Italian sculptors

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 modems, 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 extraordinarily 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 contemporaries : men like Agostino di Duccio, Amadeo, Balduccio, Bertoldo, Bonino di Campione, Bregno, 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 conservative 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 individual 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

Casa

Agostino di Duccio Allegories of the Sciences, S. Francesco, Rimini ,, . Music, S. Bernardino, Perugia "j

„ . M. Aurelius, Bargello, Florence \.

Poverty, S. Bernardino, Perugia/ 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 Lapithae,

Buonarroti, Florence.

Details of Medici Tombs, New Sacristy, San Lorenzo, Florence ....

-* I New Sacristy, San Lorenzo

Madonna t ^n

Head of Gaston de Foix, Castello, Milan 1

Fountain of the Tartarughe, Rome . /

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 j

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 DI Aquila(?) 1 D ,. , . u rr- . i x- , _ ,,, ^ ' J- Reliefs, Arch of Castel Nuov(

ISAIA DA PiSA(?) J

Lbopardi . . Tomb of A. Vendramin, SS. Giovanni

Paolo, Venice

ix

Amadeo.

II Antklami Bertoldo Anon. .

Buonarroti

Montorsoli Bdonarroti montelupo

BUSTI

Landini Caradosso

CiCCIONE CiVITALB

Danti

>i

Fbderighi

MiNO

Ghiberti Giovanni da Pisa

II 30 36 40

44 52

56 58 64

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. DEI.LA ROBBIA, L. DELLA

ROBERTUS ROSSELLINO, A.

Sansovino, J.

Settignano, Desiderio da, and Donatello

SOLARI .

Settignano, Desi-

DERIO DA

TiNO DI Camaino .

Tribolo and

Ammanati Verrocchio .

Altar, S. Domenico, Naples .

Tomb of Robert, S. Chiara, Naples

Reliefs, Campanile, Florence

Panel of Pulpit, S. Andrea, Pistoia

Pulpit, Baptistery, Pisa ">

Pulpit, Cathedral, Siena j

Panel of Pulpit, Cathedral, Siena .

Tomb of Sixtus iv, S. Peter's, Rome

Lunette of Door, S. Petronio, Bologna)

Head of Ilaria, Cathedral, Lucca J

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 . . • j

Altar, Mount OHveto, Naples

Hermes')^ ,^ .

Apollo I Loggetta, Venice . . .

Cherubs, Pazzi Chapel, S. Croce, Florence

Ii6

FACING PAGE

S. Cecilia, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome Effigy of Guidarelli, Pinacoteca, Ravenna

Lavabo, Certosa of Pavia . . . .118

Altar, Monte Oliveto, Naples . . .122

Altar, Fontegiusta, Siena . . . .126

Pietk, S. Giovanni, Modena . . . .128

Assumption, Cathedral, Florence . . .140

Pulpit and Details, Cathedral, Ravello . .142

144 153

158 160

166 172

178 182

192 198 206

Tomb of Ludovico and Beatrice Sforza,

Certosa of Pavia ....

Tabernacle, S. Lorenzo, Florence. . . 2IO

Tomb of Mary of Hungary, S. Donna Regina,

Fountain, Castello, near Florence . . . 220

Christ and S. Thomas, Or 8. Michele, Florence 226 Collcone, Venice 228