The Cathedral Builders: The Story of a Great Masonic GuildScott, Leader
History
The Cathedral Builders: The Story of a Great Masonic Guild
Scott, Leader
Cathedrals; Church architecture; Guilds
Some beautiful illustrations of their allegorical style are to be
seen in studying the capitals of the colonnade of the Ducal Palace at
Venice, some of which were by Bartolommeo Buono, son of the
fifteenth-century Zambono or Giovanni Buono. We give an illustration
of one with allegorical representations of the classical goddesses,
Venus, Minerva, and Juno, throned in acanthus leaves. Minerva looks
like a mediæval school-mistress as she teaches Hebe and the Loves,
from a ponderous tome. The famous Adam and Eve capital, of which
Ruskin writes so eloquently, was probably by the same hand.
Bartolommeo's best carving was in his "Porta della Carta," the door of
the Grand Ducal Palace, next San Marco, which is rich in the extreme,
and is signed on the architrave "Opus Bartolommei."
Bartolommeo's father, Giovanni Buono, was the head architect of the
beautiful "Ca' d'oro," and here the richness of decorative sculpture
under florid Gothic forms reaches its height.
The family Buono came from Campione, and I think it probable that this
was the same Bartolommeo da Campione whose name is on several of the
Gothic capitals of Milan cathedral. We give an illustration of one of
them, which is extremely rich in statues and pinnacles.
The rapid march from the early pointed towards florid Gothic
sculpture, is evidenced in a remarkable manner by the tombs of the
Scaligers in Verona. The monument to Mastino II., who died in 1351, by
Magister Porino or Perino, is only a quarter of a century previous to
that of Can Grande, who died in 1375, which was by Bonino da
Campione.[196] Yet between the two there lies an immense development
of style. In Perino's work there are the seeds of all the forms in
Bonino's, but in one the Gothic style is undeveloped, in the other it
is in full flower.
Perino has his columns; his cusped pointed arches with high gables
above them; his tabernacles, pinnacles, and pyramidal roof, with an
equestrian statue on the summit; but his lines are simple, direct, and
unbroken, though enriched here and there with reliefs and figures. In
Bonino's the columns are richly carved, the arches lavishly cusped,
the tympanum filled with sculptured medallions. The tabernacles are
richer and more emphatically Gothic in their lengthened lines and
multiplied pinnacles. The figures even have grown into more true
proportions, and are elongated into gracefulness. Every inch of the
whole design is foliated and rich to a degree--as beautiful a bit of
Gothic sculpture as any German or English cathedral can show, but yet
the work of pure Italians, and men of the Comacine Guild.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account