[Footnote 94:  “Letters,” Florence ed. 1741, vol. ii. 45.]

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Alinari

TOMB OF CARDINAL BRANCACCI

NAPLES]

[Sidenote:  The Brancacci Tomb.]

The Church of Sant’ Angelo a Nilo at Naples contains the monument of Cardinal Brancacci, one of the most impressive tombs of this period.  The scheme is a modification of the Coscia tomb.  Instead of the three Virtues in niches at the base, there are three larger allegorical figures, which are free standing caryatides below the sarcophagus.  They are allegorical figures, perhaps Fates, and correspond with the two somewhat similar statues at Montepulciano.  The Cardinal’s effigy lies upon the stone coffin, the face of which has a bas-relief between heraldic shields.  Two angels stand above the recumbent figure, holding back the curtain which extends upwards to the next storey, surrounding a deep lunette in which there is a Madonna between two Saints.  Here the monument should have ended, but it is surmounted by an ogival arch, flanked by two trumpeting children and with a central medallion of God the Father.  This topmost tier may have been a subsequent addition.  It overweights the whole monument, introduces a discordant architectural motive, and is decorated by inferior sculpture.  The Madonna in the lunette is also poor, and the curtain looks as if it were made of lead.  But the lower portion of the tomb compensates for the faults above.  The caryatides, the bas-relief of the Assumption, the Cardinal himself and the mourning angels above him, are all superb in their different ways.  Michelozzo may have been responsible for the architecture, and Pagno di Lapo for the upper reliefs.  Donatello himself made the priceless relief of the Assumption, also the effigy, and the two attendants standing above it.  The entire tomb is marble:  it was made at Pisa,[95] close to the inexhaustible quarries which, being near to the sea, made transport easy and cheap.  From the time of Strabo, the marmor Lunense had been carried thence to every port of the Peninsula.[96] Michelozzo took the tomb to Naples, and perhaps added the final touches:  not, indeed, that the carving is quite complete, the Cardinal’s ear, for instance, being rough-hewn.  Brancacci lies to the left, wearing a mitre on his head, which is raised on a pillow.  The chiselling of the face is masterly.  The features are shown in painful restless repose.  The eyes are sunken and half closed:  the lips are drawn, the brow contracted, and the throat shows all the tendons and veins which one notices in the Habbakuk, but which are here relaxed and uncontrolled.  It is a death-mask:  a grim and instantaneous likeness of the supreme moment, when the agony may have passed away, but not without leaving indelible traces of the crisis.  The two angels look down on the dead prelate.  They hold back the curtain