Painting

The statue of Lorenzo de' Medici is the central figure on the tomb erected to the memory of this prince. He was the rather unworthy namesake of his illustrious grandfather, who was known as Lorenzo the Magnificent. The Medici family was for many generations the richest and most powerful in Florence. They were originally merchants, and, as the name signifies, physicians, and, accumulating great wealth, they became powerful leaders, and really the rulers of the republic.

Florentine Dukes:—

Lorenzo de' Medici, 1469-1492.

Piero de' Medici succeeded Lorenzo 1492, expelled from Florence 1493.

Alessandro de' Medici, made first hereditary duke of Florence 1531, assassinated 1537.

Cosimo de' Medici succeeded Alessandro, 1537-1574.

Popes:—

Sixtus IV., 1471-1484.

Innocent VIII., 1484-1492.

Alexander VI., 1492-1503.

Pius III., 1503-1503.

Julius II., 1503-1513.

The tomb of Giuliano de' Medici is the companion to the tomb of Lorenzo, and stands on the opposite side of the altar which separates them. Our illustration shows the entire work, the statue being in the niche above, and the sarcophagus standing below with two reclining figures on it.

Boiardo, 1434-1494, poet (Orlando Innamorato).

Ariosto, 1474-1533, poet (Orlando Furioso).

Aretino (Venetian) 1492-1557, poet.

Francesco Berni, 1496-1535, burlesque poet.

Bandello, 1480-1562, novelliero.

Sannazaro, 1458-1530, poet (Arcadia).

Niccolo Machiavelli, 1469-1527, author of The Prince.

Gucciardini, 1483-1540, historian.

Tasso, 1544-1595, poet (Gerusalemme Liberata).

There are in the Bible certain references to a great day when the Son of Man shall be seen "coming in the clouds with great power and glory." "And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."[35] St.

Cristoforo Landino, 1424-1504, tutor of Lorenzo, and professor of Latin Literature.

Bartolommeo Scala, 1430-1497, chancellor of Florence.

Luigi Pulci, 1431-1487, writer of burlesque epic Il Morgante Maggiore, and intimate friend of Lorenzo and Poliziano.

Marsilio Ficino, 1433-1499, president of Academy in 1463, translator of Plato and Plotinus.

Angelo Poliziano, 1454-1494, tutor of Lorenzo's children, and professor of Greek and Latin Literature in University of Florence.

In the pictures of this collection we have learned something of the work of Michelangelo as a sculptor and a painter. He was an artist whose personality was so strongly impressed upon his work that we have come thus to know, to a certain extent, the man himself. His, as we have seen, was not a happy nature, and many of the circumstances of his life conspired against his happiness.

Among the Italian schools of painting the Venetian has, for the majority of art-loving people, the strongest and most enduring attraction. In the course of the present brief account of the life of that school we shall perhaps discover some of the causes of our peculiar delight and interest in the Venetian painters, as we come to realise what tendencies of the human spirit their art embodied, and of what great consequence their example has been to the whole of European painting for the last three centuries.

That feeling for reality which made the great painters look upon a picture as the representation of a cubic content of atmosphere enveloping all the objects depicted, made them also consider the fact that the given quantity of atmosphere is sure to contain other objects than those the artist wants for his purpose. He is free to leave them out, of course, but in so far as he does, so far is he from producing an effect of reality.

The Church from the first took account of the influence of colour as well as of music upon the emotions. From the earliest times it employed mosaic and painting to enforce its dogmas and relate its legends, not merely because this was the only means of reaching people who could neither read nor write, but also because it instructed them in a way which, far from leading to critical enquiry, was peculiarly capable of being used as an indirect stimulus to moods of devotion and contrition.