Art -- Italy -- Venice; Venice (Italy) -- Description and travel; Venice (Italy) -- History
gave effect to his wishes, and a slab of marble on the pavement, with an
inscription, marks his resting-place under his bust to the R. of the
organ. A year after his work on the ceiling of the sacristy (the
Coronation of the Virgin and the Four Evangelists), he painted in 1556
the ceiling of the church with scenes from the Book of Esther. People
crowded to see these novel and daring compositions. At one flight he
rose to the highest plane of artistic excellence, to rank with the
veteran Titian, and with Tintoretto in the height of his fame. In these
creations the Veronese of the Ducal Palace is already revealed with his
daring perspective, the grand and victorious sweep of his powerful
brush, the pulsating life and movement of his figures. In the plenitude
of his genius he subsequently decorated the walls of the choir with two
scenes from the martyrdom of SS. Sebastiano, Marco and Marcellino (all
three victims of the Diocletian persecution), and the high altar with a
Virgin and Child with the Baptist, SS. Sebastian, Peter and Francis,
John the Baptist and Elizabeth. In the composition L. of the choir, St
Sebastian in armour clasping a banner is seen exhorting SS. Marco and
Marcellino to be faithful unto death, while their mothers at the top of
the steps entreat them to recant and live. Below, kneeling wives and
children add their supplications. This is esteemed by some the
masterpiece of the artist, who has painted his own portrait in the
figure of St Sebastian. To the R. of the choir is the Martyrdom of St
Sebastian.
Veronese designed also the decorations of the organ and painted the
panels, (outside) the Purification of the Virgin, (inside) the Pool of
Bethesda. The church possesses three altar-pieces by the master (the
first altar has a St Nicholas by Titian), and the wall paintings in
fresco in the upper choir.
We retrace our steps to the Ponte delle Pazienze, which we cross, and
quickly reach the long basilica of S. Maria del Carmine, elaborately
renovated in the seventeenth century. The church contains a somewhat
faded Cima, Birth of Christ, with a characteristic landscape; an early
Tintoretto, the Purification of the Virgin; Lorenzo Lotto’s Apotheosis
of St Nicholas, with the Baptist, St Lucy, and angels bearing the
bishop’s mitre and crook. In a landscape to R. is seen St George slaying
the dragon; in the centre the Princess near a city by the sea; L. are
some peasants--a noble and poetic creation.
[Illustration: DOORWAY WITH COLOURED RELIEF OF SS. MARK AND ANIANUS:
COBBLERS’ GUILD HOUSE, CAMPO S. TOMÀ]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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