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That work finished, his departure was again delayed by the great courtesy of M. Antonio Costabili, a Ferrarese gentleman of much authority, who gave him an altar-piece to paint in oils for the high-altar of the Church of S. Andrea; which finished, he was forced to execute another for S. Bartolo, a convent of Cistercian Monks, wherein he painted the Adoration of the Magi, which was beautiful and much extolled.
In Florence, when still young, he executed many pictures of Our Lady, many of which were sent by Florentine merchants into France. For S. Lucia, in the Via de' Bardi, he painted in an altar-piece God the Father, Christ, and Our Lady, with other figures, and at Montici, about a tabernacle on the corner of the house of Lodovico Capponi, he executed two figures in chiaroscuro.
Before the end of the year, the great altar-piece containing the lovely Madonna and saints, which now adorns the National Gallery, was finished, and while the duke himself wandered in exile beyond the Alps, the Umbrian painter's masterpiece was safely placed in the glorious church which he had loved so well.
She was kneeling with her back against the wall, behind a group of peasant-women, who were standing and looking for a spot nearer to the sacred image. Her head hung a little aside with a look of weariness, and her blue eyes were directed rather absently towards an altar-piece where the Archangel Michael stood in his armour, with young face and floating hair, amongst bearded and tonsured saints.
The chief work by Hubert Van Eyck is the large altar-piece painted for the cathedral of S. Bavon at Ghent; parts of this have been removed and are now in the Berlin Gallery, and supplemented with excellent copies of the rest, the whole of the wonderful composition may there be well studied; a large photograph of the whole altar piece may also be seen in the library at the Victoria and Albert Museum, which shows how the work was originally designed.
The first calle after Danieli's brings us to S. Zaccaria, one of the few Venetian churches with any marble on its façade. S. Zaccaria has no longer the importance it had when the Doge visited it in state every Easter. It is now chiefly famous for its very beautiful Bellini altar-piece, of which I give a reproduction on the opposite page.
In oils he has painted the principal altar-piece of the church that the Duke of Mantua has built recently near the Castello, in which is the Beheading and Martyrdom of S. Barbara, painted with much diligence and judgment.
When the stories on the façade were finished, Bruno painted in the same church, an altar-piece of St. Ursula, with her company of virgins.
As regards the smaller altar-piece at Saas-Grund, analogous work may be found at Cravagliana, half-way between Varallo and Fobello, but this last has suffered through the inveterate habit which Italians have of showing their hatred towards the enemies of Christ by mutilating the figures that represent them.
One day a great limner, the Signor Andrea di Cione, whom men call d'Orcagna, stayed by me where I stood with my melons in the shadow of the Shepherd's Tower, and bade me follow him to his house, for he would fain use me for an angel's head in the great Altar-piece he was e'en then concerned with for the Church of the White Friars.
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