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For the same M. Giovan Matteo he painted an altar-piece of the Stoning of S. Stephen, which M. Giovan Matteo sent to a benefice of his own, called S. Stefano, in Genoa.
If the leafwork on the helm were tossed up backward, it would hide the fillet. Your humble servant, ALBRECHT DUeRER. The other letters concern the lost Coronation of the Virgin, the centre panel of an altar-piece of which the wings are still at Frankfurt, of which town Jacob Heller, who commissioned it, was a burgher.
He was to bear it to the future scene of his labours, to remind him through revolving years of toil and routine, that he too had had his romance, had roamed in fair gardens, and whispered in willing ears the secrets of his passion. That drawing was to become the altar-piece of his life.
To this period belongs also the Annunciation of the Virgin now in the Cathedral of Verona a rich, harmonious, and appropriate altar-piece, but not one of any special significance in the life-work of the painter. Shall we not, pretty much in agreement with Vasari, place here, just before the long-delayed visit to Rome, the Christ with the Pilgrims at Emmaus of the Louvre?
It was too fine and good to be appreciated, and a modern vulgar altar and altar-piece have been erected at the side for use. The choir-stalls are really wonderful. They are also of Renaissance woodwork, with painted panels in the back representing architectural scenes alternating with vases of flowers.
After this, when Raffaello painted for Cardinal de' Medici, for sending to France, that altar-piece containing the Transfiguration of Christ which was placed after his death on the principal altar of S. Pietro a Montorio, Sebastiano also executed at the same time another altar-piece of the same size, as it were in competition with Raffaello, of Lazarus being raised from the dead four days after death, which was counterfeited and painted with supreme diligence under the direction of Michelagnolo, and in some parts from his design.
The three ceiling pictures, The Sacrifice of Isaac, Cain and Abel, and David victorious over Goliath, are in the great sacristy of the church; the Four Evangelists and Four Doctors are in the ceiling of the choir behind the altar; the altar-piece, The Descent of the Holy Spirit, is in one of the chapels which completely girdle the circular church itself.
We interpret the particular act by the general character. What in the window of a convicted blasphemer we call blasphemous, we call only absurd and ill-judged in an altar-piece. We now come to the conversations which pass between Mr. Southey gives his opinion of the manufacturing system. There is nothing which he hates so bitterly.
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.
The Beaumont "Adoration of the Shepherds," with its variant at Vienna, the National Gallery "Epiphany," the Madrid "Madonna with S. Anthony and S. Roch," and the Castelfranco altar-piece are the only instances so far of Giorgione's sacred art, yet Vasari tells us that the master "in his youth painted very many beautiful pictures of the Virgin."
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