A history of architecture in Italy from the time of Constantine to the dawn of the renaissance (1901) (14784110395)

Identifier: historyofarchit01cumm (find matches)
Title: A history of architecture in Italy from the time of Constantine to the dawn of the renaissance
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: Cummings, Charles Amos, 1833-1905
Subjects: Architecture
Publisher: Boston, New York, Houghton Mifflin and company
Contributing Library: PIMS - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto



Text Appearing Before Image:
re alike of the most pronouncedLombard type. All sorts of monstrous beasts, reptiles, and fishesare represented, sometimes carrying human figures on their backs,sometimes devouring: them : lumtin scenes, in which men are carry-ing a deer slung over their shoulders, or two men bear l)etweeutlicm a i)ole, from whicli hang four fishes as tall as themselves:battle scenes, with horsemen clad in lielmets and coats of mail, andcarrying lances and shields ; a man ))eating an iron on an anvil : aman who struggles between two dragons ; a horseman in conflictwith a monstrous dragon, — such are the subjects, dear to the Lom-))ard sculptor, wliich make up tliese remarkable decorations. Portionsof this sculpture are shown in Figs. 12(j and 127. The executionis of the rudest description, — the men and beasts are of disprojwr-tionate size, the men are stunted and deformed ; but the vivacity andforce of imagination, the Northern energy and wildness, of which riii-: L().Mi;.\iM) i:().manks(^iI: r.M
Text Appearing After Image:
Fig. 12i). S. (iiovanui in lioij^o, Pavia. Capital of Nave. these sculptures are the evidence, are in the highest degree interest-ing. These men were above all original; there was no copying ofclassic subjects or styles — they carvedwhat was in their minds, and the spiritof their work is curiously akin to thatof much of the grotesque sculpture ofthe northern Gothic of the twelfth andthirteenth centuries.^ In S. Pietro in Cielo d Oro, at Pa-via, the carving of the capitals, whilenot less vivacious and imaginative thanin San Michele, is less ordered and lessarchitectural, — Fig. 128, for example,where a clumsy centaur in the middle,holding aloft a bow and arrow in onehand and a wreath or great rosette inthe other, is flanked by grotesque beastsover whose backs other smaller beastsare nipping the ears of the lower ones.In these capitals the abacus is inclined and carved with Byzantinefoliage and meanders, birds, etc., of excellent character and design,very delicately executed, and qu