|
Picture
of
the
Week |
|
We start this new section where
every week a different picture will be showcased. Occasionally, there
will be a second picture for you to identify.
|
The answer will be posted the
following week, but if you do not want to wait, you can always e-mail
me at:
sestiere@aloverofvenice.com (your e-mail address will not be published or shared) |
| John
Ruskin
had
a
very
low
esteem for
the architecture of the High Renaissance and the Baroque, a sentiment that we do
not share at
aloverofvenice. Here is what he has to say about the
façade of the Ospedaletto and other buildings of the period that
he calls the Grotesque Renaissance: About the Ospedaletto: "The most monstrous example of the Grotesque Renaissance which there is in Venice; the sculptures on its façade representing masses of diseased figures and swollen fruit." "It is almost worth devoting an hour to the successive examination of five buildings, as illustrative of the last degradation of the Renaissance. S. Moisè is almost clumsy, S. Maria Zobenigo the most impious, S. Eustachio the most ridiculous, the Ospedaletto the most monstrous, and the head at S. Maria Formosa the most foul." (from "The Stones of Venice," volume III). |
