. Italian medals . ebrities of the ancient world, and brought them to market with the greatest success. How many of his unsophisticated purchasers must have believed that in these productions they acquired genuine works of Roman antiquity ! It is significant that the master at least never did anything to shatter such belief; for his name never appears on any of these imitations of antiquity, while he signed some at least of the medals which he struck of his contemporaries. Of such we can count forty. They bring before our eyes the ornaments of the learned world of Padua : Bassiano, Benavides,
. Italian medals . ebrities of the ancient world, and brought them to market with the greatest success. How many of his unsophisticated purchasers must have believed that in these productions they acquired genuine works of Roman antiquity ! It is significant that the master at least never did anything to shatter such belief; for his name never appears on any of these imitations of antiquity, while he signed some at least of the medals which he struck of his contemporaries. Of such we can count forty. They bring before our eyes the ornaments of the learned world of Padua : Bassiano, Benavides, Battaglini, Dulci, Fracastoro, Passeri, Salvioni ; then a number of distinguished Venetians, who were either in the service of the republic at Padua, or were resident there; finally, of foreign notabilities, Julius III. and his brother, Baldassare del Monte. The medal of the Pope was struck on the occasion of the marriage of Philip II. to Mary of England, as the scene on the reverse bears witness. 200 Plate XXXVIII. VALERIO BELLI. GIOV. CAVINO, LOD. LEONL etc. /•(■(• ]i. 200 Padua and Milan As an example of the artists manner, we give the double-portrait medal where he has depicted himself along withBassiano (PI. XXXVIII., i), as also the medal of theVenetian poet and military hero, Francesco Quirini, where, inthe fashion of his hair and beard, as well as of his costume,Quirini is depicted entirely in the manner of a Romanemperor (PI. XXXVIII., 4). To these we may add, as one of the finest products ofPaduan medallic art, the medal of Francesco Commendone,struck by an unknown hand, but in manner akin to Cavino(PI. XXXVIII., 6). For not only on the score of style, butalso on that of the age of the sitter, it must have beenproduced in Padua. Commendone lived until after his thirtiethyear in Padua as the confidential friend of Luigi Cornaro, thesagacious author of the Vita Sobria, before entering theservice of the Curia, where in the course of a brilliant careerhe soon became
Size: 1302px × 1920px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubj, booksubjectrenaissance
