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The contrast between the tomb of Andrea Vendramin, who was Doge 1476-1478, and that of Tomasso Mocenigo, who was Doge 1414-1423, is central to the argument of the first volume of Stones of Venice. For the Vendramin tomb see Notebook M2 p.39 and Gothic Book p.50 for what appear to be the initial notes for that passage; Works, 9.49-52 and the footnotes there; Works, 11.107. For the Mocenigo tomb see Notebook M2 p.16; Notebook M2 p.21; Works, 9.48; Works, 11.102.
It is cited in Ruskin’s index at Notebook M2 p.192 as one of two examples of bad tomb effigies; the others were the images of the Popes at Avignon recorded at Notebook M2 p.152.
Ruskin, like Selvatico (1847) p.221, attributed the Vendramin tomb to Alessandro Leopardi, goldsmith, engraver of dies, and bronze-founder, who was active 1482-1522. Apart from his work on the casting of the Colleoni monument, Leopardi is best known for the bronze bases of the standards outside St.Marks. Ruskin certainly saw Leopardi’s exile for fraud between 1487 and 1488 as one of the most important facts in Volume One of Stones of Venice: a fraudulent sculptor and a fraudulent sculpture. Works, 10.292f on the Ducal Palace capitals of Upper Arcade argues a different case; taking account of viewpoint of the observer was there seen as a strength of the sculptors of the capitals of which Ruskin approved. A similar point is made at Works, 9.297 about the ‘head of the Adam of the Ducal Palace’ and the account the sculptor took of the viewpoint from which it would be seen.
The commission for the Vendramin tomb was given in 1488 to Tullio Lombardo, and his brother Antonio Lombardo was involved in the work. There is a link between Antonio Lombardo and Alessandro Leopardi in that they were commissioned in 1504 to work together on the bronze tomb of Cardinal Zen in the Cappella Zen adjoining the baptistery of St. Mark’s.
Compare Notebook M2 p.9 for an attribution to the ‘school of Leopardo’.
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[Version 0.05: May 2008]