886 Sir ReniirJ] Rodd [June 8, 



from a nail, holding up festooned garlands, for this also we shall 

 find elsewhere. Now observe the kneeling pope, whose name is 

 inscribed near the feet. The drapery here is treated in quite a 

 different fashion, is undulatory, and natural rather than academic. 

 Characteristic is the facial angle, and the great length from the point 

 of the nose to the chin. Having these points in mind, we go to the 

 church of San Gregorio, and find in a chapel of the transept an 

 altar with a marble front divided into three compartments, illustrating 

 the miracles of St. Gregory. In the compartment on the left, Pope 

 Leo of the Lateran reappears as St. Gregory, and we find throughout 

 all the profile faces of the three reliefs the same curious facial angle 

 and disproportion between the upper and lower portions of the face. 

 The St. Sebastian of this compartment and the San Rocco of the 

 corresponding are very near relations of the St. Jolin of the Lateran 

 rehef . There are several other points of analogy, notably the strings 

 of beads which appear on the pilasters attached to the flaming lamps 

 like those of the Lateran relief and the Brusati tomb. They re- 

 appear in festoons on the architrave. Under one of the pilasters are 

 the initials M.B. inserted in a kind of cabalistic emblem, under 

 another a wheel with rays, and under a third the Florentine hly. 



An explanation of these emblems is afforded by a monument now 

 in the courtyard in front of the church, to which it was removed from 

 the chapel when the church was redecorated. This monument repro- 

 duces nearly all the characteristic features of Capponi's work which 

 have been noticed. In it we find again the Florentine lily, the eight- 

 rayed wheel, the armorial bearings of the Bonsi family, and the 

 inscription tells us how Michele Bonsi initiated the idea of erecting the 

 monument in his lifetime, and his brother Antonio, though the elder 

 of the two, afterwards joined in the scheme. From the archives of 

 the Bonsi family in Florence we learn that they erected a chapel in 

 San Gregorio in 1470. Antonio was sent as orator of the republic to 

 Rome in 1498. He was apparently a merchant of brocades, as large 

 purchases of materials from Antonio Bonsi and Co. figure in the coro- 

 nation accounts of Pius III. Michele had been established already 

 earlier as a banker and agent in Rome. In this monument the 

 recumbent figure is replaced by two portrait busts, inserted in circular 

 niches. It appears to be the first example in Rome of a manner 

 frequently adopted afterwards, which Luigi Capponi no doubt intro- 

 duced from Lombardy, Avhere we are familiar with it in the certosa of 

 Pavia and elsewhere. It is repeated in the tomb of the brothers 

 Antonio and Pietro Pollaiuolo, in San Pietro in Vinculi, which I also 

 attribute to Capponi, as, I think, we may also do the monument of 

 Andrea Bregno, which we saw on the screen a few minutes ago. 



Having fixed certain mannerisms of style, and certain specific 

 characteristics of Capponi's treatment of decorative work peculiar to 

 himself, wherever we find these repeated in other examples during the 

 last 20 years or so of the 15th century we may safely assign them to 



