United States or Guadeloupe ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There is not perhaps much of interest in the church, but over the west door you may see a statue of S. Romolo, while in the choir in the Salutati Chapel there is the masterpiece of Mino da Fiesole, the tomb of Bishop Salutati, who died in 1465, and opposite a marble reredos of Madonna between S. Antonio and S. Leonardo, by the same master.
Then he began to sing in a voice that left the words barely distinguishable: Laughing she fled, Her teeth in the golden grape; After I sped, And clasping her flying shape, I quenched my drouth On the fruit at her mouth. Astounded at these strange sights and sounds, Fra Mino crossed himself. Still the old man showed no mark of confusion, but cast a long and artless look at the Monk.
Mino, the Raffaelle of sculpture, Maso del Rodario, whose works add a new grace to the church of Como, Donatello even one asks in vain for more than a shadowy outline of their actual days. Something more remains of Luca della Robbia; something more of a history, of outward changes and fortunes, is expressed through his work.
An artist who claims a third place beside Mino and his friend, "il bravo Desider si dolce e bello," is Benedetto da Majano. In Benedetto's bas-reliefs at San Gemignano, carved for the altars of those unlovely Tuscan worthies, S. Fina and S. Bartolo, we find a pictorial treatment of legendary subjects, proving that he had studied Ghirlandajo's frescoes.
One day Oguri-Hangwan left his residence to make a journey of inspection through the provinces of which he had been appointed ruler. And reaching Mino, he resolved to visit Kohagi of Hitachi, and to utter his thanks to her for her exceeding goodness.
The bust he made of Marietta di Palla degli Strozzi enables us to compare his style in portraiture with that of Mino. It would be hard to find elsewhere a more captivating combination of womanly sweetness and dignity. We feel, in looking at these products of the best age of Italian sculpture, that the artists who conceived them were, in the truest sense of the word, gentle.
Though all of the crow tribe are notorious for their harsh voices, yet if the power of mimicry be considered as a mark of superiority, the crow has claims to high rank in this department also. The closest imitators of the human voice are birds of this family: for instance, the Mino bird.
I know him, and at times we have talks together, he and I. He tells me of the days when he was an ox-herd on Mount Garganus...." But here Fra Mino interrupted the Satyr: "I cannot suffer you to say St. Michael was an ox-herd, because he guarded the cattle of a man whose name was Garganus, the same as the Mountain. But there, I would fain learn, old man, how you were made a Saint."
The Tolomei upon this occasion adorned their palaces and threw them open to the people of Siena. The Republic hailed with acclamation the early honours of a noble, born to be one of their chief leaders. Soon after this event Mino obtained for his son from the Emperor the title of Cæsarian Knight; and when the diploma arrived, new festivities proclaimed the fortunate youth to his fellow-citizens.
Mino, it must be remembered, was Desiderio's pupil, as Desiderio was Donatello's. Never can a few strokes of the chisel have had so transforming an effect. There is some doubt as to whether the boys are just where the sculptor set them, and the upper ones with their garlands are thought to be a later addition; but we are never likely to know.
Word Of The Day