United States or Madagascar ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In like manner, the miracles that Ranieri wrought as he was borne to his tomb, and those that he wrought in another place when already laid to rest therein in the Duomo, were painted with very great diligence by Antonio, who made there blind men receiving their sight, paralytics regaining the use of their members, men possessed by the Devil being delivered, and other miracles, all represented very vividly.
As a whole this composition is constructed in the ancient manner as in Byzantine art several series rising one above the other, each of equal size, and without any pretension to perspective: the single groups, at the same time, are executed with much grace and feeling. Next to this are six pictures of the history of S. Ranieri, and as many of the lives of S. Efeso and S. Potito.
In one of the two other rectangular pictures, which are of equal size, is Signor Ranieri Farnese, elected General of the Florentines in place of the above-named Signor Pietro, his brother, with this inscription: RAINERIUS FARNESIUS A FLORENTINIS DIFFICILI REIP. TEMPORE IN PETRI FRATRIS MORTUI LOCUM COPIARUM OMNIUM DUX DELIGITUR, ANNO 1362.
The Field-Marshal did not forget that he was the son-in-law of the Austrian Archduke Ranieri; it is probable, if not proved, that he expected to find him pliable; but Radetsky, besides being a politician of the purest blood-and-iron type, was an old soldier with not a bad heart, and some of his sympathy is to be ascribed to a veteran's natural admiration for a daring young officer.
He was then summoned to Pisa in order to finish, below the stories of S. Ranieri in the Campo Santo, certain stories that were lacking in a space that had remained not painted; and in order to connect them together with those that had been made by Giotto, Simone Sanese, and Antonio Viniziano, he made in that place, in fresco, six stories of S. Petito and S. Epiro.
Nor could that scene likewise be more pleasing than it is, wherein the Canons of the Duomo of Pisa, in very beautiful vestments of those times, no little different from those that are used to-day and very graceful, are receiving S. Ranieri at table, all the figures being made with much consideration.
Close by in Piazza S. Spirito is Palazzo Guadagni, built for Ranieri Dei at the end of the fifteenth century by Cronaca. It was not, however, till 1684 that the Guadagni family came into possession of it. Bernardo Guadagni, it will be remembered, was Gonfaloniere of Justice when Cosimo de' Medici was expelled the city in 1433.
Petrarch proceeds to mention that he has also known sculptors, and asserts their inferiority to painters in modern times. Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle reject, not without reason, as it seems to me, the tradition that Simone painted the frescoes of S. Ranieri in the Campo Santo at Pisa. See vol. ii. p. 83. What remains of his work at Pisa is an altar-piece in S. Caterina.
Antonio, being summoned after these works to Pisa by the Warden of Works of the Campo Santo, continued therein the painting of the stories of the Blessed Ranieri, a holy man of that city, formerly begun by Simone Sanese, following his arrangement.
As for Lombardy, it was notorious that a considerable Austrian party was in favour of giving it up, including the Archduke Ranieri, who was strongly attached to Italy, which was the land of his birth.
Word Of The Day