File:Italian medals (1904) (14783102013).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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gories veiled in a pseudo-antiquestyle ; only in the rarest cases do we meet with realistic scenestaken from military life, such as (among others) in theCorreggio, Bentivoglio, and Grati medals. See, too, with what\ lack of understanding and what clumsiness he combines Pisanos medals of Novello Malatesta and GianfrancescoGonzaga to produce the Grati medal (PI. XVIII., 3); and inthe Bentivoglio medal with what effrontery he reproducesin the contrary sense Pisanos medal of Lodovico Gonzaga !And if, not without reason, we throw the responsibility for thechoice of his allegories on the taste of the time, more especi-ally of the scholars, poets, and professors depicted, still theexecution, for which the artist is alone responsible, is almostequally unpleasant, the drawing almost invariably devoid ofspirit and delicacy, the modelling superficial (except wherecorrected by chasing, which is, however, usually dispensed with), the relief strong and rough, without finer transitions 88 Plate XVII
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ANONYMOUS VENETIANS, SPERANDIO Face /). 88 The Medallists of Venice^ etc* and, therefore, ineffective. Hence, on closer examination werestore to the earlier master his overwhelming right of priorityand assign Sperandio a place in the series of medallists of thefifteenth century, not only after Pisano, but also after lessermasters, such as Pasti, Constantius, and Marescotti. The circumstances of Sperandios life are only fragment-arily known. Born at Mantua about 1425, he removed in 1437with his father the goldsmith Bartolomeo—a member of theRoman family of the Savelli—to Ferrara, where he fell underthe influence of Pisano, Pasti, and Marescotti. About 1450he appears at Mantua, after 1460 at Milan, where he producedhis first medal of the Duke Francesco Sforza (PI. XVII., 5),a somewhat dry, spiritless work, the reverse of which is a directcopy of the Malatesta temple on one of Fastis medals. From1463 to 1477 he dwelt in Ferrara, employed by the Este moreas a sculptor than a medallist

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