LOMBARDO, Tullio
(b. ca. 1460, d. 1532, Venezia)

Monument of Andrea Vendramin

1480-95
Marble
Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice

The Venetian funerary triumphal arch format reached maturity with the Monument of Andrea Vendramin, erected in Santa Maria dei Servi by Pietro Lombardo and his son Tullio but dismantled by Napoleon in 1810 and re-erected in 1816 in Santi Giovanni e Paolo. In 1819 the nude figures Adam and Eve (known only in a copy), originally in the lower niches, were transferred to the Palazzo Vendramin. The statues of Adam, today in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, and Eve, a copy of which is in the garden of the Vendramin palace, have been substituted with St Mary Magdalene and St Catherine placed on the two side varriors. In the crown there were once two pages as supporters.

Beneath a splendid arch appears the doge laid on the catafalque supported by two eagles and a winged wheel. Surrounding the doge are three superb young candle-bearers, while round the sepulchral urn are the three theological, and the four cardinal virtues. On the tympanum of the arch is a low-relief rapresenting St Andrew presenting the kneeling Doge to the Virgin, with St Teodoro, who has beside him a son of the doge, also kneeling. Higher up on the sides of the arch are two classical style medallions and over the cornice a medallion containing a standing putto supported by two sirens. On the side-wings, from top to bottom, are the Annunciation, two medallions with mythological subjects; two splendid warriors in Roman armour including breastplates ending in medallions representing the heads of Roman emperors.

As compared with the Mocenigo monument by Pietro, antique principle were now purged of Lombard fussiness, and its Classicism was planned rather than improvised. This clarity is attributed to Tullio.




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