Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/613

Rh R O B B I A 589 Bargello. The general effect of the whole can best be seen at the South Kensington Museum, where a complete cast is fixed to the wall. The same museum possesses a study in gesso duro for one of the panels, which appears to be the original sketch by Luca's own hand. In May 1437 Luca received a commission from the signoria of Florence to execute five reliefs for the north side of the campanile, to complete the series begun by Giotto and Andrea Pisano. These panels are so much in the earlier style of Giotto that we must conclude that he had left drawings from which Luca worked. They have representative figures chosen to typify grammar, logic, philosophy, music, and geometry, the last represented by Euclid and Ptolemy. 1 In 1438 Luca received an order for two marble altars for chapels in the cathedral, a third being ordered from Donatello. The reliefs from one of Luca's St Peter's Deliverance from Prison and his Cruci- fixion are now in the Bargello. It is probable that these altars were never finished. A tabernacle for the host, made by Luca in 1442, is now at Peretola in the church of S. Maria. A document in the archives of S. Maria Nuova at Florence shows that he received for this 700 florins 1 lira 16 soldi (about 1400 of modern money). In 1437 Donatello received a commission to cast a bronze door for one of the sacristies of the cathedral ; but, as he delayed to execute this order, the work was handed over to Luca on 28th February 1446, with Michelozzo and Maso di Bartolomeo as his assistants. Part of this wonder- ful door was cast in 1448, and the last two panels were finished by Luca in 1467, with bronze which was supplied to him by Verrocchio. 2 The door is divided into ten square panels, with small heads in the style of Ghiberti projecting from the framing. The two top subjects are the Madonna and Child and the Baptist, next come the four Evangelists, and below are the four Latin Doctors, FIG. 1. Bronze relief of one of the Latin Doctors, from the sacristy door in the cathedral of Florence, by Luca. each subject with attendant angels. The whole is modelled with the most perfect grace and dignified simplicity ; the heads throughout are full of life, and the treatment of the drapery in broad simple folds is worthy of a Greek sculptor of the best period of Hellenic art. These exquisite reliefs 1 Vasari is not quite right in his account of these reliefs : he speaks of Euclid and Ptolemy as being in different panels. 2 See Cavallucci, S. Maria del Fiore, pt. ii. p. 137. are perfect models of plastic art, and are quite free from the over-elaboration and too pictorial style of Ghiberti. Fig. 1 shows one of the panels. A terra-cotta relief at Berlin and another in the South Kensington Museum are probably original studies by Luca for two of the panels of the doctors. The most important existing work in marble by Luca (executed in 1 457-58) 3 is the tomb of Benozzo Federighi, bishop of Fiesole, originally placed in the church of S. Pancrazio at Florence, but now in S. Francesco di Paola on the Bello Sguardo" road outside the city. A very beautiful effigy of the bishop in a restful pose lies on a sarcophagus sculptured with graceful reliefs of angels holding a wreath, which contains the inscription. Above are three-quarter- length figures of Christ between St John and the Virgin, delicately carved in low relief. The whole is surrounded by a rectangular frame formed of painted majolica tiles of the most exquisite beauty, far surpassing any other exist- ing Avork of the same sort. On each tile is painted, with enamel pigments, a bunch of flowers and fruit in brilliant realistic colours, the loveliness of which is very hard to describe The perfect mean between truth to nature and decorative treatment has never been more thoroughly obtained than in these wonderful tile pictures, each of which is worthy of the most careful study ; and they are also of special interest as being among the earliest ex- amples of Italian majolica. Though the bunch of flowers on each is painted on one slab, the ground of each tile is formed of separate pieces, fitted together like a kind of mosaic, probably because the pigment of the ground required a different degree of heat in firing from that needed for the enamel painting of the centre. The few other works of this class which exist do not approach the beauty of this early essay in majolica painting, on which Luca evidently put forth his utmost skill and patience. In the latter part of his life Luca was mainly occupied with the production of terra-cotta reliefs covered with enamel, a process which he improved upon, but did not invent, as Vasari asserts. The secret of this process was to cover the clay relief with an enamel formed of the ordi- nary ingredients of glass (marzacotto) made an opaque white by oxide of tin, a method practised with great success in the 1 3th century in Persia 4 (see POTTERY, vol. xix. pp. 620, 628). Though Luca was not the inventor of the process, yet his genius so improved and extended its application that it is not unnaturally known now as Delia Bobbia ware ; it must, however, be remembered that by far the majority of these reliefs which in Italy and else- where are ascribed to Luca are really the work of some of the younger members of the family. Comparatively few exist which can w r ith certainty be ascribed to Luca himself. Among the earliest of these are medallions of the four Evangelists in the vault of Brunelleschi's Pazzi chapel in S. Croce. These fine reliefs are coloured with various metallic oxides in different shades of blue, green, purple, yellow, and black. It has often been asserted that the very polychromatic reliefs belong to Andrea or his sons, and that Luca's were all in pure white ; this, however, is not the case : colours .were used more freely by Luca than by his successors. A relief in the South Kensington Museum furnishes a striking example and is of especial value from its great size, and also because its date is known. This is an enormous medallion containing the arms of Rene of Anjou and other heraldic devices ; it is 8 Gaye, Carteggio Inedito, i. p. 183. 4 It is described by Theophilus, Diversarum Artiuin Schedula (llth century), and by Pietro del Bono in his Margarita predosa (1330). An example earlier than any of Luca's exists at Florence over the door of S. Egidio (in S. Maria Nuova). It is a relief of the Coronation of the Virgin executed by Lorenzo de' Bicci in 1424 ; see Milanesi, Archivio Storico Italiano, 1860, pp. 182-183. Contemporary writers call this enamelled clay "terra iuvetriata."