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In S. Romano, at the other end of the city behind the Palazzo Provinciale, it was the shrine of that S. Romano who was the gaoler of S. Lorenzo I found, a tomb with the delicate flowerlike body of the murdered saint carved there in gilded alabaster by Matteo Civitali.
The font, for instance, with its rude sculptures, that has been forsaken for a later work by Niccolò Civitali, the nephew of Matteo; the Assumption, carved in wood by that master behind the pulpit; the lovely reliefs of Madonna and Child with Saints, by Jacopo della Quercia, in the Cappella del Sacramento; or the great stone which, as it is said, S. Frediano, that Irishman, lifted into a cart.
And if the façade of S. Michele has not the strength or the naturalness of that, leading as it does to nothing but poverty in the midst of which still abides a mutilated work by a great Florentine, Fra Lippo Lippi, it is because Guidetto has gradually won to that difficult simplicity from such a strange and fantastic dream as this. Matteo Civitali
It is a beauty gone while we try to apprehend it that we find in his work, and though at last we may tire of this wayward and delicate spirit, while we shall ever return with new joy to the great and noble figure of the young Ilaria del Caretto or to the serene Madonna of Ghirlandajo, hidden in the Sacristy, yet we shall find ourselves seeking for the work of Matteo Civitali as for the first violets of the spring, without a thought of the beauty that belongs to the roses that lord it all the summer long.
Possibly the bas-reliefs strewn on the north wall are work of the Roman period, but they are not of much interest save to an archeologist. Within, the church is dark, and this I think is a disappointment, nor is it very rich or lovely. Some work of Matteo Civitali is still to be seen in a side chapel on the left, but the only remarkable thing in the church itself is the chapel of St.
Matteo Civitali, the one artist of importance that Lucca produced, was born in 1435. He remains really the one artist, not of the territory of Florence, who has worked in the manner of the fifteenth-century sculptors of that city. His work is everywhere in Lucca, here in the Duomo, in S. Romano, in S. Michele, in S. Frediano, and in the Museo in Palazzo Mansi.
It is, however, the work of another man, a Lucchese too, that fills the Duomo and Lucca itself with a sort, of lyric sweetness in the delicate and almost fragile sculpture of Matteo Civitali.
Niccola Pisano Obscurity of the Sources for a History of Early Italian Sculpture Vasari's Legend of Pisano Deposition from the Cross at Lucca Study of Nature and the Antique Sarcophagus at Pisa Pisan Pulpit Niccola's School Giovanni Pisano Pulpit in S. Andrea at Pistoja Fragments of his work at Pisa Tomb of Benedict XI. at Perugia Bas-reliefs at Orvieto Andrea Pisano Relation of Sculpture to Painting Giotto Subordination of Sculpture to Architecture in Italy Pisano's Influence in Venice Balduccio of Pisa Orcagna The Tabernacle of Orsammichele The Gates of the Florentine Baptistery Competition of Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, and Della Quercia Comparison of Ghiberti's and Brunelleschi's Trial-pieces Comparison of Ghiberti and Della Quercia The Bas-reliefs of S. Petronio Ghiberti's Education His Pictorial Style in Bas-relief His Feeling for the Antique Donatello Early Visit to Rome Christian Subjects Realistic Treatment S. George and David Judith Equestrian Statue of Gattamelata Influence of Donatello's Naturalism Andrea Verocchio His David Statue of Colleoni Alessandro Leopardi Lionardo's Statue of Francesco Sforza The Pollajuoli Tombs of Sixtus IV. and Innocent VIII. Luca della Robbia His Treatment of Glazed Earthenware Agostino di Duccio The Oratory of S. Bernardino at Perugia Antonio Rossellino Matteo Civitali Mino da Fiesole Benedetto da Majano Characteristics and Masterpieces of this Group Sepulchral Monuments Andrea Contucci's Tombs in S. Maria del Popolo Desiderio da Settignano Sculpture in S. Francesco at Rimini Venetian Sculpture Verona Guido Mazzoni of Modena Certosa of Pavia Colleoni Chapel at Bergamo Sansovino at Venice Pagan Sculpture Michael Angelo's Scholars Baccio Bandinelli Bartolommeo Ammanati Cellini Gian Bologna Survey of the History of Renaissance Sculpture.
Civitali and S. Zita, they are the two typical Lucchesi; they sum up a city composed of such as Giovanni Arnolfini and his wife, whom Van Eyck painted, that great bourgeoisie which made Italy without knowing it, and, unconcerned while the great men and the rabble fought in the wars or lost their lives in a petty revolution, were eager only to be let alone, that they might continue their labour and gather in wealth.
This digression will hardly be thought superfluous when we reflect how large a part of the sculptor's energy was spent on tombs in Italy. Matteo Civitali of Lucca was at least Rossellino's equal in the sculpturesque delineation of spiritual qualities; but the motives he chose for treatment were more varied.
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