1910] on Renaissance Monuments in the Roman Churches. 877 



up among the members of an artistic partnership, each undertaking 

 the portion for which he had a special reputation or aptitude. In 

 some cases the only contribution of Mino seems to have been the 

 Madonna of the central niche or lunette. 



And first, as regards the more important work in Rome, which 

 has been wrongly, I venture to think, attributed to him. In the 

 Church of Sta. Maria Maggiore are tlie component parts of a mag- 

 nificent ciborium, made for Cardinal d'Estouteville, whose portrait 

 appears on one of the panels as donor. The four large panels are 

 now set up in the apse of the church, and a large number of smaller 

 fragments are in the sacristy, including a relief of the Madonna and 

 Child, inscribed Opus Mini, one very similar to which, but unsigned, 

 is in the collection of Count Strogonoff. As the restoration of the 

 church, of which this ciborium was the principal ornament, was com- 

 pleted by 1474, it seems probable that the altar itself was also 

 anterior to the return of Mino da Fiesole to Rome, and were it 

 admittedly his, it could not be contemporary with the very inferior 

 work on the panels illustrating the life of St. Jerome. While certain 

 pieces have features which resemble the style of the Fiesolan, especi- 

 ally in the poise of the figures, which rest on one leg only, I have, 

 after a careful study of the whole, come to the conclusion that it 

 is not his work, but that of a contemporary, whose manner presents 

 analogies and affinities but also marked differences. The Fiesolan 

 was not a successful craftsman in relief : witness his feeble contribu- 

 tions to the pulpit at Prato. The panels of this ciborium are finely 

 and boldly conceived. The scene of the Nativity is a charming and 

 felicitous composition. But the type of the Madonna in the Adora- 

 tion of the Magi, as well as in the Assumption, is quite unlike the 

 type of the Tuscan. Still more may this be said of the Virgin on the 

 panel in the sacristy and its fellow in Count Strogonoff's collection, 

 which are essentially devotional in character, and I, at any rate, know of 

 no example by Mino da Fiesole the least resembling them. The flying 

 angels in the mandorlo round the Virgin of the Assumption appear 

 to be by the same artist who competed with Paolo Romano for the 

 angel over the door of the Church of St. Giacomo. A tabernacle 

 for holy oil, in the Church of Sta. Maria in Trastevere, also inscribed 

 Opus Mini, appears to be by the same sculptor as well as a Crucifixion 

 in Sta. Balbina, which is strongly reminiscent in execution of the 

 fragments in Sta. Maria Maggiore. On the other hand, the master 

 of Fiesole does not seem to have blazoned his name on the marbles 

 in Rome which are undoubtedly his. On one of these only have I 

 found a signature, and there it is quite difficult to find, modestly 

 hidden in a corner. Under these circumstances, I was not surprised 

 to find that Professor Venturi, in the new volume of his monumental 

 work on the history of Italian art, boldly assigns the sculptures of 

 Sta. Maria Maggiore to Mino del Reame, an artist who had studied 

 the Tuscan Mino, and was a rival of sufficient importance to be 



