The Bibelot; A Reprint of Poetry and Prose for Book Lovers, Chosen in Part from Scarce Editions and Sources Not Generally Known Volume 10 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ... the Alpine valleys of Piedmont to the sun-steeped plains of Calabria, which can vie with this sculptured pulpit of Niccola Pisano, standing now in the Baptistery of Pisa as it has stood for over six hundred years, in its claim to be considered as the first completed endeavour of renascent Italian art. ROSES OF PAESTUM For in these bas-reliefs, five years before the birth of Dante, sixteen years before the birth of Giotto, were exemplified the principles which the genius of both was to illustrate, --that the study of the antique was to win back the beauty of its ideal to the service of the present, --that fidelity to nature--the spirits in the Antepurgatory perceiving from Dante's breath that he was alive, gathering round in wonder as the multitude flock round a herald to hear what news he brings: or the hind in the fresco at Assisi, who on hands and knees and with all the eagerness of thirst is drinking the water that springs from the rock: or the goat scratching his ear, in the bas-relief of the Nativity, --that this fidelity to nature, this truth in common things, was as an open sesame to win for the arts entrance in the minds of men, and that the first fruits were dedicate to the service of God. Comparing Niccola's work with his models, we see that the Phaedra of the sarcophagus has suggested the Madonna in the Adoration of the Kings, and that the high priest in the Presentation is the Bacchus of an antique sculptured vase in the Campo Santo. In HOSES OF PAESTUM these metamorphoses we may see a forecast of how the later exuberance of the quest for beauty was to blend unheedingly things incongruous, --things pertaining to Christ and things pertaining to Diana--grouping reliefs of the story of the Fall and of Hercules and the Centaur around...