round, while those in the background are in low relief, giving the effect of a scene upon the stage. The statuettes of the Madonna and Saints in round-headed niches under Gothic canopies over the great portal, and the two very ornate recesses on either side of it which contain statues of the two Plinys, are all by the brothers Rodari. Of these statues, that to the left is signed by Thomas and Jacobus "fratris de Rodariis," and dated 1498. Though faulty in proportion, and essentially decorative in style, they produce a pleasing and picturesque effect. The marble casings of the two side doors of the Cathedral, one of which is called the "Porta della Rana," have been so much mutilated that it is difficult to judge of their original merit, but they bear traces of taste and careful study of nature. Other works by the Rodari inside the Cathedral, such as the secondrate and feeble "dossales" of the altars of SS. Lucia (1492) and Apollonia, show that they were less successful in dealing with figure than with ornamental sculpture. CHAPTER I. THE year 1500 is a landmark between the early and the later Renaissance, the Quattro and the Cinque-cento. It divides the age when the Antique was taken as a guide, from the Decadence when it was taken as a master; the age when nature was interpreted in a realistic spirit, and gems and marbles were studied to purify the taste and elevate the style, from the age when ancient art was slavishly imitated, and the barriers between painting and sculpture were completely thrown down. In the later period the nude was more broadly treated, draperies were more classically arranged, and the balance of the figure, as of the left side against the right, the upper part of the body against the lower, was more consciously observed, but on the other hand there was a marked loss of that freshness, naïveté, and individuality, which makes the works of the earlier time as superior to those of the later, as fruits warmed into life by the potent rays of an Italian sun are superior to those which have been forced by artificial heat. Between the two there was an intermediate period when sculpture was chiefly represented by Andrea Sansovino, whose successive works illustrate the gradual change from the old to the new school, and bridge over the gap between them. Andrea was the son of Niccolo di Domenico Contucci, a shepherd of Monte San Savino near Arezzo, whence his name, slightly euphonised into Sansovino.* Born in 1460, he spent his early years in tending his father's flocks, and like Giotto * Milanesi, ed. Vasari, vol. iv. p. 509, gives the name of Andrea's father as Niccolò di Domenico (called Menco) di Muccio, whence his family was called de' Mucci, and later de' Contucci. Niccolo's will, dated August 4, 1508, by which he gave a house and lands at Monte Sansavino to his two sons Andrea and Piero, shows that he was not, as Vasari says, "poverissimo." whiled away the lonely hours by drawing sheep in the sand, or on the flat stones which he picked up in the fields. One day the Podestà Simon Vespucci found him thus occupied, and struck with his evident talent, asked and obtained his father's consent to let him send the young artist to Florence to study with Antonio Pollajuolo, under whom and in the gardens of St. Mark's, where Lorenzo de' Medici had opened an Academy under the superintendence of Donatello's pupil Bertoldo, Sansovino made rapid progress. His first original works were terracotta busts of Nero and Galba, after antique medallions, one of which came into Vasari's possession. These no longer exist, but the painted terra-cotta altar in the church of Sta. Chiara at Monte San Savino which he made at a very early period of his life, shows that at that time the Italian masters of the Quattro-cento had no small influence upon him. No one can look at the San Lorenzo in the central niche, over which flying angels hold the martyr's crown, without being reminded of Donatello's St. George by the turn of the head and the energetic expression of the face, or at the St. Sebastian on his right hand, without thinking of Civitali's statue of that saint in the Cathedral at Lucca, or at the San Rocco on his left, without recognising the spirit of the Quattro-centisti. Between 1488 and 1492, Sansovino carved two pilasters for the sacristy of Santo Spirito at Florence, built the corridor between it and the church, and made an altar for the Corbinelli chapel with statues of SS. James and Matthew and an infant Christ with angels, and reliefs of the Annunciation and the Coronation of the Virgin, the Beheading of St. John, the Last Supper, and a Pietà, which, though not strikingly individual works, are pure in style and technically excellent. From the carly part of 1491, when he was one of the judges of the competitive designs offered for the façade of the Cathedral, until the year 1500, Sansovino lived in Portugal, working as architect and sculptor for King John, to whom he had been recommended by Lorenzo de' Medici. During these nine years he built a royal palace, carved a wooden altar with prophet-statuettes, and made the statue of St. Mark, and the bronze bas-relief of the King fighting with the Moors which still exists in the See pp. 105 and 117. |