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Sister Mary of the Crucifix, in her sumptuous gown of shot-silk, with pearls wound through her reddish hair and hanging on her bare shoulders, might have stepped from some festal canvas of Bonifazio's. She had laid aside even the light gauze veil worn by the nuns in gala habit, and no vestige of her calling showed itself in dress or bearing.
On the R. wall opposite the Carpaccio is hung, 1587, a magnificent work of the painter's old age, Jupiter and Antiope, unhappily much injured by fire and by more than one restoration. Two characteristic Sante Conversazioni from Bonifazio's atelier may next be noted, 1172, over a doorway; and 1171, skied on the L. wall.
To the great House of Canossa, the rulers of one-third of Italy, there now remained only two women, Bonifazio's widow Beatrice, and his daughter Matilda. Beatrice married Godfrey, Duke of Lorraine, who was recognised by Henry IV. as her husband and as feudatory of the Empire in the full place of Boniface.
Thus in dealing with him as a colourist we have to bear in mind that it was by line and modelling chiefly that his effects of movement were obtained. To be over-critical of the shortcomings of his colour, therefore, would be as foolish as to miss the charm of Bonifazio's splendid harmonies in abuse of some defect of drawing.
With her expired the main line of the noble house she represented; though Canossa, now made a fief of the Empire in spite of Matilda's donation, was given to a family which claimed descent from Bonifazio's brother Conrad a young man killed in the battle of Coviolo. This family, in its turn, was extinguished in the year 1570; but a junior branch still exists at Verona.
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