Help


from Wikipedia
« »  
Algardi's first major commission came about in 1634, when Cardinal Ubaldini ( Medici ) contracted for a funeral monument for his great-uncle, Pope Leo XI, the third of the Medici popes, who had reigned for less than a month in 1605.
The monument was started in 1640, and mostly completed by 1644.
The arrangement mirrors the one designed by Bernini for the Tomb of Urban VIII ( 1628 – 47 ), with a central hieratic sculpture of the pope seated in full regalia and offering a hand of blessing, while at his feet, two allegorical female figures flank his sarcophagus.
However, in Bernini's tomb, the vigorous upraised arm and posture of the pope is counterbalanced by an active drama below, wherein the figures of Charity and Justice are either distracted by putti or lost in contemplation, while skeletal Death actively writes the epitaph.
Algardi's tomb is much less dynamic.
The allegorical figures of Magnanimity and Liberality have an impassive, ethereal dignity.
Some have identified the helmeted figure of Magnanimity with that of Athena and iconic images of Wisdom.
Liberality resembles Duquesnoy's famous Santa Susanna, but rendered more elegant.
The tomb is somberly monotone and lacks the polychromatic excitement that detracts from the elegiac mood of Urban VIII's tomb.

1.891 seconds.