The century of ColumbusWalsh, James J. (James Joseph)
History
The century of Columbus
Walsh, James J. (James Joseph)
Renaissance
"The artists of Italy had no quarrel with the friar; some of the
best of them were his devoted friends, while many entered his
Order. Fra Filippo Lappacini in 1492, Fra Agostino di Paulo, Fra
Ambrogio and Fra Luca della Robbia, Fra Benedetto (miniature
painter), 1495, Fra Eustachio, 1496. Michael Angelo read the
friar's sermons constantly; Cronaca, the great architect, 'could
talk of nothing else.' Raphael painted him among the doctors of
the Church. Baldini, Lorenzo di Credi and Botticelli loved him."]
Fra Bartolommeo's greatest works are probably the "Marriage of St.
Catherine," "The Last Judgment," now in the Church of Santa Maria
Nuova, Florence, the picture which is said to have attracted the
attention of Raphael, and the well-known "Descent from the Cross," or
as it is often called, "Lamentation over Christ," "in which the
expression of suffering on the faces is charmingly differentiated for
the various characters of St. John, the Magdalen and the Blessed
Virgin, and so subdued that a heavenly peace illumines the group." It
has been declared that Bartolommeo united the spirituality {58} of Fra
Angelico to the perfect treatment in form and color of Raphael,
combined with a gentle gravity that was all his own and a devotion
that was part of his life. The "Descent from the Cross" is one of his
last works and, far from showing any sign of failing power, is
masterly and firm. In anatomy and composition and color it is
unsurpassed; in delicacy of feeling and religious devotion it is
considered one of the great pictures of the world. His portrait of
"Savonarola," a work of love on the part of an ardent disciple, is
deservedly his best-known work and is one of the great portraits of
all time, worthy to be placed beside those of such masters of
portraiture as Bellini, Titian, Raphael and even Leonardo.
Among the other secondary painters of Columbus' time one of the
greatest, an artist who would have stood out above all his
contemporaries in almost any other period of art, is Sandro
Botticelli. He is the only contemporary whom Leonardo mentions in his
"Treatise on Painting." A quarter of a century ago Walter Pater, in
his Renaissance essays, said of him in regard to this distinction of
being mentioned by Leonardo:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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