Although an immense amount of sculpture of this period remains in various parts of Italy, it is very difficult to trace the story of separate artists and to give a satisfactory account of those whose works are worthy of high praise. There is scarcely an Italian city of any size which has not some splendid remains of this morning of the Renaissance. In Ancona there are the portal of San Francesco and the front of Mercanzia, with which the name of Giorgio da Sebenico is associated. At Rimini the Church of San Francesco, with its wealth of plastic ornament, cannot be ascribed to any one artist or to any number with surety; it is in the style of Luca della Robbia and Donatello, but in the execution does not reach their standard. In Cesena, Padua, and Verona there are fifteenth-century sculptures, and in the Milanese territory the plastic art of this period is very interesting.
[Illustration: FIGS. 89, 90.--TERRA-COTTAS FROM THE OSPEDALE GRANDE. _Milan._]
In Milan, in the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, in the Ospedale Grande, and in the cathedral there is a wealth of sculpture to reward the student of this art who visits them; and in the Museum of the Breda there are many interesting works. The terra-cotta decoration of the Ospedale excels all other works of this sort in upper Italy, and the immense façade of this edifice is a marvel in its way (Figs. 89, 90). The differences between this hospital and the wonderful Milan Cathedral afford a remarkable contrast in works of the same period.
GIOVANNI ANTONIO AMADEO, or OMODEO (1447-1520), was born on a farm near the Certosa of Pavia. When but nineteen years old his name appears as one of those who were employed upon this splendid edifice, and the records of his payments show that his work was well considered, even then. Omodeo was undoubtedly the best sculptor of his time in all Lombardy, and his sculptures in the Colleoni Chapel at Bergamo would be sufficient to make any artist famous. The whole work may be called his, for he designed the building and the sculptures of the façade, which are in the richest style of the Renaissance; there are statuettes, colonettes, busts, medallions, and bas-reliefs, and wherever a flat surface exists it is divided into diamond-shaped slabs of colored marbles. The portal is very much ornamented: on each side of the rose window above this entrance there are busts of Cæsar and Augustus in contrast with numbers of angels' heads not far away. There are bas-reliefs representing children playing upon musical instruments, and the whole front of the chapel, with its numerous pilasters and colonettes, has been compared to a gigantic organ, by Mr. Perkins, in his "Italian Sculptors".