878 Sir Rennell Rodd [June 3, 



styled the Mino of Naples, and to sign that name on his own work 

 without any compunction as to infringement of copyi-ight. 



In considering Mino da Fiesole's own work in Rome, I will first 

 ask you to accompany me to the crypt of St. Peter's, to inspect the 

 fragments of the toml^ of Paul 11. , of Pietro Barbo, the Venetian 

 Mecaenas of art, the builder of the Palazzo Yenezia, and the greatest 

 collector of his time. It was erected by his nephew, Marco Barbo, 

 immediately after his death, removed when the old Basilica was 

 pulled down, re-erected in the new St. Peter's in the middle of the 

 sixteenth century, and subsequently once more broken up and 

 relegated in fragments to the crypt, to make room for other sepul- 

 chres more appropriate to the baroco splendour of the new edifice. I 

 wiU first invite your attention to a slide made from an old print, 

 which, I take it, represents the monument as reconstructed in the 

 new church. Its original design was somewhat different, as we learn 

 from a rough sketch in a manuscript now in Berlin. The panels at 

 the side are an addition, as well as the corner pieces squaring the 

 lunette. Over the centre of the lunette there was originally a relief 

 representing the Father in a glory of cherubim, and on either side 

 winged angels, set like crockets, on the arch. Even a superficial 

 examination of the component parts shows that the sculptures are 

 by two different hands. The lower base, in two pieces, is now in the 

 Louvre. Yasari says Mino del Reame worked on some small figures 

 in the base, and these putti between the floral festoons have analogies 

 with some of the ornamentation of the ciborium in Sta. Maria 

 Maggiore. By Mino da Fiesole are the allegorical figures of Faith 

 and Charity in the base, the latter among the finest examples of his 

 art, and signed at the top right-hand corner unostentatiously ; the 

 Temptation, now stripped of its two principal ornaments, which were 

 originally mortised on, and were probably objected to by the same 

 spirit which imposed the addition of breeches to the nude figures in 

 Michel Angelo's Last Judgment ; the evangelists Luke and John, of 

 the pilaster niches, and the relief of the Last Judgment in the lunette, 

 as well as half the angels on the rim, now scattered about the crypt 

 with their fellows, designed by his associate in the execution of the 

 monument. The rest of the sculptured pieces are evidently all 

 designed by the same artist, and though his personality and style 

 are very individual, and quite unmistakable, his name might have 

 remained a mystery had he not recorded it in large letters under the 

 feet of the figure of Hope ; Giovanni Dalmata — John the Dalmatian. 

 So far as I am aware, this inscription is the only record of his name 

 in Rome, and no written document has yet been found which testifies 

 to his presence there. But with the evidence of style afforded by the 

 monument of Paul II., we are able to identify a considerable amount 

 of work by this artist in Rome. The panel in the base displaying 

 the creation of Eve is also his — a remarkable composition, minutely 

 and scrupulously finished — as well as the evangelists Matthew and 



