BestLightNovel.com

Renaissance in Italy Volume III Part 3

Renaissance in Italy - BestLightNovel.com

You’re reading novel Renaissance in Italy Volume III Part 3 online at BestLightNovel.com. Please use the follow button to get notification about the latest chapter next time when you visit BestLightNovel.com. Use F11 button to read novel in full-screen(PC only). Drop by anytime you want to read free – fast – latest novel. It’s great if you could leave a comment, share your opinion about the new chapters, new novel with others on the internet. We’ll do our best to bring you the finest, latest novel everyday. Enjoy

[27] The following pa.s.sage quoted from Milizia, _Memorie degli Architetti_, Parma, 1781, vol. i. p. 135, ill.u.s.trates the contemptuous att.i.tude of Italian critics to Gothic architecture. After describing Arnolfo's building of the Florentine Duomo, he proceeds: "In questo Architetto si vide qualche leggiero barlume di buona Architettura, come di Pittura in Cimabue suo contemporaneo. Ma in tutte le cose e fisiche e morali i pa.s.saggi si fanno per insensibili gradagioni; onde per lungo tempo ancora si mantenne il corrotto gusto, che si pu chiamare Arabo-Tedesco."

[28] Observe, for example, the casing of a Gothic church at Rimini by Alberti with a series of Roman arches; or the facade of S. Andrea at Mantua, where the vast and lofty central arch leads, not into the nave itself, but into a shallow vestibule.

[29] See Burckhardt, _Cicerone_, vol. i. p. 167.

[30] See De Stendhal, _Histoire de la Peinture en Italie_, p. 122.

[31] For a notice of his life, see Vol. II., _Revival of Learning_, p.

247.

[32] The Arch of Augustus at Rimini was the model followed by Alberti in this facade. He intended to cover the church with a cupola, as may be seen from the design on a medal of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta. See too the letter written by him to Matteo da Bastia, Alberti, _Opere_, vol. iv.

p. 397.

[33] This ancestral palace of the Medici pa.s.sed in 1659 to the Marchese Gabriele Riccardi, from the Duke Francesco II.

[34] Von Reumont, _Lorenzo de' Medici_, vol. ii. pp. 187-191, may be consulted for an interesting account of the building of this Casa Grande by Filippo Strozzi. The preparations were made with great caution, lest it should seem that a work too magnificent for a simple citizen was being undertaken; in particular, Filippo so contrived that the costly _opus rustic.u.m_ employed in the construction of the bas.e.m.e.nt should appear to have been forced upon him. This is characteristic of Florence in the days of Cosimo. The foundation stone was laid in the morning of August 16, 1489, at the moment when the sun arose above the summits of the Casentino. The hour, prescribed by astrologers as propitious, had been settled by the horoscope; ma.s.ses meanwhile were said in several churches, and alms distributed.

[35] Antonio Filarete, or Averulino, architect and sculptor, was author of a treatise on the building of the ideal city, one of the most curious specimens of Renaissance fancy, to judge from the account rendered of the ma.n.u.script by Rio, vol. iii. pp. 321-328.

[36] Matteo Civitale, Benedetto da Majano, Mino da Fiesole, Luca della Robbia, Donatello, Jacopo della Quercia, Lo Scalza, Omodeo, and the Sansovini, not to mention less ill.u.s.trious sculptors, filled the churches of Italy with this elaborate stone-work. Among the bronze-founders it is enough to name Ghiberti, Antonio Filarete, Antonio Pollajuolo, Donatello and his pupil Bertoldo, Andrea Riccio, the master of the candelabrum in S. Antonio at Padua, Jacopo Sansovino, the master of the door of the sacristy in S. Mark's at Venice, Alessandro Leopardi, the master of the standard-pedestals of the Piazza of S. Mark's. I do not mean these lists to be in any sense exhaustive, but simply to remind the reader of the rare and many-sided men of genius who devoted their abilities to this kind of work. Some of their masterpieces will be noticed in detail in the chapter on Sculpture.

[37] Especially his work at Monte Oliveto, near Siena, and in the church of Monte Oliveto at Naples. The Sala del Cambio at Perugia may also be cited as rich in tarsia-work designed by Perugino, while the church of S.

Pietro de' Ca.s.sinensi outside the city is a museum of masterpieces executed by Fra Damiano da Bergamo and Stefano da Bergamo from designs of Raphael. Not less beautiful are the inlaid wood panels in the Palace of Urbino, by Maestro Giacomo of Florence.

[38] The churches and palaces of Lombardy are peculiarly rich in this kind of decoration. The facade of the Oratory of S. Bernardino at Perugia, designed and executed by Agostino di Duccio, is a masterpiece of rare beauty in this style.

[39] Not to mention the Renaissance mosaics of S. Mark's at Venice, the cupola of S. Maria del Popolo at Rome, executed in mosaic by Raphael, deserves special mention. A work ill.u.s.trative of this cupola is one of Ludwig Gruner's best publications.

[40] South Italy and Florence are distinguished by two marked styles in this decoration of inlaid marbles or _opera di commesso_. Compare the Medicean chapel in S. Lorenzo, for instance, with the high altar of the cathedral of Messina.

[41] The roof of the Duomo at Volterra is a fine specimen.

[42] It will not be forgotten that Raphael's cartoons were made for tapestry.

[43] Bramante Lazzari was born at Castel Durante, near Urbino, in 1444.

He spent the early years of his architect's life in Lombardy, in the service of Lodovico Sforza, and came probably to Rome upon his patron's downfall in 1499.

[44] See Vol. I., _Age of the Despots_, p. 342.

[45] See Vol. I., _Age of the Despots_, p. 344. See Gregorovius, _Geschichte der Stadt Rom_, vol. viii. p. 127, and the quotation there translated from Pallavicini's _History of the Council of Trent_.

[46] See Vol. I., _Age of the Despots_, pp. 296-298. Vol. II., _Revival of Learning_, pp. 161-166. For his architectural designs see his Life, by Manetti, book ii., in Muratori, vol. iii. part ii.

[47] Gregorovius, vol. vii. p. 638.

[48] Besides the great work of Bonanni, _Templi Vaticani Historia_, I may refer my readers to the atlas volume of _Ill.u.s.trations, Architectural and Pictorial, of the Genius of Michael Angelo Buonarroti_, compiled by Mr.

Harford (Colnaghi, 1857). Plates 1 to 7 of that work are devoted to the plans of S. Peter's. Plate 4 is specially interesting, since it represents in one view the old basilica and the design of Bramante, together with those of Antonio di S. Gallo and Michael Angelo.

[49] The subterranean vaults of S. Peter's contain mere fragments of tombs, some precious as historical records, some valuable as works of art, swept together pell-mell from the ruins of the old basilica.

[50] See the original letter to Ammanati, published from the Archivio Buonarroti, by Signor Milanesi, p. 535.

[51] I am far from meaning that the earlier architects had not been guided by ancient authors. Alberti's _Treatise on the Art of Building_ is a sufficient proof of their study of Vitruvius, and we know that Fabio Calvi translated that writer into Italian for Raphael. In the later Renaissance this study pa.s.sed into purism.

[52] It must be confessed that this grandiose and picturesque structure is but a sh.e.l.l to mask an earlier Gothic edifice.

[53] Compare Vol. II., _Revival of Learning_, p. 370, for the same transference of power in literature from Central to Northern Italy at this time.

[54] Palladio's _Four Books of Architecture_, first published at Venice in 1570, and Vignola's _Treatise on the Five Orders_, have been translated into all the modern languages. Scamozzi projected, and partly finished, a comprehensive work on _Universal Architecture_, which was printed in 1685 at Venice.

[55] See Vol. II., _Revival of Learning_, chap. viii.

CHAPTER III

SCULPTURE

Niccola Pisano--Obscurity of the Sources for a History of Early Italian Sculpture--Vasari's Legend of Pisano--Deposition from the Cross at Lucca--Study of Nature and the Antique--Sarcophagus at Pisa--Pisan Pulpit--Niccola's School--Giovanni Pisano--Pulpit in S. Andrea at Pistoja--Fragments of his work at Pisa--Tomb of Benedict XI. at Perugia--Bas-reliefs at Orvieto--Andrea Pisano--Relation of Sculpture to Painting--Giotto--Subordination of Sculpture to Architecture in Italy--Pisano's Influence in Venice--Balduccio of Pisa--Orcagna--The Tabernacle of Orsammichele--The Gates of the Florentine Baptistery --Compet.i.tion of Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, and Della Quercia--Comparison of Ghiberti's and Brunelleschi's Trial-pieces--Comparison of Ghiberti and Della Quercia--The Bas-reliefs of S. Petronio--Ghiberti's Education--His Pictorial Style in Bas-relief--His Feeling for the Antique--Donatello--Early Visit to Rome--Christian Subjects--Realistic Treatment--S. George and David--Judith--Equestrian Statue of Gattamelata--Influence of Donatello's Naturalism--Andrea Verocchio--His David--Statue of Colleoni--Alessandro Leopardi--Lionardo's Statue of Francesco Sforza--The Pollajuoli--Tombs of Sixtus IV. and Innocent VIII.--Luca della Robbia--His Treatment of Glazed Earthenware--Agostino di Duccio--The Oratory of S. Bernardino at Perugia--Antonio Rossellino--Matteo Civitali--Mino da Fiesole--Benedetto da Majano--Characteristics and Masterpieces of this Group--Sepulchral Monuments--Andrea Contucci's Tombs in S. Maria del Popolo--Desiderio da Settignano--Sculpture in S. Francesco at Rimini--Venetian Sculpture--Verona--Guido Mazzoni of Modena--Certosa of Pavia--Colleoni Chapel at Bergamo--Sansovino at Venice--Pagan Sculpture--Michael Angelo's Scholars--Baccio Bandinelli--Bartolommeo Ammanati--Cellini--Gian Bologna--Survey of the History of Renaissance Sculpture.

In the procession of the fine arts, sculpture always follows close upon the steps of architecture, and at first appears in some sense as her handmaid. Mediaeval Italy found her Pheidias in a great man of Pisan origin, born during the first decade of the thirteenth century. It was Niccola Pisano, architect and sculptor, who first breathed with the breath of genius life into the dead forms of plastic art. From him we date the dawn of the aesthetical Renaissance with the same certainty as from Petrarch that of humanism; for he determined the direction not only of sculpture but also of painting in Italy. To quote the language of Lord Lindsay's panegyric: "Neither Dante nor Shakspere can boast such extent and durability of influence; for whatever of highest excellence has been achieved in sculpture and painting, not in Italy only but throughout Europe, has been in obedience to the impulse he primarily gave, and in following up the principle which he first struck out."[56] In truth, Niccola Pisano put the artist on the right track of combining the study of antiquity with the study of nature; and to him belongs the credit not merely of his own achievement, considerable as that may be, but also of the work of his immediate scholars and of all who learned from him to portray life. From Niccola Pisano onward to Michael Angelo and Cellini we trace one genealogy of sculptors, who, though they carried art beyond the sphere of his invention, looked back to him as their progenitor. The man who first emanc.i.p.ated sculpture from servile bondage, and opened a way for the attainment of true beauty, would by the Greeks have been honoured with a special cultas as the Hero Eponym of art. It remains for us after our own fas.h.i.+on to pay some such homage to Pisano.

The chief difficulty with which the student of early art and literature has to deal, is the insufficiency of positive information. Instead of accurate dates and well-established facts he finds a legend, rich apparently in detail, but liable at every point to doubt, and subject to attack by plausible conjecture. In the absence of contemporary doc.u.ments and other trustworthy sources of instruction, he is tempted to subst.i.tute his own hypotheses for tradition and to reconstruct the faulty outlines of forgotten history according to his own ideas of fitness. The Germans have been our masters in this species of destructive, dubitative, restorative criticism; and it is undoubtedly flattering to the historian's vanity to const.i.tute himself a judge and arbiter in cases where tact and ingenuity may claim to sift the scattered fragment of confused narration. Yet to resist this temptation is in many cases a plain and simple duty.

Tradition, when not positively disproved, should be allowed to have its full value; and a sounder historic sense is exercised in adopting its testimony with due caution, than in recklessly rejecting it and subst.i.tuting guesses which the lack of knowledge renders unsubstantial.

Tradition may err about dates, details, and names. It is just here that antiquarian research can render valuable help. But there are occasions when the perusal of doc.u.ments and the exercise of what is called the higher criticism afford no surer basis for opinion. If in such cases a legend has been formed and recorded, the student will advance further toward comprehending the spirit of his subject by patiently considering what he knows to be in part perhaps a mythus, than by starting with the foregone conclusion that the legend must of necessity be worthless, and that his cunning will suffice to supply the missing clue.[57]

Thus much I have said by way of preface to what follows upon Niccola Pisano. Almost all we know about him is derived from a couple of inscriptions, a few contracts, and his Life by Giorgio Vasari. It is clear that Vasari often wrote with carelessness, confusing dates and places, and taking no pains to verify the truth of his a.s.sertions. Much of Niccola's biography reads like a legend in his pages--the popular and oral tradition of a great man, whose panegyric it was more easy in the sixteenth century to adorn with rhetoric than to chronicle the details of his life with scrupulous fidelity. A well-founded conviction of Vasari's frequent inaccuracy has induced recent critics to call in question many hitherto accepted points about the nationality and training of Pisano. The discussion, of their arguments I leave for the appendix, contenting myself at present with relating so much of Vasari's legend as cannot, I think, reasonably be rejected.[58]

Before the sculptor appeared in Niccola Pisano, he was already a famous architect; and it must always be remembered that he and his school subordinated the plastic to the constructive arts. It was not until the year 1233, or 1237, according to different modern calculations, that he executed his first masterpiece in sculpture.[59] This was a "Deposition from the Cross," in high relief, placed in a lunette over one of the side doors of S. Martino at Lucca. The n.o.ble forms of this group, the largeness of its style, the breadth of drapery and freedom of action it displays, but, above all, the unity of its design, proclaimed that a new era had begun for art. In order to appreciate the importance of this relief, it is only necessary to compare it with the processional treatment of similar subjects upon early Christian sarcophagi, where each figure stands up stiff and separate, nor can the controlling and combining artist's thought be traced in any effort after composition. Ever since the silver age of Hadrian, when a Bithynian slave by his beauty gave a final impulse to the Genius of Greece, sculpture had been gradually declining until nothing was left but a formal repet.i.tion of conventional outlines. The so-called Romanesque and Byzantine styles were but the dotage of second childhood, fumbling with the methods and materials of an irrecoverable past. It is true, indeed, that unknown mediaeval carvers had shown an instinct for the beautiful as well as great fertility of grotesque invention. The facades of Lombard churches are covered with fanciful and sometimes forcibly dramatic groups of animals and men in combat; and contemporaneously with Niccola Pisano, many Gothic sculptors of the North were adorning the facades and porches of cathedrals with statuary unrivalled in one style of loveliness.[60] Yet the founder of a line of progressive artists had not arisen, and, except in Italy, the conditions were still wanting under which alone the plastic arts could attain to independence. A fresh start, at once conscious and scientific, was imperatively demanded. This new beginning sculpture took in the brain of Niccola Pisano, who returned from the bye-paths of his predecessors to the free field of nature, and who learned precious lessons from the fragments of cla.s.sical sculpture existing in his native town. As though to prove the essential dependence of the modern revival upon the recovery of antique culture, we find that his genius, in spite of its powerful originality and profoundly Christian bias, required the confirmation which could only be derived from Graeco-Roman precedent. In the Campo Santo at Pisa may still be seen a sarcophagus representing the story of Hippolytus and Phaedra, where once reposed the dust of Beatrice, the mother of the pious Countess Matilda of Tuscany. Studying the heroic nudities and n.o.ble att.i.tudes of this bas-relief, Niccola rediscovered the right way of art--not by merely copying his model, but by divining the secret of the grand style. His work at Pisa contains abundant evidence that, while he could not wholly free himself from the defects of the later Romanesque manner, betrayed by his choice of short and square-set types, he nevertheless learned from the antique how to aim at beauty and freedom in his imitation of the living human form. A marble vase, sculptured with Indian Bacchus and his train of Maenads, gave him further help. From these grave or graceful cla.s.sic forms, satisfied with their own goodliness, and void of inner symbolism, the Christian sculptor drank the inspiration of Renaissance art. In the "Adoration of the Magi," carved upon his Pisan pulpit, Madonna a.s.sumes the haughty pose of Theseus' wife; while the high priest, in the "Circ.u.mcision," displays the majesty of Dionysus leaning on the neck of Ampelus. Nor again is the naked vigour of Hippolytus without its echo in the figure of the young man--Hercules or Fort.i.tude--upon a bracket of the same pulpit. These sculptures of Pisano are thus for us a symbol of what happened in the age of the Revival. The old world and the new shook hands; Christianity and h.e.l.lenism kissed each other. And yet they still remained antagonistic--fused externally by art, but severed in the consciousness that, during those strange years of dubious impulse, felt the might of both. Monks leaning from Pisano's pulpit preached the sinfulness of natural pleasure to women whose eyes were fixed on the adolescent beauty of an athlete. Not far off was the time when Filarete should cast in bronze the legends of Ganymede and Leda for the portals of S. Peter's, when Raphael should mingle a carnival of more than pagan sensuality with Bible subjects in Leo's Loggie, when Guglielmo della Porta should place the naked portrait of Giulia Bella in marble at the feet of Paul III. upon his sepulchre.[61]

Niccola, meanwhile, did not follow his Roman models in any slavish spirit.

They were neither numerous nor excellent enough to compel blind imitation or to paralyse inventive impulse. The thoughts to be expressed in marble by the first modern artist were not Greek. This in itself saved him from that tendency to idle reproduction which proved the ruin of the later neo-pagan sculptors. Yet the fragments of antique work he found within his reach, helped him to struggle after a higher quality of style, and established standards of successful treatment. For the rest, his choice of form and the proportions of his figures show that Niccola resorted to native Tuscan models. If nothing of his handiwork were left but the bas-relief of the "Inferno" on the Pisan pulpit, the torsos of the men struggling with demons in that composition would prove this point. It remains his crowning merit to have first expressed the mythology of Christianity and the sentiment of the Middle Ages with the conscious aim of a real artist. And here it may be noticed that, a true Italian, he infused but little of intense or mystical emotion into his art. Niccola is more of a humanist, if this word may be applied to a sculptor, than some of his immediate successors. The hexagonal pulpit in the Baptistery of Pisa, the octagonal pulpit in the cathedral of Siena, the fountain in the marketplace of Perugia, and the shrine of S. Dominic at Bologna, all of them designed and partly finished between 1260 and 1274 by Niccola and his scholars, display his mastery over the art of sculpture in the maturity of his genius. So highly did the Pisans prize their fellow-townsman's pulpit that a law was pa.s.sed and guardians were appointed for its preservation--much in the same way as the Zeus of Pheidias was consigned to the care of the Phaidruntai.

Niccola Pisano founded a school. His son Giovanni, and the numerous pupils employed upon the monuments just mentioned at Siena, Bologna, and Perugia, carried on the tradition of their master, and spread his style abroad through Italy. Giovanni Pisano, to whom we owe the Spina Chapel and the Campo Santo at Pisa, the facade of the Sienese Duomo, and the altar-shrine of S. Donato at Arezzo--four of the purest works of Gothic art in Italy--showed a very decided leaning to the vehement and mystic style of the Transalpine sculptors. We trace a dramatic intensity in Giovanni's work, not derived from his father, not caught from study of the antique, and curiously blended with the general characteristics of the Pisan school. In spite of the Gothic cusps introduced by Niccola into his pulpits, the spirit of his work remained cla.s.sical. The young Hercules holding the lion's cub in his right hand upon his shoulder, while with his left he tames the raging lioness, has the true Italian instinct for a return to Latin style. The same sympathy with the past is observable in the self-restraint and comparative coldness of the bas-reliefs at Pisa.

The Junonian att.i.tude of Madonna, the senatorial dignity of Simeon, the ponderous folding of the drapery, and the ma.s.sive carriage of the neck throughout, denote an effort to revivify an antique manner. What, therefore, Niccola effected for sculpture was a cla.s.sical revival in the very depth of the Middle Ages. The case is different with his son Giovanni. Profiting by the labours of his father, and following in his footsteps, he carried the new art into another region, and brought a genius of more picturesque and forcible temper into play. The value of this new direction given to sculpture for the arts of Italy, especially for painting, cannot be exaggerated. Without Giovanni's intervention, the achievement of Niccola might possibly have been as unproductive of immediate results as the Tuscan Romanesque, that mediaeval effort after the Renaissance, was in architecture.[62]

The Gothic element, so cautiously adopted by Niccola, is used with sympathy and freedom by his son, whose masterpiece, the pulpit of S.

Andrea at Pistoja, might be selected as the supreme triumph of Italian Gothic sculpture. The superiority of that complex and consummate work of plastic art over the pulpit of the Pisan Baptistery, in all the most important qualities of style and composition, can scarcely be called in question. Its only serious fault is an exaggeration of the height of the pillars in proportion to the size of the hexagon they support. Like the pulpits of the Baptistery, of the Duomo of Pisa, and of the Duomo of Siena, it combines bas-reliefs and detached statues, carved capitals, and sculptured lions, in a maze of marvellous invention; but it has no rival in the architectonic effect of harmony, and the masterly feeling for balanced ma.s.ses it displays. The five subjects chosen by Giovanni for his bas-reliefs are the "Nativity," the "Adoration of the Magi," the "Ma.s.sacre of the Innocents," the "Crucifixion," and the "Last Judgment." In the "Nativity" our Lady is no longer the Roman matron of Niccola's conception, but a graceful mother, young in years, and bending with the weakness of childbirth. Her att.i.tude, exquisite by the suggestion of tenderness and delicacy, is one that often reappears in the later work of the Pisan school--for example, in the rough _abozzamento_ in the Campo Santo at Pisa, above the north door of the Duomo at Lucca, and at Orvieto on the facade of the cathedral; but it has nowhere else been treated with the same sense of beauty. The "Ma.s.sacre of the Innocents," compared with this relief, is a tragedy beside an idyll. Here the whole force of Giovanni's eminently dramatic genius comes into full play. Not only has he treated the usual incidents of mothers struggling with soldiers and bewailing their dead darlings, but he has also introduced a motive, which might well have been used by subsequent artists in dealing with the same subjects.

Herod is throned in one corner of the composition; before him stand a group of men and women, some imploring the tyrant for mercy, some defying him in impotent despair, and some invoking the curse of G.o.d upon his head.

In the "Adoration of the Magi," again, Giovanni shows originality by the double action he has chosen to develop. On one side the kings are sleeping, while an angel comes to wake them, pointing out the star. On the other side they fall at the feet of the Madonna. It will be gathered even from these bare descriptions that Giovanni introduced a stir of life and movement, and felt his subjects with a poetic intensity, alien to the ideal of Graeco-Roman sculpture. He effected a fusion between the grand style revived by Niccola and the romantic fervour of the modern imagination. It was in this way that the tradition handed down by him proved inestimably serviceable to the painters.

The bas-reliefs, however, by no means form the chief attraction of this pulpit. At each of its six angles stand saints, evangelists, and angels, whose symbolism it is not now so easy to decipher. The most beautiful groups are a company of angels blowing the judgment trumpets, and a winged youth standing above a winged lion and bull. These groups separate the several compartments of the bas-reliefs, and help to form the body of the pulpit. Beneath, on capital's of the supporting pillars, stand the Sibyls, each with her attendant genius, while prophets lean or crouch within the spandrils of the arches. Thus every portion of this master-work is crowded with figures--some detached, some executed in relief; and yet, amid so great a mult.i.tude, the eye is not confused; the total effect is nowhere dissipated. The whole seems governed by one constructive thought, projected as a perfect unity of composition.[63]

A later work of Giovanni Pisano was the pulpit executed for the cathedral of Pisa, now unfortunately broken up. An interesting fragment, one of the supporting columns of the octagon which formed the body of this structure, still exists in the museum of the Campo Santo. It is an allegorical statue of Pisa. The Ghibelline city is personified as a crowned woman, suckling children at her breast, and standing on a pedestal supported by the eagle of the Empire. She wears a girdle of rope seven times knotted, to betoken the rule of Pisa over seven subject islands. At the four corners of her throne stand the four human virtues, Prudence, Temperance, Justice, and Fort.i.tude, distinguished less by beauty of shape than by determined energy of symbolism. Temperance is a naked woman, with hair twisted in the knots and curls of a Greek Aphrodite. Justice is old and wrinkled, clothed with ma.s.sive drapery, and holding in her hand the scales. Throughout this group there is no attempt to realise forms pleasing to the eye; the sculptor has aimed at suggesting to the mind as many points of intellectual significance as possible. In spite of ugliness and hardness, the "Allegory of Pisa" commands respect by vigour of conception, and rivets attention by force of execution.

A more popular and pleasing monument by Giovanni Pisano is the tomb of Benedict XI. in the church of S. Domenico at Perugia. The Pope, whose life was so obnoxious to the ambition of Philip le Bel that his timely death aroused suspicion of poison, lies asleep upon his marble bier with hands crossed in an att.i.tude of peaceful expectation.[64] At his head and feet stand angels drawing back the curtains that would else have shrouded this last slumber of a good man from the eyes of the living.[65] A contrast is thus established between the repose of the dead and the ever-watchful activity of celestial ministers. Sleep so guarded, the sculptor seeks to tell us, must have glorious waking; and when those hands unfold upon the Resurrection morning, the hushed sympathy of the attendant angels will break into smiles and singing, as they lead the just man to the Lord he served in life.

Please click Like and leave more comments to support and keep us alive.

RECENTLY UPDATED MANGA

Renaissance in Italy Volume III Part 3 summary

You're reading Renaissance in Italy. This manga has been translated by Updating. Author(s): John Addington Symonds. Already has 614 views.

It's great if you read and follow any novel on our website. We promise you that we'll bring you the latest, hottest novel everyday and FREE.

BestLightNovel.com is a most smartest website for reading manga online, it can automatic resize images to fit your pc screen, even on your mobile. Experience now by using your smartphone and access to BestLightNovel.com