Art -- Italy -- Venice; Venice (Italy) -- Description and travel
It is these two tombs which draw most visitors to the Frari; but there
are two pictures here that are a more precious artistic possession. Of
these let us look first at Bellini's altar-piece in the Sacristy. This
work represents the Madonna enthroned, about her being saints and the
little angelic musicians of whom Bellini was so fond. In this work these
musicians are younger than usual; one pipes while the other has a
mandolin. Above them is the Madonna, grave and sweet, with a resolute
little Son standing on her knee. The venerable holy men on either side
have all Bellini's suave benignancy and incapacity for sin: celestial
grandfathers. The whole is set in a very splendid frame. I give a
reproduction opposite page 252, but the colour cannot be suggested.
The other great Frari picture--stronger than this but not more
attractive--is the famous Titian altar-piece, the "Pesaro Madonna". This
is an altar-piece indeed, and in it unite with peculiar success the
world and the spirit. The picture was painted for Jacopo Pesaro, a
member of a family closely associated with this church, as the tombs
will show us. Jacopo, known as "Baffo," is the kneeling figure, and, as
his tonsure indicates, a man of God. He was in fact Bishop of Paphos in
Cyprus, and being of the church militant he had in 1501 commanded the
Papal fleet against the Turks. The expedition was triumphant enough to
lead the Bishop to commission Titian to paint two pictures commemorating
it. In the first the Pope, Alexander Borgia, in full canonicals,
standing, introduces Baffo, kneeling, to S. Peter, on the eve of
starting with the ships to chastise the Infidel. S. Peter blesses him
and the Papal standard which he grasps. In the second, the picture at
which we are now looking (see the reproduction opposite page 246), Baffo
again kneels to S. Peter, while behind him a soldier in armour (who
might be S. George and might merely be a Venetian warrior and a
portrait) exhibits a captured Turk. Above S. Peter is the Madonna, with
one of Titian's most adorable and vigorous Babes. Beside her are S.
Francis and S. Anthony of Padua, S. Francis being the speaking brother
who seems to be saying much good of the intrepid but by no means
over-modest Baffo. The other kneeling figures are various Pesari.
Everything about the picture is masterly and aristocratic, and S. Peter
yields to no other old man in Venetian art, which so valued and
respected age, in dignity and grandeur. In the clouds above all are two
outrageously plump cherubs--fat as butter, as we say--sporting (it is
the only word) with the cross.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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