Иконостас, несомненно, заключает в себе политико-религиозное содержание, в той или иной мере определяющее его композицию.
The altarpiece certainly has a politico-religious value which is impressed in and in some way determines the composition.
This huge altarpiece was probably commissioned by Alessandro Sforza, lord of Pesaro, for the city's church of San Francesco.
Действительно, с одной стороны, он является прославлением францисканского символа веры (ордена, тесными узами преданности связанного со Сфорца, тогдашними правителями Пезаро, покровительствовавшими францисканцам) благодаря присутствию по сторонам трона и на правом и левом пилястрах особенно почитаемых святых, чей культ распространялся монахами в Пезаро и на подвластной городу территории.
On the one hand it celebrates the profession of Franciscan faith (an Order linked to the Sforza family, then lords of Pesaro, by strong bonds of devotion and protection) through the presence,
at the sides of the throne and in the left and right-hand pilasters, of saints whose cult was particularly venerated and fostered by the friars in Pesaro and in the territory of the signoria.
С другой стороны, эти святые имеют символическое значение: Георгий, св. рыцарь, которого чтили при дворах знати, и Теренций, пезарский святой, изображенный как античный воин, написаны на базах обрамляющих пилястров, где обычно изображались геральдические гербы, персонифицируя таким образом гражданскую и военную власть Сфорца.
Помещенная за св. Теренцием слева римская мемориальная стела с бюстом и надписью в честь императора Августа вносит дополнительный акцент в тему прославления могущества герцогского рода.
But, on the other hand, they are particularly significant by virtue of a symbolic meaning attributed to their presence: George, the knightly saint so dear to the noble courts, and Terence, saint of Pesaro represented as an ancient "miles",
occupy the compartments at the base of the pilasters, where heraldic insignia were usually placed, and thus represent the civil and military power of the Sforza.
Behind Terence, on the left, a Roman memorial tablet with a bust and an inscription extolling the emperor Augustus completes the celebratory reference to the 'potestas' of the ducal family.
Иконостас мог быть заказан по случаю взятия Градары, крепости, принадлежащей Римини и завоеванной Пезаро в 1463: на изображение Градары намекает пейзаж со множеством башен и крепостью, служащий фоном для сцены коронования.
Согласно другой точке зрения, поводом для исполнения алтаря могло явиться бракосочетание синьора города с Камиллой Арагонской, состоявшееся в 1474.
The occasion for the execution of the altarpiece is also a matter of uncertainty and controversy.
It might have been ordered to celebrate the taking of Gradara, the Riminese fortress conquered by Pesaro in 1463:
the many-towered and fortified landscape in the background of the Coronation would in this case refer to the representation of Gradara.
Alternatively, we might consider the marriage between the lord of Pesaro and Camilla of Aragon in 1474.
Stylistically, the Pesaro Altarpiece marks the achievement of a new balance.
The lesson of Mantegna appears to have been sublimated in the light of that of Piero della Francesca, thus opening the way to yet another issue:
where and when, in other words, had Bellini been able to contemplate and become so well acquainted with the art of Piero della Francesca.
Probably the Pesaro Altarpiece itself constituted for him the occasion of a journey from Venice to the Marches, which was among other things his mother's birthplace,
and therefore the possibility of a direct appreciation of the works of Piero della Francesca.
Типично венецианская архитектура алтарной картины напоминает архитектуру некоторых современных Беллини надгробных памятников, прежде всего, надгробие дожа Паскуале Малипьеро, воздвигнутое Пьетро Ломбарде в церкви свв. Иоанна и Павла.
Тем не менее характер обрамления алтаря является принципиально новым, даже если и имеет отдельные прецеденты (как, например, полиптих Мантеньи в церкви Сан Дзено), по своему пространственному и перспективному построению составляя единое целое с картиной.
The typically Venetian architecture of the altarpiece recalls that of some contemporary funerary monuments, primarily that of the Doge Pasquale Malipiero, erected by Pietro Lombardo in the church of St John and St Paul.
However, the typology of a frame that is integral with the painting, in the interests of an inseparable perspective and spatial continuity, is fundamentally new (even if it drew on various precedents, such as Mantegna's San Zeno Polyptych).
The idea of the throne's open back-piece, a veritable painting within a painting, serves precisely to resume and further articulate this new structural and compositional definition.
In the great altarpiece that followed, that of San Giobbe (~1487) and in the altarpieces to come this intuition would develop and mature until it reached a total, and also optical, indivisibility of the painting from its frame,
which constitutes the only real access to it, the starting point of the vision itself.
The picture shows a photomontage of the Pesaro Altarpiece.
The Coronation of the Virgin remained in the church of San Francesco at the time of its dissolution in 1797,
then became the property of the Comune, and after various vicissitudes ended up at the Musei Civici in Pesaro, where it is now.
The Pieta, which according to customary canons of the time crowned it, had a different history. At the time of the church's dissolution, it went to Paris; it was recovered and brought to Rome by Canova in 1815;
it finally came to the Vatican Pinacoteca, where it was given various different attributions (Bartolomeo Montagna, Giovanni Buonconsiglio, Andrea Mantegna) and it is to be found there still.
It has always been considered the original cymatium of the Coronation, replaced in the 18th century by a painting of St Jerome.
According to some critics the painting was not intended by Bellini to be arranged on this altarpiece, and possibly it became its crowning piece only some years later.
