Page:Cracow - Lepszy.djvu/166

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
ART FROM THE RENASCENCE
146

The Sculpture of the Renascence was also introduced into Poland by Italian artists; like architecture, it first flourished at the royal court. In 1501 King John Albert died, and his mother, Queen Elizabeth, a highly gifted lady, whom the humanists used to praise as both daughter of a king, wife of a king, and mother of kings, wishing to perpetuate her beloved, son's memory by a worthy monument, erected, at her own and Prince Sigismund's
66. OLD BUILDINGS IN THE SQUARE AT THE BACK OF ST. MARY'S CHURCH.
expense, a sepulchre of red marble and sandstone in the Corpus Christi Chapel, which she had founded in the cathedral. In this work of plastic art two distinct styles appear combined. The marble figure reposing on the tomb is Gothic; the drapery, heavy and hard in its folds, and the face (portrayed from the original) clearly belong to the past epoch; the whole framing, on the other hand, with its Roman pilasters and simplicity of ornamentation, exhibits the influence of the Italian cinquecento. From the