"She [Madonna] bends forward to give a pearl rosary to St. Dominic...behind him St. Thomas and to the extreme left is the Magdalen....the child holds out his arms towards the model of the town held up the towns patron Saint Esuperanzio who kneels opposite to Dominic, forming with him, the putti (little angels) and the Madonna, a well arranged pyramidal composition..S. Esuperanzio wears a mitre, a purplish pink mantle and maniples, and a hood of a cloth of gold upon which is embroidered the Coronation of the Virgin. Behind him stands a nun St. Sperandia with lilies and a crucifix in her hands and beside her to the extreme right St. Peter Martyr...under the lichen-covered stone platform at the Madonna's feet a playful putto gathers up handfuls of rose-petals from a wicker basket and scatters them like a meteor shower (I like this analogy!) over St. Dominic. [footnote -- it is still custom in Central Italy at least to strew rose-petals on Corpus Domini.] Another putto presents a rose to St. Sperandia and the infant John points up to the Christ Child ...above...from the rose hedges branches hang, like Japanese lanterns, fifteen tondi, each containing a picture..although wonderful in themselves they must be looked at apart from the rest of the work for together the effect is not satisfactory.The lower part of the picture containing the Madonna and the saints is ...unrivaled amongst Lotto's works for its cool shawdows and general town..the last scene in the tondi deserves special attention..The Madonna prostrates herself in space, spearated by seems an endless stretch of ether from Christ and God the father who are crowning her. Lotto attains here a sublimity which is rare elsewhere in painting and which can be compared to Milton only. The gulf between the human and the Divine has never been indicated with more spiritual suggestiveness. One need only look at these Cingnoli Tondi and then at Titians Religion Succoured by Spain or even his Trinity to see that genuine religious feeling inspires the one painter and mere compliance the other...Lorenzo Lotto: An Essay in Constructive Art Criticism by Bernhard Berensonhttp://books.google.com/bo
Mystery solved. Thanks Therese. I owe you one.
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