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Updated: June 13, 2025
Complete examples of devotional representation occur in the complex and elaborate altar-pieces and windows of stained glass, which often comprehend a very significant scheme of theology. . I give here plans of two of these old altar-pieces, which will assist the reader in elucidating the meaning of others.
The act of worship acquires here more reality and a profounder meaning than it can have in those vast altar-pieces in which the divine favour is symbolised by the actual presence of the Madonna and Child.
Within it are three interesting altar-pieces by Francesco da Santa Croce; one above the high-altar has two rows of panels with figures of the Madonna, SS. Helena, Lucy, Clara, Elizabeth, Stephen, Peter, Francis, Anthony, Bernardino of Siena, and Bonaventura; another shows seven prophets; and a third has the Madonna in the centre, with three little angels below, and S. Jerome on the left, and S. John on the right.
Quite recently, a writer in the "London Art Journal," in comparing European art galleries, characterizes the Italian galleries, except the Pitti, as mere storehouses of pictures, so great have been the accessions, in late years, of altar-pieces from suppressed convents; while, on the other hand, the Louvre, and the galleries of Munich, Dresden, Vienna, St.
Having thus made a beginning, the Warden proposed to fill up those ornaments in the interior with altar-pieces in oils, and on the outer side with a series of scenes in fresco and decorations in stucco, by the hands of the best and most excellent masters that he could find, without grudging any expense that might be incurred.
I have lost my notes on these altar-pieces and can only remember that the main one has been restored, and now belongs to two different dates, the earlier date being, I should imagine, about 1670. A similar treatment of the Last Supper may be found near Brieg in the church of Naters, and no doubt the two altar-pieces are by the same man.
Christopher with the Infant Christ. Fresco in the Doge's Palace, Venice. Where exactly in the life-work of Titian are we to place the Entombment of the Louvre, to which among his sacred works, other than altar-pieces of vast dimensions, the same supreme rank may be accorded which belongs to the Bacchus and Ariadne among purely secular subjects?
Though unimportant in comparison with the comprehensive and magnificent church altar-pieces already described, there is no class of pictures so popular and so attractive, none on which the character of the time and the painter is stamped more clearly and intelligibly, than on these simple representations. The Virgin is not here the dispenser of mercy; she is simply the mother of the Redeemer.
With large gestures and in the emphatic tone which made what he said so striking, Athelny described to Philip the Spanish cathedrals with their vast dark spaces, the massive gold of the altar-pieces, and the sumptuous iron-work, gilt and faded, the air laden with incense, the silence: Philip almost saw the Canons in their short surplices of lawn, the acolytes in red, passing from the sacristy to the choir; he almost heard the monotonous chanting of vespers.
There are, by the way, two very ambitious altars on either side the main arch leading to the chancel in the church at Naters, of which the one on the south side contains obvious reminiscences of Gaudenzio Ferrari's Sta. Maria frescoes at Varallo; but none of the four altar-pieces in the two transepts tempted me to give them much attention.
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