Page:EB1911 - Volume 07.djvu/991

order, the work was handed over to Luca on the 28th of February 1446, with Michelozzo and Maso di Bartolomeo as his assistants. Part of this wonderful door was cast in 1448, and the last two panels were finished by Luca in 1467, with bronze which was supplied to him by Verrocchio.^[1] The door is divided into ten square panels, with small heads in the style of Ghiberti projecting from the framing. The two top subjects are the Madonna and Child and the Baptist, next come the four Evangelists, and below are the four Latin Doctors, each subject with attendant angels. The whole is modelled with perfect grace and dignified simplicity; the heads throughout are full of life, and the treatment of the drapery in broad simple folds is worthy of a Greek sculptor of the best period of Hellenic art. These exquisite reliefs are perfect models of plastic art, and are quite free from the over-elaboration and too pictorial style of Ghiberti. Fig. 1 shows one of the panels.

Fig. 1.—Bronze Relief of one of the Latin Doctors, from the sacristy door in the cathedral of Florence, by Luca.

The most important existing work in marble by Luca (executed in 1454–1456) is the tomb of Benozzo Federighi, bishop of Fiesole, originally placed in the church of S. Pancrazio at Florence, but removed to S. Francesco di Paola on the Bellosguardo road outside the city in 1783. In 1898 it was again removed to the church of SS. Trinita in Florence. A very beautiful effigy of the bishop in a restful pose lies on a sarcophagus sculptured with graceful reliefs of angels holding a wreath which contains the inscription. Above are three-quarter length figures of Christ between St John and the Virgin, of conventional type. The whole is surrounded by a rectangular frame formed of painted tiles of exquisite beauty, but out of keeping with the memorial. On each tile is painted, with enamel pigments, a bunch of flowers and fruit in brilliant realistic colours, the loveliness of which is very hard to describe. Though the bunch of flowers on each is painted on one slab, the ground of each tile is formed of separate pieces, fitted together like a kind of mosaic, probably because the pigment of the ground required a different degree of heat in firing from that needed for the enamel painting of the centre. The few other works of this class which exist do not approach the beauty of this early essay in tile painting, on which Luca evidently put forth his utmost skill and patience.

In the latter part of his life Luca was mainly occupied with the production of terra-cotta reliefs covered with enamel, a process which he improved upon, but did not invent, as Vasari asserts. The rationale of this process was to cover the clay relief with an enamel formed of the ordinary ingredients of glass (marzacotto), made white and opaque by oxide of tin. (See Ceramics: Italian Majolica.) Though Luca was not the inventor of the process, yet he extended its application to fine sculptured work in terra-cotta, so that it is not unnaturally known now as Della Robbia ware; it must, however, be remembered that by far the majority of these reliefs which in Italy and elsewhere are ascribed to Luca are really the work of some of the younger members of the family or of the atelier which they founded. Comparatively few exist which can with certainty be ascribed to Luca himself. Among the earliest of these are medallions of the four Evangelists in the vault of Brunelleschi’s Pazzi chapel in S. Croce. These fine reliefs are coloured with various metallic oxides in different shades of blue, green, purple, yellow and black. It has often been asserted that the very polychromatic reliefs belong to Andrea or his sons, and that Luca’s were all in pure white, or in white and blue; this, however, is not the case; colours were used as freely by Luca as by his successors. A relief in the Victoria and Albert Museum furnishes a striking example of this and is of especial value from its great size, and also because its date is known. This is an enormous medallion containing the arms of René of Anjou and other heraldic devices; it is surrounded by a splendidly modelled wreath of fruit and flowers, especially apples, lemons, oranges and fir cones, all of which are brilliantly coloured. This medallion was set up on the façade of the Pazzi Palace to commemorate René’s visit to Florence in 1442. Other reliefs by Luca, also in glazed terra-cotta, are those of the Ascension and Resurrection in the tympani of the doors of the sacristies in the cathedral, executed in 1443 and 1446. Other existing works of Luca in Florence are the tympanum reliefs of the Madonna between two Angels in the Via dell’ Agnolo, a work of exquisite beauty, and another formerly over the door of S. Pierino del Mercato Vecchio, but now removed to the Bargello (No. 29). The only existing statues by Luca are two lovely enamelled figures of kneeling angels holding candlesticks, now in the canons’ sacristy.^[2] A very fine work by Luca, executed between 1449 and 1452, is the tympanum relief of the Madonna and four Monastic Saints over the door of S. Domenico at Urbino.^[3] Luca also made the four coloured medallions of the Virtues set in the vault over the tomb of the young cardinal-prince of Portugal in a side chapel of S. Miniato in Florence (see Rossellino). By Luca also are various polychromatic medallions outside Or San Michele.^[4] One of his chief decorative works which no longer exists was a small library or study for Piero de’ Medici, wholly lined with enamelled plaques and reliefs.^[5] The Victoria and Albert Museum possesses twelve circular plaques of majolica ware painted in blue and white with the Occupations of the Months; these have been attributed to Luca, under the idea that they formed part of the decoration of this room, but their real origin is doubtful.

In 1471 Luca was elected president of the Florentine Gild of Sculptors, but he refused this great honour on account of his age and infirmity. It shows, however, the very high estimation in which he was held by his contemporaries. He died on the 20th of February 1482, leaving his property to his nephews Andrea and Simone.^[6] His chief pupil was his nephew Andrea, and Agostino di Duccio, who executed many pieces of sculpture at Rimini, and the graceful but mannered marble reliefs of angels on the façade of S. Bernardino at Perugia, may have been one of his assistants.^[7] Vasari calls this Agostino Luca’s brother, but he was not related to him at all.

II. Andrea della Robbia (1435–1525), the nephew and pupil of Luca, carried on the production of the enamelled reliefs on a much larger scale than his uncle had ever done; he also extended

1. See Cavallucci, S. Maria del Fiore, pt. ii. p. 137.
2. The Victoria and Albert Museum possesses what seem to be fine replicas of these statues.
3. The document in which the order for this and the price paid for it are recorded is published by Yriarte, Gaz. d. beaux arts, xxiv. p. 143.
4. One of these medallions, that of the Physicians, is now removed to the inside of the church.
5. It is fully described by Filarete in his Trattato dell’ architectura, written in 1464, and therefore was finished before that date; see also Vasari, ed. Milanesi (Florence, 1880), ii. p. 174.
6. His will, dated 19th February 1471, is published by Gaye, Cart. ined. i. p. 185.
7. In the works of Perkins and others on Italian sculpture these Perugian reliefs are wrongly stated to be of enamelled clay.