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The doge Cristoforo Moro (1462-1471) commissioned the altar of the chapel
of St. Clement and the altars of St. Paul and St. James in the north and
south transepts. Each is a pendant to the other in form, size and location.
An inscription on each recalls the commissioning doge.
The entire work must have been completed before 28th June 1469, the day
when payment was made to young Antonio Rizzo of Verona for execution of
the altars. Rizzo therefore made his artistic debut with the most prestigious
sculpture commission then available in Venice.
The presence of Franciscan saint and preacher St. Bernardino of Siena
with St. Mark at the sides of the Virgin on the altar of St. Clement bears
witness to the doge's special veneration of the recently canonised saint.
The present day layout of the relief of Virgin and Child with the two
saints is the result of modification around 1811 with the insertion of
a relief depicting the Doge Andrea Gritti worshipping St. Nicoḷ, sculpted
in 1523 by an unknown artist for the chapel of St. Nicoḷ in the ducal
palace.
On the altars of Saints James and Paul the statues of the saints are surrounded
by renaissance tabernacles. Rizzo was one of the first to use, in his
altars, pilaster strips, a trabeation and a lunette, the latter set to
frame the altar-piece.
The greater variety of areas and profiles on the altar of St. Paul would
suggest that it is of a later date than that of St. James. In the former
work the distribution of body weight shows little uniformity and is far
more evident due to a pronounced unbalancing of the pelvic axis and a
more decisive projection of the raised leg. The contrary rotation of head
and shoulders in St. Paul produces a slight torsion whereas the figure
of St. James is still conditioned by the closed geometries of the cube
of stone used for the sculpture.
The drapery of both statues - as well as that of the Virgin and of St.
Mark on the altar of St. Clement - betrays the influence of Paduan art
around 1450. The conversion of St. Paul, on the contrary, is indebted
to Florentine art, the so-called "flattened" relief technique; the simulation
of atmospheric perspective and the dissolving of the land by means of
a carpet of clouds. These expedients, today admirable only in old images,
suggest that Rizzo had seen Donatello's Florentine reliefs.
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