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Updated: May 21, 2025
Near to this hotel is a small church thoroughly unnoticeable from the outside; but which contains three frescoes by Luini, one of which, the Passion, is not only the masterpiece of the painter, but one of the finest and best preserved frescoes in existence. And here we may say a few words about fresco painting, which is such a marked feature in the Italian churches and buildings.
With far less power than Leonardo, one of his imitators, Bernardino Luini, painted pictures of such charm and simplicity that almost everyone finds them delightful. If you could see his picture of the angels bearing St. Catherine, robed in red, through the air to her last resting-place upon the hill, you would feel the beauty and peace of his gentle nature revealed in his art.
Like Luini, Sodoma was never successful in pictures requiring combination and arrangement. He lacked some sense of symmetry and sought to achieve massiveness by crowding figures in a given space.
He often went to Wychford Rectory, where he learnt to enjoy Schumann and Beethoven and Bach and Brahms. "You're like three Saint Cecilias," he told them. "Monica is by Luini and Margaret is by Perugino and Pauline. . . ." "Oh, who am I by?" Pauline exclaimed, clapping her hands. "I give it up. You're just Saint Cecilia herself at fourteen." "Isn't Mark foolish?" Pauline laughed.
What was deadly in the neo-paganism of the Renaissance its frivolity and worldliness, corroding the very sources of belief in men who made of art a decoration for their sensuous existence had not penetrated to those Lombard valleys where Ferrari and Luini worked.
He knew how to render them both luminous and rich, without falling into the extremes that render fresco-paintings often less attractive than oil-pictures. His feeling for loveliness of form was original and exquisite. The joy of youth found in Luini an interpreter only less powerful and even more tender than in Raphael.
The smile of the Virgin of the Rocks is a part of the mystery of her shadowy environment; the serenity of the Madonna in the Meadow belongs to the atmosphere of the open fields. The Madonna by Sodoma, recently added to the Brera Gallery at Milan, is an example in point. Among others who were affected by the influence of Leonardo and chief of the Lombards was Luini.
The salottino, in its severe, ecclesiastical simplicity, held nothing of interest, save a canvas by Morone the fine portrait of a man; two small panels with angels' heads, in the style of Luini; and a grand piano, loaded with music.
Nicolò da Modena, 1450. Perhaps the earliest engraved example: very remarkable for the elegance of the motifs and the imperfect execution, engraving on copper being then a new art. Albert Durer. The beautiful and well-known set of twenty-five wood-cuts, published in 1510. A perfect example of the German treatment. Bernardino Luini, 1515.
In addition to all this there are fine woods and pasture lands upon this mountain top, and a hotel in which one may sojourn in comfort, if comfort is to be considered when such heavenly views are to be feasted upon. We quitted Lugano after luncheon yesterday, having had time for only a hurried visit to the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli and the famous Luini frescoes.
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