 | Art Treasure of London: During her long widowhood, Queen Victoria made sure no-one forgot her husband. The Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens, a few yards from the site of the Great Exhibition which he organized in 1851, is everything the Prince did not want. He dreaded the idea of a monument, fearing 'if (as is very likely) it became an artistic monstrosity ... it would upset my equanimity to be permanently ridiculed and laughed at in effigy.' Most of Sir George Gilbert Scott's elaborate, altar-like memorial, which the Queen chose, is overdone but the podium frieze is extremely fine. Carved in marble are figures of 169 painters, sculptors, poets, musicians and architects whom the Victorians considered the most eminent in history. The group illustrated are musicians-Rossini, Monteverde, Carissimi, Palestrina, St Ambrose and, seated, the tenth- century Benedictine monk, Guido d'Arezzo. |
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