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It has the look and touch of marble. Lanzi, from whom these facts are obtained, says that these artists ventured upon the composition of pictures, intended to represent engravings as well as oil paintings, and that there are several such works, representing even historical subjects, in the collections of Carpi.

And so we are at the end of the pictures but only to return again and again and are not unwilling to fall into the trap of the official who sits here, and allow him to unlock the door behind the Laocöon group and enjoy what he recommends as a "bella vista" from the open space, which turns out to be the roof of the Loggia de' Lanzi.

The churches had temporary facades of splendid architecture in fresco; arches were erected at the Porta Romana and Piazza San Felice, covered with historical paintings; Giuliano del Tasso adorned the Ponte Santa Trinita with statues; Antonio San Gallo made a temple on the Piazza della Signoria, and Baccio Bandinelli prepared a colossus in the Loggia dei Lanzi.

Lanzi reckons fourteen schools of painting in Italy, each of which is distinguished by some peculiar characteristics, as follows: 1, the Florentine school; 2, the Sienese school; 3, the Roman school; 4, the Neapolitan school; 5, the Venetian school; 6, the Mantuan school; 7, the Modenese school; 8, the school of Parma; 9, the school of Cremona; 10, the school of Milan; 11, the school of Bologna; 12, the school of Ferrara; 13, the school of Genoa; 14, the school of Piedmont.

Lanzi, in his History of Italian Painting, gives the following exquisite encomium on this prince of landscape painters: "His landscapes present to the spectator an endless variety; so many views of land and water, so many interesting objects, that, like an astonished traveller, the eye is obliged to pause and measure the extent of the prospect, and his distances of mountain and of sea, are so illusive, that the spectator feels, as it were, fatigued by gazing.

According to Lanzi, Antonio Contri discovered a valuable process, by means of which he was enabled to transfer fresco paintings from walls to canvass, without the least injury to the work, and thus preserved many valuable paintings by the great masters, which obtained him wide celebrity and profitable employment.

The plate and armour that bear his name, are only in some rare instances genuine; and the bronze "Perseus" in the Loggia de' Lanzi at Florence remains almost alone to show how high he ranked among the later Tuscan sculptors.

Michelangelo was told that if he accepted it he must carve from it a David and have it done in two years. This last was finally selected, not by the committee but by the determination of Michelangelo himself, and Judith and Holofernes were moved to the Loggia de' Lanzi to their present position.

The execution was on May 23rd, 1498. A gallows was erected in the Piazza della Signoria on the spot now marked by the bronze tablet. Beneath the gallows was a bonfire. All those members of the Government who could endure the scene were present, either on the platform of the Palazzo Vecchio or in the Loggia de' Lanzi. The crowd filled the Piazza. The three monks went to their death unafraid.

By the side of Machiavelli rests Luigi Lanzi, a name less generally known, tho celebrated in his time as an historiographer of painting, or an art critic as we should now call him. His friend, Chevalier Ornofrio Boni, prepared the design for his tomb, which was executed at public cost.