THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES ITALIAN SCULPTORS ANON. DETAILS OF CLOISTER Certosa of Pavia ITALIAN SCULPTORS BY W. G. WATERS WITH SEVENTY-EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS METHUEN & GO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.G. LONDON First Published in ign Art Library 622 PREFACE NO attempt has been made in this volume to deal with all the workers in stone or metal who were active in Italy after the revival, or to describe each work commonly given to the sculptors included. While Niccola Pisano is rated as the first of the moderns, brief mention has been made of the forerunners of the Pisan school : notably of Bonanno, Guido da Como and Antelami. Even had it been possible, a detailed examination of the vast amount of pre-Pisan carving scattered all over Italy, would have been profitless. The work of the chisel was mere stone-cutting and not of the best till it was grasped by the hand of Niccola, who brought about a revolution in plastic art even greater than Masaccio's in pictorial some century and a half later. After Niccola development was extra- ordinarily rapid ; considerable space has necessarily been devoted to his leading successors, and more than ordinary care has been given to certain sculptors of the golden age, whose renown has been somewhat unjustly dimmed by the dazzling glory of their great con- temporaries : men like Agostino di Duccio, Amadeo, Balduccio, Bertoldo, Bonino di Campione, Bregno, V 840O70 vi ITALIAN SCULPTORS Civitale, Marinna, Giovanni da Nola and the unknown creators of the Orvieto reliefs. With regard to the attribution of uncertain or unsigned works, the con- servative attitude has, as a rule, been kept with the view of counteracting the tendency, too marked nowadays, to seek in debatable cases a fresh author merely for the sake of making a change ; and an agnostic position has been preferred to a definite pronouncement in cases where claims may seem delicately balanced. In many instances, notably in the Venetian workshops of the Quattrocento, important monuments and statues were produced by the combined effort of some particular family or school the Lombardi will furnish an instance and many of these works, hitherto ascribed to indi- vidual sculptors, will be found in the following pages, given as the product of the workshop. Considerations of space have forbidden full discussion of certain open questions, such as the milieu of Niccola Pisano's training, and the inspiration of the reliefs on the facade at Orvieto. At the present time the literature of Art is in a condition of feverish activity. The Art magazines of every country teem with new views on old subjects, and the reader who tries to master and digest the conflicting evidence, scattered through dozens of articles, will end his task in sheer perplexity, confident only on one point viz., that a vast proportion of the questions mooted have been treated with labour and diligence altogether out of proportion to their importance. No doubt it is an advantage that slovenly and impossible attributions should have been set right, and that Vasari's anecdotes, PREFACE vii which formerly did duty for Art history, should have been relegated to their proper place ; but the younger writers in their enthusiasm are apt to forget that there are two Vasaris, and that it is hardly fair to treat as equally untrustworthy the transcriber of gossip about fourteenth and fifteenth-century artists, and the author of the wonderful life of Michelangelo and the vivid reporter of the careers of many others who lived nearer to his own time. W. G. WATERS. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ANON. Details of Cloister, Certosa of Pavia Frontispiece FACING PAGE AGOSTINO DI Duccio Allegories of the Sciences, S. Francesco, Rimini ,, . Music, S. Bernardino, Perugia "j ,, . M. Aurelius, Bargello, Florence f. Poverty, S. Bernardino, Perugia J Lunette, Cloister Door, Certosa of Pavia Details of Fa9ade, Certosa of Pavia Lunette, Baptistery Door, Parma . Conflict, Bargello, Florence .... Angle Sculpture, Ducal Palace, Venice . Battle of Centaurs and Lapitrus, Casa Buonarroti, Florence. .... Details of Medici Tombs, New Sacristy, San Lorenzo, Florence ..... S. Cosimo 'j -V, . o T New bacnsty, San Lorenzo, Madonna \ ^, Florence .... b. Damiano ) Head of Gaston de Foix, Castello, Milan 1 Fountain of the Tartarughe, Rome . f Details of Frieze, S. Satiro, Milan Tomb of Ladislas, S. Giovanni a Carbonara, Naples S. Elizabeth, Cathedral, Genoa Bronze Door, Bargello, Florence . ) The Brazen Serpent, Bargello, Florence ) Pulpit, Cathedral, Prato .... High Altar, S. Antonio, Padua . Holy Water Stoup, Cathedral, Siena Reredos, Cathedral, Fiesole .... Details of Eastern Doors, Baptistery, Florence Altar Relief, Eremitani, Padua ANDREA m AQUILA(?) j ISAIA DA PlSA(?) LEOPARDI AMADEO. ANTELAMI BERTOLDO ANON. . BUONARROTI MONTORSOLI . BUONARROTI . MONTELUPO . BUSTI LANDINI CARADOSSO . CICCIONB ClVITALE DANTI . DONATELLO . i FKDERIGHI . MINO GHIBERTI GIOVANNI DA PISA 1 Tomb of A. Vendramin, SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Venice ix 4 6 ii 26 3 36 40 42 44 52 56 58 64 68 74 81 86 96 99 103 108 X ITALIAN SCULPTORS FACING PAGE MADERNA ANON. . MAFFIOLI MAJANO, B. DA MARINNA MAZZONI NANNI DI BANCO . NICCOLA DI BARTO- LOMMEO NOLA, GlOV. DI PACIUS AND JOHANNES PISANO, ANDREA . PISANO, GIOVANNI . PISANO, NICCOLA . POLLAIUOLO QUERCIA Rizzo ROBBIA, A. DELLA ROBBIA, L. DELLA ROBERTUS ROSSELLINO, A. SANSOVINO, J. > SETTIGNANO, DESI- DERIO DA, AND DONATELLO SOLARI . SETTIGNANO, DESI- DERIO DA TINO DI CAMAINO . TRIBOLO AND AM MAN ATI VERROCCHIO . S. Cecilia, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome Effigy of Guidarelli, Pinacoteca, Ravenna Lavabo, Certosa of Pavia Altar, Monte Oliveto, Naples Altar, Fontegiusta, Siena Pieta, S. Giovanni, Modena . Assumption, Cathedral, Florence . Pulpit and Details, Cathedral, Ravello . Altar, S. Domenico, Naples . Tomb of Robert, S. Chiara, Naples Reliefs, Campanile, Florence Panel of Pulpit, S. Andrea, Pistoia : Pulpit, Baptistery, Pisa "i Pulpit, Cathedral, Siena/ Panel of Pulpit, Cathedral, Siena . Tomb of Sixtus iv, S. Peter's, Rome Lunette of Door, S. Petronio, Bologna "I Head of Ilaria, Cathedral, Lucca / Font, Baptistery, Siena Tron Monument, Frari, Venice Altar, La Verna ..... Angels, Impruneta, near Florence \ Resurrection, Cathedral, Florence J Tomb of Federighi, S. Trinita, Florence) Font, S. Frediano, Lucca . . f Altar, Mount Oliveto, Naples Hermes ) ' Venice ' Apollo Cherubs, Pazzi Chapel, S. Croce, Florence 116 118 122 126 128 140 142 144 153 I 5 8 160 164 1 66 172 177 178 182 184 190 192 198 206 209 Tomb of Ludovico and Beatrice Sforza, Certosa of Pavia .... Tabernacle, S. Lorenzo, Florence. . .210 Tomb of Mary of Hungary, S. Donna Regina, Naples 218 Fountain, Castello, near Florence . . . 220 Christ and S. Thomas, Or S. Michele, Florence 226 Colleone, Venice ...... 228 INTRODUCTION A FTER the fall of the Western Empire art production J~\. practically ceased in Italy, on account of the persistent violence of the barbarian invasions. In spite of the survival of the imperial seat at Constantinople, the fertile plains and the splendid cities of Italy still shone as the promised land in the sight of the northern hordes who followed the traces of the retreating legions. Each swarm was followed by a fresh one, hungrier and more truculent; and that any structure or carven figure should have survived the passing of this human tempest must be ascribed to the fact that the invaders were driven on by hope of richer spoil, and unwilling to halt to level massive walls or break up marble statues. Not that the barbarians found the sculptured treasures of the Empire intact. After the edict of Theodosius in 396, which proscribed the old religion, the Christian leaders destroyed right and left the statues which to them suggested an unclean worship. The central idea of the new faith was essentially hostile to the tendencies of classic art. The rude enthusiasts, who cut down the groves, overthrew the temples, and shattered the images were firmly persuaded that they were carrying out God's will in maiming these types of sleek sensuous beauty which, if left intact, might lure back to damnation the half-dazed converts to the new faith. Thousands of statues were destroyed, and that so many survived was probably due to the enlightenment of Theodoric, who, during his reign as Gothic King of Italy, took all public xii ITALIAN SCULPTORS buildings and statues notably the horses on Monte Cavallo under his special protection. Theodoric built palaces in various cities ; agriculture and industry revived under the spell of order, and art naturally shared the quickening impulse. The virulence of the Christian leaders was softened ; indeed, the love of beauty was too closely interwoven in the Latin temper to allow anything like suppression of artistic effort, and as soon as Christianity was established as the dominant faith of the Roman world, and no longer apprehensive of a pagan revival, art was summoned to serve the new religion as it had served the old. The finely carved Christian sarcophagi of the fourth and fifth centuries in the Lateran prove that there still existed patrons anxious to commemorate their dead by sculptured monuments, and that sculptors, albeit in decadence, were still possessed by the spirit of earlier times. The delicate ivory carvings of the period, such as the throne of Maximianus (546) in the Cathedral at Ravenna, show a true art spirit ; for a long time the workers were chiefly Byzantine Greeks, and their activity, with their eyes full of Eastern models, led to the evolution of what is known as the Lombard or Romanesque style. But sculpture was not yet through its troublous times. While slowly recovering in the West, it was devastated in the East by the iconoclastic fury of the eighth century. The edict of 726 banished all images from the Eastern Churches, nothing but pictorial decoration being permitted ; and in Italy little work was done except the ornamentation of graven bronze doors, the best examples of which are at Amalfi, Salerno, Atrani, and S. Mark's at Venice. These were probably all made in Constantinople and exported as were those of S. Paolo fuori le Mura at Rome, which were almost destroyed in 1823. Their decoration is a thin outline of silver inlay; the slightest relief would have savoured of image worship. But as order returned under Gothic rule, architecture revived, and sculpture, though lacking in symmetry and correctness of INTRODUCTION xiii form, was used as a decorative adjunct. Byzantine hostility was evidently active in Ravenna as early as the sixth century, the decoration of the churches there being almost entirely confined to mosaic; but elsewhere in Italy this prejudice was less marked. Even in Ravenna carved capitals are to be found, and in S. Vitale is the famous relief of the throne of Neptune : and on the outer wall of the Baptistery is another of a mounted warrior. Both these are classic fragments. Amongst the early sculptured work called indifferently Byzantine, Lombard, or Romanesque the most remarkable efforts are the great bronze doors of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Italy was fairly prosperous, and the momentous year 1000 A.D., which according to tradition had been anticipated as the end of the world, had passed innocuously, so men began to build for the future. The doors of S. Zeno at Verona are of the eleventh century ; some of the panels of the right-hand door are perhaps later. The doors at Troja date from 1119; of Benevento, from 1150; of Trani, from 1166; of Ravello, from 1179 ; of Pisa, from i i8o(?); of Monreale, from 1 186 ; and of the Lateran, from the same year. These doors, decorated with figures in high relief, must be sharply distinguished from the graven ones already noticed. The smiths who made them were probably the heirs of Byzantine traditions, but a glance at these renderings will show that on Italian soil their makers had imbibed something of the genius loci, which stimulated their hands to endow the metal with new life and motion. The doors of Trani and Benevento are the finest extant bronze work of the twelfth century. At Benevento the bosses and decorations of the framework are strongly classic ; the reliefs, sixty-eight in number, are admirable in composition, with the individual figures modelled with grace and dignity, notably in the Annunciation, the Entry into Jerusalem, and the Ascension. The carver in stone for some time failed to equal the smith in skill. The introduction of Romanesque Church architecture, xiv ITALIAN SCULPTORS which, with its solid construction, made possible deep carving in relief, gave the sculptor his opportunity. In the Baptistery at Florence, in the Badia at Fiesole, and in S. Miniato vari-coloured marble was the chief decoration; but in the Pisan Baptistery, in Parma, Modena, Verona, Pavia, Lucca, and elsewhere relief carving prevailed, and the impulse thus given to the carver's art gathered strength till it culminated in the Pisan pulpit of Niccola Pisano. The cardinal fact to be realized in studying Italian sculpture is that the art, in whatever part of Italy it may be found, takes its prevailing excellencies from its Tuscan origin. At the time of Niccola's triumph in 1260 sculpture throughout Italy was merely rudimentary, and the success afterwards attained by any great centre stands almost exactly in proportion to its indebtedness to Tuscan teachers. Apulia and Naples. At the beginning of the twelfth century the carved work which existed in the South reflected the characteristics of the various races Greek, Saracen, and Norman which had successively struggled for this fair possession. Under the strong hand of the Normans social order began to assert itself. In the past, Byzantine influences had been felt everywhere, but the so-called Greek art which now came to the front differed greatly from the Byzantine which flourished at Ravenna. It had been largely modified by contact with the form and colour of the East. It was no longer a melancholy procession of haggard forms, expressionless faces, and ill-falling draperies ; but shone with gold and the rich colour of oriental gems, elaborate arabesque patterns of foliage and animals, intertwined in carved stone, replaced the ascetic forms of the earlier mosaics. This redundant ornamentation tempered in later examples by Norman characteristics may be studied in the fagade, the portal, the ciborium, and the episcopal chair of S. Niccolo at Bari ; in Bohemond's Chapel at Canossa ; in the pulpit of S. Maria INTRODUCTION xv del Lago at Moscufo, and in the Cathedrals of Troja and Ravello. Saracenic influences appear chiefly in the earlier carvings, which are of foliage alone, the portrayal of animal forms being forbidden by the Moslem religion. The twelfth century saw the firm establishment of the Norman power, and a great change in the character of Southern art. Greek and Saracenic details were modified, and in many cases replaced by rude figures of fighting animals and interlaced ornament, such as is found on Scandinavian and Celtic monuments. Many great twelfth-century churches, however, show Eastern characteristics : the Cathedral at Otranto (crypt), S. Giovanni in Venere near Lanciano, and S. Clemente at Casauria. With the Hohenstaufen appear traces of Northern Romanesque, and all these styles in juxtaposition may be found in the Cathedral of Bitonto, near Ban. The decoration of the portal is a mixture of foliage and animals coarsely carved. The open arcade is quasi- Romanesque, and the larger of the pulpits has the symbols of the Evangelists, trees, birds, and a rude relief of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. In the Cathedrals of Atri and Bitello Gothic details are more abundant : images of Saints, the Madonna, Christ and the Apostles, combined with a tangle of foliage and grotesque animals. Similar work is to be seen on the Doors of the Cathedrals of Trani and Sessa. In the Cathedral at Cosenza is an interesting tomb, French rather than Italian in style, to Isabella of Aragon, Queen of Philip the Bold of France (1271). Throughout the South there is little else but carving in relief. Statues of this period are rare, and the major part of the surviving sculpture shows Greek or Saracenic features, a fact which perhaps has not been duly considered by those who profess to find in Apulia the source of Niccola Pisano's inspiration. At Naples, in the Chapel of S. Restituta adjoining the Cathedral, are some rude twelfth- century reliefs of the feats of Samson and of Christ, but the city is almost bare of any sculpture executed before the coming b xvi ITALIAN SCULPTORS of Tino da Camaino in 1325, the claim of the Masuccios to any of the carved work of the fourteenth century being now generally disallowed. Tino's great achievement is the Tomb of Queen Mary in S. Maria Donna Regina, which served as a model for the later Angevin tombs. None of these, however, shows any of the cold austere spirit of the Sienese master; though the proportions are often good and impressive, the execution of the Neapolitans is wanting in grace and finish, and suggests intellectual poverty and common-place ideals in the executants. Direct Florentine influences first affected Naples in the middle of the fourteenth century, when two sculptors generally known as Pacius and Johannes, made King Robert's Tomb in S. Chiara ; and again a century later, when Donatello and Michelozzo did the Brancacci Tomb in S. Angelo a Nilo. Benedetto da Majano and Antonio Rossellino came next, and Isaia da Pisa worked upon the arch of Castel Nuovo about 1458. Giovanni di Nola and Girolamo di Santo Croce, two of the best Neapolitan born sculptors, were strongly influenced by Michelangelo. Milan also had a part in the creation of the Neapolitan school, as Leonardo di Bisuccio and Scilla, both Milanese, assisted Ciccione on the Tombs of Ladislas and of Carraciolo ; and Pietro Martino was the designer of the arch of Castel Nuovo, the fine bronze doors of which are the best work of the period out of Tuscany. Rome. Of all great Italian cities Rome has been the most barren of art. As mistress of the world, she suffered the most from barbarian attack. Byzantine influences touched her but lightly, and she never enjoyed order and security like that which the Normans and Swabians gave to Naples. Sculpture never ceased entirely, and of the early examples which survive the following are the most noteworthy : the Christian sarcophagi, the statues of S. Hippolytus, S. Peter, S. Paul, the Good Shepherd and Nicolas iv in the Lateran; the carved sarcophagus of Junius Bassus (359), the relief INTRODUCTION xvii portrait of Boniface vin, the bust of Benedict xn, the sarcophagus of Urban iv, and other fragments of Papal tombs in the crypt of S. Peter's ; and the ancient Papal throne, under Bernini's covering, in the Basilica itself. Carving of the eleventh and twelfth centuries exists at Corneto and Alba Fucese near Rome; and a Cosmati family, Paolo, his son Giovanni, and his brothers Piero, Angelo, and Sasso, worked in S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura and in S. Croce in Gerusalemme (1154). Somewhat later came the family of the Ranucci, who did much decorative work near Rome and made the ciborium in S. Maria di Castello at Corneto, where also is a fine pulpit with lions probably by the same. In S. Paolo fuori le Mura is a circular candlestick by a certain Nicolas di Angelo. These works, and many more of a similar character, were executed by men trained in the workshops of the Cosmati. This art fraternity, akin to that of the Comacini of Lombardy dates from the beginning of the twelfth century, its earliest works being decorative inlay with gold and vari-coloured mosaics, of which the pulpits of Alba Fucese, Fondi, and Corneto are good examples; Salerno, Sessa, and Ravello are of a later period. The decoration is at times excessive, but the architectural proportions are usually so good that the effect is never unpleasing. Giovanni, the first sculptor of eminence, is dealt with individually. The statue of Charles of Anjou, now in the Palazzo dei Conservator!, is of this period. The migration of the Papacy to Avignon in 1307 was fatal to Roman art, and the city was little better than a heap of ruins when the Popes returned in 1417. Paolo and Gian Cristoforo Romano did some fairly good work : the reliefs on the Tabernacle of Sixtus iv in the crypt of S. Peter's (some- times attributed to a certain Pietro Paolo d' Antonio) are the work of a far more able sculptor, strongly classic in spirit and finely grouped and executed ; but all the finest existing sculp- ture was done by Florentines Arnolfo, Donatello, Simone Ghini, Filarete, Mino da Fiesole, Pollaiuolo, the Sansovini, xviii ITALIAN SCULPTORS Lorenzetto, Tribolo, and Michelangelo have left a legacy beside which that of artists more definitely Roman is as nothing. Central Italy. In the Central Italian States very little early sculpture exists. The chief examples are the facades of the Cathedrals of Modena (with reliefs of the story of the Creation and of Noah), Piacenza, Ferrara, and Borgo San Donnino ; the reliefs by Antelami on the Baptistery at Parma ; others, in stucco, on the Baptistery at Ravenna ; and one of the Virgin in S. Maria a Porto outside the town. There are fine early sarcophagi in the Cathedral, S. Apollinare in Classe, S. Vitale, and S. Francesco at Ravenna, in the crypt of the Cathedral at Ancona, and in S. Francesco dei Conventuali at Perugia. In Bologna there existed a school of carvers of stone crucifixes in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, examples of which may be seen in S. Petronio and in the Museo Civico. Lombardy. After the northern plain of Italy was subdued in the sixth century by Alboin, and had received the name of Lombardy, order was gradually restored and the fertile soil yielded wealth enough to allow the erection of substantial churches, some of which survive. The insecurity of the land forced certain craftsmen to retire to the island of Comacina in the Lake of Como, and when Rodari, the Lombard king, began to build he took the fugitives under his protection and gave them employment. The conversion of the Lombards from Arianism in 590 had stimulated the movement, the first great work being the Cathedral of Monza. The Comacine style became the Lombard, which, indeed, is nothing else than Byzantine activity engaged in a milieu rich in classic tradition. Solid structure led to deep cutting in relief, and this helped forward the evolution of the free standing statue: repre- sentative reliefs are those on S. Michele at Pavia, and INTRODUCTION xix throughout Lombardy others may be found, often interwoven with arabesques, griffins, fishes, and monsters, and occurring generally on fagades, fonts, and pulpits. Before Balduccio's sojourn in Milan, sculpture had made little progress. The reliefs of Oldrado di Trissino on the Broletto, and the altar of S. Ambrogio in Milan ; the fagades of the Cathedral and of S. Zeno, and the font in S. Giovanni in Fonte in Verona ; the fagade of S. Michele at Pavia, and the various fragments now collected in the Castello at Milan, are the chief examples of early work. Venice. The early sculpture is strongly Byzantine in type. The introduction of Gothic architecture at the end of the thirteenth century caused a change in the character of decorative detail, but no sculpture worth notice was done other than that of the artists whose names are given in the following pages. Tuscany. The early work is chiefly in Pistoia, Lucca, and Pisa, and the most important examples will be described under the respective sculptors. Other noteworthy anonymous examples are a stone font with heads of animals, now in the Bargello, and the pulpit at S. Miniato in Florence ; the pulpits of Groppoli and Barga ; the sculptured frieze of S. Maria della Pieve at Arezzo, attributed to Marchionne (1216), S. Martin and the beggar on S. Martino ; the outside reliefs, and the font of the Baptistery at Pisa; the statue of S. Michael on the Oratorio di S. Giuseppe at Pistoia ; the font in the Cathedral at Massa Maritima ; the fagade of the Cathedral at Volterra ; the altar in the Cathedral at Citta di Castello, and a relief in the Chapel of S. Ansano in the Cathedral at Siena. The reliefs on the facade of the Cathedral at Lucca were done by some of the Comacine sculptors, who were active in many other Tuscan cities. Andrea Pisano was the real initiator of the Florentine school, and Donatello and Luca della Robbia its chief xx ITALIAN SCULPTORS executants. Study of Andrea's work will reveal a richness of imagination and a purity of taste surpassed by few of his successors ; his technique holds a middle place between the savage vigour of Giovanni Pisano and the sometimes frigid restraint of Donatello. Under his hand the bronze takes graceful forms, which exhale the passions and movements of the beings represented with greater dramatic power than those modelled by his great predecessors : but he just misses the touch which, in Donatello's major creations, evokes with such perfection the very self of saint or martyr or mail-clad warrior ; and the tender grace of Luca's women, a grace which will always draw the workaday world more powerfully than mere technical perfection. The generation of sculptors which followed these masters rose to their opportunity, and produced that grand collection of masterpieces which make Florence the Mecca of Art. Mino, Desiderio, the Rossellini, and Benedetto da Majano produced work more perfect in technique than that of their forerunners; the master touch may be absent, but there is in compensation a grace of form and a beauty of execution unattained before. In treating of this great epoch the claim of Michelozzo is too often overlooked. The Chapel of the Crucifixion in S. Miniato, the Cossa Tomb in the Baptistery, the Tabernacle of Christ and S. Thomas on Or S. Michele, the altar in the Impruneta near Florence, and the Brancacci Tomb in S. Angelo a Nilo in Naples are striking examples of his genius. The figures which Luca and Donatello and Verrocchio modelled, fine as they are, would lose much of their beauty were they bereft of the harmonious setting Michelozzo has given them ; and the form in which he cast the tombs above mentioned was taken as a model for the greatest of those which came later. With Donatello the wave of Florentine art rose to its highest, and the impulse of his genius was so vigorous and lasting that the stream ran for several generations full and strong, with no disastrous reaction like that which followed on INTRODUCTION xxi the meteoric career of Michelangelo. The seed sown by Donatello was sound, and the soil rich with kindly nurture. The types which he left were normal, with the superadded touch of genius that was necessary for their continuance. Creations of the highest excellence, inspired by his work and by that of Luca, stand to the credit of Mino and the others, and ensure their immortality; but had these sculptors been set to frame their work after the model of the Moses, or of the Titanic forms in the New Sacristy, their failure might have been fully as disastrous as that of Bandinelli or Ammanati. As it was, the sculptors of the fifteenth century produced a vast number of works of a very high level of merit. Besides the great examples, there are hundreds of others many anonymous scattered about in the smaller towns. The momentum of the great revival continued operative up to the crisis of the sack of Rome, after which sculpture reflecting the characteristics of the golden time grew rarer and rarer, and any work of merit generally stood out as the one isolated achievement in a lifetime of effort otherwise featureless. TV,- '.I ' >.i v/j Ws,- ' * , 9* , m fe / Y/\ \ \ ' i . u Fv AGOSTINO DI DUCCIO ALLEGORIES OF THE SCIENCES 5. Francesco, Kintini ITALIAN SCULPTORS AgOStinO di Ducclo (FLORENTINE, 1418-1481) A COSTING may not have been the greatest sculptor of 2\. his generation, but he was undoubtedly the most original and fascinating. Unlike Niccola Pisano, who re- captured the grand style after centuries of obscuration and could trace clearly his descent, Agostino flits like Ariel across the art firmament, coming we know not whence and leaving no follower. Probably a pupil of Luca della Robbia, his earliest known work dates from 1442, a series of Reliefs on the front of the Cathedral at Modena, picturing scenes in the life of S. Gimignano, in which the influence of the Della Robbia teaching is evident. About 1446 he left Florence for Rimini, where he was employed by Alberti to assist Simone Ferrucci to decorate S. Francesco. This occupied him till 1454, his finest work being the Reliefs in the fourth chapels right and left. The piers of the one on the left are carved with eighteen figures typifying the sciences, the Trivium and the Quadrivium Botany and Philosophy being especially beautiful. In the right-hand chapel the Reliefs represent the Planets and Signs of the Zodiac. Mercury should be specially noticed, as well as a curious representation of the four winds. The sense of movement in the figures, and the flow of drapery particularly, demonstrate the grace and richness of Agostino's genius; indeed, these exquisite figures are amongst the finest products of Italian 2 AGOSTINO DI DUCCIO sculpture. In the first chapel on the right he carved, beside Ciuffagni's statue of S. Sigismond, a marble curtain held back by two most lovely Angels ; and in the first on the left he made the Tomb which Sigismondo erected to his ancestors. It is a sarcophagus of antique form, poised on brackets, with two reliefs and an inscription on the front. The left-hand relief shows Pallas in the Temple of Memory, surrounded by the Malatestas in successive generations, beginning with Scipio Africanus and ending with Sigismondo. That on the right shows him as the hero of a triumph returning from victory in a chariot surrounded by captives. About 1459 Agostino went to Perugia, where he produced in terra-cotta what is generally reckoned to be his masterpiece the facade of the Oratorio di S. Bernardino. The central arch is filled above with a lunette in which the Saint stands in a mandorla of tongues of fire, with angel musicians and flying cherubs on either side. Above the arch are the griffins of Perugia enclosed in wreaths, and over the architrave Christ sits in glory. Tabernacles on either side contain the Virgin and S. Constantius, the Archangel Gabriel and S. Herculanus. On the pilasters of the arch are six angels and six virtues, which recall the figures at Rimini ; but they have suffered more from time and from exposure to the rough climate of Perugia. The figures of Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience are of surpassing loveliness. The lintel is carved with reliefs of scenes in the Saint's life, also the spaces below the tabernacles. In the same fresh joyous spirit is his fine Relief of the Madonna in the Opera del Duomo at Florence, and that of a party of horsemen in a wooded landscape in the Castello at Milan ; the landscape and the background being strongly reminiscent of the Chariot of Diana at Rimini. Other works ascribed to Agostino are a terra-cotta statue of the Madonna in the University, a Pieta in relief in the Cathedral, and some terra- cotta decoration in S. Domenico at Perugia ; a Tabernacle in the refectory of the Ognissanti at Florence ; a Relief of the Madonna (Auviller's bequest) in the Louvre, and replicas of the same at Berlin and in the Villa Castello at Florence; AGOSTINO DI DUCCIO 3 a magnificent head in profile, styled M. Aurelius, in the Bargello ; a fragment of an arch with angels in the lunettes, and a Relief of angels (attributed also to the Maestro di S. Trovaso) in the Castello at Milan. It seems possible that this Maestro may have been Agostino himself, seeing that the altar frontals of exquisitely wrought children in relief in S. Trovaso at Venice, from which he derives his fame and title, re- semble so strongly in spirit and execution the reliefs in S. Fran- cesco at Rimini. The S. Giustina in the Victoria and Albert Museum sometimes given to Donatello is probably also by Agostino. The art of Agostino derives something of its charm from Donatello's influence and something from his association with the Delia Robbias. His genius was nourished by both these streams, but its great charm lies in its originality. Doubt- less he was influenced also by the atmosphere of Malatesta's court. Recent investigation has shown that Sigismondo was no abnormal monster as Symonds and others have maintained, on no better authority than the terms used in the Papal im- peachment. As a condottiere he was on a level with the other free captains of his age. But he was a scholar, a poet, and the friend of the most illustrious Humanists and artists of the time. Living in an atmosphere like this, Agostino was naturally led to give the highest place to the joy of life, and the visible beauty of the universe. These and the types of the sciences, which were so soon to transform the world, he clothed with the most graceful forms he could invent. Nor was he less studious when working at the shrine Div