FRANCESCO LAURANA. — Sculptor, born in Dalmatia, perhaps in Zara, in the early decades of the fifteenth century, and active in Naples, the Marches, Sicily, and France; he probably died in 1502. His early education remains problematic, but he may have been among the sculptors working in Rimini under the direction of Agostino di Duccio and Matteo di Pasti in the Malatesta Temple. Some have even attributed to Laurana the sculptures adorning the apartment of Jole in the Ducal Palace of Urbino, which, however, are now unanimously recognized as the work of the Fiesolan Michele di Giovanni.
In any case, he was certainly in Naples in his youth, where he worked on sculptural projects for the Aragonese Arch and the Castelnuovo. After Alfonso’s death, he traveled to France, where he struck medals for the most prominent figures of the time, portraying them with rare mastery. But by 1468 he was back in Italy, specifically in Sicily. To that year is probably attributed one of his masterpieces, the portrait of Eleonora d’Aragona, depicted half-length. In Sciacca, he directed the work on a side door of the church of S. Maria, where his hand can be recognized in the lunette. Also in 1468, he executed the Mastrantonio Chapel in the church of S. Francesco in Palermo, though with the assistance of other artists. The numerous commissions likely obliged him to entrust the execution of certain works to others, such as the Madonna in the chapel of the Palermo cathedral, originally commissioned for Monte S. Giuliano but retained in the city; similarly, another Madonna, executed later to replace the first, is found in the chapel of the Assumption in the cathedral of Montesanguliano. A Madonna entirely by the artist and signed by him is another work, located in the church of the Crucifixion in Noto, and finally, one in S. Agostino in Messina. In 1472, the sculptor was again in Naples, where, among other works, he executed the bust of Beatrice d’Aragona, daughter of Ferdinand I; this bust later passed to the Berlin Museum. Subsequently, he went to Urbino, perhaps between 1474 and 1477, the year in which he returned definitively to France. During his Urbino period, he created the portrait of the Duchess Battista Sforza, now in the National Museum of Florence, and her marble profile, now in the Civic Museum of Pesaro. From 1477 to 1483, Laurana worked in Marseille at the ancient cathedral, where he executed the altar of S. Lazzaro, not without collaborators; he then went to Avignon and other locations in France, primarily devoting himself to funerary monuments.
Examining his most certain and deservedly famous works, one must acknowledge him as one of the greatest artists of the Renaissance, inclined toward a lyrical exaltation of the subject represented. He aspired to simplify forms through a geometric synthesis of volumes, thus recalling the art of Piero della Francesca, with whom Laurana must evidently have been
LAURA — Cave and Laura of St. Chariton — Palestine, Wadi Fara.
of St. Sabas, is “hegumen in his own cell.” St. Euthymius and St. Sabas, in the 5th century, greatly promoted this type of monastic life; however, the monks admitted to live in the cells of the laura first had to undergo a period of formation and probation in a kind of cenobium located in the same area. But the laura system was not without drawbacks and made supervision difficult, leading to a tendency to transform the anchoritic life into cenobitic life. The fundamental distinction between the two systems recurs frequently in the lives of St. Euthymius and St. Sabas, written by Cyril of Scythopolis, and the different way of life is vividly described by Evagrius Scholasticus (Hist. eccl., II, 21: PG 86, 2477-84).
The name and institution of the laura, common in Palestine, spread to various parts of the Byzantine Empire. Over time, however, the term laura became synonymous with monastery, whether the foundation evolved from a laura into a cenobium or was originally established as such (cenobitic laura). Indeed, in more recent times, laura (ή λάυρα πρός, and transcribed lavra) became an honorary title to designate a famous, large, and populous cenobium; thus, in Russia, only four great monasteries are called lauras: the Laura of St. Sergius near Moscow, the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, the Laura of St. Alexander Nevsky near Petrograd (all three seats of the metropolitanate), and the Laura of the Assumption at Pochaev in Volhynia.
The most famous laura in Palestine, which still exists today, is that of St. Sabas near Jerusalem, by the Kidron Valley, called the “Great Laura,” now “Mar Saba,” occupied by dissident monks. The great lauras of Mount Athos and Mount Sinai have also had particular historical significance.
Closely related to the Palestinian laura is the “Secta” or Skete (ή σκήτη), which recalls the way of life practiced in Egypt, especially in the deserts of Nitria and Skete (Σκήτη or Σκήτης), and later imitated elsewhere, PATMOS (v.): thus, “secta” and “laura” were considered almost synonymous terms (De Meester [V. BIBLICA.], p. 299). However, while originally the “secta” was sui iuris, in more recent times, assuming a juridical
of St. Sabas, is “hegumen in his own cell.” St. Euthymius and St. Sabas, in the 5th century, greatly promoted this type of monastic life; the monks admitted to live in the cells of the laura first had to undergo a period of formation and probation
FRANCESCO LAURANA — PIERRE-SÉBASTIEN LAURENTIE
in connection, and an ideal kinship with the greatest Sicilian painter, Antonello da Messina. Yet such a coherent and personal art does not always align with many works attributed to the sculptor, a sign that his personality has not yet been fully disentangled from that of his numerous collaborators.