MELROSE
170
MELROSE
is more probalile that Melozzo fell under no inlluenco
other than that of Piero della Francesca. I'iero was al-
ways engrossed with perspective, and has even left us a
treatise on it ; therefore it is to him that Melozzo owes
his mastery of the subject, as well as his love for large
tableaux and the heroic character of his work. Me-
lozzo was one of the artists summoned to the Court of
Frlnno by the magnificent .Signor Federigo da Monte-
feltro, to whom perhaps he was introduccil by Gio-
vanni 8anti, the father of Raphael. None of the
work he <lid there has reached us. However, the
Barberini Palace (Rome) contains a part of the l^r-
bino series, and among them a few pictures that
adorned the duke's study and which, like the in-
crustations, date from 1470. The " Federigo in
armour, with his Son Guidobaldo" is attributed to
Melozzo. A charming bust " Guidobaldo, when a
child ", in the Colonna Palace, is attributed by some
to Giovaimi Santi, but Berenson thinks it a Melozzo.
The famous allegories of the " Arts " and " Sciences "
(two paintings in Berlin and
two in London) and the busts
of the "Philosophers" (in the
Louvre and in the Barberini),
formerly in Fetlerigo's palace, are
probably not by Melozzo but by
the Fleming, Justus of Ghent.
It was doubtless through Fede-
rigo that the artist was recom-
mended to Sixtus IV. The im-
portance of this pope's part in
the history of art is well known,
for he was the first of the Renais-
sance popes, the herald of Julius
II and Leo X, and the founder
of the Sixtine Chapel and the
Vatican Library. Melozzo be-
came more or less his official
painter. With him he opened
the Academy of St. Luke.
The Sixtine chapel was already decorated when Melozzo arrived, but the pope associated him with two other great undertakings. In 1477 he ordered him to paint a picture commemorating the in- auguration of the Vatican. This fresco, now in the Pinacoteca of the Vatican, shows the juriscon- sult Platina kneeling before the pope and receiving from him the keys of the library. Grouped around are the pope's four nephews, among whom are the prothonotary, Giulio Riario, ina monk's robe, and Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, the future Julius II. The scene is set in a hall of marvellous Renais- sance style. The beauty of the architecture, the splendour of the decoration, the vigour of the por- traits, the calm and dignity of the composition, and the importance of the persons it deals with, make this magnificent work an incomparable page of history. Art has no creation of more unconstrained majesty, so realistically and nobly alive. It is a perfect picture of the papacy of those days, a vision of the court life of the pontiff, who was the first to make Rome the capital of the arts, and the intellectual metropolis of the world, to crown it with the sciences and the masterpieces of art and to invent nepotism. Sixtus IV also com- manded Melozzo to paint an "Ascension" for the choir of the church of the Apostles. It was a re- markable painting and Vasari speaks admiringly of it, but unfortunately it was destroyed in 1711 when Clement IX enlarged the choir. He was unwilling, however, that such a work of art should be completely lost, so a few detached figures from the group were saved, of which that of "Christ Triumphant" may be Been on the Quirinal staircase. It is one of the earliest
known examples of perspective applied to the human
figure on roof or ceiling decoration ; that is to say, a
figure viewed from below. This foreshortened method,
a great novelty at that time, has been surpassed a
hundredfold, and by third-rate painters, since the day
of Correggio.
Melozzo's chief merit is that he created a type of supple and nobly sensuous juvenile beauty, and gave expression to it with inspired ease and lyric swing. This quality stands out more prominently in other fragments of the same fresco, preserved in the larger sacristy at St. Peter's, especially in the choral angels, whose faces are irresistible. No artist of that period, and very few since, would have been able to conceive these poetical and vigorous forms, in which womanly charm blends with virile strength, which are so full of health, joy of life, movement, and passion. • This won- derful work was executed in 1482. A less important one (1478), of "Christ as Judge of the World ", can be seen in the Minerva. This power of giving pleasing expression to a life full of rich- ness and harmony, this incom- parable gift of plasticity, claims for Melozzo a place apart. Not so great and, especially, not so profound as Mantegna or Sig- norelli, he has nevertheless a truly Italian charm all his own, in which the other two masters are lacking. This charm he knew how to utilize even in de- picting the everyday occurrences of life. To illustrate this, Vasari cites in the fresco work of the church of the .Apostles a frieze of vine-gatherers which resembles the genre painting of Benozzo Gozzoli (see his fresco in the Campo Santo at Pisa), but which is treated with quite a new power and with all the grace and tech- nique of a painter of genius. This frieze has been lost, but we can imagine what it was like from a little picture in the College of Forli which shows adruggist's ap- prentice ( ' ' Pesta, Pepe " ) j)ound- ing sugar in a mortar. Never was the joy of living expressed in so bewitching a manner. The paint- ings in the Treasury Chapel at Loretto were merely outlined and begun by Melozzo; their execution is almost en- tirely tlie work of his pupil Palmezzano.
Vasahi. ed. Milanesi, III (Florence. 1878); CnowE and Cavalcaselle. a new history of painting in Italy (London, 1864-66); BuncKHAiiDT, Le Cicerone, Fr. tr. (Paris. 1892); ScHMARZow, Melozzo daForn (Berlin, 1886); Steinmann, Rom in der Renaissance (Leipzig, 1899); Betienson. The Central Italian painters of the Renaissance (3rd ed.. London and New York, 1900); Ricci, Melozzo da Forli (Rome, in press).
Louis Gillet.
Melrose, Abbey of, in Roxburghshire, founded in 1 136 by King David I, was the earliest Cistercian mon- astery established in Scotland. Its first community came from Rielvaux, the Yorkshire house colonized from Citeaux. In less than ten years St. Mary's Ab- bey, Melrose, had been completely built. It stood in a broad glen south of the Tweed, two miles distant from the Celtic monastery of Old Melro.se, where St. Cuth- bert had lived five centuries before. Melrose Abbey suffered greatly from hostile incursions of more than one English monarch; the soldiers of Edward II dese- crated, pillaged, and burned the church; Richard II in 1.385 laid waste the surrounding country and set fire to the abbey. Mainly through tiie generosity of Robert the Bruce, a more stately church was begun in 1326, and scarcely completed by the sixteenth century.
