, resign all claim to being the creation of Giovanni da Bologna, they are not un- worthy to be members of that fantastic company of decorative "grotesques," of whimsical monsters and devils which were made by his hand, which are to be met with often in Italy and here and there in the world's museums, and which make us wonder at the produc- tiveness of his fancy, and serve to enrich and en- 156 ITALIAN SCULPTURE liven our whole concept of the decorative side of Renaissance sculpture. And such objects as the appealing devil of the Via Vecchietta, and the sprightly dolphins of the fountain at Bologna so hardly curbed by the attendant cupids, not only delight us by their inherent blitheness, but come also to be of value to us as signs and symbols of times, when, as we fondly imagine, objects of daily sight and use were made beautiful, and the great artists were also craftsmen. CHAPTER IV BENVENUTO CELLINI CHAPTER IV BENVENUTO CELLINI (1500-1571) The existence of the choicer things of daily use and ornament, such as the work of the smith in pre- cious metals, the jewellery, the intaglios, the embroid- eries, the objects of ivory and enamel, in short all that varied product of the craftsman which makes the natural atmosphere for the larger work of the artist is, in any state of civilization, of all too short a lease. The intrinsic value of their material, their fragility, and their portability expose them to vicissi- tudes that few survive, and any epoch must construct its images of the handiwork of former days from the flotsam and jetsam of collections, and from the de- scriptions to be found here and there in literature. Although the latter aid to the imagination is not to be compared with the former, yet, taken in connection with some familiarity with the actual objects left us, it serves the purpose of rebuilding them and their like into their places in the structure of former daily life. '59 i6o ITALIAN SCULPTURE No writings of a period add so many concepts of its lost beauties, and better show them in their rela- tions to people's feelings about them, than do the treaties and autobiography of Benvenuto* Cellini, — type of the Renaissance braggadocio, man of lu sts and lie s and poetic fancies^ true arti_st_alvrays, and^ the best gold- smith o f _his_ tjmeS;,,, Now, although in his narratives of his relations with popes, and princes, and kings, Cellini has occasion to speak of the antiques that they treasure, and although he often describes the productions of his contempora- ries if only to dispraise them, his chief concern is with the history, and description, and eulogy of his own works, all of which matter he sets forth in so lively and persuasive a style that the j ewelled cups, and^ the salt -cella rs, and th e buttons, and the h elmets of which he discourses and which have, for the most part, disappeared from the world of visible objects even as have their owners, are almost as clear to our mental vision as the images of many objects upon which our eyes have looked their fill. And as for the comparatively few pieces which are preserved in muse- ums, they acquire from Cellini's words a kind of glamour which causes us to give them an unusual degree of attention and appreciation. Few can be seen to-day of that host of lovely things that Cellini made during his years of industry. A few c nps snmp mcdall'"""! — BENVENUTO CELLINI i6i the_co yer of a Book of Hours, a salt-cellar. — these are the best authenticated of many like objects attributed to him, and are all that remain to us of the work of Cellini as goldsmith. Of Cellini, sculptor, we may see the statue that earned him the title standing in the _ Loggia dei Lanzi in Fl orence , where it has stood since Cellini himself set it there, swelling with pride as he exhibited it to the city, and thinking the plaudits that met his ears ample recompense at last for his sorely hindered efforts. In looking at the Perseus , nobody who remembers Cellini's vivid account of his labors, and of the excitement of its casting, can wholly separate, in his impression, what his eyes really bring him from what he prepares himself to see. Perhaps some faint thrill remains, from the memory gf Cellini's narrative of its casting, of that scene in the workshop when the metal had ceased to flow, and Cellini, risen from a bed of fever, rushes in to save his precious statue, hurls blows and curses and orders at his frightened men, and finally, to fill the mould, casts into the cal- dron all his three hundred pieces of household pewter. Or perhaps there seems to still linger for sensitive ears a thin reverberation of the praises which the piazza echoed hundreds of years ago. However, count- ing out such factors of impression, th e statue easily appeals to one as being far ahead of the other sculpture i62 ITALIAN SCULPTURE of this time, except of course Michelangelo's, in being a sincere expression of personality. That it attempts to c onform to no classic mode l is evident enough from the realistic det ail of the r esul t of decapitation . The classic pri nciple of the b alance of members is followed. As to the rather ungatis factory proport ions of the body, the long torso, and the thick legs, it is probable that they are not the result of a rejection of the classic, but followed the enlarging of the small m odel. Com- parison of the statue wi th the first wax mode l of the PjvrgfUo, which is so much happier in its proporti ons, would seem to prove this supposition. This small figure, made on the scale which best suited Cellini's hand, has a sort of lightness of figure, and a debo nair grace whi ch is most attractiv e. The same qualities are so diluted in the bronze statue as to be hardly recognizable, and yet they are, I think, at the bottom of the pleasant impression. Another indication that the maker of the Perseus was goldsmith rather than sculptor is the careful an d complex trgat ment of certain details, the ordered int ri- cacy of I h e s nake s of the Mpdnsa's hea d , f o r - m stSnce, and the, p.lahnrate helmet , a consummation in metal of such a design as. when one look s ■at the drawings in the Uffizi_Ieft_b y Cellini of fantastic helm ets crowded withst range animals and fignrpg, s eems only po ssible on pagei\_ The fancy and hand of the goldsmith is above CELLINI Perseus Loggia de' Lanzi, P'lorence .^' DONATELLO BmiNZE David Bargello, BENVENUTO CELLINI 163 aJL-o bvious in the ornate ped estal. The latter is too n?rrow_JQr-Jte statue, and is weakened by over-orna- mentation, ThfiL Jour statuettes of its niches are classic in^jiame, and are quite in the conventional manner o f the_day^ The various details, masks, rams' heads, etc., are the product of a skilled and original hand, but they present no unity of design. However much the eye may linger over the rich details, the mind does not lose sight of the fact that they are but parts of the whole, and an element which perhaps increases our enjoyment by giving us the feeling that the figu re was conceived in the truly romantic and not in the ps eudo-cla ssic tem per. That is the reason that, as a visualization of a well-known hero, it is satisfactory. Yet if one has no wish to replace his own image of Perseus and of the Gorgon's head by Cellini's, he can gain some pleasure from a representation of youth and strength seen at the moment of the accomplishment of an action. CHAPTER V MICHELANGELO CHAPTER V MICHEIiANGELO (i47siiS64) The artistic power of genius itself is not born Minerva-like. Mature as it shows itself to be even in its earliest works in its independence and assurance, it has yet had its period, however brief, of dependence upon and assimilation of the knowledge and the spirit of its environment. From the past it inherits, as does the smaller talent, but it is quick to make claim to its own, and to reinvest. It reveals itself as genius because it can select, and assimilate, and transmute, and can then put forth results, not processes. No artist has seemed more self-directed and self- nourished than Michelangelo. Yet he is moved by the tendencies of his day, shares in the popular enthusiasm for science and ior the-antiqttey-and is as eager to dis- sect dead bodies in the cell at San Spirito as to study from Lorenzo's antiques in the garden of San Marco. And, in fact, in all of his early works, in the sculpture of what may be called his first manner, that produced 167 i68 ITALIAN SCULPTURE before he is summoned to paint the Sistine Chapel, he shows that he has reached, by the same processes, the same state in the representation of form that is attained by the best work of the High Renaissance, / that is, he has learned to construct his figures accord- ing to the laws of nature and the scale of classic pro- portions. He likes to display the effects of physical exertion in figures of full muscular development and over life size. But Michelangelo did not remain at this stage of development. He outgrew his satisfaction in such an ideal of form, and gradually evolved one which better expressed him. The first man since the Greeks to comprehend the scope and expressive capabilities of the nude in art, to see that it may express us to ourselves with a directness only paralleled by the power of music, he was bound, as he mastered the technique of his art and as his nature developed, to put into the lan- guage of the nude those unrestrainable thoughts and emotions which, while truly his, yet had been and were to be, in the evolution of man's spirit, typical of a view of life which had been practically unfelt by the classic peoples, and which certainly had not been nor could be expressed in the classic ideal of form. Now, if these unclassic ideas and emotions were to find expression through the language of the nude, there was necessary an arrangement of proportions and parts which should MICHELANGELO 169 differ from the classic in order to express the not classic. It is in the sculpture of what may be called his second manner that Michelangelo arrives at a presentment of the nude figure which so differs from classic canons, in the treatment of relations and proportions, that it expresses thoughts and feelings never before expressed in form, and establishes in its turn, as had the Greek before it, conventions in the representation of form which were often misunderstood by later sculptors, and which became in their hands imperfect formulae, mis- apprehended and misapplied. First Period The early work of Michelangelo in sculpture is that of a youthful personality directed more by its preferences than its passions, and, as is the case with all early work, however thorough the artist's assimilation and striking his individuality, it lets us into the secrets of his studies, rather than into those of his experiences. There 'is his earHest work, the- relief of th^ Centaurs, to prove his use of antique models, aii'd there is the Cupid, of which the story goes that after being buried in the ground it was sold to a connoisseur as a genuine antique, to prove how quickly the lesson of the classic manner was learned. And there is the statue of a drunken youth, miscalled Bacchus, to show observation of nature and close study of the living model. And 170 ITALIAN SCULPTURE there is the series of gods, of which the Apollo and the Cupid are examples, to indicate, that, although felt with an ardor and carried out with a vigor unknown to the lesser sculptors, his ideal of form was practi- cally the same as theirs, that is, he wished to repre- sent the nude figure on as large a scale as possible, he felt the beauty of ample, symmetrical development, and the stimulus of vigorous action. Although any and every work of this period reveals originality and power, it is in the last works, the Piet^ and the David, that there is evident the most complete transmutation of knowledge into creative power. The Pieia The treatment in art of any religious subject such as this traditional one of the Piet^ tends to become symbolical rather than to remain truly illustrative. That is, the Pieta is the illustration of an incident, of the pity of Mary at the moment when she takes upon her knees the dead body of her son; but it tends to become more than the portrayal of physical and mental suffering, to become a symbol of a sacrifice made for the sin of humanity; and therefore, as a so pregnant religious symbol, it arouses emotions which naturally flood back upon, and perhaps somewhat inhibit, the purely aesthetic consideration of it as a presentment of form. This, I think, accounts for the fact that MICHELANGELO Pu-tA St. Peter's, Rome MICHELANGELO 171 many writers in treating of Michelangelo's Pieta have spoken as if it conveyed to the mind directly and forcibly some very definite thoughts as form, which seem rather to belong to it as symbol. They find that the figure of the Madonna expresses profound grief, sanctity, submission, and clairvoyant resignation, and they see in the figure of Christ a sacrificed divinity. Now, do not these ideas belong to the associative appeal of the group.? Is not the one idea actually apprehended through the senses this, namely, the pathetic idea of the support by a living body of a helpless dead body ? We see that the relation between them is of the closest, and the feeling of pathos is aroused. That we know from the subject that they are mother and son, that we know that they are Mary and Christ, makes concrete that pathos, and deepens and enriches it by many associations which carry us in emotion beyond the actual feeling that the figures of themselves have the power of stirring. • The figure of Christ is under the size of life but well developed, and is carefully modelled and finished. The relaxation is so skilfully conveyed that it typifies to us that very moment of the cessation of life which is not collapse, nor rigor mortis, but the moment when the body becomes dead weight, yet is still warm and supple. The figure of Mary is proportionately larger, and supplies the living support of arm and lap. 172 ITALIAN SCULPTURE Identification in imagined sensation with either figure, to feel the absence of hfe or to feel the resting of a dead weight upon one for support, is productive of deep emotion. In its power to arouse that emotion is the great aesthetic merit of the group. Details add little to the language of the figures. The heads are more carefully finished than is usual with Michel- angelo, but the faces, in type and expression, are not impressive. The composition is most skilful, for the two figures are truly united into a group by mass and line, so that the whole has the monumental quality of a unit, while each figure makes its subordinate appeal. Whether we choose, in our enjoyment of the Pietk, to emphasize the emotions which as symbol it arouses, or which as illustration it defines, they are built upon a genuine aesthetic appeal, a communication by form of the pathetic idea of the relation of the living to the dead, which must include, with all sorts and . con- ditions of men, many emotions that are not always crys- tallized into religious incident or personal experience. The David It is not as a religious symbol, nor for its aesthetic value, but simply on its merits as an illustration of character that the David appeals to nine-tenths of the visitors to the Accademia. If they like the colossal statue, they like it because of its realism. MICHELANGELO 173 " David probably was," they say, " just such a half- grown boy as Michelangelo has represented him to be: huge in build and capable of putting forth phenomenal strength in a sudden effort, under the impulse of an excited will." If they dislike it, they dislike it because of its lack of idealism. " How is it possible," they say, "to conceive of this awkward boy- giant as playing the part of a hero in the story of colossal Might overcome by puny Right? This huge creature might easily slay the lion, and the bear, and the Philistine, and need no miraculousi aid from heaven. The engaging weakness and grace and dreamy face of the David of Donatello, / and of the David of Verrocchio, are truer because more poetic illustrations of the hero of the legend." Both views are based upon the strong realis|:ic impression which is the striking artistic character- istic of the figure. For it is simply the figure of an undeveloped boy, so cleverly enlarged that not a char- acteristic of the type is lost, although/ the species has become the giant. In every aspect of the technique of statue-making, the science shown is remarkable. When one realizes that a youth of twenty-four, with the aid of a small working model of wax, made this colossus from a piece of marble already considered spoiled by another sculptor, the Icorrectness of eye implied, and also the exactitude aiid intricacy of cal- 174 ITALIAN SCULPTURE culation shown in getting out the figure, posed appro- priately on the whole, proves it to be the work of one who is already a master of his art. So well planned is the distribution of weight that there is necessary for external support only that fragment of the block upon which the right leg rests. The bodily forms are defined with much accuracy, and despite the general angularity and disjointedness natu- ral to the undeveloped type, the flow of line is con- tinuous and full of vigor. The modelling shows the sensitive chisel of a knowing master. Notice the muscles of the upraised forearm, the bones of the thorax, and in the knee the difference between bone and muscle. The turn of the head makes such a chance as Michelangelo well liked for the modelling of straining neck muscles. The knitted brows and the heavily massed hair recall the St. George of Dona- tello, but the expression of the face is not, as in the former, an almost wistful look of boyish earnestness, but the fierce ^glare of an angry young giant. Could we see the powerful young figure in the place chosen for it by the Florentines, guarding the entrance of the Palazzo Vecchio, we might be enabled to enjoy without fatigue, as is not possible in its present situa- tion, the realistic f*orce of the impression. The niche which it now occupies was planned for it, and is as sufficiently large a;^ any indoor space could be. To MICHELANGELO Tomb of Lorenzo, Uuca di Urbino "II PiiNsiEROso," Uawx, Twilight Sacrisly S. Lorenzo, Florence MICHELANGELO 175 be sure, the reasons for surrounding it with Fra Angelico's most miniature-like work are obscure. In- deed, the dominating presence of the David sometimes follows one into // Paradiso and prevents heart-whole participation in the rapture of tiny circling saints. But the real reason, I think, for the lapses in enjoy- ment which are sure to occur during one's contem- plation of the David, is found ih the fact that the young sculptor has chosen, as an older sculptor would not have chosen, to represent the most awkward state in the development of the human body, and every defect of development is emphasized by colossal size. So that, although the thing is so well done that it communicates the sensations of physical energy directly and with a rush, it is not, after all, a form that can steadily invigorate, for it is the arrest in stone of a transition in growth. Second Period Between the year 1504, whose month of May saw the great David dragged through the streets to its place before the Signoria, and the year 1520, when Michelangelo began his plans for the tombs of the Medici in San Lorenzo, which are the exponents of his second manner in sculpture, there had elapsed six- teen years. And in these sixteen years, at the best working period of a man's life, this man had suffered 176 ITALIAN SCULPTURE disappointment and disillusion; and, most insupport- able of all, his artistic energy had been hindered and forced for many long years to find its outlet in paint- ing. When, therefore, he comes again to work unin- terruptedly at sculpture, he brings to it a radically different set of feelings which demand relief, and a hand and eye which painting has taught new effects. Lost as they soon are in other impressions, such effects are perhaps what one notes at first glance upon entering the shadowy chapel of San Lorenzo, which contains the tombs of Giuliano and Lorenzo de' Medici. As in the Sistine one may mark the sculptor expressing himself in terms of painting, so here in slighter degree one may see the use of methods which painting practises to obtain its light and shade values. In some places the stone is highly polished for the emphasis of high lights, in others left rough, for shadow quality, and the composition of the figures, determined of course by other motives than the desire to follow picturesque methods, is yet such -that it reenforces picturesque effects. The two seated statues framed in their recesses might be analyzed from any selected point of view into light and shade compositions, and it is evident that they were carefully planned with reference to the amount and direction of the light from the lantern above. They are in no sense portraits of the men a * MICHELANGELO Tomb of Giui.iano, Diua ni Nemours G)iiMANii, NuiHT, Day Sacristv S. Lorenzo, Florence MICHELANGELO 177 whose names they bear, and whose bones rest in the sarcophagi at their feet. A fondness for contrast in ideas has decided that they typify the two extreme types of mankind, — the military hero and the thinker. Perhaps they do. It is nevertheless significant that, while the one goes by the name " II Pensieroso," The Thoughtful One, The Thinker, a proof that we welcome it as a worthy image of one of a common stock of definite conceptions, the other stands for no clear- cut conception which should force upon it an indis- putable epithet. The Giuliano is a well-composed and strongly modelled figure, which repays study by giving the eye an education in surface values. There is no sat- isfactory meaning to be attached to his action. For- the turn of the head shows absorption in some spec- tacle, and the position of the legs implies that he is about to rise and act; but, in contradiction, his thin, nervous hands are relaxed, one of them touches, with- out grasping, the baton of office, while the other rests supinely upon his knee. It is merely the turn of the head and the outward direction of the gaze which we interpret as an interest in the objective which makes the contrast of this figure of Giuliano with the figure called " II Pensieroso," whose absorption in the subjective is unmistakable. Indeed, there is no chance of disagreeing about the i;8 ITALIAN SCULPTURE meaning of The Thinker. It is eloquently set forth, writ large in the relation of arm and head, the tradi- tional attitude assigned to meditation, and more subtly to be read in the pose of the body, which rests its full weight with the least possible exertion of muscu- lar force, and as if it were insensible to messages from the outer world. The impression given, that the attention has withdrawn from outer in order to con- centrate itself upon inner phenomena, is enhanced by the treatment of the face, — that register of conscious sensation. For it is left partially unfinished, the heavy shadow of the helmet falls over the eyes, sending them back into their sockets, and, since the finger on the lip hides the expression of the mouth, the facial expression may be harmoniously supplied by the imagination. Although, as I have said, the seated figures hint in their composition at a pictorial training, it is not in them but in the four nude figures below that Michel- angelo continues a treatment of form which, begun in the ceiling of the Sistine and ending there also in the vehemence and mannerism of the Last Judgment, finds here the apex of its effect. What that effect is may perhaps be come at by analyzing the material which our eyes can get for us. The mind seizes upon the first data furnished by the eye, in order to recognize the object to which its MICHELANGELO 179 attention is directed, in order to place it, if possible, in some known category, to call it by its name. Now in the endeavor to recognize these figures, we review the categories in which we are accustomed to place the figures represented in art, without finding one to which their characteristics will admit them. That they are neither historic individuals nor calendared saints, is obvious at the first glance. Nor in body or soul are they the gods or the heroes as we know them from classic art and mythology.' Powerful and strange as they are, they are not types of the primeval human, for the organized structure and the small and refined extremities suggest no struggle for existence with the brute forces of nature. It is plain that there is no place for the.m in our traditional nomenclature. Yet after all they are made in our image, and our nature gives us the key which opens to our compre- hension theirs. Entering in by imagination, we are changed to their likeness and take on an ultra-human nature, like to ours in kind, but beyond it in intensity and scope. After placing an object in or out of a category, and settling in some fashion upon what it is, the next step is to say to oneself how it is, and what it is doing, to define its action and state by means of its attitude and structure. The attitude of each of these figures is one of contortion. The limbs are drawn up, the torso i8o ITALIAN SCULPTURE is twisted, the outlines from every side show the con- traction and swelling of the muscles that move the body. Such muscular contortion has several natural explanations to eyes which seek cause for effect. It may be explained as the result of violent action against some outside force, as it is in the struggle of Laocobn and his sons with the serpents. Or it may be the result of physical suffering ; the tortured martyrs might thus have writhed. Muscular contortion must, in the nature of things, spell suffering and struggle to our minds. Now, if there is no cause visible to explain that struggle and suffering as a physical result, no ser- pents, no martyr's wheel, we leap at once to the con- viction that it is the struggle and suffering of the spirit which distorts the body. Thus, for the first time in sculpture, is bodily attitude made expressive of spiritual struggle. Not one of the figures counterfeits a pose with which we are familiar in sculpture or in real life, or even regard as possible except as one of the kaleidoscope postures of a gymnast. Yet, because we recognize that the sculptor has deviated from the normal in constructing these figures, we accept as possible to them, ultra-human as they are, attitudes which in real- istic figures would be intolerable. In the first place, the proportion of parts makes for itself a new formula. In comparison with classic canons, the heads are too MICHELANGELO i8i small, the forearms and the lower legs are too slight] for the broad shoulders and huge torso. What differs ' most strikingly from the structure of classic figures as from that of the normal human is the strange empha- sis laid upon certain portions. The muscles stand out upon the shoulders, the breast, and the thighs, in fact, those muscles which are used in feats of strength are much exaggerated. Such abnormal development would be explained in a Hercules, or in a fighting giant, by the character and the action. Here it makes an impression of power unapplied, so that we feel that thwarted strength is reacting upon itself. Stranger than this emphasis of the motor muscles is that of the muscles of the lower torso, which are mapped out as if by an anatomist who wishes to demonstrate their position and relations. They are to be discerned as plainly as if the levelling layer of fat beneath the skin had been withdrawn. To comprehend Michelangelo's exaggeration, one has but to compare his Day with the Venus of Melos, or, more profitably, his Twilight with the Theseus of the Parthenon, since tlie upper part of the torso has in both figures much the same attitude. The lower part of the Theseus is in a normal reclin- ing posture, while that of the Twilight is twisted to bring into play the muscles of abdomen and stomach. It should be remembered, too, that the Theseus was long exposed to the effects of weather; yet it must i82 ITALIAN SCULPTURE always have given the idea of a bony structure, fas- tened together by muscles, and holding within it the vital organs. The Twilight appears in comparison to be an elastic muscular structure in which are em- bedded the bones, and which holds loosely the heavy vital organs. The difference in imagined sensations induced by both is naturally great. In the case of Michelangelo's figure, the calling of our attention to organs which nature has not emphasized externally, and of whose ,action ,we are scarcely conscious except under conditions of extreme pleasure or pain, heightens our impression of the intensity of life in these figures, and makes their vitality commensurate, in our fancy, with their muscular force. To sum up, our consideration of the attitudes and structure of the four figures has brought out the facts that the contortion of the bodies, the novel propor- tions of their members, and the strange emphasis laid upon certain parts give us imagined sensations which we translate into the idea of the spiritual struggle and suffering of beings whose vitality is far beyond that of the ordinary human; so far beyond, that, to some imaginations, in their persons seem to be typified the struggle and suffering of the race. The general impression gained from all the figures is more or less particularized by the peculiar charac- teristics of each one, and is perhaps made more con- MICHELANGELO 183 Crete by the names. Of all the figures the Twilight gives an outline which most nearly approaches the normal. The relaxation of the right shoulder and arm, and the droop of the head toward the breast, may signify that at the coming on of night the exhausted being y is sinking to a repose which is unsweetened by physical weariness. The Dawn is more definite in idea, for we recog- nize in its action the natural attitude of one who painfully lifts herself from an unrefreshihg sleep. The deep-set eyes are masked with heavy lids, and the wrinkled brow and the half-open mouth give the face an expressson of hopelessness^ which accords with the heavy awakening of the body. The Day and Night are even more strange in atti- tude than the figures of Lorenzo's tomb, and in outline are so unusual to eyes accustomed to read only the meanings of the ordinary human outlines that they seem to convey their mea^ning in passionate exclamations. In looking at the Day one sees from no point of view an outline with which the eye is familiar, for the figure is so twisted as to show both back and front at the same time, and the muscles are so bunched that the outlines seem made of a series of short curves. Has this being been suddenly awak- ened from sleep by an enemy that he should so fiercely draw himself together for defensive action as i84 ITALIAN SCULPTURE a wild beast preparing for a spring? The figure is unfinished. It is highly polished in parts ; but the head is only blocked put — could not be cut down, they say, without breaking the marble. The cling- ing to it and to the arm of the rough material, as well as the shallowness of the undercutting along the back, give us leave to fancy that thus, in the figure's seeming effort to detach itself from the block, is typified the struggle of the day to separate itself from the chaos of dark night. It is passing strange that the companion figure of the Night should be able to irnpose upon us the idea that it is filled with slumber; for did we regard it as the presentment of a normal human figure, we should realize the great discomfort of its attitude and the im- possibility of maintaining such a pose, asleep or awake. But so firmly does the mind hold to its conviction that sleep enwraps the figure, that the sensations induced by its attitude are not recognized as physical, but pass at once into their mental equivalents, and seem the suf- ferings of a soul which finds in the heavy sleep of exhaustion only a half oblivion of despair. Its con- sciousness takes no note of the external world, but is nevertheless still cognizant of its own pain. The figure might well be that Melancholia seen by Diirer and by Thomson, but here more "subtly of herself con- templative." The outlines are more interlaced than MICHELANGELO 185 in the Dawn, but the modelling of both head and torso suggests a greater nobility of type. In model- ling and in outline the bent leg is especially beautiful. Once led into the use of the word " beautiful " in connection with these figures, the mind begins to inquire what satisfaction there is in Michelangelo for the sense of beauty. It has been tacitly assumed from the beginning, that the "beautiful" in an object of art is that quality which, interacting with the senses, gives an enjoyment which is originated and deter- mined, if not limited, by such interaction; and also that, since human senses are not all of the same keenness, and because the association of ideas varies with the individual, the assertion that this or that in a work of art is "beautiful," is an assertion of indi- vidual enjoyment. That there is, however, a "standard of the beautiful " in sculpture is evidenced by the fact that in the particular case of Michelangelo's sculpture the critics show always a tendency to draw distinctions, and to say that his works are "expressive," and "sub- lime rather than beautiful." Now such a tendency indicates this at least, namely, that the kind of enjoy- ment gained from Michelangelo is not that given by sculpture ordinarily. Whether one objectifies his enjoy- ment as the quality of beauty, or of sublimity, or of expressiveness in the object, it is the same aesthetic appeal to which each responds according to his 1 86 ITALIAN SCULPTURE capacity, and which is itself dependent here upon two things, — the observer's ability to read the language of the nude, and, once read, his sympathy with its meaning. It is true that the observer who stands before the nudes of Michelangelo neither as an artist nor as an anatomist is in a position analogous to that of one who listens to a play in a foreign language. Although he may miss the niceties of meaning in the lines, he is perhaps for that very reason more alive and suscep- tible to the emotions aroused by the acting. Without fully understanding the science and the motives of Michelangelo's nudes, the ordinary observer is recep- tive of their communication of physical vitality, and feels the rush into his consciousness of a power more than human, which acquires its great intensity from ' being banked up and afforded no outlet in physical exertion ; and, with the imagined sensations of thwarted physical force so conveyed, there is the simultaneous arousal of the ideas and feeling of spiritual struggle. Since the individual experience is the measure and interpretation of that feeling of spiritual struggle, and since spiritual experience, differing more than sense experience, has not a fixed vocabulary for its expression, each individual makes the common impression word- able to himself along a personal line. One may put it into terms of religion or ethics, another may see in MICHELANGELO 187 it the apotheosis of his own puny struggle with fate. To one who is familiar with Michelangelo's life and the history of Florence, it may well seem to symbolize both his bitter conflict and the sufferings of an enslaved city. The temperament feels what it brings the power to feel. Whatever the environment has been, if one is akin to Michelangelo in temperament, he will feel before these figures the exaltation and incorporation of forces whose workings he has felt or is destined to feel, and he therefore obtains a great aesthetic pleasure. As it happens, the generations since Michelangelo have shared in that temperament so generally that he has expressed them to themselves, and in so doing afforded to the modern consciousness the relief of defining itself in art. Yet as any mode of artistic expression, however deep and wide -it be, will always be inadequate to all sides of human experience, there will always be a minority who feel its scope, but whom it does not express. Therefore there/ are temperaments who feel Michelangelo's powerful comi^unication of vitality, but who cannot so enjoyably translate it into intimate emotion. They feel the lack of that "purgation" of emotion, following the display of strong feeling, which to them can alone make %iritually invigorating the excitement of thosa feelings by art. His types have not to them that nobility that would make for such i88 ITALIAN SCULPTURE " purgation." There is no stronger influx of vitality to be gained from the Dawn than from the Venus of Melos, and from the Fates of the Parthenon draped though they be, and there is in the former a sugges- tion of animaHsm in the abnormal isolation and development of the muscles of the breast and abdomen which lessens the dignity of its meaning. To conclude, then, the imagined sensations in- duced'' by the contemplation of Michelangelo's figures are probably the same with all sensitive people, but their translation into individual emotions and ideas is the cause of differing degrees of aesthetic pleasure. What Michelangelo's own attitude toward his crea- tions was, we can only surmise. He probably never intended them as a conscious revelation of his soul. As an artist, he liked to make figures which in outline and modelling represented physical force, and called into play his scientific and technical powers. And yet, because he made his art, probably unconsciously, the true outlet for his soul, using marble and chisel as a musician uses his instrument, as wordless song, his art is a personal confession, and he is, in his self-revelation, the first of the moderns. CHAPTER VI SCULPTURE OUTSIDE OF TUSCANY CHAPTER VI SCULPTURE OUTSIDE OF TUSCANY Had the aim been, in marshalling between the cov- ers of a small book some part of Renaissance sculp- ture, to attract the attention of the reader, not to its aesthetic values, but to the historical and literary values which give it intellectual interest, not only would the manner of presentation have been different, but the matter presented would not have been the same. For the objects selected for consideration must have been manoeuvred to show their relations to their makers and to contemporary effort, as well as to our aesthetic sense ; and not only would they have gathered in that process an accretion of biographical anecdote and historical fact to swell the material presented, but, to satisfy the demands of the inventorial and the philosophical and the historical interest, it would have been necessary to include in the text some mention of the many works of the many men who handled the chisel and the clay. And had, then, the intention been to show forth the interest of this period of sculpture, rather than to make 191 192 ITALIAN SCULPTURE evident its aesthetic appeal, it would not have been allowable to limit the field gone over to the notice of Florentine masterpieces, thus making the title Italian Sculpture practically synonymous with Florentine Sculpture. Yet, since the aim has been to separate and empha- size that side of one of the three great historical peri- ods of sculpture which affects us through sensation, to attend as it were to the phosphorescent gleam rather than to speculate over the conditions causing it, it is justifiable to use the most direct means to that end, and therefore, for the purposes of realizing its aesthetic essence, to consider that Florentine sculpture is synony- mous with Italian sculpture, and that, to distinguish the aesthetic appeal of the sculpture in Florence is to have a general concept of the historical period as compared with other periods. For, in the first place, Florence contains the best sculpture of the time under discussion, and, in the second place, it contains the most of the best sculpture, so that there is both quality and an accumulation of quality to make strength of impres- sion. In the third place, in no other city or town of Italy is there an atmosphere so able to give this im- pression a clear-cut form, and thus add definiteness to depth of comprehension; for Florence has its national museum of sculpture, whence art of other appeal is really excluded, and its churches and squares are still SCULPTURE OUTSIDE OF TUSCANY 193 rich in works remaining in situ, breathing freely, un- smothered by the antique, or the baroque, or the modern ; and, moreover, in Florence even the rival art of painting, since it treats as its theme the problems of form, does not antagonize nor absorb the appeal of sculpture, but even in a way reenforces it. There is, to be sure, some store of Renaissance sculpture in Rome and in Naples, but it is hidden away in dark churches, and is not able to prevail in an atmosphere heavy with the baroque and the antique. In Milan its infrequent examples are fast being overshadowed by modern building. In Venice it surrenders its unique appeal as sculpture to join with painting and mosaic in the great decorative appeal of Venetian architecture. Moreover, were one able to get clear-cut impressions of the Renaissance sculpture found outside of Florence, and were to add them to his general concept gained from Florentine examples, he would not affect his aesthetic sum-total, and this for two reasons. First, because, for the most part, the sculpture of other places will be found to be, when it gives us definite pleasure, the work of a Florentine or of the Florentine school. This is very evidently true of Tuscany, and it is also true for North and South Italy, for their cities im- ported better sculpture from Florence than they could make themselves. Secondly, when the sculpture is actually the product of its own soil, although it has a 194 ITALIAN SCULPTURE genuinely native appeal differing from the Florentine, yet such appeal is in strength and quality so insignifi- cant that it cannot modify our general concept; and therefore to dwell upon it in individual examples would be to inflict upon Florentine sculpture a loss in proportionate value — would be, in short, to miss the wood for the trees, to lose the characteristic shape of the constellation one is seeking by looking through a telescope at some portion of it. Had the range of treatment included a detailed criticism of decorative sculpture, the space apportioned to non-Florentine work would have been a large part of the whole. But, as supplementing only brief descriptions of such characteristic masterpieces of the masters as can make clear our kind of enjoyment in this period of sculpture as distinguished from other periods, it is possible to make only a few rough state- ments concerning the slightly differing species of Renaissance work to be found in Naples, and in Milan, and in Venice. In Naples to-day the student of art will find that his senses are keyed to the appreciation of the antique by the splendid collections, and even by the reproductions of the shops, unworthy parodies as they are ; and after he ferrets out in the crowded churches the slender store of Renaissance work, he is often unable to be more moved by it than by the votary fripperies SCULPTURE OUTSIDE OF TUSCANY 195 with which a superstitious population has almost cov- ered it. The pre-Renaissance tombs best hold their own against the antique, and the realistic tableaux in painted terra-cotta are interesting and often momen- tarily impressive in their naturalism of attitude and expression. A typical development of Neapolitan sculpture there could not be, for the political agitation of Naples during the Renaissance period rendered the evolution of art impossible, and made necessary the importation of sculpture from Florence and from Lombardy. Indeed, the true home of the terra-cotta figures of Naples is North Italy, and they illustrate, especially in Milan and Modena, one of the happiest phases of the art of Lombardy, which, on the whole less intel- lectual, less poetic, and less scientific than the sculp- ture of Florence, has much to attract in its grace, its sprightly realism, its portraits, and its richly decorative effects. Yet of the myriad statues of the Milan Cathe- dral, the output of its school of sculpture, not one has conspicuous distinction, and the majority are the work of men who did not rise above the level of stone- cutting. The Certosa of Pavia is indeed a rich treas- ury of North Italian sculpture, and contains also much good Florentine work. It is incrusted within and without with sculpture of various periods and of differing styles; but, of all the regional work, none, 196 ITALIAN SCULPTURE save that of Amadeo, whose name only may here be mentioned, can in technique and refinement be classed with the sculpture of Florence. Of all the non-Tuscan sculpture grafted with the Renaissance Florentine, that of Venice was most fruitful, and yet most faithful to its proper soil, for it maintained always a decorative character and attuned itself to the rich, free, sensuous strain of Venetian art. Even the works created in Venice by foreign sculptors partake of the Venetian spirit, and as seen now by the traveller appear to him to be congruous elements in architectural effects, whether he stands before the rather dry statues of Adam and Eve made by Rizzo, the first introduction of Renaissance sculp- ture into Venice, or notes, as he must, for they are everywhere, the ample, sensuous, pagan types of the Venetianized Sansovino. What could result from the union of the spirit of Florentine sculpture with the Venetian spirit is supremely illustrated by the equestrian statue of Col- leoni, a production which is the masterpiece of Venice, and which has never been surpassed in the equestrian sculpture of any time or nation. It was begun by Verrocchio the Florentine and completed by Leopardi the Venetian, and the share which each had in the work is still one of the unsettled questions of art criticism. Yet, to whichever side the scale should SCULPTURE OUTSIDE OF TUSCANY 197 turn, it is evident enough that neither sculptor alone could have achieved so perfectly expressive a result. For it is the welding of the Florentine's science and distinction of style with the Venetian's keen sense for the external appearances of life which makes the whole amply expressive of a personality and an age. If we add to our enjoyment of this masterpiece the pleasure given, in its similar communication of vitality, by Donatello's Gattamelata, we shall find that the sum of aesthetic values realized from these two equestrian statues is so great that it makes, as it were, an individual line of color in that spectrum of aesthetic values which is characteristic of the Italian sculpture of the Renaissance. APPENDIX GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY APPENDIX GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY Historical : BuRCKHARDT, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, trans, by Middlemore ; Der Cicerone, best translation the French of Gerard ; Geschichte der Renaissance. KuGLER, Handbuch der Kunstgeschichte, English editor, Layard. MiJNTZ, Les Precurseurs de la Renaissance ; Histoire de t Art pendant la Renaissance. Gebhart, Les Origines de la Renaissance en Italic. Lafenestre, Maitres anciens. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, consisting of The Age of the Despots, The Revival of Learning, The Fine Arts, Italian Literatuie, The Catholic Reaction. Goodyear, Renaissance and Modern Art. SCAIFE, Florentine Life during the Renaissance. RoscoE, Lorenzo de' Medici. • Vasari, Latest edition in English is that of E. H. and E. W. Blash- field and A. A. Hopkins. Essays, etc. : Taine, La Philosophie de I' Art en Italic ; Voyage en Italic, trans, by Durand. Gautier, Voyage en Italic. Bourget, Sensations d' Italic. Pater, Studies in the History of the Renaissance; Renaissance Stiidies in Art and Poetry. Vernon Lee, Euphorion ; Renaissance Fancies and Studies. Hewlett, Earthwork out of Tuscany. . Blashfield, Italian Cities. For an extended bibliography of works treating of the varied aspects of the Renaissance, the reader is referred to Vol. IV of Vasari's Lives, edited by E. H. and E. W. Blashfield and A. A. Hopkins. 202 APPENDIX HISTORIES OF RENAISSANCE SCULPTURE Perkins, Tuscan Sculptors ; Historical Handbook of Italian Sculpture. Scott, Renaissance and Modern Sculpture. Bode, Denkmaler der Renaissance Sculptur-Toscanas ; Italienische Bild- hauer der Renaissance. The DoHME Series, Kunst und Kiinstler des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit. Reymond, La Sculpture Florentine. Melani, Manuale di Scultura Italiana. CiCOGNARA, Storia delta Scultura. Y'EBioviizkis, Jahrbuch der Koniglichen Preussischen Kunstsammlungen ; La Gazette des Beaux- Arts ; L'Archivio Storico del FArte Italiana ; The Portfolio ; The American Journal of Archceology. A LIST OF THE TITLES AND LOCATIONS OF THE PRINCI- PAL WORKS OF THE MOST FAMOUS SCULPTORS (As the following lists are intended to aid such travellers as have a lively interest in Italian sculpture rather than to assist the earnest stu- dent of archaeology, they do not pretend to absolute completeness, nor to finality of attribution.) Amadeo or Omadeo Period of Productivity, 1466-1519. Works : Pavu. — Certosa : Tomb of Visconti, by Amadeo and Pellegrini ; Por- tal of the Chiostro Piccolo, by Amadeo and the Mantegazza. S. Lan- franco : Tomb of S. Lanfranco. Bergamo. — S. Maria Maggiore : Facade and Portal of CoUeoni Chapel ; Tomb of Medea CoUeoni ; Tomb of CoUeoni. Isola Bella. — Borromei Tombs. Ammannati Period of Productivity, 1540-1571. Works : Florence. — Piazza Signoria : Fountain. Padua. — Eremitani : Tomb Benevides. Villa di Castello, near Florence. — Hercules and Antaeus (?) ; Colossal Statue of the Apennines (?). APPENDIX 203 Bandinelli Period of Productivity, 1512-1555. Works : Florence. — Duotno : St. Peter. Opera del Duomo : Parts of Choir Rail and High Altar. Piazza Signoria : Hercules and Cacus. Pa- lazzo Vecchio : Portrait Statues. Bargello : Adam and Eve ; Bronze Statuettes. Piazza S. Lorenzo : Monument of G. delle Bande Nere. Santa Croce : The Dead Christ ; God the Father. Annunziata : Pieta. Palazzo Pitti : Bacchus. Rome. — Santa Maria sopra Minerva : Tombs of Leo X and Clement VII. Loreto. — Bas- relief. Giovanni da Bologna References. — Desjardins, La Vie et I' CEuvre dejean Bologna ; Rosen- berg, in Dohtne Series. Period of Productivity, 1559-1608. Works : Florence. — Bargello: Mercury; Virtue Conquering Vice; Various Statuettes. Loggia de' Lanzi : Rape of the Sabines ; Hercules and Nessus. Piazza Signoria : Equestrian Statue of Cosimo I. Piazza deir Annunziata : Equestrian Statue of Ferdinand I. Annunziata : Reliefs. Orsanmichele : St. Luke. Boboli Gardens : Fountain. Bologna. — Fountain. Lucca. — Cathedral : Altar. Villa Petrau. — Fountain. Genoa. — University : Works. Venice. — Chapel Salviati. Cellini References. — Molinier in Les Artistes Celebres ; Plon, Benvenuto Cel- lini orfevre, medailleur, sculpteur ; Cellini, Autobiography and Treatises, translated into EngUsh by Symonds and by Ashbee. Period of Productivity, 1518-1571. Works : Florence. — Loggia dei Lanzi : Perseus. Bargello : Models for Perseus; Relief Pedestal Perseus; Bust of Cosmo I. Rome. — Palazzo Altoviti : Bust of Bindo Altoviti. Madrid. — Escurial : Crucifix. Paris. — Louvre: Nymph of Fontainebleau. Vienna. — Salt-cellar of Francis I. For various medallions, cups, etc., attributed to Cellini, see the authorities named above. 204 APPENDIX CiVITALI References. — Yriate, Maiteo Civitali. Period of Productivity, 1457-1500. Works : Lucca. — Cathedral : Tomb of Pietro Noceto ; Monument of Do- menico Bertini ; Altar of St. Regulus ; Pulpit ; Parapet of Choir ; St. Sebastian ; Tabernacle ; Holy Water Vessels. S. Frediano : Font. S. Michele : Madonna (?). S. Romano: Monument of San Romano. S. Pietro : Tomb of San Pellegrino ( ?) . Museo Bust of Christ ; Annunciation. Florence. — Bargello : Faith Bust of Christ ; Rehef of Girl with Chain. Genoa. — Cathedral Chapel of San Giovanni; Allegorical Figure; Frieze; Virgin. Berlin. — Head in Relief. DONATELLO References. — Muntz, Semper, Schmarzo, Tscudi, Milanesi, Melani, Cavalucci, Rosenberg, Hope Rea. Period of Productivity, 1406-1466. Works : Florence.— Cathedral: Exterior, Two Prophets ; Interior, St. John ; Joshua ; Poggio. Campanile : Four Statues. Baptistery : Tomb Pope John. Orsanmichele : St. Peter ; St. Mark. Bargello : Mar- zocco ; David in bronze ; David in marble ; %t. George ; Cupid ; Bust of Youth ; Bust of Niccolo Uzzano ( ?) j Statue of St. John Baptist ; Relief of Young St. John ; Relief of Crucifixion ; Bronze Head ( ?) . Opera del Duomo : Ca.ntoria. Santa Croce : St. Louis ; Annunciation ; Crucifix. Loggia de' Lanzi : Judith. S. Lorenzo : Tomb and Decoration of Sacristy; Singing Gallery; Pulpits. Palazzo Riccardi : Medallions. Palazzo Martelli : St. John ; David. Siena. — Cathedral : Reliefs and Statuettes of Font ; Relief of Madonna; St. John. Prato. — Duomo: Pulpit. Padua. — S. Antonio : Fragments of High Altar now restored ; Equestrian Statue of Gattamelata. Naples. — S. Nilo : Tomb Brancacci. Museum : Head of Horse. Venice. — Frari : St. John. Faenza. APPENDIX 205 — Museum: Two Saints. London. — Relief St. Cecilia (?). South Kensington. — Relief of Dead Christ; Relief Delivery of Keys to Peter. Berlin. — Museum : Pazzi Madonna ; Bust j St. John. Paris. — Louvre : Madonnas ; Relief Flagellation ( ?) . Agostino di Duccio Period of Productivity, 144 2-1 481. Works : MoDENA. — Cathedral : ReUefs of Facade. Rimini. — S. Francesco : Portions of Interior Decoration ; Tabernacle ; Tomb of Malatesta. Perugia. — Cathedral : Tomb of Bishop Baglione ; Rehef. S. Ber- nardino : Sculptures of the Fagade. S. Domenico : Altar. Flor- ence. — Ognissanti : Tabernacle. Bargello : Relief of Marcus Aurelius ; Bronze Plaque of the Crucifixion ( ?) . Lorenzo Ghiberti References. — Perkins, Ghiberti et son Ecole ; Muntz, Les Primitifs ; Rosenberg, in Dohme Series. Period of Productivity, 1401-1452. Works : Florence. — Bargello : Trial Panel of the Concours ; Bronze ReU- quary. Baptistery : First and Second Pair of Gates. Orsanmichele : St. John Baptist, St. Matthew, and St. Stephen. Cathedral : Reli- quary of St. Zenobius. Siena. — Duomo : Two Rehefs of Fonts. Alessandro Leopardi Period pi Productivity, 1478-15 15. Works : Venice. — S. Giovanni e Paolo: Tomb Vendramin (?). Piazza S. Marco : Bronze Standards. S. Marco, Chapel Zeno : Portions of Tomb Cardinal Zeno. Piazza S. Giovanni e Paolo : Pedestal of Equestrian Statue of CoUeoni, and Execution of Statue. 206 APPENDIX Benedetto da Maiano Period of Productivity, 1471-1497. Works : FLOREbfCE. — Bargello : S. Giovanni ; Bust of Mellini ; Candelabri ; La Giustizia (?). S. Croce : Pulpit. S. Maria Novella: Tomb Strozzi. Palazzo Vecchio : Door. Misericordia : Madonna. San GiMiGNANO. — Cathedral : Bust Onofrio Vanni ; Altar ; Santa Fina. S. Agostino : Altar ; S. Bartolo. Siena. — S. Domenico : Ciborium. Naples. — Monteoliveto : Altar. Prato. — Madonna dell' Ulivo. Faenza. — Cathedral : Monument S. Savino. Michelangelo Buonarotti References. — Lists of the works in all languages, which form an ex- tensive bibliography of Michelangelo, may be found in Vol. IV of Vasari's Lives, compiled by E. H. and E. W. Blashfield and A. A. Hopkins ; in List of the Principal Books relating to the Life and Works of Michelangelo, by Mr. Charles Eliot Norton ; and in La Bibliographie Michelangelesque, by Anatole de Montaiglon; and in Vita di Michelangelo Buonarotti, by A. Gotti. Period of Productivity, 1490-1540. Works : Florence. — Bargello : Mask of Faun ( ?) ; Apollo ; Bust of Brutus ; Bacchus ; ReUef of Madonna ; Victory ; Adonis ; David. S. Lo- renzo, New Sacristy : Tombs of Lorenzo and Giuliano dei Medici ; Madonna and Child. Accademia : David ; S. Matthew. Cathedral : Pieti. Casa Buonarotti : Relief of Centaurs. BoboU Gardens : Four unfinished figures. Bologna. — S. Domenico : Angel ; S. Petronio. Rome. — St. Peter's: PietL S. Pietro in Vincoli : Moses; Rachel; Leah. S. Maria sopra Minerva: Christ. Bruges. — Notre Dame : Madonna. Siena. — Altar Piccolo- mini ( ?) . London. — BurUngton House : ReUef of Madonna. South Kensington : Cupid. Mino da Fiesole References, Bode, in Dohme Series. Period of Productivity, 1454 (?)-i484. APPENDIX 207 Works (see Sig. Gnoli, in Archivio Storico) : Florence. — Bargello : Busts of Piero and Giovanni di Cosimo dei Medici, and of Rinaldo della Luna ; Profile Reliefs of Girl and of Marcus Aurelius ; Tabernacle ; Two Reliefs of Madonna and Child. Badia : Relief of Madonna ; Tombs of Giugni and of Count Hugo. S. Croce : Tabernacle. S. Ambrogio : Tabernacle. Palazzo Mar- telli : Madonna. Fiesole. — Cathedral : Tomb and Bust ( ?) of Bishop Salutati ; Altar. Empoli. — Pi eve : Madonna. Perugia. — S. Pietro : Tabernacle. Rome. — SS. Apostoli : Madonna of Tomb Riario. S. Agostino : Relief of Tomb Piccolomini. St. Cecilia : Tomb Forteguerra. Grotte Vaticane : Tomb Pope Paul II. Minerva : Madonna of Ferrici Tomb ; Tomb Tornabuoni. S. Maria del Popolo : Tomb della Rovere ( ?) . Prato. — Cathedral : Pulpit. Berlin. — Museum : Bust of Niccolo Strozzi ; Tonda of Madonna ; Bust of Girl. Paris. — Louvre : Bust S. Giovanni. Orcagna Bibliography. — Dobbert, in Dohme Series ; Frascesckini, I,' Oraion'a del San Michek in Orto in Firenze. Works : Florence. — Orsanmichele : Tabernacle, Orcagna's only authentic work as a sculptor. The Pisani Bibliography. — Dobbert, in Dohme Series, Die Pisani; Gebhart, Les Origines de la Renaissance ; MiJNTZ, Les Precurseurs ; Ruskin, Val d'Arno, in Oxford Lectures of 1873 ; Supino, in Archivio Storico. Period of Productivity, Niccola, 1260-1278; Giovanni, 1274-1320; Andrea, 1 330-1 340. Works, Niccola : Bologna. — S. Domenico : Bas-reliefs of Tomb of San Domenico. Lucca. — S. Martino : Lunette of The Deposition. Pisa. — Bap- tistery : Pulpit. Siena. — Duomo : Pulpit. Perugia. — Fountain. Works, Giovanni : Pisa. — Baptistery : Madonna of the Portal. Camposanto : Madonna. Cathedral : Reliefs of the Choir ; Ivory Madonna of the Sacristy, 2o8 APPENDIX Perugia. — Fountain, Lower Reliefs. S. Domenico : Tomb of Bene- dict IX. PiSTOjA. — S. Andrea: Pulpit and Crucifix. Prato. — Cathedral : Madonna. Orvieto. — Madonna ( ?) . Florence. — Opera del Duomo : Figures of Christ and Santa Reparata ( ?) . Works, Andrea : Florence. — Baptistery : Bronze Gates. Campanile : Bas-reliefs. The Pollaiuoli References. — Heiss, Les Medailleurs de la Renaissance. Period of Productivity, Antonio, 1456-1493 ; Piero assists Antonio. Works : Florence. — Bargello : Terra-cotta Bust of Young Warrior ; Bronze of Hercules and Antseus. Opera del Duomo : Silver Relief. Rome. — St. Peter's : Tomb of Sixtus IV ; Tomb of Innocent VIII. FoRLi. — Museum: Bust of P. Ordelaffi ( ?) . Boston.— Collection of Mr. J. Quincy Shaw : Bust of Warrior ( ?) Jacopo della Quercia References. — Corneli0S, Jacopo della Querela; Sidney Colvin, Port- - folio, February, 1883. Period of Productivity, 1406-1436. Works : Lucca. — Cathedral : Tomb of Ilaria del Carretto. S. Frediano : Tombs and Altar of the Trenta Family. Siena. — Duomo : Bap- tismal Font. Museum of Duomo : Fragments of the Fonte Gaia. Piazza della Signoria : Reproduction of the Fonte Gaia. Bologna. — S. Petronio : Portal. S. Giacomo Maggiore : Tomb of Benti- voglio. Paris. — Louvre: Madonna (?). Ferrara. — Duomo: Madonna (?)•. Antonio Rizzo Period of Productivity, 1462-1474. Works : Venice. — Ducal Palace : Statues of Adam and Eve. Frari : Tomb Doge Tron. Museum Carrer : Bust of Youth. APPENDIX 209 The Bella Robbias References. — List of works in Les Delia Robbia, by Cavalucci and Molinier, and in the Catalogue of Works in the South Kensington Museum, by Robinson; Bode, Die Kunstlerfamilie della Robbia, in the Dohme Series ; Marquand, in the American Journal of Archaeology for 1891, 1893, 1894; Burlamacchi, Z« 52, 71 J St. Catherine ; Head of a Boy. Accademia : Madonna ; Assumption ; Resurrection. Hospital of the Innocenti : Bambini : 2IO APPENDIX The Annunciation. Loggia di San Paolo : Two Saints. Museo del Duomo : Madonna. Hospital of S. M. Nuova : Madonna. Arezzo. — Cathedral : Madonna ; Crucifixion ; Altar. S. M. in Grado : Altar. S. M. delle Grazie : Altar. Prato. — Cathedral : Lunette of Portal. Madonna del Buonconsiglio : Altar and Statues of Saints. Madonna delle Carceri : Medallions of the Evangelists. Siena. — The Osservanza: The Coronation. La Verna. — Altars, with the Annunciation ; the Madonna della Cin- tola ; the Adoration ; the Crucifixion ; the Ascension. Berlin. — Museum : Madonna and Saints ; the Annunciation. South Ken- sington. — Museum : Madonna ; Adoration of the Magi. New York. — Metropolitan : Altar-piece. Works of Giovanni : Florence. — Bargello : Annunciation ; Christ and the Samaritan ; II Presepio ; the Deposition ; the Madonna, with Santa Umilta and San Giovanni ; Madonna, with the Child and St. John ; Sant' Orsola ; San Francesco ; Frieze of Christ and Saints ; Lunette, the Annunciation. Via Nazionale : Tabernacle. S. M. Novella : Font. Certosa : Medallions. Pistoja. — Ospedale del Ceppo : Frieze of the Seven Works of Mercy. Works at Volterra, Bolsena, Verna, Earga, and Arezzo. The Rosskllini References. — Bode, in Dohme Series. Period of Productivity, Bernardo, 1440-1491 ; Antonio, 1456-1470. Works, Bernardo : Florence. — S. Croce : Tomb Bruni. S. Maria Novella : Tomb BeataVillani. Bargello: Bust S. Giovanni ; Bust BattistaSforza(?). Pistoia. — S. Domenico: TombLazzari. Empou. — Misericordia : Annunciation. Works, Antonio : Florence. — Bargello : Tabernacle ; Madonna and Child ; Bust Sassetti ; Bust Palmieri ; Statuette S. Giovanni ; Statue S. Giovanni ; Nativity ; Head of Boy. S. Croce : Madonna del Latte. Prato. — Cathedral : Pulpit. Ferrara. — S. Giorgio : Lunette. Empoli. — Pieve : St. Sebastian. Naples. — Monteoliveto : Nativity ; Tomb. APPENDIX 211 South Kensington. — Bust. Berlin. — Museum: Madonnas. San Miniato, — Tomb of Cardinal of Portugal. The Sansovini References. — Schoenfeij), Andrea Sansovino und seine Schule ; Moli- NiER, Venise. Period of Productivity, Andrea, 1490-1529; Jacopo, 1512-1567. Works, Andrea : Florence. — Baptistery : Group of Baptism. S. Spirito : Altar. Monte Sansovino. — Two Altars. Volterra. — Baptistery : Fonts. Genoa. — Duomo : S. Giovanni ; Madonna. Loreto. — S. Casa : Reliefs. Rome. — S. Maria del Popolo : Tombs of Choir. Ara- cceli : Tomb Vincenti ( ?) . S. Maria in Trastevere : Monument Armellini (?). S. Agostino : Virgin and St. Anne. Works, Jacopo : Florence. — Duomo : S. Jacopo. Bargello : Bacchus. Rome. — S. Agostino : Madonna. Padua. — S. Antonio : Bas-reliefs. Ven- ice. — S. Marco : Choir ; Doors of Sacristy. Piazza : Loggetta. Ducal Palace : Giants Mars and Neptune. Arsenal : Madonna. Chiesetta : Madonna. Frari : S. Giovanni. S. Salvadore : Monu- ment Veniero. Berlin. — Museum : Stucco Models. Desiderio da Settignano References. — Bode, in Dohme Series. Period of Productivity, 1453-1464. Works : Florence. — S. Croce : Tomb Marsuppini. S. Lorenzo : Tabernacle. Vanchettoni: Infants (?). Berlin. — Museum: Several Busts in Marble and Terra-cotta ( ?). Andrea Verrocchio References. — Semper, in Dohme Series; Bode, mjahrbuch, Vol. III. Period of Productivity, 1464-1488. 212 APPENDIX Works : Florence. — Bargello : David ; Bust of Woman. Orsanmichele : Christ and St. Thomas. Opera del Duomo : Silver Relief. S. Lorenzo Sacristy : Tomb of Cosimo dei Medici. S. Maria Nuova : Relief in Terra-cotta. Venice. — Piazza di SS. Giovanni e Paolo : Equestrian Statue of CoUeoni, completed by Leopardi. Berlin. — Museum : Entombment ; Youth ; Putto. Paris. — Collection Dreyfus : Bust of a Lady. Boston. — Collection of Mr. J. Quincy Shaw : Relief of Madonna ( ? ) . A Dictionary of Architecture and Building BIOGRAPHICAL, HISTORICAL, AND DESCRIPTIVE By RUSSELL STURGIS, A.M., Ph.D. Fellow of the American Institute of Architects And many Architects, Painters, Engineers, and Other Expert Writers, American and Foreign In TTiree Quarto Volumes, Fully Illustrated Cloth, $18.00 net. Half Morocco, $30.00 net " Ambitious in scope and ample in bulk, the present work bids for wide acceptance among the general as well as the technical public. It is practically the only consid- erable effort to supply encroaching demands for a compendium which shall be at once convenient as to form and complete in the matter of contents. The aim of its com- pilers has evidently been to strike an average between that which is popular and that which is for the specialist, and in this they have shown sagacity. 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