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Updated: May 15, 2025
There is Rossellino's Cardinal of Portugal at S. Miniato a Monte: the slight body, draped in episcopal robes, lying with delicate folded hands, in gracious decorum of youthful sanctity; the strong delicate head, of clear feature and gentle furrow of suffering and thought, a face of infinite purity of strength, strength still ungnarled by action: a young priest, who in his virginal dignity is almost a noble woman.
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.
This tomb is considered to be Rossellino's masterpiece; but there is one opposite by another hand which dwarfs it.
It is not quite of the rank of Mino's in the Badia; but it is a noble and beautiful thing marked in every inch of it by modest and exquisite thought. In short, one cannot be too glad that, since he had to die, death's dart struck down this Portuguese prelate while he was in Rossellino's and Luca's city.
In the right aisle we saw Bernardo Rossellino's tomb of Leonardo Bruni; in the left is that of Bruni's successor as Secretary of State, Carlo Marsuppini, by Desiderio da Settignano, which is high among the most beautiful monuments that exist.
Galileo Galilei, an ancestor of the great astronomer, is buried in the nave at the west end, under a carved tombstone enthusiastically praised by Ruskin. Antonio Rossellino's work is scattered all over Tuscany, in Prato, in Empoli, in Pistoja, and we shall find it even in such far-away places as Naples and Forli.
Thus the soul herself is imaged in the marble "most sweetly slumbering in the gates of dreams." What Vespasiano tells us of this cardinal, born of the royal house of Portugal, adds the virtue of sincerity to Rossellino's work, proving there is no flattery of the dead man in his sculpture.
The human form divine and waxen Galileo Bianca Capella A faithful Grand Duke S. Spirito The Carmine Masaccio's place in art Leonardo's summary The S. Peter frescoes The Pitti side Romola A little country walk The ancient wall The Piazzale Michelangelo An evening prospect S. Miniato Antonio Rossellino's masterpiece The story of S. Gualberto A city of the dead The reluctant departure.
Besides Civitali's altar of S. Regulus, and the tomb of Pietro da Noceto already mentioned, Bernardo Rossellino's monument to Lionardo Bruni, and Desiderio's monument to Carlo Marsuppini in S. Croce at Florence, may be cited as eminent examples of Tuscan sepulchres.
A fine perception of the poetic capabilities of Christian art is displayed in Rossellino's idyllic treatment of the Nativity the adoration of the shepherds, the hush of reverential stillness in the worship Mary pays her infant son. To the qualities of sweetness and tranquillity rare dignity is added in the monument of the young Cardinal di Portogallo.
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