  In the western part of Italy, lying a little north of the centre, is the district known as Tuscany. Here, in the valley of the Arno, is the city of Florence, glorious with her storied palaces and churches. Around her are clustered Pistoja and Lucca, Pisa and Leghorn, Siena and Arezzo, all notable towns in Italian history. Here, too, is Carrara, with its stores of beautiful marble. It was from this little district of Tuscany that the sculptors came forth who have helped to make Italy famous as the birthplace of modern art. The development of Tuscan sculpture covered a period of some three centuries, beginning with the Pisan NiccolÒ, who worked between the years 1220 and 1270, and culminating with the great Florentine Michelangelo, who died in 1564. We shall study in this little collection a few works of the fifteenth century. It was the time called by historians the Renaissance, which means literally "the new birth." The world was awakening from the long sleep of the Middle Ages, and Italy was the first to be aroused. Certain adventurous spirits began to ponder the In other volumes of this series we have learned how the churches, palaces, and public buildings were filled with paintings. Our illustration shows two panels from the series of twelve bronze reliefs on the front of a church altar. Two little boy angels are making music with their pipes. The companion panels are also filled with musical angels, some singing and others playing on various instruments. The New Testament begins and ends with the music of angels. The birth of Jesus is heralded by a multitude of the heavenly host singing "Glory to God in the highest." The golden city of St. John's vision is filled with "the voice of harpers, harping with their harps," in the new song before the throne of God. Thence has arisen the beautiful custom of artists to represent angels as musicians. The child angels of our picture have tiny pointed wings as a sign of their heavenly origin. Certainly we cannot imagine such buoyant little creatures treading the earth like mortals. One stands on tip-toe like a bird poised for flight. The other skips through the air with joyous motion. The head of one is encircled by a halo, the emblem of purity. The other wears a fillet of flowers over his curls. Each carries two little pipes, the simplest of musical instruments.
It was long ago in the childhood of the race that some shepherd, plucking a reed from the bank of a stream, first found that the hollow stem had a voice of its own. The pipe thereafter became a favorite instrument among primitive people. We read in the Old Testament Scriptures that the ancient Hebrews used it in the celebration of their festivities. At the Greek festivals also the pipers had a place in the procession of musicians. Our angel pipers are blowing lustily with puffing cheeks-- "Such sweet Soft notes as yet musician's cunning Never gave the enraptured air." They are genuine musicians, not children playing with the pipes as with toys. They move to the rhythm of their piping, their lifted faces expressing their delight. Their thin garments cling to their figures, and the loose ends flutter about them. Every line of the modelling is beautiful, the poise of the figures full of rhythmic grace. The angel at the left stands in profile, with face slightly turned away from the spectator. The right hand figure skips directly out of his panel, swinging lithely about towards the left, as he moves. The outlines of both figures describe long fine curves, with which Some portions of the work seem to be modelled in very high relief. The limbs, we are told, are in low relief, supported on a metal back, an inch or so thick, by which they are thrown out to a proper distance from the background. The altar to which our panels belong is in the church of S. Antonio, Padua, and was executed by the Florentine sculptor, Donatello, in 1450. The entire scheme of decoration is very elaborate. On the front is a row of musical angels, in which the panels here reproduced occupy opposite ends. Above these are five reliefs of larger size; and still higher are seven life-size statues of saints. The whole is surmounted by a crucifix. Even the back of the altar is ornamented with reliefs, and the work is an example of the spirit of the age, which thought nothing too rich or beautiful for the purposes of worship. |
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