Venice: Frari

At the time Edward Hutton visited S. Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in the first decade of the twentieth century, Titian's Assunta had been removed and placed in the Accademia. Nevertheless, two of the greatest paintings of the Venetian Renaissance were still in place. Here is his description.* 

Giovanni Bellini: Pesaro Altarpiece

Here, too, stood one of the great treasures of the church, an altarpiece by Giovanni Bellini, painted in 1488, one of the loveliest of his works. It still carries its original Renaissance frame. In the midst is the Blessed virgin, enthroned, with her little Son, standing on her knee. At her feet are two music making angels of pure delight, while on the side panels are four splendid saints on guard—S. Peter, S. Nicholas, S. Paul, and S. Benedict. Nothing that was ever in the church can have been lovelier than this quiet altarpiece. … (134-135)

Titian" Pesaro Atarpiece

 The great and beautiful thing which recalls us to this aisle of the Frari again and again is Titian’s famous Madonna del Pesaro….Under a vast and beautiful Renaissance arch, through which we see a great sky full of snow-white clouds, between two mighty pillars, the Madonna sits enthroned, her little Son standing on her knee laughing with and blessing S. Francis, behind whom is S. Anthony. Bending a little to her right, Madonna holds her child with both hands gently, firmly, and receives the homage of Bishop Jacopo, who is introduced by S. Peter, beyond whom a bearded warrior, leading a Turk and a Moor in chains, uprears the standard of the Borgia. On the right of the picture beneath S. Francis kneel the family of the Bishop, three old men, perhaps his brothers, a youth, and a fair-haired child who gazes sweetly out of the canvas, while above one of those great white clouds has sailed into the great portico across the height of the pillars, and upon it, like children on a toy ship, are two winged angelini bearing the cross. I suppose there is no other work of Titian in Venice which is so consummate a work of art or so wonderfully original a composition as this. Its humanity and quietness, the beauty of its colour too, its inexhaustible perfection are the chief reasons why one continually returns to the Frari. (134-137)

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Edward Hutton, Venice and Venetia,  London, third edition, 1929, first published 1911.

* The Assunta is now in its rightful place above the main altar. It had been removed to the Academmia in 1816 but restored to the Frari in 1916. Its 21 panels measuring 690 x 360 cm were restored in 1994.