XIX

THE GALLERY AND THE MUSEUM

Ravenna isolated in her marsh and altogether, both geographically and
politically, out of the Italian world that began to flower so
wonderfully in Tuscany, then in Umbria, and later still in Venice in
the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, is the last city
in which to look for pictures. Nevertheless a few delightful pieces
among much that is negligible are to be found in the Accademia delle
Belle Arti in the Via Alfredo Baccarini. The collection was begun
about 1827, and though what is to be seen there is never of the first
importance it is certainly more than we had the right to expect.

The first two rooms upon the upper floor are devoted to the Romagnuol
and Bolognese painters, the best of them here pupils or disciples of
the one master Ravenna can boast, Niccolo Rondinelli.

We have seen Rondinelli's organ shutters in S. Domenico, here we have
something better. This really fine pupil of Giovanni Bellini was born
it seems in Ravenna in the middle of the fifteenth century. Vasari
tells us that "there also flourished in Romagna an excellent painter
called Rondinello.... Giovanni Bellini, whose disciple he had been,
had availed himself to a considerable extent of his services in
various works. But after Rondinello had left Giovanni Bellini he
continued to practise his art and in such a manner that, being
exceedingly diligent, he produced numerous works which are highly
deserving of and have obtained considerable praise.... For the altar
of S. Maria Maddalena in the cathedral of Ravenna this master painted
a picture in oil, wherein he portrayed the figure of that saint only;
but in the predella he executed three stories, the small figures of
which are very gracefully depicted. In one of these is our Saviour
Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen in the form of the gardener; another
shows S. Peter leaving the ship and walking upon the waves of the sea,
and between them is the Baptism of Christ. All these representations
are executed in an exceedingly beautiful manner.[1] Rondinello
likewise painted two pictures in the church of S. Giovanni Evangelista
in the same city. One of these portrays the Consecration of the church
by S. Giovanni[2] and the other exhibits three martyrs, S. Cancio, S.
Canciano, and S. Cancianilla, all very beautiful figures.[3] For the
church of S. Apollinare also in Ravenna this master painted two
pictures, each containing a single figure, S. Gio