light open loggia of semicircular arches on the ground floor, was designed by Fra Giocondo towards the end of the 15th century; its sculptured enrichments of pilasters and friezes are very graceful, though lacking the vigorous life of the earlier medieval sculptured ornamentation. Verona contains a number of handsome palaces designed by Sanmichele in the 16th century. The finest are those of the Bevilacqua,[1] Canossa and Pompeii families. The last of these is now the property of the city, and contains a gallery with some good pictures, especially of the Verona, Padua and Venice schools. As in Venice, many of the 16th-century palaces in Verona had stuccoed façades, richly decorated with large fresco paintings, often by very able painters. Verona, perhaps, had as many of these paintings as any town in Italy, but comparatively few are preserved and those only to a small extent. The domestic architecture of Verona cannot thus be now fairly estimated, and seems monotonous, heavy and uninteresting. The house of the painter Niccolo Giolfino still has its frescoes in a good state of preservation, and gives a vivid notion of what must once have been the effect of these gorgeous pictured palaces. The episcopal palace contains the ancient and valuable chapter library, of about 12,000 volumes and over 500 MSS., among them the palimpsest of the Institutiones of Gaius which Niebuhr discovered. The Piazza delle Erbe (fruit and vegetable market) Squares. and the Piazza dei Signori, adjoining one another in the oldest part of the city, are very picturesque and beautiful, being surrounded by many fine medieval buildings, several of them of a public character (Palazzo dei Giureconsulti, Palazzo della Ragione and the lofty Torre Civica, 273 ft. high), while in the north-east corner of the latter Piazza is the fine early Renaissance Palazzo del Consiglio (1476–1492), probably designed by Fra Giocondo. In the former Piazza a copy of the lion of Venice has been erected.
The Roman remains of Verona surpass those of any other city of northern Italy. The most conspicuous of them is the great amphitheatre, a building perhaps of the end of the 1st century A.D., which in general form closely resembled the Colosseum in Rome. Its axes measured 505 and 404 ft. Almost the whole of its external arcades, with three tiers of Roman remains. arches, have now disappeared; it was partly thrown down by an earthquake in 1184, and subsequently used to supply building materials. Many of its blocks are still visible in the walls of various medieval buildings. The interior, with seats for about 25,000 people, has been frequently restored, till nothing of the old seats exists. There are also remains of a well-preserved Roman theatre, close to the left bank of the river. A number of fine sculptures were found in the square in front of the cathedral in 1890, and architectural fragments belonging to some public building. In 1884–86 portions of a number of fine mosaic pavements were discovered extending over a very large area under the cloister and other parts of the cathedral, about 7 ft. below the present ground level. They had geometric patterns with birds, trees, &c., and bore inscriptions in mosaic with the names of the donors. Parts of them had been discovered previously. They seem to belong to two different buildings, both early churches of the 5th and 6th centuries A.D. (cf. Notizie degli Scavi, 1884, 401). For the two triumphal arches (Porta dei Bosari and Porta dei Leoni) see below. The Museo Lapidario contains a fine collection of Roman and Etruscan inscriptions and sculpture, mostly collected and published by Scipione Maffei in the 18th century.
Veronese Art.—In many respects the resemblance between Verona and Florence is very striking; in both cases we have a strongly fortified city built in a fertile valley, on the banks of a winding river, with suburbs on higher ground, rising close above the main city. In architectural magnificence and in wealth of sculpture and painting Verona almost rivalled the Tuscan city, and, like it, gave birth to a very large number of artists who distinguished themselves in all branches of the fine arts.
Painting in Verona may be divided into four periods, (i.) The first period is characterized by wall paintings of purely native style, closely resembling the early Christian pictures in the catacombs of Rome. Examples dating from the 10th to the 11th century have been discovered hidden by whitewash on the oldest parts of the nave walls of the church of S. Zeno. They are Painting. a very interesting survival of the almost classical . Roman style of painting, and appear to be quite free from the generally prevalent Byzantine influence, (ii.) The Byzantine period seems to have lasted during the 12th and 13th centuries, (iii.) The Giottesque period begins contemporaneously with Altichiero da Zevio and Giacomo degli Avanzi, whose chief works were executed during the second half of the 14th century. These two painters were among the ablest of Giotto’s followers, and adorned Verona and Padua with a number of very beautiful frescoes, rich in composition, delicate in colour, and remarkable for their highly finished modelling and detail. (iv.) To the fourth period belong several important painters. Pisanello or Vittore Pisano, a charming painter and the greatest medallist of Italy, was probably a pupil of Altichiero.[2] Most of his frescoes in Verona have perished; but one of great beauty still exists in a very perfect state in the church of S. Anastasia, high up over the arched opening into one of the eastern chapels of the south transept. The scene represents St George and the Princess after the conquest of the Dragon, with accessory figures, the sea, a mountainous landscape and an elaborately painted city in the background. The only other existing fresco by Pisanello is an Annunciation in S. Fermo Maggiore. For Pisanello’s pupils and other painters of subsequent date, see Painting. These include Liberale da Verona, Domenico and Francesco Morone, Girolamo dai Libri (1474–1556), &c. Domenico del Riccio, usually nicknamed Brusasorci (1494–1567), was a prolific painter whose works are very numerous in Verona. Paolo Cagliari or Paul Veronese, and the Bonifagios, though natives of Verona, belong rather to the Venetian school.
Verona is specially rich in early examples of decorative sculpture, (i.) The first period is that of northern or Lombardic influence, exemplified in the very interesting series of reliefs which cover the western façades of the church of S. Zeno and the cathedral, dating from the 12th-century. These reliefs represent both sacred subjects and scenes of war and hunting,Sculpture. mixed with grotesque monsters, such as specially delighted the rude, vigorous nature of the Lombards; they are all richly decorative in effect, though strange and unskilful in detail. Part of the western bronze doors of S. Zeno are especially interesting as being among the earliest important examples in Italy of cast bronze reliefs. They are frequently stated to be of beaten bronze, but they are really castings, apparently by the cire perdue process. They represent scenes from the life of S. Zeno, are rudely modelled, and yet very dramatic and sculpturesque in style. Parts of these doors are covered with bronze reliefs of scenes from the Bible, which are of still earlier date, and were probably brought to Verona from the Rhine provinces. Many of the 12th century reliefs and sculptured capitals in S. Zeno are signed by the sculptor but these merely constitute lists of names about whom nothing is known, (ii.) In the 13th century the sculpture seems to have lost the Lombard vigour, without acquiring any qualities of superior grace or refinement. The font in the baptistery near the cathedral is an early example of this. Each side of the octagon is covered with a large relief of a Biblical subject, very dull in style and coarse in execution. The font itself is interesting for its early form, one common in the chief baptisteries of northern Italy: like an island in the centre of the great octagonal tankisalobed marble receptacle, in which the officiating priest stood while he immersed the catechumens. A movable wooden bridge must have been used to enable the priest to cross the water in the surrounding tank. (iii.) The next period is that of Florentine influence. This is exemplified in the magnificently sculptured tombs of the Della. Scala lords, designed with steadily growing splendour, from the simple sarcophagus of Martino I. down to the elaborate erection over the tomb of the fratricide Can Signorio, adorned with statuettes of the virtues, to the possession of which he could lay so little claim.[3] The recumbent effigies and decorative details of these tombs are very beautiful, but the smaller figures of angels, saints and virtues are rather clumsy in proportion. The latest tomb, that of Can Signorio, erected during his lifetime (c. 1370), is signed “Boninus de Campigliono Mediolanensis Dioecesis.” This sculptor, though of Milanese origin, belongs really to the school of the Florentine Andrea Pisano. One characteristic of the 14th and 15th centuries in Verona was the custom, also followed in other Lombardic cities, of setting large equestrian statues over the tombs of powerful military leaders, in some cases above the recumbent effigy of the dead man, as if to represent him in full vigour of life as well as in death. That which crowns the canopy over the tomb of Can Grande is a very noble, though somewhat quaint, work. (iv.) In the 15th century the influence of Venice became paramount, though this was really only a further development of the Florentine manner, Venice itself having been directly influenced in the 14th century by many able sculptors from Florence.
The architecture of Verona, like its sculpture, passed through
Lombard, Florentine and Venetian stages, (i.) The church of S. Zeno and the cathedral, both of which were mainly rebuilt in the 12th century, are noble examples of the Lombardic style, with few single-light windows, and with the walls decorated externally by series of pilasters, and by alternating bandsArchitecture. of red and white, in stone or brick. The arches of this period are
