[Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 by John Addington Symonds]@TWC D-Link bookRenaissance in Italy Vol. 3 CHAPTER III 68/107
Every part of this complex work is conceived with spirit and executed with care; and the various elements are so combined as to make one composition, the body of the saint on his sarcophagus forming the central object of the whole. To do more than briefly mention the minor sculptors of this group would be impossible.
Mino di Giovanni, called Da Fiesole, was characterised by grace that tended to degenerate into formality.
The tombs in the Abbey of Florence have an almost infantine sweetness of style, which might be extremely piquant, were it not that Mino pushed this quality in other works to the verge of mannerism.[104] Their architectural features are the same as those of similar monuments in Tuscany:--a shallow recess, flanked by Renaissance pilasters, and roofed with a semicircular arch; within the recess, the full-length figure of the dead man on a marble coffin of antique design; in the lunette above, a Madonna carved in low relief.[105] Mino's bust of Bishop Salutati in the cathedral church of Fiesole is a powerful portrait, no less distinguished for vigorous individuality than consummate workmanship.
The waxlike finish of the finely chiselled marble alone betrays that delicacy which with Mino verged on insipidity.
The same faculty of character delineation is seen in three profiles, now in the Bargello Museum, attributed to Mino.
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