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Updated: June 6, 2025
At the upper end one ascended by four treads, or rather steps, to a platform six braccia in extent, on which stood the high-altar, with many ornaments carved in stone; and on the said altar was a panel with a rich ornament, by the hand, as has been related, of Domenico Ghirlandajo.
An altar in a little chapel has a beautiful shallow relief which should not be overlooked. The high-altar picture a "Temptation of S. Anthony" by Tintoretto is now hidden by a golden shrine, while another of the show pieces, a saint on horseback, possibly by Jacobello del Fiore, in the chapel to the left of the choir, is sadly in need of cleaning, but obviously deserving of every care.
Other slabs with similar designs and portions of a ciborium are preserved in a little collection of marbles under a shed behind the apse, where are also several sarcophagi and other antique fragments. In the treasury are two early reliquaries of silver, found beneath the high-altar in August, 1871.
All this was the reason that, when the chapel was finished, Simone was commissioned by the Wardens of Works of the Duomo to make another similar to it, on the other side, to the end that the space of the Chapel of the High-Altar might be suitably set off, on the understanding that the figures should be varied without varying the architecture, and that in the centre there should be the Visitation of Our Lady, which was allotted to the above-named Moschino.
The high-altar, it was remembered, had been of stone throughout, surrounded with curtains on the three sides, hanging between posts that had each a carven angel, all gilt. The chancel was as bare as a barn; beneath the whitewash, high over the place where the old canopy had hung, pale colours still glimmered through where, twelve years ago, Christ had sat crowning His Mother.
He returned to Florence, where he found that the Servite Friars had entrusted to Filippino the painting of the panel for the high-altar of the Nunziata; whereupon Leonardo said that he would willingly have done such a work.
At this time the nave arcade was made pointed, and some of the super-abaci carved with Gothic foliage. In 1479 the choir seats were renewed. In 1493, under Nicolò Donato, the winter choir was renewed. In 1495 the high-altar was erected, upon which Antonio di Osteno, Bernardino di Bissone, and Domenico di Udine were employed.
Having thus departed from Carrara, Tribolo, on his way back to Florence, stayed in Pisa to visit the sculptor Maestro Stagio da Pietrasanta, his very dear friend, who was executing in the Office of Works of the Duomo in that city two columns with capitals of marble all in open work, which were to stand one on either side of the high-altar and the Tabernacle of the Sacrament; and each of these was to have upon the capital an Angel of marble one braccio and three quarters in height, with a candelabrum in the hand.
The arches are all round, but the change in the plan produces a curious pointed appearance in perspective in the lower arcade. On the high-altar is a picture by the younger Palma, a Madonna and the Child in the clouds, with S. Stephen vested as pope below, and SS. Jerome and Carlo Borromeo. There is also a more ancient picture by Antonio Gradinelli, a dead Christ supported by angels.
From round the illuminated sepulchre rose, like a flock of birds on our entrance, a bevy of kneeling nuns in béguine cloak and cap. And in the apse, before the high-altar, was stretched on the slabs, with a night-light at each corner, something dark and mysterious: the crucifix, the form barely defined, shrouded in violet.
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