Book contents
Chapter 9 - Bellano’s Invention at the Santo
from Part III - Sculptural Norms, Made and Unmade
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 February 2020
Summary
Bartolomeo’s Bellano’s ten bronze reliefs of Old Testament subjects, documented between 1484 and 1490, were originally on the exterior of the choir screen of the high altar at the Santo in Padua (e.g., Figs. 117–120).1 They are rightly considered among the most prestigious commissions of his career. Bellano was a native son of Padua, and the Franciscan church of the Santo was the city’s most important monument as it housed the potent miracle-working relics of St. Anthony, which annually drew throngs of pilgrims. Bellano, this essay will argue, boldly and purposefully broke with the bronze narrative tradition of both Ghiberti and Donatello, renowned masters of the medium, to create a different type of narrative in bronze in order to reach the major component of his sculptures’ viewers.
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- The Art of Sculpture in Fifteenth-Century Italy , pp. 203 - 218Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020