Handbook of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts / With 143 Illustrations

ANCIENT ART

Except for Egyptian material, the representation of ancient art in our collections is unfortunately limited to comparatively few original examples. These include, however, an interesting group of Cypriote pottery (duplicate material from the Cesnola Collection) which has considerable importance from the archaeological as well as from the artistic point of view. This collection of pottery from the island of Cyprus shows an almost unbroken succession of styles from the Early Bronze Age, about 3000 B. C., down to the Roman period, and thus gives us a complete picture of the art of pottery in an important center of ancient civilization for about three thousand years. Artistically, it is probably the most successful product of the Cypriote artist. His sense of form and decoration could here find full expression without disclosing the lack of high artistic inspiration, which is apparent in his sculptural creations. Moreover, a certain fanciful originality which shows itself now in a fantastic shape, now in the addition of handles and bosses in unexpected places, gives to his vases a refreshing variety. The interest of this collection will be greatly increased when we are able to exhibit examples of the Greek painted pottery of the V and IV centuries B. C., which represents the culmination of ancient ceramic art. A small collection of Cypriote glass, dating from the I century B. C. to the V century A. D., attracts attention by its beautiful color, or iridescence, due to burial in the earth. Although we have as yet no original sculptures of the classical period, except for a few fragments, the development of sculpture in Greece and Rome may be studied in our cast collection.

From left to right: Amphora, white ware painted in black and red, X-V centuries B. C.; jug, red slip ware, XX-XV centuries B. C.; amphora, white ware painted in black and red, X-V centuries B. C.; jug, base ring ware, XV-XII centuries B. C.; oinochoe, white ware painted in black and brown, X-V centuries B. C. The earliest of the fabrics illustrated, i.e., the red slip ware, though usually not polished, is made evidently in imitation of the still earlier red polished ware. Base-ring ware is so called from the distinct standing base found on most specimens. With the white painted ware of the Early Iron Age, we come to a wheel-made pottery, usually having painted geometrical decoration.

This is one of a small collection of Babylonian tablets. It was made during the reign of Dungi, King of Ur. The inscription records an offering to the temple. The tablet is sealed to prevent the alteration of the record by the priests or attendants; the seal impression bears the figure of Sin, the Moon God, who was the deity of Ur of the Chaldees, and before the deity stand two priests in the act of worship. These inscribed clay tablets were used by the ancient Babylonians in place of papyrus or parchment.

GOTHIC ART

Since the Goths, a rude and barbarous ancient people, were in no wise concerned with the splendid art of that period intervening between Romanesque and Renaissance, which misguided later generations called Gothic because, forsooth, it was not classical, it is unfortunate that this inappropriate designation should be perpetuated by custom. But the misnomer is now used so generally—needless to say, without any sense of disparagement—that we must perforce accept it.

It is impossible to date any period of art with absolute accuracy; for art is always in the process of change, and the flourishing of any period of art is long anticipated by preliminary manifestations. In a general way, however, it may be said that the Gothic period extends from the second half of the XII century through the XV century. Italy presents an exception. The tentative Gothic art of the XIII century in Italy gave place to the new movement, founded upon enthusiasm for antiquity, as well as for nature, which we call the Renaissance. The classical element in Renaissance art is the feature which principally distinguishes it from Gothic. In the latter part of the XV century, the Renaissance spread from Italy into the northern countries, and, in the XVI century, accomplished a triumphant ascendancy over the late Gothic style.

The crowning achievement of Gothic art was the cathedral, where architect, sculptor and painter combined to create monuments which rank with the greatest works of human genius. Never has sculpture more perfectly adorned architecture; never has architecture more beautifully expressed the hopes and aspirations of a people. In this age the plastic arts were truly “the language of faith.”

From France, Gothic art spread to other lands, to Germany, Flanders, Spain, and England, and even to Italy. During the XIII and XIV centuries, the highest development of Gothic art took place in France, but, in the XV century, Burgundy and the merchant cities of Flanders gained pre-eminence. France required many years after the battle of Agincourt, in 1415, to recover from the exhaustion brought about by internal conflict and foreign wars. In the meantime, the rich cities of Flanders and the powerful Dukes of Burgundy offered the artist generous patronage.

If the artist in this late period lost something of the spirituality and noble simplicity of earlier times, he was more skillful technically and more realistic. Not that the earlier artist had not observed nature! On the contrary, he was eminently successful in discerning significant truths, but he subordinated objective representation to the requirements of a monumental style.

Save for a distinguished list of painters, headed by the great Flemish masters, the Van Eycks (?-1426, 1381-1440), Rogier van der Weyden (1400-1464), and Hans Memling (1425-1495), Gothic art is largely anonymous. In the minor arts, such as glass painting, the illumination of manuscripts, metal work and enameling, furniture, and textiles, woven and embroidered, the Gothic Age excelled, and the rare surviving examples of these beautiful crafts are treasured among the most precious relics of this great period of the world's art.

The large well-head of Istrian stone in the foreground comes from the Palazzo Zorzi in Venice, and is a fine example of Venetian stone-carving in the XV century. The well-head, with its acanthus leaves at the four corners, reminds one of the Corinthian capital of classical times, and, as a matter of fact, ancient capitals were sometimes used in later periods for well-heads. On one side is an angel holding a shield supported by two lions passant. Doubtless, this shield was originally painted the owner's coat of arms.

In the XV century, hunting and hawking—the latter also called falconry—played a significant part in the social life of the nobility. These sports and the ability to pursue them in a generous and polite fashion set the nobility apart from the commoners, and formed the chief topic of conversation, when war did not call from the slaughter of animals to the slaughter of men. One of the most necessary implements in falconry is the lure, used to recall the falcon. In the upper right-hand corner of the tapestry a man is shown waving a lure in his right hand. The lure is a pair of wings attached to a cord, to which the falcon is trained to return because accustomed to find food there. The mode of carrying the falcon on the gloved hand is illustrated by several of the personages in the tapestry. Several of the falcons are still on leash; one has just been released and thrown up into the air; another is having the hood removed from his head. The rich costumes illustrate the extravagant fashions which prevailed in the middle of the XV century, when there was great competition in dress between the wealthy commoners and the nobility.

Great beauty of color distinguishes this tapestry. The greens and browns of the foliage form an agreeable contrast with the rich crimson and blue of the costumes, relieved by passages of green and violet. The Gothic artist was not afraid to use strong colors, but he knew how to keep them in harmonious relationship. The simplicity of the design, the purposeful abstention from realistic effects, which we note in this tapestry, are virtues in the art of mural decoration that can not be too highly commended.

About fifty years later than The Falconers, this beautiful tapestry with scenes from the Story of Esther, in the Charles Jairus Martin Memorial Collection, represents the tendency toward a more ornate and sumptuous art that characterized the late XV century. In the lower right-hand corner of the tapestry, just above the scroll, may be noted a small fleuron, which is probably the mark of an atelier, but tapestries before 1528 can rarely be assigned to any definite atelier or weaver. We must be content to designate our tapestry as Flemish, woven at the close of the XV century. The story of Esther was popular among the Flemish weavers at this time. Our tapestry, which formed part of a set, may be compared with three hangings of the same subject belonging to the Cathedral of Saragossa.

The reproduction can give but an unsatisfactory idea at best of the original. Not only do we lose the mellow harmonies of color, but in reducing the design of so large a tapestry to a few square inches many of the most beautiful details are necessarily lost. In the left-hand compartment, Queen Esther, kneeling before the King, kisses the golden scepter which Ahasuerus extends to her. Having won favor in the King's eyes, Esther asks as a boon that the King and Haman, the King's favorite, whose plot for the persecution of the Jews Esther intends to circumvent, shall attend a feast which she has prepared for them. In the upper left-hand corner are two little scenes; Esther kneeling in prayer, and Esther receiving instructions from Mordecai. In the compartment at the right is pictured Esther's banquet, the second feast, related in Chap. VII of the Book of Esther, which brought about the fall of Haman. Particularly interesting in this scene is the representation of table furnishings, the damask cloth, the enameled ewer in the shape of a boat, the knives with their handles of ivory and ebony, the hanap, the cup of Venetian glass, and the various pieces of plate. We have in this composition a remarkable document illustrating the luxury that characterized the life of the great nobles at the close of the XV century. In the scrolls at the bottom of the tapestry are Latin mottoes referring to the scenes above. Our tapestry was formerly in the J. Pierpont Morgan Collection.

In such tapestries as this and The Falconers, we may note the perfect relationship which exists between the nature of the design and the purpose to which the tapestry was put. Gothic tapestries of the XV century illustrate the true principle of mural decoration. Designers deliberately avoided realistic imitation of nature with spatial effects and tricks of illusion. They strove to achieve a decorative flatness of design which would emphasize rather than destroy the architectonic quality of the wall the tapestry was to cover.

A tapestry is woven, not embroidered, and forms a single fabric. Only two elements are employed in the making of it, the warp and the woof (or weft). These are the upright and the horizontal threads. The [pg 37] weaving is done upon a loom or frame. The bobbin, or shuttle, filled with thread of the weft, is passed from right to left behind the odd warp threads, and in passing leaves a bit of the weft thread in front of the even warp threads. On the backward trip, from left to right, the shuttle reverses its course and leaves the weft in front of the odd warp threads. Thus, all the warp threads are covered with the weft. A comb is used to press down the threads, so that they form an almost even line. Wool is generally used for the weft, linen or hemp for the warp. The texture was sometimes enriched with passages of gold and silver thread or perhaps a bit of silk.

Part of a large tapestry representing the Crucifixion. Its vigorous design and harmonious color make one regret all the more the loss of the other part of this splendid tapestry.

This life-size statue, which still retains traces of the painting and gilding with which Gothic sculptures were almost invariably enriched, is an important example of French Gothic sculpture. The monumental character of this great art is shown in the conventional rendering of the hair, and in the simplification of the modeling; its grace and naturalness in the pose of the Divine Mother. The beautiful, rhythmic lines of the drapery should be particularly noted. Representations of the Virgin in French XIV century art have neither the austerity of earlier periods nor the worldliness of later. They are characterized by charming sensibility and tenderness.

This statue of a holy woman, probably one of the half-sisters of the Virgin, Mary Cleophas, the wife of Alpheus, or Mary Salome, the wife of Zebedee formed part originally, it may be presumed, of a Pieta group. This remarkable example of German sculpture at the close of the XV century is carved in linden wood, and preserves largely intact the original gilding and polychromy which add so much to the decorative effect of the piece. A second figure from this group, a kneeling Magdalene, is in the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum in Berlin. There has been noted a similarity in style between these two sculptures and the work of the Meister des Blaubeurer Hochaltars (so called from the sculptured high altar in the choir of the cloister-church at Blaubeuren). We have represented, perhaps, a late phase of his art, stronger and more realistic than in his early period. It would be most interesting if the connection with this well-known master could be established, but, failing that, the figure may be confidently attributed to the school of Ulm, about 1500.

We do not expect to find in German sculpture of the XV century that spirituality which characterizes the great achievements of the Italian school. German plastic art was one of realism, modified by a strong decorative tradition centuries old, based not only on precedent but on propriety. If the carved altarpiece were to tell in the subdued light of the Gothic church, the artist had to resort to exaggeration, to sharp contrasts in modeling, to the added emphasis of gold and color, to secure his effect. The skillful artist converted his exaggerations of form and movement into beautiful decoration; seized upon the necessity of contrasting planes as a pretext for crumpling his draperies into numerous rhythmic folds, and used the resources of gilding and polychromy to enrich as well as to emphasize form.

But at his best, the German sculptor was more than a simple decorator. Our statue is a case in point. Here we have the work of one who surely has looked into the human heart. Beneath the pattern of line and area, beneath the gold and colors, is a living woman. Not our idea of a saint perhaps; rather, a pretty woman, dainty in her ways, coquetting with religeon—nevertheless very real. Our artist may never have seen a saint, but, no doubt, he saw many a maid like this in his parish. If we are not raised to spiritual heights by his conception of a sainted character, we are at least delighted by his charming humanity.

This relief, attributed to a well-known sculptor of the school of Ulm, one of the chief centers of South German art, may be dated about 1500. Such carvings as this were commonly used to ornament the doors of large shrines. The decorative treatment of the drapery, with its involved folds, is characteristic of the German school.

The foliage carved on the capital of this small column, probably from some cloister, exemplifies the skill with which the Gothic sculptor utilized natural forms as decorative motives.

The supreme moment in the life of St. Francis, the seraphic Poverello of Assisi, is the subject of this small panel picture, painted in tempera colors with a gold background, by an artist of Giotto's school in the Romagna, who was probably a direct pupil of the great Italian master, and whose charm of color and grace of line were vivified by a feeling for reality of form inspired by Giotto's example. Toward the close of the Saint's life, two years before his death, he retired with some companions to the solitudes of Monte La Verna. On the morning of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, as St. Francis knelt in prayer on a lonely part of the mountain, there appeared to him a seraph with six flaming wings bearing the effigy of Christ crucified. Two wings were raised above His head, two were spread in flight, and and two covered His body. As St. Francis gazed ecstatically upon this vision, the Savior's five wounds were miraculously imprinted on his hands and feet and side. The second figure in the composition is that of the Saint's companion, Brother Leo, who by his aloofness from the dramatic action of the picture serves effectively as a foil to the figure of St. Francis.

The Master of the St. Ursula Legend, a Flemish painter of the second half of the XV century, derives his name from the famous altarpiece in the Convent of the Black Sisters in Bruges representing the history of St. Ursula, a work painted about 1470. The anonymous master of the Bruges altarpiece shows to some extent the influence of Memling; his style, however, is thoroughly personal in its naivete and admirable expression of a good-natured temperament. His character is well seen in such a painting as ours, where the Mother is full of modesty, her face expressing a tender, timid love for her child, who does not embrace her after all, not the most natural thing for a baby to do, but amuses himself with playing with the leaves of a book which the Madonna holds. The Virgin is a home-like, simple type, wholesome if not beautiful.

This delightful French miniature, or illuminated page, on parchment is from some dismembered Book of Hours. If not painted by Bourdichon himself, it was certainly done in his studio under his direction. The invention of printing eventually brought to a close the beautiful art of illumination, but at the time of Bourdichon it flourished in highest perfection.

Two leading artists of the Flemish school were Quentin Massys and Joachim Patinir. Massys (1466-1530) began a new epoch in Netherlandish art; he served as a “connecting link” between Jan van Eyck and Rubens. Patinir (died 1524) was one of the first artists to emphasize the landscape rather than the figures in a painting, but the time had not yet come when landscape could be painted for itself alone. It was necessary to relate it with the familiar religious painting of the day by introducing some biblical or legendary theme. A favorite subject was the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt. This is the subject of our panel-painting in which these two great masters collaborated; the landscape and the smaller figures by Patinir, the group of the Holy Family in the foreground by Quentin Massys. It is related that the Holy Family, closely pursued by Herod's soldiers, chanced to encounter by the roadside a man sowing wheat in a field. The Virgin spoke to him, saying that if anyone inquired if they had passed he should answer, “Such persons came by when I was sowing wheat”; then by a miracle Jesus caused the wheat to spring up and ripen in one night. The next day when the farmer was cutting the wheat, those pursuing the Holy Family came up and asked if he had seen them. He replied as he had been told, with the result that the soldiers turned back, convinced that they had mistaken the road and that the fugitives had gone elsewhere.

RENAISSANCE ART

Renaissance means re-birth. When the barbarians wrote “finis” on the page of Rome's ancient story, long centuries of tenebrous reorganization were to elapse before Italy once more emerged into the light of civilization. In comparison with the shadowy gropings of this age of transition, the brilliant culture of the XV and XVI centuries seemed indeed a re-birth, or renaissance of long-departed glories; and, as an apposite description of the art of this period, the word Renaissance is, on the whole, well chosen. Renaissance art attained its most complete expression in Italy during the XV and XVI centuries; but the new style was not confined by any means to Italy alone. During the XV century, Renaissance art began to spread from Italy to other European countries. Late Gothic art could not withstand its bewitchment, and in the XVI century, European art yielded almost without reserve to the ascendancy of the Renaissance style.

Enthusiasm for antiquity and enthusiasm for nature, it has been said, are the chief characteristics of Italian Renaissance art. While this is correct, it is principally the enthusiasm for antiquity that gives to renaissance art its peculiar distinction; for naturalism we find quite as potent a factor in the development of Gothic art as in that of the Renaissance. The Renaissance artist differed in the main from the Gothic not so much in his attitude toward nature as in the way he recorded his reactions—his style, in other words.

In the development of the Renaissance style, as distinguished from the Gothic, the example of Graeco-Roman art played an important part. Humanism, the taste for the literature and history of the ancients, awakened the interest of Italian artists in the monuments of their forgotten past, and led them to seek, in the surviving remains of Roman architecture and in the scanty examples of ancient sculpture and painting that chance had brought to light, the secret of beauty.

The attitude of the Early Renaissance toward the antique differed from that of the Late Renaissance. In the former period (XV century), enthusiasm for the art of an unfamiliar past, romantically dreamed of, rather than archeologically reconstructed, did not lead to that sterile imitation which came with wider knowledge and greater technical facility in the late days of Renaissance art. Artists of this period were disciples rather than imitators. Grandiose and formal, the Late Renaissance (XVI century) lost the child-like, romantic enthusiasm of the earlier period for classical art. Sculptors and painters not only sought forms which should recall the antique, but also turned eagerly to Greek and Roman mythology for their subjects. As the Renaissance drew to a close, artists began to borrow not only from the antique but also from the great masters of their own Golden Age, Leonardo (1452-1519), Raphael (1483-1520), Michelangelo (1475-1564), Correggio (1494-1534), and Titian (1477-1576). In this futile eclecticism the Renaissance came to an end.

The author of this charming panel-painting derives his name from his principal work, a large altarpiece still preserved in the little Tuscan town of San Miniato dei Tedeschi. We do not know the artist's real name nor anything of his life save that his work, of which some eight or nine examples are recorded, shows the influence of the great Florentine master, Fra Filippo Lippi, and of another anonymous painter, the so-called Companion of Pesellino. The painting in our collection dates about 1480. We note in this picture the plastic quality which distinguishes the work of the Florentine artists from that of other schools. This love of form is an expression of the same temperament which enabled Florence to produce the greatest sculptors of the Renaissance.

A contmplative, dignified spirit is admirably expressed in this beautiful portrait, which goes to prove that Moroni at his best is entitled to a place among the great Italian painters of the Renaissance. Moroni spent most of his life in the little North Italian town of Bergamo, where he lacked the stimulating competition that occurred in larger centers. At times, his work, mostly in the field of portraiture, is commonplace, but in such paintings as the celebrated Tailor, in the National Gallery at London, or our own Ecclesiastic, we find an unusual power of perception combined with the “measure, distinction, and clearness” which were the Hellenistic ideals of his generation.

Among Leonardo's Milanese disciples was Gian Pietro Rizzi, commonly known as Giampietrino, a definite artistic personality, but historically hardly more than a name. Although he was probably not a direct pupil of Leonardo, there is ample evidence in his work that he came under the influence of this great master, whose exquisitely perfect art had captivated all of Lombardy. Whatever the subject of his paintings, Giampietro's real theme is always the beauty of woman. Affection, but never any great emotional feeling, is expressed in his numerous paintings of the Madonna, since passion would distort the delicate, aristocratic beauty of the forms he modeled with such loving skill. Our painting is exhibited as and indefinite loan from Mr. E. J. Carpenter.

In this important Venetian painting of the High Renaissance, the Madonna and Child are represented in a beautiful landscape surrounded by four saints; at the left St. Michael and St. Dorothea, at the right St. Joseph (probably) and St. Mary Magdalene. Such scenes are called in Italian “sante conversazioni,” or sacred conversations, and were especially popular in Palma's time. This artist, one of the great masters of the Venetian school, was called il Vecchio, or the elder, to distinguish him from his grand-nephew who was called Palma the younger. Three periods of development may be noted in Palma's work. The first is called Bellinesque, when Palma was still influenced by Giovanni Bellini. In his second period, Giorgione's influence was dominant. The so-called blond manner characterized his third period. The fascinating landscape of our painting calls to mind the influence of Giorgione, but the wholesome well-being that radiates from this goodly company of saints reminds one more of Titian than of Giorgione. Palma enjoyed the beautiful luxurious things of life, he delighted in rich amplitude of form, in splendid glowing color, in the health and sanity of happy men and women; and to his vision he gave the permanency of supreme craftsmanship. Our painting, given in memory of James S. Bell by his son, was formerly in the Rangoni Collection of Modena.

During the Renaissance, a great number of charming reliefs in stucco and plaster by great sculptors, or in their style, were used for the decoration of the home or of wayside shrines. Our example, probably from the workshop of Antonio Rossellino (1427-1478), is a typical example of these popular reliefs.

The glass factories at Murano near Venice were celebrated during the Renaissance, as they are today, for their beautiful productions. The large beaker shown in our illustration is of bluish glass. The deep dish is of white glass decorated with colored enamels.

The grotesque figures, the grinning mask and other decorative motives which may be noted in this elaborately carved chair are characteristic of furniture designed in the High Renaissance.

This charming statuette of Pomona, or Dovizia, as it has been suggested, is the work of Giovanni della Robbia, a Florentine sculptor, the son of Andrea della Robbia who was the nephew of Luca della Robbia. The work of the della Robbia family in glazed terracotta is familiar to all lovers of Italian art. Giovanni was the pupil of his father. His early works, such as this Pomona, show him at his best; in his later productions he lacks refinement and indulges in polychromy with too liberality. When discreetly used, as in this statuette, color enriches the plastic quality of the work. The goddess wears a blue gown with decorations in golden yellow; the fruit is represented naturalistically in yellow green and violet; and the flesh parts are glazed in white. On her head the Goddess carries a basket filled with fruit, and in her left hand a brimming cornucopia. A little boy, with charming naturalness, turns to her for protection as if afraid of the dog barking at him.

Vasari and a writer of the XVII century mention a statue by Donatello of La Dovizia, which stood in the Mercato Vecchio in Florence. This statue is described as representing a maiden bearing on her head a basket of fruit. The statue is lost, but two existing statuettes of the della Robbia school, in addition to our own (both inferior to ours), are probably reflections of the Donatello Dovizia. In one, in the Buonarotti Museum, we see a maiden supporting on her head, with her right hand, a basket filled with flowers and fruit. A similar statuette in the Berlin Museum carries a cornucopia as well as a basket. Both are called Pomona. The cornucopia, however, is the classic attribute of Ceres and of Abundantia, or, in this case, Dovizia, the Italian version of Abundantia. That our statuette is intended as a personification of riches or abundance rather than as Pomona becomes yet clearer when we examine the inscription on the base: GLORIA ET DIVITIE IN DOMO TUA, “May Honor and Riches Be Within Thy House.” The boy and dog give a touch of domesticity to the group. They express “within thy house,” revealing Dovizia as a household goddess.

These two tapestries in the Charles Jairus Martin Memorial Collection are remarkably fine examples of Renaissance tapestry weaving in Italy and Flanders during the XVI century. The Dante tapestry was woven about the middle of the century in Florence at the Medici atelier—the Arazzeria-Medici—founded by Cosimo I in 1537. It bears in the selvage the mark of the Florentine manufactory and of the master weaver, John Rost, who with another Fleming, Nicholas Karcher, conducted (from 1546) the work of the Arazzeria. His mark, in the lower left-hand corner of the tapestry, is a punning device, a roast of meat upon a spit. The tapestry was woven for some member of the Salviati family, whose arms appear in the upper border. The design has been attributed on evidence of style to Francesco Rossi de' Salviati (1510-1563), who, with Bronzino and other well-known artists of the High Renaissance, provided many cartoons for the Medici weavers. The scene represented is taken from the opening canto of Dante's Divine Comedy; Virgil, the type of Human Philosophy, sent to guide the poet through Hell and Purgatory, appears to Dante who has lost his way in “the wood of error,” where he is menaced by three symbolical animals, the panther, the lion and the she-wolf, who would prevent him from ascending the “Holy Hill.” The border designs in the grotesque style are particularly interesting and typical of Renaissance ornament. The tapestry is unusually large, measuring 16 ft. 7 in. in height by 15 ft. 4 in. in width. Italian tapestries of the High Renaissance are not common; the Dante tapestry, formerly in the J. P. Morgan Collection, is far and away the most important example of its kind in the country.

The extraordinary success which attended the weaving at Brussels in the early part of the XVI century of the tapestries from Raphael's [pg 57] famous cartoons brought the Italian Renaissance style into great favor among the tapestry weavers of Flanders. Evidence of this is clear in our tapestry from a set illustrating the history of Joseph. Behind the seated woman in the foreground stands a lady in the rich costume of the XVI century; it is not improbable that this is the portrait of some noblewoman at whose expense the tapestries were woven. In the lower left-hand corner of the border occurs the Brussels mark, a red shield with a capital letter “B” on either side. From 1528 on, the Brussels weavers were required by law to add the mark of the city, together with their own mark, to all tapestries of more than six ells. The weaver's monogram, at the right in the lower border of our tapestry, as not yet been identified. The tapestry dates from about the second quarter of the XVI century. It was formerly in the Rospigliosi and Ffoulke Collections.

The architectural design of this large lectern is typical of Italian Renaissance furniture, as is also the use of such classical decorative motives as the egg-and-dart pattern, rosettes, swags, etc. The lectern, from some Umbrian church, served to support the large choir-books, oftentimes beautifully illuminated, that were in use during this period.

Richly ornamented cassoni to hold the bridal trousseau constitute an important class of Renaissance furniture. The two marriage chests, illustrated on this page, are magnificent examples of this type of furniture. The Florentine cassone is ornamented with gilded, low reliefs in “pastille.” In the center are the four cardinal virtues, Temperance, Justice, Fortitude and Prudence; on either side of this group, mythological scenes that may be taken in connection with the virtues as representing the opposition between the ordered Christian life and pagan license. The Medusa heads are introduced as guardians against misfortune. This combination of pagan and Christian elements is thoroughly characteristic of the Renaissance. The beautifully carved walnut cassone was made in 1514 for a marriage which united two Sienese families, the Piccolomini and the del Golia. In its refinement of proportions and skilful execution this cassone is a masterpiece of furniture designing.