The tombs in the Abbey of St. Denis, near Paris (1264) built by St. Louis for his ancestors and his sons are characteristic exam ples of 13th century tombs. In these the figure is modelled not in relief but in the round. Each figure, represented as in early manhood, and rendered as a standing figure laid upon the ground, is graciously idealized. Each has a simple architectural framework, low in relief, and each is placed on a base embellished with pic torial reliefs. The expression is calm and benign and the draperies straight and simple with long clearly incised lines. The tombs for Rollo and William Longue-Epée, in the cathedral of Rouen (c. 1270), the bronze figures of Geoffrey d'Eu, in the cathedral at Amiens, are other interesting examples of these austere effigies.
Characteristic of the 14th century is the tomb of Charles V., at St. Denis by Andre Beauneveu; where the advancing realism of the century expresses itself in accurate portraiture and in more flowing and natural draperies. The figure is portrayed in the stiff ness of death, and about him are grouped representations of his relatives in the costumes and attitudes of mourners. The fine tombs of the popes at Avignon—one of which is elaborated with a canopy—and the effigy of Robert d'Artois at St. Denis, clad in full armour with a lance in his hand, are other examples which illus trate the growing interest in actuality. In the 15th century, when this principle reached its widest acceptance, Flanders and Germany became the most important centres for sepulchral art. At Tournai there was developed the type of tomb in which the figure of the deceased, no longer dead and recumbent, kneels before the Virgin or some religious object ; and these tombs, the production of which amounted to an industry, were exported to all parts of England, France and Germany, and widely imitated. The "Monument to Isabella de Bourbon" in the cathedral at Antwerp (c. 1465) and the "Tomb of Louis de Male, at Lille" (1455), both of which are of bronze, are characteristic examples of this Flemish art in which the elaboration of detail and the representation of action and of personality are clearly the preoccupation of the sculptor. Burgundy, which after the beginning of the Hundred Years' War became the sculptural centre of Europe, produced a funerary art not less realistic than that of Flanders. The famous Tomb of Philip the Bold (completed 1411) is an elaborate example of this art, in which the recumbent figure of the king is placed on a high pedestal elaborately decorated with traceries and with the modelled forms of draped mourners. The effigy is clothed in ample and flowing robes and at his head are the kneeling forms of two angels. German tombs, after the 13th century, are notable for
their profusion of accessory and for the occasional introduction of narrative and action into the sculptured figures. Escutcheons are developed in Germany into elaborate decorations and early in the I5th century the baldachino or canopy makes its appearance here as in Italy. Ornate canopies are also common in 15th century England as are also the multiplication of angels, heraldry and symbolic ornament, and the realistic trend is so far developed as to lead to examples wherein the base of the tomb is left open to reveal the corpse within.
The custom of placing the tomb in a niche in the wall received wide acceptance in Spain and in Italy In the 15th century. In Spain these niches, framed in wide arches, received a lavish em bellishment in which Moorish ornament frequently appears : the "Tomb of the Two Knights" in the church of S. Esteban at Cuellar and the "Monument to Archbishop Lope de Fontecha" in the cathedral at Burgos are examples. In the elaborate "Tomb of Juan de Padilla," by Gil de Siloe, now in the museum at Burgos, the effigy kneels before a relief of the Pieta, against a background of delicate tracery. In Italy the influence of the antique and the example of Nicola d'Apulia is shown in the substitution of a sar cophagus, covered with figure carvings, for the northern tomb base. The effigy, lying on this sarcophagus, is revealed by angels who pull aside sculptured curtains. In the more sumptuous exam ples a great baldachino, or marble canopy, supported by four piers, surmounts the tomb and is covered with a wealth of Gothic orna ment. The three "Tombs of the Scaliger Family" (1350-74), in Verona, where the canopy is surmounted by a bronze equestrian statue, and the "Tomb of Mary of Hungary" (1325), in Naples, are examples of these canopied monuments.
The Renaissance.—The tombs of 15th century Italy are among the most perfect examples of that exquisite fusion of deco rative architecture and classic sculpture which characterized this century. Although oftentimes greatly increased in size as com pared to their Gothic prototypes, and most profuse in detail, they seldom attain a truly monumental character; they are, rather, accumulations of ornament, schematically arranged in a great niche set in the wall of a church. The vast Gothic churches of the Franciscans and Dominicans—S. Annunziata in Verona, S. Croce in Florence, SS. Giovanni e Paolo in Venice, for example— are lined with these tombs—the work of the Lombard ornamental ist—that contrast strangely with their laconic architecture.