Even if it’s still Gothic by composition, lack of naturalism and perspective, it’s still a beautiful work of art. The expression of the Virgin, the Gothic tracery of the throne, the volume of the Virgin’s clothes is incredibly detailed. Luis Dalmau is also using oil on table like the Flemish masters

The consellers are the dudes in red robes that look a bit like friars are the councilors of the city of Barcelona, where the table is now, in the Catalonia National Museum. The woman with the Saint Andrew cross is Saint Eulalia; and the guy with the T cross is… Saint Andrew.

Apparently Dalmau was sent with an Erasmus scholarship to work with van Eyck; it’s even said that he might have worked with him in the Ghent altarpiece, but who knows, he might have buffed up his CV. Be that as it may, it’s a fine work of primitive Flemish style, even if made elsewhere.

Well, it’s “after” the Campanile, not a copy. The building materials are different too, and it’s got some “Hermes” heads with the winged helmet instead of our old San Marco’s lion. But on the plus side, it’s really a campanile, isn’t it?

Denver was back then a moderately-sized city, a quarter million people, and a department store was probably good business; what’s surprising is that what required the church or an state to build in the 16th century can be built in the 20th by a private investor. Who spent a pretty penny, too

A tower has a thing, has heft, and height… it was kept when the store was razed, and refurbished as residential and office space. I don’t know if they kept the actual bell, though; it did have a bell commensurate to its size to go with its four clocks.

This Saint Francis of Paula, also after Ribera, uses however an original background and an organization of the light falling on his head that shows also a good control of design and colors.
This can only be visited by appointment, and I really had to hurry up, so I didn’t have time to check it out…

She was a Baroque painter that shared the original hospital walls with Bocanegra, a boastful Baroque painter. She mainly painted “after” Ribera, lo Spagnoletto, like St. John Baptist above, but this Saint Francis, although in the same chiaroscuro style, looks totally original.

The local Vasari, Palomino, mentioned “Mariana de la Cueva, an excellent designer”. But other than a painting in El Prado, little was known about her. A researcher in the University of Granada, however, uncovered 6 more, which are all in this building, in the chapel and in the main corridor.

It would be more brutalist and less grandiose. Checkout Santa Maria Novella in Firenze, or even Santa Lucia, both approved during the Fascist era and if memory serves made by the same architect. Marinetti was in the ministry commission that approved them.
But it’s totally got some totalitarian vibes

The style is a bit neo-Renaissance, with garlands, “candelieri”-like things, and a bit of Western grandeur. The scale is huge for a city that was, back then, little more than a big town, with less than 40000 people. It was a rich town, flush with gold bullion, so why not.

The hourglass, the intertwined garland and snake, the bearded and crowned skull, all saying “remember you are going to die just like this dude down here”. The contrast between the early Renaissance effigy and the Baroque frame is stark, and probably achieves its dramatic purpose.

So it's totally a forged iron owl, and the complicated, putti-filled frame is stucco. It's also totally _not_ a balcony, but a niche to host, well, the owl. Now I'm really baffled.

Come to think of it, the Solomonic columns and the owl make me thing of a closet Freemason, which were not only forbidden, but actively prosecuted. F*ck, rabbit hole a-comin’… and I have a f*ckton of geography assignments to do…