A Wanderer in FlorenceLucas, E. V. (Edward Verrall)
History
A Wanderer in Florence
Lucas, E. V. (Edward Verrall)
Art -- Italy -- Florence; Florence (Italy) -- Description and travel
Near by is the little eager S. John the Baptist as a boy by Antonio
Rossellino (1427-1478), and on the next wall the same sculptor's
circular relief of the Madonna adoring, in a border of cherubs.
In the middle is the masterpiece of Jacopo Sansovino (1486-1570): a
Bacchus, so strangely like a genuine antique, full of Greek lightness
and grace. And then we come back to the wall in which the door is,
and find more works from the delicate hand of Mino da Fiesole, whom
we in London are fortunate in being able to study as near home as at
the Victoria and Albert Museum. Of Mino I have said more both at the
Badia and at Fiesole. But here I might remark again that he was born
in 1431 and died in 1484, and was the favourite pupil of Desiderio
da Settignano, who was in his turn the favourite pupil of Donatello.
In the little church of S. Ambrogio we have seen a tablet to the
memory of Mino, who lies there, not far from the grave of Verrocchio,
whom he most nearly approached in feeling, although their ideal type of
woman differed in everything save the slenderness of the fingers. The
Bargello has both busts and reliefs by him, all distinguished and
sensitive and marked by Mino's profound refinement. The Madonna and
Child in No. 232 are peculiarly beautiful and notable both for high
relief and shallow relief, and the Child in No. 193 is even more
charming. For delicacy and vivacity in marble portraiture it would
be impossible to surpass the head of Rinaldo della Luna; and the two
Medicis are wonderfully real. Everything in Mino's work is thoughtful
and exquisite, while the unusual type of face which so attracted him
gives him freshness too.
This room and that next it illustrate the wealth of fine sculptors
which Florence had in the fifteenth century, for the works by the
unknown hands are in some cases hardly less beautiful and masterly than
those by the known. Look, for example, at the fleur-de-lis over the
door; at the Madonna and Child next it, on the right; at the girl's
head next to that; at the baby girl at the other end of the room;
and at the older boy and his pendant. But one does not need to come
here to form an idea of the wealth of good sculpture. The streets
alone are full of it. Every palace has beautiful stone-work and an
escutcheon which often only a master could execute--as Donatello
devised that for the Palazzo Pazzi in the Borgo degli Albizzi. On the
great staircase of the Bargello, for example, are numbers of coats
of arms that could not be more beautifully designed and incised.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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