Stones of Venice, Volume 3 — Chapter 02, Roman Renaissance, part 5

§ LXIX.

The next tomb by the side of which they appear is that of Jacopo Cavalli, in the same chapel of St. John and Paul which contains the tomb of the Doge Delfin.

It is peculiarly rich in religious imagery, adorned by boldly cut types of the four evangelists, and of two saints, while, on projecting brackets in front of it, stood three statues of Faith, Hope, and Charity, now lost, but drawn in Zanotto's work.

It is all rich in detail, and its sculptor has been proud of it, thus recording his name below the epitaph: "QST OPERA DINTALGIO E FATTO IN PIERA, UNVENICIAN LAFE CHANOME POLO,

NATO DI JACHOMEL CHATAIAPIERA."

This work of sculpture is done in stone;

A Venetian did it, named Paul, Son of Jachomel the stone-cutter.

Jacopo Cavalli died in 1384. He was a bold and active Veronese soldier, did the state much service, was therefore ennobled by it, and became the founder of the house of the Cavalli; but I find no especial reason for the images of the Virtues, especially that of Charity, appearing at his tomb, unless it be this: that at the siege of Feltre, in the war against Leopold of Austria, he refused to assault the city, because the senate would not grant his soldiers the pillage of the town.

The feet of the recumbent figure, which is in full armor, rest on a dog, and its head on two lions; and these animals (neither of which form any part of the knight's bearings) are said by Zanotto to be intended to symbolize his bravery and fidelity.

If, however, the lions are meant to set forth courage, it is a pity they should have been represented as howling.

§ LXX.

We must next pause for an instant beside the tomb of Michael Steno, now in the northern aisle of St. John and Paul, having been removed there from the destroyed church of the Servi: first, to note its remarkable return to the early simplicity, the sarcophagus being decorated only with two crosses in quatrefoils, though it is of the fifteenth century, Steno dying in 1413; and, in the second place, to observe the peculiarity of the epitaph, which eulogises Steno as having been "amator justitie, pacis, et ubertatis," "a lover of justice, peace, and plenty."

In the epitaphs of this period, the virtues which are made most account of in public men are those which were most useful to their country.

We have already seen one example in the epitaph on Simon Dandolo; and similar expressions occur constantly in laudatory mentions of their later Doges by the Venetian writers.

Thus Sansovino of Marco Cornaro, "Era savio huomo, eloquente, e amava molto la pace e l' abbondanza della citta;" and of Tomaso Mocenigo, "Huomo oltre modo desideroso della pace."

Of the tomb of this last-named Doge mention has before been made.

Here, as in Morosini's, the images of the Virtues have no ironical power, although their great conspicuousness marks the increase of the boastful feeling in the treatment of monuments.

For the rest, this tomb is the last in Venice which can be considered as belonging to the Gothic period.

Its mouldings are already rudely classical, and it has meaningless figures in Roman armor at the angles; but its tabernacle above is still Gothic, and the recumbent figure is very beautiful.

It was carved by two Florentine sculptors in 1423. § LXXI.

Tomaso Mocenigo was succeeded by the renowned Doge, Francesco Foscari, under whom, it will be remembered, the last additions were made to the Gothic Ducal Palace; additions which, in form only, not in spirit, corresponded to the older portions; since, during his reign, the transition took place which permits us no longer to consider the Venetian architecture as Gothic at all.

He died in 1457, and his tomb is the first important example of Renaissance art.

Not, however, a good characteristic example.

It is remarkable chiefly as introducing all the faults of the Renaissance at an early period, when its merits, such as they are, were yet undeveloped.

Its claim to be rated as a classical composition is altogether destroyed by the remnants of Gothic feeling which cling to it here and there in their last forms of degradation; and of which, now that we find them thus corrupted, the sooner we are rid the better.

Thus the sarcophagus is supported by a species of trefoil arches; the bases of the shafts have still their spurs; and the whole tomb is covered by a pediment, with crockets and a pinnacle.

We shall find that the perfect Renaissance is at least pure in its insipidity, and subtle in its vice; but this monument is remarkable as showing the refuse of one style encumbering the embryo of another, and all principles of life entangled either in the swaddling clothes or the shroud.

§ LXXII.

With respect to our present purpose, however, it is a monument of enormous importance.

We have to trace, be it remembered, the pride of state in its gradual intrusion upon the sepulchre; and the consequent and correlative vanishing of the expressions of religious feeling and heavenly hope, together with the more and more arrogant setting forth of the virtues of the dead.

Now this tomb is the largest and most costly we have yet seen; but its means of religious expression are limited to a single statue of Christ, small and used merely as a pinnacle at the top.

The rest of the composition is as curious as it is vulgar.

The conceit, so often noticed as having been borrowed from the Pisan school, of angels withdrawing the curtains of the couch to look down upon the dead, was brought forward with increasing prominence by every succeeding sculptor; but, as we draw nearer to the Renaissance period, we find that the _angels_ become of less importance, and the _curtains_ of more.

With the Pisans, the curtains are introduced as a motive for the angels; with the Renaissance sculptors, the angels are introduced merely as a motive for the curtains, which become every day more huge and elaborate.

In the monument of Mocenigo, they have already expanded into a tent, with a pole in the centre of it: and in that of Foscari, for the first time, the _angels are absent altogether_; while the curtains are arranged in the form of an enormous French tent-bed, and are sustained at the flanks by two diminutive figures in Roman armor; substituted for the angels, merely that the sculptor might _show his knowledge_ of classical costume.

And now observe how often a fault in feeling induces also a fault in style.

In the old tombs, the angels used to stand on or by the side of the sarcophagus; but their places are here to be occupied by the Virtues, and therefore, to sustain the diminutive Roman figures at the necessary height, each has a whole Corinthian pillar to himself, a pillar whose shaft is eleven feet high, and some three or four feet round: and because this was not high enough, it is put on a pedestal four feet and a half high; and has a spurred base besides of its own, a tall capital, then a huge bracket above the capital, and then another pedestal above the bracket, and on the top of all the diminutive figure who has charge of the curtains.

§ LXXIII.

Under the canopy, thus arranged, is placed the sarcophagus with its recumbent figure.

The statues of the Virgin and the saints have disappeared from it.

In their stead, its panels are filled with half-length figures of Faith, Hope, and Charity; while Temperance and Fortitude are at the Doge's feet, Justice and Prudence at his head, figures now the size of life, yet nevertheless recognizable only by their attributes: for, except that Hope raises her eyes, there is no difference in the character or expression of any of their faces,--they are nothing more than handsome Venetian women, in rather full and courtly dresses, and tolerably well thrown into postures for effect from below.

Fortitude could not of course be placed in a graceful one without some sacrifice of her character, but that was of no consequence in the eyes of the sculptors of this period, so she leans back languidly, and nearly overthrows her own column; while Temperance, and Justice opposite to her, as neither the left hand of the one nor the right hand of the other could be seen from below, have been _left with one hand each_.

§ LXXIV.

Still these figures, coarse and feelingless as they are, have been worked with care, because the principal effect of the tomb depends on them.

But the effigy of the Doge, of which nothing but the side is visible, has been utterly neglected; and the ingenuity of the sculptor is not so great, at the best, as that he can afford to be slovenly.

There is, indeed, nothing in the history of Foscari which would lead us to expect anything particularly noble in his face; but I trust, nevertheless, it has been misrepresented by this despicable carver; for no words are strong enough to express the baseness of the portraiture.

A

huge, gross, bony clown's face, with the peculiar sodden and sensual cunning in it which is seen so often in the countenances of the worst Romanist priest; a face part of iron and part of clay, with the immobility of the one, and the foulness of the other, double chinned, blunt-mouthed, bony-cheeked, with its brows drawn down into meagre lines and wrinkles over the eyelids; the face of a man incapable either of joy or sorrow, unless such as may be caused by the indulgence of passion, or the mortification of pride.

Even had he been such a one, a noble workman would not have written it so legibly on his tomb; and I believe it to be the image of the carver's own mind that is there hewn in the marble, not that of the Doge Foscari.

For the same mind is visible enough throughout, the traces of it mingled with those of the evil taste of the whole time and people.

There is not anything so small but it is shown in some portion of its treatment; for instance, in the placing of the shields at the back of the great curtain.

In earlier times, the shield, as we have seen, was represented as merely suspended against the tomb by a thong, or if sustained in any other manner, still its form was simple and undisguised.

Men in those days used their shields in war, and therefore there was no need to add dignity to their form by external ornament.

That which, through day after day of mortal danger, had borne back from them the waves of battle, could neither be degraded by simplicity, nor exalted by decoration.

By its rude leathern thong it seemed to be fastened to their tombs, and the shield of the mighty was not cast away, though capable of defending its master no more.

§ LXXV.

It was otherwise in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The changed system of warfare was rapidly doing away with the practical service of the shield; and the chiefs who directed the battle from a distance, or who passed the greater part of their lives in the council-chamber, soon came to regard the shield as nothing more than a field for their armorial bearings.

It then became a principal object of their Pride of State to increase the conspicuousness of these marks of family distinction by surrounding them with various and fantastic ornament, generally scroll or flower work, which of course deprived the shield of all appearance of being intended for a soldier's use.

Thus the shield of the Foscari is introduced in two ways.

On the sarcophagus, the bearings are three times repeated, enclosed in circular disks, which are sustained each by a couple of naked infants.

Above the canopy, two shields of the usual form are set in the centre of circles filled by a radiating ornament of shell flutings, which give them the effect of ventilators; and their circumference is farther adorned by gilt rays, undulating to represent a glory.

§ LXXVI.

We now approach that period of the early Renaissance which was noticed in the preceding chapter as being at first a very visible improvement on the corrupted Gothic.

The tombs executed during the period of the Byzantine Renaissance exhibit, in the first place, a consummate skill in handling the chisel, perfect science of drawing and anatomy, high appreciation of good classical models, and a grace of composition and delicacy of ornament derived, I believe, principally from the great Florentine sculptors.

But, together with this science, they exhibit also, for a short time, some return to the early religious feeling, forming a school of sculpture which corresponds to that of the school of the Bellini in painting; and the only wonder is that there should not have been more workmen in the fifteenth century doing in marble what Perugino, Francia, and Bellini did on canvas.

There are, indeed, some few, as I have just said, in whom the good and pure temper shows itself: but the sculptor was necessarily led sooner than the painter to an exclusive study of classical models, utterly adverse to the Christian imagination; and he was also deprived of the great purifying and sacred element of color, besides having much more of merely mechanical and therefore degrading labor to go through in the realization of his thought.

Hence I do not know any example in sculpture at this period, at least in Venice, which has not conspicuous faults (not faults of imperfection, as in early sculpture, but of purpose and sentiment), staining such beauties as it may possess; and the whole school soon falls away, and merges into vain pomp and meagre metaphor.

§ LXXVII.

The most celebrated monument of this period is that to the Doge Andrea Vendramin, in the Church of St. John and Paul, sculptured about 1480, and before alluded to in the first chapter of the first volume.

It has attracted public admiration, partly by its costliness, partly by the delicacy and precision of its chiselling; being otherwise a very base and unworthy example of the school, and showing neither invention nor feeling.

It has the Virtues, as usual, dressed like heathen goddesses, and totally devoid of expression, though graceful and well studied merely as female figures.

The rest of its sculpture is all of the same kind; perfect in workmanship, and devoid of thought.

Its dragons are covered with marvellous scales, but have no terror nor sting in them; its birds are perfect in plumage, but have no song in them; its children lovely of limb, but have no childishness in them.

§ LXXVIII.

Of far other workmanship are the tombs of Pietro and Giovanni Mocenigo, in St. John and Paul, and of Pietro Bernardo in the Frari; in all which the details are as full of exquisite fancy, as they are perfect in execution; and in the two former, and several others of similar feeling, the old religious symbols return; the Madonna is again seen enthroned under the canopy, and the sarcophagus is decorated with legends of the saints.

But the fatal errors of sentiment are, nevertheless, always traceable.

In the first place, the sculptor is always seen to be intent upon the exhibition of his skill, more than on producing any effect on the spectator's mind; elaborate backgrounds of landscape, with tricks of perspective, imitations of trees, clouds, and water, and various other unnecessary adjuncts, merely to show how marble could be subdued; together with useless under-cutting, and over-finish in subordinate parts, continually exhibiting the same cold vanity and unexcited precision of mechanism.

In the second place, the figures have all the peculiar tendency to posture-making, which, exhibiting itself first painfully in Perugino, rapidly destroyed the veracity of composition in all art.

By posture-making I mean, in general, that action of figures which results from the painter's considering, in the first place, not how, under the circumstances, they would actually have walked, or stood, or looked, but how they may most gracefully and harmoniously walk or stand.

In the hands of a great man, posture, like everything else, becomes noble, even when over-studied, as with Michael Angelo, who was, perhaps, more than any other, the cause of the mischief; but, with inferior men, this habit of composing attitudes ends necessarily in utter lifelessness and abortion.

Giotto was, perhaps, of all painters, the most free from the infection of the poison, always conceiving an incident naturally, and drawing it unaffectedly; and the absence of posture-making in the works of the Pre-Raphaelites, as opposed to the Attitudinarianism of the modern school, has been both one of their principal virtues, and of the principal causes of outcry against them.

§ LXXIX.

But the most significant change in the treatment of these tombs, with respect to our immediate object, is in the form of the sarcophagus.

It was above noted, that, exactly in proportion to the degree of the pride of life expressed in any monument, would be also the fear of death; and therefore, as these tombs increase in splendor, in size, and beauty of workmanship, we perceive a gradual desire to _take away from the definite character of the sarcophagus_.

In the earliest times, as we have seen, it was a gloomy mass of stone; gradually it became charged with religious sculpture; but never with the slightest desire to disguise its form, until towards the middle of the fifteenth century.

It then becomes enriched with flower-work and hidden by the Virtues; and, finally, losing its foursquare form, it is modelled on graceful types of ancient vases, made as little like a coffin as possible, and refined away in various elegancies, till it becomes, at last, a mere pedestal or stage for the portrait statue.

This statue, in the meantime, has been gradually coming back to life, through a curious series of transitions.

The Vendramin monument is one of the last which shows, or pretends to show, the recumbent figure laid in death.

A few years later, this idea became disagreeable to polite minds; and, lo!

the figures which before had been laid at rest upon the tomb pillow, raised themselves on their elbows, and began to look round them.

The soul of the sixteenth century dared not contemplate its body in death.

§ LXXX.

The reader cannot but remember many instances of this form of monument, England being peculiarly rich in examples of them; although, with her, tomb sculpture, after the fourteenth century, is altogether imitative, and in no degree indicative of the temper of the people.

It was from Italy that the authority for the change was derived; and in Italy only, therefore, that it is truly correspondent to the change in the national mind.

There are many monuments in Venice of this semi-animate type, most of them carefully sculptured, and some very admirable as portraits, and for the casting of the drapery, especially those in the Church of San Salvador; but I shall only direct the reader to one, that of Jacopo Pesaro, Bishop of Paphos, in the Church of the Frari; notable not only as a very skilful piece of sculpture, but for the epitaph, singularly characteristic of the period, and confirmatory of all that I have alleged against it: "James Pesaro, Bishop of Paphos, who conquered the Turks in war, himself in peace, transported from a noble family among the Venetians to a nobler among the angels, laid here, expects the noblest crown, which the just Judge shall give to him in that day.

He lived the years of Plato.

He died 24th March, 1547." [20] The mingled classicism and carnal pride of this epitaph surely need no comment.

The crown is expected as a right from the justice of the judge, and the nobility of the Venetian family is only a little lower than that of the angels.

The quaint childishness of the "Vixit annos Platonicos" is also very notable.

§ LXXXI.

The statue, however, did not long remain in this partially recumbent attitude.

Even the expression of peace became painful to the frivolous and thoughtless Italians, and they required the portraiture to be rendered in a manner that should induce no memory of death.

The statue rose up, and presented itself in front of the tomb, like an actor upon a stage, surrounded now not merely, or not at all, by the Virtues, but by allegorical figures of Fame and Victory, by genii and muses, by personifications of humbled kingdoms and adoring nations, and by every circumstance of pomp, and symbol of adulation, that flattery could suggest, or insolence could claim.

§ LXXXII.

As of the intermediate monumental type, so also of this, the last and most gross, there are unfortunately many examples in our own country; but the most wonderful, by far, are still at Venice.

I shall, however, particularize only two; the first, that of the Doge John Pesaro, in the Frari.

It is to be observed that we have passed over a considerable interval of time; we are now in the latter half of the seventeenth century; the progress of corruption has in the meantime been incessant, and sculpture has here lost its taste and learning as well as its feeling.

The monument is a huge accumulation of theatrical scenery in marble: four colossal negro caryatides, grinning and horrible, with faces of black marble and white eyes, sustain the first story of it;

above this, two monsters, long-necked, half dog and half dragon, sustain an ornamental sarcophagus, on the top of which the full-length statue of the Doge in robes of state stands forward with its arms expanded, like an actor courting applause, under a huge canopy of metal, like the roof of a bed, painted crimson and gold; on each side of him are sitting figures of genii, and unintelligible personifications gesticulating in Roman armor; below, between the negro caryatides, are two ghastly figures in bronze, half corpse, half skeleton, carrying tablets on which is written the eulogium: but in large letters graven in gold, the following words are the first and last that strike the eye; the first two phrases, one on each side, on tablets in the lower story, the last under the portrait statue above: VIXIT ANNOS LXX.

DEVIXIT ANNO MDCLIX.

"HIC REVIXIT ANNO MDCLXIX."

We have here, at last, the horrible images of death in violent contrast with the defiant monument, which pretends to bring the resurrection down to earth, "Hic revixit;" and it seems impossible for false taste and base feeling to sink lower.

Yet even this monument is surpassed by one in St. John and Paul.

§ LXXXIII.

But before we pass to this, the last with which I shall burden the reader's attention, let us for a moment, and that we may feel the contrast more forcibly, return to a tomb of the early times.

In a dark niche in the outer wall of the outer corridor of St. Mark's--not even in the church, observe, but in the atrium or porch of it, and on the north side of the church,--is a solid sarcophagus of white marble, raised only about two feet from the ground on four stunted square pillars.

Its lid is a mere slab of stone; on its extremities are sculptured two crosses; in front of it are two rows of rude figures, the uppermost representing Christ with the Apostles: the lower row is of six figures only, alternately male and female, holding up their hands in the usual attitude of benediction; the sixth is smaller than the rest, and the midmost of the other five has a glory round its head.

I cannot tell the meaning of these figures, but between them are suspended censers attached to crosses; a most beautiful symbolic expression of Christ's mediatorial function.

The whole is surrounded by a rude wreath of vine leaves, proceeding out of the foot of a cross.

On the bar of marble which separates the two rows of figures are inscribed these words: "Here lies the Lord Marin Morosini, Duke."

It is the tomb of the Doge Marino Morosini, who reigned from 1249 to 1252. § LXXXIV.

From before this rude and solemn sepulchre let us pass to the southern aisle of the church of St. John and Paul; and there, towering from the pavement to the vaulting of the church, behold a mass of marble, sixty or seventy feet in height, of mingled yellow and white, the yellow carved into the form of an enormous curtain, with ropes, fringes, and tassels, sustained by cherubs; in front of which, in the now usual stage attitudes, advance the statues of the Doge Bertuccio Valier, his son the Doge Silvester Falier, and his son's wife, Elizabeth.

The statues of the Doges, though mean and Polonius-like, are partly redeemed by the Ducal robes; but that of the Dogaressa is a consummation of grossness, vanity, and ugliness,--the figure of a large and wrinkled woman, with elaborate curls in stiff projection round her face, covered from her shoulders to her feet with ruffs, furs, lace, jewels, and embroidery.

Beneath and around are scattered Virtues, Victories, Fames, genii,--the entire company of the monumental stage assembled, as before a drop scene,--executed by various sculptors, and deserving attentive study as exhibiting every condition of false taste and feeble conception.

The Victory in the centre is peculiarly interesting; the lion by which she is accompanied, springing on a dragon, has been intended to look terrible, but the incapable sculptor could not conceive any form of dreadfulness, could not even make the lion look angry.

It looks only lachrymose; and its lifted forepaws, there being no spring nor motion in its body, give it the appearance of a dog begging.

The inscriptions under the two principal statues are as follows: "Bertucius Valier, Duke, Great in wisdom and eloquence, Greater in his Hellespontic victory, Greatest in the Prince his son.

Died in the year 1658." "Elisabeth Quirina, The wife of Silvester, Distinguished by Roman virtue, By Venetian piety, And by the Ducal crown, Died 1708." The writers of this age were generally anxious to make the world aware that they understood the degrees of comparison, and a large number of epitaphs are principally constructed with this object (compare, in the Latin, that of the Bishop of Paphos, given above): but the latter of these epitaphs is also interesting from its mention, in an age now altogether given up to the pursuit of worldly honor, of that "Venetian piety" which once truly distinguished the city from all others; and of which some form and shadow, remaining still, served to point an epitaph, and to feed more cunningly and speciously the pride which could not be satiated with the sumptuousness of the sepulchre.