MELOZZO DA FORLI

The figure shows an angel from the dome decoration in the Basilica of Santa Casa in Loreto.

Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere (later Pope Julius II) commissioned the decoration of the apse of the Santi Apostoli in Rome. It was painted by Melozzo da Forli between 1480 and 1484. Only fragment of this remain, showing the Ascension, Apostles and music-making angels.

The picture shows one of the angels, now in the Vatican museums.

The fresco is located in the seventh chapel of the Pantheon.

Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere (later Pope Julius II) commissioned the decoration of the apse of the Santi Apostoli in Rome. It was painted by Melozzo da Forli between 1480 and 1484. Only fragment of this remain, showing the Ascension, Apostles and music-making angels.

The picture shows one of the apostles, now in the Vatican museums.

The wall area below the vaulting is conceived as an open arcade, the deep, coffered faces of its arches rendered in dramatic perspective. Through these wide arches, seen from below, one could at one time look out at seven scenes from the Passion, only one of which, Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, survives.

History was not kind to the Emilian painter Melozzo da Forli, since his only work that survives in excellent condition is this group portrait executed in fresco for the Vatican Palace. The reigning pope, Sixtus IV, seated on the right, is shown in the company of several individuals, including two of his nephews. The standing figure in the centre of the composition facing Sixtus can be identified as his nephew Giuliano, later Pope Julius II. Melozzo’s manner recalls that of Mantegna, although it is somewhat less insistent and more approachable.

The fresco represents the historical event of the foundation of the library in 1475 and the nomination of its first head, Bartolomeo Platina. He is kneeling in front of Pope Sixtus IV, the cardinal standing beside him is Giuliano della Rovere, the future Pope Julius II. The man standing beside the throne is Apostolic Protonotary Raffaello Riario, and behind Platina are Girolamo Riario and Giovanni della Rovere. Platina points his finger to the Latin inscription below.

Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere (later Pope Julius II) commissioned the decoration of the apse of the Santi Apostoli in Rome. It was painted by Melozzo da Forli between 1480 and 1484. Only fragment of this remain, showing the Ascension, Apostles and music-making angels.

The picture shows one of the angels, now in the Vatican museums.

Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere (later Pope Julius II) commissioned the decoration of the apse of the Santi Apostoli in Rome. It was painted by Melozzo da Forli between 1480 and 1484. Only fragment of this remain, showing the Ascension, Apostles and music-making angels.

The picture shows one of the angels, now in the Vatican museums.

Vasari described Melozzo as “a great artist for perspective,” emphasizing the painter’s undisputed skill in daring foreshortening “di sotto in su” (from below looking up), a characteristic that Melozzo made his own, though it was derived from Piero della Francesca and Mantegna.

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The figure known in Italy by the name pestapepe (peppergrinder) belonged to a widespread repertoire of types which appears in several other Italian paintings in the fifteenth century.

This picture is a fragment of a monumental fresco executed in the chancel of the church of Santi Apostoli in Rome. The fresco represented the Ascension of Christ. Only 16 fragments of the fresco survived.

The central figure of the ascending Christ appears in the middle of clouds and putti, his arms extended, his hair and beard floating in the breeze, his eyes gazing calmly downward.

This picture shows an angel at the foot of Christ.

Cardinal Girolamo Basso della Rovere called Melozzo to Loreto to decorate the sacristy of the Basilica of the Santa Casa. This remarkable building was being constructed by Giuliano da Sangallo to enshrine the Holy House (Santa Casa) of the Virgin Mary, which tradition held had been brought from the Holy Land to Loreto by angels in the fourteenth century. Although Melozzo never completed the commission, which involved wall paintings as well, it is his only cycle that survives in its original spot unaltered.

Melozzo has painted each face of the dome with ornamental paneling composed of his favourite elements - guilloches, acanthus, bead-and-reel, palmettes, and dolphins - converging on a central garland of Della Rovere oak leaves that embraces the cardinal’s coat-of-arms. Melozzo painted figures that seem to sit or float in the actual space of the sacristy.

The centre of the vaulting in the Sacristy of St mark, with the coat of arms of the cardinal-bishop Girolamo Basso della Rovere, is surrounded by a wreath of heads of putti and hovering angels.

The Santuario della Santa Casa (Sanctuary of the Holy House) at Loreto was constructed in the fifteenth century to enshrine the Holy House (Santa Casa) of the Virgin Mary, which tradition held had been brought from the Holy Land to Loreto by angels in the fourteenth century. The heart of the sanctuary is an unprepossessing brick chapel, said to be the structure in which the Virgin Mary was born, received the Annunciation, lived with Joseph and her child after returning from Egypt, and finally died in the presence of the twelve apostles.

In its layout, the shrine consists of three-aisle arms ending in apses to the north, east, and south, and a six-bay nave extending to the west. The chapels off the nave were added only after 1507, by Bramante. Around the crossing, with the Santa Casa in the centre, are four octagonal rooms, closed off by doors, that are referred to simply as sacristies. Two of the four were painted in the fifteenth century, the Sacristy of St John by Luca Signorelli, and the Sacristy of St Mark by Melozzo da Forli.

There is a close connection between the gospel texts and the pictorial programs of the two painted sacristies. The paintings in the Sacristy of St Mark focus on the Passion, appropriately, since it is Mark who describes it in the greatest detail. The Gospel of St John, by contrast, places particular emphasis on the gathering of Christ’s disciples and the mission of the apostles, and this is reflected in the paintings of the Sacristy of St John.

In Luca Signorelli’s Sacristy of St John in Loreto, one is struck by the monumental figures in the wall compartments. In the Sacristy of St Mark, by contrast, it is the vaulting, with its deep, vivid colours, that immediately captures the viewer’s attention. This eight-part Gothic vaulting is one of the most astonishing examples of monumental illusionistic wall painting from the fifteenth century. The wall area below it is conceived as an open arcade, the deep, coffered faces of its arches rendered in dramatic perspective. Through these wide arches, seen from below, one could at one time look out at seven scenes from the Passion, only one of which, Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, survives.