File:Italian medals (1904) (14763227675).jpg

Identifier: italiamedal00fabri (find matches)
Title: Italian medals
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: Fabriczy, Cornelius von, 1839-1910
Subjects: Medals Medals, Renaissance Renaissance
Publisher: London : Duckworth
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Getty Research Institute

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rulers as a splendid Maecenas of arts and letters, collectedaround him at his Courts of Aix and Bar-le-duc a legion ofpoets, scholars, and artists. With them he himself contendedin poetry and painting, so that in the joint productions of thecourtly band it is frequently difficult to distinguish the workof the patron from that of his proteges. When after Alfonsosdeath (1458) the building of his triumphal arch was broughtto a stand, our two artists obeyed Renes summons and wentto France, there by their medals to provide for the glorifica-tion of the love affairs of the elderly monarch at the Court ofLove of Provence. Their works, produced between the years 1461 and 1466, dis-play the portraits of Rene and his second wife Jeanne de Laval,his nearest relations and most trusted counsellors, as alsothose of Louis XL, King of France. In the matter of artisticmerit, a huge gulf divides their works from those of Pisanello, although his medals of King Alfonso undoubtedly served as 40 Plate VIII
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Vittore Pisano and his Successors their immediate model. And if either one or other achievessuccess, then is the credit due more to the source whence theyderived their inspiration than to themselves. In Pietro daMilano more especially the dependence on Pisano mayfrequently be traced even in the designs on the reverses ofhis medals In the case of the double medal of Rene and hiswife (PI. VIII., 2) we are interested less by the vulgar portraitson the obverse, treated with uniform, flat, and expressionlessrelief, than by the not unskilful composition of the Councilscene on the reverse, with its rich Renaissance architecture,the first of its kind on a medal, which betrays the practisedhand of the architect. Laurana took less trouble about hisdesigns ; on his medal of John of Anjou, the son of Rene, hesimply copies the circular temple of Vesta at Tivoli, and, asan addition of his own, crowns it with a statue of the Arch-angel Michael. In other cases also he readily allows himselfto draw hi

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