Fig. 425.—Venetian Panel. Sixteenth Century.
The Cinquecento artists were better craftsmen than the Romans. The design and delicacy of finish on some of the sculptured ornament of the sixteenth century have never been excelled in any period of the world’s art history. It is strange that many of our would-be teachers in design of the present day are not in sympathy with it; perhaps however, it is not to be wondered at, for they may have tried, and found how difficult it really is to get within measurable distance of its excellence. It is cheap and plausible to say that a style is dead with the people who created it; but this is not what the artists of the sixteenth century said, and we know what they produced out of a dead style. By all means let us have originality, if it is good art, but let us have the good art first.
In the Cinquecento ornament we find that a greater variety of plants, animals, and designed objects, such as vases, candelabra, and armour, were made use of than is generally found in antique ornament. The acanthus, vine, oak, and poppy foliage have all been simplified to a general type of acanthoid leafage (Fig. 425). Such animals as the lion, goat, and the dolphin fish form occur frequently, sometimes almost naturally, but more often with foliated endings (Figs. 425 and 426). Some compositions are made up entirely with well-chosen vase and candelabra forms (Fig. 427).
Fig. 426.—Cinquecento; from the Martinengo Tomb, Brescia.
Fig. 427.—Candelabra and Vase Panel.
In the Cinquecento, the Greek guilloche pattern with rosettes is used, and an Italian rendering of the anthemion, and also of the Greek honeysuckle band pattern (Fig. 428).
The Lombardi family of Venice were celebrated as sculptors in ornament. Pietro the elder (1481) was the architect of Dante’s tomb in San Francesco at Ravenna, but his greatest work was the Church of Santa Maria de’ Miracoli at Venice, in which he was assisted by his sons Tullio and Antonio in the sculptured decorations. Tullio was the most gifted as a sculptor, and his ornament is the best of the Cinquecento period at Venice (Fig. 429).